Norwegian Masters Semi-Finals (#409): Nemo3 vs Tanith

:: Prologue ::

For my 5th game I got a Circle opponent who didn't think Una2 was strong enough vanilla, so he took her in ADR. The downside of this? You have to take another caster as well! He went with Tanith. What happens eventually? You have to play Tanith. He happened to be list-locked to Tanith for our game and truth be told I felt sorry for him: This is a hugely one-sided matchup.

:: Lists ::

Cygnar:

Theme: Storm Division
(Nemo 3) Artificer General Nemo [+25], Bunker
- 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:

(Tanith 1) Tanith the Feral Song [+31]
 - Scarsfell Griffon [8]
 - Woldwyrd [9]
 - Woldwyrd [9]
 - Pureblood Warpwolf [17]
 - Pureblood Warpwolf [17]
 - Druid Wilder [4]
 - Argus Moonhound [6]
Sentry Stone & Mannikins [5]
Sentry Stone & Mannikins [5]
Shifting Stones [3]
Una the Falconer [4]
 - Scarsfell Griffon [8]
Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew [2]
Blackclad Wayfarer [4]
Blackclad Wayfarer [4]
Swamp Gobber Chef [1]

:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::

We are playing Entrenched and I win the roll-off, opting to go first. As if this game wasn't enough in my favour as it were. The idea here is quite simply to not take any mistakes, always be patient, get the favourable trades, play it safe and just grind it out. 

:: Game ::

Stuff runs up. Arcane Shield on big Lances.

Una is super-cautious. LoS-denial dudes are put up.

2 goals for this turn: Take a pot-shot at the Sentry Stone in the middle to see if I get something to play off of and remove the gobbers on the left flank. The left flank is dealt with easily enough by Lances and a Firefly. In the middle I clear out 2 Mannikins, leaving the 3rd one (which is within 4" of the Sentry Stone) alive. Nemo casts a Chain Lightning on him and boosts the damage roll on the Sentry Stone. It's a solid roll and it has but a few boxes left so I run up a Firefly and spark it with Lances, killing off said Sentry. Awesome! Nemo's outside of theoretical threat ranges, perhaps with the exception of Tanith feating. In that case I'm in a trench, los is blocked etc.

Tanith's forces really hug the central forest. Una's griffon on the left was left mis-managed in terms of fury so it charges its own fuel cache, dealing a few boxes worth of damage and setting itself on fire. Legit.

Dynamo can go for the Moonhound and I can start pressuring Circle really hard now. With feat the remaining Sentry should die and with that my opponent's ability to manipulate my angles largely disappear. I take out the Sentry Stone, a Shifting Stone, a Pureblood and the Moonhound. Nemo's still fairly safe, hiding away. I kill Tanith's objective but fail to kill the Griffon there.

I have ditched my upkeeps to rob the Wyrds of Purgation (and to give Nemo more camp as the only way I feel I can lose now is a Hail Mary run). Regardless Circle has to try and do something now so a bit of an attack is made on the left flank. I lose a couple of models, no biggie. He exposes too much to do so.

From here on out it's basically a mop-up: Keep Nemo safe and trade favouably.

My opponent eventually concedes as the game is beyond hopeless.

Victory to the Swans!

:: Evaluation ::

In this matchup, which is so hopelessly down for Circle, I feel as though you have to play hyper-aggressively to just try and get something done. Maybe a scenario angle, maybe an assassination run. Anything, you know. When my opponent responded passively I could simply pick off his models favourably in all of my turns, using the feat to provide the momentum I needed to keep Nemo as safe as possible.

I don't know if there's much to take away from this game: When massively up, stay patient and don't risk anything. Also, beware of being list-locked!