50pts Kaya1 (Circle) vs. Grissel2 (Trollbloods)

This is probably the coolest batrep this year. You know why? It's at home, in my Warmachine room.

Well, Warmachine room for now. My office is off to the side, completely untouched remodeling wise. That's where everything will actually go. For now though, what used to be an apartment upstairs is now essentially a giant mancave for warmachine. That's what happens when you get 2200 sq ft in a house and you have no kids.

So yeah, there's a painting desk in there, a recently built cardboard airbrush booth (I'm beginning to worry about developing acrylic lung cancer), another work table, and my folding Warmachine table in the middle. On sawhorses. Super developed. And crappy lightbulbs. But it's home, and it's awesome. Nevermind the shag carpet from before the Vietnam war. Heck, the house was built when Germany was ruled by a Kaiser. The shag carpet's an upgrade.

Anyways. I smashed a guy's Kaya1 list with Grissel2. I felt slightly bad about it, but I also hadn't played Grissel2 before, and I wasn't running the typical MMM list. I realized a few weeks ago that I was two casters short of the full Troll compliment (in comparison with my first faction Cygnar, where I still only own less than half of them. Maybe a third), and so 50$ later for two models (slight exaggeration) I got Gunnbjorn and then Grissel2. The main reason I got Grissel2 is because someone on the facebook group pointed out that Dash ignores freestrikes. That's pretty slick. It'd be sweet if we had something in this faction that had opportunist.

Heyo.

So I ran:

Grissel2
*Pyre
*Pyre
Max Warders
Max Warders
Max Highwaymen
Braylen
Fell Caller
Chronicler
Fire Eaters
Fire Eaters
Victor Pendrake
Min KSB w/UA

Victor Pendrake could possibly go away in favor of a Runebearer. I haven't decided yet. Between Opportunist and the Fell Caller, I have a lot of ways to hit/shoot pretty accurately. Other than that, I really like the list, even though I didn't once get Opportunist off. Turns out Kaya1 yoyoing everything around is hard to get behind. On the other hand, I won pretty handily at scenario, even with his Gnarlhorn bulldozing through my models every turn and throwing another troll at Grissel.

Every.

Turn.

He ran Kaya1 with Gnarlhorn, a Feral and Megs. Then full Reeves w/ UA and full Wolves of Orberos with UA as well. Plus other stuff. Most of it really struggled against the ARM I was bringing, and he never flanked hard enough with his Reeves to really bug Grissel. So we spent the next week Dojoing it, and my wife fielded the test. The idea was that a Pureblood could be juggled, spraying 10'' every turn, and be pretty effective, especially with a Moonhound in the turn. Anchor it with Ghetorix and a Gorax, hold a cloud line with druids and slow me down with Skinwalkers, and it should be a game.

Kaya1
*Ghetorix
*Pureblood
*Gorax (Proxied by a stormtroll)
*Argus Moonhound
Max Skinwalkers w/UA
Max Druids w/UA
Stones w/UA (Proxied by a bloodtracker)
Maximus
Blackclad
Gallows (Proxied by the grey stone column looking thing)

Mine was the same as it was previously. Identical. We rolled off, I won, Jessica stuck to her side, citing that she could used the ruined building to stage out of. Scenario was incursion because I don't have square zones yet, and they wouldn't fit on this map well anyways if I did.



My stuff runs. Grissel2 casts Dash, dumps everything else to the stone and charges. Highwaymen get Tales of Mist (Concealment, and since they have camoulfage, DEF16) and run a whopping 14''. I brick up a little in front of her with them, and everything else just tries to keep up.

Jessica's stuff does pretty nearly the same thing. She plays it pretty conservatively, moving the Druids up first and clouding, and immunity to elemental damage. The Skinwalkers run. Kaya puts Occultation on them, and then moves up. Stones teleport around, setting up. She keeps them pretty far back too. That's what caught my last opponent was Fire Eaters under Dash have a 16'' threat range, and when they're on fire, it's not too hard to take a stone out. Maximus runs wide to my right. She's drawing out my right Fire Eaters. And I can't ignore him either. He'll easily shut down half a unit of Highwaymen on his own if I ignore him



Pyre on the left puts fire on the eaters there, lights them up. The KSB pops aura and shuffles, and the right Pyre lights the other unit on fire. I've rolled 11s before and killed my dudes, so my left unit made it out, but with the KSB aura up, it's impossible to kill the one directly hit, so that worked out, The Grissel moves up about two inches. I've boxed her in with the HWM, but I'm not too worried. My line of battle is already pretty far ahead. She casts Dash, and feats and launches an AOE at the skinwalkers which drifts back and remains in play.

The left Fire Eaters go and kill two Skinwalkers easily. I was pretty nearly three. If I'd had another inch, I'd of cut the unit down pretty bad with them. That was just sprays. The right Fire Eaters go, and one goes into Maximus. I wanted the other to hit the groves, but I didn't have LOS. So one went into a Druid, and the leader maintained CMD with them both. Because the Druids ignore fire right now, I do nothing to them, and I'm out of range of the stone, and the little guy fails to kill Maximus. Meh.

The Highwaymen move up, and I can't get within stealth with most of them against the Skinwalkers, so one or two put shots in, but it's not very crazy. The Warders run, staying under the KSB as much as possible. Victor shuffles in.



Jess drops Occultation. The Blackclad moves up and sprays the Fire Eaters, killing 2, but not the little guy. The Druids activate, two cloud, and the others try to kill things. One tries to kill the Fire Eater but fails. Two other try to push a Highwayman out of the way of the Pureblood. The first hits, toughs him, moves him a little. The Second hits him, toughs him again, but pushes him far enough out of the way. The Pureblood walks forward and sprays into my army, hitting all of the KSB unit, but my tough rolls are crazy good and she only kills one of them. The Aura is still up, and she missed a few anyways. The Moonhound was too far back to get involved. The Gallows grove moves in and Ghetorix ports up and lays waste to a bunch of Highwaymen, and one Warder now not needing tough. Maximus moves into melee with the Fire Eater leader and kills both of the medium based guys. That looks like this.



Then Kaya spirit doors both heavies back to her, behind the clouds and feats to handle the fury. The Skin Walkers charge in , completely unbothered by Grissel's AOE, and start wiping out Highwaymen and trying to get Warders. At ARM23 currently, they're only putting a box in here or there, but they force tough/kill a bunch of Highwaymen. Enough that I have to pass a CMD check, which I do.

So many KD tokens...



This is also my wife's first game with her own Circle tokens. She finally got tired of using Khador ones, and now has her own circle ones. AND she downloaded War Room to her phone. This girl's friggin perfect for me, guys.

