FLG League Cross County Championship Bat Rep

Hey everyone, Reecius here to recap the action for the first cross county league championships game!

As we outlined with the FLG League concept at the beginning, we wanted to link up leagues around our area to create more community interaction and to make the leagues more exciting and fun! To that end, the FLG League we ran here crowned a champ which was myself after a tough game against Paul M. in the finals here at Frontline Gaming. You can read that battle report, here.

That was a fun game and after the Orange County League wrapped up, Jordan S. was their winner and so the two league champs met up to decide who would be the last man standing! (By the way, feels weird talking about myself in the third person, but let’s roll with it!).

Jordan brought a mean Ynnari list which you can see below.

• Wave Serpent [9 PL, 167pts]: Shuriken Cannon [10pts], Spirit Stones [10pts], Twin Bright Lance [40pts]
• Wave Serpent [9 PL, 172pts]: Spirit Stones [10pts], Twin Aeldari Missile Launcher [50pts], Twin Shuriken Catapult [5pts]
• Farseer [6 PL, 105pts]: 1. Guide, 3. Fortune, Singing Spear [5pts]
• The Yncarne [17 PL, 337pts]: Ancestors’ Grace, Word of the Phoenix
• Bonesinger [70pts]
• Kabalite Warriors 4x Kabalite Warrior [28pts] Sybarite [7pts]: Splinter Rifle
• Kabalite Warriors 4x Kabalite Warrior [28pts]. Sybarite [7pts]: Splinter Rifle
• Rangers 5x Ranger [60pts]

• Crimson Hunter [8 PL, 160pts]: 2x Bright Lance [40pts]
• Crimson Hunter Exarch [9 PL, 165pts]: Two Starcannons [30pts]
• Hemlock Wraithfighter [10 PL, 210pts]: 4. Protect/Jinx, Spirit Stones [10pts]
• Craftworld Attribute: Alaitoc: Fieldcraft

• Nightwing [8 PL, 138pts]: Crystal Targeting Matrix [5pts], Twin Bright Lance [40pts], Twin Shuriken Cannon [17pts]
• Nightwing [8 PL, 138pts]: Crystal Targeting Matrix [5pts], Twin Bright Lance [40pts], Twin Shuriken Cannon [17pts]
• Phoenix [10 PL, 205pts]: Crystal Targeting Matrix [5pts], Nightfire Missile Array, Phoenix Pulse Laser, Twin Shuriken Cannon [17pts]

Here’s the list I had been playing all league (with some minor variation in the beginning of the league):

So, as stated, my list lacked a lot of tools to deal with the Alaitoc air force, lol. However, I had a plan and hoped to be able to play to the mission to score enough points to take victory even if I was also taking heavy casualties.

Jordan rolled up ITC Champion’s Mission #5: Crucible of Champions which was good for me as the more objectives on the table the better. Flyers cannot hold them and Jordan had very few infantry units so that at least was in my favor. We rolled for deployment and came up with Hammer and Anvil which was neutral for me, as his army is so dang fast and mine comes in from multiple threat vectors, it wasn’t a big deal what deployment we rolled up.

Reecius’ Secondaries:

• Behind Enemy Lines
• Recon
• Big Game Hunter

Jordan’s Secondaries:

• Behind Enemy Lines
• Recon
• Old School

We both picked board control secondaries as both of our armies are very good at achieving them. Jordan opted for Old School as his army is very good at achieving those points in most cases and I opted for Big Game Hunter as that was pretty much all Jordan presented with me in terms of targets and we both agreed I’d have to be trying to take them out even if that was going to be hard to do. Jordan won the roll for first turn and opted to go first.

I deployed extremely defensively, hiding everything in buildings as much as I could or keeping them off of the table with stratagems and my units’ natural abilities to keep them off of the table. I threw out a bait unit in the Storm Guardians hoping to lure Jordan into dedicating resources to take them out but deployed them in a building in such a way that I could pull casualties to make less and less of the unit visible as they got damaged. With luck, I’d be left with just a few of them alive out of LoS after soaking a lot of firepower. This proved to be winning tactic as Jordan went after them (and to be fair, they were one of the only units in LoS) and with the 4++ Celestial Shield strat and the -1 to be hit strat, they were able to weather the storm going down to 4 models but leaving several units unable to shoot them. Jordan was able to find a hole in my backfield defense though, and got a flyer in position to shoot the Avatar, but luckily he survived with 3 wounds. Whew!

That left Jordan in a bad position as he failed to get a kill in turn 1, and First Strike, leaving him very vulnerable to me racking up a big score on my turn which is exactly what hapenned. My Dire Avengers managed to shoot down the flyer in my backfield even without Doom (which my psychic powers were comically bad, I only got a few off throughout the game). My Banshees also flew across the table using Matchless Agility and their natural speed to kill a unit of Rangers on an Objective and then fade into a building where much of Jordan’s army couldn’t attack them. My Dark Reapers were also super annoying in this game, as I moved them out of a building to shoot, and then used Fire and Fade to move back into it, keeping them relatively safe for as long as my CP held out. I also brought in 2 War Walkers into his backfield for Behind Enemy Lines and Recon. This gave me a big early game lead as I killed more, held more objectives, and got 3 secondary objectives on turn 1.

