Had a couple more Sturm and Drang games over the weekend. The first one was into Trolls, playing Kolgrimma. He was running:
Kolgrimma
-Mauler
-Bomber
-Runebearer
Max Champions
-Skaldi
Min Krielstone
-Northkin Elder
Fire Eaters
Fire Eaters
Bears
Bears
Valka
Fell Caller
Whelps
Deployment
I lost the starting roll and picked a table side with a forest just outside of deployment. The rationale was basically that I could hide Lesser Warlocks behind it to avoid Kolgrimma's sprays and it wouldn't slow my mostly Pathfinder army down too much. My opponent opted to ambush the bears in. I set up with Dahlia and Skarath on my left, Brun and Lug and Mire behind the forest, the Dracodile sort of half-in half-out of the forest, and Sturm and Drang and the War Hog to the right of the Dracodile. A Battle Boar lurked out on each flank as well. My opponent had set up with Champions in the centre, Valka on the left, and heavies and Kolgrimma on the right.
I forgot to take a picture of deployment. His objective hands out Pathfinder, mine heals.
Trolls Turn 1
His army runs forward, the Fire Eaters end up positioned so that it's possible for me to spray one from each unit with my sprays. Kolgrimma clouds up in front of the right flank Fire Eaters and dumps a couple of Fury into the stone, which Awakens up to max Fury. Champions receive Pathfinder from the Fell Caller and run up.
I forgot to take a picture again.
Pigs Turn 1
I decide to get some early attrition with the sprays. I Guidance and Puppet Master the Dracodile and declare a charge on the Bomber. The Assault Spray clips one of the lead Fire Eaters and kills him. Skarath puts up Counter Blast, walks forward, and kills a second Fire Eater. Dahlia casts Haunting Melody, Sturm and Drang put Deceleration up, Polarity Shield on the Dracodile, and Vision goes on Lug (Skarath being on the other side of the forest). I push Brun, with Stonehold, and Lug a little far forward so that their counter charge shenanigans can overlap with Counterblast and just really make the left flank Fire Eaters regret their 6" sprays. Thanks to their Immunity Cold I can feel safe with Brun in the forest rather than behind it, since Kolgrimma straight up can't hurt him or his bear. The threat of the Bears ambushing on the right forces me to tuck the War Hog behind the Dracodile, screened from Kolgrimma by a cloud from Mire, and pile the rest of my support models in behind with everything within 3" of Orin.
Trolls Turn 2
Had we only decided to play on clock, I reckon I'd have won on deathclock this turn. My opponent spent probably around thirty minutes trying to work out what his options were. The Fire Eaters couldn't do much on the left without dying, and had no good targets on the right. The Bears didn't want to ambush in down the field, because on the left they'd just get locked down by Haunting Melody and on the right there was a War Hog lurking in the backlines waiting for them. Ultimately he ended up deciding to just push forward and see what his options were next turn. The Bears ambushed in well upfield on the right, running to clam up the right-hand zone. A Fire Eater Pyg charged Lug on the left and got killed by the Counter Charge, with Lug using Return to get back behind the forest where the second one couldn't charge him. The second one ran rather than try to spray Skarath. The Champions received Pathfinder from the Fell Caller again and moved up on the other side of the forest. Valka moved up behind the last Fire Eater on the left. The Bomber moved up behind the wall and shot the Dracodile twice, with the second shot being Shield Guarded onto the left Battle Boar. A decent bit of damage was dealt to both of them even through Deceleration. The Fire Eaters on the right went for a charge on the Battle Boar, with the rear one hitting the lead one with his spray and leaving the lead one on 1 box. The Battle Boar ended up with about 8-9 health at the end of this.
Pigs Turn 2
Sturm upkeeps his spells, activates, casts Deceleration, and sprays through the Dracodile. He kills both Fire Eaters. The Dracodile then receives Puppet Master, activates, and walks to toe the right-hand zone. It sprays two bears (one from each unit) boosting to hit and damage the lead one. Puppet Master proves redundant, as it not only hits both but also rolls high enough to kill both (getting the 11 on 2d6 needed to kill the bear with the unboosted roll). Both pass their Tough checks.
