So, time for a joke? Spellslinged to death by Protectorate of Menoth (and another game, too)

Actually that joke is a lot more fun, because it did happen to me today.

So, I played two games today with my Cryx against the forces of Protectorate. Because the first game ended, uh, rather soon because of my, well, a slight lack in tactical acumen, we decided to play with same scenario, same lists and same sides.

So, my list in both games was (35 pointer):

Epic Deneghra
- Nightmare
- Defiler
- Nightwretch
- 2x Helldivers

Minimum unit of Soulhunters
Minimum unit of Mechanithralls + Brute Thrall
Darragh Wrathe
Warwitch Siren

And opponent had:

High Exemplar Kreoss
- Revenger
- Crusader
- Avatar of Menoth

Maximum unit of Exemplar Bastions
Maximum Choir of Menoth
Minimum unit of Temple Flameguard + Unit Attachment

Opponent was still waiting for the metal infantry to come from mail order, so the occasional bile thralls and stitch thralls are Temple Flameguards and Choir of Menoth.

So, the scenario was Process of Elimination. Strips of paper are marking the zones on the board.

And, ahem. Well, I did win the starting roll.

I ran everything forward, including Deneghra. Opponent struggled to get stuff to control zones so Deneghra wouldn't just be able to move forward, use her feat and win the game.

Well, next was my turn again and I tried to be really clever and run an arc node forward and remove protectorates jack support in one fell swoop with Hellmouth. Which happened to come out as double 1's.

Rest of the focus I spend on a Venom, that did as little as the Hellmouth.

And then I realised that yeah, Deneghra was sitting there, yelling "Heeeey! Look at me! No Stealth! Not camping any focus! I'm not even incorporeal! Cool, huh?!" to opposing Revenger.

So, Revenger ran forward and then Kreoss activated. Moved forward, used his feat and arced three Immolations on Deneghra. Who died in shame. Let's just forget about this sorry affair and move to the next game...

Game 2:

Second game opponent won the starting roll.

Picture is taken from the end of opponents second turn.

Avatar had trampled forward and started ogling my troops with that special ability of his.

So, scoring points would start on my following turn.

I needed only to kill Avatar, all the Temple Flameguards, Crusader and perhaps a couple of contesting bastions during within 2 turns if I used my feat and caught everyone under...

That was a little bit of a stretch.

But still I did use Deneghra's feat.

First Nightwretch advanced and tried to take a potshot against Avatar, doing one or two points of damage. Then it was Deneghra's turn, who advanced (should have turned her incorporeal, but forgot) used feat and cast Hellmouth on temple flameguard marked with red (so, it's a targetting mark, I'm not censoring anything on that model...)

I was confident enough that nothing could really harm Nightmare during Deneghra's Web of Shadows, so it charged the Revenger that had been pulled a little bit closer via Hellmouth.

It had been allocated 2 focus because I didn't think it would be able to use all three because of Revenger's repelling shield.

Combo-strike dealt something like 14 points of damage. But that was about everything I could do with Deneghra's game winning feat. Mostly positioning.

Yet, I didn't get Kreoss himself nor all of the Choir under the feat.

Kreoss moved and used his own feat to mitigate my achievements. I guess both feats were "wasted" in attempt to be pre-emptive. If you can call that "wasting a feat" in situations like these.

However, opponents turn was fast. Then it was my turn again and it was fast enough too as I could do anything useful with only my warjacks. Luckily I had Helldivers, who had been unaffected by Kreoss' feat.

Anyway, Nightmare shook off the knocked down and moved to combo-strike Avatar, who was also it's prey target.

Damage rolls were rather poor, but still took Avatar's shield and movement off. Yet, the big scary sword was still intact...

One of the Helldivers charged the already damaged Revenger, knocking the shield and arc node off.

Darragh Wrathe did the best thing he managed to do during whole match. Stood up, cast Beyond Death and used light cavalry movement to get as much mileage out of his spell as possible.

Then it was opponents next turn.

Avatar single-handedly (heh, get it? It had lost its other arm system! ... Yeah, I'm crying here. Mostly at my lame puns) destroyed Nightmare.

Revenger and Crusader wrecked the one brave Helldiver who jumped and bit the toe of revenger. Luckily the other helldiver who was engaging avatar remained nearly unharmed.

Things didn't look all that good for me then. Sure I had severely damaged opposing warjacks, but I had lost my Nightmare in that process and there was still an undamaged Crusader stomping about.

I did manage to destroy the Avatar with a charge from Mechanithralls and if I remember right I destroyed what was left of Revenger with a damage boost from Hellmouth's damage roll (that was targeted at Crusader).

Oh, and a mention that has to be made: I used Seduction a second time during my games with Cryx. Warwitch Siren seduced the closest exemplar bastion who heard that a nearby temple flameguard had been cheating him with the Siren.

