Michigan Masters Recaps

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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


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

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

His list is

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

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

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



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

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

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

I don't hate it.

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

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

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

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

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

Awesome game tho. Worth it.

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

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

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

-Merlin out.

Location:Fenton MI

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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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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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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Makeda3 proxied

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




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

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


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Battle Report Colossal Edition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

-Merlin out




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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

Tourney Report

Tournaments are fun. I managed to come in 3rd at a tourney in Saginaw not too long ago. It was a 35 pt set up.

PNemo
Stormwall
Sylas
Defender
Aiyana and holt
Mechaniks
Journeyman
Gorman

And
Haley2
Stormwall
Squire
Trenchers min and UA
Stormsmith
Black 13th
Journeyman

In game 1 I played the radial Scenario Diversion against Kromac
Ghetorix
Pure blood
Gorax
And two units of Tharn Ravagers,
One had the UA
And a whitemane

That's a lot of beef.

I managed a win in this game but the terrain was awful. There was a huge river in the middle of the board an all the bridges were considered elevation. I basically won on scenario with about 2 minutes left in the round. My opponent ignored stormwall until I killed a heavy. That was game.

I lost in round two.

My Nemo against hayley2 in the flank scenario bunkers.

My reinforcements were epic eiryss and a charger.

Hayley2
Squire
Centurion bonded
Thorn
ATGM and UA
Marshalling a hunter
Arlan
Journeyman
Gun Mage captain

Reinforcements were a hunter and a stormsmith.

Terrain was again awful. My opponents scoring zone was in a forest about 12 x 12", with some cutouts so that it was blob-shaped. I felt I had to park stormwall there to not lose by scenario. So I did.

My opponent's hunters (one in reinforcements) kept rolling 15s and 17s on their armor piercing shots. So stormwall took some damage. I managed to mail them both to oblivion and won that flank but the round was a grind. In the end I killed a centurion when I should have killed Haley. Haley managed an assassination to win.

I then won the next two rounds with Haley going first, advancing aggressively, then feating over my opponents army to either win by scenario in round 3 or force the scenario on my opponent and thereby assassinate (round 4).

So hayley is nuts. I might play her in January at a tier tourney, but I will probably take a step back from her. She's a little too good.

-Merlin out



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Travelin' games

I've played a few 35 pt games in preparation for a 35 point steamroller in Saginaw this weekend. I played 3 against tmage in chitown. Tmage is rusty but he's still a legit opponent.

Game1 was Nemo1 v Ossyan

Nemo
Thorn
Stormwall
Wishanalalala
Journeyman
Aiyana and holt
Stormcaller
Arlan Strangewayes
Gorman di wulfe



V ossyan in Overun
Ossyan
Discordia
Wishnalalalalala
All the halbardiers
All the Mage hunters
Mage assassin
Eiryss angel



I punched tmage in the nuts on the bottom of 1 with a massive lightning storm. I killed 5 Mage hunters and 7 halbardiers with lightning. Tmage was not happy.

He managed to kill most of the stormwall and I realized that I had no other real punchy options. I managed to kill most of the remaining Mage hunters, eiryss, the assassin, and a couple halbardiers, but the game broke down to:

Ossyan, wishnalalalala, and a cortex less disco
V
Nemo, arlan, Aiyana and holt, spearless thorn, and jr.

And tmage won that particular slap fight. Nemo isn't good at stabbing fools, even with 10 focus.


A couple weeks later we played two more games.

Haley1
Stormwall
Squire
Journeyman
Min trenchers with UA and grenade porter
Black 13th

Tmage dropped Absylonia
Ravagore
Angelius
Scythean
Naga
Shredder
Two strider deathstalkers
Shepherd
Forsaken

We played overrun again b/c we didn't want to play reinforcements or radials.

He won the roll for first. The angel flew into a hill with all the Absylonia buffs. I still managed to hit it with my trenchers with a decent CRA for 8.
The black 13th killed both his deaths talkers.

He was now under temporal barrier and just killed a few trenchers. The rest of his stuff just repositioned. He feated to heal the angel.

I counter feated and . . .nearly nothing happened. Almost all my models missed or failed to damage with all their attacks. The stormwall killed the angel.

The Scythean managed to mostly wreck stormwall with the retaliation. I was again left with no heavy hitters. I went for an assassination with deadeyed infantry shooting Abby under TB but everything missed again.

The Scythean ate Haley.

So that was sad. Haley1 tends to play that way for me tho.

We played again. I played the same list, but with haley2 helming it.

He played the same list, but with no Scythean, subbing in a second Ravagore and adding a second shepherd. He switched warlock to Lylyth 2.

