When I was at the last game prior to playing the Montador, our local Apostle indicated the sadness of me not bringing my favourite caster to Belgium. And by the silent and empty void I know to be out there, he's right. I'm not content with my current list, so I'm throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks, it's time to throw down stuff I haven't given a chance.
Thus we end up with:
Gorten1 - Earthbreaker, Dahlia + Skarath, Tinker, Rorsh + Brine, Eiryss1, Saxon1, Anastasia1, Orin1, Ragman1, Thor, Harlen Versh, 2x Eliminators
vs
Vlad2 - Ruin, Destroyer, 2x Drakhun, Outriders, 2x Eliminators, WGRC + Rocketeers, Kovnik Joe
The irony of the two local players that give the most of a damn about the game playing their lists non-theme feels strong to me.
If I had a Siege Crawler ready for Wintercon, I'd drop a Lesser lock and a solo. Otherwise has loads more pathfnder than I'm used to, something Gorten can actually hide behind, mix of high armour plus blast immune stealth stuff. Let's get rekt.
Scenario is Outlast, which is destined to change, but oh well. At present is flanking unit zones with both sides getting a defensive flag.
I won the roll, picked first. The terrain doesn't super bother me and when in doubt make a lazy call.
I have a trench, cloud and right side rubble, there's an obstruction centrally, Khador gets a hill in each zone and a forest/cloud in their backfield. not super worried about the hills, cause knock down torpedoes don't care, woot woot. The reds took it to stop the defence bonus against Outrider sprays, seems fair enough.
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Round 1: I throw forward an outer line of stealth models (I opted not to ambush Anastasia, wanting to threat the Espionage move which Gorten would super love). Eiryss runs up behind the obstruction, I envisage her disrupting Ruin and repo'ing back every turn, will be totes sweet.
The Snake and Harlen go into my cloud, ready to battle stupid murder ponies.
Earthbreaker runs up and tilts slightly to the left, the Ninja Pigs ends up behind him as they were counter deployed by the Rifle Corp.
Gorten is going straight up the guts with Solid Ground up.
In response the Khadorans generally advance, the Rifle corp, Drakhuns and one lot of Eliminators going for the left zone, Vlad hides behind the Khador cloud which also has the Jacks in it. Outriders make a loose line on the right side, with a pair of Eliminators in front of them.
Hand of Fate goes on the Rifle Corp.
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Merc 2: Keep Solid Ground, load up the Earthbreaker. Let's do some bit attacks!
Earthbreaker gets Tuned up, advances, throws out rough Terrain on the Drakhuns, shoots the right one, managing to knock him off his horse and put him on one box.
Continuing on the left side, my brain ejects the good plan I had from last turn and gets laser visioned on killing the Rocketeers, so Eiryss and Saxon move up, kill one, tough one, then Repo back. Good Saxon. Bad Eiryss.
Gorten goes into the Trench, I um and arr about putting a wall up in front of the left most Drakhun to save Eirys. I opt not to, if I camp zero then Feated on Outriders and the Destroyer can do attacks with hand of Fate and the Dorf dies. Alas poor Elf Terrorist.
Pigs and Orin go in my cloud to threaten up toward Vlad, keep him super honest with my feat threat. In Orin's Vortex range goes Skarath, who contests the right zone, with Harlen next to him to raise his eyebrows at the Outriders. Skarath also sprayed an Eliminator and Outrider, missing the enemy Kayazy and putting the Pony man on one box.
Kayazy and Dahlia hang back, aside from one Eliminator that ran way up into the left zone to engage the mounted Drakhun and stop Counter Charge shenanigans.
I didn't activate Anastasia because I suck.
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Khador 2: Corrosion kills the Outrider, delayed success!
Vlad stays bravely perched behind his cloud, can't say I blame him. Ruin stays chilling out in front of him. it's Khador feat time, the dice roll on the low side, so that was nice for me. The Drakhuns and the right Eliminators get the feat buffs of doom.
On the left, the Rifle Corp advance and paste poor Saxon. The dismounted Drakhun waddles across and kills my Counter Charge blocking kayazy from last turn. The Mounted chump then charges Eiryss, killing Anastasia with an Impact. Eiryss disintegrates like newspaper in an industrial washing machine. He then repositions to just engage the Earthbreaker. The Eliminator unit on this side then toes the back of the left zone for the score.
Right side, the Destroyer stumbles forward, scatters a shot on Dahlia who is an inch out of Solid Ground. Does five damage, so that has to get transferred to the Snake.
The feated on Eliminators charge Harlen and gut him like a fish, plus do some damage to Skarath. The Outriders had Hand of Fate juggled to them, they advance. One tries to pop one of my Kayazy and misses, the rest mess up Skarath, leaving him on about 6 boxes overall with just his mind left (I finally remembered to use the coloured cube idea I knocked off Bobliness!).
The Outriders then all repo to the back of the right zone.
Khador go to 1 point from the left zone.
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Merc 3: Vlad feat survived. The challenge here is dealing with stuff while retaining my feat, keeping Vlad honest is super useful given the lack of opposing Solos. Solos is something I presently have in abundance, so I can start suiciding them to score on the flags while we fight over the zone, once the Earthbreaker contests the left zone it'll take some major board state changes for Khador to have a chance at that zone again.
Ragman Deathfields on the Earthbreaker, which makes the feated on Drakhun midly more manageable. Rorsh moves up, mildly damages a feated kayazy with a Blast, then falls back. Brine walks over to the left side, pops Animus and eats the Drakhun. I mis-manage my fury a little here, I should have used a Kayazy in round one to put a damage on Brine, the free charge makes the kill Drakhun math work out the weight I intuitively eyeballed it.
