Grim Experiment vs Mordikaar, Kriel-Fu vs Fist of Halaak

Today saw some intense fighting as I got to play both Calandra AND Hunters Grim in two very intense games against Alain's Skorne.
Despite my horribly fuzzy memory (lack of sleep combined with 8 hours of intense gaming), I offer you a battle report as well as tons of pictures taken from a phone camera!

Grim Experiment vs Mordikaar:

Scenario: Recon

Player winning the dice roll: Alain (choses to go first)

We did a 'two-lists pair' and he decided to play the same list he had used against me last week whereas I decided to give a try to my eGrim 'Grim Experiment' list.

My list can be seen there: Grim Experiment

Alain's Mordikaar list can be seen in this battle report: Kriel-Fu vs Mordikaar

Now my eGrim list is mostly there to crack armor so I wasn't too happy to fall into a matchup of recurring infantry. The good thing I had going for me is the fact that 'Mortality' not only is a serious debuff but also negates Mordikaar's 'Hollow' (giving though).

Skorne Turn 1: he advances.

Trollbloods Turn 1: I start an Assault with scouts on the Bloodrunners. Most of the army runs and gets into position. I make an Assault with some Northkin Fire Eaters. Minimal losses on the Skorne side (0-2 models).
I forget to use Grim's gun and misses a free charge for my Mulg, making it lag behing despite having given it the Axer's animus for fear of having a beast frenzying.
Pyggs burrow.

Skorne Turn 2: He engages the scouts with the Bloodrunners, some very light losses (0-1). He engages the Northkin with some Nihilators, once again very little happens. Tiberion and Mordikaar stay as a brick behind.
Mordikaar uses his feat. The Nihilators are still under ''Banishing Ward'' so I cannot target them with spell yet.

Trollbloods Turn 2: With what seems to be very little to no losses I begin my turn two very confident that things will go my way.
Mordikaar's feat is much more potent against this list than against my Calandra because the +3 Def is actually a thing I cannot ignore/bypass thanks to re-rolls. I decide to activate Grim and use his feat, he tries to place 'Magesight' but fails lamentably by missing an inch or so to get the Basilisc in the AoE (yeah I have no excuse on that one). He fires a shot at the Basilisc and hits: free charge for the Earthborn on that target.
Mulg activates, kills the Bloodrunner trying to prevent the Earthborn from charging.
The Earthborn goes there, miss the Basilisc with his attack and gets pushed away.
I fire the Snare Gun at Tiberion and forget he can't be knocked down.
I drop 'Trapper' from Krug (or Mugg? Or whatever their inconsequential pygmie names are!)
The Pyre Troll, being awesome, did much better and set the Agonizer, Tiberion (also named ''Tibbies'' by Alain) and  a Cataphract (his main target).
The Axer charges the Cataphracts to jam them...I think he manages to kill one somehow.
On the Left Flank the Northkin continue to fight slowly the Nihilators. On the Right Flank, the Scouts and Pygg Burrowers fail to achieve much more than killing 2 Bloodrunners...That weren't in the feat (that's why!).

Skorne Turn 3: A couple of Revive here and there, some Scout deaths on the Right Flank when Alain uses his Bloodrunners' anatomical precision to great efficiency. The Basilisc Drake shows up on the Right Flank and fire his deadly spray at the Pyggs, they loses two of their members.
On the Left Flank, my Northkin continue to resist the Nihilators, either by absorbing hits and not dying outright (thanks to having 5 life each) or by simply making though rolls when its needed. Being missed by some attacks helps too!
Cataphracts advance in the center area a little and fight the Axer, at dice -7 he survives while taking some damage.
The dead Cataphract comes back to life. A Bloodrunner somehow managed to throw himself in front of my Earthborn Dire Troll. (There should seriously be a Terror check for this kind of stuff!)

Trollbloods Turn 3: 
Scouts and Pyggs, team up and get rid of almost all the remaining Bloodrunners except those in the woods.
Northkin on the Left continue their struggle, one of them goes to engage Tiberion.
The Trapper Pygg drops a trap.
I shoot Mordikaar with eGrim and punch some damage through.

