50pts Rhyas (Legion) vs. eMadrak (Trollbloods)

Got a few games in on Friday, both against Legion. There for awhile, it seemed like every game I played was against Legion, but I haven't actually played against them much lately. I haven't missed them. It's also a new game. I felt like Cygnar was pretty decently set up against Legion. I could stand a decent chance of shooting a beast off of the board per turn. Trollbloods don't have that same ability nearly as readily available as Cygnar does. So I was excited to face off against Legion some more. I couldn't really think of casters to bring. I almost bought Jarl, but then realized that clouds help me not at all against most Legion lists (Would have been great for this one, but ok). I knew I wanted to play eMadrak once, because he's definitely in one of my lists, and the other one would probably be pGrim. He decided on bringing Rhyas, and I settled on Madrak for the first matchup.

Rhyas
*Typhon
*Naga Bolt Thrower (Proxied by the Naga Soldier)
*Shredder
Nyss Swordsmen w/UA
Ogrun Warspears w/ UA
Nyss Raptors
Anyssa Ryvall
Spawning Vessel

For eMadrak, I brought pretty generally the same list I've been playing, with the exception of the Champions. I dropped the Champions in favor of the new box of Long Riders I was fortunate to land during a fire sale. (Half off, yo), and swapped them in there. I want Horthol in the near future, and that'll be a straight swap with the Storm Troll.

eMadrak
*Runebearer
*Slag Troll
*Impaler
*Stormtroll
Fenns w/UA
Kithkar
Long Riders
Min KSB w/ Elder
Janissa
Sons of Bragg
Fell Caller

He won the roll off, finally. We tied three times. He elected to go first and set up. Most of his infantry went left, and his Cavalry and Warspears went right. I setup kind of weird, putting the Long Riders opposite of the swordsmen, and sending the Fenns after the heavy stuff on the right. My reasoning was that with Blood Fury, my Fenns could kill anything, so I dropped the hard hitters against the Swordsmen which, I hoped, would struggle against ARM17 8 box models.



He started off. Typhon ran forward as far as he could. Rhyas moved up behind him, cast Rapport on him (He gets her excellent MAT/RAT) and dropped Dash, giving everyone in her control range 1'' SPD. Then everything ran. The Warspears and Anyssa both put Prey on my Fennblades.



Moses (runebearer) put a cheaper spell down for Madrak. The slag ran forward. The Impaler shuffled up, but put Far Strike (snipe) on the Stormtroll first. The Stormtroll moved up, shot at a raptor, hit, did minimal damage, and arced just once, doing nothing. Madrak put Blood Fury down on the Fenns for 1 fury, dropped the rest to the stone and moved foward to be in line with the Slag and Impaler. The Stone moved up and popped aura, and the Elder put down no continuous effects. The Fenns minifeated and charged, and only one was in melee, which he missed. And they passed their CMD.

The sons of Bragg moved up, did +4 tough, and the Fell caller, WHO I SHOULD HAVE ACTIVATED BEFORE THE FENNS, moved up and did nothing... Janissa moved up and dropped a wall, and the Long Riders ran and spread out.



Rhyas upkept Rapport and pulled in her fury. The Raptors started off, and shot the fenns, including the one in Melee. Every one of them hit, and every one of them killed with poison (extra dice damage), and Anyssa herself killed 2. No toughs. The Warspears assaulted, and I finally got two or three toughs there, but then Typhon moved up and killed everything that was left of them. Not a particularly wonderful start. The Swordsmen run and get into their 3 man groups to make use of Defensive line. Rhyas shuffles around, and the Vessel cries about not being close enough to the fenns to collect souls.




Not a great start for me. I pull in my Fury and uh, don't upkeep Blood Fury. I start off with the Storm troll, who moves to the right and launches a shot into the nearest Ogrun and boosts damage. The eleaps don't do anything, and I only manage to damage the Ogrun. I can't remember all of the activations here, but between the Slag, Tor's spray (sons of Bragg) and the impaler, I kill the three Legionairres on the back right, and the Slag gets his +2 damage Animus on the Kithkar.

The Rune bearer slips forward, and barely has range to the Kithkar. Always bring a Kithkar to a Madrak fight. I love that little 2pt solo. He gets Blood Fury on him, and the Kithkar charges the Ogrun UA and kills him easily, and puts damage on another one with the second attack.

The Long Riders send 2 in for a charge (not bull rush), and they kill one, maybe two. The Legionairres are fairly decent DEF atm, but their ARM is pretty handy as well, so the Impacts don't do terribly much. I get one or two.

