Kingdom con warmachine weekend qualifier part 2

Game 3 was against Reed’s Legion of Everblight

 

Both of his lists had double ravagores in them so I ended up doing Vlad hoping to get some use out of wind wall and the multi wound guys for moving through scather templates. I hadn’t really ever played against Legion and definitely not against eVayl who he ended up selecting. His list was eVayl, dual ravagores, dual angeluses, scythian, full swordsmen, crockpot with lunch ladies, spell martyr, shepherds. I think that was it.

 

He made a pretty big mistake early on by bringing the spell martyr too close to the widowmakers who shot and killed it. I used my feat to clear out pretty much all of the swordsmen early on and then move back, but the stupid ravagore’s range is so extreme it ended up not really mattering. I also managed to get an angelius (the one with refuge) but had no real way to deal with admonition. Once more I found myself wishing that I had Eyriss2 in this list instead of the other. Reed is a very good player and he was really clinical in his dissection of my army. At the end of the game I had Vlad left and that was it and he won on scenario. Eyeless site, plus long range shooting, plus high speed, plus inexperience vs. an army meant that I was in for it from the beginning and I was really just playing off my back foot the whole game. Reed plays at Game Empire in Pasadena so I see him around from time to time, hopefully I will get to face him some more in the future. 

 

In retrospect I really think that I lost this game on list selection. Some tough WGI and a decent shooting game would have been really nice in this matchup, as well as Eyriss.

 

Game 4 was back on more familiar ground – eHaley.

 

My struggles and, uh, love with eHaley are well documented. Game 4 I get paired up with Greg (maybe Gary? I don’t remember) and his eHaley list. He doesn’t have Stormwall in the list, but does have Thorn and a Stormclad (I think it was), gun mages marshaling a hunter I think?, Eyriss2, Boomhowlers, Jr, Squire, et al. I went with my Vlad3 list since it was pretty much developed by and for this matchup.

 

I bussed up Vlad and the Uhlans and kept Drago to the left side of the bus and the Drakhun to the other. The assassins plan was to sell their lives dearly and close on the boom howlers and gun mages. The widowmakers got hand of fate and blew off the hunter’s gun arm and then also popped a couple of boom howlers. Eliminators moved up the extreme left flank threatening at Eyriss. Everything else stayed WAY back – basically, if he wanted to feat he would have to come out to meet me. Instead he decided to mostly hold back everything advancing cautiously. 

 

On my turn I cast dash and windwall and creeped just a little bit forward again with most things although Thorn did run forward and allow Haley to arc time bomb on to my bus. The drakhun got a countercharge and did some damage but not much. I was fine with that, because that was my big concern and I was just waiting Thorn out. On my turn I gave 3 focus to Drago to make sure he wrecked Thorn (which he did) . I decided at this point to basically sacrifice the widowmakers to get the junior war caster, which they did and as a bonus they even killed some boomhowlers and drakhun ran to engage several gun mages. The unengaged gunmages then had a round of pretty terrible shooting and only killed one of two assassins who were now in charge range. The eliminators continued running around a big forest that was practically in his deployment zone putting me behind haley and the squire. I also managed to get 2 control points.

 

At this point, the writing was on the wall and feat would really just buy him a turn before being tabled so he basically just gave up at this point when I got 2 control points on his turn as well. All that practice against Haley2 paid off big in that I was super prepared for her.

 

Game 5 put me up against Tom Gaun and his Asphyxious2 list.

 

Strangely, as I was deciding on list selection for this game I realized that the only Cryx matchup I have ever played was against a Mortenebra tier list. I was determined not to make the same mistake in this game as I had in game 3 so selected Sorscha2. I have read up on eLich and knew that his assassination threat is pretty legit and long range so I wanted to do my best to RFP what I could. 

 

He got first turn and advanced stuff up and ran his arc node over on my left flank into range of the widowmakers. They all aimed and managed to take out his arc node which basically let me ignore it for the rest of the game. I put shatterstorm on my WGI and they bobbed and weaved forward. I put iron flesh on sorscha and tried to stay far away.

 

I managed to kill the bane thrall UA on turn 2 between a short scatter from conquests main gun and a couple of sprays, but didn’t realize that the banner gave tough so ignored that (I just though that they had it native). I also targeted his bile thralls but he got an exarnate off on one of my WGI who then purged killing several, as well as a few bane thralls for his feat. The Blood witches ran to engage my widowmakers and popped mini feat making them incorporeal. I ran my eliminators in against the bane thralls to set up for some back line action but then Gerlac caused terror on them which they failed. They then failed to rally both times they tried over the next 2 turns. That was unfortunate.

 

The following turn the bane knights charged conquest and wrecked it. I advanced sorscha up and put freezing grip on the bane knights and basically ignored them for the rest of the game. Sorscha kept iron flesh on herself and the WGI and the banes ground each other down with the banes eventually winning the attrition war. My ternion ended up getting into position shortly after to get some great sprays off on the bloodwitches killing all but 2, who the great bears slaughtered in a vicious display of overkill.

 

Unfortunately, I just ran out of ways to contest the flag and so Tom eventually won on scenario. I didn’t get blown out and think I actually had a decent matchup here, just inexperience and, I think, an overly cautious play style cost me this game. I hope to face him at Game Empire as well and I am trying to find some other Cryx players around just to increase my comfort level in what they have available.

