Flight of the Griffons

Last Thursday I continued to play Riven Bonds league games with Circle Orboros. It was a 50 point game.

My list was:

Morvahna the Dawnshadow
- Pureblood Warpwolf
- Scarsfell Griffon
- Gorax
- Winter Argus

Maximum unit of Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Tharn Ravagers + Shaman + Chieftain
Shifting Stones + Stone Keeper
Blackclad Wayfarer Hero (Electrical Augmentation, Crown of the Wild, Wilting Totem, Mark of the Omnipotent)

2x Gallows Grove
Tharn Ravager White Mane
War Wolf

Opponent had:

Grand Scrutator Severius
- Avatar
- Templar
- Blessing of Vengeance

Minimum unit of Choir of Menoth
Daughters of the Flame
Maximum unit of Exemplar Bastions
Minimum unit of Flameguard Cleansers
Gorman diWulfe
Paladin Hero
Covenant of Menoth
Vassal of Menoth
Hierophant

Scenario was Incoming. Both armies had Arcane Wonder objective. Circle started game. First picture is from the end of Protectorate turn 1, and Defender's Ward is on Daughters of the Flame. Vision is on Avatar of Menoth, and Eye of Menoth ogles around the battlefield like a dirty old man. Morvahna tries to hide from the Eye inside Fog of War, and Carnivore is on Tharn Ravagers to make fighting Daughters a real possibility.

Turn 2 I thought that getting a critical freeze on the Paladin and killing Gorman diWulfe would be good use of Winter Argus. So Shifting Stones teleported the wolf thing forward, and then it took double sprays at Gorman. Gorman died and the Paladin died the first time to a lucky damage roll (he had the Greater Purpose upgrade, or something.) Winter Argus didn't score critical hits to the Paladin, and surely enough it would have done nothing - that damnable Covenant had forbidden stationary effects.

War Wolf ran to engage Avatar of Menoth just to act as a general nuisance.

Morvahna cast Death Knell on Daughters of the Flame and Cleansers. Two Cleansers and a Daughter died.

Protectorate engaged Tharn Ravagers with Daughters of the Flame. They also got rid of the Gallows Grove on left. Blessing of Vengeance ran forfward for Severius to cast Ashes to Ashes. Ashes spread to four additional targets, one of which was a Shifting Stone. A damage roll of triple sixes broke Circle's teleportations for the rest of the game.

Bastions and Avatar kill the Winter Argus, while Flameguard Cleansers shoot a combined ranged attack over themselves, setting a 4" diameter patch of ground into fire. Go figure, they're Protectorate... I guess they like stuff like that.

Oh, Vassal of Menoth had cast Enliven on Blessing of Vengeance.

Turn 3 I'm a bit afraid to engage warjacks in melee with warbeasts, especially when the closest of them had repulsor shield and enliven. I tried to navigate through this by spraying Blessing first with Blackclad Wayfarer, but he didn't score a critical hit. He did, however, score exactly one damage point, which was enough to trigger enliven.

Pureblood Warpwolf also tries to spray Blessing, and does some damage.

Wolves of Orboros charge all over, mostly just to block enemy advances.

Morvahna had cast her first Purification to remove Defender's Ward, and had re-cast Carnivore on Ravagers. Though she had three Fury available, she didn't cast Fog of War back on. Blessing of Vengeance still had fully functional arc node, so I wanted to save a few Fury for damage transfers.

Ravagers butchered all of the Daughters of the Flame.

All in all situation didn't look that bad... but I had some serious doubts if I'd ever be able to chew through Avatar and Templar, plus what was left of Blessing of Vengeance.

Exemplar Bastions then remove a bunch of Wolves of Orboros from board. Templar smacks the standard bearer dead and beat backs forward to take an attack against shifting stone. The 1" advance isn't quite enough to take Templar to melee with the stone. Templar now blocked a direct charge from Avatar to Scarsfell Griffon. But still the Avatar charged and got to the second Gallows Grove. Thankfully Griffon was out of reach, though it did get set on fire from Flame Burst of Avatar's sword.

Blessing of Vengeance killed Stone Keeper, which broke unit coherency of Shifting Stones. Severius cast Ashes to Ashes somewhere, but if I remember right attack roll was double ones.

Cleaners probably shot somewhere, but their most important function was contesting the zone. Covenant also brought its ancient and fragile holy scriptures right next to flamethrowers.

Turn 4 Ravagers just advanced into better position. Their last turn's charge/run against Daughters had messed up their facings, and the Shifting Stone on left was out of coherency, so I couldn't teleport it out of the way. So... Ravagers just advanced. Shaman was the only one who got to make any attacks at all.

