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Post by Azahul on Jan 6, 2020 4:52:47 GMT
Alrighty, got a few more games to report. First of all, a quick Arkadius vs Wurmwood game to get back into the swing of competitive match-ups. The lists were: Arkadius -War Hog -War Hog -Road Hog -Road Hog -Gun Boar -Gun Boar -Gorax -Targ Bellows Crew Void Archon Void Archon Kwaak and Gub Boomhowler2 Hermit of Henge Hold Gatorman Witch Doctor Gobber Chef Wurmwood -Ghetorix -Gorax Max Ravagers -Chieftain Max Ravagers -Chieftain Min Bloodtrackers Shifting Stones Shifting Stones Boil Master and Spirit Cauldron Lord of the Feast Wolf Rider Champion Wolf Rider Champion Gallows Grove Gallows Grove Well of Orboros Deployment My opponent won the starting roll and took first. I handed him the table side with a big swathe of Burning Earth in front of his deployment zone. He set up a unit of Ravagers on the left and centre, the Blood Pack and Wolf Riders on the right, and Well in the middle. I responded by deploying both War Hogs on my left flank, where they could face off against the Ravagers and Ghetorix, and both Gun Boars with Targ on the right to get into some ranged duels with the Blood Pack there. Arkadius, the Road Hogs, and most of the solos deployed in the centre, and I put a Void Archon on each flank and a Gobber Chef on the left where it would be able to run to the flag. The Sentry Stones are proxies for Gallows Groves. Circle Turn 1 Everything ran up. Wurmwood dropped a Forest template to extend the central forest somewhat. The Spirit Cauldron loaded up Lord of the Feast. Ghetorix ran over to the right flank, while the Ravagers tripped over themselves somewhat running left. Pigs Turn 1 My opponent had left a fair few models clumped up, so I decided a Turn 1 Raw Adrenaline Ancillary Attack would be a good play. Most of my Warbeasts ran up the board. Arkadius put Forced Evolution on the more central War Hog, Maltreated a Fury off the Gorax, put a boosted Raw Adrenaline needle into the closest Gun Boar, put Guardian Beast on herself, and Repositioned forward. The Gun Boar then ran and Targ moved up and used Ancillary Attack to shoot half of the Blood Pack dead and leave one knocked down and short a couple of boxes. The second Gun Boar wandered up and took a shot, scattered straight forward onto the one upright Blood Pack, and boosted damage to kill him. That done, I mostly ran the Void Archons into the clump in the centre to give myself some options on how I committed them next turn. My left flank War Hog opted to walk, since it didn't want to go too far forward in any case and I had a tad too much Fury on the board for it to run. Circle Turn 2 My opponent wanted to get a Hellmouth into the Void Archons to chip them down and remove Targ, at the very least. Cassius ran up, Wurmwood took a boosted Hellmouth, and missed the Archon. The tree then Feated and used Dark Path to pull Cassius back, and then Dark Path again to jump in front of Cassius over on the left. The Wolf Rider Champions all moved, jumped, and threw their spears at the right flank Gun Boar, doing about 8-9 points of damage, and then Repositioned behind my army. Everything else just ran. The Well summoned a White Mane, which ran out towards the right flank where a Gallows Grove was already on my opponent's flag. The green templates more or less mark out where Wurmwood's forest is extending out to. Pigs Turn 2 We measured and rolled things out and I had a pretty reliable assassination run on Wurmwood. In a nutshell, I had to run the Road Hog and War Hog on the left into the forest and Feat the remaining Road Hog into the back of the first Road Hog, then feat the second Road Hog into the War Hog, putting my unactivated Road Hog close enough to walk into melee with Wurmwood and start swinging. The intervening models were all cleaned out by a Void Archon, which then Repositioned into melee with Wurmwood to help set up the Road Hog's kill. With that established, we rewound to see how the attrition game would work. The Gobber Chef on the left ran to contest my opponent's zone and engage a Ravager in the back arc. A Void Archon moved up on the right flank, sprayed both a Gallows Grove and the last of the Blood Pack dead, then used Void Walk to pull back to safety with a couple of souls. Boomhowler gave Hermit reposition, I had half a mind to have him reduce the armour on the Wolf Rider Champions to up my odds of killing them both, but then Boomhowler took some potshots at the closest Champion and scored a Crit Knockdown on the first one to make killing it easy. The Gun Boars proceeded to shoot both Wolf Riders off the table. The Bellows Crew advanced into the central zone and dropped their cloud to limit Ravager charges on my battlegroup. Hermit ran to contest my opponent's flag and be an obstacle that would require some dedication to remove next turn. Everything else, by and large, remained where it was. I scored my own zone with a Gun Boar, putting the score at 1-0 in my favour. Circle Turn 3 My opponent's game at this point crutched on being able to run up the CP score enough that he'd be able to pull out a win next round. Ravagers charged and killed the Bellows Crew Gobbers (I think my Void Archons forgot to collect souls from them, oops) and the Hermit, whose death prevented Ghetorix from being able to charge. Between that and my opponent trying to avoid triggering Guardian Beast and Counterblast, he ended up not contesting my zone which was quite a big boon for me. The Ravagers on the left advanced, allowing the one engaging the Chef to turn and try and kill the Chef, but he flubbed both swings. That meant Lord of the Feast had to come over and finish the job, which in turn required Cassius to run onto my flag to score. Wurmwood chose to basically just camp all his Fury, since Cassius running to the left flank meant that he couldn't be used to channel a Hellmouth that may have pulled my Gun Boar out of my zone. My opponent scored both flags, his zone, and the central zone, while I scored my zone again to make the score 2-4 in his favour. Pigs Turn 3 My Void Archons went to work first. The one on the right advanced and sprayed down two Ravagers, teleported into melee with Ghetorix and a third Ravager, and killed the Ravager and put some hurt on Ghetorix at the cost of all its souls. The other Void Archon charged and sprayed Cassius, killing him and one of the Ravagers on that flank. I kind of spaced and forgot to put him actually on the flag to score. The Gun Boars on the right flank advanced and shot up the remaining Ravagers and tried to kill the White Mane, but didn't quite manage it. Arkadius activated then and Feated, dropping most of the Shifting Stones by putting the heavies into them and sending the War Hog on the right with Forced Evolution up towards Ghetorix. She then advanced and applied Raw Adrenaline to one Road Hog, and then risked an unboosted Crippling Grasp onto the left unit of Ravagers. She hit, and then chose to camp her remaining Fury rather than risk another Raw Adrenaline or anything like that, and Repositioned back into the trench. My opponent, seeing that I still had my heavies left to activate, opted to concede. I think due to some mistakes I'd made that my best case scenario here would have been scoring just one more CP, but I should have been able to contest my opponent's zone at least and stop him from scoring. That would have left the score at 3-4, requiring four more CPs to win, and with no Warbeasts on the right flank my opponent was never going to score my zone and I should have been able to make scoring the centre pretty hard once I finished cleaning up Ravagers. Might have been close in the long run, but ultimately my opponent had lost too many troops without taking any of my pieces to bring the game back I think.
