Post by darkangeldentist on May 31, 2017 23:06:53 GMT
There's no photos because this was very much a random pick-up game and I wasn't thinking about writing it up but it went so well for me that I decided to share because I've not really seen anything with Jakes2 in a while. (Also for my own self-esteem.)
I was using the following;
Jakes2
Gallant
Stormclad
Stormclad
Hammersmith
Hammersmith
Sylys Wyshnayllyr
Maxwell Finn
Storm blade captain
Harlan Versh
Min unit of field mechanics.
His list consisted of the following;
Stakhov2 with friends
Torch
Greylord forge seer
Destroyer
Max unit of man o war shocktroopers with CA
Doom reaver swordsmen with CA
Man o war Drakhun
Min unit of field mechanics
Man o war Kovnik
Man hunter
Scenario was extraction and although we were using a 2016 scenario we decided to use 2017 terrain guidelines. (Our club also plays a lot of infinity so the culture shock for scenery is quite extreme.) In the centre was a small building that lay between the zones, to my side fairly centrally were a couple of walls about 5" apart, also on my side was a forest to the left flank, a couple of pools of shallow water and to the right flank some rough terrain. Over on the Khador side was a large hill with an obstacle on the left flank and another forest over the the right flank. Another wall was also on the right flank about 5" towards the Khador board edge from the edge of my zone. Both of us were using bunkers for our objectives.
I won the roll off and would be going first and my opponent's choice of sides meant I was going to have more terrain issues that him. On the other hand I was fairly confident that so long as I kept Jakes reasonably safe my list would be okay into this match up. I deployed everything to be able to advance up as close to the centre as possible with Gallant and Versh slightly to the left so they could head towards the Khador zone and the stormclads slightly to the right with a hammersmith to defend my zone. Finn went right in the centre ahead of Jakes. Strakhov deployed a little more spread out with the Man o war in the centre, Forge seer and his jack to my left to defend the Khador zone with the kovnik and Drakhun between them and the shock troopers. Then Torch and Strakhov off centre to the right flank. His Doom reavers went ahead in the centre and the Manhunter was angling to use the forest on his side as a launching spot to threaten my zone.
Turn 1:
Jakes cast escort and put bullet dodger onto Finn as she advanced up next to his position. The rest of the army just ran forwards to have Gallant and the stormclads just beyond the run to engage threat of the doom reavers. Finn ran and hid behind the central building. My opponent was similarly bold and sent the dooom reavers forward as full pace, a couple engaged Finn whilst the rest spread out a bit and got in the way. On the left hand side a pair of them were within range to use a wall for cover. Then the man o war kovnik gave the shock troopers desperate pace and they ran for it up the table in a tight ball. Drakhun also ran up and was close enough to counter charge anything that got over the wall guarded by the pair of Doom reavers. Torch ran up to the back edge of the forest in the Khador half of the table and looked to be in range of a stormclad so long as I could clear the doom reavers in the way. The manhunter ran to the front edge of the forest. Forge seer and his jack just ran up after the Drakhun to get up the board and finally Strakhov activated, giving himself reposition 5", cast quicken on himself and advanced up near the shock troopers to give them inviolable resolve before feating and repositioning up next to Torch.
Turn 2:
Strakhov was tantalisingly close but after measuring quite clearly out of range of the nearest stormclad. However Torch was in range despite the feat I was pretty confident I would be able to clear the path for a stormclad to go into Torch, Gallant also appeared to be within advancing range of the Drakhun but clearing those doom reavers would likely be more tricky. Jakes upkept both spells and gave out a single focus (leaving her with 4 thanks to Sylys) to Gallant. She went first and cast positive charge on both a stormclad and Gallant before feating and sitting behind the most central wall. I forgot to shoot with her guns. Hammersmith next to her advanced and thanks to positive charge successfully attacked over the wall to kill one doom reaver and knock down another before sprinting back to Jakes for the armour bonus. On the right the other hammersmith was more impressive and cleared out all of the doom reavers on that side with electro-leaps clearing Finn. The sprint move ensured my charge lanes for the stormclads were still clear. Arlan gave a focus to the stormclad that had positive charge and would be going into Torch whilst the other clad charged after the manhunter and cut him in half before retreating back into my zone. The positive charged stormclad went in to Torch and the first swing did any impressive two columns and a bit of damage, the fist punched one of Strakhov's kommandos killing him before the follow up attacks left Torch on just seven boxes without a cortex or movement. (The last bought attack missed.) Because the feat gave me parry the stormclad retreated back to stand 5" back and almost 7" clear of Torch. Finn activated and went to see about clearing out the last two doom reavers. Thanks to the feat giving him reach he was able to engage both Drakhun and the doom reavers simultaneously, which let him killing spree through the doom reavers before poking the Drakhun. Gallant then walked up to the mounted man o war and killed him, which let me sprint back out of range of the destroyer's melee threat. Harlan, the stormblade captain and the mechanics just ran about trying to look inconspicuous.
