After my most recent event's surprising results, I've decided that Baldur2 theme force, while reasonably good, is a little too boring for my tastes. As such, I've always known that I would be going back to Kreuger2 as one of my "main" casters, simply because I am in my very essence an objectives/scenario-minded player. He's great at that, and has a few fun tricks that makes him an extremely viable caster. I do need some practice with him, though :)
My List:
Kreuger2
-Ghettorix
-Warpwolf Stalker
-Gorax
-Druid Wilder
Wold Stalkers
Wold Stalkers
Shifting Stones
-Stone Keeper
Shifting Stones
Blackclad Wayfarer
Gallows Grove
Gallows Grove
His List:
Butcher3
-War Dog
-Drago
Dragon Fang Pikemen (max)
-Unit Attachment
Doom Reavers
Doom Reavers
Widow Makers (4 of them... is that max?)
Greylord Ternions
Eiyriss2
Ogrun Bokur
Madelyn Corbeau
Fenris
Iron Fang Kovnik
The Mission:
Big 12" circle zone in the middle. Control for 1, Dominate for 2. Destroy enemy objective for 1. First to 5 wins.
**I won the roll to go first and decided to go second. I commonly do this if I don't know what I'm facing. Not really convinced it's the best decision, heh.
Pre-game thoughts:
Well, I knew his threat range was huge. I was a little thrown off by the Doom Reavers- my Druids don't do Doom Reavers very well, honestly, since they can't be targeted by spells. I figured my Wold Stalkers could deal with them alright though.
The key to the match, as I saw it, was to pop my feat at an opportune time, then use shooting, charging/lightning striking Wolves, Druids push/pulls, etc. for a couple turns in a row without having to face repercussions. Let's see if this actually panned out for me :)
Deployment:
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| Pretty cool to see my army slowly becoming more and more painted. I recently painted 5 Wold Stalkers (on the left), though the Druid with them will be painted in a batch with my other Druids in line. Circle has so many Druids, haha! |
Khador Turn 1:
He ran forward! Surprise!!
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| We're using a clock. Love playing practice games on the clock. :) |
Circle Turn 1:
I was a little intimidated with how quickly his Reavers had gotten up the table! I had forgotten they were Advanced Deploy, and as such, they were already across the halfway line. I would potentially need to pop my feat on top of Turn 1.
Stalkers moved up, then Zephyr'd. They ended up only able to kill 4 of them, though in fairness, only a couple of the Stalkers on the left were actually in range of the Doom Reavers. Poor positioning on my part, partly due to the fact that I wasn't prepared for the Reavers to be in my face that quickly.
Other stuff shuffled around, and I discovered that even if Kreuger moved up 6", he wouldn't catch many of the Reavers with his feat.
Terrible turn for Circle, mostly because of my own struggling.
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| Really... I could have done much better. |
Khador Turn 2:
Doom Reavers charged my lines. They killed 4 Stalkers on the right, as well as 2 Druids and one Doom Reaver (due to Berserk).
Widow makers shot 4 shots, killing 4 Stalkers with their auto-point of damage, and Eiyriss killed the last one on the left. This meant I had lost 9 Stalkers and 2 Druids from incidental fire. Really not the best result for me.
Everything else moved up, though the DFP held off on their mini-feat, wisely I think.
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| Not an awesome start for Circle. |
Circle Turn 2:
I needed to clear those Doom Reavers, really bad.
First, the remaining Stalker + Druid walked, then Zephyr'd up. Stalker missed his shot, needing a 5 to hit.
Blackclad walked up behind the Stalkers' Druid and targeted him with his spray, which incidentally caught the Doom Reaver behind him, bypassing the "can't be targeted by spells" limitation. I killed my own Druid, and missed the Doom Reaver. Ha :)
Next, Stones teleported Ghetto into range of the three Reavers, and he swung and killed a total of 2, despite boosting and needing 6's. Not my best rolling game.
Kreuger walked up 6" and bought/boosted 3 shots, killing 3 Doom Reavers. He then popped his feat, pushing the entire unit of Pikemen backwards 3", as well as stopping Fenris from charging next turn
Stone Keeper walked up and killed the Doom Reaver Ghetto was trying so hard to kill, and succeeded.
This left a final Doom Reaver remaining.
Wilder gave the Stalker Lightning Strike.
Stones teleported the Stalker close to the final Doom Reaver.
Stalker boosted his initial attack, hitting, and killing the reaver. He then Lightning Struck up into B2B with Eiyriss, but outside of Kreuger's control.
