Wraithbane Witches

Had a game of Warmachine. Points were 50.

My list:

Wraith Witch Deneghra [+28]
 - Inflictor [13]
 - Nightmare [18]
 - Nightwretch [7]
 - Ripjaw [7]
General Gerlak Slaughterborn [6]
Soul Trapper [1]
Soul Trapper [1]
Bane Warriors (max) [16]
Bile Thralls (min) [9]

Opponent had:

Bane Witch Agathia [+29]

 - Deathripper [6]

 - Kraken [35]

Bane Warriors (max) [16]

 - Bane Warrior Officer & Standard [5]

Satyxis Blood Witches (min) [8]

Steelhead Riflemen (min) [8]

Scenario was Close Quarters from main rulebook.

My forces run forwards on the first turn - not much else to do with Deneghra2, really. Nightmare took Kraken as its prey target.

Agathia advances with Bane Warriors in the middle, Satyxis inside trenches and Steelheads in front of them. She uses feat to protect her army from my spells.

Next turn Nightwretch advances within Stealth distance of a Bane Warrior in the middle. Deneghra goes incorporeal and advances into an otherwise lethal position to launch a Hellmouth via arc node, killing five or so.

Bane Warriors with Apparition charge a disturbing length on the board, and all but destroy Inflictor. Fortunately it is left alive with a couple of damage boxes, as opponent wouldn't score a scenario point now. A single Bane Warrior charging Nightmare dealt twelve points of damage, removing columns three and four from my character warjack.

Deneghra uses her feat, making at least Nightmare and Inflictor incorporeal. Nightmare charges Kraken, while Inflictor just huddles forward through a sea of Bane Warriors. Bile Thralls then purge the Bane Warrior unit into oblivion. My Banes tie up Steelheads and Satyxis. I was able to score one point.

Kraken removes Nightmare as was to be expected. Enemy Deathripper comes to contest my flag, and incorporeal Inflictor continued to contest enemy - along with my few remaining Bane Warriors.

My Bane Warriors charge enemy Kraken, and then Inflictor - which had cortex and main melee weapon still intact - removes Kraken. Agathia surrendered after this turn, as there were not enough contestants left for Agathia to contest Deneghra from winning via scenario.

Old Witch Deneghra (what?)

Alright, now it's been two weeks since I played these two 25 point games of Warmachine. It was against a returning Warmachine player I had never met before. And coincidentally, he also had Trollbloods as his faction. And Gunnbjorn was one of his warlocks.

I had same list in both games, and it was:

Wraith Witch Deneghra
- Harrower
- Helldiver
- Nightwretch
Bloat Thrall
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist
Soul Trapper
Warwitch Siren
Black Ogrun Boarding Party (max)

And it's the old Wraith Witch. Errata came after these games were played.

First game opponent had:


Hoarluk Doomshaper, Dire Prophet

- Dire Troll Mauler
- Mulg the Ancient
- Winter Troll
- Trollkin Runebearer
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (min)

We had Mosh Pit scenario from prime rulebook, as some of those are better fitting for low point games such as these.

Implacability and general large-baseness made some trouble for both my Hellmouthing and shooting from Black Ogruns. I wasted my feat, and a total of 10 focus points over two turns were wasted on Hellmouths that killed one stone bearer, I think.

Somehow a decisive moves didn't happen. I had my chances at assassinations when Gorman was lucky at lobbing the Black Oil over Hoarluk. But when my troops had been reduced to Bloat Thrall, Gorman and Deneghra, I decided to just charge it and see how it goes.

Turns out Mulg and Mauler were able to kill the focusless cryx caster.

Game 2:

Here opponent had:

Captain Gunnbjorn
- Dire Troll Bomber
- Dozer & Smigg
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (min)

- Stone Scribe Elder
Northkin Fire Eaters

Here I couldn't do anything to the dire trolls (again) but with a little better positioning Deneghra was eventually able to charge Gunnbjorn while incorporeal, resulting in a dead trollblood warlock.

These write-ups were quite a bit shorter than usually, but two weeks tend to do that.

Cryx vs Trollbloods 50 points

Alrighty, it's starting to be almost two weeks from these games, so I better hurry them up here. Though I'm not sure if one can speak about hurrying, then.

Anyway, they were two 50 point games of Warmachine against Trollbloods.

First game was:

Wraith Witch Deneghra [+28]
- Deathripper [6]
- Erebus [16]
- Nightwretch [7]
- Skarlock Thrall [4]
Bloat Thrall [4]
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist [4]

Pistol Wraith [5]
Satyxis Raider Captain [4]
Saxon Orrik [4]
Soul Trapper [1]
Warwitch Siren [4]
Satyxis Raiders (max) [16]
- Satyxis Raider Sea Witch [3]

Versus

Captain Gunnbjorn [+28]
- Dire Troll Blitzer [16]
- Slag Troll [10]
- Troll Impaler [11]
Braylen Wanderheart, Trollkin Outlaw [5]
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (min) [6]
Scattergunners (max) [14]
Trollkin Highwaymen (max) [15]

I did my best to remove Krielstone unit early on, and I succeeded. Though it cost Warwitch Siren and pretty much a Deathripper, at least for arc-noding purposes.

Satyxis Raiders and Highwaymen spent a few turns looking menacingly at each other, neither doing much else.

When sluggers entered middle zone to contest it a bit, Satyxis charged onwards and pretty much decimated the unit. Deneghra did have her feat going on that turn, too. I decided to try how Overtake option from Sea Witch would turn out, and all it did was that I could move one model so that it engaged another. For my benefit, I mean. Kind of feels like a non-option.

It was a swingy game, as after Deneghra's turn there were so few trollbloods left that it looked like a clear game to me. But then, after trollblood turn I started to think I was horrendously losing the attrition game.

But I had been able to snatch scenario points here and there. When I was one point off from victory, I was outnumbered almost three to one, I decided I had to take the zone on the right, no matter the cost. Fortunately there was only Slag Troll denying me that point, but Dire Troll was engaging both Deathripper and Erebus.

Deathripper tried to bite the troll really hard to cripple any of the important branches, but failed to do so.

Erebus walked to attack Slag Troll, but this provoked a free strike from dire troll. All weapons systems from Erebus went down. He did manage to freeze the Slag Troll though, and was rolling better damage with one die than with two dice. But this was not enough.

But then I noticed Deneghra was within charge range of the light warbeast. Problem solved at the last possible moment.


Game 2:

Lord Exhumator Scaverous [+27]
- Deathripper [6]
- Inflictor [13]
- Ripjaw [7]
Aiakos, Scourge of the Meredius [4]
- Reaper [13]
Scrap Thralls [2]
Warwitch Siren [4]
Cephalyx Overlords [8]
Satyxis Raiders (max) [16]
- Satyxis Raider Sea Witch [3]

Opponent had a list something like this, but I can't figure out last remaining four points. Maybe opponent forgot to deploy something? Anyway, the list:

Grim Angus [+29]
- Dire Troll Blitzer [16]
- Dire Troll Mauler [15]
- Swamp Troll [8]
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (min) [6]

Pyg Bushwhackers (max) [15]
- Pyg Bushwhacker Officer & Mortar [5]
Trollkin Sluggers (max) [10]

This game went really fast, as Satyxis Raiders ran to engage Bushwhackers. Opponent was hesitant to commit ranged models to contest scenario zones, and underestimated threat of Scrap Thralls to objective marker. Well, Scaverous did sacrifice a whole lot of focus points in casting Feast of Worms to ease their job. Sooner than I realized Cryx had accumulated enough control points for a scenario victory.

