Month: August 2022

Game 14

Scenario: Push

pts 2300

The Lists:

List Thoughts

Dave:

So I’ve noticed a tendency in my play to default my mindset back to kill, I know I’m not winning an attrition war with halflings, so I’ve taken out nearly all my hammers and built a list around delaying and maintaining field position.

I’ve adding in some mighty individuals as I think they will come in useful for blocking and bouncing around the lines causing havoc. I’m trying greedy guts for the first time as I want to see how well he can hold up combats.

I’ve also added in some artillery, mainly because I thought we were playing 2000 pts but when I loaded up Matts list I noticed I was short and scrambled in an extra 300pts with 2 howitzers and another rifle troop, (I drop the banner of hodenburg and juggled some items too)

Matt:

For those of you that read game 14 you’ll see some shieldbreakers have gone in favour of a horde of earth elementals and a stone priest with surge and scorched earth. Again tuning it in a way that fits with models I have because even though I have a bunch more dwarf models to paint I’m not going to have time on top of the Counter Charge challenge.

Normally I don’t add to my bits after reading Dave’s but it’s nice to read that he is finally starting to listen about the lists. I feel he’s maybe gone too far down the trash path but we will see. Aeron in particular I think isn’t worth it.

Deployment

Dave:

So out dropping Matt pretty comprehensively I’ve thrown down the majority of my force in the center with a kind of checker board deployment. I’ve got my rifles ready to hit the hill and get good lines of sight, and my last few drops were my mini contingent on the right.

Matt:

So when Dave picked bottom I knew that I would try and use one of my EE Regiments as my token caddy and that I would start in the forest on the left and move forward because would have limited ability to deploy next to the building. The next was just then what formation to deploy the rest and the idea was to make craggoth super annoying by deploying amd marching up the middle. I held him back until I was relatively sure this woldwortk.

My plan

Dave:

I don’t expect to kill Matt, i just want to block him up and slide my brave unit on the right over the line. As for the centre force, I need to delay and die slowly in front of Matt to keep his token on his side of the board. If I can do that I win 6-4

Here is my pre game speech to the troops

Matt:

Phase 1: Def 6 carries tokens and hopefully doesn’t die

Phase 2: Shoot the right side using the king as re director/hold up

Phase 3: Craggoth takes the middle

Turn 1

Matt:

My scout had put me on the central token immediately so craggoth moved slightly to be able to shoot the rifles and then picked it up whilst staying out of charge range of those slow halflings.

Herneas Rangers had scouted to allow shooting at the EJ’s. The idea is between the king and herneas I am hoping to shoot the Ej’s off and then be able to get the regiment to drop the tokens eventually. It may not be enough but we will see.

The only damage done in shooting was to the rifles with 4 from craggototh even with spellward. Shattering came home for me and they were wavered. No damage from Herneas rangers is a big deal and immediately puts my plans in doubt.

Dave:

Gulp…. That’s a big scout move I didn’t particularly plan for… in fact from here I think im screwed… but I’ll give this a red hot crack.

I’ve pushed out my braves the full 10 (making use of Aerons nimble aura) in an attempt to get ready to block next turn. As for the rest of my army I’ve just launched shots at the soft target dogs with my rifles and the howitzers tried to shot the rocks carrying the tokens but missed miserably with only my rifles adding a lone wound.

On my right flank its looking slightly more positive. I’ve pushed hard with my feast master to tuck 1 inch behind the crossbow regiment, this will stop matt backing up and shooting so I’m free to creep up my harvester and EJs to charge over the next few turns. The feast master, crossbow regiment and Matts king are all H2 so there is no LOS, effectively protecting it from the charge, but limiting matts moving options as he needs to avoid my potential LOS. This should give a clear path for my braves regiment to slide over halfway.

Turn 2

Matt:

One of my favourite things is to turn Dave’s misfortune into my own. On the right the king creeps fwd slightly so as to not be seen by the harvester but if the EJ’s go for him they will be hindered and if the go for the rangers they’ll leave the token carrying braves open.

The EE regiment over on the left charges the braves, whilst the rest of the EE move forwards. The shieldbreakers moved forward to stay out of charge range but to start unleashing dogs whilst the mastiffs take the flank on the braves in front of craggoth

In shooting the two dogs do 10 wounds. Big lol. Kohlearm adds a couple more to be sure. Herneas rangers do none again!

