Tourney Tales - 2015 JML mini tournament

Welcome back everyone. This week my local Press Ganger, Dave, decided to run a mini-tournament to cap off the Journeyman League that had been running recently (check the archive for more of my experiences in that). The format was 2 35 point lists, one with one of your journeyman casters and one with your starter battlegroup, not necessarily in the same list. We also had some pretty fancy seasonal boards to play on too. The tournament was broken down into two 'pods' of 4 players. Basically the winners of the two games from the pod would face each other and so would the losers, deciding the rankings that way. My JML score got me into the top pod of players! So the two lists I decided to run were:

List One

eVayl +6

Machinations of Shadow - Tier 4

-Seraph -7

-Scythean -8

-Angelius -8

-Angelius -8

Shepherd -1

Max Spawning Vessel -3

Max Legionnaires -6

Objective - Arcane Wonder

List Two

Saeryn +5

-Scythean -9

-Scythean -9

-Angelius -9

Max Spawning Vessel -3

Foresaken -2

Foresaken -2

Spell Martyr -1

Spell Martyr -1

Deathstalker -2

Deathstalker -2

Objective - Fuel Cashe

Game One

My first game was against Alan, one of the other Legion players in the JML. His two lists were a pThagrosh and an eAbby list. I decided to go ahead with the Saeryn list since there was a lot of Melee in his two lists. He'd seen my Saeryn list and realised his Melee heavy Abby list would be pretty badly hamstrung by the feat and so decided to throw down pThagrosh. The list included a Scythean, Seraph, Shredder and a Raek along with two shepherds, two Deathstalkers and a max unit of Warspears with UA. This list had plenty of shooting to overcome my feat but not enough to be too overwhelming. The first round scenario was Outflank. I got the first turn and started by running everything up the board, swapping my Scytheans around to deny prey from the ogrun. Saeryn put out Banishing ward on herself and Respawn on a Scythean.

Alan then followed suit by having his army run up, mainly heading towards the zone on my right to fill that up. Thagrosh threw out Draconic on the ogrun to boost up their hitting power. Thagrosh hid behind an obstruction for some added cover. 

On my turn I had my Scytheans advance into each zone and then had my Angelius charge the Seraph but it was half an inch out. Then I had Saeryn advance up and feat, catching all of my beasts to give them a little safety and then burned out a martyr to put Breath Stealer onto the opposing Scythean. 

With my Angelius exposed Alan had almost all of his army shoot to try and take it down. Most of the force aimed and took pot shots, doing a ton of damage but, even with the entire force, he didn't quite manage to clear it, leaving it on 3 boxes with nothing left that could shoot, much to Alan's frustration. The Raek on the other flank shuffled to actually get toe in on the zone to contest. 

On my turn I had the Scythean on my left charge the Raek and slaughter it, gaining control of the zone. Saeryn healed up the aspects on the Angel who then charged and polished off the two Ogrun in the zone with an armour pierce and an extra attack, securing that control too. The Deathstalkers took some shots on the Warspears but had trouble with their high ARM. The Foresaken each gobbled up a helping of Fury. Then I ended the turn up to two control points. 

Alan took the exposed Scythean as an invitation and charged it with his own. After some pretty decent rolls he managed to destroy it but it respawned to get out of the way. The Warspears charged to get into the zone more and managed to roll high on an assault into one of the Deathstalkers, splattering it. The Seraph rolled low again on its strafe and didn't get much in. Thagrosh feated back the Raek who advanced into the pot and then put tenacity onto the Scythean in the zone. 

On my turn I had my freshly respawned Scythean advance into Alans but apparently his was better trained than mine and rolled super low on damage and couldn't really get the job done. The other Scythean made up for it, though and killed a couple of Warspears, the Foresaken using its fury to tear apart another one. The last one (the UA) was frustratingly hard to clear and the spawned animused charging harrier didn't polish it off and neither did the blightbringer that clipped it. My damage rolls really letting me down his turn. In a last ditch Saeryn moved up stupidly and used some of her last fury to flick a knife at him, cranking the to hit in Melee and finally killed him, leaving me with 4 control points and no transfer targets. 

Alan started his turn by having his Deathstalkers advance up and take shots. They both hit her high DEF and put a few points on her. The Seraph reared up, getting ready to polish her off just as dice down was called. I was literally seconds away from a loss but I was saved by the bell and won the game with 5 control points!

Game One: First Tiebreaker Win

Game Two

With my win in game one I was paired with the winner of the other round one game which was, of course, Nick whose beautiful terrain we were battling over, who'd managed to win his game against Ben's Skorne two tables down. As it was D&C1 we were both locked into our other lists. This left me with Machinations of Shadow. Nick had played his Goreshade list on the other table and so that left me to deal with his evil, evil pDenny list. It included a Skarlock, a Slayer and a Deathripper in the battlegroup along with a Machine Wraith, a max unit of Nyss Hunters, the Devils Shadow, Rockbottom, Dougal and Wrong Eye and Snapjaw. I played against this list several times in the league and it destroyed me very well whenever I played into it so this was the list I'd been dreading. 

The scenario for round two was Destruction and, despite my +1 I lost the roll to go first. Nick chose sides, picking the more defensive terrain, giving me first turn. I started the game by running everyone up the board to claim some real estate, putting Admonition and Refuge on the two angels respectively as well as Occultation on the Legionnaires. The Seraph and Scythean advanced up to near the zone in the nearby forest. The Legionnaires and Spawning Vessel plodded up the centre of the board. 

Nick followed suit by having his Nyss run out, spreading themselves across the front line followed up by everything else. Denny herself advanced up with the Devil's Shadow to hide behind the nearby wall. Wrong Eye and his pet advanced up to the nearby hill and Submerged themselves to avoid any shooting malarkey. 

On my turn the Seraph advanced up and killed the front two Devil's Shadow with its gun and the Scythean shuffled further into the forest. The Legionnaires ran to gum up the zone a little followed by the pot. The Angels just shuffled around on my flank pulling in a little while Vayl snuck up behind the obstruction to get cover. 

