pButcher
-Demolisher
-Kodiak
-Sylyss Wishnalyrr
Nyss Hunters
-Valachev
Kayazy Eliminators
Alexia and the Risen
Widowmaker Marksman
My opponent was trying another experimental list. I was rather surprised to see him place the Mammoth on the table. The Cyclops Raider and Void Spirit were new to me too.
Dominar Rasheth
-Mammoth
-Cyclops Raider
Nihilators
Paingiver Beast Handlers
Tyrant Commander
Void Spirit
Pre-Game:
We rolled a mission with two zones and two objectives. You score 1 point by dominating your zone, one point by controlling the opponent's zone, or two by dominating the opponent's zone. He won the roll-off and chose to go first. I chose the side of the table with a bit of forest in zone.
Deployment:
He put the Mammoth a little to my right, where it threatened my zone. The Nihilators went to my left.
After thinking about it I decided to try to jam his Mammoth out of his zone using the Demolisher and clear the zone with the Nyss and Alexia; I figured as long as he didn't run the mammoth forwards at full speed it might be possible to hold him out long enough to score, and then potentially run over to the other zone if needed. The Kodiak would toe my zone while staying in the forest; the only way for him to kill it would be with the Mammoth, which he wouldn't want to do, meaning my zone would be safe.
To that end I put my infantry on my far left, with the Demolisher ready to run past the house. The Kodiak was on the far right ready to run through the forest (yay Pathfinder and free runs!). I put the Marksman over on the far right as well; I guessed I had enough shooting on my left, and I might be able to flank and pick off his Paingivers.
Round 1:
Seeing what I was doing, he ran his whole army towards his zone. He put Carnivore on the Nihilators, meaning they only needed 9s to kill Iron Fleshed Nyss. Plus it seems it RFPs, so that would deny Alexia corpse tokens.
It seems that the Raider can ignore Stealth if it aims; I would need to be careful. The Marksman walked up, killed a Paingiver, and used the Swifthunter move well into the forest. The jaxes ran forwards. The Nyss ran into the zone. I hid the Eliminators behind the house, where the Mammoth couldn't see them. Butcher put Iron Flesh on the Nyss. The Risen advanced slowly, with Alexia churning out a Thrall (that I don't think I actually activated).
Round 2:
My opponent moved the Void Spirit up to the Eliminators and arced Breath of Corruption through it, boosting the damage rolls to kill them both. He really doesn't like those two. Maybe I should buy a second unit? He put Far Strike on the Mammoth and dropped some AOEs, but thanks to poor deviations he only killed a couple of Nyss. The Nihilators charged forwards, killing another homeless elf.
Those AOEs were a problem. I put Fury on the Demolisher and ran it forwards, ready to get in his Mammoth's face. The Risen continued their slow shuffle, with another Thrall (proxied with a Paladin) popping up and missing an attack on a Nihilator. The Nyss shot up some Nihilators, though a lot of them passed their tough rolls. Valachev managed to kill the Void Spirit with his magic ice shotgun. For some reason I moved the Juggernaut much farther forwards; I don't remember if I was trying to bait the Mammoth, or just moving him over to the left in case I ended up needing him. The Marksman killed another Paingiver and moved into the Raider's back arc, so it wouldn't be able to aim then target him.
Round 3:
The Tyrant Commander gave himself Pathfinder so he could move through the forest and get close enough to the Demolisher for Rasheth to arc Blood Mark into it, dropping it's ARM to 23. The Mammoth was Enraged and charged the clamjaxe, wrecking it. To be honest, for some strange reason I wasn't really expecting him to do that, but I guess I'd forced him to since if he didn't I would most likely feat and charge the Mammoth next turn. Well, at least it spared me a turn of AOEs.
Since he had used the Tyrant Commander's battle-plan for Pathfinder, he couldn't use it to stand up the Nihilators, limiting the number of attacks he could get against the Nyss. The Raider tried to kill Valachev but only just missed.
Well, I wasn't really liking my chances of dominating the left zone at this point, so I decided it was time for plan B: Butcher ran over to toe the right zone while using the house for cover. At this point the Mammoth would have trouble contesting my zone thanks to the house and his objective. The Nyss and Risen continued thinning his ranks. The Marksman claimed another Paingiver. I couldn't decide where the Kodiak needed to be so it just stood still and vented steam. In case someone tried to shoot at it. I scored a point for dominating my zone.
