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Post by Azahul on Nov 13, 2018 23:45:54 GMT
Managed to get in another game last night, this time into a wild Grim2 Kriel Company list with the following: Grim Angus & Co. -Bomber -Storm Troll -Runebearer Fire Eaters Fire Eaters Min Krielstone -Elder Max Northkin Raiders Pummeler Crew Pummeler Crew Sons of Bragg Fell Caller Hero Hooch Hauler Deployment I won the starting roll. I hum and haw a bit over whether I'd rather Dahlia and Skarath or Brun and Lug on the left behind the forest. With all the sprays and AOEs my opponent has though, I end up thinking I'd rather have the extra transfers on Dahlia rather than casting Mist Walker to get Skarath to do anything, so Brun and Lug's natural Pathfinder wins out. Brun and Lug and the Dracodile hang a bit to the left, War Hog and Skarath to the right. My opponent has his Hooch Hauler opposite the Dracodile (I'd ducked out of the room during his deployment so we didn't discuss how awful that might be until afterwards) along with the Fire Eaters, the Raiders in the centre-right, both Pummeler Crews and the Bomber on the right to threaten Dahlia, and the Storm Troll to the left of the Hooch Hauler.  Both of our objectives are healing objectives. Both of our huge bases are proxies for models currently being assembled. Pigs Turn 1 Sturm puts Deceleration up, casts Polarity Shield on the Dracodile, Vision on Skarath. He charges up the board at a Raider. The rest of the army moves up. Brun casts Stonehold and Dahlia casts Haunting Melody. I have a Battle Boar 3" behind the Dracodile and without anything else in the blast radius in order to ward off the Oil shot from the Hooch Hauler.  Trolls Turn 1 The Raiders run up to jam. The rest of his army opts to run behind them. Grim puts Mirage on the Hooch Hauler.  Pigs Turn 2 I could get Skarath to kill one of the Pummeler Crews, but I'd need to hit three times needing a six to kill them all. The alternative would be to send him into the Raiders, where he has a tidy spray capable of hitting 5 of them. I decide for the latter. Sturm stays in charge, aims, and sprays killing one Raider and forcing a Tough on another. Dahlia runs up and drops a Fury, camping two. Skarath moves forward and sprays five Raiders, killing the knocked down one and two others. He misses a shot on the furthest one (out on the left side of the Dracodile, beyond Dahlia's Control Range) and one passes its tough check. He then casts Counterblast. Eilish ducks out of cover quickly to kill the Toughed one with a Bleed, then teleports back to where he was. The Soul Slave TK's Lug forward, allowing Lug to cast Bear Hands, charge the Raider that Skarath missed, boosts to hit, hits and kills the Raider, and then uses Return to back up so that he can only be seen by one Fire Eater out on the left. Mire then blocks that LOS with a cloud. Brun drops three Fury. The Dracodile moves up a bit to spray a Raider and two Sons of Bragg. Hits the Sons (boosting to hit), misses the Raider. Does just two damage to each Son and Combat Warding means no Corrosion, but they're Blind at least. The War Hog charges a surviving Raider, kills it, and Overtakes back base to base with the Dracodile to block LOS to the otherwise exposed Orin and Eilish.  Trolls Turn 2 The Raiders activate and charge the War Hog. The first one dies to a Counterblast spray (which also hits both the War Hog and Dracodile, doing no damage and corroding both of them). The second one does a single point of damage to the War Hog. Grim then activates, walks up behind the Forest, Feats and drops Mage Sight on Skarath and the Mist Speaker. He then shoots the Mist Speaker dead. His companions shoot Skarath to no effect. The Pummelers on the left come forward and rain AOEs down on Dahlia. Two of the four hit her, doing four damage to her and forcing a transfer of three damage to Skarath. The Bomber then activates and shoots the Dracodile, doing a solid 14 damage in two shots with some good dice. The Hooch Hauler then charges the War Hog and hits it with the Oil AOE, Oiling the Dracodile by association. Hadn't accounted for that with my clever Shield Guard positioning. Thankfully, the way I had positioned did mean that in order to Impact the Dracodile my opponent wasn't able to spray Eilish and Orin. Strong dice continued, with the War Hog losing about 12 boxes to the sprays and the Dracodile being taken to below half health by the three Fire Eaters able to walk forward and spray its Oiled body.  I didn't take this picture until I'd activated my War Hog in the next round. My opponent has scored 1 CP from his flag, bringing the score to 0-1 in his favour. Pigs Turn 3 Well, Grim is within 10" of Skarath, so a live assassination is there. Mire wants to cast Weald Secrets on Skarath so that Dahlia can just run to get Grim inside of her control area, but he's about 13" away from Skarath. This then turns into a bit of a Rube Goldberg-esque positioning puzzle, because Sturm needs to charge the Hooch Hauler in order to get the Storm Troll in his control area to shut down Grim's transfers. After some proxying I activate the War Hog and take some swings on the Hooch Hauler because I might as well. Roll very well and end up not making my last attack because I've dropped it to 8 boxes and I don't want to risk it even at dice minus 3. Use the Soul Slave to TK Mire up so that he can use Weald Secrets on Skarath. Sturm then TK's himself around Mire to get a charge angle on the Hooch Hauler and TK's Skarath forward. Sturm charges in, drops it to 4 boxes with another great damage roll, and Feats on the Bomber and Storm Troll. Dahlia runs into position, a Battle Boar Primals Skarath, and Skarath walks up to Grim and eats him in two attacks.  My opponent did an impressive job at making sure the Hooch Hauler didn't just spend the entire game Blind, but it effectively cost him all his infantry. He also had a real dilemma in that he couldn't really get Mortality onto anything. Still, his was an interesting list to see in action and I really liked it, but boy did it struggle into Deceleration and Arm 20 Gargantuans. Had I not gone for the assassination I could have comfortably ridden the game to an attrition win eventually, basically the only thing in his list that concerned me were the AOEs on the right and their ability to just scatter shots randomly until Dahlia died. |
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Post by apoc2148 on Nov 14, 2018 12:12:23 GMT
Would you see any benefit to swapping out Brun&Lug and the chef for Wrongeye&Snapjaw? You do lose out on scenario presence a bit, but you still have 4 free solos. But if mire should die, you can now get the drac back under control. I could certainly see it. I have Brun and Lug in the list at the moment for their own reasons, and Mire is easy to keep safe, so it's not a pressing decision for me. But I can see it being worthwhile. Ok, I'll give it a shot then.
