Round 3: Vs Brad Park
Scenario: Spread the Net
Leading up to this game I had my usual back and forth on which list I thought Brad would play into me. Eventually, I decided that regardless of which list he picked, my dark host list would have the better tools for dealing with it. My final line of thinking was that he would play his dark host, and the fact that I only had hellmouth as RFP would mean he could still get decent mileage out of his feat. We talked prior to meeting up for the game and revealed our list choices. I was a little surprised when he said he was going to play his Skarre 2 list, but, in hindsight, it makes a lot more sense now. I will discuss that particular item in the post game analysis.
(Deneghra 2) Wraith Witch Deneghra [+28] - Dark Host - Deathripper [6]
- Deathripper [6]
- Stalker [8]
- Stalker [8]
- Skarlock Thrall [0(4)]
Bane Lord Tartarus [0(6)]
Darragh Wrathe [9]
Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor [5]
Soul Trapper [1]
Bane Knights (max) [15]
Bane Riders (max) [20]
Bane Warriors (min) [10]
- Bane Warrior Officer & Standard [0(5)]
Wraith Engine [15]
(Skarre 2) Skarre, Queen of the Broken Coast [+26] - Scourge of the Broken Coast - Barathrum [15]
- Nightwretch [7]
- Nightwretch [7]
Eilish Garrity, the Occultist [5]
Satyxis Raider Captain [0(4)]
Satyxis Raider Captain [0(4)]
Satyxis Blood Witches (max) [13]
- Satyxis Blood Hag [0(4)]
Satyxis Gunslingers [7]
Satyxis Gunslingers [7]
Satyxis Raiders (max) [16]
- Satyxis Raider Sea Witch [4]
Satyxis Raiders (max) [16]
- Satyxis Raider Sea Witch [4]
For the first time I actually remembered to take pictures! Hope they help with the battle report. I am not a great photographer and was taking these pictures from standing on top of a chair with my phone. If anyone has any suggestions about getting better pictures (maybe a better angle or something?) please let me know. The pictures came out just fine, but I feel like I had to zoom out so much to get the whole table that it is a bit difficult to tell what models are what.
Deployment / Top 1:
I won the die roll and chose to go first. I deployed my bane riders to my far right with the wraith engine to the left of them. A small clump next to the wraith engine contained one of my arc nodes, Denny, Orin, the soul trapper, the skarlock and Darragh Wrathe. To the left of that was my unit of bane knights, with my bane warriors to the far left. Tartarus and my second arc node were between the knights and warriors.
Brad had a unit of raiders spread out across both flanks with his raider captains in the middle of the units. One unit of satyxis gunslingers was to the far left, while the other was mixed in with his right unit of raiders. Skarre was deployed a little to the right of center, behind the trench. His two arc nodes were deployed towards the center and Eilish was near Skarre. His blood witches were kept in reserve for ambushing.
For advanced deployment, I placed my two stalkers facing down the left flank and he deployed Barathrum opposite my stalkers. Here is what the terrain and deployment looked like.
Bottom 1:
For the most part everything ran forward on my first turn. I couldn't really run into his threat ranges, so I pushed as far up the board as I could with most of my army. The stalkers hung back a little bit so Barathrum wouldn't be able to charge them. Darragh Wrathe cast death ride to get the banes a little farther up the board and my arc nodes hung back a little bit. The bane warrior standard bearer kept to his usual position far behind the officer.
Top 2:
Brad did not have much room to move forward without putting his army into potentially bad positions. His right unit of raiders moved slightly forward and arranged themselves so a hellmouth would only be able to hit two models in the unit at a time. One arc node ran forward into the middle of the board and Skarre advanced into the trench. She arc a pair of blood rains, which deviated due to my knights being in the clouds. One drifted to no where, while the other managed to land on a pair of knights. They survived the damage roll, but were hit with continuous corrosion. Barathrum took a short step to the side and dug in. The left unit of raiders arranged themselves to be ready to charge next turn. Both units of gunslingers hung back and the raider captains stayed in the middle of the units they were supporting.
