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.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
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, July 21, 2014
Tournament Report, 7-19-2014
This post is going to be a changeup from my normal description, because honestly my games at this past weekend's tourney weren't really that great for battle reporting. I didn't play particularly well, but I came out of it with a few lessons instead. Additionally, I didn't get to run the Jarl list I wanted to due to slacking on my part in building my beasts (Rok, Wrongeye and Snapjaw), so it's not quite as interesting as I wanted to.
My three games were:
1) pDoomy vs. Kromac, assassination loss top of 3. I misplayed and left Doomy wide open in really bad shape, which left an easy kill for my opponent. I was playing a Doomy MK list against Kromac, 2x Stalkers, Skinwalkers, and other trappings.
2) Jarl vs Ossrum. Jarl featured Horgle with his Slag, along with Mauler, Bomber, SoB, Impaler, and Gators. Other trappings also, but they had less effect. I misplayed and didn't get a good angle to get my Bomber or Mauler on the Earthbreaker, but won the game by jamming him up in his scenario and dominating mine one point at a time.
3) Jarl vs. Butcher3. Our local Khador player just started B3, and I had no good answer. I rolled with Jarl because I figured he might have my best infantry clearing chances (correctly), but I just didn't have good Butcher3 answers. A misplacement on my part cost me both the Bomber and the Mauler (the Bomber was about 1/4 inch from safety, sadly), but I still brought B3 down to 4 HP before he won on scenario. Had I not misplaced the Bomber, I'd have had a good chance at winning. C'est la vie.
But I learned a few things, from this weekend and previous games:
1) The MK is really, really freaking intimidating to players who can't answer ARM 23. The Kromac list featured no Gorax, meaning PS 18 was his highest PS potentially, and it would've been under pDoomy's feat had I played correctly. At d-5, with all the boosting, the King is a hard out, especially since I'll heal up from Whelps and killing his Stalkers, assuming I hit them. And the attrition scales massively in my favor the longer the King stays alive. Unfortunately, I did not play this well, and I was unable to test him out as thoroughly as desired.
2) Jarl has the ability to do a ton of work, then hide on a 1 or 0 camp. This won't work on some factions, of course, but it easily worked in my game. I had him in a forest, darted out, shot, and used Tactical Supremacy to slip back. Jarl himself killed at least 10-12 models over the course of the game probably. If you can keep him safe, he's magical.
3) Butcher3 is intimidating as all get out. I had to play extremely consciously of his threat ranges, and it made my game much harder. I was mostly successful, but some bad placements cost me a chance at the game. It was a fixable mistake, but I very much prefer to have the option of a form of shutdown (a la Grissel1, Mulg, etc.) available.
4) I need to find ways to kill Thor. F that guy.
My three games were:
1) pDoomy vs. Kromac, assassination loss top of 3. I misplayed and left Doomy wide open in really bad shape, which left an easy kill for my opponent. I was playing a Doomy MK list against Kromac, 2x Stalkers, Skinwalkers, and other trappings.
2) Jarl vs Ossrum. Jarl featured Horgle with his Slag, along with Mauler, Bomber, SoB, Impaler, and Gators. Other trappings also, but they had less effect. I misplayed and didn't get a good angle to get my Bomber or Mauler on the Earthbreaker, but won the game by jamming him up in his scenario and dominating mine one point at a time.
3) Jarl vs. Butcher3. Our local Khador player just started B3, and I had no good answer. I rolled with Jarl because I figured he might have my best infantry clearing chances (correctly), but I just didn't have good Butcher3 answers. A misplacement on my part cost me both the Bomber and the Mauler (the Bomber was about 1/4 inch from safety, sadly), but I still brought B3 down to 4 HP before he won on scenario. Had I not misplaced the Bomber, I'd have had a good chance at winning. C'est la vie.
But I learned a few things, from this weekend and previous games:
1) The MK is really, really freaking intimidating to players who can't answer ARM 23. The Kromac list featured no Gorax, meaning PS 18 was his highest PS potentially, and it would've been under pDoomy's feat had I played correctly. At d-5, with all the boosting, the King is a hard out, especially since I'll heal up from Whelps and killing his Stalkers, assuming I hit them. And the attrition scales massively in my favor the longer the King stays alive. Unfortunately, I did not play this well, and I was unable to test him out as thoroughly as desired.
2) Jarl has the ability to do a ton of work, then hide on a 1 or 0 camp. This won't work on some factions, of course, but it easily worked in my game. I had him in a forest, darted out, shot, and used Tactical Supremacy to slip back. Jarl himself killed at least 10-12 models over the course of the game probably. If you can keep him safe, he's magical.
3) Butcher3 is intimidating as all get out. I had to play extremely consciously of his threat ranges, and it made my game much harder. I was mostly successful, but some bad placements cost me a chance at the game. It was a fixable mistake, but I very much prefer to have the option of a form of shutdown (a la Grissel1, Mulg, etc.) available.
4) I need to find ways to kill Thor. F that guy.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Battle Report, Trolls vs. Skorne, 7-13-14
My List:
eGrissel's Meat Mountain (look at previous posts for a summation)
His List:
Xerxis' Fist of Halaak
-Tibers
-Archidon
1 unit (max?) of Cetratii
2 units of Arcuraii (spelling? Not sure if it was 2 units, either?)
1 or 2 units of Incendiarii?
Paingivers
This is extremely rough because quite frankly, there were enough models in my opponents list that they jumbled together. And the details of this particular matchup are hazy because it wasn't incredibly distinctive - we had a lot of beating the crap out of each other in the middle, and not much else.
Terrain: Some hills and houses, not much else. Didn't really play a roll.
Scenario: Destruction
Match Assessment: Massive grindfest. Defensive feat on my part, both offensive and defensive on his. These are two "Meat Mountain" lists against each other, so it'll be roughly the equivalent of the Rocky & Apollo fights: we beat the crap out of each other and either 1 or both of us fall over. Movie reference, yeah!
Basically, I felt like I needed to weather his feat as best as possible. I made a mistake pregame, and I did my math wrong: I thought I could jam him out of scenario potentially. 2 problems: the math was wrong, in that I couldn't, and he has Martial Discipline, so if he kills my front lines, he can just move guys in. Fuck.
