Battle of Westridge 2014

Time for one of the biggest tournaments in Sweden, Battle of Westridge, held in Västerås.
I decided not to break the good couple of p and eMadrak which had worked well in the other tournaments.

Game 1
I find myself matched against Khador and one of the lists was eButcher with one million doom reavers and a conquest.To deal with that many doom reavers, I reckoned that pMadraks feat would be awesome, so I dropped him and faced eBtucher.

So many Doom Reavers.

I played the game very defensively, moving up with my brick centrally and the warders on the sides to deny flanking.My oponent played very mothodically and only charged in with a few doom reavers per turn against my lines. On my turns, I mostly cleared out the jamming doom reavers and moved forward slowly.

On my turn 4 I feated and finally managed to pull of a trick that I have dreamed of for years. Madrak threw down carnage, feated and charged out of combat with a doom reaver. He took the free strike and some damage which made Mulg trigger his protective fit under the feat. He cleared out the jamming units and positioned himself for a better run against Butcher. Madrak clear some guys so that his carnage aura reaches eButcher and then Mulg activated. After eating seven or eight doom
reavers, he reaches Butcher himself and had no problems in ending him after a crit slam on the second attack.

The game was very interesting and very much a standoff. I think that the major thing that tipped the scale in my favour is that the doom reavers do have some trouble hitting my beasts over the wall under Sure foot and that the Conquest was blocked and did not really threaten my lines.

Game 2
The game is Cryx. I decide to drop pMadrak, even though the scenario is two fronts. Against me is Asphyxious3 with satyxis and blood gorgers. No reach troops exept for the satyxis raiders, which is definitely to my favour.

Cryx without banes. I didn't know that existed.

I deploy my troops so that I can position my brick between both zones. However, there is an obstacle in the middle of the which makes it difficult for me to be really threatening on both sides.

He goes for the dominate self plan and floods my zone with different kinds of satyxis and evil trolls. It is starting to look very good for him, untill I feat. Madrak himself makes a move for his zone and clears out a bunch of solos. Mulg gets cleared out by the earthborn and starts to really take out many models. I lost count but I would guess somewhere around 14 models. The blood gorgers did not tough very well. The mistake I made was that I had moved Mulg out of the kriel stone aura by a little more than a hair.

On his turn, he went for killing Mulg and to keep gumming up my zone. Mulg was taken down to less than half HP, but not much more was done by him on his turn. The problem was that I panicked on my last turn. I looked at the clock and thought there was too little left, and when Mulg frenzied, I decided to go for an assassination of Asphyxious with Madrak. It was a bad idéa and it cost me the game as I forgot to contest his zone.

In the end, I feel the match was very close after my feat turn. Had I moved Mulg more into the kriel stone, which I could,the game would have been very different and I need to keep my cool when the clock starts running down, but I couldn't. Had the game gone on longer, I think I could have had a chance to threaten Asphyxious with Mulg and he not frenziyng would have been favourable. It was a fun and tight match.

Game 3
A troll versus troll match up on outflank. For me, the obvious choice was eMadrak as my pMadrak list cannot spread out. He chose to go with Calandra, using double warders, a bomber, a storm troll and burrowers.

Burrower wars in the center, not much hitting was done!

Calandra went heavily for the left circle, while I then focused on the right circle, where he had only deployed a warder unit. Using my kriels against them, There was a chance for me to push them out of the zone as I have a bigger threat range than they do. And that was what the game developed into. On my left flank, I fed him fennblade after fennblade with heroes tragedy to just jam him, while in the center, mat 4 pygs tried to do their best against other def 13 pygs. Nothing really happened there, in other words. On the right, My kriels had jammed the warders out of the zone. THem being 15 guys and the warders only 5 made it difficult for them to clear it up.

On my turn three I could dominate the right circle, taking two points and as Calandra had positioned herself to much to the left, there was little she and her battle group could do to help. It came down to the wire though as a pyg toughed 4 or 5 times in the zone and nearly made the game drag on another round, but in the end I won the game on scenario.

