Mitsuharu on Bat Reps - Saeryn and Rhyas, Talons of Everblight vs. Major Haley Prime

Hello everyone, despite the hiatus for a while there I am, in fact, not dead and I'm back for another Battle Report. I finally got the last of the models I needed to complete my eTwins list and, since I've been looking for something fresh to play, I decided to put them on the board. I was struggling with what they wanted in their list but after their coverage on Chain Attack I decided to play '"Trevor's" list' from the episode. It was a solid list and he played it well (better than I ever will anyway) and it's as good a starting point as any. So what that list included is:

eTwins +2

-Zuriel -10

-Nephilim Protector -5

-Seraph -8

-Naga -5

-Shredder -2

Max Spawning Vessel -3

Max Raptors -10

Max Croak Raiders -8

Objective - Bunker

The list isn't too complicated. Both the Croaks and the Raptors enjoy Occultation from Rhyas while being able to do plenty of damage on their own. The Protector gives no knockdown on the animus for Rhyas while tenacity is real nice in any list. The Seraph is important for the slipstream animus but can also strafe as needed. Zuriel is the heavy hitter but also works as a channeller for Saeryn and had Stealth from Rhyas. The pot helps keep beasts on the table for the greedy Twins who need lots of fury produced to keep them ticking over. Sadly, for the first time since I started Legion this list forced me to put unpainted models on the table, to my shame. My Croaks didn't arrive in time for paint this week but will be done by next time!

Pre-Game

This week I managed to get a game with veteran gamer Will who's not had a chance to play many games recently but was graduating to 50 points with his Cygnar force. Since I was practicing with eTwins he decided to play Hayley3 in his tier 3 list. It was made up of a Grenadier, Centurion and Thorn in the Hayleys' battlegroup, with a second Grenadier with a junior and then consisted of a bunch of Trenchers, with a min unit of Trenchers, a min unit of Commandos with two scattergunners, two chaingun crews, a mortar crew, two master gunners to accompany the Grenadiers and Maxwell Finn. These are some uncommon units and models but with the dig-in skew there's a lot of bodies and all of them have plenty of chance for really high DEF. We rolled out Recon for the scenario (this one seems to come up a lot for me for some reason!) and Will won the roll for initiative, taking the first turn. 

Deployment

Will set up with his battlegroup spread across the centre of the board, with the rest of his army advance deploying. I had the raptors on my left flank near the forest, my battlegroup in the middle and the pot dead centre to make the most of collection. The Trenchers then deployed with the commandos on my right flank with Hayley's Grenadier while the junior's Grenadier set up on the opposite flank with the regular Trenchers, the trio of gun teams in the middle to take advantage of the armoury objective. My croaks then set up in the space I'd left for them on the right flank. 

Cygnar Turn One

Will started the game by having everyone slog forward up the board and anyone who was able to dug in. Thanks to advance deploy they were still a decent ways up the board and starting to be in my face. The Hayleys put Tactical Supremacy on themselves and the junior put Arcane Shield on Thorn. 

Cygnar: 0 Legion: 0

 

Legion Turn One

My first turn was probably my quickest this game and still took ages. Twins takes some thinking. The Raptors ran up the board and hid behind the forest on that flank, the Naga and the Seraph riled and ran up. The twins activated and put out 6 Tenacities on the Croaks between them as well as Rhyas putting Occultation on the Croaks and Saeryn putting Banishing Ward on themselves. The Croaks then ran to spread out across the flank and Zuriel ran up followed by the Protector who put safeguard up on Rhyas. The pot shuffled up to sit comfortably in the middle of my stuff. 

