Artifice of Intention

A 35 point game of Warmachine, Cryx vs Khador.

My list:

Iron Lich Asphyxious
- Ripjaw
- Nightwretch
- Seether

Maximum unit of Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
Minimum unit of Bile Thralls
Gorman diWulfe
Skarlock
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Machine Wraith
Satyxis Raider Captain

Khador had:

Epic Irusk
- Juggernaut

Maximum unit of Man-o-War Bombardiers
Maximum unit of Man-o-War Shocktroopers
Minimum unit of Battle Mechaniks + Officer
2x Winter Guard Mortar Crew
Epic Eiryss


Khador got the start, and Tactical Supremacy was cast on Man-o-War Shocktroopers. On Cryx side Skarlock had cast Scything Touch on Satyxis Raiders, and Asphyxious took a flying start by just running with all focus. First picture is taken from the end of Cryx turn 1. Scenario was, by the way, the Process of Elimination.

Next turn Khador mainly advances, and Irusk uses his feat. That was actually rather good choice, since Satyxis could and would have charged everywhere on my next turn.

Mortar fire doesn't do much. Skarlock and Gorman both take a few damage points from blasts, and one bile thrall bites the dust.

Well then it was my rather restricted turn. Satyxis Captain gave Desperate Pace to Raiders, who then advanced and used Power Swell. I was hoping for a little more damage since five Satyxis got within melee range, but only one Man-O-War fell. Well, technically two, because he was knocked down from a succesful Tough roll.

Ripjaw tries to position itself as close to Eiryss as possible, but not within 5" of her. I have done that mistake too many times with my arcnodes.

A lucky Breath of Corruption deviation kills Eiryss soon after, and then Nightwretch tries to damage objective on the left. It succeeds by doing 2 damage.

Next the mechaniks of Khador repair 10 points of damage away from Shocktroopers, so Power Swell achieved even less. Impenetrable wall of armor advances in a straight line, and Artifice of Deviation then blocked any possibility to charge Juggernaut with Seether. Mortars were shooting at bile thralls. One shot missed its target, and deviation brought the blast over Gorman. That was the end of Gorman. I guess he's not my superman any more who survives all attacks, no matter the odds.

Now, this time I really wanted to wipe out the Shocktroopers. First Ripjaw activated and walked close to them. Asphyxious cast Parasite to them. Then a Bile Thrall walked up to use Purge. However, I couldn't position that damnable bile thrall so that only casualty would have been the lone Satyxis. I had to turn it so that rightmost objective and Ripjaw took the acid explosion too. Luckily it didn't break Ripjaw, but on the other hand, it really did nothing to Man-o-Wars either. Only a couple of damage points here and there.

Satyxis Raiders charge Shocktroopers then. Parasite and Chain Weapon reduced their armor effectively to 14, and thanks to Scything Touch the base P+S on Satyxis was 11. So yeah, this time they died, except one who passed two or three Tough rolls. Bile Thrall purge and one Lacerator attack that was directed against Mechanik Officer brought him down to 1 hit box. Oh, and one Satyxis Raider took an awkward charge at Man-o-War Bombardiers just to tie them up a little. This worked suprisingly well, since she one-shotted the Bombardier in question.

Since Seether couldn't do anything productive, I positioned it so that I might next turn start scoring points by destroying rightmost objective.

As it turned out, Khador had pretty much the same plan, except inversed. At the start of turn Mechanik Officer melts down.

Man-o-War Bombardiers with Battle Lust destroy the left objective, but luckily they don't wreck Nightwretch. Battle Mechaniks tie up Satyxis Raiders, and one arrogant wrench-toting jungle creature dared to actually hit Satyxis on the left and kill her. I guess she took a little too long to savor her personal victory, and never saw that wrench hitting the back of her head...

I don't remember any more what killed Satyxis Raider Sea Witch. I can only hope it wasn't those charging Mechaniks...!

Then Artifice of Deviation blocked Seether's charge, again... I really started to miss Ghost Walk or Veil of Mists during this match!

Then it was Cryx turn. I was starting to fear that I would actually lose attrition and scenario, so I decided to try assassination and, failing that, try to claim rightmost control zone.

Satyxis Raider Captain charged the Bombardier who was engaging Nightwretch, and she succeeded to dismember the guy in the suit well enough for Nightwretch to run within 10" of Irusk.

