Bald Brawler Wargaming

The Lists

For a breakdown of my infernal lance list: Click here

The Mission and initial gameplan

We rolled Hidden Supplies/Hammer and Anvil on GW layout 1. I won the roll to determine where the extra middle objectives go and put them in the open so if he wanted to hold any objectives in the center I would be able to put my despoiler into whatever was there. My gameplan was simple, draw out the sang guard, blow them up at range, and then carve through the rest of his army while trying to not lose too much to the lancers. I reserved a Karnivore and a unit of nurglings. He reserved a small sang guard unit.

This was what deployment looked like at the end:

Round 1

I went first, selected my -1 to hit army rule, and drew Engage on all Fronts and No Prisoners. I knew I could score full engage easily by moving the nurglings over the line and having my bottom Stalker scout forward. Everything else simply moved to stage for next turn, getting as much cover as possible. He had put both lancers behind the L in his deployment, so I knew that as long as I didn’t sit in the center, I could make it impossible to shoot them this round.

It was here I make an aggressive play. I saw red and tried to score No Prisoners by having the Stalker kill the scout squad in the center. I mostly wanted to remove his ability to score a free area denial/establish locus/cleanse, but the stalker has very low quantity of attacks, and I only killed 4 scouts and also put my Stalker in harm’s way. The small benefit to this was that if he wanted to shoot it with lancers, he would have to expose them to atrapos/despoiler shooting. He’d also have to deal with a war dog that wasn’t on any objective and was placed in a way any melee that went into it would be killed with shooting. I think in hindsight I just stage the stalker behind the wall next to the Atrapos, but war dogs are there to draw out his forces for the big lads to deal with, and it did do that. BA only have a few units that can effectively kill my units, so any of them coming out was worth trading a dog.

I am unfortunately maximally punished by leaving one scout alive, as he passes his battleshock test and then draws Extend Battle Lines and Secure No Man’s Land. He charged JPIs and a small sang guard at the Stalker on the top objective (which he oathed), while the solo scout stood defiantly in front of my despoiler and claimed a second objective for secure. One unit of bladeguard hopped out of their Impulsor and the Impulsor bravely went forth to score the other part of secure.

Meanwhile, the other two JPI squads went after the exposed Stalker, and Mephiston followed them, relatively safe with his lone op. He chucked a grenade and then charged both JPIs at the Stalker, doing 9 mortals in total. I heroiced with the Atrapos into one of the JPI squads and popped the defensive empowerment on the top Stalker, bouncing the sang guard and then killing one on the crackback.

Small sidenote: I can’t overstate how huge the 5++/6+++ in melee is when we previously had no invuln. That sang guard unit went from dealing an average of 8 wounds to 5 wounds. Coupled with the JPIs hitting the stalker, that was the difference between being bracketed and not.

At the end of round 1: the score was 14-19 and the boardstate was this:

Round 2

I score 10 points for holding the top and bottom objective (shoutout to not getting bracketed because of unholy fortitude) and draw Recover Assets and Bring it Down. Perfect, I have a delicious Impulsor just sitting there and the despoiler can easily action and shoot. The Atrapos stickies the bottom objective with a strat, and a Karnivore goes up to bail out his Stalker friend and the other Stalker goes hunting for the Impulsor. I elect to not expose my despoiler because I need it to handle the big units of bladeguard and sang guard, and I know as soon as I show it, both lancers are going into it. The Rampager takes this moment to position and kill that one poor scout harder than any scout has ever been killed.

Unfortunately, things start going bad here. The Atrapos moves to shoot Mephiston and manages to get some damage through but doesn’t kill, so I elect to charge both the invader ATV and Mephiston so that he can present a massive problem and tie up my opponent in his home for this round. I rolled a 6 on the charge, and if I had selected one or the other target, I’d have made it, but the multi charge required a pivot I hadn’t accounted for, so the charge failed. I needed all my CP for my opponents turn since I knew I would need to interrupt and probably also pop several defensive strats, so I accepted my fate and cried.

Meanwhile, the Stalker blasted the Impulsor for 9 damage in shooting and I thought, ‘surely a Stalker can do 2 damage to an Impulsor with +1 to wound and in range of the reroll aura of the Rampager.’

You would be wrong. 3 2s into a 1 meant I sit there like a chump, scoring 0 on Bring it Down but at least denying all of my opponent’s primary (this will be an ongoing theme). I pitch Bring it Down because I need CP and score Recover.

