50pts Reznik (Menoth) vs. eMadrak (Trollbloods)

Saturday, I was lucky enough to land two games against Menoth. I don't get to play Menoth very often, so I had no idea what to bring, except Pyres. The problem is that I never bring Pyre Trolls, so I didn't want to metagame. My lists, therefore, stayed pretty much the same. My opponent brought Reznik1 out, and I dropped eMadrak, because... that's what I do.

Incidentally, when you see Reznik, it's not the original model, it's been modified, and actually legitimate, not the miniature armored dude the regular model consists of. It looks good. In fact, my opponents whole army looked legit. Anyways, as I said, I rarely play against Menoth so Reznik is new to me.

His feat isn't bad though. Strips all fury/focus points, applies fire to someone who casts spells (E.G., Runeshapers, TAC, etc), and doesn't allow focus allocation. Against me, it will strip the fury off of my beasts, I'll lose my upkeeps, and I'll have to cut my caster for fury. Not a big deal. In fact, in the right circumstances, him taking all the fury off my beasts is kinda cool. I imagine all of these full-blooded dire trolls charging around and then Reznik reads his stuff, and suddenly, they're less mad I guess? The other neat thing he does is when he kills a model, he creates a wrack right there.

His spells are Engine of Destruction, which boosts his SPD, STR and MAT for a round. Ignite, +2 damage and crit fire. Hex blast, a ranged AOE that clears upkeeps from a unit. Iron Aggression, boosted melee and free charges for warjacks. Perdition, a ranged attack that if it damages a model, a warjack may make a full advance.

Cool. I won the rolloff, and he elected the side of the map he wanted. We actually did a scenario, but if you've read any of my batreps yet, you know that 9 times out of 10, I completely ignore the scenario. It's not that I'm trying to, but in the case of this scenario, we have 2 melee monster casters smashing into the middle ground. By the time either of us gets close enough to dominate, the other has charge range. It's that simple.

Our lists were the following:

Reznik1
*Avatar of Menoth
*Reckoner
Choir
Maddie Corbeau
Vessel of Judgement
Vassal Mechanichs x2
Knights Exemplar
Knights Exemplar
Knights Exemplar
Wracks
Dartan Vilmont
Vassal of Menoth

I think that's right. I don't have Menoth on my Warroom yet to add up the cost, but I think that's it.

eMadrak
*Runebearer
*Impaler
*Slag Troll
*Axer
Fennblades w/UA
Long Riders
Sons of Bragg
Krielstone Bearer w/UA
Janissa
Fenn Kithkar

So, first off, I made a huge mistake not bringing the Chronicler, or the Fell Caller. I realized I didn't have room for it with the Long Riders. I think in the future, I'll be dropping the Sons of Bragg because A) They're a Character unit, and B) don't particularly need Madrak's help to be good, and C) They're in my pGrim list too.

Secondly, I really like the Storm Troll I normally have in this list, but I had a point extra so I took the Axer for feat. He did ok, but I missed my Storm troll. However, when I get Horthol, he'll replace the Stormtroll entirely, so there's that.

Thirdly, I found out that Janissa is not a small-based character. When I got her used, she was already glued to a small base, so I just assumed that since she was a petite as trolls can get, she got a small base. It was really nice too because she could be right near madrak (outside of grim salvation), and not block line of sight to him. No more. But I'm glad someone pointed it out.

So, we deployed. I put Fenns on the right, Long riders on the left and beasts right down the middle. Sons of Bragg go in the back as a second line, end-game piece, and an awesome unit at clear up jams for my Fenns.

He put his jacks to my left, and Exemplars everywhere. Remember, there's three units, so he puts one to the left, and one to the right, then carefully mixes the third one up in the middle, setting them up within the other units so everything's in CMD, but so I can't really kill a whole unit in a turn. The Vessel goes on my right to cause pain for my Fenns, and support most of the Exemplars. Apparently, the Vessel can martyr or something, a model that dies in it's CMD, and cause it to hit back before it dies. Which is legit. It's like immediate Vengeance. He also places his wracks, spreading them out all over the place.


I lead off. I do some math on the Vessel of Judgement (which has a ranged attack) and go forward with it. Moses puts Harmonious Exaltation on Madrak for a cheaper spell. The beasts run forward, riling up to 5 fury between the 3 of them. Madrak puts Blood Fury down on the Fenns for 1, dumps the rest to the stone, and moves up, KSB moves up with him, pops aura, and for a change, tells Menoth NO to fire and stuff. Felt good. Janissa moves up and completes the kodiak moment with a wall.

The Long Riders run, and the Fenns run. They're DEF10 now with Blood fury, but I'm hoping I mathed well enough to keep them safe from the Vessel for a turn. It's got a RNG12 shot that essentially electro leaps d3 times to the nearest models. Not like chain lightning, which is... you know, a chain, but all 1-3 strikes originate from the first target. The More you Know.

The Sons of Bragg move up, and I believe that's it. Oh, the Kithkar runs up behind the Fenns.



In reply, the horde of Exemplars runs forward. Remember now, there's three units. marked by red, white and black skirts (ha), and the red ones get Ignite from Reznik as he moves up. The Exemplars are neat because for each one that dies, it adds +1STR and ARM to the survivors. There's like, six in a unit? The last guy is basically a light warbeast. They're a pain. Not so much as the dudes with self-sacrifice, but still a pain.

Reznik is still activated, and he puts Iron Aggression on the Reckoner (I believe), and camps. The Avatar generates a whopping 4 focus (turn 1...) and runs. There's an upkeep token next to him, so I feel like he gazed, but I'm not sure if he can gaze and run at the same time, so it might not be gaze.

The reckoner assaults forward, misses a Long Rider, and the Choir shuffles up and says I can't shoot their jacks. My Slag troll's shoulders visibly sag.



But wait! There's a huge based model nearby that's not living! The giant portable organ is apparently not living, so the Slag's good to go. Madrak pulls in his fury, upkeeps Blood Fury on the Fenns. The Impaler moves up, far strikes the Slag, and pitches a spear at someone but misses. The Slag walks up, throws at the Vessel, ends up hitting twice, boosting damage, and taking the Vessel down to like, 5 boxes. Not bad.

The Fenns Minifeat and charge, and apparently the Exemplars are all fearless, which is cool, but my Fenns still pretty much tear them apart. I don't manage to kill all of one unit, but I kill a good chunk of two of them. My favorite was the far right Fenn that killed the Wrack, and got 2 more Exemplars because of it blowing up. And my Fenn lived. Ha. However, because of the Vessel of Judgement, two exemplars martyr, and kill 2 fenns who fail tough before the exemplars themselves die.

The Long riders shuffle across, and one charges the Avatar, doing 8pts of Damage and tieing them up for a bit. Sons of Bragg press forward, and Madrak walks up, drops Warpath, camps 2. The KSB moves up, pops aura, no continuous effects, and Janissa pops the wall again.






Not a bad turn. The counter strike is coming though. Reznik upkeeps both spells, and the Avatar generates 2 focus. My opponent starts by measuring control, but he's outside of 12'' for the assassination with Maddie. So, an Exemplar uses it to move up, and the Vessel moves up and shoots my Kithkar, boosts (by 'cutting' itself) and kills the fenn UA, but only just fails to get the Kithkar. The Exemplars counter attack, and takes the Fenns population down to about 5, including the drummer.

Incidentally! Did you know the Drummer has takeup? So I could park the guy next to Madrak, and when he grim salvations, another Fenn can run to take his place if he's within 3''. Pretty stupid. Madrak can never die. "Camp Fury? What for!?" he announces loudly to all of his nervous friends nearby.

The other Exemplar unit moves up in a charge run and tie up one Longrider, and kill the one engaging the Avatar. The Avatar then walks up, and gazes. The Reckoner assaults forward again, and kills a Long Rider. Then a Vassal gives him another shot, and he shoots my Long Rider leader, but he toughs. First Tough of the game.

Dartan runs up and does Stone and Mortar, stance, I think, creeping up on my flank. Reznik moves up, camps focus.



I think really hard about assassination this turn with Madrak. I suspect I can tide of death up to the caster, but it doesn't seem like it'll work so I go a different route. The Fenns kill a few Exemplars, which in turn kill them back because of the Vessel. One of them even finishes the Kithkar.

I drop Blood Fury, and Warpath both. The Long Riders want to charge lots of things, but the Avatar of Menoth says no. So the Slag lobs rocks at it, takes it down pretty respectably, but not quite enough.

