Battle Report #54: Nemo3 vs Amon

For the next game, it's Nemo3 vs Amon. Amon has a list consisting only of Warjacks and support, using Synergy to make his lights and heavies punch for above their weight. It's going to be interesting to see if Nemo can grind through all of it!

Artificer General Nemo (75 points)

All the cavalry!

Artificer General Nemo & Storm Chaser Finch (Nemo3)
* Reinholdt
* Dynamo
* Firefly
Journeyman Warcaster
* Firefly
Gun Mage Captain Adept
Major Katherine Laddermore
Rhupert Carvolo
5+5 Storm Lances

High Allegiant Amon Ad-Raza (75 points)

High Allegiant Amon Ad-Raza (Amon1)

* Hierophant

* 2x Crusader

* 5x Dervish

* Devout

* Templar

Allegiant 

Anastasia di Bray

Covenant

Vassal of Menoth

Wrack

2x4 Choir of Menoth


Deployment

I win the die roll and elect to go first.

I put Lances on each flank, and everything else in the center. I hope that maybe I can use the central forest to not deal with his entire army at the same time, and maybe secure one zone.

Amon deploys centrally with the heavies, and a number of Dervishes on each flank. The Allegiant goes on the right, which means that Amon plans to go left.

Turn 1

I run up. If I had thought harder I would have been slightly further back so that the Dervishes would not have been able to run into melee with me.

Upkeeps are pretty much as they were the previous game. Right side Lances have Arcane shield, left side have Electrify, Nemo has Magnetic Field and his Firefly has Lightning Shroud.

Dervishes run to jam as much as possible.

Turn 2

I had placed several of my models badly in the center. It's really important to have lanes open for Laddermore, the Fireflies, and Nemo. These models are the ones that will activate first to get into position to apply buffs, and also it's best to clear jammers with them so that the Lances and Dynamo can get charge into the next line.

Anyway, it's time to see what Nemo3 can do. Feat goes up. POW12+3D6 leaps is insane against the Dervishes. 4 Dervishes die in a storm of lightning. One Crusader loses its cortex. If I had played this correctly, I would probably also have killed the last Dervish and that damaged Crusader.

I have placed a Lance near Amon, that was bad play and allows Amon to start the Synergy chain. UMy poor positioning the last turn has left Dynamo within charge range of the Templar, which knocks out Dynamo's Cortex. A sidestepping Dervish with Synergy is able to kill 3 Arcane Shielded Storm Lances by itself! Nemo3 is very punchy, but so is Amon!

Turn 3

I do another bad play and try to take out the Templar, but only removing the cortex . In hindsight I should have focused on removing as many as I could of the other jacks. This would have made it harder for Amon to build his Synergy,

I am losing too much stuff!

Turn 4

I have lost on attrition and go for a last ditch assassination run. The GMCA uses Shadow Fire on the book, and the Firefly and Nemo3 shoots and casts what they can. Amon loses some boxes but it is not enough!

The Protectorate wins by attrition!

Post Mortem

This was a fun game! Amon is a great and dynamic attrition caster, and so is Nemo. Both lists hit hard and tank badly, which makes for interesting strategy. I had bad positioning and bad target prioritization during the game, so I clearly deserved this loss.

I also forgot about my plan of dominating the Amon-less flank. I could have used the Storm Lances and Firefly better there to remove the Allegiant and give Amon a real headache.

Storm Chamber Podcast all Nemo3 episode

I would recommend that my fellow Swans check out Storm Chamber Episode 13 on Muse on Minis! They have played lots of games and tried out a bunch of Nemo3 lists.

I agree with most of what they have said. Nemo3 is very focus efficient, but still does not want a bunch of jacks since he does not support them all that well outside the free focus. No threat range extension makes melee jacks hard to use with him.

I am not sure in their conclusion that he is not competitive, though! He is probably not up there with Haley2 or Haley3, but I think he can be a good second caster in a pairing.

Jarle is also busy trying out Nemo3 over at Courage of Caspia, with several battle reports to read.

Battle Report #53: Nemo3 vs Absylonia2

Time to put my 10 Storm Lance Nemo3 list to the test! The first game is against Absolynia2, piloted by our resident Press Ganger Alex.

Artificer General Nemo (75 points)

All the cavalry!

Artificer General Nemo & Storm Chaser Finch (Nemo3)
* Reinholdt
* Dynamo
* Firefly
Journeyman Warcaster
* Firefly
Gun Mage Captain Adept
Major Katherine Laddermore
Rhupert Carvolo
5+5 Storm Lances

Absylonia, Daughter of Everblight (75 points)

Absolynia hits hard and has good threat ranges, especially with Proteus (16").

