The first mini-tournament of the year is done. A one day event at the North West Gaming Centre saw some hardy northern gamers venture out on a frosty Sunday morning to once again shuffle toy soldiers around painted pieces of plywood.
The format was SR2011 which offered the temptation to pepper my lists with characters (can I has moar Janissa plz) but drawing on some new year fortitude I resisted and ran out what is becoming my standard Grim list and a fairly experimental Calandra list.
Grim's Performance
Grim Angus
Dire Troll Bomber
Earthborn Dire Troll
Troll Impaler
Nyss Hunters
3 Long Rider Cavalry
Horthol Long Rider Hero
Janissa Stonetide
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew
6 Bog Trog Ambushers
This list has been performing well for me recently. It has the tools to deal with high def, has no pathfinder issues. Can play a good scenario game and has a 'tin opener' in the EBDT. The one unit I find hard to use still is the cavalry and I am not sure that the 12 points they are costing me couldn't be better spent on some Fennblades...
Game 1 was against Rich Jennings, a long time merc player who has recently moved over to the dark side with the purchase of Mr Loxam's Cryx. Despite pleading that he had only played 3 games so far with them Rich had been canny enough to take some expert advice and was running a fairly cookie cutter eSkarre list
eSkarre
DeathJack
Nightmare
Malice
10 Bane Thralls with Officer and Standard
Bane Lord Tartarsauce
6 Satyxis Raiders
10 Mechanithrals
I was really keen to see if Grim was capable against this sort of list in the hands of a good, tournament experienced player. The Scenario was 'Overrun', 3 long zones across the middle of the board, one point for controlling the central zone, two for your opponents. Rich won the roll, chose sides, deployed and went first (damn you old SR). The board was a good one for me with 3 forests, Rich had chosen sensibly though to take the side with two of them on.
It was an interesting game, a deep forest allowed the Nyss and a Cross Country Bomber to snipe with reasonable impunity at Rich as he advanced, being able to stay more than 3 inches from the edge and shoot out with Hunter is a real blessing. The Earthborn was more threat than effect but it did mean that Rich's advance was quite cautious and by the time he had run in and feated he had lost most of the Bane Thralls.
On the other flank the Cav faced off against the Satyxis, Mechanithrals and Nightmare. The mechanithals got nicely ambushed by the Bog Trogs but the Cav were slowed down by the raiders and then positively munched on by Nightmare who had nominated them as prey. Again, they didn't do much more than look like a significant threat with Grim and the Nyss shouldering the heavy work. I think the biggest problem is that even with two attacks each (bull rush order) I never feel like they are pulling their weight.
The game ended with a central melee. Rich's 2 last heavies were all that remained parked in the central zone. Double bomb to the face and a rear charge from the Nyss had finished the Death Jack and I was way ahead on army points, neither of us having managed to score any control points. As time was called I realised that I had not paid any attention to the third tie breaker. Typically, it was army points in the central/opponents zone. Rich's two jacks were 19 points, my Nyss, Swamp Gobbers and Horthol were 16. I had won the war but lost the scenario and hence the game. If I had been paying more attention to the time and to the scenario conditions I would have won easily simply by running my remaining troops and beasts into the zones on my final turn. A good performance by Grim, some poor scenarioing by me
Game 2 was against Rich's older cousin Toby. Another tournament veteren who had recently put down his Minions and dusted off his Menoth with an eye to SR2012. Toby was running his eFeora list that looked like a tough nut to crack.
eFeora
Redeemer(bonded)
Reckoner
Vanquisher
Templar
Hierophant
10 Holy Zealots and Monolith Bearer
6 Idrian Skirmisher with Chieftan and Guide
4 Choir of Menoth
2 Vassel of Menoth
3 Wracks
My plan had always been to play Grim vs Warmachine and Calandra vs Hordes so I had to roll with Grim again. The scenario was 'Outfight, Outflank, Outlast' which basically equated to two giant mosh pits in the middle of the board. I wasn't sure quite how I was going to deal with Toby's 3 Heavies, or his ability to shut down my shooting with his choir, 'go to ground' on the Idrians and 'Greater Destiny' on the Zealots
The deployment was fairly standard for Grim, Horthol and the Cavalry went on the right flank, The Nyss and the Earthborn behind a wood to the left. In the Centre Grim, the Bomber,Impaler and Janissa set up camp. Toby had his entire force squeezed between a large forest and a building opposite my left flank with the Idrians AD'ing opposite the Cavalry.
