Rhyas + Morvahna2 = Sigil of Dawn?

Second game in Ropecon was a casual game against a friend.

It was a 50 point game, and I had:

Morvahna the Dawnshadow
- Pureblood Warpwolf
- Feral Warpwolf
- Gorax

Maximum unit of Tharn Ravagers + Shaman + Chieftain

Shifting Stones + Stone Keeper
Tharn Bloodweavers
Blackclad Wayfarer
Druid Wilder
(Tharn Ravager White Mane)
Gallows Grove
Reeve Hunter
2x War Wolf

Opponent had:

Rhyas
- Angelius
- Seraph
- Carnivean
- Typhon

Minimum unit of Raptors
Blackfrost Shard
Anyssa Ryvaal
Shepherd

We played a random scenario that turned out to be... Incursion. Again. And with exactly the same flag disappearing as in last game. I believe Legion started the game, and first picture is from the end of Legion turn 2.

Opponent went to great lenghts to remove my whole unit of Tharn Ravagers from the board - and he succeeded. That was quite bad, but the positioning of warbeasts looked like I could land a severe punishment to the big beasts next.

I did, however, manage to royally screw up yet again.

Druid Wilder and Gorax cast Primal on both Pureblood Warpwolf and Feral Warpwolf.

Then Morvahna activates and casts Purification. There went the Primals, though I think they would still need to frenzy next turn.

I did get a couple of Spiny Growths away, though. Not sure about Rapport.

Morvahna casts Carnivore on Tharn Bloodweavers and re-casts Primal on Pureblood Warpwolf. Har har. Not funny, quit laughing.

Another mistake I made was not knowing what I actually wanted to do.

Bloodweavers would need to activate first to get away from charge lanes, but I was still wondering in my mind what would be best spot for Pureblood Warpwolf - teleport and try to engage both Angelius and Seraph, or just charge Angelius? Trying to leave a spot for Pureblood to land with teleport caused me to suffer a free strike with one Bloodweaver.

After that free strike it looked impossible to get Bloodweavers to charge Seraph and still leave space for Pureblood, so I decided just to charge with Pureblood. What was annoying here was that two Bloodweavers nearly killed Seraph - if I had had a clear picture of my future actions, the Bloodweaver who died to free strike would have probably killed Seraph.

Luckily Pureblood manages to kill Angelius (who had Hunter's Mark from Wayfarer) and Feral Warpwolf takes down Typhon.

Next turn is less than thrilling for me.

Rhyas uses her feat, and Blackfrost Shard freezes Pureblood. Seraph, Anyssa + Rhyas takes down Pureblood and Carnivean kills Feral Warpwolf. Worst of all Bloodweavers fail their command check. Opponent scored third Control Point this turn - loss of Ravagers really hurt my contesting possibilities.

Well, Circle next.

Blackclad Wayfarer, Reeve Hunter and possibly a Sunder Spirit from Morvahna takes down Seraph, and Morvahna uses her feat to bring back Bloodweavers and a couple of War Wolves.

For some reason War Wolves don't come back so that they could easily contest rightmost flag, and only one of them could even attempt it.

Next turn Legion just needed to remove the one and only War Wolf, and then run to dominate right flag with Rhyas. This game ended awfully same way as the other game that day.

After the game I noticed that Ravager White Mane had been sitting in the transport foams whole game. Argh. That model really could have been a game-changer.

I guess normally I would tag this game with "fail", but since this wasn't even close to last game in terms of critical mistakes, I'm leaving it out.

But playing against Rhyas was quite refreshing. Honestly, though, Rhyas' own presence in the game was quite little. Feat she used made it absolutely certain that both of my heavy beasts went down, but other than that she just hid and let the beasts do all of the work. Well, I guess Occultation could have a big impact against some armies, but my force didn't really care too much.

The Amazing Fail

First Warmachine/Hordes game I played in Ropecon was kind of unplanned for.

There was a team tournament going on, and I was wandering around the Warmachine tables at the time when last round of team tournament was about to start. One team had lost a player, which meant a bye. I don't know how byes function in a team tournament, but I thought why not? After all it was only one round.

So I threw a list together as fast as I could. It wasn't especially planned out, and it turned out to be:

Epic Krueger
- Gnarlhorn Satyr
- Pureblood Warpwolf
- Scarsfell Griffon
- Gorax

Druids of Orboros + Overseer
Shifting Stones + Stone Keeper
Tharn Bloodweavers
Gallows Grove
Lord of the Feast
War Wolf
Lanyssa Ryssyll
Gatorman Witch Doctor

My opponent was another Circle of Orboros player. And a good one. Ah, well, he had Kromac for his warlock of choice, which was nice since I haven't played against Kromac ever before.

His list was:

Kromac the Ravenous
- Megalith
- 2x Warpwolf Stalker
- Gorax

Shifting Stones + Stone Keeper
Shifting Stones
Swamp Gobbers
Una the Falconer
- Rotterhorn Griffon
2x Blackclad Wayfarer
Gallows Grove
Druid Wilder

Scenario was Incursion. Leftmost flag disappeared.

It seems I have skipped one whole turn in taking pictures. Anyway, after the first picture it's Kromac's turn. Kromac is close enough to deny most of my spellcasting with Bestial. One Warpwolf Stalker was contesting middle flag under the cover of cloud effect from (enemy) Swamp Gobbers.

Another Warpwolf Stalker had ran to contest rightmost flag, but it couldn't get anything to trigger Prowl.

I'm actually quite happy about my next turn, as I think I made some good choices there game-play wise. Lord of the Feast throws raven at Megalith and attempts to kill Stone Keeper or shifting stones hiding behind the construct. Sadly he fails miserably, though he takes out one Blackclad Wayfarer.

Then Pureblood Warpwolf sprays center Stalker.

Krueger tries to pull Stalker from the right to charge range of Tharn Bloodweavers, but the drag roll is an utter failure. One full inch. That could have been devastating with 2 inches, and with 4+ inches there would have been a really good chance of knocking out the beast with Bloodweavers. But only one Bloodweaver got to charge Stalker, though one more ran to trigger Gang. War Wolf tried to charge Stalker, too, but one infantry model and one 1 point solo does not a dead warbeast make.

I don't remember if Krueger used the last two Fury to cast Telekinesis on Gnarlhorn Satyr or if he cast Bounding on it instead. If it was Telekinesis, then Gnarlhorn cast it's own animus on itself and then charged center Stalker, not quite killing it.

And then... since Druid of Orboros looked quite worthless unit in this bestial match-up, they charged. They didn't even do that bad - they killed Gallows Grove and a Shifting Stone. I don't remember if the two Druids who charged Stalker killed it or did Gnarlhorn activate after them and destroyed Stalker instead. However it was, the end result was a dead Warpwolf Stalker.

Again there seems to be a full round in between the pictures. The picture is as dark as the turn I played, because I tried to take a picture without flash.

But Kromac first.

Rightmost Stalker obviously kills a ton of Bloodweavers and the War Wolf.

Rotterhorn Griffon got Primal from Gorax and attacked Gnarlhorn Satyr. Megalith charges Pureblood Warpwolf, but fails to kill.

Kromac uses his feat and goes personally to whack the Gnarlhorn Satyr away, and backed off a little with Warpath movement. He had one Fury left for transfers.

Looked like there was quite a few potential assassinations for me, then. And there's no kill like overkill, right? RIGHT?

So, my plan: First Krueger uses Telekinesis on himself and advances full 6" and shoots Kromac with as many bolts of lightning as possible. He had to spend one or two Fury to heal Pureblood's aspects, though. However, it would be so-and-so if Krueger would get line of sight to Kromac, and there was one model standing in-between the maximum potential movement for Krueger. Not a problem, though.

Then Gorax would activate, use Primal on Pureblood and kill the model that was blocking Krueger's advance. Krueger would do his tricks then, and Primaled Pureblood would be teleported next to Kromac then.

So, Gorax activates, uses Primal on Pureblood Warpwolf. It advances next to Stone Keeper, and kills him.

