Battle Report 100 - Vindictus (Exemplar Interdiction) vs. Nemo 1 (Heavy Metal)

Prologue:

It's kind of neat that the finals of an event is the one hundredth battle report for this blog.

I'd spoken about my pairing philosophy with the other players at the event, and how Severius was my Cygnar drop.

That was, at least, until I saw that my opponent was running Nemo 1 as his pairing with Haley 2, and I knew I had to take my chances with Vindictus into this particular Cygnar pairing.

Nemo 1 completely neuters Severius' game, disrupting his entire army, charging from farther away, and doing massive damage in both melee and range.

Fortunately for me, my opponent dropped Nemo 1, and I won the roll off, allowing me to go first.

Nemo 1
- Squire
- Stormclad
- Centurion
- Dynamo
- Firefly
- Firefly

Arlan
Jr.
- Firefly
Jakes
- Stormclad

We were playing Outlast, and we were both aware of how bad a matchup this was for him.

Menoth turn 1:

True Path up, run everything up to outside of charge ranges. Very simple, but threatening his deployment zone.

Same plan as normal, Vengers charge in first and then Knights clean up afterward.

Defenders Ward on the left Vengers.

Cygnar turn 1:

Things move up. A Firefly zaps a close Venger on the right, leaping three times and killing a KE, a choir dude, and doing nothing to the Reckoner.

Dynamo doesn't do much on the right, DEF 14 really saving these guys.

His Centurion gets Arcane Shield, pops Polarity Field, and runs at me after Nemo Locomotions it up.

Menoth turn 2:

Feat turn! Also time to kill a couple of lights, if possible.

Reckoner shot into the middle Firefly half kills it. Knight Seneschal charges into the Firefly and whiffs hard.

Vengers charge in, the one on the left half killing the blue Firefly, the other few killing off the middle Firefly.

Vengers on the right get into the Firefly there and kill it, repositioning back.

Vindictus pops Feat and sits safely behind the Reckoner.

I have the Knights Exemplar on the right as a counterpunch for the Stormclad should it come in, and on the left to go into the Centurion once Gravus removes Arcane Shield. 

Cygnar turn 2:

My opponent gives out a lot of focus.

Nemo extends his control and feats, only disrupting the right Reckoner.

Nemo blasts the Seneschal, disabling but not knocking him down thanks to Gravus.

Dynamo fails to kill either of the unengaged Vengers, but does trigger Battle Driven.

The Centurion moves around, dismounts Gravus, and kills the Venger leader. The Seneschal heals a point.

He moves the Stormclad up to contest on the right.

Menoth turn 3:

I have an assassination angle here, and I decide to go for it.

The Knight Exemplar Seneschal charges and slams the Lancer out of the way from the Vengers charge path.

Vindictus moves to the right, casts True Path, and camps a bunch.

Two charging, Battle Driven Vengers put Nemo down.

Post-Game Thoughts:

Okay yeah...this list is pretty amazing into a LOT of matchups.

The threat ranges are huge, the damage output is extremely high, and it is extremely hard to alpha.

Bad matchups - Fiona, probably Haley 2, I expect Nemo 3 also poses some problems, but these are all holes that can be filled or at least patched over by I believe Sevy 2.

I'll write up a bit more of a tactica in the next few days, but suffice to say that I think I will be playing this list quite a lot.

Thanks for reading!

Battle Report 64: February Masters Round 1: Anson Durst vs. Caine 2

In gearing up for the ATC in two weeks, I've built my Circle pairing running Loki in both lists. This unfortunately means that I'm not allowed to play him in events until next Wednesday, and my buddy Chandler needed someone to test out his Menoth pairing for him. 

I had nothing better to play, so I decided to help him out. 

Don't worry guys, I'm still a Druid at heart. 

Going into the event, these were my lists:

Anson Durst, ROCK OF FAITH (love that name)

- Heirophant (free! Theme!)

- Castigator x2

- Templar x2

- Indictor x2

Vassal x2 (free! Theme!)

Wrack x2

Min Choir x2

Bunker

Theme: Creator's Wrath

And then Chandler's Sevy list:

Sevy 1

- Heirophant

- Blessing of Vengeance

- Hand of Judgment

- Eye of Truth

Avatar of Menoth

Vassal x2

Vassal Mechanik x2

Wrack x2

Min Choir

Rhoven and Co. 

Round one I got paired into a Cygnar player running Caine 2 and Haley 2. This is a no brainer drop - Durst has to be the one I play here. Caine kills Sevy far, far too easily. 

