Michigan Masters Recaps

I played a 3-list divide and conquer (play each list at least once) 50 pt faux masters event last weekend. Overall it was pretty rad. My lists were:

Haley1
Hunter
Squire
Journeyman
Hunter
Lieutenant Jakes
Hunter
Boomhowlers max
Tactical Arcanist Corps
Black 13th
Rangers
Anastasia di Bray
Eiryss

This list was made so that I could place jakes honestly. It worked okay. Jakes was rad. It's predicated on being able to remove a heavy with Haley's feat and 6 boosted damage armor piercing shots from the hunters.

Stryker2
Squire
Ol' Rowdy
Minuteman
Minuteman
Journeyman
Madelyn Corbeau
Reinholdt
ArchDuck Runewood
Stormblade Captain
Stormblade Captain
Stormguard Max
Stormblades with Unit Attachment and 3 storm Gunners

This list is a melee puncher with some tricks. It played way better than I expected it to. Opponents consistently allowed my minutemen to do awesome things while concentrating on storm knights.

Lastly
Commander Sturgis
Stormwall
Journeyman
Hammer Dorfs with Jonas Murdoch
Captain Max Finn
Gorman di Wulfe, Kung Lao Impersonator
Rangers
Lady Aiyana and Master Holt
Mechaniks min
Alexia and the Risen
Stormsmith
Rupert Carvolo

This list is . . .a list all right. I'm not sure exactly how to run Sturgis. This was okay, but it felt off. Also, Sturgis is in peril a LOT early game.

Round 1 I played a game of Outflank against Butcher 1.

Butcher
War dog
Spriggan
Malakov
Torch
Winter guard Death Star (full unit with unit attachment, 3 weapon attachments, and kovnik Joseph gregorovitch)
2 units of kayazy eliminators
The great bears
Gorman

My opponent won the roll and went first. He ran up and cast iron flesh on the WG and fury on the great bears. Malakov put redline on torch.

I counter moved most of my stuff to just give him a few dudes on either side of the zones, and cast deflection. One minuteman jumped wide to flank my right zone.

My opponent decided to pop his feat (probably early) so that whatever he gets to hit dies. However his dice fail him and the 10 attacks he does yields only 3 kills.

I counter feat and kill everything in both zones, scoring 2 points. People underestimate storm blades charging and the minutemans ability to kill shit. This turn my minuteman killed 2 kayazy eliminators.

My feat is devastating. I manage to kill a LOT of winter guard with electro leaps.

He counter strikes but can't get back in. I clear the right zone and dominate it. He tries some last ditch holding actions but my minuteman kills his high-defense model and the stormblades get Aiyana. Win 5-0 on scenario.



Round 2 I'm playing fire support against a menoth player. He drops kreoss 2 tier against my Sturgis. There is a big stupid bridge and river in the middle of the table.

Kreoss
Fire of Salvation
Two bastions max
Bastion seneschal
Two knights exemplar
Two knights exemplar seneschal
Stabby pony chicks max
Exemplar gravus


I play this game fairly badly. I feat for nothing with Sturgis and then flub a decent assassination run. Lame. My opponent plays well through my mistakes and I clock out on a last ditch (bad) run on kreoss.

Round 3 I play another cygnar player who has high-armor lists so I drop Stryker again. He also drops Stryker. The scenario is incursion.

His list is

Stryker 2
Ol Rowdy
2 Centurions
Squire
Journeyman
Black 13th
Runewood
Madelyn Corbeau
Gorman di Wulfe
Hammer Dorfs with Jonas Murdoch
Eiryss 2

I got to go first. I made an early play for Gorman but my minuteman missed 2 boosted 8s to shoot him. I try to keep some stuff out of threat. His Stryker feats, rebukes both my units (!), then backs up. He starts charging storm blades and my arcane shield rowdy charges up with counter charge. He gets some charges on rowdy but they don't break armor. His centurion misses. During feat his dwarves continue to not hurt rowdy. He does kill most of my storm blades.

I counter feat and counter attack, feeding my jacks for revenge. One minuteman kills Gorman and Ryan (score!), rowdy kills a centurion and
Hammer dorfs. My storm blades kill dorfs too. During my feat kill most of the remaining dorfs.



My opponent sends his rowdy into mine and fails to even disable a system (eiryss missed her 7 to hit my rowdy in a wreck marker). He doesn't clear my 3 stormblades to score. Those guys kill Madelyn and his eiryss. My rowdy kills his with the help of positive charge. I score 2 points.

He tries to clear a lane for Stryker on Stryker violence but it doesn't work out. I manage to score 3 more the next turn.

Game 4 was against morvhana2 in balance of power. It's a terrible scenario. My opponent and I are both list locked because of divide and conquer rules. This might be he last round. I must play Haley against his morvhana.

I don't hate it.

His list was tier.
Morvhana
Pure blood wolf
Moon hound
2 tharn ravagers max, one with ua and shaman
Blood trackers max with Niall
Blood pack max
Druid wilder

I go first and take up space. He tries to jam my hunter not realizing they have parry and can walk away.

