For Whom the Bell Tolls (A Touch of Evil)

During my trip to Kuhmo, we got to play A Touch of Evil twice with three players.

Here is a short summary of both games.

This was also the first time ever I got to play with The Coast -expansion.

However, first game was against the oldest foe in the book: The Vampire.

And, the game took six hours. Six. Hours. That blood-sucking bastard truly was the master of deception and avoiding combat.

Heroes that investigated mysteries involving residents of Shadowbrook were The Scarlet Shadow, Sara the Bright Witch and Thomas the Courier.

Game started a little on the wrong foot with Scarlet Shadow, since he got to play like 2 rounds, and then spent like 4-5 next turns knocked down. Drowned Dead sure are a nasty bunch for an unequipped hero!

Thomas didn't fare much better, though he got to play actual hero turns. The only hero who actually found anything useful from Location decks and killed minions was Sara, the Bright Witch.

Shadow Track moved excessively slowly, and during multiple times it could be moved back up a little.

However, the Vampire had an army of Evil Elders at his disposal. They were pretty much the reason why Heroes didn't want to start a Showdown.

But behold! Heroes are almost Screwed by a Suprise Showdown from cooperative chart, when Vampire attacks with about 16 dice (or more), scoring hits on 4+, thanks to Laying in Wait mystery card. Sara, the Bright Witch manages to pull herself through the fight, however... with one Wound remaining. What was achieved during that sorry encounter was, though, that most of Evil Elders that didn't have Darkest Secret (which were, by the way... Lord and Lady Hanbrook! Sounds like vampire aristocracy to me...) were killed.

Soon (about 45 minutes...) after this, the final confrontation happened at Monastery. Vampire did have impressive amount of Wounds, and still respectable amount of Fight Dice, but still, Sara the Bright Witch and Scarlet Shadow single-handedly dispatched the ancient beast.

A keg of gunpowder did help there, though. Also, Scarlet Shadow had the event card that made every roll of 1 count as two hits against vampires. He also had the gunpowder keg.

Boom, bye bye, Vampire!

Though to be honest, the Vampire got killed during last Showdown Fight Round where it was possible, barring good rolls. All wound prevention effects had been used, as well as all additional fight dice, except for "If I just could reach..." card for the gunpowder keg. Thomas, who had the card, was about to die, though, if Vampire would've only given him a stern glare.

Victory for the heroes!

Game 2:

Still, no fighting against villains from the Coast -expansion. Heroes were against the Reaper, which came with Hero Pack 2.

Heroes drawn were Harlow Morgan the Inventor, Doctor Edwards and Jack Sp... I mean Fellows.

And if those three learned anything, it was the fact that do not challenge death itself! Game was absolutely brutal.

How so?

Well, two Grim Spectres spawned. Next mystery phase three mystery cards were drawn. Cards were The Horror, The Hour is Late and Ominous Overture. So, for every Grim Spectre a die was rolled to see if additional mystery cards were drawn. Every Mystery Phase Shadow Track dropped by one. If 1 was rolled for movement, a mystery card was drawn instead of Event. Cooperative Mystery Phase Chart was rolled twice every round.

Bravely the Heroes managed to get rid of all of those cards, but it cost them 12 investigation, as well as one Daybreak -card.

After that courageous but futile fight the Shadow Track started an amazing speed-run towards 0. Jack Fellows was pretty much the only Hero that got anything useful done, and who could actually fight the Grim Spectres.

Marked for Death killed three town elders, and the rest were fleeing in flocks.

Once the Shadow Track was in the red zone, Heroes had to start looking for Reaper's lair. It was in Town Square, Coast.

Villain was rolling only 6 dice for its attacks, but thanks to Reapers rule of always scoring two hits for each succesful roll, it was a tough fight.

After first round of Showdown had passed (and all heroes miraculously survived!), Harlow Morgan was rolling a whopping 1 die for combat, and Doctor Edwards two or three. So everything pretty much rested on Jack's shoulders. And he really did well, dropping Reaper down to 9 wounds.

Also, game did not end because all heroes died. Game ended, when Reaper killed Reverend Harding, which made Shadow Track drop too much.

By this time Harlow Morgan and Doctor Edwards had already died.

Jack Fellows survives, maybe to avenge other fallen heroes!

Pillars of the Earth first time for a couple of years

... and how curious it is, how much you forget about game rules in such a time!

We had four players, and it was a blast.

Game went on with one of the players being in small to medium lead for the first four rounds (he really liked the monastery), and then a race during fifth and sixth rounds when one of the players scored a whopping 12 or more points!

Anyway, it was the very same game it has always been, with mathematic calculations becoming more and more important during later rounds, with last round being almost nothing but mathematics.

This made me think that the game could really use a little more randomness, and I began to wonder how fitting an expansion would be for Pillars of the Earth. One of the players said that he had actually seen one around, and I had to go and google it up.

Damn, I know what this household is getting as a present for next Christmas!

Final scoreboard, by the way, for this particular game was 46 for the winner, 42 for two other players and 35 for the underdog. So, quite close and rather exciting session.

"I'm, like, completely ignoring you."

A couple of days ago I played a bit Warmachine.

It was a 35 point game with Steamroller 2012 scenario The Gauntlet.

I played following list with my Cryx:

Warwitch Deneghra
- Slayer
- Ripjaw
- Defiler

Cephalyx Overlords
2x Warwitch Sirens
Iron Lich Overseer
- Reaper
Necrotech
Pistol Wraith
Ragman

And opponent had:

Epic Caine
- Ol' Rowdy

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages + Officer
- Defender
Minimum unit of Greygore Boomhowler & Co.
Squire
Epic Eiryss
Madelyn Corbeau
Reinholdt

Opponent won starting roll, but decided to let me go first and pick side instead. Not a bad choice, when he'd get to score scenario points first. Also, his guns outranged mine. Which wasn't exactly a suprise, as I was playing Cryx.

First picture is taken from the end of Cygnar's first turn, and follow-up picture from the end of my second.

I decided to use Deneghra's feat there and then, because there was a real possibility of me not having enough of an army to make The Withering count on later turns. Only models that weren't under feat were jack marshaled Defender and Ol' Rowdy.

Damage I did was not very impressive. Two models dead from opposing side. However, Crippling Grasp was on Gun Mages, which meant that later I might actually hit against their otherwise godlike Defense.

Opponent didn't manage to do much, which usually happens during The Withering.

However, Defender missing corporeal Pistol Wraith with triple 1's and Ol' Rowdy failing to knock down Warwitch Siren with Tremor were some sort of an insult to injury, since both were unaffected by Deneghra's feat.

Eiryss, however, didn't mind much about the feat and disrupted Slayer.

On my next turn Pistol Wraith shot Gun Mage officer down and second shot tickled either a Boomhowler's company, or another model in Gun Mage unit, don't remember any more.

Eiryss messed up a Venoming of Caine as Ripjaw moved within 5" of her. Luckily Defiler could make up for the moronic move of Ripjaw, and the venom that could have melted Caine's heart made sludge out of Eiryss only.

Then, maybe next time when I face Ol' Rowdy I remember he has Counter Charge. Hapless Iron Lich Overseer moved on top of the little hill and wanted to claim one soul from the mercenary trollkin for Reaper to use later.

Well, turned out I didn't need to bring Ol' Rowdy to my lines with Reaper, it came just by itself, and made Overseer a sorry heap of scrap metal and necrotite fumes.

Though all was not lost! Ragman positioned himself so that both Slayer and Reaper would gain benefits of Death Field. However, Slayer attacked with Combo-Strike and rolled 4 or 5 for damage. With two dice. Yay.

Then Reaper came in with one focus loaded by a Warwitch Siren, and made two amazing damage rolls with two Helldriver attacks, leaving only Movement and Cortex intact on Rowdy. Could be that Movement was down too, but I'm not certain.