Madrak charges the nearest Legionairre, kills him, and feats. If you're not aware of his feat, everything in his control area makes an attack at everything in his Melee range. So, he kills the 2 he's engaged with, and pulls in 3 fury for the guy he killed on the charge, and the 2 he feated on. The two Long Riders kill everything they're engaging except the Legionairre UA. All of the ranged beasts I have get an extra attack from feat, but there's nothing in range, so I don't worry about it. The Kithkar, however, between Blood Fury and the Slag animus, murders every single Warspear he's in melee with, leaving one just out of reach.

Madrak takes the 2 fury he got from the feat kills, and moves 2'' back because of Tide of Death. He casts Warpath, puts Blood Fury on the sons, drops a fury, keeps 2, and puts another on the Stone. The KSB moves up, pops aura, Janissa drops a wall, and the Fell Caller moves up. I think I actually got that wrong, I think the Fell Caller got War Cry onto Madrak earlier (Plus 2 to attack rolls).



Not a bad feat turn, but now Madrak's far enough up the board that he has to die, or he'll probably get range on something and tide of death into Rhyas. Madrak's got 5 Grim Salvation targets, and 2 fury. He's also DEF18 behind the wall and ARM19 because of the stone.

The Legionairre UA has Vengeance, and kills a Long rider. Rapport is upkept, and Anyssa starts the game. She shoots the Kithkar in the back and kills him. The Raptors move up and put their shots into the Slag, but fail to do significant damage. Rhyas feats, kills a Long Rider, and runs away. Her feat is kinda wierd. If your model hits it's target, it get to flip anywhere base to base with it, and gets another attack. Kinda handy, but doesn't help the ranged game at all.

The Legionairre UA charges, hits the Imapler, and kills a KSB dude. Typhon walks up and sprays Madrak and KSBs 3 times. I get a few toughs, but at the end of this, between sprays and Grim Salvation, my KSB and Janissa are all dead.

In all of this, the Spawning vessel has gotten enough souls, and has a Shredder. The overall goal is to force Madrak to grim salvation/transfer enough times that the rabid shredder can kill him. The last ranged unit is the Bolt Thrower. He moves, boosts to hit and actually hits, and Crits.... The Crit effect is a slam. It KDs madrak, but slides him far enough to place the Runebearer within Grim Salvation range, and I think I've still got a transfer left... The other thing is now for the Shredder to get into melee with me, he'll be outside of Rhyas's control range... So the Shredder hits the Slag troll instead and kills him. I let the fury go, because I was running hot anyways. Rhyas has 0 fury between buying attacks and boosting and such.



So the wall goes away. Madrak drops Warpath, and spends a Fury to upkeep. Moses stands up and gives him a cheaper spell, but it's pretty pointless at this point. The Impaler kills the Legionairre UA, and the Fell Caller gives Madrak +2 to hit, and Madrak charges a Vessel Acolyte. He hits, kills, takes a fury, spends it to Tide of death and starts working his way through models. He kills three before he's in range of Rhyas, but she's behind the pillar and gets cover. This is my mistake, I should have tide of deathed around the whole vessel, killed all of the acolytes (they're easy to kill) until I landed on a side of Rhyas that didn't get cover. Instead, I boost to hit, do solid damage, and she transfers it to Typhon for free, because affinity or something. I buy, miss, buy, needing 9s to hit, connect and do decent damage, leaving her at 7 boxes.

My long riders charge, but exactly 0 of them have range. Again, if I'd tide of deathed the Vessel Acolytes out of the way, it may have been different. The Sons of Bragg can't do much, they're tied up by the shredd, but I take the chance, move up with Tor and take a free strike. He actually makes it, takes a shot with Fervor and the spray, and misses Rhyas.

My Storm troll is the only thing left... So I move up, shoot the Naga Bolt thrower, boosting to hit, and get 3 electro leaps. Rhyas is the closest model, and I boost damage, needing a 12.

I roll a 13, and kill her. The final electro leap hits Madrak, but doesn't get anywhere close to killing him.



Thoughts on the game:

That was way closer than I expected. I think the order of activations killed Legion there. The chances of Crit aren't great, but he should have started with that one when Madrak was in the group of dudes. The slam would have kept him well within range of Rhyas's control, and taken a few Grim Salvations with it. Also, shooting the Slag with the Raptors was weird, because it didn't do anything to remove Grim Salvation targets. In fact, it helped in that I would have frenzied without it. I think a good chunk of the reason I won this game is because of my opponent's unfamiliarity with Madrak.

I should have Tide of Deathed more. I also am too cautious with my Long Riders. They weren't able to do much simply because they were way back with the exception of those two.

Anyways, comments, questions, have at it! Thanks for reading.

Kraye (Cygnar) vs. Rhyas (Legion)

  My frequent opponent has a tournament coming up, 50pts tier.  He's been tossing around a lot of list ideas and one of them he wanted to test out was Rhyas's tier.  We met up at our LGS (I haven't decided if it's friendly or not) and set up our lists.

