Vs: John Lopilato (John's Blog: The Gooma Gamer)
Scenario: Mirage
John is started his gaming blog late last year and that was really the inspiration for me to post my battle reports on a blog of my own. For a few months now we have been trying to line up a game for the battle of the blogs and we finally found our chance. John has been a long time trolls player, but recently started playing convergence. I really didn't know what to expect from him, as he usually doesn't play the established meta lists. We talked it over a little and he had a list he wanted to try out, while I was playing my Skarre3 / Denny2 pair. The list he wanted to try out used the foundries for recursion, so I agreed to play Skarre3 as playing Denny2 would mean hellmouth hurts his central game plan pretty badly. Here are our lists:
Me:
[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)]
Ragman [4]
Black Ogrun Ironmongers [6]
Blighted Trollkin Marauders (max) [15]
Bloodgorgers (max) [15]
- Jussika Bloodtongue [5]
Bloodgorgers (max) [15]
Scharde Dirge Seers [6]
John:
[Aurora 1] Aurora, the Numen of Aerogenesis [+29] - Clockwork Legions
- Corollary [6]
- Prime Axiom [38]
Enigma Foundry [0(4)]
Enigma Foundry [0(4)]
Enigma Foundry [4]
Enigma Foundry [4]
Clockwork Angels [5]
Clockwork Angels [5]
Clockwork Angels [5]
Obstructors (max) [11]
Obstructors (max) [11]
Obstructors (max) [11]
Optifex Directive [4]
John won the initiative roll and chose to go first. I debated for a while, but ended up taking the side with less difficult terrain. I had hoped that the forest and water would slow him down. My lack of pathfinder meant dealing with less difficult terrain for my army would be beneficial. In hindsight, I basically gave him the center flag, due to the placement of the house obstruction. If I had to make this choice again, I might choose the other side in order to protect that flag.
Deployment: Aurora was deployed centrally, with the corollary and prime axiom to her left. The optifex directive was behind this cluster. One enigma foundry was to the prime axiom's left with another behind the corollary. To the left of the prime axiom and in front of the foundry was one unit of obstructors with a unit of angels on the far left flank. Behind Aurora was a second unit of angels and to her right were two units of obstructors. Behind the obstructors were the last unit of angels and the other two foundries.
Skarre deployed centrally with the kraken to her left. To the left of the kraken was a unit of blood gorgers. To Skarre's right was the unit of marauders and to their right was Jussika's unit of blood gorgers. Gerlack and Axiara were positioned behind the marauders. The dirge seers and blood priestess were behind Skarre with the iron mongers spread out behind the two huge bases. Finally, Ragman was behind the left unit of blood gorgers, near the kraken.
The three units of obstructors took their advance movement benefit.
Top 1: In a surprise strategy, John ran everything forward on turn one. Aurora cast aerogenesis and arcane might, then charged forward. The units of obstructors all ran. The right flank ended up bunching up a bit with a unit of angels running behind them and a foundry running behind the angels. The center obstructors spread out a bit in the right circle zone. A unit of angels ran up behind them, with two foundries running behind the angels. The left obstructors spread out a decent amount and a foundry ran behind the obstructors. The third unit of angels flanked out wide to the left. The prime axiom ran up and remained centrally positioned. The corollary ran up to behind and just to the right of the prime axiom and the mechanics ran behind the colossal. The turn ended with 48 minutes on John's clock.
Bottom 1: I figured this turn would be spent moving forward and taking some shots. Everything I killed would be returned to play, but at least it wouldn't be able to attack next turn. Skarre took her standard turn one. She cast dash and decel, put draconic blessing on the marauders and then moved forward. She took a few shots and cleared five obstructors between her two AOE shots and the hand cannon. The marauders ran forward and surrounded Skarre's base. I was concerned John might go for an assassination with his feat next turn and wanted to try and block up landing space as much as possible. The right blood gorgers also ran, with some of the unit going around the forest and a few models charging straight into it. Jussika positioned behind the left edge of the forest. Gerlack stood to Jussika's left, between and behind the two trollkin units on the right side of the board. Axiara ran to Gerlack's left, and I again failed to use one of her battle plans. Two iron mongers moved around Skarre's base, while the third stayed back.
