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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Mammoth initial testing

I played two games versus a friend who is trying to get better with Denny2. His list was

Denny2
Skarlock
Two bitey arc node chicken things
Bane thralls full
Tartersauce
Satyxis raiders full w ua and captain solo
Croe's cutthroats full
Press gangers full
Doc K
Bosun
Rockbottom

(I think?)

I played two different 'casters with a similar list

The list was:

Warlock
Mammoth
Shaman
Raider
Gladiator
2 x willbreakers
Extoller soul ward
Nihilators full
Pain givers min

In game one I played prime morghoul and added Orin midwinter to finish out the list, somehow missing that I had max pain givers in war room. So that's my derp. Played a point down.

Both games we played scenario 12: fire support (we're lazy).

I won the roll to go first and advanced super aggressive, lobbing some templates at croe's that drifted to no consequence.

My opponent ran up his AD jammers super aggressive and Denny ran up on full camp, NOT incorporeal.

I decide I can get morghoul to clear the raiders blocking LOS and landing space and rocket my mammoth into her face.

I send Freddy Kruger in but he rolls sub par, though I still kill about 6 models. I feel like I had a chance but I forgot to abuse the mammoth before sending in the clown.

So it's ranged assassination time! I puppet strings the shaman and the raider gives it snipe. It hits after a reroll and rolls nuts high on damage at dice -9. I did 7 wounds.

The mammoth gets my second puppet strings, advances (she's just out of 10", and I roll a 6 4 2 to hit, needing a 13. I reroll the 2 into a 4. Boost damage and do 7 more. She's on two. Mammoth buys and boosts, straight rolling a 13 and enough damage to kill her.

I had the extoller in case she was incorporeal.

That went better than it probably should have.

Game two I swapped out Orin for swamp gobbers (because I guess I wanted to play a point down all day) and switched warlocks to hexeris2.

I won again, turn one looks similar to last game, though my opponent doesn't run up as aggressively. He's also shifted his raiders to the center of deployment and moved press gangers to offset my Nihilators.

This became a real game. I used snipe and aiming on the shaman (and puppet strings natch) to kill the sea witch hiding in the woods behind raiders. Then the template festival began and the mammoth rained hell on the raiders and croe's.

The damage had been done, positioning-wise, though. I was going to get locked out on scenario next turn. I used my Nihilators to kill press gangers but 4 up tough is a thing.

I feated top of two to ashes most of the remaining raiders and camped 3, but I was concerned about scenario.

My opponent focused fire on the mammoth and gladiator and winded up a bane charge. Denny feated but he spent too much on the mammoth and ignored my objective until too late: the press gangers failed to kill it.

So scenario stalled while I threw templates at banes. He hadn't brought the ua so they weren't tough. I got some good blasts and killed half of them. My few Nihilators tied up press gangers and the shaman and raider tried to assassinate doc and bosun. Bosun died but doc lived.

The remaining press gangers were already engaging the objective and so failed to break it again, Denny killed some support staff and went after the mammoth. 3 banes with curse of shadows did half its spiral but it lived to sweep. My opponent scored on the flag on the side of his objective.



I tried to clear up stuff and moved hexy up, but he was able to kill the last few Nihilators and my objective while dominating with Denny. He scored 4 points on his turn to finish the game out.

I feated poorly. I could have done a lot better. Tough to stay up on Denny in scenario play.

-Merlin out

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Skorne Games

This app is actually performing really poorly at the moment.

I played Makeda1 v Vyros1 in the scenario outflank. I won the roll and advanced up. Charlie also advanced up. He tried to stay out of my threat range, but I bounced Savagery to the Nihilators and walked 11". I feated, as I hadn't destroyed many dawnguard.

Molik failed to really hurt the Manticore. Everything else repositioned. Charlie counter-feated, but my re-Defender's Warded Nihilators decided to either be cagey enough to dodge, or roll tough on lots of attacks. Vyros' feat was lackluster.

I got to place the 3 Nihilators he did kill right next to the dawngaurd and they went to work. I actually moved Makeda way up this turn, and cast Carnage and Fate Walker. Probably a bad move. She was empty.

Karn managed to mug the Manticore more, and killed a Sentinel to trigger Lightning Strike. Overall I just repositioned again. I was offering one zone to Charlie if he could take it, but he decided that the middle was too jammed and since my Nihilators and Karn had killed a bunch of Sentinels he wanted to go for the assassination against Makeda.

