Friday, January 15, 2016

Trolls games 1 and 2

Ok. Got my trolls started and working on getting the bastards painted. Time to get some practice in with them.

First game was a battle box matchup against Retribution. I had:

Madrak
Axer
Impaler
Impaler

He had:
Ravyn
Daemon
Manticore

Seeing as how we weren't playing a scenario and he out gunned me, I lost this one pretty straight out. I did learn a lot about the fury mechanic and using it was a lot easier than I had originally thought. This brings me to one of the problems I have with the game. Some of the battle boxes for the Journeyman leagues are highly unbalanced. The Khador box for instance, is very strong. With Sorscha's feat freezing what little army you have to begin with, it's all downhill from there. Balance that against Madrak's feat, which basically does nothing in those point levels of games. There are alternate lists for the league and I'll be looking into the Doomshaper list as I don't think Madrak can compete at that point level.

Game two was against a Mercs list.

I brought:
Calandra
Runebearer
Slag troll x4
Storm Troll x3
Pyre Troll x3
Winter Troll
Krielstone bearer and Stone scribes
Stone scribe elder

I was up against:
Ashlynn D'Elyse
Anastasia di Bray
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution
Gorman di Wulfe
Doc Killingsworth
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator
Rhupert Carvolo
Savio Montero Acosta
Ogrun Bokur
Lady Aiyana and Master Holt
Greygore Boomhowler & Co.
Horgenhold Forge Guard
Mule
Rocinante

So basically a shit ton of solos and a couple of units.

Roll for deployment and I chose to go first. I put out my KSB unit, Calandra and rune bearer and that's it. Her tier list allows for advance deploy of all 11 of my beasts which really helped me to line up my beasts better on his line.

Game start and.........I have no clue what the hell I'm doing. I know Boomhowlers are assholes, Eiryss is a bitch and Gorman is a dick. That's about all I knew about his list. I walked up first turn and made my first two mistakes, which was I should have ran everyone forward and I didn't position my runebearer correctly. He has to activate before Calandra if I want anything out of him and I had him positioned behind her instead of in front. So if I wanted his ability, I couldn't move.

This was a very long match and I don't have all the details in my head so I'll skip most of the boring stuff and hit the highlights. My slag troll took out half of the Mules systems with just his shooting, yeah, they rock. My storm trolls arced lightning into his caster taking her to half health, my winter troll took out the Ogrun Bokur and put a hurt on his objective and my pyre trolls ended up taking out all his Forge guard. In the end he had The nearly dead Mule, Rocinante (hurt but still functioning) his caster and like two of his solos left. I had all 3 Pyres (very nearly dead), all 3 storms (relatively unhurt) a fresh Slag, my rune bearer and Calandra but I lost on control points.  My conclusion in all of this? EE is really, really powerful. Playing 11 points up on your opponent is quite an advantage, which sounds like a duh statement until you see just what a massive advantage it is. This list isn't unbeatable by any stretch of the imagination, but it did let someone who's brand new to the game nearly pull out a win even after massive mistakes. That's crazy. I'll be using this in tourneys and saving my fun games for other lists as this was not fun to play against for him.

11 comments:

  1. Have to admit I like the WM/H system, but REALLY did not like the "battle box" games... Like you said, the boxes are not even close to being balanced...

    Putting Ogres together, have to say I am less impressed with the way they are going together...

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  2. Yeah, not that impressed with PP's assembly at all. I had to pin my prime axiom more than 20 times to get it to stay together. Their new plastics though are amazing. Which faction are you playing?

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  3. Rhulic.... So, "Mercs" technically, just limiting myself to the Dwarves and Ogres... Still have huge Cygnar and Circle armies, just not so interesting to me at the moment... Still feeling like my Circle would be too powerful and Cygnar... Well, we shoot well... Not much else...

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    1. Cool. They have some really good units. Circle is powerful, but not as bad as they once were, once you know how to counter the stones. Cygnar, eh, don't know much of them outside Haley2 with a Stormwall.

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    2. Circle are a real glass hammer and as weak as the are powerful. One poor turn and they shatter. Seen it happen to me too many times.

      People lose their mind over the stones they are such a great support, but a one trick pony really. Good positioning can ruin their usefulness.

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  4. Elemental Calandra tier is really broken with all the extra points you can squeeze in there.

    The only reason anyone takes her is this list. You can see it already. Nobody was a real Calandra fan until this tier list made the rounds. Now it is the go to troll list for wins.

    Tier lists need a real tweak as they are either awesome or meh at best and force you to take sub optimal units a lot of the time before any real benefit.. There really is no in between.

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  5. The battle boxes are an odd lot. You sometimes get a great box, Cryx/Convergence for sure or you get a head scratcher.

    Khador isn't that strong. Sorscha has one turn and her feat is line o sight which can be taken advantage of. Plus their box is sooooo slooooow.
    I think the Cryx, Legion and Convergence boxes are much scarier.

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    1. I wouldn't be scared of the Convergence box. I've played it. Syntherion doesn't have the toys he needs at that level to help those jacks out the way they need it. They're really slow too.

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    2. He is a jack caster and can run very well for a starter kit. Overlook all the toys you know about now and just look at his box and it is descent to start. Reconstruct, auto repair, a free upkeep: not many battle boxes can tout those abilities. The galvanizer is the weak link, but he cipher is a good beatstick, and a boosted shot for auto knockdown on the mitigator is worthwhile at battlebox levels.

      Compare it to many other starters and Convergence has a really good starter.


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