unded
Junior Strategist
Posts: 760 
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Post by unded on May 11, 2017 8:40:35 GMT
Two weeks ago Johannesburg hosted South African Nationals (sounds more grandiose than it is). We had a small field (16 players - even by our standards it's a bit low. MKIII has not done well here) and I was itching to to finally put the twins through a real mill. Our format was a standard steamroller on the Saturday, with the top 8 qualifying for a knockout playoff on Sunday, for a total of 7 potential games.
My lists were as follows:
Twins
Blightbringer
Nephilim Protector
Naga Nightlurker
Seraph
Max Raptors
Min Swordsmen
Shepherd
Spell Martyr
This list should be familiar to anyone who was involved in my previous 'Tao of the twins' thread before the forumpocalypse. I went with the Naga over a Hellmouth as it gives me better game into defender's ward and arcane shield, while it sacrifices some play against Rahn and Hayley3.
Second list:
Fyanna2, Oracles of Annihilation
Seraph
Neraph
Neraph
Angelius
Angelius
Nephilim Bloodseer
Naga Nightlurker
Afflictor
Blight Wasps
Shepherd
Succubus (free)
Forsaken (Free)
Forsaken (Free)
Sorc on Hellion (Free)
This is my Cygnar drop. I went in to the event with only 4 games under my belt with this list, as opposed to the 5 months of practice I'd had with the twins. Still, Fyanna looked pretty straightforward and I had a very specific role in mind for this list, namely to make Cygnar players curse the foul smelling pomeranian that got their mothers drunk one starry night so many cursed moons ago. (I may have some Cygnar-related anger issues. Probably best not to dwell on it)
My plan for the tournament was very simple:
1) play the twins into everything but the most vile of gunlines.
2) Profit.
(I broke this rule once for variety's sake, as you'll see later)
On to the games!
Game #1 was against a convergence player I had never faced before. He was running Syntherion and Iron Mother. Since nothing looked like a crazy gunline, I chose the twins. He went with Syntherion, who was playing Prime Axiom in Destruction Initiative (so many servitors. just so, so many)
Destruction initiative made this a really interesting game. having 16 servitors starting on the table, plus Prime Axiom crating more made it really difficult to reliably place the blightbringer's breath to good effect since the theme gives them all shield guard. Luckily, my defensive mechanics are just as good in this matchup, with him having no good answers to stealth (occultated raptors) or the high def granted by the blightbringer's aura. My defensive mechanics proved more effective here, and I spent the first 2 turns just whittling away at his front line of reflex servitors with blighty shots, raptors, spells, naga etc. Once that was done, I bullied him out of zones, eventually forcing him to commit or lose on scenario. He held a zone with Prime Axiom, and so I launched Rhyas into Prime's face, and with a little bit of raptor help Rhyas murdered prime axiom, clearing the zone and winning game one on Scenario. Just because it's a running theme, the swordsmen managed to kill 2 reflex servitors before dying in shame.
More games to come after I get some food.
-und_ed
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Post by althor on May 11, 2017 9:11:52 GMT
thanks for that report! will there be pictures?  |
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unded
Junior Strategist
Posts: 760
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Post by unded on May 11, 2017 10:46:15 GMT
No piccies unfortunately - tight timing made it a bit rough to take pictures while playing.
Game #2, this time Circle.
So out of the beginner's pool, now it's an old buddy of mine Pierre. I faced his Circle the previous year in the finals, so I know he's going to give me a tough game. He's brought two very odd-looking lists. He has a semi-traditional Tanith list that I'm not very certain of, and a Mohsar list (my favourite Circle caster, pretty much the reason I bought Circle as a third faction) that's running the wold theme with two fulcrums. Since nothing here screams gunline, I'm again rocking the twins. He goes with Mohsar, and this list needs to be seen to be believed:
Mohsar, Bones of orborous
Wold Guardian x2
Woldwyrd x 3
Fulcrum x 2
shiting stones
Other stuff I don't remember
He has first turn, and runs up to threaten me with all his guns, keeping everything out of murder range. So wow. I want to put banishing ward on the twins to protect them from Crevasse, but the woldwyrds will butcher Rhyas if I do that, so I just need to camp a bit and be careful not to let him RFP Rhyas. I put occultation on the Raptors as usual, run them carefully up to threaten a fulcrum if he gets any use out of it, and play my favourite "You shall not pass" manouver with Rhyas. I move up the swordsmen under the protection of the blightbringer's withering ash aura (also protecting the twins and giving the Naga stealth, a common turn #1 move from me). I pass the turn with reasonable confidence - he can shoot well, but not well enough to cripple my lack of heavies.
