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Kaizennus

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  1. Kaizennus
    Played a 1k tournament this weekend using the new seasonal rules. First tournament in my country in over two years due to COVID. Tied for 3rd with a 2-1 record as SBG: Kastelai
    My Kastelai List

    Game 1: SBG vs. Kruelboyz
    Battlelines Drawn
    Kruelboyz List
    This is the new battleplan where each quarter of the board is its own objective. I was chosen to go first and set myself up pretty defensively and focused on gaining control of my gravesites for my grand strategy. My opponent was running two monster heroes and I misjudged their reach so on his turn he was able to push up aggressively. I rolled a 6 on a redeploy for one unit of BKs but my general got wrecked. I rolled absolutely horribly on saves, but no matter. Without my general I lost my Rousing Commander buff and without it I didn’t have the hitting power to challenge the big monsters. I ran him around the board and in the end I lost with a score of something like 15-20.

     



    Game 2: SBG vs Ogors
    The Lurkers Below
    Ogors List
    This is the tug of war battleplan that doesn’t use points. Once again I got chosen to go first and slowly moved my units into position across the board. On my opponents turn he managed to make some good charge rolls and engage two units of my blood knights with his ogors. The BK’s held super well, especially with the buffs from my vengorian and his artefact. On my turn I retreated and countercharged everything and popped my rousing commander and one-shot his big blob of ogors and left his remaining group tied up at the side of the board. In his next turn he was actually able to break through my general and kill him, but on my turn three I auto-advanced one of my BKs and at the end of the turn I had all three objectives and got an auto-win.

     



    Game 3: SBG vs Stormcast
    Turf War
    This battleplan has two objectives, no reserves, and has both players potentially deploying 18” away from each other. I was chosen to go first again (2/3 of my opponents brought the 1 drop battalion) and screened out his fulminators with wolves while I got a charge off with one unit of BK into his liberators/judicators. His libs actually tanked my damage really well since my army lacks both mortals and rend. Between the unleash hell and the counter attack I ended up losing more models than him. On his turn he wiped out my wolves and my engaged knights held strong. He got the double and I had a hairy turn but I rolled ridiculously well on saves and came out fairly  unscathed and even brought my wolves back. On my turn I popped rousing commander, charged everything and wiped out everything he had except for his fulminators. He decided to concede feeling that he had no way of winning on points.

     




    Post-Tournament 
    - Overall it was a really fun experience and I thought I played okay. I scored a decent amount of tactics after game 1, but it's going to take some time to learn how to use them correctly
    - It seemed like many people weren't comfortable building lists around the new Bounty Hunter/ Conqueror battalions and I saw a lot of "traditional" lists
    - I don't think I got a real feel for the new season yet since people weren't using a lot of the new stuff yet, and proving grounds didn't really seem impactful during my games
    - I think BK's are a solid build for the new season. Easy to play, fast, does well with most of the tactics and new rules. I can easily see this being a go-to for Soulblight players
    - I think veterans are going to suffer really hard, even ogor battleline got totally rolled over largely in part because of the bounty hunter mechanic
    - The missions I played were okay. Not a fan of the tug of war one, even though I snagged a quick victory using it. Also didn't really like Turf War since it's basically designed to just have players throw units at each other in the middle of the board. They were good choices for a 1k tournament however.
    - Not sure how I feel about the 4 quarters battleplan. I think I'd have to play it a few times with 2k armies before I make a judgement on it. For 1k I think it suffers from being "too big" in a way.
    - I look forward to getting more 2k games in and would love to do a 1k tournament again in the future. It is pretty tiring though! I can't imagine how 5 rounds of 2k must feel like.
     
  2. Kaizennus
    Date: July 3rd, 2022
    Game Type: Matched Play / 1000 Points / GHB 2022 Season 1 (Gallet)
    Game #1: Soulblight Gravelords (Vyrkos Dynsasty) vs. Stormcast Eternals (Knights Excelsior)
    Battleplan: The Mighty and the Cunning
    Battleplan Rules
    Objectives can be chosen as Proving Grounds more than once 2 VP each time you kill a Veteran unit, +1VP if it was contesting an objective Hold 1 / Hold 2 / Hold More Than Your Opponent scoring system Soulblight Army List
    This was going to be our first game of AoS using the newly release GHB2022. It was also the first game either of us had played in several months as both of us had taken some time off of AoS to play 40k for awhile. We decided to play two 1k point games, we figured this would be a good introduction to the new rules, plus I have a 1k tournament coming up and I wanted to prepare for it a bit. I (Soulblight) cooked up two different lists for this weekend. The first list is my Kastelai Blood Knight list that I'm planning to take to the tournament. It is definitely a more aggressively built list and not what I would normally take to a 1k casual game. To balance this I also decided to bring along an infantry list (as seen above). I figured this list wouldn't be as strong, but might be a bit more fun to play against and would let me try out some of the new GHB mechanics (such as veterans).
    Our first battleplan was The Mighty and the Cunning. A relatively simple looking battleplan with 4 objectives across the middle and a mechanic that gives bonus points for killing Veterans (more on that at the end of the battle). My opponent won the roll off and decided to let me deploy first. Since we both had 5 drops this meant I had the choice for first round and decided to go first.

