Monday, February 6, 2017

Warmachine Battle Report #51: Grayle Wolfsworn Theme Force vs. Trollbloods Horgle2, 75 Points

Image result for grail
Grayle Grail
Hello all! I've recently discovered that my schedule will not allow me to attend any tournaments this month (February), and as such, I get a full month of playing with my new models and learning how they work!
I'm VERY excited about the new Wolfsworn theme force. I had been running a Grayle list for my more casual games, on and off. I've said things like, "if we get a theme force, this list will be legitimately competitive in tournaments." Whereas that's as yet largely untested, I've had some really fun games with the list so far.

This report will have a mini-report (no pictures, just a brief recap) of a game vs. Trolls, directly before the "feature" report, where I have pictures and everything!


First, my list:

WOLFSWORN THEME

Grayle
- Feral Warpwolf
- Warpwolf Stalker

Wolves of Orboros (max, w/ CA)
Wolves of Orboros (min, w/ CA)
Reeves of Orboros (max, w/ CA
Skinwalkers (max, w/ CA)

Morraig
War Wolf
War Wolf
War Wolf

So, things have changed in my list, but only a little bit.

I had to drop the Blackclad Wayfarer, who didn't do a whole lot for the list anyways.

In return, I got a min unit of Wolves of Orboros (WoO) w/ the Command Attachment, along with 3 War Wolves.

I also got (and this is my favorite thing about the theme force by far) AMBUSH with one unit of WoO. Perhaps it doesn't seem strong until you realize that they have a 14" threat range from either table edge, and that they have a mini-feat that makes them weapon master. Combine that with +2 MAT on the charge and CMA if needed, and you have a very versatile unit forcing an opponent into a situation they don't want to be in.

The list itself is hyper-accurate. I think I missed one swing in each game. With Morraig, CRA, CMA, Gang Fighter, Death March, Powerful Charge, and naturally high MAT, this list doesn't miss much.

I got together with my friend Dan, who is playing Trolls in preparation for ATC. I wanted to go with him, but no money available means I get to help the team get ready for their event, lol. We played a couple games at his house, and didn't have any "normal" terrain, though we did alright with some stuff he found around his house.

I had to use proxies: I accidentally left my War Wolves at home (they're even painted!). I also don't currently have a 2nd unit of Wolves of Orboros (they're already ordered, lol). So:

Fenn Blades = War Wolves
Halberdiers = Wolves of Orboros

Game 1 short recap:

Dan used a Borka1 list with 10 Tuffalos and a beast brick.

He got first turn, and got his Tuffalos into my lines really fast. I couldn't get too far out of my deployment zone for fear of him slamming/impact attacking me to death.

Dan still got his Tuffalos into me, and killed nearly a full unit of WoO, along with a couple Reeves. However, his cavalry was fast enough that they left the rest of his army behind, going in unsupported.

The Ambushing WoO charged in on one flank and killed a couple Tuffaloes and a solo, then reformed to contest the flag on the left side, threatening Dan's beasts.

With my whole list not being able to charge, you may think that 10 Tuffaloes would be hard to remove. They were, but I managed to kill all 10 of them in one turn. Reeves only had to shoot one of them, and that after he had been knocked down from tough.

After that, he had to commit his beasts, and my Feral/Stalker killed them easily enough. Ambushing WoO killed a light warbeast in the next turn, and reformed to hold their flag.

It was essentially over- we called it once Dan had an Axer and Borka left alive, and I had only lost a couple War Wolves and a unit of WoO.

Dan hadn't had a lot of practice with his list and made some mistakes, but I was encouraged - Trolls aren't really the ideal faction for this list to drop into, as their low DEF and high ARM doesn't play into my army's strengths. However, the list performed excellently.

We decided to play one more game - he wanted to try Horgle2. I was considering using my new Baldur1 + Loki list, but decided to be lazy and play with the models I already had out.

Game 2: Grayle vs. Horgle2

His list (from memory):

Horgle2
-Mountain King
-Dozer and Smiggs
- Frost Troll
- Axer

Fire Eaters
Fire Eaters
Krielstone unit

Some Solos

My List:

Stayed the same.

>>> I won the roll to go first, and decided to see what this list could do if I got first turn. Dan picked the side of the board WITHOUT a huge patch of cover-generating rough terrain, as his models would struggle to access the zone by it.

Pre-game thoughts:

Dan was experimenting with Dozer and Smiggs to see if he liked it/them better than a Bomber.

