Battle Report 23: Cygnar vs Protectorate of Menoth

Greetings and salutations, swanophiles!

Long time no gaming, as they say. Christmas and finals and vacations etcetera. Let's get to the game instead.

I've played almost solely Haley2/Haley3 for the entirety of 2016, so I figured I could try something else for a change. Nemo3 is being talked about a lot in Swanworld lately so I was a bit interested in that. Stryker1 is another caster who's been mentioned increasingly lately. Hearing good things about Stryker1 from Patrick Dunford, and actually owning that model, I decided to go in that direction.

Theme: Storm Division
Stryker 1 [+30]
 - Hurricane [39]
Storm Lances (max) [20]
Storm Lances (min) [12]
Stormblade Infantry [10]
 - Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard [0]
 - Stormblade Infantry Storm Gunner (2) [4]
Journeyman Warcaster [0]
 - Firefly [8]
Captain Arlan Strangewayes [4]
Major Katherine Laddermore [8]
Bunker (Steamroller) [0]

Stormblades I hear you say?? Yeah I know, but they seem to fit well here. You get so many hard-hitting units this way. They're very good with Snipe, and they're good with Blur as well. You get two Arcane Shields, Iron Zeal, some models with natively high ARM to make sure the feat turn is a real time walk. Squire sure would've been cool but I think this is a better build than making room for it.

I know the Hurricane isn't out yet, but it seems so cool so I wanted to try the list with it anyway. It should work roughly as well with a Stormwall instead.

I faced off against Björn Wahlstrand, who used to be an aspiring swanlet but who betrayed us for the Creator of Man. He played Severius2.

Severius 2 [+26]
 - Reckoner [16]
 - Reckoner [16]
 - Reckoner [16]
 - Blessing of Vengeance [13]
Choir of Menoth (max) [6]
Idrian Skirmishers (max) [15]
 - Idrian Skirmisher Chieftain & Guide [5]
Vassal Mechanik [1]
Vassal of Menoth [3]
Wrack [1]
Visgoth Juviah Rhoven & Honor Guard [9]
Bunker (Steamroller) [0]

We rolled up Extraction.

This looks rather stretched out here due to formatting.

Björn wins the roll and choses side, and lets me go first as a result. This was a tough choice since the side I wound up on really was bad, but on the other hand going first is often great. The table we play on has a fair bit more disruptive terrain than we're generally used to, which I found pretty interesting. Terrain being relevant is good for the game, I believe.

As always, I forget taking pictures sometimes. This game I got pictures of the end of my turn every time, but I didn't get any at the end of Björn's.


Deployment

Okay so there's a big fucking house right outside the middle of my deployment. That's shit. This picture was taken before I advance moved my stormblades, do that in front of the Hurricane. The three carnivean-bodies pretend they're Storm Lances this game, so as to stave off the feeling of irrelevancy which came with mk3.

Top of 1 looks like this. Not much to say. Storm Lances on the left should've been more aggressive. 

Here Blur is on the Stormblades, Snipe on the Hurricane, Arcane Shield on both units of Storm Lances.

Björn advanced a bit too warily his turn 1. He killed one storm lance with his idrians, and damaged a second one. Passage out on the warjacks. 

Top of 2:

I've killed 7 idrians here, and got some damage into one Reckoner (the one next to the objective) as well as knocked it down. One of Rhoven's buddies shield guarded a momentum shot so he and a choir member was killed as a result.

I feated this turn too, of course. The plan turn 2 is pressuring your opponent really hard. I should've played all my units a lot more aggressively here, and more than anything I should've put my lances around each of the flags to threaten scoring on his turn. I'm too rusty.

Nevertheless, the feat protects my army splendidly. Björn gets very little done, killing just one Storm Lance which was too far away to get the feat. He stripped Arcane Shield from the right-most storm lances, but junior put it back.

This is after my third turn. I've killed the remaining idrians since Björn used them to try jamming my army, which really didn't do him any good considering how many leaps and lightning generators I'm running. I got 13 damage into his Bunker objective and scored 2. 

At this point I'm feeling pretty in command with a good scenario lead, and I've got a sniped Hurricane doing decent damage behind all my dudes. What remains of Björn's army is very resilient though, considering Hymn of Passage and Field Marshal: Oracular Vision. Luckily for me he's got pretty few attacks though.

Björn feels really pressured on scenario here (rightly so) so he sends his 3 Reckoners up to contest both flags. He uses Severius' feat and a Hex Blast to kill 2 Storm Lances and a Storm Gunner. The latter is really annoying considering his feat now creates dangerous clouds and shit, protecting his objective really well.

I fail scoring any points at all my fourth turn. The Hurricane spreads his shooting between the Reckoner on the left and the central one (the hole near Laddermore and the firefly). Björn has been very disciplined about keeping a focus to mitigate a heavy hit on each of his warjack all game so the grind is slow. The leftmost Reckoner gets disrupted by Stryker, but I forget to move Snipe to the stormblades. This means 3 shots rather than 8, so that's boring. 

Björn gets a little little work done in return, killing only Laddermore and 2 Stormblades. 

By this point the game is over more or less. Hurricane and junior shot down the Reckoner contesting my left flag. He also shoots Rhoven who gets slammed into my own Storm Lance, which dies. The lance had already killed the objective so it doesn't really matter, but I feel a bit stupid anyway. 4 Stormblades charge Blessing of Vengeance and kill it. I'm at 4 CP and Björn cannot contest.

So instead he decides to kill as much as he can. Severius goes in and whacks two stormblades, and the admonisher from his staff kills off lots more of them. He also hex blasts the firefly for 10 points. The poor robot gets finished off by Gius and the Reckoner. 

Victory for the Swans!

I'm not sure what to say for the post-game summary. I did quite a few mistakes, mostly due to not playing much lately. The list seems really strong, and Stryker1 surprised me. He's got a great feat, a disruption gun, good spell list. He's not very dynamic or active himself though, which is something I value highly. Nevertheless, the sniped colossal is great fun and the supertanky army I enjoy. Versus an army without Oracular Vision and Hymn of Passage I think the list has tremendous damage output. Momentum guns work very well with storm knight shooting, and everybody knows how much Stormblades hurt in melee anyway.

Learning points to bring with me, I should've been a lot more aggressive top of 2. I think I could have pushed Björn really far back, or gotten a great attrition turn top of 3 if he decided he couldn't back up that far!