I've got a team tournament coming up on Dec 15th and I was thinking about bringing minions. B2 in Blindwater was going to be my one list and I was thinking about using a variant of your Sturm list as a second. I'm not a huge fan of net-decking so I wanted to change it up a bit. Figured it was worth asking before I drop it on the table to begin practicing. |
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Post by Azahul on Nov 14, 2018 12:56:08 GMT
Ok, I'll give it a shot then. I've got a team tournament coming up on Dec 15th and I was thinking about bringing minions. B2 in Blindwater was going to be my one list and I was thinking about using a variant of your Sturm list as a second. I'm not a huge fan of net-decking so I wanted to change it up a bit. Figured it was worth asking before I drop it on the table to begin practicing. Well, Brun and Lug have a couple of benefits in the list. The main reason they're there is as an enabler for the Dracodile. With all the Knockdown they can cause in an activation, they really make me worry less about whether I need to Primal my Dracodile if it needs to go in on multiple Def 13+ models (i.e. a scenario where the Blind spray won't hit all the targets I need to kill). Knockdown also synergises nicely with Sturm and Drang's Feat and they have some entertaining hit-and-run shenanigans with the charge and return combo and TK added on top. Then there's layering Counter Charge with Counterblast on Skarath to make engaging difficult for the opponent on the non-Polarity Shielded elements of the list. Oh, and it's also nice to have a native Pathfinder heavy, especially since it means I can potentially have 4 Pathfinder heavy hitters in the list (if Mire gives Weald Secrets to the War Hog). Specifically though, they're there to make Gaspy3 9 Slayers more convenient by helping with the difficult of dealing with a lot of Def 13 heavies. This list is also likely my dedicated Troll list, which in the current environment of seeing Kolgrimma everywhere makes that Immunity: Cold randomly very useful. If you aren't bothered by those match-ups with your Barnabus2 list then their stock drops a lot. My reluctance with Wrongeye and Snapjaw is probably partly because the whole point of Mire was to make it so that I didn't need Wrongeye and Snapjaw in the list to get a Dracodile (although having two different Lessers sharing that Fury burden is an immeasurable improvement). Star Crossed also doesn't add that much value to the list I don't think, though there's some good synergy with Skarath. I certainly don't think they're a bad alternative however, and in many situations they'll be an outright improvement. |
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Post by Azahul on Nov 19, 2018 1:26:45 GMT
Had another couple of games on the weekend into a Skorne player, this time with a borrowed Dracodile so I didn't need to proxy. He had a Rasheth/Makeda2 pair, and while I'm happy playing Arkadius into Rasheth WOD I thought it might be interesting to test Sturm and Drang. The lists were: Sturm and Drang -War Hog -Battle Boar -Battle Boar -Soul Slave Brun -Lug Dahlia -Skarath Mire -Dracodile Eilish Orin Mist Speaker Gobber Chef vs Rasheth -Cyclops Shaman -Cyclops Shaman -Cyclops Raider -Agoniser Max Reivers -UA Max Slingers Min Beast Handlers Soulward Soulward Venator Dakar Gobber Chef Animantarax Animantarax Deployment I won the starting roll and set up, deploying the Dracodile on the left to avoid any potential house-related problems. My opponent deployed both Animantarax across from it in response. His battlegroup took the centre, and the Reivers faced off with Skarath on the right.  Pigs Turn 1 Vision on Skarath, Polarity Shield on the Dracodile, Deceleration, and charge up the board. You all know the drill. Dahlia puts up Haunting Melody and Brun casts Stonehold. Everything else runs.  Skorne Turn 1 Rasheth runs some Slingers forward. He Blood Marks the War Hog. The clouds prove to be an obstacle, so a Soulward gives the Dakar Eyeless Sight but that's basically the only shot he gets onto it and doesn't do more than a couple of points of damage. The Animantarax trample up and put some shots into the Arm 22 Dracodile, roll ok and do about 7 damage between the two of them. The Beast Handlers come forward and two apiece whip the Animantarax. One of them misses his attack.  Pigs Turn 2 Because one Soulward went right to Eyeless Sight the Dakar, she's now too far away to Guidance either Animantarax next round. That gives me a funny play with the Dracodile, where I'd be able to line a spray between them and hit them both with Blind and he'd only be able to remove it from one. I dither about on the decision for a bit and end up deciding not to go for it. With his Feat I'm just a little worried about putting an Animantarax within walking distance of the Dracodile. Probably doesn't kill the Dracodile on average, and I'd get to eat an Animantarax in return, but it's a bit too risky. Instead I run Dahlia forward behind the building on the left. Dahlia charges into a clump of Slingers and uses Gunfighter to make a spray across a bunch of Venators. Misses two of the four, kills the Slinger and one Venator. Casts Counterblast. Over on the left I decide to go for a Chain Lightning on Orin, which meant that I needed to pull the War Hog back to provide a second Shield Guard (Ghost Shots from the Cyclops would otherwise allow my opponent to scalpel him out and then Blood Mark the Dracodile). Orin's Chain Lightning killed four Slingers, and Eilish used Unbinding to remove Blood Mark from the War Hog. Lug ran forward to bully Rasheth from behind the forest.  Picture taken right before I remembered to run Brun too. Skorne Turn 2 My opponent was super paranoid about Counterblast so the Slingers ran, one dying from a free strike from Skarath, the other surviving the free strike but dying from a Counter Charge-Return combo from Lug. Rasheth moved up and Feated across basically my entire army, tagged Skarath with a Blood Mark and Sunder Spirit. The Animantarax both shot up the Dracodile and hovered around outside of its 10" threat. The Soulward on the right flank ran to rejoin the other on the left so that my opponent's mistake from the turn before wouldn't be repeated. The Reivers backed up so that none of them were within 6" of Skarath and shot him, dropping him to about five boxes. Vision allowed him to survive a Cyclops Shaman shot, the Battle Boar's Shield Guard allowed him to survive the second, and the Dakar only did 4 damage forcing the Raider to aim and finish the job.  The Paingivers have come forward into the zone on the left and whipped up the Animantarax some more, so my opponent scores his zone and I score mine and he scores the left, bringing the score to 1-2 in his favour. Pigs Turn 3 I am well up on clock (my opponent has under 15 minutes, I still have about 35), so it's pretty clear to both of us that I have an easy win condition here. Just run everything to the right-hand zone and contest the left with the Gobber Chef. Use TK on the Battle Boar to kill all the Reivers. Then just drag the game out dominating the right zone and forcing him to come to me before he runs out of clock. That'd be boring though. Lug can be TK'd close enough to Trample up to Rasheth and the Dracodile can get a Blind Spray in and I can remove his transfers by TK'ing Sturm forward and Feating, so I do all that. Lug receives Primal from a Battle Boar to cancel out the -2 strength from the Feat and the Dracodile receives Puppet Master to ensure it does some good damage to Rasheth. The Spray and two bought attacks from Lug put Rasheth in the dirt.  Definitely not a great match-up for Sturm. Without being able to blind the Animantarax, they put a tremendous amount of pressure on the Dracodile. Thankfully Arkadius handles Rasheth well enough (it's a 50/50 game that comes down to practice and player skill, and I've had a fair bit of practice at it at this point). |
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Post by Azahul on Nov 19, 2018 2:27:34 GMT
