The Harbinger of Menoth, a completely unknown lady to me. Normally, I only see the High Reclaimer and, well basically only the High Reclaimer. Also, there is no Judicator. I'm at a loss. What should I do to this completely unknown foe. She does, however have a huge flag, so she must be awesome. Well. Irusk steps up and brings his trusted Winter Guards list, which is detailed here.
Protectorate Army - 72 / 75 points [Theme] The Faithful Masses [Harbinger 1] The Harbinger of Menoth [+27] - Crusader [10] - Crusader [10] - Devout [9] - Hierophant [0(3)] Allegiant of the Order of the Fist [3] Allegiant of the Order of the Fist [3] Champion of the Order of the Wall [8] Champion of the Order of the Wall [8] High Paladin Dartan Vilmon [0(6)] Paladin of the Order of the Wall [4] Paladin of the Order of the Wall [4] Paladin of the Order of the Wall [4] Vassal Mechanik [1] Vassal Mechanik [1] Choir of Menoth (min) [4] Holy Zealots (max) [12] - Monolith Bearer [3] Idrian Skirmishers (max) [15] - Idrian Skirmisher Chieftain & Guide [0(5)] | Khador Army - 75 / 75 points [Theme] Winter Guard Kommand [Irusk 2] Supreme Kommandant Irusk [+27] - Marauder [11] - Marauder [11] - Marauder [11] - Greylord Adjunct [4] Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich [4] Winter Guard Artillery Kapitan [3] Winter Guard Field Gun Crew [0(4)] Winter Guard Field Gun Crew [0(4)] Winter Guard Infantry (max) [10] - Winter Guard Infantry Officer & Standard [4] - Winter Guard Rocketeer (3) [6] Winter Guard Mortar Crew [0(5)] Winter Guard Rifle Corps (max) [13] - Winter Guard Rocketeer (3) [6] Winter Guard Rifle Corps (max) [13] - Winter Guard Rocketeer (3) [6] |
Initial thoughts
This analysis is as always post-battle. I would so wish that I have had the time to do it before. It could have saved me from some of the most silly mistakes.
The Harbinger of Menoth has a tremendous amount of focus, 10 to be precise! This also means that she has a huge Control Area, 20" to be precise. This is not good, as she packs the spell Purification, which is bad news for Irusk and his favourite upkeeps. Also, she can cast Crusader's call, which give +2" move to her models charging in the Control Area. She also has a Command range of 12". Again, a very large area. Inside this area she automatically give a -2 to hit to enemy models through Awe; she can also use Martyrdom, where she can remove 1 hp of damage from a disabled model. Thus, she does suffer 1d3 damage. Finally, her feat deals a POW 14 damage roll and continuous fire to enemy models that end their movement within 12" of her. Oh, and she can't be blinded, knockdown or be affected by back strike. The theme, The Faithful Masses, allows for one wall (for her to hide behind, I assume), and give her 'jacks +2 to attack and damage, if a friendly warrior model is killed within 5" of the 'jack in question. So, basically she is quite hard to kill, but she might kill herself through Martyrdom.
She brings two Crusaders a Devout, and a Hierophant. The latter is there to keep her alive as he can heal her d3+1 each turn, and is that is not required he can basically add one focus through Harmonious Exaltation. He also adds 2" to the range of her spells.
The two Crusaders are, is guess the cheaper, and slightly worse Protectorate version of our glorious Juggernaut. A Crusader packs a P+S 14 open fist, and a P+S 18 Mace, which also has critical Continuous Fire. At MAT 6 and Khador speed it does not look impressive. But, they will probably have +2" to their charge range from Crusader's call, and +2 to their damage roll from the Choir of Menoth (see below), and they can be repaired by the Vassal Mechanik. So. all in all, not too shabby, in particular at 10 point.
The Devout is a light 'jack that adds extra layers to the Harbinger's protection. It has a Shield Guard, Defensive Strike, and Spell Barrier, which stops targeting Harbinger by spells if it is B2B with her. Pretty OK, but not dangerous as such,
There is an impressive number of solos in this list, 11 to be precise. In addition to those already mentioned, there are two Allegiant of the Order of the Fist, two Champion of the Order of the Wall, three Paladin of the Order of the Wall, and High Paladin Dartan Vilmon.
High Paladin Dartan Vilmon and the three Paladin of the Order of the Wall seems to be kind of a party pack. Primarily because he give Righteous Vengeance (3" move and an attack if a friendly model dies within 5" of the model) to the Paladins. Dartan himself is an OK solo at P+S 14 Weapon Master attack and Shield Guard. I guess the latter is the main reason to have him. Shield Guard combined with his ability to reach ARM 21 at 8 boxes if he forfeits his movement makes him a good one. The normal paladins are basically the same, just without Shield Guard, but with Critical Fire.
