Sonntag, 3. März 2013

Head to Head - Butcher v. Darius

Oldschool Battlereport! Analog aggression on digital media! Recently, the first game was played on my own portable gaming table (which is a wedding gift from my brother). Arides and me both tried out our "Hydra" lists for ClogCon - a fourty point army, and then a selection of six casters. Which one you play will be determined before the game begins. In our case, it turned out that Orsus Zoktavir, the Butcher of Khardov would face Captain Dominik E. Darius. Enjoy!

Butcher of Khardov
- Black Ivan
- Spriggan
Winter Guard (min) w/ Officer & Standard
Kayazy Assassins (min) w/ Underboss
Winter Guard Field Gun Crew
Winter Guard Mortar Crew
Sylys Wyshnallyr

Captain Darius & Halfjacks
- Stormwall
- Hunter
Ogrun Assault Corps (min) w/ Cpt. Jonas Murdoch
Rhupert Carvolo
Journeyman Warcaster

Scenario: Close Quarters (SR 2013)

I won the roll off, so I got the choice, and I chose to go first. Sadly, I do not have a deployment picture. But the long river that essentially cut the board in half dictated my deployment, as much as Arides putting the Stormwall down to my right. I placed the Butcher over on my left shore, together with Black Ivan and Sylys, thinking that he could easily overpower anything left for Arides to put down if it came for him. If it didn't, the enemy's flag was over there to dominate. I placed the Kayazy in front, the Winterguard Infantry behind them, a single trooper of each far enough to the left that the Butcher could place upkeeps on them before moving during the first turn, the artillery pieces both to their right - and then I placed the Spriggan between the Butcher and the units. That's what you get for not having a Koldun Lord around. ;)
Arides then went ahead, placed his OAC, Darius and the Piper opposing the Butcher, with only the Journeyman hanging around the Stormwall. The Hunter was placed ahead of the Stormwall.

Round 1 - Khador
I try and run everything around with maximum effectiveness even though I greatly misdeployed. The Kayazy go in Front and get Fury, the Winterguard gets Iron Flesh. The Weapon Crews run up full boar.

Round 1 - Cygnar
His left shore guys run, the piper pipes the heroic call, Journeyman slaps Arcane Shield on the Stormwall. Hunter walks up, kills the front Field Gun guy. Stormwall advances, puts down covering fire to discourage Kayazy approaches.

End of Round I
Round 2 - Khador
I facepalm myself for applying the buffs wrongly. I'm not exactly discouraged by the covering fire, I figure that I can walk the assassins up, and if he puts the covering fire on them, I can pass, if he shoots, there won't be covering fire, and if he puts it down in front of them again, I'll just swing around the Guard Tower.
Butcher allocates focus to Black Ivan, who moves up and dumps a mortar round into the Stormwall - it's called prep work. Butcher moves up, puts IF on the Kayazy Assassins. Assassins move up. The Field Gun decides to impress and boxcars the hit on the Hunter, knocking it down. The Mortar decides against chiming in and drops a round on the Stormwall. The WGI walks up and shoots a few blunderbusses at the Hunter.

Round 2 - Cygnar
On the left side, the two Halfjacks move to the flag and turn into mines. The OAC assaults the Butcher, but the damage isn't quite as significant. The choose against shooting Ivan due to the cover. The Stormwall shoots down one kayazy and some WGI. The Hunter stands up and engages (I think) the Kayazy. He could''ve also shaken and attack, but as can be seen, he did not hit if he did.

End of Round II
Round 3 - Khador
I figure this has to be my feat turn. The covering fire is down, everything is in place. I also figure - if this failes, I'm FUBARed. But no worries! Butcher moves up, feats, fires his blunderbuss but it can't reach the Stormwall. Ivan moves up, drops a round on it. Field Gun, and Mortar proceed after that Overture, but during the Intermezzo by the Kayazy, my dice turn very cold, and so after the finale where my WGI fire into the Stormwall, it is still standing. Whoop-di-doo-dum-diddly-fuck.

Round 3 - Cygnar
Darius allocates three focus to Big Blue, two to the Hunter, and spams a metal ham. It moves to the Stormwall. The one that was behind the Stormwall runs behind the hunter. Darius feats. The Butcher gets seriously shot to death.

End of Round III (and Game)
Hindsight:
Well, unfortunate enough that my dice turned cold when least needed. Aside from that, I feel like I executed the feat turn well and dropped everything into the Stormwall. And my basic calculation - that Butcher and Black Ivan could overpower the left shore - still held true, I felt. The OAC did not really prove as scary, and Arides and me had talked about possible replacements. What it boiled down to was: for the role they need to take (tarpitting), Boomhowler's certainly are the better choice. The 4+ tough is more reliable than the 8 boxes, since the armour is 1 higher, and the Ogrun do drop in one hit to hard hits - the only thing they survive better than Boomhowler's are Widowmakers - and that's kind of a corner-case.
For my list, I'm really liking it. Since it's made to work with Butcher, Irusk, Sorscha, Vlad, Harkevich and Zerkova (all prime versions), I'm feeling this is the best thing I can come up with and assemble. Assuming no table-splitting rivers, I should go fine without a Koldun Lord.
I do know that the IFP and AK's proxy the WGI, I'll be lending that from Chronos, our other Khador player.

And that's for this report. Maybe Head-to-Head will turn into a series, but I would not hold my breath if I were you. ;) M&tM needs material, too, but this could be another outlet. But until next time, farewell!

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