Game 21: Helynna vs Vlad1

Game 21 – Vs Chris Young – Khador – 12/05/17

My list:

Helynna (Forges of War)

-Sylys

-Manticore

-Manticore

-Aspis

-Helios

-Hyperion

Arcanist

Arcanist

Artificer

His List:

Vladimir Tzepesci, The Dark Prince (Winterguard Kommand)

-Victor

-Marauder

Winter Guard Gun Carriage

Kovnik Jozej Grigorovich

Winter Guard Field Gun Crew

Winter Guard Mortar Crew

Max Winter Guard Rifle Corps

-Winter Guard Rocketeer

-Winter Guard Rocketeer

-Winter Guard Rocketeer

Min Winter Guard Rifle Corps

-Winter Guard Rocketeer

-Winter Guard Rocketeer

-Winter Guard Rocketeer

After a bite to eat in Cardiff one of my club mates wanted a run into Pacific Rim to see how it worked in case he ran into something similar over the weekend. His Vlad list with Victor and the Battle Engine instead of the heavies made me want to take the ADR version of this list with 2 Manticores to add more disposable damage to the list. We played The Pit which is probably my list’s least favourite scenario, and Chris won the roll to go first.

The Khador forces run up the board, with Vlad using Blood of Kings to move up more aggressively. I run in response with all the anti-shooting abilities off to weather the first round, hoping to take some damage and then feat the force-fields back.

Chris’ shooting goes as I planned, with the Shield Guards spreading the damage around fairly evenly. This compared with some bad dice rolls from Chris meant that not a single non-force-field box was lost on any of the jacks. In the centre Chris protects the Marauder (such a strong piece into the colossals) with Windwall and hides behind it and Victor.

I can get the Marauder in the position it is, but it will require Helynna being in a risky position. She moves up into the zone, feats, casts Hand of Destruction on it, and then shoots it with her push gun. Whilst Windwall protects against the Helios pushes Helynna’s is magical and so gets through it. Helios then moves up (ensuring that Victor cannot avoid his threat and remain in the zone), pulls it in the rest of the way and removes it. The rest of my force removes Winter Guard, including Hyperion scattering a shot onto the Field Gun, killing it and the crew, and then create “Fort Helynna”.

Chris can’t find a way to kill Helynna under feat and so settles for an attrition turn. The Gun Carriage continues flanking hard and shoots, dealing some damage but unfortunately failing to kill Sylys. The Victor easily kills the Manticore that had run up to engage it and the Winter Guard run in t flood the zone as best they can.

It is go time on Victor. Hand of Destruction is cast on it, the route is cleared by Hyperion’s guns and Helios charges in with Concentrated Power. Dice +3 with the dice alteration does a huge amount of damage, crippling one half and seriously damaging the other. The remaining Manticore powers up to P+S20 and destroys the Gun Carriage.

From a very poor position Chris tries to destroy the Helios but only does around half damage to it after some poor rolls. With shooting achieving nothing into the Manticore and me already scoring on the flag Chris shakes my hand.

VICTORY

An interesting game, and I’m pretty pleased with how I played it. Dice were certainly in my favour for most of the game but I think I was in a strong position nonetheless. The risky play to bring the Marauder out of the Windwall range was probably what won me the game, as left unchecked it would have done a huge chunk to a colossal, and removing it just gave him too few armour cracking options. This ended the Friday night practice games. An early night and I was ready to go the next morning.