If there's an earthquake, just dance! Dance!

Last Wednesday I played two Mordheim games against Beastmen warband. We played at my apartment, and I was a bit worried about the scenery situation here. However, as I put all the Mars Attacks and Deadzone scenery pieces together, there were some rather nice multi-story buildings. Unpainted, but what can you do. Well, you can paint. Which I didn't. But I digress...

My warband was the unfortunate Carnival of Chaos, which I intent to play as long as realistically possible.

First scenario was Chance Encounter, where Carnival rolled one wyrdstone shard and the Beastmen rolled two.

We were supposed to use "random happenings" chart from Annual 2002, but we kind of... forgot.

This time I tried to make use of nurglings, that had been just hiding in the shadows until now. Well, mostly this was because beastmen outranged my charges with every single model they got. And I thought no matter what, I would be able to re-recruit at least two back.

The beastman shaman had this Eye of God or Chaos or something like that spell, and it cast it successfully on one of the gor heroes.

I really don't see other way to act other than close in and take the charge in, blocking at least some charges with the wall of pus and ooze. Here I realized how damn good ability the Cloud of Flies really is. It can easily make enemies hit only on 5+ in melee, which normally happens only when you got over double Weapon Skill over your opponent. Not a single nurgling got Out of Action.

A few beastmen got a charge against Carnival heroes, though, but failed to cause any casualties. Brute with double handed weapon wrecked its melee opponent though.

On my turn all the heroes except carnival master either continued to fight or charged into melee. As I'm completely unfamiliar with the beastmen warband I can't give any names here, but the situation was that one beastman hero had gone out of action, and I believe all henchmen (sans minotaur) had fallen also.

Beastmen unvoluntarily routed.

Carnival got a total of six wyrdstone shards (four from rolls and two from scenario). I added fourth nurgling and a plague bearer to roster.

Carnival Master got a really good advance, +1 toughness. Two handed weapon wielding brute got a skill and took Resilient (-1 enemy strength in melee combat). Carnival Master upgraded his weapon ranged weapon from short bow to an actual bow.

Then we played a second game.

Scenario was Skirmish. This time we remembered to use the random happenings, and first player (the beastmen) rolled a random happening right away - and it was an earthquake. And the maximum number of turns, too. That's three, so not too bad.

Beastman shaman tried to cast its spell, and succeeded. Target was the minotaur, but I guess whatever god the shaman worshipped didn't hear quite correctly what the shaman was praying for because of the roaring earthquake. Minotaur died.

I tried the same tactic I was using last game, screening carnival heroes with nurglings. One gor or ungor was flanking carnival from the far right. I don't think it shows very well on the pictures. A lucky shot from Carnival Master's bow dropped that guy.

Beastman leader, suffering/benefitting from frenzy, charged a nurgling and died to that nurgling. Wow. The game was definitely giving the middle finger to beastmen now.

Elsewhere nurglings started finally dying, but any attacks against heroes failed to kill. Except attacks against beastmen heroes and henchmen. They were dying in droves. Carnival wasn't rolling dice that well during their own turns, but in beastmen close combat phases they somehow started (t)rolling hard.

But again I'm going too far ahead. Beastmen could have routed, but since they got quite a few heroes still around, they chose not to and made all-out charge. I think only the shaman didn't get to melee. One henchmen and some nurgling more went out of action from carnival again, but heroes were impervious to any and all damage.

Carnival played one more turn, and then beastmen rout voluntarily.

And the testament to the poor luck of beastmen during this game was the fact that the minotaur died - permanently. That sucks. I guess it fell down to a crack caused by earthquake, and then the crack closed. One nurgling died permanently from carnival, but it was summoned right back.

Advances Carnival got were really good - flail wielding brute got an extra wound, the joker-esque tainted one got Weapon Skill 4 and the tainted one with stream of corruption got yet another skill. It chose Dodge (5+ save against ranged attacks) so I guess that guy is my dedicated runner escapist now.

Carnival rolled four shards and a well. Flail-wielding brute took a dive to the well because he saw a shimmer of wyrdstone there. After half an hour other carnival members started wondering what had happened to the flailer, and there he was. Still at the bottom of the well. He failed toughness test and must miss next game.

