Wargames Workshop January Steamroller - Part 1

Hello all, following on from my previous post about my Thagrosh1/Fyanna2 pairing I got to take it out for a spin at a four round event. Apart from a slight issue with my second throne I bought that week (missing its lower section of the tower where everything connects into) I had to do a little improvising to make it playable. My lists were unchanged but for completeness they were as follows:

Thagrosh, Prophet of Everblight (Oracles of Annihilation)

- Typhon

- Carnivean

- Naga Nightlurker

- Nehilim Bloodseer

Throne of Everblight

Throne of Everblight

Hex Hunters (min)

- Bayal

Sorceress on Helion

Sorceress on Helion

Shepherd
Shepherd

Spell Martyr

Fyanna, Torment of Everblight (Ravens of War)

- Neraph

- Neraph

- Raek

- Raek

Raptors

Raptors

Grotesque Raiders

Hellmouth
Hellmouth

Grotesque Assassin

Grotesque Assassin

Forsaken

Spell Martyr

Spell Martyr
Spell Martyr

Game 1 - Thagrosh1 vs Elara2

My first game of the day was against Glenn playing an Elara2 Halberdiers list and Issyria with Mage Hunters. The scenario was Outlast which punishes Thagrosh’s lack of infantry to score with, but  I wasn't confident that Fyanna would have the number of attacks needed to get through Elara’s Halberdiers. With her feat granting Ghostly the Hellmouths would be unable to jam up effectively so I elected to play Thagrosh into Elara. His list was as follows:

Elara, Death’s Shadow (Defenders of Ios)

- Sphinx

- Chimera

- Chimera

Nyss Hunters
Houseguard Halberdiers

- Officer and Standard

- Souless

Houseguard Halberdiers

- Officer and Standard

- Souless

Houseguard Halberdiers

- Officer and Standard

Fane Knight

Houseguard Thane

Houseguard Thane

Arcanist

This is a popular list in the Retribution circles because of its speed and damage output. The theme force gives the Halberdiers advance move which along with Deserate Pace means they can get 24” up the board in Shieldwall turn 1. From there Elara can apply Scything Touch and feat to launch the Halberdiers a further 15” across the board making it one of the fastest list archetypes in the game at the moment.

I won the roll off and decided to go second. This may seem surprising given the speed at which the Halberdiers cross the field but I didn’t want to have to commit pieces to the zones within his charge range, so by going second I could contest on the first scoring turn and slow the rate that scenario would be scored. My opponent deployed evenly with the Nyss and Sphinx centrally and a Chimera on each flank. I deployed a throne on each flank with the heavies centrally, a Helion and Naga on one flank and the Hex Hunters, Bloodseer and second Helion on the right. Draconic Blessing went on the Hex Hunters and Fog of War on Thagrosh.

Turn 1 Retribution had Elara put up Scything Touch on the Fane Knight whilst the rest of the Red forces moved up aggressively. The left hand unit ran up, sending three members well past the centre line whilst the centre and right hand unit moved up in shieldwall.

Turn 1 Legion began with the Hex Hunters apparating forward and charging two members of the right hand Halberdiers to kill one and jam up their advance past the house. The left hand throne moved up and killed three of the unit that ran with a Spine Burst whilst the rest of the battlegroup put up their animi and advanced up. The Helions each took a flank behind a wall and rubble respectively.

Turn 2 Retribution had Elara upkeep Scything Touch and arc Marked For Death through the Chimera onto the Hex Hunters, allowing the Nyss and right Halberdiers to eliminate all but two of the unit. The left side Halberdiers used their minifeat and sent three members in on the left throne doing minima damage but jamming up the Naga, carnivean and throne from the zone. The Central unit sent another two members in to add to the jam and otherwise spaced out for the follow up with the Fane Knight ready to charge in.

Turn 2 Legion had Thagrosh move up and kill two of the jamming halberdiers with the Rapture clouds killing another and cycling Draconic Blessing onto the left hand throne. The Sorceress finished clearing out the jamming models on the left side clearing a lane for the left throne to charge the Fane Knight, killing him even with dismount and killing lots of Halberdiers in the area. The Naga and Typhon also weighed in so by the end of the turn there were only three models left in the centre unit and five in the left hand unit.

The Bloodseer charged forward to bring Arcane Suppression and Telemetry to the right side of the board, giving Bayal a perfect spray which killed five Nyss and a Halberdier. The Sorceress and second throne contributed too killing half of the right hand unit in total. The Shepherd ran onto the center flag setting the score at 1-0 to Legion.

Retribution Turn 3 was set up pretty dire with the majority of the infantry dead and little damage inflicted on the forces. Elara dropped Marked for Death thanks to the Arcane Suppression and moved out to feat and apply Scything Touch to the Sphinx. The Halberdiers and Sphinx managed to clear out the Hex Hunters and Helion whilst a Chimera ran to block the charge lane for the Carnivean to reach the Sphinx. The remaining Nyss and Halberdiers went after the left throne again but with some unlucky rolls failed to take it off the board too, though they did take out the other Helion. The Chimera contested leaving no change to the score.

