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Post by Azahul on Mar 1, 2019 12:55:16 GMT
Honestly it's not very good. One of my main problems with Midas is that without any threat extension his assassination potential is extremely limited. Your best bet is probably a Calamity, a fully boosted Hex Blast, and then Spectral Lashes from the Cauldrons.
If you were to build around Midas's assassination run you'd want a bunch of Gun Boars and a Splatter Boar, so that you could Feat them back and have them aim with Lucky Shot and Calamity for a bunch of unboosted Rat 9-11 POW 15s with fairly unpredictable threat ranges and angles.
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mazog
Junior Strategist
Walking and talking
Posts: 748
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Post by mazog on Mar 2, 2019 14:58:54 GMT
And, every time your opponent goes to kill one you can remind them that you can feat it back for that purpose. #headgames
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Post by Azahul on Mar 8, 2019 0:58:10 GMT
I managed to get a game in with this joke Midas list I put together. My opponent was testing out a Goreshade4/Issyria pair, and we ended up playing Goreshade vs Midas. The lists were: Midas -Boneswarm -Boneswarm -Boneswarm -Boneswarm -Boneswarm -Boneswarm -Soul Slave Valkyries Valkyries Valkyries Min Bone Grinders Spirit Cauldron Spirit Cauldron Mire -Wrastler Bone Shrine Bone Shrine Lanyssa Goreshade -Phoenix -Phoenix Max Invictors -UA Max Sentinels -UA Max Destors Destor Thane Scyir Artificer Lyss Healer Arcanist Mechanik Deployment My opponent won the starting roll and took first. He deployed his Sentinels on the left, Invictors on the right, Destors central. I didn't really have a good answer for the Invictors in this list with my static threat ranges and lack of guns, so I skewed my deployment to the left so that I could mostly just focus on contesting the right-hand zone and working through the melee brawl on the left. The two Gun Boars and more Boneswarms, I was only able to source four from my local community (including one that I owned thanks to Midas's Mark II theme force). Both objectives are Stockpiles. Retribution Turn 1 Goreshade casts Dauntless Resolve on the Destors and moves up, laying out some clouds between the Bone Shrine and where the Destors were about to be. The Destors then raced up the board. Everything else ran up behind them. Pigs Turn 1 The Destors were actually close enough for Midas to just walk and spell them. I ran some stuff up so that the Bone Grinders could walk and Craft Talisman. I assumed that Goreshade still had Hex Blast so I opted to cast a Hex Blast of my own, instead of throwing out a Calamity and then being able to upkeep it for free. The boosted Hex Blast did kill a Destor. The left Spirit Cauldron rolled up three corpses and loaded up a Boneswarm. The one on the right rolled up one corpse and gave it to another Boneswarm, who ran to take cover behind the house on the right and get some forward threat projection. The rest of the list moved up a lot more cautiously, staying out of threat. Mire summoned a cloud so that the Destors wouldn't be able to charge Midas in retaliation. I ran Lanyssa waaaaay out onto the left for some reason because I couldn't really work out where I wanted her. Retribution Turn 2 Goreshade Revived the dead Destor, put Dauntless Resolve on them again, and summoned a single cloud to help block LOS. He Feated The Destors charged and killed the Bone Shrine. They then fired their guns at the lead unit of Valkyries, killing one, and Repositioned back. The Lyss Healer healed the Revived one back to four boxes. The Sentinels ran up and used their mini feat. The Invictors advanced towards the right-hand zone and put a bunch of shots into the lead Boneswarm. They left it on about half health. Pigs Turn 2 The two remaining Valkyries Vengeanced forward. The Soul Slave tossed Battle Lust onto them. The Bone Grinders shuffled a bit further forward and gave Midas Craft Talisman. I loaded two corpses onto Midas from the right-hand Spirit Cauldron for back-up in case my opponent used Arcane Vortex, while the left-hand one spun up three again for a total of four (thanks to the dead Valkyrie) and maxed out another Boneswarm on the left. I had the option to try and clear two Sentinels and get a fully loaded Boneswarm into the Phoenix, but I decided provoking Vengeance like that would be a poor proposition. Instead Midas threw Calamity onto the Phoenix (my opponent did not use Arcane Vortex) and backed up a little. The two Valkyries charged the Phoenix and rolled like the absolute blazes. Like, across their charge attacks, I don't think a single dice rolled less than a 4. One did 17 damage with her charge, I can't remember the other one, but they casually scrapped the Phoenix in two swings. Over on the right I had a Boneswarm charge one of the closest Invictors (I boosted to hit, but in retrospect I should have cast Swarm instead and if I'd missed actually been in a pretty good jamming position at Def 15), getting frozen Stationary from Goreshade's Feat but denying him a soul by RFPing the Invictor for a corpse. The damaged Boneswarm largely hung out where it was and two Valkyries ran into the right-hand zone. I continued to play conservatively in the centre, with Mire throwing out two clouds to screen my army and the maxed out Boneswarms using Swarm and positioning where only a couple of Sentinels could get to them. Lanyssa ran back across to get into a more sensible position. Retribution Turn 3 My opponent charged the Invictors in on the right. Only one charge actually connected with the stationary Boneswarm, the others mostly assaulted the two Valkyries in the zone. One Valkyrie was killed, the two shots on the other both missed. The Boneswarm survived something like five assault shots and a single charge by virtue of poor dice on my opponent's part, I think it lived with three boxes. Over on the left my opponent did manage to kill the two Valkyries, but boy did it take far too much effort. The Destors had to do it after the Phoenix flubbed all of its attacks. Goreshade summoned clouds to cover the Sentinels from at least one of the Boneswarms and put down a third cloud to protect himself and the Destor Thane. A few potshots from the Destors and Thane on the objective left it on 13 boxes and triggered Vengeance on the remaining Valkyrie unit on the left. My opponent scored the left zone, bringing the score to 0-1 in his favour. Pigs Turn 3 I had a bit too much Fury on the board. The central Boneswarm had to make a Threshold check, but Threshold 9 is nice and reliable. The two remaining Valkyries on the right moved up and cleared out a couple of Invictors with their Vengeance attacks. They then activated and moved up. One killed two Invictors with melee attacks, the other used her gun to shoot and kill the standard bearer down the back. The two Boneswarms I had available then cleared out the Invictors (one repairing its aspects as it went using the corpses). I don't think I managed the left flank terribly well. I put Calamity on the Destors with Midas, tossed on Battle Lust with the Soul Slave, and sent in the Valkyries. Two of them jammed up the Sentinels and killed a couple (I had to charge into Goreshade's clouds to get the angles I wanted, and I missed two swings as a result). The other Valkyrie forced a Tough check on one Destor and killed a third Sentinel. The Boneswarm who passed its threshold check charged in and killed another. A second Boneswarm charged the Destors in front of the Phoenix and killed them both, RFPing them for good measure and maxing out on Fury in the process. I advanced forward to threaten the left zone next turn with my Boneswarms, the lead one used Swarm for good measure, and Mire clouded up the centrefield again. I scored the right-hand zone, bringing the score level at 1-1. Retribution Turn 4 The two Invictors moved into the right-hand zone. One took a swing at the Boneswarm there with the least health (the one who'd survived a turn being charged by most of the unit). It hit and rolled box cars for damage, killing the Boneswarm to the box. The Phoenix received a Focus from Goreshade and Concentrated Power from the Arcanist, moved to stand within 2" of both lead Boneswarms in the centre and left zones and proceeded to miss almost every attack, landing just one hit on the one in the centre-zone. The Artificer charged for a combo smite, only slammed the centre Boneswarm an inch, did a respectable amount of