Battle Report #362: Stryker3 vs Wurmwood

:: Prologue ::

A club mate of mine haven't played in forever and has yet to learn the Mk. 3 version of Warmachine and Hordes. He is playing Circle and his lists aren't half bad, so I thought I'd make things interesting and bring Stryker3! After all I've played a lot of Sloan lately and I need to practice Stryker3 as well.

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

(Stryker 3) Lord General Coleman Stryker [+28]
- Ironclad [12]
- Thorn [13]
- Squire [5]
- Ironclad [12]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Storm Lances (min) [12]
Trencher Infantry (max) [16]
Lanyssa Ryssyl, Nyss Sorceress [3]
Gobber Tinker [2]
Ragman [4]
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord [4]

Opponent:

Wurmwood
- Feral Warpwolf
- Warpwolf Stalker
- Megalith
- Argus
Blackclad Wayfarer
Max. Reeves
2x Sentry Stones
Shifting Stones

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

We are playing Recon and I go first. I have no idea what Stryker's supposed to be doing here. Whenever I commit he can just feat and push his beasts up. The idea is to try and push as far up as I can and then just chill and wait for scenario to go live.

:: Game ::

Circle chose a corner so I'm slowly skewing my line towards said corner. I keep the Trenchers on the other side, anticipating Circle to skew towards the center after which I want my clouds up as I expect the you-can't-see-fuck-all feat to pop turn 2.

Sentry Stones try and get some work done. They fail miserably.

I put Fury on small Lances, charge and kill sentries and pull the rest back while the Trenchers cloud up. I realize I might've pulled too far back too late.

My opponent elects not to feat and instead kills Trenchers and a couple of Lances.

It's feat turn! I kill the Feral, Cassius and the objective. 3-0.

My opponent fails to clear the jam on the right flank. He also fails to contest the zone properly so in my next turn I simply wipe it out to win 5-0. The jam on the right is key here, if he cannot deal with it but still jam the zone well enough I can just run with Stryker to the right flag and likely win from there.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

This match shows 3 things I think: It is very important to know your army. Understand its strengths, realize its limitations and deploy and move it in patterns that complement each other. Furthermore you need to practice to understand matchups. My opponent had an irrational fear of what I could do both under and outside of his feat. Lastly, when in doubt, push! Best way to learn in my opinion. If you push too hard and lose, you push a tiny bit less the next time.