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Post by Azahul on Jan 6, 2020 6:08:51 GMT
The other game I have to report is an Oblivion campaign game. I've been playing a few of these in the past few weeks, following on from the Prologue earlier, but sadly my camera issues meant that I didn't record them. Most of the games were more Prologue games against other players in the campaign, and then a game as an Antagonist wherein Helga fighting for the Corruptors tried and failed to prevent Kromac, that legendary guardian of the world, from saving some beleaguered defenders in a watchtower. As for the game I do have a report on, we come now to Lord Carver and his efforts to refuel a damaged Meat Thresher before the local Crucible Guard forces can wrest control of their fuel depot back. The army lists were as follows: Lord Carver -Road Hog -Road Hog -War Hog -Battle Boar -Targ Valkyries Razorback Crew Locke -Vindicator -Toro -Liberator -Alyce Max Storm Troopers Dragon's Breath Rockets Mechanik Trancer Amusingly comparable armies, in a way. A few battlegroup pieces, an artillery piece each, a unit each, a Warlock/Warcaster attachment each... just an extra heavy on the pig side versus a bigger unit and a pair of extra solos on the Crucible Guard side. Deployment I won the starting roll and took first. With such a small army, I basically just clumped up everything in the centre. A Road Hog covered each flank, and a War Hog aimed down the centre. My opponent put his Vindicator on the left, Toro and Stormtroopers on the right. For anyone unfamiliar, the scenario here is called Fuel for the Flames I think. The game plays for seven rounds, unless someone scores a caster kill before that. Each player scores in their Maintenance phase, scoring one point for a Fuel Cache (the objective markers) if they have a model and no enemies within 2", and scoring two points if they do the same with the central obstruction (the Meat Thresher in this instance). I also adjusted the Razorback Crew's position after this picture was taken, allowing me to score on my first turn. I was playing Thornfall Alliance, so the pile of Trench Templates in the middle there are my theme benefit. Pigs Turn 1 Carver cast Batten Down the Hatches and Mobility. Everything else ran. I scored 1 CP at the start of my turn, making the score 1-0 in my favour. Crucible Guard Turn 1 Locke cast Road to War and put Sentry on the Vindicator. The Vindicator advanced and scattered a Psychoactive Gas shot into the Road Hog, adding a Fury and doing a point of damage. Everything else ran, the Trancer engaging the Road Hog. My opponent scored in their turn from deploying within 2" of the nearest objective, making the score 1-1. Pigs Turn 2 The Road Hog on the left passed its Threshold check, and proceeded to kill the Trancer engaging it (we totally forgot that in Oblivion, Dense Fog terrain has an additional rule requiring you to run if you start your turn in it). The Razorback took a potshot at the Vindicator, spiked and did 10 damage, and Repositioned back into the trench. Everything else basically shuffled around a little, I pulled the War Hog back and let the Road Hog sit in the forward most position to apply a bit more threat range. Targ moved back to babysit my objective. I forgot to take a picture. Crucible Guard Turn 2 The Vindicator's Sentry Shot scattered into the trench and spiked crazy high on damage and killed both members of the Razorback Crew, both of whom failed their Tough checks. The Shocktroopers shot and killed a Valkyrie, allowing the Toro to move up with Road to War. Locke Feated and put Redline on the Toro, which charged and killed the Road Hog. The Vindicator took another shot and managed to add some Fury to the Road Hog again. Boosted damage yielded just a single point of damage. I forgot to take a picture again. My opponent scored their Fuel Cache, making the score 1-2 in their favour. Pigs Turn 3 I charged my Valkyries into the Toro, doing some chip damage. Carver then activated, cast Batten Down the Hatches, put Quagmire on the Valkyries, and took a shot with his shotgun to chip the Toro a little further (using both Barrels). The War Hog then finished the Toro off. I scored my objective this turn, making the score 2-2. Crucible Guard Turn 3 The Sentry shot at the Road Hog scattered into the Trench again and added Fury to both the Road Hog and the Battle Boar. The Stormtroopers mostly aimed at the Valkyries, though one member of the unit did move off towards the objective on the right. They killed the Valkyries and did a bit of damage to the War Hog, helped by a Dragon's Breath Rocket shot that managed to scatter from a missed shot on the Valkyrie to land on top of the War Hog. Road to War helped move the Vindicator around behind the wall to get a bead on the War Hog, leaving its mind with just one hit point remaining. Locke backed up behind her Fuel Cache. I forgot to take a picture. My opponent scored their own objective to make the score 2-3. Pigs Turn 4 The Battle Boar had one Fury on it extra thanks to all the Psychoactive Gas, but passed its threshold check. Carver activated, cast Batten and Mobility, and Feated. The Battle Boar put Primal on the Road Hog, allowing it to Full Boar, walk 9" around the Meat Thresher, and overtake through the Dragon's Breath rocket with its first three attacks. It then smashed the Vindicator in two swings and Sprinted a cool 10" back to the left objective. The War Hog, meanwhile, took advantage of the Overtake aspect of the Feat to surf through four of the five Storm Troopers. I scored my own objective to make the score 3-3. Crucible Guard Turn 4 Locke handed the Liberator some Focus and tossed Redline on top. The Liberator moved in, rolled like the blazes, and left the War Hog barely alive. The Storm Trooper and Locke each scored their respective Fuel Caches, making the score 3-5 in my opponent's favour. Pigs Turn 5 Fire nearly finished the War Hog off, leaving it on one health. The Road Hog frenzied off towards Alyce. Carver cast Batten, moved up to start scoring the Meat Thresher, and healed the damaged aspects on the War Hog. The Battle Boar moved to contest the right-hand Fuel Cache and put Primal on the War Hog. The War Hog boosted the Gore Attack, got the Crit Knockdown, and trashed the Liberator. I scored both my side and the left Fuel Cache at the start of the turn, pulling the score level again at 5-5. Crucible Guard Turn 5 Alyce shifted into beast form, swung ineffectually at the Road Hog, and backed up onto the left Fuel Cache. Locke killed the War Hog with Engine of Destruction up. The Storm Trooper managed to roll snake eyes to miss the Battle Boar. The Mechanik ran to contest the Meat Thresher. My opponent scored his own objective, going to 5-6. Pigs Turn 6 The Road Hog killed Alyce. The Battle Boar killed the Storm Trooper. Carver cast Batten and healed the Battle Boar for one. I scored my own objective, making the score 6-6. Crucible Guard Turn 6 Locke and the Mechanik tried to kill the Battle Boar, and failed leaving it with a few boxes left. With no scoring in his turn, the score remained at 6-6. Pigs Turn 7 With no chance of my opponent being able to catch up on scoring at this point, Carver healed up the Battle Boar and it tried and failed to kill Locke, only doing a few points of damage. I scored the Meat Thresher and the left and bottom Fuel Caches, taking the score to 10-6. Crucible Guard Turn 7 Locke finished off the Battle Boar and the Mechanik moved over to contest the Meat Thresher once more. A comprehensive scenario win for the pigs, which was not something I initially expected to happen when I read the scenario and saw that scenario points only become relevant if the game went for seven rounds. It was nice to see Carver at work for the first time in a while. Just about optimal conditions for him too, once the Toro was off the board there was nothing in the army that hit so hard that Batten became irrelevant, letting me swing attrition pretty significantly. The scenario scoring at the start of the turn was a little mind bending, it made contesting very relevant once it was clear that it was going to go down to scenario points, but I basically just made it my objective to get my opponent down to fewer pieces than I had scoring objectives and that ended up closing out the game.
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Post by zwergenkrieger on Jan 7, 2020 15:33:19 GMT
Hi,
totally enjoyed reading your last report. I wish I still had a gaming group in my area, istead the game seems to be on a poor state here. People leave the game and sell their miniatures...
Just noticed that you started this very thread here almost 3 years ago. And if I remember correctly your "old" thread also lasted for several years. This is really impressive! I learnt so much by reading all your batreps, got lots of inspirations to build Pigs lists. I highly enjoyed playing your iteration of Carver beast spam and you showed me some secret tech of Arkadius.
And here, today you posted some more batreps with Arkadius and Carver.
I hope the game will start to become popular once more. It´s such a thrilling game.
Thanks for sharing all that content!
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Post by Azahul on Jan 7, 2020 21:51:34 GMT
Hi, totally enjoyed reading your last report. I wish I still had a gaming group in my area, istead the game seems to be on a poor state here. People leave the game and sell their miniatures... Just noticed that you started this very thread here almost 3 years ago. And if I remember correctly your "old" thread also lasted for several years. This is really impressive! I learnt so much by reading all your batreps, got lots of inspirations to build Pigs lists. I highly enjoyed playing your iteration of Carver beast spam and you showed me some secret tech of Arkadius. And here, today you posted some more batreps with Arkadius and Carver. I hope the game will start to become popular once more. It´s such a thrilling game. Thanks for sharing all that content! Sorry to hear about the state of your local meta Fingers crossed that you can find some way to pull it back from the brink. Thank you for the kind words though. I hadn't been paying attention to how long this thread had been going for, that's really cool. I'm sure Arkadius games will be getting reported for years to come. Carver... not as often, I play him more as a palate cleanser really these days than as anything competitive, but he may make an appearance from time to time. I certainly intend to keep him going in the Oblivion campaign if nothing else. For the moment my main objective is to start getting more games in with Sturm. I've been neglecting him a little now that I have all these new tools to use with Arkadius, and I should really aim to brush up on him before the next big tournament in a few weeks.
