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

Bored Games are Rad

I've been playing, uh, lots of warmachine to prep for the MI cup.

I did play one game with Charlie, but I got my teeth kicked in by Harbinger.

Then we had a board game night and we played King of Tokyo for a while, then 3 5-player games of Small World, which I'd never played. It's awesome. I won the first on accident. Then Brice, and last William.






I bought the app later the next day on iPad. It's also rad.

Last night Robb came over and we played some games again. We played a game of Death Angel and lost in the final location (real close).

Then we played a game of Letters from Whitechapel with my wife and I managed to get away with it (I played Jack). It was a sweet game.

So yeah. I'm ready for the cup?

-Merlin out

Pirates!

I managed to actually play some games this month. I also painted up a bunch of privateer models, and I really enjoyed it. I think I might actually paint up A Pirate's Life, the theme force for Captain Shae. It depends on whether I can afford press gangers any time this spring.

I built a haley1 list with pirates, the theme of which was tough-ass pirates all up in my opponent's face early, with Temporal barrier and thunderbolt shots to control whatever slips through the cracks. I'm worried about colossals, but the plan is to apply scenario pressure early.



Haley1
Squire
Ol' Rowdy
Journeyman
Hunter
ATGM and the Dude
Alexia and the Risen
Sea Dog Crew
Jonas Murdoch
2 Sea Dog Rifles
Doc Killingsworth
Lord Rockbottom
Bosun Grogspar
First Mate Hawk

It wasn't until I set up to play I realized that the sea dogs aren't advanced deploy without Mr Walls the mercenary attachment. So that will have to change.

Charlie played his kreoss3 tier list again.

Kreoss
Fire of Salvation
Reguardianer
Full Ponies
Full errants with UA and seneschal
2 min choir
Vassal
Vessel of judgment
Mechanic






I won the roll and it put Charlie on the back foot. His errants killed 5 pirates but I made 4 tough checks. I feated and killed all the errants except 1 and the hunter left the vessel on 4 hp. He pushed into the middle with the vessel and camped kreoss behind it. He tied up a mess of pirates. He killed grogspar.

The hunter shot the vessel off the table even after the mechanic repaired it. Then I noticed that kreoss was about 8" from my front line of pirates. Rowdy moved past the front line to tremor and KD the guardian (and a pirate). The gun mages aimed and under TB had no issues hitting engaged fire of salvation with thunderbolts and moved him out of the way (8" of total push). I buffed the pirates like crazy and 4 managed to charge kreoss. I missed a bunch of 5s but the last sea dog hit and rolled a 22 on his 4-die charge damage roll at dice -7. That was all kreoss had left.



Process of elimination was the scenario. I should have had alexia kill the objective and score me the zone first.

Game two I played my Stryker list. I moved up after winning the roll to go first. I feated bottom of two and kreoss didn't have a lot of good plays. The errants died a lot again to rangers and black 13th.

Top of 3 Stryker scored a point by having alexia2 base the flag and spawn thralls behind the errants left. Stormwall and Stryker managed to disrupt both heavies. I put a lancer in the path of the vengers.






The vengers break stormwall's right side and maul the lancer, but the disrupted jacks are sad. I score another point on Charlie's turn. Turn 4 I charge a thrall with Stryker to base the flag, and toss an earthquake to knock down fire of salvation. Stryker misses because of engagement but the template knocks down fire of salvation AND kreoss. Kreoss is camping 3, but I boost several damage rolls into him and chip him down to 4, then alexia spawns 3 more thrall warriors who charge and finish him.

Two decent games, but going first was important to both.

-Merlin out

Crowd sourced Skorne games

I played two games last night against kreoss3 tier 4
Kreoss
Fire of Religious Noun
Reguardianer
2 min choir (advanced move on both jacks)
Vessel of judgment
Vassal mechanick
Vassal
Full errants with ua and senechal
Full vengers

I was playing a crowdsourced skorne list from the forums:

Hexy1



Molik Karn
Titan Gladiator
Cyclops Brute
Aptimus Marketh
Extoller soul ward
Agonizer
Willbreaker
Swamp gobbers
Min beast handlers
Tyrant commander
Nihilators full
Incindiari full

Game 1 was fire support. My opponent won the roll and went first. My first mistake was deployment. My opponent put his vengers on a flank and I hoped to light them on fire without triggering battle driven but this was a bad plan. I realized my mistake as my opponent placed his AD errants on the opposite flank and thereby kept my incidiarri from their preferred prey.

The game was a disaster. I misplayed the soul ward and marketh, so missed a few souls, and my feat was completely countered by errants nonsense and the vessel's doors of judgment. I lost quite handily.



So we shifted terrain, switched to incursion, and I tried again.

Game 2

This was much better. I deployed the incindiari centrally and they did a bunch of work. My opponent decided to try and delay my heavy trading by force hammering Molik, but he didn't count on me making him reroll the attack (Molik was on a hill, he was boosting to an 8) until it missed. Kreoss pretty much HAD to feat to force hammer with all of his upkeeps.

The incidiarri managed to kill a ton of errants because my opponent was between a rock and a hard place: dude I hit dies, then goes to murder his pal because of Dark Dominion, or he does his bond of brother nonsense but the errant I hit is still on fire. He tried to flank his vengers hard into Molik, but I managed to press forward hexy to catch them in feat an Molik killed 3 of them (vengers are bad at killing each other tho, esp w holy ward).



