While they are fairly rare, I'm lucky that I can count on the Ontario Team Championship to bring all the joys of a nice big team tournament fairly close to home (6 hours drive).
This year, the event filled up before 'non-sponsored, non-premium' registrations even went live, to the point there were extra spots and an additional room rented for a whooping 38 teams. That's 190 warmachine players for you!
Major thing that affected the event: Circle and Skorne both got CIDs (updates to some of their models) and as a result were more popular, thus warping the meta and changing list building.
Now on a more Trollbloods-related discussion...
Not so long ago, I played one of my favorite opponents, Alain S, who played a Skorne list (can't remember the matchup) but in it, as is fairly common, were two Siege Animantarax. And while I can no longer remember the exact warlocks facing each other, I recall vividly seeing a turtle reposition close to a table edge after having shot some of my things...and as it repositioned I kept thinking to myself ''what wouldn't I give to have some bears in ambush to stop this nonsense?''
I think the following night I devised the following list:
The Borka2 List on Conflict Chamber
Trollbloods Army - 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Storm of the North
[Borka 2] Borka, Vengeance of the Rimeshaws [+27]
- Dire Troll Mauler [15]
- Earthborn Dire Troll [14]
- Earthborn Dire Troll [14]
- Pyre Troll [8]
- Trollkin Runebearer [0(5)]
Swamp Gobber Chef [1]
Valka Curseborn, Chieftain of the North [0(6)]
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (max) [9]
- Stone Scribe Elder [3]
Northkin Bear Handlers & Battle Bears [10]
Northkin Bear Handlers & Battle Bears [10]
Hearthgut Hooch Hauler [18]
I playtested it a couple of games, it ran smoothly, the bears did great (as usual) and the list could crack armor as is to be expected of a Borka2 list while having solos and units to score scenario (contrary to lists in POD) and with the Hooch Hauler it had some sprays and AOE to threat infantry.
I couldn't find a second list I wanted to play it with and, for weeks, considered using my Skorne collection and playing Zaal2+Xerxis2.
After an afternoon of playing Zaal 2 3xImmortals, I realized the prospect of potentially having to do that for multiple rounds in a tournament didn't entice me at all and while the Xerxis2 list from Alain S. was absolutely a blast to play with, it didn't feel as flexible and resilient as my Borka2's list.
Back to finding a second list in Trollbloods. With Circle Tharns and Skorne Exalted being what I saw as Borka's problematic matchups given they should be able to destroy my heavies without too much trouble, I looked into building an infantry-killer list that was not another beast brick and that might not auto-lose against Tharns/Exalted.
I came up with this, initially played as a Madrak2 list but last-minute changed to Kolgrima after a game vs Alain S. (always this guy!) where his Zaadesh cloud wall made me want to play Kolgrima. Had I had more time to practice, I probably would have tried something different with Kolgrima.
The Kolgrima List in Conflict Chamber
Trollbloods Army - 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Band of Heroes
[Kolgrima 1] Kolgrima Stonetruth, Winter Witch [+28]
- Dire Troll Bomber [19]
- Dire Troll Mauler [15]
- Trollkin Runebearer [0(5)]
Bog Trog Mist Speaker [4]
Fell Caller Hero [0(5)]
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (min) [6]
- Northkin Elder [3]
Trollkin Champions (max) [16]
- Skaldi Bonehammer [0(5)]
Trollkin Long Riders (max) [20]
Trollkin Long Riders (max) [20]
At least I had def 12 arm18 frontline that usually required a corpse from the tharn to be killed before the tough roll (unless its an Iona feat charge) and could slam enemy heavies out of scenario zones, a core of champs I could spray from and crack armor with and a mist-speaker+Bomber to snipe stealth and incorporeal solos without exposing Kolgrima.
After playtest, I didn't really like that many Long Riders with Kolgrima but it was too late, lists had been submitted!
The 2019 OTC: Montreal Rhinodons
You can see our opponent's lists here
Round 1: VS Team Bryan
Usually I'm team captain in charge of everything from paying the event to booking the airbnb to doing pairings, but this time I had my amazing teammate Simon do the booking while captain-in-second Felix got promoted to do the pairings. I ended up versus ''Big Bryan'' and his Retribution of Scyrah. That team had three Retribution players.Bryan had a Goreshade4 list with sentinels as well as an Elara2 list with tons of mage hunters. As one of my list had ''Takedown'' on infantry models and both of my lists could ignore stationary to different degrees, he chose to drop Elara2. I went in with Borka2 because that's what I wanted to play, hoping he'd drop Elara2 and my armor would prove too much for mage hunters.
