Battle Report: Force Wall vs Convergence

 

I got to play with Force Wall against my buddy Bob a couple of times over the past couple of weeks, one against Father Lucant and the second against Iron Mother.

The first game (Incursion) was over fairly quickly as Bob sometimes doesn't remember to play to scenario and Force Wall plays it hard. He attempted to do his normal brick and didn't advance to the flags quickly enough, allowing me to get up on scenario early and then use my Battle Mages' Force Bolts to simply ignore his feat.

The second game was much more live, partially because Bob remembered to scenario and the fact that his list was much better equipped to handle Force Wall. I ran the same list I've been running while he dropped the following:

Iron Mother

-Corollary

-Cipher

-Prime Axiom

Steelsoul Protector

Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex

Attunement Servitors

Elimination Servitors

Reflex Servitors

Max Reciprocators with Transverse Enumerator

Clockwork Angels

This list had a few things that give my list fits.

• Iron Mother's puncture blast spell can easily remove my Battle Mages and Backlash can hurt me in this jack heavy list, though I can negate them somewhat through Banishing Ward.

• The unpushable, ridiculously threatening, solo spawning Prime Axiom is also a problem like all Colossals.  The general plan is to jam with the Griffons and hopefully get a couple of heavies in on it at some point, but with drag and Iron Mother's Fire Group spell it can remove one or two heavies a turn.

• Advanced deploy models. Even without running or charging first turn they can easily get in the zone. Fortunately I'm not that scared of Reaction Servitors and even the Angels need a three man CRA to reliably hit my Battle Mages, but it's more things that I need to handle.

We set up the Destruction scenario and to make things more interesting Bob won the roll to go first. He deployed as so:

I pre-deployed the AFG to provide some cover to Kaelyssa from the Prime Axiom. During actual deployment I put my two Griffons across from the colossal to attempt to jam it out of the zone while the rest of my forces were arrayed to take the zone, Mages in front to jam and prevent the jacks from being dragged.

Convergence turn 1:

He advanced forwards in a steady wave, with his advanced deployed Reaction Servitors and Clockwork Angels getting to within a couple of inches of the zone.

Retribution turn 1:

I allocated one to one of my Griffons to start the turn.

My Battle Mages ran forwards, the ones on the left advancing to the edge of the zone in a line to block drag vectors to my 'jacks, the ones on the right in a spread out pattern to avoid being punctured to death.

The Griffons both received a total of two focus each and Fleet and Run up to the wall that's about halfway up the board on the left side, positioning to run and jam the Prime Axiom on the following turn.

The Manticores put out a couple of covering fires to limit access to the zone and limit charge lanes for the Reaction Servitors. Probably not enough to do much, but at least enough to make my opponent think.

 And then I made my first mistake of the game, running my Phoenix up to just behind my Battle Mages. The intention was to get it up and near the fight, possibly to charge the objective on the second turn, as well as to let the Phoenix's arc node cast Banishing Ward on my left Battle Mages and protect them from puncture blasts. Of course my positioning of the Phoenix would allow a 4" blast to target it and take out a few Battle Mages… but oh well.

I debated feating this turn but decided against it. The only things that seemed reasonably in range to shoot me were the Angels and to charge were just the Reaction Servitors, and I figured that I would get more out of it on the second turn.

Convergence turn 2:

My opponent activated his units methodically, focusing on taking out the left Battle Mages so that the Prime Axiom could get a shot on the Phoenix. And he was successful in this plan, using all of his activations to kill the three members of the unit in front of the Phoenix. This combined with the Fire Group spell and the Prime Axiom's movement allowed it to just get range on my 'jack and drag it in for the kill.

His objective completed the rest of his forces advanced forwards cautiously, getting a single Reciprocator, Reaction Servitor and Angel into the zone. The Axiom also threw out a Reaction Servitor to block the path from my Griffons to the Axiom.

Retribution turn 2:

Well, that hurt. Kaelyssa dropped Banishing Ward off of the half dead Mages and allocated two to the left Manticore. The plan this turn was to jam the Axiom and clear the zone. One thing that I will note is that we forgot that the objectives were enemy models so we played as if I cleared the zone I would still be able to score without smashing the objective. Ironically if we had played with it I probably would have done better…

Anyway, the left Griffons got 1 and 2 focus respectively. My beat up Battle Mages cleared the remaining Reaction Servitor and dragged the Reciprocator further into the zone. The first Griffon then advanced 6 inches and killed the two servitors that were in the way while the second Griffon ran directly in front of the Axiom, eating a countercharge from another Reaction Servitor along the way.

