Grim Tidings II: On fire, up in here

Knowing how quickly I paint (it generally takes me a week to get a warjack or solo done), I’m rather sensitive to the timeframe for this year’s Breast Cancer Brawl. I don’t know if our organisers are planning to run at 500 or 750pts, but I have my work cut out for me either way.

This will mean that my Menites are only going to be putting a token appearance on my painting desk for the next few months, while I try to get the Ta-Ta Kriel up and running. This also means that I have to be a lot more selective about which models I purchase, as I’m not going to have time to paint models that I don’t intend to actually use.

To help me make those decisions? Playtesting!

I already know I want to use Grim Angus as my primary warlock, so no worries there – but how many beasts do I run with him? Which infantry units? Which solos? Online research will only go so far…

I know Grim’s fairly atypical as far as Trolls go, so this week for the CTA I tossed together 500pts with no KSB or Champions.

Grim Angus
Blitzer (name pending)
Vivian the Impaler
Rick the Impaler (name under review)
Neil the Axer
Pyg Bushwackers (8)

Across the field was Hobby Kingdom regular and all-around great guy Scott M (Killraven), who will be featuring in the followup to the WarmaHordes Challenge, as soon as we can get it off the ground. He brought with him a bunch of Menites.

High Reclaimer
- Castigator
- Revenger
Vilmon
Rhoven
TFG (6) + UA
Zealots (8) + UA

I’ll confess to being surprised by the absence of a Choir, but with the High Reclaimer’s strength being in Infantry rather than Warjacks, it makes some sense that Scott opted to pick up extra troops instead.

The vagaries of the CTA gave us each a sniper in a tower, but considering how little impact the snipers had on the game, I think there’s no real need to mention them again.

Scott had first turn; Vilmon did the Impervious Run towards my Pygs hiding in a forest, the Zealots moved around the terrain on one flank, and the rest of his force advanced behind a screen of ash clouds thanks to the High Reclaimer. I responded by giving casting Cross Country on the pygs and letting them take a potshot at a shieldwall’d TFG trooper through the smoke. Nothing very interesting; my three lights moved up a little with Grim, while the Blitzer moved to the flank towards the incoming Castigator, heedless to the danger posed by the Zealots moving up on the same flank.

The next round set the turn for the remainder of the battle – Vilmon slammed into the Pygs, but despite his awesome destructive capability, I made tough roll after tough roll; it sucked that the offensive capacity of the Pygs was hampered by being constantly knocked down and tied up in melee, but the little buggers basically held up Vilmon, Rhoven, and one side of the TFG for four turns while Grim and the warbeasts went to work.

I don’t care that they only killed a single TFG all game, those little dudes were awesome.

The Blitzer also performed admirably – Grim Locked the Castigator so it couldn’t hide behind the smoke, Baiting the Line; Neil the Axer told the Blitzer to Rush, and next thing you know the heavy warbeast is barrelling 12″ on the charge, tearing both arms off the Castigator while the madly cackling Pyg Ace sprayed bullets uselessly in every direction.

The other “Way cool!” moment was when Grim lined up a shot on the Revenger hiding behind the TFG, and Vivian slammed a dirty great spear into it, sending it flying over (through) the High Reclaimer for 5 damage to the warcaster, and some severe damage to the warjack.

In the end we had to call the game due to time and at that point I was in the lead on VPs, but the game really could have gone either way based on a good (or bad) dice roll. One way or another, it was a sterling gaming experience with a wonderful opponent who displayed excellent sportsmanship throughout, despite his fires going out all over the place without doing anything significant.

I tell ya, the quality of players at the Hobby Kingdom – I’m not talking about how good they are at the game, I’m talking about the level of sportsmanship generally displayed – is something to behold. Tis awesome.

More often than not I get a guilty twinge when I win, simply because I know I just beat a really nice guy… except for Spud, he’s a jerk

Things learned:

• Remember the basics – knocking down a target with Mantrap is counterproductive when I’m shooting for the over-the-caster Impaler slam.
• Troll warbeasts can soak up a surprising amount of damage, and still be quite effective – especially when the faction bonus for the week means your Blitzer’s ignoring lost aspects (we’re in wk4 of our CTA).
• Blitzer’s Push animus is nifty for opening up firing lines. Grim may still have been in melee with the two TFG, but he could see to cast spells at the High Reclaimer. If they hadn’t had Reach, he could have just opened fire.
• Forgetting to use your feat can result in being charged by Vilmon.
• Vilmon’s not *quite* as dangerous when you’ve got three fury for transfers from that Impaler that Rhoven’s boys killed.
• There’s no substitute for good dice. I made about 80% of my tough rolls. About 80% of the time I had to make a fire roll, using the same dice, it went out. While I made some abyssmal to-hit rolls, those tough and fire rolls went a long way to making the game more fun and unpredictable.

The list needs tweaking, but I’m happy with the balance; since Grim’s not much of a spellcaster normally, I found that four warbeasts was dandy.  I only had to do frenzy checks twice, with 1 FOC left on the beasts each time. So no shortage of fury, but not an overabundance either, so I wasn’t risking losing control all over the place.

Major props once more to Killraven for an excellent game.