Intermission during Rautarouva

Well, sometimes it's good to wake up a couple of hours before the alarm and not get any sleep. For such occasions you can, maybe, write something about a game that was played only about 18 hours away from a full week before?

Of course I'm talking about the Rautarouva again.

This was a 35 point game quite late at night, Cryx vs Cygnar. I built my list from models I still had in my storage foams so that I could get more variation out of the whole trip.

My list:

Scaverous

- Seether
- Deathripper
- Defiler

Maximum unit of Mechanithralls + 1x Brute Thrall
Maximum unit of Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
Skarlock
Ragman
Warwitch Siren

Opponent:

Kara Sloan
- Defender

Black 13th
Gun Mages + Officer
- Hunter
Maximum unit of Greygore Boomhowler's + Jonas Murdoch
Squire
Reinholdt

I haven't played much against Kara Sloan, this was maybe third game against her. Scenario had Killbox in effect, so at least she wouldn't be running around in circles with Refuge on.

I thought it'd be my best interest to run an arc node fast forward and cast Icy Grip on Greygore Boomhowlers. That way there was an arc node that couldn't be ignored in the middle of board. I also wasn't sure if Kara Sloan would be able to do all sorts of tricksy moves and start shooting Scaverous right away.

Next picture is of poor quality, and there is a full round in-between the pictures.

Sloan used her feat and shot Deathripper in the middle who was left with exactly arc node and movement system still intact, and Defender dropped left hand from Seether.

Black 13th and Gun Mages killed four Satyxis, who weren't able to charge next turn thanks to the annoying arcane fire spell storm thing that Black 13th shoots.

Since Greygore's had done assault charge I had to start clearing the board from their ilk.

Half of them went down, and one had Corrosion continuous effect on it. Scaverous ran to possibly dominate an area and hopefully far enough from Sloan. He did have four focus for Arm buff, but that's two weapon master shots and one pow 15 shot from Defender we're looking at here.

Mechanithralls charged whatever they could. Two P+S 15 charge attacks weren't enough to take the objective down. Not that it mattered much, since there were three trollkin and Jonas Murdoch within the zone anyway.

Next picture is blurry as hell, but it gives a vague impression about Defender and Kara Sloan. All three tried to shoot Scaverous down, and Derender damaged him so badly that I thought it's over. But Kara Sloan somehow missed two shots against Scaverous despite needing only 6+ to hit. First one was unboosted and second one was boosted.

Since Kara didn't hit anyone, Refugee didn't trigger.

Odds were in Kara's favor, that's all I can say. I almost hoped as bad dice screw situation for me to make the game feel a bit more close fought.

But here's how it went: Defiler ran close to Kara Sloan, possibly with Ghost Walk from Skarlock.

Scaverous uses his walks up and uses his feat. He casts Telekinesis on Sloan, Defender and Seether, and on top of that Icy Grip on Sloan, too.

Then Seether charges the cygnaran warcaster who was effectively Def 12 vs MAT 8 of Seether.

Well, that was it, really. Seether with two allocated extra focus couldn't miss that badly even if it did have on of its arms gone.

Painted Firelands

Keeping up with the traditions: here are all the new characters to Talisman from Firelands expansion.

I'm not entirely happy with them, since I rushed them a little bit. I'm quite busy during upcoming weeks, and there might be chance for Talisman getting some play at the end of this month.

Tragic mistake

Well, damn.

I bought a new expansion for Gloom.

Unwelcome Guests was its name.

I guess I'm becoming the penniless poet.

This post looks a bit like a poem, doesn't it?

Rautarouva day 2

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

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

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


Game 4: Wraith Witch Deneghra vs Iron Lich Asphyxious

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

Opponent had a list a bit like this:

Iron Lich Asphyxious
- 2x Deathripper
- Cankerworm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nice move there, Deneghra. It was your last.


Game 5: Mortenebra vs Zaal

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

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

This game was quite fast and aggressive.

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

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

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

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

Well, Kraken didn't die.

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

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

Rautarouva day 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Opponent probably had this list:

Mohsar

- Ghetorix
- Megalith
- Gorax

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

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

Mirage was on Bloodtrackers and Spectral Steel on Kraken.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Game 2: Wraith Witch Deneghra vs Warwitch Deneghra.

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

Opponent had a curious Warwitch Deneghra list, something like:

Deneghra
- 2x Deathripper

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But damage roll doesn't knock off Arc Node.

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


Game 3: Mortenebra vs Dr. Arkadius

I think I was playing against Arkadius' tier force:

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

Maximum unit of Farrow Bone Grinders
Maximum unit of Farrow Brigands

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

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

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

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

Bane Thralls destroy the rest of Razor Boars.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prelude to Rautarouva: We didn't playtest this at all

I participated in a Warmachine tournament, but I'm still recovering from it.

Instead I'm writing something about a confusing card game I played there. It was called "We Didn't Playtest This At All".

