Playing Grim2/Madrak2 In The July Scrum (Plus Match Report)

My wife was kind enough to allow me to play in the local Scrum League taking place this month. For those that don't know, the Scrum is a Steam Roller event that takes place over the course of a month, one game a week. 

My Pairing

I've only started to get back into the WM swing of things and as such I don't feel I have enough games to really expect to actually win the Scrum. So my main goal for the event is to simply enjoy it and frankly, learn my way around playing competitively again.  We've got the new Steamroller 2018 Scenarios to play with, and simply learning to deal with that is going to be an adventure all its own.

As such I was faced with a choice on what to run: use well established "strong lists" or to play something off the wall that I've cooked up.  The established "Strong Lists" were going to be stealing Tim Banky's Madrak1 Band of Heroes list (Champs, min Long Riders, Fenns + UA) and Borka2 Power of Dhunia list.

Given that I was also in the process of being tempted to play Convergence soon, I didn't want to just grind games with a strong pair to get competitive with it especially since when I was last playing WM I had ground out a lot of Madrak1 games already.

So I went with some off beat choices with old favorites from MK2, to try and continue a Tour of Trolls: Grim2 and Madrak2.

Trollblood - Grim2 WW

Theme: Kriel Company

3 / 3 Free Cards     75 / 75 Army

Hunters Grim - WB: +25

-    Muggs & Krump

-    Trollkin Runebearer - PC: 0

-    Dire Troll Bomber - PC: 19 (Battlegroup Points Used: 19)

-    Dire Troll Bomber - PC: 19 (Battlegroup Points Used: 6)

War Wagon - PC: 16

Fell Caller Hero - PC: 0

Feralgeist - PC: 2

Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes - Leader & 5 Grunts: 9

-    Stone Scribe Elder - PC: 3

Northkin Raiders - Leader & 9 Grunts: 15

Greygore Boomhowler & Co. - Boomhowler & 9 Grunts: 17

Thumper Crew - Gunner & 2 Grunts: 0

For Grim2 I really wanted to get games in with the War Wagon more than anything, and I figured both Raiders and Boomhowlers of all things would actually pack a sufficient melee punch as well for the normally shooty oriented Kriel Company.  I also opted for double Bomber vs. a Glacier King in order to maximize shooting output and having access to Far Strike on Grim for non-feat turns.

The Madrak2 list is one I have played previously and discussed here.

Trollblood - Madrak2 Toughallo

Theme: Band of Heroes
3 / 3 Free Cards     74 / 75 Army

Madrak Ironhide, World Ender - WB: +28
-    Trollkin Runebearer - PC: 0
-    Dire Troll Mauler - PC: 15 (Battlegroup Points Used: 15)
-    Dire Troll Bomber - PC: 19 (Battlegroup Points Used: 13)

Fell Caller Hero - PC: 0
Fell Caller Hero - PC: 0
Eilish Garrity, the Occultist - PC: 5

Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes - Leader & 5 Grunts: 9
-    Stone Scribe Elder - PC: 3
Trollkin Long Riders - Leader & 4 Grunts: 20
Trollkin Long Riders - Leader & 4 Grunts: 20
Kriel Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 11

Match Report 1

My first matchup was vs. the Scrum Overlord himself, Mark.  He's our resident Convergence player, so I was quite excited about the matchup since I'd get to see how Convergence would play.  His lists were:

Axis – Destruction Initiative

Axis

-Corollary

-Diffuser

-Galvanizer

-Inverter

-Inverter

-Inverter

-Inverter

Attunement Servitors

Ellish Garrity

Elimination Servitors

Elimination Servitors

Reflex Servitors

Optifex Directive

Transfinite Emergence Projector

Iron Mother – Destruction Initiative

Iron Mother

-Exponent Servitors

-Corollary

-Mitigator

-Prime Axiom

Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex

Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex

Ellish Garity

Attunement Servitors

Elimination Servitors

Elimination Servitors

Elimination Servitors

Optifex Directive

Transfinite Emergence Projector

Transfinite Emergence Projector

My matchup analysis for this was correct, even though my conclusions weren't particularly great for my chances.  

Axis had enough juice to push through Madrak2 to the point where I wasn't going to be able to kill enough to get through the feat before attrition swung too hard on me.   Mother would eat Grim2 alive, but Madrak2 would run right over her list.  This left Grim2 into Axis as probably the closest to a 50/50 for me, despite the fact that Destruction Initiative brings tons of shield guards. My Grim2 list brings an incredible number of shots to the table and should theoretically push through them. 

