Mitsuharu on Bat Reps - The Harbinger of Menoth vs Captain Bartolo Montador

Hi everyone and welcome to the latest edition of Mitsuharu on Bat Reps. This week I was continuing my practice with the Harbinger using a (very) slightly different list:

The Harbinger of Menoth +5

-Heirophant -2

-Reckoner -8

-Devout -5

Minimum Choir -2

Wracks -1

Vassal of Menoth -2

Maximum Exemplar Errants with UA -10

Rhupert Carvolo -2

Covenant of Menoth -2

Minimum Holy Zealots with UA -6

Maximum Exemplar Bastions -8

Dartan Vilmon -3

Paladin of the Order of the Wall -2

Anastasia Di Bray -2

Objective: Fuel Cache

The change? I've swapped out the errant Senechal for Anastasia, primarily for the +1 to the starting roll for the game, but if she gets an espionage off then I won't complain! I realise how big a deal it is to have first turn with Harbinger and so this seemed like a solid swap. 

My opponent this week was our local Mercs player, Will. Given the top of two assassination in our last game I was a little apprehensive, but willing to preserve. He was trying out a new list that he'd only had a couple of games with that included: Captain Bartolo Montodor with a Mangler and a Galleon, along with Dougal MacNaile, a Gobber Tinker, Wrong Eye and Snapjaw (and Bull Snapper), Max Nyss Hunters and Aiyana and Holt. One of my biggest issues here was the Galleon since I don't really have a good answer for the really high ARM. 

We decided to play Recon, trying to get more breadth of experience with the 2015 scenarios. Despite including Anastasia I lost the roll to go first and so picked the table edge with the trench and less difficult terrain. Will set up with his Galleon on one flank with the Jack support, with the Nyss and Aiyana and Holt on the other. I set up with Harbinger and her battlegroup central, with the zealots screening the Bastions on my left and a paladin on each flank. I then advanced deployed my Errants centrally to move into the zone on my first turn. 

Will went first and ran his Nyss as far up the board as possible, followed by the rest of his army, the Mangler moving to just outside the zone with Snapjaw just behind him. Dougal used his mini-feat and Artillerist on the Galleon to make it more accurate and longer ranged and then it moved up to start taking pot shots at the Errants. Thanks to having a high number of shots on the guns and the rerolls from Dougal he managed to kill 4 of the Errants before I could put tough on them. On my turn everything ran up, trying to take stronger board presence since Will was covering swathes of table. I also advanced Harbinger up slight ( I was concerned about the Galleon) and Feated. 

The Nyss stood still to aim, ignoring my feat, and shot a bunch of Errants of the table. The Mangler and Galleon both moved into them and reduced the unit to 2 models in a hail of cannon fire and Threshers. Everything else shuffled forwards, trying (successfully) not to be caught in the feat. 

On my turn I fully loaded the Reckoner and prepared to charge the Mangler. Harby Purified, moving back slightly as I was scared of the Galleon's guns throughout the game, followed by the Devout. The Bastions and Zealots on my flank ran forwards to cover more ground and Anastasia ran up the board to put pressure on Bart. The Errants moved out of the Reckoner's way and he charged the mangler, failing to kill it by 5 boxes, and leaving it with just movement remaining. 

As I had put Enliven on my Reckoner Will decided to mitigate this by run/charging his Nyss around it to rob it of any way to get out. Snapjaw then charged but missed the charge Attack as well as one of his bought attacks meaning he wasn't even able to take out anything despite having Harm on it. The Galleon shot up my Bastions, only doing a small amount of damage but also managed to kill the zealots monolith bearer with blast damage, as I had placed them too close together. 

On my turn the zealots moved up and fire bombed the Galleon, actually managing to put a few damage on it as well as get the crit to set it on fire! Harbinger used Purification to clear off the Spiny Growths knocking about as well as hotshot, then threw out Crusader's call but failed to hit the Nyss with Fear of God as they were engaged. The bastions then charged the Galleon and the Mangler. Only one reached the Mangler and two on the Galleon, neither doing meaningful damage (I forgot all game that they have Blessed and so was rolling vs. Batten'ed ARM like an idiot). The Reckoner, who'd been fully loaded again, managed to kill Snapjaw with only 2 focus, taking an extra swing on the Mangler but it refused to die. Meanwhile Dartan began an extreme flanking menouver and Anna ran straight up the board towards Bart, forcing him to deal with her next turn. 

