Our theme idea was Irusk finds out about Zerkova's little projects and decides that to reduce conflict he is going to give Zerkova over to the nation of Ios for punishment of her crimes against them (and the Iosan gods). Sylys and Eiryss are the mercs that pass the word back, Ravyn comes to pick up the "payment."
Force Lists:
Kommandant Irusk
*Conquest
*Sylys Wyshnalyrr
Kayazi Assassins (full)
*Underboss
Ravyn, the Eternal Light
*Hyperion
Mage Hunter Strike Force (full)
*Mage Hunter Strike Force Commander
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution
(Team photo. Left to right - Angry Elf Brewer, Hyperion, Conquest, Fluffy Bunny)
Round 1 - pDenny & pKrueger
Woldwrath
Beast I can't remember (was converted, arm kept falling off)
Shifting Stones with UA
Sentry Stone and Manikins
Bane Lord Tartarus
Bane Thralls with UA
Skarloc
2 bitey chicken jacks
Withershadow Combine
Turn 1 the enemy moved up as normal. Ravyn in turn pointed at the Strike Force for the classic Snipe Feat Go! A handful of the elves were still inaccurate enough that they missed and after 1 transfer Krueger was still left with 6 health remaining. Sometimes you just can't find good help. Fortunately the banes that ran up engaged the Kayazi instead of the Strike Force (I knew we brought the humans along for something) and they were able to stand still for aiming bonus and finish off the Warlock. However, before Krueger dropped, he did send in his Worldwrath for the first 120mm vs 120mm base melee I've been able to see. Sadly it did not go well for the Conquest.
Conquest was wrecked between the Worldwrath and a few banes in the later turns. Other notable events in the game (as I don't recall everything that happened):
Conquest, before dying, nailed the WSC with an aoe taking out 2 of the 3. Also backhanded a Bonejack on a freestrike killing it with one shot.
The Kayazi and Strike Force scrum up with the Bane Thralls for a turn or two.
Irusk ends up charging up to take out Tartarus, fails to clear the zone for a Domination point. (The same turn Ravyn DID clear her zone for a point on the other half of the table.)
Hyperion manages to take out the Bane Thrall Standard - no more tough for you!
Denny swings over to the zone Irusk is in and jams it up - eventually killing the Khadoran commander.
Sylys hides at the back of the left zone, on a hill, with his toe just in the Conquest wreck marker to contest the left zone and keep the game going.
Ravyn fires up her Vortex of Destruction and slice and dices her way through 7 Bane thralls and 3 Standing Stones to clear her zone over 2 turns to score the 5th Control Point with less than 1 minute on the death clock.
Record: 1-0
Round 2 - eSorcha & Siege
Stormwall
2x Stormcaller Stormsmith
eEiryss
Ogrun Bokur
Reinholdt
Squire
Winterguard (full) with 3 rockets, UA
Winterguard Joe
Gorman
Sylys
Aiyanna & Master Holt
Sadly I forgot to take any pictures at all during the game. I have a feeling this is because of how depressed I was after turn 1. Again with a listing of game highlights:
Opponents win first turn, march right up the board.
Do I see that right? Sorcha right in front of the Strike Force walked right into snipe range? S.F.G. right off the bat for the early kill! Wait, what? Five of the Strike Force missed? We left Sorcha on 6 health? Blarg. The Strike Force are getting closer and closer to being fired...
Well, I didn't need to fire them, as the Winter Guard Deathstar did that for me. Joe says boosted attacks, and all of the Strike Force are wiped off the table along with Eiryss.
Stormwall shoots a little at Conquest. Conquest shoots back when not killing the other Eiryss, Stormcallers, or Winterguard. Neither takes much damage.
Hyperion gets his only Critical Consume of the day on the Winterguard, obliterating 5 of them with one shot, and then killing another 3 or 4 with the strafing hand cannons.
Knowing we had to do something to avoid the double feat kill turn, Hyperion gets Snipe and lands a POW 18 hit on Siege (killing the squire and Aiyanna at the same time) dropping him to 6 or 8 health. Irusk charges Siege from 16 inches away or so. The shot from his assult drops the Cygnar Warcaster.