Cygnar: 0 Legion: 0

Cygnar Turn Two

On the second Cygnar turn Will continued to have his Trenchers advance and dig in to maintain the DEF. Thorn ran right the way across the board, almost up to my objective, allowing Hayley to arc Repudiate onto the Croaks, knocking off occultation and putting 3 damage onto Rhyas which she did not like. The Grenadier on that flank as well as the commandos cleared off 6 of the croaks with shooting, when he realised that Zuriel had stealth and deflated his original plan. On the other flank the other grenadier took a pot shot at a Raptor and rolled exactly 5 damage to kill it. He then took a pot shot on the pot and killed 4 of the 6 attendants. Will'd forgotten to actually move the Hayleys but had upkept Tactical Supremacy so they shuffled up a little. 

Cygnar: 0 Legion: 0

Legion Turn Two

With most of my Croaks dead my right flank was looking pretty sad. Plus I had Thorn right up there in my face. He had activated disengage so it was going to be tricky if I missed him, which was likely. I had the now full pot drop out a harrier. That harrier charged into Thorn's back, hoping to limit his potential movement, but animused anyway for the auto hit, doing 4 points of damage despite needing high dice. Zuriel then advanced into melee after receiving Wraithbane from the Naga and took swings on Thorn. I crippled the shield early, making my damage more impactful but by the time I was full on fury I still had 1 box left to remove. So the Protector advanced up and knocked it off. Trying not to clump up too much I then had Saeryn advance up and then back to slipstream him out a little. The twins then spammed out Tenacities and Rhyas put solid ground on herself. The Raptors shot at the Trenchers but failed to hit any of them, light cav moving back. The frogs on my right flank, with not much left, threw some flaming spears at the Commandos, killing two of them. At the end of the turn Thorn was dead but I was sat on no camp on either of my casters. 

Cygnar: 0 Legion: 0

Cygnar Turn Three

On the following Cygnar turn Will had the commandos charge the remaining Croaks, killing all four of them but giving corrosion to all of his own guys at the same time thanks to vitriol. Mwahahaha. (Oops - it's been pointed out I made a mistake here and Vitriol only triggers if they don't die. First time using them. My bad) The regular Trenchers continued up the board, digging in yet again. The Grenadiers continued to blast away at my list, killing another raptor with exactly 5 damage again, removing the last of the Attendants from the Vessel and wounding the Seraph. One of the scatters landed squarely on Saeryn but even with a boost he didn't do any damage (phew!). The gun crews took a bunch of shots into the objective but thanks to impervious flesh they couldn't do a whole lot of damage to it. The Hayleys continued to advance up the board, Hayley Future took some shots into Zuriel thanks to true sight, but couldn't break his high Arm. 

Cygnar: 0 Legion: 0

Legion Turn Three

On my next turn I had some questions to answer. I felt that, thanks to corrosion, I could ignore the Commandos this turn. Zuriel advanced up and took a spray on Maxwell Finn, completely missing him even with the boost. He then bought a second spray (yes, ROF 2) on the Grenadier on his flank, killing the master gunner behind it. Saeryn and Rhyas activated and Saeryn channeled Blood Rain onto the Grenadier, boosting it, taking out the left arm, with the cannon, and the blast took out the commando giving him an extra shot. Perfect. Saeryn then pumped out some Tenacities. Rhyas advanced up with slipstream and pulled Zuriel back, ending her movement in Thorn's wreck marker, B2B with the objective. Bit further up than I'd been doing but with four transfers I felt OK about it. The raptors moved up, one advancing into Melee with a trencher but still missing both attacks, as did the two shooting Ulk. The Naga moved back to hide behind the wall. The Seraph stood still to aim and managed to kill the two Trenchers B2B with the Grenadier using all of his fury on a full strafe to get it done. 

Cygnar: 0 Legion: 0

Cygnar Turn Four

On the Cygnar turn the combined gun crews all targeted my Objective and managed to clear it off, gaining a victory point and leaving me not contesting the Zone as Rhyas was the only model in there. The Grenadier on my left managed to polish off the Seraph, costing me the useful animus but filling the pot again. Hayley's future incarnation took a bunch of shots at Zuriel, managing to take out his body with some boosts thanks to the feat they popped this turn. Hayley Prime advanced into the zone to dominate. On my left flank the engaged trencher took a desperate swing and managed to kill the raptor with exactly 5 damage again. Sigh. The Hayleys shuffled around a bit with Tactical Supremacy then Will ended his turn going up to 3. 

