Tourney Tales - Limited Battlegroup

Last Sunday I went to my first ever competitive tournament in Sheffield at The Outpost hobby store, (a really great place to go to to play or buy the majority of table top war games) and also hosts of various tournaments and gaming nights. (Check them out for 20% off RRP on Warmachine, Warhammer, Malifaux and heap of others - http://the-outpost.co.uk/). 

The event was a beginners tournament (although it allowed for 'new to faction' experienced players) with two 35 point lists apiece, using Divide and Conquer (each list must be used at least once). I'd run though a few different options in my practice games, generally trying to get the hang of the timed turns that were used in the tournament which I'd not experienced before. Eventually I settled on the following:

The Harbinger of Menoth +5

-Reckoner -8

-Devout -5

-Heirophant -2

Min Choir -2

Vassal of Menoth -2

High Paladin Dartan Vilmon -3

Paladin -2

Max Exemplar Errants -8

Errant UA -2

Rhupert Carvolo -2

Visigoth Juviah Rhoven and Honour Guard -4

Servath Reznik, Wrath of Ages +4

-Crusader -6

Avatar -11

Min Choir -2

Vassal of Menoth -2

Max Bastions -8

Bastion Seneschal -3

Eiryss, Angel of Retribution -3

Allegiant of the Order of the Fist -2

Wracks -1

Vassal Mechanic -1

Both lists had been tweaked and developed from their original forms during my test games and I wasn't especially confident in either. My main goal was to avoid being one of the bottom players and end up somewhere in the middle. 

Game 1 - Khador

This was the first game and we were starting with 10 minute timed turns, playing the Incursion Scenario. I was quite relieved to be starting with Khador, as it was one of the armies I knew my eReznik list would do better against, but his was the list I was least confident in, and I was hoping to play him early to avoid being locked in later in an unfavourable match up. I chose Reznik and my opponent (whose army was gorgeously painted and set on lovely hand made bases, which won best painted) plumped for Butcher's prime incarnation. 

The game was fairly balanced, and I repeatedly rolled low for the Avatar's Focus pool, 'limiting' his effectiveness but thanks to Iron Aggression he was still an insane powerhouse and wrecked a Juggernaught in two turns as well as killing two of the Great Bears. The Bastions weathered a charge from a pair of assassins and a full unit of Shield Walled, Iron Zealed Iron Fang pikemen, to retaliate by brutally wiping the pikemen out. There was only one control point scored in the game after he cleared the central flag by throwing the Avatar across the board. Reznik and Eiryss destroyed a full unit of ambushing Kossites that got in my back arc and managed to kill my Monk, proving how capable a battle engine cavalry caster could be. 

The game was won when the Butcher charged the Bastions who had Death March upkept on them. He managed to kill one of the seriously wounded heavy infantry but in my turn a trio of Blessed Mat 9 weapon master attacks from Vengence followed by their in-activation attacks finished the caster off. 

It was a good first game and I did enough damage to earn a large number of victory points, which was a mixed blessing as my next round oppenent was a much higher skill level than myself. The two best aspects of the game for me were getting to use eReznik effectively which I was excited for (see my previous post - http://mitsuharu-on-minis.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/mini-thoughts-vengeance.html?m=1) but also being able to enjoy two lovingly (if I say so myself) painted armies duke it out. 

Game 2 - Retribution of Scyrah

My second game (after a delicious Burrito for lunch, included in the ticket price) was against the (spoiler alert) eventual winner of the whole tournament, who was a competitive Trollbloods player using a borrowed Retribution army. Having never played against, read into or watched Retribution I had no idea what to do about them or how they would play. We picked lists and I went for Harbinger, for three reasons, firstly I was more (unjustifiably) confident with her list, secondly I knew he would be fielding a quicker list and the feat and Fear of God would slow him down, and finally I knew that eReznik was too big and easy to shoot against a Ret list that could bring lots of magic to the table to negate Suffering's Prayer. My oppenent chose Garryth, the Mage Hunter Caster who specialises in quick assassinations. 

I did not play the game well at all, making an activation mistake and not getting my feat off in the first turn due to a rules misunderstanding. I was on the back foot throughout the game and his support solos negated multiple threats in my list. My Errants got into combat with a heavy but just failed to cripple it and were wiped out in return. And by the end of turn three his caster used an assortment of movement tricks to line up a charge on Harbinger, winning the game by assassination, with me gaining no control or victory points at all. This at least gave me time to recover before the next game started!

Game 3 - Cygnar

Game three was another fairly balanced game with an experience edge going to my opponent. As my opponent was Cygnar I knew there would be too much magical shooting to risk using eReznik and so I decided to drop Harbinger again. My opponent had a pair of quite unusual lists, with Kraye and a pair of Heavies in one and a Stryker3 Cavalry heavy list for the other. He decided on Kraye.

I managed to get my feat right this game, holding his infantry back in the early game and damaging the jacks that did advance. The Errants were picked apart by Gun Mages but managed to destroy an objective, giving me a point, as well as kill a bunch of Stormblades. One of the pair of Stormclads charged by Reckoner and took it down to only a handful of boxes, unfortunately for him those boxes included my melee arm and the cortex allowing me to scrap his jack in return. 