Gameplay was chaotic, and quite a few players had consumed certain kinds of beverages. I don't even remember how many rounds was played, and in a game like this it doesn't even matter. First card played might just end the game already. Game could end when everybody loses, everybody wins, or only one person or a variable number of persons win. You could also lose when you win.

Some expansions were added as players got more familiar with the game. Mostly they added randomness and chaos.

Game itself was quite fun, though I started to be quite damn tired at that hour, as I had slept only two hours the night before.

But there were kittens.

Who can say "no" to kittens?

(For the statistical purposes I'm counting up different occasions I've played We Didn't Playtest this. No point in counting rounds.)

The Most Romantic Proposal Ever (Gloom)

I got to play two games of three player Gloom.

Since I was out of town without access to my laptop, it took some time to write these things up and most of the juicy details have already been forgotten.

However, one of the most beautiful love stories ever was told during second game.

Thumbelisa, the diminuitive diva had been an agent of foreign countries and she used the mobility of a circus as a way to hide. Eventually justice caught her and she was tried for a treason. During trial the prosecutor fell in love with Thumbelisa and instead of putting Thumbelisa to the death row, the judge declared prosecutor and Thumbelisa husband and wife!

I guess it was the spur of the moment, and marriage was a little troublesome in the end. Marriage was demanding too much of her attention, which resulted in Thumbelisa arranging things so that her husband died.

Acts of violence have a tendency of causing even more violence. Apparently the son of the prosecutor, who would now inherit his late father, either was rotten to the core and killed Thumbelisa out of pure, selfish greed or it was a win-win revenge.

Still better love story than Twilight?

Oh, but they're so easy (Touch of Evil)

Before I leave the town I try to write down the last two games of our Touch of Evil campaign.

First game was played against the Vampire, who we thought to be one of the easiest villains. And that it pretty much was, yet again. It seems like the design intent is for Vampire to drag the game on for so long that Remains in Play Mystery cards wear players down. Vampire has no rules of its own to haste Shadow Track, and its minion chart does that only on result of 1. And the effect isn't especially horrible.

Well, Frederic Léon and Abigail Sturn had gotten a sort of hunch that this wimpy and easy Villain was tormenting Shadowbrook. Or maybe the Vampire was just bored of its own meaningless existence and decided to come and kill itself right there and then.

During the extraordinarily long game Abigail Sturn got the Villain smashing event card again, the one that made 1's hit enemies too, and against any beast or vampire 1's were two hits. I actually felt pity for the Vampire.

Abigail has ability to use Cunning instead of Combat in battles, so she bought all possible Town items that added Cunning and were preferably Books (for her another ability).

Frederic Léon had some bad luck and spent quite some time being Knocked Out thanks to various minions.

Things actually got interesting when we were nearing the end. Lady Hanbrook had both Darkest Secret and Shadow Puppet secrets - meaning that she couldn't be singled out during Showdown, and Shadow Track would drop by one at the start of every Showdown Fight Round!

Also the Vampire's minions put some effort into their actions near the end of game, and one way or another Heroes were denied of starting a Showdown.

But, alas and woe and all that, Vampire could not hide forever, and was butchered up. Even the twisted bravery of Hanbrook could not save him/her/it.

Both Lady Hanbrook and Lord Hanbrook had the Darkest Secret, so I guess they were a sort of vampire aristocracy.

Game 2:

Well, then we played against the next easiest villain, Spectral Horseman. Heroes that were drawn were Argot Blackwell and Liliana, lost soul AKA Villain Killer.

I was expecting an easy and quick game because of the Horseman being the Villain and our Heroes were pretty good.

But sometimes fate is fickle...

Order of the Crimson Hand were pretty active in this game. Any time a Hero visited a Corner Location, a dice must be rolled to see if Crimson Hand attacks. Every time a Hero ended in same space with Militia, they rolled to see how badly the militia gunned them down. And all Town Items cost 2 extra Investigation points. And then some other cards were niceties such as whenever Event was drawn, a dice was rolled to see if Mystery Card was drawn instead, and any time 1 was rolled for movement a Mystery card was drawn no matter what.

All of that combined with invulnerable Barghest Hounds (Argot did kill about ten Barghest Hounds during game. However the only Barghest Hound token that was removed was because of March of Darkness to town square... damn those 4+'s!) made for a really tough game. I guess a lesson was learned here: Never underestimate your foe. Or at least it's minions. Or at least the Order of the Crimson Hand.

Heroes did manage to start a Showdown, though. Shadow Track was at 3 when they did so, and it proved out to be that two of Evil Elders were Shadow Puppets!

One of those Evil Elders (either Harbormaster or Mayor Carver) survived despite effective 4 Dice being wasted on him.

So... did we just lose two of the better heroes from our hero pool to arguably one of the easiest villains in the game? Yup, that we did.


Campaign record:

Dead villains: Bog Fiend, Vampire

Dead Heroes: Liliana, Argot Blackwell

Stashed investigation: 2