Today we played two cooperative games of Touch of Evil. We played two because, well, we got time before my friend had to catch a train, reason behind a new game wasn't as embarrassing as yesterday.
Anyway, on to the game reports!
Game 1:
Delion Dryad versus Isabella von Took and Anne-Marie the School Teacher.
This game isn't any longer in fresh memory.
Isabella started faring on her own early in the game. She got a crossbow from monastery items and the burning censer, meaning she rolled 6 dice against the Living Trees and if any roll was 6, additional hit would be scored. And because of her special ability to ignore wounds by spending Investigation she became a whirlwind of... well, wooden splinters? And didn't knock down not even once during the whole game.
Anne-Marie wasn't that lucky. She started out quite well and managed to get enough Investigation to get one book and the torch from town items but then she started getting knocked down and losing investigation other ways.
Honorable mention of being absolutely hilarious is awarded to Doctor Manning. Manning scored three secrets from different sources and last one came from Lies and Deceit, meaning they were all revealed. But all were good secrets or little secrets.
Then the mystery card Traitor's Blood was drawn and the responsibility to kick a town elder in front of attacking villain fell to Anne-Marie, who was already short on investigation markers. Doctor Manning died there.
Then, not many rounds later, double 6's were rolled in cooperative chart and behold! Doctor Manning stumbles back to life.
Later stages of the game Traitor's Blood was drawn again and the only elders remaining were Lord Hanbrook (Honor 6), Sophie the Midwife (Honor 5) and Doctor Manning (Honor 2). Choice wasn't too difficult as you lose as much investigation as the one you choose to be killed has honor.
Doctor Manning, dead again.
And then Anne-Marie performs Blood Transfusion, bringing him back to life.
To complete the story of Doctor Manning I go a bit ahead in the chronology. Doctor Manning had only one enchantment token from Delion Dryad when showdown started. He was designated as the one who needed to test if he was enchanted.
Of course he fails it and turns into evil elder.
And he dies third time in the showdown. Doctor died three times during the game by the heroes hands.
Anyway, the shadow track was already in the red zone when all 6 living trees were on board, meaning a rapid dropping of shadow track in the future. Also all wolves were on board too.
As a future mental (or now, electronic!) note you really need to dedicate someone to kill minions with Delion Dryad. There aren't that many wolf tokens and only six trees too. It's an illusion to think that wolves are easy and there's always time to chop the trees down.
Anyway, shadow track reached the spot 1 when heroes managed to start the showdown and Isabella had to start it alone as Anne-Marie had been knocked down earlier.
Isabella did pretty impressive damage on Dryad, though. She managed to stay around for two fight rounds and got insane amounts of dice both times and brough Dryad down to 6 wounds before she succumbed to the brambling vines and other nasty things.
Dryad had 21 wounds. Had Anne-Marie only been there even for just one fight round things could have been different...
Game 2:
Volgovian Nutcracker vs. The Scarlet Shadow & Heinrich the Drifter
Game against the Nutcracker was really a game of highs and downs as well as awesome storylines.
The Christmas Caravan started at the Crossroads, which is exactly the same space where Heinrich starts his game. A lone drifter comes to town exactly the same moment as the menacing caravan... I can't bring myself to believe it is a coincidence!
Scarlet Shadow rolled 6 for his move in the first round and opted to go to Inn to get some investigation easily. Which he did. He drew a card where he had to make spirit + honor test 6+, gaining 3 investigation from all 6's rolled. He rolled 4 of them.
Heinrich rolled well for his move too and got himself to the Inn too and that was quite story too... heroes meeting for the first time in the Inn, two outcasts who sense all is not well with the caravan.
Then Toy Soldiers are spawned in the Inn and they knock Heinrich down and shoo Scarlet Shadow away too because he didn't dare to risk getting knocked down. Bar's closed!
After this the game went pretty weird.
Both heroes raked in amazing amounts of investigation points and the shadow track speeded down like crazy too.
For example, it was quite early in game when the shadow track moved to new stage TWICE in the same mystery phase, meaning that four monsters were spawned!
Scarlet Shadow was also possessed by a demon that attacked him in the Monastery, by the way. His game after that was almost fighting an enemy on his own turn and fighting again some other enemy that happened to spawn on him during the mystery phase, getting knocked down but still beating the monster. So he got nicely investigation points too but there was little other character development.
Heinrich, on the other hand, got insane amounts of investigation points. He did have the Party Invitation which made him gain some investigation every time the event from the villain chart was rolled but somehow he just couldn't stop himself from getting richer and richer. At one point he even bought Silver Bullets and Pistol in the same round and was still left with lots of investigation!
But as has been noted, the game was fast and brutal and heroes were in hurry to start Showdown.
Scarlet Shadow started it by using Old Map he had bought.
Magistrate Kroft proved to be a huge asset in this fight as he had Inner Strenght, was Reluctant Hero and the villain was a Construct. He seemed to have been swayed by the staggering amount of leads Heinrich got and assisted as well as he could... also, by playing right cards and everything we really got Heinrich rolled a whopping 17 dice where every 6 rolled dealt additional hit.
Well, only 1 six was scored and the rolls were pretty lame otherwise too.
Also, heroes didn't have any kind of wound preventing events or other cards.
Villain rolled well enough to kill both heroes with just one blow.
Combined efforts left the Nutcracker standing with 13 wounds, which wasn't really a heroic effort.
Victory for the villain seventh time in a row!
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Interlude: Werewolf beats some heroes in lack of better things to do
Continuing board game streak here in Hankasalmi we played two games of Touch of Evil.
We played two games because we lost the first game on the second round of the game. How it happened: Tide of Darkness spawned 2 Feral Kins to South Dock and Monastery. Second round: Suprise Showdown at North Dock.
Heroes involved were Katarina the Outlaw and Morgan Harlow. Morgan was beat in the first round of the game but Katarina survived because she had found the dog ally from Olde Woods.
Because we didn't find a real answer if Katarina could escape to Forgotten Island we decided that the same rule applied to retreating to Forgotten Island as retreating from it. That meant Katarina needed to roll 4+ to be able to escape. She didn't.
She survived another round, however. Tried to escape again. Didn't.
Game 2:
Because we lost so embarrassingly the first game we decided to play another with the same heroes and same villain because the first try couldn't even be called a game.
That game went on for quite a bit longer.
Morgan managed to get Tools of Science early in the game and someone drew an event that raised Katarinas combat rating to 3. Beating Feral Kin wasn't too hard, but there was one Rat Nest that deserves a mention.
First, Morgan goes to clean it with 5 combat dice. He is knocked down eventhough he had 4 wounds.
Then, on the same round, Katarina tries to continue the job Morgan had failed. She even used her Book of Riddles to add her Cunning to her combat, giving her 8 dice. No wounds to rat nest.
Rats slowly gnaw Katarina to one wound remaining and Katarina decides it's best to retreat as the game ends when all heroes are knocked down.
