Gorman against the odds. Oh, and a game too

I'm so sure the dice gods love to affect the dice when it comes to the survivability of Gorman diWulfe on the battlefield.

It's just so awesome to see him survive against the odds... multiple times during one match! I remember one time in Mk1 when I fielded Gorman. I was playing Deneghra against some protectorate warcaster.

Under Deneghra's feat Gorman ended up in melee against the Avatar of Menoth who had generated 4 focus. Granted, Avatar was under Deneghra's feat, but it was still way too awesome to have Gorman survive the full wrath of Avatar. All of it's attacks didn't even miss.

Anyway, last Thursday I played a 35 point game with Cryx versus Cygnar.

My list was:
Epic Asphyxious
- Reaper
- Slayer
- Ripjaw

Minimum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Bile Thralls
Withershadow Combine
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall

And opponent was playing:
Epic Caine
- Hunter

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages + Unit Attachment
Full unit of Stormguards
Black 13th
Rangers
Squire
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios
Gorman diWulfe
Reinholdt

I won the starting roll.

It was my first time playing against epic Caine. I knew what they've always said about him and his "brokenness", but was not exactly prepared for it. However, there's not much to tell about first rounds movements, except to show the general set-up. Oh, and the fact that Hunter warjack that was hiding in the woods shot one arm off of my Slayer and Eiryss disrupted it.

I was happy enough when I found out that True Sight didn't ignore cloud effects.

By placing my helljacks and cloud effects like that I was confident enough that I was safe enough from both epic Caine and Eiryss who was hiding in the woods. Reaper, enhanced by Puppet Master re-rolls from Tremulus, moved as much forward as possible and dragged Hunter up and wrecked it.

Yet... it was about then that the metagaming over the board woke me up that Black 13th could place an AoE that allowed everyone else to ignore cloud effects.

And Caine's threat range was 19".

Actually that realisation made me took a picture in middle of round, as it was quite likely that game would end on opponents turn, if Asphyxious was within 19 inches of Caine.

One ranger ran in the middle of my troops, Black 13th managed to pull off their ignoring AoE on Slayer. Stormguard moved into parade formation.

Then, because it was a matter of quarters of inches, we decided to measure full 19" from Caine to Asphyxious to see if he was in range.

Asphyxious was about 19.5 inches away. That half an inch actually made for an interesting game and not a second turn caster kill. It was close enough that it really shocked me and opened my eyes to eCaine's "thing".

Well, because opponent failed his assassination run, Eiryss nailed Asphyxious with Disruptor Bolt. No focus for me on next round...

I no longer remember what had knocked off Slayer's Cortex too, but anyway, it had only very few damage boxes left (I think it was eCaine's shooting?). I moved it forward and decided to kill Gorman diWulfe with it. It had one claw and tusks operational. Claw obviously missed, as it's damage roll would have meant that Gorman would have bit the dust even with snake eyes. However, tusks scored a hit. Damage roll: 1, 2. On 5+ Gorman would have died.

Then Asphyxious backed off a little and placed his Soul Reaper template so that two stormguards were under it.

Then a bile thrall purged those two dead. Slayer was under the purge too and it left Slayer with one damage in movement system and corrosion. Gorman was under the purge too, cackling maniacally over the flesh melting stuff. One Bile Thrall purged off Eiryss too.

Bane Thralls charged, though actually only one charged and the rest ran. The charging one tried to finish Gorman. It's 180 degrees wrong as the axe prevented base to base contact. Missed.

Then Tartarus charged the Stormguards, getting the one Black 13th member who made models to ignore cloud effects within his reach. Obviously they were the ones who got cursed.

Tartarus killed off the Black 13th guy and one stormguard. He missed one model who was under too with snake eyes. However, he did create two more bane thralls.

As a huge bonus, Black 13th failed their terror check. All in all, I was quite happy about this focusless turn.

Then it was opponents turn.

The most important stuff that happened this turn were Stormguard lining themselves up perfectly to kill as many Bane Thralls as possible with electro leaps AND not to kill Gorman with an electro leap!

