Cassius pulls it good

Cassius versus Mortenebra tier 4.

And it was awesome.

It was a 35 point game and our lists were:

Mortenebra & Deryliss
- Seether
- Slayer
- Reaper
- Deathjack
- Deathripper

2x Warwitch Siren
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall

Cassius & Wurmwood
- Feral Warpwolf
- Megalith
- Gorax

Maximun unit of Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment
Sentry Stone & Mannikins
Shifting Stones
Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew
Thrullg

Opponent won the starting roll. So starting from turn 1 I had to keep a keen eye on the positioning of Wurmwood. Both natural forests were on the other side of the table so I was struggling for concealment to trigger Prowl.

Anyway. You can see the first rounds movement in the picture, the khadoran jack you see there is a proxy for a Slayer. The round template is the cloud effect of swamp gobbers.

And then the game nearly ended.

Opponent closed in only a little bit, except for the Deathripper.

Mortenebra used her feat and arced one damage boosted Doom Spiral to Wurmwood and put up a Void Gate on it too. Half of health boxes gone. Gobber dead. Four Wolves dead. Could have been worse, though killing Cassius outright was always unlikely.

Well, then I retaliated.

And the game nearly ended.

First, Megalith moves up and casts a boosted Stranglehold at focusless Mortenebra, dealing something like nine points in.

It took all of Warpwolf, Thrullg and Gorax to wreck the Deathripper but eventually they succeeded.

Cassius activated and yanked five souls from Wurmwood. He cast Unseen Path to move the tree out of way and charged Thrullg.

He was then just within 8" of Reaper, on whom he cast a boosted Hellmouth, boosting damage on Mortenebra. She was left with 2 health boxes and Cassius had enough fury for another Hellmouth that could have the attack roll boosted.

But, the problem was, Megalith was dragged in to Hellmouth too, engaging Reaper in melee.

I considered it too much a risk to try another Hellfire, so Cassius backed up and used feat.

Next turn other jacks back up a bit except for Deathjack who had Spectral Steel on it. He beat up Megalith and despite some really bad rolls it still had focus to spare after killing it...

All other jacks moved into a half-circle around the Deathjack.

Well, but I didn't think I had any choice in the matter. Had to charge in with everything that was able to. Luckily Thrullg was able to and took out Spectral Steel. Finally it made something worthwile on the board!

Anyway, Warpwolf warped for speed and Gorax cast its animus on it. Then it tried to wreck Deathjack but failed miserably. Deathjack was left with something like 6 damage boxes.

I had to dedicate as many Wolves to as I could, too, and hope they would pass their command check for Abomination. They did.

And if Warpwolf rolled a bit poorly, the Wolves didn't. First attacking Wolf wrecked Deathjack.

Next turn opponent obviously killed my warpwolf and formed up a jack line, Necrotech fixing any damage I had earlier done with Hellmouth.

I had to start using unsportmanlike schemes. Three nearly undamaged heavy jacks and only a Gorax (who failed its threshold check and destroyed one of the Shifting Stones) on the board on the beast side of my army...

Shifting Stone teleported so that it was within 3" of Slayer and both Warwitches.

Hellmouth there.

Two birds with one stone.

Remaining Wolves of Orboros charged the Reaper but they didn't really do anything. I guess all their brawn went into handling Deathjack (which was true in the form of their minifeat...)

Mortenebra had earlier healed up to 6 health boxes.

On that picture you can see the threatening wall of jacks looking at my remaining forces.

In the next picture you can see the situation after Terminal Velocity had been cast and all three helljacks had trampled.

That meant...

I started my turn with a Sentry Stone with 1 fury, Wurmwood with 5 souls, Cassius who had to cut up a little to get maximum fury and one Shifting Stone.

But it was enough, though only as a desperate last ditch attempt.

First, Shifting Stone teleports close to Mortenebra.

Then, Cassius advances to the wall o' jacks. Unseen Path led Wurmwood straight behind them, and another one transported Cassius himself to where you can see him.

And damage boost was enough to destroy Mortenebra.

Let the power of the storm... fizzle!

Then, as I was about to leave the friends place where we were playing a new guy voices interest in seeing a game of Warmachine.

We decided to play a 15 point game to quickly show off how the game goes from start to finish.

