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?

Foresight is way better than hindsight, but hindsight is better than no sight at all

I'm doing the write-ups of two games I played at Jyväskylä's first attempt at a local tournament.

I had chosen to play with Circle Orboros, and funnily enough, first game (Scenario: Gauntlet) was against Circle Orboros, too.

Though it would have been hilarious to play Kaya the Wildborne against Kaya the Moonhunter, I still chose my list to be the one of Cassius':

Cassius & Wurmwood
- Woldwyrd
- Argus
- Megalith

Tharn Bloodweavers

Shifting Stones + Stonekeeper
Swamp Gobbers
2x Gallows Grove

As a hindsight I noticed that I kind of screwed up my list construction in a way. Cassius is one of the warlocks you don't want to have your Shifting Stones stealthed with. Luckily opponent had Shifting Stones of his own, so I could use them as homing beacons for Hellmouth.

Opponent was playing following list:

Kaya the Moonhunter & Laris
- Feral Warpwolf
- Warpwolf Stalker

Shifting Stones
Druid Wilder
Lord of the Feast
War Wolf

And the scenario was Gauntlet. The game was really weird one, and tough. First picture is taken from some round before all the action began.

Action here meant that epic Kaya used her feat.

See what's missing in the picture? Yeah... Megalith. For the rest of my game I'd have to do with just Woldwyrd and Argus. War Wolf rolled badly for its damage and didn't kill Gallows Grove, which gave me some possibilities.

However, I think I just missed Stranglehold I cast through it. More important fact was that I cast Curse of Shadows on blocking Shifting Stones, and then Bloodweavers tried to slaughter the Warpwolf Stalker.

It could have worked, but I got only 3 to contact with it, and the first two missed their Blood Spiller attacks. Last one hit, though, and the damage roll was something like 5,5,6,6.

I attempted something a little too risky, then.

I advanced Woldwyrd as far as possible, and started taking shots at Feral Warpwolf who had Forced Evolution on. Though rolling 4 dice for damage is nice against an ARM 16 target, pow 10 isn't just going to break it. Sure it did respectable damage, but I doubt it was worth the trade, as I was running low on warbeasts.

Ah well. At least Argus killed War Wolf.

Opponents Warpwolf Stalker failed to do meaningful kills against Bloodweavers, but Woldwyrd was bashed, as was to be expected.

On my turn Bloodweavers finished the Stalkers, and enemy Feral Warpwolf was heavily damaged by a lucky shot from Stone Keeper and a charging Argus, despite any misses I may have forgotten.

On opponents turn Argus was bashed, but that was the only casualty. Sure it was a heavy casualty, though.

I charged Cassius at Warpwolf and used Unseen Path to get back to safety, which was a mistake. As you can see in the first picture, I placed him behind Wurmwood, though I should have placed him so that I'd be able to charge with him again on next turn.

However, I scored first Control Point from scenario by getting rid of Feral Warpwolf and Druid Wilder.

Next picture is damn blurry, but Kaya and Laris came to contest the control area, and what are a couple of troopers and shifting stones going to do to a warlock and her beast? Not much, really.

I did try my best, though, when my turn started. I launched Hellmouth on one of my (now un-stealthed) Shifting Stones, and hoped for the best. If my memory serves, Kaya had already been wounded somewhere, but I don't really remember where. Could've been one of those unreported Hellmouths or something.

Kaya didn't, however, even fall under the template.

Somehow I picked the rightest Shifting Stone for my target, which as a hindsight was ridiculous. Be picking the leftern stone I would have gotten Kaya under for sure, but I wanted to protect my own Bloodweaver from the spell?! I don't know, really.

Opponent then destroyed shifting stone and bloodweaver to clear a charge path for Kaya.

And Kaya charged Cassius, who kind of died to one hit. I had been cutting Cassius for Fury for quite a long time already, and this was the cost. Being impaled and fed to Laris. Wurmwood must be really angry right now...


Game 2: Against Protectorate

Next game I played was against Protectorate of Menoth, and I chose my pKaya list just because I wanted to try her out.

And as a hindsight, I could actually try to pay a little attention to scenario being played! As it was Incursion. I had made the scenario pack myself so I very well knew the scenarios that would be played, so I can't use suprise/"not being aware of" as an excuse.

