Today I wanted to run out Calandra, she is currently the troll caster I feel most comfortable with but despite her forgiving nature where dice are concerned I often find myself struggling in the late game once she has popped her feat. I need to stop relying on the very potent alpha strike that burrowers and bombers provide her with and invest more time in using her as a true support caster throughout the game.
One swap I am considering in her list is adding in the Farrow Bone Grinders - the extra 2" range for Befuddle and Force Blow is very tempting, not quite sure what to drop though...
The Lists and Deployment
Calandra
Mulg the Ancient
Dire Troll Bomber
Troll Impaler
10 Fennblades plus Officer and Drummer
10 Burrowers
Fell Caller Hero
5 Gatorman Posse
Max was using his new PIrusk infantry spam variant that now included the full WG blob that had been moved from his PVlad list. I hate playing this list because I hate any list that has better tough than I do.
PIrusk
Wyshnyllr
Beast 09
Marauder
Full Winterguard Plus Officer and Standard plus 2 rocketeers plus Joe (twat)
10 Kayzay Assassins with Underboss
6 Doomreavers
Koldun Lord
Greylord Ternion
Saxon Orrick
We were continuing with our SR2012 practice and decided to indulge in a little bit of 'Diversion'. In this scenario you need to control the flag to the north of your deployment zone while contesting an 8" Diameter zone on the far side of the table. For the second game running Max won the dice roll, chose the far table edge and forced me to set up and go first.
Looking at the table Max had definitely chosen well, both of us would have been very happy to get that wood to park our respective casters behind. The wood also meant that their was a pretty narrow channel for my pathfinder lacking beasts to operate in. Mine was a fairly predictable deployment; the Fenns went down facing the wood as they had both their mini feat and the Fellcaller to help them out here, Calandra and all of the beasts went centrally and the Gatormen were positioned ready to make a run on my Flag.
In response Max deployed the full WGDS behind the wood, clearly looking to take advantage of Saxon Orrick's pathfinder granting ability. Beast, the Marauder, Irusk, and Wishnailer all went fairly centrally with the Kayzay deploying to challenge my scoring flag.
The advance deployment is something I should have given more thought to in retrospect, as it was, my burrowers deployed centrally and Max reinforced his run on my flag with the Doomreavers.
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| The board after deployment |
Turn 1
Yet again I fell victim to my inability to form coherent plans before starting moving. I must stop relying on an ability to think on the fly...
In what was a fairly standard turn one the Fenns ran and spread out across the bottom left of the board. Mulg and the Bomber both ran down the middle and the Gatormen ran towards the flag. The burrowers moved directly forward heading for a run on Max's heavies. I wanted to get Calandra as high up the table as possible so she charged Mulg in the rear (and inflicted a comedy point of damage!), cast Bullet Dodger on herself and put up Starcrossed. Finally, the Fellcaller advanced in behind and the Impaler ran in to the right of the two heavies.
In response Max concocted quite a neat defence; Irusk hung on to all his focus and he started by running the Beast up to the corner of the wood (being careful to leave him a clear charge lane down its side). Next the Koldun lord advanced and passed the Marauder a focus which it immediately used to run in next to Beast. The Doomreavers took an easy jog out toward the flag (and my advancing Gators) and Saxon Orrick shuffled then pathfinder'd up the WGDS.
What I hadn't anticipated was the next move; the Greylord Ternion tarted about a little and then popped down blizzards on three Kayzay. The Kayzay then activated and ran to form a line of LOS blocking clouds in front of the two heavies, the best bit being the little buggers are stealthy so I had no easy way to clear a path for my burrowers. To end the turn the WGDS ran in amongst the wood, Joe called tough onto them and advanced and then Irusk finished off by getting Beast all Superiority'd and Iron Fleshed the Winter Guard.
Now I had two problems, I wasn't committed to the scenario, my burrowers were in the wrong place and I needed to kill some very stealthy Kayzay.
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| The board at the end of turn 1 |
Turn 2
A bright idea had occurred toward the end of Max's movement. Whilst I couldn't target his kayzay I could certainly target my own Fennblade. With this in mind I began by bringing up the burrowers in a clump just in front of my two heavies being very careful to stay 3 inches away from the Doomreaver closest to me. Calandra upkept Bullet Dodger and I started my movement with the Fenns who were simply going to be running and 'Jamming' this turn and therefore could go before she popped her feat. A single Fenn ran and engaged the two Kayzay blocking my path (I later realised my small mistake here) and the rest ran to engage as many WG as possible. Mulg moved next and simply shuffled to his left to clear a path for Calandra to advance and remain behind his imposing bulk. With everything set it was time for the feat, Calandra advanced to ensure that both of Max's heavies were in her control area, cast Star Crossed to try and mitigate the inevitable retaliation and left herself with 3 fury for 'fate blessed' re rolls.