The key misstake from my oponent was to position a major part of his army to one zone, making it easier for me to switch my plan to focus on the right circle.

Game 4

The Desert was on fire that day!

Versus Menoth and Severius on destruction. I fiedled eMadrak to flood both zones and go for an assassination win. Fortunately for me, oponent early went with his feat to clear an assassination lane to Madrak. Fortunately for me, Burrowers and Kriel warriors are not particulary awesome at killing themselves. He did manage to clear my cabers, which was worrisome. The game drew out into a grind, with my fennblades flowing in from the left flank and my cabers shoring up the right flank.

The game ended because my oponent was too carefull with his caster, hiding him just behind one of the reckoners. My Impaler got a crit smite on the reckoner after the third try and left Severius down on the ground in the open. Madrak and the pyre troll had no problems finisishing him of while he was knocked down.

Game 5
I am up against one of the most famous minion players in sweden, and the world. The scenario is into the breack and I drop eMadrak. He is very aware of this and drops rask against me.

Smells a bit fishy, wonder why...

Luckily for me, I get to start the game, running my things up the board. Fenns on the left, kriels on the right and warders center. He has a hill in the center of his side, and decides to place an equal ammount of troops to either side. Rask moves up in the center of the field and feats early, his round one, to stop my burrowers from doing anything good.

On my round two I move up try and clear the zone on my left, however i fail to reach a gatorman due to good placement on his side. The problem is that I have placed Madrak in the open without many guys backing him up. My oponent goes for an assassination but he trips himself up when one of the Bokors places a shambler in melee with Madrak. This makes much tougher for Rask to paralyze. Rask moves up for the shot but rolls only ones on the dice. That made the assassination run much more difficult and unfortunately for him, not workable.

There was therefore a possibility for me to retaliate and kill Rask. He did not have admonition up and I could get Madrak to him. There was only one problem when I got there. I had to get the crit grievous with Rathok so that he couldn't just kill the shamblers and other gators nearby. And I did not get it, so Rask was still standing on some HP. However, I was in a bit of luck and managed to clear out the surrounding units with my remaining kriel warriors and pyg burrowers. That left my warders a chance to charge Rask, needing eights to hit. The first warder got the job done.

I really need to get better at protecting eMadrak. It happens a bit too often that my oponents get good chances to charge and kill him.

Game 6
Last game of the tournament and I am 4-1, which is good, but not enough. I get to go up against on of the best circle players in Sweden an oponent I have not faced before. He rocked Mohsar and eKrueger this time. The scenario was close quarters and I decided to field pMadrak to brick it up. Surprisingly to me, he decided to drop Mohsar and not eKrueger.

I got to start which was good as I could put some quick pressure with my brick against his flag. The only problem I had was an obstacle in the center of the battle field between the two flags. It worked out well for me anyways as he was afraid of Mulg (as you should be) and put to little pressure on my flag. It was easy for me to clear the pillars he put out and keep on pressing forward. At the same time, I got a chance to run Madrak to my flag and start scoring, which I did. On my left flank, things were not looking good. Nuala and her merry bunch were making minced meat of my Warders, with them having no chance to retaliate.

However, I was a bit to scared of Mohsars feat and did not put up transmute on Mulg the turn, which made my oponent sieze the moment and primal two stalkers to kill him and the Earthborn. Unfortunately for him, he rolled a bit badly and only killed Mulg and just hurt the earthborn slightly. Two druids and two pillars jammed me up and contested the flag. ON my turn the earthborn returned the favour and killed both stalkers. I cleared the flag and dominated again for my second point.

Stupid blocking pile of rocks. 

As my left flank really was going bad, I felt I had to win this game as soon as posslbe.

Mohsar decided to feat as my Earthborn was full, and NUala finished of the last warders and Janissa, switching his pray to my Krielstone. He was running out of things to contest my flag, but I think one or two druids took the suicide mission. As I could not rieve fury that turn, my Earthborn frenzied and I did not do much more than clear my flag for my third point.

