Post by murph on Jan 4, 2018 2:35:23 GMT
Pre-tourney thoughts: I went to a tourney out of town last weekend. My second tournament with skorne, last tournament was a masters event where I went 5-1 with x2 and mak1 cats. I'm happy with the cats list but wanted to give zaal2 a shake as I've been playing some games with him recently. My initial games with zaal2 had been frustrating with me trying to assassinate people with 28 fury and still coming up short. Once I stopped trying to do that and rather used the fury for Aura of Power boosts for the rest of the army I was seeing really impressive returns for attrition. The Xerxis2 list I was pretty happy with other than some scenario vulnerability. Changed one aradus soldier into an archidon, willbreaker, and gobbers crew to give me more scenario presence.
Here are the lists I used:
Skorne Army - 75 / 75 points
[Theme] The Exalted
(Zaal 2) Zaal, the Ancestral Advocate [+29]
- Archidon [10]
- Basilisk Krea [7]
- Cyclops Raider [9]
- Cyclops Shaman [8]
Ancestral Guardian [0(5)]
Ancestral Guardian [0(5)]
Ancestral Guardian [5]
Extoller Soulward [3]
Hakaar the Destroyer [0(7)]
Immortals (max) [15]
- Extoller Advocate [4]
Immortals (max) [15]
- Extoller Advocate [4]
Immortals (max) [15]
- Extoller Advocate [4]
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min) [5]
Skorne Army - 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Imperial Warhost
(Xerxis 2) Xerxis, Fury of Halaak [+28]
- Agonizer [0(6)]
- Aradus Soldier [16]
- Aradus Soldier [16]
- Archidon [10]
- Archidon [10]
- Archidon [10]
- Archidon [10]
- Basilisk Krea [0(7)]
- Titan Gladiator [15]
Mortitheurge Willbreaker [4]
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min) [5]
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min) [5]
Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew [2]
Game 1: Zaal2 v Kreoss3 on championship belt.
Pre-game thoughts: scenario risk: low, assassination risk: low, attrition risk: med-high. No rfp which helps quite a bit.
What Happened: I got first turn which allowed me to feat top of 2 heavily contested into all zones. He still did quite a bit of work but that meant that the 21 fury zaal was sitting on resulted in an excellent attrition turn killing both heavies and a pile of knights exemplar and vengers, scoring me 3 points. He couldn’t recover and I won with him only having piper alive.
Post-game thoughts: went as planned. Got lots of work out of the ancestral guardians and hakaar for once. Adding an archidon to the list was a great choice as I let me deal with a heavy easier. Zaal2s feat lets me jam cav really well as the impacts don’t let them dig deep.
Game 2: Xerxis2 vs Kolgrimma on double circle.
Pre-game thoughts: two beast bricks on this scenario meant the scenario risk is low. Assassination risk: med-high. Attrition risk: med. So the plan is to not die to beasts and ps 14 sprays. Camp 2 under aura.
What Happened: I went second. Flanked really wide with a pair of archidons on each side making life difficult for him to cloud wall effectively. He went for the attrition play on the second turn putting mulg forward to get sprays on archidons. I use hyper aggressive movements effectively to force order of activation issues. He feats here to force me to put rush. My counter attack kills mulg, a bomber, and leaves another bomber on 4 boxes. We piece trade but he loses all heavies and an archidon eats a paralyzed kolgrimma.
Post-game thoughts: didn’t think I made any mistakes here. The matchup pointed out a really obvious weakness in the lists inability to deal with gremlin swarms and clouds. Prob gonna drop the willbreaker for a mist speaker.
Game 3: Zaal2 vs Nemo3 on double rectangle double circle
Pre-game thoughts: I know what you’re thinking “You have a list with 4 archidons, what in the flying Firetruck are you doing dropping the list that needs souls to function into eleaps?!” In my defence, he looked at my list for 5 seconds then said he knew what he was playing. I figure he saw the 4 archidons with Xerxis2 and would nope the Firetruck out of nemo3 and play siege2 instead. So I dropped zaal2 because hes strong into seige2. Oh well. I spend the next 3 mins saying how dumb I am and laughing about it with some of the guys around us. Attrition risk: high. Assassination risk: high. Scenario risk: med.