Right after I do this I remember such funny on inconsequntial rules like unit coherency and the Command value of 4 on Shifting Stones. Oh my god, what the hell I was thinking? And of course I realised what I had done just five seconds after when it was too late.

So, instead of having a Primaled Pureblood right next to himself, Kromac faced only a shot from Krueger. Well, there might have been a tiny possibility to assassinate Kromac if Krueger unleashed five Fury worth of ranged attacks. Three POW 12's and a charge from two Druids of Orboros and warping for Ghostly with Pureblood Warpwolf, disengaging and spraying Kromac.

First shot misses.

Well, to be honest, I deserved a severe punishment from the powers of dice gods for my ultimate mistake. I don't remember if the second attack hit, but Krueger didn't really accomplish anything. Seeing how all chances of a decent assassination were going down the drain, Krueger used his feat to offer even a small measure of protection.

Pureblood Warpwolf didn't even try to spray Kromac, one POW 14 wouldn't kill him. Instead Pureblood attacked Megalith, who doesn't die just yet. Scarsfell Griffon has to come and finish the job Pureblood couldn't.

Horrible.

Just horrible.

I will have nightmares about this turn for many years.

Well, thanks to Krueger's feat he didn't die next turn. Enemy Gorax was teleported next to Scarsfell Griffon, and it kills the bird and uses Warpath to move away.

Rotterhorn Griffon kills what's left of Druids of Orboros, and looks like Kromac is going to try dominating rightmost flag.

My clock was starting to run out. I guess I wouldn't have had to go into a full-derp mode, but I didn't have the time in my clock even to attempt attrition game.

Well, my Pureblood frenzied from Primal.

Kromac had left five Fury left for transfers, but I tried to kill him anyway.

Krueger advances and tries to cast two Gallows on him, as Bestial had not been cast last turn. I figured that if I got decent drags, I might have got Gorax to charge Kromac as well as possibly doing melee with Krueger himself.

Again drag was 1-2, and I don't remember if the second unboosted Gallows even hit Kromac.

Gatorman Witch Doctor advances and uses Sacrificial Strike on one of my Swamp Gobbers and kills an enemy Swamp Gobber with the strike. Last remaining Swamp Gobber (who passes massive casualties test) charges Kromac in last and futile gesture of defiance.

Kromac runs to dominate rightmost flag and wins game with control points.

Damn that mistake was annoying. But looking on the bright side of things, I doubt I will forget about unit coherency with teleportation with Shifting Stones any time soon.

Backlog Prologue

I'm slowly recovering from Ropecon. I played in a 35 point tournament there as well as a couple of random games.

This game, however, was played just a day before I was off to Ropecon. I didn't quite manage to write it down then, and now I got seven games to write.

Game was a 50 point game against Cygnar, and my list was:

Asphyxious the Hellbringer & Vociferon

- 2x Helldiver
- Ripjaw
- Harrower

Maximum unit of Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
Maximum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Bane Lord Tartarus
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Satyxis Raider Captain
Ogrun Bokur
Gorman diWulfe

Opponent had:

Epic Haley
- Ironclad
- Hammersmith (bonded)
- Thorn

Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Pistoleers + Officer
Minimum unit of Field Mechanics
Aiyana & Holt
Epic Eiryss
Gorman diWulfe
Lanyssa Ryssyll
Journeyman Warcaster
- Hunter

Scenario was Close Quarters, and Cygnar started game. I guess scenario could have been worse, but still it was nasty that Haley got to start the game. Because she did, I tried to give some headache for Cygnar by running Satyxis Raiders who had Desperate Pace and Ashen Veil on full 16" to engage Cygnar and contest enemy flag.

Scything Touch was on Bane Thralls and Arcane Shield from Journeyman Warcaster on Hammersmith

Well, it did take most of Cygnar to remove the Satyxis, but that also meant that Haley didn't use her feat just yet. I had also hoped that one, or if we're crazy two Satyxis might have survived, but they all died. I had clumped them together and I was horrified when I remembered that Gorman diWulfe doesn't actually do blast damage with the acid bomb... Well, he missed badly, but that didn't save the Satyxis.

It was absolutely certain that Haley would use her feat next turn, so I tried to position my melee-only troops so that I could do at least something during my next turn. Satyxis Raider Captain ran to enemy flag, but she couldn't make it into base contact with it. Idea here was that something would need to waste attacks against her and not soften up main body of my army.

Harrower charged and killed Lanyssa Ryssyll.

Epic Haley uses her feat next turn. Sometimes world plays fair and makes things difficult for Epic Haley - the rest of the turn sees pretty amazing rolls for Cygnar in the sheer amount of 1's and 2's rolled.

Charging Hammersmith with four focus doesn't wreck Harrower and Gun Mages don't do any better. Only a couple of Bane Thralls die, and Gorman diWulfe tells yet another amazing story of taking four points in and not dying.

Haley herself dominates friendly flag, taking one control point.

Then it's Cygnar turn again, as only two Bane Thralls and Vociferon were left outside of Haley's feat.

Thankfully I had Helldivers in the list - at least I could get some hard-to-remove target to contest Haley's flag. In the end I decided to leave both Helldivers up to gain upper hand in attrition.

Asphyxious forfeited action and advanced a little and used his Feat. Even if I lost most of warjacks in my army, at least I'd have amazing number of Focus next turn.

Tartarus had been knocked down because of critical Thunder Bolt, so he forfeited movement to stand up, cursed Hammersmith and forfeited action to Haley's feat. We weren't entirely sure on the legality of this action, but it was quite inconsequantial to overall performance during that turn. Only one Bane Thrall got to charge Hammersmith, and another took a charge at Stormclad.

Rest of Cryx just advanced to engage various enemies. Harrower obviously attacked Hammersmith, but I don't remember if anything important broke down.

Dice were really hating Epic Haley that day, because Hammersmith with four focus fails to kill Harrower again. Though I believe it used a lot of focus to remove Bane Thralls from board.

Haley & co wrecked the Helldiver close to enemy Gorman diWulfe, and the other Helldiver was just outside of contest range, so Haley took another control point.

Then Asphyxious has 12 Focus. Just about every model I got charged or otherwise attacked Hammersmith, including Asphyxious himself. He cast Hex Blast on Hammersmith to remove Arcane Shield. And down the Hammersmith went, and Asphyxious was left with 5 focus to overboost powerfield.

A couple of Gun Mages died also, and Necrotech and Helldiver went to contest Haley's flag. Other than that not much happened.

As a response Cygnar just killed Necrotech and cast Telekinesis on Helldiver and scored third control point. Vociferon was too far away to contest flag.

Hunter comes to engage Harrower, though I'm not sure why. Probably to threat with a free strike - Harrower was most probably in a very bad shape by then. It starts to look like Cygnar just doesn't have enough attacks to remove Cryx from the board. One inch at a time Cryx lines advanced through anything Cygnar could throw against them.

Hunter dies, Thorn dies, Squire dies and there's only movement-less Ironclad and a handful of other models at Cygnar's side. It looked like Haley might be able to score fourth control point, but Cryx had finally advanced to the point that too many models could run and contest Haley's flag next turn. I don't remember where I wasted all 8 focus Asphyxious had that turn, but he advanced without any focus to embrace cover from a wreck marker. Since Ironclad could not charge I thought he was safe from just about anything.

Last ditch effort: Ironclad advances and uses Tremor special attack. It needs a natural 8+ roll with two dice. Four and four. Aww, crap! Asphyxious is knocked down.

Aiyana dropped Kiss of Lyliss on Asphyxious then, which essentially lowered Asphyxious' effective armor to 15. Could Asphyxious survive Journeyman Warcaster, two Gun Mage attacks and a few Arcane Bolts from Haley? With Ogrun Bokur taking one physical attack away?

Nope, no he did not. From the positioning it even looks like Haley killed Asphyxious with an Arcane Bolt. How humiliating.

Ironclad had at least lost Movement and open fist, I'm not sure if it had even lost Cortex. Anyway, I completely ignored it as a serious threat, I figured it might wreck Harrower and kill the Bane Thrall officer. Annoying oversight on my part.

