City States Battle Report 6

City States Polemarch Friends Vs Wadrhun and the Loaves of War

Now I have to explain my terrible joke (which always makes it SO MUCH funnier). I started my conquest journey with Wadrhun because the Apex Predator is iconic. I quickly fell in love with warbred. Which lead to me calling them warbread, then warloafs, and then the loaves of war.

Into round 3 of the TTS tournament I got matched up with Kang! His is a name I had seen often on the discord and I was excited to actually play a match and put at least a voice to the profile! He brought an awesome Wadrhun list with some big blocks supported by MSU loafs and an apex predator. I was very excited to play against my original loves of conquest.

We got loaded into TTS and chatted a bit and got right to the violence. Pregame I liked this scenario for my list. Lot’s of powerful points to stand my unyielding blocks on. An objective to abuse chariot NYOOOOOOOOOM power with. Lots of good things. List wise. I just really was terrified of the slingers and getting side charged by the hunting pack. Hunting pack in the flank just eat chariots alive. And that’s a rough trade ha

Now please forgive me. Sometimes I took a screenshot after the round had been advanced, but just trust me the pictures are from the end of the noted round.

Early Game

Round 1 – I don’t have lights. Lights are a weakness our god cities have no need of. But Kang got all his lights so I was staring down 2 groups of hunting packs and a big ole 5 man blob of slingers. All the things I was scared of.

Round 2 – I send my units up just enough so that they’re only in range of one stand of slingers, even if he moves. We each choose to chip away and get our objective. Kang gets to do some cool wadrhun witchcraft (READ: Trample with infantry) so he gets to kill the objective and I leave mine on two. At this point we are even (I’ll get my objective so it’s even, stay with me). We’re even on objectives and my plan is pretty straightforward. Stay even until I can kill the slingers. Then push aggressively.

Round 3 – I get the advantage of seeing how my opponent has deployed the majority of his army so I opt for a pretty concentrated push with all four chariots right up the gut. We’re gonna Cam Skattebo CTE 200 yard rushing game this scenario!!

Now this round I want to highlight something really really important that I’ve learned recently in gaming. Sometimes, a suboptimal trade, or unit, or mastery, or relic for an essential outcome is secretly a good trade.

Here’s the thing. Besides my polemarch unit, his army just kills the heck out of my army. My only hope is to not get tied up, not get engaged on, and control what fights where with the strategic stack and terrain. So I did it. I traded a companion cavalry unit for a unit of hunting pack. Then that forced the other hunting pack into the weird sideways position it was in. Just because something isn’t top tier on paper, doesn’t mean it isn’t a good choice in the moment. Now, this isn’t an excuse to make poor decisions all the time. It’s just something to consider. It comes up a few times this game. I’ll try to point them out.

Mid Game

Round 4 and 5 – So, yeah, violence. This game stuff just evaporated. I was able to win supremacy and kill the warbred with my companion cavalry and I ended up scooching them back. There was terrain I wouldn’t get any impacts and it made it so my sacred band could charge clash instead of march charge.

Chariots focused on the slingers moving forward aggressively as the vets march charged into the oracle.

Here’s another moment of weird trade but good choice. I took my haspists off the zones, and charged them into the hunting pack. I hummed and hawed a lot about it and Kang even tried to give me a do over and was like…are you sure?? But again my pregame plan and my win condition here is controlling what fights happen where. Stay even, control fights, then push when key threats are dead. I stayed flexible but kept those goals in mind.

Round 6

Haspists actually get to live due to some weird sight lines and the desire not to eat a charge from the promethean oracle in the flank of the veterans. So they hold me some points. Chariots start drifting onto zones and chipping away the last few dinorks. And at this point attrition has gone off the rails for my opponent and we decide to talk it out from here. I get rounds 7-10 of pure scoring and end up scoring 76 points.

End of Game Thoughts

Few key things here for me. I won supremacy on a crucial turn, then instantly won it again with the the Polemarch. Allowing me to do INSANE damage. In fact I won supremacy a ton this game. Kang sadly had some unfortunate dice rolls at key times and the game spiraled pretty heavily into the CS favor from those. But I must point out emphatically he’s a great guy and the game was a blast.

Things I did well – I was very deliberate with my positioning so that slingers could only ever get 1-3 stands into range of things. I was using terrain, and the power of strategic stack Always Inspired. I was really proud of my play here and it felt good to feel like I’ve improved with my play and my practice with my army has paid off.

Things to improve on – Again my promethean got tied up and did nothing. Small thing but there is always something to improve upon, even in your wins.

Things Kang did well – Kang absolutely had a plan for this scenario. He knew it well and had great setups to kill the objective asap and get scoring. He had fantastic layered threats. Zones were always covered, charges would always be punished, stuff like that. Some things definitely didn’t go his way attrition wise, but it’s very clear he knows his stuff and is very good at conquest.

As always thank you so much for reading. I do this to improve but it also is really cool to talk with people about gaming! Feel free to reach out to me with any questions, concerns, gossip, or to just talk shop. I love conquest and can talk about it all day. You can find me on Reddit as Iamarrest7, discord as Arrest, and Instagram as Arrest_Paints. I’m trying to convince the Line of Sight guys (The website hosting me) to start doing some custom tokens and gaming aids for conquest so I’ll keep you posted if that happens!