eFeora +6
-Bonded Judicator -18
-Reckoner -8
Vassal of Menoth -2
Wracks -1
Vassal Mechanic -1
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution -3
Knights Exemplar Seneschal -3
Saxon Orrik -2
Gorman Di Wulfe -2
Min Choir -2
Max TFG with UA -8
Min Zealots with UA -6
My opponent was one of the few Merc players in my meta, Will, and was playing a new Highborn list he'd cooked up using Drake MacBain accompanied by Sylys Wyshnalyrr and a Galleon. The list also included a max unit of Boomhowlers, a unit of Gun Mages with UA, Alexia Mistress of the Witchfire, Anastasia di Bray, Eiyrss Mage Hunter of Ios, Madelyn Corbeau, Ogrun Bokur, Taryn di la Rovissi, a Gobber Tinker and Victor Pendrake. This list included a lot of interesting and some less common merc solos and combos. The Scenario that we were playing was Two Fronts, and I lost the roll for initiative thanks to Anastasia's Intelligence special rule. My opponent decided to take the more advantageous board side and let me take first turn.
We each set up our Colossals in the centre of the board, and I then placed my TFG on the side nearest my zone with Orrik, and the zealots on the opposite side across from the other zone along with Gorman and the Seneschal, with Feora near the middle of the board, and the support staff surrounding the colossal. Will then deployed his gun mages opposite my TFG along with Pendrake, while the Boomhowlers surrounded MacBain on the other side of the board. All of the solos then advanced deployed right on the edge of his own zone.
Having the first turn I ran my force forwards, placing the Zealots on the hill Directly in front of them, followed by the Judicator, Senechal, and Gorman. Orrik gave pathfinder to the TFG who then ran up close to the zone. Feora put out Escort and then moved up toward the linear obstacle on my side of the board, and the support staff all moved up, with the choir singing Passage on the Jacks. Will then ran all of his Solos into his zone, surrounding his objective which was The Stockpile, preventing knockdown (we had the details of this objective wrong. We'd been playing that it was no knockdown within 4", however this is B2B and the stand-up effect is 4"). The Gun mages moved forwards and the Boomhowlers ran across the board, with the Galleon stomping up behind them. MacBain then moved onto the hill, surrounded by Boomhowlers and used his feat, affecting the solos in the zone and himself and Boomhowler.
In my turn Gorman stepped up and threw Black Oil at Alexia, but missed and deviated off to the wrong direction, missing everything. The Zealots then shuffled into the zone and prayed for Fervour, before ineffectually tossing bombs into the mass of solos, scratching a couple of them but not doing any real damage, and then used their minifeat to hold out. Orrik moved up again and put Pathfinder on the TFG, who moved into the zone with Shield wall and also mini Feated to turtle the zone. The Reckoner hopped over the wall into the zone, and Feora moved up behind the wall and put Ignite on the TFG. I then activated the Judicator and took a template shot at MacBain, boosting the to hit and managing to set him on fire thanks to the bond. My clock then ran out before either of the vassals could move up. In hindsight I should definitely have taken my extension this turn, and finished off my shooting and moved up my vassals, but I didn't.
The fire did not go out on either MacBain or the Boomhowler next to him who'd also been set on fire, killing the boomie, and doing a couple of boxes on MacBain. Madelyn used her intrigue move to have MacBain shuffle forwards, considering the assassination run on Feora. The Galleon moved up and took a big chunk out of my objective. The Bokur charged through a gap in my Zealots using reach to catch the Seneschal and took him down to 0, knocking him down, waiting for the revive. Alexia then moved up and took a Hellfire shot on Gorman, being just barely within Stealth and killed him. At this point I realised how poor my Seneschal placement was, since the Greater Destiny Zealots could not die to bring him back and Gorman does not activate Restoration, since the wording is for Faction models. Moving on! Pendrake set his sights on his nemesis, Orrik, and advanced across the board towards him on the extreme flank. MacBain decided to be more cautious and jogged around to the back of his Galleon, using a couple of Jack Hammers to finish off the objective, scoring a point. The Gun mages aimed, killing a couple of the TFG despite their massive ARM, freeing up LOS for Eiryss to Disrupt the Reckoner. The Boomhowlers then charged, with two attacking the Reckoner, two on TFG and two on a zealot. One Boomhowler killed a zealot, freeing up the other to swing a couple of points damage onto the Judicator. The Boomhowlers facing the TFG failed to hit on any of their attacks thanks to Set Defence and the other one managed to deal a handful of boxes to the Reckoner. Anastasia then moved up, using espionage to get another activation on the board, but with the clock running down this achieved very little, with a couple of Boomhowlers putting a couple more boxes on the Judicator and the Reckoner.
