Dice. For thousands of years, they've lent randomness to our games. But in a multiverse of infinite possibilities, just as infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters must inevitably produce the complete works of William Shakespeare, there must also exist a world in which two Warmachine players roll nothing but snake eyes for an entire game. If neither player can hit the other, how can the game ever end? Of course, you'll never see rolls that bad at your friendly local game shop. They only happen in... The Twilight Zone.
Tyrant Xerxes (Masters of War)
- Tyrant Xerxes
- Titan Gladiator
- Basilisk Krea
- Basilisk Drake
- Extoller Soulward
- Extoller Soulward
- The Wastelander
- Praetorian Swordsmen (max)
- Praetorian Swordsmen Officer & Standard
- Praetorian Keltarii (max) (partially painted)
- Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew
Trollbloods (Power of Dhunia)
- Ragnor Skysplitter, the Runemaster
- Trollkin Runebearer
- Troll Impaler
- Troll Impaler
- Troll Impaler
- Dire Troll Blitzer
- Troll Whelps
- Troll Whelps
- Troll Whelps
- Troll Whelps
- Troll Whelps
- General 'Thunderstone' Brug
- Krielstone Bearer and Stone Scribes (one model proxied)
- Stone Scribe Elder
- Pyg Bushwhackers
- Pyg Bushwhackers Officer & Mortar
Deployment
This was a game we played at the FLGS. The scenario was Split Decision.
Because the terrain method rolling discord bot I'd written was out of order, we did the good old quadrant method. The three big obstacles around the edges of the zone and the barrel scatter terrain were the most relevant pieces.
My opponent won the roll and chose to go first. I picked the side with a wall to hide behind near the flag.
Troll Turn 1
Trollbloods run forward, the bushwhackers taking position along the edge of the zone to avoid being jammed out.
Skorne Turn 1
The keltari get defenders ward and an order from Xerxes, going to speed 9 and running into the bushwhackers' faces to jam.
The rest of the Skorne army edges forward.
Trollblood Turn 2
The bushwhackers slip away through the line of keltari and shoot them in the back, killing four.
A mortar shot kills drifts and kills some praetorian swordsmen, and an impaler moves up and kills more keltari. Ragnor feats.
Skorne Turn 2
My initial thought is that I can feat here and kill lots of trolls. Before the feat, I have the drake move up and spray bushwhackers, killing three. He's now in the way, but I can energize him out of my charge lane, right?
I start looking at charge lanes for the swordsmen, and it looks like no matter what, I can get only two of them onto a single impaler. Is that worth the feat? I decide not. Instead, I move defenders ward from the keltari to the swordsmen.
The swordsmen charge, doing next to nothing. The two keltari move to get in the way of warbeasts. The bellows crew blows smoke and then uses tactical supremacy to reposition behind it. And lastly, the gladiator moves up into the smoke. My thought was that the keltari would prevent the trollkin beasts from getting to him, but honestly I should have known better.
Each side scores a flag.
(Trollbloods 1, Skorne 1)
Trollblood Turn 3
Round three is when the curse of the dice begins. The swordsmen are now DEF15 thanks to defenders ward, and bad rolls dictate that the trolls are only able to remove one of them. Most of the trollblood's energy is dedicated to removing the two cetrati preventing the Dire Troll Blitzer from charging the titan gladiator. In the end, Ragnor has to intervene, boosting a hex blast to kill the last cetrati.
The blitzer gets pulverize and charges, and the curse of the dice dictates that he misses his charge on the DEF10 gladiator. Please note that we've inverted the blitzer's facing because the beasts' arms don't allow for B2B contact otherwise. Further blitzer attacks hit, beating the gladiator back until it hits a bellows crew gobber, and the blitzer boosts an attack at the now in-reach Wastelander, but that also misses. In the end, the gladiator lives.
(Trollbloods 2, Skorne 2)
Skorne Turn 3
Finally, at the bottom of turn three, Skorne is about to get an alpha. But the curse of the dice persists. After the soulwards take their shots, Xerxes activates and feats, energizering the krea out from behind the rock and feating. The drake and the krea then charge an impaler, and proceed to miss everything. Due to flank and the feat, the krea would have been making a 5 dice attack on the charge and 4 dice for everything else. In the end, their fury is maxxed out and the impaler lives.
The gladiator strikes back against the blitzer, hitting most of the time, but rolling mostly ones and twos for damage. In the end, despite Xerxes' feat, the blitzer is left with a single box.
Praetorian Swordsmen charge, and again do very little despite the feat. Thankfully, one swordsman who charges a whelp kills it and is able to sidestep and take his second strike against the blitzer, doing a single point of damage and killing it.
(Trollbloods 3, Skorne 3)
Trollblood Turn 4
An impaler smiles and throws a gigantic sharpened telephone pole at the gladiator. It travels at railgun speeds and crit slams the wounded gladiator back into the wall, making a widow of his titan wife Susan.
The impalers in the zone stab at swordsmen and baslisks, mostly missing. They do end up killing the drake, but in order to finish the job Ragnor has to move forward and help.
(Trollbloods 4, Skorne 4)
Skorne Turn 4
Swordsmen and a soulward are able to take out an impaler, and the other soulward damages the impaler who made a widow of the gladiator's wife.
The krea scratches at the impaler but is unable to do anything.
(Trollbloods 5, Skorne 5)
Trollblood Turn 5
A troll impaler charges, and together with the other impaler they kill the krea and nearly clear the zone, but for the lone flag-bearer whom I'd thought was useless.
(Trollbloods 6, Skorne 6)
Skorne Turn 5
Skorne has no beasts left, and no real chance to win on points, so after the soulwards take shots, Xerxes energizers himself off the flag and charges an impaler. The round leaves both impalers dead, but Xerxes is wide open to attack from Ragnor. Defenders Ward should help.
(Trollbloods 7, Skorne 6)
Trollblood Turn 6
Ragnor charges and his boosted charge attack misses. His follow-up knocks Xerxes down, but the auto-hitting attacks after that fail to do enough damage due to absurdly poor rolls.
(Trollbloods 8, Skorne 6)
Skorne Turn 6
With the game store closing in four minutes, I rush through the round. Xerxes stands up and attacks, soulwards shoot, the wastelander charges. Ragnor lives.
(Trollbloods 9, Skorne 6)
Trollblood Turn 7
Holy hell. This is just ridiculous. We've mostly finished putting away our models on each others' turns.
Ragnor takes some attacks and finally kills Xerxes. Thank goodness.
(Trollbloods Victory!)
Final Thoughts
- Going first was a big deal for Trollbloods this game. If I'd gone first, I could have jammed him out of the zone and gone for a scenario win. Although now that I think of it, perhaps the pygs could have slipped away directly through my models at some point to contest.
- Seriously, the dice were bonkers on both sides.
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