BRING IT!
My local FLGS
recently had a 'Gauntlet Rounds' tournament to have everyone get some
experience with the coolest new feature of Iron Gauntlet: Season 2. The set up
is as follows:
- Everyone brings three 50 point lists per standard Iron Guantlet rules. We are encouraged to bring lists that we would actually bring to an Iron Gauntlet tournament, of course, as otherwise we wouldn't be getting much practice.
- Every single game is played using the Gauntlet Round format. This means that for each match each player will look at the opponent's list and select a 'caster. After you reveal your choice you must construct a 75 point list from your three 50 point lists.
- The lists must be constructed within 20 minutes. If not, the opponent gets two free control points. If the list still isn't constructed after 30 minutes it's an automatic forfeit.
This of course
places an interesting twist to normal list building, which makes this a great topic for our 200th post here at 4+ Tough!
In my opinion since the normal format is Divide and Conquer 1 (meaning each list must be played exactly once) two of my lists needs to be at least playable against each of the big bads out there: Cryx, Circle, Legion, Cygnar and Menoth. I also need to have the tools to make a successful 75 point list after everything is said and done, which is not the easiest of tasks.
In my opinion since the normal format is Divide and Conquer 1 (meaning each list must be played exactly once) two of my lists needs to be at least playable against each of the big bads out there: Cryx, Circle, Legion, Cygnar and Menoth. I also need to have the tools to make a successful 75 point list after everything is said and done, which is not the easiest of tasks.
My 50 list set up
starts with my Steam Roller pairing:
Vyros, Incissar of
the Dawnguard
- Griffon x 5
- Aspis x 2
- Phoenix
Arcanist x 2
Eiryss, Angel of
Retribution
Max Invictors + UA
Matchups: Legion and
Circle specialist, can also handle Cygnar and I think Menoth fairly well. Falls
on its face vs Cryx.
Lord Arcanist
Ossyan, First of his name, of House Vyre, Smasher of Gargossals:
- Banshee
AFG
Arcanist
Houseguard Thane
Max Houseguard
Halberdiers + UA
Max Houseguard
Riflemen + UA
Stormfall Archers
Stormfall Archers
Lady Aiyanna and
Master Holt
Matchups: Smashes
Menoth and any colossal packing army, can deal fairly well with Cryx, can
handle non-shadowpack Legion and Circle if it needs to.
The Great White Hype needs a home!
That leaves the
third list… which is where I had some trouble. I wanted to run Force Wall, but
in order to get to the 75 point level I would need nine Arcanists, which is a
bit beyond me at the moment. So, I had to come up with an alternate list
that...
- Deals well with Cryx. I don't have a super smashy list against them yet and they terrify me.
- Has a Hyperion. It's super nice to have an 18 point chunk to add on to an army, plus it makes protecting the caster much easier in 75 point games.
- Has Dawnguard Sentinels and/or Mage Hunter Strike Force. I'd like to have access to the full gamut of infantry for rebuilding vs various armies, and these two help fill that bill.
Looking at my
'caster pool the options that stare out at me are Kaelyssa, Ravyn and Issyria.
All of them can be built to handle Cryx pretty darn well and all of them
appreciate having the other units that I've mentioned in their lists. Here's
what I'm thinking as possibilities:
Kae Baeby
- Hyperion
- Sylys Wyshnalyr
Arcanist
Houseguard Thane
Mage Hunter Assassin
x 2
Max Houseguard
Halberdiers + UA
Max Dawnguard
Sentinels + UA
Max Mage Hunter
Strike Force + UA
Kaelyssa is seen as
one of our traditional Cryx drops due to her True Sight, natural anti-magic
skew and no-charge feat. She also runs melee and advanced deploy infantry
pretty well thanks to her feat, so my unit choices were pretty much decided.