My opponent and I decided to swap lists for the second game. Arkadius vs Rasheth is one that neither of us felt particularly interested in playing, and Makeda2 vs Sturm didn't seem like it had any chance of ending well for my opponent. So we went for Arkadius vs Makeda instead. The lists were: Arkadius -War Hog -War Hog -Road Hog -Road Hog -Gun Boar -Splatter Boar -Gorax -Targ Mire -Wrastler Mist Speaker Witch Doctor Kwaak and Gub Gobber Chef vs Makeda2 -Molik Karn -Titan Gladiator -Basilisk Krea -Agoniser Max Ferox Max Cetrati -Vorkesh Max Swordsmen -UA Tyrant Commander and Standard Bearer Deployment This time my opponent won the starting roll. I opted to stick with the same table sides. He had his Swordsmen on the left, Cetrati on the right, and Ferox and battlegroup in the centre. I responded by putting all of my guns on my left, my War Hogs on the right, and Mire with the Wrastler out on the right flank to support the War Hogs.  My objective hands out Pathfinder. I think his is a healing objective. Skorne Turn 1 Makeda casts Deflection and everything runs up the board.  I have Arkadius cast Forced Evolution on the closest War Hog, Guardian Beast on himself, and Lucky Shot on the Splatter Boar. The Splatter Boar then runs to 9" in front of Targ, so I can drift an Acid Bomb onto the Swordsmen. Clip one of them, fail to break armour. Perfect, didn't want to proc Vengeance if I could help it. Mire hangs out on the right flank out of threat of the Ferox and drops a few clouds, though he can't reach very far forward with them so the heavies lurking behind the clouds are out of Molik Karn's threat range anyway. Enliven goes on both War Hogs, giving them a boost in resilience against the Ferox should they choose to engage (allowing me to walk out of the cat's Pounce attack range so that my opponent only gets unboosted spear attacks).  Skorne Turn 2 The Swordsmen run forward to jam up the left zone. The Cetrati advance in Shield Wall on the right, with the wailing Agoniser behind them. Makeda camps 6 Fury, the rest of her list hangs back.  Pigs Turn 2 If I don't kill anything in Makeda's Control Area her Agoniser might frenzy next turn. That seems like a funny idea. I put all of my guns into the Swordsmen. I get unlucky with my Gun Boar's attack rolls but lucky with its scatters, killing a couple of Swordsmen anyway. A Road Hog tries to clear the Splatter Boar with an aimed spray. Misses the boosted attack on the Swordsman, hits the Splatter Boar and rolls a double 6 for damage. Oops. Arkadius tries to clear off the Swordsman with a Primal Shock but misses as well. He Raw Adrenalines the Gun Boar for a second shot and repositions back. Targ goes for a second Gun Boar shot and kills another Swordsman, and with the other Road Hog's help reduces the unit to about 5 models. I mostly mill around on the rest of the field, running my Gobber Chef forward to contest the right zone in a spot where it will be able to run to contest my opponent's zone next turn. Mire casts Weald Secrets on the rightmost War Hog and the heavies on the right creep forward a little to continue bullying Molik.  Both of us score our respective zones, so the score is now 1-1. Skorne Turn 3 The Agoniser doesn't frenzy. The Swordsmen Power Swell and kill the Splatter Boar. The Ferox come forward to attack my objective, but my opponent rolls very poorly and leaves it on 5 health. One Ferox gets into the back of my Gobber Chef because of poor facing on my part, misses both attacks. The Cetrati need to receive a speed boost from the Tyrant Commander and walk two of them around the building to kill the Gobber Chef.  My opponent scores every zone save mine, making the score 1-4 in his favour. Pigs Turn 3 My Forced Evo'd War Hog gets Pathfinder from the objective and it's time for a big Feat Turn. I activate my Gun Boar and Road Hog on the left, using them to kill all the Swordsmen remaining. Mire Rages the Weald Secrets War Hog and the Wrastler. The Wrastler charges into the two Cetrati who killed the Gobber Chef and kills them. The Gorax Primals the Forced Evo'd War Hog. Arkadius Primals the Road Hog who hasn't activated and Feats, burning through most of Makeda's Fury by swinging on the central Ferox. Arkadius Raw Adrenaline needles the Road Hog and then Repositions into the empty left zone. The Rage'd War Hog then needs to walk in and burn out the rest of the Fury to kill the centremost Ferox, who is body blocking the Forced Evo'd War Hog. The Road Hog receives Ghostly and walks into the back arc of the last Ferox on the left, killing it with the Raw Adrenaline attack and Overtaking into the Gladiator. Leaves the Gladiator on 6 health. The Forced Evo'd War Hog charges the Gladiator to get up to Molik Karn, kills the Gladiator, Overtakes into Karn and kills him in the four remaining swings.  I score my zone and the left zone, making the score 3-4 in my opponent's favour. Skorne Turn 4 My opponent sends the Cetrati in to kill the War Hog on the right, but decides to hold Vorkesh back in the zone and leaves the War Hog on 1 health. The Tyrant Commander punches the Primal'd War Hog for a bit, I use Enliven to move base to base so that I'll kill him with the frenzy attack. Makeda runs to the right. The last Ferox charges Mire, who is on one camp. Needs to hit a 7 to hit and another 7 to damage with the impact attack to kill him, hits, but only does 2 damage. The charge attack is only another 6, which gets transferred to the Wrastler.  My zone and the left zone are still uncontested, so the score goes to 5-4 in my favour. Pigs Turn 4 Frenzy attacks nearly kill the objective and do kill the Tyrant Commander. The Witch Doctor gives Ghostly to Mire, he walks behind the last Ferox and kills it (taking three of his Fury in the process). He Rages the Wrastler, who charges into the back of the Cetrati and burns through all of Makeda's Fury. Between him and the War Hog, who gets healed up by Arkadius and Primal'd by the Gorax, they kill all the Cetrati bar Vorkesh. I finish killing the objective with a Primal Shock and the spray from the un-Primal'd Road Hog.  With my zone, the left zone, and the objective the score rises to 8-4 in my favour. Skorne Turn 5 My opponent uses Vorkesh to kill the War Hog and do some damage to the Wrastler. The Krea bites the other War Hog a bit, getting it almost to half health. That's really all he can do.  Score goes to 10-4 in my favour, winning me the game. While I won both games, I am a little concerned about scenario with these lists. No units in either side of a two list pairing is a bit annoying, but I suppose it really only matters in Standoff and Invasion. Standoff in particular, since Invasion isn't terribly live, but the closest I think I've come to losing has been on Invasion with the Sturm list. I can get the Bellows Crew into the Arkadius list, but I'm not super fond of the changes I'd need to make to do it (either dropping the Gun Boar or Splatter Boar into Razor Boars and possibly losing the Chef). Funnily enough, the current version is probably actually stronger on scenario in Mirage or Invasion, since I have a Speed 6 expendable solo to try and cap the opposing flag with on bottom of two. I'll stick with the current builds for the moment, but I'll be keeping a close eye on their scenario performance at my first tournament with them this weekend. |
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Post by Azahul on Nov 21, 2018 0:20:42 GMT
And another game with my borrowed Dracodile, probably my last one in preparation before the tournament on Saturday. My opponent was running: Denny1 -Kraken -Ripjaw Max Satyxis Raiders -UA Max Blood Witches -UA Severa Axiara Raider Captain Wrongeye -Snapjaw Deployment My opponent's Blood Witches Ambushed. I won the starting roll and my opponent gave me a table side with a smaller forest, rather than the bigger one. I set up with Mire and the Dracodile skewing a little to the left, intending to park Mire in or behind the forest for most of the game. Brun and Lug also went on that flank, with their native Pathfinder, while Dahlia and Skarath and the War Hog went more to the right. My opponent deployed with his Satyxis on my right, Kraken on the left, and Deneghra and Wrongeye in the centre.  Both objectives are Stockpiles. Pigs Turn 1 As fun as a Colossal vs Gargantuan brawl might be, I'd prefer to get the Dracodile over to the right flank where it could fight Satyxis. Without the charge bonus they'd basically have no chance to do more than scratch it. So I ran the Dracodile and Mire to that side, while the War Hog ran left to give me a second heavy to threaten the Kraken. Sturm put Polarity Shield on the Dracodile, Vision on Skarath, Deceleration went up, and he only walked up because I'd put the Dracodile slightly too far forward to receive Polarity Shield before Sturm charged. Dahlia cast Haunting Melody and moved out to the right, Brun put up Stonehold.  Cryx Turn 1 Raiders ran forward with Whipping Winds. Denny advanced up the centre. Both Wrongeye and Snapjaw cast Submerge and charged forward. The Kraken moved to the edge of the zone on the left.  