Well, I was afraid that this would be the turn when Caine used his feat upon Deneghra. She was sitting on two focus, so she was Defense 16 Armor 16 with 16 damage boxes left. Wow. I didn't realise that until now when I was writing this.

However, that was not to be. Caine did use his feat, but he opted to decimate pretty much everything but the Cryxian heavy warjacks and models with Stealth.

But he was without Focus now, and he just could not get rid of Arc Node of the Defiler.

With unsporty measurement of Control Area I found out that Caine was just within 12" of Deneghra, which is the range how far she can charge.

Problem was the one trollkin standing in between. She would have to charge exactly straight to Caine, he'd be left out of reach if she tried to shuffle even a little bit.

Looking at the pictures I can see that I had the keys to victory there, but order of operations was, again, messed up.

My two warwitches tried to poke Boomhowler to death, one with melee weapon (didn't hit) and one with Venom (hit but did no damage).

Then Slayer destroyed what was left of Ol' Rowdy, and Reaper tried to move into melee with the thrice damned trollkin.

If I was actually a good player, I would have first destroyed Rowdy with Slayer, moved Reaper up and dragged the trollkin out of way with Reaper.

Anyway, then Deneghra cast Scourge on Caine from about 1.75" away, which was autohit. Having failed to remove the trollkin from charge lane, Deneghra cast Venom on Caine instead, and did good damage in, something like 10 or the like.

Then Deneghra moves bravely as far away as was possible. I left her tip-toeing the Gauntlet zone, though as a hindsight, I should have gone to hug the Killbox instead and give opponent one damn control point.

Then comes opponents turn. Caine shakes himself up, moves forward and casts Gatecrasher, and just manages to get to Deneghra's back arc.

I find last picture to be somewhat hilarious. Both warcasters look like they're doing everything in their power to not notice the other.

When New Player Comes

Am I really going to have some super-lame pun as topic whenever I play When Darkness Comes? Looks like it.

A few days ago there was a new experience on that game: a third player.

We two oldbies continued with our earlier characters Ninton Kanton and Rick Harrigan. This duo was bolstered with Amé Stinger and her dubious past as an anarchistic gang member.

We played the Out of the Frying Pan scenario, with few additions.

First, the D12 dice was a turn marker, and every time it was turned back to 12, every player took a failure token. If this happened four times, everyone lost.

Second, outside encounters were placed on ! -marks. Forests and starting tile were unaffected by this. Though forest thingy was house-ruled during game. After all, it would be rather weird to find a bad case of traffic that slows you down from a forest...

Of course, the "story" behind scenario tells us that there is this martial law going on within the village. I guess I didn't take that into account when deciding to use outside encounters in this game. After all, there were plenty of Civilians and Tough Guys around wandering the streets.

Also, all the police characters were found inside houses, which raised some questions about the state of this martial law. Had civilians actually claimed the streets and forced police inside?

During first rounds of the game, a peek through window by Amé and a good perception roll by Rick Harrigan told us that the whole frikkin' City Hall was full of zombies. Who had actually forced martial law on the village? Who was behind the schemes here?

Ah well.

Game went by without encountering almost no adversaries except Tough Guys on the streets. A lot of items and allies were found though, most of them from forest and/or streets.

So characters were quite well-equipped. But lack of true adversaries and a few unlucky Oh Crap -rolls (a mention here goes to Rick Harrigan, who spent two turns in a row just looking at the ceilings in one house because of Oh Crap -table rolls) meant that they didn't have too much Victory Points. Especially when no amount of additional dice and re-rolls actually gave results at times.

D12 had almost turned twice, when people started rushing around in attempt to find actual adversaries. And, eventually, they sure did.

The elder heroes Ninton Kanton and Rick Harrigan thought they could tackle anything alone, and ran alone to different tiles in the city (Ninton went to the City Hall, Rick to random places in Arkham campus area. That had a gun shop as a store-next-door. Go figure.)

Both of these pompous characters faced a D4K monsters. Which means you have to roll 4 same numbers with your dice roll to defeat the beast.

Ninton survived one round of combat, but was left with only one Defense/Health.

Then Rick faces his own adversary, and despite his handgun, he dies. Ninton dies too, since everyone takes one damage point when another character bites the dust, and he had only one health left.

So Amé is the only character left on board, with just one health remaining, and both damage tokens being unhealable.

Amé had impressive 7 Attack dice with her pistol and RMW skill, and had enough Victory Points to actually fight adversaries even with only one health left. That required that no random dice screw ever took place.

Well, dice screw came with first adversary she encountered. The very same adversary that had killed Rick.

So... everyone died.

I had thought that this games difficulty doesn't scale much when additional players join the fray, but when 2/3 of characters manage to kill themselves, it's a whole lot worse situation than when this happens with only 2 players.

Inspired by this I finally managed to compile a better skill table for players to use. The one behind character sheets gives next to no details on how the skills actually work and where they help. Also, when skills usage is scattered between 4-5 rule books and leaflets, it's a pain to check how they actually work. This was actually somewhat of a problem now with three players, when different situation and different skill interactions came up more often.

Enough of ramblings, waiting for next time.

A little painting update

Pictures in the last gaming write-up are so atrocious in quality that I needed to quickly make a new blog entry with better photos to push the horror down.

Well, not really.

Rather, I'm trying to motivate myself to paint just a little bit more actively now. I finished painting two gaming pieces, well, technically yesterday.

They're Sara the Bright Witch and Jack Fellows the Privateer for A Touch of Evil.

This time, though picture is sharp enough, it didn't focus right. But I guess it still shows the most important thing: these gaming pieces are finished from toe to hair.

Now, there is something else in the picture.

Years ago (almost ten years, actually. Damn time flies!) I bought Games Workshop walls for terrain. They've been in extensive use during various times in my career as a wargamer.

However, when I got my filthy little hands upon the plastic walls & fences terrain set, these wall pieces dropped out entirely from gaming boards.

First, they're BIG. For linear obstacles at least. Linear obstacles you can get from "new" plastic set are so much better for Warmachine/Hordes, because there is next to no attempt to balance models on the scenery pieces base. And that is good, it's clear to everyone that "no, you can't stand on top of this fence". These old walls are all clumsy and awkward.

Second, they're a bit out of place. Most of these old walls have either something iconic (imperial eagles on ammo crates) or too science fictionish elements going on. For a reason it bugs me.

Third, they're "ugly". By ugly I mean that they have a dull palette, and because there is pre-glued grass in there it creates the feeling that they're "ready to use". And as such they're a bore.

Some unknown impulse struck me a while ago, and I picked up the two wall pieces from this particular set that had no problems mentioned in second pointer. Then I painted them to break the monotoneous colors, removing much of problems mentioned in third pointer.

By making some of the reinforcements to appear wooden (though their texture looks very much metallic, but hey... it's what you paint it to be, not what it looks like to be without paint) I attempted to make the walls fit a little bit better to Iron Kingdoms. At least I find it unlikely that there would be SO much refined scrap metal pieces around to construct improvised full-metal walls.

Ah well.

Oh, and the third wall piece in picture is a non-retouched wall piece from same terrain set, just for comparison.

Now I understand the Agonizer love

Again, about a week ago I played some Warmachine.

It was my Skorne against opposing Legion of Everblight.

And, uh, somehow I thought it was a VERY GOOD IDEA to take pictures without flash with only inside light. So upcoming are the VERY WORST pictures from games during the whole history of Every one of them, and that really is something!

Anyway.

It was a 35 point game with supposedly the steamroller 2012 Killbox going on, though I cannot be sure, because it didn't affect anything.

My list:

Lord Tyrant Hexeris
- Bronzeback Titan
- Basilisk Drake
- Basilisk Krea

Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Venator Flayer Cannon
Minimum unit of Paingiver Beasthandlers
Minimum unit of Farrow Bonegrinders
Paingiver Master Tormentor
Extoller Soulward
Ancestral Guardian
Agonizer

And opponent had:

Saeryn
- 2x Scythean
- Angelius
- Shredder

Striders + Unit Attachment
Shepherd
2x Spell Martyrs

... which comes out at 36 points! Well, mistakes like that happen. I know I've made them, too.