Since Pureblood had done good enough damage to Blessing last turn, it attempted the same again and targeted Templar with the spray. Thanks to poor judgement the template didn't touch Blessing of Vengeance, and did perhaps one damage point in to Templar.

Avatar of Menoth had activated the Gaze, so retreat with Griffon was not an option... nor could Gorax back up. But Gorax could use its animus on Griffon, who then went to make a futile gesture of defiance. Or at least that was how I thought it'd go. Instead, I swear, the dice set themselves on fire right there on my hand. I still have the burn marks on my palm. Griffon alone tore down the shield from Avatar, and took, what, half of its damage points.

There was only two Wolves of Orboros alive any more - the officer and the leader model. I still hadn't used Power Swell, so I guess I was expecting I'd use it somewhere post-feat. But... hey. Griffon had almost wrecked the Avatar... perhaps last remaining Wolves might finish the job? So, officer ensues Power Swell and charges Avatar... alone. The other Wolf tried to run to safety so that I'd still have a unit to feat more models into.

And I swear the Wolf of Orboros officer set itself on fire right there on the table! Ah well, Avatar didn't exactly die altogether, but after a damage roll of something like 5,5,6,4 it had only a few damage boxes left, with movement system broken down along with the shield. Sadly there still was boxes left in the sword system, and Avatar doesn't have breakable Cortex to begin with. But impressive job from a 5 point beast and a lone unit officer, anyway.

But then the Exemplar Bastions charge Griffon and the heroic officer dead. Avatar advances into melee with Gorax and beats it with just a couple of swings.

Blessing of Vengeance hits Pureblood with halberd, and positions the arc node. Templar advances and Severius then charges Templar to get into the scenario zone. Afterwards he tried to shoot two Immolations at objective, but barely failed to destroy it. He casts Defender's Ward on himself

So Protectorate jumps to two scenario points.

Turn 5 I guess I had the option of trying to win with scenario, but since Protectorate already got such a headstart, I decided to try an assassination instead.

First Shifting Stones teleported away from blocking movement. Pureblood Warpwolf warped for Ghostly, and advanced forward with its back arc to Covenant of Menoth. It used its animus on itself, and sprayed on Severius. Attack was a hit, and damage was done.

Phase two was to shoot Templar with Hunter's Mark from Blackclad Wayfarer, but he missed. Oh wait, I was playing epic Morvahna. The Hunter's Mark hit instead.

Ravagers got a charge order. Shaman assaulted Severius, and a few ganged up on Blessing of Vengeance. Three attempted to maul Covenant of Menoth, but three attacks aren't nearly enough to deface the book by drawing crude pictures on its pages. Blessing of Vengeance was finally wrecked, so Morvahna wouldn't have to be afraid of any free strikes.

Morvahna charges Templar, and gets within 2" reach of Severius by doing that. But without Hunter's Mark this wouldn't have been possible.

So Morvahna would have to break a frail, almost a hundred years old DEF 16 ARM 16 grandpa with her seven Fury.

I've complained of it before and I will continue to complain about it, but Life Trader is completely unnecessary and excessive rule on epic Morvahna. Anyway, the attack that hit and was boosted and was life traded caused 1,1,2,2 damage. Oh wait, I was playing epic Morvahna. It was 5,5,3,6 instead. And then Severius died.

Party like a pirate

Here's two Warmachine games played within the course of one week (and a day). Lists for both participants are almost the same. Both games were 35 points.

Since I've locked my league faction to Circle of Orboros, I wanted to take Cryx out for some fun and games. I've been wondering if it's any good to stack as much drag options to Cryx army as possible, plus other kinds of movement shenanigans. I guess I will be testing some aspects of the idea in 35 point games until I eventually play with a full 50 point list in Ropecon tournament later this year.

But enough with that. My list was:

Warwitch Deneghra
- Reaper
- 2x Nightwretch

Maximum unit of Black Ogruns
Minimum unit of Bane Thralls
Skarlock
Warwitch Siren
(Necrotech) & Scrap Thrall... funny thing, really. I made a big fuzz about remembering the Scrap Thrall and moving it around... yet I forgot to deploy Necrotech at all.
Pistol Wraith
Saxon Orrik
Gorman diWulfe
Madelyn Corbeau

Opponent had:

Forward Kommander Sorscha2
- Beast-09

Maximum unit of Winterguard Infantry + Unit Attachment + 2x Rocketeers
Great Bears of Gallowswood
Greylord Ternion
Kayazy Eliminators
Kovnik Joe
War Dog
Gorman diWulfe
Epic Eiryss

Scenario was Incursion. Cryx started, and didn't do much else other than running. Khador has Iron Flesh on the Winterguard Infantry. Cryx had just ran forward.

