Mitsuharu on Bat Reps - Saeryn and Rhyas, Talons of Everblight vs Hoarluk Doomshaper, Shaman of the Gnarls

Welcome back to the latest Mitsuharu bat rep! This week I'm continuing my test games with the twins, Saeryn and Rhyas. I'm still using the same list with them and trying to put them though their paces. The list is the one recently used on Chain Attack with no changes as a starting point for them:

eTwins +2

-Zuriel -10

-Nephilim Protector -5

-Seraph -8

-Naga -5

-Shredder -2

Max Spawning Vessel -3

Max Raptors -10

Max Croak Raiders -8

Objective - Bunker

It's a solid list and there might be some changes worth making but I want to keep trying this version out for a bit before fiddling with it too much! However I do now have my Croak Raiders fully painted! (Check out the Mitsuharu on Minis Facebook for photos)

Pre-Game

This week I managed to get a game in with our local Press Ganger Dave. He's a damn good player and almost exclusively plays dirty dirty lists. Case in point this week he decided to play Runes of War. No big surprises in the list construction (the tier doesn't really allow it) with Doomy taking Mulg, an Earthborn, a Mauler and an Axer in his battlegroup, along with four units of Runeshapers and a max unit of Krielstone bearers with their awesome UA. We rolled out the scenario and got Recon but since this is all I ever seem to play lately we rerolled and got Incoming, which I haven't played much of, this being my third game with that scenario. I won the roll for initiative and took the first turn. 

Deployment

I set up with my battlegroup central, around the Pot and my Raptors off on my left flank. Dave then set up with his battlegroup central and his Runeshapers in pairs on either flank. The Croaks then advance deployed in the middle of my side of the table. Dave then put out a pair of walls, one central and one on my extreme left flank. 

Legion Turn One

I started the game by having the Raptors run up the flank. The twins gave Occultation to the croaks and advanced up the board before spamming tenacity onto the front rank of Croaks. The Seraph and the Naga ran to get into the nearby forest. The pot slogged its way up the board to spread its influence in the middle of the board. The Croaks all ran up into my friendly zone. Zuriel flew up and riled to get some Fury on the board. Finally the Protector stuck his Animus on Rhyas, ending my turn. 

Legion: 0 Trolls: 0

Trolls Turn One 

Dave started his turn by having the rune bearers run up the board, some of them chucking stones but getting nothing done. Janissa moved up to the tier wall and used her dirt magic to make another wall in front of it, making a Mulg sandwich when he moved up into it. The other Dire Trolls chugged up the field up near the objective. Doomshaper hiked his skirts up and jogged over to the wall with Jannisa. He then put transmute on Mulg and dumped fury into the stone. The stone then moved up and pumped out their aura, adding combat warding to the mix. 

Legion: 0 Trolls: 0

Legion Turn Two

On my turn I started to shoot some Runeshapers. On my left flank the Raptors shot and killed all three of the closest Runeshapers, all failing their tough checks. They then light cav moved into the zone. The Croaks then advanced further into my zone and lit up another three Runeshapers, all of them failing their tough checks too and oiling another two of them. The Seraph then shot another oiled Runeshaper, easily killing it and he again failed his tough check. The pot continued up the board with the twins who were hanging back a little. Zuriel hid behind the Croaks and the protector dropped its animus on Rhyas again. 

Legion: 0 Trolls: 0

Trolls Turn Two

On the Trolls turn the Runeshapers on my left flank advanced up and chucked rocks at the Raptors, managing to kill two of them, clearing out the zone. The Axer on that flank put up his Animus and ran out into that zone too. On the other flank the two remaining Runeshapers charged the Croaks and dropped two tremors. Which both hilariously missed. Mulg charged up for free from Fuel Cashe and killed two Croaks and wrecked my Objective, scoring the first control point. Doomy activated and gave fortune to the Earthborn and then moved up behind a wall Jannisa stuck up, getting his toe in his own zone to secure the second control point with the domination before feating. The Earthborn then charged in and killed a handful of Croaks, despite missing multiple times even with the rerolls. The stones continued to make their way up the board, maintaining their bubble. 

