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.  

Hunters Grim and Doomy2, painted, and paired

  I picked up Doomy2 quite awhile back, then Hunters Grim recently.  Doomshaper2's model isn't quite as awesome as Doomshaper1, but it was fairly straightforward to paint.  Hunters Grim, however, are awesome models, and I buckled down to paint them over the last few days.  First off though, Doomshaper2.

  I really liked Grim2's model over his previous model.  Grim1 wasn't bad, but Grim2 is fantastic.  Reminds me of the Tom Selleck movie "Quigley Down Under", so therefore I ran with that for a paint scheme.

  I didn't know what to do with Muggs and Krump, but decided to stick to the red shoulder pads and blue shirt.  The brown coat on Krump turned out particularly awesome, and his gun as well.  I pretty nearly like the paintjob on Krump more than I do Grim, but it's pretty close.  The camera took a dump on Muggs though, unfortunately.  I liked the grey coat, but not as much as Krump's.

  With the purchase of Grim2, I'm going to try and push both of these casters as my 2 list format.  Madrak2 is probably my favorite caster, but I don't feel he answers enough questions strong enough.  He can handle armor skews and infantry skews, but he struggles against a lot of shooting, and doesn't answer Cryx.  This leaves an anti-cryx list, but that's Grim1 or Grim2, and neither can handle shooting lists.

  So I'm bringing Doomy2 as an armor/beast skew, and Grim2 as the anti-infantry/anti-cryx.  We'll see how it goes, but I'm more confident about it.  On top of that, playing Grim2 is incredibly fun.  Madrak's pretty straightforward, and doesn't require a whole lot of shenanigans.  Grim2 brings only shenanigans, and nothing more, and it's a lot of fun.

Catching back up with Trolls

  It's been a long month.  If you'd had any ear to the news, you'll know that the midwest has had the crap kicked out of it with storms in the last three weeks.  The first one totalled my Mustang with softball size hail, and set my town up as a temporary heaven for roofing companies everywhere.  I missed out on a tournament in the search for a new vehicle, and finally got some games in again day before yesterday finally.  On the plus side, the new Jeep can carry my gaming table much better than the Stang ever could...

  Three weeks isn't a long time to be out of the game, so that's cool, but it's been busy.  I'm coming off the tail end of getting my butt handed to me consistently by a local Cryx player. There's been a bunch of good learning games in there, so that's good as well, but yeah.  So, three quick topics I'm brainstorming through.

 I.  The 2 list matchup, with Cryx as a priority.

 II.  Vengeance/Exigence Casters and handling them.

 III.  Bearka and Dozer.

 I.   The 2 list matchup, with Cryx as a priority.

  Goreshade2 and Denny1 have been handling me pretty easy lately.  The 2 list I have currently is Madrak2 and whoever I feel like.  I've been through Grim1, Jarl, and have started vassaling Calandra, Grim2 and played my first game with Grissel1.

  Grim1's not my playstyle.  I can't explain it.  He doesn't click.  He's cool, but I simply can't make him work for how I want to play.

  Jarl plays much more to my playstyle.  Less straightforward, more tricks and angles.  Still doesn't haven anything to scale up against Cryx though.  He's not bad for some matchups, but with 2 lists, I can't find a place for him.

  Calandra's a blast, but I'm only vassaling the Elemental Lights NQ tier, I haven't bought it yet.  I hate to spend that much money on that many lights that I will Never use outside of her tier.  It's a good tier though, and it's been working for me.  It's not my cryx matchup though.  So that's out.  Calandra herself is good though, and I could see building an anti-cryx list with her specifically, tarpitting with star-crossed Nyss under a Witch Doctor (Nyss are not fearless.  In fact, they are pansies), with max unit of Scattergunners behind them to wipe out Cryx hordes.  Maybe a Thrullg in the back, and a heavy of choice for the armor cracking.  Haven't decided.

  Grissel1 is cool.  I feel ashamed that I've had trolls for four, five months now and only just now played her.  That model is so ugly though.  But awesome caster.  My strategy for list building her army was simple.  All of the troll infantry I own...  And Longriders.  I have yet to make the Longriders work for me, and she seems to have everything they want.  I will be playing her more just to give me a good reason to field Longriders more often.  Otherwise, she seems like a decent counter for Cryx.  Not because she can stop any of their shenanigans (Except charges and spells, which is nice), but she just brings that much infantry, her feat is appalling and giving everything two attacks is pretty baller good for scaling up in the attrition war.