The Earthbreaker again gets Tuned up and is fully fueled, he toes the left zone. He knocks down the dismounted Drakhun (Should have put Rough terrain, oh well) and shoots down about seven or so Riflemans, with one Rocketeer surviving from being further back by dint of the Saxon Orrick shot. Oh well.
Gorten stays in the Trench, the Tinker runs to my flag.
The remaining left Kayazy runs into my cloud, intent being for her to be a late game zone scorer.
Dahlia heals Skarath, then falls back as far as she can while keeping the Snake in control, leaving her a couple inches shy of Outrider range and this time in Solid Ground range.
The Snake leaves the zone to line up a spray, killing one of the feated Kayazy Eliminators, Corrosioning the Destroyer and missing an Outrider.
Lastly, the right side unit of Eliminators charge in and kill an Outrider. Ponymans must die!
I score my flag, points level at 1 apiece.
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Khador 3: On the left, the Riflemans advance and put shots into Brine. The Trench does sod all, as they hit with their attacks and scuff him quite badly. The Khadoran Eliminators shuffle around the edge and stay as contesting nobs. The dismounted Drakhun runs to the Khador Flag.
Vlad stays chilling behind the cloud.
The Elimiantor left on this side charges in and kills the Tinker. Alas.
It then takes the Outriders, Destroyer and lastly Ruin to kill the pair of Eliminators in the right zone. Good work you random chumps, put those ciggies out in your homelands nose I guess.
Khador scores their flag and the right zone to get up 1v3.
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Merc 4: That was an amazing Kayazy, hope she led a full life before Khador got her deserved obliteration (Her remains are a good starting point for atomicist theory in the Iron Kingdoms).
This is looking good for me now, the Outriders are in a sweet line so the Snake can spray them all down, which stops non-Vlad scoring of the right zone, otherwise plan is to clear the left zoen and kill that pesky Drakhun.
Left side first, the Earthbreaker gets Tuned Up, advances, I stupidly waste Thor's bonus on the knockdown shot on the Drakhun when it should have been killing Rifle Corp. Sod. The Drakhun had one box and implodes, the other shots kill some Rifle Corp.
Rorsh runs across into the trench, plan being for him to run to the Khador turn in the future. Brine charges up into one of the Kayazy on the left, goes to max fury and fails to kill the Eliminator. Dammit karma!
I've failed hard to clear the zone, so I'll be behind on scoring. Alas.
Centre wise, my last kayazy kills her evil clone that murdered the Tinker. Gorten goes to my flag, shoots down a Winterguard.
On the right, Ragman runs across and stays way up the back, ready to run in to contest.
Dahlia runs up to trigger Skaraths bond, I won't need them late game anyway if this works out. Skarath charges across into the Rubble, uses Gunfighter to spray all the Outriders. Hits them all, fails to kill any, mis-prioritised my boosting (Should have relied on the bond to hit and boosted damage rolls).
I get a point off my flag, scores now 2v3 in Khadors favour.
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Khador 4: An Outrider does to Corrosion, which is apparently the deadliest weapon I have against them.
Left wise, Joe and the Rifle Corp ping Brine lightly. The Eliminators charge him and put him on 1 box.
On the right, Ruin runs to contest the Khador flag, under the pump for time the Destroyer tries a scatter shot that does nought.
The Outriders move across, miss a spray on Ragman.
Vlad runs into the right zone on the hill.
I score my flag, Khador gets the right zone, now 3v4, still to the Reds.
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Merc 5: Vlad is sadly intelligently placed to be out of my feat distance, not that my assassination runs on him have a good amount of success. Grind on scenario it is, the left is essentially mine so really it's just a matter of holding the flags.
Brine frenzies, still has his mind and yet again misses the Eliminator. You have failed me for the last time giant Pig....
Continuing on the left, the Earthbreaker gets Tuned up, advances up the zone, rolls minimal shots. Shoots Brine with an AoE that kills him and the Eliminators, he then clears out the WGRC member in the zone. i'd hoped shots on Joe or the last Winterguard would be an option, alas.
The last Eliminator runs to toe the left zone and contest the Khador flag just in case.
Centre wise, Rorsh runs to the Khador flag, Gorten walks to the right side of my flag and feats the Khador Jacks and Outriders out to the right, does a ranging shot on Ruin.
Ragman runs and toes the right zone.
I score both flags and the left zone, get to 6v4 to me.
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Khador 5: left wise, the last Winterguard shoots Thor, does a couple points. Joe advances, shoots at Rorsh and misses, contests the left zone.
Right side, Vlad charges and kills Ragman, does the matrix hand motion to Gorten. Outriders move across, Winter Storm then reposition, one contests Gorten's flag. The jacks limp their way back across.
I score Khador's flag, Reds get the right zone, 7v5 to mercs.
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Merc 6: I'm doing pretty good on time and the round counter is getting their, so I spend a couple minutes sussing my turn out to make sure I can win this turn on scenario trivially.
Rorsh stays on the Khador flag, aims, shoots down the Pony contesting the merc side flag.
The Earthbreaker kills Joe, freeing up the left zone. Plus the last WGRC in case I screw this up.
Gorten runs into the left zone.
Thor runs to the Merc flag.
My Eliminator runs to contest the right zone.
I score on the left zone and both flags, win on scenario 10v5.
Everything worked out better than expected? That time separation from mark 2 is helping, I'd really forgotten how sweet Earthbreaker torpedoes could be. Fueling it was easy this game that might not otherwise occur, it feels workable though. In hindsight this build is vaguely reminiscent of the old Oceans 11 nonsense. Odds are high I'll run this at Wintercon, or last minute change all of it and feel regret.