On Nick's turn he had Denny move out of her wall and into the open so he could feat, managing to catch the majority of my models (only Vayl and the Vessel avoided it) he then proceeded to have his shooting take out a couple of my legionnaires (bringing back the two dead Devils Shadow) and spot remove one of my Angels, putting some serious hurt on the other one what he was at it. The Machine wraith ran into the zone to be incorporeal and contest like a pain. 

Under Denny's feat my army was pretty bad but I saw an opportunity on Denny since she was actually exposed. I had my Legionnaires and pot shuffle around to expose a lane and then spawned a harrier to be Vayl's channeler. Vayl moved up to exactly 10" away and pinged it in the back. Then she feated and threw a free obliteration at Dougal, hoping to clip Denny in the Blast. The AOE is smaller than I thought and so missed her, simply splattering Dougal. I bought another one on a Nyss and hit, killing two Nyss and getting boosted blast damage on Denny. Unfortunately my dice weren't amazing and I only did a little damage. The Seraph advanced up Strafed into her with two shots, actually managing to hit with one despite the reduced RAT, but the damage roll wasn't great and she was left with 12 boxes. My surviving Angel pulled back and the Scythean shuffled deeper into the forest to end my turn. 

My assassination run hadn't been very successful but luckily I hadn't exposed myself too much and I'd used my other feat spells to put Occultation on the Pot, Admonition on Vayl to give her a smidge  more protection and Refuge on the Scythean. So on Nick's turn he took the safe route and moved a bunch of stuff into the zone, including both of his jacks, locking out the scenario until he could wipe out the rest of my army. He also managed to slaughter a bunch of legionnaires along the way too. Denny hopped back behind the wall. 

On my turn I had the remaining legionnaires clear out a path for the Harrier I spawned to move up and be another node for Vayl at the end of the turn. The Scythean charged up and destroyed the objective and killing a devils shadow before refuging back. That scored the first control point of the game. The Angel then flew over to the other flank settling near Vayl. The Consul herself through out her oraculus and got channeler to boost an Oblit into Denny. I boosted the hit and managed to get exactly enough to hit her even behind the wall. My clock ended but I was able to take the damage roll. I couldn't boost since I was sat on nothing now and my clock was over. The dice came out too low to polish her off. 

With Vayl camping nothing Nick started his final plan. Snapjaw charged up and killed a legionnaire to free up the arc to allow Denny to double boost a Scourge into her. The damage roll came up big and left me on 3 boxes and knocked down. The Nyss were next to move up and put Vayl down with a big CMA. Again, though, Dave called dice down seconds before my loss and, since I'd taken out the Objective last turn I was up by one control point and won the game. 

Game Two: First Tiebreaker Win

Post-Games 

These were two really close games that I managed to get a win despite being on the very precipice of stupid losses. I felt like I played fairly solid games up until the ends of both games but luckily I managed to luck my way into wins. Regardless this made me the overall winner of the tournament, deserving or not! I was completely wiped out by this point but I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I was pretty pleased, not just with the result, especially since I didn't feel I particularly deserved the wins, but with how great a time I had. I'd had a long day and was a bit under the weather so I was expecting to not have the best time but I really enjoyed the games and it was enthusing to play. 

I'm planning to take a bit of a palette cleansing break from Warmachine for a while. In fact I just picked up Fishermen for Guildball! I'm actually really excited to play a new game so expect some posts about Guildball coming soon!

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 2 - Weeks 5 & 6

Hey guys. Sorry for the irregular updates recently I've been really busy the past few weeks. I am still here though, don't worry! Hopefully I'll be back to some normality soon and the posts will be back on schedule! Anyway the Journeyman League at my local store is still running and I've had a game the past two weeks. I upgraded my vanilla 25 point eVayl list to a 35 point tier 4 machinations of Shadows list:

eVayl +6

Machinations of Shadow - Tier 4

-Seraph -7

-Scythean -8

-Angelius -8

-Angelius -8

Shepherd -1

Max Spawning Vessel -3

Max Legionnaires -6

Objective - Arcane Wonder

This is a pretty solid list with a nice jam and 4 extra points thanks to the tier. Basically this drops the Raek from the last couple of weeks and instead gets two Angelii. Not a bad trade at all!

In week five I tried this list out against Nick with his 'only Cryx in the village'. He'd gone for Gorehade1 as his alternate caster with bane swarm, featuring a max unit of Knights and Thralls with UA along with Darragh, Tartarus and Gorman in support. Nick ran all his stuff up and I went for a crazy long shot assassination using his Slayer as a oraculus channeller, throwing everything I had at Goreshade. Unfortunately I forgot a crucial slipstream and so was short on the Angelius and lost my armour pierce. Thanks to this stupid mistake I essentially allowed his Cryx to take out the majority of my remaining forces that were now exposed. I conceded the game after a couple of turns of trying to finish off Goreshade when he was no more dead and I had nothing left to win the game. I realised that it's stupid to go for anything other than a solid assassination when this list is so capable of attrition and control. I decided to completely remove assassination from my mental win conditions. Now it's there if a good line opens itself up but it is not going to be my actual strategy. 

For week six, the finale, I had a game against Rik whose Circle I'd played in week one. He was still playing pKaya but was now running a beast heavy list with a Shadowhorn, a Feral, a Warpwolf, a Rotterhorn and a Wilder (who isn't a beast but is in the battlegroup so...) as well as a minimum unit of Ravagers and a unit of shifting stones capped off with the feralgeist. In this game we were playing Destructuon. The circle played a 'hit and run' style, getting in to kill my screening line of Legionnaires and then pull back out of my heavies' threat ranges to avoid retaliation. This was a sneaky plan but it did leave a minimal presence in the zone, which allowed me to kill the couple of models in the zone and repulse out the rest then clear off the objective with a Scythean to dominate, leaving me with 3 points. Rik essentially had the choice between feeding me his beasts or not holding the zone. He tried to hit me hard enough to take a couple of heavies and pulled back, but all my beasts were still alive. He had a feralgeist in the zone but Vayl killed it with a decent Oraculus shot, dominating again for the win. 

Overall I really enjoyed using this list and to be honest I've enjoyed the journeyman overall. It's cool to be able to get a few games each night at the lower points and then you really appreciate the higher points more when you can get back to playing 'proper' games! Think I'll try something new next week, though! Plus I've learned a few hard lessons about my lists too!

