Harbinger Tier III
*Devout
*Reckoner
*Reckoner
*Avatar
Min Choir
Heirophant
Max Flameguard w/ UA
Paladin
Paladin
Paladin
Paladin
Vilmon
The kicker here is that Harby doesn't really worry about martyring the Flameguard, she really only protects the Paladins who do nothing but impervious wall all game long so they can't be targeted by non-magical attacks. My only magical attacks in the list are Mulg and D3. Also, she gets walls. My opponent took 2 walls.
I, again, really wanted to play D3. I almost beat this list awhile back with Madrak2, and he's in the same boat, only magic attack in the list. The Paladins are issue, but I wanted to try it. The list is the same as the last time I played.
Doomshaper3 Tier III
*Mulg
*Mountain King
*Axer
Max KSB w/UA
Max Burrowers
Whelps
Whelps
Tier III gets +1 to the roll, +2SPD on turn 1 and +2ARM on Round 1.
I won the rolloff. Scenario had 2 rectangular zones, perpendicular to deployment and with objectives in both zones. I deployed pretty centrally. He deployed with really everything to my left, just the Avatar and a few paladins to threaten me in his own zone. The walls went way out, one in his own zone and one just outside of mine.
Burrowers run forward. He has little to no shooting. I bunch them to the left to make room for the Mountain King. The Axer rushes the King, walks up. The King is SPD5, SPD7 because of tier, and runs 16'' forward. D3 puts Admonition on Mulg, dumps the rest to the stone and charges the Mountain King. Mulg runs forward 12'' and riles to four. KSB pops aura and runs forward. I have 2 whelps deployed, they run up with the King.
My opponent now has a serious issue. He wants to get up the field, but if he does, everything dies. Doomy will feat and put some serious hurt on the battlegroup. He has the walls to get behind, but I still have the additional dice attacks for the feat. So he plays defensively. The red Reckoner gets 2 focus. The Avatar generates 2.
Flameguard run up the left flank a bit. On Paladin sprints up that side. The other three move up and impervious wall, as well as Vilmon. A Reckoner walks up. The other walks up and shoots the Mountain king, boosting attack, boosting damage. Only does a few points. I whelp.
Avatar moves out to the right to threaten me in his zone. Devout moves up with Harby, who decides not to feat, and camps pretty much everything. Not a lot to do at the moment.
I really want my cake, and I want to eat it too. I want the boosted attack rolls, AND the defensive bonuses. Ideally, I would charge the Mountain King into the Avatar right now and kill him, or at least cripple him, then remain unkillable and finish the job next turn. However, there's not enough room to get there and get past the walls too. I can get pathfinder, but I can't land my huge base on the other side. However, I can position a little better and force him to come closer, but he has zero pathfinder in the army, and two walls to cross. Neither the Avatar or the Reckoners can charge across the walls.
So the King moves up next to the objective, sprays two flameguard, kills one, Harby martyrs it for kicks and giggles.
Burrowers burrow. Mulg moves up near the king, but out of charge range of the Avatar. Axer steps into the left zone, ready to contest. Doomy casts Implacable, fills the stone a little. Nothing crazy.
Harby allocates a few focus to one reckoner. Avatar generates 2 again. The far right paladin moves to the corner of the zone and does Impervious wall. Harby casts crusaders call, I think, and purifies Admonition off of Mulg, and feats. The Flameguard run/charge. One goes after the axer, six or seven after Mulg, the rest run. The one on the axer does a few points. Three CMA into Mulg and do two points. The other four CMA and do seven I think. He whelps once.
The reckoner with focus comes off the hill, shoots the King, boosts damage for a few points, and I whelp. Avatar shuffles forward. The other reckoner moves up, shoots the king and doesn't do much either. Paladins overall shuffle up, one specifically standing between Mulg (who's damaged) and the Avatar. Choir shuffle around, sing Passage
Doomshaper pulls in his fury. No upkeep since Admonition got purified. Burrowers pop up. The King moves up, takes a few points of damage. I use the first initial on the objective, boosting damage and kill it. My second initial goes into the back arc of the nearest flameguard, well out of Martyr range. He squashes it, and killshot triggers. I boost into the the nearest two, and then roll for the rest and kill... three or four. I forgot to make them roll CMD checks for being in melee with a mountain with teeth, but meh. I do two points of damage to my own objective with the spray. The KSB activates, hangs out, pops aura. Doomshaper activates. The scroll does the Signs and Portents one, and D3 charges the King while the scroll runs away to be farther from Harby. Doomy takes 2 damage from feat. He doesn't even scratch the King. He boosts a Stranglehold into the Paladin in the corner and boosts damage, killing him. Then he puts Implacable out.
Burrowers activate. The one near the axer kills the Flameguard engaging the axer. I forgot about passage, so I had this great line to target the reckoners with, but I couldn't shoot. However, the TFG fail their CMD check, so there's that. The Axer walks up and threshers. I do five more points of damage to the objective, but kill all the TFG I'm engaged with, freeing Mulg up. At this point, I had been fully planning to charge into the Avatar, but the Paladin was definitely in my way, and Harby wasn't going to let me through. So Mulg walks into the Paladin, and hits him what amounts to six times (Doomshaper's affinity). I really wanted to kill him so I could get goad and back up a bit since I was out of stone aura, but he martyred it every time, leaving Harby on four or five boxes, and Mulg well within charge range of the Avatar, and no admonition to protect him.
However, with the objective gone, and Doomy in the zone, I scored 3 CP.