The Axer's fight in the center of the map. Tiberion stays back because Alain fears that engaging the Earthborn will result in losing 'Tibbies' to Mulg.

Skorne Turn 4: My memory is getting fuzzy. Too...much...gaming.
He kills almost all of the Northkin thanks to his Nihilators. He somehow kills the Snare Gun Pygg from the Hunters Grim Warlock Unit.
Nothing much happens as Tiberion and co are protecting Mordikaar/trying to stay out of Mulg's reach.

I think this is the turn where the Axer bites the Dust.

Trollbloods Turn 4: I activate eGrim, he shoots a Cataphract and puts Mortality on the Nihilators whose 'Banishing Ward's upkeep had not been paid.
The Earthborn eats Tyrant Vorkesh, sadly I have no more spells to sling at that unit this turn.
The Runebearer (yeah he was so useless until now I didnt even bother mention him) moves and casts 'Pursuit' on Tiberion. Mulg engages the cataphracts and eats them all...no more cataphracts...not even a single one for Mordikaar's to cast revive.
The 3 Northkin Fire Eaters and the Fennblade Kithkar slaughter the Nihilators and engage the back line that was getting ready to counter charge. Thanks to Mortality no though for them so I manage to fell six of them.
I drop a trap to avoid Grim from being engaged by running Nihilators. I throw the Pyre Troll at Tiberion to block one of the possible line of charges. I'm worried because Grim is sitting at 0 fury for transfer and my beasts are running hot overall.
I caused so much damage on this turn thanks to Mulg and the Earthborn that there is no coming back. My next turn will be a win as Tiberion is in a lose/lose situation.

That poor Kamikaze Pyre Troll. Now THAT is devotion!

Skorne Turn 5: Mordikaar puts 'Banishing Ward' on Tiberion to remove 'Pursuit' then casts 'Ghost Walk' to make Tiberion immune to free strikes and finally revives some Nihilators.
The Nihilators activate, attack the Pyre Troll and kill the poor beast...giving me three transfers (all the fury that I managed to leach for it). Now Grim is even less susceptible to assassination, especially since Mulg is right there with its 'Protective Fit' (makes a free move and attack against something that damages my caster).
Ghostly Tiberion goes in nonetheless, ignores free strikes, attacks Grim with a boosted charge attack, hits and forces me to transfer 21 points of damage on the Earthborn. Mulg moves and hit Tiberion....I roll so poorly I think I inflicted 3 to 4 points of damage. (a Pow 19 vs Tibbies' armor 19/21 with a shield).
Tiberion hits again, I take it. Mulgs rolls a 3 and misses his attack (he needed a 4 on two dices)
Tiberion makes a last boosted attack, and roll so much damage (dice +5) that even if I transfer, the feedback damage from the dying Earthborn will kill eGrim. Mulg is full on fury, GG!

An amazing game and a victory well deserved by Alain!
My list performed much better than on Sunday when I played a 35pts list with eGrim and basically could go nowhere. This list felt fluid and like it had a much better time against that Mordikaar matchup than my Calandra list did last week. This is in part due to the Mordikaar list relying exclusively on Tiberion to do the armor cracking and as such Alain played conservatively to avoid losing it to Mulg or the Earthborn as that would spell doom to the rest of his army.

I think Alain did an amazing assassination by removing the Pursuit, giving Ghostly and killing the Pyre Roadblock. Probably the best move that, despite being incredibly risky, paid off as had he instead attacked either  Mulg or the Earthborn with Tiberion he would have lost it and so the game as with the Cetrati gone Mordikaar would be too dependant on the Krea to provide fury while having no good option to deal with a Dire Troll.
On my part I didn't learn much other than Pygg burrowers might not be the best in this list, scouts were 'okay' and overall this list doesn't get an amazing use of eGrim's feat.
Maybe I'll replace the Burrowers and the scouts and throw in a Blitzer? Blitzers seem like a very fun beast to play with Hunters Grim.
And so, the Grim Experiment continues!!

