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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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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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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Thursday game w new stormnoun

Played a 50 pt game of process of elimination v Charlie.

I wanted to test the new storm blade solo. My list was:

War Room Army

Cygnar - Constanxe Storm

56 / 56 (50+6) Warcaster(s) : 1/1 Warjack(s) : 1 Battle Engines : 0 Solos : 7 Units : 4

Constance Blaize, Knight of the Prophet - WJ: +6
- Squire
- Gallant - PC: 9

Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 3
Anastasia di Bray - PC: 2
Harlan Versh, Illuminated One - PC: 2
Stormblade Captain - PC: 2
Stormblade Captain - PC: 2
Lanyssa Ryssyl, Nyss Sorceress - PC: 2
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord - PC: 2

Storm Lances - Leader & 4 Grunts: 11
Stormguard - Leader & 9 Grunts: 9
Rangers - Leader & Grunts: 5
Rangers - Leader & Grunts: 5

---

GENERATED : 06/13/2013 23:50:21

Charlie played
Reznik
Hierophant
Reckoner
Guardian
Avatar
Min choir
Vassal
Mechanic
Saxon
Rupert
Knights exemplar
Knights errant w UA and seneschal

I won the die roll and went first. My rangers on left got banishing ward and ran up a bit (out of errant aiming range), the ones on the right took a forest. Lanyssa ran behind them.

My stormguard ran up the middle and my lances split, half behind and half in front of the guard. Everything else hung back a bit.

Constance put up banishing ward and jr put arc shield on the ponies.

Charlie moved his errants up and they shot a couple rangers, but he missed a lot of 8s. He put ignite on the errants and iron aggression on the avatar.

My alpha was great. Despite tough on his errants my rangers killed 4 and my lances did ride-by attacks to reposition and kill 5 more, leaving him the UA and one errant to hang with the seneschal. The stormguard ran through the storm lances with tough from piper. Constance got arcane shield and feated over everything but two rangers. Anastasia ambushed in but just for positioning.

Charlie was jammed and low on attacks without the errants. He managed to kill 4 rangers (failed their command check), a handful of stormguard, and a storm lance. His reckoner failed to kill a pony on a boosted gun shot under feat, which brought me joy.



I counter attacked by cleaning out the left-hand zone and breaking the objective in it. Gallant managed to scrap the guardian (one stormguard got an assist with a 6-6-4 charge damage roll). I moved Constance back to keep her safe and one storm lance managed an assault on reznik himself, doing 9 damage.

Reznik wracked a storm lance and cleaved another. The exemplars missed a ranger and finished a stormguard. The avatar rolled minimum focus, took two free strikes and failed to kill gallant (17 damage across a charge and two additionals at dice+2? Bad dice). The reckoner killed a ranger and tied up my remaining rangers. Charlie said he was worried about their guns bc reznik was empty. In hindsight that wasn't the best use of 3 focus on a reckoner. Saxon managed to roll the hard 9 and hard 9 to kill Anastasia (boo!).



I assess my options, realize that I might be able to win on scenario if Gallant can mug the avatar and my rangers can kill super-men knights exemplar. In that scenario Constance has to also kill an objective, maybe without flank. Seems bad.

I have a reckoner in the other zone and not much to kill it with. Ooooooor I can try to assassinate reznik, who's up in the mix and camping zero. I move Constance up, cast crusaders call, and cast transference. My rangers move up for potshots but don't do much. My lone stormguard moves up and slaps reznik for 1. Then my final storm lance assaults reznik and I boost the charge attack with transference, killing him.

I also had a stormblade captain ready to charge in as well, and a focus left to boost that attack.

Charlie's a bit rusty, so the game was looser than we'd like, but overall I'm happy with the list. It works well and it should be able to put some hurt on larger targets.

I think a similar list with rowdy instead of gallant would work well with stryker1 as well. Maybe the same with Stryker2.

