vs Jordan Bollin
Scenario: Bunkers
This week I setup a friendly game with Jordan. He is one of the Skorne players in the local meta, which made me automatically assume I would see Zaal2. From what I can see, unless I have a list specifically designed to deal with Zaal2, he is pretty much always what I end up playing against. We approached this as if it was a Steamroller game and each brought a list pairing. We sent the lists ahead of time, with me playing the Coven / Denny2 pairing that I am trying to commit to as my primary pairing for the year.
Jordan and I exchanged some messages where we discussed the different matchups. I know that he is generally tired of playing Zaal2 and he briefly considered dropping his Xerxis2 list instead, but thought that Denny2 was such a hard counter that he couldn't take that chance. I know that I saw Denny2 played into Zaal2 in the past, but it was before carapace lost the bonus to freestrikes and it generally played as an assassination list. Without the freestrike benefit, I didn't feel that Denny2 had enough game into immortals and decided to play Coven. The more I thought about the matchup, the more I realized that the Coven list does have some tools to try and handle the immortals. It would all be about whether I could leverage those tools properly. Here are the lists.
Me:
[Coven 1] The Witch Coven of Garlghast [+26] - Scourge of the Broken Coast
- Barathrum [15]
- Deathripper [6]
- Scavenger [7]
- Scavenger [7]
- Scavenger [7]
Axiara Wraithblade [0(6)]
General Gerlak Slaughterborn [0(6)]
Void Archon [8]
Warwitch Siren [4]
Warwitch Siren [4]
Black Ogrun Boarding Party (max) [11]
Blighted Trollkin Marauders (max) [15]
- Jussika Bloodtongue [5]
Satyxis Blood Witches (min) [8]
- Satyxis Blood Hag [4]
Scharde Dirge Seers [0(6)]
[Deneghra 2] Wraith Witch Deneghra [+28] - Black Industries
- Barathrum [15]
- Deathjack [23]
- Deathripper [6]
- Deathripper [6]
- Slayer [10]
- Slayer [10]
- Slayer [10]
Hellslinger Phantom [0(7)]
Necrotech [0(2)]
Necrotech [0(2)]
Necrotech [0(2)]
Soul Trapper [1]
Void Archon [8]
Warwitch Siren [4]
Warwitch Siren [4]
Mechanithralls (min) [6]
- Brute Thrall (3) [0(6)]
Jordan:
[Zaal 2] Zaal, the Ancestral Advocate [+29] - The Exalted
- Agonizer [6]
- Agonizer [6]
- Bronzeback Titan [17]
Abidan the Keeper [0(5)]
Ancestral Guardian [5]
Extoller Novitiate [0(2)]
Extoller Novitiate [0(2)]
Extoller Novitiate [0(2)]
Extoller Soulward [3]
Hakaar the Destroyer [0(6)]
Immortal Vessel [3]
Immortals (max) [13]
- Extoller Advocate [3]
Immortals (max) [13]
- Extoller Advocate [3]
Supreme Guardian [16]
Supreme Guardian [16]
[Xerxis 2] Xerxis, Fury of Halaak [+28] - Disciples of Agony
- Agonizer [0(6)]
- Agonizer [0(6)]
- Archidon [10]
- Basilisk Krea [0(7)]
- Desert Hydra [35]
- Tiberion [19]
- Titan Gladiator [15]
Hermit of Henge Hold [5]
Swamp Gobber River Raider [1]
Farrow Valkyries [8]
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min) [5]
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min) [5]
As discussed, the matchup was Coven vs Zaal2. We randomly generated a scenario and terrain and ended up playing on Bunkers. Jordan won the die roll and chose to go second.
Terrain featured a trench outside the left side of the far zone and a wall outside the right side of the far zone. Burning earth was behind and to the left of the objective in the far zone. The center flag had a forest on it. There was water between the left flag and the near zone, with a burning forest positioned in the same spot on the other side (between the right flag and near zone). Finally, there was an acid bath overlapping the left near side of the near zone and water overlapping the right corner of the near zone. Jordan selected his board edge based on not wanting to burn souls early to navigate all the difficult terrain on my side of the board.
