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Post by Azahul on Feb 27, 2020 20:16:34 GMT
I'm actually less and less impressed with her as a battlegroup Warlock, and strongly considering taking some Lesser Warlocks. Expect to see a few weirder variations on possible list builds for her.
Cav Razor Boars are certainly better than normal Razor Boars, but they're kind of a luxury item and there are too many things she needs. Valkyries are important enough to deliver her list that I would rather just find the extra point somewhere. Plus, Primed Valkyries are great in a pinch.
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Post by charlzheimer on Feb 28, 2020 10:28:04 GMT
I'm actually less and less impressed with her as a battlegroup Warlock, and strongly considering taking some Lesser Warlocks. Expect to see a few weirder variations on possible list builds for her. Cav Razor Boars are certainly better than normal Razor Boars, but they're kind of a luxury item and there are too many things she needs. Valkyries are important enough to deliver her list that I would rather just find the extra point somewhere. Plus, Primed Valkyries are great in a pinch. considering you want a weirder variation. why not consider the idea of thornfall alliance. her feat could allow you to go and charge in with primed slaughter housers/briggands? rosh and brine do deliver alot of goodness on their own and molikpigg with sprint could be hilarious.
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Post by Azahul on Feb 28, 2020 11:28:55 GMT
Haha, not so weird that I'm considering playing Pig Infantry. To cross-post from the Helga2 thread, this is what my list currently looks like: Helga -War Hog -War Hog -Soul Slave Valkyries Valkyries Void Archon Void Archon Dhunian Archon Dhunian Archon Mire -Wrastler Rorsh -Brine Gremlin Swarm Gremlin Swarm Bone Shrine Warbeast heavy, but not battlegroup heavy. She doesn't offer much support to her army that I actually like, so I'm mostly taking pieces that I consider fine on their own. I've got a few games under my belt with Rorsh and Brine and I have to say that I like them a lot more than a Road Hog on Helga. I can't even say that I've missed Sprint, there's usually something Helga can kill without exposing herself. Still only a few games in though so absolutely more testing needed, but I'm basically at the point where I'm only spending Helga's Warbeast points on battlegroup models
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Post by charlzheimer on Feb 28, 2020 12:56:50 GMT
Haha, not so weird that I'm considering playing Pig Infantry. To cross-post from the Helga2 thread, this is what my list currently looks like: Helga -War Hog -War Hog -Soul Slave Valkyries Valkyries Void Archon Void Archon Dhunian Archon Dhunian Archon Mire -Wrastler Rorsh -Brine Gremlin Swarm Gremlin Swarm Bone Shrine Warbeast heavy, but not battlegroup heavy. She doesn't offer much support to her army that I actually like, so I'm mostly taking pieces that I consider fine on their own. I've got a few games under my belt with Rorsh and Brine and I have to say that I like them a lot more than a Road Hog on Helga. I can't even say that I've missed Sprint, there's usually something Helga can kill without exposing herself. Still only a few games in though so absolutely more testing needed, but I'm basically at the point where I'm only spending Helga's Warbeast points on battlegroup models would the dhunian archons even contribute that much? aside from shieldguard what do they contribute in this force?
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Post by Azahul on Feb 28, 2020 13:08:44 GMT
The Dhunian Archons are an enormous boon to Fury management in this list, since they allow the Lessers to drop to 0 Fury while still having "transfers" as well as having Shepherd's Call. They also keep the Gremlin Swarms around, which can be absurd if the enemy lacks many magical weapons. And they can hit Helga to remove Primed from her in a pinch. Plus their healing makes the Shield Guards even more effective. If someone shoots a War Hog with some high POW boosted guns and I take the first hit on the War Hog, and it does like 8-10 damage, and then I Shield Guard the next two shots and lose those Valkyries, then I've just healed 4d3 damage and basically ignored three shots for the price of two Shield Guards. They're just generally great for the efficiency of the list, and Helga doesn't have a ton of super compelling Requisition choices in my view. I really like what they add.
