Testing Esoteric Lists: Gunny & Madrak2
Last night I was able to get an astounding two games in and as I was heading to my FLGS I decided I didn't want to just run the popular pairing of Madrak1 and Borka2, mainly because I've played a ton of Madrak1 already and while Borka2 is fairly new for me I have had a few rounds with him already. I just wanted to try some lists that were of my own design that I thought were interesting and possibly strong.
So in I went with a "pairing" to put down into whoever I was playing against: Gunnbjorn and Madrak2.
I'll tackle each list and the match up in turn.
Gunny
Trollblood - Gunny Goes North
Theme: Storm of the North
2 / 2 Free Cards 75 / 75 Army
Captain Gunnbjorn - WB: +28
- Trollkin Runebearer - PC: 0
- Dozer & Smigg - PC: 18 (Battlegroup Points Used: 18)
- Dire Troll Bomber - PC: 19 (Battlegroup Points Used: 10)
- Dire Troll Mauler - PC: 15
Hearthgut Hooch Hauler - PC: 18
Bog Trog Mist Speaker - PC: 4
Valka Curseborn, Chieftain of the North - PC: 0
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes - Leader & 5 Grunts: 9
- Stone Scribe Elder - PC: 3
Northkin Raiders - Leader & 9 Grunts: 15
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew - Leader & 1 Grunt: 2
I was really excited about this list since it seems like it can clear a lot of infantry off the board or shoot a heavy off the table. I've been dying to find a way to make the module of Hauler + Raiders work, and I feel giving them Snipe via Gunny or Grim2 is the way to really make them shine.
I put this pair up vs. my friend Brian who was coming back to playing Khador after 8 months of playing Circle and a lot of other games. He had Butcher3 with Jacks Galore and a Zerkova 2 list with lots of Greylords and a smattering of Doom Reavers. I really wanted to try Gunny and on discussion of the matchup it was clear that Zerkova 2 would get shot down pretty hard on the approach before she could really do any damage, plus most of my army is going to be Cold Immune, meaning he had to drop Butcher. Madrak is probably the better Butcher3 drop, but I wanted to see how Gunny would match up.
Brian's list from memory was roughly:
Butcher 3
-Wardog
-Berserker
-Berserker
-Ruin
-Grolar
Forgeseer
-Behemoth
Forgeseer
Eliminators
Eliminators
Mechanics
Brian won the roll off and elected to go first. Scenario was Outlast.
After running his army into position up the field on turn 1, I replied by feating early to avoid the Behemoth clearing out swathes of my Raiders and running to be just out of Brian's threat ranges.
Thanks to Dozer's animus I was able to get lucky drifts/boosts onto one member of each unit of Eliminators and take their gang bonus off the table. Still I was being a bit too timid by staying out of his threat ranges and I had blocked up my Hooch Hauler behind my Raiders making the order of activation awkward on this and the following turns.
On Brian's second turn he simply positions to threaten the entire zone and moves Butcher on to the central flag on his side. He moves Ruin into some rough ground for cover and positions both Argus centrally to threaten as well.
On my second turn I decide that Ruin and both of the Argus must die to take away relentless charge from Butcher so I can use Rockwall to try and control him plus the drags.
I'm able to kill both Ruin and the Argus, but it takes literally everything my army has to do it with. I made a mistake and failed to contest Brian's flag and we both go up a point. I use a Rockwall to prevent Butcher from being able to charge/move+impending doom any of my heavies in, so Brian elects to keep him on the flag for the turn and merely runs or sends in what Jacks he can to jam me up. He does clear one zone and manages to score it however. Still, far too much of his force is out of threat ranges and his ranged attacks don't do too much work on the Raiders.
At this point we start doing trades, and I'm able to tie the score on CP's, but I make a mistake with Gunny and move him too far forward to where he is in danger of the Butcher and I forgot to cast my Rockwall. I do end up decently ahead on Attrition, though Butcher can swing things back around had Brian not gone for an assassination.
Sadly for Brian his dice manage to fail him completely and Butcher is left engaged with a Bomber and Gunny in melee and concedes based on the fact that Butcher has zero camp and will likely get splattered.
In hindsight I should have lost this game on two fronts: First the assassination should have worked as a punish for my mistake, and second if Brian was simply more aggressive just running literally every Jack at my list, I don't think I'm able to effectively trade pieces and take what is necessary before the Butcher can come in and remove all threats to himself and then just seal the game from there. I'm sure if this wasn't his first game with Khador in 8 months I'd have been splattered pretty handily.
