Grissel's First Battle

I played straight Hordes on Wednesday night. It was 500pts of my trolls vs a mostly proxied Skorne list. A friend of mine is considering playing Skorne and wanted to try them out. Overall the game was amusing. I have to say that I really like the feel of a Hordes game for a couple reasons: 1) Timing is critical, which requires more careful thinking, and 2) It forces you to take warbests, which keeps the game more in the realm of small squad action rather than the infantry swarms that seem to plague Warmachine. Anyway, on to the highlights...

The Lists:

Me: Grissel, Blitzer, Axer, Impaler, Fell Caller, Champs, Gobbers.

Opponent: Morghul, Titan Gladiator, Bronzeback, Cyclops Savage, Paingivers, Harpoon guys (whatever they are called).

I chose Grissel primarily because I've never seen her in action before. The Blitzer was a no-brainer. Choosing Champs over a Mauler was simply a matter of wanting a speedbump in the list.

The Game:

Overall I have to say that my execution was not too shabby, with the exception of my feat round. Without getting into gory details, the primary issue was about timing. I should have activated Grissel first, feated, and used her spells before activating anything else. If I'd done the order right, I would have really clobbered the two titans. I spent the rest of the game attempting to recover from a bad series of missed attacks. The Titans are just hugely impressive creatures with their 19 ARM. Without having a Mauler to boost str, it was hard laying out enough damage.

The Dice:

Ok, for the first time, my Vegas dice betrayed me. I had a shocking number of bad rolls, especially at critical times. Particularly on my feat round, if I'd had even average rolls, I would have made a much larger impact I suspect.

The Endgame:

In the end, probably because it was getting late, my opponent brought Morghul around into my backfield to attempt a kill on Grissel. At this point in the game I was really reeling. Morghul had Unrelenting on him and with his 17 DEF, he's already hard enough to hit. So... I went into No Quarter Challenge mode...

Below is a shot of the battle at the critical juncture. There's alot of proxy action here, so let me elaborate. Gorman (NE) was Morghul. All the other small bases were beast handlers. The eMauler was my own proxy for a blitzer (since my blitzer is not quite assembled yet). The Reaper (engaged in the center with the 2 remaining Champs) was the Titan Gladiator. The Devastator (S) was the Bronzeback. The Bokur (SW) was the Cyclops Savage.

It's the troll's turn. Grissel has just pulled 4 fury from the blitzer for a total of 6 fury. The champ leader was at 1 one wound left and knocked down. The Blitzer, Fell Caller, Grissel and the other Champ were undamaged. The Titan Gladiator was heavily damage, with only 1 aspect left and 4 Fury on him. The Bronzeback and Savage were relatively undamaged, each with 3 Fury on them. Grissel (measuring her control area) was approximately 5.5" from Morghul. Morghul has Unrelenting on him and no remaining Fury.

Here was my solution... The Fell Caller charges the Bronzeback (7 MAT vs 11 DEF), succeeding and doing some damage, but more importantly, his Inspire grants +2 to attack rolls for Grissel. Grissel moves slightly and casts Calamity on Morghul (6 Fury + 2 from Inspire and boosted, for 8+3d6 vs 17 DEF), hitting and granting +2 to attack and damage rolls against Morghul. Calamity doesn't cause any damage, so Morghul's Unrelenting is not triggered. The Blitzer walks into melee with Morghul and two-handed throws him into the rocks to the east (5 MAT +2 from Calamity and boosted for 7+3d6, vs 17 DEF). The throw (boosted of course) does 14+4d6, and at this point Morghul is out of range of any beasts he can transfer to, and he's knocked down. The Blitzer's Pyg Ace then proceeds to blast him with the gun. Note that average dice rolls for everything result in Morghul getting slain.

Star Performers:
The Fell Caller was badass. I love this dude, and he's getting promoted in my painting stack. The champs weren't great, but they did a good job at what I needed them to do, which was form a massive speed bump. The Gobbers of course were their own little rockstars. Grissel was, well, she was ok, but I can't say I think she performed great. It'll take me a couple more battles before I can really make a judgement on her. The Blitzer was (ignoring my dice rolling) quite the badass, laying out shot after shot with the gun and taking out key things along the way. Putting Farstrike on the Blitzer is something I now categorize as "stupid cool". Overall though I'm going to award MVP to the Fell Caller for this game.