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Post by Azahul on Mar 27, 2019 2:03:00 GMT
As if I wanted to prove my point about not rating ambushing units, my opponent from last week and I played the exact same match-up this week (I had just finished painting my converted Skarath to replace my old blue one and wanted to use him, and he didn't want to play Goreshade into Sturm). This time though, he had tweaked his list to be: Issyria -Chimera -Hyperion Max Strike Force -UA Max Strike Force -UA Min Infiltrators Shadows of the Retribution -Eiryss3 Narn Mage Hunter Assassin Arcanist Mechanik Arcanist Mechanik Deployment I won the starting roll this time around, which felt like a pretty huge boon. Took first, and my opponent chose to take the table side with a trench to deny me the trench more than because he felt he'd get any use out of it himself. I set up with the Dracodile basically right in the middle, the War Hog and Brun and Lug on my left and gunning for the central forest, and Dahlia and Skarath aiming to go and hide in the forest on the right. My opponent set up a Strike Force unit on each flank and the Hyperion in the centre. Both objectives are Stockpiles. The Infiltrators over on my opponent's left side of the table are ambushing rather than actually deployed yet. Pigs Turn 1 Sturm cast Deceleration, Polarity Shield on the Dracodile, and Vision on Skarath. He advanced up the board, comfortable in the inability of the Strike Force to get to him turn one. Dahlia figured that it was physically impossible for the Hyperion to even scatter an AOE onto her, let alone anything else attack her, so she spent her entire stack putting Mist Walker on Skarath and Haunting Melody on herself and went to chill out on the right flank, unbothered by the potential ambushers. The Dracodile ran up and into the central zone. A Battle Boar ran out onto the right to provide a Shield Guard for Skarath while being hard to see as a target himself for most of the army. The War Hog and Battle Boar ran up behind the forest on the left. Brun cast Stonehold and walked up, Lug riled twice and ran up next to my objective. I moved my remaining solos in a clump up behind the Dracodile and a bit over 18" from the Strike Force. Retribution Turn 1 Without many good targets, the Retribution army opted largely to run. Unfortunately I feel like my opponent tripped over himself somewhat, with the right-flank unit running towards the left and ending up largely packed in behind the acid pool there with an Arcanist Mechanik in front of them. The left flank unit pushed hard down that flank, which would give them pretty good board coverage in my turn. Since infantry had largely deserted the right flank, Hyperion ran over towards that zone. Issyria walked up and used Ancillary Attack on the Hyperion, shooting the Dracodile for four damage, cast Inviolable Resolve on it and used Velocity to reposition out over onto the left flank among the Strike Force there. Pigs Turn 2a I had a pretty reasonable assassination run on Issyria from where we were, but a quick glance around the store showed the other players all pretty deep into their games and not much likelihood that we'd get a second game in if I went for it, so we decided to proxy out the assassination first and see if it worked and then continue playing. In a nutshell, Mire moved over to put Weald Secrets on the War Hog and the Battle Boar added Primal. Sturm TK'd himself forward and moved across so that his control area would get where it needed to go, and TK'd the War Hog forward into the forest. The Dracodile received Puppet Master from Eilish and made an assault spray on a Mage Hunter to Issyria's left, catching Issyria with the edge of the spray but avoiding any of the models to her right that the War Hog would need to Overtake off of. The spray hit and Puppet Master turned a poor damage roll into a good one, doing 10 damage through her Focus and leaving her Corroded and Blind. The War Hog then charged the Arcanist, killed him, and began to Overtake through the Strike Force. It cost him two initials and a bought attack to kill the two Mage Hunters he needed to Overtake into melee with Issyria, leaving him with two swings into her one camp. Damage rolls were on the low side so it took both attacks to kill her. Proxy bases show where the Dracodile, Sturm, and the War Hog ended up (more or less, Sturm actually needed to be a bit further to the left and under Lug's base, but we didn't want to disturb things too much and Sturm had the movement to get where he needed to go). Pigs Turn 2b We assumed Issyria had used Admonition on herself instead of camping and played out the attrition game. The objective healed one health on the Dracodile. I moved the left flank Battle Boar into the central zone, opening a charge lane for Lug to rush in and kill one of the Spears of Scyrah, before using Overtake and Return to back up. The War Hog jammed himself in a little further into the crook of the central forest. Dahlia moved up on the outside of the forest on the right and used Mist Walker on Skarath, who left the forest and put up Counterblast. Mire summoned a cloud on top of Skarath and moved out towards the right, after checking that it was impossible for the Infiltrators to come in anywhere where Issyria could give them Crusader's Call and not be inside Dahlia's Haunting Melody. The Battle Boar on the right ran through the forest to provide a Shield Guard for the cluster of models there. I moved the Dracodile forward far enough that the Hyperion could trample into melee if he wanted to, figuring that I'd take a chunk of damage on the Dracodile in return for putting the Hyperion in range of Eilish and all my melee beatsticks, and killed the lead Arcanist Mechanik with the spray to make my Feat in a turn or two a bit more effective. Brun dropped a Fury and ran towards the right flank. Sturm recast Deceleration for want of anything better to do and moved to within walking distance of the right-hand zone. Retribution Turn 2 Issyria activated, Feated, and had the Hyperion shoot the Dracodile for another four damage. The Chimera ran to jam the Dracodile. Both Strike Forces used their Mini-Feats and shot at the War Hog, but the second unit had to have something like seven members of the unit walk through the acid pool to get into range. The final CRA from the second unit was directed at the Battle Boar instead of the War Hog, who at that point had just three boxes remaining, because my opponent planned on using the Spears to finish off the War Hog and figured getting chip damage on another 'beast would be more useful. He then Repositioned forward with the Strike Force and blocked off one of the two Spears from being able to get into melee with the War Hog. The one who was able to walk into melee flubbed his damage roll, rolling three ones and a two and failing to break armour. He also triggered a Counter Charge from Lug, which missed but allowed Lug to return to somewhere where he could threaten the Chimera body blocking the Dracodile. Narn ran out towards my backfield on the left. The Hyperion advanced into the right-hand zone and took some shots at Skarath, putting a bit of damage on the Shield Guarding Battle Boar behind him and missing most of the remaining shots. The remaining Arcanist Mechanik ran into the rubble behind the Hyperion, placing himself within 3" so that he could walk into base to base to repair the Hyperion if necessary next round. My opponent scored the left-hand zone, so the score went to 0-1 in his favour. Pigs Turn 3 Well, the Gobber Chef had a charge lane on Narn that put him in Narn's back arc, which would mean he'd only need an 8 to hit (on 3d6). I decided to go for that first up, after healing the Dracodile another two damage with the Stockpile. Sadly, the Gobber Chef missed his attack, so he didn't add Narn to his fairly impressive kill count. I then had Eilish