#90 Battle XVI - Bane of the Gravewalkers

I was very keen to give the new Nighthaunt battletome a go as I've never actually won a battle with my ghosties! With new rules to remember we wanted to keep the game simple so we limited ourselves to 1500 points and rolled an Open Play battleplan - Arcane Prize (mystery objective in the centre of the battlefield which you have to capture and take back to your territory). Bukligger the Gargoyle seemed like a suitably narrative counter to use.

Bukligger rummaged through his casket of gold, greedily eying each trinket in turn and arranging them carefully upon the muddy ground. He had done this a thousand times, but he did so love his precious treasures. Finally he found his favourite: a golden ring set with a huge, blood-red gem carved into the shape of a rose. As a magically animated creature himself, he was well able to recognise its arcane nature - and not just because of the fresh blood which occasionally seeped out of the stone. Lady Beauvoir herself had given him the chest of gold in exchange for information, but he suspected she might not have known about the bloody ring hidden among the coins and jewellery.

Too late, the gargoyle sensed two very different presences approaching. From one side, the familiar chill of the Procession of the Foolish Martyrs; from the other, the searing glare of the hated Gravewalkers. Frantically, he scrabbled in the dirt, stone fingers trying to collect his treasures before making his escape. But he was too late: in an instant, the Nighthaunt spectres were all around him, tearing into the Stormcast Eternals. To his intense alarm, he quickly realised that both sides seemed to be fighting over... him!

Knight Incantor Aralus the Farsighted glanced across the moorland. An untrained eye would have thought a cold mist was rolling rapidly towards them. "The Procession of the Foolish Martyrs," he murmured, "we haven't had the pleasure for a while. I presume they're here for the same thing as us."

A hundred paces ahead of them in the grass he could see movement. What appeared to be a small, oddly-shaped rock was moving around as if it were alive. He wasn't sure what it was exactly, but he could sense it was at the location of the arcane object they had come to retrieve.

"Forward!" he cried, and despite the chill creeping into their reforged hearts, the Gravewalkers ran to meet the rolling mist. 

Even as the Stormstrike Chariot crashed into the front rank of Nighthaunt, Yndrasta and her Annihilator companions appeared out of the heavens at the spectres' rear. Undaunted, the gheists swarmed over the Gravewalkers, who found their limbs strangely heavy and their weapons uncharacteristically ineffective. 

Procession and Stormcast charged and counter-charged. And though the Nighthaunt dwindled, they were tenaciously persistent. Even the Light of Eltharion seemed hampered by the ethereal terrors. Flickering in and out of sight, the spectres spirited away the gargloye and its arcane treasure, passing on like a swirling mist and leaving the baffled Gravewalkers to count their casualties.

We were limited for time and had to stop at the end of turn two, but we rolled for turn three priority and I won. As my Dreadblade Harrow was already in possession of Bukligger the Gargoyle, we agreed it was reasonable to assume that the Procession of the Foolish Martyrs would win, as it would be easy for him to evade the Gravewalkers thanks to his Discorporate ability. My first ever Nighthaunt victory! (PS multiple Nighthaunt charges are appropriately terrifying!)

The Confessor approached his master the Zealot, both mounted upon their ethereal steeds. The Knight of Shroud's voice was a zephyr of malice: "You have the Blood Ring?"

Without a word, the Confessor stretched out a skeletal hand, revealing a golden ring which seemed to float upon his spectral palm. The Zealot took it and held it up before his glowing eye sockets. "The Blood Ring of the False Apostle is ours," he hissed, "the Procession of the Foolish Martyrs are the true lords of Barfunwletz - and the Bane of the Gravewalkers!"

#91 BATTLE XVII - FOR THE LOVE OF AETHER-GOLD