Moses exalts Madrak, and Madrak walks up, puts Blood Fury on the Long Riders, and puts a fury to the stone, camping 2. Everyone else does the normal truffle shuffle, e.g. KSB moves, stations around Madrak, camps, and Janissa walls up.

The Long Riders go ahead and charge the Avatar and kill it, with ease. The Sons Assault forward, or really, just Tor, who sprays Dartan and cranks the damage rolls with Fervor, killing the noble paladin, my favorite dude in Menoth (granted, the rest of the faction sets such a low bar).

What I should have done is kill the Avatar with the sons of Bragg, and charge the Long Riders into other stuff, but I didn't. My PG pointed out that I could have put 3 or 4 ranged attacks into Reznik this turn with feat (Two thrown axes and 2 spears from the Impaler,), and finished him off with a Long Rider charge, but that didn't occur to me. Should have, it didn't. Once I figured out I couldn't Tide of Death around the place, I didn't want to assassinate anymore.

The axer, which incidentally, has done 0 this game, moves up into the zone and gets ready for late game carnage. The Storm troll would have been better for this list. Even Horthol... Or hey! Fell Caller and Chronicler, but no.

The Fenns charge, one getting into the Vessel of Judgement, and ending it's sad existence. The rest work on killing more Exemplars, which are now getting pretty ridiculous as far as ARM and STR. Little 1pt paladins all over the place. Not sure how that works. I assume they just put on all the armor their buddies had, and use their steroids too.

The Impaler moves over to protect Madrak from a direct charge and throws at something insignificant. Should have tried to crit smite the Reckoner, but I didn't. I've got 2 fury on Madrak, but I don't want to go over too much, even though I'm pretty sure Reznik is feating this turn.



Reznik is in trouble. He drops Iron Aggression since the Avatar is dead, and pulls a focus from his wrack which decides to esplode. Maddie lets him move up, but he really doesn't think he can get past the Impaler, AND kill Madrak enough times to get past like, 5 grim salvations. So he feats, and walks over to the wreck of the Avatar for cover. He kills a Long Rider, and wracks him up, then puts Iron Aggression on the Reckoner. The Exemplars move in and kill a few more Fenns, but they're both running low in numbers. One of them gets into the remaining Long Rider, the leader, and forces a tough check again, which he passes somehow.

The Reckoner assaults forward, and forces a Tough check on my Son of Bragg with reach, Wrathar. Then he whacks him, kills him, whacks Tor, and kills him too.



Now, I can assassinate. Fenns Vengeance around, I drop Blood Fury. The last Son of Bragg charges the Reckoner and does ok. The stones activate, move around. They lost all of their fury in the feat, so I have nothing left to pop, and I'm certainly not giving them any with Madrak. Madrak charges, and has plenty of distance to Reznik. He boosts to hit, hits, does solid damage. Buys, hits, buys, hits, and kills Reznik.



Thoughts on the game:

1. No Fell Callers and Chroniclers was dumb. I could have really screwed with some Errants if I'd had "Hero's Tragedy" (Enemy model is KD if it hits model in unit), and some +2 attack rolls would have been cool. Overall, I didn't miss them too much, but I very easily could have, and they most certainly would have done more work than my Axer did.

2. I had a solid assassination that I passed up. I didn't feel like I really needed to take it though. I was attritioning halfway decent, and my opponent had actually scored a point earlier when he killed an objective with an exemplar (forgot that) but I still felt like I was cutting down his forces well enough that I didn't need to worry about it too much. The reckoner might have been an issue, but if I hadn't felt confident on the assassination, I 1) wouldn't have gone for it and 2) would have moved the KDed longrider first to engage the Reckoner, getting another attack on him. Not enough to kill, but tie him up. Eventually it would have basically been Madrak vs. Reznik, but I still had an Axer left, a few Fenns (A force to be reckoned with on Blood Fury), and I still had a full unit of Kriel stones (Blood Fury makes them pretty decent too), Janissa (who has an AP attack, believe it or not), against Reznik, part of a Reckoner, a few Exemplars on the opposite side of the map from my Fenns, and Choir. I was doing decent, as long as I didnt' let Reznik kill me, which would have been difficult regardless.

3. I screwed on the assassination run, not getting Blood Fury onto Madrak with the Runebearer, that was dumb. Worked out, I had plenty to spare, because I could feat, kill the two Exemplars within reach of Madrak and get 2 more fury, plus another attack on Reznik and finish him off. Overall, it went fine, but I felt dumb for not getting blood fury.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed the game. I have one more, eReznik (The new Battle Engine Caster from Vengeance) vs. eDoomy. Comments, crits, all welcome.

50pts, Kallus (Legion) vs. pGrim (Trollbloods)

It was a busy weekend. Not quite tournament, but a lot of games. I had a second game with my Legion opponent from the batrep I posted Saturday morning, and I was fortunate enough to get 2 more games in later Saturday. There's a eMadrak vs. Reznik, and a proxy-heavy eDoomy vs. the new Menoth caster, Reznik2. We'll go chronologically though here. My legion opponent had another list he wanted to try, and that was Kallus. If you're unfamiliar with Kallus, it's because he's got a common Cryx problem. He's a decent caster in a faction of amazing ones. You rarely hear of Kallus when there is Lylyth2, Vayl1, Vayl2, Thag1 and Thag2, so on, so forth. No matter your playstyle, there's a legion caster that does it aggressively and competently. Kallus is also an infantry caster in a beast-heavy faction, a fight that the twins Rhyas and Saeryn have as well. The goal of these batreps aren't to brag about how good I did, or he did, but so that A) You can point out my mistakes and say hey, jedi, you suck at reading the rules, and B) You can learn about these two casters and when someone drops them on the board across from you, you're not completely clueless. I can count on one hand the times I've fought Harbinger, but thanks to Marx's batreps, I've kinda got a clue as to whats going on.

So, Kallus. He's also male, which I think is unique to him and Thagrosh in Legion... so there is that. For starters, he grants unyielding (+2 ARM for engaged models) to friendly models in his CMD. His four spells are Flashing Blade (Selective Thresher attack), Ignite (+2 Damage and crit fire), Eruption (POW14 AOE that stays in place) and Dark Guidance (Extra dice to attack rolls for faction models.). His feat grants +2 DEF to soulless models, and friendly warrior models killed in his control area become incubi. So, units hit accurately, with some decent damage, and expect a lot of bodies on feat turn. He tarpits crazy well.

Kallus
*Carnivean
*Scythean
Beast Mistress
*Shredder
*Shredder
*Shredder
*Shredder
Nyss Shepherd
Nyss Legionairres w/UA
Nyss Hex Hunters w/UA
Spawning Vessel

I dropped pGrim. I had no idea if that was a good idea or not, but I wanted to vary my casters up a bit. Jarl wouldn't have been bad for this list, but I felt like pGrim would be ok. My pGrim list is pretty janky though. See, I just got Mulg, and I really wanted to use him, I didn't even care if the list was functional, I just wanted him in there. So yeah. pGrim can do work too. One gun is RNG13 and adds +2 SPD for a beast charging the target hit, and the other gun is a RNG8 snare gun that KDs a target. His spells are great too. Cross Country gives Hunter and pathfinder to a unit/model. Marked for death removes incorporeal and stealth and drops DEF by 2. Lock the Target, if it damages the target, will prevent any running, charging, special attacks and all that on the model, and Return Fire is a cost 1 spell that lets a model fire if anything I have is targeted. I also realize I just got that wrong, and though the model the spell is on has to be targeted. That means... well, idk if it would have changed anything, I don't think he shot at me. But yeah. Good to know. Anyways. I really like the Earthborn on pGrim, but since I had Mulg, I reaaally wanted to use him instead. Besides, SPD4, +3 for Charge and +2 for Reach, plus another 2'' for Grim's rifle, and I can sling a SPD4 Beast out for a threat range of 11''. Add in Mulg being wounded and he's Relentless, adding in +2SPD to that. So yeah.

pGrim
*Mulg
*Bomber
*Impaler
Fennblades w/UA
Long Riders
Chronicler
Sons of Bragg

I won the rolloff, chose to go first. Fenns to one side, beasts to the other. My opponent matched me exactly and we set off.



First off, the beasts ran and generated fury up to 3. pGrim put Cross Country on the Long Riders, Return Fire on the Bomber and camped 3. The Fenns ran 12'', the Chronicler put "Tales of Mist" on them (concealment and can't be targeted while KD). Sons of Bragg move up and do +4 tough like the Boomhowlers. Long Riders sprinted for the woods.



Did you know that Hex Hunters are crazy fast? SPD7. I moved 12'' up the board and these losers sprint 14'' and tie me up. Crazy fast. And they didn't kill any fenns either. The least they could have done was give me Vengeance, but no.

