eFeora 35pts v3 vs Steve's Old Witch

Had an ...interesting game with Steve last night. My first ever against the Old Witch of Khador! It was such a mess of odd events, bad decisions, and poor rolling that my initial conclusion was that we just had a Burn After Reading-like affair, where we were sure something definitely happened but no idea what to make of it. Thinking on it a bit more, there's a fair bit to be learned. Anyway, the Feora list I've settled on for now:

against Steve's

Zevanna Agha, the Old Witch of Khador

 - Behemoth
 - Scrapjack

Great Bears of Gallowswood

Greylord Ternion (Leader and 2 Grunts)

Winter Guard Infantry (Leader and 9 Grunts)
 - Winter Guard Infantry Officer & Standard

 - 1 Winter Guard Infantry Rocketeer

Winter Guard Mortar Crew (Leader and Grunt)

Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich

Manhunter

I won the roll off and decided to go second after seeing Steve's general lack of Advanced Deploy. The Redeemer is really only useful against AD Units on the first round. If Eyriss were on the board it would be worth trying to pick her off but with only the Manhunter, I gave it a pass. Steve deployed wide. Going from my left to right, he had Behemoth, ScrapJack, Winterguard (A line of dudes over a foot long!), and finally Mortar on the 10" line with Old Witch behind the Jacks, Joe behind the WG, and Ternions spread out across the whole thing making full use of their CMD 9.

I set up on my left, across from Old With and his Jacks. This gave me alot of space away from the Mortar, Great Bears, and some of the WG. Deployment was the usual brick. Two heavies up front, Redeemer behind and inbetween. TFG off to one side, support and Feora behind.

Steve moves everything up, converging on the right. Manhunter runs up the right flank.

My go I decide to try and shift my army laterally. I failed miserably at this, getting my support bunched up which would go on to cause problems throughout the game. Redeemer manages to kill one dude. Go Redeemer. Hoping to take advantage of the linear obstacle, I run the TFG up.

Steve moves everything up some more. Manhunter gets scary close. Big B and the Mortar try and shoot stuff but miss. They try and shoot stuff but miss every turn for the rest of the game so I won't even talk about Steve's AOEs anymore. Winterguard roll up and obliterate the unit of TFG. Rough. Scrappy goes right.

Support gets straighten up a bit but still isn't here it should be. Redeemer takes some shots and kills another singular Winterguardsmen. Go Redeemer. Forget if I moved my Jacks up or not. Feora roasts the Manhunter with her massive flamethrower.

Here's where it starts getting weird. Behemoth walks up to behind the linear obstacle. Khador's only arcnode runs up suspiciously close to the Templar. Old witch pops feat: Everything takes a POW 14 if they move closer to her and can't charge. Goodness. He arcs gallows at the Templar, hits. It's a d6 drag with a free attack. Steve rolls a 6(!), putting the Templar in a very bad spot. He makes his compelled attack hoping NOT to to do damage, as not to trigger Enliven. With the Templar's shield he's at dice-9, but rolls an 11. 2pts of damage and Templar gets to make a full advance(By the way Steve, I think should have taken a POW 14 here but didn't?) strolling over to within walking distance of the Old Witch. The Templar is in a very good spot. Winterguard and Great Bears curse Scrappy's melee prowess as they run to get in the way of the Templar. Witch pops feat, anything that moves closer to her in her CTRL takes a POW 14 and while within they can't make special attacks or charge.

At this point the game is mine. Starting with the little stuff, just because I can. Gorman tries to move up into the feat, just because he can, but doesn't survive the POW 14. Vassal wonders too close, survives, but realizes he can't special attack inside of the feat. Avatar gazes before moving up to engage Scrapjack. Redeemer goes Bear hunting and actually hits! Kills the one easy and sets the other two on fire. Go Redeemer. Everything finishes except for Feora and Templar. Wanting to clear stuff out of the way and get some fire for feat, I sprayed the Templar. Dice-7 melts off the Templar's flail, completely shutting down my win. Oof. Collect two focus for feat and set three unimportant things on fire. Disappointing.

At this point the game is Steve's. Behemoth wrecks the Templar. Winterguard flail at the Avatar ineffectively. Great Bears charge in to cripple the Avatar. Now I'm in a very bad position. Scrappy attacks the Avatar some more and then Old Witch teleports him back to her.

Feora runs up the left flank behind Big B some safe distance away. Avatar killed the Bears? Or he didn't, I don't remember.

Scrappy Gallows Feora, gets another 6 and drags her all the way over to Big B. Feora's base DEF of 15 will be hard to deal with but she's only camping 2 focus; don't think ARM 19 will be enough. Ternion Ice Cages Feora to bring her DEF down to 13, so much for that. Behemoth turns around. Still needs 7s to hit and surprisingly enough, he's only doing dice-5 damage. Inaccurate and pillowfisted, he still manages to put a good 7 points onto my favorite fire lady.

Somehow I survived. Feora firesteps over Scrappy, burning the ice wizard who froze her the previous turn and threatened some free strikes this, and charges the Old Witch who should not have been so close to the action in hindsight. Game Menoth.

So! What did we learn?

- Really need to practice my lateral shift. If I were facing a faster list, I would have been punished very much for that mistake. Thankfully since we both had attrition heavy lists and I created so much space away from his infantry with my deployment, I had some time to recover.

- Suppose this is more of an experience thing, but I need to better judge which hymns the Choir should be using. Stopping the Gallows would have been big in my favor.

- Need to learn wtf to do with my TFG. In this game they would have best served on the flank to tie up the Manhunter and then run off to engage Winterguard. They still would have been absolutely shredded in one go but it would have been at a more opportune time, where other options would be more desirable.

- Need to learn when to shift gears from offensive to defensive. I /should/ have pulled My Templar back with my Enliven. He was way too far forward. Without Choir support, the assassination run would have been tricky(9+ to hit, need one good hit, probably would have had to clear out a guy with an initial attack). It's so hard to play defensively when the heretic warcaster is so close.

List-wise I'm happy for now, no changes. One thought would be to drop TFG for Nicia and another Mechanic but that would be more just for fun.

Suggestions for Steve: Play 50pts! I really think you need a second heavy but there really aren't points for it. Downgrading Big B would probably be the best bet at 35 but that hurts.