Conquest Batreps (Various Casters, 50 Points)

[OrsusSmash]

This thread will (if I can keep up with posting my results) be a collection of my testing games with Conquest. I'll kick it off with my first proxy game with Conquest from yesterday. The details so far as I can remember them:

Scenario: Overrun

My List:

Points: 50/50
Kommander Strakhov

* Conquest

* Kodiak

* War dog

Battle Mechaniks (Leader and 3 Grunts)
Doom Reavers (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Kayazy Assassins (Leader and 5 Grunts)

* Kayazy Assassin Underboss

Kayazy Eliminators (Leader and Grunt)
Koldun Lord
Yuri the Axe
Manhunter
Manhunter
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator

My friend's list:

Points: 50/50
Gorten Grundback (Searforge Commission)

* Ghordson Driller

* Ghordson Driller

Hammerfall High Shield Gun Corps (Leader and 9 Grunts)

* Hammerfall High Shield Gun Corps Officer & Standard

Herne & Jonne
Horgenhold Forge Guard (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Horgenhold Forge Guard (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Brun Cragback & Lug
Lord Rockbottom
Thor Steinhammer

* Wroughthammer Rockram

Terrain:
The table has around 7 pieces of terrain on it, an even mix of walls and forests. Nothing fancy, and we tried to spread the terrain out enough so that there weren't any "jam" lanes, but it also wouldn't be a shooting gallery.

Deployment:
My friend wins the roll-off and opts to go second. I pre-deploy Conquest pretty much smack in the middle of the table. Strakov, his entourage, all of the Kayazy, and the Kodiak get deployed to the right of Conquest (Kodiak in the woods,) so I can sprint to the nearby wall to get some cover going across the table. Koldun Lord ends up on the left of Conquest, because I didn't want to jam up my lines any more than I already had. Mechaniks get glued to the back of Conquest, where they will remain all game.

The rhulfolk deploy on their 14" line (thanks to the Commission,) in a pretty even spread: Gorten's battlegroup in the center, support solos behind them, one Forge Guard unit on each flank, the High Shields more towards the right flank, and Brun and Lug on the left flank. Herne and Jonne are deployed pretty central, to keep the Kayazy honest.

Advanced deployment is all me: Doom Reavers go on my right flank to buffer out all the heavy models he has there, and Yuri + Friends are deployed centrally, to try and make use of a forest there.

Khador Turn 1:
Typical "everything runs" turn. Strakov casts Sentry on Conquest, Superiority on the Kodiak, then fail charges a distant dwarf to get himself up the field and behind a wall. His entourage runs to keep up, and the Kodiak runs up next to him behind the wall. Kayazy run to be more central, as I have zero clue where he's going to move any of his infantry.

Eliminators run up the left flank to get into a good harassing spot, as well as give me models on the far size of the control zone in case things go awry next turn. Doom Reavers shuffle up the right flank a bit, hiding behind a forest and waiting for something to come around the corner.

Conquest runs right up the middle, to try and threaten an early Sentry shot (in hindsight, he would have had to run full speed straight towards me for this to even happen,) and so it can actually play next turn!

Searforge Turn 1:
Similar "everything runs" turn, though he doesn't have to go as far thanks to extended deployment. Gorten casts Solid Ground (goodbye hopes of using those Secondary Batteries!) on himself and Strength of Granite on one if his Drillers (priming for eventual Conquest murder.)

Everything else advances/runs, with the High Shields pushing more towards my left flank. Herne and Jonne situate themselves centrally, all the better to lob templates at the squishy Kayazy that are piling up in my central logjam.

Khador Turn 2:
We now have a proper stand-off: I can't aggressive advance until Gorten blows his feat, because that's an easy way for him to scalpel out elements of my army (particularly Strakov.) He can't advance because that's walking right into charges with most of his army if he does. For this turn, I elect to try and get into the best position I can, without over-extending myself.

Most things just shuffle around to get a little bit further along wherever they were going before. One of the Manhunters breaks formation to run over to the right side, to threaten things moving beyond the forest. Conquest advances up and takes a shot that falls a half an inch short (doesn't do anything on scatter thanks to Solid Ground,) and Strakov puts Occultation on himself to prep for his inevitable "oh god please don't let me die" feat turn later on.

Searforge Turn 2:
My friend recognized the stand-off situation, and tried to advance accordingly: put two of the warjacks (both of the Drillers) just into the scenario zone, and then hang the rest back. If I commit to killing the warjacks, that gives him something to pounce on, and I realistically can't get to those warjacks without popping my feat (which will probably result in Strakov getting Gorten'd.) He upkeeps Solid Ground and Strength of Granite, and allocates two for running.

So, to try and soften them up, when the second warjack moves up into the zone (both warjacks were next to each other - I think he was prepping a warjack wall for Gorten to hide behind,) I take a shot at it with Conquest's Main Guns (Sentry.) Crit on double 4's; both warjacks are tossed right back out of the zone! That's a huge hit for him, because now all he can toss into the zone are some token infantry models, which are significantly easier for me to deal on my turnwith than two rhulic heavies.

Herne and Jonne move up and shoot, but the first shot is well short of anything. The additional scatter catch one Kayazy in the blast, pasting it nicely. Everything else runs/advances to prep for (what I'm thinking) is Gorten's feat turn here soon. Gorten moves up and puts a rock wall in front of his previously thrown warjacks, to give them some protection against further shots.

Khador Turn 3:
I got really luck on that Sentry shot, and I need to capitalize to try and get ahead on CPs while I can. Strakov upkeeps Occultation and Superiority, and puts two focus on Conquest for another Main Guns volley.

Conquest leads off by moving up and shooting at one of the Drillers, which has landed next to the Rockram being held back, and the other Driller that was thrown before. Another crit! This one also catches a Forge Guard that ended up near the cluster of warjacks. The warjacks are tossed back yet again, though not that far (I don't think any went further than 3",) and the Forge Guard is popped by the throw damage. I then try to pick off one of the Forge Guard that is contesting the zone with the Secondary Batteries, but even shooting at their low DEF I can't fish up a hit on either Battery.

Kayazy charge/run, with one of the Kayazy killing a contesting Forge Guard. The Manhunter on the left flank moves up through the forest (remaining in it for the bonuses, if it doesn't get feated on,) and picks off the other contesting Forge Guard. Yuri then charges through the gap from behind the forest at Jonne, killing him, 2 Forge Guard, and 2 High Shields with the Thresher. The Manhunter on the right side moves into the forest and picks off the 2 Forge Guard contesting the zone on that side.

Strakov casts Sentry on Conquest again, and tosses some Cinder Bombs for cloud cover (hindsight: not a great idea, considering these could have blocked Conquest's LoS for Sentry shots!) Everything else shuffles around or holds its ground. End of turn, Khador scores 1 CP.

Searforge Turn 3:
Gorten upkeeps Solid Ground, drops Strength of Granite, and allocates two focus to each Driller. The Drillers then activate, and proceed to punch away most of the models I just sent in. Herne charges at the Manhunter in the forest, but misses thanks to the Treewalker bonus. Two Forge Guard pile in to try to kill the Manhunter, but likewise whiff due to foliage.

The Rockram advances up to get in on the zone action, and I elect to use that to trigger Sentry. I shoot at the previously hit and damaged Driller (now not in combat,) and hit but no crit; a little more damage on the Driller. Thor moves up to fix the shot up Driller; repaired 2 boxes. The Forge Guard on my right flank pummel to death the Manhunter in the woods, and get into a position to menace the Doom Reavers.

Everything else runs/advances, so far as I can remember.

***Continued below!****

[OrsusSmash]

Khador Turn 4:
Turns are speeding up, as everything starts to drop! Strakov upkeeps Sentry, Occultation, and Superiority, gives two to Conquest.

Kayazy Assassins get the run/charge order and pop their mini-feat, charging into the High Shields, Thor (not enough movement to get the charge damage bonus though.) The Underboss runs up to give Gang to the one attack I have on Thor, which hits but unfortunately comes up short of killing him (3 damage done, 2 remaining.) The Kayazy on the High Shields kill their targets. The Eliminators also get into the High Shields, with one of them killing the UA Officer with the charging Combo Strike. The Manhunter in the scrum continues to axe what he can, killing two of the High Shields.

Conquest banks a shot into the newly repaired Driller, and fishes up yet another crit. The Driller is tossed backwards into one of the walls for significant damage (pops the Cortex,) Underboss is tossed back and makes his Tough check, the other Driller is tossed onto the Underboss who Toughs *again*, and Thor is tossed into Gorten, which nets the last 2 damage on Thor.

Strakov tosses more smoke bombs (because I don't learn lessons easily, apparently,) and everything else holds steady.

Searforge Turn 4:
Gorten upkeeps Solid Ground, allocates one. Forge Guard on my right flank charge into the Doom Reavers, but only one makes it into melee. He hits (no crit,) and smashes the Doom Reaver into oblivion. Brun and Lug move up to contest the zone, behind the Forge Guard (not in melee, but threatening a counter punch.)

Gorten moves over to reclaim the now autonomous Rockram into his battlegroup, and puts a wall in front of himself. The Driller without a cortex moves up to contest the zone, while the other Driller runs up but comes up short of making it into the zone.

When the other Driller moves up, I elect to use Sentry, and shoot at Lug. Crit on double 5's; Brun and Lug are tossed out of the zone, minimal damage to Lug. Three Sentry shots, two crits; madness!

After lightning struck twice, my buddy tries to jam what he can into the zone, which is the remainder of the High Shields and Herne.
Khador Turn 5:
With another lucky as hell Sentry crit, I have the chance to win on CPs, so I opt to go for it, while hedging my bets in case something goes horribly awry (I have been really lucky so far, so I'm worried I'm due to critical failure.) Strakov upkeeps Occultation and Superiority, gives two to Conquest, and keeps the other two for possible shenanigans later.

The Kayazy Assassins, Eliminators, and Manhunter clean up the contesting models on the left flank, the Doom Reavers clean up the contesting models on the right. That leaves Conquest to take care of the one Driller contesting the zone, which he does with the charge attack (thanks to the Driller being so softened up.)

Khador earns the second CP at the end of the turn, and wins the game!

-------

Overall, a very fun game, with crazy luck on my part really changing the game up at those two crucial moments. It was a rough matchup for Searforge on this one I think: even with the blast damage immunity, I had him outgunned with Conquest, and my natural threat range was high enough to get the drop pretty much all of his army even without Strakov's feat.

So we were both skittering around "No Man's Land," trying to not commit anything crucial to that zone, while still trying to contest/score based on the scenario. Even though we went to 5 turns, it was an ultra-fast game (I think it was maybe 90 minutes!)

First game out, Conquest definitely did not disappoint. I got really luck with crits in this game, but even that aside it was fantastic to have such a powerful, long range gun at my disposal, especially when its attached to a hard hitting, durable warjack! Definitely excited to try it out in more games/lists.

[PG_StarmanTTLB]

Thanks for the batrep, I'm glad to hear the Conquest is working for you! Now lets get more games in with it!

[Defenstrator]

This kind of summed up what I was afraid of when I saw that Conquest had Crit Devastation. I love my Mule with Highborn so I know how good it can be. Especially if you're doing it to the few models that can threaten your Colossal.

I guess he'll spread his jacks out a bit more next time.

[Hoc Est Bellum]

How did you upkeep Sentry in Turn 4? It should have expired when you shot the Driller.

Interesting, though; I would have thought that well-armoured Dwarves with Blast Immunity would have been a nightmare for Conquest, but he seems to have been crucial. I still can't quite wrap my head around the power of the crit; I'm going to have to proxy him and see it for myself.

Good report!

[John of Arc]

Looks like a pretty good outting for the big guy! You had some lucky crits, but it doesn't sound like you were losing without them. This may seem like an odd question, but how was Strakhov for you? I don't like the blitzkrieg style of gameplay he's known for, but I like his spells and abilities, and he's just so damn cool that I really want to play him. This game didn't seem to go that way- did he feel weak to you, or was he doing good things? Sentry sure did work, but you won't always get lucky crits like that.

