I played a very fun game this last weekend against Ben and his Mercs, and asked Ben if he wanted to write up the Battle Report, which he did! 35pt Mercs (Four Star) vs Trollbloods, a'la Ben:
Drake MacBain (*6pts)
* Buccaneer (3pts)
* Nomad (6pts)
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker (2pts)
Kayazy Assassins (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Kayazy Assassin Underboss (2pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts)
Alexia, Mistress of the Witchfire (4pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Ogrun Bokur (3pts)
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord (2pts)
Saxon Orrik (2pts)
Caleb's List
Grim Angus (*6pts)
* Troll Impaler (5pts)
* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
Pyg Bushwackers (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer (2pts)
Stone Scribe Chronicler (2pts)
Scenario
Mosh Pit (start of turn 3, if you’re the only one with dudes in the big
central circle, win)
Relevant Scenery and Deployment,
L to R
Left: Who cares? Nobody went
here.
Center: Wheat field
(concealment) right in the middle of the mosh pit. Fennblades/SSC and
Kayazy/Rhupert/Saxon/Gorman stared each other down.
Right: Largish forest on the
Troll side. Grim and beasts were just
left of the forest, Bushwhackers AD directly behind. Largish hill on the Merc side. Drake and jacks just behind the leftmost part
of the hill, solos mostly on the far right.
Grim Turn 1
Trolls mostly ran. Except Grim,
cast Cross Country on the Bushwhackers and Return Fire on himself before
strolling calmly forward behind a wall of Fennblades and Dire Trolls. Little did he know that his lack of haste
would come back to haunt him. The
Bushwhackers moved up into the forest, the Mauler and Earthborn skirted its
edge, and the Fenns stomped up the middle.
Mercs Turn 1
Usual Turn 1 start. Give 1 to
the Nomad, Fail Safe on the Nomad, Fortune on eAlexia (it’s that or Countermeasures, and I thought
I wouldn’t get the Kayazy into a good spot to shut down shooting).
Kayazy ran and spread out. As we
saw in my last game vs. pHexeris, Turn 1 runs can be surprisingly finicky. In this case, the goal was for the leading 4
Kayazy to provide board presence in the Mosh Pit while preventing the Fenns
(who charge SO BLOODY FAR) from charging through and attacking the spread-out
rear models, whose goal was to stay out of Grim’s feat and counter-charge. Rhupert sang Dirge of Mists (+1 DEF &
Terror), as he did all game long.
Drake, jacks, and assorted solos mostly charged or ran up onto the hill.
Grim Turn 2
The Trollbloods’ Turn 2 challenge boiled down to: Trolls too big. Trolls jam EVERYBODY. Even Grim Angus, who turned out to be stuck
behind a wall of Fennblades. He very
much wanted to go first and bring the Kayazy down to a pleasant DEF 14 with
Spread the Net before sending the Fenns in, but was too far back and
stuck.
After some debate around whether it would be culturally appropriate for
the Impaler to shoot one of the blocking Fennblades in the back (decided
against for fear of Tough), the Bushwhackers started things off with a 4-pyg
CRA at eEiryss, killing her outright. The Fennblade UA
shouted the Troll equivalent of “No Quarter!” (maybe “we’re going to eat you?”)
and sent his unit rushing forward into the Kayazy. Who did not care, being dodgy little DEF 17
fellows facing MAT 6 swings, and only lost two.
The SSC tossed up Hero’s Tragedy to punish anyone killing them.
Grim, deprived of the exciting feat turn he hoped for, moved up and
fired a boosted shot into eAlexia, who took 7 to the face. The Mauler and Earthborn moved up as well, a
short distance in front of him, getting ready to charge in.
