How to lose the game in deployment

I played another test game a few days ago, and I really messed up. I was thinking what I should write about this game as writing a long battle-report did not seem that useful. The reason for that being I got careless and did not analyze my opponent’s army before deploying.

He was running one ranged and three close combat Knights of House Krast, with two Helverines and a Culexus. I had not really played against close combat knights in a while and forgot how fucking fast they are, and to a lesser extent, how much damage they do.

I knew my Disco Lords where central in this match-up, because they were one of the few things I had that could really hurt the knights. The Deredeos are great but AP1 was going to be a problem with 2+ and 3+ saves on the knights.

That leads me to the reason for writing this post, my deployment. In my last 11 games with Disco Lords I haven’t really faced any army that can (and want to) charge my deployment turn 1, because of that I’ve put my Disco Lords in front of or to the side of my Plaguebearer screen every game. So out of habit I did the same again, I did so knowingly that my opponent would get +1 to the roll to determine who goes first.

It is because of my inability to see that by deploying the way that I did I would lose my most important pieces for the game

Because of this, I lost both Disco Lords turn 1 when a 2+ knight charged into them after softening them up with some Helverine fire-support. It is because of my inability to see that by deploying the way that I did I would lose my most important pieces for the game. And that’s what happened, I managed to stay in front in terms of points until round 4 (was 19-19 then) but round 5 I lost my whole army because I had only managed to kill two knights and not decreased their deadliness enough to save myself. The game ended with a loss, 19-32.

Sure, I made some good plays. Like deep-striking a Plaguebearer block in a line covering his whole deployment, charging and tying up two Helverines, securing all objectives on the board and the bonus for that turn. However, in the end none of that could really save me from my arrogance and myself during deployment. Lesson learned (again), protect your win conditions!