So, it was my first game with Asphyxious the Hellbringer. Judging from one game he feels like he plays very differently from anything I've used to. If you want the juicy bonuses from either Mobility or Carnage, it forces you to take special care on the activation order. Also when you have to activate your warcaster early in the turn it might not be apparent where is the safest location to place him.

But that's it. Next will be some Ropecon fails with my Circle of Orboros.

Talisman

Uh.

I'm drunk, but I'm quite certain I will forget any and everything if I try to write anything about this game tomorrow or even later.

Three player Talisman.

Ghoul, Assassin and Priest.

Ghoul dies and is replaced with Warrior.

Assassin wins.

Cheers.

Machine-gun Spear Action

Last game I got to play yesterday was, what, a five players worth of Betrayal at the House on the Hill.

As I'm not familiar with the characters in the game, I'm not even trying to name them. We had two little kids (I was the smallest of the two), some sort of man, a professor and two ladies. Huh. Now that's a detailed description.

I think the idea behind the game is fantastic. A group of player characters wander inside a haunted mansion without actually knowing the objective, what haunts who or where, what or who the ultimate bad guy actually is. It does create an air of mystery to the game in a very different way I've seen in any board game.

The youngest character, my 8-year old little brat looked like she was main target for unfortunate accidents around the mansion... After she finds spear weapon she falls down from elevator all the way to basement. There she wanders into a room that has a pentagram on the floor, and in that very room something bites her.

The grown-ups who didn't bother to take care of the little girl when she fell down the elevator found some items that eventually triggered the stage 2 of game.

In next stage all hell breaks loose in the mansion and puny humans find supernatural horrors in a very concrete way.

The professor had played a lonely game in the upstairs. Somehow it was fitting, then, that the professor turned out to be the zombie lord.

Lesser zombies spawned all around the mansion and remaining characters made their way to upstairs.

Item use rules are quite weird in Betrayal at the House on the Hill. A character can use any and all items he or she has, then drop them to the floor for another character to pick up.

So, taking turns characters picked up the spear my character had found, though it didn't take many characters to finish off the zombie lord, as one player had a card to make any roll result of a roll to "2", and players had a few items that made rolls turn to "8" or added +4 to result.

Together with these the zombie lord was so easy that it left "Huh? That was it?" feeling at least for me.

Despite of the awkward ending this game is definitely worth looking into. I can almost see a SAW edition of this game.

Another Relic Bites the Dust

Second game that I played was a three player Relic.

Characters were Techpriest Enginseer, Space Marine and Ordo Malleus Inquisitor.

Ending card was to defeat the chaos lord Corruptis, who is a Strength 14, Willpower 14 and Cunning 14 enemy. It also gets the characters to four Corruption cards very fast, which looked like a problem for Techpriest. Space Marine and Inquisitor have some abilities to mitigate the effects of corruption.

Space Marina started rocking on quite early when he got three completed missions rather fast and probably one of the most powerful Relics there is. Of course I don't know the average power level of Relics, but it's difficult to imagine that there are many more game-changing Relics such as that. It allowed to flip a Power card and add it to battle results.

Inquisitor didn't have a bad start either, but somehow he was unable to progress anyway. Mutations from corruption cards dropped his statistics as he was able to raise them, and some unlucky battles that he should have won proved to be too difficult for him to handle (curse that exploding dice system! When it explodes on me, though. If I get explosive dice, it's a nice addition to game mechanics.)

Techpriest, however, was the unluckiest of the whole bunch to the extent of leaving play with six corruption cards and not picking a new character.

Eventually Space Marine stomped all the way to victory, and Corruptis fell down without landing even one successful hit on Space Marine.

This is not a happy meal

I visited a local board gaming group today.

For starters we played a four player game of Cards Against Humanity, winning with seven points.

I'm not going to meticulously write down every atrocity committed in the game. Instead I'll say that the game mechanic was actually better than I had thought. I knew that there was some voting going to happen to declare the funniest disturbance, but I thought that no such mechanic could ever work in any meaningful manner.

However, I had never thought that the "voting" was in fact the dealer declaring best sentence without knowing who gave what card. Problem solved.

Anyway, we played just one game.

And mark my words: Don't go and get a Happy Meal any time soon. Or please do, if you're into that sort of stuff, but don't say I didn't warn you.

The Oldest vs the Newest (an exaggeration)

I played a 35 point game against Convergence of Cyriss.

I decided to take Iron Lich Asphyxious in for a spin, and I came up with following list:

Iron Lich Asphyxious
- Reaper
- Slayer
- 2x Nightwretch

Minimum unit of Bane Thralls
Maximum unit of Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Skarlock
Warwitch Siren

Much to my amusement I noticed that all but two models were printed in the original black & white Prime from 2003! And Warwitch Siren is the only model that didn't exist in Mk1.

Convergence had almost same list as last time, but with a couple of improvements:

Syntherion tier 2:
- Corollary
- 2x Diffuser
- Mitigator
- Assimilator
- Monitor
- Cipher

Attunement Servitors
Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex

Anyway, Cryx won starting roll but went second, as I didn't really want any kind of shooting vectors on a mountain. This time we played with a scenario, which was Close Quarters, which has Killbox in effect. First picture is from the end of Cryx turn 1. Hot Shot was on Cipher, Reconstruct on Mitigator and Synergy on Syntherion. Scything Touch is on Satyxis Raiders.

I was willing to take a risk with the Satyxis there, as I was quite sure that Ground Pounder with RAT 5 wouldn't kill too many Def 16 Satyxis. And, well, it didn't.

But I had not taken into consideration the horrible Def lowering capabilities Convergence had. A flare template from Attunement Servitor lowered Satyxis' natural defense to 12, and then Syntherion cast Magnetic Hold on one of the flared Satyxis. Force Barrier doesn't affect spells, so it was an easy hit. Ground Pounder and various other attacks killed four Satyxis, which wasn't too bad. But -2 spd from Magnetic Hold that prevented charges hurt most.

A lucky deviation from Cipher destroyed two Bane Thralls, and it was Cryx's time to act.

Satyxis advanced what they could and destroyed one Attunement Servitor.

Slayer tried to come bait vectors a little, though I was unsure if such a trade would be any good. A Nightwretch in the middle shot a second Attunement Servitor, and then Skarlock re-cast Scything Touch on Reaper. Nightwretch on the left shot third Attunement Servitor and placed itself easily within 10" range of the arc node optifex. A hellfire from Asphyxious would deal with it.

Reaper advanced and shot harpoon against Mitigator, dragging it and wrecking it. Again I hadn't paid any attention which model had Reconstruct on... So Mitigator just spawned out of Reaper's melee range.

Hellfire went to Mitigator instead, then, and Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex wiped the sweat from his/her brow.

Convergence activates, and Syntherion uses his feat this turn.

Diffuser on right attacks a Satyxis and shoots the homing ripspike to Slayer.

Then Monitor charges Slayer, and charge attack would have caused critical erosion if double 1's could score a hit. Additional attacks against Slayer didn't wreck it, and I guess this is what messed up Convergence's battle plans pretty badly.

Of course I don't know what opponent had in mind, but once it dawned on me that Diffuser could give +2" charge range, I had worried about the safety of Reaper. I doubt four Bane Thralls would have made up for the disappearance of two heavy warjacks.

But instead of charging Cipher played safe and further reduced my Bane count to three as well as dealing minor damage to Nightwretches.

Diffuser tried to shoot a boosted and aimed, re-rollable shot at Nightwretch on a hill, but missed.

There is one full round between pictures now, but Cryx turn went so that Nightwretches desperately tried to shoot Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex out from the way of Reaper's harpoon, but Def 15 (with Iron Sentinel) caused some problems for them. Both arc nodes had to try shooting before it went down.

Reaper yanked another light vector, but damage rolls weren't good enough to wreck it.

Slayer, on the other hand, rolled atrocious damage rolls against Monitor and wrecked it.

Last remaining Satyxis tried to tickle the vectors on the right, and did just that. Tickle. As a side note, Feedback isn't really worth anything against Syntherion with his auto-repair.

