Snipery Death

Once again it became time for my weekly gubbing from Jim. Tonight he wanted to test out Zerkova as his warcaster and I played my Ashlynn list.

Jim's List (OF DOOOM):
Koldun Kommander Aleksandra Zerkova
Destroyer
Devastator
Greylord Ternion
Widowmakers (oh how I hate them...)
Winterguard Mortar Crew
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios
Kell Bailoch

Shockingly I didn't win the first turn - perhaps the first time that's happened with this list. It made for some strange placement, I had a brain fart and didn't realised until it was too late that Anastasia wouldn't be able to go Invisible in the first turn and had placed her far too close to Jim's front line. I tried to salvage the situation by using her before-game movement to get her into a forest. There are Widowmakers to the left in front of a wall, with a Devastator next to them in the centre of the board, then the Mortar Crew and Destroyer. Zerkova starts off placed slightly to the left. Eiryss and Kell Bailoch lurk behind a wall directly in front of the forest on the right where Anastasia is hiding. The Greylord Ternion is behind the soloes.
I deployed mostly in the centre as usual, though not right up to the deployment line (may have been a mistake). Rockbottom, Gorman, Mule and Ashlynn are to the left of my deployment block, Steelhead brick take up the right. I put Stannis just in front of the Steelheads and his Bokur up behind the forest on the right.

Turn One:
My Bokur and Anastasia are in a forest to the right side of the map, the forest isn't too far away from Eiryss who moves up to it and blows Anastasia to bits. Jim took a load of pot shots with the Widowmakers at the Bokur and dropped him to half health - will have to keep him further back next time. The rest of Jim's stuff moved forward. I don't think Jim used Zerkova to cast anything at all this turn.

Ashlynn activated first, cast Quicken on the Halberdiers and Feint on the Mule next to her before charging at the Widowmaker captain who was miles away. Mule runs, Gorman moves and puts smoke on Ashlynn, Rockbottom runs but stays roughly in command range of the Steelheads. The Piper uses his +1 DEF and Terror song on the Halberdiers, raising their DEF against shooting to 16. The Steelhead brick runs forward and spreads out and I run the Bokur back - I've come to think of the Bokur as a late game piece, sticking him out so far in front is just stupid.

Turn Two:
Jim promptly kills almost all the Halberdiers through a combination of Icy Grip, sniper fire, and a variety of template weapons. He moves the Devastator forward to make me deal with it. He then uses his feat to prevent me from running or charging or generally getting stuck in.

So... I discover there are 5 models that can give/receive orders and generally do their stuff - the Bokur, Stannis, a cavalryman who happened to be out of range for the feat, Rockbottom, the Piper and Gorman. The Piper activates and uses March on the few remaining Halberdiers, then Stannis activates to field promote one and take a shot with his Hand Cannon at a Widowmaker, missing by 1 (this becomes a reoccurring theme in the game). Stannis also gives the lonely cavalryman the Run order since the Sergeant was caught in Zerkova's feat. The Halberdiers advance but only one gets into combat with a Greylord and misses with both attacks. The Steelhead cavalry then run or walk, the one that can run makes it to engage Zerkova, a Widowmaker and the Destroyer. I run my Bokur over to the left, hoping that Jim will open up the Devastator and I can then poke big holes in it.

I can't run the Mule so I advance it up to Devastator but I'm just short from engaging it in melee so I take a shot at the Destroyer in hope for a critical hit - no critical but it hits, I do no damage at all. I decide I need to split up Ashlynn and Gorman, though DEF 19 is lovely. Ashlynn moves right to get my entire army in my feat - using it defensively disgusts me but there's nothing to be done about it, Jim's using a shooting army. Gorman moves runs left. Rockbottom runs to some craters since I thought they were cover, but they're just rough terrain.

Turn Three:
Despite having Roulette up Jim didn't seem able to roll less than 2 fives and 2 sixes on just about every dice roll this turn. It made me die a little inside. The Destroyer moves up to the cavalryman engaging Zerkova and pastes him. The Greylords then spray the remaining Halberdiers, Stannis and Ashlynn. Stannis takes a little damage, one Halberdier dies, the rest missed. The Devastator farts about in front of my Mule refusing to move forward. That's fine with me, my Bokur is almost in position. Jim moves Icy Grip onto my cavalry and then drops a couple of Blizzards on them. Lord Rockbottom survives all the Widowmaker's shots, taking no damage. A Widowmaker does shoot my Mule to remove the last Cortex box however, no crits for me.

