LVO experience continued...this time with Madrak1 (& Bearka)

Masters Heat A (and B)


Alright, seemed like people enjoyed (or tolerated) the LVO experience breakdown, so I'll continue it with the second installment, Masters A&B.

Here are my lists:






Madrak 1 vs Karchev – Jaws of the Wolf – Standoff

Karchev list includes:

2-3 Juggernauts
2-3 Maurauders
2 Kodiaks
Destroyer – jack marshalled
2 Grey Lord Forge Seers
Widowmakers
Marksman

Given my opponent’s low model count, a favourable scenario, and the champs ability to chew through armor, I feel pretty good about this matchup. I had played a similar list to this a month or so before LVO and the widowmakers were what prompted me to throw Warders into my list, so I felt appropriately teched as well.

Turn 1

I win first and run up. Madrak puts up even ground and puts his remaining fury in the stone. I intersperse the warders amongst the kriels to save them from snipe shots. My goal is to push as hard as I can into the far zone, block off my zone and score there 5 times.

Karchev also runs up. The widow makers attempt to shoot down a few warriors, but thanks to even ground and shield guards they are ineffective. The destroyer is the only jack out on the left flank. It moves forward and lobs a shot towards the champions, but misses or does not do much damage.

Turn 2

I forego my potential charges with kriel warriors and just run what I can to my opponent’s zone. I can toe 2-3 warriors onto it. The bomber is able to aim and shoot the Kodiak getting some decent damage on it and killing the marksman with blast damage. Madrak also shoots the Kodiak and ricochets a shot into a widowmaker, killing it and casting evenground. The champs on the left position aggressively towards the destroyer, outside it’s charge range. It’s more than 4” from the zone, so it either has to run to contest or shoot. Skaldi’s champions position themselves to block out my zone from the right and contest the right zone. They’re outside of threat ranges and there’s a decent forest in the zone that will slow down the jacks so much that even with warpath they will have a hard time getting there.

Karchev moves forward, and the jacks swing where they can on the kriel warrior jam. He’s able to clear his zone but still has way too many bodies between him and my zone. The destroy decides to walk forward and shoot the champions. I spread the damage around and even though it’s a decent strength hit, they are all still alive with plenty of boxes. Importantly, he does not contest the left zone.

Score 2-1

Turn 3

I push the remaining kriels further into his zone/jack wall. The warders move up to also body block my zone. On the right I push up the block out of my zone with Skaldi’s champions. The champs on the left kill the destroyer and a seer, but stay within the zone to score again. The bomber shoots the objective a couple of times bringing it low on health. Madrak throws his axe to finish off the objective. He ricochets into the injured Kodiak and also finishes it off. Casts even ground, fills the stone and feats. I like the healing on the champions on this feat, but most importantly is the no charging since the jack wall is closing in on me.

Score 5-1

Karchev feats and his jacks swing away where they can. Most of the kriels are now dead but since he cannot charge and it’s too far to run around my body wall of champions/warders, he’s unable to contest my zone.

Score 6-2

Turn 4

I contest and win 7-2



Round 2

Gaspy 2 – Satyxis theme – Breakdown

Well, since I already played 2 members of my WTC 2017 in champions, why not a third in masters? I’m lined up against another friend of mine, Garnett Germain.

I play Madrak1 again in this match as Gaspy doesn’t have a mat fixer and gang on the witches doesn’t go far enough in my opinion. The ability for gaspy to drop excarnates and death knells is worrying, but I think I can manage it even though I’m pretty clumped up. I also have a stone scribe elder, so I’m not concerned about the caustic mist.

Gaspy’s list includes:

Barathrum
Nightwretch
Cankerworm
Max and Min Satyxis w UA
Max and Min Blood Witches w hags
Gunslingers
Satyxis captains

Turn 1

Gaspy runs forward. Garnett’s lists is fast so it’s up the board fairly far. There is some terrain on the edges of his deployment zone, so he has to choose between pathfinder and force barrier. He chooses force barrier so he’s slightly further back from having to go around. Gaspy throws up a couple caustic mists to prevent LOS to some further back satyxis.