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Post by Azahul on Mar 2, 2020 1:10:41 GMT
So for my first test run of my latest iteration of Helga on Wheels, I found myself up playing one of the local Khador players. I do think Helga is quite advantaged into a slow, melee list like Karchev, since she's quite capable of playing safe and just removing a couple of heavies a turn without consequence, but the alternative was a Wolves of Winter Vlad2 build that I just don't think Helga has the tools to solve. The lists were: Helga on Wheels -War Hog -War Hog -Soul Slave Valkyries Valkyries Void Archon Void Archon Dhunian Archon Dhunian Archon Mire -Wrastler Rorsh -Brine Gremlin Swarm Gremlin Swarm Bone Shrine Karchev -Marauder -Marauder -Marauder -Marauder -Devastator -Devastator -Berserker -Berserker Kayazy Eliminators Kayazy Eliminators Sorscha0 -Rager Yuri the Axe Widget Deployment I won the starting roll and opted to go second, since the tables had some quite prominent hazards and I wanted to make sure I got the table side that would allow me to not worry about them. My opponent deployed his heavies with the Marauders mostly centre-right, a Devastator and Berserker on each flank, and Karchev directly behind the burning earth. The Kayazy Eliminators took the flanks. I deployed Helga and her battlegroup to my left, Mire and Rorsh and their respective Warbeasts on the right, and a Void Archon and Valkyrie unit on either flank. Khador Turn 1 Karchev's entire list just ran up the board, with Karchev himself running through the flames. Pigs Turn 1 Helga pulled a Fury from the Bone Shrine, became Cursed, and cast Primed on herself and Rapport on the left-flank War Hog. She moved up, putting herself into Yuri's threat range as an acceptable price to pay for getting some better board presence. Mire put Weald Secrets on Brine so that he wouldn't get bogged down later in the game and then moved up to put a cloud between Helga and Yuri, but I was still going to cop a non-charge attack from Yuri's Thresher because of where my War Hogs had to go in order to be relevant next turn. Everything else ran, except Rorsh who cast Pig Farm (it would technically slow down the Eliminators on the right flank if they tried to get to him, if nothing else) and used Diversionary Tactics to get Brine a bit further upfield. Khador Turn 2 Fire went out on Karchev. Karchev himself cast Battle Charged and committed his list to another turn of running. Karchev sprayed the Gremlin Swarm just because he could, and a Dhunian Archon took a point of damage to cancel out the damage roll, leaving the Swarm alive but knocked down. Kayazy Eliminators ran out towards the flanks, with one unit going into my zone on the right, the other moving up to contest my flag next turn. Widget moved onto Karchev's flag. Yuri charged my War Hog in the centre and tagged Helga with the Thresher, doing six or seven damage to the War Hog and 13 damage to Helga, which she transferred off to the War Hog on the left. Pigs Turn 2 So, this turn involved a fair bit of thought to figure out how to approach it. I decided ultimately not to commit or even Feat, aiming just to remove the pieces I could get to safely and score some CPs. I planned to use Brine and the Void Archon to kill the Eliminators in my zone, Helga to kill Yuri, and the War Hog on the left to kill the Berserker. I had to do a bit of mucking around to achieve this, I wanted Rage on the War Hog from Mire but there were a few pieces in the way. My Valkyries backed up and took pot shots at Brine's back until a hit dealt 3 points of damage to give him a free charge. Rorsh then moved up and used Diversionary Tactics, before backing up and sending Brine out towards the right flank. This triggered a counter charge from the Marauder there, which dealt about ten points of damage to Brine. Rorsh spent two Fury healing Brine a bit and ended his activation. The counter charge took me off-guard, but after a bit of consideration I figured that the counter charge actually gave me an opportunity to take another heavy off the board without actually mucking up my turn. Mire, with the intervening pieces out of the way, moved off to the left flank to put Rage on the War Hog there and threw down some clouds to control the centre of the board. The Wrastler backed up and gave Rage to the other War Hog. Helga activated, cast Engine of Destruction, and killed Yuri, giving a soul to the right flank Void Archon. She then spent a Fury to heal the crippled mind on one of her War Hogs and Repositioned back. The War Hog on the left smashed the Berserker and backed up with Overtake and Reposition. The War Hog on the right killed the Marauder that had counter-charged Brine and then backed up the same. The Void Archon on the right, with one soul available, moved up to spray Widget. The attack hit, killed Widget, and allowed the Archon to teleport behind the Eliminators. Widget's soul was then used to boost to hit one of the Eliminators with a melee attack, killing the Kayazy, but the second melee attack missed. Brine then charged and