New Church League Round 1

With EvilFuzzyDoom

These posts document the NEW CHURCH LEAGUE (named after our regular gaming venue, affectionately nicknamed "the Church"). The NCL has ten participants, and will take place over nine two-week, Round Robin rounds with elimination finals for the top four players. Each player picks two casters for the duration of the League, unless they only own one caster, in which case they can pick their second caster at some point before the 5th Round. The match-ups, scenarios and any special rules are posted at the outset. Scenarios are from the PP Official Steamroller 2011 Rules. We should be wrapping by about mid-march.

My Warlocks for the League are going to be pMadrak & pGrissel.

First round of the New Church League

This round took place between 21 October and 4 November.

For the first round, we played Gaining Ground, one caster, 15 points, no special rules.

Lists:

I'm playing against Cygnar (Blue Cygnar from the campaign), who has a habit for smack-talking. I decided I'd do what Trolls do best and smash his face in, so I took a tough-as-nails list that I thought would have what it took to deliver a solid punch through a hail of fire:

Chief Madrak Ironhide (*6pts)

* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)

* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)

Krielstone Bearer and 3 Stone Scribes (3pts)

* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)

Janissa Stonetide (3pts)

Troll Whelps (2pts)

He took a two-punch list with enough threats to keep me distracted and some nifty combos to get the boot in:

Major Markus 'Siege' Brisbane (*5pts)

* Charger (4pts)

* Charger (4pts)

* Squire (2pts)

Storm Strider (9pts)

Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)

Battle Report:

I took first deployment and set up with a straight line up the board, leaving the pre-deployed Storm Strider a little off to the side. He deployed pretty much directly in front of me.

Going first, I drove up the middle, mini-feated with the Runebearer to put Surefoot up, dumped fury on the Krielstone and kept Madrak behind the cover of Stone Scribes. The Earthborn hovered just off to the left, sheltering a pair of whelps.

Cygnar split his forces around a large building in the middle, peeling a charger off to go around and presumably run for my control zone uncontested.

I advanced into Cygnar's shooting range and popped all my defensive buffs to deal with Brisbane's feat turn. I put the Earthborn's animus on Madrak, put Janissa's wall behind him & the Earthborn (she couldn't quite get up in front of them at this point), used the Krielstone, etc. This put Madrak at an effective ARM 20, with two fury and the Scroll of Grindar's Perseverance to keep him alive for a turn of shooting.

Cygnar did as expected, put the front rank of Stone Scribes in a Foxhole, put Explosivo on a Charger and let rip with everything. Thanks to my ridiculously high ARM, I didn't even have to transfer. To be fair, Cygnar rolled some quite awful damage with the Storm Strider and completely failed to kill anything with it. I lost a couple of Scribes to Explosivo'd, boosted Chargers, took some damage on Maddy, and only had to kill Cygnar's Squire to get a direct line between Madrak & Brisbane.

Unfortunately, Madrak is a fatarse and failed to squeeze between the Earthborn & a Scribe which I had put in the way to prevent free strikes. I cut my turn short, leaving 5 Fury on Madrak for transfers. I'd dropped Surefoot to save Fury. Brisbane smacked Maddy with Force Hammer and tried to kill him some more, again failing but knocking him down. He moved Reinholdt in between Brisbane & my Earthborn to prevent some nastiness from occurring.

Madrak stood up, threw his axe at Brisbane, and feated. The Earthborn turned Reinholt into Gobber paste, shuffled up 1" with my Overtake move and pounded Brisbane into the ground to give me the win by caster-kill - my third victory with Trolls (though I've taken a few caster kills in multi-player games which then went sour for me).

Debrief:

I'll admit, I got pretty lucky with Tough rolls & the Disco Ball's damage rolls; but, at the end of Brisbane's feat turn I still had two Fury, which would have let me transfer to the Earthbon and maybe get him out of the way for my failed charge on Brisbane. I was quite happy to find that the list worked, but it could definitely have gone badly if I'd lost the Earthborn (like I did in the non-league game I played last night, against Nonchalance's Thornfall).

My caster-kill victory puts me on 2 League points at the end of the first round.

Next round, I am facing Khador (either eIrusk or Harkevitch), playing Close Quarters, one caster, 15 points, Mangled Metal/Tooth and Claw.

Army Selection for Round 2:

Close Quarters is a scenario where each player is going for an separate objective area in the middle of the table; it might be possible for it to go all "ships in the night" if both players go for their objective exclusively, but of course you don't want your opponent to win easy, do you?

I'm most likely to face Harkevich, I think; eIrusk is probably best as an Infantry caster, and we're playing Mangled Metal/Tooth & Claw so it's Beasts only for me and Jacks only for him. I'm likely to face some tough nuts (he's a big fan of his Demolishers) so I've put together two lists which should be able to crack armour pretty well.

List 1 is pGrissel, made to run up fast & do lots of damage, but probably needs to go for the caster-kill:

Grissel Bloodsong (*5pts)

* Slag Troll (6pts)

* Troll Impaler (5pts)

* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)

It seems a little fragile though. I'm not certain it can hold my point for two turns while ensuring that I deny my opponent's. This list would rely on smashing at least one of my opponent's Jacks to pieces before he can kill anything of mine.

List 2 is pMadrak and probably best suited to clearing the objective with throws & smashy-face:

Chief Madrak Ironhide (*6pts)

* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)

* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)

Tougher, but less models. More confident that this list can survive, but it's a lot less flexible and may not be able to deal with ranged threats too well.