My List:
Grissel Bloodsong
* Troll Axer
* Mulg the Ancient
* Trollkin Runebearer
Krielstone Bearer and 3 Stone Scribes
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer
2x Runeshapers
Trollkin Warders (Leader and 4 Grunts)
Fell Caller Hero
Stone Scribe Chronicler
His List:
Captain Caine
-Hammer Jack
-Squire
Gun Mages w/ UA
-Hunter
Tempest Blazers
Boomhowlers (max)
Eiryss2
Reinholdt
Aiyana & Holt
(maybe a missing solo?)
Scenario:
Incoming
Terrain:
Central hill, obstruction in front of his zone on my side, hill in front of my zone on my side, obstruction on his side of my zone, forest on the left side of his zone (from my side).
Match Assessment:
Looking at the board, I felt like my Fennblades were likely not long for this world. I went first, so I just had to take my chances. I placed my army to put a lot of pressure on his zone in hopes that I could wrack up a ton of scenario pressure. My fear was not getting enough time to really get lots of work out of the Fenns. However, Grissel's feat allows me to cover a ton of distance, so I thought maybe I could at least get in with the mini feat, cause Terror checks, and at least control what they could do.
Looking at the Warders, I felt only Caine on feat turn, the Hunter, and the Hammersmith could reliably harm them without Aiyana. Luckily, the Hammersmith's threat is lower than the Warders, so that was predictable. I wanted to try to get the Hunter particularly off the board when possible.
My Fennblades went mostly central, somewhat in my zone, so they could sweep across, while the Warders went straight towards the middle of his zone with Mulg. I took the Runeshapers up the center, and Grissel moved to where she could get into either zone quickly to begin getting scenario pressure.
He deployed his Gun Mages across the Warders (sweet!) with the Fenns and Boomies dancing, so I felt like this was an advantageous matchup (mostly). The Blazers were also across from the Warders on my left, so the Boomies went towards my zone. Everything else was fairly central.
Game Time!
Our first turns were mostly just a ton of running. I struggled to get Mulg around the building because I took him down the wrong way at first. The Warders got Hoof It to get way across the board, while the Fenns swept up the center. Everything else just sort of positioned to try to cover space as well as possible. I dumped 5 in the stone, forgetting to put Hallowed Avenger on Mulg (whoops).
He mostly ran up, getting 2 or so Boomies into my zone. Ryan of the B13 shot a Mage Storm which clipped 2 of his Boomies, but they both Toughed, and now there was a Mage Storm directly where I wanted my guys going. Frack. The Hunter removed a single Runeshaper, but everything else just ran.
Most of my work this turn was on the Boomies. A Rift and 2 Runeshaper shots deviated horribly (the 4 EVERY TIME) to miss all the Gun Mages except maybe 1. I thought I had decent odds of killing 3-4 potentially because of clustering and volume of shots. I killed 5 Boomies, but the one in the zone toughed 5 or so times (feat turn), which meant I couldn't attain my original objective of clearing the zone, jamming with the Fenns, and scoring in my zone on his Turn 2 to get off to a fast start. Otherwise, I still jammed the crap out of him, although he passed every Terror check (doh). I left more Gun Mages on the board than desired, but they mostly had to commit to killing Fennblades because of jamming, which I could work with.
Because of my jamming, he decided to go for a bottom of 2 assassination. He cleared a lot of intervening Fenns and moved Caine to start shooting at Grissel with his feat. Grissel was on a 3 camp, in the stone, which he all but cleared because my positioning sucked and I gave him easy electroleaps. However, this was an all-or-nothing, because Caine could not Gatecrash due to my feat.
After all was said and done, Caine hit on about 6/10 shots, but damage rolls didn't help him out much, so I transferred maybe 1 shot, and he conceded since Mulg was about 4" away on a 0 camp Caine. I rolled it out, and would have 1-shotted him (I boosted damage cause I'm an ass).
Post-Game:
Despite a fairly quick win, I wasn't happy with my play and positioning. The buildings on the board gave me a huge amount of trouble, unfortunately, since medium bases clog the board so much. I probably should have taken the Fennblades up into his zone and Warders centrally, which would have run the risk of losing a lot of Fenns, but it I could bait him into triggering Vengeance, I could get the Fenns so far across the board it was obscene by my Turn 2, with a possible scenario jam out.
I kept Mulg out of the game because of my own shoddy positioning, and had he taken it he could've likely removed Mulg. I had him too far from Grissel so that he wasn't well protected by the feat, but probably in range of the Hammersmith and Aiyana. I wasn't happy about that, but I know part of it was the buildings. The buildings presented a little jamming point in the center (where the Mage Storm landed) that I struggled to get around.
The game was mostly a good education in positioning better for me, trying to not keep my key pieces out of the game. I think Mulg's coming out of my list though, and moving to Borka, so I'll have a new positioning game to work on!
Showing posts with label Battle Report. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Battle Report. Show all posts
Monday, September 15, 2014
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Battle Report, Trolls vs. Skorne, 9-3-2014
My List:
Borka Kegslayer, Shaman of Dhunia
- Keggy (Timmy)
- Mauler
- Impaler
- Pyre
max Posse
max Fenns + UA
max Burrowers
min Stone + UA
Fell Caller Hero
Fennblade Kithkar
Stone Scribe Chronicler
His List:
Xerxis, Fury of Halaak
-Marketh
-Archidon (Bonded)
-Gladiator
-KAAAAAAARN!
-Drake
-Krea
max Reivers + UA
Willbreaker, I think?
2x min Handlers
Might be a solo or a small unit missing, but I think this is it. He had a few proxies, so I'm trying to keep them separate in my brainbox.
Terrain:
From my perspective: Forest on the far right, on his side of his zone. Small house/obstruction central, hill on the right side, slightly closer to me than his zone. Hill on the closest side of my zone to him. Maybe a small forest on my side, but had no game effect.
Scenario:
Rectangular scenarios oriented long ways across the board, central objectives on either side. Can't remember the name.
Match Assessment:
Oof. I felt like there's a lot of beef to chew through. I like the speed of my list, and the fact that I go first feels huge for getting board positioning. However, the Reivers are a solid enough counter to my infantry swarm, the Drake can spray them, and Karn can rocket around a lot. That combo is fairly nervewracking.
That said, Iron Flesh and Tale of Mists put my guys at anywhere from DEF 14-18 depending on stacking, meaning that his Reivers will struggle somewhat, and Tough is always nice when it hits. Karn can chew apart guys, but lack of reach elsewhere means that with good spread, I might be able to limit his ability to get multiple targets with some beasts.
I really like the fact that my ability to self-buff with Pyre and Mauler means that my Fenns or Dygmies can get a lot of work done on any of his beasts, though. This means that those guys can get some beast-killing work done.
Deployment:
I throw Borka central with Keggy next to him, Gators to eat up space in my zone, Fenns to the right, and the beasts trailing a hair behind with the support staff. Burrowers end up centrally AD.
He puts Xerxis center, Molik on his zone, Gladiator central also, Archidon on the left, Reivers on the left. Support staff coming in behind. Krea goes rightish of center, Drake a bit to the left.
Game Time!
Thankfully, I won to go first, which means I can top off the stone easily. I burrowed the Dygmies (mistake), ran the Gators their 10, and ran the Fenns their 12, trying to get a wide spread on my units to protect them. Iron Flesh on the Gators and top off the Stone, while my Impaler and Pyre move left to get ready to shoot into the Reivers. Borka stays central, moving up towards the obstruction.
He runs forward his Reivers to stay out of Gator range, with his Archidon behind them. Xerxis advances forward and a little towards his zone to get Mobility up. Gladiator stays central, near his objective, while Karn hides behind the forest on the right side (fantastic move by my opponent). Krea puts up Aura and parks near Xerxis, while the Drake advances a bit forward. Karn was able to ping pong throughout the game from this point due to Mobility; it was very intelligent and heads up combo and positioning on his part that was consistently troublesome.
The Dygmies came out, and I decided to make a few aggressive moves. The Gators charged/ran (one charged, shorting by 1/2" or so) on a Reiver, while Borka feated and the Dygmies charged up. Borka + the Pyre failed to catch anything in deviations shooting at the Reivers, sadly. The Dygmies did their best on the Drake, needing 7's to hit, but left him with a single HP left with 3 of them getting him. One got the Glad, but whiffed both (Fell Called, btw). The Fenns spread heavily, with one or two engaging Karn to annoy him, and the rest spreading wildly to prevent Karn from getting too many good targets. The Kithkar toed his zone, my near left corner, and I made a mistake with IF on the Gators. It was an OK target, but not really optimal; Dygmies or Fenns might've been better.
He feated to help himself out and started shooting. He took a bunch of single wound off, reducing the Dygmies to about 3ish models left. The Fenns lost about 4-5 all told, I believe. One Gator was reduced to 2 HP, but that was about it. He didn't shift much positioning, so the Reivers were contesting my zone, the Archidon was threatening my zone but out of my range, the Drake was fairly central with the Glad, and Xerxis was fairly far back (no killbox) on 0 camp. Karn behind a forest.
The Fenns vengeance set up charge angles on Karn, as did Righteous. After 2 Fenns and a Raged Kithkar, Karn lost about... Maybe 8-10 boxes at most? At D-2, my Kithkar did 4 damage on 2 attacks. Diiiiice. But I kept a good spread (12" Fenn Command, woot!) that minimized his ability to remove too many. The Gators cleared about half the Reivers, while the Pyre Troll finished the Drake from range. Not much else, just holding firm and not giving too much. I brought Borka centrally to get him more involved, because Borka gives no fucks.
He killed off a Gator, brought the Dygmies to 1 guy left, and killed a few Fenns. Paralyzed the officer to prevent charges. The remaining Dygmy toughed twice to cancel the Archidon's sprint (woot woot).
At this point, I decided to engage Borka is a Beast mode and he destroyed the crap out of the Gladiator. Rage + Stone Strength is rough on Borka. At straight dice, rolled 16 on the charge, then 2 more killed him. Iron Fleshed myself, and fortuitously whacked the Krea, causing Brain Damage and disabling his ability to cast animi for a turn. The Gators chomped hard, not quite killing the Archidon, but close.
Because of my aggressive Borka play, he realized he needed to kill Borka quickly or it was going to roll downhill fast. Borka was getting less killable very, very quickly. He clogged up Borka, and cleared some lanes. Xerxis did some work on Borka, forcing one transfer on the charge, and Karn forced the other transfer, but only left Borka on 2 damage, with about 14 or so transferred onto the Mauler (from 2 transfers). Borka decided to show Xerxis what hitting hard means, and finished what Grayle started.
Post-Game:
Lining up against Xerxis2 for the first time, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. I've faced Reivers enough to be wary, knowing that they can do some serious damage from shooting. I probably brought a few Fennblades too far over towards the Reivers, letting him do more work shooting them than I liked, but it wasn't too bad.
I was able to get a lot of board control because of the speed of my guys. That worked to my advantage, giving me the ability to push the battle well across the middle of the board. Had I played it, I could have put a lot of scenario pressure from dominating my friendly zone. I was able to effectively stall him out on his scenario zone, giving me time to take my own. However, to test Borka out a bit, I made a more conscious decision to play aggressively, putting Borka more central into my 3rd and 4th turns, because I need to know how far I can push him.
I was extremely happy with my ability to stall for time on Karn. I know I'm going to lose a few guys a turn to Karn, that's just life. However, I was able to space Karn out to needing 3-4 turns to clear my Fenns, buying me plenty of time to clear up the left flank if need be, or to bring Borka out to exert a lot of pressure. It's a little startling to realize exactly how brutal Borka's board presence can be once the number of answers to the big guy himself start shrinking.
I made life harder on my end, however, by burrowing Turn 1. Sure, it let me lock up and kill the drake, but I could probably have Turn 1 ran (just a few inches) with Iron Flesh and Tale of Mist, then Turn 2 burrow and shred his lines. It took a lot of pressure off of the Gators, however, so it may have still been the better play. A turn 2 burrow is nearly impossible for the opponent to avoid, though, so it's worth testing further. The Reivers would have had a very hard time, though, trying to hit DEF 18 (Iron Flesh + ToMist), making it a relatively safe play.
My opponent played very tightly, using Karn very effectively, but a couple of timely tough rolls and Borka's emergence to exert an influence on the board put him in a bind. He played Karn very well, using him to scalpel out at low risk. He took good shots with the Reivers and did some very good work there, as well. Sprint coming onto Karn over and over from Xerxis gave him a lot of good mobility and the ability to preserve Karn.
Mostly, this game ended up coming down to Borka's ability to exert an influence once he becomes active. With Rage, Stone Strength, and the Fell Caller he removes most models from the board, while being nigh unkillable himself.
Borka Kegslayer, Shaman of Dhunia
- Keggy (Timmy)
- Mauler
- Impaler
- Pyre
max Posse
max Fenns + UA
max Burrowers
min Stone + UA
Fell Caller Hero
Fennblade Kithkar
Stone Scribe Chronicler
His List:
Xerxis, Fury of Halaak
-Marketh
-Archidon (Bonded)
-Gladiator
-KAAAAAAARN!
-Drake
-Krea
max Reivers + UA
Willbreaker, I think?
2x min Handlers
Might be a solo or a small unit missing, but I think this is it. He had a few proxies, so I'm trying to keep them separate in my brainbox.
Terrain:
From my perspective: Forest on the far right, on his side of his zone. Small house/obstruction central, hill on the right side, slightly closer to me than his zone. Hill on the closest side of my zone to him. Maybe a small forest on my side, but had no game effect.
Scenario:
Rectangular scenarios oriented long ways across the board, central objectives on either side. Can't remember the name.
Match Assessment:
Oof. I felt like there's a lot of beef to chew through. I like the speed of my list, and the fact that I go first feels huge for getting board positioning. However, the Reivers are a solid enough counter to my infantry swarm, the Drake can spray them, and Karn can rocket around a lot. That combo is fairly nervewracking.
That said, Iron Flesh and Tale of Mists put my guys at anywhere from DEF 14-18 depending on stacking, meaning that his Reivers will struggle somewhat, and Tough is always nice when it hits. Karn can chew apart guys, but lack of reach elsewhere means that with good spread, I might be able to limit his ability to get multiple targets with some beasts.
I really like the fact that my ability to self-buff with Pyre and Mauler means that my Fenns or Dygmies can get a lot of work done on any of his beasts, though. This means that those guys can get some beast-killing work done.
Deployment:
I throw Borka central with Keggy next to him, Gators to eat up space in my zone, Fenns to the right, and the beasts trailing a hair behind with the support staff. Burrowers end up centrally AD.
He puts Xerxis center, Molik on his zone, Gladiator central also, Archidon on the left, Reivers on the left. Support staff coming in behind. Krea goes rightish of center, Drake a bit to the left.
Game Time!
Thankfully, I won to go first, which means I can top off the stone easily. I burrowed the Dygmies (mistake), ran the Gators their 10, and ran the Fenns their 12, trying to get a wide spread on my units to protect them. Iron Flesh on the Gators and top off the Stone, while my Impaler and Pyre move left to get ready to shoot into the Reivers. Borka stays central, moving up towards the obstruction.
He runs forward his Reivers to stay out of Gator range, with his Archidon behind them. Xerxis advances forward and a little towards his zone to get Mobility up. Gladiator stays central, near his objective, while Karn hides behind the forest on the right side (fantastic move by my opponent). Krea puts up Aura and parks near Xerxis, while the Drake advances a bit forward. Karn was able to ping pong throughout the game from this point due to Mobility; it was very intelligent and heads up combo and positioning on his part that was consistently troublesome.
The Dygmies came out, and I decided to make a few aggressive moves. The Gators charged/ran (one charged, shorting by 1/2" or so) on a Reiver, while Borka feated and the Dygmies charged up. Borka + the Pyre failed to catch anything in deviations shooting at the Reivers, sadly. The Dygmies did their best on the Drake, needing 7's to hit, but left him with a single HP left with 3 of them getting him. One got the Glad, but whiffed both (Fell Called, btw). The Fenns spread heavily, with one or two engaging Karn to annoy him, and the rest spreading wildly to prevent Karn from getting too many good targets. The Kithkar toed his zone, my near left corner, and I made a mistake with IF on the Gators. It was an OK target, but not really optimal; Dygmies or Fenns might've been better.
He feated to help himself out and started shooting. He took a bunch of single wound off, reducing the Dygmies to about 3ish models left. The Fenns lost about 4-5 all told, I believe. One Gator was reduced to 2 HP, but that was about it. He didn't shift much positioning, so the Reivers were contesting my zone, the Archidon was threatening my zone but out of my range, the Drake was fairly central with the Glad, and Xerxis was fairly far back (no killbox) on 0 camp. Karn behind a forest.
The Fenns vengeance set up charge angles on Karn, as did Righteous. After 2 Fenns and a Raged Kithkar, Karn lost about... Maybe 8-10 boxes at most? At D-2, my Kithkar did 4 damage on 2 attacks. Diiiiice. But I kept a good spread (12" Fenn Command, woot!) that minimized his ability to remove too many. The Gators cleared about half the Reivers, while the Pyre Troll finished the Drake from range. Not much else, just holding firm and not giving too much. I brought Borka centrally to get him more involved, because Borka gives no fucks.
He killed off a Gator, brought the Dygmies to 1 guy left, and killed a few Fenns. Paralyzed the officer to prevent charges. The remaining Dygmy toughed twice to cancel the Archidon's sprint (woot woot).
At this point, I decided to engage Borka is a Beast mode and he destroyed the crap out of the Gladiator. Rage + Stone Strength is rough on Borka. At straight dice, rolled 16 on the charge, then 2 more killed him. Iron Fleshed myself, and fortuitously whacked the Krea, causing Brain Damage and disabling his ability to cast animi for a turn. The Gators chomped hard, not quite killing the Archidon, but close.
Because of my aggressive Borka play, he realized he needed to kill Borka quickly or it was going to roll downhill fast. Borka was getting less killable very, very quickly. He clogged up Borka, and cleared some lanes. Xerxis did some work on Borka, forcing one transfer on the charge, and Karn forced the other transfer, but only left Borka on 2 damage, with about 14 or so transferred onto the Mauler (from 2 transfers). Borka decided to show Xerxis what hitting hard means, and finished what Grayle started.
Post-Game:
Lining up against Xerxis2 for the first time, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. I've faced Reivers enough to be wary, knowing that they can do some serious damage from shooting. I probably brought a few Fennblades too far over towards the Reivers, letting him do more work shooting them than I liked, but it wasn't too bad.
I was able to get a lot of board control because of the speed of my guys. That worked to my advantage, giving me the ability to push the battle well across the middle of the board. Had I played it, I could have put a lot of scenario pressure from dominating my friendly zone. I was able to effectively stall him out on his scenario zone, giving me time to take my own. However, to test Borka out a bit, I made a more conscious decision to play aggressively, putting Borka more central into my 3rd and 4th turns, because I need to know how far I can push him.
I was extremely happy with my ability to stall for time on Karn. I know I'm going to lose a few guys a turn to Karn, that's just life. However, I was able to space Karn out to needing 3-4 turns to clear my Fenns, buying me plenty of time to clear up the left flank if need be, or to bring Borka out to exert a lot of pressure. It's a little startling to realize exactly how brutal Borka's board presence can be once the number of answers to the big guy himself start shrinking.