    My opponent placed his General and Grandhammers into reserve, while I did the same with one group of Zombies and my 30 Grave Guard
     
    Round 1

    I went first and my first real decision came with choosing one of the new battle tactics. I decided to take advantage of the deepstriking capabilities and took Barge Through Enemy Lines (2VP if you get 2 units into your opponent's territory, 3 if both units are veterans). Other than that, I basically moved onto the two middle objectives and sat tight. I was able to score a solid 6 points right off the bat.
    My opponent decided to move slowly onto his first objective and chose Against The Odds (control an objective that is not being contested by enemy veteran s). He decided not to drop his paladins and only managed to score 3VP this turn.
    Round 2
    We tied on the roll off, which meant that I was able to choose to go first again. My opponent chose one of the middle objectives as the Proving Ground.
     

    Once again I decided to play it safe this turn. With "horde" style armies like these it's generally better for you to avoid combat as long as possible, especially when you get to go first and jump on a lot of objectives. I knew my army wouldn't hold up long against his units so I had to farm VP early on. I slid my GG over to the furthest objective and started to screen them out with my zombies. . I don't usually like to play my GG into a defensive position but I had been a little greedy with the first turn Battle Tactic. Speaking of which, this turn I took one of the "freebies" in Desecrate Their Lands (control a terrain piece in the opponent's territory). I moved my Blood Knights forward a bit and into a potential charge position for next turn (assuming they survived any enemy charges themselves Once again I was able to score pretty high this turn with a solid 5 VP.

    My opponent decided to drop his Grandhammers this turn and easily got his charge off. Those guys are absolute grinders, and they easily wiped out my Blood Knights after doing some pretty decent damage in the movement/charge phase. He also started to move the rest of his army up the board behind the Hammers and I piled-in my zombies to make sure I didn't lose the objective and to prevent his hammers from charging the next turn. My opponent got a few VP this turn but was still held back by primary point scoring.

    Round 3
    I finally lost the roll off here and got my first taste of a Gallet double-turn. My opponent moved up his forces, including his Yndrastra and easily finished off my Zombies. This was particularly damaging because it allowed him to score 3 Bonus VP due to the special mission rules, another 2VP for his battletactic, and a final 1VP on Primary. This helped him gain significant ground on the score sheet.

    Why only 1 VP on primary? Because I rolled a clutch Legions roll and was able to bring back 10 Zombies on the back objective.

    On my turn there wasn't much for me to do. I continued to reposition my Grave Guard and Zombies and grabbed the other "freebie" tactic Against The Odds.
    Round 4
    I lost the roll off here which was pretty unfortunate, a double turn would have allowed me to get my GG into potential counter strike position. My opponent decided not to engage my main force on the final objective, instead he move enough forces onto the third objective and then flew Yndrastra back onto the objective that I had claimed with my Zombies in the last turn. He was able to make a pretty far charge after getting the free re-roll from his Banner hero and Yndrastra made short work of my 10 zombies. In retrospect I hadn't considered how big a swing in points it would be to allow my opponent to score the bonus points again. My opponent scored 3 Bonus VP, 3 Primary VP, and 2 Tactic VP, giving him the lead.
    On my turn I played it pretty defensively and just used the Proving Ground mechanic to take back the objective he had stolen previously. I decided to gamble with the Soulblight Unstoppable Armies battle tactic (succeed at the Endless Legions roll in the battleshock phase) but ultimately failed it.

    Round 5
    I won the double here and was kind of out of options. I decided to deny his Grand Strategy by moving my Grave Guard and General into his territory and preventing his Defend What's Ours (no enemy units in your territory at the end of the game). I made a pretty significant misplay as I forgot about the bonus points mechanic again. As a result I took the other Soulblight battle tactics Callous Overlord (complete it if a summonable unit, not in combat at the start of the turn, dies this turn) and sacrificed my zombies by piling them into his main army. This was ultimately a -1VP exchange for me since he scored 3 bonus VP to my 2, whoops!
    In the end it didn't really matter though. My opponent was able to get his turn 5 battle tactic (Barge Through Enemy Lines) and then just sit tight on the objectives he controlled. He didn't get his Grand Strategy, but I did get mine (the Soublight Lust for Domination strategy which required you to control more gravesites than your opponent). Despite that, he was able to win the game 25-23 (I think... I know the difference was 2 points but I left my scoresheeet at the club so I can't confirm the final numbers, but it was something along these lines)!
    Post Game
    All in all this was a really fun game. After playing 40k for the last 6 months or so it was really refreshing to play AoS again (but that's a topic deserving a blog post of its own maybe). I found the new rules really fun and engaging. The new tactics and grand strategies are much more difficult to complete, which is probably better for the game, particularly the Grand Strats. I think there's going to be some serious imbalance due to the faction specific Tactics and Grand Strats, the Soulblight ones aren't even "that" great, but with how difficult the new ones are they definitely gave me an edge in this game. 
    As for the mission? I think this one really punishes the Veteran mechanic and the amount of VP you score for killing them is way too swingy IMO. I think 1VP for killing and 1 bonus for being on an objective would have been enough. Scoring potentially 3VP every time you kill a veteran unit is huge. I guess they thought this would balance out with the special proving grounds mechanic (you can choose the same objective multiple times whereas normally you can only choose each objective only once) but that seems to only really be the case if you have super durable Veterans in your army.
    I had predicted that these new rules would probably spell the end for Soulblight horde style armies and this game pushes me to thinking that will likely be the case (of course it's just one 1k point game). Fortunately there are other builds that Soulblight can build into, such as the Blood Knight build I used in my follow-up game.
    That being said, it was a fun game and I offer congratulations to my opponent. I think this was his first win against my Soulblight and I know they've been a bit of a boogy-man army for him, so it's nice to see him grab victory today (I had similar issues in dealing with Lumineth so I know how freeing it is to finally beat that nemesis army)!
     

