50pts Grim1 (Trollbloods) vs. Vayl2 (Legion). Back to phonepics and storyless batreps. Sorry guys.

  In the midst of our Journeyman league and everything else we have going on, the errata dropped.  Killshot already existed, but the Mt. King got assault as well.  There's a lot of other things that got errata, but this is a Trollblood page.

  That being said, Cygnar players are hilarious.  It's like a 12 cylinder Corvette (nonexistent, I know) playing a cylinder down.  They'll be ok.

  Anyways, Bruce got assault.  That's 2 sprays per turn.  RAT5, POW16, SP10 x2.  If you weren't paying attention to Miniature Market, they were giving them away free with every purchase.  The day the errata dropped, they were gone.  PP will have to actually manufacture more of them.  There's four dudes standing around a table trying to remember how the Mt. King and Animithrax mould go together.

  Who wants him?  Doomy2 is obviously still an option, but with now 2 shots, he steps a bit more into the ranged game.  It's now a lot more possible for him to do more with with the ranged game than the melee game.  Although, lets be fair, that was already possible, but not because the ranged capabilities were so good.

  My criteria for building a list for the King and choosing the caster were the following:

1.  RAT boost of some sort.  Nothing like maximizing the newest best thing about this guy.
2.  Threat extension.  SPD5 + 3'' charge + 2'' reach sucks in most cases.  Most heavies that can one-round the king can also cover that distance more effectively.
3.  Enough support from the caster to not need support for the King.  I did not want to bring an EBDT or KSB.
4.  Plenty of room in the list for Infantry to screen.

  Doomshaper1, Grim1, Grim2, Gunnbjorn.  Doomshaper1 means Runes, and Fortune.  I'm not quite ready for that.  And if I'm going to put a Garg in that list, it'll probably be GK, not MK.  

  Grim2 has everything but threat extension (Mirage doesn't work on him).  The free charge is nice, the feat is bonkers, but no threat extension means I need an Axer.  Or Lanyssa.  20pts doesn't give me much room for anything.

  Gunnbjorn has a lot of uses for him, and I think he turns Gunny up quite a bit, but we're back to no threat extension.

  This leaves Grim1.  Grim1 makes him pretty accurate, can maybe protect him for a turn with the feat.  The boostable KD gun is a huge MAT/RAT buff of it's own, Headhunter is a threat extension, and Cross Country is great for a lot of things.

  Having said all of this, I realize now that Borka1 is pretty solid in this case.  Mosh Pit is a great accuracy buff, he's got a threat extension, he can screen stuff really well with Iron Flesh on the tarpit...  Yeah, Borka1 has game.  I may have to try that.

  Anyways, I built a Grim1 list.

Grim1
*Runebearer
*Mt. King
*Pyre
Janissa
Max Fenns w/UA
Max Highwaymen
Fire Eaters
Fire Eaters

  Highwaymen seemed smart at the time because of Grim1.  Looking back, idk.  Maybe Scats would be better.  Still, CRA and Cross Country or Marked for Death seemed good. Fenns would tarpit, HWM would shoot things, and basically, we move up the board with Janissa protecting Grim1 until I feel like I can deliver the King into whatever can kill him the easiest, and hopefully assault/killshot enough to make that possibility really unlikely.  Ideally, I'd feat for that.

  There were some different lists running around.  I dodged the Menoth guy because he was touting a Harby list, and I reeeaaaally wanted to Killshot something.  That left an Arkadius tier or a Vayl2 player.  I ended up against the Vayl2 player.

  First time I've seen Vayl2 outside of her Tier.

Vayl2
*Scythean
*Angelius
*Shredder
*Raek
*Naga
Shepherd
Shepherd
Max Pot (I think)
Anyssa Ryvaal
Max Raptors
Deathstalker
Deathstalker
Forsaken
Forsaken

  Low model count, but I've got to be constantly aware of Vayl2's ability to spell assassinate me all game.  He also nearly matches my threatrange on the King, so there's that, and he has refuge.  The scythean is my concern, but the Angelius can be dangerous to the King as well.