The game ended when he managed to use a combination of Kraye's spell Full Tilt, his feat and a boost from Strangewayes to charge right across the board, ignoring free strikes, to hit Harby who'd been forced to move into an unfavourable position due to my army positioning and the Kill Box. This left his caster completely exposed, with no focus and both my Paladin and Dartan with clear charges to him next turn. This was a Hail Mary pass. His charge attack connected but didn't do enough damage on its own to kill her, and he just managed to get in another, boosted, damage roll to finish her off with seconds left on the clock. It was a close game, that could easily have gone the other way if his run hadn't succeeded. But he'd killed my caster, netting me my second loss. 

Game 4 - Menoth

In my final game I was shuffled down in the random pairings. These were based on numbers of wins/losses but in the case of odd numbers one random player would be shuffled down to the tier below. This was me, and my opponent was on 3 losses, and was one of the less experienced players. The list he decided to use was an eFeora list, that had a number of similarities to my own that I was using in the Journeyman League. I chose eReznik as it was my heavier hitting list and I was feeling let down by my usage of Harbinger

He made a number of mistakes throughout the game, such as not using Conbined Melee, Shield Wall or Iron Zeal with his TFG, never mini-feating with the zealots despite facing down a full unit of Bastions. Worst of all on several turns he forgot to allocate any focus to his Jacks. This made it a slightly easier game for me, as I knew everything in his army comprehensively, and he seemed quite unsure of how his army worked best. The Crusader, Avatar and eEyriss took out the TFG, the bastions chewed through the Zealots and Reznik smashed the Daughters, and by the end of the game there was only the support and Jacks left on his side of the board. 

I got the win when he charged the Avatar with his Reckoner. He hit and did a few boxes of damage to him, before I Enliven'd out of melee and just across from Feora. Eiryss shot the focus off her and I rolled four focus for the Avatar, who had Iron Agression upkept all game. The end result was a very dead caster and a sizeable chunk of victory points to boot. 

Conclusion

I walked away with 2-2, one close loss and a resounding defeat from the overall winner, and a result I was happy with. I also managed to get myself a bunch of new toys while I was there which is always a win in itself. It was a fun experience I'd be happy to repeat and most of the guys there were great to meet and talk to. My lists didn't play exactly as I'd thought they would but that's half the fun!

Thanks for reading and look out for more posts to come!

-M

Journeyman League - Week 7

We're approaching the end of the Journeyman League, with only a couple of weeks left to go. This week was still 25 points with alternative casters available and so I ran a very similar list again:

eFeora +6

-Vanquisher -8

-Dervish -4

-Repenter -4

Min Choir -2

Vassal -2

Max Temple Flameguard with UA -8

High Paladin Dartan Vilmon -3

I managed to get my game this week against Nick, whose Legion I'd played in the pre-league and once again in the mid week of the League and who also runs his own company making high quality (and surprisingly cheap) resin bases at http://solidgroundstudios.co.uk. Both of my previous games had been definitive losses, albeit fun games, and I was determined to try and be better each time we played. The list he was using was pretty much the same as the pre-league and was now beautifully painted to boot. It consisted of pThagrosh with a Carnivean and a pair of Shredders along with a pair of Deathstalkers, a Shepherd and a full unit of Warspears with UA. This list had devastated me last time I'd played it and I was hoping to do better with it this time around. We were playing Close Quarters again and I won the roll to go first deciding I would take the lead. 

I deployed my infantry opposite the opposing flag and my battlegroup and Dartan near my own flag where there was a forest to shield my advance. Nick went for a more centralised deployment with Thags, the Carni and a Shredder slightly towards his flag, with the other Shredder behind, and the Warspears clumped slightly to my flag's side of the board with the Shepherd near them. The Deathstalkers advance deployed ahead of the battlegroup and opposite the Flameguard. 

My first turn was fairly uneventful, with most of my army running forward. Dartan ran up to the edge of the forest, contesting my flag, as did Feora, hoping to score a couple of points, casting escort to give her jacks some speed. The Dervish ran across the board to my flag and the Vanquisher moved more centrally, hoping to get a few shots off next turn. The Flameguard ran forward towards the enemy flag, knowing that no amount of armour buffs would help against the Deathstalker's sniper ability. Finally my Choir and Vassal moved up, buffing my jacks with Passage and putting Enliven onto my Vanquisher.

In his turn there was a similar process of moving everything up the board quite quickly while throwing out Tenacity and Spiny Growth to keep everyone tough (though not Tough). The Deathstalkers then started their work killing two Flameguard each and using Swift Hunter to advance out of their retaliation range. 

The next turn was more eventful, the TFG continued to advance, this time, with the Warspears and Carnivean looming, using both shield wall and their mini feat of Iron Zeal to give them a respectable ARM stat. The Vanquisher used an attack and an Ancilliary attack to blast half of the Warspears, doing moderate damage with the blasts but getting some lovely fire on them for next turn. Dartan shuffled up and set into Imperishable Wall to become functionally untouchable, and Feora moved up to dominate the flag, with the Dervish advancing into the forest in front of her to block the Warspear's charge. The Repenter wandered forward towards the flag and the Choir put Passage back on the Vanquisher and Repenter, though the Dervish had advanced out of their range. 

