I actually forgot to systematically take pics of the game. Hence, I only have a few pics and I'll narrate the rest of what happened:
We rolled for scenario and got Watchtower. The objective was to control the tower in the middle of the board. I played TK and Jason played Beasts of Chaos. We rolled off and Jason got initial control of the tower.
With a river and various weird terrain with evil effects on my right of the board, I deployed the tomb kings heavily on the left flank. The Beasts were arrayed similarly to avoid all the bad karma on the that flank. The first pic later will show the deployment.
The scenario stated that the player that did not control the tower could start first, so it was that King Sappuliuliuma, the Usurped of the Kingdom of Um began the battle against Gorthmaw, the dread Beastlord.
TK Turn 1:
Highight: With the beasts still on their line of deployment, I concentrated all firepower on the unit in the watchtower. It was amazing. With Righteous smiting, I could fire once in the magic phase, and then again in the shooting phase. That unit of 17 gors in the tower was down to less than half strength when I was done with the turn. They held fast though and control of the tower was retained by the Beastmen.
Humdrum: I moved my king, scorpion and ushabti on the right flank to meet the imminent chariot threat that Jason had placed on that flank.
Light of Death did naught as it was dispelled away. Skeleton Chariots and Heavy Horse unit moved up on the extreme left to meet the coming Minotaur advance.
Beasts Turn 1:
Highlight: Ambushing unit of ungor turned up on the left flank of the enemy position to direct away the hail of enemy arrows. Enfeebling magic reduced Skeleton Chariots' Strength to 1.
Humdrum: Advanced the entire beast line towards the enemy double time. Jason felt that there was no way to hold back now that the Arrows of the Asp had made their presence felt.
TK Turn 2:
Highlight: Here's when it happened. The only time it went off in the game, and boy, did it hurt the beastmen. Here's the aftermath of the Light of Death.
Before:
After:
Another thing that went well for me: the Ushabti charged the beast chariot and Jason opted to flee with it. It was caught and I got some free victory points! Plus, now I was in the rear of the enemy lines! See the AFTER LIGHT OF DEATH pic above
Beasts Turn 2:
One of the shamans cast a spell to reduce the toughness of my skeleton chariots and got the irresistable result! The miscast result was a 10! The shaman was then reduced to a level 0 wizard by the next die roll, which meant that he was no longer a wizard! We had problems trying to resolve if the RIP spells remained in play because well, if he was no longer a wizard, do the spells remain in play? The book is quite specific on how RIP spells are stopped and none of them mention anything about the wizard ceasing to be a wizard, so we went with the letter of the law. But I'm still wondering about that.
The Minotaurs then charged the skeleton chariots destroyed them utterly. They then overran off the board.
The ambushing unit of ungors charged the skeleton archer unit facing them, but failed to make good and lost combat. They were then ran down from the pursuing skeleton archers.
Gorthmaw’s unit turned around to face the Ushabti in their rear. The rest of the beast line advanced rapidly down the line.
TK turn 3:
Ushabti charged Gorthmaw's unit, having not much choice in the matter. I tried to bring Sappuliuliuma and the Scorpion into the combat viz a viz My Will be Done, but My Will was Apparently Lacking in Some Way and his incantations were easily dispelled. This spelled trouble for my Ushabti and they were hacked down by Gorthmaw and friends down to 2 Ushabti, with 1 of them hanging on to only 1 wound.
The Heavy Skeleton Horse unit charged into the ungor unit. Here's where the big difference between 8th ed and the previous ed. I forgot that charging doesn't entitle you to strike first. So I lost 5 horsemen before I even began. The unit was down to 5 models from the original 13 by the time combat was done. Not a good sign, as it was my Jason's turn next.
This turn's shooting was great again. The bestigor unit led by the bsb was shot down to 6 models, but they were really close now.
Beasts Turn 3:
The BSB with the bestigors charged the skeleton archers to the right of the Casket, while the ungor unit moved closer to the TK lines. The Minotaurs returned to the table and followed the ungors.
Gorthmaw dispatched the remaining Ushabti with ease and were now relatively unopposed in the zone.
TK Turn 4:
Desperate, I charge Sappuliuliuma into Gorthmaw's unit and the tomb scorpion into the garrisoned gors in a bid to control the tower. I would have gone for a united charge against Gorthmaw's unit if it had been a plain pitched battle, but there was an odd chance that the game would have ended this turn (due to the scenario) and I had to try and get control of the tower.
Sappuliuliuma challenged Gorthmaw to a challenge and destroyed Gorthmaw's
magical armor with the Blade of Setep, but couldn't do anything else. Gorthmaw hacked at Sappuliuliuma, taking 1 wound from him. The resulting combat res left Sappuliuliuma with 1 wound, as he had taken a magical armor that gave him 1 extra wound. Not a good sign for Sappuliuliuma.
The tomb scorpion did well and slew the garrisoned gors, taking the tower all for himself.
Beasts turn 4:
The rest of the turn and turn 5 is explained in the next pic, but the main highlight of the game here was this:
Gorthmaw, buffed by the nearby shaman, proceeded to hack down the ancient tomb king!
Even the Curse could not touch him, favored as he was by the Gods!
I was in real trouble now, having all my combat units destroyed and my skeleton archers about to be engaged with the enemy.
As it turned out, the turn did not end, although I held the tower at the end of this turn.
TK and Beasts Turn 5:
Gorthmaw attacked the Tomb Scorpion in the tower, hacked it down while his mates cheered him on and took control of the objective by garrisoning it.
This turn did not end either, and as you can see, it was a lost cause for me.
TK Turn 6:
Likmidd and Hummid, the Liche Priests of the order of Umer chanted their incantations feverishly, trying to get the archers to thin down the number of beastmen bearing down on them, but to no avail. Some beasts went down, but the BSB ensured those that remained stayed in place under his watchful eyes.
Beasts Turn 6:
The Heirophant with the archers were overwhelmed as the shooting did not do enough to thin down more beastmen. The Minotaurs made short work of the skeleton archers.
The remainder of the TK army began to take crumble tests, as the Heirophant was hewn apart. The Casket passed, but only just. The carrions had to take 2 wounds and 1 carrion crumpled to dust.
This time, the dice gods were merciful and ended the game before I could make the desperate charge against Gorthmaw, now dubbed Bonecrusher!
Victory to the beasts, as they bayed their bloodlust from atop the Watchtower!
The question we asked ourselves, of course, was why a bunch of old bones and forest gribblies wanted to fight over a silly old humie tower?
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