MapleWhisky’s Battle Reports Vol.2

Welcome to the Protectorate, Maplewhiskey! I'm looking forward to seeing some of your reports!

Well, I played 2 games yesterday, however because I'm a mug I forgot to take any photos. So you can get cliff notes:

I played vs Lich3 with 9 Slayers on The Pit 2. I won first which was a pretty big deal, it allowed me to take the centre of the table and force the Slayers to contest while my neutral position was a scoring one. I got some early game chip in with the Judicator's guns and some Errant charges, mangling a Slayer and Node. Lich picked off some Errants with Hellfires to deny souls to the Reclaimer, but Gravus can still collect Self Sac souls. The bulk of the action came when a Slayer got right up into my zone and was jamming my Vengers, so Judi had to move to clear it, bringing him into threat of 3 Slayers. I put Warding up on him and had him kill the Slayer in the way and sent in my Vengers, doing some okay damage. More importantly though I used them and Gravus to screen for my Judicator. The Slayers came in, killing Gravus and I think 4 Vengers, then I feated, put Hand of Fate and Battle on the Judicator and killed so much stuff that there was no way the Slayers could recover. However, because I'm an idiot and not at all used to mk3 HR I had been advancing him somewhat aggressively for souls and the turn prior a Slayer had trampled to attack him, dealing 2 damage past Focus. It did mean he was in melee with a Slayer and had to feat back some Cinerators to kill it, which left him stuck in the middle of the table vs a 12 focus Asphyxious3. I was camping 3, but because I'm a bad player I was in range of an Arc Node's gun, Spectral Leech and Lich's spells. The gun hit, the leech hit the hard 7 and thankfully only pulled 1 focus and then Lich hit all 3 hard 7s in a row to leave me on 2 boxes. At that point my opponent conceded. Lesson learned, HR doesn't need to be that far up, souls aren't that important to my gameplan really, 5 Focus is enough to upkeep, allocate 2 and cycle HoF.

My 2nd game was vs Axis with 4 heavies and 2 TEPs in Destruction Initiative. Also on the Pit 2. I lost the roll for first and Axis moved up, digging in the Reflex Servitors. I gave my Errants Desperate Pace and HoF and had them go shoot some Servitors, I think they killed 4. Sadly, I positioned like a chump and lost 8 to the counterattack from TEPs and Elim Servitors. To make matters worse I didn't position my UA in a position to Self Sac him, having him dead would have allowed me to leapfrog commanders, which would have enabled a bunch of Errants to charge one of the TEPs. Oh well. Judicator got Hand of Fate and Battle and managed to do I think 8 damage to an inverter with 2 boosted damage sprays, which was pretty horrific. He also killed a couple Servitors with his rocket pods. Otherwise I shimmied defensively, had my Cinerators shield walling to hold the left flank, and Rhoven & his boys all charged the objective and left it on 4. 2 Vengers charged into the Inverter Judi had shot and left it on I believe 4 boxes. It was a sad turn for dice.

In my opponent's turn the Inverter didn't die to fire and got repaired up. Axis feated and cleared out some models with heavies then sent an Inverter into my Judicator, taking out one side. Another inverter killed a Venger. The TEP shot the Judi twice with 5d6 damage, leaving it on about 15 boxes. On the left the other TEP killed 2 of Rhovens boys, electing to ignore the unit of Cinerators. So, critically my Judicator could spray and hit 2 heavies with his sprays. He got battle, repaired HoF was upkept and he sprayed across both Inverters, leaving the one that charged it on 1 box and the one that killed a Venger on 3 boxes after the Rocket pods shot it twice. I activated Gade and didn't ask for remaining boxes on the one near my Judicator and my opponent didn't look / check, so Gade shot the one on 3 boxes twice. High Reclaimer walked up, feated back 3 Vengers in range of my opponent's TEP, and 3 Errants. I used them to jam countercharges and kill both heavies on 1 box, having to Quick Work into the back of my own errant to get him out my Venger's lane (although had that failed, HoF impacts are very likely to kill him). The UA charged the Conservator and did a casual 11 damage at dice off 11. The Vengers charged, killing the TEP and dealing some decent damage to the Conservator. Then Gravus with 2 souls charged the Conservator, killing it off.

We called the game at this point because my opponent had basically no models on the right flank. A counterattack turn that removes a Battle Engine & 3 Heavies is quite hard to recover from, especially on Axis' feat turn!

----

So these were some fun games, I enjoyed them quite a bit and my list felt quite strong. I was playing variations similar to this in the CID but always with a Shrine. Gravus isn't nearly as good, obviously but he does let me easily fit Rhoven into my list. I didn't like him that much on paper but on the table he's not that bad, he's kind of hard to kill (although 12/17 now Vengers are 12/18 bothers me) but he does bring a lot of utility to the list, with DP, Dispel and Steady. The Cinerators did nothing really in either of my games, but I'll wait to see how they feel in some more before passing judgement. I have to imagine there are matchups they will just print money due to giving me a source of RFP and being quite hard for guns to remove.

That's all for now and sorry for the lack of pictures! Hopefully that won't happen again.

They’re not, they will be by WTC which is what I’m practicing for. Hence playing CID rules.  

Just based off the prior cids. I doubt any of my hr models will be changed though. If anything im expecting the indictor or harby.

Wellp, changing up Harby a bit in light of CID.

[Harbinger 1] The Harbinger of Menoth [+28]
- Crusader [10]
- Devout [9]
- Vigilant [9]
- Hierophant [3]
Exemplar Warder [0(5)]]
Exemplar Warder [0(5)]]
Exemplar Errant Seneschal [3]
Exemplar Errant Seneschal [3]
Exemplar Warder Elias Gade [0(5)]
High Exemplar Gravus [8]
Knights Exemplar Seneschal [5]
Knights Exemplar Seneschal [5]
Reclaimer Gatekeeper [3]
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord [4]
Choir of Menoth (min) [4]
Exemplar Errants (max) [16]
Exemplar Vengers (min) [12]
Visgoth Juviah Rhoven & Honor Guard [9]

I have to at least -try- the 4 Inhuman Resolve build. Also at this point I'm just accepting that I will roll over to stuff like Mortality, so High Reclaimer's going to have to tango with that. Keen to give this a try.