Battle 056 was against a surprisingly strong Halfling list. Aura options are no joke, and they look like a really strong combined arms style army.
Battle 057 was against a very spooky and well-themed Nightstalkers army, but a very new player.
The Ambush games were neat (regiments for the win!), but my Varangur raiders were not well suited to it. I brought a fair amount of cavalry units, but our tables were 3 feet wide for 1000 points, so their maneuverability was very limited. With such a small play space, I think every game that day was a tabling, unfortunately. These were part of an escalation league though, so they will be bumping up in points and table sizes next month, and that should allow for more back-and-forth. It will be really neat to see both the Halflings and the Nightstalkers armies grow, and I am really looking forward to playing against them more.
And then I also got in an unexpected but welcome weeknight game against @Cartwright recently, with the granola elves and some unpruned elementals of the Sylvan Kin against some rusty combined arms of the Kingdoms of Men. Battle 058 can be found here. It was a close one!
Triple Ballistae did work in the early game, but war machines are still swingy and the dice were rather uncooperative as the game progressed and the targets became less idea. They are terrain dependent as well, but definitely worth exploring more since they hit on 4’s and are so cheap.
Crossbow horde was nice, but not used well, due to my opponent’s pressure and my inexperience with them. Still, they contributed in both damage and scenario play, and the removal of Pot Shot is a very welcome change!
On the opposing side, an aggressive Wiltfather and multiple Greater Air Elementals are hard to deal with. Go figure! I think we’ve both used the Wiltfather and Tree Herders before, but usually in a more passive role. The yolo Wiltfather was quite hard to deal with, so I was taking notes for some future Herd lists…
My opponent brought a neat list to explore more of the Sylvan Kin, and played a very solid game while doing so. Thanks again for fitting it in!
Thanks for the fun game and great writeup! As always seems to be the case, this one went down to the wire.
The pikes were tough and caused some problems. Similarly, I didn’t have great answers for the generals and mostly intended to ignore them and just eat the occasional flank or rear. I find that to be more effective than changing out my entire gameplan to pivot around to handle them.
Thanks for the full size report! I’ll admit I only skimmed the Ambush level games, I only have so much to personally relate to non-standard games. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the change of pace? And played some new faces.
As for the big game, happy to see it go so close despite early turns. I do feel like you should have been more and not less aggressive, especially when it came to the Sylvan shooting. Also, I think we can all agree what the play of the match was:
The Lute ASB makes a fun play for Nimue, lands a hit, sticks the damage, and clobbers the legendary spellcaster with the instrument!
Yeah, the Ambush games were a neat change of pace, but are too terribly swingy. Not sure how many games I’ll be getting in with the League rules myself, but we should have new opponents and new armies appearing across the table in the coming months more regularly. Strategically they aren’t the most interesting reads, but on the community-building and hobbying fronts, the League is a smashing success so far!
The Gladestalkers are just such a pain to engage against, but hopefully I learned some lessons with the infantry hordes after this game. Under fire, especially non-piercing Bow fire, I should be advancing with multiple units, presenting more targets while trying to threaten the enemy and get some use out of my own units. Sitting back and hiding units just told my opponent what to shoot at that turn and made things easier for him.
Yeah, it’s not every day an ASB routs their points back and then some! That was definitely the highlight of the match for me too. Hex did a lot this game, and has been neat, but I think I need to pair it with something else I follow up with later in the game (Mindfog caster; assassin character; mounted hero or something). That could easily be a role for the flying Generals though, and I think avoiding a charge might be why Nimue accidentally moved while Hexed later in the game.
Lastly, and speaking of, I hate to say it and show my hand, but Cartwright has the right idea on ignoring the flying Generals. They are fun tools, but not particularly dangerous on their own. They had a good showing here, but that was largely due to their targets being uninspired and me getting lucky.
From my vantage point: if you rush forward, I have maybe 1-2 turns of shooting before we’re engaged. If you stay back and wait, I get multiple turns and can do some serious damage. If I have the shooting advantage, I try to delay melee and pick off an extra unit or two, then make a late game push. Otherwise, I generally try to close as quickly as possible and see what can happen. A horde sitting on a token can’t eat 30 ranged attacks a turn for multiple turns and expect to stay around.
I got in my first game against the Imperial Dwarfs the other day! Having greatly enjoyed Darkblack’s reports, I knew a few things about the army, but it still had some surprises for me. Battle 059 can be found here.