Deployment: I deployed the Egregore just a little left of the center of the board with a warwitch siren to its left and the three members of the Coven to the left of the siren. Next came my void archon, followed by 2 scavengers and the dirge seers out on the left flank. The seers weren't going to do much this game, so I hoped they could contest the left flag for a bit. To the right of the Egregore was Gerlack followed by the unit of marauders. To the marauder's right was the deathripper with a scavenger behind, and then the boarding party. Finally, out on the right flank was my second warwitch siren. Axiara was behind the marauders. I didn't have a great plan for how this was going to go down, but I was hoping I could contest the flags and spread my solos out enough that I would potentially have scoring options as the game progressed.
Jordan deployed one SG to the left of center with a unit of immortals surrounding it. The other SG was to the right of the zone with the bronzeback in front and the other unit surrounding it. Hakaar, Abidan, Zaal, the immortal vessel, ancestral guardian and the soul ward were between the two huge bases. One novitate was out to the right, behind the immortals, while the other two were behind the left SG. Each SG also had an agonizer next to or behind it.
My advance deploy put Barathrum in the center, between the acid pool and water.
Top 1: The first member of the coven activated and cast ghost walk on the marauders and infernal machine on Barathrum. She then advanced to stand just to the left of the acid pool in the corner of the near zone. The acid pool and water were going to make moving around in my zone difficult, so I hoped that keeping the coven to the side would allow them better mobility, while still being able to score. Barathrum walked forward and dug in with the back edge of his base just inside the near zone. The dirge seers moved forward and spread out a little while the two scavengers on that side ran forward into the water. The void archon ran to the far left corner of the near zone. The warwitch siren on the left ran to stand to the right of Barathrum, while the marauders ran forward into the water. The Egregore ran to stand behind and to the left of Barathrum. The boarding party ran around the right side of the burning forest and the right warwitch siren stayed on my extreme right flank. The scavenger on the right flew over the marauders. The deathripper can between the acid pool and water, while Gerlack got trapped behind the arc node. Finally, Axiara walked forward to stand behind the marauders and gave them dodge. Finally, the last two witches just ran forward and tried to form a triangle for the Egregore to later move into. My turn ended with 51 minutes on the clock.
Bottom 1: Jordan took a little time to debate his plan for the turn and whether it made sense for him to potentially sacrifice his immortal vessel in order to kill one of my warwitch sirens. He ended up deciding it was worth it, as their corrosion spray is one of the answers I have to the immortal's armor in my list. He ran the vessel forward to stand 10 inches away from my warwitch and the soul ward granted Zaal eyeless sight. The left immortals ran forward, leaving a pocket for the SG to move into. The left SG the ran forward, through the burning earth, and into that pocket. The immortals on the right did a similar maneuver, except they also left room for the bronzeback. The bronzeback riled and ran forward, with the right SG standing behind it. Hakaar, Abidan and the ancestral guardian all ran forward, as did the novitates. Zaal walked forward, put vision on the left SG and cast aura of power on himself. He then arced and boosted a sunder spirit at the warwitch siren, killing her. The void archon collected her soul. Jordan's turn ended with 44 minutes on the clock.
Top 2: With the exception of the immortal vessel, Jordan made sure to keep all his stuff outside my threat ranges. I was concerned as I expected on bottom of two he would attempt to score his zone and multiple flags, while popping feat to make it very hard for me to get into the scenario game at all. I needed to be able to contest things, while staying outside his threats as much as possible. This turn I did a lot of measuring, but largely everything stayed where it was. The scavengers on the left backed up to be outside the immortal's charge range. The dirge seers similarly backed up, but I was able to keep one within 4 inches of the flag and outside the 11 inch charge range of the immortals. The scavenger on the right flew backwards to be behind the burning forest. Ghost walk was cast on the marauders and Axiara gave them reposition. The front few moved forward and did a CRA onto the immortal vessel. I had completely forgotten about Abidan's shield guard. He took the hit instead and I only did a couple points of damage to him. This was lucky for me, as killing Abidan was about the worst case scenario for me. The marauders then repositioned back. Only one was left in charge range of an immortal. Everything else moved less than 2 inches, with the primary goal of staying outside Jordan's threat ranges. Barathrum's position was exactly 4 inches from the flag, so he could contest, while staying safe behind the forest. He was my key piece to threaten the SGs, as he was the one thing that could out threat and reliably kill things in Jordan's army. My turn ended with 41 minutes on the clock.