The left blood gorgers ran forward and spread out across the far half of the left circle zone. I walked the kraken forward and launched a hellblaster shot at the left foundry, hitting and putting 5 or so damage on it. I then realized that by activating the blood gorgers first, I had blocked line of sight to his obstructors for the flayer cannon. The dirge seers ran around the kraken to stand to its left in the circle zone. The turn ended with 48 minutes on my clock.
Top 2: John debated for a bit what kind of work he could get done and ended up deciding this would be his feat turn. Aurora upkept arcane might. She activated first and cast aerogenesis, popped feat, then moved forward and cast bladed gale on marauders. She caught three under the spray template, but only managed to kill one. She then repositioned back behind the house and in the far circle zone. The foundries activated and returned all the models I had removed from the center and right units. The center (blue based) obstructors received the press forward order. They charged the marauders and two got in on Jussika. Two marauders died, but Jussika only took 3 damage. The blue obstructors repositioned, with three moving forward to get behind at my back line. The right (red based) obstuctors received the press forward order and charged the right blood gorgers. He charged four obstructors onto the blood gorger near the left edge of the forest. His plan was to have two that would kill the blood gorger and then the other two could redirect their initial attacks to Jussika. Instead, it took all four attacks to kill that one blood gorger. These also repositioned. John charged Jussika with the center unit of angels, but only one hit and she made her tough check. The angels repositioned into the middle of my army. The right angels did not have line of sight to anything, so they just spread out around the red obstructors. The only model John had left that could try to deal with Jussika was the prime axiom. Its first shot missed Jussika, but killed the angel he had left engaging her, removing the in combat defense bonus. The volume of shots from the prime axiom managed to finish the job. The prime axiom also created its second servitor of the match. Each servitor ran onto the center and left flags.
On the left side of the board, the obstructors and angels both received the press forward order. The angels were the only models not affected by Aurora's feat, so they killed a blood gorger, but ended up slightly bunched up by the rough terrain. The obstructors spread out a good amount and between the two units charging, only three blood gorgers were left on the left side of the board. The obstructors used their reposition movement to make sure the remaining three blood gorgers were individually engaged, to try and prevent any kind of beserk / overtake shenanigans. John's turn ended with 18 minutes on the clock.
Bottom 2: Well, my left flank collapsed much harder than I expected. That said, I was pleased with how many marauders and blood gorgers remained on the right. While losing Jussika was disappointing, he had to commit so many resources and activations to making it happen that it still felt like a win. My primary goal was to wipe out at least one full unit of obstructors so his foundries would start having limited ability to bring models back. Skarre reinforced a couple marauders back into the unit. She then upkept draconic blessing for free and fully loaded the kraken with focus. Skarre activated first and popped her feat. She cut for two to cast decel and guided fire. She got the aiming bonus and used her two cannon shots to take out two clusters of obstructors. She ended up spending all her focus to boost blast damage, but ended up killing three obstructors from the blue unit, three obstructors from the red unit and an angel. Her hand cannon killed a second angel. The marauders activated and between melee attacks and ranged throws, they finished the rest of the blue obstructor unit. Primary goal completed.
Gerlack activated and did his dance across my back lines to kill an angel and two obstructors, while Axiara charged and killed a third obstructor. The right blood gorgers received the press forward order and charged into the red obstructor unit. Due to the position of the forest and the loss of vengeance, I was not able to get anything beyond the front three obstructors. I knew they would be back next turn, but I also knew that it would only take a couple blood gorgers to clear the entire unit.