Lists you can see in the picture. Now I happened to win starting roll, despite opponent rolling 5!

I was happy enough about the fact that opponent actually had some shooting elements in his army so I could make use of Storm Wall.

However, opponents warcaster wasn't really a front-liner, meaning it was doubtful whether I would ever make effective use of my capability of ridiculous threat ranges.

Also, opponent started playing very defensively. He dug up positions at the walls in his deployment zone.

I'm actually skipping the picture of the end of first round, as it looks very similar to this picture taken from end of round 2:

As opponent had the really viable tactic of taking long pot-shots at me and with lucky rolls doing serious damage I decided to go aggressive.

Krueger moved next to the house, cast Storm Wall and shot the lightning blast spell at the Iron Fang in front of Destroyer.

Warpwolf ran to screen Krueger, but it was a fatal time to forget about arcing fire.

Opponent moved Destroyer a bit to side and shot off at Krueger, who luckily got only 7 points of damage in.

Irusk moved forward and tried to airburst Krueger a little more. After that he used epic Irusk's feat and was sitting with no focus.

Iron Fang pikemen just ran to tie me up.

Well, I proceeded to beat them up with my beasts. Gnarlhorn Satyr and one Iron Fang pikeman gets a mention... All initial attacks miss and first bought attack kill the pikeman. Who then passes four tough rolls in a row. Not the satyr's day I suppose.

Warpwolf finishes the pikeman who just wouldn't die and Wilder does the most useful thing she did during whole game: killed one of the pikemans she just could reach.

Then it was time for me to try to win the game.

Epic Krueger used his feat, pushing models around, clearing enough space for him to land on the other side of the building.

Boosted attack roll agains Irusk with his staff o' lighting. 6,1,1. Would've needed one more to hit. Krueger has rate of fire 3 and sustained attack.

Well, he buys a second attack and boosts attack roll, this time hitting home and the last attack hitting automatically. These two attacks leave Irusk with 2 health boxes.

6,1,1.

Feralgeist runs so it tries to block as much of the upcoming Ironfang Pikemen as possible.

Come opponents turn.

Destroyer misses.

Widowmakers deal nasty damage.

Irusk advances and takes a hand cannon shot at Krueger. Hits. Damage roll is impressive, 13 points of damage in. Which is transfered to Warpwolf.

Then I don't remember if airburst hit or dealt damage or what happened, but Krueger was sitting with 3 health boxes when Iron Fange Pikemen activated.

Standard bearer and two other pikemen came hugging the feralgeist.

Was Krueger within their reach?

Thanks to the handy measurement tool we quickly found out both were within striking distance.

After one Combined Melee Attack Krueger was no more.

Infernal Machines versus Desert Walking... umm... goats and things

Today I actually played two games of Warmachine with Circle Orboros, but I'm making the posts separate.

First game was my Mohsar against his Mortenebra in a 35 point game.

Lists are included in the picture. Mortenebra is tier 4 list.

I was a bit anxious as I play Mortenebra myself with Cryx, so I knew how nasty she can be against Hordes.

However, I hoped that my salt pillars would be good enough counter for crazy threat range shenanigans. Also, playing board proved to be very crowded in the middle. Though Mortenebra had access to Ghostly from Spectral Steel and I got plenty of pathfinders, the board proved to be a hell to navigate to both players.

Anyway. I lost the starting roll. Who would've guessed?

Start-up was frighteningly fast.

It doesn't show too well in the picture but the slip of paper on the board is a pillar of salt.

I tried to put everything so that getting too much use out of Reaper's harpoon would be difficult.

But what happened was that opponent shot one of my Shifting Stones with Reaper and it was actually destroyed by the damage roll (I had learned my lesson with that one Strakhov game - stones are immobile!)

Mortenebra cast Void Gate on Reaper, dealing a little bit of damage to it in the process, but repairing it soon enough.

Everything else backed up, except for the Deathjack, who came a little too close.

First my Wolves of Orboros used their minifeat, making them effective weapon masters for one round. Then they charged the Deathjack, passing their command check. They wrecked it real good, leaving only 5 damage boxes to it.

Distance between Feral Warpwolf and Deathjack seems great... but Wilder cast Bounding on it and Blackclad Wayfarer managed to hit Deathjack with Hunter's Mark.

