Warmachine and Hordes day at Aero

My FLGS (Aero Hobbies) in Santa Monica has a monthly Warmachine/Hordes day and I was able to swing for a while.  I met up with Darrin who organizes the thing and we agreed to a 35 point game.  I loaded up trusty iBodger, named the list Dr. A 35 points and wrote it up.  It was my first time making it out of the (metaphorical) basement and I was pretty stoked.  Here is the list I ran:

Dr. Arkadius, 2x warhogs, 2x gunboars, Targ, razorback crew, and a min unit of bonegrinders.

Why yes, now that you mention it, I did forget to change the point size in iBodger from 25 to 35.  Wish I would have noticed this before I got home after the game

Facing me across the table was a Merc army led by Ashlynn D’Elyse. This is what I remember:

Ashlynn D’Elyse, a nomad, a gun mage captain jackmarshalling a mariner, Dannon Blythe and Bull, Rheinhold, Rutger Shaw, Taryn di la Rovissi, full Nyss hunters, full gun mages.

I don’t play mercs, so please forgive any errors you see.

They mostly play just straight up caster kill and Darrin decided to start mixing it up so we went with Killbox (the black is the box).  Since it is new to everyone there Darrin figured it would be best to have a persistent reminder.

I won the roll to go first and I set up pretty central for the most part but I had a gunboar on each flank.  The one on my left was marked as prey and then I used my redeploy thanks to the tier bonus to flip it to the other side.

Dr. A cast aggravator on himself and forced evolution on one of the gunboars.  Pretty much everything else ran forward.

In return the mercs were a bit cagier – the gunmage jackmarshal put snipe on his jack giving it 172,000″ range or something like that and then he shot and damaged a warhog and I took the full hyper aggressive movement.  The gunmages advanced and shot as well giving the hog one more advance which left him barely in Dr. Arkadius control range.  I took a tiny bit more damage but chose to stay where he was.

Here is the one and only pic I remembered to take…

Turn 2 I had an awesome plan to feat but then went and screwed it up with my running warhog in the center who basically hosed the gun boars and his own feat charge.  I went ahead and took it anyway and frenzied the wounded hog into the gunmages and unsurprisingly splattered one of them.  That was the only one I decided to use the feat on.

After my feat the warhog charged the nomad and started off with a gore which knocked it down.  Thanks to some light damage rolls it ended up surviving with a couple of points of movement.  The gunboars shot at the nyss and killed a couple with good drifts and also killed both Taryn and Rutger.  The gunboars get much hate on the boards, but they are always boss in my games.

As an aside, the look of horror on my opponents face the first time they get hog to face is always a joy.

Ashlynn continued to play the sneaky game and tried some shooting which did decent damage but not enough to kill anything.  The nyss did wipe out the razorback and put some damage on one of the gunboars.

This looked like a good time for Ashlynn to feat.  Her feat is so freaking good.  The shooting did a good job of beating up the warhog but not quite killing it.  The rest of the force kind of shifted around and the nyss hunters charged into the gunboars to tie them up and keep them away from Ashlynn who was in a corner of the killbox now.

The nomad stood up and attacked the warhog but missed(or hit and didn’t damage).

Come my turn even with the roulette feat still up I managed to kill the nomad and start to threaten menacingly.  Unfortunately I checked the time and was about 20 minutes over what time I told my wife I would be home.  I tried the most ill-fated assassination run in the history of the game.

I basically blew all of my fury trying to crippling grasp the nyss and clear the warhog of the nyss.  Since I was rushing I activated in the wrong order and was unable to maltreat for a fury.

In return the mariner with snipe got a hit and boxcars on the good Dr. putting him in a world of hurt.  The gunmages advanced and did a CRA on him finishing him off.

I think, had I not had to rush right at the end, even though I was down 10 points that I could have pulled it off.  Thanks to my redeploy, early movement and naked aggression I was basically taking my entire army against half of his for most of the game which, strangely, ended up giving me a points advantage in the scrum.  I sure would have loved a unit of brigands though!

Thanks for taking the time to read this wall of (mostly) text!

Kromac vs. Dr. Arkadius – 25 points

Ant came over and we got in a couple of games. We bumped the size to 25 points and Ant was trying out a new caster – Kromac the Ravenous. I decided to stick with Dr. Arkadius. I was also timing my turns again.

The circle list was:
Kromac, gorax, pureblood warpwolf, warpwolf stalker, blackclad wayfarer, lord of the feast

The farrow were running tier 2 Dr. A:
Dr. Arkadius, 2 war hogs, 2 gun boars, targ, razorback, 4 bonegrinders

Game 1:
This game was short. I advanced up and tried to play a bit cautious. I decided to be clever and work up the right flank away from the building and the forest (that is what the blank footprint is).

