Cutthroat Tactics: March 2017

Tuesday, 21 March 2017

NL Masters 2017 Game 5: Ossrum vs Gunnbjorn

I went to NL Masters 2017 this past weekend. My two lists were:

Ossrum
- 6 Gunners
- 2 Blasters
Thor
- Avalancher
Kell
max dwarfs
2 artilleries
ADR: Eiryss1, Alten, Eliminators, Orin, Reinholdt, Aiyana and Holt
74 points / 35 in ADR

Cyphon
- 3 Wreckers
- Warden
2 Max benders
max Slavers
Alexia with Dominator
2 Agitators
ADR: Max benders, Warden
74 points / 21 in ADR

My fifth game was against Erik Jan Driessen with Trollbloods. I played Ossrum and he took Gunnbjorn. I dropped a blaster for Eiryss and another for Alten. Upon reviewing his feat, I had the thought that Ossrum might have been a wrong choice of list from me.

His list was:
Theme Power of Dhunia
Gunnbjorn
- 2 Bombers
- Blitzer
- Mauler
- 2 Impalers
Janissa
2 x 3 whelps
Max Krielstone with Elder

I got the first turn. I think that my opponent chose a wrong side, honestly. On his side, he has no hiding places inside killbox for his caster, but there is a spot on my side.

I deployed opposite his flag, largely because the forest on my side kind of forces me there. He also deploys his forces on this flank, mainly.

On my first turn, I run up with bunnies and energize with Ossrum. I also put FFE on Eiryss, and then hide her behind the building. Everything else runs up as far as it can, too. I didn't make a picture after his turn, but he did desroy Kell with a lucky scatter.

Here is the end of my turn 2. Gunnbjorn is dead. He placed Gunnbjorn behind one bomber, camped 0 fury and he didn't feat. The rest is easy: I feat, knock down both Gunnbjorn and Bomber with an Avalancher shot, and finish Gunnbjorn off with bunnies. We filled the papers, and since it was such a short game, decided to see where it could have gone if he had not forgotten to feat.

Instead of going for assassination, I now just advance all my bunnies in a line outside Mauler's threat range. Dwarves catch up with the bunnies a bit.

He removes a bunny, an artillery crewman and 5 dwarves. Gunnbjorn is still quite out in the open. I assassinate him again, this time in turn 3. The only difference in the plan is to first kill the mauler with the hammer dwarves, as well as cast Unstoppable force to shove some model aside.

Conclusion: Gunnbjorn is at a serious disadvanage against Ossum. Yes, his feat doesn't allow shooting. But his threat projections are really short, so it is mostly possible for Ossrum to wait out Gunnbjorn's feat turn.

Monday, 20 March 2017

NL Masters 2017 Game 4: Ossrum vs Darius

I went to NL Masters 2017 this past weekend. My two lists were:

Ossrum
- 6 Gunners
- 2 Blasters
Thor
- Avalancher
Kell
max dwarfs
2 artilleries
ADR: Eiryss1, Alten, Eliminators, Orin, Reinholdt, Aiyana and Holt
74 points / 35 in ADR

Cyphon
- 3 Wreckers
- Warden
2 Max benders
max Slavers
Alexia with Dominator
2 Agitators
ADR: Max benders, Warden
74 points / 21 in ADR

My fourth game was against Thomas Heussner with Cygnar. I played Ossrum and he played Darius. I was pretty certain he'd take Darius, and I had previously played this matchup and lost on time. I wanted to see how I will fare when I'm more familiar with Darius.

I dropped a blaster for Eiryss and another blaster for Eliminators. The purpose here was two-fold: both Eiryss and Eliminators are strong assassination threats. Also, Eiryss is good for disrupting his heavies and Eliminators can hunt his solos and halfjacks.

Hist list was:
Heavy Metal theme
Darius
- Squire
- Stormwall
- 2 Centurions
Strangewayes
Journeyman
- Hunter
Jakes
- Hunter
- Sentinel

The scenario was Recon and I got the first turn.

I deployed my whole army to advance into the zone between the two woods, with Kell using a wood for Stealth and Eiryss hiding behind it. Eliminators are operating independently running around the wood.

I run everything forward and put snipe on Avalancher and FFE on an artillery. Kayazi stay outside of 11" from the closest hunter.

My opponent moves up and does wo shots at my avalancher. He also makes a fatal mistake by leaving a gap between his Centurion with Fortify and he Fuel Cache cloud, as well as between the Centurion and Stormwall. Moreover, the Sentinel blocking LOS to Darius isn't BTB with the Fortified Centurion. This means assassination, which is exactly what happened. Avalancher shoots at Sentinel, knocking him and Darius down, followed by bunnies advancing to shoot Darius through the gap, and artilleries just advancing into range to fire.

