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May 2018 Scrum - Round 5

Round 5:  vs Alex Kim
Scenario:  Outlast

This is the second round in a row that I am playing someone I played against in the previous scrum.  Last time around, Alex was playing Retribution, so I was slightly surprised when I saw trollbloods for his lists.  I know that last time we played I only avoided assassination because he forgot to cast assail on the turn he was coming in on my caster.  I would have to play more carefully this time.  Here are my lists as well as the lists Alex brought.

My Lists
[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 3] Skarre, Admiral of the Black Fleet [+27] - Slaughter Fleet Raiders
 - Kraken [36]
 - Satyxis Blood Priestess [0(4)]
Axiara Wraithblade [0(6)]
General Gerlak Slaughterborn [0(6)]
Saxon Orrik [4]
Black Ogrun Iron Mongers [6]
Blighted Trollkin Marauders (max) [15]
Bloodgorgers (max) [15]
 - Jussika Bloodtongue [5]
Bloodgorgers (max) [15]
Scharde Dirge Seers [6]

Alex's Lists
[Skuld 1] Jarl Skuld, Devil of the Thornwood [+30] - Storm of the North
 - Dire Troll Bomber [19]
 - Dire Troll Brawler [16]
 - Trollkin Runebearer [0(5)]
Fell Caller Hero [0(5)]
Swamp Gobber Chef [1]
Valka Curseborn, Chieftain of the North [0(6)]
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (max) [9]
 - Northkin Elder [3]
Northkin Bear Handle & Battle Bears [10]
Northkin Fire Eaters [7]
Trollkin Champions (max) [16]
 - Skaldi Bonehammer [5]
 - Trollkin Sorcerer (1) [3]
Trollkin Champions (max) [16]

[Calandra 1] Calandra Truthsayer, Oracle of the Glimmerwood [+27] - Band of Heroes
 - Dire Troll Mauler [15]
 - Earthborn Dire Troll [14]
 - Trollkin Runebearer [0(5)]
Fell Caller Hero [0(5)]
Swamp Gobber Chef [1]
Trollkin Champion Hero [0(5)]
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (max) [9]
 - Stone Scribe Elder [3]
Trollkin Champions (max) [16]
 - Skaldi Bonehammer [5]
 - Trollkin Sorcerer (1) [3]
Trollkin Champions (max) [16]
Trollkin Fennblades (max) [15]
 - Fennblade Officer and Drummer [5]


I fully expected to see Calandra, because an 18 inch star crossed bubble is terrifying.  Once again, I felt like Denny2 was probably the correct drop, but I was committing to playing Skarre3 in all my matchups for this scrum.  I did feel like Skarre could handle the matchup without too many issues.  In round one I had to deal with a similar list with Madrak1 and I felt like the plan to have the kraken handle the champs worked very well and I figured this would a similar situation.  I hoped that the effect of star crossed and Madrak's even ground spell would be basically the same.  As expected, he dropped Calandra.  I won the die roll for initiative and chose to deploy first.

Deployment: I continued to follow the standard deployment I have used throughout this scrum.  The marauders were deployed centrally with Skarre to the right and the kraken to the left.  A unit of bloodgorgers were on either flank, with Jussika attached to the right unit.  Saxon deployed behind the kraken, while Gerlack and Axiara were behind the marauders and near Skarre's base.  The iron mongers and dirge seers were spread out behind everything else and the blood priestess was behind Skarre.

Alex deployed his earthborn on the left flank with a unit of champs to its right.  The krielstone was deployed in the center, with the rest of the unit behind it.  The unit of champs with Skaldi was on the right side and the fennblades were spread out throughout his line.  The mauler was in his back line a little left of center.  The fellcaller hero was to the right of the krielstone, with the champ hero nearby.  The gobber chef stood in the back.



Top 1:  After deployment we noted that our lines would meet quickly, since both our themes provided a two inch bonus to our deployment zones.  My first turn was fairly standard, except Alex's lack of guns meant deceleration was not necessary.  Skarre cast dash and put draconic blessing on the marauders.  She then moved forward.  The bloodgorgers to her right ran and got a couple models into the right zone.  The marauders also ran and their front line surrounded my flag.  Gerlack and Axiara moved up behind the marauders, staying near Skarre's base.  The kraken ran forward, and Saxon granted pathfinder to the left bloodgorgers who also ran.  The iron mongers and dirge seers ran forward but kept spread out.  Finally, the blood priestess ran forward and stayed behind Skarre.  I ended my turn with 54 minutes on the clock.



