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Post by Azahul on May 13, 2019 2:13:37 GMT
Round 2 - Team Victoria Natural TalentRound two continued with us dodging the really threatening teams. My team won the preceding round 3-2, which was a bit more shaky than we'd hoped, but we were still feeling ok about our chances. In what was a surprising repeat of the previous round, I ended up matching up against their Cygnar player and playing Arkadius into Haley2. Her Feat having the exact same wording as Stranglehold meant that she basically couldn't Feat until I'd already ideally gone in and removed most of her army, something I double-checked with my opponent that he understood. His list was: Haley -Centurion -Centurion -Thorn -Squire Field Mechaniks Jakes -Centurion Caine0 -Ace Strangeways Storm Strider Deployment I won the starting roll and took the first turn. I'm still not entirely sure why my opponent gave me the table side with a trench instead of the one with a forest almost inside the deployment zone, possible to avoid the Burning Earth. I deployed with Mire and the Wrastler out on the left, everything else basically symmetrical. He set up Jakes and the Storm Strider on the right, Haley's Centurions centre-left, and Ace giving them support. I believe both objectives were Fuel Caches. Pigs Turn 1 Arkadius cast Forced Evolution on the left-hand War Hog, Aggravator on himself (always important against TK 'casters), and moved and repositioned forward. Everything else ran, save Kwaak who made sure to Enliven both War Hogs before they moved since I realised I would be having them out in the open instead of tucked behind the forest. Cygnar Turn 1 Both Jakes and Haley allocated to their Centurions, allowing them to run and Polarity Shield. Jakes also cast Sidekick, leaving her on zero camp. Caine put Fire for Effect on the Storm Strider, leaving him on one camp. The Storm Strider moved up and shot the War Hog, doing a chunk of damage and allowing it to both Hyper Aggresive forward 2-3" and then jank off to the left with Enliven to hide behind the forest. With no other targets for the Stormstrider's remaining attacks, its activation ended. Pigs Turn 2 I figured that this turn I could remove the Stormstrider, both Juniors, and one of Haley's Centurions if I feated, so I decided to go for it. The Gorax ran up and riled first, so that Arkadius had Fury to Maltreat, and between my objective and the Witch Doctor I was able to get Pathfinder onto all the heavies behind the forest. Mire and the Wrastler put Rage on both War Hogs and one of the Road Hogs, and Arkadius used Raw Adrenaline on the more central Road Hog. I then Feated everything forwards. The Feat allowed the Gun Boar on the right to aim and shoot Jakes, shooting her off the table and rendering the Centurion in the zone inert. The War Hog in the centre frenzied into the Storm Strider, going base to base so that it would still be in melee range after being pushed back. That meant that when the Road Hog frenzied in towards the Strider as well and stopped upon impacting the War Hog's back, it was provided with a handy immunity to the push effect and could trivially finish the job with two Fury to spare. The War Hog on the left walked into melee with a Centurion and completely failed to do his job. I think he missed three attacks on the Centurion in total, leaving it alive with about six boxes and an intact Cortex. Rather than have my Road Hog join in, I instead had it Power Attack throw the other Centurion onto Caine, killing Caine with a super high roll on the Collateral. The Gun Boar tried to finish the job on the near-dead Centurion, but it was still sitting pretty on two boxes. I blanked on the fact that my opponent would be able to both allocate Focus and repair the damaged Centurion back to full functionality with Strangeways and opted to go for the fully boosted spray with the Road Hog to tag Thorn and Strangeways instead. Did nothing to the Centurion, left Strangeways on one health, did basically nothing to Thorn or the knocked down Centurion far in the back. Cygnar Turn 2 Fire on Strangeways went out, and failed to finish off the near-dead Centurion. Haley loaded both her 'jacks up with Focus and Feated. She TK'd the Forced Evo'd War Hog around. Strangways repaired the near-dead Centurion to get its arms online, and it stabbed the Forced Evo'd War Hog in the back. He immediately triggered the Critical Sustained Attack, so my cute trick of using Hyper Aggressive to turn back did nothing. The Centurion left the War Hog near-dead. The Centurion responsible for landing on Caine charged into the Road Hog on the left and did quite a number on it, but couldn't quite get into the zone to contest. Thorn moved into the zone instead, finishing the job on the Forced Evo'd War Hog but largely bouncing off the Road Hog. Because my opponent's Centurion on the right was inert, I scored 2 CP in his turn to bring the score to 2-0. Pigs Turn 3 I just needed to destroy my opponent's objectives to win. I dropped my upkeeps. Both Gun Boars were in range, so they dropped it to a handful of boxes. Arkadius finished the job with a Primal Shock. For good measure I used a throw Power Attack on Thorn to toss him out of the left-hand zone, so I could score it too, and I put the near-dead Centurion in the dirt to get some points destroyed. Another tough match-up for my opponent, due in no small part to the same rules interaction. In spite of failing to deal with Haley's Centurions, I killed exactly the models I needed to kill to get myself into a game winning position. I think my opponent was always going to struggle to do anything about my flag though. Caine0 and Ace being able and out on the left flank may have been his best bet, sniping out the scoring solos instead of struggling to contest. My team won this round 4-1 (our Skorne player going down to Gaspy3 9 Slayers I believe), which helped to settle the nerves.
