BM 2017 (Jan 27 - 29) Game 1: Nemo3 vs Helga

Frederik brought Helga with a lot of Infantry and Rask in a standard heavy heavy list. I felt more comfortable into both with Nemo3, especially due to not having practiced my Haley2 list before.
I was expecting him to drop Rask, as that seemed so far the drop into Cygnar and was surprised when he picked Helga instead.

There was no model in his list which I remember having played against before, maybe I played against one of these heavies before and maybe Targ. He might have been in ADR, I do not remember

His List (I believe):

Helga – Thornfall Alliance Theme
- Targ
- Road Hog
- War Hog
- Splatter boar

Farrow Brigands
-UA

Farrow Brigands
- UA

Farrow Brigands
-UA

Farrow Slaughterhousers

Farrow Razorback Crew

Gobber chef (maybe)

I won the roll and choose to start the game I believe. We were playing entrenched and there was a very central obstruction. 

Deployment
My Storm Striders were on each side of the obstruction while my jacks were placed to run through the middle with Arlan just behind them. Nemo, Finch and Squire were going towards my zone, Finch centrally behind the jacks. My Lances took the far left flank to threaten his zone and to take advantage of the forest between his deployment zone bordering into his zone.

He deployed one unit of brigands opposite my Lances and the other two opposite my zone, Helga and Beasts went in the middle and the Slaughterhousers ran behind. His right Brigands preyed my right battle engine and Dynamo while the left Brigands preyed my Lances with the units which were opposing the respective models. 

Cygnar top of 1

I had boxed in Dynamo behind a forest and ran the lights behind the obstruction. The battle engines ran as far forward as possible and my Lances ran behind the forest in his zone so that he could only shoot one.

Minions bottom of 1

He ran everything up and shot one Storm Lance for a couple of damage. After his first turn he had left Helga B2B with his Road Hog and Splatter Boar in a central position

Cygnar top of 2

I had the possibility to go either for the right flank with 2 brigand units with my Firefly, the preyed battle engine, 2 Chain lightning’s via Lancer and a shot from Nemo3 pulling back my Lances and other battle engine on the other flank to go for a scenario or attrition game or to go for a janky assassination. 

Naturally, I went for the assassination because I am not strong enough to resist these temptations and after my activations it looked like this.

 

State of the board after failed assasination

Close up after assassination shot

  

As you see, Helga was still alive (5 boxes), however I killed the War Hog, the Splatter Boar and left the Road Hog with one aspect and a couple life (2 I believe) alive. The janky assassination included running my Firefly in position to slam him with force hammer into the Splatter boar and shot said boar and Firefly with 2 battleengines, Nemo3 and Lances (assaulting) under feat with POW12 boosted leaps on Helga and her Beasts.

 

So where did I go wrong in my assassination run calculation, as it was actually a very bad call. First of all, I should had assaulted with the Lances first, as I had only two shots before the assaulted model was dead and thus I lost out on 3 pow12 boosted leaps. Second, and probably more important, I should had considered in my calculations that I will kill a beast and give Helga more Fury to transfer to her other beasts. 

On the Plus side Nemo3 was quite safe and Dynamo not yet committed at all due to my mis-positioning in deployment.

Minions bottom of 2

His retaliation killed 3 Lances, Laddermore, who had ran engaged the leftmost Brigands (Prey: Lances), as well as the preyed battle engine. The prey went on Nemo3 to apply further pressure on my right flank.

Cygnar top of 3

I then switched back to my original plan and used Nemo3, Finch, Arlan, Lancer and Dynamo to nearly clear the right flank (Brigands with Prey:Nemo3 and Prey:Dynamo) and started scoring.

On the left Flank the remaining Lances helped in killing the Gun Boar and kept the Brigands tied up as best as possible, while the left Storm Strider participated in clearing the right flank. 

I scored 1:0

Minions bottom of 3

He contested my zone, finished the Lances and started to work on the left Storm Strider. Due to his right flank being on the verge of beeing eradicated, his Slaughterhousers shift right and kill the Firefly. The left Brigands prey switched to my last battle engine.

Cygnar top of 4

I decided to force the scenario here, so I cleared the right flank Brigands, leaving my Lancer and Dynamo in charge range of his Slaughterhousers but cutting them of contesting possibilities. My left battle engine this time shot his objective and leap killed 3 or 4 Brigands (Prey:Lances) of the left unit while getting the objective on 2 HP. Junior went into position 18” away from the objective to kill it next turn. 

I score to 2:0

Minions bottom of 4

He killed Dynamo and the Lancer with his Slaughterhousers and Helga, and his left Brigands killed the preyed Storm Strider as well. He apparently could contest my zone so the score stayed.

Cygnar top of 4

Arlan and a Chain lightning killed slaughterhousers and Brigands where possible. I moved Nemo3 to a save location and finished the objective with Junior. 

I scored to 4:0

Minions bottom of 4

He killed Arlan, ran one model in my zone and charged my objective with Helga but did not kill it, probably because he tried to get an assassination? I stayed at 4:0

Cygnar top of 5

I have still enough time to kill the contesting model and all besides one Slaughterhouser before I win the game on scenario 5:0. Look how nice Helga and Nemo3 are facing each other.

I score to 5:0

 

End game state

Summary: 

All in all a very nice game a nice opponent, I am sure next time he will not place Helga B2B with his LOS blocking beasts. 

However I believe the better play for me would have been killing his right flank as described above. That way I could have kept my feat and improved Dynamos position, as he was too blocked by the central obstruction and thus had to wait too long to come into the game.

In the end the remaining models in my list were all free solos for the Theme and Finch. So it was actually quite tight although I believed my Nemo3 list to be up against such an Infatery heavy list. 

I am happy that I started going for the scenario early enough to finish this game out.