Also, I just realized I didn't move any Warders forward at all when the Skinwalkers damaged them. Anyways. The Fire Eater on the right dies. The Fire Eater on the left swings at a Skin Walker but doesn't do much. Fire went out on him I think.

I really want to get into Kaya's line, but I have four Skinwalkers in my face and no chargelanes. Braylen starts the day off and shoots Maximus dead. You go girl. She guns and runs b2b with the flag. Looking at the pics now, this was a pretty solid chance to use Dash and Opportunist on the few Highwaymen I had left, but I failed to do so. I don't even know that I cast Dash this turn.

The Warders on the right go. One goes into the Gallows grove and somehow fails to kill it at PS12 4d6. Another engages a Druid over the wall and misses. The other two just push foward. The KSB moves up and pops Aura. Grissel refills it as much as she can. I consider inhospitable ground, but at this point, stuff is teleporting and it won't do me much good. Inhospitable ground would have been better the turn before when the Skinwalkers charged. Nope, they have pathfinder. Nevermind.

Warders on the left go, and they end the skinwalkers pretty easy except one the HWM are engaged with. I'm pretty sure I forgot about the best part of Dash at this point. Chronicler runs to left flag and controls it. I'm at 2 CP now between Braylen, the Chronicler. Looking at the pic, I see 3 CP, because I don't know what was contesting the center flag. Must have been something. Anyways. Jessica's in a pinch, and she's a little frustrated with this list. We don't normally play competitively against eachother, and right now she feels like a guinea pig.



So the Skinwalker that's left kills both Highwaymen. Jess wants to get the Pureblood forward and kill the KSB, but decides to soften them up with the Blackclad first. He moves up, sprays in. Hits a Warder for a few points, hits Grissel for a couple, and completely wipes out the KSB. Every one of them die, including the UA, and all fail their tough. So the Moonhound runs around to the Warders, charging one and failing. The Druids move out of the way of things and three of them get into the one Warder and Fell Caller on the right, failing to kill them, but contesting the flag. Two of them shoot a Warder and pull it towards them. The Pureblood walks up and sprays the left Warders, leaving them on one or two boxes each, killing one. Then Ghetorix ports. He lands on my side of the building. Gorax primals him, and then things go down. He warps for strength first off, and he's MAT9 PS21 atm. My KSB is gone. The first Warder he hits he oneshots at Dice +2. I tough, so she moves on. She kills four more warders, including the one the Druids pulled closer early (all part of the plan apparently), and then buys a last attack to finish the toughed one. She doesn't spirit door any of them back, daring me to try to take the central flag back. Kaya Occultates herself and moves in behind the Gorax and Pureblood.



My wife's first experience with a Double Warder list. Seems like she's doing ok.



The problem is that she failed to contest my left flag, and I score another CP, taking me to 3. If I end my turn right now I get four. I could try to kill Ghetorix and clear the center flag, and I may or may not have enough to do that atm (My warders went from 9 to 2 or 3), but it's way easier for the Fell Caller and Warder to clear the far right flag. So I go for that. The Fell Caller gives himself and the one warder left from that unit Warcry, and the Fell Caller kills 2 druids by himself. The Warder kills the last, and that's game at 5CP.

Thoughts on the game:

1. My wife was pretty sure by turn 2 she was going to lose. She didn't feel like she had a way to handle ARM23, and she was pretty much right. Not without comitting and losing Ghetorix. She made the best of it though. By turn 3, she saw the light and made a major push and she nearly got me. Her major mistake was not running the Argus right at the flag and contesting the Chronicler. That would have made my following turn far more difficult. Probably still could have done it, but it would have forced me to do more work. Otherwise, I thought she did pretty well. She's never seen Grissel2 before, it's not like she listens to podcasts, and she handled it pretty well.

2. The list needs work. The Skinwalkers really went in because we wanted a unit that could use stealth, and she hadn't played them yet and really wanted to. In the future, she'll probably almost always use Bloodtrackers. They'll tarpit far better, and Occultation can go on Ghetorix.

3. The Argus Moonhound / Pureblood strategy wasn't that great. You only get one shot with the Argus, and then he will die. It's a four or five point commitment per 10'' Spray. Probably not worth it. Nice, but probably not worth it. The Pureblood is better off just porting in and aiming.

4. The future list will probably be Ghetorix and a Stalker, and maybe the Pureblood still. Otherwise it'll be double Stalker. Gorax for sure will stay. Double Groves would be nice, but yeah.

5. For my part, I love Dash and I'm loving Grissel2. I wish I'd remembered to use Dash and Opportunist more, and I just didn't. I'm in the middle of another game on Vassal with the original guy and he's trying a Morvahna2 list into my Grissel2 list, so we'll see how that goes. I'd kinda like to get Mulg into this list, but idk that it's worth it. It probably is, but I have to get over my infatuation with Fire Eaters first. He'd fit perfectly into the Fire Eater x2 + Pyre troll slot and leave me a point extra. I do like Fire Eaters though...

Anyways. Hope you enjoyed the batrep. Check me out at Diceotfirstdegree.blogspot.com or follow it on twitter, @diceotfirstdegree. Cya around!

Two short reports, 50pts. Witch Coven vs. Gunnbjorn and Saeryn vs. Borka2

I was thumbing through the pictures on my camera looking for these games and realized that one game was pretty short, and the other, I didn't get that many pictures of.  I thought they were both fairly interesting games though, so I'll hit them both here.

50 pts Witch Coven (Cryx) vs. Gunnbjorn (Trolls)

  The guy that I'm doing Cryx commission work for really like the Coven.  They're a solid dark horse caster unit and they usually catch me off guard every time someone plays them.  I think I've beaten them pretty consistently, but it's usually pretty tight.  Having that much focus and an 18'' control is crazy.

  I picked up Gunnbjorn a few weeks ago.  I realized that the only 2 casters I don't own for trolls are Gunnbjorn and Grissel2.  Both have since been rectified, and the next batrep is Grissel2.  Gunnbjorn though, I've always liked the model, just not the rules.  With Highwaymen out, I think he's got a bit more game, but we'll see.  I dropped him in this matchup, and my opponent brought out the Coven.  There was some jank on both sides.

  Witch Coven
*Kraken
*Deathripper
*Deathripper
Max Soulhunters
Max Soulhunters
Daragh Wrathe
Skarlock...  I think?
War Witch Siren

Double Soulhunters is weird.  I see them pretty rarely, especially with the advent of Bane Cav, but they've got game against trolls.  I think this is a Coven tier list too, so there's that.  My list is possibly jankier though, simply because I brought my own colossal.