Soon after this Morgan starts to get amazing amounts of investigation points. Some mystery events had placed quite a lot of cards to discard piles already so it was time to see what all could be invented from a horse and a map. We found out that they're enough for a sabre, a book and a woodmans coat.
Then things went awry. Shadow Track was there in like 11-12 so we decided we're aiming to start Showdown as soon as possible, especially because we drew the card "Something Wicked" that gave the werewolf +2 wounds every 3 turns and lowers the shadow track by 2.
Next turn, all hell broke loose.
Even after few Lies and Deceits we had two promising village elders free from the taint of evil and no evil elders, though one was dead.
One Lies and Deceit later we got four evil elders, two of whom had the Darkest Secret. We counted the total combat and total wounds Werewolf had and we were not happy. 13 dice in combat and 26 or so wounds.
We managed to buy the Lair. It happened to be the Forgotten Island and we were hiding in the village squares.
Both heroes tried to run to manor to use the secret passageway but to no avail. Just in course of very few round the shadow track went from about the middle of the track to zero.
Heroes didn't even get to the showdown.
We played two games because we lost the first game on the second round of the game. How it happened: Tide of Darkness spawned 2 Feral Kins to South Dock and Monastery. Second round: Suprise Showdown at North Dock.
Heroes involved were Katarina the Outlaw and Morgan Harlow. Morgan was beat in the first round of the game but Katarina survived because she had found the dog ally from Olde Woods.
Because we didn't find a real answer if Katarina could escape to Forgotten Island we decided that the same rule applied to retreating to Forgotten Island as retreating from it. That meant Katarina needed to roll 4+ to be able to escape. She didn't.
She survived another round, however. Tried to escape again. Didn't.
Game 2:
Because we lost so embarrassingly the first game we decided to play another with the same heroes and same villain because the first try couldn't even be called a game.
That game went on for quite a bit longer.
Morgan managed to get Tools of Science early in the game and someone drew an event that raised Katarinas combat rating to 3. Beating Feral Kin wasn't too hard, but there was one Rat Nest that deserves a mention.
First, Morgan goes to clean it with 5 combat dice. He is knocked down eventhough he had 4 wounds.
Then, on the same round, Katarina tries to continue the job Morgan had failed. She even used her Book of Riddles to add her Cunning to her combat, giving her 8 dice. No wounds to rat nest.
Rats slowly gnaw Katarina to one wound remaining and Katarina decides it's best to retreat as the game ends when all heroes are knocked down.
Soon after this Morgan starts to get amazing amounts of investigation points. Some mystery events had placed quite a lot of cards to discard piles already so it was time to see what all could be invented from a horse and a map. We found out that they're enough for a sabre, a book and a woodmans coat.
Then things went awry. Shadow Track was there in like 11-12 so we decided we're aiming to start Showdown as soon as possible, especially because we drew the card "Something Wicked" that gave the werewolf +2 wounds every 3 turns and lowers the shadow track by 2.
Next turn, all hell broke loose.
Even after few Lies and Deceits we had two promising village elders free from the taint of evil and no evil elders, though one was dead.
One Lies and Deceit later we got four evil elders, two of whom had the Darkest Secret. We counted the total combat and total wounds Werewolf had and we were not happy. 13 dice in combat and 26 or so wounds.
We managed to buy the Lair. It happened to be the Forgotten Island and we were hiding in the village squares.
Both heroes tried to run to manor to use the secret passageway but to no avail. Just in course of very few round the shadow track went from about the middle of the track to zero.
Heroes didn't even get to the showdown.
"No-one ever gonna steal my gold any longer"
Two-player talisman just finished.
Leprechaun and Prophetess were duking it out this time with random ending.
I'm trying to be brief now, but Leprechaun found the Amulet (immunity to spells) on about second or third round of the game that put a hold on Prophetess' spell recycling.
Prophetess did find Shield of Defiance for her. However, very early in the game she visited the enchantress and managed to roll twice 1, turning into a hideous toad!
She dropped the Shield of Defiance and Leprechaun was more than happy to pick it up into his filthy pockets.
Character progress was slow and both characters fooled around without gaining anything decisive. Point of interest was when Prophetess found Holy Relic and Leprechaun found Profane Relic, making them somehow oppose each other.
Both completed a few warlock quests and picked up rewards, it was nice to see that that new feature is quite usable.
Prophetess got good statistics faster than Leprechaun and had used a spell to dominate a strenght 9 monster to be used in next battle. Before that she had used beast tamer to tame a strenght 2 animal for her. That was +11 strenght in next battle. So no wonder that Prophetess started to look into dungeon...
Leprechaun managed to find himself the +1 strengh & craft ring and Unicorn that gave same bonuses in subsequent turns. Prophetess didn't make it any less, though. She had 9 followers including Defender of Justice and Tunnel Fighter. When we count in the +11 from dominated beasts, lucky charm roll of 6 and a few strenght rises and magical objects she rolled a whopping combat roll of 26 against Lord of Darkness (yeah, she managed to dodge all battles in dungeon!), meaning even if Lord rolled 6 for his combat she would still win the battle with at least 8. So off to the Crown of Command she went, even without a Talisman.
Well, we played random ending and it proved to be Battle Royale.
Leprechaun would have probably bitten the dust without the following disturbingly broken combination of items: Shield of Defiance (if a character attacks you you will have equal total strenght of craft if you have them too low), Sword of Truth (if you roll lower than your opponent in battle your result is changed to 6) and Amulet. That meant Prophetess couldn't manipulate Leprechauns objects with spells and in battle where Prophetess attacks it would either be a stand-off or a victory for Leprechaun because their total strenght was the same and if Leprechaun rolled less than opponent it would come out as a 6.
Leprechaun had Craft 9 versus Prophetess Craft 7 also so she couldn't realistically win even using Craft (in Battle Royale everyone can decide which stat to use).
Anyway, the jolly Leprechaun won the battle.
Leprechaun and Prophetess were duking it out this time with random ending.
I'm trying to be brief now, but Leprechaun found the Amulet (immunity to spells) on about second or third round of the game that put a hold on Prophetess' spell recycling.
Prophetess did find Shield of Defiance for her. However, very early in the game she visited the enchantress and managed to roll twice 1, turning into a hideous toad!
She dropped the Shield of Defiance and Leprechaun was more than happy to pick it up into his filthy pockets.
Character progress was slow and both characters fooled around without gaining anything decisive. Point of interest was when Prophetess found Holy Relic and Leprechaun found Profane Relic, making them somehow oppose each other.
Both completed a few warlock quests and picked up rewards, it was nice to see that that new feature is quite usable.
Prophetess got good statistics faster than Leprechaun and had used a spell to dominate a strenght 9 monster to be used in next battle. Before that she had used beast tamer to tame a strenght 2 animal for her. That was +11 strenght in next battle. So no wonder that Prophetess started to look into dungeon...
