Alright so this one is going to be a lengthy saga. This game was vs Jake Wilstrop, famous for winning the biggest (?) UK Warmachine Con, Bonescon this year! He won that event with Haley3 in Gravediggers which is what he dropped vs me, playing Krueger2. I was pretty spooked, not gonna lie.
Time to see how good the new blood in the UK is I guess.
I won the roll for first and took it because Haley3 really doesn't like going second. My opponent I think actually may have picked the wrong side. The side he gave himself had a very limited entry point to the right hand zone, which I planned on capitalising on!
I deployed the Fulcrum on the far right so it could use the wall to not really have to worry about dying ever and I could use its shooting to reliably clear the right hand zone. Otherwise my stuff set up centrally, planning on taking the middle and right and contesting the left. Krueger was making a beeline for that house! My opponent deployed centrally with his AD skewed off to the left to accomodate the house on the right.
And we were off! Surely enough my stuff beelined up the table, with Krueger camping 4 because I have rarely gone first vs Haley3 before and was already worried about Force Hammer. Oops. Otherwise though I just went as far up as I could with Wind Storm up, the Sentries outside of 15" of the Trench Doggo for Noisy and got into position. No Express Teams was so nice, those things are the devil.
In my opponent's turn the trenchers got Tac Sup, made a cloud wall and hid behind it. Stuff mostly ran up the board. Haley made 2 Echoes as far up as she could but realised where she was relative to my stuff, the fact I had a Mist Speaker and my whole Battlegroup in a Stone Triangle. She wisely opted to camp 2 instead of cast Temporal Distortion, which probably saved her life.
I thought about assassination here. I could have Krueger get TK'd, walk into the clouds and feat, blowing everything in front of Haley away and blowing Haley into Hitch, before going for her with a boosted TK (10s) and boosted Gallows. Then my left hand Warden could get eyeless sight, trample and also go for a boosted Gallows on her or a boosted TK if Krueger missed his TKs twice, then I could port Megalith up, have him TK himself potentially if he needed more distance and swing on Haley. But with her camping 2 and me already having a 4 minute clock advantage I decided to wait and see what happened. I have a more detailed breakdown of this assassination at the end of the report, because I really am not convinced I made the right decision in not going for it.
To that end, I put Eyeless Sight on the Fulcrum and walked some Mannikins up. I managed to spray down the Trench Dog, kill some Trenchers and put Finn on 1 box and set him on fire with my shooting. I think I put 4 boxes into a Trench Buster too. I put a some Lightning Storm templates onto my Mannikins and feated on most of Haley's army, pushing away everything barring the Echoes and some Long Gunners / Commandos that were out of range. Wind Storm went up. A Wyrd walked up and popped Arcane Suppression. Stuff went in zones otherwise.
My opponent was pretty neutered by the combo of Krueger's feat and Wind Storm. Haley and her Echoes advanced a bit and put up Distortion. My Mannikins were cleared out. The models that could get into zones for Lightning Storms did so. A Thrall came down from Alexia and rolled the hard 16 to oneshot my Sentry Stone. Should have placed my Lightning Storms better. I believe baby Haley tried to throw a Force Hammer at my Warden and was unable to because of Arcane Suppression.
Well, time to start the scenario train. Plan was to kill the Ironclad and the two trenchers touching the middle zone to score 2. Shouldn't be that hard. I started my turn by TKing the Ironclad around with my right hand Warden. The Fulcrum, Krueger's gun and Wyrd on the right hand side left it on 1 box sadly with some poor rolling but it was on fire. The Warden on the left put a Lightning Storm onto one of my shifting stones that was between two trenchers, clipping them both with the aoe. The worst one for me passed tough, which meant my Sentry on the right hand side had to overextend a lot to go and kill that guy, as my Wyrd on the left couldn't get to him. Krueger cast Wind Storm and Undergrowth. Megs put up Undergrowth and chilled. My left hand Wyrd put up Arcane Suppression. Overall a rough turn in terms of dice. If the Ironclad survived the fire it would walk into my zone to contest, which I'd rather Jake didn't get to do for free. Still, I scored two.
Score went to 2-0.
Know what makes bad dice feel even worse? Your opponent getting good dice. The Ironclad didn't die to fire. My opponent had his Trencher Commandos minifeat and put some minor damage into my Woldwarden at dice -6 (bombs not being great due to Wind Storm). Alexia made another Thrall which charged the Warden and took him under half health. Big Haley feated and Baby Haley walked outside of Arcane Suppression and put I think a boosted Force Hammer into him for some more boxes, although he didn't move due to his Animus. Grandma Haley shot my Sentry Stone to death (stupid tough Trencher...). The Ironclad walked into my zone. Thorn with 1 Focus charged my poor KD'd Warden, and rolled the 13 he needed to kill him. >: My Wyrd on the right died to I believe just the TLGs.
I forgot to take a photo here.
Score went to 2-1 Circle.