Pigs Turn 2 I run my Gobber Chef over in front of the Dracodile, and Eilish gives the Dracodile Puppet Master. It sprays the Gobber Chef and hits Wrongeye and Snapjaw as well. Boosts to hit Wrongeye, doesn't boost on Snapjaw, hits both of them. Thanks to Puppet Master turning a boosted 6 into a 16 on Wrongeye, Snapjaw ends up in single digit health between his own hit and Wrongeye's. If I'd thought to Feat with Sturm first I'd have likely killed them... oops. Instead Sturm comes forward and Feats on Snapjaw to protect my list from my opponent's arc nodes in his turn (I figured he was almost certainly Feating in his next turn anyway and this would stop him from stacking buffs), put up Deceleration as well. He did have to TK himself to get close enough to Snapjaw though, so he ended up camping one. Then Skarath walked across and sprayed Snapjaw, leaving him on two boxes. Skarath put up Counterblast. Dahlia swung out wide on the right because I wanted to keep her safe from Denny's magic while bullying the Satyxis Raiders with her. Over on the left, I figured my opponent would need to commit the ambushing Blood Witches if he wanted to score that zone so I didn't bother contesting it for the moment. The Kraken was threatening the entire zone, but I was happy to eat a couple of gun shots with my multiple Shield Guards there. My Battle Boar positioned itself to Shield Guard for both heavies and Brun over on the left. I had to TK something on the left flank to adjust my positioning after a mistake, I forget what exactly, and the Soul Slave ended up more than 5" from Sturm.  Cryx Turn 2 Snapjaw shook Blind, Wrongeye didn't, and Corrosion went out on both. Deneghra allocated two Focus to the Kraken. The Blood Witches ambushed in on the right flank, for my opponent had a cunning plan. The Satyxis Raiders moved to within 4" of Dahlia, but not engaging her, and the Sea Witch took a pistol shot at her and rolled the 11 to hit. Did 5 damage, which ate up Dahlia's one transfer. Axiara also took a shot and rolled the 10 she needed to hit, doing 2 more damage. The Blood Witches used Blood Strike attacks on the Raiders to bombard Dahlia with auto-hitting POW 5s, killed her after killing three Raiders. Skarath vanished from the board. After that Deneghra came forward and Feated on the Gobber Chef, War Hog, Sturm and Drang, and the Dracodile, and then just camped her five Focus. Snapjaw charged the Gobber Chef, missed his tail attack, and made his bite on the Dracodile for just four damage. Severa walked up and took a couple of shots at the War Hog, but her Chain Attack dreams were ruined by a Shield Guard from the Battle Boar. The Kraken fired its shot into the Battle Boar as well, doing a few points of damage. My opponent's remaining Raiders were all fortuitously in the right-hand zone, so the score went to 0-1 in his favour. Pigs Turn 3 The objective healed the Dracodile a point of damage. Sturm activated, recast Deceleration, aimed and put a fully boosted spray through the Dracodile to kill Snapjaw. Eilish Puppet Mastered the Dracodile then, allowing it to lumber over to contest the right-hand zone and take a spray at the Blood Witches. I caught three in the spray and boosted to hit the Hag (needed to remove that Dispel weapon and Dark Shroud aura) and one other. In spite of being Rat 3 I actually hit all three, even the unboosted shot, and all three died. I didn't really have any means to score this turn but my opponent should be locked out of scenario completely now (barring Deneghra running into the left zone) so I wasn't too worried. I circled the War Hog around, staying out of the Kraken's threat range, and put it in a position where I'd be able to TK it around the forest to get into the objective next round. Gobber Chef ran out left because I couldn't work out anything good to do with it, while Orin moved up and boosted a chain lightning into the closest Raider, ignoring Concealment from the forest with Guidance, killing her and the Raider next to her. Mire tossed down a cloud to help a Battle Boar block line of sight to Sturm. Brun and Lug basically just hung out where they were.  The score remains at 0-1 in his favour. Cryx Turn 3 Deneghra allocates two to the Kraken again. Now able to use his arc node, my opponent runs it into the forest to put Parasite on the War Hog. Severa tries to shoot the Battle Boar but this time she misses one of her shots so Shield Guards aren't necessary. The Kraken charges the Gobber Chef, kills him, and uses Kill Shot to shoot the War Hog. I shield guard onto the Battle Boar on the left, taking negligible damage on him and no damage on the Soul Slave caught in the blast. Over on the right the Raiders come in to swing on the Dracodile, breaking armour a couple of times and bringing it down to about 48 health. The Blood Witches and Axiara run for the back of my board, trying to get past the Gargantuan and into the soft stuff. Wrongeye comes close enough to catch the Dracodile in his Control Area and casts Star Crossed.  Pigs Turn 4 Brun walks around to get within 8" of Severa. He shoots his Blunderbuss at the Kraken and misses. He casts Frost Hammer at Severa and hits, killing. One Battle Boar Primals Lug, who goes in and removes exactly half the Kraken's boxes. I decide not to risk failing to kill the Kraken, so I Primal the War Hog with the other Battle Boar and he walks into melee with the Kraken. Aggression Dials, kills the Kraken with two attacks spare, overtakes into the Ripjaw and kills it too, Overtaking far enough forward to engage the Raider Captain. Meanwhile, my support models are shifting to deal with the impending threat in their backs. Orin receives Guidance again and I forget to Puppet Master him (I don't particularly want him going below 2 tokens or else Denny could brute force a Crippling Grasp or Parasite somewhere, though it probably doesn't matter at this point). Luckily he hits the 6 unboosted, and the Chain Lightning rolls a maximum number of bounces to erase four Blood Witches from the board. Eilish, liberated then, can't get close to the War Hog to remove Parasite so I instead have him Mental Force a Bleed into a Blood Witch to kill her. He then teleports back so that Mire can summon a Caustic Mist to protect them all from the handful of remaining models. Mire drops down to 1 camp afterwards. The Dracodile then activates. It takes a free strike from one Satyxis backing up out of Wrongeye's range, which does no damage. The Dracodile then boosts three of its initials into the Satyixis and actually scores a hit with the unboosted fourth swing, allowing it to Snacking back to full health. I get a Crit with the Tail as well, slamming one Satyxis into the one who made the free strike to kill them both.  Still no scoring, so the score is 0-1. I could have put Sturm in the left zone this turn but kinda forgot and just TK'd some awkwardly placed models around. Cryx Turn 4 Parasite is upkept. The Raider Captain is able to get a charge angle for 3" movement on the War Hog. Knocks him down but rolls terribly for damage. Deneghra then charges in and spends all her Focus, but she does kill the War Hog. The last remaining Satyxis on the right circle further behind me. The Sea Witch, the only Raider left, walks up to the Dracodile and doesn't do anything with her melee attacks. Wrongeye casts Star Crossed and charges into the centre zone.  Score still 0-1 in my opponent's favour. Pigs Turn 5 Lug frenzies at the Raider Captain and misses. I put Guidance on Sturm, followed by Puppet Master. Sadly my objective is where Sturm needs to be standing to target Deneghra without being in Star Crossed range. I try to use Sturm's spray to kill Wrongeye but only do three points of damage. I cast TK at Deneghra and hit in spite of Star Crossed, pulling her forward. Orin spends his last tokens boosting a Chain Lightning into Orin, but Wrongeye Toughs and the bounce does nothing to Deneghra. Mire charges Wrongeye, kills him, puts two stabs into Deneghra (boosting to hit, not boosting damage), leaves her on two boxes. The Dracodile receives Primal from a Battle Boar which then charges and kills one of the last Blood Witches. The Dracodile then walks over and kills Deneghra.  Really happy with this game. Denny1 Scourge was a list I didn't feel my old Arkadius/Midas pairing had an answer to, and this Sturm list was originally written as a Cryx answer in large part. The Dracodile was basically invulnerable thanks to Polarity Shield, which really allowed me to just shut off scenario. And Mire being Immune to Corrosion was just nice to make sure Denny couldn't even think about trying to snipe him out with a Venom or three. |
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Post by sledger on Nov 21, 2018 20:17:08 GMT
Love the bat reps. Just wondering what tokens do you use?
