112 Rahera1 SoF vs Gearhart1 MO

01.10.2021

First Friday each month is Casual Friday at the local gaming club so I scheduled a game with a Crucible Guard player and asked him not to bring any Rocketmen. He was happy to meet my request and cooked up a variant of the famous Ass Mountain Gearhart list. I have been brewing up a Rahera list whitch is capable to deal out four AoE 4 shots High Explosive, but still theats far and hits hard.

Mercenaries

Theme: Soldiers of Fortune

Captain Rahera, Terror of the Wailing Sea – WJ: +28

– Blockader – PC: 33 (Battlegroup Points Used: 28)

– Freebooter – PC: 9 – Freebooter – PC: 9

– Freebooter – PC: 9

– Nomad – PC: 12

Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios – PC: 0

Anastasia di Bray – PC: 3

Steelhead Arcanist – PC: 4

Steelhead Gunner – PC: 3

Steelhead Ironhead – PC: 4

Steelhead Cannon Crew – Gunner & 2 Grunts: 0

Steelhead Mortar Crew – Gunner & 2 Grunts: 5

Crucible Guard

Theme: Magnum Opus

Marshal General Baldwin Gearhart & Mr. Clogg – WJ: +27

– Marshal General Baldwin Gearhart & Mr. Clogg (Continued)

– Aurum Ominus Alyce Marc – PC: 0

– Aurum Ominus Alyce Marc (Big Alyce)

– Vindicator – PC: 15 (Battlegroup Points Used: 15)

– Suppressor – PC: 13 (Battlegroup Points Used: 12)

Ascendant Mentalist – PC: 4

Ascendant Mentalist – PC: 0

Trancer – PC: 0

Failed Experiments – Leader & 4 Grunts: 14

Crucible Guard Storm Troopers – Leader & 4 Grunts: 16

Crucible Guard Assault Troopers – Leader & 2 Grunts: 8

Here’s a shot of my army looking menacing from my opponent’s perspective:

Deployment

I get the first turn and my opponent gives me the side with the all the obstructions. We play Split Decision again since that his the most difficult scenario.

Turn 1A

Rahera casts Rough seas and I run everything up just respecting the Vindicator’s threat range. In hindsight maybe I should have just let my opponent have his Vindicator shot since it would have bought me a couple of inches extra for the Freebooters on the left side. Vindicators shoot insanely hard though, so I would likely have lost a system.

I take care so that all my jacks are within range of being power lifted from a Ironhead next turn. Rahera has charged up behind the building and I have left a gap between it and the Blockader so she can be lifted around the corner before I activate the Blockader. I am unlikely to get very jammed next turn, but it is good to have this setup prepared for following turns.

Turn 1B

Opponent leads with the Failed Experiments but keeps all the important stuff outside of my melee ranges. I am slightly worried that he will charge in the Trancer on the left and potentially slam my Freebooter into the Steelhead cannon. My opponent doesn’t go for this option and instead keeps his Trancer in the forest. Seeing how slow his main forces are I can understand why he needs to keep his contesting pieces alive for as long as possible.

Turn 2A

Speaking of Trancers: There is a Trancer hiding up on the opposite side of the building! I could easily have walked Rahera up and killed it. But that damned building was so tall that I couldn’t see it and had completely forgotten about it. Note that the Trancers explode and are Removed from Play on the Disabled step while Rahera’s Blood Weaver ability doesn’t trigger until Destroyed, so there would be no free spell. But I would still get the Sprint to get back to safety.

The Blockader shoots a Failed experiment who survives, but is lit on fire. I needed to boost the hit roll and am kicking myself for not remembering to activate the Arcanist first to allocate another focus to also boost the damage roll. The rest of my artillery shoots random pot shots but they all miss.

I take care to set up my Freebooters around the flag in such a way that it would not be possible for my opponent to run the Failed Experiments in to contest my flag. I am aware that there is a Trancer up in the forest, but it will be much easier to remove one Trancer than a whole unit of Failed Experiments if he decides to run up and jam.

Turn 2B

The surprise Trancer ambushes out from behind the building and slams the Ironhead, but lucky for me fails to kill it. Note that the roof of the house has now been removed. The other Trancer runs back to claim the flag. The Failed Experiments run forward as a screen for the Assault Troopers and jacks.