I won starting roll, and first picture is taken from the end of my second turn, since nothing important happened during first round (I guess that was because none of our armies were well-versed when it comes to ranged potential).

Death March was on Praetorian Swordsmen and Soul Slave on Bronzeback Titan. Respawn was on Angelius.

Well, next opponent started to use Saeryn's feat.

Scythean runs to engage Bronzeback Titan and Angelius charges Basilisk Drake. Because of somewhat sub-par roll on the Armor Piercing attack the froggy is left alive with less than 4 hit boxes, don't exactly remember if it was 1, 2 or 3.

Shredder runs to Praetorian Swordsmen. Being fixated totally on Saeryn's feat and how to navigate it next turn I'm thinking: "Cool... I don't know what opponent is trying to do, but I guess it ain't bad if Shredder ONLY engages a couple of swordsmen."

And just a little while after that I remember that yeah, Saeryn actually does have other things except her feat. Like, you know, Blight Bringer. Bam, bam, bam, about 5 dead Praetorians there and officer down to one or two hit boxes, thanks to a really crappy damage roll on 'Bringer.

A couple of Striders come and shoot the Master Tormentor down, too.

It was a pretty devastating turn, which could have been a lot worse if there weren't a couple of bad damage rolls involved. But that's a sort of beauty in Saeryn's feat. Even if you have a dice screw moment, opponent is still going to have a really tough next turn.

I opt to do awkward things. First Bronzeback Titan runs off to get its channeling ability to bear. Not as in ursus, but to bear. I was thinking of using Hexeris' feat and casting Obliteration on Striders (turned out I was engaged to Scythean. From Scythean to Scythean, Bronzeback always falls for the same type, type that will eventually only tear its still beating heart through its chest... such is love, I guess.) Free strike did hurt, though.

But then Extoller Soulward and Venator Flayer Cannon with a lucky 3 shots punished the first Scythean close to my lines. Extoller rolled really badly for its damage, but I really cannot complain, since not a single one of flayer cannons shots rolled less than 8 for damage, and I think there were some 9 or 10 added into the mix, too.

A special mention goes to Farrow Bone Grinders. They shoot down Shepherd who gained both elevation and cover from the terrain piece it was standing on. That must've been more than the piggies ever did for me in any game.

And now, looking at the picture, I realise both of us forgot all about Saeryn's feat then when Paingivers were activating. I mean... they came and took melee pot shots at the beasts, heh.

Luckily there was no harm done, because I actually helped opponent. I started stripping down fury from enemy beasts, because I didn't realize shredder was on full Fury, too.

Praetorian Swordsmen charge Striders, though only two actually get to charge, rest have to run. They kill one strider and the extra spell martyr.

Next round was again very depressing.

Scythean eats up Basilisk Krea. Another Scythean eats up Bronzeback Titan. Angelius eats up the remains of Basilisk Drake. Striders throw their teeth at Praetorians and eat up them, too. Everything... gone.

Well, my warlock did what a warlock without beasts must do. Full aggression without any regards to personal surviving.

Beast Handlers line up to Angelius, and this time doing it right, filling the beast up with Fury. Also blocking Angelius' Line of Sight to Hexeris, who runs to middle field with the four little pigs.

Ancestral Guardian kills Shredder.

And here is where a deep affection for Agonizer was born. It released the agony that gave -2 threshold to nearby beasts.

On opponents turn every single beast at opponent's disposal fail their check, essentially giving me another turn to play. That pesky 2-point model was the key piece that still had me in this game.

Scythean close to Skorne side of the board beats up Angelius a little, and Angelius kills a single Beast Handler. Middle field Scythean kills a Strider.

Then comes Skorne's harsh payback turn.

Flayer Cannon softens up Scythean a little, and then Hexeris activates, uses his feat and charges the aforementioned beast. He kills it, and Scythean strikes Angelius to back arcs.

Then Hexeris continues to buy more attacks, and finally manages to kill Angelius, which triggers Respawn.

Obviously the snake respawns to Hexeris' back arc.

But I still had Ancestral Guardian left. It took +2" movement with a soul token and charged Angelius, killing it once and for all.

So suddenly playing area looked a lot less threatening, though Hexeris was still playing without beasts. Agonizer had a couple of fury on it, though.

Because Scythean was facing in wrong direction, it couldn't charge and finish off Ancestral Guardian (and everyone complains about the Guardian. Heck, almost in every game I've used it it does not warrant the title of 'paperweight'). Advance + reach wasn't enough to get those claws scythin'.

On my turn I guess it wasn't impossible for Ancestral Guardian, Hexeris and Flayer Cannon to destroy a big beast that was, though, largely left undamaged.

Wrong.

I don't remember how many boxes Scythean had after all of my army had mauled it, but there it was, still very much standing, and on top of that next to my warlock.

GG, right? I was sure next picture would be the last one from this particular game.

Wrong.

Scythean missed around 75% of its attacks (I don't remember the exact allocation of additional attacks and/or boosts), and landed only one solid enough hit that actually hurt. One damage roll was something like 1,1,2.

Saeryn activates next and misses around 75% of her attacks. Granted, there wasn't too many of them, since she had had to heal Scythean a little.

Sadly there are no more sharper pictures from this fight.

Last two pictures are just for sake of completeness. Last turn basically went so that whole army minus warlock killed Scythean, and then Hexeris landed a couple of good hits from Gulgata through Saeryn's spine.

The game was insane with an ending no-one would've expected after the end of opponents second turn.

I guess this deserves the "epic" tag.

Found from the dungeons (Warmachine)

Oh wow, last game write-up was still in the draft folder and not published. Well, I got to fix that one now.

Some time ago, probably almost two weeks, I played this game of Warmachine/Hordes. I had finally assembled Scarsfell Griffon and almost painted it, and I wanted to try out Kaya1 for the second time.

This was an exaggerated "huge" let down on my standards of not playing with unpainted models. Oh well.

My 35 point list was:

Kaya the Wildborne
- Scarsfell Griffon
- Gorax
- Pureblood Warpwolf
- Gnarlhorn Satyr

Minimum unit of Tharn Ravagers
Tharn Bloodweavers
Blackclad Wayfarer
Druid Wilder

And enemy was playing with the epic Lylyth list familiar from a couple of last games. Except this time with more awesome paintjob!

I think first picture is from the end of my first turn, and opponent won the starting roll. This was one of the rare games where opponent didn't cast Shadow Pack. I guess he wasn't afraid of Spirit Fang which would drain 66% of Kaya's focus with full boosts...

Anyway, I was able to cloak all of my infantry under stealth with Occultation (as Bloodweavers have it naturally), so I just rushed them as far as possible. Either Striders would close in, or the big guys would unleash their AoE's upon them. Either way, it would hurt, but at least my beasts would be safe.

For some reason only the Dice Gods know, opponent pretty much failed to kill anything meaningful next turn. One Bloodweaver died and Blackclad Wayfarer was left with one hit box remaining.

Overjoyed by the sudden amount of infanty I had at my disposal, they all charged/ran at the front line of Raptors.

Spd 7 and spd 6 + reach was enough to get two Raptors engaged and dead. I tried to position my beasts so that coupled with Hunters Mark from Blackclad Wayfarer and Gnarlhorn's animus would be enough to charge something. Also, Kaya jumped to the roof area of that particular terrain piece on which Griffon is standing. After doing that I had already fallen in love with the beast.

I ended my turn, and was just a little bit afraid of the upcoming feat.

Combined efforts of last remaining raptor and Anyssa killed one ravager. Then Lylyth used her feat, and did something unspeakable.