Madrak goes, has LOS to a raider in front of the mists so he gets puppet mastered from Eilish, snipes for free from the runebearer and chucks an axe at a raider, killing it, casting even ground, and ricocheting into another raider. He dumps his remaining fury (3 after two boosts) into the stone. The stone advances and awakens for more fury also puts up no continuos effects. My force is slow going so the rest of the models just run up with the kriel warriors and warders providing a shield for the champions. We are careful to stay outside of the threat range of the ambushing blood witches.

Turn 2

The blood witches ambush on the right and run to annoying spots. Gaspy launches a brutal death knell into the skaldi champions unit and puts a ton of damage into them. I’ve placed the champions so only 1 or 2 can be charged by the raiders on the right, so I’m not overly concerned about sharing the damage on the further back models. The witches and satyxis crash into the warders and kriels. They are not particularly effective but they do kill 4-5 kriels. Barathrum comes into the warders, who also get parasited by gaspy, but he is unlucky and missed a couple attacks and a warder toughs. Because of this, he cannot move away from the bomber’s threat range with drag below.

There are only 5-6 satyxis in the center zone, so I focus my effort there. Giving war cry and guided hand out to the champions to ensure we hit. Madrak aims and shoots a raider, ricocheting into another, difficult to reach raider around the forest in the middle. This further back raider was the anchor on the zone as nothing else was going to be able to get to it, so the ricochet was critical to scoring this turn. Madrak then casts rage on the mauler and fills the stone. Madrak feats. I manage to clear the remaining raiders with the champions and kill barathrum with the bomber. I don’t however, get a ton of models into the left zone, only a warder and a kriel warrior.

Score 1-0

Turn 3

Unable to charge me, the satyxis and witches are pretty pathetic. Gaspy does upkeep parasite on the warders so the one in the zone can die to cankerworm and some raiders. Then he flips it to the kriel warriors so he can kill the contesting warrior. Outside of that, not much is accomplished. The right flank and centre are crumbling for him but he’s got a decent amount of models on the left. Spread out on the right to make me take as much time as possible to score that zone.

Score 1-1

I’m not able to get to all the satyxis on the right, so the champions just continue to grind against the ones they can get to. The mauler fially joins the fight and kills a couple more raiders on the right.

I move the remaining warders into the left zone and the kriel warriors in the centre do their best to kill what witches they can. The bomber is able to land a couple decent shots into witches that do significant work with the AOEs, but outside of a few raiders on the right, his entire force is working to hold the line between the centre zone and the left.

Score 1-1

Turn 4

The warders are finished off by cankerworm and some charging witches. The contesting kriel warriors are also removed. The remaining two raiders on the right spread out to separate sides of an obstruction at the back of the zone on the right. This is super annoying, but could just decide the game. He goes not give up space on the border between the zones, so he continues to contest there.

Score 2-1

I move the bomber into the left zone and manage a couple more good blasts. There’s not many raiders left so the witches don’t love the pow 8s. Madrak has one chance to basically put this game away for me. If he can kill both witches on the right with a sweet ricochet shot there will be no remaining raiders on the right side of the board and I will score at will. He needs 12’s to do it, so it’s unlikely but possible. He misses the first one, but rerolls with puppet master from eilish and hits. Uses this raider to throw up even ground. He unfortunately misses the second, further away raider. Sad. So, the mauler runs to engage the raider as no one else can get there.

The witches are starting to work through the champions on the left but there are still enough there to push back against the witches and open up a spot for one to slip into the zone.

Score 2-1

Turn 5

The grind continues with gaspy moving parasite to the champions and the depleted witches and slingers shooting at the champions. I leae one alive in the zone with the sanguine bond, but there are only 3-4 champs left with 1 box each now.

Score 2-1

The Mauler is able to kill the one raider on the right and madrak moves into the zone so I can bring Skaldi’s champions to the centre. I move the bomber into the left zone and continue punching away with champs.

Score 2-2

Turn 6

Cankerworm and the witches are able to clear the champions and bring down the bomber. But he has no models left or even on that side of the board to contest.

Score 3-3

I run a ton of models including the stone unit and skaldi’s champs toward the left zone, but I’m running short on time and cannot contest this turn. I spend too much time attempting to clear a hole/measure for a contesting runebearer to make the zone.

