Bless 'em 
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My sentiments exactly @Darkblack haha. And a surprisingly great show as well there!
Rally is a separate special rule to auras.
It does not apply to the unit with the rule and it stacks differently to auras.
Well, thankfully that’s how we had been playing Rally. That might have been where the confusion snuck in and soured our understanding. I am long overdue for a rules reread! Thanks again for taking the time to post and set us right!
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Ironically, after they pulled their lists together originally, I made some tweaks to make them marginally more optimal, and they insisted on walking back to their original list. Their argument was something along the lines that because Team Old is more experienced, if they build exactly as we would, we’ll win from experience. So it’s better for them to do their own unusual thing so we’d have to compete against something we’ve never seen before. There’s some logic in that, but apparently not enough to make up for leaving the gladestalkers alone all game 
Fun game @TastyBagel ! I appreciate your willingness to make the drive and get in a suboptimal game to keep them invested in the hobby!
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Always happy to make the drive @Cartwright! Without fail these games have been very fun. Thanks to you and the boys for hosting me!
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I was fortunate enough to get a pair of games in last weekend against @Cartwright ! The first report is here. We both gave the popular mounted Wizard with Alchemist Curse a try, and I ran a chaff-heavy Varangur list into his new Sylvan Kin, which had a variety of verdant units, some Gladestalkers and two Greater Air Elementals.
We don’t usually run “hard” or optimized lists, but a good number of the units fielded on the day are rumored to have updates (nerfs) coming with the new Clash of Kings, so it was neat them in action at full power. The Greater Air Elemental in particular can be quite disruptive and my opponent got quite some use out of them. We had ourselves a very close game of Dominate, and hope you enjoy reading about it!
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Had a great time in this game even though the Sons of Korgann fell short of expectations. You managed to pull a draw by turn 6. Both of us were a bit rusty, but the competition was lively. The chess clock was a new twist, and it showed we could handle our 2300 points well within 70 minutes. Can’t wait for the next game!
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Thanks for the write up!
Air elementals are rough…
As is mounted sons letting you down.
Well done on a close game despite both of those!
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Great game, quite a lot of back and forth despite some heartbreaking dice on the Varangrr side. Go foxes!
Also great looking Titan Forge minis @Cartwright I was recently reminded that I in fact own this release 
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Thanks! It’s a fun release. My 11yo wanted an elf army, so when I saw the set I printed up a bunch right away.
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Yeah, @Cartwright’s Sylvan Kin are indeed looking great! It is always a pleasure to see what new things he’s printed and painted up!
…And because I forgot to post it earlier, our immediate rematch can now be found here in a close game of Control. Pretty similar lists for the rematch, with the Sylvan Kin bringing in a regiment of great-looking Stormwind Cavalry and the Varangur dropping some chaff in exchange for some of the new Tribesmen.
The more competitive picks continued to deliver some good results, and we had ourselves another close game.
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Another fun game! Thanks for the write-up.
I’ve never seen so many nerve rolls miss by 1. This is one where I started to feel bad, because there were 4 or 5 50-50 rolls, and each one went my way in a game that went down to the wire.
Your ac mage got a lot of mileage and caused some problems. You also limited the GAE here. While they still did some damage, they weren’t nearly the dominant pieces they were in round 1.
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I think having two things helped me out with the Greater Air Elementals this game. The first was having a few extra deployments. The GAE’s didn’t start in the best spot, so it then a few turns to get into position. The second thing that helped me was having more combat units and less chaff. You needed to commit them to stop the pressure, and then I was able to trade for them. In the previous game, they just bounced from combat to combat with impunity. All that said, they were still hard to stop here and made back more than their points. It’s a really strong and really neat unit, and it was cool to see it in action.
Eh, dice happens! In both games it felt like those results were mostly from poorly planned combats into good damage into a disappointing Nerve check. Basically just the dice disallowing my greedy plays and telling me to go back to basics instead of fishing for good Nerve checks haha.
It still was a great time. Thanks for the game!
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Thanks for the write up!
I don’t think you had a better way of dealing with those gladestalkers than sending mounted sons into terrain.
Perhaps adding some terrain capability to your list would help? Sir Jesse’s boot or The Fallen?
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Yeah, that situation was definitely due to my own scatter-brained list building and just trying to work with what I had.
The Mounted Sons did not roll great at any point, and did not have the best games here. On paper though, your suggestions are solid. They cost enough and I was leaning on them enough that I should have spent some extra points giving them some goodies.
I haven’t run them in a while, so I forgot the Fallen had Pathfinder! Thank you for the suggestion. I don’t have models for them at the moment, but Tundra Wolves also look like a fine alternative for chasing camping units out of terrain. For now though, I think I just need to remember to bring a unit or two of Snow Foxes for starting units in my next Varangur list. They are just so speedy and disruptive! I really noticed their absence in the second game.
Thanks for reading!
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Read your latest report - another good 'un, cool to see a new face/army on the blog! - and wanted to say that I dig the list overall. I am solidly in the Give Knight Hordes Brew of Strength camp, which you could easily do by turning the scrying gem on the bow horde into fire-oil and dropping the blade of slashing on the general (or skipping the oil and giving the other general mace of crushing so they both reroll things).
I 100% raised an eyebrow at the rampage giants, but turns out it was the perfect matchup for them to accidentally bring their clubs to
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@Boss_Salvage you beat me to my own update it seems! I was trying to get caught up with your Freeforged stuff today before posting about my latest game! 
I was indeed able to get a game in recently against a new opponent! I dusted off the Kingdoms of Men while they brought a glorious old Bretonnian army as a cavalry-heavy Brothermark list. Battle 044 can be found here.