Cygnar: 3 Legion: 0

Legion Turn Four

I was now seriously down on victory points but Hayley had moved into Rhyas' threat range, charmingly. I started by taking two threshold checks with my Nephilim who both passed. Zuriel advanced up and sprayed through the forest to catch Prime Hayley. Both sprays covered her but I couldn't hit even with boosts. Never mind. I was only hoping for a cont. fire cherry on top. The Vessel produced a shredder who advanced up to give Saeryn a charge target that would keep them in formation and still let her activate. The Naga advanced up and gave Wraithbane to Rhyas to avoid the Temporal Flux The twins then went, Rhyas cast Onslaught to give herself pathfinder on the charge and went into Hayley prime, followed by Saeryn into the Shredder. Rhyas hit her weapon master charge attack despite set defence and did 10 damage to the warcaster. My plan if Rhyas didn't pull it off was to feat and tag Saeryn in for more attacks, but first I cast flashing blade, boosting the hit and polishing off the last boxes with a huge weapon master damage roll, getting me the assassination win. 

Cygnar: 3 Legion: 0

Legion Assassination Win

Post-Game

I've got to say this is probably my favourite game I've played in a while. Both of our lists were really complicated, particularly our casters, but that complexity made it a really interesting game. I enjoyed the toolbox element of my list and having the excess fury to use most of it. Though it is a nightmare trying to keep up with it all. I also felt like this was a really great crucible for the Twins and I even managed to break my losing streak with the assassination. I'm really looking forward to getting this list on the table again (though I definitely wouldn't want to play it on a clock!). This has really invigorated my passion, which had been flagging a little lately!

As always thanks for reading, and don't forget to check out the Facebook page and 'like' for regular post updates, photos and more at www.facebook.com/Mitsuharuonminis 

-M

Mitsuharu on Bat Reps - Thagrosh, the Messiah vs. Garryth, Blade of the Retribution

Hi everyone. The journeyman league is over and I'm back up to full points again! To celebrate being up to 50 points I decided to break out a new Warlock. After some consideration I decided to go with Thagrosh, the Messiah, since I love the sculpt and I wanted to play a badass! The list I built up for him was:

eThagrosh +3

-Scythean -9

-Scythean -9

-Scythean -9

-Shredder -2

-Raek -4

-Naga -5

Foresaken -2

Foresaken -2

Max Legionnaires -6

Incubus -5

Objective - Fuel Cashe

This list is heavy on beasts to benefit from the feat and Manifest Destiny. The Raek can help with infantry where needed and the Naga can scalpel out annoyances and lend its animus out where needed. Obviously Fuel Cashe helps the list to get out onto the board for free and the Foresaken also provide some fury management while being useful in their own right. The Legionnaires can jam up scenario well, especially with the incubus package to keep them in the zones for longer. 

Pre-Game

This week I managed to get a game against Retribution, a faction I've only played against a couple of times. My opponent decided to play Garryth with Sylys, Moros, a Griffon and a Chimera in his battlegroup. The rest of the army consisted of two units of Stormfall Archers, a max unit of Strike force with Eiryss3 and a whole mess of solos including Narn, Nayl, two assassins, two Magisters and an artificer. The scenario I rolled was Incoming and Rik, my opponent, won the roll for initiative. He decided to go first, since the terrain was almost completely symmetrical. 

Deployment 

Rik deployed his battlegroup centrally and then placed one unit of Stormfall Archers on each flank, supplementing this with the strike force on the flank near my zone and with his solos on the other flank. I deployed my battlegroup to the right of centre and had my legionnaires opposite the opposing zone on my left, along with the Naga to benefit from the nearby forest. 

