Photo Dump

Cyriss Photo Dump

Title says it all, here's that I've been up to lately:

WarGamesCon Hardcore Game 2--eHaley vs Harbinger

And the slow grind to cover my WGC (which is now TexasGamesCon?) games continues....

After winning Round 1, I advanced and played a local guy using Harbinger.  I don't have a really clear memory of his list, but I'll see what I can do...

Harbinger of Menoth
-Avatar of Menoth
-Templar
-Reckoner
Covenant of Menoth
Exemplar Errants (full)
-UA
Choir of Menoth
Vassal (or 2?)
Gorman di Wulfe
Rhupert Carvolo... and a bunch of other stuff...

It's been like a week (and I've been crazy busy), but as I remember it, the game came down to a few things:

-The Choir making all of his jacks immune to non-magical shooting really hosed my list's ranged advantage (On the Stormwalls, anyway)
-None of my infantry clearing stuff could kill Errants.
-I was trying to work on spreading damage around (mostly because of deployment, I couldn't concentrate ALL of the offensive output on a single model). I think each of his jacks had like 5 points left on them... As I'm typing this out, I'm realizing how dumb that was.
-No Spells on the Covenant was pretty harsh, too.  It forced Haley to walk out of the Killbox to be able to throw her Temporal Acceleration on one of the Stormwalls, but was that really worth the 5pts damage?
-Harbie's feat would have one-shotted my ATGMs and B13th, and would have done 2D6 straight damage to Haley, which was pretty rough.

Overall it was a great game, but a tough matchup for sure!  I'll have to practice this one!

WarGamesCon Hardcore Game 1--eHaley vs Vlad3

So, first game of WGC Hardcore went pretty well!  It's been a few days but I'll try and give the best account I can of what happened (but some details are probably off).

I saw I was paired vs Khador and was PUMPED to have covering fire be ultra-useful against a high-DEF infantry horde.  I arrived at the table to see a Vlad3 Cav list with a Conquest. Damn.  Prior to this game, I'd played 2 practice games with my Hardcore list, so I felt pretty nervous going in.

I ran:

eHaley

-Stormwall & Pods (Bonded)

-Stormwall & Pods

-Squire
Journeyman Warcaster

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages

-Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer

Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Force

He Ran (I think?) :

Vlad3

-Conquest

Full Uhlans

Full Uhlans

Markov

Man O War Drakhun

I won the roll and opted to go second.

Turn One, my opponent ran things up, and cast Windwall to make a TON of his stuff un-shootable.  That's bad for me.  One Uhlan unit was significantly further to my right than the other, going toward my B13th.

My Turn one, I advanced and got into a pretty good position, but I think that's about it.

His turn 2, more advancing, the Uhlans get closer to the B13th,  the blob of Uhlans in front, Vlad in the middle, and one of the solos in the back all under Wind Wall advance further, unshootably. Conquest wanders into range of my bonded Stormwall.

On my Turn, I mark the squire for an extra focus, I give 3 Focus to the Bonded Stormwall (on my left, well within range of Conquest), Keep 3 on Haley, and give 3 to the other Stormwall.  The Gun Mages activate first and run to Jam the Uhlans in the middle of the board (to the right of Conquest).  Haley activates and feats, catching most of his army, and casts Temporal Acceleration on the bonded Stormwall, who then activates and advances (at speed 9!) into Conquest.  He swings a few times and destroys the Collossal.  My second Stormwall advances and shoots the Drakhun to death, and drops a pod in the way of Uhlans, kills a man in the second Uhlan unit (to my right) with his Metal Storm, etc.  the B13th Shoot and kill 1 Uhlan.

His turn, he sort of flounders through my feat, an Uhlan gets near The Bonded Stormwall.

My Turn, I kill the Uhlan and shoot some more things and leave Haley a little open, so I run the journeyman and place a pod in the way.

During my opponent's turn, Vlad charges the Journeyman, using his impact attack on the pod, and 2 attacks on the Journeyman.  Reaching Haley with sidestep, he misses some attacks and fails to assassinate.

My next turn, I allocate 2 focus to each Stormwall and Time Bomb Vlad, then the first Stormwall finishes him off with PS20 fists.

Win

What did I learn?  

I think I had Haley reasonably well protected, but that game could have ended WAY differently if some rolls went the other way.  I think I need to get more offensive output out of the second Stormwall, but I'm not really sure what he's supposed to be doing when the first one charges something?  The list presented a weird situation where a lot of his models were unshootable (as I had no Aiyana/Holt to give them Magic Weapons.  Curses.

WarGamesCon, an Overview.

So, I survived the weekend that I'd been both dreading and anticipating, and overall had a great time!  Played some great games, saw (and made) some good friends (including my best friend from DC who flew down for the event), and just got generally really excited to be back in the game

Friday I went 1-3 in Hardcore with my eHaley Double Stormwall list, and ended up taking Master Craftsman in a really close contest with Ben Williams' Bart Double Galleon list.
Game 1: vs Vlad3 (W)
Game 2: vs Harbinger
Game 3: vs eDoomshaper
Game 4: vs Lylith3

Saturday, pretty wiped out, I Played in the Team Tournament, our team played two rounds, then our third round opponents dropped.
Game 1: eHaley vs pDoomshaper
Game 2: pStryker vs Ossyan (W)

Sunday, my friend and I showed up late (intentionally) and had fun watching the games, especially the Masters Final (surrounded by WGC teardown as usual.)

I'll link to the games individually when I have time to write them up, but here I'll just do a concise what worked, and what didn't.

So, What Worked:

• The eHaley Double Stormwall list played really well:  I wish I'd thought of it myself, but it came together pretty seamlessly on the table.  I'm sure with more experience I'll be able to get more output from it.
• E-leap on Stormwall's Fists: Situational, but nice to have.
• Lightning Pods: Are obviously the best part of Stormwall, no change here.
• And, apparently, my painting.

What didn't work:

• Stormwall's P+S20 fists against Trollbloods.  At -3 to damage, I just totally failed to put any significant dent both a Mountain King, and Mulg.  But that's... pretty much it?  I had some issues, but I think most of that is general lack of experience as opposed to the list/faction/models being bad.

So, overall, a great weekend!  Went 2-4 for tournament games, but being my first outings with both lists I used, I feel like 33% is something I can settle for.  I got a BOATLOAD of Convergence stuff from a buddy who went to Lock N Load, so that will be my next labor, but for the time being, I think I'll be playing Cygnar until I get some painting done.

Some Cygnar Photos

Wrote an article for Bell of Lost Souls about painting Stormblades... Figured I'd leave some additional photos of the final product over here for anyone who was interested.

Big shout-out to GentleBen for his awesome terrain!

Hope everyone enjoys!

Game 6--pStryker vs 3Makeda (50pts)

Finally made it back out to Dragon's Lair to get a game in--only had time for 1 though because of the damn drive both ways and class in the morning, no matter though, got some experience out of it.

Played Incursion, a personal favorite of mine:

I played the same pStryker List I've been running, my opponent played something like:

3Makeda
-Molik Karn
-Bronzeback
-Gladiator
-Krea
Min Incendiarii
Min Nihilators
Max Paingivers
Willbreaker
Agonizer

I got the first turn, Deployed Stormwall Centrally with Stormblades and the Lancer on the Left, and Everything else on the Right.  My opponent deployed his Nihilators opposide my SBs, and the Incendiarii across from my Gunmages. Shit.

Turn one stuff ran.

Turn two, I'm feasibly in threat range of a lot of his stuff, which gives me a decent chance to deal with his superiority in numbers.  I allocate some focus, and run the Lancer up 10" away from the Agonizer (who had 3Makeda and a shield guard, as well as a few Nihilators next to it)  and Shot an Earthquake at it and feated.

It's at this point that I manage to miss the fact that I've knocked Makeda down, with no fury, and only one shieldguard.

Moving forward, I decide that maybe an assault with the stormblades would clear the nihilators out and even the numbers some... That works-ish, and kills a couple, but puts my Stormblades a little too far up with nothing to really protect them.  The GunMages shoot ineffectively at the Incendiarii, and the Cyclone pumps like 5 metal storm shots into them, killing 1.  Stormwall advances and takes 2 shots at the Bronzeback--who is regrettably in the krea bubble--Putting him at DEF14, or 8 to hit.  With 2 focus, I boost to hit the first shot and do no damage, and I think I miss the second shot?  Lame, yo.  I drop a pod in between the BB and SW so that something is in between the two (I think I was also basically out of charge range, but we'll see)

With my feat up Everything's at a lot of armor, so I feel not WHOLLY terrible about having a bunch of stuff more or less in the open.

