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| He's not terrible anymore! |
There is a tournament coming up this Saturday, and I plan on attending. My current list pairing is Krueger2 and Baldur1. Because I don't really know what lists to specifically plan against at this point, I've made a couple lists that could conceivably win any given game (in my obviously ignorant view).
The goal is to have lists that can deal with different things, while still having an okay chance to win even if I'm locked into one list or another.
That's the goal. Haha. I'm having fun being back in the game again at least, even if my plans aren't the most complicated :)
Game 1: Circle Krueger2 vs. Menoth Kreoss3!
My list:
Krueger2
- Ghettorix
- Warpwolf Stalker
- Gorax
- Tharn Bloodtrackers
- Sentry Stone & Mannikins
- Sentry Stone & Mannikins
- Shifting Stones
- Stoneward and Wold Stalkers
- Gallows Grove
- Gallows Grove
- Blackclad Wayfarer
- Bloodweaver Nightwitch
- Bloodweaver Nightwitch
Vlad's List:
Kreoss3
- Fire of Salvation (?)
- Arc Node light jack
- Vessel of Judgement
- Flame Bringers (x5)
- Exemplar Vengers (x5)
- Choir
- Wrack
- Vassal Mechanik
- Piper of Ord
- Cavalry Character
Mission: I'll let you look at the board. Objectives and Flags only.
>> Vlad won the roll to go first, and took it.
Pre-game thoughts:
I had taken Krueger2 because of all the access to dispel Menoth seems to have. Krueger2 doesn't really depend on upkeeps (he has Rebuke now, which is situationally useful) OR magic. Baldur1 sadly does.
This game was going to be a slog. I doubted I'd be able to assassinate Kreoss, so it would essentially either come down to attrition or scenario. His list was such that I wasn't really sure if I could win scenario very easily - I needed to stay out of his threat ranges, and the objectives were too clustered for my taste.
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| Usual proxies: Nyss = Bloodweaver Nightwitches |
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| I put Prey on the Vengers. |
Menoth Turn 1:
Vlad ran his guys up.
He put concealment and +2 DEF on the Flame Bringers.
That was basically it.
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| Yes, that's a flame hill in the middle there. All of this terrain is new actually - using all the new terrain types :) |
Circle Turn 1:
I wanted to stay mostly out of Vlad's threat range, but invite him to charge in if he really felt it was necessary.
So, I moved up, and put up Storm Winds.
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| I got a little sloppy here. You'll see. |
Menoth Turn 2:
Vlad saw his Battle Engine had an opportunity. He was able to stay 14" away from Krueger (Storm Winds reduces RNG by 5 if within his CTL), but still see and shoot a Stone. He managed to kill the stone, and the damage arced to my Nightwitch, who died a surprising death. Whoops.
Flame Bringers charged in and killed some Mannikins and Bloodtrackers, then repositioned (with Parry) and spread out. They kept their +2 DEF buff, so it was going to be very difficult to remove them.
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| I immediately wished I had put Prey on the Flame Bringers. Next time perhaps! |
Circle Turn 2:
My goal this turn was to take out all of the Flame Bringers and some of the Vengers, if possible.
Ghetto went first, and killed the unit leader of the Flame Bringers, so that the +2 DEF buff would only apply to those models within command.
Stalker walked up and killed another Flame Bringer, but Vlad then used an ability on the Vessel of Judgement to let him make a full advance, hit my Bloodtracker unit leader, and kill her. It would then deny the Stalker casting Lightning Strike, since the ability stated that I didn't actually destroy the model. Heh :-/
Wold Stalkers (Shrimp) Aimed, then used Zephyr to get into range. They managed to kill another of the Flame Bringers, and my remaining Nightwitch killed another.
Mannikins combined to kill the last Flame Bringer.
That meant my Blood Trackers could go. They managed to kill 2 of the Vengers, and put some damage on the Character Venger.
Dice were really crazy for me this turn. Lots (and lots) of misses when I should have hit. Lots (and lots) of damage rolls that resulted in nothing, when they should have caused some decent damage. My dice and Vlad's dice would continue in this pattern all game, as you'll see.
I should point out that I was really sloppy this turn - I could have scored on the leftmost objective if I had put my Mannikins and Stone a little closer to the objective. Not sure what I was thinking :-/
Krueger went and POPPED HIS FEAT. All of the cavalry and jacks were pushed back and made -2 SPD.
