eFeora +6
-Vanquisher -8
-Dervish -4
-Repenter -4
Min Choir -2
Vassal -2
Max Temple Flameguard with UA -8
High Paladin Dartan Vilmon -3
I managed to get my game this week against Nick, whose Legion I'd played in the pre-league and once again in the mid week of the League and who also runs his own company making high quality (and surprisingly cheap) resin bases at http://solidgroundstudios.co.uk. Both of my previous games had been definitive losses, albeit fun games, and I was determined to try and be better each time we played. The list he was using was pretty much the same as the pre-league and was now beautifully painted to boot. It consisted of pThagrosh with a Carnivean and a pair of Shredders along with a pair of Deathstalkers, a Shepherd and a full unit of Warspears with UA. This list had devastated me last time I'd played it and I was hoping to do better with it this time around. We were playing Close Quarters again and I won the roll to go first deciding I would take the lead.
I deployed my infantry opposite the opposing flag and my battlegroup and Dartan near my own flag where there was a forest to shield my advance. Nick went for a more centralised deployment with Thags, the Carni and a Shredder slightly towards his flag, with the other Shredder behind, and the Warspears clumped slightly to my flag's side of the board with the Shepherd near them. The Deathstalkers advance deployed ahead of the battlegroup and opposite the Flameguard.
My first turn was fairly uneventful, with most of my army running forward. Dartan ran up to the edge of the forest, contesting my flag, as did Feora, hoping to score a couple of points, casting escort to give her jacks some speed. The Dervish ran across the board to my flag and the Vanquisher moved more centrally, hoping to get a few shots off next turn. The Flameguard ran forward towards the enemy flag, knowing that no amount of armour buffs would help against the Deathstalker's sniper ability. Finally my Choir and Vassal moved up, buffing my jacks with Passage and putting Enliven onto my Vanquisher.
In his turn there was a similar process of moving everything up the board quite quickly while throwing out Tenacity and Spiny Growth to keep everyone tough (though not Tough). The Deathstalkers then started their work killing two Flameguard each and using Swift Hunter to advance out of their retaliation range.
The next turn was more eventful, the TFG continued to advance, this time, with the Warspears and Carnivean looming, using both shield wall and their mini feat of Iron Zeal to give them a respectable ARM stat. The Vanquisher used an attack and an Ancilliary attack to blast half of the Warspears, doing moderate damage with the blasts but getting some lovely fire on them for next turn. Dartan shuffled up and set into Imperishable Wall to become functionally untouchable, and Feora moved up to dominate the flag, with the Dervish advancing into the forest in front of her to block the Warspear's charge. The Repenter wandered forward towards the flag and the Choir put Passage back on the Vanquisher and Repenter, though the Dervish had advanced out of their range.
On Nick's turn the fire stayed on everyone, finishing one spear off. He spent a long time measuring and re-measuring his control range trying to determine if the Carni would be in threat range to charge the Vanquisher. It was hard to judge but in the end he went for it and was in by the tiniest of margins, it was likely 9.5" exactly but that was all that was needed and it quickly chomped through the Heavy Jack, leaving it on 2 boxes, but failing to finish it off. Next the Warspears activated, declaring charges across the board. Two Warspears charged the Dervish in front of Feora, another two into the Flameguard and one into the Vanquisher hoping to finish it off with an assault shot (he had Prey on the Vanquisher and wanted to finish it off and move the bonus to the Dervish). Unfortunately for Nick he'd forgotten about Passage and so, thanks to the intervention of Menoth, the Vanquisher survived. The other Warspears, clearly scoffing at the colleague's misfortune decided to make up for it, with one assault shot rolling a 12 on the Dervish, and happily scrapping the jack between the two of them. The other Warspears managed to kill a couple of the Flameguard and called it a day. The Shredder went Rabid and polished off another Flameguard, while the Deathstalkers killed off the last of the Flameguard not in melee and started into the Choir, killing their leader, but failing to kill the Vassal who was still B2B with the mortally wounded Vanquisher. Thagrosh moved forward slightly, out of the Kill box, bringing his sacrificial Shredder forward for Transfers if needed.
My retaliation was less destructive, but satisfying nonetheless. The Repenter activated and pprayed the two Warspears nearest Feora, boosting damage to kill one and wound the other, allowing Feora to advance up and get the flamethrower shot on the other, also clipping the UA finishing the trooper and harming the UA before fire stepping back to the flag to score. The Vanquisher could only target the Carni but thanks to Spiny Growth, two boxes left and a crippled weapon it would be suicide to even try, leaving the Vassal with not much to do so he advanced up (hugging the Vanquisher) and took a shot at the UA with his magic attack, finishing it off! The Flameguard poked the Warspears with a stick, doing no damage, while the commander defiantly jabbed the Carnivean to set it on fire. Netting me a point.
The following turn several Warspears continued to burn from the fire but didn't let it stop them from finishing off most of the Flameguard (with help from the Deathstalkers) and finally finish off the Vanquisher, allowing the Carnivean to Tranple through the forest towards Feora, passing through Dartan's Melee range, and taking a huge amount of damage from the free strike, but not knocking out any spirals. The remaining Deathstalker polished off the Vassal ending his celebration with an arrow to the throat and Thagrosh moved up to dominate his home flag but there was a single TFG left contesting so both flags were contested this turn.
On my turn both Feora and Dartan poured as much as they could into killing the Carnivean but it managed to survive the onslaught with only a few circles remaining. The final Flameguard (the officer as it happened) advanced forward, carefully staying within the Reach of the Warspear while managing to get a Deathstalker into his reach, but failed to hit. The rest of my turn was fairly uneventful, and left the Carni in melee with Feora.
Nick opened his turn by healing up the Carni to restore its lost spirals, preparing it to put the hurt on Feora. Thanks to her high DEF and the ARM buffs from Escort and the one focus she was camping she was a tough nut to crack and required multiple boosts and after the multiple smashes from the big beast she was still standing on 5 boxes. The Warspears lost the last few boxes from the fire and died leaving the Shredder to eat the last TFG alone, freeing up the Deathstalkers to advance closer to my flag, with a rapid Shredder moving to contest my zone, and Thagrosh advanced to claim the flag bringing the points back to 1-1.
On my turn Dartan set up his stance and delivered the killing blow to the Carnivean, freeing up Feora to flamethrower the Deathstalker nearest her, and with a boosted roll hit and kill it, with the second Deathstalker getting hit with a boosted flamethrower from the Repenter.
At this point I was down to Dartan, Feora, one Chorister and a Repenter and Nick was down to one Shredder and a Shepherd, leaving the board fairly bare. Nick scored his second point, putting him to 2-1. I had no way to contest the flag in my next turn, meaning Nick would win in the following round (one point in his turn, one in mine since I couldn't reach to contest, one in his to win) but we carried on the game anyway.
On his turn Nick consolidated around his flag and feated to bring the Carnivean back to life and ended his turn securing a 3-2 lead. I followed this in my turn by moving Feora up and slapping a flamethrower over the Carnivean, also hitting the Shepherd and Thagrosh in the process. The Carnivean took slight damage and Thags dodged the shot, but the Shepherd was hit and died in a final blow before Feora fire stepped back to the flag for 4-3. Then in the next turn the Carnivean activated and charged Feora boosting to hit and killed the caster, netting an assassination on top of the scenario victory.
Overall it was a good, fun game. In retrospect I think I would have done a lot better if I'd taken a unit of Bastions instead of the TFG since the Deathstalkers wouldn't have been able to pick them off as easily and I might have contested the opposing flag a little longer but who knows cos I didn't, but as always Nick was helpful and I feel like I managed to get a lot further than my last few games. Plus I'm looking forward to starting my Legion next week using his gorgeous bases; again go look for yourself at http://solidgroundstudios.co.uk, so I can hardly begrudge him!
-M
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