Legion: 0 Trolls: 2

Legion Turn Three 

In my turn I had the raptors polish off all put one of the remaining Runeshapers before taking their extra move into the zone to contest. The remaining Croaks oiled and chucked sticks at Mulg but failed to harm his ridiculous ARM. I was fairly hamstrung by the feat but contemplated the assassination run on Doomy. It wasn't looking very good, though. Zuriel advanced into the Earthborn but ended up doing more damage to himself from the feat than he did to the Troll. The Pot bearers moved up to get in Mulg's face. The Seraph backed away, hiding behind the forest for keep its animus in play. Rhyas and Saeryn kept out of the way of the Dire Trolls as much as possible and Saeryn put the protector's animus on her sister. The Shredder advanced into the Earthborn to prevent a charge into Saeryn. 

Legion: 0 Trolls: 2

Trolls Turn Three

On the Trolls turn Mulg destroyed a ton of the pot attendants with his smashy stick. The Axer killed a Raptor but the Runeshaper on that flank couldn't get the job done. The Runeshapers on the other flank essentially just made a nuisance of themselves while the Earthborn, with the help of the Mauler, trashed everything in his zone including Zuriel, securing the third control point for the trolls. Doomy pulled back behind the wall in his backfield while the Krielstone Bearers ran to encircle him along with Janissa. 

Legion: 0 Trolls: 3

Legion Turn Four

This turn I decided I needed to try for the assassination because I thought I might just have the range to get Rhyas in. I started by having the Raptors continue up the extreme flank and one managed to get a shot off on Doomy but couldn't quite clear the range of the wall and so ending up missing. The pot hopped up and spat out a stinger who moved up and sprayed the Krielstone unit, hitting three, but failing to kill any since they finally managed to pass a tough check, meaning I couldn't clear out my landing zone. I charged the Seraph anyway to slipstream Rhyas and couldn't even get the range to manage that. Instead Rhyas charged the Krielstone guys and Jannissa, flashing blade to kill them all out of spite more than anything. Essentially everything else did very little. Including actually contesting, meaning that the Trolls went up to 4 points at the end of my turn and 5 at the end of Dave's automatically winning him the game. 

Trolls Scenario Win

Post-Game

I don't feel that I played this game particularly well, especially towards the end (that last turn was just stupid, not that I had many good options at that point). Especially since Runes is such a shitty match up. I did learn some things from this game about the list, though. First off the list has very little staying power and quite easy to remove from the board. Conversely it doesn't handle high ARM very well. Overall that kind of makes Runes a nightmare match up. Yay. Still I'm still having a fun time learning to get to grips with the enigma of the twins. If you're practicing please regard this report as a helpful 'what not to do'. If you like please imagine me skipping merrily through a minefield setting off the terrible explosions so you don't have to. You are welcome. We'll have to see how I get on next time. It does feel like this list style is basically totally assassination geared, though it can totally handle infantry at any rate! Stay tuned to find out!

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

Mitsuharu on Bat Reps - Saeryn and Rhyas, Talons of Everblight vs. Major Haley Prime

Hello everyone, despite the hiatus for a while there I am, in fact, not dead and I'm back for another Battle Report. I finally got the last of the models I needed to complete my eTwins list and, since I've been looking for something fresh to play, I decided to put them on the board. I was struggling with what they wanted in their list but after their coverage on Chain Attack I decided to play '"Trevor's" list' from the episode. It was a solid list and he played it well (better than I ever will anyway) and it's as good a starting point as any. So what that list included is:

eTwins +2

-Zuriel -10

-Nephilim Protector -5

-Seraph -8

-Naga -5

-Shredder -2

Max Spawning Vessel -3

Max Raptors -10

Max Croak Raiders -8

Objective - Bunker

The list isn't too complicated. Both the Croaks and the Raptors enjoy Occultation from Rhyas while being able to do plenty of damage on their own. The Protector gives no knockdown on the animus for Rhyas while tenacity is real nice in any list. The Seraph is important for the slipstream animus but can also strafe as needed. Zuriel is the heavy hitter but also works as a channeller for Saeryn and had Stealth from Rhyas. The pot helps keep beasts on the table for the greedy Twins who need lots of fury produced to keep them ticking over. Sadly, for the first time since I started Legion this list forced me to put unpainted models on the table, to my shame. My Croaks didn't arrive in time for paint this week but will be done by next time!