Hopefully as of next week I'll be back to regular updates as well as photos and more! 

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 2 - Week 1

Hi everyone and welcome to my first week of the Journeyman League at my LGS. At popular request from a few members of the community our press Ganger decided to run a new JML. I decided that I didn't want to switch factions since I'm really into Legion at the minute. Besides I don't want to play Menoth and don't have money to buy a new faction! I have only played a couple of casters in the faction, though, namely Saeryn, Thagrosh and eLylyth. So I decided this was a good opportunity to play someone new. One of the casters I've been interested in but hesitant to play is Vayl. Obviously she's a good caster but I didn't want to start with such a finesse caster when I was just getting a hold on the faction as I've discussed previously. But with the incremental system of the JML I thought I could get a good grip on her. The fact that she's one of the new alternate JML warlocks is perfect. Because I'm an evil bastard I had my battlegroup as:

pVayl +6

-Scythean -9

-Seraph -8

This is a variation on her standard JML battlegroup allowed by our local rules. This would really let me play around with some movement tricks and awesome threat extension. So with that decided we  had the first day of gaming this week. I managed to get five games done in one night, which I was pretty happy with. I played Tooth and Claw/Mangled Metal in all of the games. 

Game One

My first game was against a player who had opted to play circle for the league, taking pKaya with two Argus and a Feral warwolf. This game was fairly quick, which would set the trend for the games at this low point level. I managed to get the Scythean into the Feral and kill it before pulling back with Vayl's feat. The Argus weren't able to take out the Scythean's high ARM without the heavy. I used a boosted rampager to move the Arguses next to each other and with a back facing the Scythean who, with Incite and Chiller tore them to little pieces, meeting the Tooth and Claw win condition to net me the game. 

Game Two

My second game was against a Troll player who had moved into hordes from Menoth for the JML. He was playing the standard pMadrak battlebox of two Impalers and an Axer. He moved up pretty far on his turn two and that let me get my Scythean into an Impaler and the Axer. With the Chiller/Incite combo it got both of them killed before pulling back with the feat. The Seraph strafed into the other Impaler, cranking the dice and putting plenty of damage on it. Next turn he was able to stranglehold the Scythean and put a couple of points of damage on him. I then slip-streamed the Scythean into Melee with Madrak but the second strafe from the Seraph finished off the last Impaler to score the win before I needed to assassinate. 

Game Three

My next game was against Will, one of the more experienced players in the meta who always gives me a tough game when we play. He was taking the shift into Cygnar and using the JML to do it. He wasn't too happy with the restrictions for the starting options and was grudgingly playing pStryker with a Grenadier and a Centurion. I moved up threateningly turn one and he decided to run up and feat. Because of the lack of Scenario I just waited him out, sat back on the board. The next turn he moved up and threw up Polarity Shield to prevent charges. Luckily with Slipstream I was in range to walk up and smack him with the Scythean. I didn't boost properly though and did very little damage to him, pulling back with the feat to sit near Vayl. Will charged the Centurion into the Scythean, fully loaded, but triggered Dark Sentinel allowing it to move out of Melee. The free strike hurt but not as much as dying to the multiple attacks. Since he had focus to spare he put the Polarity back up. Next turn the Scythean was able to kill the Centurion but got killed by Stryker next turn. The Seraph charged the exposed Stryker to get the assassination but only managed to reduce him to four boxes. Next turn Stryker failed to kill the Seraph after burning all of his stack, missing three attacks, leaving him with nothing to protect him from the Seraph next turn, winning me the game on an assassination. This was probably the closest game I'd played and was great fun, coming right down to the wire at the end. 

Game Four 

My next game was against regular opponent and all round nice guy Nick of Solid Ground studios who was playing Cryx in the JML. He was playing at a huge deficit so he'd be able to squeeze more infantry in next week so he only had pDenny with a Slayer and a Nightwretch. He took first turn and we both advanced up the board. He went for a turn 2 feat and put Crippling Grasp on my Scythean. With a combination of Leash/Slipstream I was able to move up far enough to get Denny in my reach with the Scythean. With Chiller and Incite I was able to hit her three times with boosted attacks and do just enough to assassinate and win the game. 

Game Five

My final game of the night was against Andy, who I've played a few times in the past but who always manages to beat me. He was playing Circle in the league and had gone for pBalder with a Pureblood and a Woldwarden. I took first turn and, despite Andy staying pretty far back, I was able to get the alpha on the Pureblood. I didn't quite manage to destroy it in one turn and so used the feat to pull back. The Pureblood charged into the Scythean but I was able to use Dark Sentinel again to pull back, taking the free strike instead of the full battery of attacks. After that the Seraph was able to finish off the Stalker with shooting and the Scythean got into the Warden, killing it in one turn with Incite and Chiller, scoring me another win. 

Wrap-Up

I had a pretty great start to the JML, especially since I managed to use my broken battlebox to get 15 points right off the bat. All of my opponents were great and it was just as fun as I expect from a journeyman league. Anyone who's hesitant about joining one should definitely give it a go! Next week we move up to 15 points and I've got my eye on a Shredder/Shepherd to top me up! Should be fun! I'll tell you all about it when you tune in next week!

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. Skarre, Queen of the Broken Coast

Hi everyone, welcome back to the latest edition of my battle reports! This week I got my regular game in vs Hall of Legends' Jayke and his crazy experimental Cryx lists, since he's trying to diversify his field a bit more. All of which you can read on his blog! I still want to get experience with Saeryn and, unlike last week, this was actually a favourable match to drop her into. I haven't changed the list since I last played it and so it's still:

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

Pregame 

The scenario we rolled out this week was Imcoming from the 2015 Steamroller. Jayke was playing his new eSkarre list, using her Merchants of Death tier list at Tier 4. The list consisted of Skarre with a Reaper, Leviathan, Slayer and Nightwretch, and then had two max units of Satyxis Raiders with their UA, a max unit of Blood Witches with UA and two raider captains (thanks to tier). I won the roll to go first and, since I didn't want to have a bunch of fast, ADed, extended deployment, Desperate Paced raiders shoved down my throat, I took first turn. 