Leprechaun managed to find himself the +1 strengh & craft ring and Unicorn that gave same bonuses in subsequent turns. Prophetess didn't make it any less, though. She had 9 followers including Defender of Justice and Tunnel Fighter. When we count in the +11 from dominated beasts, lucky charm roll of 6 and a few strenght rises and magical objects she rolled a whopping combat roll of 26 against Lord of Darkness (yeah, she managed to dodge all battles in dungeon!), meaning even if Lord rolled 6 for his combat she would still win the battle with at least 8. So off to the Crown of Command she went, even without a Talisman.
Well, we played random ending and it proved to be Battle Royale.
Leprechaun would have probably bitten the dust without the following disturbingly broken combination of items: Shield of Defiance (if a character attacks you you will have equal total strenght of craft if you have them too low), Sword of Truth (if you roll lower than your opponent in battle your result is changed to 6) and Amulet. That meant Prophetess couldn't manipulate Leprechauns objects with spells and in battle where Prophetess attacks it would either be a stand-off or a victory for Leprechaun because their total strenght was the same and if Leprechaun rolled less than opponent it would come out as a 6.
Leprechaun had Craft 9 versus Prophetess Craft 7 also so she couldn't realistically win even using Craft (in Battle Royale everyone can decide which stat to use).
Anyway, the jolly Leprechaun won the battle.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Angels of Death don't deliver the end as well as Genestealers
Played a game of Space Hulk: Death Angel today.
It's a card game that depicts the desperate struggle of Blood Angels space marines in a space ship infested with alien lifeforms known as Genestealers.
We had four players and we picked the flamethrower team, librarian (with the clever brother Scipio!), lightning claws and battle cannon.
Game play was pretty awesome. Of course I can't know if every game has as many turning points and close calls but first impression the game gave me was good.
Story of Brother Scipio was hilarious. Background story tells how he is clever and survives by staying one step ahead of genestealers. All he did in the game, however, was pushing the open/close button of the door zone.
Game went quite well for a long time until just in one round something like three space marines died. I was playing the librarian team and lost every member of my team too but event card showed off it was merely a flesh wound.
Flamethrower and battle cannon saved a lot of situations and I can't remember all the situations where we had to optimize every possible special powers just to survive and at how many points we had to resort just to a lucky roll.
But once we lost a few space marines too much things went pretty desperate (just as it should be). We lost all but two terminators, the Librarian who was carrying Artefact and battle cannon marine, when we entered the last room with the win condition for the game. It appeared that we were in some sort of launching room... I'm not sure if there was some kind of nuclear detonation or an escape pod to be launched there but it was nothing short of epic the situation there.
First the battle cannon guy moves to the control panel and slams down his fist on the launch button, trying to roll 0 on dice (the dice had numbers from 0 to 5, by the way) but it just doesn't work. Librarian pushes the battle cannon terminator asides and hits the launch button repeatedly yet still nothing happens. Approaching genestealers rip battle cannon carrying space marine to pieces and the librarian survives only because of the artefact he's carrying.
Then next round librarian cannot use "move + action" card because he had used it last turn. But he had the support card left and it happened so that on the other side of the gaming table there were dozens of genestealers and on the other side spawned only one. So those dozens of genestealers would not attack because of special ability of librarian teams support card.
But the one who spawned on the other side of the board... Librarian needed to roll at least 2 to get one more chance of pushing the button, needing a roll of 0.
Well, roll was 1. Librarian killed.
Now on the hindsight I should have actually placed a Support Token on the librarian that could have been used for a re-roll! How sad, kinda... because though it's awesome when the bad guys win it's still even more awesome when team wins in odds like this.
Anyway. Genestealers won. The only surviving space marine terminator was Brother Scipio, who was left pushing the door closed and open in some earlier part of the spaceship. Even genestealers ignored him because they didn't detect any kind of form of life from him.
It's a card game that depicts the desperate struggle of Blood Angels space marines in a space ship infested with alien lifeforms known as Genestealers.
We had four players and we picked the flamethrower team, librarian (with the clever brother Scipio!), lightning claws and battle cannon.
Game play was pretty awesome. Of course I can't know if every game has as many turning points and close calls but first impression the game gave me was good.
Story of Brother Scipio was hilarious. Background story tells how he is clever and survives by staying one step ahead of genestealers. All he did in the game, however, was pushing the open/close button of the door zone.
Game went quite well for a long time until just in one round something like three space marines died. I was playing the librarian team and lost every member of my team too but event card showed off it was merely a flesh wound.
Flamethrower and battle cannon saved a lot of situations and I can't remember all the situations where we had to optimize every possible special powers just to survive and at how many points we had to resort just to a lucky roll.
But once we lost a few space marines too much things went pretty desperate (just as it should be). We lost all but two terminators, the Librarian who was carrying Artefact and battle cannon marine, when we entered the last room with the win condition for the game. It appeared that we were in some sort of launching room... I'm not sure if there was some kind of nuclear detonation or an escape pod to be launched there but it was nothing short of epic the situation there.
First the battle cannon guy moves to the control panel and slams down his fist on the launch button, trying to roll 0 on dice (the dice had numbers from 0 to 5, by the way) but it just doesn't work. Librarian pushes the battle cannon terminator asides and hits the launch button repeatedly yet still nothing happens. Approaching genestealers rip battle cannon carrying space marine to pieces and the librarian survives only because of the artefact he's carrying.
Then next round librarian cannot use "move + action" card because he had used it last turn. But he had the support card left and it happened so that on the other side of the gaming table there were dozens of genestealers and on the other side spawned only one. So those dozens of genestealers would not attack because of special ability of librarian teams support card.
But the one who spawned on the other side of the board... Librarian needed to roll at least 2 to get one more chance of pushing the button, needing a roll of 0.
Well, roll was 1. Librarian killed.
Now on the hindsight I should have actually placed a Support Token on the librarian that could have been used for a re-roll! How sad, kinda... because though it's awesome when the bad guys win it's still even more awesome when team wins in odds like this.
Anyway. Genestealers won. The only surviving space marine terminator was Brother Scipio, who was left pushing the door closed and open in some earlier part of the spaceship. Even genestealers ignored him because they didn't detect any kind of form of life from him.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Pain is good when you play Skorne
Today we played a 35 point game, my Skorne against Khador, lists are what you can see in the following picture.
Soon enough I need to count how many times I've lost the starting roll in a streak.
Just yesterday I finished my whole unit of praetorian swordsmen, finally. Yet it seemed I still had some bad karma because of my few unpainted models.
Anyway.
On with the game. Advancing was really, really cautious from my side throughout the game. Both Winterguard Infantry with their horrible sprays and the bowling Devastator were aspects I have already grown quite a dread against.
Opponent stayed far back too. Not much to tell about that as you can see the first rounds movements there. Superiority was cast on Devastator and opponent put Sentry on one of the mortars.