I wind up doing way better on attrition and scenario. Then I derp and leave hexy a little too close, forgetting that the VoJ can push all my screening models (Jesus that thing is bonkers). Kreoss gets to hexy and manages to -just- kill him. One more transfer or another 1" away and it doesn't happen. I could have managed either no problem.

Thoughts:

Rynth's hexy tactica should be required reading for anyone trying the list who hasn't played a lot (or as In my case, any) of hexy 1. It really helped.

Protectorate is dumb and also stupid. I've got some ideas on the list but I'll wait until 3 games to talk about them. . .


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Tournament recap

I played in Bulldog's weird birthday tournament last Saturday. It was two list 50 PTs steamroller, but the lists could each be from different factions, and the opponents chose the list they'd play against.

Round 1 was my Stryker1 v Canadian haley2.

Stryker
Stormwall
Lancer
Squire
Black 13th
Rangers
Full sword knights
Piper
Journeyman
Eiryss2
Anastasia
Alexia2

His was
Haley2
Stormwall (bond)
Squire
Journeyman
Rangers
Gun mages with UA marshaling a hunter
Two storm callers
Black 13th
Arlan strangewayes
Anastasia
Gorman di Wulfe, Kung Lao impersonator

He got to go first. We ran at each other. He feated. I counterfeated. We shot each other to little effect a bunch.

The black 13th moved to flank but I met them with alexia. They engaged her to gunfighter and promptly shat themselves. I pushed thrall warriors and sword knights with flank from the lancer at stormwall every turn. I couldn't kill jr though.

Meanwhile he spent two turns trying to kill my objective and hurt stormwall to little effect.

In the end we both got a CP from breaking the objectives (it was rallying point) and I won on dice down with Stryker in a zone.

Sad. We only killed like 10 points each. I was playing my last turns with an eye to dice down and my opponent was not.

Game 2 I got to play Stryker again v syntherion in destruction.

His list was:
Syntherion
Prime axiom
2 light jacks (?)
2 heavy, steady jacks (?)
Full obstructors
Two arc nodey solos
Some reflex servitors

I got to go first, feated top of two and jammed arm 24 tough sword knights into his lines. He moved up as well.

Top of 3 I asked my opponent if his floaty-looking caster was steady. He said no. I ran the lancer, got an earthquake on syntherion, got line of sight with stormwall, boosted two damage rolls, left him at 7-8, then got souls for alexia, who moved up and hellfired ftw.

Way better than dice down wins.

Round 3 I got to choose between two vayls in outflank. He made me play hexeris 2. I chose vayl1. Might have been a mistake.

Hexy2
Molik Karn
Bronzeback
Gladiator
Krea
Bonded razor wurm
Extoller
2 willbreakers
Min beast handlers
Agonizer
Max Nihilators
Swamp goblins

He had
Vayl
Typhon
Scythean
Angelius
Ravagore
Seraph
Pot
2 Shepherds
2 death stalkers

I lost the roll to go first. He moved up super fast. I left Molik in charge range of the scythean if he leashed it. He did. I had left Molik with 1 fury and ashen veil. The scythean got chiller to offset AV but I forced for rerolls until he missed. Molik was full then. Typhon sprayed over MK and left him on 6 boxes.

The angel did no damage on it's ranged attack. The seraph finally killed MK with its first ranged attack (he hit every ten on the boost to hit MK engaged).

He backed up with feat.

The extoller used Nihilator souls to shoot the scythean for 16 damage, then the razor wurm got mad and ate it. It then engaged vayl with drag below. The Nihilators jammed up the ravagore and angel in the other zone.

The seraph frenzied and smashed typhon. Typhon killed the razor wurm, and the angel hurt the bronzeback but failed to take out any branches. He dominates for 2.


My two titans kill two heavies and I score a point on the other side. I run stuff in to contest the close zone. I misplay by not using puppet strings on Krea shot to paralyze typhon (shot misses, then extoller misses on the boost, and then hexy doesn't even bother with hellfire).

My opponent kills everything in his zone, rampagers the BB out of the other, and my last 3 Nihilators fail tough checks (failed all of them this game). He scores 3 to win on scenario.

I could have played that way better.

Round 4 hexy v kreoss 3

Scenario was close quarters.

Kreoss
Reckoner
Vanquisher
Full ponies
Min errants with ua and seneschal
Full zealots with monolith
Knights exemplar
Choir
Two vassals

I lose the roll but he lets me go first. I run up, he does the same. He's left his ponies behind errants so I block Los to Molik with a cloud on the approach. I killed 3 KE with berserk. He spends the next turn killing Nihilators with bows. He kills all but 4 Nihilators. I'm worried about volume of attacks. I get the BB to his reckoner but it fails to kill it, not getting the 5s I need to hit. Agonizer runs up to deny focus tho. BB lives. My light beasts live through the KEE charges.

I carve a path for Molik to get to ponies with Krea and wurm (drag below is legit for clearing lanes). BB kills reckoner ad a pony. Molik kills two more ponies.

Bb diea on his turn. Molik lives. Kreoss comes up to core. I get MK and gladiator on kreoss. Game ends.






3-1 on the day. I want guns in my hexy list.

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High Command and WMH

I finally picked up High Command and Rob b and I played a game. We played it "cold" so we didn't really strategize overmuch.

He played menoth and I played cygnar. In the end we both managed to get a location on the final turn, and I won because I had purchased more cards with VPs than he had.

It was fun and I enjoyed the strategy and depth of options. We will have to try it again sometime.