Bottom 2: I thought I had done a decent job of keeping safe while contesting enough. Jordan wasn't going to be able to get to Barathrum or the dirge seer contesting the middle and left flags. I figured I was essentially conceding the right flag to him, but if he was only able to go up one control point and burned his feat here, I would consider it a win. Jordan ended up playing a positioning game instead. He ran the immortal vessel to the right flag. The soul ward moved forward and cast guidance on Zaal again. Both immortal units spread out, filling space and contesting all three flags. The bronzeback put up its animus and ran forward to threaten Barathrum. The two SGs stayed back, with the solos between the two huge bases. The agonizers used gnawing pain and positioned to protect the SGs with their auras. Zaal ended the turn by casting sunder spirit to kill my second warwitch siren. Scoring opened with both of us scoring our own zones and Jordan scoring the right flag, putting me down 1-2. Jordan had 29 minutes on his clock.
Top 3: My plan only half worked. I kept Jordan to a one point scenario lead, but I was hoping he would jam things forward and feat. Instead, I had to deal with what I could here, knowing that his feat was still coming. I figured I could do good work on the left immortal unit. The right immortal unit was going to be left alone, as I didn't want to trigger vengeance across the board. Finally, the bronzeback had to be dealt with. Unfortunately, Barathrum was the only thing in range that could hit hard enough. If the bronzeback lived, Barathrum would either have to back up and be irrelevant going forward, or he would likely die next turn. The blood witches ambushed in on the right side of the board. I would like to say I intentionally kept them in reserve for this turn, but I just plain forgot them on turn 2. Barathrum was allocated max focus and infernal machine was upkept and the objective gave pathfinder to Gerlack. The dirge seers maintained position and the one that was contesting the flag killed the immortal on the flag with a hex bolt. The void spirit collected that immortal's soul (as it was outside direct spirits range). It then moved forward to stand between the most forward immortals. It killed one with melee attacks, but failed to kill the other. It then sprayed, catching one immortal and the UA. I did not realize how sac pawn interacted with sprays, and the UA forced the same immortal to be hit twice. That immortal died and the void spirit teleported back to its previous position on the far left corner of the near zone. The two scavengers on the left then moved forward, with the intent of killing the last two immortals that could threaten the left side of the board. The first go the kill and then sprinted back to safety, but the second failed to break armor and was left in a bad spot. In hindsight, I should have allocated each of those jacks a second focus in order to boost damage. I had to boost the hit, as there was no gang fighter and the immortals had grave mist up.
The Egregore moved over to get within 8 inches of the bronzeback and one of the witches activated and cast curse of shadows on the bronzeback. Gerlack then charged the bronzeback, but rolled terrible for damage and only put a couple points on it. Barathrum then walked to get the bronzeback in range and ripped it apart (I rolled 12s, 11s and 10s on all the damage rolls). Unfortunately, no warrior model was within Barathrum's range. Ideally, I should have cast ghost walk on Barathrum so he could have walked forward a little further and bought an attack on an immortal. If the immortal dies, drag below allows Barathrum to move back to safety. Instead, ghost walk was cast on the marauders. I ran them forward, hoping that they would jam Jordan up a little and prevent the SG from getting to Barathrum. The blood witches received the press forward order, killing the immortal vessel and running to engage a number of the right unit of immortals. With their magic weapons, I was hoping to largely pin the unit in place, but I didn't want to trigger vengeance. The boarding party continued to position out on the right flank. Another witch activated and popped feat. In hindsight I don't know if this was the right call or not. More on this after the battle report. We each scored our own zone, putting the score at 2-3. My turn ended with 19 minutes on the clock.