I made life harder on my end, however, by burrowing Turn 1. Sure, it let me lock up and kill the drake, but I could probably have Turn 1 ran (just a few inches) with Iron Flesh and Tale of Mist, then Turn 2 burrow and shred his lines. It took a lot of pressure off of the Gators, however, so it may have still been the better play. A turn 2 burrow is nearly impossible for the opponent to avoid, though, so it's worth testing further. The Reivers would have had a very hard time, though, trying to hit DEF 18 (Iron Flesh + ToMist), making it a relatively safe play.
My opponent played very tightly, using Karn very effectively, but a couple of timely tough rolls and Borka's emergence to exert an influence on the board put him in a bind. He played Karn very well, using him to scalpel out at low risk. He took good shots with the Reivers and did some very good work there, as well. Sprint coming onto Karn over and over from Xerxis gave him a lot of good mobility and the ability to preserve Karn.
Mostly, this game ended up coming down to Borka's ability to exert an influence once he becomes active. With Rage, Stone Strength, and the Fell Caller he removes most models from the board, while being nigh unkillable himself.
Monday, September 1, 2014
Battle Report, Trolls vs. Cygnar, 8-27-14
Back on the horse! Time to get some battle reports going again. I'll have another post discussing my trip to Iowa (not in huge detail, but generally) coming up soon, but I wanna get the battle reports going first, since that's my main focus for the time being.
My List:
Grissel Bloodsong (*5pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer (2pts)
Trollkin Scattergunners (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
* Trollkin Scattergunner Officer & Drummer (2pts)
Trollkin Warders (Leader and 4 Grunts) (8pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
Stone Scribe Chronicler (2pts)
His List:
Commander Dalin Sturgis (*6pts)
* Ol' Rowdy (9pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Horgenhold Forge Guard (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Sword Knights (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Tempest Blazers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (10pts)
Captain Arlan Strangewayes (2pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Journeyman Warcaster (3pts)
Lieutnant Allison Jakes (3pts)
* Centurion (9pts)
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord (2pts)
Terrain:
Forest on my near left, hill on my near right, forest on the far right (his near left), something else on the far left from me, hill somewhat central.
Scenario:
Rally Point
Match Assessment:
Well rounded list on his part, has hitting power, has some utility. My list isn't an armor list, despite the Warders and Mulg, so I'm not going to try to overwhelm him with being unable to crack. The Blazers are a problem; luckily, they don't ignore concealment, so Tale of Mists helps. I decided to put the Fenns against them and tempt fate, just going balls to the wall forward with them, in hopes that enough survive that I can do some serious damage to the Blazers.
Unfortunately, the Blazers are just flat out a problem. However, my hope is that if I can slow up the Knights and Forge Guard with Cacophany/Warders, I can try to clear the Centurion and Rowdy over time and then the Blazers will struggle with Mulg.
Gorman is the usual problem, and Sturgis has Snipe. Assballs.
Deployment:
Warders left, Grissel central with Mulg and Axer, support just behind her, Fenns right, Scatters far right (mistake here. Should've had the Scatters central to react to wherever he put his infantry. Fenns were there to challenge his zone with speed.).
Sword Knights and Forge Guard opposite my zone, Blazers on his zone, everything else centralish. Scattergunners are now wildly out of position.
Game Time!
First turn: lots o running. Fennblades scream up the board, Scatters behind, Warders rumble up left, all else central, 6 on the stone, popped it and covered most Fenns, didn't care about Warders.
His turn: Lots o Running forward, Shield on Rowdy and the Sword Knights (frustrating, but would've been worse on Rowdy + Centurion. That would've sucked assballs). Blazers get Sniped, shoot my Fenns and Scatters but only hit 1 Fenn (tough) and 1 Scatter (dead) needing 7's to hit (hill and/or forest). Wanted the Fenn dead for Vengeance, oh well. His dice went cold in trying to blast the Fenns.
My turn: Feat, jam hard. Fennblades scream forward into his Blazers, but just out of charge range. Scatters run to get near the Sword Knights and Forge Guard. Warders take "We own this zone" positions, out of his range but in range to hit the far side of the zone. Hooray Cacophany! Position Mulg and Axer to be annoying, jam.
His turn: Clear as much of jam as possible. Shoots up some Fenns, not that badly. Light cavs backwards for protection. Moves up Rowdy and Centurion (Fortify on Centurion btw from Jakes) to occupy space, infantry walk forward. He kills a few Fenns, thats all.
My turn: Rune once per game Calamity on Rowdy lands. Axer charges, does a few. 2x Warders charge, add more. Mulg charges my Scattergunner, plows him with fist, then buys and misses almost all on Centurion. Bad move here: should've just gone for Rowdy. Needed not snakes (Calamity) vs 6's, both of them at D-1. Warders had plowed some damage into Rowdy, so he was a likely kill. Mistake was thinking Centurion was PS 19, not PS 18 for some reason. Lesson learned. Scattergunners and Warders (Warders with extra attack from Grissel) shred Forgeguard and Sword Knights. About 4 Swords dead, about 7-8 Forgeguard. Sweet.
His turn: Feat drags a bunch of people in. He doesn't allocate to Rowdy, thinking Sturgis's feat will give him enough focus, 3 on Centurion from Jakes. Results in Mulg living with 9 HP left with Rowdy only getting 1 from Sturgist feat (2 guys in 3", 1 toughs). Blazers keep shooting up Fenns, with more success, but moot at this point. Sword Knights and Forge Guard wound warders, piss off everyone.
My Turn: all that matters is both jacks died and I cleared most of his infantry. Mulg frenzied but did solid to Rowdy, Axer did too on Rowdy. Warders finished, Grissel said "F all this noise", spiked hard and slapped down the Centurion on 2 rolls. She knows how to roll!
His turn: Tried to shoot up Grissel, missed all but 1 maybe, concedes cause no way to break Mulg now and his army is decimated. I'm on a wounded Mulg, but full Warders, 3-4 Fenns, half Scatters vs his Blazers and 3-4 Sword Knights. And Mulg's about to start eating.
Post-Game:
Mostly played well, a few clear mistakes. I should've just finished off Rowdy with Mulg when I had the chance, which takes his chance to kill Mulg very low. Focused too hard on the Centurion, and made a mistake, simple as that.
Also made a major deployment mistake. Scatters were well out of position, and I had to spend their feat turn running them over to help with the Sword Knights and Forgeguard.
However, along with my last game, I've gotten enough to conclude that I'm not comfortable with the Scatters in this list at the moment. I thought Calamity would fix their problems, but I need it on armor targets too badly, so I'm spreading myself thin. I think I'll be moving to 2x Runeshapers, I just need to manipulate the points to get 1 more besides the Scatters (7 points). I like the fact that the Shapers also give me help against Kayazy, Nyss, etc., which is a struggle point for this list. Magic 7 is significantly more accurate than RAT 5, although the ability to damage multiple moderate-high armor targets is gone. But I think that the value I'll get will be worth it most likely.
I actually played the Fenns vs. Blazers game as well as I could have, I think. I don't know that it was a very good decision, but I was hoping that with him needing 7's to hit, a couple of attacks would miss, and then he needed 7's to kill, making electroleaps riskier. I got a bit dice lucky that he missed 3 of 4 on the Fenns, but a little unlucky in that I toughed; had Vengeance triggered, he might lose a Blazer or two from the Fenns. Dice giveth, dice taketh.
pGrissel is beautifully solid though. I love her game tremendously. I'm mildly debating a return to a previous list iteration, involving 2x Warders rather than Fenns, but I love the speed Fenns give me. The alternative would be 2x min Champs to have a bit of mobility, armor, and hitting power, but not sure it's worth it; the Fenns jamming and forcing my opponents into positioning problems is so much fun.
My List:
Grissel Bloodsong (*5pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer (2pts)
Trollkin Scattergunners (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
* Trollkin Scattergunner Officer & Drummer (2pts)
Trollkin Warders (Leader and 4 Grunts) (8pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
Stone Scribe Chronicler (2pts)
His List:
Commander Dalin Sturgis (*6pts)
* Ol' Rowdy (9pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Horgenhold Forge Guard (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Sword Knights (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Tempest Blazers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (10pts)
Captain Arlan Strangewayes (2pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Journeyman Warcaster (3pts)
Lieutnant Allison Jakes (3pts)
* Centurion (9pts)
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord (2pts)
Terrain:
Forest on my near left, hill on my near right, forest on the far right (his near left), something else on the far left from me, hill somewhat central.
Scenario:
Rally Point
Match Assessment:
Well rounded list on his part, has hitting power, has some utility. My list isn't an armor list, despite the Warders and Mulg, so I'm not going to try to overwhelm him with being unable to crack. The Blazers are a problem; luckily, they don't ignore concealment, so Tale of Mists helps. I decided to put the Fenns against them and tempt fate, just going balls to the wall forward with them, in hopes that enough survive that I can do some serious damage to the Blazers.
Unfortunately, the Blazers are just flat out a problem. However, my hope is that if I can slow up the Knights and Forge Guard with Cacophany/Warders, I can try to clear the Centurion and Rowdy over time and then the Blazers will struggle with Mulg.
Gorman is the usual problem, and Sturgis has Snipe. Assballs.
Deployment:
Warders left, Grissel central with Mulg and Axer, support just behind her, Fenns right, Scatters far right (mistake here. Should've had the Scatters central to react to wherever he put his infantry. Fenns were there to challenge his zone with speed.).
Sword Knights and Forge Guard opposite my zone, Blazers on his zone, everything else centralish. Scattergunners are now wildly out of position.
Game Time!
First turn: lots o running. Fennblades scream up the board, Scatters behind, Warders rumble up left, all else central, 6 on the stone, popped it and covered most Fenns, didn't care about Warders.
His turn: Lots o Running forward, Shield on Rowdy and the Sword Knights (frustrating, but would've been worse on Rowdy + Centurion. That would've sucked assballs). Blazers get Sniped, shoot my Fenns and Scatters but only hit 1 Fenn (tough) and 1 Scatter (dead) needing 7's to hit (hill and/or forest). Wanted the Fenn dead for Vengeance, oh well. His dice went cold in trying to blast the Fenns.
My turn: Feat, jam hard. Fennblades scream forward into his Blazers, but just out of charge range. Scatters run to get near the Sword Knights and Forge Guard. Warders take "We own this zone" positions, out of his range but in range to hit the far side of the zone. Hooray Cacophany! Position Mulg and Axer to be annoying, jam.
His turn: Clear as much of jam as possible. Shoots up some Fenns, not that badly. Light cavs backwards for protection. Moves up Rowdy and Centurion (Fortify on Centurion btw from Jakes) to occupy space, infantry walk forward. He kills a few Fenns, thats all.
My turn: Rune once per game Calamity on Rowdy lands. Axer charges, does a few. 2x Warders charge, add more. Mulg charges my Scattergunner, plows him with fist, then buys and misses almost all on Centurion. Bad move here: should've just gone for Rowdy. Needed not snakes (Calamity) vs 6's, both of them at D-1. Warders had plowed some damage into Rowdy, so he was a likely kill. Mistake was thinking Centurion was PS 19, not PS 18 for some reason. Lesson learned. Scattergunners and Warders (Warders with extra attack from Grissel) shred Forgeguard and Sword Knights. About 4 Swords dead, about 7-8 Forgeguard. Sweet.
His turn: Feat drags a bunch of people in. He doesn't allocate to Rowdy, thinking Sturgis's feat will give him enough focus, 3 on Centurion from Jakes. Results in Mulg living with 9 HP left with Rowdy only getting 1 from Sturgist feat (2 guys in 3", 1 toughs). Blazers keep shooting up Fenns, with more success, but moot at this point. Sword Knights and Forge Guard wound warders, piss off everyone.
My Turn: all that matters is both jacks died and I cleared most of his infantry. Mulg frenzied but did solid to Rowdy, Axer did too on Rowdy. Warders finished, Grissel said "F all this noise", spiked hard and slapped down the Centurion on 2 rolls. She knows how to roll!
His turn: Tried to shoot up Grissel, missed all but 1 maybe, concedes cause no way to break Mulg now and his army is decimated. I'm on a wounded Mulg, but full Warders, 3-4 Fenns, half Scatters vs his Blazers and 3-4 Sword Knights. And Mulg's about to start eating.
Post-Game:
Mostly played well, a few clear mistakes. I should've just finished off Rowdy with Mulg when I had the chance, which takes his chance to kill Mulg very low. Focused too hard on the Centurion, and made a mistake, simple as that.
Also made a major deployment mistake. Scatters were well out of position, and I had to spend their feat turn running them over to help with the Sword Knights and Forgeguard.
However, along with my last game, I've gotten enough to conclude that I'm not comfortable with the Scatters in this list at the moment. I thought Calamity would fix their problems, but I need it on armor targets too badly, so I'm spreading myself thin. I think I'll be moving to 2x Runeshapers, I just need to manipulate the points to get 1 more besides the Scatters (7 points). I like the fact that the Shapers also give me help against Kayazy, Nyss, etc., which is a struggle point for this list. Magic 7 is significantly more accurate than RAT 5, although the ability to damage multiple moderate-high armor targets is gone. But I think that the value I'll get will be worth it most likely.
I actually played the Fenns vs. Blazers game as well as I could have, I think. I don't know that it was a very good decision, but I was hoping that with him needing 7's to hit, a couple of attacks would miss, and then he needed 7's to kill, making electroleaps riskier. I got a bit dice lucky that he missed 3 of 4 on the Fenns, but a little unlucky in that I toughed; had Vengeance triggered, he might lose a Blazer or two from the Fenns. Dice giveth, dice taketh.
pGrissel is beautifully solid though. I love her game tremendously. I'm mildly debating a return to a previous list iteration, involving 2x Warders rather than Fenns, but I love the speed Fenns give me. The alternative would be 2x min Champs to have a bit of mobility, armor, and hitting power, but not sure it's worth it; the Fenns jamming and forcing my opponents into positioning problems is so much fun.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Battle Report, Trolls vs Mercs, 4-26-14
My List:
Grissel Bloodsong, Fell Caller
Storm Troll
Pyre Troll
Troll Impaler
min Champs + Skaldi
min Champs
max Warders
min Stone + UA
2x Champ Hero
Fennblade Kithkar
S.S. Chronicler
2x Sorcerer
Swamp Gobbers
Opponent:
Damiano
Rocinante
Nomad
max Boomies
Gun Mages + UA
TAC
Rorsh & Brine
Alexia2
Ogrun Bokur
Rockbottom
(maybe something else? Don't have a way to calculate points right now)
Scenario:
Fire Support
Terrain:
Rock walls on my near left and on the far right, close to the destroyable objectives. Forest central-left on my side, largish obstacle near my opponents flag, hill on his side. Maybe something else I'm forgetting.
This battle was a giant slugfest, so I may be off or hazy on some details; I'll try to get the points that had the biggest effects. I won the roll and went first. Sorcerer's on the 2x Champs, Warders central, one champ unit and hero on the side of my objective and flag, the one with Skaldi on the other side. Grissel central, stone central, Kithkar to the right side, Pyre to the left, Storm to the right, impaler central.
He put the Boomhowlers mostly central, Gun Mages to my right, Alexia and other solos central to central right with Damiano. Both jacks were pretty much central, Rorsh and brine off to the left flank. All solo's were AD because Highborn.
I just rolled fast up the field. Warders ran, got Hoof It, went further. Champs ran up on each side, Grissel put 5 in the Stone, Stone popped for No Continous, and all that jazz.
His turn, he rolled forward, Rocinante rolled fire and blasted a Warder off the table - he was actually sad, he wanted Alexia to get a soul early. I knew that I'd lose a chunk of health on the warder, thought he'd still be up! But at least Righteous Vengeance was triggered. Boomies 4+ Tough, spread out to eat up room, Warpath and Death March out (DM on Boomies).
I normally like a turn 2 feat, but it wasn't happening here. So, instead, jam. Hoof It went on Warders, I deviated a Pyre shot into 2 of them and lit em up. Warders ran up to jam the area and occupy space. Stone got maxed out (9" aura), while I went for broke with the Kithkar. I put Lightning Fists on him and charged into the Gun Mages, but failed to hit either shot needing 8's. If I got lucky and hit 1, 2 dead mages; if I got really lucky and hit 2, then 4 dead Gun Mages. It was a risk I was willing to take.
His turn, he sent Brine into the objective on my side and put it down. Damiano feated, the Boomies came in and slapped around Warders, but ARM 21's quite a lot (after the first damage taken). I think he took out another Warder this turn, maybe 2 - I think one though. Kithkar got beat to hell and didn't Tough, but most importantly, the Gun Mages thunderbolted the Storm Troll, knocked him down... And out of control. Fuck. Skaldi got beat the hell down by Thralls after a Thunderbolt crit, when I placed him on the wrong side of the Champs formation - my bad. That was about it.
My Storm Troll didn't frenzy, but couldn't be forced to stand, so that sucked. I was going to use his shot to try and bounce around the Gun Mages, too, since taking 2-3 of them out is a big step up for me to take out his board manipulation. So he just had to walk up to get back in range and hope it'd be enough.
It was a good feat turn now, as everything was in range of good charge targets, so I opened fire with all cylinders. Grissel aiming knocked down a Boomie, who she then Calamatied (I really wanted to make sure I cleared their feat armor - 19 is annoying, and relies on Weaponmaster rolls. Average breaks, but still...) I threw down a lot of attacks that took out Big Pig, Boomhowler, a few Boomies, and plinked some damage elsewhere, but wasn't nearly as effective as I'd like. The army rearrangement was very nice, however, and kept the warders jammed up. I made a couple of bad decisions, though, including choosing poor charge targets - I should have cleared the objective on his side, while I had a fantastic lane at it.
On his turn, he cleared all but 1 or 2 Warders, knocked down all my Champs on the right side (where Skaldi was) and failed to bump the Storm Troll out of contesting (I think that was this turn). Brine came up and parked on my flag, and he rotated the Nomad around to the left side.
I finished off the Boomhowlers pretty much this turn, but the problem I ended up having was missing Brine on 1/3 champ attacks and getting him only Tough, not dead, so I failed to get CPs that would have been a huge help. Also, I made a bad charge decision and got a Champ toughed on a free strike, while the other champ crapped his pants on dice and only plinked damage into a nomad.
I think this turn is when he started controlling for CPs again; he got the Storm Troll back out, cleared the Warders, cleared my Champs, and started the CP train. Nomad cleared a Champ or two, and he killed a Sorcerer and damaged another Champ.
I killed Brine, started the domination train, contested the other side, and did some more damage in other places - nothing important. From there, we traded a few pieces, but I deathclocked out - I could maybe have won through scenario with a little luck, but I never had time to try and get there.
Biggest mistake: I should have played harder for scenario. I could have taken out his objective early, which would have set me up to dominate twice on the left flag and win, but I didn't. No matter what, I would've only been able to hit 4 CPs, not enough to win. I didn't play badly, just a few mistakes that were enough to hold me out. He played a very good game and deserved the win!
Grissel Bloodsong, Fell Caller
Storm Troll
Pyre Troll
Troll Impaler
min Champs + Skaldi
min Champs
max Warders
min Stone + UA
2x Champ Hero
Fennblade Kithkar
S.S. Chronicler
2x Sorcerer
Swamp Gobbers
Opponent:
Damiano
Rocinante
Nomad
max Boomies
Gun Mages + UA
TAC
Rorsh & Brine
Alexia2
Ogrun Bokur
Rockbottom
(maybe something else? Don't have a way to calculate points right now)
Scenario:
Fire Support
Terrain:
Rock walls on my near left and on the far right, close to the destroyable objectives. Forest central-left on my side, largish obstacle near my opponents flag, hill on his side. Maybe something else I'm forgetting.