Absylonia, Daughter of Everblight (Absylonia2)
* 2x Carnivean
* Proteus
* 2x Raek
* Seraph
2x Spell Martyr
Strider Deathstalker
The Forsaken
Hellmouth

Deployment

The Dragon wins the roll. The sides seem pretty equal. Absylonia deploys centrally. I deploy Lances on both sides and the rest in the middle. Nemo3 aims for the right side. Hellmouth pops up behind the hut.

Turn 1

The Deathstalker runs into the forest, well within my Lightning range. Proteus gets Bracer.

Left side Lances get Arcane Shield (ARM 20), right side Lances get Electrify (ARM 19), Nemo's Firefly gets Lightning Shroud, and Nemo gets Magnetic Field. I tag the lance in the forest with Flare, and then a firefly bounces off the Lance and fries the Deathstalker.

Turn 2

Proteus munches on the Storm Lance in the forest. The Carniveans use Spiny Growth, so all the heavies in the center are now ARM 20.

Junior's Firefly runs up to act as a spark node. Nemo3 feats. A lot of shooting kills the Carnivean, but I have many low rolls on the leaps and leave Proteus at 10 or so boxes.

I played this a bit bad on the right side. I should have used a Nemo3 shot to clear some tentacles and gotten more Storm Lances free to charge the Hellmouth.

1-0

Turn 3

Absylonia feats, punches back and kills a Firefly, Dynamo, and a couple of left flank Lances.

The Firefly and Lances kill off Proteus and the Seraph and clear the right zone.

3-0

Turn 4

Absolynia has no way to prevent me from scoring two more points, and goes for an impossible assassination run with the Carnivean. It fails.

Cygnar wins by scenario!

Post Mortem

A good start! Nemo3 hits like a truck. The central terrain piece made it hard to get enough shots into the heaviesm and I rolled low, but still I out-attritioned Absylonia just fine.

Army lists for Internal Affairs VII

I am playing in the 2D6 gaming club's Internal Affairs VII tournament next weekend. This will likely be my last tournament before the Norwegian Masters 64-man tournament. I hope to play Nemo3 as much as possible to get as much practice as possible with him.

Artificer General Nemo (75 points)

This list is my own design. It's quite possible it will get some further tweaks before the tournament begins. The list is built to ignore defenses with Electroleaps, and has a very high volume of attacks to help clear infantry swarms. I hope that having 10 ARM 19/20 cavalry models might be difficult for some lists to deal with. It should also have some good assassination options by running in a sparknode and hitting it with everything.

Nemo3 and all the Storm Lances

Artificer General Nemo & Storm Chaser Finch (Nemo3)
Objective: Fuel Cache
* Reinholdt
* Dynamo
* Firefly
Journeyman Warcaster
* Firefly
Gun Mage Captain Adept
Major Katherine Laddermore
Rhupert Carvolo
5+5 Storm Lances

Major Victoria Haley (75 points)

The classic Haley2 Stormwall list, which I have been playing for most of Mk3! Haley2 took a small hit when losing Deflection and getting Time Bomb nerfed, but to be honest I did not use those spells much anyway. The list is great for scenario play, playing into melee focused lists and dispensing with single hard targets.

Haley2 and the Stormwall

Major Victoria Haley (Haley2)
Objective: Fuel Cache
* Squire
* Stormwall
* Ironclad
* Thorn
Journeyman Warcaster
* Firefly
Ragman
4 Field Mechaniks
3 Storm Lances

Battle Report #52: Nemo3 vs Haley3 (match #2)

After the quick assassination in the previous game, we decided to reset.

Artificer General Nemo (75 points)

Artificer General Nemo & Storm Chaser Finch (Nemo3)
Objective: Fuel Cache
* Reinholdt
* Dynamo
* Firefly
* Thorn
Journeyman Warcaster
* Firefly
Gun Mage Captain Adept
Major Katherine Laddermore
5+3 Storm Lances

Major Prime Victoria Haley (75 points)

Major Prime Victoria Haley (Haley3)
Objective: Fuel Cache
* 2x Grenadier
* Ironclad
* Thorn
Journeyman Warcaster
* Charger
Ragman
Rhupert Carvolo
5 Storm Lances
10 Trencher Infantry

Deployment

I win the die roll again, and go first.

Turn 1

I decide to pressure more this game, and see what happens. I am a bit sloppy and do not measure the right flank, if I had stayed just slightly further back the Grenadier would not have been able to aim at the Lances.

The left side Lances got Arcane Shield, the right side Lances get Electrify, Thorn gets Lightning Shroud and Nemo3 takes Magnetic Field.

Haley decides to just summon Past, and uses the rest to cast Repudiate on the right flank Lances and load up the Grenadier. Together with a Trencher CRA, all 3 Storm Lances fall.

His Lances are placed fairly far back. I think this is a mistake, since I cannot charge through his clouds he could be further up.

