Another week, another Mammoth battle report! so far I've used several of the casters that people have been talking a lot about with the Mammoth. pMakeda, eHexeris and even Rasheth all have something to offer the Mammoth. This week I finally got to a caster that might not be amazing with the new shiny toy. eMorghoul was the next caster on the list (his title of "Lord Assassin" sticks him right between the Hexerises), and probably the caster I was least excited about running with the Gargantuan.
This week I once again played against the Legion opponent from last week, this time running Saeryn. He used to play Saeryn against me fairly regularly, but I haven't actually seen her on the table in a while. Saeryn is definitely a warlock to watch out for, especially for a faction that relies so much on melee attacks to get things done.
My List
eMorghoul
* Mammoth
* Krea
* Gladiator
* Brute
* Archidon
Willbreaker
Nihilators
paingivers
And my opponent's list:
Saeryn
* Angelius
* Angelius
* Ravagore
* Scythean
* Shredder
* Raek
Succubus
2 X Shepherds
2 X Forsaken
2 X Deathstalkers
The list was pretty similar to the one he played last time. Not that I can really say anything since I'm playing a 46 point module in every list (except for that Rasheth T4 silliness) during this testing set. Saeryn makes the list play very differently than it plays under Vayl, however. and this time there wouldn't be an endless supply of lessers and incubi to deal with.
The scenario we played was Incoming, which was funny because it was also very very similar to the scenario we played last week. terrain (from my side of the table) had a hill on my half to my left, a wall centered outside my deployment, and a forest on my right. on his side, there was a forest partially around his objective, a hill a little to my right (mostly filling the zone on his side), and a house to my left near the center-line of the board.
I won the roll-off (after we both rolled 1s twice in a row! hopefully getting those out early), and decided to go first. the Mammoth went slightly to the right of the objective along with the willbreaker and gladiator (gladiator was almost dead center). Morghoul was to the left of the objective, with the brute and krea next to him. the archidon was out to my left, lined up with my zone. the nihilators went in front, and the paingivers behind.
from my right to left, he deployed the ravagore, raek both angels, Saeryn and the Scythean. he put a shepherd and forsaken on each side of the beasts and the succubus and shredder in behind Saeryn. he advance deployed a deathstalker on each extreme flank.
Turn 1
things ran. the Krea put his animus up, protecting the mammoth and one or two nihilators. the brute put safeguard on morghoul out of habit. Morghoul put the krea animus on himself and silence of death on the nihilators, then walked towards the friendly zone. the archidon ran into the zone.
both of his angels ran into the forest the ravagore moved up and killed a nihilator with his shot. the deathstalker on my right moved up and shot a nihilator down, but was out of range of the next one he shot at (just by a hair). the Raek moved up a bit, the support staff moved in and both forsaken took some fury. the Scythean moved up next to the house, trying to gauge the threat range on the Archidon. the left deathstalker ran all the way around the house to work on getting behind me in the next few turns. Saeryn moved up and put re-spawn on one Angel, and Banishing Ward on herself. no real need for it in this game, but it's always a good habit. the shredder put tenacity on the nearest Angel and the succubus put it on Saeryn.
Turn 2
silence of death was upkept, and morghoul apparitioned forward a bit. the nihilators ran, with one of them trying a long shot charge on the tenacitied Angel and falling short. the mammoth walked forward to draw a line on the deathstalker on the right. the first shot deviated onto the deathstalker but boosted damage only did one point. the second shot missed completely. the third shot drifted on him again and did enough to kill him. the gladiator moved toward the center and rushed the Krea. the willbreaker put puppet master on the krea. Morghoul walked into the zone and rushed the Archidon, then feated. the brute did safeguard and got in front of Morghoul.
Next the krea walked forward, shooting the tenacitied angel. he managed to roll the 11 without needed the willbreaker's reroll, keeping the angel from charging for a turn. paingivers cleared up a ton of fury and enraged the archidon. I thought the Archidon wan in range of the Scythean, but it was close. turned out he was just barely in range. it took all 4 fury, but I killed the Scythean.
As usual with eMorghoul, the feat didn't help a whole lot. an Angel charged the archidon, and still managed to hit def 16 with the AP charge attack, getting him down to 6 or 7 boxes, then finished him off with a bought attack. the second angel that couldn't charge walked up to kill a nihilator. it made 3 tough checks in a row, but eventually went down and the angel used overtake to get closer to morghoul. his left deathstalker moved up to shoot at a paingiver but rolled snake eyes. not killing the paingiver meant he couldn't use swift hunter to get into the zone to contest.
On the other side, the ravagore shot across at the brute, setting it on fire and doing a small chunk of damage. the Raek advanced and jumped, doing about half of the boxes on the krea and engaging a couple nihilators. shepherds cleaned up a bit, tenacity went on important targets (the respawn angel and Saeryn). Saeryn moved into the forrest and feated. she put a blight field on the raek, catching 2 nihilators. they both made their tough checks. because he hadn't put the deathstalker in the zone, there was nothing keeping morghoul from dominating the zone, and I got a control point.
Turn 3
Morghoul dropped silence of death and used apparition to get within 6" of the Krea, but it took him out of the zone. the nihilators went first doing a run/charge order. the one engaged by the non-respawned angel died to a free strike. the rest ran into his zone, or charged support staff. the shepherd and the forsaken on the right side died. Morghoul went next, putting ghost walk on the krea and advancing back into the zone on the hill, camping 2. the brute got in shield guard range. the willbreaker put puppet master on the krea. the krea moved away from the Raek and shot the same angel he had shot last turn.
the gladiator trampled up to engage the Raek. The paingivers moved in to clear some fury. The mammoth moved up a bit and started shooting at the paralyzed angel. all three shots hit and boosted damage, but I didn't roll real good. the angel was left with 4 boxes when I was done. silence of death would have been very helpful there, but only works in melee. I scored my second control point with Morghoul dominating the zone.
