Vlad3 vs. Haley2 batrep

I took a couple of pics but they are pretty lousy, sorry about that.

So, I got some great feedback from this thread and was able to play the first game using suggestions. One of my favorite casters is Vlad3 so it seemed to be the easiest choice for me despite the fact that I am about 13 models short for the list. Also, my favorite army for the game I used to play was a bike heavy SM list so the style is one that is very familiar and comfortable to me. My dojo sparring partner and I are pretty lax about that when we are testing things out so we found some suitable proxies and went for it.

The eHaley list he has been using lately is a pretty standard and brutal one:

Haley2
Stormwall (bonded)
Thorn
Squire
Gorman diWulffe
Full Gunmages with UA
Black 13th
Journeyman warcaster
Rangers

The list I took was inspired by a conversation with Wargolem (thanks for the tips on how to run it, too)

Vlad3 – Charge of the Horselord
Kodiak
Drago
Max Uhlans
Max Uhlans
Drakhun w/dismount
Drakhun w/dismount
Fenris
Markov

I decided that for this game I wouldn’t really care about the scenario objective – instead I would just try and threaten to assassinate Haley and kind of see how things worked out. The scenario was the disappearing flag one and since we are prepping for a tourney at Game Empire next week we decided to do death clock.

We both rolled a 4 to choose who goes first and thanks to the +1 to the roll thanks to the tier bonus I selected to go 2nd in order to choose the side with more LOS blocking terrain. I knew I would end up in his backfield so wanted to make sure I had nice long swathes of LOS to take advantage of my speed.

[b]Deployment and early game[/b]

Deployment was fairly straightforward – stormwall mostly center, B13 and gun mages on my left flank, junior and stormcaller to the right. On my side of the table I put Vlad center, Drago and kodiak to his right, a drakhun on each side, to my left I then had a unit of Uhlans and then fenris out way wide (forgot Markov’s autopass command and was worried about the uhlan’s failing a terror check.) The final uhlans were wide out on my right flank.

Haley went first and knew that I would be jamming her hard (insert immature giggle here) so ran pretty much everything up and advanced herself. My answer to that was to activate Vlad first, cast Hand of Fate on one of the drakhuns, infernal machine on drago, and dash and then advanced some. Uhlans on right flank did a run, as did both of my jacks (for free which is why i chose them) – just as a quick aside here, infernal machine +2 spd turn 1 for tier bonus is almost like having a Vlad1 first turn feat (one of the jacks it is the same, the others are a bit slower). Drago ran to engage Stormwall in the middle of the table and the Kodiak ended up in some woods ready to charge the following turn. I ran most everything else forward, but forgot that uhlans had defensive line and was pretty sloppy on their placement – still much of my army was just shy of the halfway line, and both Fenris on the left, and the uhlans on the right were over the midway line, which was further than they should have been. The non-hand of fated drakhun had also run to engage stormwall thanks to reach and dash.

Shep was a bit taken aback at the speed and had to feat this turn. I wasn’t as conscientious as I should have been with the flanking uhlans and one of those models was caught in the feat affecting the whole unit. Fenris was the only model not affected by the feat. Stormwall shot at the right uhlans killing one, and then the drakhun he was engaged with dismounting him and then killing him with the third shot (thanks to the feat). He then laid down 2 covering fire templates. The rangers marked the closer uhlans and fenris and did some shooting maybe damaging a couple of things but I don’t think they killed anything. Black 13th and a couple of gunmages dismounted and then killed Fenris and killed another of the close uhlans. The stormcaller disrupted Drago (and would for the rest of the game but I won’t mention it again).

I mostly advanced to engage as much as I could on the left and the uhlans on the right did a full 8″ advance. Vlad activated last and advanced a little and cast windwall to protect markov and the remaining drakhun. The right flag disappeared.

[b]Mid game and end game[/b]

There was a bit more shooting and I lost another two uhlans on the left flank leaving me with just 1. Stormwall shifted slightly which triggered countercharge. I debated on whether or not to take it as it took me out of windwall but in the end decided to take it. I rolled a grand total of 7 on 4 dice proving it was a bad idea. On the plus side stormwall hit the drakhun with the big guns but failed to get through his armor. His second shot did something else I don’t remember. The gun mages really struggled for shots – there was an uhlan in range, but he both in concealment and engaged with thorn so they didn’t do anything to him. Thorn missed the uhlan with his shield and hit with the spear but rolled snake eyes for damage. It was an unexpected bonus – he had done his job in tying some stuff up but was largely irrelevant for the rest of the game. Gorman black oiled the drakhun. Haley backed up basically to her deployment zone – no killbox in this scenario.

3

I measured my control area and guessed haley to be about 19″ away from Vlad so it was feat time. I dropped all upkeeps but unfortunately, due to some of Shep’s positioning, I had a less than ideal activation order. Markov charged Gorman and killed him and 2 gun mages. The drakhun advanced around behind stormwall . The uhlans on the right did a charge order, 1 of them charging and killing the stormcaller and the other 2 ran to try and engage the journeyman warcaster (short) and the stormwall (fine). I knew where I wanted Vlad at the end of the turn and I didn’t want stormwall getting to him so I tried to stagger as many large bases as possible. Finally Vlad activated, cast dash and charged a group of 2 gun mages with one impact along the way. I killed on impact and then my charge target. I sidestepped and hit and killed another target again and sidestepped into a group of 4 (with 1 behind the wall). Critically, the gunmages failed their command check. I had 3 focus left and bought a flashing blade and boosted everything I could.  I ended up with 4 or 5 blood quenched tokens and then sprinted behind haley engaging both her and the squire in their rear arcs.

