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Post by redcathal on Jan 24, 2019 11:32:55 GMT
Played a game of Iona v Slayers last night. Both of us think that Iona has the edge but wanted to try it out. My list
Iona, Stalker, Gnarlhorn, 2x max ravagers with chieftains, max wolf riders, Boilmaster and spirit cauldron, Brighid and Caul, 2 x wolf rider champs, LotF, Ravager Shaman His List
Gaspy3 and vociferon, 9 x slayer, 3 x night wretches, overlords, soul trapper Scenario was Recon2 and I won the roll so chose to go first. Terrain
Building in the middle, a wall just outside the left zone, a forest in the left zone towards my side and a trench in the zone near his flag, patch of rubble beside his objective, a hill just outside the zone near my flag and another hill out to the right of the right zone. Deployment
My regular: The building in the middle means I'll have to split my forces so I put the wolf riders in the middle as I'm not sure which way I want them to go. Iona in the middle of them, a unit of ravagers on each side, the shaman and the boilmaster behind the wolf riders, a wolf rider champ on each flank with a beast - gnarlhorn for my zone to maybe counterslam something away from my flag and the stalker for the other. His regular: A big line of slayers with gaspy and the overlords in the middle. His solos are orientated towards his flag side and arc nodes spaced among his lines. My AD: Lotf near my flag, B&C in the forest Prey goes on a slayer who runs away so is irrelevant Circle Turn 1: I push up and stay out of threat. Sure foot goes on the wolf riders. I play pretty conservative with my solos. Pot fills up Caul. Cryx Turn 1 He keeps his slayers out of threat of my ravagers. The preyed slayer runs away. Cloak of Ash goes on Gaspy and stays there for the game. An arc node pushes into the zone and Vociferon goes up behind the trench. He tries to get a hex blast to strip Sure Foot but fails to hit. Circle Turn 2I want to kill the arc node and Vociferon and jam with the wolf riders. I get 3 wolf riders onto the arc node and two go do some chip damage to some slayers. My damage rolls are terrible on the arc node with the charge attacks and the third javelin barely kill Vociferon. The girls who charge the slayers do more damage but I don't bother rolling the ranged attack. I can get a ravager onto the arc node so I repo a wolf rider out of the way and the free strike misses. However the ravager also misses and the arc node lives. The other ravagers position for next turn as does the rest of my army. I debate putting a solo on the flag but decide not to ( mistake). Pot fills up LotF. Cryx Turn 2He needs to kill all the wolf riders and a ravager to clear his flag. Iona is in dodge range of a couple of them but as much as my damage dice sucked his hit dice were good and he doesnt misses a shot and the ravager doesn't pass his tough. He puts his Soul Trapper on the flag. On the other side he contests the zone and not the flag and doesn't trigger vengeance on the second unit. Gaspy feats. Score 0-1 to Cryx Circle Turn 3 I have one vengeance attack on a slayer and do a bit. The others just move and get ready for the feat turn. I have to kill 2 slayers and an arc node in the zone and there's two different slayers in the way. So the pot goes first and gives the stalker puppet master. The stalker then walks into melee with two slayers and kills the first one in two swings of his sword and buys another swing on the second doing enough damage for me to feel like Iona can kill it on feat. I decide not to sprint the stalker for both the free strike and he might get in the way, looking back this was probably a mistake. Iona does go in on that slayer, feats, and kills it on the third bought attack. She then blood boons a sprint away. Thinking back on this a pursuit or surefoot might have been better. Gaspy was always gonna get loaded up and Iona was gonna be safe regardless but anyway I didn't. So she overtakes and sprints back into the zone. However me being an idiot it puts the gnarlhorn out of control so he just walks to get in. The ravagers in this zone then go, the first two kill a slayer, the chieftan kills the arc node and helps the last two and ding up another slayer but with that one living I don't clear the zone. Thinking back I should have put the wolf rider champ in first to finish the arc node so I could divide more attention to the slayers. Instead she just does some chip damage to a slayer and shoots the soul trapper killing it. B&C kill another slayer. I put a wolf rider champ on my flag with Lotf still lurking. He could get to gaspy this turn but he has very little chance of doing much so I leave it. I move my right ravagers towards the left thinking I'll need them next turn to finish off that flank. I leave a couple in my zone to help contesting. All said and done I have 19 minutes and change left. Score 1-1 Cryx Turn 3Overlords spray down my line of ravagers a couple of times but inflict minimal damage and maybe only 1 casualty? A night wretch aims at brighid and boosts to hit, hits her so I shield guard and blast kills her anyway. Calamity gets put on the stalker and a slayer fails to kill him so another night wretch boosts a shot into him and here is where I should have shield guarded but its gone already so the stalker dies. Gaspy moves further into my zone away from the action, killing one ravager with a charge and hellfiring another before blocking his line with 2 slayers, one of whom contests my flag. He score my zone. Score 2-1 to Cryx Circle Turn 4Vengeance and other stuff happens. So there's a potential assassination where I slam a slayer over Gaspy and the wolf rider champ a lord of the feast finish him off however I fail to take into account cloak of ash affecting 2 inches so down to MAT4 I need boosted 9s and miss. So instead I send the wolf rider champ over to the far corner to try and split his attention and make it harder for him to clear. I then shift focus to my zone and flag, I kill off the overlords and the last slayer in the zone but fail to kill an arc node within 4 of the flag so can only score 1. Caul and some ravagers kill off another slayer. At this stage there is three slayers left. I score my zone. Score 2-2 Cryx Turn 4A slayer kills off my wolf rider champ on his flag, another kills the one in my zone ( although the axis has very much shifted at this point) and the last one kills the gnarlhorn. He puts gaspy on my flag. He can't get anything into my zone but moves an arc node over to contest next turn. Score 4-3 to Cryx Circle Turn 5In a cheeky play I charge the Lotf into the slayer and gaspy and try to bird away into the other slayer but miss due to cloak of ash. This would have allowed me to spectral lash gaspy off my flag but alas needing 14s to hit was just too much (ended up rolling a boosted 11 or something). I finish off the last slayer on my side and kill the objective. Score 6-4 to Circle Cryx Turn 5He contests with the arc node and kills the objective and lotf. Score 7-6 Circle Turn 6I contest some stuff and clock... Clock Victory to Cryx Thoughts: That's a lot of boxes to chew through meaning a lot of dice to roll meaning I gotta do it faster. The building in the middle was a pain in the ass. Plenty of mistakes to learn from. Really want to try it again. Great game. Thanks for reading.