Next it was Convergence.

Assimilator and Diffuser on right continued to stomp Satyxis. I don't remember exactly what Cipher did, but since there's still three Bane Thralls in the picture, I assume it tried to shoot all of my support models away in one go - after all Necrotech, Skarlock and Warwitch Siren were quite badly clumped.

Corollary came forward to block Banes from charging Cipher.

Cryx turn again, and it started to look like game over for Convergence here, when Parasite to Cipher and Scything Touch on Reaper wrecked Cipher and both Diffusers went down with various charges.

Next turn Reaper charged Syntherion and economically destroyed him - there was not even one point of excess damage.

Biggest turning point in the game was unquestionably when Monitor botched the charge attack. Looks like critical double 1's have a really big impact on 35 point game with really low model count army.

Anyway, I'm starting to build up a serious loathing for Reconstruct spell, and Magnetic Hold seems like a powerful spell. Now, if I only played even just one faction Eiryss works for... but alas, I don't.

SUPRISE! It's objective!

Last Tuesday I played a 50 point Warmachine game, Cryx versus Cygnar.

I was supposed to write this a bit earlier since I had all the time in the world, but I got carried away a bit thanks to new version of Dwarf Fortress... Ahem.

Anyway, I took Goreshade again, and my list was:

Goreshade the Bastard & Deathwalker
- Nightmare
- Harrower
- Defiler
- Helldiver

Maximum unit of Mechanithralls + 2x Brute Thrall
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls
Maximum unit of Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
Satyxis Raider Captain
Pistol Wraith
2x Warwitch Siren

It grieves me to admit, but I'm slowly starting to warm up to the idea of getting some Bane Knights. Long did I resist the temptation, as originally I didn't purchase them because they were so horribly broken in last edition of Warmachine. They have paid distaste-tax for me... until now. This is how Cryx corrupts.

Opponent had:

Epic Haley
- Ironclad
- Hammersmith (bonded)
- Thorn

Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Pistoleers + Officer
Minimum unit of Field Mechanics
Aiyana & Holt
Epic Eiryss
Gorman diWulfe
Lanyssa Ryssyll
Journeyman Warcaster
- Hunter

Scenario was Fire Support, and Cryx won the start, and definitely went first. Objective and flag are messed up in the first picture, they should be the other way around. Switching them to their proper place at the end of turn 1 wasn't a pleasant suprise for either side, but more on that later.

First picture is blurry, so I wrote a bit on the picture where different Cygnaran models were. Anyway, it is taken from the end of Cygnar turn 1 and... uh, it's Haley's feat turn.

That really caught me by suprise. Haley used her feat, and as it is a continuous aura effect, she could charge Nightmare or Harrower, I don't remember which. Charge failed but a handful of Mechanithralls, Satyxis Raiders, both Warwitch Sirens, Deathwalker and Pistol Wraith were the only models out. And then we noticed the error in scenario.

I thought I could have charged Eiryss with at least one Mechanithrall, but suddenly a large based model appeared in the middle of Mechanithralls. Well, the front line of them was in Haley's feat anyway, but there might have been a chance for it. As Cygnar had so few models on the left side I thought for sure that I'd be able to wreck objective easily and flag would be behind an undying legion of Mechanithralls.

On the right side Cygnar probably suffered more from switching conditions as Ironclad was behind the objective now that had been an open terrain flag a turn earlier.

Anyway, there I had been thinking of having Satyxis far, far away and if Haley tried to come to dominate the flag, some crazy Satyxis would charge her from 14" away, preferably with Power Swell on. On the other hand, flag coming to middle opened much better charge lanes for the Satyxis. Objective was now out of my reach, though. Satyxis aren't exactly a dedicated objective wrecking unit.

Ah well, I'm writing more about the mistake than about the game itself. So, with a sudden overhaul of plans during Epic Haley's lovely feat, I just tried to set up at least some kind of retaliation possibilities, mainly with the infantry. A Mechanithrall ran to engage Eiryss and Satyxis advanced closer for charging all over the board next turn.

Instead of trying to take random shots at high defense solos and units with Pistol Wraith, it ran to back up my helljacks if Cygnaran heavies go all sorts of crazy.

It's Cygnar turn then, and Eiryss dies to a free strike from Mechanithrall. That thrall was instantly promoted and crafted into an iron lich.

Then after a Telekinesis and a Temporal Acceleration the bonded Hammersmith charges Harrower.

Hammersmith was a bit unlucky in the damage rolls and Harrower was left standing with less than four damage boxes remaining, all systems broken except Cortex. Chain Smite slammed Harrower 2" away, and to me it looks like we never rolled for collateral damage on the Warwitch Siren. Or if we did, the roll was abysmal.

Ironclad backed off a little, perhaps to protect Haley.

Hunter tries to take a shot at my objective, but does only three points of damage. Lanyssa, Aiyana and Holt do all damage to Mechanithralls, but only one Brute Thrall would not be coming back.

Gun Mages, on the other hand, did much more serious blow with Deadeye. They managed to snipe both the Sea Witch and Captain solo away.

Then goes Cryx, and Nightmare gets full three focus. Bad news: Hammersmith had Arcane Shield on. Good news: Hammersmith was Nightmare's prey.

However, Mechanithralls activated first and charged forward, trying to hit Lanyssa Ryssyll. I guess they tried it with their shriveled vocal chords instead of steam-powered fists.

Two Mechanithralls got to Thorn, but didn't really do anything thanks to set defense.

Then I had to deal with Hammersmith. I was torn between casting Hex Blast on it to drop Arcane Shield and then using feat to get Dark Shroud, or cast Shadowmancer and taking a hit at it. But since space was really tight I wouldn't get many thralls to attack Hammersmith, so Goreshade cast Shadowmancer and hoped P+S 20 equivalent helljack would wreck, or at least neutralize Arm 22 Hammersmith.

I don't want to remember the sheer amount of 1's and 2's rolled, so let's skip that part. Nightmare didn't entirely botch it's activation, but still the performance was a little bit too sub-par.

Satyxis charge, and four of them get to Hammersmith and the others just go to tickle gobbers and gun mages and other inconsequntial things. It's a real shame they lost Power Swell, because they dropped Hammersmith down to just a few boxes remaining. Ther dropped Movement system, and I thought it would be safe to shoot the last remaining points with Pistol Wraith. First attack hit easily Def 11 target (Lost movement + melee bonus) but deals no damage. Second attack... double 1's. That jerk Pistol Wraith tries to shoot Goreshade in the back instead! Luckily no damage is dealt, and later I remembered that Goreshade had stealth anyway.

Then there is my last remaining possibility to get the 'jack down. Warwitch Siren that possibly didn't get collateral damage stands up and Power Boosts Harrower.

Harrower attacks with only one die, needing 1+ to hit... it's a hit! Then it boosts damage, so rolls P+S equivalent of 18 +2d6 vs Arm 22. Hooray, Hammersmith went down!

I had been saving up one Warwitch Siren to either make last charge against Hammersmith, or go and spray things if Hammersmith dies. This eases my guilt a bit, as if Warwitch no1 should have been dead, a second one could have Power Boosted Harrower instead.

Next Haley plays with more pairs than Goreshade ever did.

But first Gun Mages activate, shoot a couple Satyxis and clear a way for Haley to get to the flag.

Then Haley charges a Satyxis that was still there and single-handedly kill all remaining Satyxis from the flag. The sight of Haley in melee is so unnatural and horrifying to Satyxis that they fail their massive casualties check.

Fun fact: the last remaining gobber mechanic next to Nightmare, Warwitch Siren, remaining Satyxis, Defiler, smoldering wreck of Hammersmith and even Goreshade himself does not fail any kind of command check.

Almost all Mechanithralls are wiped, but Necrosurgeon still stands proud.

Thorn comes to block as much incoming attacks against Haley as possible.

Then it's Cryx turn.

Sure, Nightmare could have ripped Thorn in two easily since now it was Nightmare's prey. But Ironclad was still around with full health and all in all it started to look like I was losing the attrition here - Mechanithralls had way too high defense targets for them. Perhaps I could expect one lucky hit per turn, but in melee Holt has four attacks. That's bad news for Def 12 Arm 12 targets.

