The Blowout, Part 2

This Battle Report is the second blowout game I played last week. The last one showed off the amazing power of the Ravagore, but rather than try out the Scythean, I decided to try another list that caught my attention: the Shredder Spam.

Epic Thagrosh
Scythean
9 Shredders
Striders + UA
2 Spell Martyrs

I've been having a rough time with Epic Thagrosh lately, and thought this might be a good way to play him fully to his strengths. To get at least some testing in, I decided to use a Scythean instead of a Carnivean. Not only did this let me get 1 more shredder in, it would also be a chance to see how much I missed the breath and Spiny Growth.

My opponent was playing a slightly modified version of her previous list, swapping out the Cyclone for Ol' Rowdy:

Prime Haley
-Thorn
-Ol' Rowdy
Full Long Gunners + UA
Prime Eiryss
Journeyman Warcaster
-Defender

Again, I think she accidentally put in full Long Gunners for the price of a minimum squad, but it didn't end up making much of a difference. I won the roll and opted to go first.

Terrain and Scenario
We played on the same board as last time, with two hills on either side of each of our deployment zones, as well as one tall pillar just to the left of the center of the board and a small hill right of center. We also played kill box once again.

Legion Deployment
I deployed my main force in the center of the board, with a line of Shredders in front, and Thagrosh, the Scythean, and the Spell Martyrs right behind them.

Cygnar Deployment
My opponent deployed Haley and her jacks just behind the left side of the kill box, while the Long Gunners deployed to the right, with the Journeyman and Defender joining them. I was going to have to move diagonally to get to either group, giving me more ground to cover.

Legion Advance Deployment
The Striders went directly in front of the Long Gunners, hopefully taking them apart before they could hurt my beasts.

Cygnar Advance Deployment
Eiryss deployed to the far left side of the field, hoping to come around and flank my force (as well as avoid the Striders!)

Legion Turn 1
Wow, never had to deal with this many beasts before. Managing fury was going to be tough! I had 6 of the Shredders run the full distance forward, then had Thagrosh fly up and cast Dragon's Blood on one of them, as well as Tenacity on 3 others and himself. I almost tried to cast Spiny Growth - I'm missing my Carnivean already! The other Shredders walked forward, as did the Scythean, who kept to Thagrosh's left to watch for Eiryss. The Striders ran forward, not using their whole movement but still setting themselves up to move and shoot the Long Gunners next turn, and the Spell Martyrs run up but stay behind the front line of Shredders.

Cygnar Turn 1
Ol' Rowdy and Thorn both ran forward, and Haley advanced a bit behind them and cast Temporal Barrier, catching two of the Shredders who ran. The Long Gunners advanced up cautiously, as did the Journeyman and Defender. I think they were hoping that even if the Striders shot up a few Long Gunners, the others combined with the Journeyman and Defender would take them out. Eiryss then ran as far as she could up the left flank, putting her about even with Thagrosh but far to the left.

Legion Turn 2
Here's where things go to hell fast for my opponent. With most of her force in range, Thagrosh flies up a bit, casts Manifest Destiny and pops his feat. 3 of the forward Shredders go rabid and are able to walk into melee with Thorn, severely damaging it. Two more of them charge to do a few points to the Defender, who quickly finds himself lacking backup when the Striders move up and take down half the Long Gunners (who don't fall back because of the Standard Bearer). 2 of the remaining beasts charge towards Ol' Rowdy, but are well short, and another does the same except targetting the Defender. The last Shredder and the Scythean move up but stay close to Thagrosh, still cautious of Eiryss. The Spell Martyrs move into the group of Striders, hoping to arc some shots at either the Long Gunners or Haley. My feat then triggers, and things get even worse. It only takes one of the Shredders to finish Thorn, so one of the other two goes after the Defender, as does the Shredder who failed a charge at it during its movement. Combined with the other two already attacking the jack, it is reduced to 3 boxes! The other Shredder who was fighting Thorn now has a clear path to Haley, and though he is out of the range of Manifest Destiny, he manages to hit and do a whopping 12 points to her! The 2 Shredders who failed to reach Ol' Rowdy are now able to, and put a few dents in him, but not damaging any systems. The Scythean and Shredder hanging with Thagrosh shuffle a bit to better block line of sight and charge lanes to their leader.