give Puppet Master to Orin, the Mist Speaker added Guidance, and he moved out towards the left to fry a Mage Hunter Strike Force grunt. The shot bounced three times, hitting the Mage Hunter Assassin, Eiryss, and a Spear of Scyrah. I boosted damage on the first two with Orin's remaining tokens and used the Puppet Master reroll on the Spear and killed all four models hit. Probably the highest value Chain Lightning my Orin has ever pulled off. Over on the right, my opponent had been careful to stay far too far away for Eilish to strip Inviolable Resolve. I decided the best way to crack the Hyperion would be to send the Dracodile in now without any buffs, do as much chip damage as I could, and use Sturm's Feat and the Blind Spray to mitigate what the Hyperion would do in return. Lug charged the Chimera with Bear Hands up and smashed it twice before throwing it into my opponent's objective and boosting the damage roll to kill the Chimera and also squish a Mage Hunter who was standing too close. The Dracodile then charged into the Hyperion, rolled pretty mediocre for damage, but did hit and kill the Arcanist Mechanik with a boosted spray. Brun dumped all bar one Fury and ran over towards the right and Mire put down a cloud between him and the objective to block line of sight to Eilish from most angles. Skarath moved up and sprayed my opponent's objective and one Mage Hunter, missing the latter and knocking the objective down to about 6 boxes. Sturm healed the War Hog twice, cast Deceleration in case the Hyperion went for gun shots, and camped one Fury (figuring that my opponent's resources for an assassination run were pretty low at this point). He Feated, effectively locking down the Hyperion. The War Hog killed the last Spear of Scyrah and then tried to Overtake his way through a whole bunch of Strike Force, but flubbed four of his six attacks and only killed two. The score remained level at 0-1 in my opponent's favour. Retribution Turn 3 My opponent got pretty lucky with Corrosion, only losing about half of the corroded Strike Force (3 models I think). The Hyperion shook blind and moved around the Dracodile to line some shots up on Brun. This triggered a Countercharge from Lug, who did about five damage and used Return to try and block LOS to Brun. I didn't really measure it out though, so the Hyperion still had a sliver of a line on the dwarf. He rolled up threes on both small guns and started putting shots into Brun, until he realised that with no boosts he was needing 6s to do one damage. One point did sneak through. I used my Shield Guard on the big gun to spare Eilish from the blast damage (though he'd have needed a 12 to kill Eilish), forgetting that Issyria had an Ancillary Attack available to take a shot at a Crit Consume. Thankfully, the Ancillary Attack missed instead and though it still clipped Eilish with the scatter it didn't break armour. Narn went and charged the Battle Boar on the left and killed it himself, which was pretty impressive (I think it was down to about 15 boxes from incidental shots though). He sprinted to engage Mire and Eilish. The Mage Hunter Infiltrators ambushed in on the left flank, since it was the only place where I had a model they could kill, and three of them killed the Gobber Chef while the other three ran to pressure my backline. One unit of Mage Hunters charged the War Hog, rolled abysmally and left it on one box, and Repositioned out of the way to let the second unit have a shot. Two Mage Hunters died to the single dice free strikes, including the Officer. The second unit charged in, getting three into melee, and I think needed a 7 on 3d6 to kill it. They rolled triple ones. The score remained level at 0-1 in my opponent's favour. Pigs Turn 4 The Soul Slave used Mental Force on his Bite to kill Narn. Eilish moved up and stripped Inviolable Resolve from the Hyperion. The Dracodile activated, turned to face the left flank a little more, and left the Hyperion on one box with a Fury to spare. Lug finished the job, killing the objective, the Hyperion, and missing two attacks on the right flank Strike Force grunt before getting that kill too. Brun moved up and tried to shoot the last contesting Strike Force member with his Blunderbuss, but missed. Sturm TK'd Skarath forward and walked into the right-hand zone, allowing Skarath to aim and spray down the final Strike Force I needed to kill as well as one other for good measure. He put up Counterblast. Dahlia cast Mist Walker on herself and sat in the forest. The War Hog frenzied and killed another Mage Hunter. The Mist Speaker used Guidance on Orin and he tried to zap a few more Mage Hunter Infiltrators but he missed the 7 to hit. With my opponent's objective, central zone, and right zone I took the score to 3-1. Retribution Turn 4 The Infiltrators charged and killed Orin and the Mist Speaker. The remaining Strike Force tried to kill the War Hog... and their dice failed again. I missed my Counterblast attack on the one contesting the central zone with Skarath. Also missed Brun, which was a shame because I wanted to knock a transfer off Brun so that Lug wouldn't need to make a threshold check. At this point my opponent figured there was no way to win so he just ran Issyria up in front of the Dracodile. With the right-hand zone uncontested, I took the score to 4-1. Pigs Turn 5 I just needed to score the central zone to win, so Skarath aimed a spray and killed the contesting Strike Force grunt. I score the centre zone and right-hand zone, bringing the score to 6-1. Interesting game. It seems a lot further in my favour if I win the first turn, of course, since I could get to a much more commanding position. I think my opponent's turn one run to the left flank with the right flank Strike Force probably cost him the game. I understand getting them away from the sprays on the right, but my opponent's win condition is 100% reliant on killing my solos and he really needs to be threatening as much of the table as possible. Issyria's Feat being used to try and kill heavies is a win for me, since it takes True Sight off the table and Dahlia and Mire both become pretty safe. While the scenario win was largely achievable because of the poor luck in finishing off the War Hog, the attrition game had swung heavily in my favour regardless and my opponent was struggling to contest on the right, while I could have happily fed Brun and Lug towards the left flank and locked it down comfortably. And while the Infiltrators probably came in on the wrong flank as well, as least it meant they were able to kill something. I wouldn't have expected them to survive a turn out on the right with Skarath and Orin and Sturm giving them their full attention, and they wouldn't have been able to kill anything the turn they arrived (and in fact may have lost models due to Skarath's Counterblast, deliberately set up to cover the Dracodile's right flank). Ambushing melee units just feel way too easy to play around for me to think of them as much of a threat, even though ostensibly I'm playing a list that should provide plentiful prey for them with such a valuable backline.
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Post by apoc2148 on Mar 27, 2019 11:19:06 GMT
Curious to see your converted Skarath.
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Post by Azahul on Mar 27, 2019 13:24:24 GMT
Ask an ye shall receive I figured I'd base it around a Tharn because, you know, relevant to the current meta. It'll probably date the model somewhat, but it's good for a laugh in the meantime. And even if Tharn aren't so popular in a year or two, it's not like Dahlia and Skarath will stop being amazing answers to them.
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Post by apoc2148 on Mar 27, 2019 15:00:31 GMT
I like it! Nicely done!
Did you have to reform any of the parts or were you able to fit them together differently to get the desired effect?