Bottom 1:  The fellcaller hero yelled at the fennblades, which somehow grants them pathfinder.  The fennblades ran forward, spreading out between the center of each zone.  The right champs ran, staying base to base and getting two into the forest.  The left champs ran, staying base to base.  The runebearer gave Calandra harmonious exaltation.  Calandra walked forward a little, put bullet dodger on the earthborn and cast star crossed.  The earthborn then ran to be just outside the back edge of the left zone.  The mauler ran into the trench behind the left unit of champs.  The champ hero ran forward and stayed relatively center, near the fellcaller hero.  The gobber chef moved forward slightly.  The krielstone activated its aura of no continuous effects and ran forward, standing just behind the fennblade officer.  Alex's turn ended with 51 minutes on his clock.



Top 2:  I knew this was going to be a key turn for me.  I was setup to get the alpha and needed to make it count.  I was hoping to take out all the fennblades, or at least enough to prevent vengeance from being meaningful.  I also wanted to either kill a couple champs or at least start the process of piling damage on them.  Skarre upkept draconic blessing for free and allocated two to the kraken.  As usual, this was going to be my feat turn.  The maulers activated first and walked forward.  They took some shots and killed a few fennblades.  Skarre activated next.  She popped her feat and cut to cast dash, deceleration, guided fire and moved draconic blessing over to the right unit of bloodgorgers.  She moved forward a couple inches to get the fennblade officer in range and took her first cannon shot.  The officer and drummer both took enough damage to die, but made their tough rolls.  The krielstone also was caught, but self sacrificed to another model.  The second cannon shot finished the officer and drummer and forced another self sacrifice on the krielstone.  Her hand cannon killed another fennblade.  Gerlack then ran forward to be in the middle of the marauder unit and just in front of Skarre so the blood gorgers on the right would benefit from his veteran leader bonus.  The right bloodgorgers charged.  With their multiple attacks, beserk and overtake they killed a few more fennblades, leaving only the two behind the forest on the right side of the board and one more in front of the bloodgorger contesting his flag.  They failed to do anything to the champs.  The blood priestess ran to be to the right of Skarre.

Axiara moved up onto my flag and the dirge seers just moved forward.  The kraken advanced and rolled 4 shots for the flayer cannon.  The helldriver shot killed one champ on the left side and the flayer shots cleared out two of the fennblades on the left side of the board.  The blood gorgers charged in, killing the remaining two fennblades on the left, but again failing to do anything to the champs.  Finally, the iron mongers moved forward and repaired Skarre back to full health.  I ended the turn with 33 minutes on my clock.



Bottom 2:  Alex commented that he usually doesn't lose that many models on his way in with this list.  Unfortunately, I still felt like it wasn't enough.  Calandra upkept bullet dodger and leached the fury from her beasts.  The fennblades used vengeance to move around the forest and kill the one bloodgorger contesting the flag.  The krielstone activated for no continuous effects again and moved forward.  The fellcaller hero gave the MAT bonus to the right champs, moved forward and sprayed, but failed to kill anything.  The fennblades then charged in, killing two more bloodgorgers and a marauder.  The champs also charged in, killing two marauders, three bloodgorgers and Gerlack.  Three of them moved back to be in a base to base line with Skaldi, while the other two were base to base up close to Skarre and contesting my flag.  The gobber chef ran forward to be on Alex's flag.

The earthborn moved forward and killed three bloodgorgers, while the champ hero charged in and killed another.  This allowed the champs on the left to charge and kill two bloodgorgers and two marauders.  They ended their activation base to base and ready to come in on the kraken.  The mauler ran forward to be behind the champs.  Calandra moved forward into the trench and cast star crossed again.  Alex scored on his flag, going up 0-1.  He ended his turn with 33 minutes on the clock.



Top 3:  I felt like I was in a really bad position on the right, but could handle what was happening on the left.  The kraken would get loaded up and kill the champs, and I would use the bloodgorgers and marauders as a buffer to keep it safe from my opponent's heavies.  On the right, I only had 2 bloodgorgers, Jussika, the priestess and Skarre to get work done.  Since there weren't any heavies, I was hoping Skarre could get some work done and put a few champs in the dirt.  If I could make that happen, she might survive another round.  Skarre upkept draconic blessing for free.  The right bloodgorgers charged in and put some damage on the champs, but one died to a retaliatory strike.  The blood priestess also charged in, putting some good damage in.  Unfortunately, here I realized I made my mistake as most of the champs were now engaged and I had blocked Skarre from ramming the two closest to her.  She took some shots at Skaldi, who made all his tough rolls.  Each champ was left with a single health box.