On Nick's turn the fire stayed on everyone, finishing one spear off. He spent a long time measuring and re-measuring his control range trying to determine if the Carni would be in threat range to charge the Vanquisher. It was hard to judge but in the end he went for it and was in by the tiniest of margins, it was likely 9.5" exactly but that was all that was needed and it quickly chomped through the Heavy Jack, leaving it on 2 boxes, but failing to finish it off. Next the Warspears activated, declaring charges across the board. Two Warspears charged the Dervish in front of Feora, another two into the Flameguard and one into the Vanquisher hoping to finish it off with an assault shot (he had Prey on the Vanquisher and wanted to finish it off and move the bonus to the Dervish). Unfortunately for Nick he'd forgotten about Passage and so, thanks to the intervention of Menoth, the Vanquisher survived. The other Warspears, clearly scoffing at the colleague's misfortune decided to make up for it, with one assault shot rolling a 12 on the Dervish, and happily scrapping the jack between the two of them. The other Warspears managed to kill a couple of the Flameguard and called it a day. The Shredder went Rabid and polished off another Flameguard, while the Deathstalkers killed off the last of the Flameguard not in melee and started into the Choir, killing their leader, but failing to kill the Vassal who was still B2B with the mortally wounded Vanquisher. Thagrosh moved forward slightly, out of the Kill box, bringing his sacrificial Shredder forward for Transfers if needed. 

My retaliation was less destructive, but satisfying nonetheless. The Repenter activated and pprayed the two Warspears nearest Feora, boosting damage to kill one and wound the other, allowing Feora to advance up and get the flamethrower shot on the other, also clipping the UA finishing the trooper and harming the UA before fire stepping back to the flag to score. The Vanquisher could only target the Carni but thanks to Spiny Growth, two boxes left and a crippled weapon it would be suicide to even try, leaving the Vassal with not much to do so he advanced up (hugging the Vanquisher) and took a shot at the UA with his magic attack, finishing it off! The Flameguard poked the Warspears with a stick, doing no damage, while the commander defiantly jabbed the Carnivean to set it on fire. Netting me a point. 

The following turn several Warspears continued to burn from the fire but didn't let it stop them from finishing off most of the Flameguard (with help from the Deathstalkers) and finally finish off the Vanquisher, allowing the Carnivean to Tranple through the forest towards Feora, passing through Dartan's Melee range, and taking a huge amount of damage from the free strike, but not knocking out any spirals. The remaining Deathstalker polished off the Vassal ending his celebration with an arrow to the throat and Thagrosh moved up to dominate his home flag but there was a single TFG left contesting so both flags were contested this turn. 

On my turn both Feora and Dartan poured as much as they could into killing the Carnivean but it managed to survive the onslaught with only a few circles remaining. The final Flameguard (the officer as it happened) advanced forward, carefully staying within the Reach of the Warspear while managing to get a Deathstalker into his reach, but failed to hit. The rest of my turn was fairly uneventful, and left the Carni in melee with Feora. 

Nick opened his turn by healing up the Carni to restore its lost spirals, preparing it to put the hurt on Feora. Thanks to her high DEF and the ARM buffs from Escort and the one focus she was camping she was a tough nut to crack and required multiple boosts and after the multiple smashes from the big beast she was still standing on 5 boxes. The Warspears lost the last few boxes from the fire and died leaving the Shredder to eat the last TFG alone, freeing up the Deathstalkers to advance closer to my flag, with a rapid Shredder moving to contest my zone, and Thagrosh advanced to claim the flag bringing the points back to 1-1. 

On my turn Dartan set up his stance and delivered the killing blow to the Carnivean, freeing up Feora to flamethrower the Deathstalker nearest her, and with a boosted roll hit and kill it, with the second Deathstalker getting hit with a boosted flamethrower from the Repenter. 

At this point I was down to Dartan, Feora, one Chorister and a Repenter and Nick was down to one Shredder and a Shepherd, leaving the board fairly bare. Nick scored his second point, putting him to 2-1. I had no way to contest the flag in my next turn, meaning Nick would win in the following round (one point in his turn, one in mine since I couldn't reach to contest, one in his to win) but we carried on the game anyway. 

On his turn Nick consolidated around his flag and feated to bring the Carnivean back to life and ended his turn securing a 3-2 lead. I followed this in my turn by moving Feora up and slapping a flamethrower over the Carnivean, also hitting the Shepherd and Thagrosh in the process. The Carnivean took slight damage and Thags dodged the shot, but the Shepherd was hit and died in a final blow before Feora fire stepped back to the flag for 4-3. Then in the next turn the Carnivean activated and charged Feora boosting to hit and killed the caster, netting an assassination on top of the scenario victory. 

