Facing the newest iteration of Vlad is a Zaal list that I took from Chain Attack. If you like zappy attacks that ignore line of sight, having your own people benefit you more in death than they did in life, and a magical ghost that can threaten your opponent in completely oblique ways, this is a list for you. If you want to hear how the Chain Attack guys did with it, you should check out their Episode 104, where Zaal takes on pSkarre.
Can all the horses handle all that ranged firepower? Read on and find out.
Vladimir Tzepesci, Great Prince of Umbrey
The List
Vladimir Tzepesci, Great Prince of Umbrey (Vlad3) (50+5)
Drago
Kodiak
Greylord Outriders (Leader and 4 Grunts)
Iron Fang Uhlans (Leader and 4 Grunts)
Iron Fang Uhlans (Leader and 2 Grunts)
Fenris
Kovnik Markov
Man-o-War Drakhun (with dismount)
Infernal Machine buffs a 'jack. Hand of Fate probably goes on the bigger group of Uhlans but can be moved around depending on the situation. Dash probably gets cast every turn to increase the spell of all the horses.
Supreme Aptimus Zaal & Kovaas
Today's scenario is "Rally Point". In Rally Point, there are two 12" diameter zones as you can see above. There are also two objectives (Effigies of Valor). The objective closest to each player is a friendly Faction model. At the end of each player's turn, starting with the second player's second turn, scoring takes place:
Effigy - Friendly model/units within 2" of this model gain Fearless. This model counts as a warcaster/warlock for the purposes of dominate and contest.
Transport - If a friendly warcaster/warlock dominates this objective, this model can be placed within 5" of its current location once during the dominating warcaster/warlock's turn.
Our tactical tips point out that since the Effigy counts as a warcaster/warlock for purposes of dominating and contesting a zone, it can dominate a zone but cannot contest it. Ok. So why tell us it counts for purposes of doing something it cannot do? The second tactical tip is only the active player scores when multiple players dominate the same zone, flag, or objective.
The central forest can help or hurt us. We can take advantage of it with our ranged stuff thanks to Eyeless Sight, but our infantry blocks will hate it. The Swordsmen go on the right, with the plan to move in towards the middle. The Immortals will be on the left and head towards the gap. Ranged stuff goes behind the forest, as does Zaal. The Guardians and Hakaar take advantage of Advanced Deployment just to get up the field a little and clear the deployment zones.
Note: All references to left and right are referenced from the diagrams, not from any player perspective.
Vlad3 Turn One
Looking at the enemy deployment, those Extollers are a serious threat. With SPD 6 and a 12" gun (thanks to Snipe), they can threaten all the way to the friendly side of the central forest. The other match ups seem fine. The Outriders will love facing those packed together Swordsmen. Fenris and the Drakhun have the speed to ensure they get the alpha strike on the Immortals, and the feat to get them back to safety after. Uhlans can clear or contest zones and take the hits, keeping cavalry solos safer.
Vlad3 will activate first. He has 7 focus and wants to get both his upkeeps out on the board. He throws Infernal Machine on the Kodiak and Hand of Fate on the larger unit of Uhlans on his right. He also tosses out Dash, leaving him with 1.
He has SPD 8, but he doesn't necessarily want to be up as far as the rest of his army. He moves up a bit, trying to keep friendlies within range of Dash. Unfortunately, Fenris can't be kept in the bubble.
The Outriders are FAST. They run up the board, moving up to 18". They only have to worry about an Ancestral Guardian popping off a "Soul Driven", taking it's effective threat to 11". Not a big deal. Say hello to the middle of the board, Greylords.
Fenris doesn't benefit from Dash, but he's still SPD 8. He'll swing out left, keeping an eye on that gap in the trees, and staying away from scaring his own side. While Markov does have Inspiration [Iron Fang Uhlans], never fleeing and immediately rallying is not the same thing as being Fearless.
The Drakhun does benefit from Dash so he's up to SPD 8. He moves up the side as well, as do the left Uhlans. Both 'jacks hustle up the middle of the board thanks to free run moves and +2 SPD on the first turn.
The other group of Uhlans run up in front of the 'jacks. They have Relentless Charge on the charge, so they don't care as much about the walls as Drago does.
Zaal Turn One
So this doesn't look promising. All those horses got up the board in a hurry and almost all of them are going to be SPD 9, charging 12", and with Reach weapons. What Zaal needs to focus on is getting up the field but mitigating how much damage that initial charge is going to do. We know we're going to get double charged because of the feat, but can Zaal make that first charge minimally effective? And how do we keep those Outriders from devastating the Swordsmen?
The Swordsmen move up and spread out, but it probably won't be enough. Two Guardians and Hakaar hide behind them. The other Guardian moves up, but mostly just clears a path for the Immortals, who then run up. They did start within the CMD range of a Guardian, obviously, so they get +2" of Movement, taking them up to a run of 10". One Immortal goes to the side to get within range of Zaal for Inviolable Resolve.
Zaal activates. He uses Soul Converter to give the Guardians and Hakaar one soul token each. He moves up enough to cast Inviolable Resolve on that Immortal, giving that entire unit +2 ARM.
Measuring his control range, he find that the lead Uhlan on the right is within 12". That gives him the option of using Snipe on himself to fire off a Spirit Eye attack. However, that would take 2 fury plus another one to boost damage, and that's just silly. He's not going to end a turn with just 1 fury. He ends his activation after dumping 1 fury to get down to 3.
The Cyclops Raider isn't going to have range on anyone this turn, even if he uses Snipe. He moves up and ends his activation, preparing for next turn.
The Extoller Soulwards move up to get into positions to take shots next turn.
The Cyclops Shaman moves up, casts the Raider's animus on the Cannoneer, and ends his activation.
The Cannoneer is up and he's scoots up 4". That same Uhlan that Zaal could have targeted is within his extended 16" range. He'll take the shot and boost the to-hit.
The shot hits and the 4" AOE can clip two neighboring Uhlans as well. They weren't in Defensive Live, so they'll be ARM 17. The model under is going to take a POW 15 shot while the others will suffer POW 8s. In order to try to get rid of one model instead of just putting damage on multiple targets, the Cannoneer boosts the damage on the directly hit model. A terrible roll of (2,3,1) means the Uhlan only takes 4, leaving him with 1 health. The other two Uhlans take no damage from their hits either.
Aptimus Marketh is last to go. He has the Spell Slave *Action:
Spell Slave (*Action): This model must be in its warlock's control area to make the Spell Slave special action. When it does, it casts one of its warlock's spells with a COST of 3 or less. The warlock is considered to have cast that spell but this model is its point of origin. When making a magic attack roll, this model uses its warlock's FURY. This model cannot cast spells with a RNG of SELF or CTRL.
He uses this to cast Awakened Spirit on the Shaman:
Awakened Spirit: COST 2, RNG 6, Upkeep: Target warbeast in this model's battlegroup can use its animus once during its activations without being forced. A warbeast that uses its animus as a result of Awakened Spirit cannot also be forced to use it animus that activation.
This is pretty nice when combined with the Shaman's ability to use any friendly Faction warbeasts' animus along as that 'beast is within his CMD of 7".
Vlad3 Turn Two
Initially looking at the board, this looks like a perfect setup for Vlad. Those infantry aren't bunched together shoulder-to-shoulder, but the feat grants Side Step. There's also a lot of valid spray targets for the Outriders. However, for Vlad to maximize the amount of models in his bubble, he's going to have to move up. If he moves up, he's within range of 3 forest-ignoring Annihilating Gazes and the Shaman's Evil Eye. Taking out all that infantry doesn't matter if he dies to the few remaining Skorne solos next turn. Oh well. If this was going to be easy, it wouldn't be worthy of a Battle Report write-up.
Vlad re-fills his focus and then upkeeps Infernal Machine. It's time to look at this from a different point of view. While it would be nice to give everyone on the board the benefit of his presence, that's just not possible. Doing so would put him at too much risk. And is it really necessary? Let's do this instead...
Vlad activates first. He uses his 8 SPD to get over to the right. He gets within range of the Outriders to cast Hand of Fate on them. It drops off the Uhlans.
Hand of Fate: COST 2, RNG 6, Upkeep: Target friendly Faction model/unit gains an additional die on attack and damage rolls. Discard the low die in each roll.
How do you make up for the low magic rating of 6 on the Greylord Outriders? Give them an extra die to roll. He then casts Dash again, giving all friendly Faction warrior models activating in his control area +1 SPD and immunity to free strikes. He ends his turn camping 2 and NOT using his feat.
One of the things I've heard on a few podcasts now is that control feats are more powerful if you can hold them until later in the game. Vlad3's feat is most definitely a control feat in many ways. He wants to control who strikes first (and second). Skorne is slow and, while they have some really dangerous shooting on the board, they still need to punch people too. If the rest of this turn is played carefully, they won't be able to punch too many Khadorans during Zaal's next go.
Enough talk. Let's spray some Skorne. The Outriders now activate and move with SPD 10, making sure to stay just outside of the reach of the Ancestral Guardian with his Defensive Strike ability.
Frostbite (*Attack) - Frostbite is a RNG SP 8 magic attack. Models hit suffer a POW 12 cold dmage roll.
The left Outrider sprays at the Ancestral Guardian, also clipping Zaal and the Cannoneer. The Guardian takes 3 damage. Zaal takes 4 on a (2,2,2) roll, which he transfers to the Raider. The Cannoneer takes 3.
The second Outrider sprays at the Swordsman, catching that same Guardian, Hakaar, and Zaal as well. The Swordsman dies and the soul goes to Hakaar. The Guardian takes 2 more damage. The spray bounces off Hakaar and Zaal manages to dodge, his DEF 15 keeping him safe.
The third Outrider misses the first Swordsman, kills the second (the unit Leader, not that it matters), and bounces off Hakaar and the Cannoneer. The soul goes to one of the Extollers.
Outrider number four picks off three Swordsmen, including the Standard Bearer. Souls get distributed to both Extollers, filling them up.
Number five kills one more Swordsman and puts 2 damage on the rightmost Guardian. A soul gets distributed to that same Guardian by Zaal. The leadership test for the Swordsmen is easily passed and the Outriders make their 5" light cavalry move. They form a wall of bodies in front of the Uhlans and the entire right side of the battle field.
The right Uhlans move, getting into a Defensive Line formation. Drago moves up a little (moving less than normal to make up for moving too far last turn). Markov moves next to the Uhlans, forming a solid wall of armored horsemen. Kodiak takes advantage of Pathfinder and runs into the woods, threatening to come through the treeline like the Kool-Aid Man next turn. For the most part, Vlad seems willing to sacrifice the Outriders in order to have the Uhlans in turns 3 and 4.
On the left side of the board, Vlad is going to "flip the script". Instead of using things to protect Uhlans, he's going to let the Uhlans get up in the mix and form the front. Fenris and the Drakhun move back and to the left, freeing lanes for the three Uhlans.
The right Uhlan is going to benefit from Dash, so he'll be SPD 9. The others are SPD 8 and thus will charge 11".
Impact attacks are first and happen at the end of each model's movement, in this case. They do not benefit from the +2 to attack rolls made when cavalry models charge. This means the Uhlans need 6s to hit and 8s to wound. Three straight misses: (2,3), (4,1), (1,3).
Well, at least there are the lances. But first, there's Defensive Strike by that Ancestral Guardian. He hits, but only does 1 damage.
With the lances, the Uhlans only need 4s to hit. Unfortunately, the Uhlan's cold dice didn't warm up:
Zaal Turn Two
Hakaar the Destroyer has an ability called Righteous Vengeance:
Righteous Vengeance - If one or more friendly Faction warrior models were destroyed or removed from play by enemy attacks while within 5" of this model during your opponent's last turn, after resolving continuous effects during your Maintenance Phase, this model can make a full advance followed by one normal melee attack.
He moves, but it's not enough take him within reach of that lead Outrider.
The Immortals have normal Vengeance, and that's probably going to make life miserable for those three Uhlans on the left. This wouldn't have been so bad for Khador if they had killed the three or four Immortals that they planned on... but dice can be fickle.
