Tuesday 28 April 2009

Thought for today...

I've been thinking about my game Thursday while at work this week (the beauty of having a job that doesn't require you to think much...), specifically about the Long Riders.

They were deployed on my right flank, opposite the Blood Trackers who had prayed them. They died in turn 2 after having advanced some, but only enough to get into ambuscade range. Originally I wanted to keep them in range of the KSB, but because I needed one of the scribes as a charge target I ended up running them so it was a moot point. But anyway, next time that happens I really should just run them up in the face of them(or charge or slam if I'm close enough). At ARM 18 and with 8 wounds each they take some killing, especially if they are so up in your face you can't charge/ambuscade/other bonus damage.

Obviously it won't work every time but if I had done that the Long Riders probably wouldn't have died, the Blood Trackers would have been disposed of earlier and it would overall have looked much better for me.

It's funny because I do it with my Cygnar all the time. Especially my mechanics, they usually die around turn 2 or 3 because they have run up to engage something.

So lesson to remember, Trolls don't die easily so if something is scary at range, but squishy just run to engage it. If nothing else your stuff is up there and then it's your opponents problem, rather than yours.


As a side note my Mauler is now making his way toward me so looking forward to getting him. I really need to paint more trolls but I got a tournament with Cygnar coming up so maybe I should finish those first... (UK tournaments seems to put a greater emphasis on painting than what I've picked up about the US ones, but that's a topic for another day)

Monday 27 April 2009

Update!

Wow, I left this for a long time. I'd love to say my tardiness was because I've been playtesting Mk II but that is unfortunately not the case :( I've only gotten in a single practice game of that since it's been released. The truth is that I just haven't had time/opportunity to play. A venue move for our club(new venue is awesome btw) and one of my regular opponents just being too busy, not to mention a quick weekend trip back to Denmark have meant I've only gotten in a single real game in the last couple of weeks.

But my Trolls are still undefeated! Grissel against Baldur, and the last champion just managed to bring Baldur down. I was using my newly aquired Long Riders too, but they got ambuscaded into oblivion early on unfortuantly. Still, they are some of the few cavalry models I actually like the models of and can see myself painting (rare indeed!) so I imagine they will see quite a lot of use actually.

It was a bit of a weird game, in that it was the Circle that bricked up and the Trolls that was doing the mobile attacking. I rushed him early forced him to hide behind Megalith and a Worldwarden. Between the two heavies, the Worldwardens animus, Swamp Gobbers putting up clouds and Baldur putting down forests it was difficult to get a coordinated strike on him though. Although Baldur did inadvertedly wander into the open right in front of an Impaler and Grissel. I don't think he had realised just how much that would hurt and Baldur was suddenly left at 4 hp.

Eventually I managed to overwhelm him long enough for that one champion to hit him over the head. Losses was pretty bad though.

I brought:
Grissel
Axe (died)
Impaler
Champions (1 survivor)
Long Riders (dead)
Fell Caller (dead)
KSB+UA (Stone and Elder alive)

He brought:
Baldur (dead)
Megalith
Worldwarden (dead)
Druids (a couple dead)
Sentry Stone (dead)
Blood Trackers (the javelin girls? Anyway, all but one died)

So the trolls took a beating going in, but they can take so much punishment and still keep going! I'm really loving them. So much fun to play with, and so incredibly different to my Cygnar army.

Should have some Swamp Gobbers arriving soon, and I'll probably get Horthol to support the Long Riders. I'm sure they will match the champions well, if they can survive past turn two. But for the first time ever using proper cavalry(Kraye's Jacks doesn't really count) in Warmachine that was okay.

Anyway, work is calling (yay...) might flesh it out into a proper battle report later.

Friday 10 April 2009

I love Scattergunners!

As I mentioned briefly yesterday the Scattergunners really were the stars of the show. Not in that they killed the most things or Doomy or anything but they enabled the others to do so.

I was using

Grissel
Fell Caller
KSB + UA
Champions
Min Scattergunners
2 Impalers

And I was facing

Doomy
Mauler
2 Impalers
Champions
KSB
Fell Caller
Alten Ashley

(Yes, it turns out it's over points. Didn't really matter)

My setup was fairly compact, with the champions next to a ruin, the Scattergunners behind the ruin, the KSB, Fellcaller and Grissel behind the infantry and an Impaler on each flank. I would have concentrated them a bit more if I could but I was setting up first so had to cover both flanks.