Overall it was a good, fun game. In retrospect I think I would have done a lot better if I'd taken a unit of Bastions instead of the TFG since the Deathstalkers wouldn't have been able to pick them off as easily and I might have contested the opposing flag a little longer but who knows cos I didn't, but as always Nick was helpful and I feel like I managed to get a lot further than my last few games. Plus I'm looking forward to starting my Legion next week using his gorgeous bases; again go look for yourself at http://solidgroundstudios.co.uk, so I can hardly begrudge him!

-M

Journeyman League - Week 6

Hey guys and welcome to the latest week in the journeyman league! We were still at 25 points this week but we could select an alternative caster to use, keeping the same battlegroup, but would then have to stick to either them or our original caster. Also, instead of Incursion we were playing close quarters as the EO wanted a change for everybody. 

The Alt caster I chose was epic Feora, continuing the trend I had set up with her prime version. Otherwise my list stayed exactly the same. I had planned to drop the Wracks to get the extra point for Dartan Vilmon, but my game this week was against Cygnar and I was worried there would be too many magical ranged attacks to feel the benefit:

eFeora +6

Vanquisher -8

Dervish -4

Repenter -4

Min choir -2

Vassal -2

Max Temple Flameguard w/ UA -8

Paladin -2

Wracks -1

As I said my opponent was playing a merc heavy Cygnar army led by eStryker with a Squire, Hunter and a Stormclad as well as a max unit of Boomhowler and co and a Tactical Arcanist Corp. I won the roll for deployment and chose to go second, allowing him to set up first. He placed his Boomhowlers on the flank nearest his own flag and the rest of the army opposite my flag. I deployed my battlegroup opposite his, and the TFG and Paladin across from the flag. He then advance deployed his hunter out in front of his battle group and I placed my Wracks near the flag, including one within 4" to auto-contest it. 

His first turn started with him running his army forwards, with Boomhowler taking his flag (it could only be dominated to score though) and the battlegroup moving quickly up towards my flag. The hunter moved close but just in a forest to get some defensive buff. 

On my turn the paladin and TFG walked up the board to keep their ARM buffs from the outset and then Feora activated, casting escort and moving up to get a Heavy Flamethower shot on the Hunter, doing a hefty 10 damage. The rest of the battlegroup ran up, the choir did passage  to keep the jacks safe from any shooting and the vassal gave the Vanquisher a shot that deviated nowhere. 

On his turn the flaming Hunter moved up to the objective and had LOS to Feora and took a shot. The Hunter has the Armour Piercing rule meaning my armour was reduced but I only took 5 damage. The Boomhowlers continued to advance across the board and the Stormclad and TAC advanced further towards the objective, with Stryker advancing to just behind the forest to end the turn. 

On my turn it was clear that the Hunter was a serious threat and so I gave the Dervish 2 focus and then had the Repenter shoot it. The Repenter did reasonable but not amazing damage (and also hit the Stormclad to set it on fire), and so the Dervish charged, boosting the attack and luckily taking out the Movement, making the second initial much more likely to hit, which it did, and a second boosted damage roll under choir was enough to finish it off. I then used my Side Step to turn around so my back arc was not facing the Stormclad. The Vanquisher/Vassal took a pair of shots at the Boomhowlers, one of which was in by only the tiniest of margins after having to get a third party to judge on the distance. The net result of which was a few knocked down trollbloods and one fatality thanks to Boomhowlers call improving tough and some very handy rolls. However it did put a lot of fire on the board. The TFG and Paladin continued to trudge up the board and I forgot to mini feat to mitigate the inevitable charge from the Boomhowlers next turn. Feora activated and moved away from the flag towards the centre of the board, trying to get more Boomhowlers in the control range for her Caustic Presence. 

His turn was all retaliation and started with the trolls on fire mostly dying from how on fire they were without the benefit of extra tough. The remainder of the unit charged the TFG (and one on the paladin) but only managed to kill one thanks to the Defence boost from Set Defence against charges. The Stormclad moved up and made short work of the Dervish that killed it's little friend, scrapping it from full with three attacks. The TAC moved up and threw a fire bomb at the Vanquisher, easily hitting its low DEF. Then the sneakiness came into play as the Vanquisher was stood very close to the wrack, which was hit by blast damage and exploded, hitting the Vanquisher, his Vassal and two Choiristers, killing the all the support models and harming the Heavy in the mix while also taking out my last wrack! It was a great move and it underlined how crappy my placement had been, allowing him to take advantage; reducing my strength considerably. Stryker then ran across the board, miffed that Feora had moved out of his threat range, and dominated his home flag for a point. 

On my turn I gave two to the Vanquisher and started to attack. The Heavy walked up to two of the TAC and Threshered, killing one outright and knocking the other down to almost no damage, so I bought a second attack and smushed the dwarf, leaving one. The Paladin took out the Trollblood who'd attacked him and the TFG used CMAs to hit and kill all of the remaining Trollbloods, but they all passed their tough. The Repenter valiantly moved into melee with the Stormclad and did a whopping three damage. Feora then activated and charged the last TAC model and killed it. I then Feated, gaining 4 focus from the models in my control on fire and took fire off one of the Boomhowlers and put it onto Stryker. I then took a double boosted Convection shot at the caster which did 5 damage to him before fire stepping away. Again this was a close decision, requiring proxy bases and 3" templates to get just behind the TFG. I ended my turn giving up another control point. 