I made an arc node out of my Bronzeback and Aptimus cast Death March on swordsmen. You can see the one daring praetorian there tempting his fate.
Anyway, I moved my Thrullg too close to enemy lines.
One of the Man-O-Wars charged my poor Thrullg and decimated it. Also two Winterguard fellows marched as far as they could and sprayed my Bloodrunner Master Tormentor to death (she had already taken two blasts from mortars that weren't even directed at her... curse the deviations!)
Not much happened then on my turn. I don't know what I could have even done. I managed to kill the man-o-war that killed my Thrullg and the lone, fate-tempting bravo killed the two winterguards who had killed master tormentor.
Then it was Strakhov's feat turn.
First Man-o-Wars came and tried to make leaf steaks out of my poor little elephant. And with a damage roll of 5, 5, 6, 6 they did pretty good job. However, the bugger didn't die and left a half-dead carcass for Marauder to slam to death. Which it did. Feralgeist jumped to the husk of Bronzeback.
Devastator engaged as many praetorians as possible and tried to skewer them with Rain of Death. Only the one who was in base-to-base contact with it died, though.
Winterguard Infantry became fearless and tough when they formed a meatwall in front of Strakhov.
Then it seemed like I really needed to strike down the warcaster in the alchemical mask. I couldn't win any kind of attrition any longer. So it was my chance to shine!
I did have an evil cunning plan, though!
Aptimus made my basilisk krea into an arc node for Hexeris. Then Hexeris moved forward, used feat and beat one of the man-o-wars to death, releasing basilisk from melee. It did take two of Hexeris' fury though because some bad rolls were involved.
Then he launched Obliteration at the Winterguard formation and it was kinda brutal thing.
The winterguard who passed their tough rolls became auto-hit targets for the ones who didn't.
Then I failed Basilisk Drake's activation. It didn't manage to kill the man-o-war in front of it, not even with two damage boosted attacks that hit home.
Orin Midwinter threw Arc Lighting to clear even more path for my praetorians. Well, I did have 3 arcs. But it was more like an arc of knockdown, as everyone passed their tough rolls (even the officer who took in a damage roll of 5, 6).
Then the praetorians charged with their MAT of 8. Only two scored got a charge in against Strakhov and one managed to side-step in contact with him.
Not-too-cool damage rolls resulted in around 5 damage to Strakhov. The other charging praetorian even missed. So that was it for me, then.
Then it was opponents turn to finish me off. I had to move my Bronzeback as far as I could so I could move Hexeris to try a desperate win. Well, only thing that resulted from that maneuver was that the poor little undead elephant was smashed again into the very same wall that had killed it earlier. I tried to position Feralgeist so the man-o-wars wouldn't be able to come and kill my then-knocked-down Hexeris but there are limits in what a spirit can block.
First damage roll: 11 points in. Second: about the same.
Soon enough I need to count how many times I've lost the starting roll in a streak.
Just yesterday I finished my whole unit of praetorian swordsmen, finally. Yet it seemed I still had some bad karma because of my few unpainted models.
Anyway.
On with the game. Advancing was really, really cautious from my side throughout the game. Both Winterguard Infantry with their horrible sprays and the bowling Devastator were aspects I have already grown quite a dread against.
Opponent stayed far back too. Not much to tell about that as you can see the first rounds movements there. Superiority was cast on Devastator and opponent put Sentry on one of the mortars.
I made an arc node out of my Bronzeback and Aptimus cast Death March on swordsmen. You can see the one daring praetorian there tempting his fate.
Anyway, I moved my Thrullg too close to enemy lines.
One of the Man-O-Wars charged my poor Thrullg and decimated it. Also two Winterguard fellows marched as far as they could and sprayed my Bloodrunner Master Tormentor to death (she had already taken two blasts from mortars that weren't even directed at her... curse the deviations!)
Not much happened then on my turn. I don't know what I could have even done. I managed to kill the man-o-war that killed my Thrullg and the lone, fate-tempting bravo killed the two winterguards who had killed master tormentor.
Then it was Strakhov's feat turn.
First Man-o-Wars came and tried to make leaf steaks out of my poor little elephant. And with a damage roll of 5, 5, 6, 6 they did pretty good job. However, the bugger didn't die and left a half-dead carcass for Marauder to slam to death. Which it did. Feralgeist jumped to the husk of Bronzeback.
Devastator engaged as many praetorians as possible and tried to skewer them with Rain of Death. Only the one who was in base-to-base contact with it died, though.
Winterguard Infantry became fearless and tough when they formed a meatwall in front of Strakhov.
Then it seemed like I really needed to strike down the warcaster in the alchemical mask. I couldn't win any kind of attrition any longer. So it was my chance to shine!
I did have an evil cunning plan, though!
Aptimus made my basilisk krea into an arc node for Hexeris. Then Hexeris moved forward, used feat and beat one of the man-o-wars to death, releasing basilisk from melee. It did take two of Hexeris' fury though because some bad rolls were involved.
Then he launched Obliteration at the Winterguard formation and it was kinda brutal thing.
The winterguard who passed their tough rolls became auto-hit targets for the ones who didn't.
Then I failed Basilisk Drake's activation. It didn't manage to kill the man-o-war in front of it, not even with two damage boosted attacks that hit home.
Orin Midwinter threw Arc Lighting to clear even more path for my praetorians. Well, I did have 3 arcs. But it was more like an arc of knockdown, as everyone passed their tough rolls (even the officer who took in a damage roll of 5, 6).
Then the praetorians charged with their MAT of 8. Only two scored got a charge in against Strakhov and one managed to side-step in contact with him.
Not-too-cool damage rolls resulted in around 5 damage to Strakhov. The other charging praetorian even missed. So that was it for me, then.
Then it was opponents turn to finish me off. I had to move my Bronzeback as far as I could so I could move Hexeris to try a desperate win. Well, only thing that resulted from that maneuver was that the poor little undead elephant was smashed again into the very same wall that had killed it earlier. I tried to position Feralgeist so the man-o-wars wouldn't be able to come and kill my then-knocked-down Hexeris but there are limits in what a spirit can block.
First damage roll: 11 points in. Second: about the same.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Double Trouble (I'm trying to win the lamest headline award in case there is one)
I played two rather entertaining games today. Both seemed to drag on endlessly but eventually the other bastard was killed.
I played both games with Circle of Orboros.
Opponent played Khador and Cygnar. Cygnar was a new journey for him and included plenty of proxy models. I was supposed to take a little less pictures from that game but, well, it was a really long game and will be explained a lot easier with including the pics so... enjoy.
Anyway, first game was Morvahna versus Strakhov.
Opponent won starting roll, actually opponent won both starting rolls... I think I whined about this in my last game and it's really starting to look like a tendency. Not winning the start.
But, well, for Circle it's actually a good thing if you have Lord of the Feast around.
