Escape to Reality: Thousand Sons vs Chaos Daemons

The Hunt for Ahriman campaign concludes tonight! Does that slippery little Exile have one more trick up his sleeve?

Free!

Ahriman fell into a spiralling hell of colour and noise as he fell through the warp rift. For several seconds, neither time nor space had meaning. Everything was mutable - distance, physics, his own identity, the eventual destiny of the galaxy, everything. 

But he had been here before. Giving into this malleability would make everything that came before meaningless. A few hastily spoken wards stabilised him as he needed himself, and allowed a moment of reflection. 

Merely by having a will to express, he was already shaping the warpstuff around him. Whatever its true form, it was focussing itself into locations, physical places that his mind could understand. Fragments of a broken empire, hanging in space. Much like the reality he knew lay beyond, and also like that, his for the taking. No, that temptation wasn't worth giving in to. He had too much staked in reality. Hurriedly, he moved on.

As he moved, he searched. And before long, he found what he was looking for - a way out. A hanging oval, spinning around a point disconcertingly off-centre, with a hazy vista of broken rock and asphalt barely visible. Whatever benighted planet it was on, it would be safer than here. 

Moving towards it, he could hear the hoots and shrieks that justified his haste. He was not alone. Perhaps some of the denizens of the warp would serve him, for a time. But not all would be aligned with his goals, nor his expressed allegiance. 

Time to escape. 

---

It's the fifth and final chapter of our Hunt for Ahriman campaign. In his last bid to escape the Imperium, the Exile has jumped into the endless depths of the Immaterium. Having summoned an escort of daemons, Ahriman is now trying to reach a portal that will take him back into realspace.

Except the other chaos gods aren't so keen on Tzeentch's Champion getting loose, and have sent their own forces to intercept him. Three separate daemonic forces are converging to ensure that Ahriman never returns to reality.

As always, Kraken will be commanding the forces of Ahriman, while I, Stylus, will cast aside my Imperial allegiances and take control of the Daemonhost.

Chapter 5: Escape to Reality

Even in the Empyrean, there are things that do not belong. Swelter'd  felt the disturbance ripple through the garden of Nurgle, disturbing his pleasant green dreams.

He seized a nearby Nurgling, squeezing out its innards with a wet pop, and began to scry the source of the unsettlement. It was the Exile. That mortal sorcerer, so favoured of Tzeentch, had fled into this Great Ocean and was now desperately swimming for the shore.

Swelter'd flung the Nurgling's squeaking remains aside and hefted his rusting sword. His master would reward him well for delivering such a prize.

All My Sons - Thousand Sons and Tzeentch Daemons

Easy army to pick, this one - it's very simply all the Tzeentch Daemons Stylus has, give or take a couple. And after the recent Skypehammer Campaign, I've had a little practice with them, and have a good idea what to expect. The Screamers and the Flamers are my favourites, although that also means I'm bound to love the flavour-packed combo of the Burning Chariot, which is basically both in one!

Overall, this is a shooty, resilient army with high mobility, lots of nasty tricks to even out their (generally) poor combat abilities and some potent psychic punch. And then there's Ahriman, who is all of the above with extra chips. 

All the same, my boss man is not quite as tough as I'd like, and I know there are some real monsters out there today. So I'm nervous - I get a tricky starting position where I don't know what's out to get me before it arrives. 

Early mistakes - Ahriman is packing Prescience, which he can only cast on himself. Not so wizard, Ahri, this is going to be less use than Warptime, so I pay the CP to swap it out on turn one. 

• Ahriman on Disc (HQ) (Warlord)
  Black Staff of Ahriman, Inferno Bolt Pistol
  Warlord: Otherworldy Prescience
  Psychic powers: Death Hex, Doombolt, Warptime
• Daemon Prince of Tzeentch (HQ)
  Daemonic Axe
  Psychic powers: Gaze of Fate
• Fluxmaster (HQ)
  Ritual Dagger
  Psychic powers: Flickering Flames, Gaze of Fate
• The Changeling (HQ)
  The Trickster's Staff
  Psychic powers: Boon of Change
• 20 x Pink Horrors (Troops)
  Coruscating flames, Daemonic Icon, Instrument of Chaos
• 2 x Pink Horrors (Troops)
  Coruscating flames
• 1 x Exalted Flamer (Elite)
  Tongues of flame
• 5 x Flamers (Elite)
  Flickering Flames
• 9 x Screamers (Fast)
  Lamprey bite
• Burning Chariot (Heavy)
  3 Chanting Horrors, lamprey bite. tongues of flame