Again we had a measuring issue where Stryker was in the Caustic Presence by a tiny margin but the fire stayed on and did a reasonable few damage. He decided to go for the assassination and used his caster's special ability 'overboost'. This allowed him to roll 1-3 dice and add that to his strength, but he then had to roll that many dice and take it as damage. He rolled a 10 for strength bringing him to Herculean standards and then rolled 13 damage on himself, killing his own caster by only two points, giving me a win! Since this was a bit unusual we agreed to play out the final turn anyway to see how much damage Stryker would have caused if he hadn't died and thanks to the velocity spell he was able to get into melee with Feora and kill her with one swing of Quicksilver. 

A risky but fun move that ended in a crazy end to the game, sealed how much fun the game had been overall. It had been close, competitive, and most of all enjoyable. It was easily my favourite game of the League so far and I'm looking forward to playing him again in the future!

-M

Sword<Pen<Brush - On 'Finishing'

Almost exactly a year ago I started into Warmachine. I've been a hobbyist for my entire adult life but had mainly stuck to GW related products like Warhammer (Tomb Kings, Skaven, Beastmen) 40k (Chaos Space Marines, Orks, Tau) and even Bloodbowl briefly (Dwarves). But for the last year it's been Menoth. And now I'm done. I wrote myself a veritable shopping list of goodies and I've bought, assembled and painted all of them (including a few I hadn't intended to!). In fact I've got almost the full range. Today I finished my final model. 

But that's exactly what I wanted to talk about. 'Finishing' isn't something hobbists do well. We're a 'one more model' hobby. And that's one of the best and worst things about the life. I am finished and I can say that with pride. I've done what I set out to and more. And I've got all the models to prove it. But there's always something else. Sure I'm moving on to Legion in a couple of weeks and I'm excited for that. But I don't think I'll ever really be 'done'. Even if it's not moving on to another project there's always that one more model. And isn't that awesome? Sure you can never truly say you've finished an army but on the other hand you also never have to stop doing something you love. That's a great thing and it's why this hobby can be so absorbing. Why you can lose yourself in it so much. 

But for now I can move on to another project satisfied that my Menoth is 'finished'. 

For now....

-M

Journeyman League - Week 5 and a Half

Following on from my last post I actually managed to get one last 25 points game with pFeora against my pirate playing buddy Jayke, of Hall of Legends (http://hall-of-legends.blogspot.com). So here I am to tell you all about it before I break out the epic in week 6 in a couple days. 

We both used the same lists from Week 4 and the game was still Incursion. The only real difference was that he'd swapped out the Deck Gun for Lord Rockbottom. 

He won the roll for deployment/first turn (Talion charter gets +1 to the roll) and decided to go first and he chose to set up with his battlegroup in the centre of the board and the sea dogs to one flank. I deployed with the Flameguard to the centre and my battlegroup opposite the majority of his forces shielded by a forest and the Paladin on the flank he'd left exposed. 

Turn one we both moved up the board with him running everything up and casting Batten the Hatches with Bart for an armour buff. I also ran with everything, including the Paladin and TFG, who sacrificed their respective ARM buffs to run nearer their flags. At the end of the turn the flag nearest his army disappeared, leaving him to trudge across the board with the sea dogs. 

Realising the far flank was now the flag to capture and that it was uncontested he ran up his Buccaneer, just managing to get within 4" to contest. The rest of the army moved up across the board with the sea dogs and Mariner taking pot shots at the Flameguard and killing a couple. Bart Feated, hindering my movement around the board and moved his melee jacks up to contest the central flag. 

With the feat up I had to be careful about my movement and so I started by moving my Paladin up to B2B with the flank flag and Stone and Mortar'd to make sure he could stay on it. (He was just out of the range of the feat) My Repenter moved up, also far enough away to miss the feat and was berely in range to kill one sea dog. The Vanquisher took the aiming bonus to not move and took a shot at the sea dogs (and another with the vassal) which killed a couple more of them. The TFG used Iron Zeal and Shield Wall to reach ARM 21 and un-knock-down-able and walked onto the flag with impunity. Then Feora measured her control range and shuffled forward an inch to avoid Bart's feat and used her own, setting fire to the Freebooter and about 80% of the remaining sea dogs. 

On his turn without the benefit of Tough from Rockbottom only one of the dog's fire didn't go out, and with low ARM they all died without a roll. The Freebooter stayed on fire but took no damage. This was a pretty heavy hit both tactically and to morale, but there were still 2 heavy jacks and the caster knocking about so there was no need to let it stop him, especially as Warmachine can turn in a second and Victory is always an option. Starting his turn it was clear that, despite looking like 12", when we used a combination of Spray Template and Reach marker the Buccaneer was just out of Bart's control range by about half an inch, meaning he couldn't allocate focus to it to help take out the Paladin. Despite this set back the light jack moved up and took a swing at him anyway, failing to hit but moving up heto contest the flag more solidly. The remaining sea dogs charged the TFG alongside the Mariner and the Freebooter. The Mariner threshered (he'd moved in and didn't technically 'charge' but artistic licence) but failed to wound the Iron Zeal'd Flameguard, and the sea dogs had a similar issue, since they needed 11's to wound. The Freebooter killed one Flameguard but missed with the second attack. Bart used Batten again to give himself an armour buff and ended the turn. 

