Swapping Playstyles

Back in Mk2 I was quite fond of Lady Aiyana and Master Holt. It's a great looking unit, with an elegant decorative style, Holt looks cool with his bladed pistols and his rules and stats lived up to his appearance, while Aiyana's debuff spell was an incredibly powerful tool. But in Mk3 it became much harder to justify taking them outside of a Mercenaries list as the main reason to bring them, the Kiss of Lyliss, became friendly-faction only. Still, I've been thinking about running them lately, and the other day I had an idea. I've been having a hard time getting the most out of the Cutthroat's Prey, and was wondering if it was worth throwing it at a jack early. Then I realised that if I couple it with Kiss and Brittle Frost that becomes functionally POW 16 shooting; against an ARM 18 Cygnar jack, that's doing 5 damage per shot! Couple that with Holt's pistols and that's an average of 35 damage, enough to one-round a Cygnar heavy!

Of course I should take some more quality shooting just to be sure; since I'm pulling out some old models, how about Harlan Versh? He could be very effective if the target jack has an upkeep on it. But that's a lot of delicate pieces I would want to keep alive for multiple turns, so the best Khador caster to run them under would be Strakhov 1. But he'll only protect them for one round, and even then there's ways to ingore Stealth, so I would need some shield-guards. The High Alert card would help, but it wouldn't be enough, so how about Alexia 2 and a unit of Legion of Lost Souls to both stand in front and also catch bullets? Plus that amounts to a +6 damage swing for them, putting them at effectively POW 18!

Obviously I'd need the Blessing card, and I chose Infiltration and Hit & Run for extra defense. Finally I chose Old Faithful over Power Swell, since I was only taking one shooty jack and no repair models. This all sounded like a very silly and janky list that would probably catch someone by surprise and win the first time I run it, then probably never again.
50pts Unlimited Khador
Strakhov 1
-Destroyer
Lady Aiyana and Master Holt
Croe's Cutthroats
Legion of Lost Souls
Alexia 2
Koldun Lord
Ol' Grim
Harlan Versh
*Blessing
*High Alert
*Hit & Run
*Infiltration
*Old Faithful


I told Karas I was running a Strakhov gunline, and he finally succumbed to the urge to run a jackspam list; it's something he's mentioned wanting to do even though he knew it wouldn't work very well.
50pts Cygnar Storm Legion
Huxley1 (Electrify, Jackhammer)
-Courser (Advanced Deployment, Mag-Bolter, Voltaic Punching)
-Stryker (Arcane Precision, Voltaic Javelin, Heavy Mag-Bolter)
-The General
Arcane Mechanics
Sharpshooter
*Blessing
*High Alert
*Infiltration
*Old Faithful
*Sentry Duty


Pre-Game:
We took a quick look at the Battleforge Customs 1.2 scenarios (by Alif Cheng). On a whim I chose the Extraction scenario. I tried to set the table up in a slighly less symmetrical way than I usually do while still having an overall uniform spread; I chose to put some terrain in the very center, but not something that would be too punishing. I don't know why I have such a hard time laying out terrain... Karas won the roll and chose to go second.


Deployment:
I put Strakhov in the center to ensure he could cover my entire army with his feat, but closer to the forest since he likes concealment. Ol' Grim also went close to the forest. The Legion went in the center with all my important units and solos behind them. Karas deployed in a block to my left. My Cutthroats went behind the forest. I declared The General as their Prey target.

Round 1:
I ran everything up. The Legion went as far forwards as possible, while everything else tried to get defensive bonuses. Strakhov cast Assail on the Destroyer, then Feated and ran forwards to cover the entire army.

The General ran to the left objective. Huxley and maybe the Courser shot the right objective, leaving it on a few boxes, then Huxley used Jackhammer to destroy the left objective with The General, giving him a point.