Well, I should have been more scared.  This is the turn where things took a turn for the worse.  Makeda and Co. stand up-- The Nihilators stand up and advance, some take some swings and I think kill 1 stormblade?  Makeda feats and charges and kills a whole BUNCH of stuff. The Incendiarii Drop some well-placed fire on my GunMages, killing 2.   The Bronzeback moves over and is about to put Beatback on Karn when my opponent realized that it would replace Rush that Makeda put on him.  The Krea Charges and Kills one GunMage.  Karn basically charges and sidestep-beatbacks his way through what's left of my left flank, and then he and Makeda fatewalker over to the left objective, and my opponent scores 2 points.

So, my turn begins with fire checks on all but 2 of the gun mages, and all of those die, so the 2 remaining ATGMS take a command check and fail spectacularly, so my Right Flank collapses as well.  This basically leaves me with:  the Stormblades UA, Rhupert, the Lancer, and Jr on my Left, and a Cyclone on my right, with Stormwall, Stryker, and a Squire in the middle.  I try to go for an Earthquake on Karn, but I miss (I would have missed anyway, because he would have made me re-roll) and it deviates onto one of Makeda's shield guards and 2 Nihilators.  I decide that with the revelation of the re-roll, operation: 1-round Karn isn't going to pan out, so I switch focus to reclaiming the middle objective and contesting the left one.  My stormblades assault the shield guards.  My Banner one-shots the knocked down one, and the officer nearly kills the other. The Lancer pokes a nihilator and knocks him down with tough.  The Cyclone tries to shoot stuff but doesn't do much, and Stormwall tries to shoot up the gladiator, but alas, no luck.  He does, however, drop a pod within 4" of the far flag to contest.

My opponent's turn, nihilators and shieldguards basically kill my Stormblades UA (after a few tough rolls by my officer, thanks to Rhupert).  Makeda charges the Lancer and kills it after a while, putting SW in Vortex of Destruction.  The Gladiator charges it and kills it all by himself.  the bronzeback moves up next to it.  Shiiiit.  Incendiarii do a CRA on Stryker for a few points and kill the squire.  Molik Beats a few things up?  Makeda Fatewalkers away.

My turn, I've basically got the Cyclone and Stryker.  I have a half-baked scheme to put snipe on him and try to shoot makeda up, but Orin Midwinter's anti-magic bubble screws things up, so I basically get wildly out of place.

Next turn, the gladiator puts Rush on the Bronzeback, which charges through what used to be stormwall and beats Stryker to death.  On the plus side, Molik Karn missed 6 attacks on him first.

Result: Loss

So, what did I learn?  I'm not really sure.  I feel like some of that came down to bad matchups due to deployment... Once again, I see that Stormblades vs standard infantry is a bad way to go, and ATGM vs heavy infantry is also bad.  I had a few bad rolls with stormwall, but I really need to be getting better use out of his ranged game.

Definitely will have to keep in mind that Molik Karn can screw around with making you re-roll attacks that hit him.

Definitely have to watch out for giving 3Makeda ANY infantry to chew on, that feat turn could have been really nasty. (that being said, it was).

One thing to keep in mind would be to, you know, notice when I've knocked down my opponent's warlock with NO FURY.  I'll have nightmares about that one for a while.

I wouldn't say I feel discouraged, but I don't think I did a particularly good job there.

Thoughts on Dragon's Lair April Steamroller

So, looking back at my performance at the Tourney over the weekend, not great.  Not bad, considering they accounted for 3 of my first 5 games with Cygnar, but not great either.

For Reference:
Round 1: vs eKaya
Round 2: vs Absylonia
Round 3: vs Ossyan

The list I ran did ok, but It needs some revision, for sure.
pStryker
-Stormwall & Pods
-Lancer
-Squire
ATGM+UA
-Cyclone
Stormblades+UA+2 WA's
Rhupert

What Worked:
-Covering Fire:  I feel I relied on it too much, but where it went, enemy infantry stayed away.  Very powerful board control from SW and the Cyclone.
-Stormwall:  The couple of times I manned up and used it, Stormwall didn't let me down.
-Support: Squire and Rhupert basically always work, duh.
-Stryker: I see the potential, and I think the losses are mainly user error, although it's difficult going into a game with a mindset of "my caster has no significant strong suits other than being able to handle a variety of situations."  With Mortenebra, I knew the goal was a roundabout 'Jack bullet, with Carver, it was the Feat turn of Doom.  I think Stryker might just be a sort of bizarre 1-turn jam Caster who focuses on combined arms support.

What Didn't Work: (almost all of this amounts to basically my fault)
-ATGM: People saw them coming, and as my obvious answer to stealth, Stealth AD units got deployed away from them.
-Marshaled Cyclone: 2/3 games the ATGM UA got scalpeled out of the unit and the Jack became Autonomous.  Not a HUGE problem, but it definitely limited me in a few scenarios.
-Stormblades:  Probably user error.  Went after the wrong targets (the Angelius was dumb, the Banshee was just bad luck), assaulted a LITTLE too early, couldn't get them into melee, couldn't totally seal the deal.  
-Not being able to strip upkeeps.  I feel like the list wants eEiryss.  I feel like all lists want eEiryss.


As far as my analysis of my play in the couple of games, I really like covering fire.  I really like being able to point to infantry and say "you can't go here."  Especially in my 3rd Round, I felt like it was sort of a crutch for my inability to remove DEF 15 Halberdiers, where, because they weren't coming at me, I could just advance at a leisurely pace.  That didn't really pan out.  I think if I use covering fire to bottle infantry up and advance up the board as quickly as I can to prepare for a feat-turn Jam, that has some potential.

My Lancer has been running turn one and usually ends up overexposed.  I think I need to keep him somewhat central and ready to take a focus and run into position for an opportune earthquake, rather than being on his own, hoping he doesn't get engaged.

There are a few places to take the list from here that I'll probably try out at some point.. Double Stormwall to take advantage of ARM stacking, Could take a really balanced approach (overall, probably the best idea), or could try and do more of a gunline to take advantage of the covering fire standoff I create in the space between armies.

At this point though, I'll say that the list I ran the other day seems to be made up of models that work well together, and it deserves some more practice before I move onto greener pastures.

Game 5--pStryker vs Ossyan 50pts (Dragon's Lair Steamroller Round 3)

Alright, had some wifi trouble for a few days, so I've managed to forget some of the particulars of the last game, but here goes nothing:

Round Three ended up being my most fun game (I'd become somewhat more comfortable with rules and such).  The round was to be the Process of Elimination scenario:

My opponent ran something like:

Ossyan

-Hypnos

-Banshee

2x Stormfall Archers

Full Houseguard Helberdiers w/ UA

Full Mage Hunter Strikeforce w/ UA

Aiyana & Holt

eEiryss

Arcanist

I won the roll, and opted to go second, to try and take advantage of deployment (after my first game. Gah.)

I placed Stormwall basically centrally.  He deployed With his battlegroup mainly to my left-center, with Halbs on my right, and a unit of Stormfalls on either side.  I countered by placing my Stormblades vs the battlegroup on the left, and ATGM vs the Halbs.  Then he AD'd his MHSF in front of the battlegroup, opposite the  Stormblades.  Shit.

Turn one, he advanced, and put Quicken up on the Halbs (Def 15 HH's.  Shit.)  

My Turn one, I ran stuff--  put down some covering fire, but not far enough up to really be an issue (although with as fast as Quickened Halberdiers move, it might have been a good idea).  Stormwall advanced and Covering fired as well.  Stormwall got Arcane Shield, Gunmages got Snipe.

Turn two more stuff moved up (sort of constrained by my covering fire) Ossyan, Hypnos, and the MHSF shot up my lancer on a hill some, which pretty much neutered him.  Stormfalls threw AOEs, etc, at my dudes, and killed 1-2 ATGMs.

My turn two, my ATGMs tried to shoot up the Halberdiers, but just can't quite hit DEF 15, and with no way to strip the upkeep, there's not much other than covering fire I can use to keep them from claiming the Right Zone.   The Stormblades assault the Banshee, and on like 6 rolls at Dice-5 I manage to do like 7 damage?  Weak. Weak-weak-weak.  So, with the Stormblades hanging out in the wind, Stormwall had 3 FOC and used covering fire to try and screen the SB's some, and took 2 boosted shots at the Left objective, failing to kill it by 4 boxes.  The Lancer stays on a hill, I guess waiting for an opportune Earthquake moment?  Now that I'm thinking about it, I should have charged the objective, and bought attacks-- I would have been rolling straight dice and auto-hitting, which would have basically guaranteed me a CP, and would have put me further up the board when Stryker feated that turn.