My opponent brought a list packed with Def6 stuff, as well as the Royal Guard formation, plus a bunch of throwing Mastiffs.
I continued exploring Abyssal MSU, with a lot of doubles for testing purposes (double Chroneas, Fiends, Tortured Souls and Harbingers) and a healthy amount of Abyssal Guard and infantry units, though I left most of the Flamebearers at home this time.
Loads of Defense 6 is not really a list type that I have really encountered before, and I wasn’t sure how MSU would fare against it. Overall, I was quite pleased with my list and my play. The Fearless Abyssal Guards generally stuck around unflinchingly, with the Fiends and Harbingers proving to be versatile supporting units. The Chroneas monsters were MVPs for me, landing easy damage with Cloak of Death against the high defense units, and tossing around some decent heals with the Temporal Fissures too. Paired with Regeneration (and some Lifeleech on the Tortured Souls), the monsters kept the other Abyssals pretty healthy.
It was a close game throughout! I don’t think my opponent has joined the forum yet, so we’ll thank him now and tag him later. Cheers!
WOW what a dice game While I’m gently shocked this is your first game against Imperial Dwarfs, hearty congrats on shouldering through all those tough little (and big!) bodies. One rules thing below:
The Stone Priest double-cast is new, but I’m aware of this Shambling trick, although it’s been a while since I’ve encountered it. Touching on some of the rule’s highlights for anyone unfamiliar: since the horde needed to withdraw, it will still take a -1 penalty in the coming melee. (Big Red Book, pg. 27) The optional withdraw rule doesn’t care that the horde is fighting the same unit, just that it made the withdraw move here.
Those elementals were most likely just Disengaging (i.e. backing up under their own movement), which doesn’t incur a Melee penalty and can be done regardless of Withdraw existing. Assuming they didn’t back up over 2.5", in which case they would indeed need to use the extra 1" from Withdraw, but that seems excessive and unlikely when the goal was to get shots in from other targets before surge-charging back in.
Thank you @Boss_Salvage! I was pleased that I was able to persevere here. It was a heck of a game.
I have played against the Abyssal Dwarves of Cartwright and his boys, and had a one-off smaller game against the Abyssal Dwarfs a few years back, but yeah, I’ve dodged both of the good-aligned dwarfs up until now. With a local community actually growing though, we’ll have many new-to-me armies appearing soon.
And thank you for the clarification! I’ve added that into the report. Them just Disengaging makes way more sense as a course of action in that case.
Thanks for the write up!
Always good to see a Mantic Dwarf army on the table.
Also thank you for the shout out.
In the rules query, the only instance I know of where a unit can’t overrun into a new combat after routing an induvidual is if that induvidual had The Crystal Pendant of Retribution.
The pendant prevents enemy units from overruning.
I’m afraid that inspiring is not technically an aura, so it’s range isn’t improved by the Sacred Horn.
Bah! I am long overdue for a full rules reread, but yeah, I am forced to agree. Inspiring is it’s own special rule, and separate from Auras. And the wording for Rallying can still take a hike. I hope they tidy up these rules in the future, but thank you for the correction @Darkblack! Much appreciated.
So, the Sacred Horn wouldn’t have been as powerful as we played it here, but it isn’t terrible for ASBs, as it would get their special rule aura out to match the coverage of their Very Inspiring.
Battle 060 can be found here. My opponent ran a “classic” Northern Alliance for himself, with regenerating anvils, some shooting, and some objective holders. With Fools Gold as the scenario, he played very well, and was well-suited for pressuring early and spreading out later to seize the objectives.
I tried a “no chaff” list, which didn’t play out the best. The Herd doesn’t have good heals or great grinding options. I was passive, and just got picked apart as the game progressed. It was still a great time and felt like I was learning a lot.
And then Battle 061 can be found here. For the second game, my opponent tried out a list with a similar style but some unusual units for him, running some Ice Elementals. The short-range shooting has torn my lists apart previously, but was less effective this game.
My second list added some speedy Herd chaff back in, and I played much more aggressively, and had much better outcomes! Some of those results were definitely lucky breaks, but I would definitely say I played smarter in the second game. Some Herd takeaways from both games:
Tribal Spear Hordes were a little difficult to use well, due to the horde footprint, but I liked them generally, and they seem like a great basis for building out a list these days. Few things are going to want to charge right in against them, and TC can give them some offensive oomph as well.
