Once more into the breach

I had another game this afternoon against Broken Zealot at GameKastle with my 500pt. Trollbloods force. This time I was going up against his Tournament 500pt list so I knew I was in for a tough fight! Once again it was another nail biter and came down to the last few models battling to the bitter end. We played a straight up battle, no special scenario yet. I'm definitely looking forward to trying some different scenarios out though.

The Lists

Menoth
Feora
Revenger
Repenter
Devout
Zealots x10 w/ Monolith Bearer
Choir x8
Vilmon
Gorman
Piper of Ord
Wrack x2

The Trolls
Doomshaper
Dire Troll Blitzer
Dire Troll Mauler
Troll Axer
Troll Impaler
Kriel Stone Bearer (min.)
Fel Caller

Deployment
Once again, the Trolls are outnumbered about 2:1. Just the way we like it! Most of the terrain didn't come into effect 90% of the game except for a centrally located forest about 8 inches long and 6 inches wide. Most of the fighting in the game took place in or around this terrain piece. I deployed with the Blitzer and Impaler in front, Axer on the right, Mauler on the left and KSB, Doomshaper and the Fel Caller behind. Menoth deployed mostly in a line across from me, with Jacks on my left side, Zealots on the right. Feora deployed in the middle next to Gorman, and both the Piper and Vilmon deployed near the Zealots.

Turn 1 Trolls
I ended up winning the roll to go first and so my general strategy was to use the forest to hopefully funnel some of his troops down there to be more easily dealt with. I ran most everything forward to a low wall in formation and ended my turn.

Turn 1 Menoth
The Piper increases the movement speed of the Zealots, and they all run forward with Vilmon nearby. They are just in the woods. Vilmon is out in the open a bit. The Jacks on the left also run forward and Feora and Gorman both move up behind a low wall. The Choir chants the no shooting prayer. Grr. Fortunately for me, the Choir is lined up itself for a nice Impaler bolt next turn.


Turn 2 Trolls
The Impaler walks up, casts far strike on itself and boosts the attack to hit the front Choir member. The spear throw scores a critical slam, knocking the front member back into the warpriest, killing them both!

The Mauler moves up somewhat behind the Impaler ready to countercharge should the Repenter or Revenger charge the Impaler. Doomshaper casts Rush on the Blitzer and it charges into combat through the woods into the Zealots. He picks up and eats two of them, then shoots another 3 with his chain gun.

I move the Axer up toward Vilmon. I was thinking that I would use him to take the initial charge and to protect Doomshaper from getting charged. I wanted to cast Acursed on him with Doomshaper, but he was just short. The Fel Caller moves over to get a good charge lane on Vilmon. KSB moves up and sets up the Protective Aura.

Menoth Turn 2
The Repenter moves up and fires it's flamethrower at the Impaler and Doomshaper, not doing any damage to the Impaler and missing Doomshaper, but setting the Impaler on fire. Unfortunately for my opponent, because of the way the Repenter moved, the Revenger can't charge the Impaler now, so just moves for a charge next turn.

The Zealots, who are not in combat anymore with the Blitzer move through the forest, with a song from the Piper giving them pathfinder, and throw bombs at the KSB. They manage to kill two scribes and almost kill the KSB but I make my tough roll. The monolith bearer also now makes them invulnerable next turn. Vilmon then charges the Axer, swings twice, and takes it down to about half.

Gormon moves up and throws an Oil bomb at the Blitzer making it blind and basically unable to hit anything. The Devout and Feora then walk over the low wall and attack the Blitzer, who is also taken down to about half.

Trolls Turn 3
The Blitzer tries to hit the Devout but just misses all his attacks. Darn black oil! The Axer hacks down Vilmon into little bloody chunks. Doomshaper casts fortune on the Mauler, then he casts Rush on the Fel Caller. The Fel Caller then charges into two of the Zealots to tie them up so they can't throw more bombs at my guys next turn. The KSB and remaining scribe also charge two Zealots to keep them from bombing Doomshaper next turn.

The Impaler charges the Revenger and does a bit of damage to it, but not enough to really damage it. The Mauler charges the Repenter, casts Rage on itself and rips both arms off the jack.

Things are looking pretty grim for the Trolls at this point...they are pretty much outnumbered and surrounded now.

Menoth Turn 3
Feora casts Engine of Destruction and kills the Blitzer. She then casts her feat and sets everyone except Doomshaper on fire. Zealots fail to hurt the Fel Caller, but some are able to throw bombs at the Axer and kill it, though one also dies in a throw that deviates onto itself. A lone Zealot kills the last scribe in hand to hand. The Choir charges the Impaler and do no damage. But add more bodies to tie it up. The Revenger hurts the Impaler, who is dropped to about half.

