I played three games.
Game 1 vs Khador
I generally like to play scenario games, as they prepare me for tournament play (though I rarely play in actual tournaments). The scenario was Destruction, which features two monoliths on each side of the board. They are armor 20 structures with 20 hit boxes each. Destroy your opponent's monoliths to win.
Easy enough.
My opponent played epic Butcher, with
Beast 09
Fenris
ManOWar Drakhun
Full Nyss Hunters
Madelyn Corbeau
War dog
Great Bears
I played a prime Madrak list I've been mulling over.
Madrak
Impaler
Swamp Troll
Dire troll mauler
Min champs
Max burrowers
Fell caller hero
Stone scribe chronicler
Min Krielstone with elder
It was a rough game for the trolls. I had to deploy right because I went second and protecting the objective was going to be incredibly difficult. I essentially lost during deployment because I didn't put sacrificial models up near the objective. The issue was with my slow trolls not being able to screen the objective.
In hindsight I should have left my burrowers undug to screen the monolith, keeping Fenris and the Drakhun from reaching it.
Instead I did not do this, and Fenris and the ManOWar managed to wreck it quickly (I underestimated their threat). My opponent then positioned the Butcher, full Nyss, Beast 09, and the great bears to threaten the second objective.
I tried to damage control with my burrowers, but the damage was done, and eButcher got to the objective and I lost by scenario right quick.
Game two I played a different opponent who was a Retribution of Scyrah player, who played
Garrath
Gorgon
Magister
Madelyn Corbeau
Two Mage hunter assassins
Narn
Full sentinels with ua and soulless
Full Mage hunters with ua
The scenario was supply and demand. There are two objectives on the board, and to score is actually easy, have your warcaster stand near the objective on your side of the board and run a model to contest the zone surrounding the opponents objective.
There's a lot of shenanigans that can go on and other scoring conditions, but it's kind of a wash because I ignored my objective and went for my opponents force. It's actually difficult to play for scenario with the Mage hunters around. They are a long range threat that needs dealing with ASAP.
So I deployed aggressively in the hopes that I could jam my burrowers into the strike force on turn 2. That's precisely what happened. I won the roll to go first, moved up my stuff and burrowed, and my opponent moved up and put Mirage on the Sentinals.
I popped the burrowers into a threatening position, and decided to b e aggressive and put madrak's feat and crusher into play. This is dangerous against Garrath, because Garrath (especially with Corbeau), has great threat range and Grievous weapon master blades, meaning my tough trolls aren't tough against him, and Madrak also can't transfer his attacks. Camping fury is useless.
I decided I had to gamble on the Krielstone and madrak's scroll of "I get to ignore one attack's damage roll" to keep him safe. Maddy moved up and popped feat and carnage. The stone gave bonus strength and armor. The fell caller and chronicler gave +2 mat to the burrowers and if a warrior model killed one with a melee attack they would fall down. Then I sent in the clowns. They managed to carve up 4 Mage hunters and the commander from that unit and 4 sentinels from the other, which overall isn't bad.
Then I had the impaler spear another sentinel, the mauler moved up and riled a bit (unnecessarily and stupidly I might add), the swamp troll moved to contest my zone for no good reason, and I moved the champs in front of madrak as an armor 20 8-wounds tough screen.
My opponent had an assassination vector if he played his cards right, but again the dice weren't great unless he could get some attacks on madrak before Garrath got there. His sentinels with vengeance and mirage managed to position for some good charges and kill a few burrowers.
Then the strike force killed some burrowers, the sentinels killed some more and charged the champs and mauler but did negligible damage. Corbeau allowed Garrath to move during the maintenance phase, and then the magister let him move again with whipsnap. I was surprised at the last, as force bolting a champ out of base to base would have reduced their armor enough to make them killable.
The Mage hunters and narn did some damage, but not enough to kill anything except a stone scribe.
My opponent decided that the assassination was a go anyway, but after mulling over the dice myself it was a bit sketchy. Garrath got to madrak, but he couldn't charge so no autoboost on the first attack, and when he boosted damage I canceled the roll with Maddy's scroll. He hit twice more for 12 wounds, but his turn was over with Garrath standing next to a very alive madrak on zero focus.
The mauler gave fury to madrak. The stone gave him strength. He hit with the first attack and I rolled an 11 for 15 wounds. Madrak missed his next two boosted attacks needing 9s. The fell caller charged into Garrath's back arc and killed him with a weapon master attack.
If Garrath had gotten a charge off on madrak for a free boost it might have gone differently, but my opponent still would have had to crank a damage roll on the last hit (and hit 4 times needing 6s on two dice, never a guarantee) to finish it out. Might have still been sketchy.
Nonetheless it was pretty fun and I learned a lot about retribution shenanigans.
Game three was again against the Khador player who brought
Old Witch
Scrapjack
Behemoth
Full winterguard with Joe
Full winterguard riflemen
Gorman di Wulfe
Epic Eiryss
Against my Grim list
Grim
Earthborn Dire Troll
Impaler
Axer
Full burrowers
Fell caller
Champ hero
Janissa
Runeshapers
Swamp Gobbers
The Scenario was incursion, with 3 flags in the center of the table, one of which disappears at the end of turn 1. First to score 3 points wins.
The old witch's feat does a power 14 attack to any model in her 14" control bubble (if they end their movement in it). The witch went first and so she had the initiative. She hit mid table on turn two and popped feat. None of my burrowers could do much but walk out of her control area and try to kill winter guard. Further, my opponent showed me how the behemoth works and managed to kill a bunch of my stuff with it's bombards. At the end of my turn two my opponent had an easy time getting two control points. I tried some hail Mary nonsense but it was essentially over, and he scored again on his turn 4 to win.
I don't understand why folks don't like the old witch. She's a baller. Lots of good table control, which is one of the only ways to deal with burrowers: deny real estate. I was thoroughly impressed.
Also impressed with the behemoth play. I hadn't seen that jack do much, and maybe it's better against my lower-defense trolls, but it picked off 3-point solos in my backfield like a boss.
I might swap the earthborn for a bomber and see how that works for me. I've heard good things.
My madrak list didn't impress me. It needs some work, and maybe more screening infantry. I may drop my burrowers package for some Kriel warriors and change the beast composition as well. Madrak's fury 5 really hurts his play, and his style tends to be brickish, which I'm not sure I like.
I'm working on pDoomy and eGrissel next, with maybe eMadrak in the works. I'm also considering some Cygnar lists. I still do love me some swan meat.
-Merlin out
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Location:Cincinnati, OH
No comments:
Post a Comment