So, with following list I marched on to Incursion:

Kaya the Wildborne
- Feral Warpwolf
- Gnarlhorn Satyr
- Argus
- Gorax

Druid Wilder
Lord of the Feast

Opponent had eKreoss list like this:

Epic Kreoss
- Crusader

Maximum unit of Temple Flameguard + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Exemplar Errants + Unit Attachment
Knight Exemplar Seneschal
Exemplar Errant Seneschal

Hierophant

In the first picture flag from the right side has been removed already, which was good, because if center flag would have been removed, it'd have been nearly an automatic loss for me.

In the first picture there is also a grave mistake by me. I'm contesting the center flag with Gnarlhorn Satyr with such a horrible amount of Weapon Master infantry around.

I really should have done that with Argus, not the big beast!

Kreoss also casts a succesful Chasten on Gnarlhorn, and deals tons of damage in with an unnecessarily high damage roll. Charging Errants and Temple Flameguard continued the trend, and soon the goat was gone.

Also, to add an insult to injury (or more likely an injury to injury) the errant seneschal charges and kills Lord of the Feast. That was mainly because Lord of the Feast had managed to miss the seneschal with raven attack.

Situation was indeed rather horrible.

I decided to try to do something weird to see if it would puzzle opponent enough.

Gorax killed the Seneschal and used its animus on Feral Warpwolf. Kaya jumped around a bit and used her feat, accomplishing really nothing with it. However, she teleports next to flag on left side, and then Warpwolf charges Crusader, provoking 3x free strikes from Temple Flameguard and even Knight Exemplar Seneschal. The beast never reached Crusader.

Next turn epic Kreoss activates his feat and a couple of Temple Flameguard members come and poke Kaya to death.

I consider this game to be a total failure on my side and an eternal source of grief and shame.

Flag them!

I was going to do a separate write up earlier for markers and templates I made for tournament, but I managed to do less than I was going to.

What I did get done, however, were a couple of flags for scenario play.

Finally no more random light warjacks or warcasters lending their bases for flaggy goodness.

The little kid from Nightmare finally found her place in middle of two coffins labeled as "Mommy" and "Daddy".

Then next flag objective, I believe, needs no explanation.

When that pesky elven rascal goes around and leaves those infantile little notes everywhere, you just have to go and tear it off. Preferably you'll also control it so such vandalism doesn't happen again.

"Who needs 50% of players, anyway?"

Yesterday the 25-point Warmachine/Hordes tournament was held which I was talking about in my last post.

It really was an experience.

This city is pretty much in the centre of Finland. And somewhat hilariously it seems that most of the Warmachine activity in this country is around coasts and borders, which means that, in fact, Jyväskylä is far away from other players.

Now, it still managed to spark enough interest to hope for around 10 participants, give or take a few.

As the date came nearer and nearer, more people got something in their way, whether it was due to work schedules, travels away from Jyväskylä and travel costs TO Jyväskylä. A few days before tournament date there was 7 participants, so either it'd be a 8-player tournament if we got a suprise player from one of the local hobbyists, or only a 6-player event with me dropping out.

Starting on the morning of the event, one of the players reported he had got sick, so it looked like it'd be a 6-player event with me stepping in. Well, no biggie, since most important thing here was to activate local players and get them, for once, actually see each other.


Well, then we started the tournament, though one player was late. Random pairings made me to take the "bye" with late player.

After first round it was quite unlikely that this player would come for later rounds either, though I couldn't reach him to confirm this. I hope there is nothing more serious to this other than "whoopsie, overslept".

However, it was a 5-player event after that, then.

I asked if either of the players who scored no tournament points during first round wanted to take the "bye" next round, and one player did.

He did take the "bye" on last round too, because he wasn't actually all that motivated right now to play multiple games in somewhat short time.

So, it was a 4-player even after that, then.

Now, I guess it wasn't too bad after all. Games got played and people got to play against different armies they've used to. Hopefully next time a crapload of players won't drop out in such a short time.

There was a little talk about league and such, which might fit better this very active player base of Jyväskylä.

I'll write up my actual two games during event at some later time.