My opponent drops:

Caine 2

- Reinholdt

- Stormclad

- Lancer

Jr. 

- Firefly

Arlan

Eiryss 1

Gun Mage Captain Adept

Stormlances

Tempest Blazers

We were playing Recon, and Durst absolutely loves this Scenario. I get to just run Jacks up the middle and dare my opponent to come at me. 

I won the roll off and windmill slammed going first. The Theme giving me Bulwark for free at the beginning of the game is so great since it allows me to put out three Boundless Charges on the first turn and increase the speed/move range of my speed four heavies by 1. 

Druidic Menites turn 1:

Well the plan is to run at him and...run at him and...run at him some more. 

Durst gets Harmonious Exaltation from the Heirophant, who then repositions up. 

Three Boundless Charges are cast, and Durst himself charges up. 

Everything else runs. 

Cygnar turn 1:

My opponent runs things at me, staying outside of my 11 inch threat ranges. Little does he know that I've no intention at all of charging him next turn. 

Fire for Effect goes onto the Gun Mage Captain Adept, and Caine and his battlegroup move up. 

Arcane Shield goes onto the Storm Lances. 

Druidic Menites turn 2:

I have basically the same plan for this turn, except swapping out Deceleration for Boundless Charge. 

Everything runs. Heirophant casts Harmonious Exaltation and repositions into a jack. 

Durst pulls from a Wrack and casts Deceleration, pops his feat, and then charges a Blazer to end base to base with a jack. 

His Devout runs up behind him, and so do all the choir members to hug their jacks. 

Cygnar turn 2:

My opponent is facing down a horde of angry looking warjacks, and goes into the tank hard. 

He begins by shooting my front right jacks with eLeap shots, eventually killing a couple of choir members. 

His Lancer charges my Castigator, and at dice off 10 does 7 damage to the four, leaving him on one cortex box. He then baps him with the shield and kills the last cortex box. Sighhhh

The Gun Mage Captain Adept aims and shoots at the Templar in front of Durst with Shadow Fire and Brutal damage. 

I shield guard the shot to the Devout, and he rolls absurd damage again, doing 8 to my poor jack. 

Lances back up, away from the jacks. Eiryss moves up and shoots the Templar in front of Durst again, making it Shadow Fired. 

Caine gets reloaded, and goes for the feat, only to find that Durst is able to suck shots off to his battlegroup (this was his first time against Durst). 

After doing one damage to the Templar, Caine casts Gatecrasher and gets behind the cloud. 

The Firefly moves up and zaps down the choir dude by the objective, bouncing into the objective, the Heirophant, and the Vassal. He kills the choir boy and the Heirophant sadly. 

Druidic Menites turn 3:

I've just got to kill the Objective and the Firefly to dominate the zone. 

It takes every attack I have. I just cannot hit the DEF 13 Firefly with anything, and the Devout has to go in and finish it off after I've committed multiple heavies to it. 

Durst sits in the back with a bunch of focus. 

The Castigator on the left moves up and combusts on Eiryss, killing her. 

I get three points. 

Score 3-0

Advantage Druidic Menites

Cygnar turn 3:

My opponent has very few options here, and I'm desperately hoping he doesn't go for the assassination run. 

I really needed to not have to commit the Devout to killing the Firefly, and then everything would be fine. Instead, I feel extremely vulnerable to my opponent doing something like this:

GMCA aims and Flares/Brutal Damage shots Durst for an average of six (1 after focus soak) thanks for fire for effect. 

Each Tempest blazer that's not engaged shoots him for another 3 each on average.

Caine, with Reload, moves around and gets Durst in his sights, firing four fully boosted POW 12s, each doing 5 damage on average. 

Durst can soak 20 damage with focus and has 19 boxes, and my opponent does 28 damage on average here, and the way my opponents dice have been going, he's likely to do a lot more. 

Oddsmachine puts this in the 40% ish range of likelihood, which to be honest, is much better than any of his other options, even if it's not as likely to work as it is to fail. 

Fortunately, my opponent loads up his Stormclad and upkeeps Fire for Effect, and I breathe an internal sigh of relief. 

The GMCA still aims and Flare/Brutal damage shots at Durst, doing five which I power field. 

The Stormclad goes in and nearly wrecks the front Templar, leaving just the cortex and flail intact. 

The Blazers do shoot at Durst, but he takes minimal damage. At this point, I think I would have lived through Caine going at me, even if he hadn't loaded the Stormclad. Durst still had 16 hit points and three focus left, and Caine was only going to be able to do approximately half that much damage.

