My opponent was Dave, the Legion player whose Anamag list crushed me a couple months ago, so I knew I needed to have an answer. I thought about using Zaadesh, since I'd been able to block drags with Inviolable Resolve before, but then I looked at Anamag's cards, and she has Hex Blast, so that was a no-go. Instead, I came up with a new list that I was pretty sure would be able to tangle with Primal Terrors and still be decent into some other matchups depending on what Dave brought.
Lord Assassin Morghoul (*29pts) - Winds of Death
*Mammoth (38pts)
*Archidon (10pts)
*Agonizer (6pts)
*Aptimus Marketh (0pts)
Siege Animantrax (17pts)
Mortitheurge Willbreaker (0pts)
Venator Dakar (4pts)
Extoller Soulward (3pts)
Venator Rievers (Leader and 5 Grunts) (9pts)
*Command Attachment (Officer and Standard Bearer) (4pts)
Venator Slingers (Leader and 5 Grunts) (8pts)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (5pts)
Morghoul 2 has some excellent tools against Primal Terrors: Mortality to help take care of those pesky Chosen, and a Feat which can take most infantry Morghoul can see out of the game for a turn, not to mention dropping Def to levels where the Mammoth and Turtle will have no trouble hitting. Overall, I was pretty optimistic about this list into Anamag, and willing to play it into an Oracles list if he brought one. This would be my first time ever playing Morghoul 2, so we'll see what he's capable of.
Dave did bring his Anamag list, but he decided that since I was "obviously playing Morghoul" she wouldn't be a good drop, so he went with this list:
Kallus, Wrath of Everblight (*30pts) - Primal Terrors
*Blight Bringer (32pts)
*Harrier (3pts)
*Ammok the Truth Bearer (0pts)
Feralgeist (2pts)
Spell Martyr (1pt)
Spell Martyr (1pt)
Chosen of Everblight (Leader and 4 Grunts) (20pts)
Chosen of Everblight (Leader and 4 Grunts) (20pts)
Blighted Rotwings (Leader and 9 Grunts) (12pts)
Blighted Rotwings (Leader and 9 Grunts) (12pts)
Hellmouth (0pts)
Hellmouth (0pts)
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew (2pts)
This list looks a lot like Anamag's. It won't hit quite as hard, but it will be even more accurate, and it has amazing attrition power between the double Chosen and Kallus' Feat.
Dave was right, and I did drop Morghoul, because while Zaadesh might have some game into Kallus, he'd be in a bad spot against Anamag. Morghoul would be solid into either list, and I wanted to see how he'd do.
Deployment
We were playing The Pit II. I won the roll-off, and decided to go first. I put my theme wall right in the center zone, where it would help me contest it.
I put the Mammoth in the center with the Agonizer behind it, and the Animantrax on the right with the Paingivers right next to it. Morghoul and the Rievers went between the two huge bases, along with the solos. The Archidon went to the left of the Mammoth.
Dave put the Blight Bringer on the center-right, and one unit of Chosen and Rotwings on either side. The Gobbers and Kallus went in the middle, and the two Spell Martyrs spread out. The Feralgeist went on the far left (proxied by a little purple base). Dave had forgotten Kallus at home, so he's proxied by Bayal.
I advance deployed the Slingers in front of the Mammoth and Dave distant deployed the hellmouths in front of each rectangular zone.
Skorne Turn 1
I Apparitioned forward with Morghoul. Everybody ran. The Paingivers whipped up the Animantrax, then healed it. Morghoul put Shadow Play on the Archidon.
I was out of all the threat ranges except the Blight Bringer's gun, which could scatter onto either of the Venator units, and setting up to see what Dave would do.
Legion Turn 1
Dave moved up to threaten past the zones and keep me out of them. The Blightbringer took a shot, which scattered onto the Venator Riever officer, and killed it.
Dave was pretty well set up, and I'd be missing some long range shooting due to bad placement of my officer (it should've been at the back of the unit).
Skorne Turn 2
Morghoul upkept Shadow Play, and Apparitioned. The Animantrax moved up and killed a Chosen with shooting, then repositioned out of threat range. The Slingers moved up to contest the left zone, and a Riever moved up to contest the right zone from behind the wall.
Dave had kept out of threat range of the Mammoth's guns with the Chosen, but I was able to kill a fair number of Rotwings between Slinger and Mammoth shooting. The Archidon moved up behind the house. The Mortitheurge put Tough on the Slingers, and the Paingivers ran to support the beasts on the right.
I was playing it cautious, still very much in the game, but without a huge presence in the scenario. I was hoping Dave would commit the Chosen to clearing out my models. Then I'd be down on scenario, but I could use Mortality and Morghoul's Feat to tear a huge chunk out of Dave's list.
