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Round One: Legion & Cygnar - Close Quarters (SR2013)

This report was written by Bernd.

Execution

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[Deployment Legion]

Björn wins the dice roll and decides to go first. He deploys his troops more towards his right flag with his Warlock in the middle.

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[Deplyoment Cygnar]

Matthias deploys in more central way, but has his Warcaster directly opposite his right flag. His Fireflys are spread out on both flanks, so some ‹ Triangulation › s are prone to happen.

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[Deployment Overview]

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[Legion Turn 1]

On Björns right flank both Shredders use ‹ Rabid › and run into the forest. His Carnivean uses his animus ‹ Spiny Growth › , riles for 1 Fury and tramples.

The Forsaken advances behind the Carnivean and consumes his 4 Fury.

On his left Flank his Shredders and the the Sheperd run, the Angelius advances.

Thargrosh advances, casts ‹ Fog of War › , uses ‹ Spiny Growth › on himself and discards 3 Fury.

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[Cygnar Turn 1]

Both of his Fireflies receive 1 Focus and they both run while his Chargers advance.

Nemo casts ‹ Polarity Shield › on the Firefly on his left flank and ‹ Failsafe › on the Charger on his left flank.

Strangeways gives his Defender one Focus and marshalls him for a boosted attack. The Defender then advances and tries to shoot a Shredder but the target is too far away.

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[Round 1 Overview]

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[Legion Turn 2]

Thargrosh upkeeps ‹ Fog of War › .

As Matthias has deployed his forces just out of reach of Björns army he decides to advance just a litte bit in order not to receive the alpha strike from Matthias.

Thus, on his left flank, he advances his Angelius and his Sheperd into the forest and both Shredders behind the boulder. The Shredders also use their Animus ‹ Tenacity › for extra defense.

On his right flank he advances the rest of his troops into the Forest and Thargrosh behind the Carnivean.

Thargrosh uses ‹ Spiny Growth › and discards 2 Fury.

Björns army is now split into two parts. Will Matthias be able to abuse this?

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[Cygnar Turn 2]

Nemo upkeeps both spells, takes one Focus from the Squire and allocates three Focus to both his Chargers.

On his right flank the Firefly advances and shoots a Shredder behind the boulder (who got no cover from the position of the Firefly). The shot hits and deals 4 damage, electroleaps to the other Shredder and deals 2 damage to him. The charger on his right advances and shoots the Shredder (this time with cover) using his ‹ Powerful Attack › ability but misses twice.

On his left flank the Firefly advances and misses a Shredder behind the boulder, but the Defender has more luck: having a boosted hit and extra Focus form Strangeways he manages to deal 14 damage the Shredder, killing it. First blood!

Then the Stormsmith ‹ Triangulates › . The Shredders behind the boulder are inside the triangle. Both are hit but only 2 damage are dealt.

The Charger advances and shoots a Shredder in the forest and kills it using his ‹ Powerful Attack › ability.

Matthias gets 2 Victory points.

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[Round 2 Overview]

Matthias moves on aggresively and is rewarded with 2 Shredder kills and 2 Victory points from the flag on this left flank. This gives him a tactical advantage, but now his Warjacks are in the open and in reach of Björns forces. Can his Warjacks withstand the brunt of Björns attack that is about to happen next turn?

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[Legion Turn 3]

Now its Björns time to deal as much damage as possible and to regain the flag on his right flank.

The Shredder behind the boulder has a Fury but does not frenzy. Thargrosh upkeeps ‹ Fog of War › .

On his left flank the Shredder uses ‹ Rabid › and advances in melee with the Charger but only deals 2 damage. The Angelius charges the Firefly and deals 16 points of damage due to its armour piercing attack. All other attacks miss (but they should have hit because the Firefly's movement system was crippled and we forgot that this reduces the DEF). The Sheperd then takes the Fury off the Angelius.

On this other flank Thargrosh advances and sprays at the Firefly with boosted hit and damage, dealing 11 points. Then he casts ‹ Draconic Blessing › on the Carnivean and ‹ Spiny Growth › on himself.

As the Firefly got ‹ Polarity Shield › the Carnivean now tramples towards it. With the remaining three Fury it attacks the 'jack and when the dust settels the Firefly has one box left!

Now the Shredder in the wood uses ‹ Rabid › , advances in melee with the Firefly and destroys it with the first attack.

No victory points are awarded this turn.

