I had some time away from work last week, and managed to get a few games in, so I’ll have a few reports coming soon! First one is up, for Battle 018, Abyssals vs Salamanders in Pillage.
For this game, I was looking to test out the Manifestation of Ba’el and the Well of Souls.
The Manifestation brings a ton of utility to the list. A flier with Regen and Stealthy and Lightning Bolt is pretty great. The Nerve is a little low, so it’s not as durable as a normal flier, but this still seems like a power choice for the Forces of the Abyss.
Similarly, the Well of Souls is really cool pick, able to syphon up wounds onto itself from nearby friendly units and then Lifeleech them away in combat. I didn’t use it particularly well, but it was still a lot of fun to explore. It seems like it has a very high skill ceiling, so I will definitely give it another try!
Thanks to @Mitch_novem for the game! It was fun to test out some new monsters from the Abyss.
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The second game is a rematch against the Salamnders in Battle 019. My opponent kept the same list with sturdy units and heals, but I switched a few things around to run a Chroneas.
The Chroneas has potential, especially alongside Molochs, but it wasn’t a great or extensive test for the monster of time. I’ll just have to run it again at some point I suppose!
Thanks again to @Mitch_novem for braving the first snow of the season to play.
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I’ve really been enjoying your reports of late, dunno if it’s the recent demonic bent things are taking or maybe you tweaked some things in the reportage or maybe I’m just taking the time to enjoy your commentary more than I usually do when I’m reading to find out how lists worked out (which I realize is often what I’m looking for with batreps). I’m thinking about bringing out one of my legacy armies for the next few months and running it as Abyssals, an army I don’t have much experience with and generally am not a huge fan of. There’s definitely stuff to like - lots of regen, some nice combined arms, diversity of profiles and some very unique monsters / titans - but whenever I face them I’m often able to take advantage of that De 4+ and scalpel out the more obvious threats (like Ba’el, a dude I’ve killed a fair number of times but often have to devote a lot to do it).
Anyway, keep up the good work!
EDIT: I meant to add, I really want the Chroneas to be good and am planning to run one, probably with drain life whenever possible. Yours didn’t seem to get up to too many hijinks in the last game, but how are you liking it?
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@Boss_Salvage , thank you for the kind words. Yeah, the Abyssals aren’t without their weaknesses, but have been fun so mess around with far, just given the variety of stuff they can field. They can also hit a little harder than my usual humans, which I am liking, as it leads to games and not just trying to mitigate my losses haha.
This was the first outing, and it was not a very insightful test for the Chroneas. Unfortunately I kept forgetting about my own Cloak of Death and it didn’t even see much combat. All that said though, I definitely do see the potential.
I have not tried Drain Life yet. The upgrade seems a bit niche and a bit of a trap to me though. Drain Life could let the Chroneas heal itself, so the upgrade is not without merit. The Chroneas also has the height for good line of sight, but it doesn’t have nimble, so casting the spell will be more difficult. DL is a pretty short range spell too. I think just about anything you are going to be able to hit with a DL typically, you are also going to be able to charge. The Chroneas is a fighty monster, so charging is in is what it wants to be doing, as melee is the only way it’s Temporal Ruptures rule is going to trigger.
Someone on Facebook also suggested running two Chroneases together, in order to remove damage from each other which seems fun. Not sure if that is a good use of 400+ points, but I do like the idea.
If you have some fighty units for it to fight beside, I’d definitely recommend the Chroneas. I am lukewarm on the Drain Life upgrade right now though.
Good luck to you! And thank you for the feedback.
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I got one other game in last week, Battle 020 against @Cartwright where we each ran a new army. I painted up some Stormcast earlier this year to use as Ogres in possible intro games, and took them for a spin against some Undead.
I put a lot of faith in two Ogre Shooter Hordes, but they didn’t deliver due to bad positioning. The army requires a surprising amount of finesse! Lots of other, smaller units on both sides of the table made this an interesting and bloody game, and I had fun while learning a lot. Thanks to my opponent for fitting this in on a weekday!
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Thanks for the fun game! IMO, your shooters were fine, but the boomers didn’t seem to be very effective with the limited range. Your warlocks with LB were a big challenge for me.
Fair points re zombie spam. I like your idea about death pack screening the soul reavers. Let’s see if I can talk E into it…
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All the Ogre ranged options demand a little more finesse and foresight than I brought to the table this time. I’ll need to mess around with the units a bit more.
You could probably get by with just one Deathpack per Soul Reaver unit for now - I think you just want the option to spring ahead when the opportunity arises, and don’t need a full wing of those. And last I heard you were the one with the 3d printer and the paints. If E has a few extra units on the shelf so be it. 
Thanks for fitting the game in. It was fun trying out some new stuff!
Ha. I’ll see if I can find some good stls and see what I can do.
I was lucky enough to get in a surprise game in last week against @Cartwright and his Brothermark. The write-up can be found here. I took the Varangur for another outing, looking to test out some cavalry and get some hobby inspiration to finish up a few more units for them.
A “Hordes and Heals” approach worked well for my opponent. The Ancient Phoenix worked really well with his list, and the Spearman Horde was actually pretty sturdy. Siege Artillery only landed 12 damage per his tracking, but their shots seemed to land when it counted. Alchemist’s Curse also did work and was something I totally forgot about. I have not dabbled much with magic options in my lists.
It was only the second outing for my Varangur, so I learned a lot, but that’s all covered at the end of the report. I have plenty of things to look into for 2023. Cheers!
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Good game and great write-up! The hordes and heals approach required me to hold firm on your first charges and then counterpunch. The dice were a little swingy, but when nothing broke, you were in trouble. Looking forward to next time!