Later in the week Charlie and I played two games of warmahordes. He played his Harbinger tier list:

Harby
Crusader
Crusader
Guardian
Sanctifier
Avatar of Menoth
Two min Choir
Full temple flame guard and UA
Two paladins of the wall
High Paladin Vilmon

He gets to play 5 points up in tier, with 3 walls and a plus 1 to initiative.

He won the roll v my new Stryker list in outflank. . .

Stryker
Lancer
Stormwall
Sylas
Black 13th
Rangers
Full Sword Knights
Epic Eiryss
Epic Alexia
Rupert
Junior
Anastasia

It's an assassination focused list with some staying power.

Charlie parked Harby behind a wall and just ground me down every turn while I tried to kill her. I missed a lot of boosted attacks fishing for 12s. If I hit more than one (unboosted damage too, boo!) then perhaps I win. I did pop feat to counter her feat. Which was dope.








In the end Stryker got killed by a crusader that lived through a stormwall free strike.

In game two I played hexeris 2 instead:

Hexeris
Bonded razor wurm
Titan bronzeback
Titan Gladiator
Molik Karn
Basilisk Krea
Extoller Soul ward
Two willbreakers
Swamp Goblins
Min paingivers
Full Nihilators
Agonizer

I like the list a lot. We played process of elimination. I misplayed my focus-denial pieces in both games and lost heavies because of it. I did manage 3 CPs in the second game but since the Agonizer was dead I couldn't time walk jacks and get a second turn of work from Molik. Third turn really. Molik is a boss.





-Merlin out


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MI Cup Recap

The Michigan cup tournament was a week and a half ago and I did well.

I took Constance Blaize in tier and haley2 with a stormwall and good Mercs.

Round 1 I played against a minions player who had rask and maelok. I decided Constance could bully either matchup and went with her. My opponent went first but allowed me to go so he could take the side with the wall. The scenario was ammunition run.

I expected my opponent to take the objective in the middle of the board on bottom of two. I had my feat up to counter his bottom of one feat. Instead he killed a handful of knights and set up for a vicious alpha strike.

With Constance having extra focus I blew up both my scorable objectives and had Blaize herself flashing blade his two heavies off the table while she camped 5 with arcane shield.

He tried to shoot me with rask's gun to pull my focus and strip arcane shield, but gallant was standing nearby and shield guarded it.

After that it was a matter of clearing away gators while protecting Constance. I killed rask with stormwall on round 5 but my opponent had done a great job of denying me further control points.

Round 2 I played Haley versus lich1 in process of elimination. I went first. My opponent was screwed by my feat and stormwall killed two ogres and blew the cortex out of malice. He shuffled around but crucially failed to kill an objective by rolling snake eyes on a hellfire.

I took that objective and then jockeyed for table position the turn following. I did some more work on his army but left a bile thrall alive.

His retaliation kills my stormwall, many good solos, and most of my nyss. I'm low on models suddenly. I decide to try a shot at lich with cylena and if she spikes damage I will have the b13 take a crack at the lich. Cylena hits but fails to wound. I have Haley camp and run to the far zone while my hammer dorfs kill the second objective and malice. I'm up 4 points to 2 now.



He piles into Haley with a lot of attacks and hits every single one, but his damage is middling and she's left on 3 wounds. I win on scenario.

Game 3 is kreoss1 v Constance in incoming. It's a scenario with close domination scoring so I plan to turtle on my side and contest his. He doesn't contest my zone much (he could have but doesn't) and it costs him the game. He makes a last ditch effort at Constance with his knockdown feat but I'm hiding her behind stormwall and not much connects.

Round 4 I played haley2 v doomy2 in supply and demand. I'm worried about cracking his armor but I decide to just control the hell out of the game. I go first and run up, he advances conservatively. I feat over everything and he has to sit out a turn while my feat is going. I manage to kill a storm troll with two shots from stormwall (hot dice).

On top of 3 I kill his objective with stormwall guns and dominate the zone. Anastasia gets espionage to go off and Gorman black oils two heaves. My hammer dorfs largely bounce off the axer. The nyss kill janissa. I get 3 CPs. He has to contest to avoid the loss.

Mulg manages to feat/trample/goad to Haley, but he's out of attacks. Stormwall kills mulg and I get my last two CPs.

I manage to get to the finals and decide I'm more comfortable with Constance than Haley. My opponent is the JVM; who is playing vayl 2. He outmatched me in a number of ways.

I lost the roll and he moved up a bit. I moved up and feated bottom 1. After the game he said he thought I feated early. That might be right, or maybe I should have run full out more.

Either way I'm on the back foot from word go. I can't seem to jam my guys into him due to spacing and scather templates. I contest the zone well until turn 3 or 4, but his ranged superior has turned into a heavy trade and I'm given many bad options to choose. The ones I choose don't work (probably by Jvm's design) and I flail until he wins on control points 5-0.

The scenario was into the breach.

I might have been better served with haley2, but I feel like vayl can straight murder Haley with icy grip plus boosted oblits rather easy. Ah well. I'm going to try and give that guy a game one of these days.

-Merlin out

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MOAR Games!

It's been an awesome week. In addition to all my other games, Charlie and I played two games of warmahordes on Thursday.

Game 1 was hexeris2 against Charlie's kreoss1 in the scenario destruction. I went first and ran up, Charlie moved up as well. Then I decided I had an angle to feat and maybe spell kreoss to death with hexeris, and that seemed better than letting kreoss feat on me.

