During my trip to Salo we played three games of Dungeon Lords.
First two games we had four players, which is a bit rare.
All other three players had never touched Dungeon Lords, so the first game was somewhat of a hassle. We used most of the rules of a real game, though. Only first inaccessible orders were randomised. New adventurers and monsters from Festival Season expansion also added complexity. Perhaps from now on I should leave out the bards at least. Another choice is to play bards with correct rules - our minstrels were hard mode, as they didn't mourn for their fallen comrades.
Special event "I'm back ladies!" caused the elven paladin to enter fray in the first game, though nobody honestly crossed the paladin space.
First time ever somebody got negative points (-1) and as a consequence didn't get a permit to build dungeons.
Second game went much faster and more smoothly, though the hard mode bards were devastating dungeons left and right. Paladins were farmed during both years. This time the differences in points weren't that big, though we had one player who struggled just to get to exactly 0 points. That player was me. Damn those bards.
Last game was played on Sunday, and it had only three players. But since we all were now seasoned dungeon lords yearning for new challenges, we played with the Festival Season expansion.
Unique opportunities shaked up the game this time. Just about every opportunity that had most impact during first year happened exactly then. Rentable "magic room" in the town was a source of many giggles, and an expert Evil Eye played a critical role in saving my dungeon. Every player got an improved tunnel also. Last opportunity escapes my memory.
We were playing with the two paladin variant, and three paladins out of the four were killed.
Everybody scored 20+ points (even the player who had been critically screwed by being unable to enter gold farm when taxes were due...)
Winner scored exactly as much as there were spaces on the scoreboard... 42 or 43, that is.
All in all nice games. Even the one I scored a grand total of zero points. Festival Season with four players remains to be experienced.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Saturday, June 27, 2015
Accepting one's fate
Travelling again, this time with Dead of Winter and Dungeon Lords.
Yesterday we started with Dead of Winter.
We had three players, and again we had to start with We Need More Samples. I'm getting slightly bored of it.
But at least in the first game something happened that has never come to be earlier.
My following was... a lawyer and a pilot, I think. And my secret was Justice - main objective completed and all betrayers exiled. I thought the lawyer with her ability to look at other players' cards might give hints about betrayers - if there were any.
Now. Soon enough it was clear we had a betrayer, as somebody was sabotaging crisises. It was really, really difficult to judge who was the betrayer. Both players had been making rather questionable moves, but that might be just because this was their first Dead of Winter game ever...
4+ sample collecting from zombies was easy this time. I think only two or three rolls failed, so game looked like it'd be over quite soon. And because of my secret, I had to take action to vote. Towards the end of the game there was a perfect spot for that when we had eight samples collected, and I was the last player in one round, and first in second. So I got to elect a vote twice in a row. So hopefully I'd be able to flush out the betrayer, and with an unlucky guess perhaps also an honest player. But that'd have been unavoidable casualty that potentially would cost that player a victory, but hey. I demanded Justice.
I thought that the betrayer would happily vote off the "good" player if given chance. And all of us knew that we had a betrayer in our midst, so I was counting on that a right guess or wrong guess, somebody would be kicked out.
So second last turn I elected a vote. And then I was baffled, when I "lost" that vote. Nobody got kicked out.
Well. I got a second turn at least, and I elected a second vote to get rid of the other player, then, who just had to be the betrayer, or nothing would make sense any more.
And yet the vote was lost again, and other players questioned my loyalties, because I was suddenly calling votes in quick succession!
I had accidentally killed a zombie, and dealt in the ninth sample. I decided that if I wouldn't be able to win the game, and the honest player had such a poor judgement that she/he suspected me... Hell. I'll see the world burn, then.
I hampered the colony as much as I could, and then moved all of my survivors to locations that were already full of zombies.
As a consequence I was cast out from the colony. That's what I wanted, though. Perhaps I'd get "Exiled" secret that gave me another victory condition other than exiling all the betrayers.
I don't remember what I got, but it didn't remove the exile condition of my original secret. So I would lose anyway.
And the actual betrayer couldn't drop morale before the colony phase, so we had only one victor: the "honest" player, who revealed that it had actually been he who sabotaged the crisises just for the fun of it.
Uh.
No wonder it'd been difficult to judge who was the betrayer. Had he not done that, I doubt I'd have suspected there was a betrayer at all.
Well played.
Game 2:
Second play was with the "We need to find the cure" or something like that, where players needed medicine from non-starter items to win the game.
This time, however, I had "Accept your fate" betrayer ending. It required one of my survivors to have at least two weapons, and three non-starter medicine items in my hand. And morale at 0.
My initial following was the nurse who could search Hospital pretty effectively, and the most fated survivor of all - the fortune teller.
Soon enough it looked like there might be two betrayers - or there might be yet another saboteur just for giggles.
My nurse found the drunken mall santa from hospital, and he promptly entered to search for weapons at the police station. And he found the Tikka precision rifle. Using her mystic powers the fortune teller got the weapon, and shot zombies from hospital.
Somebody else entered police station, too, and caused so much noise that it killed my mall santa. That was kind of okay for me, though, since it lowered morale and didn't raise that much suspicion to me.
Whole colony failed at least two crisises in row that spawned tons of zombies to police station, library, hospital and gas station. It was a bit annoying that I honestly tried to succeed in one of these crisises so that hospital wouldn't be so full of zombies. I needed those medicines, too!
Well. Next few crisises required a lot of food, and waste pile also started to negatively affect morale. In fact it started to look like morale might reach 0 faster than I'd get my betrayer goal completed.
Soon the psychologist Meyers joined my following, and he was sent to gas station to search for weapons. Fortune teller had the precision rifle, and I had two non-starter item medicine cards at my disposal, though I had been scavenging the hospital like crazy. I only found drunken santas and psychologists there.
But with four action dice and plenty of decibels the nurse was able to find an adrenalin shot, and psychologist got a lighter.
Crisis would most definitely fail thanks to my contributions. And morale was at 1.
Whee. And with last turns the other players didn't even vote me out, so it was a victory for a betrayer. Only one, though. There were two betrayers, so finding the cure had been doomed to fail almost from the get-go.
Yesterday we started with Dead of Winter.
We had three players, and again we had to start with We Need More Samples. I'm getting slightly bored of it.
But at least in the first game something happened that has never come to be earlier.
My following was... a lawyer and a pilot, I think. And my secret was Justice - main objective completed and all betrayers exiled. I thought the lawyer with her ability to look at other players' cards might give hints about betrayers - if there were any.
Now. Soon enough it was clear we had a betrayer, as somebody was sabotaging crisises. It was really, really difficult to judge who was the betrayer. Both players had been making rather questionable moves, but that might be just because this was their first Dead of Winter game ever...
4+ sample collecting from zombies was easy this time. I think only two or three rolls failed, so game looked like it'd be over quite soon. And because of my secret, I had to take action to vote. Towards the end of the game there was a perfect spot for that when we had eight samples collected, and I was the last player in one round, and first in second. So I got to elect a vote twice in a row. So hopefully I'd be able to flush out the betrayer, and with an unlucky guess perhaps also an honest player. But that'd have been unavoidable casualty that potentially would cost that player a victory, but hey. I demanded Justice.
I thought that the betrayer would happily vote off the "good" player if given chance. And all of us knew that we had a betrayer in our midst, so I was counting on that a right guess or wrong guess, somebody would be kicked out.
So second last turn I elected a vote. And then I was baffled, when I "lost" that vote. Nobody got kicked out.
Well. I got a second turn at least, and I elected a second vote to get rid of the other player, then, who just had to be the betrayer, or nothing would make sense any more.
And yet the vote was lost again, and other players questioned my loyalties, because I was suddenly calling votes in quick succession!
I had accidentally killed a zombie, and dealt in the ninth sample. I decided that if I wouldn't be able to win the game, and the honest player had such a poor judgement that she/he suspected me... Hell. I'll see the world burn, then.
I hampered the colony as much as I could, and then moved all of my survivors to locations that were already full of zombies.
As a consequence I was cast out from the colony. That's what I wanted, though. Perhaps I'd get "Exiled" secret that gave me another victory condition other than exiling all the betrayers.
I don't remember what I got, but it didn't remove the exile condition of my original secret. So I would lose anyway.
And the actual betrayer couldn't drop morale before the colony phase, so we had only one victor: the "honest" player, who revealed that it had actually been he who sabotaged the crisises just for the fun of it.
Uh.
No wonder it'd been difficult to judge who was the betrayer. Had he not done that, I doubt I'd have suspected there was a betrayer at all.
Well played.
Game 2:
Second play was with the "We need to find the cure" or something like that, where players needed medicine from non-starter items to win the game.
This time, however, I had "Accept your fate" betrayer ending. It required one of my survivors to have at least two weapons, and three non-starter medicine items in my hand. And morale at 0.
My initial following was the nurse who could search Hospital pretty effectively, and the most fated survivor of all - the fortune teller.
Soon enough it looked like there might be two betrayers - or there might be yet another saboteur just for giggles.
My nurse found the drunken mall santa from hospital, and he promptly entered to search for weapons at the police station. And he found the Tikka precision rifle. Using her mystic powers the fortune teller got the weapon, and shot zombies from hospital.
Somebody else entered police station, too, and caused so much noise that it killed my mall santa. That was kind of okay for me, though, since it lowered morale and didn't raise that much suspicion to me.
Whole colony failed at least two crisises in row that spawned tons of zombies to police station, library, hospital and gas station. It was a bit annoying that I honestly tried to succeed in one of these crisises so that hospital wouldn't be so full of zombies. I needed those medicines, too!
Well. Next few crisises required a lot of food, and waste pile also started to negatively affect morale. In fact it started to look like morale might reach 0 faster than I'd get my betrayer goal completed.
Soon the psychologist Meyers joined my following, and he was sent to gas station to search for weapons. Fortune teller had the precision rifle, and I had two non-starter item medicine cards at my disposal, though I had been scavenging the hospital like crazy. I only found drunken santas and psychologists there.
But with four action dice and plenty of decibels the nurse was able to find an adrenalin shot, and psychologist got a lighter.
Crisis would most definitely fail thanks to my contributions. And morale was at 1.
Whee. And with last turns the other players didn't even vote me out, so it was a victory for a betrayer. Only one, though. There were two betrayers, so finding the cure had been doomed to fail almost from the get-go.
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Day 1 of Steam & Fury
A week ago I played in a 50 point warmachine tournament. It had Active Duty Roster option (season 1), so hey. Why not? Lists needed to be sent quite early for validation, so there was no possibility for last moment changes. Which was bad, as I was building my lists a day before the deadline in a slight hangover... Well. Who want's to ignore stealth, anyway?
So. I opened the tournament with a smashing victory before the first round had even begun. There was uneven number of players and I got the bye. I chose I had played the game with Hexeris because I would be playing with Mordikaar for sure. Possibly not so much with Hexeris, and now there was no obligation to play with Hexeris at all.
First real game was against Trollbloods.
I'm not 100% certain of opponent's list, as I'm not that familiar with their models. With Forward Kommander I came up with:
Madrak Ironhide, World Ender
- Mulg
2x Maximum units of Warders
Maximum unit of Fennblades + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Krielstone Bearers + Elder
2x Fennblade Kithkar
Fell Caller hero
Stone Scribe Chronicler
Trollkin Champion Hero
My list was:
Void Seer Mordikaar
- Bronzeback Titan
- Archidon
- Cyclops Shaman
- 2x Reptile Hounds
Maximum unit of Cataphract Cetrari
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Beast Handlers
Agonizer
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Void Spirit
Feralgeist
Looking back now I think I should have switched Agonizer into something more useful. Scenario was Close Quarters. It was really nice to get to play against Madrak2, since I've played versus him... perhaps... only once? Ever?
I thought that Slaughterhouse might come in handy against trollbloods, but for some reason I deployed Reptile Hounds far away from each other. I guess I thought I might spread the Take Down farther that way, but then again... these were heavily armoured trolls I was facing. P+S 8 will only go so far, and with Slaughterhouse on you still need to deliver the killing blow to ignore tough and remove from play.
My plan was just to engage trolls with and survive one round of beating with Mordikaar's feat, especially with the Bronzeback. But trollbloods are such a rare encounter for me that I had completely forgotten that Fell Callers can give +2 to attack rolls for troll units. That seriously lessened the survivability of my warbeasts and coupled with some real good damage rolls, the Bronzeback died while under Mordikaar's feat. So the game was a downward spiral from there on. If I just somehow might reach Madrak himself with a Ghost Walked Archidon there might still be a game.
But things went as expected.
Madrak cleared most of my warbeasts and Praetorian Swordsmen with his feat. Rufus played dead. Mulg advanced with Warpath and trampled to Mordikaar, but somehow fails to kill him. So there's one last chance of a really awkward assassination if everything was perfectly executed and opponent failed every roll he'd be doing!
