Madison 50 point Steamroller report (Vyros and Kaelyssa)

[Plover Elf]

Madison 6 Pack #4: 50 Point Steamroller
Players: 22 (I think that's what I heard)

My lists:

Dawnlord Vyros
*Phoenix
*Banshee
Dawnguard Sentinels (full) +UA
Houseguard Halbediers (min) +UA
Mage Hunter Strike Force (min) +UA
Fane Knight
Arcanist
Arcanist
Mage Hunter Assassin

Reinforcements
Stormfall Archers
Stormfall Archers

Kaelyssa, Night's Whisper
*Phoenix
*Banshee
Dawnguard Sentinels (full) +UA +Souless Escort
Houseguard Halbediers (min) +UA
Stormfall Archers
Stormfall Archers
Aiyanna and Holt
Mage Hunter Assassin
Mage Hunter Assassin
Arcanist

Reinforcements
Mage Hunter Strike Force (min) +UA
Narn

In advance, my apologies for not remembering my opponent's lists 100%. I don't get to play against hordes too often so I don't remember what all the models are and what they do. I'm trying to list the majority of what was on the table and most of the high points of the games. It was a long day followed by a longish drive home and a few beers, so I'm guessing I'm getting at least a few things wrong in here. I'm also horrible with remembering people's names, so I'm not going to try and list who my opponents were and get the names wrong.

Also like to say again great game to each of my opponents. It was a fun day with congenial games all around. The Madison area events are worth the trip each time I come down.

ROUND 1: Vyros vs Kromac
Scenario: Control 8" circle on opponents side of board.
Opponent had Kromac and pKaya

Her list:
Kromac
*Warpwolf Stalker
*Pureblood Warpwolf
*Gnarlhorn Satyr (I think - the guy that can hop 5 inches?)
Shifting Stones +UA
Shifting Stones
Worldstalkers
Worldstalkers
Tharn Blood Trackers (full)
War Wolf
3 points of things I'm not remembering

Circle wins roll off and goes first. I decide to be lazy and keep the side of the table I'm already standing at.
She has a unit of shrimps on both sides of the table, stones left and right as well. Kromac and the Pureblood middle, Stalker right, Satyr to my left. I believe the dog was in the middle next to Kromac as well. I deployed Sentinels in the middle, Halbs to the left. Phoenix just to the right of my line, Banshee behind Halbs. Arcanist with each jack and Vyros behind the Sentinels. Fane Knight on my far right. She advance deploys Blood Trackers on my right, I counter with MHSF on the same side, Eiryss and the MHA on my left.

Normal start of turn 1 runs towards each other. The MHSF end up running to engage a couple of the Blood Trackers and they end up holding them up for a turn or two, Fane Knight does similar. By the end of that flank's fight, MHSF and Fane Knight are down, killed a few Blood Trackers. The Stalker gets up into my grill and does good damage to the Phoenix taking out an arm and movement. Arcanist heals 4 points on the Phoenix making him fully functional again, Phoenix gets a full load of focus and between those attacks and a few Sentinels the Stalker gets mulched. Shrimps and the Halbs duke it out on the other flank, Shrimps on the losing side due to def 13 and shield wall. Somewhere in here the Phoenix gets freed up to move right and combust most of that flank away that I had been losing.

The Pureblood gets into the edge of both Halbs and Sentinels and kills a few, takes about 25% damage from something I did (can't remember what). Gnarlhorn is hanging back a bit by Kromac who has moved to my far left just in front of a building. Banshee moves up, boosts to hit and damage against Kromac, slams him into the building forcing him to transfer to the Pureblood and killing it. Kromac jumps out, lays into the Banshee taking out both arms, feats and cuts for 7 so that he has enough fury to finish off the Banshee and leave 1 or 2 for transfers. In response the Sentinels vengeance move 3 models into charge range of Kromac and 3 into the Gnarlhorn doing average damage. Sentinels then charge, killing the Gnarlhorn first so Kromac has nobody to transfer to. The 3 Sentinels against Kromac then miss their first 2 attacks, then the one that hits rolls a 20 on 4d6 to put this one away.

