Gaspy3 battle reports continued

So it's yet another game with the same Gaspy3 theme list as the last 50 pt game.  Monday night, I played on Vassal again, this time against Tossy playing Irusk2.  First time playing against this caster, so it should be fun.

Here's Tossy’s list:

Points: 50/50
Supreme Kommandant Irusk (*5pts)
* Spriggan (10pts) (bonded for +2 DEF and immune to KD)
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters (Cylena and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
* Koldun Kapitan Valachev (2pts)
Iron Fang Uhlans (Leader and 4 Grunts) (11pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts)
Man-o-war Shocktroopers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Winter Guard Mortar Crew (Leader and Grunt) (3pts)
Winter Guard Mortar Crew (Leader and Grunt) (3pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)

Random scenario gave us Diversion, I win roll, so I go first, deployment is pretty standard fair for my list, just pushing harder for the top flag so that I can control it and send some incorp models to the zone.

My turn 1, top of round 1:
One to the Kraken, Gaspy keeps the rest.  Run McThralls1 and Necrosurgeon1 up screen to the flag that I need to control, lose 3 dudes to formation, but not a big deal at this point.  Gaspy puts scything touch onto the Kraken, casts mobility, and moves up behind the barrels to cast Ashen Veil onto the top group of McThralls, where it will make a difference (unlike against the Nyss).  Cankerworm moves up and around the barrels, while the Kraken runs up to cover Gaspy’s left side and block some LOS.

 

His turn, bottom of round 1:
Move up, tac supremacy on shock troopers, FFE on another jack, Spriggan is bonded.  One Mortar puts 5 damage on Kraken.  Other Mortar shoots at top McThralls, killing 2 out of 3 hit (since out of range).

My turn, top of round 2:

Pull soul from vociferon, 3 to Kraken, upkeep both spells, 1 to Cankerworm.  Start the turn off, the Necrotech moves b2b and amazingly, heals all 5 damage! First time for everything here.  McThralls1 run up to try and keep his cav from getting near the flag, impacts need 8’s to hit, so hopefully that will slow him down.  One PW runs way up to hopefully get a bead on Eiryss next turn, while the other runs to take cover behind the barrels.  Necrosurgeon1 walks up and drops a Thrall.  I walk up McThrall unit 2 to just contest his flag and make it hard for him to score any points, but there’s not much chance of him getting to the zone right now, so I don’t have to commit to the flag very hard.  Walk Necrosurgeon 2 to try and get corpses, then Gaspy casts Mobility and jumps up on the barrels so that the Cankerworm will be able to come back after his attacks.  Canker then charges and AP’s the middle Shocktrooper for 4 health at dice-2. Going back thru the log, I realized that he didn’t do the AP right, instead put in the damage at dice-6 instead of dice-2, so that guy would be dead… ugh.  You really have to stay on top of people sometimes.  Anyways, Cankerworm backs off of things here, and the Kraken charges in with his P+S 21 chain striking chain weapon, so 4” reach at dice+4 against the shocktroopers.  The Kraken kills his charge target (who fails his tough) and boosts his Killshot at Valachev with concealment, hoping to catch Cylena in the crossfire.  Sadly, she’s not close enough, but at least the Nyss aren’t zephyring into my backfield.  Kraken takes his other arm on the next shocktrooper, and hits with boxcars then snake-eyes for damage, leaving him at 1.  I buy one last attack, boxcars, and then 11 for damage, and he fails his tough, filling the Kraken up with his corpses.  The Machine Wraith runs up to block off some real estate by the Kraken, in the hopes of helping him stay alive, then the Bile Thralls come and hang out behind him too.

 

His turn, bottom of round 2:

Upkeeps FFE.  Eiryss runs to the center PW and stands back to back with him.  L Mortar with FFE shoots at a McThrall in unit2 that’s out of range, but does some damage to 1 Brute and kills 1 Thrall.  Irusk moves up a little and pops feat, then switches FFE to the R Mortar.  He goes to shoot the PW behind the barrels, before I tell him that he probably doesn’t have a magical gun.  So instead, he airbursts the PW and does 2 damage, but he ends up killing Eiryss.  Anyways, that was pretty nice for me since I can now allocate focus to the Canker next turn if I feel like it.  Shocktroopers go next and shield wall, but only the bottom guy with one wound moves towards the Kraken and fails to damage.  A&H move up so that Holt can gun down to McThralls from unit1, while Aiyanna throws magical weapons onto the Uhlans.  3 of them charge, 1 at each PW and the leader at the Brute Thrall who is on the flag, while the last 2 run to provide extra ARM to their buddies.  The top PW is smushed pretty easily by the MAT 8 Cav charge, and the bottom PW is killed even at effective DEF 16 thanks to Ashen Veil.  At least Ashen Veil reduced the amount of dead McThralls from impacts, but the Brute exploded from the charge.  Nyss go next and kill a Brute and a McThrall, while one engages the Kraken.  R Mortar shoots at the last Brute in unit1 and kills him and a stitch thrall.

