Iron Aggression (now, what a cool name for a podcast, right?)

A couple of days ago I played a game of Warmachine on Vassal with a friend of mine.

We played a 50 point game with the scenario Incursion.

I played, well, with Scaverous.

My list was:

Scaverous
- Reaper
- Ripjaw
- Nightwretch

Maximum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Withershadow Combine

Bane Lord Tartarus
Skarlock
Gorman diWulfe
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Pistol Wraith
Warwitch Siren
Wrong Eye & Snapjaw

And opponent had:

High Executioner Servath Reznik
- Templar
- Castigator
- Reckoner

Maximum unit of Temple Flameguard
Maximum unit of Exemplar Cinerators
Minimum unit of Choir of Menoth
Vassal Mechanic
Vassal of Menoth
Hierophant
Vessel of Judgement


Opponent won the starting roll and first picture is taken from the end of my first turn. As it turned out, the random flag that was removed was the one where all of my Bane Thralls were stationed.

Anyway, next turn things started rolling. First of all, I began to build a little nausea for Vessel of Menoth.

It fired up its Admonisher cannon at my Ripjaw, boosting attack roll and damage roll and both damage rolls on two of my stealthed guys there... Warwitch Siren and Tremulus. Luckily Tremulus survived, but still. The Vassal Mechanic repaired 4 damage, which meant that Vessel was undamaged again.

On my turn I decided to actually use Scaverous' feat.

I positioned Ripjaw so that I could cast Telekinesis on Vessel and Wrong Eye and Snapjaw. That made it possible for me to charge the battle engine, and thanks to god-like damage rolls the engine was destroyed before it did any more harm for me.

For some unknown reason I totally failed at tactics when my Pistol Wraith wanted to desperately flank up opponent rather than collect a control point for me, but what can you do... Pistol Wraiths are a stubborn bunch...

Other feat spells went to Feast of Worms and Icy Grip on Temple Flameguard.

Results were all nice and sweet, but they encouraged me to try to do a Tartarus + a couple of Death Tolled Bane Thralls charge... which failed completely.

Tartarus killed one Flameguard and couldn't make it into a thrall because I couldn't place it in unit coherency. Templar took 9 points of damage in, but it didn't break anything. Good riddance, Tartarus.

Maelovus and Tremulus killed a couple of Flameguards too, who eventually failed their command check. I guess that was about all that happened during Scaverous' feat turn.

Opponents next turn didn't go all that well.

He tried to charge Reaper with Templar, but the charge fell short. Though now there was a arm 21 warjack controlling the central flag.

Reckoner and Castigator killed a couple of Bane Thralls and Tartarus. A bit sad thing, but at least Scaverous wasn't shot to pieces.

Now, I did a little bit of a fail thing on my turn. I cast Telekinesis on Templar, which triggered Witch Hound, which caused the aforementioned Templar to run away. Ah well. Then it took the combined efforts of Reaper, Snapjaw and two withershadow combine members to wreck the warjack.

Bane Thralls then charged the two warjacks on right side, but not managing to wreck either one of them. Some systems broke, actually most of the systems broke, but in the end Bane Thralls were destined to die.

Now, the most horrible blunder on my part was the fact that Wrong Eye wouldn't be able to leach fury from THR 8 Snapjaw... But I did score two control points.

Opponent does a ballsy move on next turn, then.

Bane Thralls are pretty much obliterated by a Combustion and whatever Reckoner could come up with. Cinerators rush forward to contest the leftmost flag, and Reznik himself lunges forward and uses his feat.

Now, use of Reznik's feat probably saved my Wrong Eye though.

Anyway.

I needed to either kill Reznik or score a point.

Well, killing a warcaster is always awesome, so I tried to do that.

So I needed to stack an effect upon effect upon effect.

First Gorman threw Black Oil on Reznik and Necrotech. That meant -4 defense.

Then Scaverous cast Feast of Worms on my controlling Necrotech to give Reznik -2 arm.

Then Bane Thrall Officer ran next to Reznik, so all in all the executioner had -4 def, -4 arm.

So only now I felt confident enough to March Snapjaw to munch on Reznik.

And the beast succeeded, at last possible boost.

Could this be possible? Scaverous won his first game!

Strakhov versus Mortenebra. For lack of a better title.

Yesterday I played a game of Warmachine.