The dirge seers activated and walked, with two of them getting engaged with the obstructors locking up my blood gorgers. All three hit and killed their targets, which freed up the blood gorgers to try and address the obstructors in the left circle. The blood gorgers activated and received the press forward order. The one that was still engaged charged the one it was engaged with. One charged an angel and a third charged the obstructors. The one that did not get the charge bonus killed two obstructors. The blood gorger that charged the angels killed all three of them. The blood gorger that went into the obstructors only killed one before it's beserking frenzy ended. The kraken activated and killed three obstructors in melee and used kill shot to kill another. An iron monger repaired Skarre to full, while the other two each stood behind a huge base. The blood priestess ran onto my flag. Ragman stood between the two huge bases. My turn ended with 28 minutes on my clock. I scored my flag and John scored his circle zone, opening the scoring at 1-1.
Top 3: Eliminating the center unit of obstructors hurt John's recursion, as the foundry in the middle of the center zone was unable to return anything to any units this turn. Aurora upkept arcane might and used apparition to come out from behind the house. The left foundry returned 3 models to the left obstructor unit. These received the press forward order. The three that were able to attack all charged my objective and put a little damage on it. The prime axiom moved over and with its shots, it killed the objective. The elimination servitor on the far left flag killed the blood gorger near the left foundry. The mechanics moved forward toward where the prime axiom ended its movement.
Aurora cast her spray, killing a marauder, then she walked back behind the house again. The foundries on the right brought the red obstructors back to a full unit, but still have several souls between the two of them that were unable to be used. The red obstructors received the press forward order and charged the marauders and blood gorgers. They killed three marauders and one blood gorger. The right angels positioned behind the red obstructor unit. The turn ended with 5:58 on John's clock. He scored 4 points (objective, left flag, center flag, far circle). This put me down 1-4 in scoring.
Bottom 3: I was not expecting John to put four control points on the board on his turn. I knew attrition was turning in my favor, but the challenge was making sure I wasn't going to lose on scenario. Skarre put two marauders back into the unit, with one extending the left side of the unit around the house as much as possible. Skarre upkept draconic blessing again and fully loaded the kraken. Skarre again started the turn by aiming and taking some cannon shots. One cannon took a few red obstructors off the board, while the second cannon removed one of the center foundries from the board. The hand cannon started putting more damage on the other foundry. She then cast draconic blessing on the kraken. The marauders walked, with the one reinforcement walking far enough to get the prime axiom into melee range. The rest took melee swings and shots at the red obstructor unit. The marauders removed three obstructors and the rest did a cra that killed the second center foundry. The right blood gorgers recieved the press forward order and used beserk / overtake movements to kill the rest of the red obstructor unit and one angel from the right unit.
On the left, the two blood gorgers still alive received the press forward order. One charged the pair of obstructors outside the left side of the near circle, while the other charged the obstructors between the kraken and prime axiom. The two obstructors outside the zone were killed and the other blood gorger killed two obstructors and an elimination servitor in the zone. The dirge seers moved forward in the zone and used hex bolt to kill the last obstructor. Ragman walked up to behind the house and put up his death field. The kraken walked forward and killed the prime axiom. It then used kill shot to destroy the elimination servitor on the far left flag (which I was not contesting). The blood priestess ran into the far circle zone to contest and both Gerlack and Axiara ran onto the right flag. My turn ended with 13 minutes on the clock. I scored the near circle and the right flag, putting the score at 3-5.
End Game: John surveyed the board and conceded at this point. Had the kraken's kill shot not destroyed the servitor on the far left flag, he would have been able to win on scenario, but with the current board state, he was not able to win on this turn. Additionally, he had no way to kill the kraken and all his units (minus one unit of angels) were wiped out, so attrition was swinging against him hard.
Analysis: This was an interesting game. John wanted to play a list that asked how well his opponent could deal with three full units of dudes that could endlessly recur. Even though I could not stop his recursion, obstructors are the type of infantry blood gorgers love to face down against. John's one big mistake in this game was that he did not need to move the prime axiom as far as he did on the top of turn three. If it holds back a little, the kraken needs to charge in order to make distance. I would have needed some serious spikes to bring down the axiom in that situation.
