The Shattered Kriel vs The Sapphire Guard: 35pt battle

Battle Report #4: The Shattered Kriel of Madrot Marsh (me, StarmanTTLB) vs The Sapphire Guard (GeminiX6)

I managed to get in a 35pt game against GeminiX6's pMakeda-led Skorne on Monday. See his posts for his exact army list. We used the league units for practice:

Round 1, Turn 1 (Pic): Trolls charge headlong at the Skorne. Champions & Fell Caller on one flank, Fennblades & Chronicler on the other, and Grim, battlegroup, and Krielstone in the center.

Round 1, Turn 2 (Pic): Skorne move, sending their Titans at the Champion flank and Praetorians at the Fennblade flank. Makeda pops her feat fearing for her Praetorians' lives, and Defender's Wards them as well.

Round 2, Turn 1 (Pic): Fennblades charge the Cyclops by the Praetorians, doing respectable damage, and run in to engage as many Praetorians as possible, deciding not to make a single attack roll against them for fear of the feat. Chronicler tells the Hero's Tragedy tale on them for next turn. Champions try to destroy the Bronzeback, but even with Grim Baiting the Line, two of the three Champs fall just short (we're talking millimeters here!). The successful Champ barely damages the Bronzeback.

Round 2, Turn 2 (Pic): Praetorians, Beast Slavers, and Cyclops almost wipe out the Fennblades, but are knocked down all over as a result. Bronzeback rocks the Champions unit but thanks to a couple of rolls totalling 2, only takes out two of the three. The Gladiator fails his charge due to the placement of a single Praetorian, stopping him a few inches out from the Pyre Troll.

Round 3, Turn 1 (Pic): The Pyre kills the two Praetorians engaging itself, the Impaler, and Grim. Grim moves up, feats, Mark for Death's the Praetorians, and Snare Gun's the Bronzeback. The Mauler tramples through the now DEF10/KD'd unit (he can see the Standard Bearer in the back thanks to Marked for Death), and slaughters a mess of 'em. The Krielstone sprays to take out a few more, and a Beast Slaver. The Fennblade forgets to make his Vengeance attack, but kills the KD'd Cyclops on his regular attack. The Impaler fails his Crit Smite attempt on the Gladiator but still does a couple of damage points. The last Champion does an impressively TINY amount of damage to the KD'd Bronzeback in front of him (P+S11 Weaponmasters still want to charge against ARM19+ models, it seems).

Round 3, Turn 2 (Pic): The Bronzeback frenzies and inflicts 7 of 8 damage on the last Champion, failing to kill it. The Beast Slavers and remaining Praetorians surround the Mauler and plink him, adding 4 Fury to put him at his max of 5 and doing some minimal damage - and spawning a Whelp next to him. The rest of the army pulls back to try and weather the coming storm - the Trolls still had to break through three beasts and a few infantry to get to Makeda.

Round 4, Turn 1 (Pic): The Mauler eats his Whelp to remove all 5 Fury. The Krielstone moves up, sprays, and kills some mooks, also putting healthy damage on Makeda (boosting sprays FTW!). Grim and the Impaler sling some damage her way, using the rest of her transfers. The Mauler risks one free strike (which misses thanks to a second Whelp's Annoyance rule), and then kills Makeda on his first (successful) attack.

This was my first win in four games with Grim, so I'm psyched. Gemini and I agree that he had some poor placement for the Beast Slavers, basically keeping them too far from the Titan pack which really needed their help. The Fennblades did their job of messing with the enemy's offensive. The Champions did surprisingly little damage, but that's due mainly to me being unable to estimate charge distances well.

I feel that I managed to use Grim properly this time, slinging around Marked for Death and Snare Gun shots like whoa to basically get my army where it needed to be, and to hit what they needed to hit.

The MVP of the game is definitely Noral Stonemapper & Scribes. Turn 1 he leeched 5 Fury from a riled Mauler, and then basically moved up and Aura'd for a couple of turns. Once combat was joined, I started using his POW12 Crit KD spray to wonderful effect. Having a boostable spray attack combined with a Fury management unit is absolutely priceless. That ability to leech Fury mid-turn, though, I'd gladly give up the spray to make that leeching a permanent Krielstone ability.