Just a quick plug some of the top players in the UK have launched a brand new community website for Warmahordes called steamforged.com it can be found here Steamforged the content they have on the site is amazing already and this is only due to get better and better and build a better community.
so why not check the site out and also watch Steamforged live Vassal streams on TwitchTV @ the following TwitchTV
Anyway thats all from me
\Junzo
Saturday, 10 March 2012
Catch up and New Gaming Club
First of all I would like to apologise to anyone who has been taking a look at the blog as it has gone a bit quiet due to real life getting the way and apart from a few games on Vassal I have not done much Warmachine orientated recently however this is my comeback now and from now until the welsh open and beyond I am hoping I can post at least once every other day and I will post more if possible.
Anyway moving swiftly on and another reason why I have been a bit quiet recently is that I have been helping out with a new project in my local gaming community. About a year or so ago our local gaming club all went their own separate ways and this left Barnstaple without any central place to go to game other than the local GW store. Anyway a few of us from the old games club got together and decided to relaunch the club and last Monday 05/03/2012 we had the first meeting of the Barnstaple Slayers Club we had an amazing turn out of around 26 people of varying experience within the hobby and we are hoping to push this onwards and make a real success of this club so we shall see how it all goes and I will keep this blog updated with this as well as this will be where 80% of my battle reports come from.
Anyway I am planning this evening on playing a game of Vassal and I will post back tomorrow the results but for now here is a teaser of the caster I will be using
until tomorrow
\Junzo
Anyway moving swiftly on and another reason why I have been a bit quiet recently is that I have been helping out with a new project in my local gaming community. About a year or so ago our local gaming club all went their own separate ways and this left Barnstaple without any central place to go to game other than the local GW store. Anyway a few of us from the old games club got together and decided to relaunch the club and last Monday 05/03/2012 we had the first meeting of the Barnstaple Slayers Club we had an amazing turn out of around 26 people of varying experience within the hobby and we are hoping to push this onwards and make a real success of this club so we shall see how it all goes and I will keep this blog updated with this as well as this will be where 80% of my battle reports come from.
Anyway I am planning this evening on playing a game of Vassal and I will post back tomorrow the results but for now here is a teaser of the caster I will be using
\Junzo
Thursday, 16 February 2012
Monday Night Fight Night (Terminus Vs Old Witch)
So Monday night I played Ian. I was playing my Terminus list as before against Ian's following list:
Old Witch & Scrapjack
Wardog
Behemoth
Spriggan
10 Kayazy Assassins & Underboss
10 Nyss hunters
Aiyana and Holt
Gorman De Wolfe
pEiryss
I won the roll to go first and Ian chose sides we rolled up Overrun as the scenario from SR2012. I deployed in the standard brick and my first turn went as it generally does with me running most of the brick and having Terminus cast Maldiction and advancing. Darragh also advanced and cast death ride getting me that bit further forward.
Ian's first turn saw him giving Spriggan a focus and Behemoth 3 focus to his sub cortex and Scrapjack 1 focus he walked up with Behemoth and shot both cannons and got a small scatter but did no damage, He then ran the Kayazys up down my right flank and ran the Nyss up my left flank, Old Witch advanced and cast Murder of Crows, Scrapjack Ran, Spriggan also ran.
I measured for Madelyn Corbeau and his Spriggan was in so I pushed Terminus 3" forward causing Ian to take a free strike from Spriggan which missed. I was within 6" of the dog when I moved my 3" so I got counter charged by the dog again he failed to damage Terminus.
I used the Thralls to kill the Spriggan and advanced with Darragh casting another Death Ride. Moving Terminus forward around to dog but still in his front arc. I then measured control range to check my distance to Old Witch 11" dead on so Terminus took to the skies taking another free strike this time from the dog and it finally caused 1 damage to Terminus. Terminus landed in front of Old Witch and I boosted my Attack roll hitting and With the boosted damage from my charge attack I managed to cut the Old Witch down where she stood.
Things I Learnt From This Game
I learnt from this game that if your opponent makes enough mistakes a game becomes fairly easy as Ian made a ton of mistakes in this game which was unfortunate. I've also learnt that although you can copy the best list of the time i.e Jamie Perkins Old Witch list that there is nothing like taking an idea an making it your own to suit your playstyle.
Old Witch & Scrapjack
Wardog
Behemoth
Spriggan
10 Kayazy Assassins & Underboss
10 Nyss hunters
Aiyana and Holt
Gorman De Wolfe
pEiryss
I won the roll to go first and Ian chose sides we rolled up Overrun as the scenario from SR2012. I deployed in the standard brick and my first turn went as it generally does with me running most of the brick and having Terminus cast Maldiction and advancing. Darragh also advanced and cast death ride getting me that bit further forward.