So I did. I moved up my bonded razor worm, got my nihilators out of the way, had my will breaker cast puppet strings on hexeris for insurance, moved up my gladiator to rile up extra fury, then charged a nihilator in the back with hexeris. My first boosted hellfire hit and did 8 damage. I feated and missed my second one, but I rerolled the low dice with puppet strings, hit, and rolled at least an 11 to finish the old man on the hill.

I had a back up plan to keep me safe in case I failed, but when Charlie and I played it out kreoss' feat assassinated hexeris camping 2 despite my agonized denying him focus. Stupid choir.

Game two was an ugly, haley2 v severius1 match in the scenario close quarters. I was trying a troop heavy, spellslinging Haley list. I went second. Charlie moved up and put defenders ward on his errants and eye of menoth on severius.



I had eiryss strip defenders ward with her arcane interference bolt. Then I put deadeye on the nyss hunters and deceleration up. The nyss managed to kill 5 errants. Everything else advanced.

Severius moved up and jammed me a bit, getting a good ashes to ashes to burn 6 nyss (boo!). I reacted by feating and turning his warjacks around with TK and domination. I got some more errants off the board and some of his support pieces as well.

He didn't get to do a lot on my feat turn, but he could counter feat. He did, but in so doing left severius vulnerable on a hill. My guns and a stab from thorn brought him low.

Then Saturday we all went to Charlie's for housewarming games. We played 3 games of munchkin with all the expansions, then a frustrating game of super dungeon explore, then a game of super munchkin.

I've played a lot of munchkin, but never the base set, always the weird "other" sets like munchkin Cthulhu. It was pretty rad. At one point I realized I was playing a high, dark Orc warrior on a wolf with a flaming, blessed sledgehammer. That was rad.



Super dungeon explore is a board game with cool miniatures that seeks to emulate the video game Guantlet. There are monster generators that spawn critters endlessly while the heroes attempt to kill the generators and get treasure. I know, it seems like a home run!

However, the game is incredibly difficult for the players, and I've never seen the Consul/GM lose. The monsters inevitably swarm the players and crush them. It's super super super hard.



So after playing that for a while we just gave up and played more munchkin.

Overall a good week for games. I'm jonesing for more arkham horror honestly. I love that game.

-Merlin out


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Ketchup post

I've played a lot of games of late, but I haven't been writing about it.

I went to a war machine "random list" tournament and went 2-2, though one of those games was in-hand when I lost it to a Hail Mary. It was okay.

Ray came out and my nemo3 murdered his testament of menoth. It was a good game. On my last turn I was about to NOT win when ray suggested I just kill his caster and I did. My dice tried to fuck me but in the end they got it done.

I then played a game of Space Hulk with Ray, and my gene stealers managed to get sergeant Gideon in the end, though it was close. He would have done better if brother Leon had not rolled trip-6s to self destruct on overwatch.



At Robb's wedding we played a game of VTES and I lost quite badly, as my predator had little pressure early and made me play a 1-minion game. It was rough. My deck seems good on paper but rarely performs well.



Then we played even more VTES, with Robb, devin, and the eskimatt meeting me at Robb's for two more games. I won the first with a ventrue breed/boon deck, mainly through being a bully and back ousting Matt.

Then Robb handily stomped us with a silly imbued deck, as he cannot help himself and continues to build imbued decks from a set of 60 cards on spite of the enormity of this game.

His deck seemed fine, but his victory rested some in the play of the rest of us, who all played bad combat decks and blew each other up around him. The mortals calmly stepped over the carcasses of the fallen, and Robb got his last two VP on the back of Devin (his PREDATOR) playing a dragonbound that would NEVER HURT HIS PREY, only himself (ha!) and me, his predator.

Ah well.

I'm not bitter about that or anything. That game was in the tank already.

Then we roped Alayna into playing 5-player Arkham Horror, and in spite of drawing the dread Cthulhu (who is a complete asshole) we kicked that game in the nuts over the next 3 hours, placing a 6th seal on the board with only 6 doom counters on Cthulhu and a terror level of 1. The town didn't even care. "Dread Cthulhu, you say? Ah well, life goes on."

Charlie is coming out tonight for more warm achine, and then he's having a games night at his place Saturday as a housewarming. What an awesome few weeks its been for games!

-Merlin out


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Makeda3 proxied

I proxied makeda3 for two games v Charlie's menoth. Both were over on turn 2. Game one he triggered battle driven and then left feora 10" away from makeda but behind a forest. I ran my exalted court so that makeda could charge one of them, then makeda mauled feora.




Game 2 I rampaged all over reznik's forces but then makeda got crit-pitched by a guardian while trying to lightning strike away. That ended the game early.

Both fun games but I need to play her more conservatively.


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Battle Report Colossal Edition

Nemo3 has been a favorite of mine. He's got incredible infantry-clearing potential and can deliver a heavy hitter that gets the business done. Charlie came out for a 50 pt game and we played scenario 12 (artillery emplacements?).

Nemo3 and new stepmom
Stormwall
Storm Strider
Stormguard
Reinholdt
Aiyana and Holt
Rupert
Journeyman
Mechaniks min
2 Stormsmiths
Gorman di Wulfe, Kung Lao impersonator

Charlie played Vindictus
Judicator
Mechanic
min Choir
Hammer Dorfs with Priest
Cinerators
Bastions
min Zealots and Monolith Guy
Epic Eiryss

I won the roll and moved up pretty conservatively with Stormwall and pretty aggressive with everything else.

