50pts Nemo3 (Cygnar) vs. Jarl (Trollbloods)

Long time no see batrep dudes! Been awhile since I've gotten one into the field. I've played way less in the last couple of months, between buying a house and working. I've vassaled here or there, but nothing crazy. Got a Borka2 game in the other day that was kind of fun, but didn't batrep it.

So, I got to one of our LGS Sunday, and scored a game with a Cygnar player I've known of for awhile, but not yet had a chance to play. In the year that I've known him, I've only ever seen him play Cygnar, and while he says he plays Siege too, I've only ever seen him have Nemo3 fielded in tier, and the Silverline and Captain have only fueled that. We got a game, I said I'd bring Jarl, and he debated on Siege or Nemo, and decided to bring the old man. No scenario, just straight up kill-box assassination.

His list was the following:

Nemo3
*Stormclad
*Thunderhead
Storm Strider
Silverline Stormguard (Max)
Stormblades (max) w/ua and at least 2 storm launchers, if not 3
Stormblade Captain

I had a Jarl list already built from probably four months ago, and slotted Horgle in because I wanted to try him. I really like the model, and I like the fully-fueled Slag that can wreck stuff without needing primary caster support, but it's a hard 8pt module to fit into the list. On the plus side, it's the only 8pt warbeast option, if you include Horgle... So there is that. My old list had a Slag and a Chronicler, so I dropped the Chronicler to get Horgle in there. Jarl's really just a fast list that he protects getting up field, and I haven't put any kind of serious armor cracking in his list. The Longriders are probably the closest thing, but I really like the Bomber/Impaler/Jarl assassination threat, so that calls for a Slag just in case the Bomber needs to mix it up in melee.

Jarl
*Runebearer
*Bomber
*Impaler
*Storm troll
Horgle
*Slag
Fenns w/ UA (Max)
Longriders (Max)
Fell Caller
Whelps

After he landed his list, I realized that everything was immune to the Stormtroll, and I was kinda disappointed, since I really like the Stormtroll. Now his shooting was completely useless, so he'd have to mix it up in melee. Then I checked his animus. The animus gives electro leaps to a model for 1 fury, which is again, useless. It also gives Electric Immunity though too, and that's money. Suddenly Jarl was almost impervious to assassination, and any main targets that the Strider could possibly shoot at, I could easily render immune with the animus.

My opponent set up terrain, we rolled off and he won, choosing second. Apparently Nemo would sacrifice the initiative for a wall. Frail old man. The terrain was fairly simple, 5 objects with a tower in the middle. Fenns went to the right, Jarl and the beasts in the middle and Long Riders to the left. Looking back, I should have put Horgle over towards the Long Riders to get +2 damage on them, but oh well.

Nemo and his crew set up. Stormstrider went center (Before my guys, actually), Stormblades to the left against the Long Riders, and Stormguard to the right against the Fenns. Stormclad went center left to support/receive support from the Blades, and Thunderhead went right to hopefully pulse against the Fenns. Nemo hid in the back and Caitlin started digging him a hole.

And then I forgot to take a picture and we were off.

Fenns ran up the board, and the Long Riders meander forward into the woods. Too far forward, and the Blades can assault in and RAT7 POW14s are enough to cause me anxiety against DEF12 ARM17 8 box models, so the cav hung back a little. Beasts all run, Slag gets hot shot from Horgle, and Jarl puts Quicken on the Fenns, and Weald Secrets on the Long Riders for Pathfinder benefits.



Cygnar plays it safe. The Stormguard run forward and pair up, and the Stormblades spread out because the Bomber is headed their way. Nemo puts Fail Safe on the Stormclad and Lightning Shroud on the Thunderhead.



Jarl upkeeps Quicken and Weald Secrets. I haven't decided if the Long Riders are bull rushing this turn or not, but I want them to have pathfinder if they do. Horgle upkeeps hot shot and away we go. Quicken is +2SPD and +2DEF against shooting. This makes them stupid fast. SPD6 base, plus Minifeat of 2'' of movement on the charge, plus Quicken... They can charge 13'', and threaten 15'' w/ reach, or just flat out run 16''. This is awesome for their minifeat which causes Terror. The Stormtroll shuffles forward, puts down an animus on 1. Impaler (who by the way

puts Far Strike on Jarl. Runebearer minifeats, and puts Magic Bullet on Jarl. Jarl moves up, puts the storm troll animus down on 2 more Fenns, and shoots a Stormguard, and magic bullets another, dropping 2 pairs down to just two dudes, alone, and without their polarity shield. Jarl feats. I roll a 3, so 6 clouds. With the house right in the middle, I have all kinds of room, and butt the clouds up against the house (4'' clouds, and I only had 3'' rings in a few cases, so that's what that's about).

