Playing a Press Ganger don't ya know!

The High Reclaimer vs. High Executioner Servath Reznik (Protectorate of Menoth)

Loss: Assassination

Well I've been messaging our local Press Ganger quite a bit recently (sorry Adam!).  He also plays Menoth and is much muhc better than I am.  We met at my first Tournament that he ran and he gave me a bit of a coaching session during the "bye" game.

So he suggested coming to check out the Mammoths and we sorted a game.  He played using a Reznik1 Judgement of Fire list (with 4 Reckoners!!) and I decided to go for High Reclaimer again.

I deployed in a similar way to how i did when I played Kraye.  I opted to go second (to get the extra move up the board) and so Adam ran everything up the board at me, leaving his entire force on teh edge of my zone on turn 1. 

I unpacked as I have before with Zealots mini-feating and running forward with some zealots in the clouds and the rest behind - big mistake!  Everything else moved up behind, although I messed up the pocket for HR leaving my clouds a lot closer to my guys than I'd ahve liked.  I even somehow ended up with members of the second Zealot wave in the cloud.

Turn two and I knew I'd made some big mistakes.  In a demonstration of what Cleansers do they set themselves up in two lines and torched everything!  Because my zealots were visible they coudl be targetted from outside the clouds, the packed nature behind the clouds meant that the sprays also got the guys behind them.  Before the turn was up Adam was out of continous fire tokens and I was in serious trouble.

My turn and as expected all the Zealots who were on fire died, I also took a serious amount of damge on the Bastions - although none died.  In retribution I incinerated a Reckoner (POW18 CRA) which caused serious damage.  I also bombed and charged the cleansers killing 6 of them.  However I forgot to Enliven the Avatar which meant problems next turn

Well turn 3 carried on the theme of Turn 2 and I lost an Avatar, 7 Bastions and a Revenger.  I could see a little positive that there was a potential assassination run from feating behind the front lines and go for a stab on Reznik.

So I went for it and greed took over, first I used Ashes to Ashes and with Witch Hound a Jack blocked my frontal charge.  Second Ashes to Ashes and Reznik went and hid a little further away anticipating a shot from the Vassal.  The Vassal then took his shot and Reznik moved back to stop both my newly feated Bastions from charging him.  Had I avoided doing this I would have potentially got 3 charging Bastions, as it was I got one who promptly did nothing.   

With all this faffing I'd left HR a little to open for my liking.  With a little finese the  charge lane was opened up, the Bastion engaging Reznik killed and the man himself cast Engine of Destruction and performed his sacred duties as High Executioner....

Lessons Learnt -

• The game showed how far I still have to go to get anywhere near winning regularly at WMH.  However after the game we went through a deployment and turn 1 and I now feel much more confident about what I should be looking to achieve with HR.
• I need to be very aware of Sprays when I use HR I need to start remembering the finer points on the cards.  Using Blessed Weapons on the Bastions to bypass Arcane Shield would have meant another 4 points of damage for every hit.
• There are a load more lessons learnt but I think it will take me a while to absorb them all!

2016 Win/Loss record to date: 6/17 (Protectorate 6/16 - Circle 0/1)