He won the roll to go first, I chose the side with some rubbles to get cover from all his shooting while getting a forest to hide things behind if necessary. Despite having Earthborns, I gave him the more open side with water. At least I had a nicely placed wall to increase my Earthborn's armor to ridiculous levels.
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| My opponent playing his turn, top of 2. Notice the little mage hunter that ran to try and bait a countercharge from Borka2 in order to kill him. |
Bottom of 2, I managed to score 4 points by ambushing the second squad of bears on my left side to combine with the squad of bears in advance deployment to clear that zone completely. My Hooch Hauler destroyed the enemy objective and then, as I was sad I placed it just outside of the left zone, I remembered it had repo 3 so it went back in to score a second point. On the right, not too sure how I did it but the Runebearer ran to the flag to help score a third point...upon seing the picture, I really don't remember how I managed to score that zone so maybe it was just 3 points to 0. (my bears also contested his flag) Feat from Borka was up, he was camping at least two in the rubbles to be safe from asssassination.
I don't recall most of the game other than the fact I managed to get a lead in scenario of at least 2 points for most of it until it finished on turn 7 with an 11-9 scenario victory for my opponent. The tipping point was when the bear contesting his flag died as he could suddenly score there while his infantry prevented me from scoring both zones. The Hooch Hauler died like it lived: on a fire damage roll that did exactly five points of damage due to the Phoenix with ''Scything Touch'' being in melee with it. He had one light jack (I destroyed his Phoenix after a Borka2's countercharge smited it away from trying to kill an earthborn) and still enough infantry on the table to continually disrupt my scenario victory until he could start scoring and win.
Great game, great opponent, despite a loss I had tons of fun and a great way to start the tournament.
Our team lost this round 2-3.
Round 2: VS Continuous Beer
I got paired into another Retribution player, Mat Dussiaume. Their team chose to have me face their player with Goreshade4.
I dropped Borka2 again as this time I couldn't afford to drop Kolgrima into Kaelyssa and her 'Phantom Hunters'. Which he dropped as he told me his Goreshade4 list had not been entered properly by his captain (weird, the same thing happened to us last year with one of our Grymkin lists!!) and as a result he wasn't at 75pts, was missing a Sentinel UA as well as some solos.
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| As you can see, my Earthborns were absolutely mighty happy! |
If I recall, I made very little scenario point but had a lead of 2-0 if not more until he clocked trying to assassinate Borka2 with some infiltrators and some shots from his heavy jacks.
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| Hero Gobber Chef |
Shoutout to the HERO Gobber Chef! This little dude killed singlehandedly a Mage Hunter Assassin in melee...with his mat of 4. Over two turns. Talk about some hot dice!
Once again, great opponent to play with and a fun game to boot! I felt sorry for my opponent who was sick and kept coughing because the amount of noise in the room must have made it torture for him to raise his voice and speak.
Our team lost 2-3 with our opponents graciously offering us a free drink (apple cider!) from the bar! Into the ''Funnier Bracket'' we go!
Round 3: VS Reech's Angels
I got dropped into a Cygnar player, Dan VK, playing Stryker3 and Stryker1. The Stryker3 list most likely would have destroyed my Borka2 list so I chose to drop Kolgrima.
He won the roll but I think he let me go first.
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| Bottom of 1. Trolls went first. |
He forgot to feat on his turn 1 resulting in me destroying a Firefly with some Long Riders and scratching the paint of his arcane-shielded Storm Striders. I feated top of 2, catching both his Striders and his colossal, ran the Bog Trog Mist Speaker (not in the picture) on the left flag and, at the end of his turn where he killed maybe one Long Rider, scored 2 points.
On my turn, as he had nothing that could contest my flag nor my zone with the Mauler, I just send in Champions on his Hurricane, did some minor damage (Stryker1's Feat was up) and sent in more Long Riders on his Battle Engines just to jam. I left Kolgrima outside 4'' from all of my other models and wrapped her in a cloud wall so no lign of sight could be drawn from his side of the table. The Mist Speaker dropped a cloud on himself to become stealth. Scored another 4 points.