Cryxmas Games

Kuhmo traditions continued with two small Warmachine games. These were played around 24-26th days of December, so they are no longer in fresh memory.

Lists were ten points and first game was:

Wraith Witch Deneghra
- Erebus
- Nightwretch
- Ripjaw
Gorman diWulfe
Bloat Thrall

Versus

High Allegiant Amon

- Crusader
- Dervish
- Devout
- Repenter
Minimum unit of Choir of Menoth
Wrack

First game I kind of wanted to make this super-stunlock maneuver I've been dreaming of. That means a Blind, Shadow Bind, Knockdown and Stationary all on one model.

Well it didn't come to that, but in small point sizes as this it definitely affected matters when you get, for example, 50% of enemy army blinded.

Don't mind the stegadon, by the way. It's an obstacle. Not a proxy.

Arm 21 crusader could have been a great trouble for me to chew through even when it came to have a go at the bonejacks. But Erebus still is only p+s 16. So instead I decided to ignore Crusader altogether and try to score assassination. Amon was behind Devout and there was Repenter blocking Erebus from charging Devout. Deneghra used Dark Banishment on the Repenter and lobbed it some six inches away. But this was an all-out attempt to win. Deneghra was focusless and within Crusader's melee range. Erebus better succeed.

And Erebus did succeed. When the boosted attack against Amon hit, the Protectorate warcaster went stationary. Of course everything hanged on 5+ tough roll once again, because it wasn't until the last possible attack that finally dealt enough damage to Amon. This time tough roll failed.


Second game was:

Asphyxious the Hellbringer & Vociferon
- Slayer
- 2x Helldiver
- Deathripper
Gorman diWulfe
Machine Wraith

Versus

High Executioner Reznik

- Crusader
- Revenger
- Repenter
Minimum unit of Exemplar Bastions

This somehow turned into long fight of attrition. Crusader was trying to flank Cryx, which distracted Asphyxious with twelve or thirteen focus points for a turn. During this time Cryx lost Slayer and Helldiver and what else.

But Cryx gained the upper hand, and finally there was nothing else except a lone Bastion and Reznik on board. Reznik ran to engage Asphyxious and had five focus points for camping.

I think Gorman succeeded to blind him. Asphyxious burned out attacking Reznik, and still Reznik was not dead.

I don't remember if it was Vociferon that finihed Reznik or Deathripper, but whatever the case, Reznik fell after taking quite a beating.

Voodo Dolls

Then a week ago I played two games of Warmachine.

I knew I would be playing against Skorne which I assumed would have a lot of beasts since opponents collection is new.

In my excel statistics my Wraith Witch Deneghra had never played against Skorne, and she is lagging behind on number of games played. And as probably we all know, she received a nerf that brings her feat to much more tolerable levels. It was all but written in stone which warcaster I would pick, then.

And this was my 35 point list:

Wraith Witch Deneghra
- Defiler
- Nightwretch

Maximum unit of Black Ogrun Boarding Party
Minimum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Bile Thralls
Wrong Eye & Snapjaw
Skarlock
Warwitch Siren

Objective: Arcane Wonder

Opponent had:

Master Tormentor Morghoul
- Aradus Soldier
- Titan Gladiator
- Cyclops Brute
- Cyclops Savage

Minimum unit of Beast Handlers

Maximum unit of Nihilators
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Agonizer

Objective: Bunker

Scenario was Two Fronts, and Cryx started game.

Game ended quite prematurely when Morghoul gave all of his remaining Fury to Agonizer. Enemy Arm 13 warlock was there with no Fury for transfers. I was still a bit hesitant to launch Deneghra all over the Skorne. Of course pre-errata there would have been zero reasons to hold back, but now I had to actually consider what would happen if the dice failed me.

But I decided to try nonetheless, since Deneghra could go Incorporeal. Only enemy model who had magical weapons was Morghoul himself.

Warwitch Siren gave focus for Defiler, who then ran into position. Deneghra advanced and used her feat. Then she cast Hellmouth on a Def 10 Beast Handler via Defiler, who dragged Morghoul to his doom. Deneghra boosted the damage on enemy warlock, and it was enough to bring Morghoul to, what... two boxes remaining?

I had originally been planning on using the last remaining two Focus for +2 Arm, but since Morghoul was ripe for picking, or at least seasoning by Venom, I decided to give it a go. We'd have time for another game if it ended here.

But 7+ is a fickle thing to roll on 2d6. This time it worked, and damage was enough to kill Morghoul.

Game 2:

I really wanted to see how much starting roll affects Wraith Witch Deneghra's play. Same scenario, same sides and same lists, but Skorne started. First picture is from the end of Cryx turn 1.

Aradus Soldier had Admonition on it.

Not taking chances any more, opponent activated "no channeling" cry on Agonizer and ran it forward. Then Skorne have me a jump scare when Abused and Rushed (or only Abused?) Cyclops Savage charges Black Ogrun unit leader. I somehow didn't remember Mortitheurge Willbreaker also has Beastmaster ability, so control area wasn't an issue in this charge. Thankfully I hadn't wasted Focus foolishly for giggles, and Deneghra had six on her for armour. Still she took seven points of damage, which is enough to discourage some of the more daring actions. Like advancing and using a feat, for example.

Oh wait.

Deneghra did go incorporeal, advance and used feat. This time she didn't get whole Skorne army under her feat. Quite a few Nihilators would be free to charge next turn. Then Deneghra casts Hellmouth on the Mortitheurge Willbreaker. Mortitheurge and a Swamp Gobber die. The last gobber fails command check and flees. But as Deneghra didn't have that many damage boxes left any more I panicked and camped the two remaining Focus. I probably boosted the attack roll.

The reason I got so worried was Morghoul's Torment spell. Scoring 11+ to hit and 11+ to damage was well within the realms of possibility. Not that 13+ is that uncommon, but it still feels much safer for a required roll to lose your game.

Then I considered that if Deneghra is knocked down somehow (I guess I failed to remember she was incorporeal... slammed models would just go right through her.) Morghoul might still risk the 13+, so I started building a meatwall around her.

The Cyclops Savage needed to be taken down first. And damn was it hard. Wrong Eye doesn't kill it, and neither does Warwitch Siren. Bile Thrall takes an aiming bonus and shoots at the Cyclops, but still no death for the beast. Five damage and a corrosion on Black Ogrun did happen, though.

Bile Thralls also sprayed one Nihilator dead who was right behind Agonizer. That was a bummer, since I really wanted to spam Influence on it with Wrong Eye and kill Agonizer with style. From side view it looks like the other Nihilator behind Agonizer might have had the baby titan in Reach, but I didn't want to risk that much for style. Wrong Eye went to whack the Cyclops Savage instead, and succeeded.

Nightwretch advances in front of Deneghra and shoots at objective. Black Ogruns charge next. Two tried to destroy the objective, which was left at one box remaining. Two go to block LoS to Deneghra, aligned behind Nightwretch in such a manner that if something... say... a Titan gladiator, perhaps? was to slam the bonejack, it would just knock the Ogruns down and not Deneghra. Who wouldn't have been knocked down anyway. C'est la vie.

Banes just generally failed at anything they tried to do. I think Skarlock had cast Ghost Walk on Black Ogruns in case everything would have failed and Ogruns would have needed to take free strikes from it in order to block LoS to Deneghra.

Turn 3 everything except Cyclops Brute shakes off Shadow Bind. Abused and Enraged Aradus Soldier casually breaks Snapjaw in just a few hits. Those jaws... they hurt.

Morghoul uses his feat, and Titan Gladiator positions itself (presumably) to protect Morghoul and still be in range to smash things next turn.

