Deepkin is an army I've faced a lot, playing against Luke McFadden's army, and so I was pretty relaxed going into this game. I had a pretty good idea of what I needed to do if I was going to pull out a win, and I knew exactly what could go horribly wrong if I played a sloppy game.
The Sylvaneth allies were a nice touch, giving Jack an avenue to drop a woods and start summoning Dryads. I knew I needed to shut this down, and either zone out the woods or kill those two characters before they could have a significant impact on objectives.
The scenario was Startstrike, which is my worst nightmare against Deepkin. Typically, the first couple of turns are cagey, as both players see where the objectives land, and then turn three onward, all hell breaks loose. Unfortunately for me, turn three also happens to be a great time in the game for Idoneth...
I wasted no time in formulating a couple of kunnin' plans! The first was to buff up the two surviving Gruntas from the right flank, and pluck them out of combat with a Hand of Gork. I dropped them deep in Jack's deployment, hoping to make my 8" charge (thanks to the Ironjawz +1" to charges) into the Tidecaster. If I could kill her (which two angry pig-riders shouldn't struggle too hard with on the charge), I'd have two pigs to one Treelord and snatch the objective!
But alas, my dice had other plans... The charge failed and the kunnin' strategy wasn't as brutal as I would have liked.
Elsewhere on the table, however, pieces were in motion!
We both had pretty defensive deployments. I was confident that he wasn't going to just frisbee his Eels across the table, but I was mildly concerned about the Morrsarr Guard in reserve sweeping on and blowing away a juicy target. I used my 10-man Ard Boy unit and my three foot heroes to make sure there were no windows in my back lines to creep on, while the 5-man Ard Boy units held down each flank, giving my army some breathing room against any surprise assaults from unexpected quarters.
Turn one was a bit of a non-event, with the only event of significance being the placement of the Wyldwood in the middle of the table, with a unit of Dryads emerging from deep within the trees. My Ard Boys on the flanks shuffled out of the deployment zone to push enemy reserves even further up the board, but there really wasn't any big plays. Both armies were biding their time.
Jack won priority going into turn two, and handed it to me, setting himself up for a potential double turn going into High Tide. Fortune favours the bold, and in an attempt to force Jack to extend into the middle of the table, I managed to Hand of Gork the 10-man unit of Boys onto the freshly arrived objective that was left of centre in the middle of the board. Having 10 bodies, plenty of wounds and a decent save, the Ard Boys put pressure on the Deepkin to commit enough power and bodies to take that objective back as soon as possible, all while my Gruntas and Krusha looked on from easy charge distance.
At the bottom of turn two, Jack's reserves ripped onto the left flank and slammed into the Ard Boy screen, deleting the entire unit with no damage in return and without having to use their zaps! If I lost priority going into turn three, my nearby pigs were in for a world of pain... Now that he had played his hand, however, I could relax my screens and start making more aggressive moves.
In the middle of the board, Dryads and the Eidolon moved in to stack the objective with eleven models. Not content to let the gold be snatched away from them without a proper brawl, my Ard Boys made full use of the Ironsunz command ability from the Maw Krusha to make an out of sequence charge and launch themselves into the unsuspecting Dryads. The orruks started swinging and managed to deny the objective, chopping some limbs off but taking a few casualties in return. I was very careful to leave the Eidolon out of combat. I wanted no part of that!
This is when disaster struck! My worst fear became reality when Jack won the double turn going into the third, and I braced myself for the coming onslaught! The Eidolon was gifted Mystic Shield, which added to his Ethereal Amulet in making him VERY hard to kill. Free from combat, he leapt over the top of my Ard Boys to try and block the avenue, isolating them from the rest of my army, but thankfully for me, failed a 5" charge with a re-roll. Lucky! The Thralls joined the fight on the centre objectives, adding their two-handed blades to the conflict, and adding another heap of bodies to the mix.