Pre-Game

This week I managed to get a game with veteran gamer Will who's not had a chance to play many games recently but was graduating to 50 points with his Cygnar force. Since I was practicing with eTwins he decided to play Hayley3 in his tier 3 list. It was made up of a Grenadier, Centurion and Thorn in the Hayleys' battlegroup, with a second Grenadier with a junior and then consisted of a bunch of Trenchers, with a min unit of Trenchers, a min unit of Commandos with two scattergunners, two chaingun crews, a mortar crew, two master gunners to accompany the Grenadiers and Maxwell Finn. These are some uncommon units and models but with the dig-in skew there's a lot of bodies and all of them have plenty of chance for really high DEF. We rolled out Recon for the scenario (this one seems to come up a lot for me for some reason!) and Will won the roll for initiative, taking the first turn. 

Deployment

Will set up with his battlegroup spread across the centre of the board, with the rest of his army advance deploying. I had the raptors on my left flank near the forest, my battlegroup in the middle and the pot dead centre to make the most of collection. The Trenchers then deployed with the commandos on my right flank with Hayley's Grenadier while the junior's Grenadier set up on the opposite flank with the regular Trenchers, the trio of gun teams in the middle to take advantage of the armoury objective. My croaks then set up in the space I'd left for them on the right flank. 

Cygnar Turn One

Will started the game by having everyone slog forward up the board and anyone who was able to dug in. Thanks to advance deploy they were still a decent ways up the board and starting to be in my face. The Hayleys put Tactical Supremacy on themselves and the junior put Arcane Shield on Thorn. 

Cygnar: 0 Legion: 0

 

Legion Turn One

My first turn was probably my quickest this game and still took ages. Twins takes some thinking. The Raptors ran up the board and hid behind the forest on that flank, the Naga and the Seraph riled and ran up. The twins activated and put out 6 Tenacities on the Croaks between them as well as Rhyas putting Occultation on the Croaks and Saeryn putting Banishing Ward on themselves. The Croaks then ran to spread out across the flank and Zuriel ran up followed by the Protector who put safeguard up on Rhyas. The pot shuffled up to sit comfortably in the middle of my stuff. 

Cygnar: 0 Legion: 0

Cygnar Turn Two

On the second Cygnar turn Will continued to have his Trenchers advance and dig in to maintain the DEF. Thorn ran right the way across the board, almost up to my objective, allowing Hayley to arc Repudiate onto the Croaks, knocking off occultation and putting 3 damage onto Rhyas which she did not like. The Grenadier on that flank as well as the commandos cleared off 6 of the croaks with shooting, when he realised that Zuriel had stealth and deflated his original plan. On the other flank the other grenadier took a pot shot at a Raptor and rolled exactly 5 damage to kill it. He then took a pot shot on the pot and killed 4 of the 6 attendants. Will'd forgotten to actually move the Hayleys but had upkept Tactical Supremacy so they shuffled up a little. 

Cygnar: 0 Legion: 0

Legion Turn Two

With most of my Croaks dead my right flank was looking pretty sad. Plus I had Thorn right up there in my face. He had activated disengage so it was going to be tricky if I missed him, which was likely. I had the now full pot drop out a harrier. That harrier charged into Thorn's back, hoping to limit his potential movement, but animused anyway for the auto hit, doing 4 points of damage despite needing high dice. Zuriel then advanced into melee after receiving Wraithbane from the Naga and took swings on Thorn. I crippled the shield early, making my damage more impactful but by the time I was full on fury I still had 1 box left to remove. So the Protector advanced up and knocked it off. Trying not to clump up too much I then had Saeryn advance up and then back to slipstream him out a little. The twins then spammed out Tenacities and Rhyas put solid ground on herself. The Raptors shot at the Trenchers but failed to hit any of them, light cav moving back. The frogs on my right flank, with not much left, threw some flaming spears at the Commandos, killing two of them. At the end of the turn Thorn was dead but I was sat on no camp on either of my casters. 

