A River Too Far (Warmachine)

Finally I'm getting to write the second game up from last Tuesday. Well, I forced the time to write because next Tuesday is time for yet another game.

It was a 35 point game and my list was:

Lord Arbiter Hexeris
- Bronzeback Titan
- Archidon (bonded)
- Rhinodon

Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment

Minimum unit of Beast Handlers
Agonizer
Aptimus Marketh
Bloodrunner Master Tormentor

And opponent had:

Caine the Prime Version
- Ironclad

Minimum unit of Greygore Boomhowler's + Jonas Murdoch
Minimum unit of Arcane Tempest Gun Mages + Officer
- Defender
Arlan Strangewayes
Squire
Junior Warcaster
Ragman

Scenario was Into the Breach.

The board was same as in last post, and again it was quite horrifying divider. Well, I did have Archidon who was bonded to Hexeris, so I though I might be able to clear pretty much all of Arcane Tempest Gun Mages with Ashes to Ashes and try to contest the zone with Archidon and Bloodrunner Master Tormentor. Beautiful plan, but it relied on two easy to kill models.

On the right side of board terrain formed an annoying bottle neck when Greygore's assaulted to my forces. It took way too many turns to break through.

I wasted Hexeris' feat on killing the arcane tempest gun mages, since first Ashes to Ashes scored only two additional hits. Well, at least the feat killed all but one gun mage, and as an added bonus even Arlan Strangewayes bit the dust!

Caine used his feat at some point, too, inflicting some damage on Archidon, who had already taken a little damage from Gun Mages. If I remember correctly Caine did some extra attacks against Archidon, too, and finally Junior Warcaster advanced and shot the dinosaur beast down with his hand cannon.

And there I was. I lost the control zone, and I had absolutely nothing to go and contest it!

Looking back now I see that I did in fact have Paingiver Beast Handlers, who might have had the possiblity of running to contest the zone for one round. But that wouldn't have changed anything, really. I was winning the attrition game on the right - just about all of the trollkin had finally died, as well as Ironclad and everything opponent had thrown against Skorne.

I had, in fact, cleared everything from the right by the time opponent had 3 control points. But SPD 4 warbeast and infantry that's on the other side of the board can only do so much... Now was the time when Beast Handlers ran to contest the zone, and I even managed to run Agonizer there too. And then, risking it all, I even decided to try an assassination at focusless Caine.

Hexeris advanced to the hill and cast Hellfire at Caine. I didn't boost, so Hexeris needed 10's to hit. Well, much to my amazemen results were five and five. Damage roll was rather bad, however, so I needed to succeed at yet another 10+ on two dice. I didn't.

So, in the end situation was that opponent had three control points, and my objective had two hit boxes remaining, and I had only one beast handler and agonizer contesting the control zone, and a furyless Hexeris standing on a hill in middle of enemy (albeit few in number) forces.

Defender shot the objective down, and Caine and Junior Warcaster took the contesters down.

Needless to say, the terrain played a huge role in this game. I think it's interesting to try out different things now and then, but it was a bit bummer that out of all of my factions I was playing with the one that is most screwed by terrain. I guess Skorne can build lists that can navigate terrain a little better than my lists, but I don't really have the models for such. I can only imagine how different these games could have been if I had played Circle, or even Cryx.