Harby allocates 3 to the red Reckoner, and the Avatar generates 2 again. The paladin near Mulg charges his left side, does ok damage under the feat, but I heal, and whelp. Vilmon moves up behind the tier wall and does impervious wall. The left paladins both move into my zone and impervious wall. Harby moves up and cataclysms the five burrowers in front of her, and rolls snakeeyes for damage on two of them, but kills the three that she needed to. Choir activates and does Battle.
The Reckoner walks over the wall and into melee with Mulg. He hits every time, but at dice even, only does two or three damage between feat, and my healing. Every time though, I whelp. The second reckoner aims, shoots Mulg and boosts damage. Only a few points, but I whelp again. Between the Paladin and the reckoners, Mulg spawns 6 whelps, and only has 14 boxes left out of 34. However, he no longer has a charge lane into Mulg with Avatar because of the whelps. Devout shuffles around, and Avatar gazes.
Mountain king eats a whelp for fury and Doomshaper pulls everything else in. Stone moves to pop aura and plus 1 STR. Axer moves up, kills the Paladin engaging Mulg, which is when I took the picture above, or there'd be a Paladin under Mulg's left arm. The burrowers move, do some light damage to the red Reckoner, but that's it. The whelps behind Doomshaper run up to the wall near Vilmon. Mulg activates, and I roll 7 dice. 1 For Hyper-regen, and 6 for eating six whelps. I heal Mulg 14 boxes. He charges Vilmon, takes a some damage from a freestrike from the Reckoner.
Harby has... seven boxes now? My charge attack hits, kills Vilmon. She martyrs, takes 2 damage. Buy. Hit. Martyrs for 2 damage again. Buy, hit. She martyrs, dies.
Thoughts on the Game:
1. This list is difficult for trolls in general because of the need for magic weapons. On the plus side, I'm capable of killing everything else in the list, and POW16 SP10 is always a concern for Harby as well. However, Mulg and Doomshaper can get after paladins ok. However, as we talked about it and I wrote this report, I think the best thing he could have done is buried the Avatar and a Reckoner into the wall in his zone, with the Avatar to the outside, then get Harby up to within 8'' of the back edge of the wall. This means whatever is attacking the Reckoner is -4 MAT, and whatever goes against the Avatar has to be careful with placement or he'll be facing the same issue. Best case is -2 MAT from awe. On top of that is the +2 DEF from the wall. Mulg is basically MAT1 and the Mt. King is -1 MAT. On my feat, I'll probably have to boost everything, even with additional dice. That gives him a bit more time to deal with things, and lets his jacks be relevant to the game. Here, the Avatar never killed a model, and the Reckoners both struggled to do anything.
2. The walls were better for me than they were him. He could have used them in the above example, but otherwise, he had no way to charge me, at all, so all game long I would be one step ahead of him in the positioning game. Worse case scenario, I just powerattack his models out of the zone if I can.
3. The Paladins. I probably would have started running them into which ever zone I was going for, try and keep Harby within 10. I don't have the volume of attacks to kill them very well, so the whole game I am fighting them to control the zone.
Overall, good game, I learned some things, and so did he. I still don't know that I think trolls are favored in this matchup, in this scenario. A central scenario is much better for Doomshaper since Mulg can threaten anywhere in the square he wants to, and it's away from Harby's walls.
Game 2 or 1, chronologically
This is a quick batrep here. Just a bonus. Enough that I won't even run the full Kreoss1 list by. Errants, double reckoners, the book, some other stuff. Zealots. Etc. However, my Grim2 list is janky as they come, and I really wanted to try it.
Grim2
*Glacier King
Max Highwaymen
Max Burrowers
Min KSB w/UA
Thrullg
War Wagon
Lynus and Edrea (Ayaina and Holt)
Dhunia's Knot (Runeshapers)
This list is designed to just kill the caster. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. Burrowers tarpit until the other guy makes a mistake and then Grim2 feats and unleashes the world. I won the rolloff, deployed stuff. All my stuff ran up, and the HWM got Mirage. His stuff moves up, zealots get in front and mini feat. Book does no knockdown.
At first I'm just figuring to kill the stuff that makes my job hard. Put shots into the Book, and kill Rhoven. Get rid of the no Knockdown and such. Probably kill most of the Errants. There's one chance for kicks and giggles though. Burrowers pop up, HWM mirage up. So Dhunia's knot activates, puts markers on the Wagon, Grim2 and the King. The Wagon shoots an errant central to a clump on the left flank, actually hits, kills and affects all of the reckoners and everything else around. However, one reckoner and a couple of dudes on the right are close enough to the book to not care, but I pretty much kill everything else.
I ask what Kreoss's base DEF is so I can do math for my next turn, and he tells me he's DEF16 on the hill, that he's toed in on, though the picture shows him on the table. Him being on the hill changes things. Grim2 feats. I boost the hit, hit, and boost damage, rolling 11 at dice -3. I reroll the lowest dice in the group, and roll the same number lol. I do 8 damage. Burrowers run into the Zealots and one runs to the left to get Mark Target on Kreoss. The HWM move up, six are in range. They CRA for a RAT13 (RAT5 + 6 + 2 from mark target), hit and do several damage. Second attack hits and kills.
I didn't even get to use my Glacier King...
The list is teched for Denny3. I figure if it can kill Denny3, it can kill most Warmachine casters. I just have to hang in there until I have a way to get LOS to the caster. E.G., Quake on the War Wagon, and then go from there. Pretty janky, idk if I'll keep it. But it's fun, and if the caster is left out at all, stuff goes nuts. I may drop Lynus, they don't do a lot in this setup. They're there for Grim2 or the Thrullg, and that's about it.
So, hopefully you enjoyed the batrep, learned a couple of things. I'm loving this book for trolls, and can't wait to get some more D3 games in.
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