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Post by Azahul on May 13, 2019 2:44:09 GMT
Round 3 - New South Waley
For round three of the round robin stage, we ran into the only other undefeated team in our bracket. The Waleys were a team that we felt were just a bit better than us on average, so we needed to stack the match-ups pretty precisely to have a good chance. I ended up playing into their Mercenary player, dropping Arkadius (again, Sturm and Drang really weren't getting much of a workout this event) into Ossrum. His list was: Ossrum -Driller -Driller -Driller -Driller -Driller -Driller -Blaster -Blaster -Blaster -Blaster Eliminators Eliminators Horgenhold Artillery Corps Anastasia Kell Eiryss1 Gorman Deployment My opponent won the starting roll and took first. He set down a wall of 'jacks in the centre, with another two aiming for my left flank ("his" zone, with the friendly objective). I aimed my Wrastler and War Hog for the centre-zone and had Arkadius and his Road Hogs a little left of centre, allowing Mire and the Wrastler to set up in the water. My objective is a Fuel Cache, his is a Stockpile. Mercenaries Turn 1 Everything ran up the board. Ossrum put Snipe on Kell and Fire for Effect on the Artillery Corps. Pigs Turn 1 I needed to leverage my threat ranges as much as possible here, so most of my army hung back. I did Raw Adrenaline a Gun Boar, put Forced Evolution on the left flank War Hog, and cast Guardian Beast with Arkadius. I Enliven'd that Gun Boar as well, and ran it up with Targ to take a potshot at Gorman. I killed him and did something like five damage with blast damage to the Driller. Mire tossed up some clouds and made sure he was more than 18" from the Blasters. Mercenaries Turn 2 My opponent set up to receive a charge, giving me just one Driller in range if I feated and building a wall with his Blasters. The Artillery Corp took a bit over half the hit boxes off the forward Gun Boar, sending it running back with Enliven to hide. I think Ossrum spent all of his Focus on Energiser, putting Bullet Dodger on one of the forward Blasters, and upkeeping his existing spells. Pigs Turn 2 I was genuinely tempted by going for a gun-based assassination run on Ossrum, but feared he could be a tad too sturdy. Instead I had the left flank Road Hog spray at Eiryss, and miss, and had my Gun Boars and one Road Hog focus fire on one of the forward Blasters. I left it on fire and on one health. Everything else basically jogged in place, keeping the cloud wall going and trying not to give my opponent and opening. I decided I didn't exactly need the Gorax in this match-up, so ran it into the zone on the right to try and force my opponent to commit something to it. I scored a Control Point, bringing the score to 1-0 in my favour. Mercenaries Turn 3 Arkadius was technically close enough for Eiryss to shoot and strip Fury, but LOS was a problem. My opponent decided to have Ossrum Feat, Energiser, and cast Unstoppable Force to open a channel for her. He ran a right flank Driller to Bulldoze the the Gorax out of the zone and damage the objective, and finished it off with the second Driller. A left flank Driller to Bulldoze the Road Hog out of the way for Eiryss, triggering Guardian Beast and allowing me to place the now immune to Bulldoze Road Hog in a spot where it still blocked Line of Sight and stopped anything else being shoved. My opponent then ran everything to bunker around Ossrum. I believe he scored 4 CP this turn, between controlling all three zones and destroying my objective, putting the score at 1-4 in his favour. Pigs Turn 3 I removed one of the Eliminators base to base with the Driller on the right with a Gun Boar shot, and hit the Driller with Crippling Grasp from Arkadius and Feated. A Road Hog and a War Hog killed an intervening Blaster and the Crippling Grasp'd Driller respectively, allowing a Ghostly War Hog to walk around and into Ossrum to kill him. I forgot to take a picture at the end. Pretty tricky game this one, with both of us sizing up assassination runs and abandoning them. One of my teammates pulled out a last ditch assassination run into one of the Waleys' better players, and we won one other game to give us the round 3-2. This basically meant that if we won our next round, we didn't even need to worry about whether we won Round Five or not in order to progress to the semi-finals.