Well, a lesson to you all folks. If a Cygnar player ever lets you have Thorn, you take Thorn. In the middle zone my opponent had a Trench Buster, 3 Risen, I think 1 Trencher and Grandma Haley. In the right zone was a 1 box Ironclad. My Stones shimmied up on the left and Megalith got Stone Strength. He murdered Thorn and put a Lightning Storm on the Shifting Stone, killing off the Risen. Krueger advanced and cast Wind Storm and Undergrowth, clipping the Trench Buster, Trencher and Grandma Haley. My Fulcrum aimed and killed Grandma Haley, the 1 box Ironclad and I think the Trencher in the zone. Pretty good activation. I think a Trenchman toughed somewhere from my Fulcrum and my Wayfarer charged him, getting into the cloud in front of Ragman and using Battle Wizard to spray him, he missed. I think he killed a Trencher though. My Warden hit the TK in the back of the Trench Buster and got him out the zone. My Wyrd shimmied and maybe killed a Commando I forget.
Score moves to 3-1 Circle, because I didn't have a unit in the right hand zone. >_>
Baby Haley slams poor Megalith out the zone with a Force Hammer. Grandma gets brought back. The Commandos charge my Wyrd, nickel and diming a bit with pow 9s. The Long Gunners put some damage into my right hand Warden and kill my Wayfarer. The Stone in my opponent's half of the zone dies. Alexia makes a Thrall which charges my Wyrd and I think misses. Baby Haley gets into 2 zones. Ragman gets into the right hand zone.
The Score remains 3-1 Circle.
Time pressure is getting real here. I definitely made mistakes this turn. Megalith advanced, used Undergrowth and I think killed some Trenchmans in melee. He boosted a TK onto a -2 Def baby Haley and stuck it, turning her around and putting her out of the zone. My Wyrd shot and I think failed entirely with its shots. My Fulcrum killed some contesting models and my Warden on the right TK'd a Buster out the middle zone and around. Sadly I had no way to get the last Risen out of the zone without exposing Krueger which, considering I was up on clock I opted not to do. Had I moved into the right zone I could have scored 2 this turn and gone to 5-1, but then Jake would have had an attempt to kill Krueger. Not something I wanted to risk, I decided to play it slow and wait. With that as my gameplan though I should have focussed on killing more models on the right and put my remaining stone in the right hand zone with a TK to move to 4-1.
The Score remains 3-1 Circle.
Baby Haley turns around and knocks Megalith out the zone with another Force Hammer. Some Commandos walk out of melee with my Wyrd, crucially one dies to the free strike and passes his tough out of the left zone. More models charge my Wyrd and it dies. Hitch runs into the right zone. More models flood the centre zone.
Due to the Trencher that passed tough the score remains 3-1 Circle.
Penultimate turn for me here. Megalith advances, casts Undergrowth and gives Baby Haley a dirt nap. He also kills a Trench Buster I think. He's amusingly on full health due to some duff damage rolls and him healing for 4 basically every time he could. Now he's in that zone and Jake is gonna have to deal with him AND win the game in 90 seconds. I debated trampling into the very middle of the zone but decided not to, instead opting to remain as far as I could from Alexia. On the right hand side I clear the zone, put up Wind Storm, clear some Long Gunners and Krueger moves right.
The Score goes to 4-1 Circle.
Jake has 90 seconds to take his turn and the next one. He thinks for a bit, I believe moves a few models around and then charges Alexia into Megalith, forgetting Undergrowth. He concedes with I think 30 seconds left on his clock.
For score purposes though I tell Jake we can count it as if he clocked, rather than concession.
Victory to the Circle!
My -GOD- what a game. Really hard fought. Enjoyed this game a lot, really fun matchup. Kind of wish it hadn't been a totally dead scenario though. Great opponent, would play again! <3 Was 4-0 at this point. 2 Rounds to go!
Right, something I really want to talk about. I had an assassination attempt on the top of 2 that I could have taken, ending the game there and then and I opted not to. Here's the run:
Roughly: Krueger with flight can walk over the middle building. The right hand Warden TKs him up, he advances and goes as far right as he can be while still being in the cloud, and keeping an angle of LoS onto Haley as he will probably push her further behind the cloud she's near. He feats, pushing her into the model under the green arrow (Hitch) before pushing Hitch and also shunting everything in front of her to the left. Then he attempts a boosted TK on her (8s with the Fulcrum, or 83.8%) with 2 attempts. If the first hits he can go for a boosted Gallows (boosted 6 or 95%) and try and drag her close. If both land, Megalith can port down the right hand purple line, potentially needing a TK first to clear space which he can get from the left hand Warden and arrive in Haley's back arc and kill her fairly trivially. If only a TK lands, my left hand Warden can be given Eyeless Sight, trample and go for a boosted Gallows (needing an 8, so 83.8%) to attempt to drag her closer to the left purple line, another location Megalith can teleport to. Megalith has some leeway also as he can TK himself after teleporting from the Stones. In hindsight I think I absolutely should have gone for this play as the only real situation where I don't think I get at least a 3 Fury Megalith onto Haley is if I miss both of the original TKs (which is roughly 1/36).
So my question is, how do you guys feel about lines not taken? I won this game, but I still think it was incorrect probably not to go for this assassination. I don't know how likely it was to come off, there are too many moving parts, but it feels quite good to me. With a caster like Krueger I think being able to set up runs like this is very important as they will often be far more likely than a long, slow and drawn out game. Testament to the power of Krueger, I suppose.
What do you think? Should I have gone for it? Can anyone work out for me roughly how likely it is to come off?
Cheers, and thanks for reading. This batrep is enormous. <3