Battle Report 1: Latari vs. Daqan

Welcome to the first Battle Report here at Impact 3! This game featured my Latari list featured in the previous Learning to Play article that can be found here up against Sondra, one of our local shop owners piloting Daqan. Sondra is one of the two people who introduced me to the game and who is to blame for getting me sucked into it. It was great to get a non-demo game in against her and see how the apprentice fared against the master. The full lists for this game were:


Latari - "Impacts All Around" (200pts)
Aliana of Summersong
- Packleaders Spear
- Ambush Predator

2x Leonx Riders (2x2)
- Bull Pennon

Deepwood Archers (3x2)
- Maegan Cyndewin
- Support Aymhelin Scion

2x Aymhelin Scion (1x1)
- Vicious Roots

Daqan 
Spearmen (3x2)
- Citadel Weapons Master
- Aggressive Cornicen

Spearmen (2x2)
- Greyhaven Channeler

Outland Scouts (2x2) - proxied by the gold Spearmen on the black bases
- Uncontrolled Geomancer

2x Heavy Crossbowmen (3x1)
- Tempered Steel
- Marching Cornicen
- Rank Discipline

This was a list Sondra wanted to try out proxying the new Outland Scouts to see how they played.
Spoiler: They start really far up the board.

Disclaimer 1: I forgot I was going to be taking pictures of the game when we were setting up, so the mat is kind of odd for a game of Runewars. I will be sure to have a mat that isn't as busy and more thematic in the future as well as the back edges of the board marked since the mat in the images below is 4'x6' and we just measured 6" in on either side.

Disclaimer 2: I forgot to track the Runes each round (still learning this Battle Report thing). Of note, there was rarely any unstable energy, with an average of 2-3 natural energy and 2 stable energy almost every turn. This was key because it meant Maegan would not be able to get off significant splash damage but could rely on the Lethal if needed, and the Scions would be Defense 3 instead of 2 most turns.

Set Up:
Deployment: Standoff
Objective: Supply Raid
Terrain used: 2x Stronghold (my opponent's terrain), 1x Latari Memorial (my terrain)

Terrain and Objectives:
As Sondra had a 2 point bid, she got the option of first/second and chose to go first. Because the deployment zones were the same, there was no real decision necessary in choosing the deployment side, so we went straight to terrain set up. Sondra selected one of the Strongholds first and placed it right of the center directly in front of my deployment zone to force me to play to one side and funnel me into her Crossbowmen. I then placed the Latari Memorial on the far right side, just outside of my deployment zone. As Sondra had multiple upgrades that would be exhausted throughout the game, I did not want to allow her to take advantage of this terrain piece by giving her easy access to Inspiration tokens. She then placed the remaining Stronghold above the left corner of my deployment zone trying to block off any potential flanks I might attempt with the Leonx Riders and Aliana. I then placed my Overgrowth token on the central piece of terrain planning to move my Archers back and forth around it as necessary with the free shift from the Support Scion. We then placed the objective tokens with 3 of mine being placed around the right corner of her deployment zone and one on the far left. Sondra placed 3 of hers in the center of the board attempting to lure me into the middle with the last one placed on the far left of my deployment zone below the Stronghold.

Deployment:
Once the objective tokens were set up, I had to deploy two units as I was running a 6 drop list into her 4 drop. A key note here, the Scouts do not count as a unit during deployment because they are not deployed until after the normal deployment phase. So even though she has 5 units in the list, it is only a 4 drop list during deployment.

To begin my deployment, I placed a unit of Leonx Riders in each of the front corners of my deployment zone being sure to keep the left side Leonx Riders far enough from the terrain that they would be able to run forward if necessary. I like to deploy the Leonx Riders first with this list because Aliana's champion ability allows me to re-deploy one of them after deployment. By spreading them out on opposite sides of the board, it doesn't give anything away to your opponent on where you plan to actually set up.