Good battle report, by the way. It was super fun to read!

[OrsusSmash]

This kind of summed up what I was afraid of when I saw that Conquest had Crit Devastation. I love my Mule with Highborn so I know how good it can be. Especially if you're doing it to the few models that can threaten your Colossal.

I guess he'll spread his jacks out a bit more next time.

Crit Devastation is definitely a huge point in favor of Conquest. My worry is that Crit Devastation is kind of what it was balanced around, so the results one will get with the model may be really swing-y, depending on how lucky you get. I'm planning to keep an eye on that during future proxy games.

I was really wondering why he kept bunching his warjacks up during the game. In hindsight, he was in a semi-rough position: the warjacks never would have made it through the forest to his right, and the flank on his left had the Kodiak and Doom Reavers floating around threatening charges. I also think he was trying to give Gorten some cover as he moved up the table, though he just as easily could have done that with Rock Wall.

In any case, I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

How did you upkeep Sentry in Turn 4? It should have expired when you shot the Driller.

Interesting, though; I would have thought that well-armoured Dwarves with Blast Immunity would have been a nightmare for Conquest, but he seems to have been crucial. I still can't quite wrap my head around the power of the crit; I'm going to have to proxy him and see it for myself.

Good report!

Oops! Almost certainly a reporting flub on my part; all of the Sentry and normal shots kind of blended together (doubly so due to my freak crit streak that game.) Strakov's job that game was handing out focus and re-casting Sentry, so I probably just re-cast Sentry the next turn, and upkept everything Occultation and Superiority.

Honestly, when I found out I was fighting Gorten I figured Conquest would be a paperweight. However, that game cemented something that I had thought prior to proxying Conquest: regardless of any other factors, a RNG 15 gun is really, really powerful. After running the first turn, you can threaten a huge swathe of the table, and probably a fair bit of it with the aiming bonus (making those crits that much easier to fish up.)

That immediately puts your opponent in an unpleasant situation if they don't have Safe Passage/Stealth (and I can totally see bringing A+H just to thwart Menoth 'jack walls,) because you're going to be dumping boosted 15's into some key components of their army (either the heavies they're going to try to use to take out Conquest, or their 'caster,) well before they can respond. It's a really strong tool to dictate engagement, even without the crit.

The crit also has lots of fun potential. Since you throw everything in the template, you can shoot at things near what you want to toss, and then either boost the "blast" damage, or follow up with the secondary batteries. It's a subtly tricky thing to have access to, and even though it isn't reliable, it's something your opponent really needs to be careful around.

Looks like a pretty good outting for the big guy! You had some lucky crits, but it doesn't sound like you were losing without them. This may seem like an odd question, but how was Strakhov for you? I don't like the blitzkrieg style of gameplay he's known for, but I like his spells and abilities, and he's just so damn cool that I really want to play him. This game didn't seem to go that way- did he feel weak to you, or was he doing good things? Sentry sure did work, but you won't always get lucky crits like that.

Good battle report, by the way. It was super fun to read!

I've been on a Strakov kick recently, which is why I picked him for my first Conquest game. I'm actually right there with you: I don't like the "blitz" style of Strakov play. I think it works pretty well at 35, but once you hit 50 it just seems like any reasonably well constructed army has ways of mitigating your blitz, or making Strakov pay dearly for the gambit. In the games I've played (probably close to a dozen now,) I've pulled off the coveted "feat, Overrun, 'caster assassination," exactly zero times, though I came really close one time before Mulg smacked Torch out of melee.

So one of the things I've played around with is running Strakov more as a counter punch army, with the ability to alpha strike using his feat if necessary. I've found that Strakov's feat is much, much better to use to drive into the guts of your opponent's army after the initial clash (Kayazy can be huge here,) and you can usually do that without overexposing yourself.

I think with that approach in mind, Conquest is actually a really good fit with Strakov. If your opponent gets froggish, you can alpha-strike the hell out of them with your army, and if you damage them enough they're going to have an extremely hard time chewing through Conquest before he rolls over the rest of the army. If you need to hang back for a turn or two, Conquest gets to use his huge gun to soften up the enemy before the engagement, and possibly shell some infantry with Sentry shots. I wouldn't have thought Khador's "black ops" guy would like a gigantic warjack, but there it is.

---

Thanks for the complements everyone! I'm going to try to get a game in using Conquest with every Khador 'caster, just to see if my theory matches up with how the pairings work out. I was able to get an...unconventional game in this weekend using Harkevich and Conquest, which I hope to have posted up soon.

[OrsusSmash]

Double post to report another game!

My friend and I decided to throw down when we got together this weekend. To try and shake things up a big, we played a "random" game: randomly decided 'caster, one random warjack, one random unit, one random solo, fill out the remainder however you like. We also added in our colossals, since we're psyched as hell for each of them (Stormwall and Conquest, respectively.) The random rolls resulted in a game with some really funny moments.

Scenario: Overrun (this will probably be common; we default to this scenario a lot.)

My list:

Kommander Harkevich, the Iron Wolf

* Beast-09 [Random]

* Conquest

* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker

Battle Mechaniks (Leader and 3 Grunts)
Greylord Ternion (Leader and 2 Grunts) [Random]
Winter Guard Rifle Corps (Leader and 9 Grunts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist
Koldun Lord
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich
Man-o-war Kovnik [Random]

Notes: Random Beast-09 and Kovnik did not make me happy; nothing to marshal for the Kovnik makes him less than useful, and I always, always mis-use Beast-09. The Ternion was a decent result for me, though I really should have gone with something other than Rifle Corps since I had the Ternion sprays to deal with infantry. Also, I wanted to bring Harlan Versh, since we were playing a mainly "funsies" game, but I left him in my other case! So Gorman went in instead.

His list:

Captain Allister Caine

* Thorn [Random]

* Stormwall

Storm Lances (Leader and 4 Grunts) [Random]
Trencher Chaingun Crew [Random - somehow he put this in his "solo" pile, but we kept the result]
Captain Arlan Strangewayes
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution
Journeyman Warcaster

* Hunter

Stormsmith Stormcaller

Notes: Thorne as a random for Epic Caine is not cool at all, and the Trencher Chaingun Crew is not renowned for it's usefulness (though in this list it's a third Covering Fire template.) The Storm Lances seemed like a bad pairing at first, but ultimately they played really well in the list. The bad news for me: Epic Caine! Now Hark needs to spend the game in cover, next to a warjack, and preferably camping a few focus, or he's going to earn himself a ventilated head.

Terrain:
Two forests, one fairly central and further back, and the other a bit more off to the side. Tower in the center of the table, several walls strewn around, and a big patch of rubble (concealment, difficult terrain) filling in the remaining "open spot."

Deployment:
My friend wins the roll off, and chooses to deploy second. Pre-deployment, both of us plunk our colossals down in the center of the table.

I deploy Harkevich to the right of Conquest, with Gorman next to him and Sylas behind him. Mechaniks get glued to the back of Conquest. The Rifle Corps deploy to the left of Conquest to try and screen the Storm Lances via noble sacrifice at some point, and Joe, the Ternion, Koldun Lord, and the Kovnik end up behind them. Beast-09 is deployed to the left of Conquest, to try and run up to a wall for some cover against all the heat coming his way.

My friend deploys the Storm Lances on my left flank, Caine2 in the middle, Arlan and Jr. to my left of Stormwall (so Jr. can put AS on the Storm Lances before they go trotting off.) The Stormsmith ends up deployed a little closer to my right flank, but mostly in the middle of the table. Poor out of place Thorn is deployed on my left side of Stormwall.

Cygnar AD: Eiryss2 goes out on my right flank, the Hunter is deployed more centrally behind the tower (but close enough to be in Jr's control area,) and the TCGC goes on my left flank.

Cygnar Turn 1:
Running turn. Stormwall runs up, Storm Lances get AS before Jr moves behind the Stormwall, Storm Lances run down the left flank wide to threaten anything I move up. Hunter moves up more securely behind the tower (little guy doesn't want to be eating Main Guns shots,) Eiryss2 runs behind the tower as well. Stormsmith runs over to my left a bit more, to try and get into position to zap the one thing it can disrupt this game. Caine2 moves up and casts Blur on himself, putting him up to an extremely respectable DEF value in the forest. Thorn runs up beside Stormwall.

Khador Turn 1:
My turn to run! Harkevich casts Fortune on Conquest, Escort on himself, and advances. Conquest and Beast-09 both run up, with Beast-09 hunkering down behind a wall. Mechaniks run up to re-glue themselves to Conquest, and Gorman moves up to put down a smoke template (blocking LoS to Harkevich in combination with Conquest's base.) WGRC run up part way, Joe gives them Tough, and they all hope for the best. Ternion put out some clouds to try and buffer against Storm Lance Assault shots, and the Kovnik gets into position to try and counter-charge. Koldun Lord moves up for my last move, and I brace for the onslaught.

Cygnar Turn 2:
Onslaught begins! Stormwall gets 3 focus, Caine2 upkeeps Blur, Jr upkeeps Arcane Shield (I was really hoping he'd drop it ,) and gives two focus to the Hunter. [Astute reader may notice something we didn't here: the Hunter was right next to Eiryss2, so it couldn't be allocated focus. We didn't catch it until way late in the turn, so we let results stand.]

My opponent was worried about Beast-09 running shenanigans, so he drew all the ire this turn (and hiding behind a wall didn't save me against effective RAT 7/8 shooting.) Unfortunately, because I got really excited about Beast-09 getting up the table, I made the classic mistake of moving it up with Hyper Aggressive, which put it in range of even more stuff to rock his face. Two boosted Big Gun shots (Stormwall also dropped a Storm Pod in front of Beast, to mess with my activation order next turn if I wanted to charge,) a boosted Hunter shot, some Metal Storm shots (yes, I moved up that far,) a Stormcall to the head, a boosted Caine2 shot later, and finally a Storm Lance charge, and Beast-09 is going back to Sorscha in a baggie. She won't be loaning him out again to Harkevich!

As part of the Storm Lances charge/run that killed Beast-09, two of them charging into combat against the WGRC (two stayed back for a second wave.) Between lightning jumps, shots, and stabs, I lose 3 of the WGRC (long charge, and he missed one of the Assault shots.) Eiryss2 runs out to right flank wide, in preparation for a "disruption bomb" run next turn. Thorne moves up to interpose himself between Conquest and Stormwall, and threaten some madd Shock Shield attacks next turn. TCGC just kinda hangs out on the flank, watching the spectacle.

Khador Turn 2:
I suck with Beast. Time to try and dig myself out a bit! The good news is: Beast sacrificed himself so that Conquest would make it through that turn unscathed, and I have Hark's feat as another buffer. Harkevich upkeeps Escort and Fortune (one for free,) gives two focus to Conquest, and keeps the remainder.

The WGRC attempt to dig themselves out, after Joe yells at them to eat their vitamins (+3 STR.) Charging WGRC kill one of the Storm Lances, and leave the other one with 2 health remaining. Now is the Kovnik's time to shine! I remarked at the start of the game that the Kovnik sucks, and he didn't disappoint (or did this to spite me): a total roll of 6 on four dice leaves the Storm Lance alive with one health. One of the Ternion tries to salvage his failure by spraying him in the back to hit the Storm Lance, but all that earns me is 3 damage on the Kovnik.

For some crazy reason, I really want to charge Thorn this turn, so I dump everything I reasonably can into the Storm Lance in my way: three Frostbites, one shot from Joe, one normal shot from Harkevich, a round of Broadsides shots (from Harkevich and Conquest,) and Gorman's Acid Bomb later, and it's still alive with one health! As part of the collateral damage that turn, the Storm Pod is destroyed. Harkevich also pops his feat this turn, to weather all of the damage Conquest is going to eat.