Nihilators kill a couple of Bane Thralls.

I'm quite confident I can take the Aradus down with Bane Thralls, Black Ogruns and last and least with the Wrong Eye. How wrong I was.

First Bile Thralls get rid of Nihilators and take a couple of shots at the Aradus. That was a complete waste thanks to Arm 23 vs shooting. But hey... corrosion.

Skarlock gives Ghost Walk for Bane Thralls, who then get a charge order. Only two get into contact with Aradus. One misses. Yay. At least death toll on Nihilators and Agonizers was satisfying.

Black Ogruns charge next and two get to Aradus. Rest try to wrestle with the objective. The succeed... the ones with Aradus don't. I'm starting to get a little desperate here, and send Warwitch Siren to attack the Aradus. She scores a hit and Shadow Binds it.

This might be the first time in recorded history when I had a real opportunity to use Wrong Eye's Voodoo Doll spell. I actually had wild fantasies of getting it on both the Titan Gladiator and Aradus Soldier. Damage rolls had been so poor against the Aradus that I couldn't rely on Wrong Eye taking it down even with four Fury. So. Voodoo Doll on it, and Spirit was gone. Gladiator required a 8+ to hit, which failed. But you can dream, right?

Deneghra runs to my friendly scenario control zone, camping full focus. Morghoul's feat made pretty much any other action pointless.

So. Scenario was now 2-0 for Cryx.

Turn 4 Cryxian casualty rate is high. Disturbingly high. If first impressions are what sticks with you, then I will be forever afraid of even a Spiritless, Shadow Bound Aradus. Every initial attack hit and killed. Especially the loss of Bane Thrall Officer was a harsh one. Their formation was now completely messed up, as the actual unit leader had been merrily beating Nihilators on the other side of the board.

Titan Gladiator removes all three Black Ogruns who had been busy with the objective. Morghoul charges a Black Ogrun and sprints to dominate his friendly zone.

Cyclops Brute kills Warwitch Siren and Wrong Eye.

Beast Handler goes to contest my friendly zone along with the Swamp Gobber who was finally able to act again.

Game was 2-1 for Cryx.

Now that I'm looking at the picture I don't realize why I didn't bring Nightwretch to contest Skorne zone? Had Nihilator beaten it so badly that I didn't believe it would make it through one Nihilator and one Beast Handler free strike? I don't remember. It's also fully possible I didn't even think of it when I activated the bonejack... Wait. It gets worse.

I try to bring two Bile Thralls to contest enemy zone, but Spd 5 just doesn't cut it. And I couldn't run, because I needed the unit leader to Purge my zone clear. Now. Here's the fun fact: as an added bonus the Purge took the two guys who were engaging Nightwretch. Well spent activation with the Nightwretch there. Did it try to bash a Beast Handler or what?

Deneghra healer herself and moved to relative safety of my objective.

Game was 3-2 for Cryx. I'm looking at you, Nightwretch! No, don't reflect my own image back to me. Damn. I need to use more matt varnish.

Turn 5 Cyclops Brute throws the game. It fails a Threshold check and Titan Gladiator was closest target for it to charge.

I don't know how the game would have played if it had succeeded, but now opponent wouldn't be able to get anyone to contest my zone.

As a final defiant gesture Morghoul runs to stare Deneghra intensively and menacingly.

As warlocks and warcasters don't contest zones, game went 4-2 for Cryx and 5-2 right next on my turn.

Well. What to say. I like it how after the errata Wraith Witch Deneghra actually has to consider defending herself during her feat turn even against a full melee army. I imagine it will be much more distressing aspect against a list that has arcable spells and/or magical shooting on warjacks and warbeasts that you earlier could ignore if you got within right distance to use Web of Shadows.

Gorman oiling tall, muscular pirates

Last Thursday I played a 35 point game of Warmachine.

By then I knew for sure that I wouldn't be playing in an upcoming tournament that weekend, so I really didn't know what to play.

And because I didn't know what to play, I wanted to test Black Ogruns yet again. I didn't feel that bad for picking Wraith Witch Deneghra because after all opponent would be going to a tournament... it would be essential practice for him. And I got the Black Ogrun there.

Then we unpacked our models and I noticed that I had no need to feel guilty about my warcaster of choice. I was against Haley2. Uh oh. That came as a real surprise as I had thought this player had sold all of his Cygnar.

... and my GPU from my older laptop just wrecked itself. That means this write-up has to be endured without pictures, since they were on the old computer and of course I have already cleaned camera's memory card.

My list:

Wraith Witch Deneghra
- 2x Nightwretch

Maximum unit of Black Ogruns
Minimum unit of Bile Thralls
Aiakos, Scourge of Meredius
- Leviathan
Pistol Wraith
Ogrun Bokur (client Deneghra)
Skarlock
Warwitch Siren

Opponent had:

Haley2 the Haley2
- Stormclad (bonded)

Maximum unit of Horgenhold Forge Guard
Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Pistoleers + Officer
Black 13th
Squire
Journeyman Warcaster
Eiryss2
Gorman diWulfe

Scenario was Close Quarters and Cygnar started game. There was a hill and a forest in the cryx half of the table, and a crater and linear obstacles over there at Cygnar. Stormclad advanced in front of the whole Cygnar army. I was afraid of it's threat range, so I tried to advance in a huge blob of models. If it dared to charge in, it'd have to deal with the remainder of my forces.

Turn 2 Stormclad charged with the aid of Haley's bond and Temporal Acceleration. It somehow manages to miss two of it's attacks, and that leaves Leviathan alive with about four damage boxes remaining. Only fully functional system was movement system. Eiryss ran to my friendly flag, right next to a nightwretch.

Though I wanted to save Deneghra's feat for later, I used it on turn 2. First Deneghra goes incorporeal, walks in the forest to attack Stormclad and hopes for 11+ on damage. Just one point would be enough to trigger Dark Banishment. But no... first attack is a fail. She buys a new one, because feat or no, Deneghra cannot leave a heavy warjack standing right next to her! Second attack scores the required damage, and Stormclad is moved up to mid field.

Nightwretch takes aiming bonus and tries to shoot Stormclad. At the start of my turn I remembered to NOT take aiming bonus and move it from the way of Ogrun Bokur instead. When it came time to activate the bonejack, I guess I just vaguely remembered something about an aiming bonus... oh well. Now Ogrun Bokur wouldn't be able to charge Eiryss, but at least he could walk to take a swing at her. Miss, obviously.

Skarlock casts Curse of Shadows to Stormclad, and then four Black Ogruns charge the cygnaran heavy. There were three non-existent damage rolls, and one really good.

Then Bile Thralls come to spray at Stormclad, but they don't do much. At least they hit. Lastly Pistol Wraith shot Death Chill to Stormclad.

A bonejack, two solos, two units and a warcaster hadn't done enough damage to make Stormclad easy to finish for Aiakos, so instead he advanced and jumped to Eiryss.

Turn 3 Haley uses her feat. She also teleports Gorman a bit forward, so it can lob Blind Oil at Stormclad. Now all of my Black Ogruns were blind... oh joy. But seriously. Let's count up all the debuffs here. Stormclad had Curse of Shadows, Death Chill, Black Oil and Deneghra's feat, and the Black Ogruns got Haley's feat and Black Oil. That was a huge pile of "nobody does anything."

Black 13th shoots Deneghra down to some five boxes remaining or something.

My turn Deneghra advances deeper into forest, hopefully to block Line of Sight to her. With rest of my models I do nothing, except with Ogrun Bokur, who lands the killing blow to Stormclad.

