Battle Report: Ossyan vs Irusk2

Managed to get another game in this week vs one of our local PGs and his heavy armor Khador battalion, lead of course by the indomitable Supreme Kommandant himself. My first army was an MoW brick led by Irusk2, so this was a treat for me.

Fortunately I was planning on practicing my Ossyan list anyway, so here we go:

Lord Arcanist Ossyan, of House Vyre, First of His Name, Slayer of Robots

-Banshee

Arcantrik Force Generator

Arcanist

Houseguard Thane

Lady Aiyanna and Master Holt

Max Houseguard Halberdiers with UA

Max Houseguard Riflemen with UA

Stormfall Archers

Stormfall Archers

I'm trying out the Riflemen in place of the Invictors as I want to pair this with my Vyros2 list, so this list needs to handle Cryx and maybe Menoth as well.

Supreme Kommandant Irusk

-Devastator

Ogrun Bokur

Iron Fang Kovnik

Iron Fang Kovnik

Winterguard Mortar Crew

Max Man-o-War Shocktroopers

Max Man-o-War Shocktroopers

Max Man-o-War Demo Corps

Max Man-o-War Demo Corps

Irusk2 can really make MoWs shine with Tactical Supremacy, Martial Discipline, Tough aura and his feat to either prevent charges or grant pathfinder to his troops. It's also a lot of heavily armored bodies that can move suprisingly swiftly thanks to Tac Supremacy and Shield March from the Kovniks.

We set up Balance of Power: 12x6 zone in the middle, one flag on the right side of the zone 6" towards the deployment zone. Control the zone for 1, dominate for 2. Dominate your flag to take a control point away from your opponent, control the opponent's for 1, dominate for 2. He won the roll to go first and deployed as so in typical brick formation:

I chose the side with a large hill and set my Riflemen and SFAs on it, the Halberdiers and AFG on the right flank and the rest in the center. Game on!

Khador turn 1: He cast Tactical Supremacy on the left Shocktroopers, put Fire for Effect on the Mortar and Energized for 1. Everything else ran.

Retribution turn 1: The Riflemen and one squad of SFAs ran forwards. One squad of SFAs tried to drift some Sniped AOEs onto the Mortar but failed miserably. The Banshee ran forwards, Ossyan cast Quicken on the Halberdiers and toed onto the hill. The Halberdiers ran just off to right to set up some future charges. Finally the AFG moved up and drifted a rough terrain patch near the right Shocktroopers.

Khador turn 2: Shocktroopers switched to Shield Marching forwards, the ones on the left with Tactical Supremacy getting into and past the zone and the damnable central walls. The Mortar fired but was only able to pick off three Riflemen and a Stormfall Archer. Irusk cast Artifice of Deviation to negate my difficult terrain and stood proudly on his hill. The Devastator ran to just behind the wall on his side of the zone.

Retribution turn 2: Things needed to die, so that sounded like feat turn to me. I did some quick mental math and realized that Devastators are ridiculously tough to kill- even feated Brutal shots from the Stormfalls would only do 1 point of damage on average, so that was out of the question. Shield walled Man-o-Wars, however…

Ossyan started off the turn by feating and using his hand cannon to blow the central Man-o-War to smithereens. I actually should have not boosted the damage roll as having the -2 defense aura would have been nice. Oh well. The SFAs then started up, shooting the other four Shocktroopers into the dirt. The Riflemen then started their long history of not doing enough and only manage to kill two of the Demo Corps on the left side.

On the right side of the field the AFG only rolled two shots and managed to miss one of them, only putting half damage on a Shocktrooper. My Banshee then trampled across the wall and stabbed a Demo Corps half to death, but the main point was that its wailing aura would prevent the left Demo Corps and the right Shocktroopers from getting any orders. Of note, I forgot to cast Admonition on the Banshee, which would have been incredibly useful given the following turn.

I also struggled with whether to charge with my Halberdiers into the other Shocktroopers or not. I wasn't able to get Desperate Pace on them and the Artifice of Deviation covered half of the unit, so I wasn't sure if I could get the full charge effect on them this turn. So, instead I Shield Walled and backed up a bit to keep out of Run+Tactical Supremacy range.

Khador turn 3

Irusk no longer had to upkeep Tac Supremacy so dropped it and continued to upkeep Fire for Effect, but allocated two to the Devastator. He decided to move away from my shooting element as  his MoW wall was wearing thin, and he's about as squishy as… well, my caster.

The Banshee was causing issues with his MoW as the Wailing was preventing them from receiving orders. So the Devastator walked across the wall and performed a boosted to hit Two Handed Throw, tossing my Banshee out of the zone. The left Demo Corps took advantage of this to charge the Banshee and  advance into the zone, and managed to knock out the cortex and left arm.

The other MoWs, shocked that I hadn't charged, Shield Marched further into the zone. Finally the Mortar fired an managed to scatter into a completely empty patch in front of my Stormfalls. Def 15 FTW!

Since I had no bodies in the zone Khador scored a point, bringing it to 1-0.