Outside of that, I just felt this was a case of two attrition lists against each other, and the one that could get up and ride it had a good chance to win. Mulg and Tiberion were roughly equal in the way they affected the match, although Mulg's threat is larger.
Deployment: There were a lot of medium bases lined up. Mine had Warders left, Champs and Grissel central, Warders right, everything else right behind. His... Had a shit ton of medium bases in a long line. The units are so hard to tell apart I'd have trouble telling you perfectly, to be honest. I know he had Cetratii fairly central with Arcuraii, and some Incendiarii right.
Game Time! Instead of my normal trying to describe events, I'm going to go for key moments here, because a few key moments shifted things - usually giant "I'm a donkey" moments on my part.
My turn 2: After a Turn 1 in which we both ran, I unpacked aggressively. As mentioned, I mathed wrong, and though I could scenario jam. Didn't work, and I ended up popping my feat to try to keep a lot of guys alive while jamming him up. Unfortunately, Fury Weapon Master Charges are a thing, and he was able to break more than I expected, with little ability to retaliate on my part. Not nearly enough to win me out the game. Shit.
By my Turn 3, we were thoroughly jammed into the middle of the board. My right side Warders crapped the bed with their dice and failed to kill the Incendiarii as quickly as I needed. Additionally, I'd taken them too far out to the right, and they had little-no effect on the game until too late. I did have probably one of my relatively smarter moves of the game, and got the Axer in at POW 15 on a thresher that hit 5 of his models and one of mine, clearing all but one with buys. That was sweeeeeet. Sadly, the Axer ate the dust right after that from charging Feated Weapon Masters.
His Turn 3: He feats, and he wipes a ton of stuff, including laying about 20ish damage into Mulg with Cetratii. Mulg eats them and heals back up some, but (donkey move!) I moved too far up and was in range of the Archidon with Fury and Paingivers the next turn, so... POW 20 Archidon got a Mulg lunch.
Essentially, he just continually weathered what I could do. I made poor model placements early game, and lost too much for too little gain; I needed to be coming out at least model for model on my Champs and Warders, and I was coming out well below that.
Post-Game: I'm concentrating more on this part, because this is what I refer to as a learning game, aka I got roflstomped. I made a few key mistakes, which I'll enumerate:
1) Bad positioning on my Turn 2. I gave him way too much, and could've saved my feat for Turn 3 potentially.
2) I didn't use Grissel's shots effectively early game. I tried to clear with the wrong models, when I could have gotten a lot of good mileage out of her spray. Additionally, I never - never - used her POW 12 template that stays in play. That was a major mistake; a lot his army is ARM 15, meaning that that Template will plink damage over time and make him a lot easier to clear. That was a giant mistake on my part.
3) Biggest mistake. INHOSPITABLE FREAKING GROUND. He had Xerxis for pathfinder ONLY, and I forgot to use Inhospitable Ground REPEATEDLY. I'm still pissed at myself for this, nearly 24 hours later. He could get one unit charging, sure, but in combination with better positioning (see Point 1), I could have dictated the flow of play. That would have put me in a much, much stronger position than I left myself in. It was a huge mistake on my part, a game changing one. I could have put him in positions where only one unit could really move per turn, allowing me to use Mulg and good positioning to control the pace of the game, and force Tibers to commit in a place Mulg liked potentially. Again: I'm a donkey.
We're going to try to play this match again soon, which will hopefully help teach me not to be silly and stupid. I hope.
eGrissel's Meat Mountain (look at previous posts for a summation)
His List:
Xerxis' Fist of Halaak
-Tibers
-Archidon
1 unit (max?) of Cetratii
2 units of Arcuraii (spelling? Not sure if it was 2 units, either?)
1 or 2 units of Incendiarii?
Paingivers
This is extremely rough because quite frankly, there were enough models in my opponents list that they jumbled together. And the details of this particular matchup are hazy because it wasn't incredibly distinctive - we had a lot of beating the crap out of each other in the middle, and not much else.
Terrain: Some hills and houses, not much else. Didn't really play a roll.
Scenario: Destruction
Match Assessment: Massive grindfest. Defensive feat on my part, both offensive and defensive on his. These are two "Meat Mountain" lists against each other, so it'll be roughly the equivalent of the Rocky & Apollo fights: we beat the crap out of each other and either 1 or both of us fall over. Movie reference, yeah!
Basically, I felt like I needed to weather his feat as best as possible. I made a mistake pregame, and I did my math wrong: I thought I could jam him out of scenario potentially. 2 problems: the math was wrong, in that I couldn't, and he has Martial Discipline, so if he kills my front lines, he can just move guys in. Fuck.
Outside of that, I just felt this was a case of two attrition lists against each other, and the one that could get up and ride it had a good chance to win. Mulg and Tiberion were roughly equal in the way they affected the match, although Mulg's threat is larger.
Deployment: There were a lot of medium bases lined up. Mine had Warders left, Champs and Grissel central, Warders right, everything else right behind. His... Had a shit ton of medium bases in a long line. The units are so hard to tell apart I'd have trouble telling you perfectly, to be honest. I know he had Cetratii fairly central with Arcuraii, and some Incendiarii right.
Game Time! Instead of my normal trying to describe events, I'm going to go for key moments here, because a few key moments shifted things - usually giant "I'm a donkey" moments on my part.
My turn 2: After a Turn 1 in which we both ran, I unpacked aggressively. As mentioned, I mathed wrong, and though I could scenario jam. Didn't work, and I ended up popping my feat to try to keep a lot of guys alive while jamming him up. Unfortunately, Fury Weapon Master Charges are a thing, and he was able to break more than I expected, with little ability to retaliate on my part. Not nearly enough to win me out the game. Shit.
By my Turn 3, we were thoroughly jammed into the middle of the board. My right side Warders crapped the bed with their dice and failed to kill the Incendiarii as quickly as I needed. Additionally, I'd taken them too far out to the right, and they had little-no effect on the game until too late. I did have probably one of my relatively smarter moves of the game, and got the Axer in at POW 15 on a thresher that hit 5 of his models and one of mine, clearing all but one with buys. That was sweeeeeet. Sadly, the Axer ate the dust right after that from charging Feated Weapon Masters.
His Turn 3: He feats, and he wipes a ton of stuff, including laying about 20ish damage into Mulg with Cetratii. Mulg eats them and heals back up some, but (donkey move!) I moved too far up and was in range of the Archidon with Fury and Paingivers the next turn, so... POW 20 Archidon got a Mulg lunch.