That meant I didn't have to warp for speed with warpwolf and I decided to go with armor.

Though damage rolls were real crappy, in the end Deathjack was lying smoldering on the ground.

Picture doesn't show the placement of Pillars, but anyway. Next round.

Mortenebra used her feat, which resulted in plenty of dead Wolves of Orboros via spray from Warwitch Siren.

Void Gate was upkept.

Reaper dragged Warpwolf to the pillar you can see in picture. Then Deryliss cast Spectral Steel on slayer, who charged past my the farthest pillar (it had Line of Sight to warpwolf, however) to get to the warpwolf, finishing it.

All in all, could have been worse. Oh wait... That's turn 3.5, me starting the turn. You can see the pillar placement, after all.

I decided to wreck Slayer with Primaled Gnarlhorn Satyr.

Yet I didn't remember Void Gate was on... I could only make the charge and initial attacks, which did impressive damage, but it was far from wrecking it.

Gorax is facing directly the other way, as a side note. It was easier to place that way.

Mohsar cast Curse of Shadows on Reaper and moved to safety. Then Gorax and the Wolves you can see wrecked the Reaper, but Slayer was still standing with Cortex intact. Mohsar had used his feat just in case.

Well, opponents turn.

Seether, again with Spectral Steel from Deryliss, charges past my blocking Pillar of Salt. It absolutely crushes the poor satyr. Mortenebra moves into contact with Slayer, fixes it and casts Overrun on it.

Another Warwitch Siren sprays quite a few Wolves to death.

Slayer destroys all but the standard bearing Wolf of Orboros. Hilarious enough.

Then, last turn.

Argus, that was no longer in Mohsar's control area (last turn it had been busy killing one Warwitch Siren), frenzied and ate the last Wolf of Orboros. Yeah, the standard bearer. I guess you don't wave a standard made of bones in the sight of a frenzying Argus without consequences.

Mohsar walks there and uses his ranged attack. He tries to boost attack roll against Mortenebra but misses. He hits the Slayer, however, and wrecks it. Then he maltreats the Argus for eating the last Wolf standing, casts an attack roll boosted Crevasse at Mortenebra, hits, and boosts damage.

Then he uses Argus' animus on Gorax to help it go through wreck markers. In the end maltreating Argus wasn't necessary, but sure it was fun!

Gorax moves into contact with injured Mortenebra and kills her with two attack roll & damage roll boosted claw attacks.

Now, without Argus, none of this would've been possible... just sayin'...

Winterguard hate.

First game for a while, I hope getting games in and updating this thingy continues as often as it used to.

Oh... and did I really forget about winterguard infantry in a couple of months? Apparently I did, as I faced yet another spray hell of doom.

Anyway, I was playing today a 35 point game of Warmachine, Goreshade versus epic Sorscha. Lists you can see in the following picture.

Opponent rolled 2 for starting. I rolled 1. Looks like Vassal can mess up a little this tendency of mine to lose starting rolls but when real dices are rolling...

Ah well. First round I made the great mistake of under estimating Speed 6" + Spray 8" with boosted attack rolls. Here, let me show a picture...

Well, at first it looked like I hadn't under estimated it too badly. I had packed up everything together rather stupidly, but I thought the key model, Necrosurgeon, was safe.

I was expecting heavy losses, but, well, then epic Sorscha's Desperate Pace kicked in... Meaning 8" move to Winterguard and 8" spray. With boosted attack rolls to sprays from Kovnik Joe.

So, let me present another picture. "Before" and "After". Pffft.

Winterguard had the one spell... Shatterstorm or something like that? upkept on them. Which caused all the destroyed models to explode in a 3" area of effect.

Brutal. Yet, all was not lost. I saw a distant possibility for an assassination.

Remaining bile thralls wiped off a score of winterguards. Goreshade himself charged a kayazy assassin, who had Iron Flesh on them. Idea was to kill this kayazy with Goreshade, creating Deathwalker again to lower the defense of Sorscha.

Obviously Goreshade missed and no Deathwalker was created.

Then Goreshade cast Hex Blast on Kodiak, managing to miss it too, but deviation roll caused the AoE to go over the kayazy I wanted to die.