ROUND 2: Vyros vs pHexaris
Scenario: Reinforcements, Bunkers.
Opponent had pHexaris and pMorghoul

His list:
Hexaris
*Molik Karn
*Titan Gladiator
*Cyclops something (animus of giving out future sight)
*Basilisk of some type (I think)
Gatorman Posse (full)
Beast Handlers (min)
Nihilators (full) (I think - guys with reach and tough)
Tyrant Commander and Standard
Swamp Gobbers
Extoler Soulward (gives out eyeless sight?)
3 more points of something?

Reinforcements:
Farrow Slaughterhouses
2x Bloodrunner Master Tormentors (I think)

He wins roll to go first. I again take the lazy route staying on the side of the table I'm standing at. (table was mostly mirrored with a shallow water feature in the dead middle.)
He deploys his Beasts to my far right, his Nihilators mid/right, gobbers behind them. Beast Handlers behind the Beasts, Commander and Stickboy behind Nihilators, Extoler and Hexaris behind Beasts as well. Gatormen are as far left in his zone as he can get them. I deploy Halbs left, Sentinels middle, Phoenix and Arcanist behind Halbs, Fane Knight to the left of Phoenix. Banshee and Vyros as far right as I can get, Vyros behind Sentinels. MHSF as far up/right as I can, Eiryss to their left (pretty middle of table) and I honestly forget what I did with my Assassin.

Turn 1 normal running forward. I get a few shots at the Nihilators with Eiryss to get rid of their Death March then drop 1 or 2 and knock down another with the Strike Force. They get back up and we end up having a big jam fest of MHSF, Nihilators and a few Sentinels fighting in the water feature the length of the game. On my far left flank the Gatormen are heading to his zone, the Fane Knight and Halbs do a decent job of jamming the Slaughterhouses up but it's a losing fight on that side for the elves.

Biggest notes from this game though, Turn 2 he eyeless sighted Hexaris, had Molik Karn self animus and then move up so he could arc spells through Molik taking out both Eiryss and I believe my Assassin before moving back to the back edge of my zone. I respond by Knocking down Molik with the Banshee at just shy of max range (rolling to hit 3 times as he kept making me reroll, good thing I boosted) and then killing him with brutal shots from the 8 Stormfall Archers that just came in on my flank. He moves a few things up to try and jam a little, toes his Gladiator into the zone to keep me from scoring. He however left Hexaris with only 1 fury left. Vyros responds by giving 2 to each of his Jacks, casting mobility, then charges the 1 Nihilator that was engaging the Banshee and kills it. (As a side note, this will be the 1 and only model that any of my casters directly killed during the course of the tourney.) The Banshee moves up and thanks to Bird's Eye plugs a boosted shot into Hexaris slamming him back 3 inches. Fane Knight frees the Phoenix up so he only has to take 1 free strike to get in range of Hexaris (taking just damage to his shield) and Hexaris transfers the good damage from a boosted pow 14 so he's left naked. My 2 units of Stormfalls then proceed to clear the 1 or 2 infantry they needed to give the rest of them sight to the knocked down Hexaris. Only one was in Brutal Shot range, plugged him for 9 and dropping him to 1. Three more Archers were in Snipe shot range, only 1 more was needed.

At this point there are 6 players at 2-0. Three of us are Retribution. I sense a mirror match coming up soon.

[Plover Elf]

ROUND 3: Kaelyssa vs Rahn
Scenario: Sacrafice
Opponent had Ossyan and Rahn

His list:
Adeptis Rahn
*Phoenix
*Phoenix
*Sylas
Dawnguard Sentinels (full) +UA +Souless
Battle Mages +Souless
Battle Mages +Souless
Fane Knight
eEiryss
Arcanist
Arcanist

We both look at each others lists and try to figure out how the flying monkey love this is going to play out. I've never played against Ret as nobody else plays them at my FLGS. The more I thought about it, Kaelyssa had the better option with her feat against Ossyan and her anti magic tricks should help vs Rahn. After the game, we both sort of agreed that it looks like Kaelyssa might be the caster of choice for the mirror match as army wide stealth and no charges is quite harsh against an army with minimal ways to mitigate stealth other than charging into melee. (Well, Kaelyssa with Sentinels, Halbs and Mittens so that random Stormfall shots don't kill with the scatters)

He won the roll off but the table was mirrored so the option to stay lazy was again taken. The flag for sacrafice is on my right, control zone on my left. He had Sentinels centered, somewhat to the left. A Phoenix, an Arcanist and Mittens to both sides. Eiryss and Rahn middle, Fane Knight to the far right. I put Halbs and Banshee right with both Assassins, Sentinels mid/left. Stormfalls behind Sentinels and Halbs. Phoenix next to Sentinels on their left. Kae and A&H middleish. (there was a large long forest running between us in the dead middle of board - pretty much split the 2 sides into 2 seperate battles.

