Battle Report: Grissel vs pSeverius

[bakaryu]

My second match of the field test and my first with a serious list testing out the synergies of models in my first choice army.

Grissel Bloodsong (50/50)
- Impaler (0)
- Bouncer (5)
- Pyre Troll (5)
10 Kriel Warriors (6)
- Standard and Piper (3)
- Caber Thrower (1)
10 Fennblades (6)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4)
- Stone Scribe Elder (1)
5 Champions (10)
3 Runeshapers (4)
Fell Caller (3)
Stone Scribe Chronicler (2)

My menoth opponent brought his strongest MkII list:

pSeverius
- Blessing of Vengeance
- Vanquisher
- Vanquisher
- Heirophant
10 Temple Flameguard
- Standard and Officer
6 Daughters of the Flame
4 Choir Members
Reclaimer
Vassal
Vassal
Covenant
High Paladin Dartan Vilmon
Rupert Carvalio, Piper of Ord
Alten Ashley, Monster Hunter

My opponent won the roll and forced me to set up and go first. Kriel Warriors deployed in a line on the left flank with the officer, caber, standard and piper kept about 6" back, with the Fennblades on their right also set up in a line. Champions and the Chronicler lined up behind the Fennblades, while the Runeshapers and Fellcaller took up their place behind the Kriel Warriors. The Krielstone Bearer took up his place in the middle with Grissel and the Bouncer beside them, the Impaler on the left and the Pyre Troll on the right.

The Flameguard deployed in a screening line across the center of his force, with the two Vanquishers slightly behind them along with their pet Vassals. The Covenant was behind and between the two Vanquishers along with the Choir and Piper, while the Blessing of Vengeance and Dartan deployed towards the right hand side opposite the Fennblades. Severius was all the way at the back where he could arc node in safety. Alten Ashley advance deploys to the left of the Flameguard in the relative safety of some woods.

[bakaryu]

Turn 1
Nothing special on the Trollblood's turn, Fennblades run full distance, Fell Caller uses pathfinder to help the Kriel Warriors mitigate some forests they were forced to deploy into during their deployment and runs off ahead. Kriel Warriors use their movement prayer and run up alongside the Fennblades. Krielstone Bearers run up just behind the infantry line, followed by Grissel who dumps 6 fury into the Krielstone. Champs, Chronicler and Runeshapers all run up behind their respective infantry lines followed by the beasts who all also all rile a point.

Severius casts Eye of Menoth on himself and Blessing of Menoth on the Flameguard, who advance a couple of inches and activate shield wall. The rest of his army does nothing else and sits ready to receive the infantry zerg he knows is coming.

Turn 2
Grissel leaches back up to 6 fury. Kriel Warriors activate movement prayer and mini feat and run up 3 inches in front of the Flameguard. Fennblades also run up stopping just short of the Flameguard and Blessing of Vengeance. Runeshapers, Chronicler and Champs also run up while the Krielstone Bearers advance and use +2ARM and immunity to continuous effects. Grissel activates, advances and triggers her feat, catching every unit as well as the Flameguard preventing them from using shield wall next turn, she dumps two fury into the Krielstone and discards a fury point. Bouncer runs in front of her with the Pyre and Impaler running up behind the infantry screens. Using the feat movement the infantry zerg move in to engage the Menoth frontline while the Krielstone Bearer advances to catch the majority of the frontline in his 11" aura. The rest of the force also advances up ready to back up the infantry next turn. Blessing of Vengeance uses his out of action attack to hit a Fennblade, who passes his tough roll.

Severius upkeeps both spells and begins by activating the Daughters of the Flame. I slightly underestimated the charge range of the daughters and lose the Fell Caller and two Krielstone Bearers to their attacks, while the Bouncer also takes a little bit of damage, this forces me to relocate the Krielstone Bearer himself, leaving the Kriel Warrior line without the protection of the aura. He then activates Severious who boosts and hits the Kriel Warriors with death sentence and kills three Fennblades with ashes to ashes before activating the Flameguard who start attacking the Kriel Warriors, however some poor damage rolling and good tough rolls means I only lose two Kriel Warriors, though 7 of them are on fire. Dartan goes invulnerable and walks into the Fennblades while the Blessing of Vengeance kills the remaining two Fennblades engaging him. The Choir makes the Vanquishers unable to be targeted by ranged attacks fearing the critical slam and the Vanquishers start firing some shots through the hole emptied up by the two dead Kriel Warriors, but some bad attack rolls (twice rolling a 3 to hit) and deviation mean they do nothing. Both Vassals give ancillary fire and the second shots hit a Runeshaper (who passes his tough roll) and Grissel who takes 2 damage. Both are still in the Krielstone aura so no fire.