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Post by Azahul on May 13, 2019 3:07:18 GMT
Round 4 - ACTThe ACT had actually triumphed over Victoria Lions the round before, which both meant we didn't really have to worry about losing our spot to the Lions and meant we had to take this round carefully. The ACT had a whopping three Mercenary players, many of them having fresh and shiny Privateer lists modified through the CID that had dropped literally that morning (through having presented the lists prior to list submission in their updated form, so Conflict Chamber won't accurately reflect what they were playing). I landed their Skorne player however, with a Zaal2/Xerxis2 pair. I went with Arkadius again, though my choice felt kind of like a coin flip for this match-up. He dropped Zaal, running: Zaal -Aradus Sentinel -Aradus Sentinel Max Immortals -UA Max Immortals -UA Abidan Ancestral Guardian Ancestral Guardian Novitiate Hakaar Immortal Vessel Gobber Chef Supreme Guardian Supreme Guardian Apologies in advance for the lighting quality of this match, we were in a super murky corner of the room and I didn't have time to adjust my camera again. Deployment I won the starting roll and took first. He took the table side that actually had terrain on it. I set up my army with Mire and the Wrastler on the right-hand side, and the Gun Boars and Mist Speaker loaded on the left to contest his zone. Boy did I play the Pit II a lot this event. My opponent's army deployed with the Supreme Guardians and Immortals spread across the two flanks, with Zaal basically directly behind the hill. Pigs Turn 1 Arkadius put Forced Evolution on the left-flank War Hog, cast Guardian Beast, and walked and repositioned forward. Kwaak put Enliven on the left War Hog and Road Hog. The rest of the army ran. Skorne Turn 1 Zaal put Vision on a Supreme Guardian, moved up, and laid down a Mage Sight so that his Aradus could see the Hogs on the other side of the forest. He took a spray on the War Hog, rolled reasonably low for damage and only did about eight points. Everything else ran. Pigs Turn 2 I was reasonably confident I could assassinate this turn. Zaal hadn't Feated and was only on two camp. I had my objective give Pathfinder to the right-hand War Hog, and the Witch Doctor give Ghostly to a Road Hog. A Gorax added Primal and Mire used Rage on a few things before backing up. Kwaak Enliven'd the right-hand Road Hog and the War Hog. My plan was that if the Supreme Guardian crippled something important with his Defensive Strike, I could use the Enliven move to pull my Hog away and free up the landing zone for a functional heavy. Arkadius moved up, needing to get quite far forward to actually catch the Supreme Guardians in his Feat to use as charge beacons, and thus couldn't get off any Raw Adrenalines. He moved Forced Evolution onto the Primal'd Road Hogs and Feated. A Gun Boar shot an intervening Immortal and my opponent opted not to Shield Guard with Abidan, who was dropped to one health by the blast damage. I cleared out the other Immortal with a War Hog who chewed his way through a couple of others until he'd used Overtake to get sufficiently far way. The Primal'd, Forced Evo'd Road Hog charged into Zaal, catching the Novitiate in the spray. The Supreme Guardian made his Defensive Strike first, failing to cripple anything. I boosted to hit the Novitiate and killed him, removing Zaal's ability to stymie the assassination run with infinite tough rolls, and hit with the charge attack to eat up a transfer. I calculated that the Road Hog doing the job on its own was a little iffy, so I used my claw attack to kill Abidan. Bought one more swing on Zaal, getting him down to about half health and one transfer, and then cast Sprint to get out of the way. The second Road Hog lined himself up and went in and killed Zaal with a Fury to spare. Getting first turn on this one was a pretty big deal, essentially forcing my opponent into a position where if he Feated he was going to put me in a spot where I could just back up and let his Feat fizzle. More and tougher models to screen Zaal would have been a good idea too. One thing I missed at the time is that the left flank Sentinel was actually maxed on Fury, so if I'd had a Warbeast kill or near-kill the right flank one in front of Zaal he wouldn't have had a transfer target. That would have seen him go down a bit more easily. Our team won this round 4-1 again, putting us in a guaranteed spot in the semi-finals at the end of the first day. Felt pretty good.