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Post by Azahul on Nov 21, 2018 22:54:49 GMT
I've got the Broken Egg Minions set (and the CID update replacement ones). Covers everything in the faction save for Mire's Weald Secrets... They're very pretty and I like them a lot. Although I have come close to running out of Fury tokens a couple of times playing this list when I need to activate my heavies before spending any of my four Warlocks' stacks.
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Post by Azahul on Nov 25, 2018 23:47:23 GMT
First tournament outing with the new pair! I flew up to Cairns over the weekend for the Northern Rumble, the first qualifying tournament for next year's Super Series season (sort of Australia's WMW equivalent). Had a pretty great, if sleep deprived, time up there and got to play in a meta I've had pretty limited contact with. I took the following two lists: Arkadius -War Hog -War Hog -Road Hog -Road Hog -Gun Boar -Splatter Boar -Gorax -Targ Mire -Wrastler Kwaak and Gub Witch Doctor Mist Speaker Gobber Chef And Sturm and Drang -War Hog -Battle Boar -Battle Boar -Soul Slave Mire -Dracodile Dahlia -Skarath Brun -Lug Eilish Orin Mist Speaker Gobber Chef Round 1 - Invasion Pigs! An actual other pig player! Or in this case, a Carver/Maelok list pair. The joys of other metas. Both his lists were heavy on the infantry so I dropped the Sturm and Drang list. He dropped Carver, with the following: Lord Carver -War Hog -War Hog -Battle Boar -Targ Max Brigands -Warlord Valkyries Valkyries Slaughterhousers Efaarit Scouts Efaarit Scouts Alten Ashley Meat Thresher Deployment I won the roll off and took first turn. I had some water sitting outside of my deployment zone so that was where Mire and Brun and their respective beasts ended up. Plan was to contest the right-hand side and centre with the Dracodile and use Skarath to sweep the left flank of any infantry. Me opponent put the Efaarit and Meat Thresher and Slaughterhousers on the right, Brigands on the left with Alten, and his battlegroup in the centre.  Both of our objectives are Stockpiles. The Brigands nominate the left Battle Boar as their prey target. Pigs (my pigs) Turn 1 Sturm puts Vision on Skarath, Polarity Shield on the Dracodile, and Deceleration up in general and charges up the board. Dahlia puts Mist Walker on Skarath and Haunting Melody on herself and walks forward. Skarath runs up into the forest. Everything else just runs forward, hiding the War Hog in the centre zone and behind the forest.  Pigs (his pigs) Turn 1 The Meat Thresher comes forward and shoots the Arm 22 Dracodile ineffectually. Carver casts Batten and Mobility. Everything runs forward.  Pigs (my pigs) Turn 2 Alten is lurking behind the ruins on the left. Skarath is able to sneak around to kill him while staying base to base with the forest, and puts up Counterblast. That allows Dahlia to come forward and put Mist Walker on him, and the Soul Slave to TK him back into the forest for stealth. On the right the Dracodile sprays the Meat Thresher. Utterly fails to break armour but I'm happy with blind. Ends his turn contesting the right zone. In the centre I'm just a hair too far away to get my War Hog into his, but the inverse is also true. Mire puts Weald Secrets on the War Hog for future reference. Sturm comes forward and I decide I don't want to risk any Trample + Feat shenanigans, so I feat on his battlegroup and put up Deceleration. Brun and Lug run towards the centre to provide some help killing heavies next round.  Pigs (his pigs) Turn 2 The Brigands come forward and Skarath is able to kill two of them with a Counterblast spray. They take some ineffectual shots at Skarath. Carver cuts for four Fury and comes forward some more, close enough to benefit from the healing objective next turn. He puts up Mobility and Batten again. My opponent then gets a little overeagre and charges the War Hog into Skarath without giving it Primal first. Causes Vision to expire with the one hit he gets and misses the other attacks. The other War Hog advances to the opposite side of the forest to the War Hog. Slaughterhousers and Meat Thresher push forward on the right. The Efaarit take pot shots on the Dracodile. I Shield Guard one shot onto the Battle Boar which spikes and almost takes out its spirit.  Pigs (my pigs) Turn 3 If I TK both Lug and the War Hog I can get them both into my opponent's War Hogs this turn, and the Dracodile is close enough to help with the second one. The Soul Slave and Sturm do so, with Sturm recasting Deceleration. I Primal my War Hog and give it Puppet Master from Eilish and send it in. It kills the first War Hog (with my opponent forgetting Retaliatory Strike until his mind was crippled) and Overtakes into the second War Hog, who does about 9 damage with his Retaliatory Strike but gets no Crit or crippled aspect. I get one attack on the second War Hog but spike the damage nicely and puts him in the range where Lug, Primal'd by the other Battle Boar, can go in and finish the job. I run Brun over so that Lug will be in Control, and Lug gets the War Hog to 3 health with one Fury left. I ultimately decide that I don't think my opponent can realistically kill Brun even without a transfer target so I buy the last attack to kill the War Hog. That leaves the Dracodile free to make mistakes on the right. The mistake in question is leaving the right zone so that I can get two Slaughterhousers and the Meat Thresher in the spray instead of one Slaughterhouser and the Meat Thresher, leaving the right-hand zone uncontested. On the left Orin zaps four Brigands, two of whom Tough. Skarath kills one of the tough'd ones and a second Brigand with his spray. The Gobber Chef runs to contest the zone.  Because I'm silly my opponent scores a CP to make the score 0-1 in his favour. Pigs (his pigs) Turn 3 Carver heals one from the objective. The Brigands mill around on the left, losing another member to Counterblast, and try to shoot Orin dead. Luckily only one attack hits, which is Shield Guarded onto their prey target (who takes about half a dozen damage from the hit). Carver activates and Feats, sending Valkyries in to kill my War Hog. On the right one Slaughterhouser advances into the Dracodile, who has taken a few points of damage from Efaarit, and with the Feat benefit does six damage. The others continue to lurk in that zone. The second Efaarit circles around and takes a shot at Brun, but Decel plus Stonehold is a solid combo and the shot does nothing. The Meat Thresher just moves into the centre zone to block the Dracodile's access to Carver.  