Ant advanced everything also cautiously but swinging way out with the lord of the feast.

I knew that the lord of the feast could hit with his bird and then teleport up so I moved my bone grinders out very cleverly more than 1″ away from the good doctor so I would be out of his reach range. I also advanced the warhog to get nice and close so I would be within 5″ to get off a primal shock at him. I hit with the boost and boosted damage but had HORRIBLE rolls and didn’t even do a wound to the lord of the feast.

Strangely, it never even crossed my mind that he might base to base the REAR of the bonegrinder he hit. Game over, super fast kill and a lesson learned – ALWAYS hang on to 1 fury, even if you don’t think you will need it. I offered up a quick handshake and concession so we could reset and play a second game.

Game 2:
Same lists and just a quick reset. This game I was resolved to not make the same mistakes. I advanced a bit slower and held more fury in reserve.

Ant decided to swing around hard from behind the building using it as cover to get closer to me.

In return I ran the razorbacks into melee with the lord of the feast to try and lock it down for a turn.  Not surprisingly the lord of the feast killed them both in his turn, but it did stick him in place more or less setting up the following turn.

The warpwolf stalker hung back in the woods to take advantage of his stealth as I advanced. The gorax put his animus on the stalker and then the stalker burst from cover and basically flew across the entire battlefield in warping speed and laid a serious hurt into one of my warhogs killing it completely while the gorax and pureblood followed up in position as a second line.

I was reeling from this attack and felt that the game was pretty much over (pic was from before the charge but you can see it coming). I kept my cool though and looked over Dr. A’s card seeking that magic trick that would keep me in the game. I saw my chance though it was pretty shenanigan-laden and order of activation would be very important.

The warhog had pretty good facing as it was and I was undecided on what I wanted him to do. The bonegrinders gave Dr Arkadius an extra 2″ range which was necessary to put crippling grasp on the pureblood.

I decided to get aggressive with Dr. A and he advanced on the stalker that had just completely demolished one of my warhogs. He walked up and boosted with his needle and missed with the first one! Well, at this point he was commited so I bought a second attack, boosted again got the hit. Whew. I did a point to him and had him turn around and go hit the pureblood. He got the hit and thanks to the gorax’s animus and rolling something insane he knocked out 2 both the spirit and the body.

Dr. Arkadius then maltreated a gunboar and popped his feat. The gunboar charged the lord of the feast and totally smashed it.

My original plan had been to just leave the stalker alone and the mandatory frenzy from gorax’s animus would hopefully finish off the pureblood. However, with the damage from the stalker, I decided to take a risk. The warhog frenzied into the rear of the stalker. I got a crit knockdown with my charge attack and then just did what warhogs do best and completely destroy the stalker.

The gunboar activated next and advanced on the black clad and killed it with its meaty fists. It also, critically, blocked kromac and made him have to go around him somewhat to get his full movement in before his leap.

The last turn had completely switched our fortunes! Ant was now in a desperate position but after spending a lot of time eyeballing the distance though that he had the run on Dr. Arkadius if he could just deal with the gunboar. Kromac raged out and went beastform.

The wounded pureblood had to advance and attack without benefit of those 2 spirals since he couldn’t heal him until Kromac’s activation. Luckily for me the missing spiral saved the gunboar.

Ant thought he still had the advance on Dr. Arkadius. He moved up to and around the gunboar and then leapt that final 5″. He was 2 1/8″ away from Dr. Arkadius! We measured several times and he was just short by 1/8″ from attacking him. WHEW!  The gorax charged the warhog and did some pretty good damage to him.

Though I wasn’t in great shape myself and this had to be ended now. On my turn I activated Dr. Arkadius popped psychosurgery and advanced into melee. I missed with my first attack again, but the second one hit and made Kromac stationary and did 1 point of damage. The gunboar then advanced into combat with and pushed the gorax out of combat with the warhog which freed him up.  The warhog charged into his rear and unleashed on him. I had to use all 4 points of fury to finish him off though!

That game had it all, deep lows and super highs! Desperate aggression on the part of the the mad scientist who usually stays WAY back from combat.

Based on this game, I am definitely going to start playing him a bit more aggressively. Basically him advancing and attacking twice during that game completely saved the day.

Dr. Arkadius is an absolute blast to play! He has great buffs and debuffs. He has a deceptively long magic shooting attack. His feat is tricky but is probably one of the best in the game once you start planning for it – an extra 7-8″ movement or a free fully boosted attack is amazing – AND you get to activate the beast either before or after it. His mind control drug is fun and making things stationary is just plain mean.

