Fortune Hunters vs Nereids, 530 points

[Landlubber]

Had a small game of DeepWars with forum member Stephan a couple nights ago. First time I've used my new(-ish) game mat from Antimatter Games and a lot of the terrain I've been collecting from the pet store, and my first time gaming in Stephan's Gaming Basement (I'm quite jealous of the setup he has!).



We played his Nereids against my Fortune Hunters, about 530 points per side. The scenario was that the Fortune Hunters were mining ether crystals--represented on the board by the purple crystalline clusters. I had to move a model up to one of the clusters and roll a Break action; on a successful roll, the model harvested an ether crystal, and on a failed roll there was no crystal found. The cluster was removed from the board in either case. As the defender in the scenario, Stephan set the board up.





As it turned out, I was only able to approach and mine one cluster, and I passed the Break action and gained a crystal. By then, the Nereids were close enough to start causing me trouble.

The evil mermaids went after my Big Game Hunter first, and almost killed him!



The combination of most of the Nereids having Long Move, low Quality checks, and Stephan's usual dice witchery meant that the Nereids were able to close the gap very quickly, preventing me from going after more of the crystals.



Both my Tactical Dive Soldiers fell quickly to the Nereids' weapons, most of the damage being done in hand-to-hand combat. It seemed like Stephan was able to get either a Charge or a Rush in almost every turn!

My Big Game Hunter was able to hit the shark with his Harpoon after it finished off one of the Tactical Dive Soldiers--thanks to the Lethal ability, the Harpoon put two wounds on the shark, and my Breaching Mech moved in to deliver the killing blow:



By that point I had managed to kill a couple of the other Nereids (I can't remember which ones), and Stephan decided to cede the battlefield to the Fortune Hunters. While the Big Game Hunter only had one wound left, the Breaching Mech and Heavy Support Diver both still had full health, and those are both tough nuts to crack--Stephan felt he didn't have the firepower left on the board to get it done.



So, while it was a tactical victory for the Fortune Hunters, you could argue it was a strategic victory for the Nereids, as they tied up the Fortune Hunters and prevented them from achieving their primary objective--harvesting the ether crystals.

A few observations and lessons learned:

1. The Nereids are fast. The Long Move and low Quality roll mean they can really get moving around the board.

2. Given the above, I had to be conservative with my activation rolls. There were a few turns where I flubbed my first activation and play went right back to Stephan; he was able to activate most or all of his models on almost every turn. When I did play it safe, I was usually able to activate most or all of my models (albeit only with one or two actions apiece), but was able to really push back against the Nereids.

3. The Nereids are better-than-average in hand-to-hand combat, so I should have protected my weaker models with the Breaching Mech and Heavy Support Diver. While slower, they are much better equipped to deal with the quick strikes the Nereids can dish out.

Good game all around, and I was happy to use the mat and all the terrain I've been collecting! I wasn't sure how the mat would look, but once we placed the terrain it really looked good.





Thanks for reading!

[Stephan]

Thanks for the write-up Greg!

My force was composed of Amatheia (Deep Caller) and her Hammerhead Shark (warbeast), Eidotheria the Nereid Captain (Leader), the Nereid Guardian of the Reef (basic trooper), and Calypso (the Hidden One).

The Nereids are definitely fragile.  With a typical CS of 2 or 3, at most 1 armor and 3 wounds on their body, the female Nereids really can't take a hit.  I had to rely on the shark for most of the real damage dished out, helped by Amatheia's deep caller ability which grants +1 activation to friendly animals and warbeasts in range.  I did something similar with Eidotheria's Leader ability, which gives +1 to the activation roll of nearby allies.  That meant anyone within 1 long stick of her was generally working off of a quality of 2+ for activation rolls.  Even so, the Nerieds themselves were relegated to hit and run attacks, dodging in and out of cover.

I think my next Nereid purchase will have to be Icthelion, Lord of the Seas.  He's 141 points, but he provides both a heavy hitting power and the Sea Shaman ability.  With Sea Shaman, I can summon up to 150 points of sea creatures into the game at a max of 50 pts per summoning.  Combine that with Amatheia's Deep Caller ability and I think it will work well.