Stormlances charge the Castigator and the Indictor, wrecking the Castigator with some excellent damage rolls (dice -4 on three dice three times should only be 21 damage, not 32). 

The Lancer pokes at the other Templar's cortex. 

Druidic Menites turn 4:

It's go time, so I allocate a bunch of focus. 

Durst charges and wrecks the Lancer.

The Stormclad goes down between the two Templars, and it takes one Indictor to kill off the Stormlances under battle. 

I dominate the zone again, getting two more control points and the win.

Score 5-0

Victory for the Druidic Menites!

Post-Game Thoughts:

I got both extraordinarily unlucky and extraordinarily lucky here. I should have had ample resources to kill the Firefly sitting in the zone before the Devout went in, which would have meant I had very, very low chances of dying to shooting in this situation. 

Instead, I had to leave Durst sitting out naked against a bunch of accurate, boosted POW 10's and 12's. 

Other than that, the list did exactly what it was supposed to do. I ran up the table and pushed my opponent out of the important areas with a wall of nearly unkillable warjacks. 

On to game two!

Battle Report 62: Las Vegas Open Invitational Round 2 - Wurmwood vs. Stryker 1

Round two, guaranteed top 8, and another really hard matchup.

Julien is another one of those incredible Warmachine players from Texas (why are there so darn many?) and he was playing a really nasty pair - Haley 2 in theme and a Stryker 1 list in a theme that he called "Janky Crap".

We were playing Take and Hold, and I figured Wurmwood was probably the right play into both of his lists (so many eLeaps), and was delighted when he dropped Stryker instead of Haley. Haley is a scary lady, and while Stryker does have a time walk feat, it's a manageable game if I can make him do that on my feat turn.

Stryker 1
- Reinholdt
- Stormwall
- Firefly

Alain Runewood
- Dynamo
Strangeways
Laddermore

Max Storm Lances


And my Wurmwood list, for those of you who haven't read the last few reports:

Wurmwood
- Cassius
- Megalith
- Pureblood
- Woldwyrd x3

Gallows Grove
Lanyssa

Shifting Stones x2
Sentry Stones x2
Min Bonegrinders
Gatormen Bokur and Shamblers


I won the roll off, and since we were playing Take and Hold, I windmill slammed going second on side with a reasonable chance to build forest walls in.

I made a massive mistake on deployment here - I put Cassius on the wrong side of the table. I was intending to use him to kill a Shambler turn 1 and complete my LOS denial, but then I randomly was like "nah, he's good on this side instead.

Derp.

Cygnar turn 1:

This is a pretty standard turn. Arcane Shield goes on the Stormlances, Snipe goes on the Stormwall.

Things durdle on up. Julien does quite a bit of premeasuring for his next turn with Reinholdt and Stryker here, so I have no illusions that one of my Sentry Stones is dying no matter what I do.

Circle turn 1:

I'd realized my deployment mistake the second I clocked back over to Julien, and now I was going to pay for it.

I build a forest wall as best I can, and then use the forest on my left to give Lanyssa and my Grove stealth, as well as to hide my Woldwyrd in but still within striking range of the hill.

Everything else advances up onto the hill to make it problematic for lances to hit things.

Cygnar turn 2:

What I'm expecting is a feat and jam play, but what happens instead is a turn of shooting. I somehow don't have a picture for this turn though.

Stryker drops Snipe and upkeeps Arcane Shield.

He re-casts Snipe on Dynamo, and then moves over behind the Firefly.

Reinholdt moves up and strips Stealth off a Sentry Stone, and the Stormwall blasts it to death and puts down covering fire.

The Stormlances back off slightly to stay out of range of things.

Dynamo gets the +2 to hit from Jack Marshal, and murders the Bokur and a few Shamblers.

Circle turn 2:

I craft Wurmwood a talisman, and then port him up on the hill.

Cassius runs to make sure Wurmwood can Dark Path back to the flag.

My two right hand Woldwyrds nearly kill the Firefly, but keep missing those sevens to hit.

Megalith durdles up in charge range of the Stormwall, for next turn, and casts Stranglehold at the Firefly.

Wurmwood activates, Strangleholds the Stormwall and then casts Curse of Shadows on Dynamo before porting back to Cassius and popping his Feat.

This is a nice little break. I finish things off by moving the Woldwyrd on the left up and casually killing Dynamo in two shots. Yeah.....

All of a sudden I felt really, really good about the game.

Lanyssa moves up and casts Winter Storm at max command, catching just the Stormwall.

I score one point.