On his turn he couldn't shoot the stealthed Mist Speaker nor kill Kolgrima. He killed a champion and another Long Rider and I won 6-0 giving 0 army points destroyed.
My opponent was, once again, super fun to play with but he was obviously tired from the day as at some point, trying to repair one of his battle engines, he started adding damage to it (I saw it and told him). Kolgrima was just a great drop into his list not only because the Feat and cloud wall were amazing but also because the Long Riders were almost immune to regular electro-leaps, couldn't be trampled, couldn't be pushed by the Hurricane and jammed him to victory.
Our team managed to get 2 more victories for a 1-2 tournament score at end of day 1.
--- Food Interlude ---
Travelling in another city? Might as well take that opportunity to discover new restaurants instead of eating junk food the whole weekend. Felix reserved for us at Momofuku's Noodle Bar. The food was delicious.
Milk Bar's desserts were overhyped in my opinion. The 'Crack Pie' being very reminiscent of a kouign amann (French butter cake) in taste betraying tons of sugar and butter as main ingredients (still good).
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| Sorry for the picture quality, my poor phone was on 3% battery with all the warroom use during the day. |
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| Doesn't look like a Kouign Amann, tastes a little like it. |
Round 4: VS SWORM Haven
I believe the Rhinodons faced a SWORM team last year and that we had lost. Time for revenge!
I got paired into Alex Bond and his Menoth with, once again, a table making me quite happy.
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| I mean, look how happy these Earthborns are on this table. |
I think he won the dice roll and chose to go first, leaving me the choice of taking the super Earthborn-friendly side.
On turn two I ambushed the jack on the left side with the ambush bears paying attention to block him on the house so he could not 'enliven' away. I finished it with the AD bears. I'm pretty sure I destroyed my opponent's objective with the Hooch Hauler (if I didn't, I did tons of damage to it at least) and scored my rectangular zone and the leftside circle zone while contesting all the other zones.
His list had the Covenant of Menoth which is a problem for Borka's Feat so I tried to position my thing as to reduce the amount of models he could shield from stationary. On his turn 3 he feated with Amon, ramped up synergy on my Hooch Hauler a little and killed my Earthborn that had tiptoed into his zone. He couldn't kill more.
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| Hero Gobber Chef is at it again! Sacrificing his life to gain some precious time/scenario points. |
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| Doing a two-handed throw on the Crusader wasnt such a good idea when the Covenant of Menoth prevents it from being knocked down. |
My teammates managed to pull out two other wins for our second won round of the tournament.
Round 5: VS Kreoss Fried Griffon
We loved the team name, hated the lists.
I got paired into Joe Wheaton's minions, which I think was a good matchup for me. Most likely due to all my snacking and takedown he chose his Rask list instead of his Maelok list. I dropped Borka2 not for any other reason than that this is what I wanted to play. Also his Rask list looked super assassination-oriented and I didn't want to risk Kolgrima and her grandma defensive stats when I have a def16* arm22* warlock available. (* certain conditions apply ;))
He won the roll to go first and chose to do so. They unfortunately did not assign me a crazy good table for my Earthborns. I chose the side with some water so I could boost their defense.
On his turn one he ran. I did almost the same thing except that I moved my bears within walking distance of his Wrastler and Rorsh/Brine expecting a Rask Feat and I used Borka's Feat to deny/mitigate the alpha.
On his turn two he did Feat with Rask and created a cloud wall using Veil of Mists + the cloud from Mire. He used his Mist Speaker and an Ironback Spitter to shoot my Hooch Hauler and forced both Ironback Spitters to do their animus.
On my turn two I activated my stone, created their aura and used the 'no continuous effect' elder bonus. Moved the Hooch Hauler in the cloud wall to shoot at the objective and destroy it. I missed all the sprays that could have hit Rask but that wasn't the goal anyways.
I trampled an Earthborn that had received a free ''attuned spirit Northkin'' rage from Borka2 in order to reach Brine and kill it. Missed the last attack (despite the veteran leader bonus from the Hooch Hauler) that would have done the job.
