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

Journeyman League - Conclusion

The final week of the Journeyman League might have been last week but this week we had an announcement for the winners and a prize ceremony of sorts. Despite having held either first or second place consistently throughout the league several people came in at the last minute with loads of hobby points to claim the top spots, bumping me down to 5th place. Despite this there was a clear division of almost double the points between my position at 5th and the person in 6th, and there wasn't a huge divide between the top 5. This meant that the EO decided to award the top 5 players with prizes. The player in first got their choice of Journeyman Warcaster/Lesser Warlock and the next four players (including me) got one of the special edition Cephalix Gobber Mind-Drudges. I got mine painted up last night:

The League has been great fun and it's been a great way to meet new people who share a love of your hobby. It's also an interesting way to learn the game and develop your skills. If you aren't part of a regular gaming group and you get a chance to join a Journeyman League, regardless of whether you just picked up a battlebox for the first time or if you're a veteran Tournanent player, I highly recommend it!

The League might be over but the group is now moving on to other things, including a Journeyman League Tournament at the end of next month, and there's talks of a heap of other things to come, and I'll be sure to keep you all posted!

-M

Journeyman League - Week 9

This week was the final game of the Journeyman League, and I tried a variation on the previous week's list attempt. The final week was with no restriction on lists at 35 points. I went for 

eFeora +6

Vanquisher -8

Templar -8

Min Choir -2

Vassal -2

Max TFG with UA -8

Reclaimer -2

Wrack - 1

Min Cleansers -5

Nicia Tear of Vengence -3

Allegiant -2

This list contained a few things (Templar, Reclaimer, Nicia) that I hadn't tried before but wanted to give a shot to. My opponent was one of the many Legion players in the League and one of the better overall players. He fielded eLylyth with a Ravagore, two Nephalim Bolt Throwers, a Naga Nightstalker along with a Deathstalker, Shepherd, two Foresaken, a Succubus and Fyanna the Lash. My opponent was the other member of the league who was painting huge numbers of models in a short time and so he was putting out a few things, like Fyanna, who he was really just trying out, as he'd painted them up. 

I won the roll for first turn and decided I'd go first. We were playing the Incoming scenario from the 2014 Steamroller packet, and I deployed my battlegroup opposite the opposing zone, and my infantry on the other side of the table. My opponent set up his battlegroup opposite my own near his friendly zone, with the Ravagore and Naga more towards my infantry, where they could do the most damage. The Deathstalker set up shop opposite the infantry to ping away at them from the start of the game.

I started with Feora, casting Escort on herself and Ignite on the TFG, using a focus from a wrack. Each of my jacks ran up the field and then received Passage from the choir. The monk and Nicia both ran up into position up the board and then the infantry followed suit, the cleansers being out of range and the TFG vulnerable to the Deathstalker's sniper regardless of shield wall. The Legion turn started with a bolt thrower perforating Nicia, who'd moved up too far, and the Deathstalker missing his shot at the TFG, nullifying his deadly shooting for this turn. The rest of the turn involved the majority of the army running up to get further up the field and the Foresaken starting to fill up on Fury. 

I started my second turn by having both Jacks advance up, with the Templar shifting forwards alongside the Vanquisher, who took two (thanks to the Vassal) shots that set a bolt thrower and the Ravagore on fire thanks to scatters that did little damage. Continuing the scatter joy the cleansers used their combined ranged AOE to hit the Deathstalker, with the blast damage being enough to kill him, ending the sniper threat to the TFG who took advantage and shield walled and Iron Zeal'd and moved solidly into my zone. The Choir sang Passage again and Feora moved up into Escort range with the Vanquisher. 

Lylyth started the turn by feating to give all models an extra shot and Snipe (+4 range to shooting) and proceeded to kill the choir and vassal blocking Feora, hitting Feora a couple of times herself, but with her camped focus and the benefit of Escort she was a high enough ARM that she only took a few boxes of damage. A Bolt Thrower activated and shot at Feora, pushing her back a couple of inches and dealing another couple of boxes of damage. The second Bolt Thrower managed to push her out of range to benefit from the armour buff from escort but rolled poorly for damage, meaning that Feora sat on around 6 boxes. My opponent then activated the Ravagore and moved up, before remembering that Feora was immune to fire and he wouldn't be able to get the job done, which he beat himself up about a bit before shooting at the TFG instead. Between the Ravagore and the Naga (both of whom had been out of range for the feat) they only managed to kill a couple of TFG but did clear a LOS to the Reclaimer who got sniped and killed before he could achieve anything. He then moved up Fyanna the Lash, who advanced into melee with the Templar, doing a pair of Beat Back attacks to move the jack away from his caster, but only doing minor damage to the heavy. 

On my turn I allocated one focus to the Vanquisher and four to the Templar (bonded thanks to eFeora), activating them first. The Vanquisher moved into melee with Fyanna, avoiding blocking up the Templar, and squished her with a boosted attack roll. The Templar, now freed up, activated and charged Lylyth, who'd exposed herself running the assassination last turn. I was able to connect thanks to the speed bump from Escort and the distance from reach, and boosted to hit on the charge attack. I missed. I bought and boosted a second attack with the flail, connecting and doing dice +5 damage to her, taking most of her boxes and setting her on fire (thanks to the bond again), but failing to kill. I knew I was dead next turn so I moved up with Feora but, measuring my control range, I found I was just out to hit with her flamethrower and consigned myself to die, camping her remaining one focus. In a blaze of glory moment I killed a Foresaken and a shepherd with the Allegiant and TFG respectively. 

As soon as the Legion turn started my opponent asked to measure my control range to see if his three burning models were within Feora's caustic presence. All of them were and I realised, to my horror, that I could have feated last turn to gain 3 additional focus, enough to fire step the extra distance to reach Lylyth with the flamethrower and have enough left to boost to hit and for damage! He rolled no significant fire damage on his beasts but rolled 4 damage for Lylyth, forcing her to use her last Fury to transfer, meaning my feat probably would have won me the game, had I been smart enough to think of it at the time! Lylyth moved up and took a couple of shots at Feora, but couldn't quite finish her, requiring a bolt thrower to finish the job, a small consolation! 

In addition to forgetting to feat I realised the next day that I hadn't included my +2 to hit on my charge attack with the Templar from Battle, making me kick myself again for not being focused enough in the game. However to be honest it was only poor dice rolls that had allowed me to survive Lylyth's feat turn at all to get anything done!

Overall this was an educational game that brought home how important it is in this game to (when not playing timed) take your time and consider your options to make the most of your own abilities. While I lost I was close and I can see how I could (perhaps even should) have won the game so I feel like it's helped me improve. Couple that with the fact this game was much more competitive than my last game against this opponent (the first Legion game in Week 3), which he even commented on himself, made me feel I'd come along as a player, which is nice in itself!

Next week we'll be finding out the overall winner and I'll post a summary of my league experience. Stay tuned, wargamers!

-M

Journeyman League - Week 8

So, after the game I wrote about in my last post I managed to squeeze an extra game in against 'Hall of Legends' Jayke Hall and his Talion Charter. The game was very long and gruelling and both of us rolled so poorly that it took a long time to do much of anything after the obligatory turn 2 death of all the sea dogs. The game ended with his Alt caster, Captain Shae, going for the assassination as I was holding the flag and had more models than him. He failed to shoot Feora to death despite knocking her down and she retaliated, taking him down to a few boxes, he then weathered a combined melee charge from 5 TFG and finally died to fire in his own turn. It was a long game and I won't bore you with all the details. 

