Wout played
a Haley3 grenadier list, Stryker2 Theme combination, which made my choice
pretty easy. I cannot play Nemo3 into his Stryker2 list, as his full list would
be immune against nearly all of damage so I picked Haley2 and expected to see Haley3
in return.
My expectation was met and I was playing against the following list
Haley 3 - Bunker
- Haley Past
- Haley Future
- Squire
- Ironclad
- Thorn
- Defender
Storm Lances (max)
Trencher Infantry (max)
Arlan Strangeways
Journeyman Warcaster
- Charger
I lost the
roll and was given choice of sides. We were playing Recon, and there were a
conveniently placed wall on one side between the objective and one flag. On top
of that, opposing the wall was a large forest reaching just into the
zone and making access to this flag difficult.
The other flank had two
inconveniently placed shallow waters for each side, so there had to be a wide flanking
maneuver or a denial of that side. This was actually the same table as my previous game.
As it was
clear that I will have to deal with LOS denial anyways and wont be able to hide
the Stormwall from the unleashed POW13 shooting his list can output, I opted
for the side with the wall, intending to fake a scenario move on the right
flank (wall/forest).
Deployment:
He sat up
quite centrally in order to move his models were needed.
I deployed Haley2,
Laddermore, small Lances and Thorn to the right flank, the Stormwall would just
have been able to pass my objective on the left and my big Lances left of said
Stormwall. My plan was to force his army through/around the forest and then run
my army to the opposite side of the field, keeping him at a distance with my
min Lances. Meanwhile the max Lances were supposed to flank hard the left side
so it would get difficult for him to have a perfect LOS denial with his cloudwall.
Evil Cygnar top of 1
His first
turn saw him commiting hard to my right flank. His Lances, Thorn and the
Defender ran around the
forest. His Trenchers went through the forest, creating a LOS denying cloudwall
combined with the forest to hide the Haley3s, Ironclad and Charger which were
oriented to the zone.
Cygnar bottom of 1
I continued
with my plan, my max Lances flanked hard left with AS on them so Haley3 would have less impact. The Stormwall ran into
position to block LOS together with my objective, but not B2B with it so it
could access the zone easily next turn.
Then I brainfarted with Haley2, casted
telekinesis on myself and walked 6”, because that was clearly better than
running 12” and camping 8 behind the Stormwall.
As I did not even reach any LOS
safety behind my objective, I tried to block LOS with my Firefly and one Lance of the
Min unit while making Forcehammer slam angles bad. However it was badly done as the the Firefly could be forcehammered onto Haley2 knocking her
down and opening a LOS to the Charger in range. (I only wanted to offer the
Lance for forcehammer as then the LOS for the Charger would still have been
blocked by the Firefly, he could barely reached Haley2).
The rest of my models were positioned
around the wall on that side to threaten any advances and slow his army as best
as possible.
Evil Cygnar top of 2
Wout saw
the assasionation potential and we agreed that he could slam the Firefly
onto Haley2 from a specific evilThorn position inside of the forest. We also
checked that he could get only charger onto her as the Defender was slightly out.
He calculated it shortly,
telling me that there is about a 50% assassination on the table. Against Haley2
with 6 focus, he had 2 fully boosted charger shots one baby Haley3 forcehammer
collateral (4 dice for raw talent and medium base) and a Haley3 forcehammer (he
wanted to boost it so 3 dice).
He went for the assassination, feated and
slammed my Firefly over Haley2 damaging her quite heavily. He then proceed
to cast a second forcehammer onto Haley2, which was out of range, as the
Firefly had been just in range before. (I am quite sure that Thorn would not have had
3-4” remaining movement to cover these 1.5-2” inside the forest).
I pointed out
that he could just slam the Lance over Haley2 instead and gave him the takeback
to do so. Due to a low slam distance of 2” Haley2 was not only damaged but even
placed closer to his lines based on the rules of least disturbance. This brought
even the defender into range to shoot her.
After the smoke lifted and Charger
and Defender had unloaded onto Haley2, she was left with a focus and 1 HP on
the table. Lucky me!
There were some real abyssimal dice involved, but I was still in the game and could start licking my wounds. My Squire had died to the collateral of the Firefly.
His remaining forces
positioned up to shield evilThorn and tried to cloud the evilIronclad (it, Future Haley3 and
a couple trenchers were in the zone). Future Haley3 had damaged 1/3 of the un-Arcane shielded
Stormwall.
Cygnar bottom of 2
My turn saw
Haley2 feating, loading the Stormwall up, healing a bit and receiveing arcane
shield. She then placed herself nearly B2B and way to close B2B with my objective camping
2. There was no way to get the Ironclad out of the zone anyways. At least she was hiden by the cloud from the fuel cache.
The Stormwall charged the Charger and killed it and a couple Trenchers. It also
tried to disrupt the evilIronclad with a pod. Please don’t ask why, it had nobody
in melee and was in my feat so could not have attacked anyways.
Thorn then managed to disrupt it with his spear….
Meanwhile
my Firefly, min Lances and Laddermore got rid of a couple trenchers and most of his
Lances on the right flank. On my left flank 2 Lances assaulted Haley3
succesfully to take her out, but failed.
The other 3 went for unsuccessful
assaults on the objective taking it nearly out.
Evil Cygnar top of 3
Haley3
herself, Arlan, Junior and 2 Trenchers could activate normally, everybody else was in my feat.
Wout was
checking if Baby Haley3 could cast a spell when receiving a press forward order
while having to forfeit action or movement. It was ruled that he cannot cast
before advancing and has to immediately end her activation after advancing. Tus he had no
chance of casting chain blast prior and could not recast it with Haley3 this round if the unit received a press forward order.
He needed the 3 inch to get Haley3 into range to
remove Arcane shield with repudiate and wanted to blast my objective twice with
chain lighning.
But without the possibility to remove Arcane Shield, the blasts
were at dice-11 and he needed to get through 2 focus and 5 HP.
He then decided
to go for the attrition and killed 2 min. Lances 1 max.
Lance, while trying to circle around the right flank in order to consolidate his position.
Cygnar bottom of 3
In my round
Haley2 ran to the left flag camping 8, I had forgotten to heal her to 9 life, still with AS.
Stormwall Lances and Thorn killed the Objective, the remaining Trenchers and
disrupted Thorn.
I scored to 2:0
Evil Cygnar top of 4
He tried
another assassination moving Haley3, Past Haley and Future Haley3 up into the zone, trying to cast
repudiate on Haley2. He was out of range. Baby Haley3 killed enough Lances
to free Future Haley3. She then proceeded to shoot on Haley3 on dice-11 to hit and dice -5
to damage. He missed the first boosted 11, but his second shot hit, he needed a 15
to kill and got a boosted 13.
I scored to 3:0
He then conceded because Haley3 was standing
with 1 focus right in front of 3 Lances, Stormwall and Thorn. Here is a final
Picture.
 |
| There are only Haleys behind the Stormwall |
Summary:
All in all
I believe I had a sound plan but did so many stupid mistakes, that I was lucky
to get away with this game.
Obvious mistakes this game:
- not running Haley2 bottom of 1
- placing her to close to my objective bottom of 2, there was no need to be in the zone
- bot blocking LOS to Haley3 with two Lances bottom of 3
I am quite interested to see how the game would
have played out if I would have ran Haley2 to her safe position in my turn 1,
so we would have played more of an attrition/scenario game.
If you are reading this, thanks again for the
game Wout. I know it was frustrating to fail with the assasination, especially after I gave you the takeback
and the Defender could participate too. This increased the odds for this
assassination greatly and thus made my survival very lucky.