My bears had no good ambush target and stayed outside the map (my opponent was probably the best at not providing me any good charge angle/targets). The AD bears tried to damage a Wrastler to no great effect as on his third turn my opponent healed it.
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| Bottom of One, Feat! |
Using Fury and Rage, my opponent sent in a Swamp Horror to delete one of my Earthborn and damage the Hooch Hauler. Brine did the same thing to the other Earthborn and the Wrastler killed some Bears. Dahlia camped on the right circular zone and, to my horror, was immune to pretty much everything except the Hooch Hauler (which had better things to do than miss shots at her.)
Fire damage on the turtles and most of my opponent's army was slowly gaining me the attrition but also eating my clock. And while I was able to send in a Raged Pyre Troll (benefitting from the Hooch Hauler's Veteran Leader bonus) to deal with the wrastler and start scoring more points, my opponent started contesting and in-extremis gaining a slight scenario advantage despite some amazing Borka countercharges. My clock ran out as we were starting turn 7 as I was forced to do a fire damage roll.
Very tight game, once again, I lost but I managed to drag it to turn 7 with my opponent down to 2.50 minutes on his clock.
My opponent played his list very well, from the lack of any good ambush targets to the cloud walls, I think it came down to me not doing enough damage when I attacked on bottom of 2. I lacked focus and attacked multiple things, I should have made sure Brine was dead then the objective and then the Wrastler if there was anything else. Instead I did my attacks randomly and left everything other than the objective alive. Lesson learned.
Round 6: VS my own teammates.
As we had a 6 hour drive back to Montreal, my teammates decided to drop the last round (boooo!!!) and leave early. Four of us went to eat diner at a random indian restaurant named ''Hurry Curry''. It was very good.
On our way back, Felix hit a random pothole on the 401 highway which flattened his tire and damaged the rim of the wheel (hopefully not much more damage).
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| So we discovered the joys of changing a flat tire at night on an highway. |
Other than that, an absolutely amazing weekend!
OTC Thoughts:
My personal score was not 0-5 as I expected. Instead, I managed to do 3-2 with both my defeats being very close games so I was pleasantly surprised. I also played my warlock much more defensively than usual and tried to instead focus on attrition and scenario while denying any assassination opportunity to my opponents.My team finished 28th out of 38. I scored so many scenario points I find it surprising but strength of schedule is a thing.
Final Standings
Highlights:
-Absolutely great opponents! Not a single one I faced was unsportsmanlike or not friendly. A real pleasure to face and I'd face them again willingly! Hopefully they can make it to next year's OTC.
Cons:
-No time to eat on Sunday due to the tournament being more compact in order to let us Montrealers come back before midnight. It ran late anyways and most teams dropped which is sad.
Lists Thoughts:
Now that the OTC is over I'll be able to play some real jank, like Sons of Bragg with three sorcerers in them so they can benefit from the +2 damage fell call of the unit and shoot range 10 pow16 if I can apply a mortality or calamity.
More seriously, Kolgrima is amazing, my list is not. I knew that before going to the OTC and that list is simply the result of a lack of time to playtest and the fact I didn't think Madrak1 champs would be good into Exalted or Tharn. According to Dany and David (two other Trollblood players that went to the OTC), Madrak1 champs actually has serious game into Tharns (use the feat to heal).
My Borka2 list was great to play. I was lucky none of my opponents dropped a sea of weapon masters against it (could it be they feared Kolgrima's list?). The Hooch Hauler was amazing overall: from the +1 to hit to make my battlegroup mat7 (or even the Pyre Troll mat6) to Beer Wagon when I'm facing enemy battlegroups, sheer resilience at Arm21 under stone, to scoring zones and destroying objectives, I wouldn't remove it from the list.
Earthborns were spoiled due to the amount of water and walls on the tables, they also combined with Borka, the bears and the Hooch Hauler to make the list ignore most terrain. Immunity to elements was great into Menoth.
I wouldn't change the Borka list, it performed very well everytime I dropped it and, while a year ago I thought that ''Borka2 should be in POD for mulg and large battlegroup, SOTN Borka2 with Bears is a trap'', I've adapted. Bears did amazing from scoring zones to removing enemy heavies or trying infantry.
I would just need to find a good second list to pair the Borka2 one with.
Thanks for reading, hopefully you can make it to OTC next year!
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