*I still have to paint/assemble my Skarath and may steal this conversion, or do something similar*
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Post by Azahul on Mar 27, 2019 15:38:07 GMT
Well, the lower half of his body did go through some passes in hot water to soften them and cinch them around the Tharn's body, and then I ultimately had to saw off the top half, cut out of a few segments entirely, and patch the head and neck back on facing the opposite direction. My biggest point of dissatisfaction with the conversion is that I kinda borked that part up, leading to a bit of an unsightly connection just above the Tharn's right hand in the second picture. I mostly just take solace in the fact that most people won't notice without getting in close to the model
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Post by Azahul on Apr 12, 2019 4:00:09 GMT
Got a couple of games from the past few weeks that I need to report. Both against the same opponent, running similar lists. I played Sturm and Drang both times, even though they wouldn't ordinarily be my drop into Protectorate. The first game was against the following: Cyrenia -Judicator -Hierophant Max Vengers Max Vengers Min Choir Exemplar Warder Exemplar Warder Gravus Vassal Mechanik Vassal Mechanik Deployment My opponent won the starting roll. I took a table side with a bit of acid for Mire to hide in, but I didn't expect to get much use out of the terrain. My opponent had Vengers on each flank and the Judicator in the centre. I placed the Dracodile out on the left flank to muck up one unit of Vengers, with Brun and Lug and Dahlia and Skarath on my right to handle the Vengers there and use the rough terrain available. Both objectives are Stockpiles. Protectorate Turn 1 Everything ran forward, the Vengers making sure to be more than 18" away from the Dracodile on the left. Cyrenia put her armour buff on the Judicator, cast Dash, and dropped her stone wall in front of the Judicator. Pigs Turn 1 Sturm put Polarity Shield on the Dracodile and Vision on Skarath. Since there was no reason to cast Deceleration (excepting the rather edge case scenario of Sevvy throwing out some Immolations) he camped three Fury and moved up. The Dracodile moved up to threaten the Vengers on the left. My Warbeasts hung out behind the rubble on the right, where the Vengers' lack of Pathfinder would slow them down. I believe Orin walked and used Stealth, before being TK'd by the Soul Slave to get close enough to cover the Dracodile with his Arcane Vortex. Dahlia and Brun put up their respective upkeeps. Protectorate Turn 2 The Judicator received a full focus load and moved across to unload on the Dracodile. I chained one rocket shot away to the Battle Boar on the right, and it took about 17 damage from the one shot. The other rocket and two flamethrowers did about 20-25 damage to the Dracodile. Cyrenia then positioned her rock wall to make it impossible for the Dracodile or War Hog to engage the Judicator, and Feated. The left flank Vengers moved up to engage, the right flank ones hung back. Pigs Turn 2 I think I played this turn very poorly. I was pretty badly spooked by the amount of damage the Judicator had done and felt the need to get some work done. With Sturm's Feat coming up though, the Judicator's output was going to drop and I could have avoided the rockets with my Shield Guards, and I could have focussed my attention more completely on the Vengers. Instead, Mire cast Mist Walker on the War Hog and charged out onto the left Venger and killed him with his charge attack. The War Hog killed the other Venger engaging the Dracodile. The Dracodile then charged into the closest Venger, getting a spray tagging two Vengers and Gravus. I boosted to hit Gravus so that Polarity Shield wouldn't be dispelled and hit. The melee attacks all missed, save for one swing on the nearby Exemplar Warder which left him on zero boxes. The Mist Speaker ran into my opponent's zone. Eilish moved up with a TK from the Soul Slave and stripped Inviolable Resolve from the Judicator. Skarath received Primal and charged the Judicator and probably removed about 25 damage with the three attacks I took. I opted not to use the last Fury in case a scattering blast just sniped out Dahlia or something. Sturm Feated on the Judicator and set up within a clump of Shield Guards, and TK'd Lug out towards the right flank. Lug, who received Primal from another Battle Boar, charged and killed two Vengers who were outside of Cyrenia's control. Spacing meant that I ran out of targets to hit after the first two. He really didn't need Primal to kill two Vengers, so that was another poor play on my part. I scored my zone, so the score was 1-0 in my favour. Protectorate Turn 3 The Dervish was out of Sturm's Control Area, so Severius loaded it up with Focus. Cyrenia cast Positive Charge on the Dervish and Judicator. The Dervish charged my Mist Speaker. Used Side Step to get into melee with the Dracodile and took three big swings at it. The three Vengers walked into melee and killed it. The Judicator killed Skarath in three melee swings thanks to being something like Mat 9 P+S 26 even before its dice fixing ability. Even Vision couldn't save Skarath from dying to the remaining two attacks. Gravus and a Venger blocked off landing zones around the Judicator, and the other Vengers jammed up Lug. My opponent scored his zone to make the CP score even at 1-1. Pigs Turn 3 I swapped to Drang for some desperate plays. Lug frenzied and killed one of the Vengers engaging him. Orin moved up and hit my opponent's objective with a Chain Lightning, bouncing into Severius0 but failing to kill him. Drang killed the Venger in my zone and tagged my opponent's objective with an Obliteration and tried to finish the job on a zero camp Severius with the blast damage. Dice left him with one health remaining. I think a Primal'd War Hog had to charge in, kill the objective, and finish the job on Severius. He was able to Overtake into melee with the Judicator and leave it on a handful of boxes. Mire charged in and killed one of the remaining two Vengers on the left. I scored my zone and my opponent's objective, so the score went to 3-1 in my favour. I think we had to call the game there from memory due to time constraints. It was reasonably comfortably in my opponent's favour I think. Gravus, Cyrenia, and a Venger or two just needed to kill my War Hog over the next two turns, while the Judicator would just need to kill Lug. Positive Charge swung the maths on both pretty heavily into my opponent's favour I'd think. There might have been an opportunity or two for me in there if my opponent played poorly, but that was about it. I think my biggest problem was committing two hard on the second turn. This isn't really a list that likes having to be aggressive, and the Judicator put me under a lot of pressure early on. Had I managed my Shield Guards better (having two in range of the Dracodile at the end of my first turn to absorb both rocket shots) and played more conservatively I may have been able to avoid committing on Cyrenia's Feat turn and whittled down my opponent's pretty low model count list to the point where I could deal with the Judicator effectively.