  5. Kaizennus
    AoS 3.0 Game #13
    August 28th, 2021 @ Old Dice Wargaming Club
    Flesh Eater Courts (Feast Day) vs. Cities of Sigmar (Hallowheart)
    We had a four player group for this week’s game day at the club, and our fourth happened to be another Soulblight player. So in order to avoid mirror matches I chose to bring my dusty old FEC army. I haven’t played FEC since SBG released, which was slightly before the release of third edition. Going through the book with 3rd edition in mind made me think there were actually quite a lot of fun things to maybe do with this army despite its poor reputation in the new edition. I was also excited to bring a low model count list after months of playing 120+ model armies and specifically built my list around bringing two big boys to the table. I went against the grain a little and ran a Ghoul King on Zombie Dragon as well as a Ghoul King on Terrorgheist, instead of the double Terrors that are normally used. I also opted for a list that used as few ghouls as I could manage so that I could easily pack everything into a single travel bag and not have to worry about pushing too many models around.
     
    Deployment

    My opponent had a double battle regiment with a total of 3 drops, which gave me the advantage on how to set up my units. After some consideration I decided I would engage in a big monster mash by placing my dragons opposite my opponent’s. I spread my flayers out on the right side with dreams of rushing up the flank to get into the juicy ranged units there. I also had quite a few summons to bring in and hoped that I'd find space near his end of the table.


     
    Top of Turn 1: Cities of Sigmar
    My opponent surprised me by actually taking the initiative this game and surprised me even more by moving aggressively up the board.

    He had a few tricks up his sleeve though, as he strategically placed a few endless spells ahead of his troops to minimize my ability to charge (since you can’t finish a movement within an endless spell).

    Several scary looking monsters placed themselves on top of the hill in the middle of the board, easily within charging range thanks to the pre-game move from the battalion (though he unfortunately rolled quite low on those bonus moves). Fortunately for me, his ranged units were still out of range and couldn’t get any shots off this turn.

    His monsters charged in and right off the bat he pulled a pretty epic play. His Kharibdyss got within range of my throne, passed the Smash to Rubble roll toppling my terrain piece and then I rolled a 1, killing my Archregent before ever getting a chance to do anything. This put me in a pretty rough position because that meant I lost a full unit of summonable Knights, and therefore a decent chunk of my tough units.
    In the combat phase I was able to swing twice with my GKoTG and take out his Kharibdyss (and thank goodness because remembering how to spell that monstrosities name for a whole battle report would be a pain) and get some revenge for my fallen Archregent.
    Cities scored a solid 7 points this turn with a completed battletactic and holding several objectives.
    FEC - 1  vs  CoS - 7
    Bottom of Turn 1: FEC

    The board state at the end of the first turn.
    I took the easy to accomplish Monstrous Takeover battle tactic and picked out my targets for this turn. I threw my two big guys into his Stormcast heroes and swung my flayers around the house terrain piece on the right side of the board.

    My GKoTG and GKoZD made short work of the stormcast thanks to feeding frenzy and my flayers starting working through his ranged units. The flayers' bravery focused ranged attack really works well against units such as the dark elves who have low bravery.
    I also got both of my summons off, bringing in a unit of horrors and a varghulf at the back of the board, hoping to break into the units he had positioned there and maybe steal the back objective.
    I scored 5 points this turn, plus the monster point gained previously.
    FEC - 6  vs  CoS - 7
     
    Top of Turn 2: FEC
    So, I won the deciding roll off here and got the double turn. I think this was the first time I’ve ever gotten the 1 to 2 double, but I almost always go first in my games so I rarely have the opportunity. My opponent was in a tough spot and grabbing the first turn would have allowed him to re-position his troops and get some very important shooting off. 

    My big hero monsters charged into his hydra and dragon and were able to easily wipe them out. Meanwhile, my flayers had an equally strong turn and ate through most of his shooting units. My varghulf and horrors also got into his backline, and while they mostly whiffed on their attacks they still locked up his units and left my opponent with few options.