Then game devolved into some sort of cat & mouse play, where Deneghra was the mouse this time. Damage was impressive against both teams, though only models that really did any damage to enemy were the Bile Thralls. They took off quite a chunk of enemy infantry.

Haley started grinding control points from her friendly flag... and that was it. There wasn't much I was able to do - when your warcaster has five or so damage boxes, even with full camp those few remaining Horgenhold Forge Guards look quite oppressive.

I have to confess I turned on my broken laptop in safe mode just to look at the pictures. I couldn't remember anything from this game otherwise.

Rautarouva day 2

First... taking pictures is a damn good memory aid. During second day of Rautarouva warmachine tournament I was quite damn tired from 2 hour and 6 hour sleep from two nights.

Somehow on the second day the Deathclock seemed even more menacing than on day 1... Maybe because brains needed to double-check every order they received both from the frontal lobe and limbs.

First I was against Cryx, again. Funny thing that about 30% of participants were playing Cygnar, yet I played none. However, I managed to catch all Cryx opponents, except myself.


Game 4: Wraith Witch Deneghra vs Iron Lich Asphyxious

I guess opponent saw that I just wouldn't be playing Mortenebra against Cryx, and he took Iron Lich Asphyxious instead of Wraith Witch vs Wraith Witch game.

Opponent had a list a bit like this:

Iron Lich Asphyxious
- 2x Deathripper
- Cankerworm

Maximum unit of Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
Maximum unit of Satyxis Blood Witches + Blood Hag
Maximum unit of Bloodgorgers
General Gerlak Slaughterborn
Satyxis Raider Captain
Skarlock
2x Pistol Wraith
Saxon Orrik
+2 points, possibly a Warwitch Siren?

I decided to try some sort of high-risk high-reward approach, and had Deneghra way too forward on turn 1, camping 3 focus. I hoped Asphyxious would use feat, and Deneghra wouldn't die in the process. That's bad tactics for sure, since Asphyxious would be able to shoot 2x damage rolls of 3d6-3. At that point, however, it was a risk I was willing to take.

Probably because of being tired on day 2, too, opponent ran Satyxis Raider into melee with Deneghra.

Next turn Deneghra obviously turns incorporeal, advances and uses Web of Shadows. I was pretty confident that she'd be safe all alone on the middle of board. Leftmost enemy arc node, however, was just out of her control area, so Deneghra's feat turn suddenly turned from "how to inflict maximum damage?" into "how can I protect Deneghra from Hellfire spam?"

And in the end... I couldn't. But Deneghra was left standing with three hit boxes remaining.

On my turn Deneghra advanced into relative safety of a hill. She had to walk through a Breath of Corruption cloud effect, and then she was at two hit boxes.

Reaper took a free strike from Satyxis Raider Captain and went to wreck the last arc node of Asphyxious - and Feedback dropped Deneghra to one hit box. Oh my. Oh my.

I did everything I could to kill all Feedbackers from enemy, as I was just one okayish hit away from dying to Feedback. Just about all models I still hadn't activated tried to kill the last remaining Captain, and Kraken finally succeeded in dealing enough blast damage to the Captain to kill it. Surely I would have liked to do something else with Kraken, but oh well.

Game continues for a few more rounds, and Deneghra heals herself to 4 hit boxes during those.

Kraken suffers from Parasite and Satyxis Blood Witches got Scything Touch on them. A charge and a normal melee round, as well as a charge from Bloodgorgers who had Scything Touch switched to them made for some impressive damage, but thanks to three Bloodgorgers missing two of their charge attacks, Kraken stays on board.

Nothing else does, however, and I don't have enough attacks any more to do anything useful.

For the past few round I've forgotten to turn Deneghra incorporeal, and the last turn was no exception. The only thing I could try to do was to charge something with Deneghra and hope that I get within 8" of Asphyxious, cast some sort of spell on him and shoot him down with Kraken.

However, there were no such charge targets that I'd have Asphyxious on Deneghra's front arc after charge move. I tried to run my last remaining Necrotech to act as a charge target, but because it had to dodge free strikes from Bloodgorgers, distance Deneghra was able to charge was abysmal. Especially as she was not incorporeal. So... Deneghra just charged into middle of enemy army, killed her own Necrotech and stood there with five focus.

Nice move there, Deneghra. It was your last.


Game 5: Mortenebra vs Zaal

Zaal & Kovaas
- Molik Karn
- Titan Gladiator
- Basilisk Krea

Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Nihilators
Maximum unit of Paingiver Beast Handlers
2x Ancestral Guardian
Hakaar the Destroyer
Aptimus Marketh

This game was quite fast and aggressive.

In a nutshell Skorne brought Molik Karn and Titan Gladiator a tiny bit too much forward, and with Terminal Velocity and Mortenebra's feat both died. Molik died to Nightmare with two focus and Gladiator died to Kraken with two focus.

Out of idle curiosity I counted the odds for that - statistically Kraken rolled about 3 points above average.

It was a harsh blow for Skorne, but I received even harsher blow.

First an enraged Basilisk Krea destroys Ripjaw. Second attack it was able to buy hit easily, because charge attack smashed Ripjaws ankle. Then some other Skorne models try to attack things, but the disheartening closure to Rautarouva tournament for me was that Zaal rushed as far forward as possible and cast a fully boosted Hex Blast on Mortenebra. I don't remember the actual damage roll, but then Aptimus Marketh walks over and casts unboosted Hex Blast on Mortenebra. Hitting on 8+ and killing on 10+. Aptimus had one soul for either attack or damage boost, and it was saved for damage. 8+ it was and 10+ it was.

Well, Kraken didn't die.

In all games Kraken got destroyed in every game that Cryx won, and was left intact in every game that Cryx lost. Well, technically in two games Cryx both won and lost, but let's not get stuck in such details, it's just cool to search for non-existant correlations.

Games during second day weren't so amazing as in the first day, as I felt I was playing really badly on Sunday's Cryx vs Cryx, and this last game ended before it even started. Still a good tournament. Next one is most probably on July.

Rautarouva day 1

So, last weekend I was in a Warmachine tournament. I was a 50 point Steamroller with 55 minute Deathclock rules as it was in 2012 or so. Basic character restrictions were there too if I remember right. At least I built my lists as if they were restricted.

I didn't quite finish my Kraken, but it didn't look too work-in-progress either. And I wanted to play with that thing. So my lists were:

List 1:
Mortenebra & Deryliss
- Kraken
- Nightmare
- Ripjaw

Maximum unit of Bane Thralls
Bane Lord Tartarus
Warwitch Siren
Pistol Wraith
Ogrun Bokur

List 2:
Wraith Witch Deneghra
- Kraken
- Reaper
- 2x Nightwretch

Minimum unit of Bile Thralls
Minimum unit of Soulhunters
Darragh Wrathe
2x Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Gorman diWulfe

First game was against Circle of Orboros. I don't remember which warlocks opponent had, but in the end game was Mortenebra vs Mohsar the Desertwalker.

Opponent probably had this list:

Mohsar

- Ghetorix
- Megalith
- Gorax

Shifting Stones + Stone Keeper
Shifting Stones
Maximum unit of Tharn Bloodtrackers + Nuala
2x Gallows Grove
Gatorman Witch Doctor
Celestial Fulcrum

In the first picture Nightmare is hiding behind Kraken. Nightmare's prey was one of the Gallow's Groves, and Bloodtrackers targeted Bane Lord Tartarus.

Mirage was on Bloodtrackers and Spectral Steel on Kraken.

Next is Circle's turn, and Primaled Ghetorix charges Kraken. Kraken doesn't become a wreck, though second picture is a bit misleading. The upper half has been removed because those tentacles covered most of the area where important things were happening...