-Merlin out


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Memorial Day Games

I forgot to take pics of my two games last night, but they were good learning experiences. I played Ray in two games of cygnar v cryx.

Game 1 was Kraye tier 4 v Mortenebra tier 4. I lost the go first roll and ray went first. The scenario was outflank.

Basically I was doing well on attrition and I gave him an opportunity on Kraye which I didn't need to do. I re-read my feat and realized I could feat and then move away. Which is what I should have done. Morty's desecrator got to Kraye with focus and all Morty's buffs.

Game 2 was haley2 tier 4 storm bringers v lich3.

I was up on scenario by 2 CPs in this one, but ray managed to get his arc node/mook Vociferon close enough to arc two boosted bone shakers at Haley. Which I could have avoided, again with better caster placement.

Both were games I felt I was making good choices tactically but my war caster was just too exposed.

So those are good lessons learned.

-Merlin out


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Tournament games

I was planning on playing Cygnar at a local 50 pt event, but my skorne is so pretty I couldn't stop myself from playing them. I quite like my Hexeris2 list but makeda1 was my second and I'm not sure it's very good.

War Room Army

Skorne - Hexy

56 / 56 (50+6) Warlock(s) : 1/1 Warbeast(s) : 5 Battle Engines : 0 Solos : 4 Units : 3

Lord Arbiter Hexeris - WB: +6
- Basilisk Krea - PC: 4
- Titan Gladiator - PC: 8
- Molik Karn - PC: 11
- Razor Worm - PC: 4
- Bronzeback Titan - PC: 10

Agonizer - PC: 2
Extoller Soulward - PC: 2
Mortitheurge Willbreaker - PC: 2
Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor - PC: 2

Nihilators - Leader & 9 Grunts: 8
Paingiver Beast Handlers - Leader & 3 Grunts: 2
Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew - Leader & 1 Grunt: 1


War Room Army

Skorne - PMak

55 / 55 (50+5) Warlock(s) : 1/1 Warbeast(s) : 4 Battle Engines : 0 Solos : 3 Units : 3

Archdomina Makeda - WB: +5
- Aptimus Marketh
- Archidon - PC: 7
- Titan Gladiator - PC: 8
- Bronzeback Titan - PC: 10
- Cyclops Brute - PC: 5

Agonizer - PC: 2
Mortitheurge Willbreaker - PC: 2
Saxon Orrik - PC: 2

Nihilators - Leader & 9 Grunts: 8
Paingiver Beast Handlers - Leader & 3 Grunts: 2
Cataphract Incindiarii - Leader & 3 Grunts: 6



I'm glad I had the makeda list with Saxon bc I needed pathfinder two rounds, but I'm not sure this list is her best.

The hexy list ran well, tho the extoller, goblins and Orin may become a shaman. I want full PGBH but points are tight.

Round 1 I played against circle in a winnable scenario. My opponent played morvanna1 with zombified regrowing blood trackers. It was a good list. The blood trackers preyed the wrong thing, and my Nihilators under makeda's defenders ward crashed against them. We stuck there a while. My inexperience with skorne caused me to time out one turn without moving my archidon to contest a flag and he wins handily on scenario.

His army looked sweet too.



Round 2 I play local press hanger and ringer Stokes and his vyros theme force v my hexeris "your troops are life for my beasts". The scenario was process of eliminaton.

His dice crap on him and sentinels fail to kill a monolith. My Bronzeback gets it next turn. Turn after he clears zone and dominates. I clear other zone and dominate. He dominates to get to 4-4 while going for a run on hexy (who I'd left hanging while timing out like a fool again) but his dice don't give it to him.



Hexy manages to kill the aspis contesting my zone and molik runs 14" with rush through a wreck marker to contest his zone. I win on scenario 6-4.



Game 3 I played a local with cryx. I'm not sure either of my lists likes the matchup but there was a huge river running through the center of the board deployment edge to deployment edge. So Saxon got tagged in, which meant makeda.





