The Traumire Abomination - AOS AAR.

[Pictors Studio]

The Stormcast Eternals looked around them at each other.  They all felt a void between them.  Something had disrupted their connection with the Source.



One of the Judicators in Skratgorath saw motion first, a dust cloud on the horizon. His keen eyes made out forms moving quickly through the flaky dust.  The Sigmarites had been stationed on Skratgorath and in Evenheim, on each side of a Realmgate. 



In Evenheim an ancient evil lurked beneath the serene woodlands, its poison keeping the area around the Realmgate dead but still imprisoned.


Prosecutors then saw movement in the Evenheim woods and Lord Relictor Dangar Raneskjold called out for help from Lord Sigmar.



But nothing came.  He felt the disturbance when the others had felt it too.  Now he knew what it was. Chaos had weaved an arcane dome about the Realmgates from both sides, it disrupted the bond between Sigmar and his servants. 

He could sense some weaknesses in it though and while it was slowly pulling apart the Eternals it was also weakening.



The forces of Chaos must have known this too as they were  streaking towards their adversaries with imagined speed.

They fell upon their adversaries, daemons screaming out of thin air, trailing a soporific musk behind them as they leaped onto the battlements, their savage claws tearing at the Judicators.  Only one volley of arrows had fallen among the advancing Chaos hordes before the Judicators were beset by the hermaphroditic monsters.



On the Evenheim side of the gate the Prosecutors fared no better, being caught between Beastmen Gors on the one side and Minotaurs on the other.



The Chaos forces swept around the ruins of Calsbath Keep and moved towards the Realgate, the Liberators stepped up to keep them from their objective.



Raneskjold could see that if he did not act quickly all would be lost.  There was a Slaaneshi champion moving among the beastmen, it was his guess that the Beastmen were just pawns getting the the decadent followers of the Hidden God to their objective.  He knew the danger that lurked beneath their feet, if he couldn't stop the Dark Prince's minions the forests of Evenheim would soon resemble the razed plains of Skratgorath.

He concentrated and shut out the noise of battle around him, he shut out the astral winds bleeding through the Realmgate and with his will he pierced the dome the Chaos magic had placed over them, in a flash of lightning, 5 mighty Champions of Sigmar stood just outside the ruined tower, the burial site of Traumire.

With the chaos forces momentarily checked here he moved back through the gate to hold up any advance on the other side.


The Liberators paused to watch the Lord Relictor go and saluted him as he left, their hammers raised, before charging forward and into the ranks of the beastmen.



The forest itself had come alive to stop the destruction intended by the dark powers.  Dryads rushed out to block the path of the Slaaneshi Champion, but she was too quick, and with only a minor scratch, slithered away from their grasp. 



The Dryads were going to pursue but Ungor warriors attacked them, their daggers stabbing into the wooden limbs of the guardians of the forest.

As the last of the Prosecutors fell beneath the axes of the Gors, the Minotaurs pulled away from the Liberators and plunged through the Realmgate in pursuit of the Lord Relictor.




The combat in Skratgoranth was vicious as the forces of Slaanesh tried to plow their way through the last of the Sigmarites and make it through the realmgate, but Raneskjold and his Liberators stood firm, holding off assaults from both front and rear, from Daemon, mortal and beastman alike. 







Eventually the attacks wore at them.  Razor claws tore pieces of armour away and then pierced the flesh underneath, blades slashed with inhuman speed, cutting through defensive moves to parry. 

As the last of the Liberators fell the Lord Relictor, assaulted from the front and back used all of his energy and again managed to break through the arcane dome blocking his full communion with his God.

Lightning cracked for the first time on this side of the Realmgate and five more Liberators stood, ready to face the Chaos hordes.

It was the last thing Raneskjold would do.  The glaive of the Slaaneshi lord moved again in an arc too fast to see and sliced off the head of the Stormcast hero.

The Liberators are quickly beset from all sides.



And the champions of Chaos run through the gate to aid in the ritual already taking place on the other side.



But they are too late.  The protective arcane dome collapses around them, the skies darken over Evenheim and lightning bolts flash all around them, illuminating the forest.

Slowly the ground rumbles and beastmen and Slaaneshi champion are alike thrown aside as the earth explodes.  Traumire has awakened.  Through the woods the newly arrived Sigmarites can see the terrible form of the dragon as it arises, angry, from the ground, the head peering about it to determine which of the various small moving creatures will be its first meal.




Here are all the pictures:

http://imgur.com/a/uLgdR

http://imgur.com/a/m6O9Q

[commissarmoody]

Cool battle report.

[Ray Rivers]

Yes, indeed very cool.

I always wondered why GW sold only 2 relmgates together and didn't offer them separately. Your battle report makes it pretty darn clear why having 2 is the best way to go.

Being able to move through the relmgates and fighting in 2 different relms at the same time opens new horizons.

Thanks!

[Pictors Studio]

They have a scenario in the Chaos Dreadhold book where a battle like this takes place.  There are two separate realms and each has a realmgate and a bridge connecting them.  It was the inspiration for this, except the scenario was different.

You can also use them in a single realm and have units move between the realmgates on the same tabletop, so they are sort of like an in game teleporter.  I have yet to do that with them though. It holds some good possibilities too.

The scenario here was basically the Ritual from the main rulebook but Chaos had to get to the place where the Ritual starts and has only 6 rounds to get it off then.  The ritual has to be started by any Slaaneshi champion, hero or mage.  When the champion starts the ritual, by moving onto the site, they roll d6.  Each turn after that they roll another d6.  If the total gets above 20, the ritual occurs.

Each Slaaneshi champion beyond the one doing the ritual within 9" of the site adds 1 to the die roll.  Each Slaaneshi Lord or Sorcerer adds 2 to the roll.

The Beastmen characters, even the Shaman, added nothing.

So there really was a push to get the Slaaneshi characters through the realmgate.

As it turned out they were close, and it was bad die rolling that stopped the ritual from happening.  At the start of the 6th turn all the Slaaneshi characters except the sorcerer were near the site and the total was only 14 after the die roll.

The reason for the turn limit was that the arcane dome protecting them from infinite Sigmarite reinforcements wore off. 

We decided, in the case of the narrative, to do a 7th turn, only all the Sigmarite stuff I have could come in on a 3+ at the start of the turn.  They couldn't move, but could run or charge or shoot that turn.  We decided that they had the extra time because all of the Sigmarites had been wiped out.

The Lord Relictor had the ability to summon units of Sigmarites to the table.  I don't have the Stormcast rulebook so I have no idea if there are already rules for this for a different character but he was able to do Liberators on a roll of 6 or more, Judicators or Prosecuties on a 7 or more and a Lord Celestant or Retributors on an 8 or more.

His dice sort of sucked too so he was only able to summon two Liberators during the entire game. 

It was a close game.  The ritual did go off on the 7th turn and the next game will be the Slaaneshi and Beastmen forces trying to escape the destructive powers of Traumire, while the Sigmarites try to destroy the beast before it lays waste to Evenheim.