I really didn't feel at all comfortable with Grim in this game. I used his feat simply to slow down the onrushing 'Greater Destinied' zealots, allowing their immunity to expire and letting the Nyss pick them off the turn after. Again the Cavalry felt distinctly squishy, the unit and Horthol falling over fairly easily to Toby's ranged threat after killing some of the Idrian's. Grim, the Bomber and the Nyss shouldered most of the burden, killing all the zealots and then manoeuvring across to hold the left hand zone and pin Toby in the right.
The game ended with quite a silly finish, in his 4th turn Toby devoted all his resources to clearing 'his' zone, to claim a scenario point which was finely balanced at two all. What he forgot was that I would also score as he had nothing in 'my' zone. It was a tough spot as he needed to clear an undamaged Bomber from the very back of his zone and devoted all his heavies and Feora to doing it. It wasn't until the end of the turn that he realized the scores would be moving to 3 points each and in my turn all I needed to do was sit still, run 1 model into his zone to contest it and end the scenario by having a minimum of 3 control points and more points than my opponent. It was a pretty shitty way to end a very good game but with the clock ticking and the win available I had to take the tournament points.
Calandra's Performance
They say that necessity is the mother of invention. I disagree, in this case, being a dick was the mother of invention. It appears, despite sensible, clearly thought out advice from gamers with both knowledge and experience, that I am one of those people who has to experience failure before submitting to wiser, calmer heads.
My Calandra list was settled, practiced, a good all rounder. Then I thought 'hey, lets fuck with that and see if we can make a really sub optimal list just for fun'. The 'anti-hordes' list I came up with was;
Calandra
Dire Troll Bomber
Dire Troll Bomber
Troll Impaler
10 Fennblades with Officer and Drummer
3 Gatormen Posse
10 Burrowers
5 Troll Whelps
Fell Caller Hero
Victor Pendrake
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew
It's a pretty simple conundrum, take a one dimensional list and you will of course come up against something that has considered your dimension and can bone it. In this case, Barnabas and his Minion Gators.
So, there I am, a chance to play against a Hordes list with my (restricted) genius list. Adam South had a very nice Barnabas list that was surprisingly tough, his list was;
Bloody Barnabas
Black Hide Wrastler
Black Hide Wrastler
Bull Snapper
Bull Snapper
Wrong Eye
Snapjaw
5 Gatorman Posse
10 Bog Trog Ambushers
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew
Totem Hunter
Croak Hunter
The one thing I knew about playing the Blindwater Congregation was that they were extremely hard to shoot and that was before they had access to spiny growth from the Snappers. The game was a slugfest, the burrowers couldn't crack the ARM 21 of the Wrastlers (spiny growth!). I couldn't soften them up with the Bombers as they were constantly in swamps and shallow water and the Iron Fleshed Gators were a nightmare to hit.
The worst bit was though, I played like a chump. We were playing Incursion (3 flags across the mid line with one disappearing) and I had opportunities from turn 2 onwards to make use of befuddle to move beasts away from objectives and out of swamps, I just didn't. The unfamiliar elements in the list meant I was constantly looking for Mulg when he wasn't their, was getting jammed up by my own miss-positioned whelps, worrying about making best use of Pendrake, it was a mess
I final squeezed out a scenario win on turn 4 thanks to Adams shocking dice rolls and an opportunistic befuddle to move a Snapper away from a flag. I played terribly and only got away with it because my opponent couldn't buy a decent roll.
Calandra needs a beatstick, I felt constantly pillow fisted throughout this game. Even with her feat the burrowers really start to struggle with armour 20 plus. Bombers are great but two boosted pow 16's do not lift armour 21 warbeasts off the table, by the end of the game I was resorting to double handed throws on the Wrasters to take them out of control range. Pendrake is great if you have trouble hitting - in the reroll list of doom this is not usually an issue and I am unsure why I thought it was, maybe I was hoping some new writing would appear on the card and I would get an extra D6 damage, I don't really know. The whelps just got in the way and went unused, on the whole, this was a terrible experiment because I had not considered that other people might have just considered the fact that they may come up against a ranged heavy list.
It is not entirely back to the drawing board though. This Calandra list just rolls back an iteration. What has been more interesting is the release of SR2012, the official version. 10 minute turns are a real issue with burrowers and re-rolls and I am starting to feel a little eDoomy coming on.
Thursday 19 January 2012
Friday 13 January 2012
Road to Smogcon: 50pt Grim vs PIrusk (again...)
