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Post by Azahul on Oct 31, 2018 0:26:45 GMT
The second game into the same opponent was into a Bradigus list. So another high threat, Synergy caster with ways to get around Polarity Shield (port and Feat, namely, though even walk and Feat is a higher threat than the Dracodile). My opponent was trying out: Bradigus -Wold Guardian -Wold Guardian -Woldwarden -Woldwarden -Woldwarden -Woldwatcher -Woldwight Shifting Stones Shifting Stones Sentry Stones Stone Shaper Stone Shaper Stone Shaper Wayfarer Gobber Chef Deployment I won the starting roll again. I went with Skarath angling towards the forest on the left, the War Hog and Lug on the right since they'd made such a good pair in the previous game. My opponent set up most of his list evenly, with the Watcher out on the right flank and the Sentry Stone on the left. Both objectives are healing objectives. The Fulcrum is the Dracodile again. Pigs Turn 1 No point in casting Haunting Melody this time around. Sturm casts Deceleration, puts Vision on Skarath, Polarity Shield on the Dracodile, and charges up the board. The Dracodile runs to the left to sit next to a Skarath who had received Mist Walker from Dahlia. Orin runs in behind them to safeguard the knot of models there from any geomancy'd spells. The War Hog pushes forward aggressively on the right, with Lug lurking a little bit behind him. Brun puts up Stonehold and charges up. Circle Turn 1 The Mannikins come forward and spray Skarath. I opt not to use Vision on the one attack that hits, he boosts damage and does 3 points. Bradigus casts Synergy and Mystic Wards. Everything runs up. On the right they push forward aggressively in order to threaten the Dracodile, with both Wold Guardians inside the Sentry Stones. Two Woldwardens position themselves on the left so that they can threaten Skarath. Pigs Turn 2 Well, one Wold Guardian is close enough for the War Hog to get to, so I give the War Hog Puppet Master, Primal it, TK it forward, have Mire give it Weald Secrets, and charge it in. I then only roll 5s for damage and leave the Guardian alive on 3 health. I figure that's probably game on the spot, because that Guardian can get to the Dracodile and I can't really afford to back the Gargantuan back behind Mire. The Dracodile kills the Sentry Stone with a spray. I back up Skarath on the left, still just barely toeing the zone, and pull back Brun and Lug on the right. Dahlia lurks behind the forest and spends three of her Fury healing the damage Skarath took. Circle Turn 2 Bad dice really do dominate this game. The Stone Shapers buff up the Wold Guardians and the right-hand Woldwarden. The Stones port the Wold Guardians forward. Bradigus comes forward and Feats, putting up Mystic Wards. The Woldwight moves in on Skarath, who knocks out its mind with a Counterblast attack. It hits its second attack anyway, which I block with Vision, and brings Synergy to +1. The Wold Watcher punches the Gobber Chef to death, bringing Synergy to +2. Lug managed to get a Counter Charge off on it for a whole 3 damage. The Woldwarden on the right tries to kill the War Hog but between terrible damage rolls and one missed attack leaves it on 1 health in Spirit. Synergy now at +3. The Wold Guardians come in, but get a bit caught up due to the limitations of Bradigus's Feat so my opponent only kills one Battle Boar with one of them. Similarly, the Woldwardens on the left both prove to be out of range to kill Skarath. Finally, the Wold Guardian tries to kill the Dracodile and that's when we realise it has no Mind or Spirit thanks to the War Hog. It does about 15 damage to the Dracodile with the two punches it does get. One Woldwarden on the left tramples across to use its animus to screen Bradigus from Skarath. The other hangs back. The Gobber Chef runs onto my opponent's flag. Bradigus's Feat then reverses, which pulls a couple of Woldwardens back so far that they aren't really in position to counter-punch the following turn, and clumps up three of the heavies right in front of the hungry Dracodile. My opponent scores his flag, so the score is now 0-1 in his favour. Pigs Turn 3 Skarath actually takes about 5 damage from fire. I run Brun over, allowing Lug to charge the Wold Guardian. The Chain Attack smash and grab comes off, letting me throw the Guardian over into the other one on three health. Sturm walks behind the Dracodile, casting Deceleration and putting Vision and Primal onto Skarath. The Soul Slave then TK's Skarath out of the forest and out of the Dracodile's charge lane. The Dracodile charges the nearly full health Guardian, kills it, finishes off the near-dead Guardian, and puts a couple of swings into the Woldwarden. Skarath kills the Woldwight in one attack, Overtakes into the Woldwarden, finishes it off in two attacks, puts up Counterblast. Dahlia camps four behind the forest. I run the Mist Speaker onto the flag. Mire burns off his Fury, putting a cloud in front of him and a cloud on himself. I score my flag and my opponent scores his, bringing the score to 1-2 in his favour. Circle Turn 3 The Woldwarden on the right kills the 1 health War Hog, bringing the Synergy score to +1. The Shifting