  Grim2, however, is my primary focus at the moment.  I love his playstyle.  I also like his feat.  The snipe is cute, and helps him out a bit, but +2 to hit for Scattergunners is fantastic.  I also like his toolbox.  Oddly enough, I prefer Magesight to True sight.  Being able to land a shot from Grim, and then also the Bomber, Impaler, or Dozer is fantastic.  Can't beat that.  I love Mortality more too.  Can cast it twice, and it drops ARM and DEF both.  He's got a lot of tricks.  He likes to be up front, but between reform and the trap, is generally fairly safe.  If you're super worried, bring Mulg.  I'm really liking Grim2, and am going to try to push him hard for my Cryx matchup.  I also like him against anything with lots of infantry.  Cephalyx, Khador, some Menoth lists, some Circle.  Really, anything Madrak2 doesn't want to deal with.  Debuffs and DEF skews, mainly.  Madrak2 really chews through most of everything else.

II.  Vengeance/Exigence Casters

  I didn't see any of them, and them all of the sudden, I fought 3, including the Cephalyx caster, Exulon Thexis.  The other 2 were Issyria and Butcher3.  Issyria, I should have handled just fine, but I brought Jarl and got shot to pieces and didn't have anything to shut down a Hyperion.  Madrak2 would have eaten everything alive.

  Butcher3 was interesting.  I mainly got lucky there with Madrak2.  The map had lots of rough terrain, and so the IFP were well behind Butcher most of the game, and his other main infantry unit, the Boomhowlers, failed CMD to the Fenns on turn 2.  Butcher was an inexorable force though, and at one point, he killed 2 Warders, a Bomber, a Kithkar and something else in once turn, by himself.  The IFP nearly caught up at that point, but the Burrowers stepped in, and even though they really failed to kill anything, they tarpitted so well that the IFP never were in the game really.  Overall, I tarpitted his forces, and fed enough high-value targets to Butcher to keep him feeling like he was doing something until he got close enough for my last 3 Warders and Madrak2 to end him.  Looking back, I'd rather have anyone with Mulg, or Grissel1.  Either one would be super hard on Butcher3, since he needs orders.  The new Dozer dire can put the hurt on his support too, like Maddie or Orin.  Butcher can be a super problem for stuff like Cygnar, but against Trolls, for the most part, they can handle the stack of ARM that Butcher3 is.  I packed Fennblades around him for the most part until I wanted him to come out.

  Cephalyx was neat.  Grissel1 was the girl for that game, and it was the first time I'd played her.  Cephalyx bring a Lot of infantry....  Jarl would like to fight them too.  Grissel did ok though.  I had enough models to really tank what he was bringing, and got lucky with a few deviations from the Bomber and was killing support, and really, Cephalyx is incredibly support dependent.  Any unit they bring relies on their UA and Agitators a lot.  Jarl with Magic Bullet, Dozer, or the Impaler/Bomber combo killing those guys really cuts down on what they can do.  They still have lots of models, and they don't die easily to blast damage, but they still are pretty weak offensively without their UAs.  Exulon Thexus himself is a controlling nightmare.  Telekinesis everywhere, lots of controlling your own dudes, things like that.  The monstrosities are pretty cool too, but they die fairly quickly between taking D3 from Thexus for being arced through, and your models attacking them, it doesn't take much.  They're awesome for 7pts, but a Bomber alone can put some serious hurt on them.  A Jarl list with Dozer, Bomber, Boomies and whatever else would handle Cephalyx pretty well I think.  Pair of Warders maybe.

 III.  Bearka and Dozer.

  I like Dozer.  He fits into a few lists without needing the Impaler.  I swapped him out with the Bomber/Impaler combo in my Madrak2 list for solo removing support, and put the remaining 6pts to a Slag or a Pyre and put the other pt wherever I wanted.  Dozer doesn't mind Snipe, but he doesn't really need it, and is plenty happy without it.  A Slag or a Pyre can get him up to PS17, PS18 (W/ stone).The only thing I really miss from the list is the Girded animus, which is incredibly good for keeping Grim Salvation from triggering on lots of low-damage blasts.  Also protects the KSB like a boss.  But Dozer does have some cool things.

