WTC 2017 Solo Masters Game 3: Damiano vs Vlad 1

For my third game, I was facing Giovanni Arigoni with Khador. When I looked through his lists, I saw that he has a very strong Vlad1 list and was pretty sure he would take it. I was not sure how well Damiano would be able to handle this list but still chose to play him. It is possible that Ossrum would have been better, but I wasn't sure in his ability to kill four heavies, while he also has to be killing the BE and the hoarde of infantry. As for damiano, he has no problem killing 3-4 heavies on the feat turn. And as soon as I don't need a cloud wall, trenchers can become really good against rockets with sky-high defense and immunity to blasts (with the cautious advance order).

Additionally, I still have 0 solos in my Ossrum list, and this scenario can be very live against a gunline, if one has a solo to score own flag.

Like I expected, Giovanni chose Vlad1. His list was:

Winter Guard Command
Vlad
- 4 Marauders
Carriage
Kovnik Joe
3 x 6 rifles + 3 rockets
2 Mortars
1 Field gun

Giovanni chose to go second (because he is a gunline), and gave me the side with a shallow water piece near the building in the center. So, I chose the objective that gives me pathfinder. I realise now that I should have chosen it earler - but we both didn't remember to do so. Anyway, this is a good learning point: consider each side before the battle to realize if you need the pathfinder objective; otherwise, you might not take the objective you really want.

I put up Surefoot on the trenchers and Road to War, and advanced my forces. Trenchers dug in, cause otherwise the mortars might be able to do a number on them. Halberdiers advanced: more spread out on the right flank compared to the rest. Orin ran toward my flag, while Kell ran to the trench near opposing flag (not to score but to take a good point to threaten things going through the gap).

Giovanni is able to kill two halberdiers on the right and one on the left with shooting. Heavies run around both sides of the building in the center. In general, Giovanni does not plan the turn enough to prevent locking his own battle engine.

For me, the left side is not very difficult to deal with: I use a cloud wall to cover my heavies here - but only after shooting the closest Marauder with Kell for 6 DMG and a CRA from trenchers. Additionally, IIRC the shooting from trencher grenadiers took out a few infantry models. The halberdiers on the left run very aggressively to contest the flag and also threaten the shooting models. On the left, I run a mangler behind the house and then screen him with a few halberdiers. I hug the linear wall and the house wall for better defensive benefits, and have two halberdiers engaged to make them more difficult to shoot as well.

Damiano lies on the ground. Orin walks to the flag and activates stealth.

Vlad feats. One marauder tramples to Kell and kills him along with a few halberdiers but also suffers two free strikes. Some of the shooting manages to kill two trenchers with an AOE. All but two halberdiers on the right are killed. No heavies run towards my flag, but one runs from right flank to left one. Most importantly, the battle engine is still locked up. I score a point.

I feat. Green Mangler gets three focus and pathfinder from objective. Red mangler gets three focus. I upkeep both spells. Trenchers cautiously advance around the marauder in left zone and do some shooting, taking out the left mortar and three rockets. Green mangler kills the marauder in left zone, triggering road to war for the nomad, which comes forward and gets a charge angle on the objective. He charges and the objective is left on 6 HP after the charge attack (can't make more attacks, as the buckler hand is reach 1"). Red mangler charges and almost kills the undamaged marauder in the center of the zone. Blue nomad walks to the already damaged marauder and whacks him, leaving on a handful of HP. Halberdiers charge (one on each marauder) and kill both. I score two points, going to 3-0.

Giovanni tries to come back on attrition and kills my mangler and does a bit of damage to the other mangler. However, he has no pieces to run to my flag, and is unable to get me away from his. So I score 1 point in his turn, and then one more in mine, immediately ending the game with a 5-0 victory.