And Thus Circle Scattered Like Fallen Leaves... In A Typhoon!

Last night I felt crazy enough to go and try to have a game of Warmachine on Vassal.

This time around I played against a random machinist from the great internets. And I'm glad that I did, because random encounters like these can really shake you up from what you've used to play against.

Now it was Bartolo Montador, AKA Broadsides Bart. Never played against him, not during Mk1 or Mk2.

I had decided to pile up some games for Kaya, and my 50 point list was:

Kaya the Wildborne
- Gorax
- Scarsfell Griffon
- Gnarlhorn Satyr
- Warpwolf Stalker

Minimum unit of Tharn Ravagers + Chieftain
Maximum unit of Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment
Shifting Stones + Overseer
Blackclad Wayfarer
Lord of the Feast
Druid Wilder
War Wolf
Feralgeist

Reinforcements:
(Tharn Bloodweavers)
Tharn Ravager White Mane
Lanyssa Ryssyl

And opponent had a following Four Star Syndicate army:

Broadsides Bart
- Galleon

Maximum unit of Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters
Minimum unit of Steelhead Halberdiers
Lady Aiyana & Holt
Epic Eiryss
Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker
Master Gunner Dougal MacNaile
Wrong Eye & Snapjaw
- Bull Snapper

Reinforcements:
2x Kayazy Eliminators
Gorman diWulfe
Kell Bailoch

We played A Flag Too Far scenario from Steamroller 2012, that's why lists include reinforcement options.

Circle started the game. Kaya cast Occultation on Wolves of Orboros (since they were going to directly face Nyss Hunters). When opponent played his/hers first round, I half realised why indeed Galleon is such a nasty piece with Bart.

After all, there is possibility of running Galleon up front, then casting Broadside and Batten Down the Hatches. Broadside might be used on the harpoon attack, dragging warjacks and more horribly, warbeasts out of control range.

Of course these shenanigans weren't in range just yet, but my other eye had opened to this combo. Later my other eye would open, too, but we're not there yet.

Anyway, Spiny Growth from Bull Snapper and Batten Down the Hatches meant ARM 24 Galleon right up there. First picture is from the end of Circle's second turn, where I decided that I really have to try to take out the Snapper.

And it succeeded. Lord of the Feast was teleported by Shifting Stones to front of Galleon, and then he threw the bird at the colossal. Pseudo-thresher killed two halberdiers and dealt some damage to Bull Snapper, and bought attacks from heart tokens killed the beast.

Cool. Only ARM 22 colossal to take down any more.

Then opponent does a rather devastating turn.

Opponent calls in reinforcements, who thankfully mess up their dice rolls. Only two dead Ravagers and one blind Ravager. Could've been worse.

Aiyana gives the Kiss of Lyliss to Gnarlhorn Satyr who had been peppered a little by Nyss Hunters, and then Snapjaw charges it. The goat went down in short order, and Feralgeist jumped inside of the dying milkmachine. However, Snapjaw had only bought two Fury, so that was pretty much futile attempt.

Halberdiers kill off Lord of the Feast, and fully loaded Galleon with Hot Shot on lumbers forward and starts to take shots at my gathering of troops. Dougal MacNaile had done his trick and given +2 Range.

This is where my second eye opened to the horrifying combo that Bart + Galleon is. I had somehow thought that Hot Shot gave boosted attack rolls. This was a time where I found out that it actually gave boosted damage rolls for ranged attacks.

Boosted pow 7's killed Stone Keeper, Druid Wilder and dealt some damage in to Kaya herself. Also, a boosted pow 7, boosted pow 13 and a boosted pow 15 killed Stalker completely. Feralgeist jumped in again.

And to make matters even worse, Bart used his feat Typhoon, cast Batten Down the Hatches and Broadsides (actually it might have been this attack that ultimately finished off Stalker. Don't remember.) and then he charges Galleon.

Soo... pretty much both of my "heavy" hitters gone in one round, and opponent still had undamaged ARM 22 colossal right there.

Also opponent had Typhoon on that prevented just about all retaliation I could try to do.

But I did call in my reinforcements. And I did forget to activate half of them.

White Mane tried to charge one of the Nyss Hunters, but just failed to get in reach. Wolves then ran to engage as many Nyss Hunters as possible without entering Typhoon.

Blackclad Wayfarer forfeited movement and teleported into middle of Nyss Hunters, trying to tie them up a bit.