The Legionairres move up and clump together, taking advantage of Defensive Line (+2 ARM B2B), and the Beast Mistress moves up and between her and her little army of miniature t-rexes, spams 8 Shredder animuses, Tenacity. +1DEF and ARM. Not bad. 11pt module, but seems neat.

The two beasts move up. Kallus moves up and gets Ignite on the Hex Hunters, in fact, I think he did that first.



No vengeance and my Fenns are tied up. Exactly what I didn't want. I really hoped I was far enough out of range of getting tied like that, but no. So I think about it for awhile, pull in fury and upkeep Cross Country. My Long Riders push farther into the woods, setting up for the flank attack next turn. Mulg walks up, and crunches a Hex Hunter engaging the far left Fenn.

The Impaler far strikes the bomber, and walks around Mulg. The Sons of Bragg move up, fervor (+2 to hit in melee and ranged, +2 damage), and Tor very carefully sprays the three Hex hunters engaging my next Fenn, kills all three, and the spray doesn't even touch my Fenn.

Then the Bomber shuffles forward, and chucks a bomb at the Hex Hunter UA, who is stealthed. Which is cool, I'm down with that. The blast deviates PERFECTLY back and to the left, and kills a couple of Hex Hunters, and leaves 1 box on the UA. Not bad. Bomber throws again, obviously misses because of Stealth, drifts AGAIN PERFECTLY back and to the right this time! Kills four hex hunters, leaving the UA and two in the front, all three promptly failing CMD.

Luck, dudes.

The Chronicler moves up and puts Hero's Tragedy on the fenns (If a warrior model hits, after the action is resolved, he's KD). The Fenns minifeat (Legionairres are Fearless I think so no worries there), and charge into the Swordsmen. Between the +1 DEF, +1 ARM on most of them, Unyielding, and Defensive line, these dudes are ARM20. I manage to kill 2 of them, and that's it, but still. Now my Tarpit is where I want them to be, and not vice versa.




So, the tarpit didn't work. My opponent is in damage control somewhat, but not too bad. The terms aren't his, but he's still doing ok, and my Fenns are going to struggle to do anything. He drops Ignite, and moves his Legionairres around, opening lanes and getting better positions. He doesn't want to kill a Fenn and get KD quite yet, but he'll take the Vengeance to shuffle.

The Carnivean starts off, and moves forward, spends a fury, and pushes the Scythean forward an inch, which I have never seen before. Kallus moves up, feats, and puts Ignite on the Scythean. He also casts Dark Guidance, which is an awesome spell. So now, the Scythean can't charge, run, anything, but he can move, and with Reach, has it. So he walks up, and I warn him. "Hey, Mulg has protective fit."

"Right, where he walks in and makes an attack."

"Yeah, everytime you hit."

"That's stupid."

So he changes his mind, and walks towards Mulg instead. He manages to kill Mulg, which is really sad, and has a bit to spare, so he swings at Grim, and I transfer to my Bomber, and kills it's spirit. And that's it for the Scythean.

The Legionairres charge, and three of them go after pGrim, hoping to finish him, but they're just out, by a hair's breadth, all three of them. The rest of them annihilate the Fenns that were engaging them, and then mini-feat with Iron Zeal, which stands them all back up and gives them +4 ARM, as if they needed it.

Also, the Spawning Vessel gets enough souls, and spawn ANOTHER shredder, and sends it careening into pGrim. Maybe that's what damaged the Bomber, I don't remember. But pGrim was pretty engaged at the end of the turn.



So now it's my turn. I lost Mulg, I'm losing Fenns, but I think I'm still ahead. However, I love assassinations, so I work through some pretty basic order of activation math. I have my Impaler, my Bomber, and maybe a few charge attacks with the Fenns, and I think I can kill Kallus, who's sitting on 2 transfers. I have easy access to Knockdown, I have my feat (-3DEF and SPD for enemy models in my Ctrl), so it's not too bad. Unhappily, my Bomber is engaged by one of the Legionairres that charged pGrim, and pGrim is engaged by a Scythean and Shredder. So, I pull in fury, cut for one or whatever I need, and upkeep Cross Country. The Long Riders charge, three of them at the Carnivean, and 2 at the Scythean, slamming him into the wall and knocking him down, leaving him on very little. The other three inflict mild damage to the Carnivean, but don't reach impact range, so no slam.

Happily though, pGrim is no longer engaged, by the Scythean, but I still have the Shredder, and I'd like the Scythean to be dead too. Tor assaults the Shredder, Wrathar with reach slips in behind him, and Rhudo runs over and makes faces at the Scythean who was out of his melee range. The Sons do Fervor again, and between Tor's spray, and the three attacks, murder the Shredder, freeing Grim finally.

Almost there. I debate about activating my Fenns first, but I go ahead and open with Grim. He spends 2 to farstrike himself, aims, feats, and I seriously debate about boosting. I need a 5. They say to boost if you absolutely need this to hit, but for a 5? If I had a fury left, I could far strike the Bomber, and which I really need to do sincethe Impaler doesn't have enough to farstrike them both. So, I finally get brave enough to roll it.

I get a 7.

KDs Kallus. He then spends a fury to heal the Spirit on the Bomber so that he can force him, and puts Farstrike on him. Now, with the Fenns, I want to charge, but he reminds me that Kallus has Unyielding, so I pass, and focus on the Legionairre engaging the Bomber instead, and manage to kill him, creating an incubi which I kill with another Fenn. Think that was the only incubi I created too lol.

The Impaler starts off, throws, connects, and does a crazy amount of damage. My opponent decides to keep it. I have 2 attacks left with the Bomber, and he has 2 transfers. Game over. I don't have much of a choice, but at the least, I might kill off the two beasts and keep Grim alive. So the bomber hits, boosts damage. POW16 is dice even, and Kallus transfers 15 or 16 damage to his Carnivean, leaving him at 5 boxes. The Scythean is at 4. I buy a second shot, hit, and boost damage again, and get another cranked damage roll. Easily enough to kill the Carnivean and Scythean both and have enough left over to polish off Kallus.



Thoughts on the game.

1. My dice were on fire, and not just damage rolls, but my deviations. Those bomber deviations were amazing, and perfect. I couldn't have aimed them better.
2. The list was a recommendation from another Legion player, who plays the Hex Hunters behind the Legionairres. I think this was the first time my opponent had tried this one, and I benefited from the unfamiliarity. The other way to do it is to tie the Legionaires into the front lines, and feat. Then, I struggle to kill them, when I do, I deal with Incubi. On his turn, he has left over legionairres, a bunch of Incubi, and a full unit of hex hunters with Battle mage. I suffer up to 4 waves of attacks, which is pretty brutal. Fenn Blades with Vengeance mitigates it some, but not that much.
3. I really like pGrim, but mainly because he lives and breathes assassination... and I like that.

Anyways, hope you guys learned something! Point out problems, errors, comments, crits, you name it.

50pts Rhyas (Legion) vs. eMadrak (Trollbloods)

Got a few games in on Friday, both against Legion. There for awhile, it seemed like every game I played was against Legion, but I haven't actually played against them much lately. I haven't missed them. It's also a new game. I felt like Cygnar was pretty decently set up against Legion. I could stand a decent chance of shooting a beast off of the board per turn. Trollbloods don't have that same ability nearly as readily available as Cygnar does. So I was excited to face off against Legion some more. I couldn't really think of casters to bring. I almost bought Jarl, but then realized that clouds help me not at all against most Legion lists (Would have been great for this one, but ok). I knew I wanted to play eMadrak once, because he's definitely in one of my lists, and the other one would probably be pGrim. He decided on bringing Rhyas, and I settled on Madrak for the first matchup.

Rhyas
*Typhon
*Naga Bolt Thrower (Proxied by the Naga Soldier)
*Shredder
Nyss Swordsmen w/UA
Ogrun Warspears w/ UA
Nyss Raptors
Anyssa Ryvall
Spawning Vessel

For eMadrak, I brought pretty generally the same list I've been playing, with the exception of the Champions. I dropped the Champions in favor of the new box of Long Riders I was fortunate to land during a fire sale. (Half off, yo), and swapped them in there. I want Horthol in the near future, and that'll be a straight swap with the Storm Troll.

eMadrak
*Runebearer
*Slag Troll
*Impaler
*Stormtroll
Fenns w/UA
Kithkar
Long Riders
Min KSB w/ Elder
Janissa
Sons of Bragg
Fell Caller

He won the roll off, finally. We tied three times. He elected to go first and set up. Most of his infantry went left, and his Cavalry and Warspears went right. I setup kind of weird, putting the Long Riders opposite of the swordsmen, and sending the Fenns after the heavy stuff on the right. My reasoning was that with Blood Fury, my Fenns could kill anything, so I dropped the hard hitters against the Swordsmen which, I hoped, would struggle against ARM17 8 box models.