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Post by Azahul on Jan 8, 2020 3:55:14 GMT
Played a couple of competitive practice games this week. The first one was a Zerkova2 vs Sturm and Drang game, to get the hang of playing Sturm again. The lists were: Sturm and Drang -War Hog -Battle Boar -Battle Boar -Soul Slave Bellows Crew Mire -Dracodile Dahlia -Skarath Brun -Lug Orin Eilish Zerkova2 -Destroyer -Rager -Adjunct Max Outriders Min Outriders Ternion Ternion Doom Reavers -Escort Void Archon Void Archon Koldun Lord Koldun Lord Alexia2 Butcher4 Deployment My opponent won the starting roll and took first. I opted for the table side where I would be able to hide my Warlock behind the forest to try and mitigate the number of spells I might cop from Zerkova's inevitable assassination run. He deployed the max Outriders on the left flank, the min unit with the Destroyer on the right, and Zerkova with most of the Greylords on foot and the Void Archons in the middle. I deployed my Dracodile on the right flank, thinking to get it up near my objective to benefit from the Stockpile's healing effect, and placed Skarath alongside it. I dedicated Brun and Lug to holding down the left flank on their own, relying on their Cold Immunity, and set up Sturm in the middle to go and hide behind the forest. The Grind Ball on the right is my shiny new objective marker. My opponent hasn't yet placed his objective marker on the field yet. As mentioned, my objective is a Stockpile. I believe his was too. Khador Turn 1 Zerkova put Telgesh Mark on one of the right flank Outriders, and cast Banishing Ward on the max unit. Everything else ran, by and large remaining out of the threat ranges of my sprays on the right flank. Pigs Turn 1 Sturm put Polarity Shield on the Dracodile and cast Deceleration. I figured it would be rather tempting fate to try and get Vision out as well, so he just advanced up behind the forest and camped two. Mire summoned a cloud to protect Sturm's right flank and moved back behind the Dracodile, which ran out onto the right flank. Brun cast Stonehold and moved up, while Lug ran out onto the left flank. Dahlia put up Haunting Melody and moved to hang out somewhere near Mire, while Skarath cast Counterblast and moved up behind a wall. The Bellows Crew moved up and dropped a cloud to cover Sturm's left flank, and the Soul Slave TK'd one of them backwards so that they wouldn't die to the same spray. Orin and Eilish tried to position themselves so that my opponent wouldn't really have anything they could target to line up their sprays that wouldn't be protected by their auras. My opponent would always be able to target his own models, but at least one would have to serve as a beacon and that one might be bothered by this set-up. Khador Turn 2 My opponent decided to gun for the assassination. The Adjunct gave a Greylord Koldun Lord Guidance. The Koldun Lord ran up somewhere where he could get a bead on Sturm through the cloud on the right flank. The Outriders on the right ran up into the forest in front of Sturm, one of them angled facing away so that it would be close enough for Sturm to be hit by a Hoarfrost blast but not so close that it would be engaged in melee. Doom Reavers ran up to shut down my counter charges and counterblasts, and the UA cast Fell Curse to stop Sturm from being able to Tough. The max unit of Outriders advanced and took some sprays. The front one was cancelled by Orin, but the others sprayed through the lead Rider with their remaining two sprays and managed to kill Orin with the second one. They then Repositioned so that all five had a bead on Sturm. Zerkova then activated, Feated for Occult Whispers, and cast a boosted Hoarfrost into the Outrider in front of Sturm. The 4d6 attack roll got a Crit, freezing Sturm in place, and then the Koldun Lord followed up with a successful Brittle Frost. My opponent had something like nine more spell attacks to finish the job, but thanks to some very hot dice Sturm died on the third one. Oof. Well, serves me right. I didn't really think that match-up through or make any effort to modulate my playstyle. I've noticed that I increasingly tend to deploy the Dracodile out on one flank or another so that it can get around any central terrain pieces, but this is certainly a game where I should have deployed it centrally and had Sturm hide behind it all game. Playing further back would have kept me too far away for Brittle Frost to land, and I could have blocked out a good chunk of board space that those Outriders needed to use by just occupying it with the Dracodile even if it meant activating Sturm was more difficult throughout the game. The Dracodile's broad base may well have even kept Orin safe from the self-targeting of the Outriders' sprays, since they need to get a fair bit around the base of the Dracodile before their sprays can reach far enough to hit him. Anyway, live and learn. I had a second game lined up after this one, so it was no bad thing that it was over quickly. I do need to spend more time playing Sturm in the near future though, I think I may have become a little rusty with him.
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Post by Azahul on Jan 8, 2020 5:51:40 GMT
Should mention that my opponent in the game above was using a Devastator as a proxy for their Destroyer, and a Valin Hauke conversion for Alexia2. In any case, on to game two. Snuck in a game against Infernals. Our lists were: Arkadius -War Hog -War Hog -Road Hog -Road Hog -Gun Boar -Gun Boar -Gorax -Targ Bellows Crew Void Archon Void Archon Boomhowler2 Kwaak and Gub Hermit of Henge Hold Gatorman Witch Doctor Gobber Chef Zaateroth -Foreboder -Tormentor -Tormentor -Lord Roget d'Vyaros Max Cultists Max Cultists -Orin Max Howlers (a mix of Blighted Ogrun and Cinerators used as proxies) Min Griever Swarm Princess Regina (Tristan used as a proxy) Eilish1 Saxon Orrik Valin Hauke Hermit of Henge Hold Umbral Guardian Infernal Gate Deployment My opponent won the starting roll and took first. Not ideal against any Warlock with a Defensive Feat. The Howlers and a Tormentor took the right flank, the left was occupied by the Griever Swarms, and most of the rest of the force ended up behind the Gate in the centre. For my part I skewed a bit to the right-hand side of the forest, but otherwise deployed pretty symmetrically. I made a point to have Hermit on the left side of the forest though, since I figured he'd be gunning for the central flag and it was more accessible from that side. Both I and my opponent picked a Fuel Cache as our objectives. Infernals Turn 1 The Horrors and Soulless models ran up the board. Hermit gave everyone nearby an extra Essence to play with, and Roget reduced the cost of one of Zaateroth's spells by one. Zaateroth advanced, cast Rites of Torment, and put Scything Touch on the left flank Tormentor. She turned Saxon Orrik into a Desolator, after having had him run into a spot where the summoned cloud would extend out from the forest. Regina cast Deceleration and spawned a Lamenter. Cultists helped hand out some more Essence to the newly summoned Horrors. Pigs Turn 1 I played this turn pretty safe, by and large. Ran my Warbeasts up so that they were too far away for any of the Horrors to charge without Rites of Torment coming into play, and made sure that anything squishy was behind something rather more difficult to play. Arkadius put Forced Evolution on the right flank War Hog, Guardian Beast on herself, and sat up behind the central forest. The Gun Boar on the left took a shot at the Desolator, trying to scatter a shot onto the Lamenter since the Desolator was out of range, but the shot scattered wide. Both Gun Boars put up Counterblast. Infernals Turn 2 Zaateroth upkept her spells. Eilish moved up and tagged the left War Hog with Puppet Master. Zaateroth then Feated and turned him into a Soul Stalker. A lot of the usual Infernal internal bookkeeping took place, with the Hermit pushing out more Essence and Cultists milling around and tossing some Essence onto the new Soul Stalker. The Desolator on the right did eight or nine damage to one of the Road Hogs on the right on its first shot, and the Road Hog used Enliven to back up rather than take a second one. Regina's Lamenter ran right up into the grill of the army, triggering Guardian Beast. My Gun Boar on the left advanced to within 4" of the Lamenter so that the AOE couldn't physically miss, and ended up doing a four or five points of damage with the automatically boosted blast. The Soul Stalker moved up to jam as well, with the Tormentor close behind. Howlers rushed up on the right flank, with the Tormentor close behind. The Grievers on the left moved up to deny any landing zone to the Gobber Chef, who was only just close enough to contest the left zone if it ran, and the Foreboder moved in. Pigs Turn 2 My objectives for this turn were to try and contest the scenario elements well enough to prevent handing my opponent a scenario win next turn, and minimise what he could actually get into me in return. I considered Feating, figuring that I could probably get some heavies into the backs of the Tormentors and the Desolator to minimise the odds of missing them, but decided to see if I could dislodge this Lamenter in my face before I committed too many resources. I had the Witch Doctor give Ghostly to the Void Archon in the centre, which meant that it would be able to follow this one charge lane that would put it into the Tormenter's back arc. Seeing as the Void Archon was not living, it would be able to ignore the Soul Parasites rule too and "only" need 7s to hit the Tormenter. Not the greatest odds, but worst case scenario I would at least be contesting