Neil vs. Lorcan: 35pt battle report

Bonjour folks!  As promised (threatened?) last week, I have a second blog entry for you.  Sorry if last week’s battle report was too tedious to read all the way through… but there were *issues* with the photographs.  This time I’m going to practice my HTML skills (hah!) and link the pictures from somewhere like Flickr or Photo-bucket.  The plan is also to fiddle with them a bit first, and have annotated notes for each game-round.  You never know, it might even work!

The Army:

As much as I really want to play Lord Arcanist Ossyan (only recently painted), I’m still not as comfortable with Kaelyssa as I’d like to be, and consecutive games with her seem to be the best way to learn her various tricks.  Soooo, I’m gonna tweak last week’s list instead:

 

  1. Kaelyssa (+7 Warjack points)
  2. Phoenix (10 points)
  3. Manticore (8 points)
  4. Sylys Wyshnalyrr (2 points)
  5. 2*Arcanist (2 points)
  6. 10 Mage Hunter Strike Force (8 points)
  7. Mage Hunter Commander (2 points)
  8. Soulless Escort (1 point)
  9. 10 Houseguard Halberdiers (7 points)

10. Officer and Standard (2 points)

The Theory:

I was very tempted to substitute my second Warjack from last week’s list for some brutal melee solos (of which the Retribution has more than a few), but despite the general advocacy of one ‘jack per ‘caster on the Scyrah Forums, I like giant robots.  Besides, the more targets for “Witch Hound” the better.  In the end, I swapped the Hydra for a Manticore and a second Arcanist; Sentinels for the ever dependable MHSF (acronyms rock!); and Lanyssa Ryssyll for a partisan-mercenary who actually has a function.

Lorcan’s dudes:

I met Lorcan at Connolly Bridge Burger King, and we talked sh!t at each other through mouthfuls of hot meat(!).  He told me he’d brought two Khador lists (not Circle Orboros then?); one super-competitive, the other *just for fun*…  I never asked which one the Epic Butcher was when he deployed it across the table from me:

  1. Epic Butcher (+6 Warjack points)
  2. Beast 09 (11 points)
  3. Juggernaut (7 points)
  4. Yuri the Axe (3 points)
  5. Manhunter (2 points)
  6. Doom Reavers (6 points)
  7. Greylord Escort (2 points)
  8. 6 Winter Guard Infantry (4 points)
  9. Officer and Standard (2 points)

10. Rocketeer (1 point)

11. Winter Guard Mortar Crew (3 points)

Scenario:

 

 

We went for a rulebook scenario, and I rolled a 6: don’t remember what it’s called, but there were two 10” circles in the centre of the battlefield, and you won if by the end of your turn (starting 2nd player’s third turn) you controlled both zones.  I won the roll, and decided to go first.

Round One

A fairly predictable opening salvo!  Roughly what went down is this: 

  1. The MHSF advanced on the left-hand zone
  2. Houseguard Halberdiers advanced in “Shieldwall”; had “Banishing Ward” cast upon them
  3. Kaelyssa cast “Arcane Reckoning” on herself
  4. Manticore gave some “Covering Fire”
  5. Beast-09 had “Fury” cast upon him… because he totally needed it
  6. The Mortar Crew went for a wild shot on Kaelyssa.  Missed

 

Round Two

I tried to be clever (You’d think I’d know by now that that NEVER works), but poor judgement on my part meant I came out of this round worse off than Lorcan: 

  1. Actually, the MHSF did OK and murdered two Winter Guard
  2. The Halberdiers charged the Doom Reavers, killed two; then got PWNED in the retaliation
  3. I was half an inch short of “Rift-ing” the Manhunter’s face off through the Phoenix’s Arc Node.  At least the AOE drifted and disrupted the line somewhat with Rough Terrain
  4. Kaelyssa popped her Feat, denying the charges that would have utterly destroyed both of my Warjacks.  Go me!

