Battle Report: Skorne (Morghoul) vs Trollbloods (Ragnor)

 This was a game a friend and I played at the local game store. I haven't had my ass kicked so badly in Warmachine in some time. Please, pull up a seat and some popcorn and enjoy the sad tale.

Skorne (The Exalted)

• Master Tormentor Morghoul
• Aptimus Marketh
• Agonizer
• Baslisk Krea
• Aradus Soldier
• Titan Gladiator
• Extoller Soulward
• Extoller Soulward
• Paingiver Beast Handlers (min)
• Paingiver Beast Handlers (min)
• Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew

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Trollbloods (Storm of the North)

• Ragnor Skysplitter, the Runemaster
• Trollkin Runebearer
• Dire Troll Mauler
• Troll Impaler
• Troll Impaler
• Troll Impaler
• Troll Basher
• Troll Whelps
• Troll Whelps
• Troll Whelps
• J.A.I.M.s

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Deployment 

Our scenario tonight was bunkers. We also rolled a terrain placement method which was promptly ignored in favor of wild randomness.

The terrain had a very tall cloud in the center of the board, and a lake on one side. The other terrain was noncentral and didn't play much of a part.

My opponent won the roll and chose to go first, and I chose the side with a wall and some fuel tanks to hide behind.

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Trollblood Turn 1  

A troll gets pulverize and the army runs.

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Skorne Turn 1  

A soulward runs behind the flanking forest. Gobbers run up and blow a smoke cloud, and Morghoul hides in it. The aradus soldier gets rush and abuse and runs forward behind the terrain cloud. The krea puts up a force aura.

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Trollblood Turn 2 

An impaler crit slams the aradus soldier back through the bellows crew, killing them. The rest of the trolls edge forward, and the J.A.I.M. moves up towards the flag.

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Skorne Turn 2  

A beast handler runs up around the corner of the administrative building, just barely within four inches of the flag.

An extoller soulward takes the flag, and the aradus soldier runs up to hide him. The krea hides behind the wall, and force auras to protect the other soulward and the agonizer.

(Skorne 2, Trollblood 1)

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Trollblood Turn 3  

An impaler rolls 1-1-3 and crit slams the aradus sentinel through the extoller soulward on the flag, killing it and putting ten damage on the ARM 23 soldier with a single shot.

A second impaler crit slams the titan gladiator back through two beast handlers and into the objective, killing the beast handlers. The slammed beast misses Morghoul by a hair's width.

The J.A.I.M. charges and kills the beast handler contesting the flag and sidesteps back onto the flag.

(Skorne 3, Trollblood 3)

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Skorne Turn 3 

I've left one too many fury on my beasts, so I roll to check frenzy, needing to roll an 8 or less, and I miss. The gladiator frenzies and hits my caster for eight damage. I transfer the damage to the agonizer.

Aptimus Marketh aims and boosts, killing the J.A.I.M. with a spirit eye shot.

Things are looking desperate. If I sit back, my entire army will be gone in two turns. So my army bricks up to protect the caster and runs forward. Morghoul feats.

(Skorne 4, Trollblood 4)

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Trollblood Turn 4  

Shockwave knocks down most of my army, and an impaler crit slams Morghoul, killing him.

(Trollblood Victory!)

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Final Thoughts

• I guess this is why certain terrain placement methods require a LOS-blocking piece of terrain near the center of the table. In this case, our LOS-blocking terrain was small, round, and trolls had the true sight objective. This meant that it prevented my titan gladiator from charging the impaler, but one impaler each turn could draw line of sight right through it.
• Impalers got at least one crit slam every single turn after turn one. The first slam killed the bellows crew, the second a solo who'd been scoring a flag, the third killed two beast handlers, and the fourth killed my caster.

Battle Report: Skorne (Morghul1) vs Khador (Old Witch 1)

Skorne (Masters of War)

• Master Tormentor Morghul
• Aptimus Marketh
• Cyclops Savage
• Cyclops Savage
• Cyclops Savage
• Titan Gladiator
• Paingiver Beast Handlers (max)

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Khador (Armored Corps)

• The Old Witch of Khador
• Scrapjack
• Destroyer
• Marauder
• Man-O-War Shocktroopers (max)

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Deployment 

The scenario we'd rolled was Recon II, which favored jacks and beasts.

The terrain had a large lake, tall grass, and a bush obstacle on the left, and a house, two forests, and rubble on the right.

I won the roll and chose the side with the house to hide behind. My opponent decided to go first.

