The First & Last SR2021 of 2021?

So, Warmachine. I'm as surprised as you are. I wanted to run a simple list without too much support bloat. The idea was to leverage Torch's mobility to take out softer targets early, and soften up harder targets with shooting. Alexia would stand back and accumulate Risen, kept safe by Occulatation, until she could help finish off hard targets late-game after our forces were depleted. The Adjunct would keep Strakhov at 6 focus and allow my Destroyer to shoot at Passage'd warjacks.
Strakhov 1 (themeless)
- Torch
- Destroyer
- Greylord Adjunct
Nyss Hunters
Croe's Cutthroats
Alexia & the Risen
- Valachev

Speedy did a lot of research when putting together his list. I had never even heard of his Warcaster tbh, and it's been a long time since I read up on Protectorate models so I didn't really know what I was looking at.
Cyrenia 1 (Exemplar Interdiction)
- Templar (Proxied by The Avatar)
- Guardian
- Devout
- Hierophant
Severius 0
- Repentor
Cinerators
- Officer
Choir (min)
Exemplar Errants (min)
Knights Exemplar
- Officer


Pre-Game:
For convoluted reasons relating to how PP makes the rules available, we decided to play a mission from SR2021... on the last day of 2021. Problem is it's been a LONG time since I've read a Steamroller document, and I was too busy to check up on the rules before we started, so I was relying on Speedy as he had actually read the document. I think this was his first time playing Steamroller though, and it introduces a number of complications over the original rulebook missions, such as specific scoring elements only being scored by specific model classes, etc. So yeah, we were not too sure what we were doing.

Anyway, we rolled for mission and got Recon II. I did my usual crappy job of spreading out terrain symmetrically. I'm really not good at laying out terrain; a single piece of terrain in the wrong place can have such a huge effect on Warmchine, especially when the game gets really cramped in the center, that I tend to instinctively be very conservative; it just feels more fair somehow? I dunno. We used empty 50mm bases for objectives, but I forgot to bring something to use as flags so we used my Butcher1 and a barbarian to stand in for the flags.


Deployment:
Speedy won the roll and chose to go second. He picked the Observatory and I went for the Armoury. Prey went on the Errants.

Round 1:
I spread out my infantry, trying to keep my distance without staying too far back. Alexia ran out of Valachev's command area. While my original plan was to put Superiority on Torch, I decided to get cute and start off with it on the Destroyer and swap it to Torch next turn. This meant I couldn't put Sentry on the Destroyer, so I put it on Strakhov instead. Occultation went on the Risen. Strakhov charged the Cinerators for distance. The Adjunct put a cloud on Strakhov for no particularly good reason.

Speedy pushed up, handing out a whole lot of spells and buffs and things. The Errants used the objective to shoot at my Cutthroats and Nyss (we mistakenly thought it allowed the whole unit to ignore Stealth), leaving Alexia with 4 corpse tokens.

Round 2:
I made a lot of mistakes this turn. I used Strakhov's sentry shot to put down a random cloud on the off-chance that it would help me (though I was afraid it might actually inhibit the Destroyer if the scatter was unlucky). I was not happy with the +1 to EVERYTHING ALWAYS nonsense that Sevvy0 was handing out, and I realised he was in range of my Destroyer. It was kind of marginal without Superiority though; I could have activated him, moved up to take the shot, and then activated Strakhov to recast it on Torch, but I really wanted to use Overrun to move the Destroyer back to safety and I wasn't sure I could trigger it off anything else. So I activated Strakhov before the Destroyer, cast Overrun on the jack, and took a couple of shots at the Cinerators, dropping one to 1 box. The Destroyer walked up and was able to kill Sevvy with the bombard. I walked him backwards a little out of the threat range of the heavies, but because I had moved Strakhov up too far I didn't want to pull the Destroyer too far back so I left him more exposed than he would have needed to be if I hadn't gotten greedy with Strakhov.

The Cutthroats and Nyss Hunters took out all but one of the Errants and one of the Knights.Torch moved up to block access to my flag (or more specifically to the Adjunct who was now basing the flag). Alexia ran back into cohesion, and I used some Risen to further screen the Adjunct.

So I guess putting damage onto the Cinerators let them move 3", putting then in range to attack Strakhov (although I guess with Dash they were technically already in range since he hit one with a RNG10 gun). The Devout got Battle and Positive Charge and charged Torch; at P+S 17 it did more damage than I had originally expected from a light. Two Cinerators charged Strakhov and the rest went into the Destroyer. Torch and the Destroyer were both knocked down to around half health, but after spending focus Strakhov only lost a box or two. The Errants and Knights killed a few of my infantry. Cyrenia took the Repentor into her battlegroup.

