No Divide and Conquer two list iteration this time, bringing the hordes of kidnap victims and my favourite dorf. My local decides to showcase its quirks, so of the 8 attendees we have 3 Mercs, 2 Convergence and a bunch of chumps playing unpopular factions (Khador, Skorne, Menoth). My sudden sharp desire to see a Lucant off so I can mock from the side is not a moment I'm proud of.
Round 1, it's a Kingmaker pair of Damiano and Magnus2. They both have some counterplay into Gorten that can be worked through, whereas Drudge mosh pitting can handle both, ergo:
Thexus1 (Operating Theatre) - 2x Wrecker, 2x Agitator, 3x Mind Slavers + Drudges, 2x Mind Benders + Drudges, Alexia1 with Risen and a desperate attempt to make a joke about the Dominator, 2x Overlords
Objective: Bunker
vs
Magnus2 (Kingmakers) - Mangler, 2x Nomad, Vanguard, Renegade, Orin, Kell, Steelheads (Max), Stannis Broke-man (he'll even work for 0 points), Trenchers (Max) with 1 Grenadier, Boomhowlers (Min)
Objective: Bunker
Scenario is Entrenched, so we both have a zone to try to claim friendly Domination on. I lose the roll, get given first.
The Merc zone....wait.....
The Kingmaker zone has a hill on the top edge, with a rubble/wall combo in front of the zone which will be mildly annoying to my pathfinder struggling armour.
The inner corner of the Kingmaker zone has a combo hill/forest, then a pair of large clouds to a forest in my zone, creating a big blob of no line of sight in the centre of the board.
Otherwise there's some water in the Kingmaker deployment that I didn't noticed until I started writing this post, and some not super relevant trenchers on the right side of the board.
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Thexus 1: Wreckers get fuelled up, Thexus hangs out on the right with the long term intent of doing some friendly Dominating, he pops up Deceleration for the long Trencher Assault shot threat.
Drudges and Risen run up in an intermixed blob, that is definitely easy to navigate and in no way confusing.
The Overlords were on either extreme, the left unit stays out in the boonies on the left, I expect to give up the unit to draw out the Ambushing Boomhowlers in Round 2 while the right unit intermixes itself, intending to loudly Boombox some Miley Cyrus (read: Physic spray through the forest).
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Magnus 1: Yeah yeah, photos bad. I'm running loads of doodz people.
The Trenchers assault into the Kingmaker zone, they kill four of the Pink Slaver Drudges and tough out another. Kell hangs out on the hill. Magnus is behind the zone, has Escort up and throws Bullet Dodger on the Vanguard. The Mangler and one Nomad runs into the Kingmaker zone to party behind the Trenchers.
The Vanguard, Nomad and Renegade run toward the centre, behind the clouds.
The Steelhead posse run up on the right.
One cloud goes away.
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Thexus 2: Sigh. Mundane still images of life improve shortly.
On the left the Overlords and a pair of Bender Drudges advance and spray away, killing the Grenadier, three Trenchers and toughing out another.
The Drudge horde moves up, left edge with some outward facing in event of ambushers. Alexia spawns a Thrall that charges the centre Nomad through the cloud for some scratch damage.
On the right, the Ternion Overlord unit goes, one hangs back to future proof future sprays, one moves into the woods and pew pews, popping a pair of halberdiers. One goes base to base with my Objective, hits a Halb with an Influence, Steelheads prove poor at killing themselves.
Thexus and Wreckers advance around, Decel once more.
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Magnus 2: In the Kingmaker zone, the left most Nomad moves up to the centre line and explodes an Overlord. The Trenchers form a line at the boundary of the zone and do some shots, while the Mangler comes out into the open and has a sweet Thresher. The second Nomad redirects itself into the back of the defensive zone.
Magnus feats and charges up into the zone, gets a bunch of the Drudges, Alexia and the left Wrecker, chooses both deployment edges.
The Renegade toes the centre cloud, lobs its shot at the leftmost of the Wreckers, doing a mighty damage point and killing the safety Ternion Overlord. Sigh.
In my zone, the Vanguard shuffles to the far side of the forest and kills the Thrall Warrior. Because he's totally mean.
The Steelheads charge in, they manage to kill the other Ternion Overlords, take out a Column on the right Wrecker and three Halbs and Stannis all roll appallingly on the objective, leaving it with 7 boxes left.
Magnus goes to 1 CP.
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Thexus 3: I'd been hoping to wait out the Boomhowlers ambushing, to counter ambush and Prep for Surgery to create a Drudge Blob on either side. Alas it was not meant to be, as they are the easiest contesting pieces that have a chance of surviving to contest next round as well.
