Thanatos gives me the first deployment and activation. Zaal stands in the center, a little back behind the action. The Immortals and Krea stand to his left, while the Swordsmen and Cannoneer stand to the right. In between those two are the Ancestral Guardians, ready to gain souls from the dying Praetorians.
Facing my left flank is a building, a pile of crates and a hill near the center.
To the right are more crates and a forested area.
Luke's force was a classic Kreoss pop n' drop, nicely balanced with a full unit of zealots with monolith bearer, an arc node, choir, Temple Flameguard with Unit Attachment, and Dartan Vilmon with a pal. My two ranged beasts probably weren't going to get too many opportunities to shoot at anything overly squishy.
I try to close in. My Swordsmen run to cover my beasts, who stay close behind. The Ancestral Guardians fail charge to move ahead more quickly.
Zaal casts Last Stand on the Immortals and my statues try to cover my running (and riled!) Krea.
Luke tries to slow the pace by advancing in Shield Wall with Dartan running his Invincible self down my right flank. If I wasn't careful I was going to become engaged with the Paladin Lord long before his brick of shields ever caught up.
The Redeemer advances and spends focus hoping for lucky shots. It is not that lucky and kills nothing.
Zealots take the hill and stare down my statue warriors. With low DEF and high ARM, my Immortals and Guardians are perfect fire bomb targets.
The Ancestral Guardians attempt to charge the Zealots on the hill. Predictably, they are out of range and fail. Zaal's troops start to spread out while the Awakened Spirit on the Basilisk Krea starts to defend.
His animus hits a Zealot, slowing him and those around him down, while at the same time the Basilisk's aura protects the nearest models around her from ranged attacks. It might not be enough against deviating rockets, but it will have to do.
Anticipating a barrage of artillery from the single Redeemer, the Swordsmen adopt a skirmish formation. Now only lucky deviations will take out multiple Swordsmen in a turn. Two of them take the hill to discourage attempts by the Redeemer to boost shots onto them.
Not close enough for a Ready Stance order with the Perfect Strike ability. Add Follow Through and the two swords, and the Temple Flameguard should consider themselves lucky enough to be too far away for a preventive strike.
Vilmon continues to harry the flank and the Temple Flameguard hold the center while advancing behind their Shield Wall.
The Redeemer is finally in range! Enhanced by choir songs, Skyhammer rockets begin to eliminate the lightly armed Swordsmen.
Zaal transfers the souls to the Ancestral Guardians. Throughout the game they manage to nearly reach capacity due to the dying Swordsmen.
Between the Krea and the Cannoneer covering Zaal, I try to shoot the crap out of those Shield Walled Temple Flameguard. I manage to eliminate a few Protectorate models, but the Krea's effect is at least enough to keep them from crashing into my lines. Getting Zaal set on Fire at this point would be a very bad thing indeed.
Holy Zealots prove their worth to the Lawbringer by tying down the living ancestors of the Skorne with melee attacks. Greater Destiny protects them from the living statues' Retaliatory Strikes.
The Temple Flameguard start to wheel in their Shield Wall and elevate themselves to further increase their DEF to ranged attacks. More and more I wish I had used my Ready Stance at some point in this game. Then my Swordsmen could counter any movement of the Shield Wall with an attack or movement of their own.
On higher ground, the Krea withstands a barrage of Skyhammer rockets and lives to fight another day.
Stray rockets continue to fuel the statues with souls.
Firebombs rip the second Ancestral Guardian to pieces only to reveal the dreaded Kovass. Incorporeal, the ghostly figure threatens Kreoss with its spirit heavy with souls.
Zaal casts enough spells to eliminate the dangerous High Paladin Dartan Vilmon.
The Immortals clear out the Monolith Bearer and the Kovass slowly approaches Kreoss. The Ancestral Guardian uses its soul tokens to eliminate some of the models engaging it in melee.
Kreoss summons Menoth's Wrath and nearly all the models are knocked down. The Titan Cannoneer is knocked down, but Aptimus Zaal remains standing.
The Zealots run, triggering freestrikes. They make their CMD check and one manages to get in range of Zaal and hit him with a Firebomb. He transfers the damage.
Redeemer rockets target the Knocked Down Titan, but fail to destroy him or Zaal.
Kreoss's Revenger approaches from the crates and Kreoss Immolates Aptimus Zaal until the heretic dies.
