Monday 8 September 2014

Battle of Lund

It was a time since I last updated. I blame the hot summer!
The battle of Lund is one of the biggest tournaments every year, and also a qualifier for the Iron Moot. I went there with big dream, bringing the same pair as usual; pMadrak and eMadrak.

pMadrak
Earthborn, Mulg, Pyre troll, Runebearer
2xWarders, Krielstone with ua
Janissa and a fell caller hero

eMadrak
Impaler, Pyre
Fennblades+ua, full kriel boat, max burrowers, krielstone+ua, warders
Fell caller, Stone scribe chronicler

Game 1
Vs a troll player with Runes of War and pGrissel with Longriders on a non kill box scenario. He chose Runes and i dropped eMadrak. I couldn't really drop pMadrak on the wide scenario. I put up my fenns on one side, kriels on the other, and the rest up center. He goes first moves the brick up centrally, his flanking runeshapers ran up.
Runes of war on outflank


I felt pretty confident. My fens threats further than the runeshapers can throw, and my kriels are many and steady. The flanks felt good. The question was what do to about the center, try to break through or just jam and go for scenario. I went for both! On my second turn, everything charged, my urrowers with blood fury, and killed many of the runeshapers and the axer.

With the flanks dead, pDoomy went for killing the fury support in my list and let mulg trample over my burrowers to my beasts. One was just out of reach but my pyre died. Then the game went grindy. I did my best to kill his beasts and he killed some of my troops. In the end, I won by killing doomy and taking 5 scenario points. I was of to a great start in the tournament.

Legion on incursion. The left flag, behind the forest was
the one to remain
Game 2
A new acquaintance, Henrik, brought vayl2 and her happy dragonspawn. The scenario was incursion and he got to go first. This game was unfortunately over quite quickly. We both aimed for one flag each, the left flag was covered by a pretty large forest and an obstruction for me. The wrong flag disappeared and i could not the little bit of luck needed to get back into the game. In hindsight i should have offered a lot more fennblades to him so that that flag would have been more difficult to take, but the terrain really made it difficult for me.

Game 3
Last game of day one and a Retribution player with rahn and issyria. Again, the scenario was not a killbox one, so i really had to drop eMadrak. He dropped Issyria with hyperion and some units. He had many guys, but i had a lot more.

He wins the roll to go first but choses a side, letting me go first. I do not mind that at all. He deploys his Hyperion in the center first. I do the usual with fennblades and kriels flanking and the rest in the center. He puts his archers against my fens and his shieldwall guys against my kriels.

I start the game by running everything up, not burrowing my burrowers. On his turn, most thing run, but the hyperion takes a shot at something but misses. On my second turn i run a few guys into the zones to contest them, and burrow the pygs. My pyre also gets four guys with his blast. Issyria feats on her turn and shoots quite a number of my guys away.

So, time to retaliate, my warders charge the hyperion, fenns charges archers, kriels charge shield wall guys, Madrak throws his axe at hyperion for a lot of damage and feats. Blood furied pygs deals with the scrapping of hyperion and the game is looking good for me.

The last turns i go for a scenario win with dominating my own zone. When issyria tries to do the same, she got crit smited by my impaler and killed by my fell caller spray.

Game 4
Legion-Gurra, a nice guy from the capital whom I've played a couple of times now. However, every time with different match ups. Fourth game, and still no kill box. I have to drop eMadrak again, which i would have wanted to anyway. He drops pVayl which i had never faced before.

The game is very much one of threat distance assessment. We get to a position where my kriels cant charge his raek or deathstalkers, my fenns can charge, but probably not hit anything because my fell caller wants to buff my pyggs. What i did was to kriel bowl the raek and death stalkers, unfortunately not killing one of them. The fenns just jammed and put some damage on the beasts in my left zone and my center moved up to threat. I almost cleared the offensive zone and feel i have a good chance at the scenario this game.

However, pVayl feats and makes it harder for me, toeing with a carnivean in the zone i want to dominate. On my turn I think i will kill the carnivean, but drop it down to one hp after the turn after. Having placed madrak rather poorly, i get charged by two carniveans and die.

I could really have played this match better and won it on scenario. A little bit more luck against that bloody second carnivean or a crit smite to get the other carnivean knocked down would have won it too.

Game 5
I go up against cryx with horseshade and something else. it is finally a killbox scenario which is destruction, which makes me drop pMadrak, which is my drop against cryx mainly. He has satyxis raiders, tartarus, bane knights and witches. 
After my firstn

I get to go first and just run so that i can contest the zones even though the satyxis are crazy fast. They and the witches jam me up, and I barely get in the zone. The next turn, he clumps up to kill one objective while Goreshade hid behind a wall while Nighmare tried to hurt Mulg, although being at arm 23 and defence 15 over the wall made that problematic. I decided to feat and clear the most of his things using my warders, my earthborn and Madrak. That leave me Mulg, and what I think is a good chance of surfing to Goreshade3 with enough fury left to get it done. and Mulg did it!

Summary
Two losses against legion. Perhaps it is time to make place for Pendrake in my madrak list? It was a good tournament, although it seemed that some tables had problems with rather big terrain pieces, I guess it many times is a remnant from the warhammer times in Sweden, but hopefully it will be over in the future.