My opponent scores the right-hand zone to make the score 0-2. Pigs (my pigs) Turn 4 Honestly, I'm so far ahead on attrition I can afford to play this conservatively, but we're on par with time and eking back those two free CPs I handed him is going to be annoying. Skarath is close enough to just walk to Carver so I figure I'll go for that. Orin goes first and tries to clear out the one intervening Valkyrie. Hits her, but rolls a 7 on his boosted damage roll for no damage. He arcs to three Brigands again though, killing them all. Had I been paying attention I would have realised I now had a pretty easy chance to score the left zone, all I needed to kill was the Warlord and one Brigand, and then TK the one Valkyrie out. Speaking of TK, I now activate Sturm and TK the intervening Valkyrie out of the way, then TK Skarath forward and cast Vision on him to protect him from the one free strike he'll need to take. I completely forget to use Sturm's spray on the Brigand Warlord. Dahlia puts Mist Walker on Skarath and walks forward as far as she can, barely getting Carver into her control range. Eilish Puppet Masters Skarath, a Battle Boar Primals him and charges off to kill the second last Brigand in the zone. Before the assassination run I decide to have my Soul Slave TK Brun forward so that he can walk up and Frost Hammer Carver. The Frost Hammer crits, misses all the intervening Valkyries, and bounces off Carver's armour. Skarath then walks in. I consistently roll 6s for damage, which is just the line where I don't feel it's worth using Puppet Master. The consequence is that Carver with one transfer dies to the very last attack, and fails his Tough roll.  That was a little dicey, but I would have been relatively hard to assassinate in return I guess and I could have locked down the right with the Dracodile while killing the Meat Thresher. Probably not the correct play, strictly speaking, but I'd have been in a much more comfortable spot if I hadn't given my opponent those CPs. Playing properly I prevent him from ever scoring, slowly kill his army, and eventually score the left and centre. Those Efaarit circling ever further into my back were getting annoying though... |
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Post by Azahul on Nov 26, 2018 0:43:41 GMT
Round 2 - Standoff From probably the worst scenario in the packet for my lists to the second-worst. I'm up against Protectorate, running a Harbinger Faithful Masses/Kreoss2 Exemplar Interdiction. I drop Arkadius, feeling that I'd really probably prefer his quantity of anti-infantry attacks over Sturm's if my opponent goes for Harbinger. Blind is funny vs Martyrdom, but realistically losing my upkeeps to Purification is probably a bit too much. He drops Harbinger, running: Harbinger -Judicator -Dervish -Hierophant Max Zealots -Monolith Bearer Max Idrian Skirmishers -Chieftain and Guide Min Choir Vilmon Champion of the Order of the Wall Paladin of the Order of the Wall Paladin of the Order of the Wall Allegiant of the Order of the Fist Covenant of Menoth Deployment I believe my opponent won the roll off but chose to go second, so I was pretty happy. I even think he gave me the better table side. I skewed my deployment to the right so that I'd be able to take advantage of that centre forest to hide my heavies from the Judicator. He responded by putting his Idrians, Judicator, and Harbinger on the right, with the left basically just being the province of an Allegiant of the Fist.  Both objectives are Stockpile. Looking back I think my opponent forgot to declare a Prey target, though that could just be because the Idrians ended up not being super relevant... Pigs Turn 1 The Splatter Boar used Lucky Shot on the Gun Boar and the Gun Boar ran to stand 9" in front of Targ. I tried for a lucky scatter onto the Idrians by targetting the Judicator with an Ancillary Attack. Didn't get it. Arkadius put Forced Evolution up on a War Hog, Guardian Beast on himself and moved forward. Everything else ran up behind the forest, save the Wrastler which hung out a bit on the left.  Protectorate Turn 1 The Idrians moved up forward and clumped up behind the forest. My opponent chose to hold the mini-Feat. The Zealots ran forward on the left and the monk ran behind the obstruction out on the left. The Judicator lurked behind the Idrians.  Pigs Turn 2 My objective gives the Forced Evo'd War Hog Pathfinder. I have a killer Feat turn lined up here. The aim is to get the War Hogs to the Judicator and kill basically all the Idrians with Raw Adrenaline sprays. I stuck both Road Hogs side by side for that exact purpose, although it's going to take Arkadius a fair ways out onto the right flank. Martyrdom is the big potential spoiler, so I'll need to get a lot of attacks in. First up, I have my Splatter Boar Lucky Shot the Gun Boar and walk up to lob a shot at the Zealots, killing one or two. The Gun Boar then shoots a clump of Idrians, dropping three of them. No Martyrs yet. My support models go, with Kwaak Enlivening both Road Hogs and the Witch Doctor giving the second War Hog Shadow Walk. Finally, Mire comes forward and casts Rage on one War Hog and summons a cloud to block some LOS on the left, and the Wrastler puts Rage on the second War Hog and moves to contest the left zone. I then realise the cloud could be an issue for my plan for my second Road Hog and hurriedly give it Guidance. Arkadius activates, Maltreats the Fury off the Gun Boar, and Raw Adrenalines both Road Hogs. He Feats basically everything in the list towards the Judicator, save for the Road Hog with Guidance who frenzies left towards the Wrastler so that it can circle around the forest and come at the Idrians from another direction. Arkadius has a couple of spare Fury so he kills an Idrian with a Primal Shock. The first Road Hog, up on the right, activates first. It advances to just outside of Awe range of Harbinger. I opt to take a spray that "only" hits five Idrians, instead of the six I could potentially go for, because going for six would mean not getting one I really need to be able to clear to let my Forced Evo'd War Hog get to the Judicator. I take the spray and hit every attack, removing the Guide and doing some damage to the Dervish. My opponent opts not to Martyr any Idrians still, so I now have a clear path to the Judicator. The War Hog with Forced Evo and Rage uses Aggression Dial and walks up to the Judicator. It kills the Judicator with an attack to spare. It overtakes up to one of the last Idrians, the Guide, and misses a swing at it with his last attack. The other War Hog kills the second-last Idrian and the Dervish, needing to boost to hit all attacks. The other Road Hog goes for a spray on the Zealots, killing a couple and the Monolith Bearer. This time Harbinger uses Martyr, keeping the Monolith Bearer alive.  Protectorate Turn 2 Fire kills the Monolith Bearer again, so Harbinger Martyrs him again. The Vilmon and a Paladin knock a War Hog down to about half health with charges, Harbinger finishes him off with a charge and a Cataclysm. On the right, one of the Paladins charges my Road Hog and activates Enliven. I decide to risk a free strike and back up to be next to Arkadius. Then, when the Champion charges in, I knock him off his horse with the Guardian Beast attack. He then knocks the Road Hog down to about six health with his charge attack. The Monolith Bearer on the left restores all the Zealots and they then all turn out to be too far away to do anything but scatter AOEs at my Splatter Boar and hope for dice spikes.  Score now 1-0 in my favour as I score my own zone. Pigs Turn 3 The only Fury on the board is the Forced Evo'd War Hog, which Arkadius is able to hoover up. No Frenzies after an Arkadius Feat turn is a novel experience... Arkadius uses Anesthesia on the Champion to make him Stationary, and cast Psycho Surgery to heal up damaged aspects on the Road Hog. The Gorax then killed the Champion and allowed the Road Hog to move up and kill the Paladin, then sprint back behind the forest. In the centre I charged the Wrastler in to kill the objective. Mire summoned a cloud to extend the LOS blocking between Forest and objective. The Road Hog went in against Vilmon and the second Paladin. Took his full stack but he finally killed Vilmon through the Martyrs. Harbinger is now on 2 health. The Gun Boar and Splatter Boar, with help from Ancillary Attack, killed most of the remaining Zealots and Corroded basically all the ones left.  With the objective and two zones, the score went to 4-0 in my favour. Protectorate Turn 3 Only two Zealots survive the Corrosion. Harbinger kills the second War Hog, allowing the surviving Choir and Hierophant to contest the right zone. The Allegiant runs to contest my zone, surviving a Counterblast shot from the Gun Boar with about 2 health remaining.  Score still 4-0 my favour. Pigs Turn 4 I send a Primal'd Road Hog in on the right to kill the Choir, then the Hierophant. Harbinger attempts to Martyr the Hierophant but dies instead.  Honestly, I think the biggest contributor in this game was the forest more than anything. My opponent should probably have deployed a lot further away from it so that I wouldn't be able to strike out at the Judicator before it was able to do anything. |