 

Round Three

 

This time it was bad luck that did for me, on two specific rolls (grumble grumble RAEG)…

  1. …except for the MHSF who did great; murdering the remaining Winter Guard apart from the Officer – who then failed his test!  Woot!
  2. My super-duper powered-up Manticore f@cking MISSED Beast-09 with his Combo-strike…  Don’t think I need to tell you what happened next (that Wreck Marker ain’t there for decoration)
  3. My wall of expendable dudes in front of Kaelyssa evaporated in the face of eButcher, and proved Rage Tokens for his guys to shuffle up a bit
  4. The Phoenix failed to Combust Yuri to death by ONE point of damage, despite boosting the roll

 

Round Four

Panic mode: 

  1. The MHSF took a run/charge Order; finished off the Winter Guard with a Combined Melee Attack, and scooted over to help Kaelyssa
  2. The Phoenix FINALLY Combusted Yuri (and two Doom Reavers and my Halberdier Standard Bearer) to death, only to be wiped out by the remaining Doom Reavers
  3. Kaelyssa ran away with full FOCUS

 

Round Five

I think the picture says it all!  I made the mistake of trying to paper-cut eButcher a little with the MHSF (obviously to no effect whatsoever) before shooting him with Kaelyssa.  What I SHOULD have done, however, was shoot the already damaged Beast instead: I would a) have had a much better chance of damaging him and b) Lorcan *might* have taken the bait and moved Beast towards the MHSF with “Hyper-aggressive”, thereby opening up a charge-lane.  Kaelyssa would have had a marginally better chance stabbing eButcher than shooting him, but in the end took him for about 12 points of damage between spells and bullets.  He responded by casting “Boundless Charge” on himself, and splitting my Warcaster down the middle with his initial swing. 

 

I lose!

 

Now, I know I said last week that I’d try to keep it down to 1000 words next time, and so far I have.  So far…

 

Game 2: Neil vs. Mark

 

There was time for a second game, AND a new opponent willing to beat my face in!  I decided to try out Ossyan after all, and Damien helped me build a list on the fly:

 

I liked it!  Had good shooting, and a couple of excellent targets for “Quicken”.  Fewer Warjacks than I would normally like, but that left room for more great units.  Mark had Cygnar, and was proxying Greygore Boomhowler for the new Ogrun Assault Corps.  I think it went something like this:

 

Mark won the roll-off, but gave me first turn.  Basically I just shoved everything as far up the board as possible; casting “Quicken” on the Halberdiers so they could advance 11” in Shieldwall, and running the Invictors so that they benefitted from “Defensive Line”.  Mark responded by “Cautiously Advancing” and pinging my Phoenix for a few points of damage, and taking out one Halberdier and Invictor.

I upkept Quicken for free thanks to Sylys, and charged the Halberdiers into the Ogruns and Trenchers, using their “Follow Up” move to engage the survivors.  Ossyan then cast Quicken on the Phoenix, moved forward and popped his Feat.  The Invictors blew up the Grenadier; the Phoenix walked 8” and Combusted on more Trenchers!  The Stormfall Archers did a whack of damage to the Defender; and Eiryss “Disrupted” Siege like this:

Mark was able to kill off most of the Halberdiers, and even do a bit of damage to the Phoenix with “Assaulting” Trenchers (although he later felt dumb for giving me more Combustion targets; he had in fact prevented me from stabbing Siege with the Phoenix’s Thermal Blade next turn by clogging me up).  Quite spectacularly, Siege then blew up all the Stormfalls with a “Ground Pounder” attack, and under his Feat the Defender was then able to take Ossyan DOWN TO THREE HEALTH with a single shot.  Ouch!

The Phoenix burninated four more Trenchers, and the Halberdier Officer hit-but-failed-to-damage a Trencher that was blocking LOS to Siege.  Eiryss had to kill him instead, and then I went for the assassination with Ossyan and the five Invictors who could get range (I’d popped their mini-feat a turn too early).  When the smoke cleared and I’d spent all my Focus, Siege had THREE HEALTH LEFT; and the battlefield looked like this:


I lose!

Oh well – two fun games and a bunch of lessons learnt!  I do like the Retribution’s latest Warcaster, and that list was a blast to play!  I’ll bring it along next week for my game against Nick’s Skorne.  I’m going to leave Kaelyssa for the moment though, and bring a variation of my Garryth list in case of a second game.  I think they’d be a good pairing for Warpcon on the 28/29th.

Until Next week!

Neil