Oblivion Game 43 - Durgen (Hammer Strike) vs Maddox (Storm Division)
Alrighty, the hell was my justification for this nonsense? Think it was that I needed the impetus to paint my second Siege Crawler I've own for years?
Durgen - 2x Driller, Avalancher, 2x Siege Crawler, Hammer Dwarves + Godor, 2x Mortars, 3x Steelhead Gunners, Ogrun Bokor, Thor
I did try to make an Ossrum list. Couldn't land it, mostly just poked at Irregulars as Eliminators/solos and a massive Battlegroup, wasn't amazing. After that last tourney game think I just want to see some damn crit stagger, so Durgen and double toilet crawler it is.
The Drillers are basically my feeble concession to needing more melee in the list. I only have one Hammer dwarf unit, given only one can get that sweet Desperate Paces from Godor that's okay with me. Primed is some sweet Skornergy (That even a thing anymore? Skorne works OK with itself these days yeah?) which I guess can be popped against the legion of Soul/Corpse collectors out there.
The Avalancher is a painful tool that ticks to many boxes. Really picturing the non-feat shots from the Battle Engines hitting sod all, so knock down on a stick feels like a good enabler and I've never been sad about Shield Guards.
But by god does it lack fast contestors. My misery at the unavailability of Hutchuck is not zero (Damnable non-Rhulic Ogrun! Get over here!).
Anyway, Sunday Gameru, Titanic Yuletide nice enough to splat some dollies on the table. TY bringing the Swans, Stryker2 infantry blob and the Maddox Huge/Lancerness. Either list feels fine for the lumbering Durgen to have a go. Ends up as the battleboxer.
Maddox - Hurricane, Storm Strider, Arlen, Junion + Firefly, 2x Storm Lancer, Dreyfuss, Gwen
I have crit stagger dreams at the ready, oh yes I do.
Split Decision, I lose the roll and have second, I take the side with a trench mostly so I don't have to shoot at it. There's a central obstruction which will suck, but eh, terrains do happen.
Central line of the table also has a forest on either flank, I have some rough terrain on my left, other bits on the board don't do to much.
Round 1: Onward to a possibly glorious demise
Swans advance, Huge bases central and units on the flanks. I advance, Huge bases on the flanks and units in the centre. It's the sort of asymmetry I enjoy that no one else will.
Storm Lances get the two armour buffs, Dauntless on the left and Arcane Shield on the right. Snipe pops out on one of the Huge bases.
I throw up Force Field, not a game where I need to indulge in Primed Skornergy. I know an alpha is impending, so really it's just a question of how much I offer up. The Hammer Dwarves have a lot of potential recursion in this match, so most of the unit gets up there (Desperate Pace is lovely, they move at normal leg length rates!). They probably aren't enough to draw a real commitment and I don't want the Siege Dunnies to get dunked on to hard, so both Drillers also move up to sacrificial positions as I'm not invested in their survival.
Maddox moves up the centre and feats. I blinked at this for a fair while, until later in the turn the focus stack got moved up with her and my giddy dreams of a quick pot shot assassination gurgled away.
Both Huge bases shuffle up and do shots, while the cav units charge in and spread out doing some engaging. Sure enough both Drillers get popped, alongside seven Hammer Dorfs. The Siege Dunnies get lightly dinged by leftover attacks.
Within the bounds of expected casualties, though less would have been nicer. Junior goes on the Swan flag, hidden by the Storm Strider.
Bottom 2 Mercs: Pew pew returns
There's sod all I can do to stop the Swan flag score. Opponents scoring on my second turn is a bad theme I wish to change, alas the Hammerfall options aren't ideal for that (insert Hutchuck whinge here). Nothing much to do but feat and pop shots.
Hammer Dorfs spawn back, so that's nice. The ones that can attack go in, clearing out a pair of Storm Lances to free up the Avalancher. Client'ed Steelhead gunner goes to the flag, in range for the Bokor to slam another Storm Lancer out of contesting range (The Hammer dorfs had some very swingy damage sadly).
We get to the fun part, as voiced by Brian Blessed. Durgen shuffles a bit in the backfield, feats, lobs an incendiary shot at Dreyfuss (Would have been a multi-blast, alas Gwen is giving out Force Barrier), does some damage.
Then the bits I'm enthused for, the left Crawler moves up and smacks the Hurricane. Does ok damage, the real sadness being that it didn't crit. The right Crawler moves across, shoots the Strider down to a handful of health. It did get Staggered, however it was trivial to finish it off with a mortar so that wasn't super relevant. It probably would have been better to pop a Storm Cav with that shot. Avalancher knocks down a Lancer on the left, sadly fails to kill it. A member of that unit also gets set aflame by a Steelhead gunner.
