Monday 7 June 2010

This Tree is Made for Whumping

Here's my write up of my games at the UK Masters.  All the crazy stuff that happened away from the games will wait for another post (like being woken up at 4am by Jim wanting to know if he should change his lists (I answered "No.")).  Maybe we can hear Martyn's impression of a Boosted Damage episode again at some point.

The list I used for the entire event was:

pDoomshaper
+ Mulg the Ancient
+ Dire Troll Mauler
+ Troll Axer
+ Troll Bouncer
Trollkin Fennblades (min)
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (min)
+ Stone Scribe Elder
Fell Caller Hero
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters (max)
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew
Troll Whelps

Ironically this list does not deal with infantry swarms very well but eats lists with multiple heavies (usually, it didn't work out that way against Tim Lawrence).  I was not aware that the metagame outside Glasgow seems to be all about the infantry and the Great Bears.  If I never see the Great Bears again, it will be too soon.  My "decoy" list was:

eDoomshaper
+ Mulg the Ancient
+ Earthborn Dire Troll
+ Dire Troll Mauler
+ Troll Axer
Trollkin Long Riders
Horthol, Long Rider Champion
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes
+ Stone Scribe Elder
Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew
Troll Whelps

As most of the people I've played with eDoomshaper before quickly learn to deal with him I never even considered using him.  Once you nullify his super-charge the list quickly peters out and it all goes down the drain.  It never occurred to me that it might not be the case at the UK Masters.  Looking back on the majority of my games, I really do think eDoomshaper would have easily rocked up my first 3 games with no hassle and actually let me go check out the Games Expo.

Game One: pDoomshaper vs pIrusk
Opponent: Alex Smith
Scenario: Process of Elimination
I really hoped he'd choose his Karchev list but it was not to be.  I remember Ironfangs, a Winterguard Death Star and the Great Bears.  Oh, a Spriggan and a Devastator also featured (briefly).  He managed to kill the entirety of the Nyss Hunters with boosted spray attacks with the Winterguard and Kovnik Joe quite early but never really capitalised on this advantage.  In the control zones however Mulg, my Mauler and the Axer were rocking up the business.  I completely cleared out the right hand zone and kept it that way - the left hand zone wasn't looking good as Battle Lusted Great Bears charged Mulg and... well that was the end of Mulg.
Once Mulg was dead the Great Bears were in a lovely group and so my Mauler ate them.  Alex had a way to stop me winning by scenario (running the Winterguard into the zone) but for some reason chose to mess about trying to shoot ARM 20ish models with single attacks.  It was a bit bewildering at the time.  Not one to pass up the scenario win the Mauler ate his remaining models in the other control zone and that was that.

Game Two: pDoomshaper vs eIrusk
Opponent: Tim Martin
Scenario: Capture the Flag
Unfortunately I kept calling Tim "Martin" for the majority of the game.  Quite embarrassing really.  He had a *very* similar list to Alex Smith, only he'd swapped pIrusk to eIrusk.  As some of you could have guessed, I was not overjoyed at this.  This time the Battle Lusted Great Bears killed my Mauler before Tim had a big panic attack about my Nyss Hunters coming around the side of the board and promptly moved eIrusk into Mulg's trample range.  Predictable death-by-tree followed.

Game Three: pDoomshaper vs Testament
Opponent: Toby Jennings
Scenario: No idea, I'm sure it was rocking.
A valuable lesson was learnt in this game about Shield Wall.  Do not use it.  My Axer managed to Thresher a stupendous number of Temple Flameguard - it did give the Testament a great number of souls but he was in pDoomy's feat area when they were converted to focus.  He was welcome to spend them, it *might* not kill him.  I ran out of time on my extension turn, which meant I didn't get to kill the Avatar with my Mauler (priorities Andy!  The objective can wait, the Avatar hurts!) and so Toby saw the chance to poke Doomshaper a few times with a giant flaming sword.  Luckily he ran out of focus before I ran out of fury and then it was a case of death-by-tree once again.
I feel a bit bad about this game as it was the first time I've played against Menoth (yes, really).  I kept having to ask for Toby's cards every few minutes as he did something I'd never even heard of.  We're really going to have to find a Menoth player in Glasgow soon.

Having won all three games on day one put me into the top eight for day two.  Dinner that night centred on ways to make the Lord of the Feast even more broken - we came up with what has been named the "Palpatine Manoeuvre".  I'm sure someone can figure it out.  We now progress to Day Two.