damage. Steady and not impacting the central building hurt though. The Scyir charged in and missed. An exasperated Goreshade moved up and made the Boneswarm stationary (my opponent pointedly noting that if he'd done this first he wouldn't have had any of these issues) and used most of his Focus to kill the Boneswarm. The Sentinels charged the Swarm'd Boneswarm on the left and the one in the left zone. One charged Lanyssa but trying to hit Lanyssa while under the effect of Swarm was a losing proposition. The other Sentinels all missed their swings on the Boneswarm with Swarm, but they did a number on the one in the zone and the Destor Thane was able to kill it. The remaining Destors mostly just shot up the objective, leaving it on three boxes. My opponent scored the left zone, bringing the score to 1-2 in his favour. Pigs Turn 4 I probably had a reasonable attrition game from where. Use the Valkyries to kill the Invictors and the Boneswarm can go and try to kill the Lyss Healer. Then I can probably start scoring the right-hand zone even in my opponent's turn, and I have Midas's Feat to swing the attrition on the left. But it was kinda late and I had a semi-respectable assassination run on the left. My right-hand Spirit Cauldron handed all its corpses to Midas and gave him Puppet Master. The Soul Slave got out of the way and used Bone Shaker on the Destor Thane, leaving him on two boxes. Midas charged the Thane, killed him, Cursed Goreshade, and attempted a whole lot of Calamities at him until he ran out of Focus for Arcane Vortex. The one Calamity I did get to cast hit thanks to the Puppet Master reroll. I forgot to Feat back my three dead Boneswarms. Lanyssa moved up and hit the Scyir in the back with Hunter's Mark. The Wrastler received Puppet Master from the other Spirit Cauldron and Rage from Mire and charged the Scyir. It killed him with a claw attack and used Overtake to get into melee with Goreshade. Boosted to hit and damage on a Bite attack and one-shot Goreshade. Honestly, this list functioned better than I was expecting. It's not great, I wouldn't really ever take it at a tournament (I have no idea what its role in a pair would be, for one thing), but it has some fun quirks. The Valkyries are phenomenal line infantry and it has a bit more reliability fuelling the Boneswarms than I initially assumed it would. It probably needs relatively dead scenarios like the Pit II and Invasion, but what else is new for Midas? There are some cute little synergies in the list though. The Spirit Cauldrons don't collect corpses from friendly undead, so Midas doesn't need to worry about the proximity of Spirit Cauldrons potentially interfering with personal corpse collection. Because Special Delivery can only be used to give corpses to a single model, that's usually a boon so that you don't need to give up fuelling a Boneswarm in order to fuel Midas. I do think a reasonable case could be made though to replace the Bone Shrines and two Boneswarms with a pair of Gun Boars though. They give you an additional asset for assassination plays (as discussed above) and a bit more early game threat projection which is something this list sorely lacks.
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Post by Azahul on Mar 13, 2019 0:54:24 GMT
A Skarath conversion I've been working on (but haven't yet completed) lured me back to Sturm and Drang for the night's games. My opponent was running Cryx, and had a Deneghra2/Skarre1 pair. Neither of us were entirely sure what the correct drop should be, but we decided to play Skarre1/Sturm and Drang. The lists were: Sturm and Drang -War Hog -Battle Boar -Battle Boar -Soul Slave Mire -Dracodile Dahlia -Skarath Brun -Lug Orin Eilish Mist Speaker Gobber Chef Skarre -Ripjaw -Ripjaw -Stalker -Stalker -Blood Priestess Max Marauders -Jussika Max Smog Belchers Min Ogrun Boarding Party Dirge Seers Axiara Gerlak Slaughterborn Aiakos -Kharybdis Deployment My opponent took the starting roll and went first. I grabbed a table side with plentiful line of sight blocking terrain, although both sides had pretty awesome terrain set-ups and I probably could have gotten real use out of the wall in the zone on the other side. Ah well. My opponent set up his Marauders on the left, Smog Belchers and Kharybdis central, and the Boarding Party out on the right. I tossed down Brun and Dahlia and their companions on my right, the Dracodile and Mire on the left, and Sturm and his War Hog in the middle. My opponent then placed the Stalkers opposite the Dracodile. My objective is a Stockpile, his is a Fuel Cache. The Bastions are a proxy for the Boarding Party, and Tartarus is a proxy for Gerlak Slaughterborn. Cryx Turn 1 Everything ran forward, save the Warcasters. Skarre used Ritual Sacrifice on a Dirge Seer and rolled an extra 4 Focus. Aiakos used Escort and advanced. My opponent opted to stagger his Stalkers, putting one behind the forest to put pressure on my deployment line while keeping the other back as a threat to the Dracodile if I came forward to engage. Pigs Turn 1 That lead Stalker largely prevented my squishier models from advancing too far. I put a few things close enough for the Stalker to get to, figuring that if my opponent used his Feat on a turn where he could only get a single Stalker in then that was probably ok, and I couldn't afford to yield that much table space to him. Polarity Shield was put on the Dracodile, Vision on Skarath, and Sturm cast Deceleration. He moved to a hair over 13" from the lead Stalker. The Dracodile ran just shy of the left zone, staying out of the trample threat of Kharybdis. Skarath ran across to the left flank to hunt Stalkers, and the War Hog and Lug shifted right where their Arm 20 against guns should render them pretty much impervious to the Smog Belcher guns. My opponent was down to just two instances of Guidance, so I had Mire move a bit more centrally and summon a cloud behind the objective, then cast Floodwaters. Dahlia and Brun cast their respective upkeeps, Dahlia walked to the left and Brun moved forward. All the lessers were hanging out within range of at least one Shield Guard. Orin made himself Stealth and Eilish gave Lug an optimistic Puppet Master before using Gate Walker to get away from the Smog Belchers. Cryx Turn 2 My opponent opted against Feating to commit a single Stalker, especially since he couldn't get any warrior models close enough for Gang Fighter. He ran the Marauders forward on the left, jamming them up and into the zone. The Warjacks mostly circled around where they were in the centre. The Boarding Party hung out where they were at the back of the right zone. Axiara gave Reposition to the Smog Belchers, they moved up and fired their shots at the War Hog. They hit every single attack, did four damage total and prevented Brun from being able to run or charge. Skarre used Ritual Sacrifice to kill one Smog Belcher on the far right that Lug could see past the clouds and charge to Overtake through the rest of that unit. She rolled a one for Focus. Pigs Turn 2 I was almost tempted not to Feat this turn with my opponent's low Focus, but between Skarre and Aiakos my opponent would be able to fully fuel his Warjacks this turn regardless and missing out on Dark Guidance wouldn't be too problematic with Gang Fighter and the biggest target in my army being Def 10. Eilish used Puppet Master on the Dracodile. I could either go for a bunch of Marauders with the spray, or try to tag a Stalker and Kharybdis, and I decided that the Stalker was the bigger threat (notably, with where Sturm needed to be for an optimal Feat, it'd be able to take two swings on him if I didn't remove its Focus for the jump). The Dracodile moved up and sprayed, hitting both. Kharybdis couldn't be hurt but he'd be at zero Focus next turn. I boosted the damaged roll on the Stalker, rolled a 5, used Puppet Master to make it a 14 instead and comfortably crippled the Stalker's Cortex. So that went better than expected. Skarath received Guidance from the Mist Speaker and moved towards the centre, standing just behind the objective. He took a spray on a Smog Belcher, forced a Tough check which the Ogrun passed, and then the Soul Slave TK'd him back. Mire resummoned the cloud again in the same spot and backed up, casting Floodwaters and dumping Fury. Lug and the War Hog advanced just a little, staying out of Kharybdis's walking threat but each of them sitting somewhere where a single Smog Belcher could probably charge them. Finally Sturm TK'd himself and walked to Feat on every 'jack save the far right Ripjaw. He