It had been a really rough turn for the Khador forces but the shock troopers were comfortably in range of a stormclad but only a couple would be able to walk and swing on it so the question was how much did they want to be in shield wall? Strakhov upkept both spells and chose stealth. Strakhov and his remaining kommando advanced to behind the wall on the right flank looking in on my zone. Torch was surrounded by mechanics who repaired 9 boxes of damage making him suddenly look a lot healthier. The forge seer and destroyer weighed up their options. Jakes was in range of the destroyer if it advanced to shoot but she was behind a wall and a hammersmith was within 3" of her. It didn't look likely enough and Finn was right in front of him. The forge seer tried his luck first with a hoarfrost but missed and Finned dodged back to my lines a bit. The destroyer was then ordered to hurry and charge Finn. The charge attack rolled a 7, which under normal circumstances would have missed but blessed magical weapons (and hurry's bonus to charge attacks) meant this was a hit but the damage roll was abysmal at 1,1,2 leaving Finn on 1 box! The CA of the doom reavers didn't feel like trying his luck so stayed hidden behind the central building. Desperate pace went on the shock troopers again and they decided to have faith in their armour and shieldwalled up to get only 2 swings on the stormclad. In another display of spiky dice the first swing did 6 damage and the second attack missed!
Turn 3:
I decide that Jakes needs to camp something but I still want positive charge out twice and have to be able to give out one focus to Gallant if I expect him to one-round the destroyer. So I drop bullet dodger (Finn is absurdly lucky to be alive as it is) and go about seeing how much damage I can do. Jakes puts out positive charge out twice and sits behind the wall. Gallant after accumulator has a full focus load and manages to take out the destroyer by himself allowing Finn to charge in and kill the forge seer. The stormclad that's been attacked was the other positive charge target and receives extra focus from Arlan but waits till after the other jacks activate so they get the bonuses whilst they attack the shock troopers. Hammersmith kills one after the chain attack and sprints back to Jakes. The other stormclad with 2 focus (thanks stormblade captain) swings and kills two shock troopers before the captain runs up close enough for accumulator on the other stormclad and lets it kill Torch and the shock trooper CA. Electro-leaps kill off half the mechanics.
Things are looking bad for Khador but they struggle on! The kovnik manages to kill Finn with his axe cannon. The shock troopers stay in shield wall and in an un-nerving display of precision take out the cortex of the already damaged stormclad. Strakhov and his buddy do some damage to my objective and reposition back behind the wall.
Turn 4:
Time to move in for scenario and try to make sure Jakes doesn't die! Gallant is again given a focus and I also hand out focus to the unharmed stormclad. Gallant kills the objective and a hammersmith runs into the Khador zone. Jakes also runs into the zone and is comfortably unassailable by any of the remaining Khador forces. In a shameful display of inefficiency the two stormclads fail to kill either of the remaining shock troopers, although the doom reaver CA does go down. My repair corps run up to be able to fix my jacks next turn and the other hammersmith sits in the back corner of my zone. I score 3.
Strakhov cannot see any way to kill Jakes and although he can prevent me winning this turn is almost impossible to stop me scoring 2 in my next turn so my opponent concedes.
