Other ramblings are at r/SlothyWarmachine
Maelok is dead, long live the return of my pre-Oblivion struggle of making Jaga work! (For me).
I stared into the Void and it.....basically barely glanced at me before finding someone that actually posts and retweets. The back of the Void's Ovoid head was a vague design that made me want to try to spam Swamp Horrors. Way back in the day, before Wrastlers had Rage and the game plan was to win somehow using throws, some player posted their anti-armour list of Calaban spamming Swamp Horrors as an armour cracking option.
The need for that Calaban list is definitely lost in the depths of time and a different edition of the game, nevertheless I've always wanted to try something similar.
It then turns out I'm a coward and the max Swamp Horrorage I could convince myself of was four, backed up by Dahlia/Skarath, a pair of Void Archons, Feral Geists and Efaarits as Requisitionness. Also added the Hermit after my last mauling by Grymkin and some Gobbers.
Playing into Mohsar, spamming loads of Wolves of Orboros, which strikes me as being a worse version of weapon master spam? Has a Feral, Riphorn and Woldwyrd for battlegroup, Lord of the Feast, Wolf With No Name, triple Gallows Grove, a Blackclad. And a Well.
Bunker, terrain gives one side a defensive obstruction, a cloud and some impeding water, the other gets a garbage forest and fog arrangement. a forest is also smack back on the centre flag.
I lose the roll, given second, I take the side with defensive terrain. Yay to enabled cowering.
Deployment. or what the hell is what.
So, yeah, due to short term planning failures it was time to throw down in proxyville.
Circle side
Drudges, Overlords and Stormcallers represent the Wolves of Orboros units, one of which is ambushing.
Bloat Thralls are the Gallows Groves, advance deployed on either flank.
Haley2 on the left is Lord of the Feast.
Ravager Shaman on the right is Wolf With No Name.
Armless/Headless Grey Werewolf on the left is the Riphorn.
Huge Base is the Well.
Three Ravagers are War Wolves.
Minion Side
Ashlynn Mini-Crate Model on a Green/Black Large Base is one Void.
Tall as Nightbringer Model on a Green/Black Base on the right is the other Void.
Wrecker is the fourth Swamp Horror (Really thought I owned four. Go past me! Your purchasing decisions are only 98% as bad as you thought!).
Behind the regular Swamp Horror Model is......some Malifaux guy? Weird Grey Blob base? He has a robe, seemed good enough.
Sad Blue spike of lead at the back is the half Feralgeist. I do end up fixing it afterwards.
Round 1: Uno
Circle moves forward, mostly keeping parity with each other ultimately and without to many positioning reshuffles, with the exception of the Pew Pew Wold who darts to the right.
Wolf With No Name Preys Skarath.
Minion advance is much more stilted, ambushers are impending so I leave nothing interesting out on the left and have Dahlia go out the right, she's a natural messer of living model ambushers.
As soon as I started throwing Spells out I felt regret at not bringing the Soul Slave/Bone Shrine combo, Upkeeps may have to be extinguished early on or playing with low camp in mind.
Battlehost went up, I'd originally intended to Grave Win Skarath however the aggressive shift of the Pew Pew Wold, who is anti sweet delicious upkeeps, made the left Void a much better choice.
Swamp Horrors make a forward line at the top of my rectangle zone, other stuff chills behind it. Skarath puts up Counterblast and is turned to face the right edge.
Circle 2: That's just a Venn Diagram
One of the Wolves units had Mirage, which lets a few of them get charge range on the Swamp Horrors. They pop Power Swell and charge up, they do pretty terribly with the limited number that get in.
Most of the other stuff forms up behind the line of flags, a War Wolf popping to each flanking flag.
Right side one War Wolf goes in one a Swamp Horror, from memory does about 7 damage points (Hardest hitter in the game so far). The Ambushing unit does come in, then spreads out in an arc to avoid the Skarath Counterblast. Haunting Melody stops them going anywhere to dangerous.