The two Champion of the Order of the Wall are some pretty hefty Dragoons comparable to our own Man-O-War Dragoons. They are Steady and Sturdy, so no Field Gun fun, and have Retaliatory Strike. Actually, they are quite dangerous, and somewhat difficult to remove. They can also charge stuff 15" away (assuming Crusader's call).
The final solos are the two fighting monk, or Allegiant of the Order of the Fist. These monks are annoying, flag capturing, tough, and hard to remove speed bumps. The will most likely be at DEF 18, and move about if an attack misses them.
Among the three units the Harbinger is bringing, is the ubiquitous Choir of Menoth. They are there to boost 'jacks, either by give out +2 to damage rolls, immunity to targeting by non-magical ranged attacks, or immunity to targeting by spells. Again, bad news for a list full of shooty stuff.
She also brings and full unit of The Holy Zealots and a Monolith Bearer. This is a cannon fodder unit, which unfortunately can mini feat and bring back models. They are probably also quite adept at killing Winter Guards by fire bombs.
The Harbinger of Menoth has a tremendous amount of focus, 10 to be precise! This also means that she has a huge Control Area, 20" to be precise. This is not good, as she packs the spell Purification, which is bad news for Irusk and his favourite upkeeps. Also, she can cast Crusader's call, which give +2" move to her models charging in the Control Area. She also has a Command range of 12". Again, a very large area. Inside this area she automatically give a -2 to hit to enemy models through Awe; she can also use Martyrdom, where she can remove 1 hp of damage from a disabled model. Thus, she does suffer 1d3 damage. Finally, her feat deals a POW 14 damage roll and continuous fire to enemy models that end their movement within 12" of her. Oh, and she can't be blinded, knockdown or be affected by back strike. The theme, The Faithful Masses, allows for one wall (for her to hide behind, I assume), and give her 'jacks +2 to attack and damage, if a friendly warrior model is killed within 5" of the 'jack in question. So, basically she is quite hard to kill, but she might kill herself through Martyrdom.
She brings two Crusaders a Devout, and a Hierophant. The latter is there to keep her alive as he can heal her d3+1 each turn, and is that is not required he can basically add one focus through Harmonious Exaltation. He also adds 2" to the range of her spells.
The two Crusaders are, is guess the cheaper, and slightly worse Protectorate version of our glorious Juggernaut. A Crusader packs a P+S 14 open fist, and a P+S 18 Mace, which also has critical Continuous Fire. At MAT 6 and Khador speed it does not look impressive. But, they will probably have +2" to their charge range from Crusader's call, and +2 to their damage roll from the Choir of Menoth (see below), and they can be repaired by the Vassal Mechanik. So. all in all, not too shabby, in particular at 10 point.
The Devout is a light 'jack that adds extra layers to the Harbinger's protection. It has a Shield Guard, Defensive Strike, and Spell Barrier, which stops targeting Harbinger by spells if it is B2B with her. Pretty OK, but not dangerous as such,
There is an impressive number of solos in this list, 11 to be precise. In addition to those already mentioned, there are two Allegiant of the Order of the Fist, two Champion of the Order of the Wall, three Paladin of the Order of the Wall, and High Paladin Dartan Vilmon.
High Paladin Dartan Vilmon and the three Paladin of the Order of the Wall seems to be kind of a party pack. Primarily because he give Righteous Vengeance (3" move and an attack if a friendly model dies within 5" of the model) to the Paladins. Dartan himself is an OK solo at P+S 14 Weapon Master attack and Shield Guard. I guess the latter is the main reason to have him. Shield Guard combined with his ability to reach ARM 21 at 8 boxes if he forfeits his movement makes him a good one. The normal paladins are basically the same, just without Shield Guard, but with Critical Fire.
The two Champion of the Order of the Wall are some pretty hefty Dragoons comparable to our own Man-O-War Dragoons. They are Steady and Sturdy, so no Field Gun fun, and have Retaliatory Strike. Actually, they are quite dangerous, and somewhat difficult to remove. They can also charge stuff 15" away (assuming Crusader's call).
The final solos are the two fighting monk, or Allegiant of the Order of the Fist. These monks are annoying, flag capturing, tough, and hard to remove speed bumps. The will most likely be at DEF 18, and move about if an attack misses them.
Among the three units the Harbinger is bringing, is the ubiquitous Choir of Menoth. They are there to boost 'jacks, either by give out +2 to damage rolls, immunity to targeting by non-magical ranged attacks, or immunity to targeting by spells. Again, bad news for a list full of shooty stuff.
She also brings and full unit of The Holy Zealots and a Monolith Bearer. This is a cannon fodder unit, which unfortunately can mini feat and bring back models. They are probably also quite adept at killing Winter Guards by fire bombs.
