I won borrowing Church's recent list. I was looking for a simple easy to play list as I'd been out of the country for three weeks, and had had off-and-on travel for closer to six weeks. Moreover, the Thresher/Ripper/Zerker expansions had dropped in the middle of that travel and I hadn't really had a chance to put anything from it on the table.
Ravos the Everhungry [40] 1x1
Viscera Goblet [7]
Insatiable Hunger [3]
Total Unit Cost: 50
Spined Threshers [28] 2x1
Scuttling Horror [3]
Total Unit Cost: 31
Spined Threshers [28] 2x1
Scuttling Horror [3]
Total Unit Cost: 31
Flesh Rippers [22] 2x1
Total Unit Cost: 22
Berserkers [50] 3x3
Frontline Spined Thresher [7]
Warsprinter [3]
Aggressive Shrieker [5]
Total Unit Cost: 65
We had 5 total players, 2 Latari, and 1 each of the remaining factions. I drew the bye for the first round, which meant I had a chance to watch the other games unfold a bit. The two Latari drew each other. One of them was a seasoned San Antonio regular, and the other had picked up the game fairly recently and was still getting the hang of it, with a 9-2 result in the game. He took both heroes embedded, with Maegan in a 3x2, and Aliana in a 2x2 Leonx. The Waiqar player brought a reanimate-focused list that simply kept trying to bring back trays, which led to an utter slug-fest that was low-scoring, for a 7-4 win against the Daqan.
For the second round, because the losing Latari player drew the bye, 8 couldn't pair 9, and thus I ended up against Daqan and the Latari player ended up against the Waiqar. Since the Waiqar was very strong on point denial, I think Latari ended up with an 8 for 17 total points. The Daqan player was running kari, a 2x3 Knights with only column tactics, 2 3x1 Crossbows with Rank Discipline, Marching Cornicen, and Tempered Steel each, and a 3x2 Spearman. My first thought was that I was looking at someone who had borrowed my friend's list, but then I realized that the upgrades were different and thus the list played very differently. Here, I wanted to minimize the number of Crossbow shots I was going to take. So I deployed a Thresher neutrally first, and then the second one against the first set of Crossbows put down. I figured my Flesh Rippers were an easy delay placement, because they can go virtually anywhere and expect to meaningfully impact the engagement. I was generally trying to place the Zerkers as late as possible, either to avoid trouble and minimize shots or to ensure that the opponent couldn't avoid them and hit my other units, but I think they went down next and Ravos last. I think we were on Unprepared with Demoralize their forces. Here, I realized I'd get at least one flank and simply hoped not to give up any off deployment. My opponent ended up with:
Spearman, Crossbows, Kari, Knights, Crossbows, all in a line, with the crossbows at the far end with a little bit of terrain cover.
I ended up with Threshers, Zerkers, Ravos, Threshers, Rippers.
In short, I think my opponent got the better of me on deployment, as I had problems with Ravos/Threshers/Rippers on my right side partly getting in each other's way. Ravos really needed to go on the other side of the Zerkers and would have had a much more meaningful impact there. During the first round, my opponent rallied off panic and largely stayed put. I danced a bit with my Threshers that were opposing the 3x2 spears. As the game progressed, these Threshers eventually engaged and destroyed that spear group, and I simply didn't realize how easily they'd end up doing that. So that was a good lesson in which I probably would have danced less and just went for the attack.
The Zerkers ended up getting the jump on the Knights. I ended up with two red on round-2 and was therefore able to get across and onto them, dropping the final rank of Knights. meanwhile, the Rippers landed a flank on the knights doing no damage while the Rippers and Ravos looked to get across and on the other rank of crossbows, unfortunately with some round-1 and round-2 interference with each other. On round-3, Ravos finally succeeded in hitting the Crossbows while the Thresher-Scuttling Horror shift helped them clear a path for him. Zerkers hit back on the Knights dropped another 2 trays.
At this point in the game, I think one of the most decisive things was my opponent's dice went ridiculously cold. Kari whiffed once on a key ranged attack, and although I think she should have charged and worked on spreading Kari surge damage around, even at the risk of being smacked herself, she kept firing at range. I think her second attack might have whiffed, too. The Knights kept trying to kill the Rippers in their side, but whiffed once. The end result was that Ravos finished the X-bows and turned to face the Knights/Kari. The Zerkers finished the Knights and left the Rippers free to charge Kari, getting my second flank of the game. The other set of Crossbows did a number on the Zerkstar, which slowly whittled it down. Finally the second set of Threshers slowly worked over the spearman. The end result was a tabling, and a 10-1 to me. I took some losses on the Zerk-star, but the two tokens helped keep it a 10.