Bottom 2:
Both the knights with corrosion died at the beginning of my turn. I had no good targets for hellmouth and Brad kept all his pieces out of my threat range. I decided to push forward only a little bit this turn. The bane knights got the press forward order and four of them charged the arc node in the middle of the table. Even with Tartarus nearby, only 1 connected and the arc node did not sustain nearly as much damage as I would have liked. The other four arranged themselves to be base to base. The bane warriors ran forward to be ready to charge anything that might get to the bane knights. The stalkers continued to reposition a little around the left forest, keeping it between them and Barathrum. The wraith engine sat in place, to continue extending its aura to the riders and knights.
It was at this point that I remembered he had a unit of blood witches to ambush. Unfortunately, I had not accounted for that on my left flank. On the right, the riders moved up slightly, but kept outside his raiders threat range with the exception of one. I was leaving one forward in the hopes that would be the one that would get attacked and trigger vengeance. The others ended up bunched up toward the middle of the board in an effort to avoid getting ambushed by the blood witches. My arc nodes continued to hang back, waiting for their moment to get into position to be relevant. The soul trapper stuck a toe in the zone behind the house and clouds. Darraghe Wrath moved up to be behind the clouds and the skarlock moved onto the hill on the right. We each scored one point for the rectangle zones.
Top 3:
The blood witches ambushed in on the left flank. The left raiders continued to play their positioning game, while the gunslingers on the left swung far out wide. The blood witches charged the stalker further out on the left and one of my bane warriors. Both the stalker and the warrior died. Barathrum moved forward and dug in again. Skarre moved forward and popped feat. She got herself, Barathrum, the wraith engine and Denny. It was at this moment that I realized Denny was too far forward, as the -5 penalty to attack rolls would make my next turn difficult at best. Skarre then cast black spot on the bane riders and admonition on the arc node engaged with the bane knights. She took a shot at one, boosted the damage and killed it. Black spot triggered and she dropped a second bane rider. The raiders on the right charged and killed the one bane rider I had put forth as bait and one ran into my zone to contest. The gunslingers on the right brought down another bane rider. He scored one on his zone, going up 2-1.
Bottom 3:
I only lost six models on the previous turn, but I was in a very sad place. Without the bane riders, I was going to have some serious problems on my right flank and I needed to figure out how to deal with the ambushed blood witches on the left without losing too much to his gunslingers and raiders. Knowing I could not rely on Denny or the wraith engine to get much done made it that much worse. I spent some time debating whether a single bane rider could possibly kill Skarre if I simply ran the wraith engine forward to apply dark shroud. It took a couple minutes for me to remember that under feat she was def 21 and even boosted cavalry attacks were not looking great when I needed a 14.
The right arc node up a little and activated Denny. She boosted the attack roll and landed a curse of shadows on the raiders. The remaining bane rider charged into his satyxis raider back line, making an impact attack on the way. The impact attack managed to kill one raider and his charge killed another. He repositioned to tie up the raider captain and a couple raiders on that side. The wraith engine charged one of the raiders, but failed to hit. The skarlock cast venom on the one raider contesting my zone, but failed to hit. Orin remained near Denny.
On my left flank, the bane warriors turned to attack the blood witches. They managed to kill five blood witches between the bane warriors and my remaining stalker. Darragh Wrathe cast mortal fear (-2 damage rolls for living models in his command) and moved onto the flag. The soul trapper ran between Wrathe and Barathrum. The bane knights got the press forward order. Two of them ran to box in the arc node and several others charged it. Most of them did not get the charge bonus. Two knights charged Barathrum, but failed to hit and a third knight ran deeper into his zone to contest. Tartarus ran into the center zone. My turn ended without any scoring, so Brad remained up 2-1.
