Battle Report 8, September 9 Steamroller round 1: Tanith vs. Ossrum

I had the opportunity yesterday to play in a 10 person Steamroller event in a meta I'm very friendly with about 2.5 hours away from where I live.

I was particularly excited about this one because I'd managed to get 3 of the 4 other guys on my team to attend (well...2 of them were already going, the third had to be dragged a little), which was important since our lists are due in 11 days as of this writing (eek!).

I took the lists I will likely be playing for the i5 team event in Portland coming up in October:


Tanith (apparently one "n" is the correct spelling folks)
-Warpwolf Stalker
-Pureblood Warpwolf
-Scarsfell Griffon

Una
-Scarsfell Griffon
-Scarsfell Griffon

Wrong Eye
-Snapjaw

Lanyssa Ryssyl
Gallows Grove (this was supposed to be Swamp Gobbers, but I somehow left them out of my bag, whoops)

Sentry Stone x2
Shifting Stones

and

Wurmwood
-Cassius
-Warpwolf Stalker
-Megalith

Gallows Grove
Lanyssa

Farrow Bone Grinders (min)
Farrow Brigands (max)
-Warlord
Gatorman Bokur and Shamblers
Sentry Stone x2
Shifting Stone x2


Round one I was paired with our local merc player, running Ossrum (specifically to counter Wurmwood I think) and Thexus. I was 99% certain he would be dropping Ossrum, so I thought I'd be cute and put Tannith down. I totally glossed over the fact that he had Kayazy in his list or that would have changed.

Ossrum
-Reinholdt
-Earthbreaker

Thor
Dirty Meg
Rhupert

Herne and Jonn
Forgeguard (max)
Alexia 1 and the Risen
Kayazy Assassins (max)
-Underboss

The scenario was The Pit (another reason I should have played Wurmwood) and I won the roll off choosing to go first. My opponent chose the top edge of the table. I chose to go first here since I really want to limit the number of turns Earthbreaker gets to shoot before I murder it. With Hunters Mark, Scything Touch, and Primal I feel like my two heavies will one round it pretty trivially, while affliction will make short work of his Forgeguard.

I am also okay with either table edge. The rubble doesn't affect me much since I've got a lot of pathfinder and I like cover, and on the other side of the table is a nice wall for me to sit behind. The central thing in the zone will also be annoying for my opponents colossal if he wants to charge stuff, and it will help me block LOS to Tanith/Wolves.

With the rubble (rough terrain, gives cover) right in front of me, I decided that my Stalker was going to chill there until he became relevant, and I skewed Tanith and Wrong Eye/Snapjaw left. I thought this was going to be a Scenario game for me, holding off his stuff and just dominating the flag every turn. 

He deployed Alexia AND the Kayazy across from Tanith and the Forgeguard over on the right. Earthbreaker went central. I glanced over his cards and somehow missed that Ossrum's feat only affects Rhulic models and in addition to speed also gives them ARM. In my defense, I had gotten 4 hours of sleep and just driven 3 hours to get there, but this will be a common thread throughout this event report. I was in total derp mode. 

Circle turn 1:

Stuff ran pretty much. I was careful to keep important things out of range of the Earthbreakers quake guns, even with Snipe, unless he wanted to blow his feat turn one. 

Admonition went on the Pureblood and Scything Touch went on the Stalker. 

Snapjaw and Wrong Eye both ran around to the left, and Griffons just sort of went where they wanted. I rolled a 3 for fury on both Sentry Stone units and made a little forest wall for Tanith to hide behind. 

Una cast Guardian Beast on herself. 

Lanyssa ran up after I took that picture, but before handing time over to my opponent. 

Mercs turn 1:

Risen and Kayazy ran up. Forgeguard ran as well, getting tough from Rhupert.

Ossrum cast Snipe on the Earthbreaker, Bullet Dodger on himself, and advanced.

Thor moved around the Earthbreaker and tuned him up. The Earthbreaker then proceeded to do 17 damage at range with 2 attacks to my Pureblood. (Side note - my dice this game were abysmal and my opponents dice were insane. He rolled a string of 14-17s on three dice and only rolled below average twice when attempting to kill a Sentry Stone).