Stones port around Lug to block him in and prevent Countercharge. The Woldwatcher walks up and swings on the Mist Speaker. Misses the first attack. Hits the second attack and only manages three damage. Dice this game, man. Not to be deterred, my opponent hits Skarath with a Rift from the left flank Woldwarden, which I ignore with Vision. Bradigus throws rocks at Skarath, but two of the three shots fail to break armour in spite of being dice-6 on 3d6. Dice. Seriously. The other Shifting Stones port across to body block access to Bradigus. Pigs Turn 4 So there's a clear assassination run available but the way dice have been this game I'm almost afraid to go for it. Nevertheless... I use Charmer to stop Skarath from frenzying into the Dracodile and Paralysing it. The Soul Slave then ports Lug out of his stone trap, move Brun up, Primal Lug with the last Battle Boar, and have him smash the two intervening Shifting Stones that need to die Overtaking out of the way in the process. I Puppet Master the Dracodile and have Sturm give it Primal, then advance and Feat to shut down my opponent's ability to transfer damage. The Dracodile charges Bradigus (for free, yay large bases!) and boosts the Spray, which hits. Does a bit of damage with the spray, then kills him with the charge attack Bite. I really hesitate to draw anything conclusive from that game, seeing how stupid and swingy it was. It'd have been a much more interesting game had I killed the first Wold Guardian, because the second wasn't quite close enough to get the Dracodile and we'd likely have ended up playing a more conservative scenario game on both sides of the table. He probably has a decent advantage in the match-up, but there are some really interesting interactions with his Feat. Because it's so linear, directly towards and then away from my table edge, it's easy to predict where things end up and threat ranges aren't as long as they initially appear if they need to move in any way diagonally. That provides some interesting counterplay, and once the Feat is gone everything becomes so much safer and Polarity Shield becomes super valuable. Doubly so because after that 5" slide backwards, Wolds will usually need a charge if they want to engage a target the following round. Anyway, those were certainly very positive games for me, seeing as I went in viewing them as such poor match-ups. I think the Bradigus one still likely is favoured to the Bradigus player, but having played it I think there's some interesting stuff you can do. And it's not like I don't have Arkadius to answer Bradigus anyway.
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Post by Gaston on Oct 31, 2018 11:22:42 GMT
I only went back 2 pages so maybe missed it, why did you build your list the way you did?
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Post by Azahul on Oct 31, 2018 11:34:46 GMT
I only went back 2 pages so maybe missed it, why did you build your list the way you did? For fun!
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Post by Azahul on Oct 31, 2018 11:46:05 GMT
Ok, but seriously, the full breakdown is something like this:
Sturm and Drang -War Hog -Battle Boar -Battle Boar -Soul Slave
This was originally four Battle Boars and a Soul Slave, but I ultimately decided that with heavies as pillow-fisted as Skarath and Lug and the whole point of the list being to keep the Dracodile safe that I needed an expendable heavy I could happily Primal and throw out there to do some real work. It's already proven invaluable in most of my games, so I'm glad I went the way I did. Two Battle Boars give me some cheap resilient Shield Guards and late game anti-infantry, as well as Primal Sources.
The Soul Slave is obviously because the Soul Slave provides a near unprecedented boost to Sturm and Drang. I don't know if there's any Minions 'caster who appreciates them as much. You get an extra TK, including when Drang is in play so finally he has a threat range that can at least compete with Sturm, you get the free upkeep when you'll almost always have 1-2 in play, you get a model that can try and TK the opponent's models without risking your Warlock, and so on.
Mire -Dracodile Orin Eilish Mist Speaker
This splodge of models is basically the heart of the list. The Dracodile is the most resilient model in the faction, so it serves as the central anchor and bully for the list. With Polarity Shield it's impossible to charge. With Orin it's darned difficult to spell. With Sturm's battlegroup providing Shield Guards and Sturm throwing up Deceleration it's really hard to shoot. Nigh immortal giant stompy thing dominating the middle of the board is the central play for the list. Eilish is there both because he provides an additional incentive against spelling alongside Orin (sure, you could burn through all three tokens, but then by the time you actually get your spell off you've taken 4d3 damage and that'll put most 'casters into half health territory) but primarily because the Dracodile being Mat 6 is icky in some match-ups and I'd like to up the odds I land the Blind spray. Plus the list just has a whole lot of key activations that can vary from game to game where Puppet Master is useful.
