Witch Hound versus Witches

A couple of days ago I played a game of Warmachine first time for a little while.

It was a 35 point game, and I wanted to try out something different again.

I decided on a following list:

Witch Coven of Garlghast
- Harrower
- Nightmare
- 2x Deathrippers
- Nightwretch
- Stalker

2x Warwitch Siren

I was against Retribution of Scyrah.

Opponents list was:

Kaelyssa
- Phoenix
- Discordia

Maximum unit of Mage Hunter Strikeforce + Officer

2x Mage Hunter Assassins
Narn, Mage Hunter of Ios
Epic Eiryss
Sylys Wyshnalyrr

I did not really even realize at the beginning of the fight how funny match-up this was from rules perspective. After all, I had five Witch models in my army, and Kaelyssa was a dedicated Witch Hound. Actually I learned this in a rather costly manner...

Anyway, I won starting roll, and first picture is taken from the end of opponents first turn. And yeah, that's a heavy wreck marker already there.

I had run a little too much with Harrower, and Mage Hunter Assassin was just barely able to charge it. The distance sure looks quite big in the picture, but situation there isn't accurate, because the assassin wouldn't balance on obstacle. Anyway it was tough to make a judgement there, but if it looks to me it's a game of few millimetres that can account for a badly positioned tape measure, shaking of hands, breeze of wind or anything... I at least try to let it go in favor of the measurer. Makes game a bit faster if you don't need to spend 5 minutes to make as exact measurement as possible with zero marginal for error.

But yeah, the 2 point model did again the thing it's notorious about. It was 14-16 damage points in to Harrower. Then Strike Force finished it. I guess I should have put Occultation on Harrower instead of Nightmare.

Metal ring is Rift, and green template is Veil of Mists, by the way.

On my next turn I was contemplating if I should run Nightwretch next to Kaelyssa and start shooting Stygian Abysses at her. She had, however, used her feat to give Stealth to whole army and not being able to be charged at. Phoenix with its reach made me unsure if I could place Nightwretch not in melee AND within 5" of Kaelyssa.

So I decided to use Coven's feat instead, thinking it would protect my army enough to get an alpha strike. After all, Nightmare with Infernal Machine can charge anyhing within 13". Now it just advanced to smack Mage Hunter Assassin off the wall. Also fully boosted Stygian Abyss dropped Narn and the other Mage Hunter Assassin too. But that was all I could do.

To add a little bit more hate to Mage Hunter Strike Force, we figured out that they ignore LOS restrictions of Witch Coven's Nightfall. Okay, cool... At least they suffer the -2 to RAT.

Despite that they still shot off one arm from Nightmare, meaning no more P+S 24 Combo Strikes at prey. Which was Phoenix, at the moment.

Kaelyssa, who had Phantom Hunter on, helped Strike Force a little too once they had shot off its movement system, too. Eiryss disrupted Nightwretch.

Well, it was my turn again, and now I learned the beauty of Witch Hound. One of my Warwitch Sirens advanced full 7" and sprayed on Mage Hunter Strike Force, getting both Kaelyssa and Phoenix under, too. Luckily the shot did some damage to Kaelyssa, because only one dead Mage Hunter would just have felt bad, when it triggered two moves for Kaelyssa's battlegroup.

Phoenix shot against the Warwitch, and disgustingly scored a hit against her DEF 15. That was one dead witch.

Next witch hound move was Discordia advancing and spraying over my another Warwitch Siren and Deathripper. You can guess it right, another dead Warwitch. After all, it's the name of the ability...

Nightwretch took a pot shot at Phoenix, and did actually quite respectable damage in. However, regenerating force field pretty much nullified what the brave chicken had done.

As Discordia had moved in to spray, there was something to do for me. Half-broken Nightmare with Infernal Machine went and tried to beat up Discordia with 3 focus, but didn't really do well. If I remember right, no damage roll was over six on two dice. Something else happened, though. Terror from Infernal Machine caused Mage Hunter Strike Force to fail their command check. That was the best thing my heavy warjacks ever did in this game.

