As the start of the game was a little delayed whilst I waited for Danny I had a rummage through the club scenery and found some smaller terrain templates. I love scenery on a board but find the standard large woods and hills are too restrictive for Warmachine. Using the smaller pieces of terrain we were able to get 7 pieces of terrain on the tabletop that I felt had a really positive effect on the game but without becoming restrictive.
Anson Durst, Rock of the Faith vs. Hoarluk Doomshaper, Rage of Dhunia (Trollbloods)
Loss: Assassination (Scenario - 1/0) This list is based on my findings from the weekends 35 point games, it includes a lot of infantry with a colossal and pair of heavies to do any heavy lifting. I'd also learnt over the weekend to be much more aggressive turn 1 so this was a good occasion to test the theory.
Going first (and following the plan) I ran everything up turn one. Despite little shooting I threw up deflection just in case to protect my support troops and some of the Temple Flameguard. This was pretty much mirrored by Trollblood turn one where everything moved up and his caster hid behind a wood with an Axer.
Turn 2 and clearly Mulg was fancying his chances against the colossal so I was going to have to be careful. To this end the Zealots moved up to create a loose screen, they also mini feated and bombed a few Fennblades and waited for the inevitable counter charge. The Reckoner received Enliven and walked forward in front of Stompy to take the charge from Mulg. Stompy moved forward and fired off rockets at a few targets. With the exception of causing a few points of damage to Doomy (and allowing Mulg a free movement) this was ineffectual. On the left the Flameguard received Dirge of Mists from the piper and moved up in shield wall ready to take a charge from the Champions (Def16/Arm17 should be enough). Durst moved up to the objective with his pet Reckoner and sacrificed his action to stance.
Troll turn 2 started with Doomy blasting a single Zealot with a spell to clear the path. Mulg then charged the Reckoner, hoping for a critical smite to knock it down and stop Enliven. He failed the smite but trashed his movement (14 boxes gone from one hit), but still he could Enliven to safety. Elsewhere the charging Champions killed a single Flameguard, the Fennblades ran in to pin all of the Zealots but could do no damage due to the minifeat. The heros of the turn were the Pyg Burrowers who popped up and trashed 95% of the objective and around 20 boxes on poor Stompy!
So the plan for turn three was to feat, kill Mulg and setup a defensive line ready to do a massive counter attack turn 4. The important part was Mulg so I walked in the battle'd Reckoner and he went to town on Mulg. Causing straight dice damage and having 4 hits I nealy felled the beast, having to use an Ancillary attack to finish him off. He came back via a Feralgeist but i wasn't to bothered, the hard part was done. The Zealots brought down a few Fennblades and continued to jam the flag. On the other flank the Flameguard speared 2 Champions and damaged and set fire to the rest. Stompy then shot point blank at the Pygs in front of him killing 6 leaving just 4 left. The Reckoner next to Durst smashed a Pyg and Durst feated and killed the other Pyg creating an ash cloud in front of him. What I should have done was stanced with Durst which would have completely changed the game.
Troll turn 3 and the assassination was on, I was fairly smug at first thinking that any damage to Durst could be passed onto the Reckoner. Equally whilst they were base to base Durst was effectively Arm19, Def17 vs combat and Def15 vs Shooting - so I thought highly survivable. I also got confused between his feat, Wall of Steel and his stance. I believed that the first 2 meant that he couldn't be knocked down or moved and neither could anyone in base contact. Sadly this is only the case with his paladin stance. So in charged the Mauler (POW19 thanks to the free animus), it slammed the Reckoner knocking it back and out of base to base with Durst. Durst was then knocked down as it passed over him. The Mauler then bought 4 attacks on Durst with damage at straight dice killing him in 3 strikes (no spikes as average rolls would have been 28 damage points from 4 attacks)
Te final positions:
Lessons Learnt -
- More scenery (but smaller) makes for a more enjoyable playing experience as it really starts to come into play.
- Durst is a beast in combat and pretty dam solid but a charging heavy will always kill a caster.
- Stancing is very important and unless there's a reason I can't then it must be done every turn, just in case!
- I really like this list and I'm looking forward to trying it out again next week!
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