Running another warden test list.

I'm actually enjoying Warden more than I thought I would. It's not great, but makes a fun gimmick list to run that occasionally does crazy damage.

My List:

198/200

'Ventalhala

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

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

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

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

Deepwood Archers [30] 2x2
Warden of Horn and Branch [5]
Fire Rune [7]
Simultaneous Orders [2]
Total Unit Cost: 44

Deepwood Archers [30] 2x2
Warden of Horn and Branch [5]
Fire Rune [7]
Simultaneous Orders [2]
Total Unit Cost: 44

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

Church's List:

I dont have Church's list, but it consisted of...

Ravos/Insatiable

Kethra/Kingsbane of Magarth

3x3 Zerkstar/Obscene Warsprinter

2x2 Rippers

Objective and Deployment:

We randomly drew the objective and deployment. Ended up being pretty goofy with Unprepared and Encircling Maneuvers.

Setup:

I leave my Leonx to be deployed later. The Ventala run a line in front of the Deepwood blocks, in theory this is a nearly unapproachable wall for anything 2 armor or less.

Church holds his Rippers off the table.

He positions the Zerkstar for a flank and runs Ravos nearby for easy snacking. Kethra takes the inside edge.

Round 1:

Church tiptoes his Uthuk forward, holding on initiatives for as long as possible.

The Ventala leap forward but come up short of shots.

My Leonx deploy far to the left, while Church places his Rippers to interrupt the Ventala onslaught.

Round 2:

The Rippers catch one Ventala unit and cut it down to one figure. The Ventala return fire and kill two rippers with a third badly wounded. My dice were not great.

My leftmost Deepwood got LoS blocked by the Ventala (a result of changing the plan with one unit and not adjusting the other).

This prevented a large amount of damage potential as Church brought three powerhouse units into combat range.

Round 3:

Three Ventala units grind the Rippers down rapidly, but it opens them up to Kethra as easy targets.

Kethra explodes one whole unit of Ventala.

The Zerkstar goes for a Ventala flank but falls short.

The deepwoods use this opportunity to start putting damage on the star.

Ravos gets a bit jammed up on Kethra, which was an odd thing to see the tubby guy stumble.

Round 4:

The Ventala on the left make a bank charge for the Zerkstar, but hit Kethra instead. They manage to land a wound, but explode for touching her.

The remaining Ventala put a wound on Ravos, before he pins the Archers.

The Zerkstar melees, at nothing, and warsprints just short of catching the Deepwoods.

My Leonx are finally close.

Round 5:

The Zerkstar reforms, and warsprints into the Deepwoods. It rolls poorly, and does 3 damage.

The Leonx hit the rear of the Zerkstar and take a tray off. They stay disengaged.

While Ravos devours the Archers he caught, the other Deepwoods shift and fire rune at the Zerkstar. Warden also gets a wound on Ravos.

The last Ventala put another wound on Ravos and then square off against Kethra.

Round 6:

The Leonx strike the rear of the Zerkstar again, this time clearing most of a rank with a great roll. They lose a tray to the thorns damage coming from the Zerkstar though.

Kethra explodes the last Ventala.

I made a mistake here, I did not close in with my Leonx, and it allowed Church to pin my Archers with the Zerkstar.

Round 7:

The Leonx charge once more, but at threat 1 do very little.

As the Zerkstar chews on the Deepwoods, Ravos arrives to join the feast.

Kethra uses her witchy skill and blows up the last Leonx with a successful roll.

Round 8:

The last Deepwood falls before they can strike back.

Uthuk win!

Afterthoughts:

This is a better example of the warden build. It has great potential, but a few bad dice can make it a costly points sink.

I'm going to try it with more reasonable numbers of Ventala and see if it's a nice 5 pt bonus.

Kethra in Kingsbane Magarth build is the ark of the covenant in Indiana Jones. She'll melt anything that looks at her wrong. Church can break down how much non combat damage she can give out.

I really screwed myself on round 2 by doing a march 2/skill at i7 with my Deepwoods. It cut off two attacks that turn against the Zerkstar.

Speaking of the Zerkstar, that thing soaked a lot of damage again against small attacks. Losing 1 out of 2-4 damage is harsh (says the guy spamming Ventala...).

