Monday, December 26, 2016

Battle Report 45: 2Una vs. Vlad 2

Some of my friends from the big city came over today for Warmachine and "Friendmas". We were originally going to play bunches of games at our LGS, but my LGS owner slept in until 5 PM this evening and didn't have his phone with him, so we rotated through games on my kitchen table.

I got to play in the last set against my Khador buddy A, who has been playing Butcher 3/Vlad 2 forever.

Since we are testing for ATC in March, I've been planning on an Una 2/Wurmwood pairing now that the errata is officially dropped, and into that pair I'm always going to drop Una 2.


Una 2
- Wilder
- Scarsfell x7
- Gorax
- Pureblood

Blackclad Wayfarer
Sentry Stone x2
Shifting Stone x2

And he was playing:

Vlad 2
- War Dog
- Conquest

Rifle Corps (max)
- 3x Rocketeers

Shocktroopers (max)
- CA

Kayazy Eliminators x2

MOW Kovnik
Kovnik Joe
Saxon Orrik


We played Entrenched, and I lost the roll off. My opponent promptly chose first, and I took the side with the most options for cover.




Shocktroopers on the side with the pond, with both the Kovnik and Saxon to help their terrain issues.

Conquest central as expected, and Vlad too. His Kayazy are the scariest things in his list to me, but Hand of Fate on Sentry Stones can probably take them out.

Without Reinholdt in the list, I'm not too worried about his Rifle Corps (which in hindsight I should have been).

My opponent felt that with the ridiculous amount of guns in the list, this had a fighting chance into the Murder of Griffons.


I think I'm playing for Scenario this game. I can push real hard on the right side once the Conquest inevitably dies, and he'll have a hard time doing much about me dominating my zone.

Shifting Stones are once again basically there for Fury management.


Khador turn 1:

Stuff runs. Hand of Fate goes on his Rifle Corps, Assail on the Conquest.

Desperate Pace is whipped into the Shocktroopers, and they run.

Cloud went down from his objective at the end of his turn.


Circle turn 1:

Well, the big priority is the Conquest and preferably 2-3 Shocktroopers on my Feat turn. If I can get that done, I think I win this game pretty handily. I also have to be super scared of Eliminators until after his Feat turn.

Stones port up, Griffons run to just outside of Kayazy charges unless he pops Feat on both sides.

I foolishly put my Blackclad right next to a Shifting Stone (derp derp) and that's going to cost me.

Hand of Fate goes on the unpainted Sentry Unit and Mirage goes on the Pureblood before it warps Spell Ward, and Una hides behind a forest wall.


Khador turn 2:

He gives one Focus to the Conquest and upkeeps Hand of Fate.

Rifle Corps move up and blast two Mannikins and a Shifting Stone andddd the Blackclad to death.

Kayazy charge and murder Sentry Mannikins on the right, and run on the left.

Conquest moves up and shoots the Pureblood with his big gun, missing the boosted 14 and doing decent blast damage to the second Griffon from the right. He then puts down his version of Covering Fire.

Shocktroopers get desperate pace again and Shield Wall up. Saxon runs to contest my zone.

I forgot to take a picture of his turn, so imagine a Conquest in the middle of the table and 3 more Shocktroopers there.

Spoilers: the Conquest dies.


Circle turn 2:

Well I can charge the Conquest with 3 Griffons, run one to engage for Flank, and probably kill a few Shocktroopers between the Pureblood and Griffons.

Hand of Fate and Mirage both stay up. The Hand of Fate Sentry Stones kill off the Kayazy near them.

Una activates, swaps Hand of Fate to the other unit, casts Primal on a Griffon, and pops Feat before moving into the trench.

The painted Griffon runs to engage the Conquest, and his buddy goes to tie up Winterguard.

I Primal another Griffon with the Gorax, and the three in range Griffons charge in and take down the Colossal.

I screwed this up slightly, and should have sent the two Primaled Griffons in first to max them out and then sent the one without Primal in after for Fury management sake, but I messed up.

Pureblood assaults and kills one and a half Shocktroopers, Griffon walks into the Shocktroopers and kills the half dead one, and other Griffon walks up and kills the Shocktrooper I'm flanking.

I very deliberately port Shifting Stones around Una to block LOS to her unless his modesl are nearly in my deployment zone.



Khador turn 3:

Rifle corps get to keep Hand of Fate. 

Joe gives them +2 to hit, and the four engaged by the Griffon walk away and take horrible free strikes.

The Griffon dies very quickly.

Vlad Feats, making all three Shocktroopers, the War Dog, the Kovnik, and one Rifle Corps member super buff. He then walks away thanks to parry.

The Shocktroopers murder the Pureblood super dead.

The Kovnik assaults and hits the right Griffon, doing some damage.



Circle turn 3:

Nothing but the Primaled Griffons frenzy somehow. The Hand of Fate Sentry Unit places a Mannikin, as does the other unit.

The left Sentry Unit murders 5-6 Rifle Corps members thanks to Hand of Fate. 

The Yellow Griffon walks up to Vlad and head butts him, knocking him down. He buys an attack, and does a couple damage.

The unengaged Griffon on the right walks up to Vlad, leaving him on 2 boxes and my opponent concedes with one Griffon still to activate with charge distance to Vlad.


Victory for the Druids!


Post-Game Thoughts:

I've played 12 games with Una 2 so far, and have won all 12 of them. She is the best Warlock in Circle right now, and she doesn't have too many bad matchups, all of which (I think) are conveniently covered by Wurmwood, who also escaped the errata relatively unscathed. 

While I think I still have a lot of things to get into muscle memory with Una (activation order, placement, which things to primal, etc.), I definitely think she's on the top tier of the game right now and if you don't have a strong anti Una list, you're not going to win major events all other things being equal. 

Thanks for reading!





3 comments:

  1. So do you think there is a list out there that has play into una and wurmwood? Or is the best someone can hope for is list chicken?

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    Replies
    1. Gonna be honest, I'm not totally sure there is one list that can answer both of them. If you want to beat Una, you need guns. Wurmwood murders guns. It's an extremely powerful pair.

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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