More Hardcore practice

So I got in another practice Hardcore game yesterday against Scott & his trolls. It was interesting for several reasons, mostly because it was a type of list that I'll be more likely to see in Hardcore.
My list was what I mentioned in the last post:

Points: 50 Lich Lord Terminus (*4pts) * Reaper (7pts) * Skarlock Thrall (2pts) Bile Thralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts) Mechanithralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (5pts) Mechanithralls (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts) * 3 Brute Thrall (3pts) Necrosurgeon & 3 Stitch Thralls (2pts) Necrosurgeon & 3 Stitch Thralls (2pts) Soulhunters (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts) The Withershadow Combine (5pts) Darragh Wrathe (4pts) Madelyn Corbeau, Ordic Courtesan (2pts) Saxon Orrik (2pts)

Scott played a beast heavy eDoomie list:

Points: 50
Hoarluk Doomshaper, Rage of Dhunia (*6pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Dire Troll Bomber (10pts)
* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Janissa Stonetide (3pts)
Troll Whelps (2pts)
Troll Whelps (2pts)

So Scott won the roll, and decided to take the side that had 2 walls (dammit Janissa being able to lay a 3rd.

1st Turn: Scott walks up his army behind the walls, putting the earthborn animus all over and Wild Aggression on the Earthborn.

2nd Turn: I run all my McThralls, Biles, etc. up. Soulhunters try and run around and get behind his little beasty brick.

3rd Turn: Scott puts Refuge onto his Bomber, throws twice to kill some McThralls, Biles and a Brute Thrall, but I toughed quite a bit. After throwing, gets a full advance back thanks to Refuge, where Janyssa drops down a wall so that he can't be dragged. The Earthborn runs up to be right behind the forest, while Mulg gets to the corner of the wall by the forest. More earthborn animus thrown about as well.

4th Turn: 1 focus to the reaper, who runs to engage the Earthborn while the Soulhunters run further up the flank. Darragh casts Deathride to give 1" to the standing McThralls & Biles while Saxon Orrik gives Pathfinder to the first group of McThralls. 3 McThralls try and charge, 2 at Mulg and 1 at the Earthborn, while the rest run to engage, give free strikes on a trample, etc. Everything else moves up. I position the 1 of the Brutes to try and stop tramples from both Mulg & the Earthborn (this here is probably the biggest screwup. If I had put both Brutes over here, I would have had a better shot at blocking the trample from one of them.). Mostly my army still just rolls forward.

5th Turn: After a bit of deliberation, Scott sets up his turn. Janissa uses Tectonic Shift to disengage the Bomber.

Side Rant: Every time I forget about this ability, and every time I realize that I hate AOE pushes like that, especially on a solo that already has a lot of utility. At least they have to pay Fury to use Repulsion on a warbeast. Anyways, back to the game.

At this point, the Bomber is free to throw 2 more 4" AOE's onto my lines right in front of Termy. Boosted blast damage on the Brute Thrall, and now he's free to trample in his other beasts. Doomie pops feat and puts Rush onto the Earthborn, who then tramples (takes 2 free strikes from my McThralls, but they don't take anything out) all the way up to Termy with his 15" free trample. I'm sitting at ARM 23 on Termy at this point, thinking no biggie, he can't take my weapon. Turns out, the Earthborn doesn't just steal the POW of a jack's weapon, so he's swinging at P+S 19 to my ARM 23. Also, Dire's are freaking Fury 5. Ugh. 3 swings later, Termy is at 6 life. The Axer puts Rush on Mulg, so he can go 15" or something, who then tramples up to Termy. Whiffs the first attack, 2nd attack swings and kills.... Rolled a 4 for Tough. Sad day.

Anyways, this was a fun game where I made a decent amount of Tough rolls. It was also good because this type of list is more like what I'll be seeing in the tournament. Sadly, I still lost. If I had better positioned my Brute Thralls, and put Darragh up in front of Termy, there would have been no way he could trample the 2 heavies up to Termy. Since this was a practice game, we weren't totally strict on the time. Every other turn but Scott's last one were all less than 7 minutes. I think he would have been hard-pressed to plan it out and get it done in his 7 minute turn & 3 minute extension. Roh well.

Lesson of the day: what you don't know (or forget about) will lose you the game.
Case in point: Tectonic Shift and the Earthborn at P+S 19.

Well, it was a good learning experience, and full of lessons to keep in mind for KingdomCon. After talking about the game & the list with Scott, Jason & Ray, I decided to change the list up a bit. The goal of the list is still the same: 1) Swarm the enemy with more than they can deal with in 7 minutes. Make them do all the hard work on their turn figuring out how to win, while I just try and deal with the targets that can give Termy a hard time, and prevent the Trample assassination. With that in mind, here's the new list:

Points: 50
Lich Lord Terminus (*4pts)
* Reaper (7pts)
* Seether (9pts)
Bile Thralls (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Mechanithralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (5pts)
* 2 Brute Thrall (2pts)
Necrosurgeon & 3 Stitch Thralls (2pts)
Revenant Crew (Leader and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
The Withershadow Combine (5pts)
Captain Rengrave (2pts)
Darragh Wrathe (4pts)
Machine Wraith (1pts)
Machine Wraith (1pts)
Madelyn Corbeau, Ordic Courtesan (2pts)

2 heavies in this list provide a bit more oomph for the list, and are relatively harder to clear out. Rev Crew regenerate like McThralls, and Termy is about the only one who can make great use of them in my mind. The plus side is that I don't have to activate anybody to regenerate, just plop them down in my maintenance phase. Rengrave is there cause I've got Rev Crew, and the biles are back to a min unit because it's doubtful there's anybody else as crazy as I am. Machine Wraiths are there because it's going to be a warjack heavy environment, so they can be useful there in taking out the non-character jacks. In the event of facing a warbeast/character jack/ or cav heavy army, the Machine Wraiths will be sitting in the way in order to increase the threat range needed to get to Termy.

And that's the list.