Score 1-0

Advantage Circle

 Cygnar turn 3:

Julien is in a bit of a spot here. Dynamo wasn't supposed to die like that (although the math says he does only live through a Woldwyrd shooting him with three boxes), and I've been much more aggressive on Scenario than I think he was expecting.

He allocates nothing and upkeeps Arcane Shield. 

It's Feat turn. Stryker moves over and pops his Feat.

Stormwall moves to contest the flag on the left, and the Stormlances get pathfinder from Alain before walking up, killing some dudes, and then repositioning into the flag.

Laddermore runs to get inside the feat.

Score 1-0

Advantage Circle

Circle turn 3:

Time to try and murder everything?

Wurmwood goes first and casts Curse of Shadows at the Stormlances, and then puts Wraithbane on both Woldwyrds.

Between two Woldywrds and the Pureblood spraying, I kill off three Stormlances.

Cassius runs away so Wurmwood has somewhere to go if things get rough.

I look at the table and decide I need to sacrifice Megalith to the Stormwall this turn.

If I can force him to turn the Stormwall to the left, he won't be able to shoot as effectively when I inevitably start Strangleholding him every turn. Also, with Weight of Stone, the Stormwall becomes speed 2, and won't be able to contest the important flag.

I run lots of guys around the flag on the left, and the Woldwyrd over there takes 5 out of Arlan's 8 health.

I port one unit of stones up so they are within healing field range of Woldwyrds, and I port the other unit out to make it impossible for the Stormwall to trample and land near Wurmwood.

I score again.

Score 2-0

Advantage Circle

 Cygnar turn 4:

He can't ignore Megalith, so the Stormwall gets a focus, and Arcane Shield stays up.

Lances charge in and fail to kill anything, but do knock out a few systems.

Runewood charges and kills my Sentry Stone.

Arlan gives the Stormwall a focus, and the Stormwall misses one attack, leaving Megalith on one. Stryker moves up and kills Megalith, and Julien passes the turn.

Score 2-0

Advantage Circle

 Circle turn 4:

I upkeep Curse of Shadows and go to ten fury.

Stormlances die to Woldwyrds, but I can't dismount Laddermore without committing the Pureblood, who fails to kill her dismount. At least she's not contesting.

I get Curse of Shadows on the Stormwall, and charging Shamblers do about twenty damage to it. Nice!

The remaining Bone Grinder charges and kills Runewood, and I use the far side Woldwyrd to kill off Arlan so the Stormwall can't be repaired.

I port the Shifting Stones around the Pureblood and Wurmwood, in easy range to leach fury and then either heal or teleport.

I score another point.

Score 3-0

Advantage Circle

Cygnar turn 5:

The grind continues.

The Stormwall kills all of the Shamblers easily. Stryker moves up and nearly kills the Woldwyrd, but decides to camp a couple of focus in case I get cheeky and try a spell assassination.

Laddermore walks up and pokes a Woldwyrd, but doesn't cripple anything.

Score 3-0

Advantage Circle

Circle turn 5:

I upkeep Curse of Shadows and use the Woldywrd engaging Laddermore to put her down.

The other one boosts some damage shots into the Stormwall, doing something like 10 more damage.

The Pureblood gets ported into the Stormwalls back arc and Warps Strength. The Stormwall has about 25 boxes left, and the Pureblood easily takes it down.

I score another point, and Julien calls the game.

Victory for the Druids!

Post-Game Thoughts:

What a grind. This game really showcased the power of Woldwyrds. Between them, they killed an entire unit of Stormlances, Dynamo, Arlan, and 1/3 of a Stormwall. Not bad at all!

Julien and I talked about the game at length afterwards, and basically we decided that upkeeping Arcane Shield on his feat turn was the wrong play. Without Purgation, the Woldwyrds are much less likely to kill them, and I can ignore it with Wraithbane anyway. 

This was another excellent, excellent game. Julien was a great opponent, and really pushed both me and my list to the edge of what I could handle. 

On to round three!

Battle Report 55: Una 2 vs. Sloan

Even though we couldn't technically play against each-other for the League, I asked my friend if he'd be willing to stress test Sloan into my Una list for me, since I see Sloan and Haley 3 being a popular pair and I really want to get my head around the Cygnar matchup.


My list is pretty stock:

Una 2
- Wilder
- Scarsfell x7
- Gorax
- Pureblood

Blackclad

Shifting Stones x2
Sentry Stones x2


Against:

Captain Kara Sloan
- Reinholdt
- Hunter x5

Gun Mage Captain Adept
Arlan Strangeways

Rangers
Trenchers
Alexia and the Risen

We rolled up Outlast as our Scenario, and had another person place terrain for us to simulate a tournament table.

