Intro and Lists
With the first game behind us, we decided to rerack and try again. The Scorchwings have a lot of potential, so my opponent opted to run the same list as before, giving them another try.
The Clan Lord and Rhinosaurs are here, as are regiments of Ancients and Primes. Closely supporting the sturdy units are an Ancient Phoenix, a medic Mage Priest, As-ever, the list is pretty strong on paper, with a lot of sturdy units and some nice supporting elements, like the Scorchwings, a Battle Captain on Rhinosaur, and some Ghekkotah Warriors.
I switched a few things up for my second list, but the basic theme of my previous list was still here, with some cavalry units, cheap heroes, and some Draugr and Night Raiders to experiment with. Up to test in this game are:
- Draugr. I have two units, but no powerful infantry to support or block for. I wanted to see how this feels. Cheap Nerve and drops are good, but we'll see if and how they contribute.
- Night Raiders. They seem potentially awkward to use with their low Defense and low range on the Throwing Axes. We'll see how they do.
- Mounted Sons. I am taking these with no upgrades to keep it simple, and think a few regiments of these should be able to do some work. I really like the concept of cavalry with some Crushing Strength, as you should be able to do more and potentially grind smaller units out if the charges don't go as planned or even if you get charged instead. We'll take them for another spin!
- Frost Giant. I haven't played a larger game with the Kingdoms of Men in some time, so I haven't played around much with the new Cleaver/Club options for the Giants yet. We'll see how the Club does? Giants need to be supported, so we'll see how well I do at that, and if I get any Breath Attacks in.
- Lord with Stealthy Icon. As I understand it, this is more of a tournament meta choice. I had a model and wanted to try it out as another source of Inspiring. The Icon is likely not going to be too impactful, but there seems to be some potential for even just a basic Lord on foot, which is pretty neat. We'll see how he does this game.
- Thegn on Frostfang. The Lords are still demoted so I can focus on the positioning basics for these kinds of units. We'll see how tricky I can be with nimble in this game..
- Snow Troll Prime. I quite like the legendary Kruufnir, but felt that I needed to try out the basic version at some point too. So here we are.
As with the previous game, I had a slight advantage in drops (17 to 13), but my opponent had one with Unit Strength (26 to my 24, with a number of mine being monster-sized again). The first game went far better for me than I expected, but my opponent's dice were a little cold, stalling out some crucial attacks from the Rhinosaurs, so I was anticipating a tough rematch here.
Table and Terrain
We again used the Battle Maps website to help speed things up, generating the gist of a board and selecting Plunder for the scenario for us. We have some Height 3 Hills, Height 6 forests for Difficult terrain, some Height 6 Blocking buildings, and Height 1 graveyards.
My opponent opted for a pretty classical deployment of cavalry on the wings with infantry and his titan-sized centerpiece units in the middle of his line. Left-to-right we have Rhinosaurs screening Scorchwings, Ghekkotah Warriors, Ancients with a Healing Brew Screening the Clan Lord, Primes, Ancients with the Aegis screening the Ancient Phoenix and medic Mage Priest, Captain, then Rhinosaurs screening more Scorchwings.
The chaff-heavy left flank of the Varangur. |
I deployed rather haphazardly. My only goals was to get the cavalry near open terrain, and have the Night Raiders and Giant together to try and focus fire something. On my left we have two units of Snow Foxes, Mounted Sons, a Thegn and Magnilde.
My center has the Lord with Icon, Mounted Sons, Thegn, and Snow Troll Prime, and then my line continues on, with both Night Raider units, Frost Giant, Draugr and Skaald, Snow Foxes, and Mounted Sons on the right flank.
The stacked right of the Varangur line. |
For these games, I throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks, rarely running the same list twice, and often not even following-up on things that performed well until a month or two later after a few other sojourns. I don't think in battlegroups, or optimize my lists very well. This deployment is ridiculous. I wasn't consciously aware of it at the time, but writing up the report, I am insanely looking to try and contest all the tokens. I even picked the left token as my two-pointer, really spreading things out for us across the board.
I win the roll off for first turn. There is no long range shooting on the table, and I don't have an inkling of what my own strategy is going to be. With objectives in play, I decide to have my opponent kick things off for us.
Top of Round 1: Salamanders
My opponent is equally indecisive, and opts to just pass the turn back to me, and make big decisions my problem again. This messes with my sense of time throughout the report. I really need to finish up my report note template and start using it! Hopefully I get my act together soon in this regard.
Bottom of Round 1: Varangur
Neither of us brings a lot of shooting, so we goof some rules. |
The Salamander infantry will advance up, with some taking the hill. The Rhinosaurs over on the left will advance as well, with the Scorchwings flying up and over them to screen. Also out on the left, the Clan Lord will fly around, looking for good positioning to contribute in the coming turns.
I am not used to having Snow Foxes around. |
The Mounted Songs and Thegn awkwardly shuffle about and the Draugr clamber through the difficult graveyard. Magnilde comes through though, popping her once-per-game wings, and booping the Clan Lord, grounding him.