The downside is taking the Hyperion, which meant that I couldn't fit an arc
node in. Not necessarily a game breaker, and she at least offers the Hyperion
peace of mind vs armor debuffs, one turn of no charging and Phantom Hunter for
a surprise 15-17" assasination, but not necessarily the best. To
compensate for this I included Sylys, who can at least make her Rifts go a bit
farther than normal.
Ravyn
- Hyperion
Arcanist
Houseguard Thane
Max Mage Hunter
Strike Force + UA
Max Houseguard
Riflemen + UA
Max Dawnguard
Sentinels + UA
Stormfall Archers
Ever since the
Houseguard Thane got dropped Ravyn has been in the running for our premier
anti-Cryx slot, as Banes hate nothing more than boosted aimed rifle shots from
18" away two turns in a row. This is also a natural place to put the
Strike Force thanks to Snipe-Feat-Go, and I think that the Sentinels could see
some use as a source of armor cracking since Aiyanna is in my Ossyan list. The
Hyperion also synergizes well with Ravyn as it loves Snipe on the Starburst
cannon, loves having boosted Thresher cannon shots so it can actually hit
things, and it can smash things up good if it gets into melee.
Issyria
- Hyperion
- Chimera
Houseguard Thane
Max Mage Hunter
Strike Force + UA
Max Houseguard
Halberdiers + UA
Max Dawnguard
Sentinels + UA
The new girl on the
block can be very good against a lot of armies thanks to her feat granting a
phantom die and True Sight, and is particularly good against Cryx. She also
likes to run melee troops with Crusader's Call, so Sentinels and the
Halberdiers are a natural fit here. Finally she runs a Hyperion like nobody
else (except maybe Vyros1) thanks to Inviolable Resolve and Ancillary Attack.
Her downside? I've never played with her and she is still, shall we say, unassembled.
In the end I decided
to go with Ravyn. She is absolutely brutal against certain casters and having a
windmill slam option vs Cryx makes me feel a lot better about the world in
general. It also mean that my lists were completely painted except for a single
Aspis, which always makes me happy.
Normally this is the
part where I would go into an exhaustive blow by blow of each of the games… but
it's getting late and, well… I didn't have coffee that morning. I felt great
waking up, but as you'll see, I REALLY should have had some coffee.
Game 1: vs
Mercenaries.
I got paired up once
again vs Josh, who appears to be my perennial opponent. He was running Durgen,
Magnus2 and Damiano with access to both colossals and Gastonne. Lately he's
been throwing Galleon/Earthbreaker onto the table, so I figured that vs my very
infantry heavy list he'd be putting that down on the table, so I decided to go
with Ossyan as Snipe-Feat-Go wasn't
going to happen.
He then surprised me
by selecting Magnus2 as his caster. Shrugging, I built the following list for
my 75:
Ossyan
-Hyperion
-Banshee
AFG
Arcanist
Arcanist
Eiryss2
Mage Hunter Assassin
Houseguard Thane
Mage Hunter Strike
Force + UA
Halberdiers + UA
Stormfalls x 2
Aiyanna and Holt
Not sure what I was
thinking with this list beyond "HYPERION + AFG AIMING = COOL!".
Really should have had more units here.
His list:
Magnus2
-Renegade x 2
Gastonne
-Galleon
Sam McHorne and the
Devil Dogs
-Mule x 2
Nyss Hunters
Kayazy Assassins
Dougal McNaile
Maybe some other
things!
He won the roll to
go first and placed his Galleon across from the zone on my left. My stunning
counter deploy… was to put the Hyperion and the AFG across from it. Why? I have
no idea. Later Josh said that it looked like I wanted a big robot fight, and maybe
that was the case. I dunno.
He then put
everything else except for the Kayazy and Gastonne on my right flank, so I
figured that I would do a quick fade with the Hyperion and AFG to the left zone
and stack up the right with my armor crackin' goodness. So of course I
completely borked the entire thing by putting the Halberdiers on my extreme
left flank across from the Kayazy, the Stormfalls between my two huge bases,
Eiryss and Aiyanna and Holt… just kinda hangin' out in the back with Ossyan
even further behind them and the Banshee on the left cuz why not? It was a
mess. I effectively left myself with no good way to run my big guys over to the
left. Then to compound matters I advanced deployed my Strike Force on the left,
cuz why would they try to go after Gastonne?
