Post by Azahul on Dec 12, 2018 1:10:38 GMT
I wanted to play another game or two of Sturm into Primal Terrors just to cement my thoughts on the match-up, since the last time I played it I was still learning the Sturm list. Managed to line up a game with my Legion opponent from round one of this recent tournament, leading to the following match-up:
Sturm and Drang
-War Hog
-Battle Boar
-Battle Boar
-Soul Slave
Mire
-Dracodile
Brun
-Lug
Dahlia
-Skarath
Orin
Eilish
Mist Speaker
Gobber Chef
vs
Anamag
-Blightbring
-Ammok
Max Warmongers
-Gorag
Max Warmongers
Max Warmongers
Max Chosen
Hellmouth
Hellmouth
Warmonger Chieftain
Spell Martyr
Spell Martyr
Deployment
My opponent won the starting roll and took first turn. I took the clearly superior table side loaded with cover and forests to lurk vulnerable support models behind. His deployment was pretty simple, Gorag's Warmonger unit and one other on the left, the third Warmonger unit and the Chosen on the right, Blightbringer and Anamag central. The Hellmouths, when it came time for them, deployed on the edges of the circle zones.
Invasion feels like one of my weakest scenarios, and the Hellmouths all but guaranteed that the only scoring I'd be able to do would be central. I decided that my basic plan would be to contest two zones with the Dracodile and the third with Dahlia, rendering the scenario dead to both of us. Dahlia went on the right where she'd be able to lurk in some rubble, while the Dracodile went a little to the left so that it wouldn't need to negotiate a wall with its huge base.
Both objectives are Stockpiles.
Legion Turn 1
Anamag puts Bond of Gristle and Bone on the Chosen and his army runs up the board.
I forgot to take a picture.
Pigs Turn 1
Skarath moves up behind the wall and casts Counterblast. He riles for one. Sturm casts his roster of spells, putting Vision on Skarath and Polarity Shield on the Dracodile and Deceleration up in general. The Soul Slave TK's Skarath forward to just inside the threat range of a single Chosen, figuring that if my opponent wants to expire Vision for nothing that's an exchange I'm ok with. The Dracodile runs up to land on two zones, getting to the spot that I think it basically wants to stay in for the rest of the game. The Battle Boars position themselves as Shield Guards and Dahlia and Brun cast their respective upkeeps.
Legion Turn 2
My opponent decides that there's not any point in engaging this turn, so he just runs. One Warmonger from each unit runs to jam the Dracodile. The Blightbringer shoots and kills a Hellmouth tentacle on the right flank with his gun to create a pocket for the Chosen to sit in. Finally, Anamag moves up and decides to try and burn out one of Orin's Power Tokens with a Hex Blast, but since the Chosen are the only unit that hasn't activated at this point and they're firmly jammed out so I blow his mind a little by letting the Hex Blast go through. Anamag takes two damage from Arcane Void though. The Chosen run off to their Blightbringer AOE and my opponent ends his turn.
Pigs Turn 2
Eilish gives Puppet Master to the Dracodile, who takes a spray that lands on four Warmongers from Gorag's unit and one Warmonger from the other unit. I boost to hit one of the rearmost Warmongers and hard roll the 7s to hit the others. Only miss one attack, and hit with the Puppet Master reroll. Boost damage on the Warmonger engaging the Dracodile and on one of the other Warmongers. Kill the Warmonger engaging me. Leave three on one health. The last Warmonger only takes about 1-2 damage, something largely irrelevant. Since I've triggered Vengeance on the centre unit anyway I move the War Hog in to kill the one engaging the Dracodile on its left, along with the nearby Hellmouth tentacle. The Overtake moves allow me to circle back around the Dracodile and Mire drops a Caustic Mist to cover the War Hog's retreat. He then tosses away a Fury and casts Floodwaters.
That's basically all the actual work that gets done for the turn. Skarath puts up Counterblast and continues to lurk behind the wall, keeping the Chosen largely at arm's length. Dahlia runs into the zone, catching one of the two Chosen in range to charge Skarath inside the Haunting Melody effect. Lug runs in the opposite direction, so that I have an overlapping field of Counterblast and Countercharge around my 'caster and objective. Sturm moves up and Feats on the Blightbringer to remove the possibility of a Trample and Buy tactic, and the Soul Slave TK's him backwards.
Legion Turn 3
Two Warmongers from the left and centre units died from Corrosion. The survivors Vengeance forward, only one blind one getting close enough to swing on the Dracodile to no effect. The Blightbringer fired a shot at the War Hog, missed, and scattered hoping to snag Orin. The shot went straight backwards instead, and hit the Blind Warmonger who had just failed to hurt the Dracodile and killed him. The Blightbringer cast Boiling Blood.