Dejected that my insane, poorly planned turn didn't go well, Conquest attempts to cheer me up by putting a boosted shot into Thorn that crits. While it only throws him back 1", the boosted damage roll does a staggering 14 damage to the little guy, blowing out the shield arm and movement in one go. Conquest then dumps Secondary Battery shots at the Stormsmith until I hit it and kill it, just for spite. I also make a decision this turn to hang my Mechaniks back a bit, to keep them from getting BBQ'd by easy lightning jumps on Conquest. In hindsight, this didn't make much of a difference, and I may have been better off just keeping them in B2B.

***continued below***

[OrsusSmash]

Cygnar Turn 3:
ARM 23 Conquest is daunting, but it's also the only big thing on the table, so my opponent keeps up the heat. Stormwall gets 3 focus [we talked about it later, and he kept giving Stormwall three focus every turn, but only ever needed 2; we were both a little "off" that day.] Caine2 upkeeps Blur, keeps the other 2 focus on himself. Jr gives two focus to the Hunter, upkeeps AS on the Storm Lances. Bonus for me: the previously corroded Storm Lance doesn't shake the acid, so it dies! Only took a whole turn.

This turn is similar to the last one, except Conquest is eating shells: Stormwall dumps two boosted shots into it, and the Hunter shoots it (after gaining Magic Bullet from Caine2, which snipes out Gorman,) but thanks to Harkevich's feat the damage isn't that bad (I think 8 damage total from all 3 shots?) Eiryss2 walks up into range of denying Conquest focus allocation (great colossal counter-measure,) and shoots one of my Mechaniks.

The remaining Storm Lances charge in: one into the WGRC as part of an Assault on the Ternion, another one Assaults towards the Mechaniks (can't make the charge due to a wall, but he'll still get the shot,) and the one in melee keeps stabbing. The charge towards the Ternion fails when he misses one of his impact attacks, and the shot misses the Ternion. Unfortunately for me, the shot on the Mechanik hits, and another one goes down to Electro Leap. Two WGRC die to a stab and leap from the Storm Lance in combat.

To shore up the models he'll have to contest the objective, he moves up the TCGC and they dig in. Thorn gets up, and walks into the zone as well, probably with grim resolve.

Khador Turn 3:
I can score a CP this turn, but I'll need to clean out some stuff: all of the Storm Lances, Thorne, the TCGC, and Eiryss2. I have precious few models to do it with, and I can't allocate focus to Conquest, though Power Booster will give me at least one to work with. Harkevich upkeeps both spells (one for free,) and holds onto the rest (can't do much else with it, right?)

Joe yells at the WGRC to eat their Wheaties (+3 STR,) and walks up to punch the Storm Lance who Assault charged the Mechaniks. Unfortunately, Joe is tuckered out from yelling and whiffs. The WGRC charge in where they can, finishing off the wounded Storm Lance, and slightly softening up the Storm Lance that Assault charged the Ternion. The Kovnik then redeems himself by polishing off that Storm Lance on the charge. The remaining Storm Lance passes his CMD check.

The Ternion activate next, with two of them moving up to spray the TCGC (between the two sprays, the TCGC gets frosted off the table,) and the third one trying to plink damage onto the remaining Storm Lance (failure.) Koldun Lord gives Conquest a focus via Power Booster, then Conquest moves up to do his part: a boosted attack roll hits Eiryss2, evaporating her, and his other initial attack scraps Thorn on the dot. Haley will not be lending Thorn to Caine again. My remaining Mechanik does his part by patching up 4 damage on Conquest.

Empowered by Conquest's noble performance, Harkevich charges the remaining Storm Lance, and promptly fails to do any damage with his charge attack. I then have a hard decision: I can buy additional attacks to try to kill the Storm Lance and get a CP (almost certainly bottoming out on focus in the process,) or I can camp up to dissuade Caine2 from shooting me to death. I opt for the latter, since Caine2 is still sitting on his feat. My opportunity to pull ahead has sadly slipped through my fingers, and I turn it over to my friend.


Cygnar Turn 4:
Since I was unable to score a CP last turn, my friend decides to spend this turn softening Conquest up a bit more, before making the push towards the center with his untouched Stormwall. Stormwall gets 3 focus, Caine2 upkeeps Blur, and Jr. gives one to the Hunter.

Stormwall and the Hunter dump damage into Conquest, softening him up a good bit but not taking out any systems. Everything else hangs back, with Jr. putting AS onto Stormwall.
Khador Turn 4:
I really needed that CP last turn to force my opponent's hand, but unfortunately I'm on the downslide now - I can definitely score a CP this turn (just needed to kill a Storm Lance,) but next turn Stormwall is going to roll up into my house and take my sandwich. After staring at the table for awhile, I come up with my best bet to save this game.

Harkevich upkeeps both spells (one for free, which is crucial for this turn,) gives two focus to Conquest, and keeps the other three. Joe then nobly volunteers himself for "fastball" duty, and runs as far up the table as he can. The Koldun Lord chips in by Ice Caging Joe in the back.

Next, the gambit: Conquest will try to 2-handed throw Joe into Caine2. I can move up just enough with Escort, and with Reach on the 2-handed throw (due to the core colossal rules,) I can grab Joe from close enough to make the toss. If it connects, that's a POW 18 damage roll on Caine2, and he's KD'd. Follow up with a Broadsides Main Guns shot against DEF 10 (5 base, concealment, Blur,) with a re-roll, and I can probably paste him.

Conquest moves up, connects with the power attack no problem. Joe doesn't even resist; he knows this is his destiny. First attack roll against Caine2: dice come up a 10 (need an 11 to hit him.) But I have Fortune! The re-roll is.....another 10.

Joe scatters wide, and my gambit fails. I clear out the zone, but next turn Stormwall walks in with a full focus load and polishes off Conquest. With nothing left that can hope to kill Stormwall (especially with an unfeated Caine2 floating around, waiting for Harkevich,) we call the game.

Result: Cygnar wins!

Thoughts:
One helluva game! Randomizing army components always makes for an interesting outcome, and this was no exception. We both wound up with less than ideal entries, but I think we made the lists work pretty well. The game came down to the wire in a couple of places, and we had very tense turns with such small armies.

Conquest ended up being my only 'jack after turn one, and he did a pretty good job. Once again, I found that the flexibility of having a good gun, Reach, and the colossal core rules is really, really useful: the threat of a Fortune'd shot to the head kept Caine2 really honest all game, and he was hesitant to move him up aggressively even due to the threat of blast damage (with no focus on him, boosted 8's and even 6's can chop Caine2 down in short order.) That gave Harkevich a lot of breathing room, and helped me not have to worry so much about Caine2 just gunning him down.

Conquest also ate a very respectable amount of damage before going down. After taking two turns of boosted 15's (and an effective boosted 16 from the Hunter,) he was still completely functional. Even without Harkevich's feat turn, I don't think Conquest would have been out any systems before the big melee, and with smarter/better Mechaniks support and a little luck, I think Conquest can absorb a tremendous amount of ranged attention.

Finally, the gambit that easily could have ended the game was only possible due to the unique statline Conquest brought to the table. It's actually really easy to run your own models up for 2-handed throw targets, and between walking, Reach, and Conquest's STR you have something like 15" of threat with that tactic! The POW 18 hit alone is a really nasty hit, and with their 'caster knocked down, they're easy pickings for whatever else you can get to them.

Overall, I think the Harkevich + Conquest pairing is a solid one, though it's not quite as awesome as I'd thought it'd be. Similar to Vlad1, Harkevich likes to have a few warjacks around, because Escort, Field Marshal, his feat, and (to a much lesser extent) Broadsides get better the more warjacks you have. In this list I felt like it was a bit of a waste, but normally I'd have Black Ivan instead of Beast-09, and I think that'd go much better. I also think you could fit in two warjacks + Conquest at 50, though you'd almost certainly have to have WGI + UA + Joe to back you up at that point against an infantry swarm.

Conquest evaluation two games in: really liking the big guy!

[PG_mad_dasher]

Sounds great- I'm definitely going to pick up our big new toy. Thanks for posting!

[John of Arc]

I'm sad the fastball didn't work out, but I'm glad that it seems to be such a viable tactic. I can't wait to assassinate someone with that!

[OrsusSmash]

I'm sad the fastball didn't work out, but I'm glad that it seems to be such a viable tactic. I can't wait to assassinate someone with that!

I was crestfallen when the re-roll came up one pip short. There is no more patriotic way to win a game with Khador than killing their 'caster by throwing Joe at them.

It'd be even more reliable with a Large based model to toss at them; either your own or the opponent's. Since the base is larger and the scatter distance is lower, you have a fair chance to still clip them on a miss. With a small base, you better hit because the scatter isn't likely to bail you out at all.

Devastators/Demolishers will be tossed in record numbers come July.

[blackleagionair]

grate battle reports . u did a grate job and i am glad u keep the fun in the reports . hope u do more bps thanks

[SevenSins]

Nice reps, and interesting to see some collossal action, am a bit worried about taking on these badboys....

[OrsusSmash]

Nice reps, and interesting to see some collossal action, am a bit worried about taking on these badboys....

You and me both brother. I keep trying to theory up an easy solution to the colossals, and I think it's a huge mark in PPs favor that aside from some of the community noted ones (Black Oils, Eiryss2 standing next to one,) there aren't any ways you can really shut one down. You can usually mess with them a little, but it's almost impossible to lock them down/out of the fight, and they're not at all easy to beat to death (lots of resources to commit, and there's only a few combinations in the game that can reliably one round them.) I think it's going to take time to really get comfortable fighting against them, and develop lists that are now "well rounded" enough to deal with all the current meta challenges, and now colossals.

Also: new batrep! As I'm trying to work through the whole Khador roster with Conquest, I decided to roll up a random 'caster from the pool of 'casters I haven't used yet with him. Survey says.......Sorscha1! I debated between two lists with her: a normal list with the usual suspects, and her theme list. Although most of Khador's "Forces" book theme lists are pretty junky, Sorscha1's theme list is actually pretty legit.

After oscillating back and forth, I decided to go with the theme list:

Kommander Sorscha

* Beast-09

* Conquest

Battle Mechaniks (Leader and 5 Grunts)

* Battle Mechanik Officer

Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts)
Winter Guard Field Gun Crew (Leader and 2 Grunts)
Winter Guard Field Gun Crew (Leader and 2 Grunts)
Winter Guard Infantry (Leader and 9 Grunts)

* Winter Guard Infantry Officer & Standard

* 2 Winter Guard Infantry Rocketeers

Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich
Widowmaker Marksman

This is a Tier 4 list with all the trimmings: free Joe, +2" of deployment, +1 to the starting roll, and 1 warjack gets and advance move (can only be Beast-09, since colossals can't move outside of normal movement.)

My opponent was debating between Pirates and Retribution. He decided to let the dice decide for him, and it came up Retribution. Here's the list he ran:

Dawnlord Vyros

* Griffon

* Hyperion

Dawnguard Invictors (Leader and 9 Grunts)

* Dawnguard Invictor Officer & Standard

Dawnguard Sentinels (Leader and 9 Grunts)

* Dawnguard Sentinel Officer & Standard

Dawnguard Sentinels (Leader and 9 Grunts)

* Dawnguard Sentinel Officer & Standard

Arcanist
Arcanist

Another theme list! This one was is only a Tier 2, but it suited his needs: free UA, FA: U on the Dawnguard, which leads to the Dawnguard spam above.

Scenario: Overrun, yet again.

Terrain:
One side of the table had a forest on the left side, and some ancillary terrain on the right side (a building, I think?) The center of the table had a pond, and a bridge going over it (as my one friend commented: the most expensive, useless bridge ever.) The other side of the table had a forest on the far right side, and a series of walls/columns on the left side.

Deployment:
My +1 to the starting roll pays off, and I win the roll. Since I have an extended deployment zone and I'm nervous about giving those Sentinels an extra turn to run into position, I opt to go first. I choose the table side with the walls and forest.

Pre-Deployment: Conquest takes up his usual spot in the center of the table (slightly offset due to the bridge/pond.) My opponent deploys Hyperion on my left flank in the woods, since its one of the few models he has that can navigate that chunk of terrain and he has a lot more Dawnguard to put out.