He moved up, I did some shenanigans to murder his strider again. He decided to go for the big feat blasts and just couldn't catch a break on Haley under deceleration. Lylyth missed first shot, hit second but couldn't boost (was out of fury). Blessed Ravagore missed two shots needing 11s. Non blessed one missed twice needing 13s. One deviated on Haley but no blast through her armor. She was on fire.

Angel missed twice.

Haley put the fire out. Moved behind stormwall. Cast TA on it (it was allocated 4), cast decel. Feated. I took a couple pot shots at Lylyth but didn't really hit her.

Stormwall walked into her. He boosted all three attacks w 3 focus and missed the 10s to smash her. Then he dropped a pod behind her and boosted damage for quite a bit. The trenchers assaulted her (two got range). One hit with his gun needing an 11 and managed to do a few points, leaving Lylyth on 2.

I forced her to activate first and she tried to walk away and the trencher stabbed her to death.

In hindsight tmage should have transferred that free strike. None of his stuff had Los to Haley at this point however, and he was going to lose a lot of action due to Haley's feat. He conceded. (Stormwall drops a pod on Lylyth for massive damage next turn regardless, and he can probably kill a heavy with ease afterward; the black 13th was alive and within deadeye range as well).

So that was a fast one. I kinda liked it.

More from cincinatti trip later that week:

I played the masterrabbi in two games with my prospective lists for a tourney this weekend.

Haley2
Stormwall
Squire
Min trenchers with UA and a grenade porter
Black 13th
Arlan Strangewayes
Journeymans

He played
Mohsar
Megalith
Warpwolf stalker
Gorax
Druids
Min blood trackers with nuala
Gallows grove

The scenario was supply and demand.

The first couple turns we just advanced up. The blood trackers got mirage and the trenchers managed to deadeye two Druids off the table. The black 13th killed 3 blood trackers.

The blood trackers flanked hard around one side (Haley was prey). My opponent nearly scored a point on his turn 2 but didn't contest the objective. I feated and stormwall ate megalith and I scored a point.

His retaliation wound up being an assassination run that didn't pan out. Mohsar got punched by stormwall.

We played another game. This time the scenario was guantlet.

I played nemo1
Sylas
Stormwall
Stormclad
Gorman
Journeyman
Aiyana and holt
Mechanics

He played kaya1
Pureblood
Stalker
Gorax
Wold scrimps
Druids and overseer
Gallows grove

This game was a weird slap fight. My opponent made two mistakes that I capitalized on. First he used zephyr on the wold scrimps to move up and concentrated power shots on my stormclad. Then he remembered concentrated power and zephyr are mutually exclusive.

So I killed all them easy. We wheeled around the center and he ignored my stormwall. Eventually he killed some of my power solos while feating, but Gorman lived (he always does) and the stalker wasn't in a cloud.

So I killed the stalker. The game was mine to lose at that point. My opponent tried to kill Nemo while I scored two control points but failed.

Lots of good prep. Tournament report to follow.

-Merlin out


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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


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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.


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Van Haley

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Instead he advanced under mad camp and feated himself.

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



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

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

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


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Ride the Lightning

I played a game with triple Nemo v the legion of doom this week. I worry about Nemo whenever my enemy has a decent gun (read: boostable).

However, things went pretty well for much of the game.

I played Nemo and new Stepmom
Stormclad
Storm Strider
Full Ponies
Full Stormguard
Epic Elf
Gorman di Wulfe, Kung Lao impersonator
Black 13th
Jr
Goblin

Brandon played
Rhyas
Angel
Scythean
Seraph
Bolt Thrower
Nephilim Soldier
Forsaken
Shepherd
Full Heck hunters with Bayal
Black frost shard

We played the scenario Guidons, which seems winnable but which Brandon and I always ignore.



I lost the roll and he went first. He ran stuff forward. I ran my ponies up and arced lightning off of the front one into his Heck Hunters, getting good bounces and killing 10.

He retaliated by sending in the Scythean to kill 3 ponies and jamming everything else forward. He didn't get much from Rhyas' feat.



I counter feat with Nemo and obliterated most of his force, leaving like 8 models on the table and leaving Rhyas at 2 health with no transfers (my Stormcaller missed his storm call to seal the deal and Nemo missed a boosted gun shot at the angel to fish for bounces at Rhyas as well).

Then Rhyas manages to kill everything between Nemo and the Scythean with Bayal alone. The bolt thrower crit-kds the old man and the Scythean gets it done.

I probably shouldn't have gone for assassination, or perhaps should have done it differently. Ah well. Good game by Brandon and well done closing it out.

-Merlin out


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