My Lists

I had literally decided to switch one of my casters from Doomy1 to Doomy3 two days before, but had zero reps with the caster since October. My two lists also both feature a Mountain King which would normally be a concern, but I didn’t expect to see any Circle players (Wurmwood with Stranglehold, hurts),

My two lists where both in the Power of Dhunia theme and looked as follows:

Doomy 3

– Mountain king

– Mulg

– Earthborn

– Axer

– Storm Troll

Max Stone + UA

Shaman (Free)

Shaman (Free)

Whelps (Free)

Grissel 2

– Mountain King

– Bomber

– Axer

– Storm Troll

– Swamp Troll

Min Stone + UA

Dhunian Knot

Janissa

Shaman (Free)

Shaman (Free)

Whelps (Free)

At this point I would accept the criticism that I lack creativity as these two lists are strikingly similar. The Grissel2 list is tried and tested from lots of games in Mk3. It was initially built to play into Irusk2, before the theme force, I’m not 100% sure if it still can, but it still been a fantastic list for the whole period I’ve been using it.

Round 1: Doomy 3 vs Fyanna 2 (Recon)

Fyanna2 is the current hotness in Legion and this one was being run in theme. I’m actually super glad I had a chance to play against it as the whisperings on the internet are that Legion are in a really good place right now. Our local meta lost all our Legion players in the Mk2 to Mk3 transition, so I’m a little rusty into them as a faction. I win the roll to go first and I start with Admonition up on the Earthborn. There is a sweet spot where the Earthborn can sit exactly 2 inches from water, which is in the middle of the zone and a building, which is just outside my deployment. This means he can threaten much of the zone and sit at Def 14/Arm 20 with Admonition, a spell we both had.

In case you’re unaware I need to let you know about the double Admonition trick. Basically if you stick admonition on your beast and charge an opponent’s beast with admonition on it, when they moves away you can trigger your admonition and follow it and then take your charge attack as normal. I had to play as if my opponent knew the trick, but I found out after the game he didn’t, but we had a nice discussion about it. It’s always nice when you le

He played extremely cautiously on his turn as he didn’t need to commit. He sent all of his beasts except the seraph and one Neraph to his right flank, where I had the Earthborn and Mulg. His Seraph stayed back near his caster on the right side and his other Neraph sat on his left flank with the Black frost shard and one shepherd. I feel he was probably over respecting my guns. Normally I would feat turn 2 and sit in the zone, but in this matchup I need to keep my feat to counter his. He gets +3 Defence so I desperately need those boosted attack rolls. I give the storm troll rush and shoot the lone Neraph, which takes some nice boosted damage, but more importantly the electro leaps kill the 2 Black frost Shard. Unfortunately it’s not the one with the armour debuff. The Mountain king also gets to advance far up the table on this side as he isn’t threatened by the single neraph.

He decides it is his Feat turn and Gallows Mulg forward through a spell martyr. If I’m honest, I completely forgot about Gallows and that’s why I didn’t have Implacability up. Mulg is slowed by the water, which the earthborn is getting his defence off so doesn’t go the full five inches. He sends an Angelius with Rage and a Neraph in on Mulg. Mulg misses his Retaliatory Strike due to the feat on the Neraph. The beasts hit hard, but he rolls poorly for the AP attack. Mulg basically survives on less then 10 boxes. He sends the lone Neraph on the other flank in and kills the Storm troll and engages the Mountain King. The remaining Black Frost shard member is making a dash to the other side of the board and the Nyss Sorcerer comes over to contest the zone and stop the Mountain king from shooting.

I decide to counter feat and use both shamans to lower defence using Chiller. At this point my opponent feels I’ve 100% counter techd him. The Mountain king kills the Neraph, while Mulg and the Earthborn kill the other Neraph and Angelius. This leaves him with two Angelius and a Seraph facing down my entire army under feat. He does one shot Mulg the next turn, but I quickly close it out to win 5-0 on scenario. It’s always nice to play a new list into a good matchup to get your confidence up.