 

Game 6 vs. Eric Dietsch’s Menoth

 

I know Eric, he lives on the West side of LA pretty close to my old stomping grounds but we haven’t even played a game. By this point I was pretty much cashed out (no lunch at all, 12 hours of warmachine) so was pretty drained. I decided just to play for pride rather than drop out. Menoth, it turns out, I have only played against twice before – one was Mohsar, and the other was Kreoss2. Eric was running a super fast Feora2 tier 4 list. I ran Vlad3 since that is my anti-huge base list and he had judicator. The rest of his list was Feora2, a couple of units of daughters of the flame, some deliverers, some other stuff.

 

When I say I was brain dead, that is really almost an understatement and I probably should have just dropped, but like I said, I wanted to finish. How out of it was I? Well, on turn 2 I had 10 minutes left on my clock. I placed vlad poorly after a terrible waste of his feat (I think I used it to kill 2 daughters or something) and didn’t really move to a good place. He ignited Judicator and charged at Vlad. It was pretty close as to whether it was in range or not and he offered to call a judge, but honestly I was afraid that they would rule he was short and I just wanted the game to be over. I had no business playing in that last game.

 

My final record then was 3-3. I had lost all 3 games that I had little to no experience against, and won all three that I had faced before regularly. If you remember, my goal was to finish 23rd out of 45 and I ended up in 11th, so was really stoked with how it went. I had a great time, my opponents were all really top notch and with the exception of the last game, none of them were really blow outs from the beginning. All in all, kingdom-con was an absolute blast and you should definitely consider adding it to your list of events to go to.

Vlad3 and Zerkova tournament report

I was able to head down to Costa Mesa for one of the Mercenary Market tourneys. They had a decent turnout again – 12 people, and it was a fun mix of newer players as well as veterans. Turned out there were 4 of us with Khador at this tourney, so Inyoung and I decided to run some crazy casters and tried to not double up casters with any of the other people just in case someone had to do a couple of khador matches in a row.

First my lists:

List 1: Tier 4 Charge of the Horselords

Vladimir Tzepesci, Great Prince of Umbrey – WJ: +5
- War Dog
- Drago – PC: 8
- Spriggan – PC: 10Fenris – PC: 5
Man-O-War Drakhun – PC: 4
Uhlan Kovnik Markov – PC: 4Iron Fang Uhlans – Leader & 4 Grunts: 11
Greylord Outriders – Leader & 4 Grunts: 9
Battle Mechaniks – Leader & 3 Grunts: 2
- Battle Mechanik Officer – Battle Mechanik Officer 2

List 2: Tier 4 Hunting Wolves

Koldun Kommander Zerkova – WJ: +6
- Vanguard – PC: 5
- Vanguard – PC: 5
- Conquest – PC: 19Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist – PC: 2Greylord Outriders – Leader & 4 Grunts: 9
Kayazy Assassins – Leader & 5 Grunts: 5
Kayazy Eliminators – Leader & Grunt: 3
Widowmakers – Leader & 3 Grunts: 4
Greylord Ternion – Leader & 2 Grunts: 4
Kayazy Eliminators – Leader & Grunt: 3

Game 1 vs, Tony’s Cygnar

Okay let me be up front here and admit my problem. I don’t usually like to play against Cygnar. They are a bunch of damn dirty cheating swans who seem made to foil everything Khador wants to do. Last time we played I was a bit salty even though I won. I went into the game with a better headspace this time because Tony a pretty stand up guy and knows the rules well and is pretty easy going. Basically, it is definitely not him, it is me.

Anyway, he was running Nemo2 and Nemo3 and several huge bases which meant I reached for Vlad3 as he is my anti-huge base go to guy. Tony went with Nemo3 (2 storm striders, storm wall, Eyriss2, 2 or 3 storm callers, mechanics, ayanna and holt, junior, squire, something else maybe). This was my first game with the Outriders and I was stoked to get them going. I began the game by deploying them right next to Fenris and then when I went to start my turn I realized that I needed to make an abomination check. Pro play there. Luckily they passed. Unfortunately, my reasoning for putting them there was to put hand of fate on them, which I forgot to do.

I ran the Outriders  forward to ridge to get some extra defense from the strider and storm wall shooting, everything else moved forward but not too far (this was a mistake, I should have presented a full line).

Tony’s turn his dice went up to 11. Literally.  eLeaps were getting 3s for number and then one shotting the outriders. Note that this wasn’t even on Nemo’s feat turn. I have never seen so many 5s and 6s in my life. eLeaps dismounted the drakhun for crying out loud. I was able to take some cold comfort in the fact that at least he was consistently rolling high so his storm smiths failed their skill checks.

My follow up turn the remaining 2 outriders sprayed and killed something and then light cav moved to engage – one went to Eyriss, the other went to a storm smith.

I did manage to get 2 control points but put myself in a risky position, but really, at this point I was kind of playing for game 2 and 3.

Nemo popped feat and killed pretty much everything else and did about 5 to Vlad despite me camping something like 5 focus, though he did overexpose Nemo so I saw the possibility of vlad being able to pop feat and charge Ayanna and then side step over to Nemo who had 0 focus.

Humorous things which happened this turn as well were Eyriss2 stepping away from the outrider and him killing her on a free strike. He then had a gobber mechanic charge the outrider and not only hit with an 11, but also kill in one shot by rolling 3 6s for damage. Yeah his dice were that hot but it was such a funny sequence that we both laughed. I suggested that gobber get “promoted” to becoming his new tinker solo…

As a quick aside here, I spent something like 5 minutes (it was death clock and obviously not going to go to time) going over the scenarios in my head. I had to go through a storm wall free strike and he would have needed something like a 15 to kill Vlad. On most days I would have been okay with it, but with how hot his dice had been I was worried that he would just free strike me with a full camp. Also, I could get to him with an extra initial attack by charging him directly, but then would have been –1 str on all attempts which, over the course of 4 attacks was an extra 4 points which could be the swing I needed. Also, I considered doing 2 extra attacks rather than hand of fate, but needed to make sure I hit Ayanna on the charge to get the sidestep over. In the end I decided to just cast dash and hand of fate and see what happened. I hate dying to free strikes.