My opponent chose the wreckage objective, as always, and I chose fuel depot for pathfinder - useful with the giant forest nearby.

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Khador Turn 1 

Scrapjack runs behind the bush. The rest of Khador runs up as best it's able. Man-O-Wars get Iron Flesh.

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Skorne Turn 1 

A cyclops gets rush and abuse and runs up into position to charge next turn. Aptimus Marketh and Morghul hide behind the building, and the titan sneaks around.

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Khador Turn 2 

The destroyer and man-o-wars roll obscenely well and shoot out the lead cyclops entirely.

My opponent forgets that Aptimus Marketh's shots are ghost shots, and puts up a murder of crows in front of the house.

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Skorne Turn 2 

A cyclops gets enrage, abuse, and admonition, and charges into the shield wall, killing the objective and one man-o-war. Beast handlers try to move to contest the zone but can't get there through the forest. The last remaining cyclops blocks for Morghul. The titan backs up to avoid being charged.

Each player scores one zone.

(Skorne 2, Khador 1)

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Khador Turn 3 

Man-O-Wars surround and destroy the cyclops. One Man-O-War's arm falls off. The marauder toes the zone, inviting a charge.

The Old Witch feats to prevent anyone from entering her zone. Khador scores that zone.

(Skorne 2, Khador 2)

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Skorne Turn 3 

The titan gets enrage and admonition and kills the marauder. A cyclops charges and kills a single Man-O-War, leaving a second on one box. One of the hits was a crit because I needed a five to hit and rolled a 3, then future sight boosted and rolled a second 2. Morghul hides behind the building. Beast handlers were unable to contest the zone because of Old Witch's feat.

(Skorne 3, Khador 3)

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Khador Turn 4 

Man-O-Wars do their thing and destroy another cyclops. Old Witch puts up a murder of crows in front of the house.

(Skorne 4, Khador 4)

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Skorne Turn 4 

Aptimus Marketh shoots a man-o-war. Then the beast handlers press forward. Two run into the zone, one charges the man-o-war with a single box, missing. The titan kills two man-o-wars, but realizes too late that he's now left the zone, and it doesn't get scored.

(Skorne 4, Khador 4)

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Khador Turn 5 

Scrapjack runs up, Old Witch channels gallows and pulls the titan B2B with scrapjack, the man-o-war runs around behind the titan, and then the destroyer destroys the titan.

(Skorne 4, Khador 5)

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Skorne Turn 5 

Morghul gives himself admonition and moves to score the flag. Marketh shoots at the destroyer, needing a 5 to hit, and misses. Beast handlers charge.

(Skorne 5, Khador 5)

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Khador Turn 6 

Scrapjack charges and kills Aptimus Marketh. The destroyer walks over and kills the beast handler in the zone, and Yuri the one-armed man-o-war charges and kills another beast handler, ending right next to Morghul, contesting the flag.

Khador scores two.

(Skorne 5, Khador 7)

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Skorne Turn 6 

Two beasts handlers run to engage Old Witch. One attacks Yuri the one-armed man-o-war. Morghul moves up along the zone and feats.

(Skorne 5, Khador 8)

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Khador Turn 7 

Due to Morghul's feat, Khador cannot spend focus this turn. We misinterpreted the feat slightly in that it should have affected only non-warcaster models.

Yuri kills the beast handler harassing him. The destroyer takes a single unboosted attack on Morghul, needing a 9 to hit, and of course he hits. A miss would have let Morghul dodge two inches away and secured a victory.

Old Witch kills a beast handler and leaves the zone.

(Skorne 5, Khador 9)

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Skorne Turn 7 

With only two models on the board, and ready to lose on points if there were another round in the game, an assassination is my only choice. It's doable, as long as the free strike misses. Morghul walks away from the destroyer, and its free strike needs a 7 with the rear arc bonus. Morghul dies.

(Khador Victory!)

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Final Thoughts

• Swingy dice were, as always a factor. After the game ended, we rolled out the assassination out of curiosity. Morghul would have managed to kill Old Witch.
• I had a habit in this game of sending in beasts one by one and having them killed one by one. With buffs that cost two fury and a five fury caster, it isn't possible to buff all my beasts at once, but perhaps I need to stop relying on admonition to keep my beasts alive, as it has never once worked.

Battle Report: Ragnor Skysplitter vs Master Tormentor Morghul

I've started a new faction: Skorne. And my friends are getting into Trollbloods and Crucible Guard, so our new armies will be making some appearances here over the coming days and months.

