Round 5 Prep

I’ve given my 50 point list its first run-out last night and feel kinda confident using it. My opponent was Luke who is just starting out in the game with his Retribution force. He came at me with quite a shooty Ossyan list:

Lord Arcanist Ossyan
* Phoenix
Dawnguard Sentinels (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Dawnguard Sentinel Officer & Standard
* Soulless Escort
Heavy Rifle Team (Leader and Grunts)
Heavy Rifle Team (Leader and Grunts)
Stormfall Archers (Leader and 3 Grunts)
Arcanist
Arcanist
Dawnguard Destor Thane
Dawnguard Scyir

* Griffon
* Griffon
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios
Ghost Sniper
Ghost Sniper

Mage Hunter Assassin

To add to my 35 point list, I have recruited Wrongeye and Snapjaw, a Witch Doctor (proxied by Totem Hunter for this game and in future games by Crocodile Games' Sebeki Master of Words) and a Bone Swarm.

Maelok the Dreadbound
* Bull Snapper
* Bone Swarm
* Blackhide Wrastler
* Blackhide Wrastler
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 4 Grunts)
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 4 Grunts)
Witch Doctor
Croak Hunter
Wrongeye and Snapjaw

Some things worked and some didn’t. Luke set his force up with Ossy in the middle of his Sentinels and HRT’s flanked on my right by the Archers and on my left by the Griffons, Snipers, Eiryss and MHA. I had both Posse’s out front with Maelok and his beasts just behind them in the middle and W+S and Croak on my right.

The game started off with Luke running everything forward in a line abreast fashion which was scarily straight. I mirrored the running but in a far less orderly manner.

Turn two saw the shootiness begin. Some of my Gatormen from both Posse’s were lost already (two from the Posse on my right  falling to Stormfall Archer fire and one on my left hand Posse taking hits from both Ghost Snipers and Eiryss).  I needed to engage very quickly but only managed it with a single Gatorman (who managed to engage five Sentinels all on his lonesome). Nothing else happened really.

Next turn Ossy feated and really piled on the pain. Snapjaw took a fair bit of damage and a few more Gatormen fell (although casualties in my left hand Posse were minimised due to the Witch Doctor – you gotta love Tough Gators). My reaction was to feat myself and Revive a single Gator to my right hand Posse. This Posse then charged towards Ossy with two Gators fencing him in. The sad thing was I forgot to get them to sing their Cold Blood prayer and due to Sod’s Law, I was unable to re-roll both of their initial attacks. As a result, they only put six points of damage on him. The other Posse was quite depleted and didn’t do much damage. Wrongeye managed to Influence two Sentinels and used them to kill two of their own unit. The Croak Hunter moved around to draw a bead on the Sentinel Officer but failed to actually hit him. This would have been so helpful removing Vengeance.

Luke then made all of his Vengeance attacks but didn’t do cause much damage at. The key was that they were all engaged or didn’t have enough room to charge meaning they were only rolling 3d6 at -10 to the damage roll. But they did however remove the threat of Ossy being stuck between two Gators. The other flank moved up with the Snipers and Eiryss making one Gator roll a whole ream of Tough rolls. The Griffons joined in the fun and took out the Snapper, Bone Swarm and another Gator (this one didn’t make his Tough roll). I needed to back up my depleted front line and had to get Maelok and his Wrastlers (Kaine and Ray) into the fight. The first thing I did was attempt to use one of the Wrastlers to throw the other for that little bit extra threat range. For some reason or other the dice totally flaked out on me. The throwee, having not been thrown, ran forward to engage the oncoming Phoenix. Wrongeye got another kill with Influence.

In the next turn, Luke got the Sentinels to clean up their part of the board but had left one Gatorman standing. The last Archer put some more pain on Snapjaw taking out two aspects. The Phoenix took down the Wrastler standing in its face. Ossy moved well out of the way to a nearby bit of forest where he began chatting up the MHA who had not moved all game. She then promptly ran towards the action and away from the lecherous Ossy (I didn’t think that at the time, but writing this out now seems fine).Luke shooty trio joined in causing taking out the Witch Doctor. Time for one last desperate attempt to take out as much as I could knowing that I was not going to win the game and Maelok was going to get skinned (half a handbags worth or maybe just one boot surely). Wrongeye healed Snapjaw enough to cause maximum damage while pulling off another kill with Influence. Snapjaw then proceeded to rag on the Phoenix taking both arms out but not finally trashing it. Maelok healed the other Wrastler after it took transfer damage in the previous turn. This Wrastler did not have the threat range to do anything so simply walked to put himself between Maelok and the Elves.

Luke ended the game by firstly having his Archer take out Wrongeye (and Snapjaw) and then concentrating on Maelok by sending in the MHA (failed to hit) and then both Griffons.

Quite a frustrating game really as I was pinned back by a lot of ranged attacks. Equally frustrating were the amount of things that I forgot to do:

• Forgetting the GMP prayers a lot of the time – Cold Blood would have been handy in the assassination attempt while Dirge of Mists might have helped with a few of the shots that came my way)
• The Witch Doctor on a couple of turns.
• Snapjaw has got the Submerge animus!!! He and Wrongeye needn’t have taken any Brutal Shots from the Archers. This would have allowed them to get up close and personal a hell of a lot quicker.

I also should have got Maelok further up the field as he was flanked by both of his Wrastlers, which would lead to my two heavies getting some proper action. Apart from that, pretty much everything worked as it should and W+S even more so (Influence cast on the right model can be really good (e.g. is that your Sentinel Officer standing behind Ossy? No, he’s mine now). The only thing that I didn’t get any mileage out of was the Bone Swarm. The plan was to have it amongst a GMP casting its animus, making them even harder to hit. But I am now having a slight doubt about it. I could take out the BS and put in two more Croaks a la Marcus. The Croak got in a great charge attack but was typically useless with the Spear, but I can’t help imagining that he needs a bit of friendly encouragement from fellow Croak Hunters. This is the last (agonising) choice I need to make.
I learnt a lot from this game about my Minion force (and even a bit about the Phoenix which I have missed in the past). Luke used his Elves effectively by thinning down my numbers at a distance and then sending in the Sentinels to mop up. I am looking forward to maybe playing against him again outside of the league to even things up.