Finally, The Idrian Skirmishers, and Idrian Skirmisher Chieftain & Guide kind of looks like a Circle unit partisaning for the Protectorate. The have Advance Deployment, Pathfinder, Reposition, CRA, and Prey. They shoot at POW 11 (13 including Prey) for 10" at RAT 5. They could easily become burdensome for the poor Winter Guards.
Deployment
We are playing The Pit II. Khador goes first. We both opt for the Stockpile objective (remove d3 point of damage within 4").
Irusk deploys, more or less in the Empress' standard deployment pattern number one: Rifle Corps on each flank, and Infantry in the middle along with the solos. The Marauders are more distributed than normal, as there are two rectangular zones. Finally, the artillery is packed together in the middle.
Irusk deploys, more or less in the Empress' standard deployment pattern number one: Rifle Corps on each flank, and Infantry in the middle along with the solos. The Marauders are more distributed than normal, as there are two rectangular zones. Finally, the artillery is packed together in the middle.
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| End of deployment |
The Harbinger deploys with the Idrians on my left flank, and the Zealots on my right flank. There is also a monk and Champion on each flank. The rest is, more or less cluttered around Harbinger in the middle. The picture above shows the status just before the Advance Move by the Triple Marauders.
Turn 1
As always, the first turn is not terrible interesting. Irusk starts by casting Solid Ground, and Fire for Effect on the Field Gun on the right flank. He then moves up behind the small piece of rubble just in front of the circular zone. On the left flank, the Rifle Corps moves up in a very orderly manner, ready to shoot some Idrians. The right flank is more disorderly. The Rifle Corps moves forward ready to shoot at the Zealots. The Marauders move up on both flanks to be ready to score on the zones. They do keep back a bit - just in case. The rest of the troops just advance in the middle. The first round took eight minutes. That is about five minutes too much!
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| End of turn 1 |
Harbinger moves in behind the wall she brought tot he party. She also cast Crusader's Call. The Idrian and the Zealots both move up on each flank and toe in to each of the rectangular zones. The Choir sings Hymn of Passage (cannot be targeted by non-magical ranged attacks) to all the 'jacks. The Devout does it thing by moving base to base with Harbinger. All the rest, just moves up. The picture above depicts the situation at the end of turn 1.
Turn 2
So, the Choir will most likely keep on singing Hymn of Passage to the 'jacks. This is clearly annoying, as shooting them makes no sense. I have to admit that at this point I'm not completely sure about the capabilities of the Protectorate models, so I tread with caution. I have to lure everybody closer.
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| End of round 1, turn 2 |
Irusk upkeeps both spells, casts Artifice of Deviation on the left flank between the rubble and the zone (more on this later). On the left flank I carry out an experiment (never experiment when all premisses are not known! More on this later). I move all, but one of the Rifle Corps into the Artifice of Deviation circle, giving them an effective DEF of 16. The Marauder moves into the rubble. The adjunct uses Guidance on the left most Field Gun, which proceeds to aim at knockdown the enemy Crusader in the middle. On the right flank, the Rifle Corps moves forward partly into the zone. They the proceed to shoot at the Zealots. This is not particular effective - Harbinger takes a lot of heat through Martyrdom. Only three models disappear. Not a lot more happens. Most stuff just move forward. The picture above shows the situation after the first round.
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| End of round 2, turn 2 |
This round is still very much a positioning game. Harbinger stays behind her little wall. She recasts Crusader's call, and then Purification. This completely ruined my clever plan about the high DEF Rifle Corps on my left flank (I should of course have known this). Solid Ground and Fire for Effect also go away. Damn it, Purification is annoying. The Hierophant moves in and heals Harbinger. Everybody else moves forward. My left flank get peppered by the Idrians, and the right flank by the Zealots. The choir then again sings Hymn of Passage. I loose six Rifle Corps on both flanks, and two infantry in the middle. Harbinger scores one point on the left zone by toeing in a Crusader. Scenario score is now 1-0 i Harbingers favour. The picture above is the end of the turn.
Turn 3
Hey ho, let's go. The two armies are now sufficiently close for the super fast Khador 'jacks to join the fray. Irusk gives up on the whole upkeep thing since Harbinger trivially removes upkeep. He allocates focus to the 'jacks, so they are all filled up. He then feats. On the right flak, the Rifle Corps moves two troopers up to kill one of the Zealots, and the rest aims and shoots. This removes quite a few Zealots, except for the one in melee. The Marauder moves up and assists. This leaves the zone almost clean, except for one Zealot, the monk, and the Paladin - almost a success. The Field Gun knocks down the Crusader, and the Marauder continues to charge it. It attempts a Combo Smite with only a limited success. The remaining attacks are used on the Champion. It is surprisingly inefficient. On the left flank, the Rifle Corps get shouted at by Joe, and charge into the zone. The left Marauder charges the Crusader and tries the same trick as its brother on the right flank - with about as much success. The picture below depicts the situation at the end of the first round in turn 3.
