Bat Reps with Batman

Just thought I would post a little something since I haven't posted in a while. I have an upcoming post regarding my thoughts on faction identity in a post-CoC world in the works, from which I am being continually distracted by work, uni, having to make dinner, trolling my guinea pig, vacuuming, staring blankly at the stars, and basically anything that could take priority over this blog (first world problems)...

An excellent tool for bat reps

Game 1

First game was against my regular Ret opponent, but we decided to faction switch since Rask is more or less a perfect match-up vs Ret, given that Gatorman warlocks are very difficult to kill, Gatormans shred Ret infantry without the slightest bit of care, are extremely resilient to their puny counter attacks, and are only really threatened by three things:

1. Problem: Getting shot to bits by Stormfall Archers/ Invictors/ Ossyan's feat on the advance.
   Solution: Dark Waters (feat).
2. Problem: Getting sliced up by Sentinels (Vengeance especially sucks when you have no guns).
   Solution: Inhospitable Ground.
3. Problem: ARM stack.
   Solution: Fury.

Boom. Barnabas does very well against Ret as well, but lacks solution #3 with the advent of Hyperion (can't throw Colossals into Swamp Pits).

Anyway, I decided to play the following list:

Vyros, Incissar of the Dawnguard (*5pts)
* Hyperion (18pts)
Dawnguard Sentinels (Leader and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
* Dawnguard Sentinel Officer & Standard (2pts)
* Soulless Escort (1pts)
Stormfall Archers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (5pts)
Arcanist (1pts)
Mage Hunter Assassin (2pts)
Mage Hunter Assassin (2pts)

vs a pretty standard Rask 35 list (2 Full Posse, Swamp Horror, Snapper, Min Trogs, filler solos). Scenario was Outflank (the one with the 2 centered zones).

Nothing of great interest happened. I lost after losing all the Sentinels, then losing Hyperion over a few turns, then losing on scenario (5-3). We've come to the conclusion that outside the Griffon spam list, eVyros is straight-up bad. Maybe not quite Calaban-bad, but bad. He is also really boring, and I have no idea why he has two really cruddy nukes in Lock the Target and Twister. Synergy however, is really quite nice when you have a super-tanky caster with ride-by attacks and very good 4pt reach lights.

In conclusion, Rask is sweet.

Game 2

Second game was against Pigmans with Midas:

Midas (*5pts)
* Bone Swarm (4pts)
* Gun Boar (5pts)
* Razor Boar (2pts) x4
* Road Hog (9pts)
* Targ (2pts)
Farrow Bone Grinders (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts) x3
Farrow Slaughterhousers (Leader and 5 Grunt) (6pts)
+ pre-destroyed War Hog

This tier list is just bananas. The only thing you lose is Saxon Orrik, and you get legitimately good tanky Boneswarms, advanced move, a free warbeast... good thing it's Pigs or it'd be broken.

I played a stock-standard Barnabas 35 list, having not played Barnabas in what seems like months, with the Thrullg as my filler solo to help deal with grinders and Bad Blood. I ended up winning on scenario (also Outflank).

Some highlights:

• Wrastler RFPs with Snacking! Yay! I managed to kill a KDed Road Hog using all 7 Wrastler attacks (yay pillow fists!) and RFP it so it doesn't come back with the feat or give fury to Midas! Yay!
  But of course, I now remember that you only RFP with Snacking if you are damaged and are able to heal yourself after with kill. Which, might I say, is a really stupid design probably conceived to douche Trolls. And evidently I cheated.
• The majority of my Posses were one-shot by charging Razor Boars - because boosted POW 10s reliably kill DEF 13/16, ARM 18, 8 wound models (that's a roll of 15 on 3d6 - little under 10% chance, not counting to-hit rolls).
• Midas killing the Wrastler by Hex Blasting Spiny Growth off, then slicing it up with a couple of attacks. No problem. Curse is a pretty amazing ability. God help us if a high ARM weapon master stealth solo ever got it.
• Midas casting Calamity on a full health Spitter, feating to bring back the tierlist War Hog, who then proceeds to 3 shot this full health Spitter with no boosts or additional attacks. Pretty much rolling a total of 28 on 6 dice - that's a little under 6% chance for you probability wizards out there. For the rest of you, that is what we call total BS.
• Boneswarm tanking a couple of Posse and killing two over the game, barely taking damage. Turns out +3 STR and ARM are pretty good buffs! Thanks PP for giving that to Pigs rather than Gators. Very sweet. Really makes that tier4 Maelok with three Boneswarms at one token each look legit.
• I did not accept an offer to scoop after Barnabas got a counter-charge off, which would have set up a charge on Midas next turn. Instead he managed to jam up the gap with Slaughterhousers who made tough rolls to deny my charge and douche me.
• The Thrullg lived! - he managed to kill two Slaughterhouses, a few Bonegrinders with the Arcane Consumption aura, and get me my first scenario point.