Tharn Ravagers charge around, and they did something good for a change, killing two Eliminators (from different units) and finishing off a halberdier who had wandered too close.

Griffon ran to woods near my secondary flag. If I ever could do anything in this game any more, it'd have to have something to do with scenario victory.

But this so much was not the case.

Galleon goes to control primary flag and shoots the crap out of all ravagers it could see. Luckily it couldn't see too many of them, when Kell Bailoch had already killed one.

Only Ravager Chieftain alive any more. And as it couldn't make free strikes on Kayazy Eliminators, one of them ran straight to secondary flag. Damn.

That was outright 2 control points for opponent.

Also, Wolves of Orboros are butchered up by Nyss Hunters and Snaojaw and Eiryss. Eiryss actually dispels their Occultation, in a way that's an insult to injury.

Some stray shot from Combined Ranged Attacking Nyss' also kill Warpwolf Stalker again, and feralgeist jumps out.

Having my whole army devastated so, time called for desperate actions.

Wolves of Orboros under Power Swell, War Wolf and Gorax managed to kill off Snapjaw.

Griffon killed three Nyss Hunters that were close to my secondary flag.

I had this original plan of using Spirit Door to teleport Kaya to secondary flag, but I had nothing left to clear the surroundings of my primary flag. So Kaya had to attempt it all by herself. She charged Eiryss and killed her.

Then she spent rest of her Fury trying to kill nearby Nyss Hunters with Spirit Fang, but the green one dodged any and all fangs with Def 19 (in melee). Though it wouldn't have worked anyway, since even Master Holt was contesting my primary flag.

Well, that was pretty much it.

Feralgeist ran to contest opponents secondary flag, and shifting stones teleported to contest opponents primary flag.

But that didn't really save Kaya, or prevent opponent from scoring scenario points.

In a way, opponent won by both Caster Kill when Nyss Hunters CRA'd Kaya dead, and by Scenario when Galleon had cleared off the shifting stones and shot Feralgeist down (Aiyana had given magical weapons for the colossal).

I hope that doesn't count as a double loss, heh.

The Coast and Hero Pack 2 painted

Last two playing pieces for A Touch of Evil: The Coast and Hero Pack 2 expansions were finished exactly today.

Keeping up to the traditions, I took a group-hug picture out of them.

Somehow I'd think Doctor Edwards would be a little more popular person, but I guess no-one likes his almost-but-not-quite-witty remarks.

What else is there to say?

They compare well to earlier AtoE miniatures, but have all the problems of soft plastic, as earlier. Though only Argot Blackwells sword and Liliana's dagger are disturbingly bendy.

But as long as just gaming pieces are considered, they're still premium.

And Thus Circle Scattered Like Fallen Leaves in Autumn Wind

Couple of days ago I played my actual first game of Warmachine in 2013.

Choice was quite straightforward which warcaster/warlock I would play, since Kaya is the newest kid on the block for me.

My list was (50 points for a change):

Kaya the Wildborne
- Warpwolf Stalker
- Gnarlhorn Satyr
- Gorax
- Argus
- Scarsfell Griffon

Tharn Bloodweavers
Minimum unit of Ravagers + Chieftain
Shifting Stones + Stone Keeper
Blackclad Wayfarer
Druid Wilder
Lord of the Fail
Feralgeist

And opponent had:

Ossyan
- Discordia
- Hyperion

Maximum unit of Houseguard Halberdiers (AKA bog trog ambushers lead by a lone wolf of orboros...)
Mage Hunter Strikeforce + Commander
Epic Eiryss
2x Mage Hunter Assassins (one of them being a mannikin.)
Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker


We played The Gauntlet scenario from Steamroller 2012 rules set.

Circle started the game, and Kaya had cast Occultation on Ravagers. Ossyan had Chronomancer on, and Quicken on Houseguard Halberdiers.

First picture here is taken from the end of Circle's second round, where lots of things went wrong.

First Lord of the Feast wanted to go and throw his raven against Discordia. Well, turned out it distance was about one centimetre for the raven to fly. What a useless bird.

Next, since opponent didn't have any Arcanists around, I decided to try to charge Hyperion with Brutal Charging Ravagers. Blackclad Wayfarer advanced and cast Hunter's Mark upon the colossal.