Gunnbjorn
*Runebearer
*Mountain King
*Pyre Troll
Max Fenns w/UA
Max Highwaymen
Chronicler
Maximus

The King is there for Guided Fire, Pyre for damage buff, Highwaymen for Snipe and Maximus because he was mostly painted and looked cool.  The main jank in this list is no fire eaters.  That's dumb.  They should be in every list.  Anyways, we deployed, I think I lost the rolloff.

  Cryx stuff runs. The soulhunter unit on my left gets Occultation, simply because they're across from the Highwaymen.  Infernal Machine goes on the Kracken.  Stuff runs.

  Everything runs.  Highwaymen get snipe.  Maximus flanks hard.  King runs...  Highwaymen run...  Bruce actually moves up to try and spray but I'm waaaaay short.  Gunnbjorn drops a wall in front of the juiciest group of targets, and feats to grant at least +2 to everything else.  Against charge attacks, Fenns are now DEF16.  However, because of the Coven tier, the Soulhunters start with souls, so if needed they can boost the attack.  They have two initials though too, so if the first attack doesn't work, the second might.  Hero's Tragedy goes on the Fenns though.  I'm going to make him pay.

  I haven't decided how I feel about the matchup.  It's playable at least.  For landing a cryx opponent, this could have been much worse.  I've got enough beef in the list to handle the Kracken, it's really the only thing that threatens the King.  The Soul Hunters are an issue, but I feel like I have answers for them, and Fennblades are especially good against them.  The problem is that they kill my stuff on average stats, and if I'm grouped too close together, one Soul Hunter will kill a half dozen models.  I try to spread out as much as I can, but he's got a lot of models with reach, and Occultation is on the units across from my ranged guys, which I expected.  The tradeoff is that if I land the right spray, lots of stuff will die.  He's got solid models, but POW16 SP10 under Guided Fire will level the playing field pretty quickly.

  Somehow, I skip the next turn of events in picture.  The coven drops Occulation.  The Soul Hunters on the right kill my front three Fenns, AND absolutely smash the Pyre troll.  He rolled some crazy dice and just demolished that beast.  That was pretty frustrating.  A chicken on the left runs in, and Stygian Abbyses the King, and fails to crit.  The right deathchicken runs wide to spray Fenns and finds out he's way out of Control.  The Kracken shoots the King, and some more fenns.  The left Soul Hunters get into the Highwaymen, kill a few models, and everything backs out five inches with the light cav move, and the Coven feat.  Expected.  

 The Fenns Vengeance a bit which does very little.  The problem is that he feated way too far back, so the front line of his feat only barely catches the king and the front line, so everything outside of the Coven control is unaffected by the feat.  Most of my stuff can charge, and even the Highwaymen can CRA as long as they're outside the control.  So I drop Snipe.  The Highwaymen try to get some attacks in, but I think I might only kill one.  Braylen wounds another.  Gunnbjorn does Guided fire, shoots the chicken for some serious damage.  I screw up with the King here.  He's got two soul hunters engaging him, but Daragh Wrathe is in range to spray, and I reeeeaaaally want that guy dead.  So he shifts up, targets a soul hunter from the right unit he can see and the spray catches Daragh.  Boost damage, and I unhorse the guy and I kill the Soul Hunter too, leaving the chicken and the other soul hunter.  That was a mistake because I forgot about Killshot.  I could have had my whole melee activation, killed everything engaged, AND sprayed Daragh, and I forgot about it.  

  On the right, the Fenns get +2 to his from the Fell Caller, who sprays two of the Soul Hunters.  Maximus goes ballistic and oneshots two soul hunters on the right side of the zone, and beserks into the chicken there and hits for some damage.  The Fenns charge in and kill everything that's left of that unit.  

  Apparently I have more pictures than I thought.  When I browsed through here, I thought for sure that I was missing a whole turn, there's so much stuff missing.

  The Coven activate again, move up to dominate the zone and Stygian abbyss the King.  This time, it crits, and the King can not move except to change facing.  That's different than stationary.  The remaining Soul Hunters on the left go in and kill a few more Highwaymen, forcing a CMD check which they fail and whats left of the Fenns on the left side.  Two of them get into the King for a little damage.  The Kracken starts punching Fenns, and the chicken on the right is still out of Control, so he tries to kill Maximus.  Daragh Wrathe charges in, trying to be relevant without his pony.  The Siren on the right tries to spray Maximus off, but fails.  Covenent go to 2 CP.

  Back to the trolls.  I want Maximus free, so the Fell Caller gets Warcry onto the few fenns that remain, and charges the Chicken, staying out of Maximus's melee range.  He hits, and rolls 1,1,2,1 for damage...  So since Maximus is still engaged, he hits  the thing but it's still kicking.  Gunnbjorn casts guided fire, shoots the chicken engaging the King and kills it.  Braylen moves up and kills a Soul Hunter.  The Highwaymen rally.  Chronicler charges in and tries to kill the last soul hunter but it's not working.  However, the King whacks the last soul hunter, kills it, gets Killshot, sprays, targetting the ball because for some reason they weren't stealthed, and he gets 9 damage on Eregor, which gets divvied out, and then kills two of the witches, leaving just one of the coven remaining and her 3 focus.  

  She Stygian abbyses the King one more time and it crits...  Stupid.  Then she runs away.  The Kracken can't get any focus, but it's got enough souls and the Skarlock that it's full.  It charges the King, and leaves him on maybe a dozen boxes and lots of whelps.  There's a war witch siren on the left I've forgotten about all game.  She moves in and sprays down the line of my Highwaymen and killing most of them.  Daragh gets in there and kills my chronicler and everything the Siren left.  

  

  Gunnbjorn is bottom center of this frame.  The Witch and Eregor did not stay together, so they're not stealthed.  I might possibly be able to get Gunnbjorn around the King to shoot her, but it's going to require a 10 to hit.  Average dice, right?  I also need to kill these two models in the way.  Braylen makes her money, killing the Siren, and the King kills Daragh.  Runebearer does Harmonious Exhaltation.  Gunnbjorn takes Snipe, moves up, has range, boosts to hit, hits her and puts her in the dirt.

Trollblood Victory.

  And huge base picture.

Thoughts on this game:

1.  It looks like I could have started dominating and winning on Scenario, but the King only had 20 boxes left at this point after eating all the whelps, and I didn't feel like he'd survive the Kracken again.  I was surprised he lived the first time.  If it wasn't for being Stygian Abbysed twice, I think the King could have handled the Kracken just fine, especially once the Fell Caller and/or Maximus got free.  