  We rolled a scenario, got Fire Support.  He took the no Knockdown objective, and I took Effigy of Valor.  I won the rolloff, took first.  He should have taken my side of the table, but at the time, it made sense to hang out on his side.

  We deployed.  His stalkers and raptors mostly across from the HWM, beasts centered on the King.  I have no Fell Caller, no Chronicler.  I'm relying on terrain for DEF boosts, and on Cross Country for pathfinder.  The Fenns have the Minifeat, so there's that, but otherwise, I'm counting on Grim.  The HWM get Cross Country, they run into the woods.  The King runs forward, and everything else follows.

    The Raptors all move up and shoot at HWM.  They are out of range.  They back up into the woods.  The Deathstalkers kill one HWM, but he toughs.  The Scythean runs up.  The Raek moves up.  The pot tucks in behind the obstruction on the left, and the Shepherds and Forsaken tuck in with them.  Angelius runs up to the woods, and Vayl2 moves up and considers feating.  It's not assassination, but he really wants to get all of his upkeeps out and still have fury.  He decides not to, puts Occultation on the Raptors, Admonition on the Scythean.  He throws an occulus at the Scythean, hits and arcs an Icy Grip at my Fenn behind cover.  He's out of range.  Another Fenn, outside of cover, was way closer, and he both A) Failed to measure his control and check it, and B) Failed to notice the closer Fenn.  I'm not sure how that happened, but Icy Grip fell flat on it's face.

    I really want to feat here.  Everything is too far back though.  I can move up with Grim and maaaaaybe have the Scythean within 8 for the KD shot, but my Fenns are in the way.  My HWM are too far away from much, and it's at this point that I remember why I don't like Grim1.  He really wants to play forward, and I usually can't keep him alive.  Grim2, and the HWM would be shooting  like crazy.  I can't ignore stealth, so there's that, but even then.  Grim1...  I have no Apparition or anything.  Grim1 upkeeps Crosscountry.  The HWM move forward, are out of range of everything. 

  Fenns minifeat and charge.  One charges in behind the Scythean, who admonitions straight back from the King.  I still have melee on him  though.  The rest of the Fenns run/charge.  Two are in melee with the Scythean, both hit needing 5s and do average damage on him.  Two miss the Raek, one engages Anyssa who has Parry anyways.  It was worth a shot though.  

  Grim1 is freed up now though, so he moves up, boosts a hit into the Scythean and hits.  There's "Bait the Line".  Boost damage for like, four points.  Nothing crazy.  Spend one for Return fire and camp 2.  

  The Mountain King goes for it.  He assaults.  The whole reason I'm playing him.  He goes all in, reaches melee on the Scythean, the shot goes through, hits the forsaken, a shepherd and a pot guy.  I miss all four.

  Sweet.

  I boost the melee hit though, and absolutely demolish the Scythean.  The pot gets a Corpse token.  The Mt. King gets Killshot, and sprays to his right at the Angelius.  I boost the hit, hit, and boost damage for 16 damage.  Or something like that.  It was crazy.  I boost a hit on one of the two raptors I hit behind him and kill one.  

  The fire eaters on the left run up to block LOS to Grim1.  Janissa drops her wall on his left, creating a little bunker for him with the pre-existing wall.  Fire eaters on the right move up a little.  This is it.  The Angelius has it's spirit out, but that's easily fixed.  If he doesn't kill the King this turn, it's probably over.  If he does, it's still a game, but a more difficult one.  

  First things first.  Vayl upkeeps nothing, I think.  Feat turn kinda thing.  The Deathstalkers move up, try to kill HWM and the Fenn on the hill.  HWM dies, the Fenn toughs.  He debates long and hard about going after Grim1, but at DEF20 from most angles, it probably can't happen.  The Raek is the kicker, he needs the headbutt but he can't get him there.  So he focuses on the King.  The Forsaken walk up on my King with 4 fury on him and there's two.  They both blow up and between the two of them, take most of a spiral with them.  I put my whelps up towards the Angelius, trying to eliminate landing spots but it's hard when they're required to be there B2B.