Sondra then set up a unit of Crossbowmen on the left back side of her deployment, to which I responded by placing my right side Scion. I placed it to the right of the center terrain to try to draw her into placing other units on that side and spreading out as I felt she would want to keep her units grouped up. This didn't really work, and Sondra placed her second unit of Crossbowmen slightly to the right of her first unit and almost center of the table. I then placed my second Scion to the left of the center Stronghold so that I would be able to place my Archers on either side of it and still have a body blocker. Sondra responded by placing the big block of Spearmen between the Crossbowmen and lined up to take the Leonx Riders charge from the unit on that side.

At this point, I had a couple big decisions to make. First, which side of the board did I want my Archers on, and second, what was my plan for Aliana. Looking at the table, Sondra had not deployed anything on the right side of the board yet, and I felt that if I stacked everything up on that side, I would be able to use the Stronghold in the center of the board to dance around with my Archers and take her army down one unit at a time rather than fighting head on into her full army. I also saw an opportunity for Aliana to go grab 2 or 3 of the objective tokens that I had placed on the right side of the board if she did not deploy any units to that side.

With this in mind, I dropped the Archers behind the right side Scion and Leonx Riders being sure to leave enough room for Aliana to fit up front. She then dropped her last normal deployment unit (Scouts would deploy later) by setting up the small Spearmen block to prevent against any flanks from the left side Leonx Riders. I dropped Aliana down in the middle of all the units on the right making my first big mistake of the game. By putting her here, she was not able to get out of the traffic jam that would soon ensue, and she wasted the first couple turns not really doing much. I should have instead placed her further behind the Archers and planned to wheel her around the Latari Memorial and up the right side of the board.

Post Deployment:
Both Sondra and I had rules that triggered after the deployment phase. We played it wrong in our game, but the player with initiative (in this case Sondra) chooses who resolves their effects first. Instead, we played it where she had to resolve hers first. Live and learn, now we know for our future games. Anyways, Sondra went first and placed the Scouts at the front of her deployment zone and performed a 3 march forward with a soft turn placing them into the position you see in the image below and picking up an objective token on the way. I then shifted my Leonx Riders from the far left to be directly behind the 2 objective tokens in the middle and closer to the rest of my army. The idea being that they would be able to grab as many of the objective tokens as possible, then try to retreat for as long as possible to score those points.

Deployment (after all post deployment triggers had been resolved). Notice the Scouts were able to march almost into my deployment zone before the game even began which would eventually cause all of my units on that side to be jammed up more than I expected.

Round 1:
So looking at the board, I had 2 goals in mind. First, I needed to kill the Scouts as quickly as possible and start flanking around the central terrain piece. Second, I wasn't sure how quickly Sondra would try to close in on the left, but I wanted to grab as many objective tokens as quickly as possible and then play defensively. So with those goals in mind, I dialed in a shift/shift with the Leonx Riders on the left, charges with the Scion and Leonx Riders on the right, and a ranged attack with the Archers. Aliana planned to just shift around and bide time since she was now trapped between everything, and the left side Scion dialed in a ranged attack in case the big block of Spearmen decided to March 3 on initiative 5 which would put them just in range of the tree to shoot them on initiative 6.

When all was said and done, Sondra had slightly repositioned with the majority of her army while rallying most of the units and used the Uncontrolled Geomancer to kill off 2 Leonx Riders and 4 of her own models. I managed to kill off all but 1 of the remaining Scouts which would prove crucial because it would force me to spend another turn attacking them rather than flanking. I also shifted the left side Leonx Riders forward and backward (effectively not moving) to pick up the 2 objective tokens directly in front of me. Another important note was that I probably misplayed Aliana here and was not able to get her out on the flank as quickly as I would have liked. I'm not sure what the best move would have been, but there were several options that were probably better than what I did here.

All but 1 Scout has been cleared (the empty trays technically aren't there, but our local meta has a bad habit of not removing trays unless necessary), and the Leonx Riders on the Left have picked up 2 objective tokens putting me up 2-1 on the objective since the Scouts still had the 1 token from the pre-game.