Over on the left I go for what I hope will be a quick hit-and-run to kill Valka. Lug is TK'd forward by the Soul Slave and charges in, hits Valka, only does about 4 damage. The second attack only does two. The chain attack grab and smash throes Valka into the Fire Eater (who is immune to knockdown). The Fire Eater Toughs. Valka dies to the first bought attack, leaving Lug high and dry and facing about three Champion charges next turn. Skarath moves up and casts Counter Blast, spraying the Fire Eater but missing. I space out my Shield Guards behind the Dracodile a little bit better this time, so I can Shield Guard with the Battle Boar and War Hog behind the Dracodile without risking Orin's life. Mire throws a cloud down in front of Orin.
Trolls Turn 3
Fire goes out on the Fire Eater. Both knocked down Bears die to Corrosion. Champions charge Lug and the objective, killing both (with +2 Mat from the Fell Caller and +2 Strength from the stone). The Bomber kills the Battle Boar in the zone. The Fire Eater moves up to attack Skarath and dies to the Counterblast shot. Kolgrimma activates and Feats on Skarath and the Dracodile, pushing Skarath out of the left zone. My opponent then realises if he'd kept the Fire Eater back he'd be scoring 3 CP this turn. The Bears left just mill around.
My opponent scores the centre zone, so together with my objective the score is 0-2 in his favour.
Pigs Turn 3
I'm pretty sure I can kill five of the Champions this turn, and after that my opponent's only real threats to my army are his heavies and I'll have the left zone entirely locked down. I start pumping incidental damage onto the Champions with the ranged attacks who'd been out of Kolgrimma's Feat to reduce the effectiveness of Sanguine Bond, firing off Chain Lightnings with Orin and a Blunderbuss shot with Brun. The War Hog goes in on the Champions in the centre zone and kills them both. Skarath goes in on the three in the left zone. He forces four Tough checks on the three Champions. They pass all of them. Dahlia is close enough to Skaldi to shut down charges from Skaldi, but I neglected to actually put her in the zone. The Dracodile basically just sits where it is, continuing its staring match with the Bomber and Bears. Sturm puts up Deceleration again and casts Vision on himself for want of anything better to do.
No points scored, so the score remains 0-2 in my opponent's favour.
Trolls Turn 4
Well, thanks to Tough my opponent has a lot more threat on the table than I anticipated. The Champions receive their buffs again and kill Skarath, though it takes all three of them. One unit of bears come forwards into the centre zone just to jam me up. The other one hides behind the fog on the right.
Since I have nothing contesting the Champions are able to score the left zone, bringing the score to 0-3 in my opponent's favour.
Pigs Turn 4
This is getting surprisingly desperate. Sturm stays in control and upkeeps his spells. I TK the War Hog forward with the Soul Slave, Primal him with the Battle Boar, Puppet Master him with Eilish, and bring Mire uncomfortably far forward to cast Weald Secrets. He charges my opponent's objective, I opt not to Aggression Dial, and the charge attack leaves it on about 4 boxes with the charge attack. I then kill the Mauler in four Cleaver swings thanks to Puppet Master turning a poor swing into a spike, leaving me with one attack to spare to finish off the objective. One of the Whelps who spawns as part of this is in the zone, but Orin finishes him off with a Chain Lightning. All I need to do now is kill the bear and Handler in the centre zone with the Dracodile. Dracodile activates, makes its bite on the bear. Misses. Makes a claw on the bear. Misses. Makes a tail swing at the bear. Misses. Boosts his claw on the Handler. Misses. Buys a Bite on the bear. Hits. The bear Toughs. Buys a bite on the bear. Kills the bear.
Unfortunately, if I buy one more attack on the Handler I'm now maxed on Fury and Mire can't transfer. I'm not willing to take the risk. Orin tries to kill the Handler with a Chain Lightning but fails. The Gobber Chef runs up behind the Dracodile because it has 3 Fury and Mire will only be able to leach 2. Sturm tries to do what the Dracodile couldn't with his spray, misses. He Feats to set the Bomber's Fury to 1 and puts up Deceleration.
