Current W/L for Trollbloods

Just a quick tally as of today, I do not claim to be a good player, this is more of a note for myself!

pMadrak 2-1
eMadrak 1-1
Grim Angus 2-7
eGrissel  3-0
Jarl Skuld 0-1
Calandra 5-2
Borka  0-1

That puts me at a total of 26 games with my Trolls, and an overall record of 13 Wins to 13 Losses.  I am okay with that ratio!

The 29 point match!

Last night was the last night of the League, and while I had accomplished my goal (all four patches), I still definitely wanted to throw down.  I got a chance to play someone I hadn't played before, which is always awesome.  We decided on 35pts, and put our junk on the table.

I took a note of the models in my opponent's list, but being unfamiliar with a few I assumed he was at 35 points.  He actually was at 29, he is pretty new, so I am thinking he may not know what Warcaster 'jack points are.

Of course, probably the reason I didn't notice he was playing 29 points and forgot about Warjack points is because I did the SAME THING.

His list, for reference:

Harbinger of Menoth

* Repenter

* Crusader

* Vanquisher

Choir of Menoth (Leader and 5 Grunts)

Exemplar Cinerators (Leader and 4 Grunts)

Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios

Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord

My list:

Grim Angus

* Troll Impaler

* Rök

Dannon Blythe & Bull

Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts)

* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer

Fell Caller Hero

Stone Scribe Chronicler

So the battle of the "people who forgot about 'jack/'beast points" began.

My turn 1:

I won the roll and opted to go first, nominating the Choir as Blythe's prey.  I knew he wasn't moving anywhere quickly with that list, so I opted to simply advance my first turn, with the exception of Dannon Blythe & Bull, who ran up a flank.  Between Grim w/ Farstrike and the Fennblade minifeat, I knew I had a significant threat range advantage on him.

His turn 1:

Choir moved up and sang no normal shooting; the Cinerators and Warjacks all ran, the Cincerators, Crusader and Vanquisher toward my Fennblades/Grim, the Repenter toward Blythe & Bull.  Everything else made a full advance.

My turn 2:

Blythe & Bull played a little cat and mouse with the Repenter, trying to draw him away from the main conflict.  Fell Caller moved forward and gave the Fennblades Pathfinder, Fennblades moved forward, with some in cover, Chronicler moved forward and used Tale of Mist, Impaler moved forward and put Far Strike on Grim, Grim advanced and killed a Cinerator (which the Harby martyr'd) then he gave Rök Cross-Country who ran forward, ending his movement at the very edge of the forest.

His turn 2:

Everything moves up again, Eiryss tried to shoot a Fennblade and misses, Vanquisher throws out a shot, kills a Fennblade, knocks another down, and puts 3 damage on Grim himself.  Things were looking good for mini-feating next turn (with the extra movement from Vengeance) and killing off those Cinerators, and I think my opponent realized that, as Harbinger walked forward and popped feat.

My turn 3:

Fennblades took their Vengeance move to reform (without moving closer to Harby), Impaler put Far Strike on Grim, who hit the Harbinger for some reasonable damage.  Rök charged the Cinerators and... fell an inch and half short - those who are paying attention will see that I should have shot a Cinerator, then Rök would have been in melee range for at least 3 attacks.  Rök does have assault though, so he sprayed and caught two of the Cinerators in the template, he missed the attack on the first one, so I boosted my second roll and got Crit Freeze off on the second Cinerator, unfortunately I didn't do any damage.  Chronicler uses Tale of Mist again, and Blythe & Bull continue their threat range shenanigans with the Repenter.

His turn 3:

Harbinger moves back and heals herself with Focus, Vanquisher tries to shoot Grim, but even with the Choir bonus he can't hit Def 16, scatter kills some more Fennblades though.  Repenter moves forward and tries to spray Blythe & Bull but falls short.  Cinerators scrap Rök.  Crusader walks forward and will be in Melee next turn.

My turn 4:

I have been playing fairly Fury efficient, so I am not super concerned about losing Rök from a Fury standpoint, but he was my only Heavy, so now I am in a little bit of trouble once that Crusader and Vanquisher get into Melee.

Impaler gives Grim Far Strike, I walk Grim up, Feat, have Grim cast Far Strike on himself and then shoot Harbinger some more, she has 7 boxes left at this point.  The Fennblades Mini-Feat, kill three Cinerators pluys Eiryss and tie up the Vanquisher and the Crusader.  Impaler walks forward, decides the Vanquisher (who is effectively Def 11 with Grim's feat plus firing into Melee penalty) is the bigger threat, and tries to put some damage on it, roll to hit, double 5s, also known as "to Crit Slam or not to Crit Slam", I check the line, and I think if I get a 6 I can put some serious collateral damage on the Harby; unfortunately I roll a 2, just enough to disengage him from my Fennblade.  Blythe & Bull make a cautious advance, hopefully I can land Marked for Death on the Harbinger next turn and they can put some boxes on her.

His turn 5:

He allocates two to the Crusader and holds eight, I have a feeling I know what is coming.  The Vanquisher sacrifices it's movement to stand up, lobs a shot at Grim, misses again, but kills two more Fennblades, Crusader moves an inch to it's right, kills one Fennblade, boosts his attack on the second Fennblade, and then decided to boost damage as well (he was already at Dice + 4 against him), I imagine he figured he had nothing else to do as no other Fennblades were in range.  That Fennblade (who he hit with an impressive 31 Damage) made his Tough roll though.  The last few Cinerators made their combat actions, one turned a Fennblade into a fine red mist, the other made his Tough check.  The Harbinger was out of Grim's feat range, so she got her full movement and ended 6" away from Grim and cast Cataclysm twice.