Turn 2 a Nightwretch ran into position to cast Crippling Grasp upon Winterguard Infantry. Idea here was that perhaps their DEF would became tolerable when combined with Crippling Grasp and Deneghra's feat. But first Deneghra needed to hit with the spell. And she hit.

Other than that Cryx turn was just positioning.

I was fairly sure I'd lose the Nightwretch who ran to cast spells on Winterguard, but much to my amazement it survived - but everything else died. I'm exaggerating of course, but I failed to see that if Beast-09 charged a black ogrun, my other Nightwretch would be within Beast's reach, too. So I lost both of the arcnodes in one turn. But that was not all. Combined ranged attack against Warwitch Siren killed her, and random sprays from Winterguard and Greylords killed all but one remaining Black Ogrun.

Before that Eiryss had shot off the Crippling Grasp - otherwise Winterguard wouldn't have been able to make special attacks. Kayazy Eliminators ran to rightmost flag.

Turn 3 situation is quite grim, but perhaps Deneghra's feat alone might turn the tide? Let's see. Deneghra activated, moved into base contact with center flag, used feat and sprayed all over the battlefield, and was left focusless. Deneghra failed to kill one of the greylords, and I was being paranoid about Sorscha's feat. You know... it just might happen that one magic skill 7 and POW 12 would kill Deneghra. After all it required only a damage roll of 10.

Then Saxon Orrik gives pathfinder for Bane Thralls. Then it looks difficult to get one Bane Thrall into contact with Beast-09, so Skarlock slaps Ghost Walk on them. A bit of a waste...

Gorman lobs blind grenade on a Kayazy Eliminator, and then Bane Thralls charge. They kill the Eliminator and injure Beast. Reaper has to come and finish the job on Beast, and luckily it did - otherwise I'd have a DEF 5 duck sitting in the middle of my army.

Instead of contesting left flag with Pistol Wraith, the ghostly solo advanced and shot the last remaining greylord very dead. Second initial attack dropped a Winterguard. Last Black Ogrun charged last Winterguard that might be contesting middle flag, and killed him. Scrap Thrall runs to engage a group of Winterguards.

There wasn't much to do for Khador. Sorscha advanced behind Great Bears of Gallowswood, and Winterguards formed a firing squad that removed last Black Ogrun and the Pistol Wraith. Kayazy Eliminator charged one bane thrall dead.

Turn 4 looked like I needed to assassinate now or never. First Gorman diWulfe advanced to throw blind oil on Sorscha, but was interrupted by counter charging War Dog.

Skarlock gave Ghost Walk for Bane Thralls, who then charged the War Dog dead. They also attempted the same to Great Bears, but failed miserably. Because Bane Thralls couldn't remove a bear who was blocking lane to Sorscha, I ditched the attempt to assassinate. Reaper just charged to destroy the bears, but it was just as efficient as Bane Thralls. Deneghra got scared of the upcoming sprayfest from Winter Guards, so she cast Ghost Walk on herself and abandoned the center flag. Now everything was left to fate.

Khadorans kill all the Bane Thralls and Skarlock. I don't remember how badly Reaper was mauled, but my guess is that pretty damn bad - possibly it's a proxy for wreck marker.

Gorman survives a shot by Eiryss. He takes only four points of damage. That's my Gorman! Key to my victory.

But then Sorscha advances and casts Cyclone and ends her turn at the flag on the right - just engaging Gorman. She also casts Iron Flesh on herself.

Turn 5 Deneghra kills Sorscha, slicing her steaming intestines to the ground while smiling sadistically, and Khadoran army covers in fear and flees away.

Well, at least in some parallel dimension. Since Skarlock died, Gorman had to take a free strike from Sorscha. He had expended all of his luck when facing Eiryss, so he just died. Then Deneghra needed to kill Sorscha all by herself. She didn't score even one hit.

Then Sorscha applies hammer to Deneghra's skull.


Game 2:

Second game I played with a little more refined list. I really don't understand why Saxon Orrik was in earlier list, when Deneghra has Ghost Walk. It seemed like a good idea at the time...

Anyway, my second list:

Warwitch Deneghra
- Reaper
- 2x Nightwretch

Minimum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Black Ogrun Boarding Party
Skarlock
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
2x Warwitch Siren
Gorman diWulfe
Madelyn Corbeau

Opponent had:

Forward Kommaner Sorscha2

- Beast-09

Greylord Ternion
Great Bears of Gallowswood
Maximum uit of Winterguard Infantry + Unit Attachment + 3x Rocketeers
Kayazy Eliminators
Kovnik Josef
War Dog
Epic Eiryss

That comes out as 34 points, as there was no suitable 1 point models to fill the last remaining point. Opponent didn't own Gobber Tinker or the infamous Speculator.

