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Post by Azahul on Jan 29, 2020 4:18:49 GMT
Round Three - Invasion I was paired up with a Legion player running Kallus2/Abby1 (I think, I'm a little hazy on that front) as his pair. While I'd ordinarily reach for Sturm and Drang when playing into things like Hellmouths, I reached for Arkadius because of the Void Archon's Entropic Auras. My opponent dropped Kallus2, with the following list: Kallus -Scythean -Carnivean -Angelius -Golab -Ammok Max Warmongers Max Warmongers -Gorag Hellmouth Hellmouth Forsaken Spell Martyr Deployment My opponent won the starting roll and took first. I didn't see much difference in table sides, and the terrain was probably marginally more relevant against Legion on my side of the table anyway. He deployed his Warmongers squarely in the centre of the field, placed a Hellmouth in each zone, and put two of each Heavy on the flanks. I didn't really account for that deployment in my own set-up, with my Void Archons and Gun Boars ending up on the flanks rather than accounting for where their preferred targets were actually going to be. I by and large ended up with my normal deployment. I believe his objective was a Stockpile, mine was a Fuel Cache. Legion Turn 1 Everything forward. Kallus cast Blazing Path and put Overrun on Golab. Pigs Turn 1 A lot of his army would be able to threaten a long way up the board with Kallus's Feat, so I decided to only barely leave my deployment zone. I did put a Road Hog within the threat range of the Angelius, figuring Enliven and the Hermit would be enough to keep it safe. Arkadius cast Guardian Beast and put Forced Evolution on the right-hand War Hog. Boomhowler gave reposition to the Bellows Crew, letting them drop a cloud on my left flank to screen models there from the Warmongers. The Void Archon on the left flank ran to be more central. Legion Turn 2 The Spell Slave ran up on the right flank, and Kallus tossed out his Brand of Fire spell to set the right flank Road Hog and War Hog on fire. The damage roll failed to break armour. Kallus opted not to Feat, and the Angelius advanced and shot at the Road Hog letting me advance it a few inches further up the board with Enliven. Everything else moved up a little, the Ogrun forming a block around my opponent's objective and the heavies mostly spacing out on the right flank. Pigs Turn 2 Unpacking took a bit of work this turn. The Gorax moved up and put Primal on the War Hog on the right flank. Boomhowler advanced and gave Hermit Reposition. The Hermit advanced and used Master of Ruin. On the right flank, the Void Archon there charged a Tentacle, killed it, teleported to engage all three heavies on that flank, punched the Scythean for a little bit of damage, and sprayed down a couple of Ogrun. The second Void Archon then charged into the Warmongers, killed a couple with a spray that tagged four (including Gorag, though he survived) and teleporting behind the Carnivean before spending its souls on two boosted swings. The Gun Boar on the right flank moved up and shot the Scythean for a good bit of damage. The Witch Doctor gave the left flank War Hog Ghostly. Arkadius activated, advanced, and Feated, sending the Road Hog and Gun Boar on the right flank into the Scythean and leaving it quite badly damaged. Everything else Frenzied up the board. Arkadius was then able to Primal the War Hog from the left flank, having had it Frenzy up and across to within 6" of her position, and then Reposition back. The left flank War Hog then walked through the forest and killed the Carnivean with its initials, before overtaking through several Warmongers there. In the centre of the board, the Road Hog from the left flank cleared out a nest of Warmongers and created a landing zone for the Primal'd, Forced Evolution'd War Hog to walk to. That War Hog was able to Aggression Dial and start swinging on the Angelius at effectively P+S 26 (Primal, Forced Evolution, Aggression Dial, Hermit, Void Archon), killing the Angelius in two swings, overtaking into Golab and killing it in two swings too, and overtaking some more to kill both a Warmonger and the objective before the end. The Road Hog out on the right flank killed the Scythean with its initials and Sprinted back to safety. Most of my army was on fire at this point thanks to Blazing Path. With the objective destroyed and the centre zone secured, I took the score to 2-0 in my favour. Legion Turn 3 Kallus put Battle Lust on the right flank Hellmouth and charged in, killing the Forced Evo'd War Hog himself. The Hellmouth killed both the Void Archon and Gun Boar on the right flank, securing that zone. The Hellmouth on the left tried to smack the War Hog on the left but the only tentacle that hit couldn't drag back to the mouth because tentacles that had missed were in the way. The last Warmonger killed the Void Archon on the left flank. My opponent scored the left-hand zone, putting the score at 2-1 in my favour. Pigs Turn 3 The remaining War Hog and the Road Hog in the centre both Frenzied. Arkadius gave Primal and Forced Evolution to the remaining Road Hog. Hermit moved up again and used Master of Ruin. The buffed Road Hog charged in and killed Kallus in a couple of swings. Whelp, that was a bloodbath. My opponent hadn't faced Arkadius before and was just completely taken off guard by how hard he hit. We realised too a little way in that he could have mitigated a fair bit of damage with Golab's Carrion Feast ability and thus avoiding Overtake moves and at least one Void Walk, something we both forgot. With that in mind, I'd have had to approach things a little differently (prioritising killing Golab for one), since that kind of efficiency drop would have left quite a few of the Ogrun and even Golab itself alive had he remembered to use it.