The first one did something like 8 damage which left Grim at 2 boxes, the second one hit for a mighty 4 damage... which Grim transferred to the Impaler.  The Harbinger was forward, and out of focus.

My turn 5:

Impaler tosses at the Cinerator that would get a free strike if Grim charges the Harbinger, boost hit, boost damage, no crit but he kills him.  Harby did not matyr (which might have saved her), Grim charges, hits, and kills.

Afterthoughts:

I can't believe I forgot Beast points, once I found out that he forgot Warjack points though, I felt better as it was no longer a 35pt list beating on a 29 point, it was 29 on 29.  Still, I should know better.  Rök died because I wasn't thinking, and to be fair, haven't played Grim enough.  I will definitely remember Bait the Line for next time.

As an aside, my charge on Harby was with the thought that while I probably could have killed her from range, I didn't want to take that chance, rather to have to run in and buy two extra boosted attacks (hit and damage) than to shoot once and miss/not damage her enough.  I could have gotten her MAYBE with Blythe & Bull if I had put a bit of damage on her with Grim, but again, not worth the risk.

So ends the Thornwood League, I earned 11 League Points and ended with an overall W-L of 3-4.

Breakdown:

Borka 0-1

Calandra 1-0

pMadrak 1-0

eMadrka 0-1

Grim 1-1

Jarl 0-1

League Complete!

So the League has one week left in it, but as of last night I had played two team games and three other games, each with a different painted Warcaster (Jarl, eMadrak, pMadrak, Borka, Calandra).  This got me all four commendation patches for the league:

Duos with Legion

My second game was a team game; I (Calandra) was paired with Legion (Saryn) against Trolls (pMadrak) and Cryx (eSkarre played by the same guy who just beat me down with eGaspy).

The game went fairly quickly, the Cryx player managed to kill both of my beasts, but between the 5 damage from eSkarre's feat turn and two Force Blows, eSkarre was dropped down to dead.  My partner lost both his Warbeasts as well, but pulled off the assassination on pMadrak.

So to recap this fairly quick game, myself and my partner had no Beasts left, and the other team had all their Beasts/Jacks in play when their Warnouns got popped.

Sacrificial Pwn

So like most players in a miniature wargame, I have a mortal enemy good friend who plays.  He is mainly playing Circle at this point, and I have managed to take down eKruegar, pBaldur, and Morvhanna.  My most recent kill was Morvhanna, who fell to a multi-wound eGrissel list, with Grissel herself pulling off the assassination.

Upon review of the game, we realized that Morvhanna had not used Sacrificial Pawn once, so we obviously needed a rematch.  To say that the eGrissel game was close is not doing justice to the wall I was up against when I pulled out the win.  Either way, I decided that I would bring "The Calandra List", I swapped out my Axer for a full unit of Burrowers and hit the table:

I was staring down the following:

Morvahna the Autumnblade
* Warpwolf Stalker
* Woldguardian
Druids of Orboros (Leader and 5 Grunts)
* Druid of Orboros Overseer
Shifting Stones
Tharn Bloodtrackers (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Nuala the Huntress
Gallows Grove

The game started off with an early kill on two of the Fennblades, so like always, this magical moment made me giddy.  I took their Vengeance move, popped their Mini-Feat, and charged in.  They inflicted some heavy casualties upon the Bloodtrackers, killing Nuala and 5 grunts, as well as putting some heavy damage on the Warpwolf Stalker.  It was at this point that my opponent got his "magical moment", and through Regrowth brought back the 5 grunts, in formation behind my Fennblades.

Fennblades managed to stave off some of the attacks, as even with their Weapon Master throws, the Bloodtrackers were Dice minus 7 (thanks Krielstone!); however quite a few fell.  My opponent then made good use of the Warpwolf Stalker wiping out the rest of the unit save one grunt and the drummer.

Got a Vengeance swing, but it didn't do much.  Burrowers popped up and advanced, but he had screened Morvhanna pretty well, the Burrowers took down some Druids, but all shots on Morvhanna either missed or fell short; they were slaughtered shortly after.  Bomber moved in to position to drop some barrels on Morvhanna, however my opponent had pulled his Shifting Stones in tight to Morvhanna, allowing him to Sac Pawn the barrels to them.

Back on my side of the board, those Bloodtrackers were coming after Calandra hard, however the combination of Bullet Dodger + Star Crossed kept her in the game for a few turns (and my opponent swearing off WM/H forever ;) ), but at the end of the day, too much had been lost without enough taken down, and Morvhanna's Bloodtrackers finally made a charge on Calandra (denying her the Bullet Dodger +DEF bonus) and ended the game.

Wrap-up thoughts:  I should have realized that Regrowth was going to ruin my day, if I had dropped some barrels on the Bloodtrackers before the Fennblade charge, I think I could have dropped that entire unit.  If they had gone down I feel the game would have probably ended differently, but you never know, and that is why I love this game.

If you would like more information on the Circle player, you can check out his blog here.

The "Calandra List"

Undoubtedly, you will hear me report that I "used my Calandra list" as it is my primary list for casual gaming. For reference here it is:

Calandra Truthsayer, Oracle of the Glimmerwood
* Troll Axer
* Troll Impaler
* Dire Troll Bomber
Krielstone Bearer and 3 Stone Scribes
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer
Fell Caller Hero
Janissa Stonetide

I feel that it has a strong Offensive game against middle defense and middle armor while offering some solutions for either.  As with any Calandra list, her Fate Blessed special rule and Feat help to overcome issues with high Defense and high Armor, though like with most Trollblood players, I prefer fighting high Armor over high Defense.

Depending on my mood, that Axer may morph into Horthol or a full unit of Dygmies, but more often than not, it is the Axer I take.