Scenario was Outflank, and Cryx started game. First picture is from the end of Cryx turn 2, and what has happened so far is that Cryx just ran forwards, and Khador has Iron Flesh on Winterguard Infantry. Both players had a nasty bottleneck blocking early movement, but Khador had AoE's - and Cryx didn't.

Khador spread its forces all over the board. They were still close enought for Deneghra to get them all within her feat (well, except for Eliminators and last remaining Winterguards), but I didn't have too many options where I could place Deneghra to do that. Most notable thing probably was Eiryss shooting Reaper disrupted.

But turn 3 that was exactly what I did, anyway. I had decided to kill Beast-09 this turn, but those pesky Winterguards somehow found their way to block drag from Reaper. So before feat a Nightwretch advanced into position, and then Deneghra unleashed The Withering, followed by a Scourge on the winterguards and Beast-09. It was a direct hit even when Deneghra couldn't spare to boost the attack roll. Both winterguards died, and Deneghra cast Ghost Walk on the Reaper.

A Warwitch Siren uses Power Boost to give Reaper a focus point, and then Reaper advanced and dragged Beast-09 to its doom. And got to say... that warjack bond on epic Sorscha is rather nasty, since it's not tied to melee range. So it works even if Beast is knocked down. So Reaper became stationary.

Since it looked like I'd get a maximum of two Bane Thralls to charge Beast, Skarlock didn't bother to cast Ghost Walk on Bane Thralls. It cast Parasite on Beast instead. Bane Thralls charge/run, and in the end only one Bane Thrall makes it into melee with Beast. The other thrall missed a few critical, but quite clear millimetres.

All this took off Beasts open fist, and nothing else. Scared of what Beast might do next turn as I was, I ordered Gorman do lob Black Oil on Beast. So there was a huge blob of pretty damn useless metal right there. Beast-09 that was knocked down and blind, and Reaper and two Bane Thralls who were stationary and blinded.

A Warwitch Siren charged to kill a bear, but failed... or should we say that the bear succeeded at a Tough roll. At least she scored a hit and shadow bound the bear. And again I was terribly scared of Magic Skill [7] of the Ternion, whose POW from the sprays wouldn't be lowered by Deneghra's feat. Instead of charging or advancing and shooting, Black Ogruns just ran. One ran to engage one of the potential sprayers, and the rest formed a screen for Deneghra.

And when it was Khador turn I finally realised that all of my stress I had built up during both of these games had been for nothing. That frost bite spell spray is a special attack, which are spesifically forbidden by Deneghra's feat. Oh dear.

Next turn Sorscha casts Shatter Storm on Winterguard Infantry, advances and casts Cyclone, and uses her own feat. This was a grave mistake, when all of the stealth ignoring sprays weren't allowed. Only the rocketeers could try to injure focusless Deneghra with blast damage, but all two boosted RAT 3's missed DEF 12 Black Ogrun they were targeting. One of the deviating AoE's even had the arrogance to drift on Sorscha, and deal one point of damage to her. The unit itself blasted Reaper away in two Combined Ranged Attacks. Even during Deneghra's feat it isn't too difficult to hit a frozen, blinded heavy warjack.

Then Eiryss tried to come and shoot Deneghra, too, but even she missed.

At that point it was pretty much game over. Madelyn Corbeau advanced Gorman a little, and Skarlock cast Ghost Walk on Gorman. Gorman then advanced and threw black oil on Sorscha. Black Ogruns did a combined melee attack on Sorscha and pulled her closer. Damage roll for the CRA was pretty high, so Deneghra had to just make one fully boosted attack to end the game.

But now is time for some butting!

Because I think it'd have been interesting to see how game would have developed, if it wasn't for the oversight of bringing Sorscha forward and then being unable to do much. In first game Khador had been able to shoot a lot of people dead(er) from my side before Deneghra used her feat. It's reasonable to assume that Reaper would have taken heavy damage from Winterguard even without Sorscha's feat, but perhaps the heavy wouldn't have been completely wrecked.

If I could have taken Beast and Eiryss down next turn and cast Crippling Grasp on Winter Guard to block the grapeshot sprays, Cryx would have still had a strong game even if my options at mass infantry removal were quite limited. Well, I guess getting rid of Beast was the least important of those three goals. Failing to kill Eiryss or missing Crippling Grasp on Winterguards would both have most probably spelled Deneghra's doom, since at least some boosted RAT 5 would have to hit DEF 16 Deneghra, and Winterguards would have been only dice -4 against her armor. With (or heck, possibly even without) Sorscha's feat there would have been a real chance for a casterkill.

Though of course if killing Eiryss of hitting with Crippling Grasp would have failed, I'd have blocked as much Winterguards as possible with the remainder of my forces. But hey, butting can go on forever. So I better stop now.