Round 3:
Things were not looking too good for me; the lines had closed with me eating a (mild to be fair) alpha, meaning that I couldn't really take advantage of Strakhov's speed. His heavies were staring me down now, but eating free strikes from Weaponmasters was not an appealing idea so I couldn't really back away. I loaded up the Destroyer and Torch. The Risen activated to clear some room that I needed, and tried to jam the Guardian and Repentor - not a great plan against a spray, but what else could I do. Alexia also created a Thrall. I left Superiority on the Destroyer, using him to kill four of the Cinerators. Torch walked up and wrecked the Devout, then Sprinted a measly 4 inches back. Strakhov repositioned (out of the Killbox as I later realised) to put some distance between himself and all the heavies, failed to break armour on the injured Cinerator, and decided to camp his focus. My infantry finished off the Errants and most of the Knights, clearing the zone. The Thrall then ran up to distant flag.

I believe the Guardian trampled over the Risen, but was still able to kill Torch. The Templar charged the Destroyer, crippling most of his systems (including his cortex and axe). The Repentor killed an infantry model or two. The remaining Cinerators whiffed their attacks on Strakhov. The last Knight moved towards my Thrall; he couldn't charge as he was facing the wrong direction, and was just out of walking melee threat range.

Round 4:
My Nyss Hunters charged whatever they could and did nothing at all. The Cutthroats finished off the last Knight, then transferred Prey to the Choir as it turns out your can't put it on an objective. The Destroyer, at MAT 9, needed a 2 on one dice to hit a Cinerator, and whiffed. Alexia charged the Guardian in the back; her Risen actually did four points of damage iirc before she attacked. She started the turn with 17 Risen, and managed to kill the Guardian with just one Risen grunt left. The Adjunct managed to cast Frostbite on the uninjured Cinerator without having to roll on Strakhov, knocking him down to just one box - same as his friend. Strakhov killed one Cinerator, cast Overrun, killed the other, and then used Overrun and Sprint to head over to the other objective, trying to maintain his distance from Speedy's jacks. I chose to camp the focus, but I wonder now if I could have done something useful with Ram?

The Templar with Battle and Positive Charge easily finished off the Destroyer. The Repentor trampled up to Strakhov, killing the last Thrall and dealing 9 damage to Alexia. I could have kept Alexia alive on 1 health by sacrificing Valachev, but decided to keep Valachev instead. With a couple of bought attacks, the Repentor only managed to do a point or two of damage to Strakhov.

Round 5:
According to my scorekeeping, if I could score three points this turn I would win. So Strakhov simply ran from the Repentor, making it into the left zone. The Cutthroats charged the objective and were unable to kill it. The Nyss Hunters were unable to charge due to positioning issues, so they walked up and attacked instead, but were unable to finish it off. This left me a point short.

Speedy shuffled some stuff around, killing my Adjunct and objective. Looking at the score sheet, it seemed that I would be 5 points ahead at the end of my next turn so we called the game here.

Post-Mortem:
It was a VERY long game, and my recollection of the rules was EXTREMELY rusty, so were were constantly running into situations where I couldn't remember what the correct rule or interaction was, and we were pretty exhausted by the end of it. I think I was making mistakes in basic hit/damage match by the last round. I'm pretty sure we screwed up the scoring; I was ahead, but I'm not sure that I was 5 points ahead.

We got a lot of small things wrong or made silly mistakes. The Devout might have been able to shield-guarded Sevvy, for example. I should not have left Strakhov that far forwards just to try to put out some damage; that pretty much cost me my jacks as I did not want to pull them so far back as to be BEHIND Strakhov. Also I gave away two points to the Killbox.

I wonder if we should "warm up" to the game again using small-point games, so we sort out the rules in our heads and stuff; once we start playing faster and more confidently we can probably go up to 75 point games and get through them fast enough that the game doesn't feel like it's dragging.

Anyway, I want to get to play with Torch's Sprint, but he's just kind of pillow-fisted. It hurts to have my warjacks top out at P+S 17, but I need something like a Destroyer to trigger Overrun. So either I swap some infantry for a Juggernaut, I swap the Destroyer for Behemoth, or I swap Torch for something that can actually hit hard.

I mean, Torch is just so expensive. He's more expensive than Beast 09 now! He doesn't hit hard enough to be a melee jack, and he's guns are far too crappy for him to be considered a gun jack - he's a 17 point heavy with a 6" spra; the Repenter is a 7 point light yet has an 8" spray! Torch is not exactly a utility jack either; Relentless Charge and Flare do not feel all that valuable to me. They could at LEAST give him an Alchemical Mask! Well, immunities are nice sometimes I suppose.