Tuesday, April 29, 2014

50pts Severius2 (Menoth) vs. Grim1 (Trollbloods)



My PG pulled me in for a game, wanting to work with his eSevvy list. Normally, my PG plays trollbloods, but sometimes he falls to the darkside and brings Menoth instead. He brought:

Severius2
*Reckoner
*Reckoner
*Crusader
*Crusader
*Blessing of Vengeance
Choir
Vassal
Vassal
Errants w/UA
Wracks
Heirophant
The Book
Vassal Mechanic

...I think... I imagine he'll swing by and correct me.

For my list, on the other hand, I wasn't sure what list he was bringing, and I wasn't sure what I had to bring. It was kind of a tossup between Jarl and Grim, (I had just played eMadrak), but the winning choice was whoever had the War Wagon in their list, which happened to be pGrim.

Grim1
*Impaler
*EBDT
War Wagon
Fennblades w/UA
Long Riders
Chronicler
Fell Caller
Sons of Bragg

I've been trying to get that War Wagon painted now for two months, so regardless of how well it did, I was excited to field it. We rolled off, and my opponent rolled a 7 with tier, and deployed first. Fairly straightforward, his list being pretty symmetrical. Errants were AD, so they ended up out in front after I finished.

My Fenns went to the left, Long Riders to the right, hoping to use the forest as cover with Cross country.



My opponent starts the ball by allocating a focus to each jack. Everything runs, and Severius gets Holy Ward onto the Errants for a DEF bonus.



The Impaler moves up, puts far strike on the War Wagon. War Wagon moves up and drifts his AOE into the Errants and kills one, which self sacrifices. The Fenns run up, and the Chronicler gives them Concealment. Grim moves up, puts Return Fire on the Wagon, and Cross Country on the Long Riders. The Riders move up, and the Sons of Bragg run as well.



Severius upkeeps Holy Ward. I think. The Choir move up and battle everything, and the Vassal gets Admonition onto the Blessing of Vengeance. The Errants shuffle/aim and shoot down a number of Fenns, a few of whom tough. Severius moves forward, feats, rolls a 6 for d3, and takes over four Long Riders and two Fenns. He then lands Fear of God onto my Fenns, through the KD guy. The Fenns just turn around and walk, swinging at other Fenns. Three Long Riders run across the map into enemy lines, and turn for the backstrike bonus, while the fourth rider runs back to about 6 inches inside my deployment zone.

The Reckoner and Crusaders on the right proceed to walk up and smash 2 of the long riders, the third one toughing. The left Crusader blocks lanes with the Book (no knockdown there) to Severius, and the left Reckoner takes a shot at the Fenns. The Fire of Salvation moves forward into a good position for next turn, and it's back to me.






Oh, and the Long Riders rode waaaay up into the flank, and on my opponent's turn, he blocked them with the Vassal Mechanic and choir members.

So, back to my turn, I'm down to the last chance assassination, which is pretty sketchy. The Long Riders move in, and the one in the back kills the Mechanic, and the other guy impacts and kills 2 choir dudes in front of him, leaving the EBDT room to walk around the Crusader, as I've now learned :P

The Fell Caller charges the Reckoner hopelessly, does some damage, but again, nothing great. The Sons move out of the way for Tor, Fervor, and Tor assaults, hoping to get range on Sevvy, but comes up shy. The EBDT walks around the Crusader, picks up the Reckoner, and pitches it across the choir and into Sevvy, hitting, but only doing maybe 3 boxes of damage. He then spends the rest of his attacks punching the Crusader.

Grim moves to the side, fires a shot off, hits, and needs a 16 to kill He does not roll a 16, and leaves Sevvy on 6 boxes.



The Reckoner gets 3 focus, walks up and smacks Grim into the ground.



Overall, reaaally good game. I got shot to pieces, but learned a ton.

1. The Feat isn't as bad as I took it. Like, I really struggled with how to counter that feat, and really, there isn't a way. It's 6 models, and unless it's Champions, it's only going to kill 6 models. That's 10+pts, sure, but Madrak's come from worse.

2. Grim sucks against Menoth. No magic shooting except Grim himself, Menoth doesn't really care about -3 SPD, so on, so forth. On top of that, I'm no good at landing Marked for Death. Madrak2 would have been a better match, especially since Grim can't do much against 4 heavy jacks.

3. All that being said, I put my Long Riders up too far. Knowing Sevvy had to come up to get them in his feat, I should have pulled them back and forced him to come out and play. I also mismanaged my Sons badly, and if I had moved them closer to the action, I may have gotten the hit with Tor's spray, and that could have been the make or break of the game for me. Also, charging with the War Wagon was dumb. I should have screened it with the Chronicler and Fell caller, and saved the Wagon for the assassination run.

Good game though, and looking forward to the next one.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

50pts Stryker2 (Cygnar) vs. Madrak2 (Trollbloods)

My second game Saturday was against a guy who just recently switched to Cygnar. He'd been playing Khador, and in fact, his Harkevich list with 4 clamjacks and Black Ivan had given me serious fits. However, he's recently started picking up swans, and we set up for a game after I got smashed by the last Khador player.

So, Stryker2 vs. Madrak2. Something of a mirror match. One guy gives everyone a post-turn 3'' move and an attack, and the other guy gives everyone attacks to everything in their melee simultaneously. Some differences, but certainly more similarities. Both casters rely on a high volume of attacks, and try to get their guys to hit harder, but I think Madrak does it better. Stryker requires a jack, preferably with Reach, to get in there and make Positive charge work, whereas Madrak just adds a dice to his favorite unit and sends them in. As far as Positive Charge goes, Trollbloods basically has it on a stick with the Chronicler, and I haven't used it at all. Me and my two months of Trollbloods experience...

So, eMadrak.

Madrak2
*Runebearer
*Bomber
*Impaler
Fennblades w/UA
Fennblade Kithkar
Champions w/UA
Champion Hero
Fell Caller
Janissa
Min KSB w/UA

The list continues to change. I had the Champions originally, and dropped them because I thought they were too slow, and got the Long Riders instead. I still like the Long Riders, but I playtested the Champ Hero and Skaldi a bit more, and I really like what the Hero and Skaldi to for the Champs. I also dropped the Sons of Bragg, because they're amazing, and need to go in lists that need amazing help, without feeding them support (Jarl, Grim, even eDoomy).