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Post by Azahul on May 13, 2019 3:44:11 GMT
Round 5 - Victoria LionsBright and early the next morning, we were ready for the final game of the round robin sequence. We were picking tables for this game, and we ended up leading with me. I paired off against their Mercenary player with a Magnus2/Fiona pair (cue a "Wait, crap, what does Fiona do now?" moment). From memory they had also offered up their Khador player, which I was probably stronger into, but so were other members of our team. I took the opportunity to finally not play on the Pit II, instead grabbing Standoff. I planned on dropping Sturm and Drang, and while I'd struggle to contest my opponent's zone if he took Magnus, I felt confident in being able to lock down both side zones and occasionally score my own zone. My opponent did indeed drop Magnus, running: Magnus -Nomad -Nomad -Toro -Toro -Talon -Talon -Sylys Eliminators Eliminators Aiyana and Holt Rorsh -Brine Gorman Eiryss1 Gobber Tinker Deployment My opponent won the starting roll and took first. I grabbed a table side giving me access to a pool of water in front of my zone that I knew my opponent would struggle to deal with. He deployed his Warjacks in the centre and Rorsh and Brine on the right, so I responded with Dahlia and Skarath (a solo Brine wouldn't be able to scalpel) on the right and the Dracodile on the left to bunker behind the water and scare off his heavies. Brun and Lug ended up on the right hand mostly because they could run self-sufficiently and make it harder for Magnus to catch my entire army in his Feat, and I felt the Dracodile was sufficient to hold the left. My objective is a Stockpile, his is a Fuel Cache. Mercenaries Turn 1 Magnus casts Escort, his army runs up the board. Pigs Turn 1 Sturm puts Polarity Shield on the Dracodile, Deceleration on himself, Vision on Skarath. He moves up. The lessers all walk or charge up and cast their respective spells of Haunting Melody, Stonehold, and a free Floodwaters. Basically everything else runs, with the Dracodile anchoring the left-hand zone and Skarath getting into the right-hand zone. Mercenaries Turn 2 Magnus allocates a Focus to the Talon on the right. The Talon charges Skarath, engaging Lug and knocking off Vision. Magnus moves up and Feats (selecting his own table edge and the left-hand one), catching basically the front row of my models from the Dracodile out to Skarath, and puts Bullet Dodger on the left flank Talon. That Talon and a Toro run to contest my zone, with a Nomad close behind. Rorsh and Brine lurk back behind the forest. Pigs Turn 2 I've got a good attrition play ahead of me, but I basically need to just cede a free Control Point to Magnus without scoring anything of my own. I decide to take the risk, figuring that if he can get the four more needed in his next turn to win he'll have killed the Dracodile and probably both heavies in the right-hand zone and the game would probably be over anyway. Lug casts Bear Hands, walks into the zone, and throws the Talon off into the zone (and back into Magnus's Control Range, oops). Sturm activates and Feats, catching Brine and every Warjack save the Talon on the right flank (again, oops from Lug, never seen a bear look so sheepish). Sturm then fires off three unboosted TK's. One to move the Nomad near my zone closer to the War Hog, one to move the Toro into the melee range of the Dracodile, and one to move the War Hog into melee range with the Nomad. He then backs up and camps one Fury. I also have Dahlia move up and cast Mist Walker on Skarath, and have Eilish add Puppet Master for good measure. The Soul Slave then TK's Skarath out of Magnus's Control Range, allowing Skarath to move into the forest and spray Eiryss and Rorsh. With Brine an ineligible transfer target, Skarath is able to roll some good high damage rolls and kill them both. He tosses up Counterblast for good measure. I choose not to Primal my Dracodile or the War Hog, resulting in them both failing to kill their respective heavies, but they cripple both Warjacks' arms and destroy the Cortex on the Toro. My opponent scores his zone, bringing the score to 0-1 in his favour. Mercenaries Turn 3 My opponent figures that the attrition play is likely out of the question. He has two functioning heavies left and can't allocate to them. Instead he goes for a ballsy scenario play, figuring that if he can get the score to four nil in his favour he may be able to ride the game out. He allocates two Focus to the Talon in the right