Well, carnival master bought rope & hook for himself, and joker tainted one got a lucky charm. The other tainted one also bought a light armor, because I didn't have the money to buy two and equip them to henchmen.

Next Thursday there should be more multiplayer Mordheim, so let's see how many clowns survive until the end of the year.

Rainbow Colors

Well, technically these guys seem to have quite muted palette, but anyway.

As I'm most probably taking Talisman with me when I go for my bi-annual trip to visit my parents, I had enormous pressure to get the new characters painted.

And here they are. With and without flash, as I couldn't decide which one of the pictures was better - or, less worse in this case.

So, on to other painting projects now.

Victim of some marketing tricks

Well, yet again I wanted another stamp on the Fantasiapelit board game coupon.

This time it meant I bought both expansions for Small World that were released just this month: the Royal Bonus and Leaders of Small World. And, well... also one expansion for the Small World Underground. Though I don't have Small World Underground myself.

But!

Here is a catch. All the races and special powers in the Spider's Web expansion are playable in the original Small World board, too. At least I didn't find any game term from the expansion rules that were exclusive to Underworld only. So... why not? I got another stamp.

Yaaay.

A stamp.

Stench stinks (Mordheim)

People suddenly started playing Mordheim in this town.

Mordheim brings a lot of good (terrible) memories... I think last games of Mordheim I played some six years ago.

So I tore into my nostalgia boxes and unearthed my old Carnival of Chaos warband.

I had played with Carnival of Chaos and Skaven before, but I sold my Skaven army for Warhammer Fantasy Battle a long time ago, so just about all of the ratmen went away to hide in another hole.

But the Carnival, looks like, had been waiting me all these years.

My initial roster was:

Carnival Master
- Sword, helmet, Stench of Nurgle

2x Brute, one with Flail and one with Two Handed Weapon

Tainted One
- Axe, Mace, Hideous mutation

Tainted One
- Sword, Stream of Corruption mutation

2x Brethren
- Hammer, Shield, short bows

3x Nurglings

Five players gathered in a basement last Friday, and the warbands there were:

Carnival of Chaos
Possessed
Beastmen (from Empire in Flames)
Middenheimers
Undead

We had two boards, so there were one two player game and one for three. I got to the pool with three players. Others were the Undead and Middenheimers.

Scenario was Wyrdstone Hunt (I think...) anyway, we had two Wyrdstone shards lying around.

Turn order was Undead -> Middenheimers -> Carnival of Chaos and first picture is taken from the end of Carnival turn 1. Empty 20mm square bases are the wyrdstone shards.

I aimed to get the shard over the stone block and leave vampire and Middenheimers to duke it out with the other shard. After all, there were just some zombies and the necromancer plus some heroes (dregs? Ghouls? I know not).

Anyway, the Carnival took residence in a nearby building. Brutes are both in front of the house, if you look close enough you can just see their weapons there in the second picture, which is from the end of Carnival turn 2.

Next turn the tougher undead up there in the side of Middenheimers did some serious flanking, and I was quite happy about that. They'd be a lot more important threat to deal with than my clowns. I don't remember if it was this turn where the necromancer took one of Carnvial brethrens down with a lucky shot.

Middenheimers shot one wound off from vampire and secured the central wyrdstone shard, and I tried to do the same with the brutes over at the stone block. Now they would just have to weather a crapton of WS 2 STR 3 attacks. Shouldn't be a problem, really.

Except, well, it was.

Flail using brute went down to the minor undeads, and the two handed weapon wielding brute failed its Leadership check versus fear. I don't remember what the vampires & its buddies did there in the right, but I remember that Middenheimers shot the ancient evil out with a cross... bow. Wyrdstone carrying Middenheimer failed initiative test to jump down.

Despite losing one brute I was quite sure I'd be able to take enough zombies down to make escape with the shard a real possibility. Hideous Tainted One charged there in, too. The clown killed his targets easily, but the brute, hitting on 3+ and wounding on 2+ failed to do anything. One attack missed and one just didn't cause a wound.

