Tuesday 9 September 2014

Journeyman League - Week 5

Hey everyone, continuing my battle reports for the journeyman league I have the latest week for you! Again this week due to the larger point size (we were still at 25 points) I only had time for one game (technically I could have squeezed in two but I wanted to get home so...). 

I was running the same list again, with:

pFeora +6
Vanquisher -8
Dervish -4
Repenter -4
Min Choir -2
Vassal -2
Wracks -1
Max Flameguard with UA -8
Paladin of the Order of the Wall -2

My opponent for this week was the Troll player I faced off against in the first full week, and his list had expanded up as well, giving him pMadrak, an Impaler, an Axer, a Pyre Troll, a Stonescribe, a Krielstone Bearer unit with UA and a unit of 5 Warders. Making for a very tough (sorry) list to beat down. 

I won the roll for deployment and decided to go first. We were playing Incursion again and so I spread myself out across the board, with the Paladin on my left flank near the objective, the TFG just left of centre and my battlegroup to the right of the board. The Trolls deployed in a solid block in the centre of the board on their side, with the Warders up front, the Kriel Stone to the rear and sandwiched in the middle, his 'lock and beasts. 

I started turn one by running everything up. Each of my Jacks jogged forwards to get into position and got Passage'd by the choir to avoid getting hit by the impaler (plus they had nothing else to do). The Paladin ran up to the forest near the flag on my left, getting the defence buff but staying in walking distance of the objective. The TFG ran straight up to the middle objective and I ended my turn. Following suit all the Trolls moved pretty much directly forwards thumping towards the centre objective. The kriel stone made all of his troops immune to continuous effects and he ended his turn, meaning one of the flags vanished, dropping the flag nearest the Paladin. 

On turn two the paladin, bereft of a flag to sit on simply walked through the forest he was in to come out nearer the centre flag. The TFG moved up to the flag and used both Shield wall and Iron Zeal from the UA to get armour 21 and immune to knockdown and stationary and camped the flag, not scoring since it was still before points. My Vanquisher moved up and (thanks to the vassal) took two shots at the Krielstone, knocking off a few of the regular guys in the unit. The dervish shifted up to the rear and right of the TFG for a counter charge and the Repenter stalked towards the flag on my right. Feora moved up and cast wall of fire to put a template between the flag (where the TFG were) and the Warders. Not much else happened and I ended my turn. The trolls activated and started with the pyre troll throwing a ball of fire at the TFG but missed the to hit roll by one point and the blast damage was too low to harm anything. Madrak activated and gave Sure Foot to the Warders and ended his turn. This was when he realised he should have feated to really bring the alpha strike with the Warders but forgot and charged anyway. Charging weaponmaster trolls with huge axes had no trouble smashing through my TFG and all 5 of the charged models died despite buffs. The Axer and the Impaler both moved slightly across to my right but stayed fairly centralised, and the Krielstone kept up its shenanigans. 

Starting my turn I walked the Paladin into Melee with a Warder and kept up stone and mortar. The TFG did a barrage of CMA but only did a few boxes of damage to two warders (those guys are scary hard to kill). The dervish charged one of the warders and killed it with a pair of attacks with boosts. Feora moved up and camped 4 focus for high ARM and hid behind the Vanquisher who took another couple of shots at the Krielstone, one of which scattered nowhere much and the other hit his 'lock doing a grand total of 1 point of blast damage. The Repenter moved up and captured the flag, ending my turn with one control point. 

On the Troll turn the Pyre troll moved into Melee with the Paladin but wasn't able to do any damage with the light. The Krielstone charged, bringing the aura up in the centre but failed to do much damage. Madrak activated and used Carnage and his feat to set up the pain with the Warders. The warders activated and the troll on my left activated first, killing a Flameguard and moving up, killing another and moving up again but then he left my Paladin's melee range and was promptly sliced in half by the free strike. The troll on the far side activated and dealt a chunk of damage to the Dervish but didn't destroy anything and so couldn't use the feat. The other two trolls in the unit activated... and both rolled misses to hit. This was disappointing as the feat went wasted but was a big relief for me as the first Warder made me think they wouldn't stop going until everything was dead. The Axer on the flank had the tiniest crack of LOS along the forest by the flank flag that we needed to use a laser to determine he could see the Repenter. He threw on the animus taking 3 damage from Hex Hammer on Feora) and charged, denting the jack but more importantly contesting the zone. Finally the Impaler activated and lobbed a spear at my Vanquisher. He boosted and got the crit pushing him back a full 6 inches, through Feora, the Vassal and two choristers. The vassal was smooshed but Feora's camped ARM was high enough that she was unscathed but knocked down and both choristers managed to miraculously survive by the clear direct intervention of Menoth who made my opponent roll two sets of snake eyes (the only roll not killing outright). On my turn I started with the paladin again, thwacking the pyre troll with his sword for decent damage. The four remaining TFG moved up to CMA one of the Warders but failed to kill. The Dervish attacked the Krielstone bearer who was now alone apart from the UA who he promptly sacrificed. The Vanquisher stood up, sacrificing move, and took a shot at a troll (I forget which) but the shot went wide achieving nothing. The Repenter activated and hit the Axer with it's flail for a surprising (for a Repenter) amount of damage. Finally Feora activated, and spent a focus to stand up, reclaiming it from a wrack and feated, hitting the whole Troll army apart from the Pyre troll, who was immune anyway and the Stonescribe. She then walked away from the central melee and just near the flank flag, using two double boosted flamethrowers to finish off the Axer, leaving my Repenter in control of the flag to get me to 2 control points. 

At the start of the troll turn the fire went out on a warder and (of course) the Krielstone and Madrak. The fire then did not much to anyone. The Impaler activated and moved sideways to get a tiny crack to see the Repenter along the forest and threw a spear, but thanks to the Concealment from the forest he missed. There was nothing left that could contest the flank flag or harm the Repenter this turn, meaning I would score this turn bringing me up to 3 points and with my caster within and inch I would dominate in my own turn for 5 meaning I had won, breaking my recent losing streak!

This was a really fun game and I felt outmatched by his army from the outset, with Warders and the Krielstone with UA being very difficult to do anything about. The only reason I won at all was because he had under threatened the flag on the flank and committed to the centre which meant all I had to do was claim the flank and not die in the centre. If he'd committed the Axer and Impailer to the other flag and the Warders to the centre I really don't think I would have even been close. 

Thanks for reading and come back next week for Alt Caster week!

-M

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