Then opponent got to punish me again. A little earlier I had been quite confident in the game, but realizing all the possibilities that witch hound screwed over made things... interesting.

Oh, and it didn't exactly help me either that Nightmare and leftmost Deathripper were wrecked and Stalker was set on fire, Nightwretch disrupted again by Eiryss, and Mage Hunter Strike Force regrouped.

I had one fully functional piece and warcaster left in my army, then, and opponent had lost only... what? Three solos and one mage hunter from unit? But because the functional piece was an arc node, and I was playing Witch Coven, it was all that was needed, right?

So I did what I needed to do. Last deathripper advanced, and a fully boosted Stygian Abyss was shot at Kaelyssa, who took lots of damage in. The hit was also a critical one, so she was Shadow Bound. However... this triggered Witch Hound, again, and before I knew it, my precious turkey was engaged in melee.

Nightwretch was disrupted, so I guess Eiryss had bought her points back in this game by removing 1/3 of Coven's arc nodes.

Coven cast Veil of Mists on the melee where burning Stalker was to allow it escape to engage Mage Hunter Strike Force. It didn't kill even a single one of them.

Sooo... that was it for me, then. Opponents turn again.

Mage Hunter Strike Force nail a huge Combined Melee Attack against Stalker and wreck it in one hit. Kaelyssa and Eiryss destroy Nightwretch finally.

Phoenix comes and tries to destroy last remaining Deathripper, and, funnily enough, it is set on fire by Phoenix's thermal blade and almost wrecked for good. However... it had three boxes left in column 4. One arc node and two movement or cortex or whatever there is.

I still had a chance! Ghost Walk on Deathripper, get Kaelyssa in Line of Sight, Stygian Abyss and return home victorious!

Well, then comes my turn.

Deathripper burns to ashes.

So... situation is, I have no models other than my warcaster, who can't even go into "tank" mode.

A really ridiculous idea comes up in my mind. One of my witches advances and loses Perfect Conjunction. Egregore then runs as far as possible. Another witch advances then to get Line of Sight to Kaelyssa.

She casts a fully boosted Stygian Abyss (for five focus...) and deals 6 points in.

Kaelyssa had only 3 boxes left.

I don't know if this win was epic or stupid. But no matter how much I read the cards, and after the game searched rules forum on Privateer Press' home forums, I couldn't find anything that made this move illegal.

But it sure does feel illegal, so if anyone spots an error there, I'd be grateful to know about it. Anonymous commenting should be allowed in this blog.

However, I think it was played completely within rules, and thus it becomes one of the weirdest wins I've ever had. I guess this, where enemy loses only 4 models during match, is where Cryx commanders say: "It's all going according to the plan!"

Pureblood/Stalker and some rye

I've been tired and uninspired to get any actual games in and played, but during past couple of days I got something else done to show up here.

I magnetised Pureblood Warpwolf and Warpwolf Stalker from the plastic warpwolf kit. I didn't bother with Feral, because I already have one. And I'm the type of player who rarely takes twice the same option when it costs so many army construction points!

I am very pleased with the paintjob. Though to be honest, I've been painting it and the two other models since I finished Bog Trog unit leader.

The two other models are miniatures intended for Chronicles game system. Because I finished them and wouldn't bother to take pictures of them separately, I decided to put them next to the warpwolf.

But please, don't ask why the heck I'm shooting them on a rye bread. I do not have a good answer for that. Not a bad answer either. There is no answer.

Warpwolf Stalker parts aren't finished yet, but if I'd have wanted to be painted in this picture, I would have probably had to wait for another month or so.

Well.

Here you go.

Hero onslaught

And now I got my greedy little fingers around A Touch of Evil Hero Pack 2.

Not much to write, though, since there's not too much unexpected content in an addition like this. The four heroes look nice, though Jack Sp... sorry I mean Jack Fellows, the privateer, is a bit boring rules-wise, and Sara, the Bright Witch may (or may not) be a little too powerful. Depends a lot on Shadow Track, really.

Also included are one card to each Corner Location in the Shadowbrook map and three mystery and event cards each.