Sentinels both run up towards each other neither side wanting to activate vengeance first. My left Stormfalls light 5 guys on fire with star shots (4 Sentinels and their Souless) but 3 of them have the fire go out right away on his turn. On my right he moved up his Phoenix on that side to take a pot shot at my Halbs killing 1 of them. Sadly, this just put him in range of all of the Halbs. Banshee knocks down the Phoenix and then the Halbs mini-feat and charge in. All get attacks due to ranked attacks, and with 6 auto hitting boosted pow 14's the Phoenix on that flank is no more. Between the Banshee and Assassins on that flank most of it gets mopped up by the end of the game. (Fane Knight decapitated twice, all but 1 Halb dead, 1 or 2 mittens left on his side over there)

On the left side he gets a Force Blast off on his Phoenix pushing my Sentinels somewhat into a grouping and is able to combust 4 of them away. Giving me the first vengeance activation lets me drop his Phoenix and a few Sentinels, Holt takes another 2 Sentinels, Stormfalls take the rest except for his banner. My Stormfalls on the left and his Mittens end up mixing it up, the archers suprisingly taking 2 of the Mittens down with them. In the end The Phoenix is able to combust the Mittens in the zone off, Sentinels take the leading edge of the zone killing his banner to give me control and the Arcanist steps up to take the first sacrafice point. He gets a few more things into the zone to try and slow me down but it's pretty much over. I kill a few more models for tiebreakers (my 2nd unit of Stormfalls had actually ran over towards the left, managed to charge and kill the last Mitten who had downed the other Stormfall unit - sweet revenge!) and then Banshee walks to the flag for the final sacrifice point and game.

Coming into round 4 we now have 3 undefeateds. Ret, Ret and Khador. I get paired down so if I lose the event is over after the 4 rounds (and there were multiple people hoping for this).

ROUND 4: Vyros vs Harkevich
Scenario: Guidons
Opponent had pButcher and Harkevich

His list
Harkevich
*Behemoth
*Black Ivan
*Sylas
Gun Carraige
Great Bears
Kayazi Assassins (full) +UA
Alten Ashley
Koldrun Lord
Orin Midwinter

I believe I again lost the roll off for going first. He had his Gun Carraige on my right, Behemoth and Ivan mid with Harkevich. Kayazi to my left with Alten even further left. Great Bears between the Jacks and the Carraige. Koldrun and Orin behind and between the Kayazi and Jacks. I had MHSF and Assassin on my right, Sentinels mid and Halbs left. Vyros behind the Sentinels. Banshee to the right of the infantry line, Phoenix behind the Halbs. Fane Knight was off on the far left flank.

This game went to time but it doesn't seem like either of us was doing much. There was a lot of thinking on both sides on order of operations. I believe he used his time extension, I did not. (I actually think I only used my extension once all event, and that was during Round 3.)

Right side ended up having the Gun Carriage move up and take out a few of the Strike Force. Strike Force jammed the Great Bears up a turn or so. Great Bears made 4 of their first 5 tough rolls. Assassin dueled with the Gun Carraige knocking it down to 2 boxes left from a charge and the freestrike as it left to do more to the Strike Force. The Carraige eventually knocked the Assassin down to 3 boxes left.