the central flag. I had the Hermit go before the Void Archon committed, giving himself Master of Ruin and using Reposition from Boomhowler to get close enough to contest as well. The Void Archon went in, got the hit on the charge attack, and rolled well enough to one-shot the Lamenter. Gosh those things are squishy once you actually do tag them. The Lamenter dying meant that I had a few more options. I decided to try and remove the Tormentor primarily, and then see what I could do to the Soul Stalker on the left. The Void Archon teleported behind the Tormentor and hit it with both Void Touch and Spray, dropping it down to just 10 boxes with some good damage rolls. Arkadius moved around and used Raw Adrenaline on the Road Hogs, and cast a boosted Crippling Grasp at the Howlers. The Crippling Grasp hit, and she Repositioned back to more or less her starting position flat against the base of the forest. The War Hog tried to take a swing at the Soul Stalker next, but missed the first attack. Because using the Feat teleport to move closer to Arkadius would put the Stalker in range of two Road Hogs, my opponent decided to just shift back out of melee with Hog. That in turn allowed the Gun Boar on the left to move around and block any pathlane to Arkadius. The Gun Boar took a swing at the Soul Stalker too, hit the attack, and boosted damage to do a few points. The more central Road Hog then swung into action. It charged the Howler near the edge of the forest, forfeiting its assault spray so that it could kill the Howler with a melee attack instead (boosted to hit thanks to Raw Adrenaline) and Overtake into the Tormentor. I boosted hit and damage on the Tormentor, killing it with enough Fury left to sprint back. Kwaak gave the two left flank heavies Enliven, since they were the ones exposed to retaliation. The Road Hog and Gun Boar on the right, with Targ's help, killed a couple more Howlers. The Void Archon on the right ran to the very edge of the zone. I completely spaced on the Grievers blocking my ability to contest on my left, so my opponent's Foreboder scored that zone to make the score 0-1. That made things a bit scary... Infernals Turn 3 The Gate summoned a single Howler back to life. Fire went out on all the near dead ones, annoyingly. The Howlers all piled into my objective, but rolled poorly and only did three damage (yay for Crippling Grasp). Roget then gave Ghostly to Valin Hauke, allowing him to charge off and drop the objective down to just four boxes. Zaateroth was able to finish the job with her gun. She summoned a new Tormentor out of Roget and took her second shot at the Void Archon, spiking high and killing the Archon in one shot. The Tormentor on the right charged and killed the second Void Archon. With my objective and both side zones locked down, my opponent just needed to clear the central flag to win. Regina moved up and hit my Hermit with a Dark Seduction, moving him out of the zone entirely, and then summoned a new Lamenter. The Soul Stalker moved up to take a swing at the Road Hog. My opponent wanted to go for a headbutt, but had no way to do so without triggering Guardian Beast. Instead he made a regular attack, hit and did just three or four damage, and I expired Mad Visions to have the Road Hog Enliven out of combat without taking damage. The Desolator advanced, triggered Guardian Beast, and I moved my Gun Boar up to contest as well. That basically locked down the centre at least, so the Desolator took some more shots at the Road Hog hanging back and dropped it down to about nine boxes. The Grievers took a few shots at Hermit, dropping him to two boxes, and killed the Gobber Chef. With two zones and my objective, my opponent ran the score up to 0-4 in their favour. Pigs Turn 3 Ideally I wanted to score a couple of Control Points this turn, contest the left zone, and kill most if not all of my opponent's heavies. Arkadius upkept all her spells, and the Primal'd Road Hog frenzied on the nearby Gun Boar for something trivial like two points of damage. That same Gun Boar passed its Threshold check in spite of having three Fury on it. Boomhowler moved up as one of the first activations, shooting a few Grievers dead and causing the Umbral Guardian to spawn on the left flank. He gave Reposition to the Hermit, who again moved into the central zone and Repositioned to stand on the central flag with Master of Ruin up. This triggered a counter charge from the Tormentor, dropping Hermit to one health. Over on the right flank, the Gorax gave Primal to the badly damaged Road Hog and moved up. The Road Hog used Full Boar and moved in to kill the Desolator with the help of Targ (some poor dice rolls meant it was a bit harder than it really should have been). Kwaak put Enliven on both Road Hogs. Arkadius Feated, sending the two Road Hogs into Valin Hauke to kill him, both lights and the War Hog on the right flank into Howlers, the latter triggering a Counter Charge from the Tormentor there which missed, and the War Hog on the left flank into the Soul Stalker which also missed. Arkadius then, thanks to having received Ghostly from the Witch Doctor, moved through the forest and used an Anaesthesia needle on the Soul Stalker to make it stationary, and put Primal on the War Hog on the left. That War Hog then killed both the Soul Stalker and the Lamenter in an attack apiece, but couldn't quite overtake into melee with the Tormentor to add a third Horror to its tally. Over on the right, the Forced Evolution War Hog killed the Tormentor and two of the Horrors, the Gun Boar finished the job. The Gun Boar on the left ran to contest the zone there. Since I hadn't been able to get to the Tormentor, I wasn't going to be able to score the central flag. I ran a Swamp Gobber into the central zone to add just one more body that my opponent had to remove to score that flag and win and ended the turn. I scored the right-hand zone, making the score 1-4 in my opponent's favour. Infernals Turn 4 Rather than go for a scenario win, my opponent decided to aim for an assassination instead. The Infernal Hermit gave himself Telemetry. The Gate teleported Regina forward, allowing her to walk into melee with Hermit and use Dark Seduction to move him out of the path of the Tormentor. The Foreboder ran to get close enough to Arkadius for Zaateroth to activate and hit him with Black Spot. She then used her gun to kill the Swamp Gobber for good measure... and then realised she didn't have enough Essence for Ghost Walk so that the Tormentor could actually get into melee. The Grievers moved up and shot Arkadius a few times, leaving her on five health and with one transfer remaining. The Tormentor moved up a few inches, triggering Guardian Beast and allowing the War Hog to get a solid whack in. The Tormentor responded, hitting the War Hog and triggering Enliven. I forgot about Counter Charge and backed up, and promptly got counter-charged by the Tormentor. Thankfully, the Tormentor couldn't make melee on Arkadius, and actually failed to kill the War Hog too leaving it on just a few boxes. Because most of my opponent's Cultists were eaten by Regina and Zaateroth to refuel, and most of the others killed each other to give Orin some souls, the right zone went uncontested and the score levelled out a little to 2-4 in my opponent's favour. Pigs Turn 4 I considered playing out a long game, focussing on scoring and mopping up my opponent's remaining pieces, but figured that since the result of that was basically a foregone conclusion I'd be kind and go for an assassination instead. Arkadius moved up and hit Zaateroth with Crippling Grasp, then tagged the lead Road Hog with Raw Adrenaline and put Forced Evolution up. Her last point of Fury was spent healing the crippled Mind on that Road Hog. The Witch Doctor gave the Road Hog Ghostly. The Gun Boar, Targ, and the near dead Road Hog shot Zaateroth a few times. The Gorax gave the Road Hog Primal. The Road Hog then charged in and put Zaateroth in the dirt on its charge attack. That was a pretty tight game. I definitely overexposed Arkadius on Turn 3, which I very nearly got badly punished for, but in turn I did pass up on a pretty reasonable assassination in my own right once Zaateroth's Feat had expired. I wanted to see how the attrition game played though, at least for one more turn. In the turn, making the Soul Stalker Stationary was unnecessary and just a product of me trying to get greedy and kill all of my opponent's heavies in a turn. I am really enjoying playing into Infernals though. They're a fun puzzle to unpick, and when it goes right you feel very much in control of the game. For all that they get to add a heavy to the board each turn, the ones they have are so squishy that you can swing things back dramatically if you preserve your own key pieces. In this game I really only lost the Void Archons and some Gobbers (and the Hermit, I believe the Tormentor RFP'd him) and had mostly tabled my opponent by the end. My opponent's list, lacking Wretches entirely, was interesting to watch as bits and pieces of tech vanished each round he summoned. Eilish disappearing Turn 2 was a big deal, it let me feel a lot more comfortable about dealing with the Horrors with Crippling Grasp. I did make a number of silly mistakes mind you. Forgetting to do the work I needed to contest the left zone was a big deal. I should have positioned the Gobber more aggressively and further towards the left table edge to make it harder to jam it out of the zone. Handing my opponent a free CP very nearly cost me, I was just fortunate that I had so many overlapping out-of-activation effects in the centre that it proved impossible for my opponent to unpick them.