Next turn undead initiated melee with Middenheimers. In the melee phase the last remaining brute did nothing yet again, despite attacking first, having two attacks and hitting on 3+ and wounding on 2+. Oh, he did do something. He got stunned. He got stunned from WS 2 STR 3 attacks.

Luckily Middenheimers were too busy with the undead on right, though the undead were rolling as badly in melee there as I was rolling on my side of the board. They suffered quite severe casualties.

I was panicking with the stunned brute, and tried to charge in with everything that might even remotely be in range. Well, Tainted One I had forgot to activate after turn 2, failed its charge. Last remaining brethren succeeded to charge, though, but got into contact with only one zombie.

In the close combat phase the hideous tainted one continued to win, but brute was put out of its misery, as was the brethren. Yippee.

But undead had lost too many party members and decided to voluntarily rout. Middenheimers shoot down the tainted one who had failed charge, and then it was turn for Carnival to rout or continue.

I decided to continue, snatched the wyrdstone shard and took a run as far as possible. That hideous tainted one was truly the only successful actor in this play... Anyway. Middenheimers took a couple last shots at the hideous tainted one, and then Carnival routed, too.

Carnival didn't lose any henchmen, which was good. They did lose the two handed weapon wielding brute, though. The other brute got Hardened -injury result, so he became immune to fear. Stream of corruption tainted one suffered a hand injury, so he was WS 2 from now on.

Super heroic tainted one got an advancement, and he raised his Leadership. Oh wow. I doubt anything could have been worse upgrade for him, since thanks to hideous blessing of Nurgle he was immune to fear anyway. I bought a short bow for Carnival Master.


Game 2:

I played a second game against the undead of last match. Scenario was breakthrough, and I chose to be the attacker. I thought that three models with ranged weapons on top of buildings would have some effect in a scenario like this.

I forgot to take pictures from this game and took only one from few last turns.

Anyway, things went horribly wrong in this game. In the left side of the map I had both tainted one's, brute with flail and one nurgling. On the right were the three short bows and two nurglings.

First I tried to break through from left, and I tried to accomplish this by sacrificing my brute and charging him to undead. Two attacks against a WS 2 zombie, wounding on 2+. Two hits. No wounds. Thank you.

Next vampire and things like that charged to hideous tainted one. This time he wasn't so heroic and died somewhere. Undead close combat phase the brute attacked first, and yet again failed to cause even one wound. Thankfully none of the undead did anything important either.

Well, things looked grim now. The shortbows had been missing every shot they made during the game, except one zombie that a brethren managed to kill. Uh oh. Nurgling started to crawl forward. If the nurgling were models that won me the scenario, how hilarious would that be? In the close combat phase flailing brute scored a first kill for any brute in two games. Wow.

Next the undead butcher both the flail brute and stream of corruption tainted one.

"This play is over" thought the Carnival Master and voluntarily routed.

Injuries were thankfully non-existent. Three full recoveries. I was able to re-recruit a second brute with a two handed weapon.

Flail brute, both tainted ones and brethren all got advances. The brute, who was immune to fear anyway, got to raise leadership. Dice, why do you mock me so!

Hideous tainted one got a good advance, additional attack. Stream of corruption WS 2 tainted one got a skill. I was torn between some defensive skill and sprint, and in the end I got sprint. In this scenario it would have been really useful, as well as for future wyrdstone pick & runs speed would be welcome, I thought.

The henchmen raised initiative, which was neither good nor a bad advance. At least they'd have over 50% chance of climbing now.

So.

Those were the two first games of Mordheim.

It's still a fun and light-hearted game. I hope my luck improves a bit later on, and I learn when to voluntarily rout.

Eagle King: Banned

Last weekend I was visiting friends and I defied my shoulders and brought Talisman with me.

We played two games there, one with three players and one with four.

First game was the three player affair. Victory condition was a secret, and characters were Warlock, Druid and Minstrel. There seemed to be two distinct stages to the game. First half Druid and Minstrel were doing great, while Warlock got stuck to the middle region by refusing to come down.