My opponent was pretty bottled up by Covering Fire, and all of my stuff was ARM ridiculous.  He took some shots and killed some Stormblades and ATGMs, including the UA which made the Cyclone autonomous again. Hypnos shot Stormwall Overall, didn't lose any majorly important pieces, but some stuff I'd rather have kept around.  The Stormfalls proved effective again.

From here it's pretty fuzzy.    Stormwall advanced and killed the objective (1 CP! Hooray!), and I covering fired some more, and maybe the stormbades did some stuff?  I still really had no way to deal with Stealth, DEF 14 Mage Hunters en masse opposing Stormwall. I think my stuff pretty much struggled here.  The ATGM stood still and fired at the Halberdiers, but still didn't do a GREAT job at wiping them out.  

My Opponent's turn, he feated and just wiped Stormwall off the board with Stormfall Archers and a few Mage Hunters.  He did some significant damage elsewhere, but WOW.

Not too long after this, round time was called-- per the SR2013 Document, it's a mutual loss, but I conceded the victory to my opponent because I'm not a dick, and he pretty much had me.

Result: Loss

So, I think a few things went wrong here.  I should have DEFINITELY played more aggressive with Stormwall early, going into the Feat-- That would have given me a good chance to be further up the board to take advantage of him in Melee and drop pods for more precision piece removal.    My list had no way to offensively (or defensively, actually) strip upkeeps, so Quickened Halberdiers were a BIG problem for my anti-infantry guys.  My Opponent deployed the Mage Hunters REALLY well, on a side of the board with nothing to threaten them early on.  

A few things went against me, my dice rolls were just crap.  Failing to kill the objective was an error in judgment mainly, but I'll be having nightmares about the failed Stormblade Assault for months.  Going in at -5 when there's no way to actually get into Melee to seal the deal was risky, but I didn't think it was THAT risky.  

I think the game really came down to my opponent's ability to play a strong ranged game (with Stormfalls, his Battlegroup, and the MHSF) to really attrition me while I was mainly busy giggling about how much covering fire I was putting down on the table.  In all, I think I was a little too conservative in my play.  More aggression, and more abuse of the Stormwall's turn of ARM 27 seems like it would be the way to go.

Game 4--pStryker vs Absylonia 50pts (Dragon's Lair Steamroller Round 2)

Round two, ended up paired against Legion.  Sort of a tough Matchup with Blight Field from Absylonia.

He ran: 

Absylonia

-Archangel

-Angelius

-Naga Nightlurker

-Shredder

Full Legionnaires

Full Spawning Vessel

Anyssa Ryvall

2x Shepherd

2x Forsaken

Round 2 was Supply and Demand.  There were a few tough pieces of terrain to contend with.  I won the roll and opted to go Second to see if better deployment could see me through to a more agreeable outcome than my previous game.  

He placed the AA almost in the back left corner. I put my SW slightly left of center.  He had a long line of Legionnaires with the Pot behind them, and Anyssa on the right (from my perspective).  On the left was his battlegroup and support. 

I deployed for the right matchups-- Stormblades, SW, and the Lancer on the left vs the battlegroup, and ATGM on the right vs the infantry and Anyssa.

His first turn, he Ran Anyssa WAY far toward me.  Legionnaires ran up, etc.

I didn't move THAT far up the board for fear of long threat ranges.  I handed Snipe to the ATGMs, Arcane Shield to SW, and Blur on Stryker (???).  The Gunmages advanced and tried to shoot at Anyssa but couldn't connect.  I laid down some covering fire, more to make myself feel good.

My opponent moved the Archangel RIGHT to the center of the board, in front of the line of Legionnaires, and threw out 2 AOE's, one of which killed the Squire.  Anyssa moved up and took out a couple Gun Mages (including the UA, making my Cyclone Autonomous). Other stuff advanced.

My turn, the Gunmages advanced and one shot at Anyssa and missed.  The rest killed about 4 Legionnaires.  The autonomous cyclone dropped covering fire all up in her Business.  The Stormblades activated and went to Assault his Angelius.  The idea was to try and get a Stormgunner on him so that the rest of the unit would auto-hit and scrap him... but no such luck... I don't think a single one hit?  This left my Stormblades pretty bunched up and out in the open.  Stormwall advanced, and dropped a pod to kill one Legionnaire.  He took shots at AA, but missed both or something, then dropped some Covering Fire.  At this point, Stryker should have feated (and, obviously, didn't).

My Opponent's turn  AA charged SW and mercifully whiffed all of his initials.  Buying attacks he took out a little over a side.  Then the Angel Charged and did a pretty devastating armor piercing attack (both using Wraithbane to ignore Arcane Shield).  Stormwall had his movement and Pods intact.  Anyssa stood still and Killed some more Gunmages.  Legionnaires charged some of the Stormblades and killed some.  Absylonia Blight Fielded Stormwall and my Lancer (although there's not a TON I could have done anyway)

My next turn was pretty lackluster.  I assaulted again with the Stormblades, hoping to put SOME damage on something, but once more, that didn't work.  I don't remember what else I did, but I ONCE MORE didn't pop my feat.  Which was dumb. 

My opponent's turn, he armor-pierced SW to death, and AA charged Stryker and killed him pretty quickly. 

Result: Loss

Looking back, I'm not sure if I just played badly or what. Remembering the feat, my opponent and I worked out afterward, would have been 25 less damage that Stormwall would have taken on the one extra-devastating turn, so that seems significant.  I think I should have just been more aggressive again and tried to Jam with the feat turn and play for attrition.  The Stormblades need rangers or deadeye or SOMETHING to help them really be able to hit high-DEF heavies-- I'm confident that had the Stormgunner hit the Angel, the rest would have just annihilated it.  

Thinking about the Anyssa situation, it probably would have been worth it to do their CRA thing to try and just nail her to the wall, since she just invalidated them the whole game.

So, Round 2, biggest consideration is: remember to Feat, duh.

Game 3--pStryker vs eKaya 50pts (Dragon's Lair Steamroller Round 1)

Alright, so game 3 with Stryker, my first in a competitive setting.  Got paired against a really nice Circle player!  Round one was the Into the Breach Scenario

My Opponent ran something like:
eKaya
-Ghetorix
-Pureblood
-Stalker
Full Skinwalkers
Full Wolves + UA
Stones + UA

I ran the list I'd discussed previously:
pStryker
-Stormwall & Pods
-Lancer
-Squire
Stormblades + UA + 2 WA's
Arcane Tempest Gunmages + UA
-Cyclone
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord

So, my opponent won first turn.  I placed Stormwall pretty centrally. She deployed her Wolves and a Pureblood on my left (Going for the Zone) and the Skinwalkers, Ghetorix and the Stalker more to my right (Going for the Flag).   Seeing all this, I was essentially very foolish and put my Stormblades vs the Wolves, and ATGM vs the Skinwalkers, which is, obviously, the exact opposite of what I should have done.

So Turn one, everybody pretty much ran. Stormwall gets Arcane Shield, Stormblades get Snipe. Stormwall and the Cyclone dropped some Covering fire templates.  Turn two she moved a bunch of Wolves and the Pureblood into the zone, and some Skinwalkers up toward the flag, and the stones teleport, getting two in B2B with the flag.

My turn two takes for damn ever. Stormwall moves up and tries to drop some Covering Fire, and Shoot one of the skinwalkers (who he does a point of damage to). The Gunmages move up and shoot at the Stones, killing the Stonekeeper. (I'd hoped this would leave them out of formation, but alas. The Cyclone dropped some Covering Fire as well.

I give the Stormblades Dirge of Mists (which I forgot about), and they assault.  The idea was to try and assault the pureblood behind a couple of wolves, but because it had Stealth from Kaya's Shadow Pack, I would have only gotten like two shots on it.  So, they assaulted and killed like 3-4 Wolves.  So at the end of my turn two, I had moved up pretty far, leaving myself a little exposed. My memory here gets a little fuzzy.