Round 2:
I upkept Assail and allocated one focus to the Destroyer. I started by activating the Koldun Lord, who successfully landed Brittle Frost but did no damage. Aiyana and Holt went next; Aiyana landed the Kiss but Holt rolled low for damage. Next the Cuthroats activated, walking out of the forest and doing a fairly poor job as well. Harlan Versh activated, but without an upkeep on The General he did very little damage. Alexia tried to land a Hellfire (which would have been effectively POW 18) but missed. Ol' Grim tried his hand, and also fell flat on his face, missing one aimed shot and doing very little damage with the other.

Mathematically speaking The General should have been VERY dead by now, but it just wasn't happening. So much for that plan. I activated Strakhov, aimed, and cast Hand of Destruction on The General. I rolled three shots on the Riot Gun, and with damage boosts plus Hand of Destruction killed The General with the second shot. I put the third shot into the Stryker, then... somehow had two focus left? I... must have forgotten to pay for something? Anyway, I cast Convection at the objective but didn't do any damage, then repositioned backwards. I played High Alert on the Destroyer, who walked to within 3" of Strakhov and put a double-boosted Bombard into the Stryker. Finally the Legion of Lost Souls charged the Stryker and cranked their damage rolls, killing it! I scored two points for killing two undamaged jacks.

The Mechanics moved in and shot at the Legion, but only managed to kill one. The Courser hit Strakhov with his armour-piercing gun, but the Destroyer took the shot, taking 9 damage iirc. Huxley then shot Strakhov, doing 8 damage. The Sharpshooter took a shot as well, but missed.

Round 3:
Prey went on the Courser. I dropped Assail but forgot to allocate focus to the Destroyer. The Koldun Lord walked up and landed Brittle Frost on Huxley, but did no damage. Aiyana landed Kiss, but Holt didn't do all that much with his guns. Harlan Versh rolled four shots, missed two, and only did around 3 damage with the ones that connected. This was turning into The General all over again. Eventually, between Ol' Grim, Strakhov (who landed a boosted Hand of Destruction and remembered to use the Infiltration card after activating), the Destroyer (who didn't have any focus for boosting the damage roll), and the Cutthroats, I finally managed to take Huxley down. I think it might have been Croe who got the final shot, doing a single point of damage and also ensuring that Huxley wouldn't have been able to cast any spells next turn. I was planning to have Alexia buff the Legion's damage and walk them in if I couldn't finish Huxley with shooting.

Post-Mortem:
That was a silly but fun game, where we both played lists that felt better suited to each other's factions. I had a janky shooty list and Karas was running very unoptimised jackspam, so he was facing an uphill battle. The mission was a bit of a weird one, I didn't end up liking it; technically I won by points, because caster kill wasn't a win scenario. It's weird though, because I can see situations developing where you would run out of ways to score points and essentially have no way to win; I guess at that point you play to draw, or just conceded? That wouldn't be very satisfying. I need to spend more time looking at scenarios.

I was careless with Strakhov, running him dry; I really need to get used to resisting the temptation to use all my caster focus. It was a bit scary, facing down armour-piercing guns without any focus. In retrospect I could have protected him better; if I had put High Alert on Versh instead of the Destroyer, I could have replaced him with a Thrall with Shield Guard, allowing my to block two shots instead of one. Also I could have stayed within 3" of Old Grim, who benefits from Alexia's aura and thus was also a shield-guard. I kept forgetting to transfer Prey, and also forgot about Volume Fire on Strakhov. Oh well. Karas forgot that the Courser had Advanced Deployment, didn't put out his usual upkeeps, and he might have forgotten about the Eyeless Sight card (I'm not actually sure if he every had a chance to use it). Tournemant-winning players we are not.


Last game I said I was done with Strakhov, but I have to admit I felt as if he worked this game. He did pull his weight when so many models weren't; rolling a lot of Riot Gun shots will do that I suppose. Still, I think it's time to move on. I've had my eye on Butcher2, and recently I've been considering Vlad2 (who on paper looks like he has some similar gameplay elements). Most casters want faction infantry though, so realistically I need to start playing less mercs and get some more Khador stuff ready for the table. Eh, we'll see.