Battle Report #78: Brisbane vs Xerxis2

Markus "Siege" Brisbane can take 100 points of jacks and play Heavy Metal, so I threw together a Siege list to see whether it could work. I played Siege a bit back in Mk2, and he wasn't that good even then.

His feat looks bonkers on paper - but unfortunately it does not usually play out that way in practice. Using it means either killing a few models and having very little bonus from the feat, or killing nothing and having lots of damage from the feat.

Siege is fairly Focus starved. His gun is great... but firing and boosting a lot with the gun, filling several jacks with focus, and throwing out some spells will very quickly run him dry.

Major Markus "Siege" Brisbane (75 points)

Major Markus "Siege" Brisbane (Brisbane1)
* Squire
* Stormwall
* 2x Defender
Journeyman Warcaster
* Hunter
Captain Arlan Strangewayes
Lieutenant Allison Jakes
* 2x Charger
4 Field Mechanics

Xerxis, Fury of Halaak (75 points)

Xerxis, Fury of Halaak (Xerxis2)
* Basilisk Krea
* Tiberion
* Titan Gladiator
* 2x Archidon
Extoller Soulward
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
4 Paingiver Beast Handlers
10 Venator Reivers
* Officer & Standard
6 Venator Slingers
Venator Flayer Cannon Crew

Deployment

I win the roll. I place the Stormwall so he can hopefully help clear my zone, and later go into this zone.

Round 1

Siege moves up into a Foxhole. Two Slingers get shot.

Tiberion places himself just outside 10" of the Stormwall. Having no speed buffs available sucks.

Round 2

Tiberion's 13" threat with Xerxis forces me to play defensively. I back out the Stormwall, since it would likely be one rounded under Xerxis' feat. Some more Slingers are shot. The Defenders use Explosivo to clear out some Reivers. I make a big mistake by not toeing into the left zone and right zone with more pieces.

Xerxis feats. The right flank Archidon has hot dice and one-rounds one Defender! Tiberion toes into the zone, outside Stormwalls' charge range. The leftmost Charger is shot 4 times by the artillery and loses its cortex. Both zones are capped and my objective smashed by Tiberion.

3-0

Round 3

This is the huge problem with Siege's feat. I must remove Tiberion or just lose on scenario. I feat. I manage to miss both Stormwall shots on 4+, and after that I barely manage to kill Tiberion.

The Gladiator murders my other Defender.

There is a tempting assassination opening for Xerxis. He decides to kill Siege with the Archidon and a Reiver CRA. Siege falls to the last attack... but he is Tough! I roll a 6 and Siege is only knocked down. Bit of luck there. My turn!

Round 4

My Charger clears out his artillery.

I have an undamaged Stormwall, and if I can kill the Gladiator and Archidon, and have Siege live until the next turn, he is big trouble. The Stormwall splats the Gladiator. Unfortunately I am unlucky when trying to hit the Archidon with Siege, and I am left at 1 focus. Junior scoots over and gives Siege Arcane Shield, since nothing on the table can now kill the Stormwall anyway.

Assassination run #2 commences. I have just a single box left on Siege, but Xerxis does not manage to breach Siege's ARM 20. He lives!

Round 5

Xerxis is now standing right in front of an angry Stormwall. GG.

Post Mortem

Terrible matchup for me since his list is so shooting resistant. If he had kept playing for scenario instead of going for some dodgy assassinations I would have lost the game for sure.

I cannot say that anything has changed here from Mk2. Siege just does not have the tools needed to play against strong casters. His shooting volume is too low to play the ranged game, his lack of threat extenders and defensive tricks makes it hard to play the melee game. His feat is good if the stars are right (lots of high armor troops that you can pew pew away), but if the enemy army is low ARM infantry or just a few strong models then the feat does almost nothing.

Back on the shelf with the Major. At least this means I will probably have a 100% win rate with Siege in Mk3!