End to Nexus Psi

Last Sunday I got to play Deadzone, and we finished up the Nexus Psi campaign we had started earlier.

Plague had iniative to choose next scenario, but apparently there was no other choice except Intel Run.

This wasn't bad at all, since it was a 50 point game, which meant I could construct a list completely from my own models! Whee.

Game 1: Intel Run

I believe my strike force was something like:

General with 7+ ranged value and 3-2 command.
2x Stage 3A's with various advances (with extra ammo)
Plague Hound (with Brawler)
Stage 3A with HMG
Plague Swarm

This campaign was fought with Rebs, but I don't dare to try to remember the exact army list used.

This time a little more happened during Intel Run than last time around. First of all almost all of the ammo crates (one of which had the intel objective) went to plagued side of the map.

I screwed a bit my deployment when I didn't take into account that neither plague swarm or my plague hound of death, doom and carnage couldn't even check if ammo crates had the required intel.

Plague swarm was tormented by some blast weaponry, but the aforementioned plague hound ran to chew the head off from a sergeant of some kind. After the game this kill get another rank for this little doggie, so in next battle it was a 6 point model! But I'm going too far ahead.

After some heavy gunfighting on the other side of board one of the Stage 3A mutons revealed intel. Since most of the rebels had gone down (either hugging ground or in a bit more permanent way) from the many Blaze-Away attacks game ended quickly when Rebs fell back before my bloodthirsty hound ate them all. Well, there might have been some other reasons, like the intel being in a very hard place right next to escape zone, but I'm sure they were just afraid of the hound.

Slowly I'm starting to realise why plague loves cover so much. Cover actually gives penalties to defender when doing Blaze Away attack option... and plague doesn't really use any other method of attack except melee and Blaze Away. That's a little bit annoying, but hopefully that changes even a little bit when plague enforcer and strider are released.

Game 2: Ambush

Second game was ambush scenario, where Rebs had 100 point strike force and plague had 95.

As I forgot to take any pictures at all during last game, I tried to make up for it in this one. First two pictures are from deployment phase at a different angle. Being fully three dimensional game it can be difficult to get a proper picture that shows both sides, and no, all of the Rebs aren't even showing in these two pictures.

There was a large ruined building at the center, which meant multiple stories for deployment. Funny thing, though - if there had not been such a building, deploying a 95 point force legally could have been problematic.

Anyway, anyway. Do you see the Teraton Brawler in second picture? Well, probably not unless you're familiar with the game, but it's the large based model down on right, showing its back to the camera. That big fellow has a one-use frag grenade.

Now... being a fully three dimensional game, all kinds of explosions affect the target square and any other squares too that are next to it. Even above, and diagonally.

Here, let me show another picture that's showing the situation only after first activation made during whole game! Oh wait, no, it was the second activation, actually. Kraaw warrior had attacked one ethereal earlier. If I remember it right, Teraton's grenade caused four 4+ rolls for all but two of plague models to survive. Both my beautiful 6 point plague hound and a stage 3A muton in target cube exploded into bits, and every other plague model was at least pinned, many were pinned and damaged. Kraaw warrior died, too. What did that Teraton use, really? A mini-nuclear detonator?

Uh, oh. Well, plague started getting up. Two boom stick Stage 3's on top of the building were quite effective, and they did kill something in the north-east corner. Possibly some kind of a commander and/or a human soldier?

HMG specialists one the other hand were much less effective and wasted their extra ammo doing pretty much nothing. Possibly one pinned Rebel Sorak, but I have to say it looks very standing to me in the picture. The other one might have pinned or suppressed Teraton, but that was all for nought when Stage 2A charged the beast and failed to do anything other than to tickle it to stand again.

Other plague hound charged to back up Stage 2A and made much more impressive attack rolls than the mutated monstrosity, but sadly the Survive/Fight rolls for Teraton were rather good, too. Later it doubled plague hound's attack and killed Stage 2A with resulting attack. Thanks, doggy.

In next picture Stage 3A muton with spotter ability ran to engage a rebel yndij that had come to shoot at one of ethereal generals. The yndij is just out of picture, behind the house. The little rebs started to slowly die off to grenade fire from boom sticks and Blaze Away from HMG's, but plague had lost most things that might even scratch the Teraton. Teraton had quite a bit of weight on its shoulders.

Finally Teraton whacks the dog and charges to ethereal in the basement, killing it. After this the battle card deck started to give some blessings for plague to this Teraton-situation. Two "distract" cards would keep the thing down for at least two rounds, and one of the HMG's managed to suppress it. The muton version of HMG had this acid spitting mutation, and, well, after some three-four activations worth of drooling on the Teraton, the monstrosity was killed by a lucky roll.

