Away week of Warmahordes

Just finished playing a 50pt game of Warmachine in Grayslake with tMage. He's practicing for a 50pt tourney, and so am I. I'm testing out various builds to see how I like them. I know I want to play Constance Blaize, and in Cyngar, but I'm not sure what support models I'm taking with her yet. I didn't take Precursor Knights tonight and I sorely missed them. A flank bonus here or there could have made the difference.

My opponent played Major Haley’s new theme force with two Storm Striders:

Haley
Thorn
Thunderhead
Stormclad
2x Storm Strider
Free Storm Tower
2x Storm Smith
Black 13th Gun Mage bad mama jammas

Vs.

Constance Blaize
Squire
Gallant
Hunter
Jr
Hunter
Min Trencher Commandoes (Trenchers who don’t wear underwear)
Maximum Finn
3 Trenchmandoes with shotguns
Black 13th Gun mage muthas
Gorman Di Wulfe
Nyss Hunters with Murdoch

Tmage won the roll but asked me to go first. I ran up the trenchmandoes a lot with Finn giving them desprate pace. The Nyss Hunters went to ground for extra defense after running and Murdoch charged Gallant. Constance put Banishing Ward on the Trenchmandoes (in case Thorn got close enough to arc through). The Black 13th and Gorman made a little stealthy smoke orgy. Constance stood behind a wall. Jr put his Arc Shield on her.

He moved up field with the Thead between his Striders. Haley and thorn were behind them. The B13 took his far left flank and the Stormstuff took the right. No shots were fired.

I had my Hunters put bullets into one Storm Strider, but Deceleration is a way good spell against Cygnar as it turns out. My B13 managed to miss his B13 with just about everything. Gorman hid behind a wall. I had my Nyss actually CRA the wounded Storm Strider for a decent amount of damage, but it was still ticking. I put a bunch of them out there because Constance then feated and moved out from behind the wall but not super forward. The Trenchmandoes killed most of the Storm Smiths and Storm Tower, leaving the artillery piece engaged. Gallant hung back with Constance.

Tmage retaliated savagely. The Thead walked up and promptly pulsed, killing 7 Nyss and a Trencher Commando to give me 8 soul tokens. The wounded Storm Strider then tried to kill my Black 13th but had trouble because of the extra armor. They did manage to kill Watts and Lynch, but Ryan lived on. The other Strider put some hurt on Gallant. The Stormclad killed more Trenchmandoes. Thorn did naught. Haley feated.

Constance was, mercifully, out of the feat, with 11 soul tokens. Tmage dictated a bunch of my turn, and Ryan managed to deviate a mage storm away from everything important. My hunters scrapped the wounded Strider and Gallant and the Nyss shifted positions. Gorman was also out of feat. He moved up and Black Oiled the Thead. Constance charged in and cast Flashing blade multiple times, scrapping the other Storm Strider and mugging the Thunderhead. She stopped at 26 ARM and hung out in the middle of the table.

Tmage used the Stormclad to finish Gallant and hurt the Squire. Thead and Thorn moved to surround Constance. His B13 failed to kill Ryan and Gorman. Haley backed up a bit.

The Nyss charged the Stormclad, doing a fair bit of damage. Constance cast Flashing Blade 7 times with her focus and scrapped the Stormclad while doing a lot of damage to Thead and Thorn. She walked away and took a free strike from Thead for 4. Then Gorman Black Oiled Thead, catching Thorn in the aoe as well. Blind for all! Ryan dropped a mage storm on Ryan. The Hunters shot ineffectual bullets at blind Thorn engaged.

Haley kept all focus, cast Telekinesis to move Constance closer to her, charged, and managed to finish Blaize herself. It was a pretty awesome game overall.




Cheating that happened:

Tmage didn’t predeploy his battle engines! Naughty!
I shifted Constance a bit before casting Flashing Blade and then moved her later! Villainous!
I shouldn’t have been able to scrap his Battle Engine with Constance because we both forgot about Repulsion! Silly!

I’m sure there was more, but as always, the Cheating Phase never ends.

The next night I got in two games at the same store with different folks. I played a 25 point mangled metal against eSkarre, and I’m not a fan of Cygnar mangled metal in general. I played Haley, who is good, but. . .not eSkarre good. Anyway, lost on scenario.