Another mention that has to be made isn't all that awesome, though. Once Darragh Wrathe got into the thick of action, he missed all his attacks, not getting either Death Ride nor Beyond Death off via Battle Wizard.

Well, come opponents turn.

Half of the mechanithralls were swept away, Darragh's horsie was devastated, and Crusader swatted Warwitch Siren into smithereens.

Kreoss himself killed one of the Soulhunters who had wandered too close.

Yet, neither player had scored any points from control zones. But I was running out of troops, really.

However, Helldiver got a suprise attack against Kreoss. It was also just under Deneghra's control range, so it was given three focus.

First attack hit with full boosts, and last attack without any boosts luckily hit too and left Kreoss with 3 hit points.

Defiler then took an aimed spray attack at a temple flameguard close to Kreoss. The spray hit and killed Kreoss. Phew.

Dice were with me on that final attempt to actually win the game. I would've had 4 focus on Deneghra for a fully boosted Venom, which was a good asset, but I could only "trust" to get off the first attack with Helldiver and the Venom, which made killing an arm 16 model with 18 damage boxes a game of... a game of dice.

Anyway, good games.

Except the first game. But it will keep me humble for some time now.

Pink and bald is not cool (talisman)

Today was a real treat to play 3 player Talisman.

Because there was a new player involved I thought it'd be nice not to pick every random variant rule into the game, so we left out the Death and alternative ending cards.

Characters were the Amazon, Monk and Minstrel.

Early in the game amazon managed to beat down a glory seeker, so she gained a warlock quest. It was to discard a magic object, and didn't take too many rounds to finish.

The monk gained questionable honor by getting his arse whipped by Craft 1 monsters multiple times during the whole game.

Minstrel found the Fate Stealer magical sword very early too, and plenty of other interesting items too. Too bad he decided to visit the Enchantress, and we all know how passionately she hates the color "pink". He was transformed into a frog. Somewhat hilarious in this process was that he actually gained a craft point while being a frog.

Amazon started gaining strenght at a frightening pace. Once she had completed the first warlock quest, she had already gained a Strenght -spell and killed enough monsters to get a decent strenght of 5. If my memory doesn't fail me, even the temple was merciful on the amazon and granted additional spell and, on a second visit, a talisman! Two finished warlock quests gave 4 additional lives and 4 spells.

During amazon's triumph the monk and the minstrel were either getting lost in the crags or getting the cloth stuck in marsh. Once the monk did gain a craft point from village's mystic, yet lost it the next round to a bad roll from "talismonger" (which is a bit ridiculous name for a stranger, to be honest).

While being a frog, the poor little guy had dug up the Orb of Knowledge, which monk picked up. Soon monk found riding horses too, and the game literally speedes up for him. Yet, amazon had built up even more muscle, and was nearing the Eagle King at highlands.

Amazon killed the eagle king easily with the spell "finger of death" and was teleported to middle region with basic strenght value of 8, which could mean victory if the dice were with her.

Monk tried to run through the highlands a couple of times, but was defeated by the eagle king the first time.

Minstrel went to dungeon as a last desperate attempt when amazon entered inner region, easily passing the Portal of Power.

Suprisingly enough, Minstrel got to enchant a giant rat (piper of Hameln?) in the dungeon and found out a couple of amazing items in very short order. He actually had strenght value of 12 in battle against the Lord of Darkness, but only if he could reach the treasure chamber in time and with all the equipment he had...

Well, green mist took his armor and fate stealer away. So he had only strenght 11 against Lord, which in all cases was desperate.

However, Amazon passed through the mines with dice roll equal to 8. She also won Death himself in the first game of dice, so other players didn't get any extra turns from those two. Also, amazon killed the werewolf with ease, and once getting to Crown of Command, the only roll she seemed to be able to roll was 4, 5 or 6 even without using fate tokens.

Let's face it, monk and minstrel were screwed.

They died together, though, as both were at 1 life at the same time.

Minstrel was missing just a step before entering the treasure chamber, and monk was just preparing to challenge the eagle king.

And the amazon player was the new player being introduced to the game against whom we, the "semi-veterans" didn't even stand a chance.

Never underestimate the beginner!

Small world too big for two players?

My sister came to visit me today, so what's the best thing you can do with vague things called "sisters"?

Board games, of course!

At first I was hesitant to try Smallworld with only two players, as I felt the game mechanics wouldn't fit too well for only two. I thought you would be able to calculate things too well, and some special powers and races could actually be too powerful and difficult to harm.

But then I thought the Tales & Legends expansion could be the answer, bringing a lot more chaos into the board. So we played actually two games with only two players, using the Tales & Legends card set with only "current event" showing up.

First game started with Diplomatic Dwarves and Mercenary Wizards duking it out.

Mercenary wizards, being second player, killed as many dwarves as possible on their first turn before dwarves' diplomacy started having effect.

Round 2 card: Decline & Fall. All races go into decline.