 

My turn, top of round 3:

I just need to kill 3 horsies and to move something in to touch the zone to score.  Shouldn’t be that hard, the only issue being Irusk’s stupid feat catching 1 Bile Thrall and turning them all into DEF 3.  I hate those stupid model/unit feats that you catch one dude in the unit and they’re screwed.  Anyways, I start with Vociferon, who runs in order to try and snag some souls.  Then I realize that I forgot to allocate/upkeep scything touch, ashen veil I was at least planning to drop.  Good thing he killed Eiryss for me so that I could allocate.  That said, I could have ended the game right there with that focus on the Kraken.  15/15 are sad stats for casters.  Anyways, Biles go next, and are way shorter than where I thought because I figured that –2 SPD was only for models in his ctrl, not whole units.  I purge with 3 dudes, don’t kill any of his models, corrode the Canker and Kraken, kill a McThrall who is in his feat (yaay, something right!).  Gaspy goes next, casts Mobility, and charges one of the Uhlans, spends a focus for the boosted attack, then gets to cast Carnage for free thanks to Blood Boon.  Then he buys an attack on the other Uhlan in his reach, but fails to kill.  The Machine Wraith runs to be closer to the Spriggan, but away from pesky A&H, since I didn’t have the range to get to the Spriggan with the –2 SPD.  Canker then walks up and AP attack, boxcars the hit, but he toughs, so the Canker walks back out of the way.  Kraken walks away from the Nyss (who I expected to die to a purge), and he rolls 17 for damage on the 4 dice, dropping 8 damage and clearing 2 columns.  Kraken hits and kills at dice+4 on the wounded Shocktrooper, then killshots into the Mortar in the hopes of killing A&H, since I can’t hit DEF 15 without any focus.  As it turns out, I can’t hit DEF 12 without focus either, and the deviation only covers the loader, who toughs.  The R arm on the Kraken kills the other shockie, but he toughs it out as well.  McThralls 2 just move forward to contest the Flag and hopefully not be as terribly positioned so that I can actually get corpses.  That Necrosurgeon walks up and drops her 2 McThralls as well.  Necrosurgeon1 then walks up and drops her 2 dudes, and McThralls1 get to charge the cav.  I get 1 dude in b2b with the flag, and forget to run 2 dudes in to be within 4” so that I can own the flag and score here.  The injured horse dies easily, and gives Gaspy another soul, while 3 combostriking McThralls kill the other horse.  Necrotech runs up to hopefully repair the Kraken next turn, but that’s all I’ve got.

His turn, bottom of round 3:

He starts by upkeeping FFE (1 soul from feat, but 3 total), and allocates 3 to the Spriggan.  Corrosion kills 1 Shocktrooper and gives Vociferon a soul.  A&H move up, Holt kills 2 more McThralls while Aiyanna Harms the Kraken (5 souls total).  Spriggan then charges the Kraken, hits with an 11, then rolls 18 on the damage for total of 19.  His shield attack does no damage, but with his next two bought attacks, he rolls 8 and 9, for another 19 damage to the Kraken and 2 more souls on Gaspy.  At this point, I have 2 columns left and no arms.  FFE Mortar shoots at McThralls, but out of range and only kills one on the deviation.  I mention the CMD check on the Uhlans from last turn, and of course they pass.  He charges them into the McThralls around the flag, kills 3 with impacts, splats the necrosurgeon and another McThrall.  Irusk then back away and switches FFE to the other mortar, who shoots at a bile thrall, catching Vociferon and the Necrotech barely in the blast.  Vociferon lives on 1, but the Necrotech is dead, ruining any hopes of repair.  Nyss go next, kill Vociferon and some McThralls, but nothing major.

My turn, top of round 4:

I start by allocating 3 to the Kraken and 1 to Cankerworm.  Corrosion disappears on Canker, but does another point to the Kraken.  The Machine Wraith starts things off by stealing his Spriggan, then the Canker walks over and eats the closer Uhlan by the flag (giving Gaspy his first soul of the turn) and repositions to score on it.  Gaspy casts Mobility next, walks 8, and kills the Shocktrooper for another soul..  With Blood boon, I’m just out of range for Hex Blast onto Irusk, so I throw it onto his Mortar, but both dudes tough again.  I buy and boost an attack on Holt, and get a 3^rd soul.  Kraken is no longer engaged, so aims and shoots at Irusk, who apparently gets elevation from standing on an obstacle.  10’s to hit, boosted on the big gun, and I miss.  POW 10 blast damage still gets him for 1 point.  D3+1 hellblasters, and I get 2 shots total… ugh. Dice-3 on the damage, so I figure I’ll boost both attacks and try and get some decent dice for damage.  First boosted shot hits, but no damage, then the second shot hits and does 7 damage.  So it almost averages out, but I’d rather have his dice.  McThralls 1 up by my Flag need 8’s to hit, and I get 2 charges.  Since there’s no DEF line, I figure not combo striking is the way to go.  One good charge attack should finish him.  Miss first swing, no damage on the non-charge.  Second guy hits on his charge, only rolls an 8 so leaves him on 3 life and I don’t score… again.  I should have cast carnage with blood boon here.  Oh well.  McThralls2 run/charge to engage as many nyss as possible, and kill 1 Nyss.  Necrosurgeon had run up to try and collect corpses too, but I got nothing.

His turn, bottom of round 4:
He forces out the Machine Wraith with Irusk, then upkeeps FFE on the bottom Mortar, who shoots at Gaspy, but misses and deviates to hit nothing.  Aiyanna moves back and goes for the Harm, but misses!  Irusk then backs up and switches FFE onto the other Mortar, who only needs a 12 to hit Gaspy, which it does.  Then he rolls a 13 for damage at dice-5 for 8 damage.  I remember in the middle of my next turn when I move Gaspy further forward that Mortars have a minimum range of 8”, and Gaspy was < 6” away.  Ugh, I really need to remember that crap.  The Spriggan pokes the Kraken at dice-1 and does 8 more damage! The Shield hits and does 2 more damage at dice-5, so now the guns are out.  The Uhlan missed 2 attacks at McThralls, which is kinda funny.  Then the Nyss walk up, giving me one free strike, which still misses.  He ends up killing the Brute, some regular Thralls, and the Necrosurgeon.