I decide to feat top of 2 and try for morvhana. I give artillerist to lynch, Haley feats an cast TB catching his warlock. She's a half inch out from getting morvhana with her own hand cannon. Lynch drifts a fire beacon on morv, then my black 13th miss or fail to hurt morv a bunch on 6 more snipe shots. I had run a range forward as well for Mark target so only needed 5s.

My hunters each have 2 focus so I hope to hit 6s and then boost damage on their two shots but I miss the first of each pair and only manage to cripple morv and her battlegroup instead Of Killing her.

The game goes another 5 rounds since morvhana is having trouble with her schtick now. Eventually Haley dies to the pureblood spray.

Awesome game tho. Worth it.

Round 5 was against MOAR cygnar. Sloan v my Sturgis in destruction.

I feat better, my opponents dice fail to kill my stormwall and I repair and nearly wreck his. We grind and I win on scenario.

3-2 for the day. Not a bad run.

-Merlin out.

Location:Fenton MI

Challenge Match: Colossal

Charlie had to own a colossal, so he picked up a Conquest and painted it up sweet. He challenged my Stormwall to a Cygnar/Khador giant-robot grudge match. It was on like the Donkey Kong.

I decided to play Nemo3, because Charlie loves him some winterguard and assassins, and Nemo3 can kill both those units himself with a little support.

The scenario was Overrun. Get a model into the big rectangle and keep it there. And kill all the enemy stuff in the rectangle.

I played
Midlife Crisis Nemo and New Stepmom
Stormwall
Thorn
Min Boomhowler with Murdoch
Rangers
Reinholdt the Reloader
Broke 13th
Epic Elf
Kung Lao, Rogue Alchemist

Charlie played
Vlad1
Conquest
Spriggan
Assassins max w UA
Winterguard max w UA and Greg
Manhunter
Piper of Ord

Charlie won the roll, wanted to go first, and I took the side with the hill to stand on. We ran at each other turn one, though I did kill a few WG with lightning gun shots. I put Failsafe on Stormwall.



Charlie moved up and killed 3 rangers but I'd left everything else out of engagement range. The assassins ran at my trolls but did not engage any of them.



I retaliated with lots of lightning. Thorn killed two assassins. Gorman killed two with an acid bomb. With chain lightning and two shots from nemo's gun at Thorn and a lightning pod I killed 6 assassins and 5 winterguard. Charlie didn't make a lot of tough rolls. The b13 killed the remaining assassins aside from the underboss, who made her tough check.



Stormwall didn't do much, but put a few points into the Spriggan. My coup de grace was running epic elf 14" to just stand near the Spriggan and Conquest. So no focus for them.



Charlie had lost most of his infantry at this point.
His jacks were denied focus. Vlad moved up, cast signs and portents, and feated. The Spriggan mauled Thorn, but left cortex and spear. The conquest moved toward Boomhowler and fired a buch of aoes, but he realized after moving that he needed to kill Gorman super bad. So he fired all guns at Kung Lao, needing a 16 to hit him on the hill. He of course missed a bunch but got good deviations and with s&p the blast damage finally killed that annoying bugger.

Spriggan and Thorn had an epic joust this game.



The mechanics charged Eiryss and failed.

I was way up on attrition and with Eiryss still around to keep Conquest non-awesome I killed the Spriggan with Thorn and Stormwall (with ease; Thorn's two boosted damage rolls were both 16s). Boomhowler howled rage at Conquest to make it innaccurate to boot. The b13 killed all the mechanics and lightning killed the underboss again, who was again tough.

Vlad charged the Stormwall with Blood of Kings but barely scratched the paint. He camped a bunch.



I went for an assassination run using a boosted storm pod (0 damage), a double boosted stormwall fist (9 damage, leaving Vlad on 6), and lots of 4d6 electroleaps. However, I didn't get the kill. Vlad lived to try a razor wind hail Mary on Nemo but failed. Stormwall finished him with a boosted lightning pod.



It was a pretty epic match. I feel like I metagamed Charlie a bit with Boomhowler, though Gorman and Eiryss are in a lot of my lists anyways. I also knew that Nemo eats high-def Khador infantry like a champ so bringing the old man was a good idea.



Stormwall is pretty sweet.

-Merlin out



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Mi hizzle

Poor Bodgers Tourney

I got up the the Gamer's Sanctuary in Flint for a 15 point mini tournament on Monday. I fully expected to do poorly, as I wanted play Constance Blaize and she's not highly regarded in online forums.

I brought two lists, one for Blaize as Cygnar and one for her as a mercenary. She's unique as an "ally" warcaster, so she can either be run as a faction Cygnar queenpin, or in a mercenary contract that accepts mercs who will work for Cygnar (currently, the only such contract is the Highborn Covenant, which can -only- include mercs who will work for Cygnar). I asked Ray whether I should go merc or Cyg and he suggested merc.



So that's what I did.

Blaize 6 'jack points
Gallant 9 Pts
Cylena and her Nyss Hunters 10 Pts
Harlan Versh, the Illuminated One 2 Pts

Everything in the list is a mercenary (either straight up or because of the "ally" rule), so Blaize's "friendly faction" buffs and feat affect the whole force.

The idea is to give the Nyss banishing ward to protect them from spells on the approach, then have them alpha strike with Crusader's Call from 12" away with the feat up. I'll lose a bunch of Nyss to the counterstroke but with the feat up it should make Blaize tough as nails the next turn. Harlan shoots buffed units like a cannon, and Gallant is a good basic beater.