The game played out oddly. Skarre feated defensively on top of 2 to jam arm 17 mcthralls into my defender's warded Nihilators. I counter feated and the Nihilators berserked through all the mcthralls save one or two anyway. My incindiarii lit 8 banes on fire with good deviations, but the scenario was incursion and the middle flag had dropped. I had incindiarii and a gladiator v max bane thralls w ua, min knights, and BLT. I was going to lose that side. I focused on the other. Somehow my archidon lived through a scrap thrall charge and kraken attacks.

I got an enraged Bronzeback on kraken but failed to kill it at dice missing zero attacks (sadness). Archidon killed Gorman. I cleaned up mcthralls and scored a point while gladiator contested other flag.



My last two turns consisted of makeda casting carnage while wading through a river and hiding behind a bridge and healing the archidon.

Somehow opponents dice failed him again and kraken failed to kill Bronzeback missing twice under dark guidance. He missed the dinosaur too. Skarre failed to hit archidon several times and left it on two boxes.

He did manage to kill my scoring will breaker with an attack spell and murder the gladiator to score on the other side.

Skarre was next to the archidon, and with carnage and heal it hit her (no crit), did some damage, bought, boosted, threw her into adjacent bone chicken, did a ton of collateral and wrecked chicken, then bought and killed skarre with auto hitting bite.

I probably would have murdered the kraken and a bunch of banes as well had the assassination failed. Opponent might have been able to push scenario.

Defenders warded Nihilators were amazing in both my games.

Game 4 I played hexy2 against a newer player who had sorcha2 in tier with 2 min WGI, widowmaker solo, yuri, beast 09 bonded, 2 kodiaks, and max shock troopers min bombardiers. I may have won the game in deployment.

He deployed super wide and I was able to toe my Bronzeback into my zone and push molik at the shock troopers in his. He forgot to feat the turn he had a chance to kill molik and left him with 8 boxes, which healed up a bunch due to vampiric harvest. Molik scored me two points, then sorcha charged him under her feat and failed to kill (bad dice) ending her turn by casting iron flesh.

Molik managed to hit the hard 12 to hit her once and did a ton of damage while scooting around to set up a slam. Orin bounced lightning off a pain giver to do 2 more damage, and then my razor Wurm missed her twice. The krea got puppet strings and slammed Wurm over sorcha. I rerolled a poor collateral damage roll with puppet strings to finish her and score 2 more points.

I failed to take a picture of the last game.

It was a good day and I had 4 awesome opponents. Tons of fun up in Saginaw.

-Merlin out

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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

The Big Show

I've played in a tournament since my last series of battle reports. It was a pretty hardcore one. 3 lists, 50 pts divide and conquer. It was called the Big Show in Fenton MI.

I brought three lists with what are widely considered mediocre warcasters.

They were my Constance Blaize tier 4 with stormwall list, aNemo1 list with stormwall, thorn, and Boomhowler to tarpit, and a Kara Sloan list with tons o guns.

Round one was overrun. I played against a khador opponent who took butcher1 in tier with 2 full units of man o war, 3 heavy jacks, all the manhunters, and a unit of widowmakers.

I went first and advanced cautiously. Most of my stuff ran behind walls and on hills. His stuff counter-ran.

I feated and killed two widowmakers and four man o war. I delayed his heavies with knockdown from Pendrake and the avenger and black oil from Gorman. I killed yuri and all the manhunters with black 13th. The drakhun lost his horse. He went into butcher camp mode and killed a bunch of my commandoes.

He failed to score a point by one commando.

I still had a lot of beef to chew through. I killed two more man o war and another widowmaker, and Gorman black oiled the butcher this time. I spent a bunch of my turn killing the dog, and my avenger never got to activate as I ran out of time. It was supposed to spank the Kodak. Had 3 focus. Sad.