He started off. Typhon ran forward as far as he could. Rhyas moved up behind him, cast Rapport on him (He gets her excellent MAT/RAT) and dropped Dash, giving everyone in her control range 1'' SPD. Then everything ran. The Warspears and Anyssa both put Prey on my Fennblades.



Moses (runebearer) put a cheaper spell down for Madrak. The slag ran forward. The Impaler shuffled up, but put Far Strike (snipe) on the Stormtroll first. The Stormtroll moved up, shot at a raptor, hit, did minimal damage, and arced just once, doing nothing. Madrak put Blood Fury down on the Fenns for 1 fury, dropped the rest to the stone and moved foward to be in line with the Slag and Impaler. The Stone moved up and popped aura, and the Elder put down no continuous effects. The Fenns minifeated and charged, and only one was in melee, which he missed. And they passed their CMD.

The sons of Bragg moved up, did +4 tough, and the Fell caller, WHO I SHOULD HAVE ACTIVATED BEFORE THE FENNS, moved up and did nothing... Janissa moved up and dropped a wall, and the Long Riders ran and spread out.



Rhyas upkept Rapport and pulled in her fury. The Raptors started off, and shot the fenns, including the one in Melee. Every one of them hit, and every one of them killed with poison (extra dice damage), and Anyssa herself killed 2. No toughs. The Warspears assaulted, and I finally got two or three toughs there, but then Typhon moved up and killed everything that was left of them. Not a particularly wonderful start. The Swordsmen run and get into their 3 man groups to make use of Defensive line. Rhyas shuffles around, and the Vessel cries about not being close enough to the fenns to collect souls.




Not a great start for me. I pull in my Fury and uh, don't upkeep Blood Fury. I start off with the Storm troll, who moves to the right and launches a shot into the nearest Ogrun and boosts damage. The eleaps don't do anything, and I only manage to damage the Ogrun. I can't remember all of the activations here, but between the Slag, Tor's spray (sons of Bragg) and the impaler, I kill the three Legionairres on the back right, and the Slag gets his +2 damage Animus on the Kithkar.

The Rune bearer slips forward, and barely has range to the Kithkar. Always bring a Kithkar to a Madrak fight. I love that little 2pt solo. He gets Blood Fury on him, and the Kithkar charges the Ogrun UA and kills him easily, and puts damage on another one with the second attack.

The Long Riders send 2 in for a charge (not bull rush), and they kill one, maybe two. The Legionairres are fairly decent DEF atm, but their ARM is pretty handy as well, so the Impacts don't do terribly much. I get one or two.

Madrak charges the nearest Legionairre, kills him, and feats. If you're not aware of his feat, everything in his control area makes an attack at everything in his Melee range. So, he kills the 2 he's engaged with, and pulls in 3 fury for the guy he killed on the charge, and the 2 he feated on. The two Long Riders kill everything they're engaging except the Legionairre UA. All of the ranged beasts I have get an extra attack from feat, but there's nothing in range, so I don't worry about it. The Kithkar, however, between Blood Fury and the Slag animus, murders every single Warspear he's in melee with, leaving one just out of reach.

Madrak takes the 2 fury he got from the feat kills, and moves 2'' back because of Tide of Death. He casts Warpath, puts Blood Fury on the sons, drops a fury, keeps 2, and puts another on the Stone. The KSB moves up, pops aura, Janissa drops a wall, and the Fell Caller moves up. I think I actually got that wrong, I think the Fell Caller got War Cry onto Madrak earlier (Plus 2 to attack rolls).



Not a bad feat turn, but now Madrak's far enough up the board that he has to die, or he'll probably get range on something and tide of death into Rhyas. Madrak's got 5 Grim Salvation targets, and 2 fury. He's also DEF18 behind the wall and ARM19 because of the stone.

The Legionairre UA has Vengeance, and kills a Long rider. Rapport is upkept, and Anyssa starts the game. She shoots the Kithkar in the back and kills him. The Raptors move up and put their shots into the Slag, but fail to do significant damage. Rhyas feats, kills a Long Rider, and runs away. Her feat is kinda wierd. If your model hits it's target, it get to flip anywhere base to base with it, and gets another attack. Kinda handy, but doesn't help the ranged game at all.

The Legionairre UA charges, hits the Imapler, and kills a KSB dude. Typhon walks up and sprays Madrak and KSBs 3 times. I get a few toughs, but at the end of this, between sprays and Grim Salvation, my KSB and Janissa are all dead.

In all of this, the Spawning vessel has gotten enough souls, and has a Shredder. The overall goal is to force Madrak to grim salvation/transfer enough times that the rabid shredder can kill him. The last ranged unit is the Bolt Thrower. He moves, boosts to hit and actually hits, and Crits.... The Crit effect is a slam. It KDs madrak, but slides him far enough to place the Runebearer within Grim Salvation range, and I think I've still got a transfer left... The other thing is now for the Shredder to get into melee with me, he'll be outside of Rhyas's control range... So the Shredder hits the Slag troll instead and kills him. I let the fury go, because I was running hot anyways. Rhyas has 0 fury between buying attacks and boosting and such.



So the wall goes away. Madrak drops Warpath, and spends a Fury to upkeep. Moses stands up and gives him a cheaper spell, but it's pretty pointless at this point. The Impaler kills the Legionairre UA, and the Fell Caller gives Madrak +2 to hit, and Madrak charges a Vessel Acolyte. He hits, kills, takes a fury, spends it to Tide of death and starts working his way through models. He kills three before he's in range of Rhyas, but she's behind the pillar and gets cover. This is my mistake, I should have tide of deathed around the whole vessel, killed all of the acolytes (they're easy to kill) until I landed on a side of Rhyas that didn't get cover. Instead, I boost to hit, do solid damage, and she transfers it to Typhon for free, because affinity or something. I buy, miss, buy, needing 9s to hit, connect and do decent damage, leaving her at 7 boxes.

My long riders charge, but exactly 0 of them have range. Again, if I'd tide of deathed the Vessel Acolytes out of the way, it may have been different. The Sons of Bragg can't do much, they're tied up by the shredd, but I take the chance, move up with Tor and take a free strike. He actually makes it, takes a shot with Fervor and the spray, and misses Rhyas.

My Storm troll is the only thing left... So I move up, shoot the Naga Bolt thrower, boosting to hit, and get 3 electro leaps. Rhyas is the closest model, and I boost damage, needing a 12.

I roll a 13, and kill her. The final electro leap hits Madrak, but doesn't get anywhere close to killing him.



Thoughts on the game:

That was way closer than I expected. I think the order of activations killed Legion there. The chances of Crit aren't great, but he should have started with that one when Madrak was in the group of dudes. The slam would have kept him well within range of Rhyas's control, and taken a few Grim Salvations with it. Also, shooting the Slag with the Raptors was weird, because it didn't do anything to remove Grim Salvation targets. In fact, it helped in that I would have frenzied without it. I think a good chunk of the reason I won this game is because of my opponent's unfamiliarity with Madrak.

I should have Tide of Deathed more. I also am too cautious with my Long Riders. They weren't able to do much simply because they were way back with the exception of those two.

Anyways, comments, questions, have at it! Thanks for reading.

50pts eSorscha (Khador) vs. eMadrak (Trollbloods). My wife is starting to counter list me.

  It's essentially meta-gaming, but by meta, I mean the two of us, and four out of four of our last games have been me playing eMadrak. She stepped it up a notch and picked up Valachev and eSorscha. Both are incredibly nifty in conjunction with the Nyss. The Epic incarnation of Sorscha is actually remarkably similar to her Prime version. Boundless Charge is still in, and so is Freezing Grip. This time around though, she's got the tools to do work herself. Shatterstorm is out there like a unit-wide Explosivo, and Cyclone exists to spirit her into combat, and move away, or vice versa. Kind of a Khador version of eCaine's Gatecrasher, but better in a few respects. On top of that, she's got Harlan Versh's multifire gun that can get up to ROF4. Her feat is reminiscent of Siege as well, in that anything that breaks ARM is doubled. At Dice minus 3, and you roll a 9, you're doing 12 damage. Against my trolls, that's terrifying. She also gains Iron Flesh, which, combined with the Nyss makes for a DEF18 tarpit... That's a unit 10 models higher than eCaine's DEF. It's messed up.

