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