Fiona TC vs Aurora2 SB

[Theme] Talion Charter

[Fiona 1] Fiona the Black [+27]

– Freebooter [9]

– Mariner [14]

Master Gunner Dougal MacNaile [4]

Powder Monkey [0(2)]

Swamp Gobber River Raider [1]

Lady Aiyana & Master Holt [8]

Press Gangers (min) [7]

Scharde Dirge Seers [0(6)]

Sea Dog Deck Gun [0(3)]

Sea Dog Pirates (min) [7]

– Mr. Walls, the Quartermaster [4]

– Sea Dog Pirate Rifleman (3) [3]

The Commodore Cannon & Crew [7]

[Theme] Strange Bedfellows

[Aurora 2] Archnumen Aurora [+27] (Lucant)

– Corollary [6]

– Tesselator [7] (Eradicator)

Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex [2]

Prefect Hypatia [5] (Aurora1)

Void Archon [8] (Kitbashed flying menoth dude)

Asphyxious the Sanctified [14] (Menite archon)

– Stalker [8] (Galvanizer)

Negation Angels [0(6)] (Clockwork angels)

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Turn 1A:

Fiona gets first turn. Roth’s Mercy on Sea Dogs and Occultation on central Freebooter

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Turn 1B:

Aurora splits her army in two, Arcane Propulsion on one Tessalator, Ascension command goes up and everything stays within 9” and in cover or concealment. Wall and angels stand in the way for good Befuddle landing spots.

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Turn 2A:

Fiona gets a lucky 12 to hit Gaspy behind the wall. Dougal minifeats to let the two Mariners shoot 14” while staying out of his 13” threat. Needing 12s and 14s both Mariners manage to hit and deal 9 boxes combined, leaving Gaspy on 7.

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Turn 2B:

Aurora opts to not go for the Freebooter in the zone since it would cost her feat to do so. Instead everything more or less stays in place and ADO goes to score the flag. A Tesselator shoots out the Swamp Gobber on the flag and is Spirit Doored back. I am a dumb ass and forget to Sac pawn.

Score: Fiona 0 – Aurora 2

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Turn 3A:

With Double powder rations gone the Mariners can only shoot 12”, which means that both Gaspy and the Negation can charge them if they don’t kill their target (which is pretty likely when they are def 19 / 20 behind cover). Instead the cannon shoots ADO off the flag and the Mariners aim to kill two of the murder bots in cover allowing me to score my zone. I make a mistake here by having my blue Mariner aim since this leaves him within 17” of Aurora and within 18” of the speed buffed Tessalator. More on that later.

Score: 3-2

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Turn 3B:

My opponent retaliates by moving Aurora up, casting HoD on my blue Mariner, shooting for a bunch of damage and moving back using Spirit Door. The AP’ed Tessaletor shoots, boosts and reloads, and when the dust settles my Mariner is left on 8 boxes. One of the fair and balanced Void Archons kills the Roth’s Mercy’d pirate in the zone and the monkey on the flag before porting back into the Ascension Command bubble. I forget to Sac pawn again, but at least the Catastrophic explosion kills an angel and deals some damage on a Tesselator.

My opponent is out of throwaway solos and decides to not score the flag. More importantly he decides to push his angels up forcing me to commit next turn. We discussed after the game that he could just have done the same last turn which would have denied me the free 3 point turn.

Score: 3-3

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Turn 4A:

Fiona walks up, feats and befuddles the forward Tesselator in his square zone. The Freebooter slams him into the blob of angels but unfortunately only kills one. It takes most of my shooting just to get rid of the murder bot in my zone.

Score: 5-3

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Turn 4B:

Aurora feats and even through Fiona’s Feat she kills the two Freebooters, finishes the beat-up Mariner and takes the black Mariner to less than 10 boxes. She scores her zone and a new murder bot contests mine.

It is worth noting that some of the Tesselators could shoot from outside Fiona’s feat. I could have avoided this if all but the Occultated Freebooter would have stayed within 5” of Fiona. However, then I would not have killed the Tesselator and angel last turn so I am not sure if it would have been a better play.

Score: 5-4

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Turn 5A:

Press gangers ambush in and kill the Befuddled Tesselator on my flag. Holt and the black Mariner beat up a Void Archon and Hypatia. Dirge seers hex bolt some angels, and the purple Mariner kills a Stalker. I make another mistake by leaving him within Gaspy’s threat range believing that I cannot escape it. But I would have been able to stay outside since it is now down to 11” since Aurora2’s feat is gone. We decide to not roll back since the game is basically over anyway. It is also worth noting that Aurora probably played to passively this turn so her army couldn’t benefit from her battle directives (5” repos + dodge was chosen). This gave me some good thresher and blast damage opportunities, but still needed some good hit rolls to benefit from it so it didn’t happen.

Score: 7-4

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Turn 5B

Aurora cleans up the rest of my army and scores three points. It is worth noting that the Press Gangers are almost completely wiped out by Aurora and one Tesselator alone under HoD.

Score: 7-7

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Turn 6A

The cannon doesn’t get the 9 to slam Aurora out of the trench, so the caster kill is off the table. Game ends with Aurora killing Fiona bottom of Turn 6. But with this massive attrition lead she could have won by any win condition.

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Red

Nothing

Orange

Aurora2: When played in an all-flying list the Battle Directives become almost feat level effects. In this game the -3 RNG no blast was very oppressive. Combined with feat and Apparition it gives Aurora2 a 7” range swing compared to my shooting. For battle group models you also need to factor in Arcane Propulsion. For example in this game my Mariners can shoot 12” (and 14” during Dougal’s minifeat), but Angels threat 14.5” and Gaspy4 threats 13” in melee. This gives me one turn to shoot at Gaspy. Angels already out threat my shooting and I would need 11 to hit assuming no cover.

The Talion Charter should in theory be a relevant comparison to gage where the power level should be at since we had a fairly recent CID. But comparing the ranged output of a Mariner (14 pts) with two Tesselators (2×7 pts) it is not difficult to see which stands out as the better option.

Possible solutions:

Remove the Flying High part of the Battle Directives
Change feat damage buff to melee only
Inertial Destabilizer should be reduced to POW 11.

Yellow

Negation Angels: It may be the combination of models that makes them problematic, but the combination of 14.5” melee threat, MAT 8 and POW 18 is a bit much for a flying model with DEF 16 vs shooting, flying high and blast immunity. Removing Gang would be a good start.

Hypatia: See comments about Angels and Aurora2 above regarding threat ranges. One possible fix could be to change the Apparition aura to affect only one unit.

Tesselator: Too high damage output factoring in all the buffs available in this list. Again, it is very possible that the problem could be Aurora and it may be enough to limit her feat to affect melee damage only. Removing reload would be a good start.

Green

Gaspy4: Performed well by denying board space and providing infinite contest models. Even got to kill a heavy late game, but that could have been avoided with better play. My early dice spikes proved that he is absolutely killable, and the threat of Befuddle kept him honest during the game.

Strange bedfellows: Not the most exciting theme force, but it is good for Aurora2 and essential if you want to play her in Mercs. The Swift vengeance benefit didn’t come up during our game. I could see Negation Angels being removed from the list of Req point options.

*** Not tested ***

ADO: Scored the flag Turn 2 and received a cannonball to the face for his troubles.

001 Fiona TC vs Aurora2 SB (CID)

Fiona TC vs Aurora2 SB

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