Both of us knew we were bringing somewhat wonky lists this game. I hadn't played Caine1 in over two years, and my friend's Gorten list was odd as well.
His list was called "Gortenball", and the premise was to have a thick wall of jacks surrounding Gorten, who would then be able to get him close enough to feat and send a jack or two in for the assassination. The odd thing is that the list gets zero free solos.
My Caine1 list was predicated on the idea that with Caine there to deal with infantry, the entire remainder of the list can focus on armor-cracking. I also had stormcallers in there for some reason, probably mostly because I hadn't used them in Mk3 yet.
Here are the lists.
Mercenaries (Hammer Strike) (Gortenball)
Gorten Grundback
Grundback Gunner
Grundback Gunner
Grundback Gunner
Grundback Gunner
Grundback Gunner
Grundback Gunner
Wroughthammer Rockram
Wroughthammer Rockram
Ghordson Driller
Ghordson Driller
Ghordson Driller
Ghordson Driller
Cygnar (Heavy Metal)
Lieutenant Alistair Caine
Sylys Wyshnalyr
Ace
Hunter
Hunter
Stormlances (min)
Stormblade Infantry
Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard
Stormblade Infantry
Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard
Storm Strider
Journeyman Warcaster
Stormsmith Stormcallers x3
Stormsmith Stormcallers x3
Firefly
Field Mechanics (min)
The scenario was mirage, and the terrain layout was unusual. This wasn't only our first SR2018 game, it was effing Mirage. In an unfortunate happenstance for him, my opponent was playing a list with zero solos and mostly speed 4 models in a scenario with three flags, and I was playing a list with six stormcallers and some very fast models.
In addition to this, the terrain was unusual. On one side of the house is an acid bath, presumably runoff from whatever is being manufactured in that building. But it makes hiding behind that building an iffy proposition at best.
I win the roll and opt to go first, thinking that I'd be able to get far forward enough to push him out of scenario entirely. My opponent deploys pretty centrally, and I spread way the heck out. We realize that I've got a lot more models than he does.
Cygnar Turn 1
The stormblades get advance move, then run - the left until behind a wall, and the right unit stopping short on a hill, since if they move any further forward then four of them will die to gun bunny shots. The lances run up with blur, and stormcallers stick to the outer edges.
Rhulic Turn 1
Gorton's jack brick lumbers slowly forward. One gun bunny gets a shot at a stormlance, but misses because the lance is DEF16.
Cygnar Turn 2
The two hunters take shots, the storm strider takes shots, and Ace realizes that both trick shot and thunderbolt are pretty much useless against this army.
The stormlances charge, mostly to hold the jacks back, and do very little damage. Stormblades and stormcallers on either side run to position. Caine wedges himself in a pocket between the strider, the acid bath, and the objective. He then takes a nap in his cozy spot behind the house.
The stormcallers move forward to take pot shots at warjacks in an attempt to land critical disruption, which doesn't happen. This, as it turns out, was a mistake.
I wasn't able to position keep enemy jacks out of the zone, but one thing I wish I could have done better is to protect those squishy stormcallers, as they're my only real flag-scorers.
Rhulic Turn 2
The gun bunnies take out every stormcaller I have on the board. All six of them.
The driller charges the storm strider and rolls poorly, leaving it on ten boxes. Gorton's ball of warjacks kills two stormlances and leaves the third on one box.
This is the first scoring turn, but with all the stormcallers dead and both zones contested, nobody gets any points.
Cygnar Turn 3
The left unit of stormblades wrecks a driller and engages both gun bunnies. Ace shadowfires the jack in front of Gorton and the hunter hits with a shot, but the boosted armor piercing shot fails to do damage. The repair crew brings the strider back up to nearly full boxes.
The stormblades at the right split awkwardly between the area above and below the wall, and do some damage on the heavies as well as engaging a single bunny.
Caine finds himself trapped. With the building in front, the storm strider at the left, acid bath at the right, and an objective behind, he can't move without running through acid or killing his own objective. I probably should have seen what was coming and run through the acid.
Rhulic Turn 3
I don't know if you've seen in yet from looking at the board state, but Gorton has a pretty good assassination on the table. I hadn't seen it. Gorton moves up and feats to move all my models to the side, which drags Caine out through the acid bath and brings his defense from 17 down to 14. Then he gives a driller strength of granite, which brings its drill up to POW22. A hit on the charge probably kills Caine outright. The driller charges, and boosts the hit roll, needing to roll an 8 to hit Caine. He rolls a four. On three dice. His average damage if he had hit would be 19. Caine was camping six, which brings the average down to 14, but that first hit would have allowed the sustained attack followup to kill Caine easily. As it stands, he misses the driller's initial claw attack and hits with the second drill, doing exactly 15 damage, which Caine burns down to 10 damage, so Caine survives with five boxes. I had no right to survive this assassination, even camping six, but I lucked out. He looked for other ways to put damage on Caine, but no other models could get there in melee, and even with the -3 DEF debuff from Gorton's feat, Caine had blur and was engaged, so was DEF 21 against shooting.
He does his best to salvage things. A gun bunny near the flag bashes a stormblade to death, Gorton's jackball finishes off the last stormlance, and gun bunnies get shots since the stormblades engaging them have been pushed far away by Gorton's feat.
Rhulic jacks move to defend Gorton as best they can.
Cygnar Turn 4
I had a plan to get Caine out of danger. Drop all upkeeps (Sylys was out of range to upkeep anything for me) then spend 4 to thunderbolt the driller away into Gorton, then teleport to safety. Turns out I didn't need that.
Ace shadowfired the jack blocking the storm strider's line of sight, then the strider's two boosted POW15 shots killed Gorton.
(Cygnar win!)
Final Thoughts
- These were two bizarre lists, and an odd matchup. Caine's feat was mostly useless against an army where the lowest armor value is 18, and I never actually used it.
- In the scenario widely considered to be the most live in SR2018, neither army scored a single point.
- I forgot to have my stormblades minifeat. It turned out to not be the biggest deal, since with the exception of the gun bunny's bash attack, every hit would have killed regardless.
- I need to play this Caine1 list more. I think I might remove the stormcallers though. With Caine1's feat to deal with infantry, they seem redundant.
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