Well. Sad as it was, I cast Ghost Walk on Mordikaar and tried to advance past Mulg. But a Beast Handler or one of the last Praetorians was just blocking his advances, so my chances dropped from 2.5% to zero.
It's possible I clocked out in this game trying to navigate the last turn, but it didn't really bother me as the situation was very, very clear.
Game 2:
Next I was against Circle of Orboros. And I faced no other than the dreaded Bradigus with his tier list.
Opponent had:
Bradigus
- 2x Wold Guardian
- Five thousand Wold Watchers
2x Sentry Stone & Mannikins
3x Shifting Stones
Before I learned a thing or two during the game, I thought my best bet would be Mordikaar, because Hexeris wouldn't have a feat against Bradigus. And +3 Def seemed like a nice pre-emptive measure against a disturbing Synergy chain. How wrong was I...
Anyway, my list was:
Void Seer Mordikaar
- Bronzeback Titan
- Archidon
- Cyclops Shaman
- 2x Reptile Hounds
Maximum unit of Cataphract Cetrati
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Beast Handlers
Agonizer
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Void Spirit
Feralgeist
Scenario was Fire Support. Skorne started game. I took the Reptile Hounds again, because I didn't think I'd be needing Basilisk Krea, and there would be no reason to boost attack rolls for the hounds. All targets were automatically hit, or had DEF 9.
First picture is from the end of Circle turn 1.
Turn 2 I try to open the game and trust my DEF 17 Archidon would survive or at least require some serious dedication from the opponent to get down. So Archidon was enraged and given Puppet Master, and I hoped it would take down one Woldwatcher. Well... it didn't. It wasn't too far off, and I can probably blame a failed Puppet Master re-roll, which turned a result of 1,2,2 to 1,1,2. Anyway, I had used Mordikaar's feat so the rest of the army advanced aggressively.
Circle turn 2 I learn some new shenanigans about this game. Push Power Attack is a melee attack that hits automatically, and as such it triggers Synergy. That was terrible news for me. But even worse news that was for the Archidon, who promptly died to some +5 attack & damage synergy chain.
Skorne turn 3 I desperately launched enraged, Ghost Walked and Train Wrecking Bronzeback Titan at a Woldwatcher that was standing in a forest template, thus in LOS. Here was a tiny glimmer of hope. Two war gauntlet initials and a head butt destroyed the Woldwatcher, and tusks and one additional attack destroyed the sentry stone. Now was the true test for Bronzeback: four Fury left for attacks, and a def 9, arm 20 target to destroy.
True to Bronzeback's newfound tradition of failing all the true tests, it just didn't roll enough damage to kill Wold Guardian - even with five attacks. Oh dear. Even if Bronzeback would have killed the Guardian, Bronzeback would still have needed to survive next round of beating from various Wold Watchers and a second Wold Guardian for me to stand a chance.
The rest of the game pretty much played itself. Somehow I did manage to struggle to survive, but I didn't inflict real casualties for Circle. I also realised how good counter that list was for Mordikaar. First was that unsporting synergy trickery that mitigated Mordikaar's feat. Second gruesome aspect was the remove from play quality of Woldwatchers' melee and ranged weapons. They pretty much ruined Hollow.
Oh well. I did score one control point when Void Spirit charged enemy objective and during the course of two turns destroyed it.
Finally Bradigus comes personally to deal with Mordikaar once all transfer targets had been mauled by the constructs.
Game 3:
Last game for Saturday was against Convergence of Cyriss. Good thing I've had some practice against Convergence thanks to our local Convergence player.
Anyway. Convergence list was:
Father Lucant
- Prime Axiom
- Inverter
- Corollary
Maximum unit of some small base infantry with shields and chain weapons... Obstructors?
Maximum unit of Reciprocators
2x Optifex Directive
2x Enigma Foundry
Well. No matter what, there was Purification to screw both of my warlocks. However, yet again Mordikaar seemed my best option, since there weren't too many models in the opposing army for Hexeris to have an effective feat.
My list was:
Void Seer Mordikaar
- Bronzeback Titan
- Archidon
- Basilisk Drake
- Basilisk Krea
Maximum unit of Cataphract Cetrati
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Beast Handlers
Swamp Gobbers
Agonizer
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Void Spirit (why?)
Feralgeist
Scenario was Incoming. I think Skorne started the game, and the first picture is from the end of Skorne turn 2. I don't have a picture from the end of Convergence turn 2, which is a shame since some important positional stuff happened there.
First, the Reciprocators got Shield Wall order and took Set Defence. All of them came to contest the leftmost zone, and Enigma Foundry followed them closely.
Prime Axiom and Obstructors took a rather big foothold on the rightmost objective. Basilisk Drake died pitifully, as did some Praetorians, but somebody was left alive to contest the zone. Lucant didn't use his feat just yet, and so it was Skorne turn 3.
Willbreaker gave Puppet Master for Cataphract Cetrati, and then they go to beat some Reciprocators. Their damage rolls are enough to take down three of them, which was unexpected. And there it was, now... an opening for scenario game. It's possible that Mordikaar shot a couple of last damage boxes from one of the Reciprocators, though. I'm not entirely sure, but I believe Mordikaar used his feat now.
Then enraged Archidon needed to take down last two Reciprocators, and succeeds.
On the right I just try to contest long enough to grind five control points. Looking back now I probably shouldn't have even done any attacks with the Swordsmen to save me some time, since what was automatic one damage points to a colossal? A couple of the small based infantry members died, though. But Enigma Foundry would just bring them right back. So it was the Agonizer who was the actual hero here when it denied focus allocation for Inverter and Prime Axiom.
Turn 3 Lucant uses his feat and comes to contest the left zone with Enigma Foundry that has absurd armour value. Inverter comes mid field (pun intended... but is there even a pun?) and Obstructors and Prime Axiom continue to duke it out with Praetorians in the right zone.
Turn 4 there's this ARM 22 Enigma Foundry with ten damage boxes that needed to be taken care of.
Before I fully realised what I'd be doing with my turn, I started with the "easy" activations, like Basilisk Krea, who used her animus. I had been thinking of just running Mordikaar to enemy zone.
Cataphract Cetrati get the Puppet Master again and proceed to wreck the Enigma Foundry. I was quite sure I'd be able to destroy it, but when the bugger was left with just one damage box remaining, I needed to re-evaluate my plans.
I wanted to charge the enemy objective with Archidon and not waste it's activation on the Enigma Foundry, so this is what I came up with: Bronzeback performs a double handed throw on Basilisk Krea, and then Mordikaar charges a Cetrati, casts Essence Blast and takes the last damage box from Enigma Foundry. Success.
Archidon was free to charge enemy ARM 22 objective.... which triggered Watcher, and next to no damage was done to the objective. Die on the objective tells it was five damage. Really? All the earlier effort of throwing Krea's all over the place was... for this?
Anyway. Skorne was at three control points now.
Next turn opponent obviously throws everything he can to contest their friendly zone, which isn't much, but still a heavy vector and perhaps a servitor. Lucant kills Archidon, and the rightmost front is the same as ever.
Turn 5 I'm fairly confident that I can kill the heavy vector... but funnily enough it proved to be a lot more trickier than I initially thought. Both Basilisk Krea and Bronzeback Titan were facing completely wrong directions - neither could see the Inverter!
Last remaining Cetrati did what they could, but it was not enough. Mordikaar had quite a lot of Fury thanks to Hollow, so he decided to give it a go, too. But first he cast Ghost Walk on Basilisk Krea, who had shaken herself up.
Well, damage was okay I guess, but as it was not entirely excessive I aborted the wrecking of the vector and opted for another plan. Mordikaar cast Paralytic Field on himself.
Then Bronzeback activated and used Train Wreck on Basilisk Krea. And then Beast Handlers take the Fury point off from Krea.
Krea advanced and needed to land two or three successful hits on Inverter to push it away from the zone - and that's what she did.
Last few activations I had to make could have spelled my doom, as I had forgotten about the Watcher. Luckily I didn't run any random models within 6" of Lucant just for the fun of it as Corollary might have been able to come to contest the zone.
So that was the Saturday of Steam & Fury. Nice games overall even if I got my own butt handed back to me in the form of some kind of nuggets in the first two games. But they were both new experiences in their own way, and against rare (for me) warcasters and warlocks.
So. I opened the tournament with a smashing victory before the first round had even begun. There was uneven number of players and I got the bye. I chose I had played the game with Hexeris because I would be playing with Mordikaar for sure. Possibly not so much with Hexeris, and now there was no obligation to play with Hexeris at all.
First real game was against Trollbloods.
I'm not 100% certain of opponent's list, as I'm not that familiar with their models. With Forward Kommander I came up with:
Madrak Ironhide, World Ender
- Mulg
2x Maximum units of Warders
Maximum unit of Fennblades + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Krielstone Bearers + Elder
2x Fennblade Kithkar
Fell Caller hero
Stone Scribe Chronicler
Trollkin Champion Hero
My list was:
Void Seer Mordikaar
- Bronzeback Titan
- Archidon
- Cyclops Shaman
- 2x Reptile Hounds
Maximum unit of Cataphract Cetrari
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Beast Handlers
Agonizer
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Void Spirit
Feralgeist
Looking back now I think I should have switched Agonizer into something more useful. Scenario was Close Quarters. It was really nice to get to play against Madrak2, since I've played versus him... perhaps... only once? Ever?
I thought that Slaughterhouse might come in handy against trollbloods, but for some reason I deployed Reptile Hounds far away from each other. I guess I thought I might spread the Take Down farther that way, but then again... these were heavily armoured trolls I was facing. P+S 8 will only go so far, and with Slaughterhouse on you still need to deliver the killing blow to ignore tough and remove from play.
My plan was just to engage trolls with and survive one round of beating with Mordikaar's feat, especially with the Bronzeback. But trollbloods are such a rare encounter for me that I had completely forgotten that Fell Callers can give +2 to attack rolls for troll units. That seriously lessened the survivability of my warbeasts and coupled with some real good damage rolls, the Bronzeback died while under Mordikaar's feat. So the game was a downward spiral from there on. If I just somehow might reach Madrak himself with a Ghost Walked Archidon there might still be a game.
But things went as expected.
Madrak cleared most of my warbeasts and Praetorian Swordsmen with his feat. Rufus played dead. Mulg advanced with Warpath and trampled to Mordikaar, but somehow fails to kill him. So there's one last chance of a really awkward assassination if everything was perfectly executed and opponent failed every roll he'd be doing!
Well. Sad as it was, I cast Ghost Walk on Mordikaar and tried to advance past Mulg. But a Beast Handler or one of the last Praetorians was just blocking his advances, so my chances dropped from 2.5% to zero.
It's possible I clocked out in this game trying to navigate the last turn, but it didn't really bother me as the situation was very, very clear.
Game 2:
Next I was against Circle of Orboros. And I faced no other than the dreaded Bradigus with his tier list.
Opponent had:
Bradigus
- 2x Wold Guardian
- Five thousand Wold Watchers
2x Sentry Stone & Mannikins
3x Shifting Stones
Before I learned a thing or two during the game, I thought my best bet would be Mordikaar, because Hexeris wouldn't have a feat against Bradigus. And +3 Def seemed like a nice pre-emptive measure against a disturbing Synergy chain. How wrong was I...
Anyway, my list was:
Void Seer Mordikaar
- Bronzeback Titan
- Archidon
- Cyclops Shaman
- 2x Reptile Hounds
Maximum unit of Cataphract Cetrati
Maximum unit of Beast Handlers
Agonizer
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Void Spirit
Feralgeist
Scenario was Fire Support. Skorne started game. I took the Reptile Hounds again, because I didn't think I'd be needing Basilisk Krea, and there would be no reason to boost attack rolls for the hounds. All targets were automatically hit, or had DEF 9.
First picture is from the end of Circle turn 1.
Turn 2 I try to open the game and trust my DEF 17 Archidon would survive or at least require some serious dedication from the opponent to get down. So Archidon was enraged and given Puppet Master, and I hoped it would take down one Woldwatcher. Well... it didn't. It wasn't too far off, and I can probably blame a failed Puppet Master re-roll, which turned a result of 1,2,2 to 1,1,2. Anyway, I had used Mordikaar's feat so the rest of the army advanced aggressively.
Circle turn 2 I learn some new shenanigans about this game. Push Power Attack is a melee attack that hits automatically, and as such it triggers Synergy. That was terrible news for me. But even worse news that was for the Archidon, who promptly died to some +5 attack & damage synergy chain.
Skorne turn 3 I desperately launched enraged, Ghost Walked and Train Wrecking Bronzeback Titan at a Woldwatcher that was standing in a forest template, thus in LOS. Here was a tiny glimmer of hope. Two war gauntlet initials and a head butt destroyed the Woldwatcher, and tusks and one additional attack destroyed the sentry stone. Now was the true test for Bronzeback: four Fury left for attacks, and a def 9, arm 20 target to destroy.