Druid was the first character to complete a Path from the Woodlands expansion and gain a Destiny, which was a really good one, too. I think it was the one where the character may use light and dark fate liberally as either fate.

When just about every player had either Strength or Craft at 9-12, every player went to the inner region almost simultaneously. Minstrel went first, followed by Druid and Warlock was last.

Minstrel found out that it was the Eagle King up there. I think Minstreal had strength of 11. He won once the Strength & Craft 12 Eagle King, but then was thrown to the crags.

Druid had a lot better statistics, I think he had 12 Craft or perhaps even more. But Minstrel had cast a spell on Druid that removed all Fate from him, so unlucky rolls caused Druid to be thrown to the crags, too. Warlock was the last to come to the party, but he had lousy statistics for a fight. It was either nine or ten. So he was thrown out too.

Druid didn't have any followers when he encountered the vampire's tower, which caused him to lose two lives. Then he lost to the Eagle King, so suddenly probably the strongest of the three characters was walking very carefully with no fate and only one life. I don't remember what eventually killed the Druid, but die he did. New character was the Sage.

Now Warlock started to gain some impetus, and he was the second character to gain a destiny from the Woodlands. He didn't have all that great Strength and Craft, but he finally started getting some good spells, which caused him to win the Lord of Darkness not once, but twice. We were all starting to get really tired, so Warlock just started rushing to the crown of command when he had 12 Craft in battle.

And then yet again all the players were simultaneously in the Inner Region. Even the Sage, who just tried it for giggles.

But Warlock had the Cloak of Feathers, so once he got into the Inner Region, he jumped straight to the Valley of Fire, and next turn he fought the Eagle King. Thanks to objects and spells Warlock had to fight Eagle King honestly only once. But it was enough. Warlock won the first game.

I'm rather tired of the Eagle King as the random ending. I'm seriously considering of removing him from the random pool, since he tends to find his way to the crown way too often. I want to see something else as the random ending.


Game 2:

Second game was four players, with one who had never played Talisman before. We didn't use Reaper, Werewolf or night/day card because of that.

Characters were the Ley Walker (who is still unpainted, which annoyed me slightly), Doomsayer, Cleric and Elementalist.

Leywalker took some bad hits in the middle region. Since this happened very early in the game, the player decided it's worth it to kill Ley Walker and get a new character. So Ley Walker died and Dervish stepped in instead.

Cleric had a good start, as she got flail from the City armoury deck just by switching it to broken armor item. She also had other really good objects, but soon enough she picked up the living doll. Living doll forces you to pick it up and ditch every other object you have. And you get it off only at the alchemist. To make matters even worse for the cleric, Elementalist picked her stuff up - and next die roll cleric made for movement would've got her to the space where she had had to leave her stuff.

Doomsayer had a really good start too. He spent a lot of time in the Highlands region, and soon got enough gold to go and buy warhorse and riding horses from the stables at the city region. Nobody gained Strength or Craft insanely fast, but Doomsayer would have started snowballing himself if he only would have drawn monsters to fight.

Later in the game cleric cast Mesmerism on doomsayer's warhorse, but it was too late to actually affect doomsayer much. I think he had around seven strength by then.

Elementalist attempted to travel to the woods, but failed to meet complete his path. Cleric attempted to travel the woodlands twice, and once she succeeded. Her path was the "clear path", though, so she didn't gain a destiny.

Somehow cleric fell behind from the progress of others, even with her warhorse. All other characters were trying to get to the inner region. Doomsayer got first to the Plain of Peril, and he used Arnkell to teleport to Valley of Fire.

The Eagle King was robbed empty in this game, by the way. So much for his glory.

Random ending was Crown and Sceptre, which turned out to be a weird ending. Penalties to other players are so harsh, that to me it seems a little pointless to even have those effects - the ending might just as well read "Congratulations! You won the game!"

Well, at least it didn't take an eternity to resolve like in last few games.

Freak Circus

I visited some friends last weekend, and we played two games of Gloom with three players.

First game we had the Hemlocks, artists and gangsters getting depressed.

