Yahtzee without re-rolls (Warmachine)

A little while ago I played two games of Warmachine.

They were 35 point games with Steamroller scenarios, and I played following list in both of the games:

Goreshade the Bastard & Deathwalker
- Nightmare
- Seether
- Cankerworm

Maximum unit of Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
Bane Lord Tartarus
Satyxis Captain
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall

First game was against:

Karchev the Terrible

- 2x Juggernauts

2x Kayazy Eliminators
Maximum unit of Man-o-War Shocktroopers
Minimum unit of Battle Mechaniks + Officer
2x Manhunters
Epic Eiryss

Khador got the first turn, and picture is taken from the end of Cryx's first turn. And, uh. Second turn shows the ridiculousness that Tow is. Karchev took additional movement and ran. Though juggernauts had run way ahead of Karchev, he still managed somehow to tow them even further by taking additional movement from turbine and running.

If I'd only been just a little more careless, it'd easily been a caster kill, again.

Anyway, I lost my cankerworm, and kayazy eliminators on the leftern flank started to rapidly diminish satyxis' ranks.

It was about this time when I realised that six points from opponent (eliminators + Eiryss) were tying up 19 points there. And the 19 points didn't manage to get rid of them! At least not in a timely manner.

I was thinking that I'd probably lose to attrition already because of that weird blunder of throwing more than half of my list to one flank. I tried to do some kind of assassination, which turned out to become just an ordinary wrecking day.

First Necrotech went and build a scrap thrall from the wreck of Cankerworm. Then Goreshade cast Shadowmancer and charged the juggernaut that dared to destroy Asphyxious' precious little toy. Goreshade would have a lot to explain...

Anyway, with last focus Goreshade bought additional attack and hit scrap thrall. Resulting blast killed both eliminators, which was way more than I had hoped for.

Then Goreshade uses his feat. Then his feat charges awkwardly, to not get into way of Nightmare. First Bane Lord Tartarus had activated and charged a lone Manhunter to curse Karchev or something.

Three bane thralls that were dedicated to the juggernaut in melee with Goreshade didn't destroy the khadoran warjack, despite initial softening up by Goreshade. This is where I had to change my plans. Nightmare charging at Karchev would've been too unsure, and if Khador would start its turn with a warjack next to focusless Goreshade... no, not good. Nightmare just walked up, getting both warjacks within his reach. Three focus were more than enough to reduce both jacks to scrap.

But still... I felt outnumbered.

Next turn Karchev single-handedly gets rid of one particular Nightmare, and afterward everything runs to block as much potential threats to Karchev as possible. One manhunter charges Goreshade and removes about half of Goreshade's hit boxes.

And then... I was outnumbered.

It was all or nothing now, everything had to be geared towards an assassination. I measured Goreshade's control range so that I knew he'd have enough threat to charge Karchev if I could get a mechanik, possibly a man-o-war and one of my bane thralls away.

Things started looking bad when bane thralls failed to do anything, though the one I mentioned moved away from Goreshade's charge lane.

However, Bane Lord Tartarus saved the situation and charged so that the mechanik and man-o-war died, thanks to a ridiculous damage roll. Shame that thresher attack didn't do much to Karchev himself.

Anyway, now Karchev was inside Dark Shroud and Goreshade had full 7 focus, and even Deathwalker was in position to debuff Karchev.

Goreshade charged and unloaded full 7 focus to the man in the machine, and it was last possible attack that finally destroyed the metal hulk, and it wasn't even an excessive destruction - only two points over Karchev's remaining hit boxes.

Somehow I suspect things would have been a little different if I wouldn't have moved most of my troops to contest my own zone... What the heck was I thinking?


Game 2:

Second game was against a following list:

Epic Irusk

- Destroyer

Maximum unit of Assault Kommandos + 1 Flame Thrower
Great Bears of Gallowswood
Greylord Ternion
Widowmakers
Epic Eiryss
Gorman diWulfe
Orin Midwinter

I actually felt quite good about this match-up. My whole list was protected against shooting pretty damn well, and opponent had lots of shooting. I did, however, underestimate how fast Assault Kommandos with Tactical Supremacy would be.

First picture is taken from the end of Khador's first turn. This time Cryx got the start... and since Irusk had come so far forward, I decided to launch Satyxis all over the place. Literally they spread everywhere on the board.

