EPIC! Kreoss, EPIC! Doomy, EPIC! Feats, EPIC! game.

The preparations for Tourney season carried on against Cal and a formidable beast heavy list.

(EPIC!) Hoarluk Doomshaper, Rage of Dhunia
* Pyre Troll
* Troll Axer
* Dire Troll Mauler
* Earthborn Dire Troll
* Mulg the Ancient
* Trollkin Runebearer
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew)
Janissa Stonetide
Troll Whelps
Troll Whelps

Reinforcements:

Trollkin Scouts (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Trollkin Scouts (Leader and 5 Grunts)

I was originally going to take eFeora to give her her debut but Dark Sphere didn’t have the model for me to buy (or that I didn’t think her list would pack enough punch against what was likely to be a beast heavy list). So I went with a variation of my eKreoss list:

Grand Exemplar (EPIC!) Kreoss
* Fire of Salvation
Daughters of the Flame (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Exemplar Bastions (Leader and 4 Grunts)

Exemplar Errants (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Exemplar Errant Officer & Standard Bearer
Knights Exemplar (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Knights Exemplar (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Visgoth Juviah Rhoven & 2 Honor Guard
Exemplar Errant Seneschal
High Exemplar Gravus
Knight Exemplar Seneschal
Knight Exemplar Seneschal

Reinforcements:

Flameguard Cleansers (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Flameguard Cleanser Officer

We drew up the scenario for the game which was Outflank, Outfight and Outflank with Reinforcements. Neither Cal nor I had gotten to use the Reinforcement rule yet so this was going to be a lot of fun.

Cal won the roll-off and decided to go first. eDoomy sat in the centre flanked by Troll Moses and Janissa with the Runeshapers in front. Cal placed the Mauler, Mulg and the Pyre facing my right flank and the Earthborn and Axer facing my left.

I set up with a front line of Bastions and both units of Knights (the Knights looking to make an early claim for the right hand control zone). eKreoss, FoS, Rhoven and Co and both Knight Sennys standing behind. The Errants, Errant Senny and Daughters Advance Deployed near the forest looking to take the left hand control zone.

Turn1

Cal ran everything forward as one with the exception of Doomy who threw Wild Aggression on the Earthborn and Refuge on the Pyre.

Kreoss goes first and puts Inviolable Resolve and Sacrosanct on the Knights (I forgot to use their Advance Move, probably just as well). Both sets of Knights run forward towards the control zone just about getting a toe in. The Bastions also run forward to try and clog up the middle of the field. The Daughters drift in from the left to the centre to see what the Runeshapers would do, While the Errants got cosy in the forest contesting the zone.

Turn 2

The fun began when Cal brought on his reinforcements. The first Scout unit deployed at the front of the reinforcement deployment zone, with the second unit just behind them. The first unit activated and Assaulted the Errants and made quite a big dent in their numbers (six Errants kicked the bucket), while the second Scout unit moved up in support. Cal’s next action was to get Moses to use Harmonious Exaltation on Doomy who had upkept his spells and feated. The Runeshapers move forward and try to blast the Daughters but can only kill one. The Earthborn, who had Rush cast on him by Doomy, charges into the Bastions taking three down, leaving the remaining two on one wound each. The Axer follows suit and threshers three Daughters. Having seen what was happening on the other side of the table, the Mauler decided to get in on the action and charge the Knights. This charge, thankfully, failed by the closest of margins. Mulg moved closer to the Control Zone and Janissa threw down a Rock Wall in front of the Pyre and Mulg. The Pyre also tried to Spew at the Knights but couldn’t cause any harm or make the fire stick due to eKreoss’ Elite Cadre: Aegis.

After a big turn from Cal, it was time for a big turn from me. I brought on my Reinforcements and deployed them as far as they could go. Kreoss kicked things off allocating one Focus to FoS and upkeeping his upkeeps. He moved forward and then feated (everybody auto-hits and get an extra attack each) keeping hold of the rest of his Focus. I started with the Bastions and charged the Axer. Credit goes to the Axer for staying alive on two points after four Weapon Master attacks. One of my Knights Senny (now with STR buff for Menites dying nearby) charged the Earthborn getting off his Chain Attack. This caused a lot of damage. Gravus (full up with souls of fallen Menites – love that double dipping) charged in and finished off the Earthborn. Rhoven moved up with his Honor Guard and used Negation to take a point of Fury away from the Axer (not that it made much difference to Doomy). The Errants struck back at the Scouts killing three from the closest unit and two from the other, their Quick Work ability not working to full effect). The two remaining Daughters ran past the Axer and took on the Runeshapers taking killing two with a total of six attacks. I tried to squeeze as many Knights around the Mauler as I could but failed as I so very nearly killed the big troll. In the end, the Cleansers had to pitch in with their sprays to kill the Mauler.