Last act of the battle was fought in the west side of map. Grogan, who was annoyingly resilient, was the last Reb model to die.

I'm not sure what went wrong for Rebs after the first devastating grenade attack? Well, most Shoot actions did pretty much nothing and I remember there was at least one failed command action for them. For the Shoot actions, it really pointed out again why I'm starting to think that plague, as a faction, cares too little about terrain penalties. In the whole 95 point strike force there was exactly one model that suffered from shooting into cover - the HMG with acid spit. Well, sure, generals and Stage 3A troopers take penalties if they use Shoot action, but since you pretty much just enrage all of them at the start of game you're not going to use much 2 dice Shoot action with them anyway - not when you can easily sprint + move into melee with 5 dice against enemy models.

But these thoughts come mostly from facing Rebs. Blaze Away probably isn't going to do so much damage against factions that have a little more armor or toughness, but 5+ ranged skill with 4 dice and no penalty from enraged status really does damage to the little peeps. Much more than honest shooting, anyway.

So. Nexus Psi fell to plague. So, what world is next?

Sold my soul

I just had to play with my newly painted Warlock. I guess there is no turning back now that I got, if the forums are to be believed, one of the more overpowered warlock of Hordes if not the most overpowered warlock. Oh, wait! I can still construct sub-par lists.

It was a 50 point game, and my list was:

Morvahna the Dawnshadow
- Pureblood Warpwolf
- Feral Warpwolf
- Woldwatcher
- Winter Argus

Maximum unit of Tharn Ravagers + chieftain + shaman
Bloodweavers
Shifting Stones
Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew
Blackclad Wayfarer
Ravager White Mane
Gallows Grove

I know that's probably quite sucky epic Morvahna list. After all Pureblood and Bloodweavers make Purification redundant, or vice versa. Next I got Swamp Gobbers when I have Fog of War. I wish I could explain this... but I cannot. Oh, and of course the list has way too few infantry units, but that part was somewhat intentional.

Opponent played:

Siege
- Defender

Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Pistoleers + Officer
- Cyclone
Rangers
Maximum unit of Greygore Boomhowler's
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt
Eiryss2
Journeyman Warcaster
Squire
Pendrake
Reinholdt

Scenario was Rally Point, and Circle got to start. Morvahna cast Carnivore on Pureblood Warpwolf as I realised that it kind of sucks on Ravagers and Bloodweavers strike with effective Mat 8 with gang bonus anyway. Fog of War was cast, too. Cygnar had Arcane Shield on Greygore Boomhowler's.

Woldwatcher moves a bit forward and shoots a Ranger, who is fertilized into a forest. Bloodweavers charge the rest of Rangers, who traditionally fail their command check from massive casualties. I thought I'd be quite able to contest my zone with Pureblood Warpwolf, Winter Argus and Bloodweavers... and Morvahna's feat. Rest of my forces spread to enemy zone.

Tharn Ravager White Mane charged to Eiryss, killed her and bought another attack and killed a two Boomhowlers right next to him and Sprinted to engage trollbloods in the ruin terrain. Opponent did fail all of the 4+ tough rolls, but still I was quite happy with White Mane's performance. Why don't I use the old beard more often?

Well. I'm not entirely sure what happened next. Def 17 Argus died, the whole unit of Bloodweavers died and suddenly I got only the Pureblood there. Well, okay, I should have seen Stealth and Concealment ignoring Gun Mages coming to hunt Bloodweavers, but still... Even Def 17 Arm 16 uninjured warbeast went down.

Greygore Boomhowlers had charged Ravagers and killed one of them, as well as the White Mane.

I think this was the first time I ever got to deny Tough rolls with Entropic Field. Gallows Grove teleports a little bit. I somehow remembered that it had Command value of 4 or 5, but it was a pesky 3. Only two Boomhowlers were within range.

Blackclad Wayfarer killed one of the trollbloods who weren't get to make their Tough rolls, and then Feral Warpwolf warped for Speed and killed two more Boomhowler's. Up until now they had failed all of their Tough rolls.

Pureblood Warpwolf advances and I think it used it's own animus on itself as I was going to use spray on Arcane Shielded Siege. When Pureblood had finished it's movement I saw that Aiyana & Holt were lined up quite nicely. I might be able to make some damage to Siege, but damage to warcaster wouldn't be a real casualty, after all, and Kiss of Lyliss was scaring me. So spray was aimed at a gun mage, and both Aiyana and Holt died to death howl.

All in all that was probably a mistake, trading a 9 point warbeast to a 4 point character unit. But at least there was a big scary target for Cygnar to deal with.

Woldwatcher charges to gun mages who finished the farthest member of Bloodweavers. It kills one of them, fertilizing a little more forest.