As for my play, I stacked all the buffs I could on the kraken and still needed some above average dice rolls to one round the prime axiom. I probably should have had Skarre moved back a little and put some shots into the prime axiom, counting on the marauders and blood gorgers to finish off the red obstructors. I think my play with Skarre was decent. I never felt like she was in danger of assassination, despite spending her full stack almost every turn. I didn't think anything on John's side other than the prime axiom was a real threat to her and the house kept her safe.
My positioning with Jussika could have been better. I tend to get her killed a turn or two before she really should go. However, it took so many activations for John to remove her that I didn't feel terribly bad about it. That said, if she was an inch or two further back, the prime axiom never has range and she lives for another turn. The vengeance movements and attacks could have swung the battle a turn earlier.
Finally, scenario in general. Until John went all in on scenario and put up four points in one turn, I wasn't terribly concerned. I was trying to score where I could, but I did not put real effort into making sure I contested the center and left flags early. This could have potentially stopped John from putting up as many points as he did. It also wasn't until after the game was over that I realized how important that kill shot to kill the servitor on the left flag was. That saved the game for me and I thought it was just a throw away shot to remove a random model. I also almost aimed that shot at the mechanics. Need to be more aware of that. Additionally, my choice of side hurt my scenario game. I basically handed John the center flag for the game by taking the side I did. While my choice made my life easier from a terrain standpoint, it could have cost my the game via scenario.
This was a great game. I had no idea what to expect going into it, but it turns out blood gorgers are just great against obstructors. John never used the shield wall order, and that might have made it more difficult to chew through them, but that also makes it more difficult to get them real deep into my lines. Even though he lost the attrition war, credit to John for seeing the potential scenario victory that was laid out for him. One die roll going the wrong way on my side and he wins. It's a great reminder to me that just because you are winning on attrition, you can't assume scenario. Thanks to John for the great game! If you want to read the battle report from his perspective, go check out his blog (link to blog at top, link to this battle report here). It's always good to get these kinds of games in against good opponents. We are gearing up for our next scrum (taking place in September). I should be getting one more battle report in before starting my September scrum reports. As always, thanks for reading!
Scenario: Mirage
John is started his gaming blog late last year and that was really the inspiration for me to post my battle reports on a blog of my own. For a few months now we have been trying to line up a game for the battle of the blogs and we finally found our chance. John has been a long time trolls player, but recently started playing convergence. I really didn't know what to expect from him, as he usually doesn't play the established meta lists. We talked it over a little and he had a list he wanted to try out, while I was playing my Skarre3 / Denny2 pair. The list he wanted to try out used the foundries for recursion, so I agreed to play Skarre3 as playing Denny2 would mean hellmouth hurts his central game plan pretty badly. Here are our lists:
Me:
[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)]
Ragman [4]
Black Ogrun Ironmongers [6]
Blighted Trollkin Marauders (max) [15]
Bloodgorgers (max) [15]
- Jussika Bloodtongue [5]
Bloodgorgers (max) [15]
Scharde Dirge Seers [6]
John:
[Aurora 1] Aurora, the Numen of Aerogenesis [+29] - Clockwork Legions
- Corollary [6]
- Prime Axiom [38]
Enigma Foundry [0(4)]
Enigma Foundry [0(4)]
Enigma Foundry [4]
Enigma Foundry [4]
Clockwork Angels [5]
Clockwork Angels [5]
Clockwork Angels [5]
Obstructors (max) [11]
Obstructors (max) [11]
Obstructors (max) [11]
Optifex Directive [4]
John won the initiative roll and chose to go first. I debated for a while, but ended up taking the side with less difficult terrain. I had hoped that the forest and water would slow him down. My lack of pathfinder meant dealing with less difficult terrain for my army would be beneficial. In hindsight, I basically gave him the center flag, due to the placement of the house obstruction. If I had to make this choice again, I might choose the other side in order to protect that flag.
Deployment: Aurora was deployed centrally, with the corollary and prime axiom to her left. The optifex directive was behind this cluster. One enigma foundry was to the prime axiom's left with another behind the corollary. To the left of the prime axiom and in front of the foundry was one unit of obstructors with a unit of angels on the far left flank. Behind Aurora was a second unit of angels and to her right were two units of obstructors. Behind the obstructors were the last unit of angels and the other two foundries.