The Mist Speaker is there so that the list can play into Cryx.
Dahlia -Skarath
They're in the list because they're good anti-infantry, assassins, threat range projectors, and Skarath takes Vision quite well. With Mist Walker and Counterblast and Vision he's a pain in the butt to dislodge.
Brun -Lug
Probably the weirdest part of the list. I threw them in almost entirely because I was ruminating about the Gaspy3 9 Slayers match-up. I mentioned above that I had a Mist Speaker in the list to play into Cryx. I can't think of many Cryx lists I'm too scared of when playing this list. A spell immune Dracodile that can't be charged is a right pain to deal with. But Gaspy3 9 Slayers is... tricky. If nothing else because a Mat 6 Gargantuan doesn't trade terribly effectively into them. The list has a lot of tools to play the attrition game, but I needed some way to reliably hit Slayers and Brun and Lug provide that. Thanks to Bear Hands and Smash and Grab they can reliably knock down 2-3 Slayers in a turn for the rest of the list to then mop up. Plus, with Counter Charge and Return and the general mild synergy between Knockdown and Sturm and Drang's Feat they have proven themselves as consistently useful in test games so far.
Gobber Chef
I had a point left over. Which is good, because boy this list can have a hard time contesting otherwise.
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Post by Gaston on Oct 31, 2018 18:52:09 GMT
I wholly appreciate what the Soul Slave does for Sturmbo, one question is if the Dracodile is the heart and soul, and you have the Eilish corps, why not Targ for Ancillary Blind? Also you have Brun and Lug for KD with Feat and Blind...
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Post by Azahul on Oct 31, 2018 22:12:38 GMT
Because I don't value an unboosted Rat 5 spray as much as I do ~3 extra Fury on Sturm and the ability to spread out and cast Telekinesis on whichever side of the board Sturm isn't on, basically. Not to mention TK access when I go Drang. The list does have workhorses other than the Dracodile, the point of the Dracodile is to not die, and the Soul Slave is a lot better at enabling those other pieces than Targ is. Eilish is the only buff I can combo with Targ and sometimes he's stripping upkeeps (because TK plus a list that pressures the enemy to come to it means those upkeeps are usually very close and easy to remove) and sometimes I'm trying to get away with not boosting the Dracodile spray because I'm running a Gargantuan on a lesser and that makes that Fury 4 an illusion.
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Post by dessert hydra on Nov 2, 2018 17:39:28 GMT
I tried out a mire list with sturm. Instead of the dracco I went for a wrastler and thresher. Also Ninja pig istaed of Lug
It didn't go well for me into a tharn list run by wurmwood. Mostly due to terrible position of sturm and the mire.
He's got a high skill cap, add the cloud wall (I ran gobbers) etc made it tough for me (low skill). My opponent also commented that kwaak would also add some extra movement crazyness to keep the heavies moving..
More reps required
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Post by apoc2148 on Nov 6, 2018 15:06:31 GMT
In regards to running Mire with Dr. Ark, would you still run battle boars/goraxes with him or use those points for other things? I've been theory-crafting some lists with him and Mire+Wrastler and was curious how you would shift points around to make room.
Essentially it boils down to does the list need both primal and rage?
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Post by ghoulio on Nov 6, 2018 16:46:23 GMT
In regards to running Mire with Dr. Ark, would you still run battle boars/goraxes with him or use those points for other things? I've been theory-crafting some lists with him and Mire+Wrastler and was curious how you would shift points around to make room. Essentially it boils down to does the list need both primal and rage?
I would assume yes as Assassination is a huge part of Arkadius' game which is where Primal is one of the better animi as you need all the MAT you can get.