True to Bronzeback's newfound tradition of failing all the true tests, it just didn't roll enough damage to kill Wold Guardian - even with five attacks. Oh dear. Even if Bronzeback would have killed the Guardian, Bronzeback would still have needed to survive next round of beating from various Wold Watchers and a second Wold Guardian for me to stand a chance.
The rest of the game pretty much played itself. Somehow I did manage to struggle to survive, but I didn't inflict real casualties for Circle. I also realised how good counter that list was for Mordikaar. First was that unsporting synergy trickery that mitigated Mordikaar's feat. Second gruesome aspect was the remove from play quality of Woldwatchers' melee and ranged weapons. They pretty much ruined Hollow.
Oh well. I did score one control point when Void Spirit charged enemy objective and during the course of two turns destroyed it.
Finally Bradigus comes personally to deal with Mordikaar once all transfer targets had been mauled by the constructs.
Last game for Saturday was against Convergence of Cyriss. Good thing I've had some practice against Convergence thanks to our local Convergence player.
Anyway. Convergence list was:
Father Lucant
- Prime Axiom
- Inverter
- Corollary
Maximum unit of some small base infantry with shields and chain weapons... Obstructors?
Maximum unit of Reciprocators
2x Optifex Directive
2x Enigma Foundry
Well. No matter what, there was Purification to screw both of my warlocks. However, yet again Mordikaar seemed my best option, since there weren't too many models in the opposing army for Hexeris to have an effective feat.
My list was:
Void Seer Mordikaar
- Archidon
- Basilisk Drake
- Basilisk Krea
Maximum unit of Cataphract Cetrati
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Beast Handlers
Swamp Gobbers
Agonizer
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Void Spirit (why?)
Feralgeist
Scenario was Incoming. I think Skorne started the game, and the first picture is from the end of Skorne turn 2. I don't have a picture from the end of Convergence turn 2, which is a shame since some important positional stuff happened there.
First, the Reciprocators got Shield Wall order and took Set Defence. All of them came to contest the leftmost zone, and Enigma Foundry followed them closely.
Prime Axiom and Obstructors took a rather big foothold on the rightmost objective. Basilisk Drake died pitifully, as did some Praetorians, but somebody was left alive to contest the zone. Lucant didn't use his feat just yet, and so it was Skorne turn 3.
Willbreaker gave Puppet Master for Cataphract Cetrati, and then they go to beat some Reciprocators. Their damage rolls are enough to take down three of them, which was unexpected. And there it was, now... an opening for scenario game. It's possible that Mordikaar shot a couple of last damage boxes from one of the Reciprocators, though. I'm not entirely sure, but I believe Mordikaar used his feat now.
Then enraged Archidon needed to take down last two Reciprocators, and succeeds.
On the right I just try to contest long enough to grind five control points. Looking back now I probably shouldn't have even done any attacks with the Swordsmen to save me some time, since what was automatic one damage points to a colossal? A couple of the small based infantry members died, though. But Enigma Foundry would just bring them right back. So it was the Agonizer who was the actual hero here when it denied focus allocation for Inverter and Prime Axiom.
Turn 3 Lucant uses his feat and comes to contest the left zone with Enigma Foundry that has absurd armour value. Inverter comes mid field (pun intended... but is there even a pun?) and Obstructors and Prime Axiom continue to duke it out with Praetorians in the right zone.
Turn 4 there's this ARM 22 Enigma Foundry with ten damage boxes that needed to be taken care of.
Before I fully realised what I'd be doing with my turn, I started with the "easy" activations, like Basilisk Krea, who used her animus. I had been thinking of just running Mordikaar to enemy zone.
Cataphract Cetrati get the Puppet Master again and proceed to wreck the Enigma Foundry. I was quite sure I'd be able to destroy it, but when the bugger was left with just one damage box remaining, I needed to re-evaluate my plans.
I wanted to charge the enemy objective with Archidon and not waste it's activation on the Enigma Foundry, so this is what I came up with: Bronzeback performs a double handed throw on Basilisk Krea, and then Mordikaar charges a Cetrati, casts Essence Blast and takes the last damage box from Enigma Foundry. Success.
Archidon was free to charge enemy ARM 22 objective.... which triggered Watcher, and next to no damage was done to the objective. Die on the objective tells it was five damage. Really? All the earlier effort of throwing Krea's all over the place was... for this?
Anyway. Skorne was at three control points now.
Next turn opponent obviously throws everything he can to contest their friendly zone, which isn't much, but still a heavy vector and perhaps a servitor. Lucant kills Archidon, and the rightmost front is the same as ever.
Turn 5 I'm fairly confident that I can kill the heavy vector... but funnily enough it proved to be a lot more trickier than I initially thought. Both Basilisk Krea and Bronzeback Titan were facing completely wrong directions - neither could see the Inverter!
Last remaining Cetrati did what they could, but it was not enough. Mordikaar had quite a lot of Fury thanks to Hollow, so he decided to give it a go, too. But first he cast Ghost Walk on Basilisk Krea, who had shaken herself up.
Well, damage was okay I guess, but as it was not entirely excessive I aborted the wrecking of the vector and opted for another plan. Mordikaar cast Paralytic Field on himself.
Then Bronzeback activated and used Train Wreck on Basilisk Krea. And then Beast Handlers take the Fury point off from Krea.
Krea advanced and needed to land two or three successful hits on Inverter to push it away from the zone - and that's what she did.
Last few activations I had to make could have spelled my doom, as I had forgotten about the Watcher. Luckily I didn't run any random models within 6" of Lucant just for the fun of it as Corollary might have been able to come to contest the zone.
So that was the Saturday of Steam & Fury. Nice games overall even if I got my own butt handed back to me in the form of some kind of nuggets in the first two games. But they were both new experiences in their own way, and against rare (for me) warcasters and warlocks.
Saturday, June 20, 2015
Day 2 of Steam & Fury
These are the last two games at a tournament I played in a tournament in Vaasa. Since on Sunday there were only two games I'm writing them first.
First I was against Cryx, and I really wanted to play at least one game with Lord Tyrant Hexeris.
Opponent had:
Goreshade the Cursed
Heresy of Shadows tier 2
- Kraken
Maximum unit of Bane Knights
2x Maximum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Bane Lord Tartarus
2x Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Scrap Thralls
So... that must have been the greatest number of Banes I've personally played against.
I tinkered my list into:
Lord Tyrant Hexeris
- Bronzeback Titan
- Archidon
- 2x Basilisk Drake
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Venator Reivers + Unit Attachment + a rat (looking at the pictures I noticed Flayer Cannon range finder has sneaked in!)
Maximum unit of Beast Handlers
Tyrant Commander & Standard Bearer
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Gatorman Witch Doctor
Orin Midwinter
Scenario was Incursion, and Cryx started game. No surprises from Skorne side - Death March was on Praetorian Swordsmen and Soul Slave on Archidon. Witch Doctor had cast Zombify on... somewhere. Cryx had Phantom Hunter on Kraken, Occultation on Bane Knights and Sudden Death on Bane Lord Tartarus.
Cryx turn 2 was depressing. Even if I own a Kraken myself, that 16" range caught me by surprise. I lost both Gatorman Witch Doctor and Orin Midwinter to just one blast. Well... Orin wasn't so important, but the loss of Zombify really hurt my game. Other than that the Banes were just advancing cautiously, bringing themselves to barely contest the flags.
As pretty much everything had Stealth (and for some reason I didn't remember to put Extoller Soulward on my specialists...) and Kraken was guarded by one Necrotech, I wanted to get at least some mileage out of Venator Reivers. So they used minifeat and shot the Necrotech. Last remaining Venators made a combined shot against the colossal. Kraken had blocked my LOS to the other Necrotech, so seven points were a bit wasted there.
Hexeris probably shot Obliteration and killed a bane thrall.
Cryx turn 3 I suffered far less casualties than I was expecting. But on the other hand Goreshade was holding back. A minimum number of various Banes charged my lines and others tried to remain a safe distance away. I guess they were afraid of Hexeris' feat, and rightly so... And I wonder if I should have used feat anyway. I just wasn't sure if Goreshade's feat created new banes or if it brought back destroyed ones. Turns out it was the latter, so perhaps I should have used feat. That would have been four Bane Knights and about seven Bane Thralls that wouldn't be coming back. But greedy as I was, I wanted more. I wanted them all.
And from there the game degraded into Banes multiplying themselves with Praetorian Swordsmen, Basilisks and Tyrant commanders. Hexeris' feat, while not too bad, just did not remove enough banes to severely hamper their advance. That's painful to write. Hexeris' feat was not enough to remove banes to seriously injure them. Of course there was unnecessarily many tough rolls being made and the new realization that if you kill the bane unit leader and it gets promoted to somewhere else in the unit, the newly promoted unit leader will not be able to make attacks if you later kill it for your feat.
Any and all hope was lost when yet again I was too greedy - I wanted enraged Archidon to charge Kraken and kill Tartarus, who was in the middle of my army. Looked like I'd get Tartarus within Archidon's melee range, but no.
Only the leftmost flag was kind of secured for me, so once it looked like I'd lose the game I started to score scenario points at least for possible tie breakers later in the tournament. Hexeris was there in the middle of action, beat backing Banes and whatnot off from within 4" of the flag. Basilisk Drake scored three points before Skorne finally succumbed to the swarm of banes.
Game 2:
Last game was a second time ever match versus Cephalyx. Since Forward Kommander doesn't have the Exulon tier available for construction, the list may have some inaccuracies.
Opponent had:
Exulon Thexus
Tier level over 9000
- Wrecker
Maximum unit of Nyss Hunters + Dominator
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt + Dominator
2x Maximum unit of Mind Bender & Drudges
2x Minimum unit of Mind Slaver & Drudges (in ambush)
2x Cephalyx Overlords
+ possibly two Agitators?
Hexeris was pretty much out of the question, though his feat could have been quite devastating against such an infantry horde. But such a feat in a horde like that could very well ve devastating for my deathclock, too. Banishing Ward might also be a lifesaver.
So, Mordikaar it would be. And my list was:
Void Seer Mordikaar
- Bronzeback Titan
- Archidon
- Cyclops Shaman
- Basilisk Drake
Maximum unit of Beast Handlers
Maximum unit of Cataphract Cetrati
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Gatorman Witch Doctor
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Void Spirit
Scenario was Recon, and looks like Cephalyx started the game. First of all I was terrified about the number of models opponent had. For some crowd control I swapped Basilisk Krea for Basilisk Drake, but I silently wondered if that'd be enough.
Hollow was on Praetorian Swordsmen and Banishing Ward on Cetrati. Witch Doctor was zombifying Cetrati also.
Turn 2 Cephalyx spilled over far worse than the banes of last game. There weren't any real casualties for me. Only the Nyss were shooting a bit, but Mordikaar doesn't care too much for dead Praetorians. So I would be able to make the alpha strike! Against a meatwall, sure, but alpha strike nonetheless! And after that I would be in a fairly defendable position thanks to Mordikaar's feat.
Void Spirit tried to go and eat the unit leader of rightmost Slaver unit. I don't remember what came out of it. Cetrati took Shield Wall and killed, what, one drudge grunt and one nyss? Cyclops Shaman stared down a drudge grunt, and Gatorman Witch Doctor zombified Cetrati again. That was all I'd be able to do on right.
Bronzeback probably went and destroyed one nyss hunter and beat backed to a safer position.
Mordikaar activates, casts Revive, possibly two, a Ghost Walk on Praetorian Swordsmen and finally casts Banishing Ward on himself. There were so many magical sprays that I thought it might be worth it.
Then Ghost Walked Swordsmen charge all over the place aaaand see what's missing? The feat. The goddamn +3 def feat that was the reason I left Mordikaar with only one Fury left for transfers. Why? Whyyyy?
Once I realise I forgot to use feat I try to form some sort of meatwall for Mordikaar, but there's mostly just Archidon for that job.
Then it's turn 3 for the Cephalyx after my pro play.
Exulon Thexus advances and uses his feat and messes every formation up, and removes all the Nyss Hunters from melee. Then he casts two Hex Blasts on my objective, and a boosted blast damage roll to Mordikaar was astonishing. More rolls like this and it all would be over very soon with minimal pain.
Then Nyss activate and advance to get line of sight to Mordikaar. Bronzeback manages to counter charge one of them and tie one Nyss to melee, and hopefully block Line of Sight for others. Nope, they all got Line of Sight easily enough.
Damage rolls weren't that great, though, and Mordikaar survives.