Score 0-1

Turn 3A

There are three Failed Experiments contesting the flag on the right and another FX plus and Assault trooper in the zone. My first instinct is to cast Manifest Destiny and jam in with the Blockader and Nomad to clear the zone and score two points. This would net me three points when I clear the Trancer off my left hand flag. My problem is that I can’t go towards the right because of the quicksand. This means that I would need to charge the Blockader up towards the center. But then I would not be able to reach the one Assault trooper in the zone and he is just outside of 14” from my Nomad. At +8 ARM vs shooting I am not very optimistic at the prospects of shooting him out so I fear that I will not be able to clear the zone if I go in. The lesson for me here should be that I need to plan for threatening the entire zones with all my heavy hitters.

So instead of sending in the Blockader I find an angle where I can stay within 4” of the flag and still outside of threat of all of the Assault Troopers except one. This time I have remembered to Empower from the Arcanist so I manage to kill one Failed experiment.

Since I am not going in on the right side it makes no sense to go in on the left side either, so ambush in Anastasia to contest the enemy flag. Again I set up the Freebooters to make it difficult to contest. Unfortunately this means that I will be exposed a couple of the Assault troopers charging in. Looking back at the pictures it seems like I could have done a better job hiding the central Freebooter from the Assault trooper behind the cloud.

Score 1-1

Turn 3B

Opponent opts to not feat and does not send in the Suppressor to apply Rust on my Freebooters. But he does send in the Failed Experiments and two Assault Troopers. They destroy the center jack and cripple cortex on the purple one. Three Failed Experiments, one Assault trooper and the Vindicator manage to bring the Blockader down to approximately 10 boxes remaining and crippling its cortex.

Both I and my opponent were very surprised by this damage output. The central Freebooter ate two FX and two Assault trooper charges, so it going down was to be expected, but the Blockader almost getting wrecked by this alpha was not good. He would definitely have gone down had Gearhart popped his feat. Doing the math it looks like he was around 10 above the expected value so he did roll above average, but I wouldn’t say it was extraordinary.

On the bright side my plan of blocking my opponent away from contesting my flag worked well so we each scored one Control Point.

Score 2-2

Turn 4A

With only one Freebooter and the Nomad operational I feel that my best option is to go for an assassination. Feat I should have two chances to get the knock down from the Steelhead cannon. Rahera can Black Spot Gearhart for -2 DEF so my estimation is that I have one chance at a 9 and then a second chance at a 7 on feat. If this succeeds I may have just enough follow-up between Eiryss1 stripping focus, the Mortar shots and Rahera’s two Handcannon shots.

But the problem is that the Steelhead Cannon needs to walk within 5” of the Mentalist and it turns out that his Psychokinetic Shield ability also applies -2 RAT. This means that the Cannon will need 11 and 9 to hit. The shots miss and the assassination fails. I suppose it was never any better than a 50-50 or so, but I could have executed it better by for example to throw a Failed Experiment onto the Mentalist to try and kill it before the Cannon went up to shoot.

Score 2-2

Turn 4B

Gearhart aims and shoots Rahera to death.

Sadly, a loss for the Mercenaries

:: Evaluation ::

I think one of the main reasons I struggle with this scenario is that the home flag and objective is located right where you want your huge base models to land on Turn 1. It is a new and interesting mechanic that there is a scenario that disincentivises you from bringing huge based models. The absence of square zones further adds to the effect. This game the limited freedom of movement for the Blockader caused me to not go for the alpha. I had expected his alpha to be much less effective than it was given the setup and in hindsight I believe I had no choice but to go in and try to blunt his damage output.

It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if I had gone in and killed all his Failed Experiments plus Disruptor bolted the Vindicator. I could even have feated to get another Eiryss shot to disrupt the Suppressor. I doubt it would have stopped him from applying Rust to the Def 9 Blockader, but he could have missed one or two of the Freebooters.

I also feel that my list lacks a cheap source of solos to apply Mark the Target. With no proper units and Alexia2 not being a requisition option any more I don’t consider her a good choice, but I could consider to shuffle around some points and find space for Alexia1.

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