zone, allowing it to stand up and slam Lug. It hits the slam and knocks Lug out of the zone and into Brun, meaning that Lug remains standing upright. He rolls exactly even with Lug's armour for damage, had he broken armour Lug could have used Hyper Aggressive to get back into the zone The next stage was all up to Magnus. He charged Skarath, boosting to hit his Armour Piercing attack. Skarath got in a quick bite first, rolling 3d6 to hit because of Dahlia's proximity. The attack hit, doing five points of damage to Magnus and Paralysing him. He persevered, leaving Skarath on a handful of boxes and himself on one camp. The Eliminators in the right zone came in then, but one of them missed the combo strike and Skarath survived on two health. The near-dead Nomad moved over and managed to bop Skarath on the head with his sword arm after boosting to hit, killing Skarath. Aiyana and Holt moved up to Kiss my objective, and I shield guarded both of Holt's shots. Gorman blinded the Dracodile. One functioning heavy positioned itself behind Magnus to provide Escort. The functioning Toro and near-dead Toro worked together to destroy my objective and do some damage to my War Hog. The score went to 0-4 in my opponent's favour. Pigs Turn 3 I shook Blind on the Dracodile. The Soul Slave received Guidance from the Mist Speaker and TK'd Magnus. The heavy behind him was just over 1" away, letting me place Magnus somewhere he wouldn't receive the armour bonus from Escort. Eilish gave Sturm Puppet Master. Sturm did TK'd the near-dead Nomad as well, hitting it easily thanks to its lack of Movement, and then TKing the War Hog out of melee with the Toro. He added a spray on Magnus for good measure, using Puppet Master on the unboosted damage roll and doing a respectable four points. The Battle Boars Primal'd both the War Hog and Lug. Dahlia ran out of the way. The Primal'd War Hog easily killed the Paralysed Magnus. Really interesting game that one. Even my Gargantuan struggled to crack the Armour 20 Toros in their back arcs (since I didn't want to risk maxing it out on Fury), but the board state was far better for me than it looked. With Brine gone and two heavies broken, my opponent was really trying to stare down my army with just two heavies and the Talons to his name. Had he found some way to kill Skarath though without committing Magnus I would have been in a fairly dire position though. I expected him to lengthen the lead to 3-0, but then get stuck only able to score his own zone while I removed his pieces and began to score myself. It'd be interesting to see how that would have gone had he played a bit more conservatively. My team won this round 3-2, leaving us entirely undefeated in our bracket.
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Post by Azahul on May 13, 2019 4:23:05 GMT
Round 6 (Semi-Finals) - Team NSW SSFF (You can check out Conflict Chamber to see what that stands for, the forum will probably block it) We were picking tables again. I kept myself and our Circle player back to present our opponents with a no-win scenario for the final two match-ups they were able to arrange, feeling confident that we would each be able to win our games against most of the lists on the opposing side. I ended up playing into their Cryx player with a Venethrax/Skarre1 list, and took the Recon II table due to Arkadius's capacity to win on scenario in one round if I ended up under pressure. The Skarre list was filled with Stalkers and while I don't think it's the end of the world for Sturm, it would be a super dicey game, hence Arkadius. My opponent, funnily enough, opted for Venethrax instead. His list was: Venethrax -Inflictor -Inflictor -Inflictor -Ripjaw Max Smog Belchers Max Smog Belchers Max Blighted Trollkin Marauders -Jussika Axiara Gerlak Eilish Deployment I won the starting roll and took first, my opponent grabbed another one of these table sides with a forest barely out of the deployment zone. He placed a Smog Belcher unit on each flank, Marauders on the left, and two Inflictors with Venethrax in the centre (the other being out on the right with the Smog Belchers). I had Mire and the Wrastler lined up with the pond of water, seeing as my opponent had no way to ignore Stealth on Mire, and figured I'd be able to protect my lines with clouds on that side of the table. The rest of my models deployed pretty symmetrically, with a Gun Boar, Road Hog, and War Hog aiming for each zone and the Gorax on the right. My objective was a Fuel Cache, his was a Stockpile. Pigs Turn 1 I mostly