096 Ashlynn2 Irregulars vs Rask1 WWFF

096 Ashlynn2 Irreg vs Rask1 WWFF

05.09.2021 – 2d6 BrawlMachine #1 – Game 1

After a long break it is finally time to get back into gaming again and what better way to start off than joining a small BrawlMachine tournament? I haven’t kept up with the meta at all, but after reading through Brawlmachine Team Championship lists and results stats I decided on a Damiano & Ashlynn2 pair which should be pretty solid. 

I was happy to see that my first opponent had a Rask list since that is a caster that I have played a lot myself so at least I don’t need to worry too much about remembering what the stuff on the other side of the table could do (with the notable exception of one Death Archon). 

https://conflictchamber.com/?c6200p_-249pnpnqpbfinvnsiB___-20q78jlL7jp_2-oJq1k8

Mercenaries

[Theme] The Irregulars

[Ashlynn 2] Ashlynn d’Elyse, the Queen’s Blade [+22]

 – Freebooter [9]

 – Toro [13]

Anastasia di Bray [3]

Boss MacHorne [0(6)]

Gudrun the Wanderer [5]

Savio Montero Acosta [6]

Scythe [6]

Lynus Wesselbaum & Edrea Lloryrr [5]

https://conflictchamber.com/?cb200p_-2ncr4cjNjWfIqQf4

Minions

[Theme] Will Work For Food

[Rask 1] Rask [+27]

 – Blackhide Wrastler [16]

 – Swamp Horror [15]

 – Gatorman Soul Slave [0(5)]

Bog Trog Mist Speaker [4]

Death Archon [8]

Swamp Gobber River Raider [1]

Boomhowler, the Destroyer [8]

Deployment

I lost the roll off and my opponent chose to go first. Knowing that Minions normally struggle with pathfinder I gave him the side with all the rough terrain. I didn’t have a real plan behind the deployment other than I figured I should try to go for the square zone since that seemed more accessible. I choose to deploy Anastasia because I want to have her near the central flags. Scythe should have been within 6” of Ashlynn to apply HoF a bit easier and closer to Lynus for Applied Knowledge. 

Turn 1A

My opponent puts up Admonition on the Wrastler and runs up. With Hoof It it comes up all the way to the central obstruction and behind a Veil of Mists. The Death Archon redeploys over to my left zone, presumably to get away from Scythe and closer to my melee solos. 

Turn 1B

I notice that I can get rid of the Veil if I run up the freebooter and do a wind blast from Edrea.  This could in theory leave the Wrastler open for Scythe and Gudrun. The issue is that I need to get around Admonition somehow. I hmm and huh for a while and decide that there is no good way around it, but at least I will get some solid shots with a HoF’ed Scythe. She wasn’t in range to get Applied Knowledge, but ended up doing only 8 damage in total which wouldn’t have been enough to cripple spirit. 

The Toro is kept outside of 15” from the Swamp Horror. This I think is a mistake since I have already given my opponent enough to chew on with the Freebooter and Gudrun. 

Turn 2A

Rask uses his feat to shut down counter charge from my Toro. The Swamp Horror absolutely destroys Gudrun, but the Wrastler leaves the Freebooter on a couple of boxes with both his arms intact. Admonition goes back up on the Wrastler. The Death archon keeps away from my walking threat range, which I am very happy about since that leaves the zone open for me to score. There would probably have been an available spot a bit further to the left, but that would have meant placing the archon in the middle of the windswept forest. That could have been avoided had a placed Boss MacHorne 1” into the zone since she threats 11” inches with True Path.

Turn 2B

Lynus & Erdrea runs over to capture the zone. I spend some time looking for a way to trap the Wrastler, but the Freebooter can’t get around and my only available piece is Anastasia who needs to run over to contest the flag (engaging Boomhowler to avoid counter charge). My opponent opts to not trigger Admo on the Freebooter, but opts to do so when I walk in Vayne. He places himself in the zone in melee with the Freebooter. This means that I need to cast HoF on Ashlynn’s unit and hope for an 11 on the Thunderbolt shot. Luckily I land the shot, push the Wrastler away and repo back to relative safety. 

I make a critical mistake where I fail to space out my units on the left flank properly. My thinking was to have redundancy on the flag, but as we soon will see this just creates a juicy target for the death archon. 

Score 3-0

Turn 3A

As foretold, the Death Archon goes in and kills Edrea, but somehow leaves both Acosta and Boss MacHorne alive on 1 and 3 boxes respectively! Boomholwer finishes of Anastasia and the Swamp Horror clears the square zone.

Score 3-2

Turn 3B

I can’t believe how lucky I am that my solos are still alive, and in my head this this turn is going to be easy: Scythe kills the River raider, Boss MacHorne and Ashlynn kills the Death Archon. This would leave Acosta and the Toro free to deal with the Swamp Horror. This was not the way it went down at all in practice! First Scythe started off by missing her shot. Then Boss MacHorne and Ashlynn both fluffed their rolls against the Death Archon. This means that Acosta needs to spend his activation to kill the archon instead of finishing off the Swamp Horror. I suppose the dice will always find a way to even out the odds. 

What I should have done was just to start off with Acosta. I am pretty sure that he and Ashlynn would have been able to kill the archon. Then I could have used Boss MacHorne to charge the Wrastler and slammed him out of the zone (and maybe deal some damage to Boomhowler in the process). Then I would have scored the circle zone and wouldn’t have to worry so much about the square zone. Maybe Scythe could have contributed against the Swamp Horror in order to secure an attrition advantage and remove the pressure of an assassination. 

I should probably also have feated this turn just to bring back Anastasia as a body block against the Swamp Horror or potentially contest the flag next turn. Sure, the feat will be more valuable if MacHorne and Acosta dies next turn, but I am in a position where I should start thinking about sacrificing value for safety. 

Score 4-3

Turn 4A

Despite me leading by one CP I think my opponent is still in an OK position to take the game. But he is starting to run low on clock so he decides to go for the assassination attempt using Veil of Mists to get through the obstruction. Ashlynn is camping nothing and against the fully buffed Swamp Horror it basically boils down to if he can roll the boosted 11 to hit.  Lucky for me he misses and Ashlynn survives. Buy or Boost puts the assassination run at 44.8% with Fury and Boundless Charge up. So this was definitely a close call! 

Had Rask had one more focus available he could have cast Rage which would have bumped the odds up to a 58.6%. Maybe my opponent could have put up Veil over the obstruction one turn earlier just to provide himself with some more opportunities on later turns. 

Victory for the Mercenaries!

:: Evaluation ::

This was a great game and ended up being a real nailbiter in the end. I was unable to take advantage of the Death Archon fluffing its attacks. The way it ended up was basically as if I had lost the solos and spent my feat to bring them back. I learned that you need a pretty wild horizontal spacing to avoid getting completely blown out by the Death Archon (3”+2”+large base+3”=ca10”). It is probably much better to stand in two files where the back file stands 2” behind max melee threat. 

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