His turn, he pulls a stunt I've never seen before - he uses the shifting stones to port one fulcrum forward a massive 8", then proceeds to spray down my martyr, get a crit on the spray to freeze my poor Naga, and shoots the naga to pieces now that he's ported inside of the 5" stealth range. he also shoots down a poor raptor, again teleport tricks got him inside of stealth. the other fulcrum goes to town on my poor swordsmen, killing them down to one remaining elf that a Woldwyrd deals with. Ouch, his turn has hurt, but thankfully it's not crippling.
My turn, and now it's payback time. Blighty buffs up dragon's blood, shoots the teleported fulcrum and walks up to lend the aura to the angry raptors. Raptors charge and kill it, and reposition to hug it's armour bonus while one repos forward to engage a woldwyrd. Now it's time for Rhyas to shine - she doesn't have a blightbringer buff (the wold guardian's are really well placed, so any shot from blighty would have been shield-guarded to move the aura out of Rhyas' desired landing spot) but she's gonna go for glory anyway, since these are still pre-CiD battle engines. She charges up to catch a guardian, the second fulcrum and a Wyrd. She hurts the guardian, kills the Wyrd and kills the fulcrum. She camps 1 FURY rather than go for the kill on the Guardian, since I don't want to leave her on zero camp and get her RFPd by daddy Mo'. Seraph puts a small amount of damage on the far Wyrd.
His turn, and now he's in a bit of trouble. He's clearly losing the attrition battle, but I'm too pushed up for him to snatch a scenario victory. He shifts gears to a death by a thousand cuts type of strategy from here. He takes all the easy kills (kils the engaging raptor, kills the naga and protector). He kills Rhyas with a swing from hammerhands (he has KD on the hit, so I choose not to transfer and just let her die). Then he starts dropping pillars in the way everywhere. It's actually incredible to behold - while the pillars are pretty useless early-game, they're actually really painful mid-late game. It's so difficult to actually do anything useful with your limited pieces once the pillars keep popping up in your way. He also feats, catching Saeryn, which unfortunately means my blightbringer on 1 FURY is not going to be loving life.
My turn, and I get lucky with blighty - he passes his frenzy check on a 6. Unluckily, my Seraph goes nuts and charges Saeryn. not only does he crit, but he also spikes the dice and she transfers 18 damage back on to the Seraph as punishment for its insolence. Saeryn moves on up, however, and feats Rhyas back to finish off her guardian and the Wyrd. From here it's a painstaking mop-up, with the blightbringer just killing pillars all game as Rhyas inches closer to the last remaining wolds. Eventually Mohsar is forced to go for a very low chance assassination, and once that fails Rhyas jumps over the wolds and cuts off his head.
Whew! A really solid game, and a surprisingly strong ranged game from a traditionally melee faction. Twins are now 2-for-2, so onwards Legion ho!
-und_ed
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Post by ForEver_Blight on May 11, 2017 12:37:15 GMT
CID fulcrums would have been horrific. 3x health would have been really obnoxious to remove. I'm starting to hate that people have found out just how amazing wyrds are...
Look forward to hearing/seeing more.
