A new year, a new season of Monthlies, and I was ready to start things off strong with some of the worst units out there: the Grok Riders! I was first thinking of running:
Roman Legionnaires x3
Ne-Gok-Sa
Me-Burq-Sa
Raelin RotV
Grok Riders x1
I thought this one would be decent, using Romans to move up the Warlords while plodding forward in Raelin’s aura. NGS grabs a glyph, MBS shoots stuff, and Groks are ready to flank and strike at a key target when needed. But I also didn’t want to play so campy (and had plans for another Roman army I want to use later). So I decided on:
Grok Riders x2
Ne-Gok-Sa
Me-Burq-Sa
Krav Maga Agents
Not something I was ecstatic about, but it looked fun, even if it didn’t feel like it would win anything. But then Sir Heroscape announced a tournament and looking at its maps and point total, I decided that Groks would work much better there. So we’ll table that battle report. For now, we have the runner up!
BiggaBullfrog’s Army:
Runa 120
Minions of Utgar x2 110 (220)
Airborne Elite 110
Marro Warriors 50
500 Points/15 Figures
I’ve been poking around the old Unit Strategy Reviews (an awesome resource if you haven’t read them - check them out!) and one that has always stuck out to me is Runa’s. The army that killercactus recommended for her came out to exactly 500 points (the one above), so I decided to give it a run. Simple as that. Note: this was my first time playing Runa probably ever. I may have played her once when I first got her, which would be about 10 years ago. But hey, I’d never played Thanos before I took him to NHSD, so what could go wrong?
VS
@Isak
Raelin 80
Eltahale 140
Sir Denrik 100
Knights of Weston x1 70
Me-Burq-Sa 50
Warriors of Ashra x1 50
Otonashi 10
This was the game where I learned that there is a “may” clause in the Helm of Mitonsoul power. Like I said, it had been years.
I started out by bumping up Runa to a Treasure Glyph (Attack +1!) and advancing a squad of Minions, and then focused on bringing up my Marro Warriors too (AE didn’t drop in the early game). I saw Isak bringing up the Warriors of Ashra and definitely did not want them hindering my Minons, so I started shooting them with the Marro Warriors, taking them out before they did any damage.
Eltahale was the next big player coming out from his army (he was also advancing Knights and Otonashi, but Eltahale was the big one), so I decided it was time to put that killercatctus’s advice to work, flying in Runa for the assassinate! I definitely didn’t roll a 20, but 4 attack isn’t bad and put a wound on her. From there I just used Minions so I didn’t lose map control, catching up to Eltahale and landing some heavy hits on her. She took out a couple Minions before going down, but down she went in the end.
Hereabouts the Knights were starting to engage, and Me-Burq-Sa was taking shots as well. This was also pretty close to Isak’s start zone, so most of his units were in Raelin’s aura. I tried to take out Raelin with Runa but failed (the attack even missed), but about this time the Airborne dropped. With their 8 range I was able to shoot pretty much anywhere I wanted, taking out Raelin and a couple Knights, and then used Minions and Airborne to finish off the remaining figures in his army. A solid win, due in no small part to the really bad dice that Isak was rolling (like really bad), but he was a good sport about those rolls and was fun to play against.
Cannon is Scaperedude’s little brother. Yeah, the Scaperedude I’ve never won against, even when my teammate did. I’ve beat Cannon before, but that was because I had an army that heavily countered his. This time I wasn’t so sure against the horde of Stingers sitting across from me.
Starting out I ran up Runa and then started moving Minions. Cannon first moved up the Deathreavers, but I figured I could ignore them and be just fine (foreshadowing?). Then came the Stingers and they shot down Runa in two turns (she blanked her rolls). Fine. I just wouldn’t use her awesome power to win the game this time. (Actually, serving as a distraction/meat shield for the Minions is a strategy mentioned by killercactus in his review. I was nailing this.)
Here’s the thing, though. Two squads of Minions against 5 squads of Stingers (which are constantly being rebirthed by the Hive, mind you) is pretty bad odds. So two rounds in after losing a couple Minions and not really getting to where I could get solid attacks at the Stingers, I went for my Hail Mary, putting one Minion on the Initiative glyph and another on the Unique Attack glyph. And then I rolled for The Drop.
And got it.
My Airborne Elite dropped behind my Minions and I snagged the initiative switch with the glyph I was on. That meant I was getting four attacks of 5 with my Airborne, and I started burning through the Stingers. My range also meant I could just focus on specific Stingers and keep his ability to counterattack the Airborne minimum. The Stingers were able to keep shooting Minions and took out a couple more, but I swept through the Stingers and pushed them back to the Hive without losing one Airborne. Ha, checkmate!