My next turn Admonia up kept Maldiction, Terminus gave 1 focus to Malice and camped the rest. I saw an opportunity to get drag on the Spriggan and a possible way of getting first blood in the scenario. I moved Malice up and shot the harpoon hitting and pulling the Spriggan towards Malice, I then hit with Malice's claw and did a bit of damage then took control of Spriggan and advanced him behind Malice however making a small mistake and placing him the cloud effect meaning I could not get the full charges I wanted. So I ran the Bane Thralls forward to engage the Spriggan I then used one of the Bane Thralls as a charge target for Terminus hitting with his claw but the Bane making his tough roll with Terminus's charge attack, I then used my reach attack to be able to hit the Spriggan causing some more damage. I ran and moved everything else up and passed Turn to Ian.
His first move was to let the cloud drop and allocate a full 3 focus to Spriggan attempting to kill me with the Lance now I must admit I did hold my breath a bit during this turn as I had made a pretty ballsy play and if this play payed off next turn I was hoping to pull off an assassination run with Terminus. First thing you should always do is make sure you know what potential threat range your opponent has and this was one of Ian's downfalls in this game. He swang with the Spriggan and did no damage to Terminus and decided to try and kill a few of the Banes that were around him. He then proceed put out the beacons off Spriggans shoulders to light up my Banes. Behemoth then unloaded two barrages one on my Bane Thralls and one on my Bile Thralls to my surprise not much died. Ian advanced the Old Witch up which I was quite surprised about due to the fact she only had one focus on her. Ian then passed turn and it was my turn to captilise on my luck and Ians mistake.
I used the Thralls to kill the Spriggan and advanced with Darragh casting another Death Ride. Moving Terminus forward around to dog but still in his front arc. I then measured control range to check my distance to Old Witch 11" dead on so Terminus took to the skies taking another free strike this time from the dog and it finally caused 1 damage to Terminus. Terminus landed in front of Old Witch and I boosted my Attack roll hitting and With the boosted damage from my charge attack I managed to cut the Old Witch down where she stood.
Things I Learnt From This Game
I learnt from this game that if your opponent makes enough mistakes a game becomes fairly easy as Ian made a ton of mistakes in this game which was unfortunate. I've also learnt that although you can copy the best list of the time i.e Jamie Perkins Old Witch list that there is nothing like taking an idea an making it your own to suit your playstyle.
Sunday, 5 February 2012
Welsh Open 2012 the beginning
Okay so after a crazy week work wise I'm finally going to be able to start thinking more about the Welsh Open and this brings me to my first choice caster Lich Lord Terminus.
I have loved Terminus ever since I saw the model and read his entry in the Cryx army book. I've had a fair number of games with Terminus and like most I started off by playing him with Mechanithralls and Necrosurgeons.However I found this to be very cumbersome and take a lot of time to activate everything.
I went searching on the forums for some inspiration and came across a poster called Lamoron and he had a link to his blog (which I now religiously read everyday). In his blog he wrote about a concept called the Dark Swarm where instead of having easy to hit and cumbersome to move and activate Mechanithralls, it was all about Bane Thralls. All the usual components of Terminus were there so Madelyn Corbeau, Darragh Wrathe, Withershadow Combine, Saxon Orrik and Skarlock Thrall.
However the difference between the two ways of thinking is flow. Because the Dark Swarm uses the a thought process called the water theory everything flows so when the Bane Thralls get knocked down due to tough they don't clog up in front of Terminus because they have to skip either their action or movement to be able to stand up again. They are also not going to fall down to blasts as their high armour is more than capable of keeping them safe from anything but a direct hit. Stealth means that they are also safe from most shooting in the game.
If you want to read some more about Terminus and the water theory I suggest you read Lamoron's blog he has an excellent spotlight section on Terminus and an article on the water theory can be found here:
Water Theroy
And here:
Terminus Spotlight
This Monday I will be taking Terminus out for another playtest and will be playing the following list.
Terminus
Skarlock Thrall
Erebus
Malice
Full Bane Thralls w U/A
Min Bile Thralls
Withershadow Combine
Saxon Orrik
Madelyn Corbeau
Darragh Wrathe
Bane Lord Tartarus
Warwitch Siren
That's 50pts for my 10pts of reinforcements I'm going to proxy and take a full unit of Soulhunters and a Machine Wraith. The Soulhunters should be able to arrive on the table and go incorporeal and get right in behind the lines of my opponent. The Machine Wraith will also force my opponent to be wary of his jack placement as the ability to be able to control his jack even if it is for a turn means that your opponent will have to adjust his plans which gives you the advantage of play.
Anyway I will post more on Mondays game soon.....
/Junzo
I have loved Terminus ever since I saw the model and read his entry in the Cryx army book. I've had a fair number of games with Terminus and like most I started off by playing him with Mechanithralls and Necrosurgeons.However I found this to be very cumbersome and take a lot of time to activate everything.