My turn, top of round 5:

I have 10 focus thanks to a bit of soul collection, so I allocate 2 to the Canker and keep the rest.  The Machine Wraith takes the Spriggan again.  The Cankerworm then moves over and does his AP attack on the Uhlan back arc and kills him dead with some boosted damage before moving back to control the flag.  Gaspy then charges Aiyanna and boosts the attack, but misses the 9.  He then buys an attack at the Mortar which toughs of course.  Both units pass their CMD check as well.  Totally forgot corrosion on the Kraken, so he’s now on 1 box.  He walks into the zone and away from the Spriggan.  I don’t bother much with bottom McThralls.  I score on the flag at this point, so I just have to survive to win.

His turn, bottom of round 5:

He successfully forces out the Machine Wraith, but fails another Harm!  The Spriggan walks up and tries to hit Gaspy in the back, but misses.  Irusk casts Battle Lust on himself, then walks over the obstacle to get at Gaspy.  Boosts the attack and hits, boosts damage, and rolls a 10 on 4 dice.  Buys an attack and hits the 8, then rolls a 14 on his 3 dice for 4 damage.  Nothing the Nyss do matters, so I score again at the end of his turn for my 2^nd point and the win.

So there were lots of things that I could have done better this game, but most importantly positioning.  Specifically, I mean not leaving guys out of formation/out of scoring and keeping all my dudes in corpse collection range.  I got lucky that he misplayed pretty heavily IMO, not focusing fire on the Kraken on his 2nd turn to kill it, especially without my feat popped.  That said, I think I did a decent job at controlling the pace of scenario, even with screwing up my own positioning and underestimating how spread out his cav could be.  Anyways, my dice probably weren't bad overall, but they were terrible on damage and key rolls.  Just abysmal luck it seems, and that stupid Mortar made it through 2 or 3 tough checks, which was way not cool.  Roh well, still a good learning experience.

More Gaspy3 Batreps! Yay Vassal!

yay, 2 more batreps!

First up, a 35 pt quick game against NerevarRising and his pVlad list.

So here are the lists:

My Gaspy3 35 pt list:

Points: 35/35

Asphyxious the Hellbringer (*4pts)

 * Vociferon (0pts)

 * Cankerworm (5pts)

 * Kraken (19pts)

Satyxis Raiders (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)

 * Satyxis Raider Sea Witch (2pts)

Necrotech & 1 Scrap Thrall (1pts)

Satyxis Raider Captain (2pts)

Warwitch Siren (2pts)

NerevarRising’s pVlad 35 pt list:

Points: 35/35
Vladimir, The Dark Prince (*5pts)
* Drago (8pts)
* Spriggan (10pts)
Great Bears of Gallowswood (5pts)
Winter Guard Rifle Corps (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich (2pts)
Man-o-war Drakhun (with dismount) (5pts)

So we played on the Shattered City2 map, and the scenario rolled was Process of Elimination.  I win the roll, and choose to go first.  I deployed to try and take advantage of the obstacle in the middle, but I probably should have focused my Satyxis more on his jacks in the deployment, and then later in the game.

My turn, top of round 1:

1 focus to the Kraken, and off to the races.  Satyxis Raiders move up, Gaspy casts scything touch on the Kraken, mobility, and moves up to cast Ashen Veil on the Raiders.  The Kraken then runs to be on the front edge of the forest, while vociferon hangs out with him.  The Siren and Scrap Thrall run up the other side, and Canker walks into some rough terrain.   The Captain runs behind the Raiders.

His turn, bottom of round 1:

Vlad activates, casts Blood of Kings, Windwall, and walks forward to toe into the forest.  Drago runs up, and the Spriggan walks in behind him.  Then the Drakhun and Great Bears run up as well.  Riflemen walk up and make a huge covering fire, then Joe toughs them.  Gorman runs up the left flank towards the Cankerworm.

My turn, top of round 2:

Upkeep Ashen Veil, 2 focus to the Kraken and 1 to Canker.  Raider Captain walks up behind the obstacle and gives Desperate Pace to Raiders.  Gaspy walks up and sits on 3, then Canker walks up and boosts his P+S 13 attack and hits, but snake-eyes on damage to leave Gorman at 2.  His bite attack misses the 7, so he just backs off and hopes that Gorman will die.  I get a charge onto Gorman, one Rifleman, Drago and the Drakhun, and the rest run to engage.  I kill one Riflemen and Gorman between the 4 attacks that I have over there, but don’t hurt the Drakhun at all.  The one on Drago gets the crit KD, for 2 damage.  Vociferon runs to hide behind  the obstacle as well, then the Kraken walks up and shoots the big gun at Kolsk (or whoever gives steady), and hits with a boost.  I force a tough on the direct hit dude, which he passes, and boost damage on the other front one (relentless charge?) for no damage at dice-9.  Necrotech runs up and does nothing while the Siren moves up.  The Scrap thrall also runs up the edge.

 His turn, bottom of round 2:

3 Focus to Drago, who shakes the KD.  Vlad feats and casts Blood of Kings before walking over to kill a Satyxis tying up some Riflemen.  He’s Vlad, so can’t really miss, and splats her dead, then casts Windwall with Blood Boon.  I totally forgot he had this! Anyways,  Joe then walks up and tries to shoot a Satyxis, but misses.  Then he yells at the Riflemen to shoot better.  His riflemen then advance, giving me 2 free strikes, who both end up dead.  The rest of his dudes shoot at Satyxis, needing 13’s to hit on 3 dice.  They end up killing 1 Raider and taking the Sea Witch down to 1.  The bears then run/charge at Satyxis, needing 8’s to hit, and kills the 2 of them thanks to backswing.  Spriggan runs around and between the Bears.  He was hoping to bulldoze the Satyxis out of Drago’s way, but couldn’t fit between Drago and the Drakhun.  Drago then kills the Satyxis in the way, and the Drakhun charges the Sea Witch, but misses the 6 to hit!

