Must.....stop....reading....CID.....
Um.....Brussels....cobblestones everywhere....Beer....something about Chips....
We get the sweet chance to travel up to Antwerp for a day and inflict ourselves on super sweet locals (That I would then not get the chance to swap Jerseys with. I choose to blame vague drunk states rather than my incompetence).
We voyage down the creaking stairs of doom into a basement attached to a murder labyrinth. Good thing there were war dollies to distract me from getting lost in the (presumed) Dungeon of Madness.
I roll up into Wout, who willfully inflicts this string of madness on himself.
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We journey to the tables, I once more lose to the mighty gravitational pull of Epic Recon ( I know, I know, I've played more Breakdown than Recon. It just doesn't feel like it dammit).
It's Mercs vs Khador, typically I'd face Vlad1 out of the opposing, miniature availability forced the Strakhov2 game. Good thing for me, I thought it was playable but hadn't practiced it at all.
The table is fog bank style, with the most important terrain piece being a cloud in front of an objective on one side. I....lose the roll? Win it? I've no sodding idea. I end up picking sides, which makes me think I lost it. I picked the defensive side of said fog blob, which was a terrible decision I'll examine later.
The Strak list is double Kodiak, Double Regular IFP, Black Dragons and standard Legion of Steel trimmings.
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Round 1: The Khadorans are coming right for us! Black Dragons central, other IFP on either flank. Kodiaks lumber up the back with the other non-Advance Move losers.
I throw out rough with the Earthbreaker. Pigs hangs with the Crawler on the left to be the muscle.
Eiryss goes super out to the right, because I genuinely don't know how to not flank with models, a lesson I should have appreciated for later on.
After I've moved up I have the realisation that I've willfully not provided a model to score the right flag, which is the entire sodding point of Versh in this matchup. Egads man, what are you doing?!
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Khador 2: Black Dragons pop mini feat, Strakhov pops the real version. A massive line of Shield Walls advance forward, Kodiaks flank. Buff spells are out. One Kovnik chills on the Khador flag, the physical embodiment of hte gods of strategy rolling their eyes at me. Jerks.
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Merc 2: Those sharp pointy things that explode are way to up in my grill. It's feat to delay and try to kill as many of them as possible.
Anastasia pops in, moves over and contests the Khadoran flag (Big W astutely points out later that she could have hidden wholesale in the forest and been quite annoying to kill. Sin #271 for me).
Gorten moves up, scatters an Eruption amongst the Khadorans, then feats things. After which my other junk shoots stuff.
It's.....not an impressive effort. Strakhov's feat does an excellent job keeping stuff alive, and I wait so long for Aiyanna to activate that she Stealths instead of Harming. I have no defence or reason for that. I even fired, the siege crawler, realised I hadn't put Harm out, then started attacking with the Earthbreaker. It was madness enough that I ought to be the incompetent campaign manager for Cthulhu to stop his presidency.
I also didn't get the right Kodiak with the feat, so Eiryss disrupts him instead of running back to my flag to score (left her out further than 10, so a reposition move wouldn't get me there).
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Khador 3: The Khadorans limp back. The vanilla IFP then pop their mini-feats as I didn't kill the UA's and basically get back to being in my grill. Oh dear....
Anastasia gets an axe the size of her body in a defenestrating position. It wasn't pretty, but it was quick.
Kodiaks stay in the back half of the zones, the Pikies pop the Green Eliminators, my objective and lightly ding the Earthbreaker.
Khador gets up 2 to zip on scenario in what we call an oh-shit-this-is-the-inverse-of-the-plan situation.
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Merc 3: Alright, priorities are digesting all this gum in the centre (the 7 year digestion thing is a fable thankfully). Well, do that and contest the Khador flag.
Rightside, Aiyanna throws out harm. Can't imagine how I knew to do that. The Earthbreaker does a Tuned Up Sweep, which mauls loads of Pikies and give me some hope in the game. Eiryss moves up and once again Disrupts the right Kodiak.
Red Eliminators also go in on this side and get some good work done.
Left wise is....not so good. The Crawler is a poor model to attack Quickened Shield Wall guys, so I lose all good ideas and throw an Eruption with Gorten to Bulldoze models in, except that Pikemen triangles effectively stopped that plan.
The Crawler has a go at killing things, predictably does poorly. Versh also lines up on the Quickened Pike men, to my surprise he is a smuck.
Lastly, Brine gets smoked up to the Khador Flag, promptly gets knocked down and nearly killed by Countercharges. Straight up incompetence on that one, though double V's excellent positioning made it functionally unavoidable.
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Khador 4: Great Bears kill Rorsh, Brine disappears in a squeal of panic.
Pikies, Markov and the left Kodiak kill the Crawler. Eiryss, Aiyanna and Holt all get engaged. The right Kodiak Cloud Bursts to kill my remaining Eliminators.
Khador gets up 4 zip, with Strakhov hanging back while stealthed. I have a turn of models taking freestrikes trying to get to contesting positions, it was a low odds play but alas I think of no other and it all crumbles apart.
I'm sad at my poor showing here, I got cliniced. Key points, trying to go vaguely macro to micro:
1 - Insufficient understanding of the matchup. Killing the IFP Officers before they mini-feat to counter my feat is vital to gaining advantage in the feat exchange, even if said killing proves relatively inefficient versus the work required
2 - Initial move out displayed complete lack of forethought on scenario play
3 - Chose the wrong table side. With Advance Move, the cloud needed to be on the alternate side as the Pikies push far enough to make it an issue
4 - Eruption is trap dammit. ROCK WALL YOU FOOL. STOP KODIAK GETTING INTO SIEGE CRAWLERS ROCK WALL DOES.
5 - YOU OWN A STICK THAT SAYS COUNTER CHARGE ON IT. READ IT.
In any event, sweet time. Belgiums are great. Would get smacked around like a smuck again.
