Wednesday, February 1, 2012

35pt battle vs. Mercs (McBain)

Sunday saw the 2nd official fielding of the Circle Army, as I faced up against my merc-playing friend -- lets call him McBen.

My list:
35pt Circle Orboros
Baldur the Stonecleaver (*6pts)
* Woldwyrd (5pts)
* Megalith (11pts)
* Woldguardian (9pts)
Druids of Orboros (Leader and 5 Grunts) (7pts)
* Druid of Orboros Overseer (2pts)
Sentry Stone (Leader and 3 Manikins) (3pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
Blackclad Wayfarer (2pts)

McBen's list:
35pt Mercenary Army (Four Star Syndicate)
Drake MacBain (*6pts)
* Buccaneer (3pts)
* Nomad (6pts)
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker (2pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts)
Steelhead Halberdiers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Steelhead Heavy Cavalry (Leader and 2 Grunts) (6pts)
Alexia, Mistress of the Witchfire (4pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Ogrun Bokur (3pts) (Client: Alexia)
Saxon Orrik (2pts)

Deployment:
We rolled a pretty standard capture scenario (I forget which one), and all but proceeded to ignore it for most of the game. Fairly standard battlefield, with small forests and hills strewn about - not necessarily packed tight, but no real distinguishing features either. Notably, there were two nice forests pretty close to the middle of the board and offset one closer to each deployment zone.  I won the roll and had McBen go first; he deployed both Steelheads on my left with Saxon, Drake and company holding up the middle with Aiyana/Holt, Gorman, and Sylys, and finally Eiryss, the Bokur and Alexia further out on the right.

I put the Druids just left of the middle to make an early run into the forest to block him winning by scenario, with Baldur and Megalith to the right of them (straight across from his jacks/caster), and the blackclad just right of them.  The Sentry Stone went just a little in the forest 20" up, the shifting stones advanced deployed surrounded the Woldguardian up and to the right of Baldur, and the Wyrd took up a position across from Alexia and Eiryss.

Pre-Game Thoughts:
 - There's a lot more enemy bodies on the field than I would like, and all of them are quite fast...
 - Between Saxon giving pathfinder and Drake's feat, it's going to be difficult to either kill or bog them down before they hit my squishy druids.
 - The Druids and the Woldwyrd have the potential to shine here if I use them correctly, as Alexia, Aiyana, and Drake are all spellcasters.
 - With the exception of upkeep stripping, I don't have to worry much about Eiryss bugging up my heavies this game - that's a nice change for a Khador player.


Turn 1:
McBen did a general advance - the Steelheads ran forward and spread out with the Cavalry behind them, the jacks and solos in the center advanced up the middle just enough to get them on the control zones, and Alexia, Eiryss and the Bokur moved up along my right flank. Fortune went on the Steelheads, and Failsafe on the Nomad. A manikin died to shooting, however I forget who it was that shot him.

I took a more cautious approach, already sensing that I was in danger of being surrounded in a pincer movement.  The Druids ran up behind the forest, Megalith moved up next to them, and both the woldguardian and shifting stones moved about 4 inches forward and a bit closer to megalith, with the stones keeping the heavy surrounded for easy teleportation.  The Woldwyrd moved up to another small forest on my far right, and took 2 shots (boosting to hit the first) at Alexia, but missed both times.  Baldur moved up, put down a forest smack between his jacks and my heavies, and cast solid ground. Another manikin moved a bit up and dropped another forest, effectively cutting of nearly all of his line of sight to my lines, save from the steelheads far to the left.

Turn 2:
2 Steelheads charged in at the manikin in the central woods (who I had foolishly left within 3" of the edge), and another 3 charged the front two druids (killing one), while the rest jogged forward again, angling slightly towards the center. Alexia. the Bokur, and Eiryss moved up into the woods near the woldwyrd, with Alexia taking pot shots at a shifting stone. The jacks in the center shifted around a bit (it was pretty clear he wasn't in charge range of my wolds, and would be in my charge range if he moved up at all) and the solos behind them caught up.

It was becoming painfully obvious I was being flanked in a pretty well put together pincer movement here, and that I had to do something about this now or risk being overwhelmed. Both the Woldwyrd and manikins failed to do anything due to poor rolls and very luck steelheads. Throwing caution to the wind, I moved the druids around a bit, threw up counter magic, picked off a few Steelheads with force bolts and The Devouring, and used the last two to pull his Nomad up 3 inches -- and teleported a Woldguardian right in his face. Figuring it was time to wade in, Baldur dropped a forest on himself, forest-walked up next to the steelhead in the woods, promptly failed to kill the lowly mercenary, and in a fit of vindictiveness cast Stone Skin on the Wold guardian, pop'd his feat and proceeded to sulk around for a bit.  Poor to average rolls saw the Guardian severely damage (but fail to completely destroy) the Nomad, while poor placement of druids and stones had effectively boxed in Megalith and prevented him from charging in as well and finishing off the bugger. Whoops.

Turn 3:
McBen countered by moving Aiyana up and casting kiss of Lyliss on the Woldguardian, standing the Nomad up with it's movement and taking a few wacks at the Woldguardian, and finally moving McBain up, and using his feat to make all of his solos and a good chunk of the leading edge of steelheads virtually invulnerable.  3-4 castings of Jackhammer (combined with failsafe) proved to be too much for the Woldguardian, who went down in a tumble of stones, sticks, and a sense of failure. With not much else to do, he shuffled the steelheads forward, missed Baldur a few times, and tried to take a few wacks at the Woldwyrd with Alexia (all targets for her magic abilities being under the effects of counter magic from the druids).

At first, things looked bad - I was about to be flanked by nigh-unkillable infantry, one of my heavy beasts was down and the other in a poor position, and my Warlock was smack in the middle of it. In a mad fit of inspiration, I decided the only thing that could save this situation was going mano-a-mano with my opponent.  Baldur dropped all upkeeps, cast rapid growth next to Drake, and forest walked right up next to him.

In what can only be described as a full fledged dice-mutiny, Baldur failed to even hit Drake with 2 of my 5 attacks, and didn't do enough damage to bring him to even half health.

With no way to retreat and most of my models out of reach and unable to help, I wisely conceded the game to my crafty opponent. A crushing defeat, but a fun game overall.


Post-Game Thoughts:
 - McBen played a very good game, using the forest in the center to screen the majority of his steelheads, keeping the hard-hitting solos on my right in position to bottle-up the Woldwyrd, and setting up a pretty impressive pincer maneuver that I didn't initially see. If Baldur hadn't gone for the caster-kill, failing it or not, it would have been over for me in at most another turn or two.
 - My druids continue to get underfoot at nearly every opportunity; I'm hoping this is simply because of my lack of experience with large, dedicated-ranged units. I'm pretty sure it also has something to do with this army being so very much faster than Khador, which is taking some getting used to.
 - The poor performance by the Woldguardian I'm choking up to bad dice rolls; 4 attacks at P+S 19 at a knocked down target (boosting to hit the first) should have finished just about anything off, but for the plethora of 1's and 2's I rolled.
 - I do not have a lot of models at 35 pts, and  that is really going to prove to be a problem in future games.  Even at 50 pts, I'm likely to be outnumbered by most Warmachine armies, and quite a few Hordes armies to boot.

Record So Far:
Wins - 1; Loss - 1

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