Butler was a curious personality, and deserves a spotlight here. He served absolutely rotten meals to Hemlock family, and was fired as a consequence. He proved to be quite a misanthropic fellow, and he spent time mostly with his raven friend. He took long walks in the graveyard, and met frankenstein constructs and vampires there. To him, they were better company than that of the living.

As he was socially very challenged person, he got married by accident. And this was where the butler saw his true position in the society: he was absolutely nothing. Even the priest forgot his name during wedding ceremony. To the living, the butler was to all intents and purposes invisible. So invisible, in fact, that his wife died of sorrow as her husband was nowhere to be found.



Second game we had Slogar family, the circus family and the gangster family, and for the record this was shortest game of Gloom ever. Ringmaster Darius was a ghoul this time, and he had an amazing idea for a really good tourist attraction: an invisible person! Well... it seemed like a good idea at the time? Mr. Giggles, the clown, found love early on in the game. That love was underage, though, so he was condemned in a court. And as if that wasn't enough, he walls killed in a prison. Poor Mr. Giggles, got what he deserved.

Thumbelisa was a little better curiosity for the circus, as she was a were-duck. After being wed to a werewolf Samson O'Toole was found a vampire. The only truly dead family member was Mr. Giggles, the rest were undead.

Game took probably fifteen minutes to play. Well, it was an experience at least. The cards had been shuffled thoroughly, so it was just pure chance that made the game that short.

This time no Train Wreck

Funnily enough, I'm writing this on a train.

I played my first game with Void Seer Mordikaar last Friday.

My list was:

Void Seer Mordikaar
- Archidon
- Rhinodon
- Cyclops Shaman
- Basilisk Drake
- Basilisk Krea

Maximum unit of Cataphract Cetrati
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Beast Handlers
Aptimus Marketh
Agonizer
Feralgeist

Well, yeah. The list is missing Void Spirits which are an obvious choice with Mordikaar... or are they? I don't know. At least they seem so. I also left Bronzeback home, so I knew I would be struggling against tough targets.

Opponent was playing Convergence of Cyriss:

Carrier Group tier 4
Iron Mother Directrix
- 2x Modulators
- Cipher
- Assimilator
- Monitor
- Diffuser
- Mitigator
- Corollary

Optifex Directive
Elimination Servitors
Attunement Servitors
Accretion Servitors

That seemed like a lot of heavy warjacks to take down without Bronzeback.

Anyway, scenario was Close Quarters and Convergence started game. First picture is from the end of Skorne turn 1.

Not much happened on round 1 anyway. Tactical Supremacy was on Monitor and Hollow was on Praetorian Swordsmen. Krea and Cyclops Shaman used Krea's animus. I figured I wouldn't really need Banishing Ward, since Hollow just had to be on Swordsmen and Shrapnel Swarm would do diddly squat against Cetrati. And the two other offensive spells affected only warjacks.

Somewhere during game I realised that our feats had some funny interaction. Mordikaar gives +3 DEF, and Directrix' feat essentially gives +3 MAT & RAT to her battlegroup. If Mordikaar used feat first, there would be almost no effect from either feats. But if I wouldn't use feat first Skorne would have to deal with MAT & RAT 8. But enough rambling for now.

Round 2 Cipher shoots some rough terrain splotches and servitors come to tease Cetrati and contest my friendly flag. Various Convergence models shoot three Praetorian Swordsmen dead.

I'm wondering if I should lure out Iron Mother's feat now, but I decided not to, come what may.

Cetrati advance in shield wall and kill some servitors. Rhinodon charges a servitor in a trench. Mostly just to get the additional movement, since the King Bowser was crawling in the craters. Basilisk Krea and Cyclops Shaman used Paralytic Field again.

Mordikaar revives two swordsmen and advances to hug cover and Paralytic Field from Cyclops Shaman. Aptimus Marketh casts Ghost Walk on the swordsmen, who charge next. Modulator seemed like bad news for swordsmen, so I left that jack alone. In fact it looks like the two revived swordsmen were the only models who actually made casualties. They killed two servitors and one point to Monitor.