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Post by Azahul on Apr 12, 2019 4:26:29 GMT
A few days later we wracked up a second game of approximately the same match-up, though the particulars of my opponent's list had changed a bit. This time he was running: Cyrenia -Judicator -Hierophant Max Cinerators -Officer Max Vengers Min Choir Severius0 -Dervish Exemplar Warder Exemplar Warder Vassal Mechanik Gravus Anastasia Deployment We reversed the turn order this time. I took the first turn, my opponent let me deal with a table side loaded down with rough terrain. I deployed the Dracodile on the left, and my heavies largely out on the right, but my intent was always to redeploy my Warbeasts on the first turn depending on my opponent's deployment. He set up his Judicator opposite the Dracodile, Vengers out on the right, and Cinerators centre-left. Both objectives are Stockpiles. Pigs Turn 1 I wanted the Dracodile fighting the Vengers and my heavies dealing with the Judicator, so I used my first turn movement speed largely to run heavies to the left and the Dracodile to the right. Sturm put Polarity Shield on the Dracodile and Vision on Skarath. Mire put Weald Secrets on the War Hog. Dahlia cast Mist Walker on Skarath and Haunting Melody on herself. Brun put up Stonehold. Protectorate Turn 1 Cyrenia put Inviolable Resolve on the Judicator, cast Dash, and tossed a rock wall down in front of where her army was going to end up. Everything else ran, save the Cinerators who advanced and used their Mini-Feat to gain some ground. Pigs Turn 2 I spaced on a few different things this turn, notable that Anastasia was out there waiting to ambush and that the positioning of the Dracodile versus the Judicator reduced the need for a second Shield Guard. I moved up and sprayed at the Vengers, tagging one and boosting damage and leaving the Venger on one health. Dahlia put Mist Walker on Skarath again and Skarath barely toed the zone with Counterblast up. I couldn't spray the Judicator because I'd opted to run my Mist Speaker onto my flag and thus lacked Magical Weapons, and if I used a Cinerator to get a bead on it then I ran the risk of giving them Vengeance and thus removing the Burning Earth's LOS blocking aspect. The War Hog ran to be just more than 7" from the Judicator, and Sturm pushed forward to Feat on both the Dervish and the Judicator. Protectorate Turn 2 Corrosion on the Venger went out. Antastasia ambushed in behind the War Hog. The Judicator moved up and shot at the War Hog with all four guns, hitting every attack and leaving him on fire with about eight boxes left. Anastasia charged in and did another five damage. Cyrenia moved up and tossed down a wall to block some access to the Judicator. She Feated and camped four Focus. The Dervish ran to score the right-hand zone, and the near-dead Venger moved up to contest my flag. My opponent scored his flag and the right-hand zone to bring the score to 0-2 in his favour. Pigs Turn 3 Fire didn't go out on the War Hog and my opponent spiked the damage roll to kill it. That basically forced me to abandon any attempt at attrition. Sturm dropped Polarity Shield. Cyrenia was within 13" of Skarath, I just needed to deal with the screen without actually killing anything. I decided to have the Dracodile move up and take a spray at Cyrenia, boosting to hit her, the nearby Exemplar Warder, and the Cinerator Officer. Eilish provided Puppet Master so I could reroll a miss. Even with the reroll, I sadly missed Cyrenia, but did tag both the other models. Lug ran out of the way (probably a mistake, he could have contributed to the assassination run I think if I'd managed things better) and Sturm charged the Exemplar Warder in the burning earth. That let Sturm see through to the Exemplar Officer and Warder. Sturm hit the Cinerator Officer with a Telekinesis to move him out of the way, then boosted a TK at Cyrenia which missed, then hit her with an unboosted TK. The Soul Slave TK'd Skarath forward and out of the forest, the Mist Speaker applied Guidance, and a Battle Boar added Primal. Dahlia ran to get Cyrenia in her Control Area. Skarath charged in, hit the charge attack, and with the second bite brought Cyrenia down to five boxes. I opted to boost the damage roll on the third attack since my opponent, camping four, had enough Focus for all my attacks anyway. I needed a 12 to kill, and didn't get it. We called the game there for the obvious reason that Sturm was in the middle of his army, on fire, with zero camp Again, I think I got spooked by the Judicator more than I needed to. Even had the War Hog survived, Sturm was the only model close enough to add Primal to the War Hog and I'd have needed to TK him and give him Weald Secrets to get there... and he'd still have been standing in front of most of my opponent's army. A Battle Boar on that flank to support it would have given me some more flexibility with positioning, and avoided the damage from a rocket pod. So not my finest play in either game. Both games had me spend a lot of time stressing about the Judicator's capacity to randomly kill Orin with a scattering secondary blast and thus open the Dracodile up to Hex Blasts, which really slowed down my play as well... but there really wasn't anything I could have ever done about it anyway. Just have to hope my opponent doesn't get lucky.
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Growl
Junior Strategist
Posts: 496
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Post by Growl on Apr 13, 2019 3:42:10 GMT
Tough games, thank you as always for sharing. Unfortunately I haven been able to play for quite some time, but when I was playing, the Judicators always spooked me too. Hoping to get to play soon, I will be playing your lists and hope to share some good news.
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Post by Azahul on Apr 13, 2019 10:13:25 GMT
I'm fine with them with Arkadius But there's just so much damage they can do to the Sturm list and there's nothing I (or my opponent, really) can do to control it. Which, since the point of the list is to control what your opponent can do, can stump me pretty badly. On the plus side, just got home from a Teams event where I played my Arkadius/Sturm pair. The Sturm games in particular featured some pretty interesting examples of the list flexing its controlling muscle. It'll just be a few days before I get a chance to write them up.
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Post by Azahul on Apr 15, 2019 1:18:13 GMT
Ok, team tournament report time! I took my usual pairing, since it doesn't really leave me with many holes and lets me cover poor match-ups for a lot of other players on the team without a problem. My lists, in case anyone needs the reference, are still: Arkadius -War Hog -War Hog -Road Hog -Road Hog -Gun Boar -Gun Boar -Gorax -Targ Mire -Wrastler Mist Speaker Witch Doctor Kwaak and Gub Sturm and Drang -War Hog -Battle Boar -Battle Boar -Soul Slave Mire -Dracodile Dahlia -Skarath Brun -Lug Orin Eilish Mist Speaker Gobber Chef Round One Our local team events (most team events in Australia that I know of, for that matter) like to both make things easier on the TO and make picking tables a more valuable option by having the scenarios set for the entire event, rather than changing the scenario each round. Every table has its own scenario, without any duplicates in each set of five. This meant that for our first round, paired against a team without many tough match-ups for our players, we actually opted to pick tables instead. There was one table (which I ended up taking) with a bunch of buildings seemingly designed to muck with huge bases, and we had a Skorne and a Ret player with three- and four-huge base lists who wanted to avoid them, plus a Circle player who really would rather one of the tables with more forests. I drew our opposing team's Circle player and grabbed that table. No super relevant forests, and Sturm's Dracodile plays pretty defensively so it doesn't mind the buildings so much. Plus the scenario, the Pit II, is the deadest of the dead and I could force Iona to play a long, drawn out attrition game. My opponent's lists were Kromac2/Iona. Kromac was almost certainly the better drop, but I was reasonably confident my opponent would drop Iona. I picked Sturm and, sure enough, he dropped Iona running: Iona -Gnarlhorn -Gnarlhorn -Gorax -Blood Shaman Max Ravagers -Chieftain Max Ravagers -Chieftain Max Wolf Riders Boil Master and Spirit Cauldron Night Witch Night Witch Lord of the Feast White Mane Gallows Grove Deployment My opponent won the starting roll. He skewed a fair bit to the left, though Wolf Riders are so fast he'd be able to bring them across more centrally if he had to. One Ravager unit joined them on the left, the