Essentially, he just continually weathered what I could do. I made poor model placements early game, and lost too much for too little gain; I needed to be coming out at least model for model on my Champs and Warders, and I was coming out well below that.
Post-Game: I'm concentrating more on this part, because this is what I refer to as a learning game, aka I got roflstomped. I made a few key mistakes, which I'll enumerate:
1) Bad positioning on my Turn 2. I gave him way too much, and could've saved my feat for Turn 3 potentially.
2) I didn't use Grissel's shots effectively early game. I tried to clear with the wrong models, when I could have gotten a lot of good mileage out of her spray. Additionally, I never - never - used her POW 12 template that stays in play. That was a major mistake; a lot his army is ARM 15, meaning that that Template will plink damage over time and make him a lot easier to clear. That was a giant mistake on my part.
3) Biggest mistake. INHOSPITABLE FREAKING GROUND. He had Xerxis for pathfinder ONLY, and I forgot to use Inhospitable Ground REPEATEDLY. I'm still pissed at myself for this, nearly 24 hours later. He could get one unit charging, sure, but in combination with better positioning (see Point 1), I could have dictated the flow of play. That would have put me in a much, much stronger position than I left myself in. It was a huge mistake on my part, a game changing one. I could have put him in positions where only one unit could really move per turn, allowing me to use Mulg and good positioning to control the pace of the game, and force Tibers to commit in a place Mulg liked potentially. Again: I'm a donkey.
We're going to try to play this match again soon, which will hopefully help teach me not to be silly and stupid. I hope.
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Battle Report, Trolls vs. Cygnar, 7-9-13
My List:
Borka Kegslayer (*5pts)
* Troll Impaler (5pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Pyg Burrowers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer (2pts)
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (4pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
Fennblade Kithkar (2pts)
Horgle Ironstrike (3pts)
* Slag Troll (5pts)
Saxon Orrik (2pts)
Opponents List:
Major Markus 'Siege' Brisbane (*5pts)
* Sentinel (4pts)
* Stormwall (19pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (6pts)
* Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer (2pts)
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4pts)
Press Gangers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Rangers (5pts)
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios (3pts)
Journeyman Warcaster (3pts)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)
Got lazy and didn't feel like cleaning up Forward Kommander text. Sorry guys!
Scenario: Fire Support
Terrain: Hill near his objective, hill a few inches closer to me than his objective's flag. Forest to the left of my objective, obstruction closer to me and slightly left of board center. Linear obstacle central, a few inches closer to him than center. Linear obstacle about 8-10" outside of his deployment on my left side, obstruction (building) left of that from my view.
Matchup Assessment: I was pretty sure this was going to be an odd game from the start. He had a lot of infantry killing, but Rangers were his only RAT buffer, and I had Iron Flesh. So... Weird, sorta? I wasn't as worried about Siege as I would've been under the Meat Mountain, which really suffers against Siege, but his ability to take my infantry models off the board was pretty intense.
I also wasn't entirely confident in my ability to remove Stormwall with Arcane Shield. This list was kinda fudged together to try out things, sorting out my Borka direction, and so it lost some cohesiveness and hitting power. Plus, I love Clyde (the Earthborn), but against Colossals he loses a lot of strength. I did like, though, having a bit more shooting, and all his infantry was fairly blast susceptible, so the Runeshapers and Borka's AE bomb might do some work.
He won the roll and decided to go first, so I was having to do a lot of threat range calculation in my head. I felt that if I could get the Fenns into the Gun Mages, they could win that battle, but getting them to the Mages can be problematic. Go-go Iron Flesh?
I really was not supremely confident going into this match.
Deployment: He put Stormwall center, ATGM behind his objective, Siege central to get to the linear obstacle with Junior, Squire, and Reinholdt. Sentinel was with them. Sentinel may actually have been on Junior - never was sure.
I put the Fenns against the ATGM, Borka central to get behind the obstruction I had on my side, Clyde left to bounce off the forest with faster speed. Horgle and Slag were central also, Impaler slightly left of Borka, and the support rear central.
He put the Rangers hard left (far side of the board from ATGM), and the Press Gangers central. I responded with central Dygmies.
Game Time! He ran forward. A lot forward. Press Gangers were all up in my junk - although less so than Satyxis. That's about it.
Him running that far forward and clearly attempting to jam with Gangers freaked me out, so I was thoughtful but hitting the panic button. Thoughtfully panicking? I've gone first too much lately, and not been jammed in a while.
I basically used my ranged attacks to clear the jam, but stupidly popped my feat to get larger charge ranges for the Dygmies and tried to get the Gangers cleared. Not a wise decision, really - I should've just dug them in and remained calm. I cleared most of them, but lost the 2" threat of my feat for the rest of the game. Through panicking, I also screwed up and didn't get IF on the Fenns against the ATGM, which I thought would put me into really good shape - they'd need 8's to hit. I was smart, though, and didn't blast the Fenns too far forward, instead using the hill to make the Gun Mages need 7's to hit.
He cleared all but like 2-3 Dygmies, of course. Stormwall held down the center, while the Rangers ran. Eiryss hid behind a building where he kept forgetting her. My move with the hill paid off - his dice went a little cold and my Toughs got a little hot, so I ended the turn with 1 dead and 2 knocked down Fenns. Near perfect for Vengeance <fist pump>.
From here, the game was a really awkward skirmish in the center, while my Fenns collapsed his left/my right flank. Vengeance + Minifeat = long range movement for Fenns. Needed 7's to hit, killed 3 or 4 in the first turn, and slowly whittled it down.
In the center, over a few turns, we both jostled for position, lobbing shots; I worked off the Sentinel (slowly - dice went cold on my damage shots), while he pumped shots into my Slag that I spent time regenning (his dice went cold on the Slag, too). It was fairly uneventful, primarily because Borka was threatening Sieges life if he came too close, and the Stormwall was somewhat terrain constrained, being unable to move as well as he might like due to the linear obstacle. Additionally, Iron Flesh on Borka made killing him a risky game - he needed 11's to hit, with me camping transfers, so there weren't very good odds.
Finally, when I managed to clear the Gun Mages, I was able to charge my Fenns on his objective and kill it. I then ran Borka over with IF upkept, and dominated to go to 3. He couldn't move in the Stormwall, and conceded on scenario.
