July Scrum Rd 3 - Madrak2 Vs. Zaadesh2

Round 3 of the July Scrum and I'm paired against Rich who is playing Skorne.  I was happy to play vs. Rich who has won a previous Scrum and I've not played much against Skorne since they've gotten all their buffs in MK3. I figured I'd learn a lot in this match, especially since I've never played against the buffed Derp Turtle (aka. Siege Animantarax) which the internet tells me is particularly strong and Rich had one in both of his lists.

This was a bit bitter-sweet for me, as I knew this was going to be my last round in the July Scrum. We already had a drop, forcing a bye each week and my work accelerated the schedule for the job I'm working on, which was causing me to have to stay later each evening at random nights every week.  This put a strain on my family life - it's one thing to get a game a week in, but to be home late and then still have to go get my game in because it's scheduled well in advance is a bit rough on my wife.  Such is life.

Lists and Analysis

Rich had the following pair:

Morghoul3
-Escorts
-Archidon
-Cyclops Raider
-Cyclops Shaman
-Aptimus Marketh (free)

Extoller Soulward
Feralgeist
Willbreaker (free)
Venator Dakar
Venator Dakar

Beast Handlers (min)
Venator Catapult (free)
Venator Reivers + CA
Venator Reivers + CA

Siege Animantarax
 
Zaadesh2
-Agonizer (free)
-Agonizer (free)
-Archidon
-Krea (free)
-Bronzeback
-Gladiator
-Sentry
-Sentry

Willbreaker
Beast Handlers (max)
Swamp Gobbers

Siege Animantarax

Looking at the matchup I wasn't fond of Grim2's chances into either list.  Morghoul3 could be a disaster with his Blind spell to just lock down a unit entirely and the Venator Reivers out range my units from a base level and their mini-feat is extends their range to go beyond what my units + Grim2's feat can accomplish.  Grim doesn't really like Zaadesh2 who brings a cloud wall that prevents most of my pieces from being able to shoot and has two ARM 21 shield guards in the list that can't be knocked down.

Madrak2 wasn't looking too hot into either list as far as I could tell, but was better off into either compared to Grim2.  I wasn't completely sure what Rich was going to drop since I was only vaguely aware of what Skorne's plan would be, but the match ended up with Madrak2 vs. Zaadesh2 playing Mirage.



Deployment & Rich's Turn 1

Rich won the roll to go first and I picked table sides.

Rich puts out his upkeeps and takes sufficiently threatening positions with the Archidon and the Turtle. He ends up with 2 rage tokens on the Turtle due to missing one attack.

My Turn 1

I use the Runebearer for Harmonious Exaltation to get  Blood Fury on the left Long Riders and dump the rest of Madrak's fury onto stone.

Since I hadn't played against the Turtle before I didn't really think of it as a melee threat, I had only considered it as a problem with its gun. As such I went on the hill to get a defense bonus, but didn't stagger the riders to mitigate melee problems. Boy was that a mistake. 

On the right I staggered my Long Riders to bait in the Sentry, the stone advanced and I really needed the fury generation to give me 2-3 fury, but I only rolled a 1 meaning some of the left Long Riders were going to be out of the aura.

Rich's Turn 2

Well there goes the neighborhood. So as it turns out the Turtle can murder you much better in melee than with its guns, but sometimes it can just do both. I was left with one Long Rider knocked down and on 2 boxes out of my left unit thanks to a Crit Pitch from the Archidon.

Rich puts up his feat and some clouds between Zaadesh and the Swamp Gobbers to try and block me off. Not knowing/respecting the Turtle's output in melee basically put me way behind on attrition.

My Turn 2

Well as you can see, very little died.  I stood up the knocked down Long Rider and tried to Bull Rush into the Archidon, but of course the retaliatory strike crit pitched  the Long Rider into the objective and killed it.  I tried to use Eilish to strip Inviolable Resolve off the Turtle, but that failed due to range and having to walk around Kriel Warriors that wanted to charge in with Blood Fury.  Due to the Agonizer behind the Turtle, I couldn't even get a Raged Bomber to kill the Archidon.

