Here is the battle report of the year and my first game of
any kind since 13th October. So as soon as Cross Gaming Club announced the
first club night of the year, I took up Marcus’ challenge. The last time we
played was January last year in our club’s Slow Grow League when we had a bout
of Gatorman infighting. Sadly for me, his Barnabas soundly beat my Calaban
(although I did get points for having a fully painted force). It’s the time
before that I’m interested in at the moment. It was the previous encounter to
our Gator-off that springs to mind. This was when I finally got one over on the
Old Witch. The handful of times before that when I came up against Marcus and
the Witch always ended in tears for me, so you can imagine the grudge I hold
against her.
I finally got round to beating her when I fielded Vindictus.
I still came out of the game fairly scarred, but Vindy held on after the OW
used Unseen Path (after Scrapjack tore through millions of my dudes) to get up
close and then failed to do anything else than scratching the second highest
authority of the Church. Vindy thanked Menoth and took the OW down with three
boosted melee attacks. So it was with this game in mind, I opted to bring Vindy
out to play when Marcus stated his intention to field my most hated enemy.
With the history of this grudge out of the way, let’s get
down to business.
I took:
Vice
Scrutator Vindictus – Tier 4
* Reckoner
* Reckoner
* Sanctifier
Choir of Menoth (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Exemplar Errants (Leader and 9 Grunts
* Exemplar
Errant Officer & Standard Bearer
Exemplar Errants (Leader and 5 Grunts)
* Exemplar Errant Officer & Standard Bearer
Holy Zealots (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Holy Zealot Monolith Bearer
Holy Zealots (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Vassal Mechanik
I’m loving
the free Errant UA and giving my heavy jacks Advance Deployment from the Tier
list.
Marcus
bought:
Zevanna
Agha, the Old Witch of Khador – Tier 4
* Scrapjack
* Destroyer
* Kodiak
* Spriggan
Battle Mechaniks (Leader and 3 Grunts)
Greylord Ternion (Leader and 2 Grunts)
Greylord Ternion (Leader and 2 Grunts)
Kossite Woodsmen (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Kossite Woodsmen (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts)
Manhunter
Manhunter
Yuri the Axe
With me winning the roll-off
(needing my tier bonus to do so) I opted to take the first turn. I set up
fairly wide knowing that the Kossites can take me by surprise so I tried to
counter that at the first opportunity by placing the smaller unit of Errants on
my right and the larger unit on my left. The jacks and Zealots were all fairly central
hoping to take advantage of pathfinder in the first turn.
Marcus setup in a large
cluster behind the control zone on his table half with the Widowmakers, making
use of a small forest, facing my right and the Yuri led Manhunters just ahead
of the zone.
TURN 1
This saw nothing but a
general advance towards the Khador line. Both Reckoners setting themselves up
in a forest with everything a little bit behind them.
Marcus moved his jack comfortably
into the control zone and spread the Greylords out a bit more. The Greylords
laid down some more cloud effects (to add to those already in play from the
Tier bonus) while the Widowmakers needle the Sanctifier for a four points of
damage. Yuri made his intentions clear when he charged one of my Reckoners and
took out it’s cortex.
TURN 2
My left-hand Errants pushed
on up to the Murder of Crows cloud and tried to shoot around it to no avail.
The cortex-less Reckoner took a swing at Yuri and failed so the other one
stepped up to get rid of him. My big unit of Zealots then pushed forward to
throw bombs not doing much except for killing a Mechanic and putting two points
of damage on OW. The rest of my turn was a non-event.
This is the turn where I felt
things slip slightly out of my grasp. Marcus brought on a unit of Kossites on either
edge and they both had an immediate effect. Between them they took down eight
Errants and at least one Zealot. Scrapjack did what he does best and that was
cause utter carnage and carve his way towards Vindy. He did get a decent hit in
but couldn’t do enough to kill. Spriggan and a Manhunter charged into a Reckoner
(the one with a cortex), doing a chunk of damage, but not taking out any
systems. Kodiak pushed his way through a wall of Errants and Zealots, crushing
a few heads along the way. The other Manhunter attempted to charge the
cortex-less Reckoner but couldn’t physically squeeze between two Zealots. Finally,
OW moved to a slightly better position and feated.
TURN 3
Under OW’s feat, there was
not a lot that I could do. On the right side of the board, the remaining
Errants and Zealots killed four Kossites causing them to fail a command check.
The Sanctifier, fully souled up and given a prayer by a choirboy, smashed
Scrappy around until he stopped moving (which always brings a smile to my
face). After that I went to move the Mechanik to try and heal the cortex-less
Reckoner, but I forgot about the feat meaning he died before he could do
anything. The Reckoners both stood still and thrashed their huge sticks around.
