#111 Battle XXVII - Ride of the Vampires

It felt good to come back to Age of Sigmar after being distracted by Kill Team for a while. In fact, I think this was one of our most enjoyable games of AoS ever! We went for 1250 points to keep things 'brief' and I decided to try out a 100% vampire list, which was fun and (equally importantly!) greatly simplified things from a rules perspective!

Owen was delightfully intimidated by my aggressive deployment! Sadly the Blood Knights couldn't quite live up to their reputation.

It was a great game, very closely fought and too close to call until turn four. I made a stupid mistake of charging my Vampire Lord in rather than holding her back to keep her safe. I'm not sure whether it cost me the game, but loosing all my heroes severely limited my options.

Victory for Owen, but only marginally. That Stardrake was just too hard to kill (again!).

The images of distant battle reflected in the blood pool finally faded and Lady Beauvoir smiled. Tes had proved herself at significant personal cost. 

Lady Beauvoir had had her suspicions about the elegant vampire ever since she joined the Bloody Pilgrims. Suspicions shared with Anya and ultimately confirmed by Tes herself: she was a servant of the Legion of Night, an agent of a secret cabal that called itself the Brotherhood of Mannfred. The Brotherhood had succeeded in infiltrating all of the Soulblight factions in Barfunweltz. This explained a lot to Beauvoir, but it also highlighted the weakness of the Legion of Blood’s position in Barfunweltz. The Bloody Pilgrims had lost their thrall city, Salas Nova, to the Foolish Martyrs, and the Disciples of the Red Redemption had fallen to the delusion of the Raptured Court. The Pilgrims were once again exclusively a force in the shadows, agents of deceit.

Meanwhile Sir Jean de Majeure, through the Brotherhood’s agents, had gathered vital intelligence regarding the progeny of Elohiim and the False Apostle. He had proof that they were in fact their own - blood kin of the Von Carsteins. But Tes had become disillusioned with the Brotherhood and claimed that her true allegiance lady with the Bloody Pilgrims of the Legion of Blood. So she had offered herself to Beauvoir as a double agent. 

Beauvoir knew better than to trust her of course - Tes had probably suspected she was about to be unmasked and was saving her own skin. So Beauvoir had given her a mission to test her: The Brotherhood’s strongest grip was over the Pontifex’s Crusaders, so Tes was tasked with persuading a force of Blood Knights to attack the Gravewalkers on the edge of Barfun Moor. She was instructed to complete various tasks within that battle to weaken the Brotherhood, not least involving her own defeat.

Thus Tes had proved her worth to the Throne Behind the Power.