2.  The Kracken was honestly the only holding power in the list.  If I could have gotten a charge off into it, I think I would have been fine, Soul Hunters or not.  He wouldn't have had anything that could deal with the King at that point, and I'd of just stood on zones and sprayed everything.  Stygian Abyss, however, pretty much nipped that.  It didn't limit me as much as my opponent hoped, but still, 20pts in a 50pt army being unable to move twice in a game is pretty lousy.

3.  The Gunnbjorn...  For all the desire of wanting to test HWM with snipe, I never used it on them once.  Everything had stealth any time I wanted to shoot from that far away.  Against a non-stealth army, it's probably great but I didn't find out this game.  What trolls need is a Flare solo.

50pts, Saeryn (Legion) vs. Borka2 (Trolls)

  I've been wanting to play Borka2 more into legion, and I landed a Saeryn T4 list.  This is a pretty short game, so we're going to blaze through it.  The biggest thing I wanted to know is if Tier 4 is worth it with Borka2.  Are the snowdrifts game changing enough to go tier, and is +2 SPD on turn 1 really that awesome?  I means bringing a War Wagon, so we'll see.

Saeryn

*Nephilim Bloodseer

*Nephilim Bloodseer

*Nephilim Protector

*Angelius

*Angelius

*Angelius (proxied by Seraph)

*Zuriel

Shepherd

Shepherd

Sorceress

  Pretty much maximizing the feat.  The Sorceress specifically really hurts trolls because it shuts down shooting within 8''.  With trolls, that's really all we have for a baseline, though we do have snipe on a stick.

Borka2

*Rok

*Axer

*Axer

*Winter Troll

*Pyre Troll

Fire Eaters

Fire Eaters

War Wagon

Max KSB w/ UA

  My normal Borka2 list has Mulg in there, and more bouncers/axers instead of Pyres/Winters.  I also use Highwaymen to tarpit instead of Fire Eaters.  Fire Eaters are good, but they really need protection going in, and idk that stealth is enough sometimes.  Anyways, I lose the rolloff.  His stuff moves up.  Respawn might go on Zuriel.

  I generally move up.  Snow shroud goes on the War Wagon, Fire Eaters cautiously advance.  KSB pops aura.

  Zuriel comes flying in first, and I immediately countercharge in with the Wintertroll because why not.  He's in for the Tier benefits and very little else.  He misses the attack.  An angel pretty easily kills him, and another flies in as far as he can and lands in front of my Fire Eaters on the right, engaging all of them.  Saeryn moves in and feats, and everything else comes in, stacking around the sorceress.  Can't melee, can't shoot, Fire Eaters are engaged, I'm ready to flip the table.

  The War Wagon backs up and shoots, missing.  Borka moves into the zone on the left, feats, and tosses a bomb at the Bloodseer.  Everything else pretty much runs around, and the Fire Eaters try to get away from the Angelius.  It goes stationary when it hits, but they really fail to do much.  There's very little I can do because I can't get LOS to the sorcerer, and I can't get a melee attack into it at all because the Bloodseer on my left is in the way.  I push an Axer into his group to tie them up some but that's about it.  

  This is why we bring RoW to everything.  It's basically a BS for BS exchange.

  He tries to go for the assassination a little bit.  My Axer countercharges in and ties some stuff up, but misses the attack.  The Seer slams into Borka, KDing him,  My pyre countercharges him, blocking some charge lanes, but misses.  The Fire Eaters on the right all die.  Some ranged attacks go out, but the main thing is that he contests my zone, and Saeryn dominates hers for two.

  In the end, there's nothing I can do.  I try to assault in with the Fire Eater unit that's left but they're way out of range.  I fail to contest the zone, and my opponent ends his turn.

Thoughts on the game:

1.  The final score was way closer than this batrep sounds.  We scored 4-6 CP, because Borka does kill the Bloodseer in the way.  However, I hate this list.  I hate his list too, but I hate this list.  I will probably never run tier again, and if I do, it will not be Tier 4.  The War Wagon has sat on my shelf for a year, and after this batrep, it went back on the shelf, and it will not be coming back out.  RAT5 on a 9pt model that can not boost is the most worthless thing in the world when I have better options.

2.  Snowdrifts are pretty worthless.  Concealment and rough terrain on your side of the board isn't super useful.  Certainly not like forests or walls.  Borka2 is a great caster.  Out of tier.

3.  He played his list very well, and I simply was not set up for what was about to happen.  My normal list is Mulg and Highwaymen, and that would have been better I think.  HWM could have tarpitted and shot beasts from outside the Sorceress's range (only just though.)  A few good CRAs would have been alright, and the counterfeat would have protected my BG a bit more.  I also let him have too much ground.  He was in the zone and I walked away from it.  I should have just got up in his face, feated, and weathered it as best I could.

4.  Runes of War exists for a reason.  I need to get my other 2 units of Runeshapers and run it.  I've proxied it a bit and played it, and I'm not nearly familiar enough with it.  It'd be nice for Legion/Circle period.

  That's pretty much it.  I have a batrep in the works for Grissel2 w/HWM, a list I'm super enjoying.  The next batrep is actually against my wife.  I played against a friend last weekend and pretty much smashed him scenario wise with Grissel2 vs. Kaya1, so we spent the week Dojoing what Kaya1 or Kaya2 could against a MMM style list.  My wife built the list and we ran it against eachother this week.  She's an interesting caster, and we're amassing enough circle for Jessica now that we can do more than just Baldur1 and Nyss/Bloodtracker spam.  She's got Kaya1 and Morvahna2 both now so I expect we'll see them here shortly.

  Enjoy your weekend fellas!  A shoutout to my local fellow PG, Josh Carpentier at the WMW qualifier in Springfield last weekend.  He took 1st with Trolls, EE and Grissel1 MMM, and won against Absylonia2, but Body and Soul as well.  Pretty excellent player, and we're excited for him.  

50pts Maelok (Gators) vs. Madrak2 (Trollbloods) The Posse rematch

  So the last post was the Triple Gator Posse w/ a Sacral Vault.  My opponent didn't feel like Rask was a super awesome matchup against Madrak2 because of Madrak's feat, and wanted to try Maelok against him.

  For me, I just wanted to deal with Triple Posse and the Sacral Vault at once, and I felt like Madrak2 could do it.  Grim2 could struggle through it a bit more (mainly through mortality and bypassing Unyielding by doing the work with ranged attacks), and I think Borka2 might have an ok shot at it, but overall, Madrak2 just crushes ARM skews so well.  So we rematched.

  He traded his list up a little, mainly with a caster change, which in Gators, doesn't do a great deal.  It changes the way the list is played a little, but not the list itself.

