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.