So it seems my new year has come with a number of treats, most notably a new structure to my week that involves my much better half finding dance classes on a Monday and Thursday freeing me up for two (yes two!) nights of gaming. Returning to the busy gaming hub that is Max's lounge I arrived to the scent of Marks and Spencer Beef and Horseradish sandwich's, clearly someone had upgraded the catering ready for a 2012 full of fun, frolics and quite poor warmachine play.
Tonight we had opted for a 50pt game as I was playing in a small one day tournament at the North West Gaming Centre on the following Sunday (appearing soon on this blog). Determined to stick with my trolls throughout 2012 this would be their first competitive run out and I was setting myself the target of winning 2 out of my 3 games.
As an interesting aside here it is beginning to amaze me how I have not seen eHaley dominating major UK tournaments. It may be that the supporting Cygnar list is hard to design/master, but recently I keep thinking after games "god that would have been so easy with Haley". Haley's hard counters were for me lists that could alpha strike her key toys (stormclad, arc node) and I wonder in 'Crutch free' 2012 if her feat/spell list hasn't become even more powerful as others lose their key pieces...
The Lists and Deployment
Today, Max was getting a little frisky with his Irusk list. Discussions over the last month or so had led us to the conclusion that the availability of Wishnailer had probably pushed Irusk to the top of the Khador caster tree and now Max was experimenting to find his 'optimal' list. Today's experiment consisted of dropping down to a single heavy Jack and running 3 units as well as ambushers. The real challenge with this list was going to be moving all the models within 12 minutes....
PIrusk
Spriggan
Wishnailer
10 Iron Fang Pike with Officer and Standard
10 Kayzay with Underboss
10 Nyss Hunters with Valchev
Grey Lord Ternion
6 Kossite Woodsmen
Aiyana and Holt
I was continuing to practice what will hopefully be my standard Grim list. Recently I had been feeling like I had not been getting any real use out of the Earthborn due to poor positioning and was struggling to make the Cav have significant impact.
Grim
Dire Troll Bomber
Earthborn Dire Troll
Troll Impaler
10 Nyss Hunters
3 Long Riders
Horthol Long Rider Hero
Jannisa Stonetide
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew
6 Bog Trog Ambushers
One of the issues with having a regular opponent is that you become very used to playing each other's lists. Irusk is a great caster in his own right but is a particularly hard counter to Grim as he is able to effectively neuter Grim's armies ranged threat with Iron Flesh and his feat. In reverse, Max is well aware that I will be picking off Valachev at the first opportunity and then winning the 'Nyss off', giving me a real ranged advantage.
I was glad to win the roll off for this game as I had not been able to practice going first much recently. Max elected to keep the side with the easy access to the forest and I deployed and set up first, it was my intention to get Grim and the heavies into my Zone, and to aggressively threaten the scenario by bombing Max's objective, denying him the opportunity to score on his own zone and keeping mine. I wanted the mulitwound cav in my zone also to prevent an easy clear by Max
In response Max accepted my Nyss off challenge (he had a sneaky plan i was later to discover) deploying his Nyss opposite mine with the Spriggan and Kayzay central and the Iron Fang Pike holding the left flank. Looking at that many infantry I knew this was going to be an uphill struggle
Turn 1
Wanting to get Grim up the board to maximise the effectiveness of his feat I started aggressively, running the Earthborn 14" into my zone. The Cav followed on the right flank and the Bomber, Impaler, Grim and Jannissa all ran also. I really wanted pack the zone, put the pressure on Max, give myself a chance to score early points and prevent him from destroying my objective. On the left the Nyss ran and spread out, being sure not to give Max any easy targets of opportunity in his turn
Max then adopted an equally aggressive approach to his first turn, one that was to make me regret my own. On my right flank the Kayzay ran forward and the IFP advanced in a double banked shield wall behind, with a pair of models turned to protect them from potential Bog Trog attack. The Nyss took a run with Valachev hiding at the back, spreading out opposite their clearly superior cousins. Irusk advanced, cast Superiority on the Spriggan, Iron Flesh Nyss and feated, taking me somewhat by surprise. He was then sheltered behind the Greylord Ternion and their incessant clouds and the Spriggan finished the turn with a run up the middle.
Max had really caught me out with his first turn feat, my aggressive run up the board had given him a really goog opportunity to jam me up with his high def, 4+ tough troops. I now faced a sea of hard to hit, hard to kill troops and had put myself in the position of only having one shot at maximising my ranged superiority. With the wonderful benefit of hindsight I could have easily stood off him for one more turn and had not anticipated the early feat.
Sorry, forgot to get end of turn Photo!!!