Then Ravagers charge all over the place. Chieftain and Shaman and unit leader deal with all trolls who were still standing around Feral Warpwolf, and one Ravager even gets a charge off against one of the trolls who were beating the old guy White Mane. One Ravager charges to Cyclone, and one to second gun mage near Woldwatcher.

If Greygore Boomhowler's hadn't already had enough bad luck on their part, next they failed their massive casualties check. And now that they were fleeing, they weren't contesting the zone any more. Shifting Stones teleported Morvahna to clip control zone a bit, and Circle got two control points.

Next turn Siege uses his feat, and despite some really bad rolls the blue guys still managed to shoot every single Ravager off the board. That was pretty harsh blow since now Morvahna had, what, three models to bring back with her feat? Blackclad Wayfarer, Gallows Grove and White Mane.

Since Cygnar had missed a few targets with double 1's and such, Pureblood Warpwolf didn't get as much attention as I was afraid. I don't remember who or what dealt damage to it, but it still had Mind and Spirit fully functional. Greygore Boomhowler's rallied, so Circle didn't gain control points.

On my turn I realised that I was actually losing the attrition here thanks to losing full units in one round. Pureblood Warpwolf didn't frenzy and it decided to attempt to chew focusless Siege a little bit. Then I noticed that it had lost Body branch. Warpwolves can regenerate, sure, but Pureblood already had three fury from last turn. Well, it regenerated and tried to attack unboosted with all initial attacks. One attack hit and dealt some damage in.

Feral Warpwolf warped for Strenght and charged objective. It was destroyed, so now there were only three trollkin standing in between scenario victory for Circle.

However, the damage dealt to Circle last turn had been excessive. Only Woldwatcher and Morvahna herself were the only moving pieces that could do anything to them. Woldwatcher walked and shot 6 points of damage to Boomhowler and then Morvahna used Blood Sacrifice. Gallows Grove fit to the ruin terrain behind trollkin. Then Morvahna charged the three stooges and killed them. It was a little disturbing to find that Scales of Fate functions even on herself.

Ah well. Siege does seem to be a good caster against Morvahna2, but Boomhowler's failing their Command check on turn 3 probably tipped the scales for me.

My Revenge on the Warmachine Community

I do have some pet peeves, I admit it.

One of them is nicknames people give to warcasters and warlocks. And other units too, maybe.

If the nickname is a straightforward abbreviation then there's no problem for me. But if they twist and mangle the original name in attempt to be funny, I get annoyed.

Way back in first edition of Warmachine I was already tormented by Asphyxious being shortened to Gaspy. All the sleepless night I spent because of that horrific nickname.

Well, another one has appeared that equals Gaspy.

It's Goatvahna. I guess that's better than seeing her name in many possible way to mistype Morvahna, but still... it's Morvahna, damnit!

Right. So here was supposed to be some kind of revenge? I finished painting my Morvahna2. Pictures are cruddy, but hopefully the main idea can be seen anyway. You call her Goatvahna? You get a Goatvahna!

By the way. If anyone knows any good courses or camps or things like that where I can practice my revenge skills, I'd be more than happy to hear from them.

Blackclad Stormclad

Last Thursday I played a Warmachine game.

It has been a long, long time since I played Morvahna the Autumnblade. I also wanted to test my newly painted Winter Argus.

My list 50 point list:

Morvahna the Autumnblade
- Wold Guardian
- Gnarlhorn Satyr
- Winter Argus
- Woldwyrd
- Gorax

Maximum unit of Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment

Shifting Stones + Stone Keeper
Swamp Gobbers
Blackclad Wayfarer
2x Gallows Grove
Druid Wilder
Lord of the Feast
Reeve Hunter
War Wolf

I was against Cygnar with the following list:

Jeremiah Kraye
- Centurion
- Stormclad

Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Pistoleers + Officer
- 2x Hunter
Rangers
Lady Ayiana & Master Holt
Captain Arlan Strangewayes
Journeyman Warcaster
Reinholdt
Squire

Scenario was Destruction, though yet again, it mattered not.

Circle started game and first picture is from the end of Circle turn 2. All the rangers aren't showing, but they're there on the hill left in the picture.

I screwed up with Harvest here, as I was thinking of shooting everything I got at the one ranger War Wolf is engaging to gain 1 Fury for transfer. I was thinking that two Rat 6 attacks with a boost should be able to hit at least once on a def 16 target. Well, once it did hit, but I was shooting at a completely wrong guy, because I was trying to maximize potential kills.

Well, Morvahna was furyless for a turn, then.

Restoration was on Lord of the Feast and Wolves of Orboros had Regrowth.

