Game 131: Vyros2 vs Krueger2

Game 131 – Vs Paul Sheard – Circle – 11/1/18

My list:

Vryos, Incissar of the Dawnguard (Forges of War)

-Sylys Wyshnaylrr, The Seeker

-Griffon

-Griffon

-Griffon

-Griffon

-Griffon

-Griffon

-Aspis

-Aspis

-Imperatus

Arcanist Mechanik

Arcanist Mechanik

Arcanist Mechanik

House Shyeel Artificer

House Shyeel Magister

House Shyeel Arcanists

House Shyeel Arcanists

His List:

Krueger the Stormlord (The Bones of Orboros)

-Woldwarden

-Woldwarden

-Woldwarden

-Woldwyrd

-Woldwyrd

Celestial Fulcrum

Blackclad Stoneshaper

Blackclad Stoneshaper

Blackclad Stoneshaper

Blackclad Wayfarer

Gallows Grove

Gallows Grove

Shifting Stones

Shifting Stones

Sentry Stone & Mannikins

Sentry Stone & Mannikins

Paul and I have played the Vyros2 vs Krueger2 matchup before, resulting in a win to me, but since then Paul has played the list a whole lot more, the Wold CID changes have gone through, and the Wold theme has added something extra to the list, so this was set up to be a much tougher prospect than last time. Paul won the roll to go first and we got moving.

Paul runs up all of his forces, casting TK onto all three Woldwardens to get them 2” further forwards. The Celestial Fulcrum runs into a unit of Shifting Stones, before being ported forwards to basically the centre of the table, which is a pretty scary prospect. The rest of his forces do basic stone stuff up the table.

I have to find the balance between respecting Paul’s threat ranges and being so far back that I can just be pushed back by Krueger’s feat and giving up too much scenario presence, especially on Spread the Net. Vyros casts Deceleration, and fires out a Twister at a Mannikin, using the forest in the centre to add to a decent protective cloud wall. I block models in with others, stretching quite far back, so that if Paul wants to get the best pushes possible he is going to need to get very far up with Krueger.

Paul moves up and starts shooting into my forces, but his dice do some really horrible things to him and he gets barely anything done. Rolling boosted 8s or unboosted 5s become basically impossible for him and the decent rolls he do get are absolutely not where he needs them, just chipping a few points onto a couple of jacks. Krueger feats, pushing a section of my forces back, before pulling in a Griffon on the left and killing it. The turn had gone pretty badly, but one of the bigger issues was that it took nearly 25 minutes off his clock.

I need to take advantage of my luck in the last turn, but -2 speed on almost everything makes it tricky. My flanking Griffon on the right takes out the Gallows Grove, removing his flag scorer and a TK channeling option. My central jacks take out both of his Sentry Stones and the Blackclad Wayfarer, moving all of my forces towards the right to protect myself. Vyros feats to prepare to take advantage of anything Paul can pick off on his turn. I move into a 2-1 lead.

Paul takes full control of the left flank, killing off my contesting pieces over there, moving a Stoneshaper to the flag to score it. A Griffon gets pulled in and destroyed, and a number of my other jacks are turned around to reduce my options next turn. Paul levels up the score at 3-3.

With being up on clock, having last turn and more cheap contesting pieces I figure that I can just keep safe and grind out the game on attrition. I move my Magister to the flag, with a couple of Shield Guards nearby to keep her self. An Arcanist runs to contest the left flag, and 2 others stand within 16” to be ready to do the same in future turns. I move into a 5-4 lead.

Paul is extremely low on clock and just clears off the left flag, and after failing to shoot off the Magister, contests the right with a Stoneshaper. Score goes to 6-6.

I contest the left flag again, and kill the Woldwyrd on the right along with the contesting Stoneshaper. I am slowly pushing my line forward, pushing Paul back and taking command of the board. I move to an 8-7 lead.

Paul clocks at this point, and we consider the state of the game. With 3 turns remaining Paul is going to really struggle to keep hold of the scenario scoring as the line has pushed past the right flag. We call the game there as we have time for a second.

VICTORY

An interesting game for sure. Paul had a really unlucky turn 2 but realistically wouldn’t have taken out too much more of the support staff. From there the game was under reasonable control and he only really managed to get the Aspises off me, which I was pretty fine with. I’d feel much better going first against this, but it was great to see that I can handle tricky situations like this and still grind out a victory.