Sunday I
returned to my LGS to run our third entry in the season 1 of crossroads of
courage campaign. Since last month I ran
straight up caster kill, this time we went for the second scenario in the
pack. The players wanted to play 1 2x2
game rather than 2 1x1 games. I figured
it would be a good learning session for the newer members so I gave the people
what they wanted.
I knew
going into this mess that I had a problem.
I needed to remain relevant and I did not have many options at 15
points. Zerkova is not a strong all jack
caster—plenty of focus but 0 straight up support. Short of throwing down a bunch of solos, my
options were widowmakers, demolition corps, or Rorsh & Brine. Widowmakers were right out owing to the
preponderance of dwarven casters.
R&B give a nice assassination threat but are pants against heavy
armor—which is most of what you’ll see at 15 points. Demolition corps are super slow but ruin
anything they manage to engage. (cue
jeopardy music.) Once I figured out that
the other players were 2 dwarves and C.O.C it was a no brainer. The demolition corps hit the field again.
My list:
·
Holden Courage
My friend
Mike wanted to pair up with me…and the other 2 guys were bringing stunties so I
was all for it. Mike is a newer player
who I hope we are teaching well.
Mike’s
list Convergence, once more with feeling!
·
Holden Courage
I have to hand it to Mike.
He has gotten kicked around a lot in this league. He keeps coming back a little wiser each
time. He seems to really enjoy the
experience. I’ll be working with him
later to get him up to 25 points (suggestions are appreciated.)
Our opponents brought some serious firepower. I have grown to hate facing dwarves. Ranged knockdown is just flat out
annoying. Ranged knockdown that sets you
on fire is terrifying.
Pete’s list, bringing the noise with style:
·
Rockram
·
Holden Courage
Jayson’s list, or I’m coming for
you “Puff Puff”:
·
Holden Courage
Since Mike was a sewer and the rest of us are
reapers, we diced off. Mike and I ended
up as the defenders for scenario purposes.
This was sub-optimal from my perspective. One of the reaper special goals is to kill
off the old mining guy we had to escort to the opposing deployment zone. The dwarves had friendly faction synergies
all over the place and could brick up around that objective knowing that we had
to come to them. Couple that with a ton
of boostable AOE shooting and I had concerns.
Playing Zerkova into this kind of opposition poses some interesting
challenges. On the one hand, none of the
enemy can see through your cloud wall.
Dropping 7 focus lets lady Z place 12 inches of LOS blocking cloud. On the other hand, that’s her entire
stack. If you want to do anything else,
you are going to have to come out of your misty bunker to play. Mike and I ran through our options
(limited.) We decided the best plan
would be for Zerkova to cover our advance as long as possible. I would escort the old guy into the
zone. Mike would delay and confound as
much as possible. I have no idea what
the other side’s plan was but we had a strategy and by Menoth we were going to
give it our best shot—frigging double avalanchers.
We
won the roll and decided to go first. We
put the scoring objective dead center at the front of the opposing zone. For purposes of this fight the only important
terrain was one of those long green felt hills with rocks on either end (you
know the one that goes on the green felt 4x4 with the road running diagonally across,
the same one every gaming store has.) The
hill was the only obstacle in our way which was handy what with our lack of
pathfinder. The rocks were going to give
us trouble but I was more worried about the fact that the straight line approach
put us in several fields of overlapping fire.
My plan was to hide behind the clouds as long as possible and then ram
my giant steam-powered brick down their throat, hopefully giving me enough room
for the old guy to score. It was a
pretty good plan if Mike could keep some of the pressure off me and if I could
protect him long enough to get stuck in.
1.
I deployed with the demolition corps in line
abreast on my shiny new movement tray.
The juggernaut was to their left and the decimator was to their right
anchoring the steel wall. Zerkova and
old objective guy held back a couple of inches so as to not get clipped by
blasts. Holden deployed up and right,
attached to the MOW within their command range.
Mike worked around my deployment getting ready to duck behind Zerkova’s mobile
cover when we started moving. The other
guys deployed their forces as far forward as possible with Pete’s group
covering left and Jayson’s covering right.
