As Vinter the 4's valuable plot armour slowly weakened, Bart to Damiano.
"You know, Vlad's armour is totally magical and the equal of modern warcaster plate"
Damiano raised his eyebrow quizzically, the only true way to do so.
"Why tell us onto this factoid good sir?"
Quipped the eyebrow.
Bart's beard combed itself as it assembled the reply
"Just felt like something that gets said a lot"
Damiano's foot monocle vibrated, on the verge of Apoxia.
"How dare you! To war good sir!"
Days of Thurs shenanigans, into our local rules inspector, the Drehpehs Bor as we know him.
I'm still running CareyBear's totally-not-there-to-tilt smosh:
Bart1 (Kingmakers) - 2x Galleon, Steelhead Halberdiers, Rangers, Orin, Meg
Going into the more rational side:
Damiano1 (Kingmakers) - 3x Nomad, Trenchers w/UA and 3 WA's, 2x Halberdiers, Orin, Kell, Stannis, Meg + Talon, Boomhowlers (Min)
Think the only Kingmakers stuff not on the table was the other casters, Madelyn and Raluk, who committed the unforgivable sin of being four points.
Scenario is outflank, normally this works out okay. Bart hangs out behind the Galleons, who toe a zone each and pew pew to victory.
Proxies: I have a Khadoran Mechanic pretending to be Dirty, opposing some replacement trenchers (The pics won't be that clear anyway though) and eAlexia downgrading her considerable talents to represent an appropriately costed Stannis (I WILL NOT LET THIS STATEMENT GO).
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Merc 1....no, that doesn't work. Kingmakers 1......dangit......
Bart 1: I won the roll and took first, I didn't really process the match that much beforehand, essentially I didn't want the Trenchers running up and getting in to early to jam.
To my surprise I get the side with a central forest for Bart to hide behind, I was genuinely waiting to be told to go to the other side. More on that shortly.
Hot Shot, Batten, Battlegroup leads out. The Range buff is on the right Galleon, theorising that Colossal is across from the Nomads that it is vital I destroy as soon as I can.
I reason that Road to War is super relevant in the matchup, so I want my soft stuff to be out of Damiano's range to avoid the threat extension. It relegates my Halberdiers to suicide pieces, but I think that's the right read of that part of the matchup.
[img]https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-wNgfJeO0XNFcm3oHgPr6RKvKjSIeTwJvkwnuj0Cw5wJG0zdboXaOIEvh0OBATSiHobXGgFRgYVQiQ-YYNSvxPyQcJnh0nGLUxtiQurFeOJFDuyRBWiIZ-ldmUHBf8e0vrXdnoGJbZuE0/s1600/002+%2528800x450%2529.jpg [/img]
Damiano 1: The infantry hordes advances, the Trenchers do a mix of digs in, explode a Ranger with a Grenade and a pair of Clouds in front of Damiano.
Otherwise Steelies run up on flanks, Kell legs it to try to get behind the Obstruction of dooom on the right. That's my doom, it's about 4.5 inches tall so the Galleons can be seen behind it. That's going to be annoying.
Stannis/Dirty Meg/Talon go out to the left zone. Nomads cluster on the right.
Trenchers get Sure Foot, I get despair.
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Bart 2: The conservative play is very simple. Both Galleons advance, contest zones, shoot down Steelheads and the Talon or I throw away a Ranger to pop the Nomad on the hill.
I tanked for a couple minutes and binned this as the path to a slow, agonising loss. In my initial estimations I wildly underestimated just how powerful those sodding Trenchers were in this matchup, the Clouds and Surefoot aren't an issue but Dig In screws it hard.
I decide that I have to go counter intuitive. The Galleons run up and engage the front Trenchers, specifically they get all the Grenadiers.
Bart feats and hides behind them with Batten, my infantry flood out in the back. Orin moves toward the right and Stealths.
Short term plan is Damiano goes somewhere silly on low camp and I kill him with throws. The Mid term plan, the one I had the most hope on, was Damiano feats and moves across Sure Foot on a Nomad. The jack'll do some work, the trenchers won't get the feat and will achieve sod all, then I can pop the other Nomads. I'll lose a Galleon in the trading but should be able to pull ahead with one Galleon and using my infantry as throw away contesting pieces. Long term the plan is clock, Redaar will being doing a lot more activation's and rolls now that I've skipped on a full round of floating AoE's.
