Battle Report: Force Wall vs Damiano

After my talk about Force Wall last week it's time that I walked the walk, so I got in a 50 pt game vs Josh, a local Merc player at Pegasus. It's always an enjoyable and challenging game vs him, so I knew that my list would get a good workout. And besides, it's a classic match up: dude swarm vs jack brick, can the Force Wall make the difference?

My list is the same as I mentioned in my earlier post:

Kaelyssa

-Phoenix

-Manticore

-Manticore

-Griffon

-Griffon

Arcantrik Force Generator

Artificer

Battle Mages

Battle Mages

5 Free Arcanists

Vs

Damiano

-Gallant

Stannis Brocker

Harlan Versh

Rhupert Carvalo

Max Steelhead Halberdiers

Max Steelhead Halberdiers

Min Steelhead Riflemen

Max Steelhead Cavalry

Min Arcane Tempest Gunmages with UA

We rolled off and he gave me the first turn, which turned out to be a good thing for me. He chose the side of the table that had a hill, useful for Snipe-ing gun mages and the like. We deployed thusly:

 I will note that Josh put the tower in the middle of the zone, which would also prove fairly beneficial for me.

Retribution Turn 1:

RUN! Except for Kaelyssa, who put Phantom Hunter on herself and charged, and the brave Arcanists that allocated focus. Something that I will remember for the future is allowing the Arcanists to run on the first turn so that things like Griffons can more easily Fleet and still be in Power Booster/Force Multiplier range.

Steelhead Turn 1:

Due to Force Wall's tier 3 he was forced to walk this turn. After activating Damiano (casting Surefoot on himself and Death March on the front rank of Halberdiers) and moving on to his next activation he realized that he should have used Paymaster to give the Steelheads Reform, as an extra 3" is, well, an extra 3".

Retribution Turn 2:

Time to set up some barriers. Battle Mages advanced and foolishly triggered Vengeance on the Steelheads. To make up for this I Force Bolted three of them, then laid down three Rift templates and two Covering Fire templates to slow down the enemy advance. I Boosted and Multiplied my left Griffon to run to engage the Gun Mages on the hill, but only managed to catch a few of them since I didn't Fleet the previous turn.

Then I started doing the kind of dumb positioning mistakes that would plague me this game and ran my right Griffon into the lake because it looked cool, completely forgetting to check Kae's control range.

Steelhead Turn 2:

Vengeance triggered and a couple of Halberdiers ganged up on my Griffon for not that much damage, but really they were just tooling around till the rest of their buddies and the Steelhead Cav could come charging in and smash the poor light jack to pieces.

The second line of Steelheads ran as far as they could around my covering fire and through rough terrain to get into the zone while the Riflemen tried to take a few pot shots at my Battle Mages, picking off two of them through their Def 15. The Arcane Tempest Gun Mages, freed up from my poor demised Griffon, ran down the left flank of the board to be troublesome little SOBs later. Finally Damiano advanced to the center of the backfield and popped his feat (+3 str and arm) and Rupert Carvalo piped Fearless and Tough to the Halberdiers in the zone to try and give them some shot at stopping me next turn.

Well, my Griffon distraction proved useful, and now there were significantly fewer Steelheads in the zone than I was expecting. Time to capitalize!

Retribution Turn 3:

The plan this turn was to clear the zone, smash the objective to get up early on scenario. I figured that the right Battle Mages could take care of the right three Halberdiers while the left Battle Mages could take care of the other four, with my Manticores or Phoenix giving help as needed, then letting the AFG and my remaining Griffon take down the objective. I allocated two focus to my right Manticore to help out with eliminating either Halberdiers or the objective.