The mindless Reckoner did nothing while the other put down a fair bit of damage
on the Spriggan. Zealots tried to get some cheeky scatter but didn’t do
anything of note.
Marcus started of his turn
with those silly Kossites to my left and they picked off a few more Errants and
Zealots. Spriggan lay the smack down on the Reckoner that hurt it in the last
turn. The Widowmakers moved towards a cloud and needled the Sanctifier for a
couple more points. Kodiak managed to get his chain attack off and threw one Reckoner
into the other which was quite effective.
TURN 4
With things looking bleak for
me, it was to go out swinging. The last couple of Errants on my left charged
the Kodiak for a bit more damage. Then my Zealots went to throw some bombs at
Spriggan for a few points of damage. Two Widowmakers fell to the crossbows of
the Errants to my right, but they made their command check. It was up to my
Sanctifier to take Spriggan down, and he duly obliged. I then moved Vindy
closer to the action but not doing anything with him.
Now because I moved Vindy
further into the battle, Marcus got inspired. All he needed to do was clear
Kodiak’s path so he could launch him into my caster. Between Kossites and
Greylords, Marcus did this and charged into Vindy. Fortunately for me Vindy was
DEF 17 and ARM 22 at this point, so he survived the worst. The Destroyer moved
up a little closer and, more importantly, moved in front of OW knowing that the
Sanctifier knew where she was hiding.
TURN 5
There wasn’t much for me to
do at this point except go mad. I managed to drop a Manhunter with a Zealot bomb
while the remaining Errants crossbowed a couple of Greylords. The Sanctifier
charged into the Destroyer taking out it’s axe and cortex amongst all the
damage caused. Lastly it was down to Vindictus, the second most important man in
the Church. He hit with both initials and boosted the damage. With the last two
Focus, I decided to go for it and bought another hit with boosted damage. All
of this was enough to take out both arms. Menoth was smiling on Vindy.
The Kossites coming in from
the left charged the last of the Zealots in their path which enabled the last
Manhunter to charge Vindy. Thankfully she failed to damage him any further.
Kodiak tried to beat on Vindy, but with both arms out of action (because the
Mechanics didn’t have any success in fixing him), nothing was happening. Kodiak
did however attempt to head-butt Vindy and failed. The Greylords moved into
action and combined to Ice Cage the Sanctifier, making him stationary.
TURN 6
So Vindy survived. I started
the turn by dropping another Widowmaker. The Sanctifier shook off his
stationary state and totalled the Destroyer. My last activation needed me to
break Kodiak into pieces and hope for the best in the net turn. Vindy did the
same as the previous turn and boosted the damage on his initial attacks and
buying a third with boosted damage also. I’m not sure how many boxes were left,
but Vindy fluffed enough to get worried.
OW moved away from the
Sanctifier to relative safety. Then the Battle Mechanics got Kodiak fully
functioning again which proved to be the end of things. There was no way Vindy
could survive this onslaught. Marcus wins by caster kill.
Such an epic game in the end,
we were both fairly exhausted by the end of it. I just cannot believe it had
been a year since I played Marcus, but the wait was worth it. If Vindy had
managed to hang on for another turn, things might have looked better for me. Both
Tier lists were incredible in terms of what they added to the game with my
pathfinder and jack AD and Yuri at no cost and stealth and pathfinder and
upkeeps for the first turn.
The Kossite Woodsmen were the
stars of the game with all the worry they caused me on top of all the Menites
they killed. The way they hemmed me in meant there weren’t many safe hiding
places. On my side, the Sanctifier stood out, (admittedly with a choirboy
behind him) put the finishing touches to Scrappy, Spriggan and the Destroyer
which was pleasing. I am really glad that I bought one last year.
What would I have done
differently if I got to play this game again? I would probably have dropped the
minimum unit of Zealots for one Errant Seneschal and a second choir (minimum
unit, they are a cheaper option for Sacrificial Lamb) or simply two Errant
Seneschals. Having at least one of them on the table could have afforded me a
little more option with Hunter allowing me to do some more damage. I might have
tried a bit harder to limit Scrappy when he is on an Avatar of Slaughter run.
But most importantly, I should have been less worried about the incoming
Kossites as they really did occupy my mind, until they came on. In the end I
couldn’t do anything about the hurt they caused me.
This list is something that I’ve
wanted to try for a while now and am happy that it kind of works. I hope to
take this out again at some point in the near future. However, the next list to
get given a run out will be Intercessor Kreoss. He was one of my holiday
presents this time around (along with a unit of Vengers and a Judicator) so he
won’t be painted just yet. The interesting thing about this is that, apart from
High Exemplar Gravus and Fane Knight Skerryth – neither of whom I used to their
full horsey potential) I have never used cavalry before in any of my games, so
this upcoming game against Venethrax (I am 0-2 against this guy) should prove
to be a lot of fun.