I went searching on the forums for some inspiration and came across a poster called Lamoron and he had a link to his blog (which I now religiously read everyday). In his blog he wrote about a concept called the Dark Swarm where instead of having easy to hit and cumbersome to move and activate Mechanithralls, it was all about Bane Thralls. All the usual components of Terminus were there so Madelyn Corbeau, Darragh Wrathe, Withershadow Combine, Saxon Orrik and Skarlock Thrall.
However the difference between the two ways of thinking is flow. Because the Dark Swarm uses the a thought process called the water theory everything flows so when the Bane Thralls get knocked down due to tough they don't clog up in front of Terminus because they have to skip either their action or movement to be able to stand up again. They are also not going to fall down to blasts as their high armour is more than capable of keeping them safe from anything but a direct hit. Stealth means that they are also safe from most shooting in the game.
If you want to read some more about Terminus and the water theory I suggest you read Lamoron's blog he has an excellent spotlight section on Terminus and an article on the water theory can be found here:
Water Theroy
And here:
Terminus Spotlight
This Monday I will be taking Terminus out for another playtest and will be playing the following list.
Terminus
Skarlock Thrall
Erebus
Malice
Full Bane Thralls w U/A
Min Bile Thralls
Withershadow Combine
Saxon Orrik
Madelyn Corbeau
Darragh Wrathe
Bane Lord Tartarus
Warwitch Siren
That's 50pts for my 10pts of reinforcements I'm going to proxy and take a full unit of Soulhunters and a Machine Wraith. The Soulhunters should be able to arrive on the table and go incorporeal and get right in behind the lines of my opponent. The Machine Wraith will also force my opponent to be wary of his jack placement as the ability to be able to control his jack even if it is for a turn means that your opponent will have to adjust his plans which gives you the advantage of play.
Anyway I will post more on Mondays game soon.....
/Junzo
Saturday, 4 February 2012
Iron King 2012
Bit of a late report really thanks to my work schedule being manic and also coming down with the dreaded man flu. Last weekend I attended the Iron King tournament at Iron Haven Games in Exeter. There were 18 players at this event of varying levels of experience it was a four round tournament with the first three rounds being 35pts standard and then one round 25pts mangled metal.
I spent a number of weeks play testing with Mortenebra on Vassal and had some really good results playing my 35pts list and went 6-1 over a couple of weeks. My only problem was coming up with the 25pts mangled metal list for Mortenebra. I tried a couple of lists including the Slayer spam list however I was not truly happy with those lists especially against other Warmachine lists. So after recovering from Christmas and New Year festivities I decided to start working on what would be my final lists for The Iron King and I had decided on my caster eSkarre.
The list I took was as follows:
eSkarre
Erebus
Malice
Defiler
Min Bane Thralls w u/a
Bane Lord Tartarus
Withershadow Combine
Warwitch Siren
I was happy with this list and had came up with numerous other lists but none stuck quite as well as this list. The beauty with this list was everything could act independent as well as having a good synergy with each other.
My Mangled Metal 25pts looked fairly standard as follows
eSkarre
Malice
Deathjack
Nightmare
The nice thing about the Iron King was that the organisers had kept which scenarios were going to be played secret until the day of the tournament.
So onto game 1
Game 1
Opponent: Steve Philimore
Faction: Cygnar
Caster: eHaley
Scenario: Process of Elimination
I knew playing against eHaley was going to be tough however I was really happy not to be facing the Thorn and Thunderhead combo I have played against and read so much about. However his list was as follows:
eHaley
Charger
Lancer
Squire
ATGM w U/A
Hunter
Reinholt
Black 13th
Storm Strider
I knew going into this game that I was going to have to be patient and wait for him to pop feat first weather the feat and then counterstrike and feat myself to protect from what was left after the counterstrike.
Anyway I won first turn and Steve chose sides. I did the usual allocate focus and run first turn I advanced Skarre and cast Death Ward on to the Erebus. Steve ran most things first turn but had some pot shots at the Erebus and the Bane Thralls with some sniped ATGM's and using combine fire AOE shot and the Black 13th shooting at Erebus causing minimal damage. Next turn Tartarus cursed the Storm Strider and I manage to get a couple of Banes in to do some damage getting pushed away in the process, Malice pulled in the Lancer for the Withershadow Combine to wreck. Next Steve did some damage but through amazing Tough rolls I managed to lose only 1 Bane Thrall however Tartarus got sniped by the ATGM's Then had come the moment I wanted and he activated Haley and feated.