Legion Turn 2
Dave played it cooler than I'd hoped. He used Blight Bringer shooting to kill the Venator contesting the central zone, and was able to kill my objective between Hellmouth tentacles and Rotwings. A single Chosen, plus an assortment of Tentacles and Rotwings took out the contesting Slingers.
Kallus moved up and popped his Feat, and the right Chosen repositioned to the left side of the table to help out against the approaching Mammoth.
Dave scored 4pts, and ended his turn.
I was in a real pickle. Being down 2-0 or 3-0 is usually manageable if your counter is good, but being down 4-0 is very dangerous, and Dave was contesting too well for me to get on the scoreboard this turn, especially with Kallus' Feat replacing everything I killed with a new Incubus. I'd have to see what I could do on attrition, and hope that his counterattack couldn't net him that last point.
Skorne Turn 3
Morghoul upkept Shadow Play, and Admonitioned forward. The Venators got back into the central zone and cleared out some Rotwings.
The Archidon advanced, and killed the Chosen that had killed the Slingers last turn, but wasn't able to do anything about the Incubus that popped out.
Morghoul advanced to where he could see all but the two Chosen lurking at the back, then popped his Feat and put Mortality on the Blight Bringer. He killed a Rotwing with his fan, then killed the Incubus that popped out with Mercy, and put Lightning Strike on himself to get back to my lines.
The Animantrax charged in to contest right zone, and did a whole bunch of damage to the Blight Bringer in the process. The Mammoth advanced into the center and left zones, and finished the Legion Garg off with shooting. The Agonizer ran up and used Gnawing Pain right behind the Mammoth. The Paingivers cleaned up some Fury.
It all hinged on whether the Animantrax could tough it out. Most of the Chosen were blind from Morghoul's Feat, and couldn't really do anything. But the Animantrax was my only model contesting the right zone, and if Dave could kill it and get a beast or Kallus in there, he could win.
Legion Turn 3
In the end, it took everything Dave could put on it, but the Animantrax died. Kallus ran into the right rectangle, and Dave won on scenario.
Victory to the Legion!
Thoughts
This was a really fun game, and a lot closer than my last one against Primal Terrors. I think with a little more experience using Morghoul 2 and Winds of Death, I might be able to pull out a win. Scaring Dave into dropping Kallus instead of Anamag was already a small victory. I did make a couple mistakes. The first was just not paying attention to where my Riever officer was hanging out, and getting him killed by a stray template. The second was not going after Dave's objective, which I'd sort-of forgotten about, on turn 2. I had 2 shots left with the Mammoth after killing the Blight Bringer, and if I'd been thinking, a couple of cannon balls plus some Riever fire would've put me on the scoreboard, and ensured I wouldn't straight-up lose if Dave killed the Animantrax. Finally, I focused the Agonizer behind the Mammoth, but it really is better as a guardian piece for the Animantrax. Dave might not have been able to kill the Animantrax if the Agonizer was backing it up (or kill both if he wanted to remove its aura). He had very limited resources on that last turn, and I definitely would've been better served by the Aggy backing up the more aggressive SA rather than the slower Mammoth. Any of these might have kept me in the game, and let me do a lot of damage to Dave's remaining workhorse units on my next turn.
Despite my lack of practice, I like this Winds list a lot. It works well into one of the big boogey-lists in the meta right now, and once I get its tricks down, I'll be a lot more confident into the Legion matchup. I don't think it's fully optimized, so I'll be fine-tuning it over the next couple months. Morghoul 2 is a really fun 'caster, and I'm looking forward to giving him and Winds of Death a real run through their paces, especially with the changes proposed for Marketh and the Mammoth in the Exalted CID.
Dave played a very solid game as usual. He set up well on his first turn to keep me from putting a serious presence in the zones, and racked up the points in his second turn as a result. He played a very cagey game with both his Chosen and Kallus, which was definitely the right move against my list. Attrition might have been about to swing in my favor, but he made sure he was well ahead by that point. One mistake that Dave realized after the game was that the Rotwing Morghoul killed with his Fan should've lived due to Kallus' Unyielding aura, which would've made Morghoul's sprint to safety a lot chancier.
I don't know Legion well enough to comment much on his list. It certainly doesn't care about defense, but might struggle into certain armor spam lists. Still, with the Blight Bringer buff, it might not have too much to worry about, and the attrition potential of double Chosen backed by Kallus' Feat is boggling. The Rotwings work really well in the list too. They do a lot of damage for such cheap models, and make excellent little spawn points for Incubi on the Feat turn.
My final pod game got stalled by my vacation, but it is coming up, so expect a report in the next couple of days.
Thanks for reading!
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