Date: 17th of August, 2016
Opponent: Anna
Factions: Gremlins vs Guild
Strategy: Extraction
Schemes:
- Convict Labour
- Show of Force (opponent)
- Leave Your Mark (me)
- Mark for Death (opponent)
- Inspection (me)
Terrain: Plenty of blocking terrain around the edges of the board. Quite open in the middle around the informant marker but with some obstacles to give hard cover.
Crews:
Som’er Teeth Jones, Can O’ Beans, Family Tree
2 x Skeeter
Gremlin Taxidermist
Slop Hauler
2 x Piglet
3 x Bayou Gremlin
Pigapult
3 x Stuffed Piglet
vs
Sonnia Criid, Reincarnation, Counterspell Aura
Samael Hopkins, Witch Hunt, Vengeance Bullet
Witchling Handler, Disrupt Magic
Guardian
Guild Rifleman
2 x Witchling Stalker
My plan: Send out the taxidermist with the piglets and a skeeter to take one table corner for Inspection. Have everyone else huddle behind some cover while summoning more gremlins, lobbing exploding piglets, and flinging gremlins over to the other table corner. I’d feed gremlins into the centre to contest the strategy, expecting them to die every turn. Som’er would have to move into the centre on turn 3 or 4 (depending on the aggressiveness of my opponent) to make use of his boomstick.
How it worked out: The taxidermist was able to advance to the corner almost uncontested, his only opponent being the witching handler who engaged a piglet for three turns without killing it! Very lucky pig. Sonnia flamed the other piglet and injured the taxidermist but then had to move into the centre. So they claimed that corner from turn two on.
The pigapult performed wonderfully: lobbed three gremlins into the other corner, one of which also ran into the opponent’s half and placed scheme markers for Leave Your Mark. Its fire was mostly ineffective except for turn four in which it finished off Samael, a stalker, and killed the rifleman outright.
Som’er and the gremlins did their part too. He got eight bros in the first three turns, then moved into the centre to damage Samael, Sonnia and the Guardian. He helped to contest on turn five.
Score: 10-6 win.
Lessons:
- The pigapult is a wonderful, wonderful thing. For strategies which you have to contest the centre it intimidates your opponent no end. And being able to lob minions all over the board is great for breakthrough-style scheme pools.
- Som’er (or any model with a powerful ranged attack) pairs up very well with the pigapult. Som’er damaged quite a few models which the pigapult was able to finish off very easily.
- The guardian is a real spoiler – Ml 7 with a 3″ range. I have a very poor understanding of the Guild robots so after the game I read up on all the models that I faced and he stood out as a particularly good one. Still, only eight wounds, so unless he gets his Df trigger off he’s not too tough.
- I ignored Show of Force because I wasn’t planning on taking it, however that just encourages your opponent to take it because it’ll be easy points. Even with Anna sending off the handler into one of the corners, just leaving Hopkins to score it, she still earned two points and nearly three from it. Even taking a single 1SS upgrade on a tough enforcer can be enough to deny the points.
- Piglets are very good at staying alive if you’re prepared to cheat. They are awful to control however! I would have been better off either swapping them for bayou gremlins, or taking a hog whisperer instead of the taxidermist.
