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Battle Report 3.0: Skaven vs. Ironjawz - "Vice" Battleplan


Riff_Raff_Rascal

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Hey ya'll. I've got a fun one for ya. Lets get started. First off we have the armies:

First off is my friend's Orruk Warclans with a few units of Gloomspite friends. This was my opponent's 1st(?) game with 3.0 and was using their books for point values. So no hard feelings being at a 100 pt disadvantage here. Straight-forward list, the Savage Cabbage is gonna be unleashed and rush the board. This is why I love Destruction.

Spoiler

Allegiance: Ironjawz
- Mortal Realm: Ghur
- Grand Strategy: Predator's Domain
- Triumphs:

Leaders
Megaboss on Maw-Krusha (495) in Warlord
- General
- Boss Gore-hacka and Choppa
- Command Trait: Right Fist of Dakkbad
- Artefact: Sunzblessed Armour
- Mount Trait: Mean 'Un
Orruk Megaboss (160) in Warlord
- Artefact: Destroyer
Orruk Warchanter (120) in Warlord
- Warbeat: Fixin' Beat
Loonboss on Giant Cave Squig (110)
- Moon-cutta
- Allies

Battleline
15 x Orruk Ardboys (285) in Warlord
- 1x Gorkamorka Banner Bearers
- 1x Gorkamorka Glyph Bearers
- Reinforced x 2
15 x Orruk Ardboys (285) in Warlord
- 1x Gorkamorka Banner Bearers
- 1x Gorkamorka Glyph Bearers
- Reinforced x 2
5 x Orruk Brutes (150)
- Pair of Brute Choppas
- 1x Gore Choppas
5 x Orruk Brutes (150)
- Pair of Brute Choppas
- 1x Gore Choppas

Units
10 x Boingrot Bounderz (210)
- Allies
- Reinforced x 1
3 x Rockgut Troggoths (145)
- Allies

Core Battalions
Warlord

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 2110 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 5 / 4
Allies: 465 / 400
Wounds: 156
 

Now for the Skaven.

Spoiler

Allegiance: Skaventide
- Grand Strategy: Hold the Line
- Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
LEADERS
Verminlord Warbringer (305) in Warlord
- General
- Command Trait: Brutal Fury
- Artefact: Things-Bane
- Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon
Thanquol on Boneripper (405) in Battle Regiment
- 4 Warpfire Braziers
- Lore of Ruin: Death Frenzy
Clawlord (105) in Battle Regiment
- Artefact: Shield of Distraction
- Mighty Warlord Command Trait: Devious Adversary
Plague Priest (85) in Warlord
- Universal Prayer Scripture: Curse
Plague Priest (85) in Warlord
- Universal Prayer Scripture: Curse
UNITS
60 x Clanrats (390) in Battle Regiment
- Rusty Spear
- 3 x Standard Bearers
- 3 x Standard Bell Ringers
20 x Clanrats (130) in Battle Regiment
- Rusty Blade
- 1 x Standard Bearers
- 1 x Standard Bell Ringers
10 x Stormvermin (110) in Battle Regiment
- Halberd & Shield
1 x Warpfire Thrower (70) in Battle Regiment
BEHEMOTHS
Hell Pit Abomination (240) in Battle Regiment
- Mutation: Accelerated Regeneration
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS
Emerald Lifeswarm (60)
CORE BATTALIONS
Battle Regiment
Warlord
ADDITIONAL ENHANCEMENTS
Artefact
TOTAL: 1985/2000 WOUNDS: 145
LEADERS: 5/6 BATTLELINES: 3 (3+) BEHEMOTHS: 3/4 ARTILLERY: 0/4
ARTEFACTS: 2/1 ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS: 1/3 ALLIES: 0/400

Things I wanted to try out with this list

1) Dare my opponent to chew threw 60 block of rats, intending to use Rally command ability every chance I get, early game Bless prayer on them, along with adding models back using Lifeswarm endless spell

2) Do damage with clanrats; using Curse Prayer to trigger MW's on the mountain of dice a block of 60 can do with Spears. Intend to run Thanquol AND Warbringer to warpflame overwatch, reach over the top with 3" range weapons but most importantly using Warbringer's CA to give out that now rarified re-roll 1's to hit and wound. 