Regular Deployment: Pretty "standard" deployment for me. Sorscha is deployed to the right of Conquest to try and make use of the bridge. One of the Field Gun Crews (FGCs) goes next to her with a similar intention. The Winterguard Blob is deployed to the left of Conquest, as that's the most open area of the table and I'm going to have issues funneling that many infantry anywhere else. The other FGC goes on my far left flank, and Beast-09 ends up near them (hoping to use the walls for some cover as it moves up the table.) Mechaniks take up their usual spot behind Conquest.

My opponent deploys in three perfect lines, spanning almost the entirety of his open deployment zone: Invictors up front, and both Sentinel units behind. The Griffon ends up deployed in the forest to my left of Hyperion, Vyros on Hyperion's right, and the two Arcanists muddled in the lines, ready to Boost some Power.

Advance Deployment: I deploy the Widowmakers on the right side of the table, as far up as I can, knowing that Fog of War will make them a PITA to pick off before they thin out the Dawnguard horde a bit. The Marksman ends up near his cronies.

Before the game begins, Beast-09 takes his Advance Move granted by the theme list and moves up towards the walls.

Khador Turn 1:
Running time! Conquest is allocated one focus, Beast gets none because he's efficient and extremely helpful like that. Both FGCs run straight ahead to try and get into position for the rest of the game. Conquest runs up as far as it can. WGI unit gets Tough + Fearless from Joe, and they run up field as far as they can while trying to stay spread out because I'm cautious about a floating giant template blowing a hole in the unit. Joe hangs back after yelling.

Sorscha1 casts Fog of War, then advances and Wind Rushes to get onto the base of the bridge. The Widowmakers and Marksman advance up a bit; they're comfortably in Fog of War range, and he has to move into my shooting range in order to get anywhere.

Retribution Turn 1:
His turn is much more active. Vyros1 gives three to Hyperion (I think, my memory is a little hazy here,) one to the Griffon, and keeps two for himself. His deployment jammed him up a bit, as he ran into order of operations issues trying to get his models activating in the right order (wanted Vyros1 to cast Mobility early, but also move the warjacks out of his way.) However, the Dawnguard have it easy: they all run forward, clumping up into triplets for Defensive Line with the Invictors leading the way.

Eventually, Vyros1 gets to activate and casts Mobility, then moves in the forest up behind the Invictors (to hide a bit.) The Griffon runs up through the forest on my left flank. Then, Hyperion decides to get the game started: it advances up through the forest (2" faster thanks to Mobility,) and starts to try to thin out the WGI. The Starbust Cannon (love this gun's name) comes up an inch or two short of actually hitting (so no chance for an "eraser" crit thankfully,) but unfortunately for my grunts the template floats forward and catches three of them (turns out, spreading out your models is a good idea!)

As expected, all three explode, but one Toughs. However, his bravery is promptly punished as it is strafed upon many, many times by the secondary guns (since the poor guy is the only thing in range.) First blood goes to Hyperion!

Khador Turn 2:
There's a longshot assassination run on Vyros1 this turn, as he's close enough to freeze and Conquest can definitely get a shot on him with the Main Guns. However, I know I can't finish him without the Secondary Batterys getting range on him, and I'm pretty sure Vyros1 isn't within range. So I decide its time to try and thin this Dawnguard herd I have bearing down on me. Sorscha1 upkeeps Fog of War and give one to Conquest. This fundamental math failure will come to bite me later.

One of the most fun things about Sorscha1 is casting either of her 4 focus spells, and with his Dawnguard all kinds of bunched up right in front of me, I can't resist the opportunity to drop a Tempest on top of that cluster and cause some potentially delicious damage. Easy plan: move up, toss out a Tempest hoping for the best, then Wind Rush back to safety. So I enact the first part of my plan: move up, toss out a Tempest. It ends up working out pretty well - the Tempest placed short but scattered into the Invictors, killing 4 of them. However, I immediately realize the flaw in the rest of my plan; I have no focus left to Wind Rush, which leaves Sorscha1 hanging out on the bridge, in front of his army.

I resign myself to Sorscha1 getting peace'd off the table next turn, but I stick with my plan to chew through these Dawnguard. Now critical failure #2 reveals itself: because Sorscha1 didn't Wind Rush back, the Invictors now all have concealment against my Widowmaker shots. Not good. Thankfully, the Widowmakers shine through with 7's or better on all the shots, and 4 Invictors get pulled off the table. The Marksman shoots at the UA Officer (now no longer in B2B with anything,) but comes up short of killing it. The right most FGC finishes the job by shooting the Officer (why not right?)

WGI get Tough and Fearless again, then Bob + Weave up to pick off the few Invictors I can reach with CRAs (WGI sprays aren't going to do much against all the ARM 17 models out there.) After the smoke clears, there's two Invictors left; one normal guy and the standard. They pass their CMD check, but at least I don't need to worry about sniped shots the next round.

Conquest moves up as much as it can, but I critically failed a third time and penned him in with the WGI. After shuffling up the inch or so I can, Conquest tries to shoot at the Griffon but comes up short. The template floats onto it, and the boosted blast damage sneaks a few points of damage onto the field. Conquest then, for lack of other direct fire targets, drops Creeping Barrage templates across my entire front line. Even though the Dawnguard aren't really going to care about the low damage hits, I might get lucky here and there. Plus it was really impressive to see nearly a foot of the table roped off with auto-damage templates (I didn't cover more area due to the bridge placement.)

Beast-09 runs up to try and threaten Hyperion next turn, and the left most FGC shoots the Griffon. No crit, but the damage done shaves off the remaining field damage boxes. As we get to the end of the turn, I realize critical failure #3: I never shot Sorscha1's Handcannon. Probably wouldn't have hit, but it's silly to waste a free attack like that.

Retribution Turn 2:
After looking at the situation for a bit, it turns out I didn't strand Sorscha1 quite as bad as I thought I did: she was on the bridge (elevation,) next to one of the bridge walls (cover,) so her DEF was a mighty 22 against ranged attacks. With Hyperion unable to get to Sorscha1 with the aiming bonus, my friend decides its not with it to gamble rolling 17s, and instead opts to carve a chunk out of my army. No Sentinels died last turn (I was trying my hardest to avoid proccing Vengeance before I absolutely need to,) so no movement during Maintenance. Vyros1 keeps all his focus this turn, and activates early to feat, cast Mobility, and put Inviolable Resolve on the "front" unit of Sentinels. He then moves up a bit, still toeing the woods.

One of the Arcanists moves up and Boosts the Power of the Griffon. The Griffon then charges into the WGI, spearing the charge target (who fails Tough,) but comes up short on the two follow up attacks (one other initial, one purchased due to feat focus) thanks to DEF 14 on the WGI. That doesn't stop the remaining Invictor with weapons from charging in and killing one of the WGI, showing the Griffon how to do things and putting 1 focus on Hyperion. The "front" unit of Sentinels then charges into the WGI through the Creeping Barrage templates (6 rolls on them, but I need a 12 to kill thanks to IR, and don't get that lucky) to chop up the four or so WGI I have in front, and the remaining Sentinels from that unit run to engage Sorscha1 on the bridge (just short of charge range.) Despite some lucky Tough checks, the Sentinels carve up all of the front line WGI and fill up Hyperion from the feat.

Hyperion activates next, moving up to put a boosted shot into Beast. Although I don't expect it to save him, Beast is DEF 12 thanks to Fog of War. Unfortunately for him (and the models around him) Hyperion nails Beast with a critical hit! 3 WGI standing near Beast get scooped up immediately, and Beast-09 takes 9 damage for his trouble. The good news is: because the crit is a straight RFP, Hyperion doesn't get focus from those WGI. The better news: Hyper Aggressive will let Beast move into combat with the Griffon and Sentinels, making it harder for the secondary guns to hit him. My opponent shoots his right secondary gun into the FGC on that flank, and kills two of them (putting Hyperion back up to full focus.) He then opts to shoot into the combat with Beast-09; the first boosted attack misses everything, but the second boosted attack hits Beast and the boosted damage takes out his left arm.

The remaining moves of the turn are all positioning: the second squad of Sentinels runs into position for counter-charges and screening important models, although two of them manage to charge the Widowmaker Marksman (who leads a blessed life, because they both miss him!) The other Arcanist shuffles into a position to be useful in the following turn, depending on how things shake out.

*** continued below ***

[OrsusSmash]

Khador Turn 3:
This is going to be the feat turn for me as well, and I have a shot at giving Beast-09 a really nice set of attacks. Beast gets three, Conquest gets two, Sorscha1 keeps one for herself, dropping Fog of War. There's one Dawnguard Sentinel (from the Inviolable Resolve unit) preventing me from getting a perfect Thresher that will catch 5 or so Sentinels, the Griffon, and Hyperion! After that, I can buy additional attacks on Hyperion to soften it up for when Conquest gets a hold of it. So my plan is to have Sorscha1 feat to catch the offending Sentinel and the Griffon (to prevent a freestrike on Beast,) so I can pick it off with a WGI CRA.

Sorscha1 moves up to the spot she needs to be in to make her feat turn work out. For this plan to work she needs to kill one Sentinel that is blocking LoS to the left side of the table. She attacks the Sentinel, and whiffs. Buy another attack with her one focus; hits, but not enough damage to kill it (turns out it was one of the IR Sentinels, so I would have needed a 7+ to kill it on the dice.) I am very, very sad. Sorscha1 still feats to catch the Griffon (still have LoS thanks to a larger volume,) and it freezes the Sentinels in front of her, plus one of the Sentinels that charged the Widowmaker Marksman. Pure damage control on my part: I can't afford to risk Sorscha1 getting swung at by all those weaponmaster attacks next turn, and I can't kill them all at ARM 19.

Joe gives the WGI boosted attacks and I try to kill what I can: a spray into the Beast kerfluffle doesn't kill the Sentinel I need dead, but does pick off one of the "back" squad Sentinels. Now I'm on the "Vengeance" clock. The remaining shots pick off odd Sentinels here and there, and Joe's shot takes out the remaining Invictor with a weapon, but I can't get rid of the Sentinel in my way! Out of options, I decide to just take what I can get: Beast-09 activates, and moves into the best Thresher position I can get. Pop Imprint, just to be safe, and Thresher; that attack kills 6 Sentinels (5 from the "front" squad, one from the "back,") and whacks the Griffon for some damage. With nothing else to do with the other two focus, Beast takes two more attacks on the Griffon, scrapping it.

Conquest is next in the queue, but before I activate him I have the FGC shoot one of the Sentinels that was in the way of my best option at a shot. Conquest takes aim at a cluster of Sentinels which includes both UA Officers and three members of the "back" unit. Boosted shot, needing a 6 to hit; Critical Devastation! This ends up being huge for me: the Officer for the Inviolable Resolve'd Sentinel unit is tossed back 5", leaving the rest of the unit out of coherency. The other Officer is tossed back 4", but a 13 on the boosted blast damage kills it outright, removing Vengeance from the "back" Sentinels unit. The other three Sentinels are tossed back, with one dying from the throw damage. Satisfied with completely bailing me out of an ugly situation, Conquest shoots a Sentinel with it's right Secondary Battery, killing it, and puts down two Creeping Barrage templates with it's left Secondary Battery in front of the remaining Sentinels on that side.

On the right flank, the Widowmaker Marksman attempts to walk out of combat with the one Sentinel it's in combat with, but isn't lucky; he evaporates to a free strike. The Widowmakers are unengaged, and pick off four more Sentinels. Finally, the FGC on my left flank takes revenge against Hyperion for killing his crew by shooting it and doing 4 damage to the field.

Retribution Turn 3:
My buddy knows there's a way to get to Sorscha this turn, but it takes awhile to puzzle out how to make it happen. The plan: have Hyperion 2 Handed Throw Beast-09 into Sorscha, then have the one Sentinel that can reach her smack her while she's down to finish her off (a POW 16 followed by a P+S 12 weaponmaster hit will definitely do in Sorscha1 with her no focus.) This is made easier by Bird's Eye allowing Hyperion to do a straight shot toss at Sorscha1, ignoring the frozen Sentinels in the way. Vyros drops Inviolable Resolve, puts three on Hyperion, and keeps the rest for himself.

Hyperion moves over, grabs Beast (one focus for the power attack, one to boost to hit just to be sure,) and handily wins the STR roll-off. Measure it out, and Sorscha1 is indeed in range for the 2 Handed Throw. Boost to hit, needing a 10 to catch her; dice come up a 9, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Still a chance for a conversion though, as it could still catch her on the scatter. Again, the dice are kind to me and Beast-09 scatters away, landing off the bridge and on an unfortunate WGI. The WGI is splattered, and Beast takes a few damage from the throw.

The remaining Sentinels from the "back" unit run to get into a position to charge next turn. Vyros1 moves up to try and clear a spot for the one Sentinel that can make it to Sorscha: one of the frozen Sentinels on the bridge eats a Stranglehold to the back, and handily dies to the boosted damage. The "front" Sentinel unit activates, with the Officer moving up to get the unfrozen Sentinel in CMD range, and that Sentinel then moving up to swing at Sorscha. Unfortunately, he whiffs the attack. Everything else runs to try to get into position for a counter-charge, assuming next turn goes well for him.

[Rules Note: We're both kind of rusty on the CMD rules, so we just kind of played that out as best we understood it. Looking at the coherency rules, I don't think you're allowed to move a model that was out of command range anywhere but back towards the commander (since the unit activates all at once, and out of formation models have specific rules as to what they can do when they activate.) Ultimately it didn't matter, but its good to be aware of for the future.]

Khador Turn 4:
Time for me to see if I can end this game. Beast-09 gets three focus, uses one to shake Knockdown. Sorscha keeps the other three, as I'll need every bit for this assassination run.

[Rules Note: we totally forgot about it due to the flow of the game, but since Beast flew off the bridge, it's possible he landed in the water when he crashed down. I'm 90% sure he landed on solid ground, as he landed on a WGI that was on the solid ground part of the terrain. But again, something to be more mindful of in the future.]

Sorscha1 starts off by attacking the Sentinel who can threaten a free strike on Beast-09; one attack does the job. She then casts Boundless Charge on Beast, and attacks another Sentinel near her with her remaining focus (camping isn't going to save me if this goes south.)

Beast then activates, pops his imprint, and charges Vyros. He's able to charge to within melee range, but not outside of Hyperion's melee range (which would end extremely poorly) thanks to Reach. Charge attack roll: miss! However, Beast has an Affinity that I almost always forget (but didn't this time): re-roll missed slam and charge attack rolls! The re-roll converts to a hit, and Vyros takes 16 damage. Still kicking, Beast-09 buys another attack that crtically hits, and polishes Vyros off with the damage. If Vyros had survived that second hit, Conquest and the other FGC would have been able to unload on him, which almost certainly would have sealed the deal. All praises to Critical: Stationary!

Thoughts:​
This game went well for me, in spite of some extremely boneheaded moves with Sorscha1. Initially, I was very worried when I saw how many Dawnguard I was going to have to chew through, along with a Hyperion! However, I was able to pick at the army in waves, and I was able to prolong the melee engagement by not proccing Vengeance until the last minute.

The Widowmakers were a standout unit, and they definitely reminded me of why they're so excellent: they have an absolutely perfect suite of abilities for hunting weaponmaster/high P+S melee units, which are usually very easy for them to hit on the move and auto-kill with Sniper. Widowmakers have fallen out of fashion due to Stealth/very high DEF units becoming very common, but they definitely still have their place; they may become more valuable at a "meta" level if their prime targets start to show up more as "anti-colossal" measures.

Conquest was an excellent resource this game as well. While he didn't do a ton during the game, his one critical shot in turn 3 really saved me, and he was in a prime position to pile plenty of melee hurt onto Hyperion after my opponent tried for the 2 Handed Throw. I can also see how the Creeping Barrage templates could be very detrimental to an opposing army, just because of how much table coverage you can get. As noted earlier, my buddy was thinking of playing Pirates, and if he had, those templates would have shut almost all of his army down from turn 2 onwards.

Overall, another great game, and another positive experience with Conquest. At this point, I'm completely sold on the model (pre-ordered it late last week,) but I'm going to continue to run through the Khador 'caster roster with it, just to try out some thoughts.

[PG_StarmanTTLB]

Great batrep, thanks again for your efforts to test the Conquest out!

I really want to see Conquest unload into one of the other colossals in melee. I think it'll prove... amusing.

[OrsusSmash]

Great batrep, thanks again for your efforts to test the Conquest out!

I really want to see Conquest unload into one of the other colossals in melee. I think it'll prove... amusing.

Thanks!

I agree about Conquest v. colossal melee. Point of fact, in my most recent game, that probably would have been a pretty excellent idea.

And hey: I played another Conquest game recently.

This time up: Old Witch. This is one of the pairings I've been kind of dreading, because I've never really felt comfortable using Old Witch. I have a hard time making a list with her that I really like, and there's a lot of nuance and finesse with her rules, spells, and feat that I don't have the experience to use well. In short: I always feel like I'm using her wrong. However, the RNG gods say I need to use her, so thus it will be!

The lists:

Me -
Zevanna Agha, Old Witch of Khador

* Scrapjack

* Conquest

* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, The Seeker

4 Battle Mechaniks

* Battle Mechanik Officer

Great Bears of Gallowswood
Greylord Ternion
10 Iron Fang Pikemen

* Black Dragon Officer & Standard

Koldun Lord
2x Manhunter
Yuri the Axe

Notes: Very standard Old Witch list for me, with Conquest swapped in for the two heavies I usually have tag along (and the Mechanik UA to test my "Conquest babysitter" theory.) This list is more on the end of "hitting hard", in anticipation of fighting more dense models (beast heavy lists, and now colossals.)

My friend's list -
Artificer General Nemo & Storm Chaser Adept Caitlin Fitch

* Stormwall

Journeyman Warcaster
Captain Arlan Strangewayes
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator
5 Storm Lances
Storm Strider
Stormblades

* Stormblade Officer & Standard [!]

2x Stormsmith Stormcaller

Notes: Oh snap, Nemo3! This list is ultra dense, and pretty "lightning-y". Nothing too crazy in terms of list choices, though I don't see Storm Lances too often in forum discussion. However, Storm Lances + Arcane Shield have served him as a pretty solid "jam" unit that can also thin out infantry, and they're lighting dudes, so I totally understand why he went with them.

Also: my friend discovered the other day that his list would have been 3 points over (glitch with applying Nemo3’s WJP.) Considering the impact the Stormblades had in the game, we both agreed that he could just as easily take the UA out, and we’d be square. So if you’re playing along at home and the math doesn’t quite add up, that’s why.

Scenario: Outflank, Outfight, Outlast. As neither of us had Reinforcements ready (come on, War Room!!!), we opted to just play the scenario sans Reinforcements, but otherwise the scenario was played straight.

Terrain: Anyone remember the Gale Force 9 Cygnar lighting facility terrain? We used that, with the big piece in the center of the table, and the two nodes spread out around the table. Also a few linear obstacles on one side, and two forests on the other side. Fighting on Nemo3's home turf.

Deployment:
I won the roll for deployment, and opted to go second (more on this during the breakdown.) I end up on the table side with the forest, and my friend ends up on the side with the lightning nodes and linear obstacles.

Predeploy: Storm Strider goes down somewhat in front of the control zone on my right, Stormwall goes down towards the control zone on my left. I put Conquest in the slightly off center, because I don't know where I'll need him, but I'm sure he'll need to shuffle towards one of the zones.

Cygnar Deployment: Nemo, Kate, Reinholdt, and Strageways go over by the Stormwall. Storm Lances go on my right side of the table, with Jr. nearby (three guesses why!) Stormblades end up in the middle and the Stormcallers end up sprinkled around (I actually lost track of these guys for the first two turns; I think they were deployed relatively centrally.)

Khador Deployment: IFP go on my right flank. Pretty much everything else goes on the left side of Conquest, with Ternion behind everyone for cloud cover, and Mechaniks taking up their resident space behind Conquest (swear to god I'm gonna make a movement tray.) Yuri + Co get deployed in the center of the table, all the way up to the AD line.

Cygnar Turn 1:
Traditional running turn. Stormwall gets Fail Safe and books it for the zone on my left, with Nemo and his entourage shuffling to get behind Stormwall. Junior puts Arcane Shield on the Storm Lances and they run up the right flank to pressure the zone on the right. Storm Strider runs up to perform lightning over watch duty on the right zone. Stormsmiths run into various positions (apparently out of sight, because I totally forgot about them until turn 3 or so.)

Khador Turn 1:
My turn to run as well! However, here's where I make my second mistake: Nemo3's feat is scary, and I let it shake me out of making the smarter play (booking it for the zones to try and get traction.) The reason Nemo3's feat is scary is that this turn I'll be bottoming Old Witch out of focus, and I'm worried about her getting killed by leaps. In hindsight, I could have mitigated that enough to make it less of worry, and I could have made stronger first turn push. Hindsight, and all that.

Old Witch keeps all her focus. IFP move up in Shield Wall, and pop Iron Zeal to shrug off anything that comes their way. Koldun Lord boosts Conquest, so he can run up towards the right zone. Yuri runs over to the right side of the table to help out against the forthcoming Storm Lance charge. Manhunters run to the left side of the table to try and stifle CP gains in that zone later. Great Bears run over that way as well (hindsight: another mistake, I could have used them on the right flank.)

Old Witch slaps Avatar of Slaughter on Scrapjack (muscle memory here; should have put this on Old Witch for the long haul,) Iron Flesh on the IFP, she tosses out a Murder of Crows in front of the IFP to blunt charges/shots, and then she wanders over towards the right side since it looks like I'll need my feat over there. Ternion put clouds on Old Witch and Scrapjack, after shuffling up a little bit. I get scared about my Mechaniks getting BBQ'd by the Storm Strider, so I hang them back (too far back, it turns out!)

Cygnar Turn 2:
Pretty low key turn here. Stormwall gets one focus, which Finch doubles up for the old man. She also helps him out by upkeeping Fail Safe for free. Jr upkeeps AS on the Storm Lances.

Stormwall and the Storm Strider unload on Conquest, doing a pretty decent chunk of damage. The lightning jumps from the Strider bounce onto the IFP, and thus do nothing. Stormwall also kicks out the first Lightning Pod of the game, dropping in into the middle of the table for hopeful Triangulation shenanigans later.

Everything else runs/advances into positions to either be safe, or threaten my advance next turn.

Khador Turn 2:
Old Witch upkeeps both spells for free, thanks to her stick and her toady. I’m pretty sure the next turn is going to be the feat turn, and I’m worried about her getting BBQ’d by stray lightning bolts, so I opt to hold onto all of her focus.

My turn is likewise pretty tame. With Stormwall in the left zone I have no hopes of taking that anytime soon, so I toe one of the Manhunters into the zone to slow the CP gains. The other Manhunter and the Great Bears reposition to possibly threaten Stormwall, though I’m anticipating Covering Fire making that moot.

The Iron Fangs move up, resigned to take it on the chin this turn. Yuri runs over behind them to prep for a counter charge. Koldun Lord moves over and Power Boosts Conquest, while the Ternion fan out to put a cloud in the middle of the IFP (buffer against Assault shots on the Storm Lances,) and one each on Old Witch and Scrapjack.

Since the Storm Strider doesn’t have an ARM buff, I decide to start softening it up. Conquest moves over into range for the Mechaniks, then puts a Main Guns shot into the Storm Strider, which hits. Boosted damage does 10 to the Strider (!!!) and Conquest drops Creeping Barrage templates to muck with the Stormsmiths that are ninja’ing about. The Mechaniks move over and patch up all but 3 damage on Conquest, filling my heart with joy.

