Battle Report #190: Sloan vs Kromac2

:: Prologue ::

For our rematch we sat down and went over this matchup. I claimed that my opponent's road to victory was one based on a scenario play here, and likely an aggressive one. How would this play out? Read on!

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

Captain Kara Sloan - WJ: +28
- Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator - PC: 4
- Firefly - PC: 0
- Firefly - PC: 0
- Hunter - PC: 0
- Hunter - PC: 10
- Defender - PC: 16
- Defender - PC: 16
Gun Mage Captain Adept - PC: 5
Storm Lances - Leader & 2 Grunts: 12
Storm Lances - Leader & 2 Grunts: 12

Opponent:

Kromac, Champion of the Wurm - WB: +28
- Ghetorix - PC: 0
- Warpwolf Stalker - PC: 12
- Warpwolf Stalker - PC: 19
- Shadowhorn Satyr - PC: 12
- Gorax - PC: 7                                                                                                                   Blackclad Wayfarer - PC: 4
Shifting Stones - Leader & 2 Grunts: 3
Shifting Stones - Leader & 2 Grunts: 3
Tharn Bloodtrackers - Leader & 5 Grunts: 10
- Nuala the Huntress - PC: 4

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

Discussing Kromac's viable approach here, we agreed on the fact that all beasts had to advance straight ahead and all pathfinders had to look for the fence T2 with feat. Kromac is strong enough with Ghetorix' animus to survive my shooting, with a few transfers he can just tank it out in the open. So the idea was to look for a 3-0 top of 3 and take it from there.  

:: Game ::

Another cautious advance respecting the Defenders.

Hunters moved up to start taking off some boxes of the Satyr. I was possibly a little too cautious here as I decided to allocate focus for them with Sloan before activating her so that I could cast Guided Fire if he would Hyper Aggressive towards me so that the Defenders could go to work. Seeing as I did that I did not cast Fire Group which meant that the Hunters ended up a little too close to the fence for my liking as I wanted to aim next turn. The Defenders moved a little (I'll get back to this) and the Lances set up to threaten the wall.

Circle makes the move!

This time my opponent had 3 big baddies behind the central fence and I missed the GMCA. However as I aimed with all 4 of the shooty jacks + Sloan I still did a number of wounds on the beasts behind the fence with only a Stalker barely surviving on a handful of boxes after the Lances had done their part as well.

In his 3rd turn my opponent had to get the 3 points and be in a position to survive and get the last 2 points. Gorax cleared the Lance in front of him, the Stones healed the remaining Stalker which moved up and killed the objective. A Tharn shot the GMCA. Kromac killed the Firefly and camped 3 fury + Ghetorix' animus. Ghetorix moved up and cast his own animus as well. 

After this my Defenders had to run/charge to contest. A pretty bad spot to be in as I still had multiple beasts to deal with. I simply decided to go for assassination instead. After all, having a gut feeling of what a probably success looks like is a good thing. However Kromac survived and with that I just conceded the game outright as he could easily move to 5-0. 

:: Evaluation ::

The big mistakes here were not running the Defenders further up T1 so that they could contest the flag out there together with the Firefly. On top of that the left Lances were way too cautious T1 as well as they could've started wrapping around the fence on the open, left flank. 

I've said before that mastering Sloan is about understanding and anticipating your opponent's moves. In this game my mistakes in positioning T1 rippled down and caused me to lose on scenario T4. Sounds pretty crazy, but I do believe it's that simple. 

As always the Lances were absolutely great. I love these guys and I am positive they are exactly what this list needs. 

The main lesson learned is that the Defenders need to be considered primary scenario contest pieces. At 12/18 with quite a few boxes they are the best choice in this list for such a duty.