pHaley v pSeverius 35pt

I played a game over the weekend against BK in which pHaley and pSeverius were pitted against one another in a 35pt Caster Kill game. The battle report is going to follow a play-by-play format; however I may miss small details as I had to recall the entire game from memory later that evening. I took pictures but I was inconsistent in doing so. We made a number of technical mistakes with the rules so I will try to note these as I go along. Additionally, I will provide some commentary on where I felt I went wrong strategically, but I am not going analyzing how that could have affected the game as that just leads down a spiral of what-if scenarios.

My List:
Captain Haley
Ironclad
Centurion
Lancer
Sword Knights (max)
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator
Harlan Phineas Versh, Illuminated One

BK's List:
Grand Scrutator Severius
Reckoner
Avatar of Menoth
Blessing of Vengeance
Exemplar Errants Unit (Min, Exemplar Errants Officer and Standard Bearer)
Choir of Menoth (Min)
Vassal of Menoth
Covenant of Menoth
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord

I'll skip ahead to the end of my turn two. We deployed basically as far as possible from one another. I think I should have deployed the Gun Mages more towards the center. You will notice in the images they are furthest from the one target on the board I really would have preferred having them for (the Errants).

From pHaley v pSeverius 35pt

On Menoth's next turn, the Errants advance and take down 2 Sword Knights with ranged attacks. I made an error in forgetting that the Errants crossbows are blessed and an Arcane Shield I had on the Sword Knights was effectively useless. The other Menoth units advance with support units using appropriate abilities. One thing of note is that most of the front line was immune to being targeted by my magic for a large portion of the early game. Additionally, the piper was providing tough to the Errants.

I reposition and continue my advance towards his line. I activate Temporal Barrier to prevent chargers making a critical error in my focus management though. I neglected to camp even one focus on pHaley for using Arcane Vortex.

From pHaley v pSeverius 35pt

From pHaley v pSeverius 35pt

Menoth continues on the advance. This turn the Errants fail to pick anything off (with I think completing fluffing a few attacks on the Ironclad since he was the only target in range). The major event of this turn was the arc node getting in to position to hit one of the front Sword Knights with Ashes-to-ashes, rolling a 6 for the additional hits. We made two mistakes here. The first is that Ashes-to-ashes, like Chain Lightning, has specific rules about how to select the targets (i.e., closest) which was ignored. The second is that I have had it in my head for whatever reason that spells cannot be boosted. I have no idea how I had that notion stuck in my head; however, that comes to affect me later as well so its hard to say how this one event going differently would have affected the remainder of the game. Sword Knights come out mostly unscathed losing only one model; however, the spell also drops Eiryss, a Gun Mage, and hits Haley for 5 boxes.

On my turn 4, I decide that I am in range for charges, so I activate Haley first. My plan is to kill the Vassal and hopefully some choir behind two of the Menoth jacks by targeting the Reckoner who can finally be targeted by magic attacks this turn. Arc Lightning hits but then I roll 1 for the additional hits. Damage fluffs on the heavy jack and damages the Vassal for 4. Despite the Vassal's continued presence, I continue my plan to charge in to melee with other models so I activate my feat to hopefully take advantage of as many models getting in melee this turn. Tragically the Centurion comes up short on the charge against the Blessing (by somewhere between half an inch and inch I think). Ironclad makes his charge on the Reckoner though. Four Sword Knights make it in to melee as well. The Reckoner survives against the charge attacks from the Ironclad and two Sword Knights (who are rolling 4d6 on their first melee damage roll) and the additional attacks from the feat. On other matters, the Gun Mages continue their long walk around the board (at some point earlier they did make it in range to Snipe but only against jacks and no damage was done). Harlan advances and unloads a full 4 shots at the Errants. I think 2 or 3 do enough damage to kill but Tough rolls save all but 1.

From pHaley v pSeverius 35pt

Avatar obliterates the Ironclad. Blessing kills a few guys and backs off using Bushwack. Errants advance and unload a few shots do nothing.

Gun Mages advance and kill off the Menoth support units (Vassal and all of the Choir). Centurion charges Reckoner and manages to get Blessing engaged. Remaining Sword Knights charge in at Reckoner. Reckoner was taken down by Centurion and one Sword Knight. Haley tries to take down the piper with Chain Lightning, but fails to do a enough damage. Lightning arcs to the 4 Errants but only 1 dies due to lower damage rolls and 1 or 2 successful Tough rolls. Lancer moves around to interpose himself between Haley and any other models. This was quite likely a mistake. Additionally, we made a technical error in relation to charges (which we actually had been making all game). We did not realize that the charger needs to be turned to directly face the target after moving. I just mistakenly thought that models were not suppose to turn at all during charges. Analyzing the results of this creates to many what-ifs as I probably would have just charged differently given our understanding of the rules now for instance.

From pHaley v pSeverius 35pt

Errants charge at Lancer and Haley. One gets by Lancer to Haley and is actually killed by a free strike but sacrifice lets another die instead. He fluffs his attack on Haley anyway  though. Avatar moves around a Sword Knight and engages Lancer who he then destroys. Avatar uses an ability that makes everyone only move at him next turn (with 8 inches and in LOS). Severius stays at the back and Blessing falls back to towards him.

We made a technical mistake here as we did not own any flat markers to indicate the rough terrain from destroyed jacks. The Avatar would have been pretty much walking over rough terrain the whole turn.

From pHaley v pSeverius 35pt

On my turn, Haley finishes off the Errants. Reinholdt moves to block Avatar's movement towards Haley next turn. But then this is the end of the game. We ran out of time and I truly believe it is a draw at this point. There is a lot of what if scenarios we could consider but it is effectively a race between Avatar killing Haley or the Centurion having time to either get to Severius or to fall back and help out Haley. Blessing was backed up all the way to Severius minimizing the impact Severius would have on the following turn and the Gun Mages are still 5 strong and 2 or 3 Sword Knights remain at this point as well.

And thats where I will have to leave this. Sorry for the anticlimactic ending but we had to quickly pack up and return the terrain and 4x4 board to the FLGS and take off as we had already gone past our deadline for leaving at this point.