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Post by redcathal on Jan 31, 2019 13:11:53 GMT
Played a game of Iona v Ashlynn last night. In some games I have found that with three units on big bases I've been jamming myself up first turn so thought I'd change it up so I took Brett Fogel's list from the ATC, trading my wolf riders for bloodweavers, a nightwitch, a swamp gobber and swapping my gnarlhorn for a second stalker. My list
Iona, 2x Stalker, 2x max ravagers with chieftains, bloodweavers, Boilmaster and spirit cauldron, Brighid and Caul, 2 x wolf rider champs, LotF, Night Witch, Ravager Shaman and a swamp gobber His List
Ashlynn with sylys attached, 2 x nomad, toro, rocketmen with ua, combat alchemists, thorn gun mages, blythe and bull, taryn, gorman, gibbs, rutger shaw, ragman, rhupert, anastasia and eilish Scenario was Mirage and I lost the roll so got to go second. Terrain
Hill in the middle, trench in my deployment zone, wall just outside my circle to the left, water and a forest my flag (forest making it hard to ambush the flag if I was at the back of it), on his side a fog cloud guards his flag in a similar way to my forest (he placed his rubble pretty close to that), another pond in the middle just in front of his deployment zone and a patch of rubble just off to the side of his zone. Deployment His regular: Rocketmen opposite my zone, eilish and the piper with them, gorman is also on this side near the rubble, ashlynn and a nomad centrally, a boat load of solos, thorn gun mages and blythe and bull near his zone with a toro and nomad. Anastasia ambushes. My regular: Iona in the middle with a unit of ravagers on a side, a wolf rider champ on each side and a stalker on each side. The boilmaster and cauldron go on the side I intend to put LotF and B&C on. Swamp gobber gets forgotten about but my opponent allows me to place him so he goes in the middle later. Bloodweavers ambush.
His AD: Combat Alchemist go near his zone
My AD: Lotf and B&C in the forest near my flag and the night witch goes on the other side
Prey goes on a nomad on his flank opposite B&C, Blythe and Bull's prey goes on LoTf Mercs Turn 1They move forward at pace, quicken goes up on the rocketmen and chosen ground up on Ashlynn. Alchemists cloud up the stuff in the zone. Circle Turn 1Iona puts up phantasm on the left unit of ravagers opposite the rocketmen and sure foot on the other unit. And crucially forgets to move. Anyway... Ravagers run and unpack. The LotF and B&C move to the left side of the forest to avoid the ambush. The wolf rider champ moves into the forest and faces the side. Stalker runs into the forest warping prowl also facing the side. The pot walks up, rolls up some corpses and puts them on LotF. Shaman hunters graces in my zone. The Night witch and wolf rider champs run out of ambush range. Mercs Turn 2He ambushes Anastasia to try and kill my wolf rider champ staring her down (this fails). So phantasm screws over his rocketmen hard but my opponent figures out that putting quicken on Eilish he can just about disbind it off. So he only upkeeps Chosen Ground, activates ashlynn first to put up quicken on him and she feats. Eilish does his thing and does 2 damage to Iona in the process. The rocketmen go and end up killing one ravager thanks to some great tough/healing checks. Otherwise he positions around to be threatening, he cloud walls to protect his toro and the prey nomad but can't cover his other nomad. Circle Turn 2So I upkeep surefoot. Make some vengeance attacks against rocketmen while staying outside of ashlynn's feat since I have no chance of hitting them in the feat so I'm not going to bother. Between that vengeance and their activation I maybe kill a rocketman, maybe two? But c'est la vie, it doesn't really matter as rocketmen don't kill ravagers. I do ambush the bloodweavers who with gang and staying out of feat kill 2 rocketmen and contest his flag and I've a couple hiding behind the cloud to continue contesting over the coming turns. I can get 5 or so ravagers onto that non clouded nomad so I decide not to feat I put them onto him and the last attack kills him. All charge attacks as I didn't want to waste corpses on dice off 6 but he kept the shield to the end (buyorboost says 62.1% chance of this killing it). My stalker kills off anastasia. Lotf walks onto my flag. My Wolf Rider champ runs (well actually walk, jump, repo but still) to threaten back arcs in his zone. Other wolf rider champ chills at the back of my zone with the night witch, the stalker and the ravager shaman who says hunters grace. And very importantly, Iona walks forward specifically to get within healing range of the objective. Score 1-0 to circle as I score my flag Mercs Turn 3Eilish disbinds surefoot off the offensive ravagers who killed the nomad and he jumps back to the flag, a nomad fails to kill one and the toro finishes him off. Ashlynn kills off another 4 with initials+flashing blade and some solos kill the last one. Some bloodweavers die to some rocketmen and gorman, defensive ravagers take minimal damage he just kills the one who was in contesting range of the flag. I think the swamp gobber got shot too. He scores 3 this turn to my one as he doesn't contest my flag. Score 3-2 to Mercs Circle Turn 3Stupid flashing blade...anyway we've no upkeeps. Objective heals Iona for one. Vengeance happens and I continue to chip away at the rocketmen. I use the chieftain to jam the toro and he eats all the combat alchemists with a minifeat and bought attacks. I activate Iona to feat and kill sylys on the middle flag and a gun mage who happened to be there. Then looking at what is in contesting range it seems to be just ragman and his caster who doesnt contest