Dreaming of Lock and Load – First Hardcore Kill Box Game

I headed down to One Stop Shop in Tinseltown mall after work today and who did I find, but Ben, with his freshly painted Cygnar. Ben graciously agreed to play a kill box scenario under the hardcore rules, something that neither of us had ever done. We pulled out 50 point lists and ended up with a tier 4 epic Nemo list against a tier 4 Butcher list. These lists are from memory, but hopefully Ben will chime in if I got something grossly wrong…

• Butcher of Khardov (-6 pts)
• * Sharkie the Devastator 9 pts
• * Llama the Marauder 7 pts
• * Kodiak 8 pts
• * War Dog 1 pt
• Kossite Woodsmen, minimum, 4 pts
• Man-o-war Demolition Corps, full, 9 pts
• Man-o-war Shocktroopers, min, 6 pts -1 tier discount
• Widowmakers 4 pts
• Widowmaker Marksman 2 pts
• 2 x Manhunter 2 x 2 = 4 pts
• Yuri the Axe 3 pts

Opposite me on the far side of the table was old man Nemo and his zappityzapzap mczappity squad.

• General Adept Nemo (-6 pts)
• * Thunderhead 12 pts
• * Hammersmith 8 pts
• * 2 x Firefly 5 x 2 = 10 pts
• * Squire 2 pts
• Storm Tower – zero – zip -nada – free as in beer!
• 2 x Storm Guard, minimum, 6 x 2 = 12 pts
• Journeyman Warcaster 3 pts
• * Charger 4 pts
• 5 x Stormsmith Stormcaller 5 x 1 = … wait… what? I mean 5 pts. Really?

So, with a very restricting amount of time to play each turn, the order of the day would be clear for each of us. For the Khador forces, it would be to soldier forward no matter what happens, getting all those big bases up the field. For Cygnar, the order of the day would be to disrupt the warjacks and kill as many infantry and solos as they can with arcing lightning. Having never played with so little time both of us were nervous about getting stuff done, particularly Ben with his higher model count. Thankfully for him, his five stormsmiths (five? FIVE??) are easy and effective activations to deal with. And his storm guard have CMA, allowing him to combine rolls to save time and maximize damage.

Our terrain was mirrored. Each of us had a 6″ hill on our left, a 4″x6″ forest on our right, a linear obstacle near our deployment zone in the center and a long 2″ wide obstacle in the middle of the field.

My battle report will be abbreviated, as we literally blazed through this game. The forces under the Cygnus won the roll for deployment, but deferred. With Butcher’s fourth tier, the only regular deployment I had were the Man-o-war, Butcher and his trusty dog. The rest were advanced deployed.

The Cygnar deployed in three groups, the main group in the middle, a storm guard, storm tower with firefly on the right flank and a few stormsmiths with a firefly on the left. Khador deployed with the man-o-war and butcher in the middle behind the kodiak and devastator, with widowmakers on the right with Yuri and a pal, and the marauder and another manhunter on the left. Loads of advance deployment for the Khador, which I like…

The Man-o-war demo corps ended up mashed in the middle, along with the marauder and kodiak. The shocktroops got bogged down on the left flank of the Khador formation, dealing with a firefly that threatened to run off and set up mad triangulation through everything in the core of my army. Ben did a good job disrupting the widowmakers with a kamikaze firefly, at least for a turn. The kossites chewed up too much time to be worth it (I’m convinced they’re great in in scenario play due to ambush, but where time is a factor…). Yuri and one manhunter did all right for themselves, helping wreck a firefly and scaring the storm guard a little. The stormsmiths did a decent job of making a nuisance of themselves, disrupting Llama the marauder constantly and providing easy access to surgical model removal for Cygnar. We ended up with a big scrum in the middle, with two Khador heavies commited and the demo corps following up against the storm guard and the Thunderhead, with the hammersmith manoeuvring for a charge combo smite beatback slam action. There was another scrum back on Cygnar’s lines caused by the kossites then followed up with Yuri and a manhunter, against the storm tower, charger, firefly and storm guard. In the end, I almost accidentally killed Nemo with shots from a widowmaker and the marksman, and time pressure kept Ben from executing his hammersmith and thunderhead assassination run while leaving Nemo exposed for a second turn. In the end, I got to Nemo with the Kodiak, squashing him with the Thunderhead but all I needed was a single shot from a widowmaker to end the game. Afterwards, both of us were impressed at just how draining it was to act so quickly. We had plenty of time for another game at a regular pace, but we were finished playing for the evening and ended up chatting for a while instead.

As I mused about in my first post about the path to the Lock and Load hardcore competition, I learn a fair bit when under pressure. Here are the key things I took from my first crazy-fast game:

1. The most important aspect of the game is how much value you get for your time.
2. Time is the second most important thing.
3. Know your game plan before your turn starts.
4. Damn it, Subhedgehog, stop forgetting to allocate focus!
5. If the marksmen and widowmakers have shots to a caster, pop Butcher’s feat and try and end things quickly.
6. Having models that are simple to use to their fullest is key (e.g. Stormsmiths – one roll, don’t worry about cover, in melee, etc. Widowmakers on single-wound models. Devastator, marauder, etc).
7. Keeping your caster protected is much more difficult, just due to how quickly you need to position models. Nothing will change this but practice.
8. Don’t forget about the clock.
9. Tick tock.

Both Ben and I agreed that the kossites don’t make the cut in kill box with so much time pressure. I think I can drop them and put in two more manhunters and be happy with the change. Again, a simple model is much more preferable to a handful of chaff in this format. I’m looking forward to practising the format more and getting more comfortable with the rolling thunder that is Butcher’s tier list.

Cheers!

One Response to “Dreaming of Lock and Load – First Hardcore Kill Box Game”

1. Ben says:

   2011/04/08 at 05:19

   The only correction to my army list is that the Journeyman costs 3 points instead of 2 (it would only add up to 55 points otherwise).

   Forgetting to switch Arcane Shield from the Charger to Nemo on turn 2 was a big mistake – I had planned it from before the game even began, but the timed turns made it slip my mind.

   Also, I definitely shouldn’t have wasted my extension early on an inconsequential turn. If I had had just a few minutes more on my assassination run turn, I could have activated that Hammersmith, and do the charge-push-beatback-chain-attack-slam shenanigans that I had planned to knock down (and hopefully injure) the Butcher prior to zapping him with the Thunderhead’s 3 shots. Skipping the Hammersmith because I didn’t have time to activate both him and the Thunderhead meant that rolling crappy on that first to-hit screwed up my sustained attack and ruined my chances.

   Man oh man, I’m glad I’m not doing any Hardcore tournaments any time soon… I just can’t handle the 7 minute turns.