I charged Ayanna to get the blood token and side stepped over to him and hit with the now pow 14 weapon (dice –5 with 3 focus and 1 initial left needing 7s to hit). I would have to roll slightly above average, but it was not out of the realm of possibility and that is kind of what hand of fate is for anyway. My first attack hit and did nothing. My second attack missed. My third attack did 3 and my last attack did 6. Not quite enough, but I had seen a shot and taken it. All in all, I consider it a karmic balancing for our first game against each other and a test if I could take that kind of tilt and keep smiling, which I did. Mostly.

Game 2 vs Zac’s Kromac

I went with Vlad again for this matchup mostly because the Zerkova list doesn’t like seeing lots of beasts across the table. His list was Kromac, Ghettorex, Stalker, Feral, Gorax, blood trackers with Nuala (who preyed the Outriders), shifting stones with UA, full skin walkers with UA, maybe something else.

This game I was a bit more conscientious on my deployment and decided I was going to give the Outriders a chance to kill the girls preying them and then see how things developed.

I was going second so most of his stuff advanced. On my turn Vlad did a ride by attack and put hand of fate on the outriders and then moved over into position for the jacks, fenris and the drakhun to surround him and cast dash and feated making sure that all of the targets I wanted to sprint off were in his control. The outriders advanced and sprayed down Nuala and all but 2 blood trackers. For their light cav move, the one who failed to kill advanced to lock the girls in and the other fell back making sure to that the one outriding outrider was still in command range. The uhlans charged and killed the three front skin walker and one of my uhlans was even able to make it to the second line and he hit but failed to kill. As penance, he shifted over to get both the UA and one skin walker in melee range, the rest sidestep and then sprinted back to basically exactly where they were. The Drakhun charged forward and killed a shifting stone and then fell back next to vlad Fenris killed a different stone and then sidestepped over to the gorax and took his second attack and then sidestepped back and sprinted back near where he deployed. It was pretty much an ideal feat for Vlad – though it would have been nice to have had him get some business taken care of but I couldn’t complain.

Zac was definitely on his back foot after this. He had lost much of his first wave and I wasn’t really any closer to him than I was the first turn. The blood trackers tried to kill the outrider and failed (armor 15 and 5 wounds is kind of nice), Ghettorex got the full suite of murder put on him and charged the Spriggan. He wrecked the the Spriggan but it took 4 fury – the left arm was the last thing he took out. The stalker then charged Drago but was countercharged by the drakhun who ended up doing something like 14 points damage total between impact and regular attack (but wasn’t knocked down – I am still waiting to live that dream). I think I did take out his mind though. In return, despite going up to max fury he only took out Drago’s cortex and one of his axes.

On my turn the mechanic UA and one of the other mechanics were able to base up to drago and fix him up for 8. The other 2 valiantly passed their terror check and based up Ghettorex so that the primal auto frenzy might hit them instead of Drago. I couldn’t give Drago any focus but he still did some decent damage to ghettorex thanks to the affinity. The Uhlans charged the stalker and knocked him down to something like 4 wounds. The outriders finished off the blood trackers, put a couple of the gorax, a couple on Kromac and then backed off to the side basically giving Zac the choice of ignoring them for the rest of my army (after the game I told him I thought he should have cast bestial, and he said he just underestimated them) or diverting either the feral or kromac himself over to deal with them. He chose the former and wrecked one of them. Fenris finished off the gorax.

On Zac’s turn he had to leave the stalker on 1 fury and he frenzied, killing an uhlan instead of drago. Drago’s luck help as ghettorex thrashed a poor hapless mechanic. His family did get a medal on his behalf, so that has to count for something. Drago was fully functional and Vlad handed him 2 focus which which to thrash ghettorex. Vlad then cast dash and the uhlans charged out of the stalkers range into the wilder and the last remaining stone killing them both. As an aside, dash was really awesome this game. Zac kept saying, I can’t believe these guys are riding by on horses and I can’t take even swing at them. The drakhun charged and finished off the stalker. The remaining outriders continued their reign of spray terror With one moving back into melee with the feral at the end so he couldn’t get to the rest of the game.

Things were looking pretty grim at this point so Kromac feated, took the 7 points of damage to get back up to full (he couldn’t cut up to full and then do the charge feat thing taking 7 more because of the nickel and diming the sprays had done over the last couple of turns) and charge/jumped to just be in range of vlad. Vlad at this point was camping on 2. Kromac missed one of his attacks and did a total of maybe 9 to vlad. Drago turned around and ended the game.

Game 3 vs. tjhairball’s Sorscha2

Game 3 I was paired up against one of the other khador players there. I heard from someone ahead of time that tjhairball likes to run Zerkova and is pretty good with her so I was hoping to pick up some tips. I picked my own Zerkova but he ended up going with Sorscha2. Since I was running conquest and his Zerkova list had a bunch of marauders in it, it was definitely right choice (PLEASE FIX COMBO SMITE AND COLOSSALS).

His list had Sorscha2, Conquest (bonded), full IFP with IFP UA, full winter guard death star, sylys, ayanna and holt, drakhun with dismount a manhunter and yuri. I think that was everything.