I did a slight mental fart with Nightmare, though. I counted up it's threat range of 11" and then added Reach on top of it. So... I tried to charge Juggernaut with it. Charge fell so short that I had to stop and wonder what on earth just happened. I had planned that I would charge in and then yank Nightmare right back with Soul Gate, but situation turned so that I had to cover my mistake with that spell.

Anyway, then it's opponent's turn and something happened that gave the title for this post.

Great Bears of Gallowswood charged Cankerworm, and Volkov did... Uh, I can't even say it... I'm still in the stage of denial. No, let's face it... he rolled five sixes in one go. True, one of the dice was for location, but still. Five sixes? I guess I should be happy that it didn't happen on actually important pieces such as Nightmare.

Irusk used his feat and cast Rift on Seether. Suddenly... just suddenly things looked really bad. Random shooting and melee attacks all but cleared my infantry, and then I realised that two heavy warjacks wouldn't be able to destroy them all. And even further, Cryxian standards of ARM 17 and the damage grid of a light warjack on heavies started to worry me. Assault Kommandos with Battle Lust would most probably just destroy Seether on next turn, and Nightmare was inside Irusk's feat, so it'd probably end up just getting charged next turn without being able to reach anything useful.

First Bane Lord Tartarus attempts to get rid of Great Bears and fails miserably. He completely misses one and kills two, but Yarovich passes a Tough roll. So... 2/3 of Bears still standing. I think that sealed the deal here - I would try to go for assassination, again. Goreshade wasn't in Irusk's feat, so he charged as far as possible, camped all focus and used feat.

Two of the feated thralls manage to walk up to Irusk. Two attempts to finish Irusk who had already taken in a horrible amount of damage from a lucky hit by Satyxis last turn. Both missed, though.

Then I realise I hadn't moved Deathwalker yet. Luckily her movement isn't enough to bring Irusk to the debuff aura. Would have sucked quite a bit if a successful desperate assassination would have been undone just because of that...

Anyway, then I just had to hope for low rolls next turn.

First Gorman goes and throws the oil on Goreshade. Mmkay, well, he still has def 11, arm 23. I still might survive.

Eiryss, however, is so stealthy that she isn't seen in any of the pictures. That's because she has been residing just out of picture, on the hill to the right.

Suddenly it was def 11 arm 16 situation. I guess I should have spent the focus for Shadowmancer, but I was quite sure Eiryss wouldn't be able to bring Goreshade to her range.

Greylord Ternion shoots Goreshade with their spray attacks and do some damage in. Then Assault Kommandos fail their Terror check against Goreshade and situation became... interesting. Juggernaut trampled over a bane thrall that luckily had survived, and Juggernaut rolls damage very badly against Goreshade. He is left with one hit box and almost everything had activated.

All, but Widowmakers.

All, but Widowmakers with Sniper to deal exactly one point of damage. Finally one of them scores a hit, and it's game over.

Defying Fate (not)

I just realised that I had a fifteen month pause at playing against Khador.

Anyway, some time ago I had the pleasure of playing against the big red machine again, this time at my home town.

It was a 35 point game, and I played with following list:

Lord Exhumator Scaverous
- 2x Nightwretch
- Erebus
- Seether

Maximum unit of Mechanithralls + 1 Brute Thrall
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Skarlock
2x Warwitch Siren

Opponent had a list something like:

Strakhov
- 2x Juggernaut

Maximum unit of Assault Kommandos + 1 Flame Thrower
Minimum unit of Kayazy Assassins + Underboss
2x Kayazy Eliminators
Epic Eiryss
Gorman diWulfe

Scenario was randomised to be Close Quarters.

Cryx got the start and first picture is from the end of Khadoran first turn.

Scaverous popped his feat right in the second turn. I did have a grand plan of getting rid of Eiryss and Kayazy in one fell sweep (they were things that frightened me most) but things didn't quite work that way.

First I did forget all about "no channeling" thingy from Eiryss. The elf obviously survived, then. Eiryss had, by the way, shot Seether into disruption last round, so the helljack wasn't able to go and get rid of that life-threatening nuisance. Though I'm not sure if trading a 9 point warjack to 3 point solo would have been worth it...

Anyway.

Scaverous's feat cast a succesful Feast of Worms that killed two Kayazy Eliminators and one Assassin and Underboss... except that he passed a tough roll. He isn't in the picture because we didn't remember if he had Tough right away, and picture is also missing a Mechanithrall that came into play via Excarnating a Kayazy Eliminator.