His set up was a bit to the left of mine, but almost the same. A line of champions in front, two Impalers to the left of them, Doomy, KSB, Fell Caller and Mauler behind and Alten a bit to the right up front behind a hedge.

Alten managed to kill a Scattergunner behind they blasted him to bits. I didn't wanted him to shoot my Impalers so the one on the right hid behind the ruin while the Scattergunners ran through it with the help of the Fellcaller. In turn two they moved up further and since sprays ignored the concealment and shot him to bits. They also managed to put a bit of damage on the Champions(being barely in range). It also saw some exchange of fire between the Impalers and things but nothing overly important. The two champion units had lined up just over 9" from each other so it was a bit of a stalemate. And that's where the Scattergunners made the difference. In turn 3 they moved up to blast the champions some more, even killing one of them! And then Grissel put Hoof it on them and moved then up to stand there, tempting the champions to engage the annoying Scattergunners.

And my opponent duly took the bait. Admittedly it was only his third hordes game and he said up front that he was puzzled why I had moved the Scattergunners that way. I promised to explain, but not until after his turn. You shouldn't exploit newer players, but as long as you are nice I firmly believe the best way to learn is to actually see it work.

So his Champions and the Mauler engaged. They killed all but one scattergunner who was then blasted apart by the Fellcaller screaming at him(range attacks was hitting all over the place in this game!).

But it did mean my Champions could get the charge on his. Using the +2 strenght from the KSB and Grissels feat I engaged both Impalers and the Champions. Due to bad positioning on my part only the champions made it in. In the end the Imaplers took a bunch of damage and his champions got decimated.

I lost my Fell Caller on his counter attack but essentiall it was a big sprawling melee in the middle with the advantage to me. After then it was just chipping away at things on the edges and slowly walking through his models.

The game ended with Doomy showing that he can hit pretty hard by killing an Impaler (the other got eaten by the Mauler) before getting charged and killed by Grissel. At that stage he had the Mauler, the KSB and one scribe left.

I lost both Impalers, the Scattergunners, a couple of the Scribes and the Fellcaller. Grissel took some damage as well (slams from the Impalers and Doomys feat).

Lessons learned:
Mirror matches are fun!

Second, I love sprays. I was very impressed by the Scattergunners. Killing Alten early saved me a lot of headache, and being able to put a couple of damage points on the champions (yes, I know that was at least partially luck) made all the difference. Not only did it help with taking them down, it also meant they were annoying enough that something had to be done about them.

I'm still liking the Trolls a lot. They really are very different from Cygnar and I'm very much enjoying that. I'm still liking my Swan people, but it's cool to actually have beatdown casters and true heavy infantry (and sprays!).

Oh, and third lesson. Remember what your damn caster does! I only remembered Grissels fellcalls like half the turns in the game. Practice, practice, practice!

Thursday 9 April 2009

Another game

Got in another game with my Trolls tonight. And it was a win for the trolls. Of course it was always going to be a troll win as it was Troll against Troll! Quite interesting really. I was using Grissel and he was using Hoarluk. Having the champions matched up across each other was interesting, but fortuantly I got him to commit by using my Scattergunners as bait. They killed Alten Ashley and put quite a lot of damage on the champions before being eaten. But it was enough as it set up my charge and in the end there was a Mauler and two KSB model left with Grissel herself killing Doomy.

Saturday 4 April 2009

A weight off my shoulders...

There he is, my Kriel Stone Bearer. It's such a neat looking model I just had to paint it. How can you not love a troll carrying a giant rock around?!

It's the first infantry model too and so I had to define my kriels colours too. Ended up with a dark green background with a brown and a red stripe. Real easy to paint and looks quite good I think.

He should have reinforcement coming his way soon. Won some Longriders and another Impaler (it was 99p!) off eBay so that should be interesting.
I quite like the Longriders (no idea how they work out in the game though), strange really as I have no intention what so ever of picking up the Cygnar cav. I really don't want to paint them and I sort of feel I got the Jacks anyway. Not so with the Long Riders, but lets see when I actually get them.