so I decide to bloodboon surefoot onto Iona (after making sure I could get a bloodweaver onto Eilish) and just leave her there, camping 5 after she healed a bit. (However for some reason I ignored the toro as a contesting piece so I end up not score it). Wolf rider champ softens up the prey nomad for B&C who easily kill it, prey goes on the toro. Lotf goes onto the objective to kill ragman and then puts the rest of his attacks onto the toro, crucially crippling his cortex. Two blood weavers go make attacks and both do 2 damage to their targets, meaning Eilish lives. Defensive ravagers clear out my zone with a little help from the wolf rider champ who repos to get near Iona. Night witch runs to get on my flag. I walk shaman forward a it and he hunters graces. Score 4-3 to Circle Mercs Turn 4He is pretty low on time so he takes my mistake/assassination run bait and goes for it. Gorman frees up Eilish by killing my blood weaver (I assume Gorman was out of range to just blind her). Who then disbinds Iona doing 1 damage and hops back to the flag. He thinks about trying to knock her down with some form of slam or throw but the Toro has no cortex so he just goes for it with most of his army trying to get onto Iona including Ashlynn's full stack (she charged into annoyance range so needing 9s) and does very little damage. She hit every time thanks to boosts, although she missed the Wolf rider champ who dodged into her back) but between feat and transfers I ended the turn on 9 health. He contests my zone with rocketmen and kills my contesting blood weaver. Score 5-4 to Circle Circle Turn 4Now it may have been a smarter plan to go for scenario but that would involve contesting his flag (easy), killing 3 rockets in the zone (with my ravagers out of corpses not so easy but there's stalker there so maybe), killing the objective (fairly easy as I've a stalker, LotF and B&C in range), all the stuff contesting the middle flag including the crippled Toro and some gun mages (hard to say cos again I have some resources there) but...instead Iona and the wolf rider champ just murder Ashlynn. Game to Circle Thoughts - my wolf riders would have been great in this match up for killing off all that annoying back field stuff but there was a lot more space for my ravagers to play and unpack. Will continue to test to see which I prefer. I think I might drop double stalker back to Gnarlhorn Stalker and add in my whitemane for another piece and some handy support. Also I really should have made sure Iona was in the Hunter's Grace range because if she had been knocked down that would have been a lot worse for me... anyway, thanks for reading.
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Post by redcathal on Feb 8, 2019 13:54:09 GMT
An interesting game during the week, Iona DH v Xerxis2 IWH, I thought I was advantaged into this match up but my opponent made it harder than that. I'm still trying out the bloodweaver variant of the list.
My list
Iona, 2x Stalker, 2x max ravagers with chieftains, bloodweavers, Boilmaster and spirit cauldron, Brighid and Caul, 2 x wolf rider champs, LotF, Ravager Shaman and Night witch. This list also has a swamp gobber chef but I forget to deploy him again!.
His List (from memory)
Skorne Army - 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Imperial Warhost
[Xerxis 2] Xerxis, Fury of Halaak [+28]
- Agonizer [0(6)]
- Basilisk Krea [7]
- Bronzeback Titan [17]
- Tiberion [19]
- Titan Cannoneer [16]
- Titan Cannoneer [16]
- Titan Gladiator [15]
- Aptimus Marketh [0(5)]
Mortitheurge Willbreaker [0(4)]
Swamp Gobber Chef [1]
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min) [5]
Paingiver Beast Handlers (max) [7]
Scenario was Spread the Net and I lost the roll and he chose to go first. I picked the side with the flag in a trench as otherwise we both got screwed by a building in the middle.
Terrain
Building in the middle, trench near my flag, hill in the middle and a wall in my zone. On his side there was a forest near his flag but no way to make good use of it while being on the flag, a hill in the middle and a patch of rubble in his zone.
Deployment
His regular: A big line of titans with Xerxis in the middle with the support beasts, a cannoneer on each flank, Tiberion heading toward my zone, Gladiator and BB heading towards his.
My regular: Iona in the middle, ravager unit on each side with a stalker and WRC on each flank. Pot goes on the flag side to load up the Lord.
My AD: Lotf and night witch near my flag, B&C just outside my zone
Prey goes on a cannoneer
Skorne Turn 1 He runs forward with most things but he puts rush up on the preyed cannoneer who walks forward the swaps farstrike onto himself and he lobs a shot at Caul and leaves him on 1 (healing for 3) and does a point to brighid. Gulp. Too close.
Circle Turn 1 Brighid and Caul seperate, Caul going behind the wall and Brighid standing out in the open to use her stealth. Ravagers run up to stay out of threat. Pot loads up Lotf who gets into the trench as does the night witch. Iona moves up and puts phantasm out on the right unit of ravagers and surefoot on the left. Shaman goes to give hunters grace to the right unit. Stalkers fan out, one going out wide with a WRC and another getting behind the wall. My other WRC goes wide on the other flank. Lotf goes to stand in the corner of his zone.
Skorne Turn 2 Me being just out of threat everywhere means he durdles around a bit, puts his gobber on the flag, toes into his zone with a beast I think (actually thinking about it maybe he didn't maybe it was just a solo or something), he shoots Caul with one Cannonneer and kills him, his other one kills a WRC and he passes turn. But it still takes him awhile to get there.