other Ravager went on the right where the building there would end up splitting them from the rest of the list. I deployed Skarath out on the left flank, figuring I could just stick her in the zone there and shut down a unit of Ravagers while contesting forever. Skarath would be able to curl around the side of the building there for cover against the Wolf Riders too, ideally. Sturm deployed relatively close to Skarath, along with a Battle Boar so that I could use the building to start building the anti-Lord of the Feast bunker. The Dracodile joined them so that they could gun for the centre and shut off attacks from that side. Brun and Lug and the War Hog set up to look after the right flank, and my opponent responded by putting Lord of the Feast and one of the Night Witches over there... far away from the Spirit Cauldron. Circle Turn 1 Iona put Phantasm on the Wolf Riders, Sure Foot on the left flank Ravagers, and everything ran up the board. My opponent did largely opt to stay out of the 18" spray threat ranges of my models, which gave me some breathing room. Pigs Turn 1 I ran the Battle Boar on the left to start the anti-LOTF bunker, positioned so that if Sturm charged up the field he'd bump into the back of the Battle Boar and not quite move his 8". Sturm then put Polarity Shield on the Dracodile, Vision on Sturm, Deceleration on himself, and charged up the board. The Mist Speaker and War Hog ran to complete the bunker. The War Hog, Lug, and Dracodile all moved up to contest the central zone, with the War Hog and Lug running to more central positions to that my opponent's right flank stuff would have to contend with the Dracodile. Brun and Dahlia cast their respective upkeeps and moved up. Mire dropped a cloud on the Mist Speaker to give him stealth. Skarath cast Counterblast and moved up, and the Soul Slave TK'd him to get a little bit extra movement. Eilish put Puppet Master on Skarath as he moved up the board. Circle Turn 2 Two Ravagers on the left flank could get a bead on Skarath, so they charged in. The lead one died to Skarath's Counterblast attack (needed to hit Def 17 attacking over the obstruction, but Dahlia's additional dice made that a 50/50 shot and I managed it without needing Puppet Master). The Ravager failed his Tough check and died. The second Ravager used his corpse to boost to hit the Def 16 Skarath, hit, and I expired Vision to take no damage. The Wolf Riders raced down the left flank. Lord of the Feast and the Night Witch did the same on the right, followed by the Ravager unit there. The Gnarlhorns largely backed off. We had the same threat range of 11", so my models being solidly in the zone let me pressure them out pretty effectively. Pigs Turn 2 The Night Witch on the right and Wolf Riders on the left were my biggest problems this turn I think. I decided to have Orin deal with the former. He moved up and hit a Ravager with a Chain Lightning, bouncing across Lord of the Feast and tagging the Night Witch. Boosted both to hit the spell and the damage roll on the Night Witch, killing her. He did a few points of damage on the Ravager too, but I was reasonably confident that they wouldn't be able to get up to much mischief even with Vengeance. The Dracodile then moved to toe the right-hand zone and sprayed Lord of the Feast, hitting and killing him. The problem on the right flank resolved, I turned my attention to the left. The Mist Speaker gave Guidance to the Soul Slave, who went for a Mental Forced Bone Shaker on the Wolf Riders. He killed the one closest to my edge of the board, and with some hot dice the one he killed managed to move around and kill the next closest. Took three damage for his trouble. Eilish used Unbinding to strip Sure Foot from the Ravagers and do two damage to Iona. For Skarath's activation, he took a spray through the line of three Ravagers in front of him. Hit all three (two were in Dahlia's Control Range), and boosted damage on the two closest. Rolled the hard eight I needed to kill the third Ravager as well, and two failed their tough checks leaving just the one in Skarath's face alive. Skarath cast Counterblast for his last point of Fury. Dahlia then cast Mist Walker on Skarath and walked into my opponent's zone. I double-checked that my opponent had left his Boil Master more than 2" from the Cauldron, so it wouldn't be able to get close enough to try and Spectral Lash her. Mire moved out of his forest, cast Floodwaters for free, and put a cloud on top of Skarath. Not needing to worry about Lord of the Feast anymore let me be a bit more loose with my bunker, now set up to just spread out any spear shots thrown at my solos. Sturm cast Vision back onto Skarath and put up Deceleration again, and finished off the Ravager in front of Skarath with his spray (managing to miss Skarath in the process). Circle Turn 3 My opponent almost killed my objective with Vengeance attacks on the right, and used Vengeance on the left to get his Ravagers closer to Skarath. My opponent went deeeeeep into the tank for this turn. Ultimately decided to use Iona's Feat, and send the Ravagers in (with Sure Foot up again). I rolled a triple one to hit the first one with Counterblast, and they just barely managed to kill with the last attack rolling hard nines to hit across the wall. The Wolf Riders came in and killed my Mist Speaker and Soul Slave and tried to throw spears at Eilish, but I Shield Guarded the ones that hit. The Ravagers on the right went for some charges, one charging Lug, the other charging Brun, one charging Orin, and the remainder finishing off my objective. Mid-way through resolving their attacks, my opponent clocked. I still had 31 minutes left on my clock at the end there, which was kinda crazy. I continue to be impressed at how comprehensively this list manhandles Iona. You really just need to pick off the more mobile elements of the list, but even if you don't it doesn't mean you lose, it just means you can play a bit less precisely. My opponent spent his Feat on what I think worked out as a 50/50 shot of killing Skarath, and I honestly believe that was the right call on his part. If he'd saved it to try and get work done against the tougher parts of the list, I don't think he'd have had enough left to benefit from the Feat. That said, it did undoubtedly take him too long to settle on a plan of action on turns two and three. Not that figuring out how to play such a blunt caster as Iona into this list is easy, by any means. He certainly made the best of a poor situation.
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Post by Azahul on Apr 15, 2019 2:06:23 GMT
Round Two Our opponents this round had a super scary Cryx player that most of our team didn't want to see, so we presented me and our Circle player. The Cryx player opted to take on Circle, so I ended up playing into Protectorate. My opponent had a Harbinger/Amon pair, so dropping Arkadius was a no-brainer. My opponent was fresh off the back of a game he'd lost round one by getting Harbinger assassinated when he had the game in the bag, and figured (accurately, to be fair) that he wouldn't be able to keep her safe against Arkadius. His Harby list was Faithful Masses too, which is an easier time for me than Exemplar Interdiction because I can just get so much work out of those Raw Adrenaline sprays. Often one Road Hog activation can be enough to burn out all of Harby's available Martyrdoms... so he ended up dropping Amon. Which is probably still bad for him, but for a whole lot of different reasons. His list was: Amon -Sanctifier -Crusader -Crusader -Crusader -Crusader -Crusader -Dervish -Dervish -Dervish Min Choir Min Choir Severius0 -Dervish Exemplar Warder Vassal Vassal Wrack Deployment My opponent won the starting roll. I grabbed a table side where Mire would be able to block off LOS completely using a Caustic Mist on the right flank. I was confident enough into Amon, but I did want to get as many turns as I could just working him over at range before I had to commit into so many heavies, and in a live scenario like Spread the Net that meant I needed to pay very close attention to how the scenario played out. With that in mind, I dedicated Kwaak and the Mist Speaker to babysitting the left flank flag, had Mire out on the right flank, and put a Gun Boar on each flank to go solo hunting and eliminate my opponent's scoring options. My opponent's deployment weighted the left flank a little with his heavies. Protectorate Turn 1 My opponent actually had to be reasonably careful with how he ran up the field turn one, thanks to Arkadius's threat ranges. Amon put up Mobility and his army ran forward. A Dervish on the left and a Fortified Crusader on the right received Enliven. Pigs Turn 1 I wanted to get my chip damage going early, so after running