Friday 3 April 2009

First game!

I had my first game with my Trolls last night. 500 points against Menoth.

I used Calandra, 2 Impalers, an Axer, a unit of Champions, a Fell Caller and a full unit of KSB with the UA.

On the other side I was facing Reznik, a Castigator, a Repenter, a Revenger, a Choir, Zealots with the Monolith Bearer and a unit of Exemplar Errants.

I had almost completed a battle report when the computer finished an update and restarted so this is going to be the short version.

At the end of the game I had lost a champion and the Fell Caller. He had 3 Choir boys left engaged with an Impaler and the zealots engaged with the axer. The champions barrelled head first into his jack wall, and over two turns killed the Castigator and the Repenter, while an Impaler and the Fell Caller did for the Revenger (the Fell Caller did 11 points of damage on his charge attack ripping of it's shield!).
In the next turn the Fell Caller charged Reznik after the Impalers had thrown some spears at him (but failed to slam him) and did quite a lot of damage, but sadly not enough to kill him.
The champs managed it though. After disposing of the Castigator they slipped through the ranks and engaged Reznik. And that was the end. It did took them two attempts but it was never in doubt.

Calandra was doing Star Crossed for most of the game but I never manage to actually remember to use it's effect! Definently something to remember for furture games. In this case it didn't matter too much as my Trolls was plenty of resilient this game and I got to engage on my terms.

I was really impressed by what the Champions could do and how resilient they were. Nothing new I know, but I've never used them before! I think there is a lot of potential for Calandra, I just need to be better at using her.

I was helped by the Zealots essentially only having a single turn as they were held in reserve and me getting the jump on his jacks.

I think he was used to playing against Cryx and so was hoping for some spells coming his way to propel his jacks forward with Witchmark (or whatever the ability is called).

And for all that Impalers always crits mine got a single crit all game. Against the Errants of all things. I got a couple of shots at Reznik, but no crits :(

But a win is a win and it makes a nice change from my Cygnar. Both in terms of playstyle and in terms of winning!

Thursday 2 April 2009

Taranis the Impaler

Meet Taranis, the first painted trollblod from Wyrmwall Kriel.

Obviously I still need to do his base and such, but other than that I'm actually quite pleased with how he turned out. With all the leather and stuff it's very easy to make it look samey. I think the few different brown tones I have there does the job well enough though. The armour needs a little more work and I could have done without the chickens on him (fun touch, but I'd rather not have them there) but for a first model I'm pleased.

I think I'll try and name all my beasts, just for fun. Once I've done the base up I'll write his name on it. The name itself I've nicked from a list of Celtic gods. Taranis is a wargod, often depicted with a lightning bolt, and somewhat similar to Tor so the name seems fitting.

Why Trolls then?

So why did I get a Troll army when I'm still in the process of doing a Cygnar army?

The obvious answer is to have both a Warmachine and a Hordes faction, but really it's just because Trolls are cool. I've been tempted by them (and Circle) on and off since I really got interested in this game around a year ago. Originally I went with Cygnar because the Ironclad model just looked really cool (and ironically I now never use it...). But then I was listening to the Podthralls review of Metamorphosis and that sold me enough on the trolls to at least want to try them out. Having now read the background for them too they are the faction I like the most in the game. Pushed around and pressured from all sides they are fighting a battle against everyone just to continue to exist as a society.

Contrast to Circle that I liked the idea of too, but having read there fluff I don't think I actually like them that much. There religion just doesn't make much sense to me, and it seems to be a weird mix of interest that's now coming apart at the seams.

Anyway, having read the books I ordered a bunch of models and the Wyrmwall Kriel will see there first proper game tonight! Should be a 500 points affair against something (new guy at the club I think). I should even manage to have a model painted for it too, the first Impaler is almost done, yay! (pictures to follow later hopefully)

So this is a blog, eh?

First post, heh. Having just bought some Trolls and thus expanded into Hordes (already got a Cygnar army) and seeing someone posting about a handfull of blogs about there own armies I thought maybe it could be an interesting experiment to try. Gives me a place to post random thoughts about Trolls and the game in general, record games and maybe even keep me on track with building/painting the army. Although probably not...