Charlie ran at me pretty hard. True Path is pretty legit.

I held feat on turn 2 and instead just killed a Cinerator with Stormwall and placed covering fire templates. Terrain kept charlie from really getting into the Stormwall, and my Stormguard were tough from Rupert, with set defense and spread out to block charge lanes.

Charlie feated and moved up into my threat ranges, but held back a little too far. Epic elf stripped Failsafe from Stormwall and Judicator blasted 12 damage onto the wall.

I feated and murdered a lot of Dorfs, Nemo did about 34 damage to the Bastion unit (all still alive of course), and i managed to kill almost all the Cinerators. Covering Fire kept the Bastions honest.

Charlie saw that he had an opportunity to get at least one, and maybe two Bastions on Nemo. He did the rest of his turn first and killed about half of my Stormguard and the Storm Strider (man that thing died too easy. . .). Then he cleared out a spot for Bastions to get to Nemo. However, his Cinerator that he'd moved to hit my objective and clear the lane was now blocking.

Only one Bastion got to Nemo and he missed the 7 he needed to hit (rolled a 6 natch). So that was his turn.

Stormwall killed the Bastions and Cinerator. Nemo moved away and killed the final bastion with a lightning bolt. My 4 remaining Stormguard killed the rest of the Dorfs. Gorman moved up to kill a bunch of stuff with an acid bomb, but he failed to clear the flag for me to score.




Charlie was losing the attrition war, and so he hoped to force my hand on an assassination by going for scenario. He managed to clear out all my contesting models and Vindictus charged to the flag and killed Rupert to score.

Holt had quick-drew the flamthrower attempt on Aiyana's life, and the rockets flew away harmlessly. Aiyana Harmed Vindictus, Holt killed a Zealot via sac pawn. Then Stormwall moved up, boosted a big gun shot, and rolled a 16 on damage to one-shot Vindictus. Good game. If i failed I would probably not win as Charlie could dominate again.

-Merlin out




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Van Haley

On Tuesday I played a game with epic Haley for the first time. She's pretty crazy as far as warcasters go.

I played a radial scenario called Sacrifice against Ray. I won the roll to go first.

My list was
Major Haley
Squire
Bonded Stormwall
Stormblades with UA and 2 Gunners
Full Stormguard
Rupert
Black 13th Gun Mage Awesome
Aiyana and Holt
Anastasia di Bray, spy Chica

Ray played
Servath Reznik
Hierophant
Guardian
Scourge of Heresy
Templar
Two Paladins
Vilmon
Min Choir
Two Vassals
Covenant
Madelyn Corbeau
Wracks
Saxon Orrik

I went first and advanced aggressively. Ray moved his stuff like 4" out of deployment in a defensive brick. Saxon was the only thing that could get to the zone to contest.

I looked at him and said "how do I not win by scenario?" He said Saxon was going to contest. I tried to kill Saxon by several means (stormwall's storm pod, which would have killed him if I rolled a 9 instead of a 7 on 3 dice, and Lynch managed a shot with true sight but rolled a 3 on damage). So I shifted around a bit and tried to shoot some paladins, but I forgot to give the stormwall magic weapons first.

Turns out Haley is forgiving. Ray advanced cautiously again, because if he doesn't his list becomes vulnerable to my attacks.

I killed Saxon and owned the zone. The stormwall got magic weapons and killed Vilmon and a paladin. I moved a stormblade to base with the flag. Everything else shuffled a bit. The b13 killed 2 choir. Haley feated.

Ray moved up Reznik with Corbeau's intrigue. But his jacks were in the way and I made him move the boxed-in Templar first. He got it a bit out of Reznik's way. I had caught all the jacks in feat, so they just moved. Ray did an ancillary to try and kill a black 13th but missed. Reznik was out of the feat. He tried to charge Reznik 14" into Stormwall but that's not how engine of destruction works.



Instead he advanced under mad camp and feated himself.

I looked at the table and his guardian was like 3" from the flag and he had nothing in the zone. There was no way for me to lose the game. He asked me to play it out. I wrecked the guardian with stormblades assaulting it and then getting a second attack from Anastasia.



Scourge got beat up a bit and so did the devout. The stormwall moved away from the action and danger. The Stormguard scratched Reznik with a charge and then a big CMA from di bray.

I moved watts b2b with the flag to finish the game. Haley is nuts.

I leave you with a pic of the trolls v Menoth game later that night.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Diecon was all right

I played a whole bunch of warmachine last weekend.

Tournament 1: 35 pts steamroller.

My lists were

Constance Blaize
Gallant
Squire
Full Precusor Knights with UA
Gun mages and UA
Gorman di Wulfe
Harlan Versh
Journeyman Warcaster
Archduke Runewood
2x Stormcallers

And
Triptych Nemo and Caitie
Stormwall
Storm Strider
Reinholdt
Full Stormguard

Game 1:

Vs pkreoss. Lost on the top of 2 to a good reckoner shot and two redeemer rockets; I stayed out of the feat but Nemo was still in line of sight to the reckoner and only camping 2.

Game LVP: Me for poor positioning. My huge based models could have screened better with ease.

Game 2 vs pLylyth:

I played so poorly in round one I got paired against a kid. He played well. I managed to out-attrition him and won on dice-down with a lot of models in the center zone.

Game MVP: Constance herself, who killed a ton of models.