Turn 2
As I began I was extremely conscious of the fact that we were playing under timed turns. Despite this I still took 2 minutes before deciding on my course of action - something I should have done as Max's turn drew to a close. Deciding that I was now far too threatened by the close proximity of Max's army I decided that I would use my feat defensively and try to slow Max down and give myself two bites at the cherry. Very kindly Max reminded me about my Bog Trogs which I deployed in range of the Nyss near the woods
On the left I could see that Valachev was vulnerable, Max had parked him behind a hedge, forgetting I think that the Nyss would ignore the concealment bonus. I needed to activate Grim early in order to get his debuff's up and running but this would involve shifting a number of the troops in front of him. I began by charging the Cav into the available Kayzay, a silly move in hindsight as this only took them closer to Max's horde and engaged them with high def, tough Kayzay. As it was, some good impact hit rolls and some failed tough's meant that I actually managed to remove 4 of the hateful little assassins. Grim could now manoeuvre around the back of the objective, feat and boost a successful 'Marked for Death' into the Nyss (needing a 9 to hit thanks to Iron Flesh!). Feeling somewhat pressured for time I promptly forgot to shoot or shed any fury and left him standing, still sat on three transfers.
The Nyss were up next advancing forward to shoot the imposters. First was a two man CRA that hit but failed to kill (snake eyes damage!) the ranking officer, fortunately for me (very fortunately!) the third lone Nyss hit and damaged Valachev, forcing a tough roll that Max was kind enough to fail. The remaining seven Nyss then threw a combination of CRA's and solo shots into the opposing unit, killing 3 of them. Max's use of Iron Flesh on this flank had given me real problems and meant that even after my feat and Marked for Death I still needed 7's to hit Def 13 with single Nyss. The Bog Trogs now charged but were only able to reach two Nyss, as these far models were outside of the Feat (but still Marked for Death) I need to hit Def 16. Charging CMA'd pairs of trogs are effectively MAT 10 so requiring 6's, one pair hit and one pair missed.
Now it was time for the beasts, as I hadn't really planned this turn very well it was down to the Impaler to snipe the Bomber, with this done I tried to execute my plan, take out the objective and force Max to devote more resources to protecting it. The first bomb hit but boosted damage only yielded 1 point on the structure, my plan ruined I then wasted the second bomb on a single offending Nyss. To finish the turn Horthol advanced to threaten the Spriggan, Janissa advanced and put a wall in front of Grim and the Swamp gobbers smoked up the clump of beasts and solos.
Now Max was free to bring the pain. He was likely to use his 5 min extension to get all the killing in but would end the turn in a position of real power. To begin, Wishnailer upkept Superiority and Irusk stepped out and Battle Lusted both the Kayzay and the IFP. Behind the Bog Trogs, Max's Kossites came on and reminded me (not for the first time) that the two spare trogs really should have been behind their brethren, facing the board edge to protect them.
As my feat was running Max's available movement was restricted on his left. He began on the right by charging in the Kossites, with rear attacks and charge bonuses it was a matter of moments for them to kill 5 of my 6 Trogs. With the Nyss now less threatened they advanced in an inverted V around his objective and with some well placed CRA's picked off 3 (including the key piece, Cylena) of mine leaving the battle for his objective nicely even.
On the other flank he began by advancing the evil elf witch and 'Kissing' the Cav for +2 DMG, Holt advanced and picked off a Nyss. Then the Kayzay that were in range advanced into the Long riders, a pair of assassins reached each one but with some poor dice rolling only one dropped dead.
With the closest Cav now dead Max realised he may have slightly misjudged the range between the Cav and the IFP. Without many attacks available he settled for a short Shield Walled advanced that bought him ever closer to the zone. Feeling a little under protected in his zone the Spriggan performed a short run over the hedge and to finish the Greylords provided their usual smokey cover for Irusk.
It had not been a devastating turn as I had managed to catch most of Max's forces in Grim's feat. The problem was that I was slowly loosing the war of attrition.
Turn 3
I had used my extension, the red horde was looking ominously close and I had no feat left to combat Iron Flesh. On the bright side, Max's troops were now killable again and I still had most of my forces intact (barring the Bog Trogs that I had handed Max in a lovely Trog happy meal.) I had run a little hot last turn and my mistake of leaving 3 fury on Grim now gave me a problem. I cleared down the Bomber and the Impaler passed his threshold, leaving 2 fury on him.