Only two ravagers got to make their attacks against it, third one was missing only a few millimetres (which was thankfully easy to measure up, all because of those nifty little melee range templates.)

Ravagers that were obviously out of range tried to charge closest halberdiers, but since Hunter's Mark was not affecting them, their charges fell short.

Because of so much failures Kaya dropped Occultation from them and cast it upon herself. Arm 13 with unengaged Mage Hunter Strike Force around who can get +2 to their already high speed scared me enough. Even a lucky random pot shot could deal respectable damage to my warlock.

Opponents next turn had a heavy toll on my forces. Ossyan used his feat though, giving an additional die on ranged damage rolls to friendly models in his control range. All in all I guess it could have been a lot worse, but here's what happened:

Hyperion rolls full 3 attacks with both thresher cannons. They kill all but tharn ravager chieftain, who was in melee with halberdiers. Big cannon misses Blackclad Wayfarer though, so that was a small blessing.

But then halberdiers charge around, mostly against Blackclad Wayfarer and Lord of the Feast and the aforementioned ravager chieftain. I tried to be clever and counter-slam one of the halberdiers who charged wayfarer, but that trick nearly cost me the beast. The attack roll missed, and goat was now a prime target for Mage Hunter Assassin (the woody version) who was hiding in ruined tower.

And it didn't even save Wayfarer.

Discordia then activates, and eventhough it had to move a bit silly to get in range of Ossyan's feat, it did more than enough. It did a staggering damage roll against Gnarlhorn Satyr and killed off precious feralgeist. Spray also aligned just nicely not to take any houseguards with it.

Then the mage hunter assassin (the woody version) charges the beast, but does a not-very-staggering damage roll, and scores only one point in, which is doubled to two. If there had been only two pips more on the damage roll that was something like 2,2,3,3, it would have died.

Then, lucky me, mage hunter strike force didn't do very much. They only killed one bloodweaver and took about one half of damage boxes from Scarsfell Griffon and Gorax, with about 33% of the unit not being able to take any meaningful shots. Lucky me.

On my turn, Kaya decides its time to use her feat.

But first, Druid Wilder casts Lightning Strike on Warpwolf Stalker, who warps for berserk and kills a huge swathe of halberdiers, not even getting maxed on fury. Five halberdiers + mage hunter assassin.

I guess this was the moment where I found some wolf-love for Stalker when paired up with Kaya1. Pack Hunters really makes those berserk chains hit home.

And then, having cleared whole melee range, it sprinted back to relative, or at least illusioned, safety.

Kaya is the next to activate, and she casts Primal on Gnarlhorn Satyr and heals up its Mind branch, that had burned in magical fire of Discordia's gun. That's how it goes. Get scorched in magical fire, become mindless.

Then Kaya charges a few halberdiers, and missing most of her attacks, she just manages to nail those elves with her sharp, pointy stick. Actually it's not even sharp. She casts Spirit Door and teleports behind Warpwolf Stalker.

Argus goes next and chews two halberdiers that killed Lord of the Feast.

Gnarlhorn Satyr goes last and tries to beat up Discordia. I don't want to ever remember those rolls again, it even pains me to write of Gnarlhorn's performance upon Discordia. I mean... it had Primal on. That meant MAT 10 beast, with P+S 17 horns attacks and 2x P+S 16 claw attacks, and after charge, three Fury for extra attacks.

Field Generator and one of the hands was all that ever broke. Charge attack had this beautiful 1,2,3 roll, and one of the attacks was even miss. You can figure out the attack roll, if Satyr was MAT 10 and Discordia was DEF 12.

It did something like this against the very same players Ravagore when he was playing Legion of Everblight, and I was playing Kaya.

Maybe its angry because I call it a goat.

Well, then Bloodweavers and Scarsfell Griffon fool around. Net result: dead mage hunter assassin and about two strike force members.

And then... it's opponents turn.

And really, there is no skipped turn in pictures. That one is really the situation in the end of opponents next turn.

First: Discordia dispatches Gnarlhorn Satyr.

Ossyan himself shoots Gorax dead. The template on the ground is the chronophage thingy. Now when I'm checking it I see it goes away if the model who has it dies, so we played that one wrong, but I doubt it would have mattered too much. I would probably had Argus alive.

Ossyan had Chronomancer going on, and Hyperion rolled maximum number of attacks for both thresher cannons again. Starburst Cannon and two thresher cannon attacks killed off the Stalker, and if memory serves, it rolled g-g-godlike hit rolls anyway, and could use the focus for boosting damage.

