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May 2018 Scrum - Round 2

Round 2:  vs Grant Richey
Scenario:  Spread the Net

Coming into this round, I was once again in the position of really wanting to run the Skarre3 list.  After looking at my opponent's lists, I figured I would be seeing Haley3 and felt that my slaughter fleet list actually had the tools to be able to counter some of her tricks.  Dirge seers would mean that my boostable guns would be able to see through the cloud wall and deceleration would help deliver my army through the hail of bullets coming their way.  My only real concern was a lack of grievous wounds to counter all the tough models across the table.  Gerlack has grievous wounds, but in my first game I found that I was keeping him back for the veteran leader bonus.  With Haley3's defense buff I knew this would be a similar situation.

Upon meeting my opponent, the matchup turned out as I expected.  Both of us are just learning these lists, so clock was a concern for both of us going into the game.  He got a quick rundown on the new slaughter fleet models and agreed that my list had the tools to handle some of his tricks.  At this point, one of my bigger concerns was the +1 bonus to his starting die roll.  Losing the die roll is fairly likely for me and that could have a large effect on how the game plays out.

(Skarre 3) Skarre, Admiral of the Black Fleet [+27] - Slaughter Fleet Raiders
 - Kraken [36]
 - Satyxis Blood Priestess [0(4)]
Axiara Wraithblade [0(6)]
General Gerlak Slaughterborn [0(6)]
Saxon Orrik [4]
Black Ogrun Iron Mongers [6]
Blighted Trollkin Marauders (max) [15]
Bloodgorgers (max) [15]
 - Jussika Bloodtongue [5]
Bloodgorgers (max) [15]
Scharde Dirge Seers [6]

(Haley 3) Major Prime Victoria Haley [+25] - Gravediggers
 - Charger [9]
 - Grenadier [9]
 - Grenadier [9]
Captain Maxwell Finn [0(6)]
Commander Anson Hitch [4]
Major Harrison Gibbs [4]
Patrol Dog [2]
Ragman [4]
Trench Buster [0(5)]
Trench Buster [0(5)]
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt [8]
 - Captain Jonas Murdoch [4]
Trencher Express Team [5]
Trencher Express Team [5]
Trencher Infantry (min) [10]
 - Trencher Infantry Officer & Sniper [5]
Trencher Long Gunners (max) [18]
 - Trencher Long Gunner Officer [4]

Deployment:  When we rolled off, we both rolled a 5 (he rolled a 4 and the bonus took him to 5).  On our second rolls, I again rolled a 5 and he rolled a 2.  This was the kind of luck I was hoping for.  Knowing how much AD he had in his list and the problems the cloud wall would present for my infantry, I knew I had to go first.  He took the side of the board with the trench.

I put a unit of bloodgorgers on each flank, with Jussika attached to the gorgers on the right.  The marauders were deployed in the center with the kraken between the marauders and left bloodgorgers and Skarre between the marauders and right bloodgorgers.  Axiara and Gerlack were behind the marauders.  The dirge seers and iron mongers were both spread out between the kraken and Skarre.  Saxon was behind Skarre.

Grant deployed Haley a little left of center with the charger to her left.  Aiyana and Holt were deployed to the charger's left and a trench buster was out on the left flank.  To the right of Haley was Hitch with a trench buster to his right.  The long gunners were spread out across he entire deployment line with Gibbs and Ragman on the right flank.  For his advanced deployment, the trencher infantry were spread out in a line with one express team on the right end of the infantry.  The second express team was placed behind his rectangle zone, to the far left.  The two genadiers were mixed in with the infantry, one on the right edge of the rectangle zone and one close to center.  The infantry sniper was behind the trench, next to the left grenadier.  Finn was to the left of the express team deployed on the right, with the patrol dog just behind him.