Then Seether charges to objective, but it rolls abysmal damage rolls. So I really want to succeed at the assassination, now. However, before that the co-joined efforts of all remaining Satyxis and Ripjaw manage to bring the last remaining Shocktrooper down.

Asphyxious activates. He has 6 focus remaining. I decide I will try the risky way, and shoot unboosted Hellfire at Irusk. Miss. Asphyxious repeats all of this. Even the "miss" part. Looking back, maybe I should have just tried two fully boosted Hellfires, but I was certain that at least even one out of all tries would hit and I could boost the damage roll. Not today, Iron Lich, not today. Asphyxious charges objective and does annoyingly little damage. Then Asphyxious uses his feat and I try one last unboosted Hellfire at Irusk. Miss.

Then I just buy two extra attacks against objective, and with last two remaining focus Asphyxious casts Teleport to move into better position. The extra attacks? Naah, they didn't do much. After a charge attack and three attacks from Seether and one charge attack and two attacks from Asphyxious, the objective was still standing defiantly.

I'm starting to get a little desperate, so even bile thralls try to shoot the thing with their sprays. I don't remember if they did anything.

And last, but not least, even Skarlock activates and casts Hellfire on the objective! This was literally the last possible attack against it, and failing this it would be a certain scenario defeat to me.

A heavy stone fell from my shoulders when the damage roll was actually above average, and the objective was destroyed.

So... the ARM20, 15 damage boxes objective took:
One point of corrosion damage.
P+S 16 +3d6, 2x P+S 16 + 2d6 and 3x P+S 12 +2d6.
P+S 15 + 3d6, 2x P+S 15 +2d6 and POW 14 +2d6.
... before it was destroyed. I really could have used those resources somewhere else, too...

Opponent doesn't have too much of a trouble clearing left control zone, so this Khadoran turn victory points would come to 3-3.

Mortars shoot all the Satyxis and Mechaniks away, as well as one of the bile thralls.

Juggernaut charges Ripjaw, but misses charge attack. But even the slap of an open fist wrecks Ripjaws movement system.

Bombardiers charge Nightwretch and one of them hits (and crits), but doesn't wreck the thing. If memory serves, the Arc-Node is gone, however.

Then Cryx turn starts.

And the most dreadful thing that can happen in a miniature game (apart from cat-accident) happened: A dispute.

This is how things started: Ripjaw advances so that Seether can attempt a charge against Juggernaut. Then it does Armor Piercing attack and scores some damage. Asphyxious charges Juggernaut (behind Ripjaw) and wastes all of his Focus into attacks and boosts, but doesn't manage to wreck the thing.

Skarlock runs to contest leftmost zone. Bile Thrall advances so that purge hits Nightwretch, Juggernaut and two Man-o-Wars (pretty much doing nothing against all of them).

Then when Seether activates and I declare a charge against Juggernaut, opponent informs that Juggernaut was supposed to be a little farther away attacking Ripjaw, but the model wouldn't have balanced on the downward sloping trench.

The opponent is an honest fellow and I didn't have (and still don't) have any reason to doubt that this was the actual intention. It hadn't, however, been told during Juggernauts activation, so to me the positioning looked like a conscious risk of getting in a charge from Seether, as I wasn't observing so meticulously what the maximum charge distance for Juggernaut would've been. The 5" AoE is Artifice of Deviation, so it was really so-and-so if charge for Seether would've been feasible or even within the boundaries of reality if Juggernaut would have stood a little further.

In a friendly game I'm not against take-backs even to this extent, but the problem here was that I would've probably planned my turn totally different if there had been no real chance of trying a charge with Seether. First of all, I could've ran to contest left zone with Seether instead, and cast Scything Touch on Asphyxious with Skarlock. Also I would've probably tried to cast Parasite on it too to make most out of the limited number of attacks I had at my disposal - now I had just to bring it down with the number of attacks, because I always had Grab & Smash coming from Seether.

In the end Seether got to make its charge (and continuing my trend of low damage rolls didn't do enough damage to wreck it) and threw the model away from control zone, and scenario points gave the victory to Cryx.