  The Shredder goes, kills one of the Fenns engaging the Raek.  Vayl activates, and starts throwing the Occulus around.  She hits the one on the hill.  He toughs again.  She hits one on my left that blocks LOS to Grim.  She hits him with an Obliteration and takes him and a whelp out.  She feats and puts Refuge on the Naga, Admonition on herself and I think Occultation back on the Raptors.  Not sure.  At some point, she's killed two or three Fenns or whelps, but the guy on the hill is still there, so she Oblits him, and he doesn't tough.

  The pot is full now, spawns a Shredder and it kills the other Fenn engaging the Raek.  The Angelius charges the King, hits him for 9, 10 damage on the first attack, and after a full activation, and one last attack to kill a whelp instead of the King, he takes out a spiral.  I've blocked out most of the upper right with whelps, so the Naga goes and kills them all and refuges away.  This leaves the Raptors.  Three charge, one runs into the HWM.  The three of them do little to no damage with the mounts, and the very very last Weapon Master attack kills the king with boxcars and double fives.  I remove the Mt. King from the board and leave a plethora of whelps.

    Then he said "Aw man." and points at his forsaken.  He rolls his dice, 2d6, and rolls an 11. "Put the King back on the table, they failed their CMD check."  Apparently Forsaken are abomination.  Which is funny because the Mt. King has Terror, and so do the Fenns.  All of which they were engaged with.  So the King came back on the board with a full spiral left and a couple of whelps behind him from previous attacks and we called the game.  

  Annyssa hadn't gone yet, but she couldn't kill Grim by herself, and the Raek simply didn't have the range.  On my turn, Grim1 would feat, the unit of Fire Eaters on the right would have killed all of the Raptors and Angelius.  The left Fire eaters would have killed the Pot guys and party, and the HWM would have mopped up everything else.  Vayl2 would have been left, on her own, and without a feat.  That's assuming the Mt. King dies.  With him alive, he sweeps with Amuck, kills all raptors and Angelius and killshots Vayl1.  Maybe he hits, maybe he doesn't, but its a boosted RAT8 on the feat from Grim1.  It was a bad spot. 

  Thoughts on the game:

1.  I really don't like Grim1.  He just doesn't click for me.  The feat is great, but he wants to push hard to get it.  Overall, I like Grim2 so much more.  I also like how much more he enables Trollblood shooters without having to push so far forward.  The only issue is not getting a SPD buff in there.

2.  Assault is really cool.  I didn't get to use it this game to any positive use lol.  Basically a normal Mt. King game.

3.  My opponent really felt like missing Icy Grip was the killer, but I think the Scythean would have died either way.  The KD shot from Grim would have negated Admonition and the need for the SPD buff.  I'm not sure where it fell apart.  The King lasted longer than I thought he would.  Some subpar dice from the Forsaken and Angelius certainly hurt.  I also feel like I didn't see any major Obliterations.  Usually Obliterations wreck huge swathes of my army and I lost 2 fenns to it.  Icy Grip hurt, sure, but the HWM were going to start wrecking face next turn.  CRAs love low model counts and eventually they'd get within 8''.

4.  Idk if I'll do another Grim1 game with the King or not.  It's probably back to Grim2 for me, maybe Borka1.  Borka1 seems like fun, but the first time I run into a KD immune list I'll be frustrated.  That's not super common though so as long as my other list can handle Menoth we're good.  

  Hopefully you enjoyed the batrep.  It's certainly not up to Arizona_Troll's standard lol, but this took three Scrubs episodes to write, not a day like I imagine his do.  We'll be heading back to hobby oriented stuff before too long, but with the Errata in place, a Mt. King batrep seemed like the thing.  Cya around guys!