Storm Lances vs Storm Lances is a typical Mexican standoff - whoever gets the charge will murder the opposing Lances.

Turn 2

I decide to try a different tactic. I do not feat, just shuffle the Lances a bit and shoot away as many Trenchers as I can get hold of, hoping to kill so many that he loses his smoke wall. Only 3 Trenchers survive the ensuing barrage of electro leaps. I block as many angles as I can, toe into the zone, and camp 3. I make a mistake by having a gap between Dynamo and the Firefly.

Haley decides to go for the kill, Thorn runs in, Haley feats - but this time I am camping enough, and Nemo lives!

1-0

Turn 3

I decide to get further up and attrition. Nemo feats. GMCA tags Thorn, and then Dynamo aims and blasts Thorn to bits with 3 shots. The remaining Lances kill off the rest of the Trenchers and both Grenadiers. Lastly, a Firefly runs up to engage the Charger and block Haley Past from getting much forwards.

2-0

My opponent surrenders the game at this point. He has not assassination angle. He cannot stop me from getting to three control points on his turn, and then getting to five on my turn by killing the objective.

Cygnar wins by scenario!

Post Mortem

I should have placed a bit better, but my extremely aggressive play on turn 1 forced Morten into a difficult choice. Either shoot some of my stuff, like he did, or summon both Echoes and either allow me to murder his front line, or back off and give me a big head start on scenario and a lot of board control.

Clearly going first is big here. It's an interesting matchup - Nemo ignores much of Haley3's defensive tech, but she has a strong assassination against squishy old Nemo.

I am very happy with the result of my two first games. Morten's list is probably one of the strongest in WARMACHINE, and I definitely had game into it.

My first change to the list is going to be to remove Thorn and get even more punch! Thorn is good and Force Hammer is sexy, but since I can mostly ignore defense anyway I think it's better to focus the list a bit on hitting harder.

Battle Report #51: Nemo3 vs Haley3 (match #1)

A brand new list, this is going to be exciting! This is my second Nemo3 game ever, and the first was a 25 point game vs my son. I am facing the Double Grenadier Haley3 list used to great effect by Jarle to win Clogcon, and Olov Winroth to win the Nordic Championships. No half measures here! Today the list is piloted by Morten Gran.

Morten shows his Haley Prime in an attempt to intimidate me.

Artificer General Nemo (75 points)

My goal was to make a list to try out Nemo3's full spell list and various tricks. I went through the thoughts about this list in my previous blog post.


Artificer General Nemo & Storm Chaser Finch (Nemo3)
Objective: Fuel Cache
* Reinholdt
* Dynamo
* Firefly
* Thorn
Journeyman Warcaster
* Firefly
Gun Mage Captain Adept
Major Katherine Laddermore
5+3 Storm Lances

Major Prime Victoria Haley (75 points)

Major Prime Victoria Haley (Haley3)
Objective: Fuel Cache
* 2x Grenadier
* Ironclad
* Thorn
Journeyman Warcaster
* Charger
Ragman
Rhupert Carvolo
5 Storm Lances
10 Trencher Infantry

Deployment

I win the die roll, and you always go first against Haley3 since her first turn is so gimped. My plan is to move up quickly and begin scoring in my zone.

Since I have no pathfinder, the 5 Lances go to the more open ground on the left, and the 3 Lances go to the more congested zone on the right. Everything else goes up the middle.

Turn 1

Lances run up, most of them outside his Grenadier range. I am already greatly missing Rhupert. The upkeeps are as follows:

* Arcane Shield on 5 Lances.
* Electrify on 3 Lances
* Lightning Shroud on Thorn
* Magnetic Field on Nemo3

Trenchers get Tactical Superiority and make the cloud wall. Baby and Grandma Haley appear out of the mists of time. His Lances go into Mexican Standoff mode. just outside my charge range.

Turn 2

Both Fireflies and Thorn runs up. Reinholdt gives Nemo3 an extra shot. Nemo3 feats, shoots twice and arcs Chain Lightning at a Firefly. The Lances move up and fire at the Fireflies. Net result: One Grenadier dies, the other has his gun crippled, 6 Trenchers are toasted. Not bad! I did one mistake by not using the GMCA to make it easier to hit one of Fireflies.

The Lances reposition to make a wall in front of Nemo3 who is camping only one Focus - which is too little. I should have skipped that Chain Lightning, and rather camped 3 more.

Haley3 has lost a large part of her army to my feat and alpha, so Morten decides to go for the kill. The Charger kills a Storm Lance to give vision, Haley3 feats, and I get fried by a barrage of Chain Blasts through Thorn.

Post Mortem

My first impression is that Nemo3 sure packs a crazy punch! Getting an alpha on Haley3 to kill or cripple both the Grenadiers and most of the Trenchers is just sick.