Deployment 

I deployed with my Scytheans opposite the opposing zones and the Angels and Raek opposite my own zone, with Saeryn, the support and the Pot central, except for the Foresaken who took a flank each. Jayke deployed Skarre centrally with the Jacks on the flank by his own zone and the Blood Witches on the other flank opposite my zone. I set my Deathstalkers up near my own zone while Jayke ADed all the Raiders in a long screen across the deployment zone, one on each flank. 

Legion Turn One

Taking first turn I had all my beasts run up the board, getting an Angel and the Raek into my zone. The Spell Martyrs and Foresaken paired up on each flank. The Deathstalkers advanced back, moving around the obstruction. Saeryn put Banishing Ward on herself and moved up before casting a defensive Blight Bringer on the lead Angel. She then threw out an early feat to mitigate the line of Raiders staring me down. The Shredder moved up and put Tenacity on Saeryn. 

Legion: 0 Cryx: 0

Cryx Turn One 

On Jayke's turn the Captain advanced and took a shot at the Spell Martyr near my zone, but missed. Starting the run of VERY bad dice Jayke had all game. Wait. Sorry. Spoiler Alert. Sorry. The green based Raiders near my zone advanced up to engage the Angels and Raek but couldn't attack because of the feat. On the other flank the second Captain gave desperate pace to the second raider unit who ran up to engage the Scythean, Saeryn and a whole bunch of stuff on that flank. The Jacks advanced up behind the Satyxis. Skarre moved up and put Death Ward on the Raiders in my zone to help them not die so easily, then she used her feat to cripple both of my Angels, my Raek, my Scythean and then put her feat on herself too. Jayke completely forgot the Witches until the last minute but they advanced into my zone behind the Raiders to jam some more. 

Legion: 0 Cryx: 0

Legion Turn Two

On my turn two I had to deal with the problem of not being able to attack anyone this turn with most of my models. I knew I was only going to be able to handle one side of the board at a time and so I decided to go for my left where the unit was further up and in Saeryn's face. I had the Shredder go rabid and it took two attacks on the Raider closest to Saeryn, killing her with the second. The feated Scythean then advanced up into a better position but obviously couldn't do much else. Saeryn then cast Blight Bringer on the Scythean, clearing out a few of the Satyxis, but failing to clip the UA I'd wanted. The now full pot activated and moved up to pop out a Harrier. The attendants moved in to attack some Raiders but failed to hit with their low MAT. The rear, unfeated Scythean activated and moved up to clear another of the Raiders, freeing up the lane for the Harrier to charge the UA. My objective let me charge for free and with animus I hit and killed, also placing the Harrier in front of the Scythean to block a pull on him. This put the unit at below 50% and since I'd taken out the rear of the unit they were no longer in Skarre's inspiration range and they failed their test. On the other flank, being unable to attack, the Angels and the Raek moved up further into the zone getting closer to the Raiders to deny charges next turn with Power Swell. One of the Angels riled for 4, which was taken by the nearby Foresaken. Finally the Deathstalkers activated. One was definitely engaged by the reach of the raider but the other might've been out. I activated the one who was in and advanced into melee but failed to hit. I decided to give it a shot with the other and stood still to aim, hoping for the best. Turns out he was just out and, with aiming bonus was able to take out two raiders on that flank and move back 2" as well. 

Legion: 0 Cryx: 0

Cryx Turn Two 

On the Cryx turn Jayke now had one flank full of Satyxis and one with most of the Satyxis dead but with his heavy Jacks in the rear. On the Satyxis-y flank the raiders got as many charges as they could, targeting the Raek, both Angels and one sneaky one on the Foresaken in the back field thanks to reach. Because of close positioning, though, most of them couldn't get the 3" for the bonus. They fired off the mini feat for extra damage, and started taking some swings. The Defence on my beasts was high enough, though, that they struggled to hit. Only a few attacks got through, and the damage was scattered enough that it only crippled the mind on the Raek and left the Angels with all their aspects. The Blood Witches activated and used their minifeat for the extra jam and did a run/charge, moving into good positions for next turn. One charged and finished off the Deathstalker that the Raider engaged but had to use her horns to do it, missing the magical benefits. Skarre moved back and away, hiding behind the Objective for some safety. She then fired a Perdition into the Scythean, doing 3 points of damage with a boost and having the Reaper move up from the spell. On the other flank one of the Captains charged the Harrier and did 12 points of damage, leaving it on one box. So this forced the other Captain to charge in too, hitting and finishing it off. The routed Raiders ran 0" and then passed their command check. Now cleared up, the Reaper shot the Scythean and pulled it into melee. It took the free attack but hadn't been loaded up with much focus and so didn't do much damage to the heavy. The Leviathan moved up but didn't have much to shoot. 

Legion: 0 Cryx: 0

Legion Turn Three

I'd lost a lot less in my turn than I'd expected last turn. I had to heal one point from the Scythean to repair its spirit. Saeryn took a blightbringer into the lead Scythean, clipping both of the Captains, killing one and leaving the other on a single box. I then had the Foresaken on the full side of the board near my zone moving up, keeping the Blood Witch engaging her into melee before unleashing her blight all over the Raiders, killing about half of the unit on her own, apart from a few lucky Satyxis who toughed it out (but not Toughed). Because Skarre had moved back the Raiders were now no longer fearless and they also failed their command check. The remaining Deathstalker took out both of the Satyxis that had engaged her partner, moving further along the flank. The Angels finished off all but two of the raiders, unable to hurt the Incorporeal Witches. On the other flank the Pot activated and popped another Harrier, and then managed to kill a couple of Raiders with lucky dice, forcing them to take another check, which they failed again. The shiny, new Harrier took its animus/free Fuel Cashe charge on the surviving Captain, finishing her off. This allowed the Scythean to advance into melee with both Jacks followed by the other one with a free charge. Between the two of them and their chain attacks they scrapped the Reaper and beat up the light. The Foresaken moved up and sucked up the four fury from a Scythean.

