Little_Lano Plays: WarmaHordes 35pts, Everblight vs Trollbloods, Part2, Madrak1 vs Lylyth1

 So the big game is here.

Anthony reveals his warlock as prime Madrak!

So let's take a quick look at what his army comprises of..

Madrak 

Dire Troll Bomber

2 Impalers

1 Axer

Cragback and Lug

Max Pyg Burrowers 

Initial thoughts going into this game... 

That with the amount of infantry I have in this army, I simply cannot let Madrak get his feat into the middle of my army. 

Can you imagine the destruction!!

Unfortunately, the mission we rolled was Into The Beach. 

As I said in my previous blog post, I needed a scenario with little objectives in order to keep my army in formation and move in a solid unit. 

On the up side, between our armies, it looked spectacular! Apart from a single unpainted model. 

Anthony went to the effort to even make an objective marker for this game!

Isn't it pretty!!

It was stolen from my idea of making this objective marker

Anyway, back to the game and deployment. 

Anthony won the roll off and elected to deploy first very simply with Battle Group down the middle Lug and Burrowers to my right. 

Giving me a dilemma, ideally I'd like the grotesque and spawning vessel opposing the enemy infantry and collecting the resulting corpses, but I had a hunch that Madrak and his battle group was going to head for the zone which unopposed, would net him 2 points a turn. Some thing which I couldn't let him do. 

So I placed my "anvil" unit upfront to hold the control zone and the swordsmen behind waiting for the right time to counter. I field the bolt thrower and Shephard a little further to my right to try to hold Lug away from my right. 

I plan on holding the left, going for the destruction points on the objective opposite,and once Lug had been taken care of, race Lylyth over to the flag to hold. As it turns out, plans never go toft!

So, add the game starts, Madrak and his buddies move as I thought towards the zone, and Lug with the Pygs move towards the Flag. Everything running as per usual.

Silly ugly unpainted models.

Pygs approach the flag.

Meanwhile during my turn, everything runs too with the exception of the Battlegroup.

The Seraph and Lylyth both use Slipstream to help get a few more inches. The former allowing the latter to just get into range with her bow. 

An unfortunate Troll Impaler just happens to be within range and Lylyth takes a sneaky pop through the trees. After landing, she uses her Witch Mark effect to automatically hit with the Bad Blood spell. Being able to get such a spell off early is very beneficial. Forcing the Warlock to choose between taking damage or frenzying the Warbeast, or in subsequent turns not want to fury up the warbeast!

With that, the turn was ended. 

Both sides had run into position, and the ensuing turns would lead to Carnage, quite literally!!

The beginning of turn two and Madrak was ready to mobilise. All the war beasts advanced and let fly scattering bombs and thrown spears. Very few hit the mark except a scattering Bomb which deviated to the 1 ahead and promptly blew up 2 Grotesques. 

 Unfazed, the Grotesques still advance.

Meanwhile, on the right hand flank, Anthony's Pyg Burrowers had surprised me to running STRAIGHT into me! 

Now that took me off guard... I wasn't expecting these guys to be a threat for at least another turn. 

Now I have a major dilemma. Madrak is right there for the taking if I get lucky with my damage rolls. But if that fails, he WILL kill a lot of my army and those Pygs will destroy stuff in the resulting aftermath. 

I decide to go for Madrak. Lylyth pops feat to have a go at him, with the Seraphs 2 shots, we bounce off, only dealing 6 damage to him while he transferred 12 damage worth. 

Lastly, my Spawn Vessel spawns a Stinger, and true to his word, he makes a bee line for Madrak. Having hit, then told him its 4d6 damage, he promptly uses his scroll to waive the damage. 

The Groteques receive a Charge/Run order. To tie up models and shield Lylyth from the incoming Pygs.

Now I'm fearing the Feat, I've left a gap between the front line and my second line to hopefully minimise the damage.

Strangely enough, Madrak doesn't choose to pop his feat yet, but relying on his sheer weight of attacks from his Warbeasts  he ploughs through the infantry before him. The control zone is looking like his, I'm left with a few infantry but it does look like my Swordsmen will get a counter charge off.

To make matters a little worse, two throws from the Bomber scatter nicely and land directly over my spawning vessel unit. FUCK! Eurgh... That Bomber is getting annoying! Now my collection range is smaller and I'm not moving very fair anymore. At least their bodies are feeding the spawning vessel!

Still hiding behind her Grotesque meat shield *drum roll* the Pygs now burrow into the ground... Fuck, now these guys are going to cause more problems. 

Legion are suppose to have good board control but it seems Lylyth is struggling here! Meanwhile, this fucking Bear keeps coming closer. I need to find a way to get rid of it this turn. 

At the end of Trollbloods turn 3, this is what the board looks like. 

I'm now being cornered, and my Objective is now being threatened. I have a cunning plan to try get rid of Lug. I think, if I can get rid of Lug, Lylyth can hold the Flag while the rest of the army controls or contests the zone and destroy the objective. 

Plan set lets go.

So, I drop Bad blood  on the Impaler.

Lylyth shoots Lug and puts Bad Blood on him. Therefore, if I shoot Cragback, he can't transfer anything! 

Phase one done.

The Nephilim, who may I say, has done nothing the whole game... Takes a shot at Cragback, hits, boosted damage since he has Stronghold up, and deals 3 damage... Then the Naga walks up and misses with the boost... Fuck him, fuck my life and fuck this game...

I send the Seraph to destroy the objective. 3 shots all hit, and I deal 13 out 15 damage to it.

Lylyth, who Bushwacked away from Lug, watches as everyone can't kill it or Cragback! 

I also moved away to hopefully minimise how many Burrowers get to shoot me. 

As everything moves forwards onto the point to try clog it, I'm still trying to space out so Madrak can't Pac Man his way though my infantry. 

Looking back, I really didn't space everything well. I was hoping he would miss at least once or twice!

So, here comes Madrak. He pops feat, and 1 minute later...

Thankfully, he missed my Forsaken once, and when he bought an attack against the first Swordsmen, even with Carnage cast, he rolls SNAKE EYES!!!!!

*Victory Jiggle*

The Pygs come up right in front of Lylyth, but needing 10 to hit, he has no luck with the 5 that was in range. 

After Madrak failed to reach Lylyth within feat, he was left within charge range of my Blighted Nyss Swordsmen. 

With all the residual damage from Bad Blood and Odd damage here and there, the first Swordsmen swings, connects, and with 4d6 carves Madrak in half. 

This was a terribly close game. Lylyth was very close to being caught as she was running out of room to play with and Madrak was about to slice her with his massive axe of doom. 

What did I learn...

1) learn to space out my infantry. Times like this shows that wrong placement can cost me squads of infantry.

2) Lylyth needs more heavy hitting models to take more advantage of her support.

I'd like to thank Anthony for the game!

And thanks to you guys for reading my blog.

Until next time, ciao!