Amazing hit rolls (and in one case a damage roll) killed four bloodweavers and one ravager. The ravager was one-shotted from full health to zero health. Okay, it was a ravager, but still quite an achievement from a single arrow.

Reason why it was actually amazing was the fact that most of Lylyth's targets were gaining elevation from hill, and some of them were even in melee. The lone bloodweaver even failed her command check.

That somewhat outrageous performance relieved pressure on Ravagores, so they took all their shots at Pureblood Warpwolf. And the three hits they scored was enough to kill the wolf. I did not find this hilarious.

Striders took a bit CRA at Gnarlhorn Satyr and rolled too much damage in there too.

All in all, it was a horrible turn for me as the Circle player. Had not Lylyth wrecked so much face in, I guess I would've had either more infantry alive or a 9-point beast still standing.

With spine crushed, Circle still had some teeth intact.

Blackclad Wayfarer advanced and cast Hunter's Mark on a Ravagore. Kaya activated, cast Gnarlhorn's animus on Gnarlhorn itself and Scarsfell Griffon. After healing Gnarlhorn with one point (I think Striders knocked off exactly Spirit branch with their CRA), used her feat, and healed Gnarlhorn even more and put up Occultation on herself.

Wilder ran so it might make Gnarlhorn's charge possible.

And then the beast charged. Damage rolls were slightly below average, but only slightly, so I cannot complain too much, especially when I would've needed slightly above average rolls to kill the target.

Ravagers charged, with unit leader trying to reach damaged Ravagore. Even with Hunter's Mark on the charge fell half and inch short.

Griffon went to tease Striders a little. Nothing else, really.

Opponent then destroyed Gnarlhorn as was to be expected, but it went down so easily that the painted Ravagore was able to charge my last tharn ravager on the hill.

This time around Lylyth didn't perform so well, as she shot down her own Raptor by accident. I guess that's just Legion's way of saying "I like you".

Striders took a full CRA against Griffon, and when they reformed one of them decided to come and engage the lionbird. I hope they eventually reach marriage status. Oh dear, that was so bad pun again that I ask for euthanasia.

Well, then it was my turn to cope with two light beasts and two solos and a lone unit member against a 29 point army. Because all that has entirel died from enemy was the minimum unit of Raptors.

Kaya dislodged herself from the roof and cast Gorax's animus on itself, and Gorax charged Ravagore to back arc. If memory serves, the damage rolls were exceptionally good, the little beast was truly trying to make up for the failures of bigger guys. Alas, the Ravagore was undamaged, so nothing was accomplished, really.

Blackclad Wayfarer charged the damaged Ravagore and cast the stone spray spell, doing little to the hulk in front of him, but nailing down Blighted Nyss Shepherd.

Birdie beast killed a couple of Striders, and a round later I realised that I had had forgotten Pack Hunters ability from Kaya alltogether.

However, this particular melee was the only melee where it'd possibly have mattered, as one attack from Griffon was a miss. All other attacks made by my beasts were either outside of Kaya's control range, or were hits.

Funnily enough, opponent just couldn't take the life of poor Gorax on the hill. Looked like it's destiny would be to actually suffer the payback of Primal in the form of automatic frenzy.

Well, that was mostly because Ravagore on hill frenzied and had only one attack.

Striders butcher up the thing they had never seen before, but at the campfire mutually agreed that it tasted like chicken.

Next Kaya runs to the best safety there ever is against a shooty army - melee. Either something really out-of-ordinary should happen for me to get a jump at Lylyth, or I would lose very soon. Or hide all around the map for three hours, which didn't feel like a good plan.

Gorax frenzies and bites Ravagore a little.

Well, then it's opponents turn. Striders back away from melee, and Kaya kills maybe one of them. CRA deals something over 10 points of damage, so it's transfered to Gorax (who at that particular moment had 2 boxes left).

Then Lylyth activates and gets a caster kill.

Short and sorry (not a dwarf, mind you)

It's been over a week since this game was played. I wonder if me slacking on doing these write-ups is somehow connected to me registering a Steam account?

Anyway, it was a Cryx vs Legion of Everblight 35 point game with no scenarios.

My list was:

Lord Exhumator Scaverous
- Seether
- 2x Nightwretches
- Ripjaw

Maximum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Bane Lord Tartarus
Skarlock
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall

And opponent had following Legion list:

Epic Lylyth
- 2x Ravagore

Striders + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Raptors
Anyssa Ryvaal
Shepherd

I think I won starting roll, since opponent used Lylyth's feat on first turn. Templates all over Cryxian forces are scather templates from ravagores.

That was a horrible turn for Legion, though. Inability to roll 5+ on two dice or 8+ on 3 dice was... a hinderance, at least. Both Bane Lord Tartarus and Necrotech were left alive with one box remaining, and if memory serves, Ripjaw lost its weapon system. Two bane thralls died. And that was about all.

But what can you expect, when Lylyth misses 2/3 of her attacks, ravagore misses the critical attack to nail down Tartarus?

To add an insult to injury, my next turn went perfectly.

First Seether is allocated one focus, and Nightwretch one. Wretch runs close to Lylyth. Tartarus just runs "somewhere there". Skarlock casts Telekinesis on Seether.

Scaverous activates and feats out. He casts Ghost Walk on Seether, Telekinesis on Lylyth and Icy Grip on Lylyth just because he had the focus. And because he still had one, he cast Telekinesis on Bane Lord Tartarus to get Lylyth into Dark Shroud.

Seether then charges Icy Gripped Lylyth, claiming back arc bonuses while she was in Tartarus' Dark Shroud. GG?

Damn, it could have been a fair game if I would've had my share of dice screw in this one. Maybe I shouldn't whine about victories, but really, this just felt too unfair.

Ah well, I got another game in the write-up queue against the same opponent, which was pretty awesome.

Witch Hound versus Witches

A couple of days ago I played a game of Warmachine first time for a little while.

It was a 35 point game, and I wanted to try out something different again.

I decided on a following list:

Witch Coven of Garlghast
- Harrower
- Nightmare
- 2x Deathrippers
- Nightwretch
- Stalker

2x Warwitch Siren

I was against Retribution of Scyrah.

Opponents list was:

Kaelyssa
- Phoenix
- Discordia

Maximum unit of Mage Hunter Strikeforce + Officer

2x Mage Hunter Assassins
Narn, Mage Hunter of Ios
Epic Eiryss
Sylys Wyshnalyrr

I did not really even realize at the beginning of the fight how funny match-up this was from rules perspective. After all, I had five Witch models in my army, and Kaelyssa was a dedicated Witch Hound. Actually I learned this in a rather costly manner...

Anyway, I won starting roll, and first picture is taken from the end of opponents first turn. And yeah, that's a heavy wreck marker already there.

I had run a little too much with Harrower, and Mage Hunter Assassin was just barely able to charge it. The distance sure looks quite big in the picture, but situation there isn't accurate, because the assassin wouldn't balance on obstacle. Anyway it was tough to make a judgement there, but if it looks to me it's a game of few millimetres that can account for a badly positioned tape measure, shaking of hands, breeze of wind or anything... I at least try to let it go in favor of the measurer. Makes game a bit faster if you don't need to spend 5 minutes to make as exact measurement as possible with zero marginal for error.

But yeah, the 2 point model did again the thing it's notorious about. It was 14-16 damage points in to Harrower. Then Strike Force finished it. I guess I should have put Occultation on Harrower instead of Nightmare.

Metal ring is Rift, and green template is Veil of Mists, by the way.

On my next turn I was contemplating if I should run Nightwretch next to Kaelyssa and start shooting Stygian Abysses at her. She had, however, used her feat to give Stealth to whole army and not being able to be charged at. Phoenix with its reach made me unsure if I could place Nightwretch not in melee AND within 5" of Kaelyssa.