killed the Kayazy with his charge attack. The Dhunian Archon stripped a Fury from the War Hog. I ran a Gremlin Swarm onto my flag, and had my knocked down Gremlin Swarm stand and move behind the clouds. I scored my zone and flag, my opponent scored his zone. 2-1 in my favour. Khador Turn 3 Karchev dropped Battle Charged and allocated two Focus to a Marauder on the right. He advanced into the zone so that he would be able to get the remaining Eliminators into his control range. They charged the damaged War Hog and managed to drop it down to about 5 boxes. Unfortunately, he had no attacks around capable of finishing the job. The Rager had been outside of Sorscha's control range so it had no Focus to boost with, so instead of getting a Road to War and delivering a Marauder into my War Hog my opponent had to settle for just running the Devastators and remaining Berserker into my face and bricking up behind them. Karchev scored the central zone and a Marauder scored the left zone, while my flag and zone were contested. The score went to 2-3 in my opponent's favour. Pigs Turn 3 I had a reasonable assassination run, but I wanted to see what the attrition game would look like. I took Fury from the right-hand War Hog and the left War Hog frenzied, missing the Kayazy. Both Gremlin Swarms used Apparition to get closer to the War Hogs in the centre zone, in case they were needed to finish anyone off. Mire activated and handed out Rage to both the Wrastler and the right-hand War Hog, and then camped his remaining two Fury. My left flank Void Archon ran to catch the two Marauders in the central zone and one of the Devastators in Dark Shroud range. The Wrastler went into the Devastator and left it on 8 boxes. I tried to do some more damage with a few charging Valkyries, but when they failed to scratch the armour I had the Gremlin Swarms walk in and take the Devastator apart. Helga then activated, Feated, and charged into the midst of the Marauders. She scrapped the closest one and left the other on about four boxes and crippled in all aspects bar Movement before zooming away. The Soul Slave tried to finish the job with a Battering Ram but missed. Brine and the Void Archon on the right killed the Berserker in the zone. My War Hog crippled both arms on the remaining Devastator. One Dhunian Archon removed Fury from the Wrastler and War Hog on the right so that they would be eligible transfer targets, the other one hit Helga in the back to strip Primed from her. We each scored our respective zones, putting the score at 3-4 in my opponent's favour. Khador Turn 4 My opponent figured that assassination was his only recourse. Karchev advanced and sprayed Helga, knocking her down and dealing four damage. The Rager moved up to shoot but a Valkyrie took the shot instead and a Dhunian Archon prevented the damage roll. Even with Road to War the Marauder on the left wouldn't be able to get to Helga, and only one of the Eliminators was able to charge Helga thanks to the other being in an Acid Pool, and with Helga still sitting on double digits health and having a transfer remaining my opponent opted to concede. A pretty respectable first outing for this list, I think. Karchev with nine heavies is a fairly large amount of meat to chew through, but it's pretty easy for Helga to chew through it all unless the opponent can put her under a lot of pressure and I generally feel that Karchev just doesn't apply that pressure terribly well. I'm quite a fan of the Dhunian Archons after playing this list, they mitigate a lot of the vulnerabilities of lesser Warlocks and they can make dealing with the Gremlin Swarms kind of exasperating. I think learning to play the Swarms correctly is probably a big thing to figure out going forward. They're perfect for letting Helga play a little more aggressively by blocking off potential landing zones for opponents, but that's not really a skill I've ever tried to perfect before. We'll see how I go with that in my next few games Hoping to try and get a couple more into a more diverse range of lists tomorrow. In the meantime, as weird and janky as this list is and how bizarre Helga's battlegroup looks, I have to say that I really enjoyed the way it played on the table. A lot of Helga's small inefficiencies became less noticeable by moving the bulk of the list out of her battlegroup and reducing the dependency on spells like Battle Host, letting her truly go ham on her Feat turn (7 Fury, two initials, and attacks swinging at P+S 22 saw her almost drop two full health Khador heavies on her own).
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Post by shicato on Mar 3, 2020 23:43:24 GMT
Seems like a fun way to play her, can I just check how you're getting to P+S 22? I can see 20 (14 base +2 EOD +2 Primed + 2 Dark Shroud) but that last 2 evades me
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Post by Azahul on Mar 4, 2020 0:13:05 GMT
The trick is that EOD is +4 Strength, not +2 The +2 part is only for Speed. She can get herself to 20 all on her lonesome if you need to, which is quite a lot of fun.