The Battlegroup is also evolving. I originally had the Impaler and Slag for some ranged anti-jack goodness, plus some +2 damage for Madrak or the Kithkar (maybe the Hero now), but at the end of the day, I was struggling against Hi-DEF infantry, and not against Warjacks. Fenns on Blood Fury don't need a Slag to soften up a jack before they hit it. So out with the Slag, in with the Bomber. Or the War Wagon. In this case, the Bomber. I'm debating between 2 AOE4s that I can boost damage on, vs 1 AOE5 and 1 Spray 8 template, plus a bunch of impacts. It's an interesting trade. The other problem with the War wagon is that I need a second beast to pull fury from, so while the wagon is cheaper than the Bomber, the 5pt beast I'd need to bring counterbalances it considerably. So the Bomber makes more sense at the moment.

My opponent's list had a familiar format, but with some changes. The Stryker/Maddie/Squire concept was all the same. The Stormblade Deathstar (Heh) was there as well, along with Runewood, Rhupert, SB Captain and Jr. for support. However, where I take Nyss, he took Forgeguard with Jonas, and Swordknights.

Stryker2
*Squire
*Ol' Rowdy
Maddie
Runewood
Rhupert
Stormblade Captain
Stormblades w/ UA and max WA
Sword Knights w/ UA
Forgeguard w/Jonas
Harlan Versh
pEiryss
Junior

Some differences, but it's a caster I've played a lot, and am pretty familiar with what he can do. He can easily box eMadrak, but he can't do that, AND remove all grim salvation targets, especially over a wall that's taking Madrak to DEF16 against Melee.

We rolled off and he won, so he deployed first. SKs went to the right, Forgeguard to the left. Stormblades were scattered behind, Harlan on the right flank, Eiryss on the left. Rowdy, Stryker and support hung out in the center.

I dropped Fenns on the left against Forgeguard. Not only was I pretty much guaranteed the alpha against them, between POW12 and Blood Fury, I wouldn't have any problems breaking their ARM. The Champions, on the other hand, went opposite of the Sword Knights, which meant that I could pretty much ignore them and penetrate as deep as I could into the flank and start cutting apart Stormblades.

To support that was the Bomber/Impaler combo, there to clear out Swordknights/Stormblades. The KSB went center, the Fell Caller hung out behind them, Janissa, Runebearer, all that great stuff.



Cygnar leads off. Everything runs/moves up. Stryker drops Deflection and camps, and Jr. puts Arcane Shield on Rowdy. Jonas probably minifeated, making the dwarves immune to blast damage, but I had better targets for that anyways. The kicker in this mess is Runewood, who put pathfinder on the Swordknights, who then activated and ran forward, clumping into 3man groups for Defensive line. Unfortunately, this left runewood in everyone else's way.



First off. Fenns run forward. Moses does Harmonious Exaltation on Madrak. Champions run forward. Impaler moves up, puts Farstrike on the Bomber and hangs out. Bomber moves up and throws a bomb. It drifts the right way, lands squarely on a clump of Swordknights. I boost the damage three times and kill all three, and pass on buying a second shot. Chances are I'd drift the wrong way, and on top of that, I'd be running hot, and would be out of fury anyways with which to boost blast damage.

Fell Caller shuffles along. Madrak presses forward, drops Warpath and dumps the rest to the stone. Janissa presses forward and drops a wall. KSB moves in, and auras, catching all but a few of the champions, several fenns, and all of the brick. The Fennblade Kithkar and Champion Hero run to support their respective dudes and it's my opponent's turn.



More of the same now. Jr. drops Arcane Shield on Rowdy and moves up. Everyone runs forward a bit more. The Forgeguard spread out, getting ready to take the alpha from the Fenns and countercharge. Stryker moves forward near Rowdy, toes onto the hill, casts Deceleration again and camps. Eriyss sneaks closer to my left flank, and Harlan sprints to flank my Champions. The Swordknights run forward and clump again, with the exception of one lone brave soldier who runs to engage my Champions, and triggers Countercharge from Skaldi, who crushes the little guy.



Looking at the pics, I think 2 sword knights engaged, and Skaldi killed one of them. That left one more to deal with.

So, Madrak pulls in fury. The Champion Hero charges, decides not to thresher for obvious reasons, and easily kills the Swordknight. The Impaler chucks a spear at someone, misses, but puts Farstrike on the Bomber, who again starts bombing Sword Knights and Stormblades. Needing 8s to kill, I fail to kill more than 2 of them.

The Champions proceed to charge, and tear into the Swordknights, killing most of them. They fail CMD, but pass it on the reroll since the banner is still in play. One champion gets countercharged by rowdy though, and gets boxed, but he toughs.

The Fell Caller shuffles over, puts War Cry on the Fenns for +2 to hit. Moses moves in and gets Blood fury on them with his minifeat. They charge in, minifeating also, and I distribute one for each of the forgeguard nearby (Which have tough on them from Rhupert) and four charge into Rowdy's back arc now, since he charged. The forgeguard are all boxed, but one toughs. Rowdy is taken down to 1 box on his cortex. All engaged units pass their terror checks as well, which is saddening.

I really debate about throwing an axe into rowdy, just to finish him off, but decide against it. Madrak moves up, casts warpath to burn fury, casts Blood Fury onto the Kithkar so I can get it off the Fenns and take them back up to DEF12 instead of DEF10, and then puts one more on the stone, leaving me at 1 fury, and capable of taking in everything from the warbeasts next turn.

KSB moves up and pops aura. I could have put fury to them, but I wanted warpath instead, whereas the stone would cover everything I needed it to.

Janissa drops a wall, Kithkar moves up, and that's turn.



Now the counter attack. Rowdy turns around and Tremors. We found out later that you can't do star actions with the systems missing that Rowdy was, but it doesn't change much. He rolls a 6 on one dice and knocks all four of the Fenns down engaging him. The Swordknights swing back, and damage a few Champions. Harlan shoots Skaldi in the back a bunch, but does just 1 box. The Stormblades assault, with Runewood's blessing, and kill a few, and finish off some of the Fenns that are KD behind Rowdy.

The forgeguard charge, and kill everything they reach. Eiryss shoots a Fenn too. Rhupert moves up and puts tough back on the Forgeguard. Jr. moves up to be within range of Stryker, and Stryker activates, hangs out, casts rebuke on what's left of my Fenns, and feats.

So, everything that survived the onslaught dies. The Stormblades and Swordknights move in and finish the champions, and every Fenn in melee range dies except 2. I'm down to four Fenns, the Kithkar, and my Hero Champion.



I pull in my fury, drop Warpath, and drop Blood Fury. The Fenns that can Vengeance can, and I don't think they have reach on anything. The Kithkar moves up and kills one of the Forgeguard at the edge of the hill.

The actual turn begins. The Champion hero charges into the place occupied by the champions last turn, and threshers, killing a few Sword knights, but missing the charge target, AND Rowdy, who I really wanted to finish. Double 1s for both those guys. I think Rowdy had a box of movement left, not Cortex, or I would have autohit.