It's MAT 6, P+S 13 versus DEF 13, ARM 19 with Defensive Line. Because of Defensive Line, the middle Uhlan is the first target.
The third attacker on that middle Uhlan is the one that brings him down. That is the only Uhlan that dies due to Vengeance attacks, however, as the rest of the attacks miss or do minimal damage.
Zaal fills almost back all the way with fury (he had to spend one to transfer last turn). He cuts himself for the last point. He'll spend two of the soul tokens on Aptimus Marketh to upkeep both his spells that are in play.
So how does Zaal use this turn to minimize the damage done next turn? He needs to play aggressive, pushing the line forward. He would also like to wait another turn for his feat. He activates first. Zaal is pretty happy where he is located and decides to forfeit his move for an aiming bonus. Thanks to Ghost Sight, he ignores LOS when making ranged and magic attacks so that closest Outrider is a sitting duck.
Aiming makes Zaal RAT 8. Outriders are DEF 13 and Zaal ignores the concealment they carry around with them. He boosts to hit anyway, because he's not going to use a ton of fury this turn otherwise. He hits easily. Annihilating Gaze is POW 6, but when it hits a living model you get to add the current STR of that target to this POW. In this case, the Outriders are STR 5, bumping the attack up to POW 11. Zaal spends another point of fury to boost damage. The Outrider is, indeed, annihilated.
Zaal then uses the ability to put souls on the Guardians again, taking him down to 4 fury left. He's done.
Hakaar activates, charging one of the Outriders. He swings at his charge target, hits, and kills. He swings his second sword at another Outrider, hits, and uses a soul to boost damage. That Outrider also falls to his blade. A third Outrider is just within his reach and he buys another attack. It hits and he uses the last soul to boost damage again. That's why they call him Hakaar the Destroyer.
One of the Ancestral Guardians activates next. He charges the last Outrider. He uses a soul to boost his attack. Even at MAT 8, it doesn't hurt to make the odds as much in his favor as possible. He hits and kills the last Outrider.
Now that Hakaar and his friend are exposed, it's time to give them some protection AND lock up those Uhlans to prevent the charge. The Swordsmen run.
What's up with your feat now, Vlad? Oh, and if you do kill the swordsmen and manage to do the same to the Ancestral Guardian or Hakaar, enjoy the Kovaas popping out dangerously close to Vlad.
Back on the left side of the battle, it's going to be about clearing out those remaining Uhlans. An almost full unit of Immortals should be able to handle it. They move and attack, easily taking out the two remaining Uhlans on that side of the board. The Ancestral Guardian doesn't need to assist so he chills, planning to act as a counter-charger next round.
There is some concern in the middle of the board, seeing as how there's a very large Kodiak staring down Zaal. Something has to be done about it, but the options are limited.
The Extollers can't do anything because the Kodiak is not a living model. The Cannoneer can shoot but won't do enough damage to cripple the Kodiak and is too far away to get his fat butt in the path of the Khador 'jack. The Cyclops Raider and Shaman aren't equipped to smash heavy armor either. At least the objective is providing something to hide behind.
The first thing that happens is that the Ancestral Guardian with 3 souls runs up adjacent to Zaal. He's got Defensive Strike, but that can't be counted on to do any damage. But at least it blocks a path.
Next, the Extoller closest to the Cannoneer backs up slightly and uses his Guidance *Action to give it Eyeless Sight and Magical Weapon. Let's remove the forest from the equation when it comes to shooting this turn.
The Cannoneer then aims and shoots at the Kodiak. Again, the expectation is that damage will be minimal but there's not much else to do. The other alternative is to give the Cannoneer Snipe again and fire off a shot at Kovnik Markov. The Cannoneer rolls a (1,3), which hits due to aiming and Eyeless Sight. Damage gets boosted and the Kodiak takes 5 damage.
The Cyclops Shaman activates. The odds are against him doing any damage to the Kodiak but he aims and fires his Evil Eye anyway. He hits and it's going to be POW 12 versus ARM 20. The boosted damage roll turns out to be (6,6,5), which means 9 gets through! So much for the odds.
Seeing an opportunity thanks to the excellent damage output of the Shaman, the other Extoller activates and gives Eyeless Sight to the Raider. The Raider activates, aims, and shoots. It's POW 14 versus ARM 20 and the Raider boosts. 6 more damage sneaks in.
The only thing left to activate is Aptimus Marketh. He chooses to use Spell Slave to cast Hex Blast. It might put some more damage on the Kodiak and can knock Infernal Machine off the 'jack as well. It hits. Marketh uses his soul to boost damage. One point gets in... but it's to a critical column. The Kodiak has lost it's cortex!
And with that massive stroke of luck, the turn is over. Zaal hasn't had to feat. He's locked up both sides of the board. The main threat in the middle is greatly limited. And Vlad has to be worried about the Kovaas and two fully loaded sniper Extollers.
Vlad Turn Three
So much for the plan of the feat allowing the Kodiak to hit the Guardian and side-step his way over to Zaal. So much for the plan of smashing through stuff with Uhlans under the feat, too. The Outriders died a lot easier than Vlad expected. Maybe he was hoping for too much given the high MAT stats of Hakaar and the Ancestral Guardians.
So what about focusing more on turning this into a scenario win? Here's what the entire board looks like:
Controlling the friendly zone on the left is child's play. If Drago and the Man-o-War Drakhun can't take out one guy in the zone, Vlad deserves to lose. Controlling or dominating the right enemy zone is more tricky. Vlad's Dash spell can ensure the models get to where they need to be, but only Vlad can handle an Incorporeal Kovaas, and to do so he puts himself within range of the Extoller firing squad. And there's all kinds of order of activation issues because Vlad needs to go first to pop his feat and put out buff spells but he needs to act later to kill the Kovaas.
The only real bright spot if Vlad can't kill the Kovaas? It will only be spawning into play with 0 or 1 souls on him. It could be much worse if it had three available.
Vlad comes up with a plan. He allocates 3 focus to Drago, keeping 4 for himself. Because of the Kovaas and a lack of magical weapons, he's just going to have to ignore scoring points from the right zone this turn. He still needs to get a little further up the board so his control zone extends to where it needs to go.
Vlad activates and casts Hand of Fate on the Uhlans. He casts Infernal Machine on Drago. He then pops his feat.
Feat: Charge of the Horse Lords: While in Vladimir's control area, friendly Faction warjacks and cavalry models gain Side Step and Sprint. Charge of the Horse Lords lasts for one turn. (When a model with Side Step hits an enemy model with an initial melee attack or melee special attack that is not a power attack, it can advance up to 2" after the attack is resolved. A model with Side Step cannot be targeted by free strikes during this movement.) (At the end of it's activation, if it destroyed one or more enemy models with melee attacks during its activation, a model with Sprint can make a full advance.)
Following that, he moves up just a bit.
Time to roll the dice on Operation: Apply Drago to Face. Drago activates, charging the Ancestral Guardian for free because of Aggressive.
The Ancestral Guardian uses it's Defensive Strike ability. Five damage gets in.
With the +2 MAT from Infernal Machine, Drago is MAT 9 and gains an additional die on attack and damage rolls (discarding the low die). P+S 16 (with 4 dice, dropping the low) against ARM 18 and 10 health boxes. It rolls a (4,6,6,1) which means 14 damage gets in, more than enough to kill. The Kovaas spawns in the Guardian's place.
Drago uses Side-Step to get further up the field.
Drago then attacks the Kovaas with his other weapon, hitting easily. Of course no damage can be done because the Kovaas is Incorporeal, but Side-Step only requires a hit with an initial melee attack. It doesn't require damage to be done.
It moves up the field a little more and it LOOKS like O:ADtF has stalled out. However, Drago has:
Imprint: Run Riot - During its activation, this model can spend 1 focus point to use Run Riot. This activation, after resolving an attack in which this model destroyed one or more enemy models with a normal melee attack, if there are no enemy models within its melee range it can advance up to 1".
But first, this Guardian also gets a Defensive Strike. Drago takes 3 more damage.
The 1" of extra movement is enough to put Drago in melee range of that Guardian. Time for payback.
It buys an attack on the Guardian, hitting for 5 damage. It uses the last point of focus to buy another attack which finishes off the target. He uses Run Riot and Sprint to put himself in contact with both the Cannoneer and Zaal.
The Uhlans will activate next.
They will get two attacks each (Short Spear and Mount) and both attacks will benefit from Hand of Fate and the feat. When they are done, the remaining unit of Swordsmen is gone. Wiped out. One of the Uhlans didn't get a kill so he doesn't get to Sprint, but the rest did. Zaal gives souls out to Hakaar and Aptimus Marketh (since he can't give them to the Kovaas).
Uhlan Kovnik Markov will go next. He declares a charge on Zaal. The charge will take him close enough to the Kovaas to suffer a free strike, if Zaal wants to take it. He's got a conundrum on his hands: take the free strike and maybe do enough damage to kill Markov, but in the process become corporeal and probably unable to ghost through the lines to attack Vlad?
Sidenote: There's an official ruling that states a charging model continues on to it's target even if an Incorporeal model goes corporeal to perform a free strike, and even boosted the Kovaas shouldn't kill Markov in one hit.
He choose to NOT take the free strike. Markov rides freely up the field, engaging Zaal.
Zaal's not easy to hit. He's got a DEF of 15, while Markov is using his Concussion Lance at a MAT of 8 (MAT 10 because of charging). The Khador solo gets what he needs though and hits. The 4" AOE clips the Cannoneer and Drago but misses the nearby Extoller.
The boosted Lance hit does 14 damage, which Zaal transfers to the Cyclops Raider. No more Spirit or Mind for that beast. The POW 10 AOE does 4 more, which he also transfers to the Raider, killing it. The explosion does nothing to the big elephant but it does 1 point to Drago.
Markov uses his Side-Step to slide up next to Zaal and the objective. He can't use the horse or his spear for follow up attacks, but he's nice and cozy with Zaal for next turn (if he lives that long).
The Kodiak is far from dead, although he is pretty battered. He shuffles up 4" and uses his Vent Steam *Attack. A 3" AOE surrounds him and an Immortal (the one used for spell targeting earlier) and an Extoller are caught in the superheated steam clouds. The Immortal survives but the Extoller does not, even with the +5 ARM from the 5 souls. The steam doesn't hurt the objective.
It's now time to see how many Immortals Fenris can cut down in one activation.
If this answer isn't "a lot", then at least the Drakhun is there to help. Fenris charges to put himself where he can take advantage of Berserk the most. He's MAT 8 looking to hit DEF 12 and P+S 13 (with Weapon Master) against ARM 19 (because of Inviolable Resolve).
The first attack gains the cavalry charging bonus and easily hits. It kills and triggers Berserk. That hit kills and triggers again. He kills one more this way until his luck runs out on a damage roll of (1,1,4). He then starts in with the other sword. His luck has run out though as he rolls a (1,1) on the first attack.
The Drakhun rolls up and clears out one more. The zone is now controlled by Khador. The turn is over and the score is now 1 to 0.
Zaal Turn Three
That was an extremely nasty counter punch. But all that chaos is probably going to prove to be for nothing as things come down to Kovaas + Feat = dead caster. If it turns out that's not the case, Zaal probably doesn't last another turn.
Vengeance stuff happens first. Two Immortals swing on the Drakhun and two go up against Fenris. The Drakhun loses 6 of his 10. Fenris loses 8. The lonely Immortal on the right bounces off the Kodiak. Hakaar takes a swipe at the Uhlan engaging him but only does 2.
Zaal refuels on Fury, taking it off the Cannoneer and Shaman and cutting himself for 3 more. There's no reason to upkeep either of the spells.
Drago's got to go. The Cannoneer isn't a melee powerhouse like some of the other titans, but if you throw enough stuff out there something will get through. The Cannoneer is MAT 5 against a DEF 11. He's going to Head Butt the heavy 'jack and boosts his attack roll to make sure it hits. It does and Drago falls to the ground, taking 5 damage as well. That's enough to knock out his movement (since every damage roll has been down his 2 column).