Butcher didn't do much. His jacks were beat up but managed to get to the fight finally. He left my strider on 2 hp.

I sent in Sloan to contest the zone and managed to almost maul on juggernaut. My damage rolls went south though. The Drakhun killed Ryan. Lunch and watts killed him in return. Some more mow died. The avenger lived through a Kodiak assault and counter stabbed it. Hard. It got wrecked.

Butcher was blinded again. He walked into Gorman. Sloan shot him but did little damage. She then shot the juggernaut but it refused to die. The defender got its cortex. The strider died.

The avenger got to butcher and stabbed him hard but the damage was meh. The juggernaut killed the avenger. Butcher engaged some other stuff and cast iron flesh. Now was my chance! His camp was lower than usual but his defense was up. Sloan dropped upkeeps, aimed needing a 7 on three dice. . .and missed. Hit the second shot and did a few damage to drop butcher to 2 hp.

But then she died.

Ah well.

Loss rd 1. Game MVP probably butcher. Guy does some work.




Rd 2 I played in a flank scenario, envelopment, vs the retribution. The caster was vyros, and he had a Hyperion.

That was the big deal there. I took nemo1 and my stormwall. My opponent won the roll and advanced pretty far. I trampled stormwall up a bit to get across some walls and dropped a storm pod. Chain lightning didn't kill many sentinels (needed 8s on damage, got 1 for 6 rolls :p).

He flanked on two griffins (which are sweet with 3 focus!) and a scyir. They killed a Boomhowler. The Hyperion charged a Boomhowler. . .? And killed it. For sure. Sentinels engaged my eiryss.

I gave stormwall 5 focus with supercharge, had Aiyana harm the Hyperion, and stormwall pretty handily annihilated the other colossal. Had a focus to spare. Boomhowler took up space. Thorn was engaged but murdered a sentinel. My flank killed a bunch of sentinels.

My opponent sent his hydra into the stormwall. But it had arcane shield. And not much happened. Stormwall crushed it and killed 3 sentinels with electro leaps. Mechaniks repaired the minimal damage.

The game was in hand at this point. My opponent moved vyros up to work on his zone and kill my flank minuteman. I counter moved stormwall into my zone and scored a point while killing a bunch of invictors. Boomhowler continued to stall the griffins. Thorn killed an invictor.

Vyros charged stormwall to contest my scoring zone. He did half of the walls damage. My remaining mechaniks healed up thorn. Thorn got evasive to move around the field, got within 5" of stormwall. I had of course allocated 5 to stormwall. Nemo went and arced disruption field onto stormwall. Stormwall boosted to hit and did a boosted pow 22 to vyros. He bought another attack with his good arm and boosted to hit and connected. Game.

Game MVP: 5 focus stormwall killed like 40 pts of stuff.

Rd 3 was against a newer circle player and this was her first tournament. I played my well practiced Constance list against her unplayed grayle list.

It went well for me. Scenario was guidons. Which is a bad scenario.

She moved too aggressively, gave me lots of opportunities to trade up on pieces, and I won handily.

I came in 5th overall of like 11 players. That's meh. Somehow, I won the best painted army award, which it turns out had a substantial prize. I'm super pleased with all that. I'm especially thankful that no serious painters showed up, because I'm not the best myself.

I'll update this post with some pics the tournament organizer took of my army when I get them.

-Merlin out


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Tourney Recap and bonus game

I'm writing an article on Constance Blaize for another WHM blog. So I wanted some high level practice with her. She's good, but I feel she has some pretty terrible matchups.

I played in a 50 pt sr2012 divide and conquer event down in Livonia. My lists were:

Constance (tier)
Gallant
Stormwall
Min PKs + UA x 2
Max SKs
Min mechaniks
Runewood
journeyman
Harlan Versh

Reinforcements (not used) minuteman and a charger

Nemo3 and new stepmom
Thorn
Stormclad
Defender
Storm strider
Stormblades with a Gunner
Stormcaller
Aiyana and Holt
Gorman di Wulfe
Reinholdt
Journeyman

Reinforcements black 13th, minuteman, Stormcaller.