He either killed or knocked down a bunch of Nihilators to free up his invictors so that they could take a mini-feat-snip CRA at empty Makeda. That worked. She took a serious hit.

The jacks (Manticore and Pheonix) then went for their shots. They both missed the 9 (boosted of course) needed to hit Makeda. So she lived.



My Nihilators killed pretty much all the dawnguard with berserk attacks. IT was amazing. Karn killed the Manticore and my other two heavies (enraged) somehow failed to kill the pheonix.

Sad.

I dominated a zone for two points. Charlie couldn't come back and I won on scenario.

We played a second game of Supply and Demand. I played Hexeris and charlie played Ravyn.

I won again and moved up. Charlie counter-advanced. I lost a few Nihilators to MHSF. I decided that I needed to be aggressive to benefit from Vampiric Harvest (and thereby heal my savages, who took a beating from Charlie's Invictor CRAs the previous turn). I moved up Hexeris and arced Ashes to AShes and then feated and cast Black spot as well (on the Strike Force and Invictors respectively). I stayed on 2. My savages killed a bunch of strike force. The nihilators ran to engage the stormfall archers on the far side.

Charlie again went for an assassination as I'd again left my caster up. The invictors did their CRAs into Hexeris and hurt him pretty serious. Then the jacks went and proceeded to either miss or roll poor enough damage to not seal the deal.

I had Hexy charge into the Black Spot INvictors and kill 6 of them, self-healing with vampiric harvest. The Sentry and Savages killed the Hydra, mauled the Pheonix, and killed the remained strike force. The 2 remaining nihilators killed 3 archers with berserk.

I love those maniacs. painted them up recently.

Charlie had to Hail Mary. He cast Vortex of destruction on Ravyn, charged Hexeris, missed his first attack, bought and boosted a second, hit, and did damage. The pheonix managed to get to hexy but was denied focus by my agonizer. It rolled the hard 9 to hit anyway (ouch) and forced a transfer and lit hexy on fire.

Then the last invictor charged in and rolled quad-sixes on damage. When we played it out I was left at 2 hp after losing the gladiator on the trasnfer, but I'm pretty sure I'd transferred to an illegal target earlier in the round and this invictor was a hero.

In related news Charlie said he shouldn't have had Stormfalls (they made his list like 4 pts over), so we're still figuring out how to play this stuff for sure.

And since in-game we though the run had come up short, fire went out and Hexy mugged Ravyn.

But I'm pretty sure my overly aggressive play lost me that game.

Good games in general tho.

-Merlin out

Faction Creep

I've been painting up my Skorne lately, and so I'm way into them. It's annoying because my Cygnar is nearly 100% painted.

So I guess I'm still painting my ass off. Ah well.

I've been playing some pNemo in an attempt to write an article about him, but I'm honestly not super down. He's not my playstyle and I always lose. Lame.




Maybe I'll pony up later.

More paint, for now.

-Merlin out

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TrollSkorne

Brice and I got a 50 point game of Hordes in on Monday. We played some Skorne v Trolls, in the radial scenario Command and Control. There is a zone in the middle of the board and four equidistant flags on the center lines of the four sides of the board. To score the warlock must be contesting a flag (be within 4") and you must control the zone.

I won the roll and went first. Brice brought some of Charlie's Skorne for me to play. Which was sweet. My list was:

Naaresh
Marketh of the Pillow Pants
Titan Gladiator
Tiberion
Archidon
Cyclops Brute
Immodium Pu-36 Explosive Space Nihilators (full)
2 min Paingiver Beast Whippers
Swamp Goblins
Agonizer
Saxon Orrik
Skorine Midwinter
Tyrant Commander and Standard

I deployed in a hot mess at the center of my deployment zone. The plan was to push the Nihilators out to feed the trolls. Then my caster can kill some infantry and hide behind a wall of beef.


Brice played:
Grim Angus, who Shot First
Dire Troll Mauler
Axer
Impaler
Full Champs
Full Burrowers
Full Kriel Warriors w UA and a Caber Tosser
Min Krielstone with Elder
Fell Caller
Champ Hero
Swamp Goblins

Brice deployed in a wider arc. The extra 3" is a big deal in radial scenarios.