This battle was a giant slugfest, so I may be off or hazy on some details; I'll try to get the points that had the biggest effects. I won the roll and went first. Sorcerer's on the 2x Champs, Warders central, one champ unit and hero on the side of my objective and flag, the one with Skaldi on the other side. Grissel central, stone central, Kithkar to the right side, Pyre to the left, Storm to the right, impaler central.
He put the Boomhowlers mostly central, Gun Mages to my right, Alexia and other solos central to central right with Damiano. Both jacks were pretty much central, Rorsh and brine off to the left flank. All solo's were AD because Highborn.
I just rolled fast up the field. Warders ran, got Hoof It, went further. Champs ran up on each side, Grissel put 5 in the Stone, Stone popped for No Continous, and all that jazz.
His turn, he rolled forward, Rocinante rolled fire and blasted a Warder off the table - he was actually sad, he wanted Alexia to get a soul early. I knew that I'd lose a chunk of health on the warder, thought he'd still be up! But at least Righteous Vengeance was triggered. Boomies 4+ Tough, spread out to eat up room, Warpath and Death March out (DM on Boomies).
I normally like a turn 2 feat, but it wasn't happening here. So, instead, jam. Hoof It went on Warders, I deviated a Pyre shot into 2 of them and lit em up. Warders ran up to jam the area and occupy space. Stone got maxed out (9" aura), while I went for broke with the Kithkar. I put Lightning Fists on him and charged into the Gun Mages, but failed to hit either shot needing 8's. If I got lucky and hit 1, 2 dead mages; if I got really lucky and hit 2, then 4 dead Gun Mages. It was a risk I was willing to take.
His turn, he sent Brine into the objective on my side and put it down. Damiano feated, the Boomies came in and slapped around Warders, but ARM 21's quite a lot (after the first damage taken). I think he took out another Warder this turn, maybe 2 - I think one though. Kithkar got beat to hell and didn't Tough, but most importantly, the Gun Mages thunderbolted the Storm Troll, knocked him down... And out of control. Fuck. Skaldi got beat the hell down by Thralls after a Thunderbolt crit, when I placed him on the wrong side of the Champs formation - my bad. That was about it.
My Storm Troll didn't frenzy, but couldn't be forced to stand, so that sucked. I was going to use his shot to try and bounce around the Gun Mages, too, since taking 2-3 of them out is a big step up for me to take out his board manipulation. So he just had to walk up to get back in range and hope it'd be enough.
It was a good feat turn now, as everything was in range of good charge targets, so I opened fire with all cylinders. Grissel aiming knocked down a Boomie, who she then Calamatied (I really wanted to make sure I cleared their feat armor - 19 is annoying, and relies on Weaponmaster rolls. Average breaks, but still...) I threw down a lot of attacks that took out Big Pig, Boomhowler, a few Boomies, and plinked some damage elsewhere, but wasn't nearly as effective as I'd like. The army rearrangement was very nice, however, and kept the warders jammed up. I made a couple of bad decisions, though, including choosing poor charge targets - I should have cleared the objective on his side, while I had a fantastic lane at it.
On his turn, he cleared all but 1 or 2 Warders, knocked down all my Champs on the right side (where Skaldi was) and failed to bump the Storm Troll out of contesting (I think that was this turn). Brine came up and parked on my flag, and he rotated the Nomad around to the left side.
I finished off the Boomhowlers pretty much this turn, but the problem I ended up having was missing Brine on 1/3 champ attacks and getting him only Tough, not dead, so I failed to get CPs that would have been a huge help. Also, I made a bad charge decision and got a Champ toughed on a free strike, while the other champ crapped his pants on dice and only plinked damage into a nomad.
I think this turn is when he started controlling for CPs again; he got the Storm Troll back out, cleared the Warders, cleared my Champs, and started the CP train. Nomad cleared a Champ or two, and he killed a Sorcerer and damaged another Champ.
I killed Brine, started the domination train, contested the other side, and did some more damage in other places - nothing important. From there, we traded a few pieces, but I deathclocked out - I could maybe have won through scenario with a little luck, but I never had time to try and get there.
Biggest mistake: I should have played harder for scenario. I could have taken out his objective early, which would have set me up to dominate twice on the left flag and win, but I didn't. No matter what, I would've only been able to hit 4 CPs, not enough to win. I didn't play badly, just a few mistakes that were enough to hold me out. He played a very good game and deserved the win!
Friday, April 25, 2014
Battle Report, Trolls vs Cygnar, 4-23-14
My list:
Grim Angus
2x Bombers
Impaler
Storm Troll
Fennblades + UA
Min Bushwhackers
Sons of Bragg
Bone Grinders
Swamp Gobbers
Whelps
Opponents List:
Siege Tier List (the new one)
-Triumph
Allison Jakes
-Charger
Journeyman Warcaster
-Hunter
Journeyman Warcaster
AT Gun Mages w/ UA
-Defender
Black 13th
Field Mechaniks (max)
Arlan Strangeways
Scenario: Destruction
I may be missing something on my opponents list - I'm not 100% sure. This is close, though, and if I'm missing something I'm having trouble figuring out what it might be.
Terrain: Hill on my close left, near my objective, forest on my near right, near the corner of my zone. Large obstruction on right side, a few inches away from his objective, and forest on the left side (opposite diagonal of the other forest).
I lost the roll, and my opponent picked a board edge, setting me to go first. I deployed my Fennblades mostly on the left side, relatively opposite the hill, one Bomber centrally, one Bomber to the right behind the forest, with Grim right behind him, Impaler and Storm just behind those, SoB off to the right to go to the right side of the forest, 3 Whelps on the board. Bushwhackers ended up on the right side in front of Grim (I really wanted to abuse the forest).
Opponent put the Gun Mages hard left from my view to go around his forest and flank with defender, the two Journeyman were just behind the forest, Hunter ended up in his forest, Siege central with Triumph so they could abuse a Trench, Jakes to the right with her Charge, Arlan somewhere near the Defender. B13th went into the forest. All these are from my perspective.
I did math really quick, and realize the only two things that should be able to reliably shoot my Fenns if I was careful were the Defender and Hunter because of the angles with the Fenns and Gun Mages, so I sent two of them max distance forward, the rest hanging back just an inch or two behind (ie, baiting out the Vengeance). SoB just busted up the field because the Charger and Triumph couldn't get them, Bushwhackers advanced (a little too far, oops), Grim put Cross Country on the Bomber going into the forest and charged a Fennblade (short!), both Bombers ran max.
He advanced up the Hunter, shot up a Fenn (tough), put out Arcane Shield on the Hunter and on Siege with the two J-Men. Arlan powered up the Defender, who walked forward, sniped, and removed another Fenn. Gun Mages walked up but couldn't get in range (math!), Triumph ran but couldn't quite get in a trench, Siege foxholed and charged to put himself in the middle. the Charger advanced to take shots, Jakes put on Sidekick. Charger removed 1 Bushwhacker that I put about 1/2" too far forward - I'm not always smart.
Vengeance! I moved my guys forward - nothing in range to attack, but my mini feat distance was now in play. I looked at the board, and concluded the Gun Mages were probably out of play for at least another turn, so I thought I'd take a couple of chances. Based on the board, I really didn't feel that Grim would be in good position to support the Fenns with Feat or Marked for Death, so I just resigned them to their fate - they could screen and buy shots, and let me work on the big boys. If I could weather Siege's feat (thought it might be coming soon), I felt good about my odds. Fennblades mini feated, two charged the Hunter, one charged Ryan (B13), and one ran to engage a Gun Mage. ATGM failed Terror (whoo!), Ryan passed. Missed 2/3 charges, plinked damage into the Hunter, while the rest of the Fenns just took a really spread position to cover board space.
Otherwise, I plowed a shit ton of damage into Triumph - left him on 4 boxes, but missed the cortex - with two Bomber sets, put some damage into the Charger with Grim and an assaulting Tor (SoBragg), and removed 5/6 mechaniks, including the leader. Sadly left one standing - dammit. I put out Girded to protect some Bushwhackers from an Explosivo charged round, and braced myself.
He feated (as expected), and laid out a Ground Pounder, but needing a lot of 6's and 7's (and a 10 on Grim), he didn't get a lot laid out on my Bomber, Grim, and some Whackers, so I made it out fairly safely. The Bomber lost about 10, and then got shot by Triump to take him down to 9 health or so. The Charger lit into an SoB who made his Tough, Gun Mages rallied, and one Fenn toughed out a B13 shot. Ryan lit up two of them herself, and the Defender removed the officer. I was down to about 4 Fenns (including Drummer) or so, maybe a little more, but most everything. Importantly, he had nothing in the zone.
I decided it still wasnt a good Feat turn yet, and decided to just lay out damage. Triumph got removed by one Bomber, the other Bomber and a Fenn took off the objective. the Storm Troll with Snipe shot my own knocked down Fenn, and I got two jumps - which coincided with the two B13th almost on top of my guy. I killed my own guy, but got 2 of 3 B13th, so I'll take that trade. Fenns just annoyed the Hunter more, while the SoBragg charged the Charger, using the Standup call to get off the ground. That was a mistake - I shouldve gone Fervor, just moved the gun on the ground out of the way, and charged, because Sidekicks is a really, really nice spell for making hitting a Charger very difficult. Lesson learned. After all was said and done, Triumph was gone, the Charger was banged up really badly but still alive, and I had 3 CPs, with my feat still up. Oh, and Grim actually got a shot on Jakes - but sadly, I needed a 5 to kill on dice, and rolled a 4. Oh, dice. Silly, silly boys.
His next turn, he removed the SoB with Jakes and the Charger, Siege lit up some more guys, the Gun Mages ran back somewhat into the action, the Defender killed something (don't remember what), and the Hunter moved into the zone.
I cleared the Hunter, and that was game. 5-0 on CPs.
Grim Angus
2x Bombers
Impaler
Storm Troll
Fennblades + UA
Min Bushwhackers
Sons of Bragg
Bone Grinders
Swamp Gobbers
Whelps
Opponents List:
Siege Tier List (the new one)
-Triumph
Allison Jakes
-Charger
Journeyman Warcaster
-Hunter
Journeyman Warcaster
AT Gun Mages w/ UA
-Defender
Black 13th
Field Mechaniks (max)
Arlan Strangeways
Scenario: Destruction
I may be missing something on my opponents list - I'm not 100% sure. This is close, though, and if I'm missing something I'm having trouble figuring out what it might be.
Terrain: Hill on my close left, near my objective, forest on my near right, near the corner of my zone. Large obstruction on right side, a few inches away from his objective, and forest on the left side (opposite diagonal of the other forest).
I lost the roll, and my opponent picked a board edge, setting me to go first. I deployed my Fennblades mostly on the left side, relatively opposite the hill, one Bomber centrally, one Bomber to the right behind the forest, with Grim right behind him, Impaler and Storm just behind those, SoB off to the right to go to the right side of the forest, 3 Whelps on the board. Bushwhackers ended up on the right side in front of Grim (I really wanted to abuse the forest).
Opponent put the Gun Mages hard left from my view to go around his forest and flank with defender, the two Journeyman were just behind the forest, Hunter ended up in his forest, Siege central with Triumph so they could abuse a Trench, Jakes to the right with her Charge, Arlan somewhere near the Defender. B13th went into the forest. All these are from my perspective.
I did math really quick, and realize the only two things that should be able to reliably shoot my Fenns if I was careful were the Defender and Hunter because of the angles with the Fenns and Gun Mages, so I sent two of them max distance forward, the rest hanging back just an inch or two behind (ie, baiting out the Vengeance). SoB just busted up the field because the Charger and Triumph couldn't get them, Bushwhackers advanced (a little too far, oops), Grim put Cross Country on the Bomber going into the forest and charged a Fennblade (short!), both Bombers ran max.
He advanced up the Hunter, shot up a Fenn (tough), put out Arcane Shield on the Hunter and on Siege with the two J-Men. Arlan powered up the Defender, who walked forward, sniped, and removed another Fenn. Gun Mages walked up but couldn't get in range (math!), Triumph ran but couldn't quite get in a trench, Siege foxholed and charged to put himself in the middle. the Charger advanced to take shots, Jakes put on Sidekick. Charger removed 1 Bushwhacker that I put about 1/2" too far forward - I'm not always smart.
Vengeance! I moved my guys forward - nothing in range to attack, but my mini feat distance was now in play. I looked at the board, and concluded the Gun Mages were probably out of play for at least another turn, so I thought I'd take a couple of chances. Based on the board, I really didn't feel that Grim would be in good position to support the Fenns with Feat or Marked for Death, so I just resigned them to their fate - they could screen and buy shots, and let me work on the big boys. If I could weather Siege's feat (thought it might be coming soon), I felt good about my odds. Fennblades mini feated, two charged the Hunter, one charged Ryan (B13), and one ran to engage a Gun Mage. ATGM failed Terror (whoo!), Ryan passed. Missed 2/3 charges, plinked damage into the Hunter, while the rest of the Fenns just took a really spread position to cover board space.
Otherwise, I plowed a shit ton of damage into Triumph - left him on 4 boxes, but missed the cortex - with two Bomber sets, put some damage into the Charger with Grim and an assaulting Tor (SoBragg), and removed 5/6 mechaniks, including the leader. Sadly left one standing - dammit. I put out Girded to protect some Bushwhackers from an Explosivo charged round, and braced myself.
He feated (as expected), and laid out a Ground Pounder, but needing a lot of 6's and 7's (and a 10 on Grim), he didn't get a lot laid out on my Bomber, Grim, and some Whackers, so I made it out fairly safely. The Bomber lost about 10, and then got shot by Triump to take him down to 9 health or so. The Charger lit into an SoB who made his Tough, Gun Mages rallied, and one Fenn toughed out a B13 shot. Ryan lit up two of them herself, and the Defender removed the officer. I was down to about 4 Fenns (including Drummer) or so, maybe a little more, but most everything. Importantly, he had nothing in the zone.
I decided it still wasnt a good Feat turn yet, and decided to just lay out damage. Triumph got removed by one Bomber, the other Bomber and a Fenn took off the objective. the Storm Troll with Snipe shot my own knocked down Fenn, and I got two jumps - which coincided with the two B13th almost on top of my guy. I killed my own guy, but got 2 of 3 B13th, so I'll take that trade. Fenns just annoyed the Hunter more, while the SoBragg charged the Charger, using the Standup call to get off the ground. That was a mistake - I shouldve gone Fervor, just moved the gun on the ground out of the way, and charged, because Sidekicks is a really, really nice spell for making hitting a Charger very difficult. Lesson learned. After all was said and done, Triumph was gone, the Charger was banged up really badly but still alive, and I had 3 CPs, with my feat still up. Oh, and Grim actually got a shot on Jakes - but sadly, I needed a 5 to kill on dice, and rolled a 4. Oh, dice. Silly, silly boys.
His next turn, he removed the SoB with Jakes and the Charger, Siege lit up some more guys, the Gun Mages ran back somewhat into the action, the Defender killed something (don't remember what), and the Hunter moved into the zone.
I cleared the Hunter, and that was game. 5-0 on CPs.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Battle Report 4-16-14, Trolls vs. Circle
My list:
Grim Angus
2x Bombers
Impaler
Storm Troll
Fennblades + UA
Min Bushwhackers
Sons of Bragg
Bone Grinders
Swamp Gobbers
Whelps
Opponents List:
Grayle
Warpwolf Stalker
Feral Warpwolf
Gorax
Winter Argus
Stones + UA
Max Wolves of Orboros + UA
min Tharn Riders (light cav)
Lord of the Feast
Lord Morraig
Blackclad Wayfarer
Scenario: Outflank
So, first off - confession time. I tilted, badly, in this game. The dice were very swingy, lots of spikes in both directions, and I really got tilted early because of a big swing. I've worked hard on not having those moments, but it happened. Unfortunately, it colored a lot of my decision making the rest of the game, because I was still rather cheesed off.
So, my general thought was have the Fennblades screening around the middle of the board, with the Bushwhackers on one side shooting away at whatever was available. The Sons of Bragg and a Bomber would go other side, supported by the Impaler and possibly Grim, with the other Bomber and Impaler roaming to support whereever was needed.
I sent the SoB to the left zone, Bomber with them, Fennblades central, Bushwhackers to the right, a Bomber between the Fenns and Whackers, and the rest spread out in the second line to react. He placed the Wolves of Orboros on my right zone, the Feral central, Stalker left, riders left, Morraig right, Lord of the Feast central with the stones around for first turn teleport.
I pretty much knew Lord of the Feast was going to be getting into me Turn 1, so I spread to accomodate. The Bombers ran up, Fenns ran up with a side spread, the Whackers spread in a forest to the right, while I (stupidly) ran the SoB back across my back lines because they'd been Preyed by the Riders and I got really nervous about that. I should have kept them left, back behind the Bomber, but I got too preservationist and moved them, which took them mostly out of the game. I figured the Lord of the Feast would do damage, but I'd just cope, clear him, and move on.
Little did I know that he's really called Lord of the Dice, apparently. He got teleported, shot the Bomber and rolled in, threshered, killed a Fennblade, one Fenn toughed, and a Bushwhacker, all Terror's passed. And in the process, he managed to roll, with Storm Rager, at Dice - 3, 25 damage into the Bomber across 3 shots, sending me on tilt. Otherwise, the Wolves advanced with a huge spread, Grayle stayed central, the Stalker went left, Feral central, and the Riders hard left on the flank.
So now I had to try and clear the Lord. I had a backstriking Impaler, though, and at D-6, I figured I might max him out, but had a good shot at clearing. After the Impaler, Storm Troll, and Wrathor (SoB) I still was jammed. Crap.
So, the Bomber turned slightly, ate Lord (finally), ate a whelp, and forced to heal to get him back up to 8 boxes, so at least functional. The other Bomber and Grim shot at a Stalker, and my consolation prize was blowing the Stalker off the board - I didn't want to boost a second attack roll with the Bomber, so I just rolled a cold 10 on dice to hit a 15 (he's a 14), and boosted damage to smack him off the board. So... That's a thing I guess. It calmed me down a bit, and got me back into my game for the moment.
So the game kinda progressed, nothing else was really consequential on this turn. His next turn, he removed the Bomber that had just eaten a Stalker with a Feral - he almost failed to kill, I spawned a Whelp to take the Bomber to DEF 13, and he had to burn all the way to his last fury to kill the Bomber. So close. Grayle had popped his feat to pull it off, so now I was staring at all Stealthed models in his control.
So, Grim moved up, feated, shot the Feral to get charge distance for the Bomber (+2" charge from Bait the Line) and plinked some damage. Unfortunately, I made a mistake and put Marked for Death on the Wolves of Orboros, rather than the Feral - bad decision. The Bomber charged, and managed to miss 2 of 5 attacks needing 6's to hit on Grim's feat, with one of the attacks that did hit rolling snakes on damage at dice-1. That was when I started having some more tilting feelings. 2 more Fennblades charged in, but despite all the attacks combined (Grim, 2 Fenns, Bomber), he still had 5 boxes or so (assuming 10 is average charge value, if the Fenns and Grim hit, on them alone it should've been around 19 damage... Yowch. That kinda stung).