A pair of Salt Pillars pop out, one between the water/fog, the other next to the obstruction. Basically trying to pin me in.
Sunhammer also goes up and proceeds to do nickel and dime damage for most of the game.
Minion 2: Oh yes, there will be tentacles
Alrighty, counter punch time. Nothing to amazing planning wise happening here, it's kill stuff and try to offer less to be eaten. Ideally pop the Power Swell munchkins. Get something into the enemy zone to contest.
Jaga shuffles over, pops Signs and Portents. I dropped Battle host to afford casting Ghost Walk on an Efaarit, in case I couldn't pop all the free strike potential models.
The three central Swampies go in, they clear out the front Wolves unit, two go high in Fury while another is empty in case of feat (Though for some weird Lego Spaceland reason my brain decided Mohsar had Sturm and Drangs feat. Weird. Similar principle to deal with anyway).
One Efaarit runs to contest, the other pops the Power Swell dude in the back Wolves unit.
Leftwise, The Void goes in, kills a Gallows Grove, Lord of the Feast and a War wolf then teleports to safety. Madness. This left a Gallows remaining in the vicinity, so a Feralgeist charged it and managed to pop it (Can kill trees but not Gremlins. Duly noted.).
A River Raider runs to score the left flag, hermit moves up in the general vicinity. I didn't need Ruin in the matchup, so had a vague motion of using him to contest next turn.
I couldn't quite clear the contestors on the centre flag so didn't bother putting anything to score.
Rightwise, the Void kills half the ambushers including the Power Swell guy and hugs the right board edge. Skarath sprays down the War Wolves, one blocking the Wrecker Swamp Horror the other sitting on the flag.
Wrecker Swamp Horror charges the Pew Pew Wold, misses a charging tentacle. Not a big deal, it was actually there to drag the Feral in. Alas, the dice for the earlier Swamp Horrors average out and though the Feral is mauled badly it is not rendered deceased.
Swamp Gobbers pop a cloud to hide the campless Jaga Jaga.
2-0 to me (left flag/zone).
Circle 3: Paradoxical names are annoying and synonymous with a busines model based on expansions
Mohsar feats and magic zaps the contesting Efaarit. The Riphorn goes over, contests the left flag and goes high in Fury to kill the Hermit with a stack of papercuts.
The Wolves Press Forward, one going in to toe my zone while his buddies kill the Swamp Gobbers.
Wold and Feral gank the Wrecker Swamp Horror, the Gallows popping over to the right flag, alas running out of ways to deal with the contesting Feralgeist.
The Ambush unit circles around Skarath and attempts some jabs, they roll appalingly. Wolf with No Name tries a shot on teh Snake and misses.
Circle score their zone, 2-1.
Minion 3: This is the tree hugger that goes squelch. *squelch*
Continuing to ride my tide of nonsense, the two Squids at threat of frenzing from Mohsars feat both pass their Threshold checks.
Jaga Signs and Portents, then Squid murder happens.
On the left a Squid and the Void kill the Riphorn and a few Wolves, Feralgiest takes the flag while the River Raider runs to contest.
Centrally the Void, two remaining Squids and the Efaarit kill.....the world? All the Wolves, Wolf with No Name, Gallows Grove, Pew Pew Wold and Feral are killed. The Wolves mostly to the spray and Overtaking Tentacles, the Feral had a slither of health at the time and the Wold just wasn't sturdy.
Feralgiests take the centre and right flags.
Skarath turns around and crit consumes the ambush unit down to two dudes.
I score 4 points courtesy of each flag having a Geist and my zone, win 6-1. Feel like their might be something to Swamp Horrors, though this was a dreadful matchup for the Circle list based on how those end turns went. Signs and Portents really made up for the 7's to hit points.
Concerns vis a vis the list is whether Ruin and Dark Shroud will give enough armour cracking, this isn't the matchup to test that.
Going to drop one Squid to free up some points, need the Fury management pieces plus something for Jaga to feat with.