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Post by Azahul on Jan 29, 2020 5:48:22 GMT
Round Four - Anarchy At this point a field of sixty-odd players had been winnowed down to just eight undefeated, in the final round before the event cut to the top four. Well into the shark tank now. I was matched up against a Grymkin player, running a Wanderer/Child pair. I really wanted to drop Sturm and Drang into the Wanderer, but the Child's presence had me a bit worried about the prospect of high P+S long walking threat heavies so I dropped Arkadius and my opponent dropped Wanderer. Oops. The Wanderer list was: Wanderer -Clockatrice -Clockatrice -Clockatrice -Baron Tonguelick Max Neighslayers -UA Max Neighslayers -UA Malady Man Malady Man Murder Crows Mad Caps Hermit of Henge Hold Grave Ghoul Trapperkin Trapperkin Lord Longfellow Deployment My opponent won the starting roll, a particularly bad sign against such a nasty long threat range army. He had the Murder Crows ambush, and deployed a Clockatrice angling towards each zone and one positioned in the centre with Wanderer and the Grave Ghoul. Both units of Neighslayers were spaced out on the flanks. I tried to pull all my heavies in towards the centre, wary of the Murder Crows, while Void Archons and Gun Boars ended up on their customary spots on the flanks. My objective was an Observatory, in case of Veil of Mist shenanigans on my opponent's side. Their objective was a Treasure Chest. Wanderer picked Sacrifice and Ill Omens for his Arcana. Grymkin Turn 1 Wanderer moved up and cast Starcrossed, everything else ran. The Neighslayers used All Fall Down and spread out to make catching multiple with any attack pretty much impossible. Cask Imps spawned and ran themselves into monkeys to give the Grave Ghoul some corpses. Pigs Turn 1 I didn't want to throw away any of my heavies for nothing, so I barely left my deployment zone. Arkadius put Forced Evolution on the left side Road Hog and cast Guardian Beast. Hermit ran up behind the cloud because a) I wanted him to be relevant next turn, and b) I forgot that Baron Tonguelick existed. I put my War Hogs a little further forward than the rest of my army, trying to protect them with a Covering Fire template on the left flank. Grymkin Turn 2 My opponent spaced out and layered his army, positioning his Clockatrices to receive the alpha and keeping the Neighslayers knocked down behind them. Wanderer cast Star Crossed again and camped three Fury. Baron Tonguelick moved up and swallowed Hermit. Pigs Turn 2 I measured out some distances and figured that attrition was a lost cause. The problem was that I was fighting Wanderer, a strong contender for the hardest to assassinate character in the game. I wouldn't be able to get to him if he used his Trump Arcana to teleport back, so I needed to either one-shot him or bait out another Arcana. I figured I'd have to remain somewhat flexible in how I approached it, since the situation would change as my turn went on. To begin with, I decided to get a few pointless activations out of the way. A Void Archon moved up onto the flag on the left and took a spray at Baron Tonguelick, aiming to get him out of the way. I hit the attack, but my opponent's Hermit blocked the damage roll with Mad Visions, presumably to deny the Archon its Void Walk. That worked well for me, making Wanderer a little bit easier to kill in the eventuality that I reached him. I each Gun Boar move up and take a potshot at the Clockatrices on either flank, one of them missing entirely and one of them doing eight or nine damage to the Clock it hit. The Witch Doctor gave Ghostly to the War Hog on the left, since he was in the best position to go through the forest Wanderer was hiding behind. Arkadius then activated. I had her Maltreat a Gun Boar for a point of Fury, and put Primal up on both War Hogs and the left Road Hog. She walked up as part of this and Feated, sending the Road Hog on the right into the cloud towards Baron Tonguelick (not quite getting into melee with him) and having the War Hog with Ghostly Frenzy almost completely past him, while sending the rest of the list up the board. I made sure to aim one Warbeast towards each Clockatrice, as though I were hoping to play attrition and take them out. Targ activated once the Feat had been resolved. He walked up behind the Primal'd War Hog with Ghostly and used Ancillary Attack to swing at Baron Tonguelick. The attack connected and killed the frog, and my opponent took that opportunity to trigger Ill Omens. Ok, Arcana was out, the assassination was on. I was excited enough that I did the next few little things out of order. I had the Gorax Primal my one heavy who was not already Primal'd, the Road Hog who was now in Baron Tonguelick's cloud. Boomhowler then gave that Road Hog Reposition. I had the Road Hog use Full Boar, walk up to my opponent's Hermit, and throw Hermit away. Even under Ill Omens I still needed to roll three ones on four dice (Star Crossed), so the odds of missing were low, but my opponent did make me reroll just in case with the Grave Ghoul. That reminded me that I had actually meant to kill the Grave Ghoul first, so after Repoing the Road Hog to no longer be blocking any charge lanes from my Ghostly War Hog I had the other War Hog out on the right flank activate and charge in to kill a Cask Imp (hitting even with the reroll on the attack roll), Overtake through a knocked down Neighslayer (thankfully not needing to roll to hit, so avoiding the Star Crossed reroll nonsense) and into the Grave Ghoul with enough Fury left to kill it. My Ghostly War Hog then went in for the kill. Wanderer was impossible to see through the forest, but Hermit was standing (lying, technically) there as something I could see. Unfortunately, I'd misjudged my landing zone, and the Hermit was pretty squarely in the way. I eventually decided that I would have to charge out to get melee range on a cask imp beyond the forest, waste an initial attack on the Hermit charge, waste a second initial killing the Cask Imp, and get into the knocked down Wanderer with one initial and three buys remaining. Wanderer had taken five damage as collateral from the Hermit being thrown into him, so I would need to roll a 5 on four consecutive damage rolls to kill him. If that failed I'd have a flamethrower attack from the left flank Road Hog to finish the job, but it turned out to be unnecessary. Four damage rolls, including one five, later and the Wanderer was dead. I am exceptionally proud of that assassination run, it was full of shenanigans but also worked out to be a reasonably likely kill once Ill Omens had been procced to take Wanderer's Trump Arcana off the board. It felt like quite the achievement to kill him, no less because of his reasonably high camp and the fact he was hiding behind the forest. Not an easy feat at the best of times, and this was not the best of times. Without that assassination, I think it was clear that I had the choice between forfeiting scenario to my opponent or likely failing to kill any of the three Clockatrices and then losing all or almost all of my heavies to the counterpunch. Even if my opponent got unlucky it was unlikely to matter, since most of the heavies would have to be Primal'd to do any work to Clockatrices under Star Crossed. Anyway, after this round the Masters event cut to the Top Four. Winning this game meant that I was one of those four, alongside a Circle player, a Khador player, and a Protectorate player. I'll hopefully get to those reports tomorrow
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Post by Azahul on Jan 31, 2020 6:10:06 GMT
Round Five - Spread the Net Sorry these last few reports are taking a while, they're a bit more involved than the preceding games. I paired up against the Khador player in the final four, with Vlad2 Wolves of Winter/Karchev Jaws pair. Another thorny pick, where I would kind of prefer Sturm and Drang into Vlad (though Vlad's Doom Reavers are a lot more dangerous than any other Wolves list, fast enough to be a danger to the Dracodile and with Arcane Might making up for the loss of charges) but I didn't feel he could handle Karchev. So Arkadius came out yet again, and my opponent dropped Vlad. His list was: Vlad2 -Grolar -Marauder Doom Reavers -Escort Doom Reavers -Escort Doom Reavers Doom Reavers Ternion Ternion Alexia2 Void Archon Void Archon Koldun Lord Koldun Lord Deployment My opponent won the starting roll. He took first, of course, and deployed his Marauder on the left flank aiming for his own zone, Vlad and the Grolar more central, with Void Archons and Ternions mostly between them. I set up both War Hogs on my left flank, both Road Hogs on the right of the forest in the centre of my line, with Archons out on the flanks. I figured that most of the infantry would end up coming down my centre-right due to the need to contest my zone and fill the centre zone, and hoped that the War Hogs would be able to hold the left and get into my opponent's zone. The Gun Boar and Void Archon on that flank would be tasked with punching a hole for them to get through. The Doom Reavers with UAs both deployed on the right, since that was the only spot where Relentless Charge would be relevant, while the other two units deployed on the left. Khador Turn 1 Vlad cast Arcane Might and moved up. Everything else ran. The