Skorne Battle Report - eMorghoul vs Damiano

This report is a little later than I had planned. As I talked about in my last post, I wanted to try out an eMorghoul list using a very defensive army list designed to let Morghoul poke things with his sword. I planned on using the list last week, but last week was the final week for the PP league, and several of us wanted our team game patches, so I ended up playing some team games with pMorghoul.

This week I managed to get in a solid 50 point game with my new eMorghoul list (fully painted too! as of last night). I was playing against a Highborn Covenant army led by Captain Damiano. the scenario was Guidons

my list can be found in my previous blog entry, at the end of the article. My opponent was running the following list:

Damiano
 * Rocinante
 * Vanguard
 * Sylys Wyshnalyrr

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages
 * UA
 * Marshalled Mule
Gorman di Wolfe
Aiyana and Holt
Rhupert Carvolo
10 steelhead Hlaberdiers
5 steelhead cavalry

I won the roll-off and went first. I deployed with morghoul and his lights front and center, with Molik and the Gladiator taking the far left flank, and the Archidon on the right. the void spirit went behind Molik. swordsmen piled in around morghoul, and paingivers and Orin took the rear. the master tormentor and razor worm deployed right in front of Morghoul (not shown in the picture

Skorne Deployment

He deployed with the gun mages and their Mule on my left flank, behind a small hill. moving across to my right was A&H, Gorman, Rocinante, Damiano, Sylys, Rhupert and the steelhead cav all in a line. in front of them were the halberds (spread across the line) and the Vanguard

Merc Deployment

Turn 1

My first turn was pretty standard. Almost everything ran. Molik used fate walker so the paingivers could clear him off before he finished moving, and Morghoul put Silence of Death on the swordsmen. the objective teleported over to morghoul. as you can see in the picture, I hadn't really thought the objective out very well. the three defensive beasts are all set up in front, with a nice hole for Morghoul. then he wandered off to play with the flag instead of following.

Everyone moves up

His first turn was a slightly slower advance. the mule and gun mages ran onto the hill. the halberds got death march and a coin giving them reform. they advanced up and reformed. damiano ended up way in the back (I think he just activated too early), so he wasn't anywhere near the flag. Rhupert toughed the halberds. everything else moved up and got set.

Steelheads advance

Gun Mages like their hills

Turn 2

I started with the Master Tormentor who was in range to get some of the steelheads. they had set defense, so I just charged the objective, catching 3 of them in the thresher. and then whiffed. she missed 2 attacks and the last one toughed, so no sprint move. Nothing else was really in range to do damage this turn. the swordsmen ran, engaging almost all of the steelehads. the beasts all ran or put up their defensive animi. Molik was sitting in the zone, eying the Gun Mages, the void spirit was right next to him. Morghoul moved up and feated (I use the coin to remind myself that my feat is up), catching almost all of my models. A few swordsmen and the Tormentor were out. the objective teleported into the zone.

Jam and Feat

the master tormentor had an off day

My swordsmen made a major bottleneck for him this turn, and since my Master Tormentor didn't do anything there was no vengeance move to help clear them out. Damiano upkept both spells (one for free) then started moving things up. the steelheads killed off the swordsmen outside of the feat, but failed to kill the master tormentor on bad to hit rolls. they were not so lucky against the buffed up swordsmen, only killing one that was in the feat. the vanguard moved over and killed the Tormentor with a boosted attack roll.
Rhupert toughed the steelheads again, and the cav moved up a tiny bit. Rocinante shot at some swordsmen, killing the UA with boosted blast damage. Gorman used a rust bomb on the krea, putting corrosion on her and one swordsman. Lady A tried to Harm Molik, needing a 7. she hit and Molik forced to make her re-roll it. she missed. Damiano gave the gun mages Deadeye and they unloaded on Molik. or tried to, anyways. they hit with every shot (one missed shot would have allowed Molik to advance into combat, making it very difficult for the rest of the mages), but didn't score a single crit for brutal damage. in the end they only did 5 damage to Molik. the Mule tried a shot but rolled very badly on damage, doing nothing. Again no crit.

Since he hadn't been able to get through my swordsmen screen, I scored a control point this turn

No more master tormentor

it'll take more than this to keep Molik down

Turn 3
Morghoul upkept Silence on the swordsmen. Molik forcing to make Lady A reroll put me one over, but the Worm passed his threshold check. the Swordsmen started off the fun, but didn't do as well as they could have with no side step or minifeat. they still managed to kill 6 out of 10 halberds, since Silence of Death ignores tough. the void spirit had a lane to Gorman, and whiffed his attack roll. the razor worm put up his animus and moved up the to edge of the zone, Morghoul following right behind him and using the Brute's animus. the krea moved over and added her animus to the mix. paingivers cleared off the extra fury. the archidon gave molik sprint. Molik then advanced into the gun mages, killing 4 of them and using sprint to move into A&H. I scored a control point, bringing me one away from the win.

Swordsmen and Molik clean up some infantry

Damiano started things off by moving to the middle and feating. he gave money shot to the cav and reform to the halberds. he then moved Death March to the cav. the steelheads got revenge for their fallen brothers, killing all but 2 of my swordsmen. the cavalry charged in, putting one model in the zone and killing off the krea and void spirit and putting some damage on the Brute. the Vanguard moved up and missed against the Brute. the gun mages pushed the Archidon back a bit.

having moved something into my zone, he moved his attention to killing Molik, who was in easy trample range of Damiano. first Lady A got harm on him. the Holt went to town. a whole turn of gun mages shooting at him had only knocked off 5 boxes. two shots from Holt took him all the way down to 6 health remaining. the Mule moved over and took a swing at Molik. He boosted damage with his Marshal "focus" and hit, but rolled terrible on damage, only doing 1 more point. at this point, he only had Gorman and Rocinante left to move. Rocinante could move over to kill Molik but leave a lane for Morghoul, or he could block morghoul's lane and leave molik within 6 inches of his caster. he opted to kill Molik, which Rocinante did without any trouble. Gorman took a long shot at Morghoul, but scattered on to the steelhead cav and the Brute, blinding them both.

Molik goes down, and the cavalry arrives

Turn 4

the picture above is actually taken at the beginning of my turn, after Morghoul did his apparition move. he was behind the worm before this. Morghoul kept all 5 fury for himself. the swordsmen killed Holt and moved out of the way. the Archidon flew over and attacked the cav near Damiano. I forgot about his feat stopping throws, I was really just trying to crit pitch the cav into Rocinante to keep him from using guard dog and defensive strike. we actually rolled it all out before remembering that the feat stopped it. Of course I had the crit and knocked them both down. oh well. we backed it up and the Archidon just killed the cav.

Now it was all up to Morghoul. he charged Damiano, ignoring all the free strikes on the way. Rocinante couldn't get past the def 17 with his attack. Morghoul missed his charge attack with Mercy on double 1s. the fan hit, blinding Damiano. Morghoul started buying attacks with Mercy, doing exactly average with 3 damage with each attack for the first 3 hits. his fourth bought attack did 8 damage, killing Damiano with one Fury to spare.

Stick 'em with the pointy end

This was a really fun game, and one of my first against Mercs. the dice were definitely in my favor, though I didn't really feel like I was in danger for most of the game. Morghoul proved he can handle a caster if he gets that one on one moment, even with a feat like Damiano's up.

I do need more practice with this list. I should have been gunning for the assassination run all along instead of wasting tim on the guidon. it ended up throwing off my formation, and just slowed everyone down. the defensive buffs were very nice, allowing me to put Morghoul up front without any real danger. I look forward to playing him more