Monday, April 13, 2009

Stryker's thoughts......

"It was a rough place - the seediest dive on the wharf. Populated with every reject and cutthroat from Bombay to Calcutta. It's worse than Detroit."

Airplane anyone???

On a different note, CptCalvinus and I sat down this past Friday for our first MK II battle. We were anxiously awaiting the new rules and eager to get our first game in. Our original plan of playing a campaign in the old set of rules and then the new set, has faded quickly. I don't even think we'll ever go back to MK I.

With that said, here's our first 25 point battle using MK II. I swapped out Ruphert and put in a Paladin for a little more hard hitting power. CptCalvinus maxed his Long Gunners out and added in 3 stormsmiths.

High Reclaimer
*Crusader
Hierophant
TFG maximum w/ UA
Cleansers minimum unit
Rhoven & Honor Guard
Gorman
Wracks
Paladin

Stryker
*Centurion
*Lancer
Long Gunners maximum
Stormsmiths x 3
GMCA

CptCalvinus won the opening roll and decided to go first. Here's the deployment of both our forces.



Round 1

Stryker gives 1 focus to the Lancer and Centurion and they both run. He puts Arcane Shield on himself and casts Snipe on the GMCA. The Long Gunners and Stormsmiths run up, along with the GMCA

HR gives one focus to the Crusader and it runs up. TFG, Cleansers, and Rhoven run. Paladin advances and goes into Stone & Mortar. I should have run with the Paladin but I was a little worried he would get shot down pretty quick. Gorman moves up, throws some smoke. The HR moves up and throws even more smoke.

Round 2



He upkeeps snipe and Arcane Shield, two Stormsmiths take out two TFG, while the third puts damage on Guis. Stryker advances and casts Arcane Blast on the TFG Officer (I still want to call this guy the Preceptor) but misses. It deviates and does nothing, then shoots the TFG Officer. I put the Officer up front thinking he didn't have any wounds because it looked like the Standard bearer had a grid on the statcard, plus, I thought the unit kept ranked attacked and fire but I was wrong. Whoops! GMCA Shoots at Gorman and does 4 damage. LG move up and take out 2 Cleansers. HR gets a good 5 soul tokens.

Cleansers advance and spray 1 LG, killing him. TFG charge the Lancer and w/out ranked attack do 1 damage to him. Rhoven gives the run order and the two honor guards run to engage the GMCA. I could've charged him but I'm not sure if the unit leader has to have LOS to the target or if he just gives the charge order and then the guys charge. Gorman moves up and throws some more smoke. The HR moves up and casts A2A on the Centurion, takes out 2 Stormsmith, and puts 2 damage on Stryker

Round 3



He upkeeps Arcane Shield while dropping snipe. 2 focus to the Lancer and 3 to the Centurion. The Lancer decides to trample some TFG, we didn't realize that only heavies could trample but now we do. The Lancer takes out 4 TFG, misses the Paladin, and fails his extra attack on the Hierophant. Rhoven passes the command check for the TFG. Stormsmith takes out another TFG. The Centurion hits the Crusader with his shield, crits with his spear, and takes out or should I say, system failures the left arm and movement on the Crusader. GMCA moves out of melee with the Honor guard and dies to free strikes. Long Gunners stand still and take out Guiss and Cassian, and 5 Cleansers. Cleansers make their command check from Rhoven. Stryker retreats and shoots the Crusader, disrupting it.

HR has 11 focus for himself, Gorman advances and throws black oil on Stryker and it deviates on top of him and a Long Gunner. HR Feats and brings back 3 TFG, the Preceptor (Captain), and Guiss and Cassian. The HR moves out of melee with the Lancer and the free strike does nothing to him and misses the Hierophant. I cast 3 immolations on Stryker doing no damage, 3, and then 9. Rhoven gives the charge order and Guiss and Cassian make short work of Stryker.

CptCalvinus' thoughts

Had a lot of fun in this game. Stryker is tougher with his MAT increase, so he can get into melee with less fear. I made use of the Trample rules with the Lancer and managed to take out 4 TFG. New snipe allowed me to cast it and AS and still give each jack 1 focus to run in the first turn, so that was a plus. Spreading out the LGs in the new formation rules allows them to live longer, especially against Cleansers and Deliverers. I'm actually glad the Centurion's Polarity Field is a *action now. It makes me think about using it, especially whether it is worth it to forfeit my initial attacks to use it and buy additional melee attacks afterwards. In retrospect, I should have done this in the top of Round 3, since I was charged by the Paladin and a fully rejuvenated TFG Unit after HR's feat. He was still left standing though. We didn't have any terrain that could qualify as cover, so we didn't need to make any use of the new LOS rules. We got the updates just before the game began, but glancing through them, we felt that they made more sense. I was personally glad the moving in formation rule was vetoed.

Bluecardinal's thoughts

My original plan was to use the HR's new feat to good use. It can really catch the opponent off guard because there's a lot of different angles that one can come in from, plus they activate normally. The new formation rules help this out a lot and I hope to use in great effect. In fact, that's specifically why Rhoven and his Honor guard were in the list. You have to keep one of them alive but you can bring them back, behind enemy lines for a great charge. I'll have to double check the charge rules because I'm not sure if the leader of the unit has to have LOS to the target or if it's just a order and they charge whoever. These guys are getting a lot of tough love on the PP forums but they're going to be a auto include for my HR lists.

Another thing is the HR's spell list. It stayed the same for the most part but he lost soulstorm becoming an inherent ability. I like this but it doesn't help if he plans to go on the offensive. The only way to get it back is to goad my opponent into taking a free strike against some grunt. His sacrificial lamb spell, in my opinion, needs to be reduced to one focus. The crusader is a great choice for him because its a cheap, beatstick heavy. I'll normally cast A2A on him and with the Hierophant's "spiritual conduit" effect, it lets this become a 10" spell. Plus, he can always measure his control area to see if the Crusader is in range.

Wracks are really great but I found they got in the way of all the troops on the battlefield. Call me crazy, but I'm not sure if I'm going to bring them in the next game. Speaking of which, the next game is going to be a 35 points. I'm going to be adding one model and replacing one unit with another. Can you guess what it'll be? :-)

I'm planning on getting a Reckoner to go with Reznik/Amon and then it's going to be a second Crusader. For 6 points, it's really a bargain, then maybe a Dervish.

No comments: