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.