Winter Offensive 2 - Tournament Report - Part 2

Game 3, Destruction, vs Tom Hutchings, Circle Orboros

A very familiar face this time but somebody who I have only played once against as he's mostly the guy running the tournament in London. So the very busy Press Ganger had Kromac and Morvahna2 to pick from. I expected Kromac as most use him to play against Cryx though Tom did seem to be wavering towards Morvahna. Anyways, I picked Gaspy3 as I knew he could do well against most circle lists and I needed to use him at least once for today. Tom did pick Kromac in the end and as I won the starting roll I went first.

As usual everything runs but I don't run the raiders up fully as I was worried about the threat ranges of teleportation. Deathjack is on the far right and Erebus is up the centre.

Tom moves up slightly with his beasts and gets Kromac's upkeeps on the board. He then sends the Wild Aggression'd stalker into my raiders killing about six of them and retreating behind the objective. Crap, I knew the teleportation would be far but I didn't expect it to be that far. Woldstalkers take positions in the forest on the left and stone pillar thingy on the right (played as concealment and rough terrain but not a forest).

So I Power Swell the raiders and send them into the stalker, who lives through the attacks. I attempt to get a blood witch on the stalker hoping to finish it off but that also fails. I should have cast Carnage but that would have left me vulnerable to Ghetorix teleporting in the same way as the stalker. At least the blood witches were incorporeal this turn. After thinking how to salvage this mistake I feat with Gaspy and charge forwards on full camp. I thought to give Tom pause about if he could kill Gaspy with the healing that his feat can produce. The right hand raider captain went into some woldstalkers and killed a couple to sprint and engage a couple more.

I was right about giving Tom something to think about, he wonder about killing Gaspy and decided against it. Kromac healed the stalker and moved into the left forest at the edge of the killbox. He then cast Beastial and feated to get back to a safe level of fury on himself. The stalker killed the rest of the raiders surrounding him as the woldstalkers killed a couple of blood witches. Other than that it was mostly reorganisation in Tom's back field.

So Tom wasn't being aggressive and I have some focus to use up. I gave Erebus a couple of focus and the Deathjack got his usual two. The big jack cast Ashen Veil on Gaspy and moved off to kill a woldstalker. The raider captain killed a woldstalker with her horns then whipped the leader of that unit to death. The blood witches took down the stalker as Erebus, Gorman and a mechanithrall took care of the objective. Gaspy then runs to park himself in-front of the circle army camping ten focus. Hopefully that's enough to keep him alive.

Tom decides to go for it. The druid wayfarer sprays Gaspy and rolls a critical, knocking him down. (When did they give that guy crit. knockdown? I've never known it be used.) Then the assassination is on. Ghetorix teleports behind Gaspy to hit him a few times, Kromac and the pureblood do the same. Gaspy lives through the attacks with two health and Kromac is right there with one transfer left.

I look at Kromac and think about him being easy to kill but not as easy as Ghetorix behind me as I had the back up of mechanithralls and blood witches. Gaspy casts Carnage and hits Ghetorix a few times. Then he's finished off by my troops so I can dominate the zone a second time and win with five control points.

Things learnt:

Well I won't forget that the wayfarer has critical knockdown now. Also armour 27 isn't enough to protect against the might of circle beasts. Especially as Tom made a couple of miscalculations. 1. he didn't add up the pureblood strength enough and was rolling with two less power. That would have killed Gaspy. 2. When writing this report up I realise that Ghetorix has unyeilding and thus should have been an extra couple of armour over what Tom told me.

Sorry Tom. Hope to play against you again soon.

Game 4, Rally Point, vs Craig MacGregor, Legion of Everblight

So I face the third guy today who I've only played once before. Craig got the bye in the first round and thus used both his lists (but not really) for today. Thagrosh2 and Vayl1 were his picks and though I would have loved to play against Vayl1 again, just for the practice, I expected Thags2 to go down. So out came Gaspy3 to gain some benefit from all that fury I expected on the table. I lost the starting roll this time and thus was the second player.