Hitting DEF 7 proves pretty easy for the two follow up attacks the Cannoneer buys. Some extremely high damage rolls do 15 more damage and Drago is down to 3 boxes in column 6.
Zaal wants to cast Last Stand on Kovaas. He can't do that with Markov in the way. The Shaman might be able to deal with Markov, but it would be easier with the feat in effect. But that's not possible because of order of activation issues. Decisions, decisions. The Shaman will activate first and risk not having the benefit of the feat. If things go bad, Zaal can always cast Hexblast to get free of the annoying cavalry solo. The Shaman moves up and prepares to attack:
Boosting to hit allows the Shaman to connect with his first swing. Boosting damage doesn't help quite as much. With a P+S 11 Spear versus Markov's ARM 18, only 1 damage gets in. He buys another attack but it misses. So much for that plan.
Zaal activates and pops his feat. He gains 20 ancestral rage tokens. Unfortunately, he's not going to have enough models to take advantage of those tokens. Because he needs to move up to cast Last Stand on the Kovaas, Zaal can't just Spirit Eye Kovnik Markov into oblivion. He'll try to Sunder Spirit him instead, even though the odds are long.
Sunder Spirit: COST 2, RNG 10, POW 12, Offensive: An enemy warbeast damaged by Sunder Spirit loses it's animus for one round.
We don't care about the side effects. What we care about is POW 12 versus that ARM 18. Since Last Stand is going to cost us 2 Fury later on (hopefully), we have 5 to play with. Enough to cast the spell twice and boost damage once.
Zaal needs to hit first though. FURY 7 versus DEF 13. The first spell hits and does NOT get boosted. The logic? If the next casting misses, he's still got enough for a third unboosted damage attempt. Unfortunately, the damage rolled is low enough that it bounces. The second spell hits but again the damage roll isn't high enough to really matter as Markov takes only 4.
Oh well. Maybe the Kovaas won't need to benefit from Last Stand. Zaal aims and shoots his eye beam at Markov, taking advantage of Gunfighter. He hits, uses his sixth point of fury to boost the damage, and rolls poorly again! Markov only takes 2 and has three left.
Time to see if Kovaas can live up to the hype. He charges, using Incorporeal to glide past the closest Uhlan.
Kovaas uses the Thresher *Attack of his melee weapon instead of just using a normal initial attack. This allows him to swing on both Vlad and the Uhlan, potentially getting anothersoul off a living enemy model.
The Kovaas is MAT 8 versus Vlad's DEF 15. If he hits, it's P+S 14 against ARM 17. Because of the feat, however, he can boost attack and damage rolls. This could have potentially been much, much better if Last Stand could have been cast on him.
His attack on Vlad hits and does 5 damage. He hits the Uhlan with the thresher part of the attack. This particular Uhlan had taken damage earlier and was sitting on 1 health left. The damage roll was P+S 14 with three dice against ARM 17. (1,1,1) means the Kovaas isn't getting that extra soul though and that may be a game losing triple 1.
The Kovaas uses it's one soul token to buy another attack on Vlad, against using the ancestral rage tokens to boost everything he can. His to-hit roll is a (2,3,1)... which just misses. Not a string of good luck for the Skorne team.
Sidenote: Let's look at what average dice rolls would have done in this situation. We're assuming that the Kovaas uses Rage tokens at every opportunity, which would give him an average roll of 10.5. He would hit Vlad with the first Thresher attack and do 7.5 damage (instead of the 5 he did above). He would hit and kill the Uhlan, netting him an extra soul token. That means two more attacks that would both hit, doing 15 additional damage. 22.5 damage is a dead Vlad and game over.
Assassination now looks to be out, but things aren't lost. The Immortals might be able to clear out the left side with help from that Guardian. Drago is almost done, only having his right arm system left. Kodiak is stuck, wedged in between an Immortal and the objective. But how do we deal with that annoying Markov? Hex Blast from Aptimus Marketh? Spirit Eye from the Extoller (firing into melee, ugh)? Honestly, even if we don't take out Markov what's the worst he can do when we have a transfer left?
We'll wait on that and try things out on the left side. The two far left Immortals move over to get inside Zaal's control area so they can benefit from the feat. They also try to place themselves such that they have options to attack either of the cav solos (or the dismounted dudes when they get thrown from their horses) and have 2 guys in the zone to prevent scoring this turn.
The Immortal next to the Kodiak attacks first and does 5 damage to the heavy 'jack, taking out it's Right Arm system.
The first Immortal on the right side of the scrum misses the Drakhun with a roll of (1,1,2). Zaal needs to make sure at least one of these two solos dies, so he attacks next with the far left Immortal, trying to maintain flexibility in target choice. That Immortal knocks Fenris off his horse. The next Immortal in line finishes the job and Fenris fails the Tough roll.
The last Immortal to go takes a swipe at the still-mounted Drakhun. The Immortal hits and just does enough damage to make the Drakhun a foot soldier again. At least for a short while, as the Ancestral Guardian is going to act next. He moves up (there was no way for him to charge and probably no need for it) and takes his best shot, using the Ancestral Rage tokens to boost his roll. His first attack doesn't do enough damage but the Guardian buy another attack with a soul and that does the deed. That enemy zone is now under friendly control.
The Extoller and Marketh haven't activated yet. They really want to take our Markov, but firing or casting into melee is risky. They would be looking at a target DEF of 17 and ARM 18.
Aptimus Marketh tries first. He uses a soul to boost his magic attack roll with Sunder Spirit, looking for a 10 to succeed. He rolls a (6,2,2). Perfect. Damage is POW 12 so he'll need a 9 or more on three dice to kill off the pesky Uhlan Kovnik. This time the dice come up (2,6,2). Success!
It seems like it's too much of a risk for the Extoller to fire at the Kodiak so he shoots his Spirit Eye at the knocked down Drago instead. He hits and it's POW 6 versus ARM 18. Not real likely to do much, but it's worth the shot. The Extoller burns a soul to boost. It bounces off. Rather than spend additional souls, he calls it good and doesn't buy any more attacks.
Last, but not least, is Hakaar, who's all full on three souls. He moves to where he can get a second Uhlan in his melee range. He wants to move further into the mess of Uhlans, but he can't because he also doesn't want to take the free strike from that Uhlan with 0.5" melee range when not charging. He kills both the eligible targets and the turn is over. The score is now 1-1.
Vlad Turn Four
Interesting. Winning by scenario is probably out. Vlad might be able to earn 3 points this turn (dominate the enemy zone, take out the enemy objective), but that's 4. Earning that last point next turn would be nearly impossible. So what are the options for assassination?
Zaal is just within 14", based on Vlad's control area. Vlad's got a charge threat of 13", but it could go up to 14" using the Dash spell. There's an Uhlan and Kovaas in the way, however. Plus, Drago is still alive. While he may be missing his movement, cortex, and left arm... he's got his right arm. And under Internal Machine (if upkept) he's MAT 9.
Infernal Machine is upkept. Hand of Fate is not.
Drago activates first in the turn. It forfeits its movement to stand. It will have two attacks at MAT 9 (against DEF 15). One will get one die and the other two. This could prove to hurt poor Zaal. Or at least get him to burn his transfer.
The two-dice attack hits with a (2,6). It's a P+S 16 axe to the head for Zaal (against ARM 14). The damage comes up (5,3) for 10 damage that gets transferred to the Shaman.
The second axe will need a 6 to hit on one die. It gets a 2 instead.
Now how to deal with the Kovaas? Two Uhlans might be able to do it, if they can hit. They start by making their command check because of Abomination. The Uhlan closest to Vlad really needs to make sure he doesn't block a charge lane. Honestly, it doesn't look like it can be done... so that Uhlan moves and takes a free strike. He dies, but at least he's not hindering Vlad.
The Uhlan that is attacking Hakaar hits with his Spear, doing 2 damage. Combat Rider lets him attack with the mount and that hits as well, but does no damage.
The second Uhlan spears the Kovaas, doing 1 damage. The horse misses. Things just became more complicated.
Vlad has an option though:
Flashing Blade: COST 1, RNG SELF: This model immediately makes one normal attack with one of its melee weapons against each enemy model in its LOS that is in the weapon's melee range. These attacks are simultaneous.
It's just going to hurt using 1 to cost this and then 2 more for Dash. It is what it is though and Vlad tries this route. He chooses not to boost his attack roll and needs a 6 on two dice. He gets it. It's now P+S 13 against ARM 14 needing to do 4 damage. Again he risks conserving focus and rolls without boosting. He gets what he needs and the Kovaas is back on the bench.
Vlad casts Dash, giving him the extra inch of movement he needs to engage Zaal.
This is for game. If this works, Vlad wins. If not, there's really nothing that can be done to protect him.
Vlad is MAT 7 and gets +2 to charge attack damage rolls with his Horse Lord's Spear making that first attack P+S 14). Zaal is DEF 15 and ARM 14, still. Vlad boosts his attack roll on the charge. The dice... (3,6,4). A hit!
Damage is three dice and all of it is going directly to Zaal who has 11 hit boxes left. The damage is (3,5,1). Zaal is still up and Vlad is down to 2 focus.
Vlad uses Flashing Blade again (because why would you use 1 focus to buy a single attack when you can Flashing Blade instead?). He uses his last point of focus to boost the attack roll.
This time the dice come up (2,5,1). Exactly what was needed. Now the Spear is only P+S 12 and can't be boosted. The damage roll is a (3,2). That's the end of Zaal, but just barely.
Game over by assassination.
Post Game Analysis
Wow. It couldn't get much closer. The dice were unkind to both sides at various critical points. Vlad could/should have been killed in Zaal's turn three and Vlad just barely got the killing blow in on Zaal on his turn four.
It is possible that the critical point was when the Extoller decided not to spend some additional souls to fire off more shots on Drago. The shots would have been POW 6s against ARM 18, but the Extoller had enough for two more boosted shots. Zaal underestimated Drago because he had been virtually wiped out.
If Zaal could have put Last Stand on the Kovaas, then all that "average dice" roll stuff could have been thrown out the window. Last Stand granting the Kovaas an additional die on attack and damage rolls would have eliminated the danger of low dice rolls screwing up the assassination run.
The mobility of Vlad helped him avoid the Extoller snipers. He had to shift over to the right side of the board, which prevented Fenris and the Drakhun from benefiting from the feat, but the forest and Markov jamming kept the Extollers from following him that direction.
For the "All the Horses" list, it's fun to play. The Outriders are a game changer for some Khador lists and under the effects of Hand of Fate they are great against infantry. I feel like holding Drago back as the second or third wave is a good plan. Let the Kodiak soak up the brunt of the enemy's anti-armor early and keep Drago around until later. The Uhlans are surprisingly resilient and if you know the cavalry rules backwards and forwards (I obviously don't) they are very flexible and mobile.
That's it. Another battle report completed. Hope you enjoyed reading!
Kodiak
Greylord Outriders (Leader and 4 Grunts)
Iron Fang Uhlans (Leader and 4 Grunts)
Iron Fang Uhlans (Leader and 2 Grunts)
Fenris
Kovnik Markov
Man-o-War Drakhun (with dismount)
The Analysis
I look at that list and the first thing I think is "Is that really 50 points?" 19 models in 50 points? How in the world can this possibly be competitive on the board?
Let's try to answer some of those questions by looking at Vlad3's tier list: Charge of the Horselord.
The requirements are Khador non-character warjacks, Drago, Battle Mechaniks, Khador cavalry units, the war dog, Khador cavalry solos, and the Gun Carriage. No Iron Fang Pikemen, no Kayazy, no Widowmakers, and no Beast-09.
At tier 1, the FA of non-character cavalry solos, units, and battle engines is raised by 1. You can bring along two of the Man-o-War Drakhuns (which I considered doing instead of Fenris).
At tier 2, the army has to include two or more cavalry units. Warjacks in the army gain +2 SPD during your first turn of the game.
Tier 3 requires two more more cavalry solos. This grants Vlad3 a +1 to the starting roll for the game.
Lastly, Tier 4 needs Drago. This reduces the cost of warjacks in this army by 1.