Last focus was used to cast Icy Grip on Kayazy Assassins, and suddenly board looked a lot more survivable.

Khadorans shot down most of mechanithralls and nailed Necrotech, too, but those losses were quite acceptable. What wasn't acceptable, however, was the fact that I lost both of my arc nodes. Technically Nightwretch on the right is still functional, having only lost its head, but it's being engaged with a Juggernaut with Superiority on. Not gonna risk a free strike, not today. (Semi-opaque dark circles are 50mm in diameter and represent the warjacks' actual position on the board.)

Eiryss shot Erebus into disruption, which was a bummer, because I would have wanted it to go on a little killing spree. The AoE on Erebus is Rift spell from Strakhov.

On my next turn I tried to charge Eiryss' back arc with Warwitch Siren, but missed. So it did rest on Seether's shoulders to go and punch the most hated elf of Iron Kingdoms in the face. And she died. It'd been better if Seether could have gone and do a full amount of initial attacks against Juggernaut that was engaging Nightwretch and throw the jack away with Chain Attack, but that Arm 11 model is just too scary to be left alive.

Erebus did go to rake in some souls for Scaverous, but it drained a lot of resources and wasn't done in full potential even then.

First Skarlock casts Ghost Walk on Erebus. Then Warwitch Siren uses Power Booster on it. And then Erebus finally advances and rolls astonishing attack rolls. Well okay, it needed only 7+ to hit on Kayazy Assassins thanks to Icy Grip and even less to the one Assault Kommando, but still I would have expected some attacks to miss. But they didn't, so Scaverous took 3 souls.

Necrosurgeon advanced and placed 3 Mechanithralls, two of them to back arcs of Kayazy Assassins.

Mechanithralls then advanced and rolled dozens of missed attacks, but then there were the few lucky hits, which were enough. There was only the Underboss alive now.

Scrap Thrall ran to engage Gorman diWulfe. That was probably best thing it has ever done.

Then it's opponents turn and I see that I have made a nice little line of my Mechanithralls and Assault Kommandos are sporting a flame thrower... Let's just say that the air smelled foul for the rest of the fight and there were no more Mechanithralls.

Assault Kommandos explode all over the place then, after Assault & Battery. They kill Necrosurgeon, Skarlock Thrall and Warwitch Siren on right. There is one Warwitch Siren still alive, but it's just out of picture on left.

I don't remember how badly Seether was beaten up, but I remember it wasn't completely wrecked. Useless maybe, but not a wreck just yet.

Another Juggernaut charged Erebus but missed its attack roll. Poltergeist pushed the warjack full 3" away.

Strakhov himself charged some remaining Mechanithrall and Sprinted away, and there was a tough choice of either going outside of Killbox and getting behind a wall or remaining inside Killbox without the benefit of cover. Cryx was not given Control Points.

Well, there was a possibility to assassinate Strakhov now, so of course I jumped at it. Erebus was allocated full 3 Focus.

Strakhov had been upkeeping Occultation on himself, so there would be no way to cast Telekinesis on him. But Mechanithralls could easily go away from Scaverous' charge lane and then the Lord Exhumator would be able to charge any and all models that were engaging Erebus, and then casting Telekinesis on Erebus and hoping Strakhov would be in Erebus' charge range.

First, however, there was a problem called Kayazy Eliminator in Scaverous' back arc.

Cryx applied somewhat unorthodox methods in getting rid of her. Warwitch Siren came in base to base contact with the Eliminator and used Seduction ability on her. Let's not go crazy over this one, shan't we?

After that everything proceeded as planned and Erebus was easily within charge range to Strakhov.

Erebus is an uncomfortable assassination jack. MAT 7 and two initial attacks and no extra focus management abilities mean only boosted charge attack roll and attack roll boost on second initial attack. But this time it was luckily enough and...

...and ...

My Scaverous won?! It was just too good to be true. Things like that just don't happen. Something was amiss...

Later during that same day I visited a friend, and her cat peed on my mobile phone, wrecking it with that particular source of corrosion. If these two events are somehow linked (as I believe they are) I will be afraid to win with Scaverous in the future. Fate is not to be defied. If Scaverous doesn't lose a great tragedy will fall upon me.

A nameless game

Uh.

