Mitsuharu on Bat Reps - Thagrosh, Prophet of Everblight vs Captain Phinneus Shae

Hi all, and welcome to the latest installation of my battle reports. It's been a little while since my last one since my LGS was being renovated and expanded last week and there was no gaming! As of next week my local community (including me) will be participating in a Journeyman League. Since, for the next few weeks, I'm going to be locked into low point games I decided to have a big blowout fun 50 point game! In this spirit I got my Archangel painted up and built a list for it with pThags:

Thagrosh +5

-Succubus -2

-Archangel - 20

-Carnivean -11

-Naga -5

-Shredder -2

Shepherd -1

Shepherd -1

Max Spawning Vessel -3

Max Legionnaires -6

Deathstalker -2

Deathstalker -2

Objective - Fuel Cashe

I thought this would be a fun list. With the animuses available in this list and the Succubus and Thagrosh's free casting each turn I feel it can get some cool stuff on the board. Plus with the Archangel and Carnivean getting to ARM 20 with Spiney Growth they're hard to shift!

Pregame

The game I had this week was with Will, which usually means a fun, solid game. He decided to use some of the models that he hadn't tried out before, ending up going for a Tier 4 Pirate's Life Shae Tier List. This was made up of a pair of Nomads and a Vanguard in the battlegroup then two units of Press Gangers, a unit of Sea Dogs, the Commodore Cannon, and the full raft of pirate Solos. A pretty standard Shae list. The Scenario we rolled out was Two Fronts and Will won the roll to go first, taking the first turn. 

Deployment 

I placed the Archangel just off centre, closer to my zone. The Pirates then deployed their solos and battlegroup centrally. I put most of my battlegroup either central or to my left with the pot and the Legionnaires to my right to jam his zone. The Sea Dogs then deployed centrally with a unit of Press Gangers on either flank. I put my Deathstalkers in front of the pot. 

Pirates Turn One

Will opened the game by having all the Pirates run up the board, taking full advantage of the free run and pathfinder from the tier. This set the line of battle pretty far forward for my turn. Shae put Phantasm on himself to keep safe. 

Talion: 0 Legion: 0

Legion Turn One

On my turn I had the Legionnaires run towards the zone in roughly two lines. The Deathstalkers took pot shots at the Pirates but they got tough with No Sleeping on the Job so achieved nothing. The pot shuffled up. Thagrosh put out Spiney Growth on the Archangel for free and then cast Draconic Blessing on it and put Fog of War on himself, before charging to end up behind a wall. The Carnivean and Naga ran to get into better positions. The Archangel flew up to toe in on the zone and took a couple of shots at the press gangers with its strafe but it didn't do a whole lot. The Succubus put Spiney Growth on the Archangel and the Shredder put Tenacity on Thagrosh. 

Talion: 0 Legion: 0

Pirates Turn Two

Will started the turn by having Shae upkeep Phantasm and allocated two to a Nomad. Shae went first and cast Coup de Main and then feated, allowing everyone to shuffle forwards, before nudging himself back. He then had Rockbottom give the Press Gangers in his own zone boosted attacks and the Sea Dogs got Tough. Will then had the Press Gangers charge the Legionnaires after Holt shot a couple of them to soften them up. Thanks to hang they managed to kill the whole front row, but only one was in range to Shanghai anyone. On the other flank the Press Gangers moved across my zone and around the hill, generally jamming and being in the way. The Sea Dogs activated and charged using Wall's mini feat to get fearless, spreading themselves out but getting 3 on the Carnivean and two on Thagrosh. The two on Thags got some damage on him but not enough to be worth transferring. The three on the Carnivean couldn't break his high ARM. The Nomad then activated, using the free Coup De Main charge to get into the Carnivean, seriously beating it but not managing to take out any aspects. The various Solos got their respective auras into position for next turn. We realised at the end of the turn that Shae had used his feat to move just into position to net me an extra 2 control points from Kill Box. 

Talion: 0 Legion: 2

Legion Turn Two

I started my turn by upkeeping Draconic Blessings for free and dropping Fog of War. My remaining Legionnaires took their Vengence, killing a couple of the Press Gangers. I started my turn by having Thagrosh thwack the two offending Sea Dogs who'd got to him last turn, putting out a couple of clouds. The pot dropped a harrier and advanced up and the Legionnaires moved deeper into the press Gangers. Between them they caused a huge number of tough checks but they passed all of them with no Knockdown thanks to Grogspar. The Harrier, Shredder and a Deathstalker took attacks on the rear Sea Dog engaging the Carnivean, since I was afraid of taking a free strike when I moved to engage the Nomad. But he survived everything I threw at him! Luckily when the Carnivean did move up he was ok and managed to scrap the Merc Heavy and have enough left over to pop animus onto the Archangel. The Archangel then went and took some shots, managing to kill Dirty Meg, a Sea Dog and put some damage onto Grogspar before using his animus to light up the engaging Press Gangers. The Naga engaged a Sea Dog but failed to hit it with its bite attack. 

Talion: 0 Legion: 2

Pirates Turn Three

On Will's turn he had the various Pirate infantry jam further into my army, targeting everything he could at the Carnivean but failing to kill it. The second Nomad charged in to avenge its brother, hoping to finish off the heavy beast but had terrible dice rolls leaving it with a couple of boxes remaining. The Commodore took a shot on Thagrosh but missed, accidentally hitting Walls instead, splatting him. Shae managed to get his toe on the friendly zone to secure a friendly domination point. Three of the press Gangers took attacks on the objective, doing minimal damage and setting themselves on fire. 

Talion: 1 Legion: 2

Legion Turn Three

On my Turn three the Archangel completely failed to hit any of the press Gangers in Melee thanks to crappy dice, using its animus to set them on fire instead. The healed up Carnivean was able to scrap the second Nomad. The pot dropped out a Harrier that flew in to kill Holt, using sprint to get up and contest the zone while the other harrier advanced into the zone too, taking a free strike from the Vanguard that left it on one box. One Deathstalker advanced away from Melee to take shots but got killed by a lucky free strike doing exactly enough damage to kill him. Thagrosh used his Spray to kill the Doctor, removing the 4+ tough bubble. 

Talion: 1 Legion: 2

Pirates Turn Four

On Will's turn, determined to finish off the Carnivean finally, he allocated a bunch of focus to the Vanguard. Between that and the remaining Sea Dogs they finally managed to clear it off the board. The remaining infantry continued to jam into me, locking me out of the zone. The last couple of attacks finally destroyed my objective too, netting Will another point. The Devil's Shadow Mutineers managed to kill both of the contesting Harriers freeing up the zone. 

Talion: 3 Legion: 2

Legion Turn Four

On my turn I had the Archangel consume one of the Press Gangers and move up further into the zone, using its animus to set all of the Pirates on fire. The Naga killed a Sea Dog to free up a space for Thagrosh to feat back the Carnivean, placing it between him and the Vanguard.  The pot spawned another harrier who flew in to contest the zone, denying the extra point for Will. Leaving him with very few models not on fire. 

Talion: 3 Legion: 2

After game 

This game was a bit of a grind and Will was unfamiliar with his rules, meaning he needed to double check the cards a lot. So by this point the store was closing and Will forfeited, since he felt I was in a much stronger position than him and would shortly be able to fully jam his zone  and pick him to pieces. I really enjoyed this game and it was fun to play some Pirates. I liked having the Archangel on the table and it was a good piece in this list. I'll definitely look at using it again in the future. 

Tune in next week for the opening of the Journeyman League to see what I've decided to go for and how the opening games went!

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

-M

Journeyman League - Week 5 and a Half

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-M

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