recast Deceleration and camped one. Cryx Turn 3 Kharybdis shook blind and the blind Stalker looked sad. Axiara gave Skarre Reposition. She moved across to the left, Feated on five Marauders, the uncrippled Stalker, Kharybdis, Gerlak Slaughterborn, two Smog Belchers, and herself. She then backed up and used Ritual Sacrifice on a Dirge Seer and rolled one Focus. Gerlak Slaughterborn jumped the gun a little, charging my lead Battle Boar and leaving it on about 6 boxes, preventing the Marauders from contributing any damage. The Marauders shot up the Dracodile instead, using a few big CRAs plus Skarre's Strength buff to hit the Dracodile with two POW 20s and three POW 17s (really cool trick I hadn't thought of, incidentally, using the Feat to buff the POW of Marauder shots). One of the POW 17s missed and the other two largely bounced because of Arm 22 against guns, but together with the Stalker's two attacks I believe they dropped the Dracodile to something close to half health. In the centre Kharybdis and the Smog Belchers killed the objective and did a little bit of damage to the War Hog. One ran to engage Lug. And the Boarding Party came out from behind their wall but didn't really do anything. With the objective and centre zone, my opponent brought to score to 0-2 in his favour. Pigs Turn 3 There was an assassination run here, involving having Mire give Sturm Pathfinder and walking into the forest to TK Skarre close, TKing Skarath forward, and trying to put her in the dirt since she was only on 4-5 boxes. Attrition seemed like more fun though. I gave Puppet Master and Primal to the War Hog on the right. Lug left the zone to kill the Feated on Ogrun. He cast Bear Paws and... missed his first initial, did two damage with a boosted damage roll on his second initial, bought an unboosted attack which bounced and then just stood there looking like an idiot having left the zone uncontested (plan was to Overtake back in). So... that was disappointing. Skarath walked up into the burning cloud and killed the inconvenient Ogrun instead and just cast Counterblast, toeing the central zone. The Soul Slave TK'd the War Hog and he charged Kharybdis, boosting each damage roll to try and take out columns since I didn't think I could realistically kill the Arm 23 'jack. The plan worked and crippled Kharybdis's cortex. I ran a Gobber Chef to contest the right-hand zone. Brun considered standing in the zone as well, but I figured that would leave him a bit too vulnerable so I backed up behind the wall and threw away two Fury so that Lug would remain a threat for later. Over on the left, the Dracodile took some swings on the Stalker and missed boosted attack roll on it bar the bite, which crippled both of the Stalker's arms. He missed an unboosted attack roll on Gerlak too. The Battle Boar on six boxes had a Crippled Mind, so I had it boost a Headbutt into Gerlak so that he couldn't threaten Sturm. The attack hit, and Gerlak was thankfully outside of Jussika's Steady range. Orin killed a Marauder burning all of his tokens on a Chain Lightning, thanks to a few good Tough checks. Mire summoned a cloud to protect him and cast Floodwaters, spending a Fury to heal the Dracodile a point. The score was still 0-2 in my opponent's favour. Cryx Turn 4 Skarre loaded up her Ripjaws. She activated and cast Dark Guidance and backed up. The Boarding Crew aimed a CRA into the Gobber Chef and killed him to score that zone. Axiara charged the War Hog, dropping it to about 16 boxes. A Ripjaw walked in and with 4d6 to hit go the Crit and killed the War Hog with the armour piercing attack. The second Ripjaw ended up jammed in by Axiara however, preventing it from getting to Skarath. Kharybdis walked in and took his two swings, doing 9 damage to Skarath and expiring Vision. Gerlak on the left took a swing on the near-dead Battle Boar and left him on one box, so the cortextless Stalker finished the job. The other Stalker and the Marauders chipped away at the Dracodile a little more, but without the Feat and with no arms on the Stalker they were running out of steam fast. My opponent scored the right-hand zone, bringing the score to 0-3 in his favour. Pigs Turn 4 At this point Skarre was pretty close to Skarath, so I figured I could kill her pretty comfortably. My remaining Battle Boar Primal'd Lug. Brun charged and killed the Smog Belcher engaging Lug and made an ineffectual Frosthammer attack at Axiara. Then Lug charged Axiara, killed her, used Return and Overtake to pull out of Skarath's charge lane while staying in melee with the nearby Boarding Party Ogrun, killed him too, and used Overtake to move over a little more. Sturm then moved up and killed the Smog Belcher engaging Skarath with his spray, but if that hadn't worked the plan was to cast Primal and Vision on Skarath so that he could ignore a free strike. Dahlia healed Skarath's crippled aspects and ran through the flames to get Skarre in her control area. The Soul Slave TK'd Skarath forward. Skarath charged Skarre, boosted to hit the charge attack, hit, and the charge attack killed her. Very interesting game. I got hammered a little by dice on round three, having Lug straight up fail to kill a single Ogrun (even an Arm 20 one) was mildly ridiculous, which let my opponent run up the score a tad more than he should have. The original plan was to give him a two point lead but then lock down all the scenario elements hard enough to prevent any future scoring while running up the attrition. The amount of damage the Ripjaws could do kind of took me off guard though, and I think it would have been tighter than I'd anticipated on attrition in the end. On the flipside, I do think I managed Skarre's Feat well. The Skarre Slaughter Fleet build isn't something I've encountered before, or seen much written about, and while I think there are improvements my opponent could make to his list I think it's got some serious teeth. Ripjaws with P+S 12-17 attacks and semi-reliable Crits are pretty awe inspiring on their own...
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Lbofun
BattleBox Champ
Posts: 59
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Post by Lbofun on Mar 15, 2019 19:01:47 GMT
Man I have to say after reading all of these (thanks bye the way. great reads while at work in the cleanroom.) It may be time to end my separation of pig and gator, and bring me home some bacon.
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Post by Azahul on Mar 17, 2019 8:46:55 GMT
Man I have to say after reading all of these (thanks bye the way. great reads while at work in the cleanroom.) It may be time to end my separation of pig and gator, and bring me home some bacon. Glad to hear it's been of some service on the entertainment side It's interesting, I've long accepted that I've been intentionally limiting myself by only playing the pig Warlocks, and while there's certainly been an element of Gator creep entering my lists I actually do feel that the strongest pairings in the current meta exist on the pig side. I certainly don't feel like Maelok or Jaga-Jaga have the same kind of coverage in the current meta as Sturm or Arkadius, and while Rask would probably work in a pairing with Sturm I don't think I'm really hurting myself by not playing him. It may be that we are currently in one of those rare lulls in Warmachine history where the pig side of the faction has risen to the forefront!
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Post by tontonkal on Mar 17, 2019 9:38:27 GMT
I would guess it is related to Mire providing new options to the pig side. Getting a cheap access to a Wrastler or the Dracodile can make some lists click. Elasticity from the horror could be nice as well, but more situational than the good old rage.
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Post by Azahul on Mar 17, 2019 12:16:50 GMT
Mire certainly levelled the playing field between the two halves of the faction by expanding out the tools available to pigs, that's certain. Now basically the only major difference between Gators and Pigs is that the porky side still doesn't have any good access to arc nodes. I like Bone Shrines, but there's a huge difference in flexibility between them and a mobile node.
And with the differences between the two factions more or less brought back down to each 'caster's personal toolkit, I think the pigs are beginning to outshine a lot of Gator options. Particularly in the modern meta, where people are prepared to handle medium base heavy infantry, and where Sturm is really able to stretch his wings.