Then the POW 12 sprays start pouring in. Every Cephalyx with a spray and their dogs advanced forward and sprayed either the Archidon or my objective - all of them catching Mordikaar under easily. About half of the sprays hit, and the grand total is that Mordikaar is left with only one Fury and one hit box. But finally... finally it was the last Cephalyx spray to activate. Mordikaar was saved. Even the objective survived with, what, two damage boxes or something.
And then Aiyana & Holt & Cephalyx Dominator activate... Oh come on! How many of these guy are in the list? I didn't know it then, but Cephalyx Dominator doesn't have a spray attack. So, in fact, it was the miracle of my objective not getting destroyed that made it possible for Mordikaar to survive. Of course I wasn't aware what else opponent would be able to throw at me, but first Holt needed to shoot the objective out of the way, and then Mordikaar twice some how. But even the first attack didn't destroy objective, only the second one did. Arcane wonder.
Then last drudges and whatnots activate, and opponent ends his gigantic turn with a bit less than half a minute on his clock.
So it was a matter of principle for me next. After such an extraordinary survival from almost certain doom it would have been easy for me to run as far with Mordikaar as possible, and win next turn on clock. But I have always complained everywhere how much I hate either winning or losing with the clock, and clock is good only for keeping tournament schedule going forward in a good pace. The actual situation on the board, however, was far from a victory for me.
Perhaps the inner WAAC demon would have been stronger if I had been with five victories and zero defeats then at the final table. But I chose to play as if there was no clock, and try to assassinate Exulon instead.
There was the Wrecker monstrosity and a nyss hunter in the way of Bronzeback to get to Exulon with perhaps two beat-backs against the objective.
My plan was thus: Willbreaker casts Puppet Master on Archidon, who gets enraged and charges the Wrecker, causes a critical pitch and throws the monstrosity away. With the remaining Fury it should be able to kill the nyss. Bronzeback gets Train Wreck from Mordikaar.
Well. First attack made by Archidon fails completely even with Puppet Master re-roll. No critical pitch for me. Extra attack and attack roll boost scores exactly what I need, and an enraged throw carries far. Perhaps full 3" backwards would have ruined everything, but that didn't come to be.
However, the last attack without a boost didn't hit the Nyss Hunter, so Bronzeback was forced to trample through and buy two attacks to get to Exulon. Would Bronzeback be able to kill the DEF 14 ARM 14 warcaster with P+S 19 and three Furies?
Yes, this time it was. First attack without a boost hit and dealt enough damage for Bronzeback to instant kill Exulon with an additional attack. So Bronzeback bought one more attack and boosted attack roll.
Yay. I didn't have to regret for "not playing the clock", though I would have deserved to lose because of that "whoops where's my feat? Three activations back, it seems!"
So. That was it. Two honest victories, one bye and three losses. I guess that's statistically better result than what I was aiming for, as I wanted two victories and four losses. With lists like these hoping for anything better would only cause depression, anxiety and hair loss. However I liked the ADR system very much. Being able to kick out the Krea (what's happening?!) most of the time from my lists was a big boon.
First I was against Cryx, and I really wanted to play at least one game with Lord Tyrant Hexeris.
Opponent had:
Goreshade the Cursed
Heresy of Shadows tier 2
- Kraken
Maximum unit of Bane Knights
2x Maximum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
2x Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Scrap Thralls
So... that must have been the greatest number of Banes I've personally played against.
I tinkered my list into:
Lord Tyrant Hexeris
- Bronzeback Titan
- Archidon
- 2x Basilisk Drake
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Venator Reivers + Unit Attachment + a rat (looking at the pictures I noticed Flayer Cannon range finder has sneaked in!)
Maximum unit of Beast Handlers
Tyrant Commander & Standard Bearer
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Gatorman Witch Doctor
Orin Midwinter
Scenario was Incursion, and Cryx started game. No surprises from Skorne side - Death March was on Praetorian Swordsmen and Soul Slave on Archidon. Witch Doctor had cast Zombify on... somewhere. Cryx had Phantom Hunter on Kraken, Occultation on Bane Knights and Sudden Death on Bane Lord Tartarus.
Cryx turn 2 was depressing. Even if I own a Kraken myself, that 16" range caught me by surprise. I lost both Gatorman Witch Doctor and Orin Midwinter to just one blast. Well... Orin wasn't so important, but the loss of Zombify really hurt my game. Other than that the Banes were just advancing cautiously, bringing themselves to barely contest the flags.
As pretty much everything had Stealth (and for some reason I didn't remember to put Extoller Soulward on my specialists...) and Kraken was guarded by one Necrotech, I wanted to get at least some mileage out of Venator Reivers. So they used minifeat and shot the Necrotech. Last remaining Venators made a combined shot against the colossal. Kraken had blocked my LOS to the other Necrotech, so seven points were a bit wasted there.
Hexeris probably shot Obliteration and killed a bane thrall.
Cryx turn 3 I suffered far less casualties than I was expecting. But on the other hand Goreshade was holding back. A minimum number of various Banes charged my lines and others tried to remain a safe distance away. I guess they were afraid of Hexeris' feat, and rightly so... And I wonder if I should have used feat anyway. I just wasn't sure if Goreshade's feat created new banes or if it brought back destroyed ones. Turns out it was the latter, so perhaps I should have used feat. That would have been four Bane Knights and about seven Bane Thralls that wouldn't be coming back. But greedy as I was, I wanted more. I wanted them all.
And from there the game degraded into Banes multiplying themselves with Praetorian Swordsmen, Basilisks and Tyrant commanders. Hexeris' feat, while not too bad, just did not remove enough banes to severely hamper their advance. That's painful to write. Hexeris' feat was not enough to remove banes to seriously injure them. Of course there was unnecessarily many tough rolls being made and the new realization that if you kill the bane unit leader and it gets promoted to somewhere else in the unit, the newly promoted unit leader will not be able to make attacks if you later kill it for your feat.
Any and all hope was lost when yet again I was too greedy - I wanted enraged Archidon to charge Kraken and kill Tartarus, who was in the middle of my army. Looked like I'd get Tartarus within Archidon's melee range, but no.
Only the leftmost flag was kind of secured for me, so once it looked like I'd lose the game I started to score scenario points at least for possible tie breakers later in the tournament. Hexeris was there in the middle of action, beat backing Banes and whatnot off from within 4" of the flag. Basilisk Drake scored three points before Skorne finally succumbed to the swarm of banes.
Game 2:
Last game was a second time ever match versus Cephalyx. Since Forward Kommander doesn't have the Exulon tier available for construction, the list may have some inaccuracies.
Opponent had:
Exulon Thexus
Tier level over 9000
- Wrecker
Maximum unit of Nyss Hunters + Dominator
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt + Dominator
2x Maximum unit of Mind Bender & Drudges
2x Minimum unit of Mind Slaver & Drudges (in ambush)
+ possibly two Agitators?
Hexeris was pretty much out of the question, though his feat could have been quite devastating against such an infantry horde. But such a feat in a horde like that could very well ve devastating for my deathclock, too. Banishing Ward might also be a lifesaver.
So, Mordikaar it would be. And my list was:
Void Seer Mordikaar
- Bronzeback Titan
- Archidon
- Cyclops Shaman
- Basilisk Drake
Maximum unit of Beast Handlers
Maximum unit of Cataphract Cetrati
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Gatorman Witch Doctor
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Void Spirit
Scenario was Recon, and looks like Cephalyx started the game. First of all I was terrified about the number of models opponent had. For some crowd control I swapped Basilisk Krea for Basilisk Drake, but I silently wondered if that'd be enough.
Hollow was on Praetorian Swordsmen and Banishing Ward on Cetrati. Witch Doctor was zombifying Cetrati also.
Turn 2 Cephalyx spilled over far worse than the banes of last game. There weren't any real casualties for me. Only the Nyss were shooting a bit, but Mordikaar doesn't care too much for dead Praetorians. So I would be able to make the alpha strike! Against a meatwall, sure, but alpha strike nonetheless! And after that I would be in a fairly defendable position thanks to Mordikaar's feat.
Void Spirit tried to go and eat the unit leader of rightmost Slaver unit. I don't remember what came out of it. Cetrati took Shield Wall and killed, what, one drudge grunt and one nyss? Cyclops Shaman stared down a drudge grunt, and Gatorman Witch Doctor zombified Cetrati again. That was all I'd be able to do on right.
Bronzeback probably went and destroyed one nyss hunter and beat backed to a safer position.
Mordikaar activates, casts Revive, possibly two, a Ghost Walk on Praetorian Swordsmen and finally casts Banishing Ward on himself. There were so many magical sprays that I thought it might be worth it.
Then Ghost Walked Swordsmen charge all over the place aaaand see what's missing? The feat. The goddamn +3 def feat that was the reason I left Mordikaar with only one Fury left for transfers. Why? Whyyyy?
Once I realise I forgot to use feat I try to form some sort of meatwall for Mordikaar, but there's mostly just Archidon for that job.
Then it's turn 3 for the Cephalyx after my pro play.
Exulon Thexus advances and uses his feat and messes every formation up, and removes all the Nyss Hunters from melee. Then he casts two Hex Blasts on my objective, and a boosted blast damage roll to Mordikaar was astonishing. More rolls like this and it all would be over very soon with minimal pain.
Then Nyss activate and advance to get line of sight to Mordikaar. Bronzeback manages to counter charge one of them and tie one Nyss to melee, and hopefully block Line of Sight for others. Nope, they all got Line of Sight easily enough.
Damage rolls weren't that great, though, and Mordikaar survives.
Then the POW 12 sprays start pouring in. Every Cephalyx with a spray and their dogs advanced forward and sprayed either the Archidon or my objective - all of them catching Mordikaar under easily. About half of the sprays hit, and the grand total is that Mordikaar is left with only one Fury and one hit box. But finally... finally it was the last Cephalyx spray to activate. Mordikaar was saved. Even the objective survived with, what, two damage boxes or something.
And then Aiyana & Holt & Cephalyx Dominator activate... Oh come on! How many of these guy are in the list? I didn't know it then, but Cephalyx Dominator doesn't have a spray attack. So, in fact, it was the miracle of my objective not getting destroyed that made it possible for Mordikaar to survive. Of course I wasn't aware what else opponent would be able to throw at me, but first Holt needed to shoot the objective out of the way, and then Mordikaar twice some how. But even the first attack didn't destroy objective, only the second one did. Arcane wonder.
Then last drudges and whatnots activate, and opponent ends his gigantic turn with a bit less than half a minute on his clock.
So it was a matter of principle for me next. After such an extraordinary survival from almost certain doom it would have been easy for me to run as far with Mordikaar as possible, and win next turn on clock. But I have always complained everywhere how much I hate either winning or losing with the clock, and clock is good only for keeping tournament schedule going forward in a good pace. The actual situation on the board, however, was far from a victory for me.
Perhaps the inner WAAC demon would have been stronger if I had been with five victories and zero defeats then at the final table. But I chose to play as if there was no clock, and try to assassinate Exulon instead.
There was the Wrecker monstrosity and a nyss hunter in the way of Bronzeback to get to Exulon with perhaps two beat-backs against the objective.
My plan was thus: Willbreaker casts Puppet Master on Archidon, who gets enraged and charges the Wrecker, causes a critical pitch and throws the monstrosity away. With the remaining Fury it should be able to kill the nyss. Bronzeback gets Train Wreck from Mordikaar.
Well. First attack made by Archidon fails completely even with Puppet Master re-roll. No critical pitch for me. Extra attack and attack roll boost scores exactly what I need, and an enraged throw carries far. Perhaps full 3" backwards would have ruined everything, but that didn't come to be.
However, the last attack without a boost didn't hit the Nyss Hunter, so Bronzeback was forced to trample through and buy two attacks to get to Exulon. Would Bronzeback be able to kill the DEF 14 ARM 14 warcaster with P+S 19 and three Furies?
Yes, this time it was. First attack without a boost hit and dealt enough damage for Bronzeback to instant kill Exulon with an additional attack. So Bronzeback bought one more attack and boosted attack roll.
Yay. I didn't have to regret for "not playing the clock", though I would have deserved to lose because of that "whoops where's my feat? Three activations back, it seems!"
So. That was it. Two honest victories, one bye and three losses. I guess that's statistically better result than what I was aiming for, as I wanted two victories and four losses. With lists like these hoping for anything better would only cause depression, anxiety and hair loss. However I liked the ADR system very much. Being able to kick out the Krea (what's happening?!) most of the time from my lists was a big boon.
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Too Many Stockpiles to Eat
These are last two games of Dead of Winter that were played in Vaasa.
They're first Dead of Winter games that had some other mission goal than "We must get more samples".
First we played "Stockpile" medium length mission.
I had "Justice" secret objective, where all the betrayers (if any) need to be exiled for me to win the game. Since there was such a horrible amount of zombies at the colony, I picked Mike Cho (I think) the ninja, and Sparky the stunt dog for my following.
Another players had the doctor and the nurse, and another one had the pilot and the mayor.