3) Fling a super healing mutated Hellpit at my opponent as a bully. Every turn, I want to heal D3 with the potential for lifeswarm support.

Things that I will observe in general because of the new addition:

1) Command point hunger

2) Spread of points, i.e., is either player truly aware how close they are to winning, even if behind?

The Set-up

It was a little funky. We assumed hot-dog deployment as we were playing casual and the terrain we wanted split the board in half. Then another club member suggested we all play the Vice scenario as a club that day, it looked cool, so we tried it. I was the "defender" and chose to keep the terrain as it was and unintentionally created a wall for the now "hamburger"-style deployment (for ease of starting the bloody game). Unique rule we added was some lava terrain was "rough" terrain and -2 movement if you would move across any number of them. 

Deployment

My opponent setup by front-loading his line (as you do with orruks) but most importantly planted a Macho Man Cabbage Savage on the side with my back-boarded Gnawhole (important later on). For myself, I made my Great Wall-o-Rats on the top part of the table backed by my hero monsters. I got tricksy and put a priest and HPA on my backboard to send through a Gnawhole (remembering in turn 1 that I didn't have to with the new rules). I also made a long-shot gamble by putting a -2 to be hit Clawlord exposed on the bottom of the table (Look out Sir and Shield of Distraction) with the hopes of attracting the Cabbage and stall for a turn. Ready to play.

I beat my opponent in drops and let them take the first turn

Turn 1: Orruks - Ferocious Advance // Skaven - Monstrous Takeover

Orruks move forward. Duh. But wait! There's trickery. You're not gonna believe this but my friend took his Cabbage and ran backwards. Got all up into my Gnawhole ;). During charge phase, he crumbled it. Clever girl. 

Skaven wall up, and hug the terrain. In hindsight it was the most effective move to minimize strike-able real estate on my clanrats. Orruks have high attack density anyways but still helped. Super awkward scoring for secondary but moved HPA off of Gnawhole to score objective in my territory with no teleport locations available. It is now out of position behind my wall. I tried to summon the Lifeswarm with Thanquol but retroactively reminded my opponent about Heroic Willpower. No problem, he won't roll a 10+? Right? RIP. No lifeswarm for now. 

Score: Orruks - 4 // Skaven - 4

Turn 2: Orruks - Monstrous Takeover // Skaven - Take it down

Orruks win the roll off and choose to go first. Macho Man Cabbage Savage pulled a 180 and Mighty Destroy'ad all the way to my bottom corner held by my Warlord. The -2 to hit him held strong but not really as wound rolls for Cabbage were lackluster and he ate my stormvermin instead. Pack of Ardboyz are the first to hit the wall of clanrats. My opponent just couldn't make all of his units pull in range of the wall (to my dismay) and instead charged the unit into the area where my Warbringer was. His 3" reach weapon bomp'ed them on the head for 3d3+3 dmg. Clanrats died a bit. Ardboyz caught me off guard with a Violent Fury active (2 dmg per attack) and ultimately I still lost out to battleshock.

Skaven time. Lifeswarm up and running and will remain healing clanrats for the rest of the game. I really needed to swing the HPA down to hit that Cabbage but ultimately failed due to poor movement rolls and failed long charge (using Triumph). Oof. I stick it out with my Warlord seeing that it would be better to risk another round of combat than retreat and give the Cabbage a buffet of choices to charge things. Chomp. Bye bye Clawlord and his entourage (note that in shooting phase I deployed warpfire thrower knowing stormvermin would also die). Up north I fared better finishing up the Ardboyz with green fire from Thanquol. Unfortunately, I needed the 3 Ardboyzs dead by my movement phase to get my glass cannon Warbringer onto the Cabbage. But guess who's still within 3" of an enemy? Derp. 