Basically, the rest of the game involved him just sweeping up. I basically had lost too much for no return, he'd dominated twice to go 4-0, and I just couldn't get bodies in the zone. The SoB being out of position really hurt me for most of the game, unfortunately, because they would've been good cleanup on the Feral at MAT 9, PS 12/14 Weaponmasters, but that was my mistake. I tilted, and I made some bad decisions, and that prevented me from actually getting decent analysis. Not happy with myself, not happy bout the game - so now I just have to blow off steam and wait til next week to try it again!
I do think, though, that it may not be my go-to list against Circle. It clears infantry pretty well, with a solid screen, but I think that Circle's shenanigans, including Stealth, may be a bit much, and I'm not sure if Marked for Death is sufficient to help me through that. More testing to come, I suppose!
Grim Angus
2x Bombers
Impaler
Storm Troll
Fennblades + UA
Min Bushwhackers
Sons of Bragg
Bone Grinders
Swamp Gobbers
Whelps
Opponents List:
Grayle
Warpwolf Stalker
Feral Warpwolf
Gorax
Winter Argus
Stones + UA
Max Wolves of Orboros + UA
min Tharn Riders (light cav)
Lord of the Feast
Lord Morraig
Blackclad Wayfarer
Scenario: Outflank
So, first off - confession time. I tilted, badly, in this game. The dice were very swingy, lots of spikes in both directions, and I really got tilted early because of a big swing. I've worked hard on not having those moments, but it happened. Unfortunately, it colored a lot of my decision making the rest of the game, because I was still rather cheesed off.
So, my general thought was have the Fennblades screening around the middle of the board, with the Bushwhackers on one side shooting away at whatever was available. The Sons of Bragg and a Bomber would go other side, supported by the Impaler and possibly Grim, with the other Bomber and Impaler roaming to support whereever was needed.
I sent the SoB to the left zone, Bomber with them, Fennblades central, Bushwhackers to the right, a Bomber between the Fenns and Whackers, and the rest spread out in the second line to react. He placed the Wolves of Orboros on my right zone, the Feral central, Stalker left, riders left, Morraig right, Lord of the Feast central with the stones around for first turn teleport.
I pretty much knew Lord of the Feast was going to be getting into me Turn 1, so I spread to accomodate. The Bombers ran up, Fenns ran up with a side spread, the Whackers spread in a forest to the right, while I (stupidly) ran the SoB back across my back lines because they'd been Preyed by the Riders and I got really nervous about that. I should have kept them left, back behind the Bomber, but I got too preservationist and moved them, which took them mostly out of the game. I figured the Lord of the Feast would do damage, but I'd just cope, clear him, and move on.
Little did I know that he's really called Lord of the Dice, apparently. He got teleported, shot the Bomber and rolled in, threshered, killed a Fennblade, one Fenn toughed, and a Bushwhacker, all Terror's passed. And in the process, he managed to roll, with Storm Rager, at Dice - 3, 25 damage into the Bomber across 3 shots, sending me on tilt. Otherwise, the Wolves advanced with a huge spread, Grayle stayed central, the Stalker went left, Feral central, and the Riders hard left on the flank.
So now I had to try and clear the Lord. I had a backstriking Impaler, though, and at D-6, I figured I might max him out, but had a good shot at clearing. After the Impaler, Storm Troll, and Wrathor (SoB) I still was jammed. Crap.
So, the Bomber turned slightly, ate Lord (finally), ate a whelp, and forced to heal to get him back up to 8 boxes, so at least functional. The other Bomber and Grim shot at a Stalker, and my consolation prize was blowing the Stalker off the board - I didn't want to boost a second attack roll with the Bomber, so I just rolled a cold 10 on dice to hit a 15 (he's a 14), and boosted damage to smack him off the board. So... That's a thing I guess. It calmed me down a bit, and got me back into my game for the moment.
So the game kinda progressed, nothing else was really consequential on this turn. His next turn, he removed the Bomber that had just eaten a Stalker with a Feral - he almost failed to kill, I spawned a Whelp to take the Bomber to DEF 13, and he had to burn all the way to his last fury to kill the Bomber. So close. Grayle had popped his feat to pull it off, so now I was staring at all Stealthed models in his control.
So, Grim moved up, feated, shot the Feral to get charge distance for the Bomber (+2" charge from Bait the Line) and plinked some damage. Unfortunately, I made a mistake and put Marked for Death on the Wolves of Orboros, rather than the Feral - bad decision. The Bomber charged, and managed to miss 2 of 5 attacks needing 6's to hit on Grim's feat, with one of the attacks that did hit rolling snakes on damage at dice-1. That was when I started having some more tilting feelings. 2 more Fennblades charged in, but despite all the attacks combined (Grim, 2 Fenns, Bomber), he still had 5 boxes or so (assuming 10 is average charge value, if the Fenns and Grim hit, on them alone it should've been around 19 damage... Yowch. That kinda stung).
Basically, the rest of the game involved him just sweeping up. I basically had lost too much for no return, he'd dominated twice to go 4-0, and I just couldn't get bodies in the zone. The SoB being out of position really hurt me for most of the game, unfortunately, because they would've been good cleanup on the Feral at MAT 9, PS 12/14 Weaponmasters, but that was my mistake. I tilted, and I made some bad decisions, and that prevented me from actually getting decent analysis. Not happy with myself, not happy bout the game - so now I just have to blow off steam and wait til next week to try it again!
I do think, though, that it may not be my go-to list against Circle. It clears infantry pretty well, with a solid screen, but I think that Circle's shenanigans, including Stealth, may be a bit much, and I'm not sure if Marked for Death is sufficient to help me through that. More testing to come, I suppose!
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Battle Report 4-12, Atomic Empire Tourney Game 2, Trolls vs. Khador
Scenario: Supply and Demand
My List:
Hunters Grim (*4pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Pyg Burrowers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Pyg Bushwackers (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew (Leader and 1 Grunt) (1pts)
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer (2pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
Fennblade Kithkar (2pts)
Professor Victor Pendrake (2pts)
Stone Scribe Chronicler (2pts)
Opponents List:
Forward Kommander Sorscha
* Conquest
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker
Battle Mechaniks (Leader and 3 Grunts)
Great Bears of Gallowswood
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt
Tactical Arcanist Corps
Winter Guard Infantry (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Winter Guard Infantry Officer & Standard
* 2 Winter Guard Infantry Rocketeers
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist
Harlan Versh
Koldun Lord
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich
Widowmaker Marksman
My opponent won the roll and chose to go second. The terrain featured a small linear obstacle in the middle of the board just in front of each players deployment, and forests on the close right side (opposite the objective) for each player.
He put conquest a little left of center from my view, where the linear obstacle wouldn't interfere with movement. I put the Hunters center, with Krump off to the left and Muggs to the right near the edge of command. The two Axers went to either side of Grim, and the Fennblades went 6 to either side (thank you giant command bubble). Mauler came in back with the support staff. After his deployment, I placed the Burrowers fairly central, and the Whackers off to the right to run into the forest.
His AD widowmaker went opposite the Whackers, while his winterguard deathstar went central and right, close to his objective. The Koldun Lord went to the left (from my view) of Conquest, while the various solos went center or right, with the Great Bears central. Sorscha herself was approximately in the middle.
The Burrowers went under (possibly unnecessary, but Conquest has a lot of AoE potential) first turn as is their wont, and the Fennblades ran up the field, spreading pretty substantially with the officer in the middle. Grim got Harmoniously Exalted and put out two Rushes on the Axers and Mirage on the Fennblades. Everything else ran and tried to take up good supporting positions, since I thought next turn was going to be my first big swing turn. Tale of Mists went on the Fennblades.
The Koldun Lord gave the Conquest a focus, and then I got a small surprise in the form of a series of Creeping Barrage templates across the middle of the board. The big gun fired, but I believe deviated harmlessly, or failed to break armor somewhere. The Winterguard came up on the right and center, spreading out all over and clogging up the board with Bob and Weave and Iron Flesh. The Widowmaker jacked a Bushwhacker who proceeded to Tough, the TAC came up near his objective, and the support staff and Great Bears moved up near the Conquest a bit back.
Due to the Creeping Barrage templates, the Dygmies didn't have great angles to cross the board, so my feat got nixed for a turn. I looked at my board position, didn't entirely like what I saw, and decided that I was going to be playing more cautiously than planned. The Dygmies advanced, with 2 going through the Creeping Barrages with no armor break, and 1 toughing out. Another one crept around the edge to take a shot at a TAC member, but sadly failed to hit, so they assumed clogging positions. I had placed fairly carefully so the Fennblades would have good charges, and with a Fell Called +2 sent 3-4 Fennblades clogging into the Winterguard (and the Widowmaker), taking out 1-2 Winterguard with a lucky big roll and getting the Widowmaker. The Whackers 6 manned a TAC member out, while Grim shot another and crapped out his damage to leave him on 1 box. The rest of the Fennblades and Dygmies stayed fairly safe, but the 3-4 Fenns I sent forward were in solid clogging positions to hold up his lines. Tale of Mists ended up on the Dygmies to try to get a reburrow.
As a result of my clogging, he wasn't able to get as far forward as he liked, so he advanced relatively carefully and used Sprays and shooting (with some misses that were lucky for me) to clear my jam. A couple of accidental bad positions left some Winterguard engaged that he wanted to use in other ways, but he was able to drop the Fennblades to about 6 men left approximately + the Drummer, and cleared 4 Dygmies. Stray AE damage left Muggs down three boxes. Conquest shot, but a Gobber cloud and Tale of Mists kept me out of a lot of too much trouble. My toughs started a trend of being a bit overkill, screwing up his plans more than either of us expected.
On my turn, I saw a good opportunity; he only had 3 Winterguard in the zone, and I felt I could clear them relatively well. I reburrowed my 6 remaining Dygmies (after Vengeance moves from the Fenns) and used my repositioning to get some good lanes with the Fennblades. After a little bit of shooting, I got a Winterguard knocked down with a Tough roll, and I laid a Mortality on him from Grim. However, my Fennblades betrayed me and missed needing 7's, so I still had one in the zone. However, I had a brief flash of foresight, and had run the Drummer up so that my Axer had a perfect slam angle to take the Drummer over 2 Winterguard and potentially clear them; with Mortality I had a near guaranteed kill. Thankfully, this worked, and the slam got 2 guys (and failed to break my armor!) and I killed both of them; Grim was toeing the zone, and I went up 2 CPs. Also, I had removed the rest of the TAC from the board with a 2-man from the Whackers followed by a 4-man to the unhurt guy. I made one key mistake, however, in a mispositioned Mauler who was within threat range of the Conquest with Boundless charge; if he got on him, I would have a VERY hard time salvaging this game out.
He put 3 on the conquest, and started shooting back into my guys with the Winterguard and others. After a number of attacks from Gorman, the Winterguard, and everyone else, I was down a Bushwhacker and down to 2 Fennblades, one of whom had ended up way out of position because I'm silly. Thankfully, a lot of Toughs held me out longer than anticipated, and he had to blow way more shots into me than he planned on. Sorscha moved up and popped feat, but then a mistake was realized: Sorscha was too far to get Boundless onto the Conquest, meaning he would be short no matter what based on my Mauler position, leaving me in a fantastic place. As a consolation, he charged the 3 Great Bears onto the Axer that slammed, putting him down with the 3rd swing (crap dice on the first two, I almost made it!), but Backswinging his own guy into the ground (although he did Tough). Conquest moved up, but missed most of his shots onto the Mauler, reducing me by only 6 boxes, leaving me in a very good spot. The Great Bears and a handful of Winterguard contested, but there was not much I needed to clear.
So, before I got anything else at all going... The Runebearer once per gamed Mortality onto the Conquest, hitting easily to drop him to 18 armor. Grim put Rage on the Mauler, shot the Conquest and boosted damage (to ensure a free charge), Muggs and Krump shot random things (missed, I think), and the Mauler was off. Charge in, not snakes to hit - hits the charge, and dice... 6-5-5 on the charge at dice + 1. Holy balls. The Mauler continues his way through, and with 1 Fury to spare scraps the Conquest. Granted, there was going to be a Fell Caller and an Axer that could still charge, so I wasn't in bad shape yet; that just made everything else much easier.
From there, I did some cleanup; the Fell Caller finished off one of the last Great Bears (I think one of the two Hunters Pygs actually finished another), the Dygmies and Bushwhackers cleared Gorman, Harlan, and some Winterguard, leaving Aiyana and Holt, some Winterguard, Mechanics, and that's about all. Here's the catch: I had long cleared the zone. I was going to be at 4-0 on CPs... WITH AN OBJECTIVE REMAINING. /facepalm. I completely forgot I could have 5-manned the objective with Whackers, shot it with every Dygmy and the Axer, and closed out the game 5-0. That was dumb. VERY dumb.
Thankfully, Grim was on 3 transfers, plenty of beef to transfer to, and not in good position for Sorscha to assassinate, so all my opponent did was just jam up as best as he could. I cleared the way after that, got Mortality on the objective, the Axer charge it at dice-2 with a free charge (Grim put like 5 on it or so), and I easily ended the game 5-0.
I really actually played as clean a game as I've played in quite some time, I think. The only two major mistakes were 1) Mauler placement and 2) not ending the game with the objective on that one turn, and because I had so much stuff left, that last one wasn't horrible. The Mauler placement could have gotten me, but I thankfully was able to get away with it, taking the 5-0 CP win.
I had to leave after this, however, leaving the unresolved game with Andy to finish off... So now I owe him one!
My List:
Hunters Grim (*4pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Pyg Burrowers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Pyg Bushwackers (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew (Leader and 1 Grunt) (1pts)
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer (2pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
Fennblade Kithkar (2pts)
Professor Victor Pendrake (2pts)
Stone Scribe Chronicler (2pts)
Opponents List:
Forward Kommander Sorscha
* Conquest
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker
Battle Mechaniks (Leader and 3 Grunts)
Great Bears of Gallowswood
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt
Tactical Arcanist Corps
Winter Guard Infantry (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Winter Guard Infantry Officer & Standard
* 2 Winter Guard Infantry Rocketeers
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist
Harlan Versh
Koldun Lord
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich
Widowmaker Marksman
My opponent won the roll and chose to go second. The terrain featured a small linear obstacle in the middle of the board just in front of each players deployment, and forests on the close right side (opposite the objective) for each player.
He put conquest a little left of center from my view, where the linear obstacle wouldn't interfere with movement. I put the Hunters center, with Krump off to the left and Muggs to the right near the edge of command. The two Axers went to either side of Grim, and the Fennblades went 6 to either side (thank you giant command bubble). Mauler came in back with the support staff. After his deployment, I placed the Burrowers fairly central, and the Whackers off to the right to run into the forest.
His AD widowmaker went opposite the Whackers, while his winterguard deathstar went central and right, close to his objective. The Koldun Lord went to the left (from my view) of Conquest, while the various solos went center or right, with the Great Bears central. Sorscha herself was approximately in the middle.
The Burrowers went under (possibly unnecessary, but Conquest has a lot of AoE potential) first turn as is their wont, and the Fennblades ran up the field, spreading pretty substantially with the officer in the middle. Grim got Harmoniously Exalted and put out two Rushes on the Axers and Mirage on the Fennblades. Everything else ran and tried to take up good supporting positions, since I thought next turn was going to be my first big swing turn. Tale of Mists went on the Fennblades.
The Koldun Lord gave the Conquest a focus, and then I got a small surprise in the form of a series of Creeping Barrage templates across the middle of the board. The big gun fired, but I believe deviated harmlessly, or failed to break armor somewhere. The Winterguard came up on the right and center, spreading out all over and clogging up the board with Bob and Weave and Iron Flesh. The Widowmaker jacked a Bushwhacker who proceeded to Tough, the TAC came up near his objective, and the support staff and Great Bears moved up near the Conquest a bit back.
Due to the Creeping Barrage templates, the Dygmies didn't have great angles to cross the board, so my feat got nixed for a turn. I looked at my board position, didn't entirely like what I saw, and decided that I was going to be playing more cautiously than planned. The Dygmies advanced, with 2 going through the Creeping Barrages with no armor break, and 1 toughing out. Another one crept around the edge to take a shot at a TAC member, but sadly failed to hit, so they assumed clogging positions. I had placed fairly carefully so the Fennblades would have good charges, and with a Fell Called +2 sent 3-4 Fennblades clogging into the Winterguard (and the Widowmaker), taking out 1-2 Winterguard with a lucky big roll and getting the Widowmaker. The Whackers 6 manned a TAC member out, while Grim shot another and crapped out his damage to leave him on 1 box. The rest of the Fennblades and Dygmies stayed fairly safe, but the 3-4 Fenns I sent forward were in solid clogging positions to hold up his lines. Tale of Mists ended up on the Dygmies to try to get a reburrow.
As a result of my clogging, he wasn't able to get as far forward as he liked, so he advanced relatively carefully and used Sprays and shooting (with some misses that were lucky for me) to clear my jam. A couple of accidental bad positions left some Winterguard engaged that he wanted to use in other ways, but he was able to drop the Fennblades to about 6 men left approximately + the Drummer, and cleared 4 Dygmies. Stray AE damage left Muggs down three boxes. Conquest shot, but a Gobber cloud and Tale of Mists kept me out of a lot of too much trouble. My toughs started a trend of being a bit overkill, screwing up his plans more than either of us expected.
On my turn, I saw a good opportunity; he only had 3 Winterguard in the zone, and I felt I could clear them relatively well. I reburrowed my 6 remaining Dygmies (after Vengeance moves from the Fenns) and used my repositioning to get some good lanes with the Fennblades. After a little bit of shooting, I got a Winterguard knocked down with a Tough roll, and I laid a Mortality on him from Grim. However, my Fennblades betrayed me and missed needing 7's, so I still had one in the zone. However, I had a brief flash of foresight, and had run the Drummer up so that my Axer had a perfect slam angle to take the Drummer over 2 Winterguard and potentially clear them; with Mortality I had a near guaranteed kill. Thankfully, this worked, and the slam got 2 guys (and failed to break my armor!) and I killed both of them; Grim was toeing the zone, and I went up 2 CPs. Also, I had removed the rest of the TAC from the board with a 2-man from the Whackers followed by a 4-man to the unhurt guy. I made one key mistake, however, in a mispositioned Mauler who was within threat range of the Conquest with Boundless charge; if he got on him, I would have a VERY hard time salvaging this game out.
He put 3 on the conquest, and started shooting back into my guys with the Winterguard and others. After a number of attacks from Gorman, the Winterguard, and everyone else, I was down a Bushwhacker and down to 2 Fennblades, one of whom had ended up way out of position because I'm silly. Thankfully, a lot of Toughs held me out longer than anticipated, and he had to blow way more shots into me than he planned on. Sorscha moved up and popped feat, but then a mistake was realized: Sorscha was too far to get Boundless onto the Conquest, meaning he would be short no matter what based on my Mauler position, leaving me in a fantastic place. As a consolation, he charged the 3 Great Bears onto the Axer that slammed, putting him down with the 3rd swing (crap dice on the first two, I almost made it!), but Backswinging his own guy into the ground (although he did Tough). Conquest moved up, but missed most of his shots onto the Mauler, reducing me by only 6 boxes, leaving me in a very good spot. The Great Bears and a handful of Winterguard contested, but there was not much I needed to clear.
So, before I got anything else at all going... The Runebearer once per gamed Mortality onto the Conquest, hitting easily to drop him to 18 armor. Grim put Rage on the Mauler, shot the Conquest and boosted damage (to ensure a free charge), Muggs and Krump shot random things (missed, I think), and the Mauler was off. Charge in, not snakes to hit - hits the charge, and dice... 6-5-5 on the charge at dice + 1. Holy balls. The Mauler continues his way through, and with 1 Fury to spare scraps the Conquest. Granted, there was going to be a Fell Caller and an Axer that could still charge, so I wasn't in bad shape yet; that just made everything else much easier.