Next turn is a curious turn. For starters, Cygnar removes both Gorax and Woldwyrd from board with a few amazing damage rolls. Then charging Centurion removes about 80% of Wold Guardian'¨s damage boxes, and after Kiss of Lyliss, Master Holt & Kraye Gnarlhorn Satyr is left with only two damage boxes. If we'd count total damage boxes of my beasts, I lost way over 50% in one turn.

Well, my two heavies were left alive, though, so maybe all was not lost.

Wold Guardian rams Centurion and causes as much damage as possible to the warjack. Wolves of Orboros declare a charge and use Power Swell. Two Wolves charge the downed Centurion, a couple charge Stormclad, a few charge Aiyana & Holt and three charge Kraye himself. Thanks to Poweful Charge Kraye drops down to 5 hit boxes, but doesn't die yet.

Winter Argus does the only meaningful thing it did during whole game. It wrecked what was left of Centurion with two sprays and froze Stormclad with a critical hit.

Because I¨'m a bit worried that Morvahna would die next turn, I try to do a desperate thing and spray Stormclad with Blackclad. Result wasn't that good, though. Nothing was ever done to the Stormclad, but Blackclad killed three Wolves of Orboros.

Next Cygnar unloads every shot possible against Morvahna. Sacrifical Pawn and some atrocious attack rolls saved Morvahna. I guess amazing damage rolls of Cygnar's turn 2 took back a few double and triple sixes now, when average on three dice seemed to be two.

At first Kraye freed himself from melee with Arcane Blast, and then he noticed he had Parry. That might have been two more carbine shots at Morvahna, but I doubt that would have killed her, since there was a Shifting Stone and Stone Keeper still within 3" of her.

Next Morvahna regrowths as many Wolves as possible, and five make a charge against Kraye. They do one big Combined Melee Attack against Arm 20 Kraye. Damage roll was enough to bring him down.

I guess the biggest game-changer here was the fact that Wold Guardian refused to die to Centurion.

Intermission during Rautarouva

Well, sometimes it's good to wake up a couple of hours before the alarm and not get any sleep. For such occasions you can, maybe, write something about a game that was played only about 18 hours away from a full week before?

Of course I'm talking about the Rautarouva again.

This was a 35 point game quite late at night, Cryx vs Cygnar. I built my list from models I still had in my storage foams so that I could get more variation out of the whole trip.

My list:

Scaverous

- Seether
- Deathripper
- Defiler

Maximum unit of Mechanithralls + 1x Brute Thrall
Maximum unit of Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
Skarlock
Ragman
Warwitch Siren

Opponent:

Kara Sloan
- Defender

Black 13th
Gun Mages + Officer
- Hunter
Maximum unit of Greygore Boomhowler's + Jonas Murdoch
Squire
Reinholdt

I haven't played much against Kara Sloan, this was maybe third game against her. Scenario had Killbox in effect, so at least she wouldn't be running around in circles with Refuge on.

I thought it'd be my best interest to run an arc node fast forward and cast Icy Grip on Greygore Boomhowlers. That way there was an arc node that couldn't be ignored in the middle of board. I also wasn't sure if Kara Sloan would be able to do all sorts of tricksy moves and start shooting Scaverous right away.

Next picture is of poor quality, and there is a full round in-between the pictures.

Sloan used her feat and shot Deathripper in the middle who was left with exactly arc node and movement system still intact, and Defender dropped left hand from Seether.

Black 13th and Gun Mages killed four Satyxis, who weren't able to charge next turn thanks to the annoying arcane fire spell storm thing that Black 13th shoots.

Since Greygore's had done assault charge I had to start clearing the board from their ilk.

Half of them went down, and one had Corrosion continuous effect on it. Scaverous ran to possibly dominate an area and hopefully far enough from Sloan. He did have four focus for Arm buff, but that's two weapon master shots and one pow 15 shot from Defender we're looking at here.

Mechanithralls charged whatever they could. Two P+S 15 charge attacks weren't enough to take the objective down. Not that it mattered much, since there were three trollkin and Jonas Murdoch within the zone anyway.

Next picture is blurry as hell, but it gives a vague impression about Defender and Kara Sloan. All three tried to shoot Scaverous down, and Derender damaged him so badly that I thought it's over. But Kara Sloan somehow missed two shots against Scaverous despite needing only 6+ to hit. First one was unboosted and second one was boosted.

Since Kara didn't hit anyone, Refugee didn't trigger.

Odds were in Kara's favor, that's all I can say. I almost hoped as bad dice screw situation for me to make the game feel a bit more close fought.

But here's how it went: Defiler ran close to Kara Sloan, possibly with Ghost Walk from Skarlock.