some models forward I had Arkadius Maltreat the Gorax, needle the right flank Gun Boar with a Raw Adrenaline needle, put Forced Evolution on the left flank War Hog, Guardian Beast on himself, and Repositioned forward. The Gun Boar received Guidance from a Mist Speaker, ran up behind the clouds, and Targ used Ancillary Attack to put a fully boosted shot into the forwardmost Dervish on the right (the one next to the orange Fortify/Enliven tokens). The blast damage clipped the unbuffed Crusader beside him, and spiked high to do seven damage to the Crusader and just six to the Dervish. Kwaak ran up on the left to get within walking distance of the flag there, and my other Warbeasts all ran but hung back outside of my opponent's 10-12" threat ranges. Mire moved up and dropped a cloud down on the right. Protectorate Turn 2 My opponent didn't want to cop extra hits from my Feat attacks, so he basically just packed his heavies in behind the central forest and, where they had to be exposed, tried to stay more than 9" away from my models. That limited his advance to only a couple of inches forward across the board. Amon, afraid of assassination, did circle to the left and put a Dervish on the left and the damaged Crusader on the right out of his Control Range. He still had his Feat though, so I still had to treat those models as threats. The most aggressive model was the Exemplar Warder, which pushed forward to make it hard for me to engage with his heavies in the centre zone. He was a bit worried about Crippling Grasp, so opted to deny spells instead of shooting. The Sanctifier and the damaged Crusader received Enliven this round. Pigs Turn 2 While my opponent's plan wasn't a bad one, I didn't feel like I had a reason to engage this turn. He hadn't pushed me back out of the scenario, and I was in a spot where I felt I could chip away at his army largely without consequence. The left flank Gun Boar shot at the Enliven'd Crusader, proccing it before anything else had activated and forcing my opponent to expire it without really doing anything. The other Gun Boar moved up far enough to target the right-flank Vassal, hitting and killing him. A Choir was clipped by the blast damage, but I rolled snake eyes for damage and failed to break armour. With that done, my Road Hogs took some sprays at the damaged Crusader, crippling its cortex and dropping the Warder to 0 boxes with the help of a Raw Adrenaline Ancillary Attack spray. Arkadius didn't have much to do, so he mostly healed the damage he'd done to his battlegroup while giving Raw Adrenaline to the two Road Hogs. I did opt to move Forced Evolution across to the right-hand Road Hog though, figuring that with the way the lines were closing I'd be able to activate that Road Hog first next turn, get work done with him, then hot swap the spell across to the left flank War Hog again. Mire moved across and summoned clouds to block LOS in the centre, while the Wrastler anchored the right-hand zone. I scored my zone and flag, my opponent scored his zone, so the score went to 2-1. Protectorate Turn 3 My opponent realised this turn that he did need to get involved. Amon pulled from the Wrack, which exploded, and dropped Synergy, but it was basically only so that he could walk up and cast Mobility and Synergy to load up his heavies. Two of them were close enough to Trample into melee. The Fortified Crusader trampled up and did some damage to the right flank Gun Boar, the other trampled into the left flank Road Hog (Guardian Beast hit but didn't Crit here, and did six points of damage to the Crusader). I think the Road Hog was left on about eight boxes at the end. Everything else pushed up behind, with the Sanctifier killing the Mist Speaker on the left flank and the Dervish contesting my zone. My opponent scored his zone, bringing the score to 2-2. Pigs Turn 3 Well, this was the big turn. Mire put Rage on both Road Hogs and the right-flank War Hog. The Gun Boar on the left took a potshot at the Dervish in my opponent's zone, taking out its movement (I believe it was the same one I originally shot on Turn 1, having circled around to the other flank since then). The Wrastler moved in and killed the Dervish contesting my zone. The Forced Evo'd Road Hog activated and killed the Fortified Crusader, using Overtake and sprint to get into position to frenzy deeper. I found a spot where I thought my left flank War Hog could go where he could Overtake off the Sanctifier, into the movement crippled Dervish, and then on into my opponent's zone, but he needed Ghostly to get there so the Witch Doctor gave it to him. Arkadius activated, moved Forced Evolution to the left Flank War Hog, and Feated, sending the right flank War Hog into one Crusader, the formerly Forced Evo'd Road Hog into the one missing its Cortex, and piling both Gun Boars and the Gorax and the Road Hog into the Crusader sitting in the Road Hog's face. That Crusader ended up getting knocked down to eight boxes, so the Gorax activated and finished the job with some boosted damage rolls. The War Hog on the right sat himself in between Severious's Dervish and two Crusaders, finishing off the one bereft of a Cortex, damaging the other Crusader, and cutting both arms off the Dervish. The second Road Hog was able to move up between the Gun Boars and finish off the Crusader, before sprinting off to body block the last Crusader to stop it getting anywhere near Arkadius. My War Hog on the left, fresh from frenzying into the Sanctifier, walked into its back arc, killed it, used Overtake to get to the Dervish, killed it, and just barely fell short of Overtaking into my opponent's zone. Kwaak moved up to score my flag. Five Protectorate heavies and two lights in a turn doesn't seem too bad... I scored my flag and zone, he scored his zone, bringing the score to 4-3 in my favour. Protectorate Turn 4 Amon upkept Synergy and allocated two to the Crusader in the forest. He charged the War Hog near his zone, missed his charge attack, which put him in a real dilemma since he needed Mobility for either of his two remaining 'jacks to get anywhere. He opted to use Mobility. That allowed his last Dervish to get behind my War Hog and get one point of Synergy up for the Crusader, and crippled my War Hog's Mind. Severius tried to help to little success. The Crusader received Battle from the Choir and killed my War Hog and the full health Road Hog, although only after Severius's armless Dervish failed to do anything of note. My flag was contested, but we each scored our respective zones to make the score 5-4. Pigs Turn 4 I pulled Fury from my War Hog and Gorax, leaving my Road Hog to frenzy, except it passed its Threshold check. Arkadius instead pulled a Fury from it with Maltreatment, giving it a Fury to act with, but then had to cast Psycho Surgery to repair the aspects he'd just crippled. Arkadius went and hid in my zone while Mire sent his Wrastler in to kill the Crusader and a couple of Choir. Severius died to a gunshot from a Gun Boar, rendering his Dervish inert. The Road Hog received Ghostly from the Witch Doctor and went and killed a couple of Choir, almost clearing the central zone. The Gorax circled to the left and used Primal on the War Hog. Targ ran so that he could use Herding on the War Hog. Not wanting to risk losing the freshly healed mind to a free strike, the War Hog killed the Dervish, used Overtake to get into my opponent's zone, and tried to kill Amon. Landed one hit which left Amon alive on single digit health, but missed the other attack. My other Gun Boar helped finish off the Choir in range to contest my zone in places Arkadius's Guardian Beast couldn't screen. I was down to about three minutes on clock at this point, but I'd run the scenario up to 7-4 at this point. Protectorate Turn 5 The Choir on the left charged into the Forced Evo'd War Hog but failed to do anything. Amon killed the War Hog. My opponent scored his zone, I scored mine and my flag, so the score went to 9-5. Pigs Turn 5 Targ ran to contest his zone. Mire ran to score my zone. A frenzying Road Hog killed the last Choir in the central zone. Arkadius moved in to score it for good measure. I ran the score up to 13-5 to win This felt like an early Mark 3 game, honestly. It's been forever since I've gone up against Amon. Still, Arkadius does what he does best, and Amon largely capping out at 11" threat hurts him badly. That allows me to just stand off at range chipping away with the Gun Boars, which really adds up since I'd taken a Crusader largely out of the fight before the lines even closed. And forcing my opponent to close the lines also meant I got a bunch of additional boosted charge attacks with my frenzies, which I'm pretty sure translated into another heavy destroyed when all was said and done.