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Post by Azahul on Mar 4, 2020 1:02:54 GMT
So since my positive first outing with Helga, I've been machining out the games to try and get a feel for the limitations of the list. My first game was another one into Kolgrimma. Our lists were: Helga on Wheels -War Hog -War Hog -Soul Slave Valkyries Valkyries Void Archon Void Archon Dhunian Archon Dhunian Archon Mire -Wrastler Rorsh -Brine Gremlin Swarm Gremlin Swarm Bone Shrine Kolgrimma -Rok -Axer -Runebearer Max Stones -Northkin Elder Max Long Riders (using Storm Lances as a proxy) Max Champions (mostly fine but I think there's a Cetrati floating around as a proxy for one of them) -Skaldi Bears Bears Bellows Crew (using Trenchers as proxies) Whelps Boomhowler2 Deployment My opponent won the starting roll and took first. The table was pretty heavy on terrain, so I took a table side that I felt would allow my list to shelter from my opponent's long threat ranges most effectively. My opponent set up his Long Riders on the left, Champions and battlegroup mostly on the right. I deployed Rorsh and Brine on the left to square off against the longer threat range Long Riders, and angled my War Hogs more towards the right where Rapport would help them handle the Champions. I figured that I would not be running my list the full distance this turn, so deployed my Void Archons in the centre to keep them from being too wide on the flanks. My objective was an Observatory to account for all the clouds on the table, his was a Fuel Cache to supply another source of Pathfinder. Trolls Turn 1 My opponent ran forward aggressively, intentionally putting the bears within the threat ranges of Helga and Brine to bait them in. Kolgrimma used Vanish, dumped her remaining Fury into the stone, and charged up the board. Everything else just ran. Pigs Turn 1 I figured that I was quite happy to take the bait if it meant getting the Bears off the table, and since my opponent didn't have any super hard targets that made saving the Feat necessary I decided to go for a Turn 1 Feat. I started by running my Void Archon on the right up the board to get some bears into its Command range. Helga then activated, Feated, and charged the bear from the right-hand unit in the central forest. She killed it then took her Feat movement back to safety, and put up Battle Host and tossed Rapport onto one of the War Hogs. Mire advanced and gave Weald Secrets and Rage to Brine, and then put a cloud in play. The Valkyries on the left advanced and tried to shoot Brine a few times to get him injured, but managed to fail to break armour repeatedly. I ran my second Void Archon up to receive the souls of the left flank bears so that the souls wouldn't all end up concentrated on one Void Archon. Rorsh used Diversionary Tactics and tossed Brine into the Bears on the left. Brine killed one, used Overtake to get into melee with the other, killed it too, then used Overtake and his Feat move to get back behind the cloud Mire had created and getting corroded in the process. On the right I placed my War Hog with Rapport behind the wall, using the flag there to make it impossible for anything to engage it. I ran my Valkyries on the right and both Gremlin Swarms wide so that I didn't have absolutely everything concentrated in one big blob in the centre. Trolls Turn 2 The Bellows Crew advanced on the right and dropped a cloud. Kolgrimma moved up to the centre, Feated, and tossed clouds out across the board to screen the Long Riders and Bellows Crew from sight. Everything moved up to take shelter behind the clouds. Pigs Turn 2 Ok, so, this turn involved a few quick resets because I had a couple of assassination runs on the table. The innermost cloud on the left was close enough for Rorsh to move Brine into using Diversionary Tactics. That meant that I could give Eyeless Sight from my objective to the forward most Void Archon. Helga could then give that Archon Primed, and it could charge, kill the closest Long Rider, Void Walk into melee with Kolgrimma, hit her with a fully boosted attack using its souls, and then Brine could be moved up (after Mire reapplied Weald Secrets and added Rage), charge the Krielstone, kill it, overtake into Kolgrimma and kill her. My opponent then suggested that he move back the cloud so that Brine could no longer move into it with Diversionary Tactics. We rolled out the assassination run with this change. Now, the Void Archon would use a soul to go Incorporeal and just run to engage Kolgrimma, while the objective would give Eyeless Sight to Brine. Brine would then take a free strike from the Long Rider, but it wasn't enough to cripple anything. He killed the Krielstone, overtook into Kolgrimma, and killed her again. We reset again, this time removing a cloud from the left and having Kolgrimma use Vanish instead to get back to safety. There was the potential to get some work done on the right flank I figured by giving Guidance to the War Hog there, but ultimately I decided I would be better served by playing things safe and aiming to collapse the left flank instead. The Observatory gave the lead Void Archon Eyeless Sight. Helga added Primed and sat back. Mire put Rage on Brine and tossed out some clouds to shield my objective