Scaverous uses his walks up and uses his feat. He casts Telekinesis on Sloan, Defender and Seether, and on top of that Icy Grip on Sloan, too.

Then Seether charges the cygnaran warcaster who was effectively Def 12 vs MAT 8 of Seether.

Well, that was it, really. Seether with two allocated extra focus couldn't miss that badly even if it did have on of its arms gone.

Painted Firelands

Keeping up with the traditions: here are all the new characters to Talisman from Firelands expansion.

I'm not entirely happy with them, since I rushed them a little bit. I'm quite busy during upcoming weeks, and there might be chance for Talisman getting some play at the end of this month.

Tragic mistake

Well, damn.

I bought a new expansion for Gloom.

Unwelcome Guests was its name.

I guess I'm becoming the penniless poet.

This post looks a bit like a poem, doesn't it?

Rautarouva day 2

First... taking pictures is a damn good memory aid. During second day of Rautarouva warmachine tournament I was quite damn tired from 2 hour and 6 hour sleep from two nights.

Somehow on the second day the Deathclock seemed even more menacing than on day 1... Maybe because brains needed to double-check every order they received both from the frontal lobe and limbs.

First I was against Cryx, again. Funny thing that about 30% of participants were playing Cygnar, yet I played none. However, I managed to catch all Cryx opponents, except myself.


Game 4: Wraith Witch Deneghra vs Iron Lich Asphyxious

I guess opponent saw that I just wouldn't be playing Mortenebra against Cryx, and he took Iron Lich Asphyxious instead of Wraith Witch vs Wraith Witch game.

Opponent had a list a bit like this:

Iron Lich Asphyxious
- 2x Deathripper
- Cankerworm

Maximum unit of Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
Maximum unit of Satyxis Blood Witches + Blood Hag
Maximum unit of Bloodgorgers
General Gerlak Slaughterborn
Satyxis Raider Captain
Skarlock
2x Pistol Wraith
Saxon Orrik
+2 points, possibly a Warwitch Siren?

I decided to try some sort of high-risk high-reward approach, and had Deneghra way too forward on turn 1, camping 3 focus. I hoped Asphyxious would use feat, and Deneghra wouldn't die in the process. That's bad tactics for sure, since Asphyxious would be able to shoot 2x damage rolls of 3d6-3. At that point, however, it was a risk I was willing to take.

Probably because of being tired on day 2, too, opponent ran Satyxis Raider into melee with Deneghra.

Next turn Deneghra obviously turns incorporeal, advances and uses Web of Shadows. I was pretty confident that she'd be safe all alone on the middle of board. Leftmost enemy arc node, however, was just out of her control area, so Deneghra's feat turn suddenly turned from "how to inflict maximum damage?" into "how can I protect Deneghra from Hellfire spam?"

And in the end... I couldn't. But Deneghra was left standing with three hit boxes remaining.

On my turn Deneghra advanced into relative safety of a hill. She had to walk through a Breath of Corruption cloud effect, and then she was at two hit boxes.

Reaper took a free strike from Satyxis Raider Captain and went to wreck the last arc node of Asphyxious - and Feedback dropped Deneghra to one hit box. Oh my. Oh my.

I did everything I could to kill all Feedbackers from enemy, as I was just one okayish hit away from dying to Feedback. Just about all models I still hadn't activated tried to kill the last remaining Captain, and Kraken finally succeeded in dealing enough blast damage to the Captain to kill it. Surely I would have liked to do something else with Kraken, but oh well.

Game continues for a few more rounds, and Deneghra heals herself to 4 hit boxes during those.

Kraken suffers from Parasite and Satyxis Blood Witches got Scything Touch on them. A charge and a normal melee round, as well as a charge from Bloodgorgers who had Scything Touch switched to them made for some impressive damage, but thanks to three Bloodgorgers missing two of their charge attacks, Kraken stays on board.

Nothing else does, however, and I don't have enough attacks any more to do anything useful.

For the past few round I've forgotten to turn Deneghra incorporeal, and the last turn was no exception. The only thing I could try to do was to charge something with Deneghra and hope that I get within 8" of Asphyxious, cast some sort of spell on him and shoot him down with Kraken.

However, there were no such charge targets that I'd have Asphyxious on Deneghra's front arc after charge move. I tried to run my last remaining Necrotech to act as a charge target, but because it had to dodge free strikes from Bloodgorgers, distance Deneghra was able to charge was abysmal. Especially as she was not incorporeal. So... Deneghra just charged into middle of enemy army, killed her own Necrotech and stood there with five focus.

Nice move there, Deneghra. It was your last.


