In my post last Monday April 30 I broke down my game against Bloody Barnabas which was round 1 of the 8 man tournament I won last Saturday April 28. This time I will break down round 2 which was a match between my Hayley1 “Temporal Tempest” list and Dengerha3 “Black Industries” theme list. If you want to see exactly what my list looks like I have a post discussing my rational behind the list.
My idea for using Hayley1 in this list was that I was expecting my opponent to use a Ghost Fleet theme and that I needed to bring as many magical attacks as I can to stand a chance. So I was surprised (again) when he brought out a different list. His list was basically a spam of Shrikes with 2 Scavengers that were marshaled by Iron Lich Overseers, 2 Stalkers and Nightmare.
I won the roll off and decided to go first, I deployed in a similar fashion as my first game. Tempest Blazers to the far right for zone contest and scoring. The Lancer beside the Tempest Blazers so it could follow them in case I need to arc Deadeye on the Blazers. Stromwall was in the middle, the rest of my army was to the far left, that was the Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (ATGM) the Cyclone that was being marshaled and the Gun Mage Captain Adept (GMCA). Hayley sat between the Stormwall and the Gun Mages.
My opponent then deployed his entire force to match my Gun Mage forces. During the advance Deploy phase I deployed Eyriss1 to the left as well where she can take advantage of the trenches that were part of the table terrain. The 2 Stalkers were then also deployed to the left.
Turn 1 was standard fair, I gave Stormwall Arcane Shield and ran him forward. The rest of my army also ran forward. The Blazers making a bee line for the zone on my right with the Lancer following as best it can. Hayley after casting Arcane Shield moved forwards. The Cyclone ran forward as well, the Gun Mages all ran forward but not the full distance. I wanted to make sure the Stalkers could not reach them with their bounding leap. Eyriss1 however ran forward, far enough for a stalker to reach her but close enough for the Gun Mages to walk to her position. Eyriss was bait (a very expensive bait as other may say).
My opponent’s turn saw him buff his army as well as take the Eyriss bait. He sent a Stalker to deal with Eyriss and to my surprise sent the second Stalker towards the Gun Mages. The rest of his army ran straight towards my Gun Mages.
Turn 2 for me was the turn to try and break as many of the jacks as I could. I gave 2 focus on Stormwall and activated Hayley first. She moved to ensure that as many of the Gun Mages would be affected by her feat while catching as many of the enemy jacks in her Temporal Barrier and to not give points away via killbox. Needless to say she dropped her feat and casted Temporal Barrier.
Next to move was the GMCA, he was not affected by Hayley’s feat however so he forfeited movement to aim. He shot the Stalker that killed Eyriss using "Flare" and "Brutal Shot". Hitting the jack hard and ensureing the other ATMGs can secure hits as well. The ATGMs then activated, 3 walked towards the damaged Stalker. 2 walked towards the fresh Stalker and 3 forfeited movement to aim. Each Gun Mage had 2 shots thanks to the feat and the Gun Mages that went within melee of the Stalkers would gain boosted damage dice thanks to the theme benefit of "Pistoler". Once all their shots had been spent the 2 Stalkers were dead and a Shrike was heavily damaged.
The Cyclone did not perform as well as expected since it only rolled 1 shot per gun, I also forgot to make a 3rd shot from the feat. It managed to destroy the wounded Shriek.
Stormwall Fired 3 main gun shots thanks to feat as well as a few chain gun shots destroying 2 more Shrieks. He then placed a pod on the zone to the left simply to create an annoyance as the opponent will have to break it to score on that zone at the end of his turn.
The Lancer ran again to sit on the center zone, the Blazers position as far right as possible while still staying within the zone to score.
My opponent’s turn saw him focus his attention to taking out as many of the Gun Mages as possible, wiping out the entire unit along with the GMCA. He also sent 1 Shriek to run and engage Hayley. Having focused on the left side of the table he left the center zone and the right zones uncontested.
End of my opponent’s turn gave me 2 points and gave him none.
Turn 3 for me was just a matter of buying time, Stormwall killed the Shriek that was sent to engage Hayley. Hayley ran for the right side of the board Cyclone moved to the left zone to contest. The rest of my forces on the right side of the board stayed where they were.
End of my turn gave me another 2 points brining me to a total of 4 and my opponent scored none.
My opponent now focused on clearing the left zone to score and sent models to contest the center zone.
End of my opponent’s turn I scored 1 point bringing me to 5 and my opponent scored 1 point.
Turn 4 was just a matter of Stormwall launching a pod to contest the left zone to prevent him from scoring since the lancer was still contesting the center zone and right zone was uncontested.
I ended my turn and scored 1 point, my opponent scored none bring the final score to 6 to 1. Being 5 over my opponent I won by objective.
This game for me was smoother than my first game. I could not see any point in where I made major mistakes that could have costed me the game. I will admit now that I did play into “meta” knowledge in this match. I knew my opponent and knew that he favored assassination over objective wins. This was why when I saw him deploy his entire army to the left I knew that if I kept Hayley on that side while keeping her safe would allow me play the objective game provided she lived. It was not a zero risk plan mind you, the sheer number of Shrieks and the Stalkers meant that I needed to get rid of the Shrieks closest to Hayley as well the Stalkers to ensure that I did not lose via assassination. Had I failed to kill both Stalkers or enough Shrieks the game would have ended differently.
On Friday I will breakdown my final match in the tournament which was between Stryker1 and Gaspy3. Again if you have comments or question please don’t hesitate to ask in the comment section below.
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