The Bomber unleashes a few attacks, and clears out the Swordknight UA, banner, and a couple more SKs and a Stormblade or two. Not bad. Impaler drops a Stormblade on the hill. There's two near Stryker, but I'm leaving them as much as I can. Fenns move up and swing, since they can't charge. They kill a few Forgeguard, but it's not terribly important. I'm clearing a charge lane.

The KSB runs forward, up onto the hill near Rowdy, but leaving room for Madrak, and pops aura, and the Elder adds +1 STR.

The Fell Caller puts Warcry on Madrak, and the Runebearer gives him Harmonious Exaltation, and he charges the Stormblade in front of Stryker. He's 8.5'' from Madrak, and Stryker's a good 3'' beyond that. Madrak reaches him, feats, and essentially threshers, killing Rowdy, and both Stormblades. The Hero smashes what's left in his melee range, and that's pretty much it for things to do with the feat.

So, Madrak has 2 fury now from the feat, and 5 normal fury. He spends 1 to gain Blood Fury (Harmonious Exaltation) and spends the other to move forward and attack with Tide of Death. He hits Stryker, and does a few boxes at PS15, or Dice minus 5.

Buy. Hit. Two more boxes. This sucks. Blood fury is boosting every damage attack, but two boxes? Buy. Miss. Buy, hit, four or five more boxes. Buy, hit. Another two or three boxes. Buy my last one, swing, connect, and roll perfect damage to box Stryker.



At that point, I realized that I forgot to factor in the STR bonus from the Krielstone. That added 5 damage automatically for the attacks that hit, and did damage. So it wasn't as close as I was afraid. Had me worried, but it wasn't the perfect damage roll like I thought it was.

Thoughts on the game:

1. I played my Champions too hard. I could have charged one or two in, and let them take it, but I didn't. I have a problem playing Madrak where I see a bunch of targets, and I decide that I'm definitely going to feat, so I engage all my stuff in the enemy lines, and kill everything I engage... which means there's no reason to feat. Then my army sits there and takes the counterpunch. That's no good.

2. Jr. dropped Arcane Shield on Rowdy, and meant to put it on Stryker, and never did. That would have saved him. Easy. But he never did.

3. Maddie never really got used. Usually, Maddie, Runewood, Squire and Stryker is a surefire heads up that the assassination is coming, but it never did. In fact, he just sat up fairly close and never went anywhere. He attritioned well, but he's not impervious to assassination. It felt weird to assassinate my favorite assassination caster, but there it is.

4. I like my list. I enjoyed having a Bomber for a change... Where are those Kayazy now?

Monday, April 21, 2014

50pts pButcher (Khador) vs. eDoomy (Trollbloods)

Another weekend rolls around, and I get 2 more games in. This one, and an eMadrak vs. Stryker2 (mirror match, you know?). My opponent had 2 lists, and I have no idea what the other one was, but in my brilliance, I decided I wanted to try the eDoomy brick again without looking at his list at all.

eDoomy
*Mt. King
*Mulg
*Earthborn
Janissa
Min KSB
Sons of Bragg

vs. pButcher. Cool right?

pButcher
*War Dog
*Behemoth
Men of War Demolition Corp
Widowmakers
Kayazy Assassins w/ Underboss
Kayazy Eliminators
Kayazy Eliminators
pEiryss
Doom Reavers w/ UA
Ayaina & Holt

Pretty awesome huh? DEF17 tarpit against everyone's favorite RAT/MAT5 colossal. This is gonna be awesome. So he wins the rolloff, puts the widowmakers on the far left knowing that I'm going to be pushing right to take advantage of the woods I have there (Earthborn animus is great stuff in the forest). The MoW are center with Behemoth and Butcher and the Kayazy go to the right to head directly towards me.

I brick up, slightly to the right. The sons are to the left, more to his center, and everything else is behind eDoomy and his beast line, with the King on the left. Mulg and EBDT are to the right, again, closer to the woods.

He drops the doom reavers, and it's game on. Behemoth gets one to the regular cortex, and everything runs with the exception of butcher, who puts Iron Flesh on the Kayazy. This is the point where I realize I might be in serious trouble.

I also remember to start taking pics.



Mt. King moves up with Mulg, riling for the appropriate number of fury, and the EBDT moves up and puts his animus on one of them. Doomy puts Refuge on the EBDT, Wild Agression on the King, and the EBDT animus (Transmute) onthe King as well (for free), and dumps 2 fury to the stone. The Sons move up, do a 4+ tough, Janissa pops a wall, and the stone moves up and drops aura, getting everyone.



Butcher upkeeps Iron Flesh, and allocates 3 to the Behemoth sub-cortex. Kayazy push forward, and the Doomreavers run to engage me, which bothers me not at all. Widowmakers pump 4 auto-damage shots into the King, who drops 2 whelps, and a unit of Eliminators goes wide on a flank. Everyone else runs forward, except Behemoth who walks forward and is a hair out of range of the King.



Pull in fury, upkeep both WA and refuge. Mt. King twists and sweeps the three doomreavers engaging him, and hits all three, but 1 toughs. He then uses Killshot and sprays the rest of the unit, hitting all three, but only one failing tough. The UA and one doomy are KD though.

The Earthborn charges off after the Kayazy eliminators on the flank, but fails to engage either one of them. He's in the woods, but he has no LOS to anything else in the Khador army.

Mulg shuffles over next to the King, and kills the remaining Doom reavers. The Sons of Bragg move up. Doomy drops the EBDT animus on the King and Mulg both, dumps all but one to the stone. Janissa does her stuff. The two whelps run to stand in the way of things and be annoying.



Kayazy are terribly annoying. Acrobatics, parry, all of it? One AOE wielding beast, and this would have been a mute issue. War Wagon, Bomber, something. Nothing. Butcher upkeeps Iron Flesh again, and puts 3 on the Behemoth again. Subcortex.

The Eliminators on my right charge right past the Earthborn, and engage Doomy, but completely whuff their damage rolls, only doing like, 8 boxes to him. The Widowmakers shoot 4 shots into my double-sword Son of Bragg. I think the Men of War smash the whelps, just getting them with reach, and the Kayazy run to engage the Mt. King. Nothing big, just swallowing him up. Behemoth fires some shots, doing moderate damage, but nothing crazy. The Doomreavers stand up and run away.



Kayazy in melee are DEF16, against melee, not ranged. Add in Iron Flesh, and they are DEF19. I'm in some serious trouble. Doomy upkeeps everything and pulls in fury. The sons of bragg start with Fervor, and Wrathar misses his melee attack, and Tor walks up and sprays 7 of theses dudes. At RAT8, he hits.... 1. Because he wasn't trying for melee attacks, and he ignores Melee penalties, he only needed 9s. I got 1.