Now I realised my small mistake, as the bomber stepped up to blow my Fennblade and the two offending Kayzay off the table I twigged that having engaged the Kayzay the Fenn was at +4 DEF, I would have been much better running him in backward! Still, under the feat and in the rear the Bomber only needed 9's to hit with a boosted attack and re-rolls galore. As expected he hit and the two Kayzay evaporated (along with the annoying blizzards) also as expected the stupid Fenn passed his tough test and stayed stubbornly in the way. Not wanting to waste a shot on him the next bomb put a tasty 8 damage on the now exposed Beast 09. I now had to waste the Impaler on trying to clear my Fenn out of the way, knocked down he was hit easily and fortunately this time failed his tough test.
Now I just needed that annoying abomination test cleared; the Gatormen declared charges on the Doomreavers that were in range and prayed for rerolls to hit against living models (as most of them were out of range of the feat). They did their usual excellent job and 3 Doomreavers were released from their earthly bonds. With this last annoyance cleared it was time for the charge of the burrowers; the fellcaller went first and buffed them with +2 to hit and off they scuttled, 4 of them making it into Beast, the rest picking of available WG and Kayzay.
(An aside; I always overestimate the damage that burrowers will do to Khador jacks. There is a real drop in damage around armour 19/20, even with the re-rolls that Calandra grants them. Unfortunately it seems I always fall into the trap of sending them off to hunt down the 'high value' targets I know they will not kill and hoping for better than average rolls....A bad habit and one I must break)
Now it was Max's turn to be clever; as I had 4 burrowers packed in around Beast they were all stood at the very limit of 1/2" melee. After the first one had damaged, Max used Hyper Aggressive to shuffle Beast in combat, taking him out of melee with the last burrower. Yes, he took a free strike doing it but only off a P+S 8 sword, in future I must remember to consider which attack to do first, rather than just starting at the end of a line. With only 3 burrowers attacking and some shocking rolls (despite the feat re-rolls!) Beast was left in an alarmingly healthy condition.
The remaining burrowers did a pretty respectable job of clearing out a couple of Kayzay and some Winterguard but on the whole it was a pretty disappointing feat turn, especially when Max was yet to use his.
Max had a quick ponder and then began his turn with the slightly ominous 'lets just see how much I can kill'. Irusk allocated 3 to Beast, upkept Iron Flesh and kept 3 for himself (Wishnailer continued in his role of '2 points to upkeep superiority for free all game'). Amusingly, Max's initial move was to charge his Doomreavers off the hill and into the Gatormen, and obligingly missed all his attacks. If only the rest of the turn had been like this. Keen to take advantage of the +2 to hit part of his feat Irusk activated next, popped his feat and threw a cheeky boosted airbust in the direction of my Fellcaller doing 4 points of damage.
I must apologise at this point for not being able to remember the specifics of just how Max's Winterguard managed to spray/shoot the Fenns and Burrowers to death. Suffice to say Max is well practiced in the dark arts of spray shenanigans. Obeying the time honoured tradition that is a WG blog turn some fat bearded red bastard gave out boosted to hit rolls and then the unit proceeded to wipe out all the engaging Fennblades and many of the burrowers while shuffling (read: bloody bob and weave) in the wood. The Greylord Ternion stepped up for their own spray spectacular and using their own heavy jacks as target markers added to the carnage by removing the burrowers that were in the way of Beast and the Marauder. The Kayzay went next, popped their minifeat and began running, jumping and generally arsing about all over my line, killing any spare infantry while they were at it. Once these were done the board was looking distinctly less blue and I was really struggling for troops.
Max's final meaningful combat was to come in the shape of Beast 09 charging down the runway cleared for him by the sprays 'o' doom. As he engaged Mulg, Max explained to me the puzzle he faced. Having used one focus for the charge he now had a choice - there was no way that he was going to miss unless he rolled double 1 so he could take 3 whacks at Mulg and expect 7D6 of total damage (boosted charge and 2 more unboosted whacks for an average of 24.5 damage). Or alternatively he could spend one focus to use his murderous imprint and get two whacks with boosted to hit rolls and only 5D6 of damage (boosted charge and one unboosted damage whack for an average of 17.5 damage). Now this might seem obvious but Max had a sneaky plan. If he put around 18 points of damage on Mulg he had a reasonable change of wrecking his 'Spirit' leaving him unable to be forced until he was healed. Boosted attack rolls gave him a very good chance of a CritFreeze and without the ability to be forced Mulg would be unable to shake the stationary in the maintenance phase, crippling him next turn.
Edit: I have now been informed by a Khador player clearly much smarter than Max that 'Murderous' only works on warrior models...Clearly he was trying to outrageously cheat me at this point and therefore I am claiming victory by default. Even though he did not actually use murderous.....