My turn consisted of not a lot really apart from mostly forfeiting my action and moving with most units. I allocated 2 focus to Malice and shot at one of the Black 13th but missed even with a boost. I then moved Skarre and feated myself for 5 making the Bane Thrall standard bearer, Skarre, Malice Erebus and the Storm Strider under the effect of the Fate Weaver. Steve's next turn was rather uneventful with the key components in my army safe and Steve's army not able to do much he simply repositioned his army and took a few shots at Erebus doing little damage. He had however left me a chance to assassinate his caster, I killed the Storm Strider with the remaining Bane Thralls and that's left Malice Free to take a shot at Haley which missed fantastically, I then used Erebus to charge and smashed Haley leaving her on a 8 boxes left here was my first error as really in hindsight I should have shot Haley with Skarre first then charged in for the kill however we learn from our mistakes and this is something I will not do again. I went on to advance Skarre have and try and take a shot at Haley with the hand cannon she was in range and I shot rolling 2 under her defence I used Seas of Fate to boost after the roll and managed to hit, I boosted damaged as I wanted to make sure I killed her and did we shook hands and started to talk about the match and then Steve said that Haley was in combat so would have had +4 def for the shot, now I'm not going to go into this much however I could swore that I rolled a 6 on my final boosted dice for the to hit roll however I rewound and said to Steve that I'll roll again, I hit again and rolled damage but this time I only rolled low for damage and Haley survived and Skarre got assassinated in return.
So one loss on the score sheet but I did get a ton of victory points due to killing a load and a scenario point which would help in the later rounds so on I went into game two.
Game 2
Opponent: Claire Blewett
Faction: Legion of Everblight
Caster: pThagrosh
Scenario: Incursion
pThags is a monster especially in Mangled Metal/Tooth and Claw format his feat of bringing back a warbeast is like giving pThags a 35pts list in a 25pts environment. Claire was also not the only Legion player who brought pThags indeed the eventual winner of this tournament Pat Vance was playing the very same caster.
We set up Claire won the roll and decided to go first and as the table was very evenly spread with terrain I decided to stay the side I was on and we deployed.
Claire's list was as follows:
pThags
Shredder
Scythean
Typhon
Nephilim Bolt Thrower
Full Gatormen Posse
Spell Martyr
Shepherd
Claire cast Fog of war with Thagrosh and cast Tenacity and Excessive Healing on Thagrosh and advanced. all the rest poked and ran, the Typhon advanced and cast excessive healing, the Gatormen ran for the objective.
I assigned focus to each and ran everything however I did not go flat out with everything making sure not to receive the charge
Skarre advanced and cast Death Ward on Malice as I thought I might have made a mistake and left Malice in range of the Gators.
Claire's turn she sent the Shredder rabid and charged the one thing I had left in charge range which was my Defiler :( she trashed it with one attack with some really decent rolls. The Gatormen moved to claim the objective and moved her Scythean and Spell Martyr up to the objective on the other side.
My Second turn I used Tartarus to Curse the Scythean and made it in with 2 Bane Thralls doing a massive amount of damage but not killing or crippling any aspects. I had however been quite clever and left my remaining Thralls over 3" away from the Scythean meaning Claire would have to kill the two engaged Thralls then I could charge with everything next turn. I advanced with the rest of my army and handed the turn to Claire.
Claire did exactly what I thought and killed the two Thralls however what I had not counted on was the Spell Martyr Thags channelled a Obliteration thought the Spell Martyr at the Thralls killing a fair few of them. She charged Typhon at Erebus and was short so failed her charge and the Gatormen hung around the objective to claim Claire a scenario point.
My next turn I loaded Erebus up with Focus and used Skarre to Charge into combat, The Great Rack missing from my initial attacks I then used Takkaryx to put some damage on the beast I brought a Great Rack attack that hit and then brought another Takkaryx attack and Boosted damage causing some more hurt on Typhon. I then Walked Erebus into combat but Typhon still stood with a few wounds left so I moved Malice in and hit the Typhon. Now in retrospect I should have charged Malice into the Gatormen to stop the win by scenario that came in the following turn I also should have feated.....
anyway knowing that I had really mucked up in this game I handed the turn to Claire, She brought Typhon back from the dead. Claimed her last scenario point and claimed the victory for the game. However this was a very enjoyable game and also made me realise I have to practise more and be more alert sometimes.
so I'm now stuck on two losses and we break for lunch. The food, the bottle of Coke and the cup of Tea must have done wonders for me and I was feeling refreshed going into round 3.
Looking at the scoreboard and I see my next opponent is Dave Perks me and him have a score to settle as last time I played against Dave was at Kernow Machine 2 and Dave beat me so it was payback time...
Game 3
Opponent: Dave Perks
Faction: Highborn Covenant
Caster: Gorten Grundback
Scenario:Incoming!!!
This is a great new scenario from SR2012 with interactive objectives which are basically bombard cannons which allow you to blast a zone with a 3" template everything under the template suffers a POW12 hit.