Pete’s Holden and the TAC swung left while Jayson’s Holden and Eiryss
moved right to flank.
2.
The wall activated and ran forward. I did not bother with watcher since by the
time it got activated either I would be doing the charging or I would need that
upkeep focus for other things. Zerkova
placed 4 cloud templates using the metal ring idea I cribbed from Pete last
time (so simple.) Zerkova and her little
buddy ran up staying behind the center of my line. Using the 8 inch adjustable measuring stick
and the movement tray my turn took no time at all. Mike crammed in behind me and put hotshot on
the modulator. The other team advanced
their flankers and jockeyed for best placement for when we came into range.
3.
Our block ran forward and kept up the cloud wall
(it’s amazing how fast your turn goes when all you have to do is drop 4
templates. No dice rolling is pretty
sweet. Eiryss and Holden managed to
swing wide enough to get a shot at my battle group. They disrupted and pinged the decimator for
one point. Pete’s Avalancher hit a bank
shot onto one of Mike’s vectors but since most of them were immune to knockdown
nothing spectacular happened.
4.
Top of turn three, I knew the elf had to go
down. If I did not get rid of her I
would spend the rest of the game disrupted or without focus which was pretty
much an auto-loss. I told Mike I was
coming out of the bunker. The demolition
corps took a hard right turn and ran with the farthest right trooper engaging
Jayson’s holden on the diagonal. They
had a reasonable line of sight around the hill for next turn shenanigans. The decimator walked right to bookend the
left most MOW. The juggernaut did not
have any valid charge targets so he moved up in line with the decimator. Zerkova walked up, drew a bead on Eiryss,
popped feat, and used her true sight artifact to lob a boosted hex blast right
into the elf’s face (first blood, Khador!)
As a bonus, Jayson’s Holden was caught in the blast. Boosted damage put him down for the first
time—though because of his special rule he would get back up again next
turn. My Holden ran up to within 5
inches of the engaged Holden and set up shop.
Mining guy took up station beside Zerkova. Mike took down Pete’s Holden for the first
time and Moved to take best advantage of Zerkova’s no shooty bubble. The dwarves were not prepared for the lateral
move and so had to scramble. Both of my
jacks were hit multiple times, knocked down, and set on fire but remained fully
operational. My left most demolition corps
took some damage, was set on fire, and knocked down. Because of Zerkova’s feat, the gun bunnies
could not shoot so moved up for some next round fun with the demolition
corps. Jayson’s Holden swung at his MOW
and missed.
5.
This is where I would have been in trouble with
most casters. Fire did some damage to
the left most demolition corps. My jacks
were allocated a focus in addition to their power up. The jacks spent one to stand up and another
to run up and over the hill standing on the down slope with the rocks to either
side. Zerkova activated, cast ghost walk
on the MOW, dropped two clouds to block off where the demolition corps would be
moving, and ran past the line to hug the right side of the hill. The two farthest left MOW charged out of combat
with Holden and into combat with the gun bunnies. The others ran except for the left most one
who walked after standing up. The two
demolition corps crushed the gun off one jack and broke the movement on the
other. My Holden looked down the barrel
of his service weapon and mortally double tapped his alter ego. Mike repaired a lot of stuff, did a little
bit of damage, and set up for charges next turn. Had I been playing the dwarves, I would have
retreated to fortify the objective marker—obliterating anything that came into
range next turn. They chose to counter
assault—throwing their kitchen sink at my advance. Mike’s vectors took some more damage to
little affect—it’s amazing how little damage bothers you when you know your
entire army is going to self-repair next turn.
Pete blew the movement and gun off my decimator. The juggernaut ate a safe cracker shot and
got hit with powder keg losing his initial attacks next turn. The gun bunnies bashed their opponents for
minimal damage. The basher moved up and
further scratched the decimator’s paint job.