So I decided to use Coven's feat instead, thinking it would protect my army enough to get an alpha strike. After all, Nightmare with Infernal Machine can charge anyhing within 13". Now it just advanced to smack Mage Hunter Assassin off the wall. Also fully boosted Stygian Abyss dropped Narn and the other Mage Hunter Assassin too. But that was all I could do.

To add a little bit more hate to Mage Hunter Strike Force, we figured out that they ignore LOS restrictions of Witch Coven's Nightfall. Okay, cool... At least they suffer the -2 to RAT.

Despite that they still shot off one arm from Nightmare, meaning no more P+S 24 Combo Strikes at prey. Which was Phoenix, at the moment.

Kaelyssa, who had Phantom Hunter on, helped Strike Force a little too once they had shot off its movement system, too. Eiryss disrupted Nightwretch.

Well, it was my turn again, and now I learned the beauty of Witch Hound. One of my Warwitch Sirens advanced full 7" and sprayed on Mage Hunter Strike Force, getting both Kaelyssa and Phoenix under, too. Luckily the shot did some damage to Kaelyssa, because only one dead Mage Hunter would just have felt bad, when it triggered two moves for Kaelyssa's battlegroup.

Phoenix shot against the Warwitch, and disgustingly scored a hit against her DEF 15. That was one dead witch.

Next witch hound move was Discordia advancing and spraying over my another Warwitch Siren and Deathripper. You can guess it right, another dead Warwitch. After all, it's the name of the ability...

Nightwretch took a pot shot at Phoenix, and did actually quite respectable damage in. However, regenerating force field pretty much nullified what the brave chicken had done.

As Discordia had moved in to spray, there was something to do for me. Half-broken Nightmare with Infernal Machine went and tried to beat up Discordia with 3 focus, but didn't really do well. If I remember right, no damage roll was over six on two dice. Something else happened, though. Terror from Infernal Machine caused Mage Hunter Strike Force to fail their command check. That was the best thing my heavy warjacks ever did in this game.

Then opponent got to punish me again. A little earlier I had been quite confident in the game, but realizing all the possibilities that witch hound screwed over made things... interesting.

Oh, and it didn't exactly help me either that Nightmare and leftmost Deathripper were wrecked and Stalker was set on fire, Nightwretch disrupted again by Eiryss, and Mage Hunter Strike Force regrouped.

I had one fully functional piece and warcaster left in my army, then, and opponent had lost only... what? Three solos and one mage hunter from unit? But because the functional piece was an arc node, and I was playing Witch Coven, it was all that was needed, right?

So I did what I needed to do. Last deathripper advanced, and a fully boosted Stygian Abyss was shot at Kaelyssa, who took lots of damage in. The hit was also a critical one, so she was Shadow Bound. However... this triggered Witch Hound, again, and before I knew it, my precious turkey was engaged in melee.

Nightwretch was disrupted, so I guess Eiryss had bought her points back in this game by removing 1/3 of Coven's arc nodes.

Coven cast Veil of Mists on the melee where burning Stalker was to allow it escape to engage Mage Hunter Strike Force. It didn't kill even a single one of them.

Sooo... that was it for me, then. Opponents turn again.

Mage Hunter Strike Force nail a huge Combined Melee Attack against Stalker and wreck it in one hit. Kaelyssa and Eiryss destroy Nightwretch finally.

Phoenix comes and tries to destroy last remaining Deathripper, and, funnily enough, it is set on fire by Phoenix's thermal blade and almost wrecked for good. However... it had three boxes left in column 4. One arc node and two movement or cortex or whatever there is.

I still had a chance! Ghost Walk on Deathripper, get Kaelyssa in Line of Sight, Stygian Abyss and return home victorious!

Well, then comes my turn.

Deathripper burns to ashes.

So... situation is, I have no models other than my warcaster, who can't even go into "tank" mode.

A really ridiculous idea comes up in my mind. One of my witches advances and loses Perfect Conjunction. Egregore then runs as far as possible. Another witch advances then to get Line of Sight to Kaelyssa.

She casts a fully boosted Stygian Abyss (for five focus...) and deals 6 points in.

Kaelyssa had only 3 boxes left.

I don't know if this win was epic or stupid. But no matter how much I read the cards, and after the game searched rules forum on Privateer Press' home forums, I couldn't find anything that made this move illegal.

But it sure does feel illegal, so if anyone spots an error there, I'd be grateful to know about it. Anonymous commenting should be allowed in this blog.

However, I think it was played completely within rules, and thus it becomes one of the weirdest wins I've ever had. I guess this, where enemy loses only 4 models during match, is where Cryx commanders say: "It's all going according to the plan!"

Pureblood/Stalker and some rye

I've been tired and uninspired to get any actual games in and played, but during past couple of days I got something else done to show up here.

I magnetised Pureblood Warpwolf and Warpwolf Stalker from the plastic warpwolf kit. I didn't bother with Feral, because I already have one. And I'm the type of player who rarely takes twice the same option when it costs so many army construction points!

I am very pleased with the paintjob. Though to be honest, I've been painting it and the two other models since I finished Bog Trog unit leader.

The two other models are miniatures intended for Chronicles game system. Because I finished them and wouldn't bother to take pictures of them separately, I decided to put them next to the warpwolf.

But please, don't ask why the heck I'm shooting them on a rye bread. I do not have a good answer for that. Not a bad answer either. There is no answer.

Warpwolf Stalker parts aren't finished yet, but if I'd have wanted to be painted in this picture, I would have probably had to wait for another month or so.

Well.

Here you go.

Hero onslaught

And now I got my greedy little fingers around A Touch of Evil Hero Pack 2.

Not much to write, though, since there's not too much unexpected content in an addition like this. The four heroes look nice, though Jack Sp... sorry I mean Jack Fellows, the privateer, is a bit boring rules-wise, and Sara, the Bright Witch may (or may not) be a little too powerful. Depends a lot on Shadow Track, really.

Also included are one card to each Corner Location in the Shadowbrook map and three mystery and event cards each.

New villain, the Reaper, has it's own minion chart, unlike the extra villain in Hero Pack 1. Reaper also looks lovably dark and thematic. Shadow of Death and Wither really stand out as well-thought and flavorful special rules.

But until I get stuff painted, this was all for A Touch of Evil Hero Pack 2.

A Touch of the Coast

I finally got my filthy hands upon the new expansion for A Touch of Evil: The Coast.

And, truth be told, the more I look around, the more I'm enthusiastic about the expansion. It's more than just "another playing board" that offers nothing actually new to the game if you already own Something Wicked.

No, this one has loads of stuff crammed in.

First, of course, the Hauntings. Hauntings add yet another sweet, supernatural layer to the game. They are manifestations of vengeful spirits that may or may not be in league with the Villain. They are kind of... totally separate things. Like mini-Villains. They're not minions, so they don't stop Heroes movements any way, and there can even be a minion and a haunting in the same space.

Rewards for banishing Hauntings are generally awesome, though they usually just detract you from the main focus - Villain.

New coastal village, Tidewater, functions wonderfully different than the actual Shadowbrook town, too. Instead of drawing events you draw village encounters, which can be good or bad or just... something. I bet they make the village feel alive.

Board, Hero and Villain art are yet again top-notch. Flying Frog has really found the perfect artistic style for this game. Very Tim Burtonesque, and still sets the mood.

New Secrets for town elders looked promising and fun (two that really made an impression were one where Town Elder became stark-raving mad, and one where a lycanthrope has bitten him or her.)

Well, these thing came from the top of my head. At least with a quick look The Coast looks like it's a little bit better expansion than Something Wicked, though my philosophy regarding expansions to games I own is "the more the merrier!"

"And then Caine got LOS"

Okay, I oversimplify the game in title.

However, a few days back I was playing against epic Caine with my Cryx.

I played Scaverous (oh, why I ever did that... but I am not superstitious, I will not yield to superstition!) at 35 points. We had no scenario.