Game 1 was against Cygnar Constance Blaize. Hilarious.

My opponent won the roll and asked me to go first. He had

Blaize
Gallant
6 Precusor Knights with Battle Chaplain and Standard
Black 13th Gun Mage strike team
Stormsmith Stormcaller

I had seen him prepping for the tournament, and he had a different list during prep. Instead of the B13 and Stormcaller he had Reinholdt the Gobber Speculator and 6 Sword Knights.

I thought that wasn't bad, but I offered to loan him a Stormcaller because they are better for Constance than Reinholdt for 1-point filler.

He may have also overheard me lamenting the loss of the B13 in my own list by playing Highborn instead of Cygnar. Either way, I thought the list he actually played looked strong.

I set up the Nyss to take the hill on my side of the board with a first turn run. Gallant, Blaize, and Harlan went up the center-left near a building. Blaize put Banishing Ward on the Nyss to stop Sunburst attacks and Transference on herself.

He moved his PKs up in shield wall, and his Blaize and Gallant mirrored mine, though he played more conservatively back. The B13 got Banishing Ward (drat!) and he also cast Transference. B13 hid behind the PKs and the Stormsmith (who terrified me) hid behind a wall.

I decided to play the next round conservatively, and almost lost the game because of it. I moved the Nyss up a bit and had them do combined ranged attacks, which were moderately successful, killing two PKs. Gallant and Constance hung back, and Harlan moved behind my troops.

I did NOT use my feat. I thought my Nyss with Banishing Ward could survive mostly intact for the next round. I thought I might lose 3, maybe four.

My opponent popped his feat, and cast Crusader's Call for the bonus to charges. I had deliberately kept my Gallant 12.5 inches away from his in an attempt to goad him into failing a charge (Gallant under Crusdar's Call can charge 10" and has 2" Reach on his magic beatstick). I had measured the range for a bowshot from one of my Nyss (12" range), so I was certain if he went for the bait I'd come out ahead.

He didn't take the bait. Instead, after getting her Call in Blaize stayed back. Then his Gallant charged a Nyss, and using Purgation for an extra die on attacks he killed two. Then the PKs charged in and killed two more with boosts from Transference.

This is all according to plan; I was expecting as much. I wasn't expecting the Black 13th to kill 4 more Nyss, including Cylena. I had feared them, and rightly so. I knew he was going to use his Stormsmith to disrupt Gallant and end his turn. . . But he didn't. The SS dropped a lightning strike on Blaize instead, doing no damage.

I was back in, because I knew if I could kill the PK officer and Gallant my next turn then I still had a beatstick and my foe would have trouble with Gallant.

I gave Gallant two focus and dropped all upkeeps. I moved Harlan up and took a shot at a PK, but missed. Gallant charged Gallant and hit him a bit. With the buckler attack Gallant squished the PK Battle chaplain (mission one accomplished). Then Gallant beat on Gallant with his sword twice more, missing once and hitting for a bunch with the second.

The Nyss killed a PK between them.

Constance activated last, and utilizing flank with her Gallant managed to wreck (barely) the other Gallant. She popped her feat with no focus, standing at midfield near a wreck marker.

My opponent moved the B13 first and shot at Blaize, doing about 5 damage with a good brutal damage shot and 4 from Ryan's Mage storm (which targeted Gallant because Blaize had cover even after Ryan had moved). The PKs got the run order (not charge, for some reason) so that one could rush to my backfield and engage Harlan.

Constance moved up and hit Constance (his hit mine) with a boosted Sunfire, doing a few more damage. I should have had gallant eat the shot from Watts earlier. Meh. I was down to 5 wounds and desperate.

The Stormsmith moved up. . .and did two more damage to my Blaize with a stormcall. Again, disrupting my gallant would have been better.

I looked at the table and decided I had a shot at a hail Mary assassination run. Gallant gained his free focus and ran to his Constance, just to engage her and enable my flank bonuses.

Then my Blaize activated. With 7 focus (feat was largely lame) I cast sunburst at Ryan, who was blocking my path to the other Blaize. I hit on the boost, and the damage killed her. Then Blaize charged through the gap and stabbed her counterpart, boosting the hit roll. I hit and did 8 damage. I spent another focus to flashing blade, and killed Watts and other Blaize with a good roll (she was sitting on 2 focus so dice -5 on three dice for damage). That was game.

My opponent said he should have won, and that he made a few mistakes. He was about to tell me about it when I told him I was terrified of his Stormsmith all game, and was surprised when he didn't disrupt Gallant.

He was not happy about that.

Game MVP: Blaize. Flank will bring some pain. Wrecked an ARM 19 heavy with flank.

Game 2 vs. Rhyas of the Legion of Everblight

The scenario is Killbox, which means kill the other casterlock before they kill you, and if your casterlock leaves the center of the board after two turn, you automatically lose.

My opponent lost the roll and I choose to go first after examining his army stats. He was running:
Rhyas
4 Shredder light warbeasts
1 Stinger light warbeast
Full 10-dude unit of Blighted Nyss Swordsmen with the Unit Attachment (2 more dudes for 12 total).