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| Not an *awful* turn for me. |
Khador Turn 3:
Josh moved up and did what he could. Not much, really. He did some damage to my Stones, and shot a Druid (despite DEF 18 in the cloud).
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| Can I take advantage of the damage-free turn? |
Circle Turn 3:
The Stalker passed his Frenzy check.
Wilder walked over to give Ghetto Lightning Strike.
I had Ghetto move up, and attack Fenris. After rolling 6 different times, I managed to hit twice, dismounting him, but failing to kill his dismounted form, and therefore not triggering Lightning Strike, which I would have used to get into melee with his Kovnik. Such fail :)
I moved a Grove close the the Stalker.
Kreuger went next and moved into position to force the Stalker. I tried to cast Telekinesis on the Stalker, but Josh informed me that Eiyriss blocks arc nodes within 5" of her. Doh! I had been planning on getting the Stalker into the Drago, putting Primal on him, and likely killing him.
Instead, the Stalker put Lightning Strike on himself and boosted to hit against Eiyriss, killing her and walking back into a safer location (away from Drago).
Stones shifted to surround the Stalker.
Other Stones shifted to get in front of Kreuger.
I cast Counter-magic with my leader, and two of my other druids advanced into the Pikemen and popped their smoke.
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| I still feel relatively safe here. Heh :) |
First, the Kovnik (who was not engaged by Ghetto because of Ghetto's failure to roll anything worth anything) charged my Druid with Counter-Magic up, and killed him.
The Pikemen killed one Druid, but failed to hit the other.
Ternions advanced, shot their spray into the backs of some of the Pikemen, and killed them, and finally spiked a hit on my Druid, killing him as well.
This gave Butcher the opportunity to Energizer 3", then charge a Shifting Stone. The stone died, and suddenly Kreuger was in 5" range of Butcher (but not 2" reach range) without a Druid to stop Butcher from casting spells.
That happened, Butcher popped his feat, put up a spell that would stop me from transferring damage, and killed Kreuger fairly easily.
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| Your Fury avails you not, Kreuger! |
Results: Loss for Circle via Assassination!!
Post-game thoughts:
Ouch! Butcher3 is pretty quick, as it happens. I actually thought that my Druid unit leader was safe where he was, assuming I tied the Kovnik up. As it happened, Ghetto failed me in a disgusting way. That said, I could have moved the unit leader backwards a little bit more. Not sure if that would have protected him though.
I took some steps that were close to good, and reading this report, I actually stood an alright chance to win still. I just failed to realize his threat range was so ridiculous, and failed to protect Kreuger from the Butcher.
So, I asked for a rematch! Josh was happy to give me the chance to make myself look like a jackass on the internet, and agreed :)
The Mission: Two flags. control enemy one for 1, dominate enemy one for 2, dominate your own for 1.
**Josh won the roll to go first, and took it.
Pregame thoughts:
Heh... same thing. I would need to kill his Doom Reavers more efficiently this time, which was just a matter of deployment. I would also need to guard against Butcher's threat range, which I understood now.
Deployment:
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| Notice that the Stalkers are all in the center now, ready to react. |
Khador Turn 1:
He ran up, surprising nobody.
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| I'm getting tricky with my Shifting Stones here - Ghetto can get a double-port if I want, and TK will give the Stalker a double port as well if I want. |
I started with my Wold Stalkers, who were able to kill 4 or so Doom Reavers, surprising us both, since 3 of them were on the hill and thus DEF 15.
Druids went, and one of them charged a Doom Reaver, while another one went to tie up two others in a somewhat silly mistake, as they wouldn't really be in range to do much the next turn anyways Ah well. My one druid missed his swing, sadly.
Kreuger went next, shooting and killing two more Doom Reavers.
All of the Reavers in Warpwolf teleport range were mostly dead, and so I just walked them around to better positions, and teleported the stones to be in good teleport range of both Wolves.
I was relatively satisfied with this turn - I killed the frong row of the Doom Reavers, and his retaliation wouldn't be TOO fierce.
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| Also, I spread out most of my models so that a Berserking Doom Reaver couldn't cause too much havoc. |
Khador Turn 2:
His Doom Reavers went, and missed three attacks needing a "7" to hit against my front Druids, though one of them did kill a Stone, "ruining" that set for teleportation.
Fenris decided to risk a couple Freestrikes from the Druids, and charged the Druid Overseer. He failed his charge, but my freestrikes only ended up doing about 5 damage, despite an actually reasonable chance to dismount him.
Widowmakers killed a few of my Stalkers, and Eiyriss killed my Druid Wilder.
Otherwise, everything just kind of did their general advance thing.