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Post by Azahul on Nov 26, 2018 1:22:15 GMT
Round 3 - Mirage My opponent had a Jarl/Madrak1 pair, which presented an interesting dilemma. I figured Sturm could probably play around Jarl's Magic Bullets (keep everything 4" away from everything else, basically), and he'd be much better into Madrak. The scenario was an interesting consideration as well, since on first blush I don't think Sturm likes Mirage very much. Nevertheless, I opted for Sturm and was pleased to see that my opponent had picked Madrak1. He was running: Madrak1 -Mauler -Bomber -Runebearer Min Stone -Elder Max Champions -Skaldi -Ice Sorcerer Max Fennblades -UA Min Warders Champion Hero Stone Scribe Chronicler Fell Caller Hero Deployment I won the roll-off and took first turn. Placed the Dracodile centrally but skewed a little right because of the central obstruction and flag. I positioned my Gobber Chef out on the left to make a run for the opposing flag and the Mist Speaker and Orin on the right were to take care of my flag. Brun and Lug went on the right as well because their native Pathfinder would enable some fun playing around in the centre forest using charge + return combos. My opponent had his battlegroup and Fennblades on my right, Champions in the centre, and solos and the Warders coming down the left.  Both objectives are Stockpiles. Pigs Turn 1 Everything runs as fast as it can towards the middle of the table. Skarath receives Vision, the Dracodile Polarity Shield, and Sturm puts up Deceleration. I space out my Shield Guards so that there's one in range of basically every solo in my army to catch any Ricochets. Haunting Melody and Stonehold go up as per normal.  Trolls Turn 1 My opponent, as seen in the picture above, measures out an attempt to snipe out Orin with Madrak. Madrak casts Snipe, comes forward, throws Rathrok at the Dracodile, Ricochets into Orin, and the shot is caught by the Battle Boar. Madrak still cranks the damage, doing 12 points to the Battle Boar. But, on the plus side, he now lacks the Fury to cast Even Ground. He then runs the Fennblades up, but runs one too close to Lug and I eat that too, using Return to pull back afterwards. The rest of his list runs up, with the exception of the stone which advances and awakens the stone for a measly 1 extra Fury.  Pigs Turn 2 Alright, I don't like being super aggressive with this list but if I can clear out the Champions I basically only have the heavies to worry about. Between Sturm and the Soul Slave I TK both of them forwards. Dahlia runs to catch most of the unit in her Haunting Melody range. The War Hog charges into the two isolated Champions to kill them. A Battle Boar Primals Skarath, and Eilish gives Skarath Puppet Master. Skarath kills all bar one of the Champions, the last one making his Tough check. I finish him off with the Dracodile's spray. A 1 health Ice Sorcerer is the only surviving member of the unit. On the right, Orin boosts a Chain Lightning into the Fennblades and kills four of them. The Mist Speaker moves up and uses Influence to kill a fifth.  Trolls Turn 2 The Fennblades Vengeance forward. The Stone activates, comes forward and awakens for another 2 Fury. Uses it to give an aura of +1 strength. The Fennblade uses March on the Warders, because one of them is barely close enough to walk in and contest my zone (they're locked out of orders because of Dahlia). The Fennblade and one Warder do about 10 damage to the War Hog. The Bomber maxes itself out throwing bombs at Skarath, expiring Vision and doing a bit of damage. The Champion Hero then charges in and gets Skarath down to about six health. The only other model able to make it in is Madrak, who reluctantly charges in, Feats, and kills Skarath. He camps three Fury and uses Blood Boon to put up Even Ground. The Fennblades get Guided Hand from the Runebearer and use their minifeat. They kill the Mist Speaker, mostly kill the wounded Battle Boar, and do a little bit of damage to Lug.  Score goes to 0-1 in my opponent's favour as he scores his zone. Pigs Turn 3 I look to see if there's an assassination run on Madrak but between a ban on charges and the flag blocking the Dracodile's base I don't have anything. Instead I play for scenario. A Battle Boar lucks out and kills the Warder in the zone, then Primals my War Hog. The War Hog kills the Fennblade and both remaining Warders. My Gobber Chef runs to the left flag. On the right, Orin uses Chain Lightning and both remaining tokens to kill the officer, piper, and one regular Fennblade. The Battle Boar kills the Fennblade on the far right. Lug kills one of the two Fennblades left, but the last one contesting my flag makes all his Tough checks and Brun misses him with a Frost Hammer. The Dracodile sprays Stone's unit leader, leaving him blind and knocked down.  I score my opponent's flag and my zone, so the score is now 2-1 in my favour. Trolls Turn 3 With four Fury on the Bomber and Madrak only able to leach two, the Bomber frenzies on the Runebearer and forces a Tough check, which the Runebearer passes. The Ice Sorcerer tries to kill Dahlia but misses. With his only attack capable of clearing the zone done, my opponent kills Orin with the last Fennblade and has the Mauler move up on the right flank. The Stone Scribe Chronicler kills the Gobber Chef, but the flag there is still contested by the War Hog. A couple of stone unit members attempt to attack the War Hog but with the unit barred from charging because of Dahlia they're pretty ineffectual. The Stone itself is only able to stand up and sac its movement because of the blind/knockdown combo. Madrak moves out to the right flank and puts up Even Ground.  Score now 3-1 in my favour as I score my zone. Pigs Turn 4 I win this turn if I can score the left flag, my zone, and either one of the remaining flags. The only model contesting the centre flag is the Champion, so I aim to kill him. Eilish goes first, advances into the forest, Mental Forces a Bleed into the Stone Scribe Chronicler and kills him. He then uses Gate Walker to grab that flag. The Dracodile tries to kill the Champion Hero and hurts both him and the objective a bit. The Soul Slave walks to the centre flag and TKs Lug forwards. Lug then goes up and the Champion Hero toughs a couple of times but eventually dies. Puts some swings into Madrak for good measure and gets him pretty low on health.  With left flag, centre flag, and zone the score goes to 6-1 in my favour. I was really happy with how this game went down, both in my ability to play Mirage with a fairly slow list (going first definitely helped) and into Madrak1 specifically, since this list is typically going to be my answer into Troll lists. My opponent's Turn 1 mess up did make killing the Champions a lot easier than it needed to be, but I think even with Even Ground up I still kill most of them. Barring Tough roll silliness, of course. And even if I don't the Dracodile aims to spray whichever ones survive Skarath's attention, leaving them Blind and Paralysed and hopefully useless for the following turn. Because of the Retaliatory Strikes I was being careful to keep Skarath more than 1" away from the Champions anyway, which combos really nicely with Blind. |