Will retaliated hard this turn. The Nyss charged into the Reckoner, Vassal and a Choir member. Killing the Reckoner despite missing the Kiss from Aiyana and forcing me to martyr the Vassal. The Galleon opted to shoot and rolled 6s on both sides with his cannon. He then proceeded to kill some zealots and take most of the boxes off the bastions, but only actually killing one of them. Holt moved into melee with Anna but missed all 4 of his attacks, forcing the Bull Snapper to move back to double boost on her to finish her off before she could get any shenanigans. 

On my turn I was rapidly running out of options, but had been presented one nice option with the Nyss clumping together. I moved Harby up slightly and then used Cataclysm to kill half a dozen of them, forcing a panic check which they passed. The Paladin in the trench killed the Nyss engaging him, the Vassal missed the Nyss engaging him and accidentally shot the Choir in the back. The zealots threw more bombs at the Galleon and the Bastions continued to thwack at the collossal too, but still couldn't do anything meaningful even with the charge (again totally forgetting Blessed on their halberd) with one of the others killing Cylena and the other still failing to kill the Mangler. Blowing up the Nyss with Harby was probably the highlight of the game for me  though. 

On Will's turn he shifted his colossal slightly freeing up a lane for the tinker before shooting the last of the zealots and one of the bastions off the table and doing two points to the Covenant to boot. The Nyss moved around the bastion on the wreck marker, but one of them left the other Bastion's arc, dying to the free strike, forcing the other to fail their panic check. The Tinker then moved up and mended the Mangler back to full functionality. The Mangler then shifted across and took a Thresher, killing the two bastions in the zone and accidentally killing his own Tinker in the process. The Bull Snapper moved up to contest the far flag since that was my best chance of scoring. Aiyana gave magical shots to Holt who moved up and shot Dartan (who'd been creeping around the back of the Colossal) off the table 

On my turn I realised I was in pretty dire straits and didn't have much of an option to win. I decided that my only real shot was to somehow control the flag to my right. I had Harby purify and then moved across into the trench along with the Devout. Rhupert moved towards the zone to contest next turn and gave the choir tough hoping to hold the zone a little longer. 

Will then had his colossal use its guns to take out the last bastion and errant as well as tow the covenant in to finish it off. The Mangler then charged my objective, hitting it twice but failing to kill it, reducing it to 2 boxes. Wrongeye moved up and put spiny Growth on the contesting Bull Snapper. Meanwhile Bart shuffled across to behind the Galleon. 

On my turn I knew I needed to clear the flag to be able to dominate in order to have any shot at winning the game. Harby gave 3 to the Devout and then cast purification and put Fear of God on the Mangler to remove thresher. The Devout charged but only did a medium amount of damage with the charge Attack. The shield did nothing and it then missed two of the bought attacks. This meant I hadn't cleared the flag and, since it was getting late, I forfeited the game. We decided that it would take a while to clear the zone but Bart would be able to dominate eventually and I would ultimately lose on scenario. 

This was a good, balanced game. As I had feared this list did not deal well with an up-armoured collosal. The game was a gruelling grind fest on both sides but Will was able to use his Galleon really well to tip the scales in his favour. We both had pretty big dice swings throughout the game, with one turn coming all 6s immediately followed by not being able to get much of anything done. I'd have liked the first turn (duh) but either way I think allowed the threat of the Galleon to really limit my play. 

A prime example of this was in turn one. I lost almost half the Errants to the Galleon, crippling my prime jamming unit because I was too scared to Martyr so early. I was too precious with Harbinger throughout the game, given that I kept her far back and also refused to martyr unless I felt I had to. This undercut the whole point of the army. Something Will exploited well. 

I think I might try out a new list next time. Or maybe not! Either way I'll be sure to tell you all about it here!

As always if you like the blog then please like it on Facebook!

-M

Sword<Pen<Brush - Magnetising Legion Models

Hey guys welcome to an edition of a slightly neglected segment - Sword<Pen<Brush. This time I want to talk about magnetising heavy model kits (For my American audience 'magnetize'. But seriously thanks for reading you guys). I know a lot of people who've magnetised models back when I played warhammer but I never really saw the point. More importantly, though, it seemed really scary. When I moved into Warmachine the idea was even more popular but I decided again I would just buy several kits and it'd be fine. 