Maelok
*Boneswarm
*Spiny Growth Bot
*Spiny Growth Bot
Sacral Vault
Max Posse
Max Posse
Max Posse
Witch Doc Croc
Witch Doc Croc
Victor Pendrake
Totem Hunter

  The main changes to the list is a slightly different BG, the inclusion of Pendrake which worries me not at all, and the double Witch Doc Crocs because of Maelok's feat, oh and the Totem Hunter, which worries my Fire Eaters a little.  This means the everlasting supply of Shamblers is gone, which makes me super happy.  On top of that, incorporeal on feat turn is super pointless when I have a stone in my list.

  Which, because it's Madrak2, I do.

Madrak2
*Runebearer
*Storm Troll
*Pyre Troll
Max Fenns w/UA
Max Burrowers
Min Scats w/UA
Min KSB w/UA
Fell Caller
Fell Caller (Kithkar proxy)
Stone Scribe Chronicler
Fire Eaters
Fire Eaters

  Major changes to this list? Very little. I dumped the Kriel Warriors though and dropped in the Scattergunners.  I don't expect this to make any major differences, but I definitely feel like I'll get more out of the Scats than I do Kriels.  'Clear!' lets me do a bit more work, and can definitely touch the Vault a little safer, but for the most part, I'm just to a point where I hate Kriel Warriors.  Other options are the Sons of Bragg, but the Scats get me 8 models for I think 7 pts, instead of 3 for 6.  I'm considering purchasing Shamblers for Madrak2, but haven't done it yet.  I used to run Warders, and I may go back to that, but meh.  So, we roll off, and I lose, but take the more open side, hoping to pin him in a bit with the forest and the obstruction in the middle.

  The Scenario is also a much better option this time than Incursion.  Madrak and his 10'' control radius prefers central zones much more than things like Incursion or Outflank.  The sweet thing about this one is that unlike Destruction, and it being a game of who can hold 1 zone and who can't (Sacral Vault becomes a must-kill object), this one has flags off to the side that people can dominate for 1 point instead.

  So we deploy.  Because this scenario has objectives, we actually get to pick some.  Arcane Wonder goes to Maelok, and I pick Effigy of Valor because I failed probably 5 CMD checks last game.  So it's pretty key in this list.

  The Fire Eaters on the left land Prey, and the Totem hunter moves through the woods towards them.  I figure 4pts vs. 3pts is fairly ok, especially when it's the Totem Hunter.  Everything else pushes forward.  Death Pact goes on the center gators for +2ARM and undead.  I don't remember if Malediction does down or not.  I don't think so.

  My stuff runs.  Fenns spread way out.  The Scattergunners fill in behind.  Burrowers burrow.  Madrak dumps fury to the stone and moves forward.  KSB pushes hard and pops aura.  Beast rile up to 5, and Fire Eaters do nonchalant things and pretend they're not going to wreck the whole army next turn.  Maybe.  The left guys move away from the Fire Eater though.  Hero's Tragedy goes on the Fenns in an attempt to stave off the Gators getting a solid alpha.

  Maelok upkeeps Death Pact.  The Totem Hunter walks in and hops over the first rank, landing in the Scats.  He hits one that toughs, and kills the other.  Then sprints away because he's a turd.  The Crocs all run, some farther than others trying to engage and cause problems, trying to force me to feat early to clear them.  The Witch Doc Crocs (WDC hereon out) get Zombify out there so that Undead is on all three units, and that's pretty much it.  

  Burrowers emerge in pairs and hang out, one specifically within four of the objective.

 So right off the bat, the Fire Eaters on the left assault the Totem hunter and toast him easily.  I position the two big guys in melee and slam the little guy into the back, failing the charge but getting the assault off and lighting the other two on fire.  The Totem Hunter died in flames.  

  Right Pyre throws an AOE into the right Fire Eaters, lights them up  They walk forward and kill the Gator engaging my Fenn.  Burrowers aim and fire, killing three, maybe four gators.  Madrak activates, moves a little.  I really want to get him into the zone, but I want Blood Fury on the Fenns, and they need to move out of his way.  I could use the Runebearer, but I want to save his minifeat for the feat turn, which is not this turn.  So he activates, shuffles forward a little, lands Blood Fury on the Fenns and fills the stone.  Fell Caller warcries the fenns and the Fenns charge, and kill another three gators.

  The dead pile is looking good for a non-feat turn.  I'm reasonably ok with this.  The Scattergunners move around a bit, put some more damage on more gators, and pile around Madrak for Grim Salvation.  The Stone moves forward, tries to block LOS to the stone as much as possible because I fully expect Maelok's feat.  My stone will shut it down for the most part, but the Vault is going to try to shoot it.  Or Maelok will revive gators into it and kill it.  It's probably going to die, but I'm still trying.

  My storm moves up and looks mean.  That's pretty much it for now.

    So this is probably Maelok's feat turn.  If you haven't been caught by that particular gotcha, everything that is undead gains Incorporeal.  This means Maelok brings lots of Croc Docs, and between them and his upkeep, three units of Gators are undead.  They also gain +2 ARM.  Against a lot of trollblood lists, the Incorporeal doesn't bother us at all because the KSB Elder gets rid of Incorporeal in the Stone aura.  

  So my opponent needs to kill the Stone.  I've blocked LOS halfway decent, but there's a few tricks Maelok is known for.  First off, the Vault can probably get LOS, but there's one Fenn, maybe two in the way.  I've only got one Self-Sac target nearby for the stone, so he's only got to kill it twice, unless he toughs.  I don't want him to tough, because then he's KD and the Aura is down.

  So the Vault opens fire.  I think it hangs out where it's at, and rolls a D3 for shots.  It gets two shots I think.  He wanted three, but he'll take two.  There's one Fennblade , right behind the burrowers, in the way blocking LOS, and he shoots it.  I tough, but now it's KD.  The second shot goes into the stone, shoots it, and I self sac the one guy I have within 3''.

  Maelok activates, feats, and revives three gators out of the right most unit, keeping them in command and getting one within charge range of the stone.  They pray for rerolls, charge and the one that gets to the stone misses everything or fails to break arm.  The dice absolutely abandon him.  He doesn't fare much better against the Fire Eaters he charged with the other two outside of tieing them up.  So for the most part, the feat does nothing because of the stone.

  Gators on the left move up and kill burrowers.  Croc Docs do Croc Doc things.  

  It's feat turn for me.  I need all his stuff to die.  I'm not too worried about the Sacral Vault, even though it's going to contest the zone every turn.  However, I can start pushing right to dominate the flag.  I really want my Fire Eaters to go to town on the right though, but they're tied up.  Fenns Vengeance and kill a few things, nothing crazy.  The Fell Caller gives himself +2 to hit, and charges into the Gator on the far right, killing him easily.  