Bottom 3: Jordan had spaced the left unit of immortals further than I had realized and he was able to use vengeance attacks to kill the one marauder that was really preventing him from getting to Barathrum. His objective gave pathfinder to Hakaar. The left immortals received the press forward order and did some damage to the scavenger that was unable to trigger sprint. The left SG charged and finished it off. It then put a couple immortals back into play on the left side of the board. On the right, his immortals killed a bunch of blood witches and marauders. Hakaar then walked forward and destroyed Barathrum (between bought attacks and boosting off Zaal, he didn't even need the SG's help.) The SG moved forward and got the last attack to kill Gerlack. Agonizers moved into position and put up gnawing pain, while Abidan ran onto the center flag to score. Zaal popped feat. Jordan scored his zone and the center flag, while I scored my zone putting score at 2-4. Jordan's turn ended with 7 minutes on his clock.
Top 4: At this point, with clock and board state being what it was I pretty well knew I had lost the game. However, if I could keep drawing it out and contest enough, I might still be able to get Jordan to clock. My army was shrinking and there wasn't a ton to do here, as Jordan saving his feat til turn 3 really hurt my plans. One dirge seer moved forward to hex bolt the left SG to prevent a thresher. The other two moved forward to make sure the flag was contested by all three members of the unit. The marauders moved up a bit and threw their fire bombs, lighting four immortals on fire. The blood witches killed a few more, but were unable to get the UA. The void archon and coven both pulled back to be outside threat range. One witch cast ghost walk on the scavenger on the left. That scavenger was able to run and get just into the left SG's back arc (avoiding the defensive strike) and into the far zone. Due to trying to preserve clock and feeling rushed, I didn't activate the boarding party at all. My turn ended with my scoring the near zone, closing the scoring gap to 3-4. I had 6 minutes on my clock.
Bottom 4: Four immortals were on fire. One passed its fire check. Another I failed to break armor on. Of the two that I did manage to break armor on, one more passed its tough check. Jordan used vengeance on the right unit to kill some witches. He charged with the left unit, but missed his attacks on the dirge seers. However, one member of that unit got into my zone to contest and landed a hit on the deathripper. The ancestral guardian killed the scavenger in his zone. Hakaar moved onto the center flag with Abidan. The agonizers put up gnawing pain. The SGs stayed in place. Jordan's turn ended with 2 minutes on his clock.
Top 5: On this turn, I took a minute to study the board state and realized I didn't really have solos left in position to score flags. I tried to put ghost walk on the deathripper and run it into Jordan's zone, but it died to the SG's defensive strike (due to the damage sustained on the previous turn). At that point, I had no way to contest Jordan's zone and not enough attacks to meaningfully clear any of the flags. I allowed my clock to run out, as Jordan had the scenario lead and would only need to pass clock back to me turn after turn waiting to see if I could figure out a way to do take a scenario lead.
I forgot to take the final board state picture until after Jordan started cleaning up his side of the board. Most of the models he moved were dead and not part of the final board state. The SG on the right side got moved, but you can see the hole in his formation where it was positioned.
Analysis: Zaal2 continues to be an awful matchup for me. I know it's party a mental block on my side, but also some of the tools that I think should be good into the matchup just don't work. I keep wanting to think that continuous fire is a good solution, but I only managed to light 4 immortals on fire and only one actually died from it. Corrosion is better (don't need to break armor), but that would mean keeping the immortal vessel in mind and not giving away my two sirens.
Going into the matchup, I was hoping that he would feat early and I would use my feat to counter and back up, keeping most of my army safe. When he didn't feat on bottom of 2, I decided to use my feat in the hopes that I could keep Barathrum alive. In reality, he was probably going to be able to kill Barathrum anyway, but he also would have been able to get at much more of my army. I am not sure if holding feat would have been worth it. I would like to think the Coven list is at least playable into Zaal2. Unfortuantely, the scenario was very bad for me and the terrain didn't help, as I had to keep devoting focus to casting ghost walk. I also know that I played a little too conservatively with the boarding party. They never influenced the board state at all and had they been better positioned, they could have gone in on the bronzeback.
I will keep thinking about what I could have done differently here. I want to believe I don't need to build a list just to counter Zaal2, but that might be where I end up. Hopefully I can get some more practice in and find out whether a different scenario or terrain allows this list more play into the matchup.