Doomy boosts to hit and swings at a Kayazy engaging him, and misses of course. He keeps the rest for transfers, but feats. The Mt. King twists, sweeps, and even with everything boosted, I need 14s to hit. I get 2 of them. With Killshot, I miss everything. Mulg twists and tries to clear off eDoomy, but simply can't, and even boosting to hit, I think he kills just 1.

The EBDT, however, is the hero today. Standing on a forest template, with +2 SPD there from Transmute, +3 SPD from Doomy's feat, +3 for the trample I'm about to do for free (also feat) and base SPD5, the EBDT tramples 13'' into the Men of War, and kills two, goads, and kills 1 more, the Refuges 10'' back into the woods. It was hilarious. I was really happy with the Earthborn.

Janissa drops a wall, trying to stop as many Kayazy from reaching doomy as possible, but it's pretty much pointless. Stone pops Aura, and I call it a day.



Butcher puts 3 focus on Behemoth sub cortex, drops Iron Flesh, and feats (Extra Dice damage for everyone), and puts Fury (+3 Damage) on the Kayazy.

Behemoth cranks some damage into the King, and the Kayazy attack him, and kill him in pretty short order. The Widowmakers make Widows of the Daughters-in-Law of Bragg. A couple of Kayazy get the charge on EBDT with the Doom Reaver that's left, and murder him, and two more get past Mulg, and between them and the sidestepping Eliminators, kill eDoomy. Janissa got hit in there too and toughed, but none of that mattered by the time Doomy died.

Also, note that Mulg is not dead, he's simply setting to the side because there wasn't room for him under the King's giant arm. The blue base is there to denote his presence.



Thoughts on the game:

There's two ways I could have won this.
1. I didn't realize how far my EBDT was going to get. At that point, I was pretty sure I was done for, and I just wanted to see what the Earthborn could do, especially since he failed me in the last Doomy brick game. What I SHOULD have done was trample behind the first Man of War, instead of in front to engage 2 of them at once. Kill the one dude, goad, and spend the next 4 fury trying to kill Butcher. I would have had... 3 fury to do it with? He was ARM20 (including the 2 focus I see in the pic), with a POW8 weapon to be adapted by the Earthborn. PS would have been Dice even. Would have needed 8s to hit, and have to do 20 damage in 3 rolls. Average rolls would get me the damage, but the chances of me missing one of those attacks were pretty high. If I could have gotten Wild Agression on him, it'd of been a done deal, but don't think I had the range on that.

2. Looking back, I screwed up running Mulg hot. I ran him to 5 fury, and left it that way. The way my Opponent eliminated stuff was weird because he never worried about the stone first, even though I think he had ways to reach it (fricking Kayazy). If he'd of dropped the stone first, he'd of had a much easier time killing things. The other thing he did that was weird was kill the Mt. King first. The Mt. King was the only beast I did Not run full fury on, and was therefore the only beast I could have transfered to. When the King died, Doomy had like, 6 fury to transfer with, but no where to go with it, and only a handful of attacks to make it through. If Doomy could have transfered to either the EBDT (I doubt I'd of left him low on fury) or Mulg (More possible), he could have survived, and Mulg was easily in range of killing Butcher. Now, who's to say that if I had left Mulg open a bit, if he wouldn't have focused on killing Mulg. Quite possible, but I think he would have struggled considerably with it at ARM21, and not many Kayazy attacks left.

3. My last turn, I didn't get the EBDT animus on ANYTHING. At the very least, I should have got it on Doomy himself for some extra ARM, but I didn't.

4. Overall, good game, and there were definitely some ways I could have won that if I'd of had my head on straight. My opponent played a great game, and the eliminators way out on the flanks was annoying as heck. There just wasn't enough of my models to deal with all the avenues of attack he had, but that's what his list is for, and he played it awesome. Great game, and I'm looking forward to the next one!

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Trollblood War Wagon based and painted

  Finally finished the War Wagon.  I've been piecemealing it together for two months.  By the time I glued it to it's base yesterday, I was fed up with it and ready to finish it.  It still turned out good, but I didn't do any of the excessive modding I had in mind, with the exception of the base.  

  The base is a lot of ballast rocks glued in under corkboark and drybrushed in a determined manner.


   I then proceeded to lay in a bit of clear window caulk, which lays in white, and drys clear.


  Drybrush a bit, leaving a shadow.


  Testing the wagon, which I based orange at first.  Anything with lots of metal, I've been basing orange, then drybrushing my metal on, which gives me a fantastic rusted look that I like a lot.


  Water wasn't deep enough, so I added another layer.


  Then I drybrushed it again, added grass, and called it pretty much done.  

 

  I don't have any wips on the wagon, but it took forever.  I magnetized the gun to it's base for ease of storage... like... a month ago when my brother was magnetizing his Myrmidons.  This thing has been on my painting bench for awhile...





  That's it for this one. Mulg is 80% done, my Sons of Bragg and Kithkar are 90%.  I'm right there, I just keep bouncing back to this project and it's completed finally.  Stay tuned, I've got 2 batreps coming, eDoomy vs. pButcher and eMadrak vs. Stryker2.  


Thursday, April 17, 2014

50pts Testament of (Menoth) vs. eDoomy (Trollbloods). Mt. King, come forth!



After my eCaine game, I took on the same Menoth player I played last time. I brought me eDoomy list, because A) I really wanted to field the Mt. King and B) It's a model count of 13. He had the Testament of Menoth, who basically looks like a converted and zealous Bane. I haven't played against the Testament before (I don't think), so this was a new deal for me. On the plus side, the list was really similar to the Reznik1 list I beat with eMadrak, so I knew most of what the units would do, I simply didn't know what the Testament changed about it.

So, our lists:

eDoomy
*Mt. King
*Earthborn
*Mulg
Janissa
KSB min
Sons of Bragg
Whelps

I've never played the eDoomy brick before, but my goal is to find something that works with the Mt. King. The list consistently takes the 3 beasts up to arm 21-23 with the KSB aura and Earthborn animus, has a pretty serious threat range, and is pretty difficult to tear apart. As a Cygnar player... Well, as a Cygnar player, I'd drop eCaine and Taryn and shoot eDoomy to pieces on turn 2. So there is that. Without that though, I'd be pretty concerned.

Testament of Menoth
*Reckoner
Errants (Red)
Errants (White)
Errants (Black)
Choir
Vassal
Paladin
Paladin
Dartan
Vessel of Judgement
Choir Mechanics
Daughters of the Flame, or something like that.

We rolled off, I won, elected to go first, and he chose a side. I deployed my thirteen models with the big stuff in front, little stuff (Medium bases, heh) in the back.