I matched my eliminators up with my outriders on the left, the widow makers center left in a forest, zerkova behind it along with her best bud Gorman, then a vanguard, then conquest, then another vanguard, then the min kayazy.

The scenario was the one with the effigies that act like warcasters for purposes of dominating zones. He advanced a little bit and other than his drakhun who threatened across from my eliminators, widowmakers, and outriders to try and lock them into place with threat of countercharge. The IFP got iron flesh and then ran up near the zone.  Yuri and the manhunter ran opposite my kayazy assassins.

On my turn the widowmakers  put 3 points on the drakhun (one rolled snake eyes) and then the outriders did some spraying at extreme range (I was only able to get 4 on him) but they managed to dismount him and then the eliminators charged in and finished him off. The ternion then put clouds on the two eliminators creating a wall of smoke to protect the outriders (they were out of range anyway but they had nothing better to do) I dominated the objective and bounced it into the friendly zone. On the other side conquest advanced a bit and fired a shot off at an infantryman who was standing a bit too close to Sorscha. I didn’t get the crit and did a little bit of damage I think but nothing of consequence. He then laid down 4 covering fire templates in front of the winter guard, because if those things were ever going to do blast damage, now is the time, right? My assassins ran 4 dudes into his zone. Zerkova just cast watcher and everything shifted right just a bit. Zerkova also tried to razorwind the manhunter but missed despite a boost.

His IFP did a shield wall and toed in 4 or 5 models into the zone. His conquest tried to shoot at the eliminators that had killed the drakhun but they all drifted. Fortunately for him they drifted onto the widowmakers basically killing them all and he did get one of the eliminators (the other passed her command check). This was a good strategy here that I hadn’t considered with conquest firing the secondary battery at something that you are likely to auto miss to get that second shot off.  The outriders tried spraying the IFP but they had iron flesh and were on a hill so didn’t really do anything, but they moved back out of range of anything. My surviving eliminators all did a run charge into the IFP. I killed one of them with a combo strike and side stepped up locking a whole lot of them in place due to the triangle formations.

On his turn, iron flesh was cycled over to the WGI and joe called tough and then moved behind Sorscha. The IFP did a charge/run order and tried tw 3 or 4 man CMAs on the eliminators but both missed (I seem to recall that the ua needed a 7 and the other group needed an 8 which would be 3 mans). The winter guard did some shooting and really flooded his zone hard moving right through the creeping barrage templates. I don’t think I killed a single model with the creeping barrage. Yuri and the manhunter killed 3 of the assassins in the zone but the 4th one survived and they passed their command check. Hmm actually this may have been the turn that he called boosted to hit and tried spraying through conquest at zerkova.

Zerkova gave 2 focus to conquest put icy grip on the IFP and then moved behind a forest. Conquest shot joe and killed him but again no crit dev on Sorscha. I think at this point I noticed that I had something like 24 minutes remaining while he was down to 10 on the death clock. A vanguard moved over and killed the manhunter that had threatened Zerkova. I think the remaining assassins killed Yuri. The eliminators killed the IFP they were engaged with and sidestepped away a bit and the greylord outriders went to town killing every single one of the remaining IFP with sprays (I think the ternion added some icy death sprays here as well). It is worth mentioning again how absolutely fantastic a 9 speed is on a spray unit. I never had fewer than 3 or 4 models in a spray despite his best attempts at spreading out. I wish I would have taken a picture because the zone seriously looked like the moon with the IFP being craters all over it. At this point I was able to get a control point and he wasn’t able to get anything over to contest (due to the large based outriders pressing the area that conquest would want to go into so I got it again on his turn.

He popped Sorscha’s feat and did some really beefy CRA’s into conquest and then his conquest wrecked face on mine and I think he just wrecked the entire right have and disabled the fist on the left side. It was near this point that his clock beeped giving me the win.

Whew what a tough match but also a super fun one! I know that I ended up kind of combining two later turns in the above because a few other things happened that didn’t really affect the game like my eliminators running to engage his mechanics after the IFP were dealt with and I had 3 control points and when he clocked I should have gotten the 4th but was a knucklehead.

After the game I asked for some Zerkova tips and he gladly gave up some dark secrets regarding the Koldun Kommander – not least of which was don’t forget to feat. Also he suggested that I could play her a bit more aggressively since the feat is such a good denial one and with vanguards shield guarding and watcher providing some protection, so I think will be trying that in the future. Overall, I love playing her and her style so will be getting a lot more time in with her.

I ended up getting 4th in the tourney but had I not been an idiot and scored the final table state I would have been 2nd, so I am pretty stoked! Inyoung ended up getting 3rd. I have always thought that the game just ended immediately on assassination or clock so have never given myself those points. Oops. Totally on me, but let this be a lesson to you – ALWAYS make sure you understand completely how scenarios and scoring work.

Reports from the painting table

I just realized how close Kingdom Con is and how incredibly unrealistic my desire to only play fully painted models all weekend long whether in the tournies or iron arena. Of course, I also enjoy tilting at windmills so I am hoping for some cheering and cajoling from the fine and friendly folks on the internet. 

First up, something nice that I just finished:

I plan on doing battle damage on all of my jacks after everything is painted. At this point I have decided to just get things to what I consider a basecoat level and then move on – after all, a quickly and cleanly painted model, even if rather basically done, still looks a thousand times better than an unpainted/only primed one. At least that is the beautiful lie I am telling myself.

