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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Arkham horror fest

I've played 4 games of arkham Horror and 1 of high command since my last post. Those games are pretty sweet.

Devin and Robb came to my place for some games a week or so ago and we played arkham horror. I remember we played against Ithaqua, who's not the toughest ancient one. I was Darrell Simmons, who is awesome. I might need to revise his rating. I can't remember Robb and Devon's characters. We kicked ithaqua's ass pretty handily.



I'm Darrell Simmons, bitch!

The game was memorable because I kept Darrell's retainer for most of the game, which made me rich. I got a lot done with that cash. Also choosing two encounters in town was an incredible boon.

Then we played a game of high command, and despite the fact that we didn't really have a core strategy Devin and I did well. He wound up winning by 3 points, but we were 10 or more points ahead of Robb's cryx. I played each of the final 4 turns as if it were my last, but the fact that the game went the full length hurt me; while I was doing well Devin was buying VP cards to stuff into his deck.



Khador wins!

Robb came over last Friday for a game of AH and some music stuff. I was again Darrell Simmons and he was Mandy Thompson (who gives a reroll). We kicked ass again, though it was a close game versus Azathoth. Robb told me he'd never beaten Azathoth before, but I don't think I've ever failed to do so. He's got a 14-token doom track for chrissakes.

Notably, we had to defeat two of the worst rumor cards to win the game, All Good Work Undone (or something like that) which removes all elder seals from the table if left to pop(eff), and the one which adds doom tokens randomly. Those made it tight be we pulled it out.

By the end of this game I was saying "I'm Darrell Simmons, Bitch!" Because I was having my second good run in two games with him.

Then my power went out and and I wound up staying with Robb for two nights with my son. We played two mor AH games, a loss vs Nyarlathotep and a win vs Yog-Sothoth.

The Nyarlathotep game was doomed from the start, as Robb and I pulled Sister Mary and Dexter Drake, two of the worst characters in the game IMO. We managed to seal 4 gates before he awoke, and we had plenty of clue tokens to fight the final battle, but Dexter was cursed and was devoured quickly, and sister Mary isn't the stalwart for that fight.

Then we had a great game with Harvey The Professor and Mike the Gangster versus Yog-Sothoth. Robb started with Monterey Jack and got an elder sign from the Curiositie Shoppe turn one, then stepped into a gate intent on sealing it. His first encounter in the Other World sent him lost in time and space, and it turns out Yog-Sothoth devours anyone lost in time and space.

So Robb drew Harvey next after losing his first character on the second turn. Harvey started with the necronimicon, which as it turns out turns Harvey into a beast. He's the best spell caster in the game and reduces all sanity loss, so after getting like 7 spells from the necronimicon Robb was a beast. Harvey killed like 27 toughness worth of monsters and sealed two gates.

Mike had an arsenal of weapons and a bit of luck, and I sealed 4 gates and killed 10 toughness in monsters. The witch house got a gate early and we kept drawing witch house gates after, and so had many many monster surges from it. Stupid witch house. We killed two brutal rumors this game as well.

-Merlin out


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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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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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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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