Both sides score their flags. Quite happy with the turn, though a stagger on the colossal would have been chef's kiss. Expecting I'll lose the left Crawler to it, I think that's manageable though, it's far mroe about how the Storm Cav handle things. It'd be a nightmare if Godor was killed, he basically makes the Hammer Dorfs self sufficient in the list.
1-1
Cygnar 3: Honestly, I thought Kenny was going to be funnier
The Swans dastardly plan is to kill my stuff and score on the left. Jerkbags.
The left Cav unit charges around, one pings the left Crawler, another goes deep into my weapon unit and lands/tough fails on an Assault, Leap and melee attack, wiping one mortar out. Sadness.
The right has a pair of charges into the Crawler (One obscured by said model photo wise, Crawlers be tall), the other two lurch forward for engagements.
Moment of truth, the Hurricane with a full focus boat charges the left Siege Crawler. It has 28 health at this point.
It misses an attack and rolls low on damage, somehow the damn thing lives on 4 boxes. Sometimes defence 9 really is all you need. It's contesting the flag, so in the end Dreyfuss has to leap to a non scoring spot to finish it off.
Junior stays camping the Swan flag, while his dastardly meany Firefly stays hiding behind the central obstruction. Swans score their flag, now up a point 1-2.
Merc 3: If only we had mind bullets
No major scoring or assassination plays seem to be available, so it's plug away and attrition on.
We don't have the fast contesting stuff, we do however have an eternal slog of suffering dwarves! By which I mean the Crawler spawns more Hammer Dorfs into play (Well, technically back I spose) in position to limp into contesting range.
Leftwise, a pair of Hammer bros and Godor charge in to Dreyfuss and a Storm Lancer. The Lancer pops like a hamster meeting a mallet, Dreyfuss however gets missed four times. Elite troops aye? They also failed to get rid of the Lancer engaging the Avalancher. Imph.
Durgen shuffles in the middle a bit, pops a shot into a Lancer that sets him ablaze and causes him to tough (Stupid Resolve being so Dauntless, you're just causing your fellows pain!). The Bokor tries to clear up the Avalancher and also fails, so Thor repairs him and the jack takes a freestrike for a bunch of damage to stand between Durgen and Colossal. He knocks down a Storm Lancer, also fails to kill.
Rightwise clearing my flag is now a pipe dream. The Crawler bulldozes the blocking Storm Lancers away, rumbles forward to get good damage on the Hurricane. It's little gun tries to assassinate Junior on the Swan flag, sadly rolls min shots and doesn't get the needed spikes.
Not exactly the pinnacle of achievements turn wise, thankfully though I'm quite good on clock and think I'll edge out attritionally within a round.
No scores this round, remains 1-2.
Top 4 Swans: We must embody the spirit of Wham!
Under 5 minutes on the clock, Durgen is camping 2 with a bunch of blockers, swans hash out a plan to score 4 points by nabbing the left zone/flag, Swan flag and the Merc objective.
Plan is for the left Storm Lancers to clear the Hammer Dorfs in the zone, Hurricane and right Storm Lancers kill the objective, miscellaneous stuff in the middle kills the Hammer dorf contestors.
Sadly, it falls apart like Karchev's legs from the get go. Only one of the Storm Lancers on the left is not knocked down, he charges away, coping a free strike from the Steelhead Gunner. He'd taked a few points of damage already, but armour 22 vs pow 9 should be fine. Nope. Rolled a 17 and made him tough out.
Dreyfuss tried punching out Hammer Dorfs, managed to make a dwarf tough and that was that. Now lacking the tools to clear the zone, the Hurricane starts a desultory effort of moving up and attempting some shots, alas the Avalancher is a Shield Guard and blocks a shot. Clock run down and the odds of winning now negligible, Swans concede, which is fair enough in the circumstances.
There, won with Durgen once. Probably never going to face a list it can take on so well again. Definitely should have protected the left Crawler better, it's weird having to position multiple huge bases again, think that last happened with Mark2 Bart?
Hammer Strike feels like it falls into the same awkward category as Operating Theatre, very hard to make small/single model changes due to awkward selection options. It is super weird to have a caster that doesn't abide by the rule of cool (Most Merc casters fall into this, where they want to burn their stack doing stuff. Durgen just chills, at least in this matchup without blast worthy targets.)