The Morrsarr Guard, fresh from their kill of the Ard Boys, charged the rear of my Gore-Gruntas and wrapped up a Warchanter in the mix. The Megaboss on Maw-Krusha, not content to watch his orruk comrades be murdered, made another out of sequence charge and smashed into the flank of the Eels, wiping one out from impact hits. The zaps and the round of attacks from the Eels weren't nearly as impactful as either of us were expecting, and in return, the Gruntas and Maw-Krusha wiped the unit out completely!
The brawl on the middle objective was not going my way. The Ard Boys were holding their own in a fight, but they'd lost control of the objective.
Despite the success of repelling the Morrsarr assault on the left, things weren't so good on the right flank. The other unit of Morrsarr had also committed to combat and unleashed their full power upon the other unit of Gore-Gruntas, killing four outright and wounding a fifth. I chose to use a command point to keep them around, as I really couldn't afford to lose too many more bodies.
At the end of Jack's turn three, things were a bit all over the shop. Both our home objectives had landed relatively central on the board (mine in the woods beside the Shaman, and Jack's behind his home Shipwreck by the Treelord. Even with it being High Tide, I needed to pull out something special to stay in this fight. I was losing bodies fast, and even though my Shaman was successfully shutting down the Dryad summons, there were still plenty of Aelves on the table!
But alas, my dice had other plans... The charge failed and the kunnin' strategy wasn't as brutal as I would have liked.
Elsewhere on the table, however, pieces were in motion!
A plan was forming in my mind. A trick well known to Ironjawz players was about to be put into play. A trick that would completely bypass High Tide. In my hero phase, both my Gore-Gruntas and Megaboss on Maw-Krusha used their Mighty Destroyer (in the case of the Pigs, for free thanks to Ironfist) to charge the Eidolon. I completely forgot my impact hits, but that wasn't my priority. I had no intention of laying a finger on the Aspect of the Sea. I had other quarry.
In my movement phase, both the pigs and the cabbage dragon retreated toward their actual targets. For the Gruntas, this was the Thralls that were currently giving my Ard Boys what for on the centre objective. For my Maw-Krusha, this was the Morrsarr Guard threatening my home objective and my Shaman. All I had to do was sit just outside of 3" of each of these units and wait for the perfect time to strike.
Because both units had made a charge earlier in the phase, both were eligible to pile in and attack in the combat phase, so thanks to some cheeky hero phase charges and subsequent retreats, they could sit safely out of combat, bypassing the activation wars altogether (take THAT, High Tide!) and then pile in at their leisure to give some skulls a good ol' crumping. This is exactly what happened.
The Gore-Gruntas made their presence felt, trampling Thralls beneath their trotters and reclaiming the objective by a hair. The Maw-Krusha wasn't playing games either...
He'd retreated over to the right flank, and with Violent Fury in full effect, and an extra attack from Strength From Victory, he butchered the entire unit of Eels in a single activation! My perfectly laid plan had paid off! And victory was in sight, but far from safe in my hands.
By the dying light of turn five, there was not much left on the board! Turns four and five were spent trading individual bodies in two of the tightest turns of Warhammer I've ever played. Every movement was crucial, and every death costly. There were I had my home objective firmly held down with the right-hand screening unit of Boys that had spent the entire game running along to try and be relevant. But the two other objectives were changing hands at every opportunity.
It was an absolute knife edge game of precision play from both myself and Jack in the end, but when the dust settled, the Ironjawz scraped the tightest of victories!
This was an unbelievable game, and was unquestionably my favourite match of the weekend. Jack is an absolute champion and we were both playing an incredibly tight game from start to finish. He easily earned my primary favourite game vote. There were a couple of micro mistakes in each of our strategies, but I would have been perfectly content if I'd lost this game. It came down to single dice rolls multiple times throughout the game. The Eidolon failing his charge was a big tipping point, and my 'MD-retreat-pile in' move at the bottom of turn three saved me from complete obliteration!
Sitting on 38 out of 40 battle points after two games, I was headed for the top tables. But the air was getting pretty thin up there, and there are no easy games in the top bracket!
Check in soon for Game Three!
Gabe
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