Endings like this, however, leave a little sour feeling. I know that this is the way things would have played, for example, in a tournament. But still it makes me feel that I got a victory because of a positioning mistake that actually wasn't even "real", just an illusion. Also, because of the things mentioned above, if I had lost because I accepted undeclared intention as a fact, I would've probably felt a little cheated out of victory, too.

In a way it was a lose-lose situation, probably for the both of us.

But still it was very exciting game up until this slightly sorry ending. But such things happen, nothing you can do about it, except to do everything perfectly always and in any given situation. And I doubt that's possible for anyone.

A Demo Game

Wow, I managed to break my long tradition of two demo games per year. Now the record is three.

This time I knew I was going to give a demo game to a player who didn't have actual miniature game experience, so I tried to keep army lists quite simple.

The lists were:
Warwitch Deneghra
- Slayer
- Ripjaw
- Deathripper

Iron Lich Asphyxious
- Reaper
- Nightwretch
- Defiler

So that was a nice 10 points for each player.

I got the list with Deneghra.

Anyway, what was nice to see is that the core of this game hasn't changed. Of course the 100% knowledge of the game becomes more and more complex with every release to the point that complete mastery becomes pretty much impossible. But, really, the core mechanics are pretty nice and functional. And why wouldn't they be.

So, the game went on quite nicely and smoothly. It ended to the victory of Deneghra, who survived with only one hit box left! And even then the game ended because opponent lost all warjacks, so it wasn't even a caster kill. I think this must've been the best demo game I've given, because it played quite aggressively and things were happening all the time. And damage was done. Oh yeah, damage was done.

Well, we'll see if this city gets another player soon. I sure hope so.

30 points vs 35 points

Some time ago I played a game of warmachine.

It was supposed to be a 35 point game, and I played with following list:

Epic Asphyxious
- Corruptor (Yes, you read right. I need to feel better for playing epic Asphyxious and not downright filthy.)
- Nightwretch
- Cankerworm
- Helldiver

Maximum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment

Bane Lord Tartarus
Warwitch Siren
Gorman diWulfe
Bloat Thrall

And opponent had:

Strakhov
- Black Ivan

Maximum unit of Assault Kommandos + 1 flame thrower
2x Kayazy Eliminators
Widowmakers
Widowmaker Marksman
Epic Eiryss
Gorman diWulfe

When I'm playing Cryx I've really started to see Assault Kommandos in a different light. Again here that often dismissed infantry unit was immune to Warwitch Siren, Bloat Thrall and even Caustic Mists. And, well, even to that particular ammo of Corruptor, but I don't think that really counts for anything.

Anyway. After the game we noticed that this Khador list was, in fact, 5 points short. In the original list there were Great Bears of Gallowswood that didn't make it to the board.

Game started with Cryx taking the first turn. Scenario was Into the Breach, and large blast template marks the middle point of control zone. First picture is taken from the end of Khador's first turn. I'm including that picture, since upcoming pictures have completely atroctious camera angles.

Anyway, second picture shows how I (having learned some lesson from my fooling around in Ropecon 2013) marched Bane Thralls this time in front of whole flank to the right. And the second half of that second picture... wow. Opponent did pretty good job of wrecking whole damn unit of Bane Thralls. Only Officer and two thralls survived out of full 12. One thing caught me completely off guard.

Black Ivan had bulldoze. That combined with Overrun and Strakhov's feat is rather devastating gimmick indeed. Chances would be that I would still have at least 2-3 thralls more if Bulldoze hadn't pushed the flag bearer of Bane Thralls out of the 1" pick-up radius of other grunts. I think I got to make only 2-3 tough rolls whole game before I lost the flag to this fancy trick. Maybe my next lesson to learn is to always keep flag so far away from any and all even unseen threats?

Widowmakers advanced and shot a couple of bane thralls and Kayazy Eliminators walzed through 4 thralls.

However, I was actually quite content with this huge loss. I was ready to use Spectral Legion any time now, and opponent would lose almost all serious attack power on my turn... or would he?

First Warwitch Siren advanced and seduced Kayazy Eliminator (again?) and all four of them were in a nice clump next, and one Bane Thrall was free to charge.

I doubted I had enough killing power for Black Ivan, so I decided to probably sacrifice Bane Lord Tartarus. He cursed Black Ivan and advanced, aligned himself properly and unleashed Thresher. Two thralls were created to the back arc of Black Ivan. Funnily enough Tartarus himself missed the attack roll against the cursed Ivan.

