168 Fiona1 Irreg vs Karchev2 Jaws
30.04.2022, RheinCon 2022, Team tournament, Round 1
We were three people from our gaming club at the convention so naturally we had to enter the three man tournament. The TO assigned us the fabulous team name ‘The Nordic Walkers’. We didn’t fiddle too much around with the list composition since I only had my two pre-planned lists and my teammates were pretty much locked into Gearhart1 and Issyria1. We ended up with the following comp:
Our team:
Mercs: Fiona1 / Ossrum1
CG: Gearhart1 / Syvestro1
Retribution: Issyria1 / Garryth1
Their team:
Khador: Karchev2 / Zerkova1
CoC: Lucant1 / Iron Mother1
Grymkin: Heretic1 / Wanderer1
We lose the roll off and they put up Khador. I don’t want to face the Lucant matchup so we give them the choice between me and our Ret player. They choose me for the Khador match and we choose Ret vs CoC and CG vs Grymkin. All in all we got the pairing as we wanted, but in hindsight we may have been better up off if we had swapped the two other matchups due to the Defiled archons and Neighslayers being pretty decent into Gearhart.
Fiona1, Irregulars
- Mariner
- Mangler
Nemo4
- Freebooter
Gaspy4
- Shrike
Anastasia
Kell
Commodore cannon
Kayazy Eliminators
Hermit
Hutchuk
vs
Karchev2, Jaws of the Wolf
- Behemoth
- 2x Devastator
- 2x Juggernaut
Sorcha0
- Rager
Mechanics
2x Kossites
Yuri the Axe
2x Kayazy Eliminators
Deployment
I get the first turn and my opponent takes the side with the wall. I forget about the two units of Kossites end deploy my cannon on a flank.
Turn 1A
Just running forward with stuff. The Cannon starts making its way towards the center, but I know he is never going to make it in time..
Turn 1B
Opponent puts DW up on a Devastator and runs up. Behemoth is very aggressively placed in the center in front of the wall.
Turn 2A
I Befuddle in Behemoth and send in the Freebooter and Mangler. I know I am kind of trading 24 points for a 20 point Behemoth, but I couldn’t play around a 14” threating Behemoth, pre-feat at that aggressive location. Gaspy takes a position where he will be able to clean up whatever comes in to kill the Freebooter and Mangler. I also put up some clouds to shield them from the Juggernaught and Devastator on the left. But in hindsight this didn’t look very effective and I should probably have put them in front of Karchev and the rightmost Juggernaut instead, or alternatively used them to get a better position for the Mariner on the left side.
Turn 2B
Karchev does not feat. The Jugger and the Rager go in, but fail to kill the Freebooter and also leave the Mangler still operational. But the Mechanics do charge in and manage to get the Freebooter, though this does not allow for a Meat for the Beast trigger.
.
The Kossites on the right come in and destroy my cannon.
Score 0-0
Turn 3A
Gaspy, Mangler, Gudrun and some Boomhowler manage to clear the center zone and flag. Fiona feats and I do some basic contesting on the sides.
Score 2-0
Turn 3B
Karchev goes in and clears out Gaspy and the Mangler (who was already quite beat up) through Fiona’s feat. Rain of Death makes short work of my contesting Kayazy on the left side. I have a Roth’s Mercied Boomhowler in the right hand zone contesting together with the objective.
The other unit of Kossites come in and start dealing a un-healthy amount of damage to Nemo4.
Score 2-1
Turn 4A
I clear the Manhunter who was contesting the central zone and flag. The Mariner goes in to contest the left zone and deals some decent damage to the Juggernaut.
Fiona struggles to find a safe spot between Kill box, Karchev, Kossites and the Jugger/Devastator duo. I conclude that I will need to be inside threat of something and end up going outside of 15” of Karchev, but inside 14” of the Devastator. Looking at how the turn shaped up in the end this was clearly the wrong decision since there is a lot of stuff between Fiona and Karchev and basically a clear charge lane from the Devastator.
Score 4-1
Turn 4B
At this point I have basically handed the game over to my opponent on a silver platter. Karchev feats and the Devastator Bulldozes the Mariner away and makes short work of Fiona.
Sadly, a loss for the Mercenaries
:: Evaluation ::
Oh well, it was a bit annoying to get assassinated like that at the last minute, but it was my own mistake and I did play pretty well up until then. I am still pretty confident with the Fiona matchup into Karchev2 in Khador even though I have managed to lose both times I have played it. But with a bit better clock management / threat awareness and maybe a bit more live scenario I am sure I will get the win next time.
Our Retribution player won his game comfortably, but CG ended up losing his game. We don’t have any active Grymkin players in our meta at the moment and we realized that we at least need to pay attention to which new tools the faction has gained over the last year or two.