Internal Affairs Mk. VII Game 2 (#397): Nemo3 vs Amon

:: Prologue ::

For my second game of the day I faced the dreaded new Protectorate top-tier pairing: High Reclaimer with Amon in Theme. It's a bit of a chicken situation I guess, Stryker should probably be able to hold his own vs Amon whereas Nemo should be ok vs HR. However Stryker into HR sounds dreadfully bad and Nemo vs Amon only slightly less so.

Since Protectorate players often have a tendency to love HR I decide to try and drop Nemo. I also reckon I might have assassination angles here, which is always a plus in situations like this. I drop Nemo and receive Amon. Oh-oh.

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

Theme: Storm Division
(Nemo 3) Artificer General Nemo [+25]
 - Storm Chaser Adept Caitlin Finch
 - Squire [0]
 - Firefly [8]
 - Firefly [8]
 - Firefly [8]
 - Dynamo [18]
 - Lancer [10]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Storm Lances (min) [12]
Major Katherine Laddermore [8]
Journeyman Warcaster [0]
 - Firefly [8]

Opponent:

Theme: The Creator's Might
(Amon 1) High Allegiant Amon Ad-Raza [+29]
 - Dervish [7]
 - Dervish [7]
 - Dervish [7]
 - Dervish [7]
 - Devout [9]
 - Templar [15]
 - Crusader [10]
 - Crusader [10]
 - Crusader [10]
 - Crusader [10]
 - Hierophant [0]
Choir of Menoth (min) [4]
Choir of Menoth (min) [4]
The Covenant of Menoth [0]
Vassal of Menoth [0]
Vassal Mechanik [1]
Vassal Mechanik [1]
Wrack [1]
Wrack [1]

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

We are playing Entrenched and Amon gets to go first. I don't reckon I have scenario openings here, unless Amon wants to play skewed. His deployment indicates he does not so I'm bracing myself for a war of attrition.

What I try to accomplish here is to have everything converge in the center so I can maximize Firefly bonus and leaps on feat turn. If I deal a sufficiently hard blow I might be able to come out on top.

:: Game ::

Amon runs up. Fortify on Templar.

I want to tell Amon I mean business here. Two Dervishes are within Firefly-run-and-spark-node-it range. I run up one on the left and start shooting it in the back. The Dervish dies. I try and repeat the same on the right side but this time my rolls aren't high enough. I finish off my turn with Force Hammering said Dervish with Nemo to try and slam it away. I roll a '1' for distance. Ok, at least I initiated a piece trade.

Amon decides to handle the two Fireflies. In doing so he commits a significant amount of jacks so to capitalize on this he sends in just about all the rest of the jacks to jam. Party time!

The ARM23 Templar is a lost cause. I decide to have the Lancer bash his cortex out and simply leave him be. Dynamo is fully fueled. I run up a Firefly and Nemo feats. I put Lightning Shroud on Dynamo with Nemo and then have said Nemo start shooting stuff for bounces. With feat and Firefly bonus and everything in the center the damage begins stacking up. Dynamo goes in and kills both a Crusader and a Dervish (the latter with POW12 boosted electro leaps alone!). Awesome start. The Lances follow up, killing another Crusader and a third Dervish.

This leaves two Crusaders, the Templar without Cortex and a single Dervish to retaliate. I'm not sure if I have enough punch post-feat to deal with it all but so far I'm doing ok!

Amon is getting stressed out by seeing how much my army hurt him. He realizes the Lancer must die before I deal with even more heavies by ways of stripping cortices so that has priority #1. My opponent commits Amon personally to the fray though and this is very interesting! Feat goes up of course and all the spells in the world are cast to distribute focus.

The retaliation is strong, but it hasn't crippled me. More interestingly, Amon is very exposed.

Attrition here is super iffy. Assassination though? Probably not! All I have to do is kill the Covenant, assault the Dervish with X Lances and leap onto Amon. Should he survive, there's a Firefly without movement with him as the closest model following the Dervish' demise.

Dynamo decides to tank a free strike to try and kill the Covenant in melee. Unfortunately the Templar knocks out my melee arm. I forget the various models with Shield Guards around so I try and shoot it instead. Bad idea, should've gone for the 3+ melee attacks.

Luckily I have a couple of models which can clear it out. They manage this and the path is clear for the Lances to assault the Dervish. They do this and he dies, but Amon is also brought down to 0 boxes... Except he toughs.

Ok, Nemo's still yet to activate. He casts a Chain Lightning on the Firefly. It bounces on Amon and I roll the 3+ required. He toughs. I shoot the Firefly in the back and arc onto Amon. He toughs! Finch shoots the Firefly in the back and arc onto Amon. Snake eyes on damage?

Are you serious right now?

The Firefly then steps up, showing me why I love them so much in this list, and boosts a melee attack roll to hit the 10+ on Amon. This time, the 5+ fails him and he dies.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

My strategy going into this game was fairly sound: Clusterfuck it all in the middle, get the alpha, work from there. However turn 1 I got greedy and the Protectorate got too much work done on my right flank. Getting 1 Dervish for 1 Firefly on the left was awesome, however going for the second one with too few leaps left was stupid.

This move as a whole though dictated a commitment from Amon. The jam in the middle was probably uncalled for I think. Perhaps Amon could've bided his time and even make a move for scenario?

My opponents are not used to fighting Nemo3 and this game shows that really well. I get to dictate when and where the fighting happens and the damage output on my feat turn actually helps me get to a place where I truly think attrition might've been viable. If not then at least very close to it.

The assassination run was the best way to try and close the game and a pretty obvious play given the state of the board. However once those tough checks started happening, I really thought I'd lost it... 4 times in a row and a snake eyes for damage roll to boot! Luckily the Firefly pulled through, I had allocated 1 (+1 from Finch) so it had 2 chances at making the 10+ needed to force another check.

A very satisfying win. The Protectorate are nasty to face now and I'm very happy I was able to pull through here despite getting an unfavoured matchup!