Circle Turn 2 Plan for this turn get in his way and score 2 points. I choose not to ambush this turn as I don't think I need to and there's no good targets, not that there's many in his list but c'est la vie. So I aim at the Gobber with Brighid who double 1s so the WRC kills him and 2 beast handlers before repoing away. I engage the cannonneer with a ravager and kill a beast handler who was there to block charge lanes with another but not to clear the lane but more to block his for next turn. Run up a ravager to engage the bronzeback and get a couple of charges into another and to block them off. Other ravagers fill in behind to prevent contesting. Lotf charges the gladiator, misses my own ravager luckily but doesnt do much damage. Then he birds into something else and buys attacks into the agonizer but whiffs pretty bad and doesn't kill or cripple it at all. Night witch goes to stand on the flag. Iona walks to be behind the building. Stalker continues to move wide. Other stalker stays behind wall.
Score 2-0 to circle.
Skorne Turn 3 This is the turn that made my life difficult going forward. He spends awhile with support beasts trying to kill LotF and eventually gets it done. Xerxis feats, kills the ravager engaging the cannonneer and sprints back. The cannonneer puts a shot into my unit and kills one. Tiberion walks to engage 3 ravagers and ends up just toeing my zone. The cannonneer clears out the gladiator who then slams another ravager over my nightwitch and kills both and that's him cos there's nothing else in range. BB kills a couple of ravagers. Think there was 2 and the chieftain in the left unit and 3 and the chief in the right hand unit by the end of this turn.
He scores his zone and contests my stuff score 2-1 to circle
Circle Turn 3 Drop upkeeps as this is a feat turn and Iona has to kill a gladiator. I ambush the blood weavers to be annoying and perpetually contest his flag. Vengeance engages the BB to prevent countercharge. Stalker warps strength, lays into Tiberion and leaves him on very few boxes. Iona feats and charges Gladiator, kills him in a couple of bought attacks, blood boons a hunters mark into the cannonneer (mistake) and sprints back, camping 3. I fill up a ravager chief with the pot. One ravager charges the cannonneer and 2 go into the BB. Stupid agoniser aura means I dont do much to the BB as I wanted to so I have to put the stalker into him rather than the cannonneer, and I decide to sprint away, leaving no transfer targets but Iona's behind a building with no threats so I feel ok about that barring the fact that one of the two is almost certainly going to frenzy. (at this point I wished I'd deployed the gobber). Brighid kills the agoniser with a shot (should have done that earlier). A ravager charge kills off tiberion. And I get one bloodweaver charge into the second cannonneer who does nothing.
I score my zone. Score 3-1 to circle.
Skorne Turn 4 His Krea doesnt frenzy but is full so can't do anything. One cannonneer and beast handlers clear his zone, his other cannonneer charges my stalker, taking two free strikes that do next to nothing, boosts to hit and does 16 damage to my stalker. Does some more damage with his other attacks and leaves him on a couple of body boxes. His caster moves around and strangleholds a ravager to death.
He scores his zone. Score 3-2 to circle.
Circle Turn 4 My stalker frenzies into the cannonneer and does some damage. Between vengeance and a minifeat activation the chieftain kills all the beasthandlers and chips some into the gladiator. Iona moves out to get a huntersmark onto that cannonneer and rolls the hard 7 (cos he was engaged oops) to land it and she sticks surefoot on herself camping 3. The stalker goes and kill him on the first bought attack and he sprints to the far corner of the zone. Ravagers are already surrounding cannoneer so they put in attacks and boost damage with corpses but don't do much.
I score his zone. Score 4-2 to circle.
Skorne Turn 5 He contests with his willbreaker. Kills the chieftain with Xerxis and sprints into my caster camping 3. His cannonneer...not sure what happened on that side but the rest of the game my ravagers and the cannoneer stood angrily besdies each other, besides he did not have the time.
No one scores. 4-2 to circle.
Circle Turn 5 Iona cuts to full and puts hunters mark on Xerxis and upkeeps surefoot. Ravagers try do some chip damage to the canonneer to hurt his transfer targets but he also has a krea I haven't touched so that was just a waste of time. I run my shaman to his flag. Stalker charges and leaves him on 8 or so after transfers. I don't buy the last attack so I've a transfer target. If I hadn't have been under time pressure as well (sub 5 minutes) I could easily have just killed the willbreaker with the stalker and meant I'd win on scenario on his turn but alas.
Score 5-2 to circle
Skorne Turn 6 He tries to kill iona but he needs 10s to hit so has to boost but I get 2 dodges on his last two attacks. Believe he contests the flag? He has very little time left.
Score 5-2
Circle Turn 6 Iona heals the Stalker who finishes off Xerxis.
Victory to circle.
Thoughts, really fun game. I ate a harder alpha that I thought I would but that building in the way was a pain in the ass, and then I was still able to take out all his really heavy hitters anyway. I think if I go first this match up becomes easier attrition wise but probably harder on scenario. Bloodweavers have yet to pull their weight aside from contesting flags but double stalker has definitely made up for it.
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Post by Trollock on Feb 8, 2019 20:11:55 GMT
Interesting that he managed to hold on to scenario for so long with a beast brick on spread the net. Do you feel you could have punished him harder on that front? I mean you had a very comfortable lead, but i always feel like im way disadvantaged on Spread the net with a beast brick (not BoO, but if i play trolls or so)
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Post by redcathal on Feb 11, 2019 10:09:59 GMT
Interesting that he managed to hold on to scenario for so long with a beast brick on spread the net. Do you feel you could have punished him harder on that front? I mean you had a very comfortable lead, but i always feel like im way disadvantaged on Spread the net with a beast brick (not BoO, but if i play trolls or so) Yeah I think I probably could have ran the shaman onto the flag a turn earlier and maybe sprinted Iona onto the flag rather than behind the building after killing the gladiator. I probably could have looked at the circle zone a little harder in the end game as well. But he made some pretty clever moves, killing the night witch by slamming the ravager into her and putting hard targets in my zones. Overtake on Tiberion really helped him there I think if I had remembered that I would have jammed harder.