Doom Reavers all made sure to be more than 16" from my Void Archons. Ternions summoned some clouds on the right flank. Pigs Turn 1 Another big first turn under serious threat range pressure. I had an advantage here in that my opponent hadn't paid much attention to my Gun Boars, so each of them would be able to get some good shots in. Boomhowler moved up first and laid down a Covering Fire template to make engaging my Road Hogs a bit tricky, and gave Reposition to one of the Road Hogs so that it could walk up, spray and kill two Doom Reavers, and back up somewhere it would be hard to get to. The two Gun Boars advanced, the one on the right kill three Reavers and knocking another down, the one on the left killing one and forcing a tough check I think. Both Gun Boars cast Counterblast. Targ scattered out an Ancillary Attack from the one on the right which I think failed to hit anything. Arkadius put Forced Evolution on the forwardmost Road Hog, cast Guardian Beast on herself, and moved up behind the forest. I moved my Void Archons up, one taking shelter with my other models behind the forest, the other moving up a little bit on the left so that killing it would require committing Feated Doom Reavers. My two War Hogs more or less shuffled around my deployment zone. I ran my Gobber Chef wide on the left flank, and Bellows Crew wide on the right, to serve as potential ways to contest my opponent's ability to score. Khador Turn 2 One of the units of Doom Reavers on the left moved up with Apparition. Vlad Feated, gained six tokens, and handed them out to most of the Doom Reavers in the unit that had Apparition'd and a Doom Reaver out on the right. He then moved as far to the left as he could, trying to juggle Killbox and the threat ranges of my heavies. The Doom Reavers on the left charged in. Three Feated Reavers committed to kill the Void Archon. Two, one without the Feat, charged my Gun Boar on the left. I blocked the Feated charge attack roll with Hermit, figuring that cancelling a Feated Doom Reaver charge was the highest value I was likely to get out of Mad Visions. The Feated Doom Reaver on the right charged the Gun Boar there, dealt something like 19 damage, and the Void Archon on that flank moved up and got the kill before teleporting back towards my opponent's flag. The rest of the army largely just spaced out and ran up, with everything having made sure to avoid the 6" bubble around Arkadius for Guardian Beast. The Koldun Lords moved up and used their no shooting bubble spells. Pigs Turn 2 One of the War Hogs on the left moved in to Overtake through and kill the three Feated Doom Reavers on the left responsible for killing the Void Archon. Kwaak tried to dislodge the Feated Doom Reaver on my right flank by throwing some Venoms through my Road Hog with the help of Hermit using Telemetry, but ultimately failed to break armour. My own Void Archon on the right received Reposition from Boomhowler, who was busy laying a Covering Fire to hold off the Reavers on the wider right flank, and then charged in to kill the Feated Doom Reaver, teleport into melee with some more Reavers in the centre. It killed one and realised it had gotten too close to the Koldun Lord to use its Spray, and then Repositioned into melee with the Grolar. At around this point Arkadius figured Feating would be a good idea. The Gorax and Witch Doctor made sure to give the unactivated War Hog on the left their respective buffs first. Arkadius gave Raw Adrenaline and Primal to the Forced Evo'd Road Hog. Arkadius's Feat cleared out most of the Reavers left on the left flank, and moved both Road Hogs up to threaten the Grolar. The buffed Road Hog charged in, I forgot that the Koldun Lord was there again so still no Assault Spray, and killed the Grolar. The other Road Hog actually backed up and killed the last of the contesting Doom Reavers in my zone with its spray, trying to avoid handing more souls to Alexia. The War Hog on the left killed the Marauder well enough and used Overtake to contest my opponent's zone, but whiffed its attacks on the Void Archon. The Gobber Chef ran to score my flag. I scored my flag and zone, my opponent scored nothing, so the score went to 2-0 in my favour. Khador Turn 3 I think one of the units on the right received Apparition. The Koldun Lord tagged the War Hog near my flag with Brittle Frost, the Void Archon there turned Incorporeal, and I think killed the War Hog with the help of some attacks from the Ternion on that flank. It could have scored the flag, but my opponent chose to Void Walk to a point where the Gorax would not be able to reach it instead. My opponent's Void Archon on the right moved up, killed the contesting Gobber with a spray, and used Void Walk to get behind my Void Archon and the Road Hog in the centre. It killed my Void Archon, and Doom Reavers piled in and were able to kill the Road Hog as well. A few Doom Reavers and one Thrall Warrior (Alexia only had one soul) left my other Road Hog on just a handful of boxes. My opponent scored his flag with a Koldun Lord, putting the score at 2-1 in my favour. Pigs Turn 3 The Gorax was too far away to reach the Void Archon, but the Gun Boar wasn't. The Gorax killed the Doom Reaver in their face, gave Primal to the Gun Boar, and got out of the way. Arkadius gave the Gun Boar Forced Evolution, killed the last Ternion contesting my opponent's zone (the other died when the War Hog frenzied into it because of Primal), and cast Psycho Surgery to repair the remaining Road Hog. The Witch Doctor gave Ghostly to the Road Hog. Kwaak threw out a couple of Venoms to clear a path for the Road Hog, who walked up behind the Void Archon and proceeded to miss something like four of its six attacks into the Archon's back arc. It did get the kill with its remaining swings, but without the Fury to sprint back to claim my zone. Boomhowler gunned down two Doom Reavers for his part, and Repositioned a little closer to the left hand flag. The last of the Bellows Crew ran to contest on the right. I scored my opponent's zone, taking the score to 3-1 in my favour. Khador Turn 4 Doom Reavers finished off the near dead Road Hog. A charge on Boomhowler triggered Guardian Beast on the War Hog, which I used to pull it closer to the centre. I had some sort of plan for that, but it ended up not really mattering. Three Doom Reaver charges kill the War Hog, and I believe a Berserk attack also killed the Koldun Lord. Boomhowler survived the charges, and Targ by some absurd miracle survived being in the centre of several angry Reavers. Alexia put Hermit in the dirt with some Thralls and a few random Ternion attacks. My opponent scored his flag and the centre, taking the score to 3-3. Pigs Turn 4 The Gun Boar frenzied and killed the contesting Ternion on the left. Arkadius ran to capture the flag. Kwaak sprayed down a few Doom Reavers on the right, killing Targ at last in the process. The Gorax charged the Doom Reavers on the top-left, killed one, used Overtake to get into the zone, and killed the one contesting. The Witch Doctor killed a couple of Thrall Warriors. I straight up forgot to activate Boomhowler. I scored the flag and zone on the left, my opponent scored his flag, so the score went to 5-4 in my favour. Khador Turn 5 My opponent killed the Gorax and all of my solos with the Doom Reavers, Ternion, and Alexia. Vlad ran to score my zone. I killed one of the Doom Reavers charging my Gun Boar with Guardian Beast, the two remaining charges failed to kill it. My opponent scored the left zone, centre zone, and his flag. That took the score to 5-8 in his favour. I conceded the game at this point. I had two models left to my name and he'd be able to score most of the board with impunity, not to mention being literally impossible to kill with the tools I had left. Oof, ended up being quite a rough game. It left me with a fair few "what ifs", but I was happy with how I played in the end. Probably should have made sure to kill the Koldun Lord on the left with my Gun Boar on Turn 2, not doing so cost me a few attacks, and if I could have found a way to get into Alexia early and kill the Void Archon on the left on that same turn that would have been a huge benefit. I could have played a bit more aggressively with Arkadius too, Guardian Beast is worth a lot in this match-up, but it's a thin line between being a bully and being dead when you're up against Vlad and his boosting Doom Reavers. More LOS blocking terrain and chokepoints for Boomhowler to protect would have been a huge asset too, but I think I managed to make what I had work. The big mistake in retrospect was deciding to offer up a Void Archon to bait out Vlad's Feat early. I think I was right to want to hold my army back until the Feat was gone, but I needed another solo on the left flank to consistently score that flag and the Void Archon represented a lot of work in the right circumstances. The danger would have been running out of contesting pieces if my opponent decided to back up. I would have been good for the next turn, and it would have let me get a few more Gun Boar shots in to thin out the numbers, but after that I think I would have been forced to commit. Anyway, this took me out of the running for the finals sadly. I'll try to have my final game of the event, the play-off to decide third and fourth, up before too much longer.
