Down to the last 2 casters! This week I managed to get in games with both of the remaining casters with the Mammoth. So after weeks of play-testing I have now played the Mammoth with every caster in Skorne! The last two casters I played were Mordikaar and Makeda3. We'll start with Mordikaar to close out the released casters, and I'll post my Makeda3 report later on this week once I get it written up.
The list I took was a bit different this time. I think I was mostly just getting tired of running the same list every time with different casters. That and Mordikaar just plays differently than anything else in the faction. That's one of the main reasons I love playing Mordikaar, but it also means I will need many more games with him before I get real good with his playstyle. Unfortunately, by taking a different setup I didn't end up liking my list very much. it's not an ideal Mordikaar list or an ideal Mammoth list. On the plus side, I got to play with some Incindiarii this week!
My List
Mordikaar
* Mammoth
* Krea
Agonizer
Willbreaker
Void Spirit
max Incindiarii
max Nihilators
max Swordsmen + UA
Notice anything missing? this is the first time in a long while that I've played without paingivers or a gladiator. missing both at the same time was crazy! I don't know what I would do without them. To make things worse, I would be playing against one of my least favorite casters (ok, she probably tops the list. my least favorite caster to fight against). pDenegra.
pDenegra
* Deathripper
* Deathripper
* Scarlock Thrall
Wrong Eye
* Snapjaw
max Bane Thralls + UA
max Bane Knights
max Croe's Cutthroats
Pistol Wraith
Warwitch Siren
Gotta love Denegra. Fortunately, Mordikaar has a decent game against Cryx. If I start using him in tournaments, he's going to be handling the Cryx matchup almost every time.
For this game we played Incursion. I won the roll and opted to go second (seeing that there weren't any Satyxis on the other side...). I predeployed the Mammoth between the middle and right flags.
he set up with Denegra, Scarlock and Wrong Eye/Snapjaw in the center. pistol wraith, bane knights and one arc node went to my right opposite the Mammoth, the bane thralls, warwitch and other arc node went left. Croe's were advance deployed in front center after I finished deploying.
I put the nihilators opposite the thralls, swordsmen opposite the knights (and to the right of my Mammoth), Incindiarii center with the Krea, agonizer and mordikaar behind them. the void spirit was behind a forest right in front of my deployment zone, also right in front of the nihilators. the willbreaker took his usual spot behind the Mammoth.
Turn 1
stuff ran. I don't think he even cast anything. Denny's not real big on that whole "buffing your allies" thing.
My stuff moved up in response. Incindiarii ran central, the Mammoth took an assault shot at the Cutthroats killing one. he got a second shot from the willbreaker but failed to hit anything. Mordikaar moved up, put Ghost Walk on the Nihilators, Banishing ward on the Incindiarii and Hallow on the swordsmen. I went ahead and feated this turn.swordsmen and nihilators ran up. the void spirit ran into the forest. the krea moved up and used her animus to protect 2 or 3 Incindiarii.
The middle flag dropped, of course
Turn 2
he didn't end up doing much this turn. Denegra arced Crippling grasp onto the Mammoth. Croe's took a few shots at the Incindiarii but missed due to feat. they moved back with Bushwack. Either he was overly cautious due to my feat or I popped it a turn too early, because the rest of his stuff just re-positioned one arc node got into base contact with the flag on my left. banes got near both flags.
I decided to drop banishing ward this turn. the nihilators ran/charged. one charged the pistol wraith who was in front of Denegra, but it was incorporeal so he couldn't do anything. I charged 3 into the arc node on the left and 2 or 3 into bane thralls. I killed 2 banes and knocked out the arc node on the chicken. the swordsmen also charged, but could only get to a few models. 2 charged the second bone chicken but missed both combo strikes. I killed 2 bane knights. the Incindiarii went and moved up to get some shots off. one lit a bane thrall on fire. the next one tried to hit a clump of cutthroats but scattered the full distance away. luckily "away" was right on top of Denny. blast damage did nothing (she was camping 3), but she caught fire. one lit the left bone chicken on fire. the last 3 CRA'd into Snapjaw doing 8 or 9 damage.
the void spirit ran to engage the pistol wraith. The Krea shot Snapjaw with paralysis. the Mammoth shot into the clump of Croe's Cutthroats and scattered much better, killing 5 of them. he took his other 2 shots at snapjow, boosting damage both times, getting him down to 7 or 8 boxes. Mordikaar got puppet master then activated. he used Essence Blast on the nihilator that was engaging the pistol wraith, targeting Denegra. he missed the pistol wraith with snakeyes, and boosted against Denegra hitting her. Boosted damage and rerolled 2 of the three dice. the attack ended up doing 8 damage to her, but after that I was only camping one.
Turn 3
the Bane Knights got their Vengeance moves but only killed 1 or 2 swordsmen. Denegra dropped crippling grasp on the Mammoth. Fire killed the Bane Thrall, rolled hot enough to kill the left bone chicken, but went out on Denegra. the Bane Knights activated, killing a couple more swordsmen, including one of the two engaging the arc node on the right. the bane thralls rolled terribly, only killing 2 nihilators and knocking another 2 down. the bone chicken moved up, taking a free strike from the swordsman, but he missed. Snapjaw tried advancing through the Void Spirit to get to 3 Incindiarii. the void spirit went ahead and took a free strike and rolled really well, killing Snapjaw and turning him into a cloud of ash.