     
    The end of the turn looked like this, and while I didn’t score a crazy amount of points my opponent decided to call the game since he didn’t have the units left to contend with the things I had on the board.
    FEC - 12  vs  CoS - 7
    Post-Game
    So.. this game is a pretty good example of what FEC are capable of doing and one of the reasons why I shifted away from them and into Soulblight. When FEC goes off, it goes off big and can easily table certain armies in a single turn. On the other hand, had the dice rolls gone a different way my opponent might have been able to shoot off my dragons and the game would have been over just as fast.
    For me it was a nice change of pace to play with fewer models, less magic, and a simple aggressive game plan. We also got to experience that awesome moment on the first turn where my Archregent got killed in the wreckage!
  6. Kaizennus

    Game #12 Soulblight vs Ogor Mawtribes

    By Kaizennus,


    Battle Reports
    AoS 3.0 Game #12
    August 17th, 2021 @ Old Dice Wargaming Club
    Soulblight Gravelords (Vyrkos) vs. Ogor Mawtribes
    Battleplan: Savage Gains (2000pts)
    Soulblight Gravelords Army List
    I got to play a new opponent today who was rocking another Ogor Mawtribes list, which seems to be a particularly popular faction here in Korea (in fact, it seems like the Korean players favor big monster lists/armies in general). We rolled Savage Gains as the battleplan for the game and I chose the role of attacker. With ten drops I was definitely the loser in deployment but he selected me to go first anyway.
    Here's the board all set up at the start of the game:

    I had a group of 20 Zombies and 20 Grave Guard set up in reserves and he had a little ogor hero with some pigs set up in his reserve as well.
    Top of Turn 1: Soulblight
    Not much to say about this turn as I just ran my units up the board to grab the objectives, brought in all my reserves, and summoned in my wolves from Radukar's CA. My opponent had a single spell caster but he wasn't able to stop my lengthy list of spells which buffed up all my units. I don't usually place the GG in reserve, but I wanted to screen them with the Zombies and still make it onto the objective, however this has one major drawback: I can't cast any buffs on them in the first hero phase (namely the Killing Moon by Bella) so I'll have to consider that next time I play.

    I took Ferocious Advance as my battle tactic (2pts) and had 3 objectives (2+2+1) for a total of 7 points this turn.
    SBG 7 - 0 OGR
    Bottom of Turn 1: Ogors
    I denied what little spell casting he had and then watched as he charged into my units. I was a little worried after losing Mannfred the last time I play Ogors, but was fairly confident that he could survive one big charger.


    I took a decent amount of impact damage across the table but the real damage came in the combat phase. My zombies got wiped out, as I sort of expected, but I wasn't expecting him to be able to pile in so many attackers into my Grave Guard. This was my fault as I got kind of greedy in pulling my dead zombies from the right side (planning to charge in next turn) but his three ogors with a bunch of buffs from charging completely destroyed my whole unit of Zombies and Grave Guard! I was pretty worried that this might be the end of the game right here and now, especially if I got double turned. Mannfred ran away to the back of my deployment where he could still buff the skeletons. The skeletons did a fair bit of damage on their own, buffed with Vanhel's and the Crimson Feast (+1 Attacks). My fell bats died valiantly holding up his other big guy on the left side who looked like he was trying to swing into my back objective.

    Fortunately, I was able to hold onto the right side objective thanks to my skeletons slaying a model so my opponent only got 3 points in total after failing his attempt to Conquer (who selected the objective on the right side.
    SBG 7 - 3 OGR
    Top of Turn 2: Soulblight
    Winning the roll-off via tie breaker was huge for me. A double turn at this point would have been game over for sure. My dire wolves had been ignored last turn which meant they had a straight path into his juicy primary objective worth 4 points. Radukar charged into his foot ogors and my zombies moved within pile-in range of them as well.

    I knew that my skeletons would not survive a hefty impact charge from his big guy so I threw Mannfred into the fray and hoped he could survive a turn of combat.

    Overall I didn't do a ton of actual damage in combat, but I didn't lose much either. This also meant that I had most of the objectives and his units were mostly tied up in combat as well.

    I got my Conquer battle tactic (2pts) and had 3 objectives (4+2+1) for a total of 9 points this round.
    SBG 16 - 3 OGR
    Bottom of Round 2: Ogors
    My opponent took Bring It Down! as his battle tactic, selecting Mannfred as he was my only monster. At the start of this turn Mannfred had exactly 1 wound left, though he healed up a couple during the Heroic Action phase. His plan was to kill Mannfred by using his D6 Mortal Wounds ability that can target units with high armor. Luckily for me he rolled a 3 and I saved 1 and ignored another, allowing him to run away. I teleported Mannfred into my opponents zone, far from any shooting or charging units and setting him up for my next turn's battle tactic.


    With Vanhel's Dance and the +1 attacks the skeletons slowly started to chip away at the big dude, though the lack of rend meant that even after 70+ attacks I was only getting through 2-3 wounds. Radukar held up extraordinarily well against the foot ogors, I think his -1 to hit ability really cut down on their damage.

    He was able to snag my primary objective while still holding the one on the left so he scored 6 points this turn after failing his battle tactic for a second time. 
    SBG 16 - 9 OGR
    Top of Turn 3: Ogors
    Ogors got the double turn here, which they probably needed at this stage since I was starting to pull away on victory points. Unfortunately for him this was when I started rolling well on my Endless Legions rolls and at the end of last turn I had brought back half a unit of Grave Guard that had a clear line towards his big guy engaged with my skeletons.