Haley basically had to try a hail Mary here. She gave 1 focus to the stormwall and pulled from the squire. She ran thorn over to get range on the drakhun and took a freestrike but it didn’t do anything to him. Haley boosted the TK on the drakhun and missed the first time. She boosted a second time and moved him back 2″. She then advanced but stayed within Vlad’s reach range to not trigger a free strike. She telekinesised him 2″ closer to the stormwall and turned his back. Finally, she placed Drago out of the way too. Since Vlad was in stormwall’s rear arc he had to flip around and trample (thus losing all of his initials we remembered as it was happening) but the angle forced by the drakhun and the position of a wall I(the one I had to attack over earlier) he was unable to get where he needed, even with the bond and trample movement. At this point my opponent conceeded since Vlad 7 focus and was standing right next to her on 0 (maybe 1) focus.

Victory to the Motherland!

[b]After Action Review[/b]

Wow, my plan went pretty much as I had hoped and thankfully the dice were on pretty even keel on both sides – there were some hot moments but also some cold ones so it was pretty typical. As to be expected when using a lot of new models/units I made some pretty big play errors. One of the biggest was forgetting defensive line on the Uhlans. 5 wound and 17 armor was causing some heartache for Shep, but had they been armor 19 it would have been a whole different realm of pain. The down side is that they would have been a much bigger time bomb target, but that is okay, I think it still works in my favor. I played Fenris way wrong, and basically threw him away for no gain. Aside from the aforementioned minor issues, I was pretty happy overall. The list is super fast and with dash it is also super mobile in that I can ignore free strikes. If only the uhlans had reach natively…

As far as death clock, my list played really fast, even with me not knowing what the heck I was doing most of the time whereas the questions that if asked Shep really ate into his time. Also, failing to get through armor meant more attacks, etc. I think at the end of the game he had like 12 minutes left and I had 23.

I really appreciated the low focus weight of the two jacks both running for free. If I were faced with a lot of heavy armor I would have been in trouble, but honestly, my other list is most likely going to be either one of the Irusks or Sorscha2 and neither of them have any issue with armor whatsoever. I am not gonna lie, when I went into this game, i was really rooting against my own list – I own very few of the models but am definitely going to be picking up the core of this list. It was great fun to play and when I remember things like hand of fate, drago’s affinity, and defensive line, as well as getting distance and positioning down, I think it will be a pretty legit threat.

Thanks again to everyone who has helped with this Haley hate project – I don’t need to necessarily own the list to beat her, I just need to know that it is possible within faction and I feel pretty good about that now. Obviously Shep would get better at playing this matchup as well, but even so, it is a tough slog for him and it is my hope that if I brought this to a tourney and faced a Cygnar player either than haven’t seen it before so reach for eHaley, or they have seen it before and realize that it is a really difficult matchup for them and consider their second caster.

I think this list would also do really well against most any other heavy gunline army such as many of the ret builds, other cygnar lists, some merc lists, as well as even, possibly, Lylyth2 type lists.

Update on Year of the Motherland gaming (6 mini batreps)

Zerkova by Howietzer on Deviant Art

As I mentioned previously I have been playing a bit more than usual so apologies for the lack of full battle reports.  I downloaded a battle report app and it seems decent as I am getting to use it, but I am still figuring it out – hopefully I will find a way to import them over to here.  I’ll try and just do super quick reports – if anyone cares for details let me know and I will try and fill things in.

On that topic, in the last week I have played six sr2013 games:

35 pt Baldur1 vs. Harkevich – Will is a pretty new player and Baldur’s anti-blast spell is pretty rough vs. my blast heavy Harkevich list.  There was also a slight misunderstanding on control area vs command area that extended his feat a bit further than it should have gone.  Totally my fault for not catching that he wasn’t an 8 fury caster earlier – all I have been playing against lately are Rahn and eHaley so I just kind of assume everyone has a 16+” control area.  In any event, a loss for the Motherland.

35 pt Rahn vs. Butcher1 – I made a couple of pretty big and inexcusable mistakes here – I had the models to block pull lanes for Butcher and could have dropped IF on him but didn’t.  Instead I made Shawn only have to TK one model out of the way in order to drag Butcher forward to his doom on turn 2.  I made a couple of huge placement errors but learned a lot about that.  Loss for Butcher.

50 pt Skarre1 vs. Zerkova – I have a confession.  I like Zerkova.  A lot.  I love the art for her, I like her fluiff – the model is a bit sketchy, but I am working with a friend of mine who is an amazing sculptor and so had to get a 2nd model for playing, and I really like some of the fan art out there (see to and bottom for examples).  I was really happy with how I played this list – in particular the Ironfang Pikemen and the Kayazy whom I have been struggling with.  I slowed the tempo of the game and ended up winning scenario on time.  I was able to destroy both objectives.  Had the game continued I might have been in trouble as there were a whole lot of Mechthralls waiting in the wings, but who knows, I might have cleared them out.  Getting Icy Grip on Satyxis Raiders bottom of 1 was pretty sweet and allowed the widowmakers to kill the UA.  My Kayazy Eliminators have been terrible every time I have used them.  I don’t think I have rolled higher than a 3 to hit ever.  I am not even kidding.  In 6 games with them now they have not hit a single model.  My opponent usually plays eHaley and ran Skarre about like her which I think helped me out, but hey I will take the win for Zerkova – it certainly wasn’t an easy one.

50 pt Skarre1 vs. Irusk1 – Same opponent as before and I just switched out Zerkova for Irusk1.  He was a bit more aggressive with Skarre this time and while I am not usually one to blame the dice, I am blaming the dice.  I had the absolute worst set of rolls I have ever seen in my life.  I think Shep would agree.  On Irusk’s feat turn I killed a single blood witch. That is it.  Every single other thing missed despite getting +2 to hit.  Even my 3 man CMA missed despite needing a 3 (that is how desperate I was just to get something to hit).  I’m not gonna lie, I was pretty furious at this point and after he killed my Conquest with the Kraken on a single activation I just conceded.  Loss vs. the Pirate Queen.  Zerkova had just won the exact same scenario and matchup, therefore Zerkova is a better caster than Irusk1.

