Vassal Battle Report! Gaspy3 vs. pBaldur

So I recently started playing Vassal, which has been great.  It is not nearly as clunky as I recall it being, plus it can keep a log of the whole game! That makes battle reports so much easier, so big thanks to Sleet01 from the forums for mentioning that.  Anyways, I think it's going to be pretty nice to use since I won't have nearly as much time to go to the game store for games after I get married. On to the game at hand!

The lists:

My list:

Tier 4
Points: 50/50
Asphyxious the Hellbringer (*4pts)
* Vociferon (0pts)
* Cankerworm (5pts)
* Kraken (19pts)
Bile Thralls (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Mechanithralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (5pts)
* 2 Brute Thrall (2pts)
Mechanithralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (5pts)
Necrosurgeon & 3 Stitch Thralls (2pts)
Necrosurgeon & 3 Stitch Thralls (2pts)
Pistol Wraith (3pts)
Pistol Wraith (3pts)

Necrotech & Scrap Thrall (0pts)

The tiers net me the following: 1) free necrotech and scrap per helljack/colossal, 2) AD Pistol Wraiths, 3) a model can start with a soul/corpse token per unit in the list., and 4) +2" of deployment.

Calamity’s list:
Points: 50/50
Baldur the Stonecleaver (*6pts)
* Woldwarden (9pts)
* Woldwarden (9pts)

* Woldwrath (20pts)
Druids of Orboros (Leader and 5 Grunts) (7pts)
* Druid of Orboros Overseer (2pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
* Stone keeper (1pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
Blackclad Wayfarer (2pts)
Druid Wilder (2pts)

 Initial thoughts are that Gaspy is going to have a fuuuuun feat turn.  Anyways, the goal is to avoid any teleporting assassinations and to kill the models that he has that can kill the Kraken.

Deployment: 

We played Gauntlet, and I won the roll and chose to go second.  Deployment was as shown below.  If you look closely, you’ll notice that I forgot to deploy any Bile Thralls.  Whoops, guess I’m playing 5 pts down this game.

Circle Turn 1:

Druids cloud and countermagic, while his heavies rile and run forward.  Shifting stones warp up, and the Woldwrath also riles and runs.  Baldur casts Solid Ground, Stone Skin on the Druids, and his solos run up behind the Woldwrath.

 

Cryx Turn 1: 

3 focus to the Kraken, zero to the Cankerworm.  PW’s run to be on the hill behind the stump for cover to be DEF 20.  Both units of Necrosurgeons run/walk forward, and are followed by running McThralls.  The left unit tries to stay on the hill so that they’ll be DEF 16 when Gaspy puts Ashen Veil on them, which he does next after casting Mobility and walking up to be on the hill.  Kraken moves up and shoots at a Druid who’s in range, but misses even with the boost.  Totally forgot about immunity to blast damage.  I also forget to move the Cankerworm.

 Circle Turn 2:

He leeches his 6 fury, and upkeeps Solid Ground.  Druids move up and the Leader uses Counter-magic while the officer does a Devouring on one of the Brutes on the hill with Ashen Veil, hitting and killing another McThrall, leaving 2 thanks to terrible rolls.  Druids make a few more attacks on McThralls/Brutes, along with boxcars on the Pistol Wraith at DEF 20, plus some clouds.  His front stones shift, and then he rock-hammers and kills 2 more McThralls.  Right Warden move up and Earth Spikes at McThralls and then gets conditioned by the Wilder.  Left Warden moves up and throws out more Earth Spikes, killing McThralls and adding a pip of damage to the Cankerworm.  Baldur then charges a Druid in the back and feats, misses the Druid with his charge attack, then puts Stone Skin on the Warden next to him.  Woldwrath moves up and misses the boosted shot at an Ashen Veiled McThrall, then riles for another point.  His back stones shift behind the Woldwrath, and the Blackclad teleports to them.

