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| Trolls! |
My pairing is Baldur1 and Wurmwood. My Baldur1 list hasn't changed (go read other reports on this blog for more information), but my take on Wurmwood continues to evolve. I'm really enjoying this list so far. Let's see how it goes.
Game 1: Circle Wurmwood vs. Cygnar Haley1
My list:
Wurmwood
- Cassius (duh)
- Warpwolf Stalker
- Feral Warpwolf
- Pureblood Warpwolf
- Sentry Stone & Mannikins
- Sentry Stone & Mannikins
- Shifting Stones
- Reeves of Orboros (max, w/ UA)
- Blackclad Wayfarer
- War Wolf
- War Wolf
- Gallows Grove
- Alten Ashley
Robert's List:
Haley1
- Lancer
- Defender
- Hunter
Lieutenant Allison Jakes
- Charger
- Storm Lances (max)
- Trenchers (WA and UA)
- Alten Ashley
- Gun Mage Captain Adept
- Major Katherine Laddermore
>> Robert won the roll to go first, and took first turn. Importantly, I took the side with a wall and a centrally located forest.
Pre-game thoughts:
I recently played Robert a couple weekends ago at a Steamroller (Game 2). I won't spoil the final results here, but suffice it to say that I left that game feeling that Krueger2 had lost something vital, and that I would need a new caster for Rocky Mountain Rumble.
This game would be very different in flavor than my previous match with Robert. The scenario would force him to actually come up the table, or lose immediately by scenario.
So, my plan was essentially to force Robert to engage me with a significant number of models. I would ideally use my feat and my beast threat ranges to give him difficult decisions to make - contest the objective, or stay out of harm's way?
Let's see how it went!
Deployment:
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| My proxies: Wolves of Orboros UA = Reeves of Orboros UA, Lanyssa Ryssyl = Alten Ashley |
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| Note: he forgot that his Hunter had Advanced Deploy. Ironically, I was the one who reminded him, and he redeployed it. That change is not reflected in this picture, however. |
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| Ah, there's the Hunter :) |
Cygnar Turn 1:
Ah Turn 1, my only enjoyable turn against a gunline army. :-p
Robert ran up. He put Arcane Shield on the Trenchers, which I didn't notice until later into my own turn.
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| My deployment is still a little clunky. I keep getting better at though - hopefully in a few more games it will smooth out. |
My goal this turn was to kill a few of the cavalry models, a few Trenchers, and then use my feat to negate Robert's next turn if possible, while achieving a solid board position.
War Wolves ran up first to get into charge range (via sic'em) of some cavalry.
Reeves went up next and used two-man CRAs to hit two of the Storm Lances. This triggered Sic'em, and I was able to kill both of them. I used a somewhat weak CRA to slightly damage one more of the Lances. Not bad, since the majority of the unit was out of range.
Feral walked up and ate a Mannikin on the right Sentry unit.
Sentry Stone on the right activated. I was able to place one Mannikin to aim and shoot a line of three Trenchers. The others walked up to do the same. Their sprays managed to kill a couple of Trenchers, but Arcane Shield helped Robert a little.
Pureblood also walked up and sprayed at least one of the Trenchers.
Alten Ashely missed his Aimed shot at a Trencher.
Cassius ran up to within 8" of the Trenchers.
Wurmwood got Curse of Shadows off on the Trenchers, then yo-yo'd Cassius back to him. He grew a forest that he could upkeep next turn if he wanted as well. He then POPPED HIS FEAT.
That wasn't a terrible turn, all things considered.
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| How badly would the enormous forest mess with Robert? |
Cygnar Turn 2:
Robert wasn't really sure what to do. This was his first time playing against Wurmwood, and the feat always takes people by surprise the first time they play against it.
He had the Trenchers "dig in".
The Storm Lances entertained themselves by killing my War Wolves and arcing lightning into a few hapless Mannikins who were corroded anyways.
Arcane Shield went on the Storm Lances.
And, that was about it.
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| Not much a gunline can do against a 14" forest. At least, not this gunline. |
Circle Turn 2:
I saw an opportunity to score decisively this turn. Robert hadn't advanced his models enough to contest flags, and I might be able to score all three if I executed correctly.
The Reeves moved up and used two giant CRAs to kill off two more Storm Lances.
The leftmost Sentry Stone ported over to within 4" of the flag, spawned a Mannikin onto the flag, and had the other Mannikin also get near the flag. He put up a forest to try and mitigate the damage his Cavalry could do to the exposed Reeves.
On the right, he had four dug in Trenchers (with Tough) contesting the flag.
Alten Ashley aimed, and despite their DEF 17, his effective RAT of 10 managed to pick one off.
Pureblood went next and sprayed one or two of them.
Sentry Stone on the right spawned a Mannikin, and between all their boosted sprays, managed to kill off the remaining Trenchers. Sentry Stone made a forest.
Blackclad ran to control the flag on the right.
Shifting Stones shifted to control the flag in the center.
Wurmwood just stayed put in his forest and created a 4" forest next to the Sentry Stone forest in the center.
Stalker and Feral walked up to just behind the forests, threatening anything that would dare to contest my flag.
I controlled all three flags, and so scored three points.
Score: 3-0, advantage Circle
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| I considered using the left Sentry Stone to make a forest that completely blocked LOS to my Feral, but decided it was worth more to get a third CP and put some huge pressure on my opponent. |
Cygnar Turn 3:
Robert knew he would need to do some damage this turn, or face an immediate loss.
Laddermore went first, and between her impact attacks, shots, arcing lightning, melee attacks, and more arcing lightning, she managed to kill the Sentry Stone and six Reeves. Kind of hot lightning arcing, but WOW, nice turn by ONE model. :)
Haley went and POPPED HER FEAT. She then shot and killed the Stone that was controlling the flag.
Hunter advanced and shot at my DEF 18 (behind the wall) Pureblood, but missed both shots. Robert put him on the very edge of 4" to the flag.
Defender managed to get a bead on the Feral and nearly killed it, but didn't quite manage it.
Robert ran his two remaining Trenchers to contest the right flag. One Trencher got all up in the Pureblood's business.
Gun Mage Captain put Flare on the Sentry Stone, and didn't do much damage to it with his two shots.
With Flare on the stealthed Sentry Stone, the Charger was able to wreck it with two shots.
Lancer advanced to barely within 4" of the flag.
Jakes went base-to-base with her jack and contested the flag on the right.
Also, somehow my Blackclad died.
And, that was it! Haley's feat turn didn't completely screw me this time. Ironically, it was the two cavalry models who did the most damage, who were not in range of her feat.
Score: 3-0, advantage Circle
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| Gun Mage Captain is hiding on the right behind the Charger and Jakes. |
I needed to score at least once this turn. Twice would obviously be ideal, but might not be practical. I also needed to kill that Gun Mage before he got a line on Wurmwood and flared him.
After a long while of contemplation, I had the Pureblood warp for Ghostly and advance past the engaging Trencher. He then sprayed into a Trencher, Jakes, Charger, and the Gun Mage. I double-boosted on the gun mage and killed him. I also double-boosted on Jakes, HIT her on a 12, then rolled horribly, only doing 1 point of damage to her. He missed the Trencher and Charger altogether.
But, at least the Gun Mage Captain was gone. That was the main goal.
Cassius went and got to within Stranglehold range of the Defender.
Wurmwood went. He healed the Feral for 1, put Primal on the Stalker, and then tried two times to get Stranglehold off on the Defender. The first shot missed (needed a 5). The second shot HIT, but I failed to get my boosted 8 to damage it. Sigh.
Stalker had Primal, and walked up and destroyed the Lancer easily. He used Lightning Strike to engage both the Defender and Laddermore.
Feral charged the Hunter, boosted his initial attack, and missed the 7 he needed to hit! He ended up needing all his remaining attacks, but managed to kill the Hunter with his final swing.
Alten Ashley chuckled and aimed, shooting my opponent's Alten Ashley dead.
Remaining Reeves moved up to jam the Storm Lances and Laddermore, but the only one who wasn't engaged by the Storm Lance was my Standard (who had no melee range). Still, I'd be able to deny her a charge on Wurmwood, which was the main consideration.
Just in case, I put my Gallows Grove in between Wurmwood and Laddermore.
Remaining Stones shifted a little bit to control the center objective.
I scored a point.
Score: 4-0, advantage Circle.
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| If I had gotten Stranglehold off on the Defender, it would have been game over. As things stood, I was still in a pretty decent position. |
Cygnar Turn 4:
Between Jakes and Haley shooting, my Feral died a sad death.
Laddermore and Defender combined to NOT kill the Stalker (DEF 14 can be tough to hit).
Trenchers ran into the center to contest the flag there.
Charger shot another Stone off the table... I think.
Score: 4-0, advantage Circle.
Circle Turn 4:
I had Wurmwood cast Hellmouth on a Stone, which hit and caused tough checks on both Trenchers. One tough'd.
Alten Ashley shot the one on the ground to death.
Cassius ran to control the center flag, and I ended my turn.
I scored, and the game ended.
Results: WIN for Circle Orboros!
