A Tale of Treachery

Triumph & Treachery at Warhmmer World

On 21 and 22 October I've joined a bunch of great hobbists at Warhammer World for the Triumph & Treachery II event. The event used the Triumph & Treachery rules fro multi-player battles from the General's Handbook 2017. Although I had not used them before, I knew I was in for a treat, as with all the narrative game rules GW has been realising lately. And I wasn't disappointed! We were also given a deck of cards for all the Secret Objectives and Treacherous Acts you can use in game. They're a really nice little kit I'm sure I'll use in plenty more games.

For my army, I took my recently finished Free Companies, bumping them up to 1000 points with the addition of Gudrun's Grudgebreakers, my tribute to Long Drong's Slayers, and their ship cook Steve 'Seagull' with his Kitchen Crew. Who doesn't love an old style Halfling Hot Pot Catapult?

The two days were an absolute blast of laughter, with plenty of 'Shenanings!' shouts as people scrambled for their Treacherous Acts cards and hatched all kind of mischief on their opponents. I was so taken in the games that I often forgot to take pictures, but here are some from my first game, featuring the dreaded Mongo by Nigel Bartlett (Best Army Winner), some disgusting servants of Nurgle by Rob Nixon (Triumph Champion) and a 60-strong Moonclan Grot horde that really was scary!

I wanted to show the character of my Free Companies throughout the event. As mercenaries, that was easy. It was just a matter of selling my services to any other army in need of help or some extra arms...until it suited me of course! This lead to some really funny moments.
As we were playing Battle for the Artefact, a Lord of Change grabbed the artefact and tried to run away. I slowed it down with a Treacherous Act, making it stop exactly where I needed it, close to a Baleful Realmgate. As we rolled for initiative, I agreed for a truce with the player most of my units were engaged in combat if he let me have the next turn so that I could get to the Lord of Change. He won the roll off and stuck to his part of the deal. I moved Gudrun, a Dispossesed Unforged, through another Realmgate and he safely came out of the other, 3.5" away from the Greater Deamon. For good measure, in the shooting phase I shoot all I had at the guy that let me have the turn. And then Gudrun charged the Lord of Change brandishing his Relic Blade. We both played Treacherous Acts to boost combat skills, but they canceled each other out. Gudrun still hit on 3s. Out of 6 attacks, 5 hit, then 4 wounded. Tzeentch was looking the other way as the Lord of Change failed to save all of them. The Relic Blade doubled Gudrun's Damage to 2, and as he was fighting a CHAOS model, that was doubled again. 4x2x2=16 wounds...And the Lord of Change vanished back to the Realm of Chaos! Pity I was so excited about the whole thing and didn't take a single picture. But I did for the other epic moment.

Gudrun, Steve 'Seagull' and his Kitchen Crew were charged by a Mournghoul. Nasty beast that! The revenant quickly dispatched Gudrun, but then, the Halflings put up a surprising resistance (bad dices for the Mournghoul, good ones for the Halflings, you know). This gave time for a retinue of Stormcast Paladins I was allied with to move in. They pounded the revenant and then moved on, leaving Steve as the only survivor.

I had Kingslayer as my secret objective and the Lord Celestant leading the Paladins was already wounded...so Steve took at shot at him. After all, it was not the Lord Celestant that had saved him and the orders were clear: kill the enemy leaders! As usually, however, even if he needed 3+ to hit and can re-rolls ones, I rolled a 2.

These, and countless more acts of backstabbing, won a name for the Free Companies, even if they didn't win a single battle. But, at the end of the day...guess what? I had been voted the Most Treacherous Opponent by two, if not three, of the other players I faced in each of the five games!

Now, getting the trophy was a big satisfaction, but the biggest price was having a lot of fun playing against really cool armies. Just look at them on the the pictures taken by the Event Team people! If you're curious to see who the talented painters and crafty generals that shared in the day triumphs are, go here.
And if you ever have the chance, don't miss on the opportunity to join events at Warhammer World. It is really a great experience.