Bane Thralls charge Black Ivan next and with plenty of unsuccesfull rolls (and one really succesful!) the warjack is still pretty much standing with nothing important destroyed. Crap, crap, crap! It's then Asphyxious' time to activate, and he charges Black Ivan - that monstrosity just needs to die. Two attacks and it's finally gone, and Asphyxious teleports away, camping one focus.

Then Bloat Thrall shot the huge AoE all over Eliminators and... well, none of them died. Not even those two that were having -2 ARM from Dark Shroud. However one of my own Bane Thralls died, which ironically needed exactly same damage roll as to kill one Eliminator outright. Drats.

Things actually started to look a little worrisome right now. I can only imagine my distress had the Great Bears been on board! But of course, different decisions would've been made then and game would probably have played differently. At least that's what I try to keep telling myself.

On opponents turn Def 15 saves Warwitch Siren from assassination attempt by a Kayazy Eliminator. I think it was a charge attack so that the other Eliminator had to run, so Siren had to dodge only one combo-strike or two ordinary strikes.

Bane Lord Tartarus and all Bane Thralls are destroyed by various attacks, but Bane Thrall Officer defied all fate behind a wreck marker and was left standing with one hit box (and under Fire continous effect). Khador scored two Control Points this turn by dominating control zone.

Bane Thrall officer died to the Fire, by the way.

Well, then is my turn, and I try to use a little bit of Cryxian crowd control techniques. Nearly all Assault Kommandos had cramped up in attempt to kill Bane Lord Tartarus (damn I wish he would've lived... or... continued being undead, how that one needs to be expressed?), and even Gorman diWulfe was in that huge blob of warm, tender flesh. So.

My grand plan was that I would somehow would get rid of both Kayazy Eliminators in middle of my lines, then run Bloat Thrall next to the gathering of souls, advance Nightwretch so that I could launch Death Knell on Bloat Thrall and boost damage to the thrall. That way AoE 4 Death Knell would kill what it may and it would be followed with even larger AoE pow 14 death blast.

But I just couldn't figure any way to remove those Eliminators, as even the Corruptor was blind with Black Oil.

So I had to use the Bloat Thrall to clear the way for Nightwretch. This time it managed to kill two already corroded Eliminators, yay.

Next Cankerworm advanced to act as a loving homing beacon for Death Knell. Nightwretch advances into position. Asphyxious activates, puts down his soul gathering template and casts death knell through nightwretch to Cankerworm. Attack misses but deviates just so that that damned Gorman is out of the template. And what's even more annoying is that two damage rolls fail to kill, despite blast damage coming in with... what... pow 11 or 12? Assault Kommandos were in Shield Wall. That order was indeed a good call this time. Asphyxious got 4 souls from this affair.

Well, then. I lose everything but Nightwretch and Asphyxious. Technically I didn't lose Cankerworm or Corruptor, but they were both Blind from Black Oil.

So. I'm actually losing this game unless I do something drastic.

Time to call in Spectral Legion.

Nightwretch advances out of a good charge lane (and actually survives a free strike from one of the Eliminators) and then Asphyxious charges an Assault Kommando. He kills three of them and burns, well, pretty much ALL of his remaining focus to kill one pesky Kayazy Eliminator, saving only enough for a teleport. Obviously attempt to kill the Eliminator just fails.

Then he uses his Feat and table is filled with Bane Thralls once again. It's a pity I didn't take a picture before removing the models.

Anyway. Only four thralls make it to Strakhov. Suprisingly, however, first thrall hits! And rolls a godlike damage roll, leaving Strakhov with only two hit boxes remaining. Well, I still got 3 tries to roll a 9+ for a guaranteed kill. Second one is a miss. Third one is a miss. Fourth one hits! P+S 11 with 4 dice vs Strakhovs armor of something 17 or so. There are no markers next to him, but he was camping some focus. After all... where would have he actually used them?

Damage roll doesn't exceed his armor. To add an insult to injury, damage roll is exactly equal to his armor. It was something like 1,1,2,2 or 1,2,2,2.

Now wasn't that sweet?

Luckily rest thralls manage to kill some important pieces such as Gorman diWulfe.