My turn, top of round 3:

3 focus to the Kraken, 1 to the Canker, and upkeep Ashen Veil.  Easy stuff first, so the Scrap Thrall runs to be as close to the Riflemen as possible.  The Siren then walks up and sprays at him, hitting him and 2 Riflemen and killing all of them.  The exploding Scrap only catches one more Riflemen, but he fails to crack the ARM.  The Satyxis Captain charges Kolsk and kills him, then sprints back behind the obstacle after he fails his tough.  Satyxis pop minifeat and charge the Drakhun, Joe, and some Winterguard.  They kill Joe, 2 Riflemen, and fail to even damage the Drakhun.  Gaspy then casts Scything Touch, forgets to feat, and toes in the forest.  Vociferon then runs up, and the Kraken charges the Spriggan and does 14 damage at dice+1!  He takes his other initial on the Great Bear nearest him and kills him as well to power up to P+S 21.  Then he killshots the other Great Bear in the back, but he toughs this out.  2 more bought swings on the Spriggan deal 5 and 11 damage, leaving it on 4 boxes.  Necrotech runs behind the Kraken.  Cankerworm then runs to maybe get a charge next turn on Vlad.

His turn, bottom of round 3:

3 focus to Drago, and Vlad sits on 4.  Remaining Great Bear forfeits action to stand up and moves to engage Vociferon.  Spriggan then moves out of the charge lanes of Vlad and Drago, and does 3 damage to the Kraken.  Drago then charges for free to deal 8, 5, 4 (chain attack), 7, 8, and 9 damage to the Kraken.  Winterguard charge, and fail to kill any Satyxis.  Vlad casts Blood of Kings, then charges the Kraken and does 8 damage, leaving it with 8 boxes left.  The Drakhun then takes 3 free strikes to walk on over to the Kraken.  2 Crits and 2 damage later and rolls 8 damage exactly to kill the Kraken.  Somebody mentioned in my next game that I’ve been playing the Kraken with 2 extra boxes, so he would have only needed 11’s to kill instead of 13.  Very sad though.  Also sad that I forgot to pop my feat :p.

My turn, top of round 4:

K, well, have to go for the kill because there’s no way I can do it in later turns or win on scenario.  Odds are long to kill a DEF 18 ARM 18 caster, but we’ll see.  So I drop Ashen Veil and keep 7 focus.  Siren walks up and sprays at Riflemen, but Vlad is just out of the template.  Both Riflemen die and the Satyxis are freed up.  Satyxis Captain goes for the crit KD needing 10’s to hit, but crits on 3’s.  Satyxis then walk up behind Vlad, and 2 are in range for a CMA, needing 8’s to hit.  They hit, but no crit or damage.  Cankerworm doubletimes just because.  Gaspy then casts Carnage and Mobility, boosts the attack, but rolls 4 for damage at dice-2.  Then I pop feat and try and minimize the damage.  Vociferon runs to try and block the charge from the great bear, while the necrotech runs up to try and block movement from Vlad forward, but can’t get far enough to close the lane off.

 

 

His turn, bottom of round 4:

Vlad casts BoK (1 soul) and walks up to Gaspy.  Turns out, he has parry! Talk about stupid things that he doesn’t need :p.  He hits and boosts damage (2 souls) and rolls 9 damage.  His little sword misses, so he buys another attack (3 souls and heal 1 dmg) and boosts damage (4 souls and heal 3 dmg) for another 9.  Drakhun then goes and hits with his MAT 8 and rolls 5 damage to kill me with one damage to spare.

 

So I may have been super bitchy about dice during this game, but there were definitely some things that I could have done a lot better.  To start, Satyxis should have been charging his jacks with Scything Touch to deal a bunch of damage to Vlad early, and to tie his dudes up.  Then a mobilitied Kraken could have ripped through all his riflemen.  Another big thing is to not forget my feat on turns that I commit the Kraken.  That was just plain dumb.  Finally, a better last ditch thing would have just been to upkeep Ashen Veil on the Raiders, run them in to engage and give –2 to his living models against a camped/feated Gaspy.  Then I would have been DEF 17 to Vlad’s MAT 10, and ARM 23 to his P+S 16, giving me much better odds of survival.  Anyways, lots of stupid things that could be done better.  Probably most important is not using Satyxis Raiders to their fullest.

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.

Telekinesis + Croe's is stupid... stupid good.

Yah, I said it. So in case you didn't realize, I got my first game with Scaverous in last night. So here's the list that I played.

Points: 50/50
Lord Exhumator Scaverous (*5pts)
* Deathripper (4pts)
* Deathripper (4pts)
* Malice (9pts)
* Skarlock Thrall (2pts)
Bane Knights (Leader and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
Croe's Cutthroats (Croe and 5 Grunts) (7pts)
The Withershadow Combine (5pts)
Bane Lord Tartarus (4pts)
General Gerlak Slaughterborn (3pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Machine Wraith (1pts)
Warwitch Siren (2pts)
Warwitch Siren (2pts)

I didn't go with the whole excarnated bile thrall trick because I wanted a list that would punish both Hordes (via TK + Croe's to ruin beasts) and Warmachine (via Malice + WSC). That said, I totally forgot about Croe's + TK for assassination. At least I remembered in game.