My current checklist of the things I would like to have done in time for the con is (in roughly the order I want to get them done):

Full Kayazy Assassins with UA
Kayazy Eliminators
2 Vanguard light jacks
Koldun Lord
Full battle mechaniks with UA
Spriggan
Drago
Eyriss2
Ayanna and Holt
Gorman DiWulff
Irusk2
Butcher2
Full Doomreavers w/ UA
Demolisher
Full Uhlans

So yeah, we will see how far down the list I can get and I will try and remember to update things as I do.

Currently on the table is Bad Santa (koldun lord) about halfway done.

 

 

Harkevich vs. Strakhov 50pt battle report

Fair warning, this turned into a super long battle report so you should probably go to the restroom and/or brew up some tea.

So, continuing with my whirlwind tour of the casters of Khador I decided to give Strakhov an outing.  

I kept OrsusSmash’s awesome writeup on caster capabilities and win conditions in mind as I was building the list and came up with a plan.  I decided that I would forego the desperate alpha strike that Strakhov is known for and instead work an attrition style game by dominating the flanks early and keeping Strakhov back.  Then once I was ready to redeploy and take the center for clean up.  That was the plan anyway.

With that plan firmly in mind I built this list:

Kommander Strakhov - WJ: +6
- War Dog
- Spriggan  
- Behemoth
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator 
Great Bears of Gallowswood
Full Iron Fang Pikemen with standard UA
Full Kayazy Assassins with Underboss
Kayazy Eliminators
Winterguard Mortar Crew

My opponent, Josh, also was playing Khador but his army was a Tier 4 Harkevich Wolf Pack list with:

Harkevich
- Conquest
- Spriggan
- Black Ivan
- War Dog
Full Winterguard Infantry with UA
Kovnik Joe
Full Battle Mechaniks
Winterguard Mortar
Winterguard Field Gun

We rolled up the scenario and ended up with Destruction (4 objectives plus zone in the middle of the table).  I won the roll to pick sides despite his tier bonus of +1 and chose to go second and just like that, this training exercise in the Thornwood was under way.

Deployment and early game:

Josh deployed conquest centrally with Harkevich nearby. Black Ivan was to my right of conquest and the spriggan to his left. The winterguard was pretty central with the officer and joe hanging out behind a building, probably smoking some cheap cigarettes.  His mortar and field gun were out on my left flank. Thanks to Hark’s theme bonuses fortune started on conquest and escort started on Harkevich.

For my deployment I put strakhov, behemoth, rienholdt and the wardog all pretty central and put the great bears and the spriggan on my right side across from Black Ivan. The ironfang pikemen went on the other side of a building to the left of center other than the arc node, aka standard bearer.  The eliminators were behind that central building, my mortar was near some woods opposite of his light artillery and finally my kayazy were basically hugging the table edge on my extreme left.

Most of Josh’s first turn was just pushing things up the table a bit, conquest ran, black ivan advanced, the winterguard bobbed and weaved (wove?) up the table and joe told them to toughen up.

My turn saw the kayazy sprint up the table edge spreading out their formation.  The iron fangs also ran up left of center in the table.  The great bears ran to cover.  Strakhov activated, put superiority on behemoth, occultation on the iron fangs and advanced.  Behemoth ran up a bit in front of strakhov, the wardog ran next to him and reinholt behind.  The spriggan just advanced as I had forgotten to give him a focus. The eliminators advanced middle-ish but still hung back.

Engagement and mid game

Hark upkept the spells and gave 1 to conquest. Conquest advanced and took a shot at behemoth.  The def bonus from superiority meant that he missed, but with fortune he not only hit but he got crit devastate off.  Oops.  Strakhov, the war dog, and behemoth all were thrown back 1″ – Reinholdt was just out but he died to strakhov slamming into him.  The wardog failed his tough and died.  Behemoth took a couple of points of damage but strakhov was unharmed.  Conquest then laid down some creeping barrage templates. Black Ivan got a direct hit on Kolsk and took him down to 1 life.  The winterguard advanced again under a bob and weave order and the mortar had a bad drift and didn’t kill anything. Joe gave a tough speech again. Hark feated this turn as well.

On my turn I dropped superiority but upkept occultation and shook.  I also forgot that Harkevich had feated and gave 3 to the spriggan. Since I knew I wanted to advance the mortar took a shot and ended up hitting one of the winterguard but he toughed and was just knocked down.  I was faced with a wall of creeping barrage in front of the iron fangs. I spent a lot of time thinking about it.  Those stupid templates are so low strength that it tempts you to move through it, but if the dice get hot it can be pretty devastating to a unit like the iron fangs.  I eventually decided not to burn any more of my deathclock and just took the risk.  The officer called his minifeat and gave a charge order.  2″ is way more than you think it is, by the way.  I expected to fail several charges but in the end, the only model not benefitting from the order was a single guy who ran.  I killed a couple of winterguard but failed miserably to even damage the monolith and then used the reform move to get into shield wall.  I didn’t press in though as I was pretty much in control of the zone at this point save for a single guardsman that refused to die.  

The assassins ran again and took shelter behind a building near the winterguard light artillery.  Behemoth forfeited his movement to stand up and fired twice at the other monolith and did 6 points to it.  The spriggan charged conquest and attacked over a wall doing a few points to him but not really much.  The Great Bears charged black ivan.  Hark’s feat saved him but I did disable everything but his movement. The Eliminators ran to engage conquest.

I was feeling pretty good about my position at this point…

Josh started shooting at the IFP but the combination of occultation and shield wall saved them from most of it.  It also helped that he rolled something like seven 6s in a row.  Black Ivan got a shot in on Volkov but he made the tough check. Conquest attacked the spriggan but thanks to the obstruction and superiority he missed. 

My turn I had the ironfangs get a shield wall order again and advance and attack.  They didn’t really have any hard targets other than conquest so didn’t really need the extra dice. They killed a couple more winterguard and the Kayazy ran to engage the field gun and some winterguardsmen.  Black Ivan was scrapped by the great bears.  One of them missed with and it was a scary moment for me but he couldn’t quite dodge out of all of their reach ranges.  The eliminators charged through conquest and killed a mechanic and a winterguard and sidestepped to harkevich but didn’t really do anything.  Behemoth walked around the objective and set up for either a double bombard on Hark or charge on conquest.  He lobbed one bombard shot at the mechanics but didn’t do anything but point out to me that my eliminators were in dangerous drift location so I didn’t take the second shot. I got 4 iron fangs including the ua into a semicircle around the enemy spriggan at the long range of reach.  I did a negligible damage but at least I had him fairly well locked in.  Strakhov put occultation on himself just to be safe.

I was really starting to feel comfortable at this point.

And then Joe called boosted attacks…

Being the knucklehead I am, I had already started to shift the ironfangs toward the center and left some guardsmen in rear arcs.  We all know that attacks originating in rear arcs don’t benefit from shield wall… Also, sprays ignore stealth and melee modifiers.  The spriggan also killed 2 of them without the benefit of any focus.  Funniest moment was when the field gun crewman punched a kayazy and hit on box cars but then rolled a 3 to wound!  At the end of the his turn I had something like 2 kayazy left (they passed their command check) and the iron fangs also passed the command check they were forced to make. Conquest killed an eliminator and then behemoth was hit with a crit devastation from a broadside which threw him back 4″ into a building and knocked him down and did some damage.  Harkevich took the free strikes from eliminators and took a shot at Strakhov with his handcannon.  I was suddenly not feeling quite as confident.

End game

This game had to end soon or I wouldn’t have any models left.  Behemoth was knocked down and about a foot away from from conquest.  I allocated 3 focus to the main cortex and had him shake the knockdown.  I dropped all my upkeeps as well.  I figured I may as well get things going.  I had strakhov shift laterally to get conquest in his control area and popped his feat.  I got a very favorable drift (1″ back directly toward himself) so had a pretty decent LOS blocker.   Behemoth charged conquest from about 13″ away – I had hoped to get into melee with Harkevich as well but Josh had positioned his spriggan well so there wasn’t enough space for a back to get through. With a total of 4 attacks I managed to take out the left half entirely with a pretty good amount of bleed over to the other side.  The spriggan poked for another couple.  The great bears charged conquest and the wardog countercharged, killing Volkov.  One of the great bears actually missed his charge attack with another snake eyes, but the 3 remaining attacks were enough to wreck it.

Josh didn’t have many options left at this point and loaded the spriggan up with 2 focus.  Harkevich shot into melee trying to clear the iron fangs and killed the first one.  He used broadsides to take an extra handcannon shot at the last one but missed. The surviving couple of winterguard trying to help out but also missed due to the def bonus for being in combat.  With nothing else to do but try and one shot Strakhov (he would need 1 focus to charge, and 1 focus to try and hit with the spear as the range meant he would need reach) he risked the free strike.

Fortunately for me the last surviving iron fang pikeman rolled a double 4 and knocked the spriggan down, causing the charge to fail. Josh extended his had across the table at this point and conceded the game.

(the blast marker is the cinder bomb smoke)

After Action Review

First off, wow!  What a fun game.  We were both cheering for good dice rolls and moaning at bad ones for both players.  It was a super fun game with a great opponent.  The lists were fairly well matched in power as were the casters.  I was a bit more attritiony in a melee sort of way and he was in a ranged sort of way and the game played out as it should have. 

I am starting to get a hang for what to expect from my units and was pretty happy with most of my plays.  I didn’t ask too much from my units, but what I did ask, they performed.  I was happy to stick to my original plan of sweeping the flanks and saving the feat.  It turned out that I absolutely needed it when I needed it. 

Strakhov was an interesting caster this game.  It didn’t seem like he did much all game but occultation on the Iron Fangs early, and himself at the end was kind of nice. It would have been nice to get some use out of sprint and his melee abilities, but Josh’s list was a pretty stand back and shoot kind of list so I didn’t have the opportunity. The big deal here for me was that I didn’t force it, as I have a tendency to sometimes do.  I was talking with Inyoung from iWargame and he really suffers from bipolar abilities. 

Thanks to crappy deployment on my part I never really had a target for sentry but bouncing superiority around was nice.

The eliminators continue to be rockstars. They haven’t really won me a game yet, but they can be such a huge distraction that their 3 points are well worth it.  In fact, I am thinking of picking up a second unit.

The assassins did what I expect them to do, run, tie something up, die.  They may or may not take something with them, but they harass with the best of them.

Iron fang pikemen were also great.  Shield wall gets dissed fairly often on the forums for being so slow, but reform helps, and twice this game pathfinder on the charge was necessary. I want to try the black dragons at some point, but I think I will really miss both reform and relentless charge.

This was the first game that the great bears really punched above their weight. I think I will start using them more in the off to the side capacity rather than trying to use them as an anchor. I think that was probably my biggest mistake in playing them early was overestimating their survivability.  Tough, steady and defensive line are nice, but at the end of the day they are just 3 13/14 models with 5 wounds each.

Anyway, it was a super fun and tight game, so thanks again to Josh for the training exercise – I look forward to the next one!

 

Play It Painted Feb Update

As mentioned last month I doing the Muse on Minis play it painted 2013 challenge.  Last month I posted by pledge and now here is a finished version - 

My pledge for February is Zerkova and a full manowar unit.