  The Pyre troll charges into the gator still engaging those Fire Eaters, and fails to kill him with Tough, and being crazy hi-ARM.  The Chronicler does Charge of the Trolls, and fails to kill him.  The Fenn Blades activate, move and and one charges him and HE FAILS TOO.  So the Scats go, and they shuffle around. The leader moves way over and sprays across.  That doesn't work either.  The stone pops aura, shuffles around, and Madrak activates, feats.  Everything tries again, and still cannot kill him.  I end up using one of the Fire Eaters, who's still on fire miraculously, to spray across, and he kills the Gator, which finally fails tough, and I kill the Chronicler too.  The fenns all swing at stuff again, the Scats spray stuff, and all the Burrowers kill some things in the feat too.  There's one gator left on the far left side.  I think the Center unit is dead completely, and right unit still has a few models.  There were three gators dead Center that I really wanted the Fire Eaters to kill, but by the time the eaters are free, I've actually killed all of those gators.  So they assault into the ones left in the back and kill one, but not the other.  The Sacral Vault is down a few boxes from a Blood Fury Fennblade UA going after him, but it's still largely ok.

  Maelok's grasping for strings at this point.  He revives a gator on the right, revives two on the left and kills all the Fire Eaters.  The two beasts get involved, but that's largely it.  The Stormtroll on the left is an issue for him because he wants to get the Vault further into the zone, but the Fennblade UA hangs on with Tough and the Stormtroll won't die even though it's waaaaaaaay out of Madrak's control.

  Fenns Vengeance around a bit.  The Burrowers are mostly dead.  The Scats focus on clearing Gators out of the zone so they can't revive towards the flag that Madrak is headed towards.  I fail to kill one, and the Storm troll is really struggling at MAT5 to kill the other.  Blood Furied Fennblades kill the Bull Snapper, and Madrak personally charges the other two on the right, annihilates them and uses the 1'' movement after each kill to move base to base with the flag.  I score 1CP I think....  I don't think it's 2 for some reason to do with the Scenario.  Otherwise this game would have ended quickly after this.

  Maelok's down to one unit of Gators.  He revives most of them and kills most of the Trolls in the Zone and starts working on the objective.  He reeeaally needs to kill the Stormtroll though because that's what is blocking him from moving into the zone with the Vault and being relevant.  However, between the Croc, the Croc Doc, the Vault and Maelok himself, his dice are not cooperating and the Stormtroll survives.  He does not contest and I go to 2 CP.

    Blood Fury is upkept on the Fenns.  They wipe out the Objective, taking me to 3CP.  Madrak moves Blood Fury to the Krielstone unit.  The Pyre Troll shoots a Gator and kills it.  Fell Caller lands War Cry on the KrielStone dudes, and they kill some gators, leaving just one.  Again.  Which the Storm Troll leaves alive, again.  I dominate for a 4th CP.

     The last Gator charges the two Fenns near the Vault, and Maelok kills the Stormtroll, then revives two more gators to contest the flag.  The Vault moves in, kills everthing left in the zone, but does not score because my Objective contests.  

  Fell Caller puts War Cry on Maddy, who (with Harmonious Exhaltation from Moses) puts Blood Fury on himself.  He kills both Gators easily, moves back to the Flag and dominates for the 5th and final CP, winning the game.

Thoughts on the game:

  1.  I felt like I did much better handling the Vault this game.  As in, I didn't kill it, but didn't let it stop me too much either.  I won with a slow CP victory, but overall was pretty content with everything.  I kind of wish I had moved more central with Madrak2 and cleared the zone with him instead, but that would have been an even longer game.  However, he could have killed the gators, got the Stormtroll back into range and cleaned up everything that was left, leaving Maelok and the Vault which is hardly enough to deal with Madrak2 and the number of models I had left.

  2.  Fire Eaters are stupid good.  They didn't do much this game, but I don't think I've played a game since without them.

  3.  Revive is annoying.  

Honestly, this game was two or three weeks ago.  So many turns, so it took forever to write.  I'm fuzzy on most of the details, but overall I'm pleased with Madrak2 as an answer to Gators in general.  I'm pretty confident that the matchup, even with the Vault, is at least even and I can make a game of it.  I'm liking the 2 lights intead of a heavy so far as well, and don't really feel like it needs to change atm.

Other news.  I now have a twitter feed.  It's here.  I haven't decided if it's useful or not, but most Warmachine news seems like it trails in over Twitter faster than it does elsewhere, so I at least wanted to have an account to follow with.  If you like my batreps/tutorials, follow me there for more instantaneous haranguing of my methods.  

I'm also in the middle of a commission job for Soulhunters, Daragh Wrathe and Goreshade3, so expect them to pop up before too long.  

I also bought Grissel2 finally.  A friend of mine asked me a few weeks ago how shy I was of the full Troll army, and I'm actually only 6 models/units shy of the whole selection.  I'm mostly ok with that.  I bought Gunnbjorn (Next batrep I think, actually), Grissel2, and the only other purchases I'm liable to make are the Thumper (Grim2 shenanigans, maybe), and the Night Troll (Painting purposes only).  I have no interest in Sluggers, Bushwackers, Scouts or Skinners.  So I'm pretty happy with what I own trollwise now.  I would like a few more minion units (Gators, Shamblers) but overall I'm pretty good.

 That being said, I found out that I love playing Grissel2 with Highwaymen.  Not quite meat mountain, but definitely 2 units of Warders.  Dash is stupid.  Expect to see more of that.

  Anyways, that's it for now.  Check out twitter.  KingdomCon just happened, and that had some interesting results including a ton of Legion, Cryx and Cygnar in the finals, with Jeremy Lee taking Denny2 Body and Soul all the way.  Last round was Haley2 vs. Denny2 in a pretty tight game.  Another large tournament happened in Springfield, MO, with the local Omaha guys taking 1st and 3rd, Josh Carpentier with Trolls and Dan Sammons with Circle respectively.  Sounds like EE and Grissel1 MMM for Josh and Brad/Krueger2 for Dan.  Excited to see what the new Warmachine book will do to the meta.  You guys enjoy the warmer weather and I'm going to put texture on a ceiling at home.

Fire Eaters painted and bad dojo

  I've got one unit of Fire Eaters painted.  I have a second unit to go that I did the flames on, but the first unit is done.  At the very least, I know which is which on the table.  Because they're  always on the table together.

  I love these models.  The Pyg is probably my least favorite, and he's still not bad.  The other two are phenomenal though.  So I sat them down and started working on them and Maximus.  Maximus is mostly there but there's details yet on him.  

  I ended up going with a confederate looking style from them.  Between some of the caps (Gunnbjorn) and hats (Highwaymen or stuff I modeled), there's a western theme going for them, and I like the grey a lot.  This jacket I got kind of carried away on though, and I liked it.