Retribution Turn One

Rik started by having all of his models run forwards taking up positions far up the board. Eiryss moved into the forest in my zone accompanied by assassins. The Magisters and artificers advanced into jam the Ret zone. 

Ret: 0 Legion: 0

Legion Turn One 

On my turn I knew I was going to have to move into threat range of his army especially since he had so much ranged in his list. I advanced the Naga into the forest and ran everything else pretty much directly forward. Thagrosh put Unnatural Agression on a Scythean and Dragon's Blood on the Legionnaires. Then I braced for impact. 

Ret: 0 Legion: 0

Retribution Turn Two

For the most of Rik's turn he focused fire on my Warbeasts. One Scythean got hit with a Gallows to drag it out and then shot it with a bunch of Stormfall archers on that flank, putting the hurt on him. Nayl then charged in and did some more damage, joined by both of his jacks, seriously wounding my Scythean but only taking out the Spirit. On the same flank he also killed a pair of legionnaires, triggering Vengence and giving me a host token as well. On the other flank the Stormfall archers and Strike Force took pot shots at the another Scythean. The Assassins both charged into the Raek but, despite Decapitation they didn't manage to finish it. This was a pretty rough opening and a lot of damage to my army early on! 

Ret: 0 Legion: 0

Legion Turn Two

My turn was a complete disaster. I'll be honest - it went about as badly as any turn in any game I've ever played and I went a little bit on tilt, which is pretty rare for me. It felt like the whole turn was an uphill battle where I got punched in face every step. I started the turn by having the Legionnaires clear the path for my Scythean to advance into chain attack range of both lights and Narn. Unfortunately the way I did that was killing Nayl. Who was within 7.5" of Thagrosh, stripping all of his fury and totally crippling me for the rest of the turn. My two damaged beasts had both lost an aspect which I now couldn't heal. The engaged Scythean missed the chain attack and so totally failed to accomplish anything. On the other flank both of my other Scytheans charged the Strike Force and Stormfall Archers resepctively but only managed to kill Eiryss between them. The Incubus and Naga took attacks into the Magisters but missed everything even with boosts. Thagrosh then backed off, but because I was on tilt and not thinking I moved him out of control on my heavies on the flank. Overall the Nayl bomb damaged me and my morale, and I failed my mental command check and messed up my turn by not thinking. By the end of the turn the only thing I'd accomplished was killing two targets, one of whom stripped my fury. That and expose all my heavies. I resigned myself to the upcoming retaliation. 

Ret: 0 Legion: 0

Retribution Turn Three

Luckily for me the Retribution retaliation wasn't nearly as bad as it could've been. Both of my Foresaken were killed, one by a Mage Hunter Assassin and one by Narn when he was freed up by the two lights finishing off my critically wounded Scythean. Garryth moved up to give apparition to one of the jacks. The Stormfall archers set a bunch of my Legionnaires on fire with their bows. The engaged Stormfall archers and Strike force on the other flank were ineffective at handling the two remaining Scytheans, not struggling to hit but having a hard time breaking their relatively high armour. Even Moros, who joined in, had difficulty doing anything as he hadn't been allocated any focus this turn. Overall this turn wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting given how much of a disaster my last turn had been. 

Ret: 0 Legion: 0

Legion Turn Three

No longer affected by Nayl I was able to get Thagrosh back up to full fury, though I did have to cut for three after stupidly moving him out of control on the Raek. That Raek, unable to drop the fury Frenzied and killed the Assassin engaging him. Thagrosh moved up and healed the aspects on the wounded Scythean before casting Manifest Destiny and using his feat. With manifest destiny up both Scytheans used all of their Fury to annihilate a whole bunch of elves. The central one took his attacks against Moros, using the tougher jack to trigger the Chain Attack, clearing off a bunch and finishing off the stealthy light. Meanwhile the Naga moved up and took out Narn with a shot. The Shredder gave Tenacity to Thagrosh and went rabid to put himself between the nearby jacks and my caster, clogging their charge lanes. The remaining Legionnaires made a nuisance of themselves in the Ret zone. Thanks to the feat I then moved the Naga back into the forest, had one Scythean kill another Strike Force member and the Raek killed the other assassin. The other Scythean advanced with his feat move right into Garryth and took a swing with Greater Destiny. It connected and left the elf caster with just five boxes. 