So, that's what dwarves and wizards did.

Round 3 card: Wheel of Misfortune.

Well, this card didn't actually have any effect at all, as earlier card had forced us to go in decline. Dwarves continued with Wealthy Amazons, who beat up as much in decline wizards as possible.

Wizards chose Seafaring Kobolds, which were pretty nasty for amazons. They erased whatever was left from the dwarves.

Round 4 card: Plague.

Plague took heavier toll on Kobolds, but both active races were spread thin this turn.

Round 5 card: Puffs of Smoke.

As it happened, both players thought it was best to go in decline with their current race. Kobolds still had one decline wizard token on board but it was on top of a mountain that could erupt because of the card drawn. Both races left a good number of decline tokens and kobolds had conquered one lake and one ocean square.

Round 6 card: Drakkars from afar.

Both races in decline at the start of turn, so this card had no effect at all.

Amazons turned into another aggressive race combo: Mounted barbarians. They took a heavy toll on kobolds, though obviously they couldn't invade to water spaces.

Kobolds chose Imperial Homunculi that had been skipped 3 times, meaning 11 race tokens. They started far away from barbarians, deep in amazon territyory, so they had plenty of time to make their imperium...

Round 7 card: Forbidden forest.

Not being able to conquer forests actually had a little effect, as it blocked the bloodthirsty homunculi from getting too many barbarians into their teeth.

First time seeing barbarians in action the barbarians weakness became apparent. If you don't have a keen eye when you ready your troops to war, you will forever defend that particular area with only one race token.

Round 8 card: Magic is in the air.

Barbarians had a huge empire by now so they went in decline. Homunculi, however, continued their imperial schemes and started scoring like crazy. Seventeen points in one round!

Round 9 card: Art of combos.

Special power for auction was Barricade (if you control 4 or less regions you get 3 extra points).

Well, for homunculi it was really no other interest, except for not giving it to the barbarian player, who had yet to choose a new race. Barbarians offered 2, homunculi 3.

New race for barbarians was destined to be Ransacking Gypsies, who conquered 3 regions from homunculi, causing them to go in decline.

Round 10 card: War is sexy.

Every region conquered would bring 1 more point. So it was kind of a cool ending card.

Homunculi player, as this was the last round, chose Fortified Whie Ladies as a new race. The combo had a whopping 5 race tokens, so it had gained quite a few victory coins when people had skipped over it.

Well then, the final scoreboard:

Mercenary Wizards/Seafaring Kobolds/Imperial Homunculi/Fortified White Ladies: 71
Diplomatic Dwarves/Wealthy Amazons/Mounted Barbarians/Ransacking Gypsies: 68

So... A three point difference. Could almost say that neither player dominated the other. Could it actually be that Smallworld was playable with only two players, despite my prejudice?

Well, another game to find it out!

Game 2:

This time it was Pillaging Giants versus Hordes of Ratmen.

Pretty strong combos, both of them and both had a good start.

Round 2 card: Tremor.

So, all conquests were one race token steeper in price. Harsh for both, but more to the giants, because there were such a huge number of rats around. Giants conquered one region, rats two. So not exactly awesome progress there...

Round 3 card: Philter of Forgetfulness.

This rounds card caused giants to lose the optimum time to go in decline, as the effect was bad. In decline races wouldn't give any victory points. So both races were forced to strain their empires a round longer.

Round 4 card: Great Ride.

Great Ride didn't actually have any effect, as both giants and ratmen had next to no army to ride with... both races went in decline.

Round 5 card: Flooded.

Giants got a horrible race combo in regards to the massive, decline ratmen empire. Mounted Goblins. So, they stroke straight into heart of ratmens most populated area, conquering 4 regions with only one race tokens per region. All in all, seven ratmen and one lost tribe tokens were removed from board by the goblins.

Ratmen didn't do any worse, as they were exchanged for Bivouacking Kobolds, who in turn punished the goblins for their wicked deeds.

Round 6 card: Tough love.

Tough love was auctioned to kobolds for 3 victory coins. However, all it gained for them were the maximum number of regions they could conquer any more.

Mounted goblins were busy with the declined ratmen.

Round 7 card: Famine.

Famine caused all the races to go in decline, as it affected only active races, though rather harshly.

Round 8 card: Going down!

Underground trolls started popping up all over, continuing the story of mounted goblins. Mostly they just tried to dispatch as many kobolds as possible.

Then there was a nice row of 3 unconquered regions for Merchant Elves and they managed to conquer one more with remaining 2 race tokens and reinforcement die.

The current card saw some effect, one kobold token managed to conquer one goblin region.

Round 9 card: A gift from the sky.

Card really didn't affect game much when it came this late. Both could keep their extra point area for the rest of the game.

However, at this point the elves started to be a real annoying pests, setting up their market stalls everywhere. They had 6 regions under them, which meant 12 victory points.

Round 10 card: Small time coup.