Cygnar Turn 2
My opponent is reeling from the blows, but knows how fragile Shredders are and decides she needs to take them out if she wants a chance. Haley casts Temporal Barrier to make that easier, then pops her feat and crushes the Shredder attacking her with two solid blows. Ol' Rowdy does likewise to the two lesser beasts snacking on him, and the Defender, Long Gunners, and Journeyman use all their attacks to carve up 3 of the 4 Shredders attacking the Defender. One was even in range of a poorly placed Spell Martyr, and the Nyss was killed by its extra shot. Eiryss moved towards the center, and with a pair of well placed shots did 6 damage to the Scythean, thankfully not enough to take an aspect. My army suddenly feels really small - though they're damaged, my opponent has 2 heavy jacks still alive, and I'm down to 3 Shredders!

Legion Turn 3
The store was about to close, so I decided to see if I could finish this quickly. I ran a Spell Martyr up hoping to arc Scourge through it for the kill, but didn't realize Ol' Rowdy had countercharge. I hate that ability! He easily squished the Martyr, and was now blocking the Shredder who finished Thorn from getting at Haley. Suddenly, I had a thought. I measured control and found that Rowdy was just under 11" away from my Scythean! The Shredder attacked him for a few points, then the Scythean charged in and finished him off. The one Shredder still fighting the Defender frenzied to finish the jack, and the Striders moved in and carved up most of the remaining Long Gunners and the Journeyman. I was careful about choose the Long Gunner targets and managed to prevent another model from becoming the a new Standard bearer, and with a failed morale check the last Cygnarian infantry was running off the board. The last Shredder chased down and ate Eiryss, and my opponent conceded since all she had was Haley against most of my army.

Aftermath
The Shredder swarm performed beyond my expectations. I thought they would have trouble with heavy jacks, but with Manifest Destiny helping out my rolls, they had no problems. The Striders were also crucial, as they helped take on the infantry that were too numerous for the lesser warbeasts to deal with. Once again, however, I completely botched the Spell Martyrs, letting one get killed by a stray shot and the other being countercharged. Being able to arc Scourge onto Haley would've really helped if the game were closer. The surprise stand out was the Scythean. Though I was probably overloaded on Shredders and the extra 2 points weren't a huge difference, having the Reach to charge Ol' Rowdy made a huge difference. Though the Carnivean's assault spray may have been able to take out Haley, he would still need a 12 to hit on 3 dice, nothing close to as assured as the Scythean taking on Rowdy.

Overall, I felt like I was finally using Epic Thagrosh to his full potential. Manifest Destiny and his feat were both game breaking, and if I'd used my Spell Martyrs more effectively Scourge would have been really useful as well. I'm probably going to try this build with one or two fewer Shredders, replacing them with Deathstalkers or possibly Annyssa Ryvval to add some more infantry and solo killing.

The Blowout, Part 1

So I have good news and bad news. The good news is I managed to get 2 games in at my LGS this week! The bad news is its because they were complete blowouts, with my opponent getting 1 turn before her army was blown off the table. Though these battle reports kind of suck, I figured I would post them anyway, if at very least to show how stupid Legion can be sometimes.

In the spirit of deciding between the Scythean and the Ravagore, I decided to play the following list:

Epic Lylyth
Ravagore
Ravagore
Angelius
Striders + UA
Forsaken

I realized that since it was so easy to use magnets to make my Carnivean a Ravagore if needed, I should really only be testing lists that use either both the Carnivean and the Ravagore, or 2 Ravagores. The second led me to cook up this disgusting eLylyth list. The goal is to use feat turn to drop 4 fully boosted POW 15 AOE's on the opposing warcaster. Originally I had a Seraph and Spell Martyr instead of the Angelius, but thought that Repulsion might help move any blocking models out of the way of the Ravagores' rain of death.

My opponent also decided to try something new, using 2 heavies and Thorn instead of her standard Ironclad-Lancer build with a Charger on the Journeyman. It was also her first time bringing out Eiryss:

Prime Haley
-Thorn
-Cyclone
Full Long Gunners + UA
Prime Eiryss
Journeyman Warcaster
-Defender

I think she accidentally put in full Long Gunners for the price of a minimum squad, but I made a mistake on feat turn and thought the Striders were RAT 7. Given the only thing they shot at was the Long Gunners, I figure the extra ones they killed evened out the fact that there were too many gunners in the first place.

Terrain and Scenario
The board had two hills on either side of each of our deployment zones, as well as one tall pillar just to the left of the center of the board and a small hill right of center. We wanted to try out a scenario, but ended up rolling killbox, which is pretty close to caster kill, so it didn't end up mattering. I won the deployment roll, but opted to go second, hoping she would move into range of my feat for the start of my first turn.

Cygnar Deployment
My opponent deployed in two halves, with Haley, the Journeyman, and all the jacks just outside the left corner of the killbox (behind a hill), and the Long Gunners on the far right side of the box.

