Epic Pit
Alright, pair down for round 2!
...into a member of the team that won the WTC a week and half prior, who gloriously let himself get Judicator sprayed as they don't care about Sorscha3 popping out clouds.
Oh well, it's Sorscha3 at the very least, she didn't look that impressive but there's clearly something there. Just not powerful spray defence.
It's a Man of War pile of nonsense, part of the reasoning for dropping the second Road Hog so at least that's worked out. Feels weird to finally break through the self imposed barrier of not changing established lists.
Epic Pit, so the scenario is solely along the middle of the board. I win the roll and take first, terrain gives me a forest that could be a hiding spot for things however doesn't extrude into any zone, whereas Khador get a forest that is defensively inclined for the centre circle.
There is a wall toward my side in the centre zone, given my limited pathfinder (One Ghostly from teh Croc Doc) that could be a serious issue, the opposing list also being limited in it's amount of guns so its defensiveness is mroe limited than would be the norm.
Left rectangle has a blob of water in it, right one has a pair of clouds. There's more water on the table as well, though those other bits don't come up.
I took the repair objective, though realistically pathfinder for those forests would have been a better choice.
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The fearsome hand of Khador.
Round 1: I run stuff up, pair of Razor Boars and a Chef going up the left.
Key decision point was what to do about the rightmost War hog and whether he went to the left or right of the forest on my side of the board. I opted for left, as that looked to be where most of Khador was headed based off the deploy, leaving the Gorax and a RaBo to kill the MoW Tanker that was lined up to fight over the right zone.
Guardian Beast went up as the War-O-Mans didn't appear to have a massive amount of shooting.
Khador, sure enough, moves up heavily favouring the left, with Demo Corp covering that flank, Iron Fleshed Shocktroopers central and the lone tanker out on the right.
The non-spray Tanker, whatever it's called, pops a shot into a War Hog for some damage. Grievous wounds you say? That's just not politics. That joke used to be about something being to unethical, think it now works in reverse. As in Grievous Wounds is fine as it's not super ubiqitous.
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Minion 2: Khador aren't threatening my objective at all, so I'm just going to shuffle and wait it out. I'll take a couple pot shots, but certainly insufficient to entice me into going full pig in when I can do so next turn and score as well.
Or so the theory goes anyway.
The early critical activation is Arkadius moving up with Puppet Strings to land Crippling Grasp on the Shock Troopers. This throttles them down to threating nine inches, so I'm able to position beasts in the zone with minimal concern.
Most things line up on the bottom of the left and centre zone. One War Hog turns into a green proxy base so that it can hang next to the wall (Curse you overlapping arm! What Skorne nonsense this is!).
One Rabo and the Gobber Chef go out left. They could die to Demo Corp, the not super fast infantry doing that works for me.
Rightwise I run over another Razor Boar, being optimistic that maybe a pair of them on a feat turn will kill the nearby Oppresion Tanker.
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Khador 2: The super Cage game continues. The Shock Troopers eek back a little bit to be out of Eilish advance and dispel range, Sorscha then feats and pops out a big row of clouds out front. She ends up at the back right of that centre blob trying to stay out of Arkadius Moider range.
Leftwise the Demo Corp keep the company of the Strike/Suppression Tanker, pop their mini feat for Sanguine Bond, one goes over and kills the Razor Boar/Gobber Chef, a triangle with Drago is behind another two of the unit that toe the left rectangle.
The Strike tanker shoots the same War Hog, manages to roll column 5 again to grievously wound out his Spirit. That was not part of my plan.
Rightwise, sure enough the Suppression Tanker runs up to just touch the corner of the right rectangle.
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Minion 3: The feat assassination threat is still causing Sorscha positioning headaches and I'm happy to grind it up, so plan is to start the trading by wiping the Demo Corp.
I would have been far more inclined to think about feating if the left War Hog had his spirit and the central jacks/Drakhun weren't all ready with Coutnercharge. Just screamed "not worth it".
Crippling Grasp sticks around, that's going to be a feature for some time.
Leftwise is where the action happens. Targ moves up to get the herding aura up their, Sanguine Bond means that the Demo Corp have to be chipped at before a War Hog goes in to deal with the Tankers.
The flankmost Razor Boar charges the fella that was out on his own in the back, spikes so hard on the damage die that he actually kills him. Damn Glorious.
Road Hog has to Pain Dial for speed, walks over to spray the Demo mans in ma zone, gets some decent damage on the unit.
Battle Boar moves over from the centre to Primal the left most Gorax, who also gets Ghostly from the Witch Doc. Said Gorax that charges through the water into the contesting Demo Corp, gets a few smacks back that fail to break any aspects and he manages to pop one Demo Corp and get some more damage spread through the unit.
Arkadius throws Primal on the Forced Evo'd War Hog then shuffles across into the forest on my side, this means the Razor Boar/Gorax that activated are now out of control. Not a huge issue, they did their part and the Gorax isPrimalled anyway. There's so few guns on the Khador side that he drops all of his fury as I'll have to many I need to grab anyway. He throws a Primal Shock out somewhere that does nothing, madness as I used a Gorax to primal the War Hog which, had I just cast with Arkadius, means I don't leave Fury on any beasts that might have mattered. Oh well.
The Swamp Gobbers shuffle in front of him and pop down a cloud just in case Sorscha has some weird naf windrush magic nuke trick to pull.