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Post by redcathal on Feb 11, 2019 16:08:06 GMT
Had three games over the weekend so rather than three detailed reports going to do a couple of summaries. So two of the games were into the newly fixed Khador theme, Wolves of Winter, against Sorscha1 and Vlad 2, and one into Dreamer's DM Grymkin all with Iona.
Gonna preface this with the fact that I didn't win the roll off all weekend so all my games are going second.
In the games against doom reavers Khador both games went similarly. They ran forward, I stayed 13 inches away with most of my army barring what I could safely pick off, and that wasn't much, and a ravager from each unit to draw them in and make them proc vengeance. I think in all of those games only one of those sacrificial ravagers actually die. He would come in and pressure scenario and try to keep mostly out of threat then the ravagers would mini-feat and go into as many doom reavers/grey lords/whatever else they could get to and crowd surf through with overtake. Then I'd weather their feat and lose most of my army, then my stalkers and other harder hitting pieces would clean up either winning on scenario (Sorscha) or assassination (Vlad).
Both good games and very interesting, Sorscha in particular is something I was worried about as to me it seems like a great answer to Iona. However I think in order to get the feat that she wants/needs, they have to be really aggressive with Sorscha and I think that might just get her killed. Would love to play the match up again going first to see how it changes things. Blood weavers were also far more useful in this match up then they have been, mostly because there are so many doom reavers so far up straight away its hard for them to stay out of ambush threat/giving away their back arcs.
Then onto Grymkin. Not very popular in my meta so was excited to play against them. The guy has only picked them up recently but played it well. I made a balls of a bunch of things, not boosting to hit a charge against a gorehound to clear a zone with a ravager. Putting waaaay too many ravagers into a half dead death knell on Iona's feat and just a bunch of other small mistakes. However I had the advantage of scoring first and two absolute hero warpwolf stalkers. One rolling a bunch of hard eights and crushing the damage to kill a skin and moans beside a phantasm, the other clearing Dreamer's zone only for a shadow skin and moans to pop out but he sprinted away and avoided to the free strike to boot. Basically it got to a point where I was too far ahead on scenario with Iona safe and he was too low on clock to get out of it. Great games and nice to have a learning opportunity.
Thanks for reading.
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Post by redcathal on Feb 19, 2019 15:42:19 GMT
So hit up Belgian masters last weekend and first thing I want to say is it is an excellent con and I had a great time. The games were all quality (got 11 of them in over the 3 days) in both the main event, the 50 point event and the friendly friday night games, the hosts were extremely welcoming and the food/drink was plentiful and cheap. With the plug out of the way lets get into the games. My 3 lists for the tournament is the Iona list I've been playing Wurmwood, Cassius, Stalker, Ghetorix, Ravagers, Bloodtrackers, shifting stones, double gallows groves, night witch, whitemane, shaman, lord of the feast, the pot (50 points) Grayle, Stalker, Ghetorix, Ravagers, Bloodtrackers, Pot, LotF, Wolf Rider Champ, Shaman (friendly) Game 1 was Iona into Goreshade4, there was a lot of ret there this weekend, game was going well and goreshade had to come up to do some work himself and basically put himself in a place where he could get killed by Brighid and Caul. He had some clouds around him so that I'd be at a -2 to hit but there was a way of getting around that if I cleared a Destor. Iona then blew her whole stack trying and failing to do that and B&C failed to kill. Iona was the promptly counter assassinated. (friendly) Game 2 was 50 points so I dropped my Grayle list into Jalaam. This game is surmised in Jalaam vanished to the wrong place and Ghetorix warped murderous and killed him. (friendly) Game 3 was Iona into Sorscha3. Won this game on scenario. Had a very strange feat turn where I crippled 4/5 of his jacks but didn't kill any. He spent the next turn flailing ineffectually at me with broken arms (although flank really helped) and the on my following turn all of them died. Was odd but fun. (masters) Game 4 was Iona into Kaelyssa, won the roll off (turns out very important), and proceeded to get to the point where I had the plan made to win on scenario but LotF was in the way so I activated him and accidentally kill Kaelyssa camping 2. Fair and balanced. (masters) Game 5 was also Iona into Kaelyssa, lost the roll off and on her turn 2 feat Kaelyssa moves up aggressively strips both upkeeps off my ravagers and leaves me with maybe 3/4 left total and from there the game became a real up hill struggle. Still almost pulled it off but instead of spending the last focus on a stalker to sprint after killing his trident I left him half behind a cloud so Iona would have a transfer target, don't think she really needed it, so he died and I had nothing to really threaten left in the late game and he ground me out. (masters) Game 6 was a fantastic game of Iona into a very interesting butcher 3 list with 4 clamjacks and ruin. Got ahead early on scenario but he was able to pull it back faster than I was able to crack armour and he was 5-4 on turn 7. Real turning point occurred when I just had to remove a forge seer to score the centre zone (invasion) but he had jammed up my wolf rider with widowmakers and I wasn't able to get free to do it. Just to repeat, fantastic game. Thinking about it now maybe my off list (Wurmwood) would have been better for the arm debuff and control but I'm just a lot more comfortable with Iona but its nice to learn her limits. (50 point) Game 7 I drew crucible guard