On his round 2, he drew Storm Hostile and Defend Stronghold, then failed the battleshock on the Impulsor and Mephiston. Because fate is cruel and I had pitched Bring it Down, he desperate escaped and failed. Dante’s big brick of sang guard, a unit of bladeguard vets, and the two lancers positioned to take down the atrapos. I had 4 CP to work with, so I ingressed a Karnivore right belowthe Atrapos to threaten a heroic and I gave the Atrapos a 4++ in shooting. I managed to only take 7 damage from the lancers, forcing a charge from the sang guard and bladeguard. I heroiced the Bladeguard with the Karnivore, tagging some to stop them from being able to hit the Atrapos. Another bad break happened here as Dante’s unit popped off and killed the Atrapos through the 5++/6+++. This meant the bladeguard could go fully into the Karnivore and I had to spend my last CP on our Armor of Contempt strat to save on 4s, soaking the squad reasonably well and then killing 3.

At the end of round 2, the score was 27-26 and the board looked like this:

Round 3

Now that things have been exposed, it’s time to kill. I draw cleanse and sabotage. While two action secondaries sucks here, it’s not as bad as it seems since the despoiler wants to shoot stuff and can action, and he blocked me from moving into his deployment up top, leaving the dogs there with nothing to do aside from kill JPIs. I decided I’m gonna use sabotage as extra CP and move the despoiler down to deal with the bottom of the board while the rampager walks into the center and holds both objectives at once. My opponent ingresses Sang Guard into his home ruin so they can try to deal with the rampager and we move on to the shooting phase.

With the power of sustained hits and ignore cover, the despoiler turns the sang guard into chunky marinara and leaves Dante at 2 wounds. Meanwhile, the rampager charges Mephiston and his JPI friends, tank shocking Meph into the dirt and vaporizing the JPIs. The Karnivore on the bottom charges Dante and takes him out while his friend tragically loses his life to the remaining bladeguard vets.

At this point, I hold every objective in NML and my opponent has two lancers and a unit of bladeguard that can meaningfully threaten my knights, who are both at full. He draws Area Denial (lol, lmao) and No Prisoners. He decides to full send at the rampager and both lancers fail to get a single wound through. Ruh-roh. I pop unholy fortitude and bounce the sang guard and then use Hellforged Construction (armor of contempt) to save on 4s against the Bladeguard. The rampager goes to 15 wounds and then scoops up the sang guard on the crackback.

Meanwhile down south my sweet, innocent Karnivore gets punked by bolt pistols and frees up the bladeguard to charge the other karnivore, who proceeds to get his ass kicked, taking 10 wounds and failing to kill any. But he doesn’t die, which is really what matters. My opponent scores baby No Prisoners, pitches Area Denial, and weeps for what is to come.

At the end of round 3, the score is 42-28, and the board looked like this:

Round 4

At this point things begin to move quickly. I draw Tempting Target and Overwhelming Force and score max Primary. My Karnivore gets scared of the Bladeguard Vets, becomes battleshocked, and falls back. Desperate Escapes are not real and cannot hurt you. Papa Despoiler comes down to give the Vets a stern talking-to and the Rampager gives his new Bladeguard friends a big, fatal hug. The Karnivore up top zooms 17″ by the lone JPI currently drowning in Nurglings and charges the lancer. My Opponent now has a single lancer at his disposal (also an invader ATV that has failed to wound all game and an impulsor tucked away to do actions).

On his turn, he draws Establish Locus and Marked for Death. I choose the two bigs and the nurglings in my deployment for Marked and he picks the Karnivore on the top objective as his pity target. The lancer decides it can wound stuff now that the game is functionally over and blasts the Karnivore to death for 2 points. The Force a Breach Challenger card is also drawn and the Impulsor scores it for 3 points.

At the end of round 4, the score is 65-33 and the board looks like this:

Round 5

My turn to draw Marked For Death and Establish Locus. The Karnivore in his home Establishes the locus and the rampager has a delicious Impulsor for dinner, dealing 24 mortal wounds before also handing him 5 invuln saves. My opponent is tabled and we call the game.

Takeaways

My biggest takeaway is that people should be running vindicators instead of Lancers. The two shots from the lancer is just too swingy, whereas the Vindicator can potentially one-shot a knight and I have to play around that fact. Unholy Fortitude (the 5++/6+++ empowerment) was amazing and while I think Lords of Dread has a solid matchup here because of the -1 damage strat, being able to bounce sang guard in melee was extremely clutch.

My other takeaway is more of a reminder to measure your charges and not get greedy. Yoloing the multi-charge on the Atrapos cost me at least 3 points, and the Stalker charging scouts r1 was basically always going to end up as a whiff.

Hopefully you enjoyed reading this battle report. I have two more on the way against Custodes and Death Guard, so stay tuned for those!