Anyways, I faced off against an entirely ranged list: Siege, a Squire & 2 Defenders, ATGM & Cyclone, B13, Rangers, Jr Warcaster, Arlan, eEiryss, & Reinholdt.

Terrain didn't make too much of a difference as it was just 2 hills & 2 forests in opposite corners.

So I lost the die roll, but he went 2nd

My 1st turn I put Death Ward on the Bane Knights, put 1 arc node in a good position to TK anything in the middle of the board forward, while I hold the other one back. The Machine Wraith runs into the forest, an everything else just runs up (Gerlak in the middle, Bane Knights on the right flank, Croe's move to left flank on a hill across from eEiryss & ATGM). Tartarus stayed back in order to be able to curse where necessary, while the 2 sirens hung out near the arc nodes.

His turn , he moves up with a few things, shoots Gerlak with 2 Defenders to force the tough roll (which he freaking failed, gah). With the Black 13th, he knocks out my Machine Wraith that was in the forest doing nothing. Then he foxholes Siege & his foremost Defender while Jr. puts Arcane Shield onto Siege.

On my turn (top of round 2), I ran out my front arc node (power boostered) towards his front Defender, who was sitting at a comfortable DEF 16 vs. ranged and magic. 1 focus had gone to Malice for the boost, leaving me with 2 chances at a boosted TK onto his defender (9's to hit). Thankfully, the first one hit, and so I TK'ed his other Defender around and away a smidge. Then Scaverous scuttles back to safety >20" from anything in his army. Skarlock TK'ed Malice forward, and then I walked forward 4" (turns out I didn't need the 2nd TK) and dragged the Defender in, smacked him, and sent him back toward the Withershadow Combine. Since I didn't deal a whole lot of damage to the Defender with the Malice drag (6 or 8 pts I think), I then "charged" my Bane Knights. I charged the Defender with one Bane Knight in his back arc (in order to ensure that a crap roll by the combine didn't leave me with a mostly scrapped defender), and the other 9 just ran toward the Rangers/B13, spreading out to avoid getting capped by a good magestorm. 4 Bane Knights are about 1.5" shy of engaging the Rangers. A pretty good damage roll from the Bane Knight left that Defender to be short work for the Combine, who made me a pretty little Harrower. He tried his luck at shooting Rangers/B13, but was out of range with all the Bane Knights blocking his path. Croe's ran to engage eEiryss and/or hide in the forest by the Gun Mages. I got 2 engaging eEiryss and 2 blocking her immediate path towards Scaverous, so I was feeling much better with that taken care of.

For his second turn (bottom of round 2), he planned on taking out a majority of my army with Siege's feat. Long and short of it, he killed 2 Croe's (1 of the 2 engaging Eiryss, and 1 other in the forest), leaving me with Croe engaging Eiryss, and 3 others hanging out in the back of the forest. His cyclone & Jr. warcaster wrecked my front arc node, while Siege tried to put the hurt on Malice. He had some crap rolls there, so he only took out my Cortex and right arm. Still, enough to make Malice not too useful. Siege's ground pounder put killed off a bane knight and Admonia, but he missed on the rolls against the other 2 members of the Combine. The Rangers & B13 killed off a majority of the Bane knights, but some flubbed rolls left me with 1 alive. A magestrom right onto the Harrower's head left me with a cloud right in the center of the board (protecting Siege's overextended ass from a Tartarus charge).

For my third turn (top of round 3), I first surveyed what I had left: 4 Croe's (1 engaging Eiryss), an autonomous Harrower without a working gun, a badly damaged Malice, BL Tartarus, Maelevolous & Tremulus of the Combine, 2 WW sirens in good position to power booster or spray with a TK to help, a Skarlock, Gorman, and finally.... Scaverous + his feat. Not a whole lot left, but still plenty deadly. I was hoping that I'd have 1 Bane Knight survive, because then it would just be a matter of procuring Siege's back arc, and excarnating 3 bane knights into existence. My other option of the 15" charge with Scaverous wouldn't work either since Siege was out of range. This was the point that I realized that Croe's would get 4 dice on backstrike's against Siege, in addition to only needing 5's to hit if I landed an icy grip on him. It would need some good rolls to work out since he was sitting at a happy ARM 21, but definitely doable. So, time to get things started. I powerboostered my remaining arc node, who then ran up to say hello to Siege. Scaverous then has to walk forward a few inches to get that arc node back into his control area, but then pops feat and proceeds to TK Siege closer & turn him around, Icy Grip him to help everybody hit, and then drop feast onto his head to lower his ARM a smidge and dropping 2 pts of damage onto him. With my remaining focus, I TK Gorman and BLT further just in case I need a little extra. the 3 cutthroats who aren't engaged then shoot some large holes in Siege. They're at dice -9 for damage, but have 4 dice. Should do about 4 damage each with average, but I got above average. The first 2 nailed him for 12 damage, leaving him at 3 health, but the last one rolled crap. Thankfully, I still managed to do average damage with those 3 rolls. The combine tried and failed miserably to deal any damage at dice -7, but Siege was still sitting close to malice & a harrower. The power boostered harrower sealed the deal, but I think that I could have sealed the deal with Malice + BLT as well.

Overall, I think Scaverous is ludicrous. He will have some bad matchups in eLylyth & eCaine or severe anti-magic (possibly Kromac or, but who doesn't. Playing against ranged armies is going to be a challenge, but I think that a majority of the melee armies out there will be great matchups for him. My current setup is definitely good at assassination thanks to Scaverous' great enabling abilities, but he can also play mean attrition as well.

