4th Game: vs Magnus

Hey guys,

So I went to the new gaming store today, and found pretty much everyone playing instead of painting! There was another new player who had finished his first game, so we ended up playing a match. He was running Magnus the Traitor, and I have to admit I was a bit nervous about facing a new opponent - last time I did that, I got demolished by Stryker! On the other hand my opponent knew nothing about Legion, so we were pretty even. I went with my Saeryn list:

Saeryn, Omen of Everblight
Carnivean
Seraph
3 Shredders
3 Spell Martyrs
Forsaken

His list consisted of:

Magnus the Traitor
Mangler
2 Renegades
Full unit of Long Gunner Infantry
Kell Bailoch

Seeing a unit across the table made my army seem really small by comparison - I really hope my Striders arrive soon so I can have at least a few more bodies out there! For the first time, I won the deployment roll, so I elected to go first.

Legion Deployment
My side of the board had a tiny forest about 6" outside the center of my deployment zone, a bigger one immediately in front of the left side and a broken wall at about the middle of the board on my right. I put pretty much everything together in a block, with the Carnivean and the Seraph in the middle with a Shredder between the two. The other two Shredders went on the outside of the two heavies and the Spell Martyrs next to them. The Forsaken was right behind the Seraph and Saeryn was behind the Carnivean.

Mercenary Deployment
He had a large wall right in front of his troops, and then a small patch of terrain a little bit up on the left. He put his Long Gunners in a line in the middle, with the Mangler behind them and Mangus behind them. The Renegades were on either side of the Long Gunners, and Kell Bailoch advanced deployed into the small terrain forward on the left.

Legion Turn 1
I ran my Seraph left to hopefully take out Keil and lock down one of the Renegades, and sent a Spell Martyr after her in case I needed magical support there. My Carnivean ran straight forward, with Saeryn following closely behind, casting Rebirth on the beast. One Shredder and the Forsaken accompanied them, while the other two and the remaining Spell Martyrs ran to the forward right cover.

Mercenary Turn 1
Magnus activated first, casting Snipe on the Long Gunners before moving up. The Long Gunners then stepped forward and tried to take a few shots at the Spell Martyrs, but missed due to cover. The 'jacks all walked forward, and Kell sat in his cover.

Legion Turn 2
Deciding to seize the initiative, I forced one of the Shredders in cover to go rabid, then ran him to the center of the Long Gunner line. A Spell Martyr ran close behind them, the Saeryn used it to cast Blight Bringer on the Shredder, taking out 4 Long Gunners in the middle, including the leader. This would prove important since now, no matter who my opponent promoted to leader, half the unit would be out of command range. My Seraph then moved up and tried to shoot the Renegade on his side (since I found out Kell had Stealth in cover), but Strafe only gave me one additional attack and I rolled terribly on damage, even though I boosted. The Carnivean moved up a bit, wanting to make sure he got the charge, and Saeryn moved in close behind. The other two Shredders moved towards the middle, but the Spell Martyrs stayed where they were. As I ended my turn, I realized I realized I had forgotten to rile my beasts, so I would be very low on Fury next turn.

Mercenaries Turn 2
As expected, the Long Gunners fell back, opting not to run so they weren't slaughtered by the blight bringer poison. Magnus and the 'jacks all ran up, then the Traitor used his feat. All the jacks ran into melee range with Saeryn, while Magnus opted to fall back and avoid the wrath of my Carnivean. My opponent forgot about Kell so again, he did nothing.

Legion Turn 3
I realized later my response should have been "I activate Saeryn's feat". Immunity to melee attacks would have left his jacks sitting ducks in the middle of my line, and I have no doubt once they were gone I could easily finish off Magnus. Unfortunately, I forgot about this, and decided to try to destroy the jacks before they got a chance to hit Saeryn, especially since she was only sitting on 4 Fury. First off, the Shredder who had run up to my opponents line frenzied since he was out of control range, and managed to devour another Long Gunner. The Carnivean the turned and started wailing on the Manger, but again my damage rolls were sub-par, and the jack survived. Thankfully I did take out its Wrecking ball arm, and since it was out of control range, he was unable to get focus to remedy the situation. A Shredder then went rabid and charged in, but couldn't do much damage. The Seraph then turned and charged at one Renegade, gaining a back strike bonus and managing to wreck the jack by forcing for more attacks! The last Shredder went rabid and attacked the other Renegade (he was too close to charge), but even forcing for another attack failed to do much damage. I then opted to do nothing with Saeryn, deciding to use her fury to ride out the attacks. Lastly I charged my Spell Martyrs in hoping they could at least block the Mangler from moving close enough to Saeryn to use his first.

Mercenary Turn 3
My opponent realized his back was against the wall, and that if Saeryn lived through the turn his jacks (and hopes of winning) certainly wouldn't! The Mangler tried to attack Saeryn with its chain but missed due to the Carnivean's damage. It then threw the Spell Martyr at her, killing the Martyr but failing to wound Saeryn. At this point he realized if he had thrown first his chain would have hit, and decided to try one last gambit. First he moved the remainingRenegade (staying in melee with the Shredder) so it was in Saeryn's back arc and took a swing at the Shredder, dealing 5 points to it. He then moved Magnus up and arced obliteration through the Renegade, boosting the damage, and blasting Saeryn for a whopping 16 points of damage! Thankfully I was able to transfer it to the Shredder, killing the poor little guy but allowing me to reave its fury. At this point, out of options, my opponent conceded.

Aftermath
I completely did not expect my opponent to use his feat to bring all his Warjacks into melee with Saeryn. Thankfully it seemed like more of a gimmick than anything else, as once I brought my force to bear on them they quickly crumpled, even under below-average damage rolls. Knowing my feat would have saved me also made me feel a bit better about the match. Once again, I need more units to screen my caster. Having some Ogrun or Legionnaires would have been great to keep my opponent's jacks away from Saeryn. I think in future games I'm going to replace two of the Spell Martyrs with another Shredder. While the Martyrs are really useful, I desperately need more fighting models on the board, and I haven't really found myself needing to arc that many spells. All in all, it was a lot of fun playing against a new army!