My list was:

Scaverous
- Seether
- 2x Nightwretches

Minimum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Cephalyx Overlords
Withershadow Combine
Bane Lord Tartarus
Skarlock

And Cygnar had:

Epic Caine
- Ol' Rowdy

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages + Officer
- Defender
Minimum unit of Greygore Boomhowler's
Squire
Reinholdt
Epic Eiryss
Madelyn Corbeau

And opponent won starting roll. Most of the Cygnaran thingies ran straight forward, which was most unexpected. However, since my camera tried again to be a little problematic, first picture is taken from the end of opponents second turn I think.

I had run a Nightwretch close to Boomhowlers. I was thinking of dropping Icy Grip on them, followed by a Feast of Worms. But then, when I activated Scaverous, I noticed that heck. Caine would most probably have a LOS to him. That's why I cast only Icy Grip. Seether in the picture, by the way, is facing 180 degrees the other way. It just wouldn't balance otherwise on a slope.

Far to the left in the picture you can see half of Eiryss.

What you can't see in the picture is my Skarlock, who had already bitten the dust thanks to Magic Bullet. I really start to hate that spell, because it was quite close that Tremulus died too. Luckily not, as he was left with two or three health boxes remaining. Boomhowlers also had all but wrecked my Nightwretch. I think it had Head and Movement remaining. At least no arc node any longer.

Well, next I want to move Scaverous a little closer and use his feat. It was about half an inch up to one inch that I didn't die on next enemy turn.

First Tartarus advances and curses Ol' Rowdy. Bane thralls charge it, and the three that make into contact with it wreck just about everything else except it's hammer.

Then my other Nightwretch advances, and Scaverous advances to a ridiculous position, if you happen to remember where Eiryss had been sitting.

He uses Black Gates, uses Telekinesis to re-place Defender and then launched a Feast of Worms on it. Madelyn survived without a scratch, but I boosted damage on Caine, who took respectable damage in. With last remaining focus he cast Death Ward on himself, sensing a feeling of false security on a hill & ARM 19.

Cephalyx Overlords and Seether focused on Boomhowlers, and the Boomhowler on the right deserves a mention. He was the only troll that succesfully rolled 4+ Tough's, but sure he did it something like 6 times during whole game. Also, I often whine how badly my Bane Thralls seem to roll Tough, but this time I cannot blame them. In a way I can think that I had a full unit thanks to the number of succesfull rolls.

Now, next turn Eiryss tries to come and shoot Scaverous. She was that half and inch up to one inch short. I guess that fixed opponents plans on not trying a caster kill. However, Cygnar did pretty good job at decimating everything else.

Ol' Rowdy used tremor to knock down four bane thralls closest to it, and then gun mages banished them with their fancy pistols. Rightest Nightwretch is finally wrecked, too.

One Gun Mage even hit the Nightwretch that was still standing with a Thunderbolt and pushed it back full 3 inches. It's funny how just the last round it looked pretty good for me, but after opponent had done his stuff, I had only a couple functioning pieces any more...

Now, on my next turn I made a little mistake. Only a very small one.

Okay, I did a buckload of them.

First, I somehow thought that mostly crippled Ol' Rowdy was more of a threat than Eiryss with no-one to engage her. Tartarus then charged Ol' Rowdy and wrecked it. Looking back at the pictures I'm pretty sure that a 6" advance + reach would have been enough to engage Eiryss. Or maybe not, it's difficult to judge pictures taken from different angles.

Last remaining Bane Thrall charged Defender and then Seether came to beat the warjack up. A point here: Boomhowler had shouted this Fell Call that reduced warjack's attack rolls by 2. It made MAT 8 Seether miss twice on Defender and once on Boomhowler. That's not a bad Fell Call for sure. Overlords also threw a broadside of psychic sprays on Boomhowlers and Dark Shrouded Defender, killing none. Damn that rightmost Boomhowler grunt was a hero!

Tremulus gives a Puppet Master on Scaverous, who then advances and casts Feast of Worms on Squire.

This was the biggest singular mistake, really. Why did I not choose Caine as the target? Sure, he had a horrible DEF, but I would've needed only 10 to hit with 3 dice, being able to re-roll the dice I didn't like? Somehow I wanted a guaranteed hit on the damn Squire and boosting blast on Caine... which did two or three damage in, by the way.

Picture is taken from a weird angle because I wanted Eiryss to be shown now. Since she was quite ultimate key piece in Scaverous' downfall. Also, what did I think when I moved Scaverous away from hill and elevation bonuses...

Anyway, on opponents turn Eiryss comes and shoots Scaverous... to back arc, even. I somehow remembered that she had only Dispel, that's why I camped up a little focus and upkept Death Ward with Admonia.

I guess I'll remember now a little longer while that EIRYSS NEEDS TO DIE before you can actually try any cool looking thingies with your warcaster within 19" of her.

So, there Scaverous was, again. To be ridiculed by some Cygnaran rogue pistol hero. First Gun Mages nail Scaverous and score some lucky 5 points in. And then Caine got LOS.

Asphyxious2 with only one Caustic Mist and no Teleport during a game

Heck, I'm getting a lot of Warmachine games in.

Well that's good, but I'm starting to get a little backlog on games I have to write up here.

Anyway. Since I knew I was playing Kreoss1, I took a warcaster from my arsenal that as of yet hasn't played even one game against him during Mk2. Choices were Kaya1, Deneghra1 and Asphyxious2.

Since we got something like 300 kilometres in between us with this particular hobbyist, we played on Vassal. This was first game on Vassal for a few months.

So, epic Asphyxious it was to be. With a following 35 point list:

Lich Lord Asphyxious
- Malice
- Nightwretch
- Stalker
- Helldiver

Minimum unit of Bile Thralls
Minimum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Bane Lord Tartarus
Orin Midwinter
Warwitch Siren

Opponent had:

High Exemplar Kreoss (tier 2)
- Reckoner
- Repenter

Maximum unit of Exemplar Errants + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Choir of Menoth
Maximum unit of Exemplar Vengers
High Exemplar Gravus
Vassal Mechanik

Opponent won starting roll and first picture is from end of my first turn. Defensive Ward is on Vengers and Lamentation is on Kreoss. Asphyxious has Hellbound on. The Caustic Mist you can see was the only one cast during game.

Next turn opponent didn't do much else except close in a little with warjacks. Errants were going to shoot at Bane Thralls, but forgot they had stealth. Rest of attacks fell on Malice, doing nothing. Reckoner also missed Malice. Defensive Ward was re-cast on Exemplar Errants. All in all a rather defensive turn.

Then it was time for my fearsome turn of unbound onslaught!

First two bile thralls go and try to purge Vengers. Only one of the horsies gets under both purges, and only about 3 damage is done. First, and most powerful purge (because it triggered Battle Driven) was mere pixels away from two other Vengers.

Then Nightwretch runs where you can see it. Asphyxious casts Death Knell on Reckoner, killing one choir member and dealing little damage to Vassal Mechanik. Template was mere pixels away from one Errant and another choir member, which would've been +2 to all damage rolls. Tough luck, I guess.

Luckily Orin Midwinter was the only model who knew what he was doing in my army. He cast lightning on Reckoner, managed to hit and fried the mechanik.

Bane Lord Tartarus cursed Errants, and then Bane Thralls charged them. Four got into contact with MAT 8, though Errants were DEF 14 at the moment. Results: one dead Errant.

A succesful turn, really...

Then it was opponents turn of slightly tickling the armor of my undead might.

You can also read that as completely wrecking face.

Kreoss used his feat, Divine Wrath, and knocked down everything upward from Malice.

Errants destroyed all but three Bane Thralls. Quick Work was too fast for spiteful spectres. Revenger burned Tartarus and set it on fire with only one health box remaining. Reckoner beat up Nightwretch.

