Axe to mouf -- a win!

I was able to get a rare game in today. Two, actually. Since OC Graham's party was Saturday night and I wasn't sure what time I'd wake up Sunday morning, I arranged for my shift to be covered. And the promptly arranged a game. Mike said he wanted to face Trolls, so we scheduled a 750.

Silly me, I didn't take notes during the fight. I took pictures, mostly after my turn. I kind of have an eye deer of what happened, but it's gotten fuzzy now. So I might just end up making up stuff and rely on Mike to pop in and tell me I'm full of shit. :)

This is the Stone Scribe Elder. To quote someone else, "he will rock you!" I rolled my eyes when the comment was made, but in all truth, this dude kicks ass. That's why he has a fancy base.

This was deployment for Game 1. From left to right, I had Champions, Fell Caller, Stone Scribe Chronicler, full Kriel Warriors with UA and Caber, Slag Troll, Impaler, Kriel Stone Bearer and Stone Scribes with Elder, Bouncer, eMadrak, Fell Caller 2 (aka Juan Cinco) and KW (9) with Caber.

Mike won the roll and advanced his Cygnar. In order for there to be axe to mouf (you never go axe to mouf!) I knew I had to run my Trolls the first turn, probably the second. And so run we did.

Mike's Cygnar advanced. He had a Defender to my left, Sword Knights with Thorn as back up, Ol' Rowdy up front, Strangeways, Bokur, old man Nemo and the Squire (eeeee kawaii!) and Long Gunners with UA. As a Cygnar player, I understand there are many times where the models that fight for the Thundar Chikin will be outnumbered. With my Trolls on the board, this was exaggerated even more since everything on my side was on a medium base. It was a metric fuck-ton of models.

But see how far they got after Turn 1? It helps when your mantra is "run, Trolls, run."

By bottom of Turn 2, I had Cygnar all up in my Troll grill. On my left, the Defender was sticking it to my Champs. They did some damage but not enough. My unit of KW didn't like the looks of Rowdy. Nothing like a caber to the facehole to make you have a nice sit down. I think the Pile Driver was the only successful caber throw I had in both games.

If you take a closer look at the photo, Nemo is on his back. That's because eMadrak, thanks to Far Strike, ricochetted his ax off the Bokur and into Nemo. The bad thing for Nemo was that he had no focus and a boosted POW 17 isn't something you can live through. He did, then I popped eMadrak's feat and Nemo expired.

The game was over too quickly and we agreed to play a second game. Little did we know it would be a brutal affair, rife with horrible dice rolls, the Fell Caller Who Wouldn't Die and Long Gunners who more than earned their points.

Changed a few things with deployment for Game 2. This time, Mike had Thorn to keep an eye on Nemo. Ol Rowdy was also in better position to dish out some pain. Long Gunners would prove a good match for the KWs on my right flank. Bastards.

Mike won the roll again and went first. Team Pinky ran Turn 1. I think this pic was from bottom Turn 2 because the Defender is all the way across the board and the SKs have begun their defense of the middle. I think that's a Fell Caller engaging the Defender. If you look toward the Long Gunners, you can see a faint pink smear from where they ventilated Smiley, my favorite Impaler. Note to self: 11-man CRA to the face -- twice! -- is hazardous to your health. A moment of silence for Smiley.

... ... ...

I could have had the KWs on the right flank swing to the right of the hill, but thought I might need them for screening further down the line. They seemed to be enjoying listening to the Fell Caller tell dirty jokes from atop the rock.

This is Mike's dead Bokur. Those are the dice I rolled on damage. I wish I could remember how the hell I killed him. Knew I should've taken notes. But he was very dead. Of that, I'm sure.

[edit] Mike reminded me it was a buffed up KW who killed him on the charge. I wish I could remember which model, because he'd get moved toward the front of the painting line. In any event, the KW was benefiting from Stone Strength and Potency and hit the Bokur with a POW 14 on the charge.[/edit]

This is where Rowdy turned Trolls into bitches. He did his Quakehammer knockdown thing and pasted the hell out of Slaggy. If only Slaggy's hands weren't oversized, he might have been able to get out the way. Smiley B was pissed about Smiley's death and was able to hang on for a few more turns. I like what the Slag Troll is capable of, but I'm seriously considering dropping him for another Impaler or even another Bouncer. We'll see.

An absence of Sword Knights and many fewer LGs. Juan Cinco ran into the Long Gunners and another KW ran with him to engage. Two LGs decided to take it for the team and moved out of melee with Juan, who pasted both of them. But that set up a 9-man CRA, which Cinco lived through a total of FIVE times. Hence, he was dubbed Cinco. And Juan Cinco is just funny.

Down to the last of the KWs in both squads. Fell Caller 1 would end up running around the tree to engage Nemo. When he was able to attack the following turn (Nemo didn't do enough to kill him), he put a hurtin on the old man. Chain lightning (eat electric death!) and ball lightning made short work of my KWs and damaged eMadrak as well. He wasn't able to transfer damage at this point and couldn't use one of his troops to eat the damage.

I was able to move Madrak to where he had a clear shot at the Squire, which was surrounded by the KW standard and piper (hit em with your flute, Greg!). I boosted the hit on the Squire, pasted it and ricochetted into Nemo -- again a boosted POW 17. eMadrak notched a hard-fought win.

The character jacks are definitely worth their points. Rowdy was able to knock Madrak down, which delay the assassination run. The Thorn yo-yo is very effective at keeping the lil fella out of the way. Having Strangeways and Junior cast every turn and get Nemo up to 10 focus with the Squire ... wow. Makes me sad I'm training with my Trolls for the next few months.

And I've learned to love Long Gunners again. The UA is a must for them; the ranking fire and the additional shooter on CRA is quite nice. We're both looking forward to the Sword Knight UA; that's the one that will make it painful for me to keep playing Trolls.

I learned a lot. Winning does help, but just going through the motions and seeing what the proper order of operations is with those guys is huge. When I play Amon, there's a definite rhythm with the way I do things.  I'm slowly getting there with Trolls. 

Now to get them painted...