Score 4-4

Turn 7

Garnett makes a few attacks, but overall I’m too short on time for it to matter.

Score 5-5.

I clock out. With enough time left on my clock, I would easily be able to run a model to the left zone to win the game, but since it would not automatically win me the game by 5 CPs I need to complete my turn and I don’t have the necessary 15 seconds. Well, onto Masters B.


Masters B Feora3 vs Madrak1 – Faithful Masses – Outlast

Feora’s list includes:

2 reckoners
Idrians w UA
Choir
Aiyanna and Holt w Priest
Max Skyhammers
2 champions of the wall
Vilmon 
3 Wracks

Ok, I’ll start by saying, the buffs in my opponents list are pretty awesome. Between prey and incite and the theme vengeance. Feora’s army can get up to some pretty ridiculous numbers.

Turn 1

Feora goes first and runs models up into position. Very aggressive, there isn’t much room for my army to hide, but it doesn’t do that anyways. The Skyhammers are out on the right and they space out as I’ve deplayed my bomber across from them.

Madrak’s force runs up. Overall, my plan is to block out my flag, contest his and maybe push the left zone. The right zone has the skyhammers and both reckoners heading towards it, so it’s unlikely I can take it but I can contest it all game thanks to a well-positioned house in the centre of the board that edges into the zone. The idrians put prey on the kriel warriors so I run one kriel to the back of the board and the rest move to their dooms. The Mauler runs into the left zone in a trench, within threat range of a champion of the wall. I’m confident that the champion cannot kill the mauler alone and the trench+ even ground means he’s not going to be shooting me easily. The bomber walks up and throws a couple of AOEs towards the skyhammers, killing a couple of them. The warders move so 2 are within 3” of the bomber and 1 is 3” behind both of them. My play is, if he combines one shot into the bomber I daisy chain it away, if he splits it up, the warders can at least take 2 shots.

Turn 2

Feora moves up and sprays down a couple kriels. The idrians shoot down a few more. The champion of the wall charges the Mauler and does some decent damage. As expected the Skyhammers shoot the bomber. He opts to go for one big shot and I shield guard it twice to the warder in the back, who gets blown to smithereens. Vilmon and the second champion move up to his flag.

Madrak is able to shoot down a couple idrians, cast even ground and fills the stone. He moves up to the flag as I’m afraid the fell caller or eilish will just die to feora’s spray. I surround him with skaldi’s champions. The bomber continues to work on the skyhammers. The couple remaining kriels move to contest the flag. The Mauler de-horses the champion. The second unit of champions moves into the left zone aggressively.

Score 1-0

Turn 3

Feora moves up and feats. She pumps a spray and a firestep into Skaldi’s champions and does a significant amount of damage. I have no continuous effects up though, so at least I’m not on fire. The idrians clear off the kriel warriors (save for the one at the back). Aiyana and holt throw harm on the Skaldi’s champions. All in all, I think I leave this turn with just Skaldi left in his unit, but I still have all of the champs in the second unit, although they are damaged. Once again, the sky hammers shoot the bomber, but given there are only 4-5 of them left, they don’t do much damage to the warder who shield guards the shot. Vilmon moves up to contest my flag and the champion of the wall scores his. The only unfortunate part of this turn for my opponent is that it took a very long time.

Score 1-1

Madrak kills vilmon and casts even ground with blood bood, he throws guided hand on the champions and feats. The champions are able to dehorse the scoring champion of the wall and kill most of the remaining idrians. The bomber finishes off the skyhammers. Now that I’ve pushed well beyond my flag, eilish and the fell caller take the flag. The mauler finishes off the dehorsed champion of the wall that charged it earlier.

Score 2-1

Turn 4

Feora again goes to do a spray and firestep. Again, she does a bunch of damage, but there isn’t much left on the left to help her push. The reckoners move up and shoot the bomber, which gets shield guarded by warders.

He isn’t able to contest my flag, but he scores his with Feora.

Score 3-2

The bomber decides to back up around the building in the centre. He’s still still contesting the zone and is able to see one of the reckoners so tosses a couple bombs in its direction. The warders run to engage the reckoners. I push models to jam up the opposing flag and the mauler runs into the middle of the left zone to threaten the deliverer contesting the zone.