Turn 1 I ran most everything and put Iron Flesh on the Nihilators. My stuff was still packed up pretty serious.



Brice Burrowed his burrowers. Then everything else advanced. The Champs hid behind a building.



I had a decision to make: throw the Nihilators into the meat grinder past the burrowing marker, or keep them in front of the marker and only offer a few to Brice. The first option played more to scenario. The second was riskier as Brice would have an opportunity to score if he killed the few I offered him, and he had a pile of possible attacks.



I decided to go with option 2. Iron Flesh Nihilators have a chance to live, and I'd placed them in such a way that one was screened by two others with their reach blades, so Brice would have to use Grim and/or the Impaler to finish him.

Brice isn't happy with his choices. He unburrowed his Pygs and then ran them out of the way, laterally 12". So then they were flanking my force. His Fell Caller moved up to spray a Nihilator (needing a 10 to hit; this move cost him big) but misses. Then Grim put a bullet in my hard-to-reach Nihilator but I made the tough check. The impaler finished him off unfortunately.

The Kriels smash into the Nihilators and kill 3 more, but the Caber misses his 7 crucially and one survives the attack in the zone, meaning my gambit has worked. I don't lose a point and Brice shuffles the Krielstone and Champs for the next round.

I drop Iron Flesh so my Nihilators can charge. They Manage to kill a couple Kriel Warriors but they miss the burrowers. I punch Brice hard this turn. My warlock gets 2" of movement from the Tyrant Commander and whipped by his beast handlers for +4 strength. The Archidon casts Lightning Strike on Naaresh as well. Then the Archidon kills two burrowers.

Naaresh is as buffed as he's going to get. I have him advance to two Kriel Warriors and he killed them but one made a tough check. I killed it again with a Fury. Then I cast Cyclone and moved to some other screening troops and kill them. I then cast Bleed and managed to hurt the Fell Caller but don't kill it. Naaresh then Sprinted away. I looked at the table and I realized that now Tiberion may be able to walk up to the Fell Caller and squish him with the war club. But it needed rush from the Gladiator. I have the Gladiator cast rush and the Brute put Safeguard on Naaresh to give him knockdown immunity. Then the beast handlers whip off most of my excess fury but can't get to the Archidon.



Tiberion walked 6" and had about a quarter of a inch distance for his reach club. He mushed the Fell Caller into paste. This was a bad spot for Brice. Then Tiberion tried to crit slam a Kriel Warrior but didn't get the crit. With his last fury he murdered a burrower and they'd lost enough dudes for a command check, which they failed.

I had also killed 5 Kriel Warriors, so killing 2 more would force a command check from them and Brice was having some epic dice fail so I thought i should go for that. Marketh had 4 souls from deceased Nihilators and charged a Kriel Warrior, missing it. Then he bought an attack and killed it. Then he bought another attack and killed another. They failed their command check.

Which was super bad for Brice.

He killed another couple Nihilators and my support solos with Champs. I had left Tiberion hanging a bit and he got the Mauler to him, but first he had to run the Krielstone up to tarpit and the Kriel warriors away to make room. The Mauler rolled poorly and did not kill Tiberion. Marketh died as well this turn.



Again Brice doesn't score because I have a tough Nihilator who stayed in the zone.

I decided that it's my feat turn and played accordingly. I spent a bunch of my turn killing the Krielstone to remove the armor buff. It took a LOT but I get it done. The Archidon becomes enraged by beast handlers and I kill the Mauler with a Fury to spare (rolled crazy talk). Then Tiberion is free to charge the Axerq who is screening Grim. However, in my zeal to kill the mauler and Krielstone I forgot to heal Tiberion at all and his aspects are mugged. He only has spirit. So he charged but did minimal damage.



I had the Gladiator with a big Strength buff Slam the hell out of a Champ and kill it. The collateral didn't kill the other though. The Brute kills another Champ.

On Brice's turn Grim feated and his stuff killed Tiberion, wounded the Gladiator, hit the Archidon a bit and killed another Nihilator. The Agonizer got killed by Grim.



I don't have a lot of movement options on Grim's feat so the Archidon runs away. The Brute and Gladiator kill the remaining champs. The game has gotten ugly. It's down to Grim and his battlegroup with a Champ Hero vs Naaresh with a heavily damaged battlegroup and a bunch of paingivers.