From there, I did some cleanup; the Fell Caller finished off one of the last Great Bears (I think one of the two Hunters Pygs actually finished another), the Dygmies and Bushwhackers cleared Gorman, Harlan, and some Winterguard, leaving Aiyana and Holt, some Winterguard, Mechanics, and that's about all. Here's the catch: I had long cleared the zone. I was going to be at 4-0 on CPs... WITH AN OBJECTIVE REMAINING. /facepalm. I completely forgot I could have 5-manned the objective with Whackers, shot it with every Dygmy and the Axer, and closed out the game 5-0. That was dumb. VERY dumb.
Thankfully, Grim was on 3 transfers, plenty of beef to transfer to, and not in good position for Sorscha to assassinate, so all my opponent did was just jam up as best as he could. I cleared the way after that, got Mortality on the objective, the Axer charge it at dice-2 with a free charge (Grim put like 5 on it or so), and I easily ended the game 5-0.
I really actually played as clean a game as I've played in quite some time, I think. The only two major mistakes were 1) Mauler placement and 2) not ending the game with the objective on that one turn, and because I had so much stuff left, that last one wasn't horrible. The Mauler placement could have gotten me, but I thankfully was able to get away with it, taking the 5-0 CP win.
I had to leave after this, however, leaving the unresolved game with Andy to finish off... So now I owe him one!
Battle Report 4-12, Atomic Empire Tourney Game 1, Trolls vs. Legion
Quick note: Sadly, despite this being a potential 3 game tourney, I had to bail after Game 2, so I left an unresolved game with Andy with us both at 2-0. We had 6 people attend, with 2 Legion, 2 Trollbloods, 1 Khador, and 1 Circle.
Scenario: Close Quarters
My List:
pGrissel
Storm Troll
Pyre Troll
Impaler
Max Long Riders
- Sorcerer Adjunct
Horthol
Max Warders
Min Champs + Skaldi
- Sorcerer Adjunct
min Krielstone + UA
Swamp Gobbers
Opponents List:
Vayl, Consul of Everblight
* Angelius
* Angelius
* Ravagore
Blighted Ogrun Warspears (Leader and 4 Grunts)
* Warspear Chieftan
Blighted Ogrun Warspears (Leader and 4 Grunts)
* Warspear Chieftan
Spawning Vessel (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Blighted Nyss Shepherd
Strider Deathstalker
Strider Deathstalker
I lost the roll for choice of first/second, and my opponent elected to go first. Terrain was forest on opposite corners of the board (my close right, his close right), random walls that had little/no effect, and that was about it I believe. Fairly sparse for the game.
I'm a little hazy on his deployment, but I know there was a unit of Spears threatening on my flag, a unit fairly central, I believe both Angelii were near his flag with the pot, and the Ravagore on the right side. Approximately. Both Deathstalkers were threatening my flag.
I put my Long Riders mostly on the right, one or two in the back-central region, Grissel central right to attempt to dominate my friendly flag (similar to my last game), with the Warders left and the Champs on the center. Beasts and support were fairly central, as I recall. I decided to attempt an early game plan similar to that of a few days ago; attempt to dominate my flag and keep my points rolling in while using the Warders and Champs to contest his flag and jam up. It wasn't as successful as the day before, due to different lists and a few mistakes on my part, but still had moderate success. After I deployed, the unit of Spears across from the Long Rider Preyed them, while the other unit preyed the Champs.
He simply ran up, mostly straight forward, with Angellii threatening central/center left from my position, Ravagore central right, and the War Spears threatening middle and right. The Deathstalkers ran up, one moving way up the board into my side, the other moving about halfway up, right side.
I moved up a little cautiously - I gave him 1-2 Long Rider targets that were OK, but I tried to limit how much I gave him. The Warders went full bore and ended up getting Hoof It from Grissel, advancing relatively aggressively, although still remaining far enough away to not eat too much damage; I learned from the other day to be a little more cautious. Champions went up, but I held them a bit in reserve to protect them from the Warspears.
Top of 2, the Warspears assaulted/ran on each side. One of the Warders got damage plinked in, and one Long Rider died that I moved a hair too far forward and a Spear had him, along with some random Assault shots from other Spears. One Angel finished off a Warder, but I actually came out mostly intact; I was fairly content. At the end of this turn, the Ravagore had Admonition, one Angel had Refuge, and he had fairly solid threats across the board. Oh, and a Deathstalker knocked out a Sorcerer (failed Tough check) but failed to hit a Gobber in the cloud near Grissel (needed 11, rolled 10, yeesh!).
I decided it was time for the pain train, and lit the world up with Grissel's beautiful chorus of songs. The Pyre Troll, Impaler, and Storm Trolls all got random shots into the Warspears, resulting in 2-3 dead Warspears, as well as a dead Deathstalker. After Warder and Long Rider charges, I left him sitting on 1 Chieftain in one group, a Chieftain and Grunt in the other, as well as a single deathstalker, with no Champion hitting required. I repositioned to jam up the works hard with the Warders - pretty much sacrificing them for the next turn, because I was fairly sure it would take most of what he had to jam them - Champs went central, and the Long Riders stayed on the right. One Rider repositioned to tie up the Deathstalker, along with the Impaler.
However, I made one HUGE error on this turn; instead of charging the Long Rider into one of the Warspears, I decided to impact attack with Flaming Fists (taking impact to pow 16 on a Spear missing 4 already), since I needed 7 on 3 dice to hit... And failed to hit. Had I charged that guy, also, I would have needed 5 on two dice to hit a charge, then 5 on two dice for a Feat attack, at PS 16 and 14 for the two attacks. That would have let me dominate now, getting my scenario game going 2 turns earlier; instead, I lost the opportunity and ran out of attacks to finish the Warspear. Additionally, I made a smaller error in that I played too cautiously with the Champions, and they weren't in as good retaliatory position as I wanted next turn.
Next turn, he cleared the Warders with Angels, dismounted Horthol (I placed him about 11 inches away from an Angel; bad positioning on my part, but he did take a Skaldi Bonehammer counter charge which blew out Spirit on a Refuged Angel), killed a Champ, lost a Deathstalker to free strikes, and shot with the Ravagore but didn't accomplish much due to No Continuous Effects aura and the dice kinda crapping out. I believe Admonition stayed on the Ravagore if I remember correctly... Not 100% sure.
I was a bit counter-jammed, now, in my ability to get repositioning, but did my best, and freed up a few Champs to kill a Stinger with Skaldi (he'd spawned one by this point from the Pot), and cleared the War Spears, to get some better repositioning. Horthol crapped out on me for once :( and missed needing 6 to hit on an Angel to put more damage at D-3. I forgot to use Grissel's fell call, stupidly, but got her in dominating position to go up 1-0 on scenario. The forgotten Fell Call was huge, actually, in that it cost me Skaldi and good Champion position with Hoof It.
My opponent took this opportunity to wreck Horthol and refuge away (he was way outta the Stone's aura), then brought in a Ravagore to finish off a Long Rider near my point and contest. Skaldi got a random counter charge that didn't really matter, and was eaten by an Angel - I thought he would be anyway, because he was out of position, but oh well. He did some work for me, putting 11 on an Angel and killing a Stinger. Good boy. He ran the Shepherd in between my Impaler and his Ravagore, trying to minimize the number of beasts I could get on the Ravagore, as the Pyre and Impaler were in position to attempt to kill the Ravagore. A Stinger was spawned again and did some work in the middle, but Vayl couldn't quite dominate her side to take advantage of my position, so I remained up 1-0.
With the Shepherd in the way I was in a very awkward position, trying to figure out how to unjam myself. I was struggling to figure it out until I realized the Storm Troll's Lightning Generator might be just what I needed. I moved him into position, boosted to hit, and got 2 jumps (to the Shepherd and my Impaler), boosted slight damage into the Rava, and killed the Impaler. The Impaler was given Flaming Fists by Grissel, the Stone popped for +1 STR, and I walked around and started beating on him at dice -2. I left him at about 1/3 boxes or so, and the Pyre managed to finish him on the last attack.(retrospectively, I should have probably tried to get Calamity on the Ravagore, as that would have been better than Flaming Fists on one beast, but hindsight's 20/20). The Angel's had come up to threaten the center, and had been attacked by the Krielstone members and champs, but I failed to kill the badly wounded Angel (bad decision making with the Champs combined with failing to hit needing 7's on all the Champion attacks. Ouch.)
On his next turn, he moved Vayl into position to dominate, cleared the area around the objective, removed both remaining Champs (and one remaining Long Rider, I believe), and started threatening Grissel, leaving me in a pretty tough spot, having to clear 2 Angels, a Stinger, and still contest.
My next turn, I ran a Sorcerer around to contest, along with random Krielstone members getting in with the Vessel members, and was about to start pounding the Angel when dice down was called, giving me a 2-1 scenario win in a very tough match.
I made some key mistakes that really left me a bit further behind than I should have been, including not focusing more attention on a nearly-dead Angel, but I luckily got away with my mistakes and made it out of a very tough round with the victory. The early CP's managed to win the day for me!
Scenario: Close Quarters
My List:
pGrissel
Storm Troll
Pyre Troll
Impaler
Max Long Riders
- Sorcerer Adjunct
Horthol
Max Warders
Min Champs + Skaldi
- Sorcerer Adjunct
min Krielstone + UA
Swamp Gobbers
Opponents List:
Vayl, Consul of Everblight
* Angelius
* Angelius
* Ravagore
Blighted Ogrun Warspears (Leader and 4 Grunts)
* Warspear Chieftan
Blighted Ogrun Warspears (Leader and 4 Grunts)
* Warspear Chieftan
Spawning Vessel (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Blighted Nyss Shepherd
Strider Deathstalker
Strider Deathstalker
I lost the roll for choice of first/second, and my opponent elected to go first. Terrain was forest on opposite corners of the board (my close right, his close right), random walls that had little/no effect, and that was about it I believe. Fairly sparse for the game.
I'm a little hazy on his deployment, but I know there was a unit of Spears threatening on my flag, a unit fairly central, I believe both Angelii were near his flag with the pot, and the Ravagore on the right side. Approximately. Both Deathstalkers were threatening my flag.
I put my Long Riders mostly on the right, one or two in the back-central region, Grissel central right to attempt to dominate my friendly flag (similar to my last game), with the Warders left and the Champs on the center. Beasts and support were fairly central, as I recall. I decided to attempt an early game plan similar to that of a few days ago; attempt to dominate my flag and keep my points rolling in while using the Warders and Champs to contest his flag and jam up. It wasn't as successful as the day before, due to different lists and a few mistakes on my part, but still had moderate success. After I deployed, the unit of Spears across from the Long Rider Preyed them, while the other unit preyed the Champs.
He simply ran up, mostly straight forward, with Angellii threatening central/center left from my position, Ravagore central right, and the War Spears threatening middle and right. The Deathstalkers ran up, one moving way up the board into my side, the other moving about halfway up, right side.
I moved up a little cautiously - I gave him 1-2 Long Rider targets that were OK, but I tried to limit how much I gave him. The Warders went full bore and ended up getting Hoof It from Grissel, advancing relatively aggressively, although still remaining far enough away to not eat too much damage; I learned from the other day to be a little more cautious. Champions went up, but I held them a bit in reserve to protect them from the Warspears.
Top of 2, the Warspears assaulted/ran on each side. One of the Warders got damage plinked in, and one Long Rider died that I moved a hair too far forward and a Spear had him, along with some random Assault shots from other Spears. One Angel finished off a Warder, but I actually came out mostly intact; I was fairly content. At the end of this turn, the Ravagore had Admonition, one Angel had Refuge, and he had fairly solid threats across the board. Oh, and a Deathstalker knocked out a Sorcerer (failed Tough check) but failed to hit a Gobber in the cloud near Grissel (needed 11, rolled 10, yeesh!).
I decided it was time for the pain train, and lit the world up with Grissel's beautiful chorus of songs. The Pyre Troll, Impaler, and Storm Trolls all got random shots into the Warspears, resulting in 2-3 dead Warspears, as well as a dead Deathstalker. After Warder and Long Rider charges, I left him sitting on 1 Chieftain in one group, a Chieftain and Grunt in the other, as well as a single deathstalker, with no Champion hitting required. I repositioned to jam up the works hard with the Warders - pretty much sacrificing them for the next turn, because I was fairly sure it would take most of what he had to jam them - Champs went central, and the Long Riders stayed on the right. One Rider repositioned to tie up the Deathstalker, along with the Impaler.
However, I made one HUGE error on this turn; instead of charging the Long Rider into one of the Warspears, I decided to impact attack with Flaming Fists (taking impact to pow 16 on a Spear missing 4 already), since I needed 7 on 3 dice to hit... And failed to hit. Had I charged that guy, also, I would have needed 5 on two dice to hit a charge, then 5 on two dice for a Feat attack, at PS 16 and 14 for the two attacks. That would have let me dominate now, getting my scenario game going 2 turns earlier; instead, I lost the opportunity and ran out of attacks to finish the Warspear. Additionally, I made a smaller error in that I played too cautiously with the Champions, and they weren't in as good retaliatory position as I wanted next turn.
Next turn, he cleared the Warders with Angels, dismounted Horthol (I placed him about 11 inches away from an Angel; bad positioning on my part, but he did take a Skaldi Bonehammer counter charge which blew out Spirit on a Refuged Angel), killed a Champ, lost a Deathstalker to free strikes, and shot with the Ravagore but didn't accomplish much due to No Continuous Effects aura and the dice kinda crapping out. I believe Admonition stayed on the Ravagore if I remember correctly... Not 100% sure.
I was a bit counter-jammed, now, in my ability to get repositioning, but did my best, and freed up a few Champs to kill a Stinger with Skaldi (he'd spawned one by this point from the Pot), and cleared the War Spears, to get some better repositioning. Horthol crapped out on me for once :( and missed needing 6 to hit on an Angel to put more damage at D-3. I forgot to use Grissel's fell call, stupidly, but got her in dominating position to go up 1-0 on scenario. The forgotten Fell Call was huge, actually, in that it cost me Skaldi and good Champion position with Hoof It.
My opponent took this opportunity to wreck Horthol and refuge away (he was way outta the Stone's aura), then brought in a Ravagore to finish off a Long Rider near my point and contest. Skaldi got a random counter charge that didn't really matter, and was eaten by an Angel - I thought he would be anyway, because he was out of position, but oh well. He did some work for me, putting 11 on an Angel and killing a Stinger. Good boy. He ran the Shepherd in between my Impaler and his Ravagore, trying to minimize the number of beasts I could get on the Ravagore, as the Pyre and Impaler were in position to attempt to kill the Ravagore. A Stinger was spawned again and did some work in the middle, but Vayl couldn't quite dominate her side to take advantage of my position, so I remained up 1-0.
With the Shepherd in the way I was in a very awkward position, trying to figure out how to unjam myself. I was struggling to figure it out until I realized the Storm Troll's Lightning Generator might be just what I needed. I moved him into position, boosted to hit, and got 2 jumps (to the Shepherd and my Impaler), boosted slight damage into the Rava, and killed the Impaler. The Impaler was given Flaming Fists by Grissel, the Stone popped for +1 STR, and I walked around and started beating on him at dice -2. I left him at about 1/3 boxes or so, and the Pyre managed to finish him on the last attack.(retrospectively, I should have probably tried to get Calamity on the Ravagore, as that would have been better than Flaming Fists on one beast, but hindsight's 20/20). The Angel's had come up to threaten the center, and had been attacked by the Krielstone members and champs, but I failed to kill the badly wounded Angel (bad decision making with the Champs combined with failing to hit needing 7's on all the Champion attacks. Ouch.)
On his next turn, he moved Vayl into position to dominate, cleared the area around the objective, removed both remaining Champs (and one remaining Long Rider, I believe), and started threatening Grissel, leaving me in a pretty tough spot, having to clear 2 Angels, a Stinger, and still contest.
My next turn, I ran a Sorcerer around to contest, along with random Krielstone members getting in with the Vessel members, and was about to start pounding the Angel when dice down was called, giving me a 2-1 scenario win in a very tough match.
I made some key mistakes that really left me a bit further behind than I should have been, including not focusing more attention on a nearly-dead Angel, but I luckily got away with my mistakes and made it out of a very tough round with the victory. The early CP's managed to win the day for me!
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Battle Report - 4/10/2014 Trolls vs. Convergence of Cyriss
Alright, new format for my battle reports. Going to try to make it concise and to the point for the intro, and lay out something I'm going to try and follow.
Scenario: Close Quarters
My List (a.k.a. "YUMMMM BEEFY!", courtesy Liam)
pGrissel
Storm Troll
Pyre Troll
Impaler
Max Long Riders
- Sorcerer Adjunct
Horthol
Max Warders
Min Champs + Skaldi
- Sorcerer Adjunct
min Krielstone + UA
Swamp Gobbers
Opponent (Convergence of Cyriss):
Syntherion
Corollary
Prime Axiom
2 Galvanizers
1 Mitigator
1 Cipher
1 Monitor
1 Inverter
Optifex Directive
For my list, I chose to modify my previous pGrissel list that I had run - very similar to a common set of pGrissel lists I've seen from a number of other players - into a little bit beefier, hardier list, but with less field spread (potentially). My thought was that I really was not feeling comfortable with my positioning with the Kriel Warriors, and going into a Timed Turns event on Saturday, I didn't want to be fighting myself with my board positioning for the entire tourney. As a result, I decided to bring the beef.
This game went up against a Syntherion list looking to utilize Synergy and Hotshot to his best advantage. Luckily for me, Hotshot was less worrisome, but Synergy could really cramp my style. It can guarantee that the models across from me got to the higher POW values that would easily crack my ARM.
The board had two obstructions, one a bit beyond his flag, and one a little off to the right of mine. Large forests were present on my left on my side, and on his side on the right, with scattered other terrain and a hill.
He won the roll and let me go first. I decided to send my Long Riders on the right flank, towards my near flag, with the Champs straight up the middle and the Warders a little off to the left, but mostly center, near directly across from his flag. Grissel was dead center in front of the Stone. Horthol was off to the left of the Warders, while everything else came a little in back, with the Sorcerers supporting.
had deployed Axiom dead center, and spread his jacks along the front. I honestly cannot remember which jacks are which, but the one that created rough terrain templates was across from my Riders.
I decided, as I looked at the board, that I didn't think I had very good odds of controlling/dominating his flag, but I had very good odds of jamming on my flag and setting the battle line where he couldn't contest my flag. So, I dropped 5 in the Stone from Grissel, put Hoof It on the Warders, and ran her towards my flag. The Long Riders ran up and took up a spread set of positions near my flag, while the Champs went dead center and the Warders came up to the left. Everything else advanced fairly centrally.
He advanced his guys, I believe running most jacks, but moving the Axiom up and popping a shot to see if a Rider was in range (he wasn't) and shooting out Rough Terrain templates. I can't keep Convergence jacks straight, so I won't try. Synergy went up, as did Hotshot on the Axiom.
I looked at the board, wasn't really feeling good about a jam feat (although I was tempted), so I decided to just sacrifice a few Warders for the good of the rest of my army to get myself good position. The Warders ran, got Hoof It from Grissel who moved to dominate the near flag, while the Champs stayed central. A single Rider charged, managing to barely get one of his heavies, while the rest ran and positioned for a (hopefully) awesome feat turn. The Stone had 5 (Grissel pumped one more in) after putting up the aura and picking one up from Grissel after the fact, giving a solid 9" bubble. I clouded up that got 3 Riders and Grissel, making her DEF 17 and I was careful to put models in the way to prevent drag (screw you Axiom!)