New villain, the Reaper, has it's own minion chart, unlike the extra villain in Hero Pack 1. Reaper also looks lovably dark and thematic. Shadow of Death and Wither really stand out as well-thought and flavorful special rules.

But until I get stuff painted, this was all for A Touch of Evil Hero Pack 2.

A Touch of the Coast

I finally got my filthy hands upon the new expansion for A Touch of Evil: The Coast.

And, truth be told, the more I look around, the more I'm enthusiastic about the expansion. It's more than just "another playing board" that offers nothing actually new to the game if you already own Something Wicked.

No, this one has loads of stuff crammed in.

First, of course, the Hauntings. Hauntings add yet another sweet, supernatural layer to the game. They are manifestations of vengeful spirits that may or may not be in league with the Villain. They are kind of... totally separate things. Like mini-Villains. They're not minions, so they don't stop Heroes movements any way, and there can even be a minion and a haunting in the same space.

Rewards for banishing Hauntings are generally awesome, though they usually just detract you from the main focus - Villain.

New coastal village, Tidewater, functions wonderfully different than the actual Shadowbrook town, too. Instead of drawing events you draw village encounters, which can be good or bad or just... something. I bet they make the village feel alive.

Board, Hero and Villain art are yet again top-notch. Flying Frog has really found the perfect artistic style for this game. Very Tim Burtonesque, and still sets the mood.

New Secrets for town elders looked promising and fun (two that really made an impression were one where Town Elder became stark-raving mad, and one where a lycanthrope has bitten him or her.)

Well, these thing came from the top of my head. At least with a quick look The Coast looks like it's a little bit better expansion than Something Wicked, though my philosophy regarding expansions to games I own is "the more the merrier!"

"And then Caine got LOS"

Okay, I oversimplify the game in title.

However, a few days back I was playing against epic Caine with my Cryx.

I played Scaverous (oh, why I ever did that... but I am not superstitious, I will not yield to superstition!) at 35 points. We had no scenario.

My list was:

Scaverous
- Seether
- 2x Nightwretches

Minimum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Cephalyx Overlords
Withershadow Combine
Bane Lord Tartarus
Skarlock

And Cygnar had:

Epic Caine
- Ol' Rowdy

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages + Officer
- Defender
Minimum unit of Greygore Boomhowler's
Squire
Reinholdt
Epic Eiryss
Madelyn Corbeau

And opponent won starting roll. Most of the Cygnaran thingies ran straight forward, which was most unexpected. However, since my camera tried again to be a little problematic, first picture is taken from the end of opponents second turn I think.

I had run a Nightwretch close to Boomhowlers. I was thinking of dropping Icy Grip on them, followed by a Feast of Worms. But then, when I activated Scaverous, I noticed that heck. Caine would most probably have a LOS to him. That's why I cast only Icy Grip. Seether in the picture, by the way, is facing 180 degrees the other way. It just wouldn't balance otherwise on a slope.

Far to the left in the picture you can see half of Eiryss.

What you can't see in the picture is my Skarlock, who had already bitten the dust thanks to Magic Bullet. I really start to hate that spell, because it was quite close that Tremulus died too. Luckily not, as he was left with two or three health boxes remaining. Boomhowlers also had all but wrecked my Nightwretch. I think it had Head and Movement remaining. At least no arc node any longer.

Well, next I want to move Scaverous a little closer and use his feat. It was about half an inch up to one inch that I didn't die on next enemy turn.

First Tartarus advances and curses Ol' Rowdy. Bane thralls charge it, and the three that make into contact with it wreck just about everything else except it's hammer.

Then my other Nightwretch advances, and Scaverous advances to a ridiculous position, if you happen to remember where Eiryss had been sitting.

He uses Black Gates, uses Telekinesis to re-place Defender and then launched a Feast of Worms on it. Madelyn survived without a scratch, but I boosted damage on Caine, who took respectable damage in. With last remaining focus he cast Death Ward on himself, sensing a feeling of false security on a hill & ARM 19.

