Strakhov 1
- Beast 09
- Decimator
Cylena & the Nyss Hunters
Alexia & the Risen
Aiyana & the Holt
- Valachev
Widowmaker Marksman
Blondie also ran a similar loadout to last time:
Stryker 1
- Old Rowdy
- Defender
- Avenger
- Squire
Gunmages
Sword Knights (full)
Pre-game:
This time we picked a scenario from the book with two flags. We used two light warjacks as proxies as we didn't have any blank bases (I keep forgetting to bring anything suitable). I feel like we might need to start playing Steamroller soon. Anyway, I (eventually) won the roll-off and chose to go first.
Deployment:
I put Strakhov behind the forest, closest to my flag. My infantry was positioned to contest his flag. The jacks were in the middle, with A&H behind them.
Blondie positioned his battlegroup centrally, with the Sword Knights split up to cover each side. For some reason he put his Gunmages behind the forest, which he came to regret later.
I put my marksman close to Strakhov and near the flag, facing off against Rowdy.
Round 1:
Sentry went on the Marksman, Superiority on the Decimator; both ran forwards to be in range to shoot next turn. I originally meant to put Occultation on A&H, but I forgot to arrange it from the start, so I couldn't before moving because Strakhov was facing the wrong way, and I couldn't after moving because he was too far away. Oh well, I just had them walk up and had Aiyana use her Stealth ability instead (I should probably mark that with a token in the future). The Risen ran forwards and formed a wall to block LOS to the Nyss Hunters. Alexia stood back in the trench for a little added protection from sniped Defender shots. The Nyss Hunters advanced behind the Risen.
Blondie likewise formed a wall with this Sword Knights. His Gunmages ran around the forest. Arcane Shield went on Rowdy, and the Avenger got Snipe. The shooting jacks set up a little bunker in the trench and starting focusing on my Decimator; the Defender rolled pretty hot and did 9 damage, then the Avenger rolled pretty cold and did 1. Still, the Decimator was already looking a bit worse for wear.
Round 2:
This turn I was torn between the desire to start killing his Sword Knights, and the desire to simply jam them but leave them in place to block line of sight. What made this even worse was that after I ran my Risen at them I realised that Alexia was blocked in by my Nyss Hunters and wouldn't be able to keep most of them in command. I probably should have just held her back seeing as most of them were going to die anyway, but instead I ran her around and left her in a crappy position where she was vulnerable. I tried to block LOS to her with Nyss Hunters, but I screwed up again and chose to walk them instead of running; I only took about two shots with them and killed maybe one model anyway, so I should have just run them.
Worried about the Decimator, I swapped Superiority with Occultation. The Marksman put 6 damage into Rowdy's column 4, moving a little to be just out of engagement range of the Sword Knights. The Decimator walked up to base the flag and spent three focus shooting at Rowdy; the first shot actually managed to do another 4 damage I believe to his column 5, leaving his cortex perilously exposed. I was careful to make sure the Decimator was close to the limit of his 10" range, and I pushed Rowdy back with the second shot, leaving him almost 11 inches away.
Beast 09 ran to the left to try to block LOS to Alexia. Aiyana and Holt advanced; Aiyana kept them stealthed and Holt whiffed hard against Sword Knights. Meanwhile Valachev just struck a cool pose on a nearby hill.
Seeing that Rowdy would lose his cortex next turn if he didn't do something about it, Blondie considered running Rowdy to engage the Decimator in order to give his Sword Knights flank, but due to the flag blocking the direct path he didn't have range, and so he elected to reposition away from the Marksman instead. Two Sword Knights charged the Decimator and another three ran to just gum up my flag; the others started on the business of killing Risen. Blondie elected to take the auto points of damage with the two charges, taking out two cortex boxes.
The Gunmages killed Alexia and some Risen and Nyss. The Defender shot at Beast 09, which allowed him to advance forwards; I was hoping to be able to engage the Sword Knights in order to make him harder to hit, but that would have involved walking into charge range of the Avenger, who hadn't activated yet, so I stopped short. Still, this at least took Beast 09 out of Avenger AOE range of the closest Nyss Hunters.