Well, everything went just fine until the last attack (slayer got killed in the process too), which made an Electro Leap to Gorman diWulfe who had only two health boxes left.

After the leap was resolved Gorman was left with one health box. That's just epic. Or, what's even more epic is what Gorman did afterwards. After Slayer and Bane Thrall was killed Gorman moved as much forward as possible and threw Black Oil so that it blinded Reaper, Admonia and... Asphyxious.

Last turn Asphyxious was disrupted and next turn he'd be blind. Oh joy.

Then epic Caine himself shot up stuff. Tartarus and some Bane Thralls were gone. I don't remember if it was this turn when Reaper's melee weapon was shot off. Caine then Gate Crashed near the "Choose Life" mug.

On my turn Bane Thralls charged again Gorman diWulfe and now, only after he had done his worst, did Gorman die.

Asphyxious forfeited his movement and placed the Soul Reaper template over four stormguards and one ranger.

After two purges Asphyxious was filled with 5 souls.

Maelovus got to kill the one Black 13th member who had the other Area of Effect attack. Mage Storm or something like that. Tremulus had cast Puppet Master on him this time.

On opponents next turn remaining bane thralls were reduced down to Officer with two damage boxes and Unit Leader.

At this time both warcasters still hadn't used their feats. It was just too obvious both were saving it up for an assassination.

All in all, most of opponents remaining troops were shot to pieces on my turn, but I still couldn't find a good spot to do an assassination. I was thinking that I could charge one of my own troops and feat up incorporeal bane thralls to the woods where Caine was hiding, but the ranges were difficult to estimate.

Most of the remaining Arcane Tempest mages were killed with a Deathknell.

Otherwise Asphyxious decided to play safe.

On opponents turn he decided to make a "finishing" move. Either I would fail to kill Caine behind a cover or succeed. Defense 17 would be a tough nut to crack in melee and defense 21 against shooting and spells was next to impossible.

Ripjaw was destroyed.

And then. Asphyxious moved as far as possible and shot up one remaining Gun Mage or Ranger or something with Excarnate and added one Bile Thrall to the unit.

Then Asphyxious used feat.

Tartarus cursed Caine and charged him. Even he needed 8 to hit, even with his impressive MAT 9 under curse. Well, 8 it was, and he one-shotted Caine.

Twice Against 'machine

Last Fridays two remaining games here.

First was Cassius versus prime Vlad.

Lists were:

Cassius
- Gnarlhorn
- Megalith

Maximum unit of Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment
Shifting Stones
Sentry Stone
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew
Reeve Hunter
Lord of the Feast
Lanyssa Ryssyll

Opponent had:

Vlad
- Behemoth
- Marauder

Maximum unit of Assault Kommandos + 3 flame throwers
Greylord Ternion
Great Bears of Gallowswood

I lost the starting roll and the first picture is taken from the end of round 1.

I was quite horrified by Behemoth's bombards against Wurmwood so I tried, for once, play safe and hide my important stuff behind the tower.

Well, starting his turn, opponent came at me and Behemoth did have a good target for bombards. My shifting stones. The damned thing broke two of them, though I was already chuckling in my mind the aspect of using them again as Hellmouth targets.

Otherwise Khador forces advanced quite cautiously.

Because opponents troops were placed so that I couldn't really do much to them I decided to rush forward and force Wurmwood's brambles down Vlad's noble throat. Two damage roll boosted Strangleholds (one from Megalith and one from Cassius) didn't damage Behemoth, however, so I had quite a nasty situation there. Obviously Cassius used his feat, but still the warjacks could trample and do things like that to get to my tree. So I tried to pack everything close there to prevent a caster-kill.

Well, opponent didn't try to kill me.

Vlad pulled his forces a little bit back and sent Assault Kommandos to engage Wolves of Orboros.

Then I pulled off a turn that I feel somewhat proud of.

First, Lord of the Feast kills the two Assault Kommandos at him and throws his Raven to Marauder (just in range) and hits with attack roll boost. He buys another attack against Koldun and kills him and then another at a nearby Assault Kommando and then buys an attack against the Marauder.

Megalith backs up a bit and casts Curse of Shadows on Assault Kommandoes.

