Slow Grow Tourney - game 4

Game 4 threw another pStryker list in my face, this time led by another of CGC’s newer Warmachine players. Sander took the following:

Commander Coleman Stryker
* Defender
* Stormclad
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts)
* Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team
Long Gunner Infantry (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Sword Knights (Leader and 5 Grunts)
* Lancer
Journeyman Warcaster
* Hunter

The Scenario for the last game was Sacrifice. I pretty much bricked again during set up leaving the Croaks to Advance Deploy closer to the Flag.










Sander managed to get everything on right on the edge of his deployment zone.

 

Turn 1

Everything ran forward towards the Control Zone with upkeeps and prayers except for the Croaks and W + S, who moved towards the flag.

Sander moved his ATGM and Rhupert around some intervening forest towards the flag. The Black 13^th, Sword Knights and Lancer entered the Control Zone with the Journeyman and Hunter in support. The Long Gunners, Stormclad, Defender and Stryker shuffled forward.

Turn 2

The Croaks entered the forest next to the Gun Mages and started throwing spears with little end product. My right hand GMP charge into the Sword Knights killing two. Everything else moved forward towards the centre of the table.

Sander then got his Sword Knights and Lancer to attack the Gators in the Zone only managing to kill one. The Black 13^th had a bit more luck as they shot down two more Gators. The Long Gunners then started taking shots at an ARM 20 Gator but couldn’t really do anything. The last action was down to the ATGM, but Sander ran out of time.

Turn 3

The situation in the Control Zone was looking a little bad for me so my Right hand GMP leader charged into to Knights and killed two while the other member of that posse killed another. Kaine the Wrastler charged the Stormclad but could not take it down. The other Posse charge the Long Gunners killing five but the last one stood his ground. W + S moved closer to the flag while staying submerged knowing that they would be prey to over half of the Gun Mages. In the final act of my turn, the Croaks failed to even hit a single Gun Mage.

Sander concentrated his efforts this turn on the middle of the board and the Control Zone. I took two Sword Knights and to kill a Gatorman after the Lancer had failed. The Stormclad hit back at Kaine but couldn’t do much to hurt him (I can’t remember if its arms were taken out or not). The Journeyman and Hunter moved closer to the centre while Stryker stayed hidden and feated. Finally the Gun Mages made a move on the Frogs but couldn’t do anything due to time running out again.

Turn 4

I started off with the Croaks who killed two of the Gun Mages at last. W + S moved up slowly watching the Croak/Mage battle while submerged. The right hand Posse (with only the leader left) polished off the Sword Knights. Kaine and his battle with the Stormclad was left unresolved for another turn after he lost an aspect in the previous turn (I had forgotten to heal him). Ray decided to declare a charge on the Defender but couldn’t scrap the jack. The Posse in the middle charged the Hunter and remaining Gunner. They killed the Gunner and put a lot of hurt on the jack.

Sander responded to this but there wasn’t a lot he could do with all of his jacks having faulty weapons systems. The Black 13^th took shots at the Witch Doctor to no avail. Once again, Gun Mages didn’t do anything due to time running out.

Turn 5

Again I started the turn off with the Croaks. The one amidst the Mage formation killed one, thus freeing up the others to throw spears at the rest killing one more. Maelok revived two Gatormen to help out in the Control Zone. Unfortunately, they didn’t even hurt the Black 13^th. The Gatormen in the middle spent the turn standing up after being knocked down in the previous round.

Sander got the Black 13^th to get rid of the Revived Gatormen while the ATGM finally felled one of the Croaks. His jacks still couldn’t give out much punishment.

Turn 6

My Wrastler finally did the job of dispatching the Cygnaran heavies much to my relief. It didn’t look like I was going to finish off the Lancer so Maelok feated and Revived a Gatorman allowing the right hand Posse to charge past the Lancer and kill the Black 13^th. W + S finished off the ATGM between them. The Croak turned around and caused a couple of points of damage on the Hunter. My last roll of the dice saw the other Posse charge the Lancer (still could not finish him off) and Stryker himself. I remember missing with the both Gator’ charge attacks, but they both made their second. Sadly, they didn’t kill him.

Sander was definitely in panic mode now. Games were finishing around us and Stryker had two gators in his face. So he activated Stryker first and took down one of the Gators. No sooner had that happened, then ‘Dice Down’ was called.

We totalled up the number of points destroyed as neither of us scored any control points.  I scored more and claimed victory.

This was one of heck of a grind. When both of our heavies took damage, which limited them in dishing out the pain, the game was definitely going to a tie-break. I can’t remember whether I had not healed my beasts or was worried about Fury management, or both.

I think what let Sander down was his indecision. He was taking a little too long to make up his mind about what to do which often meant running out of time. One of the things that would have helped him out was activating the ATGM. That would have really given me something to worry about and helped with scenario play.