This is the second part of my report of the recent Old World tournament at Arcfest. You can find the previous part here.
Game 2: A Chance Encounter (Special Features, Domination)
Ben Hallett - Jade Fleet
- Shugengan Lord (General, Level 4, Illusion, Lore of Yang) on Great Spirit Longma with The Monkey King's Wisdom, Scrolls of Wei-jin
- Shugengan General (Level 1, High Magic, Lore of Yang) on Great Spirit Longma with Celestial blade
- Gate Keeper (Battle Standard Bearer) with Celestial blade, Heavy armour, Shield, Banner of Swirling Wind, Sigil of Smoke & Powder
- 25 Jade Warriors with Shields, Heavy armour, Drilled, Stubborn, Jade Officer [Spirit Lantern], Standard bearer [The Jade Banner], Musician
- 8 Jade Lancers with Cathayan lances, Shields, Heavy armour, Barding, Ambushers, Drilled, Jade Lancer Officer [Ring of Jet + Charmed Shield], Standard bearer, Musician
- Cathayan Grand Cannon with Ogre Loader [Gunpowder bombs]
- Cathayan Grand Cannon with Ogre Loader [Gunpowder bombs]
- Cathayan Sentinel with Granite Sentinel
- Sky Lantern with Sky Lantern Crane Guns
This was only going to be my second game against Cathay, but I can't say as I was feeling very optimistic with 2 Grand Cannons that could double fire once, a Shugengan Lord that could easily kill a Dragon in a turn (maybe even without casting Spectral Doppelganger), and a Sentinel that could hit me with Monster Slayer... After a big win in the first round, this felt like it was likely to be a correction.
Last tournament, this deployment absolutely wrecked me. I had nowhere near enough room, my army was ill suited to it, and I had no idea how to approach it. This was a little better, although I realised after deploying the Dragon Princes that my opponent had cannons, and I might not get the first turn...
Having a compact army made the narrow frontage of the deployment zone much easier to address.
Not that Ben's army was exactly huge, especially with the Jade Lancers starting in ambush. And he was much more interested in giving his cannons and crane guns time to shoot at me than he was in deploying right up the front of the zone.
Can you say "kill box"? Nah, I'm sure this is going to be fine...
In the end I probably did myself a favour setting the Dragon Princes up in such an inviting formation, as they drew most of the enemy fire. The Grand Cannon both double-fired thanks to their Ogre loaders, but only half of the Dragon Princes (and a couple of Silver Helms, probably due to magic) perished. The blast marker is a Column of Crystal that the Shugengan cast to shield their advance as they scurried up behind the building to my right.
The Sentinel had advanced, so I moved things into position in the hope that it would keep advancing.
The Dragon Princes moved around in the cover of the building, with the full intention of sweeping around to get to the Cannon. Assuming the Shugengan got distracted, that is. I tried to limit what they could see.
All poised...
The Sentinel charged the Silver Helms, who bravely ran away under my orders. Ben redirected his charge onto the Merwyrm, but even with a re-reroll on the charge, couldn't make the distance. He just got far enough to poke his nose out from behind the building. Excellent.
Unsportingly, the Dragon Princes were removed by a very powerful casting roll of Constellation of the Dragon (something like 13 hits) resulted in them being wiped out, so Plan A for how I was going to silence those Grand Cannons was gone. Coincidentally, so was the Merwyrm, who succumbed to said cannons. Oh, and the Jade Lancers arrived, pulled out the Ring of Jet, and irresistibly blasted almost a quarter of the Sea Guard off from behind.
Well... At least the Shugengan were now both looking at a unit that was no longer there...
In my turn the Sea Guard spun about in a reform to fire upon the Jade Lancers, whilst the Silver Helms rallied and moved around their flank.
We were down a Merwyrm, but could still send a couple of Dragons into the Sentinel. We just needed to do some decent rolling, and hope Ben didn't do the same... In other news, my general tried to charge the Jade Warriors, who promptly failed their terror test and fled through the Sky Lantern and Grand Cannon. Neither seemed to care, but it was all somehow a bit unexpected.
Shockingly I did not actually roll very well against the Sentinel, but happily he didn't roll great either. We did a few wounds, beat him and forced him back. Unfortunately that meant the Archmage was going to have to carry on alone, as the BSB got kind of scraped off by the building.
Clearly angry at the sneak attack on their rear, the Sea Guard opened up on the Jade Lancers and killed half of them with a single volley! The rest turned and fled, which is understandable.
In the next turn, the Archamage managed to fire up and finish off the Sentinel, which promptly fell on her and knocked off some wounds. How rude! The Jade Warriors rallied in a column formation and shifted around, but then the Sky Lantern drifted forward to block my general from looking at them. Unsurprisingly, the Shugengan now turned around, realising that the whole battle was occurring behind them.
Sadly the Jade Lancers recovered their nerve and came back to start waving their nasty ring at us again, but this time it didn't kill anyone.
What to charge where was a bit of a puzzle here, and this is where I landed. The Archmage went into the Grand Cannon. The general went into the Sky Lantern, as it was either that or the Cannon, and 2 Dragons felt like overkill. My BSB took the opportunity to hit the Shugengan General (ie the smaller one without the nuclear weapon for a club) in the flank.
The charges didn't really go the way I would have liked. The Archmage barely managed to kill the Ogre from the Cannon, and only succeeded in making it fall back in good order. My general maybe half-killed the Sky Lantern, and shoved it back a bit. I elected to follow up into both. The main Shugengan could see all of my Dragons, but would have to choose a target. My general had been reduced to a single wound thanks to shooting, so he wasn't long for this world regardless of what happened. Maybe he'd get to kill the balloon before he went...
The BSB did respectably in the flank of the lesser Shugengan and shoved him back, also choosing to follow up.
Meanwhile my shooting took a lesser toll on the Jade Lancers. It was a toss-up whether to shoot or charge them with the Silver Helms, but with the way the previous volley had gone, I figured I owed it to the shooting to have another crack.
I'm missing a photo here, but you might also notice that I'm missing a Dragon. Having failed to get the Cannon out of the way, my Archmage was flanked by the Jade Warriors after they used drilled to broaden their formation. The unit champion challenged and died, but I lost combat by a ton, broke, and was cut down. None of which was very good. Poor Archmage...
A similarly terrible fate awaited my general, as the enemy general decided to deal with him. I needn't have worried about being obliterated by the Monkey King's Wisdom, however - I died to impact hits. Aw yeah. At least my BSB continued to fight the good fight, with his own Shugengan falling back in good order before being pounced on anew. The Shugengan General died in the following turn, and happily we ran out of time for more turns - otherwise I would have been reduced to overrunning off the field to preserve my pathetic hide.
As for this, well the shooting had had its chance and I knew we were about to run out of time, so I went for the kill against the Jade Lancers, even with them being able to counter-charge. My Silver Helms fought OK and brought down all but one Lancer, who did no damage in return. But then he rather rudely rolled a double 1 for his break test, and held his ground! Last action of the game. How annoying of him!
So I had feared that the game would not go well for me, and it really hadn't gone very well. However, I did spend a fair chunk of the game feeling like I was actually in with a chance. When the Sentinel was dead, the centre was scrambling and I was choosing targets for 3 dragons, I really did feel like I might be able to salvage something. But then we failed to break through at the critical moment and paid the price. I had lost.
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