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Post by Azahul on Nov 26, 2018 1:56:52 GMT
Round 4 - Invasion Protectorate again, this time with a funky Sevvy1/Thyra pair. Very interesting. My opponent and I had a bit of a chat about whether Sevvy1's Feat would work on Lesser Warlocks, so I ended up dropping Arkadius. He dropped Sevvy1, with the following: Severius -Crusader -Blessing of Vengeance Avatar Max Deliverers Max Idrians -Chieftain and Guide Max Zealots -Monolith Bearer Min Choir Vilmon Paladin of the Order of the Wall Vassal Mechanik Vassal Mechanik Vassal Mechanik Deployment For the second time today I lost the roll off but was given the first turn anyway. Protectorate players are very giving, I guess. I had Mire and the Wrastler on the right to lurk around the forest for protection. I figured Mire could happily cap that flag and surround himself with Caustic Mists all game. My opponent had the Zealots on the far right, Deliverers on the far left, Idrians on the left as well, and Avatar and the Crusader on the centre-right coming up behind his flag.  My objective is a Fuel Cache, I forget what his was. The Splatter Boar is the Idrians' Prey target but it turned out after the game that my opponent mistook it for a Battle Boar. Pigs Turn 1 Well, I have another shot at the Lucky Shot plus Ancillary Attack top of one combo, so I do that. The Gun Boar runs to stand 9" from Targ, but even with Lucky Shot's reroll I can't get it to land anywhere near those nicely clumped Idrians. The rest of my turn is spent running everything up around the Pathfinder objective, with Forced Evolution on the lead War Hog and both Road Hogs side by side for Raw Adrenaline next turn. Arkadius has Guardian Beast on himself.  Protectorate Turn 1 Idrians advance. They're mostly out of range because of the obstruction they're behind, but a couple of CRAs do a few points of damage to the Gun Boar and Forced Evo'd War Hog. Blessing runs up and an Ashes to Ashes from Sevvy tags the Forced Evo'd War Hog for a couple of points too. Defender's Ward goes on the Idrians, Vision on Blessing. Everything else runs forward, Avatar putting up Eye of Menoth and camping behind the wall alongside the Crusader.  Pigs Turn 2 Pathfinder goes to the rightmost Road Hog. The Splatter Boar comes forward and Lucky Shots the Gun Boar. The Gun Boar moves forward and shoots the beautifully clumped Deliverers, killing five. He puts up Counterblast, and Targ Ancillary Attacks him to kill three more Deliverers with the second shot. The Gorax Primals the Forced Evo'd War Hog, because I intend to send it into Avatar and don't want to be hitting on sixes when I need every attack to break its armour. Mire Rages the left Road Hog and walks onto the flag, summoning a Caustic Mist. The Wrastler Rages the other War Hog, who then receives Shadow Walk from the Witch Doctor. Enliven goes on the Rage'd War Hog and Rage'd Road Hog from Kwaak. Support stuff done, I move on to the Feat. Arkadius activates, Maltreats the Splatter Boar, and heals almost all the chip damage across my army with Psycho Surgery. He Feats everything forward (everything charging either Blessing or Avatar), and then tosses away two more Fury by killing a Mechanik with Primal Shock. He then Repositions forward a little. On the right, the Primal'd War Hog kills Avatar with an attack to spare. I overtake into the right-hand zone but opt not to swing on the Zealot there and trigger Vilmon's Righteous Vengeance. The Rage'd War Hog kills the Crusader comfortably. One Road Hog sprays down four Idrians, including the Chieftain and Guide. The other Road Hog walks around the Gorax, who frenzied forward to serve as a good backstop against Blessing's Repulsor Shield. The Raw Adrenaline attack gets Vision'd, and the Road Hog manages (barely) to kill Blessing.  Apologies for the blurry picture here. Protectorate Turn 2 My opponent measures out an assassination run from Sevvy but between the two camp on Arkadius and the shallow water in the way it isn't possible. He concedes. That was the top table of the event, so I win the tournament and qualify for next year's Super Series bright and early. I did quite like how my lists performed at the pairing stage, in probably every round bar round two I think I could have made either list work, which was a nice feeling. The one small annoyance is that no one gets how the Sturm and Drang list actually works, so it's very hard to predict which list your opponent will drop. The lists also performed better on their weakest scenarios a bit better than I'd anticipated, which helps alleviate some worries. Honestly, the most concerned I was all tournament was probably the pig mirror, just because regaining lost ground once I screwed up with the Dracodile was a bit of a daunting prospect. Scoring 5 CPs in the half hour I had left on clock by that point would have been a challenge, but doable. Getting 7 more... I was genuinely unsure if that was feasible, and playing out to Turn 7 as my alternative win condition would have been tricky. Anyway, very happy with how the event went, and I'm looking forward to running these two lists for basically the foreseeable future  |
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Post by apoc2148 on Nov 26, 2018 13:32:17 GMT
Nice job and congratulations on the win!
I really need to get Ark on the table, he seems like so much fun.
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Post by Azahul on Nov 26, 2018 13:59:49 GMT
Nice job and congratulations on the win! I really need to get Ark on the table, he seems like so much fun. Well he is my favourite Warlock and I am known for my discerning tastes As seen in both rounds I played him though, he's a bit much if an opponent isn't prepared for him. Fun for the Arkadius player at least! |
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daveg
Light Addition
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Post by daveg on Nov 26, 2018 17:15:51 GMT
Having used Dr A as my main list last year, I can also confidently say that Azahul makes it sound easy in his battle reports. The positioning, threat range, and activation order requirements are all tricky. I lost a bunch of games on clock that I was winning on attrition because it just took me too long to correctly run the list.
It has a high degree of technical mastery, which is also fun if you're looking for that in your games.
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