The first game was against Convergence, and my opponent's name was Michael.
He had Axis with double TEP:
Axis
- 2 Conseervators
- Invertor
- Cypher
- Diffuser
- Corollary
2 TEP-s
6 attunement and 9 elimination servitors
He won the roll-off and chose to go first. Here, I chose the side that allowed me to deploy my heavies in the center - the other side had forests and water clustered together, which wouldn't allow my heavies to deploy centrally. However, looking at the battlefield now, long after the game, I am realizing that the side I have would have been a nightmare for my opponent, with his two TEP-s. As for myself, I could have worked around the forests by simply keeping some drudges back to contest my zone and pushing with everything into his.
He advances with everything.
I mark TEP threat zones and advance all my heavies and unit leaders outside of those. The overlords ignore the left TEP-s threat zone, but they also spread out in such a way that he can only take one with each spray (effectively meaning that he could wipe them out, but only if he leaves my drudges alone).
Both TEP-s go for spraying drudges instead. Heavies advance with caution, careful not to get within 13" of my heavies.
Alexia does her recursion thing. Overlords spray over TEP and servitors. A thrall warrior goes and hits TEP a bit. Ambushers go for the second TEP, but I can only get one in (other kill some servitors). I also advance my heavies a bit more, and make sure to keep trampling landing spots in front of them blocked out (I don't want to feat purely defensively, and I want to feat after him, offsetting the debuffs somewhat).
He feats now but doesn't do nearly enough work (I took care to keep my heavies away). He does thin the ranks of my slavers but has some bad dice on the left TEP against my overlords.
It's my time to feat. I can't get to his TEP with heavies but I continue sprayng with overlords, as well as create one more Thrall (which can charge, as he wasn't in Axis's pulse feat). Basically, I get lucky with dice and take out the left TEP. In the middle, I can't to much either. I can still get my Subduer within 6" of one of his Conservators, which I do. He doesn't countercharge (probably forgot to), so I shoot, knock him down, drag and finish off with the help of a wrecker. Another Adrenal-flooded slaver drudge charges the right TEP, doing a bit of damage. The situation is actually really good attrition-wise, although I somehow spent a ton of time on the clock. I also destroyed his objective and score one point.
Axis goes into overlords personally, and scores in his zone, He also destroys my objective. Score is 2-1. This isn't really a problem, though. I can destroy two heavies and his TEP now, getting full dominance on my own flank and contesting his. The real problem is the clock.
I can see an assassination angle. I pre-measure and see that I can get my wrecker to axis in a point where I would be within my Agitator's Instigate bubble. However, I am in a bit of a hurry (which is why I am going for assassination in the first place), so I forget to first block the Invertor with a risen. When agitator advances to Instigate, the Invertor countercharges. He doesn't kill the agitator but he is now in a position where I have to slightly alter the charge lane of the wrecker to avoid a free strike - which in turn takes me out of the Instigate bubble. Long story short, I missed both of my boosted initials on Axis, and he lives. Next turn, I lose by clock.
Lessons learned:
1. When the opponent has two huge bases, look more carefully at the sides and focus more on the obstacles that are going to hinder him instead of just my own perspective.
2. Don't forget about countercharges.
3. Not really a lesson but I do have to get more practice against Axis to avoid wasting time. This was going really well attrition-wise.
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