He decided he'd try a feat pop, and laid out a lot of damage. All told, he put about 3 wounds each on 2 champs, killed 3 or 4 Warders, and I think killed one Rider. Can't remember all the specifics, but Axiom advanced to get more central to get maximum damage, while he advanced as much as possible near the Riders. Critically, he was not able to get into position to contest my dominating (both of us continually forgot in this game that he could make Servitors and run them from Axiom. Oops).
I looked at the board and knew I had a near perfect feat turn for laying out damage. I got Flaming Fists on a Champ, Horthol, and a Long Rider, refilled the stone (it activated first, put up Strength and moved aggressively forward), feated, and started. The Pyre Troll managed to get 4 models on fire, including an Optifex. Horthol took out about half or more of a heavy, a Champ sliced the crap out of Axiom (1 champ took like 1/3 his boxes. Wtf?). One Heavy went down to 3 Champ Charges, and after my Long Riders collective crapped their pants, he had half a heavy on that side. I then repositioned to jam up with 2 Champs and the lone remaining warder, as well as a pair of Long Riders, while everything else backed out for Round 2. I was now at 2 CP's and rolling.
He laid out pretty much all the damage he could, but my Tough rolls went hot this turn, and I think he only killed 1 model. I had 1 Champ left, the Warder was still up, and I think both Riders toughed. Horthol was screened by a Sorcerer, who also toughed to prevent a charge on him. So, yeah - Tough's a thing.
My next turn wasn't much - Horthol finished a heavy, I did extraneous damage, and I jammed with every model I had because I was at 4 CP's after this turn, and I wanted to get to 5 quickly. I didn't think I had the damage to put Axiom in the ground, and my crap rolls on the other heavies were leaving me in a bad spot, with my damage output disappearing quickly. He was winning the attrition, but he couldn't clear my jam well enough. He couldn't clear after the next round, and I got to 5-0 on CPs.
So... My biggest mistake probably was that I was too concerned with early contesting, and I should have preserved the Warders - I lost 3 or 4 bottom of 2, when I could have lost 1-2 probably. I should have conceded him an early point, preserved the Warders, and I honestly think that he would have lost 2 Heavies on my Turn 3, along with damage into Axiom, and maybe 1-2 lights with it. Not a horrible mistake, but one that could have been more costly.
His big mistake, I think, was advancing and shooting Turn 1. He should've gone balls to the wall up the field, trying to get up, because his positioning let me get my full jam. That's an easy mistake to make, though, when you know your shooting range will be close.
Also, he forgot the Servitors for contesting - woulda helped a lot and slowed the game down. I think on one turn he couldn't have because I had a lot of reach models for him to move around to get there, but he might have bought one more turn.
It was a good game, and a good initial test run of YUMMM BEEFY. I think I like it; it's not the Miserable Meat Mountain, but I think it has staying power, and pGris's Fell Calls really knock it out.
Scenario: Close Quarters
My List (a.k.a. "YUMMMM BEEFY!", courtesy Liam)
pGrissel
Storm Troll
Pyre Troll
Impaler
Max Long Riders
- Sorcerer Adjunct
Horthol
Max Warders
Min Champs + Skaldi
- Sorcerer Adjunct
min Krielstone + UA
Swamp Gobbers
Opponent (Convergence of Cyriss):
Syntherion
Corollary
Prime Axiom
2 Galvanizers
1 Mitigator
1 Cipher
1 Monitor
1 Inverter
Optifex Directive
For my list, I chose to modify my previous pGrissel list that I had run - very similar to a common set of pGrissel lists I've seen from a number of other players - into a little bit beefier, hardier list, but with less field spread (potentially). My thought was that I really was not feeling comfortable with my positioning with the Kriel Warriors, and going into a Timed Turns event on Saturday, I didn't want to be fighting myself with my board positioning for the entire tourney. As a result, I decided to bring the beef.
This game went up against a Syntherion list looking to utilize Synergy and Hotshot to his best advantage. Luckily for me, Hotshot was less worrisome, but Synergy could really cramp my style. It can guarantee that the models across from me got to the higher POW values that would easily crack my ARM.
The board had two obstructions, one a bit beyond his flag, and one a little off to the right of mine. Large forests were present on my left on my side, and on his side on the right, with scattered other terrain and a hill.
He won the roll and let me go first. I decided to send my Long Riders on the right flank, towards my near flag, with the Champs straight up the middle and the Warders a little off to the left, but mostly center, near directly across from his flag. Grissel was dead center in front of the Stone. Horthol was off to the left of the Warders, while everything else came a little in back, with the Sorcerers supporting.
had deployed Axiom dead center, and spread his jacks along the front. I honestly cannot remember which jacks are which, but the one that created rough terrain templates was across from my Riders.
I decided, as I looked at the board, that I didn't think I had very good odds of controlling/dominating his flag, but I had very good odds of jamming on my flag and setting the battle line where he couldn't contest my flag. So, I dropped 5 in the Stone from Grissel, put Hoof It on the Warders, and ran her towards my flag. The Long Riders ran up and took up a spread set of positions near my flag, while the Champs went dead center and the Warders came up to the left. Everything else advanced fairly centrally.
He advanced his guys, I believe running most jacks, but moving the Axiom up and popping a shot to see if a Rider was in range (he wasn't) and shooting out Rough Terrain templates. I can't keep Convergence jacks straight, so I won't try. Synergy went up, as did Hotshot on the Axiom.
I looked at the board, wasn't really feeling good about a jam feat (although I was tempted), so I decided to just sacrifice a few Warders for the good of the rest of my army to get myself good position. The Warders ran, got Hoof It from Grissel who moved to dominate the near flag, while the Champs stayed central. A single Rider charged, managing to barely get one of his heavies, while the rest ran and positioned for a (hopefully) awesome feat turn. The Stone had 5 (Grissel pumped one more in) after putting up the aura and picking one up from Grissel after the fact, giving a solid 9" bubble. I clouded up that got 3 Riders and Grissel, making her DEF 17 and I was careful to put models in the way to prevent drag (screw you Axiom!)
He decided he'd try a feat pop, and laid out a lot of damage. All told, he put about 3 wounds each on 2 champs, killed 3 or 4 Warders, and I think killed one Rider. Can't remember all the specifics, but Axiom advanced to get more central to get maximum damage, while he advanced as much as possible near the Riders. Critically, he was not able to get into position to contest my dominating (both of us continually forgot in this game that he could make Servitors and run them from Axiom. Oops).
I looked at the board and knew I had a near perfect feat turn for laying out damage. I got Flaming Fists on a Champ, Horthol, and a Long Rider, refilled the stone (it activated first, put up Strength and moved aggressively forward), feated, and started. The Pyre Troll managed to get 4 models on fire, including an Optifex. Horthol took out about half or more of a heavy, a Champ sliced the crap out of Axiom (1 champ took like 1/3 his boxes. Wtf?). One Heavy went down to 3 Champ Charges, and after my Long Riders collective crapped their pants, he had half a heavy on that side. I then repositioned to jam up with 2 Champs and the lone remaining warder, as well as a pair of Long Riders, while everything else backed out for Round 2. I was now at 2 CP's and rolling.
He laid out pretty much all the damage he could, but my Tough rolls went hot this turn, and I think he only killed 1 model. I had 1 Champ left, the Warder was still up, and I think both Riders toughed. Horthol was screened by a Sorcerer, who also toughed to prevent a charge on him. So, yeah - Tough's a thing.
My next turn wasn't much - Horthol finished a heavy, I did extraneous damage, and I jammed with every model I had because I was at 4 CP's after this turn, and I wanted to get to 5 quickly. I didn't think I had the damage to put Axiom in the ground, and my crap rolls on the other heavies were leaving me in a bad spot, with my damage output disappearing quickly. He was winning the attrition, but he couldn't clear my jam well enough. He couldn't clear after the next round, and I got to 5-0 on CPs.
So... My biggest mistake probably was that I was too concerned with early contesting, and I should have preserved the Warders - I lost 3 or 4 bottom of 2, when I could have lost 1-2 probably. I should have conceded him an early point, preserved the Warders, and I honestly think that he would have lost 2 Heavies on my Turn 3, along with damage into Axiom, and maybe 1-2 lights with it. Not a horrible mistake, but one that could have been more costly.
His big mistake, I think, was advancing and shooting Turn 1. He should've gone balls to the wall up the field, trying to get up, because his positioning let me get my full jam. That's an easy mistake to make, though, when you know your shooting range will be close.
Also, he forgot the Servitors for contesting - woulda helped a lot and slowed the game down. I think on one turn he couldn't have because I had a lot of reach models for him to move around to get there, but he might have bought one more turn.
It was a good game, and a good initial test run of YUMMM BEEFY. I think I like it; it's not the Miserable Meat Mountain, but I think it has staying power, and pGris's Fell Calls really knock it out.
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Battle Report, Trolls vs Mercs 4-2-2014
Another battle report for your enjoyment!
I played against a local Mercs player, who was running a Damiano list, with me choosing to run a variation on my pGrissel list that I had run recently. For his list:
Damiano
Rocinante
Max Steelhead Halbs
Max Steelhead Cav
Max Croe's Cutthroats
2x units of Kayazy Eliminators
Stannis Brocker
Gudrun
Alexia2
Rhupert Carvolo
And I think that was it; it was a list I hadn't seen before, so I was a little wary going in of what it could do. I'd played against Damiano lists, but this one threw me for a small loop in figuring out what it could do.
My list was:
pGrissel
Pyre Troll
Storm Troll
Full Warrior package
min Champs + Skaldi
Max Long Riders
Horthol
min Stone + UA
Chronicler
Saxon
Trollkin Sorcerer (on the Riders)
I'd usually been running Warders in place of Skaldi + Champs and a Bouncer instead of the Storm Troll, but I changed it back; I think I'll probably be undoing those changes, because I've really liked the way the previous list played. Scenario was (I think) Rally Point - it has two offset circular zones, the one on my left being a friendly zone to dominate for 1, control for 1 or dominate for 2 on the other zone, and two objectives somewhat central.
I went first, with my Warriors front and center spread across the front, champs on the left, Horthol on the right, and the Long Riders in the second line behind the Warriors, and the rest of the package central behind Grissel.
He put the Halbs across from the champs mostly (fairly central though), all his cav off to the right, one unit of Eliminators to either flank, Rocinante with the Halbs, and Croe's in front of the Halbs.
I advanced - way too cautiously - up the board, being wary of Croes, and tried to keep most of my guys out of shot ranged. I accidentally boxed in my Long Riders, so I wasn't getting good threat vectors with them, dropped 5 into the Kriel Stone, and moved up. Hoof It went on the Champs and they booked it a little farther forward with the Stone hitting them still. He mostly advanced on his turn, although the Croe's plinked a Champ slightly, and got into good position for zone threatening. His cav were right at the edge of his friendly zone, in good position to threaten anywhere.
My mistakes on my first turn in being WAY too cautious came back to bite me on this turn. My Warriors were way out of position to be threatening anything because of his advance, and I couldn't keep him blocked out of the zone, so I was in a really awkward board position. Additionally, I left one of my Long Riders directly behind an objective and the others were blocked by terrain, so they would be unable to contribute offensively for the turn. I managed to get a few Croe's down with the Champs + a Grissel Rift cast, but he toughed (Rhupert) and they couldn't be knocked down (Surefoot on Gudrun with good placement) so I only got 3 or 4. I feated essentially defensively with Grissel, trying to recover some board position and minimize the next turn damage, and left her on 2 Fury. I got most of my guys under the feat, and all of his units except one set of eliminators, preventing charges. I advanced my Kriels up to just jam up the works, moved the Long Riders into some threatening positions, and prayed for good luck.
He decided, with pGriss on 2 Fury, to try for an assassination, putting 2 on Rocinante and putting Deadeye on the Croe's and the Steelhead Cav. With other attacks, he cleared out a few Warriors (I made no tough checks on the Kriels until the very last guy... Yay Tough.), clearing out way more of my screen than I was hoping to still have. Either 5 or 6 Croe's got shots on Grissel, as well as 2 Steelheads with the +2/+2 ranged buff from Damiano, and Brocker. He forgot the feat shut down Alexia, but she was out of position too. After all was said, Grissel had 4 life and 1 Fury remaining, and he left me a ton of good angles with my Riders and the remaining Kriels.
To speed this along... Next turn I removed all but one of his cav models with Warriors and my Long Riders, with 2 of my Long Riders getting into Rocinante - one of which got Defensive Striked into a tough check, which he passed, but between 2 long riders put a grand total of 2 damage into Rocinante. That sucked. I got a few Halbs, and the Croe's were entirely removed from the board, thankfully. I got some board position back, and Grissel ran scared, healed herself a little, but got to a safe spot.
On his next turn he cleared all but the Piper and Flag from the Kriels (passed Command check), all but 2 Riders dead, with one out of formation, and other scattered damage, with his feat supporting. My next turn, I was beginning to threaten his zone, with horthol removing Stannis, all the Halbs getting removed and Rocinante getting totally reamed by the Champions (3 hits to kill him. Hot dice anyone?), and Grissel dominating friendly for one. He couldn't kill Horthol, tried to keep fighting up but couldn't prevent contesting, so I got another one, cleared all but Kell Bailoch and Damiano my next turn (Forgot Kell, sorry!), ran Grissel to the other side to dominate for 2, and he failed to kill. Alexia had a last ditch assassination on Grissel, but needed 7 to hit and 9 to kill and pulled an 8 on the damage.
I played flat out badly in this game, but his failed assassination run (on a bit of a long shot) really let me back into the game, and I made the most of it, getting back up in attrition and pulling it through. MVP of the game may actually have been the Krielstone - the ARM buff kept more guys alive when they were reduced to 1 HP than I care to remember. The Long Riders and Champs were close, though - they each did their jobs very effectively, once I finally got them in position.
I'm probably going to write a post about my errors with pGrissel, and what I'm finding hard about playing that list - it's a little bit of a self-serving idea because I keep making the same positioning mistakes, and I need to think more about it. Cheers!
I played against a local Mercs player, who was running a Damiano list, with me choosing to run a variation on my pGrissel list that I had run recently. For his list:
Damiano
Rocinante
Max Steelhead Halbs
Max Steelhead Cav
Max Croe's Cutthroats
2x units of Kayazy Eliminators
Stannis Brocker
Gudrun
Alexia2
Rhupert Carvolo
And I think that was it; it was a list I hadn't seen before, so I was a little wary going in of what it could do. I'd played against Damiano lists, but this one threw me for a small loop in figuring out what it could do.
My list was:
pGrissel
Pyre Troll
Storm Troll
Full Warrior package
min Champs + Skaldi
Max Long Riders
Horthol
min Stone + UA
Chronicler
Saxon
Trollkin Sorcerer (on the Riders)
I'd usually been running Warders in place of Skaldi + Champs and a Bouncer instead of the Storm Troll, but I changed it back; I think I'll probably be undoing those changes, because I've really liked the way the previous list played. Scenario was (I think) Rally Point - it has two offset circular zones, the one on my left being a friendly zone to dominate for 1, control for 1 or dominate for 2 on the other zone, and two objectives somewhat central.
I went first, with my Warriors front and center spread across the front, champs on the left, Horthol on the right, and the Long Riders in the second line behind the Warriors, and the rest of the package central behind Grissel.
He put the Halbs across from the champs mostly (fairly central though), all his cav off to the right, one unit of Eliminators to either flank, Rocinante with the Halbs, and Croe's in front of the Halbs.
I advanced - way too cautiously - up the board, being wary of Croes, and tried to keep most of my guys out of shot ranged. I accidentally boxed in my Long Riders, so I wasn't getting good threat vectors with them, dropped 5 into the Kriel Stone, and moved up. Hoof It went on the Champs and they booked it a little farther forward with the Stone hitting them still. He mostly advanced on his turn, although the Croe's plinked a Champ slightly, and got into good position for zone threatening. His cav were right at the edge of his friendly zone, in good position to threaten anywhere.
My mistakes on my first turn in being WAY too cautious came back to bite me on this turn. My Warriors were way out of position to be threatening anything because of his advance, and I couldn't keep him blocked out of the zone, so I was in a really awkward board position. Additionally, I left one of my Long Riders directly behind an objective and the others were blocked by terrain, so they would be unable to contribute offensively for the turn. I managed to get a few Croe's down with the Champs + a Grissel Rift cast, but he toughed (Rhupert) and they couldn't be knocked down (Surefoot on Gudrun with good placement) so I only got 3 or 4. I feated essentially defensively with Grissel, trying to recover some board position and minimize the next turn damage, and left her on 2 Fury. I got most of my guys under the feat, and all of his units except one set of eliminators, preventing charges. I advanced my Kriels up to just jam up the works, moved the Long Riders into some threatening positions, and prayed for good luck.
He decided, with pGriss on 2 Fury, to try for an assassination, putting 2 on Rocinante and putting Deadeye on the Croe's and the Steelhead Cav. With other attacks, he cleared out a few Warriors (I made no tough checks on the Kriels until the very last guy... Yay Tough.), clearing out way more of my screen than I was hoping to still have. Either 5 or 6 Croe's got shots on Grissel, as well as 2 Steelheads with the +2/+2 ranged buff from Damiano, and Brocker. He forgot the feat shut down Alexia, but she was out of position too. After all was said, Grissel had 4 life and 1 Fury remaining, and he left me a ton of good angles with my Riders and the remaining Kriels.
To speed this along... Next turn I removed all but one of his cav models with Warriors and my Long Riders, with 2 of my Long Riders getting into Rocinante - one of which got Defensive Striked into a tough check, which he passed, but between 2 long riders put a grand total of 2 damage into Rocinante. That sucked. I got a few Halbs, and the Croe's were entirely removed from the board, thankfully. I got some board position back, and Grissel ran scared, healed herself a little, but got to a safe spot.
On his next turn he cleared all but the Piper and Flag from the Kriels (passed Command check), all but 2 Riders dead, with one out of formation, and other scattered damage, with his feat supporting. My next turn, I was beginning to threaten his zone, with horthol removing Stannis, all the Halbs getting removed and Rocinante getting totally reamed by the Champions (3 hits to kill him. Hot dice anyone?), and Grissel dominating friendly for one. He couldn't kill Horthol, tried to keep fighting up but couldn't prevent contesting, so I got another one, cleared all but Kell Bailoch and Damiano my next turn (Forgot Kell, sorry!), ran Grissel to the other side to dominate for 2, and he failed to kill. Alexia had a last ditch assassination on Grissel, but needed 7 to hit and 9 to kill and pulled an 8 on the damage.
I played flat out badly in this game, but his failed assassination run (on a bit of a long shot) really let me back into the game, and I made the most of it, getting back up in attrition and pulling it through. MVP of the game may actually have been the Krielstone - the ARM buff kept more guys alive when they were reduced to 1 HP than I care to remember. The Long Riders and Champs were close, though - they each did their jobs very effectively, once I finally got them in position.
I'm probably going to write a post about my errors with pGrissel, and what I'm finding hard about playing that list - it's a little bit of a self-serving idea because I keep making the same positioning mistakes, and I need to think more about it. Cheers!