This week, however I got my regular game in as well, using a new list as the final two weeks would be 35 points. Following the effectiveness of the Bastion/Senechal combo from the tournament, I decided to include them in my list; which ended up looking like this:

eFeora +6

Vanquisher 'Pyre of Idolatry' -8

Dervish -4

Repenter -4

Min Choir -2

Vassal -2

Max Bastions -8

Bastion Senechal -3

Daughters of the Flame -5

Min Clensers -5

It was a different approach that I wanted to try out and I was looking forward to seeing how it would play. I should note that the EO decided that one of the jacks from our starting battlegroup should be named and bonded to that caster, and would have the benefit rolled, and this could be used throughout the event! My Vanquisher earned the title 'Pyre of Idolatory' and rolled the awesome 'dominator' ability netting it +2 to hit and damage rolls while in Feora's control range!

My opponent was the Legion player I'd faced in the first week, who was using a very cool alternate caster - epic Abysylonia! The list was very beast focused, and included a Ravagore, Shredder and Raek from his starter battlegroup augmented by a Carnivean and an Angelius, making for a very intimidating line up. Added to this were a Forsaken and a Shepherd to help with Fury management, and a maximum unit of the Spawning Vessel to throw out even more gribbly monsters. 

The game started, as usual with everything on both sides of the board running up, with the main casualties being three Daughters of the flame to shooting who promptly failed their command check, setting a troubling precedent for their usefulness, and the Clensers threw down a cloud in front of the Carnivean who had been out of range for the AOE which scattered backwards. 

On turn two Abby flew up and feated, turning her Beasts into powerhouses that could charge for free, which they promptly did, killing the Vanquisher and Dervish in short order before tying up my Cleansers with a Rabid Shredder. The Ravagore took a shot at the Bastions but only managed to hit one, but rolled so high I opted to kill him rather than spread out the damage. This left an annoying cloud in front of the Senechal. 

The Cleansers failed to harm the Shredder on the flank and the Daughters ran past the pot (not wanting to kill any and give away Corpse tokens). The main action was a charge from my Bastions, having to spread themselves thin in order to get all of the beasts into melee and stop them from rushing forward to kill my caster. This left me on the back foot and back peddling. The charge attacks were impressive and there was plenty of damage to go around, but with only one attack on each beast it was nowhere near enough to kill any of them, and I feated to put fire on Abby which did no damage at any point in the game. 

On his turn the fully loaded Shredder failed to Frenzy and so had to take a single unboosted attack that achieved little against the Cleansers. The beasts attacked the Bastions but only the Angelius did enough damage with it's Armour Piercing attack to outright kill one of them. The vessel attendants turned around and started to pummel the Duaghters causing them to fail their Casualties check again(!) and gained enough corpse tokens (after one of the attendants chucked her sister in the pot) to throw out a Stinger which charged the nearest Bastion, just clipping the melee of the Senechal, who hit with a Defensive Strike to take out all but a couple of Circles, massively reducing it's ability to harm anything. 

On my turn the Bastions continued to spread out, trying to corral the beasts that were all up in my face, but with little effect. The Clensers were similarly useless attacking the Shredder and I ended my turn. 

The Angelius finished off another Bastion, which freed the Carbivean up to make a charge on Feora, who I'd thought was safe behind the Repenter. The big beast had trouble hitting her high DEF and by the end of the round he was maxed out on Fury and Feora had 5 boxes left. The Forsaken activated and bombed the Cleansers, neatly polishing them off, and the Sheppard moved up to where the Beasts were locked in with my remaining Bastions. 

I started my turn by moving the Repenter out of Feora's way, accepting the free strike from the Carni, which failed to cripple anything, and took a shot at Abby, hoping to soften her up, but failed to wound. The bastions squished the Shepherd who was blocking me and took a couple of swings at the many beasts, but achieved little. Feora activated and Cast Fire Step to dodge out of combat and move up, taking the opportunity to charge Abby, who was now exposed and on 1 Fury, hoping for a desperate assassination as my only real chance to win. I took multiple attacks and boosts but ended with her on fire with only a few boxes left, but still camping that one Fury, guaranteeing her survival for next turn and sealing my fate.

He activated, hoping to use a spell to slam Feora into melee with a heavy but it was unnecessary as the damage from the spell itself was enough to polish her off, winning him the game. 

It was a fun game and showcased, if nothing else, how devastating eAbysylonia can be, especially under her feat! I could have done a few things much better, but I was happy to have at least taken the assassination run and done some nice damage as a last hurrah!

Thanks for reading!

-M

Journeyman League - Week 7

We're approaching the end of the Journeyman League, with only a couple of weeks left to go. This week was still 25 points with alternative casters available and so I ran a very similar list again:

eFeora +6

-Vanquisher -8

-Dervish -4

-Repenter -4

Min Choir -2

Vassal -2

Max Temple Flameguard with UA -8

High Paladin Dartan Vilmon -3

I managed to get my game this week against Nick, whose Legion I'd played in the pre-league and once again in the mid week of the League and who also runs his own company making high quality (and surprisingly cheap) resin bases at http://solidgroundstudios.co.uk. Both of my previous games had been definitive losses, albeit fun games, and I was determined to try and be better each time we played. The list he was using was pretty much the same as the pre-league and was now beautifully painted to boot. It consisted of pThagrosh with a Carnivean and a pair of Shredders along with a pair of Deathstalkers, a Shepherd and a full unit of Warspears with UA. This list had devastated me last time I'd played it and I was hoping to do better with it this time around. We were playing Close Quarters again and I won the roll to go first deciding I would take the lead. 

I deployed my infantry opposite the opposing flag and my battlegroup and Dartan near my own flag where there was a forest to shield my advance. Nick went for a more centralised deployment with Thags, the Carni and a Shredder slightly towards his flag, with the other Shredder behind, and the Warspears clumped slightly to my flag's side of the board with the Shepherd near them. The Deathstalkers advance deployed ahead of the battlegroup and opposite the Flameguard. 

My first turn was fairly uneventful, with most of my army running forward. Dartan ran up to the edge of the forest, contesting my flag, as did Feora, hoping to score a couple of points, casting escort to give her jacks some speed. The Dervish ran across the board to my flag and the Vanquisher moved more centrally, hoping to get a few shots off next turn. The Flameguard ran forward towards the enemy flag, knowing that no amount of armour buffs would help against the Deathstalker's sniper ability. Finally my Choir and Vassal moved up, buffing my jacks with Passage and putting Enliven onto my Vanquisher.

In his turn there was a similar process of moving everything up the board quite quickly while throwing out Tenacity and Spiny Growth to keep everyone tough (though not Tough). The Deathstalkers then started their work killing two Flameguard each and using Swift Hunter to advance out of their retaliation range. 

The next turn was more eventful, the TFG continued to advance, this time, with the Warspears and Carnivean looming, using both shield wall and their mini feat of Iron Zeal to give them a respectable ARM stat. The Vanquisher used an attack and an Ancilliary attack to blast half of the Warspears, doing moderate damage with the blasts but getting some lovely fire on them for next turn. Dartan shuffled up and set into Imperishable Wall to become functionally untouchable, and Feora moved up to dominate the flag, with the Dervish advancing into the forest in front of her to block the Warspear's charge. The Repenter wandered forward towards the flag and the Choir put Passage back on the Vanquisher and Repenter, though the Dervish had advanced out of their range. 