Turn 3

Cal started off with the easy bit and got his scouts to finish off the Errants and gain the first control point of the game (we both thought that I had score the first but after looking at the wording in the Steamroller pack, I only contested the zone as I had less than half the Errants in the zone). The Axer, who still had Wild Aggression upkept, then managed to kill the Knight Senny in front of him. Fortunately, Cal forgot about Restoration so the Senny came back after some nearby Knights were killed. The last Runeshaper ignored the Daughters in front of him and tried in vain to kill a Knight. Janissa showed him how it was done by killing two (and not getting knocked down from Sacrosanct like we thought as she was Steady). The Pyre activated next and knowing he was going to do didly-squat to the Knights, he gave his animus to Mulg to make him hit far harder than he should (in my opinion anyway). Mulg then did what he does best and SMASH!!! He took out a handful of Knights to clear some space.

Time for me to get a bit of a move on before I was wiped out by Mulg so I kicked off with Rhoven who got his Guard to charge the Axer to finally finish it off. Gravus gets a charge in on the Scouts and kills three, clearing the control zone as a result (I would score my first point at the end of the turn). I then charge one of the Daughters into Troll Moses while the other stays engaged with the Runeshaper. Unfortunately, they are unable to kill either Troll. The Knights then get charges in on the Pyre and the Whelp that is standing right next to Mulg. The Whelp dies, but the Pyre hangs on with a few points left. I then get the other Knight Senny at Mulg. Both initial attacks hit but I then fail with the Combo: Smite attack. Finally I bring in the Cleansers to start spraying Mulg, careful not to hit my guys. They pile on a bit more damage.

Turn 4 (queue missing pic for Cal's turn 4)

With both Mulg and the Pyre maxed out on Fury, Cal has to decide which beast is going to frenzy. He goes for Pyre who has the most uninspiring frenzy and fails to kill what’s in front of him. The Scouts make charge moves at the Errant Senny and Gravus. The Senny stands unscathed while Gravus only suffers five points of damage. Moses uses Harmonious Exaltation on Doomy who pimps his friend Mulg with Wild Aggression and the Pyre’s Flame Fists. This does not look good for FoS. Janissa then uses Tectonic Shift and moves both Daughters and the two Knights engaging the Pyre towards my table edge. Then Mulg goes for it. He Threshers both the FoS and the Knight Senny, causing FoS to lose two columns and kills the Senny. This activates FoS’s Righteous Vengeance. FoS moves in and whacks Mulg. Because of his Affinity with Kreoss, his weapons have Dispel meaning Mulg is now just normal Mulg. Mulg carries on buying attacks and leaves FoS with only his left arm (Open Fist) in working order.

The Knights Senny, Errant Senny and Gravus combine to kill three out of the four Scouts left on the board, the last one contesting the control zone. The Daughters finish off Moses and puts a few points of damage on Janissa. FoS gets a hit on Mulg causing a few points. The Knights charge the last Runeshaper (killing him), Mulg (more damage) and Doomy (left with only a few points but still with a couple of transfers). I then get the Cleansers to activate and half start spraying Mulg taking a few points at a time until they kill him and the rest spray Doomy with the same result.

The negative streak ends after an EPIC three and a bit hour, four turn game. I really enjoyed using reinforcements, they really changed the game. Cal’s choice of two units of Scouts was genius, coming on and making sure that things died with their Assault moves made my trusty Errants look quite flimsy. My Cleansers made quite an impact too. It had been a while since I last used them and enjoyed the extra dimension that the Officer (just purchased hours before the game) lent to them. My feat turn would not have been quite as devastating as it was if the charge of the Mauler had not failed, the Cleansers and others would have had to work that little bit harder. Everything in my list worked quite well. The Daughters get special mention despite losing four very early, they didn’t need to use Anatomical Precision that much to take down Cal’s support. The best thing about Rhoven was not his abilities which are quite situational at times, but it was his guard. Two MAT 8 Weapon Masters!!! If something needs to be taken down, Cassian and Gius can really make sure it is either done or make it easier for others to finish off. Kreoss was safe and FoS wasn’t really in any position to cause much harm, although he saved himself with his Dispel attack on Mulg.

All in all, I’m satisfied with my eKreoss list and not sure if I should change it to accommodate for a second unit of Daughters or not. I may not get to much time to test this out as I really should begin working with Feora (p or e) and Vindictus.

At last...!