When I hit Legion, though, I decided that, because it was a faction that loved multiples it would be way too expensive to buy that many heavy beast kits, never mind the trouble of storing them. So I decided to take the plunge and magnetise the models. I am a total conversion and alteration novice, so I was really nervous about ruining the model and having wasted my money, but thought it would be worth the risk. 

I looked online into available magnets. Rare Earth magnets are the best, apparently, and I found that the right size for attaching plastic limbs to a heavy model was 3mm by 1.5mm disks (Hey Americans, yeah, metric. Ugh right? Stupid Europeans). I looked online and found a few sellers that were offering frankly quite expensive prices. A couple of the guys from my LGS, however, recommended an eBay seller called Spider Magnets who were offering high quality rare earth magnets for a fraction of the prices of their competitors. I got myself 100 neodymium disk magnets for just under £4. 

I started the process normally by taking all of the parts of the kit and cutting off the mould lines and excess plastic. Following that I assembled the seperate aspects of the heavy. In this instance this meant attaching the three parts of the torso together with the legs, as well as assembling each of the arms. Once all the parts were completely dry I started to drill into the 'neck' using a hand drill with a 1.5mm drill bit. It was surprisingly easy to line up to drill in the right place, and because of the small size of the magnets the holes didn't have to be too deep. 

I then moved on the heads, drilling a neat hole in each, roughly where it would meet the neck magnet. Putting the magnet in dry before applying glue is a must to make sure the size is right. Another important trick I learnt was a way to make sure that each of the magnets' polarisations match the corresponding magnet in the body. To achieve this I stuck the magnet into the joint first. Once this had dried I connected the limb's magnet to the joint and then painted a thin black line on the outer facing surface of the limb magnet. This let me know that that face was the one that had to go facing inward in the limb, to make sure the limbs would connect together and then simply glued the magnets into each limb. I was nervous at first, since there was no way to check the magnet connects until the glue dried and made it permenant. But the trick with the black line worked nicely and they all went together just right.

This meant that I now had a whole bunch of interchangable limbs for my three heavy boxes, giving me a huge amount of variability in my beasties for Legion for a third of the cost! I painted each of the limbs and the body, being careful to put a number on the base of the model and a corresponding number on the inside of the joint for each limb/head so I knew which ones went with each other and avoid confusion!

All from the same kit!

For anyone else, like me, who's worried about magnetising or how effective it'll be I can assure you it was super easy and, if I say so myself, I think the results look great too. I've actually decided to magnetise a whole bunch of models, and next on the list will be the Seraph/Neraph kit! I'd strongly recommend anyone who's considered magnetising as an option to give it a try. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised!

As always like Mitsuharu on Minis on Facebook for more updates and photos of my painting work!

-M

Mitsuharu on Bat Reps - High Executioner Reznik vs. Madrak Ironhide, Thornwood Cheiftan

Hey guys, and welcome back to Mitsuharu on Bat Reps. This week I was having real trouble finding a game (everyone was already spoken for) but luckily I managed to get a game at (almost) the last minute (my last minute is quite a bit longer than most people's) against one of the developing players in our meta who plays Trolls. I decided not to play Harbinger against him since I felt that would be unfair. Instead I decided to play my favourite Menoth caster: Reznik! I've written in the past about my love of Reznik but needless to say he's the caster I have the most fun with every game. The list I cooked up was:

pReznik +6

-Heirophant -2

-Crusader -6

-Vanquisher -8

Avatar of Menoth -11

Min choir -2

Vassal of Menoth -2

Vassal Mechanic -1

Max TFG with UA -8

Min Zealots with UA -6

Wracks -1

Gorman Di Wulfe -2

eEiryss -3

Saxon Orrik -2

Madelyn Corbeau -2

Objective - Effigy of Valour

I was umming and ahhing about whether I should swap out Gorman for Anastasia Di Bray for a while. Ultimately though I decided that Black Oil would be more beneficial than Espionage, since the body of the list is not designed to do loads of damage but instead to jam. On the other hand a Black Oiled heavy is still a real upset. I decided on Effigy of Valour to make sure that the TFG would be less likely to flee and ruin their jam. Obviously the solo package is geared towards delivering Reznik to the opponent's caster. 