Retrospective:
One game isn't much to judge a caster on but it was a great first impression. Jakes was a lot of fun, although her direct impact was minimal it wasn't as if there was nothing I could have done with. I completely forgot her pair of hand cannons for example and she's a more than decent option to help clear friendly lines that are being clogged by enemy chaff. However her fragility is clear and the desire to spend her whole stack immense so I'm going to want to play quite a few more games with her to get a proper feel of her brittleness. Sprint on the battle group was fun! I'm a huge fan of Kraye and whilst sprint is more restrictive and situational than reposition it's still a significant amount of movement to take advantage of. With escort her battlegroup is faster every turn rather than just one turn and positive charge makes her jacks a lot more threatening and reliable than Krayes for general work-loads. The feat was more useful than I initially gave it credit for, reach for everything is great and immunity electricity and electro-leap is cute but Parry is money. Parry from feat turn means that you can really push deep into the enemy lines to clear off support or specific models before sprinting back to make way for something else.
My list is certainly not optimised, themes offer a lot due to the free points and other benefits but options like Gallant and Versh or Finn are really nice and take particularly good advantage of some of Jakes support abilities. Bullet dodger on Gallant is dirty and I know this from many games using it with Kraye. Positive charge and purgation ought to be death to almost anything with an upkeep but I'll have to wait and see about that. In this game I put bullet dodger onto Finn and have no regrets about it at all. He's a really amazing solo even if you are paying a lot for him and pushing him to DEF 16 makes him just that bit more ridiculous to deal with. So although I suspect a theme force would probably let me run a more focused list I do like this one for the rounded mix of benefits. Hammersmiths are now very solid melee jacks and have generally low focus demands. Gallant and the stormclads are more focus hungry but they also have a partial solution to that from accumulator. This was something about the list that I really liked and wanted to see work so the performance really impressed me.
After the game we discussed tactics and options and although I agree with my opponent that the interaction of Doom reaver tough, rise and feign death is really cute it's not enough and for the points he could (by dropping the man hunter as well) look at getting a full unit of Uhlans or Iron fangs with CA. Another option was his spell allocation because for my money quicken on the shock troopers, plus desperate pace sounds horrendous. Feat would keep them at ARM 20 but the consequence would be that assuming he keeps to the bottom of 1 top of 2 feat plan those shock troopers will be only 4" behind the doom reavers and much more able to mount an effective retaliation.
I was using the following;
Jakes2
Gallant
Stormclad
Stormclad
Hammersmith
Hammersmith
Sylys Wyshnayllyr
Maxwell Finn
Storm blade captain
Harlan Versh
Min unit of field mechanics.
His list consisted of the following;
Stakhov2 with friends
Torch
Greylord forge seer
Destroyer
Max unit of man o war shocktroopers with CA
Doom reaver swordsmen with CA
Man o war Drakhun
Min unit of field mechanics
Man o war Kovnik
Man hunter
Scenario was extraction and although we were using a 2016 scenario we decided to use 2017 terrain guidelines. (Our club also plays a lot of infinity so the culture shock for scenery is quite extreme.) In the centre was a small building that lay between the zones, to my side fairly centrally were a couple of walls about 5" apart, also on my side was a forest to the left flank, a couple of pools of shallow water and to the right flank some rough terrain. Over on the Khador side was a large hill with an obstacle on the left flank and another forest over the the right flank. Another wall was also on the right flank about 5" towards the Khador board edge from the edge of my zone. Both of us were using bunkers for our objectives.
I won the roll off and would be going first and my opponent's choice of sides meant I was going to have more terrain issues that him. On the other hand I was fairly confident that so long as I kept Jakes reasonably safe my list would be okay into this match up. I deployed everything to be able to advance up as close to the centre as possible with Gallant and Versh slightly to the left so they could head towards the Khador zone and the stormclads slightly to the right with a hammersmith to defend my zone. Finn went right in the centre ahead of Jakes. Strakhov deployed a little more spread out with the Man o war in the centre, Forge seer and his jack to my left to defend the Khador zone with the kovnik and Drakhun between them and the shock troopers. Then Torch and Strakhov off centre to the right flank. His Doom reavers went ahead in the centre and the Manhunter was angling to use the forest on his side as a launching spot to threaten my zone.
