Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog

Late last year, Games Workshop released some Doubles rules for Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Spearhead. So back in December we decided to try it out. Orion  and Nick were coming over to play Soulbound on a Sunday afternoon and brought over her two Soulblight Gravelord armies to play with in the evening after we had some pizza! Orion  and Nick played the Soulblight Gravelord armies, and Amanda and I played with our Sylvaneth and Stormcast Eternal forces, respectively. 

(Originally I'd through of playing the two Khorne Spearhead armies so it could be an Soulblight versus Khorne battle... but Amanda has a hard enough time remembering the rules for the rules for the Sylvaneth that she's played at least half a dozen times, so I thought it would be best to stick with that, and the Stormcast do team up with the Sylvaneth quite regularly in the greater narrative of the Age of Sigmar, so....) 

Orion played the Soulblight Gravelord Deathrattle Tomb Host army and Nick played the Soulblight Gravelord Bloodcrave Hunt. Amanda played the Sylvaneth Bitterbark Copse, and I played the Stormcast Eternal Vigilant Brotherhood.

We had the first go, I advised caution, but Amanda wanted to play aggressively and just go for it... 

So her Treelord advanced and seized an objective... 

The Stormcast also surged forward... 

So both sort of advancing evenly... 

And then the Charge Phase happened 

And the Stormcast swept forward into the Undead lines... 

The Prosecutors took the fight right to the Enemy General! 

It got... messy... 

and drew most of the two spearhead forces into a savage melee! 

and... Amanda and Orions armies just sort of stared at each other across the grassy green fields of Ghyran... 

We took an initial lead in the Victory Points... which really just meant Nick and Orion were the underdogs for the entire game and got all the advantages of being so... 

On the bottom of the first round, Some skeletons charged the Tree-Revenants...

Meanwhile, my Stormcast Eternals were almost entirely destroyed! 

The Lord Veritant took charge of the remaining Liberators and tried to hold on to ALL THE OBJECTIVES... 

Amanda sent the treelord over my way to help out... 

Since most of the fighting was going on over on my side of the table!? 

Kurnothi and Tree-Revenants trying to deal with one unit of skeletal warriors that just kept standing up again as fast as the treeples could knock them down... 

More savage combat over on my side of the table... now involving a Tree-Lord! 

Tree-Revenants were finally killed off and a replacement unit brought back mid-field for... reasons...? 

MORE brutal combat over this ONE Objective location!? 

Kurnoth Hunters holding the left flank! 

All the stormcast destroyed, only the Treelord remained to fight off the Vampire and Wight cavalry... 

Kurnoth Hunters used Strike and Fade to slip out of combat and deep behind enemy lines and seize one of their objectives. 

Tree-Revenants did similar with their other teleport ability... 

Reinforcement Prosecutors arrive to harass skeletons and keep them contained and from running all over the left flank seising all the objectives... 

Vargheists drop in and seize objectives... 

Vampire General does the same... 

Treelord still fighting the Undead that just won't go away... 

Liberator reinforcements arrive and attack the Vampire General 

End of the game... not a lot left on the table... 

On their final turn of the final round, Nick and Orion scored enough points to tie up the game... 

It was a fun game. I liked it better than regular Spearhead. It was a long day of gaming and a long game and ended up being a bit of a let down to fight so hard to hang onto that early lead only to have it tied up at the very end. I swear if we (okay, if **I**) could only make AVERAGE rolls, it would have been a pretty solid victory... 

Would play this again, though! 

My freshly painted Anvils of Heldenhammer Vigilant Brotherhood saw some action Friday evening against Orion's Soulblight Gravelords Bloodcrave Hunt.  

This game, Orion used her Sir Raven the Dour miniature (her character from the What We Do in the Realm of Shadows Soulbound role-playing game campaign!) 

So we imagined this taking place during the Soul Wars era - which was probably after Sir Raven lost his lands to the Khornate invaders, but before marching off with his household to Ulgu to start anew, conquering new lands and raising a new army... 

