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

Tourney Tales - Valentines' Massacre

Hi again everyone, the dust has settled on the Valentines' Masscre tournament at my LGS so I'm here to tell you all about it. This is the tournament that I've been preparing for for the past few weeks so I was looking forward to it. Right up until the actual morning of the event, that is, which is when the cold I'd had brewing exploded into a full on head cold and I felt awful. Despite that though, I dragged myself down to play some Warmachine. (See how I slipped my excuses in early). Because of this illness I didn't get any photos like I said I would, and my memory of the games is foggy at best. Because of this I'll just write up a quick summary of the games I played for each round rather than a turn by turn. 

The lists I took were the two I'd been practicing with:

List One:

Intercessor Kreoss +5

-Vanquisher -8

-Reckoner -8

Min Choir -2

Vassal of Menoth -2

Nicia, Tear of Vengence -3

Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord -2

Covenant of Menoth -2

Wracks -1

Vassal Mechanic -1

Daughters of Menoth -5

Max Exemplar Vengers -11

Max Exemplar Errants with UA -10

List Two:

eFeora +6

-Bonded Judicator -18

-Reckoner -8

Vassal of Menoth -2

Wracks -1

Vassal Mechanic -1

Eiryss, Angel of Retribution -3

Dartan Vilmon -3

Saxon Orrik -2

Gorman Di Wulfe -2

Min Choir -2 

Max TFG with UA -8

Min Zealots with UA -6

Round 1

My first game was against Will whose Mercs I'd had a practice game against last week. This time around, though we both decided to use our other lists, with me taking Intercessor Kreoss and him electing to take Magnus the Traitor. His list consisted of two Renegades, a Max unit of Nyss Hunters, eEiryss, Carvolo, Dougal MacNaile, Ayanna and Holt and probably most importantly Gastonne Crosse with a Galleon. From my part this game was a complete flop. I managed to allow Will to 'live the dream' with the list, getting a turn 2 assassination to win the game. A re-rolled deviation (thanks to Dougal) on a Renegade shot knocked Kreoss down, allowing the Galleon to pump him full of shots before hitting the drag (Double powder rations) and using the free melee to stomp on Kreoss' head. Not an especially auspicious start to the day, with me only managing to score 3 army points of damage for the whole game by killing Eiryss. 

Round 2

My second round game was against a Cryx player who was using Sturgis the Corrupted. I elected to drop eFeora to handle the infantry that was in both of his lists. His list comprised of Sturgis himself with a Harrower, a max unit of Boomhowlers, Gerlak Slaughterborn, a full unit of Bloodgorgers, a full unit of Bloodwitches with the UA, Orrik to give them pathfinder, Ragman, a Warwitch, two pistol Wraiths, and a min unit of Bile Thralls. It was a meaty list with lots of tough and other shenanigans to make it hard to get through. The game was pretty back and forth, and was fairly balanced throughout. Mainly because we were both really unlucky, failing to get off multiple things. The Bloodwitches and the zealots traded mini-feats to ensure that neither did anything for two turns. There was a turn when he passed no tough rolls, including the 4+ Boomhowlers, and then the following round not a single troll failed. We both took critical chain attacks but missed the second hit despite needing 3s to hit. Throughout the game Sturgis got work done, moving up the field with Relentless Charge to kill a bunch of stuff before yo-yo-ing back with teleport. This left his caster pretty bare for most of the game, and so he took a pounding from blasts from the Judicator. The Judicator was his main priority, putting all of his efforts into killing it, but missing the mark by around five damage boxes. In the end the blast damaged and the fact that fire never went out was what won me the game. despite being outside of Feora's Caustic Presence, the fire stayed on and the pow 12 was enough to finish off the former Cygnar caster and win me the game, making me one for two. 

Round 3

My third game of the day was against one of the youngest players in our meta. Despite his age, however, he's a canny opponent who generally practices against some of the best players we have. He was using Cygnar and had made a commitment to destroying a colossal for the day. Because of this he dropped a Siege list, and I obliged by dropping eFeora. His list included a Defender and a Squire with Siege along with a unit of Gun Mages marshalling a Hunter, a max unit of Tempest Blazers, Jakes with a Stormclad, accompanied by Arlan Strangewayes. The list also included Rienholt, Gorman and Pendrake. 