In the mid-game Jordan knew he had some ground to make up and so came at me very aggressively going for Recon and Behind Enemy Lines points (super easy to get with all those flyers!) and was focusing on taking down any units I left exposed. I tactically sacrificed units every turn to snag objectives to keep us tied up on the score for the primary. My War Walkers, for example, got smoked turn 2, but were replaced by Striking Scorpions who bravely stood in the right place for a turn to get me another Recon and behind Enemy Lines point and then die the next turn. However, this served two purposes: it kept Jordan’s units occupied and spread out, and kept me countering the fact that he killed more units than me turns 2-5 by gaining me more objectives held during those turns to keep the primary even each round. I knew all I had to do was maintain my early lead and not let him put up big scores in any one turn to stay ahead.

My plan was working out apart from a few hiccups wherein Jordan got the bonus point one turn but also steadily wracked up Recon and Behind Enemy Lines points. I kept getting mine as well, but ran out of units to throw into his backfield so knew he’d pass me on that one by at least a point so I positioned a unit of Warp Spiders to make a jump into his backfield with a decent jump move on turn 6 if I needed it. Everything was running to plan as we beat each other up, me dropping units in and destroying a Wave Serpent and Flyer here and there, him nuking exposed infantry in a slug fest.

I felt good until the wheels almost came off of the bus on turn 4! I destroyed a Wave Serpent that I had charged in melee for extra movement to get my Fire Dragons, Dire Avengers and Asurmen closer to objectives but to my dismay, the damn thing exploded, lol. It killed a ton of my models but more importantly left a gap in my Dire Avenger screen where the Ynacrne (whom popped in after the serpent exploded) was able to charge into Asurman. Now, normally this wouldn’t worry me too much but as he took 3 mortal wounds in the explosion, there was no room for error in the fight. Thankfully, I failed all of my 3++ invul saves and he got skewered, lol. That dropped the 4++ from all of the Dires, and they got butchered in short order, leaving me with only a single unit of them left. I’d also run out of CP, meaning my Dark Reapers couldn’t play peek-a-boo any longer and would face the wraith of the air force. Uh oh…this meant I was no longer in a position to actually fight him head on meaning I was living on borrowed time.

Late game left me gasping for air as I was running out of models and Jordan found himself in a target rich environment. I’d nuked half of his vehicles and all his infantry and characters apart from the Yncarne, but what he had left was able to put a serious hurtin’ on me. He started to catch up on the scoreboard and my lead which had started strong began to narrow quickly. However, since I had second turn, we both looked at the board and realized that all I had to do to seal victory was to keep my head down and not give him any more easy kills to deny primary points and to deny him Last Blood, then pounce on objectives turn 6, which is exactly what I did! So when the dust settled, the Footdar, in true space elf fashion, hid for the second to last turn of the game while Jordan jumped on what objectives he could, and then I sprung out to seize 1 more objective than he had for the all important extra point, giving me a 1 point victory!

Final Score:

• Footdar: 24
• Ynnari: 23

What a great end to a great game and a great league! Jordan and I had a very fun, laid back game. There were so many moments were it could have swung either way and I couldn’t have asked for a better game. Having really solid terrain coverage was a massive benefit in this game as without it, I’d have had to go toe to toe with Jordan and the game would have been far bloodier with the outcome uncertain. That game would have come down to luck on who got the big offensive turn first. With good terrain, I was able to play ultra defensively, focusing only on winning the objective game and allowing my army to get beat up but win the mission in a very controlled manner. I also got lucky with the mission, as with Jordan’s army so heavily invested into units that couldn’t score objectives my infantry heavy force with loads of ObSec gave me a big advantage. Had he had more infantry units, it would have been a totally different game.

In retrospect we both agreed he would have probably been better off going second as I had very little long ranged firepower and while he would have sacrificed board control to me, his failure to get a kill on turn 1 cost him 3 points, which was all the difference. Going second also let me see exactly how many objectives I had to hold each turn to keep him from recovering from the turn 1 gaff. It also put me in position to make a safe run for last turn objectives which ultimately is what won the game.

In the end I was very pleased with the Biel-Tan brigade. It is totally themed to the Swordwind from the Biel-Tan backstory and the fact that such a fluffy list could also perform well made me very happy. Even facing the dreaded Alaitoc Craftworld’s powerful defensive buffs I was able to play smart and squeak out a win. I will continue to play my lovely Footdar (and finish painting the new units, lol).

If you’re interested in joining in the fun, the new FLG League is taking sign-ups, now!

And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!