He kills the Gladiator but the Brute takes a lot of abuse without dropping. The Achidon kills the Axer and the Brute hurts the impaler. I put Naaresh in harm's way and he goes for a long shot assassination but falls way short and concedes.
It turned into a serious grind at the end but it was fun playing 50 pts of Skorne.



Brice said that my army was odd because of my weird Synergies whipping my own caster and beasts for fun and profit. But hey, it worked out for me in the end.

-Merlin out.


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Monday Night Skorne

So I picked up another hordes battlebox (or warpack as they are called) because I wanted to have two for demonstration purposes. I decided on Skorne because. . .they looked fun. The models are pretty gorgeous as well. I was planning on painting up a small Skorne force here and there, not playing a ton of the faction but just getting my toes wet.

However.

I also choose a new paint scheme, a tutorial from the pages of Privateer Press' No Quarter magazine. The tutorial is essentially a primer on how to paint troops with Black armor, which is a challenging thing to do with shades and highlights. PP's poster models are the Black Dragon Iron Fang pikemen from Khador. I used that tutorial and painted up the warlock in the Skorne warpack, Master Tormentor Morghoul.



And it's my best painting to date. Which is a little irritating. I didn't want to love the hell outta my Skorne. But I think I do. Holy crap am I happy with this stuff.

I just had to play morghoul after getting him painted. I borrowed some Skorne models from Charlie and played a 35 pt game with Brandon. My list is pretty bad. It's just the models I have available. There's not a lot of synergies here aside from obvious ones, and some of the models aren't pulling their weight.

I played:
Morghoul
Aptimus Marketh
Titan Gladiator (painting this week; another lovely model)
Tiberion, character clubber
2 x Cyclops Savage light warbeasts
Minimum pain giver beast handlers
Orin Midwinter
Swamp Gobbers
Agonizer
Extoller Soulward

Brandon played
Lylyth, Shadow (?) of Everblight (prime)
Carnivean
Scythean
2 x shredder
Striders w UA and Deathstalker
Blackfrost Shard

The scenario was Diversion, a winnable radial scenario. I won the roll and went first.

I had to decide whether to attack my flag or defend against him scoring. Morghoul has a tiny control area. I decided that the fight would happen on his flag, keeping him from scoring. I moved everything toward it.

He advanced and put some combined ranged attacks into my front beasts, rolling boxcars on two of his three damage rolls (ouch). Other than that not much happened.

I moved up my savages to jam him, forgetting to heal the mind of the one who'd taken the most hits. Tiberion killed three Striders.

Morghoul popped his feat to prevent enemy models being forced in his tiny control bubble. It should have kept my beasts safe from harm. The Agonizer used Gnawing Pain to keep the Carnivean and Scythean from advancing too far forward. I felt that I'd made a decent little defensive bubble, with the gobbers putting a cloud up on Morghoul as well.



But Lylyth can mark a target with her bow so that her beasts can charge without forcing. Luckily the Striders and shard didn't mug my jamming cyclops too much, though Lylyth herself cast Parasite on Tiberion and did some damage, and popped her feat. The shard did cast kiss of lyliss on Tiberion, debuffing his armor to 16. The Carnivean failed to kill the Cyclops. The Scythean failed to kill Tiberion by missing a 5 on 3 dice.

So things went better than expected. Morghoul abused Tiberion and healed him as well. He charged a shredder, killed it and then sprinted back to cast rush on the gladiator.



My savage jamming near the flag frenzied and did nothing important. He had a handful of hit boxes left. The gladiator charged the Scythean and killed it easy with enrage. I lost my right-hand savage to a free strike from the Carnivean. Then Tiberion murdered the Carnivean and had the fury left to buy and boost an attack to squash a blackfrost shard.

Losing two heavies and a shredder kicked Brandon in the pants pretty hard. He managed to get Tiberion, but the next turn the gladiator got rid of the shard and his last shredder, Morghoul killed all the Striders remaining with Anatomical Precision and Overtake, and my remaining savage got healed and managed to hit Lylyth for some damage. I also scored a scenario point.

I'd run out of time on my deathclock, but overall it was a strong performance. We decided we both won. Him on time and me by attrition.

Skorne is kinda fun. The gladiator is proving difficult to paint though. I hope I can keep the quality up.

-Merlin out
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