I spent the majority of the game sniping out the key support solos in the army, and using blasts to overcome the Cygnaran high DEF and take out a bunch of models. A lucky deviation from the Stormclad landed right on Jakes, killing her and making it inert. To overcome this he moved his Gun Mages into the zone and thunderstruck his own Jack backwards towards Arlan so he could reactivate it. This pushed the Jack out of the zone, following which the zealots and the Judicator managed to clear the zone and score a point. We both attritioned well but he found Passage'd jacks frustrating for his list and couldn't clear them from the zone, while I couldn't reach his caster for a reliable assassination run on him. In the end we got to dice down on a very unclear point in the game where there was no certainty which way it might have gone (his feat turn could have crippled me, or left him exposed to a solid assassination run) and since I'd scored one point I won on tie breaker. Putting me at 2 for 3 for the day. 

Round 4

The final round saw me paired up with Mark, the Khador player who I faced a couple of weeks previously during my iKreoss test games. Much like with Will we both ended up using our alternative lists. I played eFeora and he was locked into Vlad 2. The list included Sylys Wyshnalyrr, a Spriggan two units of Doom Reavers, Fenris, a max unit of Uhlans, along with the solo, and a max unit of IFP with Black Dragon UA. 

This game was good, and much like last time I massively out attritioned him, killing all but one of the IFP and Uhlans respectively, and leaving only two or three Doom Reavers by the end of the game. Despite this he put a bunch of pressure on me, moving across the board quickly and locking me out of contesting his flag. He made several attempts at an assassination run on Feora but she proved too hard to kill. He scored defensively on his own flag for 2 rounds, forcing me into a long shot assassination run. I hit with a double boosted rocket pod, wiping out half his boxes, and doing a couple more with the secondary blast. I then boosted the second rocket pod and would have hit if not for the Might of Kings bumping up his DEF, doing a bit more damage with the blasts. The Reckoner then managed to get a line on him and took another shot, but didn't have any focus for boosts, and even though he managed to hit, didn't roll enough to kill. He was left with a handful of boxes and on fire, but managed to score the final point for the win, leaving me on 2 for 4 overall for the day. 

The games I played were really fun, and apart from the first game I felt like I was always able to take control. I would have enjoyed myself a lot more if I wasn't feeling so sick, but nonetheless it was a good day, and I'm already looking towards the new casters I want to try out...

Stay tuned for more, and don't forget to like Mitsuharu on Minis on Facebook for regular updates and more!

-M

Mitsuharu on Bat Reps - Feora, Protector of the Flame vs. Drake MacBain

Hi everyone and welcome back to the latest Bat Rep! This week was my final game before the local tournament this Sunday. I was still practicing with my eFeora list:

eFeora +6

-Bonded Judicator -18

-Reckoner -8

Vassal of Menoth -2

Wracks -1

Vassal Mechanic -1

Eiryss, Angel of Retribution -3

Knights Exemplar Seneschal -3

Saxon Orrik -2

Gorman Di Wulfe -2

Min Choir -2 

Max TFG with UA -8

Min Zealots with UA -6

My opponent was one of the few Merc players in my meta, Will, and was playing a new Highborn list he'd cooked up using Drake MacBain accompanied by Sylys Wyshnalyrr and a Galleon. The list also included a max unit of Boomhowlers, a unit of Gun Mages with UA, Alexia Mistress of the Witchfire, Anastasia di Bray, Eiyrss Mage Hunter of Ios, Madelyn Corbeau, Ogrun Bokur, Taryn di la Rovissi, a Gobber Tinker and Victor Pendrake. This list included a lot of interesting and some less common merc solos and combos. The Scenario that we were playing was Two Fronts, and I lost the roll for initiative thanks to Anastasia's Intelligence special rule. My opponent decided to take the more advantageous board side and let me take first turn. 

We each set up our Colossals in the centre of the board, and I then placed my TFG on the side nearest my zone with Orrik, and the zealots on the opposite side across from the other zone along with Gorman and the Seneschal, with Feora near the middle of the board, and the support staff surrounding the colossal. Will then deployed his gun mages opposite my TFG along with Pendrake, while the Boomhowlers surrounded MacBain on the other side of the board. All of the solos then advanced deployed right on the edge of his own zone. 