I began with the Nyss; making a choice between shooting the kossites and the imitation Nyss I made (with retrospect) the wrong choice and went after the Kossites. The Nyss were still Iron Fleshed and without the ability to CRA, even aiming meant I needed 8's to hit (as they were still Marked for Death). However, with 7 shots I could expect to kill 3 of the remaining 5 and give me a real ranged advantage, especially when the kossites would be returning fire needing even higher. As it was I removed 5 of the 6 Kossites and one Nyss with good rolls but still felt they were a threat.
Grim decided it was about time to get the fuck out of dodge and began furiously back pedalling, having upkept MfD he had 5 fury remaining. He stopped toward the rear of the zone, sniped up the bomber and then put a boosted shot into Cylena, killing her outright
In the melee on the right the Cav had become bogged down. Deciding they could serve as an excellent speed bump the unengaged trooper charged in but some unimpressive dice and high DEF Kayzay combined to make them both fairly ineffective. I was running out of effective ways to deal with the infantry swarm. The bomber stepped up and landed a lovely shot right on Aiyana's head, removing her from the game, this also clipped the Kayzay underboss but even with a damage boost was unable to 'tough' him. The second bomb was sent in the same direction, auto scattering from the Underboss just enough to clip him; this time it was a tough but to add insult to injury he passed it and was nicely set for a minifeat next turn.
As I was again running hot and their were few targets for him the Earthborn continued to shuffle near my objective, Janissa backed off and placed a wall in the way of the onrushing horde and Horthol resumed his perennial role as loiterer extraordinaire. Finally the gobber popped a big smoke cloud up, blocking line of sight to Grim.
I wasn't really doing enough damage and this was the turn Max took full advantage
It was at this point that we made a number of scenario errors. We mistakenly thought I was now one point up in the scenario, forgetting that I had in fact scored at the end of Max's turn 2 and was 2 up. As it was this had little effect on the eventual outcome of the game but has made me realise just how powerful Grim's feat can be in denying your opponent access to scoring zones.
Max began by clearing his own zone to draw level in the scenario. Holt stood still and aimed at the Nyss removing 2 of them easily. The last 3 Nyss also aimed but poor rolls and no CMA meant they could only kill one Nyss. However, this had been anticipated and Irusk had put three focus in the Spriggan for some grenade goodness which took out 2 more and cleared the zone barring Horthol. To add insult to injury the Kossite woodsman at the back managed with a mighty swing of his chopper to remove the final Bog Trog. Now all Max needed was a dead or dismounted Horthol and the Scenario point was his
Irusk Battle Lusted the Kayzay again and then retired back behind a triumverate of Ternion blizzards with one focus remaining. The Underboss popped his minifeat and suddenly acrobatic assassins were everywhere. Two ran to engage Grim, the others charging Horthol and dismounted him easily, removing him from the zone and guaranteeing the scenario point. To finish, the IFP charged and minifeated, easily rolling through the remaining Cavalry and into my zone. Things were starting to look decidedly dicey.
Turn 4
I had been swamped, Max was easily now controlling his zone and was happily chewing his way through mine. I spent some time pondering and reached the conclusion that a bomber assassination run was the only way forward. I needed to kill the two clouds in front of Irusk and then hit with the bomber but it was at least a slim chance.
Job number one was move the no brainers. The Nyss advanced and with a couple of fortunate rolls removed the two Ternion members. Now I needed to free up the bomber. Some more simple stuff saw the Impaler miss his melee attack and the gobbers run out of combat, one dying in the process. I really wanted to try and avoid the free strikes so Horthol reached in and knocked an IFP dead (really needed to avoid that crit KD). Next I wanted Grim free so Janissa slid one of the engaging Kayzay away and the other missed his free strike as Grim stepped out. He sniped the bomber, shot and killed an IFP and then finished.
The problem was, I was still taking one IFP free strike and the Bomber now had to walk around the Kayzay to the left of Horthol. The Bomber set off but unfortunately the free strike I had been trying to avoid hit and with perfect number Max rolled 10 damage and spiral 5, removing his spirit. No boosting for me then. With the run looking more and more unlikely I measured the shot and realised that I was half an inch out due to walking round the assassin.
The game was over, I had no comeback at this point, Max's next turn would be simply an exercise in mopping up...
It was an ambitious run to say the least, even if the Bomber had got free he still needed 10's to hit, needed both shots to hit and needed averages on the 5D6 damage. Max had really outfoxed me with the early feat and despite us making scenario mistakes the eventual outcome would not have changed. I was too aggressive early game and left myself unable to maximise my ranged superiority. I also should have made damn sure I killed Max's objective, instead, I took my eye of that ball after one poor damage roll.