A couple of first turns seemed to go fairly well. Doctor was bitten while travelling, but some casualties are to be expected. Nurse started looting the hospital, and Sparky ran here and there and everywhere, being the only member of the colony that actually brought stuff to stockpile!
But then there was Mike Cho. He had been killing one to two zombies per turn, which is fine for a ninja. Then I made the mistake of ordering Mike to clean up waste in colony. Ninjas don't do that. Mike got angry and totally flipped out. "Please, Mike... clean up some waste from the colony" translated into "waste the colony" in the mind of a ninja. He found a living baby at a dumpster, and killed it. Then he killed the mayor, and afterwards he was still so angry that he killed himself.
At least that's how I saw it. In truth there was some drama because of the baby in the dumpster, and baby cried five zombies to colony when it could accommodate only three.
Though some survivors were found from non-colony locations, the survivors had their hands full just trying to survive. Somehow we managed to run out of zombie standees, and in fact all zombie spots were full at one point. Well, two had a barricade. In our defence we did manage to get all required items to stockpile, and a couple of barricades. But we needed more barricades, and at least eight or nine food tokens for the colony when the turn counter fell to zero.
We had one betrayer, though, but it was difficult to accomplish. It was the cult thingy, where betrayer following needed to have at least two more survivors than any other survivor group. But once the mayor (the cult leader) had died during the ninja incident, the head of the cult had been cut down and mantle was never transfered to anybody else.
Game 2:
Since it's boring to stop playing after such a terrible defeat, we played one more game with "Too many mouths" mission goal. With three players it has a whopping six helpless survivors at the colony right from the beginning. Goal was just to survive for five rounds.
My secret objective was "loner", and my starting survivors were Bev (the mother who kills zombies with ease once there's a helpless survivor at the colony), and the police dispatcher that was good at searching through police station. Other survivors of note were the doctor and Andrew Evans, the farmer guy.
Thanks to the farmer (who was adept at scavenging the grocery store) our colony was well fed, but we failed at solving many of the crises. Honourable mention goes to the "defend the innocents" mother, who made a gruesome example of one of the helpless survivors when they attempted to raid the food supply.
The mother became quite a "dps tank" when she also found a shotgun. That was four dead zombies per round with two dice and no exposure roll. Zombies really didn't pose much of a threat until we failed at a crisis that spawned ten of them at the colony. By then we had also found two sniper rifles from police department... getting rid of the dead was so easy that it felt like a tiresome chore to perform, not a desperate struggle...
Despite such a good start it wasn't an easy game. We ran out of fuel two times in a row in crises that required it. First we lost two morale, then we lost one morale and weren't able to perform move actions. If those were not enough, during same round two characters moved around, and both were bitten. And that's 1/12 chance. Oh well. For me it was beneficial since one of them was my police dispatcher, but for the colony this was a harsh blow overall.
Only once team effort was enough to provide a morale boosting extra success at handling a crisis, and this happened while morale was at 1.
Last turn began quite comfortably, all things considered. The colony had enough morale to fail at the next crisis. Only some nasty crossroads encounter might ruin everything any more, and those never came.
Last game all the players, even the betrayer, lost. This time all the players won. I only had the mother with the shotgun and night vision goggles as my following, so "Loner" was a success. We had exactly four barricades at the colony, which was what one of the players needed. Andrew Evans, who had been farming at the grocery store for the whole game, had also been completing the secret objective of having more cards at hand than any other player.
They're first Dead of Winter games that had some other mission goal than "We must get more samples".
First we played "Stockpile" medium length mission.
I had "Justice" secret objective, where all the betrayers (if any) need to be exiled for me to win the game. Since there was such a horrible amount of zombies at the colony, I picked Mike Cho (I think) the ninja, and Sparky the stunt dog for my following.
Another players had the doctor and the nurse, and another one had the pilot and the mayor.
A couple of first turns seemed to go fairly well. Doctor was bitten while travelling, but some casualties are to be expected. Nurse started looting the hospital, and Sparky ran here and there and everywhere, being the only member of the colony that actually brought stuff to stockpile!
But then there was Mike Cho. He had been killing one to two zombies per turn, which is fine for a ninja. Then I made the mistake of ordering Mike to clean up waste in colony. Ninjas don't do that. Mike got angry and totally flipped out. "Please, Mike... clean up some waste from the colony" translated into "waste the colony" in the mind of a ninja. He found a living baby at a dumpster, and killed it. Then he killed the mayor, and afterwards he was still so angry that he killed himself.
At least that's how I saw it. In truth there was some drama because of the baby in the dumpster, and baby cried five zombies to colony when it could accommodate only three.
Though some survivors were found from non-colony locations, the survivors had their hands full just trying to survive. Somehow we managed to run out of zombie standees, and in fact all zombie spots were full at one point. Well, two had a barricade. In our defence we did manage to get all required items to stockpile, and a couple of barricades. But we needed more barricades, and at least eight or nine food tokens for the colony when the turn counter fell to zero.
We had one betrayer, though, but it was difficult to accomplish. It was the cult thingy, where betrayer following needed to have at least two more survivors than any other survivor group. But once the mayor (the cult leader) had died during the ninja incident, the head of the cult had been cut down and mantle was never transfered to anybody else.
Game 2:
Since it's boring to stop playing after such a terrible defeat, we played one more game with "Too many mouths" mission goal. With three players it has a whopping six helpless survivors at the colony right from the beginning. Goal was just to survive for five rounds.
My secret objective was "loner", and my starting survivors were Bev (the mother who kills zombies with ease once there's a helpless survivor at the colony), and the police dispatcher that was good at searching through police station. Other survivors of note were the doctor and Andrew Evans, the farmer guy.
Thanks to the farmer (who was adept at scavenging the grocery store) our colony was well fed, but we failed at solving many of the crises. Honourable mention goes to the "defend the innocents" mother, who made a gruesome example of one of the helpless survivors when they attempted to raid the food supply.
The mother became quite a "dps tank" when she also found a shotgun. That was four dead zombies per round with two dice and no exposure roll. Zombies really didn't pose much of a threat until we failed at a crisis that spawned ten of them at the colony. By then we had also found two sniper rifles from police department... getting rid of the dead was so easy that it felt like a tiresome chore to perform, not a desperate struggle...
Despite such a good start it wasn't an easy game. We ran out of fuel two times in a row in crises that required it. First we lost two morale, then we lost one morale and weren't able to perform move actions. If those were not enough, during same round two characters moved around, and both were bitten. And that's 1/12 chance. Oh well. For me it was beneficial since one of them was my police dispatcher, but for the colony this was a harsh blow overall.
Only once team effort was enough to provide a morale boosting extra success at handling a crisis, and this happened while morale was at 1.
Last turn began quite comfortably, all things considered. The colony had enough morale to fail at the next crisis. Only some nasty crossroads encounter might ruin everything any more, and those never came.
Last game all the players, even the betrayer, lost. This time all the players won. I only had the mother with the shotgun and night vision goggles as my following, so "Loner" was a success. We had exactly four barricades at the colony, which was what one of the players needed. Andrew Evans, who had been farming at the grocery store for the whole game, had also been completing the secret objective of having more cards at hand than any other player.
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Ice Cream Now In Swamp Flavor
While visiting friends at Vaasa, we played a three player game of Small World.
The game had two new mini expansions, Royal Bonus and The Spider's Web.
New powers, races and their combos had impact in the game right from the start. First picks were Were-Giants, Flying Goblins and Lava Elves.
Lava Elves were rather annoying, because the lava makes conquering regions easy for elves. With a good declined race that would probably be quite devastating. Flying Goblins tried to fight the Giants a little so that they wouldn't spread all over the map uncontested, but that just didn't work out. Two giant tokens were removed before it was the second (even) game turn. So the giants conquered everything nonetheless, and goblins were pretty much crippled because of the onslaught.
First great decline wave was Lava Elves into Hordes of Tritons, Were-Giants into Fireball Barbarians and Flying Goblins into Behemoth Ice Witches. Were-giants and Fireball barbarians seemed to be dominating the game, though Behemoth Ice Witches tried their best to both kill active race tokens and reduce points gained from decline races. Though that race combo wasn't bad, they were suffering from the failures of goblins.
Hordes of Tritons were demolished by the barbarians, and winter tokens were reducing points gained from elves. Soon enough Tritons were deemed unworthy of an empire, and lo, one of the more terrifying combos emerged. Seafaring Shrubmen. With a little planning they would easily be able to conquer spots that'd be completely immune to enemy attacks. Suddenly the onslaught of barbarians didn't seem so threatening, after all.
As was the case with Were-giants, Fireball Barbarians quickly dominated a maximum number of regions. They entered decline, and new race pick was Ransacking Slingmen.
At this point it looked like it was a duel between Slingmen and Shrubmen for the victory. Goblins and ice witches had been getting so few points throughout the whole game, that their only option seemed to end it all with a bang. For the very last turn of the game Ice Witches entered decline and picked Underworld Pixies, who devastated great batches of land. But not enough. Far from it.
Final scoreboard:
Were-Giants/Fireball Barbarians/Ransacking Slingmen: 83
Lava Elves/Hordes of Tritons/Seafaring Shrubmen: 77
Flying Goblins/Behemoth Ice Witches/Underworld Pixies: 66
The game had two new mini expansions, Royal Bonus and The Spider's Web.
New powers, races and their combos had impact in the game right from the start. First picks were Were-Giants, Flying Goblins and Lava Elves.
Lava Elves were rather annoying, because the lava makes conquering regions easy for elves. With a good declined race that would probably be quite devastating. Flying Goblins tried to fight the Giants a little so that they wouldn't spread all over the map uncontested, but that just didn't work out. Two giant tokens were removed before it was the second (even) game turn. So the giants conquered everything nonetheless, and goblins were pretty much crippled because of the onslaught.
First great decline wave was Lava Elves into Hordes of Tritons, Were-Giants into Fireball Barbarians and Flying Goblins into Behemoth Ice Witches. Were-giants and Fireball barbarians seemed to be dominating the game, though Behemoth Ice Witches tried their best to both kill active race tokens and reduce points gained from decline races. Though that race combo wasn't bad, they were suffering from the failures of goblins.
Hordes of Tritons were demolished by the barbarians, and winter tokens were reducing points gained from elves. Soon enough Tritons were deemed unworthy of an empire, and lo, one of the more terrifying combos emerged. Seafaring Shrubmen. With a little planning they would easily be able to conquer spots that'd be completely immune to enemy attacks. Suddenly the onslaught of barbarians didn't seem so threatening, after all.
As was the case with Were-giants, Fireball Barbarians quickly dominated a maximum number of regions. They entered decline, and new race pick was Ransacking Slingmen.
At this point it looked like it was a duel between Slingmen and Shrubmen for the victory. Goblins and ice witches had been getting so few points throughout the whole game, that their only option seemed to end it all with a bang. For the very last turn of the game Ice Witches entered decline and picked Underworld Pixies, who devastated great batches of land. But not enough. Far from it.
Final scoreboard:
Were-Giants/Fireball Barbarians/Ransacking Slingmen: 83
Lava Elves/Hordes of Tritons/Seafaring Shrubmen: 77
Flying Goblins/Behemoth Ice Witches/Underworld Pixies: 66
Winter Opening
I visited some friends in Vaasa, and I brought a couple of board games with me. They were Dead of Winter and Small World.
We had three players for Dead of Winter. Mission for the first game was the usual "We need more samples". I had Gray Beard the Pirate and Meyers, the Psychologist, as my starting team. My personal victory condition was to equip at least four gun cards for my survivors, and drop morale to 0. Yes, I was the betrayer.
Gray Beard was terrible at searching, and psychologist was rather a bad fighter. He was a lot better at searching for stuff, so I sent psychologist to police station to gear up, and the pirate was left at the colony. He was ordered to clean the junk there, and that took a heavy toll on his dignity. First failed crisis was "Shaking things up", which made everyone to give one of their survivors for the player on right (or left?). Gray Beard the Pirate would not tolerate such insulting activities, and he deserted my betrayer party.
I got the sheriff guy with the baseball bat in his place.
The psychologist found a sniper rifle and night vision goggles at the police station, and sheriff got a cigarette lighter. That was already half of the guns I needed, so I started to consider the best possible and least suspicious was to lower morale. I tried to not contribute many cards for crisises, but suddenly another player made lowering of morale easy for me. Some kind of firefighter entered police station when there was already my psychologist and three zombies, plus a noise token. Fire fighter died to spawning zombies, and psychologist died to a zombie attracted to the place by the noise token.
Uh oh. Yeah, the morale took a dangerous dive, but now my survivors had the cigarette lighter as the only equipped gun...