Daves army was as follows:
Gorten
Ghordson Avalacher
Wroughthammer Rockram
ATGM w U/A
Mule
Min Horgenhold Forge Guard
Aiyana and Holt
Dave won first turn and again I chose side, This game the dice were with me and I also remembered my game plan and stuck to it. First turn Dave moved about a bit and moved for the objective on his side of the table. I did the same in my turn and ran for the objective but also ran to try and give Dave some options of what front he wanted to fight on. Turn two Dave's objective went live meaning he could bombard my Banes that were in the area however thanks to stealth it meant the template was always going to deviate and it deviated in the right direction behind my Bane Thralls with only one getting caught and making his tough roll. Dave handed turn to me and this is where my luck was in.
I moved the Defiler up and sprayed his Sludge Cannon with some lucky rolls I managed to kill 2 of the ATGMs, I put a bombard on the remaining killing another 1 as the bombard deviated. I then cast perdition through the Arc node and killed another ATGM allowing me to advance Malice. Malice who had 2 focus on him then moved and shot his harpoon at the Mule, hitting and dragging the Mule back to him then hitting the Mule with the claw and taking control however I could not move the Mule into a good enough position to allow all the members of the Withershadow Combine a go at killing the Mule to make a new machine so I damaged it as much as possible and moved on. Erebus charged into the remaining Gunmages hoping to overtake and he did killing both the gunmages off his initial attacks.
I then charged the forgeguard on the left flank and caused some damage and handed the turn to Dave.
Dave's third turn started by him Activating Gorten and Feating causing all sorts of problems however luckily not catching Skarre meaning I stayed by my objective and claimed another Scenario point at the end of Dave's Turn. Dave moved in and did some serious damage to Erebus but left his arms and his movement with one point left in each that was a result. Next turn Erebus killed the Forgeguard that had charged him and also killed Holt, Skarre clocked up another control point and feated for only 4 people this time protecting two members of the Withershadow Combine, Malice and Skarre. Skarre claimed another Scenario point I was close to victory but I needed to be able to stop Dave from claiming a Scenario point in his turn so I advanced the remaining Bane Thralls as close as I could to the objective falling just shy. Dave then went on another offencive to try and clear my Bane Thralls that were threatening to contest his objective however another set of good tough rolls saw me clear and next turn I managed to contest his objective and claim another point for myself winning the game.
So I'm now on 1 win and 2 losses and we eagerly await the last game.
Game 4
Opponent: Claire Blewett
Faction: Legion of Everblight
Caster: pThagrosh
Scenario: The Gauntlet/Mangled Metal
So for the second time in the day I had to face off against Claire's Legion and this was a game that I was not looking forward to for a few reasons while I could effectively take two turns pThags allows Claire to effectively have the 25pts plus another beast worth 9pts or potentially a beast worth 12pts if she was playing Typhon like she was in the second game.
Anyway luckily for me this was the list she took
pThagrosh
Nephilim Bolt Thrower
Raek
Shredder
Scythean
Scythean
So again Claire won the roll to go first and I chose sides I used Nightmare to prey one of the Scytheans. Now it was time to play a bit of a waiting game trying to make Claire commit so I could have 2 clear rounds of beating on Claire's warbeasts hoping to kill enough to make any use of Thags feat not really matter. Anyway turn 2 Claire advanced and shot with the Bolt Thrower causing a small amount of damage but that was the sign for my first move I loaded Malice up with 3 focus and advanced forward four inches knowing that the Bolt Thrower was in range on Claire's turn I shot the Harpoon and hit then I boosted the damage roll and dragged him in boosting to hit and to damage just to make sure it died on the spot. I then Shuffled everyone round a bit and was hoping the trap was set. Claire Charged both her Scythean's in and managed to severely cripple Malice she also advanced and jumped the Raek into reach range to hit Skarre but caused no damage. Claire also made the Shredder go rabid and charged that in but did not hit rolling three 1's in the process. My next turn I loaded Deathjack up with 3 focus and he also had the two focus from his skulls of hate and Nightmare up with 2 focus. This round I was looking to kill as much as possible and Feat to make myself immune. Deathjack with help from the crippled malice managed to kill the first Scythean. However Nightmare fluffed most his attacks on the other Scythean and Skarre managed to kill the Raek and Feat protecting everyone Thag's aura was a bit of a pain as every time I was doing damage I was thinking I could be doing two more damage from each attack. Next turn I thought Claire was going to use Thags to Feat and bring back the Scythean however she was patient with her Feat and waited out the turn. Next turn I loaded up Deathjack with 2 focus and gave 3 to Nightmare in another attempt to kill the second Scythean this was successful this turn was the Shredder I also committed Skarre to try and kill the Scythean putting her at risk but I did cast Admonition on her. The Scythean in return on Claire's next turn managed to put the hurt on Deathjack and really kill him. Claire brought back the other Scythean and charged Skarre but I admonitioned out the way and we checked the Kill Box as it was a complication in this mission but luckily for me Skarre was way inside (Thanks PP for making the Kill box bigger) Thag's Charged in and put some hurt on nightmare leaving him on 6 boxes. If I was going to win this I had one round to do it in so I kept all the focus on Skarre. Nightmare killed the remaining Scythean and put a small amount of damage on Thagrosh. Skarre then advanced in and started to beat down on Thagrosh I knew she was safe from a counter charge from the Scythean as I had placed her behind near Thags and I had my Nightmare in between us. However this was an all or nothing round and I had to kill Thags I hit first time with the Great Rack and continued to buy and boost and cut Skarre for maximum damage and through some good dice rolls and lot of luck I managed to kill Thags and end the day on two wins and two losses not too bad for my second tournament I thought and we all eagerly awaited the final results. I ended up coming 9th place which I was chuffed with due to not having much time to play test Skarre due to the painting requirement for the tournament.