Basilisk Drake advances as much forward as possible and sprays Modulator and Mitigator. Damage roll to Mitigator was amazing, but not amazing enough to kill.

Round 3 Directrix uses her feat. But first remaining servitors mostly float around and miss things, though in case of Attunement Servitors that doesn't matter much. Some Cetrati and Basilisk Drake were under the effects of flare when Directrix activated.

Her own servitors shot Imperil to Basilisk Drake. Directrix cast a Shrapnel Swarm at the swordsmen, who mostly died. What else they could do? Then Mitigator and Modulator punish swordsmen even more. Well, at least that meant a lot of Fury for Mordikaar next turn. But real loss to the unit was the death of the officer who wouldn't be coming back.

Drake had suffered one point of damage either from Mitigator shot or the Shrapnel Swarm. Monitor proceeds to shoot Basilisk Drake, and rolls critical brutal damage. Thanks to Imperil the attack dealt 18 points of damage. I was remembering that most light warbeasts have about 20-21 damage boxes, so I was a bit shocked to find that the Monitor just killed the warbeast with one shot. Drake has only a total of 19 boxes. This was so unexpected that I forgot to use Feralgeist here.

Cipher and Assimilator shoot models at my friendly flag, but make no mistake. Basilisk Krea is worth it's weight in gold especially during MAT & RAT 8 feat turns. Enough attacks missed or did no damage at all. I think Agonizer took two points in from some vector.

Diffuser shoots Rhinodon and scores a hit. Modulator then charges Rhinodon, and damn it. The beast just dies there. And whole Cipher & Assimilator thing had looked so good just a moment before. And again I forgot to use Feralgeist.

But then it's Skorne, and obviously it's time for Mordikaar's feat. But before that happens Cetrati advance in shield wall and make attacks against the Modulator. Plasma Nimbus isn't that scary when you got ARM 20 and multiple damage boxes.

Basilisk Krea uses her animus and walks or charges into melee with the Modulator just because it can. But the vector ain't dead yet.

Beast Handlers enrage Cyclops Shaman and Archidon. Shaman charges Modulator and leaves it standing with just one box remaining. Aww heck. Archidon feels bold enough to charge Cipher, right there in the middle of three heavy vectors. I was counting on it surviving with DEF 17 and no focus allocation to enemy warjacks. Well, it does respectable damage but doesn't wreck Cipher.

Mordikaar activates now and uses feat. He revives three swordsmen and uses Krea's animus on himself. Mordikaar then shoots the last remaining damage point off from Modulators with his ranged attack and aiming bonus.

Praetorian Swordsmen charge around, and three of them wreck Mitigator. Well, that sounds grand, but most of the job had been done by Basilisk Drake last turn.

Last but definitely not least, Agonizer starts crying and runs into the trench.

Round 4 then. Despite all efforts made by Convergence the Agonizer just doesn't die. Diffuser gets it to one hit box remaining and nothing else hits or damages it. This was a lucky turn of events, since when I had rushed in with my only remaining heavy warbeast, I had been completely ignorant that some of the heavies had Sustained Attack. That could have been ugly.

All the heavy vectors mostly miss whatever they were attacking. Directrix shoots Feralgeist down. That was a good thing in case I would actually remember to use it one day... sigh...

Modulator on left kills swordsmen. That straight line of automatically hitting pow 10's (if the ranged attack is a direct hit against something) was surprisingly effective even during Mordikaar's feat.

Then it's Skorne. In the trench the Cetrati gang up on Diffuser and wreck it with a few combined melee attacks. And to nobody's surprise Agonizer continues to cry.

I was quite sure that an enraged Archidon would be able to wreck Cipher, so it charged Monitor and bought extra attacks against Cipher. But turned out that Archidon couldn't do it, so an enraged Cyclops Shaman had to come and make up for Archidon's failing. Last possible attack by Cyclops wrecks Cipher.

Mordikaar revives swordsmen, Marketh casts Ghost Walk on swordsmen and then swordsmen charge, but they don't do much. At least they were in the way of enemy models.