After this, we decide to roll back the game since we have a lot of time till next round, and see how it plays out otherwise. We move the Centurion BTB with Wall and Sentinel with the Centurion and roll back my models approximately where they were before.

I take out two hunters with my shooting and drop the centurion without Fortify to low health with both hands damaged. Eliminators run behind the centurion and engage him. In hindsight, I move eliminators wrongly. They should take a longer circle around the Stormwall to avoid getting podded. If they reach the back intact, then they can threaten the Journeyman or Strangewayes, and that is of critical importance in this match up.

I forgot to make a photo after his turn, but he made some shootign on a bunny and killed it, and also podded my eliminators. He puts covering fire templates between the wall and the bunnies. Also, he feated to get the almost dead centurion back to full health, and activated polarity field on both Centurions.

In response, I take out the centurion that was just healed and charge my hammer dwarves into the Stormwall, taking ot a half.

On his turn, he heals up the collossal and kills almost all dwarves. We grind a bit more here but I didn't make any more photos. Basically, I feel that:
1. Some more hammer dwarves would have helped in the match up.
2. Eliminators can be really good here if used properly.
3. Kell and Eiryss together taking a shield off a heavy go a long way toward killing it.

I do not think that I would drop Ossrum into Darius without ADR. So, in a non-ADR environment I need a different armor-cracking caster. Currently thinking either Damiano or Cyphon.

NL Masters 2017 Game 3: Ossrum vs Makeda1

I saw from his deployment that he would be going for the left flag. I deployed for a strong push on the left, with a spray bunny on the right to kill swordsmen and two snipers to keep plink at heavies.

He makes a cautious advance on both flanks, and puts quicken on Cetrati.

I advance more, observing cetrati charging distance, and keeping everything out of threat range of Molik without quicken (but inside it with quicken). I also shoot Molik with Alten and Kell, and Alten repositions.

He re-casts quicken on Molik and goes for Kell, but his dice are really low, and he fails to kill Alten. He chooses to sprint instead of boosting his last missed attack. Makeda is right in the open camping one. This is a clear assassination situation.

The proper assassination would have been: feat, cast unstoppable force and energize, charge something in the center with Ossrum to get his control area really far up the table. Then run the blaster bunny to bulldoze makeda into Gladiator, shoot the gladiator with Avalancher to knock down Makeda and the gladiator both, and then just shoot her to death.

Instead, I ran the bunny up to makeda and shot it with Avalancher, only to discover that Quake had to directly hit an Enemy model to apply. The rest of the game is of little interest. I just gave up a spray bunny and a really powerful shot for nothing, and the rest evolved into a grind that I lost on clock.

NL Masters 2017 Game 2: Cyphon vs Amon

I went to NL Masters 2017 this past weekend. My two lists were:

Ossrum
- 6 Gunners
- 2 Blasters
Thor
- Avalancher
Kell
max dwarfs
2 artilleries
ADR: Eiryss1, Alten, Eliminators, Orin, Reinholdt, Aiyana and Holt
74 points / 35 in ADR

Cyphon
- 3 Wreckers
- Warden
2 Max benders
max Slavers
Alexia with Dominator
2 Agitators
ADR: Max benders, Warden
74 points / 21 in ADR

My second game was against Moritz Riegler with Protectorate of Menoth. I played Cyphon and he had Amon.

I changed nothing in the list.
Hist list was:
The creator's might
Amon
- 2 Dervishes
- Crusader
- 3 Devouts
- 2 Templars
- Vigilant
Covenant
2 Vassals
Mechanic
Wrack
3 min choirs

The scenario was Entrenched, and I got the first turn. I was planning to go for dominating my own zone and pushing hard with heavies there, destroying anything that gets too close. His zone would be contested by ambushers and a unit of slavers. Alexia and another unit of slavers were to jam the middle, making it impossible to get to my zone fast enough.

I deployed accordingly, and I had some difficulties deploying in the middle. I was not 100% sure how to deploy the three units so that they can get where I need. I was also not 100% sure where I actually need my unit of benders in the center.

On my first turn, I allocate three for running and keep 4 for casting. I then cast Onslaught and intend to cast Perseverance on the Warden by force of habit, when I realize my opponent has no shooting. I semi-unjam my infantry, although the central benders are pretty jammed and aren't likely to get anywhere useful.