NOTE: Never before playing Skaven have I gotten Warbringer's Dreaded Death Frenzy and Death Frenzy to go off at the same time and this was the game. I incorrectly remembered 1.6.2 of the 3rd edition rules that AN effect may never allow a unit to fight more than once per phase and stopped short from piling in twice and attacking twice. After review, the stacked effects are still differently named effects and thus you can in fact pile in twice and attack twice. 

Score: Orruks - 9 // Skaven -5

Turn 3: Orruks - Bring it Down // Skaven - Ferocious Advance

Orruks continue the first turn tradition. Orruks are really feeling the value of Heroic Recovery as the Cabbage fully healed. Target sighted: HPA is looking might tasty. Cabbage makes its charge into HPA handedly while up north 2 brute units and the megaboss make it into my wall. Funny stuff ensues. HPA gets dunked on. Triggers everything everywhere. Smashing and Bashing triggers, Megaboss cuts clanrats in half by popping the Destroyer artifact. Cabbage gets bigger. Orruks score secondary. However, we asked the HPA if it had died and it said "I did, but then I lived". Too Horrible to Die triggers and remains on the table at 1 wound. 

NOTE: The wording of Too Horrible to Die and AOS's stance on simultaneous triggers presents an interesting situation. Generally speaking, Age of Sigmar has the "First in, First out" approach to simultaneous triggers or abilities where the active player's stuff works first. Fortunately, this is explicit in rule 1.6.2. Too Horrible to Die references the model being slain for the first time and thus triggers, and because Skaven abilities are coming from the non-active player, only after the Orruks resolved their triggered effects, do I actually roll my die for the HPA to live. The only gray area is scoring secondaries as it is not an ability. For purposes of fun, ease of play, and intuitive rules, my opponent and I quickly moved past this point with confidence that we did everything right. 

37A80BCB-37F3-45FC-AE75-59CA992489CA.jpeg

Skaven's turn. Hero phase, from downtown comes a god roll on Pestilence!-Pestilence! prayer. Both units of Brutes and the Megaboss take 3 MWs. Neat. On movement, I strolled my non-stuck Warbringer on over with the intent to murder-slice the cabbage. Once again, I scored points in awkward fashion by running my clanrats, a plague priest and the warpfire thrower at each other to satisfy Ferocious Advance. Thats that. Thanquol is exposed at the moment but decides to do work with warpfire on the brutes. Other brutes take note. Moment of truth, with Finest Hour, Tyrant of Battle CA and Brutal Fury trait popped, the Warbringer scurries in, makes a good dent with the glaive, need to finish the Cabbage off, strikes with four attacks with the Spiked Fist, one wound roll left, I hit the nat 6 and Cabbage takes a surprise hit for 7 damage! The exact amount. Macho Man Cabbage Savage is no more. 

Score: Orruks - 15 // Skaven - 9

Turn 4: Orruks - Savage Spearhead // Skaven - Conquer (One objective remains in center of board)

Skaven double turn! I move to center with remaining clanrats to satisfy Conquer. I brace for impact from Megaboss against Thanquol by casting Arcane Bolt and wait for boss to charge me. Push forward with other monsters for flanking ma'neuv. A straight forward but anxious turn because of slim chance to at least tie the game. 

5ADF5E33-8866-498A-A178-224FC5DAB1C0.jpeg

Orruks make their final push. Megaboss is at half health. Trolls finally participate, doing solid shots into clanrats. Ardboyzs doing 2 damage each because of Warchanter support. Oof. All battleline is wiped. Blocks grand strategy points. Megaboss takes 2 MWs on charge because of arcane bolt and whiffs a chunk of attacks, Thanquol has the derp-iest round of attacks but gets the job done.

