Battle Report!
*Sorry for no pictures. I was going to take some, but multiple reasons took me away from doing it. Next time for sure, though!*
Trollbloods:
Jarl
-Trollkin Runebearer
-Dire Troll Mauler
-Troll Impaler
Fennblades, Leader + 9 Grunts
+Officer & Drummer
Fennblade Kithkar
Fell Caller
Warders, Leader + 4 Grunts
Totem Hunter*
Gudrun*
Brun & Lugg*
Alten Ashley*
*These were just filler that I happened to bring with me and were legal in my army. Horthol and my max unit of Long Riders would have been great to field, but I haven't assembled them and asking to proxy 6 Large Bases is not something I'll be doing...especially since we didn't have close to that many rolling around.
Retribution:
Vyros, Tier 4
-Aspis
-Pheonix
-Griffon
-Griffon
-Griffon
-Griffon
-Griffon
-Griffon
Sentinels, Leader + 9 Grunts
+Officer & Standard
Arcanist
Arcanist
Destor Thane
I'm pretty positive this was his list.
So, a few notes before I get started. Ahem. I didn't really want to go to my gaming store to do a pick up game, my first game with Trollbloods, at the 50 point limit. I've also never played in a 50 point game, so that means a lot. I was very unexperienced with fielding my army, how to play it, what my opponent had, and how it countered a lot of my abilities. To top it off, I was trying to fight back from my very bad deployment.
Unfortunately, I knew I had deployed horribly as soon as my first turn started. I don't remember the Scenarios name, but it had two large objective areas on the left and right side of the table, with 1 point for control and 2 points for dominate.
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Deployment:
Retribution: He won the roll and deployed first. He pretty much centered up his army on his line, keeping an arcanist on each of his flanks watching over 3 Griffons each. Destor Thane was kept about 8 inches from Vyros on his left flank, and the Pheonix was close to Vyros in the center. The Aspis was just there to play tag with any bullets coming towards Vyros, so he kept close. The Sentinels were kept for advanced deployment, but pretty much put themselves in the center of his side of the board at maximum deployment range.
Trollbloods: I put my Warders to my far left flank, hoping to go towards that obective zone and just be beefy. My Fennblades, Kithkar, and Fell Caller stuck to the center of my table, with my Impaler a bit towards their left-rear flank and my Mauler in the middle behind them - preparing to go to whichever zone needed him the most. Jarl and the Runebearer were placed to my mid-right flank to try to take advantage of a forest that was mighty close to the right objective area (I was hoping to capitalize on Jarl's movement, pathfinder, and Swift Hunter). Brun and Lugg started to my extreme right flank, keeping themselves in the same forest to head into the right control zone early. Gudrun was tasked with advance deploying at the very edge of the forst to my right so he could try to charge some Sentinels on turn 1. Alten Ashley was to the left of my Warders, but there was no reason for that. My initial reason was try to cover some shooting ground to keep Vyros in the center behind a large obstacle so he didn't try to dominate any zones - which worked out...that's how he played it. But passed that strategy, I started to fall apart.
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Turn 1.
Retribution: His stuff ran up. Free focus for all his jacks, Sentinels took mid-field and edged on both control zones. Vyros buddied up to the center obstacle for a great cover save and cast Synergy. F that spell, by the way.
Trollbloods: This is where I realized my huge mistake. Warders were WAY too far out for any sort of spell from Jarl or my Runebearer. Huge mistake. I also didn't abuse Jarl's spell list, and only really cast Quicken consistantly. HUGE mistake. But everything advanced, with a Quickened unit of Fennblades running up to engage a load of Sentinels. Gudrun charged over a wall to take out a Sentinel. Which he did. Good boy. Alten killed a Sentinel as well, but pretty much that was it. Oh yeah, Mauler was out of command range after activating Jarl first and moving him away from the Mauler. So he walked towards Jarl to fix that next turn. The Impaler moved forward to shoot at a Sentinel but missed badly.
NOTE: I don't think I'm a bad player. Really. But these were some seriously stupid mistakes. I have excuses, but better than excuses is that I'm a fast learner. I have a much better idea of how to deploy correctly, so I don't spend turns recovering from poor deployment.
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Turn 2.