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Post by Azahul on Jan 21, 2020 23:53:21 GMT
Been playing a lot of games this week, so I've got a bit of a backlog to work through. First of all, I've been field testing Helga2 based on her current spoilers. I've definitely enjoyed playing her, but I have some serious reservations about her functionality against large swathes of the current meta. I had written the following list with the aim of testing aspects of her kit: Helga on Wheels (using Lug as a proxy) -Road Hog -Road Hog -War Hog -War Hog -Battle Boar -Soul Slave Bellows Crew Hermit of Henge Hold Eilish Garrity Boomhowler Solo Artist Ledfoot & Tredz Void Archon Meat Thresher I wrangled a Khador opponent, who was busy practicing a Karchev list for an upcoming event. He was running: Karchev -Devastator -Devastator -Marauder -Marauder -Marauder -Marauder -Marauder Kayazy Eliminators Kayazy Eliminators Widowmakers Sorscha0 -Marauder (using a Juggernaut as a proxy) Widget I was pretty intimidated by this list on paper, seeing as I was running a list where armour cracking was a definite concern. Deployment My opponent won the starting roll and took first, I took a table side that felt a bit more defensive to me. He deployed with a Kayazy unit and a Devastator on either flank and the Marauders and Karchev filling in the space in between. I put my Meat Thresher on the left flank, Void Archon skewing a bit to the right with a Road Hog out on the far right flank, and most of everything else in a blob in the centre. Both objectives are Stockpiles. Khador Turn 1 Karchev cast Battle Charged and charged up the board. Everything else ran. Pigs Turn 1 Helga cast Battle Host and Engine of Destruction and moved up the board, though she had to sacrifice an inch or two of movement to keep the right flank Road Hog in control. Everything else ran. Khador Turn 2 Karchev upkept Battle Charged. His 'jacks ran, layering themselves into a couple of waves with overlapping Counter Charges. The Widowmakers ran into the right-hand zone, since they didn't really have any single wound targets to take pot shots at. One Eliminator ran forward on the left to jam the Meat Thresher and Road Hog. Pigs Turn 2 Boomhowler gave Reposition to Hermit and laid down a Covering Fire template right behind the Eliminator. Helga moved into the forest to attack the forwardmost Marauder on the right. She triggered a Counter Charge in the process, but my opponent opted not to resolve it since it would put another heavy into the threat range of my heavies on the right. Helga managed to reduce the Marauder she was engaging to about single digit boxes and Feated to run away with one Fury to spare. The Meat Thresher Bulldozed the Eliminator through the Covering Fire template, which she survived, and took some potshots at a Marauder on the far left to do a little damage. The Meat Thresher then backed up to the edge of the zone. Ledfoot killed the damaged Eliminator with scattered blast damage, feeding the Void Archon a solo, which the Archon used to spray and kill the Marauder Helga had been fighting. The Archon then flew back behind Helga. I tried to kill the last Eliminator in the left-hand zone with the Road Hog there, but missed the attack and had to Repo away. The Battle Boar gave Primal to the War Hog on the left, who went in and killed the Devastator before backing up with the Feat. The Road Hog on the right flank just killed the engaging Widowmaker and went to hide behind the flag. Eilish scored my flag, putting the score at 1-0 in my favour. Khador Turn 3 My opponent couldn't get to grips with much of my army, so they opted to play the scenario game. Widget moved onto the nearby flag. Karchev dropped Battle Charged and put up Road to War. Sorscha gave her Marauder Boundless Charge and sent it in to kill the objective. This gave a Road to War move to the Devastator on the right, allowing it to run and bulldoze the Road Hog on the right out of the zone. My opponent scored his flag, my objective and the right-hand zone. Eilish scored my flag, so the score was now 2-3 in my opponent's favour. Pigs Turn 3 My War Hog on the left frenzied towards Hermit, but couldn't actually get a landing zone thanks to the flag so basically just sat around doing nothing. Hermit moved deeper into the forest and cast Master of Ruin again. The Void Archon charged Sorscha's Marauder and dinged it up, followed by the Battle Boar to get it down below half health. Helga cast Engine of Destruction, charged and killed the heavy with her initial attacks (reducing it to Arm 16 definitely helped), killed Widget with a boosted Battering Ram so that I wouldn't have to throw something away contesting that flag, and sprinted back on zero camp. That left the Road Hog on the right out of Control, so it basically just moved squarely into the zone so that it couldn't be bulldozed and flailed ineffectually at the Devastator. The War Hog on the right just moved a little bit so that the Devastator could no longer hide behind the cloud. The Road Hog on the left killed the Eliminator with a spray and backed up. The Meat Thresher did a little bit of chip damage to the Marauder behind the forest, taking advantage of Master of Ruin. I scored my flag, bringing the score level at 3-3. Khador Turn 4 The Devastator on the right flank was out of Karchev's control range, so it would be spending the turn without Focus. Sorscha gave Boundless Charge to the Marauder on the right, who charged and killed the Hermit. That gave a Road to War move to the Marauder on the left. Karchev moved up to where that Marauder had been standing and Feated. The Marauder moved up to attack my War Hog, missed an attack and left the War Hog standing. That meant there was no Road to War trigger for the fully loaded Marauder in the left zone, meaning that it couldn't get into melee with the Meat Thresher. The Marauders tried to kill Eilish in a last ditch effort but the only shot in range failed to break armour. At that point my opponent conceded. With Karchev's Feat gone was going to have a hard time coming back, and I should have the tools to remove the two Marauders in my face without being particularly exposed to anything he had left. I'm not 100% that he couldn't have managed to ride things out from there, Karchev is a tough cookie himself and he still had a Marauder in reserve. If he could begin piece trading from there I think there was a chance he'd come out ahead. I do get how demoralising losing something like four or five heavies before getting a chance to properly punch back might be, and doing enough damage to piece trade without Karchev's Feat could certainly be a challenge. We did talk things through after the game, and my opponent felt that he set up wrong to receive the alpha. By functionally feeding me a couple of 'jacks early on, he let me make the most of even the shorter range Feat movements on the War Hogs to stay out of retaliation range. Committing a few more heavies to the front line could have posed a more challenging question. It also turns out that, in spite of the large amount of armour, the relatively low threat ranges of his list (so long as I could keep Road to War from triggering) made it a reasonably comfortable match-up for Helga I think.