Top 1:  This turn, basically everything ran forward.  Skarre cast dash and deceleration, and put draconic blessing on the marauders.  She then sailed forward.  My plan was for her to control my rectangle zone for this game, while having her guns available to shoot the enemy lines.  The left bloodgorgers ran forward, trying to use the forest to block line of sight from getting shot.  Jussika was left far back in the hopes that the wall of bloodgorgers plus Skarre's base and the forest would keep her safe.  The marauders ran forward, along with the left bloodgorgers.  The bloodgorgers were going to have to funnel between the house and forest, but I was able to keep them in Skarre's control range for deceleration.  The kraken also ran forward, hoping it's threat range would prevent my opponent from moving forward too aggressively.  Gerlack and Axiara took up positions behind the kraken.  Saxon moved up behind Skarre and the blood priestess stood farther back behind him.  The dirge seers and iron mongers moved up, keeping themselves spread out between the kraken and Skarre.  I ended my turn with 49 minutes left on my clock.

 

Bottom 1:  Grant performed what I imagine to be a relatively standard Haley3 opening turn.  He noticed that my positioning with Jussika actually left a gap between the base of Skarre and the bloodgorgers for his express team to see through.  He moved them up and took the shot, but failed to kill her.  Haley3 moved forward and brought her two echos into play.  She then cast temporal distortion on herself and tactical supremacy on the trencher infantry.  Aiyana and Holt moved up and to their left and Murdoch used his go to ground ability to keep them safe.  The charger ran forward and positioned centrally on the board.  The two trench busters moved forward and flanked Haley prime, ready to shield guard any shots I may decide to take on her.  The grenadiers each moved forward and took a shot.  One managed to kill a bloodgorger on the left, while the other failed to break armor on a marauder.  The left express team stood still and killed another bloodgorger on the left.  The long gunners moved forward along with Hitch, Gibbs and Ragman.  Finn slid a little to the right and stood behind the forest.  Finally, the infantry moved forward, dropped their wall of smoke clouds and repositioned back behind it.  The sniper ended up in the trench and the dog remained near the right edge of the trencher line.  He ended his turn with 45 minutes on his clock.

 

Top 2:  Here it was time to get work done and start positioning for scenario.  Ideally I wanted to kill Ragman and Aiyana, as without those two I thought my kraken wouldn't have much threatening it.  Unfortunately, Aiyana was dug in and not a great target and I didn't have anything in range of Ragman.  Skarre upkept draconic blessing for free.  The dirge seers activated first and put guidance on Skarre and the kraken.  Skarre then moved forward and popped her feat.  She cut to cast guided fire, dash and deceleration.  In hindsight, I should have also moved draconic blessing to the right bloodgorgers, as the marauders weren't going to be doing anything relevant this turn.  Skarre took her cannon shots at granny Haley.  Due to temporal distortion, Skarre missed even with guided fire up.  One of the shots drifted and killed the dog.  The other didn't kill anything.  Saxon activated and granted pathfinder to the bloodgorgers on the right.  They then received the press forward order.  Two managed to get charges off on the express team while the rest of the unit ran forward and around the forest to start engaging.  The first charge attack put a little damage on the express team.  The second bloodgorger killed the express team gunner, then used overtake and berserk to attack the spotter who also died.  The same bloodgorger also killed a trencher infantry and ended its activation by moving over to Finn and putting 4 points of damage on him.  The kraken moved forward and fired its main cannon at granny Haley.  This missed and drifted back towards me and to the left a little.  The blast damage ended up killing a trencher infantry.  The kraken then took its flayer cannon shots into granny Haley, but between her defense and camping focus no damage was done.  In retrospect, I probably should have chosen different targets.  The marauders and left bloodgorgers ran forward to engage his trencher infantry and position for charges the following turn.  Gerlack and Axiara remained hidden behind the kraken's base.  The blood priestess ran forward into my rectangle zone so she could make a play on the far flag next turn.  Finally, the iron mongers moved forward and one repaired the damage Skarre took from using her feat.  My turn ended with 30 minutes left on my clock.  My turn two tends to run very long and it's something I really need to work on.


