Some disclaimers that totally aren't excuses for whatever I dribbled out: I was flagging at the beginning of the game and it's now a couple days past, so accuracy of detail may be remiscent of a Robin Thicke song.
Trolls with Ragnar1 and Horgle2. Eep. it'll be Horgle for sure, I'm playing a pair of casters with feats that do Pushes. Thexus is far more screwed, so stunty time it is:
Gorten1 - 2x Driller, 2x Blaster, 2x Gunner, Wrongeye w/Snapjaw, Rorsh w/Brine, Tinker, Ragman, Aiyanna + Holt, 2x Eliminators, Acosta
Objective: Bunker
I then get.......Ragadon? This was acknowledged as the wrong choice by Yakan halfway through the game, though it's still a game I have to play rather than a sweet Pit face roll.
Ragnar1 (Band of Heroes) - Mauler, Axer, Bouncer, Kriel Stone + UA, Warders, Champs, Longriders, Horthol, Fell Caller Hero, Champ Hero, Sorcerer solo dude
Scenario is Extraction, table is just the same as the last game, so one side has a forest of doooom and an awkward wall, centre line has a trench and a flanking hill, other side has a hill and a slop of water on one side.
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Merc 1: I pick first to get up the board, this was silly. I correctly get lumped with the side with the god awful forest that shouldn't be used in tourney's but sometimes is.
Deployment and unpack is principally affected by said terrain, Gorten and jacks go right of centre to go around my objective, Croc/Acosta/Kayazy boat go on the far right, Piggies go far left.
The counter deploy is pretty much straight across, I was worried the Longriders would go for the left flag, but that didn't eventuate as they took the right side. Champions in the centre of the brick, Warders and Horthol on the left and beasts/Kriel up back.
I throw up Strength of Granite on the right Driller and Solid Ground on Gorten.
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Troll 1: Warders run to left flag, Champs stay Central, Longriders move up on the right on the Croc boat (raft?). Everything else moves up in a block behind the Champs, Ragnar right behind them. He pops feat.
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Merc 2: So I have a low odds half arsed assassin play here. Ragnar is camping one due to fuelling the stone, I could feat to make him visible and shoot him with the Bunnies and Acosta. Really wasn't giving the feat enough credit, it pans out as a sweet 0.62%. Without Ragnar's feat it's a 72.87%, so how's that for not accounting for stuff.
Thinking I had about a forty percentish, because math hard on the fly apparently, I decide to try it anyway and hammer out a quick attrition back up play, which is to kill as many Long Riders as possible, get a Driller in position to go into the champs next turn and get Eliminators far up enough to cap the stone unit in my turn after.
A couple of the Gun Bunnies hop out of the way, freeing up a lane for the non-buffed Driller to throw Gorten forward. I stupidly forgot to allocate an extra point, so could have missed the 5 and been super sad.
Solid Ground lets Gorten to an elegant pirouette for a landing, absorbing his action but letting him free to dance. I mean feat. I feat and push stuff to the left side of the board. I sadly don't get the furthest two Warders, so things sort of just chalk up. The Long Riders mostly bunch up aside from one who, per the plan, goes way left away from the unit. Gorten then walks back a bit.
Feat falls short of getting the Kriel stone unit, Mauler and Horthol. The real issue, however, is I didn't check Ragnar's drag line early enough, so he didn't slipped behind the Champs rather than being left in an open spot to be stabbed, so it was all attrition all the time now. Or at least set up for it.
On the right, Eliminators move to spots to threaten the stone, they should have done some anatomical stabs on Long Riders but I'm pretty sure I blanked on that.The remaining Gunner slams down the Long Rider that got separated from the pack, allowing an easy harm from Aiyanna. This then lets Snapjaw charge in and punch through Ragnar's feat to kill two Long Riders. Acosta then tries to mimic him, but a low charge damage roll means he only pops one.
Wrongeye goes behind his boat and pops Star Crossed. I don't bother submerging given the ranged attack ability of this Troll list (There's a Spray and Ragnar's spells. Sure.).