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Post by Azahul on Nov 6, 2018 20:08:05 GMT
I think ghoulio has nailed it. The Gorax gives you flexibility in terms of what kind of profiles you threaten, and definitely helps with assassination runs. Given the threat it can pose in the late game I don't feel it's a huge burden to include for its points. At the moment, the Arkadius build I plan on running (haven't played it yet, been too busy learning to play the Sturm and Drang list) is this: Arkadius -War Hog -War Hog -Road Hog -Road Hog -Gun Boar -Splatter Boar -Gorax -Targ Mire -Wrastler Kwaak and Gub Witch Doctor Mist Speaker Gobber Chef I do think I'll miss the Razor Boars as jammers/contesting pieces and the Bellows Crew as a unit for scoring zones, but other than that I really like the tools available there. The Gun Boar can get pretty impressively accurate with two shots a turn at Rat 7 and Hunter. The Splatter Boar can toss out a cloud (or two, if Targ isn't otherwise occupied) that Mire can build out from to make a more impressive cloud wall. The Witch Doctor is probably the piece I'm most iffy on, Hutchuck is very tempting if for no other reason than to make sure I have some kind of capacity to contest far down the opponent's side of the board without sacrificing something useful, but Ghostly is definitely superior to Weald Secrets when it comes to assassination runs and I like being able to have Forced Evolution on a Pathfinder Warbeast.
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Post by Azahul on Nov 7, 2018 1:20:53 GMT
Alright, so I've been machining out games with the Sturm and Drang list. I still want a little more practice with it, but the results have been incredibly positive. I'm genuinely getting to the point where I think Sturm and Drang with a Dracodile is just about on par with Arkadius competitively speaking, but it is such a different playstyle to what I'm used to that it's taking some real effort to wrap my head around it. I sadly haven't been taking pictures of all the games (there were a few instances where I straight up forgot to pack my camera), but last night I got a couple more in with pictures, so here we go. The first game was the following: Sturm and Drang -War Hog -Battle Boar -Battle Boar -Soul Slave Mire -Dracodile Dahlia -Skarath Brun -Lug Eilish Orin Mist Speaker Gobber Chef Against Ashlynn -Nomad -Nomad -Toro -Sylys Stormblades -UA -3 Gunners Max Trenchers -UA -1 Grenadier Taryn Eilish Ragman Gorman Gibbs Gastone -Talon Anastasia Deployment My opponent won the starting roll, so I grabbed a table side with a cloud to hide Mire in. The building in the middle of the table was going to be an issue, so even after my opponent deployed with both the Toro and Nomad on the left I ended up sticking my Dracodile on the right somewhat reluctantly. With Anastasia lurking around I didn't feel comfortable trying to hide Mire in the forest on the left and I felt the Dracodile at least would guarantee that I'd be able to lock down the right-hand zone. Both objectives heal. I do think the Pit II is probably one of the best lists to play this list on, since I really don't need to worry too much about contesting. Mercs Turn 1 Ashlynn Quickens the Trenchers, puts up Chosen Ground. Unlike in most of our games, my opponent decided to capitalise on the lack of ranged presence in my army/the futility in going for a cloud wall against a list with only sprays for ranged attacks and access to a Mist Speaker by just running the Trenchers. He was a little overeager, a few ended up outside of command, but he did claim a substantial chunk of the board. The rest of his list followed up behind. Pigs Turn 1 There were a couple of Trenchers I could kill largely without retaliation. The Mist Speaker gave the Dracodile Eyeless Sight, and it declared a charge on the Nomad (allowing me to charge for free) so that I could boost the attack rolls against two of the leading Trenchers. Missed the furthest one and hit the closest, killing him. Sturm put Deceleration up, Vision on Skarath, and Polarity Shield on the Dracodile. He advanced up behind the Dracodile. The Soul Slave TK'd Skarath forwards, and Skarath advanced and killed the Trencher the Dracodile had missed. Dahlia put up Haunting Melody. Mire walked up behind the cloud and tossed out a cloud of his own. Brun put up Stonehold and boosted a Blunderbuss shot into the lead Trencher on the left, killing him. Lug riled for three, the War Hog riled for four and ran across to give Brun a Shield Guard (though at Def 15, Stonehold, and Arm 17 against guns I wasn't super concerned about the small arms fire being able to drop him). The Battle Boars riled for more Fury and ran up around the Dracodile to protect it and my lessers. Eilish and Orin ran up in the rear. Mercs Turn 2 My opponent went for some charges with the Trenchers on the left, and largely just ran the rest of the unit off onto the left flank. The two who took charges went into Lug. One of them did a