So, our second Escalation League started at Gameology, 100 point matches for the first two weeks. I have just finished painting my Core Set Waiqar forces, so I decided I'd just run with that. My opponent brought 3x2 Spearmen, 2x1 Oathsworn, and Kari Wraithstalker. The objective was Demoralize Their Forces (get 10 points for charging into an opposing unit's flank), and the terrain pieces were Swamp and Stronghold.

The terrain was put pretty close together, and I'll be up front: my mistake was charging through the gap of the obstacles. If I hadn't done that, I could have waited for him to come to me, because his 3x2 unit of spearmen had no way of getting to my half of the field. Doh! I would have been able to pick off his cavalry and Kari, all the while shooting his spearmen with my archers.

Eventually, he got his Oathsworn Cavalry around the swamp and behind my Spearmen, but my Reanimates had turned to face him. It didn't help me because the horses had Bull Pennon, and managed to deal us the Flee in Terror card, so the skeletons turned around and ran right into his Spearmen. We were surrounded! Daqan in front and behind, and a swamp and a stronghold on either side! We attacked the spearmen. Blank blank. Wait, I get one reroll: blank. Sigh. Next round, I had no rerolls: blank blank. That was just crushing. And he hit my Reanimates in the back, getting an objective token.

The upside of this whole match was that I dealt the Loss of Faith morale card to his spearmen 3 times! We did more harm to his army with morale cards than with damage! It ended up 110 - 22, Daqan victory. I learned a lot, and I hope to be a little more prepared next week.

Sad day.

Daqan to the left of me, Daqan to the right of me. A pack of the came up snarling *snarling sounds*. And that's, when I got mad.

Morale is surprisingly lethal! When my pal and I first split the starter he was pretty down on Reanimates, but slowly he's come to love that morale modifier on their dial. Also, certainly don't worry too much about the results of 100pt games. Particularly with Kari on the table, they swing pretty wildly! Hard to get much use out of blight without a full force on the table. My advice, don't underestimate how tough the carrion lancer is! If you can get that thing on the flank of his Spearmen, he'll be all day trying to kill it.

15 minutes ago, Bhelliom said:

My advice, don't underestimate how tough the carrion lancer is! If you can get that thing on the flank of his Spearmen, he'll be all day trying to kill it.

Yeah, the Carrion Lancer was the worst casualty of my decision to rush into battle. The Spearmen rolled three hits on their charge, and with a threat of 3, that was one squashed bug. The whole game would have been different if I held back, but I didn't want to be that guy who stalls. I'm beginning to have more respect for people who delay and wait for a favorable engagement.

I figure since things are slow on the forums, I might as well update you all on my league adventures.

Game 2 was better than game 1. We managed to kill all but a tray of Spearmen, and destroy his Oathsworn Cavalry, and we completely lost Ardus and the Reanimates. My Reanimate Archers did serious work, and in round 8, I thought I had even won - until Kari, just in range, took out a tray of my archers, and stole the victory.

Game 3 was against Waiqar. It was Volatile Runes at 150 points. I set up in my left corner, he had his whole edge to set up on (can't remember the name offhand). So I set all my guys in my corner kind of hiding behind terrain, and we ended up making a very thick field of Volatile Runes in between the terrain on the far left board edge. My opponent put his 3x2 of Reanimates right in front of those runes, but when the game started, we had 7 runes showing, and then 6 runes on round 2, so he didn't dare risk the rush, and had to shift around, which took them out of the fight.

He had the Master Crafted Weapons + Combat Ingenuity 3x2 Carrion Lancers on my right flank, coming in at an angle. I was able to get my Carrion Lancer to dash forward and take out his 2x1 of archers, setting him up for a blight+march the next round into the flank of his Carrion Lancers. Ardus also got to charge the Lancers, but it must have been before they had the blight, because they retaliated and took out Ardus in a single attack. My Reanimates tried to charge, but Ardus was in the way, so we finally got my Reanimates in on the next round. Yeah, I think that's when he did a rally to clear a Panic and Blight token. He still had his 3 threat, and death 15 damage to my Reanimates! I was dumbstruck - those things hit HARD! Nevertheless, my Lancer on the flank had Rank Discipline, rolling 2 red and 2 blue, and slow whittled them away. Meanwhile, my archers were raining blight and death upon his Reanimates that were slowly coming around the rocky outcrop. I think he ended with 1 tray of Carrion Lancer and 2 trays of Reanimates, whereas I had my full 2x2 of Archers and my Carrion Lancer. Yay, I got a win!