Vlad's feat also plays into the all cavalry, all the time idea:
Feat: Charge of the Horse Lords: While in Vladimir's control area, friendly Faction warjacks and cavalry models gain Side Step and Sprint. Charge of the Horse Lords lasts for one turn. (When a model with Side Step hits an enemy model with an initial melee attack or melee special attack that is not a power attack, it can advance up to 2" after the attack is resolved. A model with Side Step cannot be targeted by free strikes during this movement.) (At the end of it's activation, if it destroyed one or more enemy models with melee attacks during its activation, a model with Sprint can make a full advance.)
Side Step and Sprint are pretty cool things. Drago or Fenris with Side Step and Sprint are pretty AWESOME things.
As for the rest of the list, the Outriders are surprisingly good, despite the Magic Ability of only 6. SPD 9 light cavalry models with Pathfinder that have 8" sprays and can use the light cav movement to boogie on back to safety are pretty solid additions to Khador. They don't get heavy cavalry impact hits or anything, but they do have magical weapons in case you run up against anything Incorporeal (like, oh say a Kovaas). They also have great defensive stats. DEF 13 and ARM 15 doesn't look like much, but they always have concealment, bumping that DEF up against most things. 5 hit boxes means that it's going to take at least some effort to kill them, and you get 5 of them for a paltry 9 points. They don't really benefit from the feat, since they aren't melee oriented, but they don't need to be.
Uhlans aren't played a lot, from what I've seen, and I can understand why. Khador players prefer the Kayazy, IFP, and even Winter Guard blocks of troops. But what do you get for your 7 (or 11) points? SPD 8 heavy cavalry with Defensive Line, a POW 12 mount, and Pathfinder on the charge. DEF 13 and ARM 17 are very respectable, but MAT 6 means they have to pick and choose targets.
Fenris is just absolutely nuts (pun!) with Vlad3. On his horse, he's SPD 8, MAT 8, and has a pair of P+S 13 Weapon Master + Reach fellblades. Spell Ward keeps him safe from enemy spells, and Vlad can give him Dash (because it doesn't directly target him):
Dash: COST 2, RNG SELF, AOE CTRL: While in this model's control area, friendly Faction warrior models cannot be targeted by free strikes. This model and friendly Faction warrior models activating in its control area gain +1 SPD. Dash lasts for one turn.
Dash puts him up to SPD 9 and let's him ignore free strikes on the turn he wants to get into melee. During Vlad's feat, he charges in, does his impact attack stuff, slices everything up with Berserk and sword number 1, side-steps, slices everything up with Berserk and sword number 2, side-steps, and then gets back to friendlier territory thanks to Sprint and immunity to free strikes.
Uhlan Kovnik Markov is relatively boring compared to that. He's no slouch in melee (MAT 8, P+S 16 concussion lance with a 4" AOE, impact attack). His Elite Cadre [Iron Fang Uhlans] ability lets Uhlans ignore one another when advancing and determining LOS. He can't use both the Concussion Lance and the Short Spear on the same turn, so no cool Side-Step shenanigans, but the feat will still allow him to strike hard and then back off, which is the point of the feat.
The Man-o-War Drakhun is a tank, plain and simple. DEF 11 isn't good, but ARM 19 and 10 hit boxes is. With SPD 7, under the effects of Dash he can charge 11 and has reach on his Annihilator Blade. During the feat turn, he can Sprint out after, getting himself in place for a Counter Charge during the opponent's turn.
Drago is necessary to hit tier 4 but that's not a detriment in any way. Vlad loves him some Drago. Vlad3 doesn't like to hand out focus and Drago is Aggressive so it can run or charge for free. Vlad's affinity with Drago means Drago gets an additional die on attack and damage rolls, dropping the low. That coupled with MAT 7 probably means it isn't missing much. P+S 16 Executioners Axes put things in the dirt.
Someone on BattleCollege brought up the idea of Drago suicide bombing as well. If the opportunity arises or things become desperate, Vlad can give 3 focus to Drago. He can also give him Infernal Machine:
Infernal Machine: COST 2, RNG 6, Upkeep: Target warjack in this model's battlegroup gains Terror and +2 MAT and SPD.
Drago's SPD goes up to 6, giving him a 9" charge. If things are lined up, he can Side Step twice assuming he kills two models. This gives about 4" more movement. If need be, he can use the Side Step move to get out of melee range of the enemy in order to use Imprint: Run Riot (another inch of movement each time). Sprint can then kick off and Drago gets to move wherever he can squeeze into. Then, if you're lucky, you'll "fail" an Unstable roll and anything within 3" of his final position take POW 14 blast damage rolls. BOOM!
Last is the Kodiak, who will probably be the initial target of Infernal Machine instead of Drago. The Kodiak has boring Khador heavy warjack stats, the ability to run for free (again, Vlad doesn't want to give out focus if he doesn't have to), and an infantry clearing AOE *Attack. Two open fists can come in handy sometimes, as does built-in Pathfinder.
Let's try to answer some of those questions by looking at Vlad3's tier list: Charge of the Horselord.
The requirements are Khador non-character warjacks, Drago, Battle Mechaniks, Khador cavalry units, the war dog, Khador cavalry solos, and the Gun Carriage. No Iron Fang Pikemen, no Kayazy, no Widowmakers, and no Beast-09.
At tier 1, the FA of non-character cavalry solos, units, and battle engines is raised by 1. You can bring along two of the Man-o-War Drakhuns (which I considered doing instead of Fenris).
At tier 2, the army has to include two or more cavalry units. Warjacks in the army gain +2 SPD during your first turn of the game.
Tier 3 requires two more more cavalry solos. This grants Vlad3 a +1 to the starting roll for the game.
Lastly, Tier 4 needs Drago. This reduces the cost of warjacks in this army by 1.
Vlad's feat also plays into the all cavalry, all the time idea:
Feat: Charge of the Horse Lords: While in Vladimir's control area, friendly Faction warjacks and cavalry models gain Side Step and Sprint. Charge of the Horse Lords lasts for one turn. (When a model with Side Step hits an enemy model with an initial melee attack or melee special attack that is not a power attack, it can advance up to 2" after the attack is resolved. A model with Side Step cannot be targeted by free strikes during this movement.) (At the end of it's activation, if it destroyed one or more enemy models with melee attacks during its activation, a model with Sprint can make a full advance.)
Side Step and Sprint are pretty cool things. Drago or Fenris with Side Step and Sprint are pretty AWESOME things.
As for the rest of the list, the Outriders are surprisingly good, despite the Magic Ability of only 6. SPD 9 light cavalry models with Pathfinder that have 8" sprays and can use the light cav movement to boogie on back to safety are pretty solid additions to Khador. They don't get heavy cavalry impact hits or anything, but they do have magical weapons in case you run up against anything Incorporeal (like, oh say a Kovaas). They also have great defensive stats. DEF 13 and ARM 15 doesn't look like much, but they always have concealment, bumping that DEF up against most things. 5 hit boxes means that it's going to take at least some effort to kill them, and you get 5 of them for a paltry 9 points. They don't really benefit from the feat, since they aren't melee oriented, but they don't need to be.
Uhlans aren't played a lot, from what I've seen, and I can understand why. Khador players prefer the Kayazy, IFP, and even Winter Guard blocks of troops. But what do you get for your 7 (or 11) points? SPD 8 heavy cavalry with Defensive Line, a POW 12 mount, and Pathfinder on the charge. DEF 13 and ARM 17 are very respectable, but MAT 6 means they have to pick and choose targets.
Fenris is just absolutely nuts (pun!) with Vlad3. On his horse, he's SPD 8, MAT 8, and has a pair of P+S 13 Weapon Master + Reach fellblades. Spell Ward keeps him safe from enemy spells, and Vlad can give him Dash (because it doesn't directly target him):
Dash: COST 2, RNG SELF, AOE CTRL: While in this model's control area, friendly Faction warrior models cannot be targeted by free strikes. This model and friendly Faction warrior models activating in its control area gain +1 SPD. Dash lasts for one turn.
Dash puts him up to SPD 9 and let's him ignore free strikes on the turn he wants to get into melee. During Vlad's feat, he charges in, does his impact attack stuff, slices everything up with Berserk and sword number 1, side-steps, slices everything up with Berserk and sword number 2, side-steps, and then gets back to friendlier territory thanks to Sprint and immunity to free strikes.
Uhlan Kovnik Markov is relatively boring compared to that. He's no slouch in melee (MAT 8, P+S 16 concussion lance with a 4" AOE, impact attack). His Elite Cadre [Iron Fang Uhlans] ability lets Uhlans ignore one another when advancing and determining LOS. He can't use both the Concussion Lance and the Short Spear on the same turn, so no cool Side-Step shenanigans, but the feat will still allow him to strike hard and then back off, which is the point of the feat.
The Man-o-War Drakhun is a tank, plain and simple. DEF 11 isn't good, but ARM 19 and 10 hit boxes is. With SPD 7, under the effects of Dash he can charge 11 and has reach on his Annihilator Blade. During the feat turn, he can Sprint out after, getting himself in place for a Counter Charge during the opponent's turn.
Drago is necessary to hit tier 4 but that's not a detriment in any way. Vlad loves him some Drago. Vlad3 doesn't like to hand out focus and Drago is Aggressive so it can run or charge for free. Vlad's affinity with Drago means Drago gets an additional die on attack and damage rolls, dropping the low. That coupled with MAT 7 probably means it isn't missing much. P+S 16 Executioners Axes put things in the dirt.
Someone on BattleCollege brought up the idea of Drago suicide bombing as well. If the opportunity arises or things become desperate, Vlad can give 3 focus to Drago. He can also give him Infernal Machine:
Infernal Machine: COST 2, RNG 6, Upkeep: Target warjack in this model's battlegroup gains Terror and +2 MAT and SPD.
Drago's SPD goes up to 6, giving him a 9" charge. If things are lined up, he can Side Step twice assuming he kills two models. This gives about 4" more movement. If need be, he can use the Side Step move to get out of melee range of the enemy in order to use Imprint: Run Riot (another inch of movement each time). Sprint can then kick off and Drago gets to move wherever he can squeeze into. Then, if you're lucky, you'll "fail" an Unstable roll and anything within 3" of his final position take POW 14 blast damage rolls. BOOM!
Last is the Kodiak, who will probably be the initial target of Infernal Machine instead of Drago. The Kodiak has boring Khador heavy warjack stats, the ability to run for free (again, Vlad doesn't want to give out focus if he doesn't have to), and an infantry clearing AOE *Attack. Two open fists can come in handy sometimes, as does built-in Pathfinder.
The Plan
The plan is to see how the opponent likes dealing with a very non-standard Khador list that can hustle up the field AND take a hit. The feat is going to be critical to making sure Khador gets the first and potentially second strikes. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Use the Kodiak and it's ARM + hit boxes to soak up enemy firepower and engage enemy 'beasts. Drago and Fenris can mow down enemy infantry and/or take out big stuff. Likewise, Uhlans can put a dent in either infantry or 'beasts, but they have to favor targets with low DEF (with the exception being if they are affected by the Hand of Fate spell). The role of the Outriders is going to depend on what the opponent fields, but they'll definitely be more focused on infantry than heavier targets.Infernal Machine buffs a 'jack. Hand of Fate probably goes on the bigger group of Uhlans but can be moved around depending on the situation. Dash probably gets cast every turn to increase the spell of all the horses.
Supreme Aptimus Zaal
The List
Supreme Aptimus Zaal & Kovaas
Cyclops Raider
Cyclops Shaman
Titan Cannoneer
Aptimus Marketh
Immortals (Leader and 9 Grunts)
Praetorian Swordsmen (Leader and 9 Grunts)
Praetorian Swordsmen Officer & Standard
Ancestral Guardian
Ancestral Guardian
Ancestral Guardian
Hakaar the Destroyer
Extoller Soulward
Extoller Soulward
This list is tier 3. Zaal is limited to Skorne non-character warbeasts, Immortals, Praetorian units, Ancestral Guardian solos, and Extoller solos.
At tier 1, Immortal units are FA: Unlimited. The FA for non-character Ancestral Guardian solos and Extoller Soulward solos goes up by +1 for each Immortal unit included.