It seemed like a too high risk to go any further in this game as Haley needed only to dominate the same flag once and destroy my objective. With Telekinesis and everything that might very well happen, so I push everything I got to assassinate Haley.

Helldiver pops up and is allocated three focus, and just on the safe side Nightmare is allocated three too, so this would be my first turn in two complete games without casting Shadowmancer.

If Helldiver would succeed at the head-butt attack against Haley, this would be a lot easier. Def 16 target, even boosted, is not certain hit for MAT 6 model. So first I activate Goreshade and charge one of my own Satyxis, kill her and call in Bane Thralls. By calling in the banes I messed up my easiest path to run Deathwalker within 5" of Haley. Deathwalker doesn't have any way to negate difficult terrain, so she just had to pray she'd get close enough with wreck marker in the way.

Turned out she did, and Helldiver succeeded in punching Haley down. Four Bane Thralls charge Haley, and that's it.

This time I was able to roll 8+ with three dice, but if that had failed things would have gone nasty. Bane Thralls still would have charged, but even with considerable luck only one of them might have hit. Haley had Arcane Shield and some focus on, so she wasn't that easy to one-shot.

Then probably Defiler and one Warwitch Siren would have tried to spray Haley, but with Siren needed 7+ to hit and Defiler needed 9+, and Defiler would have taken a free strike from Thorn.

Last Nightmare would have imprinted Ghostly and trampled to get one unboosted attack against her with MAT 8 and P+S equal to 18.

So... it's a good thing the head-butt hit.

Shadowmancer Spam

So, I got to play my first game against Convergence of Cyriss.

Opponent is a newly started player, and any and all infantry and support choices for him hadn't arrived yet. That meant tons of vectors in a 35 point game.

My list was:

Goreshade the Bastard & Deathwalker
- Nightmare
- Reaper
- Helldiver
- Stalker

Maximum unit of Mechanithralls + 2x Brute Thralls
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls
Cephalyx Overlords
Warwitch Siren
Gorman diWulfe

I'm not entirely sure on the opponent's list, because I really don't recognise the Convergence warjacks just yet. But it was something like:

Forge Master Syntherion

- Assimilator
- Cipher
- Monitor
- Corollary
- Mitigator
- either 2x Diffuser & 1x Galvanizer
- or: 2x Galvanizer & 1x Diffuser

Five light warjacks and three heavies to take down. I knew that would take quite some time, but I didn't realise how long...

Anyway, we played without a scenario, as main focus was just in practicing.

It was quite dreadful to look how eight warjacks ran with one focus. Hot Shot was on Cipher (the one who shoots 2x AoE 4 blasts) and Reconstruct was on Mitigator, that was also Nightmare's prey, and the closest model to Cryx. Synergy was on, too. Damn I missed Purification from Morvahna the Dawnshadow.

Monitor had scored a lucky critical hit against Reaper, which had dropped its harpoon. Ground Pounder from Assimilator was able to just clip both Stalker and Reaper, and it was a hit against Stalker. Suddenly def 16 warjack with almost negative hit boxes was a def 7 warjack.

I was quite sure I would be able to drop two light vectors, though Mitigator had Reconstruct. And I priorised to destroy completely whatever I can. Nightmare could have charged the Assimilator, but it wouldn't destroy it. I didn't want it to slowly repair itself, so Nightmare went and wrecked some light vector in front of Assimilator with one focus point Goreshade had allocated.

Goreshade activates, backs off a little and uses Soul Gate to bring Nightmare back to safety. I overdid the safety part, though - I was very uncertain about the threat ranges of Convergence, so I really made it sure that nothing would harm Nightmare. Payback here was that Nightmare wouldn't harm anything next turn either, so far it had been teleported.

Goreshade also casts Shadowmancer.

Then Stalker tried to do at least something to the Mitigator, though the important part was getting Mitigator to Dark Shroud. Then Mechanithralls charge Mitigator and wreck it. Reconstruct triggers, and then Reaper tries to come and finish it. One damnable Mechanithrall slowed down Reaper enough that after advancing it was a couple of millmetres away (even with Reach) from Mitigator. Warwitch Siren had Power Boosted one focus to Reaper, and the only thing it could do was to shoot with the destroyed Harpoon. Yay... Well, RAT 5 + 2d6 is enough to hit the vector. POW 12+1d6 isn't enough to damage it.

Cephalyx Overseers oversee the battlefield. At least they had a good view from the hill.

Then it's Convergence turn, and I'm a little worried that I had only managed to punch one vector down.

Ground Punder kills Gorman diWulfe, and Mitigator shoots knockdown on a mechanithrall that is next to Reaper. Down went the Reaper.

Cipher pulled off a blast damage against Necrosurgeon, boosted damage and killed her. That was a nasty blow, especially when most of Mechanithralls had already died that turn.

Unknown light vector wrecked Stalker, and then there is Monitor. It could be in charge range to knocked down Reaper, or then again, it might not. Monitor decided to try and charge, but the charge fell short. That was pretty much one of the turning points in the game.

Oh, and Syntherion cast Reconstruct on Monitor. Then it was a turn for Cryx.

Well, I had removed Nightmare from play all by myself, so it didn't need focus. Reaper took three, and shook off knockdown (a little posthumously, but the intent was quite clear.)

Goreshade advanced, cast Shadowmancer and summoned a unit of Bane Thralls.

Then Reaper advanced a little and took most of its melee attacks against Cipher. Damage rolls were rather poor, and it started to look like I wouldn't be able to remove as many warjacks as I needed to.

Well, then bane thralls charged. Only one got to strike Cipher, two charged the light vector and two attacked Monitor. Only light vector was wrecked.

Mechanithralls charge all over the place, and Brute Thrall is a hero of the day when it smashes Monitor. Again I dealt much less damage than I had hoped, and despite a fresh unit of Banes attrition game didn't look that good. I'd have to be extra careful with Nightmare now.

Next Syntherion uses his feat, and all the banes suddenly disappear from a multitude of melee and ranged attacks. Reaper also goes down, and last remaining Mechanithralls are the unit leader and two brutes.

Nightmare is allocated three focus, and Helldiver gets one. Then Goreshade advances away from Nightmare's way and casts Shadowmancer.

Nightmare charges Assimilator and wrecks it. The 3" placement took Assimilator out from Nightmare's melee range, but placement was tricky for the opponent. There seemed to be no place where it wouldn't get at least one attack. It placed itself behind Nightmare, so it would get only mechanithralls and possibly one spray from a Cephalyx Overseer against it. Last attacks go to Cipher.

Mechanithralls charge, and they manage to wreck both Monitor and Cipher. Warwitch Siren charges Corollary and hits, which triggers Shadow Bind.

Helldiver charges Syntherion next, but it's outside of Goreshade control area, so doesn't get Shadowmancer bonuses. Either there was no damage done, or it was only one or two points.

I had picked the last non-corollary light vector as Nightmare's prey, which now, looking back, was not a clever thing to do.

There's not much Convergence can do right now. Diffuser or Galvanizer tries to kill a brute thrall, but fails.

Syntherion wrecks the Helldiver, and Corollary just hangs around.

Game is nearing end? Well, in a way, yes. But not quite yet.

Mechanithralls wreck the light vector on the right, and new prey for Nightmare is Syntherion. Nightmare had 3 focus, and Shadowmancer had been cast. Syntherions was camping quite a lot of focus, so it wasn't a 100% sure caster kill, especially when Nightmare had to spend a focus to charge and to use Imprint: Ghostly.

Before all of that Warwitch Siren charges Syntherion, and Shadow Binds him, too.

Then Nightmare charges Syntherion and charge attack deals... no damage. MAT 10, effective P+S 20 attack deals no damage with three dice against arm 20+ target. Attack roll was double 1.

The other initial attack doesn't fare much better, so I ditch whole assassination attempt for that turn and buy extra attack against Corollary. At least the Super-Squire falls down.