I looked at it, and saw no offensive spells. So no need for Banishing Ward. It was a fast list, but didn't have many ranged attacks. Only the Stinger had a short-ranged spray attack. When I went first I ran my whole force. My Nyss were as fast as his. Blaize, Gallant, and Harlan went to meet the Swordsmen head-on while my Nyss went for a flanking strike.

He counter-ran with his force, pushing two Shredders halfway down the field, and keeping his other beasts and Rhyas behind the Swordsmen's advance. He put Occultation on the Swordsmen, which gives a unit stealth (ranged attacks from more than 5" away automiss).

I walked Harlan to within 2" of the lead swordsman and blew him away with Mallus, Harlan's magical quadiron gun. Mallus works like this: Harlan is only RAT 6, so he's not terribly accurate, but the quadiron allows an extra attack up to four (it's a four-barreled magic revolver) as long as Harlan keeps hitting. RAT 6 isn't so good against the Swordsmen's 14 defense. On average rolls Harlan will miss. But Harlan is a witch hunter. His weapons are Blessed, so they ignore defensive buffs from spells, and they have Purgation, so he rolls an extra attack and damage die if his target has an upkeep spell on them (like Occultation). Harlan killed 3 Swordsmen.

I activated Blaize and moved her left a bit, popped her feat and cast Crusader's Call. Gallant did a similar conservative shimmy. My Nyss Hunters charged into the fray, killing two more Swordsmen and annihilating the two shredders that had run forward.

My opponent didn't seem concerned. He activated the Stinger first and killed two of my Nyss with its fire-spray attack(+2 souls). The blighted Swordsmen activated and did some attacking shenanigans to get extra attacks, but the whole unit only managed to kill Harlan and 2 more of my Nyss (+3 souls).

What really floored me is this: my opponent then activated his warlock, Rhyas, and charged her ninja ass up into a Nyss Hunter something like 11 inches with her movement buff spell, using acrobatics to hop over a few other targets on the way.

And she missed her attack. She needed a 7 to hit, and didn't get it. I thought for sure my foe would spend one of her remaining two Fury to buy another attack and murder the spiteful elf in front of her, as Rhyas also has Sprint. Sprint allows her to move a full advance away if she's killed a model after her activation.

But he didn't. Instead he ended his turn by running his remaining shredders into the backfield.

So I started my turn with +5 focus on Blaize, less than 8" from my opponent's warlock. To top it off, Gallant was also less than 10" from Rhyas. So my goal was to go for the throat and finish the game quickly.

There was a Nyss hunter in my way. I had to figure out how to either move or kill it to clear my attack lane. I allocated 2 focus to Gallant, and activated him first. He gained another focus from his Morrowan Accumulator ability (to his max of 3) and slammed the intervening Nyss, boosting the to-hit because he still needed an 8 (that Nyss defense!). I hit, however, slamming the poor elf into Rhyas and doing a strength-based (power 11) collateral damage roll to both of them. The Nyss didn't make it. Rhyas took a damage or two.

So now Rhyas was knocked down, reducing her defense from 17 (with the Tenacity animus from the shredders) to melee attacks auto-hit. Gallant bought an extra sword attack and stabbed the hell out of her. she transfered the damage, blowing up a shredder instead.

The remaining Nyss Hunters activated, most of them missing the Swordsmen they were engaged with, but Cylena and one pal were free and able to charge the downed Rhyas. They did a lot of damage, but one hit was transfered to the last shredder, killing it.

Blaize didn't have a clear charge lane to Rhyas and needed the extra movement from the charge to engage her to buy extra attacks. But Blaize could see Cylena just fine, and poor Cylena was standing next to Rhyas. Blaize charged and killed Cylena, and then she was standing over the prone enemy warlock with Gallant in range for a flank bonus and nine focus left for stabs.

Game over for Rhyas.

Game MVP: Blaize again, getting it done herself.

I'm seeing a pattern here.

Game 3 vs. Prime Deneghra of Cryx

The scenario is Process of Elimination, which has two large squares in the center of the table, which extend well into both players' sides of the table.

Deneghra's list was spell-assassination heavy:

Deneghra
4 Deathripper bonejacks
Skarlock Thrall
Captain Rengrave

It's a tough list to play against, but I had a hard counter in the form of Blaize's spell Banishing Ward, which makes it impossible to target a model/unit with spells. Deneghra's list is 4 arc nodes (the deathrippers) to fire spells through, a Skarlock 'caster attachment who casts a spell for free each turn, and Rengrave, who is a decent solo.

I decided to park the Nyss in the woods turn one with Banishing Ward, and use Harlan to flank and Gallant to protect Blaize. I won the roll but made my opponent go first. The table was littered with terrain, with woods on either side and a river that ran all over the board.

Denny ran her whole force through the rivers and woods first turn. I did the same from my side but cast Transference and Banishing Ward on the Nyss.

Denny spent the next turn positioning arc nodes weirdly to aim Venom sprays near the Nyss without actually targeting the Nyss, to get around Banishing Ward. He wound up hurting and corroding a deathripper and killing one Nyss. The node he ran over to shoot at Blaize with was an inch out of Denny's control range, so he couldn't spray my caster. Rengrave took an ineffective shot.