Finally, Old Witch moves over and drops a Murder of Crows to block a possible Storm Lance charge on Yuri, then camps the remainder of her focus. Scrapjack shuffles up. At this point, I’m really starting to regret not being more aggressive – I’m out of position for my feat to stop my opponent’s big offensive push, and now I’m on the wrong end of the CP grind. Not looking good already!

End of my turn: both zones are contested, no one scores.

Cygnar Turn 3:
This is going to be a big turn, and my friend prepares appropriately: Stormwall gets one from Nemo3 (doubled by Finch,) upkeeps Fail Safe (again for free from Finch,) and spends 3 focus to extend his CTRL area (since he’s over by the left zone, he’ll need the extra range to be able to get to the offensive push in the right zone.)

Stormwall activates first and advances into Stealth shooting range on the Manhunter in the left zone. He then fires the left Big Gun at Conquest, doing some damage with the boost, and then boosting the right Big Gun at the contesting Manhunter, exploding her on impact. Stormwall chucks out a Lightning Pod almost perfectly 4” away from the Great Bears (very good placement by my friend here,) and finishes the turn by dropping two Covering Fire templates: one in front of the Great Bears, and one in front of Scrapjack (not much else to cover in that direction.)

Reinholt moves over to let Nemo3 borrow his Lucky Charm. Nemo3 then activates, moves over, and casts Chain Lightning into the Storm Pod in front of the Great Bears, looking to zap them with the extra jumps. Thankfully for me, he rolls a ‘1’ for additional leaps, which is still more than enough to fry Volkov with Lucky Charm and the feat boost. Tough fails me, and now the Bears are stuck in the trees (though it wasn’t like they were going through the Covering Fire template anyways.)

The Storm Strider moves up and puts two shots into Conquest, which hurt quite a bit thanks to Nemo3’s feat and the one Power Token from last turn. The lightning jumps fry 3 of the Mechaniks and one of the Ternion.

The Storm Lances then charge into the Iron Fangs, and unfortunately for my opponent things do not go well: needing 7’s to hit on the charge, he rolls a string of 6’s, and the Assault shots all go wide as well. After everything stops sparking, only two IFP perished in the charge. Out of spite, both of the Stormsmiths wander over and zap one of the IFP each, cooking them handily with Nemo3’s feat up.

The remaining models run into supporting/safe positions (Storm Blades are shuffling over towards the right zone to back up the now dug in Lances.) End of this turn, Cygnar gains 1 CP.

*** Continued in next post! ***

[OrsusSmash]

Khador Turn 3:
Thankfully, that turn was a lot less painful than it could have been. Unfortunately, I?m now stuck in on the right zone, with little hope of digging out before I lose to CP creep, and the left zone is going to be pure damage control for me. At this point, my only hope is assassination.

I eyeball the table and see a possible opening: Nemo3 is behind Stormwall, but I might be able to run Scrapjack up close enough to Unseen Path Old Witch up next to the old man. If I cast Avatar of Slaughter on her, that gives me two initials + 3 focus to try and take Nemo3 out, which is doable since he bottomed out on focus.

After looking at it for a good long while (I was eyeballing it towards the end of my opponent?s last turn to start guessing if it was possible,) I resign myself to it not working out. Due to the big piece of terrain in the middle of the table, I don?t think I can wedge Scrapjack up far enough to drop Old Witch off close enough to get Nemo3. My only hope is that I can do some damage this turn, and maybe catch him next turn.

To that end, Scrapjack gets two focus to go punch the Storm Strider (mistake!), and Conquest gets two focus. Both spells are upkept for free.

Iron Fangs shuffle around in Shield Wall, and do what damage they can to the ARM 20 Storm Lances. Turns out: that?s not that much! (Hindsight: I went with smaller sets of CMAs here, but it probably would have been best to consolidate into one mega CMA and ensure plucking off one of the Lances.) Yuri then charges through the opening, and promptly fails miserably, doing 2 damage to his charge target, and none to the other Lance he hit (thankfully he missed the two IFP he caught in his Thresher.)

Next up: Conquest moves up and puts another shot into the Storm Strider, boosting to hit. I crit on the shot, but that?s moot due to the Battle Engines rules preventing throws (if it?d had been a warjack, that would have been an awesome throw!) Boosted damage takes another big bite out of the Strider, leaving it with 4 damage boxes remaining. Conquest then finishes his activation by shooting out the Lightning Pod in Scrapjack?s way, and dropping some Creeping Barrage templates to mess with anyone wandering into the zone.

Scrapjack activates next, and charges the Storm Strider. I immediately realize my brain fart here: I remembered that the Storm Strider bounces you back, but I didn?t really account for that when planning Scrapjack?s charge (for some reason.) The only angle I can make the charge with leaves me only being able to make one attack, which is really unfortunate, ?cause I need a 10 to kill with this one hit! And, just like Yuri, Scrapjack fails me, doing a sad 2 damage, then getting bounced back.

Saddened by my inability to kill the Storm Strider, I activate the Old Witch, who teleports Scrapjack back so it doesn?t get destroyed next turn (I need it for my only shot at winning.) Ternion cloud up the two of them, while Mechaniks continue to swipe damage off of Conquest. Since it doesn?t look like I?m going to get another good chance for it, I pop Old Witch?s feat this turn, though she?s too far back for it to really hinder my opponent.

I end the turn by walking my other Manhunter into the left control zone, and run the Great Bears wide into the zone, to try and force my opponent into having to make a tough decision or two.

End of my turn: both zones are contested, no one scores.

(Hindsight aside: This turn shows my unfamiliarity with Old Witch and what she can do. A much smarter play this turn would have been to have Old Witch cast Gallows at the Storm Strider (either through Scrapjack, or possibly directly with Sylas? +2? of spell RNG,) boosting damage and with Sylas? spell boost to help out. That also frees up another focus to put on Conquest, who could have shot the Storm Strider with its right Secondary Battery and possibly netted some extra damage there with a boosted 12 (and possibly with a non-boosted 12 if I get lucky.) On the whole, that plan is much more likely to net me the 12 damage I needed than the plan I cobbled together.)

Cygnar Turn 4:
Stormwall gets one, doubled by Finch, and Fail Safe stays on for free. This turn is almost all clean-up for him: he?s got an extremely good lead on CPs, and I?ve got no way to reverse that.

For the most part, it?s the same as last turn: Storm Lances swing away at the IFP, mostly missing due to Iron Flesh. The Stormsmiths kick in more lightning bolts, that fry two more IFP (my friend?s lightning rolls were on point this game.)

Storm Strider shoots Conquest some more, and this time the leaps go into the IFP from behind (*sad trombone*) frying a few more on each shot. The Power Tokens gained from its thumping last turn allow it to take a big ?ol bite out of Conquest, but thankfully my Mechaniks have been stellar in their Repairs, and Conquest is still fully functional.

Speaking of repairs, Arlan, not to be outdone, wanders over and repairs the Storm Strider for 6 boxes! Scrapjack hangs its head in shame.

Finally, Stormwall wanders over a bit and clears out the riffraff I?ve tossed into the zone to try and stall. End of turn, Cygnar scores another CP; 2 total.

Khador Turn 4:
It?s all over but for the crying: There?s no way I?m going to catch up on CPs, I can?t really stall him any longer, and Nemo3 camped 5 focus last turn so even if I could get Old Witch over to him, she isn?t at all likely to seal the deal. Time to kill a few things, and then gracefully cede the battlefield.

Conquest gets 3 focus, gets repaired for another chunk of damage (just for chuckles on my part,) and wanders up into the now depleted IFP squad. Since the Storm Lances are larger, I can see them over the IFP, so Conquest starts punching them. Several punches later (each hit killed one outright,) the IFP are finally free! To get revenge(ance), they immediately charge the Storm Strider, killing it with the third charge attack.
I then end my turn, having done pretty much all I wanted to do, giving the 3^rd CP and the win to Nemo3!

Thoughts:
Not a well-played game on my part, but a fun one overall. I let Nemo3?s feat spook me into being too passive, which really killed my ability to pressure the zones. Also, I think I would have done better going first, as I would have been able to dig into the zones early, which would have let me start the attrition war on better footing.

Not being aggressive absolutely destroyed my ability to use Old Witch?s feat to any good effect, which is damn near criminal because it?s one of the stronger ?tempo? feats in the game.

Positive notes: the IFP were rock stars this game though virtue of sheer tenacity. They actually held the right zone all by themselves, which leads me to believe that I way overcommitted on that side (which I wasn?t going to be able to take,) and probably should have sent Conquest and some other stuff to try and bully Stormwall off the left zone, or die trying.
Also, even though I misused her like whoa (didn?t do much other than upkeep Iron Flesh all game,) Old Witch definitely has some nice flexibility.

I liked having Sylas around a lot more than I thought I would; two free upkeeps allowed her access to her full focus pool all game, and Sylas? spell boost makes Gallows a really nice solo sniping tool. Granted, it?d take almost all her focus to do it a lot of the time (3 for the spell, probably one for a boost to hit or damage, and two more to bring Scrapjack home,) but when you can possibly sneak a crucial solo, it?s likely to be worth the investment.

As for Conquest, it was a perfectly solid inclusion this game. It was a powerful model that could have locked down a scenario zone for me, if I had tried harder to get it in there early (another reason going first may have been better,) and it?s gun forced all of his solos/caster to constantly hide behind the Huge bases, or risk a shell to the head. Conquest also could have given me a strong bid to punch out Stormwall, though that would have been tricky to engineer favorably (doable with Old Witch?s feat, but it?s contingent on a lot of factors.)

The one thing I had clearly demonstrated to me this game was that colossals are much like any other massive object: redirecting them is not easy. Similar to all of our ?jacks, but it feels exacerbated due to how big the base is. You really need to plot your course before you start moving your colossal around, or you may end up stuck out of position at a crucial moment.

Finally, the Mechaniks + UA were absolute rockstars this game. I?ve been wanting to see how much ranged fire Conquest can soak with that module behind him, and it turns out the answer is: quite a bit! Conquest ended the game with something like 6 damage on it, after taking 30+ from boosted shots from the Stormwall and Storm Strider. At one point, my friend said he just stopped shooting Conquest with Stormwall because it wasn?t worth it, and I imagine the only reason he kept at it with the Storm Strider was for lack of better targets (and it?s a really juicy base for jumping lightning off of.)

The Mechaniks are definitely worth the investment, and my theory for the UA paid off this game: when most his buddies were cooked by lightning, the Mechanik Officer was still standing strong, thanks to higher ARM and plenty of wounds.

Overall, another fun game, and a valuable learning experience! I really need to practice more with the Old Witch, and after seeing a Stormwall in person (the model is gorgeous,) I absolutely cannot wait to get Conquest at the end of the month.

[Kurb]

moar WE want MOAR!

[PG_Shadow37]

A much smarter play this turn would have been to have Old Witch cast Gallows at the Storm Strider (either through Scrapjack, or possibly directly with Sylas’ +2” of spell RNG,) boosting damage and with Sylas’ spell boost to help out.

I don't believe Battle Engines can be pushed.

[John of Arc]

moar WE want MOAR!

More we say, MOAR!

[OrsusSmash]

I don't believe Battle Engines can be pushed.

They can't, which is one of the reasons why that right zone was such a pain for me to try and dig out.

In this case, it's more of a math thing:

- My initial, hilariously flawed plan was to charge Scrapjack in, then teleport him out. Even with the bare minimum of focus, it's a 3 focus investment (one for the charge then two for Unseen Path,) and for it to be a realistic shot you need to dump 4 focus into the plan (for another boosted damage roll on the initial attacks.) In my case, I put 2 focus on Scrapjack, but due to the positioning of the models I wasn't able to get Scrapjack into range of not being bounced out.

In an optimum situation, you're looking at trying to kill the BE with two boosted 12s, which is doable. In my case, I had to kill it with one boosted 12, which was dicier (IIRC I needed a 10 on 3d6, which is "average" but no way guaranteed.) And to prove the point: I came up just short.