 

I’d like to take some better pics but all I am using right now is my phone, so, sorry.

This is just the link to my post on the MoM forum post so I can link back to it when I post the finished items.

http://museonminis.com/forums/index.php?topic=897.msg21874#msg21874

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 Khador army list for 2013 the year of the motherf…land

So, here is the list that I am most likely going to be sticking with for a while as I get my head out of trolls and into khador. It’s not a particularly innovative list but I think it has all the parts to be a decent all-comers list. Thoughts?

Khador – eSorscha
56 / 56 (50+6) Warcaster(s) : 1/1 Warjack(s) : 1 Battle Engines : 0 Solos : 4 Units : 5

Forward Kommander Sorscha –
- War Dog
- Conquest

Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich –
Manhunter –
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution –
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist -

Great Bears of Gallowswood –
Widowmakers –
Full Winter Guard Infantry –
- 3 Rocketeers
- Winter Guard Officer & Standard -
Full Battle Mechaniks -
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt -

oops

oops, originally wrote 2012 for year rather than 2013.

(image is used without permission and is by fstitz – check out more at http://fstitz.deviantart.com/art/Sorscha-128237930 – no claim nor challenge to his copyright or generally badassery is intended or implied. Fstitz, if you happen to stumble on this tiny and crappy blog and want it removed, let me know and I will. Also, btw, fstitz is working on a pretty badass legion of everblight lylyth right now and has some wips up. very classical style. I love it.)

Thornwood league battle diary game 1

I am going to try and be more diligent in writing up quick recap/reports.  We have been doing a lot of timed games (almost exclusively in fact) so I am not great about remembering to take pictures.  I will add them when I have them, otherwise I will try and keep it simple enough.

Played an unorthodox Grim list against Dave’s Durgen Rhulic list in 35 point game to kick off the league.  Basically I had just built the Sons of Bragg and felt like playing them.  The Skinner has been fun so he is in too.  Dave was also trying out some new stuff so it looked to be an interesting match.

Grim
Earthborn Dire Troll
Bomber
Impaler
Scouts
Skinner
Sons of Bragg
Fell Caller Hero

vs

Durgen
Ghordson Basher
Gunner or Blaster (don’t remember for sure which one)
Brun Cragback
Herne and Jonne
10 Forgeguard
5 Ogrun Assault Corps
Thor Steinhammer

We rolled up the Close Quarters scenario and I won the roll and chose to go second.  First turn the rhulic forces all advanced with the basher getting red line cast on it, the trolls advanced a bit more cautiously with the scouts and skinner swinging wide.  Grim put cross country on the Sons of Bragg, far strike on himself, boosted damage and one-shotted one of the assault corps and put girded up (always a good idea when facing Durgen).  This left me at 0 fury but I was okay with it on turn 1 against this rhulic force.  The impaler put farstrike on the bomber and advanced, the bomber killed a second Ogrun after an advance and the EBDT advanced up in front of Grim but out of charge range of anything.

In response Durgen upkept Red Line and put primed on the forge guard.  They charged and the first one was a bit out of charge range so the rest just ran as far as they could.  My cautious advance ensured that only a single scout was tied up in reach range.  Unfortunately for Dave he activated them a little too early and they jammed up the rest of his turn.  Herne (or Jonne) did manage to kill Wrathar and I failed the 4+ tough.

My turn the scouts mostly aimed and threw their tomahawks causing the forge guard to explode.  The fell caller sprayed and killed a couple (including the one that had engaged a scout) as did Tor with his spray.  When all was said and done there were only 3 forge guard left and they failed their morale check.  The bomber also killed Thor who had moved up to repair the 3 damage the basher took from Red Line. The EBDT moved out of line with Grim to get within 2″ of a forest for the following turn EBDT cannon ball act.

I was still mostly out of range this turn though most of the army focused on the EBDT and by the time the basher slammed the EBDT 8″(!) through the remaining 2 sons of bragg, though both made the 4+ tough The EBDT was fairly wounded.  The EBDT died to a 17 on the dice but I thought I had a pretty good shot at the assassination this turn.  Also due to shooting the Impaler lost his spirit and the EBDT took ~12 but to different spirals so no loss of aspect.

Durgen was directly behind one of the ogryn assault corp but at the extreme range.  I considered trying to slam with the impaler but I hate relying on crit so what I did instead was used Grim to heal 1 off the spirit on the Impaler in case he was necessary, put far strike on the bomber, feated, advanced and shot the knockdown gun at the assault corp and knocked him down to clear the lane for the bomber and impaler (if necessary).  Then cast lock the target and got a good damage roll and put some on him.  Durgen was now locked and under feat so it was looking, er, Grim for him.  The bomber advanced, boosted the hit roll, got him and had a pretty good roll for damage and put him down.

It was a good game for the Trollbloods and not so good for the Rhulic forces.  Dave made a couple of early errors which I pounced on and really punished him.  It was a fun game and a win for the first game of the league.

Battle Journal and update

Was able to get in a few Gnarl league games over the past week or so and just haven’t had time to update this – all games were scenario and SR2012 are marked as such. SR2012 are done with appropriate time restrictions though we tend to be a bit more relaxed about extensions.

I read someone else on one of the posts was talking about a quick journal of their games – I am going to try that rather than the lengthy batreps I typically do, just since my time is so limited. I am only going back a week or so because any more than that gets a bit foggy for me.