Turn 3
Grissel leeches back up to full, rolls for the fires and all of them go out except for one Kriel Warrior (who passes his tough roll). Starting with Grissel first, she uses heroic ballad on the Kriel Warriors and fires her gun at the Blessing of Vengeance, doing 4 points of damage with a boosted damage roll, but forgets to ditch a few fury points. Kriel Warriors active next, with the Caber Thrower taking up a position on the end of the Flameguard line, attacking and killing two of the Flameguard with his first attack, but misses the last remaining one in his range with his third attack. Alten Ashley is left on one wound after being hit twice while the Kriel Warriors use a few combined melee attacks to kill 4 more Flameguards. The Chronicler uses charge of the Champions before the Fennblades manage to kill 1 more Flameguard as well as one Daughter of the Flame with a back strike. The Bouncer turns around to catch all the Daughters in his melee range before regenerating once and boosting an attack roll to kill one Daughter. The Champions charge the remaining Daughters and with MAT9 make swift work of them. The Runeshapers active, two of them pounding one Vanquisher and doing a few points of damage, the last one gets a line of sight past the dead Flameguard to the Choir and manages to hit, killing two of them, who fail a morale check. The Impaler has no target so just chills out ready for the next round, while the Pyre hits the Blessing of Vengeance with a spit, setting it on fire along with the Covenant and a Vassal.

Severius upkeeps Eye of Menoth and Blessing of Menoth but drops Death Sentence. All of the fires on his models go out with the exception of the one on the Blessing of Vengeance, but it fails to damage him. The Choir run but don't reach the board edge and manage to rally. Alten Ashley tries to kill his Kriel Warrior but fails to damage him. The Flameguard continue to attack and try to whittle down the Kriel Warrior line, killing 4 of them this turn including the Caber Thrower. Ashes to Ashes from Severius kills two more Fennblades while the Reclaimer walks into some Kriel Warriors killing all three with his Soulstorm ability. Dartan attempts to kill a Fennblade, but he passes his tough roll. The Vanquishers launch some attacks at the Bouncer, doing a few damage points but without the boost from the Choir its not really all that effective against ARM21. Some ancillary attacks prove equally ineffective. Severius also popped his feat this round.

Turn 4
Grissel leeches all fury except 1 from the Bouncer, who proceeds to roll a 9 on his THR check, frenzying and hitting a Champion for 6 damage. Grissel activates, casts a boosted calamity, hitting the Flameguard with it before shooting and boosting a damage roll against a Vanquisher. The Champs walk into the end of the Flameguard line killing two of them and opening up a lane to charge the Vanquishers next turn. Kriel Warriors manage to kill off 1 more Flameguard, leaving just four plus the officer and standard. The Pyre aims and kills the Reclaimer, while a boosted shot from the Impaler fails to crit the Vanquisher but does inflict a few damage points. The Krielstone Bearers advance up close enough to keep the rest of the troops under the effect of the continuous effect immunity while the Runeshapers (unable to cast spells due to Severius's feat just chill out ready for next turn.

Flameguard activate and kill the Kriel Warrior engaging Alten Ashley, as well as all the remaining Kriel Warriors except just the leader, all but three Fennblades are also killed off this turn through Dartan and some arc noded attacks from Severius. The Choir advance back towards their jacks and give them +2 to hit and damage, and they proceed to kill a Stone Scribe and two of the Runeshapers and two Champions through their four shots. Alten Ashley shoots the Pyre Troll and takes out his spirit aspect.

Turn 5
Grissel leeches all the fury from her beasts and upkeeps Calamity. The Impaler advances into combat with the two Vanquishers and the Chronicler gives charge of the trolls to the remaining three Champions, who also receive heroic ballad and two of the three are buffed with burning fists from Grissel, using her last point to heal the Pyre's spirit tree. The three champs then charge the two Vanquishers, wrecking one and coming close leaving the other with only 14 hits left. The Fennblades kill off all except the officer and standard from the Flameguard, while the remaining Runeshaper kills Alten Ashley in close combat. The Bouncer moves up to the Blessing of Vengeance standing in base contact with a Champion to prevent repel from the Blessing of Vengeance's shield and unleashes a full volley of attacks against him, taking out the shield and arc node. An aimed boosted shot from the Pyre kills the officer and sets the standard bearer on fire, along with one Vassal.