Guardian Brutes are fragile, and very vulnerable to chip damage, but look like one of our better hammer options still.
Winged Beasts of Nature are neat (I do like my flying monsters), but actually don’t have great combat stats, with just 7 attacks at CS2. Like so many things in the list, if you can make use of the Pathfinder, they should be better than normal, but in an open field, the Herd units are more expensive and less effective than a lot of similar alternatives.
A Hydra does make a pretty nice aggressive tar pit, as has been suggested on this very forum!
The Wiltfather is powerful, but I don’t think I am nearly aggressive enough with him. In the first game Hrimm came down early and my only deployment goal was to not deploy him opposite the giant. In the second game, we had more of a cat-and-mouse deployment with these two. I did better the second game, but still have a ways to go to understand the Wiltfather and Tree Herders.
I had a great time playing some great games, and I think I am slowly starting to get a better understanding of the Herd! A big thank you to Cartwright for hosting and fitting these in!
Thanks for the double reports! Especially as I’m jonesing to return to my own Herd so can live vicariously. Speaking of, my heart sank at each one of those lucky wavers and annoying windblasts, and I was often armchair generaling over here, urging you to be more aggressive
I was happy you didn’t change up your second list too much from the first, just adding back in that sweet, sweet chaff that was missing in the first list. While those six hordes in the first list are all quality, you do sacrifice quite a bit of control without chaff to guide them in, especially with Sp 6 on 4/6 of them.
Regarding that Beast + Ice Elemental sandwich, your average damage is 14.5 (dunno if you remembered vicious), for a rout test of only 2-3. So a pretty done deal … even if the other Ice Elementals were definitely ready to pounce
For the first game, cheap drop dwarf warriors at 115 points were a real benefit to the Northern Alliance, given how spread out the tokens were. I knew I had a drop advantage and, if I could kill a few of your units, would be able to grind you out readily enough. That was a tough match-up for the Herd.
For the second game: your write-up is maybe a little too generous to me. You pretty thoroughly outplayed me in this one, esp in the first turn. From there I was reactive and reminded me of the thumping you gave my Brothermark list a year or so ago. When things break right for the Herd, they break REALLY right and are tough. Well played and a good win.
For units, while I’ve toyed around with cavern dwellers as thick chaff (or more a tarpit), 210 points and no fury makes them a pricey way to do that. I think I lean more towards the snow troll prime as the way to chaff with a 50mm unit and a smaller price point (120) that can still get into flanks and cause damage. I’m still not sure what to make of bolt throwers. For 80pts, they can give an Ice Queen with blizzard a re-roll, which gives me some long-range threat, but I’m not convinced I shouldn’t just have another snow fox regiment out there to chaff or sit on objectives if needed instead.
Last week was a busy one for me, so thank you all for the posts and kind feedback! I am catching up on some things this week, including writing up 5 more reports! The first was posted yesterday, and I should (ideally) have one up each day this week and get all caught up.
Three of the five battles feature an aggressive Herd, but unfortunately, all of the reports are for smaller games, so the testing was limited. I don’t plan on spamming this channel with individual updates, but will try and link them all here at the end of the week, and see if any more of my thoughts can coalesce into themes or trends to highlight.
An aggressive Herd has definitely been fun, but piloting them still feels like everything is on fire and the wheels can come off at any point. I need to figure out how to add a little more consistency to the lists, and I am trying to hobby up a few more units before the Herd hit the table again in a larger game. I will try to test them out soon, and if I can source a model, Chief Griswold and his chariot could definitely be a thing! That doesn’t look half-bad option, especially if I have some a bunch of slightly unwieldy hordes around!
Oh, it definitely is fun, and the games that get a nice narrative going are usually the most memorable. I’m just bemoaning my lack of competency a bit! I wish I could get the Herd to be aggressive and consistent, instead of flaming out half way through more often than not. I think I am on to a few good ideas with how to run the Herd, but still have a ways to go, and a lot of things to test out and explore!
While I’m gently shocked this is your first game against Imperial Dwarfs, hearty congrats on shouldering through all those tough little (and big!) bodies. One rules thing below:
That doesn’t look half-bad option, especially if I have some a bunch of slightly unwieldy hordes around!
I think I am on to a few good ideas with how to run the Herd, but still have a ways to go, and a lot of things to test out and explore!