Battle Report: Supreme Aptimus Zaal vs. Hoarluk Doomshaper, Shaman of the Gnarls at 50pts

I got another game in with Caleb this week, and here's how it went down.

I tried out Zaal again for the first time in a long time, and went with:

Supreme Aptimus Zaal (+5)

These guys...

*Titan Cannoneer (9)
*Cyclops Shaman (5)
*Cyclops Raider (5)
*Aptimus Marketh (3)
*Kovass (-)

10 Praetorian Swordsmen (6)
*Officer and Standard Bearer (2)
10 Immortals (8)

Hakaar the Destroyer (4)
Ancestral Guardian (3)
Ancestral Guardian (3)
Ancestral Guardian (3)
Extoller Soulward (2)
Extoller Soulward (2)

This is a Tier 3 Immortal Host list, meaning that I get increased Field Allowance on Ancestral Guardians and Extoller Soulwards for each unit of Immortals in the list, Ancestral Guardians in the list gain Advance Deploy, and Extoller models in the list begin the game with 3 Soul Tokens each.

This looks like a pretty strong list to me.  Zaal is a good infantry warlock, and can let nearly anything in the list take out enemy heavies or high-Def infantry thanks to Last Stand.  This means I can focus on a cheap selection of ranged and support beasts.  The Raider and Shaman are a good firebase on their own, and hand out Far Strike to the Extollers and Zaal, which gives me up to 4 shots, range 12-14, which ignore Cover, Concealment and LoS.  With Guidance, I can forfeit one or two of them to ignore Stealth.  The Cannoneer is there for the higher Pow shot and AoE.  In terms of infantry, the Praetorians and Immortals are both workhorses, though the Praetorians also provide Soul Tokens.

My list's main weakness is Zaal's vulnerability to Remove From Play effects (which seriously cramp his Feat and Soul generation from the Praetorians), and a slight weakness to super high Arm.  Zaal can mitigate that with Hex Blast, but even then the highest Arm models in the game will be tough for my infantry to take out even with Last Stand and Rage of the Ancients.


Caleb tried out pDoomshaper again after a long break to learn Calandra and pGrimm.

Hoarluk Doomshaper, Shaman of the Gnarls (+7)
*Rok (11)

...vs. him.

*Dire Troll Mauler (9)
*Troll Axer (6)
*Rune Bearer (2)

10 Trollkin Scattergunners (8)
*Officer and Standard Bearer (2)
3 Trollkin Champions (6)
*Skaldi Bonehammer (3)
Kriel Stone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4)
*Stone Scribe Elder (1)

Janissa Stonetide (3)
Stone Scribe Chronicler (2)

This seems like a pretty well balanced list.  The Scattergunners give it a decent ranged game, and their normally mediocre accuracy can be boosted by Fortune.  Rok and the Mauler are both good heavy beasts, and the Axer provides Rush and another answer to infantry.  Champions are hard-hitting and fairly tough, and should do well alongside the beasts as melee support for the low-Mat Scattergunners.  Troll support is good as always.  Janissa will make sure Doomy's poor Def isn't too much of a liability, and the Chronicler will make sure any infantry who kill the Scattergunners gets knocked down.

There are no major blind spots in this list, although it does rely on a relatively small number of models to do all its hard-hitting (the Beasts and Champs).  Otherwise, it deals with all kinds of enemies pretty well, clears jams well with the Scattergunners, and threatens all kinds of targets.


Deployment

Caleb won the roll-off and decided to go second.

I placed all my infantry in a line across the table with Swordsmen on the left and Immortals on the right.  Zaal and the Warbeasts deployed centrally in gaps I'd left for them on the front lines.  The Extollers and Marketh went just behind the infantry.

Caleb placed his Scattergunners opposite my Swordsmen despite the fact that this meant putting them in front of a forest with no way to gain Pathfinder.  The Champs and Beasts went opposite Zaal and my warbeasts, leaning a little to the right toward the bulk of my Immortals.  The support and Doomshaper went behind this group.

Finally, I deployed all my Ancestral Guardians in a staggered line 6" ahead of my other troops, with Hakaar more or less in front of Zaal.


Turn 1

Most of my models ran, although Zaal walked in order to cast spells.  Last Stand went on my lead Ancestral Guardian, while Inviolable Resolve went on Hakaar and Spiritual Awakening went on the Shaman.


Most of Caleb's army also ran, though Doomshaper walked up so he could cast Fortune on the Scattergunners (who were having a little trouble with the woods), and dump the rest of his Fury onto the Kriel Stone.

Next turn, I'd be in range to do some damage and slow Caleb down.


Turn 2, Skorne

It was time to start getting down to business.  The Swordsmen ran and spread out to jam up the Scattergunners.  The Immortals ran forward again.  The Shaman put Far Strike on itself, and shot at Rok, but missed.  Zaal put Far Strike on the Cannoneer, who killed a Scattergunner and made their Officer pass a Tough check.  Marketh swapped Last Stand onto an Ancestral Guardian who looked to have charge range on Rok.  It charged, damaging Rok pretty heavily.  My lead Ancestral Guardian then charged the Champions, killing one.  I ended my turn by popping out the Kovass.

I really would have like to kill Rok, but I realized it wasn't likely.  Now Caleb would have to deal with both my AG and the Kovass though, and my second wave of infantry was right behind them.