In the end Max went for damage over tricksy, their was no guarantee he would damage the branches required to take away Mulgs spirit and in the end he put about 23 points on him. (Amusingly, killing his spirit but not freezing him). A powerboost from the Koldun sent the Marauder on its way to put some heavy weight contesting my scoring flag and he was done.
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| The board at the end of turn two |
I was really starting to struggle now in the scenario. I could see Beast going down easily but I was rapidly running out of troops. Feeling like Calandra was a bit exposed she activated first, upkept Bullet Dodger, retreated away from the advancing WG and put Starcrossed up again. She also made sure that she healed the point in Mulg's spirit, allowing him to be forced this turn.
Starting with the simple stuff the Gatormen repositioned in combat to ensure they were getting both their reach and bite attacks and prayed for re-rolls against living models. Some fairly terrible dice rolls later and they had cleared out the Doooooooomedreavers, but only just. In the centre Mulg stepped in for a better slam angle and to bring his fist into play and started whaling on Beast, 3 hits later and we had to reach for the wreak marker but their was no CritSlam into the Kayzay behind.
Now for some more Dave genius. Despite running a Fennblade earlier in the game and getting him engaged for a lovely DEF buff I decided that I would repeat the trick but this time with burrowers. Forfieting actions and standing both burrowers up and then moving them into combat meant I had just moved their DEF from 5 to 17, all to try and catch more models in the Bomber's blast radius. Luckily for me the bomber was able to wander forward, boost both his shots and catch my little dygmie marker lights with both kegs. Max then gleefully proceeded to pass all the tough rolls with the Kayzay and only 2 of the Winterguard fell over for the loss of one burrower, not my best trade ever.
I was starting to run out of ideas at this point. The fellcaller peeked in between the wreck and the Bomber to spray a couple of Kayzay dead (with some judicious reroll help from Calandra) and then gave the Fenns +2 to hit. The Fennblades popped their minifeat and charged into the available Winterguard, failing miserably to hit the DEF 17 red ninja's that were crawling all over the wood. Finally, the Impaler stepped up and in a pointless act of defiance managed to slam the Marauder back, down and away from the flag; helping me not at all as I neither controlled the flag nor was I contesting the Zone.
Max continued with his 'wipe me out and win the scenario' plan with great efficiency. With Beast down Wishnailer was free to upkeep the Iron Flesh on the WG. Irusk paid a point to stand the Marauder up and began the turn by Battle Lusting the Kayzay, airbursting my Fellcaller (again for little damage) and remaining safe behind the wood. The battle lusted Kayzay immediately made a beeline for the bomber but fortunately for me the Underboss was 1/2" out of charge range. 3 of them gave the bomber some gang lovin however and at the end of it he had a good 2/3rds of his spiral coloured in and had lost his spirit. Near the flag, the one lone Kayzay charged and killed a Gator and the newly stood up Marauder advanced to keep the pressure on.
It was no real challenge for the Winterguard to continue the massacre in the wood and by the end of their boosted spray skullduggery I had been reduced to a single drummer and one dygmie who refused to fail a tough roll. The scenario was beginning to look out of reach for me.
Turn 4
The turn started for me with a frenzy check on my impaler, who promptly failed but then managed to hit and kill the Kayzay Underboss stood next to him. This lovely little bonus was to be the highlight of the turn however. Calandra dropped Bullet Dodger and I started trying to puzzle my way through how not to lose...
Again the Gatormen performed admirably near the flag, finishing off the Kayzay near them but struggling to put any significant damage on the Marauder. The fellcaller stepped back and sprayed into the 3 Kayzay engaging the Bomber but only managed to kill two, despite a number of 'fate blessed' rerolls. Now I really had a problem, I couldn't survive a battle lusted free strike on the Bomber and he was my only chance of killing significant Winterguard. Reluctantly, Calandra activated and stepped forward to within 5", she boosted a befuddle into him and fortunately (after her final reroll) hit and wandered him away.
Now the Bomber could dish out some pain; he stepped up and lobbed two kegs into the WG and Greyords that were lined up on the edge of the wood, killing most of them. It was all starting to feel however like too little too late. Mulg charged into the forest and killed some more Winterguard but as my turn drew to a close both me and Max realised that he had a number of easy ways to win this in his remaining turn, Mulg was an easy kill with only a few damage boxes remaing, as was the Bomber. The Kayzay I had befuddled could run in to contest the zone and Saxon Orrick, having spent the whole game loitering quietly at the back could run in to claim a scenario point I would be unable to respond to. Game over, Max had his revenge.
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| The board at the end of the game |
This was a game where I really hadn't thought enough about the scenario and how best to deploy my tools. Instead, I had charged head first down the middle instead of securing my scoring flag and getting runners in to contest the zone. A poor performance overall and well played by Max who had a clear plan to blunt my Alpha Strike and grind me down.
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