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Post by Azahul on Jan 22, 2020 0:38:14 GMT
In game two of testing I ran the same list, included below for reference: Helga on Wheels -Road Hog -Road Hog -War Hog -War Hog -Battle Boar -Soul Slave Bellows Crew Hermit of Henge Hold Eilish Garrity Boomhowler Solo Artist Ledfoot & Tredz Void Archon Meat Thresher I was playing against the same opponent. They decided to test the following: Zerkova2 -Destroyer -Rager -Greylord Adjunct Max Outriders Min Outriders (using Marauders as proxies, my opponent realised he'd left some of his models at home) Doom Reavers -Escort Void Archon Void Archon Butcher4 Koldun Lord Koldun Lord Alexia2 Deployment I won the starting roll this time and took first. My opponent reversed our table sides from the previous game, preventing me from getting the trench. I set up with the Meat Thresher on the left again, the Void Archon and Hermit central with Helga, and her Warbeasts spaced out on either side. My opponent put the min unit of Outriders on the right with his 'jacks, the max unit on the left. My objective was a Stockpile, his was a Treasure Chest. Pigs Turn 1 Helga cast Engine of Destruction and Battle Host and moved up a bit too aggressively, putting the Road Hog on the right out of her control range. It wasn't a super big deal, I just used Full Boar and then Reposition and ended up basically where I'd have run to anyway. Everything else ran, mostly just trying to stay out of the Outriders' advance and spray threat ranges. Khador Turn 1 The Outriders on the right ran. Zerkova advanced, put Telgesh Mark on the forwardmost Outrider, and hit Ledfoot and Tredz with a Hoarfrost. She got the Critical Stationary, freezing the Void Archon and Hermit in place as well. Everything else moved up a little ways outside the deployment zone, Ternions putting up clouds to obscure line of sight from the Meat Thresher to the Outriders on the left. Pigs Turn 2 My Battle Boar moved up and gave the Road Hog on the left Primal. It then charged Butcher4, took an assault shot which thankfully missed Butcher and pretty much missed everything else under the template as well. Butcher died to the charge attack, and the Road Hog then put its remaining attacks into killing the Void Archon. There was enough Fury left to Sprint back afterwards. Helga then activated, cast Engine of Destruction, moved up to kill the two closest Outriders and put Primal on the Road Hog on the right. Unfortunately, one of the Outriders survived her initials and forced her to buy an attack, which meant that if she wanted to Sprint she'd end up on zero camp, which seemed like a... bad choice against Zerkova2. Instead I Feated prior to buying that attack, killed the second Outrider, and fled. The Road Hog on the right then went in and sprayed down a line of Doom Reavers, killed two of them, killed a third with the charge attack and used Overtake to get into the Void Archon on that flank, killed it too with enough Fury to finish off the last of the Outriders there. The Road Hog then backed up. I was a little silly and didn't pull back my full distance, which would have given Helga an armour bonus from Battle Host, because I wanted to put the Hog somewhere it would frenzy into an enemy model next turn. The rest of my turn mostly involved War Hogs killing most of the remaining Doom Reavers and the Meat Thresher running through the Burning Earth to get somewhere more relevant to the game. Boomhowler used Cacophany and put himself up in front of Helga. Khador Turn 2 My opponent decided to just try and kill Helga. A couple of Doom Reavers charged Boomhowler and killed him, while the UA got close enough to Helga to shut off her Tough. The Outriders on the left and the Koldun Lords ran up into position, while Alexia summoned some Thrall Warriors. Zerkova activated and Feated. The Koldun Lord debuffed Helga's armour, Hermit cancelled the Hoarfrost from Zerkova but she was turned Stationary thanks to my opponent's copious rerolls (both Puppet Master and the Treasure Chest's boon were in use), and the Outriders sprayed Helga down to a handful of boxes. The Ternion RFP'd the Hermit with Bonds of Woe, preventing his Dark Prophecy from triggering, and a Thrall Warrior charged through the gap and killed Helga. I may have lived through that had I put a Warbeast within 3" of Helga, though it would have been a tight run thing. We would have redone that and played out the game a little further, though I think it's heavily in Helga's favour without the assassination, but it was getting late. I think the main thing I took from this game was how easy it is for Helga to have to Feat unnecessarily, just due to her own Fury limitations and relatively low combat stats.
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Post by Azahul on Jan 22, 2020 4:48:40 GMT
After ruminating on those first two games, I decided to change up my list a little. First of all, I decided that Helga really wasn't offering the Meat Thresher enough to be worth the investment, and I wanted a bit more security in my access to damage buffs. I traded out the Meat Thresher for a Void Archon, leaving me with 8 points to spend. Ordinarily I think I would fill this space with Valkyries, but I was working with what I had in my case (mostly) so I went with a Gun Boar instead. I also really wanted to play with a Bone Shrine, in spite of not having packed one. That turned the list into: Helga on Wheels (using Lug as a proxy) -War Hog -War Hog -Road Hog -Road Hog -Gun Boar -Battle Boar -Soul Slave Ledfoot and Tredz (proxied using the Grind Ball, my model was back on my painting table) Boomhowler Solo Artist Hermit of Hengehold Eilish Garrity Void Archon Void Archon Bone Shrine (using a Gatorman Witch Doctor as the proxy) I was playing into my Khador opponent yet again (gotta try and swing some Helga games into literally anyone else...), so the opposing list was: Karchev -Devastator -Devastator -Marauder -Marauder -Marauder -Marauder -Marauder Kayazy Eliminators Kayazy Eliminators Widowmakers Widget Sorscha0 -Marauder (using the unpainted Juggernaut as a proxy) Deployment My opponent won the starting roll, took first. I took a table side with actual terrain on it, leaving my opponent with the barren wasteland that was the other side. He deployed all the Kayazy and Sorscha's Marauder on the right flank, a Devastator on either side, and Karchev and the rest of the Marauders filling in the space in between. For my own deployment, I deployed the Gun Boar opposite the Kayazy, and mostly focussed Helga and her battlegroup down the centre of the table. Ledfoot and Tredz ended up out on the right flank thanks to space concerns, I figured I'd be able to get them back into position pretty easily. I placed the Bone Shrine barely in front of the deployment line and in front of the Void Archon, since I didn't want it somewhere it would get killed and just needed to make sure it would be in Helga's Control Range on important turns. Probably could have held it further back than that, but then it would start to mess up my own deployment. Khador Turn 1 Karchev cast Road to War and charged up the board, everything in his army ran. Pigs Turn 1 Helga cast Primed on herself and Engine of Destruction and moved up as far as she could without models in her battlegroup leaving her control range. The Gun Boar advanced and killed an Eliminator on the right with a lucky scatter. Everything else ran up, with Ledfoot moving across to get closer to the Hermit. I chose Primed because I figured that, like our prior game, this would quickly close to the ranges where Battle Host would be irrelevant, and I'd rather have the extra hitting power with the way those 'jacks were bearing down on me. Khador Turn 2 The Widowmakers advanced into the forest and shot at the Hermit in the trench. Three of them rolled the 8s to hit, dealing three damage to him. An Eliminator ran to jam the Road Hog and Void Archon on the right flank, another ran to jam the War Hog on the left flank. Karchev's battlegroup ran up behind the forest. Pigs Turn 2 The Gun Boar on the right passed its threshold check (definitely too used to playing Fury 7 Warlocks) and shot at the Eliminator, killing it with blast damage and giving the Void Archon a soul. Hermit advanced and used Master of Ruin, Ledfoot moved up to give Hermit an extra two inches of movement so that the Master of Ruin aura would catch at least three heavies, and then tried to kill the Eliminator jamming the War Hog. Only did two damage unfortunately. The Void Archon over on the right then activated and charged into a Marauder inside the Master of Ruin range. The spray caught two Widowmakers, and I boosted on one and missed, only to hit and kill the unboosted shot. The spray clipped the Marauder for a few points of damage, followed by two boosted melee damage rolls to take off a bit over half of the Marauder's boxes. The Void Archon on the left ran to engage a cluster of heavies on the left flank. Helga took a Fury from the Bone Shrine and was cursed (setting her defensive stats aaaaaall the way down to 13/14 ). She cast Engine of Destruction and moved into the forest. She killed an Eliminator with her Mount, a Widowmaker with her bat, and pulled in two Marauders (including the damaged one in melee with the Void Archon) with her initial Chain and a bought attack before she started buying bat attacks. She Feated in the process, and moved away with one Fury remaining leaving both Marauders badly damaged. My War Hog on the left flank used Irresistible Force to bulldoze the Eliminator through the Covering Fire template, killing her and letting him charge into the Marauders on the left. The first few attacks dropped one of the Marauders down to two boxes, so the War Hog moved on to attacking a second Marauder in its melee range for its remaining attacks before taking its Feat movement to move away. Moving through the Covering Fire template twice while in Master of Ruin range saw the War Hog take an eye-watering 12 damage between some very high damage rolls and its Aggression Dial. The Road Hog on the left flank did much the same thing, finishing off both damaged Marauders and sprinting back, getting its mind crippled between the Covering Fire damage and the Full Boar damage. Finally, the Road Hog on the right flank received Primal from the Battle Boar and swung away at the Devastator, crippling both arms. I kind of neglected my flag, but I scored my zone to put the score at 1-0 in my favour. Khador Turn 3 My opponent reckoned he had a good assassination run. Karchev upkept Road to War. Sorscha loaded up her Juggernaut and killed the Void Archon on the right, giving the Devastator a Road to War move. The free strike from the Road Hog there failed to cripple anything more, and Widget was able to fly in and repair the damaged arms. Karchev activated and Feated, then moved into the forest and sprayed Helga to knock her down. The damage roll of the spray rolled high and used up Helga's one transfer. The Devastator charged in and killed her with the second initial, after Mad Visions blocked the first attack. I think I could have avoided that assassination run with a little bit better positioning, but it's kind of hard to say looking at it. Having played the match-up again, it does feel like Helga benefits a lot from minimal enemy shooting and relatively short, predictable threat ranges. Being able to deliver Hermit again to an excellent position to get work done, while facing a list that didn't really have a choice but to come to me, felt like it handed me a lot of advantages. I'm hoping to line some games up against lists with a bit more threat (I particularly want to see how she performs against any of the myriad 12"+ threat range models in the meta, or against long range/shoot and reposition models like the Trident and Animantarax), but CanCon is on the weekend so I don't know if I'll have another opportunity until next week.