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[Cygnar Turn 3]

Nemo upkeeps no spells and allocates 1 Focus to the Charger on his left flank and three to the Firefly in melee with the Angelius.

The Firefly then activates and attacks the Angelius and misses. He buys another attack, boosts to hit and damage but only deals 4 points.

The Stormcaller now is in a good position and does a ‹ Surge attack › dealing 1 damage to a Shredder and 1 damage to the Angelius.

Strangeways marshalls the Defender for boosted damage. He advances and sprays over the Shredder and Carnivean, hitting only the Carnivean but dealing no damage.

The Defender shoots the Carnivean with an aimed shot, dealing only 6 points.

Nemo advances, casts ‹ Failsafe › on the Charger in melee with the Shredder, pops his Feat allocating the maximimum amount of Focus to all 'jacks and removes three from the Firefly that had already activated. Then he casts ‹ Polarity Shield › on himself.

The Charger on his right flank advances out of melee with the Shredder and receives 7 damage from the free strike. Then he uses his Powerful Shot ability and gets his revenge by killing the Shredder. The second shot targets the Carnivean but misses.

The other Charger on the left flank advances just short of melee with the Shredder and shoots him twice. " Maybe it would have been better to attack him in melee...", Matthias mumbles inside his beard as both of the shots go astray.

No vicory points are awarded this turn.

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[Round 3 Overview]

The armies still look quite balanced after three turns, with Matthias having lost one Firefly and Björn three Shredders. Matthias also has the advantage of having 2 Victory points.

But on the other hand Matthias used his Feat already and was not able to deal any significant damage on his turn. Having a very shooty army the advantage now shifts towards Björn as both forces are engaged in melee.

Will Björn be able to deal a decisive blow on his turn?

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[Legion Turn 4]

Thargrosh upkeeps ‹ Draconic Blessing › and ‹ Fog of War › .

The forsaken advances and takes a Fury form the remaining Shredder. The Shredder then goes ‹ Rabid › , advances in melee with Strageways but misses him.

The Carnivean charges the Charger, Sprays with his assault ability and manages to deal 15 boosted damage to the Charger on the other flank.

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[Legion Turn 4]

With his initial attacks he manages to crush the Charger with ease.

On the other flank the Angelius attacks the Firefly and destroys it with the first armour piercing attack with boosted damage. The Sheperd again takes the fury away.

Thargrosh just advances and casts ‹ Spiny Growth › on himself and the Carnivean.

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[Cygnar Turn 4]

The battlefield looks rather bleak for Matthias: On his left flank he still has his Defender, but as it is Jack Marshalled it is not that dangerous in melee where it needs the Focus to be of real danger. On his right flank he has a Charger against an Angelius which is not a fair match by any means.

Matthias upkeeps both spells, takes a Focus from the Squire and and allocates three Focus to the Charger.

Strangeways then activates and marshalls the defender to charge. His melee attack against the Shredder deals 7 damage but the Shredder is still alive.

The Defender then Charges the Carnivean. It hits him for 1 damage but receives 2 damage from ‹ Spiny Growth › .

The Stormcaller ‹ Surge › s the Forsaken and does 3 damage.

Nemo advances in base to base with the flag and shoots a boosted ‹ Galvanic Bolt › at the Angelius but misses.

The Charger charges the Angelius and deals 13 damage with its attacks, crippeling the body of the Angelius.

Matthias gains his third Victory Point this turn.

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Round 4 Overview

Matthias failed to do significant damage again on his turn. Therefore he tries to win the game by scoring Victory Points, which seems to be the only option that is left for him.

Now Björn can seal the deal, but he must hinder Matthias from scoring again because then Matthias could win on his turn!

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[Legion Turn 5]

Björn upkeeps ‹ Fog of War › and ‹ Draconic Blessing › .

The Sheperd heals the Angelius for 2 points. The Angelius then advances around the Charger in hopes that it is now within 4" of the flag. Then it attack the Charger and with a boosted armour piercing attack and a boosted damage roll the Charger is destroyed.

On the other flank the Carnivean attacks the Defender. He boosts the hit rolls and the damage rolls and manages to destroy it with his inital attacks.

The Shredder uses ‹ Rabid › and kills Strangeways.

Thargrosh advances in base to base with his flag and sprays a boosted attack at the Stormcaller, killing him.

The Forsaken runs towards Matthias' flag.