Severius upkeeps Eye of Menoth but drops Blessing of Menoth. The Vassal and remaining Flameguard burn to death. A thresher attack from the remaining Vanquisher kills the one Champion in melee with him, while the Vassal gives him a range attack, killing the Impaler in combination with Dartan. The Blessing of Vengeance makes a lot of attacks against the Bouncer, taking him down to seven wounds remaining but no lost aspects. A volley of spells from Severius kills off all but one Champion and all but one Fennblade.

Turn 6
Grissel leeches back up to maximum. The Runeshaper kills off the last of the choir and the Pyre boosts and kills the Piper while setting the covenant on fire, inflicting a second damage point on him in the process. Grissel casts a fully boosted rift at Dartan killing him at range before firing at and missing the Covenant before giving heroic ballad to the Bouncer. The Bouncer wrecks the Blessing of Vengeance and regenerates a few points. The Pyre boosts and kills the last Vassal, leaving Severius with only the Covenant and a half dead Vanquisher. The last remaining Kriel Warrior advances into combat with the Vanquisher but fails to hurt it.

Severius upkeeps Eye of Menoth and kills the last Kriel Warrior with an immolate. A fully loaded Vanquisher charges Grissel and boosts his attack roll, but a weak damage roll results in the Pyre taking the ten damage for her. He buys another attack which misses. His thresher attack did kill the last of the Krielstone Bearers however.

We run out of time to keep playing as we were due to go out (we had been drinking through the match :cool:) but things were not looking good for Severius, who was left facing Grissel who was close enough to hit him with Cacophony this turn, a Pyre Troll, a Bouncer, a Fennblade and a Runeshaper.

[bakaryu]

Thoughts

Grissel
Came out of the transition to MkII almost entirely unchanged, the new Rift spell instead of Uproar is a great change, same POW and AoE but also turns the ground into rough terrain. The ability to use Fell Calls on warbeasts is also a superb change. A very solid warlock who didn't need much work coming out of MkI, and the little tweaks have made her into a tournament level choice.
9/10

Impaler
I never used his animus once, and he didn't get off any crits before dying. Typically I prefer using the Winter Troll in my Grissel list, but I needed the one point so had no choice but to downgrade. Impaler didn't change at all except for losing a point of DEF and THR so still a solid choice for lists built around using one, sadly this list is not Impaler friendly.
7/10

Bouncer
At the heart of the action the whole time, he was one of my favourites from MkI and none of the changes in MkII change that. A cheap reach warbeast who also protects my Warlock and has the potential to provide a useful little animus to protect against melee assassinations. Being hard to kill is also a major bonus.
8/10

Pyre Troll
Earned his points back and then some, killing a great deal of the enemy support as well as providing a damage increasing animus when I needed it. Auto fire on his spit turns him into a grade A support beast, who can throw off his animus and worry only about boosting his attack roll to be sure it hits. RAT4 is still a problem but besides that I cannot argue with his effectiveness.
8/10

Kriel Warriors, Standard and Piper, Caber Thrower
One half of Grissel's infantry line zerg, they are still the ultimate tarpit unit. They lost their additional attack prayer, but gained +2 to hit on their melee prayer to make up for it. They were up against ARM19 Flameguard but died to the last holding up his line and protecting my force from the ranged firepower of his Vanquishers and arc noded spells. Caber Thrower only got the chance to attack once, but killed two Flameguards with that one attack, wish I had the opportunity to take more than one but I just could not squeeze him in anywhere for the points. A staple of any trollbloods list now, the only reason not to own a full unit is the monetary cost.
10/10

Fennblades
The other half of the infantry line zerg, they didn't get to do much except eat the brunt of Severius's arc noded Ashes to Ashes spells, which was autokilling them when cast through the Blessing of Vengeance. Tough rolls kept them in the game, and they got to kill a few guys but overall did the job I asked of them which was to just get in the way. Snag and slash is a useless ability as things stand, they need something that is useful against more than 5% or so of all the unit types in the game.
7/10

Krielstone Bearer and Stone Scribes, Stone Scribe Elder
As great as always, and not so much of an anchor with Grissel as with other warlocks. Without the immunity to continuous effects provided by the Elder, this would have been a very different match with the amount of automatic fire being thrown around by my opponent's list. Died to a man but provided the defensive buffs where they were needed.
8/10

Champions
Offensively they are as brutal as always, concert changing to weapon master is great when the unit is no longer at maximum strength and all in all I am happy enough now after experiencing the unit to see that it is better for them than concert ever was. Defensively they are not the same as they once were, ARM20 when in the KSB aura is great, but the lack of any DEF buffs outside of pMadrak is a real pain especially against an army where the lowest effective RAT was 10 and lowest effective MAT was 7.
8/10

Runeshapers
Absolutely superb addition to the army for 4 points. AoE attacks were causing carnage at the back and even when I lost two of them the remaining one was effective enough to be able to mop up the leftovers of the choir and the vassal. ARM15 and 5 wounds each means you can generally count on the unit getting where you need them while still being able to make an impact on the battle.