Syntherion doesn't have Reach and he was Shadow Bound over 0.5" away from both Nightmare and Warwitch Siren. Syntherion casts Convection on Warwitch Siren just for giggles. Those giggles were lethal, since it was a hit even without a boost. Warwitch Siren died.

And then. THEN game finally ends, when Nightmare was able to unload all initial attacks with three focus against its prey target, which was in Dark Shroud.

In future games there will probably be one less light vector in the list, and a couple more arc nodes, as well as some other support options. Then it will be really tough game, as even spd 4 non-reach vectors won't fail 'less than 8"' charges. Convergence must be the Legion of Warmachine.

As a side note, Goreshade cast Shadowmancer every single turn.

My Very First Relic

So, I got to try out Relic, which takes place in Warhammer 40k universe and is based on mechanics from Talisman.

First things first, the game mechanics did seem less random than in Talisman, which is in a way a good thing. One thing I'll sorely miss in future games of Talisman are the charge counters - how much easier and simpler many adventure cards would be with a charge mechanic! Strength points, Craft points, gold, fate and a ton of other little effects wouldn't litter the board that much.

Also three different threat decks was a nice touch. Even on the unexpanded main board there's different, themed encounters. Of course Talisman has additional decks in corner boards, but in Relic the main board seems to be much more interesting. It doesn't exactly crave for variation unlike Talisman counterpart.

Enough of comparisons, though. We had a three player game, and characters were Callidus Assassin, Ogryn and Tech-Priest Enginseer.

Ogryn got himself killed first, and here is a big difference from Talisman - you don't lose your characters from loss of lives. Relic doesn't have any inbuilt reroll mechanics, but that's okay since losing last life isn't nearly as fatal in Relic than it is in Talisman. You can lose you character, though. You lose them from getting mutated too many times. Tech-Priest nearly suffered that fate when early in the game he was sitting with five mutations (sixth kills).

Good luck removed mutations down to much more manageable 3, and somehow Tech-Priest started snowballing his stats. I guess it makes surviving a bit easier when you got results of 2,3,4,5,6,6 in your dice - a relic he got turned any 1's into 6.

Callidus Assassin was the first one to acquire a relic, though, and it was a piece that let her remove one mutation per turn from herself.

Ogryn was mentally challenged when he continuously drew Willpower enemies against him. If I remember right ultimately he died to too many mutations, but the player didn't draw a new character as there was quite a bit hurry, as my opponent for a game of Warmachine had already arrived.

Anyway, Tech-Priest was the first character to get to the Crown of Com... uh. What's the victory condition space in the middle of the board? I don't think I caught it. The ending was Chaos Factorum or something like that. You spent influence and trophies to add charge counters to the end space and if your roll + number of charge counters was 13+, you won. Anything below that had various results, like spamming mutations to Callidus Assassin, who just removed them with her relic. Other results were giving two lives to Callidus Assassin, and the like.

Tech-Priest had four Influence and no trophies, but due to a lucky roll from Chaos Factorum he got 5 charge counters to the Factorum before Callidus Assassin arrived there, too.

I liked the Chaos Factorum mechanics, as even with a good head start one character can only have so many influence and trophies if he rushes to end the game. But Callidus Assassin didn't just instantly win when she arrived there, but finally the Factorum started to get additional charge counters with fresh blood from the Assassin.

I think Callidus Assassin was the first to roll 13+ there, but my memory is a bit hazy there as I was deploying my army to Warmachine board at the same time...

Time constraints put aside, the game gave a good first impression.

Idle curiosity killed the wallet

Today I was waiting in at a local gaming shop for some time for players to arrive. I was going to play both Relic and Warmachine, and towards the end of Relic I actually had to simultaneously play both games. But more of that later. What happened before those games was an expansion for Gloom.

I bought the Unquiet Dead deck. Unfortunate Expeditions would have been next expansion to buy if I had followed them in order, but game mechanics from Unquiet Dead seemed more interesting, more fun and more depressing.

Quickly looking through the deck I noticed that it didn't have an extra family in it. Oh well. It'd be unlikely anyway to get in a six player game, not to mention seven players if Unquiet Dead had an extra family.

More about the actual games a bit later.

Plague Faction Starter (almost) finished

I finished some Deadzone miniatures few days ago.

Stage 3A General was converted into a muton with plasma pistol and alien grenade. I'm not entirely happy how the model looks, but it was absolutely the hardest model from faction starter to "mutonise". Considering that I think it turned out okay.

Two Stage 2A models were converted into... something. They're going to represent Chryssalids, but they don't really look much like them. Head is from Mesaan Grunt from Hasslefree Miniatures. I could have probably got a little better look-a-like if I would have seen the trouble of converting Chryssalid legs into backwards pose.

There's some trouble in the color scheme, too. In the game itself Chryssalids have a very dark palette, and yet in the autopsy reports they're quite bright. I did some sort of a compromiss between the two, with the end result not looking like either of the original color schemes. Chryssalids didn't definitely turn out as showcase models, but I'm sure they're passable when it comes to playing Deadzone. After all they're always lurking in the shadows there.

I took a couple other pictures too. One with all mutons I have converted and their terror mission units, the Silacoid and Celatid. Last pictures got all the original X-Com aliens I have converted.

Stage 1A is still unfinished because it hasn't got any good counterpart in Ufo Enemy Unknown. A friend did have a really good idea, though - it might be a huge blob of Silacoid, as silacoids did have an impressive melee capability, but were so slow that they never got to use it. Only not-fitting aspect would have been the disturbing command value, but hey, what do we know about the leadership capabilities of the silacoid mass?

TaTaPe warmachine tournament day 2

I had to travel 150 kilometres to play against a player from my own town. And not only that - it was exactly the same list I had taken a sorry beating from with Morvahna2 some weeks earlier.

Well. I guess it was time for rematch, as the opponent had Vayl1 and Saeryn as possible choices, and both lists had a disturbing number of heavy warbeasts. Morvahna1 just would not remove that many beasts even as little as my Morvahna2 list did.

Opponent picked Saeryn. List was:
- 2x Angelius
- 2x Scythean
- Afflictor
- Raek

2x Forsaken
2x Shepherd
2x Deathstalker
Spell Martyr

Scenario was Two Fronts. At least this time around the scenario was a bit easier to contest for me.

I forgot to take pictures from the couple of first turns, but the situation in the first is this: Legion wins starting roll, but chooses to go second. I was thinking of trying to dominate my own zone with Morvahna, but this time I'd bring more than enough models to at least challenge enemy zone. Things looked pretty good, because quite few models were coming to my friendly zone.

Saeryn used her feat on second turn, and angelius came and killed Pureblood Warpwolf outright, and came to engage Gnarlhorn Satyr with Overtake. Pureblood had earlier attempted to spray Raek and Afflictor, and succeeded in dealing good damage in. In the picture I can't attack any of the opposing warbeasts, but despite that annoying feat I had managed to kill Raek with Stone Keeper and Blackclad Wayfarer. Blackclad Wayfarer rolled double sixes for damage.

Morvahna cast Sunder Spirit on Scythean as many times as possible. Afterwards Winter Argus came to spray Scythean. Damage rolls weren't all that good, and only branch that broke down was Body. Well, I would have liked Spirit or Mind more, but I guess Body was good too, since I could teleport Gallows Grove forward to deny healing. Oh, wait... their CMD is 3, not 4. Damn it, I always mix up those two.

Ravagers chargedand ran, but the only models I could charge were the objective and... umm, that's it. But at least I scored a control point from destroying it.

Next turn was brutal. A scythean on right killed Gnarlhorn, an angelius killed Gorax and the now healed Scythean killed Winter Argus. All warbeasts... gone. Gone.

Not only that, but most of the infantry was gone too. Saeryn had also cast Breath Stealer on Ravagers and was camping three Fury.

So I was not able to assassinate Saeryn, but at least I could try to make an amazing amount of damage.

Morvahna uses her feat and then charges Scythean by herself. I had planned on ramming Scythean up to Angelius and by using Life Trader I'd kill both of them, and then hopefully whatever was left of my troops would kill a third beast.