His Errants spread out, with the Vessel to my left, and daughters way to the left. I don't have a picture of deployment, or even my first turn, so you'll have to imagine all of the running that happened, otay?

Mt. King ran up, Mulg ran, Earthborn put is animus down on Mulg, eDoomy put it on the King, Refuge on the Earthborn, and Wild Aggression on the king also. The rest went to the stone. Everything else ran, and the Bragg's did a 4+ tough and hid behind the king.

Menoth all ran as well. Ashen Veil landed on the foremost unit of Errants, and Hallowed Avenger went to the Reckoner, which is a neat trick. He keeps his jack far enough back that he'll never reach, but the jack has Assault, so as long as he gets 3'', he gets a shot off. The cav went left some more for a wide flanking action.



So there's actually a scenario in play, and I actually want to try winning on scenario. I kind of have a list that does it very well, that's able to just tank damage and dish it back out, but I don't really want to give him a leg up on the competition by leaving the zone uncontested. In the end, I decide it's feat turn.

Doomshaper upkeeps Refuge and WA. The Earthborn moves up and animuses Mulg. Doomshaper moves up, feats, gets the Earthborn Animus onto Mt. King, reloads the stone, and hangs out. Mulg charges in, smacks a daughter that got too close, goads back to the other, kills her too, and goads closer to Doomy.

The King charges. I'm hoping I can kill a decent amount, but they're spread out pretty well, so there's only maybe three Errants in melee range. Happily, the King has Killshot, and I tell you what, a RNG10 POW16 spray is a thing of beauty. He pulverizes the first Errant, and happily sprays the paladins all lined up for him. Unfortunatly, I miss Dartan, and another Paladin, but manage to kill one, an errant, and something else. Choir or something. I buy a few more attacks to smack what's left of the Errants in melee, and hang out. The Reckoner takes one of those chances to charge/assault, but has blocked himself in enough that he doesn't get the 3''.

The ksb shuffles up to catch both the King and the brick in aura, putting the King at a healthy ARM23, and the sons of Bragg hang out in the brick.



Now we've forced an issue. My opponent pretty much has to kill the Mt. King this turn. I've forced him down his throat, and he's got to kill it, all the way, because the King's going to drop enough whelps to heal back, and, once he's killed everything in melee with a sweep, he's going to snack and heal back to nearly full health. He has one chance to kill this guy, so he gets after it.

I think I'm ok though. The positioning I've got means he can really only get so many Errants into melee with me, and the first unit that gets into melee with me is going to spawn whelps that I can use to block chargelanes.

The testament drops Hallowed Avenger, teleports with a soul he gained (Something he does), feats, giving his entire army except the Daughters (out of control) incorporeal.

Great.

So they can charge through eachother. This makes things considerably more difficult for me. The first unit tears into the King, only doing minor cuts and scrapes until one dude cranks the damage roll and nails the king for 13 damage.

I spawn a bunch of whelps all over, mostly in front to block charges. The next unit of Errants charges, not getting a lot of attacks on the king, but most killing whelps. The third unit charges, does very little, mostly running and killing whelps. They do run to engage my brick, and one gets a swing at Tor, but fails to hit. DEF13 yo.

Then the Reckoner, who my opponent has carefully left a hole for, (it has reach too, so that helps) charges in, and over the course of a few attacks, manages to eliminate an aspect. I'm doing pretty good.

A paladin charges, and singlehandedly does 11 damage. I drop a whelp to block the last paladin, but something kills it, and Dartan charges in and with a 14 damage roll, just barely kills the King.

Crap.

The Vessel of Judgement fires at the EBDT and the leaps kill a KSB dude or two, and the Daughters reposition.

So, that plan did not work. At all. Was rather disappointing. I was really hoping that the King would tank that better (ARM23, yo) but no dice. Well, lots of dice. Anyways. I forgot to take a picture, in the midst of my grief even. That bad.

Now we're in trouble. Doomy drops Wild Aggression, upkeeps Refuge, and the game goes on.

There's not a lot I can do. Tor Assaults the Paladins in a revenge scheme, and really fails to kill many of them, if any. I annihilate several Errants, but that's it. Wrathar whacks another one, and I think the two-sword dude growls angrily. Everyone else moves up, does the Earthborn animus shuffle, Janissa drops a wall (Which I've neglected to mention so far, but yeah, it's been happening) But I am contesting now. eDoomy primal shocks something too, maybe another Paladin, but I don't think it connects.



Now everything engages. The Vessel, which has been doing miracles and such throughout the game, has been faithfully repaired to perfect by the mechanics, takes a shot at the EBDT, and fries a another KSB or two, including the stone, which toughs. The Daughters charge in, attacking Mulg and EBDT, and do some damage, not a lot, but enough to spawn whelps. That's great, because I was running hot on fury. No more!

The Errants charge, but they can't do much with a wall in the way, so mainly, they engage things, and the guys with Ashen Veil are up front. Two of them get close to the KSB but that's it.

The Reckoner moves, shoots EBDT for some damage, but not a lot.

The Paladins get in there and do their stance for no attacks unless they're magic, which means that only eDoomy can swing at them.

"Yeah, the old troll with a stick, he can hit us. That's cool. No Mulg, bad Mulg. You can't hurt me. Just yoda over there."

Annoying.






I'm beginning to feel a little bit better about this game. He's running out of things that can kill my beasts at their wonderful ARM21-22. Between snacking and regeneration, they're doing decent.

I've got two whelps left. Mulg eats one and dumps his fury, and the EDBT eats one to heal. Doomy drops Refuge, upkeeps Wild Agression on Mulg (Forgot to mention that I think) and away we go.

The wall drops away, and Wrathar takes a swing at an errant. Tor assaults past the pillar to try and tie up the reckoner, but targets an errant and sprays all the way back into the Choir, killing a few. Wrathar kills his dude too, so that's cool.

The EBDT goes ballistic and starts killing Errants and daughters, goading along, and snacking like crazy. He kills two or three models, goads back to in front of Doomy and hangs out. Mulg moves in, kills whats left and sits next to the EBDT. Doomy moves over, primal shocks a Paladin (Hah!) and hides behind the two beasts. Janissa steps back, drops a wall to the right to prevent a charge from the Errants or Reckoner, and the stone gets up and moves, popping whats left of his aura while the last ksb foot dude whacks an errant hilariously, doing absolutely nothing.



This becoming a pretty serious grind. No points for anyone, except my opponent who has two because he killed my objective at some point, and scored a point in the zone after killing the King. But he still can't do much against my brick. Testament teleports around and hides behind his objective. The vessel shoots the EBDT, gets decent bounces and boosts damage on the one that hits Janissa, and kills her. That's no good.