Retribution turn 3

More MoW needed to die. Ossyan upkept Quicken and cast Admonition on himself as the Demo Corps were getting close. Since the Devastator had opened its arms I decided that it needed to die and shot it with Ossyan's gun to lower its defense by 2. The Stormfalls aimed and fired Brutals, taking away its arms and movement but leaving the cortex.

My next activations were flubby to the max. The Banshee failed to hit either Demo corps with its attacks and the riflemen, even under their Whites of Their Eyes mini feat failed to hit or damage the Demo Corps with two and three man combined ranged attacks, even on the ones that weren't Def 15 thanks to the wall. Really starting to reconsider their place in the list…

The Halberdiers and AFG decided to pick up the slack. Aiyanna and Holt went first and Kiss of Lylissed the Shocktroopers while Holt picked a few more points of damage off of the Devastator. The AFG went next, slamming a shocktrooper into another one and knocking them both down. After getting told to Pace Desperately by the Thane the Halberdiers charged under their Team Effort minifeat and easily eliminated the Shocktroopers even through Shield Wall, proving that Arm 21 ain't no thing to boosted Pow 16s. They then reformed to jam up the Demo Corps and the Devastator and edge into the zone.

Khador turn 4

My opponent was flabbergasted that the Halbs could do so much damage from so far away, so was in the tank for a bit thinking about his next move. He ended up Feating with Irusk to stop a second wave of charges and used both sets of Demo corps to smash Houseguard, killing 3 riflemen and 3-4 halberdiers. The Devastator helped by killing another 2 halberdiers. Clearing the zone he scored again, going to 2 points. The mortar proved ineffective once again.

Retribution turn 4

Kiss of Lylis, Stormfalls, the AFG and Desperate Paced Combined Meleeing Halberdiers almost cleared the zone (including the Devastator), leaving two Demo Corps on the right left alive. Halberdiers reformed to engage the remaining Demo Corps and be hard to kill. The Riflemen failed to kill the Mortar, again.

Khador turn 5

His forces nearly gone my opponent knew that he had to dominate and try to win on scenario. The mortar killed the remaining riflemen. His demo corps, the Bokur and his caster cleared the zone and Irusk, sitting on 3 and behind a wall, dominated to take Khador to 4 points.

Retribution turn 5

Now as just a process of clearing out everything. I debated going for an assassination, but hitting a Def 19 caster is pretty hard to do, so I just went after his army. The Banshee sacrificed itself to get disengaged from the Demo Corps and the Stormfalls plus Ossyan ended them. On the other half of the board my remaining Halberdiers plus Holt finished off their wounded Demo corps targets while the Thane ran around to set up a shot or charge on Irusk. Finally the AFG got its hustle on and ran to contest the zone.

Khador turn 6

Down to just the Bokur, the mortar and the man himself he knew that he was in desperate straits. The mortar killed a pair of stormfalls and Irusk plus the Bokur killed off the remaining Halberdiers, but the AFG was still in the way. Irusk stood proudly in the center of the field, defying me to try and kill him.

Retribution turn 6

I almost lost the game right here, as I moved Ossyan to take out the Mortar with his gun and an Arcantrik bolt and forgot to check Irusk's threat range. I fortunately stayed out of charge range, meaning that Admonition saved my bacon. The Thane plus the AFG killed off the Bokur while the rest of my army tried valiantly to wound Irusk, but def 19 ain't no joke.

I score my first point, putting the score 4-1.

Khador turn 7

Irusk tries to man mode the AFG off of the zone but fails to do so. I score another point, going to 4-2.

Retribution turn 7

I'm tempted to try and kill the Supreme Kommandant, but I decide to let the filthy human live and humiliate him instead. Ossyan runs to the enemy flag and I control the zone for the final three points. Victory to the Retribution!

After thoughts:

Ossyan definitely brings the armor cracking, but I think I could have improved a couple of points with my play.  In particular…

• Forgetting to put Admonition on the Banshee was huge. I could have kept him in the game and probably helped clear the zone much more quickly.

• Putting all of the Stormfalls on the hill was a good idea as they got def 15, but putting them all clumped up together less so. This made them a very inviting mortar target, and I just got lucky that they weren't all eliminated with a single shot.

• I should have made more of an effort to hold the zone earlier. Granted my army doesn't do that as well, but getting the AFG up sooner or moving my caster over to the flag to reduce the number of points lost would probably have been a good idea. This would have been especially important if my opponent had moved to dominate earlier, which I think would have been a good idea.

• Still not sure on the riflemen. They just have problems… doing things. Low RAT, low POW, both very annoying. And while Ossyan can fix power in general or hitting vs single targets, they just didn't seem to do anything. If I had to do this over again I'd probably run them straight for the mortar.
• I also need to make sure that I check threat ranges to my caster at all times. Almost losing because I didn't check to see if Irusk could charge me was inexcusable as it would have turned a sure win into a stunning defeat. This is especially true if the Ossyan player ever utters the words "I cast Arcantrik Bolt."

In the end a good game though. Until next time, shank a round ear for me!