There's a muton under my coupon!

Last Thursday the Deadzone campaign also saw an additional game played.

It was fourth mission out of total of ten.

And it was fourth mission in row with Infiltrate goal - a duplicate of the mission where you only get points from infiltrating. Oh my.

My 70 point Strike Team was:
1x Stage 3A Ethereal General
4x various Stage 3A Muton troopers
3x Plague Hounds
1x Muton HMG Heavy Plasma with Extra Ammo
2x Plague Celatid Swarms

I only wish my mutons were as good in infiltrating in actual game as they are infiltrating into strike teams. There's one extra Stage 3A trooper there that should've been left home. But I guess all is well, for in the end that muton paid for its trespassing with its life. As did plenty of other plague models, too. Survive 7+ Plague Swarm makes every first generation infected evil masterminds cry.

Enforcers had:

1x Sergeant
1x Assault Enforcer
2-3x Enforcer
1x Enforcer Engineer
1x Recon Drone
Extra ammo?

Enforcers didn't get caught in the pictures so much that I could have easily backtracked their exact composition, but it was something like this. Their mission was kill plus infiltrate, so not that easy either.

Plague started activations, and since there was this big hill in the middle of board I thought it'd be a good idea to go hide behind of it with just about all of my troops. The hail of bullets that came down from the other side of the table was quite staggering. Most, if not all, Enforcers made a Blaze Away attack at various cubes, suppressing pretty much everyone. There's a pretty picture about it. Now, if I only had had some Steadfast cards things might have went differently.

Stuck as I was in the middle of board there was little I could do other than hope for a turn where my troops weren't distracted by snails and ants. One Stage 3A muton trooper managed to get to melee with some Enforcer, and eventually killed him. Considering my earlier achievements during this campaign, I was happy to kill one model.

Right after killing the Enforcer and taking a free move action to move into cover, the heroic muton was summarily executed.

Second picture shows very few models - but they're not dead yet, I swear! You can see the pincers of one of the swarms in the middle, as well as a tiny portion of another swarm's base!

Commander had founda grenade at this point. Oh, and one muton at the upper side of the board found another grenade earlier in the game. That grenade injured Assault Enforcer. But yeah, about the commander. He found a grenade. Yay, a grenade.

Once my HMG muton took position at a vantage point, things started to go a little better. Though the Ethereal commander managed to lob the grenade way off from it's target, finally Enforcers started to get pinned and suppressed. And I had finally drawn a Steadfast card, which enabled Plague Swarm (with Brawler skill) to start killing stuff at last.

It killed two Enforcers right away, and that only made it angrier! And first time ever I actually did infiltrate some models. But math told me that I couldn't win the mission with my objectives any longer. I was torn between abandoning mission and killing the three remaining Enforcers for points or trying to continue to infiltrate with commander (2 points) and plague swarm (3 points.)

I don't remember what the perceived threat to the commander was, but I thought that he'd never make it if swarm didn't come to help. If Swarm would have infiltrated off, commander would have had to dance to the sound of bullets by three Enforcers.

So I abandoned mission and wanted to kill the last remaining three Enforcers, and gain roughly as many points as continuing the actual mission.

That just didn't go too well. Swarm did kill the already injured Assault Enforcer, but once it got to fight the two Enforcers on top of the blue building, the 3+ attack dice just started failing. Oh well, that's not too bad. Swarm would kill them next turn, no big deal. And then we ran out of time, that is, Enforcers drew their last card from their battle deck.

I'm not entirely sure what the heck happened at my post-game resolution. The muton who hijacked my Strike Team died, of course. Such is the price of going stowaway sometimes. His buddy lost a point of shooting skill. I guess he's not going to be the sniper with a skill of 7+.

Celatid swarm that goes by the name of "bleeder" lost another point of survival skill, so that's 7+ survival with Really Tough being the only means of protection. Both Celatids gained Veteran Dice.

Then there were my beloved dogs... Spot is a rank two dog now, and Lucky and Rumpy gained their third ranks. Lucky lost a point of melee, which is kind of a bad thing for a disposable horde type melee unit... but hey, Lucky isn't complaining. Rumpy lost another point of melee, so that's a 7+ melee beast right there.

All three dogs gained a new skill. They're becoming the academics of my strike force. They're all missing their next game. Spot took AP1 skill, Lucky became a fierce Brawler, and 7+ melee skill Rumpy got Spotter. Hey, at least now Rumpy will have even some sort of function in an operation, right?

Well. Until now this is by far my best mission in the campaign. I got five reputation points and opponent six, or something. At least not full ten points. It's almost a victory.

Argus, Argus Everywhere!

Last Wednesday I played a 15 point game of Warmachine and a game of Deadzone, but that's a blog post for another time, another place.