Turn 1:
Jakes cast escort and put bullet dodger onto Finn as she advanced up next to his position. The rest of the army just ran forwards to have Gallant and the stormclads just beyond the run to engage threat of the doom reavers. Finn ran and hid behind the central building. My opponent was similarly bold and sent the dooom reavers forward as full pace, a couple engaged Finn whilst the rest spread out a bit and got in the way. On the left hand side a pair of them were within range to use a wall for cover. Then the man o war kovnik gave the shock troopers desperate pace and they ran for it up the table in a tight ball. Drakhun also ran up and was close enough to counter charge anything that got over the wall guarded by the pair of Doom reavers. Torch ran up to the back edge of the forest in the Khador half of the table and looked to be in range of a stormclad so long as I could clear the doom reavers in the way. The manhunter ran to the front edge of the forest. Forge seer and his jack just ran up after the Drakhun to get up the board and finally Strakhov activated, giving himself reposition 5", cast quicken on himself and advanced up near the shock troopers to give them inviolable resolve before feating and repositioning up next to Torch.
Turn 2:
Strakhov was tantalisingly close but after measuring quite clearly out of range of the nearest stormclad. However Torch was in range despite the feat I was pretty confident I would be able to clear the path for a stormclad to go into Torch, Gallant also appeared to be within advancing range of the Drakhun but clearing those doom reavers would likely be more tricky. Jakes upkept both spells and gave out a single focus (leaving her with 4 thanks to Sylys) to Gallant. She went first and cast positive charge on both a stormclad and Gallant before feating and sitting behind the most central wall. I forgot to shoot with her guns. Hammersmith next to her advanced and thanks to positive charge successfully attacked over the wall to kill one doom reaver and knock down another before sprinting back to Jakes for the armour bonus. On the right the other hammersmith was more impressive and cleared out all of the doom reavers on that side with electro-leaps clearing Finn. The sprint move ensured my charge lanes for the stormclads were still clear. Arlan gave a focus to the stormclad that had positive charge and would be going into Torch whilst the other clad charged after the manhunter and cut him in half before retreating back into my zone. The positive charged stormclad went in to Torch and the first swing did any impressive two columns and a bit of damage, the fist punched one of Strakhov's kommandos killing him before the follow up attacks left Torch on just seven boxes without a cortex or movement. (The last bought attack missed.) Because the feat gave me parry the stormclad retreated back to stand 5" back and almost 7" clear of Torch. Finn activated and went to see about clearing out the last two doom reavers. Thanks to the feat giving him reach he was able to engage both Drakhun and the doom reavers simultaneously, which let him killing spree through the doom reavers before poking the Drakhun. Gallant then walked up to the mounted man o war and killed him, which let me sprint back out of range of the destroyer's melee threat. Harlan, the stormblade captain and the mechanics just ran about trying to look inconspicuous.
It had been a really rough turn for the Khador forces but the shock troopers were comfortably in range of a stormclad but only a couple would be able to walk and swing on it so the question was how much did they want to be in shield wall? Strakhov upkept both spells and chose stealth. Strakhov and his remaining kommando advanced to behind the wall on the right flank looking in on my zone. Torch was surrounded by mechanics who repaired 9 boxes of damage making him suddenly look a lot healthier. The forge seer and destroyer weighed up their options. Jakes was in range of the destroyer if it advanced to shoot but she was behind a wall and a hammersmith was within 3" of her. It didn't look likely enough and Finn was right in front of him. The forge seer tried his luck first with a hoarfrost but missed and Finned dodged back to my lines a bit. The destroyer was then ordered to hurry and charge Finn. The charge attack rolled a 7, which under normal circumstances would have missed but blessed magical weapons (and hurry's bonus to charge attacks) meant this was a hit but the damage roll was abysmal at 1,1,2 leaving Finn on 1 box! The CA of the doom reavers didn't feel like trying his luck so stayed hidden behind the central building. Desperate pace went on the shock troopers again and they decided to have faith in their armour and shieldwalled up to get only 2 swings on the stormclad. In another display of spiky dice the first swing did 6 damage and the second attack missed!