I have been incredibly lazy and neglected this blog. Time to give some news, so here goes:


• I played my first few games of Hordes this year starting with a couple of demo games using my Trolls against Bill (with the Great Oli overseeing the whole thing) and a cracking game with my Skorne against Jaden and his Legion. These game were a lot of fun (which game isn’t?), especially getting used to Fury rather than Focus. The game against Jaden taught me a bit more about my Trolls than my Trolls did. For this I took maximum units of Cetrati and Arcuraii which was a lot of medium bases tripping over each other. I saw the kind of headache that I could experience with fielding a similar or larger number of medium based Trolls.
• I bought my ticket for the European Team Championships at Maelstrom Games in early July. I am so excited about this event. Hearing about last years tourney made sure that I bought my ticket very early. My team mates have appointed me as team captain of CGC’s second team. Now with my win ratio, I can’t promise that I’ll lead from the front or even inspire, but I hope that we can all go up to Mansfield and have a great weekend.
• For the first time ever, I bought a mini (two actually) because my wife liked the look of them. Some wives turn their noses up at tabletop gaming and just ignore it. But after giving her a demo game (which incidentally took a long, long time – she should stick to art history), she started to look at the type of minis I have from various factions. Nothing really appealed to her so I showed her some Maelstroms’ website and let her browse. While I was doing to washing up I hear a squeal of delight. “Oh look! A polar bear! I want it!” (this is true word for word). Of course the bear in question is Lug and his friend, the Lesser Warlock Brun Cragback. After looking at Battle College, I thought that this would be a nice addition to my Troll force as they could do with a heavy beast (I could have done with an Earthborn or a Blitzer personally). Brun is a mean little bugger and his bear is pretty good himself.
• CGC had a little one mini tourney – Iron Cross. 12 players, 4 games, 9 minute turns but only 1 wooden spoon (erm…). This was an immensely fun day and hope to take part in something similar later in the year.
• I took some advice concerning dice.

There was some news highlights which will hopefully see me kicking my own arse and putting up some more entries. The next (while it’s still fresh in my mind) is me vs Lewis from 22/03/11.

General impression and self (loathing) assessment.

The whole event was very good, very friendly and very relaxed. This was made even more so as there were only twelve players. I thought it was nice with all the banter and just hanging around other game tables while you were waiting for your opponent to come back from the loo or grabbing a cuppa. The venue itself is a great space and I can only imagine it when there are lots more games going on (especially from what I heard about the European Team Championships a couple of months back).

The journey up to Mansfield wasn’t that bad and got to my hotel ok. The hotel itself was tidy, if a little noisy and was within walking distance to The Eye of the Storm (it took just about twelve minutes and not the five minutes that Maelstrom stated in their tournament pack). The main thing was that they made good on their promise of “as much tea and coffee as you can drink”.
All in all it was a good time and I will go to another weekender.

Now for the self assessment.

My record stood at P6 W0 D2 L4. This placed me at the foot of the table and secured me the Wooden Spoon, although I missed out on 11th place by a mere 800 or so points. I cannot whinge about anything that happened to me over the weekend (apart from record numbers of Tough rolls being made) as I was my own worst enemy most of the time. Each overall performance might not have been anything to write home about, but there were few individual efforts that were praiseworthy. I’ll just review each model/unit briefly:

Errant Seneschal – Granted Hunter which came in useful occasionally but I didn’t really make the best of his abilities.
Vassal Mechanik – Was called into action three times (I think) to heal my ‘jacks before he was taken down nearly every game. Out of those three times, he past his skill check just once healing a solitary point. This happened to give the FoS back it’s movement.
Vassal – Did his job frequently mostly with Ancillary Attack, although the extra effort was frequently wasted.
Choir – Did what they do best and give their buffs, although in the later (especially the last game) I inexplicably started to activate them after the ‘jacks.
Errants with UA – Mostly performed well but fell victim to my deployment. I kept putting them straight in to the frontline, and therefore, into danger. I probably could have eased them into the fray on the extreme flank and kept them safer. I know I didn’t always have to put them Advance Deploy them so far forward.
Bastions – Took a lot of damage and kept standing a lot of the time, which is what they were designed to do. I failed to utilise them in capturing Control Points/Objectives and also forgot that their weapons are Blessed (this fact would have helped clear one side of the table in my game against Tom and his Khador). I mostly had them trailing behind the intrepid Zealots.
Zealots – had a lot of fun with these guys as always, whether they were dealing death to the enemy or themselves. Their highlight was dealing a lot of damage to eMadrak. Used these as a frontline unit to hopefully soften up the enemy for the Bastions.
Monolith Bearer – Was good for giving +4 ARM with Holy Monolith, but usually used Greater Destiny a turn too late.
Devout – Stayed very close to Kreoss and was never destroyed. Didn’t really stop Kreoss from being smooshed (there is only so much damage a Devout is allowed to take) as my positioning was not all that.
Vanquisher – Rained down fiery death which is good. I didn’t take advantage of the Thresher attack from it’s Blazing Star in combat. I mostly preferred to shoot rather that fight which is sad as the Vanq can be really durable.
Fire of Salvation – Kreoss’ eager puppy fully loaded with Focus can be a scary thing, ask Beast 09. Using a point of Focus to activate the Imprint giving boosted attack rolls and use to rest to boost damage rolls is utterly devastating. Alas, I was not aggressive enough with him. With Defenders Ward (making him DEF 12 ARM 21) and a choir singing the hymn of Shielding, he should have been the first (and last) thing that the enemy saw. I also forgot that the FoS’ weapons have Dispel, which could have been useful a few times.
Kreoss - was handy for Defenders Ward and Lamentation. Used Purification only once, but probably could have used it more. His positioning could and should have been a lot better, (the first couple of games he was too far away to allocate focus on the FoS).
Painting – I’m not really a painter which showed, but did enough to heave everything looking cohesive if not fully based and painted.

