Morathi is here to steal souls that rightfully belong to Nagash, like the Soulthief that she is!
House rules: Endless spells/invocations do not need to be added to your list before starting and cost no points
Open Play
Not used: Triumph, Twist, Ruse, Grand Strategies, Battle Tactics or Battalions.
Battleplan: Loot and Plunder (from Core Rules Open Play Victory Table)
Lists:
Setup
We played Battle for the Pass style where we're playing long edges. I put my Wight King and Grave Guard in the Graveyard.
Round 1
I won roll off and chose to go second.
Did you know that Wizards can do nothing to stop Endless Invocations? They can't dispel/banish them before or after they are cast. I didn't know that! So clearly the Daughters of Khaine invocation happened and there was nothing even Nagash could do about it. Luckily, it doesn't move and didn't really come into play.
Morathi's forces moved up the board as far as they could. Nagash unbound all spells attempted.
On Nagash's turn, he used Spectral Grasp on the big scenery piece in the middle of the board which was within 3" of a few DoK units. He also got off mystic shield and summoned the Endless Spell Quicksilver Swords, its ability to ignore wards is helpful against a DoK army. Nagash's 4th spell resulted in a double 1s ending his rein of magical terror for now.
The entire Soulblight army stayed put except for Nagash. With everyone else's horrible movement and the fact that they had to guard the plunder objectives there wasn't much point in moving up. Nagash however flew across the ruins and attacked the Blood Sisters, his staff is amazing, with 4 attacks, -2 rend and D6 damage. He killed most of them but had some bad wound rolls on his sword so not all of them. When the sisters counter attacked with their mortal wound ability he used his mortal wound save to reflect one damage back which was fun. Otherwise, it's unsettling to not have a ward save for regular wounds.
Round 2
Morathi won the roll off and went first. The Slaughter Queen's priest ability rolled a 1 so didn't work. Black Horror of Ulgu has a huge range but failed to cast. Nagash unbound everything else.
Gaze of the Shadow queen in the shooting phase is so much better than Gaze of Nagash. It's the same idea but has -3 rend!
Spectral grasp did mess up the ability for the Shadow Queen to close with Nagash and caused a traffic jam around the scenery piece. However, the Witch elves can run and charge and rolled really well on both so they closed the distance. This did put them out of range of the Gladiatrix's buff but the Cauldron has a huge range at full health and so still covered them in that.
The combat was bloody causing huge casualties to both the zombies and the witches. Good thing for inspiring presence! I miss the ability of the Nighthaunts to prevent that.
Nagash cast the Endless spell Emerald Lifeswarm to heal himself (as much as fluff wise it makes no sense) as well as being able to use Heroic Recovery now that the Blood Sisters were finished off. He also put Spectral Grasp back on as it worked really well last time. Nagash gave the Shadow Queen -1 Attack and -1 Hit, however I totally forgot that if you cast Lore spells and get a natural 9+ they go off twice, he rolled really well so I think that would have happened on at least some of them.
The Grave Guard and Wight King came out of the grave in the enemy territory and Nagash flew over to take two Plunder Objectives! Only one more to go to win but it is being guarded by Morathai and some sisters of slaughter, and the Shadow Queen is still nearby and has a huge movement range, especially compared to Nagash's pitiful 9".
Round 3
Morathi won the roll off (again). Quicksilver Swords was dispelled. Black Horror failed to cast for the third time.
The Cauldron used its ability to give itself Always Strike First to devastating effect, killing 12 skeletons. The only reason it wasn't all of them was that Nagash used his +1 ward command ability on them. Luckily, I did manage to roll to bring 8 of them back when they activated. They back off on their turn to project the objectives.
The Shadow Queen finally closed with Nagash and did a tremendous amount of damage even with -1 Attack and -1 Hit it made no difference as the DoK get tons of +1s all over the place to counteract it. Nagash took 12 damage! But luckily the Shadow Queen's envenomed tail rolled a 1 to hit so he wasn't slain. His counter attack was annoying as he did 11 damage with his staff and this of course only results in 3 wounds and then he has nothing left to attack with this remaining attacks.
Morathi and the Sisters closed the gap but didn't attack as they didn't want to give the Grave Guard the opportunity to kill anyone and get through to that objective.
Nagash is not match for the Shadow Queen in melee. Even his Hand of Dust is useless. He flees to nursed his wounds with the Emerald Lifeswarm.
The graveguard made short work of the Sisters of Slaughter. The Wight King having a 2+ save withstood Morathi attacks quite well and only took 1 damage. Now they just need to retreat out of that unit and take the last plunder objective!
The skeletons and zombies are gone by now. Trying to raise them from the grave is a bust with me rolling a 3 on the round I killed 1 other unit and a 2 on the round I killed 2 other units. I hate how unreliable that ability is.
Round 4
Lost roll off again. Morathi goes first.
Nagash dispels all her spells even with just a +1 to dispel. The other unit of Sisters of Slaughter have been making their way around the far side of the board the entire game (slowed down by the Spectral Grasp) and have now reached the objectives in Nagash's territory looting 1 of them, leaving only 2 left. The necromancer and the vampire lord are all that remain to protect those.
On my turn the Graveguard, Nagash and Wight king retreat and close with the final objective, winning the game for Soulblight Gravelords!
Final thoughts
Nagash just shuts down the enemy magic phase. Also it makes your magic phase take forever as you have so many spells to cast. I took so much time reading the lore spells and then going "that doesn't seem very good". Just because he has a lot of spells to cast doesn't mean they're really that useful. Same with the Endless spells even though we have a house rule where I have access to all of them and they're free they mostly just do D3 mortal wounds. Emerald Lifeswarm is a great endless spell. The Quicksilver swords also worked pretty well. I never cast the Purple Sun of Shyish even though it's super popular, its instant death wouldn't even work on Morathi or the Shadow Queen anyway. I wish Soublight Gravelord had some faction endless spells. Rolling double 1s did happen once but it wasn't as scary as I thought. Almost all of his abilities having no range is also amazing.
Daughters of Khaine get sooooo many +1s on everything especially when they are Hag Nar. Debuffing them is extremely difficult. +1 to hit when they start with 3+ and +1 to Ward army wide is so gross!
Heroic recovery makes Nagash even more powerful. He can easily kill whatever he's in melee with and has a 10 bravery so he basically gets to do it every round.
The Shadow Queen is terrifying. Between her and Morathi having a max of 3 damage they can take between them they can both just stand in your way and there's nothing you can do about it. With how far she can move and how limited the movement of my units is even tarpitting her seems like a real challenge. I did manage to do 10 wounds to her over the course of the game, but killing both of them is really going to take almost all your time. Nagash is great in melee with his staff but against the Shadow Queen it is pointless. I never even used Hand of Dust. The Shadow Queen is a great counter for Nagash in everything except magic.
I totally forgot about our new ability from White Dwarf that if you charge a hero you get summonable units to attack immediately. I'm not sure it would have happened naturally anyway, I was charging with my summoned units first as a matter of course because they would take more damage and therefore be weaker if they went late. But, had I remembered that I may have changed my strategy, I did have heroes imbedded in all units after all. At least I remembered the +2 to attack that the Vampire Lord on foot gets, that was a big help, 4 attacks is just not as good as I could tell from the Wight King.
Both me and the Shadow Queen forgot our Monstrous Rampage pretty much every time. I've said it before, but I'll say it again, 3e is just too rules bloated to remember everything.
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