Tier 2 requires Hakaar the Destroyer. By including him, all Ancestral Guardian solos in the army gain Advance Deployment. This can be a trap. The Advance Deployment should be used to react to the placement of the enemy, but not necessarily to get them up the field faster. Ancestral Guardians are really the second wave of attacks, not the first. You don't want them out front taking hits that could be going against Swordsmen instead.
Tier 3 needs three or more Extoller solos. Aptimus Marketh is an Extoller, and Zaal doesn't mind bringing along two Soulwards as well. Especially since the tier benefit is that each of the Extollers begins the game with three soul tokens. This is just amazing and the real reason you take the tier list. You've essentially just brought along the equivalent of 9 dead Skorne dudes and the souls are just where you want them.
Tier 4 just doesn't seem worth it. You have to take two or more Immortal units and you get to start the game with Kovaas in play. You actually can lose some of the "surprise" factor of the list by having him on the table. If he's already in play, he can't pop out of a Ancestral Guardian to give your opponent fits.
The Cyclops Raider is a good ranged option for Skorne, but the most important part of him is his animus:
Far Strike: COST 2, RNG 6: Target friendly model's ranged weapons gain Snipe. Far Strike lasts for one turn. (An attack with a Snipe weapon gains +4 RNG.)
This makes the Spirit Eye attacks of the Soulwards and Zaal range 12 instead of range 8.
The Cyclops Shaman can use that animus as well, handing Snipe out to a second target. Craft Talisman is a great ability that will give Zaal +2 RNG on his spells. If need be, his animus can remove enemy upkeep spells and animi on friendly units. He's the ultimate toolbox in this list.
The Titan Cannoneer will shoot until the lines clash and then move into melee, where he's decent. He carries around a RNG 12, AOE 3, POW 15 gun that destroys low ARM infantry. With Far Strike, that's RNG 16 and means he can make an impact very early in the game.
Immortals are solid, with the big downside being SPD 4. Zaal can't make them any faster, but he can give them Inviolable Resolve which is +2 ARM and Fearless (which they are already). ARM 19 is a lot better than ARM 17 and Vengeance can sometimes help the speed problem.
Ancestral Guardians are also slow, but they're intended to follow up in the second or third wave. They have Defensive Strike, which is dangerous when used by a MAT 8 solo with P+S 13 on a Reach weapon. They can be faster if they spend soul tokens, but they're probably better served by saving them for boosting damage rolls.
Hakaar the Destroyer has to be in the list and Zaal would probably take him even if he wasn't. He's an Ancestral Guardian on steroids. He lost Defensive Strike, but has a second sword (still with Reach), Ghost Shield (which can put him up to ARM 21), and a Combo Strike *Attack that's P+S 18.
If Hakaar or a Guardian dies, out pops Kovaas. This little spirit is a whirlwind of destruction. He has Thresher on a P+S 14 magical Reach weapon. He's Incorporeal, which can play havoc with some lists. He grabs enemy souls to power himself up and can drop a 4" AOE cloud effect as a defensive measure with a *Action. The best part? He has Destruction Spawned:
Destruction Spawned: This model does not start the game in play. When a friendly Ancestral Guardian is destroyed while in Zaal's control area, replace the Ancestral Guardian with a Kovaas unless there is already a friendly Kovaas in play. If the Ancestral Guardian had soul tokens on it at the time it was destroyed, place up to three of those soul tokens on the Kovaas replacing it. Effects on the destroyed Ancestral Guardian expire. The Kovaas cannot activate the turn it is put in play.
If an opponent isn't careful, he'll kill an Ancestral Guardian, spawn an Incorporeal Abomination that's immune to anything without magical attacks. A Kovaas loaded up with souls can float right on by the enemy lines, engage a caster, and apply P+S 14 attacks to the face. A wary opponent can either ignore the Ancestral Guardians (not wise), try to get the Kovaas to spawn in a bad location, and/or kill all the Ancestral Guardians in the same turn so Kovaas can't respawn multiple times.
Lastly, the Swordsmen are there to act as the front line, provide souls as they die, and feed Zaal's feat. That feat?
Feat: Rage of Ancients: Zaal gains a number of ancestral rage tokens equal to the number of friendly Faction warrior models that have been destroyed and not returned to play since the start of the game. While in Zaal's control area, friendly Faction models can spend ancestral rage tokens on Zaal to boost melee attack or melee damage rolls. At the end of the turn, remove unspent ancestral rage tokens from Zaal.
These tokens can only be used to boost melee attack or melee damage rolls, but the souls on Ancestral Guardians can be used to buy more attacks. Just be careful with how you use them and even a handful of these friendly rage tokens can make a dramatic impact.
Swordsmen act as the front line, as specified above. They do what damage they can and then die, fueling the feat and friendly models (as Zaal gets to choose where the souls end up). Immortals are either a second block or a second wave, depending on the enemy formation. They're better at holding an objective once their slow butts get up the field. Ancestral Guardians and Hakaar act as threat removers, always holding the threat of the Kovaas over the head of the enemy.
The Raider gives Far Strike out to the Cannoneer early, and switching to buffing the Extoller Soulwards or Zaal when things get closer. The Soulwards act as living laser beams, burning stuff with Annihilating Gazes. If they have to, they can give Guidance (single model gets Eyeless Sight and weapons gain Magical Weapon) to something like the Raider or Cannoneer. Keep in mind that Annihilating Gaze is a POW 6 shot that ignored LOS, concealment, and cover and gains a LIVING target's STR to the damage roll. Because the Soulwards can use soul tokens to boost damage (and start with 3 souls on them), they can absolutely plaster heavy warbeasts. It doesn't work so well against 'jacks, however.
Cyclops Shaman
Titan Cannoneer
Aptimus Marketh
Immortals (Leader and 9 Grunts)
Praetorian Swordsmen (Leader and 9 Grunts)
Praetorian Swordsmen Officer & Standard
Ancestral Guardian
Ancestral Guardian
Ancestral Guardian
Hakaar the Destroyer
Extoller Soulward
Extoller Soulward
The Analysis
When I first heard the Chain Attack guys talking about this list, I fell in love with it. It has a total synergy to it that just clicks. Everything has a point and the combos are what makes it potent. Plus Zaal is a really solid caster that may not get enough credit on the internet.This list is tier 3. Zaal is limited to Skorne non-character warbeasts, Immortals, Praetorian units, Ancestral Guardian solos, and Extoller solos.
At tier 1, Immortal units are FA: Unlimited. The FA for non-character Ancestral Guardian solos and Extoller Soulward solos goes up by +1 for each Immortal unit included.
Tier 2 requires Hakaar the Destroyer. By including him, all Ancestral Guardian solos in the army gain Advance Deployment. This can be a trap. The Advance Deployment should be used to react to the placement of the enemy, but not necessarily to get them up the field faster. Ancestral Guardians are really the second wave of attacks, not the first. You don't want them out front taking hits that could be going against Swordsmen instead.
Tier 3 needs three or more Extoller solos. Aptimus Marketh is an Extoller, and Zaal doesn't mind bringing along two Soulwards as well. Especially since the tier benefit is that each of the Extollers begins the game with three soul tokens. This is just amazing and the real reason you take the tier list. You've essentially just brought along the equivalent of 9 dead Skorne dudes and the souls are just where you want them.
Tier 4 just doesn't seem worth it. You have to take two or more Immortal units and you get to start the game with Kovaas in play. You actually can lose some of the "surprise" factor of the list by having him on the table. If he's already in play, he can't pop out of a Ancestral Guardian to give your opponent fits.
The Cyclops Raider is a good ranged option for Skorne, but the most important part of him is his animus:
Far Strike: COST 2, RNG 6: Target friendly model's ranged weapons gain Snipe. Far Strike lasts for one turn. (An attack with a Snipe weapon gains +4 RNG.)
This makes the Spirit Eye attacks of the Soulwards and Zaal range 12 instead of range 8.
The Cyclops Shaman can use that animus as well, handing Snipe out to a second target. Craft Talisman is a great ability that will give Zaal +2 RNG on his spells. If need be, his animus can remove enemy upkeep spells and animi on friendly units. He's the ultimate toolbox in this list.
The Titan Cannoneer will shoot until the lines clash and then move into melee, where he's decent. He carries around a RNG 12, AOE 3, POW 15 gun that destroys low ARM infantry. With Far Strike, that's RNG 16 and means he can make an impact very early in the game.
Immortals are solid, with the big downside being SPD 4. Zaal can't make them any faster, but he can give them Inviolable Resolve which is +2 ARM and Fearless (which they are already). ARM 19 is a lot better than ARM 17 and Vengeance can sometimes help the speed problem.
Ancestral Guardians are also slow, but they're intended to follow up in the second or third wave. They have Defensive Strike, which is dangerous when used by a MAT 8 solo with P+S 13 on a Reach weapon. They can be faster if they spend soul tokens, but they're probably better served by saving them for boosting damage rolls.
Hakaar the Destroyer has to be in the list and Zaal would probably take him even if he wasn't. He's an Ancestral Guardian on steroids. He lost Defensive Strike, but has a second sword (still with Reach), Ghost Shield (which can put him up to ARM 21), and a Combo Strike *Attack that's P+S 18.
If Hakaar or a Guardian dies, out pops Kovaas. This little spirit is a whirlwind of destruction. He has Thresher on a P+S 14 magical Reach weapon. He's Incorporeal, which can play havoc with some lists. He grabs enemy souls to power himself up and can drop a 4" AOE cloud effect as a defensive measure with a *Action. The best part? He has Destruction Spawned:
Destruction Spawned: This model does not start the game in play. When a friendly Ancestral Guardian is destroyed while in Zaal's control area, replace the Ancestral Guardian with a Kovaas unless there is already a friendly Kovaas in play. If the Ancestral Guardian had soul tokens on it at the time it was destroyed, place up to three of those soul tokens on the Kovaas replacing it. Effects on the destroyed Ancestral Guardian expire. The Kovaas cannot activate the turn it is put in play.
If an opponent isn't careful, he'll kill an Ancestral Guardian, spawn an Incorporeal Abomination that's immune to anything without magical attacks. A Kovaas loaded up with souls can float right on by the enemy lines, engage a caster, and apply P+S 14 attacks to the face. A wary opponent can either ignore the Ancestral Guardians (not wise), try to get the Kovaas to spawn in a bad location, and/or kill all the Ancestral Guardians in the same turn so Kovaas can't respawn multiple times.
Lastly, the Swordsmen are there to act as the front line, provide souls as they die, and feed Zaal's feat. That feat?
Feat: Rage of Ancients: Zaal gains a number of ancestral rage tokens equal to the number of friendly Faction warrior models that have been destroyed and not returned to play since the start of the game. While in Zaal's control area, friendly Faction models can spend ancestral rage tokens on Zaal to boost melee attack or melee damage rolls. At the end of the turn, remove unspent ancestral rage tokens from Zaal.
These tokens can only be used to boost melee attack or melee damage rolls, but the souls on Ancestral Guardians can be used to buy more attacks. Just be careful with how you use them and even a handful of these friendly rage tokens can make a dramatic impact.
The Plan
First thing to remember is that every single turn Zaal should be using Soul Converter. This ability allows him to spend 1 fury point to give each Ancestral Guardian current in his control area one soul token.Swordsmen act as the front line, as specified above. They do what damage they can and then die, fueling the feat and friendly models (as Zaal gets to choose where the souls end up). Immortals are either a second block or a second wave, depending on the enemy formation. They're better at holding an objective once their slow butts get up the field. Ancestral Guardians and Hakaar act as threat removers, always holding the threat of the Kovaas over the head of the enemy.
The Raider gives Far Strike out to the Cannoneer early, and switching to buffing the Extoller Soulwards or Zaal when things get closer. The Soulwards act as living laser beams, burning stuff with Annihilating Gazes. If they have to, they can give Guidance (single model gets Eyeless Sight and weapons gain Magical Weapon) to something like the Raider or Cannoneer. Keep in mind that Annihilating Gaze is a POW 6 shot that ignored LOS, concealment, and cover and gains a LIVING target's STR to the damage roll. Because the Soulwards can use soul tokens to boost damage (and start with 3 souls on them), they can absolutely plaster heavy warbeasts. It doesn't work so well against 'jacks, however.
