I had Kae, as usual, but thought that the usual list I fielded for her was getting rather worn. In my case, though was Issyria, a caster I had very little experience with, other than a ridiculous assassination of pDeneghra (six MHSF clustered about her in turn 6 needing 9's to hit because I neglected to cast Blinding Light with a Chimera lately with a Machine Wraith in it... silly story), and being the caster I played my first timed game with. I had the models for her tier list (aside from a Banshee proxying as a Phoenix) and went with double Phoenix, Silly Willy, 2 Arcanists, Houseguard Thane and max Invictors/Sentinels/Halberdiers all with UA's.
Lano's love affair with Kallus continued and he fielded a Carnivean, Spawning Vessel, Succubus, Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew, 2 max Ogrun Warspears with UA's, max Legionnaires with Capt Farilor and a Gatorman Posse.
For my part, this was best described as a missed opportunity, while Lano cursed his dice on numerous occasions but managed to outlast me, anyway. I conceded that I had deployed incorrectly (wide-frontage... made mention of it ages ago, but since this was a casual game, I couldn't be bothered to change things). Anyway, we tried out SR2015, rolled Destruction and I took first turn. So... RUN!
And his first turn mirrored mine, the Gatormen praying Dirge of Mists. Second turn... Issyria popped feat and Crusader's Call. Lano underestimated the Halberdiers' threat range with Thane in tow with Crusader's Call, and was promptly wrecked, even though the Legionnaires had popped mini-feat (ARM buff).
Regarde!
Yeah, his dead pile is up in the corner, and an irksome number of medium bases was among it. All his units were down by half at least. However, it only went downhill from there for me as I hadn't really planned much at all except a grind fest, despite knowing Issyria doesn't play attrition well. Yah, clever me... *ugh* Anyway, he counter-feated, knowing it was a bit late, tied up the Invictors in combat with the remaining Ogruns on the right and slowly ground down the rest of the elven army. His Carnivean managed to wreck Phoenix number one, but was counterattacked by Phoenix number two. Given his better combat units and more intelligent of distributing resources, the Invictors were useless, the Sentinels were overwhelmed and the Halberdiers lost their hitting power considering the proximity of much of his army around the control zone. The one bright point being destroying his objective:
The game was decided when a spawned Stinger sprayed the remaining Arcanist, leaving the Phoenix to be Combo-Struck by one of the feat-Incubi, leaving Issyria with little to be able to deal any sort of killing blow against Kallus.
Ah well... understandably, I was a tad disappointed, since Issyria's feat turn did a number on Kallus' force, but a post-mortem drew a few lessons/conclusions. One, the Invictors were in too easy a position to be occupied and should have been closer to the Phoenixes to take potential advantage of Flank (the original idea that I couldn't be bothered to revert to was to line the Halberdiers up in front of the Invictors to screen them without hindering their effectiveness, thanks to Ranked Attacks). Two, that wall was a trap, as I had intended to have Issyria hide behind it for as long as possible, but it meant that at least two elements of my army would always be out of position. Three, one of the Phoenixes should've been held back a little as a reserve heavy hitter. Four, don't be afraid of Free Strikes if it means the loss of only a small part of a unit (only three of the ten remaining Invictors after the Ogruns' initial charge were engaged, and had I been willing to lose them, the remaining seven would be able to CRA the three Ogruns and hopefully kill two of them, the subsequent combat would be more than enough to wipe out the unit, leaving six Invictors to support the dwindling centre). Five... fear the Spawning Vessel! Seriously, that thing did more than 10pts worth of work this battle!
-_-
No comments:
Post a Comment