For the first game, I was playing against Mats Aubell with Trollbloods. Both of his lists had enough protection against Ossrum assassination, and so I went for Damiano.
Mats chose Doomshaper 3, and this was his list:
Power of Dhunia
Doomshaper 3
- 2 Maulers
- Mulg
- Earthborn
- Axer
- 2 Storm Trolls
Free Shaman
10 free whelps
Min Stone with Elder
Mats got the first turn, and so I chose the side with less annoying terrain in the way, and with better access to the enemy zone.
Mats deployed with a skew to the right, and I did likewise, although I chose to keep a unit of halberdiers on each of the sides.
I didn't make a picture after his first turn, but he basically just ran up.
I advanced behind the protection of the cloud wall and put up Surefoot on trenchers and Road to War.
Mats advances very carefully and kills two of my halberdiers.
I decided to feat this turn to clear all zones and score four scenario points, or at least the left zone to score three points.
I succeed in doing that, but I forget that Mulg has admonition, and so I actually don't manage to put my heavies' attacks into him. I guess I was a bit tilted by this rookie mistake, and I totally forget to move my halberdiers on the left flank into jamming positions.
Mats feats back and takes out both of my Manglers and a fair bit of halberdiers in the middle; the purple nomad is heavily damaged by Mulg. He contests the right zone with not only Mulg but also two whelps. The left is contested by a mauler and an axer.
I try to do work in the left zone, but since my feat is already gone and his is up I can't kill even the axer.
With the protection of my feat gone and his beasts mostly intact, he kills all my heavies and most of my infantry.
Looking at the field I feel that it's time to concede. Then I look at the clock and see that he has four minutes remaining, and I have around twelve. I also lead by four points (he still hasn't scored a single point).
So, instead of making futile attempts to turn the lost attrition game around I decide to use my points advantage to clock my opponent. I run models around to contest zones in places where they are very difficult to get, and I run Damiano with full camp behind a wall.
Mats kills my objective but can't get to Kell. He kills Orin and all but one trencher. He kills all but two halberdiers (he could only charge them with stone models, and that's MAT5 vs DEF15). He gets to one minute on the clock.
I kill several stone models with an AOE shot from Damiano, run a trencher to contest right and middle zone and keep halberds where they are.
This means basically that Mats has to be able to score three points per turn to be able to win by five before clocking himself (he'd score three in his own turn, pass to me, score again on my turn and then run out of time and score again). But he doesn't manage to kill all my contesting models within the 1:03 he has on the clock. I win by clock.
Analysis
1. I think now, after going through the game, that it was a mistake to feat when I did. Attrition-wise, it was very bad. I only took a Storm Troll and the Earthborn. It was indeed very good for scenario, but I could have most likely scored three points without feating (killing storm troll and the objective is not too difficult for the two heavies in range).
In general, the nature of this matchup is such that I am able to jam very well with my infantry, in order to avoid an alpha from him. This means that I should be feating after him. With my feat on, I can still take two heavies from him if all my heavies are within striking range (always boost all damage rolls, POW21) - and then I will be in the position where my feat makes retaliation from him weak and leaves me on enough heavies to kill more of his.
Also, being in close quarters but having him jammed has the advantage of being able to counterplay admonition: I can run a halberdier around Mulg's back, and he has to either Admonition immediately or get another halberdier to block him - in either case my Manglers should be able to reach him.
2. Not using the halberdiers on the left flank to jam the heavies is a big mistake here, which gave him huge attrition advantage in the end.
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