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.

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.

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!