Having the first turn I ran my force forwards, placing the Zealots on the hill Directly in front of them, followed by the Judicator, Senechal, and Gorman. Orrik gave pathfinder to the TFG who then ran up close to the zone. Feora put out Escort and then moved up toward the linear obstacle on my side of the board, and the support staff all moved up, with the choir singing Passage on the Jacks. Will then ran all of his Solos into his zone, surrounding his objective which was The Stockpile, preventing knockdown (we had the details of this objective wrong. We'd been playing that it was no knockdown within 4", however this is B2B and the stand-up effect is 4"). The Gun mages moved forwards and the Boomhowlers ran across the board, with the Galleon stomping up behind them. MacBain then moved onto the hill, surrounded by Boomhowlers and used his feat, affecting the solos in the zone and himself and Boomhowler. 

In my turn Gorman stepped up and threw Black Oil at Alexia, but missed and deviated off to the wrong direction, missing everything. The Zealots then shuffled into the zone and prayed for Fervour, before ineffectually tossing bombs into the mass of solos, scratching a couple of them but not doing any real damage, and then used their minifeat to hold out. Orrik moved up again and put Pathfinder on the TFG, who moved into the zone with Shield wall and also mini Feated to turtle the zone. The Reckoner hopped over the wall into the zone, and Feora moved up behind the wall and put Ignite on the TFG. I then activated the Judicator and took a template shot at MacBain, boosting the to hit and managing to set him on fire thanks to the bond. My clock then ran out before either of the vassals could move up. In hindsight I should definitely have taken my extension this turn, and finished off my shooting and moved up my vassals, but I didn't. 

The fire did not go out on either MacBain or the Boomhowler next to him who'd also been set on fire, killing the boomie, and doing a couple of boxes on MacBain. Madelyn used her intrigue move to have MacBain shuffle forwards, considering the assassination run on Feora. The Galleon moved up and took a big chunk out of my objective. The Bokur charged through a gap in my Zealots using reach to catch the Seneschal and took him down to 0, knocking him down, waiting for the revive. Alexia then moved up and took a Hellfire shot on Gorman, being just barely within Stealth and killed him. At this point I realised how poor my Seneschal placement was, since the Greater Destiny Zealots could not die to bring him back and Gorman does not activate Restoration, since the wording is for Faction models. Moving on! Pendrake set his sights on his nemesis, Orrik, and advanced across the board towards him on the extreme flank. MacBain decided to be more cautious and jogged around to the back of his Galleon, using a couple of Jack Hammers to finish off the objective, scoring a point. The Gun mages aimed, killing a couple of the TFG despite their massive ARM, freeing up LOS for Eiryss to Disrupt the Reckoner. The Boomhowlers then charged, with two attacking the Reckoner, two on TFG and two on a zealot. One Boomhowler killed a zealot, freeing up the other to swing a couple of points damage onto the Judicator. The Boomhowlers facing the TFG failed to hit on any of their attacks thanks to Set Defence and the other one managed to deal a handful of boxes to the Reckoner. Anastasia then moved up, using espionage to get another activation on the board, but with the clock running down this achieved very little, with a couple of Boomhowlers putting a couple more boxes on the Judicator and the Reckoner. 

On my turn I gave a focus to the Judicator and upkept both of my spells. The zealots activated and instead of throwing bombs like a good Menoth player I decided to be stupid and moved into Melee to miss all my attacks vs Alexia and the Bokur. Feora moved across to shoot her spray at Anastasia, boosting the to hit roll, and still managed to miss, forcing Eiryss to finish the spy off with a quick crossbow bolt. The vassal then activated, moving up to the Judicator to use an Ancilliary attack on the flamethrower. The template covered a Boomhowler, Madelyn and Taryn. Taryn dodged the flames acrobatically, and Madelyn used Sucker! to have the Boomhowler double hit, with one of the damage rolls killing him. The Judicator then activated properly, spending a focus to pick up the Bokur and throw him at Madelyn. The throw missed Madelyn but only deviated by 1", meaning she was still hit, and both of them were killed in the resulting splatter. Saxon Orrik, having given the TFG as much guidance as necessary, moved up the board and levelled his hunting rifle at his nemesis, Victor Pendrake, grazing him with a bullet but failing to kill. The Reckoner managed to kill the Boomhowler engaging him despite being disrupted. The TFG then moved up the board but my clock ran out before I could make any attacks, and I again stupidly decided not to take my extension on the only other turn that it would have mattered. 