edit: i think they just went down in health this week. so maybe not in the 30s anymore (*goes to look)
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unded
Junior Strategist
Posts: 760
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Post by unded on May 11, 2017 13:07:09 GMT
I have 3 Wyrds, my Circle vacation is going to be fun...  On to round 3! round 3 sees me paired off against a Skorne (henceforth known as 'Scones') player. He is rocking a frighteningly fast Makeda1 list, and a serious brick under Xerxes1. Normally I'd go straight to the twins, but for this matchup there's a bit of history. This player has been one of my most frequent opponents practicing for Nationals, and every game I've played against him I used the twins. Just for a change of pace, I decided to throw Fyanna at him. He picked Makeda, which looked as follows: Makeda1 Molik Karn Titan Gladiator Cyclops Savage (I think?) full kitties full praetorian swordsman + UA paingivers whatever else I've forgotten I get first turn, and rush up as far as I can go without catching kitties to the face. Their threat range is pretty absurd, and I don't want to lose heavies before I've even feated (20" threat range is no laughing matter). I'm basically trying to ensure I get an alpha that's protected by my feat. Worth noting is that I really like starting with FURY on the blight wasps lately, since they play back as a counter-punch module rather than up-front. I've found that FURY on one of the flying beasts inevitably gets it killed a bit too easily on feat turn. His turn, and he jams me hard. He shoves all the cats into my lines, spreads out the swordsmen a bit and feats with the beasts hanging back a touch. It's go time! at this point I'm looking to shove enough damage down his throat that he Makeda is only barely living. I've prepared to force every beast I own to full FURY in order to kill the cats, as they can represent a real threat to Fyanna even on feat turn (leap into her rear, makeda casts carnage...). He spots what I'm doing, so instead of draining makeda to 2 life he starts to let the cats die and save some life (yay for free forsaken! if I go nuts with FURY, they're there for the rescue). I obviously feat, and let the Angels and Neraphs go to town on the infantry in front of them. I even get some good use out of the Hellion's spray thanks to the bloodseer, and she removes a couple of swordsmen. I arrange my flying beasts so I have one Neraph far upfield engaging his cyclops and blocking the charge lanes of the titan and Molik (he got there thanks to sprint after doing his job), and behind him is an Angel with Admonition to really muck up his world. I'm very nervous about Molik Karn, so even now I'm camping 3 FURY. His turn and it all goes pear-shaped for him. He manages to kill the Hellion, and with some hard work and carnage kills the far Neraph, but Molik just can't get the work he needs done through the feat, and I get fully-engaged and lose only 1 heavy. My turn, and it's the moment I've been waiting for. Blight wasps have Fury upkept on them and apparition into range of Molik. They charge, and it is glorious to behold. They exceed expectations, and roll 2 crits out of their charge attacks. So brutal is their rage, that they kill Molik without spending a single point of FURY! From here on out, it's a mop-up. They only thing to note is that there was a special prize for the first player to one-shot a caster, which I tried to get in this game. I had two opportunities for an Angelius to armour-pierce and one-shot Makeda, but they both missed the boosted 9 to hit. Luckily, three blight wasps were there to jump in and kill Makeda, because they were clearly showing off this game. So that's game #3 down, and so far Legion is treating me very well. -und_ed |
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unded
Junior Strategist
Posts: 760
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Post by unded on May 12, 2017 14:24:33 GMT
Time for game #4
This time it's Trollbloods, and my opponent is rocking Ragnor and Horgle. For me this is easy - no realy gunline (although Horgle is pretty close to one), so it's more of the Twins. He picks Horgle just to surprise me, so it looks like I need to face down some unpleasant shooting with the twins. Horgle looks as follows:
Horgle
Dire troll bomber
Dire troll Mauler
Axer
Fire Eaters x2
max sluggers
max warders
min croak raiders
max stones
some solo I have forgotten
Terrain matters quite a bit here, with a central forest on his side of the table neatly dividing the sides. Trolls provide a bit of a concern for the twins, since you can't get too aggro with Rhyas else you're gonna get her snacked and lose your feat. It's worth noting, however, that if you can kill enough with Rhyas (say 2 heavies and a light) it's still worthwhile imo to let her get eaten. With that much of a lead, Saeryn alone can pilot an army to victory.
My opponent has fist turn, and has deployed most of his force to the left of the centre forest, with the sluggers, 1 unit of fire eaters and the bomber and axer holding the right. He runs up aggressively with the fire eaters, using frogs to set the left unit of fire. The right unit has some bad rolls, and only one is on fire. His sluggers hide behind another forest, denying me the opportunity to start working on them with my Raptors that have deployed across from them.
Rhyas puts occultation on the Raptors and takes her favourite turn #1 position nice and up-front, protected by Withering Ash and the Neph Prot. The raptors run on up, staying out of move-and-shoot range of the sluggers (RNG 5 from stealth). With occultation on them, it's only a matter of time before they win their fight with the sluggers. swordsmen run up to threaten the shooting mess coming towards them, but they know they're on a hiding to nothing. All they can really hope for is to soak up some shooting while the rest of the army gets to work. On a side note, his battlegroup being immune to fire is not fun. Both the blightbringer and the Seraph do not enjoy that particular problem, and the 5 high-arm shield guards are also not thrilling.