big chunk of damage, rolling something like a 16 on the charge damage, while the other bounced off. The rest of the mercs just continued to run, largely skewing left again. Ashlynn put Admonition up on the Toro. Pigs Turn 2 Lug cast Bear Hands so that he could by-pass Tough and punched his way through four Trenchers. I needed to get some models out of the way of Orin, so Sturm cast Deceleration and moved up to Feat, catching all the heavies save the Nomad out on the right flank. Eilish gave Orin Puppet Master, and the Soul Slave TK'd him forwards. Orin then moved up and shot a Chain Lightning at one of the lead Trenchers, rolled three bounces, and erased four Trenchers off the board. The only one who passed his Tough check was shot dead by Brun's Blunderbuss. Over on the right, the Dracodile moved up to line a spray up on the Talon and Nomad. Missed the Talon, hit the Nomad and rolled well for about 7-8 damage. The Mist Speaker gave Skarath Eyeless Sight, so Skarath moved up and killed the Stormblade with a spray through the cloud. I ran the Gobber Chef into the left zone to contest, and my opponent played me well as he used Admonition to walk the Toro out of Sturm's Feat. Oops. The War Hog mostly just milled around. Mercs Turn 3 Ashlynn allocates two Focus to the Toro. She drops Quicken, upkeeps Chosen Ground for free, and Admonition has dropped. The two Trenchers charge Lug and roll well again, dropping him down to about half health. Ashlynn activates and decides to get real ballsy. She puts Quicken on the Stormblades and charges the War Hog, hitting it for a solid whack of damage, then firing her Hand Cannon into the Gobber Chef. The War Hog shield guard's the shot, so she uses Flashing Blade to kill the Gobber Chef and hurt the War Hog some more before using Reposition to back out of the way. Taryn comes forward and shoots the War Hog with Brutal Damage shots, but both shots bounce off the Arm 20. My opponent then realises he blocked the Toro's charge lane for Lug, so he has to Trample across and buy attacks. Thanks to the Trenchers spiking well before the two swings he manages to get put the bear in the dirt. Gorman Blinds the War Hog. The Quickened Stormblades use their Mini Feat and Press Forward, two of them charging the War Hog and one of them actually making contact. The unit leader runs across to provide his gun buff. They leave the War Hog with barely any health left after the assault shots and the one charge attack. Over on the right the Nomad has Shaken Blind, but without a second Focus to run it can't manage to get back into Ashlynn's control area. Gastone comes forward and tries to shoot Dahlia. Misses one shot because Def 16 is a thing, the second shot is Shield Guarded onto a Battle Boar. He spikes the damage roll again and does about 7 damage. The Nomad is out of position here. My opponent had forgotten about Blind entirely and we only thought to correct the run into a walk after the picture was taken. The score goes to 0-1 in my opponent's favour as he locks down the left zone. Pigs Turn 3 The Dracodile walks over and fires its spray at the Talon and Nomad. Boosts to hit the Talon and hits both 'jacks. Boosts damage on the Nomad and manages to do about another 5 damage. Corrosion hasn't gone out yet so the damage is starting to eat away at it there, and I have a cool play now to remove Ragman. Orin comes forward to Chain Lightning the Blind Nomad. If I roll up 2+ bounces then I'll bounce onto the Talon and then by-pass the Stormblades to kill Ragman. I only roll one bounce. Sturm casts Deceleration and fires his spray to kill the Stormblade engaging the War Hog, but misses. He then heals the damaged body on the War Hog and the Soul Slave TK's him back a bit to safety. Brun walks into melee engaging the Toro and the engaging Stormblade and kills the Stormblade. The War Hog walks into melee with the Toro and thanks to Ashlynn's Feat it misses two of its five attacks (had to shake Blind) despite only missing on double 1s. Does about 2/3rds of the Toro's boxes with the three attacks that do hit. Across on the right, Skarath receives Eyeless Sight again and charges the Talon. He scraps it with one Fury to spare, but I opt not to put up Counterblast with the last Fury so that he'll remain a valid transfer target. I run a Battle Boar out to the left as a kind of screen and Shield Guard for Orin and Mire drops a cloud to provide a bit more LOS blocking. With the left zone contested by the War Hog and the right zone free, I score one CP and bring the score level at 1-1. Mercs Turn 4 Gorman comes forward and throws a Blind Bomb at Eilish. He's just out of range, but the shot scatters and tags both Eilish and the Soul Slave, allowing Ashlynn to play more safely without fear of Unbinding. She puts Admonition up on the Nomad and runs it to body block. The Stormblades are basically the only real damage output this turn, with the unit leader charging the Battle Boar and one charging Skarath. Attacks on Skarath