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Post by Azahul on Mar 18, 2019 0:56:27 GMT
I played in a local team tournament on the weekend, but beforehand I managed to get in a quick practice game with a rare Grymkin player. He was running the following, paired with an Old Witch infantry list. Child -Clockatrice -Clockatrice -Cage Rager -Skin and Moans -Skin and Moans -Crabbit -Crabbit Max Dread Rots Karianna Rose Glimmer Imp Gremlin Swarm Gremlin Swarm Death Knell Deployment My opponent won the starting roll and took first. Terrain wasn't super relevant because his only real threat that would worry about it was Force Hammer, and I had Orin to protect me there, but I grabbed a table side absolutely stacked with Cover anyway. I guess it prevented him from having it, but with my attacks mostly being sprays it wasn't super relevant to me either. My opponent set up with Child skewing a bit to my right, with a Clockatrice and Skin and Moans on each flank. Cage Rager was out on the left, Death Knell more on the right, and Dread Rots in the centre. I deployed Brun and Lug and Dahlia and Skarath on the left, because I intended to play around the wall in the corner of the zone there and I figured they'd be able to use it the most effectively. The Dracodile deployed centre-left but I intended to run it further right first turn, joining the War Hog out on that flank. Both objectives are Stockpiles. His Arcana are Wrath, Ruin, and Labyrinth. Grymkin Turn 1 Child abused her Clockatrices and cast Tantrum. She charged the Dracodile. Everything else raced up the board, though my opponent largely hung back so that I couldn't assault spray anything with the Dracodile. Pigs Turn 1 Sturm cast his usual spells, even Deceleration since I figured my opponent would be going for some Paralyse sprays this turn. I moved everything up, no triggering Tantrum and hanging outside of the Abuse threat ranges. Brun and Dahlia cast their respective upkeeps and walked up. Grymkin Turn 2 Both Clockatrices moved up. One sprayed the Dracodile, Paralysing it and doing one damage. The other sprayed Skarath, Paralysing him and expiring Vision for no damage. The rest of the list basically jockeyed around without doing much. Pigs Turn 2 Lug cast Bear Hands, charged the Clockatrice on the left, and boosted to hit his charge attack. He used his Chain Attack smash and Grab to throw the Clockatrice into the Skin and Moans on the left, triggering Time Stutter on the Clockatrice on the throw but my opponent opted not to really use it. The first attack from Lug triggered the Wrath Arcana. I used Puppet Master on the Soul Slave on the right and moved up and used TK on the Clockatrice there. The attack hit first try, and the Soul Slave took three damage from Mental Force. The Dracodile walked in and started swinging on the Clockatrice. The P+S 17 initials that I led with all shaved off different aspects, so when I made the bite attack and boosted damage I was able to kill the Clockatrice without ever triggering Time Stutter. Sturm TK'd himself to up behind the objective and Feated on all of the Child's heavies. He cast Vision back on Skarath. Skarath moved up and sprayed down a couple of Dreadrots, and then cast Counterblast. I ran my Gobber Chef to my flag, and moved the two pigs into the zone on the right. I think the Battle Boar really should have been further forward, or the War Hog further back, but I didn't think through the Battle Boar's placement and I wanted the War Hog somewhere it could threaten the whole right-hand zone. I scored my flag. My opponent had neglected to put a Gremlin Swarm on his flag, so the score was 1-0 in my favour. Grymkin Turn 3 The Skin and Moans and Clockatrice forced themselves to stand. The Cage Rager walked into Lug and rolled exceptionally well, leaving the bear barely clinging to life. The Clockatrice healed up its crippled mind with auto-repair and went for an unboosted spray on Lug, Skarath, and the Battle Boar. Missed Lug but hit the other two. I did not expire Vision this time, and the spray failed to damage either Warbeast. The Skin and Moans basically lurked where it was. The Gremlin Swarm ran to the flag. Over on the right the Death Knell fully loaded the Skin and Moans. The Child added Abuse. He walked into melee with the War Hog and managed to kill him in three swings. The Glimmer Imp ran to contest my flag, and Dread Rots ran to jam the Dracodile. My opponent scored his flag and contested mine, so the score went level at 1-1. Pigs Turn 3 I had Eilish Puppet Master the Soul Slave and walked into melee with the Skin and Moans. This time my opponent triggered Ruin when I tried to cast TK, stripping Polarity Shield from the Dracodile as well. I used Primal from the Battle Boar on the right to buff up the Dracodile. Orin used Chain Lightning on the Dracodile and killed both engaging Dread Rots and left the Glimmer Imp on a box. Sturm activated, Primal'd and TK'd Skarath on the left, walked around the Dracodile's base, and sprayed the Glimmer Imp dead through the Dracodile, and put Polarity Shield back on the Dracodile. The Dracodile charged the Skin and Moans, boosted to hit the Assault spray, killed the Skin and Moans and the Dread Rot next to him, and managed to kill the Skin and Moans with two Fury to spare with some super hot dice (it helped that the Skin and Moans was barely outside the Death Knell's armour buff range). Good way to make me really regret casting Primal though. Mire summoned a cloud in front of zero camp Sturm to protect him a little. Over on the left I had the Battle Boar Primal Lug. Lug punched the Cage Rager a bunch, threw it into the Clockatrice for a fair bit of damage on both, killed the Cage Rager with two Fury to spare. Bought a swing on the Clockatrice, knocked it down to a handful of boxes and crippled an aspect, and it used Time Stutter to get out of melee. Skarath then came in and proceeded to flub two damage rolls, taking three attacks to do three boxes to the Clockatrice, before making a single bite on the Skin and Moans to Paralyse him and soften him up. I was contesting my opponent's flag and scoring my own, so the score went to 2-1 in my favour. Grymkin Turn 4 The Death Knell declared a charge on Skarath, allowing it to get across to load up the Skin and Moans with corpses and do a couple of points of damage to Skarath with the charge. The Skin and Moans was then able to kill Skarath, barely. A Dread Rot ran to contest my flag and guarantee itself as the Dracodile's Frenzy target. The Child took the opportunity to walk in and start punching the Dracodile, doing about 20 damage. No one scored this turn with both flags contested, so the score went to 3-1 in my favour. Pigs Turn 4 The Stockpile healed the Dracodile a little. The Dracodile frenzied and ate a Dread Rot. Lug frenzied and flailed wildly at a Gremlin Swarm. I had the Soul Slave TK my Battle Boar on the right so that it could walk around the wall to get to the first of the two Crabbits there. He picked one Crabbit up and threw it into the other, boosting damage on the thrown one and killing it in one shot. The second one ended up knocked down on a few boxes. I ran the Gobber Chef next to the knocked down Crabbit, triggering Labyrinth, so that when I hit the Crabbit with Orin's Chain Lightning it would bounce onto the Battle Boar instead of towards Child and possibly making her stronger. I left the Crabbit on something like two boxes with a boosted Chain Lightning, and also did three damage to the Battle Boar. Sturm had to finish the job by spraying through the Dracodile. He tagged Eilish with a TK as well to pull Eilish out of the rubble. I ran Brun towards my right flank so that I could have him in position to help kill Child next turn. Mire used Caustic Mist to block off access to Sturm a little more. Finally, Eilish walked up and attempted to hit Child with a Mental Forced Puppet Master. It hit, did three damage to Eilish, and Eilish ported into the midst of my solo clump behind the Dracodile. With the Crabbits dead, I was able to score my flag and right-hand zone uncontested and run the CP score up to 5-1. Grymkin Turn 5 Skin and Moans kills Lug. Karianna Rose runs onto the left flag. One Gremlin Swarm runs to contest my flag, the other runs into the right-hand zone. The Death Knell charges the Dracodile and does a little bit of damage. Child tries to see if she can kill it. Her very first boosted damage roll rolls a 17, so I use Puppet Master to reduce it to something reasonable. She leaves the Dracodile on one box. My opponent scores his flag, so the score goes to 5-2. Pigs Turn 5 I think I lost count of the CP score, because I decided to try for the assassination. The easiest way to win would be to kill or TK away the Gremlin Swarms (plenty of spells, access to Guidance, a few sources of TK from Sturm). Contest with Dahlia and I win pretty reasonably. Instead I decided to swap to Drang. Drang charged and killed the Death Knell with two Fury to spare thanks to some very hot dice. The Soul Slave walked into melee and managed to TK Child around. Brun moved up and got the Crit Stationary on his Frost Hammer. Mire healed the Dracodile. The Dracodile ate Child. Ah well, entertaining way to win. It's always interesting playing this list into 'beast or 'jack builds. This is probably the toughest match-up Grymkin can throw at Sturm, between Paralysing the Dracodile and having very long, high output threat ranges, and he handled it ok. I'd probably rather play Arkadius though if my opponent has Child in their pair.