Round 2:
After leaving the Scouts with a single model and engaged with the Leonx Riders, my plan was to finish off the unit and star positioning to close in on Sondra's forces while continuing to bide my time with the left side Leonx Riders. To this end, I dialed in a melee attack with the engaged Leonx Riders, double green shift with the Archers (should have gone with the blue shift and reform but it didn't end up making a big difference in the game), some more shifting around with Aliana and the Leonx Riders on the left, another ranged attack with the left side Scion in case the Spearmen started moving up, and a soft turn march 3 with the Scion to move around the central terrain once the Scouts were killed off. I forgot to take a picture after this round, but it was relatively uneventful with the Scouts going down with no further Latari casualties, and the rest of my army repositioning. Sondra continued to play it cautiously as well while slowly spreading out her forces.

Round 3:
Based on where Sondra is set up, my plan is to continue to shift around with the left side Leonx Riders and set up for a possible charge next turn while trying not to get shot. I also need to finally unpackage Aliana and allow her to do her thing while getting the Archers into position to blot out the sun with their arrows. So, with these goals in mind, I dialed in the blue shift/reform on the Archers planning to use the Support Scion's ability to get a second shift from being near the central terrain piece. The left Leonx Riders got a shift/reform as well so they could set up a possible charge next round. The right Leonx Riders dialed in a 4 march/shift to ideally get just outside of the Crossbowmen's range once they moved by either shifting forward or backward depending on how close they ended up after the 4 march. The left Scion dialed in yet another ranged attack (he is a persistent fellow I tell you!) hoping to finally do some damage while the right side Scion dialed in a march (natural energy)/+1 Defense with 2 natural Runes showing so he could get out of the way of the Leonx Riders coming in behind him, and Aliana set up to finally start moving towards the objective tokens on the far right side.

This turn again consisted of mostly positioning by both players with my Scion finally getting a shot off on the big block of spears and... doing no damage. Sondra moved the smaller block of Spearmen out further to the left and reformed to set up a counter charge if my Leonx Riders charged in and flanked her big block of Spearmen. Both units of Crossbowmen rallied and marched performing a soft 1 march to position to start shooting me next turn.

Everything continues to position for what is looking like several possible charges next turn with the ranged units on both sides setting up behind their respective front lines to shoot at anything charging in.

Round 4:
This turn I had a major decision to make. Do I want to charge in my left side Leonx Riders who have 40 points worth of objective tokens, or do I want to continue to hold them back and start to whittle down the Spearmen with the Archers? For those who don't know, the Leonx Riders die to a stiff breeze, and with the unit currently worth 73 points due to the objective tokens, I decided not to risk it and try to keep them back for a little longer. To protect the Leonx Riders, I dialed in a soft 2 march with the left Scion which would bring him up closer to the Spearmen so that if they smelled out my plan, and dialed in a charge, they would end up charging the Scion before they made contact with the Leonx Riders. The left Leonx Riders then dialed in a shift/reform so they could continue to position for the next turn. I then measured it out, and the Archers were just barely in range to shoot the Spearmen, so they dialed in a ranged attack with a Surge modifier.

The right Scion began what would soon be several turns of not doing much. By this point, he was facing the wrong direction, and a good turn of shooting from the Crossbowmen would kill him. So, he decided to play it safe, not move too much, and defense up prior to the Crossbowmen's ranged attack on initiative 5. The right unit of Leonx Riders dialed in a 4 march on initiative 7 (allowing them to move into the Crossbowmen's range after they attacked on initiative 5), and Aliana moved up and shifted over to collect the first of the two objective tokens on the right side of the board.