It was a 35 point game with me using Cryx against Khador.

This time I didn't play with Scaverous, because, uh. I've played with him for quite some time already and results aren't all that... encouraging.

I tried something I've never tried before, which was Mortenebra's tier 4 list.

My list was:

Mortenebra & Deryliss
- Corruptor
- Harrower
- 2x Slayers
- Stalker

2x Necrotechs & Scrap Thralls
2x Warwitch Sirens
A set of 3 scrap thralls
Bloat Thrall

Opponent played:

Kommander Oleg Strakhov
- Marauder

Maximum unit of Iron Fang Pikemen + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Assault Kommandos + 2x flame throwers
Maximum unit of Winterguard Infantry + Unit Attachment
Widowmakers
Kovnik Joe

It was kinda funny how we had constructed such lists that had totally different approach to strategy. I was worried about the huge swathe of infantry in front of me and opponent was sweating on how to crack so many heavy targets. Sure, most were def 13 arm 17 "heavy" targets, but anyway.

Even the often laughed at Assault Kommandos had a lot of immunity against plenty of my attacks despite me not having Bile Thralls. (They were immune to Sirens' sprays, Bloat Thralls blast and the Area of Effect attack of Corruptor helljack).

Uh. Now those were some weirdly constructed sentences.

Anyway, I won the starting roll and we had this "No Man's Land" scenario coupled with Kill Box artifice.

First picture is taken from the end of opponents first turn. Spectral Steel was on Harrower and Superiority on Marauder (big suprise, huh?)

Now, my next turn I constructed the following iron curtain to protect Mortenebra.

Deryliss cast Overrun on Harrower and Mortenebra cast Terminal Velocity, so Harrower was able to do this weird move of charging at Widowmakers behind the walls, killing them and "overrunning" back to the position where you can see it in the picture.

All in all I felt it was a good enough turn, except that I hadn't taken one important thing into consideration. Which was that I was fighting against Strakhov.

It was almost an assassination of Mortenebra there.

Here, take a look:

First Strakhov lunges forward and uses his feat. Marauder combo-slams Corruptor, who inflicts a bit collateral damage on both Mortenebra and Warwitch Siren.

Then Iron Fang Pikemen charge. Only two get within reach of Mortenebra and don't kill her. I don't remember actual damage dealt, but had there been a second Combined Melee Attack with about equal rolls the arachnoid would have been much deader than before.

Assault Kommandos try to run to form a meatwall to protect Strakhov who tries to imitate Stealth in the picture (the shady miniature in front of the building behind three assault kommandos)

Next was Mortenebra's feat turn.

What I needed to do was to remove enough of the meatwall so Harrower could go and do a caster kill.

Two sprays from Warwitch Sirens really helped there.

In fact, the sprays were perfect and the turn was otherwise just awesome, except that I managed to wreck only Cortex from Marauder and nothing else. With Superiority on and Mortenebra down at 7-8 health boxes there was a serious threat to my warcaster if Harrower failed to do its job.

But, really. It was filled with two focus and three souls when it started its thresher that killed an assault kommando, iron fang pikeman and did some damage to Marauder. That triggered Overrun, and this is the last picture of the match. Harrower did a bum rush, though, and is facing exactly the opposite because it didn't want to destroy the beautiful building.

So, with free boosted attack rolls and focus and souls up to 5 additional attacks made minced meat out of Strakhov.

Ultimate Downfall

Today I played a game of Warmachine.

And, umm. I played with Scaverous. And it's starting to look like whenever I say "I played with Scaverous" it can be auto-corrected to "I lost". Yeah, now, well I spoiled the result of the match now.

Anyway, we played a 35 point game with scenario "Killbox" from Steamroller 2011.

My list was:

Scaverous
- 2x Nightwretch

Maximum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Withershadow Combine
Skarlock
Bane Lord Tartarus
Wrong Eye & Snapjaw

And opponent had:

Epic Thagrosh
- Typhon
- Carnivean
- Scythean
- 2x Shredders
2x Nyss Shepherds

Opponent won the starting roll and first picture is taken from the end of my first turn. You can't see too much behind the tower, but there I have the Combine, Scaverous himself, one nightwretch and Wrong Eye & Snapjaw.

Funny thing, really.

You'd think I'd forgotten to take a picture for one full round when you take a look at opponents next turn.