I started by attacking the Buccanner with my Paladin, getting a high roll and a very lucky column, taking out his melee weapon. The TFG Shield Wall'd and made a couple of Combined Melee attacks against the heavy jacks but despite being +4 to the rolls did little appreciable damage. The Dervish that had been stuck behind a forest all game started to crash through the trees towards the Freebooter but only managed to get about 3/4 of the way through. The Repenter, still on the far, empty flank moved up and hit and killed the gunner attachment, who replaced the remaining sea dog and failed his command check. The Vanquisher could see through the Flameguard thanks to Ranked Attacks from the UA and so had a line of sight to Bart. I directly hit him, and caught the back of the Mariner. Even with a boosted roll I only managed 4 boxes from the caster and then got another 4 with the ancilliary attack from the Vassal. The Mariner being pretty much fine against the blast damage both times. Feora moved up through the forest and took a couple of Flamethrower shots at the Freebooter, crippling one of the Arms. 

The pirate captain allocated a bunch of focus to the Buccanner hoping to clear the Paladin from the flag, which I had nothing else to contest, securing a steady flow of control points. Unfortunately he'd forgotten that the jack had a crippled arm and so was only rolling single dice, meaning he was boosting to get a regular 2d6 roll. Following this Bart activated and charged the TFG and used attacks and Overtake to slaughter around half of the remaining Flameguard, sugnificantly buffing his ARM. Adding insult to injury the Mariner and Dougal also took out a few guard themselves, but the Freebooter with a crippled arm managed little. 

On my turn I continued to swing at the Buccanner with my Paladin, chipping away at it but not doing a great deal. The TFG threw a couple of cursory CMAs but also achieved little beyond their roll as flag contesting road block. The Dervish charged the back arc of the Freebooter and took a pair of attacks doing minimal damage, as did Feora who continued to pour on fire from her flamethrowers. Stupidly I Side-stepped the Dervish right into the path of the Repenter I'd been planning to use and so he could only try (unsuccessfully) for the Rhulic Financier Rockbottom. The Vanquisher activated and fired directly at Bart again, considering the TFG in the blast radius acceptable martyrs. The shot hit and, boosted, managed to knock off his last box, winning the game. Except he has Tough. And passed. So I ancilliary attacked the now knocked down caster, hitting easily and once again knocking off the last box to secure the victory. Except he got tough again, staying defiantly in the game. On his turn the fire didn't go out and was enough to finish him off for the third time and finally Bart gave up and the tough check failed. 

This was a fun game but it did feel like luck was on my side with most (if not all) of the critical dice rolls in the game going my way, I played a solid game but made disproportionate gains thanks to the luck of the dice more than anything. But when you're a tabletop gamer capricious dice are a cruel part of the life and I've certainly had my fair share of 'nothing but 1s' games. 

I'll be back in a couple of days with week 6 and alt casters, stay tuned!

-M

Journeyman League - Week 5

Hey everyone, continuing my battle reports for the journeyman league I have the latest week for you! Again this week due to the larger point size (we were still at 25 points) I only had time for one game (technically I could have squeezed in two but I wanted to get home so...). 

I was running the same list again, with:

pFeora +6

Vanquisher -8

Dervish -4

Repenter -4

Min Choir -2

Vassal -2

Wracks -1

Max Flameguard with UA -8

Paladin of the Order of the Wall -2

My opponent for this week was the Troll player I faced off against in the first full week, and his list had expanded up as well, giving him pMadrak, an Impaler, an Axer, a Pyre Troll, a Stonescribe, a Krielstone Bearer unit with UA and a unit of 5 Warders. Making for a very tough (sorry) list to beat down. 

I won the roll for deployment and decided to go first. We were playing Incursion again and so I spread myself out across the board, with the Paladin on my left flank near the objective, the TFG just left of centre and my battlegroup to the right of the board. The Trolls deployed in a solid block in the centre of the board on their side, with the Warders up front, the Kriel Stone to the rear and sandwiched in the middle, his 'lock and beasts. 

I started turn one by running everything up. Each of my Jacks jogged forwards to get into position and got Passage'd by the choir to avoid getting hit by the impaler (plus they had nothing else to do). The Paladin ran up to the forest near the flag on my left, getting the defence buff but staying in walking distance of the objective. The TFG ran straight up to the middle objective and I ended my turn. Following suit all the Trolls moved pretty much directly forwards thumping towards the centre objective. The kriel stone made all of his troops immune to continuous effects and he ended his turn, meaning one of the flags vanished, dropping the flag nearest the Paladin. 

