søndag 5. juni 2016

Battle Report #171: Sloan vs Thagrosh2

:: Prologue ::

Having learned how Sloan plays and seeing her strengths and weaknesses we agreed on a more aggressive scenario where Legion would move first. We landed on Destruction.

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:
Sloan
- Reinholdt
- Stormwall
- Hunter
- Hunter
- Firefly
- Firefly
Junior
- Charger
Arlan Strangeways
Alten Ashley
Opponent:
Thagrosh2
- Angelius
- Raek
- Raek
- Proteus
- Seraph
Forsaken
Forsaken
Shepherd
Shepherd
Spell Martyr
Spell Martyr
Legionnaires
- UA

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

My obvious fear here is a 3-0 move top of 3 from Legion following by a possible T4 domination for a 5CP win. If I can avoid that I believe I'm good. Furthermore killbox might be an issue but with a wall on my side outside of said killbox I should be fine. Hopefully. I make a mistake that I realized just too late when my Hunters went down: Going for the woods is such a natural thing to do with Pathfinder + AD, but given my opponents line I should've put them down on the right flank. Oh well.


:: Game :: 

Legion runs up, Legionnaires receive +2 ARM.


I completely botch this turn as I've misread Thagrosh's feat: I thought it was all friendly faction models. As such I'm kind of obsessed with trying to block out the paths for his Legionnaires. However Covering Fire is rather futile regardless if he mini-feats, so yeah this turn was pretty bad. Anyway the Hunters try and take out a Raek. They are nearly successfull but it has a handful of boxes left. The Stormwall ends up throwing out covering fires instead of looking for good spots for my ensuing turn and possibly having to contest scenario. Sloan takes up her spot behind the wall along with her support + Charger and a Firefly. A Spell Martyr out on the flank is too far away to get off any Scourge-based shenanigans.


Legion runs again. Legionnaires mini-feat.


With the Spell Martyr moving so far away I feel like I can safely ditch Refuge and feat for maximum power. The idea is to remove the Angelius and the Seraph, as well as the Raek on my right flank. That works out pretty well, despite a Scourge having landed on my left Firefly following a clumsy move in my following turn (letting him KD 3 jacks like that is just stupid).


The Legionnaires finally hit home and I learn that Thagrosh' feat isn't affecting them. So much for poor planning! The Hunters take a lot of beating and the Protheus goes into the Stormwall. The objective is taken out as well and the game goes to 2-2 (my opponent had killboxed himself to stay away from Sloan in his last turn).


The Stormwall's taken quite a beating but I reckong I can move past the Protheus given its angle to both contest the scenario and take away his +2 ARM from unyielding. This means tanking a free strike which I do like a boss. Protheus goes down along with the Raek and a few infantry.


Thagrosh goes all-in on the Stormwall. It dies, barely. He is left at 0 fury. Legionnaires are still handling the jacks on my left hand side.


In my previous turn I had the focus to re-cast Refuge so Sloan has it up. I'm now left with a choice: Kill objective + 2x Shepherds to win or Thagrosh? I decide the first is safest and it works out quite nicely as the 3 models all go down. With the Refuge move, Sloan is in the zone and dominates for 5-2.


Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

Bad mistake to AD the Hunters opposite the Legionnaires. I should've had both Hunters on the right flank with both Fireflies centrally I believe. I also wanted the elevation for the Hunters but in hindsight I think it's a luxury that's more of a trap because the inherent problems of the position there. The game was a lot tighter than the first 2 because Legion managed to get in some good jams and sort of pressure the scenario. I was afraid Thagrosh would set up for the 3-0 play top of 3 but he was too afraid of Sloan's assassination run. She does remove heavies awefully fast as well, so it might've been an irrational fear on my part. 

I still like the list a lot but I'm unsure of whether infantry like Legionnaires will be a thing in Sloan's intended matchups. They are annoyingly difficult to deal with. True, Thagrosh' +2 ARM helps a lot here for them. That isn't exactly a very common spell.

3 good games and a good day to be a Swan!

3 kommentarer:

  1. Svar
    1. Questions :
      1) The firefly were useful ? Did you manage to use the +2 damage ? Or you kept them at range ?

      Slett
    2. Fireflies weren't that important here. I expect they'll be more worthwhile when I face bigger units of infantry. I believe they'll show their worth sooner or later. Reach and a decent P+S in melee mean they cannot be ignored if you want to try and jam stuff up, which is an added bonus as the Hunters most surely want to keep firing.

      Slett