Right-sided thresher cannon, in some miraculous ways, kills Argus. Had there been no chronophage template, those other three shots would have probably went to Stalker anyway, so I cannot blame this loss on that.

Soooo...

What's the thing you do when everything has been lost? Okay okay, I know, you go to a dark, dark corner and cry rivers of blood, but I still wanted some damage in to the Hyperion.

Also, Scarsfell Griffon was able to get to Ossyan. With MAT 8 and three attacks, I could make an assassination, right?

Well...

Charge attack missed. Though the two other attacks hit and dealt a little damage (maybe a total of 6 or 7), it really was a futile attempt. Shouldn't have called the Griffon a bird during game, really. Now it's angry too, just like my Gnarlhorn Satyr.

Kaya charges Hyperion, and spends all of her fury on attacks against it, except one. On hindsight I should've used that one too, because there was no use for it, because Griffon was maxed out on Fury.

Then it's opponents turn. Last turn, may I say.

Discordia and halberdier officer deal some damage to Kaya so that she's down to 7 boxes.

And lo! Defiantly Kaya is holding up her magical stick against the fists of a colossal. Bad choice Kaya, bad choice. Next time try "Duck and Cover" when you're against a colossal in melee.

One attack hit, and there was no actual need for opponent to roll for damage, she died to the base P+S already.

Proxy warning in the great pine woods of Kuhmo

And the tradition (third or fourth year in a row - that counts as a tradition, right?) continues!

Though my write-ups didn't, at least on time.

But two games of Warmachine were played during the last week of 2012 against my old friends Protectorate, with this time challenger being my forces of Circle of Orboros.

Both were 35 point games, but different from previous years, we played scenarios now.

First one was Gauntlet from Steamroller 2012, and my list was:

Cassius the Oathkeeper & Wurmwood
- Gnarlhorn Satyr
- Pureblood Warpwolf
- Scarsfell Griffon

Shifting Stones
Tharn Bloodweavers
Minimum unit of Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment
Farrow Bone Grinders
Swamp Gobbers
Lanyssa Ryssyll
Gallows Grove

Opponent was playing with following list:

Intercessor Kreoss
- Reckoner
- Redeemer
- Revenger
- Repenter

Maximum unit of Holy Zealots + Monolith Bearer
Minimum unit of Choir of Menoth
Vilmon
Wracks
Vassal of Menoth

Okay, and, well. The Corruptor that I had brought with me served as a proxy for Intercessor here, do not laugh there! Stop! Right now! Empty medium bases are Wracks. I've written some hints to pictures what the models represent.

I think Circle got to start this game, and first picture is from the end of Protectorate's first turn.

Holy Zealots have Holy Ward on (fitting, no?) and Redeemer had managed to kill one Bloodweaver with 4 attacks. Those deviation rolls weren't particularly impressive.

Since I was against an army that could launch their warjacks forward suprisingly fast, I decided it was time to use Wurmwood's feat.

Pureblood Warpwolf put on Wraith Bane on itself, and moved forward to spray some Holy Zealots and Vilmon. Vilmon died to fully boosted attack and damage rolls.

Then everything just pretty much advanced, and last but not least Cassius pulled off some movement shenanigans and shrouded most of Circle's army with forest.

Opponent did something suprising. Everything backed off, with only the farthest toe of a single holy zealot contesting Gauntlet zone.

So, it was a trap, but a trap you cannot choose to not walk into. When you can gain 50% of victory condition by killing a model that's worth way less than 1 point, you just do what you gotta do, even if it costs a heavy beast to you.

I ran Bloodweavers full speed ahead to engage Redeemer. After all... it would shoot most of them dead anyway. Pureblood Warpwolf did a horrible spray against Holy Zealots and Lanyssa Ryssyll shot the middle Wrack down with a spell.

And thus Circle scored first control point, but upcoming Protectorate turn was scary.

Intercessor used his feat, here, and Death Sentence was upon Gnarlhorn Satyr, Ignite went to Repenter and Holy Ward... I don't actually remember that one, it was probably on Reckoner.

Repenter nearly killed off uninjured Pureblood Warpwolf. Saving grace was probably the fact that it was uninjured: Holy Zealots who threw bombs at the wolf missed every one of their shots. Pureblood was left with 6-8 hit boxes.

