Armoured Clash Battle Report: 1500 Union vs Crown

 

Finally got around to my second game of Armoured Clash, figured I’d write a bit about it.

We played a Battle, 1500 points, Union vs Crown. Mission was Supply Drop, which meant 4 placed objectives that disappeared after being scored. I think I got most of the beats down, but I might have misremembered some things, particularly towards the end. The individual parts of a turn also aren't necessarily in the exact order.

Deployment

Nothing particularly novel here. I set up my Lakota and Ironhides (helped by Forlorn Hope) to take the flank objectives, and the Lamplighters and Blazer Heavy Bikes for the more central points. The Iron Horse cavalry was going to try the Vanguard charge into the enemy Artillery meme again. The MOAB Mortars went behind terrain to stay safe and lay down indirect fire, while the Rolling Thunder Tanks went towards the center, away from the anti-tank artillery.

Field guns and a Pacifier unit went into reserves. I wanted to see how the field guns performed, either for a flank attack or from my own

My opponent deployed his Landship centrally to threaten both center objectives. He did not have Linebreaker for his Galahads (We’re still figuring everything out), but plenty of infantry to grab objectives.

Just before the start of T1

Turn 1

My light bikers immediately charged into the artillery, failed to kill one, and then lost 2 bases to having to fall back from the stalemate (too close to the spitfires). I guess I would have had enough movement to go around and charge from the rear, but missed that during the game. They got cleaned up by the Sovereign smiting them while it advanced on the center.

Bikers wiffing again

My MOABS did a Give em’ Hell indirect Volley into the Spitfires by the Sovereign and wiped them from full.

Enemy Dragoons double moved on the top objective but the Ironhides got a really lucky roll on them, the infantry took out a few more, and then the Rolling Thunders finished them.

Lakota and Newhaven did their thing of grabbing the bottom objective. I made the mistake of decoupling the Newhaven, would have worked better to take it along.

The Blazers hit the midfield snipers hard, taking out almost all of them, but taking some fire from them in exchange. The snipers then jumped onto their objective on the last activation, taking the point.

The central objective was initially taken by the remains of my pacifiers (I didn’t bail out when their Lamplighter died so I could still reach the objective), but they ended up getting softened up a bit by the Drake Field Guns and then charged by the other Spitfires, which wiped them and took the building.

in ur base killin ur doodz

My tanks did 3 damage on a Galahad (tough beasties) with On Lookout and chipped the Sovereign.

Scoring wise, I only got 1 objective while Crown took 2 (the center ones), but I had a decent position by the last objective with no enemy infantry in sight.

Turn 2

End of T1

I had a card left for initiative and my opponent didn’t, so plan “No one expects Field Guns” was a go. First I tried a Flank Attack with the Pacifiers, which got interfered (they would have gone straight on the objective), followed by the Field Guns which succeeded.

The Hotchkisses subsequently unloaded on the Drakes, wiping the unit. In return, however, the Sovereign leveled my Command Platoon, wiping them on moral and leaving me no units to grab the objective that turn. And to add a bit of insult to the injury, it evaporated half of my tanks. The Spitfires in the central building saw the truck sitting around right outside and decided to punch it to death. Their victory was short-lived, however, as MOABs rained down hellfire on them, clearing the building.

 

Field Gun on Field Gun Violence

The Blazers skedaddled towards the objective via double time. Thankfully the enemy artillery had already taken their shot on my tanks.

The Newhaven went full clown car, deploying out troopers and their gattling team to wipe the Engineers and wiffed on the remaining snipers. The Lakota rammed the Galahads, taking out the damaged tank but doing little else of consequence. In return, the Galahads did some more damage to my tanks. And to finish things off, the lakota got the remaining snipers with on lookout card.

No objective capture this round, but my blazers were in range for next turn and I had another Pacifier unit waiting in the wings. While my opponent still had a unit of infantry sitting in the Sovereign, they were out of position to help.

Turn 3

The flank attack succeeded with a 12, so I had two units ready to hold the objective. The Galahads took out half my artillery, but my opponent conceded after realizing that they wouldn’t be able to blast both units of infantry and that I would be ahead on points.

End of Game

 

Summary

Overall, it was a great game. The scramble and trading for objectives was really interesting and forced prioritizing infantry, though the disappearing objectives probably favored union a bit. Reserves really made field guns actually work, and having a throw-away infantry unit sitting around also proved useful. MVP continues to be the MOAB, but most of my units performed as intended.

The throw cavalry at artillery plan didn’t work again, their melee just isn’t up to the task. I’ll probably run them as flexible troubleshooters in the future, though maybe a full unit with YEEHAW! could pull it off.

MVP's on the Crown side in my view were probably the Spitfires. They're always just exactly where they need to be, messing with an objective. The Mordreds also performed their role well, keeping me from moving anything armored into their line of sight. The Galahads continue to be a brick doing decent damage, but they really need linebreaker to go from annoyance to threat. However, with their ability to cheat on discipline tests, Crown was already consistently down on cards, so that might exacerbate the issue.

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