I spent a number of weeks play testing with Mortenebra on Vassal and had some really good results playing my 35pts list and went 6-1 over a couple of weeks. My only problem was coming up with the 25pts mangled metal list for Mortenebra. I tried a couple of lists including the Slayer spam list however I was not truly happy with those lists especially against other Warmachine lists. So after recovering from Christmas and New Year festivities I decided to start working on what would be my final lists for The Iron King and I had decided on my caster eSkarre.
The list I took was as follows:
eSkarre
Erebus
Malice
Defiler
Min Bane Thralls w u/a
Bane Lord Tartarus
Withershadow Combine
Warwitch Siren
I was happy with this list and had came up with numerous other lists but none stuck quite as well as this list. The beauty with this list was everything could act independent as well as having a good synergy with each other.
My Mangled Metal 25pts looked fairly standard as follows
eSkarre
Malice
Deathjack
Nightmare
The nice thing about the Iron King was that the organisers had kept which scenarios were going to be played secret until the day of the tournament.
So onto game 1
Game 1
Opponent: Steve Philimore
Faction: Cygnar
Caster: eHaley
Scenario: Process of Elimination
I knew playing against eHaley was going to be tough however I was really happy not to be facing the Thorn and Thunderhead combo I have played against and read so much about. However his list was as follows:
eHaley
Charger
Lancer
Squire
ATGM w U/A
Hunter
Reinholt
Black 13th
Storm Strider
Anyway I won first turn and Steve chose sides. I did the usual allocate focus and run first turn I advanced Skarre and cast Death Ward on to the Erebus. Steve ran most things first turn but had some pot shots at the Erebus and the Bane Thralls with some sniped ATGM's and using combine fire AOE shot and the Black 13th shooting at Erebus causing minimal damage. Next turn Tartarus cursed the Storm Strider and I manage to get a couple of Banes in to do some damage getting pushed away in the process, Malice pulled in the Lancer for the Withershadow Combine to wreck. Next Steve did some damage but through amazing Tough rolls I managed to lose only 1 Bane Thrall however Tartarus got sniped by the ATGM's Then had come the moment I wanted and he activated Haley and feated.
My turn consisted of not a lot really apart from mostly forfeiting my action and moving with most units. I allocated 2 focus to Malice and shot at one of the Black 13th but missed even with a boost. I then moved Skarre and feated myself for 5 making the Bane Thrall standard bearer, Skarre, Malice Erebus and the Storm Strider under the effect of the Fate Weaver. Steve's next turn was rather uneventful with the key components in my army safe and Steve's army not able to do much he simply repositioned his army and took a few shots at Erebus doing little damage. He had however left me a chance to assassinate his caster, I killed the Storm Strider with the remaining Bane Thralls and that's left Malice Free to take a shot at Haley which missed fantastically, I then used Erebus to charge and smashed Haley leaving her on a 8 boxes left here was my first error as really in hindsight I should have shot Haley with Skarre first then charged in for the kill however we learn from our mistakes and this is something I will not do again. I went on to advance Skarre have and try and take a shot at Haley with the hand cannon she was in range and I shot rolling 2 under her defence I used Seas of Fate to boost after the roll and managed to hit, I boosted damaged as I wanted to make sure I killed her and did we shook hands and started to talk about the match and then Steve said that Haley was in combat so would have had +4 def for the shot, now I'm not going to go into this much however I could swore that I rolled a 6 on my final boosted dice for the to hit roll however I rewound and said to Steve that I'll roll again, I hit again and rolled damage but this time I only rolled low for damage and Haley survived and Skarre got assassinated in return.
So one loss on the score sheet but I did get a ton of victory points due to killing a load and a scenario point which would help in the later rounds so on I went into game two.