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Post by Azahul on Mar 18, 2019 1:43:31 GMT
Alright, onto the team event. I took the Arkadius/Sturm pair along, with the following lists: Arkadius -War Hog -War Hog -Road Hog -Road Hog -Gun Boar -Gun Boar -Gorax -Targ Mire -Wrastler Kwaak and Gub Gatorman Witch Doctor Bog Trog Mist Speaker Sturm and Drang -War Hog -Battle Boar -Battle Boar -Soul Slave Mire -Dracodile Dahlia -Skarath Brun -Lug Eilish Orin Mist Speaker Gobber Chef Keen eyes will note that there is a small change to this pairing, in that I've gone back to Mist Speakers in both lists. There's no clear rationale here, beyond my gut feeling on whether the Mist Speaker or Hutchuck is better for the health of the pairing keeps shifting. Hutchuck is better most of the time, the Mist Speaker is way more useful than Hutchuck in the match-ups where I need him though. I think this is the right call though, since it makes it harder for an opponent to predict which list I'll drop if they're running anything with significant incorporeal or clouds or something. Round One - Mirage Round one was tough for my team at the pairing process, since our opponents had two Circle players and all bar one table was dominated by central forests. I ended up trying to lock down a Circle player on a forest table, but ended up against their Crucible Guard player instead. He was running Gearheart/Mackay. I figured that, as resilient as Sturm was to shooting, it would probably still go poorly if I ended up running into Gearheart so I dropped Arkadius. He went with Gearheart, running the following: Gearheart -Vulcan -Retaliator -Alyce Max Crucible Guard Infantry -UA Max Shocktroopers Dragon's Breath Rocket Gorman di Wulfe Crucible Guard Mechanik Railless Interceptor Deployment My opponent won the starting roll and took first, which was a bummer. He set up the Retaliator/Infantry combo on the left, both of his huge bases on the right. I deployed both War Hogs opposite the huge bases, both Gun Boars opposite the infantry, and Arkadius with his Road Hogs in the centre. My objective is a Fuel Cache, his is a Stockpile. Crucible Guard Turn 1 Alyce used Harmonious Exaltation on Gearheart. Gearheart cast Hot Shot on the Vulcan, Snipe on himself I think, Deceleration on himself, and charged up the table. He slightly boxed the Vulcan in as a result between himself and the objective, so it couldn't run as far forward as it might have. The Railless Interceptor moved up on the right and the infantry ran up on the left, staying unusually clumped up. It turned out after the game that my opponent had forgotten High Explosive on the Gun Boars, and hadn't realised that Arm 16 probably wasn't going to save them. Pigs Turn 1 There was a very clear early attrition play I could make by using Raw Adrenaline on a Gun Boar, running it up, and having Targ Ancillary Attack a shot into the midst of the Crucible Guard infantry. I measured it out and I could get seven infantry in the blast, odds on killing six of them with fully boosted damage rolls. Buuuuuut Gearheart was right there, on no camp, and while it felt a bit dicey I just couldn't resist. The Gorax Primal'd the closest Road Hog, the Witch Doctor gave it Ghostly, and it used Full Boar and ran something like 16-18" up the board to get within 8" of Gearheart, facing away from the infantry so that Gearheart was the closest enemy model it could see. Arkadius walked up, Maltreated the Gorax, put two fully boosted Primal Shocks into Gearheart. Then he Feated, sent the Road Hog into Gearheart, and rolled the 7 he needed to hit and the 9 he needed to kill to Gearheart to the box. Heh. Uh. Yeah. So that was funny. Even funnier is that one of the opposing Circle players ended up playing on the table without a forest into my team's Cygnar player. Lord of the Feast ate the Cygnar 'caster on the bottom of Turn One. The Circle player wanders over to our table just as I'm moving the Road Hog and goes, "Well we're done, why is this taking so lo- oh." Not much to be learned from this, except that if you leave a line through to your 'caster like this then Arkadius can randomly get you from 26" away Turn One. I think it shook out to about a 70% assassination run in the end, although if it hadn't worked then Arkadius was certainly dead next turn.
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Post by Azahul on Mar 18, 2019 3:09:57 GMT
Round Two - The Pit II I went up against a Cryx player round two, the player I'd faced earlier in the week with the Skarre1 Slaughter Fleet list. This time he picked Deneghra2 as his drop, while I stuck with Sturm and Drang. I'd probably have preferred Arkadius, but I figured Sturm would play ok and would be better if he dropped Skarre instead. His Deneghra list was: Deneghra -Deathjack -Malice -Slayer -Slayer -Ripjaw -Ripjaw -Withershadow Combine Aiakos -Kharybdis Siren Siren Machine Wraith Orin Midwinter Deployment My opponent won the starting roll and took first. I grabbed a table side with an enormous trench to hide in. He skewed his deployment to my right, with Kharybdis his leftmost model. I deployed the Dracodile opposite Kharybdis (probably a mistake, I had this weird idea in my head that because the Dracodile can't be dragged Kharybdis's effective range was less but Kharybdis... doesn't drag). My War Hog held down the centre and Brun and Dahlia and their companions took the right. Deathjack made his appearance somewhere central. Both objectives are Stockpiles. Cryx Turn 1 My opponent just ran everything forward, though he hung back outside of 18" from the Dracodile's spray. I don't think he needed to be particularly worried there, but I was glad to have some breathing room. Pigs Turn 1 My opponent didn't really have the models for Hellmouth shenanigans, nor had he set up for using Hellmouth as a threat range increaser, so I basically played as if he didn't have the means to extend his threat and ran everything to just outside the threat ranges of his heavies. Sturm put up all his spells on the usual targets and hid in a trench behind the Dracodile. Dahlia did not cast Haunting Melody, seeing as it would only protect her from Aiakos and the melee weapons on the Sirens and Orin, but threw away a Fury as Skarath was just advancing and casting Counterblast. Brun put up Stonehold. Cryx Turn 2 My opponent decided that he needed to get Orin off the table this turn so that he could start getting debuffs in play. The Sirens fuelled up Deathjack. An Arc Node ran up to within range of the Dracodile. However, because Deathjack needed to get through a bit of forest to get close enough to all the solos he wanted to effect, Deneghra had to go first. She moved over behind the forest on the left, Feated for five Incorporeal models, and opted to make Kharybdis, Deathjack, both Slayers, and Aiakos Incorporeal. She then burned through Orin's Power Tokens anyway by putting three Breath Stealers into the Dracodile, taking 5 damage from Eilish in the process. I figured that since Deathjack was going to try and Venom Orin anyway I might as well spend the tokens while I had them, and -2 Speed on the Dracodile would be annoying when I was going to try and get it into melee with at least two heavies next turn. Set-up done, Deathjack trampled forwards. He triggered Counter Charge on Lug, who charged up and then Returned back after blatting away at empty air so that I had a bit more board presence with the bear. The Venom spray hit both Eilish and Orin and boosted damage on them, killing Orin and leaving Eilish corroded and on three health. My opponent then needed a big mistake, deciding that he needed to reduce the amount of potential damage the Dracodile could do. He had Kharybdis advance and spray the Dracodile, losing Incorporeal, fishing for a Crit Blind. He didn't get the Crit, nor did Kharybdis do any damage. Everything else basically just moved up to jam. Pigs Turn 2 Eilish took a damage from the Corrosion. A Battle Boar Primal'd the War Hog, and it charged and killed Kharybdis with two Fury to spare. I had Lug cast Bear Hands, charge Deathjack, boost to hit him and knock him down (since being Incorporeal didn't make him immune to the Knockdown effect), and then Return. The Soul Slave then TK'd Deathjack back a bit. Eilish put Puppet Master on the Dracodile. Sturm advanced and hit the closest Slayer on the right with TK, pulling it to stand next to Deathjack facing the wrong way. Sturm Feated, catching all four remaining heavies. The Dracodile charged the back-to-front Slayer, catching Malice in the spray, and missed