What Happened: I got first turn which meant I was going to be able to jam under feat a bunch of immortals past the centre line while keeping the most back. This play stopped him from getting his fireflies into good spots so the majority of the leaps ended up needing boosted 13s to kill my stuff. He did end up killing 12 of them with only 4 dying to leaps. The retaliation was brutal. I killed a full unit of lances. The strider. Dynamo. 2 fireflies. Made the last one inert after junior died to a ghost shot shaman. He couldn’t recover and I won on scenario the following turn leaving his with only nemo and reinholdt.
Post-game thoughts: well that went better than expected. Me going first let me jam pretty far forward under feat. Eleaps couldn’t do meaningful work. He could've kept his stuff back and feated once my feat was done but that would've let me take 4 points pretty reliably and not leave him any way to contest my square zone.
Game 4: Xerxis2 vs Magnus2 on dumbbell
Pre-game thoughts: scenario risk: high. Attrition risk: med. assassination risk: low. same sort of plan as with kolgrimma. Flank really wide with a pair of archidons and get relevant in scenario early. This way his feat only hits one pocket of my brick.
What Happened: I go second and he makes significant positioning mistakes turn one not realizing the damage output of my list on feat turn. Between his advance moves on the 4 nomads and the freebooter and the runs, he puts his jacks within threat of 2 archidons, charge range of one bug, and walking threat of another bug. My bottom of one feat I kill 2 nomads, a freebooter, and leave another nomad on 3 boxes (no cortex or sword). He can’t do anything meaningful in response and I assassinate him 2 turns later after his feat is done protecting him.
Post-game thoughts: he gave me the game early. Not much to learn from here other than maybe be more cognizant of ambushers (he had hutchuk and Anastasia in the list that I forgot about).
Post tourney remarks: went 4-0 which was good for 2nd losing out on SoS (would’ve lost on cps too). Pairing was strong. Only weakness I can think of is into madrak1 band of heroes (or makeda2 swordsmen). That and clouds, that mist speaker does double duty for clouds and incorp. I don’t know if Xerxis2 wants any part of that while zaal2 definitely doesn’t want any of that. If I can’t make Xerxis2 work into that maybe I’ll need to look at a different pairing as trolls are hyper prevalent in our meta right now (there were 5 of them). Looking at morghoul2 to make trolls super sad. Won some prize money between second and winning the “out of towner” award. Picked up a bunch of stuff for the morghoul2 list I want to run.
Thanks for reading!
Here are the lists I used:
Skorne Army - 75 / 75 points
[Theme] The Exalted
(Zaal 2) Zaal, the Ancestral Advocate [+29]
- Archidon [10]
- Basilisk Krea [7]
- Cyclops Raider [9]
- Cyclops Shaman [8]
Ancestral Guardian [0(5)]
Ancestral Guardian [0(5)]
Ancestral Guardian [5]
Extoller Soulward [3]
Hakaar the Destroyer [0(7)]
Immortals (max) [15]
- Extoller Advocate [4]
Immortals (max) [15]
- Extoller Advocate [4]
Immortals (max) [15]
- Extoller Advocate [4]
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min) [5]
Skorne Army - 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Imperial Warhost
(Xerxis 2) Xerxis, Fury of Halaak [+28]
- Agonizer [0(6)]
- Aradus Soldier [16]
- Aradus Soldier [16]
- Archidon [10]
- Archidon [10]
- Archidon [10]
- Archidon [10]
- Basilisk Krea [0(7)]
- Titan Gladiator [15]
Mortitheurge Willbreaker [4]
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min) [5]
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min) [5]
Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew [2]
Game 1: Zaal2 v Kreoss3 on championship belt.
Pre-game thoughts: scenario risk: low, assassination risk: low, attrition risk: med-high. No rfp which helps quite a bit.
What Happened: I got first turn which allowed me to feat top of 2 heavily contested into all zones. He still did quite a bit of work but that meant that the 21 fury zaal was sitting on resulted in an excellent attrition turn killing both heavies and a pile of knights exemplar and vengers, scoring me 3 points. He couldn’t recover and I won with him only having piper alive.