I got to greedy trying to score control points - there was no reason for me to risk it when I could such an attrition advantage right away. Also I knew the Chain Lightning was too greedy, but I wanted to try stuff out.

I already have a feeling that my list is trying to do too much. 7 Focus + free focus + a free upkeep is a lot, but clearly I cannot upkeep all my stuff, shoot the gun twice with boosts, arc spells and also camp enough Focus to be safe. I will have to make some decisions!

Tournament Pair: Swapping Caine2 for Nemo3

After Caine2 got nerfed really hard, I am having a look at some alternative casters to match with Haley2. The strongest options right now seem to be Kara, Haley3 and Nemo3. Jarle has already played Haley3 and Kara to death, and no-one in Norway seems to have picked up Nemo3 as a main caster yet, so I really want to take the old man for a spin.

Quick analysis of Nemo3 follows. I have not played him yet, so YMMW and take everything here with a grain of salt.

Feat

Nemo3 has a ranged damage feat. Damage feats are, by and large, very strong feats, and even better when you are not dependent on getting into melee to apply them. The amount of rolls you can get an additional die on are just insane with Nemo.

Spells

Nemo's spell list seems to be fairly average for a spellslinger. Most of the spells are offensive and many have lightning synergy. There are no debuffs and no movement spells.

Chain Lightning is pretty much the same as what his gun does, and what his army does. I do not think it will be used much, I suspect that camping 3 Focus will often be stronger than using this spell.

Electrify is a slightly worse Arcane Shield, but then against Arcane Shield is bonkers good. It might even be better than Arcane Shield on a Stormwall, since managing to put in enough push-blocking models while charging it with some heavies could possibly be tricky.

Force Hammer is very expensive, but it can be used to set up assassinations. Knocking down a caster, or a couple of hard to hit models like Una's birds and Circle's Warpwolves looks interesting. Since you probably have to boost this will leave you with almost no focus to power jacks or survive the next turn.

Lightning Shroud is a +2 STR warjack buff. This is always nice, and extra electroleaps are be even better with Nemo3.

Magnetic Field is great against some lists, and useless against others.

Strategy

Nemo does not have any direct control abilities, but he has the potential to hit extremely hard, and he should also have some nice non-linear assassination plays with some possibility of ignoring LOS and terrain as well.

He can possibly use his assassination threats to play for scenario, but I think that going for attrition is the way to go.

Tactics

The amount of damage he can leap onto hard-to-hit models is enormous. Using run Firefly 12" + Feat it should be simple to engineer a storm of POW 12 + 3D6 electroleaps around that firefly. Possibly a Stormwall will make this even more reliable by dropping a Lightning Pod next to whatever you want to die.

Thorn and Force Hammer has a ridiculous knockdown threat range (22", or even 25" if you arc something through Thorn first).

Thorn + Lightning Shroud has a melee threat of 14", with a series of MAT 7 POW 16 attacks afterwards.

Artificer General Nemo (75 points)

Artificer General Nemo (Nemo3)
Objective: Fuel Cache

Artificer General Nemo & Storm Chaser Finch

* Reinholdt

* Dynamo

* Firefly

* Thorn

Gun Mage Captain Adept

Journeyman Warcaster
* Firefly

Major Katherine Laddermore

5+3 Storm Lances

Models

I made this list especially to support trying out all of Nemo's spells and abilities, and try to get a feel for what works (or not). I imagine that this list will get tweaked quite a lot going forward!

• Reinhold is there for the double Nemo shot. Spyglass is good occasionally, and the attack reroll helps on Force Hammer assassination runs.
• Dynamo shoots insanely hard with the Nemo3 feat, and he gets rerolls as well to help him with Chain Reaction. With a Firefly support and spending 3 Focus for damage he kills an ARM 20 heavy at range on average dice. He also hits really hard in melee.
• Double Firefly for always having the  +2 electrical damage buff.
• Thorn for setting up Force Hammer assassinations and otherwise allowing Nemo3 to use his offensive spells without instantly dying the next turn. And of course Thorn is just great by himself with his auto disruption.
• Major Katherine Laddermore since I am bringing so many Storm Lances.
• Gun Mage Captain Adept since RAT is an issue with this list. His Shadow Fire should help with setting up assassination runs and making sure Dynamo hits with every shot.
• Journeyman Warcaster for protecting the 5 Storm Lances, and possibly transferring Arcane Shield to Nemo and Finch to protect them  in the late game.
• Storm Lances since they are awesome, and with the potential to get additional dice on assault shots and electroleaps they are even more awesome.

Other good models in this list could be Ragman, Rhupert, Arlan, Gobber Tinker. I don't think the Journeyman Warcaster + Firefly package is essential here, so these could be swapped out for more Storm Lances or some other choice solos.

You can check out how it plays out in the first game against Haley3!