Post by maplewhisky on Jan 21, 2018 4:51:12 GMT
Another day another game! This time vs Torbjorn Hansson's Vayl2.
He played (to the best of my knowledge)
Vayl2
-Ravagore
-Ravagore
-Seraph
-Nephilim Bolt Thrower
Warspears & UA
Warspears & UA
Hellmouth
Hellmouth
Eilish Garrity
75
So, initial thoughts are that Wind Storm should be good, because of Eilish Rebuke is sadly off the table (Rebuke is extra good vs Assault models) but Wind Storm should be decent. Hard part is Krueger loves to go low, and Vayl punishes that like a champ. He's playing the new Primal Terrors theme in CID. So, I win the roll and take first, because Hellmouths can get in the zones anyway and I don't want to lose AD models to Vayl on the top of one. Prey goes on both my Sentry Stones, so I opt to play incredibly safe with them, if you think about it, it's like giving my heavies +2 arm all game. Pretty good!
I run up, position the Sentries defensively, put Krueger too far back sadly (was spooked about some dumb bottom of 1 stuff but I should have been 6" away from the building in the middle of the board, behind my Sentry forest). Otherwise I set up the right hand Warden to TK around the wall and charge the Hellmouth in the zone. The other Hellmouth is in an Uranus location so I just set up to control the middle and contest the left. Wardens put out Wild Growths to stop Hellmouth drags, everything else just respects their threat for now.
Torbjorn does Legion stuff, the Seraph rocks up and puts some minor damage into my Warden. Both Ravagores shoot it and it takes some damage from Vayl, who also puts Occultation on herself. The tentacles kill some Mannikins. Warspears toe zones and shimmy around. Eilish chills in some rubble.
So, I have quite a nice play lined up this turn. I find that vs Legion with Circle they tend to be able to get around all your defensive crap, so you may as well just go as hard as you can and take trades where you can get them, and hopefully grind them out on scenario or something. So, the Woldwarden that got shot up is really beat up, so I decide we're going to commit this turn to get work out of it before another salvo comes in. So, this turn's order of operations is kinda complicated, but the rough plan is to kill the Seraph, put Undergrowth around the obstruction and use that, Wind Storm and my feat to keep my heavies mostly safe. Problem there is that I didn't know the Warspears have Relentless Charge. The more important part of the plan though is that with a TK and Hunter's Mark the right hand Warden can get into the right hand Hellmouth and kill it, forcing Torbjorn to commit to the right hand zone or I'll start scoring away from him fast, as his list has no models that're hard to clear out of a zone. I also very much do not want to damage the Warspears, because Vengeance will mostly neuter my feat.
So, to start with my Mannikins charge some tentacles in front of the Seraph, killing one. My Warden charges a tentacle over the obstruction, past it so the Seraph doesn't get cover and boosts a TK into it, turning it around and dragging it far enough from the silo that everything targetting it for the rest of the turn wouldn't suffer cover. It kills the Tentacle and one of my Mannikins. The Blackclad walks up and Hunter's Marks it. The Woldwyrd walks up and kills my Mannikin and the other Tentacle. Megalith gets powered up, TKs himself and charges the Seraph, casts Undergrowth (woops, didn't know this did nothing!) and kills the Seraph. Then, on the right hand side, my Woldwyrd kills 2 Tentacles in my Warden's arc. Both units of Stones port into zones. The right hand Blackclad walks up to Hunter's Mark the Hellmouth and misses! Truly unfortunate, so instead of charging my Warden just walks and uses its animus to stop drags. Krueger walks, TKs, feats and casts Wind Storm (which will stop any shots onto the Sentry Stone in front of him, preventing prey switches), hiding behind a Sentry forest. The other Sentry hides at the back of the table and uses its mannikins for a +2/+2 on the Shapers. The Guardian runs to Shield Guard my Sentry Stone and Krueger, but also tuck behind an obstacle to stop drags.