Game 2
Opponent: Claire Blewett
Faction: Legion of Everblight
Caster: pThagrosh
Scenario: Incursion
pThags is a monster especially in Mangled Metal/Tooth and Claw format his feat of bringing back a warbeast is like giving pThags a 35pts list in a 25pts environment. Claire was also not the only Legion player who brought pThags indeed the eventual winner of this tournament Pat Vance was playing the very same caster.
We set up Claire won the roll and decided to go first and as the table was very evenly spread with terrain I decided to stay the side I was on and we deployed.
Claire's list was as follows:
pThags
Shredder
Scythean
Typhon
Nephilim Bolt Thrower
Full Gatormen Posse
Spell Martyr
Shepherd
I assigned focus to each and ran everything however I did not go flat out with everything making sure not to receive the charge
Skarre advanced and cast Death Ward on Malice as I thought I might have made a mistake and left Malice in range of the Gators.
Claire's turn she sent the Shredder rabid and charged the one thing I had left in charge range which was my Defiler :( she trashed it with one attack with some really decent rolls. The Gatormen moved to claim the objective and moved her Scythean and Spell Martyr up to the objective on the other side.
My Second turn I used Tartarus to Curse the Scythean and made it in with 2 Bane Thralls doing a massive amount of damage but not killing or crippling any aspects. I had however been quite clever and left my remaining Thralls over 3" away from the Scythean meaning Claire would have to kill the two engaged Thralls then I could charge with everything next turn. I advanced with the rest of my army and handed the turn to Claire.
Claire did exactly what I thought and killed the two Thralls however what I had not counted on was the Spell Martyr Thags channelled a Obliteration thought the Spell Martyr at the Thralls killing a fair few of them. She charged Typhon at Erebus and was short so failed her charge and the Gatormen hung around the objective to claim Claire a scenario point.
My next turn I loaded Erebus up with Focus and used Skarre to Charge into combat, The Great Rack missing from my initial attacks I then used Takkaryx to put some damage on the beast I brought a Great Rack attack that hit and then brought another Takkaryx attack and Boosted damage causing some more hurt on Typhon. I then Walked Erebus into combat but Typhon still stood with a few wounds left so I moved Malice in and hit the Typhon. Now in retrospect I should have charged Malice into the Gatormen to stop the win by scenario that came in the following turn I also should have feated.....
anyway knowing that I had really mucked up in this game I handed the turn to Claire, She brought Typhon back from the dead. Claimed her last scenario point and claimed the victory for the game. However this was a very enjoyable game and also made me realise I have to practise more and be more alert sometimes.
so I'm now stuck on two losses and we break for lunch. The food, the bottle of Coke and the cup of Tea must have done wonders for me and I was feeling refreshed going into round 3.
Looking at the scoreboard and I see my next opponent is Dave Perks me and him have a score to settle as last time I played against Dave was at Kernow Machine 2 and Dave beat me so it was payback time...
Game 3
Opponent: Dave Perks
Faction: Highborn Covenant
Caster: Gorten Grundback
Scenario:Incoming!!!
This is a great new scenario from SR2012 with interactive objectives which are basically bombard cannons which allow you to blast a zone with a 3" template everything under the template suffers a POW12 hit.
Daves army was as follows:
Gorten
Ghordson Avalacher
Wroughthammer Rockram
ATGM w U/A
Mule
Min Horgenhold Forge Guard
Aiyana and Holt
I moved the Defiler up and sprayed his Sludge Cannon with some lucky rolls I managed to kill 2 of the ATGMs, I put a bombard on the remaining killing another 1 as the bombard deviated. I then cast perdition through the Arc node and killed another ATGM allowing me to advance Malice. Malice who had 2 focus on him then moved and shot his harpoon at the Mule, hitting and dragging the Mule back to him then hitting the Mule with the claw and taking control however I could not move the Mule into a good enough position to allow all the members of the Withershadow Combine a go at killing the Mule to make a new machine so I damaged it as much as possible and moved on. Erebus charged into the remaining Gunmages hoping to overtake and he did killing both the gunmages off his initial attacks.
I then charged the forgeguard on the left flank and caused some damage and handed the turn to Dave.
Dave's third turn started by him Activating Gorten and Feating causing all sorts of problems however luckily not catching Skarre meaning I stayed by my objective and claimed another Scenario point at the end of Dave's Turn. Dave moved in and did some serious damage to Erebus but left his arms and his movement with one point left in each that was a result. Next turn Erebus killed the Forgeguard that had charged him and also killed Holt, Skarre clocked up another control point and feated for only 4 people this time protecting two members of the Withershadow Combine, Malice and Skarre. Skarre claimed another Scenario point I was close to victory but I needed to be able to stop Dave from claiming a Scenario point in his turn so I advanced the remaining Bane Thralls as close as I could to the objective falling just shy. Dave then went on another offencive to try and clear my Bane Thralls that were threatening to contest his objective however another set of good tough rolls saw me clear and next turn I managed to contest his objective and claim another point for myself winning the game.