My plan ended up working out as I had hoped. The big block of Spearmen defensed up expecting the Leonx Riders to charge in. The Scion got up front to block any potential charges, and the Archers were able to pick off 4 of the Spearmen after factoring in their now Defense 2. The back unit of Crossbowmen dialed in a ranged attack expecting my Leonx Riders to charge in and ended up doing nothing when I held back, and the small Spearmen block marched forward to be in range to charge in a later round, but importantly, were partially blocked by the large block of Spearmen. The right Crossbowmen then put 2 wounds onto my right Scion leaving him with 1 wound left.
.

I finally start whittling down the big Spearmen block with the Archers while continuing to play the long game with the objective tokens. I am now up 4-1 on the objective after the Leonx Riders picked up the token dropped by the Scouts and Aliana picked up the first of two on the far right side.

Round 5:
Having successfully set up the left side to protect the Leonx Riders, I was starting to feel very good about this game at the halfway point. I needed Aliana to pick up the last objective token on the right side of the board, so she dialed in a shift/reform so she could start getting into the fight after wards. The right Leonx Riders dialed in a march on initiative 4 to get the charge into the Crossbowmen before they could shoot me. The right Scion decided it was time to get out of the way and dialed in a soft turn to hopefully create some distance between himself and the Crossbowmen.

On the bottom half of the board, the Scion set up to counter attack after taking the charge by dialing in a melee attack with a hit modifier. The Archers dialed in another ranged attack, and the Leonx Riders decided to continue playing shifty and see how long they could stay out of combat by dialing in anther shift/reform.

Unfortunately, this turn did not go according to plan. It started off correctly by the Leonx Riders getting the charge on the Crossbowmen and killing 6 of the 12 models. I then triggered the Morale test with the 2 panic tokens from Impact 2 and flipped Frozen with Dread and Loss of Faith. The correct choice would have been to pick Frozen with Dread as the Crossbowmen I was engaged with were blocking line of sight to my Leonx Riders from the Crossbowmen in the back. However, I chose Loss of Faith, and Sondra removed the tray with 2 guys left, importantly giving her line of sight to my Leonx Riders with the still full Crossbowmen.

The full unit of Crossbowmen then shot into my Leonx Riders exhausting Tempered Steel, killing of 5 of the 6 remaining Leonx Riders and, importantly, unengaging the front unit of Crossbowmen (who were not affected by the strength 1 morale check when I flipped Flee in Terror). The front unit then shot the last remaining Leonx Rider taking out the unit. On the bottom side, his Spearmen charged into the tree doing 2 wounds and picking up an objective token on the way. My tree counter punched, and my Archers shot into the big block, both rolling less then stellar, and managed to only kill 2 Spearmen between both of them. Fortunately, his small block of Spearmen were not able to charge into my Leonx Riders, and Aliana picked up another objective token bringing me up 4 to his 1 after my right side Leonx Riders dropped the 1 they had picked up from the Scouts.

A fairly poor turn overall for the Latari, but I still felt comfortable with how the game was going at this point as I was up 60pts on the objective and had only lost 1 unit thus far.

Round 6:
It was now finally time to commit my Leonx Riders on the left. They dialed in a charge on initiative 3 hoping to get the flank on the small unit of Spearmen. I accepted that the Scion on the left was going to die this turn, but he still defensed up hoping my opponent would roll poorly. Importantly, there was only 1 stable energy this turn, so even with the +1 defense dialed in, Sondra only needed to roll 1 hit on the Spearmen to kill the Scion. The Archers dialed in another ranged attack/Surge modifier and planned to use the Support Scion's ability to then shift backwards after shooting to create some distance between themselves and the soon to be unengaged Spearmen. On the top, Aliana dialed in a march/shift on initiative 7, and the Scion continued to play defensively and try not to die.

The turn went about as expected. The Scion on the left died to the Spearmen, the Leonx Riders charged in, unfortunately not getting the flank and only killing 2 Spearmen after some more poor rolls. The Archers soon made up for it though after rolling decently well and taking out 6 of the Spearmen from the large block importantly getting rid of the back rank and then proceeded to heroically run away by shifting backwards. The right Crossbowmen attempted to kill the right Scion, but fortunately were not able to roll well enough, and it continued to live on 1 wound while Aliana positioned to eventually do something in combat.

