Monday, November 19, 2012

Calandra vs pGrim: a Troll-on-Troll grudgematch

I played a rather brutal 15pt game against my friend Ben this weekend (the very same Merc player whose Kayazy were firmly trounced in pGrexy's post earlier), and he wanted to give Trollbloods a shot. He's quite experienced with his Mercs (my intense and seething hatred of Gorman di Wulfe and Aiyana & Holt is solely due to his quite masterful use of them), but this is his first foray into the Fury realm, so we kept it down to 15pts and I put together 2 simple lists.

Ben's List:
Grim Angus (*6pts)
* Slag Troll (6pts)
* Troll Impaler (5pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)

My List:
Calandra Truthsayer, Oracle of the Glimmerwood (*5pts)
* Pyre Troll (5pts)
* Troll Impaler (5pts)
* Dire Troll Bomber (10pts)

Pretty straightforward lists, and I slapped them together quick. They seem fairly basic and balanced, with the Calandra list a little more ranged and the Grim list a bit more melee, but they've got a decent mix of both. I would also say that the Grim list is simply stronger, as the Slag is a stronger second-string hitter than the Pyre, the Impaler's animus really helps Grim, and the Earthborn/Grim's gun ability make it a lot faster than the Calandra list. It can't, however, deal as well with attrition, which is something that Calandra simply excels at.

Deployment:
The board was pretty open, but with a few large forests scattered on mine and Ben's left respectively. There was a large hill on my right, and a hedge (we treated it as a wall) and pool of water across from it on his side -- less than 3 inches apart. I immediately noticed that this gave the Earthborn a practically tailor made spot to sit with +2 DEF and ARM and wait to pounce while Grim forced me to close by shooting from behind the cushy wall. Ben won the roll, decided to second, and chose the side with the wall/water... crap.

My only hope was to use the hill on my side to tempt him out from cover; +2 DEF and 3 12" range (with Far Strike) beasts wasn't great vs Grim, but it gave me a shot. I deployed the Pyre, Bomber, Calandra, and Impaler in a line in front of the hill.

I'm not sure if my deployment spooked him or he just wasn't all that aware of the tactical opportunities (I'd pointed them out to him, but he decided to deploy to my left near a forest. I could see the possibilities from the forest-speed-boost, and immediately began suspecting shenanigans....

Turn 1: Calandra
Without much else to do, I ran the Bomber and Pyre up on my left onto the hill (pyre behind the bomber slightly); had Calandra put Bullet Dodger on herself, cast Star Crossed, and charge the (far distant) enemy Impaler to get her onto the hill next to the bomber, and ran the Impaler forward on her right.

Turn 1: Grim
The Earthborn put his animus onto Grim (since we reasoned that Grim had to start his turn next to terrain while effected by Elemental Communion for the benefit to work) and then trampled almost straight forward. Grim activated and made straight for the wall (having apparently realized it's tasty benefits) and dumped fury to accommodate. The Slag ran up next to the wall (about 17" from my bomber), and the Impaler ran over to a few inches on my right of Grim.

Turn 2: Calandra
Kind of a strange re-positioning, but I can work with that. The Impaler cast his animus onto the Bomber and moved up an inch or so for a better shot when the enemy beasts got closer. Just for the heck of it, the Bomber took aim at the Slag (still well over 16" away) and let loose -- the shot missed (it was 4" short, after all) but then scattered just enough to tap the slag! Lucky throw, thinks I... and then boosted damage comes up three 6's. 9 damage to the Slag from 16" away. That was all kinds of awesome!

The second shot goes wide and does nothing. Too much to hope for, I suppose, but after that first one.... With not much else to do, Calandra shuffled sideways a little, cast Star Crossed, and waited. The pyre, seeing where the threat really was, booked it around Calandra to stand in front of her and next to the Bomber, giving her a nice little wall.

Turn 2: Grim
The Earthborn decided now was the time to get in the fight; he barreled across the field to stand a little in front of Grim (and next to that lovely +2 DEF pond...) and well within charge range of me for next turn. Grim's Impaler moved up, put his animus on himself, and took a shot at Calandra's Impaler, declaring there can be only one. He missed. Grim put the Impaler's animus on himself and the Slag (uh oh) and shot the Pyre troll handily for 6 points of damage. The Slag moved up and tried the same tactic, but handily missed.

Turn 3: Calandra
Somehow, my plan to draw him in appeared to be working. The Pyre troll put his animus onto the Bomber, and moved a bit out of the way (forward and off the hill, so as to block access to Calandra) and, for the heck of it, took a shot at the Earthborn - it hit and put the bugger on continuous fire, but no other damage. Calandra then moved forward, popped her feat, cast Star Crossed, and hit the Earthborn with Befuddle, moving him up 3" and turning him around. The Bomber promptly charged it and beat it within an inch of it's life (4 hit boxes remaining, all in the body). For some reason I thought this was good enough, and had the Impaler take a shot at Grim's Impaler - I hit, and did a few points of damage. Things were looking up, but I was slightly over-extended on fury for next turn.

Turn 3: Grim
Oh right, Trolls. Grim spent 2 fury to heal up the Earthborn (one in spirit, one in mind), took a shot at the pyre troll (furthering his goal to slowly nip away hit boxes), and counter-feated. The Slag put his animus on the Earthborn and took a shot at the poor Pyre, wounding him again. The Impaler then moved up to beside the Earthborn (opposite the Bomber) and took a shot at Calandra's Impaler (it missed). The Earthborn then turned around (facing both the Impaler and Bomber), grabbed the POW from the Impaler's spear (that was a neat trick, going to have to remember that...), and beat the Bomber to death with it. Handily. In 4 hits.

Turn 4: Calandra
Craaaaaaaaaap. That went pear shaped right quick. I dropped Bullet Dodger (it was going to get hairy, and she needed the extra fury), activated the Impaler, moved it up it's movement-reduced 2 inches, and (thanks to reach) killed the Earthborn and nicked up the opposing Impaler slightly. The Pyre (barely alive) took a shot at the slag and did some damage for the heck of it, and then repositioned as much as he could to keep the slag off my warlock. Calandra cast star crossed (duh) and sat on 4 fury, expecting trouble.

Turn 4: Grim
The Slag charged and made short work of the Pyre troll, and the Impalers continued their pointless game of furious slapping at each other to no success. Grim put the Impaler's animus on himself, sighted in, and pegged Calandra for 8 points of damage -- the Impaler was full on Fury, and the Pyre had been her only transfer-eligible beastie. Uh-oh....

Turn 5: Calandra
Not wanting to be outdone, Calandra charged the Slag troll, using the bonus-dice-vs-wounded-models aspect of her knife to shank the little jerk to death. She put up Star Crossed again, but with only one beast left it was going to be tricky to keep her from dying. The Impaler smacked it's opposite number again, without killing it.

Turn 5: Grim
This turn went pretty fast: Grim failed to knock Calandra down with his fancy shot, and the enemy Impaler moved up and brought her down to 1 hit point.

Turn 6: Calandra
Calandra finished off the enemy Impaler (finally), and her Impaler moved up to hit Grim a few times, managing to force a tough roll on him and lock him in place (I hoped) to prevent him from getting to Calandra.

Turn 6: Grim
Grim was seriously hurting here: low on fury, low on health, and cornered by an angry beast. He managed to make the most of it, nimbly avoiding a free strick to move backwards and take a shot at Calandra -- he missed!

Turn 7: Calandra
The slugfest continued! The Impaler charged Grim, missing him once or twice and scoring a small hit on him, but failing to wound him. Calandra sensed an opportunity, and charged in herself, dealing a pretty fatal blow to Grim -- who aced his Tough roll!

Turn 7: Grim
Grim calmly stood up, brushed himself off, and beat the crap out of Calandra with his Tough-Roll-Denial melee gun stock. Victory to Grim!!


Thoughts:

Holy crap this game turned into one epic attrition game in the end. Trolls vs Trolls means we were both going to be hard to kill, but this was just ridiculous. At the end of the game, the Impaler had 1 hit box in each aspect, and Calandra and Grim each had only a single apiece (AND Grim made a tough roll!). I made a mistake early on by not finishing off the Earthborn, but I saved myself by tying up his beasts with mine for 2 turns there. All in all, we both played a good game, and it was a nice intro to Trollbloods for my crafty opponent.

Side Note: I'm writing the last few turns of this report a over a week after the actual game - my memory is a bit fuzzy, but this is the best I can remember of what happened. Ben, you may want to correct me if I messed up a turn or two there...

1 comment:

  1. By the way, a traditional Tooth & Claw/Mangled Metal game ends when one person loses all their beasts/jacks. So you would have won on turn 6.

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