You know that feeling when you've written a new list and you're just itching to try it out? Yeah, I've had that feeling since Saturday. While I did play a game earlier this week, that was already agreed to be between 2 specific lists. Today I had arranged for two games to try out the Electrobots version of Haley2. I guess it's also known as the "Look ma, no Lance!" variant. Anyway, let's get to the game.
:: Lists ::
Cygnar:
"Electrobots"
Theme: Heavy Metal
4 / 4 Free Cards 75 / 75 Army
Major Victoria Haley - WJ: +25
- Squire - PC: 0
- Thorn - PC: 13 (Battlegroup Points Used: 13)
- Stormclad - PC: 18 (Battlegroup Points Used: 12)
- Stormclad - PC: 18
- Avenger - PC: 17
- Firefly - PC: 8
Captain Arlan Strangewayes - PC: 0
Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 0
- Firefly - PC: 8
Lieutenant Allison Jakes - PC: 0
- Stormclad - PC: 18
Opponent:
:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::
The new Legion theme is looking absolutely amazing. Technically I know two themes were released today, however Oracles stands out so much. For casters like Absylonia2 and Fyanna2 above it's just so amazing. You get everything you want, a free heavy, free upkeeps and apparition on an amazing unit.
We were playing Entrenched and I lost the roll-off. Going into this game I wasn't sure if a scenario angle would be playable vs Fyanna2, but I deployed for a scenario play regardless. Why not, kind of?
:: Game ::
Fyanna is afraid of my crazy angles. I can empathize!
With my opponent skewing right I have to take control of that flank first. I put up a Firefly within charge range of his Neraph behind the obstruction, which is a very obvious bait as I have a Stormclad behind. In the center I put a Stormclad, an Avenger and Thorn behind a rock with Jakes' Sidekick taking a more central position. Gallows is a thing but this formation lets me largely ignore it. For now.
Legion shifts left. The central Neraph (between the Angelii and the Neraph in cover) has Admonition. One Neraph flanks far left.
I contemplate so many choices. There's a play in the center where I can TK out both Angelii and alpha them with 2 clads. The problem is that Neraph animi, Gallows and Slipstream probably mean my committed clads die even if I feat. This is largely because the left Neraph is basically impossible to get in my feat if I want to score.
I then look towards the right Neraph, see if it's possible to physically block it out or something. I find no such angles. Lastly I look towards the left Neraph. It doesn't look that promising, but it does allow me to fan out and claim the center if I feat. I kind of want to just pull everything back and save my feat, going to 1-0 without really sacrificing anything for it. I decide against this mostly because I want to test the list out. Time to go for the left Neraph!
Dice don't cooperate and my 'clad charging said Neraph in the back arc (following TK) fails. Neraph lives. In the center I am -very- careless with my Avenger. No need for it. 1-0 at least.
Fyanna wants to go for a Gallows play in the middle and Slipstream the Neraph on the left to kill the 'clad. To make a long story short Fyanna misses the 5+ needed to hit the Avenger and in his frustration my opponent forgets to heal the Neraph: With its spirit lost this turn is pretty disastrous. With help from the Seraph and Blackfrost Shard the 'clad on the right does lose both its M and C boxes. 1-1.
The central Neraph has Admonition still. What I'm looking to do here is kill as much as I can. Haley is more or less a focus battery this turn. What I need to do is keep her safe and ensure that my jacks are positioned as such that my opponent cannot win the war of attrition in his next turn.
The Avenger starts. It moves up base-to-base with an Angelius. The Neraph uses Admonition to move towards Haley, forcing my hand. The Avenger starts hitting the angelius instead, boosting attack rolls and dealing a significant amount of damage. Good boy! Thorn runs over to engage the Neraph which contests me. Haley TKs this one out of Fyanna's control range so that it loses its feat. The central Stormclad hits the Neraph which previously had Admonition and damage is decent. Junior's Firefly moves up to apply Ionization to this Neraph and shoots the other Neraph (i.e. the one without feat), arcing onto the damaged one. The Stormclad on my right finishes them both off.
This allows my Firefly on the left flank to run away. I have one seriously hurt Stormclad and one Arcane Shielded Avenger committed and one Stormclad exposed in the center. However I'm happy to have killed 2 Neraphs with an Angelius and the third Neraph hardly having boxes left.
My opponent is running very low on time. While he does kill the 2 heavies I have committed, Sidekick keeps the central Stormclad alive. Granted the stress of the clock running out made him forget Wraithbane, but he had a ton to heal and wanted multiple spells this turn so it was kind of hard anyway.
Looking at this situation it doesn't really matter if the central clad had gone down. I have so much shooting left (relatively speaking) and I can easily wipe out the remaining heavy hitters from here to take the game home. My opponent concedes (he's out of time also).
:: Evaluation ::
Despite some pretty bad mistakes on both sides and a couple of crazy dice rolls I still found this game very interesting, challenging and rewarding to play. The Electrobots sure play differently to the good old Thornwall I'm used to. The amount of work I did on Fyanna's feat turn was pretty crazy. I was also happy to see the various elements working so well together. I even managed to apply my shooting to crucial effect here.
Legion look so strong now and like Cygnar I believe they have a ton of builds they need to figure out. It'll be very interesting to see where they end up. I feel pretty certain that Fyanna2 will be one of their most popular casters. She feels like she has so much game - also on attrition - and a ton of interesting angles. Her feat is amazing and she has a really strong spell list.