This is a bit embarrassing, again.

I met a person and we hanged around a little, and she had brought a weird word game thingy with her.

It looked like a baby toy, but it had dice with letters in their faces on them. Then you had to roll those dice, or mix them or something to get an assortment of letters on an even surface.

Then within a certain time limit (we took 5 minutes) you had to come up with as many words as possible from the given set of letters.

The name of this game had been long lost to dusty pages of moldy books of history. The actual play reminded me a lot of Razzle.

Anyway.

The results? Uh, how do you count up any results with games like these? How do you write an exciting "report"?

I'll just say that we played six rounds, me winning two of them and the owner of the game winning four.

Aftermath vol2: The CURSE

Second game I played was against Protectorate of Menoth. It was 35 points again with no scenario.

My list was:

Lord Exhumator Scaverous
- Slayer
- 2x Nightwretch

Minimum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
2x Warwitch Siren
Iron Lich Overseer
- Reaper
Skarlock
Orin Midwinter

And opponent had:

Harbinger of Menoth
- Crusader
- Vanquisher

Maximum unit of Exemplar Bastions
Knights Exemplar
2x Paladins
Vilmon
Hierophant
Vassal of Menoth

It was a disturbing list to face, because Martyrdom trumps both Excarnate and drag from Reaper's harpoon. Also Impervious Wall made dragging impossible.

We didn't change the board setup, but this time around the bottleneck with impassable building and linear obstacle didn't look nearly as intimidating as in last game, since there were no Mage Hunter Strike Force around.

I think I won starting roll again, since picture 2 shows Protectorate closing in. Vanquisher scored a lucky deviation and burned way too many bane thralls alive. Unlive, alive? How should that be said?

Anyway, this is where I started missing Bile Thralls.

Mostly everything I did failed miserably, but at least I killed one paladin with a single shot from Orin Midwinter. I didn't want to kill the paladin yet, only soften up him enough for Scaverous to cast Excarnate on it and create one more bane thrall for charging.

Reaper did some little damage in to bastions, but a charging bane thrall either missed or rolled abysmal damage roll.

Next turn Harbinger obviously uses her feat. I was somewhat happy that my whole army didn't just dissolve to charging warjacks and weapon masters. In fact, I pretty much lost only bane thralls, though almost everything else was on fire.

I saw a potential assassination here.

First I'd have to remove Bastions from Scaverous' way and he'd be able to cast Telekinesis on himself and either charge Vanquisher or Harbinger herself (if within range. If not, Telekinesis on her too before Thresher.)

But as it happened, every attack deflected away from Bastions. No, not from their Armor stat... but from their Defense stat! And the attacks that did hit scored next to no damage. I unloaded on them two Venom sprays, full melee capability of Reaper and its marshal, the Iron Lich Overseer plus whatever Slayer was able to do (it had lost one of its arms.) Also Orin Midwinter threw full 4 bolts at them.

After all of this there was still an Exemplar Bastion standing in-between Scaverous and Harbinger. But all the damage and Martyring of dying Bastions had dealt some 8-9 points in to Harbinger thanks to plenty of 5-6 rolls on d3.

I thought that maybe I might kill her with a few well-placed Excarnates.

Scaverous charges and threshers bastions, missing and not-killing them. He did, however, wreck his own Reaper with a damage roll of 5,6.

Using his feat he starts landing Excarnates on Harbinger and first one hits just fine and after a damage roll Harbinger had 3 hit boxes left. She was camping 5 focus, though, so she had at least some defense.

Well, then Scaverous launches his assassinating Excarnate. Attack hits and on 11+ on three dice Harbinger would be dead. Damage roll came out as 1,1,2 or 1,2,2. One focus left Scaverous pulls Harbinger just a little closer with Telekinesis and Skarlock tries to shoot yet another lucky Excarnate on Harbinger. But 11+ on just two dice just doesn't do it.

Next turn Vanquisher and Scaverous have a little chat.

That chat didn't end well for Scaverous. I don't know why it is, but my Scaverous is just destined to lose. Or is he? I played one more game with him, but that's different battle report altogether...

Aftermath vol1: A Failed Assassination

After Ropecon I stayed in Helsinki for a while and got to play a few games of Warmachine during that time.

First game was against Retribution of Scyrah. Games were 35 points with no specific scenario.