Moritz basically just runs his army forward on both flanks. I see that his jacks are up in my face on the right, and I have no infantry there to screen with, because the central benders are out of position. So, I decide instead to feat and get some of his jacks.

Only two of my wreckers are able to get targets, and it's not like I have focus to load more of them up (perseverance last turn was a mistake, I should have given focus to more wreckers from the start). I also barely get my Agitator into instigate position, and after enliven on the Templar I have to use beat back to step towards him, which takes me out of instigate bubble, reducing damage output drastically. The other wrecker kills a light with just the two initials. On the left flank, I jam hard, but also suffer some losses from defensive strike.

In response, Moritz take my two wreckers and also kills Alexia, whom I placed too far up the field - hence cutting out a big source of recursion that I had. The attrition is really bad for me at this point.

I take the light he had in the zone, using a combination of Gallows to drag him into LOS of he remaining wrecker and then being able to charge out of the rubble where I had placed him last turn. I also walked Cyphon into the zone, and tried to screen the access to the zone as much as possible with the limited forces I now had. I also try to do some damage to the objective and the Templar on the left flank with my slavers.

On his turn, Moritz clears my screen with lights and some help from Choir boys to finish the toughed guys, then takes my last wrecker with his Templar. On the left flank, he cleans up my forces and goes in with Amon to score.

I look for any assassination chance but it isn't there. There is nothing that I can do at this point to win the game, so I decide to at least try and score a point by killing he crusader and the one choir boy.

The Warden does some minimal damage, and Cyphon himself misses with all attacks. He scores one more, and has the choice of either killing Cyphon next turn or killing the warden, the objective and the last Overlord to get 5 points. Victory to Protectorate.

The matchup seemed very tough to me after the game, but now analyzing the pictures and doing the write up I realize it's very playable. The plan could have worked if I had simply placed the benders in a line before my heavies during deployment and ran them forward to act as a screen in turn 2 instead of feating. Of course, the way I placed Alexia was also very foolish. She should stay at her maximum 9" soul collecting distance from the screening models, with all the risen in a big clump before her (Amon has no AOE-s). I am pretty sure that the matchup is totally playable for Cyphon.

NL Masters 2017 Game 1: Ossrum vs Kraye

Michael got the first turn. I chose the side that didn't have the wood, because I didn't want Kraye to have a place to hide behind. He deployed centrally, and I skewed to the left. I will save the suspense and tell that I lost the game on scenario. Now, some comments already from the onset.
1. By choosing this side, I am forcing myself to skew to one side with at least the dwarves - because they will need to see their charge targets during feat turn.
2. The flag on the left is too easy to contest from behind the forest. The right flag is very difficult for me to contest the way I deployed.

Kraye moves his forces up to claim table space, while staying outside of the range of all my shooting with Kraye himself.

I advance outside of his charge ranges, disrupt a heavy, heavily cripple another heavy, and shoot down the two Sword Knight that can reach Eiryss.

I forgot to make a photo after Cygnar turn, but he basically trampled + repositioned to engage Eiryss with one heavy and the bunnies in the center with another heavy (both with Polarity Field). He spread out his Sword Knights around the two side flags and got the lancer on the right flag. He also moved Kraye further away.

After all this time, I was still not realizing that my opponent was doing - I didn't see the clear scenario game. So in response, I destroyed one heavy in the center and almost destroyed the one on the flank. Only when it came to the activations of the last bunnies, I realized that there are flags there, and that I don't have to stay in one place the whole game. So I went to score one with a gunner, and contested the other two with a blaster and a gunner.

The proper way to play it would have been to feat, and after killing the heavy in the center to really far with the bunnies towards the middle flag. Also, I was always forgetting to reposition with Avalancher and hence get his threat projection much further up the table.

On his turn, he destroys my three unfeated bunnies, and where needed repositions to score. He goes to three points.

I am still not realizing the gravity of the situation, thinking I will just contest, and I will make the attrition so bad that he can't do anything else. To make the long story short, even though I feated and intended to go with bunnies to contest, I forgot that with all of them. In the end, my last model to activate is the Avalancher, whos movement I do not premeasure. After moving 7" inches and shooting, I find out that reposition 5 isn't enough to get him within contesting range of the right flag. My opponent scores one on my turn and one more on his without doing anything and wins the game.

This is the end of game snap shot:

The big mistake I made is not realizing what my opponent is doing, despite the clear signs. I was overly focused on attirion, and yet I didn't make the correct calls in all attrition-related questions (e.g. I didn't finish off the heavy that went back after my turn 1 shooting to get healed by Strangewayes).

