Madrak and Doomshaper take to the field

So in my previous post I mentioned that I played two games against Broken Zealot and his Amon army. Both games were really fun, and both games really made me think about my moves. We both won one game which was also nice. I don't really have detailed battle reports for these games since I've forgotten most of the details by now. Doh! I should really write these up the night of the game...but I was just really tired and hungry after getting home.

Game 1

For the first game, it was a very similar list to last week's game I believe. I brought my normal Madrak list. Basically there was a big scrum in the middle in turn two or three when I ran my Champions into melee with his Daughters of the Flame and Herne and Jonne. Madrak got a nice axe throw and ricochet off of an unsuspecting choir boy into Amon, doing a massive 10 damage. During this fight, the Daughters vaulted over my front line of Champions and assasinated the entire Krielstone bearer crew. Ouch! They then proceeded to plink the Impaler to near death by the end of the game.

Luckily for Madrak though, the Mauler picked up the Revenger and chucked it at Amon. Although he missed, since he was so close to Amon, it didn't scatter far at all (half an inch) and knocked them both down. Madrak then hurled his axe into Amon and finished things off.

Game 2

In the second game, Amon came up against Doomshaper and his beast list. Amon brought a lot more bodies this time though, with a full unit of Zealots and Knights Exemplar. Yikes. I think I was outnumbered about 3:1 or 4:1! A notable event in this game was a huge trample attack by the Dire Troll Blitzer, who ran over 3-4 Knights, killing them outright. Had the Zealots not been invulnerable that turn (stupid Monolith Bearer!) he would have snacked on a few zealots as well. Sadly, he wasn't able to kill the Seneschal with the slugger gun after the trample, which proved to be my undoing. The Seneschal and remaining Knights proceeded to slam the Blitzer back with his smite attack and then chop him to pieces. This basically collapsed my whole left flank, leaving Doomshaper very exposed.

At this point I could have tried to pull back and hope to consolidate my forces or go for the all out attack. The Axer had an opening to Amon though, and so I opted to attack. Sadly, because Amon camped all his focus from his last turn (since I feated on my turn, he didn't want to take damage from the feat), he was ARM 20, and the Axer just couldn't do enough damage. The following turn, Doomshaper was bombed to death by the Zealots. Ouch!

Things I Learned:

• Trample is awesome when you can pull it off. I was really impressed by how well a trample attack can thin down infantry ranks. I'll definitely be looking to use this option in the future as well.
• The Mauler is still awesome. He pretty much scrapped a heavy warjack in one turn in the second game. Also, letting him frenzy is actually a *good* thing sometimes. He can still do a ton of damage and it allows you to leech fury from other beasts you don't want frenzying. Plus his two handed throw of the Revenger into Amon was a key game winning move for the first game.
• Madrak's thrown axe is really really nice. Especially with the ricochet rule. Bouncing it into Amon was great.
• Fighting in the middle of the board with Doomshaper's beast army is a bad idea. Once my Blitzer went down, my whole left side collapsed. I suddenly found myself surrounded because I didn't have enough guys to screen/block for Doomshaper.
  
• I need to plan out my Feat turn better. I don't want to be feating the turn before I plan to go for the caster kill. Warcaster camping focus = sad times for the Axer.
• Daughters of the Flame are just gross. Not only can they leap over units, but they ignore free strikes while doing so. AND they can move around to the back side of a model without taking free strikes either. They basically kept jumping behind my Impaler and plinked him to death with POW 9s. I totally underestimated these gals because of how poorly they did in the last game (though I did remember they were fast). I'll definitely have to be more careful next time!

All in all two very fun games. I'm now looking forward to playing with Grim Angus though as it'll be a really nice change of pace. I've got him primed and assembled down and I'll probably start painting him tomorrow night. Tonight I'm going to try and finish off the Axer.