The Harbinger of Menoth +5
-Heirophant -2
-Reckoner -8
-Devout -5
Minimum Choir -2
Wracks -1
Vassal of Menoth -2
Maximum Exemplar Errants with UA -10
Rhupert Carvolo -2
Covenant of Menoth -2
Minimum Holy Zealots with UA -6
Maximum Exemplar Bastions -8
Dartan Vilmon -3
Paladin of the Order of the Wall -2
Anastasia Di Bray -2
Objective: Fuel Cache
The change? I've swapped out the errant Senechal for Anastasia, primarily for the +1 to the starting roll for the game, but if she gets an espionage off then I won't complain! I realise how big a deal it is to have first turn with Harbinger and so this seemed like a solid swap.
My opponent this week was our local Mercs player, Will. Given the top of two assassination in our last game I was a little apprehensive, but willing to preserve. He was trying out a new list that he'd only had a couple of games with that included: Captain Bartolo Montodor with a Mangler and a Galleon, along with Dougal MacNaile, a Gobber Tinker, Wrong Eye and Snapjaw (and Bull Snapper), Max Nyss Hunters and Aiyana and Holt. One of my biggest issues here was the Galleon since I don't really have a good answer for the really high ARM.
We decided to play Recon, trying to get more breadth of experience with the 2015 scenarios. Despite including Anastasia I lost the roll to go first and so picked the table edge with the trench and less difficult terrain. Will set up with his Galleon on one flank with the Jack support, with the Nyss and Aiyana and Holt on the other. I set up with Harbinger and her battlegroup central, with the zealots screening the Bastions on my left and a paladin on each flank. I then advanced deployed my Errants centrally to move into the zone on my first turn.
Will went first and ran his Nyss as far up the board as possible, followed by the rest of his army, the Mangler moving to just outside the zone with Snapjaw just behind him. Dougal used his mini-feat and Artillerist on the Galleon to make it more accurate and longer ranged and then it moved up to start taking pot shots at the Errants. Thanks to having a high number of shots on the guns and the rerolls from Dougal he managed to kill 4 of the Errants before I could put tough on them. On my turn everything ran up, trying to take stronger board presence since Will was covering swathes of table. I also advanced Harbinger up slight ( I was concerned about the Galleon) and Feated.
The Nyss stood still to aim, ignoring my feat, and shot a bunch of Errants of the table. The Mangler and Galleon both moved into them and reduced the unit to 2 models in a hail of cannon fire and Threshers. Everything else shuffled forwards, trying (successfully) not to be caught in the feat.
On my turn I fully loaded the Reckoner and prepared to charge the Mangler. Harby Purified, moving back slightly as I was scared of the Galleon's guns throughout the game, followed by the Devout. The Bastions and Zealots on my flank ran forwards to cover more ground and Anastasia ran up the board to put pressure on Bart. The Errants moved out of the Reckoner's way and he charged the mangler, failing to kill it by 5 boxes, and leaving it with just movement remaining.
As I had put Enliven on my Reckoner Will decided to mitigate this by run/charging his Nyss around it to rob it of any way to get out. Snapjaw then charged but missed the charge Attack as well as one of his bought attacks meaning he wasn't even able to take out anything despite having Harm on it. The Galleon shot up my Bastions, only doing a small amount of damage but also managed to kill the zealots monolith bearer with blast damage, as I had placed them too close together.
On my turn the zealots moved up and fire bombed the Galleon, actually managing to put a few damage on it as well as get the crit to set it on fire! Harbinger used Purification to clear off the Spiny Growths knocking about as well as hotshot, then threw out Crusader's call but failed to hit the Nyss with Fear of God as they were engaged. The bastions then charged the Galleon and the Mangler. Only one reached the Mangler and two on the Galleon, neither doing meaningful damage (I forgot all game that they have Blessed and so was rolling vs. Batten'ed ARM like an idiot). The Reckoner, who'd been fully loaded again, managed to kill Snapjaw with only 2 focus, taking an extra swing on the Mangler but it refused to die. Meanwhile Dartan began an extreme flanking menouver and Anna ran straight up the board towards Bart, forcing him to deal with her next turn.