    The grave guard and zombies at the bottom of the board are dead models that I hadn't cleared from the table yet due to lack of space.
    Belladamma got rolled in combat this turn and my skeletons and his big guy both managed to do very little to each other. Radukar continued to work on the foot ogors and otherwise not much happened. He scored his battle tactic (2pts) and had two objectives (2+4) for a total of 8 points bringing him back into the game.
    SBG 16 - 17 OGR
    Bottom of Round 3: Soulblight
    I won another Endless Legions roll letting me bring back some zombies at the bottom of the board and work towards reclaiming my primary objective. My grave guard were able to move forward 4" and then get a guaranteed 6" charge with their musician while a much healed Mannfred charged into the small group of mounted ogors on his primary objective. 

    10 Grave Guard with +1 attacks and a +1/+1 aura from Mannfred put out a ridiculous amount of wounds and finally destroyed his general. I think a lot of people new to playing against Soulblight greatly underestimate their strength, though there wasn't much he could do anyway.

    Mannfred also cleared out the raiders he was fighting with and I scored my tactic (2pts) and held 3 objectives (4+2+1) and killed a monster (1pt) for a total of 9. I also managed to bring back another group of zombies at my primary objective down at the bottom of the board with Endless Legions.
    SBG 26 - 17 OGR
    Top of Round 4: Soulblight
    I won the roll off here which more or less sealed the fate of the game. I reconsolidated my forces and the only combat was Mannfred wiping out my opponent's reserve guy. I scored another 9 points this turn and my opponent decided to concede.
    SBG 35 - 17 OGR
    Final Score
     
    Post Game
    This was a pretty strong game for me and was the first time I've really had an overwhelming victory against someone with Soulblight. My opponent hasn't played many games of 3.0 yet so he wasn't as familiar with the battle tactics which are such a huge part of the game now. I've been running this style of list for quite a while now too, around 6 games I think, and this is my third time using the Radukar variation. I really like this list and I think swapping out the Vengorian and 10x skeletons for Radukar and bats (and then splitting the zombies into 2 units of 20) has been really effective. If I were to tune this list further I think my next stop would be to maybe replace the zombies... but I'm not sure yet.
    I hope my opponent didn't feel too bad about the loss and I did speak to him afterwards. I think Soulblight can feel a little bad to play against when you get a bunch of endless legions rolls and just bring back half your army. He seems up for another game (potentially against his Gits army!) so I think he enjoyed it as well!
  7. Kaizennus

    Game #11 Soulblight vs Sons of Behemat

    By Kaizennus,


    Battle Reports
    AoS 3.0 Game #11
    August 17th, 2021 @ Old Dice Wargaming Club
    Soulblight Gravelords (Vyrkos) vs. Sons of Behemat
    Battleplan: Tectonic Interference(1500)
    Soulblight Gravelords Army List
    Deployment

    Top of Round 1: Soulblight
    I had a one drop deployment list for this small 1500 point game and I decided to go first. On my turn I just moved onto all the objectives and chose Aggressive Expansion as my battle tactic. I had zombies and skeletons on the left flank facing off against his Mancrushers and Mannfred, Bella, and 30 x Grave Guard on the other side pairing off against his Mega Gargants.
    SBG 6 - 0 SOB
    Bottom of Round 1: Sons of Behemat

    The giants charges into my units as best they could, but had trouble fitting in around the terrain pieces. Mannfred blocked out the right objective and my skeletons and zombies held the left flank with overwhelming numbers, even against the mancrushers. He decided to charge Belladamma, which was a little surprising for me, and she was killed off this turn. That meant that I didn't have to run away Mannfred and he did a decent job of denting his first Mega.

    SBG 6 - 4 SOB
    Top of Round 2: Soulblight
    I won the important roll off preventing the double turn, which meant that my 30 Grave Guard were in clear charging distance of his wounded Mega.

    16 Grave Guard with 3 attacks each and within Mannfred's +1/+1 bubble made quick work of the first Mega, once again pumping out some insane damage. My units on the left hand side were taking a beating but hadn't crumpled yet, holding back the smaller giants for at least another turn. I took Slay the Warlord this turn, which I completed, though I only scored 4 points total since the giants were all now within objective range.

    SBG 10 - 4 SOB
    Bottom of Round 2: Sons of Behemat
    My grave guard took a pounding with a combination of fall damage and a follow up shooting phase. He charged into my weakened group of GG and tried to take them out, but unfortunately was not able to clear out enough models to prevent me from swinging back pretty hard on the following combat activation and severely wounding his second Mega who took the full brunt of damage from around 18 GG, Mannfred, and a number of offensive spells from Mannfred and the Vampire Lord. I did lose quite a few grave guard in the process though. My left flank had fallen at this point but I was lucky enough to bring back half a unit of zombies, ready to charge back in.
     
    SBG 10 - 6 SOB
    Top of Round 3: Sons of Behemat
    In the combat phase he came close to wiping out my grave guard, but around 6 survived and combined with Mannfred they were able to take down his second Mega.

