Grim patrols the woods...

Played a quick 350pt game against Broken Zealot today at Gamekastle. I took a Grim melee list with a Mauler, Axer, Impaler, and Swamp Gobbers. The Menoth came with Severius, a Revenger, two Seneschals, Vilmon, six Daughters of the Flame, and Troll Bosun Grogspar (traitor!). Oh and two wracks.

Terrain of note was four stone walls in the center, each of us had a hill near our deployment, and some woods also. The hill on my side was on my right, and the woods to the left.

Deployment: Menites deployed in a line in the middle, with Vilmon and a seneschal to my left, and Grogspar and a second Seneschal on my right. The Revenger and Severius were in the center. My deployment was slightly off-center with the trolls closer to the forests than the hill. Grim was in the center with the Mauler to the far left, the Axer and Impaler on the right, and the gobbers in the middle next to Grim. The Daughters advance deployed on my right near the hill.

Turn 1
The Menites all push forward in an all out sprint. Everything runs and gets some cover behind the walls, except Vilmon, who goes into Impervious wall and makes a beeline for Grim. The Daughters run up behind the hill to my right.

The trolls move up close to the woods, and the Mauler actually moves into it. Grim casts Man Trap on Vilmon, killing him outright. The Impaler throws a spear at a Daughter killing her. In hindsight he shouldn't have been able to do this, but it probably didn't matter in the end as you'll see soon. The gobbers pop their smoke so that the Daughters can't get LOS to charge anything.

Turn 2
The menites move up again, with the Revenger behind the stone wall closest to my side. One seneschal runs into melee with Grim. Doh! The second Seneschal gets a charge lane on the Impaler for next turn, and the Bosun moves up slightly behind the Revenger but it out of range for his harpoon gun. The Daughters run around the hill and now threaten me from behind. These little gal's speed still amazes me every time. Severius casts ashes to ashes on the Impaler, hurting him some, and also killing one swamp gobber. Luckily only one is hit, instead of two, so the second gobber picks up the swamp fog gun.

The Axer goes first, moves into melee with two daughters and kills them with a Thresher attack. The Imapler goes next and spear slams the Seneschal to the right, killing him, but he could come back to life if someone dies within his command range. I spent some time thinking about this, and what to do, and I think I came up with a solution. The Mauler walks up to the Seneschal, who is in hand to hand with Grim, grabs him with two meaty fists and chucks him far to the left and away from the other Seneschal. The Seneschal is killed by the throw, and since he's too far from the other Seneschal now, both of them die. Nice. Grim shoots a Daughter and kills her. The gobber pops a small smoke cloud in front of him, Grim, and the mauler, blocking LOS to them all from the Revenger.

Turn 3
Severius goes first and casts ashes to ashes again through the Revenger on the Impaler, doing some damage, and more importantly killing the last gobber. Grogspar shoots and hits the Impaler with his harpoon gun, and the Impaler is now stuck with Dynamite. The last two Daughters charge the Impaler and shank him from behind, killing him.

The axer turns around and walks into melee with the unit leader of the Daughters killing her easily. The last Daughter panics and runs. Grim backs up into the woods, and out of LOS of the menites and casts man trap on the Revenger but misses. He shoots Grogspar, doing enough damage to him, but he makes his tough roll. Grr. The Mauler also moves deeper into the woods and out of LOS.

Turn 4
The last daughter runs, but regains her composure after she gets some distance from the frightening Axer. Grogspar shoots the Axer and sticks a piece of dynamite on him too. Ugh. The Revenger moves up around the wall to get LOS on the Axer. Severius does a good amount of damage to the Axer with multiple immolations through the arc node, also setting him on fire, but he manages to stay standing.

Grim moves up and puts Grogspar out of his misery with his rifle, and then heals the Axer some. The Axer regenerates and then slams into the Revenger, knocking it back 5". The mauler moves up behind the middle wall.

Turn 5-7
Basically the last few turns boiled down to the Axer repeatedly slamming the Revenger back, Grim taking pot shots at whatever was available and then finally feating to keep Severius from running away. Raged Axer charging finished the game with one mighty swing, cleaving Severius in twain.

Conclusion
Another fun game with the trolls, and I feel like I'm getting better use out of Grim now. I was able to really put the forest to good use, moving in and out of it as needed. The Axer was great, doing tons of damage, taking tons of damage and finishing off the game in style. The Mauler was also key with a well timed and placed two-handed throw of the seneschal. This let me kill them both in a single turn. Killing Vilmon early with Grim was a fortuitous event too...if he got into melee it would have been a completely different game.

The Daughters didn't do as much damage as in previous games, I think mostly due to the smoke clouds that the gobbers were laying down. Stopping their charges was key, though I did have to sacrifice the Impaler. I didn't think he would go down that quickly, but in the end, he did his job.

Overall I just feel a lot more comfortable with Grim now that I've gone more toward a melee based list. I'm looking forward to new units in Evolution, as well as playing in the upcoming league.