Battle Report: Captain Gunnbjorn vs Major 'Siege' Brisbane, 50pts

I'm Baaaaaack...

Wow, I haven't posted anything for a while, much less a battle report - but, since one of my arbitrary New Year's Resolutions is start pulling my weight (not an easy proposition, considering I'm going to try to keep up with pGrexy and Maxtermynd), here we go.

I got in a game with Mike D. down at Tower on Saturday, who pulled out all the stops and brought the Siege tournament list he's building. Since we deliberately didn't tell each other what we were playing before deployment started, I decided to give Dozer and Smigg a shot with Gunny, throwing in Highwaymen as well just for the heck of it.


Yea, I'm taking Gunnbjorn. Again. I don't know what it is about him, but I seem to have this permanent desire to just make him work. The differences this time around are that he's got some new toys (Dozer and Smigg, plus Highwaymen and Fire Eaters if you want to go tier) and he's on the Master's Active Duty Roster, so there's a not-inconceivable chance that he'll actually see more play in higher circles (for those that don't do eDoomy/Jarl, which is actually a pretty awesome pairing...).

My List: 50pt Trollbloods

Captain Gunnbjorn (*5pts)

* Troll Impaler (5pts)
* Dire Troll Bomber (10pts)
* Dozer and Smigg (9pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 3 Stone Scribes (3pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Trollkin Champions (Leader and 4 Grunts) (10pts)
* Skaldi Bonehammer (3pts)
Trollkin Highwaymen (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Janissa Stonetide (3pts)
Trollkin Sorcerer (1pts)


Since Gunnbjorn has a problem with high ARM and I was going ranged- and AOE-heavy in the Battle Group, I loaded up on a full Champion boat with a Sorcerer to combat enemy upkeeps that might slow them down (and to fill that last 1 point). Unfortunately, this left me short on points for the "essentials", which meant I couldn't include a Fell Caller (Champs have Relentless Charge under Skadi anyway), a Stone Scribe Chronicler for the Highwaymen, or Whelps. The choice of Champs turned out to be a good thing once we revealed our lists....

Mike's List: 50pt Cygnar
Major Markus 'Siege' Brisbane (*5pts)
* Stormwall (19pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (6pts)
* Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer (2pts)
Long Gunner Infantry (Leader and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
Tempest Blazers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (10pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Journeyman Warcaster (3pts) (I think? Didn't really become relevant)
Stormsmith Stormcaller (1pts) (also a maybe - didn't become overly relevant)

Um... huh. Well, crap - on the one hand, that's a lot of squishy infantry and cav to give the 4 boostable AOE templates I can dish out one heck of a target rich environment, but on the other hand... Stormwall and CRA-ing Long Gunners under Siege. You know it's not going to be a good day when Gun Mages are the least worrisome unit on the other side of the table.

He's still working out the bugs and we decided proxies weren't going to be a problem, so the suspiciously Venator-looking models are in fact Long Gunners; while on my side, the Mauler is doing his best impression of Dozer and Smigg, while the less conspicuously Scattergunner-looking guys are in fact Highwaymen (who I ended up buying anyway - more on that later).

Scenario and Deployment

With SR2015 out, we rolled and got the new Scenario 8 - Recon. First impression: that is a LOT of control point options! After some selection, I picked the Stockpile objective for my side (effectively a free Reverie and no-knockdown? Not a difficult choice for Trollbloods) while Mike went with the Bunker (a good choice on it's own, but even better considering the blast damage I was likely to be doing).

I won the roll and decided to go second (mainly because I wanted the side with 2 nice hills and no forests to bog me down), and Mike deployed as below:

From left to right: Tempest Blazers (front), Long Gunners (back), Gorman, Stormwall, Siege, Gun Mages, and Squire, Journeyman, and Stormcaller behind (I think...?)

I deployed next, putting the Champs directly opposite the Stormwall and the Highwaymen on my left to go up against the Blazers and Long Gunners with support from the Warbeasts. 

From left to right: Runebearer, Janissa, Gunnbjorn behind her, Champs and Skaldi w/ adjunct Sorcerer (just right of Gunny), Krielstone and UA (far back), Bomber with Dozer/Smigg and Impaler behind it, and Highwaymen.

Mike had more guns, but no dedicated melee units, while I had a tough, hard to kill core with lots of blasts and a fairly mobile shooting unit that could probably take down the Blazers if they could get the drop on them. In hindsight, I realized pretty quick that I should have picked the other side to deny my opponent the wall and give myself a nice line of walls (with 2 Rock Wall spells to add to the existing one). 

Short of an early feat turn, I had a pretty decent chance of weathering his shooting until I could get more into range myself, and a few lucky deviation rolls (not that hard to get with Bank Shot, Dozer's animus) would wreak havoc with his low ARM infantry. Here's a better look at the board at the start of turn 1:

Turn 1: FIGHT!

Turn 1, Cygnar

Mike ran everything forward, spreading out the Gun Mages and putting Siege and most of the solos in a Foxhole behind the Stormwall. The Tempest Blazes moved up behind the wall, improving their already stellar defense, and clustering the Long Gunners behind them. Arcane Shield went up on the Stormwall (surprise, surprise).