Dan had significantly more AOEs and sprays in this list than the list he had played previously. I needed to be cautious of having entire units removed from the table at a time.

I put the MAX unit of WoO in ambush - they would keep Dan bottled up in the middle of the board, or I would kill the models he was risking.

My plan was simple enough: let the Mountain King "own" one of the zones while the rest of my force cleared the other zone and won via scenario. Pretty standard scenario play on the "boobs" scenario.

I had never played vs. a Mountain King before. Wow, seriously a really strong model!

Deployment:

He forgot to deploy his Krielstone unit initially. I magnanimously allowed him to deploy it.

Still no Krielstone unit...

AH, there they are. Not that you can see the Krielstone very well from here. lol

Oh dear lord, sorry for subjecting you to this many frivolous pictures. I've put the effort into captioning them though, so it would be a waste to delete some of them, hahaha.

Circle Turn 1:

I just ran forward. Death March went on the Skinwalkers (as per usual), and Storm Rager on Morraig.

I put as many of my WoO into cover as I could. Reeves were very cautious in their advance - Dozer & Smiggs have a 24" threat range apparently.

The CDs are forests. Yellow thing is a hill, and the black thing is ruins.

Trolls Turn 1:

Dozer managed to hit a couple WoO, despite needing a "13" or so to hit. lol

Everything else just ran up.

Lanyssa, Axer, and Winter Troll are in the right zone.

Circle Turn 2:

WoO ambushed!!

My goal this turn was to kill the Axer, along with all of the Fire Eaters, Gobber Chef, and Stonescribe Elder on the left flank.

War Wolves all ran and positioned themselves to be able to charge the Axer once I got a model into him.

WoO on the right side only had one model in range of the Axer. So, the CA charged in and popped his mini-feat. He hit the Axer, and the WoO charged in as well. I rolled like ass, and the Axer survived with a box in each aspect. Doh!

On the left flank, the other unit of WoO demolished the hapless Fire Eaters and accompanying solos. I used my 3" reform to spread out. One of them even boldly engaged the Mountain King.

The Reeves weren't able to get a full-strength volley off on the Frost Troll, but they did manage to knock one of his aspects off. They also popped their mini-feat to get some cover and immunity to blast damage.

Everyone else just kind of crept forward. I made sure to keep my beasts outside of any heavy/garg charge range.

Wish I had killed that damn Axer. Ah well.

Trolls Turn 2:

This turn Daniel couldn't miss.

The Axer managed to kill all three War Wolves with the Axer without boosting.

Horgle went and POPPED HIS FEAT.

Dozer and Smiggs had a spell that gave them continuous fire damage. Between Horgle and Dozer, they set Morraig the Feral, and the Stalker all on fire. Dozer even missed his shot, but it scattered perfectly to clip stealth'd Morraig.

Mountain King went and used Assault to kill two Skinwalkers and Morraig. Note that he spiked damage vs. Morraig and dismounted him in his first spray (POW 16 vs. ARM 19, 10 boxes). He then killed another Skinwalker and got to spray me again, killing dismounted Morraig and hurting the Feral pretty badly.

Fire Eaters needed 9's to hit my WoO on the hill, and managed to hit 4/4, without boosted attack rolls.

Pretty much everything went well for Dan this turn.

Horgle is only camping 1. Can I take him out?

Circle Turn 3:

I started this turn with a lot of decent options.

I couldn't really kill the Mountain King - with Inviolable Resolve and Stone, he was at ARM 23.

But there were lots of options outside of that.

I could somewhat trivially kill all of the following: Axer, Frost Troll, Lanyssa, Fire Eaters, Dozer & Smiggs, and 3 or 4 Krielstone models. Dan would essentially have his Mountain King and Horgle left alive.

Grayle was somewhat vulnerable though - I'd want him to run into a zone to score, but the Mountain King's sprays would do some work on him.

Still, in hindsight, I probably should have just done that, and won via either scenario or attrition/caster kill.

Instead, I decided to try and assassinate Horgle.

Lots of cool stuff to this attempt, even if it may not have been the best, math-wise.

Grayle needed to go first. He charged the Mountain King, hit, and sidestepped so he had line of sight to the two Warpwolves. He put Primal on both, and healed the Feral's mind. Then he POPPED HIS FEAT. From where he was, if my own models killed his models in melee, I could have the Warpwolves advance 3".

WoO on the right charged the damaged Frost Troll and killed it.

Stalker advanced 3".