Points: 1,194 | Level: 69 | Battle-forged: 8 CPs

Crazy, Sexy, Cholera - Khorne, Slaanesh and Nurgle Daemons

I've no idea how we both ended up on exactly 1,194pts - the Warp is strange.

My army selection was fairly straightforward - everything else I've got. What I definitely wanted was to run them in three separate detachments. Not so much for the CP or Locus abilities, but just because I see these three Daemon factions as working independently. To that end, I've also declined to nominate a Warlord (there's no Slay the Warlord points to be had, so it's only a nerf to myself) because no-one is in charge here.

But, as compensation to my demons, and so no-one gets left out, I did spend 3CP to make sure everyone gets a relic. The Nurgle Daemon Prince can generate Plaguebearers, the Slaanesh Enrapturess can hypnotise an enemy character, and the Khorne Daemon Prince can deny psychic powers (that one might come in handy).

The biggest blob is the usual suspects from Nurgle: lots of Plaguebearers, lots of Nurglings, some Plague Drones, a Poxbringer and a Daemon Prince, with a jolly Beast of Nurgle for company. Basically, this is a tough tarpit that's going to have to soak the punishment.

The Khorne patrol is just a big pack of Bloodletters and another Daemon Prince, this time with wings and an axe, which makes him my most dangerous unit in the army.

Finally, an Infernal Enrapturess and three Fiends. I've never used these before, but they seem promising. I would have preferred to bundle up the Fiends into a single unit, but I need three units for the Vanguard detachment, so they're going to have to be lone killers.

Whether or not these units can compliment each other, I don't know. But just looking at them, they seem formidable.

Nurgle Daemons - Battalion

• Swelter'd - Daemon Prince of Nurgle (HQ)
  Hellforged Sword
  Relic: Horn of Nurgle's Rot
  Psychic powers: Fleshy Abundance
• Poxbringer (HQ)
  Balesword
  Psychic powers: Shriveling Pox
• 22 x Plaguebearers (Troop)
  Plagueswords, Daemonic Icon, Instrument of Chaos
• 3 x Nurglings (Troop)
  Diseased teeth and claws
• 3 x Nurglings (Troop)
  Diseased teeth and claws
• Beast of Nurgle (Elite)
  Putrid appendages
• 3 x Plague Drones (Fast)
  Death’s Heads, Plagueswords, Prehensile proboscis

Khorne Daemons - Patrol

• Akk'aron - Daemon Prince of Khorne (HQ)
  Wings, Daemonic Axe
  Relic: Armour of Scorn
• 20 x Bloodletters (Troop)
  Daemonic Icon, Instrument of Chaos, Hellblades

Slaanesh Daemons - Vanguard

• H'Kytee - Infernal Enrapturess (HQ)
  Heartstring Lyre, Ravaging claws
  Relic: The Forbidden Gem
• Fiend (Elite)
  Dissecting claws, Vicious barbed tail
• Fiend (Elite)
  Dissecting claws, Vicious barbed tail
• Fiend (Elite)
  Dissecting claws, Vicious barbed tail

Points: 1,194 | Level: 65 | Battle-forged + Battalion+ Vanguard - Rewards of Chaos: 6 CPs

Mission and Terrain

We've based this mission off Behead the Viper from Vigilus Ablaze, since it basically involves getting a nominated character from one corner of the board to another.

So the nominated character (Ahriman, naturally) starts off in the bottom left corner with a portion of his army. The rest of the army is set up around the scoring zone in the top-right grid (shown by the Realmgates).

We've made a few tweaks - since it specifies this characters needs a transport and cannot fly (which we reversed), and when Ahriman gets into the scoring grid, he needs to remain there until the end of the opponent's turn (so he can't just Warptime there and auto-win).