Craig moves up with his heavies slightly more on the left and the shredders on the right. The raek runs into the right zone and dabs his toe in the zone to contest. My raiders cover the left zone with the blood witches more in the middle for support. Deathjack and Erebus run to the right of the board.

Then comes Thagrosh2's feat turn. Manifest Destiny goes up and a load of beasts come into my front lines. A scythean comes up the centre into the blood witches, shredders all around him to do a bit of damage. The other scythean goes into the raiders as the carnivean hangs back with the naga nightlurker and Thagrosh.

I didn't expect that charge to happen. Time to hit back. Deathjack gets Scything Touch on the blood witches who go incorporeal and attack the armour twenty scythean. But with no charges they fail to do major damage, but they do go incorporeal to survive another turn. The ogrun bokur goes in to do a little more damage on the scythean as Erebus and Deathjack kill two shredders and contest the right zone. The raiders use Power Swell and attack the nearest scythean and a few charge into the naga and carnivean. More damage is caused but only minor of course. Then Gaspy moves up to feat and finish off the scythean nearby. A raider captain also removes the shepherd sneaking behind the naga.

Craig doesn't upkeep the armour buff on the remaining scythean instead he uses it to destroy my objective and the ogrun thanks to the chain attack. The naga and carnivean kill a few of the raiders around themselves but don't get to move any further forwards. Thagrosh removes the left raider captain from the game as the forsaken move closer to kill a raider with their fury burst thingy. Oh, and a shredder right at the back of the table frenzied to attack the objective back there and put four points of damage on it.

I'm slightly worried at this point as I realise over my turn that Craig is one control point up on me and dice down could be called. I don't think it's going to happen this round but I need to get on top of that. So the Deathjack moves into the centre of the zone to look at the raek there. Erebus and the blood witches finish off the last scythean as the remaining raiders charge into the carnivean and naga again. I use the remaining raider captain to kill the remaining solos and sprint into a position to charge the objective next turn. Gaspy mostly camps and mechanithralls surround Gaspy to protect against tramples or flying Thagrosh.

Craig is running out of stuff now and runs the last shredder into the right zone as the raek moves as far from Deathjack as possible. Thagrosh kills a couple of raiders to put up some clouds and protect from the incoming mechanithralls. The carnivean and naga get cleared of the raiders finally and that's about it.

Time to get my scenario on. Blood witches charge the objective but leave it alive. The raider captain kills the last shredder though as the Deathjack picks up the raek and throws it out of the zone. Vociferon runs to get close to the objective and Gaspy boosts damage on a Boneshaker to finish it off. Mechanithralls charge the naga and put a little bit more damage on it but can't get to the carnivean due to the clouds. Erebus moves into the left zone to support Gaspy and threaten Thagrosh. 2 CPs to 1

Craig has run out of time and decides to assassinate. Firstly the raek moves back into the right zone. Then, after debating whether to send in Thagrosh or the carnivean he uses scourge to knock Gaspy down and somehow ends on no fury. The way is clear for the carnivean though and he charges in to land his charge attack. However, Craig (and myself) hadn't noticed that the carnivian's body was out and thus he was rolling one less damage dice than expected (thanks to Jon for pointing that out). A few attack rolls later and Gaspy lives with most of his boxes.

So I fill up Erebus with focus, cast carnage and kill Thagrosh.

Things learnt:

That was my first time playing against Thagrosh2 and I was surprised at how much damage Manifest Destiny allowed his beasts to wreck on my lines. It did help that Ashen Veil made the raiders difficult to hit. Other than that I was too far forward with Gaspy when the assassination run happened. Distance is always the best way to stop assassination and I didn't remember that.

The Aftermath

After four rounds there was two guys on four wins but we had ran out of time to finish off the tournament (Jon warned us about this at the beginning of the day). Strength of Schedule was used and I came out the winner. Ben de Bosdari came second after being paired down twice during the day and Tom third. All in all a good day and though Deneghra2's list isn't going to be used in the nearby future I am glad to have given it a go.