Vs Alberto of Team QTL playing his OK
I matched against this so our dwarf player didn't need to play (gave him SA instead). However, I had it down as a neutral match-up. I've played against OK alot with Beasts but never with SA before. His cannons/thaumaturgy is definitely a problem for my taurosaurs, but all my poison shooting is a good counter for his monsters.
General strategy:
- Take pyromancy to deal with his scoring tribesmen darts, heridtary against his cannons
- Chamelons need to chip wounds off aurochs to make them manageable for taurosaurs to fight
- My best tool against his hunter is my engine's mini-lash
- I'm worried about his bruiser death-star as Lygar's tongue means my warlord and saurians might not do well. Best strategy is to delay here.
- In general, the cannons give him a ranged advantage so the best approach is to press and fight early.
He wins roll and takes the top half. I take first turn on the bottom. He ambushes one unit of tribesmen. I don't play dawn assault/breakthrough often (if ever), so I liked this strategy and will take a note to repeat it later. Maybe not with LD5 skinks, but for other armies!
I deploy the army centrally. The key piece is to group the stegadons together in the forest to take advantage of the cover and aegis. He counters them with his hunter who vanguards up to fence, and his two cannons on a hill. I counter his left Auroch with both chamelon units. Most of his weak stuff deploys back outside of 32" to avoid first turn pyromancy.
Picture after deployment (pteradons haven't vanguarded yet)
T1 SA
Left most taurosaur throws a charge on a 10 against his hunter. He couldn't be further away, as doing so meant he couldn't get hard cover. Charge fails. Pteradons vanguard plus move up to bait out the right most Auroch and wound it once.
Magic puts 3 wounds on one cannon and 1 on the left auroch. Chamelons put another 3 on it (4 total). I put flaming swords on the unit in the pond to deter him from charging with the auroch.
T1 OK
My pteradons are poorly deployed... and I blocked their flee path. They would go off the board, and potentially panic skinks behind (also out of general range). Sloppy movement on my behalf so I elect to hold vs his right auroch. This gives him a 9" over-run into a tausaur behind so I'm trusting in bad dice! He first charges the same taurosaur with his hunter.
The left auroch and his bruiser block advance up slightly. His tribesmen chase back one unit of chamelons but the other (with flaming swords) eats a hand of heaven but is otherwise undeterred. His cannons poke up on the hill but don't wound. One misfires and is out of the game.
In combat, the right Auroch predictably destroys the pteradons and unfortunately makes the 9 over-run, and destroys the taurosaur engaged with the hunter behind, to over-run into the second taurosaur behind. The hunter reforms. Early lead for OK!
T2 SA
My engine counter-charges the right Auroch to help out my second taurosaur. In the shooting phase, he snipes the hunter and does 3 wounds.
The fleeing chamelons rally. The second unit (wounded from hand of glory) chaffs his bruiser block and take shots on the auroch but don't hit. The cuatl and caimen leap frog to skinks behind, while their original unit pushes up to hit the auroch but also fail to wound. I was being very aggressive here but I felt that 1 unit chamelons + 1 unit javelins had a decent chance to put the last two wounds on his auroch. If it all failed, the javelins were far enough ahead of my cuatl to give a 10" over-run which felt like a reasonable risk to take. Didn't pan out though.
The saurus block pushes up to the middle of the board to threaten the bruisers after they clear the chamelons. The hope for magic phase was to kill both his tigers (both visible). Unfortunately, it took 2 fire spells and 2 blazes to kill one, meaning the second was free to chaff the saurians. Last spell is to give the engine flaming swords to help in the fight.
Combat phase is a push, the engine and second stegadon do 5 wounds to his auroch but take 3 in return. The auroch and both stegadons hold tight but I reform to force his hunter to front charge the second.
T2 OK
Hunter charges in help the right auroch. The engine does the last wound to finish off the auroch but the second stegadon takes two, meaning he takes a break-test. And fails on steadfast, re-rollable cold-blooded 8... The hunter runs down the stegadon and hits the skinks behind. The annoyed engine looks at his dead taurosaur buddies, says do I need to do everything alone, and pivots to face the hunter next turn.
The left auroch charges the javelin skinks, who fail to do any wounds on stand and shoot as well. Not complaining, his cannons were terrible! He destroys them but fails the 10" over-run and parks in front of the cuatl's unit. Phew...
His bruiser block elects not to charge the chameleons in front, and shoots them with magic instead. He gets off hand of glory and trial of faith and only does... 1 wound! However, that's enough to panic them and the remaining chamelons lose a second to DT's (taking below 25% percent so they don't rally) and they flee to a very, very awkward spot behind the saurus, who are now chaffed by the remaining tiger.
His tribesmen inch up a bit. The kineater comes up behind the cualt unit. The remaining cannon has no targets other than the caimen ancient but misses.
Picture after bottom of 2
T3 SA
Unfortunately, I forgot to take further pictures until the end.
Saurus block and warlord charge and kill tiger in front of them. I was hoping to simply flee next turn against his bruiser block, but because of the chamelons behind (why couldn't they just DIE to his magic missiles), flee path was restricted. I reformed the saurus to a 2x10 formation, this skinny little line gave them just enough room to flee next turn.
Caimen ancient charges his remaining auroch (two wounds) and kills it, taking one in return.
The engine flank charges his hunter and kills him (he had 3 wounds earlier from engine's lash), standing up for abused taurosaurs and skinks everywhere!