We decided to try a game at the FLGS rather than in one of our homes. I brought Morghul, and my friend brought Ragnor.

Skorne (Masters of War)

• Master Tormentor Morghul
• Aptimus Marketh
• Cyclops Savage
• Cyclops Savage
• Cyclops Savage
• Titan Gladiator
• Paingiver Beast Handlers (max)

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My opponent's Trollbloods army was:

 

 

Trollbloods (Storm of the North)

• Ragnor Skysplitter, the Runemaster
• Trollkin Runebearer
• Troll Bouncer
• Troll Impaler
• Troll Axer
• Storm Troll
• Troll Whelps
• Troll Whelps
• Troll Whelps
• Valka Curseborn, Chieftain of the North
• Troll Whelps

 

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 As you can likely tell, we were playing 15 point lists, since neither of us yet owns much of our new factions. With such small armies, we just threw a single zone in the center of the table rather than rolling a Steamroller scenario.

I won the roll and decided to go first.

Skorne Turn 1

Skorne runs forward. Two cyclops get rush and end up in the zone.

Trollbloods Turn 1

Trolls move up. The impaler throws a giant sharpened telephone pole and injures one of the cyclops savages. Valka gets pummel.

Skorne Turn 2

The cyclops that got impaled moves back and has his boo boos medicated by beast handlers.

One of the beast handlers enrages a cyclops, and Morghul gives that cyclops abuse and admonition. The cyclops then charges forward to stab the impaler who hurt his friend. This is where things get weird.

Valka countercharges before the cyclops can attack. But then I remember admonition, and the cyclops backs away from the countercharge before it hits, then completes his charge attack. Yeah, weird. The impaler ends up wounded.

Trollbloods Turn 2

The impaler boosts a spear into Morghul, hitting. Morghul uses his only transfer to move the damage to the cyclops that had just gotten medicated.

The storm troll shoots lightning at the cyclops, and the lightning generator leaps hit Morghul and the titan. The third and final leap kills Aptimus Marketh.

The axer headbuts the cyclops and knocks him down, allowing Valka, a weaponmaster, to charge Morghul without taking a free strike. He does so and misses, then Morghul dodges back into the smoke cloud. A hit likely would have ended the game. Valka's second attack hurts a cyclops.

The brawler beats on the cyclops, but the cyclops survives. The rune bearer hex blasts the cyclops for good measure.

Skorne Turn 3

The cyclops in the back gets healed by beast handlers and charges Valka, killing him.

Morghul moves up behind the forest, feats, heals the knocked down cyclops, and it stands up and maxxes out its fury pounding on beasts.

Then another cyclops charges in, hacks away, and does lots of damage but kills nothing. Lots of whelps pop out.

The titan gladiator positions forward.

Trollbloods Turn 3

Ragnor isn't able to pull all the fury off his beasts, and both the storm troll and the axer frenzy. The storm troll smacks the axer, and the axer kills a whelp.

The brawler eats a different whelp, heals, and kills a cyclops. The impaler moves around the crater and throws a spear at Morghul, who transfers the damage to his whipping boy cyclops.

Ragnor feats this turn, which means that I'll be rolling one fewer damage die next turn.

Skorne Turn 4

The cyclops nearly maxxes his fury and thanks to Ragnor's feat barely manages to take out a whelp.

With that whelp gone, the titan gladiator slams the axer. It misses Ragnor by a half millimeter, but it does die. The gladiator takes a free strike while using his follow-up move, but ends next to Ragnor, and when Ragnor transfers titan's damage to the storm troll, the storm troll pops like a pimple. A cyclops finishes off the axer, and the other cyclops charges the impaler, failing to kill it.

 Trollbloods Turn 4

The troll brawler kills the cyclops savage. The troll impaler charges out of melee to try to hit the titan gladiator and dies to a free strike from the remaining cyclops.

Ragnor attacks the titan and leaves it on three boxes.

Skorne Turn 5

The titan gladiator gets abuse from Morghul, and the abuse spell damages the Titan for two points. If it had done 3 damage, it would have killed the titan. Then Morghul heals the Titan's crippled aspects, and it beats Ragnor to death.

Victory Skorne!

 

Final Thoughts

• This was a pretty close game, and because we're both new to Hordes, we both forgot things. I kept forgetting about the cyclops savages' future sight, and my opponent forgot lots of Troll rules which may have let him win. But we're learning.
• The round that the trolls frenzied really hurt my opponent. I'll need to keep this in mind in the future, as I have lots of models which can add fury to enemy beasts.