Quite a hellmouthful

We played a game of Warmachine in Vassal today with a friend who lives some hundred kilometres away.

I knew I was facing Protectorate and being an "imaginary set collector" I obviously picked up Cassius the Oathkeeper as my warlock because he's the only one of my currently played warlocks/warcasters who haven't played against Protectorate.

My list was:

Cassius the Oathkeeper
- Megalith
- Woldwyrd
- Argus

Tharn Bloodweavers
Maximum unit of Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment
Shifting Stones
Swamp Gobbers
Lord of the Feast
War Wolf

And opponent had:

Epic Kreoss
- Fire of Salvation

Maximum unit of Exemplar Errants + Unit Attachment
Knights Exemplar
Maximum unit of Bastions
Aiyana & Holt
Exemplar Seneschal
Madelyn Corbeau


Apparently I have better chance of winning starting rolls if I play in Vassal.

The map had a little forest in one side and I decided to deploy there though generally that side would have been worse for Protectorate's slow moving force. But I just didn't want to depend solely on my Swamp Gobbers for protection.

I had spread my army wide, though I must confess, it's still difficult for me to get the hang of Fury value of 6. No other warcaster/warlock I have ever played has had that low magic score...

Anyway, I don't have pictures now to demonstrate anything.

But first round both closed in a bit yet staying out of range of anything that can be expected.

However, then on my second turn I tried to do the unexpected things.

I used Argus' animus on Lord of the Feast, teleported it close to enemy lines, threw Raven at Bastions and placed Lord in the back arc where it caused a terror check on Ayiana & Holt and obviously used the 360 degree thresher. Attack rolls, however, weren't too favorable. Lord even managed to miss one Bastion. Neither of the prime targets, Aiyana or Holt weren't even hit, though Bastions did soak up 10 damage points in total.

Megalith tried to cast Stranglehold on nearby Fire of Salvation but failed to damage it.

Then about everything I had huddled into the smoke cloud Gobbers had put up.

There was Megalith, Woldwyrd, Wurmwood, Cassius, Argus, one of Bloodweavers and the gobbers of course.

Opponent moved Errants closer and started taking shots at Wolves of Orboros, killing three of them.

Fire of Salvation ran to back up the Errants, moving as far as possible from Bloodweavers who were able to dispel the armor buff Fire of Salvation had.

Sneaking and skulking Knights Exemplar charged Lord of the Feast with fatal results. Fatal to Protectorate, though.

Two Exemplars managed to deal only 6 points of damage, which meant one bastion and Aiyana & Holt were still engaged.

Aiyana & Holt tried to disengage by killing the horror but didn't succeed.

Finally opponent had to dedicate Knight Exemplar Seneschal to kill Lord of the Feast, who finally put the final blow in.

Bastions who were finally freed only advanced a little.

Opponent had positioned himself rather badly and I was about to prepare a huge onslaught of the most utter carnage ever seen in the games of Warmachine. However, had I counted all the rolls of 1, 2 or 1, 1, 2 the soaring numbers would have been hilarious.

First, my Bloodweavers charged nicely lined up Bastions and butchered all but one of them. That was about the only thing that worked out.


Megalith cast Stranglehold on Fire of Salvation and managed to damage it. Then it was slammed away, the bugger, but slam distance was 1, meaning there was no collateral damage to nearby Exemplar Errants.

Then I pulled an awesome Hellmouth shenanigan. I had 11 fury so I advanced, took tree with me and Unseen Pathed Cassius in front of the tree, in range to cast one attack roll boosted Hellmouth at tightly packed Knights Exemplar. I got all 6 under the template.

Only 3 of them died.

On top of that earlier, before the feat, I had brought Woldwyrd forward and shot Exemplars twice. RAT 6, pow 10 versus defense 12, arm 15. No casualties.

Well, I didn't feel too disappointed then yet. I cast Unseen Path and used Cassius' feat.

Only after I charged Wolves to Exemplar Errants. I used Power Swell just in case. However, even with MAT 8 & P+S 9 + 4d6 only two Errants died though five Wolves got into contact. No, opponent couldn't deny me target by cleverly picking models with their Self Sacrifice. I just rolled that badly.

Opponent's turn.

Seneschal and Holt kill three Bloodweavers.

Epic Kreoss uses his feat that indirectly butchers two more Bloodweavers and six Wolves of Orboros. All in all it could have been a lot worse.

Then was my try to deal as much damage as I now could with my thinned out forces.

First of all things looked delicious as Cassius was within 8" of a Bastion who had lots of people within 3" of him... I launched two Hellmouths against it. Obviously the other one missed though I needed only 5's to hit.

All in all, Master Holt, one Knight Exemplar and Knight Exemplar Seneschal "died".

Sole surviving Bloodweaver killed Madelyn Corbeau and Argus launched itself against Bastion and Seneschal next to it. It ate Bastion which revived Seneschal, whom it bit too and killed him... again.

Remaining Wolves of Orboros didn't do anything else except tied up Errants. Fire of Salvation was beat up by War Wolf and Megalith so that only 5 points in column 4 were left.

(Still it hit Megalith back for 6 points of damage...)

Errants mopped up all remaining Wolves except the Officer. Kreoss started camping up all his focus.

The last Knight Exemplar charged Argus but didn't manage to hit it.

Then on my turn Argus frenzied. My beasts had run too hot and I couldn't leach everything away. It had tasted human flesh and no amount of the stuff could suffice any more! Triple 1's in damage, however. Nearbly Bloodweaver had to charge and kill the exemplar.

Well, then Cassius was pulling off shenanigans at the Errant front. Wolf Chieftain standed nicely in the middle of errants.

So Cassius got all the souls from Wurmwood and cast off Hellmouth at the chieftain.

Three errants got under and all the damage rolls were boosted because at this point I had lost any and all faith on "lucky" (ie, average) rolls. All except Chieftain, of course. Who actually survived the blast!

Anyway, after Megalith crushed Fire of Salvation opponent didn't really have much in terms of gaming pieces. Kreoss, three errants and Aiyana.

On opponents slow-grind turn errants did nothing but Kreoss killed Argus.

Now we're going fast forward: Megalith advanced and managed to cast Curse of Shadows on Kreoss. Bloodweaver next to him did some damage. Errants were reduced to soil.

Then Megalith, after dismantling Fire of Salvation, went off and finished Grand Exemplar Kreoss. First boosted attack roll was 6, 6, 6. Damage roll from charge was 5, 6, 6. Kreoss was left with 2 hit points. Next claw and one boosted damage roll later game was over.

Anyway. Damage rolls were pretty amazing. I'm almost inclined to think there's something wrong in electronic dice... I mean... I even won the starting roll?

Also, rolling next to nothing but 1 & 2 for one whole turn was rather distressing. But I sure love Cassius' play style!