Centre wise sweet sod all happens, the Strength of Granite Driller runs up to threaten the middle of the table and is done.
Left wise a spray bunny moves up and does a light pat down, the Pigs take positions on the hill contesting the left flag, prepping for some sweet Soiue action. Ragman stays with them.
Turn done, happy for the most part. Probably a good thing that I screwed up the Ragnar move, would have been a waste of Acosta. Possibly there's a better iteration of the turn where I throw Gorten further up and get Brine into the Warders, though I'm not sure of that. Better to commit than enter the tank anyway.
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Troll 2: It's the Gorten feat turn, so the Trolls can't achieve to much.
Horthol and the Mauler stay chilling around the Troll objective, because sometimes Heavies get to be the reserve force. Eep.
Fell caller stands the knocked down stuff up, attempts a spray that gives Acosta a Dodge he doesn't need.
One Long Rider tries to kill Acosta, he hits back and causes a successful tough roll. The other Rider engages the forward pair of Bunnies.
The Champs and Warders can't move very far, so they group up in centre.
Fellcaller Hero tells those who toughed and didn't activate to kip up.
Bouncer moves up on the right edge of the brick, outside of star crossed where it gets attacks on the most forward Red Eliminator, binning her. Axer runs up to be next to the Bouncer.
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Merc 3: Attrition time, plan is to pop the stone with Kayazy and use my heavies to bin 3-4 of each unit with Bunnies doing ancillary work.
I start on the right, where things go pretty well. Acosta uses his Righteous Vengeance attack to kill off the Longrider, causing the one engaging the Bunnies to become the unit leader and stops his jam. The Kayazy go, the Green pair charge the Sorcerer solo, using Sidesteps to get into the stone, killing two members of the unit and with some nice luck pop the solo as a bonus. The Red Eliminator goes in, if she lands both attacks the stone unit is gone and it's a dream start. So naturally she misses the second attack.
I then try to finish the stone with the right Spray Bunny, sadly he toughs. I do get some sweet bonus damage on the Fellcaller Hero at least.
That's it for effective attacks I can make on the stone, but it's aura is at least quite reduced.
Snapjaw morphs into a Green Proxy base (Model on the right side of the board for facing clarification), goes over the right flag and eats the Axer, with a bonus couple attacks to lightly scratch the Bouncer, though Defence 12 stops me killing both lights as I expected to do. Wrongeye then goes out on the right where I don't think much can attack him and pops Star Crossed.
I then go over to the left, the intent is to use the various Guns to kill the left most centre Warder, creating a pocket where Brine can eat three Warders. Aiyanna Harms, Holt, Gun Bunnies and remaining Spray Bunny all have a go, various Shield Guards ping and sadly I fail to kill the desired Warder, though I do pop one on the top edge of the unit, which isn't helping Brine get the spot he wants to avoid freestrikes for a Souie move.
I hold off on Brine and flip to the Strength of Granite Driller. I want him to kill the Long Rider, the bottom most Warder and a couple Champs. This goes...poorly....Specifically, I choose my attacks poorly, as I allocate attacks without taking advantage of Sustained attack. I end up knocking down the Long Rider, killing a Warder and watched a Champ use the annoying tough>Steady>Retaliatory Strike junk, which was less than pleasant.
Brine goes in, eats a pair of Warders, Soiue'd back by Rorsh.
Gorten just chills in the back on onecamp, spare Driller runs up ready to avenge his bro's soon to be demise.
Not an ideal turn. The Stone and Acosta stuff was in line, then everything just wasn't quite as good as expected, it was also excessive in time taking 20 minutes to resolve the various interactions.
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Troll 3: Right side, the Fellcaller stands the gits up, along with the Bouncer they go into Snapjaw. Star Crossed is magic here (Well, I guess it is by definition) and Snappy gets missed a lot by the Bouncer. He takes damage but keeps all aspects.
