Dash28 Campaign- Round 3: Damn the Giant!

Introduction

After weeks of losses and fighting retreats the hags realm had shrunk greatly. Large swaths of the forest had already been settled and conquered by the paired assaults of the Basileans and the Dwarves. The ancient wood shook, as if a vicious wind blew, the twisted boughs of trees thrashing and snatching at the air in rage.

Sitting in her hut, it’s large, scaled legs striding through the hostile woods with ease, The Hag gazed at the distant trails of smoke with scorn. She had been beaten, not once, but twice! However, a new player in the region appeared, an army of men, and men, she found, were weak, easily corruptible. These humans sought to explore deeper into her realm, and she willed the forest to allow them to pass; however, once they were thoroughly ensnared, then the paths would close, and the trees hunch in. The woods would feast on blood, and the surviving men would serve the forest, one way, or the other…

The Captain’s Men had been “defeated” by the Forces of Nature and had agreed to join the in the fight against the evil in the south. The Captain had been told to wait. Wait for the armies and allies to gather so they could march in greater numbers and destroy the Hag for good. However, The Captain, still bitter about previous defeats, left to fight the Hag alone with his army of men. Other races always looked down on men and thought them to be weak, but he wouldn’t fit those stereotypes.

The Captain’s Men approached the swamp rumored to house the Hag and her forces. It had been heard it was difficult to navigate the swamps, if you could even find your way in. However, when they arrived they easily found a path in; thinking only of their good fortune, they continued into the heart of the swamp….

For this battle, the Nightstalkers would be facing Ashley and her Kingdoms of Men. This would be an interesting fight, as both of us decided to use the 3rd edition rules, and play the new Smoke and Mirrors scenarios after reading Keith Conroy’s excellent article found here.

Since neither of us had many 3rd edition games under our belts, we decided to keep the battle straight forward and use no other special rules, the game would be 2000 points.

Jake’s List

x6 Troops of Reapers

x4 Regiments of Scarecrows one had the Scrying Gem

x2 Terror

Horror (the Hag) w. Vicious Aura for Reapers and Bane Chant

Planar Apparition with Icy Breath

Since this was only my second game of 3rd edition I mostly wanted to try some of the new parts of the army. I also didn’t want too many different kinds of units to keep track of. Finally, I was inspired to try a lot of Reaper troops in part due to really enjoying a local player’s army, Kris Snyder, who used similar tactics in second edition.

My general plan was to play aggressive and hopefully use 1-2 reaper troop charges to blast through the kingdom of men line. I wanted to be moving fast onto their side, so I placed my 2 point objective in Ashley’s back corner, figuring either A it would force her to take a unit out of the game, or B she would leave it easy pickings, the two 1 point objectives I placed close to the middle of her board, one close to the center, and the other near the back, with the same idea. The easiest for me to grab objectives, closest to my side, were my 0 point objectives, with the hope that I could trick her to allocate important units to them.

Ashley’s List

2x horde Foot Guard (one w/ blessing of the gods and one w/ brew of strength)

2x regiments knights (1 w/ pathfinder, 1 w/ healing brew)

1x regiment Spear phalanx

3x giants (obviously)

2x heros, 1 on a horse and 1 on a pegasus

Wizard w/ lightening(3), bane chant and inspiring talisman

THE CAPTAIN

I have played a few games of 3rd edition as I just played in Harvest of Souls GT, but I played elves there. As I have been playing Kingdoms of Men in the campaign, we had to get creative. I played with 2nd Ed KoM vs 3rd Ed Nightstalkers with 3rd Ed rules. So my giants are on 50×50 bases instead of 75×75. It would have got to confusing to have my army split into 2 different editions.

Next.. what am I supposed to talk about next?

Ah yes. Strategy and such. My strategy was to have a fun game with my friend and hopefully not lose again. Anyways, I bought the standard center of foot guard hordes. I find this very difficult for my opponents to deal with. I have the giants to do the smashing and the knights for that range. I added in the spear phalanx as what I wanted to stay behind the lines for some of the objectives.

Turn 1

It should be noted during deployment I forced Ashley to deploy 3 units, but her “The Captain” ability allowed her to largely negate this advantage by redeploying two units!

Jake-Ashley went first, pushing her units up, claiming the center board space, but using the forest to shield her units’ advance. Everything walked up, but didn’t quite enter the woods.

Jake-In my turn, I advanced forward, pushing the scarecrow regiments forward fast, with reapers and terrors hanging back a bit. I was hoping to bait in a charge or two onto these throwaway units, and then hit their killers with reapers and terrors.

At the end of the turn, Ashley revealed my 2 point counter in her back corner, and I revealed her 1 point one in my center.

Turn 2

Jake-Ashley continued to use the woods to great effect, just entering the woods with two giants and the foot guard horde. On the left flank her giant charged forward into a reaper troops, and the hero charged the scarecrows. The giant (who would be a thorn in my side all game) smashed apart the reapers.

