Thursday, February 2

Retribution vs Khador

I had a fun game versus Rowan's Retribution league army, using an Old Witch list I had been excited to try out.

Kaelyssa, Nights Whisper
>Phoenix
Dawnguard Sentinels
>Dawnguard Sentinel Officer and standard
>Soulless Escort
Lady Aiyana and Master Holt
Mage Hunter Strikeforce
>Mage Hunter Commander
Arcanist
Mage Hunter Assassin
Narn, Mage Hunter of Ios

Rowans list contains a lot of Mage Hunters, including the ever dangerous team of Narn and the Assassin. What really threw me for a loop though, was the Mage Hunter Strike Force. Without getting any cover bonuses, they hit easy and managed to take out a large portion of my army.

My list that I took was:

Zevanna Agha, the Old Witch of Khador
>Scrapjack
>Destroyer
>Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters (Cylena and 9 Grunts)
>Koldun Kapitan Valachev
Great Bears of Gallowswood
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist
Ogrun Bokur
Widowmaker Marksman

I used a mercenary heavy Old Witch list, which centered around the Nyss hunters with Valachev. I also had the ability to upkeep two spells for free, which ended up being Iron Flesh on the Nyss, (DEF18 lol) and Avatar of Slaughter on the Scrapjack.

We played "Incursion", which was the next scenario both of us were going to have to do for our next league game. (This is of course, the "place 3 flags, remove 1" scenario)

I had first turn, and made the first mistake - not advancing far enough. The Mage Hunter SF was already just about in the zone with their Advanced Deployment, and the Sentinels ran forward and swarmed the middle flag. Of course, the only flag that he was not defending happened to be the one where all my Nyss hunters were, and that was the flag that disappeared.

Not a great start to the scenario. The Great Bears were handily destroyed by the MHSF, with me fluffing all the tough rolls, and Rowan rolling high on damage to kill all 3 in one round of shooting. (Kiss of Lylyth didnt help) We traded a few models on the middle and left flanks, I lost the Bokur to Sentinels, and he lost the Arcanist and a Sentinel to Nyss, and two MHSF to free strikes from the Bears.

The next round was crucial, and I was forced to run both my WMMM and eEiryss to the flag near the MHSF in order to prevent him from scoring. (He still did, killing both models easily with MHSF crossbow fire). I popped my feat, and placed Murder of Crows over top of Kaelyssa, intending of forcing him to take some damage. Scrapjack, fuelled with 4 focus and AoS walked foward (couldnt charge due to Kaelyssa's feat) and proceeded to annihilate the Sentinels. (If you dont know, Scrapjack gets to move 1" and make a free attack for every model he kills)

Unfortunately, with 6 attacks each generating extra attacks, I managed to flub enough rolls (5's to hit, 6's and 4's to kill) that he only took out about 3/4 of the unit, and only just managed to get in melee range of Kaelyssa. This was not great, as I was really intending on winning the game with that move. Luckily, my feat was enough to stave off defeat for one more turn, as Rowan was not able to claim the other scenario piece. (He still got one from the other objective, putting him on 2 points)

He moved Kaelyssa out of danger, camping 4 focus. Scrapjack took a couple of hits from Sentinels, luckily Rowan rolled low and didnt really hurt him. Kaelyssa took a free strike (which I missed, booooo) and a POW14 from the feat, but it only took her down by 6 life.

My last turn, which Rowan would automatically win if I didnt get a caster kill (I couldnt contest the other objective, being guarded by MHSF) so I popped 4 focus on Scrapjack in order to get an Assassination run. However, before I could make said assassination run, I merely had to remove three models threatening a free strike. This proved to be far more difficult than I thought, with a ridiculous amount of misses and failure to kill models going on. I ended up being forced to fire everything I had at those three, and ended up putting 6 damage on the Old Witch from errant Destroyer shots, and a missed Gorman Acid Bomb. This still didnt clear away the models, so I had to move Sylys up, who failed to kill anyone with his POW7 staff. The Nyss and Valachev walked forwards, Valachev Frostbited through Sylys (almost killing him, but he survived with 1 hp lol) and that managed to clip all the enemy models, and took out two of them - freeing up Scrapjack.

Scrapjack went for the attack run - needing 9's to hit. Boost the first attack, miss. Boost the second attack, miss. Buy and boost a third, hit - and do 2 damage.

Good game Rowan, it came down to the wire but at the end of the day the MHSF outclassed my models and slaughtered them - securing the objective and winning on scenario.

*shakes fist* Roooooowaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!

At the end of the game however, it had been extremely enjoyable and only my second game vs Retribution. They certainly have some fantastic infantry options, effectively an 11 man unit of Mage Hunters was very hard to counter, and the Sentinels at ARM17 in B2B were suprisingly difficult to remove, they have an excellent defensive stat line at 13/17, and thats one thing that I noticed - almost all of their models have an optimal defensive stat line. Sure, a Myrmidon with DEF12 ARM18 is the same total as a Juggy, but that extra 2 DEF made a real difference with MAT and RAT6 troopers taking shots at him - putting my rolls right on the bell curve and I ended up with quite a few whiffed hits.

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