just ran all my models forward. The War Hog on the left received Forced Evolution, and Arkadius put up Aggravator. Cryx Turn 1 The Ripjaw ran forward and Venethrax tagged my War Hog with Mortality, before going and hiding behind his forest. The right flank Smog Belchers moved up and fired a fullisade of shots into him, not crippling anything but leaving him on below half health. The Smog Belchers on the left hung waaaaay back and the Marauders pushed forward. Pigs Turn 2 I pulled the War Hog back behind the building, got the Gorax out of the way, and had Arkadius move up to needle the Gun Boar with Raw Adrenaline. I also cast Guardian Beast to replace Aggravator, not seeing any use for it. The Gun Boar shot and killed three of the four Smog Belchers within the blast of its AOE, leaving the last one on a handful of boxes. A Road Hog aimed and fired an unboosted spray at a lead Marauder, hitting but failing to break armour. I decided not to tempt fate and trigger and pointless Vengeance moves so I backed my Gun Boar up, had Mire cloud up in front of the Road Hogs, put Enliven on the damaged War Hog and the still-exposed Road Hog, and passed turn. Cryx Turn 2 Fire on the Marauder stayed up but failed to break armour again. The killbox coming into effect forced Venethrax forward. He loaded up the Ripjaw with Focus, advanced to catch Arkadius in Lamentation range, and cast Terminal Velocity. The last two Smog Belchers took some pot shots at the Gun Boar but missed because of the Cover. The Ripjaw charged in. We spent some time working out if the damaged War Hog would be able to hop across the flag to punch the Ripjaw with the forest there and eventually worked out that it was possible. I did it and got the Crit Knockdown on the Ripjaw and only then thought to check if I'd put the War Hog in the threat range of an Inflictor. I had. It charged. Terminal Velocity gave it the Crit, and it one-shot the War Hog and did a number on the Gun Boar with the bought attack. The Marauders on the left pushed forward to jam. He scored a control point with Gerlak on his flag, making the score 0-1 in his favour. Pigs Turn 3 I figured I could probably assassinate the one camp Venethrax this turn, so long as the Steady-Tough Marauders didn't screw me over two badly. Arkadius dropped his upkeeps. I had Mire hand out Rage a few times to the left flank heavies and put Weald Secrets on the Gun Boar there, before sending it to try and take out Jussika. If she died I figured I would have a strong enough attrition game to make do. I only did three damage though. Kwaak tried to clear the most obnoxious Marauder with two Venoms, failing to break armour once and my opponent toughed the other attack The War Hog on the left moved up and used his Overtake to kill two Marauders, copping two successful Tough rolls in the process, but clearing the path for the rest of the army. One Road Hog would need to cut through the building, so I gave it Ghostly with the Witch Doctor. The Mist Speaker gave Guidance to Arkadius. He backed up and put Forced Evolution on the closest Road Hog and Feated, sending the Road Hogs towards Venethrax (one of them frenzying into a Marauder and killing him). I took a Primal Shock at Venethrax, hit, but even boosted I couldn't break armour. The Road Hog used Full Boar to walk in and engage both the nearby Inflictor and Venethrax. He hit Venethrax with a throw, automatically won the roll off (Strength 15 I think), and threw Venethrax at the tightest angle he really could towards Jussika. This had Venethrax strike a Marauder, knocking him down and taking off half his boxes in one fell sweep from the POW 15+4d6 damage roll. My second Road Hog charged in and the Inflictor Counter-Charged, crippling the Road Hog's Spirit. The Assault Spray hit but didn't break armour with its 1d6 damage roll. The charge attack hit automatically and rolled an 8 to kill Venethrax. Interesting game there. It's entirely possible that going for the assassination was a big mistake on my part. My opponent wasn't really threatening me too badly, I could have continued to sit back and pick off the models he chose to feed me, but throwing away my War Hog so stupidly left me off-balance I think. He only had three heavies to my five, if I could have had them feed into me piecemeal even starting down one it's an acceptable trade provided I could continue to largely keep his infantry at bay. My team scraped through the round again 3-2, with the deciding game just about ending past the round timer, putting us in the finals.