Kraye vs. Lylyth2 – wait what?  Yeah, Shep wanted to try his Kraye theme force out against a brutal Lylyth2 list so I said I would pilot it.  Hordes is the system I have more experience with and I was still raging out after those dice rolls so I stepped back from the Motherland though stayed in the icy white north.  He had a good gambit with running 2 full tilt minutemen up to engage on what was going to be my feat turn but I used a naga to head butt one down and the bolt thrower to head butt the other one down then the Ravagores aimed and shot at Kraye under feat.  My bad rolling wasn’t done from the previous game but I was able to finish him off after shooting 3 raptors and Anyssa Ryvaal (or whatever the Raptor solo’s name is).  

 

(eLylyth CWalton73 on Deviant Art)

35 pt. Kaya2 vs. Vlad3 – This was actually a really fun and interesting game.  I had left most of my models at Shep’s house for a game tonight, but ended up going to Game Empire last night.  I had some unbuilt Manowar Shocktroopers that I threw together during the day and a random assortment of jacks and Vlad3 since they were on the painting table.  Todd had just built Kaya2 so had no games in with her so we were both kind of bumbling abot.  He was actually wrecking my face, but I had a chance for scenario victory if I got a kill, sidestep, kill, sidestep, and then destroyed an untouched objective.  Oh yeah and use my marauder to get a janky angle charge then slam combo attack against a def 16 pureblood and a 5 or 6 on distance to allow vlad to dominate the zone and give me the 4 points to win… and when the slam hit but I rolled a 1 I thought it was over, but luckily I rolled a 17 for damage (and he was already severely wounded thanks to the juggernaut on the previous turn) he was damaged enough to allow my 2 surviving manowars to stay within the stalkers reach range but hit and kill the knocked down pureblood for the win.  It was a super fun game and even if I had lost it would have been a win because I got to do sidestep, sidestep, flashing blades with a HOF Vlad  Win for the Great Prince of Umbrey.

Thanks for reading.

Butcher2 vs. Kromac1 50 point batrep

Man, I have had the worst time getting this to post right – hopefully it will work now.

I got in a game against Shep/Todd co-commanding a Kromac led Circle force. Having just built Butcher2 I was especially eager to try him out. My list was:

Kommander Orsus Zoktavir
- War Dog
- Marauder
- Spriggan

Koldun Lord
Manhunter
Manhunter
Harlan Versh, Illuminated One

Greylord Ternion
Min Kayazy Assassins with Underboss
Great Bears of Gallowswood
Widowmakers
Full Ironfang Pikemen with standard UA

The Circle list looked like:

Kromac the Ravenous
- Druid Wilder
- Ghetorix
- Gorax
- Warpwolf Stalker
- Pureblood Warpwolf

Blackclad Wayfarer

Shifting Stones with UA
Shifting Stones
Full Tharn Bloodtrackers with Nuala
Gob Bellows Crew

We are eagerly awaiting SR2013 and have settled into just playing the basic 2012 scenario – it isn’t complicated, there is no wackiness, it has enough of a scenario component (and kill box) to keep us honest. I won the roll to go first and chose to go first.

I didn’t really have much of a clue on what to do so I just kind of advanced everything. I was a bit more cautious with Zoktavir than I probably should have been and I very cleverly decided to have half of my IFP go through a forest just because, well, I was stupid. The ternion advance and shift to put clouds on the 3 closest kayazy who run forward in the most ridiculously unnecessary cloud wall ever. Really it just jams my own lines up.

The pureblood moves up and tries to spray the manhunter on my left side but misses despite the boost. Everything else kind of shifts around. The bloodtrackers (who had designated the ironfang pikemen as prey) killed a couple of the IFP.

Butcher advances and puts fury on the manhunter who charges the feral and to the surprise of everyone around the table kills him! I rolled fire for both hits but PS14 weapon master is no joke! The IFP continue to move through the forest on my right and I wonder where Saxon Orrick is.

The stalker steps through a stone gate and kills a some iron fang pikemen and a couple of kayazy and then retreats back. The wayfarer kills the manhunter. Everything else also shifts a bit back, basically playing a retrograde action with models that are faster than mine on a non killbox mission. Ouch.

I run the other manhunter up to engage some bloodtrackers and decide that I want to feat just to see what it does despite only having 4 enemy models in range he then shoots and boosts the closest stone and gets a rage token. The IFP charge and kill a couple of bloodtrackers, generating a couple more. The great bears run staying just inside 12″ to get issued some rage tokens which I then do and one of them (maybe Korsk – I don’t remember) advances to the stalker and hits it pretty hard but not quite hard enough to one round it. The Ternion run in front of butcher to provide hopefully a little defense, and I foolishly didn’t give any focus to the marauder (I rolled very low on focus) so he couldn’t run in front of my. I did try and get the spriggan to block the charge lane but he didn’t quite get it.

Ghettorex charges butcher after getting primaled and unsurprisingly put him in the dirt.

After Action Review:
Yeah… basically I was a huge trainwreck in my play this game. I was using several new units I hadn’t played with before as well as a brand new caster. I was in front of my self constantly and just really played poorly. At the end I was more desperate to just get the feat off to see what it did so hung myself out there a bit more than I should have but I am glad I did. It was a wonderful learning game though I really had no idea what to do with my army. In retrospect I probably should have just layered up the troops and run screaming forward like a madman.

eSorscha vs. Kraye tier 4 – 50 points

I played this game a few weeks ago now but the holidays really scuppered my plans to post it.  I am going to hit what I can remember.  The list I played was my Sorscha2 list again with a couple of minor changes:

 

Khador – Sorscha2

56 / 56 (50+6) Warcaster(s) : 1/1 Warjack(s) : 1 Battle Engines : 0 Solos : 5 Units : 5

Forward Kommander Sorscha – WJ: +6
- War Dog
- Conquest – PC: 19

Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich – PC: 2
Manhunter – PC: 2
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution – PC: 3
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist – PC: 2
Harlan Versh, Illuminated One – PC: 2