Sheriff found a chemist at the gas station, who went to search for the body of psychologist at the police station. Turns and turns of frentic searching and polite asking of a gun from another player finally got me enough guns for my victory condition. However, there was something like eight samples already, so game might end very soon. Morale was at two when ninth sample was acquired, so before survivors checked for main objective, I needed to make the morale drop.
It seemed unlikely, though we did have a crisis we most likely wouldn't be able to handle.
But then suddenly a hope appears. My survivors rescue a truck driver, who moves to police station right away. He had lower influence than the chemist, so in case of additional zombies he would die first. There were three zombies at the police station, and now two survivors. Unless other players might somehow kill a zombie from police station, morale would drop for exactly two.
And that's what happened.
Crisis lowered morale, and suddenly a wild truck driver appears, who's only purpose was to go and die miserably.
I was the only betrayer. Game ending was very trigger happy.
We had three players for Dead of Winter. Mission for the first game was the usual "We need more samples". I had Gray Beard the Pirate and Meyers, the Psychologist, as my starting team. My personal victory condition was to equip at least four gun cards for my survivors, and drop morale to 0. Yes, I was the betrayer.
Gray Beard was terrible at searching, and psychologist was rather a bad fighter. He was a lot better at searching for stuff, so I sent psychologist to police station to gear up, and the pirate was left at the colony. He was ordered to clean the junk there, and that took a heavy toll on his dignity. First failed crisis was "Shaking things up", which made everyone to give one of their survivors for the player on right (or left?). Gray Beard the Pirate would not tolerate such insulting activities, and he deserted my betrayer party.
I got the sheriff guy with the baseball bat in his place.
The psychologist found a sniper rifle and night vision goggles at the police station, and sheriff got a cigarette lighter. That was already half of the guns I needed, so I started to consider the best possible and least suspicious was to lower morale. I tried to not contribute many cards for crisises, but suddenly another player made lowering of morale easy for me. Some kind of firefighter entered police station when there was already my psychologist and three zombies, plus a noise token. Fire fighter died to spawning zombies, and psychologist died to a zombie attracted to the place by the noise token.
Uh oh. Yeah, the morale took a dangerous dive, but now my survivors had the cigarette lighter as the only equipped gun...
Sheriff found a chemist at the gas station, who went to search for the body of psychologist at the police station. Turns and turns of frentic searching and polite asking of a gun from another player finally got me enough guns for my victory condition. However, there was something like eight samples already, so game might end very soon. Morale was at two when ninth sample was acquired, so before survivors checked for main objective, I needed to make the morale drop.
It seemed unlikely, though we did have a crisis we most likely wouldn't be able to handle.
But then suddenly a hope appears. My survivors rescue a truck driver, who moves to police station right away. He had lower influence than the chemist, so in case of additional zombies he would die first. There were three zombies at the police station, and now two survivors. Unless other players might somehow kill a zombie from police station, morale would drop for exactly two.
And that's what happened.
Crisis lowered morale, and suddenly a wild truck driver appears, who's only purpose was to go and die miserably.
I was the only betrayer. Game ending was very trigger happy.
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Enter Venators - Venators have left the building
Last Thursday I got to play a 50 point Warmachine game.
This time around I played with my other tournament list, which with a little tinkering with specialists looked like this:
Lord Tyrant Hexeris
- Archidon
- Bronzeback Titan
- Basilisk Drake
- Basilisk Krea
Maximum unit of Beast Handlers
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Tyrant Commander & Standard Bearer
Minimum unit of Venator Reivers + Unit Attachment
Agonizer
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Aptimus Marketh
Gatorman Witch Doctor
Opponent had:
High Executioner Reznik
- Reckoner
- Vanquisher
- Avatar of Menoth
Minimum unit of Choir of Menoth
Maximum unit of Exemplar Bastions
Maximum unit of Temple Flameguard + Unit Attachment
Hierophant
Reclaimer
2x Vassal of Menoth
Wracks
Scenario was Two Fronts, and Skorne started the game. First picture is from the end of Protectorate turn 1.
Iron Aggression is on Reckoner, and Ignite on Temple Flameguard. Skorne had Soul Slave on Archidon and Death March on Praetorian Swordsmen.
Turn 2 my newly acquired Venator Reivers advance and use their minifeat to add +4" range for their attacks. I wanted to take out Hierophant, and possibly tickle Bastions a little before moving back with Reform. But the curse of unfinished models must be true. First three venator CRA missed Hierophant with double ones. Second three man CRA hit, but dealt only something like three damage boxes. Wow. Such performance.
Other than that, Witch Doctor gave Zombify to Praetorian Swordsmen and Tyrant Commander gave them pathfinder. Then Praetorians ran, so a couple of them would engage Temple Flameguard and most probably trigger Vengeance. Bronzeback ran a little, and took concealment from the forest.
There seems to be a full round in between the pictures. Protectorate, however, mostly just advanced during their turn 2. Vanquisher shot a its towards Venators, but was out of range. Two tries (another from Ancillary attack) scored one perfect deviation, which caused the death of three Venators. Bastions charged objective and ran forwards. At least the objective didn't get destroyed right away.
Reznik shoots a Hex Blast to Venators' general direction, and just look at that. A whole unit of Venators didn't get to kill anybody, and got wiped by just a couple of attacks. Well... now I'm being unfair. Whole unit didn't die. The standard bearer survived.
Turn 3 seemed like it was the best timing for Hexeris' feat. Avatar had advanced so that I was wagering that Bronzeback might be able to get to Avatar, if it managed to charge a Temple Flameguard member and beat back to Avatar. So that's what I tried. But the concealment I took from the forest proved to be Bronzeback's downfall. Footslogging in the forest was enough to make the charge fail. Well played.
Witch Doctor gave Zombify to Swordsmen again, and Tyrant Commander gave Pathfinder for them. Then the tyrant charged Avatar and hoped for a good enough damage roll.
Basilisk Drake attempted to put some pressure to the leftern flank I was losing hard. The two damage rolls it got to make against Bastions were really good. First one scored something really absurd, and second attack would have killed a second Bastion also if it was not for their special rules of having the choice to divide damage. Oh my. I forgot to make feat move with the dead Bastion. I doubt it would have changed anything, though.
Swordsmen then use their minifeat and butcher a whole bunch of Temple Flameguards, who in turn transformed into zombies. It was okayish feat I guess, though it ate a lot of time from my clock.
Then there was operation "Save the Bronzeback". Enraged Archidon charged Avatar and hoped for some good damage rolls. Damage rolls were terrible, but scored a Critical Pitch. Archidon threw Avatar away, and managed to land it on a spot that made a charge to Bronzeback difficult at least for as long as Archidon was alive. If Avatar rolled only two focus, there might still be a game for me. Maybe. Possibly.
Agonizer cried for no arcnodes and no focus allocation, and ran forwards.
Turn 3 Avatar didn't roll two focus. It rolled four. So it removed Archidon with ease, and even had focus to activate Menoth's Gaze. Vanquisher set Agonizer, Bronzeback and Tyrant Commander on fire. The attack dealt seven points of damage to the Agonizer, which was somehow fitting. Tormented baby titan crying from unimaginable pain - what could be worse? A tormented baby titan on fire crying from unimaginable pain.
Bastions somehow manage to fail both at destroying the objective and killing the Venator standard bearer. Maybe this was a message for me - don't trust shooting. Only do melee.
But then Reznik charged the objective dead and cast Hex Blast on the Bastion that failed to kill the Venator. Attack hit and boosted blast damage killed the Venator. He wasn't a hero, after all.
Though situation on the right wasn't that bad, Protectorate scored three scenario points from this maneuver.
Turn 4 I followed my dreams and lived life to the fullest, not listening to the shallow expectations of society. In another words... I screwed up. I was so fixated on getting Bronzeback to Avatar and smash the holy vessel to smithereens that I noticed a little bit too late that I wouldn't be able to get anyone to contest my friendly zone. At the start of the turn I made a quick inventory of the situation - Beast Handlers, Basilisk Drake (provided it could get away from melee somehow) and Basilisk Krea all would be able to enter the zone. So no problems there. None at all.
Then Beast Handlers activate, and enrage Krea and Bronzeback. So much for running to contest. Praetorian Swordsmen continue to harvest Flameguards, and they punch some holes into Reckoner. Nothing fancy.
Tyrant Commander strikes a Flameguard dead, and then Bronzeback activates, destroys the objective and Avatar despite some lousy attack rolls. Whee. I succeeded. Now, let's get back to the more pressing matters at my friendly zone...
Well.
There was nobody to dislodge Drake from melee.
Krea had been enraged, so it couldn't run. It had to charge.
Protectorate went to five control points.
Obviously I dedicated way too few models to contest the zone. Of course it didn't help that the Vanquisher killed most of the unit in one activation. But with more modest casualties there on turn 2 perhaps I could have delayed the inevitable loss of the zone with one turn, or something. Who knows. Badly deployed and badly played. Hopefully I'll do a little better this weekend.
This time around I played with my other tournament list, which with a little tinkering with specialists looked like this:
Lord Tyrant Hexeris
- Archidon
- Bronzeback Titan
- Basilisk Drake
- Basilisk Krea
Maximum unit of Beast Handlers
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Tyrant Commander & Standard Bearer
Minimum unit of Venator Reivers + Unit Attachment
Agonizer
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Aptimus Marketh
Gatorman Witch Doctor
Opponent had:
High Executioner Reznik
- Vanquisher
- Avatar of Menoth
Minimum unit of Choir of Menoth
Maximum unit of Exemplar Bastions
Maximum unit of Temple Flameguard + Unit Attachment
Hierophant
Reclaimer
2x Vassal of Menoth
Wracks
Scenario was Two Fronts, and Skorne started the game. First picture is from the end of Protectorate turn 1.
Iron Aggression is on Reckoner, and Ignite on Temple Flameguard. Skorne had Soul Slave on Archidon and Death March on Praetorian Swordsmen.
Turn 2 my newly acquired Venator Reivers advance and use their minifeat to add +4" range for their attacks. I wanted to take out Hierophant, and possibly tickle Bastions a little before moving back with Reform. But the curse of unfinished models must be true. First three venator CRA missed Hierophant with double ones. Second three man CRA hit, but dealt only something like three damage boxes. Wow. Such performance.
Other than that, Witch Doctor gave Zombify to Praetorian Swordsmen and Tyrant Commander gave them pathfinder. Then Praetorians ran, so a couple of them would engage Temple Flameguard and most probably trigger Vengeance. Bronzeback ran a little, and took concealment from the forest.
There seems to be a full round in between the pictures. Protectorate, however, mostly just advanced during their turn 2. Vanquisher shot a its towards Venators, but was out of range. Two tries (another from Ancillary attack) scored one perfect deviation, which caused the death of three Venators. Bastions charged objective and ran forwards. At least the objective didn't get destroyed right away.
Reznik shoots a Hex Blast to Venators' general direction, and just look at that. A whole unit of Venators didn't get to kill anybody, and got wiped by just a couple of attacks. Well... now I'm being unfair. Whole unit didn't die. The standard bearer survived.
Turn 3 seemed like it was the best timing for Hexeris' feat. Avatar had advanced so that I was wagering that Bronzeback might be able to get to Avatar, if it managed to charge a Temple Flameguard member and beat back to Avatar. So that's what I tried. But the concealment I took from the forest proved to be Bronzeback's downfall. Footslogging in the forest was enough to make the charge fail. Well played.
Witch Doctor gave Zombify to Swordsmen again, and Tyrant Commander gave Pathfinder for them. Then the tyrant charged Avatar and hoped for a good enough damage roll.
Basilisk Drake attempted to put some pressure to the leftern flank I was losing hard. The two damage rolls it got to make against Bastions were really good. First one scored something really absurd, and second attack would have killed a second Bastion also if it was not for their special rules of having the choice to divide damage. Oh my. I forgot to make feat move with the dead Bastion. I doubt it would have changed anything, though.
Swordsmen then use their minifeat and butcher a whole bunch of Temple Flameguards, who in turn transformed into zombies. It was okayish feat I guess, though it ate a lot of time from my clock.
Then there was operation "Save the Bronzeback". Enraged Archidon charged Avatar and hoped for some good damage rolls. Damage rolls were terrible, but scored a Critical Pitch. Archidon threw Avatar away, and managed to land it on a spot that made a charge to Bronzeback difficult at least for as long as Archidon was alive. If Avatar rolled only two focus, there might still be a game for me. Maybe. Possibly.
Agonizer cried for no arcnodes and no focus allocation, and ran forwards.
Turn 3 Avatar didn't roll two focus. It rolled four. So it removed Archidon with ease, and even had focus to activate Menoth's Gaze. Vanquisher set Agonizer, Bronzeback and Tyrant Commander on fire. The attack dealt seven points of damage to the Agonizer, which was somehow fitting. Tormented baby titan crying from unimaginable pain - what could be worse? A tormented baby titan on fire crying from unimaginable pain.