Nearly an incredibly strong turn, had the Hellmouth gone down I would have fully expected Torbjorn to just have to go for the assassination, as it was he only had 2 heavies in his face and was in no danger of losing control of scenario. So, he opted to hedge his bets and activate his army and put as much damage into my heavies as possible before seeing what the boardstate was and activating Vayl. So, the right hand Ravagore shoots my Sentry Stone and gets Shield Guarded, rolling 6,6,6 for damage on my Guardian and 6,6,5 for damage on my Blackclad. Okay. Then, the other Ravagore charges Megs and fluffs his damage a bit, leaving Megalith on I think 21 boxes. The right hand Spears activate, 2 charge my Warden and 1 my Sentry Stone. Wind Storm stops the Assault shot on my Stone, and the 2 Charges on my Warden leave it on 3 boxes, with Torbs rolling about 2 over average (I was rooting for it to die, so that Krueger would get 5 Transfers). Then, the other Spears put as much damage into Megs as possible, leaving him on 13 boxes (it was 2 assaults and 1 charge I believe. Opting to fight around chokes on Krueger's feat turn vastly reduces your damage intake. So, with all that said and done Vayl says "F this, I'm going to lose", and a Hellmouth Tentacle runs around my Guardian (I forgot he can arc through out of formation models) and into Krueger's back arc (terrible facing from me). Eilish puts Puppet Master on Vayl. Torbjorn's run here is just Vayl on Krueger2 camping 2. So, he misses his Icy Grip and opts not to reroll. He throws a Chasten, it hits, boosts and rolls a 15 for damage, I transfer to my Wyrd. He chastens, hits the 5, boosts damage and rolls a 12. I think for a long time. I reason that he has to roll a 21 on 6 dice if he hits me twice on 5s and he has one reroll, which is better than me taking this 12 which is already above the curve for damage, so I transfer, leaving my Wyrd on 1 box (still fully functional next turn as it's right next to some stones). So, he throws a Chasten at me, hits the 5 and rolls a 15 for damage. Then he throws a Storm at me, hits the 5 and rolls an 11 for damage and I die.
If you're counting, his average damage on the 12 damage die he rolled is 42. What he got was 53, and average damage is actually weighted to the side of transfers, because if he has one high spike and one low spike I can transfer the high and take the low and the run is basically over. On top of hitting all the 5s. Worse part is if I'd fixed my facing like a smart I would have lived, so yes, I could have done better, but the odds of me dying to that were very low and I had a fully functional battlegroup going into the next turn, so I would have just straight up won. Oh well, haven't been Vayl2'd in a while. :^)
In terms of what I could have done better, I think I played this quite well, but my first turn Krueger play should have been to have him get TK'd, Wind Storm and charge up the table camping 4 I think. As long as he's outside of 16" from the Ravagores they can't shoot him, and he could happily have been behind that obstacle for DEF19, with a Shield Guard. Then with every model of mine just behind him it keeps me totally safe from everything but Vayl's arcing shenanigans.
I'm not 100% sure if that's better, it might just be different. I find with Circle you have to just play so aggressive vs Legion, but it's something I'd look to test in a future game.
He played (to the best of my knowledge)
Vayl2
-Ravagore
-Ravagore
-Seraph
-Nephilim Bolt Thrower
Warspears & UA
Warspears & UA
Hellmouth
Hellmouth
Eilish Garrity
75
So, initial thoughts are that Wind Storm should be good, because of Eilish Rebuke is sadly off the table (Rebuke is extra good vs Assault models) but Wind Storm should be decent. Hard part is Krueger loves to go low, and Vayl punishes that like a champ. He's playing the new Primal Terrors theme in CID. So, I win the roll and take first, because Hellmouths can get in the zones anyway and I don't want to lose AD models to Vayl on the top of one. Prey goes on both my Sentry Stones, so I opt to play incredibly safe with them, if you think about it, it's like giving my heavies +2 arm all game. Pretty good!
I run up, position the Sentries defensively, put Krueger too far back sadly (was spooked about some dumb bottom of 1 stuff but I should have been 6" away from the building in the middle of the board, behind my Sentry forest). Otherwise I set up the right hand Warden to TK around the wall and charge the Hellmouth in the zone. The other Hellmouth is in an Uranus location so I just set up to control the middle and contest the left. Wardens put out Wild Growths to stop Hellmouth drags, everything else just respects their threat for now.
Torbjorn does Legion stuff, the Seraph rocks up and puts some minor damage into my Warden. Both Ravagores shoot it and it takes some damage from Vayl, who also puts Occultation on herself. The tentacles kill some Mannikins. Warspears toe zones and shimmy around. Eilish chills in some rubble.
So, I have quite a nice play lined up this turn. I find that vs Legion with Circle they tend to be able to get around all your defensive crap, so you may as well just go as hard as you can and take trades where you can get them, and hopefully grind them out on scenario or something. So, the Woldwarden that got shot up is really beat up, so I decide we're going to commit this turn to get work out of it before another salvo comes in. So, this turn's order of operations is kinda complicated, but the rough plan is to kill the Seraph, put Undergrowth around the obstruction and use that, Wind Storm and my feat to keep my heavies mostly safe. Problem there is that I didn't know the Warspears have Relentless Charge. The more important part of the plan though is that with a TK and Hunter's Mark the right hand Warden can get into the right hand Hellmouth and kill it, forcing Torbjorn to commit to the right hand zone or I'll start scoring away from him fast, as his list has no models that're hard to clear out of a zone. I also very much do not want to damage the Warspears, because Vengeance will mostly neuter my feat.