The moral of the story is, you can win games in the face of flaming hot dice, and your opponent can scoop no matter how well he is doing. My advice:  

ALWAYS ACCEPT THE SCOOP. 

It is the most enriching of victories.


Will hopefully have a more controversial, entertaining and opinionated blog up by the end of next week :)

The Rask Report - 50pts vs Pigmans

I've been playtesting Rask pretty steadily over the past month, awaiting the model's official release and preparing for my first tournament in a long time in early March. I had a game lined up against Protectorate, but ended up playing against my beloved Pigmans instead, played by the Warmachine legend affectionately referred to as Scooping Holmes on account of his tendency to call games a turn or two early.

Rask
Blackhide Wrastler
Swamp Horror
2x Full Posse
Min Trog Ambushers
Totem Hunter
Croctor
Wrong Eye + Snapjaw

VS

Sturm and Drang
Road Hog
2x War Hog
4x Razorboars
2x Full Bonegrinders
2x Slaughterhousers
Targ
Alten Ashley

Deployment:

                  [War Hog][S+D][War Hog][Targ][Road Hog][Razorboars]

[Bonegrinders1]        [Slaughters1]          [Bonegrinders2] [Alten][Slaughters2]

                                X
-----------------------------------------centre-------------------------------------
                                                                                                  X


[BluePosse]      [Snapjaw][Wrastler]          [Horror]        [RedPosse][TH]
              [Croctor][WE]                [Rask/Gobbers/Trogs]


Scenario was Close Quarters. It was more or less ignored the entire time since we were both playing aggressive melee armies. Deployment on my end was similar to my previous reports, with Posses on flanks and beasts near the middle, Rask + support behind the beasts. His deployment was similar, except there was a huge line of Pigmans at the AD line. I preyed the Slaughterhouses#2, which proved to be useless. Never prey stuff you can just kill easily without the +2/+2.

Turn 1:
Sturm: Stuff runs up a lot. Vision the Road Hog and Watcher gets put up.
Rask: Stuff runs up about 7" from his guys. Rask uses Inhospitable Ground, puts Admonition on the Wrastler, feats and charges a Posse member (doing much more damage than you'd expect from a P+S 11 bone knife).

Turn 2:
Sturm: Since he was so far up the table thanks to Thornfall's AD perk (jamming armies get a big boost in SR13 in my opinion, making Razorboars less crap than you'd think), he just decided to move all his troops back just to the edge of my Posse's max threat ranges, except for one sacrificial Bonegrinder unit to jam up my blue Gator units and one Razorboar to block a charge lane.
Rask: Snapjaw charges the Razorboar blocking the charge lane and kills it using all 4 fury! YAY. The Red Posse then charge forward, killing a couple of Razorboars and Grinders2, and two Slaughterhousers (which tough). The Swamp Horror puts Elasticity on the Wrastler, Rask puts Boundless Charge and Fury on the same Wrastler, then Paralysis shoots the Visioned Road Hog. The Wrastler then goes Flying into one of the War Hogs, getting a Watcher attack for his trouble and leaving him with 1 box of spirit (phew!). He manages to kill the War Hog and take out about half the Road Hog. The Blue Posse charges and kills all the Grinders 1 without any effort.