Craggoth does one more to the damaged rangers they fail to waver but the braves die.

I also cast scorched earth on greedy guts just to be annoying. The mastiffs do 6 wounds and force a waver also.

In combat the EE’s go beserk with 5 wounds and waver the braves

2 Turns in a row with no wounds from Herneas Rangers is massive and potentially could cost me the game. Particularly as I chose not to push forward with the king to block the EJs. If Dave has half a brain he will now be a chance.

Dave:

Ok…. So I’ve opened up UB and all I see is Matt’s rocks slowing shambling down the board with nothing in range to block…. Fuck.

So Naturally I just tried to pull some bullshit out of my back pocket and you know what…. It might just work.

Matt’s left his flamey boy off to the right of his shield breaker regiment and knowing that individuals align to the charging unit I tried some sneaky crap. I rolled up WC with my sauceror and had Aaeron around for nimble, My first unit to move was the right stalwarts pushing the Kholearm off on an angle and with my stalwart regiment joining for a multi charge I’ve got 22 attacks on 5/4 ready to take out this flame priest and overrun into the flank of a shield breaker regiment taking it off…. Except I only rolled 4 hits… so that died in the arse

In other news, Greedy guts punched into the other shield breaker regiment to hold them up, and my iron beast and Aeron made short work of the mastiff hunting pack.

On the right I launched my EJs in to die valiantly and my braves creeped closer to victory supported by my harvester in case I need it to pick up tokens

In good news my howitzers spiked and I put 5 wounds on the rock carrying the tokens.

Looks this is pretty much over for me now, but lets face it, it was over after scout moves.

Turn 3

Matt:

I always forget that cheeky sauceror. Thankfully it didn’t cost too much, what surprised me more was all the wounds on the token carrying elementals haha. That is some A-grade luck right there.

They continued to push forwards, Khanick pulled out of combat and the regiments charge in. Craggoth charged the braves whilst the ranges and the king both tagged the Ej’s.

The earth elementals only did 2 wounds and rolled a 3 so no waver. The shieldbreakers on greedy got 9 wounds but rolled a 4, craggoth did a couple of wounds but snaked the roll. The troop of stalwarts died, the shield breakers backed up. Herneas and the king took off the EJ’s

Those 6 wounds on the EE is big as they are now VERY vulnerable to someone like greedy

Dave :

Just when I thought all was lost I noticed a very cheeky sneaky play.

Using Greedy guts WC d3 I launched him into the side of the rocks with tokens, Greedyguts its 8 attacks on 3/5 vs the rocks with dread, it should give me 2 wounds and I’ll need 6 twice to break them, I launch my rifle horde into the combat too, just to pick up the tokens if greedy gets the kill. From here my plan is to slide D3 left with the tokens and scoot down the left flank while greedy guts and my other units delay and disorder his army. If I can pull this off I think I actually might win

Across the main battle field I throw my stalwarts in to block up matts shield breakers and I turn my iron beast to the rocks and start to make my way in support while my EJS strategicly blocked up the earth elemental horde to stop any surge bullshit Matt might try and pull.

On the right I punched my harvester into the crossbows to disorder them and add about 4 wounds, and my fest master and braves disordered the king and locked him down in the combat.

In shooting I managed to pack some wounds on the mastiff hunting packs and got the waiver.

Ok it’s time for the last combat…. I nervously pray to the UB dice gods, begging for forgiveness for whatever I have done that’s seen my UB dice cursed. I get my 5 hits, I get my 2 wounds… first nerve check is a 7…. The second a 6…. You beauty…

Turn 4

Matt:

Ok so after more wounds than expected on the EE’s the round before he’s managed to get the tokens. I should still have some shennanigans hopefullu but will still rely on greedy getting out of the way soon.

I kept not seeing that bloody feast master lol he’s too green for me and my colour blindness. Dave is now in a really good position top right.

I withdraw the earth elemental regiment and reform ready for a surge and charge with the horde. The shield regiment. I reposition to allow three shots on aeron. The king charges the feast master and the rangers into the harvester. In retrospect I was very dumb here and confused myself thinking I couldn’t scoot away due to not being able to withdraw. But I didn’t need to withdraw to do it.