The Errants try to kill Tor and the KSB, but only fail in killing the KSB. Three or four missed melee attacks are what keeps Tor alive. The Reckoner walks in and finishes him though. And that's turn.



With Janissa gone, my chances are looking slimmer by the minute. The Reckoner is still out there and pretty healthy, and I lost the best thing keeping the Errants back. So it's time to go. I've got two options.

Wrathar can kill a dude nearby in the way, and Doomy can use his powerful attack and whack the dude in front of the EBDT, cast Refuge on him, and call it a day. Maybe primal shock because it'd help. Then the EBDT charges the Vessel, kills it, refuges back, and Mulg uses the cleared charge lane to charge/goad to the Testament and kill him.

OR

Wrathar and Doomy kill the same dudes, EBDT tramples across (he's in the way of mulg's chargelane if he just stops in front of the vessel) to behind the Vessel and kills it from there, then Mulg charges.

So we begin. Wrathar smashes a dude, and Doomy misses... Buy... boost, kill him, cast Refuge, done. EBDT charges in, can't quite get a POW bonus from Wrathar or anyone really, and then proceeds to miss his charge attack, and to whuff his damage rolls from thereon out, leaving the Vessel at four or five boxes...

He refuges back, Mulg's charge lane is still busy, so he moves around to the other side of Doomy and gets ready for the Reckoner assault.



Lo and behold, the Reckoner gets full focus, and assaults, killing Mulg quite easily. No wall and no animus from the EBDT hurts. The few remaining Errants charge the EBDT, and kill him as well. The problem with Errants is the first three or four aren't hard to kill, but for every one killed, they gain +1 ARM/STR, and the last one or two are little light warjacks of their own. So the four or five left easily smashed an ARM18 beast that was already somewhat damaged.

In the midst of that, my KSB dude is dead too. It's literally just Doomy. So the last Paladin, maybe even Dartan, charges and murders him.

Except he toughs. Haha.






Doomy stands up, boosts to hit and kills the Paladin in a last act of revenge.

Back to my opponent's turn, the Reckoner gets fully loaded, walks over, boosts to hit, and pummels him into the ground.

And he toughs!

Buy. Boost. Stomp on yoda again.

No tough.



Thoughts on the game.

1. That was a lot of fun. I really thought I was in trouble after losing the Mt. King, but I actually weathered really well until I lost Janissa. I also had a serious chance of assassination. My opponent and I talked about it before I took off, and he actually suggested the route I took, and the EBDT threw the game away with a failed charge on a DEF10 object... That was the pretty critical point of that turn, second critical point of the game for me (the first being the death of the mt. king), and he just blew it.

2. That list weathered against the Menoth list pretty well. For being an ARM-cracking list as he described it, my EBDT/Mulg duo held on for a long time. Between snacking and regen, those guys are boss.

3. Losing the Mt. King hurt. That game would have been over if the King had survived. Whelps would have been eaten, he would have swept, which would have all been boosted thanks to Iron Agression. He'd of killed the Reckoner. The Killshot would have fried a lot of things, and then the EBDT and Mulg could just push forward and kill what was left. The Mt. King dieing was painful. And fairly unexpected. The feat helped him a lot just with positioning. The only things with reach were his paladins and Reckoner, and I could block charge lanes all day with whelps. The incorporeal aspect of the feat let him charge through his units, and get lanes in spite of everything. The feat helped him a lot. Which is the point of feats, I suppose, but it was legitimately perfect in this situation. On top of that, those three damage rolls were what he needed. He had a charge left from a daughter and a shot from the vessel, and both would have been minor cuts. But the three powerhouse strikes... Those were nuts. Still, I'm not sure what I would have done. I probably should have held back for another turn, but I didn't want to give him CPs. I ended up letting him have them anyways, but at the time, it seemed like a bad idea. I wish I had held him back just a turn, but even then, he'd of got the alpha on the king, and I would have had the same problem. We both agreed I made the right decision, but it simply didn't work out.

4. My list. Most people take maybe an Axer, or more KSBs, or something instead of the Sons of Bragg, but I really wanted the Sons for clearing up jamming lines, which they did quite well. I haven't decided if I'll keep them or not, but I do like them in this list. I just don't know if there's something that would serve me better.

5. Overall, this was a really fun game, and hinged on some pivotal moments. My opponent played awesome, and I made mistakes. It was a fun game and really enjoyed it. Probably my favorite loss.

Comments, questions, insults, suggestions, bring it.


@Vangeleon. Yeah lol, that second part took awhile to write.

Monday, April 14, 2014

50pts eCaine (Cygnar) vs. eMadrak (Trollbloods)



eMadrak's back, and I've dropped the Long Riders. I like them, but my new additions are the Champion Hero and Bonehammer, the UA. Seems like fun, so we ran with it. My opponent dropped eCaine, and again, I brought eMadrak, because... I bring eMadrak to everything?

eCaine
*Squire (which he forgot)
*Rowdy
Rangers
ATGM w/UA
Boomhowlers
Forgeguard
Ayaina and Holt
Alexia and the Risen
JR

eMadrak
*Bomber
*Impaler
Runebearer
Janissa
Fell Caller
Fennblades w/UA
Fennblade Kithkar
Champions w/UA
Champion Hero
KSB w/ UA

We rolled off, he won and elected to take first. I took the side of the map with less forest and a wall. He deployed, spreading his stuff out quite a bit. ATGM went on my right, Forgeguard center with Caine and Rowdy, Risen to the left. Boomies got spread all across the front.

I set up with Fenns across from ATGM, the Champions across from the Risen, and the Madrak/Warbeast/KSB brick in the middle.

AD'd Rangers set up with the Risen to help against the Champions, and we set off.



Most stuff moved up. Caine got Blur onto the ATGM, spreading them out as much as he could from the Bomber. Heightened Reflexes went on the Boomies. JR put AS on Rowdy and hung back. Rangers hung out in the woods, Risen pushed up on the flank, Boomies ran forward, and the Forgeguard chugged behind them. Rowdy pushed forward, A+H stealth and that was that.



My list does what it normally does. Everything pushes forward. Madrak dumps everything to the stone, KSB pops an aura, and everything stays as close to the KSB as possible. Everything but 3 fenns on the far right. Between Defensive Line and the KSB, Champions are ARM20. It's pretty legit. Even most of the Fenns are ARM16.



Caine upkeeps Heightened Reflexes, but drops Blur. The Boomhowlers run and engage the Fenns, but don't do anything else other than their fell call. The ATGM spread out, the Risen push up on the left some more, and the Rangers shift around. The Forgeguard group up, waiting for the chance to countercharge, and everything else fills gaps.






