Cancon 2018 Aftermath - Part 4

This is a continuation of my report of the recent Clash of Kings tournament at Cancon 2018. You can find the previous part here.

Game 4: Push
Ed Hamacek, League of Rhordia

I still hadn't won a game, but I guess at least I had no longer lost all of them either. I had points on the board. Surely the only way was up now.

Ed's list made me nervous. A wall of Knights and Honour Guard, and 3 Volley Guns to boot. I knew how tough this list would be - I had used a slightly less focused version of it at a previous Cancon. After the horrors of the War Trombones in the first game, I was really worried about letting the Volley Guns rule the field. And with 24" range, they really could control a large area. I decided once again that the key might be to rush them. 

Ed had stacked most of his stuff in the centre or over on the other flank, so that pair of Volley Guns was relatively exposed. I Vanguarded as far as I could with the Forest Shamblers. Honestly, it was dumb. I should have hung back in the trees and then advanced into the field to hop from cover to cover. I don't know what I thought I was going to do. Surge? What if I didn't get the first turn?

The Wild Guard were a little smarter. I'm pretty sure I moved into range of the enemy, but kept in cover so any charge would be hindered. See? Be smart like a Wild Guard. Don't be dumb and impatient like a Forest Shambler. Also, check out all those Dragons over on the next table. At least I wasn't trying to deal with those!

So as I've already said, if I didn't get the first turn I had given the Volley Guns a clear shot at my Forest Shamblers. Did I get the first turn? No, no I did not. Did the Forest Shamblers survive? Why, no. No they did not. Again, my fault. In my defence, I was a bit tired... Less in my defence, it was terrible play.

On my right flank, Ed had elected not to charge the Wild Guard and was being conservative. He forgot my Stormwind Cavalry had Pathfinder, and so I was pleased to get a charge into the Honour Guard in the forest. I did reasonable damage, but those units are very tough. The Drakon went in to shut down a regiment of Knights and negate another unit behind them. 

Without the Forest Shamblers, I was under-manned on the left. I moved up with the Palace Guard and gave them Inspiring and shielded the flank with the Tree Herder. It didn't feel like it would be enough. My shooting did remove one of the Volley Guns - the one in the centre. Couldn't really see the other ones to do much about them.

The Knights charged the Palace Guard, as expected. They didn't do that much damage, either. But they still wavered my unit. That was not ideal. The Tree Herder got shot a bit, but was still good for the charge into the flank. He did moderate damage when I really needed him to roll like a beast and remove the unit. Then he got shot quite a lot. My left flank folded.

My Stormwind Cavalry failed to survive a counter-charge from the Honour Guard (with assistance from a troop of Knights), whilst the other Honour Guard were closing the distance toward my lines.

The Drakon failed to hold up the Knights for very long, and then largely through mismanagement, my Wild Guard were only able to hit the Knights by being hindered by the obstacle. It meant they were never going to do enough damage to get rid of the larger Knight unit, and Ed then found just enough space to get the other unit into the combat with the full use of their Thunderous Charge. It was not good.

Aaand then there was this. I put the Green Lady smack in front of the Honour Guard to buy time for my other stuff. Because they'd be hindered, right? Except just like Ed had forgotten that my Cavalry had Potion of the Caterpillar, I was returning the favour and forgetting that his unit had it too. Man, this went badly. She did not survive.

Not all was doom and gloom. My Bolt Throwers rolled a surprising amount of damage and managed to waver the other unit of Honour Guard as it was bearing down upon them. Pity they failed abysmally to repeat that effort in the following turn or two. The Sea Guard charged in and finished off the other Honour Guard unit as they were busy wiping the various pieces of the Green Lady from their weapons and armour. Then my horde backed up and got ready to fight Ed's entire army at once...

OK, I know it looks bad. But really, it could have been worse. The units in front didn't have all that many attacks and lost their Thunderous Charge thanks to Phalanx. And the unit in the flank was hindered. My Sea Guard shrugged this off pretty well. The same could not be said of the Mage. Unfortunately my counter-charge against one of the Knight troops in front bounced really badly. It was a poor effort. And it meant I was flanked again, this time with help from the flying beastie. At that point it really was all sorts of bad.

Result: Loss, 0-21 (yep, that hurt)

You can find the next part of my report here.