Postgame: This was really freaking weird. I ended the game with only 3-4 minutes remaining to his 10-12 (I was slow on my initial turn from jam-panic), but not that much was dead - only like 20ish points on either side. There was a lot of skirmishing, but because of terrain and the difficulty in breaking either defense or armor (my defense, his Stormwall) limited our ability to commit too heavily to one side or another.
I was really happy with my ability to get the Fenns into the Gun Mages effectively, but I'm not happy that I panic-feated on the Press Gangers. I didn't gain enough to justify the feat, and I actually could have really kept Siege back if I still had my feat for Borka, giving me a 13" threat range rather than 11" for beating on him with Trauma.
Also, I didn't do a good job using Wind Wall, which could have been useful for limiting his shooting of both Borka and the Slag Troll. Awkward dice kept me from clearing the Sentinel earlier, but it would have helped had I burrowed the Dygmies and just soaked whatever the Press Gangers put into me.
Mostly, I learned that I want to shift up Borka's battlegroup. I'm not very happy with it so far, and it's changing my level of comfort. I think that I want a two heavy battlegroup, possibly Bomber and Mauler. Mosh Pit helps enough with hitting that I feel it'll probably be sufficient for what I need in setting up the Bomber, and Rage + Krielstone give me a PS 19 Bomber in melee.
Borka Kegslayer (*5pts)
* Troll Impaler (5pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Pyg Burrowers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer (2pts)
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (4pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
Fennblade Kithkar (2pts)
Horgle Ironstrike (3pts)
* Slag Troll (5pts)
Saxon Orrik (2pts)
Opponents List:
Major Markus 'Siege' Brisbane (*5pts)
* Sentinel (4pts)
* Stormwall (19pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (6pts)
* Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer (2pts)
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4pts)
Press Gangers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Rangers (5pts)
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios (3pts)
Journeyman Warcaster (3pts)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)
Got lazy and didn't feel like cleaning up Forward Kommander text. Sorry guys!
Scenario: Fire Support
Terrain: Hill near his objective, hill a few inches closer to me than his objective's flag. Forest to the left of my objective, obstruction closer to me and slightly left of board center. Linear obstacle central, a few inches closer to him than center. Linear obstacle about 8-10" outside of his deployment on my left side, obstruction (building) left of that from my view.
Matchup Assessment: I was pretty sure this was going to be an odd game from the start. He had a lot of infantry killing, but Rangers were his only RAT buffer, and I had Iron Flesh. So... Weird, sorta? I wasn't as worried about Siege as I would've been under the Meat Mountain, which really suffers against Siege, but his ability to take my infantry models off the board was pretty intense.
I also wasn't entirely confident in my ability to remove Stormwall with Arcane Shield. This list was kinda fudged together to try out things, sorting out my Borka direction, and so it lost some cohesiveness and hitting power. Plus, I love Clyde (the Earthborn), but against Colossals he loses a lot of strength. I did like, though, having a bit more shooting, and all his infantry was fairly blast susceptible, so the Runeshapers and Borka's AE bomb might do some work.
He won the roll and decided to go first, so I was having to do a lot of threat range calculation in my head. I felt that if I could get the Fenns into the Gun Mages, they could win that battle, but getting them to the Mages can be problematic. Go-go Iron Flesh?
I really was not supremely confident going into this match.
Deployment: He put Stormwall center, ATGM behind his objective, Siege central to get to the linear obstacle with Junior, Squire, and Reinholdt. Sentinel was with them. Sentinel may actually have been on Junior - never was sure.
I put the Fenns against the ATGM, Borka central to get behind the obstruction I had on my side, Clyde left to bounce off the forest with faster speed. Horgle and Slag were central also, Impaler slightly left of Borka, and the support rear central.
He put the Rangers hard left (far side of the board from ATGM), and the Press Gangers central. I responded with central Dygmies.
Game Time! He ran forward. A lot forward. Press Gangers were all up in my junk - although less so than Satyxis. That's about it.
Him running that far forward and clearly attempting to jam with Gangers freaked me out, so I was thoughtful but hitting the panic button. Thoughtfully panicking? I've gone first too much lately, and not been jammed in a while.
I basically used my ranged attacks to clear the jam, but stupidly popped my feat to get larger charge ranges for the Dygmies and tried to get the Gangers cleared. Not a wise decision, really - I should've just dug them in and remained calm. I cleared most of them, but lost the 2" threat of my feat for the rest of the game. Through panicking, I also screwed up and didn't get IF on the Fenns against the ATGM, which I thought would put me into really good shape - they'd need 8's to hit. I was smart, though, and didn't blast the Fenns too far forward, instead using the hill to make the Gun Mages need 7's to hit.
He cleared all but like 2-3 Dygmies, of course. Stormwall held down the center, while the Rangers ran. Eiryss hid behind a building where he kept forgetting her. My move with the hill paid off - his dice went a little cold and my Toughs got a little hot, so I ended the turn with 1 dead and 2 knocked down Fenns. Near perfect for Vengeance <fist pump>.
From here, the game was a really awkward skirmish in the center, while my Fenns collapsed his left/my right flank. Vengeance + Minifeat = long range movement for Fenns. Needed 7's to hit, killed 3 or 4 in the first turn, and slowly whittled it down.
In the center, over a few turns, we both jostled for position, lobbing shots; I worked off the Sentinel (slowly - dice went cold on my damage shots), while he pumped shots into my Slag that I spent time regenning (his dice went cold on the Slag, too). It was fairly uneventful, primarily because Borka was threatening Sieges life if he came too close, and the Stormwall was somewhat terrain constrained, being unable to move as well as he might like due to the linear obstacle. Additionally, Iron Flesh on Borka made killing him a risky game - he needed 11's to hit, with me camping transfers, so there weren't very good odds.
Finally, when I managed to clear the Gun Mages, I was able to charge my Fenns on his objective and kill it. I then ran Borka over with IF upkept, and dominated to go to 3. He couldn't move in the Stormwall, and conceded on scenario.
Postgame: This was really freaking weird. I ended the game with only 3-4 minutes remaining to his 10-12 (I was slow on my initial turn from jam-panic), but not that much was dead - only like 20ish points on either side. There was a lot of skirmishing, but because of terrain and the difficulty in breaking either defense or armor (my defense, his Stormwall) limited our ability to commit too heavily to one side or another.
