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!

Journeyman game, Carver vs. Kaelyssa

Shawn came over the other evening and we knocked out a journeyman game. Our league is going a bit slower than the standard because most of us are part time gamers at best thanks to kids and full time jobs and school.

I set up the table before Shawn got there in something that would be interesting to look at with enough terrain to interact with. I realized I have about a million and one fences and thought it would be cool to do a roadside inn kind of thing with a wrecked building. I used the fences to suggest roads and to make it feel in the woods I added some, er, woods. And a small green lake. As an aside, I REALLY need to get some kind of better battle mat for these fantasyish setting games. Can anyone recommend any in particular?

Since I did the setup I let Shawn pick his side and he won the roll to go first.

The farrow all stayed fairly close together and advanced with the gun boars pulling off slightly. The Retribution light jacks went out wide on the flanks. Kaelyssa cast phantom hunter on herself and kept it up for the whole game. I put quagmire on the war hog hoping to help deal with that highish defense of the ret jacks. I am also not going to mention it after this, but just assume I am cutting myself for fury every turn thanks to Kaelyssa stealing my beasts’ fury. I took 6 or 7 damage before being the target of a single attack.

The manticore laid down a covering fire template and then bought some extra shots knocking out the mind of the gunboar on my right. Shawn misjudged a charge distance and came up short with the arcnode light (can’t remember the name now) by about a half inch on the wounded gunboar. It is possible that this oversight cost him the game.

The griffon was in range and charged in on that same turn (these charges were before I had Batten Down the Hatches up – I totally misjudged his threat range and after this cast it most every turn). Kaelyssa then popped her feat to prevent any charges on my part.

In retaliation Carver activated first, popped his feat and moved over to the griffin and hit it a few times before casting Batten Down the Hatches. Once more I was reminded how much not the Butcher he is. He did manage to take the shield down do a few other things. The gunboar on the left advanced and hit him but also didn’t kill him unfortunately which meant it was down to my war hog to. He killed him with his initial attacks. The other gunboar closed on the arcnode and did nothing since his mind was out and I had forgotten to heal it in my activation.

The arcnode shifted a bit and then beat on the gunboar knocking him down to 5 boxes. Luckily for me he spread the damage out across multiple spirals and mind was still the only thing out.

Carver activated, shifted back a bit and remembered to heal the gun boar’s mind for 1 and recast Batten Down the Hatches. The newly healed gunboar was up next. He grabbed the arcnode and threw it toward the warhog. The warhog activated, charged the arcnode and destroyed it. The wreck is under the covering fire template.

Shawn was in dire straits but also so an opportunity. He advanced Kaelyssa and Carver was just in 12″ by about a mm. He was sitting on 2 fury and she hit and used a stolen fury to boost and rolled a 16 for damage on the 3d6! I transferred to the undamaged gunboar because she was just going to steal my last fury anyway. He then shot and boosted and got a 15 for damage! With the damage Carver had already taken just to get his full fury every turn he was down to just 5 boxes and Kaelyssa had one shot left. Fortunately for me, his dice swung the other way and he rolled a 4 on 3d6 sparing the farrow warlord.

Kaelyssa had fought with honor so Carver felt she deserved to die by his hand. He advanced into range of his sawed off scattergun and shot her twice. The first one took off a decent amount of damage but I rolled snake eyes on the second one! Yikes! I used my remaining 2 fury to cast mobility and suddenly wasn’t feeling quite as safe.

The gunboar advanced but made sure and left enough room for the warhog if he became necessary and tried to headbutt her but missed. Uh oh. I have one model that can save me.

Luckily the warhog was able to get to her thanks to mobility and with a boosted gore knocked her down before finishing her off. It was a tight game and if I that last gore had failed to get a crit knockdown. He very well could have pulled out a win!

Another win for the farrow and another tight and fun game with Shawn! Batten Down the Hatches really saved my bacon here but I am afraid once we start adding points that it won’t be nearly as good thanks to the mage hunter strike force.

Thanks for reading!

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!

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!

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.