Bronzeback endures, true skorne style

Yesterday I played a game with my Skorne against Cygnar, 35 points that was.

As I had finished painting Dominar Rasheth, I really wanted to try him out and my list was:

Dominar Rasheth
- Bronzeback Titan
- Basilisk Krea
- Basilisk Drake

Minimum unit of Cataphract Cetrati
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Beast Handlers
Orin Midwinter
Bloodrunner Master Tormentor

Opponent was playing with Siege. I can assure, I was pretty horrified with that match-up.

Anyway, his list was:

Siege
- Defender
- Defender

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages + Officer
Black 13th
Rangers (who are proxied by Winterguards in the pictures)
Arlan Strangewayes
Reinholdt
Squire

We had a third party to make up terrain for us, which came out as pretty interesting, actually. Tightly cluttered buildings meant nice hiding places for my big guy Rasheth and anything else I wanted to survive Siege's feat, but long linear obstacles were pretty much denying me charges.

I won the starting roll and now it's happened twice in a row I guess I need to admit that the spell is broken that I always lose that roll. Ah well. Was fun as long as it lasted.

First turn I managed to lose my Bloodrunner Master Tormentor who was hiding behind a fence. Enough stealth-ignoring shots finally brought her down despite her defense 18. I had been thinkin the Master Tormentor would be nice arc node for Rasheth. First, charging off a random one wound model and then sprinting to a perfect channeling position. One defender took a pot shot at Bronzeback Titan who took a few damage in, which was hilarious now on the hindsight... It started taking damage on the first round of the game.

Also, Black 13th shot the Mage Storm cloud, but it deviated away from my troops.

On my turn I closed a little bit in, running one of my Praetorian Swordmen close to Defender. Rasheth channeled a Breath of Corruption through him and got Defender and the Black 13th member under the cloud, killing him and doing a couple of damage to warjack.

Though I otherwise kept my distance I brought my Bronzeback Titan to middle field and tried to protect it from shooting with Krea and her animus. Bronzeback placement has always been my Achilles heel, I always mess it up. Yet this time dice screwed opponent enough...

One of the rangers ran to the fence (difficult to spot in the picture, but close to bronzeback, basilisk and cetrati) and Siege activated.

He moved close by and launched a Force Hammer on bronzeback, who slammed into the wall and after it shot it twice with rocket launcher (Reinholdt giving the second shot). Then opponent was pondering if he should use Siege's feat or not, opting to use it, thinking of killing two of my warbeasts in one go, thus restricting my game considerably.

Defender shot Bronzeback under Siege's feat and ultimately broke it's spirit, meaning I couldn't shake off the knockdown effect of slam on my turn. Yet... it endured.

Then another Defender, who was reserved for giving the initial shot to the basilisk, decided to shoot at Bronzeback. Anyway, the damage roll was so low nothing came through.

Other losses were a couple of praetorian swordmen. All in all, my entire army wasn't all that devastated after Siege's feat.

My turn was a bit boring again, just slow advance forward. Again I ran one of my praetorians to act as a channeler for Rasheth and cast Blood Mark on Siege.

Cetrati advanced in shield wall. They were actually the unit that hacked away the rangers that appeared in middle of my lines. They had Carnivore cast and upkept on them from turn 1.

They provided a nice cover for Orin Midwinter, who advanced and cast arc of lighting on the unpainted Defender and lightning arcs killed two rangers.

It's a shame I forgot to take a picture of opponents next turn.

Anyway, I don't actually remember who were the actual models who did what on that turn, except that few Gun Mages shot Orin Midwinter and the rest & grey Defender shot Basilisk Krea.

Black 13th advanced, but they advanced close enough to Bronzeback. The first was counter-charged by the titan, but obviously it missed. But it was engaged in melee now, which was nice.

After that the titan went through a horrible hail of fire. If I remember right, at some point it's body was broken.

On my turn I ran my Cetrati to engage as many gun mages as possible, as well as the Defender.

Praetorian Swordmen charged the Black 13th and blue Defender. They performed admirably, as the first praetorian who made an attack against the Black 13th hit and killed, then side stepped to the one who was engaging Bronzeback. Hit and kill too, then side stepping away from Bronzebacks way. Three who charged Defender did automatic damage points to it and side stepped as you can see them.

After that Rasheth casts a fully boosted Breath of Corruption at Siege through Praetorian officer and the damage roll was stupidly high, leaving Siege with only 5 hit points left.

And Bronzeback was healed by the beast handlers (as had been done for the past 2 turns already).

Then the titan ran to engage Siege. If my memory doesn't fail it had 7 health boxes left at that time.

On opponents turn the story of the hulking behemoth comes to an end. First, Siege hit it with his hammer and scored a critical smite. Well, Bronzeback was smitten away real good and the damage roll didn't kill it, it was left with something like 3 health boxes.

Last model that could do any attacks against it was the last ranger standing. It moved close to it, took a shot at the titan who had been beaten to a stupor through the whole game and... damage roll 6, 5 or something like that.

Damn it. A ranger executing my Bronzeback Titan.

Then it was my turn.

Paingivers ran first, and then Rasheth activated, moved forward, used his feat (meaning further -2 armor to Siege on top of Blood Mark) and channeled a Breath of Corruption through one paingiver. Damage roll wasn't as good as earlier and left Siege with one hit point.

I was a little bit disheartened at this, as I've had my share of losses (some of which are already even detailed in this blog) once getting the opposing warcaster down to 1 hit point and then somehow not managing to do the last point.

But I still had Basilisk Drake, which had done absolutely nothing during the whole game.

As it turned out, it was building up for this moment. Spray hit and killed Siege. End of game.