from the forces on the right. Rorsh moved Brine up the board with Diversionary Tactics. Kolgrimma's Feat meant that I couldn't try to shoot him with Valkyries for a free charge again, which was a bit annoying but ultimately unnecessary. The Void Archon charged in first, spending its souls to kill two Long Riders. Brine then walked into melee and killed two more Long Riders himself and tried to kill a third but kept missing, maxing him out on Fury. I ran a Gremlin Swarm in to act as a Frenzy beacon for him in case my opponent decided to focus on the right flank, rather than risking Brine frenzying into my Void Archon and killing it. The rest of the list just bunkered up on the right, with the Gremlin Swarm moving onto my flag. The Void Archon on the left is actually where the black proxy base is. I came frustratingly close to being able to score the left zone, but a Bear Handler and the last Long Rider were just impossible to dislodge. I scored my flag, putting the score at 1-0 in my favour. Trolls Turn 3 Kolgrimma moved up and killed my Gremlin Swarm on the right with a spray, then used Vanish and tried to Hunter's Mark the Void Archon so that Rok could charge across and kill it and Brine, but she missed. The Long Rider moved in and spiked his damage rolls against the Void Archon, killing it. The explosion took out the Bear Handler though, so that was something. The Axer gave Rok Rush and Rok trampled to get into melee with Brine, killing Brine in three swings with some great dice rolls. Brine's Retaliatory Strike sadly missed. Boomie ran onto my opponent's flag. My opponent's infantry basically hung out where they were. My opponent scored his flag and the right-hand zone (his Axer was present there), putting the score at 1-2 in his favour. Pigs Turn 3 Mire gave Rage to the Wrastler and put a single flag out to cover my objective again. He moved up to keep the Wrastler in control. A Void Archon ran up to engage Rok. The Wrastler charged and killed Rok, then used Overtake to get into melee with the Long Rider and killed him too. Valkyries moved up and took some shots at the Whelp in the left-hand zone, killing him to clear that zone. I ran the Soul Slave onto my flag on the right and just circled my battlegroup closer in towards the left flank. The Gremlin Swarm moved up to be contesting my opponent's flag, and both Dhunian Archons made sure they were keeping the Swarm in Control. I scored my flag and the left zone, putting the score at 3-2 in my favour. Trolls Turn 4 The Krielstone moved up and gave all Northkin models some increased speed. Boomhowler shot the Wrastler a few times so that it was no longer contesting the flag (he rolled maximum shots, so I opted not to bother using my Valkyries to try and Shield Guard). The last Bear and Handler walked into melee with the Void Archon, but the bear proceeded to roll terribly (missing two attacks and only doing two damage with the third attack, while the Handler didn't even break armour). Two Champions were able to charge and kill my Soul Slave on the right. Kolgrimma tried to remove the Gremlin Swarm with some sprays, but after missing one attack and two Dhunian Archons blocking the other two she had to spend her entire camp to get rid of the swarm. My opponent scored his flag and the right-hand zone, so the score went to 3-4 in my favour. However, with Kolgrimma on no camp and both the Wrastler and Void Archon in range to charge her, my opponent conceded. A pretty interesting game I felt. Burning my Feat turn 1 was an interesting experience, and definitely worth the trade to remove the threat posed by the Bears so early at no great cost to myself. This game also marks the first time I've put Primed on a Void Archon. I don't like putting that spell on Archons, I tend to feel that their defensive stats makes them such difficult prospects to remove efficiently, but it was worthwhile to take out all those Long Riders. My opponent has come to the conclusion that Kolgrimma is just not a good drop into Helga, which is... interesting, from my perspective, since I don't currently view Helga as being particularly proficient in any particular match-up. Not because she's bad, but because she fundamentally feels like a Warlock who decides games on the table rather than on a list level, if that makes sense. Regardless, it was another good performance from this list. Even burning Helga's Feat right off the bat didn't leave me feeling like she couldn't contribute this game, I was just opting to hold her in reserve until the big assassination threats in my opponent's list had been taken care of. I can't think of any serious advantage I could have leveraged had I had a Road Hog in the list in place of Rorsh and Brine, for example, and Rorsh allowed me to spread out more than I otherwise would have been able to. I am still learning to keep Rorsh in position though. My opponent solved a problem for me by Feating on the pair, because he pushed them back far enough that Rorsh would not have needed to wade through the acid (requiring Weald Secrets from Mire) in order to use Diversionary Tactics a second time. I need to keep an eye on how I position them, particularly after hit-and-run turns, so that Brine's threat doesn't become truncated in the late game.