My opponent was playing a pMadrak build. Most of his games so far have been at the 35 point level and so (he told me) the list he played was an expanded version of one of his 35 point lists he'd bulked up to 50 points. It consisted of pMadrak with an Impaler, Bomber and Mulg, a max unit of the Krielstone with UA, a unit of Runeshapers, and two max units of Warders. We were playing Two Fronts from the 2015 packet (for anyone keeping count I promise I am randomising the scenario each time. I have no idea why Two Fronts keeps coming up). I won the roll to go first and set up with Reznik just to the left of the centre of my deployment zone with the TFG and Orrik on my left flank, the jacks and support staff centrally and to the right of centre, and the zealots and Gorman on the right flank. On the other side of the table the Trolls all set up more centrally. 

I took my first turn, using Orrik to give pathfinder to the TFG to allow them to run into the zone despite the intervening forest, and everyone else ran up the board, meanwhile Reznik put Ignite on the TFG and Iron Agression on the Avatar. 

Things went very similarly on the other side of the board, with the Fell Caller putting pathfinder on one of the Warder units, allowing them to advance through the forest, with everything else running forwards as well. 

I continued to move up the board on my turn. The Flameguard and Zealots moved into their respective zones, using their mini feats to secure stronger defensive positions. Gorman moved into the zone and threw Black Oil at Mulg, hoping for a lucky deviation, but went off to the middle of nowhere. My Jacks moved up the board, trying to stay out of Mulg's threat range while also trying to nudge the Avatar close enough to get the alpha on him later. Reznik moved across into my zone, behind the Flameguard along with Madelyn Corbeau and Orrik. 

The Trolls then took their turn, and started to tentatively attack my army. The Warders on my left flank charged my TFG, but only two of them were able to get in, and both missed their attacks thanks to Set Defence. The bomber threw at the TFG also, but only hit one of them, with the blast damage not being able to crack their Iron Zeal/shield guard armour. On the other flank the Runeshapers intentionally missed a choir member in my backfield, managing to get a lucky scatter into my zealots, with the first blast killing two zealots and rolling exactly enough to kill Gorman as well. Mulg, the stones, Madrak and the Fell Caller all shuffled up the board, with the Warders on my right just toeing into the zone. On my turn I retaliated by having the TFG CMA into the two warders, killing both of the trolls who'd connected. Eiryss took a shot down a crack between the Impaler and bomber and hit Madrak to strip him of Sure Foot. The Vanquisher (who'd been allocated 1) moved up to start my run on Mulg. My plan was, with battle, to hit him with a boosted POW 16 from the gun. I needed 4s to hit... The deviation when I rolled 3 didn't hit anything. I was not sure of my threat range on Mulg with the Avatar, but with the Vanquisher missing I decided it wasn't worth risking being out. Instead the Avatar just nudged up slightly to be definitely in next turn. The Zealots moved up, throwing bombs at the Warders and Mulg. One of the blasts hit the Warder but failed to do enough damage. The other two zealots hit Mulg, not doing much damage. Importantly, however, the Stone had moved up right behind Mulg, meaning it was caught in the blast and died. The positioning of the rest of the unit wasn't ideal, however, and he was forced to self-sacrifice a regular grunt, then the second blast forced him to kill the UA to keep the stone alive. Reznik moved back up in the zone. 

Because this was a Menoth vs Trolls game we'd both been really hesitant to commit, which is why so little stuff had died so far. This turn was when the trolls came into it. Madrak started the turn by feating and throwing his axe at a zealot. He rolled snake eyes and failed to hit. The warders on my left started eating through the TFG thanks to the feat, however he made a real error and overtook past the melee range of one of my flameguard, dying to the free strike. The other two warders' killing spree didn't last as long thanks to poor dice, but did manage to get another couple dead. The Impaler took a boosted shot at the Vanquisher, hoping for the crit, he hit but not crit, and did a couple of points of damage. Mulg then charged the Vanquisher and scrapped it, filling up on Fury. The Warders on the other flank then killed all the zealots under feat apart from the Monolith, who was knocked down to 1 box, ending that spree. The Bomber moved into stealth range and threw at Eiryss, but failed to hit her high DEF, the deviations failing to kill anything. 