Legion: 0 Cryx: 0

Cryx Turn Three

On Jayke's turn there was a lot of dead Satyxis and not enough dead beasts. So he had the Witches charge in on the busy flank, many of them getting the charge bonus. Thanks to gang they were able to hit the high DEF but they didn't do much damage to the beasts, not managing to finish off any of them, but did kill the Foresaken on that flank. The two pairs of raiders continued to run away. On the more empty flanks everything rested on the Heavies. The Leviathan charged the healthier Scythean and managed to cripple mind but not much else. The Slayer charged the damaged Scythean in the rear and finished it off with the charge attack, leaving him with two focus and no reach thanks to his tiny T-Rex arms. 

Legion: 0 Cryx: 0

Legion Turn Four 

On my turn the Shredder frenzied into a pot attendant, adding her to the stew. The Harrier swept into the Slayer and did a few points of damage. Last turn Jayke had very kindly bunched all of his Witches on my beasts. The Spell Martyr on that flank activated and moved up, allowing Saeryn to channel a Blight Bringer through him onto the Angel on the far flank, killing half the unit and the Hag. This forced another command check which, guess what, they managed to fail. This freed up the non blightbringer'd Angel to charge the Slayer over the top of them, using the Armour Pierce to deal a bunch of damage, boosting a second hit to put on some more damage. The Foresaken over there moved up and used its Blight to catch the Slayer, finishing it off with 4 dice thanks to the remaining focus on it. The pot killed another Raider, forcing them to fail another command check and made a new Harrier to contribute to clearing my zone. The second Angel and the Deathstalker finished off the rest of the models in my zone. The remaining Scythean had lost mind and I hadn't remembered to heal it so I just boosted hits on the Leviathan, seriously damaging him and the arc node but not clearing either. This left me in control of the board with only Skarre and two heavily damaged Jacks on the Cryx side of the board. 

Legion: 0 Cryx: 0

After Game 

With the game shop closing around us and the board state favouring me so heavily Jayke decided to call the game there. With both his Jacks heavily damaged and missing their cortexes he wasn't going to be able to clear the zone easily while I still had plenty left between my three heavies to clear his zone or go for the assassination that it was looking like my game anyway. In terms of development I think I should have deployed with my heavies the other way around. It would have been much better to have the Angels near the opposing zone so their repulse would have actually made a difference in scoring a few points!

Regardless of the final outcome this was a really fun game and I enjoyed playing with Saeryn and against Skarre who posed a lot of interesting questions in this list. Lucky Saeryn is well equipped with answers. Plus the Satyxis not passing a single command check worked in my favour! I'm looking forward to getting my next game in with her! Hopefully Jayke and Hall of Legends will be showcasing some more of his interesting list variations too!

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

Tourney Tales - Learning Legion Fun, Quick and Dirty

So welcome back, everyone, to my latest report. This week our PG decided to run a mini hardcore tournament for us at our LGS. The rules were simple. One 20 point list. 5 minute timed turns. No extensions. Hardcore scenario. It was called Fun, Quick and Dirty and that's exactly what it was. The six people who attended had all taken the dirtiest lists they could think of. I decided to stick with pThagrosh especially since his feat can give a substantial swing at such a low point value. The list I went for was:

pThagrosh +5

-Succubus -2

-Carnivean -11

-Scythean -9

Shepherd -1

Deathstalker -2

The plan for the list was to spam Spiney Growth try and to get a powerful alpha with some Draconic Strength juggling and then feat a beast back if I lose one to maintain the attrition advantage. Because of the strict time limits and the overall rush of the night I wasn't able to get any pictures, unfortunately. That also means I'll only be able to recall a quick summary of the games I played. 

My first game was against Jayke of Hall of Legends using his Cryx. He'd decided to use Mortenebra at tier 4, which got him 4 Slayers and two warwitch sirens. This meant that he was 4 points up because of his tier, a healthy difference at 20 points. I won the roll to go first and started with my first turn strategy, which consisted of casting Spiney Growth on each of the beasts, as well as putting Draconic Strength on the Scythean then charging up the board with Thagrosh. The beasts then ran up B2B in front of him, screening him, then the Succubus moved to put Spiney Growth on Thagrosh while the Deathstalker began a wide flank. Jayke had all of his Slayers up into the zone, getting as far up as possible. This gave me the opening to get a nice Alpha. The Scythean charged one of the Slayers reducing it to only a few boxes. The Canivean charged another Slayer and wrecked it. On Jayke's turn, rushed and unused to running jacks, he forgot to allocate any focus, seriously blunting his ability to retaliate. Despite this he managed to combine Mortenebra's spells and feat to pretty seriously ding my beasts up. On my turn the Shepherd healed up the Scythean, allowing it to kill the Slayer it failed to kill the turn before as well as a second one that Jayke had moved in to engage it the turn before. The Carnivean, similarly, was able to wreck the Slayer engaging it too, leaving him with no jacks. On his turn Jayke went for the long shot assassination, trying to spell assassinate Thagrosh, but only managed to get one point on him. Dice down was called and since neither of us had any Pressure Points the second tiebreaker was Army points destroyed and so I won the first round of the tournament. 

In the second round I was paired up with a Cygnar player, Mark, who was using eCaine. Urgh. His list included a Squire, a Hunter, eEiryss, Gorman di Wulfe, Taryn di la Rovissi, Reinhold, the Black 13th and a unit of rangers. It was pretty clear what the plan was for this list. Assassination all the way. And it was looking like it was going to be very good at it. I won the roll to go first again and used the same opening gambit of charging Thagrosh up the board and using the beasts to screen him while putting out all my buffs. Mark's first turn and my second basically involved moving further up the board, though I did manage to kill Eiryss with the Deathstalker on my turn two. On his turn Mark had Taryn disappear my Carnivean but missed the Scythean. The Black 13th hit Thagrosh to rob him of concealment from Fog of War and then Caine moved up and feated, shooting the hell out of Thagrosh, forcing me to transfer to the beasts repeatedly and reducing me to only a handful of boxes before Gatecrashing back out of my threat range. Gorman also managed to black oil my Carnivean, also managing to hit the Succubus and the Scythean with the AOE.  

