055 Rahera1 TC vs Coven1 BI
https://conflictchamber.com/?c6201b_-25nT8j8j8j8j8knM8QnN8SnPnPnP8MnKkoo28oo5ca
Mercenaries
[Theme] Talion Charter
[Rahera 1] Captain Rahera, Terror of the Wailing Sea [+28]
– Freebooter [9]
– Freebooter [9]
– Freebooter [9]
– Freebooter [9]
– Mariner [14]
Bosun Grogspar [0(5)]
Doc Killingsworth [4]
First Mate Hawk [5]
Lord Rockbottom [4]
Powder Monkey [0(2)]
Powder Monkey [0(2)]
Powder Monkey [0(2)]
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt [8]
Press Gangers (min) [7]
Scharde Dirge Seers [0(6)]
Sea Dog Pirates (max) [11]
– Mr. Walls, the Quartermaster [4]
– Sea Dog Pirate Rifleman (3) [3]
The Commodore Cannon & Crew [7]
https://conflictchamber.com/?c4201b_-1T0ZkA1w19q0hC2k2t2toN2Bpz8j3232
Cryx
[Theme] Black Industries
[Coven 1] The Witch Coven of Garlghast [+26]
– Barathrum [15]
– Deathjack [23]
– Deathripper [6]
– Doctor Stygius [4] – Proxy: Overlord
Hellslinger Phantom [0(7)]
Machine Wraith [2]
Pistol Wraith [0(5)]
Pistol Wraith [0(5)]
Void Archon [8]
Warwitch Siren [4]
Asphyxious the Sanctified [14] – Proxy: Darragh
– Freebooter [9]
Cephalyx Overlords [8]
Cephalyx Overlords [8]PAGE_BREAK: PageBreak
Turn 1A
I get the first turn again, and as per tradition forget the bombardments. My opponent does let me go back and place them, but with so few targets in his list who actually care and him having AD I decide that it is not worth to waste clock on finding a decent placement.
PAGE_BREAK: PageBreak
Turn 1B
Coven clouds up and puts IM on Bara.
PAGE_BREAK: PageBreak
Turn 2A
I run a pirate up as a guiding beacon for the Mariner to kill the Machine wraith. A spectator points out that I can do the same for the Pistol Wraith with Ancillary attack, but I mess up the sequence. I do the boostable attack on the Machine wraith who has only one box. The ancillary goes on the pistol wraith who takes 3 boxes.
All zones are contested, but the blue Freebooter is within threat range of Gaspy’s Freebooter. Gaspy4 himself is more than 2” away from the cloud. I did plan to also move the green Freebooter into contesting range of the flag, but got distracted and forgot to activate him. (Yeah, yeah I know it is easy for me to say this in hindsight, but I did measure control range to where he needed to stand during Rahera’s activation)
PAGE_BREAK: PageBreak
Turn 2B
Coven feats. Gaspy’s Freebooter charges in, gets the 6 to hit and boosts the remaining attack rolls in order to secure the Chain attack: Throw. It gets a bit exciting when I roll a 6 for the strength test, but my opponent rolls a 7 so it goes through. He throws me into the obstruction. My Freebooter is badly damaged, but somehow still fully operational. Pistol wraith runs up to score the flag.
Score 1-2
PAGE_BREAK: PageBreak
Turn 3A
Rahera allocates focus and casts Manifest Destiny. The green Freebooter walks up in an attempt to kill Gaspy’s Freebooter, but rolls horribly. My plan was to free up the blue Freebooter who could have walked up and attack Barathrum. Instead he needs to walk up and finish off the enemy Freebooter. My assumption was that I would have an easy time killing the Freebooter, but maybe struggle a bit more to killing Bara. In reality the odds are completely opposite. Freebooters cannot be knocked down and have two more boxes, so the odds of getting that kill is actually very low. On the other hand if I land the Chain attack: Headbutt on Barathrum, killing him would be near guaranteed. This is of course super obvious when you think about it, but a valuable lesson that survivability is situational and doesn’t necessarily follow a model’s point value.
On the left side I ambush in and seduce the Warwitch siren who walks up and kills the Pistol Wraith. The purple Freebooter walks up to kill the Siren. This was unnecessarily complicated since I could have easily walked the Mariner within 5” of the Pistol wraith taking Escort into account. That way I could have kept the Freebooter further back outside of Deathjack’s threat range.
Rahera ends up standing on a 0 camp pretty far forward. My plan was to send a Freebooter into Barathrum, so I needed to have control range quite far up on the right side in order to maintain Manifest Destiny. But it was not necessary to have her this centrally located. She could for example have stood over by the obstruction with the Freebooter blocking line of sight.
Score 3-2
PAGE_BREAK: PageBreak
Turn 3B
Rahera is super exposed and camping 0, so this should be an easy assassination. My opponent gets a bit greedy and tries to clear out line of sight for all the support models prior to activating the Void archon. I end up toughing 4 or 5 times in a row, so Rahera has only taken about half boxes before the two Stygian Abysses from Coven. However, the nukes land and she goes down.
There were multiple way that my opponent could have made this assassination more viable, but I had given him such a guaranteed caster kill that it didn’t matter.
Sadly, a loss for the Mercenaries
:: Evaluation ::
Rahera doesn’t seem like the best option against strong spell assassination casters. She does not like to camp a lot of focus, and Coven threats 24” from the arc node. With FOC 9 auto boost I don’t get much benefit out of being in cover (well I do, but DEF 20 is not enough to reliably save me – especially if you factor in the crit blind).
List wise I felt that the Steelheads version I played in the previous game was better than the pirates. However, pirates gives infinite style points, so I will probably continue to mess around with the list until I find something decent. I am not sold on the Freebooter spam, so once my Blockader is fully painted I will try to switch up my battle group.