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crono
Baby's First Wargame
Posts: 2
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Post by crono on Feb 1, 2020 6:44:21 GMT
Good writeups and read mate - well done.
James
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Post by Azahul on Feb 1, 2020 7:13:54 GMT
Good writeups and read mate - well done. James Oh, cheers dude! Hopefully we get a chance to actually play in the not-too-distant future. I don't suppose you've written up your games somewhere?
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Post by Azahul on Feb 3, 2020 1:48:26 GMT
Round Six - Bunker Ok, so I failed to make the finals (second year in a row), so I was playing off for third against the Protectorate player. He had a Durst/Cyrenia list, and with the obstructions and walls already on the table I knew I couldn't possibly drop Sturm and Drang into his Cyrenia list. So for the sixth time I went for Arkadius, and he dropped Cyrenia, running the following: Cyrenia -Sanctifier -Dervish -Dervish -Hierophant Avatar of Menoth Initiates of the Order of the Wall Initiates of the Order of the Wall Initiates of the Order of the Wall Min Choir Champion of the Order of the Wall Champion of the Order of the Wall Menite Archon Menite Archon Allegiant of the Order of the Fist Allegiant of the Order of the Fist Hand of Silence Covenant of Menoth Vassal Mechanik Deployment I won the starting roll and took first. My opponent and I each deployed more or less symmetrically, with our Archons on the flanks and heavies closer in towards the centre. He paired his Archons with his Champions, while the Initiates mostly clustered in around the centre-right flank. Pigs Turn 1 I ran everything forward. Arkadius maltreated the Gorax, healed all bar one box with Psycho Surgery, and put Forced Evolution on the right flank War Hog and Guardian Beast on herself. I ran my Archons up towards the flags on either flanks, and ran the Bellows Crew up towards the centre one. Protectorate Turn 1 My opponent agonised over whether or not he needed to Feat, and ultimately decided that he didn't have a choice. Cyrenia summoned a Rock Wall, put Inviolable Resolve on the Avatar, Feated, and built a bunker around the Avatar of Menoth with Initiates hunkered down behind it. The Allegiants advanced and assumed their Shifting Sands Stance, and the Archons and Champions mostly took up positions behind them. Pigs Turn 2 I decided that I couldn't afford to commit, but I did want to make sure my opponent couldn't score a critical mass of CPs on his turn. I couldn't afford to try and kill anything without giving the Menite Archons the opportunity to dive into my lines, so I backed up just about everything. The exceptions were on the right flank, where I had Kwaak and Gub give Enliven to one of the Gun Boars and made sure both that Gun Boar and the Gobber Chef were contesting, with the Void Archon just behind them, and in the centre where Boomhowler gave the Bellows Crew Reposition and the unit leader advanced and Repositioned back behind a cloud to block LOS between him and everything in my opponent's army that could possibly see him. Protectorate Turn 2 My opponent decided to try and block me into my zone with Avatar and a Rock Wall. He ran Avatar up, using Gaze, but this triggered Guardian Beast. I decided to have my War Hog on the left advance and attack, since it could get to a spot where the Champion and Menite Archon wouldn't be able to get melee range on it. The attack did a little bit of damage, and it meant the War Hog was not standing atop the preferred spot for the Rock Wall. Cyrenia advanced and laid down a Rock Wall to at least block out the Road Hogs. She cast Dash as well, giving the Champion on the left flank enough speed to charge one of my Road Hogs. The charge attack hit and did some damage, but more importantly it allowed the Champion to direct his shield attack into the Bellows Crew Gobber. He hit the 7 he needed to hit the Gobber and kill him, allowing the Champion to Reposition back onto the central flag. The Allegiant on the left advanced and took the flag there, while the Menite Archon charged the Gun Boar on the right flank. The charge attack rolled pretty poorly for damage, and the Gun Boar ended up living on about half a dozen hit points with no Spirit. The other Allegiant advanced onto the right-hand flag and used Shifting Sands Stance. The Initiates all ran up to jam, with one of them making it into my zone to contest. The Menite Archon on the left ran up behind the Avatar. My opponent scored his zone, the centre flag, and the left flag for a total of 3 CP. Pigs Turn 3 Losing the central Gobber was unfortunate, that was the flag I'd been most confident about locking down, but the good news was that my opponent had burned an absolute ton of clock over his last two turns. I had something like a 15 minute lead at this point, and really just needed to keep him from winning on scenario. Arkadius dropped Forced Evolution on the right flank War Hog, since cracking the Arm 23 Avatar was going to be a shore. Hermit advanced and used Master of Ruin to debuff the Champion, Avatar, a couple of Initiates, and basically my entire army. I was mulling over my order of activations and whether I wanted Arkadius to Feat this turn when I decided to do something a little bit easier first and have my right flank War Hog go and kill the Menite Archon and Champion on that side of the table. The Gorax Primal'd the War Hog, the Witch Doctor gave him Ghostly, and I activated the War Hog only to have my opponent point out that he was too close to the Avatar to go and do what I needed. To get any work at all out of the War Hog really could only kill Initiates and maybe the central Champion, which would mean the Menite Archons would get boosts to their armour, but it was that or waste the War Hog's entire activation. The War Hog succeeded in wiping out an entire unit of Initiates and dismounting the Champion. That sequence of events put me seriously on the back foot. I had Arkadius go next, Primal'd the left War Hog and one of the Road Hogs, gave it Raw Adrenaline, and threw on Forced Evolution. That War Hog smashed the Avatar with three Fury to spare. The Void Archon on the left advanced and sprayed the Vassal Mechanik dead, teleporting behind the Menite Archon and failing to do any damage with either melee attack. The Primal'd Road Hog then walked in and basically failed to do anything but scratch the paint work. On the left, the Gun Boar advanced so that it was within 4" of the Allegiant and shot him, killing him with the blast damage. Targ ran to score the left flag. The Void Archon charged the Menite Archon on the right and failed to break armour on any of its attacks. The remaining Road Hog took a spray to kill the Champion of the Order of the Wall and set a couple of Initiates on fire. Boomhowler laid down a Covering Fire template to make it awkward for those same Initiates to do a whole lot. Kwaak Enlivened the forward Road Hog and War Hogs I scored my zone and the left flag, my opponent scored his zone, the score went to 2-4 in his favour. Protectorate Turn 3 My opponent took his Righteous Vengeance move on the Menite Archon on the left, triggered Guardian Beast