First battle on wednesday night - league game

So for my first and more enjoyable game on Wednesday night, I played against Broken Zealot and a tweaked Amon ad-Raza list. There were the choir and the same solos as always (Vilmon and his two Paladin entourage, a Seneschal, and Gorman). The difference this time was that he brought a Repenter, a Guardian, and his newly painted Daughters of the Flame. I thought that they looked great for the speed that they were painted with.

I forgot to bring one of my Champions, so I instead used my original Doomshaper list. We played one of the Spring League scenarios (Khador vs. Protectorate), where there is one big hill in the center, with four small forests around the hill. The flash flood rule was also used, but there weren't any floods all game. The objective is to claim the hill by having more units on the hill than your opponent at the end of each round.

Menoth Turn 1
Everything runs up toward the hill, with the Seneschal sneaking around the left woods, the Guardian, Repenter, Amon, and Choir moving onto the hill, and the Paladins, Vilmon, and Gorman also move onto the hill, to the right of the warjacks. The Daughters running incredibly fast onto the right side of the hill, but still screening the Paladins, Vilmon, and Gorman. They are almost in charge range of my army already! That is a truly scary move.

Trolls Turn 1
I now need to get some guys onto the hill as well, else I'll start losing control points. Due to the slow speed of the Trolls, I know I need to run most of my guys, else they will not get there until turn 3 or later. The Axer and Impaler both run onto the hill. Doomshaper casts fortune on the Blitzer and advances. The Krielstone Bearer, Mauler, and Fell Caller all toward the hill as well but don't make it onto the hill. The Blitzer runs onto the hill and now has a clear shot at the Seneschal, to the left of the hill. The Pyg Ace gets two shots with the chain gun, and mows down the Seneschal.

Since Broken Zealot has more units on the hill he gets one control point.

Menoth Turn 2
The Repenter moves up and shoots a gout of flame at both the Blitzer and Impaler, missing the Blitzer, but setting the Impaler on fire. The Guardian moves up and engages the Blitzer in hand to hand and takes some swings at him doing a moderate amount of damage. Amon then casts a Sandblast at the Blitzer through the arcnode on the Guardian, but fortunately doesn't knock it back.

The Daughters of the Flame move off the hill to the right and into a flanking position, also clearing the way for the solo group. Thrice cursed Gorman walks up and chucks his evil black oil onto the Impaler and Axer, blinding them. Vilmon sacrifices his action to enter Impervious wall and moves into combat with the Blitzer, Axer, and Impaler. One of his Paladins also manages to charge as well, doing a bit of damage to the Axer.

Trolls Turn 2
(Here I actually messed up the rules on the two handed throw, where I threw the Guardian at Amon and actually killed him, forgetting that the two-handed throw is only at Str /2 not (Str + Pow) /2. So we had to do a big rewind. Below is what correctly happened after the rewind. OOPS!).

The Mauler moves up onto the hill and casts Rage on the Blitzer causing its muscles to bulge with Troll fury. The Blitzer walks up to the Guardian, grabs a hold of it with both hands, and with a loud roar hurls it toward the Repenter, knocking both of them down and doing a large amount of damage to the Repenter, destroying its cortex. The Pyg Ace riding on top of the Blitzer gets a bead on the Paladin and Gorman not in combat and lights them both up with the chain gun, killing them both!

The Impaler takes some fire damage this turn, and pretty much misses a lot due to the black oil in his eyes, and the Axer, with help from Doomshaper and a fortune cast on him, is able to take out the Paladin. The Krielstone bearer moves onto the hill and casts his aura. All the scribes move behind the woods to get out of Line of Sight of the Daughters of the Flame, and the Fell Caller moves up slightly, as does Doomshaper.

No control points are given out as we both have 5 units on the hill now.

Menoth Turn 3
The Daughters of the Flame run through the woods and engage the the Krielstone bearer and scribes, and one Daughter is just short of getting into combat with Doomshaper. Yikes! I totally underestimated their move distance again. Luckily for me, she was about half an inch short.