The stone priest gets surge and BC off on the regiment. The three shots do enough to waver aeron.

In combat both stalwarts die the left breaker reg pulls back and the other reforms

The Ej’s die on the left the horde pulls back and the regiment reforms. Dave can get them if he uses WC on the sauceror with the iron beast but we will see because Rally may be the call he makes.

Craggoth takes off the braves and reforms

The rangers do no wounds and the feastmaster is wavered after 2 wounds brutal.

So luck hasnt’t been the problem this turn only my own dick fuckery.

Dave:

So filled with energy from my last turn hail mary I get straight to work disrupting and delaying.

My lower braves launched into Matts stone priest getting a lucky wound and disordering it, while greedy guts blocked up the lower earth elemental regiment. Matt was forced to expose a rear charge to my pride of the shires so I rolled wild charge again on my sauceror and got it into the earth elementals taking it off with the help of greedy guts dread.

My rifles continued to scoot away and my rifles shot away matts last masstif pack and the throwing dogs he had left with them.

On the right I finished off the crossbow regiment, continued to disorder the king and have now tucked away my braves nicely.

So my plan might just work. I don’t intend to hold Matts tokens for ever, I just plan to get them far enough away that his stumpy dwarf legs can drag them back over half way. I’m expecting this to go 6/5 my way.

Turn 5

Matt:

I finally remembered I can still scoot my king out of combat so out he goes. The Shieldbreaker horde has limited options – they really got stuck this game – and charged aeron. A regiment flanked the braves and the horde of rocks reformed to take on the rifles.

The was no shooting on relevance as the priest was disordered. Craggoth killed the rifles, the regiment of braves died and Aeron got snaked. IT’s likely Dave will be smart enough to move greedy round to protect the rifles so realistically the only chance is over running him and then needing to turns and some luck on the top tight.

Dave:

My rifles continue to amaze me as they duck even further away from harms way. Fireball from Kholearm is about all that can hurt them now as I stay just out of wild charge range from his shield breakers and my very mighty greedy guts blocks the earth elemental horde.

My pride took another unit off in the centre but its not impacting the outcome of this game, I’m also happy to let my centre fold at Matt keep wrecking face with his giant fire spewing earth elemental.

On the left I thought I would be super tricky and block the kings LoS with my feast master, until I found out from Matt individuals don’t block LoS….. so there is another rule to stick in your memory bank.

So right now I hurry up and wait for this game to be over.

Here is actual footage of my rifle regiment scooting down the flank

Turn 6

Matt:

Matt:

Greedy died the king did a few wounds but no likely spike. Even Turn 7 is not likely

Dave – I’ve done my best to protect the rifles, but if this goes to 7 they are gone. I’m very caution of the king on the right, his only managed 2 wound and I have the unit inspired but to protect this game for me I actually drop the tokens and counter charge.

Currently its 6/2 if we go to 7 I’m loose that rifle regiment and it will be 6/5, however there is a chance Matt packs on a few more wound to my braves turn 7 and pops them, if this is the case I’ll slide my harvester in to collect the tokens as even on an over run Matt won be able to block them with his king. If my braves live, I’ll just pick them back up…

As it turns out we didn’t get a 7 and I won 6/2.

Wrap up

Matt: This is probably the loss that most annoys me most so far. Even with the poor luck of two turns of no herneas damage, and the rifles overperforming there should have been no way for Dave to win after his deployment. I shouldn’t have had the regiment of rocks that were carrying out in front that was just stupid, and I should’ve been able to lumber my way to victory regardless of his units on the other side. I feel I should’ve been able to take this one at least very very easily.

Dave – There is no way I should of won this game, it was very interesting piloting a list that is built to delay and annoy. I still had the urge to pick up flanks with Aerons nimble aura but all in all I was very happy I was able to get the rifles away un harmed.

Greedy guts is getting the MVP award for me this game and I’ll be keeping him in most of my list for a while now I think, he links up well with the sauceror to really block up the battle field.

It took a lucky spike from my howitzers to get this result as really I should of lost as soon as Matt scouted his fire spewing earth elemental bullshit on top of the token before we even started.