Great Bears of Gallowswood – Volkov, Kolsk, Yarovich: 5
Widowmakers – Leader & 3 Grunts: 4
Winter Guard Infantry – Leader & 9 Grunts: 6
- 2 1 Rocketeer’s: 2
- Winter Guard Officer & Standard – Winter Guard Officer & Standard 2
Battle Mechaniks – Leader & 3 Grunts: 2
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt – Lady Aiyanna & Master Holt: 4

 

Facing off against me was a really underrated Cygnar caster (and probably my favorite model/fluff in the game) Tier 4 Capt. Jeremiah Kraye Mobile Strike Force list:

 

Cygnar – Kraye1

58 / 56 (50+6) Warcaster(s) : 1/1 Warjack(s) : 8 Battle Engines : 0 Solos : 0 Units : 2

Captain Jeremiah Kraye – WJ: +6
- Cyclone – PC: 9
- Ironclad – PC: 7
- Hunter – PC: 6
- Hunter – PC: 6
- Minuteman – PC: 5
- Minuteman – PC: 5
- Minuteman – PC: 5
- Minuteman – PC: 5

Rangers – Leader & Grunts: 5
Rangers – Leader & Grunts: 5

The theme bonuses he was getting was reducing ranger unit cost 1 each, +1 for starting roll, 2 wall templates or 4″ forest AOEs, and his heavies got AD.

 

Last game I played I never even ended up using my feat so my main goals for this game were to slow down my play and go for attrition (not mechanically, but methodically in my strategy) and to use my feat to support that goal.

 

Kraye won the roll to go first but chose to go second.  We were playing Incursion from SR2012.

 

I tried taking pics with my ipad but they were all pretty terrible so I am just going to do this one.  

 

 

My first turn was pretty standard, advance everything, put iron flesh on the winterguard.

 

Shep surprised me by putting full tilt on the cyclone which then zipped forward and dropped a couple of covering fire templates completely screwing the winterguard advance next turn.  The hunters both went wide on opposite flanks with a unit of rangers in support of each.  The rest just advanced and kraye set up behind one of those handy walls that the rangers had built for him

 

This did end up putting the cyclone in range of Harlan Versh who advanced and shot the hell out of it thanks to full tilt.  I ended up doing way more damage than I expected, but it was pretty well scattered across the whole grid.  Conquest tried to finish off the cyclone but due to terribad drifts didn’t do a single box.  He did kill a couple of rangers though, so that was something.  Eyriss was not going to be long for the world in this game so I ran her forward to engage a few of the rangers planning on at least tying them up a bit.  The widowmakers opposite Eyriss went a bit nuts with some shooting rolls and killed 3 rangers on a hill and they failed their morale check.

 

The cyclone beat a hasty retreat and the minutemen started causing me some trouble.  The biggest surprise was one jumping over to get Eyriss to free up the rangers.  He ended up a bit too close to a couple of rangers and there were some casualties to friendly fire.  They did some major murder on my poor winterguard killing 6 or 7 as well as Lady Aiyanna.  Master Holt surprisingly passed his morale test.  One of the minutemen ended up too close to Conquest and frozen thanks to the bond.  The hunters continued their extreme flanking maneuver.  The ironclad charged the great bears and killed 2 and the remaining made a couple of tough checks.

 

This seemed like a decent enough time for me to have Sorscha call down Winter’s Chill.  I had hoped to get the Cyclone in range but unfortunately 

he was out.  Holt took vengeance for his Elf mistress and rolled some decent damage on the frozen one which was doubled thanks to the feat.  The Winterguard easily finished the task as well as taking out the other one.  Conquest had nothing else to shoot at and tried the Cyclone again.  He made up for it by wrecking the heavy jack which opened up the zone for me to run Harlan into to get a control point.  The great bear stood up and hit the ironclad from some damage (also out of feat).  All in all I was pretty pleased with how the turn went for me.

 

Things were starting to look a bit rough for Shep but the game was far from over.  The minuteman which had dispatched Eyriss (and was the only remaining one) was out of Kraye’s control area so moved back into it.  Kraye killed off the illuminated one.  The ironclad finished off the last great bear.  The hunter on the right flank charged and killed off a couple of widowmakers and then moved back onto the hill thanks to being light cav.

 

Kovnik Joe advanced and shot at the hunter on the hill since he had nothing else to do.  He not only hit, but he did some crazy damage and disabled the hunter’s gun.  One of the mechaniks ran up next to the ironclad but in its rear arc so not engaged (he also failed his command check for being out of command range).  Gorman moved up and targeted the mechanik with black oil and splashed the ironclad as well (I had to do it that way because I thought, correctly, that the ironclad was further than 12″ from gorman at the start of his activation).

 

Kraye advanced and put pursuit on the conquest and then did in the mechanik and Gorman also died.  The hunter with the disabled gun charged Joe and ended up just out of melee range.  The other hunter was setting up for next turn assassination run.  

 

I saw that run coming and put the other 3 mechaniks in harm’s way and put iron flesh on herself.  I wanted to advance Conquest but didn’t want to give extra move to the ironclad who still had full tilt so tried shooting the ironclad but didn’t do anything.  The Winterguard killed off the hunter threatening their beloved Kovnik Joe.  

 

I had forgotten about those rangers and they moved over and cleared out the mechanik’s and the hunter took a shot at Sorscha.  Fortunately her def was just a bit too high.  It definitely reminded me that the game wasn’t won yet.  The ironclad set up the charge on conquest for next turn which was a difficult question for me to deal with as the hunters had been plinking at Conquest on any turns that I didn’t mention anything else for them so he was down several boxes.