Round 4:
His AOEs cleared out most of the rest of my Nyss and Risen, which I had continually failed to spread out. I think he channeled another Breath of Corruption through the Tyrant Commander, leaving it with only four boxes. The Mammoth toed the left zone, since Alexia would be able to pop out enough Risen to score on my turn if he didn't contest. The Raider walked close enough to see the Marksman and killed him with a boosted shot. Since he didn't contest my zone I scored a second point.
I moved Butcher farther from the fight. A 2-man CMA from the Risen miraculously finished off the Tyrant Commander, and between Risen and Nyss I took out the rest of his Nihilators and the last Paingiver. A Thrall charged the Mammoth and did a single point of damage. At the end of the turn I scored a third point.
Round 5:
More AOEs from the Mammoth killed Alexia and all but two risen, and left only Cylena and Valachev. He ran the Standard Bearer into my zone while the Raider hung back and missed a boosted shot at the Butcher.
I dropped Iron Flesh. The last Risen pawed ineffectually at the Mammoth. I wanted to kill both the Standard Bearer and the Raider this turn so that he wouldn't be able to contest next turn, so I moved Cylena around to take a shot at the Bearer, but she missed. Sylyss heroically charged and did a fairly impressive four points of damage, leaving him on a single box (fairly sure Khador standard bearers don't have boxes... just saying...). Butcher took a boosted shot but missed (I could have used Lola but I wanted to keep my distance). I put Fury on the Kodiak and cast Full Throttle, then charged him at the Raider. I was hoping to throw it into the Standard Bearer, but the second initial attack killed it. I guess Fury was a mistake. As a result I did not score this turn.
Round 6:
The Mammoth trampled over the Risen, crushing them into the ground, and flattened Valachev. Rasheth moved into his zone to dominate for a point.
Cylena finished off the Standard Bearer. If I had charged the Kodiak to the Raider's left last turn I would have been able to reach the enemy objective this turn, but I had charged to the right so that I could throw it at the Standard Bearer, meaning all he could do this turn was run up to it. I stupidly moved Butcher up to take a Blunderbuss shot (I don't know why, a single shot couldn't have destroyed it), but was out of range. I scored my fourth point, and my opponent scored his second.
Round 7:
Rasheth could not get close enough to Butcher to land Blood Mark, so instead he feated (dropping Butcher's armour) and threw boosted Sunder Spirits into him, dealing something like 9 damage. Then the Mammoth took his shots, but poor dice meant he couldn't finish the job, allowing me to score a fifth point for the win.
Postmortem:
My dice were pretty hot that game; I think I persistently rolled above average. Most of my attacks hit, and my low rolls were never important ones. My opponent's luck was not nearly as good; his Nihilators only managed to roll a single 9 all game, his scatters were unfortunate more often than not, and he flubbed some important rolls (like missing out on the boosted 11 he needed to take out Valachev early on). That plus the terrain layout basically meant he ended up fighting a severe uphill battle.
I think the lists were better balanced this game than the last, although his list wasn't exactly optimized. The Nyss weren't as invincible, but they still demanded the attention of most of his army; Gators would have done much better against them than the Nihilators. His Mammoth did most of the work, cutting my army down to just a couple of models, but didn't have the maneuverability to contest my zone. I think 35 points might be too low for the Mammoth, as it it means his army footprint is rather small?
I did a number of stupid things like engage models with Risen then shoot at them with Nyss rather than shoot first then move the Risen in (although that wasn't always an option due to Alexia's positioning). Clumping the Risen in between the Nyss was probably the worst thing, as it allowed him to target DEF 10 Risen with the Mammoth's AOEs rather than DEF 18 Nyss, meaning he had better chances of getting more Nyss with them. Plus the Risen didn't do very much all game (when I did move them forwards they were easily removed by berserking Nihilators and AOEs); I think I would have been better off holding them back further, and/or deploying them more centrally so I could shift them over to the right or something. Churning out Thralls didn't work too well in this case either, perhaps I should hold them back for later too.
I'm not sure what I was thinking, running the Demolisher up into the Mammoth's charge range like that. If I had been more careful with it I could have just stood back and threatened to put some pain on the Mammoth if it moved up, but then that would have allowed him to keep dropping AOEs on the Nyss, which I didn't want, so... I dunno if was the best play or not really. The other thing is that due to the Mammoth's positioning, it's possible I could have put it in a threatening position where he couldn't charge due to his objective getting in the way. I need to learn to look out for little things like that too.
I wonder if I should have played the Butcher more aggressively; his melee threat range is higher than the Mammoth after all. Just walking forwards behind a couple of warjaxes might have let me force a favorable confrontation. I've gotten Butcher killed several times so far though, so I decided to play it safe this game.
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