The Varangur center moves on up. |
The Varangur center moves up in lockstep. Fortunately, the Giant and Night Raiders all went their speed, and are all able to toss into the Primes just touching the Graveyard. They won't be getting cover from being inside the Difficult Terrain since the majority of their base isn't in the terrain piece, but the Primes should still get it against the Raiders from the terrain being Height 1, which I am certain we didn't account for as I am writing. Neither of us tend to have much shooting in our lists, so are a little rusty. This is a very unfortunate error as the Primes will take some above-average damage rolls and then eat two 11's for the Inspired Nerve Checks, and will be routed. The dice seemed to have it out for the Primes, but I should have caught this shooting goof.
The Phoenix lands, making good use of the Cloak of Death! |
No funny business. There's about 40-45mm between each regiment. |
On the left, the Scorchwings also slip away, and hop over the Foxes, letting the critters die to the Rhinosaurs. Here as well the Rhinosaurs will easily win, and will overrun. The flaming birds will block out some Varangur charges here as well.
Typical, messy flanks. |
The Clan Lord strikes back at Magnilde, dealing 7 but fails to rout her, so she Iron Resolves a damage back. The Ghekkotah Warriors cut down my final unit of Snow Foxes, removing all my speedy chaff pretty early in the game.
Nice ideas from the Varangur, but lackluster results. |
The Thegn is able to flank the Warriors and remove them, and will pivot to get the Clan Lord in it's arc. Magnilde lands a few more damage onto the Clan Lord, but I don't think she is long for this world.
Lots of damaged units on this side. |
The Frost Giant will choose to counter-charge the Captain, and rolls up 4 extra attacks from just being a giant, but none from the rampage-granting club, since the target does not qualify. The Night Raiders pile into the Ancient Phoenix with one getting in the flank, and I do get the mighty Phoenix into "insane courage territory" and will actually pop it! After the last few games, I wasn't sure it could be done, but apparently all I needed was 36 attacks. One of the Raiders is atop the Two Point Token nearby, and will pick it up.
The Varangur are making some progress on the right flank. |
In the middle, the Snow Troll Prime took 5, regenerated 1, and strikes back against the Ancients, dealing 3 and they should heal that down to 2 with the Iron Resolve item. The Mounted Sons and Thegn get another attempt at the insane Primes, and will finish them off this time. Both will move back to try and get options next turn, but both will only back up one inch. The Lord with Icon will land some new damage against the other group of Ancients while the Thegn charges into the Clan Lord, slowly ticking up the damage against the flier and keeping it grounded.
The Salamanders grind out the left. |
The Ancients will countercharge their respective adversaries, and will waver both the Lord and Snow Troll. Each will pick up the One Point Loot Tokens they are standing on, which we had both largely been ignoring until this turn.
The Varangur prevail on the right flank. |
Undaunted, the Thegn continues swinging against the Clan Lord. The Clan Lord has taken some hits, but is still around, if grounded. In the center, the Mounted Sons take the flank of one unit of Ancients, while the Thegn takes the flank of the another. Both units of old-timers are felled, and their tokens secured for the Varangur.
It was a big swing for the Varangur in the center. |
- Draugr. Two throwaway tarpits proved nice to have around! I was thinking they might be too slow to contribute, but that ended up not being the case here, and they took the hits to protect important things like the Mounted Sons. For an infantry-focused list, I could definitely see the merit adding a third unit, but two seem fine for any general Varangur list.
- Night Raiders. They did well in this game too, though the rules goof benefitted them a lot. Their axes rolled a bit hot both games, so I think more testing is needed to see how they will typically perform. They still definitely don't want to face off against cavalry, but from the look of things can definitely apply pressure to infantry.
- Mounted Sons. Deployment weirdness aside, these did work ok. I was feeling the pressure both games with only three real smashy units, but that is my haphazard list building at work. The units themselves did wonderfully.
- Frost Giant. The club ended up being the wrong pick this time! It didn't come up at all, and the Giant did not generate as many attacks as I would have wanted. The club seems to be a nice pick though? With CS4, the Giant is likely to wound anything that hits a monster, so you might want the club to make sure it doesn't get bogged down by infantry and the like, such as Draugr. Both options are nice to have, and this will be fun to explore more down the road.
- Lord with Stealthy Icon. He's proving to be resourceful! The higher-tier characters (like the Lord, or Magnilde, characters with 15+ Nerve) are proving to be decent delaying units. I got a lot of utility out of him both games, and the Icon is a pretty cheap upgrade. I can see why some tournament players would run him!
- Thegn on Frostfang. With more drops than my opponent, these were able to operate without much interference. Still, they continued to do well, and cheap units to support and disrupt.
- Snow Troll Prime. I see the appeal? It is cheap, it regenerates, it Inspires, and it can throw around a few damage to help swing combats. I could see many lists running 1-2 of these for the utility, but for me, Kruufnir seems way more fun to run.
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