My opponent won the roll off and elected to go second, wanting to deny my a large forest and also wanting to be able to shoot at me turn 1.

I deployed pretty centrally.

And my opponent skewed Sloan herself to my left.

This was going to be significant due to the placement of the forest, but I wasn't going to realize it until slightly too late on my first turn.

Circle turn 1:

Well I've got decent terrain over here, I can get my griffons to DEF 17 and 19 vs. shooting pretty easily.

That being said, my game-plan here is bunkering down with Windwall and keeping as many models alive as physically possible.

I move up the left Sentry Stone, intending to charge Una into my Shifting Stones and port her up to the hill with Windwall up.

Unfortunately, I wussy out on this plan (I think, in hindsight, it might have been a better play) and Una casts Windwall and Hand of Fate and charges a Hunter, bonking into one of my Mannekins and ending in the Shifting Stones, who port her up and right.

I run a boatload of stuff to be in that Windwall bubble.

I put one griffon in the rubble to the left, and hide the other two behind the house.

Then I realize I forgot to deploy my Wilder and do a massive facepalm before putting her on top of my tape measure so I don't forget to deploy her during my maintenance phase.

Look at the blob of scaredness

Cygnar turn 1:

My opponent starts things off by running the Ranger leader up to mark my griffon, and Reinhardt reloads Sloan.

She moves up and casually blasts him off the table. Side-bar: When a DEF 19 stealth model isn't safe from guns, that's a little goofy.

A Hunter pops off the exposed Sentry Stone, and he makes a cloud wall.

Alexia runs to make landing amongst his Hunters impossible.

Circle turn 2:

I'm starting to get a feel for the way this is likely to pan out.

The Sentry Stone keeps Hand of Fate and I deploy my Wilder.

Sentry Mannikins under Hand of Fate do quite a bit of work, and what they don't clear from the zone, the Griffons do. Unfortunately, I did another dumb here and didn't port the Sentry Stone up to where Una was going to be.

Una moves up, casts Windwall again, and camps a few.

Everything runs to the protective bubble.

I contest with the leader of the grey Shifting Stone unit in the left zone.

Cygnar turn 2:

My opponent makes a wall of clouds between me and his army, and contests the zone.

Something kills the Shifting Stone.

A Hunter moves up, but whiffs damage on the Sentry Stone.

Sloan gets reloaded, casts Refuge on herself, kills the Sentry Stone, and moves back behind the wall.

Critically here, my opponent decided to walk the Risen up so he could craft a Thrall, leaving them a little more bunched up than necessary.

Other Hunters shuffle around the edge of the zone.

Cygnar scores 2 points.

Score 0-2

Advantage Cygnar

Circle turn 3:

I see an opening here, and I'm definitely going to try and take it.

If the Pureblood assaults in on the farthest trencher, he can clear a few dudes and also put some damage on Alexia to clear some more dudes. The Blackclad can spray the Risen in front of the closest Hunter, and that means that I can run one of the back Griffons to engage it and charge it with one of the Griffons in my zone through the forest (yay tracker!).

First things first - Una aims, chooses Black Penny, and blows the Trencher in the zone up. She casts Hand of Fate on the Pureblood and Windwall. She Feats.

The Pureblood warps Ghostly, assaults in, and clears quite a few guys.

The Blackclad clears some more, and I run my back Griffon up.

The closest Griffon in my zone charges Alexia (ignoring forest due to tracker and models due to flight) and kills her after a couple attacks of murdering risen. Somehow, I'm not able to kill the Hunter.

After that, it's all in, and Griffons fly all over the place engaging Hunters.

I make a wall of Gorax and Shifting Stones in front of Una and pass the turn, scoring 2 points.

Score 2-2

Tie!

Cygnar turn 3:

My opponent hands out focus and the fun starts. 

Sloan aims, casts Guided Fire, and kills an engaged Griffon. 

Hunters take free strikes, and kill two more griffons, leaving a third on basically dead. 

A Ranger contests my zone.

Score 2-2

Tie!

Circle turn 4:

I'm getting down on time (it feels) and we're both almost out of models.

I pull fury from everything except the nearly crippled Griffon, who frenzies into the Hunter.

Una moves up and kills two rangers with Black Penny and Snipe. The Pureblood assaults the closest Hunter, and Hand of Fate allows me to do significant damage to the back Hunter, kill Arlan, kill the Hunter in front of me with melee attacks, and then kill the GMCA with a bought attack.

I block in the remaining Ranger with Shifting Stones, so if he wants to contest he's running a Hunter at me.