Reeve Hunter charges one Assault Kommando flamethrower you can't really see in the picture, but manages to kill it, setting lots of Wolves and himself on fire. However, the Quick Work, Snap Fire, Swift Hunter -chain starts and results in four kills.

Wolves of Orboros charge whatever they can, then, filling Wurmwood with souls. They had pretty clear lines because of Curse of Shadows.

Then Lanyssa marches as much forward as possible and casts Hunters Mark on Behemoth.

Cassius activates. He casts Bounding on Gnarlhorn Satyr, advances, casts Unseen Path twice and shoots a Hellmouth on Behemoth. Vlad took some damage from that.

Then Gnarlhorn slams whopping 13 inches into Behemoth, knocking down both Behemoth and Vlad and following up to Vlad. Stomp stomp, chomp chomp.

Game 2:

Morvahna versus Strakhov.

My list was:

Morvahna
- Megalith
- Woldwyrd

Maximum unit of Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment
Bloodweavers
Shifting Stones
Reeve Hunter
2x War Wolves
Tharn Ravager White Mane
Blackclad Wayfarer

And opponent had:

Strakhov
- Marauder
- Spriggan (in pictures Devastator model is proxying the Spriggan)

Greylord Ternion
Maximum unit of Ironfang Pikemen + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Assault Kommandos + a couple of flamethrowers
Koldun Lord
War Dog

A third person had set up the gaming board and there were two rather big forests quite in the middle. I actually won starting roll now and obviously chose the forested side.

The picture there has had me playing two turns and opponent has taken only one.

Blackclad and Reeve Hunter did some nice damage on the Assault Kommandos who, fools as they are, thought they were safe behind a fence...

Anyway, despite me trying to make my placements so that opponent couldn't do good tramples or charges, he did something... rash.

And what can I say... The blow was staggering. Strakhov used his feat, yes.

On top of that the lonely bloodweaver failed the massive casualties check.

Morvahna had cast Regrowth on Wolves of Orboros and Harvest was on. Megalith had Restoration on him.

Spriggan failed to seriously hurt Megalith, but Woldwyrd lost its body branch.

Obviously it was my feat turn then.

But, well, before I had activated Morvahna, something unexpected happened.

That's just beyond words.

I was desperately trying to get some fury for Morvahna from enemy models before activating her and, well, the little green heroes did just that.

I had earlier moved Woldwyrd for repairs and had maxed out its fury.

Morvahna activated, cast Eruption of Life at Iron Fangs close by and had some fun with Influence. Used feat, obviously.

Then I activated Megalith... I was too sure that 5+ would be the outcome. Only second fist hit home. Damage was good, though, but not good enough. I was desperate on getting the jack destroyed so I made a bad mistake... I also maxed out Megalith's fury, leaving me no transfer targets.

Wolves of Orboros used their minifeat and charged random stuff, most important target being the Spriggan, which they nearly destroyed. It had only the lance weapon intact, all other systems gone.

Anyway, despite suffering huge casualties earlier it was looking a bit better now.

Until.

Opponent cleared some models away and activated Spriggan. Spriggan had Superiority on it, so it had effective speed of 3, as it was suffering from Weight of Stone from Megalith.

Well, Spriggan still needed to roll 7+ with two dice to actually hit Morvahna. So good chances of missing.

Except, it didn't miss.

Well, p+s 18 meant a roll of 9+ would kill Morvahna outright.

You can see the dice in the picture.

Pfffft.

Let the power of the storm... Burn!

Yesterday I played three games with Circle Orboros.

I'm writing up the smallest game of 15 points now and later today hopefully some other too.

Anyway, I was playing following list:

Epic Krueger
- Gnarlhorn Satyr
- Argus

Bloodweavers
Reeve Hunter
War Wolf

And opponent had:

Epic Kreoss
- Crusader

Maximum unit of Temple Flameguard + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Exemplar errants + Unit Attachment

It was a heavy proxy game as my opponent was a starter who still had most of his models coming up. I won't spam too much pictures because of that, but I got one from the end of first round (Oh, by the way, I lost the starting roll).