The first big commitment had happened and now the game was heating up. The Vassal gave Enliven to the Avatar, who rolled 3 focus and charged Mulg. The Avatar managed to kill Mulg handily and still be able to take an additional Attack on one of his other beasts. The TFG moved into the remaining Warders in my zone and did a reasonable amount of damage, but didn't kill them. The Crusader moved into the objective but despite Battle only managed to bring it down to 2 boxes. Eiryss was in melee with a warder and so wasn't able to shoot and needed ridiculous dice to even do a single point of damage in melee. Orrik gave pathfinder to Reznik to allow him to move right across the zone, choosing to run, followed up by Madelyn and the Hierophant. 

The bomber was locked up by the Avatar and so couldn't shoot at Reznik on the Troll turn. Hoping to remedy this three of the warders charged Avatar, the first one failing to damage, and the second one only  doing a couple of points of damage, activating enliven, allowing me to move out of their threat, but keep the Bomber in melee with him. The rest of the warders took a few boxes off the Crusader. On the other flank the other warders took attacks on the TFG again. The runeshapers continued to move up, finishing off the monolith bearer. The Bomber activated and took a two handed throw on the Avatar, to my surprise, chucking it into Eiryss, killing her. The stone moved up to keep the coverage, and then Madrak advanced directly towards Reznik, throwing Rathrok at him. This critical hit, but failed to damage. This set up Reznik to apply sword to face. On my turn I had the TFG kill one of the Warders (who was potentially in the way) Avatar paid one to stand up and then used the rest of his stack to kill the bomber. The crusader beat on a Warder and finished off the Objective to score a point. Reznik then activated and charged Madrak. Madrak had been upkeeping sure foot, meaning I got the extra dice for purgation. I used my feat to wipe off his 5 fury, hit Engine of Destruction with Harmonious Exaultation and bought attacks until there was nothing left of his caster. 

I had a really great game, and I always enjoy playing with Reznik since he's always fun. The Avatar with Iron Agression is offensive and Reznik is awesome to play with. Next week I will likely be playing Harbinger again (with a very slightly different list) and I'll be sure to write it up for you next week!

As always don't forget to like Mitsuharu on Minis on Facebook for regular updates!

-M

Mitsuharu on Bat Reps - The Harbinger of Menoth vs Thagrosh, the Messiah, Redux

Hey wargamers, I'm back with my latest Bat rep and I'm still having practice games with Harbinger. I'm still using the same list, and I've had some success with it so far:

The Harbinger of Menoth +5

-Heirophant -2

-Reckoner -8

-Devout -5

Minimum Choir -2

Wracks -1

Vassal of Menoth -2

Maximum Exemplar Errants with UA -10

Exemplar Errant Seneschal -2

Rhupert Carvolo -2

Covenant of Menoth -2

Minimum Holy Zealots with UA -6

Maximum Exemplar Bastions -8

Dartan Vilmon -3

Paladin of the Order of the Wall -2

Objective: Fuel Cache

So after last week Nick wanted to have a rematch between Harby and eThagrosh. But before I get to the regularly scheduled battle report, I also managed to get another game in this week with Jayke's Cryx (http://hall-of-legends.blogspot.com/) with her too. Long story short we played Recon from SR2015. Jayke used an infantry spam pSkarre list vs my Harbinger, since he's practicing it for the ETC in a few months. I won the roll to go first, and basically feated to lock him out, and then used my second turn to completely surround the zone with my models to keep him out. This let me score 3 points on my turn 3, dominating the zone after destroying the objective. After that it was a grind, with him slowly clearing me out of the zone, and me not managing to kill a load of models. Despite this thanks to Martyrdom I was able to stick in the zone pretty tenaciously, even burning most of a stack of focus to maintain the martyring. Because his list was an infantry spam and my list was so hard to get rid of (Martyr'd, tough, no knockdown Bastions are a pain to shift) he clock'd out without scoring any points. So another win with Harby, and a game I wouldn't have won without the Deathclock, but when I noticed how much I was ahead on time I just played for it, trying to out-attrition, which is one of her specialities. 

