Only got one game in with the Bubonic Court last night, but it was a pretty good one.
We ended up bumping things up to 2250 because of my concerns that, after dropping 575 for Nurglitch, there wouldn’t be enough left over to make a viable army; I think I was probably right.
What I ran:
An Itching, Burning SensationBubonic Court of Nurglitch – 2,250 pointsLords & Heroes
- Plague Lord Nurglitch
- Plague Priest – BSB, Storm Banner
- Festering Chantor – Lvl 2 Upgrade, Plague Censer, Dispell Scroll x2
Core
- Plague Monks x24 – Full Command, Extra Hand Weapon, War Banner
- Plague Monks x24 – Full Command, Extra Hand Weapon
- Pusbags x20 – Musician
- Pusbags x20 – Musician
Special
- Frothing Giant Rats x25
- Frothing Giant Rats x25
- Plague Censer Bearers x10
- Plague Censer Bearers x10
Rare
- Rat Spawn
- Rat Spawn
What Mike ran:
Khainite – First CutDark Elves – 2,250 pointsLords & Heroes
- Death Hag – General, Cauldron of Blood
- Master – BSB, Heavy Armor, Sea Dragon Cloak, Dark Steed, Ring of Hotek, Crimson Death
- Dark Elf Assassin – Extra Hand Weapon, Manbane, Rune of Khaine
- Dark Elf Sorceress – Level 2, Dispel Scroll, Darkstar Cloak, Dark Steed
- Dark Elf Sorceress – Level 2, Dispel Scroll x 2
Core
- Crossbowmen x10 – Shields
- Dark Riders x5 – Musician, Repeater Crossbows
- Dark Riders x5 – Musician, Repeater Crossbows
- Harpies x5
- Harpies x5
Special
- Cold One Chariot
- Har Ganeth Executioners x16 – Standard, Musician
- Witch Elves of Khaine x20 – Standard, Musician
Rare
- Repeater Bolt Thrower
- Repeater Bolt Thrower
- War Hydra
I truly did start the game expecting to be wiped off the table in half an hour… in the end, though, the game had a lot of back-and-forth and was pretty close. We had to call the game at the end of the fifth turn due to the store closing, but I think I had a pretty good shot of winning had the game gone on to the sixth turn.
That said, there were three things that made the game as close as it was:
- Mike’s list. The list he ran was different from his usual list; including units he’d never really run before and leaving out units he’s come to rely on. He wasn’t running a deliberately bad list, but it was something new and not particularly optimized.
- The winds of magic hating him. Eternally hating him. His casters miscast every. single. time.
- His assassin was unable to drop Nurglitch. Eight hits became two wounds, neither of which were able to penetrate Nurglitch’s foul misasma of funk.
That’s not to say I played a perfect game. Far from it. I dropped the ball in a number of places.
- I did an execrable job screening my Frenzied units (nearly all of them) with my non-Frenzied units (Pusbags). I didn’t. Instead, I deployed them the way I normally deploy my Skavenslaves: in a fat block waiting to either catch an enemy unit in the flank or flee from a charge, setting up a flank charge for another unit. What I should have done is stretched them out in two ranks of 10 Pusbags each and screened my Plague Monks from charging off.
- Casting wasn’t great. Although I didn’t roll a bunch of 1’s, Nurglitch lost Plague to an excellent casting roll turned into a miscast by the Ring of Hotek. From that point on, I didn’t have much ability to get off Pestilent Breath due to range and dispell dice and I never really wanted to cast Death Frenzy. In an army that will never lose Frenzy, it looks very useful but it’s absolutely a death sentence.
- This also means that Warpstone Tokens weren’t particularly useful, and it also means the Level 2 Upgrade for the Festering Chantor was a complete waste.
- I consistently forgot that Giant Rats are M 6 and not M 5. At 12″ charge distance is very different from a 10″ charge distance. I don’t know if that would have helped (I’m sure I would have caught Mike’s Dark Riders with them) or hurt (I’m not sure that having them tied up in combat and not soaking up Bolt Thrower fire would have been a good thing), but it’s a fundamentally dumb thing to forget.
- I also consistently forgot that I had the War Banner. +1 CR matters, damnit!
The army was well outside of my comfort zone, and played very, very differently than what I’m used to. That’s fun. It didn’t hurt that there were a number of things worked pretty well for me, either.
- Fewer units meant that each real block of rank & file had at least one character in it. One unit of Plague Monks had, for its fronk rank, Nurglitch, a Plague Deacon, a standard bearer, and a Festering Chantor. The other had a Plague Priest and a Plague Deacon up front. That added both a leadership boost that Skaven really love to have and a great deal extra punch, which the Plague Monks really need.
- Nurglitch is a big, tough, bastard. I don’t know that he’s worth nearly 600 points, but he threw out a number of attacks that I’m simply not used to, had an extremely high toughness and a ton of wounds. Statistically, he should be able to survive the Assassin he saw last night (but just barely): the Assassin threw out 8 attacks with Manbane (4 base attacks, extra hand weapon, bonus from the Cauldron of Blood, and 2 attacks from Rune of Khaine), 7 of which should hit, 4.6 of which should wound, only three of which should get through Nurglitch’s 5+ Ward Save.
- Having some hard-hitting characters in the units, plus Frenzy never going away, plus the regular Skaven static combat resolution helped a lot.
- The Rat Things did quite well. Stubborn 10 is another thing I’m not used to. Their strength could be higher, I feel, but they seemed to do quite well tying up units.
All in all, it was a fun game that was full of back-and-forth, something I’ve found lacking in WHFB. I’m going to fiddle with my list (and paint up Nurglitch) and try to fit in another game or two with the Court.
