Debriefing: 25 point "Ambush" (part 1)

First I want to apologize for the lateness of this post.  I awoke this morning to find that my power was out at home so I had to go out to get some internet so it took me a little longer to get this all written up.  I had the fortune of being able to attend a 25 point “Ambush” tournament in Manchester CT at The Battle Standard on Sunday.  The tournament was really well attended (24 participants) and the store itself is… awesome.  I highly recommend anyone within an hour of driving check it out because it is certainly worth it.  I attended the tournament and decided to bring two Cygnar lists with me and I convinced myself that I probably wasn’t going to be able to do much but get some games in and get some experience with the Stormwall, since I had not had the opportunity to play with either of the lists I had brought yet.  Today I'll share the two lists I brought with me and a brief synopsis of my first two matches.  Tomorrow I'll share the 3rd and 4th matches as this post would be too long if I included them too!  I'll also share some of my general thoughts on the Stormwall tomorrow too.

Here were my two lists:

List 1	List 2
Kara Sloan (+6)	pStryker (+6)
- Stormwall (19)	- Stormwall (19)
Gun Mages (6)	- Ol’ Rowdy (9)
- Officer (2)	- Squire (2)
Harlan Versh (2)	Stormsmith (1)
Reinholdt (1)	Reinforcements:
Stormsmith Stormcaller (1)	Journeyman (3)
Reinforcements:	Stormsmith (1)
Minuteman (5)	Stormsmith (1)

I had already shared my Sloan list before but I wanted to keep my pStryker list closer to my chest because it’s quite frightening when you think about how much damage it can shrug off.   With both Stryker and the Journeyman capable of giving out Arcane Shield and then popping my feat for another +5 armor, the Stormwall can sit on ARM 27 and Ol’ Rowdy on ARM 28.  In the earlier turns of the game I put Snipe on the Stormwall to increase its reach with those lovely Covering Fire templates and possible popping some POW 15 shots into juicy targets from 18” away, and then I put Blur on Stryker to keep him from getting shot or hit with spells.  If the opportunity arises, Stryker can throw out Earthquake to knock someone down and then I can just have the Stormwall or Rowdy go to town on a nice juicy target.  It was quite an effective list as I’ll discuss specific matches.

Match 1

Scenario: Bunkers

Opponent’s list:

eHexeris (+6)
- Bronzeback (9)
- Gladiator (8)
- Razorworm (4, bonded)

Siege Animantarax (9)

Reinforcements:

Cyclops Savage (5)

My first opponent was a great guy named Josh and his army was fully painted (including the Animantarax) and it was certainly an intimidating force!  His other choice of warlock was pMakaeda with Molik Kharn, so I figured that my best option was to take Sloan as I could at least blast apart some warbeasts at range (especially MK).  Even Molik Kharn could be a problem for my pStryker list and a Bronzeback can deal ridiculous amounts of damage to a Colossal.  Sloan it was!

While I discovered quickly that the Animantarax was a problem with Hyper Aggressive, I was at least able to blast apart the Razorworm as it thought it was safe to run instead of advancing and using Dig In.  That made my life a little easier and the Titans were shy in advancing too quickly towards me.  While Covering Fire did little more than keep Hexeris further back, I was able to blast apart his warbeasts piecemeal with Sloan and the Stormwall.  It ended up being pretty close but on the third turn I was able to bring in the Minuteman, pop Sloan’s feat, kill the Gladiator, land some damage on Hexeris from the Stormwall and Minuteman, and finally I had to advance the Gun Mages around the right flank and Arcane Inferno exactly the 7 points of damage I needed to drop Hexeris (since the Bronzeback had 4 points left and Hexeris had 3 left, and the Savage was out of control range).

Probably the most difficult battle engine to deal
with, thanks to Hyper Aggressive

The quick lesson here was that A) I totally forgot about my Firing Squad bonus shots from Sloan’s feat and B) I should have just done a bunch of Critical Brutal shots with the Gun Mages instead of relying on the one Arcane Inferno shot, since I had popped my feat.  It was close, but only because I had forgotten some rules and I should have killed him even more easily.

Match 2

Scenario: Envelopment

Opponent’s List:

pDeneghra (+5)

- Deathripper (4)

- Deathripper (4)

Bane Thralls (full, 8)

Bane Lord Tartarus (4)

Warwitch Siren (2)

Pistol Wraith (2)

Pistol Wraith (2)

Reinforcements:

Defiler (5)

I felt a bit bad for my second opponent, Phil.  His other list he could have played was Venethrax and as a Warmachine faction, I knew that he was stuck with playing Deneghra, making my choice much easier.  Since he had no heavy hitting and had to rely on some debuffs to do anything to me, I figured that my pStryker list would be perfect – especially with the ability to bring 3 Stormsmiths onto the field and Triangulate the crap out of his Banes and prevent his bone chickens from channeling spells into my face.  On top of that, Blur makes even the attempt at spell-slinging against Stryker a bad idea since he becomes DEF 19 against magic attacks, and even Denny will have a hard time hitting him.

In this game my saving grace was Covering Fire from the Stormwall.  I basically pushed on the right flank hard (the zone my opponent needed to score in) while the Stormwall placed Covering Fire templates in the center-left part of the field.  Consequently, the Banes had to try to roll around the left side and “wrap” around the protective fire while I brought my full force to bear on the right.  The pistol wraiths covered each flank and they were my only worry with Incorporeal.  Fortunately, I had a Journeyman coming in on the right which got a rear charge on one of the pistol wraith and one-shotted him.  Phew!  While I swung around to the right, the left-most wraith was basically made irrelevant for the whole game.  With the Stormwall’s lightning pods I was able to do some great triangulations to kill off any Banes that were on the right side while shutting down the Defiler on that side as well until Ol’ Rowdy came in and smashed it with his fist – even though he missed his charge attack with his hammer.

The Stormwall is an amazing counter to Bane Thralls

Ultimately, I was able to pop feat just in time to receive a charge from Tartarus and about 3 Bane Thralls and they did a total of about 10 damage points since I was effectively ARM 25 against their attacks – even with their Death Shroud!  Denny made the mistake of trying to swing around to the other side (in my deployment zone) to try to get to Stryker next turn and camped all 7 of her focus.  I then used some triangulation to kill off some Banes to the top of the Stormwall so it could shuffle the ½” it needed to get in melee range of pDenny, and it proceeded to smash her into the ground after boosting both initial attacks to hit and one boosted damage roll.  I even managed to kill off the pistol wraith with the Electro Leap since it had shot at Stryker the previous turn (and missed because it was out of range) before Denny died!  An extra 2 points killed!