In the scenario, it's Genestealer Cults who are trying to block the target, and they set up in Ambush. So we're playing it as the Daemons popping into this part of the Immaterium - shown by blip counters on the board, or they can deepstrike in on the edge of the table (from Turn 1 onwards).

As this is meant to represent the Warp, we're also playing the Battlezone: Psychic Maelstrom rules from the main rulebook - so psychic tests will suffer Perils of the Warp on any double, and crazy things may happen when they do. 

But to lure you into doing this (like either of us need bait), all psychic ranges are doubled, everything can cast an extra power a turn and you get to add 2 to all casting and denying rolls. Madness! Not a madness that affects Ahriman, though, he's protected against it, because if he (say) abruptly switched sides due to Crazy Perils, it'd be a very short game.

Deployment

I have the first turn, and a clear mission - get Ahriman to the portal now, if not sooner. He starts in the opposite corner with a run of lampreys backing him up. Or whatever the correct collective noun for lampreys is, even Google doesn't know that one. 

Everything else forms a twin-winged shooting line, characters in the middle hinge to provide boosts. The hope is to blow a huge hole in whatever pops into existence in front of me, then run Ahriman through it. 

Where the Daemonhosts are placed is a mystery (but I'll let you in on the secret, dear reader). The centre of the field is littered with all my Nurgle Daemons - with the exception of the Plague Drones, who are placed in deepstrike. 

The Internal Enrapturess and two of the Fiends are placed on the bottom-right of the field, slightly screened from all that firepower, with the third Fiend going into deepstrike.

The Khorne Daemon Prince and Bloodletters also go into deepstrike, biding their time to strike.

Ahriman - Turn 1

Ahriman sped through the warp towards his chosen exit. 

It hadn't been hard to bind a few lesser warpkin to his aide. Screamers and discs shoaled around him, non-light flickering from their ghostly mantles. And ahead, drawn to his powers like moths to fire, a chanting choir of horrors gathered. They lined the avenue of broken statuary leading to the portal, hymning his arrival. 

But the path to them was already mired with despair. Despondent bells rattled and clattered from the ruined spires on the way. An almost visible stink soured his senses, and the warp thickened like spoiled milk. A great slough of grim, green, gurning creatures burst into existence. 

Nurgle would try to block his escape, of course. Snarling, Ahriman banked his steed. 

Yikes - now I can see them, that's nothing I can plough through in a turn. So Ahriman and his flock advance towards the top edge, trying to keep away from the edges and whatever can spring from them. On his (warptimed) way, he lights up the Plaguebearers with a Doombolt to keep them more or less in place. 

The rest of the psychic power goes into smites and buffs, giving my Horrors maximum firepower with extra strength, although the Daemon Prince gets carried away, and manages to forget how to Smite from now on. Compared to some of the other Terrors of the Warp results, that's pretty mild!

Faced with this paywall, I spend as much firepower as I can into the Nurglings. I hate Nurglings! Horrible, ineffective roadblocks to victory, and its a great pleasure to me that they're at least relatively easy to burst. Smites and fireballs remove the nearest unit, and I'm starting to cook the rest. 

Let's be honest, popping those pimples isn't going to be enough. Round one is done, though, so I brace for impact. 

Daemonhost - Turn 1

Swelter'd spat out a curse as rotting pieces of Nurgling and magical fire showered down upon him. His ambush had been sprung too early, and now Ahriman's minions were alerted and fighting back. The Plaguebearers were tripping over their own hooves, even as his pet Beast bounded off in aimless search of playmates.

At least the Plague Drones were heading in the right direction, and were buzzing about the escort of Screamers, but Swelter'd had greater concerns. Two other forces had appeared on his flank; one of unnatural grace and the other of uncontrollable rage. The Nurgle Daemon Prince barely had time to register his daemonic rivals before they had crashed into the Tzeentch forces. One of the Slaaneshi quadrupeds had even galloped all the way to confront Ahriman.

With a bellow of frustration, Swelter'd charged into the pack of gibbering Pink Horrors. He would kill them all single-handed, if need be. And then there would be a reckoning with his fellow warpkin.

With most of my Nurgling screen gone, and the Plaguebearers hobbled, it's a slow start for my Daemons. The last of the Nurglings scramble towards the Flamers, backed up my the Poxbringer, the Beast of Nurgle veers off to try and intercept Ahriman, while the Daemon Prince lumbers forward to take on the Horrors by himself.

With more grace, the Infernal Enrapturess and the two Fiends canter forward to hit the south flank of the Tzeentch lines (and wounding a Flamer with a quick chord from her Heartstring Lyre).

The deepstrikes are where it gets interesting: the entire Khorne detachment drops down beside the Slaanesh daemons, putting their rivalry in check long enough to aim a rerollable charge at Tzeentch Flamers.

The Plague Drones zoom in on the flank of the Screamers, aiming to tie up this deadly unit - although they also manage to wound one with their Death's Heads (which never happens).

And then I find a deepstrike gap in the space between Ahirman and the rest of the army. Not large enough to fit in Plague Drones or Bloodletters, but just right to squeeze in that last Fiend I had been holding back.

In the Assault Phase, the Nurgle Daemon Prince laughs off the Overwatch and slams into the Pink Horrors, laying about with his Hellforged Sword (and missing most of them, to be fair). The Changeling wanted to intervene, but found it had surrounded itself too efficiently with Horrors to make contact.

The Nurglings somehow manage to survive the Flamers' overwatch and lock the unit down for the two Fiends to hit them, left and right.

The Bloodletters make their charge - and since I was in a charging mood, I hit the Exalted Flamer and the Daemon Prince of Tzeentch (I don't know why I thought a Daemon Prince would be a soft target - I think I had my Khorne mindset on, and assumed Tzeentch daemons would be nerds).

Oh, we are. Just angry ones, like you'd find at the LVO.

The Khorne Daemon Prince fails his charge, so is limited to supportive applause from the back.

And then the really important charges: the Fiend makes it directly into Ahriman, and even the Plague Drones are inspired to roll boxcars and hit both Screamers and Ahriman.

It's a shame Ahriman can fly, because otherwise my Fiend's Soporific Musk would prevent him from falling back and cause all sorts of problems. Not realising this at the time, I put the Warp Surge stratagem on the Fiend to boost its invulnerable save, reasoning in that being able to lock down Ahriman is worth 2CP.

The Fiend strikes first, and actually manages to tear a couple of wounds from Ahriman, though it subsequently gets beaten down, invulnerable save or not.

But it turns out to be redundant: the Screamers and Plague Drones both whiff against each other, losing a model apiece, and so Ahriman is still in combat (he can fly away next turn, but can't advance).

It's less optimistic on the other side of the field: the Fiends generally fail to punch through the Flamers' saves, bringing down only one of them. And the Bloodletters have almost no effect upon the Exalted Flamers and Daemon Prince, striking a couple of wounds off each of them.

I'm so dumbfounded that the Bloodletters could do so badly, that I spend 3CP to have them fight all over again and prove me wrong. I throw everything at the Exalted Flamer this time, and he's still left alive at the end of it! I shall be having stern words with these daemons when they corporealise.

At the beginning of the fight phase, I feared it might be all over. Now I feel like I've shot my bolt and had almost nothing to show for it. This Tzeentch castle was made of sterner stuff that I anticipated, and my quarry is heading directly for it.

Ahriman - Turn 2

The stink of more than just foetor was in the ether now. The coppery stink of blood assailed Ahriman's mind, as a wave of blade-brandishing Bloodletters tore into the ranks of the Horrors. The daemons danced round each other, tearing each other apart with giddy abandon, cackling and roaring with fire and sword. 

Something else brushed against him, a soft and sinister caress. A scent, misplaced. From somewhere long ago and far away, a better time...

Pain snapped him out of the trance. A thorned tail lashed through his armour, and his shoulder blazed with a venomous fire. He lashed out in return, tearing the Black Staff through the coalescing core of a Fiend and ripping it to shreds before it could fully manifest.

Time! It was costing him time. That portal wouldn't exist forever. 

The good news is that I still have an army! Somehow, the Horrors have stopped the Khorne contingent in their tracks. Ahriman lunges on as fast as he can, leaving the Screamers behind to tidy up the Drones, and flicks off another Doombolt into the Plaguebearers on his merry way. Another Warptime leaves him nearly in contact with the Horror unit, which is good. 