I also played a sweet game of 35 points Supply and Demand against my Khador opponent from a few weeks back. He played:

Strahkov
Spriggan
Devastator
War Dog
2x Kayazy Eliminators
Min Iron Fang Pikemen with UA
Great Bears
Kholdun Lord

I played
Captain Haley
Hunter
Ol’ Rowdy
Squire
Jr
Hunter
Min Trenchmandoes
2 Trenchmandoes with Shotguns
Black 13th
Gorman di Wulfe

I won the roll but made him go first, as I thought I could play defensively and take an alpha strike. Strahkov has a mean threat range, so I played pretty conservatively. He moved up all his stuff, put Occultation on the IFP, and said turn. The War Dog did a weird flanking maneuver.

I moved up my B13 to my objective and put out a Mage Storm, missing wildly. Haley and Jr fed their hunters some focus for shots at the Spriggan (who had Superiority) but they did minimal damage. Haley gave the trenchmandoes Deadeye for more accuracy and cast Temporal Barrier before moving up to deny some real estate for charges. The Trenchmandoes managed to kill one unit of eliminators.

My foe ran his Eliminators up to harass the Black 13th. The War Dog ran through the mage storm (!) to threaten that portion of the table with countercharge. The Iron Fangs charged my trenchmandoes and killed 3. The Great Bears charged in and killed two more. Strahkov and the Spriggan stayed back. The Devastator ran for the second turn in a row.

I had Haley go first, give two focus to her Hunter (Jr gave one to his), cast Temporal Barrier and feat (everything gets an extra shot. The Hunters both shot two bullets at the Spriggan and managed to mug it good. The Trenchmandoes killed a Great Bear and 3 IFP. Rowdy killed another IFP. Jr shot the last great bear with a boosted hand cannon shot. Lynch walked up to the War Dog and shot it twice in the head, execution style, but the thing was Tough twice. Ryan dropped her Mage Storm on an Eliminator and killed it. She then shot the downed war dog and it stayed down. Watts missed the last Eliminator twice.

Strahkov was running out of options. I asked him why he hadn’t feated for extra movement and he looked like he was going to jump across the table at me. I asked for Strahkov’s card and read the feat, realizing that he only grants extra movement on charges, and my Temporal Barrier spell denies charges in a 16” bubble around Haley. Wow. So me playing Haley against Strahkov is actually a dick move. I apologized profusely, but my opponent graciously said that he’s won this matchup before, and usually he can deal with it.

In fact, he’s the one who made the hilarious Strahkov flowchart.

As I paste the link I realize I've been spelling strakhov wrong for some time. Damn.

He did what he could, killing the last two Trenchmandoes and bulldozing Gorman into my Mage Storm to kill him. Strahkov stayed near his fuel dump while the Eliminator moved Base to Base with my fuel dump, gaining him a scenario point. The IFP engaged Rowdy.

I allocated some to my hunters. Haley cast TB first (as is proper) to buff everything’s RAT essentially. She also speared two Iron Fang Pikemen. Jr killed the last engaging Rowdy. Rowdy charged the final one. My Trenchmando ran away to keep Overrun from triggering and Strahkov walking up to Haley. The Hunters Scrapped the Spriggan while moving close enough to contest Strahkov’s Fuel Cache. Ryan dropped another Mage Storm on the last Eliminator, killing it. Watts killed the Kholdun Lord.

Strahkov tried to Battering Ram the Hunter away, but the forest kept him within 4” of the cache to contest. The Devastator opened up on the Objective and killed Ryan.

The Hunter charged Strahkov but it’s awful in melee. Rowdy moved up to menace. Haley cast TB again. I positioned some stuff to contest my fuel cache. Strahkov tried to shoot Haley, but came up short. Rowdy pasted Strahkov.

It was a bit one-sided. I didn’t realize before the game that Haley’s TB spell totally counters Strahkov’s feat, but sometimes bad matchups happen. I do feel bad it happened in a friendly game though. My opponent was awesome about it, and almost managed to beat me by scenario anyway. He said he never uses Battering Ram and it was interesting that the spell became viable during this particular matchup.

-Merlin out.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone