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 |
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.
Score 2-2
Tie!
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.