  Scott's looked like this:

Rhyas
*Ravagore
*Typhon
*Seraph
*Shredder
*Shredder
Swordsmen w/ UA
Swordsmen w/ UA (I think.  Tier bonus, I believe)
Warspears w/UA
Warmongers (Proxied by the Warspears on the right side when you see the picture)
Warmonger Solo
Succubus

  Of my two main casters, eStryker and Kraye, I generally have better luck with Kraye against Legion.  He matches their speed, brings accurate shooting or accurate melee, and can change it up midgame.  My normal list has Kraye, Minuteman, Avenger, and Stormclad, Rangers and Blazers.  Lately though, as much as I love the Blazers, I've been swapping them for the ATGM.  Three reasons.

  1)  Main reason is the threat range on my Stormclad is 17'' with reach, full tilt from Kraye, and feat.  The setup key is the Avenger.  On a direct hit, he knocks down a 4'' AOE, which is great.  You might say that the Stormclad is already boosted to hit though on everything, because of Kraye's feat.  That's true, but on a caster kill, I really like the caster down so hits are pretty nearly automatic.  It also makes it much easier to shoot the target if that's needed as well.  The maximum range on the Avenger though, is 14'', including moving him.  Jack marshalling him to the ATGM though, gives him Snipe.  Now we're at 18'', and we can still boost to hit.  Plus, I normally bring the Trencher Master Gunner for Artillerist, and any Ranger bonuses.  That makes a normally RAT4 jack pretty accurate, even shooting at a DEF16 caster.  Toss in Snipe so it can aim, and we're talking.  Normally though, the Jack doesn't get to aim.  It's got to move 3'' just to reach out and touch what the Stormclad wants to kill.  Before I marshalled to the ATGM, that couldn't happen.  The Gun Mage UA solves that.

2)  Scenario's pretty rough on Kraye, and five models from a normally fast unit like the Blazers doesn't help too much.  I haven't decided if the ATGM are better for Scenario or not, but they seem like they could be. 

3)  They're two points less than the Blazers, which lets me fit a Squire in.  If I want.  With the Avenger Jackmarshalled, Kraye only has 2 jacks, and 6 focus generally works for that.  Seven focus is better though.

  So, my list was the following:

Kraye
*Stormclad
*Minuteman
*Squire
Rangers
ATGM w/ UA
*Avenger

  I just realized I brought a 35pt list to a 50pt game...  I'm not even kidding.  I don't know how I messed that up.  We got there, and he wanted to do 50pts, and I knew it, and I grabbed my Kraye list off of Warroom and went at it.

  Nevermind the fact that it said 35pts at the end.

  I feel like an idiot.  Welcome to the first batrep of a new blog, everyone!  Wooohooo, Jedi's a moron.  Yeah...

*sigh*  Here's a picture...  I didn't have my Sony, so the pictures aren't quite the quality that's the norm for me.

  Gee, I just feel brilliant right now.  Anyways, we'd rolled off, and he won, so he elected to go second.  The Rhyas Tier is really nice because if gives his Warnouns AD.  For a slow unit (Compared to the rest of Legion), that's really nice.  The Warspears, in particular, are annoying with the ability to Prey, and assault.  They preyed my minuteman, Scott being fully aware of what that guy can do under Kraye.

  So, turn is to me.  I'm looking at the board, and absolutely nothing is amiss.  It's completely normal for Kraye to run 1/3rd the number of the opposing force.  I'm a little bit concerned, but it's a lot of models to deal with, I've never played Ryas, and that's a lot of 8 wound medium based units to deal with.  On the plus side, I have a lot of guns.  My main concern is that I'll move up, he'll move up, I spend a turn shooting down a unit, won't kill all of the Warmongers that'll beserk and kill most of my infantry, leaving me just a battlegroup to handle what's left of his warnouns, the caster and her battlegroup.  Hopefully the Minuteman can get a unit of swordsmen.  We also chose incursion for a scenario, but we don't have the flags in place yet.

  I roll off.  Stormclad gets a focus, and that's it.  Avenger runs up, Stormclad runs up, Kraye gives the Minuteman Full-Tilt and he runs for free way way away from the Warspears.  I can't get into their lines turn one with him, but maybe turn two if he can survive.  So I hide him behind the "forest" on the right.  The Rangers move up to hug the hill, ATGM spread out, everything kinda wary of Typhon's spray.  Kraye camps three focus.  That's turn for me.

  Pretty standard, really.  I hand back the tape measure (I'd forgotten mine) and he runs everything up.  He asked what the threat range was of the Stormclad, which is 17''.  He kept his Warmongers back a little, guessing, but moved his Warpears just as far.  In fact, they assaulted my Rangers.  Most were out of range, and at DEF17, were having a hard time hitting, even with the +2 RAT from the Warmonger Solo.  They killed one Ranger on the hill and that was it.