Top 4:
The blood witches dug into my bane warriors, killing all but one warrior and the standard bearer. Grievous wound attacks prevented tough checks from happening. The raiders on the left and the captain killed several bane knights as well as the soul trapper. This allowed Barathrum to charge Wrathe, which ended with Wrathe dead. The undamaged arc node moved up to toe into my zone. Skarre moved back into her trench. The satyxis captain on the right killed the last bane rider. The raiders on the right charged the wraith engine. One missed her attack, which left it on 4 health boxes. One satyxis gunslinger on that side shot at the wraith engine, putting two more damage into it. The other two gunslingers took shots at the bane knights, and the arc node did its head bash attack into one. After all these attacks, only a single bane knight remained. The gunslingers on the left attacked the remaining stalker, but failed to do any significant damage. The score remained 2-1.
Bottom 4:
On my turn, Denny upkept curse of shadows on the right raiders. The remaining stalker killed his satyxis captain on the right to prevent him from having a solo to score on that flag. The two remaining bane warriors charged Barathrum and put some damage on him. Tartarus killed a satyxis and created a new bane warrior. The bane knight moved away from the arc node, running deeper into the zone. The right arc node ran into the forest and Denny arced a hellmouth into the satyxis around his flag. This eliminated the captain and a couple raiders, while clearing a landing area for the wraith engine. The wraith engine charged Skarre and missed all his attacks. The skarlock moved forward and attempted to venom a line of raiders, but failed to hit any of them. Orin moved forward and boosted a chain lightning into the right gunslingers, killing two of them. The score remained 2-1.
Top 5:
Barathrum and the satyxis on the left killed my remaining bane warriors and Tartarus. They also got a charge on the arc node that was left in the center zone. The right raiders killed the skarlock, wraith engine and the arc node in the forest. The damaged arc node in the center zone backed up to get into his rectangle zone and the other arc node failed to kill Orin. Skarre ran to the left. Because I failed to get Orin into the zone, he scored a point on each zone going up 4-1.
Bottom 5 / End of Game:
At this point, it was clear I was going to lose on scenario and all I had left was a long shot assassination. Orin boosted a chain lightning into the two satyxis tying up my arc node. The arc node moved so Denny could arc onto Skarre. Denny arced some venoms and failed to kill Skarre. At this point, I lost on scenario as at the end of my turn Brad scored 2, going up 6-1.
Conclusion and analysis: Well, that really could have gone better for me. And by that, I mean I could have made some very important decisions that would have had the chance to greatly change how this game played out. As you may recall from my last post, Brad was kind enough to consult with me prior to the scrum and helped me put together my lists. Which is my way of saying he wrote my lists for me. However, this was the first time I actually took the time to talk to him about how the Denny 2 list should play. I was focused on just playing it as a normal dark host list, but with hellmouth and venom as great removal options. The issue I ran into was that it turns out the list really excels when you start utilizing one of the spells on Denny's card that I don't believe I have ever cast.
Breath stealer is what really makes this list shine. Dark host is a solid enough list on its own. However, if I had cast a breath stealer on each of his satyxis raiders on the top of turn 2, I win the threat game and get the alpha. When bane knights can get the alpha, things are very uncomfortable for your opponent. Brad even walked me through the possibilities I had to try and land those breath stealers in such a way that I wouldn't necessarily lose my arc nodes the following turn. It was great to have him really explain it all to me, and it all makes perfect sense now. He could not drop his dark host into me because breath stealer would guarantee I get the alpha and could even really blunt his ability to strike back.
Kids, let this be a lesson to you. If someone else shares their list with you and you decide you want to run it, it's probably a good idea to have a conversation about what they were thinking about when they built the list and the theory of how to run it. If I had taken the time to ask Brad about that prior to the start of the scrum, this game could have ended very differently. That said, Brad is a great player and there is every possibility he could have found a way to fight back anyway, but my position would have been much more comfortable.
So, I picked up my first loss in this scrum. Last time I lost in round one, so getting a couple wins before my first loss felt pretty good. I also don't feel bad about losing to one of the better players in our area. Congratulations to Brad and once again, thanks for taking the time to walk me through some of the intricacies of the list. Next round, I have been paired up against the scrum overlord himself: Mark Howard. Tune in if you want to see how weird this one can get. As always, thanks for reading!