Cephalyx Overlords and Seether focused on Boomhowlers, and the Boomhowler on the right deserves a mention. He was the only troll that succesfully rolled 4+ Tough's, but sure he did it something like 6 times during whole game. Also, I often whine how badly my Bane Thralls seem to roll Tough, but this time I cannot blame them. In a way I can think that I had a full unit thanks to the number of succesfull rolls.

Now, next turn Eiryss tries to come and shoot Scaverous. She was that half and inch up to one inch short. I guess that fixed opponents plans on not trying a caster kill. However, Cygnar did pretty good job at decimating everything else.

Ol' Rowdy used tremor to knock down four bane thralls closest to it, and then gun mages banished them with their fancy pistols. Rightest Nightwretch is finally wrecked, too.

One Gun Mage even hit the Nightwretch that was still standing with a Thunderbolt and pushed it back full 3 inches. It's funny how just the last round it looked pretty good for me, but after opponent had done his stuff, I had only a couple functioning pieces any more...

Now, on my next turn I made a little mistake. Only a very small one.

Okay, I did a buckload of them.

First, I somehow thought that mostly crippled Ol' Rowdy was more of a threat than Eiryss with no-one to engage her. Tartarus then charged Ol' Rowdy and wrecked it. Looking back at the pictures I'm pretty sure that a 6" advance + reach would have been enough to engage Eiryss. Or maybe not, it's difficult to judge pictures taken from different angles.

Last remaining Bane Thrall charged Defender and then Seether came to beat the warjack up. A point here: Boomhowler had shouted this Fell Call that reduced warjack's attack rolls by 2. It made MAT 8 Seether miss twice on Defender and once on Boomhowler. That's not a bad Fell Call for sure. Overlords also threw a broadside of psychic sprays on Boomhowlers and Dark Shrouded Defender, killing none. Damn that rightmost Boomhowler grunt was a hero!

Tremulus gives a Puppet Master on Scaverous, who then advances and casts Feast of Worms on Squire.

This was the biggest singular mistake, really. Why did I not choose Caine as the target? Sure, he had a horrible DEF, but I would've needed only 10 to hit with 3 dice, being able to re-roll the dice I didn't like? Somehow I wanted a guaranteed hit on the damn Squire and boosting blast on Caine... which did two or three damage in, by the way.

Picture is taken from a weird angle because I wanted Eiryss to be shown now. Since she was quite ultimate key piece in Scaverous' downfall. Also, what did I think when I moved Scaverous away from hill and elevation bonuses...

Anyway, on opponents turn Eiryss comes and shoots Scaverous... to back arc, even. I somehow remembered that she had only Dispel, that's why I camped up a little focus and upkept Death Ward with Admonia.

I guess I'll remember now a little longer while that EIRYSS NEEDS TO DIE before you can actually try any cool looking thingies with your warcaster within 19" of her.

So, there Scaverous was, again. To be ridiculed by some Cygnaran rogue pistol hero. First Gun Mages nail Scaverous and score some lucky 5 points in. And then Caine got LOS.

Asphyxious2 with only one Caustic Mist and no Teleport during a game

Heck, I'm getting a lot of Warmachine games in.

Well that's good, but I'm starting to get a little backlog on games I have to write up here.

Anyway. Since I knew I was playing Kreoss1, I took a warcaster from my arsenal that as of yet hasn't played even one game against him during Mk2. Choices were Kaya1, Deneghra1 and Asphyxious2.

Since we got something like 300 kilometres in between us with this particular hobbyist, we played on Vassal. This was first game on Vassal for a few months.

So, epic Asphyxious it was to be. With a following 35 point list:

Lich Lord Asphyxious
- Malice
- Nightwretch
- Stalker
- Helldiver

Minimum unit of Bile Thralls
Minimum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Bane Lord Tartarus
Orin Midwinter
Warwitch Siren

Opponent had:

High Exemplar Kreoss (tier 2)
- Reckoner
- Repenter

Maximum unit of Exemplar Errants + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Choir of Menoth
Maximum unit of Exemplar Vengers
High Exemplar Gravus
Vassal Mechanik

Opponent won starting roll and first picture is from end of my first turn. Defensive Ward is on Vengers and Lamentation is on Kreoss. Asphyxious has Hellbound on. The Caustic Mist you can see was the only one cast during game.