Retribution: Vengeance moves and swings from the Sentinels. Kill 2 Fennblades. Sentinel charges Gudrun and takes him down some, but Gudrun survives. A Griffon steam rolls into Gudrun with a free focus from the Arcanist. He kills Gudrun twice. Goodbye Gudrun. Pheonix sticks to the center, unsure of where he'll need to be later. Sentinels activate and charge into the Fennblades, and 2 get to the Warders (since they opened up a lane to them with their Vengeance moves). A Warder goes down, and my dice show me that they don't care that Tough is an army-wide rule to help me out as a Trollblood player. 3 more Fennblades go down. Thane runs behind the wall to help out with claiming the right obective area. Vryos also feats.
Trollbloods: The Kithkar and Fennblades get their Vengeance moves. They move up to get better positions on the Sentinels, hoping to clear some charge lanes into my opponent's back field to scare Vyros a bit. But I fail to do anything, really. I kill a Sentinel. Lugg charges into Thane and puts up Bear Hands. He hits twice, deals crap damage, and tosses Thane into a Sentinel behind him (I was hoping to get 2 of them). Brun moves base-to-base with Lugg with a charge to the Griffon that took out Gudrun. Swing and a miss. Lies! He hit, but he didn't do any damage, so it's all the same. Kithkar activates and tries again to eat into some Sentinels. He takes out one. Fennblades activate and declare a charge order, slamming into the Sentinels and a few run to engage various things on the board. I kill quite a few. The Runebearer tosses Quicken on the Mauler, and the Mauler runs around to help out Brun and Lugg. I move him too far and overdo it a bit, putting the Mauler in a charge lane from the Pheonix. It would have helped to understand exactly how that model worked, especially with the Synergy spell up. Ah, well. Now I know. The Warders go for a charge, two getting on a Griffon and the other living ones fighting back at the Sentinels that charged them last turn. The two Sentinels go down. Jarl does some stuff, but I don't really remember. I cast Magic Bullet and tried to damage a Griffon so I could clear out the right control area to Dominate, but nothing happens. The Impaler boosts an attack roll against a Griffon, hoping for a crit to knock it out of Vryos' control area so it wouldn't get fury for a charge. Negative. I didn't even hit. The dice are not with me.
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Turn 3.
Retribution: The Pheonix get 3 focus. The Arcanists toss out the focus they can and the Griffons charge and start hitting into my Warders and Fennblades. Lugg drops to two Sentinels, and 4 Sentinels take out almost all of my Fennblades and two more of my Warders. The Pheonix activates with Synergy giving it ridiculous bonuses to attack and damage at this point. It easily takes down my Mauler without a sweat (not that it could sweat even if it wanted to). Some more things happen, but his turn ends with me severely crippled.
Trollbloods: I go. This is make or break time. I have the possibility to take down Vyros. Between Alten Ashely, my Troll Impaler, Jarl, and two Fennblades and the Fell Caller Hero capable of probably charging through the big obstacle he was hiding behind when I pop Jarl's feat...a win was possible. So I went for it. Jarl activates and feats. He puts two boosted shots on Vyros and misses them both. Crap. Impaler goes, hoping to knock Vryos back with a suprememly lucky crit on high die rolls. Miss. Alten Ashley = miss. The Fell Caller moves up and uses his spray at Vyros. Miss. The Fennblades charge, even though they can't do enough to kill Vyros. Only one makes it in, since he's the only one that can LoS to Vyros. A swing and a miss. I call the game, and Jarl escapes the battlefield, leaving Retibution with the win.
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So it went poorly. It's nice that with all the mistakes, all of them, there was still a chance I could have won. That's always something. While I enjoy that about this game, it also scares me that I can do everything right, but with poor positioning or underestimating a model's ability, you can still lose. A learned a ton, though, and knowing what that army is capable of is huge. If I play that list again, I'll have a lot more advantages since I know what it's all about. His battlegroup basically has Eyeless Sight, but I thought it was his army for some reason - else I would have probably feated early against all those Sentinel vengeance swings and charges. It was a great learning experience, from learning my army and his. I expected to lose since I was pretty unprepared for a 50 point game. 25-35 would have been my preferable amount. In the last moments, I probably should have used the Runebearer to reduce a spell of Jarl's by 1, Jarl should have cast Magic Bullet twice and bounced them into Vyros from the Aspis (and it wouldn't have hurt doing this from the start of the game, either - for the extra pressure for him to move away from Jarl).
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