Before I do anything else, I chuck a Blackclad spray at Sloan, which hits but doesn't KD, and does about 5 damage.

Then I realize she's on no camp, and decide to try and end the game. I've only got one landing spot for a Griffon, but at dice -3 I figure it's worth a try.

I walk a Griffon over, boost hit and damage, boost a second hit, and Sloan goes down as I score two more points.

Victory for the Druids!

Post Game Thoughts:

This is an icky, awful matchup that neither list really wants to see.

Ultimately though, I think the burden is on the Sloan player to not screw up their placement, or else the birds can come in and swarm the Hunters.

Once again, this game really came down to the forest in the center of the table. I feel like without a central LOS blocking something, gunlines are insanely dominant at the moment. Something like a forest in the middle of the table really evens things out.

Battle Report 32: 2Una vs. Nemo 1

Prologue:

Continuing the Una 2 train of silliness, I took her with me to the JML event that I was co-running so that my players had something to do if they got a bye round.

Despite much anxiety, the guys were champs and let me get in two games with her, "for science".

Game 1 was against a gentleman playing Nemo 1, a matchup I actually thought wasn't super great for the birds since Nemo's feat is legitimately gross into this army.

Nemo 1
-Dynamo
-Thunderhead
-Ironclad
-Lancer

Jr.
-Firefly
Lanyssa
Arlan

Max Lances

And I was running the exact same list. After yesterday, I think I might have a couple of changes to make, but I want to give it at least one more game in its current incarnation before I go messing with things.

Una 2
-Wilder
-Scarsfell x6
-Stalker
-Gorax

Sentry Stones x2
Shifting Stones x2
Death Wolves

Gobber Chef


The Scenario was incursion, and I won the roll off, opting to go first. If you have the choice, I think going first is always the right play with this list. Terrain matters very little to you from an offensive standpoint, and matters just a bit on the defensive side. Since the plan is to basically scream up the field at them turn 1 every game anyway, you want to go first so they can't alpha you.

I deployed very central, making sure I could get Hand of Fate onto a Griffon and Mirage onto the Death Wolves turn 1.

He deployed with his Lances left and his battlegroup pretty central.

Crucially, he didn't have a whole lot that could get to the right hand flag.

Circle turn 1:

I ported my Shifting Stones agressively up the table, a move which still feels extremely weird.

Griffons ran. One of them got Hand of Fate and the Death Wolves got Mirage. 

Sentry Stones made a little forest wall for Una.

Cygnar turn 1:

My opponent hemmed and hawed for a few minutes before running models up. He clumped up his heavies between the wall and the house, and then moved Nemo up and popped feat.

He did about 55 damage to 4 Griffons. Yeah that was bad. Crippled aspects on 3 of them and about half health left on each.

Lances just parked themselves around Nemo.

Circle turn 2:

Unfortunately, the Griffon with Hand of Fate on it had a crippled Spirit, and that meant I wouldn't be able to hot swap it around this turn.

Una activated, healed some Griffons, primaled one up, and popped feat.

Griffons went in en mass to his heavies. I was able to get 2 on Thunderhead, one more onto Dynamo (with Primal) and one more onto the Ironclad.

Both character heavies melted, and then poor dice left the Ironclad on about half health.

I flew a Griffon into the middle of the Lances, and another ran to engage Nemo.

The Death Wolves camped out on the right flag, and I ported Shifting Stones up to contest the right flag.

Sadly, the Ironclad was within 4 inches by a smidge of the middle flag.

Note the blue Griffon is actually between the house and the Ironclad, he just didn't fit so there's a proxy base. 

Cygnar turn 2:

This was one of the more hilarious turns I've ever seen. Stormlances poked eachother and eLepaed the Griffon engaging them to death.

Many attempts were made to spell the Griffon engaging Nemo to death.

Lanyssa cast Winter Storm to deny me the ability to fly places.

I scored 1 point.

Score 1-0

Advantage Circle

Circle turn 3:

Griffons frenzied into the Lancer and Ironclad respectively.

Una healed the Yellow Griffon which had lost its Spirit to an eLeap again, and then cast Hand of Fate on it. This was a mistake, and it should have gone onto a Sentry Stone unit.

The Yellow Griffon murdered the Ironclad.

The Griffon engaging Nemo used a headbutt to knock him over, then bought an attack.

Sentry Mannikins sprayed him to death.

Victory for the Druids!

Post Game Thoughts:

I hadn't expected Nemo's feat to do quite so much work going into this, and boy did it. Boosted POW 14s against ARM 13 light warbeasts is brutal.