I had left Scaverous sitting with only one focus and Death Ward on, so he was at arm 20.

Opponent decided to make a ballsy move and ran all of his beasts forward and Epic Thagrosh cast Manifest Destiny and used his feat.

Scythean and Carnivean bit Scaverous down to 6 health and Typhon, well, Typhon pretty much failed there, but still it was a heavy warbeast in middle of my lines.

Now, I wasn't exactly worried yet. If I managed to chew through all three heavy warbeasts, I would almost be guaranteed a victory. But your warcaster at 6 health is always a bit of a risk... anyway.

For starters Snapjaw proceeded to beat up Typhon, and did rather nice damage. But after that came the grand stars of that particular fight - the scrap thralls. Both of them charged at Typhon and both managed to hit. Now, it was a bit sad that their death burst attack has been errata'ed to not being boosted even with a charge attack. But anyway, two POW 16 attacks dispatched the 12 point character beast. Good job for a couple of 0,33 point models.

But, another funny thing here - the pow 8 blasts did one point damage to Snapjaw and five points to Nightwretch.

Then Tartarus cursed Scythean and moved away a bit. Three Bane Thralls got a charge off at Scythean and could have killed the beast, but one of them managed to miss the beast with double 1's. Additionally they killed one of the Shredders.

Now Wrong Eye goes to show some Voodoo Doll to the Carnivean. With boosted attack roll the Carnivean lost his Mind. Now, thinking back, maybe I should have knocked off its Body instead, because Manifest Destiny gives even a MAT 6 beast a fair chance to hit def 14 model.

Then Scaverous decided to activate and use his feat. He used Thresher and killed what was left of Scythean (but didn't gain a soul... grumble...) Then he missed the attack against def 11 Carnivean. That's how far MAT 6 goes.

Anyway, then Scaverous cast Telekinesis on Carnivean and placed it so the two Withershadow members could charge its back arc. Also, really wanting to kill it, Scaverous cast Feast of Worms upon it. Nightwretch shot and two Withershadow Combine member charges later Carnivean was still left with 2 boxes in Spirit and one in Body.

Somehow this sounds all too familiar...

Now, a Carnivean with three boxes left isn't probably going to survive a free strike from Maelovus while being under Feast of Worms. That's why opponent ran one of shepherds to align a perfect spray from Thagrosh, then moved Thagrosh forward and did his thing.

He actually rolled a critical hit against Maelovus, meaning that he actually froze before being burned alive. Go figure.

Now, Thagrosh cast Manifest Destiny and mindless Carnivean went and tried to bite some Scaverous. Thanks to Manifest Destiny Carnivean scores a hit, and you can see the boosted damage roll in the picture. Very much ouch indeed.

Now, we talked a bit about the game then, and started listing casualties just for giggles.

What was curious that despite me killing 23 points worth of models and opponent killing two warrior models and my warcaster, we killed equal amount of models from opposing army (yeah, I remembered that Thagrosh actually killed the Shepherd by himself only after editing the picture, so she stands in the wrong place...)

Now, what was a bit hilarious was that two of my own models just blew up and one bane thrall died in a thresher attack by Scaverous.

There must be some mystic meaning in this three sets of three, but I'll leave that to someone more familiar with Kabbalah.

Anyway, good game and maybe some day I'll witness the elusive thing called "victory" when I play Scaverous.

Color Me Disgraced

With great pain I doing a write-up of last nights game.

I don't know if I need to say anything more than that I played Scaverous.

We played a 35 point game with a steamroller 2012 scenario Diversion.

My list was:

Scaverous
- 2x Nightwretch

Minimum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Cephalyx Overlords
Bane Lord Tartarus
Darragh Wrathe
3x Scrap Thralls
Skarlock
Wrong Eye & Snapjaw

And opponent was playing:

Scrutator Severius
- Crusader
- Revenger

Maximum unit of Temple Flameguard + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Exemplar Errants + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Exemplar Bastions
Maximum unit of Choir of Menoth
Exemplar Errant Seneschal
Vassal of Menoth
Hierophant

This time around I won the starting roll and first picture is taken from the start of my second turn. Egregore and Machine Wraith act as the flags that needed to be controlled.

I was going to go and control the flag with my Cephalyx Overlords, and, heh, exemplar errants were already sitting at the flag they needed to control. Eye of Menoth was on and Defenders Ward was cast on Temple Flameguard.