Circle turn 2:

I upkeep Admonition and Scything Touch.

My Sentry Stones go first, each rolling for a couple more fury. I proceed to blow their entire stacks to make the forest wall again and then kill exactly 1 (one) risen and 1 one) Kayazy, clipping Alexia with one boosted spray and forcing her to sac a bunch of other risen.

My nearly dead Pureblood warps Ghostly, goes into the rubble and Regen's for a couple.

Stuff shifts around. I know he's going to pop feat next turn and be in my face and I don't want to get charged by Forgeguard.

Snapjaw riles and casts Submerge while Wrong Eye cast Star-Crossed and Submerge himself.

I put a Griffon with Dodge up in front of them, inside the Star-Crossed bubble.

Mercs turn 2:

My opponent upkeeps both of his spells. 

Ossrum goes first, puts Fire For Effect on Jonn (the bigger of the two) and feats.

Reinholdt scoots over around the wall and he tries to use spyglass on the blue Scarsfell. I inform him that Reinholdt has to be base-to-base with his warcaster to do that and he re-reads his card and realizes this is so. I let him take it back, he moves Reinholdt to be buddies with Ossrum and strips stealth off him. 

The Earthbreaker moves up and prepares to shoot before my opponent realizes he didn't tune up. 

Side Bar - This is something I struggle with a lot. I don't want to be a total jerk and tell people they can't go back, but this game actually hinged on me allowing my opponent several take-backs. Without them, I would have been in a much better position after this turn. If he hadn't moved the Earthbreaker up yet, I would have happily let him activate Thor first, as it was, the Earthbreaker had already advanced and declared a shot. 

I'm still not sure what the right call here is. I understand the argument of "this is a tournament, therefore no take backs" but at the same time saying no makes me feel like a huge jerk. This is something I will definitely need to think about before I go to my next event. It hasn't come up very often, so I haven't had to deal with it much. 

As for myself, I do not take back things in an event, even if it royally screws me up. 

End Side Bar. 

I allow my opponent to move Thor up and tune the Earthbreaker up. The Earthbreaker lands the first boosted 13 he needed to KD the Pureblood in the rough terrain and then blows him up with some massive unboosted damage rolls after rolling the other torpedo on the now un-stealthed Griffon and knocking him down too. 

The Forgeguard charge/run and kill the Gallows Grove. 

The Kayazy charge in and do an absurd amount of damage to Snapjaw. 4 of them charging left him on 4 health. Averages there say one should have missed thanks to Star-Crossed and the rest should have done 12-15 damage. He also hits the first Star-Crossed seven on my Griffon before missing and letting me dodge out of melee with the third. 

Two go into the Sentry Stone and knock it down to 2 health. 

Alexia moves up, crafts a thrall and sits there. The thrall walks up to the Sentry Stone and matches ARM.  My opponent then realizes he didn't move Rhupert up to tough the Forgeguard. He asks for another take back and I dice him for it, and I win so they don't get tough. 

Circle turn 3:

Tanith upkeeps Scything Touch and Una upkeeps Guardian Beast. Tanith activates first and feats, putting Primal on the unpainted Griffon and the Stalker and Admonition on herself. She also puts Affliction on the Forgeguard. She also shoots Snapjaw with her Shadow Bind gun, catching all four Kayazy around him. 

My Mannikins spray the Forgeguard down, leaving the cluster on the right alive. I make a huge mistake here and don't move Una up an inch, so she only kills the front two Forgeguard. 

Lanyssa puts Hunters Mark on the Earthbreaker and my Stalker charges in, expecting to be dice +2. Then I find out his feat gives +3 ARM as well. Stalker cripples one side and does some to the other as well. 

The Gorax moves up and puts Primal on the Blue Griffon, which also charges (forced to stand) and does some more damage, and finally the yellow, unprimaled Griffon charges as well and doesn't do hardly anything (rolled really poorly here, I don't actually think the yellow Griffon did any damage). 

Wrong-Eye casts Star-Crossed and kills one of the Kayazy near the Sentry Stone.