I have been sticking with the same list for a while just to kind of stabilize the focus and experience I get from playing them. The 35 point list for all games was:

Grissel Bloodsong, Marshal of the Kriels +6 points
* Earthborn Dire Troll 10 points
* Swamp Troll 4 points
* Troll Axer 6 points

Fell Caller Hero 3 points
Janissa Stonetide 3 points
10 Pyg Burrowers 6 points
Stone Scribe Chronicler 2 points
6 Trollkin Scattergunners 5 points
* Scattergunner Officer & Standard 2 points

For 25 points I just basically used what was on the table with a few cuts and adding an impaler. This list is FAR from finished and far from good, really, but it was against a new player on league night so I didn’t really care too much about making a super competitive list.

Grissel Bloodsong, Marshal of the Kriels +6 points
* Earthborn Dire Troll 10 points
* Troll Axer 6 points
* Troll Impaler 5 points

Janissa Stonetide 3 points
6 Trollkin Scattergunners 5 points
* Scattergunner Officer & Standard 2 points

SR2012 35 point eGrissel vs. eStryker – Win by assassination. eStryker was forced to try an an assassination run since I was up on scenario points. He beat the snot out of eGrissel, but she had 3 fury and an undamaged Swamp Troll. At the end of the run, Swampy was dead and she had taken 6 points of splash damage. She was then able to put Stryker down. Big lesson learned this time is that even when you think Stryker has a long attack range, you are probably underestimating it.

SR2012 35 point eGrissel vs. eStryker – Win by assassination. eStryker was playing a bit more cagey this game. I had an EBDT charge an arcane shielded Stormclad but didn’t really do much. A force to stand burned a fury and I think that was the big deal. I should probably have waited a trn. I put good money after bad and charged in with the axer who did nothing. Grissel popped feat eStryker was feeling plucky so did just 1d6 overboost and took 3 for only 2 strength which my feat had basically negated. Stryker was unable to finish the deal so the Stormclad returned the earthborne to the dirt from whence he came and turned on the axer, knocking out his spirit. Fell caller hit Grissel with warcry. Janissa advanced and slid the Stormclad out of the way, Grissel healed the axer’s spirit just in case before charging. She got Stryker down to 1 or 2 and the axer had to finish up for her (which he did). The big learning point here was that Stryker should go big or go home when overboosting.

SR2012 35 point eGrissel vs. Rahn – Win by assassination. Janissa’s wall was instrumental in thwarting push/pull shenanigans. Rahn was very hurt by turn 2 dash burrowers ignoring free strikes but not killed. Inhositable Ground is very good against Ret. This forced Shawn to play prett defensively with him and I was able to clear out the sentinels. EBDT jammed on a bunch of sentinels and the combination of Grissel’s feat and a nearby wall let him survive the non-charge retaliation. In the end it was dashed, buffed dygmies that gave Rahn something else to brood about. This was Shawn’s first time seeing the dygmies and I don’t expect them to be so effective next time around with him.

35 point eGrissel vs. eButcher tier – Loss on scenario. So many doomreavers… I had a couple of hot run on tough rolls and inhospitable ground really earned its keep – the crescendo template was also really good. The dygmies went for a turn 2 assassination run on eButcher but had crap rolls with the guns and couldn’t hit or get through armor. The scenario we were playing had the reinforcements artifice which we chose not to use but I could really have used something coming in from the side to contest a zone. As it was, going first still didn’t get me up close enough and then with all those AD doomreavers running into it pretty much sealed the deal. This game has me looking back at the krielstone instead of swampy – on feat turn my axer might have weathered the doom reavers he was engaged with and contesting the zone and the same with the EBDT.

25 point eGrissel vs. pDenny – Win on assassination. This was an interesting one because I have neither played nor written up any 25 point lists before. I decided to mostly just shuffle points down out of my usual 35 point list and that didn’t go well. I basically ended up running my scattergunners like kriel warriors. I ended up winning after the axer frenzied which killed the arc nodel tying up both him and the EBDT. The impaler put his animus on himself and advanced and crit slammed a model through denny which knocked her down and the EBDT was rushed by Grissel and went over and finished the job thanks to an unexpected 4 extra inches of movement. It was my first time facing Darraghe Wrathe and his light cav so it was fun.

I also had to get in two team games for the league in order to get the patch. Since I am the only Minions player I went ahead and did that for the official team up with Shawn’s Retribution of Scyrah which technically violates the year of the Trollblood but I am okay with it since it was 2 one off games for the league. The list I took for both games was:

Sturm and Drang
2x War Hogs
Targ
4 Bone Grinders

Shawn brought a Rahn list and we faced off against pGaspy and Kara Sloan. Rahn did what Rahn does and pulled Kara’s light jack across the table on turn 1 and then smashed it with the Phoenix, the Cygnar player ended up mostly sparring with Shawn until the last turn of the game when Kara popped feat and should have blown Sturm and Drang off the table save for a couple of horrible rolls. Gaspy swarmed the center of the table with infantry. Drang then goaded the two warhogs in an impressive display of goading violence killed the necrotech, most of the mech thralls and even a couple of Satyxis Raiders. I lost one of the warhogs but the other was able to clear the middle of the table on one side as the Phoenix cleared Kara’s infantry leaving us in control of the center of the table and the win. We did rush the end a bit so we could get in the second league game.

For this game I found myself teamed up with the Gaspy player (the limited factions in our league allow a few leniancies on pairing) again Ryan’s pStyker list with a battle engine and the Denny player from before with basically the same list just pared down to fit in. This game was very rushed, but the combo of Denny’s feat and the Cygnar shooting killed one war hog and basically neutralyzed the other. We ran out of time because the game store was closing and it ended in a draw. While it wasn’t hopeless the other side definitely had the advantage.