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| Wish I hadn't forgotten about scoring on the left there. Not like those Mannikins would have done much vs. Vengers anyways. |
Menoth Turn 3:
Vlad used his 4 cavalry models to decimate the Bloodtrackers with all the various to hit buffs that those models get in this list.
He also arced Crevasse into my models using the light jack.
Circle Turn 3:
This turn, I needed to kill more stuff. I had visions of claiming both flags this turn.
Dice rolls happened again.
Shrimp advanced and did some decent damage to the Vessel of Judgement with Concentrated Fire.
Nightwitch thought she'd get clever and force the Vessel of Judgement to shoot at her next turn, so she charged it and caused a little damage.
Stalker and Ghetto had to combine to kill the Light - he kept pushing me back 1" with his shield, so the Stalker only got a couple attacks in. Ghetto had to finish him off.
Other things happened, and I managed to kill the remaining Vengers with Mannikins and Bloodtrackers and especially the Blackclad spray (cycled Prey to the Character Cav guy).
I had the Sentry Stones move up and grow forests.
Krueger moved up and used TK to get both Ghetto and Stalker backwards a little bit.
I was sloppy here again though, and had Ghetto's toes in the forest when the circumstances would have allowed me to easily get him fully behind, as was the intent.
I scored nothing, again. Heh.
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| I've killed a lot of models so far, but the game is nowhere over yet. |
Menoth Turn 4:
Vessel of Judgement went first and used a miracle or something to fry my poor Nightwitch, then shot some of my Wold Stalkers, including a shot that killed the Stoneward without letting him sac pawn it. Whoops!
The Fire of Salvation was about 1/2" short from being able to charge Ghettorix, so instead he charged my Gorax. In a spectacular display of poor dice rolling on Vlad's part, the Gorax lived with one box.
Kreoss went and manged to kill one of my Sentry Stones and all of my remaining Mannikins with a Crevasse (I think?)
Cavalry character guy managed to kill a Bloodtracker and my Blackclad.
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| The Fire hill actually never went out. We rolled for it at the end of every player's turn, and it never extinguished haha. |
Circle Turn 4:
It was time to see if I could just end the game.
I used the Gorax to put Primal on the Stalker (he still had his Spirit, haha!)
Stalker walked up and put a beatdown on the Fire of Salvation, then used Lightning Strike to get closer to the enemy objective.
Ghetto advanced and killed the Vessel of Judgement.
My lone Bloodtracker threw a spear and took the cavalry character off his horse.
I moved the Sentry Stone up and put a Mannikin in B2B with the Stalker, so when he frenzied he wouldn't kill anything too impressive.
Krueger advanced to the left flag, then used a couple shots with his gun to kill a couple Choir members, who were randomly tough from the Piper of Ord.
Shrimp also managed to kill a couple solos. Actually, one of them might have killed the Piper of Ord as well.
I finally scored.
Score: 2-0, advantage Circle.
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| Not much left for Vlad |
Menoth Turn 5:
Vlad ran his Choir to contest my flag.
His dismounted cav charged the Stalker and despite MAT 8, whiffed a few attacks (he had some souls at that point), and left the Stalker on like 3 boxes.
Score: 2-0, advantage Circle.
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| Don't remember if Kreoss took some swings on the Stalker as well or not. Vlad rolled very poorly this turn. |
Circle Turn 5:
Stalker frenzied and killed a Choir member Vlad had run in to make sure the Stalker didn't instead eat the cavalry character.
Ghettorix killed the Mechanik and Choir member contesting the flag.
Gorax, all beat up, durdled over to the cav character and boosted to hit and damage (minus a dice on each), and managed to kill the guy.
I saw little point in messing around with trying to damage Kreoss. I sent the Gallows Grove on the right to control the flag, and I again dominated the left flag, scoring another 3 points and ending the game.
Win for Circle Orboros!!
Post-game thoughts:
Well, that was a messy game. I was far too sloppy with my placement of forests and models. If I want to have any success as a tournament player, I need to tighten it up a bit. Lots of things I could have done better this game.
That said, Vlad was a very skilled opponent - he has been placing very highly in all of the local events lately, and isn't someone I will ever assume is an automatic win. I think this was actually his first game of MK3.
In the end, Kreoss never popped his feat (purification), but didn't really have reason to. I put Spiny Growth up on Ghetto a couple turns.
I'm happy with this Krueger2 list so far. Lots of shooting, lots of melee. Pretty balanced, some defense/denial aspects (stealth/forests/-5 RNG ranged attacks, etc.), and a few good control shenanigans.