Valachev is Khador's ranking officer. In short, he puts the Nyss in Faction. This isn't huge for eSorscha so much, but Valachev does so much for the Nyss that it's irrelevant. For starters, he gives them a 3'' Zephyr movement (Like the Woldstalkers from Circle) that ignores free strikes, and then they can activate as normal. On the Nyss, when I'm trying to tie them up with Fenns, that's really annoying.

My wife also proxied out her Juggernaut for Behemoth. I'd actually never read his stats. POW12 AP fists? Seriously? You people keep thinking your hunters are good. POW6 AP is horrendous.

So, her list, expanding to 50pts:

eSorscha
*Sylys
*Destroyer (Bonded)
*Behemoth (proxied by the Juggernaut)
Max Nyss w/ Valachev
Max Men of War
Ayaina & Holt
eEiryss
Harlan Versh
Manhunter

A few pointers. Really, our list building consists of "Here's everything you own that's Khador. Fill with Mercs.". The Men of War have about been replaced. I think I'll see Boomies in their stead next game, unless she replaces her beloved Destroyer. The Destroyer, incidentally, is bonded because she reasoned she can already put 6 focus on the Behemoth, she'd like to have the ability to put 4 on the Destroyer, and she was also pretty sure the Destroyer would see Melee before Behemoth would.

I'm probably going to try to grab her the Great Bears, Behemoth, or a unit of WGI in the near future. Any pointers in that direction are much appreciated. Behemoth seems like a really good idea, but what's a good jack for the Sorschas, and secondly, Strakhov? Sorscha first though.

My list remains much the same. I'm loving eMadrak. I'm enjoying playing dangerous halfway up the board with Grim Salvation, the Stone and whatever else I can get. I like the damage he can put out, I like the resiliency of his army, it's fun. My original plan to carry me from 35 to 50 pts was to get an assembled battle wagon on the table, but the more I looked at it, the more I decided that it needed painted in separate pieces and not altogether. The other thing for the last 6 pts would be the Sons of Bragg, which are primed, and have some base colors laid down on them (including an ugly orange that's the rust layer before I put metals down). So no battlewagon, but I did have a completed Janissa that I've been itching to try, so I made it work.

eMadrak
*Runebearer
*Stormtroll
*Impaler
*Slag troll
Fennblades w/UA
Champions
Sons of Bragg
Kriel Stone Bearer
Kithkar
Janissa
Fell Caller

We rolled off, and I desperately wanted to get first, so I could choose second. Jessica has consistently enjoyed deploying in response to my initial setup, and every bloody time (except once), the Nyss go across from the Fenns. I used to put the Fenns in the woods on my left because of their native pathfinder, but the Nyss don't need the extra concealment. She put the Nyss against the Champions once when I put them in the woods, and she won't do that again. So, by losing the rolloff, I know that I'm facing DEF18 Nyss with MAT6 Fenns.

Woohoo.

So, Champions to my left. Beasts in the center to take advantage of the ruin (cover) in front of them, Madrak, and the Fenns on my right. Next to the Fenns are my super new Sons of Bragg, my answer to the Nyss if the Fenns can't finish them. Behind all this is the Fell Caller, Janissa, Moses, the KSBs (hoping to camp in the ruins) and the Kithkar (My backup answer to the Nyss).



My wife deploys the Nyss exactly as expected, on the right to counter my Fenns, with Valachev. The Men of War head to the opposite side, hoping to deal with the Champions, but without getting into the woods. Everything else goes center. Remember, the Juggernaut is Behemoth.




I'm off. I activate Moses first (the Runebearer) and give Madrak a cheaper spell. The Champions sprint (Imagine John Candy with two weapons and running) a whopping 10''. The Fenns move 12'' up the right side, spacing out so hopefully I won't get Shatterstormed to death by the Nyss. The Kithkar filters in behind. The 3 beasts run forward, riling for a total of 2, plus the 3 fury they used to run. Madrak drops Warpath (Kill enemy model in control range, give beast free 3'' movement out of activation) for 1 fury, dumps the rest to the stone and charges the Behemoth, or something. Fell Caller, Sons of Bragg all move up. KSB runs, pops aura behind Madrak for a whopping 7'' radius circle of +2 ARM, and Janissa moves up to plant a wall in front of them all.






ACTION SHOT!!!



My wife opens the ball with a focus on each jack, and running the Men of War. The Nyss run forward as well, spreading out, and not pushing too far ahead. She's kind of figured out the range on mini-feating Fennblade charges (13'' w/ reach). The two jacks forge forward, not terribly far either (14'' guns. I'll come soon enough), and Eiryss hangs out in the woods. The Manhunter sprints for the ruins on the right, Harlan joins Eiryss, Sylys moves up and Sorscha activates. She puts Iron Flesh on the Nyss, and keeps whats left. 2, I think. I think she actually allocated a few more focus to her jacks than 1, but decided not to shoot on the chances that she'd kill one Fenn, and no more than that. She's decided that if she's not going to kill more than 3 Fenns, it's not worth triggering Vengeance, and she's pretty happy with how far they are from the Nyss atm. So she marxed a few focus I think, but it works.



ACTION SHOT!!! Sunday was an enjoyable evening, the two of us painting.



So, here we go. Madrak pulls in fury, upkeeps Warpath. The Fell caller puts War Cry (+2 MAT) and moves towards the Champions because I'm expecting to need Pathfinder on them soon. The Champions push forward, maybe 4 inches. I'm trying to goad my wife into charging them. Moses puts cheaper spells on Madrak. Madrak shuffles forward, puts the Impaler's animus on the Impaler, throws Blood Fury to the Champions, and puts his last fury on the Stone. The Impaler moves up near the Champions, and boosts a spear throw into the center MoW so that A) I know how far they are away (11.5'') and B) maybe crit slam so I can KD him, and the one behind him and shut them down for a turn essentially. I don't get the Crit, and boosted damage on an ARM21 Khadorian leaves him with 1 box.

The Stormtroll runs for the Fenns. I'm fully expecting to shoot some Fenns in the back and bring in some Cygnaran electro-leap tech for these DEF18 Fenns. The Slag runs forward as well, trying to get into a position to put damage into Behemoth, who scares me. AP 12 fists will hurt everything in my army.

KSB move up, pop aura and shelter all of the Champions, Madrak, Impaler, Slag, Fell Caller and a couple of Fenns. Janissa moves up and drops a wall. Again. The Sons of Bragg run up to shelter behind the wall a little (outside of Grim Salvation), and get within the Aura. They also do their Call of Defiance (Boomhowler tough).

The Fenns charge, and minifeat. Three go for the charge. One hits the Manhunter, two more go for Nyss. One gets the melee range, and all the others run, one going to bug the Behemoth and Destroyer. The one that hits the Manhunter actually connects and murders her, making my wife unhappy. "This is my favorite painted model, and I have yet to use her. You bought her for me, and then you kill her, every game."

The Fenn that goes after the Nyss misses, needing a 10 (Fell Call) to hit. The Kithkar runs up behind the Fenns, and that's it for me.






Sylys upkeeps Iron Flesh on the Nyss, dangit. My wife puts 4 focus on behemoth (3 to the sub cortex) and 2 on the Destroyer. Harlan opens the ball, moves up... and breathes the sweet smell of Purgation. Boosted attack AND damage rolls on my Champions... He hits, all four times, but whuffs a few of the damage rolls, leaving my guy at 1 box. A solid trade, pretty similar to what I did to her MoW.

Now that she's measured range with Harlan, she shuffles the MoW forward, toeing into threat range against the Champions.

The Nyss Zephyr away thanks to Valachev, and then charge right back in at three Fenns, and completely annihilate them all, except one. I actually remembered Set Defense that they have, and she only got one attack at this one, needing an 8, and she missed. The Nyss passed their CMD check, last turn incidentally, from the Terror on the Fenn's minifeat.

Holt stands, aims, and misses the Fenn engaging her jacks. He aims, shoots again, and kills him this time. Ayaina stealths them both. The Destroyer aims, does not boost to hit and puts a shot into my Impaler, and does four or five damage. The Behemoth aims, misses. Deviation goes nowhere good. Second shot, she boosts to hit and boosts damage and takes me down another 8 boxes. I have all 3 aspects still, but the spirit is 1 away from being out.

She then debates what to do with Eiryss, but reads the Sniper line. With a frustratingly annoying, but undeniably cute smirk, she shoots my Impaler and does 1 damage to the spirit, and shuts down his fury mechanic.

Sorscha hangs out.