The left bloodgorgers ran to get into position to grant gang fighter to the kraken.  The iron mongers moved forward and cursed the left unit of champs.  This allowed the kraken to walk forward and start swinging at the champs at an effective MAT 10.  The kraken promptly missed both its initial attacks due to star crossed.  It hit on all the purchased attacks and Alex declined to spread the damage out.  Instead, the champ that was getting beaten made all three of its tough rolls.  At this point, I did not know what to do to try and salvage the situation.  The marauders moved into position to try and both block charges to the kraken and grant their ashen veil bonus if he should get something to it.  The dirge seers moved forward and invoked their clouds, hoping to stack that with the ashen veil debuff.  Due to the position Skarre had been left in, I was pretty sure she was dead on this upcoming turn.  Alex scored a second point on his flag, putting the score at 0-2.  I ended my turn with 20 minutes on the clock.



Bottom 3:  Alex knew this would be his feat turn and that he was coming in to kill Skarre.  Calandra upkept bullet dodger.  She activated first, moved forward, cast star crossed and popped her feat.  The champs on the left cleared out most of the marauders.  The mauler moved forward and cast rage on the earthborn.  The earthborn had enough movement to walk to the kraken and avoid the dirge seer's vortex cloud.  It took out about 2/3 of the kraken's boxes.  The fennblades charged Skarre and put a bunch of damage on her.  The champs charged Skarre and finished her off.  Alex did manage to clear the right zone, which meant he scored two control points putting the final score at 0-4.  The game ended with 18 minutes on his clock.



Analysis:  So, I did not learn my lesson about playing Skarre less aggressively.  On my second turn I ended up moving her to the right when I should have moved her back.  Unless I was getting close enough to ram and get solid use out of dual attack, there was no reason to keep her that close to the action.  That said, even using the ram to clear out those front two champs was very possibly the wrong course of action, but I was focused on the fact that she was going to need to get the work done herself to stabilize that side of the board.  Getting all the shots on turn two was good, but I need to get in the habit of moving back on turn three unless there is a damn good reason for her to be up the board so far.

I was in a rough place on the right side of the board, as the blood gorgers, even with draconic blessing, are going to have a tough time going toe to toe with champs.  It hurt even more that except for when the fellcaller hero used his spray, I didn't get to even try for any tough rolls due to his theme bonus.  There was only a single unit of champs on the right, but in hindsight, Skarre was basically being asked to handle them all on her own.  This was not a good plan.  I needed to keep Gerlack safer so he could contribute more and probably should have gotten Axiara into the mix.

I don't know that I did anything wrong on the left side of the board.  I knew the bloodgorgers without a damage buff weren't going to be able to handle the heavies or the champs.  They were just supposed to prevent Alex's stuff from getting to the kraken and grant gang fighter.  The plan went great, until I ran into star crossed and multiple tough rolls.  Outside of Gerlack, this list has no grievous wounds, which can make it a rough matchup against trolls.  I would say this can be mitigated in list design, but this theme just doesn't have grievous wounds.

Looking back, I came into this game thinking Skarre would have solid game into Calandra.  I'm not so sure about that anymore.  At least, this list doesn't.  You need to hit very accurately, and then you need to break armor with those hits.  Deneghra2 would have been the correct list to drop in this matchup, had I not decided before the scrum began to play Skarre every round.  That said, I don't exactly feel great about how my Denny2 list handles this Calandra list.  Part of this could just be frustration from a MAT 10 kraken actually missing two attacks and then a slew of tough rolls getting made by Alex. 


Alex is a great opponent and this is a soul crushing list.  He commented after the game that the troll community in general feels that Madrak1 "does it better".  I'm not sure how that really works.  Calandra has so much dice manipulation between her feat, star crossed and her ability to spend fury for rerolls, it feels like whatever her goals for a turn are will be accomplished.  Sadly, this ended my scrum on a two game slide, putting my final record at 3-2.  Even so, my strength of schedule carried me to a 7th place finish out of 36 participants.  As always, the scrum was great and I have to give a shout out to Mark Howard for organizing it.  Looking forward to the next one in July!  Next week I will have some final thoughts on my list and Skarre3 in general.  Thanks for reading!

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