That being said, I don't feel like his particular list has enough of a threat range to really make me worried, and this game really demonstrated how fast the Griffons are.

If I could offer one criticism of my opponents game, I would have suggested putting Dynamo and the Ironclad farther apart so I have to commit 2 Griffons each, and then keep Thunderhead back. This means that I have to run to engage him if I don't want him to pulse for free, and even then he can take a free strike, pulse, and probably kill or come very close to killing the majority of the Griffons I committed.

Thunderhead was my biggest fear heading into this game and I spent a lot of resources making sure he died.

Battle Report 25, High Reward Steamroller round 1, Wurmwood vs. Haley 2

Prologue:

I was able to attend a High Reward Steamroller at Mox Boarding House in Bellevue this last weekend, a format with an 8 person cap and a $25 buy-in price (which is a lot for an 8 man steamroller).

I took my tried and true pairing of Tanith and Wurmwood:

Tanith
-Warpwolf Stalker
-Pureblood Warpwolf
-Scarsfell Griffon
-Gorax

Una
-Scarsfell Griffon x2

Wrong-Eye
-Snapjaw

Lanyssa

Sentry Stones x2
Shifting Stones
Swamp Gobbers Bellow Crew
Obective: Fuel Cache

This is my Circle, Ret, and situationally Trolls, Mercs, or other dudespam drop. Scarsfell Griffons trade into squishy heavies really, really well, and they're not easy to kill on the backswing without significant investment.

My Wurmwood list is a bit of an oddball, with Brennos and Megalith being a module I haven't seen anywhere else. The idea here is that Brennos plus Megalith can literally shut down a colossal for an entire game. Brennos also has blessed naturally on his staff, and that has come up quite a few times for me now.

Wurmwood
-Cassius
-Warpwolf Stalker
-Brennos
-Megalith
-Gorax

Lanyssa
Gallows Grove

Sentry Stones x2
Shifting Stones x2
Min Bone Grinders
Gatormen Bokur and Shamblers
Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew
Objective: Fuel Cache

The field was pretty non-diverse, with three Circle players all rocking Wurmwood and Tanith (one of the guys had the exact same Tanith list as I did!), two Ret players with Issyria/Kaelyssa and Rahn/Vyros 1, one Khador player with Butcher 3/Irusk 2, one Cygnar player with Haley 2/Caine 2, and one Skorne player running Rasheth with a billion Shamans/Zaal 2 with a billion immortals.

I was pretty nervous going into this event, I hadn't really stretched my competitive wings for solo events in nearly 4 months, and I was worried that I had lost any edge I once had.

Round one, I was paired with the Cygnar player. His lists were interesting, Caine 2 was running two Stormclads and Haley was running:

Haley 2
-Squire
-Stormclad
-Thunderhead
-Thorn

Journeyman
-Sentinel

Max Stormlances
Black 13th
Objective: Bunker

Ultimately, I had a very strong feeling he would drop Haley 2, and since there was so much Circle for me to drop Tanith into and this was a good chance to test Wurmwood into Haley, I ultimately dropped Wurmwood.

We were playing Extraction, and my opponent won the roll off and opted for first.

One side had a forest right in front of the middle deployment zone, and the other had a forest up and to the right. There was a wall on that side, a hill on the edges of the Scenario, and a cloud in the center with a trench on the far side.

I opted for the side with the more central forest and wall, hoping that the forest in his face would force him to split his army, and it did.

Cygnar Deployment:

I counter-deployed:

The important things here are really just the forest and the wall and the trench. The cloud is going to go away most likely, and the forest here allows me to completely hide Wurmwood from his entire army. I lined up the Stalker across from the Lances since the game plan was to bait them with the Sentry Stones and then kill as many as possible.


Cygnar turn 1:

He's pretty aggressive here.

Arcane Shield goes onto the Stormlances and the Jr. moves up behind the forest. The Black 13th run and spread out to avoid Hellmouth. Thorn and Thunderhead run, the Stormclad gets TKed, and Haley puts up Deceleration, moving almost into the trench. The Sentinel runs.

As you can see, the sun was pretty bright and this would lead to issues for pics.

Circle turn 1:

I go into the tank for a while and then decide that since I'm the one going second, I'd really like to just bubble up and force him to commit. If he does and feats, I counterfeat and get a control point most likely, which is a bad place for him to be.

I place my cloud, and Cassius runs. I try for an unboosted Curse of Shadows on the Stormlances and miss, then I Dark Path Cassius back and cast Wild Growth to continue my wall of LOS denial.