Score 4-2

Feora starts to swing away with the reckoners on the warders but isn’t able to clear them with just one of them so can’t get to the bomber. There are a couple more shots/attacks, but the feat turn has cost my opponent too much time and he clocks.

Score 5-2


Bearka vs Abby2 –Oracles - Spread the Net

Abby2 is a nightmare for me. As I mentioned in the champions breakdown, I play against Cory Burns all the time so, I actually start twitching when I see her across the table. I’m fortunately however, that I think this is a pretty slam dunk match up for me.

Abby’s force includes:

Proteus
Scythean
Seraph
Neraph
2x wasps
Naga nightlurker
Forsaken
Shepherd
Martyr

The central piece of terrain in this game is a building, and as usual for this event, it’s pretty large.

I decide not to ambush the bears as I don’t think he’s going too far out to the edges and I want them to help with the long attrition game. This is unusual for me in Spread the Net as I like them to be able to contest/kill what’s on the opposing flag, but in this match I think it works.

Turn 1 – Abby’s force runs up and is fairly aggressive as is usual for Abby. Bracer is on Proteus.

He’s given me the Scythean within threat range of the FEs on the left, so I take it and assault in. I have to use the FE’s to light themselves up, so it’s not as effective as it could be, but The raiders move up and launch AOEs all over the place, landing a couple more on the scythean. The scythean lives, but it’s fairly beat up and on fire. I’m hoping the rest of the AOEs will drift onto exciting things like the shepherd or forsaken, but not a ton of luck there. The rest of the force moves up and gets well within threat ranges of the abby force. I figure I can’t avoid it so let’s just go head first in to the fray. Bearka moves up, outs up Battle Charged, puts fury into the stone, casts earth blessing on himself and feats. He’s only on one transfer and is within range of Proteus, but he has the feat so I’m not concerned.

Turn 2

My opponent smartly backs up most of the beasts without attacking he does kill a raider with the spell martyr to give him alpha hunter. The wasps come in to clear out the raider/FE jam and manage to kill a few, but end up stationary. A Neraph runs to contest my zone.

I have 2 FE’s left in each unit, so they move to some good positions and spray down the wasps. I’m able to use one of the FEs that remained on fire to spray the Scythean again. The bears on the right are able to get to the Neraph with stone speed, so they are given warcry and they walk up to it. Betweeen the gang and warcry they leave the Neraph on a couple boxes and the EBDT tramples over to finish it off. I contest the flag with raiders and the bears on the left are able to reach the Scythean after the wasp jam is cleared and kill it. I score my flag with Valka and the EBDT is in my zone. Lanyssa moves up behind the central building and puts up winter storm to stop Proteus from jumping over the building.

Score 2-0

Turn 3

Proteus is jammed up by raiders so he does some work killing them and the FE’s and toes into the zone. The seraph and naga shoot down the FEs and contesting raiders on the right and a shepherd moves to score his flag. He doesn’t contest my zone or flag though.

Score 4-2

Bearka protects himself by backing away from the fight. He’s within threat range of only Proteus who I jam up with the bears. I put the Mauler behind the bears and use whatever else I have to score/contest. Most importantly, Lanyssa again puts up winter storm and is within range of proteus.

Score 6-2

Turn 4

Abby clears the bears and feats, the seraph comes over to attack the mauler but just ends up in the way of Proteus who cannot get to Bearka because of winter storm. We had to double check it to be sure, but Abby gives flight/pathfinder…yadda yadda on her activation, however they lose it from lanyssa on theirs.

Score 8-2


Madrak vs King of nothing – Bump in the night – Breakdown (again?)


King of nothing’s force includes:

Gorehound
2 Rattlers
Crabbits
Max hollowmen w UA
Neigh slayers
Max Dread rots
2 Mad Caps
Twilight Sisters
Murder Crows
Longfellow
Glimmer imp

His arcana are Taste of Ashes, Ruin, something else I cannot remember. Whoops.

I haven’t played Breakdown since, well this morning, so why not play it again, right? While there is a ton of infantry in the Grymkin force, I think the high def of my models should see me through this. Also, I’m losing my mind at this point, so I want to play something stupid and simple and that’s Madrak1.