Friday, March 21, 2014
Battle Report 3-19, Trolls vs Legion of Everblight
I'm still putting my thoughts together for my Calandra post; here's a battle report in the meantime!
So on Wednesday, I brought along a huge base, wanting to try a little bit of early play with the Mountain King. He's on my painting table, so I just brought the base to proxy for the time being; he'll be along in a bit.
I decided to try a Runes of War variant, rather than my traditional pDoomy list, to run the King. I ran:
Doomshaper, Shaman of the Gnarls (+7)
Mulg
Earthborn
Mountain King
max Krielstone + UA
Janissa
2 units of Runeshapers
This may honestly be the lowest model count army I've ever run; it felt incredibly weird to me. I'm used to running much higher model counts than what I ran in that, but I need to break out of habits anyway!
I played Andy, who ran a pThagrosh tier variant. I honestly can't replicate the list, except I know it has 3 Spawning Vessels, 4 Beast Mistresses, a Carnivean and Scythean, and more lessers than I've ever seen on a board. It looked like a unit of lessers coming across the board at me, of all types.
Andy had been running this list lately, and I was curious to see how just simply skewing my armor upwards would run on it. I felt like the Carni and Scythean were the only real dangers to the King, so if I could keep plodding through, I could make it.
The board featured 4 giant pieces of terrain - a huge hill, huge house, huge linear obstacle, and giant trench. I seriously have no better word than "huge" for any of them; the linear obstacle was the smallest, and it was a hooked wall that had about 8-10" of length, maybe more. That piece was my downfall. The scenario was Incursion (3 flags), and Andy elected to go first.
I predeployed centrally with the MK, and he put down his few models not AD in the center. I put Mulg to the left of the King (near a hill), Earthborn to the right (to abuse a wall), and Runeshapers to either side. My hope was to threaten either side with a heavy and let the King run the center; my deployment really hurt me later on. Andy put his 4 various Lesser battlegroups spread evenly across the board for AD, and off we went.
Andy mostly just sent beasts screaming across the board; he knew I had a limited model count, so my number of attacks was fairly low, and he just went with the intent of jamming me up. The lessers all hid around the various walls that were available and ate up a lot of space around me, making it very difficult for me to get to the objectives.
I kept the MK central, sprayed down a random Stinger that he ran forward with Fortune on the King, and ran Mulg and the Earthborn to try to keep a beast in either flag direction. However, I realized increasingly that the giant wall was hampering me from actually moving the King anywhere, and he might be jammed in a small area for most of the game.
Anyway, Andy came in, took out 4 of 6 Runeshapers, and plinked damage into the Earthborn, continuing his jam. The wrong flag for me had gone away, and the King was now thoroughly stuck; I realized quickly that I might lose simply from lack of mobility. Andy had put a solo on the outer flag, so he would get 1 if I couldn't contest, but the only piece that could get near enough to contest was my Earthborn, which was a guaranteed death for him based on Andy's positioning. I decided to give up the point and just hope that I could get over on my turn (when Andy would be at 3 CP's) and do my best. Spoilers: it didn't work.
Andy just simply continued jamming, held me off with Lessers, and I couldn't get my beasts out to contest. Mulg was hampered by the wall and couldn't come over to support, the MK never had anywhere near the necessary room to try and contest, so I simply ran out of options. Andy killed off the Earthborn after a bit of hardship, but it was too little too late; I did not have enough tools, and he won 5-0 on CPs.
Despite the low volume of attacks, I think the core concept is essentially fine; the MK, Mulg, and Earthborn are all hardy and can take a beating. I need to be careful of getting Bronzebacked, but this list isn't entirely intended to face a Skorne list or something similar; I would rather put it down against armies in a central scenario that I don't believe can crack armor and wear them down.
That said, my deployment killed me. I put the King behind the wall in such a position that he could never move out - he killed 10-15 points of lessers across the game from attacks and killshots, but never really had a major effect on the game from where he was located. Had I deployed him on a flank, maybe the wrong flag would have gone away, but I think he could have maneuvered and been able to make his way around, albeit slowly. So, I learned a good bit about what to look out for, and I learned how much a large piece of terrain would affect my board positioning with the King. Until you actually run one, it's really hard to realize how much space that huge base needs to occupy, and how inflexible that requirement really is.
So on Wednesday, I brought along a huge base, wanting to try a little bit of early play with the Mountain King. He's on my painting table, so I just brought the base to proxy for the time being; he'll be along in a bit.
I decided to try a Runes of War variant, rather than my traditional pDoomy list, to run the King. I ran:
Doomshaper, Shaman of the Gnarls (+7)
Mulg
Earthborn
Mountain King
max Krielstone + UA
Janissa
2 units of Runeshapers
This may honestly be the lowest model count army I've ever run; it felt incredibly weird to me. I'm used to running much higher model counts than what I ran in that, but I need to break out of habits anyway!
I played Andy, who ran a pThagrosh tier variant. I honestly can't replicate the list, except I know it has 3 Spawning Vessels, 4 Beast Mistresses, a Carnivean and Scythean, and more lessers than I've ever seen on a board. It looked like a unit of lessers coming across the board at me, of all types.
Andy had been running this list lately, and I was curious to see how just simply skewing my armor upwards would run on it. I felt like the Carni and Scythean were the only real dangers to the King, so if I could keep plodding through, I could make it.
The board featured 4 giant pieces of terrain - a huge hill, huge house, huge linear obstacle, and giant trench. I seriously have no better word than "huge" for any of them; the linear obstacle was the smallest, and it was a hooked wall that had about 8-10" of length, maybe more. That piece was my downfall. The scenario was Incursion (3 flags), and Andy elected to go first.
I predeployed centrally with the MK, and he put down his few models not AD in the center. I put Mulg to the left of the King (near a hill), Earthborn to the right (to abuse a wall), and Runeshapers to either side. My hope was to threaten either side with a heavy and let the King run the center; my deployment really hurt me later on. Andy put his 4 various Lesser battlegroups spread evenly across the board for AD, and off we went.
Andy mostly just sent beasts screaming across the board; he knew I had a limited model count, so my number of attacks was fairly low, and he just went with the intent of jamming me up. The lessers all hid around the various walls that were available and ate up a lot of space around me, making it very difficult for me to get to the objectives.
I kept the MK central, sprayed down a random Stinger that he ran forward with Fortune on the King, and ran Mulg and the Earthborn to try to keep a beast in either flag direction. However, I realized increasingly that the giant wall was hampering me from actually moving the King anywhere, and he might be jammed in a small area for most of the game.
Anyway, Andy came in, took out 4 of 6 Runeshapers, and plinked damage into the Earthborn, continuing his jam. The wrong flag for me had gone away, and the King was now thoroughly stuck; I realized quickly that I might lose simply from lack of mobility. Andy had put a solo on the outer flag, so he would get 1 if I couldn't contest, but the only piece that could get near enough to contest was my Earthborn, which was a guaranteed death for him based on Andy's positioning. I decided to give up the point and just hope that I could get over on my turn (when Andy would be at 3 CP's) and do my best. Spoilers: it didn't work.
Andy just simply continued jamming, held me off with Lessers, and I couldn't get my beasts out to contest. Mulg was hampered by the wall and couldn't come over to support, the MK never had anywhere near the necessary room to try and contest, so I simply ran out of options. Andy killed off the Earthborn after a bit of hardship, but it was too little too late; I did not have enough tools, and he won 5-0 on CPs.
Despite the low volume of attacks, I think the core concept is essentially fine; the MK, Mulg, and Earthborn are all hardy and can take a beating. I need to be careful of getting Bronzebacked, but this list isn't entirely intended to face a Skorne list or something similar; I would rather put it down against armies in a central scenario that I don't believe can crack armor and wear them down.
That said, my deployment killed me. I put the King behind the wall in such a position that he could never move out - he killed 10-15 points of lessers across the game from attacks and killshots, but never really had a major effect on the game from where he was located. Had I deployed him on a flank, maybe the wrong flag would have gone away, but I think he could have maneuvered and been able to make his way around, albeit slowly. So, I learned a good bit about what to look out for, and I learned how much a large piece of terrain would affect my board positioning with the King. Until you actually run one, it's really hard to realize how much space that huge base needs to occupy, and how inflexible that requirement really is.
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Battle Report 3-12, Trolls vs Cygnar
Sorry for the delay posting last Wednesday's game folks; I got a combination of busy and distracted. I made the mistake of starting to play Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, and... Well, it was a mistake. A tasty, fun mistake.
So, one of my worries with my Calanda list was getting shot up on the way in; I was worried Cygnar in particular could put in enough damage to remove Gators or Boomhowlers while avoiding Star Crossed. I didn't actually get to test that theory this week!
My opponent, a local Cygnar player named Joe, decided to try out a Darius tier list and see how it would work. For my part, I wanted to try out a variation on my Calandra list, subbing in a Bomber, Impaler, and Slag for Mulg, Pyre, and the Runeshapers; I feel that Calandra can support the list fairly well through fury soaking with Soothing Song and Star Crossed. Scenario was fire support. My list:
Calandra Truthsayer
Runebearer
Bomber
Impaler
Slag Troll
Max Gator Posse
Max Nyss Hunters
Max Boomhowlers
Bone Grinders
Swamp Gobbers
Feralgeist
Joe's list, as close as I can manage:
Darius Wrecking Crew Tier 2:
Darius
Centurion
Minuteman
Journeyman Warcaster
2x Sword Knight Units with UA
**Both units marshalling 2 Hunters each
I ended up going first. I had a rock in front of me that blocked LOS (not linear obstacle, the bigger size), a house off to my right, and a linear obstacle to my left that had little impact. Joe had a forest in the middle of the board, but fairly clear access to either side.
I sent my Nyss down one flank, Calandra + Battlegroup + Protection down the center, and my Gators + Boomhowlers (Boomies in front) on the left. Calandra put up Bullet Dodger and Star Crossed, camping on three. I made an early mistake with her, in that I did not put up the Gobber cloud to put her into concealment, and I charged her up the middle not behind the rock, so I did not have cover or LOS. My early worry was the Hunters shooting up my Gatorman posse, so I tried to screen them behind Boomies, and I wanted to get Calandra up the board aggressively to abuse Star Crossed, which may not have been a mistake, but I went about it poorly.
Joe responded by Prontoing all 4 Hunters forward and running the Knights up behind them. The Minuteman got 3, moved, jumped, and shot two Boomhowlers, both failing tough checks (they never passed a single one all game). Then the pain started, with the Hunters beginning to shoot up Calandra bottom of 1. Because of Pronto, they were able to aim, needing only 7's to hit and boosting to hit to get around Star Crossed. At this point I started swearing, because there was a reasonable chance that I would half-kill most of my beasts with transfers. Both damage rolls on Calandra spiked at dice -1, producing more swearing, before the third boosted failed to hit due to Star Crossed, and she took her Evasive move behind cover; the final shot went into the Bomber, plugging more damage into him. Darius and the Centurion both just ran through the forest (Pathfinder from the Tier bonus).
Calandra cut for two, I sighed from relief that I hadn't quite gotten Calandra killed bottom of 1, and I decided to start the slaughter. Calandra went first, popped feat, befuddled a Hunter to send its ass to me and move forward, and the beatings commenced. I took down 3 of the 4 Hunters plus a Minuteman, along with a few Sword Knights from Boomy shots. The Bomber claimed one Hunter, the Slag claimed another, four Nyss 2-man's at Dice - 3 claimed the third, and Boomies + Gators took down the Minuteman. I felt a lot safer at this point, getting Calandra behind smoke to deny LOS, and sat back to see the return.
At this point the game will get a little hazy, because it bogged down - Joe engaged the Sword Knights into the Nyss on the right, the Sword Knights into the Boomies and Gators on the left, and we bogged down a couple of turns. He got the Centurion in the mix, but Befuddle and some spiked dice left him nearly dead - had I not forgotten to put more effort into killing Junior, I would have killed him, but Darius's feat put him fully operational again. We bounced attacks around in the Nyss and Sword Knights, but as the clock was winding down, I realized that I didn't really need to spike any more damage into him, blew up the objective with the Bomber, and put the Feralgeist onto his flag to go to 2 CPs. He had little way to retaliate and conceded.
My alternate Calandra battlegroup worked extremely well - I was very happy with its performance, as the ranged attacks that it can put out really take advantage of her feat while remaining at a distance, and really help aid the slog that she creates with Star Crossed. All the pieces pretty much worked nicely with each other; my major mistakes came in the form of bad first turn issues that I learned quickly from.
My next post will be giddiness about new Troll news (and won't really be a post as much as me just being happy), but I'm going to post some theory about a new Calandra list modification soon; hopefully by tomorrow. It may not be practical, but it'll be cramming as much denial into one list as possible and giggling manically.
So, one of my worries with my Calanda list was getting shot up on the way in; I was worried Cygnar in particular could put in enough damage to remove Gators or Boomhowlers while avoiding Star Crossed. I didn't actually get to test that theory this week!
My opponent, a local Cygnar player named Joe, decided to try out a Darius tier list and see how it would work. For my part, I wanted to try out a variation on my Calandra list, subbing in a Bomber, Impaler, and Slag for Mulg, Pyre, and the Runeshapers; I feel that Calandra can support the list fairly well through fury soaking with Soothing Song and Star Crossed. Scenario was fire support. My list:
Calandra Truthsayer
Runebearer
Bomber
Impaler
Slag Troll
Max Gator Posse
Max Nyss Hunters
Max Boomhowlers
Bone Grinders
Swamp Gobbers
Feralgeist
Joe's list, as close as I can manage:
Darius Wrecking Crew Tier 2:
Darius
Centurion
Minuteman
Journeyman Warcaster
2x Sword Knight Units with UA
**Both units marshalling 2 Hunters each
I ended up going first. I had a rock in front of me that blocked LOS (not linear obstacle, the bigger size), a house off to my right, and a linear obstacle to my left that had little impact. Joe had a forest in the middle of the board, but fairly clear access to either side.
I sent my Nyss down one flank, Calandra + Battlegroup + Protection down the center, and my Gators + Boomhowlers (Boomies in front) on the left. Calandra put up Bullet Dodger and Star Crossed, camping on three. I made an early mistake with her, in that I did not put up the Gobber cloud to put her into concealment, and I charged her up the middle not behind the rock, so I did not have cover or LOS. My early worry was the Hunters shooting up my Gatorman posse, so I tried to screen them behind Boomies, and I wanted to get Calandra up the board aggressively to abuse Star Crossed, which may not have been a mistake, but I went about it poorly.
Joe responded by Prontoing all 4 Hunters forward and running the Knights up behind them. The Minuteman got 3, moved, jumped, and shot two Boomhowlers, both failing tough checks (they never passed a single one all game). Then the pain started, with the Hunters beginning to shoot up Calandra bottom of 1. Because of Pronto, they were able to aim, needing only 7's to hit and boosting to hit to get around Star Crossed. At this point I started swearing, because there was a reasonable chance that I would half-kill most of my beasts with transfers. Both damage rolls on Calandra spiked at dice -1, producing more swearing, before the third boosted failed to hit due to Star Crossed, and she took her Evasive move behind cover; the final shot went into the Bomber, plugging more damage into him. Darius and the Centurion both just ran through the forest (Pathfinder from the Tier bonus).
Calandra cut for two, I sighed from relief that I hadn't quite gotten Calandra killed bottom of 1, and I decided to start the slaughter. Calandra went first, popped feat, befuddled a Hunter to send its ass to me and move forward, and the beatings commenced. I took down 3 of the 4 Hunters plus a Minuteman, along with a few Sword Knights from Boomy shots. The Bomber claimed one Hunter, the Slag claimed another, four Nyss 2-man's at Dice - 3 claimed the third, and Boomies + Gators took down the Minuteman. I felt a lot safer at this point, getting Calandra behind smoke to deny LOS, and sat back to see the return.
At this point the game will get a little hazy, because it bogged down - Joe engaged the Sword Knights into the Nyss on the right, the Sword Knights into the Boomies and Gators on the left, and we bogged down a couple of turns. He got the Centurion in the mix, but Befuddle and some spiked dice left him nearly dead - had I not forgotten to put more effort into killing Junior, I would have killed him, but Darius's feat put him fully operational again. We bounced attacks around in the Nyss and Sword Knights, but as the clock was winding down, I realized that I didn't really need to spike any more damage into him, blew up the objective with the Bomber, and put the Feralgeist onto his flag to go to 2 CPs. He had little way to retaliate and conceded.
My alternate Calandra battlegroup worked extremely well - I was very happy with its performance, as the ranged attacks that it can put out really take advantage of her feat while remaining at a distance, and really help aid the slog that she creates with Star Crossed. All the pieces pretty much worked nicely with each other; my major mistakes came in the form of bad first turn issues that I learned quickly from.
My next post will be giddiness about new Troll news (and won't really be a post as much as me just being happy), but I'm going to post some theory about a new Calandra list modification soon; hopefully by tomorrow. It may not be practical, but it'll be cramming as much denial into one list as possible and giggling manically.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Battle Report, 3-7-14
I got some extra time off work this week, and went down to Liam's place with Keith and Will for a little bit of extra table time. I learn some of the best information about my lists from gaming at Liam's, and I've probably made more progress as a player from that than any other time.
Liam wanted to test out Magnus the Warlord's Bad Seeds tier from No Quarter 36, figuring out if he wants that as one of his competitive lists going forward. His list (as always, as best as I can figure it out) was:
Magnus the Warlord (*6pts)
* Renegade (6pts)
* Renegade (6pts)
* Mangler (8pts)
* Mule (8pts)
Rangers (5pts)
Sword Knights (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Trencher Infantry (Leader and 5 Grunts) (6pts)
* 2 Trencher Infantry Grenadier (2pts)
* Trencher Infantry Officer & Sniper (3pts)
Kell Bailoch (0pts)
Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor (2pts)
Saxon Orrik (2pts)
Trencher Master Gunner (2pts)
The Trencher infantry may be a hair off; something doesn't seem quite right, but I'm not sure I have the points precisely right. I ran my Hunters Grim list again, in my continuing effort to try this as an all-comers list. It has been described in my previous posts, so I'll save space on listing it.
Similar to my game with Andy, the scenario was Supply and Demand. I took my normal deployment of central Fennblades and Burrowers, Axer on either flank, Bushwhackers to a flank, and everything else fairly central with the Fenns.
Liam's jacks went central, Kell off to my right flank, the Rangers ended up on my left flank, Saxon and the Sword Knights ambushed, and the Trenchers went mostly central too.
We each had some careful advancing up the board, wary of being shot up too early. Liam knocked off a couple of Bushwhackers early with Rangers, and the Trenchers advanced carefully into the zone with Dig In. My Dygmies emerged and shot up a Mule and Renegade, taking out of much of the Mule and a chunk of the Renegade; again, I forgot to move Grim up far enough to lay out a Turn 2 Mortality. This recurring mistake may have cost me destroying the Mule, unfortunately. I sent some Fennblades in to do supporting damage, but didn't cause any major casualties for Liam.
Most of my Dygmies got killed off and more than half my Fenns on the next turn, as Liam took advantage of his heavy combined arms approach to reduce my numbers. He plugged the objective with a couple of Renegade shots to remove it, and placed scattered damage around, as well as getting Ambushing Sword Knights onto my Axer.
I was able over the next couple of turns to remove most of his jacks and to whittle his numbers down, but it had come at too high a cost; I was running out of pieces. His Trenchers were still on the board, and I simply couldn't do anything about it. The game ended officially when I clocked; I was slow on my early turns, and couldn't make up for it later, and he won 1-0 on scenario/clock.