 

I upkept iron flesh and advanced Sorscha and boosted a freezing grip just to make sure it hit the ironclad to prevent him from pursuiting away.  It left me on 0 focus but it also gave me the opportunity to seal up the game.  The winterguard lined up to protect their warcaster from Kraye charging her as best I could.  Conquest charged and did some pretty good damage to the ironclad wrecking his hammer arm.

 

It was do or die time for kraye.  He dropped his upkeeps and hung on to all his focus.  I had felt pretty decent about my protection for Sorscha but had made a critical mistake in forgetting to have Joe call tough (or activating him at all).  I also forgot about Kraye’s AOE… He blasted the better part of a hole in my defensive line of winterguard and declared the charge on Sorscha with an impact hit to clear the final one out of the way – he agonized over the decision but eventually decided that if he missed the one he wouldn’t get a chance to put Sorscha in the dirt so boosted to hit, which turned out being necessary.  Luckily for me he just didn’t have the focus to pull off the assassination run and was left in range of Conquest (I would take a free strike from the ironclad but without the hammer it couldn’t have changed the outcome) so Shep conceded so that we could analyze the game since we were both trying new things out.

 

After Action Review:

Man what a fun game!  Since I am writing from my POV the game looks a bit onesided but it really went back and forth and was a whole lot of fun.  I didn’t play it up much in the writeup but Kraye’s ability which makes his jacks into either cav or light cav is really good and Shep used it well.  The hunters moving and shooting and the minutemen getting that extra movement after their combat action was really a pain in the butt.  I was very happy with slowing down my play and I think I really played the attrition game pretty well as I had intended to.  I am also quite pleased with a couple of specific I did during the game – namely running the mechanik to extend Gorman’s range and figuring the answer to pursuit on my heavy. I made a couple of big mistakes too, but overall I am happy with how it went.

 

Sorry for the longwinded writeup but thanks for reading!

First eSorscha battle report

I had grand intentions of posting an incredibly detailed, blow by blow battle report to demonstrate the tactical geniuses that Shep and I are, but the pictures came out totally crap and, honestly it has been over a week so I am going to post this to just get it down before I forget any more.

This was my first game with eSorscha and my first game with Khador in a very long time (as in, before the Iron Fang Uhlans were released in the dark days of Mark 1.  Fun fact, Shep having cygnar cav and me not having any cav is why I quit in mark 1).  Also, this happened to be my first game of WM/Hordes in close to 6 months so needless to say I was both rusty and had a lot to learn.  Also, sorry for the base on Conquest, he wasn’t built yet and Shep happened to have an extra colossal base lying around.  Doesn’t everyone? 

Game 1 was vs. Shep’s Lylyth2 list at 50 points.  

My list was:
Forward Kommander Sorscha 
- War Dog
- Conquest
Manhunter 
Great Bears of Gallowswood
Widowmakers
Full Winter Guard Infantry
- 3 Rocketeers
- Winter Guard Officer & Standard
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich
Eiryss2
Gorman diWulff
Ayanna and Holt
Full Battle Mechaniks

Shep’s list was a pretty standard Lylyth2 list – nice to see he was going to take it easy on me for my triumphant return to the game:

Lylyth, Shadow of Everblight 
- Succubus
- Ravagore
- Ravagore
- Nephilim Bolt Thrower
- Nephilim Bolt Thrower
- Naga Nightlurker
Annyssa Ryvaal
Blighted Nyss Raptors
Blighted Nyss Shepherd x2

I honestly had no idea what I was going to do so I just set flanking stuff up on the flanks, and central stuff in the middle and had kind of planned on running forward screaming like maniacs (too much trollblood play can have that effect on you).   I won the roll to go first and enacted that plan on turn 1.  I put boundless charge on Conquest and had him charge forward and put desperate pace and iron flesh on the winterguard and camped the last 2.

This is what it looked like at the end of my turn. 

Shep’s turn he advanced a little bit, put up shadow pack, killed 2 great bears and set the remaining one on fire.  He also killed Eiryss and a couple of winter guard and I think Ayanna and Holt.

On my turn sorscha cast bounding charge on the remaining great bear and cycloned back to safety.  Conquest advanced and had some decent drifts managing to take out the shepherds.  The widowmakers killed enough raptors to cause a leadership test which they failed.  I also managed to get good drifts and took out the shepherds (it may have been one this turn and one next turn actually, now that I think about it).  I had hoped with reach the great bear might lock up a Ravagore for the turn but my eye was way off .  End of my turn 2 looked more or less like this:

Raptors failed to rally.  Shep upkept shadow pack and killed a few more winter guard as well as the last great bear.

My turn 3 I advanced again, and felt like I was getting to the point where I could actually threaten him with the WG.  I had Joe call boosted attack and think I might have killed one of the bolt throwers but not quite the overwhelming turn I had hoped for.  Unfortunately I made a HUGE mistake in putting Conquest completely off the hill and Sorscha on it even though my mechanics formed up in Soccer (football) free kick defense formation.  I didn’t even fully appreciate how much I had screwed up until Shep’s turn wherein I am reminded that hills are not true LOS and a Conquest doesn’t block LOS to a Sorscha on a hill…

Here is the end of my turn 3 so that all may learn from my folly.  It is extra shaky because of the shuddering spasms of crying I was having. 

On Shep’s turn, Anyssa sniped out a clear path to Sorscha and Lylyth feated.  It took to literally the last shot with the last model to kill her – even without Iron Flesh, Sorscha on a hill is kind of hard to hit.  Had I used those 2 focus for that rather than camping them I would have been able to steal the game from Shep.

So, my first outing with Sorscha2 was pretty ugly as I had imagined it would be.  I didn’t have much of a plan and Shep punished me for it.  I made some terrible moves and incredibly low percentage gambles that failed to pan out.  It was also quite a blast.  The focus mechanic is so different from the fury mechanic that it will take a bit of getting used to.  I was fairly terrible at allocating focus – one turn I gave Conquest way too much and the next way too little.  I think not having a plan definitely played into it but over all just having to plan everything out is a bit foreign to me.