Turn 3
Drang: Switching to Drang to get more smashy, he charges the Wrastler, smashing him good and uppercutting him into Snapjaw and to his death on the third swing. Drang feats, throwing my fury down the drain. PSYCHIC APOCALYPSSSSSSSSSSEEE! The Slaughters1 group charges the Blue Posse and Snapjaw, doing almost no damage to the Posse, but putting serious hurt on Snapjaw. The Road Hog moves up and sprays the Croctor, missing all the other spray targets but setting the Doctor on fire. The Grinders2 do nothing, some of the Razorboars attack the Red Posse, as do the Slaughters2. The last War Hog moves up to finish off Snapjaw.
Rask: Cleanup time! The remaining two Red Posse members manage to kill a few Slaughterhousers and Brigands, while the Totem Hunter fails to kill an annoying Razorboar (I thought it was already damaged, and left it on one hit box). Rask moves over to the left, shoots the War Hog with a Paralysis Bolt, puts Fury on the Blue Posse, and casts Inhospitable Ground. The Blue Posse then charge the War Hog, killing it in 5 attacks, and Scooping Holmes scoops.

GLORY TO THE BOG LORDS

Thoughts

Rask is just insane. His gun is without a doubt the best gun in the game. It's like he not only has one, but two of the best spell lists in the game - control, damage, defense and threat.... twice. I have only lost one game with him so far, which was mostly due to Blindwater's inability to kill stealth solos at range (in this case, Saxon Orrick), and lost on attrition/scenario after getting out threatened.

Last Rask batrep for a while - expect the Rask tactica article once the model arrives and gets painted up!

Rask vs Ret Reports

I promised yesterday's Ret opponent that I would write some battle reports for yesterday's games, so that he remembers the day where he tried to play Garryth and raged hard.

In both games, I played a Rask list, with Rask proxied by a Croak Hunter (despite my general aversion to proxies, it's a nice model, and nobody would think I would play an actual Croak Hunter). We decided to play 35pts to get more games in (although 50pts is clearly better):


Rask
Wrastler
Horror
Full Posse
Min Posse
Min Trog Ambushers
Swamp Gobbers
Totem Hunter


Game 1:
This game was against Ossyan, who seems like a pretty awesome caster but doesn't do so well vs Gators since we have good anti-ranged tech.

Ossyan
Gorgon
Hypnos
Min Invictors + UA
Min Invictors
Min MHSF + UA
Arcanist
Skeryth aka Mk1 Vilmon on a horse


The scenario was Incursion (which I have grown to dislike very much with my Fury 6 casters). I got first turn. I preyed the Strike Force. Deployment was like this:

       [Invictors+UA][Ossyan][Hypnos][Skeryth][Gorgon][Invictors]

                                                   [MHSF]

 ----------X----------------------------X---------------------------------X-------
               

       [Wrastler][Min Posse][Horror][Rask][TH][Red/Full Posse]
                                                      [Trogs][Gobbers]






Turn 1: 
Rask and friends move up, Fury on Full Posse and Inhospitable Ground. The Totem Hunter ran left to stand sort of between the left and centre flag. A cloud was put on Rask, like every other turn this game.
Ossyan and friends move up, MHSF with Quicken shoot Rask once (first and only time I have taken damage on him in four games), and kill two Trogs. The Gorgon also ran towards the left flag, Skeryth to the right.

Left Flag disappears. Yay.

Turn 2:
Rask: The Full Posse managed to kill the MHSF without a breaking a sweat (partially because they are reptiles, and partially because elves die so easily). I switched Prey to the Invictors + UA, and lept TH over there to kill two and engage the rest. The rest of my stuff just moved up, Rask cast Inhospitable Ground, cycled Fury to the Swamp Horror and feated. The Wrastler ran right so he'd be able to get Skeryth next turn, or at least force the flag.
Ossyan: Not being able to shoot much with Ossyan kind of sucks. He ran the Gorgon into melee with the Totem Hunter, which allowed the Invictors to slice him up good with flank. Skeryth ran to take the right flag next turn. The rest of the list just moved up and dicked around. Skeryth took the right flag. Ossyan moved back so my frontline stuff was just in his control.  I think he feated at this point to kill a few Red Gators with Hypnos and a few Invictors, and put Admonition on Hypnos.