Game 5: Mortenebra vs Zaal

Zaal & Kovaas
- Molik Karn
- Titan Gladiator
- Basilisk Krea

Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Nihilators
Maximum unit of Paingiver Beast Handlers
2x Ancestral Guardian
Hakaar the Destroyer
Aptimus Marketh

This game was quite fast and aggressive.

In a nutshell Skorne brought Molik Karn and Titan Gladiator a tiny bit too much forward, and with Terminal Velocity and Mortenebra's feat both died. Molik died to Nightmare with two focus and Gladiator died to Kraken with two focus.

Out of idle curiosity I counted the odds for that - statistically Kraken rolled about 3 points above average.

It was a harsh blow for Skorne, but I received even harsher blow.

First an enraged Basilisk Krea destroys Ripjaw. Second attack it was able to buy hit easily, because charge attack smashed Ripjaws ankle. Then some other Skorne models try to attack things, but the disheartening closure to Rautarouva tournament for me was that Zaal rushed as far forward as possible and cast a fully boosted Hex Blast on Mortenebra. I don't remember the actual damage roll, but then Aptimus Marketh walks over and casts unboosted Hex Blast on Mortenebra. Hitting on 8+ and killing on 10+. Aptimus had one soul for either attack or damage boost, and it was saved for damage. 8+ it was and 10+ it was.

Well, Kraken didn't die.

In all games Kraken got destroyed in every game that Cryx won, and was left intact in every game that Cryx lost. Well, technically in two games Cryx both won and lost, but let's not get stuck in such details, it's just cool to search for non-existant correlations.

Games during second day weren't so amazing as in the first day, as I felt I was playing really badly on Sunday's Cryx vs Cryx, and this last game ended before it even started. Still a good tournament. Next one is most probably on July.

Rautarouva day 1

So, last weekend I was in a Warmachine tournament. I was a 50 point Steamroller with 55 minute Deathclock rules as it was in 2012 or so. Basic character restrictions were there too if I remember right. At least I built my lists as if they were restricted.

I didn't quite finish my Kraken, but it didn't look too work-in-progress either. And I wanted to play with that thing. So my lists were:

List 1:
Mortenebra & Deryliss
- Kraken
- Nightmare
- Ripjaw

Maximum unit of Bane Thralls
Bane Lord Tartarus
Warwitch Siren
Pistol Wraith
Ogrun Bokur

List 2:
Wraith Witch Deneghra
- Kraken
- Reaper
- 2x Nightwretch

Minimum unit of Bile Thralls
Minimum unit of Soulhunters
Darragh Wrathe
2x Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Gorman diWulfe

First game was against Circle of Orboros. I don't remember which warlocks opponent had, but in the end game was Mortenebra vs Mohsar the Desertwalker.

Opponent probably had this list:

Mohsar

- Ghetorix
- Megalith
- Gorax

Shifting Stones + Stone Keeper
Shifting Stones
Maximum unit of Tharn Bloodtrackers + Nuala
2x Gallows Grove
Gatorman Witch Doctor
Celestial Fulcrum

In the first picture Nightmare is hiding behind Kraken. Nightmare's prey was one of the Gallow's Groves, and Bloodtrackers targeted Bane Lord Tartarus.

Mirage was on Bloodtrackers and Spectral Steel on Kraken.

Next is Circle's turn, and Primaled Ghetorix charges Kraken. Kraken doesn't become a wreck, though second picture is a bit misleading. The upper half has been removed because those tentacles covered most of the area where important things were happening...

Celestial Fulcrum proved to be really annoying to get rid of. Slowly it whittled down Bane Thralls, and because I placed some of my models too much forward, I lost Warwitch Siren to blast damage roll. On my next turn only one Bane Thrall gets in a charge against Fulcrum and deals damage not worthy of mentioning.

Mortenebra fixes Kraken and casts Terminal Velocity, and Deryliss casts Overrun on Kraken. Kraken kills something, don't remember any more what, and Nightmare makes the Overrun move. Nightmare uses Imprint and advances to beat Megalith. Ripjaw had also tried to do that earlier but to no avail. Megalith was still standing.

Looking at the picture I'm not sure why on earth Tartarus has advanced there, but since Mohsar is the adversary, my guess is that there had been Salt Pillars.

Well, then Megalith beats Ripjaw down, and Gorax comes and finishes what was left of Nightmare. Celestial Fulcrum continues to fry Bane Thralls, and Bane Lord Tartarus is backstabbed by the Bloodtrackers.

Kraken destroys Megalith and possibly some Bloodtracker, and Kill Shot finally removes Gatorman Witch Doctor from board. That gator had been a pain, since he/she had made Terminal Velocity almost a useless spell. Celestial Fulcrum took in two more Bane Thrall charges and one attack without a charge... and still the rock was nowhere near breaking.

