Battle Report #165: Caine2 vs Kromac2

:: Prologue ::

Following my new ideas for Trenchers and how I believe they should play I wanted to try a max-sized unit. I also found the Trench Buster to be absolutely brutal so I wanted to see if I could include another. By taking out Aiyana + Holt & Murdoch I could get the max Trenchers and the second Buster. By taking out Arlan I could get Ragman. Let's go!

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

Caine2
- Reinholdt
- Stormwall
Junior
- Charger
Rangers
Trenchers (max)
- UA
Trench Buster x2
Ragman

Opponent:

Kromac2
- Warpwolf Stalker x2
- Feral Warpwolf
- Ghetorix
- Wilder
Lord of the Feast
Alten Ashley
Shifting Stones
Blackclad x2

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

A couple of changes on the Circle side as well. Interesting! Furthermore he now went first and the map was slightly modified. Based on the idea to have Trenchers more centrally, I tried to imagine what the board would look like at the end of the first round. I had an idea of the Trenchers pushing up with the Stormwall centrally and busters on the flanks. I deployed accordingly and placed Caine on my right flank, anticipating Circle to shift left again.

:: Game ::

Circle runs up and indeed it is slightly left. One Stalker moves right and the Blackclads hang back.

My reply is to get the Stormwall up but beware of the Blackclads. Going second vs Circle has always been hard and I found this to be no exception. At least I managed to keep the Stormwall safe by keeping it outside of Hunter's Mark range. As I intended I also got the Trenchers up in front. I tried a CRA on Ashley which left her on 1W and tried a CRA on one of the central Wolves which also missed. Snipe on these guys would be interesting! The Busters were positioned on either flank and the Charger was positioned to shoot into the center and/or contest the left flank.

Big mistake and Circle exploits it: By placing Reinholdt -and- Ragman right behind the Stormwall instead of behind the Fence suddenly the Lord of the Feast has a beautiful shot at making a huge mess in my back lines. He shoots the Stormwall, teleports behind and start throwing out attacks. Luckily he misses Reinholdt after taking out Ragman and his journey ends there. He's still holding down Caine2 though. Annoying. Circle then decides to force the issue and the beasts all push up heavily under Kromac's feat.

I spend forever figuring out what to do. I am trying to look for an approach to buy time but every single idea I come up with lead to Kromac moving to 2-0 on scenario easily. Instead I decide to go all out offensively. My intention is to kill a Wolf or two in the middle, commit the Trenchers and Stormwall, hold a couple of Trenchers in reserve alongside the Busters and let Caine's feat and Busters clear up hopefully enough in the next turn.

The Charger starts shooting the central Warpwolf. He doesn't want to use hyper aggressive now, I had anticipated as much. Trenchers mini-feat and I leave cloud defenses for Caine and the busters, having set them up with the proper distance the turn before. MAT6 isn't great but I land a couple of hits on the Wolves anyway and do some damage at least. Stormwall follows up, being fully fueled by Caine it hurts. The Warpwolf dies and the Feral is left at ~half boxes. Caine then clears out the Lord of the Feast and jumps behind the wall. Annoyingly I forgot to spend his last focus trying to land a Grievous Wounds shot on Feral, which would've been great seeing as its body was crippled. However I still felt I was in a good position.

Kromac throws out Primal for the Stalker and Ghetorix, killing a Trencher and lightning striking away. Feral kills a few Trenchers and Ghetorix + Stalker take out Stormwall.

Trenchers move in to ensure I have flank sources. Charger aims + backstrike on Ghetorix so it pretty much doesn't care about melee bonus. Quite a bit of damage is dealt. Busters then charge and both deal horrendous amounts of damage. Caine2 follows up with feat which takes out the rest, including a Trick Shot on the Blackclad which gets the Wilder.

With just Kromac, Ashley and Stones remaining and being down 0-1 Circle concedes the game.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

Plan worked out well enough and I felt I got more out of the Trenchers this time around. Having them work more or less as a shield and then charge with them first and follow up with what's behind while you lead cloud covers for the 2nd wave really worked great. It's very counter-intuitive to how I've usually played and I'm certain there's a myriad of small tips and tricks to master to get the most out of them in this way. Cautious advance also really helps them stay annoying early on: Not being able to land stuff like Hunter's Mark on them means that sending in anything just commits so much. 

The big blunder was obviously crowding around the Stormwall early on. I should've used the fence for both Reinholdt and Ragman regardless and the Lord of the Feast had a huge target which could potentially have been game breaking considering the changes to back strike as well (he would've gotten an attempt on Caine, not bad but at least I would've had Bullet Dodger up). Luckily for me the 7+ on Reinholdt missed. 

As for the list overall it's hard to say if this is the right configuration. It's easy to get tunnel vision when you play against the same army/faction. I need more experience and for it to face a wider range of opponents. I'm trying to find a Retribution matchup and I'm hoping for a game vs Legion soon as well.