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Tuesday 4 March 2014

eKreoss vs eStryker


More testing of my eKreoss list. Now with Bastions. 



Menoth
eKreoss
-Templar

Bastions
Bastion Seneschal
Errants with UA
Errant Seneschal
Knight Exemplars
Knight Exemplars
Knight Exemplar Seneschal
Flame Bringers
Gravus

Cygnar
eStryker
-Squire
-Ol'Rowdy
-Stormclad

Journeyman Warcaster
Silverline stormguard
Black13
Stormblades
Swordknights
Stormblade Captain
Rhupert Carvolo
Alain Runewood
Stormsmith caller

So I've added in bastions for reach and that extra pow and blessed. Took out the 2nd unit of errants. Somehow found enough points to add in a Bastion Seneschal as well, because frankly, I like that model and its abilities. So we play Scenario 1 and I go 2nd.

Turn 1
-His silverline stormguard get tough from Rhupert and run up the left flank, totally avoiding the huge forest in the middle of the map. The Stormclad gets a focus from the nearby Stormblades and runs up behind the stormguard. The stormblades follow behind as well. Meanwhile, the Swordknights are running up the edge, towards the zone but making sure they're hidden behind walls for cover. The black13 walk up and attempt to shoot my unit all the way on my side of the board. He just wants the magestorm to deviate somewhere further up and block LOS. Stormsmith caller runs up behind the swordknights, as does Alain Runewood. Ol'Rowdy runs up the center for free. Journeyman walks up and casts Arcane shield on Stormclad since putting it on the stormguard would be a waste. Stryker walks up the center, making sure to hide behind Ol'Rowdy. Squire runs up behind him as well.
+Well, not much for me to do right now. 1 focus to Templar. Sacrosanct goes onto the errants and resolve onto the bastions. My errants walk up to behind the forest and start shooting. None of his units are within range though, so I don't hit anything. Otoh, I am being screened by a forest so he can't shoot me back either. One unit of KE run up the left flank, followed by the Bastions and the Bastion Seneschal. The KE Seneschal joins them. Gravus runs up behind them. The KE on the right run up the center, trying to hit the objective later while trying to make sure they're spaced out enough that all of them won't die to Ryan's magestorm later. The Flamebringers run all the way up the far right flank. Thankfully, 

Turn 2
- He decides to try and get the alpha strike on me. The only real issue is he can't really see the bulk of my army due to the forest. Rhupert gives the stormguard tough. Then, the stormguard order a charge and run. Those he thinks are within reach charge the KE while the rest run. The Stormblades run up as well. The B13 shoot at the flamebringers on the right, and the magestorm deviates enough to block them from charging the b13. Alain gives the swordknights pathfinder and they run up into the forest. Stormsmith hits my flamebringer with a lightning call and actually deals 4 damage. Stryker feats. His goal is to try and use the swordknights and whittle down my errants at the front while the stormguard kill off my other front. Unfortunately, he lacks the sheer numbers to make this a decisive feat. Plus his dice really really sucked. He fails to kill 1 single errant with with any of his swordknights. Granted, there were only 5 he could hit but it was either miss or bounce off armor. He does make up for it by killing KEs from both sides though, totally decimating most of my left flank KE as well as pinging my bastions who are at Armor 18 at the moment. 
+3 focus to templar. I upkeep both spells. I'm going to kill that objective right now. I plan to control the zone as well this turn so I'm trying to figure out the best way to do it. I decide not to feat because I don't need to at the moment. My flamebringers run/charge the Stormsmith caller and kill it. I need to clear some Swordknights from the zone so my templar can get to the objective and kill it. I do this by using the KEs to wreck most of them first and then using the errants to shoot the rest of them to death. However, I do not have enough to dislodge the Stormblades currently within the zone so I'm not controlling the zone this turn. My bastions walk up and hit the SLStormguard, due to them being b2b with each other and having polarity field on. Templar charges, kills the objective and beats back 1".

Turn 3
-This doesn't look so good for him. His swordknights are all gone while my errants are fresh. As are my bastions. And I've still got maybe 1.2 units of KE left if you combine the two together. He gets a focus from Squire. The SLStormguard charge and kill off my remaining KEs as well as damaging my Bastions. The stormblades then charge into one bastion, killing it. But due to not having reach, it means they're too far from the other bastions to kill them. Rhupert gives the SLStormguard tough again. Stormclad walks up since the stormblades charged out of its accumulator range before it could get focus. It walks into the zone. Ol'Rowdy charges my Templar but he forgets to cast positive charge on it first. But to be fair, he rolls HORRIBLY on all his attack and damage rolls. I take maybe 8-9 points of damage after Rowdy finishes buying all his attacks, which is pretty bad. I was expecting a few systems to be down or even wrecked. Instead, everything's still up. The b13 move up and shoot at the flamebringers, killing 2 while Ryan magestorms them but it deviates onto an impassable terrain. Stryker camps the rest of his focus and stays further back since I haven't feated yet. Alain Runewood shoots and kills a flamebringer; who are dying like FLIES again.  
+Okay... I give 3 focus to the Templar. I upkeep both spells. Kreoss walks up and feats. Ironically my errants are better off walking up and beating/shooting instead of charging. One walks up and kills the Stormblade Captain who was toeing the zone. The others decide to shoot at the silver line stormguard + stormblades where possible. And where not engaged. My remaining bastions charge the SLS and kill them off with their double attacks. They don't make a single tough roll this entire round. This leaves my KE seneschal and Gravus free to go into the Stormclad. First, the KE goes into the stormclad. Then the Bastion Seneschal. Then Gravus, who has max soul tokens on him. Stormclad dies. The templar goes into Ol'Rowdy but doesn't kill it. Then my Flamebringer charges Ol'Rowdy, hits him, sidesteps to his back arc, hits him again, sidesteps and suddenly I'm within reach of Ryan. Hello Ryan. One more hit later, no more magestorm. Then I sidestep back and hit Ol'Rowdy again. Alain Runewood dies to a flamebringer too. The KEs on the right charge Ol'Rowdy and finish him off. I now score 1 point for controlling it, leaving me at 2CP. 

Turn 4
-It's a losing battle. The remaining b13 shoot at my Flame bringers. Stryker keeps all his focus and charges a flamebringer. He misses the first attack, buys another and kills it off. I fail my CMD check with them.  He doesn't bother running anyone into the zone to contest. I score another CP. 
+3 focus to Templar. I upkeep both spells. Errants walk up and shoot the b13 and squire to death with sheer volley of shots. Gravus charges and kills rhupert and the journeyman, using souls to buy extra attacks. Templar charges Stryker but misses badly. Kreoss walks into the zone and dominates for 2CP, giving me the victory. 

Thoughts on Game
The forest in the middle was brutal for my opponent. Now I feel like Legion players. We were talking after the match and I suggested one better possibility might have been to flank with the b13 and just jam everything up the center and into the zone with his units. Make it so I can't possibly shoot everything to death since I have no AOEs, and then he can contact me and kills me in return. This would include his two warjacks, both of whom have pretty nifty multiple target effects like electroleap, which stands a decent chance of killing errants. 

Bastions are pretty good with eKreoss so I think I'm going to keep them though. Otoh, Flamebringers still got mostly shot to death before contacting the target this game. Again. 

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