The Map and Scenario
- Enemy Objective Destroyed = 1 CP
- Friendly Zone Dominated = 1 CP
- Enemy Zone Controlled = 1 CP
- Enemy Zone Dominated = 2 CP
Effigy - Friendly model/units within 2" of this model gain Fearless. This model counts as a warcaster/warlock for the purposes of dominate and contest.
Transport - If a friendly warcaster/warlock dominates this objective, this model can be placed within 5" of its current location once during the dominating warcaster/warlock's turn.
Our tactical tips point out that since the Effigy counts as a warcaster/warlock for purposes of dominating and contesting a zone, it can dominate a zone but cannot contest it. Ok. So why tell us it counts for purposes of doing something it cannot do? The second tactical tip is only the active player scores when multiple players dominate the same zone, flag, or objective.
Deployment
Vlad3 gets a +1 to his starting roll because of his tier 3 benefit. He rolls a 6 and decides to go first. He wants the bottom half of the board. His horses can thunder up the right side, while if the enemy wants to come towards his friendly zone, they have to make it through that giant forest. Immortals hate difficult ground, as do Ancestral Guardians. The danger is Extoller Soulwards sitting on the opposite side of the forest zapping people.
Vlad3 Deployment
Because of the tier bonus, Vlad's two 'jacks are going to be at +2 SPD on turn one. This turns extremely slow 'jacks into very quick 'jacks when Dash is also taken into consideration. Kodiak also have Pathfinder, so that makes him a good choice to be aimed right at that big forest, just in case Skorne does try to hide something on the opposite side of the treeline.
The Outriders go into the trees because they have Pathfinder and don't care. Vlad is centralized with the Kodiak on one side and Drago on the other. Fenris is out by himself on the left edge. The Drakhun tags along. Neither of those solos has Pathfinder, those walls could have proved to be an issue on the right side of the map with charging.
Zaal Deployment
A couple of very unfortunate groves of trees is limiting deployment options for the Skorne forces. An absolute lack of Pathfinder throughout the entire army is not a good thing. Those rocks on the right side of the board really funnel things down a narrow path too, and that plays to the strengths of an army built on small numbers of elite troops, like Khador is fielding.Vlad3 Deployment
Because of the tier bonus, Vlad's two 'jacks are going to be at +2 SPD on turn one. This turns extremely slow 'jacks into very quick 'jacks when Dash is also taken into consideration. Kodiak also have Pathfinder, so that makes him a good choice to be aimed right at that big forest, just in case Skorne does try to hide something on the opposite side of the treeline.
The Outriders go into the trees because they have Pathfinder and don't care. Vlad is centralized with the Kodiak on one side and Drago on the other. Fenris is out by himself on the left edge. The Drakhun tags along. Neither of those solos has Pathfinder, those walls could have proved to be an issue on the right side of the map with charging.
Zaal Deployment
The central forest can help or hurt us. We can take advantage of it with our ranged stuff thanks to Eyeless Sight, but our infantry blocks will hate it. The Swordsmen go on the right, with the plan to move in towards the middle. The Immortals will be on the left and head towards the gap. Ranged stuff goes behind the forest, as does Zaal. The Guardians and Hakaar take advantage of Advanced Deployment just to get up the field a little and clear the deployment zones.
Vlad3 Turn One
Looking at the enemy deployment, those Extollers are a serious threat. With SPD 6 and a 12" gun (thanks to Snipe), they can threaten all the way to the friendly side of the central forest. The other match ups seem fine. The Outriders will love facing those packed together Swordsmen. Fenris and the Drakhun have the speed to ensure they get the alpha strike on the Immortals, and the feat to get them back to safety after. Uhlans can clear or contest zones and take the hits, keeping cavalry solos safer.
Vlad3 will activate first. He has 7 focus and wants to get both his upkeeps out on the board. He throws Infernal Machine on the Kodiak and Hand of Fate on the larger unit of Uhlans on his right. He also tosses out Dash, leaving him with 1.
He has SPD 8, but he doesn't necessarily want to be up as far as the rest of his army. He moves up a bit, trying to keep friendlies within range of Dash. Unfortunately, Fenris can't be kept in the bubble.
The Outriders are FAST. They run up the board, moving up to 18". They only have to worry about an Ancestral Guardian popping off a "Soul Driven", taking it's effective threat to 11". Not a big deal. Say hello to the middle of the board, Greylords.
Fenris doesn't benefit from Dash, but he's still SPD 8. He'll swing out left, keeping an eye on that gap in the trees, and staying away from scaring his own side. While Markov does have Inspiration [Iron Fang Uhlans], never fleeing and immediately rallying is not the same thing as being Fearless.
The Drakhun does benefit from Dash so he's up to SPD 8. He moves up the side as well, as do the left Uhlans. Both 'jacks hustle up the middle of the board thanks to free run moves and +2 SPD on the first turn.
The other group of Uhlans run up in front of the 'jacks. They have Relentless Charge on the charge, so they don't care as much about the walls as Drago does.
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| I actually think Drago moved a little too far up. He should probably be back some but by the time I caught it, it was too late. |
Zaal Turn One
So this doesn't look promising. All those horses got up the board in a hurry and almost all of them are going to be SPD 9, charging 12", and with Reach weapons. What Zaal needs to focus on is getting up the field but mitigating how much damage that initial charge is going to do. We know we're going to get double charged because of the feat, but can Zaal make that first charge minimally effective? And how do we keep those Outriders from devastating the Swordsmen?
The Swordsmen move up and spread out, but it probably won't be enough. Two Guardians and Hakaar hide behind them. The other Guardian moves up, but mostly just clears a path for the Immortals, who then run up. They did start within the CMD range of a Guardian, obviously, so they get +2" of Movement, taking them up to a run of 10". One Immortal goes to the side to get within range of Zaal for Inviolable Resolve.
Zaal activates. He uses Soul Converter to give the Guardians and Hakaar one soul token each. He moves up enough to cast Inviolable Resolve on that Immortal, giving that entire unit +2 ARM.
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Measuring his control range, he find that the lead Uhlan on the right is within 12". That gives him the option of using Snipe on himself to fire off a Spirit Eye attack. However, that would take 2 fury plus another one to boost damage, and that's just silly. He's not going to end a turn with just 1 fury. He ends his activation after dumping 1 fury to get down to 3.
The Cyclops Raider isn't going to have range on anyone this turn, even if he uses Snipe. He moves up and ends his activation, preparing for next turn.
The Extoller Soulwards move up to get into positions to take shots next turn.
The Cyclops Shaman moves up, casts the Raider's animus on the Cannoneer, and ends his activation.
The Cannoneer is up and he's scoots up 4". That same Uhlan that Zaal could have targeted is within his extended 16" range. He'll take the shot and boost the to-hit.
The shot hits and the 4" AOE can clip two neighboring Uhlans as well. They weren't in Defensive Live, so they'll be ARM 17. The model under is going to take a POW 15 shot while the others will suffer POW 8s. In order to try to get rid of one model instead of just putting damage on multiple targets, the Cannoneer boosts the damage on the directly hit model. A terrible roll of (2,3,1) means the Uhlan only takes 4, leaving him with 1 health. The other two Uhlans take no damage from their hits either.
Aptimus Marketh is last to go. He has the Spell Slave *Action:
Spell Slave (*Action): This model must be in its warlock's control area to make the Spell Slave special action. When it does, it casts one of its warlock's spells with a COST of 3 or less. The warlock is considered to have cast that spell but this model is its point of origin. When making a magic attack roll, this model uses its warlock's FURY. This model cannot cast spells with a RNG of SELF or CTRL.
He uses this to cast Awakened Spirit on the Shaman:
Awakened Spirit: COST 2, RNG 6, Upkeep: Target warbeast in this model's battlegroup can use its animus once during its activations without being forced. A warbeast that uses its animus as a result of Awakened Spirit cannot also be forced to use it animus that activation.
This is pretty nice when combined with the Shaman's ability to use any friendly Faction warbeasts' animus along as that 'beast is within his CMD of 7".
Vlad3 Turn Two
Initially looking at the board, this looks like a perfect setup for Vlad. Those infantry aren't bunched together shoulder-to-shoulder, but the feat grants Side Step. There's also a lot of valid spray targets for the Outriders. However, for Vlad to maximize the amount of models in his bubble, he's going to have to move up. If he moves up, he's within range of 3 forest-ignoring Annihilating Gazes and the Shaman's Evil Eye. Taking out all that infantry doesn't matter if he dies to the few remaining Skorne solos next turn. Oh well. If this was going to be easy, it wouldn't be worthy of a Battle Report write-up.
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| This is what a clever Skorne trap looks like |
Vlad activates first. He uses his 8 SPD to get over to the right. He gets within range of the Outriders to cast Hand of Fate on them. It drops off the Uhlans.
Hand of Fate: COST 2, RNG 6, Upkeep: Target friendly Faction model/unit gains an additional die on attack and damage rolls. Discard the low die in each roll.
How do you make up for the low magic rating of 6 on the Greylord Outriders? Give them an extra die to roll. He then casts Dash again, giving all friendly Faction warrior models activating in his control area +1 SPD and immunity to free strikes. He ends his turn camping 2 and NOT using his feat.
One of the things I've heard on a few podcasts now is that control feats are more powerful if you can hold them until later in the game. Vlad3's feat is most definitely a control feat in many ways. He wants to control who strikes first (and second). Skorne is slow and, while they have some really dangerous shooting on the board, they still need to punch people too. If the rest of this turn is played carefully, they won't be able to punch too many Khadorans during Zaal's next go.
Enough talk. Let's spray some Skorne. The Outriders now activate and move with SPD 10, making sure to stay just outside of the reach of the Ancestral Guardian with his Defensive Strike ability.
Frostbite (*Attack) - Frostbite is a RNG SP 8 magic attack. Models hit suffer a POW 12 cold dmage roll.
The left Outrider sprays at the Ancestral Guardian, also clipping Zaal and the Cannoneer. The Guardian takes 3 damage. Zaal takes 4 on a (2,2,2) roll, which he transfers to the Raider. The Cannoneer takes 3.
The second Outrider sprays at the Swordsman, catching that same Guardian, Hakaar, and Zaal as well. The Swordsman dies and the soul goes to Hakaar. The Guardian takes 2 more damage. The spray bounces off Hakaar and Zaal manages to dodge, his DEF 15 keeping him safe.
The third Outrider misses the first Swordsman, kills the second (the unit Leader, not that it matters), and bounces off Hakaar and the Cannoneer. The soul goes to one of the Extollers.
Outrider number four picks off three Swordsmen, including the Standard Bearer. Souls get distributed to both Extollers, filling them up.
Number five kills one more Swordsman and puts 2 damage on the rightmost Guardian. A soul gets distributed to that same Guardian by Zaal. The leadership test for the Swordsmen is easily passed and the Outriders make their 5" light cavalry move. They form a wall of bodies in front of the Uhlans and the entire right side of the battle field.
The right Uhlans move, getting into a Defensive Line formation. Drago moves up a little (moving less than normal to make up for moving too far last turn). Markov moves next to the Uhlans, forming a solid wall of armored horsemen. Kodiak takes advantage of Pathfinder and runs into the woods, threatening to come through the treeline like the Kool-Aid Man next turn. For the most part, Vlad seems willing to sacrifice the Outriders in order to have the Uhlans in turns 3 and 4.
On the left side of the board, Vlad is going to "flip the script". Instead of using things to protect Uhlans, he's going to let the Uhlans get up in the mix and form the front. Fenris and the Drakhun move back and to the left, freeing lanes for the three Uhlans.
The right Uhlan is going to benefit from Dash, so he'll be SPD 9. The others are SPD 8 and thus will charge 11".
Impact attacks are first and happen at the end of each model's movement, in this case. They do not benefit from the +2 to attack rolls made when cavalry models charge. This means the Uhlans need 6s to hit and 8s to wound. Three straight misses: (2,3), (4,1), (1,3).