Post-game thoughts:
Well, this game went better than I expected. Turns out playing a scenario where I can actually score and threaten my opponents is actually helpful.
Being able to get a mini-alpha on Turn 1, then pop my feat and get into a dominant board-control position for Turn 2 was really important against an army that could shoot me to death fairly quickly/easily.
Not getting Stranglehold off on the Defender was disappointing. I'm glad it didn't end in a loss or something. That spell would have been really helpful.
Initially, I wanted to get the Reeves to kill the Trenchers. They would be good at it - they ignore Cover and Concealment, and their CRAs would have done some good work against them. However, I think it was actually a far better idea to have the face off against the Stormlances. They did some really good work on the left flank. I'll have to keep Laddermore's awesome lightning abilities in mind though - she almost single-handedly wrecked my Reeves unit.
Not that it surprises anyone, but I'm really enjoying the Reeves. Not only do they do some solid shooting, they do well with the War Wolves, AND feed Wurmwood souls in abundance. Heh.
Game 2: Circle Wurmwood vs. Trollbloods' Madrak2!!
His List:
Madrak2
- Dire Troll Mauler
- Troll Impaler
- Pyre Troll
- Kriel Warriors (max, w/ UA/WA)
- Kriel Warriors (max, w/ UA/WA)
- Krielstone (w/ UA)
- Lots of utility solos
>> I won the roll to go first, and took first turn.
Pre-game thoughts:
Nick started this game off telling me how his army worked, but I wasn't sure I grasped all of the implications. Essentially, it was supposed to be an elaborate delivery method to get Madrak to eat my whole army. Apparently it's quite broken.
My goal was to kill lots of models, feat, then kill more models. I felt with first turn I could ensure a solid alpha strike with ranged attacks.
Otherwise, I needed to stay outside of Madrak's threat range, and I'd hopefully be able to win via attrition/scenario.
Deployment:
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| I forgot a full deployment picture. This is of his army's deployment, after my first turn. Heh. |
Circle Turn 1:
I ran up.
Sentry Stones put up forests, because they both got 3 fury to start with, and I wanted to be able to get them up over 3 next turn.
Not much else happened.
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| Wurmwood also created a forest, in case I would want to upkeep it next turn. |
Trolls Turn 1:
Nick also ran up. He spread out, and positioned Madrak aggressively.
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| Madrak is the one just inside the forest, with only a few trolls in front of him. |
Circle Turn 2:
I put everything into killing his unit on the right. I managed to kill 7 warriors, and I was about 3 damage off of killing the Impaler with a Reeve mass-CRA double-tap, followed by two War Wolves charging in. One War Wolf missed his attack (needed a BOOSTED 6 to hit), and likely would have finished him off. Ah well.
I explicitly left the leftmost Kriel Warriors alone, to keep from triggering vengeance.
Wurmwood POPPED HIS FEAT, and I ended my turn, confident that I was in a good place.
Nick then informed me that I had lost.
He showed me how he could get into melee with a Mannikin, pop his feat, and pac man all the way into Wurmwood.
After we had moved a bunch of models without rolling, I'm not 100% convinced he'd have been able to do it. He certainly had a good chance to, but he'd have needed to hit all of his attacks, including a Blackclad Wayfarer (DEF 14), and KILL a Feral Warpwolf (DEF 14), then chop through 3 transfers on my ARM 21 caster.
We never rolled to see if it would actually happen (I think it was something close to a 50% chance for him to get the assassination, if that), but it did lead into a good conversation on how to thwart Madrak2.
Essentially, I think I could have gotten a pretty high-percentage assassination on Madrak Turn 1. He played far enough forward that all I would have needed was to kill a couple Kriel Warriors, then use two Hellmouths on a Mannikin/Sentry Stone to drag him outside of his support range. My beasts and Reeves would then have easily killed him, even if he had camped all 5 transfers (which he hadn't).
If Nick had stayed farther back, I'd have had a great shot at winning attrition, since Madrak wouldn't have had the assassination vector. One more turn of shooting/hitting his models would have ended up killing most of the army.
The alternative would have been to use Stranglehold on Madrak. If that had worked, he also wouldn't have been able to do much.
So, good stuff to think about.
As things stood, we never finished the game. Not sure who would have won. It was a good learning experience though. Lol, kind of sounds like I'm writing in a diary.
At any rate, two good games, and I'm feeling more and more comfortable with Wurmwood. Not sure if you'll get more reports from me until next week. I will be doing reports for Rocky Mountain Rumble. Hopefully I can get into the top 8 (be undefeated on Day 1). That's the goal anyways.
Alright, I'll let you all go. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it!
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