The Repenter stands up and flames the Blitzer setting it on fire. The Guardian stands up and (thanks to its reach) stabs the Blitzer, severely hurting him. Amon then casts Sandblast through the arcnode and kills the Blitzer. Vilmon gets three attacks this turn, chopping up the Axer, but it barely hangs on by a thread and has 4 hp left.

Trolls Turn 3
With the noble Krielstone Bearer in danger, the scribes heft their axes and, in a flurry of death and dismemberment, they actually take down 3 Daughters of the Flame! The Fell Caller charges into the Daughters near Doomshaper and kills two as well. He then lets loose his blood curdling Rebel Yell and the Daughters actually turn and flee!

Doomshaper moves over to get a line on the Repenter, but misses with Accursed, needing only a 5 to hit. Doomshaper casts Rage on the Mauler. The Mauler charges the Guardian and slaps him around and then takes a big chomp out of it. He takes one last whack at it and puts it out of commision, having only generated two fury. I'm still amazed how easily the Mauler is able to take things out and still have so much Fury left over. (I bet he could take out two Carniveans at once with a little support from Doomshaper...can't wait to try that out on the Legion player...the guy thinks the Carniveans are the best heavy ever. He hasn't seen a Mauler in action yet though heh heh).

The Impaler and Axer together are able to drop Vilmon. I now get one control point.

Menoth Turn 4
The Daughters of the Flame flee and no longer have any impact on the game. The Repenter moves over and has a clear shot at Doomshaper. He only needs a 7 to hit, but fortunately the flame goes wide. Amon charges into melee with the Impaler and the Mauler. He uses his special "crack the whip" attack on the Mauler, slamming it back through my Axer and the Krielstone bearers, knocking them all down. Ugly. I think a couple of scribes die, but none of the beasts are hurt badly. The Choir charges in to the fray and actually do some damage to the Impaler, who is now at 8 hp left. They also block off all the charge lanes to Amon.

Trolls Turn 4
Doomshaper takes aim at the Repenter, needing a 5 to hit with Accursed, and misses! They seem to be trading misses at each other. Doomshaper then casts Rage and Fortune on the Impaler, and also heals him for some crucial damage. The Fell Caller moves up and uses his special action, Reveille, to stand everyone up that was knocked down. The Mauler comes to, slams one of the Choir into Amon, knocking him down, and splattering the poor Choir boy. The Impaler then, seeing the prone Amon, gives him a couple good stabs and finishes him off.

Victory for the Kriels!

Conclusion
That was a really fun game, and we both had a lot of fun. It's really quite fun playing against Amon as he's got all these neat little tricks and slams that send my guys flying all over the place. The battles between the trolls and Amon have been like watching a WWE wrestling match, with people and trolls flying left and right.

The battle could have gone either way a couple of times, like if the Repenter had actually hit with his flamer those two times on Doomshaper, things would have been very different, and it's likely Doomshaper would have burned to death.

I also learned to really watch out for the super fast moving Daughters of the Flame. The amount of ground they can cover is truly amazing. Thankfully the stone scribes are actually decent in melee with light infantry, and so were able to send them packing. The Fell Caller also proved invaluable once again, standing big blue guys up, and also his Rebel Yell that made the rest of the Daughters flee in terror.

The Blitzer in this game was a terror. Truly amazing. He did it all this game with his throwing and shooting, accounting for the deaths of three solos with the chain gun, and taking the Repenter's cortex down (no focus allocation to it, so it couldn't boost to hit Doomshaper) and damaging the Guardian. Not to mention knocking them both down for a turn. Honestly, I was thinking about not playing the Blitzer anymore and just using Champions instead, but he really showed his stuff this game, and I will definitely not give up on him, especially at 750pts.

Aside from my rules screw up, the game went much more smoothly, and I think I'm getting faster at playing my turns, as the game only took about two hours instead of the usual three. I'm also feeling a lot more confident with how to use the Fell Caller and the warbeasts I have in general. What I need to be more careful with though is the Impaler. I seem to be getting him stuck into melee too early on now. That or Broken Zealot has gotten a lot better at tying him up early. :) Next game I may try to hold him back some and instead let the Axer and Blitzer take the lead.

Sadly, I won't be able to make it down to GameKastle next Wednesday as I have a final early next morning.