Carver vs. Ravyn – 15 points

Continuing to hone our killer instincts for this game Shawn and I decided to try out 15 point games with different casters. I went ahead and decided to try out a couple of new small units as well – a min unit of brigands and a razorback, to be precise. Shawn was happy to see one of the warhogs stay in the bag so it was really a win/win proposition.

Here is a look at the army I brought – Lord Carver, min brigands, razorback, gunboar, and warhog.

Facing this Shawn brought Ravyn, a Phoenix, a Manticore, and a mage hunter assassin.

Since I am going to want to do tourney play I went ahead and started timing my turns. I went with an extremely generous 10 minutes per turn (which is what they have at a 50 pointer) and managed to actually keep track and take some pictures.

I won the roll to go first and activated Lord Carver, Bringer of Most Massive Destruction, Esquire, the Third first and he cast mobility and put quagmire on the brigands and advanced. Everyone else ran forward with the brigands calling pathfinder. This turn took 4 minutes.

The Retribution also advanced everything though not quite so aggressively.

Turn 2
Carver upkept quagmire and recast mobility and then everything advanced again. This time the brigands called Heroic and ran to surround Carver and protect him from and assassin shenanigans. The razorback shot hoping for a lucky drift but didn’t get it. Everything else just drove forward with an appropriate amount of aggression (that is to say, a lot). All in all, I thought way too much this turn and spent 8 minutes on what should have been a pretty straightforward kind of turn.

At this point Shawn noticed that I had set him up a nice little bowling alley and slammed the warhog with his manticore a mighty 6″ which blasted through 3 of the brigands and Carver himself! The phoenix advanced and burst into flames filling the air with the delightful aroma of cooking pork.

Here is the view from his side of the table -

Ravyn dropped back a bit to safety and put a veil of mists up to block LOS.

On my turn most of the fires went out (though the warhog continued to burn) and one model died but made his tough roll (we weren’t sure the order of things dropping off so we used the flow chart and had it fall of at the end of maintenance phase. We know that is wrong now) but was still knocked down. Carver and the warhog both shook the knockdown but at a cost of a third of his focus. He dropped quagmire too.

Carver himself felt the rage building at being treated like a bowling pin and there was only one thing left to do. He feated! He then cast batten down the hatches and then charged the manticore, holding on to his last fury for a transfer if things went bad. This is where I really felt the effect of blowing 2 fury during the maintenance phase. He did a lot of damage to the manticore but didn’t destroy it. I wasn’t quite willing to risk that last fury to finish the manticore.

The brigands went hogwild and dealt with the assassin and the warhog charged the phoenix but didn’t destroy but did wreck several systems including field generator and cortex.

My turn 3 ended up taking 15 minutes but didn’t really feel like it. I need to play much faster.

Shawn had taken a pretty serious beating but was still in the game. Both of his jacks were seriously damaged but also still pretty scary – especially when Ravyn popped her own feat offsetting somewhat the diminished capabilities of the destroyed systems.

They caused some decent damage but Batten Down The Hatches mitigated most of it. Ravyn again brought forth a veil of mists to protect herself.

It was time to go for the kill on my turn 4. Carver cast mobility and then put quagmire on the gunboar. Carver then finished the work he had started with the manticore but couldn’t quite do the phoenix but the warhog finished it off in his activation. The gunboar ran through the mists to get base to base with Ravyn and locked her in place thanks to quagmire. This turn took 4 minutes and I was pretty happy with the pacing.

This is where we learned that Shawn was treating Ravyn far too timidly. Since the warboar was locking him in place he just killed it. Then he shot at Carver and almost killed him, even with the transfer he had available! This is what the battlefield looked like – Ravyn had upkept the veil of mists.

And this is what Carver looked like -

I was suddenly not feeling quite so positive about my chances…

The game had to end and it had to end now for it to have a happy piggie ending. The brigands activated first and went around the mists and did a CRA on Ravyn damaging her. With a bit of desperation I activated Carver and he advanced into the mists as far as he could. It was out of range of the Hand of God, even with reach. There was only one chance and he fired with both barrels. His boost just managed to finish her off!

Whew, that was way too close for comfort!

After action review -
Warlock – Carver did great! It is nice to play a bit more of a beatstick than Dr. Arkadius. Carver does support his battlegroup by boosting their speed or making them even harder to kill. His bonuses to the farrow brigands are nice making them both fearless and giving them CRA.

Ravyn does a frightening amount of damage for an elf. Shawn was playing her too much like Kaelyssa. I think next time I face her she will be a bit more aggressive.

Units – I totally misplayed the razorback. I overestimated both their range and their threat priority. I should have run them for two turns and then probably not even wasted the combat action to dig in.

The brigands did great for their first appearance. I am looking forward to using them more. They are a great toolbox unit.

Warbeasts – Again, both farrow beasts did everything I asked of them and then some.