Stalker activated and walked another 6" past the wall to start punching Dozer. And punch he did. I think he did it with 3 total punches. Not really necessary to spike damage that much, but he did so anyways. He even sprinted afterward to celebrate!

When Dozer died, the Feral advanced 3".

Reeves got a double-tap into Horgle, causing a bunch of damage he didn't transfer.

Feral then advanced into the place previously occupied by Dozer, and started punching Horgle.

This would have been a high-percentage assassination, except for one vital piece I forgot: Horgle had reeved 3 more Fury when the Frost Troll and Dozer had died.

So, I had 7 total attacks to hit him with. 4 transfers. I needed 5's to hit.

My first swing was snake eyes (miss).

My second swing hit, but did like 2 damage, so he didn't have to transfer.

My third swing hit, and Dan had to transfer (3 left).

We then did the math - if I could hit all 4 of my remaining attacks, I would kill him. Horgle only had 2 boxes left, and my POW was equal to his ARM (19), so any hit that went through would kill him.

So, I rolled 4 times in a row, forgoing damage rolls, as I'd essentially auto-lose the game if I failed to kill Horgle.

I won't cause more suspense: I managed to hit all 4 remaining punches, and Horgle went down. He also failed his tough roll (forgot about that one too!). Pretty lucky of me.


Game Results: Win for Circle via bumbling assassination!!

Post-game thoughts:

In hindsight, it's easy to see that I could have killed essentially all of Dan's army, and stayed relatively safe. In the moment however, it seemed like the assassination would work better. And, it would have been a very neat thing indeed if I hadn't forgotten about the fury reeving thing. Pretty dumb of me.

Otherwise, this list performed well. Having models that just don't really miss ever is a lot of fun (for me). The ambushing WoO did some WORK on the left side, and while the Fire Eaters had some success against them with sprays, Dan needed to get lucky for it work out. Those Fire Eaters were also DEAD if I had decided to use the WoO on Turn 3.

Seriously, having an ambushing unit like WoO really makes this list tough to deal with. Additionally, the current meta doesn't really have much anti-infantry tech in its lists, and this much infantry is a handful to deal with.

I really want to try this list into gun lines. The stealth thing is nice against some gun lines (clearly not against Sloane), but having ambushing WoO will help, and having so many models to shoot up might also help. That's all theory-crafting at this point of course. But it bears thinking on.

Otherwise, this list is something I want to try into Legion and Cryx. Maybe even some Circle lists - anything with high DEF and low ARM. I'm even delusional enough to think it might work against Menoth.

Thing is, if I can get this list to help me cover against those factions, I can take a different Baldur1 list that focuses more on armor cracking.

I'll try to get a few more reports out using this list, and we can learn together. :)

Baldur1:

Oh yeah, if you're interested, here is my first run at a Baldur1 + Loki list:

Baldur1
- Woldwrath
- Feral Warpwolf
- Loki

Bloodtrackers (max)
Sentry Stone
Sentry Stone
Shifting Stones

Blackclad Stoneshaper


I really wish I could fit a Wayfarer in, but can't find a way to get it in with everything else.

Loki can have a POW 21 gun if I really want it (warp STR, Primal, Stone Skin).

The idea is to drag a model in with Loki, punch it a little bit, then have the Wrath or Feral finish it off. I could also conceivably kill three or four jacks in a turn, then pop my feat and suffer minimal retaliation. More realistic to assume it would be closer to one or two though.

I've been having a LOT of games against jack-heavy lists lately - this list gives me 4 credible threats vs. jacks, along with at least decent infantry removal as needed. Stone Shaper is an inferior replacement for a Blackclad, but he does have a magic spray, and he helps with fury management (which I'll need, with more beasts).

I'll miss the Druids, Blackclad, and Megalith, but I think Loki can really help with my board control shenanigans. I don't tend to use Hunter's Mark much with this list anyways - most things out-threat the Wrath, and I win by forcing them to come to me. In this case, Loki can help force others to come to me, lol. 14" threat with his gun, 16" threat if he's ported by Stones.

Also, Warpwolves with Baldur's feat (he gives them cover) are going to be TOUGH to kill. They can't be knocked down either, so USUALLY will be DEF 14 against everything. Also, Loki can get to ARM 21 with Stone Skin, and with his higher DEF, he's arguably as survivable as Megalith. He also has shield guard, for funsies. :D

Alright, I'm done rambling. Thanks for reading, see you next time!

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