Nuala and the left flank gang cleared out my krielstone with ease, and switched pray to my Earthborn. They managed to get him down a lot, but not kill him. Mohsar went up to dominate his flag but the earthborn was to close if I recall correctly. He threw the Gorax against me to contest my flag.

My last turn, I got a chance for a pretty nice feat to try and clear out my earthborn for a free-strike-free charge on Mohsar. However, the positioning of the Hunters did not allow me too, I took the chance anyways with my earthborn. He lost his body from the free strike, but it did not matter. Mohsar had no transfers and went down to the Earthborn.

I think this game was very close. Had he chosen to pray my earthborn after Janissa instead of the Krielstone, there would have been no way for me to both clear the HUnters and dominate the flag. It would have turned into a race which I still think I would have had the upper hand in as I would have 3 points while he had only 1.

Summary
This was one of the best tournaments I have been to. Nice people, perfect venue and fun evening activities. I really hope I can go again next year and not lose against Cryx! Even with the loss, I ended up in 6th place which was all right!

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. 

Speed painting Circle

Last week, I tried to start painting my Circle that I bought over a year ago. As I still have a lot of Trolls on the painting table, I wanted to try some new techniques and paint much much faster than I usually do.
The circle i painted was a Feral, a Stalker, an Argus, a Winter argus, two units of stones and pKaya. In total, it took me about 5 hours. Drybrushing and inking was the main techniques, and it was fun to see it all come together so quickly.

The painted circle force.

Prize for the first Uppsala Summer Mangle!

This weekend I am running a 16 people tournament at Ungdomens Hus in Uppsala. I just completed the first prize. This summer sure will turn out a bit more swaggy for the lucky winner!

 

Lincon painting done!

For the big tournaments coming up this weekend at Lincon, my new forces are ready to be fielded.

Borka, the champion hero, the sorcerer, my second warder unit, and my second Kithkar!

Mr. Immoren 2014 part 2!

After the first two games I was 1-1 in the tournament but was a bit bummed out about the loss in the second game. It was close, and I felt that some of the mistakes I made cost me the game. But it was a good learning experience. So game three came up, and it is Menoth!

Game 3

Harby and her position when she won!

Harby or pKreos. I went with Jarl, because of the pyre troll and that his feat sort of counters Harbringers.
Sure enough, Harbringer was fielded against me. She brought a reckoner, the avatar, errants, a vassal, choir, gorman, piper and the knight lady that gives errants steady. The scenario was Balance of Power. I got to go first.

This was a very short game, unfortunately for me. I botched it on my first round, by not running into the scenario zone. I placed my fennblades some inches from the scenario zone and followed up with the rest of my army. The reasoning for this was that I did not want to be shot to pieces from the errants. But that was bad reasoning for two reasons: They still could walk and shoot and more importantly, if they shoot, they are not pushing the scenario. Anyways, Harby moves everything up, runs with the errants, and feats.

On my turn two, I realise that I will lose the game quickly. I have nothing that can threaten the zone, and try to clear out errants with shooting. I feated so that the errants cant see my army, giving me a turn of respite. Harby martyrs the most of them. I also try to get a pyre troll shot onto her by shooting a model by her, but I miss and the scatter goes of in the wrong direction. On harbys second turn, she moves into the zone and pushed everything forward and efficiently blocks my approach to the zone. She scores two points.

Turn three, I try to kill harby, as I realise i will not get into the zone. I get her down to 5 hp, with a pyre troll scatter just missing her, and on her turn, she wins.

Game 4
Legion, Kallus with dudes and eThagrosh with only beasts! Fun lists. I chose to go with Madrak and try to brick it out, thinking my feat turn could be a hoot against Kallus with a million dudes!
he chose to go with eThags bringing two Scytheans, an Angelious, a Raek, a Seraph, a shredder and a forsaken. The scenario was Supply and Demand, and I was looking forward to a real skirmish!

