Tuesday 21 June 2016

Mk3 Games 1&2

I played two games on Saturday, my very first Mk3 Games.

Overall the rules are pretty similar, it plays the same but I think Premeasuring is going to solve a lot of things on the table.

Especially arguments about ranges etc, I was playing 40k when they allowed premeasuring and it did make the games much smoother.

I didn't play on the clock for either game but it’s going to be essential in any tournaments otherwise there will be mountains of proxy bases all over the battlefield as people try and engineer these elaborate plans before moving a model.
I must admit I was guilty of this in my games, checking angles and distances etc before even allocating focus, it was nice knowing what I could pull off an not having a plan hinge on a distance guesstimate.

The list I played was one I talked about before, using 4 Warjacks and 9 other models, including the caster.

Here’s the list:
Haley 2
- Thorn
- Stormclad
- Stormclad
- Stormclad
- Squire
Storm Lances (Max)
Cpt Arlan Strangeways
Ragman

Game 1 was against my fellow Irish WTC Captain Pete playing Legion on the new Line Breaker Scenario.

Lylyth2
- Ravagore
- Ravagore
- Bolt Thrower
- Naga Nightlurker
- Succubus
Strider Deathstalker
Strider Deathstalker
Raptors
Annyssa Ryvaal
Forsaken
Forsaken

I won the roll and opted to go first; my army is small enough to not have to worry about too much terrain.

I TK'd all three Stormclads, reaction drive'd with Thorn and then ran everything forward.
In doing this I had measured the Ravagores threat ranges and then just proceeded to place Thorn nicely within them, no idea what I was doing.
I used the Lances to make a wall behind Thorn and in front of Haley to keep her safe in case Lylyth got notions to try and shoot her.

Pete advanced up both Ravagores and Shot Thorn twice, Boosting Damage on him and the two Storm Lances behind. Killing both Lances and taking out Thorns Cortex and Node.
The Bolt thrower moved up and Knocked down one clad and pushed it back an inch.
The rest of his force did nothing much apart from position.


I moved thorn backwards and had Arlan repair him.
I then assaulted the objective with a Lance and a couple of the Stormclads making some e-leaps into Lylyth but the Objective died quickly and lylyth didn’t take much damage.
I then feated and charged Haley forward at a Ravagore, camping 9.


At this point Pete reckoned that he could possibly assassinate Haley so we proxy and diced it, Haley ends up living on about 4 Boxes thanks to two Ravagore shots missing and deviating away.
So instead he goes for the attrition, Pincushions and feats, killing one Stormclad outright and damaging the other two, due to the angle he’s able to get charges in with the Raptors who do well.
Lylyth retreats as far back as possible.

So I'm left with a Stormclad with its Sword and Cortex, another who I believe to be fully intact and Thorn who is basically back in my deployment zone.
I try to engineer a manoeuvre that will allow me to position Ragman for death field and get a fully loaded Stormclad into both Ravagores hopefully doing enough damage to turn the attrition tide in my favour.
I use the Lances to make some assaults and then the crippled Clad to hit the other Raptors jamming, use Thorn to arc the spells in and then realise that the Clad I'm trying to do all this with has crippled movement.
So he dutifully waddles over to the bolt thrower and puts him a Raptor and the Strider Deathstalker in the dirt.


Lylyth then kills Haley who is camping none.

ASSASSINATION LOSS
Games Played: 1
The mistake on the movement probably comes from using the War Room for the first time to play a game and it would have been a really neat manoeuvre if I’d pulled it off and Haley might have lived without the two Ravagores to shoot at her.

On Average Dice a 3 Focus assaulting Stormclad with Death field and Temporal Acceleration does 49 Damage to a Ravagore assuming it hits all swings/shots.
5s to hit with the Assault and 4s on the swings. There’s also a potential 5 extra damage from e-leaps at POW 12.

Ravagores have 30 boxes so killing both is very unlikely, but killing one and crippling the other is pretty good.

Game two is against the infamous Rob Read, another Team Ireland member.
He's playing Durst and his flying V of Jacks. We're using "The Pit" Scenario

Durst
- Reckoner
- Reckoner
- Templar
- Templar
- Vigilant
Choir (min)
Knights Exemplar
Knights Exemplar
Knights Exemplar

I win the roll to go first again and unpack with TKs on the Clads and push everything up to the edges of the Zone.


Rob advances, casts Bulwark and feats and sets up at the edge of the zone.

I then spend about 20 minutes placing proxies to engineer an elaborate plan to disrupt the two 
Reckoners with Thorn and then charge each of them with Stormclads and have Ragman granting Death field.


It starts off okay but Thorn misses his charge attack so I have to boost with future sight so I can only get into one Reckoner, he makes up for it by doing 6,6,5 on the damage roll.
Haley Ta's the Clad and feats, Ragman gets TK'd up and then death fields.
So a Stormclad goes in and wrecks the Reckoner, the rest of my army just durdles about.


Rob can't do much so he retreats Durst and takes one Reckoner swing at Thorn which does a little damage but doesn’t cripple anything.
He walks some Knights Exemplar in to jam up what of the Jacks he can.

I am able to manoeuvre Thorn into a position where he can See Durst, I then clear out the infantry in the way of my right most clad and setup death field with Ragman.
Haley TA's the Clad and TKs Durst around and into walk and hit range.
The Clad strolls over and applies his sword to Durst who is only camping 3 and is able to overkill him with 1 focus left.


ASSASSINATION WIN
Games Played: 2

First impressions of Mk3 are good, I love Power Up and that’s probably due to the list I was playing which is understandable.
There are some things that have been cleared up and we did try and use a decent quantity of terrain but I'm not sure if it was all that relevant at this point.

The Scenarios on the other had seem strange, Line Breaker being one that really favours any sort of Gunline, with no real penalty for giving up ground, unless you give up a huge amount of it, means that you can just shoot and walk backwards until the opponent has nothing left.
Even with the 14" threat on the Stormclads I felt that it was an uphill battle from the start as my stuff was just going to die all the way in, having no option to start scoring pressure as well meant that there was no reason for Pete to close.
The Pit seems to swing in the other direction, heavily favouring a brick style list that can get into the zone and threaten both flags very easily due to the close proximity of them to it. It worked out well for me, allowing me to get up fast and apply scoring and threat pressure early on.
I guess the way that the Meta shapes up will decide the power of the scenarios.
I'm running a tournament on the 2nd of July so I'll definitely include one if not both of these to see how they go down with the players.


On the modelling front I haven't really done anything more with my toys recently, I was more interested in playing games than painting but I hope to get Clad #3 complete this week and then start work on other toys that are outstanding.


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