My list:

Mortenebra & Deryliss
- Erebus
- Harrower
- Stalker
- Ripjaw

Minimum unit of Bane Thralls

Minimum unit of Bile Thralls
Warwitch Siren

Opponent:

Ossyan
- Phoenix
- Discordia

Maximum unit of Mage Hunter Strikeforce + Commander
Arcanist
Epic Eiryss
2x Mage Hunter Assassin
Narn, Mage Hunter of Ios

This time Cryx won starting roll and first picture is taken from the end of Retribution's first turn.

Second turn saw a crazy long charge by Harrower. Mage Hunter Strike Force had already taken nasty position behind the impassable house, so I decided to charge them before they just shot my precious helljack down.

Mortenebra advanced a little and cast Terminal Velocity. Deryliss cast Overrun on Harrower, who then charged closest Mage Hunter Strike Force member in sight.

Since Discordia had Admonition on I had a couple of choices - either I try to run up to Discordia and start beating it or then I could park the helljack in range of a couple of Strike Force's and Eiryss. But if I had went to Discordia, it would have just ran away and Harrower would have been outside of Terminal Velocity's range.

All in all this shenanigan didn't do too much - three or four dead Mage Hunters and dead Eiryss. But at least it was an opening move that couldn't be ignored.

Opponent then had Narn charge some bile thralls and/or bane thralls and then sprinted next to Mortenebra. Mage Hunter Assassin from right also tried to take a shot at Erebus, but missed its mark. Obviously I lost Harrower, but I saw an opening for a possible assassination, and it went thus:

Overrun on Erebus, Terminal Velocity and Recalibration on from Mortenebra, then Warwitch Siren goes and sprays away one particularly important Mage Hunter Assassin, then Erebus would kill Mage Hunter Assassin next to it to trigger Overrun. Then Stalker would move with Overrun and charge 12" to Ossyan, loaded up with 3 focus. After all it would have been 5x pow 12's with attack roll boosts and one damage boost, all re-rollable.

Things were, however, screwed when Warwitch Siren couldn't land a 7+ on that particularly important Mage Hunter Strike Force member, despite being able to re-roll.

Ah well.

Then I just tried to run everything and block enough assassination vectors to protect Mortenebra. Stalker did impressive job at charging Phoenix, but sadly I ran Bane Thrall next to Phoenix after I had charged with Stalker. Systems would've been broken then, I dare say.

Much to my suprise Mortenebra didn't die next turn, and not too many models actually died either.

I lost all but one bane thrall and Stalker lost one claw and possibly movement to upcoming fire continous effect, and Ripjaw was shot down with Ossyan's feat.

I saw a potential assassination, again. And it went thus:

Deryliss would cast Overrun on Mortenebra itself. Warwitch Siren would spray a couple of troublesome models away, and then lonesome Bane Thrall would charge Warwitch Siren away from Mortenebra's charge lane.

Then Mortenebra would cast Terminal Velocity and charge a Mage Hunter Strike Force member, kill it, trigger overrun and go stomp Ossyan with one initial attack and four focus.

It worked well until Mortenebra was against Ossyan.

First attack hit home and dealt respectable damage in with a damage boost. But then she missed a bought attack and with last possible attack she hit but rolled 1,2,2 for damage. Sometimes cracking a def 15 arm 16 can be so damn difficult. Arm 16 because Ossyan was camping one focus.

Last two games of Steamroller tournament at Ropecon 2013

Well, then.

Two losses in a row, things just couldn't get any worse, could they?

Next I was against Legion of Everblight.

Here I made a little mental note that I'm bound to forget. Both of my lists hadn't taken any countermeasures against Legion of Everblight. Both lists relied pretty much on denying LOS and/or having access to Stealth.

I mean... Legion isn't, strictly speaking, a very uncommon sight in tournaments.

Oh well, I just took epic Asphyxious because I need more games in with him. For statistics, you know.

When I knew I was playing against Saeryn, I wonder why the heck I took Bile Thralls... I could have changed them to something useful with Specialists.

Anyway, opposing list was something like:

Saeryn
- 2x Ravagore
- 2x Angelius
- Raek

2x Strider Deathstalkers
Forsaken
Blighted Nyss Shepherd or two
2-3 Spell Martyrs
- some empty points I don't remember... Succubus, perhaps?

First picture is taken from the end of Legion turn 2, when shooting had already began.