After my second turn

He let me go first, so I thanked him, ran everything up and fuelled the krielstone. He did the same on his turn. On my second turn, I walked into the zone fronting with Madrak and the beasts behind the wall. My opponent looked really confused and wondered how much I was camping. Two I said. Plus his scroll and the fact that your beasts can't charge him I also told him, and he understood. is still def 18 arm 20 over the wall, and can't be knocked down. So I felt rather safe. eThags opted to feat and get some damage to my stuff and walk back. He killed Janissa with the Raek, but only put a few damage points to my beasts and killed two of my warders, after this turn, the rampage began!

So much fury! So much fun!

On my turn, I feated back, killed the raek, the seraph, the angelious and almost one of the Scytheans. eThags retaliated by killing all of my beasts with his forsaken and the Scytheans. It was looking rather grim, but Madrak, the two warders left and the fell caller managed to kill both Scytheans. But I had left madrak on zero camp.

eThags flies in to get the best of Madrak. He needs nines to hit, and with 7 fury, he can get of 4 attacks. He hits the first, which I scroll. Then, I pray, he hits the second attack, and deals some damage, as he is straight dice. His third attack misses! He decides to gamble and go for two unboosted attacks, one which hits but does not do much damage.

My fell caller hero is yelling eThags ass off!

My last turn, and I really think I should be able to get Thagrosh, despite it only being Madrak, two warders, a fell caller and the krielstone left. Thags had taken some damage before, from a madrak axe. I get one kriel stone scribe onto him, and plink him for some damage. The fell caller activates and gives Madrak an easier time to hit before charging Thags. The charge attack from the fell caller was enough! Game to me after a really fun and brutal game.

Summary
42 points is kind of funky, but still was good to test some new lists. The pMadrak brick is really enjoyable actually. I think i will continue with it. The last 8 points is another warder unit, I think. I did not miss the axer as most things I want to kill come to me faster anyways. Both the games I lost this weekend was due to too passive play from my side. Against denny, I should have run my Warders further into the zone and against Harby, I should have run into the zone.

Mr. Immoren 2014 part1!

This year, Mr. Immoren was a 42pts non character restricted two list ordeal. In other words, a rather funky tournament setting. I decided to ignore that and play a SR pair of pMadrak and Jarl.

PMadrak
Mulg, Earthborn, Slag troll, runebearer
Max warders, min krielstone with elder, janissa, fell caller hero

Jarl
Pyre troll, slag troll, impaler, runebearer
Max fennblades with ua, max kriel warriors with ua and 3 cabers, min krielstone with ua, fell caller hero, stone scribe chronicler.

My turn 1, Blue horde approaching!

Game 1
My first opponent played Ret, with issyria or rahn. The scenario was destruction. I opted to go with Jarl to be a threat to the casters with magic bullet, but also be able to out threat the pesky elves!

He fielded Rahn against me, though i think Issyria would have had a better chance.
Rahn brought an arcnode jack, a banshee, dawn guards, stormfall archers, battle mages, eEiryss, and some battle solos.

I got to start and ran up my fenns to threat a large portion of the board. Everything else followed behind. With quicken and tales of mist, defence 16 against shooting is not something opponents expect.

On his turn, he ran his dawn guard full speed ahead, without me being able to charge them. The rest of his army started positioned behind his centre with eiryss, a mage hunter assassin and the light arcnode jack flanking to my left.

Jamage 2.0. Tactical supremacy on the fenns to Jam.

My turn two, i keep quicken, so that i.can walk into melee with the dawnguard and kill some of them. My pyre troll gets a good shot and gets four of them. Jarl also kills three and feats. I did not kill all of the dawnguards, but they are decimated to three or four left. On his turn, he cant really get.much done, battlemages kill some kriels and the flanking manoeuvre continues.

Turn three and I clear the objective in the zone with my kriels and keep clearing his troops. I give the fennblades tactical supremacy to jam rahn and his troops up. Jarl keeps shooting from a place in cover behind the objective. During the last turn, Rahn gets desperate and goes for an assassination. He runs his light jack so that he can arc spells without Jarl having cover, but unfortunately outside of Rahns controll. Being engaged by 4 fennblades, Rahn TKs himself out of melee and kills one or two with spells. But by doing that, he placed himself outside of the killbox, earning me 2 points. And as he didn't move to contest the zone, I win. 