On Nick's turn the fire stayed on everyone, finishing one spear off. He spent a long time measuring and re-measuring his control range trying to determine if the Carni would be in threat range to charge the Vanquisher. It was hard to judge but in the end he went for it and was in by the tiniest of margins, it was likely 9.5" exactly but that was all that was needed and it quickly chomped through the Heavy Jack, leaving it on 2 boxes, but failing to finish it off. Next the Warspears activated, declaring charges across the board. Two Warspears charged the Dervish in front of Feora, another two into the Flameguard and one into the Vanquisher hoping to finish it off with an assault shot (he had Prey on the Vanquisher and wanted to finish it off and move the bonus to the Dervish). Unfortunately for Nick he'd forgotten about Passage and so, thanks to the intervention of Menoth, the Vanquisher survived. The other Warspears, clearly scoffing at the colleague's misfortune decided to make up for it, with one assault shot rolling a 12 on the Dervish, and happily scrapping the jack between the two of them. The other Warspears managed to kill a couple of the Flameguard and called it a day. The Shredder went Rabid and polished off another Flameguard, while the Deathstalkers killed off the last of the Flameguard not in melee and started into the Choir, killing their leader, but failing to kill the Vassal who was still B2B with the mortally wounded Vanquisher. Thagrosh moved forward slightly, out of the Kill box, bringing his sacrificial Shredder forward for Transfers if needed. 

My retaliation was less destructive, but satisfying nonetheless. The Repenter activated and pprayed the two Warspears nearest Feora, boosting damage to kill one and wound the other, allowing Feora to advance up and get the flamethrower shot on the other, also clipping the UA finishing the trooper and harming the UA before fire stepping back to the flag to score. The Vanquisher could only target the Carni but thanks to Spiny Growth, two boxes left and a crippled weapon it would be suicide to even try, leaving the Vassal with not much to do so he advanced up (hugging the Vanquisher) and took a shot at the UA with his magic attack, finishing it off! The Flameguard poked the Warspears with a stick, doing no damage, while the commander defiantly jabbed the Carnivean to set it on fire. Netting me a point. 

The following turn several Warspears continued to burn from the fire but didn't let it stop them from finishing off most of the Flameguard (with help from the Deathstalkers) and finally finish off the Vanquisher, allowing the Carnivean to Tranple through the forest towards Feora, passing through Dartan's Melee range, and taking a huge amount of damage from the free strike, but not knocking out any spirals. The remaining Deathstalker polished off the Vassal ending his celebration with an arrow to the throat and Thagrosh moved up to dominate his home flag but there was a single TFG left contesting so both flags were contested this turn. 

On my turn both Feora and Dartan poured as much as they could into killing the Carnivean but it managed to survive the onslaught with only a few circles remaining. The final Flameguard (the officer as it happened) advanced forward, carefully staying within the Reach of the Warspear while managing to get a Deathstalker into his reach, but failed to hit. The rest of my turn was fairly uneventful, and left the Carni in melee with Feora. 

Nick opened his turn by healing up the Carni to restore its lost spirals, preparing it to put the hurt on Feora. Thanks to her high DEF and the ARM buffs from Escort and the one focus she was camping she was a tough nut to crack and required multiple boosts and after the multiple smashes from the big beast she was still standing on 5 boxes. The Warspears lost the last few boxes from the fire and died leaving the Shredder to eat the last TFG alone, freeing up the Deathstalkers to advance closer to my flag, with a rapid Shredder moving to contest my zone, and Thagrosh advanced to claim the flag bringing the points back to 1-1. 

On my turn Dartan set up his stance and delivered the killing blow to the Carnivean, freeing up Feora to flamethrower the Deathstalker nearest her, and with a boosted roll hit and kill it, with the second Deathstalker getting hit with a boosted flamethrower from the Repenter. 

At this point I was down to Dartan, Feora, one Chorister and a Repenter and Nick was down to one Shredder and a Shepherd, leaving the board fairly bare. Nick scored his second point, putting him to 2-1. I had no way to contest the flag in my next turn, meaning Nick would win in the following round (one point in his turn, one in mine since I couldn't reach to contest, one in his to win) but we carried on the game anyway. 

On his turn Nick consolidated around his flag and feated to bring the Carnivean back to life and ended his turn securing a 3-2 lead. I followed this in my turn by moving Feora up and slapping a flamethrower over the Carnivean, also hitting the Shepherd and Thagrosh in the process. The Carnivean took slight damage and Thags dodged the shot, but the Shepherd was hit and died in a final blow before Feora fire stepped back to the flag for 4-3. Then in the next turn the Carnivean activated and charged Feora boosting to hit and killed the caster, netting an assassination on top of the scenario victory. 

Overall it was a good, fun game. In retrospect I think I would have done a lot better if I'd taken a unit of Bastions instead of the TFG since the Deathstalkers wouldn't have been able to pick them off as easily and I might have contested the opposing flag a little longer but who knows cos I didn't, but as always Nick was helpful and I feel like I managed to get a lot further than my last few games. Plus I'm looking forward to starting my Legion next week using his gorgeous bases; again go look for yourself at http://solidgroundstudios.co.uk, so I can hardly begrudge him!

-M

Journeyman League - Week 6

Hey guys and welcome to the latest week in the journeyman league! We were still at 25 points this week but we could select an alternative caster to use, keeping the same battlegroup, but would then have to stick to either them or our original caster. Also, instead of Incursion we were playing close quarters as the EO wanted a change for everybody. 

The Alt caster I chose was epic Feora, continuing the trend I had set up with her prime version. Otherwise my list stayed exactly the same. I had planned to drop the Wracks to get the extra point for Dartan Vilmon, but my game this week was against Cygnar and I was worried there would be too many magical ranged attacks to feel the benefit:

eFeora +6

Vanquisher -8

Dervish -4

Repenter -4

Min choir -2

Vassal -2

Max Temple Flameguard w/ UA -8

Paladin -2

Wracks -1

As I said my opponent was playing a merc heavy Cygnar army led by eStryker with a Squire, Hunter and a Stormclad as well as a max unit of Boomhowler and co and a Tactical Arcanist Corp. I won the roll for deployment and chose to go second, allowing him to set up first. He placed his Boomhowlers on the flank nearest his own flag and the rest of the army opposite my flag. I deployed my battlegroup opposite his, and the TFG and Paladin across from the flag. He then advance deployed his hunter out in front of his battle group and I placed my Wracks near the flag, including one within 4" to auto-contest it. 

His first turn started with him running his army forwards, with Boomhowler taking his flag (it could only be dominated to score though) and the battlegroup moving quickly up towards my flag. The hunter moved close but just in a forest to get some defensive buff. 

On my turn the paladin and TFG walked up the board to keep their ARM buffs from the outset and then Feora activated, casting escort and moving up to get a Heavy Flamethower shot on the Hunter, doing a hefty 10 damage. The rest of the battlegroup ran up, the choir did passage  to keep the jacks safe from any shooting and the vassal gave the Vanquisher a shot that deviated nowhere. 

On his turn the flaming Hunter moved up to the objective and had LOS to Feora and took a shot. The Hunter has the Armour Piercing rule meaning my armour was reduced but I only took 5 damage. The Boomhowlers continued to advance across the board and the Stormclad and TAC advanced further towards the objective, with Stryker advancing to just behind the forest to end the turn. 