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Post by Azahul on Mar 4, 2020 1:59:50 GMT
The second game I have to report was into Crucible Guard with a whole lotta huge bases. This is probably one of the match-ups I'm most concerned about, a lot of high power sprays feels like it has the potential to rapidly dismantle this list without much recourse, so it was good to get a chance to test it on the table. The lists were: Helga on Wheels -War Hog -War Hog -Soul Slave Valkyries Valkyries Void Archon Void Archon Dhunian Archon Dhunian Archon Mire -Wrastler Rorsh -Brine Gremlin Swarm Gremlin Swarm Bone Shrine Syvestro -Vulcan -Liberator -Alyce Max Press Gangers -Mosby (I assume?) Dragon's Breath Rocket Dragon's Breath Rocket Trancer Trancer Trancer Trancer Railless Interceptor Railless Intercept Deployment I won the starting roll in spite of my opponent's reroll and took first. I'm... not sure that that was the right idea, I was going to have to endure a turn of shooting one way or the other and if I went second I could have forced my opponent into the zones to stop me from running away with scenario. I deployed similar to last game, with my lesser Warlocks angling for the left zone and Helga and her battlegroup more centre-right, though this time I did actually put the Void Archons up and out on the flanks. My opponent opted to ambush his Press Gangers, so his deployment was mostly just putting an Interceptor on each flank and the Vulcan in the middle alongside Syvestro and the rockets. My objective was a Treasure Chest, my opponent's was an Observatory. Pigs Turn 1 Helga cast Battle Host and put Rapport on the left War Hog, since I had a vague idea that it might end up fighting the Liberator and those things are always a pain to kill. Everything ran up to get into the zones. Mire put Weald Secrets on Brine and Rorsh cast Pig Pen on himself. The white proxy base is Brine's actual location. I bent the leg of my Brine at some point by dropping him and he's even more ludicrously front heavy than normal, which makes keeping him upright pretty hard. Crucible Guard Turn 1 Syvestro used Super Fuel and gave Focus to the Vulcan. The huge bases all moved up and took shots, most of them directed at Brine. I allowed the cannon from the Interceptor to hit Brine and Shield Guarded off the Vulcan's shots, using the Dhunian Archons to prevent damage to the Valkyries. The Trancers mostly hung back so that they couldn't be picked off by the Void Archons, though one ran to deny Helga a landing zone in case she wanted to go after the Vuclan. Pigs Turn 2 I knew that I was going to cop a beating next turn, but I didn't really have much I could do about it this turn. I moved my War Hogs up so that they could reasonably threaten the extent of both zones. Brine hugged the wall on the left, and Valkyries positioned around him to provide support. I tried to make sure there were about 5 in range of Helga as well, and that she was camping 5 Fury, because there was a pretty live assassination run at anything less than that if Syvestro scored the Critical on a Stygian Abyss. The Gremlin Swarm on the right stood on the flag. The white proxy base still being used for Brine. Crucible Guard Turn 2 The Liberator ran to get close enough to tag the War Hog on the right with Stygian Abyss. Syvestro activated, used Super Fuel again, and Feated. He cast Stygian Abyss through the Liberator and while he didn't get a Critical Hit, he did roll triple 6s for the damage roll and do something like 13 points. The Dragon's Breath Rocket on the right tried to land a Withering Humours rocket but missed and scattered somewhere irrelevant. The one on the left, to avoid Shield Guards, shot at something out of range and scattered very nicely indeed, tagging both Brine and the War Hog on that flank. The Interceptor on the left moved up and sprayed at Brine, missing one of the shots and leaving Brine standing with ~15 boxes from memory. The Interceptor on the right moved up to the damaged War Hog on that flank and shut it repeatedly, leaving the War Hog on 1 box. That put the Vulcan in a difficult situation. It moved up, ensuring that its facing would allow it to spray Brine with both sprays. The first one knocked Brine to about eight boxes. The second spray killed Brine, healing the 1 hit point War Hog back to 5 boxes. The Rockets on the Vulcan's Shoulder were now facing the wrong way to target my nearly dead War Hog, and they couldn't have been used instead of the sprays to kill Brine because of the Valkyries. My opponent opted to shoot at the War Hog on the left instead, but I Shield Guarded both shots to Valkyries and allowed them to die so that my War Hog on the right could heal back to about 10 boxes all up. Trancers ran to contest, jam, and score my opponent's flag. With his flag under control, my opponent took the store to 1-0. Pigs Turn 3 I dropped Rapport and used my Soul Slave and some Valkyries to remove the jamming Trancers, after Mire moved up behind my War Hog to ensure that it wouldn't get pushed out of threat range of my opponent's Railless. I ran my right flank Void Archon into melee with the Vulcan. Helga then Feated, took a Fury from the Bone Shrine, and walked into melee with the Vulcan. She rolled a couple of snake eyes on attack rolls but also rolled pretty high for damage, so she ended up killing the Vulcan with a Fury to spare. She moved back to safety. Each War Hog killed a Railless and my opponent opted to concede. I forgot to take a picture of the end state, it was only about halfway through my turn. Boy, the Dhunian Archons are a real treat into this kind of match-up. The 2d3 healing each time a Shield Guard dies really helps destroy the efficiency of enemy guns, if you take the first hit on a Warbeast so that you have something to heal once the Valkyries start dying then you're effectively denying an extra 1-2 shots, and that little bit extra was what kept me from losing two heavies on Turn 2. I'm very much a fan of how they and the Valkyries were able to keep me in the game, even when my opponent only had a handful of direct fire guns relative to his many, many sprays. And Helga demonstrated her personal killing power quite adequately as well, even with some supremely swingy dice rolls.