Fury comes back in. Madrak drops Warpath (everything is pretty much outside his control), but upkeeps Blood Fury on the Champions. The Fenns Vengeance forward, and a few get reach, but miss everything. DEF18, yo.

So. Is it feat turn? Probably not. I really don't have Control for most of my units. So the Champions charge. Well, 2, specifically. One goes after Eiryss, and one goes after the center MoW. The others run. The one that charged Eiryss misses the first attack, but hits on the second and smushes her. The second charge hits, kill, and is just BARELY out of melee with either of the dudes on either side. I was just barely in charge range with them.

Moses does a cheap spell on Madrak. Madrak heals the Impaler for 1, far strikes the Slag, and the Impaler both. The Impaler boosts a hit at the Destroyer, but fails to crit, and doesn't do any serious damage, if any, though he boosted it. He's at 2 fury. My slag aims, with Far Strike, and throws at Behemoth. Boost damage, and roll 6, on four dice (Erosion)... No damage. Buy second shoot, shoot, hit, boost damage and do 4 boxes to the 2 I think. Terrible.

The Fell caller runs, because he's way out range to help the Fenns, who need him way more than the Champs. The Fenns charge/run, including one at Valachev (friggin Zephyr), and everybody misses at MAT6. The Kithkar walks in, and misses, swinging over the wall. This is brutal. Granted, I needed boxcars on everyone, except Valachev, but I wasn't able to roll higher than like, 5. Still, I didn't expect to kill many Nyss this game with the Fenns. At this point, I'm trying to force her to deal with them, instead of shooting KSBs off of Madrak. I do put 2 fenns in melee with her jacks, trying to tie her up still.

I check control range, and I think the Stormtroll is in range of my Fenns engaged with the Nyss. With back arc, engaged, and aiming, I need a 7 to hit. Boost to hit, and miss. There's no chance of hitting a Nyss, so I rile for one. I'm fully expecting to lose a beast this round. Stupid Stormtroll.

Sons of Bragg shuffle up by Madrak (again, outside of Grim Salvation). KSBs run up, pile in around him and pop aura. I only have the KSBs, Madrak, Janissa, the two beasts in front, and the Sons still in the aura. Janissa moves up, drops a wall, and that's turn. The tape goes back to Jess.



She contemplates for awhile, and decides that it's probably feat turn. The Impaler is half dead, and the Slag troll worries her considerably. Sylys upkeeps Iron Flesh, and Sorscha puts 2 focus to the Behemoth sub cortex, and 2 on the Destroyer, and keeps 2 for Boundless charge.

Holt starts up again, and shoots a fenn engaged with Behemoth, and he toughs, FINALLY. He kills the other one, and Ayaina stealths. Jess debates long and hard on how far to move Sorscha. She's pretty tired of losing Sorscha on the last chance long-range assassination runs that I pretty much live for, so she finally decides to move up a few inches to get LOS to the toughed Fenn, and feats. She handcannons the Fenn effortlessly, puts Boundless charge on the Destroyer, and calls it. She's got 1 champion, the Slag, the Impaler, and several fenns in her feat. The fenns don't matter, but she wants the Slag and Impaler.

The Men of War shuffle/charge, and kill three Champions with Harlan's help, and none of them tough. The Nyss Zephyr around, and kill more Fenns, including my UA so I lose Vengeance. I'm down to my drummer, and one Fenn, who fail CMD. Behemoth aims, and puts a shot into my slag. It connects, does 2 damage which becomes four. Not great, but ok. Second shot, hits, boosts damage, and she does 6 damage, becoming 12, and takes him down to 6 boxes.

The Destroyer charges. Between the bond of 2'' of movement and Boundless charge, it easily gets into melee with my Slag, and she conveniently sets it up to get melee on my Impaler as well. She slays the Slag in the charge attack, and I pull the fury in. She takes the last two attacks out on the Impaler, and wipes him out easily, enjoying the feat. I let that fury go.



Things are getting tight here. She's attritioning me pretty well. The Kithkar gets Vengeance moves up, AND KILLS THE FIRST NYSS OF THE GAME. WOOOOOO!!!!!

Ahem. I upkeep Blood Fury, and pull Fury off of the Stormtroll. The Champions charge/run. The left one charges Harlan and a Man of War, and the other runs in between the other tree, because I'm hoping to get them into Madrak's feat and get attacks against everything. The guy who charged kills the MoW he charged, but takes both attacks to do it, and therefore does not kill Harlan.

The Stormtroll aims, boosts to hit, AGAIN, NEEDING A 7, and MISSES. AGAIN. He riles for 2, since he's my only fury generator.

So, since the Fenns haven't accomplished anything, the one with a sword runs away, dies to the FS, and the drummer goes and plays Children of the Corn in the field. I have no idea what he's for except 3'' of CMD range.

The Sons of Bragg though, they do fervor, and charge. 2 of the 3 hit, and Tor with the Assault kills 2 by himself AND Valachev! I finally get to use these guys, and they're doing great! The Kithkar charges into the pool (which we're not currently counting as anything, or the elevation around it) and misses the charge target twice, but manages to get everyone into his melee range.

Madrak.... No, Moses. Moses gives Madrak Blood Fury, and THEN Madrak charges the Destroyer with 4 Fury on him. He starts weeding through the boxes on this guy, misses one attack on snake eyes, and comes down to the last fury, and fails to kill the Destroyer. So he feats, and whacks him again. Not quite, but getting there. The Champions are out of my feat, but the Sons and Kithkar both are. And they lay waste to the Fenns, killing all but four on some finally decent rolls. The Nyss fail CMD too.

The Fell caller gives Warcry to himself and charges the Destroyer. The little Weaponmaster that could finishes the Jack and puts him in the dirt. Janissa, who I was saving for last with her AP attack, OR the wall, depending on what was needed, gets to do the wall, and drops it in front of Madrak. The KSB shuffle around him protectively and pop aura, catching everyone but the Champions.






We're sitting at 28pts and 26 pts, Jess in the lead attrition wise. The last turn was good to me, but I'm still playing catchup. Sylys upkeeps Iron Flesh, because why not. Sorscha puts 3 on the sub cortex of Behemoth and keeps the rest. The Men of War desperately want charge Madrak, but they don't have the range, or the spd, so they settle for helping Harlan finish the Champions. I think this is the first game the Men of War have actually outlived the Champions.

The Nyss "flee" and reposition in a line between A+H and Sorscha, and rally successfully. Ayaina "kisses" the Kithkar, and Holt kills him. No tough, of course.

The Destroyer shuffles over, boosts a shot into Madrak, and hits (Even with the wall, Blood Fury has Madrak down to DEF16), hits, and between Grim Salvation and blast damage, kills 3 of my KSB dudes. The second shot misses and doesn't do anything. Sorscha tucks in behind the Jack, camps her focus, and Sylys slips over to block LOS to her.



Madrak upkeeps Blood fury, cuts himself for 2, pulls fury in from the Stormtroll. The Fell caller puts Warcry down on him, and Madrak charges the Nyss. I still need 8s to hit, but I'm hoping to Tide of Death my way through the Nyss, A+H, Sylys, and finally Sorscha. However, needing 8s to hit, I kill the first one, but the third Nyss completely stops me. I can't roll higher than 5 in a row, 3 times, so I stop, leave 1 fury on Madrak and stay there. The Sons of Bragg shuffle, Fervor, and Tor sprays Ayaina, catching the 2 remaining Nyss, and A+H. He kills 3 of them, and the last Bragg kills the remaining Nyss.

Stormtroll runs forward, riles for 2. Moses wanders up, and Janissa drops the wall protecting them all. The last KSB dude runs in by Madrak, pops the last Fury. The Drummer, my last Fenn, runs and unknowingly becomes a Grim Salvation target. Tada, that's what you're for, buddy!

Madrak is at DEF16, ARM19 w/ stone, 1 fury, and 3 Grim Salvation targets.



Iron Flesh is gone now, since the Nyss are Finally dead. Sorscha keeps all her focus. Harlan walks up and puts shots into the KSB. He hits, and doesn't break ARM. Tries it again, hits, kills, toughs. Last time. Hits. Overall, between Harlan's four shots, 2 shots from Behemoth, and a charge from Sylys, all three grim salvation targets are killed, sylys personally finishing the Son of Bragg nearby. The Men of War shuffle forward, and Sorscha and her 6 focus charge.

She hits, and does 6 damage to Madrak. I mark it down. She buys, boosts to hit, does another 6 damage. She's down to 4 focus. She buys, misses. Buys, hits, does 4 damage. I have 2 or 3 boxes left. She buys, hits, does 6 and I transfer. She buys, misses, buys her last attack, and hits, and does enough damage to leave Madrak at 2 boxes of health.