On my turn it was clear that the Hunter was a serious threat and so I gave the Dervish 2 focus and then had the Repenter shoot it. The Repenter did reasonable but not amazing damage (and also hit the Stormclad to set it on fire), and so the Dervish charged, boosting the attack and luckily taking out the Movement, making the second initial much more likely to hit, which it did, and a second boosted damage roll under choir was enough to finish it off. I then used my Side Step to turn around so my back arc was not facing the Stormclad. The Vanquisher/Vassal took a pair of shots at the Boomhowlers, one of which was in by only the tiniest of margins after having to get a third party to judge on the distance. The net result of which was a few knocked down trollbloods and one fatality thanks to Boomhowlers call improving tough and some very handy rolls. However it did put a lot of fire on the board. The TFG and Paladin continued to trudge up the board and I forgot to mini feat to mitigate the inevitable charge from the Boomhowlers next turn. Feora activated and moved away from the flag towards the centre of the board, trying to get more Boomhowlers in the control range for her Caustic Presence. 

His turn was all retaliation and started with the trolls on fire mostly dying from how on fire they were without the benefit of extra tough. The remainder of the unit charged the TFG (and one on the paladin) but only managed to kill one thanks to the Defence boost from Set Defence against charges. The Stormclad moved up and made short work of the Dervish that killed it's little friend, scrapping it from full with three attacks. The TAC moved up and threw a fire bomb at the Vanquisher, easily hitting its low DEF. Then the sneakiness came into play as the Vanquisher was stood very close to the wrack, which was hit by blast damage and exploded, hitting the Vanquisher, his Vassal and two Choiristers, killing the all the support models and harming the Heavy in the mix while also taking out my last wrack! It was a great move and it underlined how crappy my placement had been, allowing him to take advantage; reducing my strength considerably. Stryker then ran across the board, miffed that Feora had moved out of his threat range, and dominated his home flag for a point. 

On my turn I gave two to the Vanquisher and started to attack. The Heavy walked up to two of the TAC and Threshered, killing one outright and knocking the other down to almost no damage, so I bought a second attack and smushed the dwarf, leaving one. The Paladin took out the Trollblood who'd attacked him and the TFG used CMAs to hit and kill all of the remaining Trollbloods, but they all passed their tough. The Repenter valiantly moved into melee with the Stormclad and did a whopping three damage. Feora then activated and charged the last TAC model and killed it. I then Feated, gaining 4 focus from the models in my control on fire and took fire off one of the Boomhowlers and put it onto Stryker. I then took a double boosted Convection shot at the caster which did 5 damage to him before fire stepping away. Again this was a close decision, requiring proxy bases and 3" templates to get just behind the TFG. I ended my turn giving up another control point. 

Again we had a measuring issue where Stryker was in the Caustic Presence by a tiny margin but the fire stayed on and did a reasonable few damage. He decided to go for the assassination and used his caster's special ability 'overboost'. This allowed him to roll 1-3 dice and add that to his strength, but he then had to roll that many dice and take it as damage. He rolled a 10 for strength bringing him to Herculean standards and then rolled 13 damage on himself, killing his own caster by only two points, giving me a win! Since this was a bit unusual we agreed to play out the final turn anyway to see how much damage Stryker would have caused if he hadn't died and thanks to the velocity spell he was able to get into melee with Feora and kill her with one swing of Quicksilver. 

A risky but fun move that ended in a crazy end to the game, sealed how much fun the game had been overall. It had been close, competitive, and most of all enjoyable. It was easily my favourite game of the League so far and I'm looking forward to playing him again in the future!

-M

Journeyman League - Week 5 and a Half

Following on from my last post I actually managed to get one last 25 points game with pFeora against my pirate playing buddy Jayke, of Hall of Legends (http://hall-of-legends.blogspot.com). So here I am to tell you all about it before I break out the epic in week 6 in a couple days. 

We both used the same lists from Week 4 and the game was still Incursion. The only real difference was that he'd swapped out the Deck Gun for Lord Rockbottom. 

He won the roll for deployment/first turn (Talion charter gets +1 to the roll) and decided to go first and he chose to set up with his battlegroup in the centre of the board and the sea dogs to one flank. I deployed with the Flameguard to the centre and my battlegroup opposite the majority of his forces shielded by a forest and the Paladin on the flank he'd left exposed. 

Turn one we both moved up the board with him running everything up and casting Batten the Hatches with Bart for an armour buff. I also ran with everything, including the Paladin and TFG, who sacrificed their respective ARM buffs to run nearer their flags. At the end of the turn the flag nearest his army disappeared, leaving him to trudge across the board with the sea dogs. 

Realising the far flank was now the flag to capture and that it was uncontested he ran up his Buccaneer, just managing to get within 4" to contest. The rest of the army moved up across the board with the sea dogs and Mariner taking pot shots at the Flameguard and killing a couple. Bart Feated, hindering my movement around the board and moved his melee jacks up to contest the central flag. 

With the feat up I had to be careful about my movement and so I started by moving my Paladin up to B2B with the flank flag and Stone and Mortar'd to make sure he could stay on it. (He was just out of the range of the feat) My Repenter moved up, also far enough away to miss the feat and was berely in range to kill one sea dog. The Vanquisher took the aiming bonus to not move and took a shot at the sea dogs (and another with the vassal) which killed a couple more of them. The TFG used Iron Zeal and Shield Wall to reach ARM 21 and un-knock-down-able and walked onto the flag with impunity. Then Feora measured her control range and shuffled forward an inch to avoid Bart's feat and used her own, setting fire to the Freebooter and about 80% of the remaining sea dogs. 

On his turn without the benefit of Tough from Rockbottom only one of the dog's fire didn't go out, and with low ARM they all died without a roll. The Freebooter stayed on fire but took no damage. This was a pretty heavy hit both tactically and to morale, but there were still 2 heavy jacks and the caster knocking about so there was no need to let it stop him, especially as Warmachine can turn in a second and Victory is always an option. Starting his turn it was clear that, despite looking like 12", when we used a combination of Spray Template and Reach marker the Buccaneer was just out of Bart's control range by about half an inch, meaning he couldn't allocate focus to it to help take out the Paladin. Despite this set back the light jack moved up and took a swing at him anyway, failing to hit but moving up heto contest the flag more solidly. The remaining sea dogs charged the TFG alongside the Mariner and the Freebooter. The Mariner threshered (he'd moved in and didn't technically 'charge' but artistic licence) but failed to wound the Iron Zeal'd Flameguard, and the sea dogs had a similar issue, since they needed 11's to wound. The Freebooter killed one Flameguard but missed with the second attack. Bart used Batten again to give himself an armour buff and ended the turn. 

I started by attacking the Buccanner with my Paladin, getting a high roll and a very lucky column, taking out his melee weapon. The TFG Shield Wall'd and made a couple of Combined Melee attacks against the heavy jacks but despite being +4 to the rolls did little appreciable damage. The Dervish that had been stuck behind a forest all game started to crash through the trees towards the Freebooter but only managed to get about 3/4 of the way through. The Repenter, still on the far, empty flank moved up and hit and killed the gunner attachment, who replaced the remaining sea dog and failed his command check. The Vanquisher could see through the Flameguard thanks to Ranked Attacks from the UA and so had a line of sight to Bart. I directly hit him, and caught the back of the Mariner. Even with a boosted roll I only managed 4 boxes from the caster and then got another 4 with the ancilliary attack from the Vassal. The Mariner being pretty much fine against the blast damage both times. Feora moved up through the forest and took a couple of Flamethrower shots at the Freebooter, crippling one of the Arms. 