in a cool whacky list of Mckay, 2 railess interceptors and a vulcan with some support against my Grayle list. I had a bad feeling about this but figured we'd see how we'd get on. After he'd killed most of the ravagers and bloodtrackers I was able to get Ghetorix on the Vulcan (didn't kill it) and a Stalker on a railess (who did) on grayle's feat turn as well as both LotF and the WRC (5 dice charge!) into McKay doing a bit but not much. In response he tries to kill Grayle on her feat turn camping 4 with Spiny growth up. He had to take 2 free strikes to get McKay into LoS, LotF did about 10 damage and the WRC (woo 5 dice freestrike!) also did quite a chunk, and by the end of it Grayle was on 10 or so with 2 transfers left. Stalker was on like 10 boxes too and just one thing crippled so quite disappointing. Big thing there is he activated the Vulcan before healing him with a mechanic so a couple of his guns were crippled. So the Wolf Rider champion and lotf went back into McKay and left he on a few boxes and Grayle finished her off. Weird game but very fun. (50 point) Game 8 I was against Madrak1 BOH and things were going well, trackers lifted a bomber on turn 2 and in general I was doing ok but then I'd sent Ghetorix into a block of champs who had a bunch of damage gone around them and he failed to hit all his attacks bar 1. After that attrition swung back to him and eventually I clocked. (50 point) Game 9 was against Goreshade4 and he got LotF to the face. (Masters) Game 10 was Iona against the Child, left him with a Cage Rager and a Crabbit. (Masters) Game 11 was Iona against Siege1, won 5 - 0 on scenario but I had a plan to kill him with Lotf and score 4 the round before I won but LotF missed a gun mage so decided not to go for the assassination, then him proceeded to miss his bird to get into the back of said gun mage, then missed a bought attack and a boosted attack. I was not pleased. But then I won anyway. So after that weekend I'm looking forward to getting some games with Grayle in at 75 points, he doesn't crack arm as well as Iona but has some interesting shenanigans, plus his LotF is bananas. Also I may get back to the WW list since I never actually got round to playing it. Anyway thanks for reading.
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Post by redcathal on Feb 28, 2019 17:27:44 GMT
On Tuesday night my friend wanted to try out his janky Arkadius assassination list so I obliged him and played Grayle whom I have been wanting to try at 75 points since getting back from Belgium
My list
Grayle, Ghetorix, Stalker, 2x max ravagers with chieftains, Bloodweavers, Boilmaster and spirit cauldron, Brighid and Caul, 2 x wolf rider champs, LotF, Ravager Shaman, Bloodshaman
His List (from memory)
Arkadius, Warhog, Roadhog, 4 x razorboar, Rorsch and Brine, Mire with a dracodile, eilish garrity, witch doctor, gobber chef, targ, bog trog mist speaker, bone shrine, totem hunter
Scenario was Standoff and I went first
Terrain
Forest in the middle, a patch of rubble and a pond in my rectangle, an obstruction in his, a wall in the right circle and his rectangle and a house past that and a hill on his side of the left circle and a wall on my side.
My Regular Deployment: Blood weavers, the pot, the blood shaman, stalker, grayle, ghetorix, ravagers with the shaman in the middle. A wolf rider went up either flank.
His Regular: ninja pigs, 2 razor pigs per side, 1 of each hog war beast per side with arkadius and his solos in the middle, dracodile centre right
My AD: LotF in front of the pot, B&C central behind the forest.
His AD: Totem Hunter just outside the left circle on a hill
My prey goes on the Dracodile, his prey goes on think it was Grayle?
Circle Turn 1 Run forth and put out upkeeps and with harmonious exaltation from the blood shaman Grayle can even camp 1. Death march goes on central ravagers and storm rager goes on LotF who also gets loaded up by the pot. He goes to a spot more than 14 away from the Totem Hunter and with 16 of his objective. Wolf riders go wide as they can and move up
Minions Turn 1 The majority of his stuff runs forward but everything important stays out of threat.
Circle Turn 2 I run and position to be annoying and contest everything, the wolf riders continue to flank hard.
Minions Turn 2 He activates everything and kills a couple of ravagers from each unit, Rorsch does minimal damage to Ghetorix, a spray from the road hog also set him and LotF on fire, totem hunter bounces off one of my wolf rider champs, then Arkadius feats and another couple of Ravagers die. He primal shocks Caul to death as well. Then runs away from where LotF is about to be. All said I think I’ve lost a total of 8 Ravagers, a chief and Caul. He scores his zone 1-0 Minions
Circle Turn 3 LotF gets puppet master and a divine inspiration and walks up to shoot the objective. Double one. And that’s why we puppet master. He hits this time and then kills Targ, does a bunch of damage to his objective, Mire and to the Dracodile. He then forces Mire to transfer the remainder of his stack (he camped 4) to the Dracodile leaving him on about 10 boxes. My stalker goes into Brine and kills him, freeing up Ghetorix to finish off the Dracodile and put some damage into the Road Hog. Grayle finishes off the road hog with his initial, feats and side steps into a razor boar which he kills as well. Wolf rider champ kills totem hunter and repos closer to his squishy centre and another Wolf rider walks jumps and repos into his back field as well. Bloodweavers run to the left circle. 2 Ravagers fail to kill off both razor boar on the right (chief was blind). I score my zone 1-1
Minions Turn 3 He goes for an assassination but a lot of the angles are just off (had to primal shock from a razor boar rather than a battle board) and he misses some key rolls (Brine missed his charge or something). Grayle uses all his transfers and took no damage. He kills LotF to score his zone. Score 2-1 minions
Circle Turn 4 I kill all his transfer targets and Ghetorix warps murderous, need I say more?