Leaving Irusk out in the middle of the field, Sorcha knew she had to do something now or we could back him up and slowly grind her down with 2 fully functional Colossals. She popped feat, made it to Irusk on the charge and chopped his head off (24 damage I think?) with one shot (down to 3 focus). She casts her 2 cost spell to get in range of Ravyn (I probably should have kept her back further) and is down to 1 focus. She needs an 8 to hit, does she boost to hit or damage? She boosts to hit, and misses. Ravyn puts Sorcha out of her misery.
Doing the math after the game - Ravyn had 3 focus on her which would have put the damage roll for Sorcha at dice minus 6 (if I'm remembering all the numbers right). Needing to do 16 damage, that would be a 14 on damage to get the kill. Last I checked, you can't roll a 14 on 2d6. Boosting damage would have been the only way for them to get the win. Oh well. I could also be missing something here in the math.
Record: 2-0
Round 3 - Ashlynn & Ryas
Scythean
Angelus
Nephilim Protector
Shredder
Forsaken
Swamp Gobbers
Shepard
Succubus
Galleon
Gorman
Aiyanna and Holt
Piper of Ord
5 Points I can't find in the picture, or remember
For some reason, my compatriot Fluffy Bunny talks me into doing a S.F.G. on turn one (again, opponents won first turn). I told him no - Ryas is too far out, I'll only get 4 or 5 within range. "No, you'll be fine, you have plenty of range!" he says. Against my better judgement I do what he asks. Oh look there. Only 5 in range. Ping her down to 10 damage left. Everything else in range is either stealth, or something they can't really do much to. They end up hitting Galleon for inconsequential damage.
They then go for their Uber Combo Feat Turn and try to take out Irusk. I believe the combination was something like this: Angelus Slipstreams Ryas, Ryas Slipstreams Scythean, pops feat and then charges to get further up. Ashlynn moves up and pops feat giving a double fake boost for the coming attacks. Scythean then charges a Kayazi, hits after dropping 2 lowest dice, uses Ryas' feat to place on the other side of the Kayazi and get in range of Irusk. This would have worked wonderfully except for 2 things: Irusk is behind a wall, and had Iron Flesh up on himself. Defense 21, even when you have double fake boost, is not all that easy to hit. Only 1 hit lands dealing about 8 damage to the Khadoran, and that's their turn.
Well, look at that. Ryas is sitting on a hill in front of almost a full unit of Kayazi who get Battle Lusted, Irusk Feated for +2 MAT, then Kayazi surround Ryas. Even with the double negative fake boost, MAT 11 from Irusk's Feat and Gang is enough to get the hits on Ryas and she drops.
Hyperion was trying to engage Galleon but kept getting black oiled by Gorman. Hyperion then is able to get into melee with Gorman, no ranged attack for you, but then Galleon is able to come across Hype's side and JUST get in range of Ravyn (stupid killbox). Ravyn takes the first shot like a champ, but the second is enough to put her down.
At this point the game isn't looking too good for either side, sort of even, no clear frontrunner. We see a lane though, and figure "Hey, why not? Stranger things have worked for us before." Irusk is in range of moving up and taking a ranged attack at Ashlynn, and we have some Kayazi that could get Battle Lusted and charge her as well (we think - it would have been close on threat range). Doing the odds of what we need to roll for damage (Ashlynn was down to about 8 health left? I think the Strike Force got some hits on her earlier that I forgot about) we actually decide that the best attack method is not 2 shots from Irusk's gun, but casting Grind. Yep, you read that right. Grind. Even one of the judges from PP had to pick up Irusk's spell card and look up "WTF is Grind?" This is maybe the 3rd time EVER that Fluffy Bunny is using this spell, and Irusk is one of his main Warcasters.
Sylys whispers some dirty secrets into Irusk's ear, and then Irusk walks up to just within range, boost and fake boost to hit, boost and fake boost to damage - BAM! Take 9. Ashlynn is killed by Irusk Grinding her. (Innuendo lasted the rest of the night, and we heard people talking about the kill shot 4 hours later still.)
