He brought his strongest list: Ossrum with lots of bunnies and dwarves. This one's given me lots of trouble in the past. I brought a Nemo3 Heavy Metal list. The last time I played this list, it had a Stormclad, but no units. I tweaked the list to downgrade the stormclad to a hammersmith so that I could add two min repair crews to help out with scenario. We'll see soon how that worked out.
Mercenaries (Hammer Strike)
Gorten Grundback
Grundback Gunner
Grundback Gunner
Grundback Gunner
Grundback Gunner
Grundback Gunner
Grundback Gunner
Grundback Blaster
Ogren Bokur
Ogren Bokur
Horgenhold Forge Guard (max)
Horgenhold Forge Guard (max)
Horgenhold Forge Guard (min)
Hammerfell Siege Crawler
Horgenhold Artillery Corps
Cygnar (Heavy Metal)
Artificer General Nemo
Squire
Dynamo
Lancer
Hammersmith
Firefly
Storm Strider
Lieutenant Allison Jakes
Thunderhead
Journeyman Warcaster
Firefly
Field Mechanics (min)
Field Mechanics (min)
The terrain included a train (obstacle) and its (rough terrain) track, a bunker which functioned as a hill and ended up not being relevant, and a small acid bath which absolutely was relevant. Also a big forest, a hill, and a thin bridge which functioned as another hill.
Deployment
We set up the scenario and rolled for sides, and he won. When he chose to go second, I immediately saw how the first three turns would play out. I'd run up on my turn, and this would force him to feat and run way way up. So as I was deploying, I was already planning what I'd have to do on my second turn. He'd be very close to the center of the map, maybe a bit past it, and he'd be under Ossrum's feat which gives +3 armor. I was really relying on Nemo's feat and all that boosted lightning to take out forge guard, so hitting him on his feat turn would completely neuter my alpha strike. Thus, I'd need to back up enough to prevent his dwarves from wiping everything I had out on his second turn. So I played Thunderhead near the train, figuring I could hide behind it if need be, and I placed Dynamo at the right so he could take shelter behind the acid bath. I was figuring that I could fire off the hammersmith like a missile, and if I only lost the one heavy, it might be a good trade.
Cygnar Turn 1: The Plan
I do exactly as planned, running forward as far as possible to hide the fact that I plan to back up next turn.
Rhulic Turn 1: The Feat
Ossrum feats, and I'm surprised when three gun bunnies are able to move up and pop boosted shots into my righthand firefly, destroying it. The lefthand bunnies roll poorly and don't fare as well against the other firefly, but still leave it on less than half its boxes. The rest of the Rhuls lumber forward menacingly.
Cygnar Turn 2: The Backupening
The storm strider throws a bunch of lightning, but Ossrum's feat plus Hammerstrike tough checks means that it results in very little. Thunderhead backs up to maximum distance and manages to take out two forge guard, one of whom was within the firefly's ionization radius. Then the firefly limps back behind the wall for repair, regaining its cortex.
The lancer runs into position, and Nemo force hammers the spray bunny through four or five forge guard, killing none, but knocking them all down, which was key.
The hammersmith is contesting the left zone, the lancer is contesting the center zone, and... crap. Nothing contesting the righthand zone.
Rhulic Turn 2: The Stagger
On this turn, the Rhulic army repositions - the dwarves move to put a full unit in the righthand zone, and gun bunnies into the center zone. The artillery corps with Fire for Effect hits the lancer hard, and then Ossrum moves Fire for Effect onto the Siege Crawler, which shoots at the Storm Strider and gets the critical stagger, which will turn out to be perhaps the most decisive factor of the game. The strider takes nearly half its boxes in damage this turn.
Gun bunnies shoot at Allison Jakes, but fail to hit her DEF15. This was probably a positioning mistake on my part - losing a 20 point model to three gun bunnies would have sucked. I could easily have hid Jakes behind Thunderhead's large base. There were no AoE attacks nearby, and even if a slam had been a danger, sidekick prevents that.
Mercs end the turn scoring two points.
(Rhuls 2, Cygnar 0)
Cygnar Turn 3: The Alpha
The Storm Strider is staggered. It loses its initial attacks. What does that mean? It's not like it can buy attacks - it's not a warjack. It can't charge? It has ROF 2, but I'm pretty sure it can't take one of those shots - they're both initials, aren't they? Sooo... the strider can either advance or run. It's completely useless. On Nemo's feat turn. Niice.
The mechanics move around, repairing the firefly a good bit and completely repairing the Storm Strider, then reposition back out of the way. Then Nemo activates to feat.
Nemo casts chain lightning, then shoots his lightning generator at the dwarves. Zzaap! Finch finishes off the last dwarf in that unit with her shot. Then, the hammersmith goes to work. Lightning shroud makes its hammers POW19 with e-leaps. It finishes off two gun bunnies and some dwarves, and Thunderhead pulses to auto-hit the bunny that's in melee, and uses the sustained attack to finish it off. Thankfully, lightning shroud makes the Hammersmith lightning immune.
The firefly and storm strider position to protect Nemo. This turns out to be my biggest mistake of the game.
Dynamo would really like to take out the siege crawler, but if he comes out from behind that acid, dwarves are going to wreck him next turn. So he takes out a bunch of gun bunnies, making good use of Nemo's bond to re-roll at least one set of snake eyes.
Great turn, and Cygnar is on track to win the attrition battle. Except... I've just lost the game.
(Rhuls 3, Cygnar 0)
Rhulic Turn 4: What?
The Rhulic army does nothing, scores two points, and wins the game. Yeah - I was actually shocked, not that I should have been. I'm an idiot.(Mercenaries win!)
(Rhuls 5, Cygnar 0)
Final Thoughts
- There are so many things I could have done differently if I hadn't been so focused on Nemos's feat turn that I'd ignored scenario. I could have moved the strider up to the edge of the zone and hid the firefly behind it. I could have allocated Thunderhead one less, then energizer plus walk would have gotten him 7 inches to toe two zones and pulse on a bunch of dwarves. I could even have sacrificed Dynamo, as it would have meant two fewer points to the mercs.
- I really do feel like my turn two wasn't a mistake - yielding those two points to allow me a better alpha. I just needed to make sure to contest all three zones every turn after that, and I completely didn't.
- I still haven't decided whether I like Nemo3. And this army is indeed weak on scenario. I may put him aside for a bit and come back in the future.
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