On my turn I was pretty hurt by the black oil. I had the Scythean advance into engage a ranger and the black 13th, locking them in and forcing two terror checks from Draconic Strength, but he managed to pass them both. The Carnivean moved up and then Thagrosh advanced and sprayed Gorman and Taryn, killing him but missing her, meaning no more Black Oil shenanigans. Mark then took some shots with his Hunter and Rangers, forcing some more transfers. Caine then moved up and reduced Thags to one box, meaning I had to transfer every following hit. He then took a whole bunch of shots, but managed to roll low on a few damage rolls, meaning that at the end of the turn Caine was sat on nothing. Thagrosh was sat on one box and no transfers. The Black 13th then moved to get a line on Thagrosh, taking free strikes from the Scythean. Two of them died, leaving Ryan with the two guns needing to do a single point of damage to win the game. But he failed the massive casualties check and fled before he could take a shot. I had managed to survive by sheer luck. The Scythean advanced into Caine and killed him with a single double boosted hit, giving me a second win. 

The third round paired me against Nick from Solid Ground Studios who was taking a break from his regular Legion to play some Khador. Specifically Butcher3. The tournament was called dirty for a reason I guess. His list included the wardog, a Devastator, an Iron Fang Kovnik, max Iron Fang Pikemen with Black Dragon UA and Madelyn Corbeau. This was the championship game for the mini tournament. I knew that luck had been a big factor in my wins while Nick is a skilled player playing a very good caster. Which spells trouble for me. I won the roll for first turn again and took turn one. I used the same opening moves turtling up near the zone. Khador advanced up, with the IFP running up the board out of Shield Wall since they were facing a sniper who wouldn't care about their high ARM. Nick, as usual, was careful to place his models just out of my threat ranges. On my turn I moved the Scythean, which was closer to the IFP, out of most of their threat ranges. The Carnivean moved across and into the nearby forest and the zone. Thagrosh then advanced up behind him and the forest hoping that the forest blocking LOS to Butcher would help keep me in the game for a little longer. The Deathstalker took out the IFP standard bearer and one of the regular troopers using sniper and snap fire. Nick had two of the IFP charge the Deathstalker (killing her easily) and two charge the Scythean (forgetting to take attacks), the rest advancing up and into the zone. Butcher sauntered into the zone, sending one of his Arguses (Argii?) to run up and engage the Carnivean. The Devastor moved up minimally to just toe in the zone. On my turn I had the Scythean move up into the zone and kill the two IFP who'd engaged him and the Carnivean destroyed the Argus engaging it, while Thagrosh moved further behind the forest, trying to keep away from the Butcher as much as possible. Nick then started his turn with a Vengence and Intrigue move with Zoktavir, moving him much closer to the forest my caster was hiding behind. He then charged my Carnivean in the forest and then paid one for an energiser move into melee with Thagrosh behind the forest. This moved him out of the Carnivean's front arc but it managed to miss its attack roll for the free strike! Butcher put up Silence of Death and then Slaughtered the Prophet of Everblight in a couple of hits. 

The end result put me in second place overall, which was pretty impressive considering these were my 2nd, 3rd and 4th games since fully starting the faction! The format was really great fun and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone wanting to get a few games in a single night. It was high pressure with the time but with the small lists it wasn't oppressive. We managed to get the whole 3 round mini tournament done in just over 2 hours, 3 including the 'awards' at the end. 

I'm still really loving Legion and I'm absolutely looking forward to playing some more games with them soon!

As always check out the Facebook page and 'like' for regular post updates, photos and more at www.facebook.com/Mitsuharuonminis 

-M

Tourney Tales - April Assault

Hey everyone, welcome to Tourney Tales! Due to other commitments it's been a while since I last had chance to go to one of my LGS' local tournaments but I have managed to get in for this one. My hopes going into the tournament were, in order: to place in the top 3, to go 3 and 1 and not to make a fool out of myself. Obviously I'd love to win the whole thing but given the calibre of several of the other players I'm not sure that's likely. The lists that I was planning to use were the Harbinger list I've been practicing with, paired up with the pSeverius list I had a couple of games with recently:

List One:

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

List Two:

pSeverius +6

-Heirophant -2

-Blessings of Vengence -7

-Reckoner -8

-Templar -8

Vessel of Judgement -9

Vassal Mechanic -1

Vassal of Menoth -2

Wrack -1

eEiryss -3

Gorman Di Wulfe -2

Saxon Orrik -2

Max Choir of Menoth -3

Max Temple Flameguard with UA -8

Objective - Bunker 

I was ready to go and pretty happy with both of my lists. The tournament was a 4 round, 14 man Steamroller using Timed Turns. So without further ado I'll start with a run-down of the games:

Round One

My first round opponent was Ben, one of the more experienced players in the Meta and one who's given me plenty of tough games. I was a little down-hearted as I'd hoped to get an easier game in early in order to get the ball rolling but it couldn't be helped. To make matters worse he was playing his favourite faction, Retribution, one I've never played against. He had one infantry heavy and one Jack heavy list and so after some internal debate I plumped for Sevvy to start me off. He picked his Kaelyssa Tier 4 Force Wall list. This consisted of Kaelyssa, 6 Manticores, an Artificer, a unit of battle mages and 6 or 7 NQ 54 variant Arcanists. This was an imposing looking list with a bunch of heavies and Shenanigans. The first round was Fire Support and Ben won the roll to go first, opting to choose the board edge. I deployed with the majority of my army on my right flank, with only the Vessel on my left near my flag. Ben deployed his mass of warjacks in a line, centrally with the Arcanists scattered between them to dole out focus. I took the first turn and, thanks to the Kaelyssa Tier couldn't run so I just put out Defender's ward on the TFG and strolled forward. 

Ben's turn mainly consisted of Arcanists giving focus to the Manticores who then ran forwards, taking a big mass of board. 

On my turn I continued to shuffle up the board, trying to gain a bit more board space. Sevvy moved into the nearby trench and put up EoM as I'd forgotten to cast it in the first turn. The Vessel moved up on the hill and boosted a shot on the Manticore directly across from it, rolling 6 on the Admonisher, catching another Manticore and battle Mage, doing a point to the Jack and killing the Mage. More importantly though, the Admonisher caught Kaelyssa and so I boosted and did a bunch of damage (this was in part because Ben had had a bit of a maths fail and thought he was ARM 10 with power field for some reason)

On Ben's turn he upkept the phantom hunter he'd put on Kaelyssa turn one and used this to shoot Gorman with her rifle, needing all three shots to hit, using the rest of the focus to heal and then feated. Two of the Manticores moved up and wrecked my objective, while the other four advanced and put covering fire templates all over my half of the board. 