That set up a match-up of 18 versus 17 in the final game. My opponent had two 3x2 Archers, both with Frontline, Tempered Steel and Close Quarters Targetting. One had Maegan. He had 2 Scion blockers with Entangling Roots, and a 2x2 Leonx with Aliana and Bull Pennon. Here, we ended up with Stand-off, which I think helped me constrict the field, but also helped him in creating some depth and getting the Scions in front of where the archers were. I deployed a Thresher first neutrally, and when he put down a 3x2 in the corner, I started deploying the other Thresher, which ended up with a Scion blocker in front of it, and the Rippers where they'd charge and connect with the archers. Ravos ended up against the other 3x2 with the Zerk star in the middle with the other Scion opposed to it. I won 6-5. My rust with the game really showed, especially with the new upgrade where I had trouble remembering the triggers for Scuttling Horror. I asked to get the round-1 shifts in, but decided to call a key later one in the game a missed opportunity. Here, I think one can see some of the things that a Latari player could do to frustrate a big Zerkstar.
First, I have to say we had confluence of magic and ended up with no red runes. The tokens were placed trickily enough that it was hard to get to them on the map. It is also odd for an Uthuk player who wants to do other things with their dial to devote a turn or two for a 50% chance to flip a rune. So that cut into the flexibility of the build considerably. I realized I was going to go across the map and connect with the archers on at least some of my units. The Scions on my right would end up blocking the Threshers, but the Rippers would connect. My Zerkers were going to end up blocked in the middle, but Ravos would connect. I did make a mistake of not keeping my left side Threashers with Ravos, which means they hit the archers in front of them on successive turns instead of together.
As it was, I hadn't played with any Close Quarters-Targetting in my Latari games, and so my mind was thinking "He'll just shoot the guys in face that he's engaged with." Instead, he had line of sight from the second 3x2 to Ravos, which allowed him to drop Ravos on a turn. If my Threshers had connected the same turn, they'd probably have dropped enough damage off the first 3x2 stack to limit the amount of damage Ravos was taking in return, and a second turn of Ravos hitting those Archers would have shifted the game rather dramatically. The Rippers got into the face of the Maegan 3x2 and started doing damage, albeit slowly. I made a mistake with the Threshers on the right side and they ended up connecting with the Scion there a little late. Finally, because we had 3 green runes and no red, I ended up with a strange situation on my zerkers where he could have charged at 3 with his Scion. So that left a kind of guessing game. Do I dial in a charge? Do I dial in an attack, and if so, what modifier? I'm honestly not sure he saw the initiative 3 charge or if he decided to guess I wouldn't charge, because he went with the initiative 5 charge, and I went with an attack/white 1 movement. So rather weirdly, the Zerkstar got tied up in the middle of the board. Thankfully, his archers had plenty of other things to shoot at, but it did tie the Zerkstar up long enough for the Leonx to get a flank. In the end, I had both Threshers left, and he had 2 trays of Leonx left, which was enough for the 6-5 at a 28 point MOV.
In short, I'm happy to have won, and I enjoyed playing the Uthuk. I do have a 6x4 Alpha table at home, and will probably play some Latari versus Uthuk of my own to see how I'd play against this list myself, but I think you can already see a few hints in that last game of some things that can happen to the list.
Although warsprinter/aggressive shrieker is a dangerous combo, it is also true that once the Zerkstar engages something, it is still getting one attack off, and then the opponent gets to respond. Now, you might ALWAYS get the charge off, or pretty close to it, but if anything can tie up the Zerkstar, it can shut down exactly what it can do. In my experience, Ravos is also a pretty fragile hero. Well, every hero is potentially a fragile hero, but with 2 armor, any time the opponent can get a couple of attacks off on you in a row, you'll come dangerously close to dying, sometimes in-felicitously as happened in the last game. The Flesh Rippers in this set-up felt like they needed a bit more. They didn't quite have enough on them for an opponent to respect them as a threat. I think we've all recognized that the two tray Spined Thresher is at a potent price-point, and I do think they really outperformed their price point. But they can also be inflexible and Scuttling Horror only does so much to prevent that. And for what you're paying, you really don't want to get tied up in a serious way as the one did against the Scion in the last game. They really have trouble finishing a target and then going on to make an impact, so whatever target they first end up against, that's often what they end up contributing to the fight.
As one who has played Latari for a long time, you definitely feel the lack of range. Once Daqan got Crossbows, they did a wonder of forcing the opponent to come forward or risk taking ranged-5 shots for a while. Latari's range also does a number for forcing the opponent to come into range, but in the case of Uthuk, they are a bit of a one trick pony. They will win a lot of charges and make a lot of first strikes, but the onus is really on them to get across the table quickly. When Kethra gets here on Thursday, she has the possibility of changing this very slightly due to Bonecaster, but I suspect that means you're playing her instead of Ravos. She's a little cheaper depending upon how you outfit her, but given that Uthuk have no ranged presently, playing her with Bonecaster might open up some room in the build where you didn't "HAVE" to build to come across the map quickly and could force a few more confrontations on your own terms. Otherwise, I think getting the Viper Legion will open up some room in the Uthuk builds.
The event was well run. The players were nice, friendly, and kept a low key environment. We had two newer players who were encouraged in the game, given polite pointers by their opponents as they played their games, and seemed to have fun. I also met the San Antonio Runewars crew for the first time. Austin and San Antonio are fairly close to each other, and they generally have more players of both games I play (Armada and Runewars) than we do in Austin, plus a very active tournament scene, so it is great to make the connections. My opponents made some good decisions, kept me on my toes, and were courteous about the games, so my salute to them as well.