Next time I play her I will definitely not set myself up for stupid gallow plays. Luck saved me on my own feat turn for sure. I should also note that the charging Stormclad on the left flank was 77% likely to kill the Neraph. Considering the commitment this play essentially was, that's a little on the low side. After all, 77% means that a little more often than 1 in 5 times you will fail. I could easily have applied more effort here, or simply abandoned the play altogether. Live and learn!
Theme: Oracles of Annihilation
Fyanna2
- 3x Neraph
- 2x Angelius
- Seraph
- Naga
Shepherd
2x Forsaken
Spell Martyr
Hellion
Blackfrost Shard
:: Pre-Battle Thoughts & Deployment ::
The new Legion theme is looking absolutely amazing. Technically I know two themes were released today, however Oracles stands out so much. For casters like Absylonia2 and Fyanna2 above it's just so amazing. You get everything you want, a free heavy, free upkeeps and apparition on an amazing unit.
We were playing Entrenched and I lost the roll-off. Going into this game I wasn't sure if a scenario angle would be playable vs Fyanna2, but I deployed for a scenario play regardless. Why not, kind of?
:: Game ::
Fyanna is afraid of my crazy angles. I can empathize!
With my opponent skewing right I have to take control of that flank first. I put up a Firefly within charge range of his Neraph behind the obstruction, which is a very obvious bait as I have a Stormclad behind. In the center I put a Stormclad, an Avenger and Thorn behind a rock with Jakes' Sidekick taking a more central position. Gallows is a thing but this formation lets me largely ignore it. For now.
Legion shifts left. The central Neraph (between the Angelii and the Neraph in cover) has Admonition. One Neraph flanks far left.
I contemplate so many choices. There's a play in the center where I can TK out both Angelii and alpha them with 2 clads. The problem is that Neraph animi, Gallows and Slipstream probably mean my committed clads die even if I feat. This is largely because the left Neraph is basically impossible to get in my feat if I want to score.
I then look towards the right Neraph, see if it's possible to physically block it out or something. I find no such angles. Lastly I look towards the left Neraph. It doesn't look that promising, but it does allow me to fan out and claim the center if I feat. I kind of want to just pull everything back and save my feat, going to 1-0 without really sacrificing anything for it. I decide against this mostly because I want to test the list out. Time to go for the left Neraph!
Dice don't cooperate and my 'clad charging said Neraph in the back arc (following TK) fails. Neraph lives. In the center I am -very- careless with my Avenger. No need for it. 1-0 at least.
Fyanna wants to go for a Gallows play in the middle and Slipstream the Neraph on the left to kill the 'clad. To make a long story short Fyanna misses the 5+ needed to hit the Avenger and in his frustration my opponent forgets to heal the Neraph: With its spirit lost this turn is pretty disastrous. With help from the Seraph and Blackfrost Shard the 'clad on the right does lose both its M and C boxes. 1-1.
The central Neraph has Admonition still. What I'm looking to do here is kill as much as I can. Haley is more or less a focus battery this turn. What I need to do is keep her safe and ensure that my jacks are positioned as such that my opponent cannot win the war of attrition in his next turn.
The Avenger starts. It moves up base-to-base with an Angelius. The Neraph uses Admonition to move towards Haley, forcing my hand. The Avenger starts hitting the angelius instead, boosting attack rolls and dealing a significant amount of damage. Good boy! Thorn runs over to engage the Neraph which contests me. Haley TKs this one out of Fyanna's control range so that it loses its feat. The central Stormclad hits the Neraph which previously had Admonition and damage is decent. Junior's Firefly moves up to apply Ionization to this Neraph and shoots the other Neraph (i.e. the one without feat), arcing onto the damaged one. The Stormclad on my right finishes them both off.
This allows my Firefly on the left flank to run away. I have one seriously hurt Stormclad and one Arcane Shielded Avenger committed and one Stormclad exposed in the center. However I'm happy to have killed 2 Neraphs with an Angelius and the third Neraph hardly having boxes left.
My opponent is running very low on time. While he does kill the 2 heavies I have committed, Sidekick keeps the central Stormclad alive. Granted the stress of the clock running out made him forget Wraithbane, but he had a ton to heal and wanted multiple spells this turn so it was kind of hard anyway.
Looking at this situation it doesn't really matter if the central clad had gone down. I have so much shooting left (relatively speaking) and I can easily wipe out the remaining heavy hitters from here to take the game home. My opponent concedes (he's out of time also).
Victory to the Swans!
:: Evaluation ::
Despite some pretty bad mistakes on both sides and a couple of crazy dice rolls I still found this game very interesting, challenging and rewarding to play. The Electrobots sure play differently to the good old Thornwall I'm used to. The amount of work I did on Fyanna's feat turn was pretty crazy. I was also happy to see the various elements working so well together. I even managed to apply my shooting to crucial effect here.
Legion look so strong now and like Cygnar I believe they have a ton of builds they need to figure out. It'll be very interesting to see where they end up. I feel pretty certain that Fyanna2 will be one of their most popular casters. She feels like she has so much game - also on attrition - and a ton of interesting angles. Her feat is amazing and she has a really strong spell list.
Next time I play her I will definitely not set myself up for stupid gallow plays. Luck saved me on my own feat turn for sure. I should also note that the charging Stormclad on the left flank was 77% likely to kill the Neraph. Considering the commitment this play essentially was, that's a little on the low side. After all, 77% means that a little more often than 1 in 5 times you will fail. I could easily have applied more effort here, or simply abandoned the play altogether. Live and learn!
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