Skarre deployed centrally with the kraken to her left. To the left of the kraken was a unit of blood gorgers. To Skarre's right was the unit of marauders and to their right was Jussika's unit of blood gorgers. Gerlack and Axiara were positioned behind the marauders. The dirge seers and blood priestess were behind Skarre with the iron mongers spread out behind the two huge bases. Finally, Ragman was behind the left unit of blood gorgers, near the kraken.
The three units of obstructors took their advance movement benefit.
Top 1: In a surprise strategy, John ran everything forward on turn one. Aurora cast aerogenesis and arcane might, then charged forward. The units of obstructors all ran. The right flank ended up bunching up a bit with a unit of angels running behind them and a foundry running behind the angels. The center obstructors spread out a bit in the right circle zone. A unit of angels ran up behind them, with two foundries running behind the angels. The left obstructors spread out a decent amount and a foundry ran behind the obstructors. The third unit of angels flanked out wide to the left. The prime axiom ran up and remained centrally positioned. The corollary ran up to behind and just to the right of the prime axiom and the mechanics ran behind the colossal. The turn ended with 48 minutes on John's clock.
Bottom 1: I figured this turn would be spent moving forward and taking some shots. Everything I killed would be returned to play, but at least it wouldn't be able to attack next turn. Skarre took her standard turn one. She cast dash and decel, put draconic blessing on the marauders and then moved forward. She took a few shots and cleared five obstructors between her two AOE shots and the hand cannon. The marauders ran forward and surrounded Skarre's base. I was concerned John might go for an assassination with his feat next turn and wanted to try and block up landing space as much as possible. The right blood gorgers also ran, with some of the unit going around the forest and a few models charging straight into it. Jussika positioned behind the left edge of the forest. Gerlack stood to Jussika's left, between and behind the two trollkin units on the right side of the board. Axiara ran to Gerlack's left, and I again failed to use one of her battle plans. Two iron mongers moved around Skarre's base, while the third stayed back.
The left blood gorgers ran forward and spread out across the far half of the left circle zone. I walked the kraken forward and launched a hellblaster shot at the left foundry, hitting and putting 5 or so damage on it. I then realized that by activating the blood gorgers first, I had blocked line of sight to his obstructors for the flayer cannon. The dirge seers ran around the kraken to stand to its left in the circle zone. The turn ended with 48 minutes on my clock.
Top 2: John debated for a bit what kind of work he could get done and ended up deciding this would be his feat turn. Aurora upkept arcane might. She activated first and cast aerogenesis, popped feat, then moved forward and cast bladed gale on marauders. She caught three under the spray template, but only managed to kill one. She then repositioned back behind the house and in the far circle zone. The foundries activated and returned all the models I had removed from the center and right units. The center (blue based) obstructors received the press forward order. They charged the marauders and two got in on Jussika. Two marauders died, but Jussika only took 3 damage. The blue obstructors repositioned, with three moving forward to get behind at my back line. The right (red based) obstuctors received the press forward order and charged the right blood gorgers. He charged four obstructors onto the blood gorger near the left edge of the forest. His plan was to have two that would kill the blood gorger and then the other two could redirect their initial attacks to Jussika. Instead, it took all four attacks to kill that one blood gorger. These also repositioned. John charged Jussika with the center unit of angels, but only one hit and she made her tough check. The angels repositioned into the middle of my army. The right angels did not have line of sight to anything, so they just spread out around the red obstructors. The only model John had left that could try to deal with Jussika was the prime axiom. Its first shot missed Jussika, but killed the angel he had left engaging her, removing the in combat defense bonus. The volume of shots from the prime axiom managed to finish the job. The prime axiom also created its second servitor of the match. Each servitor ran onto the center and left flags.