At the end of my turn, my Opponent got a Control Point for controlling the flag (5 CP's to win).  She charged my Lancer with the Stalker and left it with one box.  The Wolves minifeated and killed a few Stormblades. Ghetorix moved up getting ready to charge Stormwall.  The Skinwalkers move up and surround the flag.  My Oponent gets another CP (2/5)

My turn, I have Stormwall within charge range of either the Stalker (DEF 14) or Ghetorix (DEF 16 w/ Forced Evolution).  So, either one I would be hard for me to hit with my wimpy MAT 6.  What I should have done was Allocate 3 to Stormwall, have Stryker cast Earthquake at my Lancer  (although his DEF would also have been pretty high at a 15, but with a boost and a re-roll from the Squire, I feel OK about it) to knock down a few wolves and the Stalker, and Pop Feat.  And then Charge it and kill it with Stormwall (although Stormblades may have been able to accomplish this by themselves if the Stalker was KD'd).  That would have put my Opponent down 1 heavy, with my ARM 27 Colossal right on her Doorstep.

What I actually did was Allocate 3 to Stormwall, move up with Stryker and cast Earthquake on one of the Skinwalkers who looked like he was close enough to Ghetorix, but was woefully just outside the 5" AOE.  With Stryker exposed, and neither Warpwolf knocked down, I balked and decided to Walk up around Stryker (did I mention I put Stryker in the way?) and Power Strike the Stalker-- I managed to hit and boost damage to knock some points off and Slam him a few inches away, which killed 2 Wolves and knocked him down.   My Stormblades did something uninteresting... I think they killed some wolves?  The Gunmages did pretty OK.  Two shot thunderbolts at Ghetorix.  One missed, the other pushed him back 3". The rest moved up and decided to Crit Brutal into the skinwalkers, which removed a 1-2 and put damage on some.  The Cyclone decided to actually use the metal storms and got 5 shots which got the unit below 50% and killed a Stone.    This all being said, I totally forgot to feat, so poor Stormwall was Hung out to dry waiting for Ghetorix's inevitable charge.

All I remember about the next turn is that Ghetorix Charged Stormwall and beat him up pretty bad.  My final turn, I had 1 minute left on my Death Clock, so I allocated to Stormwall, Decided to do a fully boosted powerstrike and knocked him back 3" and did some damage, before Clocking myself.

Result: Loss
 I guess Technically by the clock, but my sloppy play wasn't doing me any favors here.  I need to get a LOT more practice to try and knock some of the rust off.

As far as what I can take away from this game, I think there were some pretty big mistakes that were made-- essentially deploying backwards (ATGM vs Medium Infantry and Beasts with Stormblades vs Infantry).  The turn 3 Debacle where I should have Charged the stalker didn't help either.

This was the first of a couple of games where I ended up forgetting my damn feat.  So, in short.  Be more aggressive, Jam with the feat (ARM 27 SW, ARM 20 SB's).

Thinking About Lists...

So, it's late and I'm up, trying to figure out a list to bring to Dragon Lair's WM/H Tourney on Saturday... It's a 50 Point, 2-list optional event, but I want to just focus on one list--I feel like that will consolidate the learning experience some and help me make some greater sense of it.

At the moment, I'm mainly thinking of trying to maximize my painted models, which I outlined the other day...

So, at the moment, here's what we're looking at:

pStryker (+6)
-Stormwall & Pods (19)
-Lancer (6)
-Squire (2)
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages + UA (8)
-Cyclone (9)
Stormblades + UA + 2 WA's (10)
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord (2)

I wish that I could fit some Stormcallers in there after feeling like they did so well in my last two games, but the main purpose of tomorrow is just to get some practice in.  As far as the list goes, it's the same general idea as my 35 point list from earlier, but expanded a bit to include Stormblades.

There was some back-and-forth with a friend of mine about whether or not to use the UA (for Assault), mostly because I'm worried about the ability taking up time, but being that the event is running on a Deathclock, I feel somewhat safe about it.

The overall plan is that turn one, Arcane Shield goes on Stormwall, Snipe on the Stormblades, and Blur on the Gun Mages, and basically advance to try and get relevant in scenarios, and then push for attrition with a strong shooting game between Stormwall, the ATGMs and Stormblades.  I want to try and assault early with the Stormblades, and have Rhupert give them tough, and screen them with covering fire, to hopefully keep them from being annihilated by a counter-charge.

The Cyclone was added to the ATGM's (at the cost of losing the Journeyman) in order to provide another 2 Covering Fire templates for some strong area denial.  It's a pretty versatile ability that should help me to dictate the flow of the game, or to try to make the best of a bad situation.

The goal before the tournament is to become familiar with all my rules-- specifically with the Stormblades and Stormwall, which are somewhat more complex than anything else, and that I'm still pretty new to.

Game 2--pStryker vs eKreuger 35pts

After the sort of disappointing end to the last game, my buddy and I decided to try and squeeze another game in.

I ran the same list, he ran the Mohsar list and just swapped casters out:

eKreuger
-Megalith
-Stalker
-Gorax
Bloodtrackers + UA
Shifting Stones + UA
Blackclad
Wilder
Gallows Grove

My opponent got first turn.  Setup was pretty similar to the previous game.  I had Stormwall anchor my right side.  ATGM ended up opposite the bloodtrackers again.

Turn one my Opponent ran things forward, and TK'd his battlegroup up.  My turn one was pretty active.  Stormwall advanced, Dropped a pod (killing a bloodtracker), and put covering fire up in front of some more of them.  He took a big gun shot at Megalith and missed (needing a 4).  I screwed up the facing, leaving me to shoot the blackclad (which I miraculously hit).  Stryker put Snipe on the ATGMs and they managed to do kill off quite a few of the Bloodtrackers.  Two of the stormcallers killed a couple more bloodtrackers.

So, I started off pretty well off in the attrition game.  But I saw that I'd made the same mistake as I had in the previous game-- leaving Stormwall potentially in charge range of the Stalker without Stryker's feat up.  I had killed the blackclad earlier so he couldn't use hunter's mark to get the extra charge range... so maybe the stalker was out of range.  He ended up running megalith to engage my Lancer (who was screening Stryker), and the Stalker behind that, and ended his turn.

My turn, I loaded Stormwall with Focus, walked up and killed megalith, and put some damage on the Stalker (but couldn't connect reliably because of DEF 14).  I also dropped a pod that killed a few support pieces, and then had the Gun mages (standing still) activate-- One thunderbolted him out of Melee range with SW, and the rest crit brutal'd him to put some damage up, and Jr. Finished him off with a boosted shot and arcane bolt.  Stormcallers triangulated a TON and removed most of the chaff, leaving my opponent with relatively little still on the board.

At that point, we had to take off, and decided to call the game a victory-ish for me.

Result: Win by Attrition

So, I think I by and large improved over the first game. My plan was much more fluid and I was better able to keep my eyes on the prize as far as the attrition game went.  It was dumb luck that I'd killed the blackclad (due to a positioning error on my part), which I think led to the stalker not being able to charge the next turn-- but I should have put my feat up that turn just in case.

Stormcallers are really good.  They're a really interesting way to handle lower-arm models with a surprising deal of relative precision.  Being able to drop pods and triangulate essentially on-demand proved VERY useful.

I'm not sure about bringing a lancer with the list-- His ideal role is to arc a clutch Earthquake onto a pod in order to tangentially knock down a high def target (casters, etc.).  That being said, he doesn't really contribute outside of that situational usefulness, and I'm beginning to feel like the 6 points could be better spent elsewhere.

Once again, Gun Mages with Snipe from pStryker are the MVPs of the game-- Wiping the bloodtrackers out and then going after chaff behind them, as well as being able to push high-threat heavies around is invaluable.


There's a tournament at Dragon's Lair this upcoming Saturday that I'll be planning on bringing a crappy list to, but hopefully it will shed some light on how I want the list to work at 50pts.  (I won't be able to have a 2nd Stormwall though, as mine isn't assembled.)

Game 1--pStryker vs Mohsar 35pts

Got my first game in today with the new Cygnar stuff against a friend.  Ran the following list:

pStryker

-Stormwall

-Lancer

-Squire

ATGM+UA

Journeyman

3x Stormcallers

My buddy ran something like:

Mohsar

-Megalith

-Stalker

-Gorax

Bloodtrackers+UA

Stones+UA

Blackclad

Wilder

I got the first turn, set up pretty centrally, with Stormwall just right of the middle so as not to be stuck behind a wall near the center.  Gunmages were on the righthand side, across from where my opponent put his Bloodtrackers

First turns were pretty standard Ran/Advanced everything in order to get into position.  Stryker and Stormwall both got Arcane Shield, Gunmages got Blur and sat on a hill, being careful not to get too close to the Bloodtrackers.

