Reign of Blood: May 2016
Some highlights from the Reign of Blood campaign weekend at Warhammer World, 28th and 29th May 2016. I’ve had 5 fantastic games against great opponents. Each match was 1776pts playing Maelstrom of War missions.
The weekend was a narrative driven campaign with all players divided into two teams, joining either The Cult of the Blooded Hand intent on helping Skarbrand reaping blood and destruction on the entire sector or the Alliance of Purity, lead by the Grey Knights trying to save humanity. I naturally chose the alliance for my Krieg, while my two friends Dan (Khorne daemonkin) and Richard (Emperor’s Children) chose The Cult.
The aim of weekend was to not just score the most victory points but to also to claim or deny the most skulls. At the end of each game, The number of skulls of defeated models would be counted up with The Cult claiming the skulls for Khorne, while the Alliance would deny skulls for Khorne. Only actual skulls would count, so decorative skulls wouldn’t. For example an Ork would be worth one. A Krieg Death Rider would be two, one for the rider and one for the horse. Meanwhile a tank might be worth three, one for the driver and another for each gunner.
As the games went the total skull tally would effect the Furnace of Fury, unlocking special abilities for infantry units. These were:
- Berserker Speed: All run rolls are now treated has having rolled a 6.
- Bloodscent: All models now have Move through Cover.
- Relentless Assault: All models are now Fearless.
- Mindless Anger: All models gain the Rage Special Rule.
- Butcher’s Blows: All models gain the Rending Special Rule in Close Combat.
- Bloodwrath: All models gain the Furious Charge Special Rule.
- Wild Strikes: All models gain +1 Attack.
- Bloodbound: All models may no longer make Sweeping Advances – they spend too long committing unspeakable things to the fallen
Full details of the campaign can be found over on the Warhammer World website.
Game one
Krieg vs Orks
Ork deployment
Krieg deployment
A close game against Mark’s Ork army. The Stompa has some shields protecting it and had the battlewagons placed behind keeping them safe from my Medusa’s. It took quite a few turns to punch through the 12HPs but the beast eventually fell. Meanwhile the bike squad was left relatively unchecked and tore through some of my tanks. It was the first time going up against a Stompa and was a great match.
VP RESULT: DRAW
SKULLS RESULT: WIN
Krieg victory points
Ork victory points
Skulls denied
Skulls claimed
Game two
Krieg vs Khorne daemonkin
Turn one deployment
A matchup against my friend Dan and his Khorne daemonkin army. The rules of the campaign weekend boosted infantry units to insanely powerful allowing them to always run 6″ and move through cover meant they got into combat very quickly. In hindsight I should have deployed further back forcing another round of shooting before he engaged in close combat. Once his units hit my line it was a total bloodbath for my units, losing most of my tanks and units by the end of the match.
VP RESULT: LOSS
SKULLS RESULT: WIN
Krieg victory points
Khorne daemonkin victory points
Skulls denied
Skulls claimed
Game three
Krieg vs Orks
Turn one deployment
My best roll yet
The last Ork standing
I’d previously played against Simon’s Ork hoard at the last Warhammer World event where he had won so this was a rematch, this time with two extra flyers to compliment his hoard. I swapped out my army list for my B-list, which was more anti-horde and also had an Avenger Fighter. I had my first taste of Death From The Skies. As per the rules I chose not to do the dogfight but lost the roll off which forced me to do the it. I then lost every other roll which saw my fighter turned around then blown out the sky. Not a great start. His army slowly marched across the board while my blast weapons slowly chipped away at his army. By the end he only had a few Orks remaining but Simon had achieved his goal of reaching my board edge. In the end I scored a whopping 154 skull points (the chart below has a max of 100).
VP RESULT: WIN
SKULLS RESULT: WIN
Krieg victory points
Ork victory points
Skulls denied
Skulls claimed
Game four
Krieg vs Emperor's Children
Krieg deployment
Emperor’s Children deployment
Coincidence’s abound, this was the second matchup of the weekend against one of my friends. I didn’t mind though as I haven’t played either of them for a while. This time it was Richard and his Emperor’s Children. I kept with the Stormsword list as he had been my biggest advocate for using it this weekend, so it seemed only fair he went up against it. My Death Riders did a fantastic right flank maneuver to score an objective on the far right, with one lone Death Rider surviving to claim it. The Emperor’s Children marched forwards forgetting about their own objectives which played to my advantage, their Fire Raptor swooping in destroying a Medusa. While I won the game on objective points Richard certainly had the battlefield, having destroyed most of my units and in the final turn destroying my Stormsword.
VP RESULT: WIN
SKULLS RESULT: LOSS
Krieg victory points
Emperor's Children victory points
Skulls denied
Skulls claimed
Game five
Krieg vs Emperor's Children
Turn one deployment
A second Emperor’s Children matchup, this time with John Walton’s heavy armour list featuring two Dreadnoughts, two converted Forgefiends, two Rhino’s, a Sicaran battle tank and a Fire Raptor. Each of the tanks protected by a Spawn granting it a 25% cover save. Flush from my last victory I made the mistake of not swapping back to my anti-tank list which meant I was only knocking a few points off each vehicle a turn. I also didn’t quite realise what was in both Rhino’s, which were packing squads of plasma and melta able to rip through my tanks when they were close enough. My Avenger fighter however lived up to it’s name, zooming in and taking out the plasma squad and Warlord which had decimated my Death Riders the turn before.
VP RESULT: LOSS
SKULLS RESULT: LOSS
Krieg victory points
Emperor's Children victory points
Skulls denied
Skulls claimed
Results
With the results in and the skulls tallied up. The Alliance of Purity won by a large margin. Each member of the team winning a certificate. There was also an overall winner along with winners for the painting competitions. I picked up the Engine of Legends award (e.g best painted vehicle) for my Stormsword which I was really pleased with.
Engine of Legend award
Winning faction award
Overall it was a pretty good weekend. I everyone thought the campaign was a little unbalanced with a few issues. The skulls scoring was weighted against The Cult players as most chaos models have several skulls on them, along with a few Ork hoard armies which would have hemorrhaged points each game. The campaign set up meant The Cult forces tended to play against the same Space Marine, Knight or Astra Militarum lists which were mostly tank heavy, while The Alliance of Purity had the pick of all the xenos armies to play against with a greater variety of list styles.
The Fury of Furnace was a nice touch, it really benefited people who tailored their army for it, though few did. We also noticed that the final ability ‘no sweeping advances’ was negated by the fact everyone was already Fearless and automatically passed their moral checks. I was hoping for some greater narrative elements beyond the mission briefings at the start of each game. I would have loved a secret objective which could have changed the course of the story.
It’s always enjoyable playing at Warhammer World, playing on painted tables with a decent amount of terrain against friendly opponents and nicely painted army. If you haven’t attended an event I recommend going to them. I’ll definitely try and do a campaign weekend again.
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