Centre wise, the Champs mob around the Strength of Granite Driller and proceed to do wither a massive spike or no damage, because getting to average results can happen by multiple means. The final attack sadly manages to bin the jack, it still had it's sweetest column too (Cortex and Right Arm).
This free up the Long Rider, who charges Gorten. The Mount misses, the melee attack lands a hit but I focus it down to very little (About 3 or so I think?).
Left wise, the remaining pair of Warders and Champ Hero charge Brine, easily bin the poor Piggy. The Champ hero also engages and dings up the left side Spray Bunny.
Up the back, The Mauler runs toward the left flag, Ragnar sits a couple inches in front of him, a few inches left of dead centre of the board. Horthol, who was chilling with the Mauler previously, walks across and kills two of the Kayazy, leaving a single surviving Green Eliminator.
At some point the stone also groggily stood up and shouted strength.
Merc 4: You thought it was bad? Now it gets suuuper bad, as I drop under 15 minutes this turn and no longer take pics.
The left flank is going somewhat miserably. The Mauler is coming up, so these Warders and Champ Hero need to die. Sadly I lack a good option for the Hero, because Steady stops the Bunnies headbutting. I got a bit stuck here, ultimately struggling to find a way to deal with the loser in a good way, so I basically end up ignoring him.
Rorsh shoots down the Warders, because he's a hero.
The Gunners and Ragman ping the Mauler, I roll outrageously well, taking out two Aspects. Sweetness.
On the right, the Eliminator kills the Kriel Stone, reducing the unit to just the UA. Acosta kills the Fellcaller Hero.
I've then got the damn Champs in the centre to deal with, Aiyanna Harms them. Gorten kills the Long Rider to free up the back Driller.
Between the Driller, Tinekr, Holt, Spray Bunny and Snapjaw I kill the Bouncer and three of the Champs, leaving two that are toughed on the ground, stopping the score. Sadness.
Wrongeye pops Star Crossed and goes to the right flag, though doesn't score due to the damn Champs.
Troll 4: On the right, the champs rise up and stumble across. Horthol charges in, killing off Snapjaw.
The Kriel Stone UA tries a stab on an Eliminator. It didn't work.
Left wise, Ragnar moves around, Digs in and heals the mauler's aspects. The Mauler goes in, eats the Spray Bunny on that side.
The Champion Hero, because he is the devil, moves over and engages both Gunners. Sadness.
Mercs 5: Alright, I'm pulling ahead in attrition and clock, just have to start scoring some points to finish this off. The left flag is safe, so I just have to clear the right and get something to kill the objective. Clock pressure makes me forget about killing the objective this turn, so wibble to you.
Acosta dismounts Horthol, I foolishly went to max melee range so then Wrongeye has to kill him, I luck out in doing it with a single Fury spend so get a last turn of Star Crossed.
The Driller goes into the champs. Loses a bunch of armour boxes as they obstinately tough and hit back. Woop woop.
I then try to kill them with the Spray Bunker, then with increasing desperation the Tinker. Fails all round.
The Eliminator was meant to kill the Stone UA to stop the contest next turn, that's no longer an option as she has to come in and kill the Champs. It's the sound of da police.
Gorten runs up this side as I swallow sadness.
Mercs finally go to 2.
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Troll 5: The Stone UA sure enough goes in and contests the right flag, Ragnar shockwaves Rorsh, putting him down to a couple boxes. The Champ Hero threshers on the Bunnies.
The Mauler picks up Ragman, throws him at Aiyanna and kills her.
Trolls clock out mid-throw.
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Me on the right.
We play it out a bit after this, I end up camping Gorten on the right flag and getting to a scenario win with a minute and a half remaining.
That was long and exhausting. For me. Yacood is a long term Troll player and has built up appropriate stamina. My lack of wall use is weird and disconcerting. Gorten should have just hidden behind the objective mid game, Driller activations were done poorly, otherwise mostly happy with, even though the feat wasn't ideal.