His turn, and the right-hand fire eater's continuous fire goes out. Still, he has three fire eaters on the left hand side that have boosted RAT 6 shots to hit Rhyas ignoring concealment, so that is less than thrilling. one out of three hits, so Rhyas breathes a little easier. The bomber tries to shoot her, but needing 13s to hit DEF 18 is not his friend. he hits with one bomb, which the Neph prot dutifully takes for her. The frogs shoot out a couple of swordsmen, but three are saved thanks to Withering Ash (I love that BB ability). The warders take up position behind the croaks (so yeah, I can't even use the BB AoE to kill those off).
My turn, and I can reach Horgle with Rhyas. He is camping 2, so it's possible, but with all the warders I cannot get a BB buff on to Rhyas' landing spot. I decide against the assassination run, as it's not a great chance of success and I'd rather play for a more reliable path to victory. With a bit of slipstream shenanigans, I can get Rhyas on to both the Bomber and the Axer. I can't hurt the beasts with the blightbringer shot, but I can absolutely run it forward to provide the STR buff to Rhyas. Rhyas proceeds to murder both the Axer and the Bomber, while the central forest protects her from being eaten by the Mauler. The raptors kill off all but one slugger plus the right fire eaters (Rhyas may have killed one of them), who is tough but engaged by a Raptor. The swordsmen kill the other fire eaters, while everything else dances around.
From here on it's a slow grind, but he's lost too much to recover and the twins still have their feat in hand. They sail ahead comfortably to take the day, moving on to day #2 as first seed.
I was a little worried in this matchup. If both fire-eater units stay lit up, then I have to play cautious with Rhyas or eat six boosted sprays which will likely kill her unless I camp like crazy. Once I get an early attrition lead, however, it becomes very difficult for Horgle to recover, so ultimately the gamble paid off hard. what is very surprising is just how much shooting this twins list really puts out - it looks like a melee list all build around Rhyas, but in truth 70% of the list shoots, and shoots well.
-und_ed
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Post by zerohour on May 12, 2017 18:55:21 GMT
Do you feel like the swordsmen could be points better spent elsewhere? I'm thinking after reading the reports that they might be better as double assassins and a point, or kill the shepherd for an assassin and a totem hunter, or maybe just annyssa. Do you think they are worth the 9?
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unded
Junior Strategist
Posts: 760
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Post by unded on May 12, 2017 20:25:22 GMT
I do still think the swordsmen are worthwhile. They don't get a lot of work done, but they force a line of engagement when I don't want Rhyas front and centre. That's a really important option to have when you're facing anything that can RFP Rhyas.
-und_Ed
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Post by zerohour on May 12, 2017 23:35:50 GMT
That's fair, maybe it's because I hadn't played them with the bb but I feel like a Hellmouth would do that job better for fewer points, but they are a threat worth shooting at too which counts for something. Hellmouth + harrier for dodge on rhyas sounds pretty legit too.
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newsun
Junior Strategist
Posts: 140
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Post by newsun on May 13, 2017 20:44:28 GMT
I agree, even though they don't do any direct work, their threat means dealing with them or take weapon masters to the face.
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unded
Junior Strategist
Posts: 760
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Post by unded on May 14, 2017 7:36:18 GMT
I agree, even though they don't do any direct work, their threat means dealing with them or take weapon masters to the face. Taking it one step further, they're really important for a pairing, as they let the list play into tank / Jack spam lists. Without them I'm relying on just Rhyas and the raptors to kill anything meaty. -und_ed |
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unded
Junior Strategist
Posts: 760
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Post by unded on May 14, 2017 8:09:43 GMT
So, time for day #2, knockout playoffs.
My first match, and I'm paired up against a Cygnar player. He's rocking Kara Sloan and... whatever. We both know he's dropping Kara into Legion, so it's time to bust out Fyanna.
His Sloan list looks something like this:
Sloan (*spits*)
Defender
Defender
Avenger
Hunter
Stormclad
Min lances
ATGM
Reinholt
I get first turn, and thankfully I've learned some lessons from playing a game on VASSAL. I run on up carefully, making sure most of his guns have no targets if he feats turn #1. I run the hellion behind a wall with Iron Flesh, since I know the headaches it can cause on feat turn for Sloan. My wasps with Fury run horizontally across the table, wanting to get behind a pretty forest on their next turn. Everything else advances cautiously, following the rules above, with the exception of the Naga who runs up and tries to bait out the Hunter. The wall is large enough that an Angel joins the Hellion up front.