both attacks. I used Puppet Master to hit the Slayer in the back. The Dracodile made its charge attack on the Slayer, then made its remaining swings on the Deathjack. Damage rolls were fairly abysmal, but I killed Deathjack and maxed out the Dracodile to leave the Slayer on three boxes. Mire, hanging as far back as he could, summoned two clouds to block off access to backlines. Dahlia cast Mist Walker on Skarath, who walked up to toe both the centre and right zones. The idea was that the near-dead Slayer would be engaged, and if it moved to get either the Dracodile or Skarath in melee range then I could Counterblast and kill it. Brun shed down to one Fury. The Gobber Chef ran to contest the left zone. Cryx Turn 3 Deneghra used Wraith Walker. The Blind Slayer shook Blind. The Sirens loaded up Malice. The full health Slayer walked into melee with Skarath and I opted not to Counterblast. The Slayer made a throw against Skarath, just barely hit, and tossed Skarath out of the zone and into the Battle Boar, knocking down the Battle Boar and corroding Skarath. Malice moved in and killed the objective. Orin killed the Gobber Chef with a boosted Chain Lightning. Aiakos flanked out on the left to try and get closer to my squishier stuff. Deneghra moved into melee with my War Hog and bonked him on the head, teleporting him out of the centre zone and facing so that he'd have to frenzy on my Battle Boar. She hit the Dracodile with Breath Stealer, Eilish taking her down to about 8 boxes with another Arcane Void, and used Shadow Step to get outside of the Dracodile's threat range. The near dead Slayer walked around to do a few points of damage to the Dracodile and the Withershadow rolled exceptionally well with some Dark Fires against my War Hog, doing about 10 damage. The Machine Wraith ran forward to threaten my backline. My opponent killed my objective and scored both side zones, bringing the score to 0-3 in his favour. Pigs Turn 3 Corrosion went out on Eilish. Skarath took a point. The War Hog frenzied on my left flank Battle Boar and did a bunch of damage. The Soul Slave TK'd Skarath forward, Dahlia moved up a bit. Skarath bit the three health on the Slayer (my damage rolls continued to be very sad, it took two attacks to do three damage) and then used Overtake to get into melee with the second Slayer and make two quick attacks on him. Sturm activated and TK'd Lug forward and the left Battle Boar out towards Aiakos. The Battle Boar on the right Primal'd the Battle Boar on the left. The Primal'd Battle Boar charged Aiakos, missed the charge attack, hit the second attack without boosting and boosted damage to kill Aiakos through his Focus. Eilish used Puppet Master on the Dracodile and ported forward to contest the left zone. Lug used Bear Hands and charged Malice, knocking him down and throwing him into the Slayer and doing a decent bit of damage to Malice in the process. The Dracodile then charged the two knocked down 'jacks and killed them both with just its initials. I'd already activated Mire at this point, spending two Fury to summon a cloud in the expectation that the Dracodile would use at least that much, so I decided to use Floodwaters with the Dracodile. The Mist Speaker used Guidance on Brun and he charged and killed the Machine Wraith. I scored the right-hand zone, so the score went to 1-3 and took away the immediate fear of losing on scenario. Cryx Turn 4 My opponent decided a desperate assassination play was his only chance left. He ran his arc node on the left around to get a bead on my War Hog. He hit the War Hog with a Hellmouth to drag Sturm out of the trench. It was only as I went to move Sturm though that I remembered Floodwaters, and the resulting halving of the 3" drag distance meant that Sturm remained in the trench. That basically meant his light 'jack and Withershadow wouldn't be able to make their attacks, so my opponent just clocked back to me after attempting to hit Sturm with a Damnation and missing. I forgot to take a picture. Pigs Turn 4 The Battle Boar frenzied at and killed Eilish. I Primal'd the Dracodile with the other Battle Boar and ran Mire up and the Dracodile charged and ate Deneghra. Randomly saved myself from the assassination at the end there with the Floodwaters. Had it hit, my opponent would have had three Dark Fires from the Withershadow followed by a charge from the Ripjaw. I probably survive it, but my opponent's odds of pulling off the kill aren't that bad. On the flipside, my attrition game here was absolutely monstrous. My opponent screwed up with Kharybdis, certainly, but he'd have had to do a lot of work with that one extra 'jack (under Sturm's Feat, no less) to swing that game in his direction seeing as I hadn't lost a heavy yet.
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Post by Azahul on Mar 18, 2019 4:15:20 GMT
Round Three - Standoff For the last round of the event, I ended up playing into a familiar Merc player mono-listing Ashlynn. I'm probably fine playing either list, but I decided to drop Arkadius because I haven't played him much lately and the one game I had played with him that day... hadn't really been much of a game. His list was: Ashlynn -Toro -Toro -Rover -Sylys Max Trenchers -UA -2 Grenadiers Max Stormblades -UA Thorn Gun Mages Gorman Ragman Anastasia Gibbs Eilish Deployment I won the starting roll and took first. I deployed with Arkadius and his heavies in the centre, Mire and his Wrastler on the right, two Gun Boars on the left. My opponent set up with Stormblades and Trenchers central, flanking with a Toro on each side and the Rover on the right. Thorn Gun Mages deployed on the left. We both took Stockpiles as our objectives since rough terrain was hardly an issue on this table. Pigs Turn 1 I ran everything up, taking cover in the trench a little and inviting one or two Trencher infantry charges. The Gun Boar on the left cast Counterblast and charged up. Arkadius put Forced Evolution on the right-flank War Hog and Guardian Beast on himself before advancing and repositioning forward to cover the front line. Kwaak stuck Enliven on the Forced Evo'd War Hog and one of the central Road Hogs. Mercenaries Turn 1 Ashlynn advanced, cast Quicken on the Trenchers, Chosen Ground on herself, and Feated. The Trenchers declared a run and rushed my front lines. The first Trencher to advance into my zone on the left died to Counterblast. Mostly they just jammed, and the rest of the list ran up behind them. Pigs Turn 2 I wasn't in any rush to engage under Ashlynn's Feat. Over on the left, the Thorn Gun Mages had been left standing so close together that a direct hit to the central one would wipe out the unit, so my Gun Boar moved up and took the shot and killed the unit. That basically eliminated my opponent's capacity to score the left zone, since his infantry units were spread out across the whole board, so I didn't bother contesting that side. Arkadius used Raw Adrenaline on a Road Hog and tagged the Trenchers with Crippling Grasp, then went to lurk behind the objective again. Targ killed two Trenchers with a Raw Adrenaline Ancillary Attack, then the Road Hog activated and killed another two (well, they both Toughed and were set on fire), and the second Road Hog killed one. The second Gun Boar picked off another two. Mire retreated away from the board edge and Anastasia's threat and summoned a cloud to obscure the Warbeasts at the front from charges, though I was largely out of threat range. His Wrastler turned to face the right-board side and lurked in the zone on the right. Mercenaries Turn 2 Both burning Trenchers died to fire. Two Trenchers charged into my zone to contest and tied up the Gun Boar to deny Counterblast. Ashlynn put Admonition on the Rover. Gorman and Ragman hid in the theme benefit rubble on the left. The 'jacks and Stormblades moved up a bit, but crucially a Stormgunner opted to stand between Gorman and Ragman. Eilish stripped Crippling Grasp and did two damage to Arkadius. My opponent scored his zone, making the score 0-1 in his favour. Pigs Turn 3 The Gun Boar on the right was left with Fury on it and it frenzied into Arkadius, doing two damage. Mire used Rage on the left flank War Hog and Road Hog, and the Wrastler added it to the other War Hog. Kwaak gave both War Hogs Enliven. I gave the left flank Gun Boar Ghostly and ran Targ into the right-hand zone, so that if my War Hog frenzied it would stop just short of 6" and wouldn't provoke a Countercharge (my opponent opted not to counter charge Targ). I then activated Arkadius and Feated and promptly frenzied the