The Fenns take off, minifeating. Only 1 has LOS, and he charges. 2 run off after the Blades, one reaches them, the other engages the Stormclad. The rest hang out in the clouds at DEF16 (Quicken + Concealment). The Stormguard rolls a 10 for CMD, but since the Captain is there, it's ok. The Blades roll box cars and fail CMD.

Haha.

Unfortunately, I've blocked LOS to the rest of my army, so everyone shuffles forward and calls it turn.



Nemo upkeeps both spells. The Stormguard charge the Fenns, but are unable to do much against DEF16 (Set Defense and Feat clouds), however, Nemo3 lightning storms them into the back, and rolls some decent jumps, and fries several fenns.

Thunderhead shuffles across and pulses, killing the Fenn engaging the Stormclad, and forces a toughcheck on the Fenn engaging his Stormguard.

Stormblades rally.

Stormclad straight up runs into my lines, trying to buy time. Strider shoots him in the back and the leaps kill another Fenn or two.



Jarl drops Weald Secrets and Quicken both. Horgle upkeeps Hot Shot. Fenns Vengeance as much as they can (One guy moves). The Slag Troll aims, and puts 2 shots into the Stormclad, and drops about half of it's boxes. Horgle puts +2 damage on the Stormtroll, who walks around and starts beating on the Stormclad, disrupting him pretty quickly, but leaving him four or five boxes. Fenns try to clear out some Stormguard, but it doesn't do much.

Impaler puts farstrike on the Bomber, who aims and puts two bombs at Thunderhead. One hits, does damage, the other drifts and does 1 point of damage to the Strider, making it happy with it's first token. Jarl scoots over, puts the Storm troll animus on the two Long Riders on the right, and throws Quicken on them too.

Fenns stand up/walk, and shuffle into better positions, which moves a few out of CMD. Fell Caller gives the Long Riders a MAT buff, and they bull rush into the Fenns, with the exception of one who goes after Thunderhead. The 3 on the left hit the Fenns, and slam them 4-6'' through the Blades, killing five or six of them. I just barely missed killing the Captain and UA, by a box or two. A shame really, but oh well. The other rider slams the Thunderhead into the Strider, but happily keeps it in reach. The slam does awesome damage, and the charge attack kills Thunderhead.



I forgot a picture at this point, but Nemo gives Stormclad 1 focus, which Finch doubles, and he upkeeps Failsafe. The stormclad whacks the stormtroll, doing decent damage, but disrupts himself again. The Stormguard finish off most of the fenns, then debate long and hard about shooting at Jarl for the damage benefits if my opponent can land a Storm Strider shot on him. I'm sitting on a few transfers though, so it's not a safe bet. He shoots the bomber, which is close enough to Jarl to affect him, but decides not to shoot him with the Strider.

Stormblade Captain charges into a Long Rider, kills him, but he toughs. No quickwork. Stormblades assault and kill two more I think. Nemo arcs some more electro leaps, frying the few Fenns I have left, and the Strider just really looks on in helplessness because the two things it can shoot both are immune to Electro damage.

It's my turn again. Stormtroll steps to the side, the Slag puts Acidic Touch to Horgle, and he charges the Stormclad, KDs him, but fails to finish him, leaving him on a few boxes. The Storm tries to get him, but only disrupts him again. The Bomber puts more AOEs down range after the Blades, but only manages to damage the Strider again for 1. I ran hot on fury last turn, and only barely pulled through using whelps. I think the Bomber passed a threshold check to do anything this turn, so I was limited. Impaler charges across and kills some Stormguard, and Jarl w/ Magic Bullet kills some too.

Stormblades assault again and kill my last two Long Riders. Stormclad stands up, whacks Horgle and kills him.



With Horgle dead, all my Slag can do is run. So instead, the Fell Caller moves across, gets +2 to hit from the Fenn, who charges up field and hits Nemo for like, 8 damage or something. The Slag runs down field. Jarl gets farstrike from the impaler, casts Magic Bullet, shoots the slag and bounces it to Nemo, and kills him.




Thoughts on the game.