On turn two the paladin, bereft of a flag to sit on simply walked through the forest he was in to come out nearer the centre flag. The TFG moved up to the flag and used both Shield wall and Iron Zeal from the UA to get armour 21 and immune to knockdown and stationary and camped the flag, not scoring since it was still before points. My Vanquisher moved up and (thanks to the vassal) took two shots at the Krielstone, knocking off a few of the regular guys in the unit. The dervish shifted up to the rear and right of the TFG for a counter charge and the Repenter stalked towards the flag on my right. Feora moved up and cast wall of fire to put a template between the flag (where the TFG were) and the Warders. Not much else happened and I ended my turn. The trolls activated and started with the pyre troll throwing a ball of fire at the TFG but missed the to hit roll by one point and the blast damage was too low to harm anything. Madrak activated and gave Sure Foot to the Warders and ended his turn. This was when he realised he should have feated to really bring the alpha strike with the Warders but forgot and charged anyway. Charging weaponmaster trolls with huge axes had no trouble smashing through my TFG and all 5 of the charged models died despite buffs. The Axer and the Impaler both moved slightly across to my right but stayed fairly centralised, and the Krielstone kept up its shenanigans. 

Starting my turn I walked the Paladin into Melee with a Warder and kept up stone and mortar. The TFG did a barrage of CMA but only did a few boxes of damage to two warders (those guys are scary hard to kill). The dervish charged one of the warders and killed it with a pair of attacks with boosts. Feora moved up and camped 4 focus for high ARM and hid behind the Vanquisher who took another couple of shots at the Krielstone, one of which scattered nowhere much and the other hit his 'lock doing a grand total of 1 point of blast damage. The Repenter moved up and captured the flag, ending my turn with one control point. 

On the Troll turn the Pyre troll moved into Melee with the Paladin but wasn't able to do any damage with the light. The Krielstone charged, bringing the aura up in the centre but failed to do much damage. Madrak activated and used Carnage and his feat to set up the pain with the Warders. The warders activated and the troll on my left activated first, killing a Flameguard and moving up, killing another and moving up again but then he left my Paladin's melee range and was promptly sliced in half by the free strike. The troll on the far side activated and dealt a chunk of damage to the Dervish but didn't destroy anything and so couldn't use the feat. The other two trolls in the unit activated... and both rolled misses to hit. This was disappointing as the feat went wasted but was a big relief for me as the first Warder made me think they wouldn't stop going until everything was dead. The Axer on the flank had the tiniest crack of LOS along the forest by the flank flag that we needed to use a laser to determine he could see the Repenter. He threw on the animus taking 3 damage from Hex Hammer on Feora) and charged, denting the jack but more importantly contesting the zone. Finally the Impaler activated and lobbed a spear at my Vanquisher. He boosted and got the crit pushing him back a full 6 inches, through Feora, the Vassal and two choristers. The vassal was smooshed but Feora's camped ARM was high enough that she was unscathed but knocked down and both choristers managed to miraculously survive by the clear direct intervention of Menoth who made my opponent roll two sets of snake eyes (the only roll not killing outright). On my turn I started with the paladin again, thwacking the pyre troll with his sword for decent damage. The four remaining TFG moved up to CMA one of the Warders but failed to kill. The Dervish attacked the Krielstone bearer who was now alone apart from the UA who he promptly sacrificed. The Vanquisher stood up, sacrificing move, and took a shot at a troll (I forget which) but the shot went wide achieving nothing. The Repenter activated and hit the Axer with it's flail for a surprising (for a Repenter) amount of damage. Finally Feora activated, and spent a focus to stand up, reclaiming it from a wrack and feated, hitting the whole Troll army apart from the Pyre troll, who was immune anyway and the Stonescribe. She then walked away from the central melee and just near the flank flag, using two double boosted flamethrowers to finish off the Axer, leaving my Repenter in control of the flag to get me to 2 control points. 

At the start of the troll turn the fire went out on a warder and (of course) the Krielstone and Madrak. The fire then did not much to anyone. The Impaler activated and moved sideways to get a tiny crack to see the Repenter along the forest and threw a spear, but thanks to the Concealment from the forest he missed. There was nothing left that could contest the flank flag or harm the Repenter this turn, meaning I would score this turn bringing me up to 3 points and with my caster within and inch I would dominate in my own turn for 5 meaning I had won, breaking my recent losing streak!

This was a really fun game and I felt outmatched by his army from the outset, with Warders and the Krielstone with UA being very difficult to do anything about. The only reason I won at all was because he had under threatened the flag on the flank and committed to the centre which meant all I had to do was claim the flank and not die in the centre. If he'd committed the Axer and Impailer to the other flag and the Warders to the centre I really don't think I would have even been close. 

Thanks for reading and come back next week for Alt Caster week!