Kriel-Fu vs the Fist of Halaak:

For the Calandra game, because it is 1:39 AM and my memory is completely burnt from not only sleep deprivation but from what was probably the longest game of WarmaHordes in a while (I think it lasted 5 hours as we began at around 3:00 and finished at 8:00+...) I'll just throw the pictures and comment them to try and remember as much while not writting a wall of text.

Alain's Fist of Halaak with Molik Karn in it.

My Calandra List.

A Northkin Fire Eater's dream!!!

Alain moved forward, used his feat to absorb the damage from my charge.

What I did was to use my reach to engage the less armored Cataphracts (Arcuarii and Incindiarii) and remove them instead of attacking uselessly the Cetrati (Def 14 Arm 22 under 'Defender's Ward')

Turn 4 Xerxis engaged the Bouncer. Now is the time for an assassination! I put the 'Rager' animus on the Bouncer with Calandra and keep all the remnant fury for rerolls, use the stone aura to boost the strentgh, use the Stone Scribe Chronicler to give 'Charge of the Trolls' to the Fennblades.

Wondering how that went?

I missed ALL my attacks. Only one hit and did medium damages that Xerxis took or transferred...irrelevant.

At least the Titan couldn't do much to my Arm20 Dire Troll Mauler.

Now Xerxis is in the fray again! He tried to kill Horgle but the resiliant little warlock has transferred much of it to the Slag Troll and both survived! Its turn 5 and assassination round two!

Calandra casts 'Rager' on Horgle and the Slag, she keeps three fury for rerolls.
Horgle attacks the Cetrati with his hammer, boost to get a crit, hits but doesnt get a crit. I use a fury from Calandra to reroll and get the Crit Slam....Fail to. None of my attack manage to finish the Cetrati

Forcing me to take a free strike to engage Xerxis with the Slag....and I lose both Mind and Body on that free strike.
I force to heal, roll a 1. Heal Mind. Make the first initial attack.. I need a 7 (Mat 6 vs Def 13) my Pow is 16 or 17 thanks to Rager and the Stone. I miss. Reroll...get another 6.
Buy an extra attack. 6. Reroll. 6
Buy extra attacks...none of them hit.

I conceded that game when he killed the Dire Troll, still had Molik Karn and a Titan as well as the cataphracts. TWO failed assassinations just broke me. I was so depressed when Alain gave me a second shot at killing Xerxis and the Slag could not roll a single 7 on two dice...out of 6 attacks and two re-rolls.
Xerxis had not a single transfer and I was at dice -1 for damage.
Oh well!! That game was a complete roller-coaster for my dice rolls with two or three double sixes being rolled in a row (I felt bad at that time.....and then later on wished they would show up when I could put an end to this game).
The thing with these failed assassinations is that I did not cast 'Star Crossed', dropping the Def of my army significantly and allowing Alain to finally remove my pieces whereas I had had the upper hand until turn 4 thanks to arrogant though rolls, vengeance and Northkin Fire Eaters killing much more than their point costs.

Kriel-Fu, My thoughts in the Fist of Halaak Challenge: 

All in all I am very happy as that Calandra Kriel-Fu list seemed to fare much better than I had ever expected it to do against the Fist of Halaak. Even against Mordikaar it had not done so well.
More games will make us learn if it can be reliably counted upon when it comes to facing a 'Meat mountain/Fist of Halaak' type of lists. But I am relieved to see I can at least go to turn 6. Some of it is due to Alain too conservative use of Molik Karn but the list has so far performed much better than anything I've thrown at it. The next test will be to see if my Grim Experiment can win!

Thanks to Simon S. for his suggestion of Fire Eaters and Fennblade Kithkar: they did wonders!
Thanks to Alain for the great games! It took a day but it was definitely super fun and he restored balance in the universe (ie: I did not win against him! :P)
Thanks to you readers for reading through that wall of text and making my 2:18 bedtime feel not so useless!