Björn mangages to deny the Matthias' flag with both his Forsaken and the Angelius. He scores 1 Victory Point at his Flag. Matthias still has 3 Victory Points.

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[Cygnar Turn 5]

As Matthias has only his Warcaster and the Squire left and his flag is contested his only option is to go for an assassination attempt: He advances Nemo towards Thargrosh and shoots a ‹ Galvanic Bolt › at him, dealig 1 damage with a boosted to hit and damage roll. Then he casts ‹ Electrical Blast › twice, but both miss.

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[Legion Turn 6]

The Forsaken advances in base to base with Nemo. She attacks Nemo with a boosted to hit roll, dealing 9 points of damage with a boosted damage roll.

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[Legion Turn 6]

She buys another attack and kills Nemo with boosted to hit and damage. Game over!

Debriefing

  • Björn (Legion)

    Facing the guns of Cygnar was a new experience, as it was the first time playing against a that much shooting-oriented army. Tactical deploy was to divide the army into a main group around Thagrosh, featuring the Carnivean, two Shredders and the Forsaken and a wing group containing the Angelius, another two Shredders and the Shepherd for controlling their fury. The plan to get to the own flag as fast as possible was abandoned because of the approaching firepower, so everyone went into the woods. This could have turned out as a wrong decision because Cygnar got points for the Legion flag early, but at the end it did not matter at all. Three of the Shredders were quickly eliminated and as Cygnars feat round did not turn out very well, it looked like Cygnar had to admit defeat soon. After the Angelius and the Carnivean showed their abilities in melee, Legion gained control of the battlefield, but Cygnar was still leading in control points for the flags. It was one of the longest 25-point games played yet and a very close one. The final decision came with the negation of the Stormcallers commitment, as he tried to block the forces of Legion and that paved the way for blight right into Nemos face.

  • Matthias (Cygnar)

    Mmmh... I did not manage to achieve anything in this game. I only managed to kill some Shredders, the CPs were more granted by Björn than earned...

    My Feat turn was planned really clever in my mind (believe me!), but did not translate into the game as planned... in the end it was wasted.

    The next turns I also was not able to deal any major damage nor collect enough CPs. Just killing Shredders does not win you a game.

    Björn on the other hand systematically wrecked my battlegroup - this is a winning strategy :-)

  • Bernd (Photographer and Author)

    1. Army composition

      • Björn

        Björn just used all the models that he has. With his Carnivean and his Angelius his army can deal a lot of damage in close combat and his caster can buff the damage output with the Draconic blessing spell. Even the Shredders can deal considerable damage.

        His army has also some shooting options. And last but not least the Carnivean is also quite resiliant with Spiny Growth and the -2 Str debuff from Thargrosh. His army was well balanced in my opinion.

        But the downside of having a lot of beasts is that he is very dependant on the Forsaken and the Sheperd to manage his Fury - a fact that a cunning opponent can exploit.

        In the future, especially for larger games, another Sheperd might be a good idea to mitigate the danger.

      • Matthias

        Matthias used a heavy shooting army, but he also used nearly all models that are available for him. Still, he has an Ironclad to his disposal and I think he should have used it because his army was desperately lacking in the close combat department - a fact that was proven in the later turns where he was not able to deal any significant damage to Björn.

        A great addition to his army in the future would be the Centurion in my opinion. He brings his own Polarity Field and buffed with Fail Safe he is at ARM 23, can't be charged and does not suffer from crippled systems and thus does not lose his extra armour from his Shield. Björn would have had a hard time to kill this 'jack and that would have given Matthias more time to use his shooty models.

    2. Strategy

      • Björn

        Björn deployed his army together but then in the later turns he split the army in two parts. I think this was a risky manoever because if the Sheperd would have been killed his Angelius would have been useless.

        A slight mistake on Björns part was that he did not deny his own flag on his second turn and Matthias was able to get 2 Victory Points for free.

        Apart from that he made a very good game and managed to keep his models as safe as possible.

      • Matthias

        Matthias played rather agressive. This gave him an early lead in Victory Points but also allowed Björn to get into melee fast.

        I think it would have been better to stay further back and have one or two more turns of shooting. Björn would have had no option but to move towards Matthias army because Matthias had the better range on some of his weapons.

        Matthias could also have exploited the fact that Björns army was split: He could have denied his left flank for example by not advancing towards Björn, but by shifting his forces to his right flank. Then Björns right flank would have been more or less useless and his left flank would have had to fight against a big part of Matthias army.