And last rounds card had absolutely NO effect, as neither player really wanted to auction off for the first player's position in the last round...

Trolls trolled and elves were pansies. Round 10 was almost similar to round 9. It was time to count the points.

Scoreboard:

Hordes of Ratmen/Bivouacking Kobolds/Merchant Elves: 98
Pillaging Giants/Mounted Goblins/Underworld Trolls: 90

So... all in all, these two 2-player games were quite entertaining after all. Random card draw with only current event shown worked pretty fine, bringing some uncertainty and chaos to the game. And at least in both of these games the point difference wasn't too big.

"No no, put the extra saltpeter AFTER you shoot!" (Touch of Evil)

Just finished up playing two games of Touch of Evil. Both were cooperatively played with two characters.

First game was against the Volgovian Nutcracker and characters were Lucy Hanbrook and Isabella von Took.

Usually Isabella becomes the "tank" character because of her rather too powerful special ability, but this time things didn't work out for her. She spent most of the game lying on the Town Hall.

Lucy, on the other hand, very quickly started body building and rose in just few first rounds from starting 2 wounds to 5 wounds.

Funny thing, too, was that when the mystery card "Traitor's Blood" was drawn, Lucy had to kill a town elder. She killed her mother, Lady Hanbrook. Her worst secret was that she was a war criminal, so in a way, innocent person was killed... or so the heroes thought.

Also, Lord Hanbrook was suffering from paranoid delusions and under them decided to give a good beating to his own daughter... Isabella was spared, though, for reasons we can only begin to guess...

Few turns later Sign of the Dark Omen was rolled and Lady Hanbrook became alive again, filled with secrets. Later, when Lies and Deceit were spreading, it turned out that Lady Hanbrook was actually in league with the Volgovian Nutcracker, being a servant to darkness. So, in Lucy's defense, she was right all along, her mother deserved to die. There was nothing traitorous in the attempt to murder her.

However, stuffed bears and toy soldiers were jumping up and down on Isabella almost through the whole game and during the cheerful christmas carnevals that should've been looked into, Lucy Hanbrook was trying to figure out her personal family business.

Heroes didn't really have much development and eventually they were just knocked down both at the same time, ending the game in Nutcracker's victory.

Game 2:

Now we were playing against Delion Dryad with Karl, the soldier and Victor Danforth, the playwright.

The game had a grand opening.

Victor started the game and went joyfully into the church to train his spirit and maybe to practice his new play or something, and that really pissed off Karl.

No, Karl didn't mean to punch that hard, or if he did he surely didn't think such a big fella as Victor would go down that easily. Anyway, both were possessed by madness in the first mystery phase and Karl knocked down Victor from full health to zero health.

Karl seemed to be again a really effective character. His biggest problems were to train his spirit & cunning statistics to eight, combined. Only lucky attack rolls from minions (meaning mostly two sixes from living trees) made him any harm, as he is able to ignore first hit taken each fight round.

That made Karl absurdly rich in very short time. Also, it was quite hilarious, when the random location for a spawning living tree was quite often the exact place where Karl was then... Evil living trees following him all around, only to get transformed into campfire.

Lady Hanbrook was evil again. Nothing new there...

Karl also tried to make amends by buying Victor a runic amulet and a torch from town shop.

Reverend Harding went insane at some point because of Order's influence, making it dangerous to stay in city squares. However, for some reason the Order of the Crimson Hand were attacking mostly Victor? Could be either because of the fact that once Crimson Hand got the courage to try fighting Karl, they were severely beaten.

Yet Victor had to run away from almost every town space. I guess his last play was indeed somewhat offending as it made Karl to beat him and religios fanatics to chase him... ah, well, you just have to suffer for your art and not give up because of the ignorant fools!

Villains lair was found out to be the Bog.

It wasn't exactly a problem, but because of a couple March of Darkness -cards and effects, road to there was filled with minions. At worst there was at least 2 wolves and 3 living trees in the route to get there. Karl cleaned up his musket and started chopping...

Victor, on the other hand, was thinking creatively and thought to go different path to get the showdown started. Both were actually quite powerful characters by then and shadow track was falling fast.

Victor's plan was to go to Windmill and from there to Manor, use the secret passage to get into the Monastery and from there sneak past all the evil minions to get to the villains lair.

Just when he got to the windmill, a living tree spawned in front of him... I guess the Dryad was warned. Especially when turn after that another living tree was spawned right into the monastery.

So, Victor decided to go to help Karl. After Karl had done all the hard job Victor rushed in and yelled "Shoo! Shoo!" at some pesky wolves, who ran off. Brave sir Victor.

Karl started the showdown. Delion Dryad had 17 wounds at that point and was fighting with 10 fight dice against heroes.

