Battle report - Harby vs. pGrissel

I got a game in a couple of days ago, and I had decided to go back to the Harbinger and try out my battle engine with her. I ended up against a new oppenont who hasn’t played more than 10 games, and none of them were against the Protectorate of Menoth, so I had quite an advantage since I have read a lot about trolls lately. The pictures a from the ipad so they aren’t that great, but the give an idea of whats happening on the table

I request a 50 point game, since I wanted to try out my list, but if I had knew that he was that new I would properly have gone with 35 or less basically to make it more manageable to him.

First of, here is the lists

The Trollbloods list

Grissel Bloodsong, Fell Caller (pGrissel)

-Storm troll

-Troll Bouncher

-Pyre troll

Long Riders(min)

Horthol, Long rider champion

Fell caller hero

Kriel Warriors(Full)

-Standard and piper

-3 Caber throwers

Krielstone bearer and stone scribes(full)

-Krielstone stone scribe elder                                                              

Champions(min)

-Skaldi Bonehammer

The big kriel warrior unit was new to him, and I quickly thought it would be hard to move without jamming himself up.

My Menoth list

The Harbinger of Menoth(Harby)

-Hierophant

-Reckenor

Tristan Durant

-Reckenor

Choir of Menoth(min)

Vassal of Menoth

Covenant of Menoth

Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist

Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord

Exemplar Errants

-Exemplar officer and standard

Visgoth Rhoven & honor guard

Vessel of Judgement

Vassal Mechanik

We rolled for a standard steamroller scenario ending up playing Incursion with me winning the roll of deciding to go first. I predeployed the Vessel and went on with me regular deployment. After I advanced deployed my Errants the table looked like this

When the game started we agreed on the fact that I had deployed strongly on my right, and me hoping for the left flag to disappear.

First round

I start with allocating one focus to each of the reckenors, one from the Harbinger and one from Tristan. Tristans Reckenor ran up next to the small pillar followed by Tristan moving and putting up fortify.

Next up I gave the Errants a run order and spread them out in front of my entire army, putting the first couple of models within contesting range of the middle flag.

Harbingers Reckenor moves up on the middle of the table followed by the Vessel on its left and Harbinger right behind it. Rhupert plays Heroic call for the Errants and the rest of the army slowly advances up behind the errants.

My oppenont starts with Grissel putting Hoof it on Horthol and dumping some fury on the Krielstone. After that she advances up next to the house. Horthol then advances up on the left close to the flag. Skaldi and the champions runs up next to Grissel standing in to pairs, but unfortunately leaving to little room between them for the a medium base to get through jamming the warriors up forcing them to move around. The long riders advanced on my right getting close to the right flag followed by the fell caller close by next to the  railed pyre troll. The storm troll having been left out of Grissels control area having to slowly advance, trying to get keep up with the rest of the army. The bouncher advanced up next to Grissel and put bump on her simply to make some fury. Last is the stones advancing and putting up the aura with the addition of Combat warding. Horthol then Hoofs it up in front of the flag,

We roll of to see which flag disappears and I’m luck and the one on my left, next to Horthol disappears.

Round 2

Tristan throws 3 focus on his Reckenor and the Harbinger put 2 on hers. First off a couple of the errants advance to make room while the rest aims and start shooting a couple of Kriel warriors, taking down around 4 which is a start at the 15-man unit. Harbingers Reckenor moves up an takes a fully boosted shot at Skaldi leaving him with two boxes left, followed up by my Vessel of Judgement finding the Champion in B2B with Skaldi wanting, and thanks to a boosted admonisher damage roll Skaldi goes home too. The harbinger advances up behind the reckenor and unleashes her feat Godhead and casts crusaders call for some extra charge range. Tristans Reckenor goes right for the long riders shooting one down on the assault and wanking the other in the head a couple of times until it stops being tough. The piper and the book makes the errants tought and most of them immune to knockdown and everything advances up enyoing the fact that most of the trolls can affort to get closer to them and the harbinger.

My oppenont is quite intimidated by my feat, moving mostly sideways only advancing forward with his single long riders, which doesn’t take a single point of damage thanks to Fortify. Horthol advances further down the flank ending next to my notes on my left

He is quite worried for Grissel, and chooses for hear to round down behind the stone unit leaving the bouncher who has just runned outside Grissel control area. The most important thing is the fact that when he activates the Krielstone unit, he forgets to put up the aura. I offer he can do it anyway, but he wants to learn from his mistakes. A noble choice.