Game 3 vs Reznik:

My opponent had a good list, but was distracted by my gun mages long enough for me to kill his temple flame guard and take a zone for a control point. My opponent then conceded the game by scenario conditions.

Game MVP: Gorman di Wulfe, who blinded heavies.

Game 4 vs eSorscha:

My opponent gave away too much board in an attempt to stop electroleaps, but the Stormwall lightning pods are perfection conduction points. He played well but couldn't kill the stormwall before I tabled his army. Then I killed Sorcha.

Game MVP; Storm Strider, who hit jacks for big damage and mugged the guys nearby as well.

Game 5 vs pIrusk: this was a tough game. I played "kill everything that can hurt a stormwall" for several turns. It went well. Eventually my opponent's started taking touch assassination runs at Nemo, and he got the old man before Nemo could get him. I was winning on points but lost to assassination.

Overall 3-2, not bad for my first SR at 35 points.

More later. Merlin out.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The Latest Poor Bodgers Event

Last Monday there was another 15 point tournament. I decided to play that Constance Blaize again. I quite like the way she plays. I wanted to try a Stormclad with her instead of Gallant, for more heavy-hitting crunch. This meant Stormblades instead of other infantry. I think the list is better against heavies, decent against other infantry (high-defense troops might be an issue), but will suffer against ranged lists.

I played:

Still with the facestabbing.

Constance
Stormclad
Stormblades with Unit Attachment Officer and Standard and a Storm Gunner Weapon Attachment
Harlan Versh, Illuminated One (flanker for Constance)

Game 1 vs. Mortenebra Cryx

My opponent was playing a Morty tiered list, so his 3 heavies all cost a point less. His list was

Morty
Character Skarlock dude
3 Slayers
2 Warwitch Sirens

The warwitches are bananas. They ignore free strikes, they can freeze a model in place with their reach melee attack, and they have several good magical attacks. Oh, and they can give a 'jack a focus if they don't do any of the other stuff. Just ridiculously strong. 

I saw their magic attacks and put Banishing Ward on my Stormblades. Harlan has Sacred Ward, so that meant my opponent could only target my warcaster and warjack with his magic attacks. This proved to be an issue for him.

The scenario was Overrun, which features a large scoring area in the middle of the board that's difficult to control.

He set up and went first after winning the roll. He put Spectral Steel on a Slayer to give it ghostly (walk through stuff, ignore free strikes), and everything advanced. I counteradvanced but left my stuff a little bit out of his charge range with Morty and her hookups.

He tried to cast some spells with the sirens, but that wasn't going to work. Instead he advanced his 3 heavies up toward my lines and hid everything else behind the building in the center of the table.

So his stuff is all up in my grill, but I haven't lost a model, so I struck hard. The Stormclad wrecked a Slayer easy. I Think my opponent knew that would happen; it was a sacrifice. However, he wasn't planning on Harlan Versh firing four essentially fully-boosted shots into the Slayer with Spectral Steel and rolling well to do nearly 20 boxes of damage to a second heavy. And he certainly wasn't planning on my Stormblades Assaulting and finishing off said second heavy, _and_ killing his third heavy as well. Stormblades hit really hard; their issue is not being able to get to the fight alive. Having a full unit of dudes to hit those heavies was huge. I moved my 'caster back behind the building and her troops and she popped her feat.

I moved the Storm Gunner into the control zone to contest, but that was the only model I put in.

Morty's force was decimated. My opponent used her feat and spell list to charge a Stormblade, kill it, and then Overrun over to my caster and attempt a long-shot assassination. It was his only chance. He had rerolled attacks with his feat, but he chose not to boost his first two, and he needed 9s to hit. That cost him a lot. He did 6 damage to Constance, but he then conceded the game, as he was out of options.

Game MVP: Stormblades _wreck_ shit.

Game 2 vs Ashlynn Highborn Mercenaries

My opponent played

Ashlynn
Mangler
Gun Mages
Blythe and Bull
First Mate Hawk
Reinholdt

I was worried about Ashlynn and her feat, which is awesome for my opponent and terrible for me. I think the scenario was Close Quarters, which has two control zones close to each other near the center of the table, but offset slightly. To score one must control the zone on the opponent's side of the table. I won the roll to set up and go first, and I wanted to go first.

I figured Ashlynn would feat turn 2, and I wanted to try and offset her feat with my own. I moved my stuff up and cast Transference, thinking that maybe with boosts I could still get hits on her feat turn. He cast Admonition on the Mangler and Quicken on Ashlynn (which I see a lot; not a fan of Quicken on her, as I think Admonition needs to be on the 'caster), and moved up aggressively.

I saw a chance to try and wrong-foot him by charging my Stormclad diagonally at the Gun Mages, which would put a big patch of rough terrain between our heavies. I activated Blaize first and cast Crusader's Call to lengthen everything's threat and popped her feat. The 'clad killed two gun mages with his charge attack. I then had the Stormblades Assault, and they hurt Blythe and Bull a little, but didn't hit a lot. They aren't terribly accurate with their lightning-sword blasts.

I moved Harlan up a bit to take four potshots at the Mangler with his Purgation quadiron, Malleus. He managed to roll well once, and did 8 or 9 damage with his four shots. Not bad.