Celestial Fulcrum proved to be really annoying to get rid of. Slowly it whittled down Bane Thralls, and because I placed some of my models too much forward, I lost Warwitch Siren to blast damage roll. On my next turn only one Bane Thrall gets in a charge against Fulcrum and deals damage not worthy of mentioning.

Mortenebra fixes Kraken and casts Terminal Velocity, and Deryliss casts Overrun on Kraken. Kraken kills something, don't remember any more what, and Nightmare makes the Overrun move. Nightmare uses Imprint and advances to beat Megalith. Ripjaw had also tried to do that earlier but to no avail. Megalith was still standing.

Looking at the picture I'm not sure why on earth Tartarus has advanced there, but since Mohsar is the adversary, my guess is that there had been Salt Pillars.

Well, then Megalith beats Ripjaw down, and Gorax comes and finishes what was left of Nightmare. Celestial Fulcrum continues to fry Bane Thralls, and Bane Lord Tartarus is backstabbed by the Bloodtrackers.

Kraken destroys Megalith and possibly some Bloodtracker, and Kill Shot finally removes Gatorman Witch Doctor from board. That gator had been a pain, since he/she had made Terminal Velocity almost a useless spell. Celestial Fulcrum took in two more Bane Thrall charges and one attack without a charge... and still the rock was nowhere near breaking.

I don't remember what destroyed Kraken in the end - probably Mohsar and Gorax together. Most if not all bane thralls died there and then, and the remaining Bloodtrackers took out Ogrun Bokur. Clock was ticking, and just about all options looked bad.

Well, Deryliss casts Overrun on Mortenebra, who then charges Gorax. She succeeds in killing the ape-something and advances in base contact with flag. I think she was focusless at that point.

Just about all models come to shoot at her. Fulcrum and Mohsar most notably. Mohsar had taken some damage before, and now he had cut himself down to two hit boxes remaining. Mohsar couldn't do anything to Mortenebra, but then Celestial Fulcrum hits like a ton of bricks, dealing 11 points of damage to Mortenebra and setting her on fire!

Then it's Cryx turn again, and fire doesn't go off. Fire dealt 4 damage to Mortenebra, so she was sitting on just one damage box and on fire. Mohsar was on a hill with two hit boxes remaining, but Mortenebra couldn't move at all, thanks to those damnable shifting stones!

So... Either two attempts at a Doom Spiral, or just one Void Gate. I opted for Void Gate, and spent 5 Focus to cast it boosted. Since the old man was on a hill, Mortenebra needed 9+ to hit. Still way more than 50% chances of hitting, right? Well... it's a miss. Deviation distance is, however, only two inches, so Mohsar still got a POW 7 blast damage roll with a damage boost.

Mohsar disappeared into the Void when I started the last minute available to me on the Deathclock.

Damn good game, though I felt like I played very badly. It was pure luck that Kraken survived for so long, and I lacked a decent plan to take out Megalith. I just pushed my half-dead Nightmare and Ripjaw against it, hoping for good rolls that never came.


Game 2: Wraith Witch Deneghra vs Warwitch Deneghra.

Looks like I got pictures only from the beginning of this match and the very end of it.

Opponent had a curious Warwitch Deneghra list, something like:

Deneghra
- 2x Deathripper

Maximum unit of Bane Thralls
Maximum unit of Croe's Cutthroats
Maximum unit of Nyss Hunters
Minimum unit of Bile Thralls
Skarlock Thrall
Master Gunner Dougal McNaile
2x Pistol Wraiths
+ 2 points I can't find?

Scenario was Incursion, and I guess I was happy that the leftmost flag disappeared, though there was a healthy population of Nyss at the rightmost.

Opponent played well in keeping pDeneghra out of eDeneghra's feat range. However, the first picture from this match shows the Web of Shadows. Wraith Witch is just in front of Kraken, quite badly out of sight.

Darragh Wrathe and Soulhunters try to go to harvest some Cutthroats, and I guess they do well enough, considering that there is no scenario focus there any more.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think that Kraken managed to drop arc node from the rightmost Deathripper.

Since I couldn't catch the other Deneghra with my feat or gain upper hand with attrition or anything, I decided to try to rush rightmost flag with Deneghra and Kraken and whatnot, and hope for the best that my troops near middle flag could do, well, something. Pistol Wraiths, by the way, are did a fine job at keeping Kraken at bay.

I guess the game went otherwise fine, but I just couldn't kill Nyss fast enough to start scoring points soon enough. Some pointy eared bunch was always contesting the flag, and finally the other Deneghra rushed through the middle flag and cast Crippling Grasp on Kraken. Reaper defied all odds and survived quite a few rounds of charging bane knights, so I guess I can't really complain about the Celestial Fulcrum of last game.

As I said I'm missing all the pictures from the middle, so in the next picture is the round where I got my first two control points. Opponent has just wrecked Kraken and Deathripper is coming to contest the flag.

On my turn I've ran out of troops, but at least I can get myself to 4 control points by using Dark Banishment on the Deathripper.

But damage roll doesn't knock off Arc Node.

Next turn it's Scourge + 3 charging Bane Knights for Wraith Witch.


Game 3: Mortenebra vs Dr. Arkadius

I think I was playing against Arkadius' tier force:

Dr. Arkadius Mad Science tier 4
- 3x Razor Boars
- 2x Road Hogs
- 3x War Hogs

Maximum unit of Farrow Bone Grinders
Maximum unit of Farrow Brigands

At least that's the only way I can fit the whole list inside 50 points.

Five heavy beasts is pretty damn intimidating. Even when I got two hard hitting warjacks and a unit of Bane Thralls I wasn't sure if I would ever be able to kill them all.

First picture is from the end of minion turn 1. Mortenebra casts Terminal Velocity. Kraken gets Overrun, then Nightmare charges the Road Hog that came a little bit too close. Kraken kills a couple of razor boars and Nightmare backs off from the Road Hog. Road Hog was left with something like two or three damage boxes left, which could be bad news for Bane Thralls next turn.

Thankfully Warwitch Siren rolls an absurd damage roll with Venom which kills the spray hog.

Bane Thralls destroy the rest of Razor Boars.

And then I just hope I won't lose Kraken.

Thankfully I don't, though it loses both arms, but not Cortex.

Well, then! Kraken is allocated full 3 focus, and 3 is saved for Terminal Velocity. I don't remember if Spectral steel was dropped and Nightmare was allocated 1 or not.

Mortenebra uses her feat, casts Terminal Velocity and advances to repair Kraken. Dice came out as 5 and 6. What? Really? You call yourself the Master Necrotech?

Well, luckily something manages to trigger overrun for Nightmare, though probably it was bad play on my part to bring even Nightmare to die.

Ripjaw and Bane Lord Tartarus kill the other Road Hog, and Bane Thralls try to kill as many brigands as possible. But all in all that feat turn was completely wasted.

And on the piggy side of things - Mortenebra loses all of her warjacks in one turn. What the heck just happened? Things were looking quite good, but then Mortenebra messes up her repair check and Kraken does pretty much nothing.

Well, all is not lost. Bane Lord Tartarus curses some farrow's and Threshers three bane thralls more, and then Bane Thralls activate and the war hog with yellow hood, drill and nomad's sword falls to charging Bane Thralls.

Deryliss casts Overrun on Mortenebra, and she charges to rightmost War Hog... and kills it. She advances to Kraken's wreck with Overrun. I had been able to bring some Bane Thralls to Kraken's wreck, so Mortenebra was quite nicely protected there from one non-reach heavy war hog.