again, and this time I spiked the dice roll and rolled the 15 I needed to just kill the Archon on the spot. Unfortunately I still had a super buffed Sanctifier to deal with, which received Prayer of Battle from the Choir and went in against the two Road Hogs. It rolled abysmally, getting a snake eyes on the charge attack and a snake eyes on a bought attack, but still killed the one Road Hog without Primal and left the other so badly wounded that a few charging Initiates sealed the deal. The Menite Archon on the right killed the Void Archon and Gobber Chef, and the Allegiant charged and killed the Gun Boar before side stepping back to the flag. The Champion in the centre and the Hand of Silence put some damage into the War Hog on the right. Cyrenia another Initiate ran in to contest my zone. My opponent scored his zone and the right-hand flag, and I scored the left-hand flag, putting the score at 3-6. Pigs Turn 4 My opponent only had 60 seconds left on his clock, and I had 12 minutes to work with, so I just needed to block off the easy CPs and score some of my own. My War Hogs frenzied, one of them taking about half of the Hand of Silence's boxes off, the other doing a bit of scratch damage to the Sanctifier. The Hermit advanced and used Master of Ruin. Arkadius put Forced Evolution and Primal on the Gorax. The Gorax charged, scrapped the Sanctifier, overtook into Hand of Silence and killed him too. The last Gobber ran out towards the right flank to contest the flag there. The Gun Boar advanced and did some damage to the Dervish with its gun. I scored the left flag and my zone, and my opponent scored his zone, taking the score to 5-7. Protectorate Turn 4 The Allegiant charged and killed my Bellows Crew Gobber on the right, side-stepping back to the flag. The Menite Archon charged and killed my objective. The Dervish ran to contest my flag. My opponent scored his zone, the right flag, and my objective to win the game at 5-10. He had ~14 seconds left on the clock. Hoo boy, I made a whole lot of mistakes at the tail end there. I totally forgot that I still had my Feat, which I really should have used to get my Gun Boar into my opponent's zone. And odds are that I should have dedicated the Gorax to kill the Menite Archon instead of the Sanctifier. The Sanctifier could do more work, but having the Gorax be contesting the right-hand flag should have basically put my opponent in an unwinnable position. I was a bit too preoccupied with making sure that I had enough clock left to actually take some turns on my future rounds to actually stop and count out what my opponent needed to do to win. I also really, really should have had Enliven on my Road Hog who had not been Primal'd, to preserve one functional heavy for myself, and even putting Primal on the War Hog when it needed to kill the Avatar may have been a mistake. I figured at the time that I wouldn't really get a turn if it didn't die, which is a fair evaluation, but having already made the mistake of wasting my other War Hog's activation I really should have kept something back in my pocket. Still, my opponent made mistakes as well (constantly triggering Guardian Beast, for one, and I think he spent Turn 3 under the impression that he needed to score 4 to win instead of 3 and thus didn't look around for a way to kill my objective then) but ultimately he made fewer and played better than I did. I need to work on how I play into Menite Archons too, they're an extremely tough defensive profile to crack with the tools I have on offer (even a Primal'd Road Hog isn't doing the job without at least one other buff, and that's before you raise their armour by killing an infantry model anywhere within 10" of them). Void Archons should be able to do it... so long as I can get some other damage and accuracy buffs into play, but they're a tough conundrum and I need to get better at solving it. Anyway, that ended my run at the title for CanCon. Lost in the semi-finals for the second year running. I'm a little disappointed with how my finals games played out, but ultimately I'm just proud to have made as far as I did through exceedingly tough competition. I was the only one of the Top 4 who had also been in the Top 4 the preceding year, which I think speaks to how many exceptional players there are competing in that event. I also think I made a mistake in jumping on Arkadius in every single round. I hadn't been getting opportunities to play my Sturm and Drang list very much in the last six months. To an extent, I think Void Archons improved Arkadius into a few of Sturm and Drang's traditional match-ups, and in other areas it feels like the meta has moved on from where it was last year where that list was so effective, but I also think my own mentality was tripping me up. I had a few too many instances of seeing battlegroup heavy lists in an opponent's pair and thinking "no way can Sturm and Drang chew through six heavies" or something like that, in spite of the fact that when I look back at past games with them I can see plentiful evidence that they absolutely can play those match-ups. They really should have been my drop in Round 4 (no matter how great it was to figure out a way to assassinate Wanderer), and probably Rounds 3 and maybe even 5 as well. I may need to just find the time to force myself to play more Sturm in the coming months, at least once I've had my fill of playing with Helga2. Alternatively, it may be time to start thinking about another list to pair with Arkadius. If nothing else, I do note that Helga2 has a pretty good profile for killing Menite Archons herself...
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Post by Azahul on Feb 3, 2020 9:48:34 GMT
And now for a post-CanCon game, I'm back to test games with Helga2. I decided to put the Meat Thresher back into the list with her, not because I think it's a good piece with her but more to play some games and really nail down what I think it would take to make it work with her. My list therefore was: Helga On Wheels (using Lug as a proxy) -Road Hog -Road Hog -War Hog -War Hog -Battle Boar (using a Gorax as a proxy, I'd taken mine out of my case for some reason) -Soul Slave Ledfoot and Tredz Boomhowler Solo Artist Hermit of Henge Hold Eilish Garrity Bone Shrine Void Archon Meat Thresher My opponent was playing Circle, running a Morvahna2 list to test her out with the Dhunian Archon. His list was: Morvahna the Dawnshadow -Pureblood Warpwolf -Warpwolf Stalker Max Tharn Ravagers -Chieftain Max Tharn Blood Pack Max Tharn Wolf Riders Tharn Wolf Rider Champion Tharn Ravager Shaman Gallows Grove Gallows Grove Gallows Grove Dhunian Archon Well of Orboros Deployment I won the starting roll and took first, and ended up on a table side filled with hazards. Probably should have gone second in retrospect, this table side would have been pretty annoying for my opponent. I deployed Helga and the War Hogs in the centre, with the Road Hogs on the flank. The Meat Thresher took the left flank, while the Void Archon set up immediately behind the giant burning earth. My opponent gave his Wolf Riders the left, the Tharn Ravagers and their support solos in the Shaman and Archon the right, and the Blood Pack behind the Well with Morvahna in the middle. Pigs Turn 1 The left