This picture was taken from the second round of the game, my half, before rolling dice. I attached another picture that had the Lord's attacks rolled.
Iron Fang pikemen failing their Command 10 re-rolled terror test was just an insult to injury.
However, before we counted in the War Dog Strakhov had taken 10 damage in already too. But we had to backtrack that one because it actually didn't happen. What a shame.
Well, to be honest, Strakhov had there and then a rather nasty target for Overrun shenanigans. I had cast Restoration on Lord of the Feast though so it had Arm 19 and 8 damage boxes.
Iron Fang pikemen rallied.
Then Greylords charged Lord of the Feast and did some little damage.
Strakhov cast overrun on himself and went on and butchered my lord, overrunning himself closer to my lines. There he used his feat and then sprinted off closer to his lines again, making it sure everything he needed was in range of his feat.
Man-o-Wars charged and two of them cleared my meatwall I had build up in front of my Gnarlhorn Satyr and other two killed one of my shifting stones and two of my bloodweavers.
Then Marauder charged my Gnarlhorn satyr and used its Combo-Smite, slamming the slamming king of Warmachine/Hordes, getting even super slam in because it had the focus to boost and gnarlhorn contacted terrain. It also contacted Morvahna who got luckily only 5 or so points in from the collateral damage but still...
Gnarlhorn lost some aspect, don't remember which because it was healed soon enough.
Then my turn happened.
All I managed to do that turn was to wreck off the Marauder with considerable effort (I had to use Gorax's animus on Gnarlhorn and even come scraping the paintjob with it) and then Gnarlhorn beat it up real good. However, it didn't die.
Wolves of Orboros used their minifeat and charged off the nearly destroyed Marauder, wrecking it.
Bloodweavers and remaining Wolves killed three of the Man-o-Wars and Morvahna was just scared.
I teleported one of my shifting stones as Gnarlhorn's chew toy for the upcoming frenzy.
Opponent then killed off my poor Gorax. Picture, it seems, has been from the middle of turn, not from the end of it... because Strakhov sprinted to safety after finishing my ugly monkey.
Iron Fang pikemen killed some Wolves. Didn't really concern me as I had Regrowth on them...
On my next turn Gnarlhorn toppled off my beautiful stones in rage.
I brought back something like four Wolves and it seemed likely I would use my feat this turn.
This picture hasn't been taken from the end of the turn either it seems... oh well.
Anyway, bloodweavers and the lone Wolf of Orboros failed to kill the last Man-o-War standing but otherwise things went pretty nice. All of the pikemen were killed by Wolves and blasts from Morvahna's feat.
Opponent had only two greylords remaining when he decided to pull all-or-nothing run with Strakhov. He charged my Gnarlhorn after spraying some wolves who were standing in his way.
He killed it and sprinted next to Morvahna. At this point I actually didn't feel too worried as Strakhov had taken damage in from my feat and had only 11 health left. He did, however, boost his powerfield for effective armor 19.
I brought back 3 Wolves of Orboros, facing Strakhov. I had three fury left, I was counting on boosting to hit and boosting to damage and leaving one fury left for transferring damage with Harrow.
However... it was not destined to be.
Morvahna hit just fine, no problems there. Then I just had to roll 8 with 3 dice.
Well, you can guess, botched it.
Then I tried a desperate assassination with my three brought back Wolves but they brought only 2 points in, combined.
If we're playing "if" game... If I had rolled even 10 with my damage against Strakhov with Morvahna Strakhow would have been left with 6 hit points only, meaning he could have easily killed himself if he tried to damage Morvahna.
Well, at least the last moments were a bit too thrilling!
But then, onwards.
Game 2
My list:
Cassius & Wurmwood
- Megalith
- Woldwyrd
Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment
Swamp Gobbers bellows crew
Shifting Stones
Lord of the Feast
And opponent had
Epic Haley
- Defender
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages + Officer
Squire
Gorman diWulfe
Junior Warcaster
- Hunter
Here I was supposed to take less pictures.
But taking them almost a bit too much began at the 2nd turn of my opponents when arrogant and stupid Gorman diWulfe marched as far as he could, threw Black Oil at my Woldwyrd, missed and the deviation missed Woldwyrd but it landed exactly on my Cassius!
Also, that was exactly the turn where epic Haley used her dreadful feat. All my army was under it. Everything and all.
That wasn't the only thing Haley did, no. She also accelerated her Defender close enough to kill Lord of the Feast (which, honestly, could have done real bad stuff for opponents low model count army...)
Well, as I have said it was a proxied game so I entered into this picture what proxies what for ease of a possible random spectator.
Then Haley herself shot off a Time Bomb that fell short but killed three Wolves. Well, I had four souls for my Wurmwood, then...
Next I just had to navigate through Haleys feat. Woldwyrd was close enough to shoot Gorman for fifth soul on Wurmwood.
Megalith shot Strangleroot to Defender and goblins put up their cloud.
Wolves ran as much forward as they could to tie up enemy army.
There was a curious turn after that though.
All but the Wolves of Orboros chieftain were brutally mauled, sliced, annihilated or otherwise destroyed or killed. They even failed their re-rollable command of 8 that came from massive casualties (when it was called for the flag was still up).
Maybe that isn't as awesome as failing a re-rollable command 10, but still.
Hunter did some little damage to Megalith.
Then I was anticipating what I could do with a warlock that was filled up with 11 fury.
Well, Swamp Gobbers took the offensive course of action then. They ran next to Defender to block its possible advance.
But about those 11 fury. This is what I did.
I moved Cassius forward. I cast Unseen Path and brought Wurmwood where you can see it. Then I cast Unseen Path again and put Cassius up there somewhere. I shot a Hellmouth at one of the Gun Mages that was offering its back arc to Cassius.
Managed to hit and plenty of people were killed. Four gun mages and some damage to Haley. Then I cast Unseen Path one more time and teleported Cassius to safety (yeah, I burned 6 fury to movement!) and used Cassius' feat.
Then.
I did even have Woldwyrd's animus on on my feat turn. But still, Haley just backed off and pulled out all her movement shenanigans. It resulted in Defender moving within shooting range of Wurmwood who didn't have even single soul on.
First shot dealt 14 damage in to Cassius. Second one dealt only 3. Still, Cassius was then afterwards sitting with 3 hit points...
My brave swamp gobbers were tying up things up there in the front line of enemy and Wolves chieftain had taken a damage point in too from random shootings but still, two gobbers and a lone officer were mixing up the plans around Haley.
Then I tried to give some payback in form of Megalith and Woldwyrd and Cassius with Stranglehold. After all the beating Defender was left with one damage point in melee arm.
Opponent did anything in his power to destroy Woldwyrd. Hunter and the remains of Defender tried to destroy it but it lost only some aspect which I again don't remember because stones healed it.
