Chris and Andy played our first battle of the year with a 1500 v 1800 point match up Conquest; The Last Argument of Kings.
Andy diverged from his usual Force Grown Clone swarm and instead opted for a smaller, more elite force, to use some of the newer model he's been acquiring...
SPIRE
3 characters, 2 Lights units, 2 Medium units, 1 Heavy Units
Character Warlord: Lineage Highborn
- Five Avatara (Medium)
- Three Centaur Avatara (Heavy)
Character: Mimetic Assassin
- Three bases of Vanguard Clones (Medium)
Character: High Clone Executor
- Three bases of Vanguard Clone Infiltrators (Light)
- Six bases of Force-Grown Drones (Light)
NORDS
3 characters, 2 Lights units, 4 Medium units, 1 Heavy Unit
Chris's force for his inaugural use of Nords was more "horde" based
Character (Warlord): Konungyr (Tier 2 retinue)
- 5 bases of Huscarls with Skald (Medium)
- Ice Jotnar with Rime Storm (spell) (Heavy)
Character: Jarl
- 5 bases of Raiders with Shield biter (Light)
- 3 bases of Ugr (Ogres) (Medium)
Character :Blooded
- 3 bases of Trolls (Medium)
- 3 Fenr Beasts (Medium)
- 3 bases of Bow chosen (These shouldnt have been included, but only found out in hindsight - this gave Chris circa 300pt adavantage - Still, battles aren't always even) (Light)
The resin Ice Giant is simply one of the best models we've ever seen in 30 years of gaming...
Some of the Nords, including Fenr beasts, Trolls, and some resin characters...
The Nords horde, in case Chris runs out of figures to paint. (He's currently doing W'adrhun, Dweghom and Andy's Spire)
The bow chosen are also resin (plastics to be released) and the Skald with bagpipes is a particular favourite of mine...
The Nords Konungyr (King) is a big fella amongst big fellas...
The scenario was Heavy duty, so heavy units scored additional points off of objectives in opponents half...
TURN 1
Both Nords Lights come in, but only the Spire's FG Drones...
Bow Chosen came up centrally (ignore the Trolls, they arent on on the left yet). Raiders came on far right...
Raiders, marching up towards the hill
TURN 2
The Nords got more units on, with the Huscarls advancing on centrally...
For the Spire, the Clone Infiltrators and High Executor moved up on Chris's right to counter the Raiders
The Trolls and Ugr also came on to the left...
The Bow Chosen aimed at the FG Drones...
Dropping 8 Drones, two full bases. Andy hadn't taken any healing mutations or abilities for his force, which is on of the Spires main strengths, as he wanted to got heavy on the newer models and also to see how the Nords performed
TURN 3
Having gaine dthe upper hand in deployment, with more activation cards, the Nords had good board control but the Spire had a bonus for turn priority...
The Infiltrators moved up, firing twice with their repeater short crossbows. 10 Raiders dropped...
The remaining Raiders charged in, hurling their throwing axes to gain impact hits. But it was the Jarl that won the combat, cutting down clones with ease and wiping out the Spire unit....
The Force Grown Drones pushed forward, to get the Catabolic node into melee. But they were sitting right in front of the bow chosen...
10 shots landed at close range...
But Andy rolled impressively, saving 80% of the shots with the Drones large shields and losing only two Drones
Quite impressive...
But Chris trumped that by rolling a required 6 to charge in with his Huscarls, who cut the FG Drones to pieces, aided by the Konungyr...
With his advance forces already depleted, the Lineage Highborne strode onto the battlefield with his Avatara entourage...
Chris brought on the Ice Jotnar, who had a lovely view of the battlefield. The Vanguard Clones with the Mimetic Assassin came on to face off against the surviving Raiders...
The Nords looked to be in control of the battlefield, but fair play to Andy, he battled on
The Spire had little to hold back the Nords as they advanced all along the battlefield
TURN 4
Despite Andy holding a slight advantage on priority, Chris won the dice roll and the Raiders slammed into the assassins Clones.
The Nords army rule makes them far stronger the more wounds and damage they suffer. And the much reduced Raiders hit hard, leaving the assassin and his unit much reduced...
In the centre, the Bow Chosen knocked a few wounds off of the Avatara
And as the Trolls advanced to seize an objective in the Spire half, the Centaur Avatara advanced on...
The Huscarls and Konungyr advance up in centre to threaten the Avatara
With huge strides, the Ice giant marched up to impose his presence on the battle...
TURN 5
The battlefield at start of Turn 5
Lots of possibilities including a heavy cavalry flank charge
Andy won initiative and had selected the Avatara to activate first.
A few bases fell to the graceful, long limbed Spire brutes
With some truly awful rolls from Chris....
Still, the Huscarl's line held...
And the taller Avatara were still visible to the Bow Chosen...
The Lineage Highborne issued a duel on the next Spire activation, with the Konungyr and her trading 2 wounds each
The trolls had already turned to face the Centaur Avatara, who by-passed the regenerating troops to threaten the Ugr, who lined up to face the threat...
The Huscarls attacked back, dropping two Avatara...
The Spire forces were crumbling as the Nords force spread out...
The Fenr came on to support the Ice giant from the approaching assassin...
But the giant could afford to ignore that diminutive threat and smacked into the flank of the other "little" troops...
The Ice Giant truly is an awesome addition to the Nords forces...
He easily smited the Avatara, and the Spire Warlord...
With only the Centaur Avatara a viable force, the Spire felt compelled to withdraw...
Sad we didn't get to see the new Spire heavy cavalry "impact" the game, but the figures are amazing in the flesh...
So a solid start for the Nords, which wasn't surprising given the unintentional points advantage and Andy trying out a new look for his forces. What was surprising to us was how hard the Raiders hit, as they are pretty fragile defence wise. But the army rules mean that being reduced only makes them harder when they hit.
Andy is already looking forward to a re-match...
Chris and I will be at Beachhead 2022 at Bournemouth weekend of 12th/13th of February running demo and participation games of Conquest, with help of David Richardson of the Southampton Sluggaz...
Beachhead 2022
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