Mitsuharu on Bat Reps - Learning Legion Thagrosh, Prophet of Everblight vs. The Harbinger of Menoth

Hey gang, welcome back to another battle report. This week I managed to get a game in with one of the developing players in our local meta. I decided this week to give my 'competitive' Thagrosh list from CitTM a try. It was made up of:

Thagrosh, Prophet of Everblight +5

-Succubus -2

-Angelius -9

-Angelius -9

-Carnivean -11

-Naga Nightlurker -5

-Shredder -2

-Shredder -2

Foresaken -2

Foresaken -2

Max Warspears -8

-Warspear Chieftan -2

Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew -1

Objective - Fuel Cashe

This is a potentially very hard hitting list that can take advantage of Thagrosh's spells and abilities well, so I was interested in trying it out. Liam, who I was playing, had constructed his list on the fly, as he had been better prepared for a 35 point game. He was also playing Menoth, which meant that in addition to my overall experience edge I was also intimately familiar with his faction too! The list that he built was Harbinger with two Repenters, a Templar, a Vanquisher, a Heirophant, an Exemplar Seneschal, a Paladin of the Wall, the Covenant of Menoth, a maximum choir of Menoth, a maximum unit of Cinerators and a maximum unit of Errants. The game we were playing was Close Quarters and I won the roll to go first. I deployed with most of my force to the right of centre, while the Menoth bunched up in the centre of the board. I had the Warspears Prey the Cinerators. 

On my turn I ran everyone up the board, with Thagrosh, the Succubus and the Shredders putting out defensive spells and animi across the board. The Orgrun got Draconic Strength and then the Gobbers let out their cloud to cover Thagrosh and the Naga and I hunkered down to take Harbinger's feat. 

On his turn Liam had most of his stuff run forwards, taking a big chunk of board space. The Harbinger then feated and charged up the board, contacting the back of her heavy jacks before she got too far, catching my army in her feat. 

On my turn I couldn't do very much without taking a POW 14. So I didn't. The Carnivean stood still to aim and took out a couple of the Errants, boosting to hit against all four hit. Similarly the Angelii took pot shots at the nearest Cinerator, but despite their poor defence one missed and the other failed to crack armour. Thagrosh kicked out a couple more defensive animi without moving forwards. The Warspears shuffled to the right of the board, getting more distance around the forest on that flank then the Gobbers made another cloud. 

On his turn Liam had the Errants move up and take some shots at the Angelius and Carnivean with their crossbows but didn't hit the Angelius and didn't wound the Carnivean. A couple of them did manage to wound the Warspear UA but not enough to kill him. In his rush to get the Errants up the board he'd forgotten to allocate any focus this turn and so simply had the heavy jacks advance up the board, with a Repenter missing a shot on the Angelius and the Vanquisher deviating a shot that hit the Angelius but did no damage. The Cinerators and the Paladin continued plodding up their flank. Harbinger moved up to just behind her Jacks and used Purification to clear off my spells. 

On my turn I had the Carnivean advance onto the nearby hill and had him spray the Errants, killing a couple. The Foresaken moved up and used its blight bomb to hit all of the Errants but only succeeded in killing one or two. Thagrosh moved up and put Draconic Strength on an Angelius and put Fog back out. The Naga moved up and took a shot at Harbinger but missed. The Angelius then charged Harbinger through the forest, but thanks to Awe he missed the boosted armour pierce charge attack as well as the second attack he bought. Not what I wanted. The other Angelius charged a Cinerator but missed its charge attack too. The Warspears trudged up towards the Cinerators. Meanwhile the Foresaken jogged up and ate up the Cinerator Angelius' Fury. 

On his turn Liam put two focus on the Templar, and one each on the Repenters. He then started with Harbinger, using Purification to clear off my defensive abilities and then cast crusader's call. The positioning of the jacks meant that while I had reach on Harbinger her 0.5" melee couldn't get the Angelius back. The Templar then took a swing on the Angelius but missed all three of his attacks. The Vanquisher also took a swing but missed too. The dice were not friendly this game. The Repenter to my left charged the Carnivean, hitting but failing to damage his high ARM. On the other flank the other Repenter sprayed on the Angelius engaging the Cinerator but missed. The Cinerators then charged the Angelius, getting two on it in addition to the one already engaging it. Two of them hit its high DEF and did a reasonable amount of damage, crippling body and most of mind on the beast. The paladin tried to charge it too, but positioned to take a free strike that killed him. The choir moved up and put passage on the jacks since he'd forgotten to use battle at the start of the turn. 