Round 3

My feat worked perfectly giving me a big advantage scenario wise, so I decided to go for 2 control points this turn. Harbinger gives her reckenor the classical 2 focus for some shooting and Tristan gives his the 3 he has left after upkeeping Fortify.

Harbinger starts with casting Crusader’s Call, since I’m planning a lot of charges this turn. Visgoth Rhoven gives a charge order and runs up into base contact with the flag on my right and Guis an Cassian charging the last long rider taking it down and controlling the flag. Tristan’s Reckenor then launches a charge on the storm troll taking it down even though I forgot to activate the choir first(I should stop making this mistake!).

This if followed up by the errants charging the fell caller hero, one of the last champions and some of the remaining Kriel Warriors. They manage to take down one of the kriel warriors contesting the center flag and forcing the fell caller into taking a tough check leaving him knockdown.

Harbingers Reckenor moves into base contact with the centerflag claiming it and shooting the pyre troll for 10 points of damage. My vessel shoots the unengaged champion leaving only a single champion alive. So right as I planned.

His 3ed turn starts with his Bouncher has to take a threshold check do to being out of Grissels control area. It goes frenzy and takes out a kriel warrior.  

The pyre troll moves up and takes a shot at one of the errants, but is out of range and the blast deviates out into nothingness. The champions and the kriel warriors starts to beat up some errants, a few goes home and a few make their tough checks.

Horthol moves into bull charging position behind my army. He is hoping to put some threat on the Harbinger.

The reckenor, who took out the storm troll, is starting to look real threatning to Grissel so she moves up placing a couple of kriel warriors and the krielstone bearer unit between her and the Reckenor. She also chooses to use her feat “Fell chorus”. The army doesn’t really get to make any extra attacks since most of them has already activated, but they get to make a move at the end of the turn. Which leads to the kriel warriors finally getting to do some jamming, the Fell Caller Hero moves over and get to contest the flag on my left and the pyre troll gets to engage Gorman.

Round 4

I’m hoping to get Harbingers reckenor out of close combat and giving it a chance at doing some shooting, so I only gives it 2 focus. Tristan is planning to do some stabbing at the fell caller hero so he keeps a single focus for himself and gives 2 to his reckenor.

The Errants is jammed up by both the champions and the kriel warriors and starts to go around trying to get some quick work shots in, and also trying to clear out the reckenor for some shooting, but there are to many of them and to soft stabs to get through their armor.

Horthol is starting to look dangerously close to the Harbinger and I get uncertain if she is able to take him out herself so the Vessel of Judgement has to help her instead of shooting at the kriels engaging the Reckenor. It takes the first 8 boxes of him followed by the harbinger moving up and unleashing a cheap Cataclysme followed by some stabbing from with Providence, which sends Horthol to his grave.

Since the battle engine didn’t take out the warriors enganging the Reckenor it starts swining at them it self sending only two of them to their graves. The other reckenor assaults into the scribes and manages to take out 3 of them thanks to the assault shot and a couple of swings with it stick.

Gorman doesn’t like the fact that he is engaged by the pyre troll, and takes the chance on a free strike, but the pyre troll doesn’t land a hit. Gorman turns around and black oils the poor pyre troll. Rhupert takes out his sword and charges a kriel warrior, taking it out which leaves room for the vassal to get within range of the reckenor how takes out another kriel warrior engaging it

Tristan tries to take out the fell caller jamming up the flag on my left, but fails even with an extra attack from the focus point he kept. Cassian charges the caber thrower who survived the Errants sword and Guis and Rhoven gets ready to take out the fell caller hero. The Caber thrower makes its though check, but Rhoven manages to take out the Fell Caller so the flag is no longer contested. Two more control points to go and victory will be mine. And now for his turn.

The pyre troll moved out of Grissel’s Control area and with black oil in its eyes it frenzies and Gorman, but does not manage to land a hit on the alchemist.

He tries to deal some damage to Tristan’s Reckenor so Grissel casts calamity on it. The Scribes starts swinging their axes at it, but they doesn’t even manage to scratch the paint. But one of them manages to bring down a single errant, which the last champion does too.

He doesn’t get the flag on my right contest which means another control point for me, making the my victory assured

Round 5

Nothing has to be done, I earn my 5 control point thanks to Tristan.

My oppenont and I talk a little about the game afterwards and I suggest him trying some list with fewer models and fewer points, simply because he ended up jamming himself up a lot. I hope to play against him again soon, properly fewer points.

So that is all for know, but a little spoiler of what I worked on today instead of finishing my second unit of Exemplar Bastions

/Johan