But I did win…. So suck it Matt I crushed you

Final thoughts on the list

Matt:

This list is better than my last. Scorched earth wasn’t of much value but I think what I need to do is drop the knowledgeable and SE 3 and take it down to 2 as conjurer’s staff works on it. That way I can add mind fog as well which allows me to reach out and touch units more for a lucky waver etc, epecially when combo’d with throwing mastiffs. That will have 4 spells on one caster but they are cheap so I don’t think it’s a waste.

Dave:

Outside of dominate, push is probably the worst scenario I could of rolled, It would be interesting to see how this list played on pillage with 7 tokens or raze.

I don’t think stalwart troops have a place here, yes they are CS1, but at +4 melee they will not deliver like a true hammer should. I’ll most likely dump them all together and free up some space for aeronaughts or something that can move over my blocking forces to hit targets when I need.

My plan was to strategically die with this army and after starting with 22 drops I finished with 11 so I think I have scope to cut down to 16/18 drops to still have that MSU feel but with some decent strike options.

If Matt stuck the tokens on the horde. Or even positioned so I couldn’t scoot down the edge I’d have no answers and it would be a sure loss for me. So how I sneak some hammers in next time I don’t know… but it was a fun exercise to really focus on placement even if its not a competitive list.

Free Dwarf List thoughts (Matt):

I built this list around models I had. I have lots of different type of infantry which typically in a WYSIWYG is a mix of iron clad, iron guard and shieldbreakers. I don’t have enough regiments of shieldbreakers for the formation so I wanted all the infantry to be the same. Therefore I thought I’d try them out en masse.

Deployment (post scout)

Nick:

I need to be careful here not to get zapped too hard by all the dawgs. The idea was to deploy a bit back from the 12″ line so I don’t get jumped by all the scouting. I focused on deploying in the middle 2/3 of the board so I was somewhat compact but also able to project threat to the flanks if he tried to sneak some high US into the corners given the scenario was invade. The elohi horde was deployed out on the flank, hoping that it’d attract a bit of attention in counter deployment from which I could shimmy onto the other side of the building through the forest.

Matt:

Invade is my least favourite scenario even with the free dwarfs. I like to play a particularly defensive style with the dwarfs and having to bring everything forward bothers me. Especially against a fast high def list like Nicks.

First run with this list I’m not entirely sure what I am doing. I ended up with a really bizarre deployment as I was focussed on being able to get all my dogs off at some point and stressed about all the high speed coming at me.

Turn 1

Nick:

I advanced cautiously here. The left could be a problem here with craggoth scouting up and a few units there. Julius hung back to make craggoth think twice about turning a flank and moving towards the centre with the elohi having redeployed. The plan on the right was to try and get the Ur-elohi and gurmanthers into his mastiffs to shut down that source of mastiff shooting. Elohi and Paladin Foot guard in the centre were the ones I’d hope would eat the dawgs on the way in. The flying lord is a problem but the way I’d set up is he couldn’t land behind my lines and even if he came up full 20″ he was facing a charge.

Matt:

Nick is a master of movement and I am pretty confident his fliers are going to out maneuvre me. On the left I make sure I protect Bannick but position to get a dual shot with Craggoth and the rangers

In the middle I push most things forward trying to not give a flank to the horde of Elohi on the right I leave open some charge options for the ur elohi and elohi regiment but I push the mastiffs back to save their dogs

In shooting the rangers and craggoth do 2 wounds to Julius which isn’t enough to cause a problem and her IR’s back 1. The two most central dogs do 2 wounds also and the paladin regiment IR’s back 1

Turn 2

Nick:

Yet another cautious advance, the key here is to not let too many dawgs focus on one unit to take it off. I’m hoping next turn will see a bunch of charges and start to encircle him. Matt will get a bunch of unit strength across the table on the left but as long as I kill the stuff in the centre and right it should be good. Idea is to fly julius over next turn and to start the killing process

Matt:

I realised I have had a deployment mistake. I always run my horde of shieldbreakers as a second line and I don’t know why I haven’t here. I am not going to be able to protect anything well enough and it’s going to go badly quickly. In deployment I also got stuck in my head of trying to protect mastiffs so I could get their three mastiffs off but I should’ve just prioritised their actual role which is protecting everything else.

Jullius is such a pain in the arse I can’t afford to ignore him so the four units on the right all focus on him with three looking to shooting.

The middle pushes forward in a staggered fashion and the right mastiffs stagger to get some shots off too.

Shooting

On the left a combined 5 wounds on Jullius with an 11 neve roll pops him! But he is saved on the re roll. Mastiffs with a combination of vicious and non vicious do 7 wounds on the ur elohi and 5 on the knights I fail to pop both and IR brings back some wounds.

Turn 3

Nick:

No losses from dawgs. It’s showtime! I charged in with basically everything I could and positioned the remaining units being the elohi and second gur troop to charge in my following turn. Priest decided to do heal on the knights as I wanted to try and make sure they stayed alive as I’ll need all the US I can get given I’ve resigned myself to Matt getting 6 US over the line on the length. Julius flew over past that group as I had planned in my last turn with the hope of causing havoc on the flank of what remained of his main line next turn. The flying king was a potential issue holding him up. So the way I placed julius in a position where he’d ideally be blocked by the reforming elohi horde next turn. The charges were all successful. Both big double charges led to routes and I had wavers on the other two charges. The elohi reformed to further keep that left flank of Matt’s honest.

Matt:

Nick has me on the ropes here. The left hand side of the board reposition to only allow charges on def 6 from the elohi. In the middle the king went into the back of the elohi to try and ground them and do a wound, the earth elementals went into the sisters whilst the shiedlbreakers that were in combat with the paladins withdrew and flanked the sisters.

The top shiedlbreakers repositioned allow to get a dog off on the ur elohi with the packmaster, Whilst the mastiffs at the top both backed up to allow this.

The third mastiff pack went in to hold up the knights.

In shooting craggoth and bannick did 2 wounds to julius but failed to do anything else, herneas rangers couldn’t see. The packmaster and shieldbreaker mastiffs did 4 wounds on the ur elohi and popped it.

In combat the king did no wounds on the elohi. The combined 15 wounds on the sisters and then got two very good nerve rolls to pop them. The mastiffs did 2 wounds on the cavalry but failed to waver so one came back.

Turn 4

Nick:

Key lesson time. Communication is key in KoW and ESPECIALLY in PBE games. I was quite surprised to see my sisterhood horde routed with 15W after only the earth elemental regiment could charge them, or so I thought. I had just assumed that Matt’s lines were uniform, meaning my paladin foot guard and sisterhood horde were in line when charging his units last turn. Therefore I didn’t think I needed to do anything with my sisters to keep them safe. I could have very easily gone back d3 and been safe in this instance or even stated that it looks like they were in line and therefore were safe. Lesson learnt! At any rate I still felt the game was there for the taking. I continued to dance around his left hand side and sent my elohi up towards the board edge and out of charge of his units on the left. Without surge, the threat of Craggoth and the earth elementals was severely limited. The priest healed Julius for 3W after he’d suffered 5W from multiple turns of light shooting which meant he should go on to survive the game and hopefully mop up some stuff in the final turns. I got some great flanks seeing over the H2 infantry with my elohi regiments and proceeded to take off the mastiffs and SB regiment while my knights made short work of the heavily wounded regiment they went into last turn which already had 10W. At this stage if I played carefully I was confident I’d have enough US remaining on the right to offset Matt’s units on the left.

Matt:

The rot is in and there’s not much to do here.

I decide to basically save the left hand US and move down whilst herneas rangers will get a couple of last shots off. The tope right take charges where they could and the king charges the knights.

Overall shooting does some wounds but fails to do much other than waver the top gurs. Combat does some minor damage although the king for the second turn in a row does none! haha. That’s pretty much game over

Turn 5

Nick:

My final charges took out the rest of Matt’s stuff on the right (except a snake eyes on the mastiffs up the top right with ~20W now on them). This meant that he had 9 surviving US to my 19 and we decided to call it at this stage.

Post game thoughts

Nick:

Patience was key in this game to ensure I didn’t charge in straight up and get countered. Matt spread out a bit too much and it meant I could take him apart piecemeal. We discussed during the game the placement of his mastiffs. While the pack of dawgs all deployed together with the packmasters is cool, he needed to have them shielding the shieldbreakers (which can still throw dawgs over the dawgs who can also throw dawgs) so I couldn’t charge in and take them out without suffering a counter punch. The lack of surge was also a big consideration and I’m sure it’s something Matt will be including in the next rendition of the list.