Game 2

Im looking down on an eDenny and eGaspy match up. Both with banes and tartarus. The scenario is Two fronts, with two zones and two objectives. I chose to go with my pMadrak brick, mostly because I wanted to try it out. eDenny was placed by Olov. Epic Deneghra brought bane thralls with tartarus, satyxis witches with the hag, nyss hunters, the withershadow combine, two arcnodes and a siren. 

Position after my turn 2. The earthborn is toing onto the zone. 

I got to go first, which was good. I had placed my brick to move into the offensive zone and my warders to defend my zone. I put up Sure foot on madrak and filled my stone. Denny positioned herself centrally behind cover and between the two zones. The banes moved up to clash with my Mulg-Earthborn brick, and the satyxis and nyss ran at my zone to get my warders. On my turn two, I just move up again, but only put three warders in my zone, confident that they will not be removed. Denny's turn two, she gets of an arm debuff on my warders but does not manage to kill them with nyss shots and satyxis charging with their mini feat. Two banes run to engage earthborn and Mulg. 

Turn 3. I am thinking of feating to get mulg surfing to Denny. Most of the way would be covered, but I am not sure the last part of the way would work. I think a bit, but in the end decide to play it safe. My krielstone activates to remove the incorp from the closest satyxis and also charge a bane thrall in melee with mulg. The bane toughs, but is knocked down. I decide to try and kill of some banes, and get 4 or 5 including the officer with a Mulg crit smite. However, in doing this I have left a gap in the brick, big enough to get to Janissa. I also placed Madrak so that his sure foot bonus did not reach Mulg. This was not good. The warders kill their satyxis but I still left two of them behind the wall, another mistake. Denny sees her chance and moves up to feat and she gets all but two stone scribes and the runebearer. The blood hag moves so that Janissa is within the entropic field and some ghostly thralls get her killed. No more wall. I somehow manage to survive with my last warder, so that no points are scored.

Turn 4. I pretty much do nothing, as per the feat. Kill some of the banes that surround my beasts, the slag troll shoots the blood hag dead. I realise that Denny will score three points nex turn (if she remembers to kill the objective). Which of course, she does. The nyss and a satyxis get the job done with the objective. She kills the last warders, and moves into my zone to dominate. The last banethralls and tartarus moves in to damage mulg and the Earthborn, but do not really do much. 

The last turn, Deneghra is being moved to charge!

Turn 5. My battlegroup is on the wrong side of the battle and the slag troll frenzied. I decide to feat, put up carnage and charge madrak into the centre of the board, to allow the last two warders some play time with the nyss. On the way there, he kills some banes and tartarus but does not reach as far as I had hoped. Mulg and the earthborn have little problems clearing the rest of the banes. The fell caller gives the warders a warcry and charges a nearby enemy to have it dead. The krielstone activates and runs the elder and the stone into my zone to contest. The warders starts their packman through the nyss. Def 15 pfft, with their buffs they have an efficient mat of 11. The clear many of them, but only one gets into the zone. Switching over to Denny, i have only a warder, the kriel stone and the stone scribe elder in the zone. Despite toughing like crazy on the stone (two or three times) Denny manages to teleport the warder out of the zone (did not know she could do that) and kill the two other models. Game Deneghra. 

In hindsight, i should probably have chosen Jarl for this match up on this scenario. If the scenario would have been a one zone killbox deal, pMadrak would have been good, but the two fronts made me have to split up my army, and I didn't do it in a good way, my last turn, I should have rieved the fury from the slag troll, to use it to get into the zone, but i didn't think of that then. But the pMadrak brick definitely is all right in this matchup. I was also maybe to afraid of the bile thralls in the eGaspy list, as they really wreck large infantry groups. Congrats also to Olov, who went on to win the tournament.