Will retaliated hard this turn. The Nyss charged into the Reckoner, Vassal and a Choir member. Killing the Reckoner despite missing the Kiss from Aiyana and forcing me to martyr the Vassal. The Galleon opted to shoot and rolled 6s on both sides with his cannon. He then proceeded to kill some zealots and take most of the boxes off the bastions, but only actually killing one of them. Holt moved into melee with Anna but missed all 4 of his attacks, forcing the Bull Snapper to move back to double boost on her to finish her off before she could get any shenanigans.
On my turn I was rapidly running out of options, but had been presented one nice option with the Nyss clumping together. I moved Harby up slightly and then used Cataclysm to kill half a dozen of them, forcing a panic check which they passed. The Paladin in the trench killed the Nyss engaging him, the Vassal missed the Nyss engaging him and accidentally shot the Choir in the back. The zealots threw more bombs at the Galleon and the Bastions continued to thwack at the collossal too, but still couldn't do anything meaningful even with the charge (again totally forgetting Blessed on their halberd) with one of the others killing Cylena and the other still failing to kill the Mangler. Blowing up the Nyss with Harby was probably the highlight of the game for me though.
On Will's turn he shifted his colossal slightly freeing up a lane for the tinker before shooting the last of the zealots and one of the bastions off the table and doing two points to the Covenant to boot. The Nyss moved around the bastion on the wreck marker, but one of them left the other Bastion's arc, dying to the free strike, forcing the other to fail their panic check. The Tinker then moved up and mended the Mangler back to full functionality. The Mangler then shifted across and took a Thresher, killing the two bastions in the zone and accidentally killing his own Tinker in the process. The Bull Snapper moved up to contest the far flag since that was my best chance of scoring. Aiyana gave magical shots to Holt who moved up and shot Dartan (who'd been creeping around the back of the Colossal) off the table
On my turn I realised I was in pretty dire straits and didn't have much of an option to win. I decided that my only real shot was to somehow control the flag to my right. I had Harby purify and then moved across into the trench along with the Devout. Rhupert moved towards the zone to contest next turn and gave the choir tough hoping to hold the zone a little longer.
Will then had his colossal use its guns to take out the last bastion and errant as well as tow the covenant in to finish it off. The Mangler then charged my objective, hitting it twice but failing to kill it, reducing it to 2 boxes. Wrongeye moved up and put spiny Growth on the contesting Bull Snapper. Meanwhile Bart shuffled across to behind the Galleon.
On my turn I knew I needed to clear the flag to be able to dominate in order to have any shot at winning the game. Harby gave 3 to the Devout and then cast purification and put Fear of God on the Mangler to remove thresher. The Devout charged but only did a medium amount of damage with the charge Attack. The shield did nothing and it then missed two of the bought attacks. This meant I hadn't cleared the flag and, since it was getting late, I forfeited the game. We decided that it would take a while to clear the zone but Bart would be able to dominate eventually and I would ultimately lose on scenario.
This was a good, balanced game. As I had feared this list did not deal well with an up-armoured collosal. The game was a gruelling grind fest on both sides but Will was able to use his Galleon really well to tip the scales in his favour. We both had pretty big dice swings throughout the game, with one turn coming all 6s immediately followed by not being able to get much of anything done. I'd have liked the first turn (duh) but either way I think allowed the threat of the Galleon to really limit my play.
A prime example of this was in turn one. I lost almost half the Errants to the Galleon, crippling my prime jamming unit because I was too scared to Martyr so early. I was too precious with Harbinger throughout the game, given that I kept her far back and also refused to martyr unless I felt I had to. This undercut the whole point of the army. Something Will exploited well.
I think I might try out a new list next time. Or maybe not! Either way I'll be sure to tell you all about it here!
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-M
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