Anamag, for her part, learned her lesson from the previous turn and tried to Hex Blast the Dracodile before anything else activated. Orin cancelled the spell, Eilish did a single point of damage with Arcane Void. Since she'd had to cut for four Fury in her turn that put her into single digit health. She cast Fury's Strength on the centre Warmonger unit. Three of them walked in and hit the Dracodile for about 10 points of damage between them. Gorag's unit just spread out on the left. The last Warmonger unit ran to gum up the Counterblast/Countercharge blob. The first one was neatly one-shot by Skarath's bite but passed his tough check. A second Ogrun ran in to engage Dahlia. The rest hung back. Finally, the Chosen meandered over and one took a swing on my objective, doing four damage.
Pigs Turn 3
I was in a pretty commanding position I felt, but I definitely got greedy this round. I worked out that I could probably clear a path from the Dracodile to the Blightbringer this turn. I Primal'd my War Hog and he used Overtake to clear out the rest of the centre unit of Warmongers and one of Gorag's unit, managing to unjam the Dracodile and get out of the way. Brun and Sturm worked together to clear out the jamming Warmongers on the right, and Lug was able to then charge up and kill the Chosen who had swung on the objective and managed to Overtake into the last Warmonger engaging the Dracodile. Hit him but didn't kill him, just knocking him down with Bear Hands. The Dracodile then went in on the Blightbringer. Killed him with a Fury to spare. Eilish used Unbinding to strip Bond of Gristle and Bone and did three more damage to Anamag, so she was now on six boxes. Skarath killed the Chosen over the wall and Dahlia ran up to catch the unit leader of the Chosen and one of the Warmonger units in her Control.
We also got a rule wrong somewhere over here. We couldn't see a rule preventing the Mist Speaker from using Influence on a tentacle to both kill the tentacle and drag a Chosen out of formation. Realised after the game that Inscrutable was on the tentacles as well. I did it more because it seemed funny when we couldn't see anything to stop it, and it took the Soul Slave's turn as well. Wasn't really vital for the turn's strategy.
Legion Turn 4
The Stockpile healed Anamag for one health, she then had to cut for two more. Down to five boxes at this point. Ammok used Unbinding to remove Polarity Shield. Anamag charged the Dracodile, put Fury's Strength on herself and Gorag's unit. She Feated. It took Gorag's Warmonger unit, the Chosen, and Anamag herself to put the Dracodile in the dirt. Ritual Slaughter allowed Anamag to stick Bond of Gristle and Bone on herself. The other Warmonger unit moved up to help but the knocked down one didn't stand up first so I was able to countercharge and kill the only one able to get close enough to hit the Dracodile, then return to continue engaging the others. The remaining two Warmongers there dropped the objective to two health.
Pigs Turn 4
Lug frenzied and killed a Warmonger, Skarath passed his Threshold check. Anamag is on five health with no transfer targets so I figured I might as well go for an assassination. Dice mucked with me a bit, leading to Eilish's Bleed and Orin's Chain Lightning doing no damage. Sturm tried to contribute with his spray after getting Weald Secrets from Mire, but after TKing himself forward and TKing Anamag towards him and throwing a final TK at the Chosen engaging him, he missed the Chosen and was left engaged and unable to contribute. Dahlia ran to get Anamag in control, Skarath moved up and sprayed her. He forced a Tough check, which she passed. The last attack I could get involved using the Soul Slave to TK Brun forward, charging him into the back of Anamag, and hitting her with a Frost Hammer. I got the Crit Stationary, funnily enough, and killed her with the spray.
So in retrospect I definitely think the correct play would have been to back my Dracodile up more than 10" from the Blightbringer, preventing the trample + buy combo, and to continue working over the Warmongers. One more turn and I think my opponent would have run out of models able to threaten the Dracodile even if I did commit it. Honestly, so long as I kept the zones contested I'd eventually be able to score the centre zone and win bottom of 7 (or, since I would have only been down the War Hog most likely, I'd have even been comfortable coming even on CPs and winning on points destroyed).
The other mistake was probably pushing Dahlia that far forward on the second last turn to get the Chosen unit leader in her control. The Spell Martyr was right there and if Anamag had hit her with Hex Blast it would have been nasty. Thankfully the Dracodile up in her face kept her preoccupied.