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| So far, I'm in an okay position, and just about ready to get a few points, I think. |
Circle Turn 2:
I needed to kill Fenris, as well as clear the rest of the Doom Reavers.
Druids went first, and (I feel this was a mistake) gave the run/charge order. A few of them charged Fenris, and killed him, surprising me by also killing his dismount. Still, no counter-magic, which at the time I didn't feel was vital - you'll see why.
Stalkers went next, and killed a few Doom Reavers.
Kreuger went next, and TK'd the Stalker into a better charge lane and gave him Lightning Strike. His advance took him close to my own flag, and he TK'd himself into B2B with it, ready to dominate it. He then took a shot and killed another Doom Reaver, camping one.
Blackclad walked up and shot a Pikeman with Hunter's Mark, giving anyone who charged him an extra 2" and a free charge.
Stalker warped for Berserk, charged the Marked Pikeman, and boosted to hit all 4 Pikemen he was in range of.
At this point, I suddenly realized the thing I had forgotten to do: pop my feat. Ah, Shite. I was pretty disheartened by this, as I had essentially lost the game right there, as Kreuger was easily within 14" of Butcher. I decided to keep playing my turn anyways.
Really, my Gorax should have come up and thrown Kreuger away from danger. Didn't think of it until just now though, haha!
So, the Stalker used his Lightning Strike ability to tie up the entire Pikeman unit in Melee instead of walking away and into safety.
Stones teleported Ghetto into range of Eiyriss. Ghetto boosted his attack, needing a 9, got it, and killed her. He then put Ornery on himself.
Some Stones teleported up to try and block access to Kreuger (heh).
I scored a point.
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| Really... sigh. Really frustrating that I forgot to pop my feat there. My plan had been to push Butcher back, but then have the front row of IFP be pushed backwards, so they would just run into their friends and stop, staying in range of the Stalker, who would kill a couple Pikes and run away, outside of their 6" Shieldwall range. Oh, proxy base with the Pikes is the Stalker. |
Khador Turn 3:
Pikes took out the Stalker's Spirit, but didn't kill him due to high DEF. Hm, haven't run into that much in the past, honestly.
Butcher then cast all his spells, charged a nearby Doom Reaver, had Kreuger pushed ~4" all the way to him, and killed him in a couple swings.
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| Man. Just one move away from actually making this a good game! |
Results: Another Noob-stomping by Josh Nordstrom!!
Post-game thoughts:
Haha, I'm just kidding - Josh is great to play. I specifically asked him to play Butcher3, so I brought this on myself.
I was disappointed. I had a lot of cool plans for my next turn - the Pikes would be close to the Stalker, but not close enough, and I was going to warp for Berserk, put Primal on him, and just chew through another 5 or 6 Pikes. Kreuger was going to move himself away from where the Butcher was threatening, and I could cast Counter-magic with my Druids, negating a huge part of the Butcher feat turn assassination run.
Ghetto would probably kill Drago, and I'd have a reasonable chance to win the game. No guarantees by any means, but it would have been a good close game.
That said, this is a great lesson, and one that I really need to learn, and quick. I had a great start to the game, and was continuing to play well. My decisions were causing problems for my opponent, and I felt that despite his aggressive army, I was about to take the initiative.
All of that made zero difference once I forgot to use a single rule. I can't say that "I would have won" had I popped the feat, and it was 100% my own damn fault for forgetting it. Josh is a great player, and even had I remembered to pop my feat, the game was still very much in question. But, I had the chance to make it a real game, and just failed to capitalize on it.
Remember your rules, and remember to pop your feat if you've based your entire turn around it. It's important :)
Tomorrow I'm hoping to get another game in, followed by a slew of 3 or 4 or 5 games against tough players from the Denver area, including several games against Cryx. I'm hoping to get reports up for all of them, so there's something to look forward to, for all of us! I'll be trying Cassius out for at least 2 games, which will also be interesting.
Here's the list I intend to try out, as a preview:
Cassius (+6)
-Warpwolf Stalker
-Megalith
-Gorax
Bloodtrackers (max)
-Nuala
Tharn Ravagers (max)
-Chieftan
Shifting Stones
-Stone Keeper
Shifting Stones
Swamp Gobbers (tree hugging FTW!)
Blackclad Wayfarer
Gallows Grove
Gallows Grove
The hope is that the Bloodtrackers will slowly die off, supplying souls to Cassius to cast his spells, while Megalith debuffs everyone hardcore (his animus, melee weapons, and Geomancing Curse of Shadows).
See you all later, let me know what you think!
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