Jake-With large chunks of my line in charge range, I commit across the line, keeping a few reaper troops and the planar apparition back for support and a second wave. Some highlights from the combat, the scarecrows amazingly managed to defeat the Hero, my scarecrow regiment attacking the knights does 2 wounds, just enough to strip thunderous charge, and lock the unit into combat, and a bane chanted reaper troops did a mighty 9 wounds to the giant on my flank! In the center, things went less well, with some damage being dealt, but nothing standing out.

At the end of this turn, I reveal Ashley’s final 1 point objective on the left flank, and she reveals my 1 point objective in her back center.

Turn 3

Jake-Ashley’s counter attack hurts! The terrible giant on my left flank smashes apart another reaper troops. The knights on the same flank kill the scarecrows they are fighting. In the center I lose both regiments of scarecrows, and my reaper troop gets wavered! Luckily, both my terror stick it out, and I have my second wave of reapers coming.

Jake-I commit my second wave in, hoping to slay enough KoM to stop victory from rapidly slipping from my grasp. On my left flank, I charge the giant with my scarecrow, clearing space for a reaper troop charge into the knight regiment, which they break (thanks Bane Chant!). In the center, things go less well. I do kill the pegasus hero who charged my terror’s flank, but my troop of reapers into the foot guard only does 5 damage, and my terror fails to kill the knights, only wavering them… It’s going to be a rough next turn!

Turn 4

Ashley -Jake’s Terrors took a beating and finally perished in turn 4. It left my knights on the right flank open for business, as well as freeing up the other horde of foot guard. Jake’s center wasn’t looking to well, but the Spear Phalanx in the bottom left started to shake in their boots. The spear phalanx couldn’t back up out of the reaper’s charge range because of the edge of the board.

Turn 5

Ashley- My knight’s got the rear charge against the troop of reapers. Foot guard in the front and knights in the rear. Should be dead right? WRONG. I rolled snake eyes; leaving Jake’s reapers devastated, but very much alive. He countercharges the knights and they couldn’t survive that devastated reaper troop. And as expected the reaper troop in the bottom left destroyed the Spear phalanx. We both hold a 2 pt objective, and I have some control on a 1.

Turn 6

Ashley-I cleaned away that planar apparition, but Jake was lucky and did the damage needed to destroy a horde of foot guard. In doing so he kicked me off a 1 pt objective, making it a tie game. That same lightening bolt attack cleaned away the left flank giant back in turn 5.

“Roll turn 7. Roll turn 7. Roll turn 7.”

Jake rolled turn 7!

Turn 7

Ashley– While I needed turn 7 to get my giant on an objective and turn the tie into a win. I was lucky. Jake had lost his other scoring units so was limited in being able to stop it from happening.

Conclusion- Jake

Welp, looks like I lost another territory… I wonder if Ben has a plan if we are completely wiped from the map lol!

Some thoughts, foot guard hordes are incredibly, incredibly difficult to shift. I was too focused on the giants and knights and did not give these bastards enough of my attention. My poor terror got torn to shreds by them!

Reapers are nasty, especially when in range of the vicious aura. I also really like the removal of shambling from the Nightstalker list, as the list as a whole works together better now. The spells of the Planar Apparition are great, with heal helping keep a few of my units in the game a bit longer, with an MSU style list like this I don’t think its quite worth it, but in most lists I think it will be money.

Some learning points on Smoke and Mirrors, if you deploy an objective in the far corner, it will be the first your opponent looks at… so don’t try shenanigans like me. Units like scarecrow regiments are absolutely great in this scenario, able to cheaply grab or sit on counters, I think most armies need 1-2 units to do this to succeed at Smoke and Mirrors.

Overall, for my second game of third edition I really enjoyed the game. The new Nightstalkers have some great buffs, and a lot more internal synergy. I do regret a bit playing an army I am not also playing on the tabletop, as that is all I am thinking about now, but it was fun to switch things up!

Conclusion- Ashley

I finally won a game! Somehow. Jake is a great opponent and did some serious damage across the board. Getting turn 7 was very lucky.

Those reaper troops do work! If they had had some more double charges or less hinder charges, I think this would have been a very different game.

This was my first game playing smoke and mirrors, and I really enjoyed it. I find the addition of bluff markers fantastic. Now our game might be unique in that we found all the markers of value by the end of turn 3. Maybe we are just predictable? I think placing a 2 pt marker in my deployment zone was risky but it did pay off.

The foot guard hordes and giants are still my favorites. It is so fun having such a strong center. I am excited to see how my list will fair after the rules release. It will be a big change for me to have to use 75×75 giants as I was just starting to build strategies with the 50×50 bases.

Once again another wonderful game in the campaign! Tune in next month when hopefully my KoM have a 3rd Ed list!