Then my opponent surprised me. He dropped Admonition, gave the Mangler 3 focus, and then activated Blythe and Bull first to shoot at the Stormclad (their prey). They did 10-ish damage to it, wrecking the cortex. Then he activated the gun mages and did a CRA into a Stormblade, killing it. Then the Mangler charged in and threshered two Stormblades (3 tasty souls). What I was confused about was why my foe didn't use Ashlynn first and pop her feat? She makes her whole force super accurate, gets more crits with the gun mages. . .it's all good. Anyway, she got an extra shot from Reinholdt and Ashlynn moved up toward my warcaster. He planned on shooting Harlan, but forgot that the cheeky bugger has stealth. So auto-miss. Instead he took two shots at Constance, and did a few damage. Then Hawk charged the Stormclad and did some wounds.

So my turn starts and Ashlynn doesn't have Admonition on her to save her from my charge, hasn't popped her ridiculous feat which would protect her from my charges, and is 8 inches away from Harlan and Constance. I had Harlan charge in to give Constance her Morrowan flank bonus to melee attacks, and he managed to hit (needed a 12 on 3 dice) and do a crapload of damage. Constance charged in and finished Ashlynn off easily (with 8 focus to spare).

Game MVP: Harlan Versh. Dude brought the pain.

Game 3 (finals) vs. Harbinger Menoth

Sadly, my opponent was playing an illegal list in the finals and I noticed right away. We asked the judge about it and he was disqualified. We still played the game, and I played sloppy as hell because I already technically won, but I learned alot from my mistakes. I decided to split the first-place prize with my opponent because he won, despite the fact that I get the win on paper. He played a good game.

Battle Report: Newness

There's a new Warmachine book out, and it's all the rage with the scene. I like it quite a bit, though as a newer player the shiny newness doesn't have quite the same appeal to me. I played a game with Ray, using proxies to represent the new models which have not yet come out. Ray wanted to try the new Sanctifier heavy warjack for the Protectorate of Menoth, and I wanted to try out a lot of Cygnar newness.

Our lists were, at 50 points:

Me playing Constance Blaize, Knight of the Prophet +6 points
* Gallant 9 points
* Squire 2 points

Journeyman Warcaster 3 points

Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team 4 points
Captain Arlan Strangewayes 2 points
Archduke Runewood 3 points
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution 3 points
Harlan Versh, Illuminated One 2 points
10 Precursor Knights 8 points
* Precursor Knight Officer & Standard 2 points
Stormblades 5 points
* Stormblade Officer & Standard 3 points
** Stormclad 10 points

My opponent ran High Executioner Servath Reznik +6 points
* 2x Sanctifier 9 points each
* Scourge of Heresy 9 points
* Hierophant 2 points

4 Choir of Menoth 2 points
5 Exemplar Cinerators 8 points
10 Idrian Skirmishers 10 points
* Idrian Skirmisher Chieftain & Guide 3 points
Vassal of Menoth 2 points
3 Wracks 1 point
1 Covenant of Menoth 2 points, but that's a point too many. . .I gotta remember to add these things up for my opponent. :p

My foe won the roll to go first and decided to deploy a 'jack wall in the middle of the table, with the Scourge front and center and the Sanctifiers running its flanks. Reznik came behind them. The Idrians found some cover in the woods near the center-right (my right, I guess) of the table and declared their prey to be the Black 13th. The Cinerators came down the center-left of the table, climbing toward a hill on that half of the map. The book said no knockdown and the choir no shooting. The Idrians dug in in the woods, making them tough to get rid of. Reznik cast Iron Aggression on one sanctifier and Ignite on the Cinerators.

The no shooting thing was funny, because my army wasn't shooty at all, I set my Precursor Knights in the middle of the table, with the Stormblades on their left a bit (across from his Cinerators) and the Black 13th and Harlan Versh on the right. Behind the infantry in the center left was my 'caster, 'jacks and support solos. Epic Eiryss was on the left flank up a bit for Advanced Deployment.

I moved the PKs up in Shield wall for armor. The Stormblades ran toward the same hill the Cinerators were approaching. Eiryss put a bolt into the Cinerators to remove Ignite, staying a good distance away. The 'jacks and support moved up behind the melee wall, and the Black 13th moved behind the Precursors a little to screen them from the Idrians who were hunting for their blood. Harlan moved up just a bit. Constance put Banishing Ward on the Stormblades, so that both of the frontline melee units were immune to Reznik's Perdition tricks.

Next turn saw the book giving flaming attacks to all the Idrians, who immediately moved up and took some potshots at my guys. They set Versh, the Stormblade Officer, and a couple of my grunts on fire, but they failed to penetrate anyone's armor. The 'jack wall moved up a bit, with one Sanctifier running to move up behind the Idrians. This is the one with Iron Aggression on it. The Vassal Enlivened it as well. Reznik recast Ignite on the Cinerators, but they were out of range to hit anything with their charge. Choir said no shooting again.

Then the shit hit the fan. Harlan and the PK managed to douse their flames but the two Stormblades on fire died horribly. I activated Constance early and cast Crusader's Call to give all the troops +2 inches on a charge and then popped her feat. I realized later that all her (faction) models get this hookup, which also spikes the threat range on her 'jacks. Nice. I moved Runewood to get a shot at an Idrian blocking the PK's charge lane to the IA Sanctifier, gave the PKs +2 to their charge attack and Terror, and blasted the Idrian off the table. I had the PKs charge into the IA Sanctifier and the Idrian front runners (there were 4 and the UA hiding in the woods still). The PKs managed to do some hurt to the Sanctifier, but not much. I had decided not to pop their minifeat for extra damage yet. Two of them died to free strikes I incurred intentionally to get more guys at the Sanctifier.