Road Hog ran first, because Helga was going to put it out of control range if she moved to where she wanted to be first. I opted to hang back and stay out of the shooting range of the Well, but this was a mistake I think. My own threat ranges are too short to be able to get to the Well without giving it a turn of shooting first, so this meant my next turn wouldn't get to be very aggressive. Helga cast Battle Host and Engine of Destruction and rolled up into the middle of the board. Everything else ran. Circle Turn 1 Morvahna put up Fog of War and tossed Carnivore on the Ravagers. Everything else ran, taking care to not come into the melee threat ranges of my army. The Well spawned a White Mane and scattered a shot towards my army, which landed right on Eilish and killed him. Pigs Turn 2 I figured I'd have to use Helga's Feat this turn if I wanted to get any work done safely. Unfortunately, there wasn't much Helga could do personally, and I was extremely stretched on this scenario. I could either commit my Road Hog to kill ~3 Ravagers on the right flank, or I could harry the Blood Pack on the left. I decided to go for the latter, since I would be able to keep my entire army safe so long as I didn't provoke Vengeance on the Ravagers. That left the question of what to do with Helga's full stack of Fury. I ultimately decided to go for a boosted Battering Ram on the Well to get a bit of extra chip damage there. She cast Engine of Destruction (the flag was blocking the only landing zone I could get to without it), took a Fury off the Bone Shrine, Feated, and rolled up to toss a Battering Ram at the Well. She hit the attack, boosted damage, did three or four points, and rolled back. My Road Hog on the right decided to risk a boosted 8 to get some fire onto the Tharn Ravager Shaman. It moved up, sprayed, and missed the attack roll and was forced to just Reposition back, still well inside the threat ranges of everything on that side of the board. Boomhowler moved up to lay down a Covering Fire template and everything else piled in behind the Road Hog to be there as a counter-punch after the Road Hog's inevitable death. Over on the left, the other Road Hog sprayed down a couple of Blood Pack, killing one and triggering Tough on a second. The Hog moved back behind the wall and into my zone, allowing the Meat Thresher to roll up. It rolled maximum shots and rolled quite well for damage, dealing a decent chunk to the Well before zooming back to safety. Circle Turn 2 The near dead Blood Pack burned to death. Three Ravagers were able to get into my Road Hog. They charged in, one of them taking Covering Fire from Boomhowler which failed to break armour, and those three Ravagers were able to kill the Road Hog. The heavies hung back outside of the threat ranges of my War Hogs in the centre. The Blood Pack, Well, and a Wolf Rider or two managed to leave my Road Hog on the left on about eight boxes and with its body crippled. The Hermit took a few odd points of damage from the Ravager. Morvahna used a Gallows Grove to channel a boosted Sunder Spirit into the Void Archon, killing it. My opponent scored the left flag with a Gallows Grove and we each scored our respective zones, putting the score at 1-2 in my opponent's favour. Pigs Turn 3 The Meat Thresher rolled up four shots again and this time killed the Well, along with the two Wolf Riders engaging the Road Hog on the left. That Road Hog set the three Blood Pack on fire but couldn't actually kill any of them without its body. I couldn't spare a Fury to heal it, because Helga had line of sight to the Pureblood and wanted to try and get both Circle heavies off the table. Ledfoot and Tredz moved up to kill an intervening Ravager and teleport Hermit a little further forwards. Hermit moved up and used Master of Ruin. Helga took a Fury off the Bone Shrine and charged the Pureblood. She used her Chain attack to drag in the Stalker, killed the Pureblood with three Fury to spare thanks to some pretty high damage rolls, cast Lightning Strike and sprinted away. She blocked the damage roll of the Stalker's free strike with the Hermit's Mad Vision. The right flank War Hog received Primal from the Battle Boar, charged in, killed the Stalker and was able to Overtake through and kill a Ravager or two. The other War Hog just ran to screen Helga, while Boomhowler ran to score the central flag. The Soul Slave went for a Mental Forced Bone Shaker at a Ravager but missed and took three damage for its trouble. I scored my zone and the central flag, my opponent scored his zone, so the score went level at 3-3. Circle Turn 3 Morvahna Feated back all the dead Tharn infantry and raced off to hide on the right. The Wolf Rider Champion killed the Road Hog and the Wolf Riders mostly peppered Helga with a few shots and then Repositioned to jam her, since a near dead Morvahna with no transfer targets would be pretty vulnerable to an assassination run. Tharn Ravagers killed the War Hog who had not been Primal'd. The Ravager Shaman grabbed the right-hand flag. My opponent scored the central and right-hand flags (I was contesting the left with the Meat Thresher), putting the score at 3-5 in his favour. Pigs Turn 4 The War Hog frenzied. The Meat Thresher charged into the Blood Pack to see if it could kill Morvahna. Only rolled two shots and missed both. One of the melee attacks missed the Blood Pack, so it ended up killing one and using Reposition to get out of the way. The Soul Slave attempted to get rid of a Wolf Rider with another Mental Force'd Bone Shaker, missed again and died from the d3 damage. That left Helga in a position where she couldn't possibly unjam herself to get a Battering Ram into Morvahna, so she killed some Wolf Riders and Primal'd the Battle Boar and sent him to murder some Ravagers. Funnily enough, this ended up healing Morvahna back to full health thanks to the Dhunian Archon. Neat combo that. I think my opponent scored the central flag still, putting the score at 3-6 in his favour. Circle Turn 4 The Wolf Rider Champion alone was able to kill the zero camp Helga. This game mostly served to reinforce my existing impression of Helga. The Feat can end up being burned for very little work, because if you hold onto it for too long then the lines may close to the point where it doesn't even matter and better to cheat some damage than none. Helga herself just has nothing to do on turns she can't get into melee, and it's worryingly easy to force her to accept an alpha. Dice were a bit of a factor here on both sides, costing me a Road Hog on my Feat turn and letting Helga kill a heavy with enough Fury leftover to actually camp. Both aspects were not necessarily improbable, but they were unlikely and shaped the flow of the game a bit. Oh, and the Meat Thresher managing to shoot the Well off the table, that was another relatively lucky aspect, and served to help highlight how hard it is to get work out of the Meat Thresher. If you can keep it alive for three rounds it basically manages to break even without any real support, so long as it rolls a bit above average. I'll play a few more games with it I think just to put it through its paces, but I do feel like replacing it with Valkyries and another Void Archon was unequivocally the right call.
