Battle Report: Force Wall mk II vs Morvahna2

One more battle report with Force Wall before I take a hiatus to talk about other lists that I play. This time I was faced off against Mike, the same guy I played round one of the last Steam Roller, once again with his Circle Orboros. I'm very interested in seeing if Force Wall could be a potential list to take against Circle, as that would open up my Steam Roller pairings a fair bit.

I'm using the same mkII list that I've used before:

Kaelyssa, Night's Whisper; Force Wall Tier 4

• Manticore x 3
• HYPERION

Paid Arcanist x 2

Free Arcanist x 4

House Shyeel Artificer

House Shyeel Battle Mages

House Shyeel Battle Mages

 

While Mike brought the following Morvahna2 list to the table:

Morvahna the Dawnshadow

• Argus Moonhound x2
• Winter Argus x2
• Woldwyrd x2
• Druid Wilder

Gallows Grove x2

Reeve Hunter

War Wolf x2

Minimum unit of Reeves of Orboros

Maximum unit of Tharn Bloodtrackers with Nuala

Shifting Stones x2

SO MANY PUPPIES!

Mike mentioned that he meant to include a Celestial Fulcrum and a unit of Tharn Bloodpack in the list but forgot the former at home and hadn't assembled the latter to include.

When I first looked at the list I had some trouble figuring out what could threaten my 'jacks except for the Bloodtrackers under Prey. Mostly he has anti-infantry which is only good against my Arcanists, Battle Mages… and 'caster. But we'll get to that.

We rolled up the Fire Support scenario and Mike chose to go first. I selected the side of the battlefield with a large forest and hill on it, the better to hide from his ranged attacks. My general game plan was to throw the Hyperion into the far zone and continually clear it out with the Starburst cannon and Force Bolts/beatback fists. The other part of my force would be used to contest the zone and generally make life difficult for his infantry with my Covering Fire templates.

And off we go!

Circle turn 1:

Mike was morose about how not far up the field his forces had gotten turn 1, but Force Wall'll do that. This was also the first time I've used Force Wall against a Hordes caster, so watching them rile walking beasts for Fury was fairly hilarious.

The Blood Trackers selected my left Battle Mages as their Prey target. Morvahna cast Fog of War and put Carnivore onto the Blood Trackers.

Retribution turn 1:

Thanks to all of his Advanced Deployment models I actually did things besides run this turn. My Manticores advanced and put down Covering Fire directly in front of the Blood Trackers to make their next activation waste some movement and prevent them from Assaulting anything. The Hyperion ran through the forest on the left making a beeline for Mike's zone while three Arcanists and the Prey'ed Battle Mages followed in its wake. On the right my Battle Mages ran onto the hill overlooking my zone and Kaelyssa wandered forwards, putting up Phantom Hunter on herself.

Circle turn 2:

My Covering Fire made Mike have to decide where he wanted his Blood Trackers to go, as straight forward wasn't exactly an option. In the end he decided to run them over to just outside of my zone on the far left side, and were joined by one of the Gallows Groves, one of each type of Argus and the Reeve Hunter.

On the left side the Reeves advanced and put a few points of damage into the Hyperion's shields with a 3 man CRA while the other Arguses and the Woldwyrds advanced to threatening positions. The Gallows Grove advanced and Morvahna arced Hound onto the Hyperion. I forgot about Kaelyssa's Witch Hound ability and therefore didn't get to immediately smash it with a Starburst cannon.

Retribution turn 2:

In which I make fatal mistakes. Kaelyssa dropped Phantom Hunter as I was afraid of the Woldwyrds' Purgation gun. The first thing I did was put down my Covering Fire to keep the Blood Trackers out of my zone. This was followed by my Arcanists giving the Hyperion three focus, advancing (triggering Hound and letting Morvahna move 3") and blowing the Argus in the zone to just one hit point. My Battle Mages tried to finish it off but missed their Force Bolt attacks, so I decided to do something stupid.

Kaelyssa advanced slowly, measuring her control area till she was within 12" of the target and killed it with a double boosted Runebolt Cannon shot. She then feated and had the Artificer move next to her and use Force Wall to increase her defense to 18.

Circle turn 3:

In which Mike capitalizes on my mistake.

So, in moving Kaelyssa I forgot to measure the distance to the other threats on the board. Mike looked at the board, figured it was close enough, and announced that he was going to try for a janky assassination.

The Argus Moonhound advanced 7" and used Hunting Howls to make Kaelyssa no longer have stealth, and thanks to its Mark Target ability reduced her defense to 16. A Winter Argus then advanced and measured its 6" spray, catching Kaelyssa and boosted to hit needing a 12. The first shot missed, so Morvahna took a point to reroll it… rolling into a critical hit and freezing Kae Baeby. Boosted damage followed by another boosted damage shot brought Kaelyssa to 2 boxes, at which point a Woldwyrd was easily able to finish her off.

A loss for the brave heroes of the Retribution.

After thoughts:

I should have had this game in the bag. There was little that his army could do to threaten my heavy hitters, so it should have just been a question of focusing on the far zone and clearing it out again and again until I either opened an assassination opportunity or won on scenario. The only thing I needed to remember is to not expose my 'caster… but I have a bad habit of doing just that.

I also chatted with Mike after the game and he advised that I only use two of the Manticores to put down covering fire, at least at first. The remaining Manticore can act as a troubleshooter, finishing off targets with two boosted hand cannons as necessary, or put down its covering fire at the end of the turn if it had nothing better to do.

I have to say that I was impressed by the Morvahna2 + Winter Argus combo. Rerolling into crits seems relatively easy to do and it opens up a lot of assassination vectors, especially if you're running a range heavy list. It also is an incredibly low risk assassination, as normally you only need to risk 5-9 points of your force to get to the point that you need.

DANGEROUS WINTER PUPPIES

Anyway, I'll try to not do that in the future. Next time I'll talk about the upcoming Gauntlet Rounds tournament and my thoughts and prep for it. Until then, shank a round ear for me!