Warmachine Battle Report: Retribution vs. Mercenaries

I got an early morning game in with a friend of mine where we both got to try out new lists (sorry for all of his proxies). I had  played nothing but Garryth2 Defenders at Lock & Load, so I was really excited to play a low model count army and be able to relax on clock a little. (A note about the clock in the pictures: The merc player is not used to playing on one, so we have it set to count up from zero. Clock is a loss condition for me, but we aren’t holding him to it yet.) My idea with him is to cover the anti-shooting matchups that Garryth might not want to see without going into another infantry-heavy list like Dawnguard.

My buddy mains Ashlynn and wanted to try out the Devil Dogs and Tempest Blazers. He usually runs her with a trencher cloud wall, so this was a pretty big change to the play style. Here are the lists:

Retribution

(Forges of War)

Vyros2

-Imperatus

-Manticore x2

-Griffon x5

Arcanist Mechanik x3

House Shyeel Magister x2

Eiryss1

House Shyeel Arcanists x2

Mercenaries

(Llaelese Resistance)

Ashlynn1

-Vanguard

-Swabber (Proxied by Phoenix)

-Freebooter (Proxied by Warpwolf)

Eilish Garrity

Major Gibbs

Taryn di la Rovissi

Sam MacHorne & the Devil Dogs (Proxied by Ashlynn w/o flag and trenchers)

-Buccaneer (Proxied by Talon)

Thorn Gun Mages

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages

-CA

-Mule (Proxied by Defender)

Tempest Blazers (Proxied by Storm Lances)

Deployment

I won the roll and chose to go 2nd. First time with the list, so I don’t know if that was the right call, but I wanted the trench and didn’t want all of the difficult terrain, so I went for the choice.

(Note: the deployment zones are tiny because we’re playing on a table that is only 40”, and we figured that was the best place to take 4” off each side)

 

Mercs spread way out, since a lot of his ‘jacks are marshalled and he isn’t too worried about control range. The Blazers are ready to outflank which immediately made me nervous. Both types of gun mages took a flank and prepared to use their theme-granted pathfinder to claim protective terrain. MacHorne and the Dogs deploy centrally to use the tower to protect their advance, and Ashlynn is just off to my right of center.

I went for a central, mostly symmetrical deployment, as I am new to the list and I wanted to be flexible after merc turn 1. I did put more solos on my flag’s side, as I always want to keep scoring in mind on a scenario as live as Spread the Net. The major thing I probably could have changed was to pull my right Manticore closer to the center of my line so I didn’t have to worry about giving it pathfinder in those woods, and let the Griffons protect that flank with their native pathfinder and higher MAT on the charge from Powerful Charge.

Vyros puts Synergy up for free with the theme, Eiryss goes in the trench, and we’re off!

Mercenaries Turn 1

Everything runs to firing positions, claiming space in the left rectangle and central zones and moving up the Freebooter, Vanguard, and Blazers to threaten the right zone. 

Retribution Turn 1

Apparently I missed this picture. I ran stuff up. I put a covering fire from the left Manticore in front of the gunmages to keep them from any cheeky attempts at knocking down Vyros.

I completely failed to respect the knockdown nets on the Devil Dogs, and moved 3 Griffons up almost base to base just to the left of the central zone, not realizing that their knockdown gun is an AOE. 

Vyros2 upkept Synergy, walked into the trench, put up Deceleration, and forgot to take a pot shot with his gun.

Imperatus jumped in the trench with V2 and Eiryss to Shield Guard any shots that might come their way and save himself for a late game assassination run.

The right 2 Griffons moved up to threaten the right zone and the right side of the center zone, and  the right Manticore walked up and tossed and entirely ineffective covering fire out at the Blazers (ignoring the forest due to V2’s Bird’s Eye).

 

Mercenaries Turn 2

The Devil Dogs move in, knock down 2 of my Griffons, and take a couple shots. The gunmages on the left try for a bunch of crit brutal shots on the knocked down models, but since most of them didn’t crit and I had +2 armor from Deceleration it was mostly ineffective. Maybe he should have been thunder bolting me around?

The Mule took a boosted, aimed shot at Vyros and missed. The scatter got Imperatus and Vyros, but failed to crack armor on either.

The caster, her battlegroup, Eilish, and the Thorn Gun mages just kinda durdled around, and no one jumped on the flag, so I was off the hook for needing to contest that.

The Blazers made the dash up my flank I had been nervous about in deployment. 

Retribution Turn 2

Going in to this turn my plan was to score 2 and contest his zone, while keeping Vyros cozy in his trench and behind the tower.

He’s not in the pics because I’m bad at photography while on the clock and I cut off the left side of the table, but I had a Magister exactly 12” back from the left flag, so now that it was a scoring turn I ran him up to score it.

Vyros upkept Synergy, and put up Easy Rider,  and feats. The Manticore on the right used that and Bird’s Eye to charge the Tempest Blazer in my zone, and a Griffon spent a focus to get +2” movement with Fleet and walked over to hit another, connecting but not killing. Imperatus boosted a shot into the 3rd Blazer and got him dead.

Eiryss shoots a Disruptor Bolt into the Vanguard.

My other Griffon on the right ran to chill behind the tower. I’m sure I had some reason but looking at it now he totally should have just run to within 4 of the far flag to contest and bait some enemy heavies into Imperatus’ threat range (with the help of a Magister to pull them in).

My Arcanist unit moved up to throw focus at one of the Griffons, and he charged up to distract the Mule and contest the zone. Note for the future, I need to think about how to keep things in Vyros’ control range for Synergy. 

My other 2 Griffons on the left used the Synergy boosts to bop some Devil Dogs, and got 4 of them. The white Manticore used a focus to stand and then just dropped a covering fire template on the front row of gun mages to keep them from aiming or pushing toward my flag (that should have gone in front of that row of dudes so none of them could get range on my flag-sitting Magister).

I score my zone and my flag, starting the scoring at 2-0 Ret.

Mercenaries Turn 3

The Mule does some swinging at the Griffon and leaves it on about 5 boxes. The Gun Mages and Taryn mostly try for more brutal damage crits on my Griffons near the center zone and get them down to about ½ health each.

The front 2 Gun Mages move forward out of the covering fire and take shots at my Magister, clearing my flag. I forget that I should get a feat move.

The jacks got a little bit jammed up on each other, but the Buccaneer went in and hit a Griffon, and then the Freebooter charged in and missed an attack and did some damage with the second. 

Then the biggest mistake of the game? Eilish put Puppet Master on the Swabber and then teleported out of the way, instead of running over to score his flag.

With the help of Eilish’s reroll on the damage, the Swabber is able to pull a damaged Griffon over and finally finish one off. I promptly forget to use my feat move.

Ashlynn hides behind the Swabber, the Thorn Gun Mages finally move forward, and the remaining Tempest Blazer does a couple points of damage to the Griffon engaging him and repositions into my zone.

Everything’s contested or unclaimed, so the score remains 2-0 Retribution.

Retribution Turn 3

To my shame I did not use my feat last turn. Bad Ben. If I had used those 2 moves on Imperatus I think I could get him (with the help of Easy Rider) on to Ashlynn with full Synergy (MAT 11!), Concentrated power (POW 22), and 2 focus after the charge. 

Anyway, Vyros moves up a little to get better use of Synergy and toe into the zone, puts up Decel, and shoots the remaining Devil Dog grunt to death.

The white Manticore walks up and bops a gun mage, killing him and getting Synergy up.

The right Griffon walks around and stabs the last cav model in the back.

The black Manticore walks up, rolls only one shot, and missed it at one of the Thorn Gun Mages.

Eiryss Disrupts the Vanguard again, and Imperatus shoots a Thorn Gun Mage, lighting his neighbor on fire.

The Magister pulls the Vanguard a little closer so the Griffon behind the tower can walk up and bop it, bringing Synergy to full.

My Arcanist unit loads up the Griffon to the left of the tower and I send it in to punch up the freebooter. With full Synergy he is at dice -2 and manages to take him out. 

I pass clock, scoring my flag and zone, bringing the score to 4-0 Ret.

Unfortunately at this point we had to call the game, but I feel pretty good about where I was. I think Eilish scores one, the Thorn mages contest my zone, maybe Taryn can score one and remove my mechanik who is contesting, and maaaaybe he can get the jack in his zone dead, but I think I’m in a great spot for threatening Imperatus assassination, and even if I can’t get 5 ahead there’s not much chance of him pulling ahead before the end of the game on turn 7.

What I definitely should have done, though, is focus fire down his contesting models on his flag and run eiryss up there to close out the game. I need to take better stock of win conditions at the top of my turns.

Fun game though, great opponent to play with, and I can’t wait for another crack at Vyros2.