Jarl1 vs Carver1 75 pts

Lots of games last week (well ok, 3 games, but it's a lot in a week for me at the moment), the last one was trying the thought out Jarl list for an upcoming tournament on the 4th of February, The list, which I have talked about in an earlier post, is:

Jarl1
-Runebearer
-Bomber
-Mauler
Braylen
Fell caller
Chronicler
Max Fennblades+Ua
Min highwaymen
Fire Eaters
Max Champions

My opponent, not knowing what to pair his Helga list with, was trying out a Carver1 beast list.

Carver1
-War hog
-War hog
-War hog
-Battle Boar
-Battle Boar
-Gun Boar
-Gun Boar
-Splatter Boar
-Splatter Boar
Lanyssa
Gremlin Swarm
Gremlin Swarm

This much bacon under batten down was not really what I want to see with my Jarl list, but I do not think it is a lost cause in any way. We rolled scenario and got Outlast, which should be a good scenario for an army of my size. We rolled off and I lost, Carver chose to go first.

Round 1 - running
Carver ran his stuff forward. Gun boars centrally, a splatter and battle boar onto each zone flanked by gremlin swarms. Carver and his personal bodyguard of three war hogs hanged back and slowly advanced centrally to see what zone to go for.

After my round 1

I had clogged myself in a magnificent way during deployment. Wanting to deploy as centrally as possible, I had placed my highwaymen and fennblades to close to the center, forcing back my bomber and my champs. Thankfully, since the pigs just ran forward, I would be able to get into position and feat. So this is what I did. Jarl went forward, shot a lot of damage into one of the gun boars and feated. Then I ran the fennblades, not taking my opponents AOEs into enough consideration. I moved up the highwaymen and fire eaters. The only thing that was too far back from what I would have wanted was the bomber.

Round 2 - shooting and jamming
With my feat up, Carver is just looking at a few rolling clouds without the possibility get into melee. His small shooting boars walk into the clouds and start shooting away at my too tightly packed fennblades, clearing a few of them. He decides that the left zone, to me that is, is the one to target and starts moving his war hog/carver center towards it.

After my round 2, notice the nice pack man circle
 for the battle boar on the left.

On my round 2,I try to go for some killing of the small boars. The fennblades charge in, the fire eaters attack the battle boar on the right flank. I was thinking of going for a scenario play by shooting one of my fire eaters in the back and magic bulleting to the gremlin swarm, but when the battle boar did not die it was better to kill lanyssa with and shoot more boars. Lanyssa died but the roll of snake eyes makes me kill my own fennblade in melee with two gunboars, I misplaced the highwaymen, they should just have run to flank more instead of doing nothing on two combined shots. I also forgot to reposition with my fennblades. So it was a very crappily played round from me. Still, I put down a lot of damage on many of carvers beasts without actually committing my beasts nor the champions.

Round 3 - scenario play and attrition
Carvers goes for a scenario play on the left side, clearing it out and scoring 2 points, placing his three war hogs so that he can clear out the stuff I throw into the zone.

I start to move as much I can toward the right flag and kill all the beasts on my right flank. The champions now can move can charge his war hogs the next turn. The last highwaymen and braylen contest the zone.

Round 4 - get into the zone!

Almost at the end of my round 3.
There are a lot less models left on the table now.

Carver moves back into a trench outside the zone and clears of my highwaymen with a warhog, gun boar and battleboar, scoring one more point.

On my turn I move my bomber to shoot one of the road hog, while the mauler gets quickened and raged and takes out the war hog who had removed my highwaymen on the left side of the left zone. Three of the champions charge the third war hog but only do a minimal amount of damage to him. The last fennblade and the fire eaters clear of the last gunboar and splatterboar centrally, leaving carver with two war hogs, one of which was heavily damaged, himself and the gremlin swarms.

Round 5 - chaos ensues
Carver has to clear out the zone, meaning killing one champion and my two beasts. Unfortunately, I positioned them to close together so that the free war hog could get to both of them. Popping his feat, carver charges the contesting champion and misses two or three attacks, barely killing it and only getting one or two swings at the bomber. The road hog also misses a few hits on the mauler and manage to kill it but not the bomber. What should have been a sure win now looks to be a loss for carver.