Tonight we had opted for a 50pt game as I was playing in a small one day tournament at the North West Gaming Centre on the following Sunday (appearing soon on this blog). Determined to stick with my trolls throughout 2012 this would be their first competitive run out and I was setting myself the target of winning 2 out of my 3 games.
As an interesting aside here it is beginning to amaze me how I have not seen eHaley dominating major UK tournaments. It may be that the supporting Cygnar list is hard to design/master, but recently I keep thinking after games "god that would have been so easy with Haley". Haley's hard counters were for me lists that could alpha strike her key toys (stormclad, arc node) and I wonder in 'Crutch free' 2012 if her feat/spell list hasn't become even more powerful as others lose their key pieces...
Rambling aside, today we were playing 'resupply' from the SR 2012 pack and I was determined to focus on the scenario as this had been a real weakness in my last two games. The scenario involves holding a circular zone on your own side of the table and preventing the opponent from destroying the objective at the centre, while simultaneously attempting to destroy your opponent's objective and control his zone.
The Lists and Deployment
Today, Max was getting a little frisky with his Irusk list. Discussions over the last month or so had led us to the conclusion that the availability of Wishnailer had probably pushed Irusk to the top of the Khador caster tree and now Max was experimenting to find his 'optimal' list. Today's experiment consisted of dropping down to a single heavy Jack and running 3 units as well as ambushers. The real challenge with this list was going to be moving all the models within 12 minutes....
PIrusk
Spriggan
Wishnailer
10 Iron Fang Pike with Officer and Standard
10 Kayzay with Underboss
10 Nyss Hunters with Valchev
Grey Lord Ternion
6 Kossite Woodsmen
Aiyana and Holt
I was continuing to practice what will hopefully be my standard Grim list. Recently I had been feeling like I had not been getting any real use out of the Earthborn due to poor positioning and was struggling to make the Cav have significant impact.
Grim
Dire Troll Bomber
Earthborn Dire Troll
Troll Impaler
10 Nyss Hunters
3 Long Riders
Horthol Long Rider Hero
Jannisa Stonetide
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew
6 Bog Trog Ambushers
One of the issues with having a regular opponent is that you become very used to playing each other's lists. Irusk is a great caster in his own right but is a particularly hard counter to Grim as he is able to effectively neuter Grim's armies ranged threat with Iron Flesh and his feat. In reverse, Max is well aware that I will be picking off Valachev at the first opportunity and then winning the 'Nyss off', giving me a real ranged advantage.
I was glad to win the roll off for this game as I had not been able to practice going first much recently. Max elected to keep the side with the easy access to the forest and I deployed and set up first, it was my intention to get Grim and the heavies into my Zone, and to aggressively threaten the scenario by bombing Max's objective, denying him the opportunity to score on his own zone and keeping mine. I wanted the mulitwound cav in my zone also to prevent an easy clear by Max
In response Max accepted my Nyss off challenge (he had a sneaky plan i was later to discover) deploying his Nyss opposite mine with the Spriggan and Kayzay central and the Iron Fang Pike holding the left flank. Looking at that many infantry I knew this was going to be an uphill struggle
 |
| Deployment |
Turn 1
Wanting to get Grim up the board to maximise the effectiveness of his feat I started aggressively, running the Earthborn 14" into my zone. The Cav followed on the right flank and the Bomber, Impaler, Grim and Jannissa all ran also. I really wanted pack the zone, put the pressure on Max, give myself a chance to score early points and prevent him from destroying my objective. On the left the Nyss ran and spread out, being sure not to give Max any easy targets of opportunity in his turn
 |
| End of Troll Turn 1 |
Max then adopted an equally aggressive approach to his first turn, one that was to make me regret my own. On my right flank the Kayzay ran forward and the IFP advanced in a double banked shield wall behind, with a pair of models turned to protect them from potential Bog Trog attack. The Nyss took a run with Valachev hiding at the back, spreading out opposite their clearly superior cousins. Irusk advanced, cast Superiority on the Spriggan, Iron Flesh Nyss and feated, taking me somewhat by surprise. He was then sheltered behind the Greylord Ternion and their incessant clouds and the Spriggan finished the turn with a run up the middle.
Max had really caught me out with his first turn feat, my aggressive run up the board had given him a really goog opportunity to jam me up with his high def, 4+ tough troops. I now faced a sea of hard to hit, hard to kill troops and had put myself in the position of only having one shot at maximising my ranged superiority. With the wonderful benefit of hindsight I could have easily stood off him for one more turn and had not anticipated the early feat.
