Since it's Champions, there is no Denny 1 ghost fleet, but it's still a strong list:
Ghost fleet
Goreshade 1
- Stalker
- Scavenger
- Shrike
- Deathripper
Wraith Engine
Free Rengrave
Free Hellslinger
Free Pistol Wraith
Max Blackbanes
3 Min revenants with a total of 8 riflemen
The scenario is live, and it has no objective. Also, Magnus got first turn. When I see that he deployed his Blackbanes on the left flank, I deploy all my halberdiers on the right flank, and skew trenchers the same direction. I also put both Kell and Orin on the left flank. Jacks are in the middle.
Magnus runs his whole army full speed ahead.
I do some measurements, and the back model of the pink revenant crew is within 19" of one of the trenchers. I decide to go for a gamble with trenchers, to try and destroy the whole unit. This would have been easy with Damiano with dead eye, but here I would have to rely on luck.
The dice gods are kind to me, and I destroy the whole unit with assault shots. I then run all halberdiers behind it to try and overwhelm this flank. Kell shoots down two Revenants. Magnus puts up escort and Bullet Dodger on Kell. Orin advances towards the flag and activates stealth. Talons cover Kell. Nomads cover Magnus.
He combines a shot and kills Kell. Two Blackbanes charge Talons and set them on fire. Rengrave, Battle Engine and yellow revenants, plus Hellslinger start working on Trenchers and Halberdiers but get very little work done (I was also quite lucky with some tough rolls). Pistol Wraith runs to contest the zone.
I decide to score a point. Renegade advances within 10" of pistol wraith, and Magnus destroys him with Convection. Bucaneer goes into the zone to score a point.
I then charge some halberdiers through the wraith engine into the arc node and jam the engine with some others (how naive, I know). The other halberdiers partly atack pirates and partly cover possible landing spots for the wraith engine in my zone. On the left flank, talons destroy two Blackbanes that had charged, Orin destroys two more, and a Nomad runs to engage one of the riflemen. The two other nomads come to contest the zone (it's my turn two, so scoring will start), as well as threaten Goreshade and the stalker behind the rock.
I score a point.
Goreshade feats but places his banes inefficiently, so only three can charge my nomads. Two blackbanes charge the nomads to set them on fire. Revenants kill Orin, and some try to do work on the nomads but fail (Unyielding means I'm ARM21).
Yellow pirates, rengrave and Wraith Engine work on the trenchers and halberdiers and do significant damage; Stalker also joined the party to kill some without any tough rolls. One halberdier becomes a machine wraith and is then used for a dual purpose: contest the zone and walk the Renegade as far as possible away from Magnus. Also, a light jack contests the zone. Nobody scores points.
I use one talon to kill two blackbanes. Nomads kill all engaging banes. Magnus charges the Stalker and leaves him on one box with the initial charge attack (Armor Piercing POW13). Magnus also feats, choosing the forward and back directions. A talon comes over to help finish the stalker off.
The bucaneer goes into the contesting light's back arc and boosts a knockdown shot at him. Three halberdiers attack him, getting away from 4" AOE range. Renegade turns around and shoots the POW16 rocket at him, finishing him. Also, one halberdier was used to kill the machine wraith.
I score one more point.
Magnus (Forslund) measures and finds out that one of my halberdiers engaging Wraith Engine is not within 12" of Magnus (2). He proceeds to kill the guy and turn him into a machine wraith to contest the zone.
Revenants and Blackbanes on the other flank try to tackle nomads but can't do anything meaningful against ARM21. Pirates kill some more halberdiers, and make some shots at magnus, which he with his ARM19 shrugs off. Lamentation is up on Goreshade.
Into this turn, I was going with the idea that I have to kill the machine wraith with a spell. Halberds, talon and Bucaneer all go to kill some revenants. Magnus then advances forward and realizes that if he casts convestion it will cost him all four focus, and he will be killed next turn. So he just sprays some revenants and camps four.
Left flank jacks kill a few models but not too many.
Expectedly enough, Magnus goes for an assassination play. Hex blast gets rid of Escort, so Magnus goes down to a mere ARM17. Then some shooting is done, including Hellslinger. Finally, Wraith Engine finishes the job.
Analysis
When I was playing the game, I had a constant sense of doom and the complete confidence that I will lose. However, if you look at the game up to my last turn, it wasn't going too bad. Due to lucky rolls in first turn, I got rid of one Revenant unit, and that's a very big help.
I was in lead on scenario and time, and although almost all my infantry was dead, the heavies and lights were still kicking, revenants having trouble killing them. Looking at the picture before my last turn, maybe Magnus was even within 10" (charge range) of the wraith engine, and maybe even with a possible back charge. If that were the case, then he could probably have killed him without even spending one point of focus with just the initial armor piercing charge attack (four dice because of backstab).
Another play would have been to back out a bit, preventing LOS from Goreshade and his Hex Blast. Anyway, the morale here is that the proper play in this situation wold have been contesting and keeping caster safe, while conserving clock. With a points lead, I could have clocked my opponent or forced him into some unfavorable attrition situations. Getting the caster exposed for nothing was a mistake that I rightfully paid for.
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