So, when I got matched up with Sylvaneth, I was spewing. But, the match up was what it was, and I had to try and make the best attempt at it that I could.
Here's what I was facing.
Allegiance: Sylvaneth
Mortal Realm: Ghyran
Leaders:
Spirit of Durthu (General, Gnarled Warrior, Ghyrstrike)
Treelord Ancient
Branchwraith (Acorn of Ages)
Branchwraith (Ranu's Lamentiri)
Branchwych
Units:
30 Dryads (Battleline)
20 Dryads (Battleline)
5 Tree-Revenants (Battleline)
3 Kurnoth Hunters (Swords)
Warscroll Battalions:
Gnarlroot Wargrove
Household
Endless Spells:
Geminids of Uhl-Gysh
Prismatic Pallisade
Soulsnare Shackles
I knew that this game was going to be an uphill battle, mostly because all of my mortal wound output (Sylvaneth's Achilles Heel) is in my shooting phase, which can't see through Sylvaneth Wyldwoods. I was going to have to play my ass off to compete. The scenario was Scorched Earth, which is one that I'm very unfamiliar with, as I haven't played it in about a year and a half.
My deployment was pretty practical, leaving my fighting elements front and centre to have as much impact on the game as possible, where my forty Fireglaives and two Magma Cannons were given the task of zoning out my territory, to avoid having any unwanted visitors show up to burn an objective.
As Sylvaneth often need to do, my opponent chose the table side with two Arcane pieces of terrain, took first turn, and broke out from his castle on his middle objective, dropping five Citadel Woods across the middle of the board. He plugged up the few open lanes of fire with the Prismatic Pallisade. Soulsnare Shackles and Geminids made their presence known, locking up my Skullcracker and Taur-ruk, and chipping away a couple of mortal wounds. A few teleports through the woods put him on all three of his objectives and safe behind the woods.
Now.
I got the double turn from First into Second turn, and never have I played a worse two consecutive phases in my life. I got tunnel vision on the Wyldwoods, and got a bit frustrated at not being able to bring a huge chunk of my army's damage output down on my opponent. This led to some of the dumbest decisions I've ever made. And I'm not even talking foolish mistakes. I'm talking skipping over my movement phase almost completely, moving a single unit of dogs and going straight to the shooting phase. I left my two hammer bros, the Dairy Queen and Skullcracker squarely in the danger zone of endless spells instead of moving away from them. It was like an out of body experience and I felt awful for both myself and my opponent. And every time I missed something, I'd scatter myself even more!
Pretty sure, at one point, I was just staring at the table trying to work out how to even compete. I don't know if it was top-table nerves, fatigue at the end of a long day or the game itself, but I potatoed pretty hard.
The one thing I did right, was capitalise on a mistake my opponent had made. In his efforts to build a solid wall down the middle of the table to block my shooting (which he did very successfully), he'd left a gap down each flank where I'd very intentionally deployed my Warhounds.
In turn one, I lauched up each flank with the dogs, while at the start of turn two, the dogs on the right flank sprinted across what open ground there was to outnumber Durthu on his objective and burn it for two points. The dogs on the left flank were among the units that I forgot to move, leaving my opponent's left hand objective intact.
In my opponent's Turn 2, he unsurprisingly butchered the Warhounds with Durthu, while the whole rest of his army teleported around to stack his two remaining objectives.
At the end of turn two, I kind of caught myself and had to force myself into a bit of a hard reset. I was very aware that I wasn't playing my style of warhammer or enjoying the game, which more often than not means my opponent is not enjoying the game either. I had to kind of shake myself out of the funk, and give my opponent a game.
After clearing my head and actually focussing on what I could do, compared to what I couldn't, I started making some decisive moves. My hounds on the left flank finally decided to contest the objecitve behind the ruins. But with ten Dryads, five Tree-Revenants and a Branchwraith lurking, they were going to need some help. By weaving their way over the the central ruins between the Wyldwoods, the K'Daai (followed by the Sorcerer Lord) were finally able to reach combat, and slaughtered their way through the Dryads and Tree-Revenants to claim the objective and burn it for more points.
Realising that he no longer had control of the battlefield, and needing to make some bold moves of his own, my opponent came swinging out of the gates in mid-late game. With the Dryad's being able to make some pretty crazy daisy chains out of the forests, my Fireglaives were in for a fight, but after saves, and Blackshard Armour had done it's work, we were left with exactly the same number of models on the objective, meaning I still controlled it. To counter this, in the following turn, I retreated out of combat with the Fireglaives, to avoid any unwanted casualties (while staying within 6" of the objective), while the Cannon and Daemonsmith moved in to add to the numbers advantage.
The Taur-ruk was damaged, but still standing, while the Skullcracker had taken simply too much damage from spells and endless spells, dying before having any real impact. He was another unit I completely wasted, passing up the opportunity to move and charge the thirty Dryads that now threatened my objective. This was another example of a moment that just compounded my problems, as it was such a nonsensical mistake.
The big Dryad unit burnt my right hand objective in the following turn, while my centre was now under immense pressure.
The Treelord Ancient and Spirit of Durthu both teleported to threaten my middle objective, with twenty Riflemen and a Taur'ruk standing in their way. I knew that if the Treeman Ancient failed his charge, that Durthu was probably going to paste the twenty riflemen unless he rolled like trash, which would leave my Taur'ruk alive and holding the objective. Fingers crossed... His shooting attacks killed a couple of Fireglaives, but it was all for nought as he failed two re-rollable 9" charges with his two towering tree-people.
We started turn five, where my K'Daai turned their attention to the 20 Dryads on my opponent's centre objective, but time was called, and as we were only starting the top of turn five, we agreed to revert to the end of turn four to determine kill points and final results, as it meant that we'd then had an equal number of turns.
Having held two of my objectives and burning two of my opponent's, I claimed a major victory.
I was a bit disappointed with how I played in this game, on a skill level. It's easy to point at the end result, and question that statement, but those first two turns of the game were just bizarre. It's like I'd completely forgotten how to play. During deployment, we'd made a gentleman's agreement to play a tight game of Warhammer; I knew how tricksy Sylvaneth can be, and how games against them are often decided by millimeters. That ended up biting me in the ass in a big way, as I had to live with every error, regardless of severity or intent. If I forgot to move models, that was that. I was pretty upset with myself, because it wasn't like I was missing an intricate piece to a complex combo. I just forgot to move stuff... pretty basic mechanics of the game.
There's no denying that it was a pretty rough match-up. I fired a single missile weapon in the first three turns of the game, and I think I let that get inside my head a bit. There was also a degree of inexperience on my part playing against Sylvaneth. We don't really have many Sylvaneth players in Queensland, so seeing and playing them on the table is rare in the local scene.
In the end, it came down to those two lanes on each table edge being left wide open, and giving me a window to burn objectives with the dogs. Kill Points for both of us were very low in this game, just by nature of the match up. I came away from Game Three completely exhausted, but on three major wins.
Check in soon for a bloody Game Four against the new Khorne heat!
Thanks for reading,
Gabe
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