Cassius tried to come and shoot another Stranglehold at Defender, needing to roll 8 on 3 dice to wreck it and leave all sorts of things to do for my beasts. But no. Cassius threw a lame duck at Defender and Wurmwood rolled its eyes and pulled Cassius back to woods to safety as apparently he could only get himself killed with any certainty.
So in the end I had to use Megalith to destroy Defender.
Stones healed my constructs and Woldwyrd gave good damage in to Hunter, dropping its ranged weapon.
Then it seems I haven't taken pictures for one round. Anyway, Hunter moved to beat Woldwyrd in melee but didn't succeed. Cassius charged Hunter from woods and wrecked it himself, then casting Unseen Path to come back.
There was a real thrill around when Gun Mage officer shot Wurmwood twice. Ignoring stealth, missing only on double ones and killing Cassius if he rolled at least 9 on one damage roll or 7 and 8 on two damage rolls. Cassius had one fury left for transfering damage but Megalith was forced to full and Woldwyrd had only few boxes left, which Haley herself dismantled with a fully boosted Time Bomb.
No damage in for Cassius from Gun Mage officer.
And then Haley was too close.
I tried to charge now-exposed Junior Warcaster with my heroic Wolves of Orboros chieftain who had actually been even damaged twice during the game and hadn't still died! Well, attack hit home but dealt only 4 points in, not enough to kill Junior. Reason for doing this was the fact that it had cast Arcane Shield on Haley.
Then I brought Cassius as forward as I could and was within range to cast one fully boosted Stranglehold on Haley. That gave 9 points in.
Well, I was quite certain I could kill her easily enough with three attacks that would give good debuff to defense after first hit.
First claw, 9 on 3 dice. Miss.
Another claw, 9 on 3 dice. Miss.
Now I was certain I would lose to dice screw.
I could buy one more attack and boost the hit. Claw hit Haley.
And damage was more than enough to kill her. She had taken 4 damage earlier from Hellmouth as well as the damage Cassius gave to her just this last turn.
Anyway, Megalith smashed her to ground with the resulting damage roll.
I played both games with Circle of Orboros.
Opponent played Khador and Cygnar. Cygnar was a new journey for him and included plenty of proxy models. I was supposed to take a little less pictures from that game but, well, it was a really long game and will be explained a lot easier with including the pics so... enjoy.
Anyway, first game was Morvahna versus Strakhov.
Opponent won starting roll, actually opponent won both starting rolls... I think I whined about this in my last game and it's really starting to look like a tendency. Not winning the start.
But, well, for Circle it's actually a good thing if you have Lord of the Feast around.
This picture was taken from the second round of the game, my half, before rolling dice. I attached another picture that had the Lord's attacks rolled.
Iron Fang pikemen failing their Command 10 re-rolled terror test was just an insult to injury.
However, before we counted in the War Dog Strakhov had taken 10 damage in already too. But we had to backtrack that one because it actually didn't happen. What a shame.
Well, to be honest, Strakhov had there and then a rather nasty target for Overrun shenanigans. I had cast Restoration on Lord of the Feast though so it had Arm 19 and 8 damage boxes.
Iron Fang pikemen rallied.
Then Greylords charged Lord of the Feast and did some little damage.
Strakhov cast overrun on himself and went on and butchered my lord, overrunning himself closer to my lines. There he used his feat and then sprinted off closer to his lines again, making it sure everything he needed was in range of his feat.
Man-o-Wars charged and two of them cleared my meatwall I had build up in front of my Gnarlhorn Satyr and other two killed one of my shifting stones and two of my bloodweavers.
Then Marauder charged my Gnarlhorn satyr and used its Combo-Smite, slamming the slamming king of Warmachine/Hordes, getting even super slam in because it had the focus to boost and gnarlhorn contacted terrain. It also contacted Morvahna who got luckily only 5 or so points in from the collateral damage but still...
Gnarlhorn lost some aspect, don't remember which because it was healed soon enough.
Then my turn happened.
All I managed to do that turn was to wreck off the Marauder with considerable effort (I had to use Gorax's animus on Gnarlhorn and even come scraping the paintjob with it) and then Gnarlhorn beat it up real good. However, it didn't die.
Wolves of Orboros used their minifeat and charged off the nearly destroyed Marauder, wrecking it.
Bloodweavers and remaining Wolves killed three of the Man-o-Wars and Morvahna was just scared.
I teleported one of my shifting stones as Gnarlhorn's chew toy for the upcoming frenzy.
Opponent then killed off my poor Gorax. Picture, it seems, has been from the middle of turn, not from the end of it... because Strakhov sprinted to safety after finishing my ugly monkey.
Iron Fang pikemen killed some Wolves. Didn't really concern me as I had Regrowth on them...
On my next turn Gnarlhorn toppled off my beautiful stones in rage.
I brought back something like four Wolves and it seemed likely I would use my feat this turn.
This picture hasn't been taken from the end of the turn either it seems... oh well.
Anyway, bloodweavers and the lone Wolf of Orboros failed to kill the last Man-o-War standing but otherwise things went pretty nice. All of the pikemen were killed by Wolves and blasts from Morvahna's feat.
Opponent had only two greylords remaining when he decided to pull all-or-nothing run with Strakhov. He charged my Gnarlhorn after spraying some wolves who were standing in his way.
He killed it and sprinted next to Morvahna. At this point I actually didn't feel too worried as Strakhov had taken damage in from my feat and had only 11 health left. He did, however, boost his powerfield for effective armor 19.
I brought back 3 Wolves of Orboros, facing Strakhov. I had three fury left, I was counting on boosting to hit and boosting to damage and leaving one fury left for transferring damage with Harrow.
However... it was not destined to be.
Morvahna hit just fine, no problems there. Then I just had to roll 8 with 3 dice.
Well, you can guess, botched it.
Then I tried a desperate assassination with my three brought back Wolves but they brought only 2 points in, combined.
If we're playing "if" game... If I had rolled even 10 with my damage against Strakhov with Morvahna Strakhow would have been left with 6 hit points only, meaning he could have easily killed himself if he tried to damage Morvahna.
Well, at least the last moments were a bit too thrilling!
But then, onwards.
Game 2
My list:
Cassius & Wurmwood
- Megalith
- Woldwyrd
Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment
Swamp Gobbers bellows crew
Shifting Stones
Lord of the Feast
And opponent had
Epic Haley
- Defender
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages + Officer
Squire
Gorman diWulfe
Junior Warcaster
- Hunter
Here I was supposed to take less pictures.
But taking them almost a bit too much began at the 2nd turn of my opponents when arrogant and stupid Gorman diWulfe marched as far as he could, threw Black Oil at my Woldwyrd, missed and the deviation missed Woldwyrd but it landed exactly on my Cassius!
Also, that was exactly the turn where epic Haley used her dreadful feat. All my army was under it. Everything and all.
That wasn't the only thing Haley did, no. She also accelerated her Defender close enough to kill Lord of the Feast (which, honestly, could have done real bad stuff for opponents low model count army...)