Turn 2, Trollbloods

Caleb activated the Champs, who killed the Ancestral Guardian after taking some damage to a Defensive Strike.  Then he advanced the Kriel Stone, and the Elder caused all Kovasses in its Warding bubble to lose Incorporeal.  The Axer advanced, and put Rush on Rok to give him +2" of movment.  The Mauler advanced, and killed the Kovass.  Then Rok charged into the Immortals.  He Berserked through 3 of them, a Soulward, and Hakaar, using Doomshaper's Goad ability to reach new targets as he cleared out the old ones.  I put the Kovass back into play.  The Scattergunners killed just over half the Swordsmen with their sprays.  The Chronicler used Hero's Tragedy, making sure my Swordsmen would fall over when they tried to exact revenge.  Finally, Doomshaper walked up and cast Stranglehold at my last Ancestral Guardian, ensuring it would make no attacks next turn.

Not bad.  Caleb had done a good chunk of damage to my army on his turn, but enough had survived that I'd be able to mount a decent counterattack.  And now was the time to make things happen.  I might be able to assassinate Doomshaper if I could clear out the Beasts screening him.


Turn 3, Skorne

In the Maintenance Phase, my surviving Immortals contracted around Rok like a terrible obsidian jellyfish, and killed him with Vengeance attacks.  Zaal went first, used his Feat, Rage of the Ancients, then he cast Last Stand on the Kovass, and shot at a damaged Champion, finishing it off.  The Kovass charged into Skaldi and the Mauler, but Skaldi passed his Tough check, and the Mauler managed to survive with 2 hit boxes, meaning I'd have to shoot the Mauler down if I wanted to get my Immortals to Doomshaper.  The Shaman tried for it, but ended up killing the Kovass instead.  Excellent!  Now I wouldn't suffer the penalty for shooting into melee with my other beasts.  The Cannoneer advanced, and finished the Mauler with a cannon shot.

Then Marketh recast Last Stand on the Immortals, and they charged in.  I only thought that one could get to Doomshaper, but I was hoping to one-shot him.  Three others charged the Axer, one charged Skaldi, and one charged the last surviving Champion.  Skaldi died, but the Champ passed his Tough check.  The Axer barely survived due to one really awful attack roll, but Doomshaper had to kill it with a transfer on my last attack, which took him down to 3 hit points.  The Swordsmen finished up the turn by killing about half the Scattergunners, then falling over due to Hero's Tragedy.  The Raider put Far Strike on the remaining Soulward, and she tried to finish Doomie, but missed due to the melee penalty.  Then I removed all the Immortals because they made melee attacks under Last Stand.

Assassination failed, but all the Trollkin beasts were dead, and Doomshaper didn't have much army left.

Turn 3, Trollbloods

Caleb figured he had one shot at victory.  Plan C.  If Janissa scored a critical hit against Zaal with Rock Hammer, he'd be knocked down, and Doomshaper and the Scattergunners could finish him off with spells and sprays.

It was all on Janissa.

She missed.

Zaal did get damaged by a Stranglehold, but that was it, and Caleb conceded after his Scattergunners all missed.


Thoughts

I had a pretty solid overall advance, but I made a lot of little mistakes, mostly in order of activation.  On turn one, I ran all my AG's out of range for my Immortals to gain Resonance.  On turns 2 and 3, I ended up charging with critical models before shooting with my Extollers and beasts, which made some attacks much harder than they should have been.  I clearly need more practice playing Skorne infantry and solo heavy the way Zaal likes.  It also turns out that I could have gotten 2 Immortals to Doomshaper on my 3rd turn, and probably killed him right there.  I was maybe a quarter inch in range with one of the ones I sent after the Axer.

Zaal is brutal, and loads of fun to play.  He has a great spell list, and the Kovass adds another layer of planning.  I liked the list I went with a lot.  I think I made the right decision going with a few ranged beasts.  The infantry and AG's had no trouble killing Trollkin heavies and Champions under the Kriel Stone's Warding bubble, so I'm probably fine on armor cracking without melee heavies.  The shooting I did have was plenty effective at doing damage to a few key models, and would have been a lot more effective if I'd planned my turns better.  Finally, I never felt like I was about to run out of beasts or open spots between my beasts and AG's for transfers.  I did feel like I ran out of AG's pretty quickly though, and I might have to try a more extreme version of Immortal Host next time, one with 4 or even 5 Ancestral Guardians plus Hakaar.  I'll also have to try Zaal out of tier some time so I can get Molik Karn, who seems like a crazy model to combine with Last Stand and/or Rage of the Ancients.

Caleb made some good moves, but also made a few serious mistakes.  He targeted my AG's specifically, since they're very dangerous under Zaal.  Hitting my last one with Stranglehold made my third turn a lot more complicated than it would have been otherwise.  Putting the Scattergunners behind the forest without a Fell Caller or similar source of Pathfinder made them very slow on the first 2 turns, and they were a little bit out of the battle later on.  As a screening unit, they would have been more dangerous, and helped keep Caleb's heavier models out of reach of my Immortals and AG's on turns 2 and 3.

I don't quite know what to make of pDoomie yet, and Caleb said after the game that he doesn't either.  I've heard a lot of good things about his Tier list, and maybe that's just the way to play him.  It's possible that he just didn't have the best tools to deal with the Zaal army I took.  All my beasts were way in the back, so Rampager wasn't a factor, and Doomshaper didn't get the chance to Feat.  Inviolable Resolve and Spiritual Awakening never really seemed worth casting Purification for.  I did like Fortune on the Scattergunners, and Stranglehold on an AG was a good move, but that's really all Doomie did this game.


Thoughts on Project Obsidian

Now I've played Ancestral Guardians at their most optimal, and Zaal really made them go.  Last Stand is a great spell for them, and their ability to buy additional attacks makes them deadly with Zaal's Feat.  The biggest thing Zaal does for them, though, is give them Soul Tokens with Soul Converter.  I never once felt low on Souls in the army.  Ancestral Guardians would easily be worth 3pts with anyone if they could be full on Souls for 2-3 turns in a row, and Zaal really lets them do that, especially in Tier with Extoller Soulwards starting with 3 Souls each.