Tournament Practice: Game 2

Got in two games this weekend, both at 35 points using smaller versions of my 50 point masters lists. The first game was against Dave, who had brought out a troll brick list. Knowing that I was going against trolls I decided to bring Damiano, because I thought that the trolls would be able to remove the earthbreaker too easily, and without that Durgen would have no chance of removing their heavy warbeasts. Damiano is able to remove heavies with his feat, and surefooted Kayazy seemed like they would be able to make the life of the trolls very difficult.

The list that Dave ran was:

Chief Madrak Ironhide (*6pts)
* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 3 Stone Scribes (3pts)
Janissa Stonetide (3pts)
Troll Whelps (2pts)

Which is a ton of meat to chew through. With the armor from the stone, the wall from Janissa, the animus from the earthborn and surefoot on Madrak, the trolls reach a pretty insane level of defense and armor.

And after dropping the TAC, pAlexia and two units of eliminators from my 50 point list, my army looked like this:

Captain Damiano (*6pts)
* Nomad (6pts)
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters (Cylena and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
Kayazy Assassins (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Kayazy Assassin Underboss (2pts)
Kell Bailoch (2pts) Ragman (2pts)
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord (2pts)
Wrong Eye & Snapjaw (9pts)

My plan going into this matchup was to use Kell and maybe a few of the Nyss to try and pick off the stone bearer unit, helping out with the massive amount of armor I was facing. After that I needed to get Ragman in position, pop feat, and get as many models onto those trolls as possible to have any chance of taking them out.

The scenario we played was destruction, and I believe that I took the Effigy of Valor objective and Dave took the fuel cache objective, but they never came into play.

Trollblood Deployment:
I forgot to take a picture of the troll deployment, but there isn't really much to show anyways... The trolls deployed in a brick, as trolls do, with the three heavies in the front and everyone else behind them.

Mercenary Deployment:
I deployed my line much more spread out, with Damiano and the nomad in the middle, Kayazy, Wrong Eye and Snapjaw on his right and the Nyss hunters to the left because they don't care about the forest in their way. Kell advanced deployed on my right side, getting ready to flank up the side to pick off the troll support.

Trollblood Turn 1:
The trolls all ran forward, and the picture will give you a pretty good idea of what their deployment looked like since their formation didn't really change. Madrak dumped his fury into the stone, and ended the turn.

Mercenary Turn 1:
Everything ran forward in order to get into a better position. Kell moved up beside the house in order to get into a good shooting position for next turn. Damiano cast death march on the nyss, surefoot on snapjaw and walked forward. Rupert walked forward and used heroic call on the nyss, giving them tough, and that was the turn.

Trollblood Turn 2:
Time for the trolls to enter full brick mode. The mauler walked forward, the earthborn walked up beside him and cast his animus on the mauler. Mulg (Mulg the Unmanageable, as his model is affectionately called) walked up beside the earthborn. Madrak cast surefoot on himself and put the earthborn's animus on Mulg. Janissa walked up and put her wall down in font of the heavies, and the stones walked forward and used their aura for increased armor. This leaves Mulg sitting at arm 23, def 15 over the wall, and the mauler at arm 22, with def 16 if attacked over the wall, which is a brick if I have ever seen one.

Mercenary Turn 2:

Damiano upkeeps surefoot and deathmarch. Looking at the board I know that both of my heavy hitters are out of range (the nomand and snapjaw), so I am looking to set up my next turn for the feat. If I could clear out the stones, jam the trolls to hold them off for a turn, and get my heavies in range for a charge, I might be able to do some serious damage on my next turn. 

With that in mind, I activate Kell, and try to judge if he can stand still or not. I think he might be just out of range to stand still and shoot at the stone scribes, so I shuffle him forward a few inches and he takes a shot, hitting and killing one of the scribes. The nomad walks forward to get in range for next turn, with Damiano walking up behind him. Damiano casts deadeye on the nyss hunters and camps the rest of his focus. The nyss hunters advance, two of them trying to jam the trolls while the rest of the nyss move around to the side in order to get a line on the scribes.  They start taking shots at the scribes, in the end managing to kill two of them, leaving just the stone left. I would have liked to remove the whole unit, but I am confident that Kell can handle the last member on my next turn in order to remove the buff.

The Kayazy move forward to try and get in the way of the trolls, Snapjaw advances forward to be in charge range for next turn, and Rupert gives the Kayazy tough.

Trollblood turn 3:

Madrak lets surefoot drop, and the turn begins. Janissa activates and uses an ability that I didn't know she had (she's just a wall on a stick right?) which allowed her to slide my jamming models out of the way. With that done the mauler and the earthborn both activate and just shuffle forward and out of the way of Madrak. Madrak then activates, pops his feat and casts carnage and charges one of the assassins. He kills it and his feat allows him to move forward. During this movement he allows a free strike from one of the Kayazy. I take the bait, swing on Madrak and inflict a few points of damage. This activates Mulg's protective fit, allowing him to make a full advance and crush the assassin. With that done, Mulg activates and advances forward, hitting and killing Ragman and a nyss. The movement from the feat allows him to get within melee range of Damiano, and two hits later my caster is just a red smear on the ground.

Ouch! That club really hurts.

Thoughts on the game:

Well, I definitely messed up taking the free strike with the assassin, but I don't think it would have made a huge difference. There were enough models between Mulg and Damiano that he could have used the feat to pacman his way there, and even if it took most of his attacks he ended up only needing two to put Damiano into the ground.

I do think that Damiano has a chance in this match up, and after the game I still think that he was the stronger pick here over Durgen. Going into the matchup again I would need to respect the threat ranges on the trolls much more and make sure that I spread my infantry out as far as possible in order to prevent the feat turn from causing too much damage.

Since this game ended fairly quickly I had time to get in another game, this one another 35 point game vs Retribution, played by Mat, my opponent from my last report. I am still in the process of writing that report and will put a link to it here when I am done.

Thanks for reading!