The pirate captain allocated a bunch of focus to the Buccanner hoping to clear the Paladin from the flag, which I had nothing else to contest, securing a steady flow of control points. Unfortunately he'd forgotten that the jack had a crippled arm and so was only rolling single dice, meaning he was boosting to get a regular 2d6 roll. Following this Bart activated and charged the TFG and used attacks and Overtake to slaughter around half of the remaining Flameguard, sugnificantly buffing his ARM. Adding insult to injury the Mariner and Dougal also took out a few guard themselves, but the Freebooter with a crippled arm managed little. 

On my turn I continued to swing at the Buccanner with my Paladin, chipping away at it but not doing a great deal. The TFG threw a couple of cursory CMAs but also achieved little beyond their roll as flag contesting road block. The Dervish charged the back arc of the Freebooter and took a pair of attacks doing minimal damage, as did Feora who continued to pour on fire from her flamethrowers. Stupidly I Side-stepped the Dervish right into the path of the Repenter I'd been planning to use and so he could only try (unsuccessfully) for the Rhulic Financier Rockbottom. The Vanquisher activated and fired directly at Bart again, considering the TFG in the blast radius acceptable martyrs. The shot hit and, boosted, managed to knock off his last box, winning the game. Except he has Tough. And passed. So I ancilliary attacked the now knocked down caster, hitting easily and once again knocking off the last box to secure the victory. Except he got tough again, staying defiantly in the game. On his turn the fire didn't go out and was enough to finish him off for the third time and finally Bart gave up and the tough check failed. 

This was a fun game but it did feel like luck was on my side with most (if not all) of the critical dice rolls in the game going my way, I played a solid game but made disproportionate gains thanks to the luck of the dice more than anything. But when you're a tabletop gamer capricious dice are a cruel part of the life and I've certainly had my fair share of 'nothing but 1s' games. 

I'll be back in a couple of days with week 6 and alt casters, stay tuned!

-M

Journeyman League - Week 5

Hey everyone, continuing my battle reports for the journeyman league I have the latest week for you! Again this week due to the larger point size (we were still at 25 points) I only had time for one game (technically I could have squeezed in two but I wanted to get home so...). 

I was running the same list again, with:

pFeora +6

Vanquisher -8

Dervish -4

Repenter -4

Min Choir -2

Vassal -2

Wracks -1

Max Flameguard with UA -8

Paladin of the Order of the Wall -2

My opponent for this week was the Troll player I faced off against in the first full week, and his list had expanded up as well, giving him pMadrak, an Impaler, an Axer, a Pyre Troll, a Stonescribe, a Krielstone Bearer unit with UA and a unit of 5 Warders. Making for a very tough (sorry) list to beat down. 

I won the roll for deployment and decided to go first. We were playing Incursion again and so I spread myself out across the board, with the Paladin on my left flank near the objective, the TFG just left of centre and my battlegroup to the right of the board. The Trolls deployed in a solid block in the centre of the board on their side, with the Warders up front, the Kriel Stone to the rear and sandwiched in the middle, his 'lock and beasts. 

I started turn one by running everything up. Each of my Jacks jogged forwards to get into position and got Passage'd by the choir to avoid getting hit by the impaler (plus they had nothing else to do). The Paladin ran up to the forest near the flag on my left, getting the defence buff but staying in walking distance of the objective. The TFG ran straight up to the middle objective and I ended my turn. Following suit all the Trolls moved pretty much directly forwards thumping towards the centre objective. The kriel stone made all of his troops immune to continuous effects and he ended his turn, meaning one of the flags vanished, dropping the flag nearest the Paladin. 

On turn two the paladin, bereft of a flag to sit on simply walked through the forest he was in to come out nearer the centre flag. The TFG moved up to the flag and used both Shield wall and Iron Zeal from the UA to get armour 21 and immune to knockdown and stationary and camped the flag, not scoring since it was still before points. My Vanquisher moved up and (thanks to the vassal) took two shots at the Krielstone, knocking off a few of the regular guys in the unit. The dervish shifted up to the rear and right of the TFG for a counter charge and the Repenter stalked towards the flag on my right. Feora moved up and cast wall of fire to put a template between the flag (where the TFG were) and the Warders. Not much else happened and I ended my turn. The trolls activated and started with the pyre troll throwing a ball of fire at the TFG but missed the to hit roll by one point and the blast damage was too low to harm anything. Madrak activated and gave Sure Foot to the Warders and ended his turn. This was when he realised he should have feated to really bring the alpha strike with the Warders but forgot and charged anyway. Charging weaponmaster trolls with huge axes had no trouble smashing through my TFG and all 5 of the charged models died despite buffs. The Axer and the Impaler both moved slightly across to my right but stayed fairly centralised, and the Krielstone kept up its shenanigans. 

Starting my turn I walked the Paladin into Melee with a Warder and kept up stone and mortar. The TFG did a barrage of CMA but only did a few boxes of damage to two warders (those guys are scary hard to kill). The dervish charged one of the warders and killed it with a pair of attacks with boosts. Feora moved up and camped 4 focus for high ARM and hid behind the Vanquisher who took another couple of shots at the Krielstone, one of which scattered nowhere much and the other hit his 'lock doing a grand total of 1 point of blast damage. The Repenter moved up and captured the flag, ending my turn with one control point. 

On the Troll turn the Pyre troll moved into Melee with the Paladin but wasn't able to do any damage with the light. The Krielstone charged, bringing the aura up in the centre but failed to do much damage. Madrak activated and used Carnage and his feat to set up the pain with the Warders. The warders activated and the troll on my left activated first, killing a Flameguard and moving up, killing another and moving up again but then he left my Paladin's melee range and was promptly sliced in half by the free strike. The troll on the far side activated and dealt a chunk of damage to the Dervish but didn't destroy anything and so couldn't use the feat. The other two trolls in the unit activated... and both rolled misses to hit. This was disappointing as the feat went wasted but was a big relief for me as the first Warder made me think they wouldn't stop going until everything was dead. The Axer on the flank had the tiniest crack of LOS along the forest by the flank flag that we needed to use a laser to determine he could see the Repenter. He threw on the animus taking 3 damage from Hex Hammer on Feora) and charged, denting the jack but more importantly contesting the zone. Finally the Impaler activated and lobbed a spear at my Vanquisher. He boosted and got the crit pushing him back a full 6 inches, through Feora, the Vassal and two choristers. The vassal was smooshed but Feora's camped ARM was high enough that she was unscathed but knocked down and both choristers managed to miraculously survive by the clear direct intervention of Menoth who made my opponent roll two sets of snake eyes (the only roll not killing outright). On my turn I started with the paladin again, thwacking the pyre troll with his sword for decent damage. The four remaining TFG moved up to CMA one of the Warders but failed to kill. The Dervish attacked the Krielstone bearer who was now alone apart from the UA who he promptly sacrificed. The Vanquisher stood up, sacrificing move, and took a shot at a troll (I forget which) but the shot went wide achieving nothing. The Repenter activated and hit the Axer with it's flail for a surprising (for a Repenter) amount of damage. Finally Feora activated, and spent a focus to stand up, reclaiming it from a wrack and feated, hitting the whole Troll army apart from the Pyre troll, who was immune anyway and the Stonescribe. She then walked away from the central melee and just near the flank flag, using two double boosted flamethrowers to finish off the Axer, leaving my Repenter in control of the flag to get me to 2 control points. 