Bottom 2:  Grant spent the first couple minutes of his turn deciding whether he could both kill the kraken and start scoring on his rectangle zone.  He started with the grenadier on the right.  It moved to the side a little so it could attack the bloodgorger on Finn.  It killed that bloodgorger and the marauder that was engaging it.  Ragman stepped foward and cast his death field.  Finn activated and with killing spree, he chewed his way through 4 bloodgorgers before running out of targets and then repositioning onto the far flag.  The grenadier to the left killed the bloodgorger engaging it.  The remaining express team killed a bloodgorger on the left.

Next, Aiyana stepped up and cast Kiss of Lyliss on the kraken.  Holt took a couple shots, but only did 2 damage and Murdoch failed to kill a bloodgorger.  The Haley unit next activated, getting the press forward order.  Granny Haley cast ghost walk on the trencher infantry and ran into a position.  At the time, Grant was questioning whether she could use gunfighter to charge something but not make the attack so she would stay incorporeal.  I said that she could run instead of charge, but I forgot that she cast a spell and shouldn't have been able to do that.  Ultimately, this really did not affect anything in how the game played out and I am the one who told him he could do it.  Haley prime cast temporal distortion and charged the kraken, but was stopped by her own trenchers from getting too far forward.  Baby Haley charged the kraken and ended up putting 28 damage on it, completely taking out the left side of its damage grid.  The trencher infantry moved around and killed a marauder.  The trench buster on the left walked up and killed a bloodgorger.  Hitch granted the long gunners rerolls.  The long gunners had 7 men who could aim and hit the kraken.  The remaining 4 walked forward.  Their first volley of shots was a 6 man CRA and a 5 man CRA.  They did a total of 4 damage.  Then the 7 who stood still did a CRA for their second shot and put 10 damage on the kraken, leaving it on 14.  The charger took its two shots into the kraken, doing 10 damage and Gibbs failed to do any damage.  This left the kraken alive on 4 boxes and one bloodgorger remaining in the left rectangle zone.  Grant scored one point for the far flag and I scored a point for the near rectangle zone.  The score opened at 1-1.  He had 27 minutes left on his clock.


Top 3: My goal for this turn is to score three control points, while making sure my opponent does not score any.  I would also like to take out long gunners and solos. Skarre upkept draconic blessing for free and allocated max focus to the kraken.  While the kraken only had 4 boxes left, the cortex, movement, right arm and superstructure were all functional.  Skarre started the turn by taking some shots.  She killed Finn and camped her remaining two focus.  The kraken moved forward and killed two trencher infantry and took its kill shot.  The shot drifted and killed one long gunner.  The marauders advanced.  The front line was already engaged and remained that way, but the five that weren't engaged arranged to take shots.  I needed unreasonably high dice in order to land any of my shots, but got two super lucky rolls and lit a bunch of stuff on fire including Ragman.  Saxon granted the right bloodgorgers pathfinder and they charged in.  A pair of long gunners died, but they failed to finish Ragman.  The blood priestess ran to control the far flag.  Gerlack ran to control the near flag.  The left bloodgorgers charged.  The express team gunner made its tough check when the bloodgorger's second attack disabled it.  One bloodgorger killed two trenchers in the left rectangle zone.  The iron mongers moved up and repaired 10 boxes on the kraken.  This should have happened earlier in the turn, but I don't believe this changed anything about how the turn actually played out.  That said, I need to be more careful about taking crippled systems into account when playing out my turn.  At the end of this turn, I scored both flags and the right rectangle zone, putting me up 4-1.  My clock had 10:47 remaining.


