Montag, 30. Juni 2014

Compromised by an imperial spy - The Arides redux

As most of you have read by now, Marth was forced to drop out from the Cantina Games V which left me as the only "Ubernoob" in the Rookie Tournament. And as a spoiler I still won't consider myself an experienced player...



Marth talked about his lists so I'll give you mine for comparison:

List 1: 4-Star Syndicate
Drake MacBaine
 - Mangler
 - Mangler

Kayazy Assasins (max)
 w/ Underboss
Kayazy Eliminators
Lady Aiana & Master Holt

Gorman di Wulfe
Orin Midwinter
Sylyss Wyshnalyr, the Seeker
Rhupert Carvolo, the Piper of Ord

List 2: Highborn Covenant
Durgen Madhammer
 - Earthbreaker

Pressgangers (max)

Thor Steinhammer
 - Avalancher
Eiryss, Magehunter of Ios
Reinholdt, the Gobber Speculator
Gobber Tinkerer

Well at least, that was my plan... for a couple of reasons I did play these variants:

 List 1: 4-Star Syndicate
Drake MacBaine
 - Mangler
 - Mangler

Kayazy Assasins (max)
 w/ Underboss
Kayazy Eliminators
Lady Aiana & Master Holt

Gorman di Wulfe
Orin Midwinter
Sylyss Wyshnalyr, the Seeker
Herlan Versh, the Illuminated One

List 2: Highborn Covenant
Durgen Madhammer
 - Earthbreaker

Pressgangers (max)

Thor Steinhammer
 - Avalancher
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution
Reinholdt, the Gobber Speculator
Gobber Tinkerer
Rhupert Carvolo

And yes there IS a major error in list 2 that eluded myself and the T.O. Justice was served quick, as I got my Gluteus Maximus handed on a silver plate twice while fielding list 2, but I'm getting ahead of myself again. Lets get down to the games...

Game One: vs. Circle Orboros

Kruger the Stormlord
 - Stalker
 - Megalith
 - Gorax
Tharn Bloodtrackers (max)
Shiftingstones w/ Keeper
2x Gallows Grove
Blackclad Wayfarer

Caster played: Durgen Madhammer
Scenario: Close Quaters

Some of you might bang your head onto your desks by now. I chose the most impossible list of both and even my opponent agreed that McBaine would have ruined his plans, but in my defense we have no Circle player in my area who fields epic Kruger - I'm not even sure he owns him yet - and so I've been mostly clueless what this guy can do.
To sum the first two rounds up: He kept me locked out of my ranged game with Storm Wall and I managed to get stuff killed with the Earthbreaker in melee, while I got too eager leaving the Kill Box, placing Durgen right in the middle of nocover. My opponent ment to me, that this might have been unwise and started his turn with caster kill in mind. He started the assasination by activating Megalith, advanced through a forrest and cast Gallows on Durgen, which hit and damaged him for a fair share. Then he deicided to pull him in and rolled a full 6" for the distance, draging Durgen into melee with some Bloodtrackers which removed some of my Pressgangers earlier this turn. "I shouldn't have pulled him." followed quickly afterwards, as he realised that Durgen was now more or less safe from Krugers Lightnings, by having an effective DEF of 18 against ranged and magic attacks. He Tried non the less (Durgen was sitting on 3 Health iIrc) and wasted all his Fury, all while standing in shooting distance of an Earthbreaker in near-mint condition. He closed his turn by placing a Gallows Grove right in front of the earthbreaker about 1.5" away from Krugers base. I checked with the TO if the Earthbreaker had to drop his activation as soon as he becomes entangled by his own Quake-torpedo and they said that he won't have to.

What I should have done:
Step 1: allocate two focus to the Earthbreaker
Step 2: activate Durgen and do not forget to feat, then get somewhere safe
Step 3: activate Thor, drive the Avalancher to shield Durgen then give "Tune Up: Damage Rolls" to the Earthbreaker
Step 4: activate the Earthbreaker and realign its facing to get Kruger into both FoF
Step 5: shoot the Gallows Grove with the first Quake-torpedo knocking Kruger down in the process and deal some good damage to him thanks to feat.
Step 6: shoot the second torpedo into Kruger
Step 7: use the rapidfire guns if the torpedoes did not took him out.