Road Hog to within 6" of the Toro, so my opponent took the Countercharge and did about eight damage to the Road Hog. On the plus side that meant that I didn't need to kill Targ. On the left I frenzied my Gun Boar forward and the Toro Countercharged and rolled a 16, doing 18 damage to the poor 'beastie. Arkadius used Psycho Surgery to repair some of the damage. I had my Raged Road Hog charge the Rover, who Admonition'd away. The Road Hog redirected its attacks into the Toro and managed to kill it. The War Hog then killed the Toro, and the damaged Road Hog killed a couple of Stormblades with its spray. The other War Hog killed the final Toro on the left flank and contested my opponent's zone. The near-dead Gun Boar aimed a shot at the Stormgunner in the rubble, hit, and boosted damage on Ragman and Gorman to kill all three models. I scored my zone to bring the score level at 1-1. Mercenaries Turn 3 Ashlynn charged the Forced Evo'd War Hog and missed. She used Flashing Blade, missed the War Hog again, made Targ Tough and damaged the Road Hog a bit. The second Flashing Blade finally hit the Forced Evo'd War Hog, did some damage and triggered Enliven. I backed out of her melee range and the free strike crippled the War Hog's mind. The Road Hog ended up with a handful of boxes left at the end of Ashlynn's activation. The Stormblades piled into the other Road Hog and a few made attacks on the War Hog on the left, but most of the latter missed. They killed the Road Hog though. I scored my zone, bringing the score to 2-1 in my favour. Pigs Turn 4 The Gun Boar on the left frenzied into a Trencher and forced a Tough check. I could kill Ashlynn, but I was a bit nervous at the prospect of missing an attack or two and having my damaged warbeasts just lose aspects. Instead I had the Forced Evo'd War Hog Bulldoze Ashlynn out of melee with the Road Hog. Arkadius walked and repositioned to get into the left zone and spent most of his Fury getting Crippling Grasp onto the Stormblades. He camped one. The Gun Boar on the right shot the objective for four damage. The near-dead Road Hog only had its Body remaining, so it walked into the objective and managed to finish the job thanks to Rage from the Wrastler. The War Hog and Gorax cleared out all of the Stormblades bar the Officer. I scored my zone, the left zone, and my opponent's objective to bring the score to 5-1. Mercenaries Turn 4 Eilish contested the left zone, Sylys and Gibbs did a little bit of damage to the Gorax, Ashlynn killed the second Road Hog and beat up the Forced Evo'd War Hog. I think I scored to 6-1 this turn in retrospect, unless I missed something. I do know that at the time we counted the CP score as 5-1, so I actually played out my turn and killed everything left in the army (including Ashlynn) and scored three more CP. In any case, a pretty comfortably attrition swing. My opponent made a few positioning mistakes that cost him way more models on the left flank than it really should have, but I was in a very comfortably position by the end of the game. I think my team came in overall at fifth out of eight teams. I was very happy with my own performance, with two very strong attrition games under my belt and one of my all time favourite assassinations.
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Post by Azahul on Mar 20, 2019 3:46:29 GMT
For a post-tournament treat, I lined up a game into an Issyria Shadows of the Retribution list using Sturm and Drang. Hooray for being terrified for my lessers' safety! Our lists were: Sturm and Drang -War Hog -Battle Boar -Battle Boar -Soul Slave Mire -Dracodile Dahlia -Skarath Brun -Lug Mist Speaker Eilish Orin Gobber Chef Issyria -Hyperion -Chimera Max Strike Force -UA Max Strike Force -UA Max Infiltrators -Eiryss3 Spears of Scyrah Arcanist Mechanik Arcanist Mechanik Narn Deployment My opponent won the starting roll, which was pretty concerning on Mirage into a bunch of AD models with the pressing need to keep a lot of my army back as long as I could. He basically just set up his battlegroup in the centre, then it was time for my own deployment. I stuck Brun and Lug out on the right flank because I figured they'd end up playing in the forest. The Dracodile took the centre, while Skarath and the War Hog went to the left. I liked the idea of Skarath playing around near the building. My opponent set up his Infilitrators in the middle of his line and spread wide with the Strike Force. Both objectives are Stockpiles. Retribution Turn 1 Everything ran forward, jamming pretty hard. Issyria just put up Inviolable Resolve on the Hyperion. Pigs Turn 1 I had a few reasonable sprays I could get. I put Puppet Master on Skarath with Eilish, TK'd him forward, had Dahlia give him Mist Walker and back up, and he walked forward and sprayed three nearby Strike Force boosting to hit the lead two (most likely to threaten my solos). He hit all three, even the unboosted shot, without using Puppet Master and started the work of clearing that part of the board. I cast Counterblast to get some use out of the Puppet Master and had the Gobber Chef run beside him to try and minimise the odds of him frenzying next turn. The Dracodile, meanwhile, declared a charge on Hyperion to get a spray on two Infiltrators. I boosted both attack rolls and hit both, adding a few more dead elves to the pile. Sturm put up Vision on Skarath, Polarity Shield on the Dracodile, and cast Deceleration even though it would only impact the Hyperion's guns. He then backed up. Orin walked in front of him to get within 3" of the Dracodile and gave himself stealth. Mire stuck a cloud on top of Eilish and Sturm just to make things awkward and hung back under Floodwaters and barely within 8" of the Dracodile, while the War Hog and Battle Boars converged on that central knot of solos. The Mist Speaker tried to shelter in a cloud of his own making and Brun cast Stonehold and advanced. Retribution Turn 2 My opponent could walk three or four Infiltrators into Lug, but the Strike Force were only in range to shoot up the heavier targets (and Mist Speaker and Chef, basically). Issyria decided to go for it. She activated and Feated. The Infiltrators walked in and left Lug on about six boxes. The Spears ran to engage Skarath and the Dracodile and shut down Counterblast, and a Counterblast bite attack on the first Spear missed even with Puppet Master. The Strike Forces gunned down the Gobber Chef and did a few points of chip damage here and there to my heavies. The left flank unit used their mini-Feat to get past the Skarath melee, but the right flank unit was able to save their mini-Feat for later. The Hyperion walked up and shot the Dracodile, which I Shield Guarded to the right-flank Battle Boar. Blast damage managed to kill the Gobber Chef and spiked high on the Battle Boar, leaving him on seven boxes. Narn decided to leave the flag on the left and run into my zone to help jam, and an Arcanist Mechanik took his place. The other Arcanist ran to be within walking distance of the centre flag. Pigs Turn 2 My objective healed some of the chip damage my models had taken and Skarath passed his Threshold check. Corrosion on Skarath from the acid pool went out too. The War Hog moved through the objective to kill Narn and the Spear engaging Skarath (taking two attempts on the latter) before Overtaking up behind the building. Dahlia advanced slowly and cast Haunting Melody. Skarath moved up and fired his spray at the Mage Hunter Officer on the left, trying to kill the Arcanist behind him. Boosted to hit on the Arcanist, but missed both models. That was a big problem, since I didn't want my opponent able to score in my turn and I had no way to contest, so I had to get the Dracodile in there. Orin hit the Dracodile in the back with a Chain Lightning, and rolled three bounces to clear off the Spear and both Infiltrators jamming the Dracodile up. Mire moved up, summoned a cloud on himself, and healed the Dracodile for one. The Dracodile then charged a Mage Hunter and fired off a spray, boosting to hit the Arcanist and killed him. Needing largely unboosted 8s to hit, the Dracodile killed two Mage Hunters and landed a boosted attack roll on the third Spear to clear my zone. Sturm moved up and Feated on the Hyperion, killed a Mage Hunter Infiltrator engaging Lug with his spray, healed the seven hit box Battle Boar back to eight boxes so that it no longer had any aspects Crippled, and camped four Fury. The near-dead Battle Boar then charged and killed one of the Infiltrators engaging Lug. Brun charged and killed the last one