Battle of the Vitriolic Swamps

It is time for the very first battle of our new Firestorm campaign!

The forces of Chaos ventured out from their stronghold in the Parching Wastes to take hold of the Vitriolic Swamps nearby. Unfortunately they ran into a hunting mob of Sunsplitterz on the way and a swift battle took place.

550p of Sunsplitterz stood toe-to-toe with 650p of Chaos worshippers. We drew our Battleplan from the Open War deck: an ambush-like scenario where the combatants tried to hold 4 objectives across the board while a storm of magic raged above in the skies.

On with the story!

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Wozoc Squinteye squinted at the sun. The damned thing had burned all day long, shining agony upon him and his boys as they trudged through the marshlands of the Vitriolic Swamps in search of wild beasts to slay. Fortunately the thick smog hanging above them dulled the rays of the sun to some measure, easing their misery even a little.

The smog also clouded the horizon so that the trekking orruks could only see a couple of dozen feet away from where they were. Not one beast had crossed their path during their hunt which had begun at first light, and the boys were getting tense.
"Oi git, ya fink ya can eyeball me like dat an' get away wiv it?" one of his hunters yelled at another one walking behind him.
"Come 'ere ya squig-farmer and tell dat to me face!" was the reply, and Wozoc saw fit to interrupt this exchange of insults before it escalated further.
"Silence, ya oafs! Ya scare off all da beasts wiv yer shoutin' and boastin'!"

The boys fell silent once more, but Squinteye knew it was only a matter of time before his hunting party would fall to infighting. They needed something to distract them.

Then suddenly, as if Gork (or possibly Mork) had heard Prophet Squinteye's silent prayer, a cacophony of distant splashing sounds broke the silence of the swamp. Every orruk tensed their muscles in expectation, fixing their eyes upon an enormous shadowy form that rose above everything else in sight. Cackling laughter and braying filled the air around it, an unmistakable sign that there was a good scrap just ahead.

"Arright boyz, dat right dere is a smeller... an' 'tis a big 'un!" Wozoc whispered to his mob who had slowly gathered around him to hear what their Prophet had to say.
"We's gonna go all waaagh an' stick it wiv da Gork Teef. Smash anyfing smaller afterwurds. Kvestions? No? Good, lez go den!"

The hunting party spread out evenly to surround their prey, and with a deafening roar of "WAAAGH!" they surged out of the smog. As they drew closer to their target, the shadowy mound of flesh indeed proved to be a Great Unclean One, a greater daemon of the chaos god Nurgle. Surrounding the immense monster was a swarm of Nurglings, small and fat lesser daemons that laughed maniacally and rolled around in the mud just for the joy of it.

As Prophet Squinteye jogged closer to the enemy behind his roaring followers, his nose suddenly caught the sharp metallic tang of magic hanging in the air. Wozoc let his gaze sweep the area, and in the ancient ruins ahead of them he spotted a lurking Tzeentchian mage. The twisted creature was hissing with its fangs bared, which made Wozoc very happy. He and his hunters had most likely interrupted some very important zappy business by stumbling into this peculiar procession of daemons here in the middle of nowhere.

Squinteye waved his staff above his head in great circles, summoning a flock of angry beast spirits that he then sent off to enhance the skills of his boys. The ethereal phantoms flew across the field to sink into the minds of the orruks carrying the Gork Teef, making their eyes glow bright green as they ran into the enemy with their enormous spears. Almost as an afterthought the Prophet also conjured up a gob of goo from the thin air before hurling it at the enemy magister in the ruins. The goo-bolt struck the creature in the shoulder, making it stumble back a couple of steps on the ancient flagstones.

Empowered by the brutal beast spirits within their bodies, the spear-carriers plunged their spears into the side of the Great Unclean One. The immense mountain of rotten flesh gave out a wet bellow as the weepwood tips of the Gork Teef pierced it, skin, flesh and bones. The daemon toppled over with the giant spears still protruding from its flanks, and after a splash of marsh-water the monster laid still on the ground. A wild celebratory roar went up from the throats of surrounding orruks as they ran over the carcass of the greater daemon to lay waste to its smaller companions. Two more Gork Teef and a dozen weepwood chompas begun to chop away at the swarms of Nurglings that ran screaming all over the place.

The Tzeentchian magister did not seem to appreciate this turn of events. Mumbling in a strange tongue the trickster did a series of sharp gestures with its clawed hands, tapping into the rampant magical energies that saturated the area. Out of nowhere a stone platform materialized right under the magister's feet, and with yet another stream of arcane commands from its mouth the creature made the platform rise high up into the air.

From this vantage point the mage gestured a herd of chaos beastmen to join the fray. Stomping hooves and frantic braying heralded the coming of the Gors before they crashed into the rear of the fighting orruks who were still fighting the swarm of Nurglings. No matter how many of the lesser daemons got chopped up or trampled underfoot, there were always more popping up from the shallow waters of the marsh.