With 20 dice Karl made 16 wounds in. Silver bullets are really worth it, have to admit that. Also, Victor's events gave 8 additional dice and Karl himself played Teamwork -card, so all in all Victor wasn't totally useless character there. He also discarded his blunderbuss, that made a couple of more hits to the villain. Yet, when we thought of it, it's pretty weird that you put the extra saltpeter into the blunderbuss after you know how well you have scored hits...

Villain did 2 wounds to Karl, who had at least 3 remaining still.

Victor, being a poetic hero, did the last remaining wound to the villain and the small town of Shadowbrook was saved! All because of Victor's daring sacrifice, as the villain killed Victor with her attack rolls.

Anyway, dryad was beaten and serene peace crept into the hearts of the deranged citizens... uh, what??

Dead twice, crippled twice (talisman)

Played two games of Talisman yesterday with a friend who was visiting me. They were two player games both, yet they were rather entertaining. Both had their up & downs, climax moments and filmatic situations.

Anyway, first game we played was a random ending game (which was found out to be Eagle King ending) and two contestants for the Crown of Command were Philosopher and Dread Knight.

Dreadknight started rocking on the first round already, as he found the Book of Diablerie, which raised his Craft by 2. With the warhorse he is given at the beginning he was beating up normal monsters with strenght 7.

Well, that joy didn't last for long. On turn 3 the dreadknight lost his warhorse to a colossal ogre who he just happened to run into.

The land of Talisman was ravaged, though, as first a pestilence swept through the land, followed by an earthquake and finally Ragnarok dawned.

After that the humiliation was complete when Philosopher came and whopped Dread Knights sinister arse, stealing the Book of Diablerie.

Philosopher started collecting a huge mob of followers, while Dread Knight tried to get to the graveyard to dig up another warhorse.

After a few more unlucky turns the horrible, scheming Dread Knight bit the dust at mountain pass, where an ice elemental with Craft 7 dealth with him.

During this time Philosopher had had a few strenght rises, which Dreadknight removed with Rod of Ruin. I guess he paid for that or something...

Well, the new character that came was the evil Wizard. Good character, no sweat. Yet, stables were found and at this time Philosopher was riding a warhorse. I think Wizard got one warhorse too at some point.

About that time the true nature of Philosopher was found out. Both prince and princess were already following him. However, book of diablerie whispered to him, and the prince was sacrificed so philosopher could gain a spell.

A few turns later it just couldn't be a coincidence, that Mephistopheles showed up and turned Philosopher to evil alignment.

Wizard did have a good run, but eventually he was killed too.

I can't remember a game of Talisman where one and the same player had died twice during the match. It was quite worrying fact, too, as Philosopher had had plenty of character development.

New contestant that entered the fray was the Prophetess. By the way, you want to make bets which of the players made this questionable record of getting killed twice? Yeah, me.

Philosopher had lost his warhorse to some random really unlucky psychic combat.

Yet he had a talisman already and was looking into the inner region. As he had the Gnome follower in his arsenal, he started taking journeys into the inner region.

However, his full strenght was 11 when he reached the crown of command. And then he was facing Eagle King. Philosopher couldn't kill him and it bought Prophetess a little more time.

All in all, Prophetess had, by playing ultimate risking game, trained her strenght in combat to 12. Not a bad accomplishment considering she had been playing only about the 1/3 of what the Philospher had...

But, then, alas. Getting his strenght to 14, philosopher went to challenge Eagle King again and this time beat it easily.

I must say I'm quite bewildered that Philospher actually won another game! And now, since starting this blog, he has won 100% of the games he has played in. Do I need to re-evaluate my opinion on him?


Talisman game 2:

Second game we played was the Sacred Pool revealed variant, where the goal was to get to use 4 warlock quest rewards and then rush to the crown of command.

Characters drawn were the Druid and Priest.

I have always disliked the priest, but actually getting spells from spirits he kills outright is pretty nice ability after all, though you cannot keep those enemies as trophies any longer.

However, the priest had the weirdest karma in this game. Rather early in the game he turns evil when Mephistopheles comes up again (at least the card piles were supposed to be shuffled good... I blame the karma!) and has a little chat with the priest.

Then first warlock quest he completes he gets a reward to draw as many adventure cards until a follower is revealed and then he gets the follower. This follower just happened to be the False Prophet, a follower that you must take and has a negative effect on your character.

Next turn, priest wanders into chasm, where by rolling the right numbers, followers could die. He had been turned evil only a little while ago, and this was the first true evil act he made. Out of all of priests followers, only the false prophet died in the chasm. But to be honest, that was pretty lame "reward".

Luckily he finds "homunculus" follower quite soon after that, which he couldn't have taken had he been still of Good alignment.

All this time the Druid had been tossing spells left and right, always filling up on those at Woods. Now, because of nothing better to do, druid cast the spell "Random" on priest. Dice roll comes out as 1. Use of fate, re-rolling that. Again, 1. Priest was turned into a toad.

Evil toad of Mephistopheles.

