Tourney prep Game: Grissel vs Kreuger 550pts

So I got my first prep game in since starting this blog last night, a 550pt match against Kreuger. The lineups were:

Grissel Bloodsong
Pyre Troll
Winter Troll
Bouncer
Fell Caller
Hero
Long Riders (3)
Champions (5)

Kreuger the Stormwrath
Warpwolf
Megalith
Blackclad Wayfarer
Wolves of Oberos (6)
Tharn Bloodtrackers (6)
Gatormen Posse (3)
Farrow Bone Grinders (4)

The terrain setup had some woods on the middle left, a rock formation on the middle right, a hill at the center of each deployment zone and a building in the center of the battlefield. My opponent won the roll and forced me to set up and go first.

I set up my champs in the center of the battlefield with the hero and fell caller just behind them, flanked by the Pyre and Winter trolls, with the Long Riders to the right of them and Grissel and the Bouncer just behind the champs.

My opponent curiously opted to deploy his entire force in his top right corner in a box formation, obviously intending to use the woods as an annoyance against me. He set the bloodtracker's prey as the champs.

Turn 1
The champs ran up alongside the the right hand side of the building followed by the Winter Troll, Fell Caller and Hero. The Long Riders ran across the front of my deployment zone towards the woods in the center of the table. Grissel used Hoof it on the Long Riders and ran up along with the Bouncer around by the building. The pyre Troll runs up to the left of the building, using the corner of it for cover. The Long Riders used their Hoof it movement to get a little closer to the woods (about 16 inches away).

As predicted, my opponent runs his blood trackers into the woods to protect them from charges, uses the Bone Grinders to boost his spell range, and walks up Megalith to cast Forked Lightning at the Pyre Troll, boosts his attack roll and misses the DEF17 pyre. Kreuger walks up and tries his luck, boosts his attack and scores a hit, arcing onto one long rider. He chooses to boost both damage rolls, scoring 6 damage on the Pyre and no damage at all on the long rider. His Wolves run up to interpose themselves between the champions and Kreuger, with the Gatormen posse running up just behind them. The Warpwolf runs up behind Kreuger ready to jump into the action as needed. The blackclad wayfarer runs up to the edge of the woods.

Turn 2
I start off by activating the Pyre Troll, who walks up and has a spit at Kreuger, but sadly finds himself about half inch out of range, the scatter deviates onto the gatormen but doesn't do a lot. I then run the Bouncer up about seven inches short of Kreuger and turn his back to him to face Grissel, who promptly charges him and misses (hooray!) and pops her feat, catching Kreuger, Megalith, the Wolves, the Wayfarer and the Gatormen in her control area, as well as the entirety of my army except for the Fell Caller. The Long Riders run right up to the edge of the woods, while the Champs, Winter Troll, Hero and Fell Caller all run up around the building. Hoof it movement brings 2 of the Long Riders into the woods, while the other has enough movement to get around the back of the woods engaging all of the Tharn Bloodtrackers between them. The Pyre moves to interpose himself between Grissel, the Bouncer and the Warpwolf, while the Champs and Hero walk up about 4 inches away from the Wolves of Oberos. The Winter Troll follows up just behind them.

My feat has caught my opponent cold, he activates the Bloodtrackers first who all attack the Long Riders and bounce off them without causing any damage. Next he activates Megalith, who walks through the forest to attack the Long Rider engaging the bloodtrackers from the rear, missing his first two attacks, hitting and doing six damage with his first purchased attack, then forcing three consecutive successful tough rolls with his remaining fury. The blackclad wayfarer charges another long rider, but misses with his charge attack. This forces Kreuger to move in to attack the same long rider as the wayfarer, boosting his to hit roll and scoring a hit, but a string of boosted damage rolls only succeeds in bringing the long rider down to one wound remaining. The warpwolf takes the bait and charges the Pyre Troll, taking him down but leaving his back exposed to the champions. The wolves retreat six inches from the champions and the gatormen pull back as well dropping a swamp between the champs and the wolves. Anticipating the possible loss of the warpwolf he conga lines his bone grinders from the warpwolf to Kreuger.