All but two of Bloodweavers were killed, and the last ones failed their command check.

What can I say. Opponent had four uninjured warjacks by this point, and I had mostly destroyed only Holy Zealots and Vilmon. Oh, and one wrack. There was no way I would win any kind of attrition any more, and Kreoss himself was sitting way back.

But since two control points meant a victory in SR 2012 Gauntlet, I decided to try that one. Scarsfell Griffon slammed Repenter out of Pureblood's way, and then Shifting Stones healed Pureblood.

Pureblood advanced and made a two-handed throw on Reckoner, throwing it against Gallows Grove. Then Pureblood bought two attacks against the knocked-down Repenter.

Since I got loads of Fury on Cassius and Wurmwood, I decided to attack Repenter with warlock itself. Damage rolls were continously a little below average, and I was saving Fury for casting Unseen Path. Cassius cast Curse of Shadows on the warjack, and bought one more attack. However, damage roll was something like 5,5,6. Suddenly it looked like Cassius could do the finishing blow all by himself. Which he did.

Second Control Point for Circle, and end of game.

In the last picture the Repenter and Reckoner have already been moved, but Reckoner didn't get destroyed. It should be around where the white die is.



Game 2:

Second game was Incursion, and my list was:

Kaya the Wildborne
- Gnarlhorn Satyr
- Warpwolf Stalker
- Gorax
- Scarsfell Griffon

Shifting Stones
Maximum unit of Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment
Blackclad Wayfarer
Druid Wilder

Opponent had:

High Executioner Reznik
- Crusader
- Reckoner
- Revenger
- Repenter

Minimum unit of Choir of Menoth
Maximum unit of Temple Flameguard
Rhoven & Bodyguards
Reclaimer
Vassal of Menoth
Wracks

This game was pretty short, and I'm including only one picture. A word about proxies in picture: Zealots are Flameguards, Castigator is Reckoner, Rhupert is Reclaimer, and torso of Amon functions as Vassal of Menoth.

Picture is taken from the end of Circle's second turn, where Kaya used her feat. Protectorate probably started the game.

Prior to picture, Reckoner had tried to take a few shots at Scarsfell Griffon, but despite needing five to hit, missed its Ancillary Attack. Rhoven had made it ignore stealth. Temple Flameguard repositioned themselves, since Warpwolf Stalker was on their side of the board, and that's not a good match-up.

It did make Circle score first control point, though.

But anyway, Circle's second turn I attempted to wreck Crusader with Kaya's feat. Gnarlhorn Satyr charged it and wrecked its fist and movement. Then Warpwolf Stalker charged it, but charge was about an inch short.

Kaya positioned both herself and all the beasts to block Reckoner's line of sight, because, well, a one excessive damage roll would take its toll against Kaya's ARM 13, even when she had one Fury left for transfers.

Next round wasn't good for Protectorate.

Revenger positions itself a bit, and then Reznik activates, and moves close to Circles lines, and scores a good feat. All of the beasts are drained of Fury, though Kaya herself is just out of Judgement Day.

He casts Perdition on Blackclad Wayfarer, rolling badly for damage and leaving the druid alive. And then Perdition triggers, and we notice the small devil in the details: the member of battlegroup must move towards closest model.

And that was Wolf of Orboros.

To make matters worse, Crusader activates then (it would have had real possibility of getting into contact with Gnarlhorn Satyr if there hadn't been that particular requirement on the spell), moves behind Wolves, triggering one free strike. Damage roll was something like 5, 5, 6.

If Crusader's day wasn't bad enough, it was just within 6" of Gnarlhorn Satyr, which counter-slammed it through a couple of Wolves of Orboros and quite a lot of Temple Flameguards.

Repenter tried to save situation by launching a rat 7, pow 14 spray against Kaya, Gorax, shifting stone and Warpwolf Stalker, and the spray did set Kaya on fire, as well as dealing 8 points in. Those were transfered to Gorax.

However... Game was pretty much over, then. A couple of millimetres had made Gnarlhorn Satyr arrive within charge distance of Reznik, and there was nothing serious left to activate that could tie up the satyr.

Kaya took damage from fire continous effect, as well as cut herself to full Fury. This left her with 5 damage boxes left.

Druid Wilder moved up and cast Primal on the Satyr.

Satyr charged Reznik. End of story.