I failed to use Sorscha in any meaningful way and that hurt a lot.  I could have had Gorman do some more tanking with his immunities – his cloud certainly didn’t have much effect on the game. 

A good kick in the teeth, Menoth style

Now that I am getting more comfortable with the trolls it isn’t quite the brain drain it was and hopefully I will be getting some pics soon. There are no pics here though, sorry.

So, last club day at Emerald Knights I ended up watching more than playing just because a few people needed to get in their team games and I didn’t really feel like doing another one. I did, however, get in a game against Josh playing his Menoth army. We played a 35 point game and I ran a couple of units that I had just finished (note to self – don’t play with all new models).

I was going with an eGrissel tier for no reason other than finally finishing up that unit of kriel warriors that I have been hunting down forever and the newly built horthol and max longriders. Also, our local PG was giving people a bonus league point for using the league selection so I took some whelp scrappers.

Army Name: eGrissel tier
Trollbloods
Tier 2: Blockade Runners
34+6 points, 27 models

Grissel Bloodsong, Marshal of the Kriels +6 points
* Dire Troll Mauler 9 points
* Troll Axer 6 points
Horthol, Long Rider Hero 4 points
10 Kriel Warriors 6 points
* 1 Kriel Caber Thrower 1 point
* Kriel Warrior Standard & Piper 2 points
Troll Whelps 2 points
5 Trollkin Long Riders 10 points

Add +1 to your starting game roll.

I would love to have a War Wagon or two, but don’t and the same with the Sons of Bragg so I was stuck at tier 2. I’ll give my thoughts on the tier later.

Just to recap, I have played eGrissel and the axer fairly regularly, not used the Mauler since I picked up the Earthborn, and never used anything else in the list. Facing me across the table was Josh and his Tier 4 eSevvy list. I might screw some of this up but it is from memory (also, iBodger says he can’t have the sunburst crew in a tier list, I dunno):

Army Name: Josh eSeverius
Protectorate of Menoth
35+6 points, 43 models

Grand Scrutator Severius +6 points
* Blessing of Vengeance 7 points
* Revenger 6 points

4 Choir of Menoth 2 points
Deliverer Sunburst Crew 3 points
10 Deliverers 8 points
10 Temple Flameguard 6 points
* TFG Officer & Standard 2 points
10 Temple Flameguard 6 points
* TFG Officer & Standard 2 points
Vassal Mechanik 1 point

We ended up being a bit lazy and just doing a straight killbox mission. There was a hill in the center of the table on the right side and a forest just to the left of mid table (from my POV). That was really all the terrain that mattered.

Josh went first and ran everything forward and put the flameguard into typical triangle formation. He jammed one of them to the gap between the hill and the forest – we were using the wrecked shuttle from 40k as the hill and I kept thinking it was an obstacle despite us talking about so I kept viewing it as a bottle neck. Oops.

The other unit of flameguard ran around the other side of the woods to intercept Horthol.

My turn kriel warriors prayed for speed and ran up and jammed the “bottle neck”. Horthol moved full distance and the long riders lined up for a charge. Grissel and the Mauler and Axer advanced in a line behind them.

The center flameguard advanced a little bit and minifeated. Shooting killed a few kriel warriors and the lead toughalo but he toughed it out. Since I had though that stupid wrecked shuttle was an obstacle that toughalo screwed my follow up charges and slams so I was horribly out of position. Horthol charged and slammed the front line of flameguard and killed 2 or 3 that were set up for me and then he was charged and dismounted and then killed off over the next turn or so. Sevvy hit a pretty hard core ashes to ashes on my kriel warriors killing 5 of them including the guy next to the caber and the caber himself. Ugh. Must work on positioning…

The toughaloes were picked apart in a combination of jack charging and shooting.

My mauler got a charge on one of the triplets of flameguard and killed the lead 2 but then was killed in follow up shooting and charging. The axer charged the jacks and a couple of the flameguard and rolled a 3 and then a 4 for damage on his threshers. We joked that in about 10 turns he would be deadly. Obviously he died horribly.

Before I knew it, I was down to eGrissel and he was down 4 or 5 flameguard. Grissel decided to go out in a bang and charged Blessing of Vengeance and didn’t kill him (she missed twice despite needing 5s or something). Josh was a sport and pulled Blessing of Vengeance out of combat and charged Grissel with Severius. The Vice Grand High Mega Scrutator then put Grissel in the dirt with his last attack and she failed her tough.

Ouch. To paraphrase (and clean up a bit) a line from Fight Club, “I haven’t been worked that hard since fifth grade.”

Still, I did learn a lot. The biggest thing was, don’t try everything new. I have been doing a decent job of just rotating in single things into a list I am comfortable with to learn how they go. I know how to jam pretty well with fennblades and figured it wouldn’t be that different from kriel warriors (it is). A mauler is basically just like an earthborn (no, it isn’t). The toughaloes are like fennblades on steroids (wth was I thinking?)

My unfamiliarity with my models and their capabilities kept me from developing any kind of cohesive plan and I got whooped and deserved it. This game is far too unforgiving to just try and wing it, especially against a great opponent like Josh. So, I apologized to Josh for what a pretty unchallenging game and packed up. It was a good lesson to learn the hard way.

I may or may not have cried myself to sleep.

3 quick journeyman writeups

I have really been working on getting my games in quicker lately so haven’t been doing any pictures or video so be warned of a wall of text ahead.  As a pretty new player adding that one extra bit of split attention was really adding to the mental strain of the game.  I know that they are easier to follow and more enjoyable to read and will definitely be getting back to them sooner rather than later.  I have a new top secret plan to try out…

Anyway, last Sunday was a big game day at Emerald Knights comics as it was the semi-official kick off of the Journeyman league.  It is a bit odd, because we actually made the move to 15 point lists on that day as well but the patches were in and it was the first time a lot of us go to meet.