My list was:

Kaya the Wildborne
- Argus
- Winter Argus
- Scarsfell Griffon
- Gorax

Blackclad Wayfarer Hero (Electrical Augmentation, Crown of the Wild, Wilting Totem)
Feralgeist

Opponent played:

High Exemplar Kreoss
- Dervish
- Revenger

Maximum unit of Exemplar Bastions
Paladin Hero

We didn't play any scenarios, but used Mangled Metal rules so that game ends either by caster kill, or killing everything else but the caster. In the first picture Protectorate has ended a turn. Let's call it turn 1, as I don't remember who actually started.

Paladin Hero in in Stone and Mortar stance and has Defender's Ward also cast on him. Kreoss had cast Lamentation on turn 1 and upkept it throughout the whole game.

To open the game somehow Winter Argus advanced and attempted to Critical Freeze the Paladin - and succeeded doing that!

I think it was Scarsfell Griffon, who charged one of the Bastions dead after Blackclad Wayfarer had cast Hunter's Mark on it.

Kaya cast Spirit Door to get the Griffon back, and since freezer operation had succeeded, she didn't cast another one.

I don't have a picture from the end of Protectorate's turn, but mostly it was just Revenger charging Winter Argus and not killing it. Dervish ran to engage.

Turn 3 starts with a great botch on my part. By now I should remember such trivialities as Repulsor Shield. Oh well. Anyway, Gorax cast Primal on Scarsfell Griffon, who charged Revenger next. Damage was okay, but I got to make only one attack. Fun fact: griffon could have charged a bit farther, and blocking the push with Winter Argus.

Winter Argus then blocks push with Griffon and tries to bite and chew the light warjack, not doing much. Kaya decided to pull Winter Argus back and leave the bird to die. Thanks to useless Primal the Griffon would just frenzy next turn.

Blackclad Wayfarer probably had already tried to Critical Knockdown the Revenger, but it's not possible to score two critical hits in one game. True story.

Argus paralysed a Bastion. Whee. I guess the Bastion was paralysed because it saw someone actually fielding arguses.

Next turn Kreoss used his feat. At least I think so, though judging from the pictures it's possible it was saved for later. Scarsfell Griffon dropped dead instantly, and Blackclad Wayfarer died, too. Revenger charged Gorax, but somehow managed to fail the kill.

Turn 4 spelled doom for Revenger. Gorax almost tore it to pieces even without animus. But not quite, and that's where Winter Argus had to come and align its sprays against Kreoss, slightly clipping Revenger but not hitting Gorax.

Regular Argus paralysed three Bastions. The sight of Argus and Winter Argus in the same battle was too much to bear.

But say what you may. Both arguses were the last warbeasts I got alive. Take that, mainstay Gorax and situational Scarsfell Griffon!

Gorax fell to Bastions. Feralgeist had offered some utility during this game, but it's performance was far from exceptional.

Turn 5 Winter Argus and Kaya try to maul Dervish dead, but sad as it is... they fail. Kaya uses her feat and spends all Fury from her second pool to teleport to safety. I was pondering if I should try to assassinate here by moving Winter Argus forward and Critical Freezing Kreoss with first spray and boosting damage, and boosting damage for the second spray - and then casting one damage boosted Spirit Fang. It was a lot to expect from three boosted POW 12's. But in the end I didn't even try, because it looked so difficult to get Winter Argus within spraying distance. Damn that Reach.

Circle lost only regular Argus and the Feralgeist next turn. Oh my! Did I actually get one more chance of attempting some outrageous assassination?

Not really.

Turn 6 Winter Argus was nearly dead, and engaged by Paladin, and any path to Kreoss was blocked by medium bases. So I opted to inflict as much casualties as possible as a gesture of futile defiance.

Kaya and Winter Argus did manage to wreck Dervish and kill the Paladin hero.

After Bastions fail to kill Winter Argus, Kreoss personally ends the game by killing the pup.

It was a fairly long game for a 15 pointer, and I guess I have now learned my lesson that you never ever run Circle with just light warbeasts and nothing else.

My hero got second Arm Fracture injury, meaning that he is only marginally stronger fighter than Swamp Gobbers now.

But experience was enough to get Potent's Mark upgrade. Crown of the Wild + Potent's Mark seems to be a rather disgusting combo, to be honest.

Decorated Veteran

A quick update before I need to start stressing out from other games I haven't yet written here.

Riven Bonds league is about 62.5% completed here.

I picked Circle of Orboros as my league faction mostly because I had one unused Blackclad Wayfarer model that I never got to paint, as it had such a terrible thick undercoat. Back in the days I had used the wrong kind of spray primer, the kind of that makes surface of your minis to feel and look like medium coarseness sand paper.