Buffed up War Hog Dials for strength, charges up on the left to kill the pair of Tankers, objective and last contesting Demo Corp members via Overtake. he then turns to stare down the Khador blob of death.
Two Demo man's and Drag are alive in the back corner, Drago on 6 and both troop fellas on one.
It is Orin's time to shine. He moves up, lands the lighting, boosts damaged on all of them. Fails to hurt Drago and only pops one of the grunts, so that was a shame.
Rightwise the Gorax primals a Rabo, he charges the contesting Suppression tanker and does two damage. Ah well, it is only a mini-pig.
The other heavies just drop back a bit, awaiting Arkadius to hit the sodding go button already. Eilish wiggles to threaten the full centre zone with his advance and Upkeep remove pop deal.
I score the obejctive and left zone, 2-0.
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Khador 3: Time for the return smackdown.
Iron Flesh gets dropped as it's jsut going to be dispelled anyway.
Drago, the last Demo Corp bro and one Kodiak easily kill the Gorax and War hog in the left zone. The Kodiak actually managed it with its initials and a throw, using said throw to kill Orin. Damnable Chain Attacks.
The Shocktroopers commit to the centre zone, the Drakhun and one Kodiak witht eh coutner charge spell up behind them.
Last Kodiak runs to toe the right zone.
Khador score the left zone, now 2-1.
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Minion 4: Due to Fury mismanagement the Battle Boar frenzies for a scratch into the Road Hog. Not hugely onerous, given this is not a matchup that plays into Berserk with such a relative low P+S.
Left most Razor Boar frenzies as well, lacks a target in its Line of Sight to go into.
Right msot Razor Boar runs to right board edge.
The Swamp Gobbers run to points to be frenzy targets. Primals get thrown on War Hogs and the right Gorax.
Arkadius puts Primal and Forced Evo on the rightmost Gorax, then moves across to heal the Spiritless War Hog. After the feat moves he repos as far back as he can.
On the right the Razor Boar that moved before gets a charge into teh Suppression Tankers back and kills him to the box. Savage.
The Gorax in that zone frenzies into a Swamp Gobber and kills him, giving him positioning to walk to the contesting Kodiak.
Centrally the helthy War Hog frenzies and kills the other Swamp Gobber to get into walk range of the Shock Troopers.
Road Hog frenzies into the Kodiak for a scratch, I think the Drakhun counter charges him for a whack of damage and thankfully fails to either crit knockdown or take out an aspect.
Left most War Hog, who has Ghostly from the Witch Doc, goes into the Demo Corp grunt and brutally murders him.
The other Gorax' and Battle Boar clear Fury and frenzy to not super relevant positions.
Normal activation wise, the damaged War hog is a dilemma as should he go in first and trigger a counter charge he has very good odds of losing his Spirit, which would be pretty bad. Ergo the healthy War hog goes in first, chains through a couple Shocktroopers and gets away from the Kodiak before it has a good line. They tough a couple times, so he ends up giving up on that and killing the Drakhun. Concerned at this point, didn't feel like a strong activation for a Primalled Heavy.
Damaged War Hog walks around, kills Drago and the Kodiak.
The Road Hog walks in, kills two Shocktroopers, dials for speed and Sprints back as I need *something* for the late game.
Rightwise, the Gorax goes into the Kodiak. He could have slammed for the score, however I then have little recourse to ever clear that zone in future turns, so the Gorax gets Puppet Strongs and punches it up. Takes out the left arm and 2/3rds of it's boxes, not as good as hoped.
Cleared out the left, so 3-1.
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Khador 4-Minion 7: under the clock pump now, so photos stop and memories blur.
Khador counter punches pretty well, one Kodiak easily crunches a War hog and the other gets put down by the remaining infantry. Right side Kodiak easily kills the contesting Gorax.
Round 5/6 are a blur, I make some suboptimal decisions for the sake of not clocking. Road Hog commits and fails to one round a Kodiak, so can't sprint away and dies to Sorscha. Khador get whittled away by lights and I score up the left zone consistently. Khador does manage to clear the centre zone, so on the bottom of 6 'm ahead by 5-2.
I have a Razor Boar out left, and another in the right zone where it frenzied on the my objective in round 6. Eilish was hiding out in my forest. Witch Doctor had moved up to cotnest the centre zone. The Kodiak had gotten jammed up on the other Razor Boar previously, it had gone in and left my objective on two boxes (Was out of control so got no focus).
Khador had that damaged Kodiak, Sorscha toeing the left and centre zone and one Crippling Grasped Shocktrooper on one box in the Khador forest.
Eilish goes in, Mental Forces a Bleed and kills the shocktrooper. Razor Boar moves into the left zone, Arkadius goes into the centre to win on scenario 7-2. If I didn't win that run I straight up die to Sorscha. Had 13 seconds on the clock.
Best game I've had in a while. Still slow.
Should have selected pathfinder obejctive and kept the right War Hog around my forest so it could go in and clear the right zone, this whole wining off one zone in games is way to slow.
I also easily could have contested to stop Khador scoring the left zone in turn 3, just had to toe in with Targ or the Road Hog.
Eilish was fairly critical to how he affected positioning in the matchup, and the third War Hog was a necessity so happy with those changes.
Forgot to deploy a Gobber Chef as well, so played a 74 point list. True Heresy down here.