Well, at least there are the lances. But first, there's Defensive Strike by that Ancestral Guardian. He hits, but only does 1 damage.
With the lances, the Uhlans only need 4s to hit. Unfortunately, the Uhlan's cold dice didn't warm up:
- To-hit (1,3), Damage (1-6) - Kills
- To-hit (1,1)
- To-hit (2,4), Damage (2,1) - Bounces because of Inviolable Resolve
As a side-note at the end of the turn, Zaal is up to 7 dead warrior models to feed his feat.
Hakaar the Destroyer has an ability called Righteous Vengeance:
Righteous Vengeance - If one or more friendly Faction warrior models were destroyed or removed from play by enemy attacks while within 5" of this model during your opponent's last turn, after resolving continuous effects during your Maintenance Phase, this model can make a full advance followed by one normal melee attack.
He moves, but it's not enough take him within reach of that lead Outrider.
The Immortals have normal Vengeance, and that's probably going to make life miserable for those three Uhlans on the left. This wouldn't have been so bad for Khador if they had killed the three or four Immortals that they planned on... but dice can be fickle.
It's MAT 6, P+S 13 versus DEF 13, ARM 19 with Defensive Line. Because of Defensive Line, the middle Uhlan is the first target.
The third attacker on that middle Uhlan is the one that brings him down. That is the only Uhlan that dies due to Vengeance attacks, however, as the rest of the attacks miss or do minimal damage.
Zaal fills almost back all the way with fury (he had to spend one to transfer last turn). He cuts himself for the last point. He'll spend two of the soul tokens on Aptimus Marketh to upkeep both his spells that are in play.
So how does Zaal use this turn to minimize the damage done next turn? He needs to play aggressive, pushing the line forward. He would also like to wait another turn for his feat. He activates first. Zaal is pretty happy where he is located and decides to forfeit his move for an aiming bonus. Thanks to Ghost Sight, he ignores LOS when making ranged and magic attacks so that closest Outrider is a sitting duck.
Aiming makes Zaal RAT 8. Outriders are DEF 13 and Zaal ignores the concealment they carry around with them. He boosts to hit anyway, because he's not going to use a ton of fury this turn otherwise. He hits easily. Annihilating Gaze is POW 6, but when it hits a living model you get to add the current STR of that target to this POW. In this case, the Outriders are STR 5, bumping the attack up to POW 11. Zaal spends another point of fury to boost damage. The Outrider is, indeed, annihilated.
Zaal then uses the ability to put souls on the Guardians again, taking him down to 4 fury left. He's done.
Hakaar activates, charging one of the Outriders. He swings at his charge target, hits, and kills. He swings his second sword at another Outrider, hits, and uses a soul to boost damage. That Outrider also falls to his blade. A third Outrider is just within his reach and he buys another attack. It hits and he uses the last soul to boost damage again. That's why they call him Hakaar the Destroyer.
One of the Ancestral Guardians activates next. He charges the last Outrider. He uses a soul to boost his attack. Even at MAT 8, it doesn't hurt to make the odds as much in his favor as possible. He hits and kills the last Outrider.
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| Step One: Apply Ancestral Guardians to squishy horses. |
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| Step Two: Apply Swordsmen to armored horses. Oh, and the left Guardian should be at "1" and not "2". |
Back on the left side of the battle, it's going to be about clearing out those remaining Uhlans. An almost full unit of Immortals should be able to handle it. They move and attack, easily taking out the two remaining Uhlans on that side of the board. The Ancestral Guardian doesn't need to assist so he chills, planning to act as a counter-charger next round.
There is some concern in the middle of the board, seeing as how there's a very large Kodiak staring down Zaal. Something has to be done about it, but the options are limited.
The Extollers can't do anything because the Kodiak is not a living model. The Cannoneer can shoot but won't do enough damage to cripple the Kodiak and is too far away to get his fat butt in the path of the Khador 'jack. The Cyclops Raider and Shaman aren't equipped to smash heavy armor either. At least the objective is providing something to hide behind.
The first thing that happens is that the Ancestral Guardian with 3 souls runs up adjacent to Zaal. He's got Defensive Strike, but that can't be counted on to do any damage. But at least it blocks a path.
Next, the Extoller closest to the Cannoneer backs up slightly and uses his Guidance *Action to give it Eyeless Sight and Magical Weapon. Let's remove the forest from the equation when it comes to shooting this turn.
The Cannoneer then aims and shoots at the Kodiak. Again, the expectation is that damage will be minimal but there's not much else to do. The other alternative is to give the Cannoneer Snipe again and fire off a shot at Kovnik Markov. The Cannoneer rolls a (1,3), which hits due to aiming and Eyeless Sight. Damage gets boosted and the Kodiak takes 5 damage.
The Cyclops Shaman activates. The odds are against him doing any damage to the Kodiak but he aims and fires his Evil Eye anyway. He hits and it's going to be POW 12 versus ARM 20. The boosted damage roll turns out to be (6,6,5), which means 9 gets through! So much for the odds.
Seeing an opportunity thanks to the excellent damage output of the Shaman, the other Extoller activates and gives Eyeless Sight to the Raider. The Raider activates, aims, and shoots. It's POW 14 versus ARM 20 and the Raider boosts. 6 more damage sneaks in.
The only thing left to activate is Aptimus Marketh. He chooses to use Spell Slave to cast Hex Blast. It might put some more damage on the Kodiak and can knock Infernal Machine off the 'jack as well. It hits. Marketh uses his soul to boost damage. One point gets in... but it's to a critical column. The Kodiak has lost it's cortex!
And with that massive stroke of luck, the turn is over. Zaal hasn't had to feat. He's locked up both sides of the board. The main threat in the middle is greatly limited. And Vlad has to be worried about the Kovaas and two fully loaded sniper Extollers.
Vlad Turn Three
So much for the plan of the feat allowing the Kodiak to hit the Guardian and side-step his way over to Zaal. So much for the plan of smashing through stuff with Uhlans under the feat, too. The Outriders died a lot easier than Vlad expected. Maybe he was hoping for too much given the high MAT stats of Hakaar and the Ancestral Guardians.
So what about focusing more on turning this into a scenario win? Here's what the entire board looks like:
Controlling the friendly zone on the left is child's play. If Drago and the Man-o-War Drakhun can't take out one guy in the zone, Vlad deserves to lose. Controlling or dominating the right enemy zone is more tricky. Vlad's Dash spell can ensure the models get to where they need to be, but only Vlad can handle an Incorporeal Kovaas, and to do so he puts himself within range of the Extoller firing squad. And there's all kinds of order of activation issues because Vlad needs to go first to pop his feat and put out buff spells but he needs to act later to kill the Kovaas.
The only real bright spot if Vlad can't kill the Kovaas? It will only be spawning into play with 0 or 1 souls on him. It could be much worse if it had three available.
Vlad comes up with a plan. He allocates 3 focus to Drago, keeping 4 for himself. Because of the Kovaas and a lack of magical weapons, he's just going to have to ignore scoring points from the right zone this turn. He still needs to get a little further up the board so his control zone extends to where it needs to go.
Vlad activates and casts Hand of Fate on the Uhlans. He casts Infernal Machine on Drago. He then pops his feat.
Feat: Charge of the Horse Lords: While in Vladimir's control area, friendly Faction warjacks and cavalry models gain Side Step and Sprint. Charge of the Horse Lords lasts for one turn. (When a model with Side Step hits an enemy model with an initial melee attack or melee special attack that is not a power attack, it can advance up to 2" after the attack is resolved. A model with Side Step cannot be targeted by free strikes during this movement.) (At the end of it's activation, if it destroyed one or more enemy models with melee attacks during its activation, a model with Sprint can make a full advance.)
Following that, he moves up just a bit.
Time to roll the dice on Operation: Apply Drago to Face. Drago activates, charging the Ancestral Guardian for free because of Aggressive.
The Ancestral Guardian uses it's Defensive Strike ability. Five damage gets in.
With the +2 MAT from Infernal Machine, Drago is MAT 9 and gains an additional die on attack and damage rolls (discarding the low die). P+S 16 (with 4 dice, dropping the low) against ARM 18 and 10 health boxes. It rolls a (4,6,6,1) which means 14 damage gets in, more than enough to kill. The Kovaas spawns in the Guardian's place.
Drago uses Side-Step to get further up the field.
Drago then attacks the Kovaas with his other weapon, hitting easily. Of course no damage can be done because the Kovaas is Incorporeal, but Side-Step only requires a hit with an initial melee attack. It doesn't require damage to be done.
It moves up the field a little more and it LOOKS like O:ADtF has stalled out. However, Drago has:
Imprint: Run Riot - During its activation, this model can spend 1 focus point to use Run Riot. This activation, after resolving an attack in which this model destroyed one or more enemy models with a normal melee attack, if there are no enemy models within its melee range it can advance up to 1".
But first, this Guardian also gets a Defensive Strike. Drago takes 3 more damage.
The 1" of extra movement is enough to put Drago in melee range of that Guardian. Time for payback.
It buys an attack on the Guardian, hitting for 5 damage. It uses the last point of focus to buy another attack which finishes off the target. He uses Run Riot and Sprint to put himself in contact with both the Cannoneer and Zaal.
The Uhlans will activate next.
They will get two attacks each (Short Spear and Mount) and both attacks will benefit from Hand of Fate and the feat. When they are done, the remaining unit of Swordsmen is gone. Wiped out. One of the Uhlans didn't get a kill so he doesn't get to Sprint, but the rest did. Zaal gives souls out to Hakaar and Aptimus Marketh (since he can't give them to the Kovaas).
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| Hakaar actually has 3 souls on him at this point. |
Uhlan Kovnik Markov will go next. He declares a charge on Zaal. The charge will take him close enough to the Kovaas to suffer a free strike, if Zaal wants to take it. He's got a conundrum on his hands: take the free strike and maybe do enough damage to kill Markov, but in the process become corporeal and probably unable to ghost through the lines to attack Vlad?
Sidenote: There's an official ruling that states a charging model continues on to it's target even if an Incorporeal model goes corporeal to perform a free strike, and even boosted the Kovaas shouldn't kill Markov in one hit.
He choose to NOT take the free strike. Markov rides freely up the field, engaging Zaal.
Zaal's not easy to hit. He's got a DEF of 15, while Markov is using his Concussion Lance at a MAT of 8 (MAT 10 because of charging). The Khador solo gets what he needs though and hits. The 4" AOE clips the Cannoneer and Drago but misses the nearby Extoller.
The boosted Lance hit does 14 damage, which Zaal transfers to the Cyclops Raider. No more Spirit or Mind for that beast. The POW 10 AOE does 4 more, which he also transfers to the Raider, killing it. The explosion does nothing to the big elephant but it does 1 point to Drago.
Markov uses his Side-Step to slide up next to Zaal and the objective. He can't use the horse or his spear for follow up attacks, but he's nice and cozy with Zaal for next turn (if he lives that long).
The Kodiak is far from dead, although he is pretty battered. He shuffles up 4" and uses his Vent Steam *Attack. A 3" AOE surrounds him and an Immortal (the one used for spell targeting earlier) and an Extoller are caught in the superheated steam clouds. The Immortal survives but the Extoller does not, even with the +5 ARM from the 5 souls. The steam doesn't hurt the objective.
It's now time to see how many Immortals Fenris can cut down in one activation.
If this answer isn't "a lot", then at least the Drakhun is there to help. Fenris charges to put himself where he can take advantage of Berserk the most. He's MAT 8 looking to hit DEF 12 and P+S 13 (with Weapon Master) against ARM 19 (because of Inviolable Resolve).
The first attack gains the cavalry charging bonus and easily hits. It kills and triggers Berserk. That hit kills and triggers again. He kills one more this way until his luck runs out on a damage roll of (1,1,4). He then starts in with the other sword. His luck has run out though as he rolls a (1,1) on the first attack.
The Drakhun rolls up and clears out one more. The zone is now controlled by Khador. The turn is over and the score is now 1 to 0.