 Bearka... is ok.  Looks like fun, but without playing a 3 list format, I can't find a place for him.  The forums don't seem to think he answers any questions, but I disagree.  He definitely throws any shooting for a loop with Stealth on the feat, and he really makes you question charging him at any time between his feat and counter charge on everything.  I particularly like the stealth though, and MHSF can suck it.  But otherwise, he doesn't do much, and certainly doesn't replace anything I have already. Time will tell.

  That's all I've got for now.  Scattergunners and Grim2 have done well enough for me in proxy and Vassal that they're being assembled today, I'm headed back to that, and the Steam Sale...

Almost two weeks ago, I played one of our PGs, a normal trollblood player. He recently switched to Ret because he's a two timing, no good, bandwagon jumping, traitorous kind of player. Anyways. We led off, and I dropped Jarl, trying him out some more. I'm really having a difficult time finding a 2nd list for tournaments. Madrak2 is my 1st list, and there's so many options for my second. I have yet to try Madrak2 against Cryx, and I really need to. Madrak2 should have been my drop against this list, but I'd already played Madrak2 against the other PG (another batrep I'm also working on). I keep making the mistake, consistenly, that shooting casters in trolls are made to handle shooting armies, and that's just not the case, yet I keep doing it. Madrak2 shrugs the shooting off pretty consistently, and tears it up in melee, whereas Grim1 and Jarl hunt solos and support the melee line, but their playstyle isn't such that it protects the guys as they move up the board. Madrak bricks up, brings high armor, a stone, a wall, and just marches up the board inexorably. The shooting casters actually want to be engaged. Grim1 will strip defense and hand out debuffs while Jarl protects the dudes on the way in. Against a shooting list, that's not a sound strategy.

Yet, here we are, Jarl vs. Issyria.

Jarl
*Runebearer
*Impaler
*Bomber
*Storm
*Slag
Fenns w/UA
Kithkar
Boomhowlers
Whelps
Chronicler
Sons of Bragg
Fell Caller

The PG brought:

Issryia
*Hyperion
*Chimera
MHSF w/UA
Houseguard Halberdiers w/UA
Houseguard Thane
x2 Mage Hunter Assassin
Ayaina & Holt


Right off the bat, I was going to struggle to kill Hyperion, and I knew it. The Slag could put a few shots in, and the Bomber would too, but it would take a few rounds to carve through him. Secondly, the MHSF were an issue, because I hate them... The Fenns die to them on less than average dice, so that doesn't help anything. Otherwise, I had enough shooting to pick out support models, and with clouds, had a way to protect my guys moving up the field from the Hyperion at least. Not the MHSF, of course, but everything else.

On the plus side, I didn't really have anything for Issyria to shut down with Blinding Light, so that wasn't too much of an issue. Her feat turn would weather me down pretty well, but other than that, wasn't too big of a deal. Hyperion would be an issue though. And the MHSF are frustrating.



So, everything moved up from Ret. The Hyperion picked up Inviolable Resolve, and the Chimera arc node got Admonition. Otherwise, everything ran, and spread out.



Impaler puts Far Strike on the Bomber for some early drifting goodness, and walks up. Boomhowlers 4+ tough and run into the zone, and the Fenns run forward as well while the Chronicler gives then "Feign Death". Bomber stands on the hill, drifting AOEs. He kills an MHSF and a Halberdier, and then a Fenn, who toughs.

Runebearer puts Harmonious Exaltation down, and Jarl moves up, trying to Magic Bullet the MHSF UA off of Hyperion, which I promptly miss. I was going to try it again, and was informed that killing the UA doesn't remove the Phantom Hunter from the MHSF, so enough of that. Jarl hangs out and camps the remaining three Fury.



Issyria allocates a few to the Hyperion, and feats. The MHSF proceed to annihilate the Fenns, but with Tough rolls and Feign Death, I still have 7 of them. On MHSF hits a Boomhowler, but he toughs.

The Halberdiers move up. The Chimera runs around the Hyperion to get more central to the map. Assassins push forward, and that's pretty much it.



There's nothing to upkeep, so Jarl pulls everything in. Fell Caller pushes forward and does Reveille, standing the Fenns up, who minifeat, charge, and force CMD checks. The MHSF fail, and will flee, but unfortunately, with Inviolable Resolve from Issyria, she can cast it before they even activate and nothing will have changed except she's down 2 focus from what she would have had.