Round 2: Grissel 2 vs Strakhov 1 (Extraction)

My second round was against arguably the strongest player in the tournament. Rob McCormick is a local Khador player who came third at Blood and Oil 2016 (100+ player 6 round Masters) and has a decent shot of getting onto one of the English WTC teams. I’ve played this matchup a few times and once you understand how overrun works it’s certainly not the kerb stomp it was in my initial game where his jacks moved ridiculous distances and one rounded my heavies with ease.

I win the role to go first and my plan is to not give him easy overrun targets and attempt to punish the low number of scoring models in his list. On my second turn I move the Mountain King on my left flank and leave myself 10 inches from the unit of Uhlans. I send off a spray which fails to hit on a boosted 7, my puppet master reroll also fails to hit so I fail to deafen or even kill one of them and leaves me in ten inches of all five Uhlans. It also leaves me within fifteen inches of Ruin, which is how far he goes on feat turn. I run my Axer into the direct line of Ruin and pray that’s enough to save my Mountain King. On my right flank the Bomber, Storm troll, Swamp troll and Grissel clear out most of the Kommandos meaning that Rob has very little on that side able to contest the flag short of Torch who is sitting far back centrally.

Rob decides that killing my Axer is the right move as it reduces my threat range and the matchup is very much about threat range at this point. He sends three Uhlans in who get the job done and two of them reposition to jam my Mountain king. Ruin and Behemoth are behind them, but behemoth has occultation and Ruin stays outside of Grissel’s knockdown range as he is well aware I can shoot a heavy off the board with just Grissel and the bomber. His Assault Kommandos get within four inches of the flag and the other hides in a trench, Torch also moves backward slightly so that Strakhov can get line of sight on him between the objective and a building setting up for next turn. Behemoth takes two shots on my objective and hit both times leaving it on about half health.

I finish off the last of the Assault Kommandos and score the right flag with the storm troll. I place it so that Torch will be attacking me over the flag if he wants to attack me as I am pretty sure he doesn’t know the Storm Troll has Repulsor field. I decide to feat this turn as I assume he’s going to get inpatient with having nothing to contest my right flag and he’ll want to send at least one jack in on the Mountain King. I walk up and kill two of the Uhlans and then use kill shot on the Uhlan leader, I roll to kill him, but then reroll with puppet master and roll below a six to keep him alive and deafen the unit so the other three remaining Uhlans can’t charge. The Mountain king is still not contesting his flag as I can’t allow him to charge with both Behemoth and Ruin.

Rob aims with Behemoth and shoots the objective twice again leaving it on one health! This also means he isn’t going in with Ruin this turn. Torch gets superiority from Strakhov and charges the Storm Troll. He attacks over the flag as I’d hoped and gets pushed out of melee after one hit. The Uhlans move to score the flag and he ends his turn with both of us sitting at one control point.

I move Janissa up and shoot the injured Uhlan leader killing him with a rock hammer and meaning the Uhlans can no longer score. He will have to score with Markov or one of the jacks if he now wants to keep scoring. On the other side I forget that Superiority means Torch can’t be knocked down and I flub my activation instead of just sending in the bomber with Rage. The long and short of it is that I don’t score my flag this turn. My two shamans walk in front of my objective and create a cloud wall so he can’t finish it off. The MK sits back and does nothing this turn as nothing is in range of his gun unless I want to throw him to the two jacks.

Rob moves Markov up to score the flag and keeps the two Uhlans back in the forest. He finishes off the Storm troll with Torch and lets superiority drop. Behemoth shoots and kills Janissa and Rob finishes his turn on two CP. Unfortunately Torch couldn’t score due to a Swamp troll contesting.

The Shamans create the cloud wall again and teleport to safety and then the Mountain king shoots and kills Markov meaning he has to score with a jack if he wants that flag. The MK is still not contesting but he still threatens anything that can score the flag. The bomber moves up on the other flag, kills torch and scores it. It moves to 2 CP’s each.

Rob thinks he can win this turn as I have left only a bomber on my flag even though I could have easily contest with the swamp troll. The bomber is also inexplicably outside of stone range. He sticks overrun on Strakhov who walks up and shoots the objective through the cloud. He fails to get the boosted eight on damage on his first shot, but kills it with the second triggering overrun on Behemoth who goes for my flag, he also feats, but is camping zero in the middle of the board. Behemoth charges the Bomber and I spawn a whelp outside of melee range meaning I can still contest the flag. Rob realises at this point that he won’t be able to get the 5th control point so he passes the clock over and Grissel kills Strakhov with her 3 double boosted gun shots.