In round one I played against phaley in a reinforcement scenario. Bunkers.

My opponent had
Phaley
Squire
Stormwall
Cyclone
Cyclone
ATGM w UA
ATGM
Arlan
Reinforcements was a Stormclad

I won the roll. I went first. Jr put arcane shield on the spider. Advanced, put Failsafe on my 'clad. He counter advanced and put up TB and arc shield. Lots of covering fire.

I deployed reinforcements. Black 13th killed 4 gun mages. Defender rocked the stormwall with a bullet. Everything else moved around. I positioned to score a point if he didn't clear up my flanking force.

He shuffled a bit too. Put up more covering fire. Deployed his stormclad and killed holt. Cast TB of course. ATGM and cyclone killed b13, but cyclone missed minuteman.

I had Aiyana harm the clad. Then a fully loaded defender with lightning shroud scrapped it. Thorn ran (I was careful to keep him out of Haley's control during reaction drive move) to score a point and the minuteman killed the remaining ATGM. Nemo kills 4 atgm in other unit. Everything else moves back.

He has to scramble and move his stormwall so that I don't win on CPs. But he's already lost at this point. He only has the wall and two cyclones and they can't score on me (I'm camping his zone). He has to camp wall on his point or I will win easily.

If dice down is called I will win on CPs.

All that doesn't matter. He scraps my minuteman and engages Thorn with stormwall. He also leaves Haley close to the back of Stormwall. I pop feat and send lightning all over the place. His up Cyclone gets rocked hard. An eleap gets to Haley and Nemo boosts to put her at 3 wounds. I wreck the cyclone with the lightning spider and an eleap kills Haley.



Game 2 I played Constance against phaley. Again. Different player and list. Scenario was overrun.

Phaley
Squire
Centurion
Avenger
Lancer
ATGM w UA
ATGM
Min Sk with UA (?)
Prime eiryss
Runewood
Journeyman

I won roll and ran like a looney at him. He popped feat, cast TB and advances up. His gun mages kill all the sword knights and 2 PKs. Eiryss disrupts Gallant.

I see an opportunity. Stormwall advances and drops a pod to kill eiryss (boosted the damage). Now he has Los to Haley (and I'd turned to face her directly). Boosted big gun hits for 12. She's at 3. Second shot misses (trying to roll a hard 10 on 2 dice at that point). Covering fire goes in front of sword knights. I feed him gallant. Constance feats and PKs move up in shield wall.

He eats gallant with the centurion. Makes a gun Mage bunker for Haley to hide in. Avenger and gun mages kill a few knights. I get some souls.

Remaining PKs kill 3 ATGM. Stormwall power strikes centy but I roll minimum distance and don't kick the jack all the way into Haley (probably needed a 6 for that). Still kills a lot of SKs and ATGM. Constance flanks hard and kills his JR with a Sunburst.

Centy and SKs do like 32 boxes to my arcane shielded stormwall. He kills a few more PKs. He's back pedaling a bit. He casts TB every round anyway though.

Stormwall double hand throws Centy back into gun mages after getting repaired. Dropped a pod on Runewood as well. Centy is like 9" away after throw. PKs minifeat and hit it pretty good. Kill two more gun mages as well. Harlan finishes Runewood. Constance moves up and flashing blade kills the rest of the SKs.

He considers going for some kind of arcane bolt/deadeyed gun Mage assassination. Decides against it. Moves Haley away in a flanking maneuver. Centy tries to tie up Runewood.

I see another chance to end Haley. Repair stormwall (for 8!) and move up. Drop pod to kill two gunmages blocking LOS to Haley. Boosted big gun shot can't fail to kill her.