There is a game day at my FLGS coming up and I am hoping to bring them along to eat some new faces.  Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Farrow “battle box”

Just a quick post to drop in here.  This is what I have been using as a starter battle box that has seemed to be pretty well balanced and a lot of fun.  It is either of the casters (usually Dr. A just as a matter of personal preference), 1 warhog and 2 gunboars.  This goes in line with the 1 heavy, 2 lights precedent.

I can’t wait to get them painted up!

Dr. Arkadius vs. Kaelyssa – 15pts

Got in another game with Shawn but didn’t take pics for this one, sorry, but this will be short.  It was another 15 pointer.  I just want to take a moment and say that a lot of people dis this size game but we are both new to Mark II as well as these armies.  We’ve tried a few 35 point games but they just have a tendency to become bogged down with looking up rules or forgetting things.  This size with just a few models/solos/ and/or a single unit is really helping us to get the most out of our games.  We are both learning tons and really getting familiar with our models’ capabilities.

This time around I was running the same list – Dr. Arkadius, 2 gunboars, a warhog and Targ.  Shawn was mixing things up with Kaelyssa, a manticore, a hydra, 2 assassins, and an arcanist.

Dr. Arkadius was going first and everything ran forward and riled except Dr. Ah who cast Forced Evolution on a gunboar, aggravator on himself and dumped the extra due to me over-riling (oops and double oops).

Kaelyssa cast phantom hunter (or whatever it is called that effectively gives eyeless sight) onto the hydra which also had 3 focus.  Now I learned just how far I had overextended and how annoying it can be to hide behind something and have ghostly bullets still hit you.  The game almost ended here on turn 1 but thanks to some bad rolling Dr. Arkadius was left with 5 boxes.

This had me reeling and definitely playing a cagey game after this.  I went into a pretty big panic and made some really bad errors in play, such as advancing my right gunboar up too far which let the hydra advance on him and then threw him into the warhog after the gunboar had taken some damage which killed the gunboar and knocked down the warhog!  Adding insult to injury Kealyssa shot 3 times and failed to wound any of the beasts so no aggravator movement but stole 3 fury from them!

The surviving gunboar was made to shoot by Targ at the hydra and then charged the Hydra and laid in a serious beating thanks to forced evolution almost killing him and crippling several systems.

The arcanist then moved up and repaired him for 6 which let him destroy the gunboar quite handily.  The manticore then squashed my warhog and Kaelyssa lined up some shooting on Dr. Arkadius.  With nowhere to shunt the damage he ended up face down in the mud.

Another great game with the Farrow even with the loss!  I learned a ton this game and had a blast!  Thanks for reading!

First 15 point farrow game

Got in another game against Shawn and his Retribution.  We decided to bump the game up to 15 points rather than battle boxes since I had just picked up a unit of bone grinders and he had just gotten a mage hunter assassin.

His list was a hydra, a phoenix, a mage hunter assassin and Kaelyssa.

I took a War hog, 2 gun boars, a min unit of bone grinders and Dr. Arkadius.

Again we were just playing a straight duel.

Just a couple of quick notes – first off the wreckage we were counting as a forest and yes, your eyes do not deceive you, there are only 3 bone grinders bases there since there were only 3 bone grinders in the blister (yay for quality control).

My plan was to spread out a bit more and send one of the gun boars up the right flank as a counter to the mage hunter assassin.

Dr. Arkadius cast aggravator and put forced evolution on one of the gun boars to add a little bit of punch potential since the war hog didn’t really need it against the Retribution ‘jacks and everything ran forward.

The elves advanced a bit more cautiously just shifting to my right with the assassin running forward.

The gun boar moved up at the assassin and tried to blast but missed.

The elves decided to take a shot at reducing my forces with everything shooting at the war hog and the assassin charging in on it to the rear arc.  He takes some good damage but isn’t dead.  Kaelyssa does pop her feat though.

In return the gunboar advances on the assassin to try and clear it off the hog but misses.  I went ahead and popped my feat and the gun boar missed again but the warhog turned around and cut it in half.

It then turned around during its own activation and advanced on the phoenix and pounded it flat as well.

At this point Kaelyssa had one real chance – assassinate the good doctor.  To this end she casts the eyeless sight spell on herself and moves to just outside the on the right flank’s melee distance.  She shoots through the gap between the bone grinders and hits and steals 1 of my fury but then rolls crap damage.  She then fails to hit needing 6s for the next two shots and then Shawn concedes.

Wow, another awesomely fun game!  I can’t wait til they are all built and painted, it will be even more exciting!

Sneaky elves.

I guess, actually, that should be a sneak peek at elves.  This is Shawn’s test scheme for his Retribution of Scyrah army.  I think it is absolutely gorgeous.