Legion Turn 3 was mostly a clean up with the right hand throne taking out the Chimera and a few more Halberdiers allowing the Carnivean to take out the Sphinx, but left it alive on a few boxes left. The left hand throne wiped out the last of the Halberdiers on the left side and Typhon sprayed down the final Chimera leaving just Elara and a handful of support staff against a relatively undamaged Legion force. Down on clock to about 30 seconds at this point Glenn conceded, nominally by an assassination as there was no way to get to Thagrosh and burn through his transfers and Elara would have gone down the following turn, leading to a Legion Victory by Assassination.

This was a pretty good matchup for Thagrosh with the armour of the Thrones under his aura being high enough to make armour cracking a challenge for Elara, and also having infantry clearance in spades. Telemetry did fantastic work at clearing up the right hand side of the board and it’s always fun to let Thagrosh get personally involved at clearing out the jamming models. Had the Retribution managed to kill a Throne using enough Halberdiers and Scything Touch things would have become more difficult but this is one of the best infantry clearing lists that Legion can put on the table so it was always going to be an uphill battle.

Game 2 - Thagrosh1 vs Deneghra1

The second game of the day was against Cryx piloted by Matt Townsend, a very good player in the UK meta. He was playing Denny1 Ghost Fleet and Gaspy2 Dark Host, a pretty intimidating pairing. I put down Thagrosh again as Fyanna has no business with facing Cryx and got Ghost Fleet for my troubles. It is worth mentioning that this tournament was the day before the Ghost Fleet nerfs hit so Denny’s feat still prevented running and special attacks (makes thrones very sad!) and even more importantly the Revenant Crew still have point blank, almost doubling their damage output in melee. His list was as follows (There may have been less riflemen in the units but as far as I recall this was correct):

Warwitch Deneghra (The Ghost Fleet)

- Stalker

- Stalker

- Deathripper

- Deathripper

Wraith Engine

Revenant Crew (min)

- Rifleman x3

Revenant Crew (min)

- Rifleman x3

Revenant Crew (min)

- Rifleman x3

Revenant Cannon Crew

Blackbane’s Ghost Raiders (min)

Hellslinger Phantom

Pistol Wraith

Captain Rengrave

The scenario was Breakdown and I won the roll off, electing to go first. I deployed in a more or less similar deployment to the first game except the Hex Hunters went second. I wanted to get as much work done on the top of two before the feat shut me down for a turn. In response the Wraith Engine went on the right side with the Pirates spread equally and the Blackbanes on the left flank. The battlegroup went centrally with one Stalker off to the far right side.

Turn 1 Legion was fairly mundane with the majority of my forces running up as fast as possible to project threat without allowing an Arc Node to land easy debuffs on key pieces. The right hand Helion moved behind the forest and the left behind the wall.

Turn 1 Cryx followed with the left hand Arc Node moving up to apply Crippling Grasp on the Hex Hunters but missing due to stealth whilst the rest of the forces moved up aggressively to project threat. The central Stalker moved to occupy the forest, the right side stalker moved to threaten the Helion and Blackbanes spread out opposite the right Helion.

Starting Turn 2 Legion Matt had done a good job of preventing me from giving me very much in threat range aside from a few pirates that would come back anyway. I wanted to force Deneghra into a bad feat turn the following turn so I pushed the Bloodseer forward with Arcane Suppression to cover the ideal space behind the forest she would stand in. The Hex Hunters went in on the left arc node and cripple it for all but cortex thanks to Draconic Blessing. I moved up the Naga to go after a Crit Shadowbind on the Wraith Engine without success and the rest of the battlegroup moved forward with their defensive animi in place. The left Helion and throne killed most of the Blackbanes and toed the zone but the right throne hung back to stay out of feat range. The right side Helion put up Wind Ravager and lurked behind the forest.

Turn 2 Cryx started with the functional arc node running through the Wraith Engine allowing Deneghra to cast Parasite on the right side Throne. Instead of moving up and feating she moved back out of threat range instead. The Wraith Engine then ran to engage the Naga and Throne to apply Dark Shroud. The right side Stalker took some attacks on the Helion but left it on two boxes, meaning that the right hand Pirates couldn’t take their intended number of attacks on the throne thanks to Wind Ravager. The central stalker went after the Bloodseer but rolled poorly for damage and only did about 6 points of damage. The Hellslinger and central pirates took out all of the Hex Hunters and the Blackbanes killed the Helion on the left but no points were scored.