I was really happy with my ability to get the Fenns into the Gun Mages effectively, but I'm not happy that I panic-feated on the Press Gangers. I didn't gain enough to justify the feat, and I actually could have really kept Siege back if I still had my feat for Borka, giving me a 13" threat range rather than 11" for beating on him with Trauma.
Also, I didn't do a good job using Wind Wall, which could have been useful for limiting his shooting of both Borka and the Slag Troll. Awkward dice kept me from clearing the Sentinel earlier, but it would have helped had I burrowed the Dygmies and just soaked whatever the Press Gangers put into me.
Mostly, I learned that I want to shift up Borka's battlegroup. I'm not very happy with it so far, and it's changing my level of comfort. I think that I want a two heavy battlegroup, possibly Bomber and Mauler. Mosh Pit helps enough with hitting that I feel it'll probably be sufficient for what I need in setting up the Bomber, and Rage + Krielstone give me a PS 19 Bomber in melee.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Battle Report, Trolls vs. Cryx, 7-2-14
Early apology here: the late game gets hazy because I lost track of what happened where, so I just sum up the end game. It was mostly jockeying for position and attrition anyway, so there's not a ton of detail to give.
My List:
Borka Kegslayer
* Swamp Troll
* Troll Axer
* Dire Troll Mauler
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder
Pyg Burrowers (Leader and 9 Grunts)
Sons of Bragg
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer
Fell Caller Hero
Stone Scribe Chronicler
Trollkin Champion Hero
Trollkin Sorcerer
Opponents List:
Lich Lord Asphyxious
* Nightwretch
* Nightwretch
Bane Knights (Leader and 9 Grunts)
Bane Thralls (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Bane Thrall Officer & Standard
Bile Thralls (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Satyxis Blood Witches (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Satyxis Blood Hag
The Withershadow Combine
Bane Lord Tartarus
Pistol Wraith
Warwitch Siren
Scenario: Two Fronts
Terrain: Central forest just outside deployment on each players side. Hill central, linear obstacle partially in his zone, relatively central. None other that really mattered.
Matchup Assessment:
This is a list I may have to face that I've theorycrafted in my head more than most others; I didn't actually expect to get it today, but I'm looking at Borka1 as my third caster in my lineup, so I wanted to play with it and see how it went.
My first reaction was "Shit," because it's Gaspy2, and I had a lot of infantry vulnerable to Bile Thralls. I didn't have much denial (a la pGrim), and I knew that I'd have a ton of vulnerability to purges. I started trying to ration out in my brain how much damage I needed to do and how I needed to initiate the piece trade, and I didn't feel amazing about it.
However, I did feel great about one thing - if I could minimize the Bile Thralls, he didn't have great hitting odds elsewhere. The Fenns were DEF 17 against charges with Iron Flesh, which (even with Tartarus) was long odds to hit. Borka himself could put his defense to stupid levels, and Gaspy's feat, while always scary, wasn't as intimidating as it might have been had I run a high ARM skew.
My initial plan in running this list was to make Borka go "Super Solo" with Swarm on him and make him nigh unkillable. I switched back to Conservative Borka mode, instead, playing to try to keep a good attrition pace and get good piece trades. His feat is devastasting, but only once per game, so if I could try to force him to feat to clear infantry rather than to go all in on Borka or a beast, I felt good.
Although... Seriously, what the hell? Clouds, Excarnate with Biles, Parasite, and the Feat? That's an intimidating freaking package to look at.
Deployment: I decided to play conservative, and maybe try to sneak a few scenario points from my own zone. I put Borka with his beasts mostly there, central Fenns, central Dygs, and SoB right side with the champs. Krielstone was central just behind.
His deployment, he put the Thralls threatening my zone, Witches on his zone, and Knights central, with Nodes to either side. Tartarus went on the side where he could get my Dygs and Fenns.
I put the Burrowers under, and the Fenns ran most of the way up, although I concaved a bit to be wary of the Biles. I wanted to play it cautiously to be as careful as possible. The SoB and Champs went up to threaten the other zone, staying cautious. Borka put 5 on the Stone and Iron Flesh on the Fenns.
He rolled straight forward, setting up all his angles for other turns. An Arced Excarnate got a SoBragg that I left about half an inch outside my Krielstone and half an inch too far forward (good job to me!). Failed Tough, add a Bile. Doh. Other than that, all running.
I made a mistake here, and got a little too aggressive with my Dygmies. I put them all way forward, and left about 5-6 in Purge range. I should have been more cautious and put a few up for messing with his angles, but the rest back out of Purge, or forcing an awkward one. My mistake. I did clear out about 4 Knights, 2 Thralls, and 2 Witches with my Dygmies, so... Jesus. Their dice went stupid. I cleared a few other Thralls with the Fenn minifeat + Charge, added more to the stone, and put IF on the Fenns. Charge me, fool!
He used Gaspy's Soul Collector Thingy to put down a pie that got 5-6 Dygmies, and ended up after Purges (all of this central to the board) getting 7 extra Souls, ouch. Bad placement is bad on my part. He pulled an Excarnate somewhere, set Gaspy back to safety, and then did some SoB damage with Witches. The Banes all missed Fenn attacks because IF + Set Defense, thankfully.
From here on out it's some awkward trading. I tried to clear my zone but one Thrall went on a Tough spree, leaving a single Thrall in the zone. I landed some objective damage, but nothing much, while I just kept holding a contesting angle on the other zone. I coulda gone up 2-0 without the toughs and better target priority, but that was my own mistake. Shoulda-coulda-woulda.
He kept on whittling away at me, and positioned Gaspy to try to start dominating his side. I toughed out just enough, though, and he couldn't clear it. He whittled most of the Fenns and got Purges on my Stone, but Tough rocks.
I cleared the zone and dominated here, and went into Borka with IF mode. Didn't quite get to the objective, but I set myself in good position. I offered up the Axer as feat-bait for him; I didn't want to lose it, really, but it was a better loss than the Mauler based on board position. He retaliated by clearing his zone and jamming mine, so we went to 1-1. Critically, however, he left Gaspy on the corner of the zone closest to me.
