Get in the Blender!

Got in a game against Butcher 3 last night, I opted to play a variant on the Triple Stormclad Haley2:

(Haley 2) Major Victoria Haley

 - Avenger

 - Stormclad

 - Stormclad

 - Thorn

 - Squire

Captain Arlan Strangewayes

Storm Lances (max)

Ragman

It swaps a Stormclad for an Avenger which gives the list a bit more utility

It has the excellent Quake cannon (now at RAT 5!) and the sword is P+S 18 (makes a Warjack Stationary on hit) at MAT 7 and it picked up 2" Reach

The Butcher list was the following:

(Butcher 3) Kommander Zoktavir, The Butcher Unleashed

 - War Argus

 - Behemoth

 - Kodiak

 - Kodiak

 - Marauder

 - Juggernaut

 - War Dog

Widowmaker Scouts

Widowmaker Marksman

Ogrun Bokur

Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor

Lots of High ARM and boxes to chew through with a Shield Guard and Arcane Vortex.

I won the roll and opted to go first.

I ran everything forward with the Lances making a beeline to the Widowmakers and the Heavies getting TK'd and running with Thorn reaction drive and running.

Turn 1

 Butcher energised and advanced up with his unit then two Kodiaks trampled up and clouded, one of the clouds clipped an Argus and the Boxcars killed it outright.

Dog gone :(

The Widowmakers & Marksman kill one horse and put a point onto another and Behemoth has a poor damage roll failing to kill.

Next turn I charge two of the Storm Lances into the Widowmakers and Kills 3 of them and the Marksman. I use Thorn to TK a Kodiak which gets cancelled by Orin then I do it again which goes through so I turn it around, Thorn drives away.

The Avenger shoots and knocks down the front 3 Jacks, boosting the blast on Orin but fails to kill him.

Butcher stands up his Jacks and continues to trudge forward making the cloud wall, Behemoth throws out another couple of shots at the Lances killing one.

The Bunker of Jacks moves up and has Orin and the Bokur covering everything.

I now set up a potential assassination that involves:

-          The Lances killing the Bokur (3 Assaults and 1 Charge Attack)

-          TK'ing a Jack that isn’t within 3" of Orin

-          Hitting an Argus with the Quake Cannon hitting Butcher

-          Sending in a Stormclad onto Butcher who is camping 3.

I allocate with this in mind and start with the Lances, they leave the Bokur on 1 box so I have to change plans.

I end up using Thorn to disrupt three Jacks and then Stationary two of them, I get Ragman up to apply death field to them all via Thorn.

I Feat, TA Both Stormclads and power boost one with Arlan. I put one Stormclad into the Juggernaut leaving it on 5 Boxes so the other one goes in and finishes it off as well as killing another.

Two Jacks on the right die

Next turn the Butcher Energises and casts Silence of Death on himself and puts all 4 of my jacks in the blender via flashing blade.

After that turn I look at my options and realise I'm done and concede.

Blended!

Concession Loss

Thoughts:

The Butcher 3 brick is very hard to deal with, if I'd managed to get Orin or the Bokur I would be in a much better spot, I also probably should have made more use of the KD on the Avenger and forced Butcher to spend his camp opening him up to assassination.

I committed too hard to kill jacks that were Knocked Down, disrupted and under my feat, I could have just ignored them, a lot of this was down to some poor positioning on my part and overestimating Butchers threat against me in the open.

The Storm Lances were unable to use accumulator to help the clads due to how I had unpacked/deployed.

I possibly could have gone for control/scenario play on turn 3 but I wasn’t sure I was going to have a better chance to take out a couple of Jacks.

Thorn is still really neat and I should have probably been sneakier with him and tried to laser out the Bokur.

Overall I think with practice it will become an easier matchup to work out and so I'll have to keep practising.

There’s a tournament on Saturday, it’s only going to be three rounds but it should be a good chance to play organised games, on clock this time, which should be really beneficial.

I'm trying to decide on a second list, alongside Haley2, I'm thinking Caine2 or possibly Sloan but she does seem just that little bit broken.