003 - Makeda2 vs. Thyra

Following the two interesting games vs. Cryx i was offered the chance to play against a Menoth player that arrived just as i was about to leave. He wanted to test his Thyra list, and seeing that i had allready gotten two good games with Makeda i decided to give her another go. Because we're lazy we decided to use the same map and terrain as the table was ready to go.

My list:

Supreme Archdomina Makeda WB+24

 - Titan Gladiator - 14

 - Titan Sentry - 15

Tyrant Radheim - 9

Morthieurge Willbreaker - 4

Morthieurge Willbreaker - 4

Tyrant Commander and Standard - 6

min Paingiver Beasthandlers - 5

Max Praetorian Ferox - 21

Max Praetorian Ferox - 21

Objective: Fuel Cache

His list:

Thyra, Flame of Sorrow WJ+29
 - Hierophant - 3
 - Blood of Martyrs - 16
 - Dervish - 7
 - Scourge of Heresy - 16
Avatar of Menoth - 20
Wrack - 1
Vassal of Menoth - 3
The Covenant of Menoth - 4
Allegiant of the Order of the Fist - 3
Choir of Menoth min - 4
Daughters of the Flame - 10
Flame Bringers max - 17

Pre Battle thoughts and deployment:

So, several elements with Grievous wounds, and even more that negates Tough. Combine that with long threatranges, a Feat that boost those even more, and several hardhitting, heavy armoured Jacks, and it looks like Makeda have quite a match on her hands. Getting to and destroying as much of his fast elements AND the Blood of Martyrs would have to be a top priority here. As i very often find with this list, getting rid of the few elements that really threatens me is usually enough. All i need to do is buy myself enough time to get my Heavy hitters intact to the fight, or to block the opponent out on scenario.
The Allegiant can be a massive pain in the ass. Another friend of mine have fielded him extensivelly against me. He rarelly does much work, but he is ridicolously hard to remove. For those that don't know him. He have an ability that he can use if he forfeits either movement or Combat action, that makes him DEF 18, If you miss him he can make a full advance, Every time.. He's also Steady and Tough. He contests flags or Zones like a champ, all by himself and without any access to MAT buffs he can keep going at it all day.
He wins the roll off and decides to go first. A smart move against me i believe. He Skewes hard right with all his jacks and the daughters, The cav on the other flank. I Adopt my usual central deployment and we're good to go!

He moves everything up, trying to tempt me into making an overly agressive move with Ferox. Silence of Death is Thrown up on the Cav, and Thyra casts her teleport upkeep.

I move forward, trying to tempt him into comitting with his faster elements and use his Feat. Storm Rager on Radheim. 

I fail to realize however, just how much damage his Cavalry can do to me. He Feats i believe, cast Carnage and charges me with the two horses that can get to me, and they kill 4! Ferox. The Daughters run to jam me a little, and he moves up with the rest to hide behind the Fence.

I spend a few minutes trying to think of an opening here. As i see it i have two options. My opponent thought Thyra safe in her current position and didn't use her Teleport. This means that i can Get Radheim and a couple of Ferox to her. All i have to do is to kill the three Cavalry models that stand in Radheims way, run and Jump him in with Puppetmaster and hit with my two attacks. Thyra is camping 1 Focus, so if i hit on both attacks i should be able to bring her down. I can also manage to get two Ferox from the left unit in for a Combined Melee attack to do some extra damage beforehand, My opponent forgot to place her within 1" of the fence and therefore won't get any benefit from standing behind it.
My other option is to try the long game, Moving everything to the left, possibly knocking out a system or two on the Blood of Martyrs, then use Ferox to jam him up on one side of the fence while i try to move in and Score. Since he have no access to pathfinder for his Jacks, he can't charge over the fence, so by positioning the Ferox to block he have to use at least one turn to remove them before getting over there, allowing me to set up my beasts for a charge, while also moving in to score.

I decide to go for the assasination. I should have a really good chance with puppetmaster on both the Ferox and Radheim with Feat, and there's too many things that can go wrong with the other plan.

Makeda Activates, Feats and cast Dash. The Tyrant gives his speed buff to Radheim, The Sentry moves to clearthe two Horses directly in front of Radheim. The Left Ferox unit activates, rund around the Daughters and kill the Horse that stands in front of Thyra. Two of them Combine to do 4-5 damage to Thyra. Radheim jumps in and barelly finishes the job ( i rolled horribly terribly low on the pounce attack, and had to use Puppetmaster to get a high enough roll on the Armour Piercing one)

The white Proxy base in the middle is Radheim, the Blue one right next to it is the Ferox i used to kill his Cav model.

Victory to the Tyrants!

Failing to realize just how much his cav could do nearly cost me the game here. The fact that he gets to go first severely limits my options as he can get pretty high up the board and threaten me before i even get to do anything (Guess that's how it feels to play against my own list..). Luckilly he fails to realize just how powerfull my assassination angles are. True, a lot of things had to go my way for it to work, but on average dice i should be good to go here at least 3 out of 5 times.