Sacrosanct was cast on Temple Flameguard and Inviolable Resolve was on Crusader. Krueger had Storm Wall on.

Opponent charged Temple Flameguard on my Reeve Hunter, War Wolf and Argus.

Argus got some hurt and War Wolf was killed, but not much else happened.

Krueger flew over the tower and used feat, pushing Temple Flameguard pretty much all over the place. He killed someone and tried to cast Gallows on Crusader, but managed to roll double 1's. As he was standing there pretty defenseless he cast Storm Wall again but was furyless after the maneuver.

All in all Flameguard were pretty devastated after that.

Opponent retaliated by casting Cleansing Fire on Krueger that hit home and dealt 12 points of damage in. Luckily it wasn't a critical hit.

One Flameguard was able to come and try hit Krueger, but didn't kill him.

Crusader and exemplar errants ran to block Line of Sight to Kreoss. I remembered Gnarlhorn's Counter Slam at this point. Ironically it could have counter slammed the one flameguard who tried to poke Krueger...

On my turn Argus ate one flameguard who was engaging Gnarlhorn and Gnarlhorn went off to finish the one flameguard engaging Krueger. However, I happened to place Gnarlhorn real stupidly so it blocked Kruegers Line of Sight to Kreoss...

Krueger cast Telekinesis on himself, took aiming bonus and first shot from his staff hit home this time. The two damage roll boosted attacks were enough to kill the Grand Exemplar.

Cassius pulls it good

Cassius versus Mortenebra tier 4.

And it was awesome.

It was a 35 point game and our lists were:

Mortenebra & Deryliss
- Seether
- Slayer
- Reaper
- Deathjack
- Deathripper

2x Warwitch Siren
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall

Cassius & Wurmwood
- Feral Warpwolf
- Megalith
- Gorax

Maximun unit of Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment
Sentry Stone & Mannikins
Shifting Stones
Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew
Thrullg

Opponent won the starting roll. So starting from turn 1 I had to keep a keen eye on the positioning of Wurmwood. Both natural forests were on the other side of the table so I was struggling for concealment to trigger Prowl.

Anyway. You can see the first rounds movement in the picture, the khadoran jack you see there is a proxy for a Slayer. The round template is the cloud effect of swamp gobbers.

And then the game nearly ended.

Opponent closed in only a little bit, except for the Deathripper.

Mortenebra used her feat and arced one damage boosted Doom Spiral to Wurmwood and put up a Void Gate on it too. Half of health boxes gone. Gobber dead. Four Wolves dead. Could have been worse, though killing Cassius outright was always unlikely.

Well, then I retaliated.

And the game nearly ended.

First, Megalith moves up and casts a boosted Stranglehold at focusless Mortenebra, dealing something like nine points in.

It took all of Warpwolf, Thrullg and Gorax to wreck the Deathripper but eventually they succeeded.

Cassius activated and yanked five souls from Wurmwood. He cast Unseen Path to move the tree out of way and charged Thrullg.

He was then just within 8" of Reaper, on whom he cast a boosted Hellmouth, boosting damage on Mortenebra. She was left with 2 health boxes and Cassius had enough fury for another Hellmouth that could have the attack roll boosted.

But, the problem was, Megalith was dragged in to Hellmouth too, engaging Reaper in melee.

I considered it too much a risk to try another Hellfire, so Cassius backed up and used feat.

Next turn other jacks back up a bit except for Deathjack who had Spectral Steel on it. He beat up Megalith and despite some really bad rolls it still had focus to spare after killing it...

All other jacks moved into a half-circle around the Deathjack.

Well, but I didn't think I had any choice in the matter. Had to charge in with everything that was able to. Luckily Thrullg was able to and took out Spectral Steel. Finally it made something worthwile on the board!

Anyway, Warpwolf warped for speed and Gorax cast its animus on it. Then it tried to wreck Deathjack but failed miserably. Deathjack was left with something like 6 damage boxes.

I had to dedicate as many Wolves to as I could, too, and hope they would pass their command check for Abomination. They did.

And if Warpwolf rolled a bit poorly, the Wolves didn't. First attacking Wolf wrecked Deathjack.

