What are you doing today hobbywise?

The Great Gonga is after Captain Spaulding! Repainting my sons' dinosaurs. Sorry for the double post.

 

I was about to ask if this was prep for We Played God.

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On my end, it's been a fun week of tabletop gaming. On Thursday, it was my Soulblight vs a Seraphon army list-built by a longtime gaming veteran and played by a newcomer getting their feet wet with AoS. He was getting the hang of playing Seraphon, but was pretty much in need of facing someone other than said veteran.

We were using the 2024-2025 General's Handbook for scenario play and battle tactics.

My Soulblight army consisted of the following:

• Vampire Lord on Nightmare Steed (general)
  • 5 Blood Knights
  • 5 Blood Knights
• Vampire Lord
  • 10 Dire Wolves
• Wight King
  • 20 Barrow Guard
  • 20 Barrow Guard
• Wight Lord on Skeletal Steed
  • 5 Barrow Knights
• Formation: Bacchanal of Blood
• Manifestation Lore: Primal Energies

The Seraphon army consisted of the following:

• Saurus Oldblood on Carnosaur (general)
• Saurus Oldblood on Foot
  • Saurus Astrolith Bearer
  • 20 Saurus Warriors
  • 20 Saurus Warriors
• Saurus Scar-Veteran on Aggradon
  • 3 Aggradon Lancers
• Skink Starpriest
  • 3 Kroxigors
  • 5 Raptadon Chargers
  • 5 Raptadon Hunters
• Formation: Shadowstrike Starhost
• Manifestation Lore: Primal Energies

The scenario rolled was Focal Points, which meant two home objectives, two flank objectives, and one centre objective that could flip-flop depending on the whims of the underdog, along with pseudo-diagonal staircase deployment zones.



Despite having won the priority roll for both deployment and first turn, I gave it to him both times.

His deployment consisted of a horseshoe that extended into my half of the table, with the aggradon units at the far extreme end of it for a turn 1 attempt at Take the Flanks. He had complemented it with putting his Raptadon Chargers in the far opposite corner of his territory for the same reason. His carnosaur, hunters, and Saurus Oldblood on foot were in close proximity of his home objective, while his Saurus Warriors, astrolith bearer, and Starpriest were in the one table quarter encompassed completely by his territory.

Conversely, I had deployed with intent for a solid push for the center of the board with both barrow guard and foot hero units flanking my home objective, my blood knights and general behind them, my dire wolves opposing his aggradons, and my deathrattle cavalry opposing his chargers.

In his first turn, he declared Take the Flanks as his battle tactic with Sotek as his asterism, attempted but failed to cast Emerald Lifeswarm, secured his flank objective with a unit of saurus warriors and the centre objective with his hunters, and achieved the tactic despite my best efforts at counter-charging his chargers with my barrow knights, netting him 7 VP that turn. He had also tried charging my dire wolves with the aggradon units, but consistently failed his charge rolls to do so.

In my first turn, I declared Take the Centre as mine, summoned the Gnashing Jaws from the vampire lord on foot, and advanced my barrow guard up to allow my blood knights to move in for a turn 1 charge on his hunters, since they were standing on the center objective and thus the center of the board.. Three successful charges later, I'm on top of not just his hunters with my general and my left-most unit of blood knights, but also his oldblood on foot with the left-most unit of barrow guard, and his carnosaur with the Gnashing Jaws. He did however counter-charge with his kroxigors into the side of that same barrow guard unit. By the end of the fight, his hunters were wiped, a kroxigor was killed, both the carnosaur and the Gnashing Jaws traded 6 damage between each other, and half of the barrow guard unit was gone, being too far from the wight king to get their ward save bonus.

Not to be outdone, the other unit of barrow guard secured my flank objective as well, also bringing me up to 7 VP after completing my tactic. My mounted wight lord was able to get in on the melee between the chargers and the barrow knights, though it wasn't enough to fully wipe the remainder of that unit. Additionally, my opponent committed his last command point to Power Through with his kroxigors, which put them in charge threat range of my now-vulnerable wight king and my general.

Of course, with neither of us being the underdog, the centre objective was not going to change going into the second turn.

Come the second turn, my opponent went first again to seize on another battle tactic, and this time decided he'd try his luck with Do Not Waver. Knowing the state of how things were for him at the end of Turn 1, this was a bad choice from the outset, but he nonetheless committed to it. The turn led to him dispelling the Gnashing Jaws with the starpriest, only for me to re-summon it again via Magical Intervention, and in such a way that it would block his ability to charge my general effectively. He nonetheless got a good half of his army charging or already in melee with mine by the end of his turn, though it did not go over well for him.

For his part, a unit of saurus warriors got in on the half-strength barrow guard, the oldblood on foot piled into the blood knights accompanying my general, his carnosaur got in on both blood knights units (only to be counter-charged by the full-strength barrow guard unit from my right flank), the kroxigors got in on the wight king, and the aggradon units pincered the dire wolves. Predictably, he lost the rest of his chargers that combat phase - preventing him from achieving the battle tactic - but in exchange for the wight king, two blood knights, nearly all of the damaged barrow guard unit, and five dire wolves, he also lost his general, his oldblood on foot, and his remaining kroxigors (the latter of whom the result of the endless spell piling into the unit after the wight king bit the dust). Just from holding two objectives that turn, he scored 2 VP, bringing him up to 9.

Come my turn, I opted to do Seize Their Land, sending my general and the one damaged unit of blood knights to grab an archway-themed terrain feature in his back line that unfortunately was just out of reach of my opponent's home objective. I also had my vampire lord on foot successfully use Sanguine Blur to teleport into the deep corner of my opponent's territory to set up an easy Take the Flanks tactic the following turn if it came to it. Over the course of the turn, I made a point to have both units of blood knights moving over the one saurus unit I was already engaged in for mortal wounds, with the undamaged unit doing so while charging it. This ultimately led to a good 15 saurus meeting their end just from the one unit of blood knights alone on All-Out Attack. I also went after his exposed astrolith bearer with the Gnashing Jaws, putting him out of commission before being physically dispelled by the second unit of saurus warriors behind him. By the end of that turn, I was also down to one dire wolf on its last wound, but not before getting rid of one of his aggradon lancers. Again, having achieved my tactic, I scored yet another 7 VP, bringing me up to 14.

That was where we ended the game, in no small part due to time constraints (we'd been playing for 3 hours by that point from 6pm to 9pm, and the gaming veteran mentioned earlier needed to kick us out of his place so he could get ready for work the following morning), but it was pretty apparent that I would have won in the long term had we time to continue, and it'd likely have been a 4-5 turn tabling to boot.

Nonetheless, my opponent enjoyed the game, enjoyed playing against my Soulblight, and learned a few new lessons for future games moving forward.

 

I'm told it takes at least 10 games to get a decent mastery of a new army. Its always good to play against a more knowledgeable player as long as they are not using it as an excuse to curbstomp ☠️ Glad you both had a good game.

 

Sadly, no. At best, I might be able to elaborate with crude PhotoShop or MSPaint skills off of memory, but that's about it.

Kind of a shame too, since thematically the board was set up such that we were essentially fighting over an oasis in the middle of a desert with a couple of ruins nearby.