[img]https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO2yXdUBl2pMJ6JqURKxipLtYtpeN-ZUvu5VujdKD300D-u2AwGf7fdo67PIh8BFGn-WvlfcDHFkAjbVt8epfSe348eczHZHgziyLssAHnNvc0NaSDxuhtLxyhohr62WPRRjSQOjrA4uGf/s1600/004+%2528800x450%2529.jpg [/img]
Damiano 2: Raadesh briefly contemplates going with my narrative and feating. He sadly doesn't fall for the trap I outlined in neon lighting.
Instead the Nomads and Damiano back up and my desire to paint my Drudges to free space to paint my Trenchers dissipates immediately as a billion Cloud rings try to go down. It was agony to watch the caffeine fueled phalanges attempting to place the markers and models down accurately.
The Steelheads and other pieces move up either zone.
I completely forgot about Boomies. They move on from the left and kill a handful of my dudes (Not that I have many handfuls as it were).
Damiano goes to 1 CP off the left zone.
[img]https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbhHx7-ByXU1f3M8nSQnJdKhsilGPIFgES5USGkw5COb9Ap8UKOFzyZZjuAX-z4GxcbkR8xEEfVoRLmCqE8HMpCwUVd0A4rYZhhWLGoiO6-gOwCe-0BvtZWfBH9_zCKpoEPUDBamLuyMEw/s1600/005+%2528800x450%2529.jpg [/img]
Bart 3: Damn, I gambled my feat away for not much.
Plan is to contest the zone, move Galleons away from Nomads.
Right Galleon backs up first, free strikes do nothing. He tries some shots, kills a few Trenchers but doesn't do much.
Bart falls back into the forest, Battens, cycles Hot Shot.
Left Galleon moves to the left, my opponent is generous about my line of sight involving the wall, freeing up shots on Stannis. I was expecting to lose two shots to kill the cav chump then kill a couple steelheads, if I"m lucky I'll scatter onto Meg. I wind up just wounding Stannis, so that wasn't very Impressive.
My units do some battling on the left, but mostly have to move to going-to-die-range.
Orin Lightnings my Colossal and at forces some no knock down toughs. Not his best day alas.
Unfortunately I've failed to keep both my objectives in mind, I'd measured out the right Galleon but neglected to ensure the left was out of Nomad charge range. Derpsalotsam is my game.
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Damiano 3: Damiano feats, Nearly everything comes in and blats the left Galleon. One Nomad hangs in reserve and a cloud wall thoroughly protects Damiano.
Terrible dice keep a contesting Steely alive in the left zone, so the score doesn't rise but its baaaad.
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Bart 4: I have to force Time and hope for a bad Damiano placement now.
I have to neutralise the Nomads as ,much as I can, step one is Bart Deadweights a Trencher to cause the nearest Nomad to sac movement or action.
Well, he would, but I missed. Dangit. Sure Foot is money.
Bart then falls back, the latter half of the plan involved preying for unlikely spikes from the Galleon anyway so I wasn't to torn up.
Galleon futzes around and does not much, Steelies finally pop the damn Stannis. Urgh.
[img]https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6HoG0N8pxB0rAEc0hYrRsd_rvZLSQpPGZi9Fn7EriTQdmqE8-HwstQ5OZLHcK9_8ujtKV0Nh1rH4-7iWr43Thw-CjLmp41jobcFhoXcZYevFHLjQckPLhR4Sos4OVHDwU7envgK5RSSP7/s1600/008+%2528800x450%2529.jpg [/img]
Damiano 4: The Trenchers pop their mini feat and drop some clouds, then sadly don't get int he way of the Nomads swinging in and finishing off the Galleon.
The faint lingerings of hope fade as, after the Steelies clear out stuff, Damiano runs way back.
I concede, Meg and Orin can technically contest but they will then die trivially.
I ended with 32 minutes, Ringmaker has 19.
Happy with my clock management at least, I'm finding my regular lists hard on time. There are benefits to running something extremely simple.
Not much to add in afterthought, my gameplans relied on the glorious Rudge making severe misjudgements I thought I would make in his position.
This is another game that makes me consider that min Boomhowlers in place of the Halberdiers might be the go.....