I go first and run up the board. I stay clear of the hollowmen ranges and Longfellow so I can not put up even ground and instead fill the stone with 5 fury. The stone moves up and takes care of the rest going to max right away. My plan is to fill the centre zone with bodies and score there 4 or 5 times and maybe get one on the sides if something presents itself.

The King and his force also run forward. He positions himself outside me whopping 9” threat range. The Mad Caps run to just behind a couple pieces of terrain on the outside of the circle zones, ready to feed cask imps into the zones for the rest of the game.

Turn 2

I push my jam right up, just running the kriel warriors and warders to create a shield around the centre zone. Skaldi’s champions move up behind them and the champions on the left move up behind the kriel/warder wall, on the left. Both champ units are toeing the circle zones. Madrak shoot down a couple dreadrots and casts even ground for free. My opponent does not proc Ruin.

Murder crows come in. I’ve left my bomber within threat range, but nothing else. The king puts scything touch on the gorehound and runs it to with melee range of the bomber and then charges it with the crows. They do a significant amount of damage, but don’t kill it. Rattler number one goes to kill kriel warriors and really flubs it. I think in the end, it kills one kriel and is mostly just is a road block for the spot it opened up to the zone. It however, is contesting. He shoots with the hollowmen, but the shots I can, I shield guard with the warders.

Score 0-0

Turn 3

Between the champions and the warders we kill the rattler and the king thanks us by putting up taste of ashes. I kill a couple more crabbits this turn and the gorehound so it does some damage. Madrak goes and feats to remove this damage and heal up the bomber. The bomber kills 4 of the murder crows and snacks them to heal up further.

Score 1-0

Rattler number 2 comes into the kriel warrior/warder wall. He does slightly better than he counterpart, because he’s given scything tough and is within 5” of the king, but still only kills 2-3 kriels. Because he isn’t able to charge not much happens in the centre zone other than this and he isn’t able to contest. The hollowmen start pouring shots into Skaldi’s champions who also take a beating from the cask imps.

Score 2-0

Turn 4

I once again clear the centre zone with the champs. The mauler moves to start taking the hits from the imps on the right. The champs on the left are able to clear off a few dread rots and the glimmer imp. But they have also taken a beating from cask imps. Madrak tries to shoot down a dread rot but between a shield guard and a tough check he fails so he has to cast even ground for 2 fury, which is ruined. So I have to cast it again and be naked. I think I’m ok here as I still have the scroll, but there is one slayer within range and the king could potentially try some magic assassination angle, but it would take some work.

Score 3-0

The king doesn’t go for the assassination but instead charges in the dreadrots and neigh slayers. He jumps the king over to within 5” of the mauler and sends the imps, followed by a few hollowmen charges. I think he’s left with only a few boxes after the charges and cask imps. The remaining rots in the left zone spread out along with the last murder crow and the Mad cap crew. After blowing up more imps on the champs on the left, I think I have maybe 2 left with one box each.

Attrition-wise I think I’m in trouble. I have a handful of champs left all with low boxes. The mauler is hanging on by a thread and my warder/kriel wall is completely gone. I need to score the centre and left zone this turn in order to win. Fortunately, there are only a handful of models in each zone including dreadrots in the centre and left zones, the weapon crew (not the mad cap itself), the glimmer imp and the last crow. The scariest part of this is the crow and the weapon crew model. I think I can only get the bomber’s attacks there and if it missed I’m screwed. Eilish hands out puppet strings to the bomber who walks with 5” of the crow and 8” of the crew member. Boosts and hits the crow, buys a shot and boosts to hit the crew member. Both die. Ok, good shape. The runebearer gives guided hand to the champions on the left and they make short work of the dreadrots and glimmer imp which just means skaldi and one champ have to kill 2 dreadrots in the centre. The fell caller gives skaldi and his one remaining champion war cry and they dispatch of the remaining rots.

Score 5-0

This was a close one despite the score. I felt like I was way down on attrition in this match so I was to be able to pick it up when I did. With this win, I came in the top 7 for heat B so now onto Master top 16!