On my turn I gave a focus to the Judicator and upkept both of my spells. The zealots activated and instead of throwing bombs like a good Menoth player I decided to be stupid and moved into Melee to miss all my attacks vs Alexia and the Bokur. Feora moved across to shoot her spray at Anastasia, boosting the to hit roll, and still managed to miss, forcing Eiryss to finish the spy off with a quick crossbow bolt. The vassal then activated, moving up to the Judicator to use an Ancilliary attack on the flamethrower. The template covered a Boomhowler, Madelyn and Taryn. Taryn dodged the flames acrobatically, and Madelyn used Sucker! to have the Boomhowler double hit, with one of the damage rolls killing him. The Judicator then activated properly, spending a focus to pick up the Bokur and throw him at Madelyn. The throw missed Madelyn but only deviated by 1", meaning she was still hit, and both of them were killed in the resulting splatter. Saxon Orrik, having given the TFG as much guidance as necessary, moved up the board and levelled his hunting rifle at his nemesis, Victor Pendrake, grazing him with a bullet but failing to kill. The Reckoner managed to kill the Boomhowler engaging him despite being disrupted. The TFG then moved up the board but my clock ran out before I could make any attacks, and I again stupidly decided not to take my extension on the only other turn that it would have mattered.
Will started his turn by rolling fire off MacBain who'd been taking a few boxes a turn all game from it and had Alexia use her souls to create 3 thrall warriors, who spawned in the zealots' back arcs. T wo of them killed their targets but the third managed to fail despite the bonuses to hit and the naturally low DEF. The Boomhowlers moved into the Judicator, taking a few more boxes off it. Pendrake sacrificed movement to aim at Orrik, hoping to end the feud with his lucky bow, forgetting that the sneaky Orrik has stealth, causing him to automiss. Being a coward Pendrake then had the Gun Mages shoot at Orrik to finish his job for him, but they failed to hit his high Defence. The Gun Mages did however manage to kill several of the TFG. Meanwhile Eiryss disrupted the Reckoner again. With his remaining time the Galleon advanced into a crack between 2 Boomhowlers, just getting the Judicator within reach, taking two punishing melee attacks on it. MacBain then activated and used repeated Jack Hammers and the rest of his clock to scrap my colossal.
On my turn, somewhat disheartened by the loss of the Judicator I had the support staff run across the board towards the remaining Jack. The Reckoner used its natural Attack and an Ancilliary to kill a pair of Boomhowlers. The TFG moved up and swung at the Galleon, not harming it but setting it on fire. Orrik took more careful aim at his foe, Pendrake, and managed to get a killing blow, with Pendrake failing the tough roll. Moral Victory! Feora moved back towards the wall and firestepped into a safer location behind some human cover and the wall. The Zealots continued to do very little to clear their zone, with their combined efforts killing a single Thrall Warrior. Eyriss moved over the wall and within 5" of the Galleon to use Technological Interference to limit its effectiveness next turn.
Taking advantage of an exposed Eiryss the Gun Mages and younger Eiryss shot her to death along with another handful of TFG. Alexia and her risen along with Taryn managed to polish off the last of the Zealots quite handily, freeing up the Boomhowlers to move across the board and victimise my support staff, with the Mechanic swiftly becoming a light snack for a Trollblood. Despite having no focus the Galleon moved into melee with the Reckoner and used its own attacks and some Jack Hammers to scrap it.
Seeing that I was clearly losing the attrition game and with no way to clear out the Galleon I decided the best course was to try for the assassination. I measured my control area and was pretty sure that I was around an inch out. Deciding it was still worth the try I started by having the TFG attack the Gobber Tinker and Boomhowler himself. The combined melee against the Tinker failed completely but Boomhowler was set on fire. Feora then firestepped over the wall, setting up a clear lane to MacBain. After that I remeasured my control area and found that I definitely was out of range for the assassination run. Instead I moved across into the wreck marker to get a slightly improved DEF and then feated, taking the fire from a Boomhowler and the Galleon, putting it back onto MacBain and Eiryss. Deciding that killing Eiryss was a priority she then boosted a flamethrower shot at her. And missed. Saxon Orrik then tried to make up for this with a risky charge on Eiryss but was about an inches short. The Vassal then moved into melee range of Boomhowler and used his Bolt to zap him. Unfortunately he made his Call of Defiance tough. This left me in a pretty precarious position, but Feora was DEF 19 vs ranged and camping a stack of 8 Focus.
The fire on MacBain did another couple of points of damage but the fire on Eiryss rolled a double one. Leaving her more than alive enough to roll double 6 on her aim at Feora, hitting her squarely with a disruption bolt. The Boomhowlers and Alexia swanned across the board before Sylys ran to engage Feora, setting up a gang for MacBain on her. MacBain then charged in, boosting his charge attack. He hit and did a handful of damage. He bought and double boosted the attack again, reducing her to a few boxes. He bought a final attack and cranked the damage roll putting her in the ground.
This was a fun game, starting off slow and then getting very serious very quick. We were both inexperienced with the lists that we were using and so there were some pretty basic mistakes on both sides. I should have placed my Seneschal on the other side of the board with the TFG instead of with the zealots who couldn't heal him. I also should have been throwing bombs instead of swinging sticks with the Zealots. I also should have used my extension on the earlier turns.
I'm looking forward to the tournament on Sunday and I'll be sure to write it all up and give you all a look at how it goes!
Don't forget to like Mitsuharu on Minis on Facebook for more updates!
-M
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