On my second turn I opted for a cautious advance. I did run one of my nightwretches close to enemy, though. I so much wanted to cast Excarnate on temple flameguard and fill up my minimum unit of bane thralls.

It succeeded half way. Scaverous managed to hit, but he didn't manage to kill the bugger even with a damage boost. Oh well. Next Darragh Wrathe comes up and teaches Scaverous how to fling spells: he hits and kills the very same flameguard Scaverous tried without boosts of any kind.

Death Ward was cast on bane thralls because, well, I guess I've seen enough of Ashes to Ashes.

Now, opponent does something what I'm not used to in this meta: played aggressively. Flameguard popped their minifeat of +4 arm and ran to engage my stuff. One ran just outside the forest where my Cephalyx were hiding. Then Revenger arced Ashes to Ashes there. Two out of three overlords were dead, as well as both scrap thralls (whose blasts clipped Darragh) and Darragh took a damage roll too, which did no damage.

Darragh survived: 2x scrap thrall blasts, 1x Ashes to Ashes.

Anyway. Only 3 of my bane thralls died to exemplar errants, which I guess was a good omen.

Next I really wanted to use Scaverous' feat, but. Well.

Opponents warjacks were untargettable by spells, exemplar errants had their flag and Severius himself is immune to spells. I did not see much point in wasting my feat yet, though I was highly suspecting next round Severius would use his feat.

Anyway, combined efforts of Snapjaw and bane thralls munched four exemplar errants. Skarlock cast telekinesis on Tartarus, who cursed exemplar errants and proceeded to thresher them. He killed only two of them, but what else to expect when you got def 15 arm 19 infantry with set defense standing about?

Darragh Wrathe and engaged arc node just shuffled a bit and Darragh cast Beyond Death.

The lone overlord went to control the flag and sprayed one choir member dead. Woo hoo.

As I remembered Severius' feat wrong, I spent all of my focus "just because". It did result in Death Ward on himself and a Feast of Worms killing one bastion.

Now, on opponents turn the revenger killed the last cephalyx overlord, making it nearly impossible for me to even try to win by scenario.

And then my favore part of the game. Temple Flameguard poked around with their sticks behind the tower (sorry, you can't see the most interesting part of everything).

A lucky combined melee attack hit home and set nightwretch on fire. Then two two-man combined melee attacks tickled Darragh Wrathe, dealing 2 points in together. Beyond Death in situation like that is an amazing spell.

Darragh Wrathe survived: 2x Scrap Thrall blasts, 1x Ashes to Ashes, 2x 2-man combined melee attacks, set alight.

Even Tartarus survives a charge by bastion and a random strike from flameguard completely intact. This is where opponent started to panic a bit.

Exemplar errants make a mess out of bane thralls and their unit attachment, leaving only two alive. Then the Crusader charges Tartarus and well, the Bane Lord wasn't all that tough when pow 20 mace was delivered to his undead face.

Severius moved forward and used his feat. Sad times.

Then it was my turn. Darragh Wrathe survives a fire continous effect damage roll. The ghost rider. Wow. Because he couldn't cast spells he tried to kill the flameguard around him, but failed.

Half (well, one) of remaining bane thralls died to fire effects too. But one was more than enough to complete my dirty schemes.

It advanced next to Crusader.

Then I cleared a vague charge line for Snapjaw to Crusader. Snapjaw then charged and used the bite attack as its charge attack, meaning that every point that I rolled with 3 dice would go straight in.

2, 2, 1. Woo. Hoo.

And to make matters worse, this triggered Enliven. Crusader was in too tight space to escape completely, but it got out of Dark Shroud and out of reach of Snapjawn's teeth. So my awesome attacks of "equal to" pow 19 were reduced to slapping around with a lousy p+s 14 with Snapjaw's tail attack.

I did a little math, and counted that had Crusader not moved, it would have suffered 7 points more damage with exactly same rolls (which were pretty damn lousy rolls, I can tell).

Well, that was pretty much all I could do.

Crusader put Snapjaw out of its misery. I was losing ground quickly in the important part of the playing board. Errant Seneschal was controlling the flag and errant unit ran to probably contest the diversion zone some day.

But then to my favorite part of this game!

Two more 2-man combined melee attacks against Darragh Wrathe! Only 4 points in and still in fire!