Somehow, he had miscounted his fury and had to leave one out on the shredder who frenzied on the objective but did no damage. saeryn moved up and healed the badly damaged Angel and put tenacity on most of his remaining stuff. the ravagore used his animus and put a fully boosted shot into the krea, rolling high enough to kill him (he rolled a 6,6,5, but I don't think he needed quite that much). his Raek jumped into the zone and killed a nihilator.
next he started going after Morghoul. his deathstalker moved up and killed a paingiver, moving close enough to see morghoul. he managed to hit with a great roll and did 7 damage that I had to transfer to the brute I think. one angel charged and hit with its AP attack, making morghoul use his last transfer to put something like 16 damage on the Gladiator. he used his other 2 fury to repulse morghoul over to the other angel. the second Angel moved in and missed 2 boosted attacks, leaving morghoul alive.
turn 4
Morghoul apparitioned up into .5" melee with the closer angel. Morghoul used flashing blade to blind that angel then walked to the other angel. he missed his initial fan attack, then hit with his initial Mercy attack, boosting damage. I bought a fan attack and missed, then finally landed a fan attack. I just camped my last Fury. all of that was done poorly. I hadn't thought about how damaged it was already, and morghoul left it with 2 boxes. If I had just done a fully bosted mercy attack instead it would have easily finished it.
the paingivers went next, enraging the brute and healing the gladiator. two of them tried to hit the damaged angel, but both missed their attacks. The Brute went after the healthy Angel, but missed 2 of his attacks, only doing 5 or 6 damage. the willbreaker put puppet master on the mammoth and moved into a spot where he could force the gladiator and mammoth in the enemy zone. the gladiator rushed himself and slammed the ravagore out of the zone. the mammoth charged and easily cleared the Raek. the nihilators charged the downed ravagore and 2 charged the objective. I rolled fairly poorly on both, but did a chunk of damage to the Ravagore. at the end of my turn, I was in control of his zone and got another 2 control points for a total of 4.
It was now or never for Legion this turn. because of all the support I had killed off, he had a lot of fury on the table. he had to leave 3 on the ravagore and 4 on the damaged Angel. the angel passed its check and the ravagore frenzied. because of that, the only things even close to contesting his friendly zone were his succubus and shredder. neither of them had a clear path, though and would probably be taking free strikes just to contest. he decided his only shot was killing Morghoul this turn.
Unfortunately, the 2 points on the Angel were on his spirit. he moved around a little and repulsed morghoul. the other Angel flew behind morghoul. to do so he had to take free strikes from morghoul and the brute, but they came 1 box short of getting the spirit knocked out. that angel repulsed Morghoul forward towards Saeryn. Saeryn moved up and barely got into 5" range of morghoul. he was still on the hill, so she needed 12s to hit. she hit with a deathspur keeping me from transferring. then she went with a boosted Hellfire also needing a 12. that hit as well. she needed an 8 to kill and boosted damage, rolling exactly an 8.
Afterthoughts
Well, that's what happens when you get too confident and don't do enough to protect your caster. the game was in my hands at this point, all I had to do was either clear the zone of whatever contested on his last turn, or kill the objective and the game would be over. instead Morghoul was just an inch too close and died. there were a few options I could have used to play that last turn better.
Morghoul should have just been using Mercy on the last Angel instead of trying for blind. I didn't know how hurt he was, though I should have after the beating it had taken from the Mammoth guns. if it was dead, it would have been much harder for Saeryn to get in range. but really, the best course of action would have been to camp and run, running as far from saeryn as possible. Morghoul could have been far enough away to not really be threatened by the angels, and way out of Saeryn's way.
I really don't know if I like eMorghoul with the Mammoth. I like having more assassination threats in the list, and a lot more protection for morghoul. It's really fun to have the willbreaker and paingivers handle a few beasts and then let Morghoul go off being a super solo, but he needs to stay a bit safer. Also, losing the krea was a big blow. I hadn't expected him to die so easily, and he would have been very helpful in the end.
On the Legion side, I think Saeryn needed to be more aggressive on feat turn. her beasts didn't really get in my face as much as they usually do with that feat, and there wasn't anything in my zone to contest. I really shouldn't be able to get 2 control points during saeryn's feat round. in the end it worked out, though. Saeryn is rough for Hordes because of greivous wounds and so many ways to get damage in there (forsaken, her giant AOE cloud of death, etc.) And the animus on those Angels can be really rough if you don't kill them (of course I left both of their spirits alive...).
Thoughts on the Mammoth
The Mammoth did decently well in this game, but honestly did less than in the last few games. I got to try a few new things with him, that worked really nicely. he used his gun more this game, killing off the deathstalker and almost killing an angel. the krea gun really lets him do well, since getting 3 boosted 15s into a heavy can be dangerous. A second willbreaker for either puppet master on the Mammoth guns or anciliary would have finished off the Angel that turn. I'm really starting to consider running 2 of them.
Other than that turn, though, the Mammoth didn't do a ton. he killed a Raek and got in the enemy zone, which is good, but nothing any other beast couldn't do. it might be worth trying him as a bunker for morghoul, letting morghoul hide behind him as he kills things, only popping out late-game. as it was in this game, it just meant less points helping Morghoul do his job, which is always bad.
So all in all, not a bad showing from the Mammoth this time. not amazing, but still solid. he proved out the Krea paralyze and blast tactic, but was otherwise largely ignored.
Next up we have pHexeris. I actually got that game in the same night as this report, but I don't have it fully written up yet. it should be out on Monday most likely. it ended up being pHexeris vs. Garryth. one of the casters got to live a dream. keep an eye out for it!
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