The Leonx missed their target entrance time in the fight, but when they arrived, they really tore it up. If not for the thorns damage killing 3 cats, it could have finished the star off by turn 8.

Thanks for reading!

He had my list right as far as he filled in, just incomplete.

http://tabletopadmiral.com/runewars/uthuk/p124uEMu9buacu86u51p132uEMu68p141uEMu75p191u32u92

Just to run it down for those who haven’t seen the math of Kingsbone, unnatural growths, and Shield of Margath.

1) He runs into me. 2 damage

2) He attacks me, 4 damage from Shield. 5 if I armored up.

3) 2 From unnatural growths.

Congrats! Your 2 tray unit takes 8-9 damage for charging her and dies if it doesn’t kill Kethra... Unless you have 3 armor. Then you laugh at her feeble defense and roll her over.

As as for the game:

-Score was a blowout because I preserved two heroes. If either had died than it was around an 80 MoV game.

-Kethra wil continue to be epic against the non-hero Latari. Her performance drops to garbage as soon as she rolls up on anything 3 armor though.

-I do not feel that I have a good grasp on this Encircling Maneuver objective. It is certainly a fun one to play though. It makes 1st round aggression super sketchy.

-Front line Obscene is fun. I’m not missing the threat 4 BullyStar as much as I thought. Sure, damage is down, but it evens out in a way. BullyStar was designed to punch down at little units and suffered badly against other DeathStars. This PlagueStar still punches down well enough with the berserker sacrifice. Getting to throw 2 blight or blight and stun (FL Obscene, Ritual Venom) after an attack makes it possible to bog down another large unit.

-Approaching that many ventala feels even worse than it is. Their Swiss Army knife vibe makes you feel like no matter what choice you make, they have a counter. I’m thinking the correct counter to just get in their fast and force them into melee. The points they paid for flexibility become inefficiencies if you can just make it a slugfest.

-Warden of the Horn and Branch looks soooo bad on paper. When you are already planning on bringing Ventala, it isn’t so bad. I think it is probably too inconsistent and relies on too many pieces in place to take to a major tourney, but it isn’t just trash like I first thought.

This was a very interesting battle to read about as the forces were very asymmetric- MSU vs. the high damage potential and steamroller of the Uthuk. I’m not very good a maneuvering a large number of units like that and find (at least in Armada) that I end up running into my own stuff or screening my own shots, kind of like what happened here.

The other thing I run into with the smaller 2x1 units is I always feel I have to put Rank Discipline on them (since I have such bad dice) leaving me little other build options. Maybe drop off of the 2x1 Ventala and increase the size of the Leonx unit. If it had a little more pop, it could have turned the scenario for you given it’s speed and it’s approach from the rear.

I noticed that most of your two’s games have both forces lined up directly across from each other with little terrain in the middle to break up approach lanes. Is this just your guys play style or is there a tactial reason that I’m missing here? To me, it seems if the Swamp were in the center, it might break up the Uthuk charge while not impeding your shots. Plus, you could slap Overgrowth on it and use things like Hunter’s Guile, etc...

I saw that Ravos had several wounds on him, did the Latari cause those or were those from the balance modifications that Church suggested?

You get big style points for playing a bunch of Ventala with Warden. That’s one of those cards that when you first see it, you think the designers made it up sitting at their computer the day the game went to print. Then you see it played like this and you are reminded why list building with this game is so much fun.

Thanks for the write up!

If church is playing uthuk and bringing Ravos or rippers, I have learned to keep the terrain as far away from me as possible (uthuk love their springboards). When he brings waiqar there tends to be a bit more latari terrain dickery going on.

The 2x1 ventala is really asking for rank almost any time. Its gaurenteed to get some decent shots and roll better for it. I need to see how annoying a hedge build could be, but that then requires a hero with malcorne, and a unit to pack an overgrow implementation. The 2x1 rank Leonx I have been finding more useful than the 2x2 because both usually die after the first charge, so I'd rather pay 22 vs 30.

Ravos got most of his wounds from arrows and javelins, I think he ate himself once. Currently church and I are still playing the game as is, with no community nerfs applied.

Should have encircled an archer block. Could have appeared in range for a brutal triple tap.