Battle Report #85: Nemo3 vs MacBain (Internal Affairs IX #3)

After two tense close games in Internal Affairs IX I get to face a caster I haven't played in Mk3 before: Drake MacBain! Nico has recently ditched Retribution for Mercenaries and has a result he is much happier and well-balanced person with less critical sodium levels. His new list is McBain, a bunch of dudes, and Galleon.

MacBain seems quite interesting. His feat makes a number of dudes immortal for a turn. Combined with a rolling smoke wall to advance behind it's going to be hard to shoot him away before he can jam, and Countermeasure is pretty good against all the Cygnar shooting!

I decide to pick Nemo3 to see if I can manage to clear his dude swarm with all my lightning generators, and maybe I can shoot away the Galleon with Dynamo. I think shooting at the stuff that is not protected by the feat is going to be key, and Nemo3 clears more dudes faster than Maddox does.

Artificer General Nemo (75 points)

Objective: Bunker
Theme: Storm Division

Artificer General Nemo & Storm Chaser Finch (Nemo3)
* Squire
* Dynamo
* 2x Firefly
* Lancer
Journeyman Warcaster
* Firefly
Major Katherine Laddermore
5+5 Storm Lances

Drake MacBain (75 points)

Nico and his mercenaries!

Theme: The Kingmaker's Army

Drake MacBain (MacBain1)
* Galleon
Dirty Meg
Kell Bailoch
Orin Midwinter
Stannis Brocker
10 Steelhead Halberdiers
5+5 Steelhead Cavalry
10 Trencher Infantry

Deployment

Unfortunately Nico wins the roll to go first. I would have loved to claim more table space, but well. Since I haven't played this before just I do a standard deployment with Lances on both flanks, and the battle group in the centre.

Round 1

Trenchers cloud up and all the Steelheads hide behind the cloud wall. Kell runs behind a bug rock. Failsafe goes on the Galleon, because where else would it go?

I decide to push a bit on both sides and see what he does. Arcane shielded Storm Lances are hard for him to just shoot away. I run one Lance up on the left and leap off it with the Firefly, unfortunately only killing one Trencher. The right side goes better, one Electrified Lance runs to within 4" of Kell and I kill him with a Lightning Generator from another Firefly.

I also cast Magnetic Field to protect my jacks from Galleon pulls.

Round 2

MacBain feats and the jamming Heavy Cavalry with Countermeasures are up in my grill. The right side Trenchers also become immune.

I send in a few Lances on the left flank and start killing infantry. Of course I cannot do much to the jammers, but I knock most of them down. A Storm Lance tries to jam back the Galleon.

Round 3

Steelheads charge in and I now have lost 6 of my Lances. Attrition is not going well.

0-1

I feat with Nemo and fire at him with Dynamo. Unfortunately I have lost a lot of models before my feat turn, so I do not kill nearly enough. I need to get Nemo3 away from that thing so that it cannot run in and Jackhammer me to death. I move Nemo3 back into the killbox.

0-3

Round 4

My center gets destroyed by charging infantry.

0-4

I charge Dynamo into Galleon but he lives at 3 boxes.

0-5

Mercenaries win by scenario!

Post Mortem

Wow, that was rough. Countermeasures is nasty against Storm Lances, since it prevents them from assaulting! When the unit with Countermeasures is unkillable under feat it becomes even nastier. Possibly I could have done something about the placement of my army, so that he could not have reached me with his charging Halberdiers after his feat turn. The model count is not *that* different at the end of the game, so even if it felt rather uphill I think it might have been a fairly even matchup.