Thursday 4 April 2019

Ultramates - Game 3


Game 3: Total Commitment - Chamon

After a rushed lunch (the kitchen in the pub was experiencing a backlog with many hungry gamers wanting food) our third game was Total Commitment in the realm of Chamon. The realm didn't end up playing a part in the game, but the lack of reserves may have been significant. Our third round opponents were Dave Satterthwaite and Shannon Reid, and their lists were as follows:

Dave Satterthwaite: Sylvaneth

Alarielle

Branchwraith

20 x Dryads

10 x Dryads

Shannon Reid: Sylvaneth

Durthu

Drycha

5 x Tree Revenants

5 x Tree Revenants

3 x Kurnoth Hunters w/ Scythes


I have had the pleasure of playing against Dave before, and I occasionally see him at Outpost 6030 - my local club. He was playing with his partner, Shannon, who was new to AoS. It was lovely to meet her and it was really nice to see a couple playing at the doubles event together.

Initial Thoughts & Deployment

Prior to this game I had played Sylvaneth on one occasion. My memories of that game were that Tree Revenants did more damage than I thought, and that Treelords were difficult to kill. Fortunately, my addiction to podcasts had left me with one resounding piece of advice; denying the spread of trees is important. Given the way that objectives are spread in this mission, restricting Sylvaneth's mobility was doubly important. 


On the left, we set up 10 Plaguebearers and the stave Monks. Opposite them was the Branchwraith, 5 tree revenants and the two units of dryads. In the middle we set up the Furnace, Gnarlmaw, sword Monks and Verminlord with Drycha, Durthu and Alarielle opposite, and then on the right were the Lord of Afflictions and 30 Plaguebearers opposite 5 Tree Revenants and the Kurnoth Hunters that were in a Wyldwood. 



The way that we board had been set up, we each had a weak flank set up against a strong flank. On the right we had 30 Plaguebearers that were too far away and too hard to shift for Dave or Shannon to bother trying to take that objective; Alarielle could have made a play for it but other threats such as the Plague Monks needed to be out of the way before she could try. On the opposite side however, there were only 8 models holding their objective. In comparison, there were 30 dryads and 5 Tree Revenants guarding the objective on the left flank. In order to get through there we would need a turn 1 charge from the monks that devastated their numbers before they had a command point to avoid battleshock. Conversely, our objective was being held by 10 Plaguebearers, and if Shannon and Dave could past the stave Monks then they had a good chance to take that objective.



Taking all that together, this meant it was a race. The person who lost their objective first would most likely lose.



It's also worth noting that in the centre of the board was a big tower on a hill. It was big enough to block line of sight and to divert movement to the left and right of it. It effectively divided the board into two flanks that were limited in the assistance they could provide to one another. We finished setting up first, and with the podcast wisdom resounding in my brain, we took the first turn.


The Game

Not a great deal ended up happening on our turn one; we repositioned the sword Monks to make a turn 2 play onto the right hand Sylvaneth objective and the Verminlord got Umbral Spellportal and Dreaded Plague off onto the unit of 10 dryads and they ended up being wiped out by battleshock. The big gamble we took this turn was to try and get a turn 1 charge from the stave Monks into the dryads protecting the left hand Sylvaneth objective. Dave and Shannnon had placed their dryads at the front of their deployment zone, which meant that the Monks had a 7" charge to get in. If they could get int then there was a great chance we would knock out the unit of 20 dryads and would have been contesting the more strongly held Sylvaneth objective on Turn 1. The risk was that if the Monks did not get the charge then they were going to face retribution from both Drycha and Durthu. Unfortunately, despite command pointing a re-roll, the monks fells short and didn't get in. They were going to have to face the music next turn, but it would delay the Sylvaneth forces from spreading their woods and threatening our left objective.

In Sylvaneth Turn 1 not a great deal happened expect for one thing. The Slyvaneth magic phase was ineffective and there was only a little bit of re-positioning done. The exception was a valuable lesson that Sam and I learnt about Drycha. Apparently, she has a shooting attack and this shooting attack hits all models in a unit that are within 10' of her and inflicts a mortal wound on a 3+! The Plague Monk unit was suddenly looking like it would hold out for much less time that anticipated as they lost half of their number to Drycha in one fell-swoop. The only saving grace is that they took enough damage that we were able to remove models in a way to return the unit to wholly within 13' of the Plague Furnace; battleshock would have been lethal for the unit and in hindsight the loss of that unit would have cost us the game.

At the end of turn 1, we were both on 2 points, and big plays were going to be made in Turn 2. We won priority and chose to take the turn.

Looking at the board, we had a heavily stacked left flank of Sylvaneth with both Durthu and Drycha committing to that side. Alarielle had a summoned a Treelord and both her and that Treelord were pushing towards the left flank. We had a unit of stave Monks that could block things up a little bit, and some citadel woods in between our left objective and the Sylvaneth monsters, but otherwise most of our damage was in the centre. The spark of inspiration came when the Great Unclean One managed to successfully cast Foul Regenesis to move the Nurgle Wheel. The sword Monks were within 7' of the GUO giving them a move of 9'. With the wheel moved to +2' to movement, plus a strong run, the sword Monks could move up to 18' (11' + (D6 + 1')). This was enough to get them within a reasonable charge roll of the right Sylvaneth objective that was held but the Kurnoth Hunters and the Tree Revenants. Dave and Shannon had placed a Wyldwood on top of that objective, and this meant the Kurnoth Hunter's had a 3+ re-rollable armour save. 

We cast some spells in the hero phase, but what we were really waiting for was the movement phase. After getting the Corruptor out of the way, we were then ready to move the sword Monks. Sam picked up the dice, gave it a roll, and luckily for us it came up a 6'. We then moved our lightspeed sword Monks 18' across the board into a empty space and making threatening ratty faces at the Kurnoth Hunters near them. Seeing an opportunity to give the sword Monks a better chance the Lord of Afflictions touting the Rustfang also buzzed his way towards the Kurnoth Hunters.

By the end of the turn, one Kurnoth Hunter was left with one wound (that re-rollable armour save is amazing!) and the stave Monks had taken off Drycha. We had managed to take a Sylvaneth objective and we were on 7 points.

This left Dave and Shannon in a difficult position. They needed to take our objective plus reclaim their own in order to take the game back. We both knew that we weren't going to get another turn after this one so it was all or nothing. Unfortunately, neither us or Dave and Shannon realised this, and we both thought that if they retook our left objective then that would tie up the game. This made for an intense turn as they managed to get Alarielle across the board into the 10 Plaguebearers, where she killed only six, but they got enough dryads within 6' of the objective to take it from. They also finished off the stave Monks while we cleaned up the Kurnoth Hunters. In the end we had pulled ahead on kill points and it was only then that we realised that we had also walked away the the major victory - we were on 7 to their 6.


After-game musings


Timing was an issue in this game. We started a little late, and the rounds were short, but we should have got through more than 2 turns. I'm not sure where exactly the delays were but it's something I need to bear in mind in the future. The monk combats definitely take time to resolve, and moving that many models can also be time-consuming. Other than that, Dave and Sharron were great to play against. After the game they said that the decision denied them the space to set up Wyldwoods which made things difficult; thanks podcasts! Otherwise this game on our side was all about the monks and the placement of the Plague Furnace. It doesn't say much about the rest of the army but I guess that's what happens when only two turns are played.

Somehow, we had won all our games with one more to go! I was starting to get nervous at the idea that we might go undefeated and who our next opponent might be! We certainly had not intentions of being on the top tables in the last game but that's where we were! Stay tuned for Game 4 and the final results!

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