Trolls Turn 4
Lots of fire checks all around. The last scribe burns to death, and the KSB almost dies too, but makes his tough roll. The Fel Caller kills two Zealots, Doomshaper blasts one with Acursed (but it makes it's tough roll from the Piper), casts Rage on the Mauler, and then Feats. The Mauler kills the Repenter. He then takes a hold of the Revenger with two hands, and chucks it straight toward the Devout, kocking them both down, and destroying the movement of the Revenger. The Impaler kills a couple of Choir. It's now looking a little more even, but with the

Menoth Turn 4
I forget exactly how, but Feora takes about 8 damage from Doomshaper's feat from using focus for something...I think she may have killed the Fel Caller with spells. I forgot to make a tough roll for the Fel Caller here. Gotta remember to make tough rolls! One of the Zealots gets close enough now to throw a bomb at Doomshaper, and he has to transfer the damage away to the Mauler. Gorman then walks over and throws another oil bomb at the Mauler. Arg! The Choir then walks into melee range with the Mauler to keep it engaged. A zealot hits the KSB but fails to do damage.

Trolls Turn 5
The KSB burns to death, fires go out on the Impaler and Mauler. The Impaler who has an extra fury on it fails his Doomshaper then goes for an end run against Feora. He's got 7 Fury. But to get to her with a spell he'll have to first kill a Zealot in the way. So he walks into combat with a Zealot and a Monolith bearer and...rolls snake eyes and misses. Arg! He has to use another fury to attack again and then easily dispatches the Zealot.

Ok, moment of truth, Doomshaper targets Feora and casts Acursed on her. He needs a n 8 to hit, so I boost the attack roll. Hit. Roll to damage with a boosted die. All I need is 8 damage (13+ on 3 dice). Or really any damage at all since she'd then have to forfeit movement or action. Sadly, the roll is so low I don't even get through her armor. Ugh. I can see the end now. The Mauler then leaves combat and runs in a desperate attempt to block off Feora's LOS to Doomshaper.

Menoth Turn 5
Gorman tries to move away from the Impaler toward Doomshaper, luckily the Impaler kills him with his free strike. The Monolith Bearer and the Zealot that Doomshaper is engaged with walks out of combat. Doomshaper takes his free strike and misses with snake eyes again. Doh! The Zealot throws a grenade and does 7 damage to Doomshaper, and he transfers it to the Mauler.

Feora then pulls out her flame spray guns. She hits with one and does 7 more damage, which Doomshaper then can't transfer. Feora then fires again, and just *barely* hits Doomshaper....had she rolled one lower she would have missed. But she hit, and killed him. Unfortunately I forgot that Doomshaper has Tough and I could have tried a tough roll, which would have actually won me the game, since the Mauler was in position to wail on Feora and probably kill her next turn. MEGA DOH!


Conclusion

Well this was another really close game that could have gone either way several times during the game. I love these kinds of games, win or lose. Doomshaper will have to retreat back from the Menoth for now...but he'll be back!

Things that worked well:
The Mauler and the Impaler once again did a good job handling the flank and taking care of the jacks. The two hand throw by the Mauler was nice. Overall though I really can't think of any real stand outs this game. Something that worked fairly well was engaging the Zealots so that they couldn't throw any bombs. They're pretty weak in close combat so keeping them there works fairly well. Rush helped a lot in many cases, where I would need the extra 2" to get into close combat or to rush through the forest.

What didn't work so well:
Trying to channel the Menoth through the forest didn't really work so well since the Piper just gave the Zealots pathfinder anyway. Plus, since the warbeast I had would kill the 2-3 in base contact after one round, the rest will no longer be engaged and can then walk out away and throw more bombs at people. The Fel Caller also disappointed again this game, only managing to take down two zealots before getting blasted by Feora.

I'm seriously thinking about swapping him out with Alten Ashley. I could definitely see Alten being a lot more useful in this game than the Fel Caller. The ability to pick off unit leaders and solos would be really really useful.

And lastly, I need to remember to roll TOUGH rolls! ARG! :)

For the Hordes tournament coming up this month, I think I need to bite the bullet and drop the Blitzer for a unit of Champions. I'm finding that I really need more model count in my games, especially against Menoth. I'm also lacking a unit that has more staying power...two Dires are nice at times, but they are still fairly fragile and can go down fast. With the low model count I'm just not able to protect Doomshaper well enough...the enemy models can easily get around my guys and assasinate Doomshaper fairly easily. I think that's why I did better in the previous games too, since I could hole up in a defensive position, I was better able to protect him.