Fell Caller
Didn't get to do much in this game due to my underestimating the charge range on the daughters of the flame, but being able to run or fight and use Fell Calls is an excellent change. Will continue to be a staple of trollblood lists for years to come.
9/10

Stone Scribe Chronicler
I was a fan of this guy in MkI, and he has become so much better in MkII. Being able to run and use his stories is excellent, and as I discovered he can now use it on units in his CMD range rather than 3 inches away, which is great for a dude who is ARM14 and has 5 wounds. Can be respectable in melee when he needs to, but his ability to support the army makes him just as good as a Fell Caller and for 1 point less.
9/10

[CopeSR]

Just a couple of notes. I may have read this wrong so let me know.

When you fail a CMD check you don't need to run any more. You just can't advance towards the model(s) that caused the test.

Soul Storm does not effect the enemy models until their turn, and thats only if the Reclaimer is still alive.

You said Severius popped his feat, then on your turn you cast Calamity... Enemy models cannot cast spells while under the effects of Sevvys feat. Perhaps you were farther than 16" away?

[bakaryu]

Just a couple of notes. I may have read this wrong so let me know.

When you fail a CMD check you don't need to run any more. You just can't advance towards the model(s) that caused the test.

Soul Storm does not effect the enemy models until their turn, and thats only if the Reclaimer is still alive.

You said Severius popped his feat, then on your turn you cast Calamity... Enemy models cannot cast spells while under the effects of Sevvys feat. Perhaps you were farther than 16" away?

1. That one was an oversight, he didn't realise he could choose to flee zero inches :)
2. That one was an oversight, noted for future reference ;)
3. Yes, Grissel was outside of the control area, she was able to influence the whole battle from quite a distance away due to keeping single men back with the new command bubble rules.

[Waaargh]

Thanks for the lenghty bat rep. Those are an important part of the shared knowledge bank.

Regarding champions and low DEF, it sounds like the menites wouldn't have much difficulties hitting the champs with DEF 14 either.

[CopeSR]

3. Yes, Grissel was outside of the control area, she was able to influence the whole battle from quite a distance away due to keeping single men back with the new command bubble rules.

I had a feeling that was the case. I was thinking with Hoof It, it will be hard to pin her down within a certain area while she runs all over the place.

Nice write up.

[bakaryu]

I had a feeling that was the case. I was thinking with Hoof It, it will be hard to pin her down within a certain area while she runs all over the place.

Nice write up.

Abilities that affect models/units are now far easier to implement thanks to the new unit formation rules. For the majority of the game Grissel and the Chronicler were camped a good 9-10 inches back from the front line and were throwing around their abilities by targeting a single grunt left behind (but still in formation), thus remaining in virtually complete safety for the majority of the game.

I was truly flabbergasted at the raw speed of this Grissel infantry swarm list. Consider this:

Kriel Warriors and Fennblades deployed on the outer edge of your deployment zone: 10inches

Turn 1
Kriel Warriors use +2 movement prayer and run first turn: 22inches
Fennblades use Hoof It to run and then move an extra 4 inches: 24inches

Turn 2
Kriel Warriors use +2 movement prayer and run at the enemy: 34inches
Fennblades run at the enemy: 34inches
Grissel pops feat, both units move an extra 5 inches: 39inches

So by turn two, you could theoretically have advanced 1inch into the enemy deployment zone, with an engagement range on the fennblades of 41inches, reaching 3inches into the enemy deployment zone.

And the worst part of this for the enemy is that only represents (in my list at least) 16 points of my 50 point army, the rest of which is primed and positioned ready to attack any holes made by the enemy during their 2nd turn, most gun line armies lack any significant melee threat to help counter when the enemy reaches your line. There is no other army in the game who can boast the raw speed with which a Grissel force can hit your line in so little time.

[Patuljak]

Thanks for an informative and entertaining read. I'm not usually one to pipe in when I don't have much to say but I feel that such a thorough effort must be commended.