There was also the idea that with the Axis/Mother pairing in CoC, Axis handles Hordes while Mother handles Warmachine. I went in dropping Grim2 and expecting Axis and that's exactly what happened. 

Our scenario was Spread the Net, which I didn't have nearly enough playtime on. 

At the roll off my +1 to go first failed me, but Mark decided he wanted me to go first anyway, preferring to be able to score first.  Initially I thought Mark was making a huge mistake here, but in hindsight he was being rather brilliant. Spoiler Alert: I lost the game. 

Apologies for my lack of pictures here, but I was under clock pressure. I will attempt to rectify this for the next games in the Scrum.

What ended up happening was that by making me deploy first, Mark was able to counter deploy his TEP so that he would be able to get shots into me more easily where if I deployed second I could have mitigated the TEP's influence somewhat. 

At the top of turn two I burned way too much clock thinking about taking an assassination, only to realize that it would be impossible because the CoC walking vectors all have steady.  As such I was under clock pressure from the get go. 

Instead I feated and shot an Inverter off the table, positioned to score my flag and zone, and tried to mitigate the incoming TEP damage to my two units. 

Mark was able to shoot the Feralgeist off my flag (yay Optifex Directives) and run a servitor to contest my zone, conversely he killed what I was contesting his zone with (I didn't put enough in) and feated on most of my army.  Between Jacks and the TEP I lost nearly all of my Raiders but Boomhowlers were largely intact, with some being out of the feat and they had Mirage on them.   Mark is able to score his zone and flag, while also leaving two Inverters staring down my beasts and Grim.

Turn 3 is where everything went off the rails. I had 4 Boomhowlers in charge range after Mirage of the TEP, as well as a Raider who could walk and punch it under the Feat.  I landed the Mortality on the TEP from the Runebearer and started activating the units to hopefully punch it to death, but I was low enough on time that I wasn't smart enough to use the Stone for strength. DOH!

Here my dice did come up rather short, with two charges putting only 1-2 points on the TEP and the Raider doing next to nothing.  All plans swapped to killing the TEP so it doesn't wreck the rest of my lines, which was largely a mistake. I had a plan with the War Wagon to kill the servitor contesting my zone, then shoot/kill the servitor on Mark's flag and moving into contesting range while also scoring my zone with it. This diverted to get what shots I had left into the TEP and to burn shield guards.  This also meant my bombers and Grim2 were shooting at the TEP to finish it instead of killing at least one of the Inverters in my face. 

In all my haste I neglected to move part of Grim's unit to contest my zone and I left his inverters alive in the middle, although jammed by the War Wagon.  Mark scored his flag while I scored my own with the Fell Caller. 

Here Mark arguably had a workable assassination on Grim, though he was able to get a much easier path to victory.  Mark cleared out what I had in his friendly zone and scored with a Galvanizer, his solo scored his flag again, and since I had nothing in my zone he was able to run one Inverter in to score that, and then all he had to do was get the other Inverter from the middle to contest my flag and he wins. Mark tries to kill the Boomhowler in the way, missing all his servitor shots, Axis's spell, and a Diffuser shot, forgetting he can just cast the Bulldoze spell to avoid taking any free strikes at all.  I had Mortality on the Inverter, and so I was able to take two boosted POW15's on the jack, with one damage roll hitting triple 6's, but it wasn't enough and he's able to run to contest my flag – ending the game. 

Conclusions

Man the rust from not playing for a few months and not having played Grim2 since MK2 really was noticeable.  I also didn't read the TEP card close enough when investigating convergence, thinking that it lost the ability to put servitors in the back arc to get extra shots, when PP just moved the rule for that to the permutation servitors section.  Also forgetting Steady on the jacks was a major issue which caused me to burn too much clock.  I also simply made a lot of positioning mistakes that Mark was able to capitalize on very effectively.

After the game Mark asked why I didn't attempt an assassination on Axis during turn 3 while under his feat, despite his 5 camp he only had 2 shield guards I arguably had enough guns to get the job done.

In truth I saw the shield guards and camp and decided to avoid it, not realizing exactly how dicey my chances were getting.  I could have used Grim's unit to gum up the Inverters to stop counter charge, or at least partially done so, stuck a mortality and then powered through as much as possible into Axis.

Overall I'm looking forward to trying more games with Grim2, but we will have to see what this week brings.   

From the Convergence side of things, I'm definitely intrigued by Mark's list and while I would probably swap one Inverter for another jack (I only own 3), I like the idea of 1 TEP in Axis. It certainly looked fun to play.