Sorry, forgot to get end of turn Photo!!!
Turn 2
As I began I was extremely conscious of the fact that we were playing under timed turns. Despite this I still took 2 minutes before deciding on my course of action - something I should have done as Max's turn drew to a close. Deciding that I was now far too threatened by the close proximity of Max's army I decided that I would use my feat defensively and try to slow Max down and give myself two bites at the cherry. Very kindly Max reminded me about my Bog Trogs which I deployed in range of the Nyss near the woods
On the left I could see that Valachev was vulnerable, Max had parked him behind a hedge, forgetting I think that the Nyss would ignore the concealment bonus. I needed to activate Grim early in order to get his debuff's up and running but this would involve shifting a number of the troops in front of him. I began by charging the Cav into the available Kayzay, a silly move in hindsight as this only took them closer to Max's horde and engaged them with high def, tough Kayzay. As it was, some good impact hit rolls and some failed tough's meant that I actually managed to remove 4 of the hateful little assassins. Grim could now manoeuvre around the back of the objective, feat and boost a successful 'Marked for Death' into the Nyss (needing a 9 to hit thanks to Iron Flesh!). Feeling somewhat pressured for time I promptly forgot to shoot or shed any fury and left him standing, still sat on three transfers.
The Nyss were up next advancing forward to shoot the imposters. First was a two man CRA that hit but failed to kill (snake eyes damage!) the ranking officer, fortunately for me (very fortunately!) the third lone Nyss hit and damaged Valachev, forcing a tough roll that Max was kind enough to fail. The remaining seven Nyss then threw a combination of CRA's and solo shots into the opposing unit, killing 3 of them. Max's use of Iron Flesh on this flank had given me real problems and meant that even after my feat and Marked for Death I still needed 7's to hit Def 13 with single Nyss. The Bog Trogs now charged but were only able to reach two Nyss, as these far models were outside of the Feat (but still Marked for Death) I need to hit Def 16. Charging CMA'd pairs of trogs are effectively MAT 10 so requiring 6's, one pair hit and one pair missed.
Now it was time for the beasts, as I hadn't really planned this turn very well it was down to the Impaler to snipe the Bomber, with this done I tried to execute my plan, take out the objective and force Max to devote more resources to protecting it. The first bomb hit but boosted damage only yielded 1 point on the structure, my plan ruined I then wasted the second bomb on a single offending Nyss. To finish the turn Horthol advanced to threaten the Spriggan, Janissa advanced and put a wall in front of Grim and the Swamp gobbers smoked up the clump of beasts and solos.
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| End of Troll Turn 2 |
Now Max was free to bring the pain. He was likely to use his 5 min extension to get all the killing in but would end the turn in a position of real power. To begin, Wishnailer upkept Superiority and Irusk stepped out and Battle Lusted both the Kayzay and the IFP. Behind the Bog Trogs, Max's Kossites came on and reminded me (not for the first time) that the two spare trogs really should have been behind their brethren, facing the board edge to protect them.
As my feat was running Max's available movement was restricted on his left. He began on the right by charging in the Kossites, with rear attacks and charge bonuses it was a matter of moments for them to kill 5 of my 6 Trogs. With the Nyss now less threatened they advanced in an inverted V around his objective and with some well placed CRA's picked off 3 (including the key piece, Cylena) of mine leaving the battle for his objective nicely even.
On the other flank he began by advancing the evil elf witch and 'Kissing' the Cav for +2 DMG, Holt advanced and picked off a Nyss. Then the Kayzay that were in range advanced into the Long riders, a pair of assassins reached each one but with some poor dice rolling only one dropped dead.
With the closest Cav now dead Max realised he may have slightly misjudged the range between the Cav and the IFP. Without many attacks available he settled for a short Shield Walled advanced that bought him ever closer to the zone. Feeling a little under protected in his zone the Spriggan performed a short run over the hedge and to finish the Greylords provided their usual smokey cover for Irusk.
It had not been a devastating turn as I had managed to catch most of Max's forces in Grim's feat. The problem was that I was slowly loosing the war of attrition.
Sorry, again I forgot to take a photo at this point
Turn 3
I had used my extension, the red horde was looking ominously close and I had no feat left to combat Iron Flesh. On the bright side, Max's troops were now killable again and I still had most of my forces intact (barring the Bog Trogs that I had handed Max in a lovely Trog happy meal.) I had run a little hot last turn and my mistake of leaving 3 fury on Grim now gave me a problem. I cleared down the Bomber and the Impaler passed his threshold, leaving 2 fury on him.
