By winning my first game so convincingly, I expected a difficult matchup for my second game. As such, I was not surprised when I came upon Björn's Daemons of Chaos as my next opponent. The scenario was a Witch Hunt, worth 4 points if you killed the enemy wizards, with the 16 remaining points being settled the old, bloody way. I hadn't faced Daemons for almost six months and was surprised to see a Bloodthirster leading the army. With a sigh I looked at my Giant and silently wished I would have gone with a Rock Lobber and a Doom Diver instead.
A large force of Bloodletters, 30 to be exact, deployed as a Horde with a Herald leading the way, while a smaller force of Daemonettes with their own Herald placed themselves to the side, angled inwards. I could only assume that meant he wanted to Siren Song one of my mobs to fail charge against them and expose their flank to the Bloodletters. Two units of four Fiends and some Furies made up their fast stuff, while four Flamers deployed to shoot fire at my Trolls. A flying Tzeentch Herald, a Sorcery Master of the Lore of Life, made up the Daemonic magic phase.
A large house served to split our forces in two, and would end up playing a larger role as well. On one side, my Night Goblins took on and fought off a unit of Fiends without taking many casualties - their nets served them well to keep my flank safe for the entire battle.
Meanwhile, the middle battlefield featured a stand still, as neither the Savage Orcs or the Black Orcs wanted to get close enough to the luring Daemonettes, while the Bloodletters were hesitant to expose themselves to dual charges from the 'ard boyz. The Bloodthirster and the Wyvern Warboss were flying into positions, neither fearing the shooting of the other.
A Hand of Gork spell ended up breaking the stale mate between the two forces, as Gork picked up the Trolls from one side of the field and put them down directly behind the Daemonettes to truly force the action. Either move, or suffer 8 trolls in the rear. And so they moved, but not in the way that I was expecting. Instead, the Daemonettes went into the building. Now, in the local club, we treat buildings as impassable terrain, because the rules for assaulting buildings we feel make for terrible games. However, tournament rules included buildings actually functioning as buildings, and so it ended up being a brilliant move by Björn, one that I really did not expect. This allowed the Daemonettes to Siren Song the Savages into charging them, which they did, killed plenty of the she-fiends, but as they were Steadfast from the garrison, forced the Savages back out (have you ever tried forcing a daemon out of a house? It's impossible!). Meanwhile, the Bloodthirster charged the Black Orcs (good for me) and were joined by the Bloodletters who made a 18" charge thanks to the Skull Totem (not good for me), which slaughtered the Black Orcs to an orc. I really should have backed off more. The Savages fell back a bit, reformed, then got hit by the Bloodthirster who sent them off with help of their Battle Standard ruining my leadership tests. That single round really ruined the game for me, much thanks to that filthy building.
A slight mistake on Björn's part followed that brilliance, with a poor landing allowing my Wyvern Warboss to charge into the flying Tzeentch Herald and chop it down, giving me 4 points for winning the Witch Hunt. The Trolls, for lack of better foes, charged into the Flamers and stomped them down back to the Realm of Change. With two rounds of mine remaining and one of Björn's, I had a charge angled up into the flank of the Bloodthirster with the Wyvern. The Warboss squeezed his Potion of Strength in anticipation, knowing I could potentially kill it with good dice rolls, if only I wouldn't lose my Wyvern in the first round. However, I reckoned I could already be sitting at a draw as it were, which I was quite lucky to have after the building mess. And while taking out the Bloodthirster could give me the win, it could also very much spell a crushing defeat if I were to lose my General. So I chickened out, didn't charge, and played out the game passively as did he. Björn was a great opponent, lots of fun to face, and I was really pleased to get out of this game with as many points as I did.
Result: 9-11 loss for the Greenskins