- In contrast, with Gallows you're tossing out a POW 13, so I would have only needed a 9 on 3d6 to kill. Plus, with Sylas around, I could have the faux-S&P on the attack and damage roll, which makes it that much more likely to succeed. With Arcane Extension (or whatever it's called) I probably could have gotten away with doing it even without Scrapjack, so I save the focus on Unseen Path.

So overall, Gallows would have been a much smarter play in that situation. Not always going to be the case of course, but it's important to notice screw ups like that when trying to improve your game. Lord knows I need to polish my Old Witch game up!

moar WE want MOAR!

The masses have spoken. I'll play another game this week, and hopefully post up another report on Friday.

[OrsusSmash]

So, StarmanTTLB previously requested some Conquest vs. colossal action. While I didn’t get that this time out, I was able to get Conquest into melee against something meaningful. The results were interesting. J

Another game, another randomly picked ‘caster. This time, the Wheel of Fate stopped turning at Vlad1 (Rebel 1?), which was a pairing I was interested in.

On paper, Vlad1 is a lock. He makes everything better, and Conquest falls under that umbrella. Plus, Conquest generates a lot of rolls, which is good for Signs & Portents, right???

Well, not quite. Vlad1 is categorized by a few things. First: he wants lots of rolls, so that S&P can give you a great ROI. Second: he’s a focus miser, since his three best spells all conspire to eat his focus allotment every turn. Third: his warjack support is kind of a one shot – if you didn’t do something awesome with his warjack(s) on his feat turn, you probably aren’t doing anything that cool with them the rest of the game.

Not a horrible pairing on paper, but not a match made in heaven, either. Add to that the fact that I find Vlad1 absolutely boring as hell to think about (even if the table results are usually satisfying,) and this was going to be an interesting game.

Amusingly, for this game I faced off against the same friend I played in my Harkevich and Old Witch battle reports. We’re getting quite used to these colossal, I guess.

My List -


Vladimir, The Dark Prince
* Conquest
* Drago
* War Dog
6 Assault Kommandos
* 3 Assault Kommando Flame Throwers
6 Battle Mechaniks
Gorman Di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist
Koldun Lord
Man-O-War Drakhun (+dismount)
2x Manhunter
Yuri the Axe


Notes: Confession time: the way I usually keep Vlad1 interesting is to take a bunch of stuff I usually don’t use. For this game, I dusted off the Drakun, and figured since I hadn’t used Assault Kommandos in forever, it was time they go into a list. S&P gives them a fair chance at doing their job well, and I could always have Conquest throw a WA at the enemy ‘caster for fun. What’s the worst that could happen, right?

My friend's list -
Kaya the Moonhunter
* Laris
* Ghetorix
* Gorax
* Pureblood Warpwolf
* Shadowhorn Satyr
* Warpwolf Stalker
Lanyssa Ryssyl
Lord of the Feast
Reeve Hunter
Shifting Stones
* Stone Keeper
War Wolf


Notes: This, right here, is the worst that could happen! No infantry for the Assault Kommandos to go after, almost everything has Stealth, and to salt the wound the Lord of the Feast is perfectly capable of eating the entire unit by himself. Kaya2 is bad enough to fight as-is, and now I’m playing her effectively 8 points down. Also: damn that is a lot of heavy beasts! My battlegroup has its work cut out for it.

Scenario: Supply and Demand.

Terrain: Nothing too crazy here. Actually, the terrain was really even: each side had a forest, a wall, and some generic difficult/concealment terrain, spaced out pretty evenly. Due to the nature of the fight, the only thing that really mattered was the wall in the center of the table.

Deployment:
Khador is the patient hunter, and the patient hunter waits.

Translation: I lost the roll for first turn, and ended up going second.

Predeploy: Conquest goes smack dab in the center of the table, as I have zero clue where he will (or won’t) want to be yet.

Circle Deployment: Kaya and her battlegroup end up lined up across the middle of the table. The Reeve Hunter, War Wolf, and Lanyssa deploy near the forest on his side of the table, on my right flank. (Note: I can’t remember if the Reeve Hunter has AD, but I don’t think he does. In any case, he ends up over here, whenever he is deployed!)

Khador Deployment: Vlad and Drago go next to Conquest. Koldun Lord is deployed next to Conquest for the first turn Booster, and the Mechaniks line up behind the big guy. The Drakun is deployed more to my right flank, and the AKs are on my left. Gorman is deployed near Vlad, to bro it up with him during the game.

Circle Advance Deployment: Stones are deployed in a shallow teleport triangle in front of the battlegroup. Lord of the Feast (hereafter LotF) is deployed counter to the Assault Kommandos, no doubt slobbering in anticipation.

Khador Advance Deployment: Yuri + Co. are deployed in the center, to give them some flexibility in responding to where the battlegroup and LotF end up moving first turn.

Circle Turn 1:
Simple turn: Kaya casts Shadow Pack on herself, Forced Evolution on the Shadowhorn, and everything runs. The Shifting Stones, unable to run due to their rooted nature, upstage everyone by teleporting forward. There's no topping pure style.

Khador Turn 1:
A parallel turn, wherein everything of mine runs (almost.) It’s like first turn of every game is spent running, or something.

Vlad keeps all of his focus, casts Blood of Kings on himself, and advances forward. The War Dog falls in line behind Vlad, and Gorman drops a cloud on him (just in case something really silly happens.) Drago runs up cautiously, and the Koldun Lord Power Boosts Conquest so it can do the same. Mechaniks fall in line.

Assault Kommandos advance in Shield Wall (they're in no hurry to get anywhere,) and the Manhunters fan out. The Drakun hoofs it up the table, ending the always thrilling "first turn jog."

Circle Turn 2:
Kaya upkeeps Shadow Pack (spoiler: this spell never drops,) and Forced Evolution.

This turn is likewise low key, as we're both still jockeying for position. Kaya casts the Stalker's animus on it, and it is at this moment that I realize I ran the Drakun up too far. Sure enough, one Stalker activation later my Drakun is dead, and the Stalker has Sprinted out to safety. I am very displeased, having given up the Drakun for absolutely nothing, due to being too aggressive with my placement when I didn’t have to be.

Hindsight Lesson #1: Table position is important, but it’s also important to not give up models when you don’t have to. Especially this early in the game! I’ll miss that Drakun quite a bit later on, and all I probably needed to do to not lose it was keep it 2-3” back. Double especially: if you’re going second, you can be a little bit more relaxed as you’re going to get the first chance to score.

Aside from that one casualty, nothing else really happens. The rest of his battlegroup army into position for a big next turn charge. LotF affixes a bib, and moves up to begin harassing the Assault Kommandos.

Khador Turn 2:
After tilting [Aside: I like this term; good summation of what it’s like to go nuts for a bit when things don’t go your way on the table] for a bit about losing the Drakun, I come up with a plan that I sincerely hope will work. The two biggest threats on the table are the Stalker and Ghetorix – if I can get rid of both of those, he’s going to have a hard time chopping through my heavy hitters before I can hopefully whittle his battlegroup down.

Looking at the table, I’m certain I can get Conquest to Ghetorix (my friend forgot about Boundless Charge and put Ghetorix up a bit too far.) However, after chewing on it for a minute, I’m equally certain I can’t get anything to the Stalker. Even with Boundless Charge, Drago would likely come up an inch or two short. However, I might as well get in there this turn; if I don’t charge this turn, he’ll do it next turn.

Hindsight Lesson #2: Don’t be a wuss! If I had moved Drago up a bit more, I would have probably been able to get him to the Stalker, and he’d have had a decent chance of killing it (bonus focus from the Koldun Lord plus Affinity.) That would have been a little risky, so I understand why I held him back a little, but I definitely should have been more aggressive with Conquest. I seriously doubt I could have gotten him charged on turn 2, and having him a little further up would have negated the need for Boundless Charge, which would have then left me enough focus to S&P. Drago being out of threat range was the bigger screw up, but Conquest being further back could have cost me as well.

Conquest gets 3 focus, Vlad keeps the rest. Vlad leads off by popping his feat, moving over, and casting Boundless Charge on Conquest and one of the Manhunters. The newly boundless Manhunter charges Ghetorix, and whiffs his charge attack. *sadface* The non-charge attack hits, but fails to dent Ghetorix’s Unyielding hide. Not what I wanted at all!

Conquest activates next, and charges waaaaaay across the table to get to Ghetorix. Since I need 8’s to hit, I boost the charge attack, which connects for over half of Ghetorix’s damage boxes! Woo hoo! Other initial attack, boost the to-hit roll; connects. Since I’m not likely to land another attack, I opt to boost the damage, and roll exactly what I need to kill him. Ghetorix dead in two attacks. Not bad big guy.

Unfortunately, that’s the highlight of the turn. Everything else is out of charge range, so the remainder of my turn is low key. Assault Kommandos advance up in Shield Wall for lack of anything better to do. Drago and Gorman move over (Gorman using a Smoke Cloud) to block LoS to Vlad to keep him safe from retaliation. Mechaniks run up just to be somewhere; Conquest’s sprint left them way in the dust. Yuri positions himself to counter attack LotF when he comes to dinner, and the remaining Manhunter runs over to help out with the right flank.

Hindsight Lesson #3: Be mindful of the scenario! I wasn’t fully aware of the scoring conditions for this scenario, and as a result I probably gave up a point this turn. If I was more mindful of how easy it is to score 1 CP in this scenario, I could have probably run a model in this turn to snag a point and give me an early lead. Scoring first is the best part of going second, so I gave up my biggest advantage here.

End of turn, no CPs scored.

***continued next post***

[OrsusSmash]

Circle Turn 3:
Time for Kaya to remove the large warjack that just pummeled one of her many wolves. Shadow Pack is upkept, Forced Evolution is dropped.

Kaya leads off by casting Forced Evolution through Laris onto the Stalker, then fading back a bit. She then pops her feat, and casts Primal on the Pureblood, and ends her activation sitting on 1 Fury.
Lanyssa saunters out of the woods and tags Conquest with Hunter’s Mark. The Pureblood then activates and charges Conquest. After a full allotment of attacks Conquest is down one grid, with some spillover damage on his right grid, and the Pureblood warps back to Kaya (next to a stone, so it won’t punch Kaya in the head next turn.) The Stalker charges in to finish the job, which it does handily after a couple of purchased attacks, and is likewise teleported over to Kaya.

Laris eats the Manhunter, who is now standing there confused next to the smoldering wreckage that was once a warjack. The rest of the battlegroup repositions to be safe the following turn.

It’s during this turn that my friend and I sit down and really read the rules on how to score, and I lament not doing so earlier. He runs the War Wolf over to be in B2B with my objective, which will score him a point this turn. The Reeve Hunter moves up to be in a more aggressive position, possibly prepping for “objective tag” duty the following turn.

LotF isn’t quite ready to much down on the Assault Kommandos yet (they were relatively far away,) so he advances up to prep for the buffet next turn. The Shifting Stones teleport to be able to teleport LotF if necessary.

End of turn, Circle scores 1 CP.

Khador Turn 3:
I’m kicking myself for not scoring last turn, but nothing I can do about it except try to get the CP ball rolling for me this turn.

Vlad keeps all of his focus. He leads off the turn by casting Blood of Kings, moving up to the War Wolf, and chopping it in twain with Skirmisher. Blood Boon triggers, which allows Vlad to cast Razor Wind for free at Lanyssa. One boosted attack roll later, and Lanyssa dies to a really chilly spot of weather. Vlad camps his remaining focus.

The Assault Kommandos try to validate their existence by running up to the objective. One model runs into B2B, which will score me a point this turn. The remainder of the unit stays behind.

Hindsight Lesson #4: I kept the rest of the unit back to try and have more objective runners later, but it probably would have been better to swarm my opponent’s objective. If I had done that, he’d have had to clean out a lot more models in order to be able to score his following turn, and I might have gotten lucky and been able to score two turns in a row. While the odds of that are really low, it’s a lot better than what actually happens with the unit next turn.