He's a blur of speed!

As you can see from this above shot, there's a lot of melee going on up ahead, and I'm conscious of speeding the prized target straight towards the Khorne Prince, who is clearly waiting for me. So everything apart from the Tzeentch Prince falls back from combat. 

That leaves room for some bouncy Flamer shots, and I get a fair few hits in, taking the Nurgle Prince to half marks, but it's a bit disappointing. Instead, I need to tie up some enemies in combat and trust in my saves. 

To this end (and it's a bit ad-hoc, I have no idea how this fight might go!), the Changeling goes and takes on the Poxbringer. It's going to be a slow fight, neither of them are great, but I get to pinch his better stats and leave him with my shoddy ones. This is much better than taking on the Nurgle Prince, who isn't Infantry and thus can't be copied. Lucky I couldn't jump on him last turn, really!

Sure enough, it's a slow fight that doesn't resolve this turn. Elsewhere, the Nurgle Prince gets mugged by the unit of two Horrors - it won't do anything to him, but he's going to be stuck eating all their lesser kin for a while, because with the other Horror unit and now some Flamers on either side, there's no escape. 

That's the plan, at least. In the event, it all works out fairly well. Prince Nurgle is stuck stamping on tiny fires as Blue and Brimstone Horrors wink in around him, and the Poxbringer is wounded but far from dead. 

Then it all goes south - the Tzeentch Prince snuffs out a few Bloodletters, but is then thoroughly dismantled by the rest of them, and they slam into the back of my newly-escaped units, trapping all the Horrors all over again. And worse, reality blinks for the Khornate minions, replacing those I'd just killed with fresh blood!

... aaaand just like that, the Bloodletters are my favourite unit again!

Daemonhost - Turn 2

Akk'aron was not to be stopped. For time immeasurable he had been chained in a pit of fire for displeasing his master, and now the blood wound flow.

His Bloodletters had already failed him, their blades useless against the hateful magiks of the sorcerers ones. He swatted his minions aside with his great axe, killing as many of them as the enemy as they pressed forward against the foe.

NOOOOO! The cry came from within as he saw that one of the Slaaneshi Fiends had raced forward to claim the Exile's head. With a beat of his wings, Akk'aron sped to intercept them, diving towards the only thing that stood before him, a Burning Chariot, wreathed in magical flames.

The fires did not daunt him. He was made of fire.

I'm in a pickle here, but I've got a number of hard-hitters who can get me out of it.

The Plaguebearers continue their trudge towards combat, while the Bloodletters (who are every much back in my good books), move to engage the Exalted Flamer and Pink Horrors. The Nurglings scuttle off to help the Daemon Prince fight Brimstone Horrors (it has come to this).

The Daemon Prince of Khorne flies towards the Burning Chariot, which is now my priority target, backed up by one of the Fiends. The other Fiend skirts around the central melee (damn, these things are fast) and charges Ahriman.

"If at first you don't succeed..."

The Plague Drones stay in combat with the Screamers, fixing them in place (and hoping to last another round). The Poxbringer stays fighting the Changeling, as both their stats and weapons are so rubbish, they could be there all day.

The Bloodletters hit the Exalted Flamer and finally tear him down, knocking off a few Pink Horrors for good measure.

The Daemon Prince of Nurgle continues to swat Horrors, who either make their saves or multiply into new menages, locking him in place.

The Plague Drones survive another round of attacks from the Screamers, clinging on by just a single wound to keep the unit in place.

The Plaguebearers charge into the Flamers and kill one of them - only to be denied by the Changeling's Locus of Transmogrification keeping them alive!

The Daemon Prince of Khorne loses two wounds to the Burning Chariot's overwatch, and then only manages to get three wounds past the invulnerable save. Sadly, this vehicle is no tank to be tied up in combat, but is pulled by a pair of Screamers, who turn around and chomp the Daemon Prince to pieces!

That's a big reversal, but I also get a ray of light - the Fiend does more than tie up Ahriman, it topples him from his Disc!