I was low on time here, so I went for the kill. I finagled things around a bit, got lucky blast damage and offed an arc node in the way, put up Mosh Pit, and the Swamp Troll got the dice to drag in Gaspy. A Krielstone grunt needed a 10 to hit on him and got it (holy hell), and then the Axer got Raged from the Mauler and ended Gaspy's night with a few attacks to the head.
Post-Game: I got really lucky in a few places, including my opponents inexperience with Gaspy and not using Clouds. Those woulda really, really hurt me. That said, I made my own errors that he exploited, such as bad Dygmy positioning, that gave him some major momentum. We both had inexperience with our lists, and it showed.
That said, I really, really liked aspects of my list. The Fenns got major mileage, and earned their points back easily in the Thralls and Knights because of being hard to hit. I didn't use the SoB very well, honestly; I should've put the Dygs more on one side and the SoB behind them, but that was my mistake. The Satyxis are an eternal problem because of Incorp, but unfortunately since I deployed first, I wasn't able to bring all I wanted to bear there.
Also, I think I should've used Borka more aggressively, probably going after his zone and setting more forces to defend my zone. I think, had I done that, I might've honestly been able to clear and dominate - my infantry clearing was fairly solid, and I could mess with his ability to hit me big time. That would've put serious pressure on him very quickly.
An OK win, though; we both played a bit awkwardly because of new lists. I think I want to shift my list a bit to try to bring in more spot-removal, such as maybe Impaler and some shooting (Saxon or Alten?) to try to clear those long threats. If I coulda taken out the Biles (or at least most of them), I would've removed a huge set of threats to my guys.
My List:
Borka Kegslayer
* Swamp Troll
* Troll Axer
* Dire Troll Mauler
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder
Pyg Burrowers (Leader and 9 Grunts)
Sons of Bragg
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer
Fell Caller Hero
Stone Scribe Chronicler
Trollkin Champion Hero
Trollkin Sorcerer
Opponents List:
Lich Lord Asphyxious
* Nightwretch
* Nightwretch
Bane Knights (Leader and 9 Grunts)
Bane Thralls (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Bane Thrall Officer & Standard
Bile Thralls (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Satyxis Blood Witches (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Satyxis Blood Hag
The Withershadow Combine
Bane Lord Tartarus
Pistol Wraith
Warwitch Siren
Scenario: Two Fronts
Terrain: Central forest just outside deployment on each players side. Hill central, linear obstacle partially in his zone, relatively central. None other that really mattered.
Matchup Assessment:
This is a list I may have to face that I've theorycrafted in my head more than most others; I didn't actually expect to get it today, but I'm looking at Borka1 as my third caster in my lineup, so I wanted to play with it and see how it went.
My first reaction was "Shit," because it's Gaspy2, and I had a lot of infantry vulnerable to Bile Thralls. I didn't have much denial (a la pGrim), and I knew that I'd have a ton of vulnerability to purges. I started trying to ration out in my brain how much damage I needed to do and how I needed to initiate the piece trade, and I didn't feel amazing about it.
However, I did feel great about one thing - if I could minimize the Bile Thralls, he didn't have great hitting odds elsewhere. The Fenns were DEF 17 against charges with Iron Flesh, which (even with Tartarus) was long odds to hit. Borka himself could put his defense to stupid levels, and Gaspy's feat, while always scary, wasn't as intimidating as it might have been had I run a high ARM skew.
My initial plan in running this list was to make Borka go "Super Solo" with Swarm on him and make him nigh unkillable. I switched back to Conservative Borka mode, instead, playing to try to keep a good attrition pace and get good piece trades. His feat is devastasting, but only once per game, so if I could try to force him to feat to clear infantry rather than to go all in on Borka or a beast, I felt good.
Although... Seriously, what the hell? Clouds, Excarnate with Biles, Parasite, and the Feat? That's an intimidating freaking package to look at.
Deployment: I decided to play conservative, and maybe try to sneak a few scenario points from my own zone. I put Borka with his beasts mostly there, central Fenns, central Dygs, and SoB right side with the champs. Krielstone was central just behind.
His deployment, he put the Thralls threatening my zone, Witches on his zone, and Knights central, with Nodes to either side. Tartarus went on the side where he could get my Dygs and Fenns.
I put the Burrowers under, and the Fenns ran most of the way up, although I concaved a bit to be wary of the Biles. I wanted to play it cautiously to be as careful as possible. The SoB and Champs went up to threaten the other zone, staying cautious. Borka put 5 on the Stone and Iron Flesh on the Fenns.
He rolled straight forward, setting up all his angles for other turns. An Arced Excarnate got a SoBragg that I left about half an inch outside my Krielstone and half an inch too far forward (good job to me!). Failed Tough, add a Bile. Doh. Other than that, all running.
I made a mistake here, and got a little too aggressive with my Dygmies. I put them all way forward, and left about 5-6 in Purge range. I should have been more cautious and put a few up for messing with his angles, but the rest back out of Purge, or forcing an awkward one. My mistake. I did clear out about 4 Knights, 2 Thralls, and 2 Witches with my Dygmies, so... Jesus. Their dice went stupid. I cleared a few other Thralls with the Fenn minifeat + Charge, added more to the stone, and put IF on the Fenns. Charge me, fool!
He used Gaspy's Soul Collector Thingy to put down a pie that got 5-6 Dygmies, and ended up after Purges (all of this central to the board) getting 7 extra Souls, ouch. Bad placement is bad on my part. He pulled an Excarnate somewhere, set Gaspy back to safety, and then did some SoB damage with Witches. The Banes all missed Fenn attacks because IF + Set Defense, thankfully.
From here on out it's some awkward trading. I tried to clear my zone but one Thrall went on a Tough spree, leaving a single Thrall in the zone. I landed some objective damage, but nothing much, while I just kept holding a contesting angle on the other zone. I coulda gone up 2-0 without the toughs and better target priority, but that was my own mistake. Shoulda-coulda-woulda.
He kept on whittling away at me, and positioned Gaspy to try to start dominating his side. I toughed out just enough, though, and he couldn't clear it. He whittled most of the Fenns and got Purges on my Stone, but Tough rocks.
I cleared the zone and dominated here, and went into Borka with IF mode. Didn't quite get to the objective, but I set myself in good position. I offered up the Axer as feat-bait for him; I didn't want to lose it, really, but it was a better loss than the Mauler based on board position. He retaliated by clearing his zone and jamming mine, so we went to 1-1. Critically, however, he left Gaspy on the corner of the zone closest to me.