Next turn opponent didn't do much else except close in a little with warjacks. Errants were going to shoot at Bane Thralls, but forgot they had stealth. Rest of attacks fell on Malice, doing nothing. Reckoner also missed Malice. Defensive Ward was re-cast on Exemplar Errants. All in all a rather defensive turn.

Then it was time for my fearsome turn of unbound onslaught!

First two bile thralls go and try to purge Vengers. Only one of the horsies gets under both purges, and only about 3 damage is done. First, and most powerful purge (because it triggered Battle Driven) was mere pixels away from two other Vengers.

Then Nightwretch runs where you can see it. Asphyxious casts Death Knell on Reckoner, killing one choir member and dealing little damage to Vassal Mechanik. Template was mere pixels away from one Errant and another choir member, which would've been +2 to all damage rolls. Tough luck, I guess.

Luckily Orin Midwinter was the only model who knew what he was doing in my army. He cast lightning on Reckoner, managed to hit and fried the mechanik.

Bane Lord Tartarus cursed Errants, and then Bane Thralls charged them. Four got into contact with MAT 8, though Errants were DEF 14 at the moment. Results: one dead Errant.

A succesful turn, really...

Then it was opponents turn of slightly tickling the armor of my undead might.

You can also read that as completely wrecking face.

Kreoss used his feat, Divine Wrath, and knocked down everything upward from Malice.

Errants destroyed all but three Bane Thralls. Quick Work was too fast for spiteful spectres. Revenger burned Tartarus and set it on fire with only one health box remaining. Reckoner beat up Nightwretch.

Vengers then killed a couple of bile thralls (unimportant) but two charged Stalker and one charged Malice. Dice were smiling at me, though, when both charges missed Stalker. Venger who charged Malice dealt about 8 points in.

I wasn't convinced at my situation here.

But since I got one bile thrall left, there was still hope for me. Asphyxious activated first, moved on to hill and laid down Daeamortus on three Vengers. Then he cast Parasite on them. Rest focus had been allocated away, so that was it for him. He had even to drop off Hellbound to achieve this.

Then last bile thrall bravely purged upon horsemen of Menoth. Four were under. Though I needed 7's to kill each of them with Parasite on and no Battle Driven, bile thrall killed only two - with one being already damaged one. My hero.

Stalker then comes to help where Bile Thrall had failed, and with three attacks kills only one already damaged Venger. My hero.

Malice then had to go to be sacrificed. It killed a Venger and one Exemplar Errant, giving it a total of 3 souls.

Tartarus stood up and cursed Errants again (damn, the bane lord talks like a pirate! Hearing that can be really demoralizing!) and Bane Thralls charged them, failing to kill anyone with their MAT 8. So, I guess Bane Thralls were just banging their heads to the shields of Errants', because at this point I had killed only 3 Errants, despite numerous attempts.

Helldiver popped up and decided to stay above ground to engage Reckoner, in case it mattered. Turned out it didn't.

I gritted my teeth in excitement and passed turn.

Now Errants killed all but one Bane Thrall and Quick Work made a bad pun at Tartarus, who went home, weeping.

Godlike damage rolls from Repenter took off both arms from Malice despite it's arm 20. What the hell was that?! Gravus and Kreoss tried to destroy Helldiver, and succeeded in mangling its movement. That was no burrow for me any more.

Reckoner thought it didn't mind a free strike from Helldiver, and, well, truth be told it didn't. Helldiver hit but couldn't pass Reckoner's armor.

Then the warjacks shot a boosted Condemner shot at Asphyxious. Missed. Thank you, Lord Toruk.

Anyway.

I saw only two possible choices here. Either mop up Errants and warjacks with Asphyxious' feat or mop up Kreoss with Asphyxious' feat. However, I wasn't sure if I could transfer the feated models far enough and if I would have enough space for them where I landed. The barbed wire thingy was in a bad position for me.