I upkept Transference and gave Gallant some focus. Gallant tore the node off the deathripper that had run by Blaize. Blaize cast Crusader's Call and parked in the back of the forest to evade spell assassination. She also popped her feat. The Nyss charged the arc nodes in the midfield and mostly missed. They used two of Blaize's focus to boost attacks and mugged two of the deathrippers, ruining their cortexes but leaving the arc nodes intact.

Denny used her feat to counteract my own (hers, and fired a Scourge at my now-weaker Nyss. Somehow she managed to miss and the deviation flew away to little effect. Her deathrippers, engaged and/or cortex-crippled, swung at the Nyss ineffectively. Rengrave killed a Nyss.

My troops were now also -2 to their melee attack, so they were gonna have trouble hitting the arc nodes without Transference and I had had to drop that spell.

The thing was, the deathrippers and Nyss Hunters were squared off in a struggle, and they're both defense 15 and Melee attack 6, needing 9s on two dice to hit. We fought for the center for several turns. Gallant scrapped an arc node. I decided that the only safe play was to put Banishing Ward on Blaize, and it sat on her the rest of the game.

Eventually, I cleared a lane for Gallant to charge near Denny with Crusader's Call up for +2 inches on the charge. Denny took some beats and tried to retreat. Gallant charged again the next turn, and that was game.

Took a long time, but I pulled it out.

Game MVP: Gallant, who was pretty badass.

Harlan didn't do much in most of the third game, though he did manage some hurt on the back arc of an arc node with three shots hitting in a single turn.

I was 3-0 but the other 3-0 player won the event with a stronger play record. I came in third, actually, though I'm not sure how the 2-1 guy came in second in front of me.

-Merlin out

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone y'allz

WarmaHordes Team Tournament

Ray called me on Tuesday and said that there was a WH Team tourney on Saturday. He also asked if I'd team up with him, as he had theorymachined a bunch of Cryx/Cygnar villainy. I managed to find some family support and got to play, and the villainy commenced.

We played:
Army Name: Shootethrax 2.0
Cryx
50+6 points, 46 models

Lich Lord Venethrax +6 points
* Malice 9 points
* Skarlock Thrall 2 points

5 Black Ogrun Boarding Party 6 points
10 Bloodgorgers 8 points
10 Croe's Cutthroats 10 points
General Gerlak Slaughterborn 3 points
Necrotech 1 point
Satyxis Raider Captain 2 points
10 Satyxis Raiders 8 points
* Satyxis Sea Witch 2 points
Withershadow Combine 5 points
1 Scrap Thrall

and

Army Name: Stupid Caine Tricks
Cygnar
50+6 points, 30 models

Lieutenant Allister Caine +6 points
* Ol' Rowdy 9 points
* Squire 2 points

Journeyman Warcaster 3 points

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages 6 points
* Gun Mage Officer 2 points
** 2x Hunter 6 points each
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team 4 points
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution 3 points
10 Nyss Hunters 10 points
* Captain Jonas Murdoch 2 points
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator 1 point
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord 2 points

The basic idea was that Caine's ranged buff spells Deadeye and Snipe make the units Ray was taking (Ogrun and Cutthroats) awesome, as generally speaking Cryx doesn't have access to ranged buffs and Cygnar doesn't have access to the dirty-tricks shooting of the more evil factions. It worked okay. Further, giving Snipe to Malice, so that he can harpoon a jack from like 18 inches away and drag them into your lines to get mauled, is gross.

 In fact, the Black Ogrun also have drag, so the list was very "GET OVER HERE!" with Snipe and Deadeye to pull stuff in. We didn't get to do too much of that, but what there was was nasty.

Round 1 vs Constance Blaize (Cygnar) and Baldur (Circle)

Baldur was running a unit of bloodtrackers, a tricked out ravagers unit, two woldwardens and the Megalith, and the shifting stones with ua. Constance had a min Precursor Knights with ua, Gallant, a Charger, Jr with a Hunter, Squire, Strangeways, a min unit of Trenchers and a max unit of Sword Knights with UA. And a Stormsmith. Someone had Swamp Gobbers as well.

We won the roll, set up first, and deployed our mess of infantry all over the map. Caine gave Blur to the raiders and Snipe to Malice, and Rupert gave the raiders Tough. The raiders ran to engage the Trenchers (like an 18 inch run, ridiculous). pretty much evverything else ran. Venethrax cast Lamentation and upkept it all game. Soul Harvester is a hard counter to Blaize's feat.





Deployment photo!

The Circle moved up and Baldur feated, giving his entire army cover and making it difficult to fight them. We made some mistakes because of the feat. I had never played against it so I wasn't sure how it worked, and Ray misremembered it. Everything moved up, with the bloodtrackers (Prey= Satyxis) engaging some Nyss with a run. Nothing much happened otherwise; the Trenchers killed two or three Raiders with help from Transference, but it was expensive. Baldur had Solid Ground up and Constance had Transference up.