Legion Deployment
Since I was going for assassination, I deployed my entire force on the left side of the killbox, directly across from Haley and the jacks. The three heavies went in front with the Angelius in the middle, and Lylyth and the Forsaken behind them.

Cygnar Advance Deployment
Eiryss deployed directly in front of the Long Gunnners as far up as possible, as she didn't want to be close to the jacks on the other side of the field.

Legion Advance Deployment
The Striders deployed directly across from Eiryss and the Long Gunners. I figured they would be able to do some damage and hold them back while my beasts rained death on Haley.

Cygnar Turn 1
All the jacks ran forward, with Haley and the Journeyman walking up behind them. The Long Gunners advanced cautiously, not wanting to give the Striders too easy a shot before they could engage. Eiryss ran full tilt diagonally across the board towards my battlegroup - I guess my opponent wanted to put some pressure on Lylyth.

Legion Turn 1
My opponent had set herself up for me so well, I was for a moment confounded. I wanted to activate Lylyth first, but I also wanted to move her up, but the beasts were blocking her way. I decided to bite the bullet and had my Angelius move first, taking a shot at Eiryss. Boosting to hit, I still failed to hit her. However, then Lylyth then moved up as far as possible, cast Shadow Pack, popped her feat, and took the 2 shots at the elven hunter, killing her. Then the carnage began. The Striders shifted toward Lylyth to get in her control, then with their extended range and extra shots, took down all but 3 of the Long Gunners! The remained of the unit failed their morale check and fled. The Ravagores then moved up, the first fully boosting all its shots to take out both the Journeyman and the arc node on Thorn. The other moved forward and dropped both its shots on the Cyclone, seriously wounding the jack but failing to take out any systems. To keep my guys from frenzying, the forsaken moved up and pulled all the fury from one of the Ravagores and hiding itself behind one of the hills.

Cygnar Turn 2
My opponent really didn't know what to do from here. Not only was her army seriously crippled, she also couldn't shoot anything I had. Without many options, Haley moved up to the Defender and spent her turn reactivating it (as well as camping most of her fury, just in case). Thorn ran forward, lacking other options, while the Cyclone decided to try to slow the Striders by putting several templates in front of them. The Long Gunners managed to rally, but were unable to help out this turn.

Legion Turn 2
Ah, the curses of 5 fury - I was unable to leech everything I had put out, and had to roll for frenzy on the Angelius. Thankfully he passed, and I had him charge Thorn. Wow, what a blow! The boosted armor-piercing tail strike knocked out his lance arm, movement, and cortex. I bought a second attack and put the poor jack out of his misery, though this time with decidedly less spectactular damage. The Ravagores dropped their shots on the Cyclone, and Lylyth burned several points of fury to bring it to critical health. 5 of the Striders manuvered around its templates to finish it with a CRA. The other 3 went after the remaining Long Gunners, and managed to take everyone but the UA commander down. The Forsaken moved up, expecting that its Blight Shroud may be needed to take down Haley.

Cygnar Turn 3
With just her Defender and Haley left, my opponent decided she had one shot - move close enough to shoot the the Striders try to get lucky with Chain Lightning to kill Lylyth. While she did roll well, the Striders took the brunt of the attack, and she found herself without any targets after the first lighting. The Defender, with nothing else to do, ran forward to try to protect her...

Legion Turn 3
...but it was all for naught, as the combined firepower of the Warbeasts, Lylyth, and the Striders finished Haley off.

Aftermath
I don't think I've ever played such a lopsided game. By the start of turn 3, my opponent had only her Warcaster, 1 jack, and a lone Long Gunner left, while my entire army was intact. All she managed to kill the entire game was 4 striders. The list did exactly what I'd hoped - the Ravagores were excellent and almost single-handedly won me the game. As usual, the Striders were great, helping to deal with the opposing infantry. I was dissapointed in the Angelius though. While its tail strike is powerful, its only for the first shot. Overall, a Scythean would do far more damage for the points. The plan of using Repulsion also failed miserably - the 10" charge was just not enough to get where he needed to be to help out 18" range. Maybe with a warlock other than eLylyth...

One thing I realized was the list really relied on crippling my opponent on feat turn. If I hadn't, I didn't have the firepower to do much as they advanced up the board. While I would probably have been fine since my entirely-stealthed army was basically impossible for my opponent to deal with, against someone who was better at melee, all they would have to do is keep enough of their stuff alive through the feat turn and I'd be done for. I'm also starting to question the Ravagore's power, especially compared to the Seraph. While Epic Lylyth really makes the Ravagores shine with her feat, normally I could see the Seraph's strafe doing similar damage, especially to groups of enemies. While the extra 4" of range are really nice, I'm also giving up Slipstream and 2 points. I think I'm going to try the Ravagore with pLylyth next, and see how different that feels from using the Seraph.