Score: Orruks - 19 // Skaven - 13

Turn 5: Orruks - <null> // Skaven - Savage Spearhead

Skaven keep momentum. Priest lands another amazing Pestilence!-Pestilence prayer on remaining units. Thanquol warpfires the ****** out of the ardboyz. They are gone now. Priests move onto scenery to block Orruk Grand Strategy. Verminlord swings around, makes charge against trolls, and does solid work. HPA moves across the center line to barely eek out the secondary (random movement kept me sweating)

Orruks can't score points. Warchanter stares at Thanquol. Out of spite, HPA heals the last of its wounds and is still alive.73F718F8-EE43-4B74-923F-BF4E6D397609.jpeg 

Final Score: Orruks - 19 // Skaven 18

Whelp. Good game. 

Things that occurred that I glazed over:

  • Dreaded Death Frenzy and Death Frenzy consistently up. However clanrats were not rolling a lot of dice to take advantage. 
  • Curse prayer targets often weren't in combat.
  • Rally CA on clanrats and Lifeswarm always bringing stuff back. 
  • Both players were command point starved, Orruks lost their general so it was felt mid-late game, and Skaven had to keep using rally. 
  • Of the 11 command abilities that Thanquol used, none of them were refunded with Masterclan trait.
  • Not a single Inspiring Presence was used by either player. 

How did my experiments do?

  • Clanrats didn't get their shot. I chalked it up as a mistake on my part to sandwich them between my monsters and the large amount of terrain. That said, it helped mitigate a great deal of damage by having small attackable real-estate.
  • While curse prayer was used and not taken advantage of, HUGE stonks on Plague Priests
  • Hellpit Abomination. What can I say? He's a survivor.

Things that I learned from my first 3.0 game

  • Gnawhole deployment will take more consideration now. The fact that Smash to Rubble is after movement means deploying them even mid-board makes them vulnerable to roaming monsters. However, Skaven no longer have to show commitment to teleporting through during deployment. We can place things a bit forward. If teleporting is blocked off like in this game, I'm not out of position. If they leave me the avenue, I can move and then teleport. 
  • Heroic Recovery is king. Focused fire will be even more important. In a broader sense, always remember that these things can be done in each players phase. I even made a reference sheet for the new rules but I kept failing to grasp how active I can be with these abilities. The monster abilities I think both players had a handle on (more fun I think).
  • For those armies without magic, I'm excited for those who effectively use Heroic Willpower as a nice tool against that one spell that breaks effectiveness. Its something. 
  • Battleshock rolls are definitely a thing now. For skaven, we are certainly spoiled with battleshock mitigation, but do not rely on our updated Strength in Numbers ability. I purposely chose not to run any of our normal tools so that I got a true sense of what Rally and Lifeswarm can do for us. The numbers were promising. In total, lifeswarm brought back 16 models, and rally gave me a total of 19. Orruks just hit so hard. Ultimately I was losing 10-15 models to battleshock still. I was hoping Thanquol was going to refund at least one command point so that I could Inspiring Presence at least once. Oh well. 
  • Most importantly, choosing your secondaries each turn takes a lot more foresight than I had thought. Too many times did I have to awkwardly move things to make those points happen ultimately putting me out of position. This was particularly tough because of my castle strategy. Future me will have to plan it out by round. That said, the fact that I had more monsters than my opponent made the chance for a comeback extremely natural. 

Learn from my mistakes. Have fun out there.

 

 

 

Edited by Riff_Raff_Rascal

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On 8/2/2021 at 10:29 AM, Sartxac said:

Don't you need a master moulder to make one prized creation? *so as to improve the Hellpit

A fair question. Thats what I had assumed at first. Its worded in a flexible way. You get one free one AND THEN you get an additional one per Master Moulder, but only if you forgo the original Moulder Clan trait.

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