Second turn, I put Snipe on the Gunmages and they just about wiped the bloodtrackers out.  Stormwall advanced, dropped covering fire, and presumably shot big guns and dropped a pod.  In the end I left him too close and forgot to feat with Stryker.  The gunmages with snipe tried to long-range Thunderbolt the stalker out of the Shifting stones (and out of charge range) but no luck. With a combo of Curse of Shadows and Primal, the Stalker did a TON of damage, and left the Stormwall with 7 boxes.

My next turn I felt pretty vulnerable and thought I should try a janky assassination which failed miserably.  My opponent had Megalith up behind a tight triangle of shifting Stones-- Had I killed one stone, or the UA, I would have been able to deny my opponent the ability to charge (or really do anything) with Megalith, which would have been wayyy better than some half-assed assassination.

We kept playing, I attritioned him down pretty far with the weight of a TON of low-pow attacks, and we called the game a draw, after realizing that with a scenario and timed rounds, the game likely wouldn't get to this point where it degenerates between his ability to place pillars of salt and my ability to ping away at his few remaining models while pushing them back, and backing away.

Result: Draw

So, probably my biggest mistake was forgetting to feat-- although had I seen the charge lane, I might have dropped the lightning pod there in order to block it.  After that, I should have been more focused on trying to stay ahead attrition-wise and deny the Megalith charge that ended up killing Stormwall.  

A few things seemed pretty good-- Triangulation between a pod or two and the Stormcallers is an awesome ability.  Stormwall didn't get to do much, but I was pretty impressed by how MUCH he can do in an activation. 

I think the game was so-so.  Pretty rusty on both sides, mistakes were made, lessons learned. I don't think I'm too ready to judge anything based on this one game.

It's Been a While... or Why I Play Cygnar Now.

To make a long story short (ish), the last 2 years in gaming has gone like this:  Got into WM/H with Thornfall, but found them lacking.  Played Mortenebra T4 in Hardcore, had fun, actually won games… Needed a “big boy faction” to play… went something like Skorne, Cygnar, Legion.. Then I decided that I just had to dump money into one so deep that I had no choice but to stick it out.  Spent the fall doing a commission (my last, incidentally). Around the Holidays I discovered bartertown, and swapped Legion for Trolls.  Played them, got some more trolls, got dissatisfied, and swapped again for Cygnar.

Why the switch to Cygnar?  I guess I had sort of an intangible sense of dissatisfaction with the faction and where they were headed, but basically, boo-hoo I want to play with a good Collossal that I can justify buying two of. 

TL;DR: Stormwall FTW.

So, what are my plans for Cygnar?  Right now, I’ve got the following painted:

pStryker

Stormwall and Pods

Lancer

Plastic Stormblades w/ UA and 3 WA’s

Oldschool Gun Mages (who, after painting, I don’t hate)

Journeyman

Which is almost enough for my 35 point list (more on that later), with a few more utility solos that need painting up.  But right now the plan is to work on 3 lists (one after the other).

--My First order of business is that I want to work on a Double Stormwall list, which by this point is pretty cliché, but it’s one of my definite goals with the faction, so I feel I should really hammer it out first just to have it done.  To accomplish this I’m either looking at pStryker, Kraye, or Darius. 

Stryker seems toolboxy and gives me access to 2 Arcane Shields (not to mention the feat) for some High-Arm goodness.  Blur and Snipe let him support whatever else he’s bringing—Not totally sure what that would be. So, he’s got all the same problems he does anywhere else where he suffers from being a generalist—He’s not going to run the Stormwalls AMAZINGLY, but the job will get done, and he can answer a variety of situations and help support his army as a whole better than a straight-up Jack Caster.

Kraye brings some pretty good tools to the table for double Stormwalls.  The most obvious being Guided Fire for boosted ranged attack rolls (3 FOC, vs 4 FOC just for boosting the big guns… even more if I decide to actually use the Metal Storms).  Mage Sight has some interesting potential to allow the guns to pick out stealth or concealed targets.  Full Tilt will probably come up sometimes and will have some pretty interesting uses as far as just being able to advance really far... But I can’t see myself casting it Turn 1 and leaving it up for the rest of the game. Finally, the feat definitely has some potential to help get some charges off, as well as change their facing, which I know will matter a great deal with their fields of fire.

Darius in his NQ teir brings some interesting stuff to the Double Stormwall goals. Getting 5 Stormcallers and +2 SPD on Stormwalls the first turn is pretty fantastic. Darius himself brings some potential stuff—Fortify gives the list an ARM buff, and the Feat builds on this to remove ideally a TON of damage.  Jackhammer is interesting to clear some chaff out of the way, or to let SW run and then make attacks on something?  Full throttle helps a good bit with focus efficiency, but only if I plan to make it a REALLY melee heavy turn.  

So, I don't know.  Food for thought.

Game 6--Jarl vs Rask 35pts (REMATCH)

After my first defeat of the night, another guy asked if I wanted to play a game at 35pts-- he was using the Rask list he lent to the TO at the Hardcore event last Saturday.

We set up terrain and rolled the Ammunition Run scenario which I played against Garryth last week.

We Rolled off and I nabbed the first turn.

Jarl put Quicken on the Fenns and advanced, pretty standard.  The Fennblades ran 16" but instead of exposing them like a huge line, I put 3 forward sort of screening the rest of the unit.  Everything else ran up behind them.

My opponent ran everything up and used Rask's feat (friendly models in his control area can't be targeted by attacks or charges from >5" away).

I basically scooted forward a little bit and counter-feated with Jarl.

One unit of Gators got Dirge of Mists and ran to engage some of my forward Fennblades.  Rask walked up behind a wall and put Fury on his Swamp Horror.  I placed the clouds so that a little sliver of the middle objective was visible to the Swamp Horror, and he charged and killed it.  1CP to Rask.  The second gator unit got March and charged from the forest they were in and killed my objective, putting rask at 2CPs.  Both witch doctors used zombify on the gator units.

It bears mentioning that at this point, I had to roll a command check because the gators had Terror from Dirge.  And the Fennblades failed.  Craaaaaap.  My opponent said to forget it because that would be game over.  So, we continued.

Dropping the pretense of competition, the game took on a more educational posture from hereon in.  We discussed the best course of action for the fennblades-- They ended up managing to charge the front line of engaging gators, and 3 managed to charge the swamp horror, and they killed the gators and almost killed the Swamp Horror.  (It bears mentioning that in 6 games, this is the first time I've felt good about them).  Jarl toed into the zone, cast MB and shot the swamp horror, boosted damage, and finished it off.  MB bounced onto Rask and did a couple of points I think.

His turn, he decided he couldn't attrition against trolls and that he should go for an assassination-- He moved Rask out from behind the wall and used his energy siphon shot and took one of my Fury and used it to boost damage on Jarl and did a respectable amount.  The two witch doctors managed to do some sac strikes and got Jarl down to 6 boxes, but they couldn't seal the deal.

My turn, the fennblades get out of the way and do some attacks and maybe kill a gator.  The Mauler charges his Wrastler (the only beast left on his side) for 11 damage on the charge, then hits it again, and gets headbutt from his chain attack, and then manages to do like 2 points every attack after that.  Lame, Mauler, Lame.  I then take my Bomber and run up and beat the Wrastler the rest of the way to death--Rask now has nothing to transfer to.

Jarl stands still and takes two fully boosted shots at Rask (-3 to damage), and finishes him off

Jarl Wins-Assassination

Finally! A win!

Now, this is largely due to my opponent being gracious, so I can't really claim that my strategic mind was better than his or anything like that.  I just managed to take advantage of a failed assassination attempt.

Overall, I thought I played the list pretty well--For the first time, the Mauler felt like he belonged!  After my last game with just the Bomber and the Impaler, 2 beasts just didn't feel like enough.  I think keeping the Mauler as a second wave behind the fennblades and being more aggressive about using him is a good way to go.

Game 5--Jarl vs Venethrax 35pts

Headed up to DLair to try and grab a quick game or two-- First game against Venethrax

I brought my normal Jarl list, but subbed out the Mauler for some Gatormen.

He ran something like:
Venethrax
-Reaper
-Skarlock
Full Bane Thralls w/ UA
Min Biles
Tartarus
Gorman
Saxon
Pistol Wraith
Maybe something else? I don't really remember.

I don't remember the game enough to parse it out like I usually do, but It went something like this:

I ran everything forward and so did he, putting his Banes easily within charge range of my Fennblades.  So, I charged, getting about 5 engaged?  They all hit and manage to wound, but ALL  of the banes make their Tough roll.  That's pretty much how the game would go from hereon out. Jarl popped some Bile thralls with MB and managed to take them out, and the Bomber got overexposed throwing some 12" bombs their way.  I feated and placed a bunch of clouds in the way.