Vengers then killed a couple of bile thralls (unimportant) but two charged Stalker and one charged Malice. Dice were smiling at me, though, when both charges missed Stalker. Venger who charged Malice dealt about 8 points in.

I wasn't convinced at my situation here.

But since I got one bile thrall left, there was still hope for me. Asphyxious activated first, moved on to hill and laid down Daeamortus on three Vengers. Then he cast Parasite on them. Rest focus had been allocated away, so that was it for him. He had even to drop off Hellbound to achieve this.

Then last bile thrall bravely purged upon horsemen of Menoth. Four were under. Though I needed 7's to kill each of them with Parasite on and no Battle Driven, bile thrall killed only two - with one being already damaged one. My hero.

Stalker then comes to help where Bile Thrall had failed, and with three attacks kills only one already damaged Venger. My hero.

Malice then had to go to be sacrificed. It killed a Venger and one Exemplar Errant, giving it a total of 3 souls.

Tartarus stood up and cursed Errants again (damn, the bane lord talks like a pirate! Hearing that can be really demoralizing!) and Bane Thralls charged them, failing to kill anyone with their MAT 8. So, I guess Bane Thralls were just banging their heads to the shields of Errants', because at this point I had killed only 3 Errants, despite numerous attempts.

Helldiver popped up and decided to stay above ground to engage Reckoner, in case it mattered. Turned out it didn't.

I gritted my teeth in excitement and passed turn.

Now Errants killed all but one Bane Thrall and Quick Work made a bad pun at Tartarus, who went home, weeping.

Godlike damage rolls from Repenter took off both arms from Malice despite it's arm 20. What the hell was that?! Gravus and Kreoss tried to destroy Helldiver, and succeeded in mangling its movement. That was no burrow for me any more.

Reckoner thought it didn't mind a free strike from Helldiver, and, well, truth be told it didn't. Helldiver hit but couldn't pass Reckoner's armor.

Then the warjacks shot a boosted Condemner shot at Asphyxious. Missed. Thank you, Lord Toruk.

Anyway.

I saw only two possible choices here. Either mop up Errants and warjacks with Asphyxious' feat or mop up Kreoss with Asphyxious' feat. However, I wasn't sure if I could transfer the feated models far enough and if I would have enough space for them where I landed. The barbed wire thingy was in a bad position for me.

But I thought that if I could destroy Reckoner with Asphyxious with 7 focus, I could place more than enough thralls on top of wreck. I blame it on some special mental instability moment when I decided that 7 focus would be enough and allocated 2 to Malice. Asphyxious had two souls from Vengers that died inside Daeamortus template.

Asphyxious rolled damage very badly. He even scored one miss. One above average roll would have probably wrecked Reckoner but no, because Reckoner failed at shooting Asphyxious, Asphyxious failed at destroying the warjack. I guess there is some mercy within the ancient lich, after all?

Well, one bane thrall from feat finished what Asphyxious couldn't and wrecked Reckoner.

Luckily I had more than enough space to get Bane Thrall Officer and Bane Lord Tartarus and one more thrall against Kreoss, if needed. I doubt I'd have gotten much better placement if Asphyxious had destroyed Reckoner instead. Maybe one Bane Thrall more.

Anyway, High Exemplar's story ended at first swing of Officer's axe. By the way, it dealt 17 points in just by itself.

Tetraphobia

A few days ago I played a 35 point game of Warmachine/Hordes, which was... interesting.

I was playing Skorne with Dominar Rasheth, and opponent was playing Legion of Everblight with epic Lylyth.

My list was:

Rasheth
- Bronzeback Titan
- Rhinodon
- Basilisk Drake
- Basilisk Krea

Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + UA

Maximum unit of Paingiver Beasthandlers
Minimum unit of Farrow Bonegrinders
Agonizer

Opponent had:

Epic Lylyth
- 2x Ravagore

Striders + Unit Attachment
Minimum Raptors
Anyssa Ryvaal
Blighted Nyss Shepherd

We played Gauntlet scenario, hence the templates in pictures. Legion of Everblight won starting roll, and picture is taken from the end of my first turn. Lylyth had cast Shadow Pack, and on the Skorne side Carnivore was cast on Praetorian Swordsmen.

As it started to look like Praetorians were nothing else except some meat bags to be filled with blighted arrows, I decided to just run them forwards and hope that even one or two would survive.

Templates you see in the picture are Scather templates from Ravagores. They had earlier done a little damage to my brick of beasts.

I messed up my activation order a little, though. I had activated Rasheth before I activated Swordsmen - I could have tried to punish the elk riders a bit with a well-placed Breath of Corruption.

Anyway. I kept Rasheth as far away from enemy forces as possible, because Lylyth has this feat of 4x pow 15 aoe 3 blasts to 18" from Ravagores. You know.

Next opponent butchered my Praetorians completely. Not a single survivor. I think Lylyth cast a Pin Cushion on them, so it's no wonder. They fulfilled their promised fate of being cannon fodder filled with pointy sticks. Imagine the glory!

I tried to retaliate with Basilisk Drake against the Striders, but the spray didn't actually hit anyone. Then I tried to cast a Breath of Corruption through one of Beast Handlers, and I wanted it to miss. Well, it hit, and killed only one strider. Go Skorne!

However, because I started to run low on arc nodes (= warrior models) I thought it might be best just to force opponent to melee, and I ran both Bronzeback Titan and Rhinodon to contest gauntlet zone. Basilisk Krea tried to keep up to them, but failed.

Next round was hilarious, in a way. First Lylyth used her feat, and Striders and Raptors and Lylyth herself made short work out of Basilisk Drake, most of remaining Beast Handlers and Bone Grinders, and filled basilisk Krea with damage. Any attacks against Rhinodon, however, failed to do anything meaningful. Opponent is left with a tough choice to go into melee with Ravagores and waste Lylyth's feat on them, or sacrifice the beasts and deal ranged death over my remaining troops.

Rasheth was quite far away, however, so both Ravagores charged in.

What was quite awesome was the fact that Bronzeback didn't just want to die. It was left alive with something like 3 boxes. It didn't bode well for Lylyth's battlegroup.

Come my turn, I thought it might be best to use Rasheth's feat now and close in enough to get the two beasts to Plague Wind. It worked quite well, since Bronzeback mauled both of them well enough so that enraged Rhinodon needed to punch only once the last remaining Ravagore.

Now things started to look actually pretty good for me. I was winning there in the gauntlet zone, but the feeling of triumph lasted only as long until I looked to the leftern side of gaming board. A horde of infantry, with only Agonizer and a couple of bone grinders in between them and my def 10 arm 14 warlock.

Second picture gives out a rather hilarious turn of events again.

First Lylyth and Anyssa and Striders try to kill Rhinodon, but they fail. Then opponent needs to tie up the beasts somehow, and that's where Raptors charge them, and they fail to finally kill Rhinodon, too. Good times, because Rhinodon has the sweet Thresher attack and animus for it, too.

However... Since the thresher attack was 360 degrees, I moved Krea away from it. I eye-judged that Bronzeback was close, but not close enough. My eye-judgement was way off, though, and my nearly dead Bronzeback had to weather even a frenzied thresher attack made by my own Rhinodon.

Bronzeback didn't die, though. It was left alive with one or two points. I had healed it with four Fury last round. However... All of my beasts were now in really bad shape.

Legion's last remaining forces made me an unhappy devout of pain and torment, when this picture was taken:

Then I made my last attempt at killing Lylyth. I ran Agonizer as far as possible, and cast Breath of Corruption through it to Lylyth, who was no longer upkeeping Shadow Pack and had already cut herself. Good idea, but damage roll wasn't just high enough, she was left alive with 3 or 4 damage.

Next turn Lylyth and striders killed what Skorne had remaining on the board except Rasheth.

Anyssa came in and shot 4 damage in to Rasheth.

Next round Rasheth had to cut himself for 4.