  The image I used for reference is not mine, it's a fire blower image I found on Google that probably has rights to it, so I won't go there.  But googling Fire Blower will pull it up.  After some gloss varnish on the bottles and tophat and some airbrush OSL, this is where I ended up.

  The yellow OSL looks a little too green in this picture, and it's not green at all on the model.

  Or is it?

  My background here is kind of rough.  I found a good spot for lighting in the house and added some of my own, but I need to build another lightbox and figure out what I what in the back.  Pretty wood grain isn't really doing it here, so idk.  The black/blue stormy background I used to have was too much I think.

  Anyways.  These guys are done.  I have the second unit to do, and a whole ton of other stuff.  My Highwaymen are partly done, Maximus...  Now I have Pendrake, Bone Grinders (They'll probably never get painted lol), Kriels (Since I dislike them, they'll probably not get painted for a long time either), and I finally cracked and got Gunnbjorn, and he stands in an unpainted spot with Calandra and Borka1.

   Which leads me to terrible Dojo.  Between Dozer (arguably) and the Highwaymen, I think Gunnbjorn's got a shot to be on the competitive scene without being toted by special snowflake players.  Snipe on the Highwaymen is pretty solid, and makes them incredibly good.  I started writing lists for him, and it feels like he just has too much going on.  I want to spam Guided Fire, but that doesn't work on Kraye either.  I may try double bomber w/Highwaymen and chaff (Fenns and such) and see what it does.  What the Highwaymen need is a flare model somewhere.  I really think they're good, but a flare would help so much.  Without that, the Scats still have solid territory and it's hard to ignore them in an anti-cryx list.

  Secondly, the Efaarit are inbound.  I'll need two of those for the models alone.  There's some people repeating the anti-Hunter argument with these guys, and if you've seen my Kraye reports, you know I hate hunters.  With a passion.  Efaarit, on the other hand, while not obviously competitive, can do work.  For the price of one hunter, I can get a AP shot at 1 higher POW (basically +2 compared to the pow6 on the Hunter) with all the same tricks a Kraye Hunter has.  People who like the Hunters spout how amazing they are on Kraye.  Well, Efaarit run just like that, without focus.  Sure, damage isn't boosted.  I'm ok with that.  On top of that, they completely ignore what I find frustrating about the hunter, the struggle to kill a grunt with a POW6.  Sniper bypasses that completely.  Just need one reliable shot into a grunt to clear a lane?  RAT7, RAT9 with aim, pop, walk away.  Shieldwalled IFP?  One point, done.  That's gold.  I'm willing to pay 6pts for 2 of those every turn.  Will it go in every list?  Absolutely not.  But I gaurantee I'll be finding places for them in my gunlines.  They're not bad at all.

  It's going to be a good year for trolls.

  Other news.  I'm dabbling in commission work.  You saw the Kraken.  There's more inbound from that it sounds like.  I'm also doing a display piece with my Dynamo, so that's coming.  My wife just got ahold of the 2player Circle kit, so her army just pretty much doubled, and more importantly, she got Skinwalkers.  So some of that may come across here too.  I've also got the Croc rematch half written and that'll drop this week as well.  Stay tuned folks.

  All like, three of you.

50pts Rask (Minions) vs. Madrak2 (Trollbloods)

  I watched the tail end of a game between two friends of mine Saturday.  3x Posse and Jaga-jaga vs. Skarre1 w/ Kraken, DJ and lots of Satyxis.  Was a pretty rough game for the Cryx guy, especially with Spellpiercer out there all game from Jaga-Jaga.  After the game was up, I took on the Minions, and he traded warcasters out for Rask.

  There's been a lot of discussion about the new Fire Eaters, and with Madrak2 specifically.  I think they'll work very well with him, and I think he's pretty decent against 3 units of Gators too.  The main concern I had was the Sacral vault in the list.  80% of my army can't even get near it, so that was an issue.

Rask
*Spiny Growth bot (Let's be honest)
*Swamp Horror
Sacral Vault
Gator Posse
Gator Posse
Gator Posse
Bog Trog Shamblers
Witch Doc Croc

  This was a Blindwater pact, so he got two water templates to put in place.  I came wanting to play Madrak2 or Borka2's tier.  Looking back, I think Borka2 would be playable into the list, but the low model count would have struggled against 15 gators.  Madrak2 was a better matchup against Minions in general, be it Jaga or Rask.  I built this list earlier this week, and it was a delivery module for Fire Eaters, and Kriel Warriors, because I'm trying to make 100$ work for me.  So far, the Kriel Warriors are looking like a waste of time on anyone but Grissel1, much to the chagrin of the Trollblood forums or facebook group.

Madrak2
*Runebearer
*Storm
*Pyre
Max Burrowers
Max Fenns w/UA
Min Kriels w/ 3 Cabers and UA
Fire Eaters
Fire Eaters
Min KSB w/UA
Fell Caller
Fell Caller

  We rolled off and I won, electing to go first.  My opponent chose the side with the wall for Rask to hide behind.

Deployment was pretty straightforward, and I tried to line the Fire Eaters up to flank, and take a unit of Posse each.



  Everything runs on my side, and I cast nothing.  Madrak fully loads the stone.  I'd just as soon not have -2 DEF on anything because of Blood Fury.  Looking back, the only ranged attacks he had was Rask or the Vault, so I probably would have been fine, but meh.  I was expecting Rask's feat on my opponent's turn to hurt my alpha, so my opponent would probably get the alpha, so it made sense to keep the DEF normal for the fenns.

  Pretty simple reply.  Rask put Boundless Charge on the Vault, Fury on posse, and Admonition on himself, and Feats, which I expected.  The Shamblers run up, the Vault charges one of them, kills it in melee, and then uses the rest of it's shots on the fire eaters, killing one, much to my frustration.  The Posses move up, but only use about half of their full movement, playing it very conservatively.

  So I've got a couple of options.  The Burrowers are going to pop up, and definitely be in range of shooting the battle engine once they've moved.  The question here is how much I want to focus on the Vault.  It honestly me worries me some, and most of my army can't do a lot about it.  At ARM20, the warbeasts are pretty much useless against it, so that leaves Madrak, Burrowers (shooting) or the Fire Eaters.  

  Madrak's feat is incredibly adaptive.  You can clear tarpits engaging you with it, you can run through forests and then attack after the run with it, (suck it Bradigus), you can charge a bunch of stuff, and kill everything else you engaged with it, all sorts of things.  An ideal Madrak2 feat turn for me is Blood Furied, War-Cried Fenns charging in a 24'' line with the UA/Drummer duo centered, forcing CMD checks on the world, engaging as much as possible, getting off a bunch of decent attacks at MAT8 Weapon Master, and then Madrak feating, and killing everything else.  It's a thirty minute turn but it's amazing.