I don't remember what destroyed Kraken in the end - probably Mohsar and Gorax together. Most if not all bane thralls died there and then, and the remaining Bloodtrackers took out Ogrun Bokur. Clock was ticking, and just about all options looked bad.

Well, Deryliss casts Overrun on Mortenebra, who then charges Gorax. She succeeds in killing the ape-something and advances in base contact with flag. I think she was focusless at that point.

Just about all models come to shoot at her. Fulcrum and Mohsar most notably. Mohsar had taken some damage before, and now he had cut himself down to two hit boxes remaining. Mohsar couldn't do anything to Mortenebra, but then Celestial Fulcrum hits like a ton of bricks, dealing 11 points of damage to Mortenebra and setting her on fire!

Then it's Cryx turn again, and fire doesn't go off. Fire dealt 4 damage to Mortenebra, so she was sitting on just one damage box and on fire. Mohsar was on a hill with two hit boxes remaining, but Mortenebra couldn't move at all, thanks to those damnable shifting stones!

So... Either two attempts at a Doom Spiral, or just one Void Gate. I opted for Void Gate, and spent 5 Focus to cast it boosted. Since the old man was on a hill, Mortenebra needed 9+ to hit. Still way more than 50% chances of hitting, right? Well... it's a miss. Deviation distance is, however, only two inches, so Mohsar still got a POW 7 blast damage roll with a damage boost.

Mohsar disappeared into the Void when I started the last minute available to me on the Deathclock.

Damn good game, though I felt like I played very badly. It was pure luck that Kraken survived for so long, and I lacked a decent plan to take out Megalith. I just pushed my half-dead Nightmare and Ripjaw against it, hoping for good rolls that never came.


Game 2: Wraith Witch Deneghra vs Warwitch Deneghra.

Looks like I got pictures only from the beginning of this match and the very end of it.

Opponent had a curious Warwitch Deneghra list, something like:

Deneghra
- 2x Deathripper

Maximum unit of Bane Thralls
Maximum unit of Croe's Cutthroats
Maximum unit of Nyss Hunters
Minimum unit of Bile Thralls
Skarlock Thrall
Master Gunner Dougal McNaile
2x Pistol Wraiths
+ 2 points I can't find?

Scenario was Incursion, and I guess I was happy that the leftmost flag disappeared, though there was a healthy population of Nyss at the rightmost.

Opponent played well in keeping pDeneghra out of eDeneghra's feat range. However, the first picture from this match shows the Web of Shadows. Wraith Witch is just in front of Kraken, quite badly out of sight.

Darragh Wrathe and Soulhunters try to go to harvest some Cutthroats, and I guess they do well enough, considering that there is no scenario focus there any more.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think that Kraken managed to drop arc node from the rightmost Deathripper.

Since I couldn't catch the other Deneghra with my feat or gain upper hand with attrition or anything, I decided to try to rush rightmost flag with Deneghra and Kraken and whatnot, and hope for the best that my troops near middle flag could do, well, something. Pistol Wraiths, by the way, are did a fine job at keeping Kraken at bay.

I guess the game went otherwise fine, but I just couldn't kill Nyss fast enough to start scoring points soon enough. Some pointy eared bunch was always contesting the flag, and finally the other Deneghra rushed through the middle flag and cast Crippling Grasp on Kraken. Reaper defied all odds and survived quite a few rounds of charging bane knights, so I guess I can't really complain about the Celestial Fulcrum of last game.

As I said I'm missing all the pictures from the middle, so in the next picture is the round where I got my first two control points. Opponent has just wrecked Kraken and Deathripper is coming to contest the flag.

On my turn I've ran out of troops, but at least I can get myself to 4 control points by using Dark Banishment on the Deathripper.

But damage roll doesn't knock off Arc Node.

Next turn it's Scourge + 3 charging Bane Knights for Wraith Witch.


Game 3: Mortenebra vs Dr. Arkadius

I think I was playing against Arkadius' tier force:

Dr. Arkadius Mad Science tier 4
- 3x Razor Boars
- 2x Road Hogs
- 3x War Hogs

Maximum unit of Farrow Bone Grinders
Maximum unit of Farrow Brigands

At least that's the only way I can fit the whole list inside 50 points.

Five heavy beasts is pretty damn intimidating. Even when I got two hard hitting warjacks and a unit of Bane Thralls I wasn't sure if I would ever be able to kill them all.

First picture is from the end of minion turn 1. Mortenebra casts Terminal Velocity. Kraken gets Overrun, then Nightmare charges the Road Hog that came a little bit too close. Kraken kills a couple of razor boars and Nightmare backs off from the Road Hog. Road Hog was left with something like two or three damage boxes left, which could be bad news for Bane Thralls next turn.