1. Was pretty one-sided after the feat. I picked up a lot of momentum, being able to knock the wind out of Cygnar's crucial turn, and then being able to capitalize on it even more so with a failed CMD check on the Stormblades. That helped a lot. The game was assassination, and with the Storm Troll animus, Jarl was immune to any ranged attack whatsoever, which meant a Stormclad had to chew it's way through my 4 beasts to get to Jarl, which wasn't going to happen.

2. I played a game with Horthol the other day, and the Long Riders, on Borka2, and reeeeeaaaallly enjoyed them. The main reason I brought Jarl that day was to play Long Riders, and I loved them. They handled the Stormblades (after they passed their CMD check, granted) and the Thunderhead by themselves, and were a lot of fun.

3. Horgle was fun too, with the Slag. Jarl needs some damage help, but wants to keep Fury for Magic Bullet and such, so it's really awesome to have Horgle there to support that. Jarl can bring a ranged battlegroup, but with Horgle there to put the animus out there, the Storm Troll and Bomber can do work if needed.

Overall, good game, but the more I look at it, the more Nemo3 was on his back foot from the get go because of my Stormtroll. Enjoyed the game, but yeah.

The Flagged Impaler finished.

Took me long enough.  Without further ado:

  The more I see these pictures, the less pleased with my camera I am.  I'm having a hard time getting good pictures set up, and part of the problem I think is that my paper is too reflective.  I need to reprint the background, and go muted maybe.  The other problem is that the camera simply has terrible focus.  Sony TX10, folks.  Avoid them.  Unless you're going camping.  Ultimate pocket camera for camping.  Terrible miniatures camera.

  That being said, I really liked how this impaler turned out, and I'm excited to get him on the table asap.  I'll probably go ahead and start making flags for a lot of my other units, and even now, I'm trying to figure out how to put one on Dozer and Smigs.  

  Oh, hey, I just figured it out.  

  Anyways.  I'm happy with this guy.  I'm not sure that it's my best paintjob ever (Janissa has that spot dialed down pretty well, and the Kithkar is right behind her) but I really like the unity his model will bring to the playfield.  I want the archaic lack of technology prevalent in the Trollblood army to be evident in my army, and one major problem with any engagement is communication, and know where anyone is and who they are.  Flags are an obvious solution that Skorne has obviously figured out to some small scale, but I want to fully implement it in the trolls.  Where are the Fenns?  Where is Dozer?  Where's that Mauler?  How far behind me are the Warders?  The major exception to this rule is the Burrowers.  They're easy.  A) Underground.  B) Underfoot.  C) All of B) and fleeing too.  Nobody's worried about them.  As soon as I put them on the table and my opponent said "Man, I hate those guys", they did their job.

  So, rabbit trail aside, the flag was a lot of fun, though daunting to paint.  Once I got started it worked out.  The symbols mean absolutely nothing except the spear, which is the Impaler sign.  Now.  According to me.  Fenns will have their sword, Warders their... poleaxes?  Etc.

 Secondly, we've got Horgle.  Horgle's cool.  I've only played him a handful of times, and right now, I'm having a hard time slotting him into my army builds.  If he had reach, he'd be an auto-include in Madrak2's force.  As it is, he's an auto-include in Madrak1.  2 dudes with Fury to boost attack/damage rolls on feat turn is bonkers.  Otherwise, I've haven't found a place for him yet.  My Grim2 list is evolving, but my playtime in the last month has been limited to one or two games, so I haven't had a lot of time to build on that.

 On the plus side, Grim2, a Fell Caller, Dozer and 2 warders got an ARM27 Gaspy the Heckbringer down to four boxes.  It helped that Grim2 landed Mortality, and that Dozer threw him out of Daragh's aura.  A few more pips on the dice from the other Warders (trip 1s and a 3 on the charge from one of them) and I'd of had it.  Deathjack still ate my caster, but I was happy with how close I got against a camping Cryx caster.  I hate that guy.

 Anyways, Horgle.

  I really like this model, haven't decided if he needs a flag or not.  I went with the staple glowing sword, but went blue instead of everyone's typical orange.  Cool model, fun to paint, looking forward to playing him more.

  Sneak preview, Dozer.  I really like this model.  I like his rules too, he does good work with Grim2.  The trick is keeping a damage buff around to help him out in melee.  If a Slag/Pyre is still in play, Mortality can get Dozer to PS19 and force a little respect for him.  The Stone makes it an even 20.  

  That's all I've got today.  My schedule is still pretty swamped, so I don't know how much playing I'll be getting done in the future 2-3 weeks.  More painting, for sure.