War Hog goes to kill Tartarus - more banes at this point would be quite horrific indeed.

Remaining Bane Thralls and Ogrun Bokur all try to punch the big pig, but they merely tickle the bacon.

Deryliss casts Overrun on Mortenebra yet again, and she charges the last remaining War Hog, kills it and Overruns next to Dr. Arkadius. Well, she mostly fails her attack rolls, and Arkadius has one more turn. There's about 20 seconds left in my Deathclock.

Arkadius casts Crippling Grasp on Mortenebra, and that was pretty much all he could do. His only damaging spell requires living Friendly warbeasts and his combat syringe only works on living models. I hope epic Arkadius at least carries a small knife with him or something - situation was pretty much comparable to Rasheth in melee with 0-1 Fury. Nothing could be done.

Few Bone Grinders that were still alive tried to shoot Mortenebra in the back and succeeded, but they just quite didn't one-shot an uninjured warcaster.

I wasn't aware how little Arkadius could do in melee, so I was suprised to actually get one more turn with my 20 second clock.

I've had plenty of tournament games where I have only a few minutes left on my clock, but this time the clock literally started beeping the last 5 seconds, when Mortenebra finally succeeded in landing the final blow to Arkadius.

All three games in the first day were quite amazing. Next day there were two more rounds, but those games will have to wait.

Enter SR 2014

I played my first game of warmachine with Steamroller 2014.

When I was picking my warcaster I realised that I hadn't played with Wraith Witch Deneghra for almost one and a half year. She managed to skip Steamroller 2013 entirely.

Game was 50 points, and my list was:

Wraith Witch Deneghra
- Nightmare
- Reaper
- 2x Nightwretch

Maximum unit of Soulhunters
Minimum unit of Bile Thralls
Minimum unit of Mechanithralls
Darragh Wrathe
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Skarlock
Warwitch Siren
Ogrun Bokur (Deneghra client)
Ragman

And opponent had:

Tier list, not sure up to which tier level:
Epic Vayl
- 2x Ravagore
- 2x Angelius
- Seraph

Maximum unit of Hex Hunters
Maximum unit of Spawning Vessel & Acolytes
2x Shepherd
2x Spell Martyr


Despite Vayl's tier bonus Cryx got to start the game. First picture is taken from the end of Legion turn 1. On second turn Deneghra did what Deneghra does best - turns incorporeal, walks up and uses feat. Only the Ravagore on the far right and some Hex Hunters to the left are outside of Deneghra's control area. Deneghra cast Hellmouth on spawning vessel and killed about three or four acolytes.

A charge by Soulhunters against Hex Hunters (now who's hunting who?) killed a couple of the nyss infantry, and light cavalry movement ensured that the unit was engaged.

Other than these not much damage was done, but most importantly Refuge shenanigans by Angeliuses was stopped dead on their tracks.

Next turn Vayl attempts some slipstreams instead and places the spawning vessel to block LOS to Vayl herself. She also casts Icy Grip on Mechanithralls.

Hex Hunters and warbeasts kill all but one Soulhunter on the left side of things, and the free ravagore advanced to hill and tried to shoot Ragman, but missed.

Next turn I was quite confident I'd remove at least two heavy warbeasts. And I almost did, but combined efforts of Ogrun Bokur, Reaper, Nightwretch, Necrotech and even scrap thrall wasn't enough to bring the ravagore on the hill down.

Vayl had also cast Admonition on herself and she managed to escape rather easily. I had been thinking of casting a Hellmouth again on spawning vessel to drag her a bit closer before triggering Admonition, but somehow I still managed to charge the vessel with Mechanithrall. Since vessel was either undamaged or taken one or two damage points in the mechanithrall needed quite good roll to destroy it entirely. The roll was outrageous, so I lost Vayl and the possibility of killing Nightmare's target shepherd.

Deneghra cast Venom on the shepherd, then, and Nightmare chose the angelius as new prey. Then Nightmare charged its Prey and destroyed it.

Situation is a bit desperate on Legion now. Vayl tries to use her feat, but it goes awry when she is under Darragh Wrathe's Beyond Death.

Ravagore and Angelius on left manage to only dismount Darragh Wrathe, and Ravagore on right does some damage on Reaper. However, this was the last picture taken. Nightmare kills Seraph and the large gathering of random units eventually kill the ravagore on the hill. I don't have the heart to force opponent play any longer, and Legion concedes the game. After all there was only two hex hunters, Ravagore and Angelius versus about 40 points of Cryx.

Yeah, it was a tough match-up for epic Vayl. However, if Legion had won the starting roll I believe the game would have looked a lot different, and the Wraith Witch's feat wouldn't have been so crippling. It's actually really annoying when a single roll (the starting roll) dictates so much if a match-up is tough or if it's an outright stomp. Maybe I can now skip another year before I play epic Deneghra again.

Lots of mental notes

So, today I played three games of Warmachine.

I was against a starting player, and we played 15 point games.

I played with a same list all three rounds, and it was:

Epic Deneghra
- Seether
- Nightwretch
- Defiler

Iron Lich Overseer

You might want a reasoning for the Overseer? Well... truthfully spoken, there is none. At least no other than "I wanted to play with it since I got it painted."

All the three games really pointed out the obvious: Iron Lich Overseer isn't suited for 15 point games. Well, that is to be expected surely, but I dislike this thing called "theorymachine" and want to test around with unexpected combinations.

Except here was no combination, only fail.

I was against Retribution of Scyrah, and Ravyn.

First list for opponent was:

Ravyn
- Phoenix
- Aspis

Minimum unit of Houseguard Riflemen + Soulless Escort
Arcanist

Opponent won starting roll, but it doesn't exactly matter here because first picture is taken from Cryxian second turn.

Houseguard Riflemen and Phoenix together had shot left arm away from Seether, so this was first instance where I thought that I would have been a lot better off with Warwitch Siren + Necrotech instead of Iron Lich Overseer.

Anyway. Curse of Shadows was cast on Phoenix, and Iron Lich Overseer, followed up by a charge from Seether, almost destroyed the heavy myrmidon. Except for Arc Node and Field Generator and Open Fist.

Aspis and what was left of Phoenix wreck Seether next turn.

I seem to have missed Deneghra's feat turn when taking pictures. What happened was that Deneghra charged Aspis and used Dark Banishment to move it blocking Ravyn's line of Sight to Deneghra. After these a Hellmouth was cast upon Riflemen, which was somewhat funny because of one particular interaction. As Soulless Escort took 5" away from Hellmouth's range of 8", it meant that the arc node itself needed to be within 3" of target. So the poor Nightwretch was dragged to the mouth too... along with four riflemen and the escort itself.

The mouth did bite Nightwretch's Cortex off.

After that things didn't go as planned, though.

Defiler failed to take Phoenix down (Field Generator wasn't disabled), so opponent had both a serious gun, plus a few riflemen at his disposal.

Ravyn used her feat next turn, and Deneghra was left with 8 hit boxes just from the two attacks.

Well, on my next turn Deneghra backed off a little and cast enough of spells to bring Ravyn down to some 4 hit boxes remaining.

Other models finally wrecked Phoenix, too.

Then it was opponents turn again, and I was a bit scared here, as my warcaster was down to 8 boxes. And Ravyn, taking aiming bonus, did hit Deneghra even with her having DEF 18. Hellebore did 7 points in. One more damage from dice and Deneghra would have been down. Phew.

Last picture shows situation where game ends. Deneghra turns incorporeal and charges Ravyn (who was camping up focus enough for Arm 20), and misses. Well, another attack hits and damages. Ravyn is banished to right of Deneghra, with back arc to Defiler.