Having lost pretty much a core component of my army - the Halberdiers - things aren't looking good. Ashlynn and Stannis move forward to try and shoot some Greylords with their hand cannons, both miss. I use the Piper to give my cavalry +1 DEF and Terror and move them to engage two of the Greylords, I manage to kill both, but the leader refuses to die to the Halberdier attacking him. I swear this Greylord leads a charmed life. Rockbottom moves forward and manages to kill the Widowmaker captain with his spray of fiery death. Gorman drops a smoke cloud on top of Rockbottom in an effort to preserve him against Widowmaker fire next turn. The Bokur moves a bit closer to the Devastator. Overall a very ineffective turn.

Turn Four:
Jim shoots Rockbottom with the Widowmakers, turning him into swiss cheese, so much for the smoke saving him. The Devastator once again farts about in front of my Mule. I'm not really sure what Jim wants to do with it. Either way I need to keep it from walking up to Ashlynn and dropping explosives all over her. The Greylord sprays more things but fails to kill anything. Eiryss bayonet charges the cavalry sergeant, who's standing next to the Destroyer and does a single point of damage. The Destroyer then activates and kills him. I lose the other cavalryman somehow, but I forget exactly how.

I realise I'm playing Jim's game and that putting Feint on the Mule was a total waste of time. If that Devastator wasn't going to engage me, then that was fine, it could fart about that part of the board all day. It's time to take back the initiative and I can see the pieces of the assassination jigsaw coming together. The Piper activates and uses March on the last remaining Halberdier, who then proceeds to miss the Greylord twice... again... Getting fed up of this foolishness I move Stannis into melee with the Greylord and miss. Ashlynn casts Feint on herself and charges Eiryss, killing the Mage Hunter with her hand cannon attack. One thing to worry about down. I move the Mule slightly out of the way of the Devastator so my Bokur can have a charge lane. Because I *really* don't want to miss this slam attack I move Gorman forward and Black Oil the Devastator. Then I slam it one inch with the Bokur.

Turn Five:
No this game actually ends.
Jim moves the Destroyer to engage Ashlynn and triggers Feint. I use my three inches to move directly behind him, I thought I was engaging him but it turns out I wasn't so Ashlynn ate some unnecessary damage later in the turn from Kell Bailoch and the Widowmakers. With no melee targets in sight Jim opts to fire the bombard at the Bokur, who promptly drops dead. The surviving Greylord sprays the Halberdier again, catching the Piper. The Piper dies but the Halberdier is made of sterner stuff. At this point Jim realises that Zerkova is in charge range of Ashlynn, regardless of where he moves I can still get him with Lunge and Point Blank. His options for moving Zerkova are limited since Gorman is lurking at her only possible escape avenue. After much fluffing about we realise it's getting late and so Zerkova charges into melee with Ashlynn - he manages to drop Ashlynn down to 6 health before running out of focus.

Ashlynn camps all her focus and starts poking Zerkova with Nemesis - doing a PITIFUL single point of damage with my initial attack. My hand cannon attack also proves to be somewhat dismal, doing five damage. That used up three of my focus. I opted to buy unboosted attacks and attempt to concentrate on boosting damage instead. First bought attack... Miss... Two focus left... Miss... Last focus point... I manage to hit with the last focus point, unfortunately I don't have any focus left to boost the damage. I roll my damage dice in total disgust at my rolls so far and promptly roll far in excess of what's needed to kill Zerkova. Go karma!

Thoughts
I hate Widowmakers. I hate them so much.
Jim's army was based on attrition, in trying to keep the Mule shooting - which was ineffectual at best - through keeping Feint on it I ended up keeping Ashlynn in a very defensive position. This is not the way to play Ashlynn, she likes to get up close and personal. I should have just slapped Feint on her and waded into Jim's army while keeping the Devastator tied up for as long as possible.
Instead I lost almost all my troops through attrition until I placed my trust in Ashlynn's ridiculous DEF and Feint, going instead directly for Zerkova.
When I don't have the first turn I might consider using my feat on my first turn against a range biased army, this would have saved a number of my Halberdiers from snipery death and let me be in a much better position on Jim's feat turn - he might have even opened the Devastator to kill the Halberdiers then.
Don't place Anastasia anywhere near the enemy lines if I don't have the first turn. Keep her back and trust in her Stealth to keep her alive in the first turn.
The Bokur's slam really won the game for me, it placed Jim in an unfavourable position to keep Zerkova away from Ashlynn. I really should stop putting him so far forward with his advanced deployment, all it does is make him an easy target.