Round 3 i have my choice of lists against legion and evayl in sacrifice.

I decided Nemo. Maybe a mistake. I also predeploy very badly. The storm strider blocked up my deployment, and for my opening gambit I needed a Stormcaller in a better spot.

My opponent is playing evayl tiered. Her two Angelius are about 12" out of my deployment after turn one. Bottom of one I run thorn up to hit him with lightning, then pop feat and arc enough lightning leaps to kill an Angelius and mug the other a bit.

My opponent wasn't impressed. He bullied my heavies with the remaining Angelius and pushed them with repulsion, keeping me back. The rest of his stuff threatens the zone.

I do a lot of damage to a lot of stuff but fail to kill the remaining Angelius.

My opponent scores easily by killing thorn the next turn. His Angelius kills Gorman. Nemo is lit on fire.

I do a ton more damage but my stuff is too far away to become relevant in the zone, and my opponent scores again to win on scenario.

I played too conservative and lost pretty easy. Though if I'd killed the second angel on nemo's feat (which was dicey) it would have been my game. I gambled early and lost. Might have been the wrong choice.

Lots of fun. Turned out the game was the "finals" as my opponent was the only undefeated player after that round.

So I came in second. Which is sweet.

I also played a game with Brice, Jarl v Constance. I was trying Madelyn Corbeau with Runewood, and that's pretty sweet.

Constance
Squire
Stormclad
Gallant
Corbeau
Runewood
Stormblades
Max PKs w UA
Max SKs
Black 13th
Gorman
Journeyman

Jarl
Bomber
Impaler
Earthborn
Max fennblades w UA
Scouts
Max burrowers
Fell caller
Janissa
Runebearer

Or something like that.

The game went on a bit. We jammed each other. We were playing incursion and Brice scored a point on the bottom of two. I recontested that flag but thought he'd score again. But he'd left his bomber up in an attempt to kill the b13 and Gorman. He got Ryan.

I freed up Gorman and black oiled the earthborn near the bomber. I hit the bomber with some attacks and sent in Constance, who killed the bomber. The earthborn was kind an out of melee range. Brice went for an assassination against Constance but his dice left him a bit short.

So I eeked that one out.

-Merlin out.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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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Blue Vs Blue

More accurately, Blue Vs Purple/Green/Ochre. In the background of the Warmahordes setting both Cygnar and Trollbloods have a blue standard color scheme, and my partner from the league and I realized recently we've never actually played against one another. So we decided on some trolls v Cygnar.

My Cygnar has a lot of standard colors for the faction, while Brice's trolls are an amalgam of his own green trolls, my ochre trolls, and a bunch of our friend Charlie's purple trolls.

Still, it was a fully painted 50 pt match, so it looked amazingly sweet on the tabletop.

I played a tier list, anxious to play my favorite warcaster with my new Stormwall colossal toy.

Constance Blaize, Knight of Stabbing Face
Gallant (Advance Move from tier)
Stormwall
Journeyman Warcaster
Min Sword Knights
2 x Min Precusor Knights with UAs (one UA free from tier)
Archduck Runewood (grants Knights +2 speed on first turn, which is crazysauce tier bonus)
Harlan Versh, Dude in Floppy Hat
Min Field Mechanics

Brice rocked
Green Grim Angus
Green Impaler
Green Earthborn modded to be wrecking a Cygnar warjack(!)
Purple Slag Troll
Max Purple Champs
Purple Fell Caller
Purple Horthol
Min Purple Long Riders
Max Ochre Burrowers
Min Purple Krielstone Bearer and UA

It was sweet. The scenario was Diversion, a radial scenario that's eminently scoreable while not an auto win for either side. Each player is attempting to control a flag on their right and contest a zone on the opposite side of the board.

I won the roll to go first and went first. Brice took the side of the table with the forests, leaving me the walls. I ran everything. Jr put arcane shield on the stormwall. Brice ran a bunch and positioned. He put cross country on his long riders.