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crono
Baby's First Wargame
Posts: 2
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Post by crono on Feb 4, 2020 0:43:38 GMT
Good writeups and read mate - well done. James Oh, cheers dude! Hopefully we get a chance to actually play in the not-too-distant future. I don't suppose you've written up your games somewhere? One day buddy And nah, just general social media nonsense. Don't really have the time for in depth reviews - hence the appreciation of this post! James
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Post by Azahul on Feb 7, 2020 6:01:46 GMT
I've been muddling around with some more Helga2 games. This one was played prior to the most recent spoilers, which is why I spent my Feat the way I did, and also why the list still revolves around the Hermit. The lists were: Helga on Wheels (using Lug as a proxy, as in previous battle reports) -War Hog -War Hog -Road Hog -Road Hog -Battle Boar -Soul Slave Valkyries Void Archon Void Archon Eilish Garrity Boomhowler Solo Artist Ledfoot and Tredz Hermit of Henge Hold Bone Shrine My opponent was playing Lylyth3, running the following: Lylyth3 -Archangel -Ravagore -Ravagore -Ravagore -Bolt Thrower -Harrier -Harrier Hellmouth Craelix Deathstalker Deathstalker Deployment I was lucky enough to win the starting roll and took first. I set up with my Road Hogs out on the flanks along with the Void Archons, while my War Hogs and the Hermit module stood closer in to the centre. My opponent deployed his Archangel on my left with his Bolt Thrower and Craelix, with his Ravagores predominantly on the right. My objective was a Stockpile. I believe my opponent's was a Treasure Chest. I think I forgot to deploy Eilish initially, we put him onto the board on Turn 2 somewhere in my backlines to make up for it. Pigs Turn 1 Helga cast Engine of Destruction and Battle Host and rolled up behind the wall in the centre zone. Everything else ran, with the Void Archons going wide to stack out the zones on either side. Legion Turn 1 The Hellmouth tentacles ran to jam up my Warbeasts on the left. Lylyth cast Far Strike and moved to put some shots into Boomhowler. One shot left him on four hit points, a second shot was Shield Guarded onto a Valkyrie who died, but passed her Tough roll. The third shot missed. Everything else in his army moved up, avoiding my threat ranges for the most part, with the Archangel largely getting away with being as aggressive as it was by boxing in the landing zones around its base with models too small to see through the forest. Pigs Turn 2 I figured my Feat would be much use into a gunline like this, so I decided to use it early to scalpel out the Hellmouth. Helga activated, Feated, moved into melee with one tentacle, killed it, boosted a Battering Ram into a second tentacle, killed it. She then took her Feat move to return behind the wall. My War Hog on the left then trampled up to the Hellmouth and killed it with two bought attacks, before moving back so that the Archangel wouldn't be able to walk to engage. The Road Hog on the right tried to kill the Death Stalker in the zone with a spray so that it could take its Feat move into the right-hand zone, but missed. I ran my Void Archon to engage instead. Eilish gave Puppet Master to the Void Archon on the left. That Void Archon advanced and tried to kill Craelix with a spray, but couldn't hit the unboosted 9 on two attempts. Boomhowler gave Helga Legion Turn 2 I realised that I'd kind of miscounted my maths on how many attacks my opponent could get into me by ~1-2, so my opponent seemed to have a pretty good assassination run. Lylyth moved up and Feated and took three shots into Helga. I absorbed two of them into Shield Guards, wanting to actually use them before Craelix activated and tried to render the entire unit stationary to keep them from being able to Shield Guard any shots at all. The third shot missed, and both Valkyries passed their Tough checks. Craelix activated, shot the last Valkyrie stationary, and then put his remaining shots into Helga but missed (Def 18 with a wall). The Bolt Thrower activated and shot Helga, making her stationary for future shots, and spiked high on the damage roll to absorb a transfer. The Archangel activated, only rolled two shots, and did some damage to Helga and used a second transfer. The first Ravagore shot I blocked with the Hermit's Mad Visions. The second shot left Helga on 5 hit points. The third Ravagore took away her last transfer. The Harrier and Deathstalker on the right tried to kill the Void Archon but left it on six boxes. Pigs Turn 3 Fire on Helga rolled the unboosted 10 needed to drop her to 0 boxes. She passed her Tough check. With Lylyth sitting so close that basically gave me the game. I tried to get the Void Archon on the right to kill the Death Stalker so that I could Void Walk into melee with Lylyth, but it missed every attack. The Battle Boar gave Primal to a War Hog, Eilish gave the War Hog Puppet Master, and Hermit moved up and used Master of Ruin. Ledfoot charged Lylyth, dragging Hermit a little closer, and missed both of his attacks, then Repositioned out of the way. The War Hog then charged Lylyth and killed her. Ok, obviously a bit of a weird match-up, since it was so fixed on the assassination game. I did note that my opponent's ranged weapons were mostly so long range that had he just focussed on shooting down a heavy or two, he'd have been too far away for me to attack in return. Gunlines definitely feel problematic, but I suppose that with the changes to Helga I can ditch the Hermit and all of the support models for him, and with the points get Lanyssa (who may survive long enough to up those threat ranges) and another unit of Valkyries in to help. A Dhunian Archon would also help preserve those Shield Guards turn to turn. I had considered playing another game with the Meat Thresher in my list, and actually rolled on whether to take the Meat Thresher or a Void Archon and unit of Valkyries. I would never have been able to do any work at all with Helga had I brought the Meat Thresher, and it would have been of limited use in this match-up so I definitely feel like I made the correct choice. That is the main issue I feel with Helga in even her updated form, I still see no compelling reason to bring the Meat Thresher into play.
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Post by Azahul on Feb 11, 2020 5:50:19 GMT
Ok, so I've got my first game with the newest Helga2 spoilers to report. Thanks to her increase in personal hitting power, I felt like the big investment in delivering the Hermit was no longer worthwhile. The list, therefore, ended up looking like this: Helga on Wheels (using Lug as a proxy) -War Hog -War Hog -Road Hog -Road Hog -Battle Boar -Soul Slave Valkyries Valkyries Void Archon Void Archon Dhunian Archon Eilish Garrity Lanyssa (using Orin Midwinter as a proxy) Bone Shrine I was playing my Legion opponent again, running Lylyth3 with the following: Lylyth -Archangel -Ravagore -Ravagore -Ravagore -Nephilim Bolt Thrower -Harrier -Harrier Hellmouth Craelix Death Stalker Forsaken Deployment My opponent won the starting roll and took first. I made sure to take a table side with a good amount of cover. He set up with two of his Ravagores and the Bolt Thrower on the right, the Archangel and other Ravagore on the left. I deployed Helga off towards my left flank, where a forest could screen her somewhat from an early assassination run. I deployed both War Hogs to threaten the centre of the table, with a Void Archon on either flank. The green smoke template on the left is meant to be an extension of the forest there. Both objectives are Stockpiles. Legion Turn 1 Lylyth casts Battle Host and Wind Storm and rushes up the board. Everything else runs. Pigs Turn 1 Helga casts Battle Host and rolls up behind the wall on the right. The battlegroup and Valkyries run up around her. My objective is to try and threaten as deep into the various zones as I can without offering any easy kills to my opponent. Lanyssa hides behind the forest on the left so that she doesn't get sniped out. The Void Archons rush pretty aggressively towards the flanked, with the left positioning so that it can attack my opponent's objective with Lanyssa's help and to make sure that the Archangel would be close enough for my models to charge if it tried to shoot the Archon. The Archon on the right was positioned with less care unfortunately, I should have just stuck it in the rubble and wasn't thinking too carefully. Legion Turn 2 The Bolt Thrower came forward and shot at the Void Archon on the right flank, blasting it off the table in one shot. The Harrier on the right ran up to apply Mark Target to all my heavies in the middle. The Ravagores and Lylyth then peppered the Road Hog on the right with shots, leaving it with about ten boxes left and killing two Valkyries in the process (the third Shield