Darragh survived: 2x Scrap Thrall blasts, 1x Ashes to Ashes, 4x 2-man combined melee attacks, 1 fire continous effect damage roll.

Then, finally, it was Scaverous's feat turn. Oh, and Darragh survived yet another fire damage roll without a single point in. Or maybe one point. Don't remember any more.

First, Wrong Eye charges Crusader. It was fully loaded with 4 fury and charge attack (bite) dealt 7 points in. Now, dark shroud assisted bite attack from Snapjaw dealt only 5 points in. I guess the beast's name is derived from the fact that it's jaw is snapped broken or something, when the master bites harder.

Wrong Eye buys another attack and boosts damage and deals some five points in or something. That's some 23 points in in total, and not a single system broken. Or maybe the fist attack.

Scaverous activates and uses his feat. He casts telekinesis on himself and on revenger and charges it and, spending almost all of his focus he manages to wreck it. But doesn't manage to kill any temple flameguards for souls. I don't know why I didn't try to cast Icy Grip on them. I had the focus, I had the boost.

Then I try to maximise damage, and Darragh Wrathe tries to kill flameguards the old fashioned way. Doesn't succeed, so battle wizard doesn't trigger.

Skarlock comes to launch an Excarnate on the closest bastion, despite it being in melee. Hits easily, but deals no damage in. Snake eyes with an awoken third eye.

Well, then after opponents turn he scores 1 scenario point. Gone is Wrong Eye, gone is Skarlock, but gone ain't nightwretches or... Darragh Wrathe!

After another two 2-man combined melee attacks he still isn't even dismounted, though he is left with only one damage point!

So, Darragh survived: 2x Scrap Thrall blasts, 1x Ashes to Ashes, 6x 2-man combined melee attacks, 2 fire continous effect damage roll.

Then comes my turn. Let's add one more survived fire continous effect damage rolls to the list above.

So, either I go and contest the flag with my engaged Nightwretch or I kill all errants contesting the diversion zone.

Scaverous casts Telekinesis on himself and tries to desperately kill all of them in one fell swoop. Well, half of them die. Which isn't enough. Even Nightwretch is totally wrecked from free strike.

Yet another loss for Scaverous, but a damn good game nonetheless.

Oh, and the hero of the match is obviously Darragh Wrathe. Let's sum it all up:

2x Scrap Thrall blasts, 1x Ashes to Ashes, 6x 2-man combined melee attacks, 3 fire continous effect damage roll + anything less serious or less cool I may have forgotten. That's 3 rounds in fire (ouch) and 3 round in middle of wall of spears. He entered that combat with suicidal scrap bombs exploding all over him and holy fire scourging his impure soul.

And yet he wasn't even dismounted!

This game goes epic just because of Darragh Wrathe.

"I do not lament my loss, dear High Exemplar, but I lament hearing your Lamentation"

Next I was against an old foe. High Exemplar Kreoss.

But since it was a completely new player in a completely different city in a completely different board, the game felt somewhat new. Heh.

I played Mohsar. We agreed on 35 point game and scenario was randomised to be... uh, well, I don't really remember the name of scenario, but it was the one where caster had to contest a flag and the army had to control a zone in the centre.

My list was:

Mohsar
- Megalith
- Gnarlhorn Satyr
- Argus
- Gorax

Maximum unit of Wolves of Orboros
Reeve Hunter
Thrullg

And opponent was playing:

High Exemplar Kreoss
- Crusader
- Vanquisher
- Repenter

Maximum unit of Choir of Menoth
Knights Exemplar
Minimum unit of Exemplar Errants + Unit Attachment
High Exemplar Gravus

This time around I won the starting roll. In my deployment I tried to make a suprise moment of teleporting Mohsar to contest a flag, but no plan survives contact with the enemy.

I was able to sneak into center pretty easily with the aid of salt pillars, but as opponent could react to my deployment more easily he was able to dedicate Repenter and Vanquisher to my Wolves of Orboros. Bad match-up at the eastern front.

My grand plan pretty much failed next round thanks to the utility of Exemplar Errants.

My plan was that about everything I got would just succeed in killing all the errants, and once that's over Gnarlhorn would slam Crusader over Kreoss and beat him down.