I really dislike it when my Fenns are engaged, but I don't get Vengeance. Dirtbags. Anyways. I made a few mistakes. I should have countercharged with Bonehammer, but I didn't, not wanting him to get outside of the KSB aura. Looking back, he would have been at least ARM18, and eCaine was too far back to make a dent in him. So instead, the Hero charges (He grants tactictian to Champions) and threshers (which is pretty legit), killing 3 boomies, all three of whom fail to tough.

Madrak moves up, smacks a dude who toughs, and buys an attack. Then he hits another and spends the fury from that kill to back away and spends 2 fury to put farstrike on the bomber. The Champions move up to kill the few they can engage. The Kithkar moves forward over the wall and kills two Boomies on the right flank, and both of them fail to tough as well. Lots of threes so far.

The Impaler moves up and chucks a spear into Boomhowler, and does three damage. The Bomber moves through the opening the Impaler left by moving forward, gets onto the hill and puts 2 AOE4s downrange, but only kills 2 Risen.

The fell caller moves up and puts War Cry on the Fenns, who minifeat and charge forward. One engages both Forgeguard and Rangers, another gets after Boomy and two more engage the ATGM. The ATGM pass CMD, but the Boomhowlers fail, and so do the Rangers. The dwarves, unfortunately, do not. However, the Fenns kill everything they charge, which ammounts to all of the boomies except Boomhowler himself, one ATGM and one Dwarf.



Not a bad turn. Caine upkeeps HR again, and the Risen run forward, pressing the left flank. Ayaina and Holt move up, and Ayaina kisses the Fenns, followed by Holt killing 2 of them. The ATGM move up, and start killing Fenns to, and between them, and Caine who pushes up onto the hill, they kill all but the UA and drummer. The Forgeguard move up a bit, Rowdy presses forward, the Rangers fail CMD again, Boomhowler passes, and it's a done deal.



So, the Bomber leads off, and puts 2 shots into the Risen and Alexia. I kill most of the Risen, leaving 2. The Champions charge forward and kill half of the Forgeguard, and put a few dents into Rowdy. The Kithkar charges onto the hill and swings at Caine twice, needing 10s and misses. Then eMadrak goes, and I completely screw up my turn. I fully meant to put Blood Fury on him with the Runebearer, and War Cry for +2 MAT from the Fell Caller, and I forgot to do both. He charges Boomy, kills him, feats, and threshers the other two, missing one and plastering the other. The Kithkar swings at Caine again, misses, and the Champions kill anything they can reach, except Rowdy, who they put a few points on, but nothing more. The Bomber throws another bomb, but it deviates uselessly.

Madrak, on the other hand, uses the fury gained to move up, and proceeds to Tide of Death his way into Caine where he lands finally with four fury. He buys, boosts to hit needing 9s, and misses. Buys, boosts to hit with his last attack, and does a whopping 4 damage...

So that was dumb. Completely butchered that. My options look pretty bad now, but I might can run the KSBs far enough to give Madrak some Grim Salvation targets. Speaking of which, I still have 2 fenns. So the Fell caller moves up, war crys them, and they charge forward. The UA needs an 8 to hit, and connects with eCaine, and on 3 dice, rolls exactly what he needs to kill Caine.



Thoughts:

1. I got stupid lucky on the end there. I completely had that game, and didn't put anything on my caster that I wanted to. Secondly, I could have put Blood Fury on the Fenns with the Runebearer, and I didn't think about doing that either. I had that game, but I screwed it up and just barely pulled it off.

2. That eCaine list was weird... FG are good on Caine I guess (Haven't tried it.), and Boomies are gold, but no Reinholdt, no Gate Crashing, Caine did very little work, the Risen didn't screen at all, the Rangers never fired, and the Boomies never got to attack. I think I would have screened with the Boomies to block as much of the Fenn's charge as possible to prevent failed CMD checks. Granted his toughchecks still sucked, but he still didn't screen that great. He could have at least shot with the boomies, (Rangers yo, that's what they're for), but that didn't happen either. The Risen could have screened as well, and they didn't do that either.

Overall, good game, but I pulled off a lucky game win there at the end. Thoughts, comments, questions, thinly veiled insults from PGs who know what I should have done instead, all welcome.

Friday, April 4, 2014

50pts Reznik2 (Menoth) vs. eDoomshaper (Trollbloods)

My opponent from the previous game was up for another one, as long as I was cool with a lot of proxying. The main proxys are pretty simple. One base is a second Vessel of Judgement, and the other with Reznik1 on it, is actually Reznik2.

I've never fought Reznik2, and I've only briefly read through his page. I figured when Vengeance came out that as rarely as I fight Khador, I wouldn't have to deal with him unless Sevensins decides to bring him in some janky list. So I speedread and headed straight for the storyline. I already own everything Cygnar spoiled except Stryker3 (I like my 60$, thanks).

So, my first thought was to play pGrim, since I'd already dropped eMadrak, but I reaally have been itching to buy the other caster that I got into the faction for, that being eDoomy (Though Jarl is close behind). So I went and got Kovnik Joe for my wife's new Winterguard Rifle unit, and eDoomy. If you can see the little headless, armless troll teetering on the base amidst the KSB, that's eDoomy.

I really like him on the card, and the few times I've vassaled him, I've really liked him. He's basically Cygnar's Kraye without the cav rules. +3 SPD on the charge, charges and power attacks are free. Legit, right? On top of that, he has Wild Aggression (boosted melee and free charge) so that I get basically Kraye's feat, EVERY TURN. YEAH.

The other thing is I really want to play the Mt. King, and with Wild Aggression and feat, eDoomy makes that happen. Unfortunately, I didn't have the King with me today, so I settled for other things, like Mulg.

Oh, shucks.

Reznik2
*Sanctifier
Vessel of Judgement
Vessel of Judgement
Vassal Mechanics x2
Max Bastions
Max Bastions
Min Cinerators (They look mysteriously like Trollkin Champions)
Wracks
Wracks (proxied for a brief second by various trollkin)

This is a Tier list for Reznik, so he can have as many wracks as he wants, pull as much focus as he wants on turn 1. Also, tier bonuses give his infantry, or bastions and cinerators at least, advanced move, which is nice for SPD4 infantry.

My list was:

eDoomy
*Mulg
*Earthborn
*Axer
Janissa
KSB w/ Elder
Fenns w/ UA
Sons of Bragg
Fell Caller

I won the rolloff, elected to go second. He deployed everything, and there's not much you can do, really. Infantry, and then three huge based models in the back. Done.

I put my Fenns to the right, beasts to the left, KSBs behind me with the Sons for a second wave and we started. I didn't get the deployment pic, but you're not missing anything.