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Post by Azahul on Apr 15, 2019 2:59:25 GMT
Round Three I forgot to mention, my team won round one 4-1, and round two 5-0, so for this last round we were in the finals. I had my choice of Khador or Ret for the final game. The Circle player from my team had a ton of practice into the Ret lists, so I opted to grab Khador. I don't get a lot of opportunity to play into Khador, but he had a Wolves of Winter/Winter Guard Kommand pair (Vlad2/Vlad1 respectively) and the sight of all that charge-dependent Pathfinder made Sturm very happy. I dropped Sturm, he dropped Vlad1 Winter Guard, running the following: Vlad -Marauder -Marauder -Spriggan Min Winter Guard Infantry -UA -3 Rockets Min Winter Guard Infantry -3 Rockets Min Winter Guard Riflemen -3 Rockets Min Winter Guard Riflemen -3 Rockets Winter Guard Mortar Crew Winter Guard Mortar Crew Kovnik Joe Widowmaker Marksman Deployment I won the starting roll. Our table here was almost perfectly symmetrical, so there wasn't really anything to gain from picking sides. I deployed my Dracodile on the right, planning to send it up to contest the zones there, and while I deployed Skarath more to the right the plan was to run him left. For his part, my opponent scattered his army out wide and put both Marauders opposite my Dracodile, with the Spriggan facing off against the other zone. Both objectives are Stockpiles. Pigs Turn 1 Sturm put Polarity Shield on the Dracodile, Vision on Skarath, and Deceleration on himself. He moved up the board. The Dracodile ran, aiming to stand just outside of the Feat and Trample threat of the Marauders (12"). Brun and Dahlia cast their respective upkeeps and moved forward. The other heavies ran. The War Hog hung back to be about 14" away from the Marauders on the right, while the other heavies hung waaaaaay back to avoid getting shot up too much Turn 1. Khador Turn 1 For the most part my opponent just ran his models forward. His 'jacks tried to stay out of the threat ranges of my heavies. Mortars took pot shots, which missed and scattered to largely useless spots, though the one on the right did kill my Gobber Chef. Pigs Turn 2 I wanted to get a few Rockets off the table early, so I had the Soul Slave TK Skarath out towards the left flank. Dahlia moved up into the trench to keep him in control, and Skarath managed to tag precisely one rocket in his spray and miss all his other attacks. He cast Counterblast, but I was reasonably hopeful that the building would prevent the Spriggan from getting to him and my opponent's other models weren't too likely to get close. On the right the Dracodile moved up, sprayed the Marauder behind the building, boosted damage to do a fair chunk of damage, and cast Floodwaters to prevent the Marauders from being able to engage him since their only Pathfinder access required charging. Orin moved up and tossed out Chain Lightning to kill a single Winter Guard who survived the spray. Everything else basically just hung back, using the buildings to avoid getting spitted on a Spriggan lance next turn. Sturm just cast Deceleration and camped his remaining Fury. Khador Turn 2 My opponent figured that since his Feat wasn't going to be enough to get him into melee with the Dracodile, he might as well get some use out of the Spriggan. Vlad loaded up the Spriggan. He activated first, Feated, and cast Signs and Portents. The Spriggan charged the objective and killed it in one shot, so decided to use its remaining focus to try and kill Dahlia. Both grenade launchers missed, but one scattered within the trench and did three damage to her, which she took. The rest of the Winter Guard unloaded on Skarath, but between missing a big CRA from the infantry and rolling pretty mediocre with the Rockets that did hit the snake was still standing on eight boxes at the end. The Widowmaker Marksman forgot to activate. Perversely, on the other flank the Rockets rolled like the blazes, doing about 20 damage to the Dracodile. My opponent scored his zone, which combined with destroying my objective put the score at 0-2 in his favour. Pigs Turn 3 Sturm activated, Feated, and moved up to spray a few Winter Guard who were blocking the Dracodile's charge lane dead. He put up Deceleration and ended up camping one. The Soul Slave TK'd the Spriggan out of the zone and the War Hog charged it in the back. I only made its initials, leaving it with about 10 boxes left. Lug then walked in, hit it a few times, leaving it on four boxes, and threw it into the building and onto a clump of Winter Guard. Killed three Winter Guard and the Spriggan. Orin moved up and burned his Power Tokens, getting a big Chain Lightning that erased four Rockets from the board. Skarath aimed a spray at a clump of three rockets and the Winter Guard Mortar and Crew Member, killing all five models. The Dracodile charged one Marauder on the right, crippling its Cortex and leaving it blind with its initials and one bought attack. I chose to use Floodwaters rather than finish the job. Mire tossed out a cloud, cast Floodwaters himself, and healed the Dracodile for one. I mucked up my Battle Boar placement and wasn't able to contest my opponent's zone, so the score went to 1-3 in his favour. Khador Turn 3 One Marauder was Blind, unable to shake, and 2" away from the Dracodile and thus unable to engage it. The other was just over 3" away, which meant that without being able to charge (and no point Trampling, since it wouldn't have Focus to buy attacks) it wasn't able to engage it either. My opponent decided that he didn't really have a hope on attrition. He gunned down Skarath, and charged some Winter Guard and Vlad with Blood of Kings up into the Battle Boar and killed it too. One Marauder ran as far as it could to try and help screen Vlad, but it wasn't really in position. Winter Guard flailed ineffectually at the Dracodile on the right I scored my zone, and I think the Marauder obscured by the Dracodile was just toeing the zone there, so the score went to 2-4 in my opponent's favour. Pigs Turn 4 I mucked this up a bit. I opted to swap to Drang just because my opponent wanted to see him in action. Probably should have used Sturm so that the TKs could stop some of the movements here being a bit dodgy. Ended up having Lug throw the Marauder at Vlad, and almost blocked the War Hog's charge path at him. Vlad helped clear out some Winter Guard with an Obliteration. I Primal'd the War Hog with a Battle Boar and sent him in, and killed Vlad. It's almost awe-inspiring just how totally the Dracodile can screw over Khador heavies, it really is... I was able to dig deep into my opponent's side of the board with the Dracodile on Turn 3 with zero repercussions, thanks to making it impossible by bringing his threat range down to a mere 3". The Feat was really the only thing keeping me at bay, but since Floodwaters effectively reduces the Marauders to about an 8" trampling threat (shaving off 4" by doubling the last 4" the Marauders have to travel) I always going to alpha them in some capacity. My opponent's other list, Wolves of Winter, would have had a similar struggle with Doom Reavers relying on Relentless Charge for their Pathfinder, coupled with Dahlia mucking things up on one flank. This was really one of those games where I got to flaunt how miserable this list can make its opponents Australia's OTC event is coming up next month, so this was our big practice tournament in preparation. I'm feeling pretty good about it and should be taking these lists, but hopefully the Archon CID this week gives me something new to test out in the meantime to get a bit of variation back into these reports!