At the start of the troll turn the fire went out on a warder and (of course) the Krielstone and Madrak. The fire then did not much to anyone. The Impaler activated and moved sideways to get a tiny crack to see the Repenter along the forest and threw a spear, but thanks to the Concealment from the forest he missed. There was nothing left that could contest the flank flag or harm the Repenter this turn, meaning I would score this turn bringing me up to 3 points and with my caster within and inch I would dominate in my own turn for 5 meaning I had won, breaking my recent losing streak!

This was a really fun game and I felt outmatched by his army from the outset, with Warders and the Krielstone with UA being very difficult to do anything about. The only reason I won at all was because he had under threatened the flag on the flank and committed to the centre which meant all I had to do was claim the flank and not die in the centre. If he'd committed the Axer and Impailer to the other flag and the Warders to the centre I really don't think I would have even been close. 

Thanks for reading and come back next week for Alt Caster week!

-M

Journeyman League - Week 4

I only managed to get one game in this week since the club was pretty quiet and the game lasted much longer than it should have done. This week (and also next week) we've shifted up again to 25 points. My list ran like this:

pFeora +6

-Vanquisher -8

-Dervish -4

-Repenter -4

Min Choir -2

Vassal of Menoth -2

Wracks -1

Max Temple Flameguard -6

Flameguard UA -2

Paladin of the Order of the Wall -2

This gave me way more tactical options since this week we would be playing the 2014 Steamroller scenario 'Incursion'. For those who don't know this has three flags worth one point a turn to control and the flanks are 2 if you dominate. spread across the centre line. At the end of turn 1 either the left or right flag disappears and after turn 2 you start scoring for them. First to 5 wins. Because of the terrain placement our middle flag ended up in the middle of a forest. 

My opponent was my Pirate buddy from last week who had also expanded up to the 25 mark, adding a full unit of sea dogs with rifleman, a deck gun, and Dougal MacNaile to his list of Bart, Mariner, Freebooter and Buccaneer. 

He took first turn and moved everything rapidly up. I followed suit with most of my battle group on one flank, my TFG down the middle and the Paladin heading on the other flank. I managed to get a shot off by using my Vassal's Ancilliary Attack on the Vanquisher, killing some sea dogs. At the end of my turn the flag across from my battle group disappeared. 

Next turn the deck gun and the Sea Dogs took potshots primarily at the flameguard but only managed to kill a couple of them. The Mariner moved up but he'd forgotten it needed to be in B2B to get to shoot and so couldn't use the focus he'd put on it. His jacks opposite mine shuffled around slightly and Bart feated. Bart's feat means all enemies in his control suffer a Def penalty and if they advance in his control they are immediately knocked down. On my turn the Paladin was well out of range so he moved up to capture the flag without an issue securing a point at the end of my turn. My TFG used Iron Zeal from the UA making them immune to knockdown and added shield wall to reach ARM 21 and shuffled through the forest to get B2B with the centre flag. Despite controlling the centre flag there were enemy models in 4" so I couldn't score from this. My jacks were all within the feat so they chose not to move, gaining the aiming bonus for the Vanquisher and Repenter who shot up a few more Sea Dogs and set his jacks on fire but did no damage. I moved Feora up and cast Wall of Fire into the forest between the remaining Sea Dogs and my TFG. I ended my turn with one point. 

The following turn the pirates attacked with the mariner trying to get my Paladin off the flag but only managing to get 3 of his 5 boxes since the solo was in Stone and Mortar stance for +5 ARM. The Sea Dogs were blunted by the wall and had to shuffle through the forest around it and take a couple of pot shots with their pistols on the flameguard who weathered  the attack with minimal casualties. The melee Jacks moved slightly but had no focus for anything interesting. Since both zones were now contested no one got any points for the turn. 

On my turn I shifted the flameguard around so they could control the flag and still attack the sea dogs in the forest who were butchered, leaving only the couple  on the flank near the Paladin standing. Dougal was still within 4" though so I couldn't gain any points. I walked the Paladin around to try and just get in to melee the Dog contesting his flag but was just shy and so resigned myself to Stone and Mortar and try to survive. My Vanquisher and Repenter took shots at the pirate jacks but did minimal damage. Feora moved up and feated setting everything but the cowardly Deck Gun on fire. I tried to Immolate Dougal, with a boosted attack roll (forest) and hit. I only needed a 6 to kill him and decided to camp a focus for ARM. I rolled a 4. No points again. 

On his turn he rolled for Fire and everything went out apart from one jack and a sea dog. The dog died but the jack took no damage. Bart allocated one focus each to his Jacks and started charging. The Mariner ran down the Paladin without an issue but since I moved round the previous turn he wasn't in B2B to secure the flag and couldn't score. The Freebooter charged the Repenter and got a solid hit but missed his second roll denting the armour but doing no major damage. The Buccaneer moved in to the TFG he was closest to but failed to do any damage to their high armour on a really crappy roll. Not much else happened with a few models taking shots but not getting much done. Again no points. 

On my turn I kept all of Feora's focus on her. All three of my Battle'd jacks moved into melee with the Freebooter and reduced it to two boxes in a flurry of blows. The flameguard used CMA to do virtually nothing to the Buccaneer but did manage to kill McNaile who tough'd to stay in the game. I threw on EOD and charged the Buccaneer and scrapped it with just my initial attacks. This only left Bart in 4" (McNaile was also in but knocked down so he couldn't contest) gaining me a second control point. Then I got stupid. I decided to try Immolation on Bart and boosted attack and damage leaving Feora naked and doing healthy damage to the caster but not killing him. I gained a second point. 

The mariner moved up and took a risky close range shot on the TFG hoping it wouldn't back scatter onto himself. It went wide of everything. The sea dogs moved up to the flank flag to control it. And then Bart charged through the forest and was in range by the tiniest of margins. A few double boosted attacks later and my caster was dead. Losing me a game I'd been firmly in control of from the outset. But that's just how Warmachine plays, make one mistake that your opponent can capitalise on and that's all it takes to lose. 

We later realised that we'd been playing the rules for forests wrong all game and had been using 5" in or out instead of 3". Maybe if we'd been playing that everything would have played out very differently but unfortunately we hadn't been. The game took so long that in the end we had to leave without getting another but it had been an enjoyable game. I'm looking forward to next week where hopefully I can get a couple of games in. 

That's all for this week!

-M

Journeyman League - Week 3

The league continues! This week I managed to squeeze in a final battle box game with my best friend and long time gaming partner who'd decided on pirate mercs after a toss up between them and Cyriss. 

His force contained Bart, a Mariner, a Freebooter and a Buccaneer. The list has a serious flaw at battlebox level since the Mariner needs to be B2B with a friendly warrior model to fire its big gun and that left it stuck to the caster all game and limited its shooting capability. He managed first blood by knocking down my Repenter and getting the charge with his Buccaneer but this left the two of them focus-less-ly waving their weapons at each other for the rest of the game. The Freebooter got the charge in on the Dervish but didn't do much damage but did manage to leave the light exposed to a charge from Feora with EoD the next turn that trashed the jack. This left my back arc exposed to the Mariner who moved up close and took a shot (forcing Bart to move right up too) but failed to kill Feora who walked into combat with Bart and knocked him down to one box but failed to kill him. Luckily I feated to set him on fire and this polished him off in his own turn after he failed the Tough. 