miss, the one on the Battle Boar cripple its mind and leave its body damaged a bit. The two surviving Trenchers charge and kill Brun. The Blind Nomad with no Focus sacrifices Action and just walks into the zone to contest. The Toro backs up to within 4" of the Stockpile objective. Contesting my zone on the right as he is, and with the left zone clear, my opponent scores one CP to bring the score to 1-2 in his favour. Pigs Turn 4 Sturm activates and sprays to kill Gorman and to allow him to TK the Nomad so that I can also TK Eilish close enough to use Unbinding in spite of being Blind. I naturally miss Gorman. Put up Deceleration and get out of the way of the Dracodile. Eilish gives the Dracodile Puppet Master, because at some point in my contemplating what to do next both me and my opponent forget that he has Admonition. Orin kills Gorman by hitting the Nomad with a Chain Lightning. The Battle Boar kills a Stormblade with a melee attack (takes all its Fury due to the cripple Mind) and Overtakes out of the way of the Dracodile's landing zone. The Dracodile charges the Nomad, we forget about Admonition, Blinds both his heavies and cripples the Cortex on the Toro. The Dracodile scraps the Nomad with melee attacks pretty comfortably. Over on the right, Skarath kills the half-dead Nomad (taking three Fury again) and the Battle Boar kills the Stormblade to clear the left zone. Dahlia gives herself Mist Walker and stands in the cloud next to Mire. Mire creates another cloud to block LOS to them for Gastone. I'm unable to contest the left zone, so the score is now 2-3 in my opponent's favour. Mercs Turn 5 Corrosion knocks out the Toro's sword arm as well, but the objective heals it up in both arm and cortex and Ashlynn allocates it two Focus. Ragman puts up Deathfield and the Toro charges the Battle Boar. Hits the Battle Boar with its Shield, then makes two swings (initial sword and one buy, after losing two Focus to charge and shaking Blind) on the Dracodile for about 15 damage. Ashlynn charges the Battle Boar and kills it. Two or three Stormblades charge Skarath, miss their assault shots, hit one melee attack after breaking through Vision and do about 11 damage and cripple his Spirit. No one scores anything this turn. Pigs Turn 5 Eilish Puppet Masters Sturm. The Soul Slave walks into Ashlynn's back arc to see if it can TK her without involving Sturm, and manages it. Sturm TK's the Toro out of melee with the Dracodile. My Battle Boar Primals the Dracodile. I was about to charge the Dracodile in when I realised that Mire was in range and I haven't really made any use of that poison spear yet. He charges Ashlynn in the back and kills her. Interesting game. I was initially worried about the Dracodile, but it actually kept my opponent from ever threatening it with the bulk of his army the way he did in one of our earlier games. The Toro using Admonition to get out of Sturm's Control range was very sneaky, I did not see that coming. Overall though, I felt like I was a lot stronger on the attrition and the scenario wasn't live enough to pressure me into any suboptimal plays just to contest.
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Post by Azahul on Nov 7, 2018 2:12:58 GMT
Second game of the night was into pKrueger Devourer Host. I've been playing into a lot post-CID Circle, but this was my first game actually into Tharn. Definite learning experience. His list was: Krueger -Storm Raptor -Blood Shaman Max Ravagers -UA Max Bloodpack Max Bloodtrackers -Nuala Lord of the Feast White Mane Shaman Night Witch Wolf Rider Champion Deployment My opponent won the starting roll. The choice of table side was a bit of a no-brainer, since there wasn't much point in giving him the Trench or Hills. I ended up deploying my Dracodile basically opposite the Storm Raptor (my Gargantuan has 1" more threat range, thanks to Polarity Shield). Snake goes next to the Dracodile because Paralyse will allow me to make hitting the Raptor reliable without Primal. The War Hog sat out on the left with Brun and Lug facing down the Ravagers. We have a couple of proxies there. The Shifting Stones are being represented by Wolfsworn there in the middle, and the Skinwalkers on the right are the Bloodpack. The Blood Shaman is represented by the Wilder, and I think we have a random Bloodweaver floating around as the Night Witch. The Bloodtrackers deployed opposite Brun and Lug and the War Hog and chose the War Hog as their Prey target. Circle Turn 1 Krueger casts Lightning Tendrils on the Bloodtrackers and chooses not to put up Gale Winds because I'm not really going to shoot him with much. Most of his stuff hangs back a little so that I can't get an assault shot off as a result, with placements like Lord of the Feast and the Night Witch basically being 18.1" away from the Dracodile. Pigs Turn 1 Sturm casts Deceleration, Vision on Skarath, Polarity Shield on the Dracodile, and shifts forward just over 2" so that he's out of the killbox. I run the Preyed War Hog hard to