Now, Ahriman isn't dead (of course not!), but he is immobilised for the rest of the battle and can't reach the scoring zone. Victory will belong to whichever side can claim him as an objective!

Ahriman - Turn 3

That smell again...

He was in a room a thousand aeons from this place. A simple bedchamber lit with a single red candle. 

His low bed was against the wall opposite the window, the night sky was outside. His covers were rough cotton. The deep blue dye that had coloured them had left a particular smell in the sheets, something between hot sand and pepper. Faint, just enough to register, but there. A comfort in a time of change.

His room on Prospero as an initiate. Possibilities still open, hope and wonder still emotions he felt every day. A sense of potential yet to be fulfilled.

Impossible, he knew. Blindsided by the impossible speed of another Fiend, of course, the mind-altering venom of this second strike overwhelming his preomnor and leaving him lost in memories.

Dimly, he knew that a terrible conflict still raged around him, but he no longer cared. This room, that flickering candle - he had forgotten this. There was something here he could still use, something long neglected...

Well, that's not good!

The whole plan was to avoid getting bogged down. But now I'm surrounded and outnumbered. 

Once again, I kind of want to leap out of combat and keep shooting. I've misread the Screamers rules, so they flee combat and slice the final wound off the Plague Drone on the way, something they can't actually do, but we figure the poor mosquito would likely have been swatted down to minimal effect later. If I can hold my line until the lampreys arrive, I've got a chance of swinging this. 

It's utter carnage in there. The Flamers are toasting Plaguebearers, the Changeling continues his stately duel with the Poxbringer, Nurgle's Prince is still stuck dancing on the Horror coals - I have no idea at all where this fight is going, but for now, it seems hung!

Daemonhost - Turn 3

Wait for the moment, H'Kytee told herself, but do not let it pass. She strummed a few chords on he heartstring lyre, sending nearby daemons into an ecstasy of madness, as she read the pitch of the battle.

Khorne's forces were already spent. That fool Akk'aron had burned too brightly and too briefly. Nurgle was bogged down, lacking the guile to escape the morass.

Her forces were loose upon the field. She had brought the least to this ambush, but had used them with the most intelligence. They had already brought down their prize, now she signalled her Fiends to secure it.

Things are getting to be a right scrum in the centre, and I need to do enough work to absorb the freight train of damage that will arrive when the Screamers finally get here.

The Poxbringer falls out of combat with The Changeling and I send in the Nurglings instead. They're safe from his mimicry abilities because they don't count as infantry (and who would want to swap characteristics with a Nurgling?). He also puts Shriveling Pox on the Burning Chariot, so it has a better chance of being damaged by Fiends.

The poor Beast of Nurgle is assigned the task of charging the Screamers in the forlorn hope that they will miss most of their attacks and he can withstand enough of them to hold them back.

The Daemon Prince of Nurgle Smites away at the Horrors beneath him (although another is saved by the Changeling's Locus - I don't like Disgustingly Resilient when other people do it) and uses Fleshy Abundance on himself to recover his wounds.

Both Fiends charge into the Burning Chariot - and in its weakened state, they destroy it!

That's a plus, although most of the other combats don't go so well. The Infernal Enrapturess joins the fight against the Flamers and takes down another one, the the Plaguebearers fail to help and a few more are cut down.

The Bloodletters charge into the Horrors, losing as many daemons as they cut down (although I do score another Reality Blinks result and gain more back in the Morale Phase).

It's not good news for my distraction units either: the Nurglings hold out against the Changeling, but the Beast of Nurgle is chewed up by the Screamers - they're joining the fray next turn.

So the battle is still poised to go either way, but I've lost a lot of material that's going to be hard to recover from.

Ahriman - Turn 4

Ahriman remembers his youthful self. 

After a day of digesting new knowledge and training his skills, he would rest here. Rest and make notes in a journal, a lone act of defiance against the strict rules of the chapterhouse. Personal knowledge should be kept as such, the initiates were taught. What you cannot memorise is lost. Develop your powers of recall to avoid this. 

Ahriman wanted to know more than even his prodigious memory could carry. There, on a single wafer-thin dataslate made of flexible synthetics, rolled tight into a cylinder and hidden inside the stem of his candlestick, he kept his notes. Later, his brethen found it and destroyed it. Here, in his memory, it still exists. 

