Siege1 vs. Gearhart1 – Austria1 Wolfgang Omodamos Mozart – WTC Round 2

Hello everyone!

After the first round where I played a long and demanding game, I couldn’t wait to play another one! We were paired against another Austrian team, Austria 1 this time. During the pairing process selection, I got the only match up I really wanted to play, thanks to Konrad who is our pairing process master!

Here you can find other pairings for round 2.

Mischa, a Crucible Guard and Cygnar player (as he later revealed), brought Gearhart and Syvestro. I didn’t hesitate for a second, as Siege1 was my CG drop right away. Mischa after quickly considered pros and cons and finally we were to play Siege1 against Gearhart1.

Mischa’s Gearhart1 list:

Crucible Guard
[Theme] Magnum Opus

[Gearhart 1] Marshal General Baldwin Gearhart [+27]
– Retaliator [9]
– Toro [13]
– Vulcan [35]
– Aurum Ominus Alyce Marc [5]
Anastasia di Bray [3]
Crucible Guard Mechanik [2]
Crucible Guard Mechanik [2]
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist [4]
Hutchuk, Ogrun Bounty Hunter [0(6)]
Trancer [0(3)]
Trancer [0(3)]
Trancer [0(3)]
Trancer [0(3)]
Crucible Guard Infantry (max) [15]
– Crucible Guard Infantry Officer & Standard [4]
Dragon’s Breath Rocket [5]
Dragon’s Breath Rocket [5]

My Siege1 list:

Cygnar
[Theme] Heavy Metal

[Brisbane 1] Major Markus “Siege” Brisbane [+28]
– Charger [9]
– Charger [9]
– Triumph [18]
– Squire [0(5)]
Anastasia di Bray [3]
Journeyman Lieutenant Allister Caine [0(5)]
– Ace [10]
Journeyman Warcaster [0(4)]
– Firefly [8]
Alexia Ciannor & the Risen [10]
Storm Strider [18]
Storm Strider [18]

We played Bunkers.

Deployment

I lost the roll again and Mischa decided to go second to score first. I deployed my models the usual way with Striders on the flanks. I took a pathfinder objective as the large terrain in front of my zone was rough terrain.

Mischa deployed his beautifully painted crucible models on the opposite side. Vulcan was placed on the right, Toro in the middle, Gearhart somewhere in between. Crucible Infantry took left side. 3 Trancers were about to take great position behind the forest, within contesting range of the flag.

Round 1 Turn 1

 I ran most of my things forward and tried to stay out of most of the threat ranges. Brisbane cast Fox hole in front of my army and charged into it. Caine cast FFE on my caster and Journeyman warcaster cast Arcane Shield on one of the Striders.

Round 1 Turn 2

Mischa decided to stay more than 19” away from Striders. He was planning to shadow bind my battle engines, but then he realized that he can swap weapons only after making an attack so that made no sense. Trancers took positions behind the forest and behind the cloud on the left.

Round 2 Turn 1

I decided to maintain my position I advance only slightly forward. Ace went in, used his stealth imprint and shot the mechanic, killing a Trancer with a Trick Shot. I decided to put one of my Striders within a contesting range of the rightmost flag and killed another Trancer with a boosted attack. I moved my battle group forward to threaten farther the next turn. The charger in the middle stayed within contesting range of the flag and shot Toro twice. I put most of my models outside of the spray attack threat range. Alexia created a Thrall for the next round.

Round 2 Turn 2

Ambushed Hutchuk and Anastasia engaged Strider and Ace. Toro ran forward to threaten with his counter charge and to disturb my plans. Gearhart finally used his Vitriolic Ingression Catapult and put Shadow Bind on the engine on the right. Vulcan moved forward and put some damage on my Strider and the Charger. The rest of the army tried to stay outside of range of the other Strider and took care of the Charger in the middle. Trancers stayed within 4” of the flag. We both scored 1 point, 1:1.

Round 3 Turn 1

I must admit I felt quite intimidated by the colossal standing right there, in front of my army. I was even considering going for the assassination and after revealing my plan (that included Strider charging forward) to Mischa, he kindly reminded me of a Shadow Bind token lying in front of the right Storm Strider. I couldn’t see it from my perspective. Mischa said that it would be unfair if he wouldn’t remind me about the token after I revealed him my plan. I must say that he is a true gent!
I needed to find another way to engage. I had to get rid of the colossal and somehow neutralize Toro in the middle. I decided that this was going to be my feat turn. Triumph shot Vulcan with his Maintenance phase shot. Siege moved slightly backwards, used his feat and shot Vulcan. Firefly fried Trancers with a lucky shot. Triumph and Strider continued the bombardment, frying couple of Crucible Infantry dudes on the way. Later, Ace knocked down Toro with his Thunder Bolt and, to our surprise, he crippled Toro’s Cortex! Toro couldn’t be neutralized any better. Otherwise, I would need to commit more models, as he would be able to charge Siege next turn. Caine bounced Trick Shots off the Strider and killed both Hutchuk and Anastasia (thanks to Siege’s feat). The Storm Stider and Charger finished Vulcan – two biggest threats were gone. In order to be super safe, Jr cast Arcane Shield on Siege (5 foc). I scored 3 points, Thralls on both flags and in my rectangular zone. Mischa scored one point in his zone, 4:2.

Round 3 Turn 2

At this point, with Cortex crippled, Toro couldn’t do anything impactful. Gorman tried to blind one of the Striders, but the grenade deviated the other way. Gearhart put Shadow Bind on the other Strider again, this time I marked it properly 😛 Sadly, Retaliator was too far to join the party, so he just killed a Thrall. Crucible Infantry combined with other models killed Firefly. We both scored in our rectangular zones, 5:3.

Round 4 Turn 1

In order to win I needed to score only 3 points. I Force Hammered Toro away, killed Gorman, contested the opposite rectangular zone, killed the objective with Strider and Triumph and controlled 3 flags with 2 Thralls and Anastasia to score 5 points in total! We finished 10:3.

Afterthoughts

Getting rid of both Vulcan and Toro was really lucky. Especially, knocking Toro down and crippling his Cortex with one shot. I had some excess attacks to finish Vulcan, but only thanks to Ace’s lucky shot. Otherwise it might have looked totally different, as I would have needed to put more effort in neutralizing Toro first.

Not getting sniped by Crucible Infantry was important. Fortunately, Retaliator was simply too far to apply oil, so I wasn’t THAT scared of the rifle guys. Keeping Siege in a Fox Hole, on camp 5 almost the entire game, with Arcane Shield on top of that, prevented me from losing in a stupid way.

Alexia1 again proved her value in gold! Free Thrall each turn is more important that it might seem at first. Apart from contesting/scoring imagine a Thrall charging a battle engine for instance, under Siege’s feat, isn’t that sweet?

All in all, playing this game against Mischa was a pleasure and I hope we will get to play again soon (maybe BoostedCon?). Mischa saw I totally forgot about the Shadow Bind, and since my plan included my engine charging in, he simply made sure I was aware of that token. Fair play in its finest!

He is also a Cygnar player and he admitted that he read my battle report about a similar match up that you can find here. It felt great to play against somebody that is actually reading my blog 😀 and my friends were totally right to slow down with posting battle reports before WTC and focus on playing – they simply didn’t want my opponents to know everything about my lists hahaha

This time my team won 5:0, and we were going to the third round undefeated so far.

Cheers,
Piotr