So for Legion Turn 3 I decided to commit as much as I could to killing the pirates to minimise the damage that would follow from the feat. The left side Throne charged the arc node and destroyed it and the majority of the left hand pirates. The Carnivean killed the Stalker in the center and the Bloodseer killed a couple more pirates from the center unit. The right side Throne killed the other arc node and a big portion of the central pirate units with the Helion taking out more with a spray. The Naga gave itself Wraithbane and tried to score critical Shadowbind with a bite on the Wraith Engine but failed again. Conscious of an assassination Thagrosh camped high on 5 this turn. Legion scored the center zone putting the total at 1-0 to Legion.

Turn 3 Cryx had seen a huge number of pirates taken out by the Thrones as well as both Arc Nodes and by waiting a turn Denny would be able to feat on the entirety of the Legion army. The Pirates rolled well for recursion bringing back 4, 4 and 3 models at the start of the turn as Parasite was upkept. Deneghra started by moving up and feating on all but Thagrosh. The pirates took out the Helion right side throne easily thanks to the -7 Arm swing allowing the Stalker to eliminate the Naga too. It took every shot including Rengraves gun to bring down the left hand throne but it was managed whilst the rest jammed into the Bloodseer and Carnivean. The Pistol Wraith killed both Shepherds and but Cryx didn’t score a point on the right hand zone as some pirates had to run out of the zone.

The attrition had firmly swung back towards Cryx in Legion Turn 4 having lost most of my infantry clearing pieces. My best chance now would be to try and keep my scenario lead and hopefully lure Deneghra into exposing herself. After debating for an assassination attempt on her feat I decided that Thagrosh wouldn’t be able to do it reliably so I started by moving the Spell Martyr up to Mutagenesis the right hand Pirate leader and RFP him. Typhon and the Carnivean  put up their animi and took some sprays, killing a few pirates and the Pistol Wraith, and the Bloodseer continued to apply Spiny Growth, waiting for an opportunity to fight back effectively. I was unable to clear the central zone this turn leaving no change to the score.

Cryx Turn 4 was a good opportunity to press the advantage and collapse the right flank to start scoring scenario. The pirates respawned and Denny moved over to the right zone in the trench to continue camping. This allowed the Wraith Engine to run in and engage all my beasts and Thagrosh so the Pirates come come in hard. The woods blocked the worst of it but the Bloodseer did go down and the Carnivean took some hits but some cold dice and lacking further damage buffs the pirate only did about half the damage to the Carnivean. Denny dominated the right zone here putting the score at 1-1.

Legion Turn 5 saw both the turn numbers and clocks putting pressure, and I was looking to contest scenario to potentially win on clock now. Thagrosh moved up and beat the Wraith Engine solidly into the ground, turning him into a cloud of ash and feating back the Bloodseer to protect him from a charge on the right side. Typhon sprayed down even more pirates on the left but crucially didn’t move forward to also contest the central zone. The Carnivean trampled up through the forest and killed Rengrave, then popped Spiny Growth to continue being durable and setting up threat on Deneghra. However unable to contest the right zone Cryx scored again putting the score at 1-2 to Cryx.

Cryx Turn 5 had Deneghra apply Parasite to the Carnivean and move deep into the right hand zone, which the red pirates easily killed with their charges. Thagrosh took minor damage from the Blue Pirates and the remaining Stalker went after him in the back arc but rolled poorly for damage and left him alive and well. Denny scored again putting the score at 1-3 to Cryx.

With about a minute and a half on my clock on Legion Turn 6 there wasn’t much chance to slow down the scoring now so I tried to clear the center zone and get a few more points to hand. Typhon took out the remaining Stalker and Thagrosh RFPd a unit leader with Rapture, then used Mutagenesis to get into melee with more pirates and kill two more!. The Bloodseer charged up but couldn’t kill both pirates who still contested the zone and I clocked out, leading to a Cryx Victory by Death Clock.

This was a really grindy battle and given that we were playing with 55 minute death clocks I don’t feel bad about timing out, especially with this being my first game against Ghost Fleet! My biggest mistake was Turn 3 when I played right into Denny’s hands by killing loads of pirates from each unit and putting both thrones in feat range. If I had been cautious, lead with my beasts and used the right side throne to kill the Wraith Engine rather than going after the pirates I would have likely forced Denny to feat in a bad position or not get both Thrones. However I got greedy and had great fun killing loads of models that just came back anyway! This is a great lesson in understanding how your opponent’s army wants to play, I should have killed key pieces like the Blackbanes and Wraith Engine that wouldn’t come back and saved the Thrones for a later turn.

As it stands the Cryx changes massively change this matchup. Without Point Blank the Pirates don’t get enough damage output to eliminate the Thrones and with Denny’s feat change if even one Throne survives they will demolish huge portions of this list. Matt played this list very well but I’m happy that I gave it a good run for its money. I also will not be disappointed to see the back end of Ghost Fleet but that is another tale entirely…

That wraps up the first half of the Wargames Workshop steamroller and I’ve almost finished the second two games. Thanks for reading all.

Jamie