After that Goreshade used his feat, bringing 6 bane thralls to table.

It was time to activate Malice.

It advanced, shot Kodiak with harpoon, dragged it to base contact and possessed it. Lane was clear. Tartarus charged the Kodiak, doing pretty impressive damage to it (I think it was 14 points in?) and cursed Sorscha.

At least this succeeded.

Then it was time to charge in. Two of bane thralls got into contact with war dog, two against Sorscha and two other not.

Well, through whole four attacks I wasn't able to roll over 4-5 with 2 dice so no matter how well I laid the plans for this I couldn't just do it.

But had I managed to creathe Deathwalker, curse Sorscha (which I did) and kill War Dog Sorscha's defense would have been a little more tolerable.

Failing my assassination run I tried to move everything close to Goreshade to protect him as well as was possible.

On opponents turn the winterguard nicely destroyed any small-based protection I had built up for Goreshade.

Then Sorscha charges him and casts Freezing Grip and used her feat.

Two attacks she managed to make didn't kill Goreshade, but the first hammer from Demolition Corps dealt 22 points of damage in.

Ouch.

End of Goreshade.

High Reclaimer proves his worth on the internet

So, I'm moving into another apartment so my time to spent on the game table has been cut quite short.

Anyway, I squeezed in a game on Vassal yesterday.

I played a 25 point game against a friend of mine. Our lists were:

Me:
Iron Lich Asphyxious
- Reaper
- Slayer
- Ripjaw

Full unit of Mechanithralls + 1 Brute Thrall
Necrosurgeon & stitch thralls
Necrotech & Scrap thrall
Skarlock
Warwitch Siren

And my opponent was playing:

High Reclaimer
- Revenger
- Reckoner

Minimum unit of Choir of Menoth
Knights Exemplar
Full unit of Temple Flameguard
Visgoth Juviah Rhoven & Honor Guard

I won the starting roll (has my quivering about losing it every time finally normalised things?)

This time I found out the function in the Vassal client to take screenshots of the game, so I have pictures of the battle now to illustrate things.

The fear of Ashes to Ashes made me bring my heavies up front.

Really not much else to tell about round 1, as you can see how opponent hides behind Burning Ash clouds. Now it was my time to be in the receiving end of cloud effect spam...

Round 2 I was still horrified of Ashes to Ashes. Not for my mechanithralls but for my Necrosurgeon. I tried to place my troops so that opponent just might overextend his arc node and kill a bunch of mechanithralls but not getting my surgeon. On the hindsight this was a big mistake. I should have been a lot more aggressive and not let opponent back up behind the clouds.

Reckoner took a shot at Reaper and nearly broke its cortex.

Opponents infantry actually retreated, which was (in my opinion) a mistake from his side. Me being so afraid of Ashes to Ashes however didn't let me capitalise on that.

Round 3.

I don't want to talk about it... really.

I made such a huge loads of mistakes during my half of the turn that it almost brings tears to my eyes. And many of my shenanigans would have actually been pretty clever if I had intended them to be clever... Ah, let me explain.

I allocated 3 focus to Reaper and ran Mechanithralls a bit forward. One ran to the cloud effect in front of Reckoner.

Skarlock then cast Scything Touch on Reaper.

Reaper charged the mechanithrall in the cloud.

I didn't even remember trample at that point, not even if not that long ago a different opponent had used it to great effect against myself!

Anyway.

That charge shenanigan would have been actually pretty clever if I had killed Mechanithrall with Reaper's tusk attack and then put Helldriver to Reckoner. But did I even remember Reaper had tusk attack? Nope. Well, it was my first time to use that warjack anyway.

Reaper dealt something like 12 points in with two attacks which was decent enough but nothing broke from the warjack.

Then, feeling disappointed at Reapers performance I tried to do the good old hellfire assassination against High Reclaimer. Well, this was a very weird thing to do because I had already spent 3 focus on Reaper.

I did hit with my first boosted hit hellfire and dealt 6 points of damage.

Then Apshyxious used its feat. One temple flameguard and two choir members died to the pow 5 hit. Then I tried to shoot one hellfire with replenished focuses to High Reclaimer but missed.

