With a few breaks to experiment with other armies – two games with Forces of Rocks to see how they felt (so damn slow) and one wild ride with Xirkaali (so damn fast) – my year with Abyss has been quietly rolling along. I did swap my hero mix over to triple Despoilers and a token Warlock, whose spell I tried different things with before settling on barkskin as the most satisfying answer.

I’ve also kept painting stuff green:

In late February, I traveled north of the border to finish up a tattoo and then throw down in the March of Death GT, where the first day was three games of 2500 and the second was two of 2000, representing your army suffering attrition over the campaign. While all five games were delightful, my win rate was still suffering and I ended up going 2-3. Some insanely tight games tho, which is ideal if occasionally frustrating.

Here’s a handful of the many shots I took:

I ran into Nightstalkers (big win), Undead (big loss), Orcs (loss to Thonaar + Helstriker combo), Empire of Dust (win in turn 7), and Northern Alliance (loss in turn 7). This was my first event running a regiment of Nagarri, which was pretty sweet, partially because of the lack of shooting I faced 😛 I found its Sp 7 + pathfinder particularly helpful for scoring late game, with how oozingly slow my army is (and how dead my Tortured Souls are at that point). Truly gnarly in a flank too. These were also my last games using Moloch troops. While they were cute, I found I really needed a dedicated hammer to close combats out, so would be rotating over to a Moloch regiment going forward.

Fast forward to late May and it was time again for the Orc Town GT out in Cape Cod, MA! Known for big points values, they had gone with a more pedestrian 2400 points this year. These games saw me swapping out the Succubi regiment for Hellhounds and the Moloch troops out for a regiment. The Chroneas was still in the list but his days were feeling numbered, with such random output and a relatively high price tag.

Here are some recaps:

Game 1: Undead (Salt the Earth)

Six ghoul regiments, four fast hammers, and just two inspiring made for an army that wanted to jam hard and roll the flanks. Unfortunately for Kyler, I went first and penned his forces in, taking away their speed advantage and grinding on my terms. I lost the right flank to his Fleshfeast battle group, but it took long enough that my Chroneas had his best game ever, personally shattering both Soul Reaver Cav regiments. My Hellhounds on the left flank spent most of the game scaring off his Vampasus, before plowing through some Werewolves. I also did horrible things with Despoilers, repeatedly dolling out 6 damage with their 6 attaks (or worse in the flank). This ended up a huge win to me, and I’d go on to face Kyler’s dad in Game 5.

Game 2: Forces of Nature (Plunder)

Clobbering Kyler catapulted me into the waiting arms of Cory’s Forces of Herd, happily operating at pre-Fracture power levels. Lots of good stuff to be had: triple Brutes, double Longhorns, an elemental assault force (Earth,strong Air, Greater Fire), the glory of the edition release Chieftain, and support staff aplenty. Add to that that I forgot about the existence of surge and got a Despoiler flanked and obliterated by the Air reg as soon as the game opened (I thought he was safe behind a wood–he was not!), and I was sure this game was over minutes after it started.

As it turned out, this was one of my best games into Cory’s Nature, where the center obliterated itself (in his favor) while the flanks saw the real drag out fights that decided the game. My plan was to flood the right flank with Lower Abyssals and either juke a regiment past his defenses or finagle a 2 pointer onto a second wave horde, which somehow worked! For this to pay out, I needed to hold the leftmost 1 pointers too, which was foiled first by the Chieftain wild charging himself 13″ into my Hellhounds (I was stressing about his aura but forgot about it affecting him too), and then by me snaking the Despoiler flank into the Herd warlord. The Hellhounds weren’t able to escape the inbound Tribal Warrior reg, losing the second 1 pointer in the process and the game. I netted some attrition in the process but nothing compared to the numbers Cory was putting up. He would go on to win the whole thing, undefeated.

Game 3: Dwarfs (Dominate)

And so I moved from one member of my club, who I play all the time, to another 😅 Mike’s been struggling to find purchase with his Dwarfs this edition, tho I don’t think his list was a total pushover: triple Shieldbreaker hordes (one might be strong Ironguard), double Brocks, two Cannons, some Stoneclaws, sundry heroes. Dominate is good for Dwarfs but it’s also good for high US Abyssal junk. The main story here was going to be how Mike unleashed the badgers and birds, and ultimately he one-offed the Brocks into Lower Abyssal hordes for damage while the Stoneclaws delayed into the late game. I withdrew one Lower Abyssal carpet and swept in with the second wave, while the other was flanked by Despoilers and devoured. The birds eventually made contact but were overwhelmed.

White-hot cannon fire crippled the Chroneas early on, but the Hellhounds dodged the flanking Shieldbreakers and saw to the war engines (and the rear of those Shieldbreakers eventually). Once all our hordes started grinding, the Dwarven damage output was counter-balanced by their low Def, meaning Molochs were wounding on 2+ and even Lowers could get stabs in. Plus the Despoilers lurking about and throwing themselves into flanks to shove combats over. This ended up another big win for me, putting me in I think third highest attrition ending Day 1, a shocker given how pillowfisted the army had felt up until now.

Game 4: Nightstalkers (Loot)

Another day, another clubmate to smash into 😤 Worse than that, Jason is a longtime member of Cuddle Time, my Crossroads GT team, making this a rare clash of cuddlers. He had resurrected his Nightstalkers for the event, with plenty of variety across the army, tho I was particularly scared of the two Terrors, between their ensnare and many, many infantry-devouring attaks. Our board this game was also a minor nightmare for my strider-lite force, with five pieces of difficult terrain / woods and three walls! I made a deal with myself to just not charge with Lowers if I could help it … which you can see I broke when offered a flank into the Fiends (which the Lowers contributed next to nothing to, snaked the combat anyway, and were devoured by a flanking Terror in response).