Round 5. Convergence makes good effort to get rid of every and all remaining Praetorian Swordsmen, but there were far too many misses for that to become reality. Monitor fails to kill Archidon. Only one attack hit and didn't break any branches.

I couldn't count on Archidon surviving much more any longer and after it died I wouldn't have much chances on wrecking three enemy heavies. Well, obviously Cetrati could do something, but their number of attacks would be quite limited. Same goes for Convergence, though. My guess is that situation would have went to full and slow trench warfare.

So I want to try an assassination instead. I've had dreams of charging a warcaster with Ghost Walking Archidon, and that dream finally came true.

It's just that...

It charged outside of Mordikaar's control area. So it was just amazing luck that Archidon hit with it's MAT 6 and dealt something like fifteen points of damage in. That felt almost like cheating.

After that Mordikaar advances to bring the warbeast back to control range. He casts Essence Blast on Archidon and finalizes Directrix with POW 15 spray.

My first impressions about Mordikaar?

Hollow is an amazing spell.

The actual Enemy Unknown

Last Sunday I got to play Deadzone again after a while.

We were mostly testing a homebrew set of rules for X-Com Ufo Enemy Unknown setting.

Since all point costs and whatnot are arbitrary, it probably doesn't tell much that the game was played with 100 points.

However, my alien Strike Team was:

Ethereal Leader
Sectopod
3x Muton grunts with plasma rifles
Celatid

... and that was all?

X-Com had a bit more models, but not that much. If there isn't someone hiding somewhere in the picture, it was only 7 infantry models and hovertank. Well, hovertank probably explains that.

Two civilians were rolled for the game. X-Com got their mission from the Enforcers deck I think, and aliens had one from Asterian deck. It was just a killy mission for aliens, which was quite fitting. Though looking back now that was probably the reason I didn't rush too much forward... which can be a bad thing in Deadzone.

Anyway, X-Com started the game. Civilians tried to get safe positions, but situation looked pretty grim for civilian in square A6.

Ethereal leader had command value of 3-3 plus Psychic special rules. This mean that aliens could play a full turn in just one go. After all there were only six aliens. However, with Psychic aliens could go up to seven activations, and that was exactly what Ethereal was up to. In fact I don't think Ethereal did anything else during whole game except to remove activation counter from Sectopod?

Second picture is from the end of first full round. It's difficult to take comprehensive pictures from Deadzone because the buildings block line of sight to camera. Everything that has happened in the top-right corner of the board is entirely obscured.

But Celatid and a rank-and-file Muton shot down the civilian hiding in there, but set themselves up for a nice blast from one of the X-Com agents armed with small launcher.

Sectopod had caused one injury to hovertank, which had Vehicle (4). Injured Muton in the building took a lucky shot at agent in square G4, but didn't kill. I forgot who returned a lucky shot against that very same Muton, who got injured in the process.

Second round started with aliens having the initiative. Sectopod managed to snipe the X-Com commander model out of the board, which was perfect for my mission.

But just as in the original game from '94, AI took some very weird actions next. Aliens hadn't been programmed properly to grasp how important it is to contest objective in this game.

Muton in H7 just took a step and shot the agent in H4, failing to kill. What I should have done instead would've been at least to sprint to a neighboring square. I don't remember if I had Move tactical cards. If I had, shame on me twice.

But yeah. Game ended when X-Com got to activating their models.

I don't remember X-Com mission for sure, it was something along the lines of "control two objectives and kill things", and X-Com killed the Celatid and a Muton, plus mission had exactly the X and Y objectives. I don't know what would've happened in the computer game. Perhaps Ethereal commander would have panicked again and shot every alien, including itself, with blaster launcher.

I have to stop using that joke.

On the fence

Oh dear, these write-ups are severely lagging behind some imaginary make-believe schedule.

Anyway, last Thursday I played a 50 point Warmachine game.