Ray and I realized we'd kept Caine too far back to feat this turn, so we just went our way. Caine dropped Blur but left Malice with Snipe, then the Satyxis Raiders murdered a bunch of Trenchers with Soul Harvester on them (Venethrax gets a pile of souls). Also got the Stormsmith. Venethrax feated, and the Nyss assaulted the bloodtrackers, killing a couple and making clouds. The sword knights on the far flank were engaged by a Nyss and a Raider.

The gunmages and Hunters managed to kill a Ravager and hurt another. Cutthroats engaged the other Ravagers in Baldur's control area and feat, and the trolls and ogres hung back a bit. Gerlak set up for a ridiculous turn. B13 did nothing.

The counterstrike was rough, with several Earth Spikes from Geomancy killing four gunmages and quite a few cutthroats. The ravagers killed more cutthroats in the woods (though they had some trouble due to Tough from the piper). The bloodtrackers killed a couple Nyss (poof! clouds!), and the Sword Knights killed the stuff engaging them. Constance managed to get a bunch of Raiders dead, but we were controlling the middle zone at this point, with only one Trencher and one Sword Knight contesting it.





Poof! Clouds!

Ray did something awesome and terrible, with Gerlak getting soul harvester and a reroll from the withershadow combine, and proceeding to kill the Trencher, the entire 12-man unit of Sword Knights, and a blood tracker with his berserker fury. Constance's feat was up as well, so all those tasty souls went to the Lich Lord instead of the Knight of the Prophet. It was amazing to watch. The Nyss killed all but 3 bloodtrackers and their ua. The remaining gunmages, B13, and Hunters killed another Ravager and put some damage on a woldwarden. The bloodgorgers charged up and wrecked the Hunter and engaged the other woldwarden. Malice and Rowdy didn't do a lot this game, but this turn they moved up to cover Venethrax's soul-gorged, ARM 30 advance.

Caine feated and killed 3 Percursors and put a bunch of shots into Megalith, doing 8 or so damage (without boosting, weirdly). Then he teleported behind the Ogrun. The last Raider ran away to deny the bloodtrackers a new prey target.

At this point we were winning the attrition war but our clock was running down. We were talking out a lot of strategy and we had a ton of models with a ton of attacks. We also had gained a control point.

The next counterstrike was pillowfisted. The woldwarden on the gunmage-flank charged up and failed to hurt them, then dropped earth spikes all over the place but didn't do much. Megalith did similar, also using his defense-debuffing animus. He killed two of the B13. The remaining Earth Spikes hit Malice, but didn't do much damage and he never got the crit knockdown.

The Ravagers finished Croe's but couldn't hit the gunmages. The bloodtrackers had trouble with the Nyss. The Precursors charged up, killing two trolls but getting countercharged by Rowdy in the process (splat). The gunmages moved up to contest the zone again and shot at the withershadow, killing one.

We had 20 minutes left. Venethrax used up like 12 of his 20 focus (SOULS!) killing Constance with Soulfire spells. That took some time. The Hunters killed the woldwarden on their flank. We tried to kill the lone precursor to survive the counterattack in the zone but he survived. only 1 control point. We hit the chess clock with 5 seconds left on it.

Now, here's the thing: we were playing death clock, which means that when the clock runs out you lose. We didn't realize that any work done up to that point was wasted. So Ray's caster-kill, and our control point advantage, and our huge army-attrition differences, meant nothing. The other team had like 30 minutes to mosey through their depleted-army turn, and when they hit the clock, we would lose.

Ray had trouble with the chess clock early, and it wasn't running during our first turn. He'd docked us like 20 minutes for it, but it was probably too much. Had we had 10 more minutes we may have been able to hail-mary Venethrax over to Baldur and win the game (or kill the 3 gunmages left in their control zone and win that way; they'd been ignoring the scenario).

So we lost.

Round 2: Vs Strahkov (Khador) and epic Goreshade (Cryx)

Strahkov had a Spriggan, Torch, Beast09, a min unit of Assault Kommandoes, a min unit of Kayazy Assassins with Underboss, the Great Bears, and a unit of Doom Reavers. Goreshade was a tier 4 theme list chock full of Banes: 2 full units of Bane Thralls with all the trimmin's, a full unit of Bane Knights with Tarterus to back them up, the withershadow, Skarlock, and a bunch of scrap thralls to feat into new Banes.

Strahkov had a bad game. We won the roll and went first again, deploying things better to move Caine forward turn one. We gave the Raiders tough and fearless and Blur, and they moved up a bit, we moved things up more conservatively against Goreshade's special ability "If a BaneNoun kills a living dude, it becomes a new BaneNoun!". We really just advanced up little more than a walk.

Again Venethrax upkept Lamentation all game, and again Malice got Snipe.

They moved up all their stuff conservatively as well, though the Doom Reavers charged up to the Raiders and killed one. Goreshade put Occultation on himself to gain stealth, and Strahkov could have done the same (he has the spell), but instead decided to put Superiority on Beast09 and run all his slow 'jacks up the middle.

Ray looked at me after their turn and said "let's kill Beast09 and Strahkov." I thought it would give us an early advantage, so I said hell to the yes. The Raiders killed most of the doom reavers. Malice activated with some focus for boosts and walked up, using Snipe for a better threat range on Beast09 to harpoon him and drag him into our lines. Then he pummeled him with his fist a bit, and possessed Beast09 to present his back arc to the rest of our forces. Rowdy hit Beast good and solid, and the withershadow combine finished him and used their dark industries to make him into a fresh heavy warjack for Ray to use, a Harrower.

