Quarter of an inch

Last Sunday I played a game of Warmachine.

It was a 35 point game of my Skorne vs Khador. We took fancy army pictures just like in the good ol' days...

My list was:

Lord Arbiter Hexeris
- Archidon
- Bronzeback Titan
- 2x Basilisk Drake
- Basilisk Krea

Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Beast Handlers
Minimum unit of Farrow Bone Grinders

Khador had:

Vladimir, the Dark Prince

- Drago
- Marauder

Maximum unit of Iron Fang Pikemen + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Winter Guard Infantry + Unit Attachment
Widowmakers
War Dog
Kovnik Josef Grigorovich

Scenario was Supply and Demand, which I guess is the 2014 version of plain caster kill.

Khador started the game and first picture is taken from the end of Skorne turn 1. Archidon is Hexeris' bonded warbeast and Ashen Veil is on Praetorian Swordsmen. Oh, and Archidon has Arcane Reckoning on it. Tsk tsk, oh you, Hexeris, why did you do that?

Well, anyway. Vlad uses feat then and on my side of the board I can see only red.

Thankfully my casualties were low, only a couple of Praetorian Swordsmen and Basilisk Drake that was shot down by winterguards and widowmakers. Marauder was quarter of an inch away from Archidon, and Drago could reach only the aforementioned swordsmen.

Iron Fang Pikemen used their minifeat and there I had then a huge blob of p+s 13 shield-walling infantry on the right.

Though I didn't lose too many models, I had quite a few heavy targets to take care of - that I couldn't charge, either.

This is what I tried to do: soften up Marauder and Drago with automatic one point of damage from Swordsmen and then kill the both heavy warjacks with beat-backing Bronzeback. It's just... Well, I had the intention to side-step away from Bronzeback's beat back lane, but somehow I failed in the application of this grand plan. It just happened so that I used side step to move in between the beat back possibility of killin' 'em all.

Drago died just to initial attacks + chain attack so with a bit better brain and placement the Marauder would've needed to survive 5x p+s 19 attacks. But quoth the raven: nevermore.

Archidon tries desperately to get a critical pitch to Marauder with two tries, but fails. Also I fail to remember that Archidon is not in fact a light warbeast and has a Fury maximum of 4.

Basilisk Krea and Drake on the right kill a couple iron fang pikemen, but nothing to write home (blog?) about. Honorable mention goes to one of the bonegrinder grunts who manages to kill one pikeman. It's a bit of a shame it wasn't swamp gobber who did that, because sometimes something happens that should happen more often.

Then it's Khador turn again, and there was a very real possibility of getting Hexeris killed. I had tried to place Archidon so that a slam would clip to Bronzeback and not carry over to Hexeris, but somehow I just couldn't do it. Archidon is slammed 4" back, which is just enough to land it on Hexeris. I didn't even remember about Serpentine on Archidon until opponent asked if it could actually be knocked down. I believe this was the first time Serpentine mattered for me.

Anyway.

Then, despite Ashen Veil, boosted RAT 5 with Signs & Portents butcher up all but one praetorian swordsman. What's left of Iron Fang Pikemen kill Basilisk Krea.

Things look interesting. Not really bad, but not that good either.

On my next turn I (again) waste my feat on scorching up the enemy infantry with double Ashes to Ashes. But that was quite well done, since only the flag bearer is left alive. And he passes the command check.

Bronzeback unsuprisingly wrecks Marauder, but I get to do very little to Iron Fang Pikemen. Yeah, taking a close look on the pictures I manage to kill only one.

Well, there's not much left of Khador, except the heaviest warjack of them all: Vlad himself.

Vlad takes a ballsy move and casts Blood of Kings and charges the Archidon. Archidon is left alive with only two hit boxes, and if I remember anything even mediocre damage rolls should have taken the beast out. War Dog runs in-between Vlad and Bronzeback, and then it's either Skorne kills Vlad or Vlad kills Skorne. The whole nation.

Hexeris charges the War Dog and spends rest of his Fury on attacks against Vlad. Then Bronzeback comes and finishes the job. We had already started picking up models from table so the last picture isn't too exact (unless Bronzeback gained Reach from those tusks...) but it illustrates the situation up there.

Good game, and I wonder how different it could've looked if Marauder would've been 0.25" closer to Archidon on turn 2.