Of course, I had to start sabotaging this plan with my very first decisions. I decided to let Phantom Hunter drop because I was scared of Harlan Versh's Purgation, then activated my right Battle Mages and immediately blocked LoS from the AFG to the Halberdiers on that side of the field. I thought that two Battle Mages (including the leader, of course…) in melee with the Halb on the right side would be able to finish it… and then proceeded  to miss or fail to break armor on all four of their fist attacks. The rest of the Mages in the squad acquitted themselves well, killing three of the other Halbs, and then my left side of the board eliminated the remaining Halberdiers as thankfully no Tough checks were rolled. The Phoenix and Manticore attempted to kill Aiyanna but either rolled abysmally on damage, missed or were prevented from shooting by Holt.

I still had one stubbornly engaged Halberdier and an objective to deal with. The objective could have been dealt with by my Griffon alone on average dice rolls if I had remembered to keep it in Kaelyssa's control area as I only had three Arcanists in the area. As it was it would need help. So the AFG activated and fired Rapid Fire shots at the objective, reducing it to 1 point of health left.

Now on to the Halberdier. The Manticore activated, aimed and needing a 10 failed to hit, of course killing a Battle Mage in the process. The second shot also missed but also missed my other Battle Mage. Kaelyssa, frustrated with her forces recast Phantom Hunter on herself and sniped the Halberdier with her Runebolt cannon (needing two shots!), leaving her on no focus. She popped her feat to protect the army against any counter attack and her friend the Artificer moved to block LoS from the left side of the field and used Force Barrier to raise her DEF against ranged attacks to 18.

Finally the Griffon got its focus and smashed the objective with its shield, taking two Halberd attacks on a Halberdier that was outside the zone, but here my opponent's Tough checks finally came in handy.

I ended my activation and dominated the zone for 3 control points.

Steelhead turn 3:

My opponent now had to flood the zone to prevent me from dominating again for the win. His gunmages were a threat as they ignore stealth, but fortunately Kaelyssa was both far enough away from them and shielded by the Artificer's body to prevent any harm from coming to her. Unfortunately for me there was only the feat to prevent harm from coming to my forces, as I didn't have the resources last turn to put up any templates.

But, thanks to my feat he couldn't get much damage in on my 'jacks. The remaining Halberdiers ran into the zone and tried to jam up the Phoenix and Manticore while the Riflemen advanced with Money Shot. Together they managed to wiped out all but one Battle Mage on the left flank. The Steelhead cav through a few shots around but mostly moved to get charges in next turn or jam in on the right side of the zone. Aiyanna and Holt moved into the zone, got LoS on the Artificer… and then remembered that I have stealth this turn.

The Gun mages attempted to Brutal shot the Artificer but failed to get any crits and didn't crack his ARM 17.

At the end of the turn there were a mess of Steelheads, A+H, Harlan Versh and Damiano in the zone, with Damiano's Surefoot making the Riflemen particularly hard to hit. It was going to be a slog…

Retribution turn 4:

My goal for the rest of the game was clear the zone, and while difficult I thought I had a shot at it this turn. It all hinged on getting the Phoenix unengaged.

Kae began the turn by upkeeping Phantom Hunter and allocating three focus to the Phoenix. The remaining Battle Mage from my left squad performed heroically, killing off two of the Halberdiers that were penning the Phoenix in with Beat Back attacks and moving out of his way on the last one. The Artificer then joined the fray by punching the last Halberdier out of the way.

Free at last, the Phoenix moved into a nice open spot within 2" of five Steelhead Riflemen, Aiyanna and Holt, a Halberdier and Stannis Brocker. Brocker took his defensive strike and knocked the shields off the Phoenix, but it wasn't enough. The Phoenix let loose its Combustion attack, killing A+H, my brave little Battle Mage, the Halberdier and all of the Riflemen except for one that Toughed. It then proceeded to murder Stannis with its sword. Flush with victory the left Manticore got allocated two focus from Arcanists and murdered a Cavalry.

On the right flank things didn't go as well. My goal was to use the AFG to slam the SH Cavalry into Harlan Versh and the other Cavalry on the right flank, hopefully killing the three of them if I was lucky. To do this I needed to unengage the Cavalryman from my Griffon and one Battle Mage.