Zaal Turn Three
That was an extremely nasty counter punch. But all that chaos is probably going to prove to be for nothing as things come down to Kovaas + Feat = dead caster. If it turns out that's not the case, Zaal probably doesn't last another turn.
Vengeance stuff happens first. Two Immortals swing on the Drakhun and two go up against Fenris. The Drakhun loses 6 of his 10. Fenris loses 8. The lonely Immortal on the right bounces off the Kodiak. Hakaar takes a swipe at the Uhlan engaging him but only does 2.
Zaal refuels on Fury, taking it off the Cannoneer and Shaman and cutting himself for 3 more. There's no reason to upkeep either of the spells.
Drago's got to go. The Cannoneer isn't a melee powerhouse like some of the other titans, but if you throw enough stuff out there something will get through. The Cannoneer is MAT 5 against a DEF 11. He's going to Head Butt the heavy 'jack and boosts his attack roll to make sure it hits. It does and Drago falls to the ground, taking 5 damage as well. That's enough to knock out his movement (since every damage roll has been down his 2 column).
Hitting DEF 7 proves pretty easy for the two follow up attacks the Cannoneer buys. Some extremely high damage rolls do 15 more damage and Drago is down to 3 boxes in column 6.
Zaal wants to cast Last Stand on Kovaas. He can't do that with Markov in the way. The Shaman might be able to deal with Markov, but it would be easier with the feat in effect. But that's not possible because of order of activation issues. Decisions, decisions. The Shaman will activate first and risk not having the benefit of the feat. If things go bad, Zaal can always cast Hexblast to get free of the annoying cavalry solo. The Shaman moves up and prepares to attack:
Boosting to hit allows the Shaman to connect with his first swing. Boosting damage doesn't help quite as much. With a P+S 11 Spear versus Markov's ARM 18, only 1 damage gets in. He buys another attack but it misses. So much for that plan.
Zaal activates and pops his feat. He gains 20 ancestral rage tokens. Unfortunately, he's not going to have enough models to take advantage of those tokens. Because he needs to move up to cast Last Stand on the Kovaas, Zaal can't just Spirit Eye Kovnik Markov into oblivion. He'll try to Sunder Spirit him instead, even though the odds are long.
Sunder Spirit: COST 2, RNG 10, POW 12, Offensive: An enemy warbeast damaged by Sunder Spirit loses it's animus for one round.
We don't care about the side effects. What we care about is POW 12 versus that ARM 18. Since Last Stand is going to cost us 2 Fury later on (hopefully), we have 5 to play with. Enough to cast the spell twice and boost damage once.
Zaal needs to hit first though. FURY 7 versus DEF 13. The first spell hits and does NOT get boosted. The logic? If the next casting misses, he's still got enough for a third unboosted damage attempt. Unfortunately, the damage rolled is low enough that it bounces. The second spell hits but again the damage roll isn't high enough to really matter as Markov takes only 4.
Oh well. Maybe the Kovaas won't need to benefit from Last Stand. Zaal aims and shoots his eye beam at Markov, taking advantage of Gunfighter. He hits, uses his sixth point of fury to boost the damage, and rolls poorly again! Markov only takes 2 and has three left.
Time to see if Kovaas can live up to the hype. He charges, using Incorporeal to glide past the closest Uhlan.
Kovaas uses the Thresher *Attack of his melee weapon instead of just using a normal initial attack. This allows him to swing on both Vlad and the Uhlan, potentially getting anothersoul off a living enemy model.
The Kovaas is MAT 8 versus Vlad's DEF 15. If he hits, it's P+S 14 against ARM 17. Because of the feat, however, he can boost attack and damage rolls. This could have potentially been much, much better if Last Stand could have been cast on him.
His attack on Vlad hits and does 5 damage. He hits the Uhlan with the thresher part of the attack. This particular Uhlan had taken damage earlier and was sitting on 1 health left. The damage roll was P+S 14 with three dice against ARM 17. (1,1,1) means the Kovaas isn't getting that extra soul though and that may be a game losing triple 1.
The Kovaas uses it's one soul token to buy another attack on Vlad, against using the ancestral rage tokens to boost everything he can. His to-hit roll is a (2,3,1)... which just misses. Not a string of good luck for the Skorne team.
Sidenote: Let's look at what average dice rolls would have done in this situation. We're assuming that the Kovaas uses Rage tokens at every opportunity, which would give him an average roll of 10.5. He would hit Vlad with the first Thresher attack and do 7.5 damage (instead of the 5 he did above). He would hit and kill the Uhlan, netting him an extra soul token. That means two more attacks that would both hit, doing 15 additional damage. 22.5 damage is a dead Vlad and game over.
Assassination now looks to be out, but things aren't lost. The Immortals might be able to clear out the left side with help from that Guardian. Drago is almost done, only having his right arm system left. Kodiak is stuck, wedged in between an Immortal and the objective. But how do we deal with that annoying Markov? Hex Blast from Aptimus Marketh? Spirit Eye from the Extoller (firing into melee, ugh)? Honestly, even if we don't take out Markov what's the worst he can do when we have a transfer left?
We'll wait on that and try things out on the left side. The two far left Immortals move over to get inside Zaal's control area so they can benefit from the feat. They also try to place themselves such that they have options to attack either of the cav solos (or the dismounted dudes when they get thrown from their horses) and have 2 guys in the zone to prevent scoring this turn.
The Immortal next to the Kodiak attacks first and does 5 damage to the heavy 'jack, taking out it's Right Arm system.
The first Immortal on the right side of the scrum misses the Drakhun with a roll of (1,1,2). Zaal needs to make sure at least one of these two solos dies, so he attacks next with the far left Immortal, trying to maintain flexibility in target choice. That Immortal knocks Fenris off his horse. The next Immortal in line finishes the job and Fenris fails the Tough roll.
The last Immortal to go takes a swipe at the still-mounted Drakhun. The Immortal hits and just does enough damage to make the Drakhun a foot soldier again. At least for a short while, as the Ancestral Guardian is going to act next. He moves up (there was no way for him to charge and probably no need for it) and takes his best shot, using the Ancestral Rage tokens to boost his roll. His first attack doesn't do enough damage but the Guardian buy another attack with a soul and that does the deed. That enemy zone is now under friendly control.
The Extoller and Marketh haven't activated yet. They really want to take our Markov, but firing or casting into melee is risky. They would be looking at a target DEF of 17 and ARM 18.
Aptimus Marketh tries first. He uses a soul to boost his magic attack roll with Sunder Spirit, looking for a 10 to succeed. He rolls a (6,2,2). Perfect. Damage is POW 12 so he'll need a 9 or more on three dice to kill off the pesky Uhlan Kovnik. This time the dice come up (2,6,2). Success!
It seems like it's too much of a risk for the Extoller to fire at the Kodiak so he shoots his Spirit Eye at the knocked down Drago instead. He hits and it's POW 6 versus ARM 18. Not real likely to do much, but it's worth the shot. The Extoller burns a soul to boost. It bounces off. Rather than spend additional souls, he calls it good and doesn't buy any more attacks.
Last, but not least, is Hakaar, who's all full on three souls. He moves to where he can get a second Uhlan in his melee range. He wants to move further into the mess of Uhlans, but he can't because he also doesn't want to take the free strike from that Uhlan with 0.5" melee range when not charging. He kills both the eligible targets and the turn is over. The score is now 1-1.
Vlad Turn Four
Interesting. Winning by scenario is probably out. Vlad might be able to earn 3 points this turn (dominate the enemy zone, take out the enemy objective), but that's 4. Earning that last point next turn would be nearly impossible. So what are the options for assassination?
Zaal is just within 14", based on Vlad's control area. Vlad's got a charge threat of 13", but it could go up to 14" using the Dash spell. There's an Uhlan and Kovaas in the way, however. Plus, Drago is still alive. While he may be missing his movement, cortex, and left arm... he's got his right arm. And under Internal Machine (if upkept) he's MAT 9.
Infernal Machine is upkept. Hand of Fate is not.
Drago activates first in the turn. It forfeits its movement to stand. It will have two attacks at MAT 9 (against DEF 15). One will get one die and the other two. This could prove to hurt poor Zaal. Or at least get him to burn his transfer.
The two-dice attack hits with a (2,6). It's a P+S 16 axe to the head for Zaal (against ARM 14). The damage comes up (5,3) for 10 damage that gets transferred to the Shaman.
The second axe will need a 6 to hit on one die. It gets a 2 instead.
Now how to deal with the Kovaas? Two Uhlans might be able to do it, if they can hit. They start by making their command check because of Abomination. The Uhlan closest to Vlad really needs to make sure he doesn't block a charge lane. Honestly, it doesn't look like it can be done... so that Uhlan moves and takes a free strike. He dies, but at least he's not hindering Vlad.
 |
| Vlad actually has 6 focus, not 0. |
The second Uhlan spears the Kovaas, doing 1 damage. The horse misses. Things just became more complicated.
Vlad has an option though:
Flashing Blade: COST 1, RNG SELF: This model immediately makes one normal attack with one of its melee weapons against each enemy model in its LOS that is in the weapon's melee range. These attacks are simultaneous.
It's just going to hurt using 1 to cost this and then 2 more for Dash. It is what it is though and Vlad tries this route. He chooses not to boost his attack roll and needs a 6 on two dice. He gets it. It's now P+S 13 against ARM 14 needing to do 4 damage. Again he risks conserving focus and rolls without boosting. He gets what he needs and the Kovaas is back on the bench.
Vlad casts Dash, giving him the extra inch of movement he needs to engage Zaal.
This is for game. If this works, Vlad wins. If not, there's really nothing that can be done to protect him.
Vlad is MAT 7 and gets +2 to charge attack damage rolls with his Horse Lord's Spear making that first attack P+S 14). Zaal is DEF 15 and ARM 14, still. Vlad boosts his attack roll on the charge. The dice... (3,6,4). A hit!
Damage is three dice and all of it is going directly to Zaal who has 11 hit boxes left. The damage is (3,5,1). Zaal is still up and Vlad is down to 2 focus.
Vlad uses Flashing Blade again (because why would you use 1 focus to buy a single attack when you can Flashing Blade instead?). He uses his last point of focus to boost the attack roll.
This time the dice come up (2,5,1). Exactly what was needed. Now the Spear is only P+S 12 and can't be boosted. The damage roll is a (3,2). That's the end of Zaal, but just barely.
Game over by assassination.
Post Game Analysis
Wow. It couldn't get much closer. The dice were unkind to both sides at various critical points. Vlad could/should have been killed in Zaal's turn three and Vlad just barely got the killing blow in on Zaal on his turn four.
It is possible that the critical point was when the Extoller decided not to spend some additional souls to fire off more shots on Drago. The shots would have been POW 6s against ARM 18, but the Extoller had enough for two more boosted shots. Zaal underestimated Drago because he had been virtually wiped out.
If Zaal could have put Last Stand on the Kovaas, then all that "average dice" roll stuff could have been thrown out the window. Last Stand granting the Kovaas an additional die on attack and damage rolls would have eliminated the danger of low dice rolls screwing up the assassination run.
The mobility of Vlad helped him avoid the Extoller snipers. He had to shift over to the right side of the board, which prevented Fenris and the Drakhun from benefiting from the feat, but the forest and Markov jamming kept the Extollers from following him that direction.
For the "All the Horses" list, it's fun to play. The Outriders are a game changer for some Khador lists and under the effects of Hand of Fate they are great against infantry. I feel like holding Drago back as the second or third wave is a good plan. Let the Kodiak soak up the brunt of the enemy's anti-armor early and keep Drago around until later. The Uhlans are surprisingly resilient and if you know the cavalry rules backwards and forwards (I obviously don't) they are very flexible and mobile.
That's it. Another battle report completed. Hope you enjoyed reading!
Dash is for infantry models not cavalry
ReplyDeleteDash is for friendly Faction warrior models. Cavalry models are warrior models. Warcasters, troopers and solos (essentially everything that's not a jack, beast, battle engine, colossal, gargantuan, or Karchev) is a warrior model.
ReplyDelete