The intention was to go with two lists: Damiano and Ossrum. However, in the last moment I remembered that during the first day I'm registered for Champions, and so will need an ADR caster. Magnus 2 is an obviously good choice. I modified my Damiano list and got the following:
Kingmakers'
Magnus 2
- 3 Nomads
- 2 Talons
- Bucaneer
- Renegade
2 x 10 Halberdiers
10 Trenchers + Grenadier
Free Orin and Kell
In the first round, I played against Marcin Novicki, and he chose his Caine 3 list:
Heavy Metal
Caine 3
- Squire
- Hurricane
- Ace
- 4 Chargers
Journeyman
- Sentinel
Arlan
The game was livestreamed on WarRoom.PL, and for those interested the video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8qVbwf1VFM
I won the roll off, and I don't know Marcin's motivations for choosing the side he chose.
Didn't make a photo afer deployment, so here is the one after my turn 1:
I decided to not go for overwhelming one zone with halberdiers, and kept one unit closer to the to the left zone, which is more difficult for him to contest. My jacks were a bit skewed towards the right zone - this is to be able to get to his Colossal without having the forest in the way. The only upkeep I have is Escort. The cloud wall is put up to protect my army from most of the shooting. Kell does not advance into LOS of enemy.
I forgot to make a photo after Marcin's first turn but he advanced a bit, put his upkeeps and destroyed two trenchers and three halberdieds on the left with an AOE attack.
Since Marcin had two chargers near the left zone, I ran my halberdiers in and scattered them as much as I could while keeping everyone in the zone, to make sure that he has to contest it. I didn't make a cloud wall, since I figured he'd just be able to use Mage Sight to get my heavies anyway. Instead, I decided to put some early hurt on Ace with trenchers and Kell. Sadly, the Trenchers' 5-man CRA and kell both rolled snake eyes. With the Renegade, I put Calamity up on the Hurricane, to be able to allocate next turn when going in with my heavies. Each side of the field gets a talon for some stationary action nex turn. Magnus gets knocked down. Orin advances towards the flag (sadly, he is not within 12; I advance and put up stealth).
This is feat turn for Caine, and he does considerable damage to my infantry. Happily for me, two halberdiers survive in the left zone. Also happily for me, none of the heavies is fully destroyed. Still, the blue and green nomads both lose their Cortex - and that is bad news. Additionally, the purple nomad and the blue one are knocked down, and the purple one is pushed into Damiano. The right-side Talon is almost dead. The left zone is contested with one Charger while the right zone with a charger and Ace.
Since the left zone is very lighly contested, I decide to go for a scenario play there. None of my heavies are able to reach his lights, so I load up the green talon and give an extra focus to Renegade. My idea is to feat in such a position where the colossal , the charger to his front and Ace would not be able to get into the zone or within my flag (which Magnus would be scoring) and have an easy 6-0 win (scoring 2 now, 2 in his turn and 2 in mine). However, I mess up the order of activations. Without moving my Purple Nomad away, I activate magnus and feat, only to discover that a charge on the charger in the left zone is blocked by this Nomad. So instead I have to simply walk and only get the charger and Ace in my feat. The scoring on the flag will have to be done by Orin, who will have to run and so won't have stealth.
Renegade aims a shot on the charger, knocks him down and deals a boosted POW16. Kell deals 6 more damage. Both halberdiers go in and do some damage. The talon then finished the job with his charge attack. Heavies move to block LOS to Orin and renegade, and Halberdiers charge his lights in my zone. Purple Talon engages the charger on the right flank. Bucaneer knocks Magnus down.
In his turn, he shoots down my purple halberdiers and Orin, kills most halbediers in right zone as well as Green and Blue Nomads. The Colossal toes the right zone.
I continue pressuring scenario. Magnus runs to left zone to score, and the talon takes a position less than the diameter of huge base from the building. Nomad also jams the colossal, and the one remaining halberdier in the right zone runs away to contest it better. Kell does not shoot and runs to score on the flag. We go to 4-0.
The situation is difficult for Marcin. He contests the zone (actually I should have had a free strike with my talon the way he ran his light - but I didn't notice it at the moment and we didn't measure if he had enough movement to avoid the free strike) but is not able to also contest the flag. Kell is killed of course, but I just run Magnus to the flag and the bucaneer to contest the zone, and win 5-0. If he were able to contest the flag as well, Magnus would have simply killed the charger in the zone: this is pretty reliable with 5 focus and a POW13 armor piercing attack, with all lights being able to contribute (e.g., bucaneer aims a knockdown shot, and then everyone boosts their damage rolls).
Analysis:
1. SR2017 still has very live scenarios, and Magnus is very good in such live scenarios if he gets first turn agains a minimum model count army. He can claim a lot of board space, concentrate on one side, clean it up and feat properly to deny contesting. I failed the feat part here and could have done much better.
2. What makes the scenario especially live is the flag. This means that properly positioning Orin is very important, so that he'd be able to move to the flag while having stealth.
3. The way I used my halberdiers in this context was wrong - only the leader should have charged the charger, while the other one should have run to the far end of the zone to prevent wiping out the whole unit with shooting.
4. I suspect that attirion-wise it might have been smarter to have a trencher clould wall for one more turn, to make Caine spend focus to Mage Sight me (less focus remaining to kill my jacks).
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