the right flank. Derp my positioning with Lug somewhat because in my head I was all "I don't really need to worry about P+S 9s from those Bloodtrackers", Brun puts up Stonehold and camps behind him. Dahlia casts Haunting Melody and Skarath runs across to the opposite side of the Dracodile so that I can choose between attacking the bird or going in on the Bloodtrackers. Mire comes up once everything else has moved and uses Floodwaters to give himself stealth. Circle Turn 2 So I've screwed up hard on several counts here. The first one is that I forgot what Nuala's Mini Feat was. She obviously swaps her Prey target to Lug and the Bloodtrackers charge in. Thanks to Lightning Tendrils basically the entire unit is able to pack in around him. Their attacks, and damage from the E-leaps that I need to transfer back to Lug to keep Brun alive, leave him with three boxes left and a crippled Body, and Brun is down to about 3 boxes as well. So many positioning mistakes there... Then comes the next big one. I've very carefully measured to make sure the Dracodile is too far away for the Night Witch to walk and attack and Dispel Polarity Shield, even if she receives Lightning Tendrils. I've also gone and put a Battle Boar right next to him. The Night Witch charges the Battle Boar, rolls something like a 22 on her charge attack to do 15 damage to the Battle Boar and Grievous it (with no mind). Then her second attack strips Polarity Shield. That allows the Storm Raptor to charge the Dracodile, but thankfully the damage output of the bird isn't the best and despite rolling consistently above average the Dracodile survives on about 20 boxes. Lord of the Feast hits the War Hog with a bird and teleports behind him, and manages to roll perfectly to do about 10 damage to column 5 of the War Hog and cripple the War Hog's Spirit. Also puts some more chip damage on the Dracodile. The Bloodpack come forward and shoot the Dracodile but Arm 20 means the full unit only manages about 1 damage between them. Krueger also cast Gale Winds and the rest of the unit ran up. One thing we did learn this turn was that boy does randomising e-leaps and then resolving them chew up clock. Pigs Turn 2 Ok, so that was horrendous play on my part to give my opponent so much of my army. But... in spite of some phenomenal rolls, I also haven't actually lost anything. I upkeep the spells I still have. Brun cuts for two more Fury. Skarath edges around the Battle Boar, hits the Night Witch, kills her and Overtakes to get into melee range with the bird. He paralyses it and does about 10 damage in the two attacks I make, and then puts up Counterblast. Sturm activates and Feats, because while I'm hoping to kill the bird it's better to be sure and this way I'll be making Krueger cut for a ton next turn. He also puts Polarity Shield back on the Dracodile and casts Deceleration again. I measure somethings out and decide I can safely kill Lord of the Feast with Mire so long as I kill the Wolf Rider Champion, and so Mire goes in and kills the Lord in two attacks. Eilish Puppet Masters the Dracodile, who starts swinging away at the bird. I get lucky for the first few attacks, but with the final initial (his right claw) I opt to boost and kill the Wolf Rider Champion. Need a 10 to hit because of Annoyance. Miss. Reroll with Puppet Master. Still miss. Figure oh well, I'll kill her with something else, the Storm Raptor is more important. Leave the Storm Raptor on about 7 boxes. I Primal the War Hog and manage to wrangle a landing spot where I can kill the Storm Raptor with one Cleaver attack, but the following two swings on the Wolf Rider Champion both miss. ...crap. Over on the left I primal Lug with a Battle Boar. Lug chews his way through five Bloodtrackers. Brun activates, kills the Bloodtracker who is engaging him with a Frost Hammer, then charges Nuala and kills her. That allows my Gobber Chef to run to the flag. One bright spot about this disaster. Wolf Rider is still contesting my zone. My opponent has nothing positioned to score his zone or flag. Score goes to 1-0 my favour. Circle Turn 3 Well, no point in waiting around. The Wolf Rider Champion walks to the edge of the War Hog's melee range and jumps behind Mire, killing him handily. Throws her spear at Orin and misses. The Bloodpack charge the War Hog but flub about half their attack rolls and leave him on about 10 boxes. Krueger backs up to stand among the stones so that they can heal some of the 5 damage he just took from cutting for five Fury and casts Gale Wind again. The Stones only heal 2. The Ravagers charge Skarath and 6s to hit continue to be a bane for my opponent. One of them (the one directly in front of Skarath, I wait until he comes in as he's the one who might block an assassination run on Krueger) gets hit by a Counterblast bite attack but I roll double ones for damage. He promptly heals back to full health with Rapid Healing. By the end of their swings he's only landed two charge attacks, one of which was