Look for the next battle report in another day or so, which will have the second blowout battle.

Incoming: Heavy Warbeast

So in a bunch of the games I've been playing lately, I've come to a conclusion: I need another heavy warbeast. Too many of my games hinge on whether my Carnivean lives or dies, and I imagine having a second powerhouse will really help. The question is, what do I want? I've been playtesting a bit over the last month, and I'll go over my thoughts.

First off, here's a list of all of Everblight's heavy warbeasts:

Carnivean
Seraph
Scythean
Ravagore
Angelius
Typhon


Off the bat, I'm going to drop the Carnivean and Seraph. I already have one of each, but more than that, they're all-rounders. While its good to have at least 1, I want something more specialized for my next beast. Because of that, I'm also dropping the Angelius. His melee power pales in comparison to the Ravagore, and the Seraph can out shoot him any day of the week. Combined with the fact that his animus is nothing to write home about, he grounded, at least for now.

That leaves the Scythean, Ravagore, and Typhon. I'll start with our three-headed fire-breathing monstrosity, since it would be really cool to have a character beast. Comparing Typhon to the Carnivean, I come up with the following: he's one point more for better ranged capability. Seems like a decent improvement - with gunfighter and 3 sprays, he could conceivably go for a caster kill, especially with Lylyth's feat helping the still-bad RAT. I decided to try proxying him and using him instead of my Carnivean for a bit.

Sadly he totally didn't work out this way when I played him. I didn't realize his spray was 8", and way too often I found that the extra 2" were important. In addition, he's across the board just a little weaker than the Carnivean - POW 17 vs. POW 18, ARM 17 vs. ARM 18, a slightly smaller health spiral, and an animus that, while on average the same as the Carnivean's, is RNG Self. This was all compounded by the fact that I couldn't afford to just have him stand back and shoot - I really needed him to get stuck in, since thats where he does his best damage. And once he's in melee, he's just a bad version of the Carnivean for 1 point more. I even tried using him with Epic Thagrosh for the affinity, but I never ended up using regeneration. Fury is just too valuable on eThags to waste on superfluous healing. The final straw was his lack of pathfinder. Maybe I'm just spoiled playing Legion, but getting stuck in forests was miserable.

So that leaves the Carnivean's two younger brothers: the Scythean and the Ravagore. They couldn't be more different: one takes the Carnivean's melee power and adds reach for 2 points less, while the other is a living artillery cannon. I'll post the test games I play with them, as well as thoughts on how they are doing. In the meantime, I've put up a poll (to the left) to see what you guys think: which heavy beast should I pick? I've included every beast I don't have, since I'd like to see how much people like the options I've already discarded. You can pick multiple options, and I'd also like to hear your thoughts on why you selected the ones you did.

Battle Report: Rhyas vs. pVlad

Wow, long time hiatus! Life has been busier than I'd hoped, but I scraped together time to play a small game last week and thought I'd post the results! Right now, I'm trying to decide between buying a Scythean or a Ravagore, so I played a small 21 point game (all the models my opponent had with him) to help figure out how each work through proxies. Here was my list:

Rhyas +6
Scythean 9
Nephilim Soldier 5
Full Warmongers 8
Warchief 3
Forsaken 2

Been a while since I brought out Rhyas, though I'm interested to see how the Scythean does under her feat, Rapport, and Massacre.

My opponent was playing the following Khador list:

pVlad +5
Juggernaut 7
Destroyer 9
Berserker 6
Widowmakers 4

I won the roll and elected to go first.

Terrain
There was a small hill on his side, as well as a small forest on mine, but the main feature was a large hill in the center with ruins on top. We decided to play king of the hill: from the end of the 2nd round onward, if your opponent had models on the center hill and you didn't, you lose. This could be a tough match with all his jacks, but if I could let him take the hill first I could do a bunch of damage with the counter attack.

Deployment
I deployed my forces in the center, with the Ogrun on the left and Rhyas, my Forsaken, and the Warbests to their right. My opponent put Vlad just behind his jacks, all in the middle. The Widowmakers advance deployed on the small hill on his side.

Legion Turn 1
Since his Widowmakers were perched on a hill to my left, I had Rhyas put Occultation on the Warmongers to keep them from taking extra damage, then cast Dash and had her move her full speed up. Everyone else ran forward, the Nephilim screening Rhyas but the rest trying to get in range to charge anything on the hill.