The right Battle Mage unit activated, duly got its member killed by a free strike, then killed only one of the two Riflemen in range due to Damiano's Surefoot aura and Tough. I then declared that the AFG was activating, completely forgetting to move the Griffon out of melee with the Cav. Now needing a 10 to hit I failed miserably, but also failed to hit my Griffon. The Griffon then took a desultory swipe at Gallant but failed to do anything.

The right Manticore continued this trend by getting three focus and failing to kill either of the remaining Riflemen.

Finally, afraid that the Gun Mages would be able to draw a bead on her with the Artificer out of position and being unable to dominate the zone Kae ran out of the zone and onto the right side of the AFG.

Steelhead turn 4:

Now finally not encumbered by a Force Wall, templates or Kae's feat, my opponent finally got to move. Halberdiers got into position and the Steelhead Cav made their charge, smashing both the left Manticore and my bold Phoenix to smithereens. Flank charges hurt.

The Gun Mages attempted to take some more Brutal shots on the Artificer but only managed to break armor once, dealing three points of damage.

And finally Gallant decided to one hand throw the Griffon into the lake, effectively taking it out of the game.

I still had three Battle Mages (that Versh and Damiano failed to kill) and the Artificer in the zone, so the score remained 3-0.

The remaining 3 rounds:

I could go into more detail but at this point it was pretty much just a slog of attrition. The highlights:

-The AFG filled the role of artillery admirably, wiping out the remaining Halberdiers and therefore denying the Cavalry their flank bonus.

-The Steelhead Cav managed to kill my objective.

-The Artificer managed to kill two of the Cav in one round. MAT 7 P+S 13 fists with Beat Back apparently hurt.

-The Manticore tore Gallant and a Cav to pieces over the course of three turns

-The Battle Mages eliminated Rhupert Carvolo with their fists of fury

-The Gun Mages failed again to kill the Artificer and eventually moved to contest the zone.

-Kae closed out the game with two boosted Phantom Hunter shots killing contesting Gun Mages and dominating for the win.

Victory for the angry elves!

After Thoughts:

This was my first real test of Force Wall and it performed admirably. I was able to hamper my opponent's mobility for three straight turns and got up early on scenario points, forcing my opponent to over commit to hold me back. The jacks, especially the Phoenix, all performed rather well thanks to their Arcanist support and contributed a lot to the lists overall resilience.

I was especially surprised by the Battle Mages' performance. I've always liked them with Kae thanks to her feat allowing them to set up interesting dilemmas for the opponent with drag, but this game really highlighted that they can clear out infantry pretty well if they put their minds to it. Two P+S 11 fists with beat back allow them to get to infantry wherever they are and being magic users can easily force back the tide even when engaged. The Artificer likewise impressed me with his durability and occasionally handy melee prowess- MAT 7, who knew?

However, even in victory there were some problems that were highlighted. I was fairly lucky that Josh's list didn't have any easy access to Pathfinder, which would have cut down on my anti-mobility shenanigans by quite a bit, and this game in particular highlighted how much I rely on that. Against a more tournament tuned list and I'm not sure how well I would fare.

But, at the same time I found that the Phoenix, the main origination point of my Rift templates, and its ability to easily clear zones with Combustion is pretty necessary for this theme, especially since it doesn't require any rolls to hit. Manticores suffered a similar conflicting problem- their covering fire and melee prowess against heavies are great, but their guns leave much to be desired and covering fire is effective only for so long. Once bogged down with infantry they can't really do much.

To help combat these problems I'm thinking that switching out some options for a Hyperion might be beneficial. It keeps some of the mass removal abilities of the Phoenix with its sweep attacks and can punish enemies that run to mob the zone with its Starburst cannon. Plus with all of the Arcanists that I have running around opponents will need to one round it or swiftly see it return to full capacity.

I'll stick with the list as is for a couple of games yet, but definitely expect to see the Hyperion join the ranks at some point in the near future.

Thanks for reading, and until next time, shank a round ear for me!