Turn 1, Trollbloods

Aware of the enemy ranged advantage (for the moment), I had a more cautious advance, setting up the Champs behind 2 rock walls adjacent to the objective and putting half of the Highwaymen on the hill. Since I was well out of range anyway, Gunny didn't cast Guided Fire, instead casting Rock Wall, putting Snipe on the Bomber, and dumping 2 fury onto the KSB (keeping 1 for himself, thanks to Harmonious Exaltation). The Impaler put Far Strike on Dozer, who in turn put 'Bank Shot' on the Bomber, moved around him, and lobbed an 18" ranged blast at the Tempest Blazers - it was surprisingly only a little short, but scattered back towards my line rather than onto the Blazers or Long Gunners (drat). The Bomber moved up and lobbed 2 more, again just short, but despite Bank Shot re-rolls, neither of them scattered in the right directions and only 1 even hit, doing a few points of damage to a single Blazer (double drat). The KSB put up their +2 ARM aura and moved up behind the Champs.

Kinda getting clogged up in the middle there, I see...

The Board at the end of Turn 1

Turn 2, Cygnar

Spurred on by my poor scatter luck, Mike put 2 focus on the Stormwall and moved it up farther, toeing into the zone to prevent capture shenanigans on my part, and then dropped 2 Covering Fire templates to slow my advance, plus a Lightning Pod for good measure, but then failed to do any considerable damage with both Big Guns thanks to cover and range. The Gun Mages moved up as well, putting some Sniped shots into the Champions and one into Janissa for good measure, but these also failed to wound.

The Blazers, on the other hand, moved up and targeting the Highwaymen, killing 2 and knocking 2 down from tough saves thanks to Electro-Leap before retreating farther from my guns and spreading out (darn fast cav...). The Long Gunners moved up as well, taking pot shots at more Highwaymen, killing 2 more and knocking down another 1 for good measure (I was making a lot of successful tough checks at this point). Siege moved up and shot, but it missed or was out of range and scattered clear.

Turn 2, Trollbloods

I upkept Snipe and dropped the rock wall, then run/charged the champions as far up as possible, stopping just short of the covering fire templates and killing the pod for good measure. The Sorcerer moved up with the champs, going toe-to-toe with my objective, and was juuuust out of range from the closest Gun Mage for his offensive spell. Far Strike went back up on Dozer from the Impaler, who put Bank Shot on the Bomber again and moved up to take a shot at the Long Gunners (thanks to Arcing Fire), but missed and scattered wide, doing no damage. The Bomber went next, staying put and lobbing 2 more bombs, both of which scattered wide despite re-rolls (again!!), but one clipped and killed a Blazer in compensation. The Krielstone and Runebearer did their things, putting up the bubble and giving out Harmonious Exaltation (only because the Runebearer was too far away to hot-swap Snipe), and then Gunny moved up, put Snipe on the Highwaymen, lobbed a blast at the Gun Mages and killed 1, put 3 Fury on the KSB, and Feated for good measure. The Highwaymen moved or stood up and, through a few CRAs, managed to take out 2 more Blazers, who promptly passed their command check.

To the victor goes the... last cream cheese wanton, apparently...

Turn 3, Cygnar

Mike declared that I was pretty much dead at this point, and proceeded to prove it quite handily - Siege feated, moved up, and cast Foxhole on the models in front of Gunnbjorn. Apparently, Foxhole can be used to remove enemy models from LOS as well, which is a bit of an obnoxious realization to someone who had counted on in-cover, blast damage immune Champions and Highwaymen to block LOS to his highly exposed warlock. The Long Gunners moved up as one, took aim, and one-shot CRA'd Gunnbjorn, who then failed his tough check.

Victory to Cygnar!

That was a really fun game, and a really well fought victory to Mike, showing that, sometimes, a Major outranks a Captain. I made a few mistakes with Gunny and the heavy beasts -- they kept getting jammed up by each other, Snipe and Far Strike were not done well, and I failed to realize how much of a range advantage Dozer has over a Bomber (6 inches, even without Snipe!), and I made the mistake of putting Gunny too far forward (with no fury... not smart) on that last turn when I didn't need to -- but I came out of it with a better understanding of how Gunny is going to work with both Highwaymen as well as Dozer and Smigg, so I'm happy about that one.

Despite dealing the final blow, Mike decided that Nyss would make a better unit than Long Gunners in this list, and I tend to agree - their speed and high defense would have allowed him to move up farther and spread out while taking shots with little fear of retaliation from the Highwaymen rather than remaining in reserve in the back, and let the Blazers be much more offensive and use their speed to get behind my line and start focusing fire on the beasts and maybe even KSB.

For my part, I'm probably dropping Champs for Warders to add in a Stone Scribe Chronicler for the Highwaymen, allowing them to jump up to DEF 16 on more than just feat turn (Concealment from the SSC, combined with their natural Camouflage), as well as a damage buff somewhere (Pyre troll, probably) and Lanyssa Ryssyl for boosted charge ranges. 

Thanks for reading!!