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| End of round 1, turn 3 |
I forgot to take a picture at the end of the second round. However, Harbinger's round was surprisingly bad (for her). On the left flank she manages to remove almost all of the Rifle Corps from a combination of the Idrians and the Champion. On the right flank, she attempts to use the other Champion, the munk, and the Paladin to clean out the zone - she fails. All in all, it was a pretty good turn for Irusk, despite not killing a lot.
Turn 4
Turn 4, Irusk is in an OK shape. Harbinger has 9:57 on the clock. Irusk has 13:19. It is now or never.
On the left flank, cleaning up consists of shooting the Objective to kingdom come, also using the Marauder to get rid of the Crusader. On the right flank, the Marauder is in a somewhat bad shape, and can't really manage to do anything. The middle zone get almost cleaned out, except for one Champion (They are pretty difficult to remove), and Dartan, who just toes the zone. I was hoping for more. The scenario score is no 1-1, and I have a whooping 45 seconds left on the clock. The picture below shows the situation before Harbinger's round.
On the left flank, cleaning up consists of shooting the Objective to kingdom come, also using the Marauder to get rid of the Crusader. On the right flank, the Marauder is in a somewhat bad shape, and can't really manage to do anything. The middle zone get almost cleaned out, except for one Champion (They are pretty difficult to remove), and Dartan, who just toes the zone. I was hoping for more. The scenario score is no 1-1, and I have a whooping 45 seconds left on the clock. The picture below shows the situation before Harbinger's round.
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| End of round 1, turn 4 |
Harbinger moves her forces in to clean out the zones. She is very well aware that Irusk is loosing on time, and claiming points is always nice. On the left flank, the Champion cleans out some of the Winter Guards, and gangs up with everybody else to take out the Marauder. However, the Marauder digs in and stays alive. The story is the same on the right flank. The other Champion and what remains attempts to take out the Marauder. However, it is as stedfast as the its brother. Finally, in the middle, everything but Harbinger herself moves in - and doesn't really do a lot. So she ends the turn with 5 minutes on the clock and no more scenario points.
Turn 5
45 seconds left on the clock. I'll just go through the motions: 33 seconds left on the clock. The picture below shows the huge impact these 10 seconds had on the game.
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| End of round 1, turn 5 |
Harbinger is just looking for point now. She does what she can to remove models. However, she only manages to remove the middle Marauder.
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| End of turn 5 |
End of game. Irusk is out of time. Nothing her to see move along. Surprisingly, the scenario score stands at 1-1.
Final thoughts
This was unfortunate. Irusk was actually on top of this for quite a while. I was simply too slow. If I had had five to ten more minutes, I would have broken through Harbinger's line, and she would have been in trouble. I think I overestimated her feat. It will clearly kill Winter Guards. However, the Marauders would be mostly untouched. I think I did not read the feat correctly. It states that: "...end their movement inside Harbinger's command closer than they started..." (my emphasis). So it should be easy to keep the Winter Guards alive. Just don't move them closer. I forgot about the whole closer thing. I should have played even more aggressively.
Harbinger's build in ability Awe really hurts with the -2 to hit. There were several turns where the damage output was nowhere as expected. It could probably have been mitigated a bit by more combined attacks from the Winter Guards, but the Marauders doesn't really like having an effective MAT of 5 (it has been pointed out to me that Awe only works on living models. So either we made a cockup or I just can't roll dice). Awe combined with Martyrdom makes it really difficult to remove key models.
Finally, having immunity to shooting on the 'jacks (from the Choir) removes quite a lot of the punch from this list. There is hardly any knockdown on a stick, and the Rocketeers never really get to shine.
In hindsight, perhaps Sorscha and her Armored Corps would have been a better bet.
Until next time.
For the Motherland!
Harbinger's build in ability Awe really hurts with the -2 to hit. There were several turns where the damage output was nowhere as expected. It could probably have been mitigated a bit by more combined attacks from the Winter Guards, but the Marauders doesn't really like having an effective MAT of 5 (it has been pointed out to me that Awe only works on living models. So either we made a cockup or I just can't roll dice). Awe combined with Martyrdom makes it really difficult to remove key models.
Finally, having immunity to shooting on the 'jacks (from the Choir) removes quite a lot of the punch from this list. There is hardly any knockdown on a stick, and the Rocketeers never really get to shine.
In hindsight, perhaps Sorscha and her Armored Corps would have been a better bet.
Until next time.
For the Motherland!
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