While I think the list seemed great on paper, it doesn't bring a lot of bodies to the game. Perhaps my feelings are colored by the matchup being bad overall and with better placement of the Raiders and Hauler I would have more game against other lists on the same scenario, but this will require testing and a skeptical eye to see how things are.
Madrak2
Trollblood - Madrak2 Toughallo
Theme: Band of Heroes
3 / 3 Free Cards 74 / 75 Army
Madrak Ironhide, World Ender - WB: +28
- Trollkin Runebearer - PC: 0
- Dire Troll Mauler - PC: 15 (Battlegroup Points Used: 15)
- Dire Troll Bomber - PC: 19 (Battlegroup Points Used: 13)
Fell Caller Hero - PC: 0
Fell Caller Hero - PC: 0
Eilish Garrity, the Occultist - PC: 5
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes - Leader & 5 Grunts: 9
- Stone Scribe Elder - PC: 3
Trollkin Long Riders - Leader & 4 Grunts: 20
Trollkin Long Riders - Leader & 4 Grunts: 20
Kriel Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 11
I was/am really excited about this Madrak2 list. My initial thoughts with the caster is to pretend I'm a MK2 Cryx player and jam in 2x Fennblades + 2x Kriel Warriors + solos and run screaming at my opponent.
Then I got to thinking about how while other warlocks can deliver units like the Long Riders, a unit I absolutely adore, no one really makes them hit any harder and while they're very strong, they're not going to just blow up a heavy without any buffs. Plus the problem with a 40+ dude infantry swarm with Madrak2 is it lacks basically any relevant guns and it's not very hard for enemy shooting to continually clear off my infantry. Once the Fennblades have been hit, the Kriel Warriors will get out paced and likely shot up pretty hard. This would turn things into a game of "Who won to go first".
With the Long Riders I should still be able to chew through enemy models and also withstand enough shooting to do serious damage once the lines meet. Initially the list had two units of Kriel Warriors to back up the Long Riders, but I decided the list was susceptible to control and I threw Ellish in. With the extra points I upgraded my Earthborn to a Bomber to get some ranged presence which I really found to be helpful.
I played this list into Sean, someone who I've met but haven't played against. He dropped Skarre1 Dark Host into me:
Skarre1
-Scarlock
-Inflictor
-Stalker
-Stalker
Wraith Engine
Bane Riders
Bane Knights
Min Bane Warriors + CA
Darragh
Necrotech
Tartarus
Scenario was Standoff and Sean won the roll to go first.
This game ended up being a bit of a back and forth with some key positioning elements due to equivalent threat ranges on our Cav and my spacing models out properly to avoid a Stalker being able to kill multiple Long Riders without issue.
I won the game in the end, but part of that could have been due to the fact that Sean had deployed Darragh with the infantry units on the flank opposite the Bane Riders, so we shared a threat range rather than him having an advantage. He also apparently didn't know that Long Riders could slam models, and so I was able to eliminate all of his Bane Riders in exchange for sacrificing only one of my Long Riders. It should be noted that Blood Fury'd Bull Rush slams, when knocking the slam target into another model or terrain is very strong. Still Sean was very careful to only feed me feated on Bane Knights for my feat turn, and spaced appropriately with his other units in reserve to prevent me from getting too far ahead on attrition. I suspect if we played again this game would be much tougher and far more favored to the player who wins the roll to go first based on how each of our lists were designed.
I know I could play this list in Storm of the North to get extra speed on my units, but I think having Band of Heroes for the extra 2" and Takedown/RFP is absolutely crucial in the meta ATM. Right now Trolls are balanced in that we can either speed up our Long Riders or we can buff their damage, but we can't do both. I do think the unit has a lot of untapped potential, and since I own two units of them now, I want to experiment a lot with them.
Conclusions
After both games I am more optimistic about Madrak2's list than I am about Gunny. I am not sure how I feel about leading with my Cav up front, but I do know that making Long Riders weapon masters makes it so that they can easily kill any heavy on the charge with the usual amount that can get into one via positioning rather than not. They also are fairly well positioned to be able to handle infantry due to Bull Rush.
As for Gunny, I think he just needs more testing. It may well be that what I have is sufficient, but man does it ever feel like having just more units to be able to throw into zones is the way to go. Melee also just feels much stronger than guns at being able to do what is necessary: Jam up and piece trade, so as to allow Trolls the ability to play the Attrition game we're supposed to be very good at. Guns still have a lot of value, but it's more about being able to snipe out a key model in a zone or scalpel out an important support solo or CA/WA/etc.
Still, I really want to find a way to make the Hauler + Raider package work well, it just seems like it should be so good on paper. I believe Grim2 is the next place to look with them, but I'm having trouble rounding out a SotN list that I like that includes that module.
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