The Khador player was not happy. It got worse. Caine moved up and cast Deadeye and Snipe on Croe's Cutthroats, and Deadeye on the gunmages as well. Using the extra die on ranged attacks from Deadeye, and the incredible range of Snipe, and the extra die of Poison damage from Croe's poisoned weapons, the cutthroats advanced and managed about 6 attacks on Strahkov. One of them rolled high and it was enough to finish him (even on average rolls they'd hit 3-4 times for 5-6 damage, enough to kill the warcaster). They had a shot left over and killed a Great Bear.

I had the piper give pathfinder to the B13, who walked through some woods to get a clear shot at the Kayazy on the far flank. Lynch's fire beacon was outside the range of attack, so it deviated. . .right onto the middle of the kayazy, negating their stealth. The rest of the B13 killed 2 assassins and the Nyss killed 2 more with CRAs.

They failed their command check for massive casualties. So they were out of the fight a bit. Khador was having a rough go of it. With Strahkov gone his other two 'jacks went inert, and with the Kayazy fleeing he was left with two Great Bears and a unit of Assault Kommandos.

The gunmages shot at some Banes who were out of range. The hunters hit two but failed to penetrate their armor. The trolls and ogrun prepared for a charge next turn.

The Banes just advanced, though the Knights killed most of the cutthroats ad a pair of Nyss, and Tarterus actually made several new Knights in the process. The Great Bears managed to kill a cutthroat as well. We were down to two.

The Nyss countercharged the Bane Knights and killed 5 of them and another Kayazy (who'd failed their command check again to rally). The Harrower tried to clear out a shooting lane for the B13 to get to Tarterus, but missed the attack and the blast did nothing except kill another cutthroat (down to just Croe). I maneuvered Rowdy into the woods to get Caine line-of-sight to kill a Bane Knight in the way, but I failed to kill it with him as well.

I moved the B13 around to try and get shots at Tarterus, but Ryan couldn't get line of sight, so I had to Fire Beacon with Lynch, stick it, and hope to put some hurt on him with Watts. The Fire Beacon hit, then Watts rolled fire on his Brutal Damage shot (17 on three dice), one-shotting the Bane Lord. That let Ryan see past to some Bane behind, and she killed three with her Mage Storm.

Venethrax moved a bit and popped his feat. The Bloodgorgers moved up and killed a few banes, using their overtake move to escape the clouds (from V's feat) and counter-attack. The gunmages tried to help, and the Raiders managed to kill a bunch of Kommandos and they failed their command check for massive casualties (thanks for playing, dude, holy crap what a bad game for Khador, I think the doom reavers killed a Raider and then he only got to roll command checks the rest of the game).

The Bane Knights (down to three from 12) killed two Nyss with Vengeance and then their activation attacks. The Kayazy rallied but did nothing. Goreshade moved up and popped his feat, splooging Bane Thralls all over our mid-lines, and a few charged the Bloodgorgers on the far left flank, spewing yet more banes (MOAR BANES!).

The Nyss murdered everything on the right flank with assault. We had killed everything on one side of the board, but our objective was on the other side. The Raiders moved up and killed most of the Banes on the objective, and the Bloodgorgers and Ogrun killed the rest (and a bunch of the spawned Banes. The gunmages and Hunters mostly failed to hit things (cover from a wreck marker and engaged by Raiders made it rough even with Deadeye). Venethrax moved up a bit. Caine did as well.

Now we had a control point. The Banes countercharged again, killing a few Bloodgorgers, but Ray made a few too many Tough rolls, and the Ogrun crew have 8 wounds each, which made it tougher to kill them. Only three more Banes joined the force, and they were mostly on the far flank. After Goreshade's last turn, we had ten minutes to clear a Skarlock, a Scrap Thrall, and four Bane Thralls from the objective. We did so with 42 second to spare. Venethrax himself killed three of the Banes.

So we won. Third place. Of four teams. :p

Somehow I managed to forget to snap a pic of the bane thrall madness (MOAR BANES!) in the second game. My bad.

-Merlin out

Mercenary Blaize v. John Woo Shooter

Match 4 of round 1. Gaining Ground.



Army Name: Holy Mercenaries
Highborn Covenant
25+6 points, 22 models

Constance Blaize +6 points
* Gallant 9 points (again, Blaize needs the hookup on Morrowans)

Eiryss, Angel of Retribution 3 points
Harlan Versh, Illuminated One 2 points (I don't like merc utility solos in a Cygnar Blaize list, but when we're talking a merc list they're so much better because they benefit from all Blaize's buffs and she benefits during feat turn if they get mauled)
10 Nyss Hunters 10 points (pathfinder, weaponmaster, CRA, super fast, all good)
6 Precursor Knights 5 points
* Precursor Knight Officer & Standard 2 points


Army Name: Caine Netdex (so named because a better player than I ran a similar list at Gencon and I modified it from his blog)
Cygnar
25+6 points, 22 models

Lieutenant Allister Caine +6 points
* Ol' Rowdy 9 points (Rowdy is one of, if not the, best 'jacks in the faction)