Mercs Turn 2
This looked like it had the potential to be a great turn for the
Mercenaries. The Nomad looked to be just
within charge range of the Earthborn, and if I could take out most of the
Fennblades and one of his heavies while avoiding retaliation with Drake’s feat,
I would be in pretty good shape for a Turn 3 assassination. I dropped Fortune and gave one to each
jack. There was a little shooting, where
Holt took out a Fennblade, Aiyana Kissed the Earthborn, and Gorman missed
everybody with an acid grenade.
The Nomad charged in, getting the Earthborn barely within 2”, then
missing with the charge attack. Kayazy
mini-feated and charged into a mess of Fennblades, as well as firing two of
their number off at the Earthborn, and Saxon charged into the Fenns to help
them out. A few Fenns died, and the
Earthborn took 6 damage.
So I hate the Nomad’s MAT 6.
Time to fix it. Buccaneer
time. Silly Assault Shenanigans ensued,
in which the Buccaneer charged the Earthborn, stopped when it bumped into
Aiyana (about 7” out of melee) and then got to throw its net with Assault,
ignoring melee penalties and the fact that its charge just failed horribly,
knocking down the troll. eAlexia made a
pair of Thrall Warriors (souls from the Fenns) and fired them into the
Earthborn, but one got stuck thanks to a positioning error (notice a theme
here?) and the other did 3 damage.
Drake activated, intending to finish the Earthborn. He feated on the Kayazy who had been knocked
down by Hero’s Tragedy as well as on other key solos, then Jackhammered the
Nomad 4 times, failing to kill the Earthborn by 2 points. Frustrating!
The Ogrun Bokur, in desperation, tried to slam the Nomad into the
Earthborn, but got stuck on Drake. Things were rapidly looking bad, since a
Dire Troll at 2 HP [in the Spirit no less -Caleb] is a fully functional Dire Troll, and Grim’s feat was about
to cripple all my advantage of high DEF.
Trolls Turn 3
Grim’s turn for awesomeness. He
started with Spread the Net, lowering everyone’s defense, then shot Drake (DEF
15 +2 elevation is pretty sad when it drops to DEF 12, +2 elevation), which was
Shield Guard-ed away. Bushwhackers fired
away in two CRAs, doing 8 damage to the focusless caster. Then the Dires got into action. The Earthborn had a line on Drake, if you
didn’t count the Nomad right in the way or the two feated Kayazy and two Thrall
Warriors.
The Mauler walked up to the Nomad, punched it twice, and threw (via
Grab & Smash) it into eAlexia and the Buccaneer, doing decent damage all
around and tearing off the Bucc’s net arm, then cast Rage on the
Earthborn. The Impaler came up and
stabbed one Kayazy and a Thrall with its spear, knocking down the former (True
Grit) and destroying the latter. The other two were positioned such that the
Earthborn could just trample right over.
So it did, several tons of angry blue-green Troll stomping forward to
tear Drake into tiny little pieces (rolling dice +6 on damage against a DEF 12
9HP caster is not a pretty sight).
Thanks to Trample and having to shake the knockdown, it had no initials
and three Fury left. Caleb bought and
boosted an attack, needing a 6…and whiffed.
Bought another attack…missed again.
Drake had somehow lived. After
that, there wasn't much left of the turn.
Fennblades killed another four or five Kayazy while their DEF was
lowered to 14 (Rhupert’s Dirge of Mists still active).
Mercs Turn 3
Not dead? Should have been dead
twice over…but not dead. First priority
was to kill the Earthborn, which the Bokur and Drake both failed to do. Drake did, however, toss Countermeasures on
the Kayazy at last, to shut down the surprisingly painful Troll shooting, and
give one to the Nomad to shake its knockdown.
The jack walked slowly forward and finally took down the Earthborn, giving
me a little breathing room. Most of the
rest of the turn was simple redeploying, with Kayazy standing and moving to
shut down any shooting that might be in range of Drake, and Gorman walking up
to successfully Black Oil the Mauler.
Trolls Turn 4
Things were looking rough for the Trolls, with shooting mostly shut
down and their one heavy ineffective for the turn. Grim cast Marked for Death on the Kayazy and
hit them with Fennblade attacks to try to finish off the four in the Mosh Pit,
but with little luck. At the end of this
turn, he conceded – it had been a long and close game, but he didn't see a way
to prevent the loss of most of his key pieces in the next turn.
Merc Lessons
-Trolls should have had the game when the Earthborn got into range of
Drake; in any dice game, luck is of course a significant factor, but
successfully getting those three shots and that heavy in should properly have
finished things out
-This goes against a previous insight, where I suggested leaving
Countermeasures till the last minute – but seriously, Countermeasures. On the Kayazy. If there’s any shooting in the enemy list
beyond, say, Saeryn’s throwing knives, put the bloody spell up, and consider it
even then. Grim has more ways around it
than most, mainly through Marked for Death, but it still forces the Troll
shooting back and away from my squishy caster.
-Positioning. Get it right. There were several times where friendly
models got stuck behind each other and just couldn’t get where they needed to
go. Especially when placing Thrall Warriors, there’s no excuse for failing the
subsequent charge due to the spacing of one’s own models.
-I continue to wish I had just a *little* more shooting. AOEs, especially. All I've got that can shoot is a motley
assortment of solos: Hellfire from eAlexia, hand cannons from Holt, Saxon’s
Military Rifle, eEiryss’s crossbow. Oh,
I guess Gorman has acid grenades, too.
It would be nice to have a little more of a ranged threat to back up the
Buccaneer’s KD, as well as something to handle infantry swarms. I’m even – gasp – considering trying the
Ogrun Assault Corps. But I’d love a
better idea. Thoughts?
Trollblood Lessons (Caleb)
Wow that was an interesting game. I'm learning (slowly but surely) that I really need to pay closer attention to positioning with Trolls, especially when playing with a Warlock whose feat effects the enemy and not friendlies. I'm also being consistently surprised with the Bushwackers' performance: for a unit that I'm basically taking as a ranged threat/deterrent and throwaway unit, it keeps dealing out a lot of damage. I'm definitely going to take a full unit at 50pts with Grim.
This game had a lot of random luck crop up in places (something I do love about Warmachine/Hordes), but we both played a good game. When he did eventually shut down my shooting, he shut it down hard; MacBain!'s spell list is one heck of a doozy, especially with Kayazy. By the end it was getting very clear I was going to lose both heavies in very short order, leaving only Grim, the Impaler, some scattered fennblades, and the Bushwackers to face a half dozen Kayazy (plus Underboss); considering that most of my units were shooting, all Ben had to do what he was doing and run Kayazy anywhere near my units with Countermeasures up and start picking me off one-by-one with MacBain!, Ayanna and Holt, and the jacks. Without Grim's feat (and with SEVERELY reduced Fury), I had no reasonable way to take out the Kayazy quickly enough. I opted to surrender rather than drag the game out for another half hour.
Many thanks to Ben for writing up the above battle report, and a hard fought Victory to Mercs!
This game had a lot of random luck crop up in places (something I do love about Warmachine/Hordes), but we both played a good game. When he did eventually shut down my shooting, he shut it down hard; MacBain!'s spell list is one heck of a doozy, especially with Kayazy. By the end it was getting very clear I was going to lose both heavies in very short order, leaving only Grim, the Impaler, some scattered fennblades, and the Bushwackers to face a half dozen Kayazy (plus Underboss); considering that most of my units were shooting, all Ben had to do what he was doing and run Kayazy anywhere near my units with Countermeasures up and start picking me off one-by-one with MacBain!, Ayanna and Holt, and the jacks. Without Grim's feat (and with SEVERELY reduced Fury), I had no reasonable way to take out the Kayazy quickly enough. I opted to surrender rather than drag the game out for another half hour.
Many thanks to Ben for writing up the above battle report, and a hard fought Victory to Mercs!
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