Warlock quest rewards started piling up and priest's stunt as a toad wasn't all that painful, as he got all his stuff back.

Druid did a funny little trick later, though, when he was tossing spells around again. He switched priests alignment to "good" for two rounds, which meant that the homunculus was left behind.

Priest was in the highlands at that time, so it was a long way off too, when soon enough priest managed to complete yet another quest.

Well, our evil little priest got a new quest to pray at the temple. Sounded easy.

Yet, the dice wasn't too friendly then and priest was trekking back and forth close to the temple, when he finally stumbled into the Witch. Obviously she turned priest into toad again... except, no. Priest still had one fate counter left and re-rolled the die. Didn't turn into a toad.

Druid, on the other hand, casts another Random on the priest. Fate no more. Die roll: 1. Toad again.

I don't really remember that any player, since the new edition of the game and the add of fate mechanics, had been turned into a toad twice in the same match.

I guess you can bet now which character I was playing... Yeah, the priest. In a way it's nice, as I made some kind of history or a record at these things! First the deaths and now the toads.

Now, as toad doesn't get to roll a die for move and moves only 1 space per round, there was some balm to my wounds from getting frogged again. Priest was standing next to Temple, so, the brave toad moves to pray at the temple. Mission accomplished. Teleport to warlocks cave. Reward. Well, the reward is to pick up a free item from purchase deck. Oh right, I'm a toad, can't pick anything up... second reward that was useless.

As if karma hadn't beaten the priest enough, next round it moves to runes space next to warlocks cave and draws a Catherdal there, which acts as a chapel.

And, being the unholy, baby-sacrificing, terror-causing little frog, holy powers of the cathedral burn the frog...

"This frog is an unholy creature and needs to be driven off from our sacred cathedral!"

Ah well, in defense of priest, despite froggin' around, he managed to discard four quest rewards first and even get the talisman first.

However, the flimsy and "everyone's buddy" druid took all the priests stuff that he had left behind the second time he was transformed into a toad.

Priest had pretty good strenght and craft, but not good enough to go through the inner region. However, the druid had. Once he got himself a talisman and four discarded quest rewards he ran into the crown of command and won the game.

So, a victory for the druid!

Sweet & Sour Fat

I rarely get to play against Trollbloods, actually this was just the third time during whole Mark II when I got to face them.

Lately, though, a friend picked up trollblood and we got in a game today.

We played a 35 point game and were going to play a randomised scenario.

I was playing Skorne, and my list was:

Dominar Rasheth
- Rhinodon
- Bronzeback Titan
- Cyclops Shaman

Minimum unit of Cataphract Cetrati
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordmen + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Beast Handlers

And I might comment on the list that I guess I found out the hard way that Rasheth really likes to have a random solo in his list too, because two blocks of infantry (coupled with difficult terrain) didn't give me optimal chances to land the number 1 fear factor of Rasheth's... Blood Mark.

Well, opponent played this:

Borka
- 2x Axers
- Slag Troll

Maximum unit of Trollkin Champions + Skaldi Bonehammer
Maximum unit of Krielstone Bearers + Elder
Swamp Gobbers
Trollkin Champion Hero

Scenario was randomised to be Capture the Flag, and "flags" in the pictures are Gudrun the Wanderer and Totem Hunter.

Opponent won the starting roll and first picture is from the end of my second turn.

There's not really much else to tell except that Cetrati are in shield wall and have Carnivore on them.

Next turn opponent creates a cloud with gobbers to block line of sight to champions.

I didn't exactly want to put my stuff to get their weapon master charge next, so I backed off a bit. I put Rhinodon up front and Bronzeback a little more back to try to make some nasty counter charge shenanigans, but alas (to be continued).

Anyway, Cyclops Shaman tries to stare one of the smoking gobbers down with Evil Eye but fails, despite getting aiming bonus. Praetorian sacrifice one of themselves to arc Breath of Corruption on Trollkin Champions, almost killing Skaldi. He was left with two hit points.

Then all kinds of crap happened.

Swamp gobbers moved away and created another cloud to hide both Axers behind. Then Borka stepped up and used his feat and cast Slag Troll's animus on trollkin hero.

Trollkin hero charged Rhinodon and also tied up Bronzeback Titan in the process, denying my counter charge. Then champions activate and charge around. Skaldi comes to beat up Rhinodon too while the main unit charges praetorians on the hill.

Skaldi messes up some damage rolls and Rhinodon is left with one hit point in mind branch. However, then Slag Troll activates and shoots Rhinodon up.

I placed it still too forward. Oh well, live and learn.

My retaliation was less than awesome.

Enraged Bronzeback sure finished off both Skaldi and trollkin hero and cetrati beat the snot out of, uh... one gobber? How cool is that?

Shaman crafted a talisman for Rasheth, who shot a Breath of Corruption on trollkin champions, killing one. Then praetorians used their minifeat and started poking the champions, killing one who had earlier been damaged by the first breath of corruption.

