Milton Keynes Steamroller Game 2
The scenario was spread the net, one of my better scenarios. My opponent was Ben Hampshire, a great Gymkin player, who has excelled at the faction. He also used to play as Convergence, so he knew a lot of the capabilities of my lists anyway.
He has Old Witch with the infantry Theme, and his other list was the King of Nothing with a 6 heavies list. I chose my Orion list, so that it would have the best chance against the multiple heavies list, whilst still working against the infantry choice.
My opponent chose the King, as he we had played the witch list before into Axis and it was closer than he liked. Also, the Battle engines would have wrecked the infantry. Against King he could use the clouds for better use.
My List:
Destruction Initiative:
Orion + 28
Corollary – 6
Assimilator – 16
Assimilator – 16
Inverter – 15
Conservitor – 12
Monitor – 16
Diffuser – 6
Diffuser - 6
Optifex Directive – 4
ADO – 2
ADO – 2
Flare Bots – (4) 0
Flare Bots – (4) 0
Puncture Bots – (3) 0
Puncture Bots (3) 0
My opponent was running a simple list
King
Skin and Moans
Skin and Moans
Skin and Moans
Cage Rager
Cage Rager
Cage Rager
Gorehound
Glimmer Imp
Crabbit x 2
Gremlin Swarm x 4
He got the roll, and chose first turn. I kept the side I was on as I had a hill to use on the left side, and a fire pit on the right in my zone to slow down the opponent. My opponent alternated his beasts, and put the swarms on the flanks.
I put the conservitor on the left, with one diffuser, the inverter in the middle, with a ferest to hide behind, and the monitor and two assimilators on the right side, by the ash. Orion and the corollary went in the centre.
Ben ran forwards, getting Scything Touch on the Gorehound, and putting burning ash over his beasts. He would have made a wall of them, but with Mage sight as an option for me, he decided not to.
I got avenging force up, and putting a mage sight behind the forest in the middle to deter my opponent from putting something there, and I trampled most things forwards, to then also take advantage of the reform of the jacks. I moved the other jacks up, and passed the turn.
Ben then continued to threaten me, and moved everything up close to just within charge range for me. I had two cage rangers shoved down my throat, and the skin and moans close by to counter me if I came in. And with Sacrifice and labyrinth as his chosen arcana, I would have to ensure I kill the beasts outright.
I plan my turn out. I should feat, allocate some to the Conservitor and diffuser to go in and kill the first Cage Rager. This should cascade to the inverter who can go in and kill the next cage rager. This goes onto the assimilator who kills a skin and moans, and the second assimilator can go in and deal with the last cage rager. This will get me 4 kills, and go from there. The last two need a diffuser shot to get them in range.
So I go for this plan. I feat, to get the better damage, and shoot the first diffuser. I crank the damage under feat and do 10 points to it off the bat. The conservitor goes in and kills it whilst only spending 1 focus. This means that I now lack the focus to pass onto the inverter. My opponent also uses the Kings ability to put a smoke cloud in front of the assimilator and monitor to stop them charging, since they could not see their targets. He also triggers his own Arcana, and does damage back to the Conservitor. I move the corollary up to give the focus to the inverter and assimilator, and reform back. The inverter goes in and kills the 2nd Cage Rager, passing on the focus to the diffuser. The diffuser gets its shot off, but the hit is shield guarded by the Crabbit behind it, which is out of the feat and I only do some damage. The first assimilator can still get in without the extra distance and goes for the skin and moans, but fails to kill it by 10 points. This time the dice rolls were awful instead of the stellar the conservitor gave me. I use the monitor to shoot it again and the same with the 2nd assimilator, but without focus to power them they fail to kill the skin and moans, and the same with the Cage rager. Bots fly round to the zones to contest, but the turn was an utter failure, just like my time control. Too much though and not enough action had used up 40 minutes of my game.
So now for the retaliation. My opponent casually kills the conservitor, the inverter and the assimilator with his retaliatory heavies, and gets a Gremlin swarm near my flag. He arcs ashes to ashes through the last cage rager to kill my contesting bot, and he ends his turn with four heavies still alive, to my two. And his arcana ready to go unless I kill the skin and moans first.
So I do just that. I give things magic weapons for killing the gremlin swarms, charge the assimilator in to kill the skin and moans, and push back on scenario. I kill the gremlin swarm on the left and contest the right flag, and score myself two points, whilst also stopping him score, putting us on 2-2. (He had no beast to keep the back rectangle.
His retaliation was full on again. The skin and moans on the left moved over to contest the flag, and on the right the 2nd assimilator was taken apart by the other skin and moans. Using the Gorehound to keep applying Scything touch to things, he trampled the cage rager in and beat back my monitor out of the zone, scoring him another point. I was now on the ropes, with only a few minutes left on the clock to his 20, and I decided there was no way I was going to win. So I worked on what I could. I used Orions gun to pull the Skin and moans away from the flag, got the diffuser in the far rectangle on his side, and used magic bullet to kill the gremlin swarm on the top flag, getting me 3 more points. My clock ran out as I did, and he won, but I was able to score another 5 CP, which was a good enough result for me.
Game Review: The List was a bust. I had only tested it out a few days before, and my inexperience with it showed. Ben was as helpful a player as ever, giving me tips and advice mid game, making sure I was aware of the tricks his faction could do. His statements have helped me design a new list, which whilst it follows a similar vein, needs to be played much more tactically.
Onto my last game: Minions!












