Merc Blaize v. Grim

Army Name: Blaize Troopjam lolz
Cygnar
25+6 points, 19 models

Constance Blaize +6 points
* Gallant 9 points
* Lancer 6 points

Archduke Alain Runewood 3 points
Captain Arlan Strangewayes 2 points
6 Precursor Knights 5 points
* Precursor Knight Officer & Standard 2 points
6 Sword Knights 4 points


Army Name: Grim Angus SubPar Shite
Trollbloods
25+6 points, 20 models

Grim Angus +6 points
* Earthborn Dire Troll 10 points
* Troll Impaler 5 points
* Runebearer 2 points (mostly useless)

Janissa Stonetide 3 points
10 Pyg Burrowers 6 points
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew 1 point (not great)
Trollkin Runeshapers 4 points

I'm sticking to the lists, tournament style, because sometimes stuff just doesn't work in context. Maybe Viktor Pendrake actually isn't boss, he just got lucky. Maybe the Runebearer is cool with Grim, but he was against a list that shut him down.

Maybe the Runebearer is terrible with Grim, and he's essentially playing a 23pt list.

Constance won the toss and set up first with lots of cover for her Nyss and solos. They all lurked near a building in the center of the board in the woods after running first turn. Constance cast Transference and Banishing Ward on the Nyss. Now the only models targetable by spells in her force were herself, Gallant, and Eiryss. The PKs ran as well.

Grim set up with his Runeshapers across from the Nyss advance and most of the rest central, though Grim and Janissa were left of center and near some rough terrain.

The Pygs were Advanced Deploy and up about 6 inches. They immediately tunneled and moved directly behind the center building, so they could unburrow and threaten both Nyss and PKs if necessary. Grim's amazing threat range shot a PK on turn one. The EDT gave Grim Transmute and Janissa put up the rock wall. The Runeshapers wanted to throw out some magical aoes and hope for good deviation, but couldn't target anything in their LOS with magical attacks. So they hid in the woods. Impaler, Troll Moses, and the Gobbers did a basic advance.

The Pygs were a problem for Constance, who wants to control the engagement and troopjam early. She feated and moved up a bit to cover a large area of the board with her control area, then ran her whole force to engage Grim with a PK, and put 4 Nyss into the Runeshapers, but out of charge range so they ran to engage. Harlan and Eiryss tried to shoot Janissa but missed and flubbed damage. Sad. Gallant backed up the PKs.

Grim's Impaler moved up and tried to slam Gallant with a spear attack, but didn't crit. He did do an incredible amount of damage on the hit though, taking out Gallant's movement and making him a sitting duck. Grim moved out of melee with the PK, taking a big free strike in the process and giving 11 damage to his Earthborn, then spending a fury to heal the now-crippled branch on the dire troll. He then shot Eiryss in the face, ending her.

Grim feated to give a huge accuracy boost to his force and the Pygs rushed out and killed 3 Nyss, 3 PKs, Harlan Versh, and cranked a bunch of damage on Gallant as well. Constance got 6 souls in the process.

3 Nyss were out of range of Constance's feat and the Runeshapers chopped them down without feeding the beast. The Earthborn charged the remaining, unengaged PKs and ate 2, and since he Snacked on them they didn't give Blaize souls either. He healed 4 more damage. Janissa put a rock wall up for her and Grim to hide behind. The Gobbers put a smoke cloud between Blaize and Grim.

Blaize, even with 12 focus, didn't have a lot of good choices. She decided to attack the EDT with Gallant and gave him 3 focus. Removing Grim's heavy might enable some beats on the Impaler, but first Blaize had to Sunburst the two Pygs engaged by Gallant. She hit the first one and killed it, but the second made a tough check on the blast damage. She cast another Sunburst and killed it, but was then down to one focus. Gallant moved up and cranked the Earthborn, but a snake eyes on one damage roll meant that the troll had 4 life left after the attack. The PK next to him attacked as well, but failed to kill him.

The Nyss managed to kill 4 Pygs on the other side of the board, and none of them passed their Tough rolls. Both zones were still contested, but Grim was winning the attrition war.

Grim activated and healed the earthborn's damaged crippled branches so that it could operate at peak efficiency. Then he cast Mark the Target on the Nyss to lower their defenses. Then he shot one.

The Impaler moved up and crit-slammed Constance back an inch, doing a few damage. The earthborn killed Gallant and the PK in his grill. The burrowers and Runeshapers killed the Nyss and moved into the zone.

Grim scored a point. Constance only had herself left. Grim would have won by scenario next turn and she conceded after trying to finish the EDT herself.

MVP: Pyg Burrowers were nasty against Blaize.

Lessons learned: Burrowers are a hard counter to troopjam armies. Their ability to pop up within 5" of the burrow token and clog up the midfield with 20 melee attacks from a variety of vectors is simply amazing. I wish the Grim list had a Fell Caller instead of the Runebearer and Swamp Gobbers.

Constance had little answer to the super-threat of Grim's burrowers.

-Merlin out

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