Matt: I am happy that the core of this list (the formation plus a horde) can work but some tweaking needs to happen around the edges. The next type will be a little different. As discussed above I pretty much shat the bed in deployment so need to address that

Game 13

Scenario: Loot

Points: 2000

The Lists

My thoughts with this list:

Dave:

I’ve dropped my Juggers to free up some points and now I’ve added two lancer regiments. I’ve added in a mounted sauceror to help get the best from the lancers. Everything else is my usual flavor of halflings as I continue to try and understand exactly what make them work…

Matt:

Dave wanted me to write a list with some lower defense to play against and he suggested Nightstalkers. I’ve been wanting to try them as even Captain Grumpy, Michael Clarke has been able to do well with them recently. I didn’t want to go down too much of a spam path. Once I started list writing I found it pretty hard to write a bad list. I think the reapers with horror combo will catch Dave by surprise as they did with me the first time I played them and the sould flayers with wind blast just give so much board control.

Deployment

Dave:

I’ve gone for two battle groups, so I’ve split my army in half to see how this goes.

Matt I decided to have two hordes with the closer two tokens and support them with about half of the rest. Then the other half went to compete or delay on the third.

The Plan

Dave:

I don’t think I Have the staying power in this list to keep all the tokens, so I need to set up to take two late in the game from Matt… exactly how I do that is yet to be determined…..

Matt:

Draw Dave left and take the right two tokens. See where the third falls.

Turn 1

Matt:

First turn I pushed forward across the board. The mind screech plinks at the runners over the hill but fails to hit. The other mindscreech plinks at the braves in cover on 6s and pulls off 3 wounds! Mind fog from the planar apparition forces a nerve check on the runners and gets a waver.

Dave:

Windblast…. Dam you Matthew!!! Ok so my plan is already going south, I didn’t expect to be pushed back so early. I’ve move to position some back stops now which will tie up units with poor positioning…. But being the resourceful genius that I am I decided to send my sauceror over, roll wild charge and send my sergeant charging in to disorder the soul flayers while I move into position….

But instead I rolled WC1 so that plan turned to shit…. And now my army looks like this… I’m expecting to lose my lancers with the helm of the drunken ram, but worse I’ve waisted a turn positioning now as Matt moves on the tokens

Turn 2

Matt:

My first game with nightstalkers and I am finding them slightly more finesse than I expected. This revolves mainly around the shooting, what options I want and where. Everything pushed forwards slightly except the soulflayers on the right flank which pushed back to stay out of range.

They used windblast to push back the TC runners by an inch. The soulflayers on the left used it to push the pride out of range. The Horror and mindscreech on the left did 2 more wounds on the braves regiment whilst the other mindscreech did 2 on the TC lancers. Unfortunately mind fog from the apparition failed to go off.

Dave:

I’ve crept up a little more to put pressure on matts left flank. I’ve got some strong def 6 units and some soft braves protecting my main hammers so I’m happy with how this will go. I’ve positioned my EJs to now to stop any wind blast bullshit on my battle pig.

I launched my lancers with TC2 off into matts soul flayers to touch them up and get a good reface, I expected about 8w (scratch that, got hindered, so 5w) here and a 7 for nerve… so im in waiver territory if I miss the kill….. and I manage 1w…. so now they are pretty well doomed.

I also threw some chip damage on the soul flayers but just missed the nerve

For some reason unbeknown to me, I decided to do nothing with the braves…

Turn 3

Matt:

This should hopefully be a turn where I can set up for the win. The lancers only doing one wound to the soulflayers on the right is big for poor old crappy Dave. I want to surprise him with how much damage the reapers can do so they come into the harvester and braves, the soulflayers go into the brave horde and the scarecrows go into the pride of the shires. This is all about delay because with enough delay I feel I should win the other two tokens.

The middle scarecrows pivot to take the middle token whilst the fleshripper moves forward but stays out of range of the braves. The right scarecrows, planar apparition and mindscreech move forward, the mindscreech staying behind to not allow a charge from the lancers. The other fleshripper repositions behind the screech to run to the flank to help out if required.