On the left side of the board, the obstructors and angels both received the press forward order. The angels were the only models not affected by Aurora's feat, so they killed a blood gorger, but ended up slightly bunched up by the rough terrain. The obstructors spread out a good amount and between the two units charging, only three blood gorgers were left on the left side of the board. The obstructors used their reposition movement to make sure the remaining three blood gorgers were individually engaged, to try and prevent any kind of beserk / overtake shenanigans. John's turn ended with 18 minutes on the clock.
Bottom 2: Well, my left flank collapsed much harder than I expected. That said, I was pleased with how many marauders and blood gorgers remained on the right. While losing Jussika was disappointing, he had to commit so many resources and activations to making it happen that it still felt like a win. My primary goal was to wipe out at least one full unit of obstructors so his foundries would start having limited ability to bring models back. Skarre reinforced a couple marauders back into the unit. She then upkept draconic blessing for free and fully loaded the kraken with focus. Skarre activated first and popped her feat. She cut for two to cast decel and guided fire. She got the aiming bonus and used her two cannon shots to take out two clusters of obstructors. She ended up spending all her focus to boost blast damage, but ended up killing three obstructors from the blue unit, three obstructors from the red unit and an angel. Her hand cannon killed a second angel. The marauders activated and between melee attacks and ranged throws, they finished the rest of the blue obstructor unit. Primary goal completed.
Gerlack activated and did his dance across my back lines to kill an angel and two obstructors, while Axiara charged and killed a third obstructor. The right blood gorgers received the press forward order and charged into the red obstructor unit. Due to the position of the forest and the loss of vengeance, I was not able to get anything beyond the front three obstructors. I knew they would be back next turn, but I also knew that it would only take a couple blood gorgers to clear the entire unit.
The dirge seers activated and walked, with two of them getting engaged with the obstructors locking up my blood gorgers. All three hit and killed their targets, which freed up the blood gorgers to try and address the obstructors in the left circle. The blood gorgers activated and received the press forward order. The one that was still engaged charged the one it was engaged with. One charged an angel and a third charged the obstructors. The one that did not get the charge bonus killed two obstructors. The blood gorger that charged the angels killed all three of them. The blood gorger that went into the obstructors only killed one before it's beserking frenzy ended. The kraken activated and killed three obstructors in melee and used kill shot to kill another. An iron monger repaired Skarre to full, while the other two each stood behind a huge base. The blood priestess ran onto my flag. Ragman stood between the two huge bases. My turn ended with 28 minutes on my clock. I scored my flag and John scored his circle zone, opening the scoring at 1-1.
Top 3: Eliminating the center unit of obstructors hurt John's recursion, as the foundry in the middle of the center zone was unable to return anything to any units this turn. Aurora upkept arcane might and used apparition to come out from behind the house. The left foundry returned 3 models to the left obstructor unit. These received the press forward order. The three that were able to attack all charged my objective and put a little damage on it. The prime axiom moved over and with its shots, it killed the objective. The elimination servitor on the far left flag killed the blood gorger near the left foundry. The mechanics moved forward toward where the prime axiom ended its movement.
Aurora cast her spray, killing a marauder, then she walked back behind the house again. The foundries on the right brought the red obstructors back to a full unit, but still have several souls between the two of them that were unable to be used. The red obstructors received the press forward order and charged the marauders and blood gorgers. They killed three marauders and one blood gorger. The right angels positioned behind the red obstructor unit. The turn ended with 5:58 on John's clock. He scored 4 points (objective, left flag, center flag, far circle). This put me down 1-4 in scoring.
Bottom 3: I was not expecting John to put four control points on the board on his turn. I knew attrition was turning in my favor, but the challenge was making sure I wasn't going to lose on scenario. Skarre put two marauders back into the unit, with one extending the left side of the unit around the house as much as possible. Skarre upkept draconic blessing again and fully loaded the kraken. Skarre again started the turn by aiming and taking some cannon shots. One cannon took a few red obstructors off the board, while the second cannon removed one of the center foundries from the board. The hand cannon started putting more damage on the other foundry. She then cast draconic blessing on the kraken. The marauders walked, with the one reinforcement walking far enough to get the prime axiom into melee range. The rest took melee swings and shots at the red obstructor unit. The marauders removed three obstructors and the rest did a cra that killed the second center foundry. The right blood gorgers recieved the press forward order and used beserk / overtake movements to kill the rest of the red obstructor unit and one angel from the right unit.
