Champions Tournament, Morghoul3, GenCon Prep

My last post mentioned a list of tournaments I had coming up, and the first of those came to pass this Saturday. It was a ton of fun with a lot of great people, and the TO from Rochester, NY came down to run it to make sure I could play - so Thanks a ton to Gail for all of her help (those on the West Coast might know her from her role as TO at KingdomCon).

I brought Morghoul3, and of course Xekaar, as my pairing. I haven't gotten much practice in with M3, since he's a bit infuriating to play into unless you're ready for it, and as such I wanted to get as much practice in with him as possible....

So, the list!

https://conflictchamber.com/#c9201bhS6U4x4C6N6vcvfF6C5V6c6d6hhV

Skorne Army - 75 / 75 points

(Morghoul 3) Dominar Morghoul & Escorts [+25]
 - Archidon [10]
 - Basilisk Krea [7]
 - Cyclops Shaman [8]
 - Aptimus Marketh [5]
Extoller Soulward [3]
Mortitheurge Willbreaker [4]
Swamp Gobber Chef [1]
Nihilators (max) [15]
Paingiver Beast Handlers (max) [7]
Praetorian Swordsmen (max) [13]
 - Praetorian Swordsman Officer & Standard [4]
Tyrant Commander & Standard Bearer [6]
Siege Animantarax [17]

Game 1:

Morghoul3 vs Lucant with a TEP and some heavies. Looks like a decent matchup for me, though his other list had double TEP - he didn't drop it in case I dropped M3.

Round 1-

I position up on the left with the turtle and swordsmen, where it looks like most of his heavies will be heading. I figure I need the turtle to ensure I keep contesting the left circle and hopefully use him to control the center. Nihilators take a hard right flank, coming up against a bunch of solos and the TEP. Marketh hangs out to the left of Morghoul - I positioned Morghoul to counter the TEP when in actuality I should have had Marketh more on the right, allowing Morghoul to use fury for things besides blinding. Marketh didn't have a lot of great targets for it, and this wound up being a mistake.

My opponent likewise ran up, his jacks coming down the left and the TEP screened rather effectively by solos. Let's see where this goes.

Round 2-

Decel is up, so my shooting isn't going to be super great, but the turtle gets a little work done anyway into some heavies. Swordsmen minifeat and go in - doing quite a bit of work. Unfortunately I had one go for a lucky swing into Lucant, which missed, where I think it would have been better to have had his attack into a heavy - further drain resources on repairs etc. Oh well.

My archidon gets enraged, and charges the heavy on the left, doing a good bit of damage into it and getting a crit out, knocking him down. The TEP gets blinded, as does the knocked down jack.

Nihilators run up to engage with his solos and mess up orders of activation. Swordsmen get toughed at some point.

You'll notice my pictures kinda suck here. Dunno why I keep missing them, but so it goes. 

I lose most of my swordsmen, and the Archidon. The engaging Nihilators get their teeth kicked in and my opponent feats!

Round 3-

Turtle goes in on a heavy that was badly hurt by swordsmen last turn and... fails (Super hard whiffs on the damage rolls). Also I didn't realize it had steady, so this sucks bad now. Blind stays on the TEP and the Nihilators wreck some solo face.

Morghoul and one of his ladies finishes the heavy the Archidon beat on. Blind stays blinding stuff.



                                 

I lose a few more of my jamming/screening models on the left, positive charge gets tossed out there, and the turtle goes down. I lose a few things in the center, but at this point I don't think it's going to matter much. I don't have anything that can really deal with a heavy besides Morghoul.

Round 4-

I have a way to get to Lucant. Morghoul can walk in on him and attack, hopefully killing him. I'll eat a watcher attack on the way in, and I can't get blind out, but it's worth it.

I run the shaman up to be in position for transfers when Morghoul goes in if I need it. Savage runs up as well- and triggers Watcher. My run is now gone. Morghoul kills another heavy and hangs out. Tep isn't blind.



Tep throw damage at me, positive charge goes out, and Lucant beats Morghoul to death. GG.

Learned quite a bit about Marketh optimization, I think, and kinda thought I'd be able to do more damage to the TEP with Nihilators. Needed to play more for attrition and this would have been a better match, which seems really weird to me for Morghoul3.

Game 2 - Thyron

So I'm playing into a regular opponent of mine, a Ret player who has a weird habit of trading assassinations with me - we once had 4 attempts in one game. Xerxis survived Ossyans feat, Ossyan survived 4 ferox under X's feat, X survived Imperatus, and it came down to pacman Tibbers. Was really weird.