Will started his turn by rolling fire off MacBain who'd been taking a few boxes a turn all game from it and had Alexia use her souls to create 3 thrall warriors, who spawned in the zealots' back arcs. T wo of them killed their targets but the third managed to fail despite the bonuses to hit and the naturally low DEF. The Boomhowlers moved into the Judicator, taking a few more boxes off it. Pendrake sacrificed movement to aim at Orrik, hoping to end the feud with his lucky bow, forgetting that the sneaky Orrik has stealth, causing him to automiss. Being a coward Pendrake then had the Gun Mages shoot at Orrik to finish his job for him, but they failed to hit his high Defence. The Gun Mages did however manage to kill several of the TFG. Meanwhile Eiryss disrupted the Reckoner again. With his remaining time the Galleon advanced into a crack between 2 Boomhowlers, just getting the Judicator within reach, taking two punishing melee attacks on it. MacBain then activated and used repeated Jack Hammers and the rest of his clock to scrap my colossal. 

On my turn, somewhat disheartened by the loss of the Judicator I had the support staff run across the board towards the remaining Jack. The Reckoner used its natural Attack and an Ancilliary to kill a pair of Boomhowlers. The TFG moved up and swung at the Galleon, not harming it but setting it on fire. Orrik took more careful aim at his foe, Pendrake, and managed to get a killing blow, with Pendrake failing the tough roll. Moral Victory! Feora moved back towards the wall and firestepped into a safer location behind some human cover and the wall. The Zealots continued to do very little to clear their zone, with their combined efforts killing a single Thrall Warrior. Eyriss moved over the wall and within 5" of the Galleon to use Technological Interference to limit its effectiveness next turn. 

Taking advantage of an exposed Eiryss the Gun Mages and younger Eiryss shot her to death along with another handful of TFG. Alexia and her risen along with Taryn managed to polish off the last of the Zealots quite handily, freeing up the Boomhowlers to move across the board and victimise my support staff, with the Mechanic swiftly becoming a light snack for a Trollblood. Despite having no focus the Galleon moved into melee with the Reckoner and used its own attacks and some Jack Hammers to scrap it. 

Seeing that I was clearly losing the attrition game and with no way to clear out the Galleon I decided the best course  was to try for the assassination. I measured my control area and was pretty sure that I was around an inch out. Deciding it was still worth the try I started by having the TFG attack the Gobber Tinker and Boomhowler himself. The combined melee against the Tinker failed completely but Boomhowler was set on fire. Feora then firestepped over the wall, setting up a clear lane to MacBain. After that I remeasured my control area and found that I definitely was out of range for the assassination run. Instead I moved across into the wreck marker to get a slightly improved DEF and then feated, taking the fire from a Boomhowler and the Galleon, putting it back onto MacBain and Eiryss. Deciding that killing Eiryss was a priority she then boosted a flamethrower shot at her. And missed. Saxon Orrik then tried to make up for this with a risky charge on Eiryss but was about an inches short. The Vassal then moved into melee range of Boomhowler and used his Bolt to zap him. Unfortunately he made his Call of Defiance tough. This left me in a pretty precarious position, but Feora was DEF 19 vs ranged and camping a stack of 8 Focus. 

The fire on MacBain did another couple of points of damage but the fire on Eiryss rolled a double one. Leaving her more than alive enough to roll double 6 on her aim at Feora, hitting her squarely with a disruption bolt. The Boomhowlers and Alexia swanned across the board before Sylys ran to engage Feora, setting up a gang for MacBain on her. MacBain then charged in, boosting his charge attack. He hit and did a handful of damage. He bought and double boosted the attack again, reducing her to a few boxes. He bought a final attack and cranked the damage roll putting her in the ground. 

This was a fun game, starting off slow and then getting very serious very quick. We were both inexperienced with the lists that we were using and so there were some pretty basic mistakes on both sides. I should have placed my Seneschal on the other side of the board with the TFG instead of with the zealots who couldn't heal him. I also should have been throwing bombs instead of swinging sticks with the Zealots. I also should have used my extension on the earlier turns. 

I'm looking forward to the tournament on Sunday and I'll be sure to write it all up and give you all a look at how it goes!

Don't forget to like Mitsuharu on Minis on Facebook for more updates!

-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 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 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