022 Fiona Flame vs Zaal2 Exalted

ConQuest 2020 Masters – Round 1

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Mercenaries

[Theme] Flame in the Darkness

[Fiona 1] Fiona the Black [+27]

– Charger [9]

– Gallant [17]

– Toro [13]

Alexia, Mistress of the Witchfire [7]

Grand Master Gabriel Throne [7]

Hermit of Henge Hold [0(5)]

Morrowan Archon [8]

Morrowan Archon [8]

Ragman [0(4)]

Savio Montero Acosta [0(6)]

Thamarite Archon [8]

Thamarite Archon [8]

Order of Illumination Vigilants (max) [10]

The Devil’s Shadow Mutineers [7]

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Skorne

[Theme] The Exalted

[Zaal 2] Zaal, the Ancestral Advocate [+29]

– Cyclops Shaman [8]

– Desert Hydra [35]

Abidan the Keeper [0(5)]

Ancestral Guardian [0(5)]

Extoller Novitiate [2]

Hakaar the Destroyer [0(6)]

Immortal Vessel [3]

Immortals (min) [8]

Immortals (max) [13]

– Extoller Advocate [3]

Immortals (max) [13]

– Extoller Advocate [3]

Supreme Guardian [16]

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Turn 1A

Zaal is putting up Vision on SG and Sandstorm. I think my opponent was a bit too concerned with keeping the hydra within 8 of Zaal so it has ended up in an awkward position behind the obstruction. Everything else runs up. The arc node is behind the zone with the rock in it.

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Turn 1B

I keep stuff out of melee ranges, but don’t really care if he can spray or shoot me. I skew the heavy hitters to my left of the rock thinking that he wants to feat and jam Immortals into the circle zone and put the hydra in safety behind them. But my opponent has a different plan (more on that later). In light of what is about to happen I should probably have put Gallant a bit further to the right.

I am not sure why Acosta is placed so timidly. He is within a shield guard, and if my opponent wants to waste his arc node to snipe him out I would have been fine with that.

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Turn 2A

Well, my opponent did feat and run up his Immortals, but he completely surprised me by shoving the Hydra into my zone. He is outside of 10” from Gallant and has one Shield Guard with Abbadon on the flag.

One Immortal is contesting my flag and everything else is thoroughly contested. SG is toeing his square zone.

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Turn 2B

Unfortunately I only have a blurry picture of this crucial turn. Since it is Zaal2 feat turn and the Hydra is shoved down my lanes I know I need to go for it this turn. I also want to kill the one Immortal who is contesting my flag. Fiona will feat so I don’t care if I give him Vengeance.

So normally my available attacks would be Charger, Thamarite archon, Zira and the Morrowan archon. Theoretically I could feat and take the free strikes with Vigilants to get some extra pow 12 shots off, but I am still quite a bit of damage away from taking down the Hydra. I therefore decide to go for the Befuddle>Countercharge trick with the Toro CCing an Immortal. It feels a bit dirty, but in my defense I did explain it to my opponent before the game started. Obviously the Hydra dies with the Toro in the mix, but I fail to kill Abbadon so he scores his flag. I sneak in a Vigilant into his zone. I end up forgetting to activate the yellow morrowan archon. Yay me!

Score 2-1

Note that my opponent forgot to deploy the Shaman and just remembered midway through his turn. This is of course pretty disastrous for my opponent, but at least he has now deployed it in the back so it can contribute in later turns.

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Turn 3A

It turns out that I have walked Gallant within 8 of the SG so he can reach it even though there is a cloud in the way. Normally this is would have been a big mistake, but I have feated so I am not so too concerned. My opponent is of course not able to do anything about the stuff in my feat. Unfortunately for him he fluffs all the attack rolls on the Vigilant in his zone, so I don’t even need to trigger Roth’s Mercy to keep it contested. He contests everything and scores his flag again.

I suspect that my opponent is not too used to playing against Fiona because he also goes in with Hakaar in an attempt to bring down Gallant, but predictably fails to do any real harm.

Score 2-2

The Yellow archon is so badly out of place from me forgetting to activate him last turn, that is it hurts to look back at it.

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Turn 3B

I Chasten away Vision and kill the SG with with Gallant. Vigilants and the archons go to town on Immortals, and I land a soul shot on Zaal to clear his souls. Unfortunately the order of activation is such that he still ends up with quite a lot of souls. I am pretty sure I could have solved this better.

Toro clears my zone and the Charger shoots of the Novitiate on the flag. I actually come quite close to clearing the middle zone too. Unfortunately I am unable to clear the flag which Acosta is sitting on.

Score 3-2

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Turn 4A

My opponent goes for a desparate spell assasination, but fills up Alexia2 with souls in the process. I know I can survive a couple of hits since I still have Hermit, so I let him waste some fury instead of spening the souls straight away.

Score 3-3

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Turn 4B

I get a bit cocky here and decide to try and destroy his army instead of prioritizing what I need to do to keep my caster safe. I have two options, neither of which I do: One is to have Alexia2 save her souls and follow Fiona back into safety. The other one is to just kill the arc node.

On the bright side I succeed to kill almost everything and score two points.

Score 5-3

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Turn 5A

Well, it turns out that I have even been a bit sloppy with my facing, so the arc node is able to sneak into Fiona’s back arc. This means that Zaal can go for unboosted to-hit rolls, needing only 5s to hit due to Telemetry. It looks like he gets 4 nukes off and I survive on 3 boxes plus one focus. So it was a close call for sure.

Score 7-3

Turn 5B

I kill the Shaman to score three more points and win.

Score 10-3

Victory for the Mercenaries!