With the loot counters all skewed to one half of the board, and much of that half taken up with a massive piece of blocking terrain, I was able to bully out Jason’s Shadowhounds with Lowers to claim one token with relative ease. The next token in line was swapped between his Phantoms, my Tortured Souls, his Butchers, his Terror, my Molochs, and ultimately my Despoiler in a deadly game of hot potato. This leaves the central token, which I nabbed early with Tortured Souls and managed to hold onto despite several turns of Doppelganging (turns out Tortured Souls have pretty terrible stats to swap into). Fiends and Lowers and a Terror and rough dice ensured the central grind took a long time to resolve, but the Abyss did eventually send all the Nightstalkers back to the Void.

Meanwhile on the left flank: I had deployed my Hellhounds hard on the left, and Jason spent fully 20+ minutes of his clock trying to figure out how to keep them from flanking either his Shadowhulk or Butchers, before deciding around Turn 3 to make me pop their boots to get into the NS backfield (but then they wouldn’t have them for strider later) or have a go at the Shadowhulk but suffer a Butcher flank if it didn’t work out. Note that the math here wasn’t great–a Hellhound flank into a Shadowhulk is ~12 damage, for a 7 to rout. I went for it, doing 10 damage … and slamming the 9 to rout 😅 They overran past the Butchers and would flank and dismember a Terror later in the game too. All told this was another huge win for me, putting me on Table 2 for the finale. Jason would go on to win Highest Attrition.

Game 5: Elves (Control)

I hadn’t played Brian since possibly second edition? Wild if true. I also have very little experience into Elves this edition, especially ones that would like to shoot. Brian’s list wasn’t the most bent, but it still had shooting (triple Archer regs, double Dragonfires, Sea Guard horde, blizzard Mage) alongside the assault elements (double Drakon regs, Drakon troop, Drakon lord, striding Stormwind reg), making for a scary package. I personally struggle a bit into Control, as the minimum viable win strategy isn’t very clear to me and this army in particular isn’t fast enough to make for uncontested sections easily. That said, my goal was to abandon the left sections (I deployed both Tortured Souls troops across from his Sea Guard and Drakon lord, and then promptly left), flood US up the center using the cover of a wood for staging, and muscle in from the right.

In an echo of last game, I spent a lot of time attempting to corral the Drakon troop on the right flank, knowing that if it got into my backfield it would be a real force multiplier that I didn’t want to deal with. Hellhounds + Lower Abyssal reg + Despoiler could either keep it from landing behind me or gently push it back, which I did for a few turns before giving up and punching forward with the Lowers + Despoiler. These units eventually rounded the house in the upper right, breaking up the Archer firing line and demanding to be dealt with. This meant the Drakons did hop my line in Turn 4, at the same time as a Drakon reg finally engaged my Molochs. In the single pic I took of our game, you can see me blocking off the rear of the Molochs with a fresh Lower Abyssal horde, simultaneously baiting the Drakons to rear them so my Hellhounds could finally make contact with them. Interestingly enough, the Drakons don’t auto-kill that horde (15 damage expected for a 7 to rout), but Brian certainly did, turning to face the waiting pups. The Drakon reg also failed to kill the Molochs, meaning I’d get a chance to swing.

And, well, I tried my damnedest. The Hellhounds failed to kill the Drakon troop on the charge, and the Molochs failed their one good swing into the Drakon reg. This was pretty demoralizing but would have some consequences come game end (OMINOUS SPOILER). Elsewhere, the Elves shot off the Nagarri as soon as possible (he is the obvious target, especially post-Fracture) and otherwise avoided shooting Lower Abyssal hordes whenever they could. A cheeky Despoiler managed a charge on a Dragonfire team, smashing it and eventually the other war engine too, with a pause to be wavered in the middle. Turn 5-6 the Elves committed in the center, unleashing the Stormwind and second Drakon regiment into my Lowers, which held. I cheekily withdrew one horde to cycle the Chroneas into the flank of the Stormwind (who were thoroughly Chroneated) and began grinding the Drakons but I was running out of hammers and time.

At some point during our game we became aware that we were playing for second and third place, as the top table (Nature vs Nature) had gone solidly in Cory’s favor. Come Turn 6, the score was sitting 4-2 to the Elves (my Despoiler + Lowers that had rounded the house had ended up contesting Brian’s home section), partially because my Hounds never did kill that Drakon troop, instead dying and yielding the bottom right section to them. Sad. A Turn 7 would allow me to shove a horde into the Elf home section, giving me both central sections (which was my plan all along) and tighten up our scores, but it wasn’t to be. A loss for me, with a lower attrition than I would have hoped, given how much I poured into chasing those Drakons down.

Orc Town GT Awards Ceremony

When the dust had settled, Forces of Nature took first, Elves took second, and Forces of the Abyss third. Heartbreakingly, I had missed second by a single point, which easily could have been made up with a Turn 7 or if those Drakons had died on the right flank. Credit to Brian on a well played, patient game and for reaping vengeance for his son 👏

This update has had a lot of words and not many photos, thanks for sticking with it! Last weekend I played in a one dayer using the Fracture rules, so stay tuned for another round of recaps.