Last Wednesday, May 2. I discussed my match against Dehnegra3 in the 8 man tournament that I won last April 28. Now it’s time to breakdown my finals match. This match was between my Stryker1 “Storm Surge” list and another “Black Industries” list with Gaspy3 as the warcaster. If you want to see what my exact list is there is a post in this page that talks about it in detail, including my philosophies to building that list.
As before I want to talk about why I decided to use the “Storm Surge” list over the other list. Since this is the final I already knew who my opponent was and what list his brought, note I said list meaning he only has 1. Knowing the list composition and the theme “Black Industries” made using the “Storm Surge” list a given. My opponent was running basically a Slayer spam list. “Black Industries” theme would give these heavy jacks “Carapace” meaning +4 ARM against shooting and free strikes. So much like in my first match using a list that is pure ranged attacks would have been stupid for my part.
I again won the roll off (lucky) and opted to go first. I Deploy pretty much the exact same way as I did in round 1. Tempest Blazers were Deployed to the right, Stormwall center Stryker behind it and on the left the Swordknights with the Stormblades behind them.
My opponent deployed his caster in the middle and had his slayers spread apart in a line. There would be no easy scoring in this game. Any points I wanted to score I had to fight over it tooth and nail.
Turn 1, standard fare. I buff my Tempest Blazers with “Snipe”, the Sword Knights with “Arcane Shield” and everything ran forward.
My opponent ran one of his arcnode bone chickens forward to be able to cast “Hex Blast” on the Blazers, two of which almost dies and survived with just 1 life each, they also lost Snipe. He then casted his buffs which raised the ARM of the Slayers to 19, dropped his feat and everything ran forward. He was careful enough to make sure that none of my melee units could get a charge into his jack, this included Stormwall.
Turn 2, I realize my first mistake as the Lancer was out of Stryker’s control and could not power up. This heavily influenced my plan for turn 2 which I will discuss in detail later. With a wall of jacks that I cannot damage this turn and the Lancer unable to run due to not having focus I did the one thing that gave my list its name sake. I surged forward. Stryker moved forward, dropped his feat and re-cast “Snipe” on the Blazers and “Blur” on himself. The Sword Knights still had “Arcane Shield” on them, they got “Heroic Call” from Rhupert and ran forward practically base to base with the Slayers in front of them. The Blazers now with “Snipe” again shot at the bone chicken that arced the Hex Blast and took out its arcnode. They then reposition back to the farther end of the right zone. Stormwall ran forward and engaged another bone chicken and one to two Slayers.
My opponent then loads up his slayers with focus and begins to take Stormwall apart. With the 6 Slayers charging Stormwall and using “Combo Strike” he was eventually reduced to a scrap heap. A few more Slayers kill the first line of Sword Knights and he then moves his caster back and runs a Slayer and a few other units to screen him.
Turn 3, it was an all or nothing move for me now. I had an assassination vector and had to take it as I already knew that I would eventually lose an attrition game without Stormwall. The destruction of Stormwall left an open space on the table in front of Stryker. An open line of sight to the Slayer that was screening Gaspy. The position was close enough that the 5” AoE of Earthquake would clip Gaspy as well the other screening units. This would mean that the Tempest Blazer can shoot the knocked down caster with “Brutal Shot” and the hit were all but guaranteed. There was two issues with this vector, one was that Gaspy was ARM 17. Even with “Brutal Shot” I would need high damage rolls to kill him off with 5 shots, second issue was that Gaspy was sitting on 4 focus. I needed more shots to kill Gaspy. Lucky for me there is some truth to the old notion that Cygnar never lacks for ranged attacks. My Stormblades could reach Gaspy with their range attacks with Snipe. That was the plan and the execution went better than expected. The game and the tournament ended with me pulling off an assassination run.
This was another lucky game for me, lucky in a sense that an assassination vector became available. Without Stormwall it would have been an uphill battle for me to win the attrition game against that many Slayers. However I think that my win was also due to my opponent being unfamiliar with my list and my particular playstyle with that list.
I did make one major mistake in the game, the Lancer being out of control in turn 2 was a very big deal. If I had not made that mistake I could have ended the match sooner and with a higher chance of success. Since my opponent's caster was in reach of an earthquake if my Lancer could have ran. His caster has I belive just 1 focus on him and was in range of Stormwall's guns. The Blazers were also in range.
Overall however as one of the more veteran players pointed out, winning in this game is a mix of proper determination, games grinding and luck. I’m just glad I got the mix just right this time.
Again, if you guys have question or reaction feel free to let me know
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