I didn't think I could kill High Reclaimer with one hellfire even if it hit. I decided to send in one Breath of Corruption, saving one focus for boosting damage if anything nice would happen to get under the template.

Well, of course Asphyxious missed. But then, on top of that, the only direction that had no enemy models in it came up. And maximum deviation distance.

Opponent crushed Reaper with two hits from Reckoner.

One Knight Exemplar and Gius or Cassian charged my Ripjaw. Both missed. Otherwise opponent was still holding back.

On round 4 my tactics seemed to improve somewhat.

I gave Ripjaw and Slayer 3 focus, Skarlock cast Scything Touch on it and it trampled to Reckoner, killing two mechanithralls with the trample. Necrosurgeon was close enough to get the corpse tokens.

Slayer did pretty sweet damage but columns rolled were something like 3 and 5, nothing getting broken.

Ripjaw killed Gius or Cassian and tried to bite the Exemplar but missed.

Now, in the hindsight I should have given Ripjaw only 2 focus and cast Scything Touch with Asphyxious on Mechanithralls.

Anyway, then Necrosurgeon moved as far forward as possible and made two new mechanithralls from the very same corpses that Slayer had trampled.

I placed them to the cloud effect so they could see Reckoner.

Then they charged, or, well, two thralls charged and rest ran.

First thrall scored a hit with combo-strike. I was sure something would happen now but no. I don't remember the actual damage roll any more but Reckoner was left with 1 damage box in every system, except few that had more. Seven damage boxes left and fully functional.

Last mechanithrall missed, despite needing to roll only 5 with 2 dice.

Well, rest mechanithralls had run far and wide, trying to bog down opponent as much as possible.

Opponent obviously dismantled my Slayer with Reckoner and killed as many mechanithralls as possible.

That Gius or Cassian guy you see there charged in to kill Necrotech that had ran next to reapers wreck marker.

Round 5 I tried to kill Gius or Cassian with a Hellfire shot from Skarlock. The bastard was left with 1 hit point. It would have been nice as I would have gotten a corpse token before Necrosurgeon would have activated.

That was not to be.

Then something happened that was something beyond awesome. Something that gives this game the "epic" tag.

Warwitch siren advances into base to base contact with the lone Exemplar you can see in round 4's picture. She casts Seduction. Exemplar then moves to Reckoner and wrecks it with one shot, giving exactly 7 points of damage in.

That's just purely Cryxian thing to do. Then Ripjaw moves a bit.

Then Necrosurgeon moved to better position and Asphyxious himself charged the bodyguard to death. It was nice to get the soul to myself rather than give it to the wretched menite. Through arc node Asphyxious shot Breath of Corruption at Revenger, catching High Reclaimer under the template. I boosted that damage. Reclaimer was left with 6 hit points.

Opponent charged Revenger to my Ripjaw who lost everything else except movement system. Poor little thing.

Most of my mechanithralls were mopped up but not the Necrosurgeon.

On round 6 I charged Asphyxious to Revenger, cast Parasite on it (missed the first, even with boost) but hit with second that I was able to boost because of earlier soul.

Charge attack scored a lucky hit too and destroyed Revengers movement system which was quite a blessing in regard to mechanithralls' performance.

But then Asphyxious could do nothing else.

Skarlock moved and cast Scything Touch on Mechanithralls, then Necrosurgeon created 3 thralls more and two mechanithralls charged to Revenger. Rest killed two of the exemplars near to Asphyxious, again giving souls to the Iron Lich instead of their righteous owner.

Revenger was wrecked.

Well, it was opponents time to use his feat on his 6th round.

Gius and Cassian came back and charged Asphyxious, dealing a nice amount of 10 points in. Only one hit was scored there.

7th round was pathetic for me. Mechanithralls killed only one guy, though they did their best in beating up Gius and Cassian. Both were reduced to 1 hit point. Asphyxious had to personally kill them, after of which he launched a hit-roll boosted Hellfire at remaining Rhoven.

It was there, then, when I realised that High Reclaimer actually doesn't have the spell "Revive", which was the reason why I hadn't been killing much of opponents infantry during the whole game...

Well, then Asphyxious teleported to safety.

Opponent utterly crushed my mechanithralls, using the dreaded Ashes to Ashes.

Everything his troops couldn't finish were cleaned away with that spell.