Because I deployed Bane Thralls rather poorly it was my heavy jacks that took the hits. I don't know why I did it, but I decided to rush aggressively to the control zone (at least I didn't want to give points to Legion that easily. But I know Saeryn's feat, I have played enough against her and still... I ran all of my jacks and even Asphyxious himself to a tightly packed formation.

I guess I wanted to believe that Asphyxious would still be standing next turn and I would be able to unload 6x purges on Angeliuses when one of them would have -3arm from Parasite and one -2 from Dark Shroud for at least one purge, but that was quite desperate thinking.

Angeliuses charged Slayer in the middle and wrecked it and bought extra attacks against Asphyxious. Even boosted blast damages from Ravagores did some points in, so Asphyxious was killed in a most embarrasing situation that's imaginable, barring only a purge from own bile thrall.


Last game in Ropecon 2013 Steamroller tournament:

I was against Khador, and decided to take epic Asphyxious again. I was against Old Witch of Khador and I almost cried there and then. Three out of four of my matchups during tournament had some way of negating most rules for Line of Sight. Again, cloud effects wouldn't protect Asphyxious himself.

Game itself was interesting, though I had forgotten my camera somewhere. I could only snatch one picture in the end when there was no pressure from Deathclock.

I had played against Old Witch of Khador only once before, and then it ended so that Scrapjack just parked right next to my warcaster, Old Witch advanced and cast Unseen Path and killed Deneghra in just a few hits. So... I was afraid, and played extra carefully.

Scrapjack was a monster against Bane Thralls, when it advanced under Avatar of Slaughter and destroyed tons of thralls. It did this for three full rounds, and only because I rolled godlike tough rolls. I dare say at least 50% of all tough rolls I made succeeded.

I had replaced one Slayer with Soulhunters, and I must say that they did wonderful job at harassing Winterguard Infantry.

This time I kept Tartarus way back in the safe zone, waiting for a moment to curse something worthwile. Last few games I had played Tartarus way too forward and Stealth ignoring or scattering autofire AoE's had made his undead life difficult.

Anyway, both of the warcasters were standing way too back for either faction to get a clean, nice assassination. However, when it started to look like Khador would be winning attrition, I decided to try an all-or-nothing assassination.

Everything I had tried to shoot down a large-based objective that was in-between Asphyxious' feat and Old Witch.

First Tartarus charged Aiyana (missed her, of course) and cursed the Old Witch.

Then Asphyxious charged something, I don't remember what. Then he used Spectral Legion and either teleported to safety or tried to soften up the objective marker. Since my lock was running real short, I didn't plan on surviving next turn if I failed the assassination attempt. So a boosted excarnate to objective marker it was. Still it wasn't destroyed, but one Spectral Legion bane thrall charged it down.

A maximum of four Bane Thralls would have been able to charge the cursed Witch. Third one dealt the finishing blow, and game ended, and I got a couple of seconds over 2 minutes left on my timer.

First two games of Steamroller tournament at Ropecon 2013

On Saturday 27th of July I participated in a 50 point Steamroller tournament at Ropecon.

It was a 1-2 list event with Divide & Conquer [1].

My lists were:

Epic Asphyxious
- 2x Slayer
- Seether
- Ripjaw
- Nightwretch

Maximum unit of bane thralls + unit attachment
Minimum unit of bile thralls
Bane Lord Tartarus
Necrotech

Reinforcements:
Skarlock
Minimum unit of Soulhunters
Gorman diWulfe

And

Goreshade the Bastard & Deathwalker
- 2x Helldiver
- Reaper
- Seether
- Nightmare

Cephalyx Overlords

Maximum unit of Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
Satyxis captain
Bloat Thrall
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Pistol wraith
Warwitch siren

Reinforcements:
Maximum unit of mechanithralls + Brute Thrall
Necrosurgeon
Warwitch siren

I lost all starting rolls during the tournament.