From the heights of the summoned magical vortex the Tzeentchian mage hurled down bolts of iridescent fire, blasting the carriers of one of the Gork Teef from their feet even as the battle between daemons, orruks and beastmen raged on below. Inspired beyond measure by the swift death of the greater daemon, the orruks were on an unstoppable rampage. One after another the Gors fell to the crude bites of the glowing chompas, the keen edges of the weepwood blades cutting deep into the fur and flesh of the beastmen with every strike.

Seeing that the flow of the battle was turning against him, the enemy mage lowered himself from the platform and sent it back to another plane of existence with a single spoken arcane command. Once back on the ground the creature pointed its staff at the nearby orruks, blasting a black hole in the chest of the nearest one with a sizzling bolt of energy.

The battle between the orruks and the beastmen was tipping to the Sunsplitterz' favour. Despite their seemingly endless numbers, the Nurglings were finally killed to the last by the combined efforts of three Gork Teef. With their enormous spears the orruks wiped away at the swarms of daemons and kicked them away until no more of the buggers raised up from the waters. Meanwhile the Gors were losing more and more of their number, their bestial fury no match to the ferocity of the monster hunters. Both sides suffered losses, the axes of the beastmen cutting down orruks even as they themselves were wrestled to the watery ground and beaten to death.

The Tzeentchian magister saw the day was lost and started running away from the fighting, but Prophet Squinteye had had his squinting eyes on the trickster all this time...

Jumping from one feet to the other and letting out an ululating cry, Wozoc gathered the magical energies that flowed through the swamp and focused them into his palm, creating an orb of pulsing green energy. He hurled the bolt at the running magister with uncanny accuracy, blasting apart the back plate of the creature's armour and sending it sprawling on the ground.
"Ladz! The zapper is down, now stomp 'im gud!" Squinteye screamed at his hunters who were still beating up the beastmen.

Two of the Gork Teef obeyed immediately, sprinting after the enemy mage whilst yelling wordless war cries at the top of their lungs. The boys were obviously excited, and they should. This scrap was as good as won. One of the enormous spears reached the magister just as he had managed to regain his feet, ruthlessly ramming the twisted creature back to the shallow waters of the marsh. When the other Gork Teef arrived, it ran over the same spot twice, hoping to drown the damned zapper for good.

Back at the ancient ruins the last of the beastmen was making its final stand, hacking wildly with its axe before getting tackled and beaten to death by a mob of victorious orruks. A perfect silence fell upon the swamp once more, the only sounds being the humming of insects and the heavy gasping of orruks as their minds settled back from their battle frenzy. A couple of the hunters were poking around in the ankle-deep waters, overturning beastmen corpses to see if they carried anything worth looting.

"Oi, Gork Teef! Ya got da zapper?" Wozoc shouted out to the four orruks standing over where the magister had fallen.
"No, boss... da zapper ain't 'ere no more," one of the orruks replied, scratching the top of its thick head.
"We stomped 'im gud, but da git ain't nowhere t' be seen!"
"Could be it just sank deep, ya know? Deep in da mud," suggested one of the others, kicking the waters with its bare feet.
"Ya git! I's looked through dis whole pool o' dung-water but da zapper ain't 'ere!" the first one yelled back, visibly irritated.

"Calm down, ladz! Da zapper's gone an' good, we stomped 'im alright," Wozoc stated, attempting to calm down his mob. It seemed to work.
"We crumped dese 'ere smelly and pointy ones real bad, dey ain't comin' back. Da swamp belongs to da Sunsplitterz now!"
His hunters took up the chant, repeating their tribe's name over and over and over again while waving their weapons in the air and dancing around.

"And now... now we's gonna put up a camp up 'ere for sum real gud huntin'!"
Even as his followers started to spread out to fetch logs and sticks for their encampment, deep in his heart Prophet Squinteye knew the missing trickster would be seen again.

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A victory for the Sunsplitterz!

I scored 1 Glory Point for winning the game, as well as 3 extra points for accomplishing my first Secret Objective: the Glorious Underdog. By defeating an army with more muster points than myself, I have managed to kick off this campaign with a healthy stack of 4 Glory Points!

I also received one Build Point from my Domain Cards and 2 more from the battle itself, giving me 3 Build Points to spend on improving my Domain.

I used 1 Build Point to build a Garrison in the Vitriolic Swamps and 2 Build Points to add a Fortified Camp to my Domain Deck. Chaos also added a card to their Domain Deck and built a Garrison in the Parching Wastes.

After the Battle of the Vitriolic Swamps the Realmgate disappeared from the Infinity Gears, shifting through space and time to reappear in the Sporehollows.

This was the very first battle of our Firestorm Campaign, be sure to follow the progress of the war in the Firestorm Campaign landing page!