Then I started round 8 with Asphyxious with 9 souls and Skarlock. Things looked indeed a bit grim.

But Skarlock moved as far as it could and shot one temple flameguard with Hellfire, clearing a line of sight for Asphyxious.

Asphyxious then charged the red temple flameguard. Missed, by the way.

He could draw Line of Sight to High Reclaimer. Attack roll boosted Hellfire hit home. Damage boost was more than enough to finish him.

All in all... even if both of us made pretty weird mistakes, I think I learned to respect High Reclaimer more. On paper yes, he looks terrible, having only pathetic 5 focus.

But to be honest... I was playing mostly unliving Cryx (so burning ash or ashen veil from Reckoner had no effect on attack rolls) and I got my warcaster at many places collecting souls instead of giving them to High Reclaimer and the fight was still this tough. Actually, I scored a victory only with desperate last ditch measure.

For sure I learned to respect High Reclaimer more than I used to. Sure, I would have probably gotten in a spell assassination if I had spent all of my feat turn focus on hellfires against Reclaimer. But now, when the game went on and I could see some of the actual play style instead of sudden death, he didn't seem so bad after all.

A bird? A plane? Or a superman? No, all of them!

So this is my final shot at my magnetising project.



I thought a swirl of souls would look stupid if the whole base wasn't filled with them so I expanded Malice's base a little.

I guess I don't have much else to tell. It is completed for now, until they bring on another upgrade piece.

Trees thrive in the desert

Played two 15 point games today against Skorne with Cassius & Wurmwood.

We played with the same lists, which were:

Wurmwood
- Megalith
- Woldwyrd

Minimum unit of Wolves of Orboros
Swamp Gobbers

And opponent played:

Morghoul
- Titan Gladiator
- Cyclops Savage
- Cyclops Brute

Minimum unit of Beast Handlers
Bloodrunner Master Tormentor

There's some "proxying" going on so I put some explanations in the pictures. First game I won the starting roll (am I getting better at it?)

I rushed forward with everything I got while opponent was more cautious. I got Wurmwood inside forest, which was nice enough.

Next turn I moved forward and caught Gladiator with Stranglehold.

Woldwyrd took a few shots at Gladiator too as Morghoul had cast Admonition on it. Damage rolls weren't that impressive, however.

Opponent cast Rush on both cyclops' and moved forward with Morghoul and used his feat.

Cyclops Brute charged Woldwyrd but didn't break anything. Savage charged Megalith and didn't really damage it that much and Bloodrunner Master Tormentor killed only one of the two Wolves she managed to charge.

I forgot to take one picture at the end of opponents next turn, so, looking at that picture, Megalith advanced and beat what it could out of Savage.

Wolves of Orboros charged Savage and it was left with 1 damage point. Cassius moved to kill the Cyclops Savage, managed to do that (and found out that I didn't actually gain a soul for Wurmwood as Cassius' melee weapon is a "remove from play" effect) and then yanked Wurmwood closer. Then Cassius used his feat, creating a 10" forest around Wurmwood.

Opponent then reacted by trampling a Rushed Gladiator next to Megalith. It was actually pretty clever move that I never thought of... It seems that a heavy warbeast/warjack with a trample can actually get its weapons to bear even during Cassius' feat turn. Scary.

Well, Gladiator didn't manage to kill Megalith and neither succeeded Brute and Morghoul himself to bring Woldwyrd down.

Megalith beat up the Gladiator and after Wolves of Orboros charged it Admonition was used. Megalith also used its animus because Morghoul was close enough to suffer the -2 defense penalty.

Then Woldwyrd shot Morghoul. It would have worked out pretty damn fine if it still wasn't a ranged attack that was Shield Guarded by the close-by Brute.

Wyrd took a last shot at Morghoul and rolled amazingly high for its attack roll, scoring a hit which dealt some damage.

Cassius was feeling bold enough to charge Morghoul himself.

One lucky roll that would have killed Morghoul outright was transfered away.

Second one wasn't. End of Morghoul.

Game 2:

In next game we decided to swap our sides because we played with same lists to get some variation to tactics there.

As it turned out, I didn't start an amazing streak of winning starting rolls because I lost it now anyway.