Scenario: Bunkers
This week I setup a friendly game with Jordan. He is one of the Skorne players in the local meta, which made me automatically assume I would see Zaal2. From what I can see, unless I have a list specifically designed to deal with Zaal2, he is pretty much always what I end up playing against. We approached this as if it was a Steamroller game and each brought a list pairing. We sent the lists ahead of time, with me playing the Coven / Denny2 pairing that I am trying to commit to as my primary pairing for the year.
Jordan and I exchanged some messages where we discussed the different matchups. I know that he is generally tired of playing Zaal2 and he briefly considered dropping his Xerxis2 list instead, but thought that Denny2 was such a hard counter that he couldn't take that chance. I know that I saw Denny2 played into Zaal2 in the past, but it was before carapace lost the bonus to freestrikes and it generally played as an assassination list. Without the freestrike benefit, I didn't feel that Denny2 had enough game into immortals and decided to play Coven. The more I thought about the matchup, the more I realized that the Coven list does have some tools to try and handle the immortals. It would all be about whether I could leverage those tools properly. Here are the lists.
Me:
[Coven 1] The Witch Coven of Garlghast [+26] - Scourge of the Broken Coast
- Barathrum [15]
- Deathripper [6]
- Scavenger [7]
- Scavenger [7]
- Scavenger [7]
Axiara Wraithblade [0(6)]
General Gerlak Slaughterborn [0(6)]
Void Archon [8]
Warwitch Siren [4]
Warwitch Siren [4]
Black Ogrun Boarding Party (max) [11]
Blighted Trollkin Marauders (max) [15]
- Jussika Bloodtongue [5]
Satyxis Blood Witches (min) [8]
- Satyxis Blood Hag [4]
Scharde Dirge Seers [0(6)]
[Deneghra 2] Wraith Witch Deneghra [+28] - Black Industries
- Barathrum [15]
- Deathjack [23]
- Deathripper [6]
- Deathripper [6]
- Slayer [10]
- Slayer [10]
- Slayer [10]
Hellslinger Phantom [0(7)]
Necrotech [0(2)]
Necrotech [0(2)]
Necrotech [0(2)]
Soul Trapper [1]
Void Archon [8]
Warwitch Siren [4]
Warwitch Siren [4]
Mechanithralls (min) [6]
- Brute Thrall (3) [0(6)]
Jordan:
[Zaal 2] Zaal, the Ancestral Advocate [+29] - The Exalted
- Agonizer [6]
- Agonizer [6]
- Bronzeback Titan [17]
Abidan the Keeper [0(5)]
Ancestral Guardian [5]
Extoller Novitiate [0(2)]
Extoller Novitiate [0(2)]
Extoller Novitiate [0(2)]
Extoller Soulward [3]
Hakaar the Destroyer [0(6)]
Immortal Vessel [3]
Immortals (max) [13]
- Extoller Advocate [3]
Immortals (max) [13]
- Extoller Advocate [3]
Supreme Guardian [16]
Supreme Guardian [16]
[Xerxis 2] Xerxis, Fury of Halaak [+28] - Disciples of Agony
- Agonizer [0(6)]
- Agonizer [0(6)]
- Archidon [10]
- Basilisk Krea [0(7)]
- Desert Hydra [35]
- Tiberion [19]
- Titan Gladiator [15]
Hermit of Henge Hold [5]
Swamp Gobber River Raider [1]
Farrow Valkyries [8]
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min) [5]
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min) [5]
As discussed, the matchup was Coven vs Zaal2. We randomly generated a scenario and terrain and ended up playing on Bunkers. Jordan won the die roll and chose to go second.
Terrain featured a trench outside the left side of the far zone and a wall outside the right side of the far zone. Burning earth was behind and to the left of the objective in the far zone. The center flag had a forest on it. There was water between the left flag and the near zone, with a burning forest positioned in the same spot on the other side (between the right flag and near zone). Finally, there was an acid bath overlapping the left near side of the near zone and water overlapping the right corner of the near zone. Jordan selected his board edge based on not wanting to burn souls early to navigate all the difficult terrain on my side of the board.