(A dramatic recreation of Irusk trying to grind on Ashlynn)
Record: 3-0 (now in the Top 4)
Sidenote: At this point Irusk has personally taken down 2 'casters (Siege and Ashlynn) and the Kayazi had taken Ryas. The Elves had only taken Krueger (Strike Force) and Sorcha (Ravyn). The Angry Elves were starting to look bad, and needed to do something to restore their reputation.
Round 4 - pGrim Angus & eCaine
Impaler
Pyre Troll
Champions (full) with Skaldi Bonehammer
Krielstone Bearer (min)
Chronicler
Janessa
Ol' Rowdy
Squire
Black 13th
Gun Mages
Reinholdt
Journeyman Warcaster
Gorman
Stormsmith Stormcaller
2 Points I can't find in pictures or remember.
First turn Caine of course doesn't move up far enough to get in range of the Strike Force. (Bah, the silly humans can learn...) So a handful of Strike Force members get dropped on the opponent's turn 2 by the Gun Mages, and there's only 5 of them left for S.F.G. against Caine. They are able to drop him down to about 5. That's 0/4 on the Strike Force during Feat turns (though game 3 shouldn't really count) for those keeping score at home.
The Arcane Shielded, Krielstone Aura'ed Champion brick lumbers to midfield and starts a giant slapfight with the Kayazi. The Trolls can't hit the Ironfleshed Kayazi, the Kayazi can't break the Champ's armor. Caine pops his feat and unloads into Hyperion trying to take one of the Colossals down. Caine manages to get Hyperion down to about 10 boxes left - a Sniped Impaler throw and the Black 13th later my Hyperion is pulled from the table.
In a fit of outrage over how they've done all game, the 2 remaining Strike Force members activate. One walks over to Ol' Rowdy and smacks him in the face for a few points. The other, the only one that's unengaged, looks up at Caine standing on a hill. "Defense 19? We haven't done our job so far? Watch this!" Box cars to hit. Box cars on damage. This member of the Strike Force is being renamed Doc Holiday.
Ravyn moves up to the right flag to get a few Control Points, but a lucky crit from the Impaler followed by the remainder of the Cygnar shooting is able to barely drop Ravyn out of the game. We notice that our opponents are down pretty low on their deathclock and we have a choice to make. We have a weak assassination run on Grim. We could in theory get 2, MAYBE 3 Kayazi on him, possibly a shot with Conquest. However he was sitting on 3 or 4 fury for transfers, and if we went for it we would pretty much be all or nothing on it. Nothing would be stopping the trolls from taking the control point to the right, or going straight for Irusk and the kill. We decide to "play it safe" and try to jam up as many models of theirs as we can. They start their turn with under 5 minutes remaining on their clock, somehow manage to take out 2 Kayazi to make a small hole for Grim to then run out of the scrum, book it over to the right flag and score the last 2 points for the win.
Record: 3-1
'Caster kill Tally: Khador 3, Scyrah 3.
(I.M.O. Elves win the tie breaker with the double boxcar kill on Caine, but an argument could be made for Irusk Grinding Ashlynn taking the lead for humor.)
The other 4-0 team that Grim/eCaine then faced was pDenny/pSkarre infantry spam. I have a feeling S.F.G. was ready to drop Skarre (Doc finally showed them how to do it), and then we just start dropping pieplates into the swathes of infantry. It would have been interesting. I read on the forums that the Cryx team ended up deathclocking themselves for the loss. So much infantry, not enough time to move them against the super armor brick. Would the Def 19 Kayazi have been able to jam as well? The world may never know.
(So much infantry on the final table...)
Looking at placements, I have yet to find an official finish order. However the other team that lost in round 4 that was 3-0 going into that round had been paired down already earlier in the event. That should have given us the tiebreaker over them for Strength of Schedule. Depending on how our opponents did the rest of the event, (along with opponents of the other teams in question) Fluffy and I probably ended up somewhere between 4th and 2nd. (2nd would have taken some bad S.o.S. for the Cryx team though.) I'm confident in assuming 3rd. Whatever it was though, it was a fun day. Maybe the new Privateer Press dice I earned with my Iron Arena points will help the Strike Force with killing things.
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