Opponent then wrecks Cankerworm, who had been standing valiantly until this late game in the middle of enemy forces. Requiescat in pacem, until Asphyxious reconstructs it.

Strakhov heals a couple of damage points and goes to hug wreck marker. Enemy doesn't actually have too much models on board any more, but neither do I have too many attacks available. I do a little math, and I figure that I will actually lose to scenario unless I manage to assassinate Strakhov somehow.

So.

I am thinking of trying to spell-assassinate Strakhov next, but I didn't think I brought Nightwretch close enough to get through Stealth (Strakhov had been upkeeping Occultation on himself for whole game - wise move, actually, since I would've probably tried to assassinate and/or Parasite him at various points of the game - especially on the feat turn) and Strakhov in cover is outside of Asphyxious' league, I dare say.

Last remaining Assault Kommando had ran to engage Nightwretch.

On my upcoming turn it seemed like my only chances were to kill everything on the control zone and start dominating for points. However... if even one of enemy models remained that would just hand over the loss to me. So many dice rolls had already barely failed in this game that I thought that it'd be so much against all odds if this last chance would be ruined also.

Asphyxious allocates a focus point to Corruptor and Nightwretch. Corruptor advances and strikes the Assault Kommando down (while free-striking Eliminator doesn't strike Corruptor down) and then Nightwretch runs to Strakhov.

Asphyxious activates and advances so that he can attempt one last fully boosted Excarnate on Strakhov. Hits, and damage roll is excessive.

Phew.

Only logical reason for Eliminators, Gorman, Strakhov and to some extent even Black Ivan (it took almost every possible attack to nail the warjack down so the resources couldn't be directed to any other target) surviving for so long is that the spirit of the missing Great Bears of Gallowswood was magically supporting their performance. Wait... that's not logical at all... Another possible explanation is that some form of greater dice gods and kharma and whatnot punished me for using Corruptor.

Anyway, I hope we get to play another game some time with same lists, this time bears included. Game was a really good one and exciting, but still opponent was playing 5 points down, and it bugs me.

Language Barrier (Smallworld)

Uh.

I know I can express myself somewhat well in English language. At least if I'm given the time.

However... things become a bit complicated when you have to explain rules of a game in an understandable manner without your native language to another person in a language, that isn't that persons native language either!

This was the set-up of a 4 player game of Smallworld a little while ago.

At first things really seemed a little desperate, but luckily this game is much easier to play than to explain. Telling by example works quite nicely in Smallworld.

Trying to keep everyone constantly updated with plethoras of new rules was so hectic, however, that I didn't really have time to keep as detailed notes about this game as I usually try to do. I didn't, for example, get to write down the race combos used. I remember that Commando Barbarians were quite force to reckon with, and the early game was dominated with Pixies and Orcs beating the crap out of each other.

Final scoreboard was: 92, 82, 80 and something. That, however, doesn't tell anything since the scores can't be associated with the race combos used.

A Beautiful Dream (A Touch of Evil)

On Monday we played yet another game of A Touch of Evil.

This time we were against Dreamweaver, and heroes who were facing her were Frederic Léon, the foreign diplomat and Brother Marcus.

The wimpy minions of Dreamweaver were major cash cows for both heroes. A huge abundance of Shadow Beasts made it sure that heroes had very few Sleepless tokens. I think the maximum number of Sleepless tokens for any hero was 4 during this game.

Huge amount of Investigation was particularly nice for these two heroes who both had ways of spending them outside of town shop. Brother Marcus succeeded in avoiding a few horrible Mystery cards (Something Wicked was the worst, hands up or down or in any direction) and Frederic Léon's Intrigue ability gave the team a disturbing amount of Event cards.

Luckily this time there was no rule that gave Villain bonuses from hero knock outs... Brother Marcus was severely beaten in a regular basis by Sandmen and Shadow Beasts. Because both Minion types were moving every turn on the board the situation went pretty much so that Brother Marcus took care of the village by the coast, and Frederic Léon was facing the nightmares of Shadowbrook.

At one point quite early in game we were actually both knocked out at the same turn. Technically that would mean a loss for Heroes in a cooperative play, but since there was a recommendation even in the rulebook that when playing with only 2 heroes that lose condition would better be left out. So we continued.