Well, as I have said it was a proxied game so I entered into this picture what proxies what for ease of a possible random spectator.
Then Haley herself shot off a Time Bomb that fell short but killed three Wolves. Well, I had four souls for my Wurmwood, then...
Next I just had to navigate through Haleys feat. Woldwyrd was close enough to shoot Gorman for fifth soul on Wurmwood.
Megalith shot Strangleroot to Defender and goblins put up their cloud.
Wolves ran as much forward as they could to tie up enemy army.
There was a curious turn after that though.
All but the Wolves of Orboros chieftain were brutally mauled, sliced, annihilated or otherwise destroyed or killed. They even failed their re-rollable command of 8 that came from massive casualties (when it was called for the flag was still up).
Maybe that isn't as awesome as failing a re-rollable command 10, but still.
Hunter did some little damage to Megalith.
Then I was anticipating what I could do with a warlock that was filled up with 11 fury.
Well, Swamp Gobbers took the offensive course of action then. They ran next to Defender to block its possible advance.
But about those 11 fury. This is what I did.
I moved Cassius forward. I cast Unseen Path and brought Wurmwood where you can see it. Then I cast Unseen Path again and put Cassius up there somewhere. I shot a Hellmouth at one of the Gun Mages that was offering its back arc to Cassius.
Managed to hit and plenty of people were killed. Four gun mages and some damage to Haley. Then I cast Unseen Path one more time and teleported Cassius to safety (yeah, I burned 6 fury to movement!) and used Cassius' feat.
Then.
I did even have Woldwyrd's animus on on my feat turn. But still, Haley just backed off and pulled out all her movement shenanigans. It resulted in Defender moving within shooting range of Wurmwood who didn't have even single soul on.
First shot dealt 14 damage in to Cassius. Second one dealt only 3. Still, Cassius was then afterwards sitting with 3 hit points...
My brave swamp gobbers were tying up things up there in the front line of enemy and Wolves chieftain had taken a damage point in too from random shootings but still, two gobbers and a lone officer were mixing up the plans around Haley.
Then I tried to give some payback in form of Megalith and Woldwyrd and Cassius with Stranglehold. After all the beating Defender was left with one damage point in melee arm.
Opponent did anything in his power to destroy Woldwyrd. Hunter and the remains of Defender tried to destroy it but it lost only some aspect which I again don't remember because stones healed it.
Cassius tried to come and shoot another Stranglehold at Defender, needing to roll 8 on 3 dice to wreck it and leave all sorts of things to do for my beasts. But no. Cassius threw a lame duck at Defender and Wurmwood rolled its eyes and pulled Cassius back to woods to safety as apparently he could only get himself killed with any certainty.
So in the end I had to use Megalith to destroy Defender.
Stones healed my constructs and Woldwyrd gave good damage in to Hunter, dropping its ranged weapon.
Then it seems I haven't taken pictures for one round. Anyway, Hunter moved to beat Woldwyrd in melee but didn't succeed. Cassius charged Hunter from woods and wrecked it himself, then casting Unseen Path to come back.
There was a real thrill around when Gun Mage officer shot Wurmwood twice. Ignoring stealth, missing only on double ones and killing Cassius if he rolled at least 9 on one damage roll or 7 and 8 on two damage rolls. Cassius had one fury left for transfering damage but Megalith was forced to full and Woldwyrd had only few boxes left, which Haley herself dismantled with a fully boosted Time Bomb.
No damage in for Cassius from Gun Mage officer.
And then Haley was too close.
I tried to charge now-exposed Junior Warcaster with my heroic Wolves of Orboros chieftain who had actually been even damaged twice during the game and hadn't still died! Well, attack hit home but dealt only 4 points in, not enough to kill Junior. Reason for doing this was the fact that it had cast Arcane Shield on Haley.
Then I brought Cassius as forward as I could and was within range to cast one fully boosted Stranglehold on Haley. That gave 9 points in.
Well, I was quite certain I could kill her easily enough with three attacks that would give good debuff to defense after first hit.
First claw, 9 on 3 dice. Miss.
Another claw, 9 on 3 dice. Miss.
Now I was certain I would lose to dice screw.
I could buy one more attack and boost the hit. Claw hit Haley.
And damage was more than enough to kill her. She had taken 4 damage earlier from Hellmouth as well as the damage Cassius gave to her just this last turn.
Anyway, Megalith smashed her to ground with the resulting damage roll.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
"I always thought that Oathkeeper was useless. Fetch me a new one!"
Played my first game with Cassius the Oathkeeper & Wurmwood, Tree of Fate. 
It was a 35 point game and I was facing Khador under the command of Strakhov.
We took the time and toil to try a little different format of giving out the army lists other than boring listing.
So, opponent won the starting roll.
I really want to start doing statistics about my starting roll win/loss ratio, by the way!
Anyway, Strakhov cast Occultation on Great Bears and Superiority on Behemoth.
Not much else to tell about the end of round 1. I was feeling really cool, poseful and filmatic so I brough Lord of the Feast to the center hill of the board. Also, I was paranoidly fearful of Winterguard, again. So I did everything I could to not give them the chance of wiping out everything I got, again.
Luckily they didn't wipe out, well, almost anything.
They moved forward and killed my hidden War Wolf. Three walked as far as they could and tried to shoot my posing Lord who only laughed at the puny attempts of mortals to harm his majesty.
All the warjacks neared me as did the Great Bears. Looked like Strakhov was setting up a feat run. But anyway... picture:
That turn I had great plans and good scheming and all kinds of nice things going on but, well, I did mess up.
First Megalith advanced and shot the Winterguard standard bearer with a boosted Stranglehold. Then it put up its animus.
Then Lord of the Feast charged the three Winterguard who had been brave enough to defy him. All were slaughtered. Then Lord tried to shoot his raven to Winterguard officer but was about 1/4 of an inch away. Too bad. I would have been some lovely carnage up there...
Well, that was four souls at Wurmwood. Then Wolves of Orboros charged some peeking Winterguard and killed two of them that called for Massive Casualties test. They had already lost their flag so they couldn't re-roll and... double sixes. A failed command check. That was a pleasure.
Then Woldwyrd moved a little bit and here was my mistake number 1. It took two damage roll boosted shots at Behemoth and gave about 8 or 10 points of damage in with those two hits. The mistake here comes from the fact that I had now two warbeasts at maxed out Fury, meaning I couldn't transfer damage away.
Then I activated Cassius. He took all the souls away from Wurmwood and moved forward. He shot a Stranglehold at Behemoth and managed to strangle it. Then I tried to shoot another at Devastator, fully knowing it was a long shot... And Cassius didn't damage it.
Left with three fury at that point Cassius teleported away. And here came mistake number 2. I didn't use my feat.
I thought that in any case Strakhov's feat turn would be pretty lame when Behemoth was strangled and was thinking if I used my feat next turn it would annoy the heck out of Khadorans. Also supporting this way of thinking was the fact that Winterguard were running away already.