I used my right Long Riders to charge in and kill the Swamp Gobbers, then reposition just outside of melee of his beasts. I moved one Rider to jam up (and stop counter charges from) the Bronzeback and Sentry in the center, I position the Mauler to be able to kill whatever comes in to contest my flag or just go after their heavies if they go into the Long Riders.  I scored my flag to go up 1-0.

Rich's Turn 3

Rich continues to just pound me in the face repeatedly.  I lose most of my Kriel Warriors and the Bomber between the Turtle, Archidon (seen as a proxy base), and the Bronzeback.

The right Sentry kills two Long Riders and is able to get just within 4" of the flag to contest me, and the center Sentry kills the jamming one.  Zaadesh moves into the circle zone to score it, and the Mist Speaker moves to score his friendly flag.  Not pictured here is a cloud right in front of my Mauler to block LOS to the Sentry.   Rich is up 2-1 on scenario.

My Turn 3

Well I was getting absolutely slaughtered and the game is basically over.  In order to get everything going last turn Zaadesh had to heal the Archidon for 2 fury and since he made a cloud, he was on a 0 camp.  I was looking for whatever jank I could pull to get an assassination, and somehow I see one:

Madrak puts Blood Fury on the remaining Long Riders and then casts Warpath.  The Longriders get pathfinder from the Fell Caller and need to declare a Bull Rush onto the Gladiator. The goal is to slam the Gladiator over Zaadesh, then Follow up and make a weapon master attack on him. Ideally I can kill a model elsewhere to proc Warpath to allow the Mauler to move up to the Sentry who will then double handed throw the Sentry over at Zaadesh to finish him off.

I start executing: The Fell Caller runs to engage the Sentry to shut down counter charge and calls Pathfinder for the Riders. Eilish puts puppet master on the Riders.  Madrak casts his spells and the Stone runs into position and pops for Strength.

I made a mistake however when it came to the Long Riders, One rider had the Bull Rush into the Gladiator, the other just ran up.  The problem came when an Agonizer counter charges my Bull Rushing Longrider to prevent his ability to move directly towards the slammed Gladiator.  If I had been careful here I could have done the bull rush move first, and when the Agonizer charged in, the second Long Rider could have declared it as the charge target, allowing me to kill the Agnoizer allowing the follow up move.

As such I was able to slam the Gladiator over Zaadesh doing 6 damage, leaving him on 10, but I couldn't follow up for the melee attack to get more damage in. I did kill the Agonizer with my follow up attack which allowed the Mauler to warpath up to the Sentry.  I cast rage on myself, boost to hit my double handed throw, win the STR check, and then use my last fury to boost to hit the knocked down Zaadesh - only to roll triple 1's.  The scatter goes away from Zaadesh, but my damage roll would have been less than the 10 to kill him anyway and the game effectively ends here since Rich just needs to walk and kill my objective with a Bronzeback and then score his flag again to win. 

Conclusions

I needed to research what these lists could really do more, but I've been struggling to give much thought to the match due to my work situation.  I can't believe I forgot that the Derp Turtle was more dangerous in melee than it was in shooting (especially when not with Rasheth).  I basically gave my Long Riders away and that swung the game very hard towards Rich right at the start.

Rich was a joy to play against and was describing how he thought it was a 50/50 matchup.  I disagreed and then he revealed the key as to why: Lead with the Kriel Warriors, not anchor.  Unlike my last game, if I just play conservatively with the Riders and jam up with the Kriels it's very possible I can kill enough of his pieces to snowball the attrition towards my side.

It's a brilliant idea on how to approach this matchup and I hadn't even thought of it, since well Longriders are fast and so you lead with them, Kriel Warriors anchor.  However, unlike the Circle game last round of the Scrum where Kriels can Blood Fury their way through nearly anything, Agonizers are going to really hurt their chances at damaging ARM 21 Sentries or anything with Inviolable Resolve. However if I just jam with them, I can setup the trades to allow me to get ahead.

Overall it was still a fun game even though Rich basically bashed my head into the ground repeatedly, I honestly look forward to the next time I can play him.

It is a bit sad to end the Scrum here, but I am looking at being able to attend my first actual WM tournament in ages this weekend, though I will be bringing Convergence instead of Trolls.