His banes stood up and fought back, killing basically all of those Fennblades who failed to kill them. (So I guess they bought me a turn?).  The Reaper got 3 Focus and walked up, and shot the bomber and dragged him into melee where he beat him pretty close to death, then Venethrax ran up and finished him off, and got extra focus for Dragonslayer, putting his ARM WAY too high for me to damage, and me down to a single impaler for fury.  Best case, I'd have to cut 3 times a turn from hereon out to be full up.

My turn, I just did ineffective stuff?  Basically from here it just attritioned out-- I jammed with some fennblades who couldn't kill any Banes, and then the banes wiped them off the face of the earth and something killed the impaler and then Venethrax killed Jarl.

Venethrax Wins--Assassination

What would I have done differently?  Gone after the Bane Thrall UA first thing.  But with Stealth, I don't really know how I'd do that... Run a Fennblade up and shoot him in the back with MB? The fennblades were at their all-time least useful in this game, they just kind of... did nothing?  I should know better than to count on Tough to do anything-- But it's hard not to.

People advised me after the game that I was playing the Fenns too aggressively--That I should try and expose only 3-4 of them initially to sort of butter my opponents up to expose their tarpit unit to a catastrophic countercharge.  So, that's a thought.

DLair Hardcore Game 2--Jarl vs eAsphyxious

So after a pretty rough first game, I'm feeling like 5min turns are rough, but I'm sticking it out.  Names are drawn and such and I get paired against our Meta's resident Cryx expert.  I know from the start that it'll be an uphill battle, but I'm determined to come away with some good lessons--and I did just that.

I brought my same Jarl list from earlier

My opponent brought:
eAsphyxious
-Ripjaw
Full Bane Knights
Min Bane Thralls w/ UA
Min Blood Witches w/ UA
Min Biles
Tartarus
Gorman di Wulfe

We roll for setup and I nab the first turn (I'm 4-0 at this point)

Top of 1:  Jarl puts Quicken on the Fenns and advances.  Fenns run up pretty far.  Battlegroup run/riles for Fury, support pieces keep up.

Bottom of 1: The infantryspam shitstorm that is my opponent's list all runs.  Incorporeal Blood Witches end up RIGHT on my doorstep.  Biles are pretty spread out throughout his mid/back field so it'll be hard to get them.  Gaspy puts two clouds down right in front of my Fennblades--if they advance, they take a point of damage.  Bummer.

Top of 2: I FINALLY see a chance for the Bomber to bomb things-- so the Impaler puts his animus on the bomber and the Bomber goes to town-- He manages to take out a couple of Bile Thralls, a Bane Thrall, and knock Tartarus down to one box.  Jarl activates and sacs his movement.  He puts up Magic Bullet and shoots one of the Witches--Magic Bullet bounces into their UA and knocks her down to one point.  A second Magic Buller shot kills another Witch and finishes off the UA.  AND THEN I RUN OUT OF TIME.  SHIT.

Bottom of 2: Gaspy's clouds go away and a Bile Thrall purges all over my Fenns-- curiously, 4/5 of them make their Tough Rolls.  After that, the Fenns eat a HUGE charge from the Bane Knights which basically wipes them out of the zone.  A Blood Witch engages my Bomber, and the Bane Thralls run further up the board.  Gaspy moves into the zone (and, because I have nothing left, Dominates it) and I think Excarnates one of the poor Fennblades.  Jarl takes 5pts of Grievous Wounds damage for the scenario.

Top of 3: I finally remember Vengeance and the Fenns do OK-- Killing off almost all the Bane Knights they can get to.  I then see another good opportunity for the Bomber (who is engaged)-- so the Impaler puts up his animus again, advances into Melee, and kills the Blood Witch.  Then the Bomber throws at something which I forget, but misses and it deviates right into 3 of my already dwindled Fennblades, and kills 1 or 2 of them.  D'oh.  His second bomb misses as well, but deviates and kills Gorman and a Bane Thrall or two. I don't really remember what I did with Jarl, but I'm sure he Magic Bulleted a few infantry models.  AND THEN I RUN OUT OF TIME AGAIN. Double shit.  I forget what, but I had something in the zone.

Bottom of 3: The Bane Knights Vengeance and kill essentially what's left of the Fennblades.  They charge some stuff in my backfield (the Runebearer, the Fell Caller?) and my Mauler--Doing some damage, presumably.  They kill the Fell Caller, but the Runebearer makes his Tough Check.  Bane thralls charge my Bomber and Impaler, they kill the Impaler and take out the Bomber's Spirit.  Tartarus ends up pretty close to Jarl, and other assorted things are threatening me everywhere--My memory's pretty fuzzy here.  Gaspy Dominates the zone again, and Jarl takes another 5 Grievous Wounds Damage (he's at 6 points now).

Top of 4: At this point, my army is reduced to: A spiritless Bomber, a beat-up Mauler, my knocked down Runebearer, and Jarl.  Damn.  The Mauler Tramples through some Bane Knights just so I can get SOMETHING in the zone. He takes a pretty beefy Free Strike on the way. Jarl activates, shoots down a bane knight and Tartarus, but I forget to heal the Bomber with him.  The Bomber, still unable to force, misses both of his attacks on the Bane Thralls that are engaging him, and the Runebearer stands up and basically does nothing.

Bottom of 4: The Bane Knights Vengeance and get ready to charge my Mauler.  Then they do that, and they kill him.  The Runebearer makes a few Touch Checks, and the Bomber gets beat up some more.  Gaspy Dominates the zone once more and knocks Jarl down to 1 box.

Top of 5: Jarl shoots some stuff to un-engage the Runebearer, and heals the Bomber, who beats the shit out of 3 Bane thralls in Melee with him (the last of whom toughs, to spite me)  I run the Runebearer into the zone.

Bottom of 5: My opponent kills the Bomber (I reave the Fury because, why not), and then the Runebearer makes a couple of tough rolls, and then finally kills him and Dominates the zone once again to finish Jarl off for good.

eAsphyxious Wins-- Scenario Assassination?!?

So, I got tabled which isn't a GREAT feeling, but I feel as though this had potential to be one of my better showings if not for the timed turns.

The Fennblades were able to dispatch the infantry they came up against, and, if I'd had time to fully activate them, they might have made a more meaningful dent in my opponent's forces.  The Bomber did OK-- Being able to throw 4" AOE's 12" into my opponent's backfield, he managed to (accidentally) take Gorman out, so I see that as having some definite potential in later games. The Mauler, as my opponent put it, just felt out of place, having no real synergy with the rest of the army other than his basic beatstick usefulness.  (for the record, he's in the list because he's painted)

My opponent recommended I work on target priority-- Biles were a big problem, and I see Jarl as a good match for these with Magic bullet and being able to effectively stand still and shoot 16" at RAT 9.  I managed to kill Gorman accidentally, but I don't know that I could have managed anything else-- having stealth sort of undoes all my shooting abilities except the AOEs.

I forgot the freakin' whelps again, so I need to work on that.

So, I think more practice with the list will see me improve some. He's got some really good support tricks and Magic Bullet is a really cool trick for attrition.  I'm thinking of running a sort of wonky minion-heavy list with Jarl, but I'll get into that later.

Overall, the event was really fun!  Glad to be getting back out and playing the game more, and seeing friends and losing to them.

Looking at my first week with Jarl and the blog, 4 games and 6 posts isn't half bad.  I feel like I've definitely learned some lessons, now I just have to keep getting experience with it and try and build on those.

DLair Hardcore Game 1--Jarl vs Rask 35pts

Back from the Soft-Hardcore event up at DLair, had a good time!  Suffered two pretty crushing defeats, but for games 3 and 4 with Jarl (and Trolls) that's to be expected.  Pretty small turnout overall (5 of us, plus the TO), so the event wrapped up pretty quickly.

Game 1, I got the bye and played the TO using one of the players' Blindwater Congregation.

I brought the same Jarl list I've been running:
Jarl
-Mauler
-Bomber
-Impaler
-Runebearer
Max Fennblades w/ UA
Fell Caller
Whelps

he brought:
Rask
-Wrastler
-Swamp Horror
Max Gatorman Posse
Max Gatorman Posse
2 Gatorman Witch Doctors

We rolled and I got first turn.

Top of 1: I advance Jarl up, put Tactical Supremacy on myself and put Quicken on the Fennblades who advanced 8"--I wanted to try and keep from getting too exposed early on. The Beasts basically just advance and rile/run for the correct amount of Fury.  I accidentally advanced the Mauler out of Jarl's Control Area, but Tactical supremacy at the end of my turn let Jarl side-step to get the Mauler back in.