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Post by Azahul on Jan 24, 2020 1:38:46 GMT
Game number four with Helga saw me finally secure a non-Khador match-up. We went for, well, basically the mirror-match. Kraye vs Helga. Here come the cavalry. I had finally managed to get together all the models I wanted for the Helga list I wanted to run, ending up with this: Helga on Wheels (using Lug as a proxy) -War Hog -War Hog -Road Hog -Road Hog -Battle Boar -Soul Slave Valkyries Eilish Garrity Hermit of Hengehold Boomhowler Solo Artist Ledfoot & Tredz Void Archon Void Archon Bone Shrine In general, I feel like this list covers the worst of Helga's weaknesses well, mitigating her weakness to armour and covering her a little against shooting, while still having a good number of models who work well with her strengths. My opponent's list, meanwhile, was: Kraye -Centurion -Stormclad -Hammersmith -Hammersmith -Hammersmith -Hunter -Squire Journeyman Warcaster -Charger Caine0 -Ace Arlan Strangeways (using Widget as a proxy) Deployment We had a table with a clearly superior side (one side with water and a cloud, the other side with their Hazardous equivalents), so after winning the starting roll and taking first I ended up having to negotiate that particular issue with my set-up. The Void Archons both ended up deploying in the centre line so that they could fly straight over the acid pool. Helga deployed over on the right-hand side of the line, together with the bulk of my solos, while one of each heavy deployed on each flank. My opponent set up his Centurion and Stormclad on the left, along with a Hammersmith, while the two remaining heavies and all the lights ended up on the centre-right. Both objectives are Stockpiles. Pigs Turn 1 Helga cast Engine of Destruction, Battle Host, and rolled up as far as she could while keeping her battlegroup in control. Everything else ran, Ledfoot using Ride Along on Hermit to get a bit more board presence. Cygnar Turn 1 The Journeyman put Arcane Shield on the Centurion, Kraye put Admonition on the Stormclad, Caine put Fire for Effect on the Charger, and most of the heavies ran up to stand just outside of the threat ranges of Helga's battlegroup. The lights moved up and fired at the lead Road Hog on the right flank, with the Hunter's shot killing a nearby Valkyrie instead. Pigs Turn 2 My opponent had put one Hammersmith forward on the right flank as bait, but I figured that I had to take it and get some work done this turn if I wanted to be stay in the game. The Battle Boar gave Primal to the Road Hog. Boomhowler gave Admonition to the Hermit and ran into the right-hand zone. Hermit advanced, used Master of Ruin, and Repositioned forward. Ledfoot and Tredz moved up used Ride Along to push the Hermit forward to catch the Charger and Hammersmith in range for Master of Ruin. Helga activated, spent four Fury just healing the damaged Road Hog since she didn't have anything better to do this turn, and Feated. Eilish gave the Road Hog Puppet Master. The Road Hog charged in and killed the Hammersmith, moving back on the right flank to force the second Hammersmith forward. The Road Hog on the left advanced and took a spray at both the Hunter and Charger, hitting and dealing a good bit of damage to both before backing up. One of the Void Archons in the centre moved up and fired its spray, missing the Hunter but tagging the Charger for a few more points of damage, then backing up behind the forest with the Feat move. Everything else just shuffled around. Cygnar Turn 2 Fire went out on the Hunter but continued to burn on the Charger, but failed to knock out any important aspects. Kraye gave out some Focus, moved up, and Feated. He shot both the objective and the Road Hog on the left flank, then repositioned back. The Stormclad and Hammersmith charged in one by one and between them killed the Road Hog and the objective, then Repositioned back. The Centurion charged in and killed the War Hog, then Repositioned to engage Helga, both Void Archons, and one of the Valkyries. The second Valkyrie died absorbing a shot from the Hunter, while the Charger tagged the Road Hog on the right so that the Hammersmith there could kill the Road Hog by Chain Attacking it back into the War Hog. My opponent opted to remove the War Hog on the left rather than Ledfoot with his Centurion, so the centre zone remained contested. The score stood at 0-1 in his favour. Pigs Turn 3 Eilish moved up and removed Arcane Shield from the Centurion. The Hermit backed up to catch as many models as possible in Master of Ruin range. A Void Archon charged the Centurion, doing a fair bit of damage and applying Dark Shroud. Helga then activated, cast Engine of Destruction, and managed to kill the Centurion with her initials and one bought attack. She Repositioned as far back as she could and sat on four Fury. The Battle Boar gave Primal to the War Hog on the right flank, which charged and killed the Hammersmith. The last Valkyrie ran to score the right-hand zone. Boomhowler advanced, gave himself Reposition, and shot the damaged Hunter off the table. The second Void Archon charged the Stormclad, which used Admonition to back away, and killed the Charger with its spray. I scored the right-hand zone, taking the score to 1-1. Cygnar Turn 3 Ace moved up, shot at the last Valkyrie, and missed. Caine teleported him back to safety. Kraye put Admonition back on the Stormclad and moved up so that he could not be seen by the inevitably frenzying War Hog but would block its charge path when it frenzied towards the objective, then put two rounds into . The Hammersmith and Stormclad each killed a Void Archon and Repositioned back. A combination of different shots from the backlines (Journeyman, Kraye, I think Caine may have snuck a couple in, finished off the Hermit. The Journeyman Warcaster put Arcane Shield on Kraye. My opponent scored the centre zone, I scored the right-hand zone, putting the score at 2-2. Pigs Turn 3 The War Hog frenzied towards my opponent's objective and stopped when it contacted Kraye. There wasn't much I could do this turn, just about everything was out of threat range, so I moved up Helga into the zone and tried to get into position to do some work next turn. Boomhowler tried to knock down the Hammersmith and force it to waste a Focus next turn, but didn't get a Crit on any of his shots, while the Soul Slave used Battering Ram to push the Stormclad too far away to do anything. I scored the right-hand zone and contested the centre with the Soul Slave, putting the score at 3-2. Cygnar Turn 3 Kraye moved up and killed the Soul Slave with a gun shot, before Repositioning into the left-hand zone. The Hammersmith killed the War Hog. Ace took a potshot at Boomhowler and killed him. The Stormclad moved into a more central position. Arlan moved to contest the right-hand zone. My opponent scored two CP this turn, swinging the score in his favour at 3-4. Pigs Turn 4 Helga dropped Battle Host, cast Engine of Destruction, and moved in to attack the Hammersmith. The Stormclad used Admonition to advance so that it was barely out of threat range. Helga managed to deal about a dozen points of damage to the Hammersmith with her full stack of Fury. The Battle Boar killed Arlan. I think I managed to knock down the Hammersmith with Helga's Mount Attack, so Ledfoot's gun shot dealt a decent little bit of damage to the Hammersmith too but not enough to cripple anything. Cygnar Turn 4 Kraye loaded up both heavies. The Hammersmith knocked down Helga with a boosted headbutt, then the Stormclad finished the job. That was a rough game. I think I definitely made a mistake putting Primal on the War Hog on Turn 3, I really needed that heavy functional every round if I were to have any hope of swinging attrition back around. I feel like I managed to more or less keep myself in the game so long as Helga had the armour debuffs to allow her to continue doing work, but once they died her ability to help her army dropped dramatically. Turn 2 was also a weird spot to be in with her, having nothing to do with her Fury. She couldn't even safely get somewhere to cast Battering Ram, so she ended up just healing a Road Hog for four points of damage. I think I could have positioned the War Hog a little further back to make things less convenient for my opponent, but ultimately with Kraye having Repo 5" on his battlegroup I don't think I could have been both outside of his threat range and close enough to get into melee with a counter punch next turn.
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Post by albertairish on Jan 24, 2020 21:13:38 GMT
Azahul, you've been doing this for a long time now. I'm not going to go back and like every battle report, but I want you to know that I appreciate and enjoy them all. Thanks man.
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Post by Azahul on Jan 27, 2020 21:28:41 GMT
Azahul, you've been doing this for a long time now. I'm not going to go back and like every battle report, but I want you to know that I appreciate and enjoy them all. Thanks man. Thank you for the kind words It honestly means a lot. I just got back from CanCon, home to Australia's biggest Warmachine event, so I've got a fair few reports to write up when I get a moment. After which I suspect I may just be knocking out Helga2 games for some time...
