Last Monday we began the Journeyman League at the club and I'm pleased to say that it had a fantastic turnout with 19 players, so well done to Dave for that!
I decided to stick with my initial instincts with the battlegroup, and so it consisted of Syntherion, an Assimilator and an Inverter. Two fairly blunt instruments, but ones I've grown to like and understand a bit better than the others
With Syntherion's spells such as Hot Shot on the Assimilator and Reconstruct on the Inverter my basic plan was to avoid playing people with purification.
I got to the club reasonably early, but even so there were several games already on the go. After greetings, meetings and catch up I organised a game with Phil Dangerfield. Phil has chosen to play Farrow Minions and has used the standard Journeyman battlegroup for them. Despite having invested in most of the Farrow models, I've never used or faced them before, and haven't really given Carver much attention either, so I wasn't too sure what to expect. The game was short and decisive in my favour. Having won first turn, Phil charged Carver up field his maximum distance, first having cast mobility and quagmire on the War Hog. He riled and then ran his battlegroup to keep up.
In my turn I advanced my units so as not to be in charge range this turn and put up reconstruct on the Inverter and Hot Shot on the Assimilator. I may have thrown out a ground pounder more to check the distance between me and the pigs than for any expectation of damage.
In Phil's second turn he advanced a little further to try and force my hand. He would anyway. He took a couple of shots with the Gun Boars, but to little effect if I recall. He did put up Batten down the Hatches as a spell however meaning that I would find it easier to hit him, but harder to wound.
In my turn, I was going to be in charge range of something with my two vectors, but wasn't sure if Carver would be quite reachable. I upkept for free with Resourceful and put all six Focus on the Vectors. I chose Syntherion as first activation and declared I would be using my feat. This meant that I could charge for free and my battlegroup would be able to use any ranged weapons as part of it's initial attacks. A quick control area check made me reasonably confident that both my Vectors would be in range of Carver. I'm sure Phil was hoping for a charge against the War Hog, but to be honest if I had risked that I doubt I'd have weathered the storm if I'd fluffed it, so I went straight for the boss hog.
He put up a valiant fight, even sacrificing a Gun Boar using two transfers to fight off the 'caster kill, but in the end, I had about eight Melee attacks and a ground pounder ranged attack to use with two Vectors as I boosted the first hit with the hammer to knock him down, and that was a POW 20 attack.
And so, first blood to me (maybe even in the league overall as I think our game was the first to finish). Onwards to face Luke.
Against whom I have never won.
Luke is using a Magnus led Battlegroup consisting of a Buccaneer, a Freebooter and a Mariner. I'm not sure which Contract he is using however.
I've faced Luke's Mercs a couple of times but I couldn't for the life of my remember what they did. Again I lost the roll for first turn, and so Luke ran forward with all but Magnus and the Buccaneer both of whom charged, the latter using an assault shot net with snipe that knocked down my Assimilator. I think it was on this turn that Luke used his feat to manoeuvre most of his force out of harms way whilst moving the Buccaneer in to a baiting position.
This wasn't a particularly big issue for me however. I had no intention of charging in just yet. I upkept my spells for free with Resourceful and gave just one point of Focus to the Assimilator and moved him up. With only the Baccaneer to shoot at I decided to go for the regular shot. Either I didn't hit, or I did negligible damage and so my Assimilator was left in the open. I didn't expect both Vectors to survive another turn, and so with that in mind, I was happy to let it be the Assimilator rather than the Inverter.
Since I had a focus on the Inverter anyway from induction, I ran the Vector so as to be in position to charge whatever took out the Assimilator next turn. Meanwhile, I just manoeuvred Syntherion in to a reasonably safe position and camped on the remaining five focus.
Luke obliged in his turn and began the destruction of the Assimilator with a ship gun shot from the Mariner. That caused a decent amount of damage meaning that the two remaining 'jacks wouldn't be hard pressed to finish him off. The Buccaneer charged next using assault, which inevitably knocked down the Vector meaning that Luke was at liberty to chew through the Assimilator with the Buccaneer and then the Freebooter. Magnus then simply walked in to base contact with the Freebooter to benefit from steady from Lash.
In this turn I knew I needed to start thinking about taking out Magnus. Luke still had three healthy 'Jacks, whereas I was down to my last Vector, and Syntharion wasn't going to last too long either. I upkept Reconstruct with Resourceful just in case and allocated three focus to the Inverter. I began with Syntherion and declared feat meaning that the Inverter would charge for free. I didn't want to charge Syntherion this turn, which with hindsight was a mistake. If I were to play this game again, I would use the last three focus to cast synergy and charge the Buccaneer. As it was, I cast Magnetic hold on Magnus, which hit, and because the Buccaneer had his back to Syntherion and so I just moved my 'caster behind the rough terrain of my destroyed Assimilator so as to avoid the Buccaneer being able to charge due to spacing.
Moving on to the Inverter, I knew that with Lash up, I couldn't easily kill Magnus. I decided to slam the Freebooter in an attempt to then knock down Magnus with the Macropummeler. I only rolled a one for the slam distance however and so Magnus remained base to base with the Freebooter. I did manage to cause seven points of damage to Magnus with the collateral damage, and then a few more with the Macropummeler leaving Magnus on three or four wounds. The Meteor Hammer failed to hit however and Magnus lived.
With just one Vector or Syntherion to kill, I didn't expect to survive Luke's turn, even with Reconstruct up. I didn't however bank on Luke moving Magnus away from base contact with the Freebooter. He went all in for destroying the Inverter, however unluckily for him, at the end of his turn I still had about four boxes left. Crucially one of which was the Induction node. Luke was happy enough though that he had crippled one of my arms, and my movement, as would I have been.
As usual I upkept Reconstruct for free and then I allocated three focus to the Vector. What Luke hadn't banked on however was that my Ace in the hole was Auto repair from Syntherion's Field Marshal ability. Learning from earlier I began with Syntherion and cast Synergy. He then charged the Buccaneer and hit him causing a bit of damage. This wasn't really the main focus of my turn however, as I just needed the +1 to hit and damage.
Moving on to the Inverter, now that Magnus was not benefiting from from Lash, I began with a boosted hit on Magnus with the Macropummeler. I hit, and so with a total of plus four to the damageroll, I killed Magnus without rolling dice. A good solid game despite the small size, and against a solid opponent.
And so, for my first week I was very happy to get two wins. I do not expect this streak to continue for long, but I am just enjoying using the Convergence.
It will come as no surprise to anyone that I have yet to paint my models, but I do intend to do so at some point.
And so on to week 1b.
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