Yuri continues to shadow the Assault Kommandos, waiting for a chance to pounce on LotF. The remaining Manhunter continues to circle around to the right, to try and bait out/get the drop on the Reeve Hunter.

Drago minces around in my zone, trying to dissuade the wolf pack from just rushing my zone. Gorman drops another smoke cloud to help protect Vlad, and the War Dog shadows Vlad as usual. The Mechaniks run up in hopes of being secondary objective runners, since their main Repair target is now terrain. The Koldun Lord just kinda hangs out, as there isn’t a lot for him to do.

End of turn, Khador scores 1 CP. Score is tied 1-1.

Circle Turn 4:
Kaya upkeeps Shadow Pack, and I think Forced Evolution as well. The Primal’d Pureblood automatically frenzies, and clobbers the Assault Kommando in B2B with the objective.

My memory is a little hazy as to what the Circle battlegroup does this turn, as we’re still kind of dancing around each other. If I remember correctly, the battlegroup mostly repositions to be in a good spot to go at my objective/models near my objective next turn.

LotF has waited long enough for supper, so he decides to dive in! The Raven attack connects, which plops him right next to the unit. I foolishly bunched them up (total brain fart on my part, since they couldn’t have Shield Wall’d the previous turn,) so he chops the whole unit down. At least the LotF is set on fire from exploding fuel tanks.

The Reeve Hunter charges the Manhunter on my right flank, and just barely misses! I totally forget that dude has Powerful Charge. Oopsie! Glad my Manhunter remembered to duck.

The Stones teleport up to surround the objective, so that between the Stones and the Pureblood, it’s going to be impossible for me to get a model into B2B on my turn without some shenanigans. Great move by my opponent.

End of turn, no one scores. Score still tied 1-1.

Khador Turn 4:
Vlad keeps all his focus again. My plan last turn worked so well, I decide to do it again! Vlad casts Blood of Kings (needed the extra walk distance since I couldn’t charge here,) walks over to the Reeve Hunter, and slays him with Skirmisher. Blood Boon triggers, which is used to cast Boundless Charge on the Manhunter.

Time to try and stall this flank a little longer. The now boundless Manhunter charges the Shadowhorn, but whiffs the charge attack and is jiu-jitsu’d for her trouble (Shadowhorns KD models that miss charges or slam attacks against them.) So much for that plan!

Gorman steps up to do the thing everyone hates: Black Oil your best model. After advancing, the Stalker is just barely within Black Oil range, but it’ll still auto-miss due to Shadow Pack’s Stealth. Thankfully, the bomb barely drifts, and the Stalker is now covered in oil (probably takes a long time to clean that out of fur,) which means I won’t need to worry about it next turn.

Yuri has a change of plans and instead of charging LotF, charges the Pureblood. The charge attack takes a big chunk out of the Pureblood, puts a few damage on the objective, and destroys the two stones in front of the objective. This would have been a much more awesome play if I had anything that could make it in B2B with the objective. As is, it’s a great Thresher attack that I couldn’t fully capitalize on.

The Koldun Lord moves over to try and spray the LotF to soften it up, but comes up short. That’s okay though, because the Mechaniks are filled with BLOOD BOILING RAGE as they look upon the wreckage of Conquest. Knowing all the paperwork they’ll have to fill out when they get home, they resign themselves instead to a bloody, glorious death and charge LotF.

Two charge attacks later, and the LotF is no more! I’m as surprised as my opponent is by this; probably more so.

Drago continues to hang out, and the War Dog runs over to be near Vlad.

End of turn, no CPs scored. Score is still tied 1-1.

***continued next post***

[OrsusSmash]

Circle Turn 5:
Kaya upkeeps Shadow Pack, and drops Forced Evolution. This is the turn to make the final push, even with the Stalker out of the game for a turn with Black Oil.

The Pureblood activates and forces once for Regeneration, healing the Mind that Yuri shattered. The Pureblood then punches Yuri in the noggin, allowing Kaya to once again control her objective and score CP.

Kaya casts Forced Evolution on the Shadowhorn through Laris, and moves up just a bit to get her CTRL area where it needs to be for the next big part of the plan. The Gorax eats the Manhunter. Laris nods in approval.

The Shadowhorn activates, advances, and then leaps behind Drago in B2B with my objective. An epic grappling battle ensues, but unfortunately Drago’s axes don’t work well once you’re on the ground, and the Shadowhorn eventually applies a perfect gogoplata, forcing Drago to tap out. (What actually happens is that the Shadowhorn beats Drago to death, but this mental image is a lot cooler.)

The remaining Stone and Keeper activate, and teleport up to block the Circle objective. The Keeper tosses out a Rock Hammer (or whatever his spell is,) but it flies wide.

End of turn, Circle scores 1 CP. Circle is now up on CP, 2-1.

Khador Turn 5:
I’d like to tell you that I made a bold last stand here, and that Vlad went down heroically in a hail of boosted attacks, swords, and fur.

What actually happened is that Vlad tried to kill the Shadowhorn and failed, which meant I lost the game on my turn since I couldn’t unseat the Shadowhorn.

I could have prolonged the game a turn by running Mechaniks in to contest his objective and keeping him from scoring this turn, but it I would have lost next turn anyways with the Shadowhorn standing right there. I just wanted to take the goat with me!

Game ends with a Circle victory! Final score: 3-1.

Thoughts:
This game came down to my Turn 2, and my inability to kill or otherwise cripple his two big hitters. Between that and not scoring CPs early, it was all downhill from there, as I was unable to keep CP creep from getting me.

Conquest surprised me by taking out Ghetorix on his own, which was a little high on damage, but was buffered out in my plan by the Manhunter softening it up a bit. However, my conservative advance early on really screwed me when it came time to get Drago into the fray, and he ended up doing nothing of note for the rest of the game. Looking back on it, I wonder if it would have been better to just run him into combat with the Stalker? The Shadowhorn likely could have just tossed Drago out of the way, but it may have bottlenecked him a bit, and dice can always fail. I think the end result would have been better than having him noodle around for the rest of the game, then get tapped out.

The Assault Kommandos were a complete dud, and this game illustrates their biggest weakness: inflexibility. They’re almost exclusively “anti-infantry” infantry, which leaves them out in a bad way when you fight a dense list. Plus, high DEF/Stealth really hurts their ability to threaten the enemy.

That said, I probably could have used them more intelligently this game, or at least have tried to make their deaths more meaningful. But I also really would have loved to have any other 8 points in this list. I think Assault Kommandos work decently if you can cover their weaknesses with the rest of your list, and this configuration absolutely didn’t have that luxury.

Getting the Drakun killed early was a big muck up on my part. It would have been really nice to have him even one more turn. I actually messed up totally that round: if I was going to toss the Drakun all the way up there, I should have been more aggressive with Drago and Conquest, with the intention that not all three of them were going to get charged. I think the Stalker could have gotten either Drago or the Drakun, but definitely not both, and he may not even have had range to Drago (though my buddy’s list does a great job of giving him huge threat ranges between Dog Pile and Hunter’s Mark.) By putting just the Drakun up there, it was a no brainer, no consequence decision to eat him, and I didn’t even gain good board positioning from the sacrifice. Lesson learned.

I was really hoping for a more sustained game to get a feel for Conquest with Vlad1, but alas it wasn’t meant to be. That said, I can see where S&P would be effective with that many templates floating around, and being able to double the speed on such a big, powerful model is pretty excellent. It ensures you can get first strike in all but a few situations, and if you can use that first strike to kill off their best hitters, they’re going to have a helluva time chewing through Conquest (and then whatever you have following it.)
You could also use that speed boost for other shenanigans. I was debating the possibility of trying to “template” Kaya2 to death: double speed, then walk up and shoot nearly point blank with everything, boosting damage under S&P. That definitely wouldn’t tickle, and (I believe) so long as you can get within 4” of the target your templates can’t deviate off of them, so you can just open up and rain blast damage on them.

Another pocket idea I had was double handed throwing one of the Flamethrowers at Kaya2 (POW 18 hit + set on fire,) but that’s not so valuable against Hordes due to transfers. Still, I felt the power of colossal double handed throws this game for sure: it can be frighteningly easy to line up a throw with one of these big guys, and it could lead to a nasty assassination if you have the shooting to take advantage of it. Uh, and if they don’t have Stealth.

Overall, I definitely still enjoyed using Conquest, though if I was going to use it with Vlad1 again I’d probably take a different list, and maybe even a different approach overall. I can kinda sorta almost see bringing just Conquest with Vlad1, but that feels like kind of a waste. I may experiment more with that in the future; that Conquest charge was fun enough to want to replicate a few more times!

[OrsusSmash]

​***duplicate post, deleted!!!***

[Del Fuego]

Bump, for Zerkova! *shakes fist*

[PG_gabbadj]

Great reports! Try out Irusk2 with the Conquest using Fire for Effect. AOE 5+boosted everything=HAWT!

For your Old Witch game I personally would have gone crazy with Assassins and Eliminators since IF make them so damn hard to hit ;p

[OrsusSmash]

Great reports! Try out Irusk2 with the Conquest using Fire for Effect. AOE 5+boosted everything=HAWT!

For your Old Witch game I personally would have gone crazy with Assassins and Eliminators since IF make them so damn hard to hit ;p

Oh trust me, Irusk2 is definitely making the rotation. One note though: it's only a 4" AOE. FFE will still be sick on that gun though. With the bond and FFE, you can kick out a fully boosted Main Guns shot with 4 focus still left for boosting the Secondary Batterys. Should be very fun.

In hindsight, I probably should have stuck with something like Kayazy, just because I would have used them a lot more aggressively and been in a better spot scenario-wise. I'm still impressed with how durable IFP can be with Iron Flesh (and Iron Zeal with the BD UA,) but that doesn't matter that much when you're stuck outside your zone.

Actually, in super hindsight I should have sent the IFP over to the Stormwall zone. Even though they never would have gotten off a charge, they would have held that zone down long enough for me to get a foothold in my zone, and probably make it a game.

Bump, for Zerkova! *shakes fist*

She's in the queue as well! I'm very interested in seeing how she plays with Conquest; I'm assuming it'll work pretty well.

However, all of that is going to have to wait until I get my Conquest painted. I'm going on a proxy-hiatus until I get the model done (or I'll never be motivated to finish it,) so until then I'm putting Khador on the back burner for Legion (which I almost never use.)

The good news is: I don't think it'll take me too terribly long to paint up Conquest, and after that I'm going on a bender with my shiny new toy. And, I have one more proxy game to report in (Butcher1, woo hoo!) that I still have to type up and post here, so keep an eye out for that!

[John of Arc]

Oh lord. PLEASE tell me he made it into melee. I've only tried that pairing once, but under the damage buffs Conquest ended up one-rounding an armor 29 Centurion.

[OrsusSmash]

Oh lord. PLEASE tell me he made it into melee. I've only tried that pairing once, but under the damage buffs Conquest ended up one-rounding an armor 29 Centurion.

Spoiler:

Yes, melee happens, and it goes about as well as you'd expect!

[Khador247]

Last night I used ESorscha, Conquest, Behemoth, Beast 09, min Mechaniks w/ua, Sylys, Gorman, Epic Eiryss, Koldun Lord. The only model I lost was Eiryss and even her death was useful since Mulg moved out of position to kill her. Conquest romped. On ESorscha's feat turn I Boundless Charged it at a Mauler. With four focus thanks to the jack bond he killed both the Mauler and an Earthborn. On my opponent's turn he charged Conquest with a Blitzer and a Bouncer. They took out the left grid and did some damage to the right then they became frozen thanks to the jack bond. In my turn Mechaniks fixed Conquest's left arm and then he proceeded to kill both the Blitzer and Bouncer. In my opponent's next turn Mulg charged in and finished Conquest which I knew was coming because at this point he just wanted to destroy Conquest since Sorscha was far enough to be safe from harm. I had Behemoth waiting though and on my turn I Boundless Charged him through Conquest's wreck marker and he took care of Mulg. With no warbeasts left he conceeded.