Ret: 0 Legion: 0

Retribution Turn Four

Garryth was now in a bit of a sticky situation. The priority was obviously stopping the Scythean he was engaged with before it killed him. To accomplish this he had the Griffon apparition backwards, out of Melee with the Legionnaire engaging him, along with the Chimera who did the same. Unfortunately for Rik he forgot to allocate anything to the Jacks and so when they moved back and engaged the Scythean they weren't able to finish him off, leaving him on a couple of boxes. This meant that Garryth had to come in and finish the job himself. Luckily it didn't take much from him to cut down the last few points of the heavy beast. The Stormfall Archers in the Ret zone moved up and took some shots on the Shredder but failed to kill him thanks to poor RAT. The Magisters and Artificers finished off the remaining Legionnaires giving me the last four Incubi. The remaining couple of Strike Force took some swings at the Scythean but were still unable to hurt him meaningfully. The remaining unit of Stormfall Archers advanced up and took some shots at the objective, not quite managing to destroy it to score a point. 

Ret: 0 Legion: 0

Legion Turn Four 

On my turn I could see that the attrition battle probably wasn't going to go my way at this point but Garryth was sat on only a medium camp and a couple of boxes so the path to victory seemed pretty clear. I considered trying for a spell assassination but the dice were a bit shaky and Thagrosh was a bit far out. I decided the best plan was to free up the last Scythean to do the job. First I produced the remaining four Incubus into the Ret zone. They spread out, making a bother in the zone and killing the Magisters, Sylys and a couple of the Stormfall archers on that flank. I then had Thagrosh move up and spray onto the Stormfall Archers on the other flank, boosting to hit two of them, clearing them out of the charge lane. Thags then cast Manifest Destiny and healed the aspects on the beasts. I then had the Raek advance around and finish off the last Stormfall, clearing the path for the Scythean. The heavy then activated and charged Garryth, taking two free strikes from the last of the Strike Force. Both hit bit did no meaningful damage. The Scythean boosted the charge attack and, with Manifest Destiny was able to land the hit, which was more than enough to put the caster down. 

Legion Assassination Victory

Post-Game

Despite the agonising second turn this game was good fun and it was cool to play against Ret as they're a faction I rarely see. It did feel good to be back up to 50 points too after playing smaller games for a few weeks! I was annoyed with myself for going so far on tilt in turn two and I did apologise after the game but thankfully Rik was very sporting about it and agreed that he'd have felt the same way if the roles were reversed. Luckily I managed to pull an assassination win out of the bag because otherwise I think it was pretty sketchy. I wouldn't like to have guessed who would've come out on top if the game went on a little longer! 

As always thanks for reading, and don't forget to check out the Facebook page and 'like' for regular post updates, photos and more at www.facebook.com/Mitsuharuonminis 

-M

Mitsuharu on Bat Reps - Saeryn, Omen of Everblight vs Dr. Arkadius

Hi everyone and welcome to the latest battle report! This week my intended opponent wasn't able to make it in for our game. Luckily I managed to find an opponent from the people who'd turned up on the day. So I ended up playing my first game against Minions. Specifically against Thornfall Farrow. I'm still trying to get more competitive with my Saeryn list and so that's what I was set on using. The list's stayed the same:

Saeryn +5

-Angelius -9

-Angelius -9

-Scythean -9

-Scythean -9

-Raek -4

-Shredder -2

Foresaken -2

Foresaken -2

Deathstalker -2

Deathstalker -2

Spell Martyr -1

Spell Martyr -1

Maximum Spawning Vessel -3

Objective - Fuel Cashe

I feel like I've really tightened my game with her recently and my latest games have been much better with her. Nevertheless I still want to keep my practice up. 