Cygnar: 0 Legion: 0

Cygnar Turn Three

On the following Cygnar turn Will had the commandos charge the remaining Croaks, killing all four of them but giving corrosion to all of his own guys at the same time thanks to vitriol. Mwahahaha. (Oops - it's been pointed out I made a mistake here and Vitriol only triggers if they don't die. First time using them. My bad) The regular Trenchers continued up the board, digging in yet again. The Grenadiers continued to blast away at my list, killing another raptor with exactly 5 damage again, removing the last of the Attendants from the Vessel and wounding the Seraph. One of the scatters landed squarely on Saeryn but even with a boost he didn't do any damage (phew!). The gun crews took a bunch of shots into the objective but thanks to impervious flesh they couldn't do a whole lot of damage to it. The Hayleys continued to advance up the board, Hayley Future took some shots into Zuriel thanks to true sight, but couldn't break his high Arm. 

Cygnar: 0 Legion: 0

Legion Turn Three

On my next turn I had some questions to answer. I felt that, thanks to corrosion, I could ignore the Commandos this turn. Zuriel advanced up and took a spray on Maxwell Finn, completely missing him even with the boost. He then bought a second spray (yes, ROF 2) on the Grenadier on his flank, killing the master gunner behind it. Saeryn and Rhyas activated and Saeryn channeled Blood Rain onto the Grenadier, boosting it, taking out the left arm, with the cannon, and the blast took out the commando giving him an extra shot. Perfect. Saeryn then pumped out some Tenacities. Rhyas advanced up with slipstream and pulled Zuriel back, ending her movement in Thorn's wreck marker, B2B with the objective. Bit further up than I'd been doing but with four transfers I felt OK about it. The raptors moved up, one advancing into Melee with a trencher but still missing both attacks, as did the two shooting Ulk. The Naga moved back to hide behind the wall. The Seraph stood still to aim and managed to kill the two Trenchers B2B with the Grenadier using all of his fury on a full strafe to get it done. 

Cygnar: 0 Legion: 0

Cygnar Turn Four

On the Cygnar turn the combined gun crews all targeted my Objective and managed to clear it off, gaining a victory point and leaving me not contesting the Zone as Rhyas was the only model in there. The Grenadier on my left managed to polish off the Seraph, costing me the useful animus but filling the pot again. Hayley's future incarnation took a bunch of shots at Zuriel, managing to take out his body with some boosts thanks to the feat they popped this turn. Hayley Prime advanced into the zone to dominate. On my left flank the engaged trencher took a desperate swing and managed to kill the raptor with exactly 5 damage again. Sigh. The Hayleys shuffled around a bit with Tactical Supremacy then Will ended his turn going up to 3. 

Cygnar: 3 Legion: 0

Legion Turn Four

I was now seriously down on victory points but Hayley had moved into Rhyas' threat range, charmingly. I started by taking two threshold checks with my Nephilim who both passed. Zuriel advanced up and sprayed through the forest to catch Prime Hayley. Both sprays covered her but I couldn't hit even with boosts. Never mind. I was only hoping for a cont. fire cherry on top. The Vessel produced a shredder who advanced up to give Saeryn a charge target that would keep them in formation and still let her activate. The Naga advanced up and gave Wraithbane to Rhyas to avoid the Temporal Flux The twins then went, Rhyas cast Onslaught to give herself pathfinder on the charge and went into Hayley prime, followed by Saeryn into the Shredder. Rhyas hit her weapon master charge attack despite set defence and did 10 damage to the warcaster. My plan if Rhyas didn't pull it off was to feat and tag Saeryn in for more attacks, but first I cast flashing blade, boosting the hit and polishing off the last boxes with a huge weapon master damage roll, getting me the assassination win. 

Cygnar: 3 Legion: 0

Legion Assassination Win

Post-Game

I've got to say this is probably my favourite game I've played in a while. Both of our lists were really complicated, particularly our casters, but that complexity made it a really interesting game. I enjoyed the toolbox element of my list and having the excess fury to use most of it. Though it is a nightmare trying to keep up with it all. I also felt like this was a really great crucible for the Twins and I even managed to break my losing streak with the assassination. I'm really looking forward to getting this list on the table again (though I definitely wouldn't want to play it on a clock!). This has really invigorated my passion, which had been flagging a little lately!

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