The Black 13th and Harlan took a few shots and managed to kill an Idrian, but it was tough with the cover and the few who were available were engaged by Precursor Knights. Harlan straight up missed his first shot, which of course meant he wasn't much use. I then had Gallant activate and charge the IA Sanctifier, using reach and an opened left by a murdered PK to get to it. He did about 15 boxes of hurt with the two focus he had (one from Arlan and one from Morrow accumulator). The Stormblades charged in and all but erased the Cinerators from the board. There was one left after their charge, and the Stormclad mugged it too. Again I lost a grunt to a free strike during this, and it put Constance at 3 soul tokens for the next turn. Eiryss killed a member of the choir. I had Junior move the Arcane Shield from the Stormclad to Gallant, since the Stormclad was now close enough to both Reznik and Scourge to be a victim.

My foe dropped Iron Aggression, deciding not to kill the PKs screening his 'jacks. The Idrians decided to whack the Black 13th, and the paper-thin trenchcoat armor of those elite gun mages wasn't bolstered enough by Constance's feat to save them. He managed to kill a few more PKs with Scourge and the other Sanctifier, but now Constance had 9 souls on her, and things were gonna get ugly for him next turn. He moved Reznik up and cast Engine of Destruction to make him a death machine. His plan was to wreck the Stormclad with Reznik and then hide behind the wreck, then use his remaining focus to Perdition and move the second Sancifier closed to Constance.

He rolled poorly on his first two damage rolls (3 and 4 on two dice, i think), which meant he had to keep burning focus to make sure the Stormclad didn't just end Reznik next turn. He got two good rolls after that, but then Reznik was low on focus and the Stormclad was still up, though heavily damaged (all systems but movement crippled). Reznik bought one more attack, stabbed a PK to death, wracked it, then tried to Perdition the second Sanctifier closer, but Junior's armor was at over 20 by now, and Reznik was out of focus to boost damage. He did kill two more Stormblades with the other Sanctifier (now both Sancs were flush with focus from souls, since we're playing SoulMachine, cue the Parliament Funkadelic y'allz!) by stabbing the wrack and making it explode around them in a pow 14.

He wanted to Perdition the 'blades, but of course I still had them warded, and the PKs have Spell Ward all the time. It was nice. For me. The Covenant said no spells, Reznik popped his feat and waited for the hammer to fall. Under Reznik's feat I couldn't allocate to Gallant, and my upkeeps all dropped. That was all right, as I was starting to realize that Constance's threat range and ability to stab things is pretty good with Gallant involved. I activated the PKs and tripped their minifeat for extra damage dice and they managed to finish the formerly-Iron Aggressioned Sanctifier, which freed Gallant to move around. They also pounded some Idrians down. Harlan killed the three who'd come out to get the Black 13th with his Quad Iron.

Then I had the Stormclad get out of the way of my Shenanigans, as it was blocking Constance's charge lane. I had Arlan give a focus to Gallant (it's worded as "gains a focus" instead of "allocate", and Reznik's feat stops allocations, so I think that's legit?) so that it could run over to Reznik and give Constance the flanking bonus. Runewood gave Constance a +2 to her first charge attack and (needlessly) Terror. Constance's 11-inch charge with 2-inch reach was more than enough to get to Reznik, and even if the hill was rough terrain Runewood could have given her Pathfinder.

She cast Crusader's Call for that extra 2 inches of threat, and with her remaining 12 focus she charged in a finished the High Executioner. In two swings with the flanking bonus. Nice.

Aftergame points:

The Sanctifier was pretty solid, since I needed to get rid of Idrians to get to him, and they just powered his decently-fast, reach heavies. My opponent has been honing a Reznik list that normally includes a Guardian and the Vilmon+Paladins module instead of the two Sanctifiers. I'm not sure the two Sancs were better, but maybe. The Paladins probably would have been eaten up by the enchanted maces of PKs, but you never know.

Gallant was all right. In fact, I never allocated to it from Constance. Arlan and the Morrowan bonus were pretty good to get it going. I probably should have given it one the turn it charged the IA'd Sanc, but alas.

Runewood was good as a Pathfinder insurance policy, and he did manage to pick off a key model with his handgun in a jam. That was cool. He made the PKs insanely accurate on their charge turn as well, and I liked that a lot.

Constance is interesting to me for a number of reasons. First, I did not cast many spells with her. I'm a newer player, and I like pCaine and pHaley, and I'm always strapped for focus. With Constance, I cast Banishing Ward turn one, and Crusader's Call turn two and three. That's it. If I wasn't able to get to Reznik on the last turn I would have cast Transference and used my focus to bolster the attacks of the remaining Stormblades and PKs (would have walked around the crippled Sanctifier to get to him too), but she's quite light on the spellcasting. That's alright, as her 16 armor gets a decent boost from camping a bit.

Crusader's Call is super deluxe awesome. She helps her whole force get that charge. Stormblades can Assault 10 inches, and PKs 11. Moreover, her 'jacks get the benefit as well, so the Stormclad and Gallant both had 12-inch threats with their reach. It was nice.

I briefly considered a Centurion with her, as it can then charge 9 with reach for an 11-inch threat, but then it gives up its no-charge * action, so. . .maybe? With Sword Knights marshaling it it can Pronto as well, for a 15-inch threat! But mediocre mat might discourage some. Still, interesting options.

-Merlin out.