Turn 3:
I decide that Jakes needs to camp something but I still want positive charge out twice and have to be able to give out one focus to Gallant if I expect him to one-round the destroyer. So I drop bullet dodger (Finn is absurdly lucky to be alive as it is) and go about seeing how much damage I can do. Jakes puts out positive charge out twice and sits behind the wall. Gallant after accumulator has a full focus load and manages to take out the destroyer by himself allowing Finn to charge in and kill the forge seer. The stormclad that's been attacked was the other positive charge target and receives extra focus from Arlan but waits till after the other jacks activate so they get the bonuses whilst they attack the shock troopers. Hammersmith kills one after the chain attack and sprints back to Jakes. The other stormclad with 2 focus (thanks stormblade captain) swings and kills two shock troopers before the captain runs up close enough for accumulator on the other stormclad and lets it kill Torch and the shock trooper CA. Electro-leaps kill off half the mechanics.
Things are looking bad for Khador but they struggle on! The kovnik manages to kill Finn with his axe cannon. The shock troopers stay in shield wall and in an un-nerving display of precision take out the cortex of the already damaged stormclad. Strakhov and his buddy do some damage to my objective and reposition back behind the wall.
Turn 4:
Time to move in for scenario and try to make sure Jakes doesn't die! Gallant is again given a focus and I also hand out focus to the unharmed stormclad. Gallant kills the objective and a hammersmith runs into the Khador zone. Jakes also runs into the zone and is comfortably unassailable by any of the remaining Khador forces. In a shameful display of inefficiency the two stormclads fail to kill either of the remaining shock troopers, although the doom reaver CA does go down. My repair corps run up to be able to fix my jacks next turn and the other hammersmith sits in the back corner of my zone. I score 3.
Strakhov cannot see any way to kill Jakes and although he can prevent me winning this turn is almost impossible to stop me scoring 2 in my next turn so my opponent concedes.
Retrospective:
One game isn't much to judge a caster on but it was a great first impression. Jakes was a lot of fun, although her direct impact was minimal it wasn't as if there was nothing I could have done with. I completely forgot her pair of hand cannons for example and she's a more than decent option to help clear friendly lines that are being clogged by enemy chaff. However her fragility is clear and the desire to spend her whole stack immense so I'm going to want to play quite a few more games with her to get a proper feel of her brittleness. Sprint on the battle group was fun! I'm a huge fan of Kraye and whilst sprint is more restrictive and situational than reposition it's still a significant amount of movement to take advantage of. With escort her battlegroup is faster every turn rather than just one turn and positive charge makes her jacks a lot more threatening and reliable than Krayes for general work-loads. The feat was more useful than I initially gave it credit for, reach for everything is great and immunity electricity and electro-leap is cute but Parry is money. Parry from feat turn means that you can really push deep into the enemy lines to clear off support or specific models before sprinting back to make way for something else.
My list is certainly not optimised, themes offer a lot due to the free points and other benefits but options like Gallant and Versh or Finn are really nice and take particularly good advantage of some of Jakes support abilities. Bullet dodger on Gallant is dirty and I know this from many games using it with Kraye. Positive charge and purgation ought to be death to almost anything with an upkeep but I'll have to wait and see about that. In this game I put bullet dodger onto Finn and have no regrets about it at all. He's a really amazing solo even if you are paying a lot for him and pushing him to DEF 16 makes him just that bit more ridiculous to deal with. So although I suspect a theme force would probably let me run a more focused list I do like this one for the rounded mix of benefits. Hammersmiths are now very solid melee jacks and have generally low focus demands. Gallant and the stormclads are more focus hungry but they also have a partial solution to that from accumulator. This was something about the list that I really liked and wanted to see work so the performance really impressed me.
After the game we discussed tactics and options and although I agree with my opponent that the interaction of Doom reaver tough, rise and feign death is really cute it's not enough and for the points he could (by dropping the man hunter as well) look at getting a full unit of Uhlans or Iron fangs with CA. Another option was his spell allocation because for my money quicken on the shock troopers, plus desperate pace sounds horrendous. Feat would keep them at ARM 20 but the consequence would be that assuming he keeps to the bottom of 1 top of 2 feat plan those shock troopers will be only 4" behind the doom reavers and much more able to mount an effective retaliation.