Game 4 was my first match against Latari Elves. It was not what I expected because a) he used Scions instead of Deepwood Archers, and b) his Leonx riders were a 2x3, so he didn't have a lot of room to pull crazy shift shenanigans. Aliana was for real! He set her up across from my archers and Maro because, hey, we couldn't attack her with her Ambush Predator. Oh, the objective was Bounty at 200 points, the deployment was Hammer and Anvil and I chose the blue long side. He designated his Leonx unit as the Bounty and I designated my Reanimate Archers. Unfortunately, I had to move my Archers close enough to get shots at his 2 units of 2x2 Aymhelin Scions, which opened them up to an ambush attack by Aliana. They never got to fire a ranged attack even once. Ankaur only fired twice, and never used Fortuna's Dice, which was silly of me because he was RIGHT NEXT TO THE LATARI MEMORIAL! He had inspiration for days, and for some reason, I neglected that. Sigh.

So this was an interesting game because combat didn't actually start until round 4, so there was a lot of set up. The best part was when my Reanimates with only 3 trays remaining dealt a severity 4 morale test to the Leonx riders, sending them running away. Unfortunately, his Scions blocked their escape, so they didn't go far, and they came right back. Ardus had charged right through Maro to attack a unit of scions, but he fell short, and ended up blocking Ankaur's ranged attacks for the rest of the game. Silly, silly me! It was a really close match by the end of round 8, except that he scored 75 points for my Bounty unit of Reanimate Archers, moving it from a 5-6 loss to a 3-8 loss, my worst one to date. Like Flightmaster always says, "You have to play the objectives!"

Here's a pretty good shot of the set up as of round 2. My Carrion Lancer is far left, working his way towards Aliana.

And this is the round that my Reanimates send those furry beasts running for their lives! You can see my Reanimate Archers in the background trying fruitlessly to draw a bead on Aliana, who is ready to pounce! This is also where Ardus runs right into the fray, while Ankaur Maro grumbles about how the Deathborn Legion never listen to him, unlike his perfectly obedient Reanimate minions - "You're in my way, Ardus!"

Next week is the last week of the league, another 200 point match. I think I am going to try Mistlands Saboteur again. Can you imagine if we could take Ambush Predator off of Aliana? Or Moment of Inspiration off of the Leonx? Yeah, that sounds good.

Last night was the last game in the league. It was awesome! My opponent and I had so much fun. I wrote up an email to my brother about it, and then I thought, "What the heck, might as well paste it here?" As an aside, why is it that I take pictures of the mediocre matches, but the ones where I don't take pictures end up being awesome? Sigh.

I've read enough forum to know Waiqur can't win, sorry this story is false.

Clearly Daqan propaganda.

3 hours ago, Darthain said:

I've read enough forum to know Waiqar can't win, sorry this story is false.

...well, I did kinda sorta use Daqan Spearmen in my squad, so...maybe there's some truth to what they say?

But in all seriousness, it was their own fault for going and getting themselves killed so Ankaur could animate their corpses to fight on behalf of Waiqar. I'm just leveraging resources. On that point, the only things that are truly alive - Ankaur Maro and the two carrion worms - all survived the combat! Those carrion worms take a lot more work to grow than skeleton warriors, so that worked out well for us.

Waiqar are much better at 200 points. I started winning much more with 200 point armies. Way more room for synergy. Kari is a death machine in a 100 point skirmish.

Good work, I enjoy reading your battle reports very much. Looking forward to read another one of your battles.