Moving on to part B, my Manticore got Concentrated Power and charged the Reciprocator, beating it to a pulp. Kaelyssa then charged the Manticore, feated, and cast a boosted Arcantrik Bolt to kill the Angel. I should have remembered to cast Banishing Ward on my full unit of Battle Mages, but c'est la vie.

The full unit of Battle Mages ran to jam out the rest of the Reciprocators and Angels from entering the zone the following turn while the Artificer moved up behind Kaelyssa and used Force Wall. Finally not really knowing what to do with them my AFG advanced and slammed two Reciprocators into each other while the Manticore threw down some covering fire on top of my Mages.

Since we forgot that objectives contested I dominated the zone for 2 points.

Convergence turn 3:

My opponent debated trying to kill Kaelyssa, but my feat helped save my bacon from slams and drag shots. So instead his first activation was with Iron Mother and her Exponent Servitors which arced a puncture blast onto my jamming Battle Mages, wiping the unit. Hooray! To counteract this, though, she missed a boosted Dominate on one of my Griffons, preventing the Axiom from entering the zone on its activation. It satisfied its anger by smashing one of my Griffons to pieces (and only one thanks to a missed tow cable shot).

The Reciprocators then Shield Walled into the zone, the Angels also advanced in, a servitor wobbled in, and the Cipher dipped his toe in. Also a servitor was sent to jam up my Arcanists on the left side, which I needed to do much of anything on the enxt turn. I had my work cut out for me.

Retribution turn 3:

It was a long shot, but I thought I could clear the zone and maybe even kill the objective this turn. Two Manticores should be able to tear through four Reciprocators when running full, the remaining Mages could push the Cipher out and either Kaelyssa or the AFG could take care of the remaining Angels and potentially put some damage on the objective for next turn.

Things started out well enough with the first Manticore killing its targets, but the second Manticore unfortunately whiffed two attacks and was only able to take out one of the big robots. My Battle Mages then missed one of their attacks on the Cipher and rolled poorly for push distance on the other, leaving it in the zone. This was bad, but I figured with some luck either a charging Artificer or it plus a slam shot from the AFG would be enough to clear the zone.

I then made a series of poor decisions. First my Griffon advanced too far into the zone to make a melee attack on a contesting servitor, so it was no longer blocking the Axiom's movement. Second instead of trying to shoot the angels I had Kaelyssa charge and use all of her focus to try and kill them. The first attack succeeded needing an 8, but the second…

Ouch. Now with no way to clear out the zone it was pretty much game over, but I decided to waste my AFG's activation on trying to kill the angels (needing 11s) and of course failed to do so.

Convergence turn 4:

Fully loaded Cipher to the face kinda hurts.

A loss for the brave heroes of the Retribution.

After Thoughts:

There were definitely a bunch of mistakes made this game, mostly involving my heavy warjacks. The first turn in particular was poorly planned. Even if I had still run the Phoenix up as far as I did (which, to be fair, seemed like a pretty safe location at the time) I should have also run the Manticores on the first turn instead of putting out their frankly uselessly placed covering fires. This would have gotten them into position to charge the objective and wreck it on turn two, putting me to threatening range right off the bat.

I also need to remember to include the AFG in my planning, in particular what shot type is called for and whether shooting it is even a good idea in the first place. The second and third turns both saw wasted activations from ye olde hover tank. Second turn I should have done one of three things- thrown a rough terrain template out on the Reciprocators, fired shots at the objective or just run with it to provide more LoS cover to Kaelyssa and my jacks from the Axiom, and third turn it should have been using its RAT 9 to finish off at least one of the Angels.

I did however make a few good plays this game. Jamming with the Griffons was key to the plan, as even holding up the Axiom for one turn enables me to possibly win on scenario. Jamming with the Battle Mages on turn two almost worked, one casting of Banishing Ward would have made all the difference.

Still, I like this list, but I'll be trying out a Hyperion based build for my next report. Until then, shank a round ear for me!