Bastions somehow manage to fail both at destroying the objective and killing the Venator standard bearer. Maybe this was a message for me - don't trust shooting. Only do melee.
But then Reznik charged the objective dead and cast Hex Blast on the Bastion that failed to kill the Venator. Attack hit and boosted blast damage killed the Venator. He wasn't a hero, after all.
Though situation on the right wasn't that bad, Protectorate scored three scenario points from this maneuver.
Turn 4 I followed my dreams and lived life to the fullest, not listening to the shallow expectations of society. In another words... I screwed up. I was so fixated on getting Bronzeback to Avatar and smash the holy vessel to smithereens that I noticed a little bit too late that I wouldn't be able to get anyone to contest my friendly zone. At the start of the turn I made a quick inventory of the situation - Beast Handlers, Basilisk Drake (provided it could get away from melee somehow) and Basilisk Krea all would be able to enter the zone. So no problems there. None at all.
Then Beast Handlers activate, and enrage Krea and Bronzeback. So much for running to contest. Praetorian Swordsmen continue to harvest Flameguards, and they punch some holes into Reckoner. Nothing fancy.
Tyrant Commander strikes a Flameguard dead, and then Bronzeback activates, destroys the objective and Avatar despite some lousy attack rolls. Whee. I succeeded. Now, let's get back to the more pressing matters at my friendly zone...
Well.
There was nobody to dislodge Drake from melee.
Krea had been enraged, so it couldn't run. It had to charge.
Protectorate went to five control points.
Obviously I dedicated way too few models to contest the zone. Of course it didn't help that the Vanquisher killed most of the unit in one activation. But with more modest casualties there on turn 2 perhaps I could have delayed the inevitable loss of the zone with one turn, or something. Who knows. Badly deployed and badly played. Hopefully I'll do a little better this weekend.
Saturday, June 6, 2015
Big Bully Titan (and nothing else)
Last Tuesday I played a 35 point game of Warmachine. I decided to construct my list only from the models I got in my upcoming tournament lists.
My list was:
Void Seer Mordikaar:
- Bronzeback Titan
- Archidon
- Cyclops Shaman
Minimum unit of Cataphract Cetrati
Minimum unit of Beast Handlers
Minimum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Objective: Arcane Wonder
Opponent had:
Lich Lord Venethrax
- Slayer
Maximum unit of Mechanithralls + Brute Thrall
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls
Maximum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Withershadow Combine
2x Pistol Wraith
Skarlock
Warwitch Siren
Objective: Arcane Wonder
Scenario was Two Fronts and Cryx started game. First picture is from the end of Cryx turn 2. Venethrax had cast Dragon Slayer upon himself, and did not quit upkeeping it during whole game. Mordikaar has cast Hollow on Praetorian Swordsmen and, well... Also Banishing Ward on himself, but that was just a fancy way of dumping Fury away.
Turn 2 looks obviously quite a nice spot for Mordikaar's feat. I also have some fantasies about the minimum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen erasing all Mechanithralls from existence. But first Cyclops Shaman tries to stare down the Brute Thrall. He almost succeeds - only one damage box remaining on the target.
Archidon is enraged by the Beast Handlers, and then it puts its own animus and charges a corporeal Pistol Wraith. It's a miss, so last Fury has to trigger Sprint somehow. Archidon buys an extra attack against a Bane Thrall and hopes it doesn't succeed in a tough roll. But the extra attack is also a miss. Only a re-roll from Willbreaker's Puppet Master saves the situation. I nearly forgot about the ability altogether. With a little better memory I could have probably taken out the Pistol Wraith instead.
Bronzeback puts its own animus on himself and takes a modest start at wrecking things. Bronzeback only advances a little, kills a Mechanithrall and moves backwards with Beat Back movement. Mordikaar advances now, casts Revive to bring back one Swordsman, and then he uses feat to give +3 DEF for the whole army minus one Praetorian Swordsman.
Praetorians charge Mechanithralls, and their attack rolls are a beauty to behold. But some insist that true beauty always needs some imperfection to make the beauty more real. And looks like the Praetorian Swordsmen were true aesthetics, when they killed all but one... ONE Mechanithrall. And I had only the Catapahract Cetrati to activate any more, and of course I had blocked their most obvious charges with my own models.
There was one tiny spot one Cetrati could try to squeeze in (in the picture that's the Cetrati C), but looked like he'd never get within 2" of the Mechanithrall. But Cetrati had taken some advice from various meme owls and cats and whatnots and was like "if i fits i sits", and took down the last Mechanithrall. Phew.
Cryx couldn't do much on turn 3. They killed a couple of Praetorian Swordsmen, and that's it. But that also meant that Venethrax really didn't need to spend much Focus. I think he used one to boost attack roll against a Swordsman, or something. Bane Thralls also engaged everything on my friendly zone and destroyed the objective. Plasma Nimbus took one Bane Thrall with it. Whee.
On my turn I have the options of trying to reduce the Bane Thrall horde and hope I can somehow kite Venethrax for the rest of the game. But I have this personal problem of mine of trying to go for an assassination if I can get at least something like 50% chance of success. So that's what I tried.
I had to remove Warwitch Siren and a Bane Thrall from Bronzeback's way somehow, cast Ghost Walk on the beast and give a charge target for it so that it would get into contact with Venethrax. Cataphract Cetrati succeeded in killing the Siren with a Combined Melee Attack. And since I was going all out for assassination, after that Mordikaar cast Ghost Walk on Bronzeback and Essensce Blast on one of the Cetrati. Spray was targeted at Venethrax, who suffered one damage point.
Praetorian Swordmen offers itself as a charge target for Bronzeback, and Cyclops Shaman takes down the Bane Thrall that was in the way of Bronzeback. Archidon tried to come and wreck Slayer, but got a free strike from a Bane Thrall instead and lost its Body branch. At least it scored a Critical Pitch. Whee.
Then Bronzeback is enraged and given Puppet Master. Bronzeback Charges Praetorian Swordsman officer, and unleashes both initial attacks and five Fury on Venethrax. Dice -5 for damage was a pretty good chance of scoring a caster kill with so many attempts. But to get those "dice -5" damage rolls you actually need to score hits. Even with Puppet Master only one attack hit that I was able to boost for damage, and last attack I couldn't boost to hit or to damage got lucky on its own.
So... finally Bronzeback had some challenge in combat. Finally he was against somebody who could take a little beating with real chances (but not guaranteed) of surviving. This was a true test for the offensive capabilities of Bronzeback Titan. And what does it do? He fails so very miserably. My disappointment was great. Looks like Bronzeback is just a big bully who has become so used to beat little kids and the elderly that once he's against another tough guy like himself, he gets scared and doubtful. Shame on you, Bronzeback. Shame on you.
Turn 4 Bane Thralls beat Archidon and Venethrax beats Bronzeback. All three Bane Thralls who get to attack Cyclops Shaman miss their attack rolls, but other than that it's starting to look rather bad. But perhaps I might still try to play scenario game, if I'd be able to destroy the objective and all the contestors, and run Mordikaar to the enemy zone.
That would have required some rather exceptional rolls. Which I actually got! Oh boy, Cataphract Cetrati and Praetorian Swordsmen were able to clear just about every enemy model from the zone. But that's it. Just about every. Yet again the application of force is perfect, except for the last Praetorian Swordsman who isn't able to kill Necrosurgeon. To make matters worse, he's capable of inflicting damage on her. Some two or one damage boxes remaining.
Turn 5 Venethrax comes to my enemy zone and kills a couple of Cetrati. A bane thrall runs to Mordikaar to engage him, or perhaps he charged and missed. I don't remember. What I do remember that next turn I'm able to kill the Necrosurgeon, bring back the two dead Cetrati with Revive and charge someone with Mordikaar so I get to three control points. As I didn't have Fury to cast Ghost Walk, Mordikaar had to suffer a free strike from Bane Thrall that hit. Damage roll was on the high side and brought Mordikaar to just one hit box remaining, which was rather a bad thing when we consider the fact that all of my warbeasts had already died.
Not that Mordikaar survived Cryx turn 6. Venethrax came to finish him personally in melee. Two Cetrati were not able to block the Lich Lord's advance.
My list was:
Void Seer Mordikaar:
- Bronzeback Titan
- Archidon
- Cyclops Shaman
Minimum unit of Cataphract Cetrati
Minimum unit of Beast Handlers
Minimum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Objective: Arcane Wonder
Opponent had:
Lich Lord Venethrax
- Slayer
Maximum unit of Mechanithralls + Brute Thrall
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls
Maximum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Withershadow Combine
2x Pistol Wraith
Skarlock
Warwitch Siren
Objective: Arcane Wonder
Scenario was Two Fronts and Cryx started game. First picture is from the end of Cryx turn 2. Venethrax had cast Dragon Slayer upon himself, and did not quit upkeeping it during whole game. Mordikaar has cast Hollow on Praetorian Swordsmen and, well... Also Banishing Ward on himself, but that was just a fancy way of dumping Fury away.
Turn 2 looks obviously quite a nice spot for Mordikaar's feat. I also have some fantasies about the minimum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen erasing all Mechanithralls from existence. But first Cyclops Shaman tries to stare down the Brute Thrall. He almost succeeds - only one damage box remaining on the target.
Archidon is enraged by the Beast Handlers, and then it puts its own animus and charges a corporeal Pistol Wraith. It's a miss, so last Fury has to trigger Sprint somehow. Archidon buys an extra attack against a Bane Thrall and hopes it doesn't succeed in a tough roll. But the extra attack is also a miss. Only a re-roll from Willbreaker's Puppet Master saves the situation. I nearly forgot about the ability altogether. With a little better memory I could have probably taken out the Pistol Wraith instead.
Bronzeback puts its own animus on himself and takes a modest start at wrecking things. Bronzeback only advances a little, kills a Mechanithrall and moves backwards with Beat Back movement. Mordikaar advances now, casts Revive to bring back one Swordsman, and then he uses feat to give +3 DEF for the whole army minus one Praetorian Swordsman.
Praetorians charge Mechanithralls, and their attack rolls are a beauty to behold. But some insist that true beauty always needs some imperfection to make the beauty more real. And looks like the Praetorian Swordsmen were true aesthetics, when they killed all but one... ONE Mechanithrall. And I had only the Catapahract Cetrati to activate any more, and of course I had blocked their most obvious charges with my own models.
There was one tiny spot one Cetrati could try to squeeze in (in the picture that's the Cetrati C), but looked like he'd never get within 2" of the Mechanithrall. But Cetrati had taken some advice from various meme owls and cats and whatnots and was like "if i fits i sits", and took down the last Mechanithrall. Phew.
Cryx couldn't do much on turn 3. They killed a couple of Praetorian Swordsmen, and that's it. But that also meant that Venethrax really didn't need to spend much Focus. I think he used one to boost attack roll against a Swordsman, or something. Bane Thralls also engaged everything on my friendly zone and destroyed the objective. Plasma Nimbus took one Bane Thrall with it. Whee.
On my turn I have the options of trying to reduce the Bane Thrall horde and hope I can somehow kite Venethrax for the rest of the game. But I have this personal problem of mine of trying to go for an assassination if I can get at least something like 50% chance of success. So that's what I tried.
I had to remove Warwitch Siren and a Bane Thrall from Bronzeback's way somehow, cast Ghost Walk on the beast and give a charge target for it so that it would get into contact with Venethrax. Cataphract Cetrati succeeded in killing the Siren with a Combined Melee Attack. And since I was going all out for assassination, after that Mordikaar cast Ghost Walk on Bronzeback and Essensce Blast on one of the Cetrati. Spray was targeted at Venethrax, who suffered one damage point.
Praetorian Swordmen offers itself as a charge target for Bronzeback, and Cyclops Shaman takes down the Bane Thrall that was in the way of Bronzeback. Archidon tried to come and wreck Slayer, but got a free strike from a Bane Thrall instead and lost its Body branch. At least it scored a Critical Pitch. Whee.
Then Bronzeback is enraged and given Puppet Master. Bronzeback Charges Praetorian Swordsman officer, and unleashes both initial attacks and five Fury on Venethrax. Dice -5 for damage was a pretty good chance of scoring a caster kill with so many attempts. But to get those "dice -5" damage rolls you actually need to score hits. Even with Puppet Master only one attack hit that I was able to boost for damage, and last attack I couldn't boost to hit or to damage got lucky on its own.
So... finally Bronzeback had some challenge in combat. Finally he was against somebody who could take a little beating with real chances (but not guaranteed) of surviving. This was a true test for the offensive capabilities of Bronzeback Titan. And what does it do? He fails so very miserably. My disappointment was great. Looks like Bronzeback is just a big bully who has become so used to beat little kids and the elderly that once he's against another tough guy like himself, he gets scared and doubtful. Shame on you, Bronzeback. Shame on you.