Last but not least, I was talking with people afterwards (including my opponent). Turns out, Scaverous is the first caster with TK who can also take Croe's Cutthroats. Cygnar (eHaley), Retribution (Rahn), and Circle (eKrueger) all haven't had access to them. It's just silly being able to give my guys 4 dice and +4 to hit with Scaverous + Croes. On the other hand, they're only POW 10's, so they'll often be at dice -5 or greater... but that's not really a great reason to allow these shenanigans. Maybe it's just because I've been playing a lot of Mercs recently, but damn does Cryx get some BS stuff sometimes.

Anyways, I'll probably keep playing this list (or some variation on it) for a few weeks until I get McBain & the Kayazy painted.

Merc Crazy

So I've been going a little merc crazy recently. By that I mean that I haven't played Cryx since KingdomCon. While I am being hugely tempted to jump back into Cryx with all the Wrath releases coming up, I vow to stay strong until I have Scaverous painted. Then all hell will break loose. Seriously, that guy looks like off the chain fun.

But as to my merc craze, there was supposed to be a 35pt tourney at Thou Shalt Game last Saturday (June11th). With that in mind, I knew I wanted to play Durgen, cause I've been having so much fun with him recently. I also knew that Joe would be there, presumably bringing eLylyth. So my second list had to be able to deal with that, cause I knew she'd shoot Durgen dead. Ashlynn was a possiblity, but even then, all it would take would be one hit to kill her, while I wouldn't be able to bring most of my guns in that list to be able to shoot anything (ATGM excluded). So Gorten it was, but I didn't know what to put in the list until I started looking through my collection and Gorten's spell list. And that's where I found my 2nd list to Durgen.

Gorten w/Solid Ground upkept, throwing out Rock Wall as needed, with 4+ Tough Boomhowler's who can't be knocked down thanks to solid ground. So I got to painting like mad Friday night, and ended up with 10 Boomhowler's with most of their base colors in. I didn't get time to paint on Sunday, but here's a little preview of how they're coming along.



I really need to get my lightbox set back up :p

Anyways, the tourney didn't end up happening, but I did get in 2 games against Joe. The 1st was with Durgen vs. his Absylonia tier. I had first turn, and moved stuff up. 2nd Turn, he moved Absylonia up, on top of a hill w/ Tenacity so that she's DEF 19 against ranged/magic, but there was a Forsaken within 2" of her. He left her without any fury, so I figured this would probably be my best shot at it. I probably should have tried to consolidate and take the 1st strike, but hey, Durgen is batshit crazy, so why not. With all my deviation rerolls thanks to Dougal, I ended up getting 3 of Durgen's 4 AOE's on her, and took her down to 3 life with some relatively average rolls. My last shot was with an explosivo'd Gunner w/1 focus. 4 dice on the attack for a RAT 6 vs. DEF 19. Rolling a 12 is a 75% chance, plus maybe getting a favorable deviation if I missed. I missed. Bad deviation. Typhon was close enough to Durgen to end it, but I still had my Basher. Durgen tuned him up, and I'm like, I'll choose damage rolls, and use the jack marshall to boost the attack.... then he slammed at Typhon and ended up outside of Thor's command range. Missed his slam, so Typhon got slipstreamed out of combat and sprayed Durgen's face in.

The next game was Gorten vs. Joe's eLylyth tier. So the goal here was to use Boomhowler's with 4+ tough to block LOS to Gorten and the important squishy pieces of the army (like Thor)... but I was an idiot and forgot to do that my first turn as I moved up. Joe was kind enough to kill me fast, and then let me smush the boomhowler's together like I should and keep playing. It was a good time. Since he only had 1 Ravagore, I was able to just tough it out through a majority of the game with all those boomhowler's, protecting Gorten upfield so that I could pop his feat and smush eLylyth's dirty stealth ranged face in.

All in all, good day, and a good learning experience for playing with Mercs. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to nab Scaverous tonight... hopefully

All in all

More Hardcore Practice! Terminus vs. Kromac w/ Pictures!

Since I always want to play more games, and Micah and I haven't had a game in ages, I drove down to his place this morning before work in the lab for some more Hardcore practice. Handy since Micah hasn't had any practice with the short time limits. I forgot my 4'x4' foam boards, so we ended up playing on Micah's ~3'x4' table. We still managed to get the killbox marked on the table, so no biggie. Micah also took lots of great pictures which you'll get to enjoy instead of my crappy sketches.

After we threw down terrain, it looked something like this


We rolled for turns, and Micah won. Sadly, he didn't want first turn... :(. So I unwillingly deployed first. Before we get too far into this, here are the lists of what we played.

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)

Points: 50
Kromac the Ravenous (*4pts)
* Argus (4pts)
* Feral Warpwolf (9pts)
* Pureblood Warpwolf (9pts)
* Warpwolf Stalker (10pts)
Druids of Orboros (Leader and 5 Grunts) (7pts)
Tharn Wolfriders (Leader and 2 Grunts) (6pts)
Wolves of Orboros (Leader and 5 Grunts) (4pts)
Druid Wilder (2pts)
Tharn Ravager White Mane (3pts)

I deployed the McThralls in the front row, w/ Biles & Necrosurgeon taking up the 2nd. Then Termy was right behind the front two rows in order to get as far forward as possible. Machine Wraiths & Jacks tok up the wings with Rev Crew & the Combine in the rear. The other assorted solos smunched in wherever they could fit.



Micah deployed his Wolves off to one side, with his Wolfriders & Whitemane on the other, while the Druids took the center to cover the advance for Kromac & his heavies.