I was hoping to get another Admonisher this turn and so I moved up base to base with the two Manticores with my Vessel and used its push miracle, but it didn't push far enough to get the Mantacore over the flag and secure the shot cleanly. I then ran my Reckoner right towards his caster and had my Vassal ancilliary attack at her, but I wasn't able to spike the dice. My battle group continued to advance up the board slowly, while the TFG and Orrik moved around on the flank, avoiding the covering fire templates, going into Iron Zeal and Shield Wall. 

Ben started his turn focusing on the Reckoner. The Artificer charged in and missed its charge attack, but hit the second, using the beat back to nudge him towards the nearer Manticore and free up the Manticore at the flag. The two Manticores on my left both charged the Vessel and wrecked it, and meanwhile another Manticore killed off the Reckoner after being fed a ton of focus by the Arcanists. The Mages tried to pull a couple of the TFG but failed to hit their high DEF. The other three Manticores then put Covering fire templates all over me. Kaelyssa then moved up to the flag, taking a couple of pot shots at the Vassal and dominated for 2 control points. 

I knew this game was going really poorly for me. I'd thrown away a heavy and lost the Vessel and accomplished very little apart from putting some damage on Kaelyssa, but that gave me an opening I could take and so I jumped on it, hoping I could net a Hail Mary win. I allocated one to Blessings and upkept the Eye of Menoth, dropping Defender's Ward. I then had the Templar plod 4" forward to get out of Blessing's way and then had the Jack run clear across the board. I then had the Heirophant use Harmonious Exhaultation and then activated Severius. He took one of a wrack and then cast Ashes to Ashes through Blessings onto the Artificer. It hit and I rolled the bounces, getting enough to catch Kaelyssa. The Artificer survived and the Jacks took minimal damage. I boosted the damage on Kaelyssa and the dice came up 5, 5, 6 killing her and netting me an assassination win (we also worked out after the game, once he realised his earlier maths error, that this dice roll would have been high enough to kill her even factoring in the additional boxes he would have had from this.)

Because the majority of Ben's list was Battlegroup I also netted a large number of Army points as well, despite having only killed three or four models all game. Still, I was out of the first round with a win. 

Round Two

Moving into the second round I was put up against another of the top players in the meta, Andy, who was playing with his Circle. This round was Incursion. I decided to drop Sevvy again and Andy dropped Bradigus. His list was tier 4, and included two Wold Guardians, 6 Wold Watchers, two units of Sentry Stones and three units of Shifting Stones. I lost the die roll again, but again my opponent chose table edge instead of first turn. I took pictures for each round on this game too, but I'm sure Andy wouldn't mind me saying that this game was a long, drawn-out slugging match that wasn't especially exciting. So instead of giving you a lengthy blow-by-blow I'll just do a quick run-down. We both had very high ARM lists and both had a lot of trouble cracking the opponent's armour. We both advanced up and met in the middle around the flags and then had a long slapping match with no one getting much of a foothold. My Vessel couldn't shift the Wold Watcher contesting the flag on my left, but he couldn't crack the Vessel's high ARM. My TFG with Defenders ward sat quite happily on the flag on my right, and despite doing full unit CMAs, rolled really poorly against the Wold Watcher engaging them, who was also failing to kill them back. In the centre my two heavies locked up several other Watchers for the majority of the game. On one of my turns I managed to get a few points onto Bradigus when he was low on Fury, leaving him on 7 boxes. Brad used his feat turn and heavies to clear out my heavies, despite Brad himself failing to kill the damaged Reckoner. This let him claim the centre flag, forcing me into an uncomfortable assassination that required a bushwhacked shield push on a heavy and a move into some shifting stones. I just managed to make range on Brad, but he was camping 3 and I needed all of my immolations to hit, but the first missed, costing me the run. Dice down sounded with Brad left on one box and him up two control points, leaving me on one to one. If I wanted to place I now had to win my next 2 games...

Round Three

For round three I was paired up with one of the local Cygnar players who was playing Hayley2 and Lord General Stryker. I had a sinking feeling that I'd be seeing Hayley2. And I was right. I decided this was a good matchup to play Harbinger into, though, especially since the scenario was Destruction and I knew I could control the zone pretty well. His list consisted of Hayley, Squire, a Centurion and Thorn; as well as a Journeyman Warcaster, Anastasia Di Bray, eEiryss, Gorman Di Wulfe, eAlexia, Nyss Hunters, Gun mages with UA and Aiyanna and Holt. 

I won the roll to go first and deployed centrally with my Zealots on one flank and the Bastions on the other. There was a forest directly in front of my deployment where the Errants nestled in. The Cygnar deployed with the Gun Mages and eAlexia on one flank and the Nyss Hunters and Aiyanna and Holt on the other side with the rest of the army central. As I had the first turn I did the typical Crusaders Call, feat, charge to get the majority of his army into my control area, and then ran everything else up towards the zone. 

Slightly hamstrung by my feat he moved Gornan up along with the Centurion and then ended his turn. I then took the 'free' turn to lock out the zone, moving my Zealots (who mini feated) and the Errants to form a wall of bodies around my opponent's side of the zone, with the slower second wave of the Imperishable Wall Paladins and Bastions continued plodding up the field, giving me a strong position on scenario. 

On the first proper Cygnar turn Hayley had Thorn advance up and then arced a time bomb into the zealots, killing a bunch of them and opening up a window for a gun mage to shoot Anastasia. He then feated, catching the majority of my force, but missing my support and the Bastions. The gun mages took shots at the Errants but I suffered a bunch of Martyrdom damage to keep them in the game. Aiyanna enchanted the Nyss bows  so they could do a CRA into Dartan, but I Martyr'd that too. 

I then had my 'turn' with Hayley dictating my order of activation. The net result was that the Reckoner sacrificed movement to shoot at the objective (twice with Ancillary) Harby neglected action to move up into the zone, and the zealots and Errants reorganised themselves to lock the zone back out again. I stupidly positioned my Heirophant and Rhupert in a way I couldn't advance and spell ward Harbinger, so I ran it up, aiming to get in B2B with Harby for next round. I then had the Bastions, from outside the feat charge the Objective, destroying it with one model. This secured me 3 control points. 