I was low on time here, so I went for the kill. I finagled things around a bit, got lucky blast damage and offed an arc node in the way, put up Mosh Pit, and the Swamp Troll got the dice to drag in Gaspy. A Krielstone grunt needed a 10 to hit on him and got it (holy hell), and then the Axer got Raged from the Mauler and ended Gaspy's night with a few attacks to the head.
Post-Game: I got really lucky in a few places, including my opponents inexperience with Gaspy and not using Clouds. Those woulda really, really hurt me. That said, I made my own errors that he exploited, such as bad Dygmy positioning, that gave him some major momentum. We both had inexperience with our lists, and it showed.
That said, I really, really liked aspects of my list. The Fenns got major mileage, and earned their points back easily in the Thralls and Knights because of being hard to hit. I didn't use the SoB very well, honestly; I should've put the Dygs more on one side and the SoB behind them, but that was my mistake. The Satyxis are an eternal problem because of Incorp, but unfortunately since I deployed first, I wasn't able to bring all I wanted to bear there.
Also, I think I should've used Borka more aggressively, probably going after his zone and setting more forces to defend my zone. I think, had I done that, I might've honestly been able to clear and dominate - my infantry clearing was fairly solid, and I could mess with his ability to hit me big time. That would've put serious pressure on him very quickly.
An OK win, though; we both played a bit awkwardly because of new lists. I think I want to shift my list a bit to try to bring in more spot-removal, such as maybe Impaler and some shooting (Saxon or Alten?) to try to clear those long threats. If I coulda taken out the Biles (or at least most of them), I would've removed a huge set of threats to my guys.
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Take Your Soul Back from Cryx!
Continuing from Part 1, in this part I'll delve into the pieces Trolls have that I feel line up particularly well against the Dragonfather's forces. No list builds, because in all honesty, these are out there in spades, but just an assessment of pieces.
Casters
So, taking a few of these ideas into consideration, the next obvious question is where to start caster-wise. Some of our casters simply manage this better than others. I would argue against a brick-style build - such as a Runes of War, or the Miserable Meat Mountain - particularly because it gives the opponent some high value targets to hit. Cryx, more than most any faction, loves to see high value, lower DEF, even high ARM targets, because they can and will crack it with Banes, Parasite, Scything Touch, etc. Even Mulg, the king of our beasts, can fall when a 5 ARM swing brings him down to effective ARM 18 (assuming Earthborn and Krielstone) so he's only being hit at D-5 and 6. It takes fewer shots than you'd think on a charge to finish that.
I won't go through every caster, but here are a few highlights for me:
Grim Angus (prime): Sweeeeeet! Grim brings to the table elements you really, really want here: he can disable Special Attacks with his feat (Purge), he slows down the opponent on the way in with the feat, he can remove key targets himself from 17" away (23" with his advance), and he drops DEF remarkably. Grim turns on pretty much every element we have that you can want him to here. Additionally, he has ways of removing Stealth and Incorp, plus he can give Hunter, which can aid in board position.
Hunters Grim: I'm starting to really see it with these guys. His feat gives our guns snipe, he has Mortality so he can shut down Tough or bring down the armor of models such as Knights, and his feat brings our shooting into a good hitting range, needing 5's or 6's much of the time. Less with a good aiming bonus. Additionally, he can use Mage Sight to see key portions of the field (although this is limited), and Mirage can un-engage our forces to allow better use of guns, better field positioning, etc.
Calandra: Against a lot of Cryx armies, Star Crossed can help a lot. Their MAT values are OK, but SC can help keep unexpected models alive. This declines with Tartarus or Skarre's Dark Guidance, but definitely has merits. Additionally, her ability to grant rerolls help ensure that we're hitting and getting the damage we need to where we need it.
Jarl: I pointed out earlier that Grim can spot remove. As long as it's not Stealth, Jarl does it as well or better. RNG 16 shots, Swift Hunter, and Magic Bullet put your shots where you need them. His spell list helps get your army into their lines faster - useful with models like Fennblades if you want to jam to bring up other models - or repositions to minimize damage. His feat is OK against Cryx, but not wonderful. Blocking off LOS for a turn is absolutely nice, for sure, but it stinks that the -2 doesn't work. Definitely don't overlook him, however; he has some very interesting abilities, and he himself can do work turn after turn against Cryx.
pGrissel: Grissel presents a somewhat interesting case. She wants to hit the board with infantry, which isn't always wonderful against some Cryxian lists, but she has some brutal denial and shutdown abilities - particularly Cacophany - that can hose a lot of their lists by preventing them from receiving orders. I like Grissel a lot here; the right list builds can really cause a ton of problems for Cryx.
Units/Solos/Beasts:
Fenns/Kriels/Scouts/Burrowers: All of these have their pluses. I would add to this any cheap Minion units, too, that won't cost you a lot. These trade up fairly easily because they have low points value, although they're all susceptible to Bile Thralls, too. YMMV. But they should definitely be mentioned because their fairly steady game generally works just fine against Cryx.
Scattergunners: These boys can do WORK. Their RAT 5 is generally not nearly as bad against the DEF 12 you'll see with Cryx, Quick Work and Clear can get them unjammed, and POW 12 is reliable kills on most Cryxian models. Susceptible to the Raiders, but that's not precisely uncommon. Particularly with the Grims, these boys can do some serious work.
Storm Troll: Oh yea. C'mere boy, lemme get some electro-leapin' action. The Storm's POW 10 on his shot or on his animus are relatively reliable kills against most Cryxian infantry, doubling the work our models can do. Bonus points here for working with the Fennblades; Reach lets you really spread your guys into fantastic positions for good e-Leaps. There's a lot of potential work that can be done here.
Bomber: I'll mention this guy, although he potentially suffers a bit. He's got POW 8 blast damage, but that's far from guaranteed against Banes, doesn't work until the Sea Witch is out, and Incorp is a thing on the Blood Witches. So... It's awkward. He can do work, but you really may need to give him a little help. Bonus points for eGrim, where Mortality - if landed - makes him POW 10 blast, so Banes start getting a little nervy.
There are a number of other pieces that can work - arguably the Blitzer has ways to do work, and Runeshapers are relatively cheap options that have a good amount of utility also. Bushwhackers could also potentially do work, if you can mitigate RAT problems, since POW 10's will be relatively fine against most Cryx models.