His turn, he sees the trap, holds his feat, and doesn't take the Naga bait. He tries to kill the Hellion with the Hunter, but she survives on 1 health (thank you Iron Flesh!). Otherwise he advances cautiously, and only my Angel (with Admonition) is in charge range (needing a slipstream).
My turn #2, and it's time to tighten the screws. Blood seer pulls some slipstream goodness, Fyanna slips the Angel and feats, hiding behind a fence. Wasps hide behind a forest just on the right-hand side of his avenger, admo Angel charges the Avenger and pulls a big chunk of it down. With the bloodseer's slipstream, a second Angel finishes off the Avenger. The Hellion puts up wind ravager, walking 13" up to cover Sloan and her entire battlegroup. Everything else runs up, but is just too far to jam. I manage to get the afflictor into a storm lance, killing it and spawning an incubus, but the incubus sadly missed his combo strike against a second lance. Turn passes to a very unhappy-looking Cygnar player.
His turn, and he knows he is boned. He decides to try for a hail-Mary assassination, so a defender starts by beating the Hellion to death in melee (so upset he hit). The ATGM then shoots at Fyanna. He needs box cars to hit her, and the lucky bastard gets it! So Fyanna is flared, and I'm not loving that at all. The storm lad moves to shoot Fyanna, but triggers admonition so the Angel engages both Sloan (no aiming bonus for you!) and the stormclad. What follows is a valiant attempt to kill Fyanna, but can't quite make it stick, and it's over to Legion.
Now it's go-time! The wasps apparition far enough into the forest to now see some charge targets. The bloodseer charges a defender, but also uses the Neraph's animus to pull the Stormclad forward enough that three of the four blight wasps can now charge in the rear to deny the buckler advantage. The wasps take a full-health storm lad down to 1 life! From here on its pretty formulaic as the beasts tear his army apart, and an Angel stabs Sloan through the heart to end the game.
Wow, that was crazy. It's such a nervous game vs Sloan, blink once and you die. Play it right with Fyanna, however, and Sloan has a real bad day. The Hellion in particular is incredible. DEF 17 dodge, and if you can't kill it you can't shoot.
So job accomplished, I can now retire Fyanna for the weekend and just play the stars of the show, the Twins!
-und_ed
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unded
Junior Strategist
Posts: 760
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Post by unded on May 15, 2017 9:16:22 GMT
OK, time for the semi-finals.
This time it's a rematch of my earlier trollkin opponent, but I'm certain he's bringing Ragnor. I'm all-in on the twins at this point, so no turning back. Unsurprisingly he does bring Ragnor, playing in the Power of Dhunia theme:
Ragnor
Runebearer
Mountain King
Bomber
Mauler
Bouncer
Axer
Northkin Shaman
Northkin Shaman
I've faced this list before, and it's pretty terrifying. The mountain king plus the bomber put out a ruthless amount of ranged damage that squishy Legion just does not love at all, while getting up in your face on feat turn to either absorb all your damage and beat you to death on the counterpunch, or just chase you out of zones. I have a plan though - back off on his feat turn, toeing the zones with a stealthy Naga and maybe a stealthy raptor, flank with the raptors to murder the krielstone bearers, then jump in with Rhyas to butcher his army. Rhyas will get RFP'd by whatever survives, but the damage should be enough to swing attrition in my favour, especially since I have 11 non-Rhyas weaponmasters on the table. All sounds grand. I'm a little worried that my Neph prot is going to die to shooting early though, so I decide I'm going to throw occultation on to him.
He has first turn, and runs up as expected. the scenario is the two circles, and we have both overloaded the left-hand zone. On the right is only one northkin shaman and my raptors. I follow through with my original plan, getting aggressive with Rhyas in order to force out his feat. I push up hard with my Raptors, only giving him a single target with his shaman, who needs an 8 to hit and an 8 on damage to kill a raptor - 1-in-4, which is a chance I can take. The blightbringer is going to take some ranged punishment, but I can live with that.