 The Swordsmen all ran and stationed themselves behind the warnouns, making me wish I had enough points to fit Electro-leaping Tempest Blazers into the list...  Rhyas moved up and tucked in behind the Warmongers, and leashed Typhon up behind her.  She then cast Occultation on the Warmongers.  The Seraph gave somebody an extra 2'', may have been Rhyas, I'm not sure.  Shredders moved up on the flanks and Scott gave me back the tape measure.

  That's a lot of models to deal with.  Full Tilt is still on the minuteman, and if I give him easy rider, he can wander through the forest, jump, and definitely hurt some troops, maybe even Rhyas, because she's awful close...  In fact...  

  I measure control range.  The Warmonger directly in front of Stormclad is 14'' from Kraye, tucked in behind the Warjack.  That's 12'' from Stormclad.

  I asked Scott how many Fury Rhyas had on her.  Five, he said.  There probably wasn't a chance of me killing her with Stormclad.  Not with four attacks and five transfers.  However, dice plus 5 damage was probably the best chance I was going to have at his beasts.  High enough rolls and I could easily kill two, maybe three beasts this turn.  Even if I lose Stormclad, that's a pretty decent trade.  Kraye drops the Full-Tilt upkeep on the Minuteman, gives Stormclad 3 focus and keeps the other four.

  The rangers move up.  One runs, so nobody shoots.  He sprints across and lands near Typhon, trying to be 5'' from the Warmonger you see right behind the purple upkeep token.  Right behind him is Rhyas.  The ATGM move up, and five of them are within range of the same Warmonger, who, incidentally, is 5.5'' from the Ranger.  Dangit.

  But, at RAT7, the ATGM hit him four times, and one crits.  Which is exactly what I need.  See, I'm trying to set up an easier shot for the Avenger.  Unfortunately, four shots kills the Warmonger, and the Avenger has to hit a standing one.  Great job, guys...

   Kraye drops Mage Sight out there, and full-tilts the Stormclad.  Then he rides up, shoot Rhyas with a Ride-by and gets behind the forest.

  The master gunner artillerists him, and I use the snipe shot from the Atgm.  Happily, the Warmonger to the left is in range, and in Mage Sight now too.  RAT4, +2 for aiming, +2 from the Artillerist, aaaannd +2 from the Ranger who's actually close enough to mark this one.  I need not snake eyes.

  I roll a one, and a four.  A hit.  KDs Rhyas, Typhon, and the Warmonger.  I boost damage on Rhyas, and get four, five damage.  Typhon shrugs it off and the Warmonger survives.

  The Stormclad, however, charges.  I don't even Feat Kraye, I'm saving that in case the Minuteman needs to do something next turn.  Kind of an insurance plan.  Stormclad travels 13'' and tucks right into the bases of the two Warmongers and easily has reach on Rhyas, who is KD for DEF7.  Not snake eyes to hit.

  Stormclad does Impact attacks to the Warmongers, then swings at Rhyas and hits.  Dice +5 and does fourteen damage.  Enough to kill her.  She transfers and kills the Shredder with points to spare and takes them back on her for a few more points.  The Focus he had comes back to her, so she transfers the next damage to Typhon, which hurts him considerably.  I use the shield on the KD warmonger and kill him, and buy another attack with the blade.  It hits, and again, does enough damage to kill Rhyas.

  Scott looks up.  "Good game, I screwed that up." he says.

  "I thought you had five fury on her." I said.  

  "I misunderstood.  I had five fury out there on her beasts.  Rhyas only had one."  

  Heck, that's even better.  With two more attacks, I definitely would have killed another beast, if at the very least the Shredder.  Both the Seraph and Typhon would have been hurting.  I still would have been in trouble though, with that much infantry.  So I'm glad it happened how it did, but none theless...

  Thoughts:

  1.  I think the ATGM are going to stick around.  A 18'' threatrange on the Avenger is incredible.  I love it.  It really makes this list shine.  It also handles stealth much better instead of relying on Mage Sight for everything.

 2.  Stormclad is awesome.  I didn't even do the Electro leaps.  It would have probably killed the Warmonger next to her and some of the Swordsmen behind her, but it didn't need to, Stormclad handled her just fine.

3.  I can't believe I forgot 15 points...

4.  Scott was way far up, but even if he'd been back two inches, I had Kraye's feat to go yet.  He needed to be back about three or four to really be out of range.  At the very least, Rhyas needed to be back an inch or two.

  Overall, pretty happy with the game, though it was really short.  I kinda felt bad because Scott didn't really get in the Tournament practice he was looking for, but at 35pts... probably wouldn't have gotten it anyways lol.  I'm a moron.

  Tune in some more!  I've got a couple of Vassal Reports and some painting progress in the next few days.  Hope to see you guys around!