Guard avoiding death thanks to the Dhunian Archon). The Archangel chose to lurk at the back of the zone, threatening rather than trying to commit and do work and probably dying to the counter-punch. Craelix ran up to contest the central flag. I think he forgot to activate the Death Stalker. Pigs Turn 2 I wanted to put my opponent under pressure by getting as many CPs this turn as I could. Eilish gave the Road Hog on the right Puppet Master, and it charged one of the Hellmouth tentacles in the right-hand zone. Puppet Master allowed me to kill the second tentacle with the assault spray, which meant the Road Hog got to Reposition into the right-hand zone to score it. Helga then activated and Feated, allowing her to scoot around the heavies that had kind of wedged her in. She killed the Harrier and threw a boosted Battering Ram at Craelix. She then took a Fury from the Bone Shrine, avoided getting Cursed, and scooted back to safety, camping four Fury. The remaining four Valkyries ran to brick up around her. The Battle Boar gave Primal to the left-hand War Hog, who charged and killed the Ravagore in the central zone before backing up to block off the Archangel. Lanyssa ran to score the central flag, and the second War Hog moved up to make sure it could threaten the entire central zone. The Void Archon on the right charged into the Death Stalker, missed both melee attacks, hit the spray and killed the Death Stalker, and used Void Walk to apply Dark Shroud to the Objective. The Road Hog on the left then charged and killed my opponent's objective and secured the left-hand zone by pulling back with the Feat move. I scored both zones, my opponent's objective, and the central flag to take the score to 4-0 in my favour. Legion Turn 3 The Archangel moved up, killed the War Hog and Lanyssa, and Repositioned back. The Hellmouth killed the Road Hog in the right-hand zone. The Nephilim Bolt Thrower and Lylyth killed my objective, with the former moving into the zone to score it. The two remaining Ravagores put some shots into the remaining War Hog, but one of them was blocked by the Valkyrie (who was kept alive in turn by the Dhunian Archon) so the War Hog only ended up taking seven damage. The remaining Harrier moved in to contest the left-hand zone. With the right-hand zone and my objective destroyed, my opponent pulled the score back to a more reasonable 4-2 in my favour. Pigs Turn 3 I figured I had a reasonable chance of clearing the left zone with my Road Hog, killing the Archangel with the War Hog, and then I could win if I could hit both Ravagores and the Bolt Thrower with Battering Rams from Helga (I had nothing in range to contest the right-hand zone with, since my Battle Boar chose this moment to frenzy). Order of operations was a little difficult, and I wasn't going to be able to Primal the War Hog. I had the Road Hog activate on the left flank first. It charged the Harrier, missed the spray, but hit the automatically boosted charge attack and squished the Harrier in one hit. Good thing too, the Road Hog was well outside of control and wouldn't have been able to force. It repositioned back. That allowed the Void Archon to run and engage the Archangel, coincidentally landing on the flag. The War Hog charged the Archangel and did well with its initial attacks, but then missed all three bought attacks to leave the Archangel standing on about ten boxes. That meant that winning this turn was off the table. I had to have Helga cast Engine of Destruction and charge, killing the Archangel and casting Lightning Strike to sprint off behind the forest. The Valkyries ran up to brick around her, the Dhunian Archon moved in to make sure that a critical model would stay alive and make it impossible for a Ravagore to directly get into melee with Helga. I scored the left-hand zone and central flag, my opponent scored the right-hand zone, so the score went to 6-3 in my favour. Legion Turn 4 One Ravagore killed the War Hog, getting very lucky on its 7s to hit. The other Ravagore killed the Void Archon. The Bolt Thrower's shot was blocked by the Dhunian Archon, and Lylyth just about managed to kill a Valkyrie. I scored the left zone, my opponent scored the right, so the score went to 7-4 in my favour. Pigs Turn 4 I just needed to stop my opponent from scoring and net one more point. Eilish gave Helga Puppet Master. She pulled from the Bone Shrine and cast Lightning Strike. She charged a Hellmouth tentacle without casting Engine of Destruction. She killed the tentacle and pushed the Nephilim Bolt Thrower out of the zone with a boosted Battering Damn. She spent her remaining fury killing the Forsaken and then Sprinted into the right-hand zone. I scored the left- and right-hand zones to take the score to 9-4 in my favour, winning me the game. Hoo boy. First of all, Helga's stats being improved feels great. I felt like I could have reasonably continued to play attrition there, killing one of the Ravagores even though both my Void Archons were gone and playing keepaway until my opponent ran out of models. Being able to afford two units of Valkyries and squeeze Lanyssa into the list also felt great. I hate using Lanyssa, she's always caught between being too safe to be able to get an enemy model in range, having enemies in range but missing Hunter's Mark, or just being dead, but she at least forces your opponent to account for an extra +2" threat. It's not like there is much I would replace her with, mind you. That last Requisition point proved pretty hard to fill, but I think I like the Dhunian Archon quite a lot for the role. She has some funky utility in removing Primed if it would be detrimental, and her ability to preserve Valkyries meant that Lylyth never had a turn where her Feat would be able to achieve anything. She also changes the maths into gun lines by a reasonable amount I think, if you tank the first hit on the heavy and then heal the heavy back up with the subsequent deaths of the Shield Guards, it's near as good as having another Valkyrie lurking around, and also meant that my near-dead Road Hog on Turn 2 didn't have to worry about Helga activating first to heal any crippled aspects. If I have one criticism of this iteration of Helga is that she still has no compelling reason to run a Meat Thresher. A bit disappointing, I'll admit, but I'm just happy for the moment that she feels like she has some game on her own two feet. Or wheels, in this case.
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Post by Azahul on Feb 11, 2020 6:18:17 GMT
Oh and hey, if anyone is interested, I was lucky enough to be invited on as a guest on the Meta Podcast. Totally spaced and forgot to post that here when it was actually posted: www.patreon.com/posts/episode-101-with-33727366There is a second episode too available for those who back the Meta on Patreon. It was a fun time, I only let nerves get the better of me once or twice
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Post by charlzheimer on Feb 11, 2020 9:46:10 GMT
Oh and hey, if anyone is interested, I was lucky enough to be invited on as a guest on the Meta Podcast. Totally spaced and forgot to post that here when it was actually posted: www.patreon.com/posts/episode-101-with-33727366There is a second episode too available for those who back the Meta on Patreon. It was a fun time, I only let nerves get the better of me once or twice i'll give this a listen once i'm back from work =D
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Post by Dirhavel on Feb 11, 2020 23:31:54 GMT
How attached are you to the Soul Slave? Seeing as he really only accounts for one fury per turn, I've been considering replacing him with something else. Like maybe another Dhunian Archon, Hutchuck or Scythe who might have a bigger impact on her list.
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Post by Azahul on Feb 11, 2020 23:37:09 GMT
I don't know if any of those solos would have a bigger impact on her list. The Soul Slave is inefficient and a little frustrating to use thanks to her plethora of upkeep spells, but there are really very few solos with any kind of direct synergy with Helga. A second Dhunian Archon would probably be the most potentially tempting option, but I'd be inclined to swap out Eilish first I think.
The thing to understand is that Helga is really Fury strapped. I don't think I have ever had more than one upkeep spell in play with her at any one time in my games so far, and yet on any turn where she gets to actually do work she'll inevitably only end up camping one or two at most. I would worry that without a Soul Slave I would end up feeling like I have to drop that last upkeep too, and essentially write off her entire spell list.
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Post by Dirhavel on Feb 12, 2020 1:15:45 GMT
Fair enough. It just feels bad paying a free solo spot just for that one fury =/
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