Last attack with hit roll & damage boost is finally enough to kill Ravyn, though. A close match, when my warcaster was left with just one hit box!

Game 2:

Next game was with me playing the same list and opponent switched Arcanist and Soulless Escort to Ghost Sniper.

Opponent started the game again, and first picture is taken from the "opening" of the game. Deneghra cast Hellmouth on Aspis, and tried to score damage both on Aspis and Ravyn, failing in both. I guess I should have spammed Deneghra's upkeep spells.

Well, needless to say, it was the end of that particular bone chicken.

What especially hurt me here was a Combined Ranged Attack (actually a second one) against Seether. Those knocked off it's Movement system, so Phoenix was out of my reach.

I had used Deneghra's ability to go incorporeal a turn too early (I was too afraid of a Combined Ranged Attack against a focusless caster), so I wasn't able to get that defensive ability on my warcaster for now.

I ended up walking the nearly broken Seether a little bit forward and parking Deneghra behind it so enemy would need to first destroy Seether, and then kill Deneghra who would then be behind cover. Sounds like a good plan? Not really.

All efforts I did against forces of Retribution of Scyrah either missed Ravyn (despite Deneghra's feat) or just missed Ravyn. I did maybe 4 points of damage in.

Then was opponents turn and Ravyn used her feat.

Now, you'd think that even with a boosted attack roll it would be tough to hit a DEF 20 model.

It wasn't.

Not a single attack roll missed her. She was shot to pieces after I think Phoenix shot the Seether down.

Epic Deneghra, for sure, isn't that brutal against Ravyn. When only Aspis doesn't shoot, Deneghra's feat only affects a little bit of movement that isn't most often even needed. But I'll blame everything on Iron Lich Overseer, just because.

We still played a third game, though.

Game 3:

Both of us had the same list as earlier, but now I won starting roll.

It wasn't actually a long game, at least in turns.

Opponent moved Phoenix within 12" of Epic Deneghra, and Aspis was standing in front of Ravyn at the start of my second (or third?) turn. So Deneghra charged Phoenix and moved it full 9" closer to Cryxian forces. I had tried to move Deneghra so that Ravyn would not get line of sight to Deneghra, and that I still could move Phoenix where I wanted to. I thought I had succeeded. Deneghra obviously used her feat.

After that I rolled damage rather badly against Phoenix. Not one POW 14 from Nightwretch, and one POW 12 from Defiler, and one P+S 13 + 3D6 from Iron Lich Overseer and tons of attacks from charging Seether wrecked it.

Anyway things weren't too bad. Or so I thought.

It was Retribution's turn then, and Ravyn checked for line of sight to Deneghra. She was actually 1-2 millimetres positioned wrongly, and Ravyn had LOS. Hellebore dealt something like 10 damage to Deneghra, and Eliminator did the rest.

What bugs me a little was the fact that if it wasn't for those couple of millimetres, Deneghra would have needed to take only a POW 13 Combined Ranged Attack from riflemen.

All games were close-fought and interesting. However, as a hindsight, I was way too overconfident on Deneghra's survivability. Even DEF 20 wasn't enough to save her from Ravyn's feat, and last game shows how damn important positioning is in this game.

Maybe I'll leave Iron Lich Overseer away from my next 15 point game with Cryx...

So, time for a joke? Spellslinged to death by Protectorate of Menoth (and another game, too)

Actually that joke is a lot more fun, because it did happen to me today.

So, I played two games today with my Cryx against the forces of Protectorate. Because the first game ended, uh, rather soon because of my, well, a slight lack in tactical acumen, we decided to play with same scenario, same lists and same sides.

So, my list in both games was (35 pointer):

Epic Deneghra
- Nightmare
- Defiler
- Nightwretch
- 2x Helldivers

Minimum unit of Soulhunters
Minimum unit of Mechanithralls + Brute Thrall
Darragh Wrathe
Warwitch Siren

And opponent had:

High Exemplar Kreoss
- Revenger
- Crusader
- Avatar of Menoth

Maximum unit of Exemplar Bastions
Maximum Choir of Menoth
Minimum unit of Temple Flameguard + Unit Attachment

Opponent was still waiting for the metal infantry to come from mail order, so the occasional bile thralls and stitch thralls are Temple Flameguards and Choir of Menoth.

So, the scenario was Process of Elimination. Strips of paper are marking the zones on the board.

And, ahem. Well, I did win the starting roll.

I ran everything forward, including Deneghra. Opponent struggled to get stuff to control zones so Deneghra wouldn't just be able to move forward, use her feat and win the game.

Well, next was my turn again and I tried to be really clever and run an arc node forward and remove protectorates jack support in one fell swoop with Hellmouth. Which happened to come out as double 1's.

Rest of the focus I spend on a Venom, that did as little as the Hellmouth.

And then I realised that yeah, Deneghra was sitting there, yelling "Heeeey! Look at me! No Stealth! Not camping any focus! I'm not even incorporeal! Cool, huh?!" to opposing Revenger.

So, Revenger ran forward and then Kreoss activated. Moved forward, used his feat and arced three Immolations on Deneghra. Who died in shame. Let's just forget about this sorry affair and move to the next game...

Game 2:

Second game opponent won the starting roll.

Picture is taken from the end of opponents second turn.

Avatar had trampled forward and started ogling my troops with that special ability of his.

So, scoring points would start on my following turn.

I needed only to kill Avatar, all the Temple Flameguards, Crusader and perhaps a couple of contesting bastions during within 2 turns if I used my feat and caught everyone under...

That was a little bit of a stretch.

But still I did use Deneghra's feat.

First Nightwretch advanced and tried to take a potshot against Avatar, doing one or two points of damage. Then it was Deneghra's turn, who advanced (should have turned her incorporeal, but forgot) used feat and cast Hellmouth on temple flameguard marked with red (so, it's a targetting mark, I'm not censoring anything on that model...)

I was confident enough that nothing could really harm Nightmare during Deneghra's Web of Shadows, so it charged the Revenger that had been pulled a little bit closer via Hellmouth.

It had been allocated 2 focus because I didn't think it would be able to use all three because of Revenger's repelling shield.

Combo-strike dealt something like 14 points of damage. But that was about everything I could do with Deneghra's game winning feat. Mostly positioning.

Yet, I didn't get Kreoss himself nor all of the Choir under the feat.

Kreoss moved and used his own feat to mitigate my achievements. I guess both feats were "wasted" in attempt to be pre-emptive. If you can call that "wasting a feat" in situations like these.

However, opponents turn was fast. Then it was my turn again and it was fast enough too as I could do anything useful with only my warjacks. Luckily I had Helldivers, who had been unaffected by Kreoss' feat.

Anyway, Nightmare shook off the knocked down and moved to combo-strike Avatar, who was also it's prey target.

Damage rolls were rather poor, but still took Avatar's shield and movement off. Yet, the big scary sword was still intact...

One of the Helldivers charged the already damaged Revenger, knocking the shield and arc node off.

Darragh Wrathe did the best thing he managed to do during whole match. Stood up, cast Beyond Death and used light cavalry movement to get as much mileage out of his spell as possible.

Then it was opponents next turn.

Avatar single-handedly (heh, get it? It had lost its other arm system! ... Yeah, I'm crying here. Mostly at my lame puns) destroyed Nightmare.

Revenger and Crusader wrecked the one brave Helldiver who jumped and bit the toe of revenger. Luckily the other helldiver who was engaging avatar remained nearly unharmed.

Things didn't look all that good for me then. Sure I had severely damaged opposing warjacks, but I had lost my Nightmare in that process and there was still an undamaged Crusader stomping about.