And what a struggle it was! Late in the game Frederic got "If I just could reach..." card and took Captain's Logbook from Shipwreck discard pile. The amazing thing in that item is that at the start of every hero turn Frederic would draw an event. That combined with Frederic's Intrigue formed into a really respectable deck of Events.

However our worst enemy, the Shadow Track, did its thing again. First it was just there somewhere in the middle stage... and then, out of nowhere, in the last red stage.

Luckily by this time Brother Marcus had ventured to Echo Lake map, trying to buy Oath of Devotion. Lair card that was bought showed that Dreamweaver resided at the Inn. Wow... I just realised we had twice in a row the same Lair at showdown. I wonder if the inn at Echo Lake is a meeting point for supernatural villains...?

Probably last possible turn dawned on Heroes (Shadow Track was at 1) so Brother Marcus, unhealed and non-vowed had to rush to Inn and start a showdown.

Well, it succeeded, despite there being Evil Is On The Move card in effect (cancel Lair card on 5+)

Only three Elders were evil elders and two Village Elders had amazing secrets (Inner Strenght on Reverend Harding or Magistrate Kroft) and a new secret from The Coast, the one that gave +2 cunning & combat and gave Event card in between Showdown fight rounds, and it was on Sophie the Midwife.

Heroes had a thundering first round of combat, and Dreamweaver herself had a really poor one. However, Dreamweaver had 11 Fight Dice.

After second round Brother Marcus went down. After all he had started showdown with only one wound remaining.

Frederic Léon managed to get over 10 Fight Dice on multiple rounds, but finally he got only 9 per attack. Dreamweaver had only 6 wounds remaining on herself when Frederic rolled his second last attack. Only two hits. Last Knocked Away or "You go first!" was played and Frederic had to score 5+ four times on 9 dice.

And there they were, exactly 4 successes.

I don't think we rolled the last attack for Dreamweaver, but by then she too had 9 fight dice and Frederic had only one wound and his personal militia remaining. It's a shame, actually, that we didn't roll the attack. Would have been curious to know if both heroes died in the desperate fight against the Queen of Nightmares.

Anyway, it was a victory for Heroes.

Curses and Screams (A Touch of Evil)

I had a friend visiting me for a few days, and eventually we ended up playing board games.

We played A Touch of Evil on Saturday and Sunday.

First game was against the Sunken Seven.

Characters were Argot Blackwell and Captain Hawkins.

Sunken Seven was a very different villain to fight against, and I guess that's always good. We were, however, terribly unlucky because after a couple of March of Darkness and such the board had maximum number of haunted markers already, which in turn lowered Shadow Track way too fast.

I was a bit unsure how a few rules would play out with weird villain like this. The only minion spawn result from villain sheet was tagged as Event/Minion, which made me wonder how it would react to various results. We played so that both tags would trigger the result.

During whole game we killed The Outcast twice and The Innocent once. Also one Drowned Dead was spawned during the game, so Argot and Captain Hawkins were quite starved of Investigation Points.

We got a few good items and almost no event cards when Shadow Track started to approach red zones. Realising we had no time to build up, well, anything, we tried to start a Showdown.

Alas, it was not to be. Shadow Track took a few "drop D3" effects in and game was over in the loss of Heroes.


Game 2:

On Sunday our adversary was the Banshee.

Heroes who were fighting her were the Scarlet Shadow and Sara, the Bright Witch.

One thing we did good: Villain gained a +1 wound marker every time a hero was knocked down. Only Scarlet Shadow was knocked down once.

Somehow it just happened that Sara could not move out of the Shadowbrook Village. If I remember right she visited Manor maybe twice and Abandoned Keep once, other than that she was just visiting different offices and church to train her spirit. Random fights with Minions kept her having damage on, so she had to run to the doctor all the time.

Scarlet Shadow was visiting the Coast and gained some amazing items from locations in there.

Again, however, Shadow Track went crazy. We started to plan on starting Showdown in about 3 turns when Shadow Track was still in 6-7. Just after one round it was down to 3 or so, and nobody was even close to the area where Villain resided (The Inn).

However, the game did us a favor when someone rolled double 1's on the Cooperative Mystery Phase Chart. Had that not happened, we couldn't have started a showdown for sure...