Bottom 3:  Coming into this turn, Grant knew scenario was a serious issue and he was not going to be able to kill nearly as much as he wanted since he needed to score a point and stop me from scoring on at least one of the scenario elements I was controlling.  The right grenadier killed two bloodgorgers, freeing up Ragman from freestrikes a little.  Ragman cast bone shaker, but failed to kill the bloodgorger engaged with him.  He did move around his target's base enough to contest the flag.  Aiyana cast kiss of lyliss on the kraken again and Holt moved over to shoot the bloodgorger engaged with the express team.  Holt missed and shot the express team gunner instead, killing it.  His second shot killed the bloodgorger.  The charger moved up into the zone and took its shots into the kraken, leaving it on one box.  The Haley unit activated and prime Haley cast temporal distortion again.  Granny Haley walked over to the kraken and finished it off.  The left grenadier killed two bloodgorgers in the left rectangle zone.  The long gunners moved to the left a little in order to get shots into the left zone and clear it out, but this put them out of range of killing the blood priestess due to her stealth.  He also managed a CRA into Gerlack, but only did three damage and some others killed a few marauders.  The express team spotter took a shot at Gerlack, but failed to do any damage.  The turn ended with me scoring two more points on the near flag and right rectangle zone.  Grant scored one point on the left rectangle zone.  This put the score at 6-2.  He had 2:58 left on his clock.


Top 4:  I could have ended my turn immediately and won, but for tie breaker purposes I was trying to see if I could score more control points or kill more army points.  The only extra army points I managed were killing Ragman and the express team spotter.  Killing Ragman also meant I scored an additional control point.  The bloodgorger that killed the express team spotter also moved into the left zone in order to contest.  I ended my turn scoring three points, winning on scenario 9-2.


Analysis:  I felt like the slaughter fleet list had the tools to make the Haley3 matchup an even fight, and I think the way this game played out showed just that.  Having eyeless sight available for Skarre and the kraken forced him to respect my guns more than he normally would need to.  That said, my target selection needs some work.  While killing one of the echos makes the Cygnar player very sad, the math was not enough in my favor.  I failed to account for the fact that they come into play with 4 focus and can mitigate a lot of the damage that is done to them, assuming I even land a hit.  In this particular matchup, Aiyana needs to die before she can get kiss on the kraken.  I might have been better served keeping the kraken outside her threat range even if it meant just hoping for good deviations on the big gun instead of taking full shots.

One of the other things I need to learn is positioning to protect my important models.  There was no need for Jussika to do anything other than stand behind her unit on turn one.  The bloodgorgers are going to do a decent job blocking line of sight and my play allowed the express team to take a shot on her.  I got lucky and they didn't do any damage.  That said, I also need to remember my units abilities.  I know I never took any vengeance moves or attacks with the unit Jussika was attached to.  I also forgot the penalty to hit from ashen veil when living enemy models are near the marauders.  My play of draconic blessing wasn't great.  The marauders never really got to use it and putting it on the bloodgorgers might have helped them get a couple extra kills.  Finally, on turn two I set myself up to score one zone on the bottom of two and positioned to get to the far flag on the next turn, but there is no reason Gerlack or Axiara shouldn't have been on the near flag to start scoring there sooner.

Ultimately, one of the biggest influences on how the game played out was plain luck.  Winning the die roll to go first put me in a great position.  I was able to push up the field and very safely control one zone while regularly contesting or controlling almost all the other scenario elements.  Also, while Baby Haley did lots of damage to the kraken, she actually flubbed a few damage rolls.  If she does more average damage, Grant's plan to kill the kraken and score on the one zone at the bottom of two becomes much more of a possibility.  That said, he refused to blame the dice and instead said that he should have had a plan to either put more into the kraken, or ignore the kraken for a turn and ensure he controlled the zone.

Both of us are still learning these lists, but this was still a great game.  I look forward to replaying this matchup when we both are more experienced with the lists and see how it turns out.  Shout out to Grant for being a great opponent and taking a little time to talk to me after the game so I could include a little of his perspective in the battle report!  I will be back next week with my round three report.  Thanks for reading!

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