Harlan missed his shot on the long rider in the woods.
I gave my PKs pathfinder and Constance moved up, feated, and cast Crusader's Call. The PKs got to and killed two long riders. Another hit the slag for a few. The rest gummed up the works (I minifeated with the purple team). My sword knights repositioned and the other PKs and gallant advanced defensively. Stormwall shot two shots, hitting and nearly killing a long rider and missing with the big guns. He also dropped covering fire and a lightning pod to cover up burrower territory.





The burrowers killed a bunch of infantry, giving me some souls. The last long rider and horthol charged stormwall and did 20 ish damage. The champs charged a PK and ran to engage my lines. Grim didn't feat yet. The earthborn repositioned to get to Stormwall.





Gallant and the sword knights killed two champs engaging my second unit of PKs. Runewood gave a buff to that unit and they charged into the remaining champs, minifeating and killing the rest. Stormwall failed to kill horthol, but did un-bison him, and murdered the last long rider, though it took all its attacks due to dice and tough checks.

Blaize moved behind a wall and got arcane shield, as I felt I was going to lose stormwall next turn and was positioned to counter strike with Blaize. The mechanics put 6 boxes back on stormwall.




Brice spent his next turn feating and attempting to kill Stormwall on one side and PKs on the other. Both go poorly. The earthborn gets all the buffs but is still at dice -1 for 6 attacks (charge boosted). Brice got some bad dice and left 12 damage on the wall, and horthol didn't finish it. The burrowers popped up with nowhere to go and killed PKs.




Mechanics healed storm wall (reattaching its broken arm) and it tried to kill the earthborn but just failed. I repositioned my stuff and gave ground to the slag troll on the other side of the board. I put arcane shield back on stormwall.
Brice's earthborn frenzied but didn't kill stormwall. Horthol didn't either. Many PKs died.




These dudes all died.

Stormwall killed the earthborn and horthol. The slag troll manages to kill a nearly cherry gallant. I'm out of morrowans for flanks. Sad. Stormwall gets repaired and mugs the impaler. My sword knights remaining start working over the KSB.




Burrowers failed to kill most of my backfield, and Sugar Ray killed the one on him. Runewood mauled the Slag Troll. Constance cast sunburst on the Fell caller. The sword knights kill the stone. Stormwall kills the impaler.

Grim stands alone.

He goes for Constance and manages to hit her twice but doesn't finish her, and Stormwall punches Grim into oblivion.
Sweet, epic game. We both gamed for scenario enough that no scenario points were scored while we destroyed each others armies. Nice attrition slugfest.

-Merlin out

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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.

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MOAR game recaps

Played four more league games:

Game 1 30 pts Constance Blaize v. Rhyas

Rhyas moved up to threaten scenario and I feated and moved Blaize up. Rhyas repositioned for an assassination run the next turn and I handed him the run, leaving Blaize at ARM 20 up in the mix. Rhyas hit on all three attacks v Blaize but only did 3 points of damage at dice -8. I assassinated the next turn.

30 pts pIrusk v pNemo

I had no game v 30 supertough doodz and lost on scenario after a janky assassination run.

35 pts Constance Blaize v eThagrosh
I feated bottom of one and managed to kill the Carnivean easy with Gallant (gallant was uncharacteristically effective) on the bottom of two. Constance camped 9 and finished the Carnie. The Scythean got Blinded by Gorman. Thagrosh went for an assassination run that wasn't good (he had better options) and lost the next turn to Constance flank Flashing Blade spam.

Ethags is tough to kill tho.

35 pts pHaley v pButcher

I was controlling the board pretty well, but I went for a 60% assassination run and got the low end of the run (nothing hit needing 7s on two dice or 8s on 3). Butcher's feat tabled my army the turn after, and I managed to hit him down to 4 wounds, but that game was over.