Deployment: I deployed the Egregore just a little left of the center of the board with a warwitch siren to its left and the three members of the Coven to the left of the siren. Next came my void archon, followed by 2 scavengers and the dirge seers out on the left flank. The seers weren't going to do much this game, so I hoped they could contest the left flag for a bit. To the right of the Egregore was Gerlack followed by the unit of marauders. To the marauder's right was the deathripper with a scavenger behind, and then the boarding party. Finally, out on the right flank was my second warwitch siren. Axiara was behind the marauders. I didn't have a great plan for how this was going to go down, but I was hoping I could contest the flags and spread my solos out enough that I would potentially have scoring options as the game progressed.
Jordan deployed one SG to the left of center with a unit of immortals surrounding it. The other SG was to the right of the zone with the bronzeback in front and the other unit surrounding it. Hakaar, Abidan, Zaal, the immortal vessel, ancestral guardian and the soul ward were between the two huge bases. One novitate was out to the right, behind the immortals, while the other two were behind the left SG. Each SG also had an agonizer next to or behind it.
My advance deploy put Barathrum in the center, between the acid pool and water.
Top 1: The first member of the coven activated and cast ghost walk on the marauders and infernal machine on Barathrum. She then advanced to stand just to the left of the acid pool in the corner of the near zone. The acid pool and water were going to make moving around in my zone difficult, so I hoped that keeping the coven to the side would allow them better mobility, while still being able to score. Barathrum walked forward and dug in with the back edge of his base just inside the near zone. The dirge seers moved forward and spread out a little while the two scavengers on that side ran forward into the water. The void archon ran to the far left corner of the near zone. The warwitch siren on the left ran to stand to the right of Barathrum, while the marauders ran forward into the water. The Egregore ran to stand behind and to the left of Barathrum. The boarding party ran around the right side of the burning forest and the right warwitch siren stayed on my extreme right flank. The scavenger on the right flew over the marauders. The deathripper can between the acid pool and water, while Gerlack got trapped behind the arc node. Finally, Axiara walked forward to stand behind the marauders and gave them dodge. Finally, the last two witches just ran forward and tried to form a triangle for the Egregore to later move into. My turn ended with 51 minutes on the clock.
Bottom 1: Jordan took a little time to debate his plan for the turn and whether it made sense for him to potentially sacrifice his immortal vessel in order to kill one of my warwitch sirens. He ended up deciding it was worth it, as their corrosion spray is one of the answers I have to the immortal's armor in my list. He ran the vessel forward to stand 10 inches away from my warwitch and the soul ward granted Zaal eyeless sight. The left immortals ran forward, leaving a pocket for the SG to move into. The left SG the ran forward, through the burning earth, and into that pocket. The immortals on the right did a similar maneuver, except they also left room for the bronzeback. The bronzeback riled and ran forward, with the right SG standing behind it. Hakaar, Abidan and the ancestral guardian all ran forward, as did the novitates. Zaal walked forward, put vision on the left SG and cast aura of power on himself. He then arced and boosted a sunder spirit at the warwitch siren, killing her. The void archon collected her soul. Jordan's turn ended with 44 minutes on the clock.
Top 2: With the exception of the immortal vessel, Jordan made sure to keep all his stuff outside my threat ranges. I was concerned as I expected on bottom of two he would attempt to score his zone and multiple flags, while popping feat to make it very hard for me to get into the scenario game at all. I needed to be able to contest things, while staying outside his threats as much as possible. This turn I did a lot of measuring, but largely everything stayed where it was. The scavengers on the left backed up to be outside the immortal's charge range. The dirge seers similarly backed up, but I was able to keep one within 4 inches of the flag and outside the 11 inch charge range of the immortals. The scavenger on the right flew backwards to be behind the burning forest. Ghost walk was cast on the marauders and Axiara gave them reposition. The front few moved forward and did a CRA onto the immortal vessel. I had completely forgotten about Abidan's shield guard. He took the hit instead and I only did a couple points of damage to him. This was lucky for me, as killing Abidan was about the worst case scenario for me. The marauders then repositioned back. Only one was left in charge range of an immortal. Everything else moved less than 2 inches, with the primary goal of staying outside Jordan's threat ranges. Barathrum's position was exactly 4 inches from the flag, so he could contest, while staying safe behind the forest. He was my key piece to threaten the SGs, as he was the one thing that could out threat and reliably kill things in Jordan's army. My turn ended with 41 minutes on the clock.