And that's it for her, and once again, I pull out a last ditch assassination because the dice hated her, EXCEPT, I realized that I'd marked all my damage on Prime Madrak's card in my 3 ring binder, not Epic Madrak's card. I had cut for fury last turn, for 2.

eMadrak was dead, and I failed the tough roll.



Thoughts:

1. I just realized that I think Sorscha has crit freeze on her melee attack, and I'm pretty sure that she got crit at some point in those attacks, and both of us failed to realize it. Madrak was definitely dead, because she wouldn't have missed after Stationary.

2. Before we realized I'd marked the wrong card, we were theorizing on how she could have killed Madrak otherwise, because she thought she'd rolled with the best plan. I think she did too, but thoughts on this would be great. The other option was for her to focus on hand cannoning Madrak and taking down Grim Salvation targets, then let Behemoth walk around the corner with 3 focus and put the fear of Armor Piercing into Madrak. That was a possibility, but it counted removing enough Grim Salvation targets for Behemoth to get into melee.

3. I think she should have ignored the Fenns a bit more, and used Zephyr to put a few Nyss through the lines and kill my KSBs throughout the game. She had plenty of Nyss to tie up my Fenns, and still leave a few to shoot at me. The fewer KSBs I have, the less Grim Salvations I have in late-game. Between the KSBs and Janissa's wall, Madrak and pretty nearly hang out where he want to in the late game, and that's a problem.

4. We're ready for Scenario, I think. Straight-up caster kill lets up attrition slowly, and focus on killing armies, whereas, on Scenario, I would have had to devote time and resources to controlling the Champion Zone after the MoW cleared it, taking from my stronger flank. I think Jess has a better chance of beating my brick if she can play the Scenario game.

5. I really like my Sons of Bragg. That was fun. The Stormtroll is normally a really good buy too, but man, he sucked this game.

6. Iron Fleshed Nyss are a serious issue for my Fenns. That stumped me all game long, and I think have a few answers finally. A) A Bomber. Drifting AOEs at POW8 don't give a crap about DEF18. B) Chronicler. Make her pay for killing my Fenns in Melee by KDing the Nyss. That pretty much guarantees that I'll kill a few next turn, especially in conjunction with my Stormtroll. The Chronicler is on my to-buy list this weekend, and so is either Skaldi, or a Champion Hero. Or eDoomy. Might be eDoomy. My Mt. King isn't ready yet though... Might be Jarl though.

So, Comments, questions! What's the next good buy for Khador? Behemoth? Great Bears? WGI w/UA & Joe? The big thing is replacing the Men of War. I need something better for that 9pt slot. Between Harlan and Eiryss, there's some wiggle room for a bigger unit than 9pts too, but otherwise, I'll probably see Boomhowlers against my Champions next game.

Custom-based Janissa finished on the painting table.

  Got in some more painting this weekend, and a few games.  Painting table first.

  This was really fun to paint, and model, although the glue was terrible.  I put the base together... Friday, and the glue is just now coming off of my fingers.  The base and snake are both corkboard.  I layered the podium up about 3 pieces tall with brass rods through the middle for support and planted a rock on top. For the snake, I ran a long wire around the base as you can see, and drilled holes in tiny chunks of corkboard, slotting them on one at a time and glueing a lot.  Like, a lot.  Probably 3$ of glue in that base.  The last rock, I greystuffed on.  Then, with a fresh layer of glue, I dipped the whole thing in hobby lobby ballast to attract the gravel and hide a lot of the corkboard joints.  Then I base coated everything.  The main rocks and Janissa got black, and everything else got blue.

 After that, I drybrushed everything, and painted her.  Really like how she turned out.

  I did her wall the other way around.  First, I greystuffed rocks to a wide popsicle stick, glued the basde and strips on the rocks, dipped in ballast again.  Then I based black, drybrushed it in a few shades, working up to white.  Then I made a real watery light blue ink and washed the whole thing, then drybrushed white back in.  I like it.  Not as much as her base, but I think it fits with her.  It's really hard to evoke the sense of this not being a normal rock wall, that there's a power behind this, forcing these stones up out of the ground.  I don't think I got it, but the blue helps with the setting.  Either it puts it as "This is Magical" or "This belongs in an aquarium."  Haven't decided yet.

 Also finished my Mauler.  This is the one I magnetized earlier. I haven't painted the other parts yet.

  And my Stormtroll.  I opted not to do the Tartan on this guy, but I really do like how he turned out.  The Stormtroll is a model that I don't think goes in all of my lists, but he shows up a lot because I love the model.

 I managed to get a few games in over the weekend.  The Charsaug league is in full swing right now (Who's excited for eBorka's polar bear?  Huh?  Huh?  I think I'll greystuff it into a grizzly...) so I got one game in against a Purist, and another against a guy not in the league.  First off was a 35pt Venethrax list, against which I dropped pGrim.

  It was over pretty quick.  They Nyss got hurt pretty bad by the Bane Knights and Withershadow combine, and I still had two jacks coming in.  His big mistake though was putting Deathjack behind the woods, and letting me tie him up with Fenns.  The second mistake was leaving a charge lane for my Earthborn, who I put on the opposite side of the woods.  pGrim moved up, feated, shot Venethrax with headhunter for the "Bait the line" effect, and my Earthborn (toed into the woods for +2 movement) charged 12'' and killed him on the last Fury.

  The second game was a weird Karchev list...  I brought eMadrak back to the table.  It was pretty brutal.  Blood furied Fenns/Champions apparently eat Khador jacks for lunch. They killed the Spriggan, the Chainsaw jack (whatever that one is) and a Kodiak, while picking off the MoW Demo guys until Karchev went all in for a charge at Madrak and failed to get within range.

  Overall, I'm loving the completely different playstyle trolls bring to the table, and I'm loving the painting. Check back in, I've got a Mt King, Sons of Bragg and a War Wagon, and my Fenns, all on the painting table yet.  My wife also grabbed eSorscha and Valachev, so I expect to be losing a game here shortly.

35pts, pStrakhov (Khador) vs. eMadrak (Trollbloods)

My wife decided to stretch her Khador out Sunday, and took Sorscha1 against eMadrak. I didn't batrep it, because it was, well, my wife and she's played maybe three times.

And then she pretty nearly killed me. Her Nyss annihilated my Fenns (Fenns can't hit DEF15 for the life of them, without a Fell Caller), her feat completely neutered my Champions and clogged my charge lanes. The only reason I pulled through was from the Mauler putting the rage animus on Madrak and the Impaler. Both took a shot, Madrak feated and they both shot again, and a Kithkar got lucky on the charge and finished her. It was the only model I killed all game, compared to my Champions, Fenns and a smattering of solos.

So she challenged me again today, and decided to bring Strakhov again. 35pts, mostly the same army (Essentially all the models she owns). We proxied a Spriggan in there instead of the Juggernaut (So be not deceived), and rolled.

Strakhov
*Sylys
*Spriggan
*Destroyer
Max Men-of-War Shocktroopers
Max Nyss
Reinholdt

I brought back eMaddy, but brought a Fell Caller this time. I brought a Slag for more damage on Jacks, and +2 STR animus on Madrak and the Impaler, and the Impaler because... he's the Impaler, and can benefit from the feat, with reach, and just good all around.

eMadrak
*Runebearer
*Slag Troll
*Impaler
Max Fenn Blades w/UA
Fenn Kithkar
Max Champions
Fell Caller
Kriel Stone Bearer w/UA

She won the rolloff, chose to go second. I put the Fenns on the right side of the board with lots of room to run, and put the Champions in the woods, with everyone else center, maybe being able to use the building as cover for Madrak and the KSB, not that the Nyss care.



My wife put the Shocktroopers across from the Fenns, and the Nyss across from the Champions. Not the best matchup for either one, but the Shocktroopers would struggle with the woods. Everything else went center.



Turn 1. Fenns take off across the clearing. Slag runs and riles for 2, Impaler runs and riles for 1. Madrak drops Warpath, puts fury to the stone and charges a Nyss. The KSB runs in behind him and pops aura. The Runebearer runs in behind them. Mistake 1 for the game, not using Moses first to make Warpath cheaper. The Fell Caller puts pathfinder on the Champions, and they run into the woods.