Pregame

My opponent considered his lists carefully but ended up deciding to play with Dr. Arkadius. He was playing in the new No Quarter tier list at tier 4. This included Targ, 2 Road Hogs, 2 War Hogs, 2 Gun Boars, 2 Gorax, a min unit of Bone Grinders and 6 (yes, 6) free Razor Boars. The scenario we were playing was Close Quarters. I lost the roll for the start of the game and so got to choose the board edge. I chose the side with a forest for Saeryn to lurk in near my flag, leaving a large forest blocking the Farrow deployment. 

Deployment

The Farrow deployed with the Gorax, Warhogs and Arkadius centrally with the Bone Grinders at the rear. Then a Road Hog and Gun Boar deployed on each flank. The Razor Boars set up throughout the army. On my flank I deployed with the Scytheans near my own flag and the Angels opposite the other flag. Saeryn went down centrally with her support. 

Farrow Turn One

The Minions started by having basically everything running for free thanks to the tier. The War Hogs advanced up towards the forest in the middle of the board while the flanking elements moved out further around the outskirts. The Boars ran up in a screening line across the army. Arkadius put out Aggravator on himself. 

Legion: 0 Farrow: 0

Legion Turn One

On my own first turn I had Saeryn put Respawn on the closest Scythean and Banishing Ward on herself, before putting out Tenacity on the Raek. Then she moved up and popped her feat. Following that all of the other models in the battlegroup ran up, staying within her feat bubble. Except the Shredder who moved up and put out Tenacity on Saeryn. The Deathstalkers took a couple of pot shots at a Boar but not enough to seriously damage it. The Spell Martyrs ran up the flanks. 

Farrow: 0 Legion: 0

Farrow Turn Two

On the Farrow turn things were stymied by Saeryn's feat. To manage my army the Razor Boars all moved up to jam into my battlegroup. The Road Hogs advanced up on the flanks, one of them spraying down a Deathstalker, the other spraying the Boar and Angelius, setting them both on fire. The War Hogs advanced up further, having to move through and around the large forest. The Gun Boar near the Farrow flag shot my Foresaken and killed her on an ancillary attack from Targ, taking out a Pot attendant too, helping to fill up my pot for next turn. 

Farrow: 0 Legion: 0

Legion Turn Two

On my turn I had the Raek disentangle itself with a leap to engage both of the Boars tying up my Angels. It took its attacks and bought extras but didn't manage to kill either of them. On the other flank the farthest Scythean advanced to get the Gun Boar in its range while staying close enough to the boar engaging him and not take a free strike. It then proceeded to wipe out the light, but missed the Chain Attack. The other Scythean took all of its attacks on the Boars engaging it but only managed to kill one. That gave the pot the last token it needed to spawn a Stinger to be able to engage the boar that had been engaging the Raek. Saeryn channeled Breath Stealer through a Martyr onto the War Hog, seriously hobbling the heavy. She then used Blight Bringer on the Raek, but still didn't finish off either Boar. One of the Angels then stayed where it was, finishing off the Boar engaging it, and the other charged the Road Hog on that flank, seriously hurting it. The remaining Deathstalker advanced to engage the other Road Hog preventing it from reaching Saeryn who was camping nothing. 