absorbed by Skarath. One Ravager does kill the 5 health Battle Boar though, and the rest of the unit killed Brun (and by extension Lug). The two remaining Bloodtrackers move Prey to the Gobber Chef, kill him, move it to the Mist Speaker, fail to kill the Mist Speaker. The Blood Shaman runs to score the flag. Score now 1-1. Pigs Turn 3 The Wild Dracodile eats one of the Ravagers engaging Skarath, which is helpful. The War Hog hits but fails to kill a Bloodpack member. Rapid Healing largely repairs the damage again. I have a pretty clear assassination run available to me. Dahlia upkeeps Haunting Melody and runs, ducking and weaving past a whole lot of Ravagers who aren't allowed to attack her. The last Battle Boar Primals Skarath and swings ineffectually at a Ravager. Sturm comes forward. Because the Ravager directly in front of Skarath is Paralysed, he's only Def 12 in melee and under Gale Winds. I boost a TK and hit him, placing him out of the way. I then Vision Skarath so that he can ignore a free strike from the White Mane and TK him forward. Eilish puts Puppet Master on Skarath. Skarath activates and charges Krueger. Boosts to hit. Hits Krueger, and that's game. Hoooo boy I played that badly. Stupid mistake after stupid mistake. That's my first time getting Mire killed after what has to be getting close to 15 games played with this list. That said, in spite of all that, I haven't actually lost a game with this list yet. That one was pretty close, had Krueger chosen to hide to the left and score his zone instead of trying to get healed up then I wouldn't have had an assassination run to go for and Skarath would have been left with a ridiculous amount of heavy lifting to do. I just let so many elements of my opponent's list do work that I didn't need to do. Didn't need to hand Lug on a platter to the Bloodtrackers. Didn't need to almost get Brun killed by putting him within 4" of Lug. Didn't need to let the Night Witch strip Polarity Shield. Didn't need to use Mire to kill the Lord of the Feast and get killed by the Champion. It's quite the litany. Honestly, letting the Raptor get to me wasn't actually that bad. I could have allowed it just to bait the bird in and get it off the table. Once it goes down I think the Dracodile can largely ride out the rest of the game in safety. I have been pretty negligent in remembering my old rules about positioning models where opponents can charge them to get to the Dracodile though, and it was good to learn that lesson again. It's one I had to be a lot more cognizant of with the Meat Thresher, but the Dracodile's resilience makes it a lot more forgiving to mistakes like that and I've definitely been getting sloppy (it happened in the previous game as well, when my opponent charged the Toro into the Battle Boar and bought swings on the Dracodile).
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Post by qc on Nov 7, 2018 7:59:41 GMT
Doesn't part of the Sturm feats about stopping alocating is a pulse - so using admonition shouldn't matter? Or am I misreading it?
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Post by Azahul on Nov 7, 2018 9:12:52 GMT
Doesn't part of the Sturm feats about stopping alocating is a pulse - so using admonition shouldn't matter? Or am I misreading it? Don't worry, you're not seeing things. I was pretty sure that was the case, but my opponent seemed sure it was an aura and I was pretty occupied with planning out the rest of my turn at the time and worried a bit about playing this list on clock (I think this may have been my first time playing it on clock) so I didn't contest it at the time. Did realise we played it wrong afterwards, forgot to mention that in the write-up. Not a big deal though. May have cost Lug his life, but I won the attrition game pretty comfortably. Call it a trade for my opponent then forgetting about Admonition on the Nomad later
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Post by ghoulio on Nov 7, 2018 15:43:28 GMT
Azahul, I had a question for you. What list would you take against Madrak 1 (or Trolls in general)? I played in a tournament a few weeks ago (28 players) and I basically main lined your Arkadius list from WTC for all 4 games. In my 4 games I got at least 1 War Hog on the enemy casters but 2 of those games were against Madrak 1 and I ended up failing to kill him both times. The first was my own fault I didnt seal the deal (should have gone attrition as I easily could have killed his Glacier King but got greedy) and the second game I got diced as he toughed a bunch. Both games I almost felt that I had to go for the caster kill because if I didnt I think attrition would have swung really far in favor of Madrak. I had never played him before that tourney and it felt like Arkadius wasnt totally the best answer. Any tips on that match up would be greatly appreciated. Thanks and keep up the Battle Reports as they are the reason I keep coming back to these forums!
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