But I thought that if I could destroy Reckoner with Asphyxious with 7 focus, I could place more than enough thralls on top of wreck. I blame it on some special mental instability moment when I decided that 7 focus would be enough and allocated 2 to Malice. Asphyxious had two souls from Vengers that died inside Daeamortus template.

Asphyxious rolled damage very badly. He even scored one miss. One above average roll would have probably wrecked Reckoner but no, because Reckoner failed at shooting Asphyxious, Asphyxious failed at destroying the warjack. I guess there is some mercy within the ancient lich, after all?

Well, one bane thrall from feat finished what Asphyxious couldn't and wrecked Reckoner.

Luckily I had more than enough space to get Bane Thrall Officer and Bane Lord Tartarus and one more thrall against Kreoss, if needed. I doubt I'd have gotten much better placement if Asphyxious had destroyed Reckoner instead. Maybe one Bane Thrall more.

Anyway, High Exemplar's story ended at first swing of Officer's axe. By the way, it dealt 17 points in just by itself.

Tetraphobia

A few days ago I played a 35 point game of Warmachine/Hordes, which was... interesting.

I was playing Skorne with Dominar Rasheth, and opponent was playing Legion of Everblight with epic Lylyth.

My list was:

Rasheth
- Bronzeback Titan
- Rhinodon
- Basilisk Drake
- Basilisk Krea

Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + UA

Maximum unit of Paingiver Beasthandlers
Minimum unit of Farrow Bonegrinders
Agonizer

Opponent had:

Epic Lylyth
- 2x Ravagore

Striders + Unit Attachment
Minimum Raptors
Anyssa Ryvaal
Blighted Nyss Shepherd

We played Gauntlet scenario, hence the templates in pictures. Legion of Everblight won starting roll, and picture is taken from the end of my first turn. Lylyth had cast Shadow Pack, and on the Skorne side Carnivore was cast on Praetorian Swordsmen.

As it started to look like Praetorians were nothing else except some meat bags to be filled with blighted arrows, I decided to just run them forwards and hope that even one or two would survive.

Templates you see in the picture are Scather templates from Ravagores. They had earlier done a little damage to my brick of beasts.

I messed up my activation order a little, though. I had activated Rasheth before I activated Swordsmen - I could have tried to punish the elk riders a bit with a well-placed Breath of Corruption.

Anyway. I kept Rasheth as far away from enemy forces as possible, because Lylyth has this feat of 4x pow 15 aoe 3 blasts to 18" from Ravagores. You know.

Next opponent butchered my Praetorians completely. Not a single survivor. I think Lylyth cast a Pin Cushion on them, so it's no wonder. They fulfilled their promised fate of being cannon fodder filled with pointy sticks. Imagine the glory!

I tried to retaliate with Basilisk Drake against the Striders, but the spray didn't actually hit anyone. Then I tried to cast a Breath of Corruption through one of Beast Handlers, and I wanted it to miss. Well, it hit, and killed only one strider. Go Skorne!

However, because I started to run low on arc nodes (= warrior models) I thought it might be best just to force opponent to melee, and I ran both Bronzeback Titan and Rhinodon to contest gauntlet zone. Basilisk Krea tried to keep up to them, but failed.

Next round was hilarious, in a way. First Lylyth used her feat, and Striders and Raptors and Lylyth herself made short work out of Basilisk Drake, most of remaining Beast Handlers and Bone Grinders, and filled basilisk Krea with damage. Any attacks against Rhinodon, however, failed to do anything meaningful. Opponent is left with a tough choice to go into melee with Ravagores and waste Lylyth's feat on them, or sacrifice the beasts and deal ranged death over my remaining troops.

Rasheth was quite far away, however, so both Ravagores charged in.

What was quite awesome was the fact that Bronzeback didn't just want to die. It was left alive with something like 3 boxes. It didn't bode well for Lylyth's battlegroup.

Come my turn, I thought it might be best to use Rasheth's feat now and close in enough to get the two beasts to Plague Wind. It worked quite well, since Bronzeback mauled both of them well enough so that enraged Rhinodon needed to punch only once the last remaining Ravagore.