We'll just have to see how it does in a tournament setting now. This was my last game with him until this weekend's tournament, so I hope to give you good news in my next report!
Game 2: Circle Baldur1 vs. Khador Karchev
My list:
Baldur1
- Woldwrath
- Megalith
- Tharn Bloodtrackers w/ Nuala
- Druids w/ Druid Overseer
- Shifting Stones
- Blackclad Wayfarer
- Blackclad Wayfarer
- Gallows Grove
- Gallows Grove
Eric's list:
Karchev
- Juggernaut
- Juggernaut
- Juggernaut
- Behemoth
- ClamJack
- Some other jack with a ranged attack
- Orin Midwinter
- Ogrun Bokur
- Some other solo (forgot what he does/did lol)
>> Eric won the roll to go first (as has been usual for my opponents of late), and took first turn.
Pre-game thoughts:
I actually asked Eric to bring a list that he might normally drop into Circle. The new Jack-spam lists that I keep seeing people reference have sounded pretty solid, and I wanted to see one in action.
My initial debate was which of my two lists to take. I eventually settled on the Baldur list because I figured the Bloodtrackers would be able to do some good work against the Jacks, and the Wrath and Megalith would be able to do some work as well.
Knocking jacks down wouldn't be as important this match, as Karchev could spend one focus to stand all of his jacks up again. However, pushing them back with the Druids' d3" push spell could be useful, given their limited threat range.
Not to mention the fact that my Wrath could be buffed pretty well with Stone Skin if necessary. I couldn't think of many reasons to take Krueger over Baldur, so I just went for it.
Deployment:
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| Not my favorite scenario for this matchup. I'd rather have the jacks be incenvized to de-brick themselves going for multiple zones. |
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| Karchev had come off his base, so you'll mostly just see his legs in the pictures. I put Prey on the far right Juggernaut, BTW. |
Khador Turn 1:
Karchev put up Warpath, and ran his army up.
I also advanced, albeit more cautiously.
I moved Baldur within 5" of my flag, and put up Solid Ground. Bloodtrackers got Stone Skin.
I had the Wrath toe the zone, and kept the Bloodtrackers within 12" of Baldur to benefit from Solid Ground (blast damage could mess them up pretty bad if I wasn't careful).
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| Megalith riled for 4, because I forgot to rile the Wrath. Heh. |
Khador Turn 2:
Karchev killed one of my Bloodtrackers with his spray, and used the kill to Warpath his Clamjack. Then his models mostly ran up again.
He had three really good shots at my Wrath that hurt far more than I thought they would. Don't underestimate shooting, haha.
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| Now we would see if the Bloodtrackers could take out a Juggernaut in one round. |
Circle Turn 2:
I doubted this game would come down to scenario, but I needed to give myself every chance of winning with scenario if I could.
Bloodtrackers seemed like the obvious choice to go first, since they were in the way of my Wrath charging or doing anything but standing there.
So, they moved about 50% of their number outside of where the 12" bubble of Solid Ground would be to protect them, and started shooting. They brought the Juggernaut to about 3 health remaining.
Stones teleported Megalith up, and he used Earth Spikes to finish the Juggernaut off.
Druids went and pushed three of the jacks backward some, to keep their threats off. They also knocked a couple down, for fun (and also because I kind of failed with them and didn't do their activations correctly.
I genuinely think I meant to have Baldur put Stone Skin on the Wrath and charge him, but at some point, I think I forgot, and I'm actually not sure if I even activated my Wrath. HUUUUGE brainfart.
At any rate, Baldur got onto the objective, POPPED HIS FEAT, and camped 4 for some reason.
If I had put Stone Skin on the Wrath, I could have charged the Clamjack without much fear of being charged in return by the other jacks - they were far enough away.
Looking back at this now, I'm really not sure what was going on with me, mentally. Lol, everyone has brainfarts I guess.
I scored, and contested the other flag.
Score: 1-0, advantage Circle.
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| Clamjack is chuckling right now. Sigh. Blue proxy base there is for his grey shooty jack. Whatever it's called. |
Karchev walked up and sprayed two Bloodtrackers to death, one of them being Nuala.
He also spent focus on things, but we both forgot (I remember now) that he spent focus to un-knockdown his battlegroup. Karchev DID put countercharge on his battlegroup, and camped a focus.
The jacks mostly durdled themselves up, with the feat keeping the jacks from getting very far at all.
