Circle v Trolls

On Friday I had my first game with circle after I’ve decided to actually “make a pair” and take it a bit more seriously.

Lists
Circle		Trolls
Bones of Orboros	Devourer Host	Storm of the North	Storm of the North
Thorle1 -3 Wold Guardian -3 Woldwatchers -2 Wold Wights Sentry Stones Sentry Stones Shifting Stones Shifting Stones Stoneshaper Stoneshaper Stoneshaper Wayfarer Swamp Gobber Chef	Iona1 -Ghetorix -Wild Argus 2 Max Tharn Ravagers -2 Tharn Ravager Chieftains Lord of the Feast Gallows Grove Bloodweavers -Haruspex Max Bloodtrackers -Nuala Brigid (Merida) + Caul Whitemane	Madrak1 -Glacier King Max Raiders Max Champs -Skaldi Bears Bears Valka Lanyssa Max Stone -Northkin Elder This has him 2 points under, I can’t remember if he had a 2 point thing somewhere sorry!	Kolgrimma1 -Runebearer -Bomber -Bouncer Max Raiders Max Champs -Skaldi Bears Bears Min Ambushing Pygs Fell Caller Max Stone -Northkin Elder Eilish

List choices: Iona v Madrak         Scenario: Mirage        Priority roll: I won the roll off and chose first

Apologies, this game has no photos as I hadn’t decided to start this then. But next time will be different 🙂

Deployment:

Circle

Symmetrical deployment

Lotf                      Bloodtrackers                                                             Tree

Ravagers            Merida + Caul, Iona, Big and lil pup, Whitemane               Ravagers

Ambush: Bloodweavers

Prey: Merida + Caul on Glacier King, Bloodtrackers on Raiders

Trolls

Raiders

Champs Madrak Runebearer, Glacier King            Valka Lanyssa

Stone

Ambush: Bears x2

Turn 1

Circle

Iona puts Surefoot on the right unit of ravagers, Phantasm on the bloodtrackers and walks up. Everyone else spreads out, ravagers and LotF ran up behind a forest on my left, everyone else ran out of range and bloodtrackers got up to charge next turn and spread right out

Trolls

Valka bases the flag on his right. Glacier king comes right up behind the raiders and puts up its animus. Madrak puts up Even Ground and moves up. Everyone else runs up, stone runs across to avoid Lord shooting glacier king and then taking a chunk out of them.

Turn 2

Circle

Bloodweavers come in on my right against his champs. Lord of the Feast misses a raider which would have let him port into Valka and try and kill him/contest the flag, ends up sitting in the forest twiddling his thumbs. Iona swaps Surefoot to Bloodtrackers, Phantasm to Merida and friend. The gallows strange growths to flag. Haruspex and 2 Bloodweavers charge into the champs, they hit all of them but only 1 does damage and he ends up spreading 6 around. Left side ravagers charge in and kill one raider on the far left, missing the other with a corpse boost. Right ravagers move up into walk threat range of the champs (who have the bloodweavers jamming them). Gheto Spiny Growths, riles to 4 and runs up to be mostly behind the cloud in the centre. Bloodtrackers go in and kill a couple of raiders, but one gets counter charged and murdered by Valka. Merida and friend, Wild Argus and Whitemane shuffle around. I end turn and realise both ravagers (and one of the chieftains, the left one) have several models in range of bears… oh no.

Trolls

The bears come in, one on each flank. Oh boy. My opponent contemplates getting the Glacier King to melee with either Ghetorix or Iona, and brings Lanyssa up to Hunter’s Mark the Wild Argus which lands. The bears on my left kill 4 tharn on that flank, including the UA. The bears on my right kill 2 because one toughed, but don’t get to the UA. Note: remember ambush, especially when you ambush the turn previously 😥 Madrak charges a bloodtracker with Guided Hand on himself and puts Guided Hand up on the raiders, then he kills a bloodtracker and Blood Boons Even Ground and feats to heal the champs back up. The Runebearer Spell Slaves a Guided Hand onto the champs. He kills all but 3 bloodtrackers with raiders and Valka, including a double 6’d quick work shot to hit Nuala and kill her. He then kills all but 2 bloodweavers with the champs. The Glacier King activates and drops Ghetorix to 12 health remaining with his gun. Luckily, one bloodweaver is left in his zone contesting it, and with Valka having wandered off he scores 0 and Circle scores 2 (zone from Merida and friend/Iona and friendly flag by grove).

Turn 3

Circle

After panicking for a while about how much stuff was dead, I realise if I score 3 I can win, and he has 3 raiders and a champ that need to get cleared. Lord of the Feast shoots the big guy and teleports over, killing one raider (it was the best he could do). Wild Argus charges into a raider and gets countercharged by Valka. He does enough damage to 6 to cripple the mind and leave the body on 1. Doppler bark and bites the other contesting raider to death. 2 down, 1 (+ a champ) to go! Merida and her buddy go and fail, wish I had those rerolls from the feat… Gallows grove ports up to be in range of the raider (couldn’t get the champ). Iona goes, walks up to the raider beside the flag, feats, stabs him good, then overtakes to b2b the flag. One champion to go! And the rest of the unit because of the sanguine bond… oh. Ghetorix goes, and manages to put enough damage into him to kill the whole unit and, after 3 toughs, puts him down on his 2^nd last attack. I score 3 and get up in the end. Phew.

Thoughts: First off, my opponent. Took my salt, my immense number of mistakes because of unfamiliarity (and to be honest rustiness with the game as a whole) and annoying personality completely in his stride and was fantastic throughout. Helped me remember rules, make better decisions than the ones I was going to, and yeah. Would play/10.

My army/play: Good god am I rusty! Need more games. There is no way Iona keeps what is effectively army-wide dodge from the CID. There cannot be, right? I mean I love it, it is just brilliant, but it seems really rough. Lord is as amazing as I remember him from Mark 2 when I used to play against him and was terrified, no idea what you circle players were whining about 😉 As for the rest of it, I really enjoyed playing a fast hard hitting list again after so many years of Khador (which when I played it wasn’t too focused on going fast, more about the grind). Can’t wait to play some more, and get my stuff painted! Stay tuned for some of the wolds I’ve made a start on, and the colour theme this army will be in J Next batrep to include pictures!