This was between regular League sessions and on the regular night everyone was bumped up to 15 points which allowed me to shift to:

Feora, Priestess of the Flame +6

Vanquisher - 8

Dervish - 4

Repenter - 4

Minimum Choir - 2

Vassal of Menoth - 2

Wracks - 1

This gave me much more support for the army and let me boost my jacks up nicely. Unfortunately due to some personal stuff I was taking care of I was late to the night and everyone was pretty much paired off. I only managed to get 2 games in instead of the three I was hoping for and both games were quite short thanks to the skill level of the guys I got games with. 

My first game was a very shooty Legion army with pLylyth, a Ravagore, a Nephalim Bolt Thrower, Shredder and he'd added a Totem Hunter for the 15 points. We decided to continue playing without a direct scenario and the board we were using had a large hill in the centre. I started very poorly and very much gave up the initiative and the hill which allowed Feora to get shot up, resulting in a critical knockdown/push from the bolt thrower which opened up the charge for the Totem Hunter who'd put pray on her to secure the assassination very early on. 

Following this I played one of the most experienced players in the league (who I'd played in the preleague). His list comprised of pThags, 3 Warspears, two shredders, and a Carnivean. The Warspears ate away my choir in the first turn (they'd Passag'd the jacks) and the Carni breathed fire to bring my Vassal to 1 box. I retaliated with a charge on his heavy with both the Dervish and EoD Feora but he had Spiny Growth on and my damage rolls were too scattered to even take down an aspect never mind kill the thing and so I was horribly exposed. The Carni head butted her for the knock down and opened up the tiniest crack of a charge lane to allow Thags to polish her off leaving me on 2 losses for the night. 

The games I had were instructively painful and the guys I played were both sporting and their armies were impressivly destructive. I'm looking forward to having games against some slightly less out-of-my-league players next week and seeing where I land on the scores after being bumped down to second!

-M

Journeyman League - Week 2

So after finding out that my hobby points had got me to first place in the league for week 1:

I was pretty pleased with myself and decided to kick off a couple more games at last night's meeting. As a slight change to the normal rules several of the weeks including week one of the league were spread over two weeks, so it was still Mangled Metal & battle boxes. 

My first game was against a beautifully painted circle army with pKaya, a pair of Argus (one winter, one regular) and a Feral Warpwolf. After the initial moving up my opponent managed to get the charge in with the winter and cripple one of the arms of my Dervish before using a tidy little hit and run tactic with the caster to magic his beasts backwards. Since the spell left everything clumped together (you were placed within 3") I managed to get a solid shot off with the Vanquisher that missed but deviated onto the caster and both Arguses, setting them all on fire before boosted blast damage knocked Kaya to around 5 boxes. He moved forward again and spelled back his Winter and Feral leaving Feora to charge and kill the other Argus with EoD. Everything was clumped again so the Vanquisher got another shot into the crowd and the continuous fire finished Kaya the following turn, netting me the win. 

After that I had a game against one of the (many) Legion players in the League, who was taking pLylyth, an Angelius and a Scythean. After initial movement my Dervish was pretty exposed and so got charged (for free thanks to Lylyth's bow) by the Scythean and killed in one turn. This left the Scythean in the charge of Feora who went EoD and killed the heavy on the charge. The Angel flew across with a free charge on Feora for the assassination but didn't do nearly enough damage, leaving her to polish off another heavy under EoD, netting me another win under Mangled Metal. 

For my third game I decided to play the EO, a much more experienced veteran tournament player who was switching factions for the league to Skorne. The battlebox he was using was pMorghoul, a Titan Gladiator, a Cyclops Brute and a Basalisk Krea. He got in my face very quickly and again the Dervish took the brunt of the early offensive, getting scrapped by the Titan, putting his heavy in direct line for Feora, while he advanced the Brute with reach to lock in both of my jacks. This pretty much forced me to charge the Titan or get charged next turn. I chose to attack and went in for the charge, killing the Titan with EoD in one round, only missing once with a double 1 which wasted one of my valuable focus. The Vanquisher also got a solid melee hit on the Cyclops but it had admonition so dodged the attack from the Repenter. His Krea used it's animus to drop my DEF and took a shot at Feora, but she was hiding in the wreckage of the Dervish and he missed. Morghoul was in range though and got the charge on Feora, and kept buying pairs of anatomical precision attacks on her until she was dead. 

I finished the night on two wins and a loss again, which is another 8 League points and I had fun with all my games, the people I played were all sporting and had cool lists so I was happy to play them. I'm looking forward to next week when we can bump it up to 15 points and get in some support stuff!

Plus I got my latest (and last for a while) shipment of Menoth models in so I'm looking forward to painting them and securing my place at the top!

-M

Journeyman League - Week 1

Last night was the first night of the journeyman league and had a pretty great turn out with around 19 people coming to game, which was good to see a healthy warmachine community in the area. I'd managed to get around 13 preleague hobby points by getting a few units painted up in the weeks before gaming started. I was one of the first to arrive and so I managed to get three full games in before having to leave for the night. 

Contrary to my previous post I made a last minute switch on my battle group: as I decided I wanted to try something new I bought and painted pFeora a few days before the league started fully. My revised battle box is a variation on the alternative offered in the Privateer Press league document (the EO allowed players to customise within his guidelines):

pFeora +6

Vanquisher -6

Dervish -4

Repenter -4

This was a bit of a weird choice as technically I had another 2 points to spend if I wanted them and could have upped the Dervish to a Crusader, but I decided I'd prefer those 2 points for support solos once we up to 15 points.

My first game of the night was against a small Mercenaries group led by pMagnus with a Mangler and a Mule. My opponent opened the game by scrapping the Repenter. I did middling damage to the Mangler with a Vanquisher shot before taking the brunt of a revenge charge from the jack with my heavy. After some poor dice rolls on my opponents side I managed to come out of it with 4 boxes left which included my last cortex box and my melee weapon arm leaving me in a reasonable position to retaliate. Between an ignited Dervish charge and Feora advancing into combat with EoD I took down the Mangler in one turn. Destroying the jack left my caster in a direct line to his Mule so he threw Iron Agression on the jack and charged with full focus and boosted melee attacks. All but one attack missed and that did negligible damage leaving his only jack in melee with Feora, the Vanquisher and the Dervish, and was quickly scrapped. As we were playing Mangled Metal this netted me my first win. 

My second game was against a really friendly player who had brought Legion, with pThags leading a Shredder, Raek and a Ravagore. From the opening of the game my opponent played conservatively, keeping his stuff safe in a forest outside his deployment (he was a bit bummed my caster was immune to fire and therefore all his ranged). I managed to clip the Raek with an AOE to set it on fire but not much else for the first couple of turns. After that the Shredder and Raek charged my exposed Repenter and dealt a heap of damage but didn't destroy the light and left the Raek exposed to a charge in the side by my Dervish, who failed to kill but critically wounded it, leaving the Repenter to finish the job. I finished my turn managing to scatter an AOE onto my own Dervish, setting it on fire. On his turn the shredder was full on fury but managed to pass its threshold check (to his dismay as he wanted the boosts), which turned out to be unnecessary as he scrapped the Repenter regardless. Later in his turn he feated to bring the Raek back but positioned it poorly and so couldn't get his turn off properly, instead repositioning to get a better advantage for next turn. My turn I smacked the Raek about with the Dervish but didn't do anything significant. Following the devastating damage pFeora did last game I was a bit cocky and charged her up to finish off the Shredder instead of using the more sensible flamethrower option, ending on a feat to set pThags on fire (everything else already was). The Raek moved up and leaped over the Dervish into combat with Feora only doing slight damage but opening the charge lane for Thags who annihilated her with boosted attacks netting him the win. 