With both armies deployed, they proceeded to run headlong at each other.

Turn 1:
Starting with Termy, the Reaper got a focus while the Seether just had the 1 he always gets. Then Termy casts malediction on himself, and "charges" at Kromac. Oh noes! He failed his charge! Everything else runs up. The Mcthralls form up in the front to take the charge, while the Rev Crew bunch up around Termy to be good Sac Pawn targets. Darragh moves up and casts Death ride to fix the spacings a bit, and get more Rev crew in front of Termy. Machine Wraiths end up camped out slightly less than a large base away from Terminus in order to prevent tramples and such. In short, everything runs.




Turn 2:
Micah runs up the Wolves into the forest on his left side, while moving up the Wolfriders and Whitemane on his right side. The Druids walk forward and pop smoke, while Kromac throws Wild Aggression onto the Stalker and Warpath on himself.


So round 1 ended looking like this





Turn 3:
I run stuff up some more, and try and cover any threat lanes to Termy. Not quite close enough to get a Bile onto the Druids or Wolves yet, so I hold off on the feat. Since I have the Seether out on the flank, I run him into melee with the Wolves to prevent them from charging and taking out a bunch of McThralls (and using up more of my time regenerating). He actually failed his command check, so I didn't even need to worry about them! Rengrave ghost shotted at a Druid, but missed. Everything else just tries to set up for next turn while minimizing the damage.


Turn 4:
Micah upkeeps Warpath and Wild Aggression while the Wolves keep quaking in fear of the big bad Seether. He starts by targetting a Machine Wraith with his magical spray, kills 1 McThrall and 2 Rev Crew while 1 McThrall toughs it out. This triggers a Warpath movement on the Stalker, which eyes the growing charge lane to Terminus hungrily. Druids kill the other Machine Wraith, the toughed McThrall, and not much else, but it was enough to get a line for the Stalker to charge Termy. The Stalker charges Termy for free, and warps for Strength. He's only able to get into Reach range of Termy, but that's okay. He's rolling at Dice-5 against Termy this turn, and with 4 fury, manages to put 16 damage onto Terminus. Micah finishes this turn with bare seconds to go without using his extension.

Lots of pics of this turn cause it looked way cool :p









Turn 5:
Time for me to retaliate. I allocate 2 focus to the Reaper so that it can help finish off the Pureblood, while Termy keeps 4 to wreck the Stalker. With Malediction upkept for free by the Combine, the Stalker is only a DEF 12, ARM 15 heavy to deal with. Termy takes it down to 5 life with 3 focus, and pops his feat to nab some souls/ARM this turn. The McThralls charge the Pureblood, and bring it down to 4 life. The biles then walk up, 2 purging on the druids (in order to not hit the Seether) and 1 purging onto a Druid (and nothing else). I still have a heavy sitting in front of a low-life Termy with mere seconds left, so I use my 3-min extension. The Rev Crew charge the Stalker and manage to finish it off thanks to Malediction. Rengrave aims and takes a pot shot at the Pureblood. With a 10, he actually hits it, but only manages 1 damage point. Darragh then activates and closes the hole in front of Termy thanks to Death Ride. Then my time runs out before I can activate the Seether and the Reaper.





Turn 6:
Micah beasts out with Kromac & drops Warpath. The pureblood walks away and dies to a free strike to make room for Kromac to leap. The Argus pushes Kromac forward 1" (although I don't think it was necessary), and then he walks up to the McThralls and leaps into Reach of Termy. 6 Fury and 1 failed Tough roll later, Termy's dead.



My thoughts:
Well, I lost again, but I think I learned a valuable lesson (well, I hope I'll remember it next time). The jacks are there to be much harder to remove than infantry, plus they resolve attacks against other heavies much faster. They shouldn't be on the flanks, but in the middle of the brick being a big pain in the ass.

Micah's thoughts:
Damn why is the Gorax sculpt so ugly. If the resculpt was out by now, I'd have that instead of the Argus/Wolves. Then my Stalker would have killed him on my 2nd turn!

and then I scurried of to the lab.

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.

Battle Report: Fiona vs. Terminus - hardcore practice

So I'm trying to get used to 7 1/2 min turns for the softcore tournament at Kingdom Con in 2.5 weeks. I really just can't play fast enough with my Coven theme list, so I've been considering a few options. Since I've been playing the Coven a fair amount recently, I could run a jack heavy force with them, taking the DJ & Nightmare & a Stalker as the main assassination threats aside from my 2 nodes. My other thought is to run a Terminus list. Reason being, it may be a lot of models, but it's got a relatively straightforward plan that doesn't take much extra thought beyond order of operations for the turn. Additionally, since Hardcore is always using Killbox scenarios, it helps Termy out as well by preventing how far the enemy can run, while weakening the Coven since it forces them to be closer than I would generally like. Finally, it will give my opponent fits since tough rolls interrupt them a bit and can often force a change of plans in midgame. Basically, it gives them hell when they only get 7 1/2 minutes to work with. With all that in mind, I wanted to test whether or not I could run a Termy list in 7 1/2 minutes. On to the battle report!

The Lists!