Thrullg removed Defender's Ward from errants, but still three of them survived. I did try to bring Mohsar close by and shoot the errant blocking satyr's slam lane but the blind granpa obviously missed. And Mohsar was under 14" of Kreoss, so Lamentation stopped all kinds of Crevasse shenanigans. So Mohsar teleported away to the flag, but not as triumphantly as I had visioned...

It seems that next picture is taken after a full round.

Opponent tried to beat up Megalith, but the stone fellow didn't go down. Everything else in my army, however, went down when Kreoss used his feat. Only Megalith and Mohsar were left on their feet.

Actually Megalith did have some bonus from not-getting-knocked-down, when Crusader rolled double 1's on the attack roll with its MAT of 8 (thanks to choir).

I think three Wolves of Orboros survived the combined efforts of Repenter and Vanquisher. But they failed their command test so, yay.

Well, I still tried to be devious.

Megalith healed itself fully functional. He then cast Curse fo Shadows on the engaging crusader and beat it up with everything else.

All the furry beasts had shaken themselves up.

Gnarlhorn used its animus and charged Kreoss over Crusader.

It did charge away from Mohsar's control range, however. But that didn't exactly matter as it was already at full fury. Charge attack hit and scored 8 points in. All the other initial attacks missed, however.

Argus charged crusader with a combo-strike. If I remember right by then Crusader had lost cortex and the mace.

Argus tied up the enemy for a turn, which in my book is an impressive feat from a 4 point beast that had just crippled a couple of systems from a heavy warjack.

Gorax did go down then, however, as did the Gnarlhorn with combined efforts from Vanquisher and Kreoss and Reclaimer.

On my turn Mohsar upkept Curse of Shadows on Crusader, after which Megalith charged past Crusader to nail the Vanquisher. I don't remember how badly the warjack was mauled, though.

Argus bit one exemplar and tried to do some damage on Crusader, but really, things started to look rather grim, as Megalith wasn't exactly in good shape any more.

Vanquisher, Repenter and Kreoss eventually destroyed the Megalith and Gravus killed the puppy. Shame on Gravus!

Reeve Hunter was engaged by running Errants, so I kinda needed to win Kreoss that had 10 hit points remaining, Lamentation on and was camping up armor at 19-20 with Mohsar and two wolves of Orboros.

No problem!

One Wolf of Orboros charged Kreoss to the back arc and one "charged" Repenter to get himself moving. Neither did damage, at least any important damage.

Then Mohsar advanced and cast Crevasse at the Wolves of Orboros officer and tried to spray Kreoss down with a boosted pow 12. Triple 1's or something.

Game over.

Naked Tree

Huh, last two write-ups coming up from my visit in Oulu. They're both Warmachine games that were played on Tuesday. Because some time has passed already I'm not sure how much detail I'll be able to give in, but let's try.

I had brought my Circle of Orboros forces with me, and first game I played was with Cassius.

I was playing against Ashlynn under Highborn Covenant.

Now, I hope I will remember next time that if I'm going to play with a warlock that has some special requirements, I construct the lists early and not in a hurry.

Because this was my 25 point Cassius list:

Wurmwood & Cassius
- Gnarlhorn Satyr
- Woldwatcher

Bloodweavers
Minimum unit of Tharn Ravagers + Chieftain
Lanyssa Ryssyll
White Mane

Notice what's missing? Yeah, anything that can trigger prowl for Wurmwood. Nice work.

He was playing:

Ashlynn
- Vanguard

Minimum Nyss Hunters
Gun Mages + Officer
- Marshalled Mariner
Dirty Meg

So, we were playing 2011 Steamroller scenarios. This one was Outflank, outfight, outlast (maybe in that order?), or the one where there are two 12" diameter circles in center of the board and controlling one yields you one victory point. With three points you win.

Opponent won the starting roll but chose to go second. Probably because of scenario.

I'm not entirely sure what turn is going on in the first picture, but to me it looks like it's the end of opponents second turn.

A couple of Combined Ranged Attacks and marshalled shots from Mariner had already killed three of my Tharn Ravagers. But opponent was pretty much leaving the leftern control point for me. I didn't actually remember that I could easily score at the end of opponents second turn (though maybe that would have put the Nyss on the move). Anyway.

On my turn I promptly positioned Lanyssa so she would start scoring and charged with Ravagers to Nyss. One dead Nyss, but plenty of them engaged.

Also Tharn Ravager White Mane made a suicidal charge against Vanguard to engage it in melee.