My list was:

Cassius the Oathkeeper & Wurmwood, Tree of Fate
- Megalith
- Pureblood Warpwolf
- Woldwatcher

Maximum unit of Tharn Ravagers + Chieftain
Tharn Bloodweavers
Shifting Stones
Minimum unit of Farrow Bonegrinders
Swamp Gobbers
2x Gallows Grove
Tharn Ravager White Mane
Reeve Hunter
War Wolf
Lanyssa Ryssyll

Opponent was playing:

Lord Commander Stryker (that's the second incarnation)
- Lancer

Maximum unit of Storm Lances
Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Pistoleers + Officer
Black 13th
Nyss Hunters + Jonas Murdoch
Stormsmith Stormcaller
Journeyman Warcaster
Stormblade Captain
Squire
Epic Eiryss
Gorman diWulfe
Rhuper Carvolo, Piper of Ord

Scenario was Two Fronts, and Cygnar got to start. First picture is from Circle turn 1. I had placed Wurmwood rather front even if there were Stealth ignoring shooting available for opponent... But I believed that, if needed, Arm 16 would weather POW 10 shots enough, especially when there was one Shield Guard model close by.

Turn 2 I was takene by surprise, when opponent launched pretty much all-out assault. First Nyss Hunters assault all over the place and kill all Ravagers who are outside of a forest. Storm Lances assault and kill War Wolf. I don't remember what Gun Mages tried to shoot, but judging from the picture they failed to do much.

Stryker uses feat, and ties up whole leftern flank with Def 16 elves. Def 15 saves Ravagers, as none of the ravagers died. Hit rolls were pretty abysmal there.

Situation on left would have been hellish for me, but Hellmouth made up for that. I filled Wurmwood with souls, and then I was going to proceed with double Hellmouths. Well, the first one is a double 1's for hit. In essence Cassius paid 8 Fury for that one Hellmouth, but it was a really good one as it took most of the Nyss away. Cassius used feat, too.

White Mane tried to free Ravager unit with a charge, but with MAT 10 failed to hit a Def 16 elf. Oh well. I wasn't in a position to complain, though. Only two Ravagers got to charge stuff beyond the two or three remaining Nyss on the left, but it was enough to kill Murdoch and someone from Black 13th.

Reeve Hunter ran to engage Storm Lances after Megalith had beaten the lone Lance on Circle side of the board.

Turn 3 was annoying for Cygnar, I believe. That 10" forest bubble made most shenanigans impossible. Looks like I haven't taken a picture from the end of Cygnar turn 3, but I think it was mainly positioning aside from Black 13th shooting Ravagers and two Storm Lances charging Megalith and objective marker, which was wrecked. The objective, not Megalith.

This turn Cassius cleared Gun Mages with a Hellmouth. All Circle forces charged forward and it looked like a clear game then and there. Cassius started dominating friendly zone, and Cygnar had only, what... Warcaster, Lancer, a few solos and two units with only one member alive.

The distance between Cassius and Stryker2 looked safe. On opponents turn, however, I found out I had been remembering the wrong spell all along... Stryker2 has Velocity, which grants up to 6" movement instead of that some other spell that granted only 3".

Stryker rolls for overload, and he jumped up to somewhere P+S 34 or something. And stupid me had left Cassius with only one Fury for transfer.

At least that absolute maximum threat range charge from Stryker burned a lot of his Focus, so Cassius needed to survive only a handful of attacks. Cassius was behind a wall, so it was essentially Stryker's MAT 7 vs DEF 16.

I don't remember how much Stryker had Focus available, but obviously he needed to boost to hit. Either the charge attack missed, or the second attack missed. Either way, first attack that hit would have one-shotted Cassius, so the damage had to be transfered.

Stryker had possibly only one Focus left then, and bought one last attack either with attack roll boost or no boosts at all. Damage roll wasn't boosted, that much I remember. On 9+ with two dice an Arm 16, 20 hit box warlock would go "splat" from only one hit.

Cassius was left with two hit boxes.

And then it was pretty much game over there. Pureblood ate Stryker.

Opponent had mostly infantry on board, and I had Cassius on board, so I guess I had advantage when it came to lists themselves.

But that threat range. Damn that threat range. If it wasn't for that linear obstacle, Cassius would have just died and Stryker would have had spare Focus after.