Wednesday 15 May 2013

Journeyman Battle Report 25 points pIrusk vs pSorscha

Month 3 game 1, to say that I was anxious about this game is a bit of an understatement. I'd just written up pSorscha's article so I was wary of her feat and most of her tricks and wasn't certain how my army would stand up to them.

Scenario Month 3: Steam Roller Scenario 1 - Destruction, 4 Monoliths (50mm bases) forming a 12" x 6" zone, CPs are scored by either controlling the zone, dominating (Caster controlling the zone) or destroying the opponents Monoliths (2 per side, player owns the monoliths closest to the player's deployment zone)



My army list was pretty similar to my month 2 list with a few small changes:

Khador Irusk (I)

pIrusk (+6WJPs)

Drago (8)

Doom Reavers (6)
Great Bears of Gallowswood (5)
Widowmakers (4)
Winter Guard Mortar Crew (3)
Harlan Versh (2)
Saxon Orrick (2)
Reinholdt (1)

In month 3 we were allowed to change our battlegroups, so given how my list seemed to handle mass infantry really well I dropped Beast in favour of Drago, because the model looks nice and I wanted to challenge myself by using Drago with a caster that he apparently does work well with. I dropped the Doom Reaver UA as I felt that I was paying 2 points for tough and not a lot else, enter Harlah Versh, I figured against Sorscha I'd need to bring a large amount of fire power to stall her feat and potential assassination run, hence the Mortar crew a RNG 20" AoE 4" just seemed to fit the army.

Khador Sorscha (S)

pSorscha (+5 WJPs)

Behemoth (13)

Man O War Shocktroopers (9)
Kayazy Assassins Minimum Unit (5)
pEiryss (3)

First time I'd seen Behemoth over the other side of the table, got to say I felt a little nervous having not taken the Doom Reaver UA, although needing 9s to hit eased that somewhat, asides that I was curious to see how the Man O Wars would perform, having had a series of hit and miss experiences with them and Eiryss was a model catching my attention, not so much as a a threatening model, more as a target to lock down and deny the use of as if I manage to do that alot of weight is off and I could focus on Sorscha.

I won the roll for deployment, choosing to deploy second as I wanted to be able to react to Sorscha rather than acting first and giving Sorscha openings. My opponent then set up with Behemoth directly opposite the left most Monolith with Sorscha just to the right of him, the Man O Wars Shield walled forward and right of Sorscha, with the Kayazy Assassins deploying a few inches further right of them. I then started my regular deployment, Drago, Reinholdt and Irusk deployed in the center of the board, with the Great Bears deploying a few inches to their left, Harlan Versh just left of them and the Winter Guard Mortar Crew deploying behind a wall to the left of the Drago, Reinholdt and Irusk block. My opponent then advance deployed Eiryss onto the edge of a forest on the far right of the board. I deployed the Doom Reavers in two lines just in front of Drago, Saxon deployed in front of the Bears behind a wall, my widowmakers deployed partly in a forest .

Khador (S) Turn 1

Allocating one focus to Behemoth, my opponent activated Big B and ran him forwards, moving on to the Man O Wars who also ran forward, followed by the Kayazy. Sorscha then activated walking behind the Man O Wars and casting Fog of War, leaving Eiryss to move slightly further forward.

Khador (I) Turn 1


I activated the Doom Reavers first, running to the furthest Monolith on the right and spreading out slightly. Drago then ran forward for free, thanks to Aggressive. The Bears made a failed charge towards the Kayazy to get around the wall blocking their way, Harlan ran forward. Irusk then made a charge at the Man O Wars failing it and casting Inhospitable Ground and Superiority on Drago (messed my activations up which actually helped eventually)  Reinholdt ran to keep up with Irusk. The Mortar made a shot at  Behemoth, missing, leaving the Widowmakers and Saxon. Saxon walked along the wall, wary of being shot by Eiryss, leaving the Widowmakers to walk forward slightly and not fire as I pretty much knew they were out of range and wanted to keep them in cover.

Khador (S) Turn 2

Allocating three focus to Behemoth's Sub Cortex and upkeeping Fog of War, the Man O Wars activated advancing and shield walling, the Kayazy walked forward, Eiryss walked forward and took a shot at Harlan using her Phantom Seeker shot and missed. Behemoth walked forward and took boosted two shots one at the Doom Reavers and one at Reinholdt, killing both of them. Sorscha then activated and walked behind the Man O Wars.