But here it was - a perfect excuse to try out some crazy conversions and otherwise tinker and tailor with the model.

This Blackclad Wayfarer represents my league model Sepoh Thalasland, who has Electrical Augmentation (frozen yoghurt tentacles), Crown of the Wild (the swarm of bats) and Wilting Totem upgrades. Crown of the Wild is the Bat Swarm model from Reaper Bones miniature line, and Wilting Totem is some really, really ancient standard or something for Warhammer Fantasy Battles Mounted Chaos Sorcerer.

And, uh. The Electrical Augmentation. I tried to make some sort of arcing lightnings, but I just couldn't force myself into making dozens of tiny little arcs by hand. But I guess the looks are okay-ish. What I should have attempted instead would have been first attempts at object source lighting techniques. Those beams would probably look a lot more lightningy if the close proximity of those beams would have lighted specific areas of the model.

But no. No trial and error here. I was too busy to get the model completed during the league. Had we played an official league, I would have had my league model completed two days after league ended, or something...

A league evening

A bit over a week ago was a bigger gathering of Riven Bonds league play than the usual 1v1. I played two games that night, one 35 point game and one 15 point game.

First game was against Convergence of Cyriss, and my list was:

Morvahna the Autumnblade
- Winter Argus
- Argus
- Wold Guardian

Maximum unit of Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment
Druid of Orboros + Overseer
Shifting Stones + Stone Keeper
Blackclad Wayfarer Hero (with Electrical Augmentation, Crown of the Wild and Wilting Totem)

Opponent had:

Forge Master Syntherion
- Cipher
- Monitor
- Assimilator
- Diffuser
- Mitigator
- Corollary

Optifex Directive

Attunement Servitors
Steelsoul Protector Hero (with +2 ARM upgrade)

Somewhat curious match-up here. Opponent wouldn't lose warjacks, and I wouldn't lose infantry, when neither player had any upkeep removal abilities. Anyway, scenario was Close Quarters.

Circle started game, and first picture is from the end of Convergence turn 1.

Regrowth is on Wolves of Orboros, and Restoration on Wold Guardian. I couldn't bother with Harvest in this game, though I think I cast it once just for giggles. Opponent had only three models I could get Fury from.

Turn 2 Druids of Orboros cast Force Bolts on Diffuser, and got it within charge distance of quite a few Wolves of Orboros. Wolves didn't use Power Swell just yet, but they did manage to wreck the light vector.

Morvahna and Wold Guardian advance closer to friendly flag, and then Convergence starts their turn.

Wolves of Orboros and a couple of Druids are the only casualties, which isn't too bad. Farthest Wolves of Orboros had been outside of the range of Anti-Magic bubble of Druids of Orboros unit leader, so Syntherion was able to cast Magnetic Hold on the Wolves. Speed penalty was the most crippling effect here, since Wolves of Orboros wouldn't be able to charge any more.

Turn 3 Morvahna bring back five Wolves of Orboros, who then advance to have a little beating against Vector brick. They used Power Swell this turn, as it'd be unlikely officer would survive too many turns. Three out of four Wolves missed their attacks, which made Power Swell to feel a bit of a waste. Mitigator did take some heavy damage from various effects (I think a Druid of Orboros shot it with Force Bolt for a damage roll of double 6's) but in the end, no matter what I did, the Mitigator survived. I soon remembered how annoying that was, when you combined it to Field Marshal: Auto-Repair.

Oh well.

Morvahna was able to start dominating friendly flag this turn.

Convergence had so few models in their army that when Mitigator activated a little too soon, no-one was able to go and contest Circle's friendly flag.

Some more Druids died and Wolves were reduced to three surviving members. And I see a Shifting Stone has been destroyed somewhere, somehow. Culprit can only be the Monitor, who ignores Stealth.

Anyway. Control points were 0-2 for Circle.

Turn 4 Morvahna brings back four Wolves, who yet again go and tickle Convergence warjacks. And yet again Mitigator was left with just a few damage boxes. I kind of went desperate there, and Druids of Orboros charged into melee. Overseer personally Wrecked Mitigator. I guess there was some idea about clogging the enemy advance with infantry models, but all of the troops were small based - trampling over them wouldn't be a problem.

But it was third control point for Circle.

Convergence performed almost a board-wipe then. I have this gut feeling that Syntherion used his feat now, though I don't exactly remember when and where it was used. But considering there's not a single Wolf of Orboros or a Druid standing, it's a well-educated guess.

Monitor and Assimilator trample and/or charge into last meatwall of Circle, and Monitor gets close enough to contest flag. Their attack rolls are really bad and none of the little puppies die.