His list was something like this:

Points: 50
Fiona the Black (*6pts)
* Mangler (8pts)
Alexia Ciannor & the Risen (Alexia and 9 Risen Grunts) (5pts)
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (6pts)
* Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer (2pts)
* * Mule (8pts)
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters (Cylena and 5 Grunts) (7pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts)
Sea Dog Crew (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
* Mr. Walls Sea Dog Crew Quartermaster (2pts)
Doc Killingsworth (2pts)
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios (3pts)
Lord Rockbottom (2pts)
Master Gunner Dougal MacNaile (2pts)

My list was this:

Points: 50

Lich Lord Terminus (*4pts)
* Reaper (7pts)
* Skarlock Thrall (2pts)
Bile Thralls (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Mechanithralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (5pts)
* 2 Brute Thrall (2pts)
Mechanithralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (5pts)
* 2 Brute Thrall (2pts)
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)

So I lost the roll, and he wanted to go second. So there wasn't a whole lot of rough terrain on the board, just 2 walls in the middle on my side & 2 trenches on his side in the middle. The rough terrain was off center on each side, so I was just going to be barreling down the center of the board. Cause I'm boredish, I drew pics of the basic army setups.

1st Turn: I run everything forward, Termy casts Malediction on himself, "charges" at Mariner.

Darragh deathrides for another 1" of threat. Forget to give the Reaper a focus to run, so it's forced to walk and lag behind the army. Combine upkeep Malediction for Termy all game.

2nd Turn: Mule shoots at the closest Brute to him, miss & deviates backwards away from my army. Mariner shoots at Brute closest to him & kills.. ATGM kills a Mcthrall, not much else happens this turn.

3rd Turn: Front McThrall group runs to engage Alexia & Risen. Everybody else follows suit. Saxon tries to engage Eiryss, but is ~1" away. Reaper walks up since I forgot a focus for him again.

4th Turn: Mule blows up several biles and mcthralls. ATGM kill off some biles & mcthralls with arcane inferno. Mariner shoots & kills a soulhunter, Nyss kill a second SH. Risen kill some McThralls while Alexia puts some damage onto Darragh.. Eiryss & A&H kill Saxon. Fiona pops her feat (-1 dice to enemies on attack & dmg). Somewhere in there, the front necrosurgeon was killed.

5th Turn: Reaper gets 1 focus. Termy pops feat, charges toward a SeaDog, and lands closer to ATGM than Alexia is (so I can get soul tokens). Additionally, the only big threat to hurt him is the Mariner & Mule. The Mule can't get focus, so it's relatively safer to sit over on this side. The SeaDog toughs it, and I don't buy extra attacks, so no souls there. Biles activate, 3 left, 2 are KD. 1 walks to ATGM and purges, killing all, including UA. 1 stands and purges all over McThralls + Risen and Termy. 1 walks forward, stupidly in front of the other. He toughs, but dies to corrosion later. All Risen but 2 die this turn, but Alexia is too far away for anything to kill her with just one dice. Remaining McThralls just engage everything and give Termy sac pawn targets. 1 soulhunter (of 3 remaining) engages Nyss, can't hit their DEF 15 on 1 dice. Darragh gives -2 ARM to living enemy models in his cmd. Reaper charges and kills Eiryss. Terminus sits on 31 ARM.

6th Turn: Mule walks up and bounces off Termy's ARM 30. Mariner shoots and damages Darragh, but no Dismount. Alexia dismounts Darragh at the cost of her last 2 risen. Fiona hides a few inches behind Mariner. A&H run from the Reaper, Nyss (with MAT6) rolls 8's 2x to hit, and roll ridiculous damage to kill off the engaging Soulhunter.

7th Turn: Reaper gets 3 focus, leaving Termy with 10 or so. The Reaper charges and wrecks the Mule with some good rolls (really just wanting to remove the melee weapon to minimize the damage when Termy leaves. Darragh charges Alexia and kills her, hellfire's Doc in the back, but he toughs it. McThralls kills some Seadogs. Necrosurgeon returns 3 McThralls. Termy is .5" outside of charging Fiona, so he charges the Mariner. With 3 focus, he leaves it on 2 boxes (2 cortex). Rather than kill it and lower my ARM by 1, I just let it live since it can't hurt Termy and it's in his way for Fiona. Skarlock casts Ravager onto remaining Soulhunter, who charges Nyss and kills off 3 of them. Between the Berserk and 3 base attacks. Combine kill something with Darkfire attacks.

8th Turn: Mariner takes free strike and dies. Fiona charges Termy, rolls boxcars on damage to hit Termy for 4. Spends the rest of her focus and keeps bouncing off my ARM. At this point, we call it.

So, my thoughts on this game/my list. Overall, if I hadn't rolled Tough rolls on the bile thralls twice, I would have been stuck trying to clear out Alexia forever. I need to have more biles and protect them better. Second of all, I need to not let my McThralls get wasted without returning any via the necrosurgeon. Also, if I can remember to cast Ravager on Terminus any time he charges toward infantry, I'd be able to nab a lot more souls. Also, if he had his 4+ tough infantry out front feeding corpse tokens to Alexia, I would have been in a lot more trouble. If I had used Darragh to give Termy an extra 1" threat, I would have been able to get to Fiona a turn earlier with 10 focus and end the game sooner. So I'm thinking that I'll tweak my list in order to have more biles, and so that the front McThralls dieing will feed the 2nd McThrall unit. I also need to remember to give my Reaper a focus on the first turn so that he can not be so far behind. It was nice as a late game threat though, so I'll need to be careful to keep him alive as well.

With those thoughts in mind, I'll be testing this next time I play. Hopefully on Tuesday since I can't play at all next weekend.

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)

The above is probably what I'll have my basic setup be, although things may have to change depending on what my opponent has. The reason I put the Brutes and min unit in back is to try and preserve them and feed them to be bigger from the front max unit of McThralls. That way I can hopefully make the best recycling possible. Soulhunters make a great reserve force, and although they steal souls from termy, they also can help finish off a caster if Termy can't seal the deal. They also make pretty good anti-infantry if all my biles do bite the bullet too soon.