    With only two mancrushers left my opponent decided to concede the game.
    Post Game
    My opponent is still quite new to AoS and is still working on completing his first 2k point army and this was really mostly just a learning match. My opponent had a friend (one of my opponents from an earlier game) help him out with rules and English translation. I think he had fun and learned a lot and I look forward to playing him again in the future, especially with a full 2k point army. This was my first time playing SoB and was a pretty gentle introduction. They are probably a very scary matchup in a full points game against an experienced opponent, but at least now I feel like I have a little bit of understanding on what to expect. 
     
  8. Kaizennus

    Game #10 Soulblight vs. Seraphon

    By Kaizennus,


    Battle Reports
    AoS 3.0 Game #10
    August 15th, 2021 @ Old Dice Wargaming Club
    Soulblight Gravelords (Vyrkos) vs. Seraphon (Thunderlizards)
    Battleplan: Tooth and Nail (2000pts)
    Soulblight Gravelords Army List
    Deployment

    It looks like we made a mistake in deployment, we should be 9" away from each other's territory, so we're both a bit closer than we should be to each other, though I don't think it made much of an impact on the game since we both deployed with this misunderstanding.
    Top of Turn 1: Soulblight
    I out dropped my opponent this game and decided to take the first turn. My opponent didn't have much in the form of spellcasting so I was able to get a full range of buffs out on my units this hero phase. This battleplan doesn't allow reserve units, so I didn't have anything in the gravesites. It's hard to see in the picture but I did cast spectral grasp on the the Wyldwood near the center of the board (half movement for anything that starts within 3"). I summoned Radukar's wolves as an extra wall of chaff and otherwise cautiously moved up the left side of the board. I decided not to push far into the right side and instead used those units to complete my ferocious advance battle tactic. I didn't try for any charges and ended my turn with 4 points.

    SBG 4 - 0 SER
    Bottom of Turn 1: Seraphon
    In my turn I had moved Mannfred up front to screen out his Carnosaur and other big units, but I greatly underestimated the amount of damage his shooting could get off on a single turn. Mannfred was shot down with wounds to spare in the first shooting phase of the game.

    My direwolves were taken out in the combat phase, but left his own units open for a counter charge next turn.

    With 4 points scored, we were both tied at this point.
    SBG 4 - 5 SER
    Top of Turn 2: Soulblight
    Avoiding the double turn here was pretty big, especially with Mannfred no longer screening the Carnosaur and my dire wolf screen eliminated. Once again I went unchallenged in the hero phase and Belladamma was able to summon a wolf via Lycancurse, allowing me to thin out his Kroxigors.

    I charged in Radukar, tying up his Bastiladon. I also moved forward on the right side, realizing that I would also need to tie up his other ranged dinosaurs to prevent myself from losing other heroes. My fell bats went deep, hoping to tie up his unit of Salamander Hunting Pack.



    I managed to take out another Kroxigor with my zombies and eliminate his small unit of skinks with my skeletons, allowing them to pile in a second time with Vanhel's Dance and tie up his other Bastiladons. With three objectives and a completed Savage Spearhead tactic, I scored 5 points this turn.
    SBG 9 - 5 SER
    Bottom of Turn 2: Seraphon
    My opponent's shooting was much less effective this turn as his units were all tied up in combat and he couldn't focus fire down any single unit. He got his Oldblood on Carnosaur into my Grave Guard by charging through the forest.


    All but three of my Grave Guard survived, but they fled in the battleshock phase, removing the unit from play. On the other side of the board his dinos finally wiped out my skeletons. At this point I had lost Mannfred, 20x Grave Guard, 10 Dire Wolves, and 30x Skeletons.. but I did make a very fortunate Endless Legions roll at the end of the turn, bringing back 10 Grave Guard. Perhaps even more importantly I won the turn roll off again. My opponent scored 4 points this turn, keeping us close on the scorecard. As a side note, my opponent was mixing the battle pack battle tactics, I think because he didn't own the GHB. I decided not to argue the point since we were playing for fun here. The battle tactic he chose was "repel".
    SBG 9 - 9 SER
    Top of Turn 3: Soulblight
    I took my new unit of Grave Guard and made the guaranteed charge (deployed 9" away, 4" movement, and 6" musician charge). In the hero phase I had given them Under the Killing Moon (exploding 6's on hits) and in the combat phase I used the Vampire Lord to give them +1 attacks. All 10 GG made it into attacking range, and the 30 attacks rolled well, with a number of exploding hits.

    3 mortals and 25 wound rolls at -1 rend / 2 damage went through, a potential of over 50 damage.

    The Oldblood did not survive.
    On the otherside of the board I retreated my zombies back towards my own primary objective. In the battleshock phase I won another endless legions roll and brought back 15 skeletons to reinforce my corner objective. What had once looked like an unwinnable position now looked quite good, though there were still a lot of scary dinosaurs on the board. I managed to scrape 4 points this turn despite only having a single objective under my control.
    SBG 13 - 9 SER
    Bottom of Turn 3: Seraphon
    My opponent took Broken Ranks this turn and targeted my fresh group of skeletons who took the brunt of the shooting damage and leaving only  4-5 models left by the start of combat. He also charged in his dino on the left side of the board and engaged Radukar who had finally dispatched the bastiladon he was fighting for several turns.