I really started to get fatigued and it showed in the last game. I forgot my synergies a lot of the time and could have helped myself a lot more. I still need to sit down and read everything properly and work things out.

Scrap Metal game results.

The first game of the weekend was against Rob and his Seaforge Commission. I enjoyed seeing an all Dwarf army, even though it broke all my preconceptions concerning their slowness. The scenario for this game was Revelation, which involved capturing control banners on the halfway line on the field. I lost the dice off (the first of five failed rolls in all six games), I think Rob went for the Defenders role (his Seaforge could in fact extend their Deployment Zone, which put them closer to the Control banners). Rob took a fairly ‘jack heavy army with three Blasters (total nuisances) with a good choice in troops. All this led by Gorten Grundback. The game itself saw my Zealots rushing straight to the Dwarven front line only to wonderfully implode by having a few bombs scatter into their own ranks (they wouldn’t be fun to use if they didn’t do stupid things like this). The Errants ended up being shot to pieces right at the start, while the Bastions fared far better with their durability. Everything else got caught up in a wall of ‘jacks being very ably assisted by Lord Rockbottom and Thor Steinhammer trying to get at an extremely evasive Gorten. Rob looked to win by scenario (he cleared me away from both control banners), but went for caster kill to rack up a very high score.
Next up was Andy and his Circle. Here, again was a nicely painted set of warbeasts led by pKreuger. This time the scenario was Close Quarters which involved taking to Control Zones. My Errants had a good time taking on the Bloodtrackers before taking a Warp Wolf and a Pureblood close to their deaths. Kreuger stayed too far away to even think about damaging and his feat really hurt my hopes of moving forward to capture either of the control zones. The Bastions did their best to try and control one of the zones but Andy had scored the more control points than I did by that time.
In the last game on Saturday, I faced Dill and his Trollbloods led by eMadrak. A lot of the killing was being done by three Impalers and a unit of Troll champions which tore through my line with alarming speed. This scenario, Kill Box, turned out to be just a standard (but bloody – Menoth blood sadly) ‘caster kill. Zealots almost took the glory and went for ‘caster kill and dealt some damage, but Madrak was left standing with 8 points left. Kreoss was killed by Impalers.

Sunday’s first game I was pitted in a game of Capture the Flag. My opponent Tom took Khador led by eSorscha and a wonderfully posed Beast. Things were going well to start with, the Fire of Salvation (loaded up with four Focus) made straight for Beast in the third turn and turned it to junk. As the game wore on I found my situation getting a little more desperate. Fortunately for me, we ran out of time to play another turn and ended with a draw. If we had I surely would have lost the game by scenario.

Game 5 was against Craig and yet more Trollbloods led this time by pMadrak. Craig could have won in the first turn as I didn’t follow the scenario (Process of Elimination) properly. I hadn’t placed my Zealots in one of the Control Zones properly and were subsequently cleared from the Zone. As that would have meant that the game was over right there and then, Craig let the game go on. I wish he hadn’t as everything went wrong (including Craig making 7 consecutive tough rolls). My ‘jacks were taken down by a couple of Impalers and some Troll champions. The Errants ran away from Pygmies and during Madrak’s feat turn the Earthborn went to town on my entire force. Kreoss fell yet again to Impalers. I had scored my lowest total of battle points so far.

The final game of the weekend was against Dan and some more Mercenaries, this time from the Highborn Covenant. Without me paying attention to Dan pointing out what everything in hiss force was and what they do, I soon lost the plot. My Errants got tied up by chaff consisting of a unit of Press Gangers (who also happened to be very successful with their Tough rolls) and Zombies. The rest of the force were engaged by more Press Gangers and Pistol Mages. I started to get things totally wrong, and Dan very helpfully (and extremely kindly) stepped in and made some suggestions. Without these hints, I would have lost any ability to destroy Dan’s Objective Markers instead of drawing.

Self assessment will follow as soon as I have got over how lame I was.