thanks to Flank, and spent two Fury healing Lug. Eilish gave Lug Puppet Master. Lug charged an Infiltrator he could just barely see through a gap in the forest to get into melee with Eiryss. He killed the Infiltrator with an unboosted charge attack, boosted the second initial to hit and kill Eiryss, and managed to Overtake into my opponent's zone and his second Arcanist. The first attack on the Arcanist missed, even with Puppet Master, but I chose to max out Lug to finish the job. After this picture was taken I remembered to activate my Battle Boar on the left, who moved a bit closer to Sturm. I scored my zone, and with his zone contested and all his solos dead my opponent was unable to score, so the CP total went to 1-0. Retribution Turn 3 One of the last Infiltrators charged Brun and did seven damage. That forced the Strike Force on the right to declare a run-charge order, which killed Brun before they could make attacks on Lug. The left flank unit tagged Dahlia with a two-man CRA that did 10 damage, which she transferred to Skarath and crippled his Spirit. The Hyperion moved up to shoot at Eilish, hit its big gun shot and was Shield Guarded to the Battle Boar. Orin took two points from unboosted blast damage, the Battle Boar took nine or ten points of damage from the direct hit. My opponent forgot to use his mini gun and jumped straight to Issyria, who used Ancillary Attack to try and hit Eilish (it missed and scattered onto the War Hog and managed to do two damage with blast). She hit the Dracodile with Blinding Light, cast Admonition on herself, and hid behind the Hyperion. My opponent scored his zone and contested mine, so he drew the score level at 1-1. Pigs Turn 3 I pulled Fury from the War Hog and my Battle Boar frenzied, killing the Strike Force in melee with him. Eilish went first, moved up, used Unbinding to strip Inviolable Resolve and teleport to the side of the board. I think at this point Issyria had taken five damage from that ability plus Arcane Void on the Blinding Light. A Battle Boar Primal'd the Dracodile. The War Hog, even with TK, couldn't get around the building and into the melee so he just walked up and smashed the one Strike Force member contesting my zone. Orin hit the Dracodile with a Chain Lightning that killed two more Mage Hunters (a Strike Force and the second-last Infiltrator I think). Dahlia spent a Fury to heal Skarath's Spirit and ran behind the building. Mire moved up, put a cloud on Dahlia, and the Dracodile charged Hyperion. I opted not to make my final attack, keeping Mire's transfers available, and left the Hyperion on two boxes in Movement. Skarath tried to Overtake his way through a few Strike Force but missed two of the three attacks I was prepared to make in spite of Dahlia's presence, so he only killed the Officer. I scored my zone and my opponent scored his, so the score went to 2-2. Retribution Turn 4 My opponent decided to go for an assassination run, figuring he had two turns before he lost the game to pull it off. He charged the last Infiltrator into Orin, missed the charge attack, killed him with the second attack. The Chimera moved up and Issyria hit Sturm with a Blinding Light, doing a few points of damage to the Dracodile with a crippled Ancillary Attack from the Hyperion. The Hyperion backed up so that Eilish was the closest model to the Dracodile and made a couple more ineffectual swings. The Mage Hunters on the right used their Mini-Feat to ignore the Battle Boar and three two-man CRAs. One was Shield Guarded, one failed to break armour, one only did two damage. The last two-man CRA decided to polish off the Battle Boar on the right instead. The two Strike Force able to get in on the left hit Sturm and rolled box cars for damage, and I put all eight points onto the War Hog. My opponent scored his zone to bringing the score to 2-3 in his favour. Pigs Turn 4 I used Dahlia's Charmer rule to prevent the Dracodile from frenzying on Eilish. I slightly mucked up my order of activations here, should have just walked with Skarath and taken a free strike from the Mage Hunter, but instead I decided to have Sturm drop Vision, cast Vision on himself, walk around to the other side of the objective and try to kill a Strike Force there with a boosted Spray. He missed, and spent two more Fury TKing Skarath past the Mage Hunter to camp two himself. Mire opted to charge in instead and boost to hit the charge attack, killing one of the Strike Force and camping three (he was in an acid pool, so my opponent only really had two attacks he could possibly get on him, so I figured he was fine). The remaining Battle Boar killed the Infiltrator in my zone. Dahlia ran onto my opponent's flag. Eilish gave Skarath Puppet Master and used Gate Walker to get to the centre flag. Skarath moved up and sprayed the Hyperion, hitting and killing him with the boosted damage roll (needing an 11). The Soul Slave tried to help clear the Strike Force on the left with a Mental Forced Bone Shaker but missed. The War Hog ran to help block LOS to Sturm from the right-flank Mage Hunters. I scored my zone, my opponent's flag, and the centre flag while my opponent scored his zone. The score ended up at 5-4. Retribution Turn 5 My opponent dropped Admonition, gave the Chimera two Focus and Apparition'd it so that it could see Sturm. Issyria moved up and cast Crusader's Call and hit Sturm with an unboosted Blinding Light. The Strike Force on the left shot Sturm, which was Shield Guarded. The other Strike Force charged the two pig beasts to reduce the amount of damage he couldn't transfer, leaving the War Hog on about eight boxes and the Battle Boar on four. The Chimera charged Sturm, Vision cancelled the charge attack, and Sturm ended up on about seven boxes without spending any of his transfers. My opponent scored his zone, I scored the two flags again, so the score went to 7-5. Pigs Turn 5 My Soul Slave TK'd Skarath closer to Issyria, Eilish gave Skarath Puppet Master, and Dahlia ran to get Issyria in her control area. Skarath charged, boosted the charge attack, hit and killed Issyria. Really interesting game there. I think my opponent played pretty well, but he made two key mistakes. He Feated a turn early, when my solos were all out of range, meaning that key solos like Mire and Orin could start relying on Stealth to keep them alive, and he played his own solos poorly. Narn should have stayed on the far flag, being a bit more difficult to dislodge than the Arcanists, and that would have allowed him to avoid exposing his Arcanists. The second Arcanist should have aimed to be within running distance of the centre flag rather than walking distance. By killing all three solos on Turn Two I basically removed the scenario game for him, and one of the biggest advantages he had going into the game was going first with a fast AD army and being able to potentially jam me out of the scenario entirely. While I definitely had the attrition game in hand, the Dracodile is the only model I have on the board that's truly health and the capacity for Shadows to just consistently threaten my backline meant I never quite felt like I was in the clear. Honestly, had he not Feated top of two, my own turn two would have been a nightmare as I'd have had to juggle committing the Dracodile while still somehow keeping Mire safe.
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Post by apoc2148 on Mar 20, 2019 12:19:23 GMT
That was an odd Shadows list that your opponent ran. Not entirely sure why you would tag on a UA to the infiltrators and stop them from ambushing. That could have put much more threat on your back line solos.
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Post by Azahul on Mar 20, 2019 13:53:36 GMT
I really don't rate ambushing units generally, particularly ones without a ton of threat range extenders. Had he ambushed I... basically wouldn't have changed my deployment, but he'd have given my War Hog something to do. The fact that you're basically forced to ambush the unit in and then run them into the waiting arms of the opposing army makes them of fairly limited use in my experience, and ambushing a max unit of anything is a huge gamble (and a min unit is easily dealt with). So I can't say I considered it an odd choice myself. Hutchuck is basically the perfect ambusher in my view, since opponents are going to play around his threat anyway but he's way cheaper than a min unit of anything, and he's also a solo so sometimes they don't and you get to actually do something with him.
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