So I'm now on 1 win and 2 losses and we eagerly await the last game.
Game 4
Opponent: Claire Blewett
Faction: Legion of Everblight
Caster: pThagrosh
Scenario: The Gauntlet/Mangled Metal
So for the second time in the day I had to face off against Claire's Legion and this was a game that I was not looking forward to for a few reasons while I could effectively take two turns pThags allows Claire to effectively have the 25pts plus another beast worth 9pts or potentially a beast worth 12pts if she was playing Typhon like she was in the second game.
Anyway luckily for me this was the list she took
pThagrosh
Nephilim Bolt Thrower
Raek
Shredder
Scythean
Scythean
So again Claire won the roll to go first and I chose sides I used Nightmare to prey one of the Scytheans. Now it was time to play a bit of a waiting game trying to make Claire commit so I could have 2 clear rounds of beating on Claire's warbeasts hoping to kill enough to make any use of Thags feat not really matter. Anyway turn 2 Claire advanced and shot with the Bolt Thrower causing a small amount of damage but that was the sign for my first move I loaded Malice up with 3 focus and advanced forward four inches knowing that the Bolt Thrower was in range on Claire's turn I shot the Harpoon and hit then I boosted the damage roll and dragged him in boosting to hit and to damage just to make sure it died on the spot. I then Shuffled everyone round a bit and was hoping the trap was set. Claire Charged both her Scythean's in and managed to severely cripple Malice she also advanced and jumped the Raek into reach range to hit Skarre but caused no damage. Claire also made the Shredder go rabid and charged that in but did not hit rolling three 1's in the process. My next turn I loaded Deathjack up with 3 focus and he also had the two focus from his skulls of hate and Nightmare up with 2 focus. This round I was looking to kill as much as possible and Feat to make myself immune. Deathjack with help from the crippled malice managed to kill the first Scythean. However Nightmare fluffed most his attacks on the other Scythean and Skarre managed to kill the Raek and Feat protecting everyone Thag's aura was a bit of a pain as every time I was doing damage I was thinking I could be doing two more damage from each attack. Next turn I thought Claire was going to use Thags to Feat and bring back the Scythean however she was patient with her Feat and waited out the turn. Next turn I loaded up Deathjack with 2 focus and gave 3 to Nightmare in another attempt to kill the second Scythean this was successful this turn was the Shredder I also committed Skarre to try and kill the Scythean putting her at risk but I did cast Admonition on her. The Scythean in return on Claire's next turn managed to put the hurt on Deathjack and really kill him. Claire brought back the other Scythean and charged Skarre but I admonitioned out the way and we checked the Kill Box as it was a complication in this mission but luckily for me Skarre was way inside (Thanks PP for making the Kill box bigger) Thag's Charged in and put some hurt on nightmare leaving him on 6 boxes. If I was going to win this I had one round to do it in so I kept all the focus on Skarre. Nightmare killed the remaining Scythean and put a small amount of damage on Thagrosh. Skarre then advanced in and started to beat down on Thagrosh I knew she was safe from a counter charge from the Scythean as I had placed her behind near Thags and I had my Nightmare in between us. However this was an all or nothing round and I had to kill Thags I hit first time with the Great Rack and continued to buy and boost and cut Skarre for maximum damage and through some good dice rolls and lot of luck I managed to kill Thags and end the day on two wins and two losses not too bad for my second tournament I thought and we all eagerly awaited the final results. I ended up coming 9th place which I was chuffed with due to not having much time to play test Skarre due to the painting requirement for the tournament.
The final results were as follows
Sunday, 29 January 2012
Welcome and background
Welcome one and all to my blog, here I will publish my thoughts and ideas and I will be publishing my progress with my gaming and painting of my Cryx army for Warmachine.
I have been wargaming now for roughly 17 years and started like most by playing Warhammer. Six months ago me and my friend picked up Warmachine and I can now count on one hand the number of 40k and fantasy games I have played since then. I have to tip my hat to Privateer Press as they have created a truly brilliant game which is without a doubt the best tabletop wargame I have played. Anyway like I said welcome to the Nightmare Isle and hope you enjoy reading....
I have been wargaming now for roughly 17 years and started like most by playing Warhammer. Six months ago me and my friend picked up Warmachine and I can now count on one hand the number of 40k and fantasy games I have played since then. I have to tip my hat to Privateer Press as they have created a truly brilliant game which is without a doubt the best tabletop wargame I have played. Anyway like I said welcome to the Nightmare Isle and hope you enjoy reading....
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