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Post by Azahul on May 13, 2019 5:05:34 GMT
Round 7 (Finals!) - Team New South Waley (again!)After we won our previous round against the Waleys basically on a fluke, I was a bit nervous about this round. They led with their Cryx player. We opted to present myself and our Circle player, basically figuring that we needed to take their best players off the table with ours and win those games if we wanted to trump them again. Ended up being picked by the Cryx player. He had a Skarre3/Skarre1 pairing, one that I felt both my lists had game into, but I dropped Arkadius more for comfort reasons than anything. He was worried about Sturm locking the Skarre3 list out of the game with the unkillable Dracodile, so he opted to drop Skarre1, running: Skarre -Kraken -Skarlock Max Bane Knights -UA Max Bane Knights -UA Min Bane Warriors -UA Scrap Thralls Necrotech Bane Lord Tartarus Wraith Engine Deployment Be prepared for another super murky series of photographs! I won the starting roll, which immediately made me feel so much more comfortable. We were playing on the Pit II for, what, the fourth time this event? I believe my opponent picked his table side because he could build out with clouds from the forest on the left to create an LOS blocking wall, which didn't really exist on my side of the table. On the flipside, it gave me close access to the Burning Earth and Tower in the centre zone, which would prove pretty important this game. I set up Mire in place to run for that gap, with a Gun Boar, War Hog, and Road Hog on either side of Arkadius. He set up the Kraken out on the left flank, the Wraith Engine skewing right, with a Bane Knight unit alongside each Huge base and the Bane Warriors in the centre. Without any rough terrain to worry about, I believe both objectives were Stockpiles. Pigs Turn 1 I ran every single model, from Arkadius to Mire to Kwaak, just wanting to get as much board position as possible. Cryx Turn 1 He advanced very cautiously, keeping his Bane Knights in small blobs. His Kraken hung back where only a single War Hog could get to it. Pigs Turn 2 I had my Gun Boars take some potshots at Bane Knights on either flank. One eliminated the two closest to the centre on the right, allowing my Road Hog to come forward and spray a single Bane Warrior. He passed his Tough check. My other Road Hog just walked. The Gun Boar on the left received Guidance and shot two Bane Knights dead, and then cast Counterblast. I think Arkadius spent down to one Fury, putting up Guardian Beast, Forced Evo on the central War Hog, and repairing some of the damage he'd done to his own army with Psycho Surgery. Since I'd largely hung back outside of the melee threat ranges of my opponent, I had Mire cloud up to protect the one piece a few of the Cryx models could have charged, my Objective. I used Enliven on the two Road Hogs in case my opponent tried to shoot at them for some chip damage. Cryx Turn 2 Feeling the pressure on scenario, my opponent opted to run his army up and Feat defensively on a handful of Bane Knights, the Kraken, and the Wraith Engine. The left flank Bane Knights used their Mini-Feat and ran, with one of them coming too close to the Gun Boar on that flank and dying to Counterblast. The ones on the right mostly hung back, save two that entered the zone on the far right. My opponent scored his zone, bringing the score to 0-1 in his favour. Pigs Turn 3 I had Arkadius move up and Raw Adrenaline the right-most Road Hog, toss Crippling Grasp on the Wraith Engine, and then back up again. The Raw Adrenaline-fuelled Road Hog used Full Boar to move into the right-hand zone and sprayed a clump of four Bane Knights including the UA, killing all bar the UA and leaving him on three boxes and on fire. My Gun Boar in the right zone tried to clear the two Bane Knights in it but only killed one, compelling the other Road Hog to come across and finish the job. Kwaak moved up and landed Mudfoot on the Kraken, then used Venom to corrode two of the Feated Bane Knights. I then shot Kwaak in the back and killed him with my Gun Boar so that he couldn't be used as a charge target by the Kraken to get range on anything else in the army. I considered using that Gun Boar to contest my opponent's zone, but figured letting him go up one CP wasn't going to make a difference. Mire built a cloud wall between the Burning Earth and the Tower and I passed turn. I scored my zone, he scored his, bringing the score to 1-2 in his favour. Cryx Turn 3 Fire on the Bane Knight UA went out, Corrosion killed a Bane Knight. One Bane Warrior ran to engage a Road Hog and Gun Boar on the right while the rest of the unit ran hard towards the left flank. Two Bane Knights were able to charge each, leaving the Gun Boar in single digit health even though only one charge hit and doing about eight points to the Road Hog. The Bane Knights Repositioned back and used their Mini-Feat. The Kraken and Wraith Engine and other Bane Knights backed off to the rim of the zone, with a handful of knights interspersed to make engaging more difficult. My opponent scored his zone, bringing the score to 1-3 in his favour. Pigs Turn 4 My objective healed the Body on my near-dead Gun Boar, and it frenzied and killed the Bane Warrior in my zone. I upkept all three spells. I Primal'd one War Hog to send after the Wraith Engine. Arkadius activated and Feated all four of his heaveis up into the middle zone. The Gun Boar on the right tried to kill a Bane Knight but lost his body to a Defensive Strike and couldn't break armour. The Gun Boar on the left killed the