Game Four: pDoomshaper vs eFeora
Opponent: Tim Lawrence
Scenario: Outflank, Outfight, Outlast
My second game against Menoth... ever... 
Made a dufus mistake in my first turn of not running my Nyss Hunters straight into the zone.  I'd declared they were advancing and measured the movement and it didn't feel right at this point to go "er... no, they're totally running".  As it was Tim just dominated the zones and easily outed me once both my heavies died in one turn (perhaps a surprise to both of us).
I did catch Tim with a very sneaky manoeuvre with Mulg though.  The Avatar had Enliven up on it and was well within the Book's 'no knockdown' aura, so Mulg walked through a forest, weapon-locked the Avatar's sword and then pummelled the Avatar to near-death.  I had to use the Mauler to help finish it off though, which made me a sad panda.  This in turn led me to losing both heavies in my list and it all went down hill from there.
Tim's didn't Shield Wall his Flameguard at all, which was an excellent idea, Shield Wall just seems to be a magnet for having your stuff die horribly.

With this loss I was out of the running.  Sad panda face.

Game Five: pDoomshaper vs eSkarre
Opponent: Jon Webb
Scenario: Destruction
It turns out Jon and I are probably quite similar in personality and type of humour (bitter and filled with hate!). This was easily the most fun game I had the entire weekend.  Strangely enough I asked if we might just do Scissors, Paper, Stone and the winner of that get the win.  Then we'd both get to go check out the Expo.  We decided to put that off until a couple of turns, if nothing was happening for either of us, we'd do that instead of grinding it out.
Jon's list was brilliantly painted - I thought his painting was more ambitious than mine but roughly at the same level; then I learnt he'd done it all in a hurry, which means his painting blows mine out of the water.  Anyway, it looked like a rather bizarre list to me.  There were Ghost Pirates, both types of crabjack and a distinct lack of a Deathjack.  I wondered if there was perhaps something I didn't know about Cryx...
Having decided that Jon's army lacked any sort of ability to punch through armour I promptly marched forward in my turns, totally ignoring the majority of his models in an effort to get to the objective markers.  Then Jon used eSkarre's feat to select all my warbeasts.  In turn I ran my Mauler straight into base-to-base contact with Skarre, taking a feeble free strike from the Harrower - the damage was then removed by the Whelp that was spawned and eaten.
The next turn or so was Jon trying desperately not to get eaten by a Dire Troll and me trying to keep said Dire Troll within Doomshaper's control area without getting Doomy killed horribly.  In the end it came down to rolling a 5+ on 2d6 for my Mauler to kill a Necrosurgeon, which would have in turn let me Goad into Skarre and pummel her with my remaining 4 fury.  Jon commanded my dice to roll a 4 and they promptly obeyed, much to my distress.  Then he unloaded *everything* into Doomshaper.  Unfortunately I only remembered about Protective Fit once the Pistol Wraith got involved and by then it was too late.
The game ended with the bizarre paradox of Doomshaper in the middle of the table and Skarre nearly at the table edge.  It was an epic game to play however, Jon even gave me an interview for the podcast (whether my voice translates into digital medium however is a bit of a mystery, I'm afraid I do sound like a girl).
I still ranked higher than Jon however! It may be one place, but it's still higher.  Mwahaha.
The Boosted Damage interview is at 49:24 of episode 39.  I sound much dorkier than I do to myself =(

Game Six: Darius vs pDoomshaper
Opponent: Matt Herbert
Scenario: Gauntlet
There was no way Matt was going to win this.  My list is almost custom made to deal with his.  Each turn he was losing warjacks as I removed all his upkeeps, spammed Rage on my dire trolls and then scrapped all his stuff.  The game went to time, but literally the only model Matt had left on the table was Darius facing down my Axer, Bouncer, Mauler and untouched Nyss Hunters all within charge range.  I feel a bit sorry for gubbing him so badly.

Final Ranking: 11th - Top Troll.  With pDoomshaper.

As I was discussing with Jim Lawrence (UK Masters Champion (again)) on the way back, actually eDoomshaper would have rocked most of my opponent's lists.  Very often there would be warcasters about 14" away with nice, big, empty spaces around them.  That's an invitation to death-by-tree with eDoomshaper.  I think only the Menoth players would have a chance to stop me with those medium based Bastions.  Also, my list has a definite hike in power against Hordes - I did not play against a single Hordes person the entire weekend, I was gutted.

I would recommend people attend the UK Masters, the social environment was incredible.  The Welsh lads and Vish were particularly awesome.  If you do come, do not wear a club t-shirt, it seems to be an invitation for disaster.  I don't think anyone who wore one made it out of what is known as the "Chump Room".

3 comments:

  1. In regards to your last game against Matt, it didn't help that he had very little experience against Hordes, let alone the strength your list had against it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. He was super-nice about it, even though I could tell the fun was starting to drain out of it near the end, Matt still played on like a trooper. I'd love to give him a chance for revenge next year if he comes back to the Masters. =)

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is an awesome write up Lee. I like that you used pDoomy so well. Awesome work man! :D

    ReplyDelete