    He succeeded in removing my remaining skeletons in the combat phase, but I was able to bring back some Dire Wolves and steal his own primary objective and stopping him from scoring more than 3 points this turn.
    SBG 13 - 12 SER
    Top of Turn 4: Seraphon
    My opponent crushed my remaining unit of zombies on my back objective and did a decent amount of damage to my grave guard as well.


    At the end of the battleshock phase I was able to revive the zombies that had just been killed and this time brought them in at the back of the board where he was holding an objective with just a bastiladon. He did score a strong 5 points this turn however, and I was running out of units to bring back. 
    SBG 13 - 17 SER
    Bottom of Turn 4: Soulblight

    Radukar put in a lot of work this game, just grinding through everything put in his way. When fed by low wound count models that trigger his vampiric healing and healed with the heroic actions he is very hard to put down. I moved my zombies forward but didn't charge, looking to take advantage of the pile in shenanigans to basically give me a double activation. Unfortunately, I lost too many zombies and therefore control of the objective, but I did take down his dino on the left, giving me broken ranks and a monster kill point for a total of 4 this turn.
    SBG 17 - 17 SER
    Top of Turn 5: Seraphon
    My opponent chose "seize the middle" as his tactic, which shouldn't normally be allowed because that is part of the core rules pack and not GHB but I decided not to challenge it since it was near the end of the game anyway. There wasn't a lot of combat this turn other than him taking out my my Necromancer at the back corner and he moved some of his units into the middle to score his tactic and a total of 3 points.
    SBG 17 - 20 SER
    Bottom of Turn 5: Soulblight
    I decided to take the same battle tactic he had and moved most of units into the middle of the board but didn't charge, giving me a total of 5 points this turn from controlling two objectives and scoring a battle tactic.
    SBG 22 - 20 SER
    Final Score
    SBG 25 - 23 SER

    Post Game
    Overall a very tight game! From a unit point of view I was losing the entire game, but being able to reliably complete battle tactics and control objectives at important moments allowed me to just barely get a victory here. The endless legions ability to bring back half units definitely saved me this game and I was lucky to win so many rolls. Games like this really feel like "Soulblight" to me, constantly bringing back units, swarming the board, and trying to be sneaky by popping up everywhere.
    I lost Mannfred in the first turn again.. it seems to be happening more often than not these days, but there's not a whole lot I can do against focused fire ranged lists like these, though I now have a better idea of what their turn one damage can look like and I should be able to prepare better in the future.
    Mixing the battle tactics was a little unfortunate, and afterwards it was explained how you need to choose a single battle pack. In his next game they were able to play with the proper rules.
  9. Kaizennus
    AoS 3.0 Game #6
    July 31st, 2021 @ Old Dice Wargaming Club
    Soulblight Gravelords (Vyrkos) vs. Ogor Mawtribes (Blood Gullet)
    Battleplan: Tectonic Interference (2000pts)
    Soulblight Gravelords Army List
    Deployment

    Top of Round 1: Soulblight Gravelords
    The ogor army outdropped me and decided to give me the first turn. My first turn was fairly un-eventful as I pretty much just cast my spells and moved slightly forwards, just enough to get onto the objectives. My spell casting went un-interrupted as the Vyrkos re-rolling ability and Belladamma’s +1 to casting gave me a strong magic advantage this game. I took ferocious advance as my opening battle tactic which I completed by running the Necromancer, Vampire Lord, and small group of skeletons. I also deployed my reserve zombies on the right side objective.

    SBG 5 - 0 OGR
    Bottom of Round 1: Ogor Mawtribes
    Ogors had a pretty powerful magic phase this turn as I failed my dispel roll for Voracious Maw and he rolled quite well, taking a total of 7 wounds off my Vengorian Lord. I took a little bit of damage in the shooting phase but nothing too devastating. In the charge phase I got a bit lucky as his unit of Man-eaters failed their charge roll and his hero (proxied as the Orruk in the picture) whiffed on his attacks. Unfortunately I made a (possibly game ending) error right in the first combat phase. I had a complete brainfart and activated my skeletons first… even though the hero they were in combat with had already attacked. This meant that on the next activation he got to wipe out all of my grave guard. My large block of zombies also took a big hit on the right side of the board as they tried to hold the objective there. Fortunately I was able to kill the hero who had made his lone charge, while also somehow managing to keep my battle line unit alive to deny his battle tactic.





    SBG 5 - 2 OGR
    Top of Round 2: Ogor Mawtribes
    The ogors were able to push me off all the objectives this turn in a pretty powerful move forward. I took a little bit of damage in the shooting and hero phase, but nothing quite as bad as before. Fortunately, while I did lose all of the objectives, I was able to hold him off his battle tactic as my Vengorian Lord managed to hold on with a single wound thanks to some timely ward saves. Mannfred did a ton of damage to the ogor unit who attacked him and my Necromancer valiantly killed an ogor himself (praise be to swingy D3 damage?). Despite doing quite well in combat, this turn put me in a pretty tough place in regards to objective control.