So. One MHSF dies, and two get into Hyperion, and do decent damage, but nothing crazy. The Bomber moves up, puts 2 shots into Hyperion, boosted for damage on them both, and the Slag hits twice, doing some serious damage as well. I don't think I crippled anything on either side, but I did do decent damage. Storm Troll tries to get in there and electro leap some things, but can't make it work.

Impaler gets Far Strike on Jarl. Jarl magic bullets off of the Hyperion and kills an MHA. He then feats, and hides all four beasts.

The Boomies do a 4+ tough and charge, only a few of them actually getting the charge. They spread out a bit and kill a few Halberds, but that's it.



Sure enough, Issyra puts IR on the MHSF, and velocities back. The mhsf activate, and try to clear off the Hyperion, but fail to kill the two Fenns engaging him. Not because they weren't hitting and doing damage, but because I had hot tough rolls. One, however, does tick me off by shooting down my whelp back by Jarl that I was hoping to reign in my fury with. So much for that.

Holt tries to do work and he can't get it done either. Hyperion can't take any shots against my trolls because he can't see them, but he can't move any because the Fenns are in the way. He ends up blowing his activation killing the two Fenns remaining.

The Halberds tangle with the Boomhowlers again, but only connect against 2, and both tough.



I have a ton of fury out there, probably seven, and Jarl is sitting on 3. I pull everything off of the Impaler, and one from the Slag, but the Bomber and Impaler both frenzy, the Bomber goes after the objective and the Stormtroll takes down some boxes on the Slag troll. The Slag troll, sitting two fury, throws a shot into the Hyperion, boosts damage, and hurts it again, but not bad.

Impaler Far Strikes Jarl, who kills Holt, but can't quite get Ayaina. The Boomhowlers push back into the Halberds and kill a few. It's just a slugfest from here on out.



Hyperion gets focus again, and the Chimera gets a few too. The Halberds get back into the Boomhowlers, hit and box every one of them, multiple times, and I pull off a 100% tough with them.

Chimera charges the Bomber and does some damage, but fails to cripple him, and I spawn whelps.

MHSF focus fire and kill Chronicler and Fell Caller. Hyperion walks up and kills both the Slag and Stormtroll.



Boomhowlers stand up and kill more Halberds. The Impaler and Bomber take the Chimera down to a few boxes. Runebearer puts Quicken on Jarl with the minifeat, and Jarl casts far strike on himself and goes wide, putting 2 fully boosted shots into Issyria, and leaving her on two boxes.



The Halberds no long outnumber the Boomies, in fact, there's only two. They keep trying, but the Boomies are still toughing like crazy. The Hyperion walks in and tries to smash Jarl, but he transfers to the Bomber and kills him.

Issyria sprints as far away as she can.



Boomhowlers converge on the Halberds, Impaler finishes the Chimera, and Jarl goes chasing after Issryia in a hopeless race.



MHA charges Jarl and murders him.



Thoughts:

1. Should have dropped madrak2. But, I wanted to try Jarl. Overall, Issyria isn't the end all the forums made her out to be, but I'm also playing trolls. She completely neuters a ranged unit, so Trolls don't mind that too much.
2. Hyperion was simply too much armor. I really didn't have anything to handle that, and I knew it from the start. The assassination was really the only chance I had, and I botched it the turn before hand by running my beasts hot. Impaler/Bomber and just 2 more boxes of blast damage and Issyria would have been gone.
3. Jarl is anti-ranged, no doubt, but MHSF counter that quite well, and love eating Fenns. A double warder list might have worked better, but overall, a typical brick of any sort would have done much better. Of course, there's Ossyan for that, but ok.

Thrullg Sapien, bought, based and painted

  I don't know if you've been reading the last few blog batreps.  No one's blaming you if you haven't, but I'm getting my butt handed to me by Cryx.  I've tried Jarl, and you'll see my work with Grim1 a bit.  I'm about to just drop Madrak2 for everything.

  Incidentally, Fear of God from Severius2 ticked me off too.

  Anyways, I noticed Thrullg, and while I'm completely aware that he's not Eiryss, he still seems like could be a decent backline support model able to free my Fenns of whatever Cryx has on them today.  Him and the normally useless Drummer can be buddies.