If you're interested in seeing some serious anti-Cryx tech, look up Jason Flanzer's WMW 2013 pGrim list, or look for Chad Shonkwiler's pGrissel list. Both of these have serious game against Cryx; Flanzer relied on Scattergunners and Grim's spell list + feat to buy himself time, while Chad's liberal use of Cacophany helps limit Cryxian retaliation. Plus, with Chad, you can see Long Riders used in a near perfect manner, being bounced in and out to wreak havoc and prevent retaliation.
These are just some early thoughts; there's plenty of other ways to go about it. In theorycrafting, I would argue pDoomshaper has game, too, outside of Runes of War - the flaw to this is that I think it starts negating some of Doomy's best assets, which lie in his anti-Hordes game and the fact that Runes is a brutally well-tuned list.
That's just some thoughts; as always, email me if you're curious or disagree, and I'll be glad to discuss. Keep on Trollin'!
Casters
So, taking a few of these ideas into consideration, the next obvious question is where to start caster-wise. Some of our casters simply manage this better than others. I would argue against a brick-style build - such as a Runes of War, or the Miserable Meat Mountain - particularly because it gives the opponent some high value targets to hit. Cryx, more than most any faction, loves to see high value, lower DEF, even high ARM targets, because they can and will crack it with Banes, Parasite, Scything Touch, etc. Even Mulg, the king of our beasts, can fall when a 5 ARM swing brings him down to effective ARM 18 (assuming Earthborn and Krielstone) so he's only being hit at D-5 and 6. It takes fewer shots than you'd think on a charge to finish that.
I won't go through every caster, but here are a few highlights for me:
Grim Angus (prime): Sweeeeeet! Grim brings to the table elements you really, really want here: he can disable Special Attacks with his feat (Purge), he slows down the opponent on the way in with the feat, he can remove key targets himself from 17" away (23" with his advance), and he drops DEF remarkably. Grim turns on pretty much every element we have that you can want him to here. Additionally, he has ways of removing Stealth and Incorp, plus he can give Hunter, which can aid in board position.
Hunters Grim: I'm starting to really see it with these guys. His feat gives our guns snipe, he has Mortality so he can shut down Tough or bring down the armor of models such as Knights, and his feat brings our shooting into a good hitting range, needing 5's or 6's much of the time. Less with a good aiming bonus. Additionally, he can use Mage Sight to see key portions of the field (although this is limited), and Mirage can un-engage our forces to allow better use of guns, better field positioning, etc.
Calandra: Against a lot of Cryx armies, Star Crossed can help a lot. Their MAT values are OK, but SC can help keep unexpected models alive. This declines with Tartarus or Skarre's Dark Guidance, but definitely has merits. Additionally, her ability to grant rerolls help ensure that we're hitting and getting the damage we need to where we need it.
Jarl: I pointed out earlier that Grim can spot remove. As long as it's not Stealth, Jarl does it as well or better. RNG 16 shots, Swift Hunter, and Magic Bullet put your shots where you need them. His spell list helps get your army into their lines faster - useful with models like Fennblades if you want to jam to bring up other models - or repositions to minimize damage. His feat is OK against Cryx, but not wonderful. Blocking off LOS for a turn is absolutely nice, for sure, but it stinks that the -2 doesn't work. Definitely don't overlook him, however; he has some very interesting abilities, and he himself can do work turn after turn against Cryx.
pGrissel: Grissel presents a somewhat interesting case. She wants to hit the board with infantry, which isn't always wonderful against some Cryxian lists, but she has some brutal denial and shutdown abilities - particularly Cacophany - that can hose a lot of their lists by preventing them from receiving orders. I like Grissel a lot here; the right list builds can really cause a ton of problems for Cryx.
Units/Solos/Beasts:
Fenns/Kriels/Scouts/Burrowers: All of these have their pluses. I would add to this any cheap Minion units, too, that won't cost you a lot. These trade up fairly easily because they have low points value, although they're all susceptible to Bile Thralls, too. YMMV. But they should definitely be mentioned because their fairly steady game generally works just fine against Cryx.
Scattergunners: These boys can do WORK. Their RAT 5 is generally not nearly as bad against the DEF 12 you'll see with Cryx, Quick Work and Clear can get them unjammed, and POW 12 is reliable kills on most Cryxian models. Susceptible to the Raiders, but that's not precisely uncommon. Particularly with the Grims, these boys can do some serious work.
Storm Troll: Oh yea. C'mere boy, lemme get some electro-leapin' action. The Storm's POW 10 on his shot or on his animus are relatively reliable kills against most Cryxian infantry, doubling the work our models can do. Bonus points here for working with the Fennblades; Reach lets you really spread your guys into fantastic positions for good e-Leaps. There's a lot of potential work that can be done here.
Bomber: I'll mention this guy, although he potentially suffers a bit. He's got POW 8 blast damage, but that's far from guaranteed against Banes, doesn't work until the Sea Witch is out, and Incorp is a thing on the Blood Witches. So... It's awkward. He can do work, but you really may need to give him a little help. Bonus points for eGrim, where Mortality - if landed - makes him POW 10 blast, so Banes start getting a little nervy.
There are a number of other pieces that can work - arguably the Blitzer has ways to do work, and Runeshapers are relatively cheap options that have a good amount of utility also. Bushwhackers could also potentially do work, if you can mitigate RAT problems, since POW 10's will be relatively fine against most Cryx models.
If you're interested in seeing some serious anti-Cryx tech, look up Jason Flanzer's WMW 2013 pGrim list, or look for Chad Shonkwiler's pGrissel list. Both of these have serious game against Cryx; Flanzer relied on Scattergunners and Grim's spell list + feat to buy himself time, while Chad's liberal use of Cacophany helps limit Cryxian retaliation. Plus, with Chad, you can see Long Riders used in a near perfect manner, being bounced in and out to wreak havoc and prevent retaliation.
These are just some early thoughts; there's plenty of other ways to go about it. In theorycrafting, I would argue pDoomshaper has game, too, outside of Runes of War - the flaw to this is that I think it starts negating some of Doomy's best assets, which lie in his anti-Hordes game and the fact that Runes is a brutally well-tuned list.
That's just some thoughts; as always, email me if you're curious or disagree, and I'll be glad to discuss. Keep on Trollin'!
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