Denegra moved up and feated, catching everything but 3 swordsmen, Modikaar, the willbreaker and maybe one nihilator. she then arced a Scourge at Mordikaar and hit him. she did 8 damage, but I decided to just take it since there were more shots coming and I only camped 1. the warwitch siren moved up and killed the void spirit. the pistol wraith moved up and took his shots at Mordikaar, knocking him down to 3 boxes, but I still had a transfer. the scarlock put ghost walk on Croe's and the last 3 walked up. one didn't have line of sight, and the other two were a hair out of range. I guess I should have transferred! oh well. Wrong eye ran up to engage 3 of my Incindiarii.
I barely survived that one, but I got back 11 Fury this turn. Of course, I was under Denny's feat this turn, which was going to make things difficult. my swordsmen started things off and called their minifeat, advancing into the bane knights. the three that were out of the feat killed 5 knights. the 6 that were in the feat rolled only one 8 to hit and kill a knight out of 12 attacks. the nihilators went next to see if they could do any better. They couldn't. with 7 or 8 nihilators I managed to kill 1 bane thrall.
Mordikaar activated and put banishing ward on himself so he wouldn't get knocked down again. he put ghost walk on the Incindiarii and walked back into the forest near my deployment zone. And then I got greedy and did an essence blast to try to get rid of wrong eye. I didn't realize he had arm 17. probably should have checked on that. what a waste of 3 fury.
the Incindiarii activated and lit stuff on fire. 2 shot at the pistol wraith. neither hit, but the blast damage combined for enough to kill it. it also lit the bone chicken on fire. one shot Croe and lit him on fire but didn't kill him. one shot at Denegra, managing to catch the scarlock, denegra and the warwitch on fire and did 1 point of blast damage to the warwitch. unfortunately the other 2 were engaged still, and the one in combat with wrong eye didn't hit. somewhere in there Wrong Eye was lit on fire, I think by the same one that hit Croe. The Mammoth killed the Bone Chicken and put up counterblast. the agonizer moved in front of Mordikaar, but didn't really have a plan.
Turn 4
fires killed a ton of stuff. I think one fire on a bane went out, the rest kept going. the important one was Denegra. her fire kept burning but left her on 2 health. wrong eye took no damage. croe died, the warwitch died, the scarlock died. at this point both of us were hurting. he had 2 health and was one fire, I had 3 health but had only camped 1 thinking I was safe enough behind a wall of Incindiarii, a Krea and an agonizer. he had wrong eye, 5 bane thralls and 3 or 4 bane knights left.
he saw an opening that I had just missed somehow and went for it. Denegra used 6 Focus to give ghost walk to the bane thralls and wrong eye. the bane thralls moved up and killed the one Incindiarii in front of Wrong Eye. Wrong Eye charged Mordikaar and got in reach range. he boosted the charge attack and hit, damage was transferred. buy, boost and hit. Boost damage and killed Mordikaar...
Afterthoughts
I shouldn't have lost this one. I was well ahead on attrition and had his caster all but dead. I made a few different mistakes, that pretty much all come back to Mordikaar using up too much Fury. early game I should have loaded up the agonizer a bit instead of using everything on turn 1 for all my various spells. then the agonizer could have protected me from the arced spells on his feat turn. more importantly on the first turn or 2, Mordikaar should have put Banishing ward on himself. He should always have banishing ward if the enemy caster has any spells to shoot at him. especially when it's pDenny. I should know better. And finally, on my last turn there was no reason to spend those 3 fury on an essence blast. If I had just camped 4, there would have been no possible way for him to kill me that turn. I wouldn't be under her feat anymore and I had plenty of stuff left on the table to do a measly 2 damage to Denegra.
But that's what these test games are for. Like I said, I haven't been playing Mordikaar very long, and still have a lot to figure out with him. He's a really fun caster to play, and has some interesting tricks. He's a surprisingly good answer to cryx, which I honestly didn't expect when I first started looking at him. I really want to make him work. Maybe by the time tournaments start rolling around I'll find a spot for him. probably not for lock and load, but for smaller events I think I would like to break him out.
Even losing this game, it was a really fun match. More fun than I normally have fighting Denegra. the Incindiarii get the MVP award in this game. Auto-fire is really really strong, especially when fighting against a lot of infantry and solos. as shown in this game, you can't rely on killing an enemy caster with fire, but it did do a nice bit of damage to her. it certainly forces the opponent to respect the threat, even if 90% of the time the fire tends to go out on casters!
Thoughts on the Mammoth
I don't really like the Mammoth with Mordikaar. all that infantry kind of gets in the way, and one big beast isn't really the way to go with Mordikaar. I would really prefer to break the Mammoth down into a Gladiator, Bronzeback and paingivers for my "real" Mordikaar list.
That said, the Mammoth still did well in this game, he just didn't come close to making back his points. he killed 6 or 7 Croe's, a wounded Bone Chicken, and half of Snapjaw. not terrible, but not a star performance. not that I was really surprised. Mordikaar doesn't have much to offer a Mammoth, or beasts in general. The exception is Despoiler, who will be replacing the Bronzeback in my normal Mordikaar list. it's going to be fun!
And, sadly, I never had a chance to Essence Blast the Mammoth onto Denegra... had I held out one more turn, that's exactly what was about to happen!
All right, we're down to the last battle report! look for my first game with Makeda3, and my last game with the Mammoth playtesting coming up later this week! After that game, I will probably not be playing the mammoth for at least a few weeks. after playing 12+ games in a row with the Mammoth, it's time to switch gears. Next up will be a bunch of Makeda3 testing with some different lists, then some serious tournament prep leading up to Lock and Load.
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