-M

Journeyman League - Week 4

I only managed to get one game in this week since the club was pretty quiet and the game lasted much longer than it should have done. This week (and also next week) we've shifted up again to 25 points. My list ran like this:

pFeora +6

-Vanquisher -8

-Dervish -4

-Repenter -4

Min Choir -2

Vassal of Menoth -2

Wracks -1

Max Temple Flameguard -6

Flameguard UA -2

Paladin of the Order of the Wall -2

This gave me way more tactical options since this week we would be playing the 2014 Steamroller scenario 'Incursion'. For those who don't know this has three flags worth one point a turn to control and the flanks are 2 if you dominate. spread across the centre line. At the end of turn 1 either the left or right flag disappears and after turn 2 you start scoring for them. First to 5 wins. Because of the terrain placement our middle flag ended up in the middle of a forest. 

My opponent was my Pirate buddy from last week who had also expanded up to the 25 mark, adding a full unit of sea dogs with rifleman, a deck gun, and Dougal MacNaile to his list of Bart, Mariner, Freebooter and Buccaneer. 

He took first turn and moved everything rapidly up. I followed suit with most of my battle group on one flank, my TFG down the middle and the Paladin heading on the other flank. I managed to get a shot off by using my Vassal's Ancilliary Attack on the Vanquisher, killing some sea dogs. At the end of my turn the flag across from my battle group disappeared. 

Next turn the deck gun and the Sea Dogs took potshots primarily at the flameguard but only managed to kill a couple of them. The Mariner moved up but he'd forgotten it needed to be in B2B to get to shoot and so couldn't use the focus he'd put on it. His jacks opposite mine shuffled around slightly and Bart feated. Bart's feat means all enemies in his control suffer a Def penalty and if they advance in his control they are immediately knocked down. On my turn the Paladin was well out of range so he moved up to capture the flag without an issue securing a point at the end of my turn. My TFG used Iron Zeal from the UA making them immune to knockdown and added shield wall to reach ARM 21 and shuffled through the forest to get B2B with the centre flag. Despite controlling the centre flag there were enemy models in 4" so I couldn't score from this. My jacks were all within the feat so they chose not to move, gaining the aiming bonus for the Vanquisher and Repenter who shot up a few more Sea Dogs and set his jacks on fire but did no damage. I moved Feora up and cast Wall of Fire into the forest between the remaining Sea Dogs and my TFG. I ended my turn with one point. 

The following turn the pirates attacked with the mariner trying to get my Paladin off the flag but only managing to get 3 of his 5 boxes since the solo was in Stone and Mortar stance for +5 ARM. The Sea Dogs were blunted by the wall and had to shuffle through the forest around it and take a couple of pot shots with their pistols on the flameguard who weathered  the attack with minimal casualties. The melee Jacks moved slightly but had no focus for anything interesting. Since both zones were now contested no one got any points for the turn. 

On my turn I shifted the flameguard around so they could control the flag and still attack the sea dogs in the forest who were butchered, leaving only the couple  on the flank near the Paladin standing. Dougal was still within 4" though so I couldn't gain any points. I walked the Paladin around to try and just get in to melee the Dog contesting his flag but was just shy and so resigned myself to Stone and Mortar and try to survive. My Vanquisher and Repenter took shots at the pirate jacks but did minimal damage. Feora moved up and feated setting everything but the cowardly Deck Gun on fire. I tried to Immolate Dougal, with a boosted attack roll (forest) and hit. I only needed a 6 to kill him and decided to camp a focus for ARM. I rolled a 4. No points again. 

On his turn he rolled for Fire and everything went out apart from one jack and a sea dog. The dog died but the jack took no damage. Bart allocated one focus each to his Jacks and started charging. The Mariner ran down the Paladin without an issue but since I moved round the previous turn he wasn't in B2B to secure the flag and couldn't score. The Freebooter charged the Repenter and got a solid hit but missed his second roll denting the armour but doing no major damage. The Buccaneer moved in to the TFG he was closest to but failed to do any damage to their high armour on a really crappy roll. Not much else happened with a few models taking shots but not getting much done. Again no points. 

On my turn I kept all of Feora's focus on her. All three of my Battle'd jacks moved into melee with the Freebooter and reduced it to two boxes in a flurry of blows. The flameguard used CMA to do virtually nothing to the Buccaneer but did manage to kill McNaile who tough'd to stay in the game. I threw on EOD and charged the Buccaneer and scrapped it with just my initial attacks. This only left Bart in 4" (McNaile was also in but knocked down so he couldn't contest) gaining me a second control point. Then I got stupid. I decided to try Immolation on Bart and boosted attack and damage leaving Feora naked and doing healthy damage to the caster but not killing him. I gained a second point. 

The mariner moved up and took a risky close range shot on the TFG hoping it wouldn't back scatter onto himself. It went wide of everything. The sea dogs moved up to the flank flag to control it. And then Bart charged through the forest and was in range by the tiniest of margins. A few double boosted attacks later and my caster was dead. Losing me a game I'd been firmly in control of from the outset. But that's just how Warmachine plays, make one mistake that your opponent can capitalise on and that's all it takes to lose. 

We later realised that we'd been playing the rules for forests wrong all game and had been using 5" in or out instead of 3". Maybe if we'd been playing that everything would have played out very differently but unfortunately we hadn't been. The game took so long that in the end we had to leave without getting another but it had been an enjoyable game. I'm looking forward to next week where hopefully I can get a couple of games in. 

That's all for this week!

-M