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Post by Azahul on Apr 16, 2019 23:46:17 GMT
Because I think I forgot to mention it, my team won the last round 3-2 and clinched the event
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Post by Azahul on Apr 22, 2019 8:58:39 GMT
Just cross-posting a game from the CID forums that I played today. The lists were: Doctor Arkadius -War Hog -War Hog -Road Hog -Road Hog -Gorax -Targ (free) Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew Mire -Wrastler Void Archon Void Archon Dhunian Archon (free) Witch Doctor (free) The intent with this list was to see if the Void Archons could meaningfully keep pace with Arkadius's fast battlegroup. The Dhunian Archon, being available as a free option, was mostly tossed in because she was a free option. Her job would be to protect Mire from dying, since I intended to be casting Caustic Mist most turns and my opponent would still have some attacks able to get to him. Severius2 -Blessing of Vengeance -Judicator -Hierophant Min Choir Max Idrians -Chieftain and Guide Initiates of the Wall Initiates of the Wall Champion of the Order of the Wall Champion of the Order of the Wall Darton Vilmon Wrack Hermit of Henge Hold The addition of the Hermit was intended to make it very hard to one-round the Judicator, by giving it the ability to cancel two damage rolls. Deployment My opponent won the starting roll, and I took the table side loaded with LOS blocking terrain and cover. Help against his Idrians, even if his battlegroup didn't care. My opponent set up his Judicator on the left, while Idrians skewed a bit centre-right. I responded in kind, with both War Hogs and a Void Archon facing off against his Judicator, while Arkadius and his Road Hogs took the centre and the Gorax was my concession to scoring the right-hand zone. A note on proxies. I am using two Skarath models for my Void Archons, and a Gatorman Husk as the Dhunian Archon. My opponent is using a Rhoven miniature as the Hermit, a converted Gravus for the Champion on the left flank (his other one was broken), and one of Rhoven's guards for Vilmon. Also of note, the Idrians selected the right-hand Road Hog as their Prey target. My opponent placed his theme benefit wall as far in front of the Judicator as he could. Protectorate Turn 1 Severius used his free spell to put Arcane Ward on the Idrians. He moved up and camped his remaining Focus. The rest of the army ran. Pigs Turn 1 I moved my Bellows Crew up and, together with Mire, built a cloud wall to hide behind. I mostly kept my heavies back and as safe as they could be from the Judicator. One Void Archon and Targ ran across into the left-flank Trench. The other Void Archon hung back and lurked behind the forest on the right, along with the Dhunian Archon. Arkadius put Forced Evolution on the leftmost War Hog and Guardian Beast on himself. Protectorate Turn 2 The Judicator moved up and shot at Targ, killing him. I had sadly neglected to have him close enough for the Dhunian Archon to save, but we pushed the Archon closer as if I had actually positioned with the intent to protect Targ and he died to the secondary blast anyway. The Judicator's second shot killed both members of the Bellows Crew. The Idrians moved up and used their Mini Feat to Dig In. The Champions hugged the corners of the wall to make it harder to engage the Judicator. I forgot to take a picture. Pigs Turn 2 The Void Archon on the left had full souls, and was close enough to charge the closest Idrian. I sent him in, boosting to hit the charge attack, which missed. The second attack was also boosted, and killed the Idrian and allowed the Void Archon to teleport across behind the Champion of the Order of the Wall. Had I not missed the charge attack I would have been able to dismount him I think, but as it was I got a bit flustered and targeted the Judicator with the spray instead to dismount him and damage the other Champion and one of the Initiates. I ran my Gorax into the right-hand zone, and Arkadius used his Feat to send his battlegroup up the field. He used Raw Adrenaline on one of the Road Hogs and camped three Fury. The left-hand Champion proved difficult to dislodge. I killed a few Idrians with my Road Hogs, one of whom tried to dismount the Champion as well but failed before sprinting out of the way, and eventually my Forced Evolution War Hog had to come in to get the kill. The Hermit used his Prophecy to cancel one of the attacks, so it took all of the War Hog's initials to kill the Champion and Overtake into the Judicator. I was only able to make three attacks on the Judicator, and the Judicator cancelled one of those damage rolls with his remaining Focus, but I still crippled the Judicator's right arm. The second War Hog could have tried to kill the other Champion, but I decided I wanted to contest my opponent's zone more and make scoring difficult and ran the War Hog over instead. The Dhunian Archon ran to my flag. The other Void Archon tried to spray a couple of Idrians and an Initiate, but because it had been too far back to collect souls until now it wasn't able to score a kill. The blue base is the Judicator. At the end of this turn I scored my flag and zone, bringing the score to 2-0. Protectorate Turn 3 Severius allocated Focus to his two Warjacks and charged the Void Archon, casting Creator's Wrath for free. He had a 50/50 shot of killing the Void Archon with the charge attack, but left it on one health instead. A second attack finished the job. He then tried to hit the Forced Evolution'd War Hog with a boosted Hex Blast, but missed. He used his remaining Focus to cast Arcane Ward on himself. The Judicator moved across and failed to kill the Forced Evolution'd War Hog thanks to the crippled arm. Vilmon finished the job. The Idrians, Initiates, and the Champion of the Order of the Wall managed to kill the second War Hog and leave the Road Hog on five boxes. One of the Idrians triggered Guardian Beast and allowed me to move the Gorax across so that it was no longer close enough for Blessing of Vengeance to charge. The Hermit ran towards my opponent's flag but didn't make it. The score remained 2-0 in my favour. Pigs Turn 3 I needed to score three CP to win this turn. To do so, I had my Gorax (who had been damaged with a Maltreatment the turn prior) cast Primal on himself, slam Blessing, and boost to hit. It hit, and I slammed Blessing out of the zone. Arkadius then activated, Maltreated the Gorax for a point of Fury, charged and boosted to hit the Champion with a stationary needle. He hit, killed a few Idrians in the centre-zone with Primal Shocks (loading up the Void Archon with souls in the process). Mire cast Rage on the Wrastler, and the Wrastler killed the Champion with his initials. The Void Archon activated and killed the three Initiates and one Idrian left in the zone. Overall I was pretty impressed with the models involved (barring the Dhunian Archon) but for anyone interested in my thoughts the CID report below has the model rankings and so on: cid.privateerpress.com/forum/battle-reports/battle-reports/battle-reports-oblivion-week-1/128153-doctor-arkadius-will-work-for-food-vs-severius2-faithful-massesHaving played it, my opponent and I talked the list over a bit and I think the Void Archons actually allow me to drop Mire and the Wrastler from the list and put the Gun Boars back in. That probably improves the list rather dramatically, since I no longer have 20 points of models hanging back until the late game. The list I'm currently thinking post-Oblivion is: Arkadius -War Hog -War Hog -Road Hog -Road Hog -Gun Boar -Gun Boar -Gorax -Targ Void Archon Void Archon Hermit of Henge Hold Witch Doctor Kwaak and Gub Enliven plus the Mad Visions rule is a combo I'm really excited to have access to with Arkadius, for one thing, and the Void Archons and Gun Boars and Road Hogs adds a lot of boostable guns for increased assassination potential.
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Post by Dirhavel on Apr 23, 2019 6:15:55 GMT
Interesting conclusion about Mire. There are situations where Rage is the better option but I really like that list with the archons, gun boars and the hermit, it seems a lot better overall. Any chance you could try it before the end of this CID?
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