Bottom of 1: Pretty much the same thing.  Stuff ran, a few Gatormen toed the edge of the zone, and chanted Dirge of Mists for +1 DEF and Terror. (DEF 13 Overall)

Top of 2: Let me say first that 5 minute turns are a bitch.  Moving forward, I see the chance to alpha-strike.  With the Gators' ability to WRECK living models (so, everything I have), it seemed important to get there first.  Jarl tried some Magic Bullet shenanigans, attempting to bounce it off of a Posse member into a Witch Doctor, but I didn't manage to kill either.  Meanwhile, the Fell Caller calls +2 MAT on the Fennblades, who minifeat and charge-- about 6/12 manage to engage Gators-- and then it all goes wrong.  At MAT 8 rolling against DEF 13, 4/6 Fennblades miss their attacks, and the ones that hit barely scratch the gators.  Moving the whole unit and doing those attacks (none of which were lethal) took up a great deal of time.  Once that was finished, I barely had time to rile the Bomber for more fury before time ran out.

Bottom of 2: After my Fennblades just bounced off the wall of Gatormen, they retaliated, and wiped all of them out. Some who were not already engaged managed to engage others further back in the unit, and the Fenns took heavy losses.  Not much happened, just an attrition war going against me.

Top of 3: Concerned about time, I completely space out and blow by the remaining Fennblades' Vengeance Moves/Attacks.  The Fennblades activate normally, and continue to miss attack rolls and underperform on damage rolls.  I see a chance with Jarl to take a shot at Rask (who is sitting on several fury and 2 largely unused warbeasts, so the Impaler puts his animus on Jarl, and Jarl takes a shot... and misses.  His second shot hits and does a respectable amount of damage (which is immediately transferred).  The Mauler charges and kills a Gatorman, and I pretty much ran out of time for everyone else.

Bottom of 3: My opponent sees a chance to go for the assassination.  One Witch Doctor walks up and uses Sacrificial Strike to kill a Fennblade and open up a charge lane.  Then, 3 Posse charge Jarl and beat him to feakin' death.

Rask wins by Assassination.

Looking back at it, I think a lot of went wrong came down to dice-- Charging at -6 against models with 8 Boxes and Tough was going to be a tall order, but I didn't expect 66% of them to miss their 5-to-hit rolls.  Yikes.  Overall, I'm feeling pretty down on the Fenns at this point, but I'm trying to give them their due and get some more experience with them.

My battlegroup ended up being largely irrelevant in the game-- being so short on time, and not having any particularly juicy targets for the bomber (everything in the list had boxes), he ended up just being a Fury battery.  The Mauler charged and killed a Gatorman, but he should have been doing way more than that.  My major issue is time, I just don't really know how I would have activated all of that meaningfully in 5 minutes--at least at this stage, given my lack of familiarity with Trolls.

I'm not really sure how I could have defended better against the Assassination, probably just placing Jarl more centrally to have more stuff in the way.

First thoughts: Dragon's Lair 35pts Hardcore-ish

So, with only a few hours till I pack my bags up and bike over to Dragon's Lair for a test run through the new Hardcore 2013 rules at 35 Points, I can't help but think about it some.

At first glance, here's what I'm looking at:
-5 Minute Turns (w/ one 2 Minute Extension)
-Killbox is now 14" and essentially a 5 Damage Grievous Wounds hit.
-When you dominate the central zone (and your opponent doesn't contest it), your opponent's caster takes a 5 Damage Grievous Wounds hit.  If 2 casters are in the zone, the active one dominates it.
-There's a zone and tiebreakers and such, so it's not simply an auto-lose if you fail to assassinate.

Thinking about how I'm going to go at the event, I've decided to do nothing special and just treat it as a chance to get in a few more games with my Jarl list.  As of this writing, I'm pretty sure that the list is going to be completely gutted and changed, but I figure it will be a good chance to try out a few things, so here are my goals tonight:

• Don't worry about the timed turns.  I'm going to play my game, and if I clock myself, that's better than making a bunch of mistakes trying to rush.
• I want to get some more practice timing Jarl's feat.  It's subpar, but I think with proper timing I can get some use out of it.
• 2 games in, I'm not much of a fan of Fennblades but I think that if I slow down some and exercise some more patience with their alpha strike, I can get some more use out of them.  This won't help the issue of their survivability, but if I can get more use out of them before they all die horrible deaths, I might reconsider.
• I'd like to actually use the Bomber's bombs with some success.
• I'm going to remember Whelps and Rage this time.  I'm pretty sure.

I feel like that's a pretty good set of goals for the night.  We'll see how it goes!

Game 2--Jarl v Garryth 35pts

Right after my first loss, I decided to play another pick-up game with another friend playing Retribution at 35pts

I brought:
Jarl
-Mauler
-Bomber
-Impaler
-Runeshaper
Full Fennblades w/ UA
Fell Caller
Whelps

He was running (I think):
Garryth
-Phoenix
Full Sentinels w/ UA
Aiyana and Holt
House Shyeel Artificer
Mage Hunter Assassin
Akantrik Force Generator

We rolled the Ammunition Run Scenario, and I got first turn.

Top of 1: I put Quicken on the Fennblades and Weald Secrets on Jarl, and advanced into a forest. (I think I thought Weald Secrets gave me Prowl instead of Camouflage, but a DEF bonus is always nice I guess).  The Fennblades run up a respectable 16" into the center zone and everything else plays catchup.

Bottom of 1: He moves his Sentinels up into defensive line (I think they ran?).  Garryth moved up behind a wall, and I totally miss him putting Mirage up on the Sentinels.  Other stuff moves up, and the AFG shoots a 4" difficult terrain AOE into the zone, killing one unlucky Fennblade.

Top of 2: I see a chance to mess stuff up.  I upkeep Quicken and Weald Secrets.  The Fell Caller moves up and chants +2 MAT on the Fennblades.  The Fennblades UA pops their Mini-Feat, and they charge across the table, with 4 or 5 making it into the Sentinels, 1 into Holt, and another into the Mage Hunter Assassin.  The rest make it well into the zone.  They kill 4 Sentinels, and miss Holt and the Assassin.  Bummer.  The Impaler puts Far Strike on Jarl and advances.  The Bomber and Mauler Rile/Run to get enough Fury on the board.  The Mauler is poised to take out the central objective next turn.  The Runebearer puts his Discount on Jarl and advances.  Jarl advances, casts Magic Bullet and takes a 16" shot at the Phoenix, for 6 points of Damage on its field.  Magic Bullet bounces into Aiyana and kills her.  Jarl then casts Tactical Supremacy on the Fennblades, and pops his feat, placing a full 6 clouds in a sort of arc.  The Fennblades use their Tactical Supremacy move to micro back 3" into the clouds.

Bottom of 2: The Sentinels move up with vengeance, and a couple are able to kill Fennblades.  They then get to move for Mirage, and all get in position to charge.  Then they charge and just about annihilate my Fennblade unit.  Bummer. the AFG and Holt gun down a few more Fennblades, and the Assassin kills the one in Melee with her.  This leaves me with about 2 left?  A few of the Sentinels were bunched up, so the House Shyeel Artificer advances and makes them all immune to Blast Damage.The clouds didn't do a whole lot, but they did block line of sight to more important targets.

Top of 3: Clouds disappear, I drop all my upkeeps.  I'm looking at an assload of really fast weaponmasters on my doorstep, and I need to do something about it.  A lot of them are bunched up, perfect for my Bomber (although, probably a little too high armor for the bomber to be WILDLY effective, but who knows) but they're immune to Blast Damage, so the Artificer is public enemy #1.  The Impaler advances and puts Far Strike on Jarl, then throws a spear and Crit Smites one Sentinel through another, killing them both.  Jarl advances, and takes a shot at him, and does some damage.  He takes a second shot and misses or doesn't do enough damage, I don't recall.  Seeing himself hella exposed, he puts Tactical Supremacy on himself in hopes of surviving.  The Mauler advances and beats the central objective to death, which then explodes and kills one Sentinel and earns me a Control Point (and sets the mauler on fire!).  The Bomber advances and tries to throw a bomb at the Artificer, but misses or something.  The Fell Caller and other stuff moves into the zone to try and help contest, and finally Jarl backs up some with Tactical Supremacy.

