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!

March 1st Steamroller, part 2

My second game was against Khador on Outflank, with my opponent choosing eSorscha and I chose Hunters Grim.  My opponents list:

Forward Kommander Sorscha (*6pts)
* Behemoth (13pts)
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker (2pts)
Great Bears of Gallowswood (5pts)
Iron Fang Pikemen (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Black Dragon Officer & Standard (2pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts)
* Koldun Kapitan Valachev (2pts)
Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (4pts)
Winter Guard Infantry (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Winter Guard Infantry Officer & Standard (2pts)
* 3 Winter Guard Infantry Rocketeers (3pts)
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios (3pts)
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich (2pts)

My Hunter's Grim 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)

Opponent went first (recurring theme).  From my perspective, he sent the Widowmakers and Winter Guard Death Star at the left zone, Behemoth dead center with A&H and Sorscha, and the IFP with Eiryss on the right zone.

I put my Fennblades center, one axer to either flank, the Mauler with Grim, the Gobbers, and the support staff in the center.  On AD I put the burrowers slightly right of center due to the IFP, and the Bushwhackers on the right flank across from Eiryss and the IFP, working off the assumption that I could most likely clear the IFP easiest to start getting CP's, because I was worried about the volume of attacks on an Iron Fleshed Winter Guard, but the burrow location would still allow me to react to the right side.

On first turn, my opponent just ran everything mostly straight forward, spreading the IFP out on their run, but managing to get a perfect deviation on a Behemoth trample + Shoot to take out a single Burrower.  Iron Flesh went on the Winterguard.

My second turn, I advanced my bushwhackers slightly and picked off 1-2 IFP with CRA's and a little luck on dice.  My Axer's advanced up to threaten either zone, Grim in the middle, and I somewhat cautiously advanced the Fennblades up with Tale of Mists, wary of threat ranges, and Mirage on the Fennblades.

My opponent chucked more shots around, originally trying to avoid Vengeance on the Fennblades, but after a high blast damage roll he simply decided to remove more from the board, taking out 4 of them in total.  4 IFP made it into the zone with Iron Zeal and the Winter Guard + Widowmakers flooded one zone.

I charged one Axer into the Widowmakers, taking out 2, and mostly just occupying space.  I got Mortality onto the IFP, and used the Sluggers and Bushwhackers, with help from 2 Fennblades, to reduce the IFP to only 2 more members surviving.  The Winterguard only had one member knocked down, but I was having trouble with DEF 17.  Grim was screened by the Gobber cloud again.  I claimed the zone with the other Axer and Kithkar to get 1 CP.

My opponent used Freezing Grip to hold the Fenns in place, then proceeded to blow all but 2 Fennblades and all but 1 Burrower out of the game.  Valachev and the remaining Pikemen and Eiryss contested to prevent me from scoring this turn.  Behemoth stayed mostly central, not overcommitting mostly due to the Mauler's presence.

Smelling a good chance at a CP victory, I simply went about trying to clear and clog the zone.  The Kithkar with +2 from the Fell Caller claimed both Valachev and Holt, while the Bushwhackers earned more points in clearing the last IFP with support from Grim.  Eiryss died to an Axer charge to clear the zone, with Grim reforming into the zone after his activation to dominate the zone to go to 3 CP's.  The other Axer simply held the zone, and bravely realized he was going to die horribly to the Great Bears.  The only potential "fail" on my part was forgetting to set the 5" trap which could have given Grim a little more protection on the next turn.

At this point, the only things that could contest the zones for my opponent were Behemoth, Aiyana, and a Winter Guard that could get in the zone, unless he ran all the Winter Guard, which could get approximately 1/2 of them in the zone, but would be able to hand out very little damage to any of my forces and would simply leave him in place for the retaliation.  Instead, he opted to feat and blow all the damage he could into Grim, resulting in two nearly dead beasts (thankfully DEF 16 is hard to hit, even on boosted attack rolls, for the WG!) and the other Axer reduced to meaty bits by the Great Bears.  The Behemoth, Aiyana, and a single WG contested, while he scored 1 CP.

I finished the game by clearing the WG and Aiyana, Mortality on Behemoth, and killing him with the Mauler, Fell Caller, and Axer to close out and get the last 2 CP's to take me to 5.