Next turn opponent obviously killed my warpwolf and formed up a jack line, Necrotech fixing any damage I had earlier done with Hellmouth.

I had to start using unsportmanlike schemes. Three nearly undamaged heavy jacks and only a Gorax (who failed its threshold check and destroyed one of the Shifting Stones) on the board on the beast side of my army...

Shifting Stone teleported so that it was within 3" of Slayer and both Warwitches.

Hellmouth there.

Two birds with one stone.

Remaining Wolves of Orboros charged the Reaper but they didn't really do anything. I guess all their brawn went into handling Deathjack (which was true in the form of their minifeat...)

Mortenebra had earlier healed up to 6 health boxes.

On that picture you can see the threatening wall of jacks looking at my remaining forces.

In the next picture you can see the situation after Terminal Velocity had been cast and all three helljacks had trampled.

That meant...

I started my turn with a Sentry Stone with 1 fury, Wurmwood with 5 souls, Cassius who had to cut up a little to get maximum fury and one Shifting Stone.

But it was enough, though only as a desperate last ditch attempt.

First, Shifting Stone teleports close to Mortenebra.

Then, Cassius advances to the wall o' jacks. Unseen Path led Wurmwood straight behind them, and another one transported Cassius himself to where you can see him.

And damage boost was enough to destroy Mortenebra.

Let the power of the storm... fizzle!

Then, as I was about to leave the friends place where we were playing a new guy voices interest in seeing a game of Warmachine.

We decided to play a 15 point game to quickly show off how the game goes from start to finish.

Lists you can see in the picture. Now I happened to win starting roll, despite opponent rolling 5!

I was happy enough about the fact that opponent actually had some shooting elements in his army so I could make use of Storm Wall.

However, opponents warcaster wasn't really a front-liner, meaning it was doubtful whether I would ever make effective use of my capability of ridiculous threat ranges.

Also, opponent started playing very defensively. He dug up positions at the walls in his deployment zone.

I'm actually skipping the picture of the end of first round, as it looks very similar to this picture taken from end of round 2:

As opponent had the really viable tactic of taking long pot-shots at me and with lucky rolls doing serious damage I decided to go aggressive.

Krueger moved next to the house, cast Storm Wall and shot the lightning blast spell at the Iron Fang in front of Destroyer.

Warpwolf ran to screen Krueger, but it was a fatal time to forget about arcing fire.

Opponent moved Destroyer a bit to side and shot off at Krueger, who luckily got only 7 points of damage in.

Irusk moved forward and tried to airburst Krueger a little more. After that he used epic Irusk's feat and was sitting with no focus.

Iron Fang pikemen just ran to tie me up.

Well, I proceeded to beat them up with my beasts. Gnarlhorn Satyr and one Iron Fang pikeman gets a mention... All initial attacks miss and first bought attack kill the pikeman. Who then passes four tough rolls in a row. Not the satyr's day I suppose.

Warpwolf finishes the pikeman who just wouldn't die and Wilder does the most useful thing she did during whole game: killed one of the pikemans she just could reach.

Then it was time for me to try to win the game.

Epic Krueger used his feat, pushing models around, clearing enough space for him to land on the other side of the building.

Boosted attack roll agains Irusk with his staff o' lighting. 6,1,1. Would've needed one more to hit. Krueger has rate of fire 3 and sustained attack.

Well, he buys a second attack and boosts attack roll, this time hitting home and the last attack hitting automatically. These two attacks leave Irusk with 2 health boxes.

6,1,1.

Feralgeist runs so it tries to block as much of the upcoming Ironfang Pikemen as possible.

Come opponents turn.

Destroyer misses.

Widowmakers deal nasty damage.

Irusk advances and takes a hand cannon shot at Krueger. Hits. Damage roll is impressive, 13 points of damage in. Which is transfered to Warpwolf.

Then I don't remember if airburst hit or dealt damage or what happened, but Krueger was sitting with 3 health boxes when Iron Fange Pikemen activated.

Standard bearer and two other pikemen came hugging the feralgeist.

Was Krueger within their reach?

Thanks to the handy measurement tool we quickly found out both were within striking distance.