I was able to get in 3 pretty quick games.  Two were battlebox and the the third was a 15 pointer.

The first battlebox game was against Chris and his gators.  Chris is very new to the game but is a great painter.  His gators are all looking really good.  We had been bantering back and forth on facebook for a while so it was nice to get in a game with him.  I won the roll and went first.  I advance deployed as far forward as I could and then put quagmire on the warhog to help counter the high def of the gators and cast batten down the hatches.  Everything advanced or ran.  Barnabas dropped a few mud puddles and the the turtle and the rastler moved forward into it.  The turtle spit and did a bit of damage but nothing major.   I activated Carver first and he advanced a bit and cast mobility and batten down the hatches and upkept quagmire leaving him on 0 fury.

The warhog charged at the wrastler.  The big problem here came when I realized that I forgot to pop my feat and the warhog basically fluffed his attacks.  It was okay though because the turtle had left itself in a beautiful slam lane to hit Barnabas.  Until he missed, that is.  Barnabas activated his countercharge ability and moved forward.  I fired with the other gunboar and hit on an unboosted 12.  I then boosted damage and rolled 18!  5 dice all turned up with 6s!  It was pretty exciting for me and pretty depressing for him.

The rastler was unable to take down the now armor 21 warhog despite using all 4 fury and the other gunboar required all 4 fury and Barnabas’ help to take out the gunboar.

The following turn Carver finished Barnabas off personally.

The other battlebox game was against Shawn and his Retribution of Scyrah.  We setup and played on the same table on which I had just brutalized Chris.  I went second but advance deployed as far forward as I could.  The elves moved forward.  I advanced a bit more cautiously, knowing full well what Kaelyssa was capable of.  I dropped a rift template to prevent any shenanigan charges and made sure Carver was safe from any charge angles.  It worked perfectly right up until his jack apparitioned (or apparated if you prefer) and then slammed the hog into Carver, knocking them both down.  Kaelyssa shot first and stripped me of fury and then the Manticore killed me.  I was seriously just laughing at how throroughly I got stomped.  I just need to always batten down the hatches, even if I think I am safe from shenanigans.

Three days later I realized I forgot to roll Carver’s tough like I always do!  I am going to write up on a 3×5 notecard that CARVER IS TOUGH just so  I don’t forget.  That also made me laugh.

My 15 point game was against Josh and his Cryx.  This was a rematch and I came out on top of that one.  With the extra points he was able to add a couple of solos and I added a min unit of bonegrinders and ran 1 point light.  I have since realized that I can take a max unit for just 1 point so that is what I am doing going forward.

This game was fast and violent just like our first one.  I left a lane out for Deneghra to charge Carver on turn 2 after he fluffed his attacks on the slayer under his feat.  Luckily for me batten down the hatches was up and, more importantly, Josh rolled snake eyes for one of Denny’s attacks.  The combination of the two meant that I had survived her assassination run and put her in a dangerous place.  One of the bone jacks tried to finish me off and put corrosion on me.  That left me with 2 life and a continuous effect so I had to win the game and now.  The failed assassination left Denny kind of hanging out there and Carver was able to finish her up.

I know that this is a really short write up, but it was actually a super fun and tight game.  I don’t expect to come out on top next time we play – my luck can only hold so long!

A couple of quick battle box games

So I got a couple of games in against Sergio last week for the journeyman league and I wanted to make sure and post them, since I still haven’t posted the game we played last month.

Since they were supposed to be journeyman league games our lists were pretty much decided for us. I brought the farrow (Lord Carver, 2x gun boars, war hog) and he was bringing the standard Menoth starter rather than then newly approved 2 player starter kit (pKreoss, crusader, repenter, revenger)

Deployment was pretty straightforward looking like this:

The early part of the game we both advanced each trying to get the drop on the other. I cast a rift to create an area of rough terrain to keep from being charged and it scattered a bit, but not too badly.

The lack of Menoth’s trademark synergy would be a referring thorn in Sergio’s side. In this case, with no way of giving pathfinder he was pretty much just stuck. Carver popped his feat. The gun boar on the right charged the light jack and damaged it up pretty well but didn’t quite destroy it. The war hog charged the heavy jack and wrecked it (we just left the model there rather than a wreck marker) and failing to take out the damaged light. The gun boar on the left tried to slam the other light jack back to try and limit the retaliation but missed thanks to Defender’s Ward!

Both light jacks combined to kill war hog. The gun boar did a double handed throw the light jack I killed one of the other light jacks and Kreoss popped his feat since I finally didn’t cast batten down the hatches and came forward to try and finish Carver (I forgot he had reach). Luckily for me Carver survived the assassination run. Lord Carver finished Kreoss giving the win to the farrow.

We had hoped to rotate in some games with Shawn but he was unable to make it. We decided to have another game even though only the first one would count toward the league.

I played a bit cagier this time, running forward to take the linear obstacles as cover and try some shooting. Turns out gun boar shooting doesn’t do much to jacks.

In return Kreoss decided to just set my pigs on fire forcing me to go forward and deal with him. It was kind of funny, the gun boar on the left burned all game long but due to lousy rolls never took any damage. Guess he was just slow cooking the pork.

I forgot to do any more pictures from this point. I kept batten down the hatches up every turn, used my feat to kill his heavy and one of his lights, threw the other one in the water. Kreoss went over and lit the furnace. I sent the warhog in after him and Kreoss just laid a holy beatdown on him killing single handedly. Kreoss and the light came out of the water and again tried an assassination on Carver, and again ended up with Hand of God to the face for his troubles.

The second game I had it well in had and almost blew it. I had all three beasts and all Sergio had was the light with the shield which I had thrown into the water. What I should have done while he was igniting the jack was fallen back and used my fury for a couple of turns to get the war hog back up to full. At that point it would have been a pretty easy matter. As it was I had to get desperate and put Carver in a bad place and almost lost what should have been a sure win.