Anyway. Back to the main battle report with Nick's Legion. Nick wanted a rematch from last week and so was using the same list too. It included Thagrosh, the Messiah, with 3 Scytheans, two Raeks, a max unit of Legionnaires with Farlior, a max Spawning Vessel, two Forsaken, two Shepherds and a Feralgiest. We rolled for scenario and got Close Quarters, and then I won first turn. (I didn't get any photos of either game, sorry, my phone's battery was dying and I'd forgotten my charger). 

I set up my Errant package across from the opposing flag, along with Dartan. Harbinger set up in the middle of the board with her jacks and support staff, with the zealots and bastions near my own flag. Nick set up his whole army fairly centrally, with the Raeks and a shepherd off to the flank opposite the Errants. I take my first turn and move everything up the board, and feated. Nick was pretty locked down in his turn and so moved only his heavies forward (apart from 3 pot carriers who went kamikaze to spawn a shredder) Thagrosh flew up behind a forest near his own flag and took 4 points of damage. 

In my turn my original plan had been to try and run the Errants far enough to control the enemy flag and try and move far enough up to prevent contesting of it. Instead I took advantage of Hunter from the Senechal to take 10 shots at Thagrosh with the Errants instead (they still moved up to the flag). I then rolled fire, reducing Thagrosh to only 4-5 boxes. Harbinger then moved up B2B with my flag to be able to score later. The Zealots then moved between her and a pair of Scytheans and used their minifeat to become a nice speed bump. The bastions followed them up, but much more slowly. My Paladins moved up to contest each flag in Imperisable Wall. At this point I realised I'd blocked off the charge lane I'd been hoping for my fully loaded Reckoner, and hadn't cast Crusader's call or Purification, so it just moved up and took a pot shot at a Scythean but achieved very little, annoyingly. 

Nick started his turn with feating and casting Manifest Destiny, moving further back, and into the forest, healing slightly. The Raeks, a Scythean and Shredder munched through most of the Errants. The other Scytheans moved around but could only get to the Zealots who were under Greater Destiny. A Shredder then moved right up to contest the flag nestled near the zealots. The Legionnaires then moved up the board using their minifeat on top of the Dragon's Blood that he'd upkept to become very high ARM. 

On my turn the zealots failed to kill the Shredder to free up the flag. They did throw a bomb at the Legionnaires and killed one. The remaining Errant took a spiteful swing at a Raek but missed. The bastions continued to move up to the flag. 

Nick moved his Legionaries and a Raek up to contest my flag and try and clear out my mass of stuff. The next couple of turns were fairly back and forth. My turn I managed to finish off the Shredder, and kill the Raek and the Legionnaire who were contesting my flag, letting me score one defensively. Meanwhile Dartan sat in Imperisable Wall 4" from his flag and within 10" of Harbinger. 

Unfortunately I didn't have photos or take notes so I'm a bit hazy on the late middle of this game so... Cliff notes. Nick kept pushing more and more models into contest my flag, and I failed to clear them out, but also managed to keep a strong presence on the board thanks to rolling multiple single points in a row with Martyrdom. This went on for a couple of turns and most of Nick's clock. I made no headway in the game but hunkered down and tried to outlast him. On the final turns Nick moved a mostly healed eThagrosh onto his flag and then took several Martyr'd swings at Dartan, and then moved a fully stacked Foresaken into my mass of guys and blight bombed, catching Harby, who was camping 5. Nick rolled 7d6+8 on Harbinger, who was sat on 10 boxes. He did 9 damage. After that Nick had 10 seconds left on his clock and so forfeited the game, as he felt he couldn't get an assassination in 10 seconds on his next turn. We played out the next couple of turns anyway, and he missed the assassination by 1 box a second time! 

It was a good, fun game, and one that I would definitely have lost if not for the Deathclock saving my bacon again. As always it was a fun back and forth game like I've come to expect from Nick and I made a few stupid mistakes that he capitalised on well, but unfortunately I was up on time for most of the game despite starting first, but by the end of the game I had very few models left on the table. 

Overall I'm really enjoying this Harbinger build and how it's playing on the table. I'll have another game up next week with her as well, so tune in for more!

Don't forget to like Mitsuharu on Minis on Facebook for more regular updates, and go to Solid Ground Studios for your Warmachine and Hordes Terrain!