After one Combined Melee Attack Krueger was no more.

Infernal Machines versus Desert Walking... umm... goats and things

Today I actually played two games of Warmachine with Circle Orboros, but I'm making the posts separate.

First game was my Mohsar against his Mortenebra in a 35 point game.

Lists are included in the picture. Mortenebra is tier 4 list.

I was a bit anxious as I play Mortenebra myself with Cryx, so I knew how nasty she can be against Hordes.

However, I hoped that my salt pillars would be good enough counter for crazy threat range shenanigans. Also, playing board proved to be very crowded in the middle. Though Mortenebra had access to Ghostly from Spectral Steel and I got plenty of pathfinders, the board proved to be a hell to navigate to both players.

Anyway. I lost the starting roll. Who would've guessed?

Start-up was frighteningly fast.

It doesn't show too well in the picture but the slip of paper on the board is a pillar of salt.

I tried to put everything so that getting too much use out of Reaper's harpoon would be difficult.

But what happened was that opponent shot one of my Shifting Stones with Reaper and it was actually destroyed by the damage roll (I had learned my lesson with that one Strakhov game - stones are immobile!)

Mortenebra cast Void Gate on Reaper, dealing a little bit of damage to it in the process, but repairing it soon enough.

Everything else backed up, except for the Deathjack, who came a little too close.

First my Wolves of Orboros used their minifeat, making them effective weapon masters for one round. Then they charged the Deathjack, passing their command check. They wrecked it real good, leaving only 5 damage boxes to it.

Distance between Feral Warpwolf and Deathjack seems great... but Wilder cast Bounding on it and Blackclad Wayfarer managed to hit Deathjack with Hunter's Mark.

That meant I didn't have to warp for speed with warpwolf and I decided to go with armor.

Though damage rolls were real crappy, in the end Deathjack was lying smoldering on the ground.

Picture doesn't show the placement of Pillars, but anyway. Next round.

Mortenebra used her feat, which resulted in plenty of dead Wolves of Orboros via spray from Warwitch Siren.

Void Gate was upkept.

Reaper dragged Warpwolf to the pillar you can see in picture. Then Deryliss cast Spectral Steel on slayer, who charged past my the farthest pillar (it had Line of Sight to warpwolf, however) to get to the warpwolf, finishing it.

All in all, could have been worse. Oh wait... That's turn 3.5, me starting the turn. You can see the pillar placement, after all.

I decided to wreck Slayer with Primaled Gnarlhorn Satyr.

Yet I didn't remember Void Gate was on... I could only make the charge and initial attacks, which did impressive damage, but it was far from wrecking it.

Gorax is facing directly the other way, as a side note. It was easier to place that way.

Mohsar cast Curse of Shadows on Reaper and moved to safety. Then Gorax and the Wolves you can see wrecked the Reaper, but Slayer was still standing with Cortex intact. Mohsar had used his feat just in case.

Well, opponents turn.

Seether, again with Spectral Steel from Deryliss, charges past my blocking Pillar of Salt. It absolutely crushes the poor satyr. Mortenebra moves into contact with Slayer, fixes it and casts Overrun on it.

Another Warwitch Siren sprays quite a few Wolves to death.

Slayer destroys all but the standard bearing Wolf of Orboros. Hilarious enough.

Then, last turn.

Argus, that was no longer in Mohsar's control area (last turn it had been busy killing one Warwitch Siren), frenzied and ate the last Wolf of Orboros. Yeah, the standard bearer. I guess you don't wave a standard made of bones in the sight of a frenzying Argus without consequences.

Mohsar walks there and uses his ranged attack. He tries to boost attack roll against Mortenebra but misses. He hits the Slayer, however, and wrecks it. Then he maltreats the Argus for eating the last Wolf standing, casts an attack roll boosted Crevasse at Mortenebra, hits, and boosts damage.

Then he uses Argus' animus on Gorax to help it go through wreck markers. In the end maltreating Argus wasn't necessary, but sure it was fun!

Gorax moves into contact with injured Mortenebra and kills her with two attack roll & damage roll boosted claw attacks.

Now, without Argus, none of this would've been possible... just sayin'...