For Whom the Bell Tolls (A Touch of Evil)

During my trip to Kuhmo, we got to play A Touch of Evil twice with three players.

Here is a short summary of both games.

This was also the first time ever I got to play with The Coast -expansion.

However, first game was against the oldest foe in the book: The Vampire.

And, the game took six hours. Six. Hours. That blood-sucking bastard truly was the master of deception and avoiding combat.

Heroes that investigated mysteries involving residents of Shadowbrook were The Scarlet Shadow, Sara the Bright Witch and Thomas the Courier.

Game started a little on the wrong foot with Scarlet Shadow, since he got to play like 2 rounds, and then spent like 4-5 next turns knocked down. Drowned Dead sure are a nasty bunch for an unequipped hero!

Thomas didn't fare much better, though he got to play actual hero turns. The only hero who actually found anything useful from Location decks and killed minions was Sara, the Bright Witch.

Shadow Track moved excessively slowly, and during multiple times it could be moved back up a little.

However, the Vampire had an army of Evil Elders at his disposal. They were pretty much the reason why Heroes didn't want to start a Showdown.

But behold! Heroes are almost Screwed by a Suprise Showdown from cooperative chart, when Vampire attacks with about 16 dice (or more), scoring hits on 4+, thanks to Laying in Wait mystery card. Sara, the Bright Witch manages to pull herself through the fight, however... with one Wound remaining. What was achieved during that sorry encounter was, though, that most of Evil Elders that didn't have Darkest Secret (which were, by the way... Lord and Lady Hanbrook! Sounds like vampire aristocracy to me...) were killed.

Soon (about 45 minutes...) after this, the final confrontation happened at Monastery. Vampire did have impressive amount of Wounds, and still respectable amount of Fight Dice, but still, Sara the Bright Witch and Scarlet Shadow single-handedly dispatched the ancient beast.

A keg of gunpowder did help there, though. Also, Scarlet Shadow had the event card that made every roll of 1 count as two hits against vampires. He also had the gunpowder keg.

Boom, bye bye, Vampire!

Though to be honest, the Vampire got killed during last Showdown Fight Round where it was possible, barring good rolls. All wound prevention effects had been used, as well as all additional fight dice, except for "If I just could reach..." card for the gunpowder keg. Thomas, who had the card, was about to die, though, if Vampire would've only given him a stern glare.

Victory for the heroes!

Game 2:

Still, no fighting against villains from the Coast -expansion. Heroes were against the Reaper, which came with Hero Pack 2.

Heroes drawn were Harlow Morgan the Inventor, Doctor Edwards and Jack Sp... I mean Fellows.

And if those three learned anything, it was the fact that do not challenge death itself! Game was absolutely brutal.

How so?

Well, two Grim Spectres spawned. Next mystery phase three mystery cards were drawn. Cards were The Horror, The Hour is Late and Ominous Overture. So, for every Grim Spectre a die was rolled to see if additional mystery cards were drawn. Every Mystery Phase Shadow Track dropped by one. If 1 was rolled for movement, a mystery card was drawn instead of Event. Cooperative Mystery Phase Chart was rolled twice every round.

Bravely the Heroes managed to get rid of all of those cards, but it cost them 12 investigation, as well as one Daybreak -card.

After that courageous but futile fight the Shadow Track started an amazing speed-run towards 0. Jack Fellows was pretty much the only Hero that got anything useful done, and who could actually fight the Grim Spectres.

Marked for Death killed three town elders, and the rest were fleeing in flocks.

Once the Shadow Track was in the red zone, Heroes had to start looking for Reaper's lair. It was in Town Square, Coast.

Villain was rolling only 6 dice for its attacks, but thanks to Reapers rule of always scoring two hits for each succesful roll, it was a tough fight.

After first round of Showdown had passed (and all heroes miraculously survived!), Harlow Morgan was rolling a whopping 1 die for combat, and Doctor Edwards two or three. So everything pretty much rested on Jack's shoulders. And he really did well, dropping Reaper down to 9 wounds.

Also, game did not end because all heroes died. Game ended, when Reaper killed Reverend Harding, which made Shadow Track drop too much.

By this time Harlow Morgan and Doctor Edwards had already died.

Jack Fellows survives, maybe to avenge other fallen heroes!

Pillars of the Earth first time for a couple of years

... and how curious it is, how much you forget about game rules in such a time!