Bottom of 3: Garryth gives 3 Focus to the Phoenix.  The Sentinels use their Vengeance Move and Mirage to get in position, then HELLA CHARGE my Bomber and other stuff, killing all of it.  YIKES!  Some stuff might have made their Tough Rolls, but still, yikes.  The Phoenix charges the Mauler and beats it up pretty bad. The AFG takes a shot at poor, defenseless Jarl and does like 15 points of Damage. I transfer to the Mauler, which kills him and sends 2 damage back at Jarl.  Garryth moves up and takes a few shots, which Kill Jarl, but I make a Tough Check.  Holt shoots Jarl, and I tough.  Then he shoots him again and I finally die.

Garryth Wins by Assassination.

So, looking back, the first thing I have to question was the use of Tactical Supremacy to move the Fennblades backwards.  Maybe if I'd moved them up and jammed the rest of the Sentinels, they wouldn't have punched so far into my lines?  Although, there's always the chance that they'd wipe the fenns off the board with just Vengeance Attacks, so who knows  Maybe if I ran Jarl up turn 1 to try and get the feat clouds to debuff the Sentinels' MAT when I jammed them that would have helped, but that'd be a lot of running for poor Jarl.

The Fennblades' survivability is called into question again.  I feel like I need a unit that can dish out some hurt, but be able to hold the line against standard frontline infantry like Sentinels or Praetorian Swordsmen.  Kriel Warriors with Steady could be a big plus, or Boomhowlers with +4 Tough (as well as Rage Howler, etc.).

I left the Mauler and the Bomber WAY too close together at the end of Turn 3, which made it pretty easy for him to take both out.  And, finally, Jarl was just too exposed.  Maybe if I'd brought Swamp Gobbers, that would have helped some.  Janissa's wall would be nice, but I feel like she's inevitably going to want to go with the pDoomshaper list I'll want to build, so I'm trying to avoid needing her in this list.

One thing I feel like I'm missing is adequate Ranged Attrition?  I feel as though relying on the Bomber may not be a good call, although at this point the Bomber hasn't really been able to do anything, so there may be hope for him yet.

Lessons Learned:
- Whelps, Whelps, Whelps
- Spread Beasts out more
- MAYBE I should have waited some on the ridiculous Fennblade charge.  They killed all the Sentinels they touched, so maybe if I'd waited for them to come into range, I would have been able to clear them out.
- Instead of shooting at the Artificer, I should have taken Jarl and Magic Bullet to reduce the Sentinels, probably 2-4 guys.

Overall, I'm really happy with Jarl.  I really enjoy his ability to take the Impaler's animus and scalpel out key models (Aiyana, in this game).  Though, I feel like Magic Bullet should be explored against infantry grunts as well, because they ended up being a bigger problem.  I want to play a few more games with this list, but at the moment, I'm on the fence about Fennblades and the Bomber.  At this point, though, I'm willing to entertain the possibility that the Fennblades' lack of success is due to my not using them correctly, and the Bomber's lack of success has been mostly that there haven't been any real targets for him to shoot at, but we'll see.

I feel like I played better in this game than my first, which is always a good sign.

Game 1-- Jarl v eDoomshaper 35pts

First game with Trolls, and more specifically Jarl.  Got a 35 point game set up against eDoomshaper.

I had:
Jarl
-Mauler
-Bomber
-Impaler
-Runebearer
Full Fennblades w/ UA
Fell Caller
Whelps

He had something like:
eDoomshaper
-Mulg
-Rok
-Earthborn
Krielstone (full? min? don't really remember)
Janissa
Feralgeist

We rolled to set up terrain, and I went first-- Set up a hill for Jarl to stand on in my right lower quarter of the board.  My opponent put down a water feature in his lower right, then I placed some rough terrain out of the way, and he placed an obstacle right in the middle of the board--Problematic.  Overall I don't really like setting up terrain this way, I sort of prefer just generally setting it up as a "tourney table."

My initial reaction was that it didn't feel like I had an adequate answer to the amount of really heavy armor I was looking at, and that Magic Bullet would be of some use for taking out key support pieces.

Rolled for initiative and I got the first turn:
Top of 1: I Pretty much just ran stuff. Jarl got up on the hill, Quicken went on the Fennblades, Tactical Supremacy went on Jarl for some reason.  (I then promptly forgot about it at the end of my turn)

Bottom of 1: He moved up with the brick, passed around the Earthborn's animus and Janissa put a wall in front of them.

Top of 2: Upkept Quicken and Tactical Supremacy. The Fennblades advanced 8" with Quicken.  Impaler put Far Strike on Jarl.  Mauler and Bomber moved up.  Jarl cast Magic Bullet on himself and took a 16" shot at Mulg, doing no damage (of course).  Magic Bullet hit Janissa for half her health. Jarl feated and put out 5 3" templates (I then realized I should have brought my 4" templates. in front of the Fenns.  I then forgot Tactical Supremacy for the second time.

Bottom of 2: My opponent mentioned a potential assassination on Jarl.  Doomshaper put Primal and Wild Aggression on Mulg, then Mulg trampled forward and bought an attack on a Fennblade.  The feat clouds made little difference to his buffed MAT, and he killed it.  Mulg goaded 2" forward and killed another fennblade, and couldn't quite get to Jarl, so he beat my Bomber down to 7 boxes. Rok trampled forward and berserk/goaded his way through several more Fennblades, and then the Earthborn did the same thing.  The Krielstone bearer ran WAY up the board, and he left his buddies behind.  Janissa put a wall up in front of Doomshaper.

Top of 3: A couple of the Fennblades used their vengeance moves to line up better charges-- I thought with pathfinder I could put one on Janissa, but wasn't sure.  Another got in position to charge the Krielstone Bearer, and a final one, if he could survive a freestrike from Mulg, could charge Doomshaper.  The vengeance attacks did precisely nothing.  The Fellcaller called Parthfinder on the Fennblades.  I then became aware that I would be woefully out of command range if I charged Janissa.  So that one charged the Earthborn and did nothing.  Another charged the Krielstone and missed.  The final took a HUGE freestrike from Mulg and made his tough roll.
The Impaler moved up and put Far Strike on Jarl, and tried to throw a spear at Mulg (which missed). Jarl healed the Bomber for 2 and presumably shot something I don't really remember-- I'm pretty sure it was the Krielstone Bearer, who was too far away .
The Mauler beat the Earthborn to death and the Feralgeist brought it back to life-ish.  The bomber threw Rok into Mulg and knocked them both down and did negligible damage.

Bottom of 3: I don't remember a lot of what he did.  Mulg frenzied from Primal and ended up killing the knocked-down Fennblade.  Rok did something that escapes me--He might have killed the bomber?  The Earthborn hit the Mauler and took out his body, and I managed to remember to spawn a Whelp.  Janissa put another wall up in front of Doomy.

Top of 4: Things here are pretty fuzzy. I had the whelp wipe the fury off the Mauler to avoid frenzying. I let quicken drop on the couple remaining Fennblades.  I don't remember what they did.  I think they tried to get in the way of Rok.  The Mauler advances into Rok (a tiny bit-they were pretty close), and buys a bunch of attacks.  The FellCaller charges Rok and nearly kills him. The impaler puts Far Strike on Jarl, then tries to Slam Mulg.  He misses (I would have boosted, but he was full up) and is left sitting there.  Runebearer puts discount on Jarl.  Jarl puts up Magic Bullet and takes a shot at Doomshaper, for 12 damage. This triggers Mulg's Protective Fit.  He advances up, but I don't think he actually hits Jarl.  Magic Bullet off of Doomshaper hits and kills Janissa.  He then casts Tactical Supremacy on himself and backs away from Mulg--Evasive lets me back up without taking a free strike.

Bottom of 4: All hell breaks loose.  Rok does something or other and through some Goad/Berserk Shenanigans moves over and finishes off Jarl, who doesn't make his tough check.

Game Over-eDoomshaper Wins by Assassination


Lessons Learned:
-REMEMBER MULG HAS PROTECTIVE FIT
-eDoomshaper's beasts are coming from DOWNTOWN
-Fennblades are about as survivable as Farrow Brigands (meh), but can't be trampled over (a plus)
-Remember to spawn whelps when my beasts take damage (although I managed to do that at the right time)
-Remember Rage--this would have been a better answer to the high ARM I came up against.

I came away from the game feeling like Fennblades and the Bomber were "meh," although I guess I can't blame the Fenns for not surviving an alpha-strike by 3 pretty badass heavies, and the Bomber for not having anything to bomb.

My play overall was sloppy (to be expected, I haven't played in some time), but I think I came away with some good lessons learned.