Lord Vigilant Thadeos Doursoul led a conclave of the Anvils of the Heldenhammer's Vigilant Brotherhood on some do-gooder mission to foil Nagash, the Lord of Death's dastardly plans! 

Sir Raven's Bloodknights took the initiative and charged clear across the plain of Dollorum across, which the small forces faced each other, and crashed into the unit of Liberators.

Some charged clear past the liberators to engage Lord-Veritant Shandra Moongheist! 

Things not starting off great... one of my first rolls - to save the damage dealt to Lord Veritant. She saved on 4+ (she had a 3+ save, but the weapons had Rend 1, so) 4+ meant, statistically half should pass! She might have lived if I could make average rolls... Alas... 

And so it was that Lord-Veritant Shandra Moongheist was cut down before my first turn and flashed back to Azyr on a blinding bolt of lightning, to be reforged on the Anvil of Apotheosis! 

Meanwhile the Liberators smashed down a few of the Blood Knights, largely ignoring the horde of Deathrattle Skeletons that had joined the melee. They were joined by Rhea Swiftwing's Prosecutors... 

Sir Raven yelled "BAT!" and burst into a cloud of small bats which flew in a swarm across the battlefield and reappeared behind his enemies lines! 

Liberator Petra Hammerforged and Prosecutor Zisis Skystrike were cut down by the Blood Knights and similarly burst into a flash of Lightning that carried their souls back to Azyr... 

The Liberators continued to pound on the Bloodknights, determined to have their vengeance! 

The two remaining Prosecutors retreated behind a fence to observe the Vampire Lord, stalking about their rear area... 

They even threw a few javelins at Sir Raven. On struck him and did some damage! 

With the Blood Knights dealt with, the Liberators turned on the Deathrattle Skeletons that had been harrying their flank! 

Sir Raven charged the Prosecutors and with monstrous speed leap up and swatted Prosecutor Carissa Spearflight out of the sky! 

Three terrifying Varghiests dropped from the sky near Lord Vigilant Thadeos Doursoul, but seemed disoriented or confused and paused a moment as if unsure which way to go!

Lord Vigilant Thadeos Doursoul charged out at them on his trusty Gryph-Charger Cracker, striking them down with his Hallowed Greataxe! 

Eventually, Sir Raven sent Prosecutor Prime Rhea Swiftwing, the last of her flight, back to Azyr... 

The remaining Liberators surged forward to deal with a new unit of Deathrattle Skeletons that rose up out of the ground. They'd lost Liberator Athos Hammersoul fighting off the last of the previous group of Deathrattle Skeletons... Liberator Lukas Surehammer was lost fighting this bunch... 

By the end only Liberator Prime Darrion Hammersmith, Liberator Xenia Brighthammer were left of the original Liberators... 

Lord Vigilant Thadeos Doursoul had chased off the last of the Vargheists, but was seriously injured in the process. 

A second group of Prosecutors arrived to cover the retreat of the survivors. 

Sir Raven persisted, but wasn't about to take on the rest of the Conclave on his own. They'd been bloodied and were leaving the field of battle, there was no need to pursue... for now... 

It was a fairly close game. The Stormcast Eternals are hard-hitting mo-fos... if i could make just AVERAGE dice rolls, they'd have been terrifying and utterly destroyed the Soulblights... alas... I lost by one point... 

Next time, Sir Raven, NEEEEEEXT TIIIIIIIMMMME! 

The Stormcast were pretty fun to play. I should probably listen to the Soul Wars audiobook... 

Amanda said she's willing to give Spearhead a try next week sometime! So stay tuned for that!! We probably won't be getting back to Warhammer Quest until the first week of September though... this week Morgan and Amanda went out to see Midsummer Night's Dream at the Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan, and this coming Wednesday, Morgan and Amanda and Finnegan have a recital as they've all been taking singing lessons over the summer!