I did manage to destroy the Avatar with a charge from Mechanithralls and if I remember right I destroyed what was left of Revenger with a damage boost from Hellmouth's damage roll (that was targeted at Crusader).

Oh, and a mention that has to be made: I used Seduction a second time during my games with Cryx. Warwitch Siren seduced the closest exemplar bastion who heard that a nearby temple flameguard had been cheating him with the Siren.

Another mention that has to be made isn't all that awesome, though. Once Darragh Wrathe got into the thick of action, he missed all his attacks, not getting either Death Ride nor Beyond Death off via Battle Wizard.

Well, come opponents turn.

Half of the mechanithralls were swept away, Darragh's horsie was devastated, and Crusader swatted Warwitch Siren into smithereens.

Kreoss himself killed one of the Soulhunters who had wandered too close.

Yet, neither player had scored any points from control zones. But I was running out of troops, really.

However, Helldiver got a suprise attack against Kreoss. It was also just under Deneghra's control range, so it was given three focus.

First attack hit with full boosts, and last attack without any boosts luckily hit too and left Kreoss with 3 hit points.

Defiler then took an aimed spray attack at a temple flameguard close to Kreoss. The spray hit and killed Kreoss. Phew.

Dice were with me on that final attempt to actually win the game. I would've had 4 focus on Deneghra for a fully boosted Venom, which was a good asset, but I could only "trust" to get off the first attack with Helldiver and the Venom, which made killing an arm 16 model with 18 damage boxes a game of... a game of dice.

Anyway, good games.

Except the first game. But it will keep me humble for some time now.

17.10.2010 Turku Fanatic Day 2

I'm going straight to game reports again.

Game 4: Epic Deneghra vs Baldur (Convergence)

Pretty damn awesome matchup. Both Baldur and epic Deneghra are good at Convergence scenario. I didn't even win the starting roll.

Anyway, picture from the end of round 1:

Those small papers roughly mark the convergence area. Because we played the earlier Steamroller Convergence scoring would have started on my next turn. But as it turned out there was no way I could have ever started scoring... All three heavy warbeasts rushed in to the area next turn.

So, Circle rushed forward and Baldur put up his feat. As you can see, Megalith went down. I rolled less than awesome damage rolls but eventually the big beast crumbled to dust. Orin Midwinter proved to be quite a valuable asset against Circle. He messed up Druids real good and even Baldur found himself troubled with his smaller control area.

Oh, another turn.

First, Wolves of Orboros charged in and killed all my Soulhunters. Bile Thralls were just behind the Soulhunters so I guess opponent knew it to be a trade of sorts. Harrower was wrecked too.

But then it was my time to use feat. Deneghra went incorporeal and charged one of the woldwardens. Dark Banishment throwed the warden 10 full inches away which was rather cool. Then came in Web of Shadows. I was feeling quite confident about the game by then.



However, I was facing Circle anyway. Opponent had two units of Shifting Stones and totally messed up my advance to get to juicy targets. All I actually managed to do was to beat down one woldwarden and a few shifting stones.

I just could not reach Baldur.



And then it was the last round, kind of. Remaining Woldwarden charged in and wrecked Seether. Baldur just stayed.

And you can see the picture. Woldwarden had maxed out it's fury so Baldur was just a def 14 arm 16 target and nothing else. I had epic Deneghra (though knocked down but able to shake herself) with full focus, one bile thrall and even one nightwretch ready to aim a shot at Baldur, not to mention such curiosities as Necrotech and even few remaining Satyxis.

So three minutes more and Baldur would have died most certainly. But time was up. Game ended. And neither of us had scored control points so tie-breaker was that who had more army points at convergence area and opponent had Woldwarden there.

Fight was awesome though ending feels a bit unfair.

Game 5: Epic Deneghra vs Deneghra (Process of Elimination)

Next game was a funny one, Deneghras were facing themselves!

Scenario did favor epic Deneghra more, however. I took a picture the turn before the real action came:

Oh, my poor Harrower lost its scythe claw physically and it showed in it's performance too.

Anyway, opponent didn't realise amazing threat ranges the Satyxis possess with the solo. Next turn was pretty brutal me shutting down opponents movement and slaughtering nearly whole unit of Bane Thralls.

Epic Deneghra went incorporeal and moved forward as far as she could and used her feat. Then I cast Hellmouth on Darragh Wrathe. I wanted to kill Bane Lord Tartarus with it and succeeded.

Then Satyxis launched themselves at the front line and well, the picture speaks for itself. I didn't quite manage to push everyone out of scenario scoring areas.



Opponent had to use Deneghra's feat defensively which is quite rare indeed. But sure it crippled my army, only thing I managed to do was to kill off one Pistol Wraith with combined melee attacks from satyxis.

After that opponent retreated with his Deneghra and left hard targets still contesting scenario areas. Funny thing was too that I purged five of my bile thralls so that the Deathripper engaging Harrower would be easier to finish. But as it turned out I did more damage to Harrower than to Deathripper with those purges, damage rolls were absolutely pitiful.



Anyway, we played one more round but opponent was on the defense. Game could have dragged on for more but time ended. This time tie-breaker favored me but game was going so good for me anyway so this ending, barring amazing rolls from opponent, only accelerated the outcome.


Game 6: Venethrax vs Absylonia (Don't remember scenario, three flags one goes away after first round)

Deployment picture is quite important here actually. So here's the shot:

Bile Thralls were placed rather badly. They would have just been shot by Striders with nothing to support them. So Bile Thralls ran away and Bane Thralls tried to catch up Striders. The middle flag went away that made my position a bit difficult.

Typhon charged my Seether and wrecked it and I think Seraph shot the melee arm and cortex from Corruptor. Damage rolls were a bit excessive. But then I thought that maybe Venethrax needed to kill 'em all alone then if warjacks were going to die. So I charged Typhon with Venethrax and, well. I didn't know if I should cry or laugh, I rolled dice so badly. Three snake eyes in attack rolls, a few other plain misses and few botched damage rolls too. I actually managed to kill Typhon once but then Feralgeist came in. I was able to reave the fury from Typhon and continue beating Typhon with warbeast-slaying expert Lich Lord and, well, failed.

Then Necrotech charged the Typhon and killed it eventually. So we all saw who the wurmslayer actually is. Venethrax also put up his feat. Situation at the left-side flag was looking bad, I had to run my Warwitch Siren to contest stuff there so opponent wouldn't gain control points. I think he scored two points already on his earlier turn.



Next I needed to be brave. I managed to charge Bane Thrall Officer and one ordinary bane thrall to Scythean. I made my single most awesome damage roll then in whole tournament. 5,6,6,6. Take that, Scythean! So that beast actually went down which made situation at that flag a lot better.

To the other flag I went with Venethrax and camped all focus and Admonia upkept Dragon Slayer so he had arm 25. Still I was afraid of Angelius' Armor Piercing attack but I thought that I'd survive. And I should have survived.



But, well. You can't deny the power of dice. Angelius obviously charged Venethrax. Hitting wasn't problem now with boosted attack roll. And damage roll. That damage roll. I weep bitterly that damage roll even now as I write this. 5,5,6.

Well, at least it was some kind of an accomplisment that Venethrax didn't die to that attack.

Next opponent buys a new attack but doesn't boost attack roll so he needed 8+ to hit. And well, 8 it was. He boosted damage and still needed 12 on three dice to kill Venethrax. And 12 he rolled. Game over.

Anyway, tournament was all nice and good though it feels a bit bad that so many of my defeats were so weird or close or unlikely. But plenty of tough and cool games and that's what's most important, right?