Cassius drew the three ravager souls from Wurmwood and taught Ashlynn a lesson about boosted, autohitting pow 12 in form of a Hellmouth. Ten damage points in.

So I scored one point and the second zone was contested by both armies.

Then it was opponents turn and I learned a thing or two about Roulette.

I had ran my Bloodweavers to engage the Arcane Tempest Gun Mages.

But since Ashlynn used feat, I didn't kill a single one of them to free strikes, though I rolled about 4-5 of them. And then my precious bloodweavers were shot to pieces. That pretty much hurt.

The nyss charged Ravagers and killed the chieftain and left the unit leader standing. And that was because they missed.

White Mane was made into a paste by Vanguard that was just within control zone.

But really. Then I scored my second point and opponent scored his first.

Come my turn, I scored my third point and opponent scored his second.

A scenario victory for Cassius. I'm not sure that I could have pulled off a caster kill there, but I guess I would have positioned Bloodweavers differently (closer to Wurmwood for souls) anyway if it would have been a straight caster-kill scenario from the start.

Anyway, it was refreshing to play against Ashlynn, because it's been ages since I faced her (or any mercenary force to be honest...)

Slithering Slither Thing (Arkham Horror)

Last night we also played Arkham Horror with Dunwich Horror extra board. We had three players this time.

It was my second game of Arkham Horror ever, and it went pretty fine actually.

We were against Abhoth, that was some kind of ancient protean monster thingy that didn't care for cultists.

Characters drawn were Bob Jenkins, Ursula Downs and Roland Banks.

It's a shame I can no longer remember the characterful little happenings in the game, but it was full of special little stories.

I'm quite proud of my own achievements within the game. Bob Jenkins (my character) managed to kill at least five monsters and seal two gates. Magical sword and holy water helped there, though. Well, once Abhoth was awaken Bob was devoured in the second round of fight, but... before that he was a hero! Also, I find that the mental illness he got was quite fitting for his character. He got "hysteria".

Roland Banks somehow became the occultist in the group. Ursula was a kind of physical fighter for a long time and got to seal two gates too. I think Roland sealed one. Damn, it was really close there to win by sealing enough gates!

But Dunwich Horror had been awaken and children of Abhoth were roaming freely in Arkham. There was just not enough time to seal the sixth gate - Abhoth was awaken from its slumber and, uh. I think players managed to remove two doom things from the doom track in the final fight from the grand total of 11 doom things.

Chaos, I say, plain chaos! (Space Alert)

Yesterday I had a chance to play Space Alert, which was a completely new experience for me.

Being a complete newbie in the game I don't know which expansion, if any, were used and things like that.

Anyway, you're a crew member in a starship that explores the final frontier, searching for new life forms. Well. They're all kinda hostile in the game.

What makes the game so different is that it uses audio tracks. You hear what's happening (and when) from the CD, and then you plan your actions accordingly. Once you have your actions set, you can't change them and you just roll with any and all mistakes you have made. Because, really, there were five players and the mission plays for 15 minutes. You have actions for, what, 12 steps? That's a bit over a minute to decide each of your actions, all the while keeping track of what happens where and trying to figure out who does what and most importantly, that all players coordinate their actions.

So.

Mistakes are bound to happen.

We played three times, and first game was a complete disaster. Nothing worked out, we didn't manage to kill even a single threat. But if I remember right it was the mission number 8. Maybe a poor choice for a group of five players where two had zero or near zero experience about the game.

Second game went a bit better. Though it involved a lot of shooting at imaginary targets and trying to shoot with unloaded weapons. We scored 15 points with most of red and blue zone almost completely destroyed, but hey, we survived. It was mission 1 this time, though. Maybe it was a bit easier than the later missions.

We still had time for a third game, and since it was such a great fun, we played second mission too. We won the mission again, but mostly because the mistakes all the players did somehow play together a lot better than the players itself... Also, a special mention goes to our captain, who at least in my imagination just sat in the control room, looking out of the big window and smoking cigars, doing some "visual confirmation" on destroyed targets. But because of that visual confirmation we managed to beat our last missions score. This time we got 19.

Anyway. It's an awesome game of chaos where you just have to try to do something and hope you won't screw anyone others plans. Sure you can and must negotiate with other players what to do, but... a bit over a minute for each action you take and five people discussing and tracking happenings...

I had fun, yeah.