Turn 3
Grissel activates first, boosts an attack roll with calamity against the warpwolf but misses, then resigns herself to firing a shot with her handcannon at him, also promptly missing before using heroic ballad on the long riders, leaving herself with 2 fury just in case of a Kreuger assassination run. The Winter Troll advances and uses his breath attack against the warpwolf from behind, scoring the critical frost and using his animus on the nearest champion. The fell caller then uses pathfinder on the champs who just run through the swamp, before the hero charges through the swamp killing two wolves with his backswing attacks. The champs then run past the hero forming a defensive line facing the remaining wolves and the gatormen, with the nearest champion standing behind the immobile warpwolf. The long riders activate, the leader killing two bloodtrackers, the one engaging the megalith hitting twice, scoring 6 damage off his body, and the other engaging Kreuger decided to take some shots at the Stormwrath himself, missing once but scoring a hit on the second attack, dishing out 7 damage which he cannot transfer because both his beasts are maxed out on fury. The Bouncer charges the warpwolf, taking two free whacks with his reach weapon but leaving his last fury point free for transfers.

Faced with his warpwolf unable to move, he activates him first and just pops +2ARM warping hoping it will save him next turn. The bloodtrackers try to kill the two long riders who are each on 1 wound, but cannot get through their armour values. Megalith (who he could only leach 1 fury from as he took 4 from the warpwolf) misses with a boosted forked lightning against the long rider engaging him, and proceeds to also miss with both melee attacks against the ninja long rider facing him in combat, this bison knows how to duck and weave! Kreuger activates and spams more melee attacks, finally killing the long Rider before camping his last 2 focus points. 3 of the remaining wolves charge the end champion, with the leader having a line of sight to the hero so chooses to charge him. The 3 wolves together just about manage to kill the champion, while the leader takes 3 damage off the hero, who proceeds to smack him into the dirt with his retaliatory strike. The gatormen charge in as well, managing to miss with every charge attack, scoring only one tail slap hit for no damage and one polearm hit for 2 damage to one champ. The wayfarer, warpwolf, 3 bonegrinders all find themselves stationary thanks to freezer.

Turn 4
Grissel activates first, casting calamity on the now DEF5 warp wolf and shooting it with her handcannon, again keeping 2 fury on herself just in case and using heroic ballad again on the long riders. The Fell Caller charges two wolves, killing one with his charge attack and missing the other, but does his job in triggering inspire on the hero and champions. Two champs move into the back of the warpwolf while the remaining two stay in melee combat with the gatormen, the two on the warpwolf proceed to murder him boosting up the concern bonus for the two fighting the gatormen, killing one normal gatorman and the bokur in the process. The winter troll sees an opportunity and advances close enough to use his breath attack, killing two stationary bone grinders, the blackclad wayfarer and chooses to boost his to hit roll against Kreuger, scoring a hit! Its an unexpected bonus and so I choose to boost my damage roll figuring I can whittle him down enough for a long rider or hero to finish him off, but the winter troll only goes and rolls a 17 for his damage roll, putting the Stormwrath permanently on ice.

Thoughts
In this game the mobility of Grissel's force paid off, and the gamble of charging the bouncer and triggering her feat crippled the enemy force leaving my whole army able to move up without taking any damage.

Grissel: Did well, whiffed a boosted calamity attack roll which should have been a foregone conclusion but besides that, she managed to catch my enemy cold with the sudden speed of my army. Didn't really do much killing, just threw around the buffs and debuffs to let my troops do the heavy lifting for me.

Pyre Troll: Didn't do much, but then again he didn't need to. I used him as a sacrifice to draw out the warpwolf and had the unexpected bonus of him requiring the warpwolf to use up his entire fury allowance to kill it.

Winter Troll: Ultimately he was the game winner in this match, he single handedly brought about the death of the warpwolf as well as scoring the very lucky hit on Kreuger that ended the game.

Bouncer: My enemy never did go for the throat against Grissel, but then again he was forced into a corner the whole match and was forced to react to my army the whole game. As a result the bouncer didn't need to do much, just walked around a bit and took a few free whacks at the immobilised warpwolf.

Long Riders: It was a bit of a gamble taking them in a 550pt game alongside the champions, but they effectively neutralised the bloodtrackers, wayfarer and Megalith for the whole match. So they made back easily over double their points value. No devastating cavalry charge, but against circle hiding in the woods it was never likely to happen anyway.

Champions: Did what they were good at and did it well, taking on the remaining wolves, the gatormen and the warpwolf and proceeding to tear them apart. A solid inclusion who always do well for themselves.

Fell Caller: Did his part, threw around a few buffs and even got to kill something for once. Without pathfinder the champion with freezer on him would never have reached the warpwolf.

Hero: Didn't get to do a lot, just killed 3 wolves but was in a good position to charge Kreuger (at an effective MAT of 11 and POW14) so if the winter troll hadn't finished him off, the Hero probably would have.