Lady Aiyana and Master Holt 4 points (at 25 I had to choose between the Black 13th and this duo. I decided that 4 5-man CRAs from the Long Gunners would be sick if they all hit a heavy for +2 because of Aiyana's damage buff; I lose the ability to deal with stealth tho)
10 Long Gunners 10 points (not great generally, but Snipe and Deadeye can make them murderous)
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord 2 points
6 Stormguard 6 points (the last bits I'm not sure about. This might be better as 10 'guard and no Aiyana and Holt, but since the Stormguard are only in the list as a speedbump, to enable the LGs to get in some extra shots before being engaged, they might do the trick)

Blaize won the roll and again elected to go first. She chose the side of the table with the forest to abuse the Nyss' native high defense and pathfinder. The Nyss and Harlan ran into the woods. Eiryss ran along that flank to half-hide behind a building. The Precursors ran to the walls in the center of the table to use them as cover, and Gallant backed them up. Constance cast Transference and walked behind Gallant.

Caine had some tough choices to make. His game plan was to give Blur to the Stormguard to protect them from ranged and Snipe to the Long Gunners. He decided that was a good plan, but not wanting to waste his own gunshots he also advanced himself, a little too far. Then Rowdy moved up to screen him, but this put Rowdy in danger of a couple of Nyss charges.

The LGs managed to kill three Nyss in the woods with CRAs and Deadeye from Caine. Rupert gave the 'guard Tough in anticipation of the counterattack. Aiyana and Holt advanced along the opposite flank from Eiryss.

So now Constance had a chance at an alpha strike, and things went quite well for her. She activated first and cast Crusader's Call to boost her troops' charge range. Then she put Banishing Ward on Gallant to keep Caine from trying any Thunderstrike shenanigans. She also upkept Transference and feated, ending on zero focus.

Harlan moved up and used his Purgation Quad Iron gun to kill 4 Long Gunners. Rowdy forgot to Countercharge. The Nyss moved in and hit Rowdy hard, with something like 15 damage on two charges (the third in range missed). Rowdy's hammer was out. The other Nyss killed three Stormguard, but one made his Tough check. Then the Precursor Knights charged in, using their minifeat to get a single charge on Rowdy at 4 dice, with the rest just running to engage the remaining Stormguard. That single Precursor Knight hit Rowdy like a ton of bricks, crippling right arm and cortex.

That was a huge loss for Caine. Worse, catching up on attrition was going to be rough against Blaize's diminishing returns feat. Eiryss moved into Caine's control zone behind a building, and Gallant backed up the troops engaged by the Stormguard.

Caine was in trouble. He needed to kill a bunch of Blaize's troops on her feat turn, and survive, while contesting the middle zone. The Stormguard activated first, but they missed their first attack (needed a 6, rolled a 5 on two dice) and then they managed to kill one Precursor Knight. Meh.

Rupert gave them Terror in an attempt to make the Nyss break, but they passed their command check. Then he ran to contest the cente zone. Aiyana couldn't do much this turn. She wanted to put the Kiss spell effect (+2 damage against target model) on Gallant, but Banishing Ward prevented it. She had to settle for the Nyss, but missed the roll. Holt charged the Precursor Officer, but missed 3 of his 4 attacks and then flubbed the damage on the fourth to barely scratch his target.

Rowdy moved away and ate free strikes, getting scrapped in the process. Caine stood still to aim and feated, but he needed 9s to hit many of the Nyss due to engagement. He did kill a few after shooting his own Stormguard in the back on accident. He managed to kill a couple and a whole bunch of PKs, but missed his attack against Harlan Versh. He also missed both of his initial gunshots against Versh. He only needed a 4 on two dice. He bought an attack, hit, and boosted damage, but Versh's armor was through the roof due to Constance's feat. Caine bought one more and managed to kill the witch hunter. Took four focus though. He then teleported behind his LGs.

The LGs dropped two big CRAs on Gallant, and rolled good damage, but not enough to hurt the lug. No control points scored.

Constance got 9 extra focus due to her feat and souls. She gave two to Gallant and upkept Transference. There were still 4 Nyss on the board and two PKs. The Officer killed Holt and the Standard Bearer moved to power Gallant. Constance activated and cast a fully boosted Sunburst at Rupert, killing him. The Nyss charged up and killed two LGs and the remaining Stormguard. Eiryss shot Caine for a few, and Gallant charged in to finish him off. Blaize wins.

Game MVP: Nyss Hunters. Those elves were bananas awesome.


Lessons learned: Nyss are awesome. Still. Constance seems strong so far, but she's won the roll to go first and chosen the side of the board that offers the most cover. I thought Caine had this one in the bag, but he didn't protect his heavy hitters, losing four LGs and Rowdy to the alpha strike. He should have played more conservatively.

Round 2 will be:

Merc Blaize going first against Grim Angus
Cygnar Blaize first against Hoarluk Doomshaper, Shaman of the Gnarls
Ashlynn going first against Caine
Haley first against Stryker

I really don't relish the concept of a Blaize v Blaize confrontation. This exercise was an attempt to get a feel for various models, and while i like her playstyle running her in a "mirror match" won't teach me much, IMO.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone