Hi everyone and welcome to the latest bat rep. This week I decided to change up my list slightly from the one I used last week. I just got (and painted) the BFS as my Facebook followers will have already seen and so I wanted to try them out. To fit them in I dropped one of the Shredders and the Gobbers from the list and swapped out the Foresaken for Shepherds, freeing up the necessary 5 points for them. This left my list as:
Thagrosh, Prophet of Everblight +5
-Succubus -2
-Angelius -9
-Angelius -9
-Carnivean -11
-Naga Nightlurker -5
-Shredder -2
Shepherd -1
Shepherd -1
Max Warspears -8
-Warspear Chieftan -2
Black Frost Shard -5
Objective - Fuel Cashe
This week I managed to get my game in against Andy who's been using Circle and beat me in round two at the last tournament with his Bradigus list in a long grinding game. This time he promised not to drop the Runecarver and instead played a proxy of the new Circle caster, eKromac! His list was pretty beast heavy with Ghetorix, a Gorax, a Rotterhorn Griffon, a Shadowhorn Satyr and a Warpwolf Stalker in the battlegroup, along with a Druid Wilder, a Wayfarer, a unit of Druids with UA, and two units of Shifting Stones, one with UA. We rolled for Scenario and got Incursion from the 2015 packet. I lost the pregame roll but Andy wanted to pick board edge and so I still got first turn. I deployed with my Warspears on one flank along with the BFS and the Carnivean while the Angels took the other. Andy deployed centrally with his Druids out in front.
I started my turn by running everything up the board taking advantage of defensive terrain, using Thagrosh and the Succubus to put out defensive Animi on the beasts and had Thagrosh cast Fog of War and put Draconic Blessing on the Warspears.
On Andy's turn the circle pretty much followed suit, advancing up the board behind Druid cloud cover. Kromac used his Howl and gave the Stalker a free animus with his spells.
I was feeling a bit conservative on my turn and was leery of moving into his threat ranges so only advanced slightly. The Warspears advanced towards the Druids who were their prey and hit every single cloud with great accuracy, unfortunately not quite catching the Druids in their centre, though. The Carnivean advanced up and sprayed a Druid, unable to harm him because of hippy magic, but catching a stone and Ghetorix behind him. I hit the stone and boosted to kill it and then double boosted the hit on Ghetorix to put a handful of damage on him. The BFS advanced to the edge of the hill and got stelthed near the flag. The rest of the army shuffled forwards into better positions for next turn and Thagrosh advanced into the trench and he and the Succubus put out a bunch of animi again.
On Andy's turn the Druids scattered, getting out of everyone else's way, popping out some more clouds, one heading to contest the flag to my left. Kromac then advanced up and popped his feat. The now freed up Ghetorix charged the Carnivean, warping snacking to RFP the heavy, meaning I couldn't feat it back and he healed some of the damage taken by Ghetorix last turn. Then he used Sprint to advance across and tie up the Warspears. On the other side of the board the Warpwolf Stalker charged an Angelius but thanks to Tenacity he was only able to connect once, not doing enough to finish it off. The rest of the force advanced up the board more, then the Wayfarer advanced up to control the flag to my right scoring the first point for Circle.
On my turn the Warspears activated and all but one of them declaring charges on Ghetorix, the other going into a Druid, hoping to cause them to break from the Terror. The Druids braved it out and the Warspear that charged them failed his assault and charge against the Druid's high DEF. All three of the charges against Ghetorix that I'd managed to get missed and the other attacks only did a couple of points of damage. The wounded Angel took an Armour Pierce into the Stalker, boosting the attack and damage dice and cranking the roll to put a chunk of damage on it. It bought a second attack hoping for the hard roll, freeing my fury to boost damage, but missed. The second Angel then charged in, getting B2B with the flag and finishing off the Warpwolf with its armour pierce attack and repulsing to push away the Wayfarer. The Naga tried to take out another of the stones this time from the other unit, but didn't quite manage to finish it. The Blackfrost Shard charged the Druid to my left, killing him with a lucky to hit roll on the first attack and controlling that flag. The Shepherd accompanying the dead Carnivean ran across the board to the other flank and the rest of the beasts. Thagrosh and the Succubus then pumped out tenacities on every model in range of them. This put us on one control point each.
On Andy's turn the Rotterhorn charged up the board, killing one of the BFS and then used its scream to kill the other two, clearing and controlling that flag. Kromac advanced up to the flag and put up Carnage and Howl and took a swing at a Warspear, but missed it with a double 1. Ghetorix then decided to show him how it was done and proceeded to kill the other 5 Warspears singlehandedly. The Shadowhorn charged the Angelius on my far right flank and rolled exactly enough to kill it. The Gorax charged the other, injured Angel but rolled poorly and didn't do much damage at all. The Druids continued to pump smoke and the Wayfarer moved back into the flag and sprayed down a Shepherd, putting Andy on 3 control points to my one.
At this point two things were very clear. Firstly I was about to lose on scenario and couldn't contest effectively. Secondly Kromac was way upfront and was only camping one Fury. Hail Mary time then. The engaged Warspear moved away, taking a fatal free strike from a Kromac keen to prove he did know what he was doing and he was just unused to Rathrok, ok? I wasn't especially bothered about it since he wasn't achieving anything useful anyway. Then Thagrosh charged Kromac and boosted the attack. He connected and knocked Kromac down to only a couple of damage boxes with a fantastic damage roll. He then bought a second and missed the boosted attack roll. And the third. And the fourth. Humph. Not ideal. I moved on to the Shepherd who healed a little bit off the Angelius and then had the Succubus give it Tenacity. The Angelius then charged Kromac for the Armour Pierce of doom, taking three free strikes along the way. Only the Gorax connected but did exactly enough to cripple Spirit, meaning I couldn't boost or buy extra attacks, meaning that, with one transfer, he was safe. I moved the shredder up to contest the flag in a final effort of defiance. 4-1 and I was engaged by Ghetorix and Kromac on no camp. Kromac finished off Thags, but took a few swings to get there, which is something, meaning a Circle assassination victory.
This was a fun game and I felt fairly confident going into the final assassination that I had a reasonable, albeit not great, chance to steal the win. I'm really unfamiliar with Circle so it was nice to get some practice against them as I think they're probably one of the factions I know the least.
In terms of my gameplay, retrospectively I made some glaring mistakes that cost me the game. Learning experiences though, right? First off I was far too cautious moving up the board. I'm used to playing trundling Menoth and so I'm not used to moving up as far as I can with Legion. I should have moved much further and taken more real estate in the early turns. The Warspears should really have run to engage the Druids turn two and locked up his front lines and generally made a nuisance of themselves gumming up the Circle. This is something I can definitely do better in the future. The other major mistake that I only realised looking back was that I'd completely forgotten Death Shroud, which would have meant that my Angel that died would have survived the turn and that the vital Gorax free strike wouldn't have removed my spirit on the charge with the other one, which would have had a huge impact on the outcome if I'd been more on the ball. Obviously I've only got myself to blame and Andy took all the opportunities I handed to him like a good Circle player. Luckily he's a fun guy to play against and so I can't feel too bitter about the loss as it was an enjoyable game!
I feel like this game was particularly useful in helping me recognise some of the flaws with my play using Legion and hopefully I'll be able to capitalise on them in my upcoming games!
As always thanks for reading, and don't forget to check out the Facebook page and 'like' for regular post updates, photos and more at www.facebook.com/Mitsuharuonminis
-M
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