Into the Plagued Forest

It's a new year, and another year of gaming to begin. What better way to begin than some Warhammer? I faced off against my buddy Kevin's Nurgle Daemons. The list I brought was similar to my siege list: lots of warpfire throwers, tunneling gutter runners, and plague catapults galore. For the battle I completed 5 Gutter Runner models.

Here with their Warp Grinder weapon team. The Deathrunner also packed a Weeping Blade. 

The battle was a straight-up pitched battle at 2250 points. We got a board with three forests and a strange single tree we used as a piece of arcane architecture: a haunted mansion. Well, haunted tree. Couldn't go in, but spirit hauntings within 6" as normal.

 Epidemius' boosts proved to be too powerful for the assembled rat host to bear. Even my Grey Seer's, the Blue Rat's, last-minute Skitterleap + Cracks Call combo fell short due to a miscast on the teleport leaving him unable to cast further. 

The Great Unclean One's stream of vomit was cosmetic, but he proved effective at destroying my forces with spell and combat--utterly annihilating the Gutter Runners whose Warp Grinder led them to emerge directly underneath the great daemon. Above, my Rat Swarm is staring him down providing a shield to a Clanrat unit further back. 

Another unit of Clanrats managed to eliminate one unit of Plaguebearers, but simply could not defeat the Herald Battle Standard Bearer, who remained solid for game turns five and six and managed to slay my Battle Standard Bearer Chieftan in the process. 

The game ended with a 125 victory point difference with my side losing. It was a great game, but the momentum was definitely on Nurgle's side at the end. Any more rounds would have seen the gap increase most likely, so I was happy to take it ending when it did. Sadly, it's my third loss in a row with Skaven, so a dubious Skaven Achievement there. Time to stem the tide and win a game!

What did I learn? I might love Plague Catapults, but they excel at killing armored infantry, low toughness massed models, and causing panic tests. Astute readers might note that not a one of those things is present in Daemons of Chaos. I need to be better about tailoring my lists to my foes. That, and rolling just a bit better on scatter and artillery dice (my Warp Lightning Cannon misfired and blew up with its first shot, while my Brass Orb sailed clean past Epidemius). How to roll better? Well, dark offerings to the new Vermin Lords from the End Times might certainly help!

Fully Painted Models
Skaven: 42
Dwarfs: 41

Battles
Total 2015: 1 (Win/Loss/Tie: 0/1/0)
Total 2014: 15 (Win/Loss/Tie: 8/6/1)

Skaven:
2 Wins (T&T Daemons and Dwarfs, Siege Dwarfs and Bretonnians)
5 Losses (Empire 1, Dwarfs 1, Daemons 1, T&T Daemons 1, T&T Dwarfs 1)

Dwarfs:
4 Wins (Dwarfs 2, Wood Elves 2)
1 Loss (Dark Elves 1)