We did quite good in the showdown. We had a couple of important event cards (thanks to Sara farming them in town) such as "You go first!" and Knocked Away. We actually had a decent chance of winning, but alas, dice weren't with us. After a furios struggle the Banshee was left standing with three wounds remaining, and both Heroes were dead.

Failhorn Satyr

About a week ago I also played a second game of warmachine. It was played straight after the last game, but I didn't have the strenght, endurance and/or willpower to write it up in one go.

But anyway, it was a 25 point game.

I played with:

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

Lord of the Feast

Druid Wilder
Blackclad Wayfarer

Opponent had:

Magnus the Traitor
- Mangler
- Renegade

Minimum unit of Croe's Cutthroats
Minimum unit of Kayazy Assassins
Epic Eiryss
Gorman diWulfe

Circle got to start again, though this time it was my own choice. I didn't want to give Magnus such a huge head-start, though scenario was Destruction.

Again the threat of very troublesome AoE's made Kaya cast Occultation on herself. First picture is taken from the end of Mercenary turn 1.

I proceeded in trying to shoot Lord of the Feast's raven to Renegade on a hill and scored a lucky hit. Lord of the Feast didn't want to balance right, so his back arc is actually his front arc. He managed to thresher all of the Croe's Cutthroats in his melee range and did some damage even to Renegade.

Then Warpwolf Stalker charged the Renegade and wrecked it. Good thing: The warjack was destroyed before it got time to shoot the horrible knockdown template of doom. Bad thing: my 10 point beast, along with 4 point solo, were just standing there, waiting to die.

And die they did.

Mangler obviously made minced meat out of Warpwolf Stalker, Def 14 wasn't enough to save it. However Magnus was left in a bad position after killing Lord of the Feast, as it left a clear charge line for Gnarlhorn Satyr to Magnus. Surely a heavy warbeast would take a focusless warcaster down?

Druid Wilder cast the Gnarlhorn animus on Gnarlhorn itself, and then it charged Magnus. I was wondering if I should have done a grand slam instead, but hey... it was def 14 arm 17 target with 17 damage boxes. What could go wrong?

Charge attack scored a good, solid hit that dealt 10 points in. Claw attack that had its damage roll boosted was a little less inspiring, dealing only 5 points in. Well, I still had one initial attack and two Fury left.

Third initial missed, though it needed only 6+ to hit. Not a big deal, still two Fury left. Gnarlhorn buys another attack and I decide not to boost attack roll, because this way I'd boost damage or if I failed to hit I would still have yet another 6+ chance to hit. Ah well, the bought attack was a miss. But I still got one chance, and if Gnarlhorn manages to score a hit Magnus would be dead on 4+ with two dice. You guessed it. Miss.

Well... Now situation looked a bit difficult. But I still got one random chance to do an attack to Magnus, and that was with Blackclad Wayfarer. He went and positioned itself so he could spray Magnus. I forgot Magnus had upkept Blur, so I needed something like 10+ to hit, so it was a miss. Gnarlhorn happened to be under the spray template, so I needed to make an attack roll against it. But not a biggie, it's only pow 12...

Blackclad Wayfarer rolls doubles. Gnarlhorn Satyr is rewarded for his miserable performance by being knocked down on top of everything.

This is not the first time Gnarlhorn Satyr has failed me horribly like this. In fact it does that on a pretty regular basis. And it's not that the model would be bad or anything, I think its rules are awesome, but when it comes to important rolls and activations it's a guaranteed failure.

Next turn Mangler stomps another heavy warbeast (it had destroyed now 18 points worth of models. Not bad?) and remaining Croe's Cutthroats execute the Blackclad Wayfarer. Magnus backs up and heals himself a little. Then Gorman activates and throws black oil to Scarsfell Griffon. It's a miss, but luckily the template doesn't deviate so that Kaya would be blinded.

Then some Kayazy assassins charge, but they don't too terribly much, except kill Scarsfell Griffon to 5 boxes left or something like that. But Kaya evades Kayazy assassins, and that's whats important.

My turn started with Kaya, Druid Wilder and a blind griffon. There was, however, a possibility for a lucky assassination. Kaya advanced and cast boosted Spirit Fang on Magnus who was sitting on def 17 arm 17 and 4-5 hit boxes remaining.

Kaya needs 11+ to hit on 3 dice. She misses... twice. Now Kaya is in a better place and doesn't need to hit any longer.

