Winter Showdown Ramblings

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.