-M

Mitsuharu on Bat Reps - The Harbinger of Menoth vs Thagrosh the Messiah

Hey Guys, it's my latest bat rep, this time using Harbinger of Menoth as promised. I was using the same list that I had discussed in the previous Cogs in the TheoryMachine post:

The Harbinger of Menoth +5

-Heirophant -2

-Reckoner -8

-Devout -5

Minimum Choir -2

Wracks -1

Vassal of Menoth -2

Maximum Exemplar Errants with UA -10

Exemplar Errant Seneschal -2

Rhupert Carvolo -2

Covenant of Menoth -2

Minimum Holy Zealots with UA -6

Maximum Exemplar Bastions -8

Dartan Vilmon -3

Paladin of the Order of the Wall -2

Objective: Fuel Cache

I managed to get a game in this week against Nick from Solid Ground Studios (http://solidgroundstudios.co.uk) the best place to get all your warmachine and hordes terrain. Speaking of which he's recently donated a whole bunch of fully painted (by his own talented yet disgustingly modest hand) terrain from his latest collections to our LGS. It was on this lovely board, with two fully painted armies that we faced off. The game we were playing this week was Two Fronts from the 2015 Steamroller packet. 

Nick has been practicing recently with an eThagrosh build he's been toying with. Which means: Messiah off! Who is the most Christ-y? We shall see. Accompanying the Messiah of Everblight were three Scytheans, two Raeks, a max unit of Legionnaires with Farlior, a maximum Spawning Vessel, two Foresaken, a Shepherd, and a Feralgiest. 

Nick won the roll to go first, and decided to take the first turn since the terrain would have a minimal impact on his pathfinding Legion army. He deployed with his three Scytheans placed centrally with Thagrosh, with the Reaks and a Shepherd on one flank and the Legionnaires and the pot on the other side. On my side of the board I placed my Battlegroup centrally with the support staff, placing the Errants inside a forest opposite the Legionnaires and the zealots on the opposite flank with the bastions behind them. 

As usual for warmachine the first round consisted of a lot of running. Nick moved his army forwards, placing buffs out on them, putting unnatural aggression on a Scythean and Dragon's Blood on the Legionnaires. I also moved up, getting my Errants into the opposing zone, with the Zealots moving in and mini feating early to hold my zone. Harby moved up and feated, accompanied by the Devout, and then used Purification to clear off the upkeeps and animi. 

Being caught in Harbinger's feat meant that the majority of Nick's stuff spent the turn shuffling sideways, with three of the pot carriers commiting suicide by feat to top up the pot for a free shredder. The Legionaries moved out of the Scythean's path to allow him to crab walk into contest his own zone. Thagrosh used the recently spawned shredder's animus to put Tenacity out on almost all of the battlegroup, and then moved up, taking 5 points of damage and spawning another Shredder. 

I started off by using Harbinger to Purify, clearing all the tenacity and buffs back off the table. She then moved to the side, toe in on my own zone. The Zealots moved further into my zone and threw three bombs at a Raek, doing a couple of points of damage, followed up by the Bastions and Dartan. The Errant Seneschal charged a bundle of Legionnaires, killing two thanks to assault. My Reckoner used its Flare shot to lower the defence of the Scythean in the zone. I was feeling greedy and wanted to score 3 points in one turn, I was dominating my own zone and wanted to kill the Scythean contesting and the objective to net another 2 points. Retrospectively what I should have done is moved backwards, out of the threat range of the Scythean and then shot the objective to death and settle on a single, second point. As it happened three of the Errants advanced into melee with the objective and the rest took shots. One on the objective and the rest at the Scythean, failing to destroy either and horribly exposing my Errants, who Rhupert put tough on. 

Following this it was time for Nick to bring the thunder. Thagrosh moved up, using his spray to kill some zealots from the zone and put a little damage on the bastions. Then he feated. The Reaks cleared most of the rest of the zealots, while he Scythean devoured a bunch of Errants, especially since I stupidly self sacrificed his initial, allowing him to get the Chain Attack. The Legionnaires then charged in to kill another few of them. I failed every single tough roll all game. A shredder charged into the Reckoner to lock it up, but took a defensive strike from the Devout, who took most of its spirals. And then all the beasts activated again, killing more Errants and putting some more hurt on the bastions, while also destroying my objective, equalising our scenario points. The Reak also moved to engage the Reckoner. 