I still find Kaya's defiant pose hilarious in situations like these.

Has it been a week already?

Yeah, looks like.

Exactly a week ago I played two games of Warmachine.

First game was against Khador, and it was a 35 point game.

I played with Circle of Orboros after a while.

My list was:

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

Tharn Bloodweavers

Druid Wilder
Blackclad Wayfarer
Lord of the Feast

Opponent had:

Epic Irusk
- Juggernaut

Maximum unit of Assault Kommandos + at least 1 flame thrower
Minimum unit of Kayazy Assassins + Underboss
2x Winter Guard Mortar Crew
Epic Eiryss
Gorman diWulfe
+1 point I can't figure out.

Circle got to start the game. Megalith and Wurmwood act as objective markers for scenario, which was Incoming from Steamroller 2013. First picture is taken from the end of Khadoran first turn.

Eiryss had ran to block any crazy shenanigans Lord of the Feast would try to pull off. Gnarlhorn Satyr tried to counter-slam the elf away, but without a boost her amazing Defense was too much.

Kaya had cast Occultation on her, since the threat of a succesful hit from winter guard mortar was rather discouraging...

Then it looks like I've skipped one whole round from taking pictures. Anyway, what happened on Circle's turn: Warpwolf Stalker came to smash Eiryss and finally succeeded. Even with Kaya's Pack Hunter special ability didn't give guaranteed hits on Eiryss. But she was gone at last and with remaining two Fury Stalker put Lightning Strike on Lord of the Feast.

Lord of the Feast advanced and threw the raven to Juggernaut. A hit was scored, and Lord killed two or three Assault Kommandos and sprinted right next to mortars.

Army itself advanced in midfield so I'd be able to bring whole army to either zone, if needed.

But then it was opponents turn. It took lots of manpower to dislodge Lord of the Feast. Assault Kommandos, Gorman diWulfe and Irusk himself spent their activations in getting rid of him. I think Gorman had failed its command check, when Lord of the Feast sprinted next to mortars.

Then mortars take a couple of hits on Gorax... if memory serves, at least one of them scored a direct hit, and encouraged by that Kayazy Assassins charged all over the map, trying to kill Gorax. The warbeast was left alive with 1-3 damage boxes due to slightly less than average rolls. One assassin that got a charge off to Scarsfell Griffon missed. The other assassin had just ran to give gang bonuses.

On Circle's next turn I started wondering if I could actually try to win by scenario. I decided to try, because I would fairly surely lose any attrition game, because Battle Lust would turn even mortar crew a melee threat capable of destroying my warbeasts.

So, first Warpwolf Stalker started bashing Kayazy Assassins. Then Druid Wilder did a full advance and cast Gnarlhorns own animus on the beast itself. Satyr then charged objective (since it was first players third turn) and it was just within 11" charge range with only half an inch to spare. There was very little room for wiggle for Gnarlhorn to charge and stay within Kaya's control range. However, it succeeded and with last possible attack Gnarlhorn managed to break the objective.

Then Scarsfell Griffon casts its own animus and flies past Kayazy Assassins.

Finally Kaya activates, advances, heals Gorax, uses her feat and teleports to Griffon. And now she dominated the enemy zone. After this move Gnarlhorn was way out of control range, but the beast would be dead meat anyway.

Opponent plays pretty good turn next, where Irusk cast Tactical Supremacy on himself and charged around and used his feat. Feat caught all but Bloodweavers inside.

When my turn began again, there were four enemy models on enemy control zone and five models in my friendly zone. By dominating either of these I would win by scenario. So, Scarsfell Griffon started beaking Kayazy Assassins that were tying up Kaya. Oh my, this is horrible, I just realised... Kayazy Assassins engaging Kaya? This is such a bad play on words, I know...

Anyway, Griffon manages to destroy the two happy campers thanks to Pack Hunters. Kaya then advances 5" and with Reach on her weapon she manages to engage both remaining enemy models in the zone. The question would be, however, if MAT 6 and 6 Fury would be enough to kill Gorman diWulfe and Kommando Flamethrower?

Yes, it was. But it was far from easy, and if she had missed the last boosted attack against Kommando Flamethrower, the game would have most probably had a very different ending. But here and now, Kaya won by scenario.

I think I'll actually write the second game a bit later, I'm getting tired.