Khador Turn 1
My opponent obliged me by activating Vlad and using his feat, then moving up. All his jacks ran forward, the Berserker and the Destroyer each taking one side of the hill while the Juggernaut waited just behind it. The Widowmakers tried to get a shot, but the only thing in range were my occulted Warmongers.

Legion Turn 2
With his forces in range, it seemed like as good a time as any to use my feat. Rhyas went first, dropping occultation and putting Massacre on the Nephilim. She then cast Rapport on the Scythean and popped her feat, moving a bit to the right in case the Widowmakers decided to move up for an opportunistic shot. The Warmongers then charged the Destroyer, and despite the massive number of attacks, only managed to do 17 damage (I calculated later, and the average should've been closer to 27!). Still, its cortex was damaged, so at least they would be a little safe from retaliation. The Nephilim and Warchief went after the Berserker, doing a decent amount of damage but most importantly using their reach to force him to take a free strike if he wanted to go after either one of them. The Scythean hung back, putting itself between Rhyas and the enemies, waiting for the Juggernaut to come forward. The Forsaken hung back in the edge of the forest, close enough to help grab some fury if needed.

Khador Turn 2
He nose was bloodied, but my opponent still had all his guys standing. Vlad cast saved enough Focus for Blood of Kings and gave the rest to the Juggernaut, then opted to stay back to stay out of the Scythean's range. The Juggernaut and Destroyer teamed up to carve 3 Warmongers apart, but the Berserker didn't fare so well - the free strike he took from the Warchief crippled one of his axes, and with the miss the other axe wasn't enough to take out any of the Nephilim's aspects. The Widowmakers took shots at the Warmongers, dealing a bit of damage to them with some lucky hit rolls.

Legion Turn 3
With only 2 wounded Ogrun holding the hill for me, it was do or die time. The Nephilim threw everything they had at the Berserker, but some bad rolls on damage meant I only took out his movement. The Forsaken moved up to pull the fury off it while the Scythean then charged into the other 2 jacks,. In a flurry of blows it managed to take down the Destroyer and take out the Juggernaut's open fist. The remaining Warmongers and Warchief then charged it, but did a grand total of 3 damage. Concerned that it was going to knock out my Scythean, I sent Rhyas in with full fury to try to take it out. Thankfully, my damage rolls turned around and she managed to finish the metal monstrosity with just the charge attack! Then she sprinted back off the hill to safety, wary of what Vlad could do.

Khador Turn 3
The loss of his 2 biggest jacks was a serious blow, but my opponent hoped he could recover by sending Vlad in. First the Berserker used 3 focus to finish off my Nephilim, then luckily avoided blowing up. Vlad then cast BLood of Kings and entered the fray. With the help of the Widowmakers took out all my remaining Ogrun and took about half my Scythean's life!

Legion Turn 4
I was down to 3 models, and didn't like the odds of Rhyas beating Vlad head to head. I healed up the Scythean's body, and sent him in boosting attack rolls to help get around Vlad's sky-high defense. Thanks to Rapport, I managed to land enough blows to take him out and win!

Aftermath
That was too close for comfort! I haven't played much at lower point levels, and one solid attack can cripple a huge amount of your force! I was surprised my opponent blew his feat so early - I was expecting him to wait behind the hill for the 1st turn, then use it to charge me when I was forced onto it in the 2nd. The small number of models also prevented me from using the Scythean-Tide of Blood-Massacre combo, since there was nothing close enough to his Warlock. Still getting the hang of playing Rhyas; I put Rapport on the Scythean on feat turn, but ended up keeping him back. Luckily it ended up helping me later when he went after the Destoryer and Juggernaut! One cool thing I figured out about her was the power of Sprint. While other guys like the harrier use it to take out solos and retreat, Rhyas hits hard enough to take out lighter jacks (or heavier ones with a little help). I could see her hanging right behind the front line, moving through units to take out a jack then Sprinting back to safety. Will have to try that out more. Overall a really fun game - objectives definitely change up the game a lot.

Life looks to be a bit busy at least through the first half of February, so I may not be posting much. I'll try to get in at least once a week, battle reports when possible, otherwise general army thoughts.

Happy 2011!

Happy 2011, and hope everyone had a great holiday! I ended up being far busier than expected and didn't get a chance to write up the battle reports, and then promptly fell sick as soon as work started up again. Good news though, I'm getting better so I should be able to throw up a post this weekend. Thanks for your patience.