In this game I learned that you cannot boost damage on mount attacks. That much for ramming, but at least Morvahna destroyed the Scythean despite some very poor rolls.

Wolves and Ravagers did manage to kill an angelius, but it was nowhere near enough to keep me playing. Opponent had two heavy warbeasts, one of which was flying and had armor piercing special attack, and there I had a warlock on large base with only a couple of hit points left...

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Saeryn is a tough one.


Game 2:

Last game was against Four Star Syndicate led by Gorten Grundback. I had never played against Gorten before, so I was quite happy. Two completely new warcasters during one tournament.

However... I was not that happy about the fact that there was a colossal around, the Ghordson Earthbreaker. So epic Morvahna it was again.

Gorten had:
- Ghordson Earthbreaker

Maximum unit of Kayazy Assassins + Underboss

2x Kayazy Eliminators
Gorman diWulfe
Orin Midwinter
Ragman
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord
Thor Steinhammer
Wrong Eye & Snapjaw
- Bull Snapper


And scenario was Balance of Power. Circle got to start the game.

As I was reading Gorten's card a bit I realised how bad scenario this was for me. Gorten just had to bring the colossal to contest the zone, and possibly even score a couple scenario points with his feat pushing away my models from the zone.

So... everything ran as fast forward as possible. The colossal came so close that I thought I might be able to wreck it with Ravagers, Pureblood and Gnarlhorn.

Blackclad Wayfarer activated first an managed to score a hit with Hunter's Mark. I would have really wanted to use Primal on Pureblood Warpwolf, but 11.5" looked like it might just be in range, or it might just be a little bit out. I could not risk on not getting a charge in, so Morvahna cast Bounding on Pureblood instead - after casting Purification and removing Spiny Growth from Earthbreaker.

With Hunter's Mark and Bounding it was a clear charge right into Earthbreaker, and Pureblood warped for strength. It wrecked the right field of fire all by itself.

Then Gnarlhorn activated, and again 11.5" was in the range of possibility to fail the charge. It used Bounding on itself and then charged in, not performing nearly as well as Pureblood. Though if we're completely honest, Gnarlhorn had two Fury less to use. Earthbreaker was nearly broken, and I thought that even with below average rolls two Tharn Ravagers would finish it with overkill. One Ravager in the might have been within 13" of Earthbreaker, but it looked so uncertain that I rather took a successful charge against Kayazy Assassins.

So... which one is more important? Dealing the last box of damage to a colossal, or getting an attack against def 17 Kayazy?

Ghordson Earthbreaker was left with one box remaining. One goddamn box! I really should have risked the one charge.

Other Ravagers didn't even decimate the Kayazy, but at least they got a couple of attacks in.

Next Gorten uses his feat.

And yet again I lose both of my heavy warbeasts in one round. Though what was to be expected when colossal was left standing... the good thing here was that Thor Steinhammer had to use his activation in repairing Earthbreaker instead of Tune Up. He repaired five boxes, and which meant that every single system was fully funchional again.

The colossal advanced and slapped Pureblood a bit. Then Ragman advanced and cast Death Field. Not too many of my models were within Earthbreaker's reach, but two of them were Pureblood Warpwolf and Gnarlhorn Satyr.

"Yum yum!" said Snapjaw and Gnarlhorn was no more.

"Yum yum!" said even Kayazy Assassins, and Pureblood was no more.

One unit of Eliminators ran to engage Morvahna.

As Earthbreaker didn't have Spiny Growth on right now, Morvahna decided to skip Purification this turn, especially when Wolves of Orboros failed to kill even one of the Eliminators engaging Morvahna, though they got back strike bonuses with 2-man Combined Melee Attacks! First she cast Carnivore on herself and killed the Eliminators herself, boosting attacks. Then she cast Carnivore on Tharn Ravagers. I thought hitting Kayazy was more important than gaining a heart token from them if I rolled 9+ (they had pathfinder song from Rhupert on)

Other Wolves of Orboros tried to do something useful, and they did manage to get rid of the other, less important Eliminator unit.

Thanks to speed penalties from Gorten's feat no Ravagers could get to attack Earthbreaker, but with Carnivore on they did quite good job on removing Kayazy Assassins.

However... the last model to activate was Winter Argus. That was the only one I could get to attack colossal.

Following the grand tradition of doing what the heavy beasts cannot it wrecked Ghordson Earthbreaker. Okay, it had only about six boxes left, but still. Jokingly I said that this Winter Argus was in flames in this tournament.

Well, that was about all I could do.

Gorten comes in for an assassination attempt and takes a hand cannon shot at Morvahna, dealing some 9 points of damage in. Luckily Wrong Eye charges in to Wolves of Orboros and eats a few of them to reduce the number of free strikes Snapjaw would take.

Then Snapjaw tramples, and here I was hoping that the beast would succeed in every single attack roll. But it succeeded in only one.

Snapjaw buys a boosted attack that would kill Morvahna, but she transfers the damage away. Snapjaw has enough Fury for one more unboosted attack, which hits but does not kill Morvahna.

Things were starting to get desperate on both sides. Morvahna upkept Carnivore on Winter Argus, who dislodged a Ravager and Ravager White Mane from melee by killing two Kayazy Assassins with both Primal and Carnivore on. One of the assassins was in way of one more charge, anyway.

White Mane charges Gorman to free Ravager Chieftain, but this is where I noticed a fire token on White Mane. He had been set on fire by Thor Steinhammer's spray. And of course the old berserk died right there and then.

In the end I got only three Ravagers to charge Gorten. Still I was quite sure that three P+S 15 charge attacks would kill a warcaster with only a few focus points in camp. I ask armor and it's... 22. Just... what? Assassination didn't seem that sure any more. I might have been able to squeeze in a couple of awkward attacks with Wolves of Orboros, but I doubt they would have got through that high armor, because pure charge attacks looked impossible.

Well. It was time to roll some dice. Second Ravager failed horribly, but Morvahna's re-rolls saved the situation. Last Ravager rolls high enough to kill that sturdy dwarf.

Phew.

All in all it was a really nice tournament, though I made some pretty stupid and easy mistakes. I'm starting to see why it might be a good idea to practice your list before you enter a tournament. But that just feels... wrong.

Well, at the end of this month there is the Ropecon event where is some warmachine tournaments. We'll see if I change my habits by then.

TaTaPe warmachine tournament day 1

Last weekend I participated in a warmachine tournament at Tampere.

It was 50 points, 1-2 lists and divide & conquer [1]

My lists were:

Morvahna the Autumnblade
- Megalith
- Feral Warpwolf
- Woldwatcher
- Winter Argus

Maximum unit of Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment
Druids of Orboros + Overseer
Shifting Stones + Stone Keeper
Gallows Grove
Blackclad Wayfarer
Gatorman Witch Doctor

And

Morvahna the Dawnshadow
- Pureblood Warpwolf
- Gnarlhorn Satyr
- Winter Argus
- Gorax

Maximum unit of Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment
Tharn Ravagers + Chieftain
Shifting Stones + Stone Keeper
2x Gallows Grove
Blackclad Wayfarer
Tharn Ravager White Mane

I made a last minute change to my Morvahna2 list, because I realised that neither list had power to crack any heavier targets, and changing ravager shaman and reeve hunter to Gorax I thought I'd be able to finish my turn a little bit faster.

And about the Morvahna1 list... well, that one I didn't practice at all. And why should I have practiced it? I played Morvahna a lot in Mk1 and during field test of mk2. End of sarcasm.

First game was against Retribution of Scyrah, so that pretty much meant I should pick Morvahna2 because of the abundance of Eirysses in that faction.

Dawnshadow got Issyria, the Sibyl of Dawn versus her. This was nice, since I had never played against Issyria, and I want to complete the entire set.

Issyria had the following list, barring any errors I've made in recollecting details from pictures:

- Hyperion
- Chimera

Maximum unit of Mage Hunter Strike Force + Commander
Maximum unit of Dawnguard Invictors + Unit Attachment
2x Mage Hunter Assassins
At least one Arcanist
Eiryss2
Sylys Wyshnalyrr

First scenario was Fire Support. First picture is from the end of Circle turn X. Carnivore was on Wolves of Orboros and Fog of War was on, too.

