Warpath of the Raffspawning - Battle Reports

SCGT 2013 - Part 2: Game 1 - Rob (Skaven)

Seer (who had forgotten how to use 13th) on Bell+ Stormvermin + BSB + Assassin. All the points
Priest on Furnace + Plague Monks (Plague Banner). Plaguey
Engineer (with Doom Rocket, of course) bossing around one of the slave units
Clanrats - wishing they were slaves
2 x Slaves
2 x rat swarms
WL Cannon 
Abomination - no spikes! (Dammit! Where are my VC when I need them?!)

Due to the two unbreakable units, and having to use a clanrat unit over slaves due to comp this was a relatively small Skavenfilth (pretty sure that’s the official name of the army?) army. I baneheaded (is it a verb? Who knows - the frog really didn’t like the old rat on the bell, in any case) the Grey Seer in case I managed to kill his bell from under him during the game and rid him of his 2+ ward vs magic.

For not the last time at this event, Tetto’eko’s redeployment shenanigans shaped the game. The Saurus bunker made a big show of deploying, along with the skirmishing units, on the far left flank. Rob countered this by deploying his entire army directly across from them with the aim of burying lizards in a tide of rodents and scaffolding. The Abom hugged my far left table edge.

The chameleons emerged from the hillside next to the clanrats in a menacing way (the effect somewhat lost by their camouflage, and the general fact no one was looking anyway).

Tetto'eko giggled, threw his ancient runic cube of power and noticed he was allowed to redeploy 3 units. Almost the entirety of my army teleported itself to my right flank (followed by the vanguarding terradons and running skirmishers)... Apart from the lonely razordon... because no one loves her anyway.

Things did not kick off well - Tetto’eko looked towards the heavens and commenced summoning a mighty comet to smash apart the Plague of Lustria, the rather lovely looking Skavenfilth. Unfortunately he got distracted, summoning a pebble that eventually hit a slave in the face, and decided that exploring the inner secrets of a dimensional cascade was actually what the cosmic prophecies were asking for.

Ruby the Razordon, feeling very much unloved for not being redeployed with everyone else (not for the last time) launched herself at the engineer in the left hand slave unit (guessing, correctly, that me may have a big ol’ rockit-o-doom up his sleeve) - ripping his head off before eventually, several turns later, being buried in a mass of slaves. Ol'Bobby the Old Blood and his Scar Vet underling spent some time stomping on rat swarms - appreciating, as hurtful as it may be to say it, that a bunch of rats rustled up from the underground are a considerable combat threat to the disciplined ranks of Skink Cohorts that made up the majority of the mighty Raffspawning.

In the heart of the battle things kicked off when a storm of poison darts, javelins and fire rained down on the clanrats, panicking the unit and forcing them to flee across the face of the Skaven battleline, ready to cause a traffic jam (when ended up slowing the furnace down for about 2 turns).

There may have been much rejoicing in the temple city when it was divined that the rats were not capable of summoning the fell magic of the Dreaded 13th to this battle.... But turn one Rob was kind enough to show exactly what Plague does to a skink army - decimating 4 units in a turn.

As the last of the skinks withered, the mighty Slann Priest Rhumba, Guardian of the Altar of Death, sought inspiration from a place in the far future and far far away, swivelled his eyes and ordered all firepower to be concentrated on the noisy scaffolding (some nuances may, it is true, have been lost in the delivery and translation). Initially stymied by the howling storm emanating from the stormvermin's banner the skink units waited for the wind to die down before unleashing a wall of poison at the obnoxious noisy...thing, killing the Seer and the construction below him it in an orgy of poison.

Seizing the momentum shift, the chameleons and cohorts proceeded to pick on unit after unit, whilst the arthritic (#foreshadowing) Ol'Bobby the Old Blood hit unit after unit of slaves - scattering them to the 4 winds now that their owner was dead. As the battle neared its end, he boldly placed himself between the Slann and the smelly, pox-riddled plague monks and their furnace, determined to sell his life in the hope of holding it up for long enough for victory to be claimed on the battlefield.

Slann Mage Priest Rhumba, earthly embodiment of the dark magiks of Death, chose this moment to get over his self-satisfaction at mangling a quote from a futuristic chameleon, and unleashed a mighty vortex of death through the furnace - sucking the scaffolding into the empty depths of nothingness. Ol'Bobby, deprived of his glorious, probably slow motion, death, took this as his cue to beat the everlasting pulp out of firstly the plague priest and then the monks around him, running them into the ground (not sure what the logistics of one person (?) on a bi-pedal lizard running down over 20 fleeing rats, but still).

As the smoke cleared, the chameleons, believing their self-proclaimed "spec-ops" label, tried to take down the last rat creature - the mighty Abomination (who had spent the entire time taking its sweet time to get into the action). They managed to make it very angry - leaving it on one wound... at which point it killed both units in an orgy of destruction...

In the end a very comfortable 20-0 win - definitely not something to be expected in the Skavenfilth matchup... will take that!

What next for the ever-vigilant yellow-belied guardians of the Raffspawning?

Raffspawing? Really?! I think writing makes me lightheaded….