    SBG 5 - 6 OGR
    Bottom of Round 2: Soulblight Gravelords
    This was a fairly uneventful turn for me, but relatively successful. At the end of last turn I succeeded in bringing back half my grave guard unit, which was pretty important for keeping me in the game. The alpha objective unfortunately landed on the far right side of the board, putting it out of my reach for the moment. I consolidated my forces on the left side and took the objective, completing my battle tactic (bring it down) in the process. This put me back into a slight lead and with a fairly strong force grouped together.

    SBG 8 - 6 OGR
    Top of Round 3: Ogor Mawtribes
    My opponent chose Slay the Warlord as his battle tactic. In retrospect, there was a mistake here. At the time, I was under the belief that any “general” counted towards the tactic (so in this case, Belladamma counting because she’s a bonus general in Vyrkos) but I have since learned that that is not the case. In any case, he was able to charge into my exposed Belladamma and take her out without too much problem. He also charged his Firebelly into my Vengorian, which would end pretty badly for him. The alpha objective landed someone on the right side again, so he was able to score 2 points for the tactic, and 3 points on objectives. 




    SBG 8 - 11 OGR
    Bottom of Round 3: Soulblight Gravelords
    My record keeping starts to fail me here as I started to forget to label my pictures, and in fact I don’t think I took any for this round. The big clash on the left side of the board continued and I made another huge blunder. I had meant to flee Mannfred from combat but totally forgot. Instead of asking to re-do it I decided to suffer a round of fighting, thinking he could manage (spoiler alert: he didn’t). Losing Mannfred was a huge blow, especially to my mobility and this was probably what cost me the game. However, I was able to push up the center of the board with my Vengorian (who had since healed up most of his wounds after being one away from death) and a revived unit of zombies. This allowed me to take the center objective again and I was able to score at least 2 points. I barely failed my attempt at killing his own warlord this round, so I failed my battle tactic.
    SBG 10 - 11 OGR
    Top of Round 4: Soulblight Gravelords
    I was hoping for a dominant combat phase here so that I could push into his vulnerable heroes in round 4. Unfortunately, without the buffs from Belladamma, the Vampire Lord, and Mannfred my basic units just weren’t strong enough to break through the last unit of ogors. I lost all my zombies, but did manage to put quite a few wounds into the last unit. However, being stuck in combat was a big problem. My vengorian moved onto the right side objective (which once again became the alpha) but I couldn’t do enough damage to kill the leadbelchers and win over the objective. I did claim my battle tactic by running some revived skeletons and my necromancer into his territory and still had two objectives claimed. If the alpha objective had fallen into my territory I would have been able to maintain a stronger lead.



    SBG 14 - 11 OGR
    Bottom of Round 4: Ogor Mawtribes
    The ogors and skeletons continued to duke it out on the left side of the map while the leadbelchers continued to try and take out my Vengorian Lord who was just barely hanging on for dear life. My opponent also claimed Savage Spearhead this turn and scored the bonus point for having the alpha objective which tied up the game.


    SBG 14 - 14 OGR
    Top of Round 5: Ogor Mawtribes
    The alpha objective landed in the middle this turn, which meant that things could potentially get interesting since we were so close on points. My opponent took Monstrous Takeover as a throw away battle tactic since they couldn’t complete any of the others. The leadbelchers finally finished off my Vengorian Lord. Once again, with the alpha under his control he was able to score three points this turn.

    SBG 14 - 17 OGR
    Bottom of Round 5: Soulblight Gravelords
    So the ending of this game was a little weird. My opponent assumed that I had essentially won the game and starting tidying up, assuming that I could just grab the middle objective with my necromancer and skeletons. As a result, I kind of just haphazardly moved my models over without bothering to measure out carefully. After doing so, I realized that technically I was within pile-in range of one of his ogors and reminded my opponent since he hadn’t noticed. He was able to pile in and thus stop me from getting the objective and battle tactic. If I had spent the time carefully measuring out the models with the 3” gauge or if I hadn’t said anything, I would have finished this round with 5 points, bringing me up to 19 total (and then adding in 3+ for both of us because of grand strategies). Of course, we’re just playing for fun so it doesn’t matter too much. Officially speaking this game was a loss for me, but I do feel like I should have tied if I had played it out properly, oh well! 
    SBG 18 - 22 OGR
    Final Scores
    Soulblight

    Ogors

    Post Game
    Overall this was a really fun and close game, coming down to the very end and being decided by only a few points regardless of which ending you want to consider. I was a bit nervous about running this list, which is actually the 5-0 tournament list run by Brendan Melnick in the US. To me, the list didn’t look very strong, and while similar to the style I wanted to play it didn’t include very many heavy hitters like dragons or blood knights. I’m glad I tried it out though because it turned out to be a strong list, even with me piloting it very badly (losing Mannfred and my Grave Guard to mistakes). I learned a lot by playing this list and seeing how powerful it is to have a focused list with big blobs of units and focusing on battle tactics and objective control. It seems that the current battle pack really encourages a “hold 2 and then complete tactics” style of play which this list does really well. It was also fun playing against my first Korean opponent and playing my first game against the ogors who I think are a really fun matchup for my Soulblight.
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