Full marks to Sergio for sticking it out and almost pulling off a huge upset win.

A couple of final thoughts here. Menoth without the choir takes a hit but are not terrible – especially in the battle box format. Kreoss has good spells. I had to keep carver back to stay out of lamentation range in order to keep batten down the hatches up but I needed it in order to not have my army knocked down and beaten to death.

I am really happy with Carver and how he is playing. Using the feat to take out an opposing jack or two is a pretty great way of getting the upper hand and I found I was using it earlier than I did in the bigger games where I was trying to force an assassination. I will have to remember that in the larger games I play.

Next Thursday night is league night at Emerald Comics and I hope to get in a few more games.

Thanks for reading!

35 point video batrep – Farrow vs. Mercs

Welcome to another video batrep – or, as I am calling it, my ongoing Dorkumentary. This one is a bit more shaky than the other – seriously, if you have any suggestions for stabilizing a flip, let me know. Also, it was pretty loud in the store so sometimes my voice get drowned out a bit but I was able to hear everything okay when I was listening to it after I stitched it together. I was getting a bit anxious at the end of the game because it took SO long so I talk kind of fast, sorry.

Okay, I am going to go into a short little rant here. My opponent Joe, is a really really nice guy. Very gregarious and apparently pretty popular (it was my first time meeting him). It seemed like EVERYONE who came into the store stopped by and talked with him and held little conversations.

Some of which went a bit long.

At one point after not less than 10 minutes and trying to get him back into our game I just went with my turn stating what I was doing and putting down tokens. When it was finally his turn he was surprised that I had cast Batten Down the Hatches (despite me having done it every turn, saying I was doing it, and then putting down the token). This game took close to 3 hours.

I will NEVER play another 3 hour 35 point game.

My wife was home sick and I had the time when the girls were napping to run over to the FLGS – I figured 2 hours would have been plenty. It wasn’t in this case.

Please, for the love of God, if you are playing a game with someone or you want to talk with someone who is playing a game, please please please try and keep your attention on the game you are playing and keep the conversation short. Yes, wargaming is a social hobby and it is actually one of the things that I like most about it. However, this game just went from a really enjoyable experience to an incredibly annoying and frustrating one. You can hear in the video at the end how rushed it was. I was basically hitting stop on the recording as I was talking. And yeah, I know recording the game slows it down a bit but in this case, a 3 hour game was covered in 6 and a half minutes of recap, so it didn’t add that much time and I made sure it was okay with my opponent before even showing up.

Again, let me state that Joe is a really nice guy, very sociable, a lot of fun to play. This isn’t a Joe bash so much as an etiquette reminder. Sadly, the fact that it went SO long also meant that there is no wrap up in the video – I will write mine below the video. If Joe sends me something I will happily add it to this post.

Okay, now that that is off my chest on with the real reason you are here. Strangely, I ended up playing against Mercs again at the Aero Hobbies WM/H day in Santa Monica, CA. This list was very different from the previous one I played. The list Joe brought was:

Magnus the Traitor
Mangler
2x Renegades
Vanguard
Croe’s Cutthroats (full)
Steelhead Halbardiers (min)
Orin Midwinter
Gorman di Wulfe

I switched up my own list to try a Carver list with a heavy ranged element:
Lord Carver, BMMD Esq III
War Hog 2x
Gunboars
Targ
Farrow Brigands (max)
Farrow Slaughterhousers
2x Razorbacks

Unfortunately, this list just comes up to 34 points. We really need a 1 point model in the Thornfall Alliance. And now, without further ado, I present the main event.

So, this list started out as a kind of lark when I realized the amount of templates the Farrow can lay down per turn. If I had a 3rd gunboar I would probably swap out the Slaughterhousers for it and then add in a unit of Bonegrinders just to maximize shootiness and give me some magic attacks in case I go up against incorporeal solos or Menoth.

Once again I had absolutely HORRIBLE tough rolls. I am glad the forums warned me about how almost worthless they would be. I never expect to make them so I am not disappointed. And on the off chance someone makes it, it is cool. If you are playing with tough models I recommend that approach. The list worked really well. I was extremely happy with how I was able to dictate much of the flow of the game. The shooting was a big enough threat that he had to advance some and I think it forced Joe to make the mistake of devoting the entire unit of Croe’s Cutthroats to deal with the razorback and gunboar on that flank.

Overall, I felt in control of pretty much the entire game. I was able to ensure I was on the good side of almost any trades and at the end of the game he basically had Magnus left while I had Carver, the War Hog, a Gunboar, a brigand and Targ. I could have played it out to the win, but I was already super late and wanted to see if Carver could take out Magnus on the charge (I am still learning his capabilities).

I made an error in not boosting to hit, but I also realized I messed up and was thinking Carver had Weaponmaster, so it is Karmically appropriate that I missed with pretty much all my attacks. Thanks for reading/watching, and seriously, if you have any tips for stabilizing a Flip, let me know. My search-fu has failed on this, though I did find some pretty cool things one can do with building a filming rig out of PVC…

First video batrep – Carver vs. Kaelyssa 25 pts

My wife and my girls got me a shiny new Flip for my birthday and of course, the first thing (well, second or third actually) that I thought about was how awesome it would be to do video batreps!  I love writing up batreps and taking the pics and everything but they end up taking a really long time.  Sadly I don’t have a ton of time these days so this is really awesome.

Retribution of Scyrah list was:
Kaelyssa
Hydra
Phoenix
Mage Hunter Strike Force (max with UA)
Mage Hunter Assassin

And the Farrow were represented by:
Lord Carver, BMMD Esq III
2 War Hogs
Gun Boar
2 Brigands (min)

Without further ado, on to the main event.

A couple of things I learned as a result of this game (without spoiling the end) are 1. you can cast both mobility AND batten down the hatches – for some reason I thought it was one or the other, and 2. I really need to hit the gym.

I’d love some feedback here since this is my first video batrep

Thanks!