Bane Knight engaging him. Arkadius moved up then to Raw Adrenaline the Road Hogs now that he'd Feated them into reach, and camped three Fury. The Primal'd War Hog scrapped the Wraith Engine without using Aggression Dial, giving him enough Fury to Overtake through two Bane Knights and make a single attack on the Kraken. I then derped pretty hard and forgot to Rage my Forced Evo'd War Hog, meaning he left the Kraken alive. I Raged my Road Hogs and sent one in to kill the Kraken. The Raw Adrenaline spray killed the Bane Warrior UA, left Tartarus on fire and on one health, and dropped another Bane Warrior incidentally. The initial attacks then killed the Kraken, allowing the Road Hog to sprint back into the middle of the zone. The second Road Hog used Full Boar and charged out onto the left, where its spray killed a combined four Bane Knights and Warriors. I scored my zone and the centre zone, bringing the score to 3-3. Cryx Turn 4 Tartarus burned to death and my opponent conceded. While I had some inefficiencies (Targ started on the wrong flank and I consistently left models a bit too far away to get any Raw Adrenaline Ancillary Attacks off to help clear infantry faster), I'm pretty pleased with how I played that game. I've played this player before, he's someone I admire a lot, but our past games have pretty consistently seen me lose the list chicken. While Skarre3 would have certainly been the better drop, I think my lists have evolved to the point where list chicken into Cryx is reasonably rare and I saw the Skarre3 game as being pretty winnable too. Anyway, finally winning a game (and so comprehensively too) against him felt awesome, and a great capstone to the weekend. I ended up winning all my games, and I think across the seven games I only lost six models across seven games... and I deliberately killed one of them myself at the end there Sadly, my team lost this round 2-3, giving us second place overall. A great effort from everyone involved, I had a blast at this event, and I'm already looking forward to next year
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Post by chevelle on May 13, 2019 6:47:51 GMT
Wow, that's a lot of reports. Thanks for sharing and congrats on your showing. Looks like you had a blast. Was expecting to get more S&D battle reports, but I always like it when Dr. Arkadius is being played
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Post by Azahul on May 13, 2019 7:25:43 GMT
Wow, that's a lot of reports. Thanks for sharing and congrats on your showing. Looks like you had a blast. Was expecting to get more S&D battle reports, but I always like it when Dr. Arkadius is being played Haha, you're telling me. Took most of the day to get those write-ups done. Funnily enough, I worked out which list I was dropping ahead of time into each potential opponent. Out of 55 possible opponents I think Sturm beat Arkadius as my preferred drop 32 to 23. I just happened to get waaaaaay more Arkadius drops on the day.
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Post by qc on May 13, 2019 7:34:04 GMT
TBH I was missing Ark for a long time Great event for you, phenomenal performance 7-0
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Post by shicato on May 14, 2019 13:29:32 GMT
Thanks for taking the time to do these write ups, much appreciated.
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Post by sardaukar on May 15, 2019 12:19:36 GMT
Thanks for taking the time mate, was a GREAT read!!
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Post by chevelle on May 16, 2019 4:45:01 GMT
Do you think your Pairing can play into the new Grymkin hotness aka Clockatrice either with Child or Dreamer?
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Post by Azahul on May 16, 2019 5:44:04 GMT
Do you mean full Clockatrice spam, or two Clockatrice as part of a mixed list with two of each heavy? I've played into the latter a couple of times. It's playable. Can be a bit frustrating if you get unlucky on the columns rolled. Child is probably more problematic than Dreamer, particularly if you play Sturm and Drang into it, since Sturm largely shuts down all of Dreamer's kit. I'll feel rather more comfortable once the Void Archon comes out though, since being able to prevent the Clockatrice from healing (even if the Void Archon dies) feels like a big deal.
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Post by chevelle on May 16, 2019 6:15:02 GMT
I see all our Grymkin Players (and there are a lot of them right now) pick up Child with 3-4 Clocks (like the list Pat Dunford is playing at the Welsh Maszers) and I am really scared of that list.
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Post by fanbloodytastic on May 17, 2019 6:21:30 GMT
I am not the expert Azahul is but I would generally think the sturm and drang list should do pretty well into child with 4 clockatrice; he can correct me if he disagrees . My thought is you can still bully the board really well with the dracodile and the clockatrice will have trouble doing enough damage to be relevant. There is enough ranged attacks and tricks in the sturm and drang list to manage time stuttering and kill any birds that come in to paralyze the dracodile. S&D’s feat is also notably useful in the match up too. That said, it’s still against grymkin and if you slip up against the ruin arcana they will strip polarity shield and win the match. It will be a grindy game, with a lot to keep track of. Until they use an arcana in your turn you will have to keep S&D back as the last spellcaster you activate.
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