The High Reclaimer vs. Zevanna Agha, Old Witch of Khador (Khador)
Loss: Scenario (5/0)
Well having had a little tutoring from our local PG last week I thought I'd give High Reclaimer another go. The intention was to play two lists but the first one became a proper slugfest that we only ended up with a single game. My list was the High Reclaimer list that I've been playing for the last few weeks (yes, I'm just as shocked as you - the fourth game and no changes!!!). Against me was Chris who took the old witch, scrapjack, pikemen, winterguard, doom reavers and Behemoth.
I won the roll and chose to go second (trying to learn from mistakes previous going first). Turn 1 was scary, thanks to a mini feat and Kovnik the pikemen ended up with a 20" advance ending in shield wall just beyond half-way. On the other side everything ran forward, Old Witch then telported forward and feated.
That kinda made my turn one mute when it came to the right hand zone. I minifeated the zealots and ran foward with the firs three before realising the immunity to damage doesn't include feats - 3 dead zealots and a wasted feat turn, great! So all I could do was shuffle the infantry up to the edge of her control and wait, a few Cleansers did a CRA and missed but that was the height of excitement. On the other flank everything advanced forward and popped smoke. I wasn't looking forward to facing the Behemoth and doom reavers but was hoping the clouds would keep my Bastions safe for the time being.
Turn two and the pikemen advanced to form a line across the edge fo the zone, hemming me out. They also gained Iron Flesh and shieldwall to make them pretty much immune to everything I had opposite them. A large group also engaged the Avatar but caused minimal damage. On the left the clouds caused issues and meant nothing could really shoot save for killing the lone Bastion who was too far to one side to get hidden. The rest of the guys moved in the hope of getting line of sight around the clouds turn 3.
My turn 2 and I threw everything at the the pikemen in an attempt to dislodge some of them and challenge the zone. Sadly nothing happened, the iron wall of pikemen held. I then saw an opportunity for the Avatar to go smash the Behemoth. What I failed to do was to activate the Covenant first for no knock downs and so the pikemen tripped him up and he hit the dust. I now had an issue with The Behemoth and I needed to do something about it. Luckily the Bastions were in range thanks to reach and so three of them piled in but had very little damage thanks to appaling rolls from me. The rest charged where they could and killed a few winterguard. I popped cloud where I could and then waited for the retaliation.
Here is where the game started to unravel for me, I was now down 1/0 on scenario with very little hope of getting in the zone on my next turn. That would put me 2/0 in Khador turn 3, 3/0 in my turn three and 4/0 in Khador turn 4. I completely missed the significance of having only a single turn left before potentially losing the game.
Turn 3 played out as expected, I took a beating from Behemoth and the Doom Reavers losing 5 Bastions (luckily the advice I picked up previously left me with surviving members from each squad). The Avatar then took a hell of a kicking from the Pikemen, losing its movement (this also stopped me being able to trample into the zone next turn). I also lost the majority of the Zealots.
My turn 3, completely unaware of how fragile my situation was I was intent on smashing through as many of the Khador troops as I could to then win on attrition. The way I figured was that I'd go 4/0 down on Khador turn 4 but then with overwhelming numbers to smash what was left for assassination or scenario victory. With this in mind I went to town on the pikemen killing them all with bombs, cleansing fire and the Avatar. On the other side I caused major damage on Behemoth and killed 4 Doom Reavers along with more winter guard via Ashes to Ashes using the soulds from last turn.
I then hit the timer to swap and was feeling very confident of a victory. Whilst I knew I was down 4/0 on scenario by the start of my next turn I'd completely forgotten about getting a point for trashing the enemy objective. To my dismay the two surviving Doom Reavers charged and smashed it to bits putting me 5/0 down on scenario. Worst thing is theres no reason I shouldn't have seen it coming, I was just far to focussed on killing things!
End of Game:
Lessons Learnt -
- I need to see the bigger picture (yes, this was in my lessons fromlast time). Going down on scenario is fine but I need to remember you can score points by more than just zones/flags - killzone could also have been a tool.
- I need to find a way to make sure no matter what I don't allow zones to be uncontested on turn 2. Especially when I'm going second, activating the Covenant first could really have made a difference and allowed me to trample through to Behemoth or the zone.
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