Battle Report: Sturgis vs Syntherion

So very close, yet so far.

My list: Sturgis, Squire, Stormwall, Jakes, Dynamo, Stormblades (6+UA+3WA), Stormblade Captain, Stormsmith, Tarin, Aiyana & Holt, Harlan, Effigy of Valor Objective.

My opponent: Syntherion (tier 4), Corollary, Axiom, Mitigator, 2 Diffusers, Galvanizer, 2 Emergence Projectors, 2 Dispersion Optifexes, 3 Attunement Servitors, Optifex Directive, Bunker Objective.

Scenario: Recon, 60 minute death clock.

Honestly, I can't remember a lot of details of this game. I ended up going second and choosing the side with the bunker. My Stormwall got Magnetic Held. Aiyana failed to drop harm on one of the battle engines, and from there some more failed dice rolls meant I only took out 1 of the two of them on my second turn which resulted in some badness. There was other badness, but generally what it came down to was getting slightly outplayed and being behind on scenario so I went for an assassination run on Synth who was camping 5 focus. Long story short, I failed, but more analysis on the actual attempt below.

Lessons learned: I'm going to lose gloriously in Masters. I'm just hoping for a set of fun opponents.
Also thinking I should swap out the Stormsmith and Harlan for Eiryss2. I'll try that next time.

Games this year: 24



Overpower vs Drop-5-Damage
Ok, so on this assassination run, I was curious about the about the math on this, so I'm going to try it out here, comparing old Overpower vs new drop-5-damage mechanisms.

Sturgis made a last ditch assassination attempt on Synth, who was camping 5 focus. He was def 13, arm 18 base. I won't replay the attack rolls for hit/miss based on average dice, and just assume it stays as the same hit rates. I'll also assume Synth still had his 3 damage from Feedback that Sturgis had put on him previously, so he was down to 17 damage remaining. I will however assume average damage rolls rather than trying to recall exactly what I rolled last night.

Stormwall, 1 boosted Big Gun hit at POW 15, 1 boosted Metal Storm hit at POW 12.
Sturgis' feat, boosted POW 12.
Harlan's quad iron, with 4 boosted POW 10s
Stormblade Captain charge attack, boosted weapon master POW 13


Overpower scenario (what played out last night), with Synth at ARM 23:
Stormwall does 2.5 and 0.
Sturgis does 0.
Harlan does 0, 0, 0 and 0.
Stormblade Captain does 4.
So a total of 6.5 damage on average. In recollection, I had spike rolls in both directions which pushed the damage up, but still not even close to a win.

New drop-5-damage scenario, with Synth at ARM 18.
Stormwall does 7.5 and 4.5.
Sturgis does 4.5.
Harlan does 2.5, 2.5, 2.5 and 2.5.
Stormblade Captain does 9.
Let's assume Synth optimizes and pays to drop from the largest ones, that eliminates the 2 4.5s, and 1 2.5 entirely. It also drop 5 from the 9, and 5 from the 7.5. This comes out to a total of: 2.5, 2.5, 2.5, 2.5 and 4, for a grand total of 14.

So Synth lives, assuming average dice and perfect drops, Synth lives, but I can only imagine the brain twisting process as dice spike one way or another and having to guess when to try and drop or not.

All things considered, I dig this change.