A Path to Glory update

Woehammer is organising a few of us into a Path to Glory campaign. I am playing Troggoths (Gloomspite) led by my General – Phileas Fogg the Trogg. You can find out more about the starting warband on the first blog entry for the campaign.

My first games were against Ben’s Slaves to Darkness (StD) army which is mostly based on the starter set. He added 10 Chaos Warriors to it in order to bring it close to 800 points, and I dropped the Ravening Jaws and 3 Fellwater Troggoths in order to bring mine down to this level too. This would allow Ben to learn the rules and for me to have some practice with the Troggoths whilst still having at least one of each Warscroll.

Pre-game

Before starting off, I needed to pick the Quest for my Troggoths, and I decided that Verne (Fungoid Cave-Shaman) would influence Fogg to Hunt the Endless Spell – Scuttletide. To do this Verne would need to be near Arcane terrain at the end of the game – in order to assist with this I can automatically generate an Arcane terrain feature for 1 Glory Point if I don’t roll it. I then had to keep him alive against the StD.

Game 1 – Sudden Assault

The Slaves to Darkness brought a Lord on Karkadrak, 2 x 10 Chaos Warriors, and 5 Chaos Knights… all with the Mark of Khorne. This meant they were re-rolling 1s to hit!

The StD were trying to take over my Gloomspite Shrine, and Phileas sent out himself (Dankhold Troggboss), Fungoid Cave Shaman, 6 Rockguts and 3 Fellwaters. As this was a Sudden Assault where we would get points for holding table quarters.

Ben’s Slaves to Darkness advanced quickly on my right (bottom of the picture), whilst the Chaos Warriors started the slow walk towards my shrine. In response the Rockgut’s charged the Chaos Knights… and in rolling that embarrassed me, wiped out the Chaos Knights – wow!!

The StD counterattacked with the Lord and 10 Chaos Warriors who put a few wounds on the Troggoths, but they swung back and killed half the Warriors and put some wounds on the Lord. In my second turn the Dankhold charged in to help them and the Fellwaters charged the second unit of Chaos Warriors.

In Turn 3, I cleared up the Lord & Chaos Warriors and the Fellwaters continued to chip away at the last unit of Chaos Warriors without any casualties – the healing being very useful in a small point game.

The last two turns the Dankhold rescued the Fellwaters and then the units fell back to the four quarters – I had defended my Shrine!

Post-Game 1

The great benefit of Path to Glory is the ability to improve your army. So we returned to the core book and post-battle sequence.

• Glory Points – I was now on 21 Glory Points for winning the game and having my Warlord still alive.
• Injuries – With no models killed, I didn’t need to roll any. Fortunately for Ben his Slaves to Darkness resisted most of the damage and only failed 3 casualty rolls.
• Renown Points – Each of my units gained a renown point for surviving the battle, and a bonus one for holding the objectives. Fogg’s Ladz were my chosen and rolled sufficiently to become Veteran Warriors. This allowed me to give them a bonus. I chose Disciplined Battle-Drill as they were rapidly becoming Fogg’s bodyguard. This would allow them to add 1 to wound once.
• New Units – I added a unit of Fellwaters to the army. I now had all my painted Troggoths in the list… time to paint some more.
• Quest – My Fungoid finished the game next to the Arcane terrain next to my Shrine, and found lots of Spiders to command.. Scuttletide was mine!
• New Quest – I chose to Scout Fertile Lands to enable me to re-roll my new territory roll next game.
• Territory – I found Wild Lands this time, but didn’t really need an extra Monster, so decided not to settle it.

Game 2 – The Trap

We had some time to play a second game, so Phileas Fogg decided to counterattack and invade the StD’s terroritory… unfortunately he was walking into a trap and was ambushed…

After the first game, Ben decided to bring some additional back bone; he had managed to convince Be’lakor to join him; as he is expensive it did reduce the size of the force – Chaos Lord on Karkadrak, Be’lakor & 10 Chaos Warriors… they would have to do some work!

The set-up left the Slaves looking more like the ambushers than the invaders, but how would Ben unpack to start killing my units?

The first few turns were cagy, with me running around board edges whilst the Chaos Warriors struggled forward. This allowed me to rack up a lot of Victory Points and solidify my control of the area.

In Turn 3 Be’lakor was unleashed and charged my Rockgut Troggoths. He did 10 wounds, killing two of them and the swingback only did 4 wounds as Be’lakor ignored Rend.

As my mission was to survive to end of Turn 3, I took no risks and the Rockgut’s retreated, whilst the Dankhold & Fellwaters advanced on the left towards the Chaos Knights.

In Turn 4 I charged the Chaos Warriors, killing most of them, and then Ben caught me again between Be’lakor and his Chaos Lord. The Lord killed 2 Rockgut’s whilst Be’lakor failed his rolls and the Fellwaters did a few wounds.

Turn 5 saw me retreat again, and Be’lakor chase my Fellwaters whilst the Chaos Lord chased the 2 remaining Rockguts. The Lord (Jeff) went first and killed the Rockguts (gaining a reknown). This did allow the Fellwaters to swing first against Be’lakor and they did 6 wounds. As Be’lakor had only 4 wounds left he needed to roll 5 out of 6 successful armour saves… Ben rolled! and Be’lakor lived; He took out 2 Fellwaters in revenge.

I had won the mission although this was more bloody than the first game and I would need to roll some casualty rolls. This was a great fun game and Be’lakor definitely gave the StD the speed and damage potential to take out the Troggoths.

Post Game 2

• Glory Points – I gained the maximum 13 Glory Points for winning the game and having my Warlord still alive.
• Injuries – I needed to roll for 6 Rockgut’s and 2 Fellwaters. 2 Rockgut’s rolled the 1 and 1 Fellwater. I would need to roll for recuperating.
• Renown Points – Each of my units gained a renown point for being alive in the third turn, and most of them survived and picked up points for this. Da Watery Boyz (Fellwaters) were my chosen and rolled sufficiently to become Veteran Warriors. This allowed me to give them a bonus as well. I wanted to be different to my Rockguts so they chose Deadly Volley for their spitting attack.
• New Units – no new units for me, but I rolled to recuperate the Rockguts, and rolled 2 4+ meaning I got both of them back – good news for Fogg, who relies on this unit.
• Quest – My Fungoid finished the game close to the board edge (after a turn 5 Hand of Gork), and so I could roll twice on the territories table
• New Quest – I would need to consider this before my next game
• Territory – After my reroll I found a Large Settlement (underground cave network), which would reduce the Glory Cost of my new units by 1. This would be useful when I had more painted Troggoths.

The Force

Warscroll	Name	Reknown	Points
Dankhold Troggboss	Phileas Fogg	19	250
Fungoid Cave-Shaman	Verne	4	95
6 Rockgut Troggoths	Fogg’s Ladz	7	290
3 Fellwater Troggoths	Da Watery Boyz	8	155
3 Fellwater Troggoths	Da Swampy Boyz		155
Ravenak’s Gnashing Jaws	Da Wet Boyz		55
Scuttletide (Endless Spell)			85

Summary

What a great evening – Thanks to Ben for the games; it was great to play small games and see what everything did without being shot off the table – Khorne really wanted to get stuck in. I also learned a lot about the Troggoths, who I have never used in large numbers – these were mostly painted during lockdown. I needed more practice, but they may make an outing at Facehammer.