Cryx Turn 2: 

Upkeep Ashen Veil and camp 6 since I probably won’t be getting any charges off here. Right Necrosurgeon walks up and drop 3 dudes, then the McThralls run to engage as much as possible and be in the way.  Kraken goes and shoots at the Warden with the 2 shots he gets from the little gun before I realize that the stone is stealth and I can just shoot Baldur.  Big gun shoots at him needing boxcars to hit, but I miss.  L McThralls run to engage as much as possible and then the L Necrosurgeon runs.  I run my back line support stuff, and then move up with Gaspy and feat, camping 6, trying to stay out of Woldwrath charge range since I really don’t wan to be KD because of those shenanigans.  Cankerworm then moves up in front of Gaspy to take up real estate.  Pistol Wraith runs behind his army, and does nothing.

Circle Turn 3:   

Baldur upkeeps solid ground, and I totally forgot to nab a soul from that… doh.  Anyways, turns out, that one soul really won’t matter.  Front stones shift, which is somehow not magic, just trying to get in my way I guess.  He tries to Rock Hammer a McThrall in the back, but forgot I was engaged with his Druid’s reach, deviates and kills 3 of the 4 with blast damage.  L Woldwarden goes, punches 2 dudes, and then he Geomancies Earth Spikes at McThralls on the hill… stupid ignoring elevation bs.  Anyways, kills more McThralls, and 3 more souls to Gaspy.  Baldur moves up and smacks a Brute for some damage, and then drops his forest to block LOS to himself and buys an attack that misses on a nearby McThrall, sitting on 2 fury for transfers.  His Druids walk up,  Countermagic, Devouring at McThralls, and clouds to give me 6 more souls.  Woldwrath moves up and shoots the Kraken, boosting damage, and casts his animus for another 2 souls.  Back stones shift, then the Blackclad sprays down McThralls, killing some and giving me another soul.  R Woldwarden punches some McThralls, then Geomancies at the Pistol Wraith on the hill, boosting, but misses.  The Wilder then moves up and Conditions to give Gaspy another soul!  So he ends his turn, and I have 22 focus next turn.

Cryx Turn 3: 

Hrm... 22 focus, what to do with it? To start, I check to make sure I’m out of Countermagic range, which I am.  Drop Ashen Veil, 2 focus to Cankerworm to kill the stone in the way, and we’re off. R Necrosurgeon moves out of the way and adds 3 dudes.  That unit of McThralls kills a druid and fails to hurt the shifting stone.  Cankerworm goes and tries to kill the stone with boosted damage rolls, but rolls crap and leaving it alive.  He scoots out of the way.  Back line support stuff gets out of the way so the Kraken will be able to move back.  Kraken then walks out of Gaspy’s way and kills the stone.  Gaspy casts Mobility, Carnage, and then Scything Touch onto himself, then charges my Brute in the back, killing it, then buying and boosting into Baldur until he’s dead.  6’s to hit, which leads to a miss, hit for 6 damage even with dice+2,  miss,  hit for 10 damage, miss, hit for 4 damage which he has to transfer, hit again for 4 damage, miss, miss, hit and game. 

Post-game thoughts:

So even with bad rolls, I kill Baldur with 4 focus to spare.  That said, if he hadn’t overloaded me with souls, I would probably have failed at the end there due to craptastic dice .  Anyways, it was a fun game where I was getting table pretty good, but he left me an opening and fed me up on my feat turn.  I might have been able to get some charges off on my 2^nd turn with some McThralls and maybe the Kraken, but I’m terrible at distance judging on Vassal right now.  Hopefully I’ll get better at that soon.  As for this being my first game with him against Circle (good for my feat turn), it was definitely fun, and there’s a whole lot of different ways that I could have played better.  That said, I’m really loving Vassal and being able to go back afterwards and look at dice, etc.  While in game it felt like he had a lot of good dice, his dice weren’t all that crazy except for just crit KD’ing or hitting some targets of opportunity.  So moral of the story, expect more battle reports like these.  I’ve got another log that I need to work through to put up as well.