First game was against Protectorate of Menoth that had epic Severius and Amon as choices for lists. I figured that since neither would be terribly bothered by Mage Blight or Stealth from Shadowmancer, I'd pick epic Asphyxious. And I got epic Severius against me. The protectorate army had a gorgeously painted Vessel of Judgement

Opposing list was something like:

Hierarch Severius
- Redeemer
- Blessing of Vengeance
- Vanquisher

Maximum unit of Exemplar Errants + Unit Attachment

Knights Exemplar
Maximum unit of Choir of Menoth
Exemplar Errant Seneschal
Hierophant
Reclaimer
Vassal of Menoth
Vessel of Judgement

First picture is taken from the end of Cryxian first turn, and second picture sees Protectorate mostly just advancing around. What was rather disappointing was the fact that Vanquisher with a lucky deviation set Bane Lord Tartarus on fire. What was even more horrible was that the fire didn't go off - it dealt something like 5 points in. Tartarus had only two hit boxes left and was on fire, so I decided to push forward aggressively.

I got to make a bile thrall out of Deliverer, but it didn't do very much. Ensuing purge failed to punch through Exemplar Errants' armor three times out of five or so, and next turn all corrosions effects just ended.

I tried to screen Asphyxious a little and make it more difficult for knight exemplars to charge into bane thralls, but things just didn't work out. This particular spell "Awareness" caught me by suprise. Asphyxious took Severius' feat, two shots from Vanquisher and two shots from Redeemer in and one "arced" blast from Vessel of Judgement. He didn't die, but... arm 16 model on fire with something like 4 boxes left isn't exactly an optimal situation.

Well, I tried what I could.

Ripjaw and Seether dispatched Vessel of Judgement and one of the Slayers tried to clear path for another Slayer to do various things. After tons of fiddling around things looked pretty good, now, if only Slayer could advance and get to engage Redeemer I might actually stay playing for another turn if fire continous effect didn't kill me.

Nope, Slayer could not do it. Large base was too large to fit through to get into Redeemer. Next turn bonded Redeemer was allocated four focus, which it spent happily to the demise of epic Asphyxious.


Second game during Ropecon 2013 Steamroller tournament:

I was against Cygnar with (if I remember right) Haley1 and Haley2 as list choices. I was pretty anxious, since the player opposite of me was all kinds of a champ. Let's face it - I was scared!

Since there would most probably by tons of shooting around, I decided to pick Goreshade the Bastard as my list.

I got Haley1 against me, with a list vaguely like this:

Haley

- Sentinel

Maximum unit of Storm Lances
Maximum unit of Tempest Blazers
Rangers
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters + Jonas Murdoch
Alexia Ciannor & Risen
Journeyman Warcaster, perhaps?
Squire
Rhupert Carvolo

First picture is taken from the end of Cryxian second turn. It's not a good day when someone shoots 8 satyxis and satyxis captain solo in a forest in just one turn.

Luckily Sea Witch was still going strong, so Satyxis advanced and used Power Swell. Two got within reach range of Alexia herself, so they attacked her and hoped for some good rolls. And they got 'em. P+S 11 + 3d6 was enough to kill Alexia (probably because not all of the Risen were close enough).

Well, that was nice. But next it was Haley's feat turn. And again I was suprised to see that yes, indeed it is one extra attack of any kind, not just an extra ranged attack that the feat gives.

Leftern flank was destroyed entirely along with Nightmare.

Situation looked so bad that I didn't really think of maintaining scenario, and that was a serious mistake. I should have moved leftmost Helldiver to contest flag on the left so opponent wouldn't have gained a control point on my turn.

Anyway, I was too busy on attempting a desperate assassination.

Everything that could would destroy any and all models in-between Goreshade and Haley. It succeeded. Nyss Hunters had shot Deathwalker down last turn, so she appeared again when Goreshade managed to hit a Nyss Hunter. Goreshade also used his feat and bane thralls activated. Only one could walk to Haley, who was just within 5" of Deathwalker.

Would a Bane Thrall manage to hit a def 14 warcaster? Yes, yes it would! And dealt in 6-8 points of damage, which is, sadly, less than what Haley has on her health bar.

Next turn opponent doesn't do too much damage, considering that I was so overwhelmed.

He could, however, secure way too much scenario points. If I wouldn't be able to get anyone to contest leftmost flag, I'd just lose to scenario. And that's exactly what happened.

It was a little disturbing to lose my army to shooting when my whole army was quite well protected against shooting. Ultimately I gave Nightmare way too easily, maybe next time I try to bait with a 7 point jack instead of a 10.

So, two first games were a loss, but I think they were still pretty good games. They were hellishly difficult to play, yet they were not complete, hmm... how to say it nicely? Forced rectal invasions.

I played two more games in the tournament, write-ups coming soon enough I hope.