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Post by Azahul on Jan 28, 2020 5:07:25 GMT
Alright, CanCon reports. I'm a little time poor this week, so not sure how quickly I'll be able to get these out, but let's see what I can do. First of all, these were the lists I took to the event. I'm sure they're familiar to anyone who's been reading this thread at all in the last... year. Arkadius -War Hog -War Hog -Road Hog -Road Hog -Gun Boar -Gun Boar -Gorax -Targ Bellows Crew Void Archon Void Archon Gatorman Witch Doctor Kwaak and Gub Boomhowler2 Hermit of Henge Hold Swamp Gobber Chef Sturm and Drang -War Hog -Battle Boar -Battle Boar -Soul Slave Bellows Crew Mire -Dracodile Dahlia -Skarath Brun -Lug Eilish Orin Round 1 (King of the Hill) I paired up against Skorne first, with a Rasheth/Zaal2 pair. I had good practice into both lists, and felt I should drop Arkadius. Generally speaking, Animantarax with Rasheth's Feat are a bit too much of a threat to the Dracodile, even if they have to trample into melee. My opponent, meanwhile, decided that Zaal was his best bet, so the match-up ended up being: Zaal -Cyclops Raider -Cyclops Shaman -Basilisk Krea -Agaonizer Max Immortals -Extoller Advocate Max Immortals -Extoller Advocate Hakaar Ancestral Guardian Ancestral Guardian Novitiate Novitiate Novitiate Immortal Vessel Immortal Vessel Supreme Guardian Supreme Guardian Deployment I won the starting roll, so that was a good start. I took first. I deployed my army as symmetrically as possible, Archons out on the wings and Road Hogs in near the centre. My opponent also deployed in a classic symmetrical fashion, each flank being held by an Immortal module of Immortals with UA, Novitiate, and Ancestral Guardian. Both Supreme Guardians sat in the centre, with Zaal's battlegroup between them. My objective was a Fuel Cache, his was a Stockpile. Pigs Turns 1 I ran everything forward. Arkadius cast Guardian Beast and put Forced Evolution on the left-hand War Hog, which also received Reposition from Boomhowler to let it trample and Reposition up the board a touch faster. Skorne Turn 1 My opponent really didn't want to Feat, so he moved up carefully. Zaal put up the Krea's Animus, handed Vision to the left-flank Supreme Guardian, and cast Transference. The Cyclops Shaman and Supreme Guardians took some pot shots, though the latter were just scattering fire AOEs about. Immortals ran to screen. Pigs Turn 2 With Zaal on two camp and well inside my threat ranges, I felt I had a comfortable assassination run on the cards. The Gun Boar on the right received Pathfinder from the objective, and I gave Ghostly to the Road Hog on the right with the Witch Doctor. Kwaak gave Enliven to the War Hog and Road Hog in case of nasty Defensive Strikes. I ran the Void Archon on the left up to shut down Tough on that side of the board. My left flank Gun Boar walked up and managed to kill three of the Immortals in front of Zaal. The Gorax gave Primal to the War Hog on the left. Arkadius moved up, gave Forced Evolution to the Road Hogs, and Primal'd both Road Hogs. She Feated to send everything up the board. Hermit ran to cover the area around Zaal in his Command range. The first Road Hog charged in, copped a Defensive Strike from a Supreme Guardian (which I used the Hermit's Mad Visions on in a moment of panic, forgetting that the plan was to save it for the second strike and to use Enliven to pull back out if an aspect were crippled). The Road Hog chewed through a bit of Zaal's health. The War Hog then walked in, took a Defensive Strike from the Supreme Guardian, avoided having anything be crippled, and killed Zaal through his transfers with plentiful attacks to spare. Such a nice, relaxing start to the event. I made a few small mistakes, but the run was comfortable enough in the end that none of it ended up mattering. Zaal really couldn't afford not to Feat, although if he had then I would, as my opponent rightly pointed out, have simply backed up and waited him out. Winning the first roll was a huge boon and gave me total control of the game, so I was pretty confident of the end result one way or the other.
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Post by Azahul on Jan 28, 2020 6:14:23 GMT
Round Two - Recon II To be honest, I was a little annoyed to have this scenario to come up so early in the tournament. It's probably the one my list pair most excels at, so I'd kind of rather save it for the end of the event. In any case though, I ended up pairing up into Convergence, with a Lucant/Orion pair. I figured that either list would do ok, but Arkadius had the nice perk of being able to largely charge further than Orion's list could walk and shoot so I decided to go with him. My opponent picked Lucant, presumably for much the same reason, running: Lucant -Conservator -Conservator -Corollary Max Reciprocators Max Obstructors Max Obstructors Destructotron 3000 Enigma Foundry Enigma Foundry Enigma Foundry Enigma Foundry Frustrum Locus Frustrum Locus Void Archon Void Archon Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex Deployment My opponent won the starting roll this time. Given that most of the board was kind of empty, I picked a table side where at least my flag would be screened by a cloud that my Bellows Crew might be able to build off mid-game to just generally be a little bit annoying. My opponent deployed his army with Obstructors on either flank, battlegroup and the Reciprocators in the centre, with Destructotron out on the right-hand side. I deployed my army broken a bit by the forest in my deployment zone, with a War Hog and Gun Boar out on the right-hand side. Arkadius and the Road Hogs, as close to the centre as they could get, basically planned to run around the forest to get into position. My objective was an Observatory, giving me the option to see through some of the clouds. My opponent's was a Stockpile. Convergence Turn 1 My opponent ran everything, but he stayed short of my threat ranges and mostly didn't come forward as far as he could. Lucant cast Deceleration and Watcher. Pigs Turn 1 With my opponent's pretty truncated threat ranges, I felt comfortable running my army forward pretty aggressively. The War Hog on the right did the Trample and Reposition trick with Boomhowler, while Arkadius cast Forced Evolution on the left flank War Hog and put Guardian Beast on herself. Convergence Turn 2 My opponent really didn't want to Feat defensively, so he opted to layer his army and set up to receive a charge, hoping to have enough left afterwards to bring back with the Enigma Foundries and then use the Feat to ride out attrition from there. A few pockets of Obstructors ended the zones, and Lucant recast Deceleration. Pigs Turn 2 I had made sure my Gobber Chef was within 12" of my opponent's flag in case I got an opportunity to win on scenario on the bottom of two, and I believed that I now had this opportunity. My Gun Boars moved up and used their shots to clear a knot of Obstructors in either zone. Arkadius then moved up between the Road Hogs and started trying to apply Raw Adrenaline. Unfortunately, my dice decided to roll the absolute pits, and I developed such focussed tunnel vision over it that I failed to notice how much Fury I'd spent until, after six attempts, both Road Hogs had Raw Adrenaline... and Arkadius now lacked the Fury to give either of them Primal. Arkadius Feated anyway, sending his heavies up the board and using the Gun Boar on the right to kill the last Obstructor in the zone and to put the Gun Boar there back into the zone. Boomhowler gave Reposition to the Hermit, who then moved up and debuffed the armour of the Reciprocators in the centre of the line contesting my opponent's flag. The Gorax on the left put Primal on the War Hog, who had also received Ghostly from the Witch Doctor. That War Hog went in and cleared the two rearmost Reciprocators, triggering Watcher with the Overtakes. The Conservator near Lucant came forward and took a swing, and I blocked the damage roll with the Hermit. The War Hog then smashed the Conservator in three swings, and had an attack left to kill a third Reciprocator. The Road Hogs then just had to kill two Reciprocators under the Hermit aura. The first one went in, killed an Obstructor after missing three swings on it (one of them with Raw Adrenaline), and then managed to do a total of two damage to the Reciprocator it was attacking before I decided to get it out of there by paying for Sprint and moving it out of the way. The second Road Hog performed better, killing both Reciprocators and getting a swing on the objective. My War Hog on the right flank charged and killed the objective and then used Overtake to clear out a few more Obstructors before it finished its turn. The Gobber Chef ran to score my opponent's flag. Targ scored mine. With both zones and flags under my control and my opponent's objective destroyed, I won the game 5-0. A bit of a theme was developing there for a bit, with opponents wanting to avoid burning their defensive Feat too early and getting sorely punished for it. My dice neaaaaaarly took what should have been a relatively easy win away from me there, I still can't believe how fixated I got on landing those Raw Adrenaline attacks when my priority should so clearly have been on making sure all my heavies were Primal'd. Still, managed it in the end, even if by only a small margin.
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Post by Azahul on Jan 28, 2020 6:17:00 GMT
That'll have to be it for today. Hopefully I'll have time to get another couple of reports out tomorrow. Good thing these ones were so short At least the write-ups are easy.
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