I placed my force in such a way that there was really no good option for
Gorten to feat. If he moved me back, the
jacks would go back behind the hill but the MOW would get stopped by the rocks. If he moved me forward, I would end up closer
to the objective. Moving me left would
just jam my demolition corps farther down his throat. Moving me right would push the MOW farther away
but leave my jacks standing on the hill against the rocks on the far side. Jayson is a standup guy. He forgot that obstacles and intervening
models stopped the move. He chose to go
right which hit my entire army except for Zerkova and objective guy. Critically, the rocks stopped my jacks in
melee range of Gorten with 0 camp—oops.
I gave him the chance to take it back but he chose too take the lesson
on the nose.
6.
I allocated max focus to the jacks. Fire happened with much sound and fury
signifying nothing. The demolition corps
and Holden Ran back left to their previous line. The decimator powered up its saw and cut into
Gorten missing its initial, boosting and hitting with its first bought attack,
and auto hitting with the third attack thanks to sustained attack. The juggernaut bought three attacks and
finished off the dwarf rendering the rest of Jayson’s army inoperable. Zerkova and her elderly friend moved up and
left behind the MOW. She dropped two
smoke clouds fully screening her from Pete’s jacks. Mike repaired again, killed Pete’s Holden,
and took the shield off the avalancher.
Pete did not have a lot of options.
Mike was about to engage his entire front, I still had a fully
operational juggernaut coming down the center line, and those beautiful
demolition corps were about to roll up his flank. He decided that the best plan was to set
everything on fire and hope for the best—a typically Madhammer choice. Madhammer’s jacks lobbed templates all over
Mike’s forces. The corollary survived on
one box. Madhammer dropped a ground
pounder shot into my right-most MOW leaving him on fire and at one box. There was a bunch more scattering which left
another trooper down to 3 boxes.
7.
Mike furiously began repairing. I looked at the board and double checked
Corbeau’s rules. Fine. Fire continued without affect. The juggernaut was allocated 1 focus. The Juggy used one focus to stand up and ran
into melee range with Pete’s warcaster attachment—she was just out of range of
the charge. Zerkova activated, cast
ghost walk on the demolition corps, and climbed two thirds of the way up the
hill. Using the five inch range
extender, she hex blasted the juggernaut in the back and killed Corbeau with
boosted blast damage. Three of the
demolition corps charged into combat with Madhammer on four camp—the rest of
the unit piled in behind. The first MOW
swung for 31 netting 9 points after powerfield.
The second swung for 27 netting 6 points and freezing Madhammer. The third swung for 24 netting the final 2
points required to assassinate the dwarf. Victory via team assassination.
This was the first fight in a long time where I
felt like I honestly had a handle on the game.
Part of that came from shortening my turns and part came from having
done my homework. Having an actual
scenario made for a dynamic and interesting game—even if it did come down to
assassination in the end.
Thoughts:
1.
Zerkova has a lot of tools. It took me a while to see past her spell list
to see how it combines with her artifacts to give her a variety of
options. Granted, she does not have a
lot of strategic depth but she has more at her fingertips than it first
appears.
2.
I never thought I would say this but I am
beginning to like demolition corps. With
some protection going in they are quite nice once you get them rolling. I have to try shock troopers to see how they
compare but as of now they have done a lot of work for me. This leads me to wonder if the issue in the
previous journeyman league might have been Kozlov and not the hammer boys.
3.
I took first place in this session so Jayson (my
painter) got my earnings, 2 marauders, Butcher I, and a rager kit to paint
up. After that it’s conquest time. I so want range 15 critical devastation.
4.
March’s session goes up to 25 points and will
focus on 1x1 games. I am really hoping
to convince Deathquaker to finish my shock trooper unit attachment before that
happens. The full shock boat plus kovnik
is exactly 25 points. Barring that I may
have to get creative.
5.
The more I watch Mike learning convergence the
more impressed I am with the faction’s versatility—and the more I am convinced
I would be a terrible convergence player.
6.
I am really beginning to dislike blast
deviation. It clogs up turns so
much. Scatter here, check the distance,
agree on the direction…it just makes it hard to keep the mental momentum going
during my opponent’s turn.
That’s it for now. Our next game is 3/25. Mike has already put in his order for his
additional models and I am furiously thinking about the mission requirements. Zerkova is growing on me with every
game. I wonder what other subpar models
I can have fun with.
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