The game plan is clear, kill the non camping, non batten down carver. Two of the fire eaters spray him for a few points of damage, jarl shoots but rolls badly on the damage, only doing a few points. The bomber goes in, needing to boost and only gets three boosted attacks at pow15, not killing carver. I have one champion that can reach him, but does not finish him of, leaving him at one box on fire.

Round 6 - round 6? what is this, warhammer?
Fire roll, it doesn't go out. Six or more and then a tough roll can win me the game. Fire roll comes out a 5, and carvers easily clears out the zone and wins.

Summary
Despite the comical but exciting ending to an otherwise great game, I feel like the list has the tools to win a match up like this. The amount of damage the list puts out adds up, even against arm 19-20 beasts. However, I need to play way better. Better positioning against AOEs, better setting up so that I can unpack my army correctly, and also better utilise the flanking ability of the highwaymen. In all fairness, I did not really know what the battle boar and the splatter boars did, and playing with my son in a harness on my chest did not help.

But one thing is very clear, the champions are not pulling their weight at all. They got to charge heavies and not dent them at all, not even lights. Granted, batten down helps my opponent, but I still want to at least cripple an aspect, or be close to. They are so gonzo from the list. For the 17 points, firstly I will be trying out Sons of bragg and a min unit of sluggers, since I want to keep a high number of infantry. If that doesn't work I will put an earthborn and gobbers in the list. The earthborn has really performed in the games I have used it.

Horgle2 vs Helynna1 75 pts

Helynna

Practise makes perfect they say and I am a firm believer in knowing my lists and how it performs against different enemies. With the errata, my Horgle2 list I posted about earlier is not valid anymore (the sluggers have changed in cost). Since there is a one day tournament coming up soon I need to  practise the new list which is:

Horgle2
-Runebearer
-Mountain King
-Bomber
-Axer
-Max Sluggers
-Fire Eaters
-Min Stone+Elder
-Min Highwaymen

With the errata, I have gone from the bouncer to the Axer, as the need for a shield guard to the Mountain King is not as necessary anymore. Having a rather shooty list that also handles melee very well all ties into Horgle2 as a versatile caster which can use the feat both for shooting and for melee.

My opponent tried one of his tournament lists, Helynna1, a hard hitting list very survivable against shooting. Discordia, the artificer and helynnas feat and deceleration all hamper the output from my shooting.

Helynna1
-Sylys Wyshnalyrr
-Discordia
-Manticore
-Manticore
Max. Dawnguard Sentinels+Ua
Max. Dawnguard Sentinels+Ua
House Shyeel Artificer
Arcanist
Arcanist
Arcanist

The scenario we rolled to play was extraction, with kill box which mattered as Helynna wants to play rather far back. The terrain was set up so that one side had a wall, both sides had a hill and there was rubble and water in the centre of the table. We rolled of and lost the roll, but surprisingly, my opponent chose to switch sides to the one opposite the wall.

Round 1

After my first round, just running things.

I set up my Mountain king and fire eaters slightly to the right, to contest the right flag. Higwaymen and sluggers to the left for the left flag. Axer, bomber and Horgle2 deployed centrally to see how everything turned out. My first turn, everything ran forward. Inviolable resolve on the King, Fire starter on the Bomber, 3 fury in the stone.

The setup for my opponent was very symmetrical, Helynna in the centre with disco, the two units flanking her, and the two manticores flanking them. He ran his stuff forward and put up his defencive tech, walls and force barriers.

Round 2

After my round two, positioning

I moved my stuff forward, The bomber put some guys at fire without killing anything due to immunity to blast damage. The mountain king moved into the threat of three sentinels, the highwaymen flanked on the side. In other words, I positioned myself for a very aggressive turn 3 scenario play.

My opponent decided it was go time, he charged with what he could, putting down a lot of damage on my bomber with two sentinels and some damage on my Mountain king. He jammed with the rest of his army and disco sprayed horgle for brain damage, One crucial thing is that he forgot to feat.

Round 3.