Anyway, first turn I
don't even try to go to the left and instead jam my huge bases together to
block LoS to my Stormfalls while my left flank… does things. Ossyan wasn't
anywhere near to give the Halberdiers Quicken or the Strike Force Shatter Storm
and actually had to allocate a focus to the Banshee to have it run as I
misplaced my Arcanist. Fortunately my opponent left Gastonne open to be
assassinated by the Hyperion after jamming with Kayazy, but throughout this I
completely forgot three things:
- Strike Force and a Banshee is nowhere near enough to hold a zone
- This was a scenario with Kill Box
- Magnus2's feat basically means "if you're not in the zone, I win!"
So Strike Force and
the Banshee got thrown everywhere by Pronto'ed aiming boosted shots from the
Mules, I had to Quicken Ossyan to avoid Kill Box, and then I left him too close
to a wall, allowing him to be knocked down by a Renegade shooting a Renegade in
the back, followed by the Mules putting my caster down. He could have also feated, killed the objective and smashed my Banshee and dominated for two turns, but this was more fun for him.
Game 2: vs
Retribution
A mirror match! This
was against Jeremy of Crippled System fame, running Issyria, Rahn and Vyros2
and had access to all of the infantry except for Riflemen. This last bit
provoked me to joke "Bro, do you even Ret?"
Looking at my lists
I figured he couldn't drop Vyros2 vs me as I had Ossyan, so I chose Ravyn while
he chose Issyria.
My list:
Ravyn
- Hyperion
- Banshee
Houseguard Thane
Eiryss2
Arcanist x 2
Max Houseguard
Halberdiers + UA
Max Houseguard
Riflemen + UA
Max Invictors + UA
Max Mage Hunter
Strikeforce + UA
Aiyanna and Holt
Not sure why I
didn't include Stormfalls instead of A+H, but otherwise looks pretty solid to
me.
His list:
Issyria
- Imperatus
- Discordia
- Phoenix
- Chimera
- Sylys Wyshnalyrr
Max Mage Hunter
Strike Force + UA
Max Mage Hunter
Infiltrators + Eiryss3
Max Houseguard
Halberdiers + UA
Aiyanna and Holt
Artificer
Probably something
else
My game plan was
pretty simple, get the Strike Force/other guns to kill Issyria. So of course
when it comes to deployment I deploy them way off on the right flank,
ostensibly to avoid getting killed by his Strike Force (deployed in the middle)
instead of in the middle and in the back of my lines.
A comedy of errors
ensues as my unpacking causes my infantry to jam my jacks and themselves. I'm
also terrified by Issyria's feat as it will end all of my poor little dudes
right quick. Hyperion attempted to get a blast off on some Strike Force hiding
behind a wall but scatters wide. I also do the dumb decision to disruptor bolt
Discordia, forgetting that Arcanists are a thing and get Eiryss killed. My
Strike Force actually back up as they're
afraid that Crusader's Called Infiltrators will eat them, but still get Blinded.
At the beginning of
my second turn I'm in pretty dire straits. My Strike Force and Invictors were
Blinded by the light, Halberdiers had gotten into Hyperion's grill and my Halbs
had no chance of getting in on a Phoenix with Admonition.
Fortunately my
opponent had made the cardinal error with Issyria and had moved too far up.
Even completely misplaying my Invictors and further jamming up my Hyperion did
not stop it from ending her from a starting position of 19" away under Ravyn's feat. The Banshee had been Locomotioned up to provide an additional shot if necessary.
Incidentally, I may
have caused Jeremy to quit Retribution with that move :P
My next game was an
actual game… so I'll do that next time! Until then, shank a round ear for me!
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