Victory to Circle
Great game, I had never experienced an Arkadius feat turn thankfully I knew this was a list that was always going to go for the assassination so I just kept Grayle safe as I could and figured I’d make it through. Thanks for reading.
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Post by Trollock on Feb 28, 2019 18:22:54 GMT
Thanks for the report!
I really like the pureblood with grayle, probably instead of the stalker in this case. Not only is it hilarious to have THE best possible LotF (who can shoot menoth jacks to boot!), But the LotF assassination becomes really reliable if you can add a boosted pow 14 spray before you go in.
Having played iona, do you still like Grayle? I hqve stayed away from her (though i have ordered her now) but i just LOVE Grayle so much. Does he lose his appeal after playing iona? 😅
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Post by redcathal on Mar 1, 2019 12:27:21 GMT
So the thing about Iona is she allows Tharn to crush all but the heaviest armour, only for a turn but that is usually enough.
In a lot of matches that isn't necessary as ravagers do pretty well into normal heavies and you still have your heavies to help anyway so Grayle has, in theory, some more shenanigans than Iona and a delivery mechanism in stealth. I have yet to try Grayle in a lot of matches at 75 but so far he's been cool. Plus he was one of the casters I started out with so that's cool.
I might try the Pureblood but the Stalker is more reliable ARM cracking, which is the thing I am concerned about losing the strength buff from Iona, and it's rare enough I need magic weapons for the bird and in those cases I still have the Ravager Shaman.
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Post by Trollock on Mar 1, 2019 12:52:09 GMT
So the thing about Iona is she allows Tharn to crush all but the heaviest armour, only for a turn but that is usually enough. In a lot of matches that isn't necessary as ravagers do pretty well into normal heavies and you still have your heavies to help anyway so Grayle has, in theory, some more shenanigans than Iona and a delivery mechanism in stealth. I have yet to try Grayle in a lot of matches at 75 but so far he's been cool. Plus he was one of the casters I started out with so that's cool. I might try the Pureblood but the Stalker is more reliable ARM cracking, which is the thing I am concerned about losing the strength buff from Iona, and it's rare enough I need magic weapons for the bird and in those cases I still have the Ravager Shaman. Yeah, the pureblood is probably not REALLY better than the stalker here, but it just feels so amazing thinking about dice math with LotF/Caul when you can say that they ignore ARM buffs. Lets say that B&C both get charges in to a stormwall with arcane shield. You have storm rager and DI and Wraith Bane on Caul and wraithbane on Birghid. Lets say all attacks hit, cause im lazy. The assault shot does about 3 points Charge from B does about 8 points Charge from Caul does about 14 (assuming he rolls a 12 on 3 dice) 3 brought attacks from Caul does about 24 (assuming you roll an 8 on 2 dice) Thats 49 boxed. Boom! I know its sort of wishful thinking, but i want to live the dream!
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Post by redcathal on Mar 6, 2019 15:40:01 GMT
So had three matches on Sunday so lets do a quick report while the games are still somewhat in my head. To save words I played Iona into everything, have yet to find a compelling reason to play my Wurmwood list... should work on that.
Game 1 was against Skarre1 and 5 stalkers. My opponent said this was his list teched for circle. I think its an ok match up but it really comes down to who gets the alpha. I win the roll to go first but on his turn he stays just out of my threat and I misposition leading to him to getting a pretty good alpha including getting LoTf due to me being stupid. I hit back pretty hard and make a game of it but on turn 6 I get assassinated since the only way to win was to kill Skarre.
Game 2 was against a Kaelyssa list in the forges of war(?), the warjack theme whatever its called, he played Kaelyssa too far forward and I could get the chieftain on her with full corpses and a ravager onto her with one overtake. Chieftain did it on his first bought attack.
Game 3 was against Thexus with a load of drudges. I told my opponent this was bad for him, it was indeed. Three ravagers killed the majority of one flank on their minifeat turn and I killed all the monstrosities the following turn. I forgot to activate a unit of ravagers on feat turn that really would have broken him (they made their vengeance moves) as it was I was ahead on scenario and attrition so he did his turn to do what he could and then conceded. His other list was ashlynn with storm lances and trenchers and I think that was the right drop, wonder how that match up would have went...
Regardless great load of games thanks for reading.
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Post by Trollock on Mar 7, 2019 12:13:01 GMT
In my thread i tried building a pair for various DH lists. ALL of them seemed to pair with WW in BoO. You have a similar experience? or is that just with Iona?
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Post by redcathal on Mar 7, 2019 16:41:50 GMT
I haven't played that WW bones list (no farrow) and I really like the idea of WW in DH, I also really like Krueger in Bones or with the Storm Raptor. If it wasn't such a pain to transport the Big Bird that would probably be my off list.
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Post by redcathal on Mar 11, 2019 12:21:44 GMT
Just back from the WMW in York. Played 7 games over the weekend so let's try get them out before all the information goes away because some of it has already. I played with an Iona/Grayle pairing which is probably bad but I intended to drop Iona into basically everything but seeing the large amount of circle I figured Grayle might be ok?
Game 1 - Practice/fun game with one of the guys I came over with, he played Sorscha1 in WOW and I'm playing my Grayle list. It went very similar to the last time we played in that I lost the roll and went second hid in my deployment zone first turn and while he positioned better this time he gave me enough models I could kill where I could use Grayle's feat to get some work done turn 2 which led to me getting up on scenario. That and some little mistakes by my opponent helped me a lot, ie like block Beast 09s charge into a stalker so that he could on trample and some other small things. We called that game on turn 4(?) when I was 6-2 up and he couldn't contest.