So, did anyone else spot my blunder? I assumed he'd shoot the blightbringer since Rhyas was high defence with transfers and a shield guard and the Neph was stealthy. What I didn't count on was the bomber hauling off to the right and shooting down two raptors. the shaman got his 1-in-4 shot as well, killing a third raptor. He then pushes up aggressively, the mountain king takes a pot-shot at Rhyas that fails to do anything, and the other shaman positions to threaten my swordsmen. He feats, and moves Ragnor up camping 2, behind the bouncer and the mountain king.
Well crap. I played poorly, and I'm really paying for it. With only two raptors left, my game plan has gone to hell. I can back off, and cede 2 control points to him on his next turn, but I don't like my odds in this grind. The swordsmen are going to have to be sacrificed if I want to kill anything meaningful on my next turn, leaving me with just blighty and Rhyas to get any real work done. At this point his ranged threat is greater than mine, which forces me to commit before him. I don't like those odds at all. The other option is to go for the assassination. Ragnor is in slipstreamed charge range of Rhyas, and he's left a gap to strike through. He is camping 2, has a shield guard and is under the protection of both his feat and the stones, so I'm not loving my chances, but I feel it's a better shot than playing the long game so I decide to go for it. I start it off with the raptors taking two pot shots at Ragnor, and the poinson scares him a bit and he shield-guards it (that's a mistake, as he not can't shield guard the blightbringer shot and even with poison the raptor is still only POW 10 with 2d8 vs ARM 18). The second raptor misses, but they've done their job in taunting out a shield guard. The blightbringer moves up and shoots Ragnor with dragon's breath, which is essential to get through his ARM. He does some decent damage that gets transferred away. Neither the Naga nor the Seraph can get LOS to ragnor, so it's time for the main event. The Seraph slipstreams Rhyas forward, and Rhyas charges Ragnor while Saeryn charges the mountain king (side note here - I've talked before about respecting a 6" leash between the twins. Without it I could not have succeeded both charges, as Rhyas would have blocked Saeryn's charge if Saeryn had to slipstream Rhyas). Rhyas charges into a now 1-FURY, unharmed Ragnor. The charge attack hits, but a low damage roll lets him hold on to his FURY. Send attack hits and rolls high, stripping away his FURY. Another side note, I could not afford to cast flashing blades here, as the whelps spawned by hurting the mountain king would have given Rhyas a -1 to hit, something I could not afford. With ragnor on no FURY, and Rhyas having 4, it's time to fish for crits. I have a roughly 75% chance to crit once on two boosted attacks, so it's looking decent. I go for it, but neither attack crits. Still the damage is respectable enough and Ragnor is sitting on 1 life at the end of Rhyas' FURY. Remeber I said I charged the MK with Saeryn, rather than running? Now saeryn feats! with an attack in hand and Pow 12 thanks to blighty, she need to do 1 damage to rangor to finish him off. she swings and hits, boosts damage at dice -6, and manages to knock off that final point! He fails his tough roll, and Saeryn takes his head!
Whew! Definitely my worst game of the tournament so far, and entirely avoidable. In retrospect, I should have played more aggressive with the swordsmen and hung back a bit with Rhyas and the Prot, allowing me to keep Occultation on the raptors so they could do their job. This is pretty much the entire reason for the swordsmen, and I played on autopilot and fluffed it, so definitely not my finest moment. Still, the versatility of the twins prevailed, and the ability to shift gears allowed me to make a reasonable play from a poor situation.
On to the finals!
-und_ed
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unded
Junior Strategist
Posts: 760
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Post by unded on May 15, 2017 10:20:09 GMT
Finals time!
For this game, it's a rematch of the Skorne guy from earlier. I came to the tournament with the express desire to play the twins, so there is no way I'm not playing them in the finals. He, on the other hand, is suffering a bit of PTSD from the drubbing that Fyanna gave Makeda earlier, so he chooses Xerxis for this game. His list is as follows:
Xerxis
Molik
Titan Gladiator
Baslilisk Krea
Agonizer
max cetrati + UA
max venator reivers + UA
Paingivers
Whatever else I've forgotten
We're playing Recon, and he has first turn. I pick the side where a linear obstacle does not ruin the blightbringer's path to the zone. He runs up, getting into position to make my life difficult. He is overloaded on the left-hand flank, with only the rievers on the right. I let the raptors go to match the reivers, while the rest prepare for the tanky doom on the right. I play aggressive with Rhyas, and get aggressive flanking on the left with the swordsmen who finally have a meaty target they can get into.