And that was really all I could do.

On opponents turn the worst thing that could happen, happened.

I lost my Bronzeback.

I lost my big, sweet, hyper aggressive, trunkless elephant. I should have painted it pink so Borka would've been demoralized and not able to field the keg carrier.

It got a charge from Axer, Slag Troll and one of the trollkin champions.

The other axer threshered cetrati, but their shield wall saved them.

On my turn I decided to finally use my feat. Yet, my Cetrati did next to nothing to one of the axers. Praetorians didn't manage to even hit the trollkin champions and enraged cyclops shaman did like 5 damages to Slag Troll.

Well, at least a breath of corruption arced from one beast handler nearly wiped Krielstone bearers, but, well, nearly is only a pat on the shoulder.

Both troll axers frenzy, which was quite a relief for me. Almost. As Borka then becomes brave (or drunk) enough to get into the fight himself, killing one cetrati off and casting Slag Troll's animus on the troll itself.

Slag troll then calmly walks into melee range of Rasheth, provoking a free strike from Shaman and two beast handlers. The cyclop does nothing as its body system is in pieces, but the two beast handlers save me the game! Both hit with their free strikes and put a fury point on the beast, limiting extra attacks it can buy.

After a serious, corrosive beating Rasheth is still standing, though with only two hit points!

And opposing warlock is next to three of my elite infantry that have enhanced melee accuracy and weapon master on their melee attacks! Victory, here we come!

Oh...

Right.

We're talking about undamaged, def 14, arm 21, tough warlock that has 2 fury left for transfers. Cetrati got 5 points of damage done to Borka, which were transfered away.

Rasheth shoots a Sunder Spirit at the engaging Slag Troll.

Opponent's turn.

End of story.

Oh, and hero of the match: Slag Troll (finished up Rhinodon, major factor in killing Bronzeback and finally melting Dominar Rasheth, surviving plenty of free strikes in the process)

(Oh, and the pun in the topic is about corrosion based damage finishing off Rasheth, melting him into some sort of bitter, greenish goo... I'm honing my lame pun skills!)

The smell of burning fat

Yesterday I played two warmachine games with Skorne. Both of them were against Protectorate of Menoth, but first was 25 points and one was 15 points. 25 pointer coming up first with my list being:

Dominar Rasheth
- Rhinodon
- Bronzeback Titan

Minimum unit of Cataphract Cetrati
Minimum unit of Beast Handlers
Bloodrunner Master Tormentor
Feralgeist

And opponent having:

High Exemplar Kreoss
- Revenger
- Repenter
- Dervish
- Crusader

Minimum unit of Exemplar Errants
Vassal of Menoth
Paladin
Wracks

Opponent won the starting roll, and first picture is from the end of my second turn.

Farthest from the camera is my bloodrunner, who tried to charge the exemplar errant, landing short of them. I used her as an arc node, though, shooting up a breath of corruption, killing two of errants.

It wasn't actually a good trade-off, but I had planned that I could kill someone and then sprint off to get a good spell off. Obviously errants could have stopped all that with their self-sacrifice... again.

Then, opponent somewhat closed in. Paladin, Vassal and Revenger packed up a little too close, but otherwise it looked like I should walk into charge range, while Kreoss hadn't used his feat...

Revenger came too close, though, and was withing charge range of Rhinodon, who put up Amuck, charged and did Thresher attack. It killed both Paladin and Vassal, but didn't really do much to Revenger.

One beast handler sacrificed himself as an arc node again, breath of corruption killing two more errants.

I had realised that I could not play with the "clarified" Blood Mark as Kreoss could just cast Purification to get it away.

Opponent then allocated full 3 focus to both Revenger and Crusader.

Though he wasn't aware that Bronzeback's counter charge was optional, things worked out differently. Rhinodon had already been pushed once because of his own attack against Revenger, and during opponents turn Revenger pushed it again. Bringing it into Crusader's line of sight.

Opponent rolled dice horribly poorly, though and Rhinodon was left alive with 1 point in spirit branch remaining.

On my turn Bronzeback bum-rushed Crusader to death. Damn that beast is a wrecking machine once it gets into melee.

Beast handlers were too far away to heal Rhinodon, and all fury Rasheth had went into casting Castigate (as arc node was still intact) and killing off two remaining exemplar errants with spells.

On opponents next turn Kreoss used his feat, bringing down whole Skorne army,except the big guy the baby titans were holding on a plate...

Revenger poked Rhinodon to death and beat Bronzeback with remaining attacks, doing little. Dervish came in too, and again damage rolls were quite poor, so Bronzeback was left quite intact.

On my turn the titan stood up and started beating up stuff, this time wrecking Revenger and making Dervish lose an arm, meaning no more combo strike. Bronzeback had had its body branch destroyed, so beast handlers had to heal it instead of enraging it.