I am slowly whittling away at his army, and have, up to this point, been able to successfully protect my Archers from taking any damage. Aliana is finally getting to the fight, and I am hoping to be able to hold Sondra off for two more rounds.

Round 7:
With only two rounds remaining, I felt like I had a comfortable lead on the game due to the objective tokens I had been able to pick up. The Leonx Riders were now in melee so they dialed in a melee attack with a panic modifier. The Archers dialed in a ranged attack/Surge modifier, and Aliana dialed in a 4 march/reform on initiative 7 so she could position to charge in next turn. The remaining Scion continued to durdle around and defense up hoping to not die and save me the 17 points he was worth.

I don't remember the exact order everything happened in, but the Archers had a massive turn shooting into the big block of Spearmen getting 1 hit and 2 Surges. Paired with the Surge dialed in, the Archers were able to deal 6 damage to the large block of Spearmen and 3 each to the small block of Spearmen and the right Crossbowmen unit (leaving the unit with only 1 member). The Leonx Riders then killed off 6 more of the Spearmen they were engaged with and lost 2 Riders in retaliation. The Scion continued to hold strong and not die to the lone remaining Crossbowman. Sondra did surprise me by advancing the remaining Spearmen from the big block into the terrain to hopefully protect them in the final round from both Aliana charging in and the Archers shooting.

With one round remaining, the remaining members of the big block of Spearmen ran inside the terrain while Aliana set herself up to charge into one unlucky unit.

Round 8:
I forgot to get a picture of the end of the game, but essentially, the Leonx Riders and Archers finished off the small unit of Spearmen, and Aliana charged into the lone remaining Crossbowmen after measuring and realizing I could not reach the back unit of Crossbowmen dealing 1 mortal, 11 lethal, and not rolling any dice to finish off the last remaining member. The Spearmen in the terrain marched out of it and placed themselves on the bottom right corner so they would be out of the Archers range and unable to be charged by Aliana (more on that later). Additionally, the Scion on the top continued to do his thing and not die and was able to save me the 17 points.

Results:
Latari:
- Daqan Units Destroyed: 132pts
- Objective Tokens: 4 = 80pts
Totals Points Scored: 212

Daqan:
- Latari Units Destroyed: 80pts
- Objective Tokens: 1 = 20pts
Total Points Scored: 100

Latari win with a Margin of Victory of 112pts good for a 9/2 win.

Thoughts:
Overall, I was very happy with the way the game played out. The objective was definitely in my favor with several small units to pick them up, and I believe I played it fairly well and was able to take advantage of this. Looking back at the game though, I think there were a few things I misplayed. First, I think Aliana was deployed incorrectly which resulted in her not being able to do much early on. If I had put her behind the Archers facing to the right, she would have been able to wheel around the Latari Memorial and start picking up the objective tokens sooner thus putting pressure on the Crossbowmen earlier in the game. I also misplayed the Scion on the right later in the game. I was trying to move him around to body block my Leonx Riders, but he ended up facing the wrong way and doing nothing but hoping not to die. He was a nice distraction, but I think I could have gotten more use out of him.

Another key thing that we did not realize until we discussed it after the game is that, although the big block of the Spearmen were able to exit the terrain before Aliana could charge into them, she still could have gotten the charge off. After looking at the rules reference, when a model enters a terrain feature that an enemy model is touching, you resolve all effects as if the model entering the terrain collided with the enemy model. Therefore, if I had charged towards the terrain, contacted it, and entered it, I would have been able to resolve the charge attack against the big block of Spearmen and pretty easily remove the rest of the unit. It would not have had a major impact on this game, but it is nice to know for future reference.

Anyways, it was great to get this game in, and I look forward to playing again soon and posting more battle reports! Please let me know what you liked about this one and what I can improve in future battle reports. Until next time, may the Morale deck always flip in your favor!