Mistakes aside, the match-up felt very comfortably in my favour. And it was pretty entertaining just how much damage Eilish and Sturm's Feat dealt to Anamag incidentally over the course of the game, effectively enabling the assassination run in the end.
Sturm and Drang
-War Hog
-Battle Boar
-Battle Boar
-Soul Slave
Mire
-Dracodile
Brun
-Lug
Dahlia
-Skarath
Orin
Eilish
Mist Speaker
Gobber Chef
vs
Anamag
-Blightbring
-Ammok
Max Warmongers
-Gorag
Max Warmongers
Max Warmongers
Max Chosen
Hellmouth
Hellmouth
Warmonger Chieftain
Spell Martyr
Spell Martyr
Deployment
My opponent won the starting roll and took first turn. I took the clearly superior table side loaded with cover and forests to lurk vulnerable support models behind. His deployment was pretty simple, Gorag's Warmonger unit and one other on the left, the third Warmonger unit and the Chosen on the right, Blightbringer and Anamag central. The Hellmouths, when it came time for them, deployed on the edges of the circle zones.
Invasion feels like one of my weakest scenarios, and the Hellmouths all but guaranteed that the only scoring I'd be able to do would be central. I decided that my basic plan would be to contest two zones with the Dracodile and the third with Dahlia, rendering the scenario dead to both of us. Dahlia went on the right where she'd be able to lurk in some rubble, while the Dracodile went a little to the left so that it wouldn't need to negotiate a wall with its huge base.
Both objectives are Stockpiles.
Legion Turn 1
Anamag puts Bond of Gristle and Bone on the Chosen and his army runs up the board.
I forgot to take a picture.
Pigs Turn 1
Skarath moves up behind the wall and casts Counterblast. He riles for one. Sturm casts his roster of spells, putting Vision on Skarath and Polarity Shield on the Dracodile and Deceleration up in general. The Soul Slave TK's Skarath forward to just inside the threat range of a single Chosen, figuring that if my opponent wants to expire Vision for nothing that's an exchange I'm ok with. The Dracodile runs up to land on two zones, getting to the spot that I think it basically wants to stay in for the rest of the game. The Battle Boars position themselves as Shield Guards and Dahlia and Brun cast their respective upkeeps.
Legion Turn 2
My opponent decides that there's not any point in engaging this turn, so he just runs. One Warmonger from each unit runs to jam the Dracodile. The Blightbringer shoots and kills a Hellmouth tentacle on the right flank with his gun to create a pocket for the Chosen to sit in. Finally, Anamag moves up and decides to try and burn out one of Orin's Power Tokens with a Hex Blast, but since the Chosen are the only unit that hasn't activated at this point and they're firmly jammed out so I blow his mind a little by letting the Hex Blast go through. Anamag takes two damage from Arcane Void though. The Chosen run off to their Blightbringer AOE and my opponent ends his turn.
Pigs Turn 2
Eilish gives Puppet Master to the Dracodile, who takes a spray that lands on four Warmongers from Gorag's unit and one Warmonger from the other unit. I boost to hit one of the rearmost Warmongers and hard roll the 7s to hit the others. Only miss one attack, and hit with the Puppet Master reroll. Boost damage on the Warmonger engaging the Dracodile and on one of the other Warmongers. Kill the Warmonger engaging me. Leave three on one health. The last Warmonger only takes about 1-2 damage, something largely irrelevant. Since I've triggered Vengeance on the centre unit anyway I move the War Hog in to kill the one engaging the Dracodile on its left, along with the nearby Hellmouth tentacle. The Overtake moves allow me to circle back around the Dracodile and Mire drops a Caustic Mist to cover the War Hog's retreat. He then tosses away a Fury and casts Floodwaters.
That's basically all the actual work that gets done for the turn. Skarath puts up Counterblast and continues to lurk behind the wall, keeping the Chosen largely at arm's length. Dahlia runs into the zone, catching one of the two Chosen in range to charge Skarath inside the Haunting Melody effect. Lug runs in the opposite direction, so that I have an overlapping field of Counterblast and Countercharge around my 'caster and objective. Sturm moves up and Feats on the Blightbringer to remove the possibility of a Trample and Buy tactic, and the Soul Slave TK's him backwards.
Legion Turn 3
Two Warmongers from the left and centre units died from Corrosion. The survivors Vengeance forward, only one blind one getting close enough to swing on the Dracodile to no effect. The Blightbringer fired a shot at the War Hog, missed, and scattered hoping to snag Orin. The shot went straight backwards instead, and hit the Blind Warmonger who had just failed to hurt the Dracodile and killed him. The Blightbringer cast Boiling Blood.