On my turn I had the Naga advance to clear out the two Errants contesting my flag. Thagrosh moved up to dominate the flag and put Draconic Strength back on the Angelius and then threw out some Defensive animi. Then the Angelius went and this time it managed to hit the boosted armour pierce attack. With Harby not camping anything this reduced her armour to 7, putting me at dice +9 for the attack. I boosted the damage roll and killed her with the single attack, winning the game. 

This was an interesting game where both of us seemed to have pretty bad luck with our dice throughout. I like the list, but I think I deployed the Warspears poorly as they ended up having no impact on the game itself. I also learned that the Succubus doesn't have fearless, despite being a godless four-armed dragon woman herself and apparently can't get too close to a forsaken without crying like a little baby Nyss girl and then running away. Not that I'm bitter or anything. 

I'm looking forward to using this list again next week and seeing if I can get some more use out of all of the pieces in there. 

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 - 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

Cogs in the TheoryMachine - April Alt List

Hi guys, welcome back to CitTM! This week I didn't manage to get a game in thanks to the Easter Weekend and my LGS being closed. Instead I've been theory crafting a new list. With the April tournament up in a couple of weeks I've been thinking about my list options. Obviously I want to play Harbinger and I've been practicing the list for a while now. I was initially planning to use this alongside my eFeora list I used in the last tournament. Instead though I wanted to use a new list that would shore up some of the weaknesses of the Harbinger list. The issue that I've found in a couple of my recent games with Harbinger is dealing with heavy armour. My Harbinger list attritions really well vs infantry between the feat, cataclysm and the weaponmaster jam she can eat through a dudespam pretty easily. When facing a colossal or multiple heavies, though, she stumbles cracking that armour. Instead I wrote up an alternative list skewed towards hitting hard but that can also deal with troops if needed. 

What I ended up with is:

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 

The idea for this list is pretty straight-forward smash-mouth aggression. The Templar, Reckoner and VoJ can smash high ARM especially with Eye of Menoth and Gorman can make that worse with black oil and rust bombs as appropriate. As well as that, though, Ashes to Ashes and Admonisher can still blow through infantry, which BoV will help with.

The TFG with Defender's Ward become a horrible tar pit to deal with potentially being DEF 17 ARM 23 and no knockdown with minifeat. Orrik is in the list to help them get to the fight through any difficult terrain and then to hunt solos afterwards. Eyriss is in the list to take out any pesky upkeep spells that might otherwise be a pain in the ass for the list. 

The support package is pretty full on, with a max choir for my three jacks, as well as a Vassal and a Mechanic to support the jacks fully. The main job for the mechanic, though, will be to repair the self-inflicted damage on the Vessel. To help with the focus management (8 doesn't stretch too far with two hungry jacks and an awesome spell list) I've got Wracks and a Heirophant to take some of the heat off. 

Since the list wants to play an aggressive in-your-face style game I'm currently thinking Bunker might be the best objective for the list since Impervious Flesh makes it hard to kill at range, forcing the opponent to close in with me. But Fuel Cache is in the running too as the jacks having free charges could make all the difference in a game!

I'll be sure to let you know how my first game with it goes next week! Like the facebook page for updates as I go!

-M

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

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

The Harbinger of Menoth +5

-Heirophant -2

-Reckoner -8

-Devout -5

Minimum Choir -2

Wracks -1

Vassal of Menoth -2

Maximum Exemplar Errants with UA -10

Rhupert Carvolo -2

Covenant of Menoth -2

Minimum Holy Zealots with UA -6

Maximum Exemplar Bastions -8

Dartan Vilmon -3

Paladin of the Order of the Wall -2

Anastasia Di Bray -2

Objective: Fuel Cache

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-M

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

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

The Harbinger of Menoth +5

-Heirophant -2

-Reckoner -8

-Devout -5

Minimum Choir -2

Wracks -1

Vassal of Menoth -2

Maximum Exemplar Errants with UA -10

Exemplar Errant Seneschal -2

Rhupert Carvolo -2

Covenant of Menoth -2

Minimum Holy Zealots with UA -6

Maximum Exemplar Bastions -8

Dartan Vilmon -3

Paladin of the Order of the Wall -2

Objective: Fuel Cache

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-M

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

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

The Harbinger of Menoth +5

-Heirophant -2

-Reckoner -8

-Devout -5

Minimum Choir -2

Wracks -1

Vassal of Menoth -2

Maximum Exemplar Errants with UA -10

Exemplar Errant Seneschal -2

Rhupert Carvolo -2

Covenant of Menoth -2

Minimum Holy Zealots with UA -6

Maximum Exemplar Bastions -8

Dartan Vilmon -3

Paladin of the Order of the Wall -2

Objective: Fuel Cache

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-M