My wife sends the Men-of-War forward at the Fenns, the Nyss run to the edge of the wood, and the Destroyer advances up all of it's 4''. She pops a shot off at my Fenns, hoping for a good deviation. It is, but fails to kill anything. Reinholdt reloads Strakhov. He puts Superiority on the Spriggan, Sentry on the Destroyer, and throws two shots downrange at the Fenns again. Both deviated away from them. The Spriggan pushes forward 6'' and fires twice, again, hoping for deviation, but luck is against my wife. Both deviate towards the MoW and do nothing. Sylys walks up behind Strakhov, and the tape measure comes back to me.


Madrak pulls in his fury, upkeeps Warpath. Moses activates (did it right this time), cheapens a spell for Madrak. Madrak then activates, puts Blood Fury on the Fenns, and drops the Impaler's animus on the Slag, and dumps the last fury to the stone. The Fenns open the ball, minifeat, and three charge into the Men of War, and the rest run. One engages the Spriggan (But not the Devastor, like I hoped), and the rest space out. Sentry triggers, and my wife's Destroyer murders a Fenn. Two of the three that charged kill their targets, and remove the two Men of War on the right side. The Champions move up to the front of the woods, daring the Nyss to charge them while they're within the KSB and base to base.

The Slag activates, moves up, and I realize that I engaged the Spriggan with my Fenn... Adding 4 DEF. So I throw at the Destroyer instead, and miss. Buy another shot, chuck it at the Spriggan, boosts to hit, hit, boost damage and roll 4 dice at -8, doing 4 pts of damage to the 5. The Impaler moves up, throws at the Spriggan as well, misses, kills the Fenn, but he toughs. The Krielstone runs up, pops Aura, and the Elder does "No Continuous effects". Fell caller shuffles in behind them, and the Kithkar tucks in with the rest of the Fenns.



My wife thinks long and hard about feating, but decides to activate what wouldn't be affected by it first. She puts 3 focus to the Spriggan, 1 to the Destroyer, and kept 2 for Strakhov. The Nyss decide to open fire on the Krielstone and ignore the Champions. At dice -5 though and tough, she only killed one. If it'd of worked, I'd of lost my +2 ARM, which I really liked. It was also my functioning buffer for keeping Madrak alive with Grim Salvation because we were both aware that the Spriggan was in full charge range of Madrak between feat and Overrun. If the Nyss had cleared out the KSB, I'd of probably lost Madrak.

The Destroyer tries, and takes a shot at the KSB behind the wall, needing an 11. Gets a 9, but the deviation covers 2 of them. With the KSB aura though, they're at -10, and neither of them die. The Men-of-War don't need the charge bonus, and shuffle around with a charge order to get the bonus. All three hit Blood Furied Fenns at DEF10, and all three break ARM, but 1 toughs.

Strakhov steps up. Jess decides not to feat, since she's pretty sure she can get the charge off with the Spriggan without needing the 4''. Instead, she rolls 3 for ROF on the gun, and with Reinholdt's reload, she's got 4 shots. Strakhov shoots the Fenn that's KD in front of the Spriggan, and breaks ARM. He toughs. She shoots him again and he dies, and the Spriggan shuffles forward 6'' with Superiority. She shoots the other one that's KD in front of the MoW, breaks ARM, and he toughs. Shoots him again and he finally dies.

She hates tough, incidentally.

Spriggan charges. He goes after the Slag, hits, and is at dice even with the KSB nearby. She hits, does mediocre damage, hits with the hand, does very little. She buys an attack, and it misses with snake eyes. Buys the last one, hits, and does seven or eight damage. He's left with seven boxes. He should have died, but the missed attack and bad dice on the charge attack leave him standing, but he's engaging both the Slag and the Impaler. She did manage to drop the Mind in the slag though, so no regen, and no forcing him.



I feel like I have the game in hand but I have to deal with the Spriggan. Unfortunately, I ran my beasts hot, and the Slag has a fury left on him. He passes his threshold check. Fenns vengeance up, and one has reach on the furthest right MoW, and takes a swing at him. He does decent damage, but not enough to kill. The Kithkar shuffles up with his Vengeance, but doesn't have reach on anything.

The Champions charge the Nyss, because I'm a moron, and forgot to activate the Fell Caller first and give them +2 MAT. Out of the two attacks at MAT7, they kill 4 of the 5 Nyss they engaged.

The mindless slag hopelessly pounds on the hulk of the Spriggan for a few boxes of damage. The Fenns charge into the Men of War again, and annhilate them easily. The Kithkar takes advantage of Tactictian and barrels through them into Strakhov. At dice -3, he does 16 boxes of damage, leaving Strakhov at 1 box.

Now I'm debating. I want the Spriggan dead, but I want Madrak safe too. The KSB move up, activate aura, and do no continuous effects. I should have done +1 STR, because both the Slag, and Impaler were under the aura, but I didn't think of it.

The Runebearer does his minifeat and puts Blood Fury on Madrak for free. Madrak charges the Spriggan, hits with the charge and at dice -6, I roll a 6, two 1s and a 2.... I buy two more attacks, eating away at the jack, and have two Fury left. I really need this thing dead now. He feats. The Slag beats on him for a few points, and the Impaler does a few. Madrak hits him, and completely whuffs the dice again. No choice. Madrak buys two more attacks, leaving the jack at seven boxes.

The impaler activates, shuffles as far back as he can around the jack, staying in melee, boosts damage, buys, boosts damage, and FINALLY kills the jack, triggering Warpath. The Impaler walks forward three inches and injertects himself between the Destroyer and Madrak, who is sitting at DEF 12 (Blood Fury is -2 def), 0 transfers, and only 1 Grim Salvation target nearby.


Do or die time. My wife has it, and she knows it. Sylys has nothing to upkeep, but makes himself use-

PS7, and reach. All I can imagine is this guy with a weapon as powerful as a tennis racket, but it's like, ten feet long. He takes a swing at the Kithkar engaging Strakhov and does one box of damage. Strakhov inches forward, just BARELY getting Madrak into feat range, feats, kills the Kithkar, and triggers Overrun, which the Jack uses to move around the Impaler. The Fenn engaging him swings, but fails to knock out any systems.

The Nyss ignore the Champions again. There's six left. They push up and around as much as possible and get range/los on Madrak. 6 shots later, (All of them hitting), only one breaks ARM, and Grim Salvation kicks in, killing the KSB dude next to Madrak.

The Destroyer charges. He charges for free, has range all day long and slams into Madrak. The charge attack hits and he does a whopping 5 damage... Buy, hit, 5 damage. Buy, hit, 3 damage. Buy, hit, 4 damage. Madrak is still standing with 1 box. That's all she's got left.

...Yeah... I don't even mess with fury. I roll a charge attack with a fenn against Strakhov and put him in the dust easy.



Thoughts on the game:

So, I lost to my wife, basically. She got diced bad at the end. All four attacks hit. It was dice -2, and Only because of the KSB Aura. Dice averages should have been 8 damage on the first attack, and five to six after that. She should have done a total of 23 damage, easy, and she simply got diced. Bad. All game long, really.

The Nyss did the best they could. We realized post game that if she had targeted the KSB bearer himself, the next pawn in line would have been far enough away that the +2 ARM aura wouldn't have reached Madrak, and that would have killed him. Unfortunately, it was only the very last Nyss that hit that broke ARM on Madrak, and managed to kick in Grim Salvation. Maybe she should have started with the KSBs instead in that case, and looking back, probably. They were dice -5, so much easier to kill. They would have had to target the bearer next to Madrak then, but still, -5 is easier, and after that, maybe have a shot at Madrak. Either way, the Destroyer would do much better at Dice even.

Strakhov is a no-go. She doesn't like him, and I don't blame her. She had the Sorscha game like I had this one. By the end of my 2nd turn this game, she was pretty sure she was going to lose and started thinking assassination, which was the position I was in last game. Sorscha wipes the Trolls in the dirt. She shuts their charges down, freezing grip kills my tarpit, she's terrifying. Strakhov has some cool things going for him, but he has very little support for infantry, and while Occultation is nice, Trolls really aren't shooting anything. pGrim maybe, but this is Madrak. Occultation's one of his best spells and he never needed it.

So it's back to Sorscha for her. She's probably going to get eSorscha here before too long, who seems like all the best parts of pSorscha, but with anti-trollbloods in mind. Until then, she's determined to go after me again, but with my own Cygnar, and eHaley at the helm. As far as other Khador, the Great Bears are an option, and another jack kit. With Strakhov unpopular at the moment, it might be the new Kodiak plastic kit (hopefully) that comes with Vengeance. I also need to find a cheap WGI unit running around somewhere.

Valachev would also be a serious boon to the Nyss. I hate that guy.

Thanks for reading! Throw comments and questions below and be jealous that I have a wife that challenges me to Warmachine games