Anamag, for her part, learned her lesson from the previous turn and tried to Hex Blast the Dracodile before anything else activated. Orin cancelled the spell, Eilish did a single point of damage with Arcane Void. Since she'd had to cut for four Fury in her turn that put her into single digit health. She cast Fury's Strength on the centre Warmonger unit. Three of them walked in and hit the Dracodile for about 10 points of damage between them. Gorag's unit just spread out on the left. The last Warmonger unit ran to gum up the Counterblast/Countercharge blob. The first one was neatly one-shot by Skarath's bite but passed his tough check. A second Ogrun ran in to engage Dahlia. The rest hung back. Finally, the Chosen meandered over and one took a swing on my objective, doing four damage.
Pigs Turn 3
I was in a pretty commanding position I felt, but I definitely got greedy this round. I worked out that I could probably clear a path from the Dracodile to the Blightbringer this turn. I Primal'd my War Hog and he used Overtake to clear out the rest of the centre unit of Warmongers and one of Gorag's unit, managing to unjam the Dracodile and get out of the way. Brun and Sturm worked together to clear out the jamming Warmongers on the right, and Lug was able to then charge up and kill the Chosen who had swung on the objective and managed to Overtake into the last Warmonger engaging the Dracodile. Hit him but didn't kill him, just knocking him down with Bear Hands. The Dracodile then went in on the Blightbringer. Killed him with a Fury to spare. Eilish used Unbinding to strip Bond of Gristle and Bone and did three more damage to Anamag, so she was now on six boxes. Skarath killed the Chosen over the wall and Dahlia ran up to catch the unit leader of the Chosen and one of the Warmonger units in her Control.
We also got a rule wrong somewhere over here. We couldn't see a rule preventing the Mist Speaker from using Influence on a tentacle to both kill the tentacle and drag a Chosen out of formation. Realised after the game that Inscrutable was on the tentacles as well. I did it more because it seemed funny when we couldn't see anything to stop it, and it took the Soul Slave's turn as well. Wasn't really vital for the turn's strategy.
Legion Turn 4
The Stockpile healed Anamag for one health, she then had to cut for two more. Down to five boxes at this point. Ammok used Unbinding to remove Polarity Shield. Anamag charged the Dracodile, put Fury's Strength on herself and Gorag's unit. She Feated. It took Gorag's Warmonger unit, the Chosen, and Anamag herself to put the Dracodile in the dirt. Ritual Slaughter allowed Anamag to stick Bond of Gristle and Bone on herself. The other Warmonger unit moved up to help but the knocked down one didn't stand up first so I was able to countercharge and kill the only one able to get close enough to hit the Dracodile, then return to continue engaging the others. The remaining two Warmongers there dropped the objective to two health.
Pigs Turn 4
Lug frenzied and killed a Warmonger, Skarath passed his Threshold check. Anamag is on five health with no transfer targets so I figured I might as well go for an assassination. Dice mucked with me a bit, leading to Eilish's Bleed and Orin's Chain Lightning doing no damage. Sturm tried to contribute with his spray after getting Weald Secrets from Mire, but after TKing himself forward and TKing Anamag towards him and throwing a final TK at the Chosen engaging him, he missed the Chosen and was left engaged and unable to contribute. Dahlia ran to get Anamag in control, Skarath moved up and sprayed her. He forced a Tough check, which she passed. The last attack I could get involved using the Soul Slave to TK Brun forward, charging him into the back of Anamag, and hitting her with a Frost Hammer. I got the Crit Stationary, funnily enough, and killed her with the spray.
So in retrospect I definitely think the correct play would have been to back my Dracodile up more than 10" from the Blightbringer, preventing the trample + buy combo, and to continue working over the Warmongers. One more turn and I think my opponent would have run out of models able to threaten the Dracodile even if I did commit it. Honestly, so long as I kept the zones contested I'd eventually be able to score the centre zone and win bottom of 7 (or, since I would have only been down the War Hog most likely, I'd have even been comfortable coming even on CPs and winning on points destroyed).
The other mistake was probably pushing Dahlia that far forward on the second last turn to get the Chosen unit leader in her control. The Spell Martyr was right there and if Anamag had hit her with Hex Blast it would have been nasty. Thankfully the Dracodile up in her face kept her preoccupied.
Mistakes aside, the match-up felt very comfortably in my favour. And it was pretty entertaining just how much damage Eilish and Sturm's Feat dealt to Anamag incidentally over the course of the game, effectively enabling the assassination run in the end.