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Post by Azahul on Mar 4, 2020 3:05:02 GMT
The last game I have to report was into Morghoul2. The lists, for reference, were: Helga on Wheels -War Hog -War Hog -Soul Slave Valkyries Valkyries Void Archon Void Archon Dhunian Archon Dhunian Archon Mire -Wrastler Rorsh -Brine Gremlin Swarm Gremlin Swarm Bone Shrine Lord Assassin Morghoul -Mammoth -Archidon -Swamp Horror -Basilisk Krea -Agoniser -Terroriser -Aptimus Marketh Min Paingiver Beast Handlers Siege Animantarax Siege Animantarax Deployment My opponent won the starting roll and took first. I took a table side with some LOS blocking terrain and a wall that I figured I could use to make it hard for the Animantarax to engage me. He set up both Battle Engines on his left flank, the Mammoth on the right flank, with Morghoul and the support crew largely in between. I ended up with a lot of my forces skewed towards the left flank, but had a unit of Valkyries and a War Hog angled more towards the right. Both objectives were Observatories. Skorne Turn 1 The Terroriser gave the Mammoth Rush, everything else ran up the board basically as fast as it could. Morghoul cast Shadow Play on himself I think and cast Force Aura just to get rid of some Fury. Pigs Turn 1 Hoo boy, those Animantarax were sure getting close in a hurry. I ran my Gremlin Swarms off towards the right flank to join up with the wall and my objective to create a block of territory that the Animantarax would not be able to engage. Everything packed itself into that space, with Brine in the lead. The blob was tight enough that the one unit of Valkyries I had on that flank were able to cover nearly all the models, while the War Hog on the right went and hid in the forest there with the other unit of Valkyries. Helga put up Battle Host and cast Rapport on the right flank War Hog in case it ended up fighting the Archidon. Skorne Turn 2 My opponent moved the Animantarax forward to shoot Brine repeatedly, getting a total of something like 5 shots and removing about half of his health even after I used all of Valkyries protecting him. The Terroriser gave Rush to the Mammoth again, which moved up and took a Full Battery attack on Brine, not quite killing him (or even crippling any aspects) but knocking him and a whole swathe of models on the left down. The Archidon and Swamp Horror moved up to take shelter behind some clouds. Pigs Turn 2 The knocked down heavies on the left were forced to stand. I figured that Brine could get into an Animantarax on the left, and Helga could get into the Mammoth. The Observatory gave Eyeless Sight to the War Hog on the right, enabling it to charge the Archidon and overtake into the Mammoth for some extra insurance. Helga upkept both spells. Mire moved Weald Secrets to Brine and moved across to Rage my War Hog on the right. The right-hand Void Archon ran to engage the Mammoth, my opponent chose not to Counterblast. I charged Helga in, the attempt to Crit Pitch her with the tusks and win the game on the spot missed. Helga rolled pretty lacklustre for damage on most of her attacks and left the Mammoth standing on about 15 boxes. She sprinted away. The War Hog charged in next, killing the Archidon with two initials, overtaking into the Mammoth, and after a series of shoddy rolls finally put it in the dirt as well. It used Sprint and Overtake to get a bit closer to protect Helga. A Dhunian Archon removed the Fury on my heavies from being forced to stand. Rorsh moved Brine up and sent him off to charge the Animantarax. Again, not great on the damage front, and the Animantarax survived on about five boxes (without a Void Archon I think Brine's odds of killing an Animantarax sit squarely at 50/50, so can't really complain). Brine backed up to try and force anything that kills him into the threat range of the rest of the list. I then more or less just ran models to block landing zones of anything that wanted to try and get to Helga. I scored the right-hand zone to put the score at 1-0 in my favour. Skorne Turn 3 Unfortunately, it was late and I was being sloppy, so I hadn't really bothered to check whether the bunker I'd built for Helga actually worked. Turns out that there was plenty of room for Morghoul to charge past the intervening models, land in front of Helga, Feat on her, and kill her comfortably with two or three attacks to spare. I made a lot of mistakes that game. I should have saved a Valkyrie or two for the Mammoth's activation on my opponent's second turn, and I should have taken greater care to see where Helga could sprint to. Ideally I think I could have had Helga and the Void Archon reverse their landing spots to engage the Mammoth, letting Helga sprint away more firmly towards the right flank where they were limited threats. I probably should have been more aggressive with the Void Archon on the left flank in its positioning. I was initially worried about putting it somewhere where the Animantarax could charge, because I felt that I would need it to kill the Animantarax in the end. I was right, in a sense, but if my opponent had actually committed an Animantarax to kill it then I would have had multiple heavies able to finish the Animanatarax in return. Being on the receiving end of longer threat ranges is something I'm still learning to deal with. This list is pretty good at minimising damage, but I'm still being overly cautious and unwilling to sacrifice models I think. Plus I really needed to pack all of my Valkyries into the blob rather than fully half of them protecting just one War Hog on the right flank (though at least one Valkyrie would have been needed to keep that War Hog from being tossed back into my deployment zone by the Mammoth). Lots of little things to learn from there, but I think it's a game I can learn to play.