In shooting the mind screech does one wound on the right to the regiment of lancers, mind fog also goes off from the apparition. On the left bane chant fails to go off on the reapers into the harvester even with the conjurers re roll, the mindscreech shoots at the aeronaughts but fails to wound.

On the nerve roll I pop the lancers with a double 6 but they are saved on the re roll thanks to the talisman on the sauceror.

In combat the reapers delete the brave regiment and the harvester. The left regiment reforms whilst the one that deleted to the braves bounces to the right. I probably should have just stayed but that’s ok. The Soulflayers delete the lancers and reposition to face back towards the middle but keeping the other lancers in their front arc.

Game on baba ghanoush

Dave:

Well dam reapers hit hard….. I did not expect that level of damage and it cost me two units. I went back in with the braves but failed to break the soul flayers, I tripped charged to break the scarecrows, ifi pull this off I’ll get a decent reform and can potentially threaten the middle token, but I rolled down only getting 9w and failed to break them, I know this was a 50/50 but dam its hard work from here.

I sent my other lancer unit in to finish the job on the soul flayers, but again failed to break them… what are these soul flayers made of?

Things have well turned to shit for me now, and I cant see a way I’ll win… I guess its time I get petty and try to kill Matts reapers.

Turn 4

Matt:

Dave got pretty unlucky with those wild runners again on the top right but I don’t think the triple charge on the scarecrows was the best option. It was always a lowish chance of pulling it off in one turn which is what he needed. Now is where I get to exert control and try and confirm the win.

The top butcher flesh ripper takes the rear on the lancers which I had set up the turn before and combos with the soul flayers. Even hindered this should be game over for them with the OP Soul Flayers.

The right hand scarecrows move forward and claim the loot, I toyed with waiting another turn but didn’t want to risk something weird happening and being held off it, as low likelihood as that was. The mindscreech and planar tucked in behind that horde whilst the other flesh ripper went into the right hand braves so that they couldn’t charge.

In the middle the scarecrows pivoted and went back over the obstacle, Dave could choose to chase me now perhaps although he won’t have a lot of speed left but doing this means I can use the obstacle in my favour in future turns if necessary.

On the left the scarecrows countered the EJ’s hoping to take them off when I position the horror for BC and vicious. The right hand reapers and the soulflayers double the braves horde. The left regiment repositions to take on aero’s or the winged captain if they choose to flank or rear those units.

The mindscreech positions to block LoS to some options on the winged captain.

In shooting the right hand mindscreech does a single wound on the runners troop whilst mind fog from the apparition fails to go off. The left mindscreech does no wounds on the winged captain. Bane chant from the horror goes off on the scarecrows

In combat the lancers regiment dies and the units reform. The braves horde dies to the double charge and the EJ’s die also. The scarecrows back up. Whilst the reapers and soul flayers reposition towards the right. The only safe choice now for the aeronaughts is the reapers at the back but I a not sure they can fit.

Dave:

I had some flanks open up this turn and with a little luck I’ll take all 3 of matts units of the board. with only a reaper regiment and a mind screech that token will be mine ,

Starting with the soul flayers, I piled on 6 wound to take them to 14w, and I snaked them….

Next up the muster captain storming in with 14 attacks on 3/2, here comes 8w to get into the rout zone… nope picked up 5w and missed the waiver by 1.

Last combat on the left, I easily destroy the scarecrows but its too little to late.

On the right flank I sent my sergeant in to finally kill the soul flayers… but they fail to get a wound and they dam soul flayers live another round…..

And this point I just stare blankly at the screen wondering why I cant kill any soul flayers…. I knew the where OP, but invincible? Surely not.

Other random crap happened with the braves, but its well and truly done here.

Turn 5

Matt:

See for yourself

Dave:

This is the part where I leave quietly

The Wrap-Up

Matt: After my initial getting used to the versatility in the shooting I actually felt like this army was somewhat like playing on easy mode. The board control with speed ten and multiple access to windblast is phenomenal. In some ways I had a good match up with only one unit of EJs but I don’t think I’ll be taking Nightstalkers until the power level drops a little.

Dave: When it’s a total white wash like this I think I need to look at the person who wrote the list first.