He scored, and I didn't.
Score: 1-1
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| I had shifted Prey over to Karchev. Would be interesting to see how much damage the Bloodtrackers could do to him. |
Circle Turn 3:
I decided to see what the Bloodtrackers could do against Karchev. It doesn't really feel accurate to call this an "assassination attempt."
Bloodtrackers threw their hearts out, and Karchev was left with about 10 life left. I had the presence of mind to engage a few of the Jacks with a Bloodtracker to prevent countercharges.
So, for the second turn in a row, I had Woldwrath stand still. This time he shot, and only put 3 damage on Karchev. He had 7 left.
I then decided that Megalith, who was clearly in range, should charge Karchev.
As it stood, my hasty pre-turn check to make sure he was within 9" of Karchev was mistaken by like... less than a millimeter. He was approximately 9.000001" away from Karchev.
But wait! I had a Blackclad who could put Hunter's Mark on him! Orin Midwinter chuckled as he dispelled (literally) that notion.
Premeasuring is only as good as the person using. HUGE fail. I have zero doubt Megalith could have finished the deal.
As it stood, he could only cast Earth Spikes on Karchev, then gawk as Orin also dispelled that attempt. Disgruntled, Megalith put up his rough terrain animus.
Baldur had been planning on using Earth Spikes on Karchev as well, but Orin still had one more dispel in him.
Instead, after the Druids had knocked down a few jacks and pushed them around some, I had Baldur put a 4" forest in between them and my Wrath in a desperate attempt to buy time.
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| I wasn't thinking very clearly this game. Two turns of fail in a row. |
Khador Turn 4:
Eric decided he would assassinate me.
First, needed to get within 12" of his Clamjack. So, he POPPED HIS FEAT then charged Megalith (he had some ability to give him +SPD and pathfinder).
He got a little overzealous though, and ended up killing Megalith. I happily reaved the three fury from Megalith.
Shooting at Baldur saw me transfer a bunch of damage to the Wrath.
The Clamjack then went, and decided to use the auto-boosted damage rolls from the feat to kill the Wrath instead of Baldur, since it was a much better chance that Baldur would live and be able to keep the Wrath alive as well.
The Bokur went, and killed a couple Bloodtrackers, engaging the remaining 2.
He also ran his solo over to engage my rightmost Blackclad. Not sure what that solo even did, but it was enough to threaten my Blackclad.
Eric scored two for dominating the zone.
Score: 3-1, advantage Khador.
Circle Turn 4:
I had gotten lucky that Eric had killed Megalith and let me transfer all that damage to the Wrath.
He was still in a very commanding position though. I needed to win this turn. If I didn't, I'd certainly lose.
I dropped Solid Ground, but kept Stone Skin on the Bloodtrackers.
I had barely any options available.
Eventually, I decided I had at least a chance.
Blackclad stood where he was and rolled the rolls he needed to kill the Bokur with a spray (the Bokur was already injured from shield guarding a spear shot the turn before).
The Bloodtrackers were then free to throw. They aimed, and the first shot spiked damage, killing Karchev and (mercifully) ending the game.
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| Baldur had a chance to charge past the Clamjack into Karchev, but only if I got Hunter's Mark off on Karchev. If Orin dispelled that, Baldur could have Arced a fully boosted Earth Spike, and Orin wouldn't have had a dispel left. Those were my options, lol. |
Post-game thoughts:
Well, after my Turn 3 fail, I hadn't expected to win this game. Eric helped me a ton by killing Megalith.
Still, there was a lot I could have done differently.
I think this matchup has some good play into Karchev, but only if I use my feat to actually kill off one or two of his jacks. Just standing there was inexcusable.
I also think that using the Druids to push jacks backward would have been a winning strategy, if I had positioned them in a way that made more sense.
Eric likely should have shot half my Bloodtrackers off the board on Turn 3 to deny me the chance to assassinate Karchev, though I should have made more effort to keep the Trackers within 12" of him.
The game would have gone better for me if I had not tried to score immediately. I'll need to keep that in mind.
Overall, I'm pleased with my Baldur1 list, but displeased with my apparent lack of ability to play it well. Need lots of practice, do I!
At any rate, we'll see how lucky I can get in the upcoming Steamroller. These are the lists I'll bring, assuming the store actually gets my Nightwitches in on Friday as they promised. They also ordered Grayle for me, ;)
Let's just call it good here. I hope to have a Steamroller tournament report up for you sometime next week. Wish me luck!
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