WM vs. Hordes Battle Report - Khador vs. Trollbloods - 35 pts

Time for another battle report, with Elliot's Trollbloods battling Ben's Khador, the only faction not yet represented in these batreps. Elliot's List:

• Grissel2
• Bomber
• Impaler
• Max. Fennblades + UA
• Scouts
• War Wagon
• Alten Ashley

Ben's List:

• Vlad1
• Drago
• Behemoth
• Doom Reavers
• Widow Makers
• Gun Carriage (sans 1 horse)

Deployment: Ben won the roll off and decided to go/deploy first. From top to bottom he deployed: Doom Reavers, Behemoth, Drago, Vlad, Widow Makers and the Gun Carriage. From top to botom Elliot deployed: Alten Ashley, Scouts, Fennblades, Bomber, Impaler, Grissel and the War Wagon.

The scenario for this report was Process of Elimination. There are two zones, the first player to 2 points wins and a player can only score a point from each zone once, so one point needs to be scored from both to get a scenario win.

Khador turn 1: The Behemoth was allocated 1 focus. Everything ran forward, except Vlad who cast Blood of Kings (+3 SPD, STR, MAT, DEF and ARM for one round) on himself and advanced.

Trollbloods: Alten Ashley advances and gets first blood by capping the Doom Reaver leader. The Fennblades then technically ran, but didn't move too far up. The Imapler cast it's animus, Far Strike (target friendly model gets +4" to ranged attacks), on the War Wagon, then advanced and said Wagon advanced and fired it's 10" range (now 14"), AOE 5, POW 16 pounder at the Widow Makers, but was out of range and deviated to no where. The Bomber advanced and used it's animus, Bomb Shelter (target model gains Girded, ie, it and models base-to-base with it don't suffer blast damage), on itself, then Grissel advanced and cast Dash (friendly faction models in her CTRL get +1 SPD and ignore free strikes). Lastly, the Scouts charged the Abomination causing Doom Reavers, with one hanging back to be in Grissel's CMD range for Inspiration (models don't flee and immediately rally). Between assaults and charge attacks they killed 4, leaving one very disgruntled Reaver.

A Khador perspective.

A Trollblood perspective.

Khador turn 2: Vlad gave 3 focus to the Behemoth's sub cortex (can only be spent on it's bombards), hung back and used the other 4 to cast Sign & Portents (friendly faction models roll an additional die on attack and damage rolls and drop the lowest). Eager for revenge, the lone Doom Reaver advanced slightly and hit a Scout, looking to Berserk on the whole unit, but the Scout made it's tough check. The Gun Carriage advanced onto the hill and, thanks to Signs & Portents, did 11 damage to the War Wagon (5 and 6 respectively) with both heavy cannons and no damage with the military rifle. Drago ran into a zone to contest and the Behemoth moved into the other zone and shot the Scout who'd toughed from the Doom Reaver (and wasn't in the forest to get stealth via prowl), toughing again on the first shot, but dying to the second (along with another Scout dying to the blast damage). The Widow Makers groomed the hedge.

Trollbloods turn 2: First off the War Wagon charged the Gun Carriage, doing a couple damage. It then targeted a Widow Maker with the spray, but was out of range, again doing no damage to the Carriage. Lastly it fired the pounder fired at Drago, but missed and deviated harmlessly. Three Scouts then mobbed the last Doom Reaver, with the leader staying for Inspiration and toeing into the zone. Though not visible in the shot below, Alten Ashley ran to the table edge in the off chance that he'd have a moment to shine later. Being a bit penned in, Grissel moved a little closer to the hedge and used her none too awesome feat, giving friendly faction models in her CTRL Unyielding (+2 ARM when engaging an enemy model) and Hyper Aggressive (after being damaged by an enemy attack the model can advance directly towards the attacker). She then cast Far Strike on the Bomber, Bomb Shelter on herself and Dash, sitting on 1 fury. The Impaler gave itself Far Strike and threw a spear at the Gun Carriage, doing a couple damage. The Fennblades used their mini feat (they get +2" of movement when charging and gain Pathfinder, Terror and become Fearless for one round) and ran up. Lastly, realizing there were now no good targets for it, the Bomber advanced to the hedge, putting Bomb Shelter on the Fennblade officer and riling for 1.

Khador turn 3: Vlad allocated on focus to the Behemoth and stayed put, casting Boundless Charge (target model gets +2 movement and Pathfinder when it charges and charges for free) on Drago as well as Signs & Portents. Three Widow Makers aimed and shot 3 Fennblades (the one engaged with Drago and the 2 on the small, central hill), with the last one targeting the Fennblade in the back of the closest zone and coming up short. The Carriage then moved over slightly to kill a Fennblade with it's mount attack, also using the heavy cannons to shoot the Fennblade in the back of the zone (killing it) and the War Wagon (doing another 5 damage). Drago then charged the crippled Wagon and destroyed it with the charge attack. The Behemoth stood there and punched the Fennblade to his right twice (it made both tough checks) and one bombard hit and killed a Scout, with the other missing and going wide of anything. At the end of the turn Ben got a control point for Drago controlling the zone on his right.