Scenario: Spread the Net
Leading up to this game I had my usual back and forth on which list I thought Brad would play into me. Eventually, I decided that regardless of which list he picked, my dark host list would have the better tools for dealing with it. My final line of thinking was that he would play his dark host, and the fact that I only had hellmouth as RFP would mean he could still get decent mileage out of his feat. We talked prior to meeting up for the game and revealed our list choices. I was a little surprised when he said he was going to play his Skarre 2 list, but, in hindsight, it makes a lot more sense now. I will discuss that particular item in the post game analysis.
(Deneghra 2) Wraith Witch Deneghra [+28] - Dark Host - Deathripper [6]
- Deathripper [6]
- Stalker [8]
- Stalker [8]
- Skarlock Thrall [0(4)]
Bane Lord Tartarus [0(6)]
Darragh Wrathe [9]
Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor [5]
Soul Trapper [1]
Bane Knights (max) [15]
Bane Riders (max) [20]
Bane Warriors (min) [10]
- Bane Warrior Officer & Standard [0(5)]
Wraith Engine [15]
(Skarre 2) Skarre, Queen of the Broken Coast [+26] - Scourge of the Broken Coast - Barathrum [15]
- Nightwretch [7]
- Nightwretch [7]
Eilish Garrity, the Occultist [5]
Satyxis Raider Captain [0(4)]
Satyxis Raider Captain [0(4)]
Satyxis Blood Witches (max) [13]
- Satyxis Blood Hag [0(4)]
Satyxis Gunslingers [7]
Satyxis Gunslingers [7]
Satyxis Raiders (max) [16]
- Satyxis Raider Sea Witch [4]
Satyxis Raiders (max) [16]
- Satyxis Raider Sea Witch [4]
For the first time I actually remembered to take pictures! Hope they help with the battle report. I am not a great photographer and was taking these pictures from standing on top of a chair with my phone. If anyone has any suggestions about getting better pictures (maybe a better angle or something?) please let me know. The pictures came out just fine, but I feel like I had to zoom out so much to get the whole table that it is a bit difficult to tell what models are what.
Deployment / Top 1:
I won the die roll and chose to go first. I deployed my bane riders to my far right with the wraith engine to the left of them. A small clump next to the wraith engine contained one of my arc nodes, Denny, Orin, the soul trapper, the skarlock and Darragh Wrathe. To the left of that was my unit of bane knights, with my bane warriors to the far left. Tartarus and my second arc node were between the knights and warriors.
Brad had a unit of raiders spread out across both flanks with his raider captains in the middle of the units. One unit of satyxis gunslingers was to the far left, while the other was mixed in with his right unit of raiders. Skarre was deployed a little to the right of center, behind the trench. His two arc nodes were deployed towards the center and Eilish was near Skarre. His blood witches were kept in reserve for ambushing.
For advanced deployment, I placed my two stalkers facing down the left flank and he deployed Barathrum opposite my stalkers. Here is what the terrain and deployment looked like.
For the most part everything ran forward on my first turn. I couldn't really run into his threat ranges, so I pushed as far up the board as I could with most of my army. The stalkers hung back a little bit so Barathrum wouldn't be able to charge them. Darragh Wrathe cast death ride to get the banes a little farther up the board and my arc nodes hung back a little bit. The bane warrior standard bearer kept to his usual position far behind the officer.
Brad did not have much room to move forward without putting his army into potentially bad positions. His right unit of raiders moved slightly forward and arranged themselves so a hellmouth would only be able to hit two models in the unit at a time. One arc node ran forward into the middle of the board and Skarre advanced into the trench. She arc a pair of blood rains, which deviated due to my knights being in the clouds. One drifted to no where, while the other managed to land on a pair of knights. They survived the damage roll, but were hit with continuous corrosion. Barathrum took a short step to the side and dug in. The left unit of raiders arranged themselves to be ready to charge next turn. Both units of gunslingers hung back and the raider captains stayed in the middle of the units they were supporting.