Risen spawn in a line, hopefully absorbing some attention next Magnus turn.
The Bender units both advance around a little, four grunts RFP themselves to Adrenal ambush Drudges. The ambushers then charge in, a few spin around in case Boomhowlers appear. The four Adrenal fellas go into the back of the left most Nomad, bypassing both unyielding and the dinky Bunker. I spike super hard on the damage rolls and actually manage to bin it. That was pretty sweet.
On the right we try some jank. Thexus moves up to toe the zone, uses Telekinesis to get the left Wrecker outside of Magnus' control area and thus feat. I then use it's Eyeless nature to arc a Hexblast at the Vanguard, with the intent of feating it forward and killing it with said Wrecker.
I promptly miss. The Vanguard dodges back out of threat range.
Annoying, but it does mean I don't have to put a Wrecker into a compromising position where he probably dies to the remaining Nomad. Thexus feats, pushing the Vanguard back out of threat range of Thexus and moving Steelheads around.
These moves allow the right Wrecker to move up and Thresher, killing three of the Steelheads and Stannis, clearing the zone.
Scores equal at a CP apiece.
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Magnus 3: The Ambushers continue to torment me from the sidelines, threatening to change up the attrition position. Stop that!
Magnus and Trenchers maul the ambushers, they don't manage to clear the zone.
Orin lightnings the Mangler, managing to do a damage point to it for the lols and kills the three Risen gumming up the works. The Nomad and Mangler then advance, smack down a bunch of Risen and Green Slaver Drudges. Providing Thresher opportunities is a sub goal of the list it would seem. It's a feature at this point, as clock is edged towards my favour at this point.
As I definitely and deliberately intended the Vanguard was outside of Magnus' control area and thus limps forward not doing much. Yep. Super intended.
The Renegade slams the left Wrecker into Thexus, knocking people to the ground like a birthday cake.
Steelheads charge around miss the forward most Agitator and lightly ding the right Wrecker
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Thexus 4: The ambush Drudges have fulfilled their temporary life goal (Their life is the temporary aspect, not the goal. Contesting is eternal.), so I can pull ahead on scoring.
In the left zone I accomplish pretty much nothing, the ambush Drudges go in and kill Kell spawning a Drudge, Overlords kill a pair of Trenchers and done.
The central blob is somewhat disastrous for me, I adrenal a couple of the Green Drudges who desperately scrabble at the Mangler, sadly they get no triple word scores and take out no systems.
On the right, the right most Wrecker goes in and kills off a few more Halberdiers. One is in a weird spot and dies to a melee attack from an Agitator of all things.
The left Wrecker goes in, the mission to kill the Renegade and the last Steelhead. He stuff it up mightily, enough that Thexus has to Telekinese the Halberdier out and Alexia has to charge and finish the Renegade off burning half a dozen Risen.
I get up in points, 2 to 1.
Magnus 4: Boomhowlers ambush on the right, screaming loudly that their contract didn't say anything about getting up before noon.
In the Kingmaker zone, Magnus, Orin and the few remaining Trenchers finish off the ambushing Drudges.
The Nomad and Mangler smash more grunts in the centre.
The Vanguard goes into the left Wrecker and smacks it around somewhat.
The Boomhowlers come up and contest the Cephalyx zone, an errant shot hurts the right Wrecker who advances and engages most of the trolls.
Thexus 5: It's a clockplay at this juncture, I sadly have to keep Thexus Domianting the right zone to not risk a speed loss on scenario.
In my zone, the Wrecker gets Instigated, THreshers and kills all bar two of the Boomhowlers, Greygore included.
Thexus TK's himself back for line of sight, TK's the Vanguard out of my zone then walks across to relative safety.
Alexia charges into the back of the Vanguard, Bullet Dodger got dropped for allocation needs so there isn't much issue with her swinging wildly. Gets in a few smacks, doesn't manage to kill it off.
Central and Kingmaker zone wise, Green Drudges get Adrenaled and punch the Mangler a bit, it still has all its systems. Last Overlord contests the Kingmaker zone.
I get up in CP's 3 to 2.
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Magnus 5: The Mangler tramples across, buys a couple attacks and kills the left most Wrecker.
The Trencher and Magnus clear the Kingmaker zone.
The Boomhowler that wasn't knocked down goes into my objective, puts it on 2 boxes.
Midway through the turn with a touch over 20 seconds to go Kingmakers concede, unable to close the game out in time.
Well, that was a struggle. The Kingmaker list was actually pulling ahead on attrition, my gameplan from here had to be to use the Wrecker as a node and scenario it by TKing the jacks away and jamming junk as Thexus cowers on the right edge of my zone.