Post-game thoughts: went as planned. Got lots of work out of the ancestral guardians and hakaar for once. Adding an archidon to the list was a great choice as I let me deal with a heavy easier. Zaal2s feat lets me jam cav really well as the impacts don’t let them dig deep.
Game 2: Xerxis2 vs Kolgrimma on double circle.
Pre-game thoughts: two beast bricks on this scenario meant the scenario risk is low. Assassination risk: med-high. Attrition risk: med. So the plan is to not die to beasts and ps 14 sprays. Camp 2 under aura.
What Happened: I went second. Flanked really wide with a pair of archidons on each side making life difficult for him to cloud wall effectively. He went for the attrition play on the second turn putting mulg forward to get sprays on archidons. I use hyper aggressive movements effectively to force order of activation issues. He feats here to force me to put rush. My counter attack kills mulg, a bomber, and leaves another bomber on 4 boxes. We piece trade but he loses all heavies and an archidon eats a paralyzed kolgrimma.
Post-game thoughts: didn’t think I made any mistakes here. The matchup pointed out a really obvious weakness in the lists inability to deal with gremlin swarms and clouds. Prob gonna drop the willbreaker for a mist speaker.
Game 3: Zaal2 vs Nemo3 on double rectangle double circle
Pre-game thoughts: I know what you’re thinking “You have a list with 4 archidons, what in the flying Firetruck are you doing dropping the list that needs souls to function into eleaps?!” In my defence, he looked at my list for 5 seconds then said he knew what he was playing. I figure he saw the 4 archidons with Xerxis2 and would nope the Firetruck out of nemo3 and play siege2 instead. So I dropped zaal2 because hes strong into seige2. Oh well. I spend the next 3 mins saying how dumb I am and laughing about it with some of the guys around us. Attrition risk: high. Assassination risk: high. Scenario risk: med.
What Happened: I got first turn which meant I was going to be able to jam under feat a bunch of immortals past the centre line while keeping the most back. This play stopped him from getting his fireflies into good spots so the majority of the leaps ended up needing boosted 13s to kill my stuff. He did end up killing 12 of them with only 4 dying to leaps. The retaliation was brutal. I killed a full unit of lances. The strider. Dynamo. 2 fireflies. Made the last one inert after junior died to a ghost shot shaman. He couldn’t recover and I won on scenario the following turn leaving his with only nemo and reinholdt.
Post-game thoughts: well that went better than expected. Me going first let me jam pretty far forward under feat. Eleaps couldn’t do meaningful work. He could've kept his stuff back and feated once my feat was done but that would've let me take 4 points pretty reliably and not leave him any way to contest my square zone.
Game 4: Xerxis2 vs Magnus2 on dumbbell
Pre-game thoughts: scenario risk: high. Attrition risk: med. assassination risk: low. same sort of plan as with kolgrimma. Flank really wide with a pair of archidons and get relevant in scenario early. This way his feat only hits one pocket of my brick.
What Happened: I go second and he makes significant positioning mistakes turn one not realizing the damage output of my list on feat turn. Between his advance moves on the 4 nomads and the freebooter and the runs, he puts his jacks within threat of 2 archidons, charge range of one bug, and walking threat of another bug. My bottom of one feat I kill 2 nomads, a freebooter, and leave another nomad on 3 boxes (no cortex or sword). He can’t do anything meaningful in response and I assassinate him 2 turns later after his feat is done protecting him.
Post-game thoughts: he gave me the game early. Not much to learn from here other than maybe be more cognizant of ambushers (he had hutchuk and Anastasia in the list that I forgot about).
Post tourney remarks: went 4-0 which was good for 2nd losing out on SoS (would’ve lost on cps too). Pairing was strong. Only weakness I can think of is into madrak1 band of heroes (or makeda2 swordsmen). That and clouds, that mist speaker does double duty for clouds and incorp. I don’t know if Xerxis2 wants any part of that while zaal2 definitely doesn’t want any of that. If I can’t make Xerxis2 work into that maybe I’ll need to look at a different pairing as trolls are hyper prevalent in our meta right now (there were 5 of them). Looking at morghoul2 to make trolls super sad. Won some prize money between second and winning the “out of towner” award. Picked up a bunch of stuff for the morghoul2 list I want to run.
Thanks for reading!