So, to start with my Mannikins charge some tentacles in front of the Seraph, killing one. My Warden charges a tentacle over the obstruction, past it so the Seraph doesn't get cover and boosts a TK into it, turning it around and dragging it far enough from the silo that everything targetting it for the rest of the turn wouldn't suffer cover. It kills the Tentacle and one of my Mannikins. The Blackclad walks up and Hunter's Marks it. The Woldwyrd walks up and kills my Mannikin and the other Tentacle. Megalith gets powered up, TKs himself and charges the Seraph, casts Undergrowth (woops, didn't know this did nothing!) and kills the Seraph. Then, on the right hand side, my Woldwyrd kills 2 Tentacles in my Warden's arc. Both units of Stones port into zones. The right hand Blackclad walks up to Hunter's Mark the Hellmouth and misses! Truly unfortunate, so instead of charging my Warden just walks and uses its animus to stop drags. Krueger walks, TKs, feats and casts Wind Storm (which will stop any shots onto the Sentry Stone in front of him, preventing prey switches), hiding behind a Sentry forest. The other Sentry hides at the back of the table and uses its mannikins for a +2/+2 on the Shapers. The Guardian runs to Shield Guard my Sentry Stone and Krueger, but also tuck behind an obstacle to stop drags.
Nearly an incredibly strong turn, had the Hellmouth gone down I would have fully expected Torbjorn to just have to go for the assassination, as it was he only had 2 heavies in his face and was in no danger of losing control of scenario. So, he opted to hedge his bets and activate his army and put as much damage into my heavies as possible before seeing what the boardstate was and activating Vayl. So, the right hand Ravagore shoots my Sentry Stone and gets Shield Guarded, rolling 6,6,6 for damage on my Guardian and 6,6,5 for damage on my Blackclad. Okay. Then, the other Ravagore charges Megs and fluffs his damage a bit, leaving Megalith on I think 21 boxes. The right hand Spears activate, 2 charge my Warden and 1 my Sentry Stone. Wind Storm stops the Assault shot on my Stone, and the 2 Charges on my Warden leave it on 3 boxes, with Torbs rolling about 2 over average (I was rooting for it to die, so that Krueger would get 5 Transfers). Then, the other Spears put as much damage into Megs as possible, leaving him on 13 boxes (it was 2 assaults and 1 charge I believe. Opting to fight around chokes on Krueger's feat turn vastly reduces your damage intake. So, with all that said and done Vayl says "F this, I'm going to lose", and a Hellmouth Tentacle runs around my Guardian (I forgot he can arc through out of formation models) and into Krueger's back arc (terrible facing from me). Eilish puts Puppet Master on Vayl. Torbjorn's run here is just Vayl on Krueger2 camping 2. So, he misses his Icy Grip and opts not to reroll. He throws a Chasten, it hits, boosts and rolls a 15 for damage, I transfer to my Wyrd. He chastens, hits the 5, boosts damage and rolls a 12. I think for a long time. I reason that he has to roll a 21 on 6 dice if he hits me twice on 5s and he has one reroll, which is better than me taking this 12 which is already above the curve for damage, so I transfer, leaving my Wyrd on 1 box (still fully functional next turn as it's right next to some stones). So, he throws a Chasten at me, hits the 5 and rolls a 15 for damage. Then he throws a Storm at me, hits the 5 and rolls an 11 for damage and I die.
If you're counting, his average damage on the 12 damage die he rolled is 42. What he got was 53, and average damage is actually weighted to the side of transfers, because if he has one high spike and one low spike I can transfer the high and take the low and the run is basically over. On top of hitting all the 5s. Worse part is if I'd fixed my facing like a smart I would have lived, so yes, I could have done better, but the odds of me dying to that were very low and I had a fully functional battlegroup going into the next turn, so I would have just straight up won. Oh well, haven't been Vayl2'd in a while. :^)
In terms of what I could have done better, I think I played this quite well, but my first turn Krueger play should have been to have him get TK'd, Wind Storm and charge up the table camping 4 I think. As long as he's outside of 16" from the Ravagores they can't shoot him, and he could happily have been behind that obstacle for DEF19, with a Shield Guard. Then with every model of mine just behind him it keeps me totally safe from everything but Vayl's arcing shenanigans.
I'm not 100% sure if that's better, it might just be different. I find with Circle you have to just play so aggressive vs Legion, but it's something I'd look to test in a future game.