Turn 3:
Rask: I upkept Fury on the Swamp Horror, activated Rask, cast Inhospitable Ground, and shot Admonition off Hypnos. How good is that gun? The Swamp Horror charged Hypnos and did a meaty amount of damage, leaving Hypnos with about 10 boxes and killing a couple of Invictors (sans UA) with tentacle attacks. The Min Posse charged the Invictors with UA, killing a handful. The Wrastler charged and dismounted Skeryth, so still no point for me. Damn you, lack of reach!
Ossyan: The Invictors with UA managed to kill a single Gatorman and fluffed some dice rolls. The Arcanist failed to repair the disrupted Hypnos, who did a few points of damage on the Horror with his broken arm. The Invictors nearby managed to take out the Horror's body. Ossyan decided to man up and charge on of the min Posse members by putting Quicken on himself, then failed to do any damage. What a bitch. The Gorgon did end up killing that Gatorman in the end.

Turn 4:
Rask: The Wrastler frenzied onto dismounted Skeryth and killed him, getting me a point. Rask activated, healed the Horror's body, put Fury on the min Posse, and shot Ossyan with a Paralysis bolt, doing a few points of damage.
The Horror managed to take out Hypnos, the Arcanist and couple of Invictors, and one of the min Posse members charged a now DEF 7, ARM 16 Ossyan and one-shot him with his charge attack.

VICTORY TO THE SWAMP GODS

Rask seems pretty solid in this matchup as well, but for the most part I think Barnabas does better against Retribution unless they bring a Colossal. Swamp Pits, Warpath, good threat and being a tank are just such strong counters to a range-focused game.


The second game was against Garryth and wasn't all that exciting (I won on scenario after a slew of failed assassinations from both sides). Instead of a tedious battle report, I offer this guide:

How to Play Garryth Properly -
a purely theorymachine perspective born of irrational Elf hate

First, one must accept that Garryth is NOT an assassination caster. He is a caster who is pretty good at assassinating. A fine but crucial distinction.

Garryth should be played as an attrition caster for the first few turns, and only when you get to turn 4+ do you start even considering killing the enemy casters. When it comes down to it, one-on-one with full focus, Garryth can kill most casters and warlocks, but using heavy warjacks is almost as reliable and won't get you killed.

Still an elf, but at least has facial hair.

Here are some pro tips:

• Garryth has two hand cannon shots that ignore spell effects. That's pretty sweet, and should be used every turn to pick off front line troops and lighter jacks/beasts/solos.
• Apart from shooting hand cannons every turn, you want Garryth to do nothing but hand out focus to warjacks and cast Death Sentence or Gallows on enemy stuff. An arc node is therefore useful, especially when it comes with a badass fire sword.
• You do not want to put Mirage on Garryth unless you have nothing better do to. Put it on a unit or heavy warjack that your opponent actually has to be concerned about. An extra 2" of unpredictable threat is very potent.
• Cast Psychic Vampire if your opponent has any spell casting troops or solos. Because, why not? It has a long range, only costs 1 to upkeep, and can douche certain models pretty hard, at least by forcing them back.
• Gallows should NEVER EVER BE RELIED UPON FOR A GARRYTH ASSASSINATION. d6" is far too big a range of random to be reliable, and it costs half his focus. Gallows does have a long range though (even longer with Syllys), so it's still pretty good to cast on enemy front line warjacks to be pulled a few inches towards your own warjacks.
• Death Sentence is also pretty solid. I would know, since every Gatorman Posse gets it. For free. This gives you a leg up on dice reliability, which allows your stuff to kill more of their stuff.
• The feat isn't great, but is best used early on to shut down enemy warjacks from retaliating against yours, or late game when charging at an enemy caster so they can't easily get away from you.

 Basically, you want to try to get your force to kill much of their force as possible (especially anything capable of killing Garryth), until a time when you can either win on scenario or kill their caster. If you try for the assassination early on, you are very likely to fail and die.


The best thing of course, is to accept things for what they are and not play Garryth at all. He is the Calaban of Ret (although not really as broken, just frustrating).