Turn 5 Wold Guardian rams Monitor away from the flag, but the heavy warbeast isn't able to destroy its target. All remaining models try to form a line to block contesting for the enemy. Circle is at four control points.

Both heavy vectors maul Wold Guardian, but Restoration (+2 arm) leaves Guardian standing with three or four damage boxes left. I think Mind and Body both broke down, but Spirit was still operational.

Corollary runs to contest the flag, and then it's just the matter of destroying Corollary on turn 6.

Corollary had already taken some damage in from early attacks made by Wolves of Orboros. But still it was a warjack with multiple damage boxes - destroying it with just a handful of models wasn't guaranteed. Well, of course Wold Guardian would have splattered Corollary all over the place, but Guardian would have to suffer two Free strikes, and DEF 9 + arm 21 with three to four damage boxes is a risk you don't want to take.

Well.

Blackclad Wayfarer advanced first and shot Stone Spray at the Corollary, and rolled double sixes for damage. Double sixes for damage in this game had come from rather unlikely sources. Druids of Orboros first, and now this. Anyway, Corollary died right there. And Circle went to five control points.

If I wouldn't have gained early advantage in scenario play, I doubt I could have chewed through all that heavy armor, especially with Reconstruct on Assimilator.




Game 2:

Second game was against Cryx, and my list was:

Krueger the Stormlord
- Winter Argus
- Scarsfell Griffon
- Gorax

Blackclad Wayfarer Hero

Druid Wilder
2x War Wolf

Opponent had:

Warwitch Deneghra
- Slayer
- Defiler

Maximum unit of Mechanithralls
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls
Skarlock Hero (with Girded upgrade)

We played just for caster kill. Circle gets the first turn, and first picture is from the end of Cryx turn 1.

I have a thing for warlocks and warcasters that enable you to play in a very arrogant and impudent way. Of course you can't always push to the extremes, but this time I did. And it felt lovely. I guess I should play Lich Lord Terminus more, or something. But nothing compares to the feeling you get when you advance right into the middle of enemy army and just say: "What are you going to do about it, pal?"

Well, the usual answer is "I was thinking about shooting you to pieces", but you get the sentiment.

Turn 2 Krueger advances so close to enemy lines that every single enemy model would have enough movement to charge him. Less surprisingly he does use his feat, too, but only after he shoots Lightning Storm on Necrosurgeon.

Playing so brazenly is usually a bad idea. The allegory is there - if you got and get drunk (and hopefully have some fun, too) you get a hangover. If you go in middle of enemy army, you get assassinated or otherwise punished. This time 5" advance + 8" range was enough to get Crippling Grasp on Krueger.

I had been wondering if Krueger should use the last two Fury for damage transfers or cast Telekinesis on himself to get him away from Defiler. In the end I saved Fury for transfers, and got Grasped.

I think this was also the turn when Deneghra used her dreaded feat, so Circle didn't get to make any meaningful retaliation. Winter Argus tried to advance and shoot Deneghra twice with Critical Freeze spray, but the critical hit never came. I don't think any kind of hit ever came.

To get Dream Crusher milestone, Blackclad Wayfarer advanced to spray the Skarlock, but either didn't hit or didn't cause enough damage.

Skarlock then attempts to return the favor, and fails as miserably. Slayer puts the end to the bickering Heroes, or at least one of them. Arm Fracture, -2 STR.

Defiler advances and Deneghra casts Scourge on Krueger. Krueger is knocked down, and Scourge is followed by Venom. Damage rolls were rather poor, though. I'm not one hundred percent certain on this, but I vaguely remember that the Venom actually missed a knocked down target? There's only one Fury on Krueger at the end of enemy turn, and two Fury at the end of Circle turn so that probably is a hint that a damage roll was transefered somehow, somewhere.

Deneghra repositions herself so that Griffon wouldn't be able to apply beak to her face.

I guess I could have played safe and prolonged the game a little, but that Crippling Grasp on my Warlock was putting pressure on me. To continue with the theme of flying straight into enemy and seeing what happens, I tried to assassinate Deneghra.

First Winter Argus tries to Critical Freeze Deneghra again, but with just as bad results as earlier.

Krueger advances and casts Telekinesis on himself to get within 5" of Deneghra. Then the big question is if Krueger casts Telekinesis on Gorax (100% success) or on Deneghra (8+ on 3d6 that gives +2 to attack rolls for Gorax?). MAT 8 can still fail against DEF 16, so Krueger casts Telekinesis on Deneghra, hits her and she's moved 2" closer to Gorax, with back arc bonuses.

Krueger also shoots the lightning stick at Deneghra with last remaining Fury, but I don't think there was any important damage there.

Druid Wilder casts Primal on Gorax, and then Gorax charges Deneghra with effective MAT 10 and P+S 14. And that was the end of Deneghra.