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.
No comments:
Post a Comment