Bottom 2: I thought I had done a decent job of keeping safe while contesting enough. Jordan wasn't going to be able to get to Barathrum or the dirge seer contesting the middle and left flags. I figured I was essentially conceding the right flag to him, but if he was only able to go up one control point and burned his feat here, I would consider it a win. Jordan ended up playing a positioning game instead. He ran the immortal vessel to the right flag. The soul ward moved forward and cast guidance on Zaal again. Both immortal units spread out, filling space and contesting all three flags. The bronzeback put up its animus and ran forward to threaten Barathrum. The two SGs stayed back, with the solos between the two huge bases. The agonizers used gnawing pain and positioned to protect the SGs with their auras. Zaal ended the turn by casting sunder spirit to kill my second warwitch siren. Scoring opened with both of us scoring our own zones and Jordan scoring the right flag, putting me down 1-2. Jordan had 29 minutes on his clock.
Top 3: My plan only half worked. I kept Jordan to a one point scenario lead, but I was hoping he would jam things forward and feat. Instead, I had to deal with what I could here, knowing that his feat was still coming. I figured I could do good work on the left immortal unit. The right immortal unit was going to be left alone, as I didn't want to trigger vengeance across the board. Finally, the bronzeback had to be dealt with. Unfortunately, Barathrum was the only thing in range that could hit hard enough. If the bronzeback lived, Barathrum would either have to back up and be irrelevant going forward, or he would likely die next turn. The blood witches ambushed in on the right side of the board. I would like to say I intentionally kept them in reserve for this turn, but I just plain forgot them on turn 2. Barathrum was allocated max focus and infernal machine was upkept and the objective gave pathfinder to Gerlack. The dirge seers maintained position and the one that was contesting the flag killed the immortal on the flag with a hex bolt. The void spirit collected that immortal's soul (as it was outside direct spirits range). It then moved forward to stand between the most forward immortals. It killed one with melee attacks, but failed to kill the other. It then sprayed, catching one immortal and the UA. I did not realize how sac pawn interacted with sprays, and the UA forced the same immortal to be hit twice. That immortal died and the void spirit teleported back to its previous position on the far left corner of the near zone. The two scavengers on the left then moved forward, with the intent of killing the last two immortals that could threaten the left side of the board. The first go the kill and then sprinted back to safety, but the second failed to break armor and was left in a bad spot. In hindsight, I should have allocated each of those jacks a second focus in order to boost damage. I had to boost the hit, as there was no gang fighter and the immortals had grave mist up.
The Egregore moved over to get within 8 inches of the bronzeback and one of the witches activated and cast curse of shadows on the bronzeback. Gerlack then charged the bronzeback, but rolled terrible for damage and only put a couple points on it. Barathrum then walked to get the bronzeback in range and ripped it apart (I rolled 12s, 11s and 10s on all the damage rolls). Unfortunately, no warrior model was within Barathrum's range. Ideally, I should have cast ghost walk on Barathrum so he could have walked forward a little further and bought an attack on an immortal. If the immortal dies, drag below allows Barathrum to move back to safety. Instead, ghost walk was cast on the marauders. I ran them forward, hoping that they would jam Jordan up a little and prevent the SG from getting to Barathrum. The blood witches received the press forward order, killing the immortal vessel and running to engage a number of the right unit of immortals. With their magic weapons, I was hoping to largely pin the unit in place, but I didn't want to trigger vengeance. The boarding party continued to position out on the right flank. Another witch activated and popped feat. In hindsight I don't know if this was the right call or not. More on this after the battle report. We each scored our own zone, putting the score at 2-3. My turn ended with 19 minutes on the clock.
