Escalation League Handful of Points: Session Four - Handful of Dice (2023)

The Handful of Points Escalation League is back! After a month breakwhere we relaxed and played skirmish gameswe jumped into our 1250 point games. Now we can start bringing out big weapons and synergies that are muted at lower point values, and my scary Slaves to Darkness are starting to become a little less scary as a result. Now a quick aside before we start: due to unforeseen circumstances we were forced to change the venue at the last minute, so if you notice the Tupperware court (patent pending) in the pictures, that will be the reason.

With that out of the way, let's get straight to this month's list.

My Lord of Chaos committed to Khorne and got a lizard, that means I lose the ability to have a galet champion, but if I remove the opponent then it won't matter, or at least that's the plan. My game plan was for the Lord to go on one side with the knights while my prince guards the Theridons on the other; The Chosen would claim the objectives and clean up whatever was left of the first wave.

Escalation League Game One: Slaves to Darkness vs Nighthaunt

My game this month was against Niall (not our editor) and his lovely Nighthaunt. I'm using the word wonderful all wrong.

This was Niall's second game of Age of Sigmar and my first encounter with Nighthaunt, and I want to applaud Niall for remembering most of the huge amount of special rules that ghosts have, even I would have struggled. By the way, those special rules are boring, as you'll soon see. Our battle plan was Twists and Turns, a scenario where targets randomly become active or inactive while being controlled...fun?

I ended up deploying first and decided to go first, which ended up being a mistake as I was nowhere near being able to make any of my attacks and left all my fastest units exposed to Niall's. For those who don't know: when Nighthaunt units charge an enemy, you record what the charge value was, and then the poor enemy they charged gets a debuff depending on the roll, either -1 to hit, -1 to save , or fight last . Couple that with the fact that all my attacks would be powerless against Nighthaunt's ethereal ability and I was in for a sad fight.

The Returners and Reikenor hit my Theridons and Prince, leaving one ogroid standing on one wound and brushed into the prince who got a few licks in on Reikenor. From the other wing, the Hexwraith attacked my knights and began a long fight that would become known as the "Horse Wars".

Next round Niall deploys his reserve units: Kurdoss Valentian, Lord Executioner, and chainsaws. Unfortunately for Niall, however, my Chosen started to close the distance and one of them charged at the Bladegheists, picking up the entire unit in one round of hits. My master deals with the Spiritual armies in a similar way and sends them away. On the flank, the Horse Wars continue.

Round 3 and Kurdoss joins the fight against the Chosen. And immediately takes 16 attacks to the face, dying immediately. However, chaos does not bloom roses; the prince fell under Reikenor's hair, while Cairn Wraith and Lord Executioner teamed up against my chaos lord. The horse wars continue. Reikenor blows a candle in the direction of my remaining Theridon, killing it dead, and then proceeds to bravely fly away towards the Hero midfield while my other Chosen are delayed by some very brave Chains.

It took a while, but one unit of the Chosen eventually encounters my chaos lord in time to see him valiantly slay Reikenor before he himself is brought down. Fortunately, they wipe out both heroes in return. At this point, one Hexwraith wins the Horse Wars and spends the rest of the game staying away from my Chosen while stealing my objectives. The final score is 17 all: Niall achieved most if not all of his combat tactics and grand strategy, but I held most of the objectives for the duration of the game. My first non-win.

Escalation League Match Two: Soulblight Gravelords vs. Hedonites Slaanesh

Arron and Ben got the awesome new 3rd Edition Battletomes for this month and wanted to try them out against each other. I was obviously busy playing my game with Niall so I reached out to both of them for comments on how their game went.

Arron:We called it quits at the end of Rd3 with me winning 18-15(?).

I started off by launching the Vampire Lord on the Zombie Dragon (VLOZD) quite aggressively for a titanic duel against his Guardian, but the Guardian (with the help of the Pain Lord) took down the VLOZD with relative ease. As we got more stuck, Ivya Volga and Askurgan Trueblades actually nullified the gatekeeper and ended up winning that engagement.

I soaked up a lot of wounds to prevent Ben's depravity early on because I knew I could bring back a lot of wounds/models, but as things got a bit more tense his depravity score started to rise. Outside of that main engagement, Ben's raids were mostly successful, but I think what won out was the number of summons, revives, and late reinforcements that kept me with a solid power on the table throughout.

Ben:I got 7-9 depravity per turn from Euphoric Killers, entirely from killing wolves. Summoned Wolves took many wounds from some Hellstriders using Hellscourges, while others were killed by Syll'Eske.

Offering dice was good fun, but Arron almost always took the wounds. It was especially good when offered as a lifeline to a hero with low health, but if they could survive the wounds, they would probably take them and heal later, but if the wounds could kill them, I might get depravity.

The guardian provides a free temptation in every phase of the fight. I finished the game at 46 depravity despite having 2-3 dice left almost every round.

We are coming back next month and we will win 1500 points. I'm just going to get my wizard hat and practice some magic in time for the next game.

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