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I got a pair of games in against @Mitch_novem and his mighty Salamanders last weekend! The first game can be found right here and the second will be posted in the coming days. The games took longer than usual due to some issues on my end, so many thanks to my opponent for spending the day with me.
The Salamanders brought some high quality units, including two Rhinosaur hordes, and two flying Clan Lords. Those units worked very well with multiple sources of healing, and were hard to crack.
I brought the Varangur for their third-ever outing, playing around with some brand new Draugr, some Magus Conclaves, and I gave a Frostfang horde yet another try. I learned a lot and had a great time. Thank you to Mitch for fitting these games in!
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Cheers for another report! Headed into it shortly. Per usual I got distracted workshopping your opponent’s list, which has so many points in items that I was sure I could put to better use (especially as some items do nothing, like Headstrong on the Ancients 
). Purely because, here’s my rejiggering:
Salamanders [2300]
Rhinosaur Cavalry (Large Cavalry) Horde (6) [295]
– Brew of Sharpness [45]
Rhinosaur Cavalry (Large Cavalry) Horde (6) [265]
– Sir Jesse’s Boots of Striding [15]
Ancients* (Heavy Infantry) Regiment (20) [185]
Ancients* (Heavy Infantry) Regiment (20) [185]
Salamander Ceremonial Guard (Heavy Infantry) Regiment (20) [160]
Salamander Ceremonial Guard (Heavy Infantry) Regiment (20) [160]
Phoenix (Titan) 1 [175]
– Ancient Phoenix [30]
– Heal (5) [0]
Clan Lord on Fire Drake (Hero (Titan)) 1 [310]
– Blessing of the Gods [20]
Clan Lord on Fire Drake (Hero (Titan)) 1 [310]
– Chant of Hate [20]
Mage Priest (Hero (Heavy Infantry)) 1 [135]
– Shroud of the Saint [25]
– Fireball (10) [0]
– Heal (5) [20]
Mage Priest (Hero (Heavy Infantry)) 1 [120]
– Fireball (10) [0]
– Bane Chant (3) [30]
If the goal is to punch up the Rhinosaurs, theoretically to mitigate hindering, than +1 to hit is often the most correct answer if you can afford it. Plus these days I like to have a brutally effective hammer to pressure and/or do work with, and a rhino horde on 2+ is certainly that! Otherwise I cut points to up the Primes (a mediocre unit at base) into Guard, who have those extra pokes as well as the stealth boost that is phalanx, and I equalized the CLOFDs so they’re mathematically the same - and to take advantage of the non-horde price cut on elite/vicious, which sharpness doesn’t get.
Excited to go see how the double dragons and the old bird fared!
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Oh wow, I totally missed the dud interaction between the Ancients and their Ale. Bouncing madly from army to army like I have been, I am not a good tweaker of lists, user of magic spells, or rememberer of items. 
We had discussed a lot of things during the day, but didn’t dive too deeply into item choice. Mitch wasn’t that impressed with the Primes, but had run them to save some points, and has been running a good variety of items the last few games we’ve played. You make some great points in your breakdown, so we’ll see what his future lists run as he starts to narrow down his options. I appreciate you taking the time to workshop his list a bit! I’m going to steal some of those ideas too. 
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And the rematch with @Mitch_novem can be found here. We picked Loot since I have been terrible at remembering to pick up loot tokens when getting those scenarios randomly. Maybe picking the scenario will help me remember…
My opponent tried the double-flier lists again and I a had a minor tweak for mine, swapping out the Frostfang Cavalry for some Fallen. The Fallen are interesting. They have Pathfinder, but only CS1, so seem more demanding for skill, since they are unlikely to break anything in one-go. They seem worth exploring, and I again had a ton of fun learning more about the army.
Terrain was unfortunately more of a hurdle this game, since we were running four pieces of blocking terrain and they ended up in a bit of nice ridgeline… Thankfully neither of us had any infantry hordes! So we re-learned some lessons for terrain set-up too.
Thanks again to Mitch for sticking if out for a long day of gaming!
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Thanks for the report, and for the blog shout out 
I should have another report up soon, played against Empire of Dust last night.
Speaking of bloody affairs, this last one of yours was quite the brawler!
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Indeed! Apparently Crushing Strength is good to have… The quality of units like the Huscarls is still hard for me to grasp, but I am starting to appreciate it. After playing Kingdoms of Men for so long, I am really surprised when I charge an enemy unit and it routs! Most of the Nerve checks were just a pip or two away from the Salamanders sticking around, so I got some lucky breaks.
I see your report is up now too! Looking forward to reading that today.
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it was indeed! the shaken results were brutal in that game, and I couldn’t use the flyers which normally really worked well. I think I learned my lesson on splitting up the cavalry too. It was a pretty bad slaughter on my part as is, but I just wanna try again!
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Unrelated to your batreps, your Tortured Souls look really good @TastyBagel! Especially as red-skinned Abyssal critters. I’m always happy to see nighthaunts actually painted colors and not just one shade of ethereal contrast (sorry-not-sorry).
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Thanks for the vote of confidence @Boss_Salvage! The scheme is starting to grow on me a bit. Begrudgingly, they do seem like good minis for newer painters, and I can see why those schemes are popular. Contrast or dry brushing go a long way on them. We’ll hopefully see them in action soon.
@Mitch_novem I still think if you’re running double Rhino and double flier they should be split up. It’s far harder for me to just brazenly push up if I am worried about the angles of two potent fliers. If the your “Blessed” Clan Lord had opted to ignore that side of the table and had shown up a turn or two earlier on the other side of the table, It would have been a very different game. Looking forward to some rematches in February! I’ll get some possible dates out to you as January wraps up.
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True, but I did have more success with one denied flank with rhinos. At least in most gaames I played with a double dragon list. I will have to try to split them up again next time!
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