I began with the Nyss; making a choice between shooting the kossites and the imitation Nyss I made (with retrospect) the wrong choice and went after the Kossites. The Nyss were still Iron Fleshed and without the ability to CRA, even aiming meant I needed 8's to hit (as they were still Marked for Death). However, with 7 shots I could expect to kill 3 of the remaining 5 and give me a real ranged advantage, especially when the kossites would be returning fire needing even higher. As it was I removed 5 of the 6 Kossites and one Nyss with good rolls but still felt they were a threat.
Grim decided it was about time to get the fuck out of dodge and began furiously back pedalling, having upkept MfD he had 5 fury remaining. He stopped toward the rear of the zone, sniped up the bomber and then put a boosted shot into Cylena, killing her outright
In the melee on the right the Cav had become bogged down. Deciding they could serve as an excellent speed bump the unengaged trooper charged in but some unimpressive dice and high DEF Kayzay combined to make them both fairly ineffective. I was running out of effective ways to deal with the infantry swarm. The bomber stepped up and landed a lovely shot right on Aiyana's head, removing her from the game, this also clipped the Kayzay underboss but even with a damage boost was unable to 'tough' him. The second bomb was sent in the same direction, auto scattering from the Underboss just enough to clip him; this time it was a tough but to add insult to injury he passed it and was nicely set for a minifeat next turn.
As I was again running hot and their were few targets for him the Earthborn continued to shuffle near my objective, Janissa backed off and placed a wall in the way of the onrushing horde and Horthol resumed his perennial role as loiterer extraordinaire. Finally the gobber popped a big smoke cloud up, blocking line of sight to Grim.
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| End of Troll Turn 3 |
I wasn't really doing enough damage and this was the turn Max took full advantage
It was at this point that we made a number of scenario errors. We mistakenly thought I was now one point up in the scenario, forgetting that I had in fact scored at the end of Max's turn 2 and was 2 up. As it was this had little effect on the eventual outcome of the game but has made me realise just how powerful Grim's feat can be in denying your opponent access to scoring zones.
Max began by clearing his own zone to draw level in the scenario. Holt stood still and aimed at the Nyss removing 2 of them easily. The last 3 Nyss also aimed but poor rolls and no CMA meant they could only kill one Nyss. However, this had been anticipated and Irusk had put three focus in the Spriggan for some grenade goodness which took out 2 more and cleared the zone barring Horthol. To add insult to injury the Kossite woodsman at the back managed with a mighty swing of his chopper to remove the final Bog Trog. Now all Max needed was a dead or dismounted Horthol and the Scenario point was his
Irusk Battle Lusted the Kayzay again and then retired back behind a triumverate of Ternion blizzards with one focus remaining. The Underboss popped his minifeat and suddenly acrobatic assassins were everywhere. Two ran to engage Grim, the others charging Horthol and dismounted him easily, removing him from the zone and guaranteeing the scenario point. To finish, the IFP charged and minifeated, easily rolling through the remaining Cavalry and into my zone. Things were starting to look decidedly dicey.
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| End of Khador turn 3 |
Turn 4
I had been swamped, Max was easily now controlling his zone and was happily chewing his way through mine. I spent some time pondering and reached the conclusion that a bomber assassination run was the only way forward. I needed to kill the two clouds in front of Irusk and then hit with the bomber but it was at least a slim chance.
Job number one was move the no brainers. The Nyss advanced and with a couple of fortunate rolls removed the two Ternion members. Now I needed to free up the bomber. Some more simple stuff saw the Impaler miss his melee attack and the gobbers run out of combat, one dying in the process. I really wanted to try and avoid the free strikes so Horthol reached in and knocked an IFP dead (really needed to avoid that crit KD). Next I wanted Grim free so Janissa slid one of the engaging Kayzay away and the other missed his free strike as Grim stepped out. He sniped the bomber, shot and killed an IFP and then finished.
The problem was, I was still taking one IFP free strike and the Bomber now had to walk around the Kayzay to the left of Horthol. The Bomber set off but unfortunately the free strike I had been trying to avoid hit and with perfect number Max rolled 10 damage and spiral 5, removing his spirit. No boosting for me then. With the run looking more and more unlikely I measured the shot and realised that I was half an inch out due to walking round the assassin.
The game was over, I had no comeback at this point, Max's next turn would be simply an exercise in mopping up...
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| The board at the end of the game |
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