Advanced move is nice. One focus to the jack, then everything moves up, then actually activates and "runs" 8''. Reznik pushes forward, casts Death March (+2 MAT and Vengeance) on the Bastions to the right, and casts Creator's Wrath on himself (Much better stats, upkeepable), and Iron Aggression on the warjack, after pulling 3 from my trollkin wracks, all of which conveniently blow up. Sanctifier runs up, and it goes to me.



Same thing. The Fenns run. Mulg runs, the Earthborn sprints to support the Fenns, the Axer moves up. Doomshaper puts Iron Aggression on Mulg, and Refuge on the Axer, then puts 2 to the stone. Stone pops aura, says no continuous affects, and moves up. Janissa drops a wall, Sons of Bragg filter in behind.



Reznik upkeeps all of his spells, pulls another focus from the Rack. The Vessels take shots as they move up, but nothing's in range of the right one. The left one hits Tor, forces him to tough (which he passes), and fails to damage Mulg (awww) and the other two Sons of Bragg. His infantry all run and engage my Fenns as best they can, pretty much neutering my charge with them. Reznik then gets brave, and moves up. First, he toes foward to juuust catch eDoomy in his control range, and casts Lamentation, which is pretty annoying for me, since it doubles all fury casting costs. So, my beasts can force like normal, but animus cost double, upkeeping costs double, so on, so forth. It's a solid spell.

He also gets brave and tries to drift "The Flesh is Weak" onto Mulg and my Sons of Bragg, which would prevent them from charging, running or special attacks this turn. He tosses it out, and it drifts back onto his own guys, doing nothing except leaving him at one focus, waaaaaay back behind his own lines.



By Waaaaaaaay back I mean almost exactly 14'' from eDoomy, and I know because he cast Lamentation. My stuff's tied up, I didn't get any Vengeance, and if you're aware of what Bastions do, let me educate you. They're a low-def decent-ARM 8 box medium based model that has the ability when it takes damage to spread it out over the whole unit. You can take 12 damage, and spread 6 of it to the dude in the back, and 5 of it to the dude on the right, and take one yourself. Battlecollege claims the unit can take 35pts of damage before one of them is killed.

That's a lot of work to clear these dudes out. They're spread out too, so I can't just walk the Earthborn up, apply 35pts of damage to one dude so they're all on one box, he might just kill that dude, and take all of it himself, and the other four would be out of reach. It's tough to deal with. I have 0 faith being able to attrition this list with what I have. eMadrak might could have done better, but Idk. pGrim with a lot of shooting, maybe. But nonetheless, I see a small glimmer of hope.

Reznik is 14'' from eDoomy, who is 1'' behind Mulg. Mulg is SPD4. Add 3 for the charge, 2 for reach, and we're at 9''. But factor in the Axer's Rush animus, and Doomy's feat, and now we're at 14'', which is plenty. On top of that, Doomy can Goad his beasts, so technically, I could kill a dude, move an inch, and kill another one, and just go until I'm out of fury on him.

Between Mulg and Reznik are 2 Bastions and a load of free strikes. Mulg can handle a few, but I still want to mitigate them. I do, however, need to clear those two dudes. At the very least, I need to clear the first one, but again, I have to essentially kill a heavy warjack's amount of boxes in order to do this.

So first off, I screw up and drop both upkeeps because I don't want to pay 4 fury to upkeep them. I reality, I should have dropped Refuge, and left Wild Aggression up since Doomy can upkeep one for free. But no. So we pull in fury back to full, and activate Doomy. I measure back (believe it or not, there's a scenario in play, and it's killbox), and Doomy is just two hairs inside killbox, but only 1 hair in Reznik's control. So we creep back, stay in the box, but get out of control of Reznik. Then Doomy feats, puts Wild Aggression on Mulg, and the Rush animus as well. He keeps the last two fury for transfers, but I really don't expect to survive the next turn regardless.

Now I have to clear things. The Axer starts first, and walks (Doomy's +3 SPD from feat isn't dependant on a charge.) 8'', and threshers, catching a few fenns and a Bastion, and a Cinerator. He murders the Cinerator, kills the fenns, who fail tough, and boosts damage on the Bastion, and puts a respectable amount on him, which he spreads throughout the rest of them. Then the Axer goads forward, and hits the one further back, boosting damage on him as well. Another decent roll for damage, and six, seven boxes get spread out.

The Fell caller gives the Fenns +2 to melee attacks, moves up, and sprays two Bastions, doing three or four boxes each. The Fenns then charge, and finally kill the nearest one (not in the path of Mulg, but ok), and kill a Cinerator as well, while putting damage into the second unit of Bastions as well.

So then the Sons of Bragg charge/assault, after Reveille. I wanted fervor, but with Tor knocked down, that wouldn't work, I needed his spray. Tor hits at an angle, and sprays across, catching three Bastions and a vassal mechanic in the back. He misses the center Bastion, but deals solid damage again to the other two, and kills the mechanic. His melee attack connects, damage gets spread out, and then Wrathar just murders the dude, cranking the damage and my opponent doesn't want to spread that out, and kills the Bastion.

At this point, Mulg can probably charge relatively safely to the last Bastion, and goad into Reznik, but I've got one more trick. The Earthborn walks up, and easily grabs the last Cinerator, and pitches him across the board into the Bastion, kding them both, and cranking the damage roll on that one as well, killing the Bastion, since the remaining unit is surviving one one or two boxes.

Mulg charges. I take a free strike from a bastion, but he rolls trip ones and a 3. It would have taken a pretty serious hit to cut him down, but that was unfortunately pathetic for a Bastion.

Mulg hits Reznik, and drops him to about seven boxes. The second attack whuffs it and takes him to two, but the third attack finishes him.



Thoughts:

1. I got lucky with some damage rolls on that. If the Bastions had held on a little longer, I'd of been in trouble. I also got lucky on their placement. If there'd of been one more in my way, I might have had problems.
2. Looking back, Assassination by Mulg may not have been my only choice, because Primal Shock is pretty solid with eDoomy as well, but under Lamentation and kill box, that was going to be difficult.
3. Outside of assassination, I did have Goad, and I forgot that. The Axer and the Earthborn could have cleared some swathes, and for that matter, so could have Mulg. I don't think I could have cut down enough of them to not get counterstriked hard though, and once I lose Mulg and the Earthborn, I'd be in serious trouble without a way to kill Reznik. It would have been an attrition battle starting from the back foot, and I think I would have lost, but I don't know that it was as hopeless as I made it out to be. Still, I really wanted to see what Mulg could do. I got into trollbloods and eDoomy so I could sling that monster around the map, so I was really excited to do that.

Comments, questions, insults, go for it. Hope you enjoyed the (short) batrep.