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.