After my round 3, much of the retribution army gone

Round three was easily the feat turn. With so much on fire and the bomber able to put out more, it was the way to go. Horgle feated and used his two attacks to clear of the bomber by combustion. However, the bomber then walked through the manticore wall, taking 4 damage to the spirit, knocking it out. He therefore only managed to throw out one bomb, setting some more stuff on fire. The mountain king then moved forward to kill Discordia, using only his initials, spraying some sentinels and killing a few more. The runebearer killed two sentinels with consuming flames and the fire eaters managed to kill of three. On the left flank the highwaymen managed to clear of most of the remaining sentinels, letting the sluggers only kill one guy. All in all, it was a very good feat turn.

My opponent figured assassination was the only way out. He went for it and failed even though it was close, since horgle had taken 8 damage from the Discordia spray earlier. Game over.

Parting thoughts
I need to set up the highwaymen and sluggers on opposite flanks. They get in each others way on the same flank. The fire eaters performed ok this game, but I think I need to spread them out more, they were hampered by the manticore wall this game. Me and my opponent discussed how much the feat during his turn would have helped. I probably would not have killed as much with the feat on. Probably still enough to get me the game though. Neither the axer nor the sluggers go to do any real work during the feat. I like the list as it is now a lot, it feels well rounded and will hopefully perform come the next tournament!

Calandra1 vs Fyanna2 75 pts

It seems I will be going to Smogcon, and therefore need a third list. Calandra has always been close to me and trying some of the lights in theme would be a good trial for them. I was playing:

Legion list and setup

Calandra1 - Power of Dhunia
Runebearer (free)
Earthborn
Mauler
Slag
Slag
Pyre
Storm
Axer
Night
Swamp
Min stone+elder
2x Whelps (free)

My opponent was playing a Fyanna2 combined arms list (i could be missing something):

Entrenched

Fyanna2

-Succubus

-Angelius

-Typhon

-Zuriel

Swordsmen

Strider Scouts

Deathstalker

Shepherd

Nyss sorceress & Hellion

2x Spell Martyrs

The scenario we rolled was Entrenched and the terrain was set up in such a way that one side was rather favoured as the zone was blocked by a large obstruction and there was access to the other zone via a forest. We rolled of and my opponent chose the favoured side.

Round 1

I fueled the stone and ran forward with everything. The plan was to hold my zone with the earthborn, calandra, the stone and maybe one light or more. On my left flank toward my opponents zone I placed both slags and the night troll. The rest were placed centrally. My opponent ran his army forward and feated, placing his three beasts centrally, his swordsmen running through his zone, and the archers moving into the forest toward my zone.

Round 2

After my round 1

Because of the feat, I held of my advance and played rather cautiously, +3 def is not to laugh at, especially since it is legion we are talking about. I just moved up, the earthborn into the zone without his animus, and shot some archer off the table with the pyre troll and storm troll. 

My opponent set up a strong scenario play by charging his angelious into my zone killing the objective with the armour piercing charge and repulsed my Earthborn out of the zone. Zuriel killed the storm troll and typhon sprayed my night troll to death. He was setting up for a 3 point scenario swing, but then fyanna went forward, hitting my pyre troll so that I could drop a whelp in my zone. 

Round 3

After my round 3

Feat turn for calandra. Rage up the pyre troll and earthborn. The Pyre troll threw the admonitioned zuriel at the angelius in the zone, knocking him down, the axer, receiving rage from the mauler kills zuriel and the earthborn kills the angelious. My lights kill some other small bases but the game is pretty much over after the mistake in scenario play.

Fyanna sees her only out is to go for an assassination and tries to kill calandra, but the second attack misses and she dodges away.

Last thoughts

I liked the list more than i thought I would. However, 9 beasts are too many for calandra and the min stone should be a max stone. What I will do for now is to exchange one of the slags and the swamp troll for a second Earthborn and a max stone. Additionally i have changed one of the free whelp units for a northkin shaman. With the changes I feel the list has better durability and also better output. As for the lights, I feel that under the feat and with rage, they can really pack a punch, but the small ranges on the guns are not doing them any favours. I do like the continuous fire on the pyre troll and fire immunity is something really useful at times. I think that they can perform in the right lists, but they do need help to have ok output.