Thankfully Warwitch Siren rolls an absurd damage roll with Venom which kills the spray hog.

Bane Thralls destroy the rest of Razor Boars.

And then I just hope I won't lose Kraken.

Thankfully I don't, though it loses both arms, but not Cortex.

Well, then! Kraken is allocated full 3 focus, and 3 is saved for Terminal Velocity. I don't remember if Spectral steel was dropped and Nightmare was allocated 1 or not.

Mortenebra uses her feat, casts Terminal Velocity and advances to repair Kraken. Dice came out as 5 and 6. What? Really? You call yourself the Master Necrotech?

Well, luckily something manages to trigger overrun for Nightmare, though probably it was bad play on my part to bring even Nightmare to die.

Ripjaw and Bane Lord Tartarus kill the other Road Hog, and Bane Thralls try to kill as many brigands as possible. But all in all that feat turn was completely wasted.

And on the piggy side of things - Mortenebra loses all of her warjacks in one turn. What the heck just happened? Things were looking quite good, but then Mortenebra messes up her repair check and Kraken does pretty much nothing.

Well, all is not lost. Bane Lord Tartarus curses some farrow's and Threshers three bane thralls more, and then Bane Thralls activate and the war hog with yellow hood, drill and nomad's sword falls to charging Bane Thralls.

Deryliss casts Overrun on Mortenebra, and she charges to rightmost War Hog... and kills it. She advances to Kraken's wreck with Overrun. I had been able to bring some Bane Thralls to Kraken's wreck, so Mortenebra was quite nicely protected there from one non-reach heavy war hog.

War Hog goes to kill Tartarus - more banes at this point would be quite horrific indeed.

Remaining Bane Thralls and Ogrun Bokur all try to punch the big pig, but they merely tickle the bacon.

Deryliss casts Overrun on Mortenebra yet again, and she charges the last remaining War Hog, kills it and Overruns next to Dr. Arkadius. Well, she mostly fails her attack rolls, and Arkadius has one more turn. There's about 20 seconds left in my Deathclock.

Arkadius casts Crippling Grasp on Mortenebra, and that was pretty much all he could do. His only damaging spell requires living Friendly warbeasts and his combat syringe only works on living models. I hope epic Arkadius at least carries a small knife with him or something - situation was pretty much comparable to Rasheth in melee with 0-1 Fury. Nothing could be done.

Few Bone Grinders that were still alive tried to shoot Mortenebra in the back and succeeded, but they just quite didn't one-shot an uninjured warcaster.

I wasn't aware how little Arkadius could do in melee, so I was suprised to actually get one more turn with my 20 second clock.

I've had plenty of tournament games where I have only a few minutes left on my clock, but this time the clock literally started beeping the last 5 seconds, when Mortenebra finally succeeded in landing the final blow to Arkadius.

All three games in the first day were quite amazing. Next day there were two more rounds, but those games will have to wait.

Prelude to Rautarouva: We didn't playtest this at all

I participated in a Warmachine tournament, but I'm still recovering from it.

Instead I'm writing something about a confusing card game I played there. It was called "We Didn't Playtest This At All".

Gameplay was chaotic, and quite a few players had consumed certain kinds of beverages. I don't even remember how many rounds was played, and in a game like this it doesn't even matter. First card played might just end the game already. Game could end when everybody loses, everybody wins, or only one person or a variable number of persons win. You could also lose when you win.

Some expansions were added as players got more familiar with the game. Mostly they added randomness and chaos.

Game itself was quite fun, though I started to be quite damn tired at that hour, as I had slept only two hours the night before.

But there were kittens.

Who can say "no" to kittens?

(For the statistical purposes I'm counting up different occasions I've played We Didn't Playtest this. No point in counting rounds.)

The Most Romantic Proposal Ever (Gloom)

I got to play two games of three player Gloom.

Since I was out of town without access to my laptop, it took some time to write these things up and most of the juicy details have already been forgotten.

However, one of the most beautiful love stories ever was told during second game.

Thumbelisa, the diminuitive diva had been an agent of foreign countries and she used the mobility of a circus as a way to hide. Eventually justice caught her and she was tried for a treason. During trial the prosecutor fell in love with Thumbelisa and instead of putting Thumbelisa to the death row, the judge declared prosecutor and Thumbelisa husband and wife!

I guess it was the spur of the moment, and marriage was a little troublesome in the end. Marriage was demanding too much of her attention, which resulted in Thumbelisa arranging things so that her husband died.

Acts of violence have a tendency of causing even more violence. Apparently the son of the prosecutor, who would now inherit his late father, either was rotten to the core and killed Thumbelisa out of pure, selfish greed or it was a win-win revenge.

Still better love story than Twilight?