On the left, the two blood gorgers still alive received the press forward order. One charged the pair of obstructors outside the left side of the near circle, while the other charged the obstructors between the kraken and prime axiom. The two obstructors outside the zone were killed and the other blood gorger killed two obstructors and an elimination servitor in the zone. The dirge seers moved forward in the zone and used hex bolt to kill the last obstructor. Ragman walked up to behind the house and put up his death field. The kraken walked forward and killed the prime axiom. It then used kill shot to destroy the elimination servitor on the far left flag (which I was not contesting). The blood priestess ran into the far circle zone to contest and both Gerlack and Axiara ran onto the right flag. My turn ended with 13 minutes on the clock. I scored the near circle and the right flag, putting the score at 3-5.
End Game: John surveyed the board and conceded at this point. Had the kraken's kill shot not destroyed the servitor on the far left flag, he would have been able to win on scenario, but with the current board state, he was not able to win on this turn. Additionally, he had no way to kill the kraken and all his units (minus one unit of angels) were wiped out, so attrition was swinging against him hard.
Analysis: This was an interesting game. John wanted to play a list that asked how well his opponent could deal with three full units of dudes that could endlessly recur. Even though I could not stop his recursion, obstructors are the type of infantry blood gorgers love to face down against. John's one big mistake in this game was that he did not need to move the prime axiom as far as he did on the top of turn three. If it holds back a little, the kraken needs to charge in order to make distance. I would have needed some serious spikes to bring down the axiom in that situation.
As for my play, I stacked all the buffs I could on the kraken and still needed some above average dice rolls to one round the prime axiom. I probably should have had Skarre moved back a little and put some shots into the prime axiom, counting on the marauders and blood gorgers to finish off the red obstructors. I think my play with Skarre was decent. I never felt like she was in danger of assassination, despite spending her full stack almost every turn. I didn't think anything on John's side other than the prime axiom was a real threat to her and the house kept her safe.
My positioning with Jussika could have been better. I tend to get her killed a turn or two before she really should go. However, it took so many activations for John to remove her that I didn't feel terribly bad about it. That said, if she was an inch or two further back, the prime axiom never has range and she lives for another turn. The vengeance movements and attacks could have swung the battle a turn earlier.
Finally, scenario in general. Until John went all in on scenario and put up four points in one turn, I wasn't terribly concerned. I was trying to score where I could, but I did not put real effort into making sure I contested the center and left flags early. This could have potentially stopped John from putting up as many points as he did. It also wasn't until after the game was over that I realized how important that kill shot to kill the servitor on the left flag was. That saved the game for me and I thought it was just a throw away shot to remove a random model. I also almost aimed that shot at the mechanics. Need to be more aware of that. Additionally, my choice of side hurt my scenario game. I basically handed John the center flag for the game by taking the side I did. While my choice made my life easier from a terrain standpoint, it could have cost my the game via scenario.
This was a great game. I had no idea what to expect going into it, but it turns out blood gorgers are just great against obstructors. John never used the shield wall order, and that might have made it more difficult to chew through them, but that also makes it more difficult to get them real deep into my lines. Even though he lost the attrition war, credit to John for seeing the potential scenario victory that was laid out for him. One die roll going the wrong way on my side and he wins. It's a great reminder to me that just because you are winning on attrition, you can't assume scenario. Thanks to John for the great game! If you want to read the battle report from his perspective, go check out his blog (link to blog at top, link to this battle report here). It's always good to get these kinds of games in against good opponents. We are gearing up for our next scrum (taking place in September). I should be getting one more battle report in before starting my September scrum reports. As always, thanks for reading!
Really great battle report.
ReplyDeleteLove the super aggressive play style you seem to have.
Keep up the good work and battle reports.