Over on the left, Brun charges a Champion. The Champion Toughs the charge attack. Brun buys and boosts the second attack, and this time the Champion fails to Tough. Dahlia runs behind the fire on the left and gets within 8" of Skaldi to lock down the left zone.
So with that the score is now 1-3 in my opponent's favour.
Trolls Turn 5
Kolgrimma decides to go for a scenario play on the left. The stone unit moves across to serve as spray beacons for her and one charges Brun, killing him. She walks and Vanishes to get within 8" of Dahlia and sprays a Krielstone unit member to get Dahlia behind the fire. She kills Dahlia handily. Skaldi and the Fell Caller take some swings on the War Hog for a fair bit of damage. The Bomber walks into the zone, uses Snipe to get range on the Battle Boar, hits the Battle Boar with a single unboosted shot for a few points of damage.
My opponent scores the left zone, bringing the score to 1-4.
Pigs Turn 5
This going to Turn 7 and losing on CP is becoming a real possibility. The War Hog frenzies on a Whelp that ran forward to soak the frenzy attack. The Battle Boar walks forward to kill the Handler in the zone, who finally dies. The Battle Boar overtakes backwards and out of the charge lane for the Dracodile. The Soul Slave receives Weald Secrets from Mire and runs to the left zone. The Dracodile charges the Bomber with Puppet Master up. Kills the Bomber, who is outside the Krielstone Aura, and the Fell Caller. I realise I'm unable to get to Skaldi with anything except Sturm's spray, so this becomes the turn I invite the assassination run. Sturm TK's himself forward and walks up to spray Skaldi. Boosts hit and damage on Skaldi. Skaldi fails his Tough check. The Mist Speaker runs so that the bears on the right can't see him from behind the cloud and contests the right-hand zone.
I score the centre zone, bringing the score to 2-4 in my opponent's favour.
Trolls Turn 6
My opponent has basically run out of models able to kill the Dracodile now. The Champions have lost all Pathfinder access and can't get to anything and the last bear and handler are too far away to do what they could. He could play this out to Turn 7, but after this round I can (hopefully) clear the right-hand zone with Sturm and the Dracodile and if I do that I'll be able to score in his turn 7 as well, which will either bring the score level or put me in front and either way I think we worked out I win. So he goes for the assassination. The Runebearer gives Kolgrimma Harmonious Exaltation. She comes up and sprays Sturm four times. At this point she's on 12 health from cutting for Fury and each time she sprays she takes another d3 from Arcane Void. The first spray gets the Crit Stationary, does 6 damage to Sturm, and she takes 3 damage. The second spray hits Sturm and I remember Vision, so it does nothing and she takes another 3 damage. The third spray hits Sturm and does 7 more damage. Kolgrimma takes 1 from Arcane Void (nooo, my Arcane Void assassination
). The last spray obviously gets Transferred and she takes 3 more damage, leaving her on 2 health in front of the Dracodile.
At this point my opponent works out he has no more attacks on Sturm and concedes.
Hoo boy. That game felt very much in my favour on paper, but a couple of poor plays on my part and ridiculously skewed dice swung it hard. I think my opponent made in the realm of 80% of Tough checks, the only ones I actually remember him failing were one of the Champions the War Hog killed Turn 3, the Champion Brun killed Turn 4, and Skaldi and the Fell Caller on Turn 5. And the Fire Eaters on the left all failed Tough checks at one point or another I guess. Eventually.
The poor play I think was mostly on the left flank. I'd spaced on how tough Valka was and thought I'd be able to sneakily get a free kill with Lug there, but instead basically traded the bear away. Seeing as the bear was immune to Kolgrimma's attrition that was a poor move, since he was basically my backpocket late game super piece. Then I threw Skarath away because... well, because Tough mostly, had I just killed one of the Champions Skarath would have survived the retaliation and probably cleaned up the left zone eventually. But I think both heavies would have been better served by just hanging back, contesting the zone, and bullying with their Counterblast/Counter Charges.
That game also took about four hours to play. In a tournament I'd probably have won on Deathclock top of two, top of three at the very latest. If anything made me super happy about the list this game, it was watching my opponent's brain melt out his ears as he tried to work out if there was anything he could do