We had four players, and it was a blast.

Game went on with one of the players being in small to medium lead for the first four rounds (he really liked the monastery), and then a race during fifth and sixth rounds when one of the players scored a whopping 12 or more points!

Anyway, it was the very same game it has always been, with mathematic calculations becoming more and more important during later rounds, with last round being almost nothing but mathematics.

This made me think that the game could really use a little more randomness, and I began to wonder how fitting an expansion would be for Pillars of the Earth. One of the players said that he had actually seen one around, and I had to go and google it up.

Damn, I know what this household is getting as a present for next Christmas!

Final scoreboard, by the way, for this particular game was 46 for the winner, 42 for two other players and 35 for the underdog. So, quite close and rather exciting session.

"I'm, like, completely ignoring you."

A couple of days ago I played a bit Warmachine.

It was a 35 point game with Steamroller 2012 scenario The Gauntlet.

I played following list with my Cryx:

Warwitch Deneghra
- Slayer
- Ripjaw
- Defiler

Cephalyx Overlords
2x Warwitch Sirens
Iron Lich Overseer
- Reaper
Necrotech
Pistol Wraith
Ragman

And opponent had:

Epic Caine
- Ol' Rowdy

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages + Officer
- Defender
Minimum unit of Greygore Boomhowler & Co.
Squire
Epic Eiryss
Madelyn Corbeau
Reinholdt

Opponent won starting roll, but decided to let me go first and pick side instead. Not a bad choice, when he'd get to score scenario points first. Also, his guns outranged mine. Which wasn't exactly a suprise, as I was playing Cryx.

First picture is taken from the end of Cygnar's first turn, and follow-up picture from the end of my second.

I decided to use Deneghra's feat there and then, because there was a real possibility of me not having enough of an army to make The Withering count on later turns. Only models that weren't under feat were jack marshaled Defender and Ol' Rowdy.

Damage I did was not very impressive. Two models dead from opposing side. However, Crippling Grasp was on Gun Mages, which meant that later I might actually hit against their otherwise godlike Defense.

Opponent didn't manage to do much, which usually happens during The Withering.

However, Defender missing corporeal Pistol Wraith with triple 1's and Ol' Rowdy failing to knock down Warwitch Siren with Tremor were some sort of an insult to injury, since both were unaffected by Deneghra's feat.

Eiryss, however, didn't mind much about the feat and disrupted Slayer.

On my next turn Pistol Wraith shot Gun Mage officer down and second shot tickled either a Boomhowler's company, or another model in Gun Mage unit, don't remember any more.

Eiryss messed up a Venoming of Caine as Ripjaw moved within 5" of her. Luckily Defiler could make up for the moronic move of Ripjaw, and the venom that could have melted Caine's heart made sludge out of Eiryss only.

Then, maybe next time when I face Ol' Rowdy I remember he has Counter Charge. Hapless Iron Lich Overseer moved on top of the little hill and wanted to claim one soul from the mercenary trollkin for Reaper to use later.

Well, turned out I didn't need to bring Ol' Rowdy to my lines with Reaper, it came just by itself, and made Overseer a sorry heap of scrap metal and necrotite fumes.

Though all was not lost! Ragman positioned himself so that both Slayer and Reaper would gain benefits of Death Field. However, Slayer attacked with Combo-Strike and rolled 4 or 5 for damage. With two dice. Yay.

Then Reaper came in with one focus loaded by a Warwitch Siren, and made two amazing damage rolls with two Helldriver attacks, leaving only Movement and Cortex intact on Rowdy. Could be that Movement was down too, but I'm not certain.

Well, I was afraid that this would be the turn when Caine used his feat upon Deneghra. She was sitting on two focus, so she was Defense 16 Armor 16 with 16 damage boxes left. Wow. I didn't realise that until now when I was writing this.

However, that was not to be. Caine did use his feat, but he opted to decimate pretty much everything but the Cryxian heavy warjacks and models with Stealth.

But he was without Focus now, and he just could not get rid of Arc Node of the Defiler.

With unsporty measurement of Control Area I found out that Caine was just within 12" of Deneghra, which is the range how far she can charge.

Problem was the one trollkin standing in between. She would have to charge exactly straight to Caine, he'd be left out of reach if she tried to shuffle even a little bit.

Looking at the pictures I can see that I had the keys to victory there, but order of operations was, again, messed up.

