Monday 15 September 2014

Journeyman League - Week 6

Hey guys and welcome to the latest week in the journeyman league! We were still at 25 points this week but we could select an alternative caster to use, keeping the same battlegroup, but would then have to stick to either them or our original caster. Also, instead of Incursion we were playing close quarters as the EO wanted a change for everybody. 

The Alt caster I chose was epic Feora, continuing the trend I had set up with her prime version. Otherwise my list stayed exactly the same. I had planned to drop the Wracks to get the extra point for Dartan Vilmon, but my game this week was against Cygnar and I was worried there would be too many magical ranged attacks to feel the benefit:

eFeora +6
Vanquisher -8
Dervish -4
Repenter -4
Min choir -2
Vassal -2
Max Temple Flameguard w/ UA -8
Paladin -2
Wracks -1

As I said my opponent was playing a merc heavy Cygnar army led by eStryker with a Squire, Hunter and a Stormclad as well as a max unit of Boomhowler and co and a Tactical Arcanist Corp. I won the roll for deployment and chose to go second, allowing him to set up first. He placed his Boomhowlers on the flank nearest his own flag and the rest of the army opposite my flag. I deployed my battlegroup opposite his, and the TFG and Paladin across from the flag. He then advance deployed his hunter out in front of his battle group and I placed my Wracks near the flag, including one within 4" to auto-contest it. 

His first turn started with him running his army forwards, with Boomhowler taking his flag (it could only be dominated to score though) and the battlegroup moving quickly up towards my flag. The hunter moved close but just in a forest to get some defensive buff. 

On my turn the paladin and TFG walked up the board to keep their ARM buffs from the outset and then Feora activated, casting escort and moving up to get a Heavy Flamethower shot on the Hunter, doing a hefty 10 damage. The rest of the battlegroup ran up, the choir did passage  to keep the jacks safe from any shooting and the vassal gave the Vanquisher a shot that deviated nowhere. 

On his turn the flaming Hunter moved up to the objective and had LOS to Feora and took a shot. The Hunter has the Armour Piercing rule meaning my armour was reduced but I only took 5 damage. The Boomhowlers continued to advance across the board and the Stormclad and TAC advanced further towards the objective, with Stryker advancing to just behind the forest to end the turn. 

On my turn it was clear that the Hunter was a serious threat and so I gave the Dervish 2 focus and then had the Repenter shoot it. The Repenter did reasonable but not amazing damage (and also hit the Stormclad to set it on fire), and so the Dervish charged, boosting the attack and luckily taking out the Movement, making the second initial much more likely to hit, which it did, and a second boosted damage roll under choir was enough to finish it off. I then used my Side Step to turn around so my back arc was not facing the Stormclad. The Vanquisher/Vassal took a pair of shots at the Boomhowlers, one of which was in by only the tiniest of margins after having to get a third party to judge on the distance. The net result of which was a few knocked down trollbloods and one fatality thanks to Boomhowlers call improving tough and some very handy rolls. However it did put a lot of fire on the board. The TFG and Paladin continued to trudge up the board and I forgot to mini feat to mitigate the inevitable charge from the Boomhowlers next turn. Feora activated and moved away from the flag towards the centre of the board, trying to get more Boomhowlers in the control range for her Caustic Presence. 

His turn was all retaliation and started with the trolls on fire mostly dying from how on fire they were without the benefit of extra tough. The remainder of the unit charged the TFG (and one on the paladin) but only managed to kill one thanks to the Defence boost from Set Defence against charges. The Stormclad moved up and made short work of the Dervish that killed it's little friend, scrapping it from full with three attacks. The TAC moved up and threw a fire bomb at the Vanquisher, easily hitting its low DEF. Then the sneakiness came into play as the Vanquisher was stood very close to the wrack, which was hit by blast damage and exploded, hitting the Vanquisher, his Vassal and two Choiristers, killing the all the support models and harming the Heavy in the mix while also taking out my last wrack! It was a great move and it underlined how crappy my placement had been, allowing him to take advantage; reducing my strength considerably. Stryker then ran across the board, miffed that Feora had moved out of his threat range, and dominated his home flag for a point. 

On my turn I gave two to the Vanquisher and started to attack. The Heavy walked up to two of the TAC and Threshered, killing one outright and knocking the other down to almost no damage, so I bought a second attack and smushed the dwarf, leaving one. The Paladin took out the Trollblood who'd attacked him and the TFG used CMAs to hit and kill all of the remaining Trollbloods, but they all passed their tough. The Repenter valiantly moved into melee with the Stormclad and did a whopping three damage. Feora then activated and charged the last TAC model and killed it. I then Feated, gaining 4 focus from the models in my control on fire and took fire off one of the Boomhowlers and put it onto Stryker. I then took a double boosted Convection shot at the caster which did 5 damage to him before fire stepping away. Again this was a close decision, requiring proxy bases and 3" templates to get just behind the TFG. I ended my turn giving up another control point. 

Again we had a measuring issue where Stryker was in the Caustic Presence by a tiny margin but the fire stayed on and did a reasonable few damage. He decided to go for the assassination and used his caster's special ability 'overboost'. This allowed him to roll 1-3 dice and add that to his strength, but he then had to roll that many dice and take it as damage. He rolled a 10 for strength bringing him to Herculean standards and then rolled 13 damage on himself, killing his own caster by only two points, giving me a win! Since this was a bit unusual we agreed to play out the final turn anyway to see how much damage Stryker would have caused if he hadn't died and thanks to the velocity spell he was able to get into melee with Feora and kill her with one swing of Quicksilver. 

A risky but fun move that ended in a crazy end to the game, sealed how much fun the game had been overall. It had been close, competitive, and most of all enjoyable. It was easily my favourite game of the League so far and I'm looking forward to playing him again in the future!

-M

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