Round 3 (Doomy3 vs Sevvy2) Take and Hold

My opponent is list locked after having played Amon both rounds and so I can’t imagine he’s particularly happy to see Trolls across the board. I obviously drop Doomy3 on the assumption that his only out is to assassinate me and my feat takes that off the table for a turn. This is an absolutely horrible matchup, but after the slog that was my second game I’m thankful for that bit of fortune.

We both advance and I send the Storm Troll forward with rush and shoot one of Rhoven’s body guards he shield guards the shot on to the Devout and then on to Rhoven’s other body guard, which I boost and get the 12 to kill. The electro leaps jump twice and it doesn’t hurt the devout and then kills a choir member (This was the whole aim of the shot) I want as many choir dead as possible as it’s his only damage buff in the list and he’s running Min choir with four Reckoners. The Storm Troll is also insanely hard to deal with under my feat. He shoots it with one reckoner to get Flair applied and then has to send three Reckoners into melee to kill it. He then enlivens the middle Reckoner and moves a mechanic to contest his own flag so Mulg can’t start scoring on it.

My Shaman toughed last turn so I sacrifice his movement to stand up then cast a cloud and teleport into melee with his Blessing of Vengeance. I activate doomy, stick rage on the earthborn and cast mini feat to allow my beasts to cast their animus without being forced. I also move back to the edge of the kill-box and stick one on the stone, meaning I’m camping three as I paid to admonition that turn. The earthborn goes in with rage and kills a reckoner on his own then cast’s earth’s blessing for free. However, I’ve made a mistake as the Mountain King is staring at the enlivened Reckoner and I’m not sure I have a way to deal with it. I cast Rage on the Mountain king and after thinking about it for 2-3 minutes I decide to Assault with the spray. The spray catches and kills the vassal and another choir member meaning he’s down to just two. The un-boosted spray hits the Reckoner on a 5, but fails to damage, which is super lucky. This means Enliven doesn’t trigger and I get a full raged Charge attack on the Reckoner, which does high damage and takes out his movement. Thanks to Enliven it still walks away, but the Mountain king is threatening all his support staff for the next turn.

My opponent realises his only way out is an assassination run as he’s running out of choir and even if he killed the Mountain king, Earthborn and Mulg would finish of his Jacks or caster next turn. He charges into the King and feats, which doesn’t manage to roll the un-boosted four required to force a tough check so I don’t lose stone aura. He casts Awareness and then fully boosts a Hex Blast at me, which I transfer. He then fires another Hex Blast at me and I have to transfer again. He moves his first reckoner up and boosts the hit roll, which I again have to transfer, despite this being the non Battled shot. For reference, I can afford to not transfer anything that does less than 8 damage. Unfortunately all 3 of his attacks so far have been at least 10 damage. I’m sitting on no transfers, flaired to def 11 and he has two fully boosted shots at Dice -1. I have 16 boxes and tough, this is going to be close! He hits on the first shot and the shot does another 10 boxes, I just need one of these to be low! He moves the last Reckoner up and I suddenly remember Admonition on the Earthborn. I walk him up to engage the final Reckoner and we both kind of stare at the board in disbelief. He has nothing left that is able to finish me off and at that point he concedes as his caster is camping zero and in melee with a Mountain King.

Final Thoughts

And that’s it. I’m the only undefeated player as the paired down Mercenaries player also lost to my round two opponent. I got a bit lucky, but you always need a lot of luck. That final assassination is difficult to calculate. Once he failed to kill the stone bearer then it’s 2.5%, but if he had managed it the odds jump to 18%. Obviously by the time he was ready to make his last shot it was looking pretty good for him. We even rolled it out on the assumption he has denied the admonition and he did roll enough to kill me and I didn’t pass the last tough. I know this has been a long read, but thank you if you made it this far and I hope there was something of use for you in here.