His turn he shuffles forward, having no good charge targets. He holds back his feat, and pulls a very neat move with the agonizer - instead of the usual -2 STR, he uses the ability that denies spellcasting. this means Rhyas is welcome to walk into the cetrati, but she cannot cast flashing blades. I don't like that at all. He shoots at DEF 18 rhyas with a big CRA from the reivers, which the Neph Prot dutifully accepts with a shield guard.
My turn #2, and it's time to shift gears. I have him out-ranged, so I want to make it count by deleting his reivers and allowing my raptors to collapse on his flank in future turns. I have a genuine problem in the cetrati, as they have set defence plus defender's ward, making them really hard to hit with my swordsmen. They're also protected further from shooting by the force aura of the basilisk. No matter, the twins have answers! I use the Naga to bless the seraph, who proceeds to shoots three cetrati in order to flare them. he does some damage to 2 of them, but kills none. The twins activate, and Saeryn arcs marked for death on to the reivers, then throws two razor winds to murder two of them, then the twins back off to safety, Saeryn in particular respecting the long threat range of his beasts (Molik is welcome to try his luck against a DEF 18Rhyas). Rhyas puts the naga's animus on the blightbringer. Now the blightbringer activates, backs out of the zone to be out of the titan's threat range, and throws a dragon's breath shot at a wounded cataphract. He manages to kill it, while leaving a lovely zone of strength for the swordsmen. Three swordsmen charge into the cataphracts, and manage to kill off two of them, while the others spread out in the zone, forcing him to commit if he wants to get control points. The raptors go to town on the reivers, leaving only a small handful alive.
His turn, and it's not looking pretty. He's lost most of his reivers and half of his cataphracts. He has to feat this turn if he wants to get any value out of it, but he has nothing juicy to charge to get good value out of the damage portion of his feat. He decides to make a play for scenario, so he clears the swordsmen with 2 cataphracts pushing forward. He uses the same agonizer agony to cramp Rhyas' style, and sends in the titan to kill the objective so he can dominate the zone. It's a bold play, sacrificing a heavy to try outrace me on scenario. Obviously he feats.
Twins turn, and it's time to tighten the vise. With an upkept marked for death, the raptors finish off the reivers. two spare shots go into Molik and actually hurt him a bit. More importantly, the raptors all reposition into the zone. The blightbringer jumps on to the titan (getting a toe into the zone again), and beats him to death. Rhyas manages to get to the two forward cetrati just out of range of the agonizer, and flashing blades them to death. The Seraph shoots Molik a bit, hurting him a smidgeon more, and the Naga manages to crit shadowbind one of the remaining cetrati (UA I think). I pass the turn confidently, with a Neph prot, 5 raptors and a full-health blightbringer holding the zone and Xerxis' feat gone.
He desperately searches for a way to clear the zone. The basilisk tries to paralyse Rhyas, but misses (if he's hit, the shield guard was there to fix it). Xerxis charges the Neph Prot, and smites him out of the zone and through Saeryn! It's enough to force a transfer out of saeryn (on to the Neph who can't stay on his feet...) but nothing is left to shoot her way back so she's not too worried. Xerxis not tries to hurt Rhyas (who is now only DEF 16, so good move on the combo smite), but one transfer later and then tragedy (for him) strikes - he misses, and Rhyas smacks him in the face with a riposte!. He's run out of FURY, so it's time for Molik. He realises he can't kill the BB and the raptors, so he opts for spite and tries to kill Rhyas. His first attack... misses! Rhyas ripostes and scores a crit!! Molik has already taken damage, and the crit leaves him on one life, with not spirit.
At this point my opponent concedes, and the twins return home to cheers and applause!
Finally, a game where the swordsmen got to shine. They did everything they're in the list for, and did it well. That's the surprising thing about this list - it looks so small, but it really eats through ARM spam, bringing so many weaponmasters.
Alrighty, that's the event that was. I'm really happy that the twins performed so well, and I adore the versatility they (and the list) brings. Now it's time for a well-deserved vacation in Circle.
und_ed
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Post by copperflame on May 15, 2017 16:02:55 GMT
Wow! Congrats man and these battle reports are great! I have enjoyed following your adventure and can't wait to put some of this into practice. Again, thank you for sharing!
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