He reaches for it hungrily. 

Outside this bubble of thought, a legion of daemons devour each other, that the victor may chew on his soul for eternity.

Screamer charge! The space sharks slam home, ripping both Fiends off the table before poising ready over Ahriman. 

At the same time, the Horrors finally overwhelm the Bloodletters, reducing them to a single model, as the Flamers carrying on burning up the Plaguebearers. The Changeling kills the Nurglings by blowing a few wounds off himself with a miscast over-Smite, and the Fluxmaster, who has basically kept his head down all game and hoped to avoid any sort of fight, keeps doing exactly that. 

Nurgle's poor Prince is still hung up on a lone Brimstone Horror. Now, finally, he snuffs it out. Inevitable, I guess, but not good - he's slowly healed up to full wounds again! Not the kind of foe you suddenly want free at a critical juncture...

Daemonhost - Turn 4

With a cry of triumph, Swelter'd stamped down upon the last of burning horrors. While he'd been caught up with those wretched creature, the tide of the battle had washed over him.

But perhaps not for the worse. There was so little remaining from either side and, with the instincts of a Prince of Chaos, Swelter'd immediately recognised himself as the mightiest creature left standing.

He swung his Hellforged Sword in a few practised arcs, and went to seek fresh enemies.

Killing that deadly shoal of Screamers is my main priority, so I get right to it, sending in the Daemon Prince of Nurgle and the Infernal Enrapturess against them. With poor rolls and good saves, my two champions only manage to bring down one of the Screamers, losing my Enrapturess in the process.

Elsewhere, the last two Plaguebearers are sent off to delay The Changeling, and the Poxbringer goes to fight the Horrors with the last of my Bloodletters.

The Plaguebearers hold up, but its the end of the road for the Poxbringer and Bloodletters, who are overwhelmed by the gibbering Horrors.

Ahriman - Turn 5

There - the scrolled slate rolls open. Ahriman lays his fingers on it and concentrates. The flame of the candle flickers, the night winds of Prospero moan gently behind the glass of the tower window. His personal seal, just as he set it. One word, and the slate glows weakly. He flicks through the entries quickly. There may not be time. 

There! How could he have forgotten this? So long, and yet so vital...

The Changeling is stuck where he is, slowly squishing Plaguebearers. Nothing else really fancies the Nurgle Prince, so they all dance round him and squat on Ahriman instead. Even the Screamers - I don't see them finishing him in one turn, nor he they, so I'd rather hang back than get stuck in and keep the time pressure on Stylus.  They do charge Ms Harp, though, and duly eat her up.

Intimidating as this surrounding tactic is, it's left me with an opening: since none of the Tzeentch units want to charge me, I can heroically intervene into one of them. I pick the Fluxmaster, who has been dodging fate all battle.

The Daemon Prince only gets a single hit past the invulnerable save, but that's enough to destroy him, and remove a very potent spellcaster for the end game.

Serves me right! Should have gotten stuck in, like a proper fighter. 

Daemonhost - Turn 5

He couldn't help laughing as the H'Kytee had been torn apart by those lamprey jaws, one harp string after another pinging loose as the Entrapturess fell to her own hubris.

He was still laughing as he swatted that Tzeentch spellcaster off his Disc with a backhand stroke.

Swelter'd was invincible. Hacking down one Screamer after another as he cleaved his path towards the prize. The day was his.

Just Nurgle left on the field for me now (they are resilient) against their old enemy, Tzeentch. With only three models left, my hitting power is denuded, so I just have to concentrate on one thing at a time and trust to my durability.

The Daemon Prince charges the Screamers, and after warming up on the Fluxmaster, he seems to have found his swing - he kills a handful and the rest fly away in the Morale phase.

With the Changeling still held up by Plaguebearers, that's a huge swing - my toughest unit is within spitting distance of Ahriman (you'd better believe he would spit) and when we roll for the end of the game - it continues!

Ahriman - Turn 6

A single entry, a single page. Words mentioned in passing by a visiting tutor, one who in later ages would help found the Grey Knights and their chapter. Something he was describing in a conversation with Ahriman's superiors, a name of a being of terrible power he had vanquished and imprisoned. The place he had bound and hidden it, a pocket cell, part of an alien labyrinth guarded by the Eldar. 

