Tales from the Madlands: The Madlands Endures

By Jukey, in Runewars Battle Reports

Madlands will be continuing, despite lack of organized play and potentially nothing new in the future. We'll still be hashing out corner case batreps and playing the weird and wonky. Keep the requests coming, we like playing them!

Now, on with the batrep.

Today we played Column Ambush (Baron Z deployment) with Hunter's Quarry.

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The terrain is the Dias and Fay Glade.

This, combined with two MSU armies will make for a real mess.

My list:

'BaneSlinger'

197/200
Deepwood Archers [42] 3x2
Blackthorn Assassin [7]
Tempered Steel [3]
Frontline Aymhelin Scion [6]
Close Quarters Targeting [3]
Total Unit Cost: 61

Leonx Riders [18] 2x1
Rank Discipline [4]
Total Unit Cost: 22

Leonx Riders [18] 2x1
Rank Discipline [4]
Total Unit Cost: 22

Ventala Skirmishers [18] 2x1
Rank Discipline [4]
Total Unit Cost: 22

Prince Faolan [36] 1x1
The Spirit Sword [6]
Etharyon of the Ailatar [5]
Total Unit Cost: 47

Darnati Warriors [19] 2x1
Corruption Rune [4]
Total Unit Cost: 23

My list is designed to stress test Rank Discipline after recent success with the upgrade. Having as many striker units in my build as I do made it advantageous to run a Deepwood 3x2. I built it to sling blight and stuns, while keeping damage output high and continuing to put damage out in the late game.

Church's List

'Ardus and his Archers'

199/200
Ardus IxErebus [37] 1x1
Dimodian Blades [5]
Total Unit Cost: 42

Reanimate Archers [18] 2x1
Rank Discipline [4]
Tempered Steel [3]
Total Unit Cost: 25

Reanimate Archers [18] 2x1
Rank Discipline [4]
Tempered Steel [3]
Total Unit Cost: 25

Lord Vorunthul [40] 1x1
Fortunas Dice [6]
Thirst of Bilehall [5]
Total Unit Cost: 51

Carrion Lancers [15] 1x1
Total Unit Cost: 15

Carrion Lancers [15] 1x1
Total Unit Cost: 15

Wraiths [24] 3x1
Faces of the Fallen [2]
Total Unit Cost: 26

Church will say more, but I believe this was more Ardus focused building. The 2x1 archer Rank/Tempereds are becoming a staple waiqar Ardus combo.

Setup:

I had Initiative and Church chose red side. Neither of us felt like either side was better.

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I spread my army to do a focused early strike with ranged assistance.

Church sets up an effective lancer wall with good fire support, while entrusting a flank to wraiths and Lord V.

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Lord V stuns the Leonx outside Faolans inspiration bubble.

Round 1:

Church unpacks his forces in a precise advance. Lord V hangs back to rally.

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My Darnati don't unpack right, and get stuck on Faolan. The Leonx zoom ahead a bit too quickly.

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The Ventala get cozy in the Dias, while the Deepwoods close the gap. The stunned Leonx rally and get their march stunned off.

Round 2:

Church Rally/marches his lancer into the Leonx. Faolan does an i4 march/skill and pulls the Leonx back from the lancer with EoA (Etharyon). The Leonx then charge the Lancer, rolling 6 damage, thanks to rank. They also score an immobilize with the morale.

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The undead Archers loose arrows on the Leonx, killing them in 2 shots. The Lancer gains another immobilize.

The deepwoods find nothing to shoot at. The ventala take 2 wraiths and send an inspiration over to Faolan.

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Church pads his i7 activations, letting his wraiths wait. My Leonx charge too early and get flanked by the Wraiths, losing 3 figures.

I think Church is up 3 objective tokens now.

Round 3:

This turn we really started token snatching.

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Faolan does an i2 wheeling march/skill, pushing the Ventala out of the terrain.

The Ventala charge the second Lancer, and deal 2 wounds. Church rallies his immobillized lancer, but can't move.

I manage to get a cat bounce on the wraiths, while my deepwoods roll 'poorly' and drop the wraiths to 1 figure. I add a blight for good measure.

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Church moves the archers up.

Ardus overstepped a bit, putting him in a poor position. The Darnati finally hop over Faolan.

Objective tokens are stacking up. I've got 3, church has 7.

Round 4:

To avoid a quick march by the Lancer, I push my Darnati with EoA into the lancer.

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Both the Darnati and the Ventala finish the Lancers. Corruption rune gets 1 archer.

Ardus reforms to face Faolan. Hero Fight!

Church gets terrible rolls on his archers shots. Both target the Ventala but only get 3 damage total.

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The wraiths finish the Leonx. The deepwoods target Lord V, and put 2 wounds on him, along with a blight and a stun.

Lord V has an inspiration, and it let's him still warp jump. He only gets 1 tray due to the blight, but it's enough to refresh Fdice.

Church hits double digits on tokens, I'm up to 7.

Round 5:

My deepwoods march (which was cancelled) so I can reform, claim a token, and not get flanked by a brutal 3 monster.

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The darnati and ventala both charge the archers, shutting them down.

Church armors with Ardus, unable to win the charge battle, or melee late enough. Faolan puts 1 wound on Ardus.

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The wraith hits the deepwoods and takes a few figures, then Lord V hits them and takes the back rank. The wraiths close in and reform to catch more tokens.

Round 6:

I missed the picture... the deepwoods die.

I finish off the archers...

...all archers must die?

Ardus gets no red runes, so dimodiam is not great. He rolls a wound, and a blight from borrowed archer surge ability. Faolan nerfs the wound down to no damage with an inspiration.

Faolan blows his second inspiration on the blight, and puts 2 wounds on Ardus.

Church is at 15 or so objective tokens, I'm up to 9.

Round 7:

Church snags more tokens, but the fight is largely over.

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Round 8:

We tallied it up. Combat-wise, I had 92 points on the board, church had 57ish. Church won with a 9/2, some 300+ points in objective tokens.

Afterthoughts:

This was a really fun matchup. Between lists, deployment, and objective, it was very interesting on all points.

My Leonx playstyle needs work. They give me trouble often, but I'm liking the rank cats. Metered march might be worth increasing the unit cost to 24 pts.

Still impressed by the Reanimate Archers rank/TS build. It requires Ardus to build it, but when supported well, it really throws damage.

If Church had not rallied Lord V for a turn he would have gotten mired by my deepwoods. Stunner scions embedded seem like something I need to investigate more.

Satisfied with the Rank discipline results. I'm going to keep working on a build like this.

Faolan dueling Ardus was cool. They both posed equal threat to each other, but Faolan got the advantage of dictating the charge game, and then getting lucky on runes the next turn.

Thanks for Reading!

I had 53 left and scored 345 in objective points. Jukey was right, this was another Ardus test list. A slight variation of a different one tried.

- Faolon vs Ardus came down to initiative. Had that duel started one turn later or earlier, Ardus would have won (?!) the charge battle with Faolon and possibly have won. It also didn’t help that there no unstable runes for Dimodian blades during that entire fight.

- Honestly, my bad play of the game was that straight march 3 with Ardus in round 3. I was trying to force Jukey’s hand, but all I ended up doing was putting him in a spot where it took several turns to recover as the battle just strode past him. In hindsight, Ardus should have sat back with the lancers and looked for blocking opportunities. I believe he would have done a lot more by defending the archers than going on offense.

- once again, wraiths are claiming the token grabber title for Waiqar.