16pt Cygnar vs. Retribution

Turn 1 Cygnar: Ran battlegroup towards the building, hunter veers towards starting army, strategy is to shoot at 14″ range and kite. 2 Half Jacks run with Hunter to create a mine field with the hopes of channeling the attackers into the kill zone.

Turn 1 Retribution: Group runs down edge of board, out of building kill zone towards mines.

Turn 2 Cygnar: Army is installed in building. Long gunners on all three floors, defender behind cover on ground floor. Hunter out in open, I think I took a shot with the hunter at an advancing ‘jack and missed. Two halfjacks turn into mines.

Turn 2 Retribution: Garyth casts ‘Gallows’ and draws my hunter into Melee and roughs him up a bit but don’t kill him. Battlegroup advances in forest between killzone and mines, but still has a forest to block line of site.

Turn 3 Cygnar: Hunter ‘thank you Parry!’ books back towards building. Siege runs towards hunter and pops his feat, repairing the significantly damaged hunter completely. Long gunners leave building (probably a mistake) to create a gun line to counter the approaching warjacks.

Turn 3 Retribution: Army advances right in front of building, maybe some attempted ranged attacks but nothing notable happens.

Turn 4 Cygnar: Defender, Hunter, & Long Gunners combined range attack work together to take out the Phoenix Heavy Warjack! Woot!

Turn 5 Retribution: No shy warcaster for Retribution. Garryth walks behind the defender, keeps all his focus, and uses most of his focus for something like 5 or 6 melee attacks (all boosted because of weapon master) and Garryth single-handedly cuts down the defender in one turn.

Turn 6 Cygnar: Panic! Instead of doing the right thing and zerging all remaining units and assassinating Garryth, Darius books out of the building afraid of the nasty 6xboosted melee attack from Garryth.  Long Gunners and Hunter attack the light jack, but the dead Phoenix provides cover, so the Hunter misses and the Long Gunners either miss or do negligible damage.

Turn 6 Retribution: Garryth runs in the building and takes out two Long Gunners with ranged attacks.

Turn 7 Cygnar: Darius tries to run in the door and smash Garryth in the face, but his fat ass won’t fit and he’s just 1/16th of an inch out of melee range standing in the doorway! I didn’t think about the larger base size interfering, doh! The hunter backs up to get out of charge range of the Retribution lights, ready to snipe them down but leaving my caster pretty much alone. The long gunners try and combined range attack Garryth, but a warcaster in cover is pretty hard to hit!

Turn 7 Retribution: Garryth comes out of the building and takes out the last of the long gunners.

Turn 8 Cygner: As Garryth is now out of cover, Darius advances into melee with him and bashes him in the face with his force hammer twice (burned through focus boosting attack and damage), leaving ONE HIT POINT on Garryth. Darius FORGETS to use his secondary weapon, a wrench!!! It probably wouldn’t have done the trick, but all I needed was one wound! argh!

Turn 8 Retribution: Garryth does his 5x weapon master instant kill on Darius. Game over!!!

Retribution

• Garryth, Blade of Retribution
• Phoenix
• Chimera
• Gorgon

Cygnar:

• Darius
• Hunter
• Defender
• Long Gunners

Thoughts:

• A warcaster that can buy additional melee attacks with weapon master seems amazing powerful and completely risky (I love WarMachine!). This increases my motivation to paint up Ashlynn D’Elyse, who might have a similar style
• I did good taking out the Phoenix… with its AOE fire damage, and its monster melee blade, it would have ruined my day
• I need to learn to better use (or not) terrain with my Long Gunners. I ran straight for the building cover regardless of opponent starting position and likely path, and this costs me at least one round of an active gun line against the advancing battlegroup. Hmmmm.
• This was a fun game! The Cryx game earlier in the night was more ‘learning about Denegrah’s venom assassination strategy’ than a full game. This game was full of surprises, both me and my opponent had to change strategies as the battle developed, and it came down to warcaster melee! interesting!