Turn 4 Bane Thralls beat Archidon and Venethrax beats Bronzeback. All three Bane Thralls who get to attack Cyclops Shaman miss their attack rolls, but other than that it's starting to look rather bad. But perhaps I might still try to play scenario game, if I'd be able to destroy the objective and all the contestors, and run Mordikaar to the enemy zone.
That would have required some rather exceptional rolls. Which I actually got! Oh boy, Cataphract Cetrati and Praetorian Swordsmen were able to clear just about every enemy model from the zone. But that's it. Just about every. Yet again the application of force is perfect, except for the last Praetorian Swordsman who isn't able to kill Necrosurgeon. To make matters worse, he's capable of inflicting damage on her. Some two or one damage boxes remaining.
Turn 5 Venethrax comes to my enemy zone and kills a couple of Cetrati. A bane thrall runs to Mordikaar to engage him, or perhaps he charged and missed. I don't remember. What I do remember that next turn I'm able to kill the Necrosurgeon, bring back the two dead Cetrati with Revive and charge someone with Mordikaar so I get to three control points. As I didn't have Fury to cast Ghost Walk, Mordikaar had to suffer a free strike from Bane Thrall that hit. Damage roll was on the high side and brought Mordikaar to just one hit box remaining, which was rather a bad thing when we consider the fact that all of my warbeasts had already died.
Not that Mordikaar survived Cryx turn 6. Venethrax came to finish him personally in melee. Two Cetrati were not able to block the Lich Lord's advance.
Monday, June 1, 2015
Road to Steam & Fury
Last Thursday I played a 50 point game of Warmachine. Now I'm starting to practice up my Skorne, which I'm taking to a tournament in about two weeks or so.
My list was:
Void Seer Mordikaar
- Basilisk Krea
- Cyclops Shaman
- Archidon
- Bronzeback Titan
Maximum unit of Cataphract Cetrati
Maximum unit of Beast Handlers
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Swamp Gobbers
Agonizer
Willbreaker
Void Spirit
Opponent had:
Forge Master Syntherion
The Great Machine tier 4
- Corollary
- Mitigator
- (free) Galvanizer
- Cipher
- Assimilator
- Inverter
- Monitor
2x Optifex Directives
Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex
Attunement Servitors
Transfinite Emergence Projector
Scenario was Incursion, and Convergence started game. First picture is from end of Skorne turn 1 with a couple of activations done by Convergence in turn 2.
Hollow is on Praetorian Swordsmen, and Mordikaar put four Fury to Agonizer. So Mordikaar was at zero Fury. But I was sure that being on a hill and inside Paralytic Aura would be enough to keep the warlock alive.
Convergence has Hot Shot on Cipher, Synergy on Syntherion and Reconstruct on Inverter. Magnetic Hold that was cast on Praetorian Swordsmen missed its target even with a boost.
Some Praetorian Swordsmen died during turn 2, but it was mostly just about advancing.
Skorne turn 2 was Mordikaar's feat. With better management I could have scored at least two control points, probably three. But SPD 4 Bronzeback just doesn't run that far, and after I had activated Praetorian Swordsmen I realized that I couldn't bring anyone else to control rightmost flag. Oh well. At least Void Spirit scored that one point.
Mordikaar had cast one Revive, and gave Agonizer two Fury after it had cried "no focus allocation" agony.
Cetrati advance in shield wall, and Basilisk Krea follows them with her aura. Cyclops Shaman spreads the aura even further by casting it, too. And that's about it.
Turn 3 Mitigator scores a double 6 hit against Cataphract Cetrati. Whee. Next Transfinite Emergence Projector advances, and shoots three Cetrati dead with two POW 10+5d6 sprays. They were the only real casualties that turn, but even so they were a lot more than I expected. Cipher also tried to snipe off the pesky Agonizer that had forbidden focus allocation for Galvanizer and Inverter. Tormented baby titan suffered some 4-5 points of damage.
On my turn 3 I didn't want to leave Transfinite Emergence Projector alive because of the firepower I had just witnessed. But how much beating such a battle engine could take? I didn't know for sure, so I dedicated Basilisk Krea and Archidon for the job, both enraged. I couldn't figure out a good way to remove the servitor on the left, right next to Mitigator. I didn't want to waste Cetratis for that, so Void Spirit quit controlling the left flag and killed the servitor. Now Archidon was free to charge the battle engine without suffering a free strike from Mitigator.
Praetorian Swordsmen made some automatic damage points to Assimilator. Half-jokingly I was taking wagers on how many heavy warjacks Bronzeback would be able to take down in one turn. But as often is the case, you really shouldn't boast about anything prematurely. Sure, Bronzeback was Enraged and Mordikaar had cast Train Wreck on it, so heavy damage was to be expected. But damn that Reconstruct. I had completely forgotten about it's existence. So Inverter survived. Monitor broke down to pieces, but it took one attack more than anticipated thanks to just some two or three damage boxes remaining. And the last attacks Bronzeback was able to make against Monitor didn't even destroy it even if Praetorian Swordsmen had already softened it up. Meh.
I guess I shouldn't complain, but hey. It's the Bronzeback. Though I guess Bronzeback didn't forget about Reconstruct... I did. But I'm not going to look in the mirror, no! Always blame the minions.
Mordikaar had also cast Revive to bring back one Cetrati, and filled Agonizer with Fury. Agonizer was also controlling the middle flag. As it turned out, Galvanizer was less than half an inch too far to contest.
Turn 4 it was probably Syntherion himself who shot down the Agonizer, and then the vectors started to induct Focus for Inverter and possibly Assimilator, too. It looked rather worrying prospect for Bronzeback - a POW 20 knockdown hit followed by automatically hitting attacks by two heavies. But for some reason the Macropummeler attack feels like Lascannon from another game, another time. The attack that mattered the most missed here. And that was even with a boost.
As a consequence Bronzeback survived, so game was probably over barring some surprise assassination.
But as I was practising for a tournament, I had been measuring my time. And if it had been a real tournament game, I was in a real hurry, as I had only eight minutes or so left in my clock when my turn began. Threshold checks by Archidon and Basilisk Krea ate up that clock unnecessarily, as they both failed their checks and frenzied, and attacked each other. Still better love story than Twilight.
So. If it'd been in a tournament, I needed to hastily arrange all three flags for me, as I couldn't realistically pull off an assassination in this situation. Galvanizer looked like it might be within 4" of the middle flag and there were no models to control flag on the left. Both warbeasts had used up their activations in their fierce embrace.
Rightmost flag was the easy one. Willbreaker ran to the flag and Swordsmen/Bronzeback destroyed the contesting Assimilator.
Enraged Cyclops Shaman charged Galvanizer, and failed to kill (or so I thought - I hadn't counted the enrage bonus to damage rolls) the light vector.
Cetrati ran to leftmost flag, one into base contact with flag and another within 4" of the flag. The one that had been engaging Galvanizer had been too far and didn't get within 4" of the flag.
Mordikaar advanced into base contact with the middle flag. Then he cast Essence Blact on the Cetrati who was farther than 4" from left flag, and Revived another dead Cetrati right back, this time within 4" of the flag.
So it all depended if Galvanizer was within 4" of the flag. Well, it wasn't - and it was, in fact, a wreck marker because of the enrage bonuses for Cyclops Shaman.
Two and half minutes left in clock.
My list was:
Void Seer Mordikaar
- Basilisk Krea
- Cyclops Shaman
- Archidon
- Bronzeback Titan
Maximum unit of Cataphract Cetrati
Maximum unit of Beast Handlers
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Swamp Gobbers
Agonizer
Willbreaker
Void Spirit
Opponent had:
Forge Master Syntherion
- Corollary
- Mitigator
- (free) Galvanizer
- Cipher
- Assimilator
- Inverter
- Monitor
2x Optifex Directives
Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex
Attunement Servitors
Transfinite Emergence Projector
Scenario was Incursion, and Convergence started game. First picture is from end of Skorne turn 1 with a couple of activations done by Convergence in turn 2.
Hollow is on Praetorian Swordsmen, and Mordikaar put four Fury to Agonizer. So Mordikaar was at zero Fury. But I was sure that being on a hill and inside Paralytic Aura would be enough to keep the warlock alive.
Convergence has Hot Shot on Cipher, Synergy on Syntherion and Reconstruct on Inverter. Magnetic Hold that was cast on Praetorian Swordsmen missed its target even with a boost.
Some Praetorian Swordsmen died during turn 2, but it was mostly just about advancing.
Skorne turn 2 was Mordikaar's feat. With better management I could have scored at least two control points, probably three. But SPD 4 Bronzeback just doesn't run that far, and after I had activated Praetorian Swordsmen I realized that I couldn't bring anyone else to control rightmost flag. Oh well. At least Void Spirit scored that one point.
Mordikaar had cast one Revive, and gave Agonizer two Fury after it had cried "no focus allocation" agony.
Cetrati advance in shield wall, and Basilisk Krea follows them with her aura. Cyclops Shaman spreads the aura even further by casting it, too. And that's about it.
Turn 3 Mitigator scores a double 6 hit against Cataphract Cetrati. Whee. Next Transfinite Emergence Projector advances, and shoots three Cetrati dead with two POW 10+5d6 sprays. They were the only real casualties that turn, but even so they were a lot more than I expected. Cipher also tried to snipe off the pesky Agonizer that had forbidden focus allocation for Galvanizer and Inverter. Tormented baby titan suffered some 4-5 points of damage.
On my turn 3 I didn't want to leave Transfinite Emergence Projector alive because of the firepower I had just witnessed. But how much beating such a battle engine could take? I didn't know for sure, so I dedicated Basilisk Krea and Archidon for the job, both enraged. I couldn't figure out a good way to remove the servitor on the left, right next to Mitigator. I didn't want to waste Cetratis for that, so Void Spirit quit controlling the left flag and killed the servitor. Now Archidon was free to charge the battle engine without suffering a free strike from Mitigator.
Praetorian Swordsmen made some automatic damage points to Assimilator. Half-jokingly I was taking wagers on how many heavy warjacks Bronzeback would be able to take down in one turn. But as often is the case, you really shouldn't boast about anything prematurely. Sure, Bronzeback was Enraged and Mordikaar had cast Train Wreck on it, so heavy damage was to be expected. But damn that Reconstruct. I had completely forgotten about it's existence. So Inverter survived. Monitor broke down to pieces, but it took one attack more than anticipated thanks to just some two or three damage boxes remaining. And the last attacks Bronzeback was able to make against Monitor didn't even destroy it even if Praetorian Swordsmen had already softened it up. Meh.
I guess I shouldn't complain, but hey. It's the Bronzeback. Though I guess Bronzeback didn't forget about Reconstruct... I did. But I'm not going to look in the mirror, no! Always blame the minions.
Mordikaar had also cast Revive to bring back one Cetrati, and filled Agonizer with Fury. Agonizer was also controlling the middle flag. As it turned out, Galvanizer was less than half an inch too far to contest.
Turn 4 it was probably Syntherion himself who shot down the Agonizer, and then the vectors started to induct Focus for Inverter and possibly Assimilator, too. It looked rather worrying prospect for Bronzeback - a POW 20 knockdown hit followed by automatically hitting attacks by two heavies. But for some reason the Macropummeler attack feels like Lascannon from another game, another time. The attack that mattered the most missed here. And that was even with a boost.
As a consequence Bronzeback survived, so game was probably over barring some surprise assassination.
But as I was practising for a tournament, I had been measuring my time. And if it had been a real tournament game, I was in a real hurry, as I had only eight minutes or so left in my clock when my turn began. Threshold checks by Archidon and Basilisk Krea ate up that clock unnecessarily, as they both failed their checks and frenzied, and attacked each other. Still better love story than Twilight.
So. If it'd been in a tournament, I needed to hastily arrange all three flags for me, as I couldn't realistically pull off an assassination in this situation. Galvanizer looked like it might be within 4" of the middle flag and there were no models to control flag on the left. Both warbeasts had used up their activations in their fierce embrace.
Rightmost flag was the easy one. Willbreaker ran to the flag and Swordsmen/Bronzeback destroyed the contesting Assimilator.
Enraged Cyclops Shaman charged Galvanizer, and failed to kill (or so I thought - I hadn't counted the enrage bonus to damage rolls) the light vector.
Cetrati ran to leftmost flag, one into base contact with flag and another within 4" of the flag. The one that had been engaging Galvanizer had been too far and didn't get within 4" of the flag.
Mordikaar advanced into base contact with the middle flag. Then he cast Essence Blact on the Cetrati who was farther than 4" from left flag, and Revived another dead Cetrati right back, this time within 4" of the flag.
So it all depended if Galvanizer was within 4" of the flag. Well, it wasn't - and it was, in fact, a wreck marker because of the enrage bonuses for Cyclops Shaman.
Two and half minutes left in clock.
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