Khador (I) Turn 2 Feat Turn

Upkeeping Superiority, the Doom Reavers charged the Kayazy, Man O Wars and Behemoth, crippling Behemoth's Left Fist as well as dealing a mass of other damage and dealing three damage to a Man O War, while failing to connect with the Kayazys. Drago walked forwards, Harlan ran towards the forest where Eiryss was hiding, the Bears charged the Kayazy killing three of them, the Kayazy then passed their panic check and Saxon Orrick ran into melee with Eiryss, leaving Irusk to walk forward and cast Grind on Behemoth, failing to damage him, but still damaging the first movment box available then popped his feat (bad timing really as I'd would've taken the Kazazy down with the MAT buff. The Widowmakers walked forward taking shots at Behemoth, three hitting, using sniper to deal a point of damage to column 3 and the final Widowmaker missed hitting Drago, failing to damage him, finally the mortar took a shot at the Kayazy which deviated and clipped one of the other Kayazy killing him.

Khador I CPs 2 Khador S CPs 0

Khador (S) Turn 3

Dropping Fog of War and allocating two focus to Behemoth, Behemoth activated and punched a Doom Reaver, who passed his tough roll granted by Irusk's feat. Behemoth then punched the Doom Reaver again and flattened him. Eiryss activated and tried to kill Saxon, but needing 9s to hit, both attacks missed. The Man O Wars activated, shield walling and sliced their way through two more Doom Reavers. The Kayazy Assassins attacked Yarovich forcing him on to his Tough roll which he passed, leaving Sorscha to walk forward.

Khador I CPs 2 Khador S CPs 0

Khador (I) Turn 3

 Upkeeping Superiority, Saxon activated first and struck Eiryss down with his first attack. Harlan then walked further around the Man O Wars back arc and put two shots into the first Man O War, killing him then missed with the third. The Bears walked forward and attempted to kill the remaining Man O Wars, all their attack hit, but failed to breach their armour due to shield wall. Irusk walked up behind the Bears and cast Iron Flesh on them. Drago then charged into Behemoth knocking out his Cortex and Right Arm, the Mortar shot into the Man O Wars and deviated onto Drago, failing to damage him.

Khador I CPs 2 Khador S CPs 0

Khador (S) Turn 4 Feat Turn

The last two Kayazy activated walking past the Bears and moving to the back of Drago, hitting but failing to damage him. The Man O Wars activated moving so that there was no a channel right through both armies.Sorscha then feated and cast Wind Rush, placing her just inside reach range of Irusk hitting 3 time and dealing seven damage (Irusk was sat on four focus at this point) Behemoth then activated firing it's bombards killing a Widowmaker and then passed the turn.

Khador I CPs 2 Khador S CPs 0

Khador (I) Turn 4

Dropping Iron Flesh, Harlan activated and finished off a Man O War, dealing some damage to the next Shocktrooper along. The Bears then activated killing the Man O War Harlan failed to kill, and missed the last of the Kayazys and dealt seven damage to Sorscha. Drago then activated and started wailing on Behemoth, finishing him with his second attack. Irusk then activated and took two attacks at Sorscha killing her.



Well, I'm glad I did that article beforehand that last turn was a bit of a shock in spite of me knowing it was coming. Taking Eiryss out of the game early was definetly a good choice, as inspite of the low model count my opponent fielded my army still failed to break down the Shocktroopers and had Eiryss been free Irusk wouldn't have lasted long. Behemoth was intimidating, but given the liberal application of Doom Reavers and Drago he ended up being just another jack, albeit an ARM 21 jack, had he not been in such a crippled state when Drago reached him, Drago would've been scrapped quite easily. Reinholdt was rather unlucky, getting taken down by the deviating Bombard shot, though given his ARM a gentle breeze would knock him over if it could get round his DEF and the Mortar was a little underwhelming, though this was more due to the low amount of models I had to shoot at  and how fast things got into combat, I'd say that fielding two would be a good idea as given your points investment you'd probably get your points back in a single turn. As for Harlan Versh, he did brilliantly, granted he has only a low POW gun, but Multifire gives it a decent punch, especially against low DEF high ARM models, add in his ability to shoot models casting spells or using the magic ability within Butcher's run distance and you have a great model to take against the likes of Menoth.

Once again I did make a fair few mistakes, the mistiming of my feat, running Drago before casting superiority on him, the list goes on, it just seems to have worked out for me. In terms of my opponent as I said to them after the game, take out Eiryss in favour of the Underboss and a Wardog, to make Sorscha immune to free strikes and give a DEF buff and to give the Kayazy some synergy in that they jump right through models to attack casters, essentially what Sorscha is geared towards doing. One more game this month again against Khador, featuring Black Dragon Iron Fangs, Kayazy and Behemoth... I'm looking forward to it, not with confidence, though it'll be a fun game either way.

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