Both of us pretty much ran as far as we could. Round 2 did, however, teach me something about Rush + Abuse.

Opponent actually did pull off a charge with his Cyclop Savage against my Woldwyrd.

Luckily the damage rolls were rather poor, but the branches weren't. Spirit broken and no way of healing. Losing almost half of my fury generation on round 2... sucked.

Well, it was obviously a trade-off, but as fury 5 warlock still had enough beasts to generate 6 fury with one beast left for transfer and my fury 6 warlock would be able to generate 4 fury and still be able to transfer... It seemed okay trade to me. If I was in opponents pants, that is. Which I wasn't.

My wolves of Orboros charged the Savage first. One of them, however, charged Bloodrunner Master Tormentor who had failed its charge. But because one of my models was blocking my charge line I had to charge a bit awkwardly, which brought my model within 6" of Titan Gladiator. It triggered Admonition and the hulk jogged forward.

Megalith had to come in to finish Savage.

Then I took the two souls from Wurmwood to fuel Cassius. He moved forward and tried to launch Stranglehold at now-close-enough Gladiator. Cassius even boosted the attack roll and still missed.

Well, he tried to Strangle the titan again, this time without attack roll boost. Managed to hit and boosted damage. Damage roll was exactly 8, meaning Gladiator took no damage and wasn't strangled. With two remaining fury Cassius moved Wurmwood and used feat.

Brave gobbers ran to block possible trample shenanigans.



Well, the gladiator did trample.

However, this time it was abused and enraged.

And it landed on Megalith. Megalith took rather severe beating and was left with 3 damage boxes in the Spirit branch.

Cyclops Brute just came in and killed someone. No biggies.

But Morghoul used his feat and that buggered me.

On my turn I could only leach 3 fury from Megalith so had to cut 3 from Cassius himself. Megalith also self-healed only one point of damage so I had to choose if I wanted to use only 1 die either on attack rolls or damage rolls. I chose attack rolls as I had already forgotten Morghoul had used his feat...

Megalith needed 5 with one die to hit the Gladiator. And it did. Actually, both of the attacks hit which was kinda hilarious.

Cassius charged the titan too and after two attacks it was standing only with one damage point. Then he cast Unseen Path to bring him to safety. To block a clear charge the brave gobbers bellowed some smoke into the thick of action (represented by the cloud template).

Wolves of Orboros charged Brute and Gladiator.

Wolves finished Gladiator just nicely but the cyclop took no damage.

Then it was the turn where opponent really crippled me.

Beast Handlers charged the wolves next to cyclop, killing one of them. After that Morghoul came forward and cast Abuse on the brute, who marched on, taking one free strike from the remaining Wolf of Orboros.

And there he killed Megalith.

Which, funnily enough, meant that I hadn't generated any fury at all for one round earlier and wouldn't generate any more during that game, except from the souls of the fallen. Because of Morghouls feat Megalith had no fury on it to leech.

But Wurmwood had 5 souls on it.

So it was my all-or-nothing turn coming up.

I ran one wolf next to beast handlers who were blocking line of sight to Morghoul.

Then Cassius activated and took all 5 souls from Wurmwood and moved about next to the gobbers.

He cast Hellmouth on the Wolf and it caught all three beast handlers and Morghoul under it. Cyclops Brute had been maxed out on fury so it wasn't a transfer target. That one gave 8 points in to Morghoul.

Cassius had 5 fury still, which were used for attack roll boosted Stranglehold, which needed 11+ to hit. I rolled exactly 11. Then it was time to boost damage. Another 8 points in which was more than enough to kill Morghoul.

Had any of those close calls failed at the last assassination run...

Rummikub at friends

Yesterday we played a 4-player Rummikub board game at friends place.

It's been quite a many years since I played Rummikub last time. Actually five to six years... Ah well, off with the nostalgia!

As Rummikub is a game of toying around with numbered badges it's rather difficult to write a decent "gaming report" out of it.

We played three rounds. I ended two of them which was enough to make me the overall winner.

But anyway... about the game itself, it's a game that gets better with more players. Four seemed to be real nice number of players as the situation on the board was changing a lot before it was your own turn again.

Also the possibilities in constructing the sets you can almost-but-not-quite grasp and count in your head... Thrilling.