My two warwitches tried to poke Boomhowler to death, one with melee weapon (didn't hit) and one with Venom (hit but did no damage).

Then Slayer destroyed what was left of Ol' Rowdy, and Reaper tried to move into melee with the thrice damned trollkin.

If I was actually a good player, I would have first destroyed Rowdy with Slayer, moved Reaper up and dragged the trollkin out of way with Reaper.

Anyway, then Deneghra cast Scourge on Caine from about 1.75" away, which was autohit. Having failed to remove the trollkin from charge lane, Deneghra cast Venom on Caine instead, and did good damage in, something like 10 or the like.

Then Deneghra moves bravely as far away as was possible. I left her tip-toeing the Gauntlet zone, though as a hindsight, I should have gone to hug the Killbox instead and give opponent one damn control point.

Then comes opponents turn. Caine shakes himself up, moves forward and casts Gatecrasher, and just manages to get to Deneghra's back arc.

I find last picture to be somewhat hilarious. Both warcasters look like they're doing everything in their power to not notice the other.

When New Player Comes

Am I really going to have some super-lame pun as topic whenever I play When Darkness Comes? Looks like it.

A few days ago there was a new experience on that game: a third player.

We two oldbies continued with our earlier characters Ninton Kanton and Rick Harrigan. This duo was bolstered with Amé Stinger and her dubious past as an anarchistic gang member.

We played the Out of the Frying Pan scenario, with few additions.

First, the D12 dice was a turn marker, and every time it was turned back to 12, every player took a failure token. If this happened four times, everyone lost.

Second, outside encounters were placed on ! -marks. Forests and starting tile were unaffected by this. Though forest thingy was house-ruled during game. After all, it would be rather weird to find a bad case of traffic that slows you down from a forest...

Of course, the "story" behind scenario tells us that there is this martial law going on within the village. I guess I didn't take that into account when deciding to use outside encounters in this game. After all, there were plenty of Civilians and Tough Guys around wandering the streets.

Also, all the police characters were found inside houses, which raised some questions about the state of this martial law. Had civilians actually claimed the streets and forced police inside?

During first rounds of the game, a peek through window by Amé and a good perception roll by Rick Harrigan told us that the whole frikkin' City Hall was full of zombies. Who had actually forced martial law on the village? Who was behind the schemes here?

Ah well.

Game went by without encountering almost no adversaries except Tough Guys on the streets. A lot of items and allies were found though, most of them from forest and/or streets.

So characters were quite well-equipped. But lack of true adversaries and a few unlucky Oh Crap -rolls (a mention here goes to Rick Harrigan, who spent two turns in a row just looking at the ceilings in one house because of Oh Crap -table rolls) meant that they didn't have too much Victory Points. Especially when no amount of additional dice and re-rolls actually gave results at times.

D12 had almost turned twice, when people started rushing around in attempt to find actual adversaries. And, eventually, they sure did.

The elder heroes Ninton Kanton and Rick Harrigan thought they could tackle anything alone, and ran alone to different tiles in the city (Ninton went to the City Hall, Rick to random places in Arkham campus area. That had a gun shop as a store-next-door. Go figure.)

Both of these pompous characters faced a D4K monsters. Which means you have to roll 4 same numbers with your dice roll to defeat the beast.

Ninton survived one round of combat, but was left with only one Defense/Health.

Then Rick faces his own adversary, and despite his handgun, he dies. Ninton dies too, since everyone takes one damage point when another character bites the dust, and he had only one health left.

So Amé is the only character left on board, with just one health remaining, and both damage tokens being unhealable.

Amé had impressive 7 Attack dice with her pistol and RMW skill, and had enough Victory Points to actually fight adversaries even with only one health left. That required that no random dice screw ever took place.

Well, dice screw came with first adversary she encountered. The very same adversary that had killed Rick.

So... everyone died.

I had thought that this games difficulty doesn't scale much when additional players join the fray, but when 2/3 of characters manage to kill themselves, it's a whole lot worse situation than when this happens with only 2 players.

Inspired by this I finally managed to compile a better skill table for players to use. The one behind character sheets gives next to no details on how the skills actually work and where they help. Also, when skills usage is scattered between 4-5 rule books and leaflets, it's a pain to check how they actually work. This was actually somewhat of a problem now with three players, when different situation and different skill interactions came up more often.

Enough of ramblings, waiting for next time.