Meeting In The Middle

So I got a new mat. My old snow-themed mat really isn't great for photos, expecially with all my unpainted white-primed models. But the real reason I was shopping for a new mat, was to buy a cloth mat that would be easy to carry; neoprene mats are real nice to play on but a bit of a pain to carry around when you also need to carry a case of models and possibly terrain as well. I was worried that the cloth might slip around, and... yeah, it does. You need to be a little careful, and I think that it might be better to fold the mat to size when playing on an undersized table, as cloth hanging off the edge can get pushed around or possibly worse. So yeah, I'll be sticking to neoprene when possible. But this new one does look pretty nice.
Strakhov 1 (themeless)
- Torch
- Destroyer
- Juggernaut
- Greylord Adjunct
Nyss Hunters
Croe's Cutthroats

I believe Speedy is discovering the joys of list building and optimisation.
Cyrenia 1 (Exemplar Interdiction)
- Reckoner
- Reckoner
- Hierophant
Sevy 0
- Fire of Salvation
Exemplar Warder
Vassal Mechanic
Exemplar Cinerators (5)
- Officer
Choir (4)
Idrian Skirmishers (6)
- Chieftan And Guide


Pre-Game:
We rolled mosh-pit from the big book. Water is kind of a pain and hills don't exist anymore, so we used my water and hill templates as forests and created a nice symmetrical forest with a couple of ditches in a tactically-important clearing. Speedy won the roll and chose to go first.


Deployment:
Speedy bricked up, with a gap in the middle to solve activation issues. Rather than run down the middle into his shield-wall, I thought I could try circling around him to attack from different directions, so I put my battlegroup to my left and my infantry to my right. The Idrians declared Prey on the Cutthroats, so I responded by declaring Prey on the Idrians.
Round 1:
Speedy advanced, surprising my by keeping his Cinerators in two separate groups. He held his Idrians back, putting up a wall to protect the frontmost models. The Cinerators got Inviolable Resolve and the Tough battle plan. Superiority went on Torch, Sentry on the Destroyer, and Occultation on the Juggernaut (no real reason why tbh). I sent my Cutthroats on a long flank, in the hopes of threatening his squishies behind the shield-wall. The Nyss set up in a forest. My Battlegroup advanced, with Torch flanking to my left.
Round 2:
Speedy moved his brick to toe the zone. Realising that the Idrians were disadvantaged against the stealthy Cutthroats, he moved them back to a defensive position. Cyrena placed a wall in front of my two warjacks, limiting my options somewhat. With the wall in place I would need to feat to charge over it - although I'd probably need the feat to make it into melee anyway. It looked like I had a clear line to Cyrena; I considered swapping Superiority to the Juggernaut and sending him in for the assassination, but I wasn't feeling too sure about the odds and I didn't really want to end the game on the second turn anyway. Instead I decided to try to thin his Cinerators and use Overrun to limit his ability to strike back.

I allocated an extra focus to the Juggernaut and Destroyer. The Destroyer rolled hot on his Sentry shot and killed the Heirophant. The Cutthroats continued pushing up, taking a couple of back-strike shots into a Cinerator and leaving him on one box. I figured P0W 10, or even POW 15, wasn't likely to crack ARM 23, so I shuffled all the Nyss forwards to take one big shot into the injured Cinerator. Naturally the Nyss did what they do. I swear. Every. Damned. Time. It's always when I go for one big CRA that my Nyss just shrug and go "Nah". Anyway. Strakhov put Overrun on both the Destroyer and Juggernaut, moved up just enough to get some Cinerators in range, and Feated. Torch charged a Cinerator, failed to do any damage to anything with his flamethrower, then exactly met the Cinerator's ARM value on two damage rolls, and ultimately ended up not killing him (I think he passed a Tough roll and was left knocked down). The Juggernaut and Destroyer then went in, and managed to kill one Cinerator each. Using the two Overrun moves I walked the Juggernaut backwards (taking a fair bit of damage and being set on fire from free strikes) and moved the Destroyer up to help distract and try to block access to the Juggernaut.
Round 3:
After a whole bunch of Vengeance strikes my Destroyer was not in great shape - and that was before models even started to activate! By the time all the buffs had been handed out and the attacks made, all my jacks were gone. The Idrians moved to block LOS to Cyrena. Oh, and one Reckoner missed a shot at my Nyss. Cyrena was sitting on 1 Focus. If Strakhov was couple of incheces farther forwards he might have been able to charge a Cinerator and Overrun into Cyrena, but as-is I would have to go for a ranged assassination. So my Nyss Hunters took two CRAs: the first knocked down one Cinerator (creating a window for Strakhov), the second put 4 damage onto Cyrena. Strakhov was then able to walk up into gun range. I rolled two for the riot gun and put two double-boosted shots into Cyrena: one did 5 damage which was reduced to 0 with Focus, and the second did 10 damage which was shield-guarded. Finally I cast Battering Ram but missed. The Cutthroats advanced and cleared most of the Idrians but couldn't get any actual shots into Cyrena.


Round 4:
A fully-buffed Fire of Salvation took down Strakhov with just his initials.
Post-Mortem:
I actually enjoyed this game more than the last one. I'm not exactly sure why, but I think it's because it was faster and more streamlined: there were big swingy turns, desperate last-ditched Hail-Mary's; everything you want in a good game, without dragging on too long. The Idrians could NOT deal with the cutthroats, but the Cutthroats couldn't really hurt any front-line models except the Idrians (not without getting into their back-arcs anyway), so the two units kind of just cancelled each other out a bit. The Nyss Hunters had the potential to do damage if I charged them in, but dice-14 is intimidating even for charging weaponmasters. I probably still should have done it I guess? My dice were pretty poor on that big turn where I charged everything in, but were OK for the rest of the game and were pretty hot last game, so it all evens out in the long run. By the way: Speedy passed 100% of his tough rolls in this game! Talk about just rolling better!

I'm not sure what I should have done instead of charging the Cinerators with my jacks; the scenario didn't give me too many options after all (on the other hand I didn't have any solos to score flags with, so...). Maybe I should have fully-loaded up Torch and sent him in then yo-yo-ed him back, keeping the other two in reserve and giving up points for a couple of rounds? Then when the Cinerators wheren't blocking charge lanes anymore I could have Feated and sent in my jacks on his? I dunno, I don't feel like I'm playing Strakhov very well, I'm not sure if I should keep trying or if I should switch to another caster with more hitting power. The idea of bringing an army that can reliably crack armour is feeling very attractive right now.