He attempted a bravado, and launched his bulging mass upon the face of the blighted ones. Breath of Corruption killed Anyssa.

Next opponent comes in with Striders and one remaining Raptor. Raptor doesn't do any damage, but a Combined Ranged Attack from Striders did 4 damage in.

Rasheth had to cut himself again for Fury, this time with 4 damage.

He killed Raptor with Sunder Spirit, and took away a couple of Striders with a Breath of Corruption.

Then Striders charged him.

And the finishing strike dealt 4 points in.


I need to say that game goes a bit weird if two Hordes players battle each other and both lose their beasts. Game was really tough, and had its highs and downs for both participants.

It was a good game, but now I need to start a new one on Vassal.

Horrible Black Void

Last we played a two-player game of Talisman with Reaper and Werewolf additional rules and random mystery ending.

Characters drawn were Alchemist and Gypsy.

This was second time Alchemist was being played, and both of us had severe prejudices against him being the most and ultimate broken character released yet. At least Gypsy had the nice skill that made it more difficult for Alchemist to spam spells endlessly.

Well, when the Gypsy found a Warhorse, it wasn't that sure anymore if Alchemist would be the automatic winner. She started to get Strenght at an alarming rate.

Before, however, she lost her horse there was a funny little thingy going on. Gypsy had turned Evil when Mischievous Imp arrived. With neither player being too much challenged by Fate, game was hilarious for a short while when both players tried to make the Imp get good items from the other player.

But doing this wasn't exactly too productive, so Gypsy went to Dungeon and Alchemist to Highlands. There in the Dungeon, at night, Gypsy faced Strenght 15 ambush (Goblin marauders + some other enemy with high strenght). She did have a chance to win the combat, but it was desperate. Warhorse galloped away.

I think this was the turning point after which Alchemist started to gain the upper hand. Lead wasn't too big, but in the end he managed to crack Portal of Power, and using Potion of Wrath (+3 Craft until end of turn) he succeeded even going through Mines.

Gypsy tried to go and win the Lord of Darkness big time to go straight to Crown of Command, but she failed and Alchemist reached it first.

Turned around, the end game condition proved to be Horrible Black Void, killing Alchemist instantly.

I hope this means that Universe and Karma and whatnot are against the Alchemist.

New character was Minstrel. He didn't have time for more than a few little songs. Then Gypsy had enough Strenght and Craft to go to Crown of Command, and she found that Demon Lord had been guarding the place all the time. I guess it was only fitting - greedy alchemist fell to Demon's tricks and was drawn to Void. Gypsy, however, had learned from Alchemist's mistakes and had prepared better.

Beaten by a Scarecrow, yet Unspeakable Horror came out as a hot topic only (A Touch of Evil)

A friend was passing by through this city and stayed a couple of nights at my place.

We both being enthusiastic board-gamers, we spent a lot of time playing a few games I happen to own.

First were two games of Touch of Evil.

We were against the Scarecrow first, and I was thinking that hopefully it won't go down too easily, since it's only a "basic" villain from the base game.

Heroes were Heinrich the Drifter and Captain Hawkins.

Order of the Crimson Hand sure was active in this game, because during just a few first rounds there were already three or four Order's Influence on town elders!

One of them was, of course, Magistrate Kroft being influenced. This made Captain Hawkins pretty much play without any special abilities.

But all in all, the game seemed to go just fine for a long time, because Shadow Track was moving very slowly. I guess the forces of darkness were waiting for a proper moment to unleash The Horror on Shadowbrook...

The biggest single mistake we did was to pay too little attention to crows. Because once the Town Squares were pretty much full of crows, someone either rolled March of Darkness from Cooperative Chart, or drew the card.

Bam.

Shadow Track down by 5 steps.

This really put some pressure on us, and we had to start Showdown as soon as possible. We weren't exactly badly equipped, our general fighting ability was quite good, but we didn't have enough damage prevention cards for a longer showdown, nor a lot of one-use cards that would give us one big turn of combat with loads of dice.

Scarecrow was brought down to 6 wounds, but after that the heroes went down. Not without a fight, sure, but still failing in the end.

Game 2:

Second game the Villain wasn't randomised, because I really wanted to try out Unspeakable Horror for a change. Base fight dice of 8 and base wounds of 8 seemed really threatening, and I've played against it only once years ago (well, at least before I started writing up this blog!)

Heroes were this time Harlow Morgan, the Inventor and Katarina the Outlaw.

This was curious game, because just about every other Mystery Card drawn was Murder. Game looked like it went fine for a long time, again, because the only thing that lowered Shadow track were the murder-cards. Also all of the Summoning Circles spawned up in different locations (we started to get Void Gates only during last few rounds) and came in with a monster only rarely.

However, faster than we knew, almost every named space was indeed filled with Summoning Circles, so it looked rather threatening, and finally we drew mystery card The Horror (need to roll twice on cooperative chart at the start of every Mystery Phase).

Final Showdown commenced, then, and it was a rather lousy fight. Villain rolled dice really badly (even with 14-15 dice it didn't roll 4 or more successes a couple of times, letting both Katarina and Harlow Morgan to survive at least one round without needing to spend any real resources).

So.

The Unspeakable Horror died miserably and made up for only bad tentacle jokes, while Scarecrow wrecked Heroes face. Where's the logic?

Victory with a sorry doubt

Few days ago I played a 35 point game of Warmachine.

It was against a local player whose existence I hadn't been aware of. Amazing that suprises like these pop up now and then in this city.

Anyway, I played with Witch Coven, since it has been quite a long while I played them.

My list was:

Witch Coven of Garlghast
- 2x Nightwretches
- Ripjaw
- Stalker
- Erebus
Minimum unit of Bile Thralls
Minimum unit of Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
Skarlock Thrall
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall

And opponent had:

Epic Caine
- Ol' Rowdy
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages + Officer
- Defender
Minimum unit of Greygore Boomhowlers
Arlan Strangewayes
Squire
Journeyman Warcaster
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator

What grieves me is the fact that while I had my camera with me and took pictures, the memory card inside had become corrupt or something, pictures wouldn't open on my laptop. I tried formatting the card and it seemed to work, but all in all... looks like I will be needing a new memory card for my camera rather soon?

What bugs me even more is the fact that now, while remembering back at the game, I'm not entirely sure if I played with a maximum or minimum unit of Satyxis Raiders. I sure remember there were quite a bit of them and they wrecked a few jacks especially on their Power Swell turn, and I wonder if a minimum unit could have done those things.

My sincere apologies if I did field maximum unit of them, because I really didn't have the points. I would've been missing Skarlock and Necrotech in that case... Though Skarlock nearly killed one of my witches.

It's difficult to remember that far back with no pictures, but what I do remember is that Witch Coven were sitting like scared hens as far from action as possible. Last time I played epic Caine he almost nailed epic Asphyxious from the other side of playing board, having only about half an inch too short distance.

Nightfall worked wonders in not getting the witches killed. However, once Nightfall had come and gone and Caine forced to fall back, a curious thing happened.

Caine cast Magic Bullet on Defender, who used Snipe attack to kill Skarlock. Magic Bullet went through Hellaena, and it's a pow 12 hit. Coven had one focus left, so if opponent had rolled 9 for damage the game would've pretty much ended there. Luckily she took only 5 points in, but this scared the heck out of me. Not only I needed to have the coven as far as possible from enemy, but also not a single model within 4" of any witch, either!

I remember Arcane Shield being on Greygore's Boomhowlers first, and then on Ol' Rowdy. Witch Coven used Curse of Shadows on both occassions to lower the bonus an bit, and in case of Boomhowlers' it let Satyxises to charge through to Defender.

The game ended in Bile Thrall making one purge that damaged Caine, and then Stalker that had Infernal Machine came and finished him.

But really, if I played with a maximum unit of Satyxis Raiders, the whole feeling of triumph over epic Caine is kind of... taken away.

Maybe it calls for a re-match?