Again, as with the game with Andy, the details are a little hazy, and I'm working on trying to be a little smoother on my reporting, so I'm glossing over details. My unhappiest mistake was a repeat of a previous one; I feel like I need to be more aware of getting Grim up the board for Mortality. I could consider the Bone Grinders, but I would actually like to build in more combat pieces currently, and those are decidedly support.
Additionally, I think I focused too much on his jacks, and not enough on infantry removal. I feel like I should have put more emphasis on removing some of his infantry, which chewed chunks through my Dygmies and Fenns. If I could have reduced his volume of attacks, I might have gotten better clogging on the board, although I'm not 100% sure. That's simply theorycraft.
Also, I let 8 points of Sword Knights + Saxon tie up 2-3 Fennblades, a Stone Scribe Chronicler, Fell Caller, Axer, and (somewhat) Bushwhackers. Liam got the better trade in this situation, preventing me from bringing more to bear on the center of the board. I may wish to keep the Axers a little more central to threaten into the center of the board; one Axer was a consistent threat on one side of the board all game, but the other Axer bogged down clearing Sword Knights, which was an unfavorable exchange I think over the game.
Liam wanted to test out Magnus the Warlord's Bad Seeds tier from No Quarter 36, figuring out if he wants that as one of his competitive lists going forward. His list (as always, as best as I can figure it out) was:
Magnus the Warlord (*6pts)
* Renegade (6pts)
* Renegade (6pts)
* Mangler (8pts)
* Mule (8pts)
Rangers (5pts)
Sword Knights (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Trencher Infantry (Leader and 5 Grunts) (6pts)
* 2 Trencher Infantry Grenadier (2pts)
* Trencher Infantry Officer & Sniper (3pts)
Kell Bailoch (0pts)
Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor (2pts)
Saxon Orrik (2pts)
Trencher Master Gunner (2pts)
The Trencher infantry may be a hair off; something doesn't seem quite right, but I'm not sure I have the points precisely right. I ran my Hunters Grim list again, in my continuing effort to try this as an all-comers list. It has been described in my previous posts, so I'll save space on listing it.
Similar to my game with Andy, the scenario was Supply and Demand. I took my normal deployment of central Fennblades and Burrowers, Axer on either flank, Bushwhackers to a flank, and everything else fairly central with the Fenns.
Liam's jacks went central, Kell off to my right flank, the Rangers ended up on my left flank, Saxon and the Sword Knights ambushed, and the Trenchers went mostly central too.
We each had some careful advancing up the board, wary of being shot up too early. Liam knocked off a couple of Bushwhackers early with Rangers, and the Trenchers advanced carefully into the zone with Dig In. My Dygmies emerged and shot up a Mule and Renegade, taking out of much of the Mule and a chunk of the Renegade; again, I forgot to move Grim up far enough to lay out a Turn 2 Mortality. This recurring mistake may have cost me destroying the Mule, unfortunately. I sent some Fennblades in to do supporting damage, but didn't cause any major casualties for Liam.
Most of my Dygmies got killed off and more than half my Fenns on the next turn, as Liam took advantage of his heavy combined arms approach to reduce my numbers. He plugged the objective with a couple of Renegade shots to remove it, and placed scattered damage around, as well as getting Ambushing Sword Knights onto my Axer.
I was able over the next couple of turns to remove most of his jacks and to whittle his numbers down, but it had come at too high a cost; I was running out of pieces. His Trenchers were still on the board, and I simply couldn't do anything about it. The game ended officially when I clocked; I was slow on my early turns, and couldn't make up for it later, and he won 1-0 on scenario/clock.
Again, as with the game with Andy, the details are a little hazy, and I'm working on trying to be a little smoother on my reporting, so I'm glossing over details. My unhappiest mistake was a repeat of a previous one; I feel like I need to be more aware of getting Grim up the board for Mortality. I could consider the Bone Grinders, but I would actually like to build in more combat pieces currently, and those are decidedly support.
Additionally, I think I focused too much on his jacks, and not enough on infantry removal. I feel like I should have put more emphasis on removing some of his infantry, which chewed chunks through my Dygmies and Fenns. If I could have reduced his volume of attacks, I might have gotten better clogging on the board, although I'm not 100% sure. That's simply theorycraft.
Also, I let 8 points of Sword Knights + Saxon tie up 2-3 Fennblades, a Stone Scribe Chronicler, Fell Caller, Axer, and (somewhat) Bushwhackers. Liam got the better trade in this situation, preventing me from bringing more to bear on the center of the board. I may wish to keep the Axers a little more central to threaten into the center of the board; one Axer was a consistent threat on one side of the board all game, but the other Axer bogged down clearing Sword Knights, which was an unfavorable exchange I think over the game.
Monday, March 10, 2014
Battle Report, 3-5-14
For my regular Wednesday gaming at Game Theory, I played against Andy, one of our local Legion of Everblight players. He was wanting to test a new list, trying out the new pThagrosh tier list (New Blood from No Quarter 50), and I'm continuing my testing of my Hunters Grim list, trying to decide if I like its current incarnation, or if I have any improvements I would like to test.
Andy's list, as best as I can reassemble it:
Thagrosh, Prophet of Everblight (*5pts)
* Carnivean (11pts)
* Scythean (9pts)
Spawning Vessel (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts)
Spawning Vessel (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts)
Spawning Vessel (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Beast Mistress (3pts)
* Harrier (2pts)
* Shredder (2pts)
* Stinger (2pts)
Beast Mistress (3pts)
* Harrier (2pts)
* Shredder (2pts)
* Stinger (2pts)
Beast Mistress (3pts)
* Harrier (2pts)
* Shredder (2pts)
* Stinger (2pts)
My Hunter's Grim list remains the same as previous efforts; I may change some pieces, but I want to playtest it thoroughly in a variety of games before I draw any conclusions.
Hunters Grim (*4pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Pyg Burrowers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Pyg Bushwackers (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew (Leader and 1 Grunt) (1pts)
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer (2pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
Fennblade Kithkar (2pts)
Professor Victor Pendrake (2pts)
Stone Scribe Chronicler (2pts)
Unfortunately, I'm writing this battle report a week after the fact, rather than the fairly immediate writing I would like to do, so the details are fuzzy; this may be more of a summary than a true report. Scenario was Supply and Demand; the objectives had no real effect on the game except getting in my way!
Early highlights: I went first, running up the board and advancing an Axer too far up the board, trying to be aggressive to bring him into the game early. The Dygmies went under, otherwise I kept a fairly central presence with a wide spread.
Andy moved up a Vessel, brought out a Stinger onto a Beast Mistress, and landed a pair of Stingers onto my Axer, leaving me an Axer short as of the bottom of round 1, a beast that would have been extremely useful across the rest of the game.
The Dygmies came up and with help blew up all three Spawning Vessels, which I had decided I needed to remove from the board to minimize his recursion throughout the game, and landed damage on the Scythean despite Spiny Growth, and I did some other tertiary damage. I did not move Grim far enough to land a Mortality, or I would have nigh-crippled the Scythean. I placed other random damage, and boxed some lessers in. Additionally, I didn't spread the Fennblades enough and left some of them in bad positions.
Andy retaliated, removing most of my Dygmies and Fennblades, and we banged out several turns of attrition. I removed the Scythean from the board but it came back from the feat, and Andy was able to put scenario pressure with a domination and objective destruction. On my last turn, I forgot to move the Mauler into the zone as I should have, preventing me from contesting with it, and letting Andy clear a single Fennblade to win the game.
I learned a few key lessons from this game, though; one is the brutal attrition of pThagrosh. Andy hasn't played him very regularly, so I simply was not aware of how nasty he can be. I learned a lesson from this game, and I have a better awareness now of what he brings to the table, as well as how hard it can be to remove him and his beasts.
Additionally, I need to bring more aggressive pressure with my beasts, particularly my Mauler and Axers, and be careful not to lose an Axer stupidly. There was no gain from my early Axer loss, and my Mauler was so far back as to be out of the game for the majority. Instead, I can use my Mauler's Rage animus and Grim to hand out Rage to key Fennblades for charges, bringing them to PS 15, or PS 17 effective with Mortality, which can do a lot of the needed damage while keeping my key pieces safe.
I also thing going for the pots may not have been the correct decision. Removing Andy's recursion was helpful, but I think that trying to force an early feat by removing a heavy from the board may have been better. If I can land a Mortality, the Dygmies guns are at dice - 4 effectively on a Spiny Growth'd beast, meaning the unit can potentially remove a heavy. That may be a more effective goal, as the trade of Thags feat for Dygmies is a fairly good one. If I can clear charge lanes for the Fennblades with my Dygmy placement, I bring additional pressure.
Andy played a very good game and taught me a couple of key lessons; I think the list is running nearly how I would like for it to, but I need to practice it more and figure out the wrinkles.
Andy's list, as best as I can reassemble it:
Thagrosh, Prophet of Everblight (*5pts)
* Carnivean (11pts)
* Scythean (9pts)
Spawning Vessel (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts)
Spawning Vessel (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts)
Spawning Vessel (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Beast Mistress (3pts)
* Harrier (2pts)
* Shredder (2pts)
* Stinger (2pts)
Beast Mistress (3pts)
* Harrier (2pts)
* Shredder (2pts)
* Stinger (2pts)
Beast Mistress (3pts)
* Harrier (2pts)
* Shredder (2pts)
* Stinger (2pts)
My Hunter's Grim list remains the same as previous efforts; I may change some pieces, but I want to playtest it thoroughly in a variety of games before I draw any conclusions.
Hunters Grim (*4pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Pyg Burrowers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Pyg Bushwackers (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew (Leader and 1 Grunt) (1pts)
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer (2pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
Fennblade Kithkar (2pts)
Professor Victor Pendrake (2pts)
Stone Scribe Chronicler (2pts)
Unfortunately, I'm writing this battle report a week after the fact, rather than the fairly immediate writing I would like to do, so the details are fuzzy; this may be more of a summary than a true report. Scenario was Supply and Demand; the objectives had no real effect on the game except getting in my way!
Early highlights: I went first, running up the board and advancing an Axer too far up the board, trying to be aggressive to bring him into the game early. The Dygmies went under, otherwise I kept a fairly central presence with a wide spread.
Andy moved up a Vessel, brought out a Stinger onto a Beast Mistress, and landed a pair of Stingers onto my Axer, leaving me an Axer short as of the bottom of round 1, a beast that would have been extremely useful across the rest of the game.
The Dygmies came up and with help blew up all three Spawning Vessels, which I had decided I needed to remove from the board to minimize his recursion throughout the game, and landed damage on the Scythean despite Spiny Growth, and I did some other tertiary damage. I did not move Grim far enough to land a Mortality, or I would have nigh-crippled the Scythean. I placed other random damage, and boxed some lessers in. Additionally, I didn't spread the Fennblades enough and left some of them in bad positions.
Andy retaliated, removing most of my Dygmies and Fennblades, and we banged out several turns of attrition. I removed the Scythean from the board but it came back from the feat, and Andy was able to put scenario pressure with a domination and objective destruction. On my last turn, I forgot to move the Mauler into the zone as I should have, preventing me from contesting with it, and letting Andy clear a single Fennblade to win the game.
I learned a few key lessons from this game, though; one is the brutal attrition of pThagrosh. Andy hasn't played him very regularly, so I simply was not aware of how nasty he can be. I learned a lesson from this game, and I have a better awareness now of what he brings to the table, as well as how hard it can be to remove him and his beasts.
Additionally, I need to bring more aggressive pressure with my beasts, particularly my Mauler and Axers, and be careful not to lose an Axer stupidly. There was no gain from my early Axer loss, and my Mauler was so far back as to be out of the game for the majority. Instead, I can use my Mauler's Rage animus and Grim to hand out Rage to key Fennblades for charges, bringing them to PS 15, or PS 17 effective with Mortality, which can do a lot of the needed damage while keeping my key pieces safe.
I also thing going for the pots may not have been the correct decision. Removing Andy's recursion was helpful, but I think that trying to force an early feat by removing a heavy from the board may have been better. If I can land a Mortality, the Dygmies guns are at dice - 4 effectively on a Spiny Growth'd beast, meaning the unit can potentially remove a heavy. That may be a more effective goal, as the trade of Thags feat for Dygmies is a fairly good one. If I can clear charge lanes for the Fennblades with my Dygmy placement, I bring additional pressure.
Andy played a very good game and taught me a couple of key lessons; I think the list is running nearly how I would like for it to, but I need to practice it more and figure out the wrinkles.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
March 1st Steamroller, Final Table
My final game was on Destruction, with my opponent running Cygnar's Lieutenant Caine in a Tier 4 list; second lists were optional, and this was his only list. His list (as close as I can replicate) was:
Lieutenant Allister Caine (*6pts)
* Stormwall (19pts)
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
* Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer (0pts)
* * Hunter (6pts)
* * Hunter (6pts)
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4pts)
Tempest Blazers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (10pts)
I tabbed the Hunters Grim to close out my day, and promptly lost the dice roll to make the day 3/3 for my opponents having choice of 1st or 2nd. He opted to go first, and I held the same side of the table, which had a comfortable wall that I felt Grim could hide behind.
Our table contained a wall about an inch outside the control zone on my side, an obstruction (house) a few inches away from the zone on the side, forest on the right side of the zone from my view, and rough terrain and a wall on the left side, with the wall on his side.
He sent the two units of Gun Mages down the center and side with the rough terrain on either side of the Storm Wall, and the Tempest Blazers on the far side to take advantage of the forest as best as possible, and the Hunters ADed in front of the marshalling Gun Mages.
I countered with the Bushwhackers across from the Hunters, Burrowers a little right of center, an Axer on either flank, Grim Center, and the Fennblades spread out around him. The support staff went fairly central, able to respond wherever was necessary.
He ran everything first turn, sending the Hunters up to near the halfway line on my left flank, Blazers into the forest on the right, and as many Gun Mages into cover as possible. The Stormwall ran the max distance a little to the left of central.
I decided to try to get some early damage with the Bushwhackers, since the Hunters had moved easily into range, hit, and promptly blasted it as hard as possible with boxcars! I plinked in more ranged damage, leaving it on four boxes, but the main gun up. The Burrowers went under, and the rest of my army moved up fairly centrally, taking cover or concealment where possible.
His next turn involved blasting one Axer completely off the table, and knocking about half the Fennblades off. A few shots went into Grim to do some early damage, but at DEF 20 behind the wall he was a hard out. The Stormwall advanced to contest the zone, toeing a corner, and the Blazers worked on my right flank, ending up near the objective I would be gunning for. The other Gun Mages slowly advanced up the field as they shot.
I took Vengeance and Mirage moves on the Fenns to reposition, used the Runebearer to hit a Mortality on the Stormwall, and laid in some damage with the Fennblades. The Bushwhackers finished off the wounded Hunter, Grim feated, shot the Stormwall, and Mortalitied a knocked down Blazer. The Mauler got Rush and pounded the Stormwall into unrecognizable electronic bits, while the burrowers had emerged within range of the Blazers and took 4 of them off the table, as well as the objective, with help from an Axer. The Black 13th lost two members to an angry Kithkar, and I was left in position to control the zone for my first CP.
Caine responded by feating and killing most of the single wound models remaining, leaving a few Fennblades and Burrowers, sending the Burrowers screaming at the site of their own blood. The Gun Mages shot some more Fennblades off the table, while one set full CRA'd into the Mauler but rolled low to barely scratch him. The remaining Blazer contested the zone to try to hold him in the game.
My Burrowers responded by screaming more and running even further away, but my beasts held up and removed more threats. I killed a few Gun Mages, but primarily set up Fort Grim with Gobber clouds and medium based models to completely screen Grim and allow him to safely dominate. For safety, I camped on 4, taking me to 3 CPs. On his next turn, he ran some pieces in to contest, but I was able to clear them again and take it to 5 CPs, sending me to 3-0 for the day and taking the tourney!
Thanks for reading, and for bearing with me as I'll be figuring out how to deliver battle reports succinctly but clearly! I may do some list assessment in coming days, analyzing how I felt about my lists, if I can figure out a format!
Lieutenant Allister Caine (*6pts)
* Stormwall (19pts)
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
* Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer (0pts)
* * Hunter (6pts)
* * Hunter (6pts)
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4pts)
Tempest Blazers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (10pts)
I tabbed the Hunters Grim to close out my day, and promptly lost the dice roll to make the day 3/3 for my opponents having choice of 1st or 2nd. He opted to go first, and I held the same side of the table, which had a comfortable wall that I felt Grim could hide behind.
Our table contained a wall about an inch outside the control zone on my side, an obstruction (house) a few inches away from the zone on the side, forest on the right side of the zone from my view, and rough terrain and a wall on the left side, with the wall on his side.
He sent the two units of Gun Mages down the center and side with the rough terrain on either side of the Storm Wall, and the Tempest Blazers on the far side to take advantage of the forest as best as possible, and the Hunters ADed in front of the marshalling Gun Mages.
I countered with the Bushwhackers across from the Hunters, Burrowers a little right of center, an Axer on either flank, Grim Center, and the Fennblades spread out around him. The support staff went fairly central, able to respond wherever was necessary.
He ran everything first turn, sending the Hunters up to near the halfway line on my left flank, Blazers into the forest on the right, and as many Gun Mages into cover as possible. The Stormwall ran the max distance a little to the left of central.
I decided to try to get some early damage with the Bushwhackers, since the Hunters had moved easily into range, hit, and promptly blasted it as hard as possible with boxcars! I plinked in more ranged damage, leaving it on four boxes, but the main gun up. The Burrowers went under, and the rest of my army moved up fairly centrally, taking cover or concealment where possible.
His next turn involved blasting one Axer completely off the table, and knocking about half the Fennblades off. A few shots went into Grim to do some early damage, but at DEF 20 behind the wall he was a hard out. The Stormwall advanced to contest the zone, toeing a corner, and the Blazers worked on my right flank, ending up near the objective I would be gunning for. The other Gun Mages slowly advanced up the field as they shot.
I took Vengeance and Mirage moves on the Fenns to reposition, used the Runebearer to hit a Mortality on the Stormwall, and laid in some damage with the Fennblades. The Bushwhackers finished off the wounded Hunter, Grim feated, shot the Stormwall, and Mortalitied a knocked down Blazer. The Mauler got Rush and pounded the Stormwall into unrecognizable electronic bits, while the burrowers had emerged within range of the Blazers and took 4 of them off the table, as well as the objective, with help from an Axer. The Black 13th lost two members to an angry Kithkar, and I was left in position to control the zone for my first CP.
Caine responded by feating and killing most of the single wound models remaining, leaving a few Fennblades and Burrowers, sending the Burrowers screaming at the site of their own blood. The Gun Mages shot some more Fennblades off the table, while one set full CRA'd into the Mauler but rolled low to barely scratch him. The remaining Blazer contested the zone to try to hold him in the game.
My Burrowers responded by screaming more and running even further away, but my beasts held up and removed more threats. I killed a few Gun Mages, but primarily set up Fort Grim with Gobber clouds and medium based models to completely screen Grim and allow him to safely dominate. For safety, I camped on 4, taking me to 3 CPs. On his next turn, he ran some pieces in to contest, but I was able to clear them again and take it to 5 CPs, sending me to 3-0 for the day and taking the tourney!
Thanks for reading, and for bearing with me as I'll be figuring out how to deliver battle reports succinctly but clearly! I may do some list assessment in coming days, analyzing how I felt about my lists, if I can figure out a format!
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