116 Ashlynn1 FitD vs Kraye1 SoT
04.10.2021
My opponent brought a fresh new Kraye list in Sons of Tempest for a couple of Brawlmachine games. With the recent buff to the Centurions and a bunch of models soon gaining Pistoleer in SoT I have to say I am quite enthusiastic about his list. I decided to make a scaled down version of the Ashlynn list I played the other day.
Mercenaries, Flame in the Darkness
Ashlynn1
- Gallant
- Ironclad
Precursor Knights + UA
Alexia2
Acosta
vs
Cygnar, Sons of Tempest
Kraye1
- Centurion
- Ironclad
Black 13th
Bastian Falk
Caine0
- Ace
Deployment
Kraye gets first turn and I choose the side with the least obstructions. I should probably have taken the other side because I am playing against a gun line and restricted terrain isn’t as much of a problem in Brawl as it is in 75p.
Turn 1A
The heavies trample up and repos. FFE goes up on Bastian and the rest just runs. I don’t have so many guns in my list, so my opponent is pretty much able to claim as much board space as he can.
Turn 1B
This is a bit of a complicated setup for me. My heavies stay 14” away from the Centurion – that part was easy. Acosta stays far far away from the Ironclad. But I don’t want to keep him too far back, so I decide to risk it and go for the trench. If I stand at the back edge of the trench I will be just outside of aiming range for Ace so it will be RAT 7 against DEF 19, which gives him a 37.5% probability to get the boosted 12 to hit.
The Precursor knight placement is a bit more tricky. I want them to be relevant, but not get just immediately shot down by the B13s. I decide to go for a shield wall to try and force my opponent to go for Brutal damage shots instead of staying back with snipe. The cloud is a bit of an issue for me but at the time I was anticipating the B13s to have to toe in to see me, completely forgetting that they all have True Sight.
Turn 2A
I also kind of forget about Kraye’s rifle which it turns out is pretty good with RoF 2 and Rng 13. He kills off two PKs. Ryan from the B13s steps forward while Lynch and Watts stay back. One of the shots fails to break armour, but the other kills one of the PKs on the far right flank.
Ace decides not to go for the shot on Acosta and instead walks over to pop a shot at Gallant. A line of play I can see now that my opponent could have taken was to move Fire For Effect over on Ace to get the additional dice on the hit roll against Acosta to make it a 12 on four dice (76%).
The Ironclad with Admonition runs up to threaten the left side of the house. The Centurion just stays outside of 12” of Gallant to avoid any Trample shenanigans. Not that he should be afraid of potentially taking two P+S 18 hits, but he still contests and threatens the whole zone next turn so there is no reason for him to expose himself.
Turn 2B
Ashlynn feats and makes a fake charge up field. Gallant runs up and the PKs try to converge inwards in order to benefit better from the feat. I get one charge off on Ryan which kills her.
Alexia makes a couple of Thrall warriors. One of them runs to the flag while the other stays back for next turn.
My Ironclad with Admonition runs up to my opponent’s Ironclad with Admonition. We have a good laugh about the interaction where his Admonition could trigger my Admonition and we would just walk past each other. My opponent decides to not take the trigger. I have no idea what is best for him here. He can force the engagement by walking into melee, but then he is trying to punch through my feat which isn’t very likely to kill or even cripple my jack. He could Amonition further into my back field, but then he essentially trades his Ironclad for my objective or in best case scenario Acosta – neither of which seems like very good options. To be honest I didn’t consider these options too much when I ran up, but it seems to me like it was a decent move. Likewise I think my opponent was right to not trigger Admonition.
Score 1-0
Turn 3A
Bastian Falk gets a great spray and the rest of his shooting kill all but one PK from outside Ashlynn’s feat. The Ironclad walks back to toe the zone and puts up Polarity Field. My opponent makes a nice play where he shoots Caine’s thunderbolt shot at my Ironclad to get some space between us. The Ironclad runs back.
I think my opponent needed to divert a couple of shots to try and shoot my Thrall Warrior off the flag. He could probably have gotten there with one of the B13th without going into Ashlynn’s feat.
Score 2-1
Turn 3B
I notice that if I Quicken the Gallant I will be able to walk up and try and throw the Centurion out of the zone. It is by no means a guarantee since I am STR 11 vs the Centurion’s STR 12 and I only have one open fist. But I figure that it is worth the risk since this will force my opponent to deal with Gallant instead of running around and score points. As it turns out Gallant wins the strength check and throws the Centurion out of the zone.
Now I have a golden opportunity to win the game since I only need to destroy the objective (which I do with the last remaining PK and a couple of Thrall Warriors) and contest my oppontent’s flag. I need to be careful on how I contest however, since I risk triggering Admonition and have my opponent’s Ironclad just walk in and contest the central zone. But I find a spot which blocks all possible 3” lanes to the zone and end the turn scoring the three CP I need.
Maybe my opponent could have gone for the Admonition Admonition off Gallant’s movement. I suppose it could be argued that I should have ran the Ironclad first to shut down this line of play, but then again I wouldn’t have known that the throw would have succeeded.
Score 5-1
Victory for the Mercenaries!
:: Evaluation ::
This was a fun game where I got a nice scenario win, but didn’t really kill anything from my opponent’s army except the objective and one of the B13th. To me it seems that some of the scenarios in Brawl are very easy to rush. But then on the other hand you have scenarios like Syzygy with a central circular zone and a flag way over in the back which is quite slow.