Snapjaw RFPs all the Kayazy around him to heal up. I realize that the second forest (the one on the left) isn't really there (we'd left it there because there were too many models) so the shifting stones move up to block LOS to Tanith from everything.

The grey Griffon with Primal on it (it was a mistake putting it there I think) kills Alexia and puts up Dodge.

The yellow Griffon is actually where the proxy base by Rhupert is.

Mercs turn 3:

Bad things happen to me this turn. His one remaining Forgeguard charges the Stalker and gets the Crit Smite, knocking him into the Earthbreaker and half killing him. The Kayazy get Wrong Eye down to one. 

Jonne shoots the Shifting Stone on the right, blowing it up. 

Meg repairs the Earthbreakers crippled arm. 

The Earthbreaker murders the Stalker and the Blue Griffon. Ossrum moves out of the Grey Griffon's LOS so I can't frenzy at him. The nearly dead Sentry Stone takes 1 damage, becoming even more nearly dead. 

Circle turn 4:

I don't have a lot left, but he's running out of stuff too, and his remaining things are really slow....

Snapjaw murders the Kayazy around him, healing Wrong-Eye. Wrong Eye murders the Kayazy by the Sentry Stone and the Mannikins finish off the Thrall Warrior. I get two boosted charges from Mannikins into Jonn, miss the first one and then force him to tough on the second, which he does. 

Una puts THREE boosted shots into Rhupert and fails to kill him, so Lanyssa charges him and finishes him off. The Yellow Griffon beats on the Earthbreaker to little effect. Crucially, I dominate my flag for 1

Score 1-0

Advantage Circle

Mercs turn 4:

He continues murdering my stuff. 

Ossrum shoots the colored Mannikin and kills it, and then Herne melee attacks the other so that Jonn can shoot at...something? Yeah something, not sure what it was. Oh! It was a shifting stone, and it didn't kill it. Right, yes. 

The Forgeguard dude, who I had foolishly left alive AGAIN moves over and misses Una. The Earthbreaker declares a shot at the Sentry Stone with one box. I tell him it has stealth so he auto misses and then he says that the Earthbreakers guns ignore concealment so they ignore the prowl. 

This is not how that actually works, since a model just has to have concealment, not be benefiting from it, so once again I allow him to take back and he pounds the Griffon into the dirt. 

I get another control point. 

Score 2-0

Advantage Circle

I took the forest rings off before I remembered to take a pic. They were there. 

Circle turn 5:

I've got about 12 minutes on the clock and my opponent has 7, time is short. Mannikins murder Herne but can't kill Jonn and I make a forest. 

The Griffon moves up and kills Jonn, 

Lanyssa kills the Forgeguard engaging Una, who moves up and boosts all her shots into Dirty Meg, killing her. 

Snapjaw riles and runs, and Wrong Eye casts Star-Crossed and charges the Earthbreaker. I should have cast Submerge too. 

I score a third point.

Score 3-0

Advantage Circle

Mercs turn 5:

Thor tunes up the Earthbreaker. 

The Earthbreaker moves up and shoots down Wrong Eye, and then torpedos Tannith now that he has line of sight, landing two shots, one of which I transfer to the Gorax which kills him exactly. 

Ossrum is out of range to shoot her as well, so he moves up and kills the Griffon. 

Reinholdt contests. 

We were down to 2 minutes him, 5 minutes me at this point and I didn't pause to take a picture

Score 3-0

Advantage Circle

Circle turn 6:

Tanith pays to stand. I do a quick check, and the Earthbreaker is out of range to contest the flag, but Thor is in range. Una moves up and kills him, Lanyssa runs to the far flag. 

Tannith aims, boosts a shot into Reinholdt, connects, boosts damage, and kills him, allowing me to dominate the flag again and go to five. 

Victory for the Druids!

Post Game Thoughts:

I don't even know what to say about this game. The dice were so screwy and my play was so incredibly poor in places that I don't even have a reflection on the matchup. I spent the entire game just trying to survive it felt like, which is a position I don't like to be in. At the end, I had 4 minutes left on time and he had 2, so I suppose I could have just spent the next two minutes running Tannith away from things if I had to, but holy heck that was a close game.