That were the most important happenings on my turn, but in the picture you can see the Repenter, who on opponents turn literally put some "heat" into the game, setting Rasheth on fire on that metallic plate of his...

Initial damage gave 5 points in, and the fire didn't go off on my next turn. It gave 4 more points in, and, I don't know... Rasheth seems quite cool fellow, as being on fire didn't anger him enough to bring him up to 8 fury, he had to cut himself to get more...

Anyway, when Bronzeback beat up Dervish too, things were pretty clear.

Kreoss tried to attack Bronzeback himself once it had run towards Kreoss on the turn after it wrecked dervish.

Cetrati were tieing up Repenter, so they were of no use there.

However, Bronzeback didn't die, I'm not sure if my memory serves now right, but I think it was left alive with one health box or something. On this game plenty of models were left alive with one box remaining.

Rasheth cast Carnivore on Bronzeback and used his feat.

Bronzeback advanced into melee with Kreoss. End of story.


Game 2:

Then, we played another, smaller game of 15 points. I had had a weird idea for a 15 point list for Hexeris, and I wanted to try it out.

Hexeris
- Basilisk Drake
- Basilisk Krea

Minimum unit of Cetrati
Minimum unit of Beast Handlers
Thrullg

The idea in this list being a "brick" of sorts. Not sure if I should exchange beast handlers and Thrullg for a Cyclops Shaman, but then again, only thing in that list that could punch through heavy armor was flanking, enraged Basilisk Krea... Ah well, need to test more, and against different opponents.

Opponents list was the same as earlier, minus Revenger and Dervish.

Opponent won starting roll again, and we switched sides.

Thrullg is already dead in the first picture.

I realised about there, taking that picture, that though my brick looked rather nice, against Kreoss it was a joke, really. Use of his feat nullifies every possible advantage my formation could have had.

That's why I decided to break out my shield wall and charge off, when the opportunity presented itself.

Possibly it wasn't the best course of action, as the results weren't all that great.

Combined efforts of my whole army took only 5 exemplar errants with it. I cast Obliteration on them, used the spray attack of Drake and charged them with Cetrati.

Then opponent got to kill only one of the Cetrati wholly, damaging other two in the process. The one with the red bead is suffering from fire and is left with only one hit point.

Vengeance, that had been cast on Cetrati, triggered then, and vengeance move killed off paladin and the other cetrati tried to kill Vassal, without success.

Basilisk Drake sprayed, getting a hit on Kreoss, dealing respectable damage.

I'm not sure if I managed to shoot a Soulfire to Kreoss at that point too through basilisk Drake. All in all, Kreoss took a lot of damage that turn. He had been upkeeping Lamentation, though, and still had his feat unused...

As a last ditch effort I ran beast handlers to block up the warjacks, as losing either of my basilisks would seriously hamper my ability to deal with arm 21 Crusader... (with Defenders Ward).

Well, of course I lost all of my beast handlers and my basilisk and the cetrati that was close to enemy. Ancillary attack with sprays on knocked down warrior models... Yeah, I need to get used to burnt skorne flesh.

My situation was looking so grim that I decided to try desperate things. Hexeris moved forward and launched a soulfire on Kreoss, even under Lamentation. I no longer remember how and where did the damage come from, but at that point Kreoss was at 4 hit points.

Crusader then beat up the Basilisk Krea and Repenter came at Hexeris himself, not getting the caster kill.

Combined efforts of my only remaining model, the Cetrati, and Hexeris himself got the repenter wrecked. Repenter becoming difficult terrain made it impossible for Crusader to come and beat his skeletal face in, and so game continued for another round. Crusader did, however, kill the Cetrati.

However, at that point Kreoss healed for 4 hit points, bringing him to 8.

Hexeris wasn't in good shape either, as all the beasts had died and even the repenter had done some damage. Lamentation was on and all...

So, he moved on to the barrels and shot Kreoss with a boosted Soulfire, getting in a hit. Damage roll was obviously boosted too. Rolling 11 would have finished Kreoss.

I rolled 10. Kreoss was left alive with one hit point.

And then it was opponents turn.

Because Hexeris had climbed on top of obstacles, charging in with Crusader could have been problematic.

We witnessed a filmatic scene, then, illustrated by this picture:

Fireballs on a journey above the lake to Hexeris. Despite having a defense bonus from obstacle, Kreoss scored a hit. And damage roll was boosted, so the whole thing blew up, we guessed that the barrels contained oil after all...

Anyway, two good games that could have gone either way.

In the first game Bronzeback really shined, wrecking a whopping 1 heavy warjack, 2 light warjacks and finally the warcaster. Sure, its surviving was a stretch, but it won the day.

Second game was an uphill struggle, though I did mess up somewhat with Cetrati I guess. Me getting a few good random potshots at Kreoss gave me some hope, and eventually I had my chance to win the game, but alas. Hexeris continues his history of close games in his defeat.