I was no respecting scenario at all in this game, despite the fact that this is the most live scenario in Steamroller pack. The biggest problem is that actually I could have played much stronger on scenario without giving up almost any of the attrition, by simply feating on turn 2. Why I didn't is because I was still hoping to save that for assassination.

A deserved win for my opponent who had a clear plan, and a deserved loss for me.

Wednesday, 15 March 2017

Practice Game: Ossrum vs Coven

This was a practice game played on 14.03.2017 against Coven

Army lists:

Mercs
Theme: Hammer Strike
Ossrum
- 2 Spray Bunnies
- 6 Gun Bunnies
- Driller
Thor
- Avalancher
Max Hammer Dwarves
2 Artilleries

Cryx
Coven
- Kraken
- Death ripper
- 2 Slayers
Max Satyxis + UA
Max Bane Riders

The scenario is the Pit, and the terrain has a house located very conveniently for one of the sides. I win the die roll and decide to go first despite such terrain. I do not plan to dominate the zone or the flag. My plan is to attrition Cryx to such a degree that he has no threats left, and then go for either scenario or assassination. Hence, Ossrum will stay central and at almost maximum killbox range. By Cryx deployment I see that his plan is to go for domination of the flag.

I move up conservatively, staying out of Kraken's shooting range with everything except the five bunnies that utilize the wall for cover. The blaster on the right flank moves to the left, where Satyxis are (the blasters have a red dot inside the exhaust pipe - that way you can distinguish them from this distance). Snipe is on Avalancher, and FFE on the right side artillery.

Cryx Move up to claim the zone unless I contest. Coven feats. Kraken has infernal machine, Bane Riders have Occultation.

I counterfeat. I move two blasters to spray Satyxis but only kill two (I need 12-s due to the feat also giving -2MAT and RAT in addition to the 5" limit on LOS). I move first Avalancher and then an artillery outside of Coven feat range and take a chunk out of the central Slayer. Three bunnies then move up within 5" and finish him. I try to take out some Bane Riders with two more bunnies but dice don't agree with me.

In retrospect, I think that I approached this turn very wrongly. The Coven's feat made sure that I couldn't go for the big threat, which is the Kraken. I could have simply contested the zone with a driller and two bunnies at max ranges, even without feating. The spray bunnies should have stayed behind and to the flank - to go around next turn, spray the front line satyxis and free up the line for hammer dwarves to charge Kraken.

Also a small technical note: in anticipation of Coven feat, Ossrum should cast FFE on the artillery further away from Egregor (so it can get outside of the feat range and shoot its target: the difference is 4d6 vs 3d6 on the damage roll).

Cryx come in and don't kill anything but do some damage. My opponent rolled slightly below average. Ossrum gets down to 14 boxes due to Satyxis raiders' feedback.

As you can see, I managed to remove the Kraken. This was not due to my tactical genious - I was just rolling sixes and fives like crazy on my damage rolls. The attacks that went into the Kraken are: 3d6POW14, 4d6POW14, 3d6POW16, 2d6POW18, 2d6POW16, 4d6POW11, 2d6POW12, 4x 2d6POW12.

For the unwinding, I used among other things unstoppable force. One bunny on the right unwound himself and shot down the central bane knight blocking dwarves' lanes, dwarves charged killing lots of satyxis (only 2 attacks missed), then one spray bunny took out two of the remaining three satyxis in the front line. This freed up some more bunnies to shoot the Kraken. Needless to say, artillery and Avalancher were shooting at the Kraken.

After this, we agree that Coven only has a shot at assassination (it becomes easy for me to contest now - and after this turn there will be nothing left of Cryx forces). Ossrum is at 12 boxes after some free strikes in my turn. Satyxis can do 2 more. So it's all about whether or not Coven can magic him down 10 boxes. Ossrum is at 2 focus. We roll the dice, and Coven does not make it.

Victory for Ossrum this time.

The biggest take away for me from this game is how to react to Coven's feat. I committed too much during it, and allowed Cryx to jam me very well, and also spent my own feat too early. The combined effect was that my hammer dwarves mostly couldn't touch the Kraken, which meant that I shouldn't have been able to remove it.

Monday, 13 March 2017

Mission statement

This is the first post of this blog, so here comes a mission statement.

I play Warmachine & Hordes.

My faction is Mercenaries.

This blog is about my take on the Mercenaries.

This blog will contain:

- Battle reports

- Analytical thoughts

The purpose of this blog is to reflect upon my experience with Warmachine and Hordes, to enhance my understanding of the game and the faction, and to become a better player.