Farrow: 0 Legion: 0

Farrow Turn Three

On the Farrow turn all of the Boars frenzied, attaking the models they were engaging. Meanwhile one of the Gorax activated to put out his animus on the Road Hog engaging the Angel. Both of the War Hogs continued towards my army, one slogging through the forest and the other tagged with Blight Bringer meaning they could barely move. The primal'd Road Hog used all of its attacks and an ancillary from Targ to take out the Angel thanks to the animus on it. The other Gorax moved up but was just short on the Primal for the other Road Hog. Arkadius then moved up and across towards the bulk of his army and put out Forced Evolution on the Road Hog thanks to the extended range from the Bone Grinders and used Psycho Surgery to heal up the beasts. Then he used his feat. Each of the Boars frenzied into the same targets as the start of the turn. The Road Hog that had taken out the Angel frenzied up and into the Raek, the total weight of attacks managing to finish it off. On the other, heavier flank the Road Hog frenzied into the Deathstalker to clear her from its path. The Gorax on that flank then frenzied into the Scythean to soften it up. Now clear, that Road Hog charged into the nearby Scythean using all of its attacks but managed to leave it with a single box, just coming up short on killing it. 

Farrow: 0 Legion: 0

Legion Turn Three

On my turn Saeryn upkept Banishing Ward and then paid two to heal the wounded Scythean back to functionality. The Foresaken, who'd been fully loaded last turn, hopped up to the Melee and let loose with her Blight, getting 6 dice on the Road Hog, softening it up nicely, as well as doing a couple of points to the Gorax and the Boar. The mostly dead Scythean then activated and took his revenge, destroying the Road Hog and hurting the Gorax some more. The Shredder went rabid to take out the boar engaging the other Scythean, killing it to free its charge into the exposed War Hog, managing to take it out and chain attack to finish off the Gorax. The pot spawned a Stinger to move up and engage the Boar that was a little too close to Saeryn. The remaining Angel then charged up and spiked the damage on the Road Hog, killing it with the Armour Pierce. Saeryn then channeled Breath Stealer, boosting the hit, into the remaining War Hog in the forest, meaning it could barely move next turn with the cumulative penalties. Satisfied but not stupid she moved back and toe in on the forest to stay as safe as possible. 

Farrow: 0 Legion: 0

Farrow Turn Four

It was reaching a point where we'd both attritioned down with not much left on the table. Looking at the board it was clear that my Scytheans had to die or they'd get to Arkadius. Because of the speed debuffs, though, it was hard to achieve that. Luckily the Boar in the rear of the wounded Scythean frenzied and finally killed the heavy. Arkadius himself then walked into Melee with the remaining Scythean and tapped it with a mind control needle, forcing it to shamble over with its back to the War Hog. The remaining Gorax used its animus to buff up the War Hog who then managed to beat down the Scythean from almost full to very dead. The gun boar took some pot shots on the pot managing to dink it for a few points. The Bone Grinders then ran up to try and screen Arkadius. 

Farrow: 0 Legion: 0

Legion Turn Four 

On my turn Arkadius was definitely exposed. I reeved in my Fury and then allowed the two lessers to frenzy, managing to finish off the boar they were engaging. This filled up the pot who put out a Harrier to fly into the boar engaging the Angel, managing to clear it off thanks to animus and charge. Saeryn then moved up and flicked a knife into Arkadius to deny the transfers. I had the shot from the Angel to finish him off but first I blasted him with a double boosted Hellfire. The dice exploded, though, and finished off Arkadius herself. 

Post-Game

This was a fun game and a hard attrition match up with loads of dead heavies on both sides. It felt like the game swung pretty heavily each turn as each of us got a lot of work done. The tier list benefits for Arkadius are really pretty great. The primal from the Gorax helps to power up the Farrow beasts to a much more threatening level. The free run and the extra 2" mean you have pigs jammed down your face really early. Plus the free Razor Boars proved a real pain in the ass to clear off. By the end of the game I still hadn't killed them all! I feel like I made good use of Saeryn's tool box this game, using pretty much every trick at her disposal to wrangle out the win. Good thing too otherwise it wasn't looking too good for me with only an Angel and some lights left for me! Luckily I managed to pull it out though!

In another couple of weeks I'll be starting into the Journeyman League at my LGS so expect a whole bunch of reports from that soon! And more in the meantime, of course!

As always thanks for reading, and don't forget to check out the Facebook page and 'like' for regular post updates, photos and more at www.facebook.com/Mitsuharuonminis 

-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