What I did:
Step 1: - check -
Step 2: - check -
Step 3: - check -
Step 4: - check -
Step 5: Shot directly at Kruger, needing a freaking 11 to hit but thats far from unlikely with 4d6 to hit. Missed first torpedo, missed second torpedo, rolled aweful on the number of shots by the rapidguns and even missed the few shots I got.

Durgen was brought down in a matter of minutes after I finished my turn.

Most of my troubles in this game came from choosing the wrong list. That I screwed up my shot at the casterkill... must have been that unique combination of bad dice and pitchblack karma for fielding an illegal list. ;)

Game Two: vs. Khador

Old Witch of Khador
 - Scrapjack
 - Behemoth
Winterguard Infanty (max) w/one Rocketeer
Kayazy Assasins (max)
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich
Gorman di Wulfe
Sylyss Wyshnalyrr


Caster played: Drake MacBaine
Scenario played: Outflank

From all I can tell in hindsight, he must have forgotten about warjackpoints or placing 4 points worth of models on the table.
The game went far smoother than my match against Circle for Khador is the one faction I almost know as much about as my swans. None the less much of the smoothness went to my opponent being WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY to causios and having a hard time figuring out solutions to the problems I presented to him.
Going second I slapped Fail Safe on one of my Manglers which I sent to my left zone accompanied by Ai & Holt and the Eliminators, while the other one went for my right hand zone keeping the Assasins, Herlan and Orin close by. Sylyss and Gorman stayed somewhere in between alongside Macbaine. Not much happend during his turn, as he tried to make controling the zones as tough as possible for me. On my turn realising I had a fair chance of dealing heavy damage to his troops while giving me a clear shot at scoring in both zones in the next round. It worked much to my liking and slapping Counter Measures onto the assasins locked down almost all of his ranged combat options including the Behemoth. It kinda filled me with a satisfiing pride to respond to most of his ranged attack attempts with "XY has Stealth." or "Sorry your to close to this Kayazy Assasins with Counter Measures".  On a personal note I still think Counter Measures cost 3 focus, it's just too good. While he struggled to get out of th is mess, forgetting to feat when it would have kept me from scoring,  I cleared the zones during my turn, gaining 3 CP by dominating my right zone leaving him with next to no option to bring a model into this zone so he could prevent scenario loss on his turn. He did all he could think of to remove as many Kayazy as possible to get the Behemoth closer to Macbaine but failed to bad rolls and not keeping in mind that Counter Measures can be ignored as soon as you leave the 5" bubble around each model. He lost due to me dominating my right zone for the second time.

Game Three: vs. Mercenaries

Captain Damiano
 - Mangler
Steelhead Halbadiers (max)
Steelhead Cavalry (max)
Horgenhold Forgeguard (max)
Aiana & Master Holt
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution
Ragman

Caster played: Durgen Madhammer
Scenario played: Incursion

I'll sum this up rather quick. I lost due to scenario, after most of my forces had been whiped out, starting with the Earthbreaker which had been shredded by Halberdiers and charging Cavalry. Somewhere in my head I believed Damiano had a method to dish out Pathfinder and this believe kept me from casting Inhospitable Ground. Afterwards my opponent and I agreed that it would have been a differnt game if I had cast IG from round two preventing the Earthbreaker to be shredded in to rounds. He even went so far to say I'd won the game... I wouldn't have gone that far. ;)


The Aftershocks:
And thus I came out tenth place, thanks to that lucky win in round two.
In hindsight I will scrap the Durgen list entirely and start with another approach. I realised that Durgen needs means to get him Cover/Concealment and as funny as Thor + Avalancher is as a package... It lacks a much needed bite once Thor is taken out or too busy tuning the Earthbreaker. So I guess I'll go out and order me Herne & Jonne and Dougal McNaile and will include the Tactial Arcanist Corps for Smoke screen and Fireball AOE's... But I'll field him again.
The most unique thing about this "Rookie-Tournament" had been, that ALL lists participating bore a massive cheese odor. If Marth had participated the total eHaley + eCaine score would have been 6 (3 eHaley/3 eCaine).

And this concludes my report on the "Cantina Games V"

Keine Kommentare:

Kommentar veröffentlichen