The Kayazi mini feated and mixed it up with the Halbs and edge of the Sentinels killing a decent most of the Halbs and a Sentinel or two. After they killed some of the Halbs the Phoenix was able to Hallowed Avenger charge up to the side of them and kill himself an opening to their juicy center. Vengeance killed 1 or 2 Kayazi, Phoenix walks up to combust in the middle of them killing all but 1 grunt and the underboss toughed it. Sentinels clean it up and I get a control point as Vyros moves the guidon into the left zone I'm holding on turn 3. Fane Knight stupidly goes on a wild goose chase after Alten, both become worthless for the rest of the game. Behemoth charges and scraps the Phoenix, puts 13 damage on my guidon with his bombards. Sentinels manage to take the right arm and leave the big guy on 16 boxes left. (Column 2 had taken 2, columns 3 and 4 undamaged)

I spend the next 2 minutes doing the math on this - is it worth charging Vyros in to try and help against Behemoth while during Harkevich's feat turn? Apparently some people thought I might have been stalling, but this is a serious question. I'd be dice minus 10 to do damage, and I could have 4 attacks with boosted damage (charge, buy 3 and boost 3). 3d6 at -10 averages out to 1.46 damage per swing. (I have a full damage chart for 2d6, 3d6 and 4d6, pow 9-18, arm 16-28 for weighted averages that I consult) Depending on how that fell, 2 hits could disable his 2nd arm which would mean Vyros would be mostly safe from swings back. 2 or 3 good hits to the 3 and 4 colums could take out the sub cortex and save my guidon from being shot to kingdom come. But unless my dice rolled proper averages (when does that happen) I didn't know if it was worth risking it as I was up 1 control point and he hadn't even moved his guidon once yet. I passed the turn with almost a full 2 minutes on my clock for the round.

Behemoth killed off my Commander for the Sentinels and shot the Guidon to death so no more control points for me unless I could control his guidon or get both zones. I was close to getting his zone if my Assassin could finish off the last 2 health on the gun carriage, but dealing with Behemoth would be tough. I did still have 6 sentinels surrounding him though, a fully loaded Vyros and decent odds with Harkevich's feat gone. However dice down was called and I win it 1-0 on control points. As a sidenote, even with Harkevich camping out near his own guidon, he never moved it the entire. My opponent checked after the game and it would have taken him a minimum of 2 turns more to move his guidon into the scoring zone, so even if my Vyros decision was faster, there's no way we would have gotten the 2 turns it would have taken him to tie that up with.

So the event goes to round 5. This is turning out to be a long day now. Oh, and you remember how I wasn't a fan of playing the mirror match back in round 3? Guess who won in the Ret vs Khador game of undefeateds?

[Plover Elf]

ROUND 5: Kaelyssa vs Kaelyssa
Scenario: 3 flags, one dissapears.
Oppenent had Kaelyssa and... somebody else? Maybe Ossyan? (memory is failing here)

His list:
Kaelyssa
*Banshee
*Banshee
*Sylas
Arcantrik Force Generator
Battle Mages
Fane Knight
Scyir x2
Aracnist x2
Artificer x2
Narn

For once I win the roll off and go first. Thinking about it now, I probably should have gone 2nd with how the defensive feats work and to have first chance at scoring, but oh well.

I deployed Banshee and a Stormfall unit right, Sentinels mid, Halbs left. Phoenix behind Halbs. Assassins were both on my right, Aiyanna, Holt and Kae in the middle behind Sentinels. My second unit of Stormfalls was on my left. He gad his Sspace Cricket on my right, then everything else was pretty clustered together other than his Mittens on my left. The Artificers were spaced so that his entire army could move up and stay immune to blast damage.

Turn 1's we both run towards each other. No big suprises. Flag on my left is removed at end of turn 1. I'm happy with that as my forces are more towards mid and right anyways. My turn 2 I move up the Stormfalls on that side behind a wall and hit the cricket with 4 brutal shots. 3 of them hit (about the odds) and do about 13 damage to it. One of the assassins is JUST in range to clip it in threat range, finishes it off. Opponent is amazed at the crazy good dice on this. I agree it's good but not that crazy. 3 out of 4 hits needing 7's is reasonable and pow 12 +3d6 vs arm 20 averages 2.82 damage per attack. That's 8.46 damage when I had 4.54 higher than that. That's 1.5 per roll or 0.5 per die higher than "average". However, pow 9 vs arm 20 with 3d6? That I'll give you. That averages at 0.96 damage or 1.92 after decapitation. Rolling 3 higher than average is definately on the slender side of the bell curve.