My final game was against Trolls, who are probably one of the factions I know the least. The list he played was pMadrak, an Impaler, a Pyre troll and an Axer. Much to everyone's amusement the Pyre troll's animus meant that he could get all of his army immunity: fire effectively nullifying most of my army. Despite being effectively immune to most of my attacks he played a really defensive game from the outset, deploying his whole army in one corner and hugging it all game. I moved up cautiously to avoid counter charges that never really came. I wasn't very confident about the outcome thanks to the animus so I just kept moving up the board. I had Hex Hammer up all game which meant I was chipping away at the caster every time he cast anything;  leaving him overly concerned about casting. A few turns in my Repenter was lined up with Feora and he moved his Impaler up trying to crit and knock the light into my caster but didn't get it. This left him exposed and out of animus range so I took full advantage and poured 3 flamethrowers on it to get the kill. This seemed to spur him on and the rest of his army charged my Vanquisher and scrapped it. This wasn't too devastating as immune to fire had left it doing nothing all game anyway. I threw on EoD and advanced into combat with Madrak who he'd exposed to finish off the Vanquisher. I only did an average amount of damage and was pretty exposed for the following turn. He dropped all his defensive buffs and went for the caster kill, advancing into combat with the Axer but falling just short with the pyre troll after realising it didn't have reach. He poured all his fury into attacks and boosts and when the smoke cleared Feora had three boxes left and Madrak was sat on no fury for transfers so I had no trouble finishing him off for my second win. 

Overall I finished on two wins and a loss which I'm pretty pleased with since I wasn't especially confident heading into the night. Plus it netted me an extra 8 league points. It was great to meet some of the guys and get to play against a variety of lists. It was a fun time, so I'm looking forward to giving it another go next week, and I'll keep everyone posted how it goes!

-M

Journeyman League - preleague

Last night the league had it's first official meeting. Technically it doesn't start until next Monday but the guys running it wanted to do a meet and greet and run over what sort of play they were expecting to see from people and the levels of sportsmanship they wanted. It was a great chance to meet the other guys taking part and see what was on the table. 

Best of all it gave some of us a chance to sneak in a match before the league kicks off. I was paired with one of the more experienced league players and since we didn't have loads of time we agreed a 25 point game. All of my lists were 35 or 50 points and I knew I was going to be locked into one or two casters for the duration of the league so I decided to throw a list together on the fly with a caster I've never used before - Amon Ad-Raza. I'd not actually expected to play and so my list was very thrown together and as it turned out not at all well. I'd gone for:-

Ad-Raza +6

Dervish -4

Crusader -6

Reckoner -8

Castigator -8

Max Choir -3

Vassal of Menoth -2

This was way too many jacks and I didn't really have a strategy in mind for how to play. Typically when I know I have a game I'll obsess over lists and how to play and what'll work where but I threw myself into the deep end with this list and just went with the flow. The scenario we decided on was Outflank from the 2014 Steamroller. This features two large zones on either side of the centre line. My opponent was starting a new faction for the league and wanted to try out his force which was a very well constructed Legion list with 2 Shredders; a Carnivean; a Shephard; a max unit of Warspears with UA and two Deathstalkers all led by pThags (his caster for the start of the league). 

He took first turn and concentrated his forces in one zone but moving the Deathstalkers (and edging the Carnivean) into the other forcing me to split my forces to keep him from scenario victory. I moved up taking an assault shot at the Carnivean but failing to do any damage. The most productive thing in my whole turn was protecting my jacks from non magical ranged with the choir. In the second turn the Deathstalkers casually strolled across the board and chewed through all but two of my choir with no effort at all (despite walls and positioning) to both of our surprise. One Deathstalkers was now behind my lines and following that display I had little interest in a repeat with my caster so I had to divert my crusader to squish one and my reckoner to get the other. The crusader just managed to hit and instantly killed but my reckoner completely wiffed the attack roll and did nothing. On my other flank the castigator and dervish charges the Warspears in the zone and took one out, leaving me spread very thinly indeed. 

In the next turn the Warspears (who had prey on the castigator) got buffed by Thags and charged, and between them trashed the jack in one turn. Following that the Carni got a charge on my reckoner and that was also destroyed (finished off by a rabid shredder after being reduced to two boxes). It was around this point that I realised I had lost but decided to go hell for leather and feated. Ad-Raza's Feat makes his jacks immune to free strikes, rear strikes and combined melee and ranged attacks and he gets to allocate one focus each time he spends one. I cast two spells and allocated four and charged him into the Deathstalker I'd sworn vengeance on. (who had skipped away from my crippled Reckoner mid last turn to open the lane for the fatal shredder charge and then promptly finished off another chorister and dropped the vassal to one box) I boosted the attack roll to set up my synergy chain. And missed. So I bought an attack. And missed. But I spent two so got my dervish and crusader up to a full 3 each. The crusader then went to charge the Carni and was probably just a smidge out but my opponent graciously allowed the charge (a small mercy) and I finally got decent rolls and beat it to death. My Dervish then activated and took 4 attacks against one of the Warspears. 4. I missed two and messed the damage roll on the other leaving my feat turn horribly disappointing. The following turn boiled down to the Carnivean being brought back by the feat and the Warspears devouring my Dervish. In the final turn I advanced Ad-Raza into melee with Thags (who had 4 Fury and 2 undamaged beasts for transfers) in a meaningless gesture of defiance I managed to get a solid hit and as a mark of respect he took the damage before starting his turn and getting the assassination comfortably. 

Overall I played very poorly and my opponent was much better than I was. I had the dice work against me all game but that only compounded my bad decision making right the way from list building; but more importantly it was one of the most fun games I've played in a long while. My opponent was sporting and helpful throughout and made losing enjoyable. I'm looking forward to playing some of the other guys whose games I caught snippets of over the evening and I'll be keeping you posted on what happens!

-M

Journeyman League - Post 1

So my local gaming group is hosting a Warmachine Journeyman League. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, which I must admit included me, each player starts with a very limited list (based on their battlebox with a couple alternatives) and slowly builds their way up each week, getting points for games and for painting up minis. 

I've thrown my hat in even though the majority of my warmachine is already painted using my Menoth. This was the perfect chance to kick start my Legion but sadly didn't line up with my purchasing so I have to stick to what I've got; luckily Legion are turning out to be far and away the most played in the league so at least I'm being slightly different. My regular gaming buddy is also playing but with a whole new faction and this'll give me a chance to get a variety of games in, against some new play styles. The list I'm starting off with is:

pKreoss +5

-Crusader -6

-Vanquisher -8

-Repenter -4

And I have to keep those models in every list I build for the whole league (you can swap the caster at 35 points but the battlegroup stays the same). I'm feeling pretty good about it but it doesn't leave me many points when we start expanding since the next step up is 15 points which only gives me 2 points to play with. Plus I feel a little naked without a choir or vassal but it's mangled metal for the first two weeks so I'll have to make do!

I'm pretty excited to wade into it next week when the first games kick off and try my hand against some new people. I'll start putting up my battle reps and list evolutions as I go along but for now I'm just looking forward to getting models on the table!

-M