For now, some non-spoilery highlights:
- I brought a Knight Horde with J Boots, which like Boss, I am not sold on. Visibly Riley had a few tangents in some old reports about it, arguing that you have a lot of quality attacks, even hindered you are going to connect, so you should take the Brew of Strength or anything else to make the horde more killy. I gave the Boots a try, and with a few days of pondering, I would definitely try to fit the Brew of Strength in next time.
- I tried bringing the Captain + Scrying Gem. I dropped my Knight Horde early but my opponent didn’t really react, so I tripped my self up a bit and then got just 1 redeploy when I could have used 2. I liked the Captain and Gem back in 2nd but couldn’t figure them out. It’s a neat interaction though and worth exploring more. I also forgot to actually deploy the Captain, so didn’t really get to test out Rally and such, but he seems like a really cool pick for the Kingdoms of Men.
- I somehow accidentally brought rampaging Giants in my list, but it proved to be a splendid mistake since my opponent’s list was mostly humans. I didn’t support either Giant well, but they did what they needed to do and worked out ok. Titans with US2 came into play and felt reasonable.
It was a great time and the game really came down to the wire!
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Thanks for the report!
Between two nicely painted armies too.
I like the idea of rampage giants.
Infantry and cavalry are more likely to come in hordes with 20+ nerve and need more volume of attacks IMO.
I don’t have the option so haven’t given it much thought though.
How often do your giants get in monster fights?
It might be worth keeping a tally of what your giants end up fighting?
On the knight horde:
Sharpness will do more than boots.
You’re already over 300 points for a unit, so go big properly?
I wouldn’t take a knight horde to begin with though. I avoid spending more than 250 points on any one unit.
Expensive units like that (including dragons) need to do a lot of work to be worthwhile, but I find it hard to get them to.
You need at least two charges, probably 3 to make a knight horde make it’s points back. That’s half the turns.
Especially because an opponent wants to target or block them up.
It’s one unit to “deal with” through chaff, distraction (like flank threats) or set up as a shooting or multi charge target. While only being able to do one thing a turn.
In the case of the horde, it’s also a big, hard to manoeuvre target.
I would much rather see a knight horde across the table than two regiments.
Infantry hordes are a difference matter though, they’re cheaper so being defensive is worthwhile.
I agree on the banner. I understand the lifeleech for the Brotherhood (being affected by their enemy), but I think something more in theme with the “courage of ordinary people” that Indomitable Will gives the list would have been better.
Either iron resolve or something to do with Indomitable Will.
Maybe giving Indomitable Will or just cancelling a waver once per game? Similar to the Basilean thing, but with Indomitable Will rather than aegus fragments.
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Thank you @Darkblack! Win or lose, it is always nice to push around some painted minis! Aside from the Foot Guard Horde, which was a recent addition, my opponent’s Brets were originally painted in the late 90’s for WHFB 5E. He’s got some very nicely painted Undead and a newer Ratkin army too that I hope to see across the table soon. We’ve got another game on the calendar already, so we’ll see what the match-up ends up being!
The Knight horde was… different. I too tend to shy away from super-expensive units, and even just away from hordes generally, but I wanted to try it out and have that experience. If I can get it to play well with stuff like the Scrying Gem and Captain, and maybe put my opponent off their game, I think it becomes more attractive. Otherwise, like you say, it attracts a lot of attention and can be easy for an opponent to chaff up. Overall, it’s not my style, but I want to give it a few more tries (with anything but the J Boots!) and see what else I can learn.
For a while, KOM Giants just had Slayer and Beast of War just had Rampage, so I guess that is my default position, even if it is outdated. I think my logic for Slayer Giants would be that regardless of army, monsters and titans and all the big stuff are more often Def 5+ so you can more reliably make use of all of the CS4, and so taking Slayer gives them an even more dedicated purpose on the battlefield: just point your monster at theirs and (probably) profit. Rampage mostly just covers a weakness for the giant, making them more of a generalist smashy unit if you take it, though I suppose that isn’t necessarily bad. I love that Giants have the choice between Slayer/Rampage nowadays, and I think there are cases to be made for either option depending on your list or your meta. More testing is needed!
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I was lucky enough to squeeze in another game against @SquirminVermin before the year closed out. Up now is Battle 045 against some wonderfully-painted Ratkin!
My opponent ran more of a tarpitting/grinding/healing list. Meanwhile I swapped around magic items to give the Knight Horde the Brew of Strength, but otherwise I ran the same list, just trying to use it better this time. I was much happier with my play this game.
- I definitely utilized my hordes better in this game. Each board third of the board got a horde, with the regiments, fliers and Giants sprinkled in where it made sense. This was a much better default approach for me.
- I remembered to deploy the Captain this time. Instead of being tricky, I used the Redeploy to tidy up my line, and that worked much better for me.
- I tried Rampage Giants again. They worked fine again. With CS4 they are going to hit whatever they touch regardless of if the special rule triggers or not. Extra attack dice are nice, but there is such a spread that I still think either choice seems viable, and I don’t think I’m going to stress much about giving them the right item or right target in-game.
A big thank you to my opponent for fitting in the game!
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Two fantastic blogs at the same time!
Those rats are splendid indeed.
Well played!
I’m also not sold on knight horde, but it is powerful!
Question: how often does the footguard horde get wavered in combat?
If it’s less than once a game, then Indomitable Will would do effectively the same for cheaper. With perhaps more versatility.
It also lets you take another artefact.
In case you were wondering:
Your gaints made 4 charges against “rampage targets” and charges 2 against the same “slayer target” in the last game (44).
In this game (45) your gaints made 5 charges against “rampage targets” and 2 charges against “slayer targets” in the last game.
Making it 9 charges vs small stuff and 4 against big stuff.
Clubs are looking helpful so far and I don’t think you would have needed extra attacks against the dragon in the last game!
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