Instead the Avenger dropped his AOE on four Risen; he killed three but in retrospect it should have been four as he spent focus boosting the damage on the one who was directly hit; if we had remembered that it was at full power for him then Blondie would have spent the focus boosting damage on the one who actually survived instead. Anyway. Stryker killed another Risen with a gunshot, leaving only the one who cheated death basing the flag.
Round 3:
After a lot of measuring and planning, I finally settled upon a plan. Strakhov would cast Overrun on the Decimator and Superiority on Beast 09. He would then slide past the Sword Knight and along with the Marksman (and possibly Holt if neccessary) try to shoot the two Sword Knights blocking Beast's charge. Any shots left would go into trying to take out one Sword Knight from the group around the Decimator in order to leave one without the DEF bonus from being in base contact.
Beast 09 would then charge the Avenger; I wanted to charge at Stryker himself but that would force Beast to leave Old Rowdy in his back arc, who could then counter-charge him and possibly cripple a system. By charging the Avenger Rowdy would only be able to use Retaliatory Strike, doing less damage. Beast would then wail on Stryker, hoping to leave him Stationary (MAT 10 with three attack dice meant a pretty good shot of triggering the crit).
Now the Decimator would have two chances to trigger Overrun, allowing Beast 09 to shuffle to the side and open up line of sight to the stationary Stryker. This would allow the Nyss Hunters and possibly Holt to try to finish him off.
With the plan carefully thought out to avoid any order-of-activation mistakes and make sure I didn't do my usual nonsense and block my own lines, I began. The Marksman killed one of the blocking Sword Knights with his Sentry shot. I then let Sentry expire for the focus (we checked the rules and that is how it works). Strakhov loaded up Beast, snuck past the Sword Knight (not that a free strike would have been too big a deal really), cast Superiority, then rolled 3 shots. First I tossed his Cinder Bomb at the Decimator; it missed but still covered the two closest Sword Knights with the scatter. I only killed one; the perfect result as the Decimator would have the easiest time triggering Overrun now. His first gun shot killed the second Sword Knight in Beast's path, and the other two shots missed the one closest to the Marksman.
Beast 09 charged in, put a hurting on the three jacks and left Stryker stationary with his first attack, burning through Stryker's only point of Focus. The third attack killed him easily.
Post-mortem:
The forums always talk about how good an assassin the Grolar is with Strakhov, but I've always figured Beast 09 should be pretty good too thanks to Murderous, while bringing more anti-infantry game (especially with Overrun making it less risky). Blondie should not have simply ignored him when he got close; if he had popped his feat I would not have gone for the assassination. Blondie said later that he forgot that Beast had a 2" range on his axe, which is completely fair (and partly my fault) as I've been using my mini-Juggernaut as a proxy.
I probably should have used Strakhov's feat there for the free charge, as the extra attack would have significantly increased the chance of triggering the crit, but I'm not sure the Avenger was actually in Strakhov's control area; I had originally considered charging the Sword Knight in order to be able to Sprint closer, but with no Focus on Strakhov himself I would have been betting a lot on one attack against DEF 15. About the only thing I think is "wrong" with Strakhov now is that he's not good at triggering his own Sprint without Focus; since he often wants to trigger Overrun and Sprint, having Powerful Charge instead of Brutal Charge and/or some way of making more than one melee attack without spending Focus would be nice. I mean, a damage buff would be even nicer, but that's probably asking too much so I won't do it (although... Silence of Death... think about it PP!).
Aiyana & Holt & Valachev were 12 points that did LITERALLY NOTHING AT ALL that game. The original idea was that Aiyana would put Kiss on whichever jack the Decimator was shooting at then Zephyr back to safety in the early turns. Later I would Kiss whatever I wanted to charge, and possibly kill Valachev so I could Kiss things for Alexia or the Nyss to work on as well. But I didn't get her up far enough in the first couple of turns, and after that the game ended. I still think they have value, but I'm wondering if bringing a Rager for Shield Guard and another potential assassin could actually be more valuable. Although perhaps two 5 point shield guards would be even more valuable? The other module I've been thinking of spending those 12 points on is a Forge Seer with a Berserker, but I don't think it's worth it without a way of handing out free charges (which Strakhov's feat only does for his battlegroup). Maybe with a Sorscha.
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