This is a continuation of my tournament report from the event at Gaming Arena in November 2025. You can find the previous part here, or go back to the start here.
Game 3 - Close Quarters (Domination, Strategic Locations (2), Break Point)
Thomas Smart - Vampire Counts
Before Tom had pulled his army out, he asked me how many magical attacks my army had. I had to admit that I had none, and then rather sheepishly asked if he was using Vampire Counts, and how many ethereal units he had. Turns out the answer to both questions was... Yes.
- Master Necromancer (Level 4, Necromancy) with Spell Familiar, Sceptre Of De Noirot, Cloak Of Mist & Shadows
- Necromantic Acolyte (Level 1, Illusion) on Mortis Engine
- Necromantic Acolyte (Level 1, Illusion) on Mortis Engine
- Tomb Banshee
- Tomb Banshee
- Wight Lord with Battle Standard, Charmed Shield
- 28 Grave Guard with Great Weapons, Drilled, Full Command, Charmed Shield, Drakenhof Banner
- 23 Zombies
- 23 Zombies
- Black Coach
- 6 Hexwraiths with Hellwraith
Right. So Hexwraiths, a Black Coach that can turn itself ethereal, 2 Banshees, an ethereal Master Necromancer, and he had the ability to turn something else ethereal with a spell as well... I had one magic missile that I would struggle to cast, and... a couple of units with some rank bonus and banners. This was not going to go well.
Things moved toward me a bit, and I responded by largely not moving except for my armoured roadblock advancing in the centre.
I did have a sneaky War Wagon over on the left flank, working its way around the terrain. The Outriders didn't know what to do with the Hexwraiths (and ethereal Black Coach) right in front of them. I fired what I could at the Mortis Engine back in the forest, and then miraculously managed to cast The Summoning on the Hexwraiths. This was it - my one chance to remove that threat from the game. I promptly rolled 3 hits on the 2D6, and only dropped 2 of them. Well... I had briefly dared to dream.
The Black Coach swept in and engaged one of my Cannons, amusingly taking a couple of rounds of combat to beat it. The Hexwraiths charged and broke the Outriders, carrying on into the other Cannon.
Operation Block the Grave Guard was full steam ahead. They struggled to land damage on it, but kept shoving it back.
The Hexwraiths made quicker work of their Cannon than the Black Coach did. My Wizard had very prudently evacuated the hill. His dreams were largely dead now that the most important targets were in combat (and in danger of getting to him).
How to deal with the Grave Guard? I was moving the infantry up and clearing a path for the Engineer's War Wagon in the centre, but was struggling to get the War Wagon on the flank into range for fear of a Banshee getting to it and stopping it dead. I also didn't want to get stuck fighting Zombies, but they had actually stopped advancing because they were controlling one of the objectives behind them. I failed to read in time the fact that they were not likely to move.
That thing in front of my lines is the other objective. I was claiming that, but for how long?
The Hexwraiths failed to restrain an overrun after killing the Cannon. The Outriders had failed to rally and were still heading for the table edge. Spoiler: they would fail again and leave the field.
As the Steam Tank was getting pushed back, the Halberdiers were ending up in the flanks of the Grave Guard. But the gap for my central War Wagon was being closed - I hadn't allowed for this shifting Tank. My General's Halberdiers were starting to get withered away by magic and Banshees singing horrible songs to them.
Eventually the Black Coach finished off its Cannon and turned to look along my lines. My Wizard was getting very nervous at this point.
In order to try (rather optimistically) to do something about the Grave Guard, I charged at their flank with the General's Halberdiers, the front with the other unit, and even sent in the Handgunners to try to make space for the War Wagon. Unfortunately about half of these charges failed, and I was left with an unwinnable combat. The Halberdiers fell back and the Steam Tank got shoved back again.
I'm missing some photos. The War Wagon on my left flank charged the flank of the Mortis Engine, and the Zombies that were right there could do nothing about it because they were trapped behind the Engine. Unfortunately I was pretty inept with my damage rolls, and we got bogged for ages whilst the Zombies shuffled slowly sideways and got ready to save the day.
Having failed to get involved in the Grave Guard combat, my General's Halberdiers were getting whittled away by Banshee screams. They had to turn to face the threat of the Hexwraiths, but did a fair job of fending them off.
The Steam Tank had done an admirable job of blocking the Grave Guard for several rounds of combat, but then something eventually decided to scream at it, and it immediately lost its remaining 5 wounds and died. Was a slightly sad end.
With the Steam Tank finally out of the way, things started charging at my other Halberdier unit, but I started fleeing charges in order to try to preserve some of my stuff.
This was not a good combat, but at least I had some combat resolution thanks to banner and rank bonus. It was enough to save us from the Hexwraiths (though not enough to kill them).
This was near the end. The War Wagon from my right eventually found a charge on the other Mortis Engine, and in a dramatic display of how differently these things can go, killed it on the charge. The other one was by now fighting the Zombies, but now finally fired up and managed to finish off the Mortis Engine it had been fighting for half the game. Had it all gone a bit differently, one of them could have gotten through to the Master Necromancer (they couldn't have killed him, of course - just pinned him down and stopped him raising). As it was, both of the War Wagons died shortly after this photo to more Banshee screams. Tom told me they had done nothing in his games up until this point, but in this game they killed most of the stuff I lost.
And that was how things ended. I had lost 2 War Wagons and the Steam Tank to Banshees, both Cannons and the Wizard to the Hexwraiths and Black Coach, and maybe 1 of my Handgunner detachments. In return, I had killed both Mortis Engines and nothing else. It did again serve to highlight that the main asset of the War Wagons is their combat potential. Their shooting does little, but they can fight (even if they're a bit slow on the charge). Once they got there, they were the only real threat I had (and the only things that got me any points). Despite their efforts however, I had obviously lost.
Result: Loss
So after 3 games, I had 2 losses and a draw. I guess that was better than the 3 losses I thought I might be heading for, but it was still a bit of a struggle. I'm not convinced I'll enter another event with a proper Nuln army, but if I did, I would probably apply a few things I'd learned from this experience:
- Outriders are the best thing in the list. It would be tempting to field more, potentially even 2 units of 10. That's crazy firepower, if the units don't get so large they're in each other's way
- One larger unit of Halberdiers might be better than 2 smaller blocks that are too easily weakened to an irrelevant size
- Long Rifles are kind of funny, but not worth building around. They can't Stand and Shoot, so they feel a bit wasted on the detachment champions. For that reason, I think Repeater Handguns are the better bet.
- War Wagons are pretty solid, but it might be better to just take 2 and better equip an Engineer in one. Or drop off the Steam Tank for something that offers the list more flexibility
On that note, this is the end of my tournament report. Thanks for reading - I'll make sure I can win some games next time, so I don't depress you too much!
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