Mistake number 3 wasn't really mistake. It was lack of experience. I had never thought Bulldoze worked on charges... I was sure that just bringing my ravagers in as a meat wall was enough of a protection... so here's the final picture:
So, Strakhov cast Overrun on himself, charged one of the ravagers I had brought up and triggered Overrun. Devastator jogged forward.
Then Strakhov used feat.
Great Bears charged next and killed up some stuff. Widowmakers and one stray Behemoth bombard shot had done two points of damage to Cassius already.
Then Devastator launched in and it pushed the blocking.
Umm.
It pushed the roadblocking Sentry Stone away. Now as I'm writing this I remembered that you cannot actually move Immobile models. My bad and it cost me the game.
Because then came in the Rain of Death. Well, damage roll was a bit botched and dealt "only" 11 points in.
Then Devastator had 2 focus. It bought another attack and boosted the attack roll. Needed 10 to hit. Succeeded. Then it needed 7 to kill. Rolled 9.
I guess this game had quite a few lessons for me, few of the most basic ones to time your feat correctly and maybe even actually reading the rules of your own models.
Anyway, after this experience I'm liking Wurmwood & Cassius already.
It was a 35 point game and I was facing Khador under the command of Strakhov.
We took the time and toil to try a little different format of giving out the army lists other than boring listing.
So, opponent won the starting roll.
I really want to start doing statistics about my starting roll win/loss ratio, by the way!
Anyway, Strakhov cast Occultation on Great Bears and Superiority on Behemoth.
Not much else to tell about the end of round 1. I was feeling really cool, poseful and filmatic so I brough Lord of the Feast to the center hill of the board. Also, I was paranoidly fearful of Winterguard, again. So I did everything I could to not give them the chance of wiping out everything I got, again.
Luckily they didn't wipe out, well, almost anything.
They moved forward and killed my hidden War Wolf. Three walked as far as they could and tried to shoot my posing Lord who only laughed at the puny attempts of mortals to harm his majesty.
All the warjacks neared me as did the Great Bears. Looked like Strakhov was setting up a feat run. But anyway... picture:
That turn I had great plans and good scheming and all kinds of nice things going on but, well, I did mess up.
First Megalith advanced and shot the Winterguard standard bearer with a boosted Stranglehold. Then it put up its animus.
Then Lord of the Feast charged the three Winterguard who had been brave enough to defy him. All were slaughtered. Then Lord tried to shoot his raven to Winterguard officer but was about 1/4 of an inch away. Too bad. I would have been some lovely carnage up there...
Well, that was four souls at Wurmwood. Then Wolves of Orboros charged some peeking Winterguard and killed two of them that called for Massive Casualties test. They had already lost their flag so they couldn't re-roll and... double sixes. A failed command check. That was a pleasure.
Then Woldwyrd moved a little bit and here was my mistake number 1. It took two damage roll boosted shots at Behemoth and gave about 8 or 10 points of damage in with those two hits. The mistake here comes from the fact that I had now two warbeasts at maxed out Fury, meaning I couldn't transfer damage away.
Then I activated Cassius. He took all the souls away from Wurmwood and moved forward. He shot a Stranglehold at Behemoth and managed to strangle it. Then I tried to shoot another at Devastator, fully knowing it was a long shot... And Cassius didn't damage it.
Left with three fury at that point Cassius teleported away. And here came mistake number 2. I didn't use my feat.
I thought that in any case Strakhov's feat turn would be pretty lame when Behemoth was strangled and was thinking if I used my feat next turn it would annoy the heck out of Khadorans. Also supporting this way of thinking was the fact that Winterguard were running away already.
Mistake number 3 wasn't really mistake. It was lack of experience. I had never thought Bulldoze worked on charges... I was sure that just bringing my ravagers in as a meat wall was enough of a protection... so here's the final picture:
So, Strakhov cast Overrun on himself, charged one of the ravagers I had brought up and triggered Overrun. Devastator jogged forward.
Then Strakhov used feat.
Great Bears charged next and killed up some stuff. Widowmakers and one stray Behemoth bombard shot had done two points of damage to Cassius already.
Then Devastator launched in and it pushed the blocking.
Umm.
It pushed the roadblocking Sentry Stone away. Now as I'm writing this I remembered that you cannot actually move Immobile models. My bad and it cost me the game.
Because then came in the Rain of Death. Well, damage roll was a bit botched and dealt "only" 11 points in.
Then Devastator had 2 focus. It bought another attack and boosted the attack roll. Needed 10 to hit. Succeeded. Then it needed 7 to kill. Rolled 9.
I guess this game had quite a few lessons for me, few of the most basic ones to time your feat correctly and maybe even actually reading the rules of your own models.
Anyway, after this experience I'm liking Wurmwood & Cassius already.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Be not afraid... it's only the necromancer!
Well, got two expansion for the price of, well, two.
The expansion "Be not afraid..." was priced rather horribly high for the content it brings to the game. Only five new races and five new special power badges.
New races look like fun though.
But the new special powers are named quite poorly. For example "Barricade Elves" don't sound good at all. Neither does "Catapult Orcs". I've always thought the special powers define their race somehow. "Hordes of" special power, for example, is a real good example how special power badge defines its attached race.
But Catapult? Sure, the mechanic is nice but the name is bad.
But then, Days of Wonder, the published of Smallworld, has made one other expansion, Necromancer Island, available too. It is a free expansion, though. And I managed to get that one. Here in Finland you could get it from a retail store by buying enough other Smallworld products. "Be not afraid..." was priced high enough that you needed to buy only it and you could then get the Island for free.
Seems a bit weird, though, that such an awesome expansion is given for free. Because it adds new mechanic, play style, to the game. And expands the possible number of players to 6. Expansion like these are what I would rather pay for than new races and badges.
Anyway, looking forward for next game of Smallworld!
The expansion "Be not afraid..." was priced rather horribly high for the content it brings to the game. Only five new races and five new special power badges.
New races look like fun though.
But the new special powers are named quite poorly. For example "Barricade Elves" don't sound good at all. Neither does "Catapult Orcs". I've always thought the special powers define their race somehow. "Hordes of" special power, for example, is a real good example how special power badge defines its attached race.
But Catapult? Sure, the mechanic is nice but the name is bad.
But then, Days of Wonder, the published of Smallworld, has made one other expansion, Necromancer Island, available too. It is a free expansion, though. And I managed to get that one. Here in Finland you could get it from a retail store by buying enough other Smallworld products. "Be not afraid..." was priced high enough that you needed to buy only it and you could then get the Island for free.
Seems a bit weird, though, that such an awesome expansion is given for free. Because it adds new mechanic, play style, to the game. And expands the possible number of players to 6. Expansion like these are what I would rather pay for than new races and badges.
Anyway, looking forward for next game of Smallworld!
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