Bottom 2:
Both the knights with corrosion died at the beginning of my turn. I had no good targets for hellmouth and Brad kept all his pieces out of my threat range. I decided to push forward only a little bit this turn. The bane knights got the press forward order and four of them charged the arc node in the middle of the table. Even with Tartarus nearby, only 1 connected and the arc node did not sustain nearly as much damage as I would have liked. The other four arranged themselves to be base to base. The bane warriors ran forward to be ready to charge anything that might get to the bane knights. The stalkers continued to reposition a little around the left forest, keeping it between them and Barathrum. The wraith engine sat in place, to continue extending its aura to the riders and knights.
It was at this point that I remembered he had a unit of blood witches to ambush. Unfortunately, I had not accounted for that on my left flank. On the right, the riders moved up slightly, but kept outside his raiders threat range with the exception of one. I was leaving one forward in the hopes that would be the one that would get attacked and trigger vengeance. The others ended up bunched up toward the middle of the board in an effort to avoid getting ambushed by the blood witches. My arc nodes continued to hang back, waiting for their moment to get into position to be relevant. The soul trapper stuck a toe in the zone behind the house and clouds. Darraghe Wrath moved up to be behind the clouds and the skarlock moved onto the hill on the right. We each scored one point for the rectangle zones.
The blood witches ambushed in on the left flank. The left raiders continued to play their positioning game, while the gunslingers on the left swung far out wide. The blood witches charged the stalker further out on the left and one of my bane warriors. Both the stalker and the warrior died. Barathrum moved forward and dug in again. Skarre moved forward and popped feat. She got herself, Barathrum, the wraith engine and Denny. It was at this moment that I realized Denny was too far forward, as the -5 penalty to attack rolls would make my next turn difficult at best. Skarre then cast black spot on the bane riders and admonition on the arc node engaged with the bane knights. She took a shot at one, boosted the damage and killed it. Black spot triggered and she dropped a second bane rider. The raiders on the right charged and killed the one bane rider I had put forth as bait and one ran into my zone to contest. The gunslingers on the right brought down another bane rider. He scored one on his zone, going up 2-1.
Bottom 3:
I only lost six models on the previous turn, but I was in a very sad place. Without the bane riders, I was going to have some serious problems on my right flank and I needed to figure out how to deal with the ambushed blood witches on the left without losing too much to his gunslingers and raiders. Knowing I could not rely on Denny or the wraith engine to get much done made it that much worse. I spent some time debating whether a single bane rider could possibly kill Skarre if I simply ran the wraith engine forward to apply dark shroud. It took a couple minutes for me to remember that under feat she was def 21 and even boosted cavalry attacks were not looking great when I needed a 14.
The right arc node up a little and activated Denny. She boosted the attack roll and landed a curse of shadows on the raiders. The remaining bane rider charged into his satyxis raider back line, making an impact attack on the way. The impact attack managed to kill one raider and his charge killed another. He repositioned to tie up the raider captain and a couple raiders on that side. The wraith engine charged one of the raiders, but failed to hit. The skarlock cast venom on the one raider contesting my zone, but failed to hit. Orin remained near Denny.
On my left flank, the bane warriors turned to attack the blood witches. They managed to kill five blood witches between the bane warriors and my remaining stalker. Darragh Wrathe cast mortal fear (-2 damage rolls for living models in his command) and moved onto the flag. The soul trapper ran between Wrathe and Barathrum. The bane knights got the press forward order. Two of them ran to box in the arc node and several others charged it. Most of them did not get the charge bonus. Two knights charged Barathrum, but failed to hit and a third knight ran deeper into his zone to contest. Tartarus ran into the center zone. My turn ended without any scoring, so Brad remained up 2-1.
