Sunday, July 5, 2015

Menoth's Yowl

Last Thursday I played a 35 point Warmachine game.

I may go to a tournament that's being held on 1st of August, and there's Venethrax and Iron Lich Asphyxious in Cryx Active Duty Roster. So this month goes with those two warcasters.

But the actual game.

My list was:

Iron lich Asphyxious
- 2x Nightwretch
- Ripjaw

Maximum unit of Black Ogrun Boarding Party
Maximum unit of Nyss Hunters
2x Pistol Wraiths
Madelyn Corbeau
Ragman
Gorman diWulfe

Objective: Arcane Wonder

Opponent was playing:

Vindictus
- Reckoner

Maximum unit of Exemplar Bastions
Maximum unit of Horgenhold Forge Guard + Attendant Priest
Maximum unit of Temple Flameguard + Unit Attachment
Epic Eiryss
Anastasia diBray
+2 points I can't figure out. Was there some solo that died before first picture was taken? Or did the list fall short?

Objective: Effigy of Valor

Anyway. Scenario was Two Fronts, and Cryx got to start despite of Anastasia's +1 to starting roll. Yet again the oppressive deathclock made me forget about the camera, so first picture is taken when Protectorate has already started second turn.

Cryx used their second turn to shoot various targets with a Pistol Wraith and Nyss Hunters, and even one Black Ogrun advanced forward to drag Exemplar Bastions... which, by definition, is a stupid idea since they cannot realistically be dragged. Vindictus hadn't used his feat just yet, so I tried to remove a bit of infantry.

My grand plan was to shoot a couple of Breath of Corruptions to block any meaningful advance by Horgenhold Forge Guards, but once I had positioned Asphyxious to do just that, it became apparent that Attendant Priest had given them "no spell targeting" prayer. Oh joy. Well, Asphyxious shot a couple of clouds at Bastions, then, and hoped for good deviations so that at least their charge would be mostly blocked.

First Bastion was just within range, though, so the attack didn't deviate anywhere. Second Breath was cast upon same farther Bastion, but it deviated right over the first Bastion. What a waste.

So, it's Protectorate's second turn now. So far Eiryss had shot Madelyn Corbeau, who had to use Sucker! -skill to redirect the hit to... well... Gorman. Now that was some expert positioning right there on my part!

Temple Flameguard just charge around aimlessly, and look at that. One charged Black Ogrun. What's the worst that could happen? Well, Black Ogruns fail their terror check from Menoth's Howl, and I'm left wondering why I even bother with the Party Pirates.

At least Nyss pass their check, though only barely.

Next picture seems to be from the end of this particular Protectorate turn. The rest of the turn was Attendant Priest giving magic weapons for Horgenhold Forge Guard, Vindictus using feat and casting True path, and the aforementioned dwarves wrecking my objective and Pistol Wraith. Oh, and Anastasia appeared from out of nowhere, too.

Turn 3 was terrible for Cryx.

I probably balanced out every bad roll from earlier "continuously above average dice roll" games against this opponent. Or perhaps it just felt like it - now that I look at the picture, at least some Temple Flameguards and Anastasia have died.

But the Bastions were completely impervious to any and all damage (and even attack) roll I was able to make. Multiple Combined Ranged Attacks by Nyss Hunters - nothing.

And the greatest failure of all. Asphyxious himself decided to show his unworthy minions how things are handled here. He charges Bastion and misses. He buys an additional attack and boosts attack roll, and misses. He buys one last desperate attack, and misses. Then he teleports away. Talk about focus efficiency. But there was an occurrence that might keep me going in this game - Terror check that Asphyxious caused to Horgenhold Forge Guard was failed.

And at least Black Ogruns rallied.

Turn 3 Protectorate easily destroyed the Nightwretch that was contesting my friendly zone, and Vindictus ran around to where the orange proxy base is. Protectorate was at three control points now.

All the Black Ogruns miraculously survived any attacks that Bastions were trying to make. Temple Flameguard were so few in number that they didn't do much either - right flank was pretty much mine, now. But would it matter in a situation like this?

Come Cryx turn 4, I ran so tight on clock that if this was an actual tournament game, I'd just have to try an assassination. So that's what I tried... Dice rolls would need to be quite phenomenal to assassinate Def 17 (on a hill) Arm 20 (with focus) Vindictus, but let's see how it goes.

Black Ogrun shuffle themselves into better position, and then Asphyxious charges a Bastion, and tried to shoot Vindictus with Hellfire. Well, it was a horrible miss, so I ditched whole assassination plan and tried to injure Bastions instead by shooting Breath of Corruptions left and right, and finally teleporting away.

Fun fact: Black Ogruns had miraculously survived a round of melee against Bastion. They weren't so lucky when Asphyxious came to "help" them. Best damage rolls were against my own models. Sigh...

Nyss killed enough Temple Flameguards to cause a massive casualties test on them, which failed. What's this? Three failed command checks in just one game?

They weren't, however, weapon masters enough to wreck the enemy objective. Armour piercing Ripjaw also wasn't armour piercing enough, so yeah. That was my game. Had I succeeded in destroying the objective, I'd have gone to three control points, too, and then, if I prayed Toruk hard enough, Madelyn, Ragman or Nightwretch would survive a round of beating in the enemy zone.

But either I didn't pray hard enough, or Toruk just didn't care. First system the Nightwretch lost was Movement, and that was my best bet in hoping a dice screw for opponent.

Oh well.

Ragman and Madelyn didn't really do much for me in this game. Perhaps I should drop them and get, perhaps, Skarlock and Saxon Orrik or something. Or learn to play and plan better in the long run.

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