A back entrance to the Black Library, his future self now knows. But where? 

His finger traces down the slate...

I have the numbers now. The Changeling finally finishes off the Plaguebearers with the weapons of their own champion, but that's icing on the cake. 

Except there's no cake, and the icing is my own frozen tears!

It's late in the real world, and my daughters both keep waking up and very unreasonably asking Daddy to stop yelling about Daemons in the wee hours. This distracts me enough that I think I've got the Horrors already camping on the vital objective, when in fact, I've only got two Flamers. 

Tell you what, let's pretend I was just being sporting. Your play, Stylus!

Daemonhost - Turn 6

Everything was discorporating. Even in the Warp, the amount of energies they had unleashed needed to dissipate. Swelter'd could feel the remaining daemons being summoned back to their strongholds, he could feel himself being drawn back to his Garden, but he would not return empty handed.

A pair of Flamers stood before him. The same ones who had dogged his footsteps since the begging. They were all that stood between him and Ahriman.

One model left in my army, but only two Flamers stand between me and the objective. The Horrors are too far away to claim it, so if I kill these two, and the game ends, victory is mine!

The Daemon Prince hacks away furiously, and Kraken is forced to make five 4++ saving throws to keep his unit alive.

He makes every single one of them.

And then the game ends - Tzeentch outnumbers Nurgle on the objective by a single model. 

Result: Victory to Ahriman!

There! The name of the planet on which the entrance was located was...

Fungal horrors clutch at him, shaking him awake. Unreality reasserts itself, he is on the back of a mighty disc drawn by screamers, tended to by sour-faced blue nursemaids with suckered fingers that draw the psychic venom of the Fiends. No prince of the warp has been so coddled, so pampered. Never has Tzeentch favoured a mortal with such an entourage. 

As they eject him into the gritty hell of the Real again, Ahriman can only curse furiously. The memory is gone, nursed out of him by the Horrors' care, and he is once more alone, exiled and dependent only on his own skills to carry his plans to victory. 

But he's alive. Looking around, he begins his quest once again. 

Locker Dimension

Five battles, two victories on each side, and the campaign is decided by a single model in the last throw of the game.

That was an unbelievably crazy battle. Terrain barely factored into it (although the star map made a lovely backdrop), armour-piercing was redundant and psychic powers were going off all over the place. Lots of units surprised me: I thought Bloodletters would be more killy (I had assumed they were like daemonic Beserkers), and hadn't anticipated how durable Tzeentch Daemons were going to be.

I certainly rode my invulns to victory! Very hot dice for me in the last few turns.

The Fiends did very well for themselves, and I'm tempted to get a few more of them. Mind you, so did the Flamers, and I'm tempted to get a lot of more them!

Another unexpected surprise was being able to dip into the other Nurgle psychic powers - against any kind of shooting armies, Miasma of Pestilence becomes an auto-include, but there's some other good stuff to be had there.

And overall, given this was the first time I got all my daemons out on the table, I've very happy with my choice. They play like no other army I've got, and I look forward to exploring them some more (and curb my enthusiasm for adding to it - maybe just a couple of Greater Daemons).

The gameplay reminded me of some of the classic artwork from The Lost and the Damned, those Adrian Smith pictures of Tzeentchian champions battling Nurgle bands across the Chaos Wastes. 

Lots of thrills and spills across the whole campaign, and congratulations to Kraken (and Ahriman!) on the win. Who could have foreseen that he'd wait until the very last dice roll to turn his luck around?

I'm hoping that my dice have just levelled up in XP over the last year, I've had a few very good games lately. Maybe in time for the game itself to level up. But cheers either way to Stylus, for hosting what has been a splendid experience and a great addition to the reports collection too!

With 9th Edition just around the corner, this will likely be my last battle report for 40k 8th Edition, and it's a very fitting finale. We've racked up well over a hundred battles, three narrative campaigns, and it's an edition I have a great deal of affection for. Onwards to new adventures!

I might have one left in me... but yes, bring on the new!