The cuatl jumps out of the skinks to zap his kinslayer and does something silly like 7-8 wounds with pyro. Unfortunately, I had him too far back to shoot the tribesmen this turn. The skinks he was in reformed and and pulled back to prevent the kinslayer charging where I wanted to flee the saurus too (in case pyro failed).
T3 OK
The bruiser block charges the saurus in their goof 2x10 formation. They flee and just make it out. It was a close thing because of his tribesmen in the middle, I needed a 7 to get out of their max range (they would push them off the board) but get it. Very, very lucky flee move, and the situation was entirely due to the chameleons failing to die to a magic missile, which is basically their job description.
His tribesmen push up the middle, leaving the caimen ancient with an 11. His third unit doesn't come on the board, which is good as the engine is watching the flanks. The remaining cannoon and magic target the engine but fail to wound. The engine is on FIRE today, he's a fiiiiire engine!
T4 SA
Caimen ancient tries the long charge on his tribesmen but miss. Both remaining units of skinks get ready for pushing to his DZ for secondary, but they are far back and I don't really plan it out sufficiently.
The engine remains in the forest, watching the back board edge to keep his ambushers out. The saurus rally and remain where they are.
The cuatl joins the chameleons to avoid missiles. He targets the tribesmen and panics the closer unit but doesn't do significant damage to either.
T4 OK
The bruiser block moves up to the middle to charge the saurus next turn. His cannons both push up. The combination of the cannons and lygar's tongue meant my poor saurus, even with warlord with MW (2) spear, didn't have a chance and kept running all game.
His tribesmen rally, and the second unit pushes out wide, going for the end zone! His third unit comes on the board, and stays out of the engine's arc. His cannon and magic fail to wound the engine (again).
T5 SA
Engine moves up to block his third unit (ambushing) tribesmen. Cualt hits them with pyro and skinks throw javelins and they take panic in both phases, but pass (on 1,1 both times). The caimen ancient goes wide on the far left to get ready for a charge next turn on his tribesmen.
The remaining unit of skinks was meant to go for the DZ as they have a free path, but I work it out and they can't make it. If I'd paid better attention on T4 (rather than now), I think I could have made it more manageable. Instead, they throw at tribesmen but fail to wound.
The saurus push up the middle to bait in his bruiser block again.
T5 OK
His bruiser block charges the saurus who flee (again! Brave lizards...). His cannon charges one unit skinks who also flee, leaving the cannon within range of the engine next turn.
He still has 3 units of tribesmen, 1 scoring on the left, one scoring on the right, and one in the middle, who've been lurking conservatively until now.
Magic doesn't have LoS on the engine but the cannon does, and chooses not to break with tradition and misfires.
T6 SA
Last turn, and it's time for the magic to happen! The caimen ancient starts off strong and lands a long charge on a 10 on the tribesmen on the left, destroying them. The cuatl continues his good work, and blows up the tribesmen on the right with pyro. He kills the one cannon (1 wound) left at the same time, just to show off. The engine is not impressed and charges the other cannon, who runs away.
Watching all this, the last unit of skinks decide to bring the real magic, and charge his last unit of tribesmen, counting on a long over-run to get into the DZ. He runs... 4". The skinks hit the tribesmen on a corner, and take advantage of their 6/12 and a well-timed leadership check to reform into a long line, just barely touching his DZ.
The saurus rally. Again. The last unit of chamelons runs up to chaff the bruiser block, and the cuatl parks behind them to block the over-run.
T6 OK
All he has left is the bruiser block and one cannon (who rallies). He charges his BSB out to clear the chamelons, while the block turns around for his wizard to zap the skinks off the objective, ending their turn in the spotlight.
Final result 12-8
General thoughts.
1. The cuatl did decent damage, killing a tiger, kinslayer, one unit tribesmen and panicking a second, plus chipping down a cannon over the course of the game. However, I didn't realize he had both obsidian rock and aether icons. Honestly, everyone does these does... I took scorching salvo and didn't bother to cast it. I should have taken cascading fire instead and on many phases I was left with dice I didn't really need because I was short a missile.
2. The game was almost lost first turn due to poor pteradon placement. This army often hugs the board edge and flees ALOT. It is critical I take the time to check flee paths. It's not the first time this has happened. I had an awkward flee path later in the game (also saved by luck) due to chamelons but that was just them refusing to die to magic missiles, not poor placement.
3. The skinks and chamelons were excellent, all game. They wounded the aurochs to the point where I could kill them in combat, they chaffed, they WON in close combat. However, in my last four games, I've either tied or lost secondary. Braves are fast, but not that fast. I need to start planning NO later than T4 how I'm going to get the objective. Part of the problem is their low LD means they need to hug the cuatl, so I have no flanking units. This lists really needs something like a unit of raptor riders, if only I had the points...
4. Engine MVP. Chug-a-chug-a-choo-choo. His aegis, telepathic link (critical to zap one unit of tribesmen), and lash were all key pieces this game. Also he runs over stuff good.
5. Caimen ancient was a solid runner-up for MVP. He defended the cualt and killed an auroch and chased down a scoring unit of tribesmen. His banner also helped the many, many fleeing units throughout the game.
Overall, an excellent game against a very good sport. There was some silly swinging luck on UB, but lots of back and forth carnage to make an entertaining game.