Next turn it's Issyria's feat turn, and Fog of War plus various Stealth abilities were made useless. Chimera had ran close to Wolves of Orboros, and Issyria cast Blinding Light on them.

Feat + Blinding Light meant that Mage Hunter Strike Force butchered most of Wolves of Orboros eventhough they were on a hill.

Ravagers also took some heavy casualties, but no unit was completely wiped out.

The thing that mattered most was, however, that Hyperion and Invictors shot Pureblood Warpwolf down to some six hit boxes remaining, after which it was finalized by a Mage Hunter Assassin.

Morvahna used her feat next, obviously. I had been left with too few models to make much damage against enemy, and Ravagers managed to whiff all of their attack rolls against Eiryss. So I would just receive another round of decimating shooting.

Gnarlhorn Satyr went and controlled one control point for Circle, and Winter Argus advanced and put on it's animus.

Next turn all but two Ravagers died, and all but two Wolves died. Gnarlhorn Satyr, Gorax and Winter Argus were still intact, as well as a broken unit of Shifting Stones and one Gallows Grove.

Issyria had been advancing closer, possibly to dominate flag later on. But to me it looked like there was around 10" in between Issyria and Winter Argus. That was the only thing I could possibly do to try to win. There was, however, some models standing in the way. Only one completely blocked the charge, but a lot more might be able to make a free strike.

I figured I could get rid of the prohibiting model with blast damage from a Death Knell blast damage, if Shifting Stone teleported close to it. Shifting stones, however, had Stealth from Stone Keeper.

Two remaining Wolves of Orboros activated, and one of them tried to kill Stone Keeper, and the other one wanted to poke the Winter Argus blocking Mage Hunter through a wall. Both Wolves failed in their attempts.

Gorax activated, used Primal on Winter Argus and ate the Stone Keeper. I'm not entirely sure if it's economical for a secret druidic cult to use highly trained spellcasters as ape food, but hey, the stones no longer had Stealth since it's a Granted ability on Stone Keeper.

Morvahna activates, casts Death Knell on the stone, kill the important target and then she casts Carnivore on Winter Argus.

Winter Argus charges Issyria, survives a free strike and kills the Sibyl of Dawn.



Game 2:

Second game was against Retribution of Scyrah. I was prepared to get another Issyria thrown against me, but instead Morvahna2 was eyeballing Vyros2 from across the table. I didn't feel like I had any choice in picking lists again. On top of Eirysses all over the place, Issyria list had Hyperion and Vyros list had Imperatus. My list with Morvahna1 didn't have even a remote chance of downing either one of those.

Vyros2 had a list:
- 6x Griffon
- Imperatus

Maximum unit of Dawnguard Invictors + Unit Attachment
Sylys Wyshnalyrr
Eiryss2
At least one Arcanist

Scenario was Rally Point. I think Retribution started game, and first picture is from the end of Circle turn 1. I tried to jam the enemy zone with Ravagers. I felt pretty confident that I could carelessly throw the Ravagers away. Two were even in charge range. One charged Invictors and the other one a Griffon.

But damn those Griffons are fast. Any hopes I had for dominating my friendly zone were lost by those three light myrmidons. I had decided to drop Carnivore alltogether, as there wasn't that many living enemy targets around. Morvahna advanced, cast Purification and re-cast Fog of War.

Next turn Vyros used his feat. He was a bit focus-starved. I had hoped that Vyros would have some problems with activation order since he had to activate first before any of the Griffons if he wanted Synergy chain going on that round. But there was no problems. He just activated first and cast Synergy.

Three Griffons on right raised the Synergy count, as well as two on the left. Then the last Griffon (who had some focus) charged Pureblood Warpwolf, who had already taken some hits from Invictors' shooting. Pureblood was no more.

On my next turn I make the thing that gives this write-up the "fail" tag.

I had lost a lot of models last turn and if I managed to destroy something, whole Vyros' battlegroup would just outmaneuver me. I see a possibility for an unlikely assassination. My plan was to destroy one of my own Groves, activate Morvahna, advance and feat the tree into Vyros' back arc. Note to self: Vyros does not have a back arc.

I was also going to teleport Winter Argus close enough to spray Vyros, hoping for a critical hit. If Vyros would be stationary, Blackclad Wayfarer would have no problem in landing yet another pow 12 hit to Vyros. So, I feated a Shifting Stone back into formation, too.

See anything wrong there?

It was absolutely worst time to learn that Dawnshadow's feat does not bring back non-living models. Well, harsh lessons like that are the best teachers, though. I doubt I'll ever forget about that again. I had, however, gone too far already in my assassination attempts to back off.

Morvahna cast two Sunder Spirits on Vyros, dealing damage well enough to make assassination a possibility with the remaining attacks I got.

For some reason, though, I had feated a wolf of orboros badly in the way of Blackclad Wayfarer, and Winter Argus would take three free strikes from Griffons.

Gorax was able to reduce that number to two by performing a successful two-handed throw on one of the Griffons.

It is possible that I could have reduced the number of free strikes to only two if I had not thought it was possible to bring Shifting Stones back with Morvahna's feat. Gnarlhorn Satyr could have thrown or head-butted one Griffon, and Gorax possibly another one. Ironically Winter Argus had all branches intact after resolving first free strike. Second free strike dropped both Mind and Body.

But, hey! It was the very same Winter Argus from my last game. It needed 11+ to hit Vyros and 7+ to damage, and with boosts these could be attempted with two dice.

Both sprays hit after re-rolls from Morvahna. One of them even did a couple of points of damage. Heck, that Argus did not fail - I did. This might have been a second caster kill for the woofie.

Blackclad Wayfarer was way too far because he had to dodge two Wolves of Orboros.

Well, at least I was able to fulfill someone's dream of getting to hit enemy warcaster/warlock with Imperatus with full +7 Synergy chain. I guess it was an icing on the cake that the warlock in question was one of the most annoying ones.


Game 3:

Oh my. Third game did not have Purification or Eiryss in either list. I was against Circle of Orboros, facing either Baldur1 or Krueger1. I took Morvahna1, as I could at least be sure that Regrowth is not taken away in as rude manner as possible. Every turn.

It turned out to be Morvahna1 vs Krueger1, and the Stormwrath had following list:

- Feral Warpwolf
- Warpwolf Stalker
- Woldwarden
- Gorax

Maximum unit of Nyss Hunters
Shifting Stones + Stone Keeper
Shifting Stones
Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew
Druid Wilder
Gatorman Witch Doctor
+2 points I just can't figure out

Scenario was the tried and tested good old Incursion.

I must say that 8" + large base + reach is an awful lot of threat. I guess I should know since I play Circle myself, but no. I think Krueger started game, and the first picture is from the end of my turn 1.

Krueger used primal on both Warpwolf Stalker and Feral Warpwolf, and Lightning Tendrils were on Feral Warpwolf. So... I just lost both of my heavy warbeast.

And most of my infantry.

At least Druids of Orboros were safe from Krueger's feat, and at least whole unit of Wolves of Orboros did not die, so I could burn away all of Morvahna's fury to Regrowth Wolves back. I guess that might have been my chance to do anything useful during the game had not Megalith and Feral Warpwolf fallen so ridiculously.

Well. At least I knew those two enemy heavy beasts were going to frenzy next turn. Wolves of Orboros failed in gathering Fury for Morvahna with Harvest, and Morvahna had only two Fury to use during her activation.

"I might as well try" was the main principle in charging to Warpwolf Stalker with Morvahna, scoring a hit and then killing the beast with transfer from Harrow.

I couldn't get anything done with Feral Warpwolf, and it was turn.

Stalker frenzied, and random target was indeed Morvahna. Damage roll was amazing - the beast killed itself and some damageeven came through back to Morvahna. Just as I had planned.

Then shifting stones teleport Woldwarden to Morvahna's back arc. Just... eh... as I had planned?

Morvahna died, and at the end of day I was at one victory, two losses.