Also played a 50pt hardcore practice match v Eskimatt's gators. Turn two feat, gators go for ghost-assassination but can't crack Constance's armor. I kill most of the posse (s) and send in Gallant. Matt moves a wrastler to maul Gallant and Rowdy countercharges like a boss and removes spirit. Second wrastler misses the charge. Rowdy and Gallant kill two heavies the next turn. Maelok kills Gallant and rowdy's hammer is broken, but Blaize puts up transference and Runewood clocks Maelok after the Black 13th chipped him down.

Also played a 50pt game in Chicago some weeks back v eFeora.

My opponent had too much beef and my dice weren't hot enough to win the day. Kara did one-turn a Redeemer tho, which was awesome. Boomhowler is pretty awesome in related news.



This pic is from that game. I went first, took the board and alpha-struck away his infantry, then his 6 jacks just marched forward killing my stuff while I tried to shoot them. Kara rolled above average early, but then I got boned on a lot of rolls v his Harmed vanquisher, and that thing managed to kill Aiyana and Holt with fire plates. Losing that flank probably did me in.

-Merlin out

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A bunch of Warmachine recaps

I've played a lot of warmachine the last few weeks, which is nice since I've committed myself to going to Diecon and playing in some tournaments. I need the practice.

I've decided to play Cygnar all the time, so as to maybe get good with some models instead of changing around my lists every time.

I have played six league games now, four of them losses. Mainly due to my own ineptitude.

Game 1 15 pts pCaine vs pLylyth.

My opponent moved up with the Carnivean in front of Lylyth, close enough for my Ironclad to try and slam the Carnie over her. I did. Caine shot her until she stopped moving.

Bonus replay game! Caine dies to Lylyth on a Hail Mary, as if he doesn't I win on scenario.

Game 2 15 pts eNemo vs pButcher

My opponent jams me with Iron Fang Pikemen, I counterjam with Centurion and Polarity Shielded Sword Knights. Butcher's stuff still kills my Centy. Then I don't have the moxy to finish the Butcher with old man Nemo.

Game 3 20 pts Kara Sloan vs Rhyas.

My opponent moves up and does not put Occultation on Rhyas to grant her stealth. I feat with Sloan and put 3 weaponmaster bullets into Rhyas.

Bonus replay game! He puts Occultation on Rhyas to protect her and instead of killing her I kill an eleven-point heavy on my feat turn. He never recovers and Sloan winds up shooting Rhyas to death again.

Game 4 20pts pHaley v pIrusk

We advance. My alpha strike kills 8 Iron Fang Pikemen and Haley's Chain-Lightning kills 5 Kayazy Assassins. My opponent has no choice but to shoot Haley 3 times, and miraculously Holt hits twice, doing enough damage that Irusk seals the deal easily.

Game 5 25pts Constance Blaize vs pButcher

This game was awesome. We attritioned each other down to a few models and I forgot to give Blaize pathfinder to walk through some wreck markers, leaving her a quarter-inch within Butcher's charge range.

Game 6 25pts pStryker tiered vs eLylyth

This matchup was really bad for me. I almost lived through Lylyth's assassination run, but the Seraph hit on both ranged attacks needing an 11.

I also played two games last week in Chicago.

35 pts Sloan v Gunbjorn

His ranged-hosing feat is great against my list! I still kill most of his Kriel Warriors but screw up my order of activations. His Slag Troll murders a Charger each turn. Gun Bjorne kills Kara with his axe, which is something to say.

25 pts Kara Sloan v Ossyan

Ossyan's ranged-hosing feat is great against my list! I may have survived if the Mage Hunter commander didn't. He shot Kara twice (needing 9s on two dice) and cranked both damage rolls, making it difficult to keep Sloan safe.



My pic is from the last game: Kara is about to get shot by the Commander and then Hypnos just manages to get LOS to Sloan to finish her (by a millimeter).

-Merlin out


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