This had left me in a bad position as I was going to struggle to control either zone to score again for the game. Despite this it was time for some damage control. I fully loaded the Reckoner and then had the Devout move up and finish off the shredder engaging the Reckoner. Harbinger then activated, giving guided hand to the Bastions and using Cataclysm on the Raek engaging the Reckoner. The bastions then charged the two Raeks, two on the Reckoner one and the rest on the other. Only one each had the charge bonus, but it was enough to kill them both. This freed up the Reckoner to charge the nearest of the pair of Scytheans in my zone, getting both of them and the Shepherd in reach range. The Flare hit, and with battle did a reasonable amount of damage, lowering the DEF so that anything but double ones  would hit. And so the charge Attack rolled a 2. Typical. I bought two attacks but didn't quite manage to finish it, leaving me in a bad position for the next turn. To mitigate this slightly the Vassal moved up to enliven. Meanwhile in the other zone the remaining Errants did nothing but had tough put back on them. The Paladin moved into the Legionnaires using Impervious Wall to tie some of them up. 

Taking advantage of the Reckoner's fumble the nearby Shepherd and Foresaken moved in B2B to pin the Reckoner to deny enliven. The shepherd also helpfully healed up the Scythean, restoring its aspects to allow it to start attacking the Reckoner fully. It bought all the available attacks but only managed to reduce it to a single box instead of destroying it. The one box left was the right arm, meaning I still had his other Scythean locked down. To remedy this the Legionnaires killed a pot member and each other to fill up the pot and spawn a Harrier, who used a true strike charge to finish off the heavy. The Shredder polished off the last Errants in the zone and the Scythean who'd been solo all game charged the vassal and a bastion, killing them both. Thagrosh then charged a bastion, buying several attacks against the bastions and Dartan, hoping to clear the zone. Thanks to Martyrdom Dartan survived, but two of the remaining Bastions died. I was left with 5 boxes on Harbinger. The final Scythean, no longer tied down by the Reckoner also charged into the bastions, killing another but missing an initial thanks to awe, so didn't set off the Chain Attack. This left me Dartan, one Bastion and two zealots in the zone. It also left Thagrosh quite far forward and camping only two. 

This was my best chance to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. I had been itching to check my ranges etc but hadn't wanted to tip my hand too early. As soon as my turn started I checked Harbinger's threat range and used a laser to check that she'd almost definitely be able to move along a line across the front arc of the Scythean and end up in melee with Thagrosh. I started my Hail Mary by having the Heirophant move up and give Harmonious Exhaultation to Harby. Dartan then moved around the Scythean, getting out of Harbinger's way. The remaining Bastion that had been Martyr'd back to life also shifted out of Harby's way before taking a swing at Thagrosh for 6 points that he elected not to transfer, leaving him with 9 boxes. Harby then charged in, auto-hitting with Providence. The charge Attack rolled exactly a 9, forcing him to transfer to a Scythean, and then I bought and boosted 3 more attacks. By the end of those he'd been forced to transfer with his last Fury and had 5 boxes remaining. I used the last 4 focus on Harbinger to cast a boosted Cataclysm, at with three dice doing dice +3 she couldn't fail to kill him, securing me a last minute win despite only having a handful of models left on the table!

This was a hard fought game and I felt that this was the best I've played against Nick, who is a more than capable player. As always when he puts models on the table it was a hugely enjoyable game and finally I managed to beat him! After being schooled by him multiple times I'm delighted to have finally managed to pull a win out of the bag against him. 

Looking back on the game I think my biggest mistakes were on my right flank, as I said above I should have moved the Errants back to shoot the objective instead of trying to be greedy on a much less likely outcome. Also, knowing how skilled a player Nick is it might have been more sensible to use an Ancilliary attack on the Reckoner on its failed charge to finish off the Scythean, since he succeeded in nullifying the enliven. Again, though, I did feel like this was the most effective game I've played so far against Nick and it was only a lucky assassination run that netted me the win, and it was very tight as to whether I'd be able to get it in! But I guess it's true - it's better to be lucky than good!

I'm finding that now I'm a slightly more experienced player the Harbinger is great to play with and can cause a lot of problems for an opponent. I'm looking forward to playing her some more in the coming weeks! Stay tuned!

And don't forget to like Mitsuharu on Minis on Facebook for more regular updates! And go buy some terrain from Solid Ground Studios while you're at it!

-M