Top 4:
The blood witches dug into my bane warriors, killing all but one warrior and the standard bearer. Grievous wound attacks prevented tough checks from happening. The raiders on the left and the captain killed several bane knights as well as the soul trapper. This allowed Barathrum to charge Wrathe, which ended with Wrathe dead. The undamaged arc node moved up to toe into my zone. Skarre moved back into her trench. The satyxis captain on the right killed the last bane rider. The raiders on the right charged the wraith engine. One missed her attack, which left it on 4 health boxes. One satyxis gunslinger on that side shot at the wraith engine, putting two more damage into it. The other two gunslingers took shots at the bane knights, and the arc node did its head bash attack into one. After all these attacks, only a single bane knight remained. The gunslingers on the left attacked the remaining stalker, but failed to do any significant damage. The score remained 2-1.
Bottom 4:
On my turn, Denny upkept curse of shadows on the right raiders. The remaining stalker killed his satyxis captain on the right to prevent him from having a solo to score on that flag. The two remaining bane warriors charged Barathrum and put some damage on him. Tartarus killed a satyxis and created a new bane warrior. The bane knight moved away from the arc node, running deeper into the zone. The right arc node ran into the forest and Denny arced a hellmouth into the satyxis around his flag. This eliminated the captain and a couple raiders, while clearing a landing area for the wraith engine. The wraith engine charged Skarre and missed all his attacks. The skarlock moved forward and attempted to venom a line of raiders, but failed to hit any of them. Orin moved forward and boosted a chain lightning into the right gunslingers, killing two of them. The score remained 2-1.
Top 5:
Barathrum and the satyxis on the left killed my remaining bane warriors and Tartarus. They also got a charge on the arc node that was left in the center zone. The right raiders killed the skarlock, wraith engine and the arc node in the forest. The damaged arc node in the center zone backed up to get into his rectangle zone and the other arc node failed to kill Orin. Skarre ran to the left. Because I failed to get Orin into the zone, he scored a point on each zone going up 4-1.
Bottom 5 / End of Game:
At this point, it was clear I was going to lose on scenario and all I had left was a long shot assassination. Orin boosted a chain lightning into the two satyxis tying up my arc node. The arc node moved so Denny could arc onto Skarre. Denny arced some venoms and failed to kill Skarre. At this point, I lost on scenario as at the end of my turn Brad scored 2, going up 6-1.
Conclusion and analysis: Well, that really could have gone better for me. And by that, I mean I could have made some very important decisions that would have had the chance to greatly change how this game played out. As you may recall from my last post, Brad was kind enough to consult with me prior to the scrum and helped me put together my lists. Which is my way of saying he wrote my lists for me. However, this was the first time I actually took the time to talk to him about how the Denny 2 list should play. I was focused on just playing it as a normal dark host list, but with hellmouth and venom as great removal options. The issue I ran into was that it turns out the list really excels when you start utilizing one of the spells on Denny's card that I don't believe I have ever cast.
Breath stealer is what really makes this list shine. Dark host is a solid enough list on its own. However, if I had cast a breath stealer on each of his satyxis raiders on the top of turn 2, I win the threat game and get the alpha. When bane knights can get the alpha, things are very uncomfortable for your opponent. Brad even walked me through the possibilities I had to try and land those breath stealers in such a way that I wouldn't necessarily lose my arc nodes the following turn. It was great to have him really explain it all to me, and it all makes perfect sense now. He could not drop his dark host into me because breath stealer would guarantee I get the alpha and could even really blunt his ability to strike back.
Kids, let this be a lesson to you. If someone else shares their list with you and you decide you want to run it, it's probably a good idea to have a conversation about what they were thinking about when they built the list and the theory of how to run it. If I had taken the time to ask Brad about that prior to the start of the scrum, this game could have ended very differently. That said, Brad is a great player and there is every possibility he could have found a way to fight back anyway, but my position would have been much more comfortable.
So, I picked up my first loss in this scrum. Last time I lost in round one, so getting a couple wins before my first loss felt pretty good. I also don't feel bad about losing to one of the better players in our area. Congratulations to Brad and once again, thanks for taking the time to walk me through some of the intricacies of the list. Next round, I have been paired up against the scrum overlord himself: Mark Howard. Tune in if you want to see how weird this one can get. As always, thanks for reading!
Comments
Post a Comment