Bottom 3: Jordan had spaced the left unit of immortals further than I had realized and he was able to use vengeance attacks to kill the one marauder that was really preventing him from getting to Barathrum. His objective gave pathfinder to Hakaar. The left immortals received the press forward order and did some damage to the scavenger that was unable to trigger sprint. The left SG charged and finished it off. It then put a couple immortals back into play on the left side of the board. On the right, his immortals killed a bunch of blood witches and marauders. Hakaar then walked forward and destroyed Barathrum (between bought attacks and boosting off Zaal, he didn't even need the SG's help.) The SG moved forward and got the last attack to kill Gerlack. Agonizers moved into position and put up gnawing pain, while Abidan ran onto the center flag to score. Zaal popped feat. Jordan scored his zone and the center flag, while I scored my zone putting score at 2-4. Jordan's turn ended with 7 minutes on his clock.
Top 4: At this point, with clock and board state being what it was I pretty well knew I had lost the game. However, if I could keep drawing it out and contest enough, I might still be able to get Jordan to clock. My army was shrinking and there wasn't a ton to do here, as Jordan saving his feat til turn 3 really hurt my plans. One dirge seer moved forward to hex bolt the left SG to prevent a thresher. The other two moved forward to make sure the flag was contested by all three members of the unit. The marauders moved up a bit and threw their fire bombs, lighting four immortals on fire. The blood witches killed a few more, but were unable to get the UA. The void archon and coven both pulled back to be outside threat range. One witch cast ghost walk on the scavenger on the left. That scavenger was able to run and get just into the left SG's back arc (avoiding the defensive strike) and into the far zone. Due to trying to preserve clock and feeling rushed, I didn't activate the boarding party at all. My turn ended with my scoring the near zone, closing the scoring gap to 3-4. I had 6 minutes on my clock.
Bottom 4: Four immortals were on fire. One passed its fire check. Another I failed to break armor on. Of the two that I did manage to break armor on, one more passed its tough check. Jordan used vengeance on the right unit to kill some witches. He charged with the left unit, but missed his attacks on the dirge seers. However, one member of that unit got into my zone to contest and landed a hit on the deathripper. The ancestral guardian killed the scavenger in his zone. Hakaar moved onto the center flag with Abidan. The agonizers put up gnawing pain. The SGs stayed in place. Jordan's turn ended with 2 minutes on his clock.
Top 5: On this turn, I took a minute to study the board state and realized I didn't really have solos left in position to score flags. I tried to put ghost walk on the deathripper and run it into Jordan's zone, but it died to the SG's defensive strike (due to the damage sustained on the previous turn). At that point, I had no way to contest Jordan's zone and not enough attacks to meaningfully clear any of the flags. I allowed my clock to run out, as Jordan had the scenario lead and would only need to pass clock back to me turn after turn waiting to see if I could figure out a way to do take a scenario lead.
I forgot to take the final board state picture until after Jordan started cleaning up his side of the board. Most of the models he moved were dead and not part of the final board state. The SG on the right side got moved, but you can see the hole in his formation where it was positioned.
Analysis: Zaal2 continues to be an awful matchup for me. I know it's party a mental block on my side, but also some of the tools that I think should be good into the matchup just don't work. I keep wanting to think that continuous fire is a good solution, but I only managed to light 4 immortals on fire and only one actually died from it. Corrosion is better (don't need to break armor), but that would mean keeping the immortal vessel in mind and not giving away my two sirens.
Going into the matchup, I was hoping that he would feat early and I would use my feat to counter and back up, keeping most of my army safe. When he didn't feat on bottom of 2, I decided to use my feat in the hopes that I could keep Barathrum alive. In reality, he was probably going to be able to kill Barathrum anyway, but he also would have been able to get at much more of my army. I am not sure if holding feat would have been worth it. I would like to think the Coven list is at least playable into Zaal2. Unfortuantely, the scenario was very bad for me and the terrain didn't help, as I had to keep devoting focus to casting ghost walk. I also know that I played a little too conservatively with the boarding party. They never influenced the board state at all and had they been better positioned, they could have gone in on the bronzeback.
I will keep thinking about what I could have done differently here. I want to believe I don't need to build a list just to counter Zaal2, but that might be where I end up. Hopefully I can get some more practice in and find out whether a different scenario or terrain allows this list more play into the matchup.
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