Bone Grinders murder eachother, as usual.

Everything else advances or cross runs to get into better position for next turn. I do like one point of damage to a Stormlance with a Mannikin spray.

Cygnar turn 2:

He thinks about it for a bit, and then measures from Thunderhead to the farthest up Sentry Stone, finding he can get within five of it with a TK. Thunderhead gets two focus, Jr. upkeeps Arcane Shield.

The Centurion moves and shoots the Mannikin blocking the black Stormlance. Thorn shuffles to get LOS to Thunderhead.

Thunderhead gets TKed, and so does the Stormlance at the very top of the above picture.

Haley moves into the trench, no feat.

Thunderhead moves up and murders the painted Sentry Stone.

The Stormlances go in and murder the other Sentry Stone, actually doing a few damage to Brennos with eLeaps.

Black 13th move up and do nothing. The cloud goes away.

Circle turn 2:

I measure it out and I can get Megalith into Thunderhead, and I think I can kill 3 Stormlances. This is critical because the less models Haley gets to Alpha with on her feat turn, the better the game goes for me.

Shamblers get placed and one runs between the three stormlances that I don't expect Brennos to kill.

Cassius runs up.

Brennos charges in anddddd whiffs damage on the second lance, leaving it on one.

Wurmwood casts Curse of Shadows on Thunderhead and Hellmouths the Shambler to yank Stormlances closer together.

The Stalker goes in and kill two Lances, and then Sprints out into some Shifting Stones, who port him to the other side of Wurmwood.

Megalith charges in and kills Thunderhead with a fury to spare, so I throw an unboosted Stranglehold at Thorn, but miss.

The sun made picture taking impossible, so here's this Vassal diagram.
Brennos is the green empty base. 

Cygnar turn 3:

Haley hems and haws. Because I've placed the Stalker so far back and within charge range of where Megalith is, Haley would have to expose herself a lot to Feat and catch him to prevent the countercharge if the Stormclad goes into Megalith.

Side note - when two control casters play, generally whichever one feats first without getting a monstrous attrition or Scenario advantage, they lose.

He loads up the Stormclad and drops Arcane Shield.

Haley casts Temporal Acceleration on the Stormclad and does not feat, camping four in the trench. The Stormclad assaults in and murders Brennos. The Stormlances kill the Bokur (sad!).

His Sentinel shoots Megalith and rolls fire for damage. The Black 13th come in and do some Brutal Shots at Megalith, rolling pretty hot as well and leaving him on half. Thorn runs away.

Circle turn 3:

I'm surprised he didn't feat here, and so I spend a few minutes rethinking my turn. I measure from Megalith to Haley and realize she's less than 15 inches away.

I've got ten fury thanks to Stormlances and the Bokur dying, and I can get my new Shambler leader within 3 of Haley, and one Gobber within 3 of Megalith.

I decide to go for it.

Shambler runs. Gobber runs. Shifting Stones port up in front of his Sentinel so that it can't get dragged with Hellmouth.

Cassius runs.

I arc a Hellmouth through Cassius a the Shambler, hitting, and pulling Haley in. I boost damage on her and roll 6, 5, 4, doing 8 damage even after he cancels out five with a focus.

I arc another Hellmouth at the Gobber, boosting to hit, and drag Megalith 3 inches closer.

Megalith heals a d3, and charges Haley. I opt not to boost the charge attack since she has set defense.

Here was my math:

She's got 7 boxes left (averages say she should have 11 left but hey, dice). I miss my first attack, boost the second needing a nine and hit, doing 5 damage after focus reduction (dice +3 = 10, minus 5 = 5). She's now DEF 13, and Megalith buys two more attacks and kills her.

Instead...I roll the hard 11 on the charge and murder her.

Yay!

Victory for the Druids!

Post Game Thoughts:

I actually had several plays open to me here. and I really like both the play I went with and the other option, which was to use a Hellmouth to drag the Sentinel out of control from the Jr. and away from the objective, Hellmouth a placed Shifting Stone to murder all of the Black 13th, and then Feat. 

Port Wurmwood into the center ish part of the table so the forest covers literally everything, have Megalith blow up the objective from trample plus 3 bought attacks, and then have the Stalker control the flag for a point. Following turn, 

I expect him to feat but get no points if I contest with a bunch of shamblers, and I don't actually know if anything was in range to contest the right hand flag, so I could possibly be at 3 points at the end of his turn. 

I'd just need to Stranglehold both light jacks the following turn, possibly murdering Thorn with the Stalker, and keep Wurmwood safe before eventually killing off all of his models and winning on Scenario.