Trollbloods turn 3: The Fennblades repositioned a bit via Vengeance and Alten Ashley advanced to shoot at Vlad, but was out of range. Grissel went next, casting Far Strike on herself and the Bomber and hit Drago with her Quake fell blast (one of three ranged attacks she can make), knocking it down and boosting the damage to do 6 points. The Impaler went next, casting Far Strike on itself and hit Drago with a spear, boosted (and rolled well) to do another 10 damage. The Fennblades charged, two charging Drago (only doing a couple points) and three tickling the Behemothwith their swords. The Bomber repositioned behind the hedge, finishing off Drago with some boosted bombs and the Scouts repositioned in the Behemoth-contested zone, all having stealth from being in the forest.

Grissel shakes her fist at Vlad.

Khador turn 4: Vlad allocated 2 focus to the Behemoth's sub-cortex and 1 to the regular cortex. He then continued his trend of casting Signs & Portents and not moving. The Behemoth punched the three Fennblades (two making their tough checks) and fired at Alten Ashley with two boosted bombards, the second one hitting and killing him. Then one Widow Maker advanced to get LOS and killed the knocked down Fennblade to the Behemoth's left. The other three shot at the knocked down Fenn to it's right and, after passing 2 tough checks, the third one took him out. Lastly, the Carriage charged and killed the Fennblade officer and shot another with the military rifle. It fired it first heavy gun at the Fennblade in the woods behind the Scouts (killing it and a Scout in the blast) and it's second heavy gun at the Impaler, doing some damage.

Trollbloods turn 4: There was a bit too much fury on the table so Grissel left 1 on the Impaler, but it didn't frenzy. The Scouts both assaulted the Gun Carriage, doing a bit of damage. The Impaler advanced slightly and threw a fully boosted spear at the Carriage for a little more damage. Realizing that to he had to try to cripple the Behemoth, Elliot had Grissel cast Far Strike on herself and the Bomber, advance over the hedge (to get it in range) and shouted her Quake fell blast at it, hitting to knock it down and doing some damage, but not boosting so as to have at least the one transfer. The Bomber then advanced into the zone and threw 2 bombs at the Behemoth, boosting the damage and doing a good amount, but coming up one short of taking out it's movement.

Khador turn 5: Vlad allocated 3 focus to the regular cortex and 2 to the sub-cortex, with the Behemoth spending 1 from the regular cortex to stand up. Vlad went first, using his feat (his jacks double their SPD and can run or charge for free), cast Boundless Charge on the Behemoth and toed into the zone. The Widow Makers went next (some moving) and sniped out the two Scouts blocking the Carriage. The battle engine then charged Grissel, doing 3 damage with the impact, but missed the actual charge attack. Both guns fired at her, but missed, just dropping the rough terrain AOEs on her. Lastly, the Behemoth charged the Bomber, rolling quite well and killing it in two hits, clearing that zone. For fun it shot two boosted bombard shots at Grissel, bringing her down to 2 health, though it probably should've missed as the firing-into-melee penalty wasn't applied. At any rate, at the end of the turn Ben scored the second control point needed to win the scenario.

Aftermath: At long last an official victory by scenario. It seemed that Elliot was at a disadvantage off the bat as he didn't bring many hard hitters in his list, though when push came to shove he was able to apply damage well. In addition to the nigh-loaded dice that Signs & Portents bestows, the Widow Makers are what heavily contributed to Ben's victory, making short work of models that would have otherwise significantly tied up Ben's larger pieces. With that said, Elliot admitted that a Chronicler (to give the Fenns concealment and the ability to be untargetable by ranged attacks while knocked down) probably would have been a better choice than Alten Ashley. Ben was unfamiliar with the Scouts, thus they made short work of the Doom Reavers, though that may well have been balanced out by the Gun Carriage's S&P augmented heavy guns rolling fire and taking out 3/4 of the War Wagons damage boxes just by itself. Elliot said his main regret this game was hanging back too much with the Fennblades. This not only hampered them, but, by penning in Grissel, denied her and the Bomber a potential turn of shooting. Had he rolled a point higher for damage on the Behemoth, it's movement would've been out and it couldn't have killed/removed the Bomber from the zone, but this was just another instance of WarmaHordes where 1 point of damage can make all the difference. The next report should be Sameer's Legion versus Beau's Mercenaries.