Cygnar started their turn by having Thorn run up and arc a telekinesis into Harby to shift her up and into the zone. He then moved eEiryss up and took the shot at Harbinger. I said I wanted to Shield Guard the shot however there had been some confusion in my turn. Because of the long spear on the Devout I hadn't been able to get the models B2B and obviously hadn't made it clear enough when positioning that he had acted on the assumption that the gap was there. We called over a judge since it was an important call. The judge ruled in favour of my opponent because his actions had been made based on the assumption that my spacing was accurate and I should have been more clear. When we restarted the clock he looked back down at the table and realised that he had forgotten to allocate to the Centurion, which had been his primary assassination vector and so decided that he wouldn't be able to win and forfeited the game, shaking my hand. The judge was still stood by the table and pointed out that he still had a number of very reasonable vectors to kill Harby. We played out a single large CRA into her and he killed her instantly thanks to the damage on her because of the Martyrdom in previous turns. However despite him having the game in the bag I had the win with maximum points for winning by forfeiture. This set me on 2 to 1 and in the running to place depending on my last game and the final round...

Round Four

My final round I was paired against Luke, one of my semi-regular opponents who's been playing mainly with Cryx recently. This round was Close Quarters. One of his lists was had a Kraken and I didn't want to put my Harby list against that and so decided to round out the tournament with Severius again. Luke dropped the non-Kraken list, with eGaspy that consisted of a Nightwretch, Deathjack, Tartarus, a warwitch, Gorman DiWulfe, the Withershadow Combine, a max unit of Bane Knights, a max unit of Bane Thralls with UA, and a minimum unit of Bile Thralls with a Skarlock. I lost the die roll again and Luke opted for the first turn, leaving me to choose the clearer table edge. I deployed my Vessel on my extreme right flank, nearer my own flag. Luke deployed with one of the big bane units on each flank and everything else central. I deployed my TFG and Orrik on the left flank and my Battlegroup in the centre of the board. 

Luke took his first turn, marching his force forwards and then had Gaspy pop out some clouds around the nearby forest to block out LOS to the majority of his army. 

I then moved up my forces, running the TFG with Iron Zeal, and having the Vessel advance around the Obstruction in front of it to come around to my flag. 

Luke continued to run up the board, taking a huge amount of real estate, putting the pressure on. Following this he had Gaspy move up and excarnate one of the TFG to get a bile thrall up in the front of the flameguard. It then moved up and purged all over them, killing the majority of the unit, netting a bunch of souls for Gaspy. 

On my turn I realised that his board position was dangerous for me and I was going to have a hard time dealing with all of the mass of models. I decided that my best shot was an assassination. So I started the wheels in motion. The Vessel moved up and used its eruption of faith miracle to push some bane Knights out of its way and then took a shot at one of the Knights near the forest, admonishing to clear it out. I then moved eEiryss up and tried to take the shot on Gaspy but I was just a bit short. The Reckoner moved across to take a shot but couldn't get far enough to get a line on him. Orrik however did move up and tag Gaspy with a shot for a couple of points (he wasn't camping anything but did have a bunch of souls for next turn) I then ran Blessings of Vengence up into the forest to get LOS on him and started to cast Immolations. My first spell missed despite boosting, meaning I lost the bonus from Blessings' bond. I threw out a few more zaps but it wasn't enough and left him on a handful of boxes. I ended the turn by having Gorman black oil Deathjack to reduce his potential threat. Then I ran my choir and remaining TFG to block lanes to Severius. I realised that I'd forgotten to feat too...

Vengence triggered to allow Luke to move his bane Knights up into Blessings and towards the Vessel doing a couple of points of damage to the Jack. The Bane Knights charged into the Reckoner, wrecking the heavy. Gaspy moved up and excarnated another bile thrall before teleporting back to the flag. The bile purged and killed the models in front of Sevvy. Deathjack moved into melee with Blessings but couldn't attack thanks to black oil. Luke's Gorman threw black oil onto the arc node but it failed to hit. The deviation was small enough to catch it but also caught Deathjack, re-oiling him. The clock ran out before he could do more than a single attack on the Vessel with the Knights, however. 

I knew I should have lost a lot more this turn and that this was a lucky second chance to get the assassination, but it wouldn't be easy. I started by having the Vessel push away the Knights engaging him. I then took a shot at the knight engaging the Blessings in the forest but even with the boost it missed and hit Blessings instead. I then advanced my Templar up to reach one of the Knights in the forest, killing it and then using beat back to move up to get the other knight with its shield. Thanks to his sinister soul collection Gaspy was on a pretty decent stack this turn, but Luke hadn't moved any of his models to engage Eiryss and so she was free to move up and across to get range and LOS so hit him with a bolt to rip off the focus. I then activated Blessings of Vengence and had it move around, taking two free strikes, one from Deathjack and one from the remaining Knight in the forest. The Deathjack missed its attack thanks to Black Oil. The knight connected but only did a few points of damage. This gave me the chance I needed and so I kept arcing double boosted Immolations into Gaspy until he was dead. 

This was another game like my first. An opponent forcing me into a very bad position and me snatching victory from the jaws of defeat through assassination. Regardless, it put me on 3 to 1, and therefore in the running to place in the tournament overall. I knew I was likely vying for 3rd place and was keen to see what the final standings were. To be honest, though, I'd accomplished two of my goals, I'd gone 3 to 1, even if I might not have deserved the second win and I hadn't embarrassed myself. My play hadn't been great overall, but I'd taken the opportunities that had presented themselves to me and definitely got a bit lucky too. I was hopeful. We gathered for the final results. Nick from Solid Ground Studios (http://solidgroundstudios.co.uk) was in 3rd Place, I had managed to get second place and the tournament was won by Andy who'd beaten me in round two. I was over the moon with the result! I had a really good day, though I was really starting to feel the pressure towards the end. My opponents were all great players who made every game a real challenge and it was really fun to play each of them!

Thanks for reading! Don't forget for regular updates and more: like Mitsuharu on Minis on Facebook!

-M