ROUND 1!

I run my swordsmen to the left, hoping that relentless charge will get them into the zone when I need them there. The turtle comes with, because my opponent has 3 heavies on that side. I try to keep the TyComm centered, in case I need to stand up Nihilators or pathfinder or give Morghoul an extension.

Hopefully I can hang out in my zone, use Nihilators on the right, and make the left into a hell of a battle.

Halbs and sents all move up fast, coming for their respective zones. His manticores walk up and wall off the sentinels from the swordsmen. I see some issues coming for me, now...

Round 2!

I throw some nihilators deep in the zone, to try and keep him from flooding it with all of his Halbs and scoring bottom of 2 (if things go really poorly), while also putting an annoyance model into his zone. Swordsmen likewise move up to contest a bit, and the turtle lobs some shots at a Manticore. Don positions to go in next turn as needed, and Morghoul lobs a boosted Night's Reflection at the Halbs. Misses. Shit. Marketh positions to pick up some souls after Morghoul repos back to hide behind the forest. 

Ossyan comes in and takes out the Nihilators in his zone. Halbs turn out to be way faster than I thought, and take out all but 1 Nihilator who gets knocked down. I still have a chef in the edge of the zone contesting, though. He comes forward and doesn't clear off the swordsmen, and puts down the covering fire again. I'm glad the sents have such short threat ranges, makes this way easier...


Round 3!

Morghoul walks a bit and throws blind at the halbs, nailing it, and popping feat. He repos back to where he was. The lone nihilator stands up and kills 11 Halbs, leaving 1 alive in Ossyans zone.

Archidon gets enrage and charges the right manticore, doing good work. Marketh blinds the sentinels, and the turtle tramples forward eating a free strike from one of them, taking 8 damage. He then shoots and buys attacks, killing the right Manticore that the Don hit, and knocking down the other one. Swordsmen go in and kill a few sentinels. I score 2, going to 3-1.

I dun goofed. Thyron gets pathfinder from his objective, pops feat, and charges in. I didn't realize he got sidestep, I thought his feat was cleave. Oops. He kills an escort, sidesteps to Morghoul, and kills him.

Game 3, Feora3

So, technically I was list locked. However, my opponent asked for a serious game, and we figured fuck it, I'd drop what I would drop if I could pick. He had a ToM list with Exemplars, and Feora cleanser spam. Out comes Morghoul3, getting me some more reps. 

Round 1:

Nihilators get Mirage, swordsmen get ignored. Seriously, flame throwers, stealth isn't doing anything. They run up their respective sides while Morghoul throws up a Krea animus and sticks to the middle. Chef positions to take the flag next turn, shaman throws out a krea bubble and protects the Nihilators, and tough goes up on the Swordsmen.

Nihilators and swordsmen eat minifeats from the cleansers, losing most of the swordsmen and a handful of Nihilators (bubble really helped). Fancy jack thing walked up and shot Morghoul3 with a flamethrower. It kinda sucked.

Round 2:

Both units of cleansers eat blind. Morghoul pops feat. Nihilators kill everyone in the left, swordsmen kill the people in the zone on the right. Archidon gets enrage and beats up a jack a bit. Turtle charges it and beats it some more and taking it out. Turtle and shaman are positioned to score the zones, chef takes his flag.

Crusaders drop the turtle and Archidon. A cleanser contests the right flag. Dervish contests the left. Bleeding is temporarily staunched.


Round 3:

Swordsmen clear off the flag for the chef. After a bit of deliberation, we can't find any reason why I can't blind and decapitate an objective. So... Morghoul and an escort charge the objective, it gets blinded, and Morghoul kills it. 5-0, victory.

Afterthoughts-

I feel like I got a lot more of the playstyle needed down, here. Particularly when using a turtle without armor buffing and when it is my biggest beater. I like this list a lot, but it might have too many parts to it... Hard to tell, but I really wish I had more of a heavy presence than the Archidon, though it might wind up working out overall. Definitely going to keep it in my pairing for now, but I'm not sure what tweaks I might need to make. Overall I'm comfortable with it into most matches I think, I just need to increase my quality of play a bit. Only real way to do that is reps, so I'm off to GenCon tomorrow to get as many as I can.

Wish me luck, I'll try and keep folks on Facebook updated when I can, and I'll be sure to take pictures whenever possible.