With the giant Space Cricket of Doom down, we all just sort of muddled everything up in the middle. My Archers didn't do a thing for the rest of the game offensively, his Mittens didn't really do anything either. I feat on turn 2, he does the same. However with him keeping Phantom Seeker on his Kaelyssa (mine is on my Banshee) he's able to go for the caster vs caster assasination. On the 3 shots he takes, he misses 2 of them. He then jams his Fane Knight, one of his Scyirs and a Banshee in front of Kaelyssa. Due to not reading the scenario close enough, instead of scoring a point on the right flag at the end of his turn, I get nothing. I have an Assassin within 4" of it, but not base to base. Sigh. I do score at the end of my turn with it though.

I end up taking (between normal and vengeance attacks) 12 attacks at the Fane Knight before I knock him off his horse. (You'd think 6 to hit would be an easier roll?) I do manage to have an Assassin walk behind his lines to catch Kaelyssa in the 4" reach and rolled a 10 to hit, plugged her for 10 damage. Phantom Seeking Banshee was just out of 5" to see her while stealthed. His turn he plugs away at my Kaelyssa again with his own, rolls under average on all his damage rolls to drop her to 2 boxes left, can't get anymore. Last ditch effort is an Arcantrik Bolt with his last 2 focus needing a 9 to hit and it misses. Banshee has his Phantom Hunter upkept, gets 2 focus. Stand still to aim, boost to hit, slam Kaelyssa back into an Artificer and boost damage for a 4d6 straight dice damage to take her out. (Tried coming up with an overkill joke here, but I'm still too worn out to think well.)


After tourney thoughts:

I'm rather happy I decided 2 days before the event to switch from Discordia to Banshee for the Vyros list. The 19 armor was enough on the Sentinels to make them effectively immune to every blast weapon that hit them, and it was high enough that they didn't take much straight damage either. There were a few places having the spray would have been nice, but not really needed. Vyros never got a chance to put axe to face on anybody other than a single poor Skorne soldier, but in the end I don't think he minded.

Also, the games where I beat the other two Ret players were the only games they lost, so the Angry Elves took 1st, 2nd and 3rd overall. It's nice to see some Elven domination for once.

[joelker41]

Well done sir! Kaelyssa vs Kaelyssa looks kind of painful but them's the breaks!

Interesting list with the stormfalls with her. My dice are never kind to me when I don't have a way to help them hit. The banshee addresses that somewhat.

Fun read and Congrats!

[absent]

Just for the record, the cricket has 20 health, not 15, so your math is way off, you did 17 to it with 4 stormfalls, so you did almost double what you should have =/

[PG_carnage4u]

since its faction on faction battle. they knew the weak spots on the cricket, so they were able to have every shot count!

[Plover Elf]

Just for the record, the cricket has 20 health, not 15, so your math is way off, you did 17 to it with 4 stormfalls, so you did almost double what you should have =/

My memory must be off then because I thought it had 7 or 8 health left when the Assassin went in and finished it off (so only 12 to 13 with the Stormfalls which is what I was basing my analysis above on). Which puts it much closer to what the Stormfalls should be able to do, but rather high rolling for what the Assassin could do. Either way, one of the two did better than they should have I'll agree.

[jonconcarne]

My memory must be off then because I thought it had 7 or 8 health left when the Assassin went in and finished it off (so only 12 to 13 with the Stormfalls which is what I was basing my analysis above on). Which puts it much closer to what the Stormfalls should be able to do, but rather high rolling for what the Assassin could do. Either way, one of the two did better than they should have I'll agree.

7 or 8 health is still quite above average for the assassin. You need to do 5 (or 4.5 if you're being picky) over average on 3d6-11 to get 8 damage with decapitation to kill. Even doing 12 with 3 Stormfalls is above average. With the 3 that hit, rolling 3d6-8, you'd expect around 6-9 damage, not 12, which is 50-100% more damage than average. You can divide it down to each dice being 0.5 to 1.0 over average, but with 3 dice, that's still equivalent to just having an extra dice on each damage roll and getting average with those. If it were me, I'd call that pretty hot dice.

That said, nice battle reports. Pretty fun read, etc. Sounds like a fun day.