  However, here, I can use it run fenns into the faraway gators, get really agressive with Madrak2, and maybe kill some gators early.  However, I'm really worried about the Vault still, so I decide to make it up as I go, and pop the Burrowers. I carefully move them to within 5'', but not within 2'', and all but 1 Burrower makes it.  At RAT4, I need 6s to hit, and I think most of them hit ok.  I got like six or seven hits out of nine.  

  Then I rolled like crazy for damage, and left like, two boxes on this thing.  Really frustrating.

  So my Fenns run.  They can't charge anything, so they just sprint around in a tarpitty sort of way and mini-feat because I expect Terror checks here shortly from the Gators.  This leaves my Fire Eaters on the right.  The Pyre hits them directly and lights them on fire, for little to no damage.  The little guy assaults a Burrower (conveniently landing the Vault in the spray) and the other guy assaults a juicy row of gators by targetting a Fenn.

  The little guy, of course, hits the Vault and fails to do damage.  Horrible damage roll.  The other guy scratches a few gators, but I'm so used to 8'' sprays on the Scats that 6'' sprays catch me off guard.  Everything else runs, and here's where I debate.  I can feat with Madrak, and with 2 boxes left, definitely kill the Vault, or I can save it.  I debate, and debate, and debate, and feat.  The second or third burrower kills the vault, and I kill a gator or two.  Worst feat ever.

   Then the Gators proceed to come in.  The unit on the far right does work.  The unit in the middle runs into the Burrowers which miraculously pass their CMD, and the unit on the left tears into the Kriel Warriors.  At two attacks each, most with rerolls, they did work.  Even the Swamp Horror moved in and cleared at least three models.  I think one model toughed out of the whole group.  The attrition level very clearly swings in my opponent's direction.  I lose 7 Fenns, most of the Kriels, the Fire Eaters on the right and a few Burrowers.

  This is where it gets rough.  My Fenns use vengeance, move into melee, and fail CMD.  Just like that.  I was hoping to clear the center unit of gators, but with five badly needed models now fleeing, it's not going to happen.

  I still think I can clear the left flag and control it with the Fire Eaters and the Kriels though, and I think Madrak can start doing work on the right flank, so it's still possible.  However, the order of activation issues are crazy.  My brilliant plan involves the Fire Eaters on the left assaulting the gators on that flag.  One can target a dude, land in melee with him and stay base to base with the flag  The other can spray him, and two more badguys, and do it first so as to light the other guy on fire for his boosted damage.  I try this, and realize I need 9 to hit my guy on the hill in the back, and I make it.  Sweet, high rolls.  Then I do damage and roll and eleven, then fail the tough, killing him.  And the plan goes to pieces.  The kriels get in there a little bit, but it's a lost cause there, and I leave one gator alive.

  The Stormtroll goes after the Swamp Horror with flaming fists, barely scratches it.  The Caber misses the attack against the same beast.  The Burrowers scrape some damage onto the Gators, and Madrak kills like three.  The stone charges into combat, passing CMD, and starts trying to provide Grim Salvation targets.  The one gator on the left and the one gator on the right are both contesting, or it would have been a point each.

  On the plus side, I just remembered how much damage my MAT4 burrowers did that turn.  Three gators are dead.  This game was about a month ago, so remembering everything is rough.  My fenns did pass CMD though and are back.

  Speaking of rough, this following picture is crap.  The gist of it though is that the Gators are attritioning better than I am at two attacks each, and the Gator Bokor is getting all kinds of corpses from me.

  Rask and crew clears most of the left flag, and the Shamblers start CRAing on the Burrowers.  The Gators on the right start working their way into Madrak.

  Madrak moves right, with blood fury on him at this point, and kills all four gators at the flag, and goes base to base with it.  Go Tide of Death or whatever it's called.  The Burrowers keep working on the Center Gators leader, who has toughed by now.  And they're killing shamblers because DEF10 is in their comfort zone.  The Pyre moves to the center flag to control and bombs a bunch of shamblers, but one contests, putting me at 1 CP for the one Madrak is on.  My Kriel flag contests left flag.

  The Swamp Horror charges in and kills the Pyre.  The Bokor drops a bunch more shamblers and these both contest, and kill things.  He has to fight Madrak instead of contesting his own flag because Madrak will definitely clear his own flag faster than Rask can.  He outnumbers me all day long and I'm losing models, but he has to keep coming to me.  

 I'm down to one Burrower at this point, a couple of KSB, and a Fennblade UA.  One shambler contests me.

  At this point in the game, it's been going on four hours, and we're just going through the motions.  I'm pretty sure I'm missing pictures here, but you're not missing much.  My opponent clears contesting models and contests my flag.  I'm at 2 CP, but I get up to 4 at some point, Madrak just cutting for fury lol.

  Yeah, I'm missing pictures.  There's like a whole other round after this, but you can see the writing on the wall.  It ends with just Madrak, by himself, swinging an axe.  The Shambler Bokor gets in there and finishes him finally, but I'm at 4CP when I die, all of those gained after the game went against me.

  Victory to Minions.

Thoughts on the game:

1.  Most important:  The Sacral Vault is not that scary.  Is it a problem?  Sure.  It's Defenses are many and prevent me from doing much about it throughout the game.  However, it can't do much while it's alive.  It takes huge parts of the board, but really, the only other thing it does is shoot things, and it's D3 at best.  I should not have Feated to kill it.  That's where I lost the game I think.

2.  Failing CMDs and inopportune dice rolls begone, I almost had 5CP in at least 3 different spots.  At some point in the game, I gave up on it and was just finishing it, and I gave it a good try, but I just wasn't in it, and I could have gotten that 5th CP.   

3.  Rask didn't feel like much of a threat.  The Shamblers really turn him up since he has sac pawn to them all day long, and I basically fed him bodies for it, but really, Triple Posse is a Hipster MMM, and Madrak2 eats it up all day long.  We go for a rematch a week after this, and he changes his caster, and I drop:

4.  The Kriel Warriors.  I really get a lot of flak for disliking these guys, but I really do.  No Vengeance, Set Defense, Minifeat, nothing.  I think Jarl and Grissel1 can probably use them, but Madrak2 has got better things.  In the next game, I replace them with Min Scats w/UA, and I like that considerably more.  Here, they really didn't do anything.  They need Tough to work before they're making points back, and I've got no use for that.

  Excellent game though, and I've only played against Rask a handful of times.  Really enjoyed the matchup, even with some lousy CMD checks on the Fenns.