Except for I had that bit of foreshadowing earlier.
I mean, I hadn’t forgotten about the Deathreavers, and I knew I would have to kill them, and it really wasn’t a big surprise when Cannon revealed an Order Marker on them to engage my guys. What was a surprise was when two rounds later he had killed my Airborne and all but one of my Minions, and I still hadn’t killed a single Rat! The only benefit was that he had been putting a decent amount of OMs on them which meant only a few Stingers were back. But at this point it was up to my Marro Warriors and one Minion on a Unique Attack glyph.
A turn later, it was up to my Marro Warriors.
Not that I hadn’t been using them, but those Rats just wouldn’t die! Until finally I got rid of them in two successive turns. At this point I was scrambling to keep the Stingers away and somehow managed to swing it back, killing the few Stingers that had come back and then finishing off the Hive for the win.
So yeah … 10th kind of murder melee like Minions … and Marro Warriors can’t outrange them … and AE can get lucky, but with only 2 defense they don’t last long against other range … I figured a good strategy and some luck could make this close, but I wasn’t really hoping to win.
Which meant he was just adding insult to injury when Sir TB e-mailed Scaperedude and got his blessing for the game. Now there was no way I would win.
The Minions held out better than I expected. They tanked some hits to take out some 10th, though not nearly their points worth. But that they had done damage was good enough for me. The Airborne dropped as my Minions were fizzling out, and I spotted a great opportunity to grenade Sir TB’s start zone, since a bunch of 10th were still there calling.
But I didn’t have the Initiative glyph this time, and Sir TB won the roll and moved to prevent me from throwing grenades. So I opted to shoot and pick off 10th instead. That would have worked too, if the 10th didn’t kill my Airborne so easily. A round later they were dead - which was to be expected, of course. I just wanted to hope.
At this time I only had one or two Minions remaining, but Runa was basically unscathed, so I rushed her forward for my game-winning move, running her to Sir TB’s start zone to kill a couple of 10th and then Mitonsoul Quahon in the face!
Except in my notes I wrote “Runa did nothing.” None of her attacks, let alone Mitonsoul, got through.
And so it was up to the Marro Warriors to win the game. They did finish off the 10th, but Quahon was too strong and killed them before they wounded her.
Dang it Scaperedude. You too, Sir TB. You had to go and get him involved.
VS
Brayden
Mimring 150
Major Q10 150
Syvarris 100
Marro Warriors 50
Tarn Viking Warriors 50
You may remember Brayden from the last Jingle Bell Bash, when I killed his Q9 in two attacks due to his blanking both defense rolls. He was back for blood, and this time I wouldn’t have such an easy time. Or at least we both hoped.
Like my first game, I ran out Runa to snag a Treasure Glyph (Attack +1 again!) and then started moving up Minions. Brayden opened using Mimring’s Fire Line to hit my guys before they even got close, wounding Runa severely and taking out some Minions. I responded by flying up Runa to take out Mimring, but only did one wound to him, but I did engage him and got Runa to serve as the distraction I needed to advance my Minions and Marro a bit more.
The Airborne dropped about here, and they coordinated their fire on the dragon to take it down. Syvarris was next to play, and he started taking long-range shots at my figures. (Runa died somewhere around this point - either right before or right after Mimring died). The Airborne Elite, though, also have great range and were able to respond to Syvarris rather easily, killing him before he did too much damage. It was a similar story with Major Q10, who also did some damage but had some bad rolls and fell, and I still had a couple Airborne Elite, a couple of Minions, and my Marro Warriors against his Vikings and Marro.
The Vikings ran up and killed a Minion and an Airborne, but the other Airborne dispatched most of them quickly. His Marro then started killing my Airborne, and also defended rather well against my attacks. Soon it was a fight between one Minion, one Viking, and two Marro Warriors for both of us. It was a pretty classic battle where we kept skirmishing and running around to clone and bring back Marro to try to overwhelm the other guy. In the end, I think Brayden got a little desperate and opted to shoot my Marro that were on high ground instead of clone in a safer spot, and his misses meant my Marro took out his and then finished of the Viking for the win.
3-1
I was pretty pleased with this little army in the end. None of my opponents were as afraid of Runa as I thought they would be, but that’s probably because they had never been exposed to her (I don’t think any of them knew what she did) and thus didn’t have any nightmare games where she decimated an army to refer to. But it was fun to use a figure I hadn’t for a long time, if at all (I really have no recollection if I’d played her before). It’s a nice, flexible army I’d recommend to anyone looking for a few fun games.
February 3rd, 2018, 04:32 PM
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