Friday, March 16, 2018

First steps


Last week I got together with a friend to play a small game.  We are both out of practice looking to put in whatever gaming we can manage.  Jayson forgot his models so I made him a 25-point list on the fly.

 

My List:

·       Kommander Sorscha (+29)

·       Juggernaut (-12)

·       Marauder (-11)

·       Marauder (-11)

·       Man-o-War Demolition Corps (Full -15)

·       Man-o-War Kovnik (-5)

 

Jayson’s list:

·       Orsus Zoktavir, the butcher of Khardov (+28)

·       Decimator (-16)

·       Decimator (-16)

·       Juggernaut (-12)

·       Widowmaker Scouts (-8)

·       Yuri the axe (Free)

 

This was not a hardcore game.  It was a game for out of practice fans needing to get our toes wet.  We dumbed the scenario and terrain down.  Jayson wanted some time playing games with adults.  I wanted to test out some concerns regarding Sorscha and demolition Korps.  We used my winter themed 4x4 play mat with a tree in the dead center marking the only scoring zone.  The left side had a bunker situated between 2 straggling forests.  The right hand side featured a couple of ruins.  We knew the center would become a grind-fest—the objective was just to get our brains used to playing on a board with real minis again.

 

1.       Jayson won the roll and chose to go first.  He broke his list into 3 groups with Yuri and a decimator on the left, Butcher and the juggernaut in the middle, and the widowmakers with the second decimator on the right.  I decided to throw everything at the objective.  I placed the demolition korps slightly to the right with the jacks continuing my red wall to the left.  The Kovnik stood in the middle of the 2 groups with Sorscha behind her jacks.  I am so used to thinking of her as a super solo that I almost placed her with the jacks outside her control range but fixed my error at the last minute.

2.       Turn 1, everybody ran forward on both sides except the Kovnik, who put desperate pace on the MOW.  Side note, I hate, hate, hate, the fact that it takes his action for this benefit.

3.       Turn 2, Jayson moved up with his jacks.  The decimators blew the arms off my juggernaut, pushed a marauder back, and killed a MOW.  His juggernaut ran to the objective. Widowmakers fired away doing a couple points of damage to the 4 remaining demolition korps.  Butcher cast iron flesh on himself.  I reviewed the situation and found that butcher on armor 20 is near unkillable for sorscha.  I would have put a dent in the big guy but not enough to kill him.  So Sorscha moved up and feated on his entire army except for Yuri and a couple widowmakers.  She dropped a scout with a hand cannon shot and hit butcher with tempest, knocking him down, finishing by moving back enough that when butcher shook the affects she would be out of charge range.  The Kovnik walked forward putting desperate pace on the MOW—again.  The MOW charged the objective (1 had to run lacking LOS) and did 23 damage to the contesting juggernaut.  My remaining jacks ran forward, trying to get a line on the enemy for next turn.

4.       Turn 3, Jayson had butcher shake all affects, dropped his feat, and charged to kill a second man-o-war.  Two widowmakers brutally gunned down the kovnik on raw dice.  His armless juggernaut head-butted one of the demolition korps, leaving it knocked down but alive.  A decimator finished off the juggernaut with a couple dozer shots.  The other dozer took shots on Sorscha and missed (defense 18 for the win.)  On my turn, the demo korps finished off the juggernaut.  Sorscha cast boundless charge on a marauder who slammed one of the decimators 1 inch.  I scored 1-point on the objective and we called the game due to time and work.

 

Takeaways:

1.       Demolition corps are brutal—even more so on the charge.  However, they need desperate pace to get in range.  If they keep shatter after the CID, they are going to completely wreck face.  I am going to love trying them with their command attachment.

2.       Getting out-threated by decimator guns was…not good.  Hocestbellum was right.  I need something that threats more than 8 inches on the charge—which means range.  I was going to skip the bombardiers on account of resolving all that blast damage but now I think they have to come back in.

3.       The Kovnik, while being my least favorite MOW piece, is helpful.  I’ll re-work the main list to include one to give the demolition korps a boost.  After turn II though, I cannot expect him to stick around sadly.

4.       I just need to play games.  It is not even a question of “reps.” When you forget to check if your jacks are in control range at deployment you are really starting at the bottom.  I’m going to test smaller list elements until the MOW CID update goes live and then it’ll be time to lock the list down and get some actual reps started.

 

This was a great experience.  I can play—I just need to get back in the swing of things.  Next up, revising my current test list and dojoing a pairing.

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