The Mountain King Chronicles! Part 2: Xerxis

^This guy!

Following the recent success with Gunnbjörn and the King against the pigs, I decided to take on the desert elves roaming our lands with the same 42pts list.

Gunnbjörns jolly band:
Earthborn dire troll, Mountain King, Min stone bearers + Elder, Scouts,Min kriel warriors + 2 cabers
Stone scribe chronicles.

Xerxis fielded himself along with the following;
Titan Gladiator, Tiberion, max Nihilators, Bloodrunners, min Cataphract Arcuarii, Agonizer, min Paingivers, Willbreaker, and Optimus Marketh.

We randomized the scenario. And as random works, close quarters is the name of the game, again. My objective was positioned between a ruin and a tower, perfect to get the armor from elemental communition and to place a wall in front of so that I would be safe to dominate my objective. His objective was close to a forrest, so that my scouts could easily hide and keep him from scoring.

My oponent got to go first, I placed the King in the middle of the board, knowing he would place tiberion and Xerxis  against him wherever he was. My oponent placed his bloodrunners in the middle ready to jam me. His nihilators went on my left towards his objective, the Arcuarii on my right and his battle group with support in the middle. I felt pretty confident my Scouts could manage to jam his nihilators pretty well, 13 def and tough plus the chronicler to KD them if they killed. I put the scouts to my left, the kriels around my king in the center and Gunny with the EBDT to the right, so that I could dominate my zone.

The skorne horde went first and ran everything forward, positioning himself so that the blood runners could jam me next turn, and the nihilators could go in to clear his flag and sweep in from my left. The Arcuarii advanced on my right, Xerxis defenders warded the blood runners, dropped his fury on the Agonizer and advanced with his elephant retinue on my center, the Mountain King. On my turn, the scouts advanced into a forrest by his objective, after getting the heroes tragidy sung to them. Gunnbjörn put snipe on himself and dropped the rest of the fury on the stone, advanced forward and missed a bloodrunner with his shot. The mountain king and EBDT advanced up on both sides of the ruin assisted with an aura from the stone and the kriel warriors who flanked the MK.

On the Skorne turn 2, charges was the name of the game for the bloodrunners and Nihilators, who charge my kriels and scouts to jam and kill, respectivly. Two of the Scouts fell, and tough really helps in shutting down the efficiency of the Nihilators. A kriel warrior also fell to the charge of the blood runners that jammed my mountain king and kriels. The Arcuari positioned themselves to shoot at gunnbjörn, but it was too short. The center of the Skorne army slowly and carefully advanced forward, so that my MK could not reach them. On my turn, I responded by removing the some jamming blood runners very efficiently with the kriel warriors and scouts that could help. I then moved up gunny to dominate my flag and did some damage to a Arcuraii. I felt quite safe and scored my first point but didn't feel to good that the blood runners were still jaming my kriels.

Poisioning after my turn 3

Skorne went about his turn three as the other turns, by keeping on trying to kill my Scouts and jamming my kriels and MK. He managed the jam, but tough rolls stopped him from killing the scouts. He tried to pull gunnbjörn from the objective with the Arcuarii, but Gunnys wall was positioned so he couldn't. His agonizer went up to remove the animus from the MK and EBDT and the elephants positioned themselves to strike the next turn. He forgot to contest my flag, and I scored another point.

My turn 3 was when I made the big game mistake. I finally got rid of the jamming blood runners, Gunnbjörn shot the agonizer dead and the EBDT moved to negate any pulling shananigans with the Arcuarii. The Scouts continued their grinding, beeing very good at surviving and not killing anything. Then the MK moved up to try and make Gunny safer, when what I should have done was to back, so that Tiberion could not charge.

Skorne positioning after my turn 3

Skorne turn 4 was the end of me, he finished most of the scouts, feated with Xerxis and boosted up Tiberion with rage and Enrage and rush and all that skorne has. He was hitting my MK at dice +2 with an extra damage die each attack. OUCH, dead king. The Arcuarii moved in to contest my zone and bind  and damage the Earthborn in melee. After this, It was all over as I had no way of reaching Tiberion with my earthborn and therefore, no way of killing him. I did try to go for the scenario win by trying to off cataphracts, but without reach on the EBDT, I just couldn't. The last move of the game was  the gladiator grand slaming my Earthborn into the tower and killing him easily when he was knocked down.

In hindsight, I should have just backed with my King. I had the upper hand in the scenario and did not need to push it. The King can really dictate the flow of the game with his positioning. He is a great prize for players to take down. So this time it didn't work out. I also think I will be switching out Gunny for Jarl for the next game, the boosted sprays are nice but they are just not worth it. I also feel that Jarl could help the rest of the army better than Gunny can. We will just have to see!