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Post by chevelle on Mar 4, 2020 5:55:33 GMT
Really nice to see how Helga performs on the table. What are you going to pair with her, when you play her in a Tournament ?
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Post by Azahul on Mar 4, 2020 6:14:04 GMT
That's really where Helga falls down, I think. She's good, but she doesn't do much "different" to Arkadius on the match-up level. She isn't as strong as Arkadius into the match-ups he's good at, and she gets punished pretty hard by the match-ups he struggles at, as well as a couple of extra match-ups beside. I guess I'd probably lean towards pairing her with Sturm and Drang? It's probably a strictly weaker pairing than Arkadius/Sturm and Drang, but it's probably the way to go. Alternatively, a Midas infantry heavy list might work, just to offer something completely different (although then I end up with double Dhunian Archons in both lists). I've been meaning to put some Midas lists I've been brainstorming up on the table for a while now, I just haven't because... I really don't like playing Midas, honestly. But this may be a reason to test it out just to shake up my pairing. Maybe I'll have a better idea with her after a few more games. I actually rather hope Azazello proves a good pair for her, it would be fun to only run Warlocks released in 2020 as a pair
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Post by charlzheimer on Mar 4, 2020 11:01:03 GMT
That's really where Helga falls down, I think. She's good, but she doesn't do much "different" to Arkadius on the match-up level. She isn't as strong as Arkadius into the match-ups he's good at, and she gets punished pretty hard by the match-ups he struggles at, as well as a couple of extra match-ups beside. I guess I'd probably lean towards pairing her with Sturm and Drang? It's probably a strictly weaker pairing than Arkadius/Sturm and Drang, but it's probably the way to go. Alternatively, a Midas infantry heavy list might work, just to offer something completely different (although then I end up with double Dhunian Archons in both lists). I've been meaning to put some Midas lists I've been brainstorming up on the table for a while now, I just haven't because... I really don't like playing Midas, honestly. But this may be a reason to test it out just to shake up my pairing. Maybe I'll have a better idea with her after a few more games. I actually rather hope Azazello proves a good pair for her, it would be fun to only run Warlocks released in 2020 as a pair conflictchamber.com/?cb201b_-2mcUfy0M0Mfz0L0L0YoPoPfF0Ofl0OfljDMinions [Theme] The Thornfall Alliance [Midas 1] Midas [+30] - Battle Boar [7] - Gun Boar [8] - Gun Boar [8] - Splatter Boar [8] - War Hog [14] - War Hog [14] - Targ [3] Dhunian Archon [0(6)] Dhunian Archon [0(6)] Swamp Gobber Chef [1] Farrow Brigands (max) [15] - Farrow Brigand Warlord [0(4)] Farrow Brigands (max) [15] - Farrow Brigand Warlord [4] Farrow Valkyries [8] regarding midas unit army. this was something i had in the back of my head. perhaps a bit battle group heavy but i used to run a light wb army with midas and i love the gunboar splatterboar combo. also splatterboar gives you very accurate hex blasts.
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Post by Azahul on Mar 5, 2020 1:28:32 GMT
To be honest heavies with Midas did get a lot better now that they can dial on Feat turn. And I am more than a little curious to see how much healing can be done in Thornfall between Dhunian Archons and Salvage... All my fun with Gremlin Swarms with Helga also makes me excited for the release of the Carver mini crate. I fully intend to throw Hermit in too and just give opponents the worst play experience ever with a Quagmire'd Gremlin Swarm that takes a minimum of four hits to kill
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