Now things started to look actually pretty good for me. I was winning there in the gauntlet zone, but the feeling of triumph lasted only as long until I looked to the leftern side of gaming board. A horde of infantry, with only Agonizer and a couple of bone grinders in between them and my def 10 arm 14 warlock.

Second picture gives out a rather hilarious turn of events again.

First Lylyth and Anyssa and Striders try to kill Rhinodon, but they fail. Then opponent needs to tie up the beasts somehow, and that's where Raptors charge them, and they fail to finally kill Rhinodon, too. Good times, because Rhinodon has the sweet Thresher attack and animus for it, too.

However... Since the thresher attack was 360 degrees, I moved Krea away from it. I eye-judged that Bronzeback was close, but not close enough. My eye-judgement was way off, though, and my nearly dead Bronzeback had to weather even a frenzied thresher attack made by my own Rhinodon.

Bronzeback didn't die, though. It was left alive with one or two points. I had healed it with four Fury last round. However... All of my beasts were now in really bad shape.

Legion's last remaining forces made me an unhappy devout of pain and torment, when this picture was taken:

Then I made my last attempt at killing Lylyth. I ran Agonizer as far as possible, and cast Breath of Corruption through it to Lylyth, who was no longer upkeeping Shadow Pack and had already cut herself. Good idea, but damage roll wasn't just high enough, she was left alive with 3 or 4 damage.

Next turn Lylyth and striders killed what Skorne had remaining on the board except Rasheth.

Anyssa came in and shot 4 damage in to Rasheth.

Next round Rasheth had to cut himself for 4.

He attempted a bravado, and launched his bulging mass upon the face of the blighted ones. Breath of Corruption killed Anyssa.

Next opponent comes in with Striders and one remaining Raptor. Raptor doesn't do any damage, but a Combined Ranged Attack from Striders did 4 damage in.

Rasheth had to cut himself again for Fury, this time with 4 damage.

He killed Raptor with Sunder Spirit, and took away a couple of Striders with a Breath of Corruption.

Then Striders charged him.

And the finishing strike dealt 4 points in.


I need to say that game goes a bit weird if two Hordes players battle each other and both lose their beasts. Game was really tough, and had its highs and downs for both participants.

It was a good game, but now I need to start a new one on Vassal.

Horrible Black Void

Last we played a two-player game of Talisman with Reaper and Werewolf additional rules and random mystery ending.

Characters drawn were Alchemist and Gypsy.

This was second time Alchemist was being played, and both of us had severe prejudices against him being the most and ultimate broken character released yet. At least Gypsy had the nice skill that made it more difficult for Alchemist to spam spells endlessly.

Well, when the Gypsy found a Warhorse, it wasn't that sure anymore if Alchemist would be the automatic winner. She started to get Strenght at an alarming rate.

Before, however, she lost her horse there was a funny little thingy going on. Gypsy had turned Evil when Mischievous Imp arrived. With neither player being too much challenged by Fate, game was hilarious for a short while when both players tried to make the Imp get good items from the other player.

But doing this wasn't exactly too productive, so Gypsy went to Dungeon and Alchemist to Highlands. There in the Dungeon, at night, Gypsy faced Strenght 15 ambush (Goblin marauders + some other enemy with high strenght). She did have a chance to win the combat, but it was desperate. Warhorse galloped away.

I think this was the turning point after which Alchemist started to gain the upper hand. Lead wasn't too big, but in the end he managed to crack Portal of Power, and using Potion of Wrath (+3 Craft until end of turn) he succeeded even going through Mines.

Gypsy tried to go and win the Lord of Darkness big time to go straight to Crown of Command, but she failed and Alchemist reached it first.

Turned around, the end game condition proved to be Horrible Black Void, killing Alchemist instantly.

I hope this means that Universe and Karma and whatnot are against the Alchemist.

New character was Minstrel. He didn't have time for more than a few little songs. Then Gypsy had enough Strenght and Craft to go to Crown of Command, and she found that Demon Lord had been guarding the place all the time. I guess it was only fitting - greedy alchemist fell to Demon's tricks and was drawn to Void. Gypsy, however, had learned from Alchemist's mistakes and had prepared better.