Game 2 - This was into Old Witch2 in Grymkin, his pair was child both in DM, and I dropped Iona. I won the roll. The new clockatrices are annoying, and with respawn it's a nightmare, but he didn't get enough work done and I was able to keep pushing him out of scenario as my army is able to go far wider than his and I was able to win 5-0.
Game 3 - Against Grymkin as well although Dreamer DM this time, difference was it was against Pat Dunford, so I was super excited and nervous has I'd never played him before so was really looking forward to it. Scenario was standoff and I dropped Iona. Gonna be honest table could not have been better for me and I won the roll...but made a right mess and gave him waaaaay too much on turn two. Even turn one I gave him an out for a wolf rider with abbyssal gate and I did that a few times thinking it over so I'll have to keep an eye on that.
Due to the big forest in the middle I put three ravagers in it, Def 17 right? Wrong! Wraithbane and manifest made short work of them and he was even able to walk through the forest with the clockatrices to get some more. Think I had less than half of the ravagers by the end of it, I hit back and was able to go 3-1 up but bad dice meant some heavies lived on very few boxes, which when you have sacrifice is fine, and he ground it out from there. Great game and I think/hope I learned a lot and can use that going forward.
Game 4 - This was against a circle player who was running Iona/Krueger2 and I decided to test my theory and drop Grayle. In short it didn't go great. He dropped Iona and I lost the roll off which is bad but worse I just made a lot of mistakes I shouldn't have. Think I might have been in my head about the previous game so that's not good. Need to work on getting over that. My opponent played it well and took it by killing Grayle after he failed to kill something so couldn't sprint away.
That night I decided to clear my head by not playing more games which is unusual for me going to a tournament/con when I want to get as many games as possible but I think I made the right decision. Played a board game and watched some of my mates play Thunderdome which is a ridiculous format and I can't wait to try it out. Anyway back to the games.
Game 5 - Iona v Stryker1, I had actually seen this guy practicing the match up last night and had given him some tips which I thought was funny and we'd a little laugh, although he did listen and made sure to get the night witch, and got into it. This was on recon2 and a flag on one side was in an acid pool so I decided to avoid that and take the other. His list's main features was an arcane shielded Stormwall and Storm Strider thanks to journeyman. I waited out his turn two feat, scored a point by sticking the Gobber on the flag, and went for mine there following turn. Caul was jammed by a firefly so Iona killed. Brighid and Caul had preyed the Storm Strider and was able to get into it so on feat they left it on one box. Stalker walked in and killed it with the first initial and sprinted back into the forest. Ravagers cleared the mechanics in the zone and a wolf rider champ killed the junior on the flag to score me two. A stalker and some ravagers who could get into a centurion's back cleared my flag and the shaman went to score. And then as my final activation my Wolf rider champ who flanked around the other side could just get in range of Stryker's back and rolled ridiculously leaving him on 2/3 boxes. My opponent saw the jig was up so went for some control points and he was then killed by a ravager the following turn. Ended up winning 8-2 as well. Interesting game, a lot of fun but think that his list just lacks volume of attacks.
Game 6 - Circle Mirror! This guy however wasn't playing devourer's host. He had Krueger2 bones and Kromac2 call of the wild, a list I found pretty interesting but as it was mirage I knew I'd be seeing Krueger, I think Grayle probably would have been just as good or better but once bitten twice shy so I stuck with Iona. I won the roll and took second so I wouldn't get dumped out straight away on scenario. He left me with a bottom of one assassination run that I decided not to take but the following turn I was still left with it because despite Krueger's feat as he didn't cast windstorm opting instead to cast rebuke on a unit of ravagers. However in order to ensure it goes without a hitch I feat and try get as much work done as possible. I kill a warden that was his transfer target and can't really get to megalith without making it harder for LotF to shoot him so opt to leave him alone and beat up a warden that's full but realise that if he dies Krueger gets transfers so I don't make that mistake and leave the warden on very few. So LotF goes in a leaves Krueger who was camping 2 on 1. I had puppet master on him but never rolled badly enough to reroll. However I also scored a flag and my zone as well as contesting his and the following turn he really had to focus on killing Iona as basically anything could kill Krueger next turn at this point. However Iona was behind a wall and camping four so that didn't happen. Think in the end she didn't even have a damage roll against her due to stealth and dodging Tharn into his way. I scored another one for my zone and then realised I had to kill three mannikins to win so rather than deciding how to kill Krueger I did that and moved on to the next round.
Game 7 - I played against one of the guys I came with who was playing High Reclaimer EI Judicator and Kreoss Creator's Might Judicator. I knew he'd been playing Kreoss most of the weekend and figured Iona would help me kill the jacks easier. That's how it ended up, I lost the roll off and he gave me first turn. As previously stated I mistakenly gave him my wolf riders for very little. However there was also quite a lot of silliness where a ravager toughed 4 times in a row to idrians, redeemers and the judicator. Turn two I gave puppet master to the night witch so she could strip defenders ward from the idrians and then she killed another few. Ravagers finished them off and stood there waiting to die. However on his turn he made the mistake of loading up all his jacks to kill me, activated Kreoss who feated and all my stuff in hunter's grace and surefoot wasn't knocked down, at that point he was like oh yeah meant to purify that...(couldn't have got hunters grace stuff anyway from where he was), but continued to blow up all my knocked down stuff like the Nightwitch, LotF (who was out of the feat but still went for it) and the phantasmed ravagers but that was a turning point as from there I feated and killed a redeemer, the judicator and a bunch of other stuff so that he was just left with a couple of crippled jacks who were going after Iona camping 4. Never going to happen and I took it on scenario.
Great games, great weekend. Can't recommend the Warmachine Weekender enough and if you're in the area you should try and get to it.
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