  I love the model though.  Even with the Bull fighter flag arms he's got.  So I picked him up, and he immediately struck me as similar to Abe Sapien from the Hellboy comics.  So I wanted a swamp look, and the blue.  I twisted his tentacles up a bit so they're not just straight out.  Mixed up a base coat of 1:1 vallejo Electric Blue and Night Blue, then air brushed him today after work, and lightened the second coat from there.

  The base, I coated in Citadel Loren Forest (a dark, earthy green) added grasses and coated in clear window sealant.

  I have no idea how he'll play, but the model is awesome.  Except for how the arms adopt this attitude of "What, foam?  Fit into square foam holes like everything else?  NEVER."

  Other than that, I'm debating dropping him into a tailored Grim1 list, or trying to adapt my Madrak2 list to handle Cryx as well.  The third option is the expensive one, and that's buying Grim2 and seeing how that rolls.  I'm getting the Hunter's Grim eventually, simply for painting purposes, but they seem fun to play.  Anyways, that's the hobby post for now.  

50pts Bethayne (Legion) vs Grim1 (Trollbloods)

Got a chance for an impromptu game mid-week last week and busted out Grim1... because I could, I guess? I wanted to try him with Long Riders again, and Nyss. My opponent wanted to run his bethayne tier and see how it rolls. The Bethayne tier is legit, but cornercase. Anything that can deny magic/magic attacks will shut it down. It's two units of hex hunters that can capitalize on her feat, and two Nyss Sorceresses on Hellions, which are actually kind of annoying solos to deal with.

His list:

Bethayne
*Angelius
*Angelius
Hex Hunters
Hex Hunters
Black Frost Shard
2x Shepherds
2x Hellions

My list

Grim1
*Runebearer
*Bomber
*Impaler
*Stormtroll
Nyss
Fennblades w/UA
Long Riders
Fell Caller

He won the rolloff and deployed first, with the ability to redeploy the hex hunters because of tier.



I stayed center, and he redeployed the hex hunters back to a more normal state of things. Tricky legion players.



And everything ran. Angelius hauled up the board, Hex hunters all ran, Hellions all ran. One of the Hex hunter units got Carnivore, and an Angelius got Blood thorn.



I opened with farstriking the Bomber, who walked up, and chucked a bomb downfield at the right Angelius, and was just out. So it drifted, did very little. So he chucked one at the left, boosted to hit, and hit directly, doing about a spiral of damage. Grim1 moved up, with farstrike down, and put a shot into the right angelius. Then Cross country landed on the Riders. Fenns got pathfinder and ran to screen and get upfield. Stormtroll trudged in behind, and the Long Riders hung out in the woods.

The Nyss moved up 7'', and finished making Bethayne pay for getting her beasts so far up the board. 2 CRAs later, and the left Angelius was gone.



Did you see my screwup? It's right there.

Bethayne has Gallows. That bloody spell that pulls a person d6 if it hits? My opponent ran a Forsaken up, and Belphagor (Bethayne's ride), then arced through both of them. Grim1 got pulled in, and what was left of the first Angelius landed on him and killed him in the first AP hit.



Shortest batrep ever. Thoughts on the game.

1. Obvious mistake was obvious. I'd read the card. I knew she had gallows, and I didn't think to look at arc nodes. I just assumed Grim was far enough out of range. I had the opportunity to drop Fenns all around him and block things just like that from happening, and I didn't. Definitely dropped the ball on that one.
2. On the other hand, Nyss CRAs are awesome. That was fun. Killing an Angelius off the bat is legit. I think I was about to lose a lot of Fenns to the feat turn, and maybe some Nyss, but a lot of the punch was gone, and I had the shooting to take down the other one too.


So yeah. Silly short game, but it's there. Watch out for gallows, right?

In other news, I've got a unit of Warders and a unit of Burrowers on the painting table right now, plus my fancy Impaler.  Trying to get them all playable for the weekend.  I've been vassaling them both, and have enjoyed them a lot.  The Warders take a bit to get used to.  They out threat the Champions, but move up the board slower.  They're doing good with Madrak2, but it makes his slow brick even slower.  Burrowers, however, are amazing, and a blast, and employing the little guys almost wherever I want in the field, and getting Blood Fury on them, is hilarious.