Shattered Grounds: Nightfall at Connection Games – week 1

Last Saturday, April 10th, 2010, I made my way down to Connection Games 2 to participate in the first week of the Privateer Press Shattered Grounds: Nightfall league.  What a turnout!  Some players I had not seen since the demise of the Comic Shop made their way down there to join in the fun.  Soon after opening, table space was at a premium as everyone jumped in on the action.  There were howls of victory and cries of anguish soon projecting around the room, along with the clatter of handfuls of dice being thrown with bad intentions.  In short, it was awesome.Upon arrival, I was soon accosted by cripps23 and threatened with death, dismemberment, rememberment and unholy animation (he plays Cryx, you see).  As I am naturally predisposed to keep my various members in their appropriate places and under my own control, I decided to resist his advances.  We enlisted some of the other players to throw down some terrain.  As the league ladder had yet to form, we rolled off for choice of map with the Skorne the winner.  At the time, Skorne were attempting to fortify their position in Telthdruarr North (check out the sweet map on privateerevents.com) and being a dutiful Tyrant, I pitched my forces towards that goal.  My opponent and I conferred and agreed that a jack and beast smash-up was fortold by dark omens in the sky – Fight Club was our scenario, at 35 army points.  I’m afraid that I’m going to break the first rule of Fight Club – the majority of this post will be talking about it.  I only hope Tyler Durden and his army of space monkeys doesn’t track me down.

Master Tormentor Morghoul (-7 pts, -1 for Wildlife for controlling Telthdruarr North)

• Bronzeback Titan 10 pts
• Titan Gladiator 8 pts
• Titan Cannoneer 9 pts
• Cyclops Shaman 5 pts
• Cyclops Savage 5 pts

Paingivers (Leader + 3) 2 pts
Paingivers (Leader + 3) 2pts
Agonizer 2 pts
Total: 43 – 7 – 1 = 35 pts

My opponent started pulling out Helljacks from his pack with reckless abandon and ended up with the following force:

Master Necrotech Mortenebra (-4 pts, -1 for controlling a map section with Fuel Depot)

• Derlyss
• Deathjack 12 pts
• Nightmare 10 pts
• Deathripper 4 pts
• Deathripper 4 pts

Warwitch Siren 3? pts
Skarlock Hieroneous (Nightfall character) 2 pts
Mechanithralls with Necrosurgeon (Leader + 9) 5 pts
Total: 40 – 4 – 1 = 35 pts

We rolled for deployment and first turn, with the Skorne strategy of rolling higher than their opponents being put to good use.

Skorne took their first turn and sent the Shaman on point, advancing off the hill after putting Rush on the Bronzeback.  The Gladiator tossed Rush on the Cannoneer next to him and ran.  Morghoul went next, abusing the poor Cannoneer and staying put where he was, no doubt wondering what he’d done wrong in his life to lead him to be fighting for his life against undead monstrosities over control of some sort of disused lavatory ditch.  The Cannoneer advanced her eight inches and took a shot at the Deathjack, coming up short and deviating wide.  The Bronzeback ran up next to the Gladiator, followed by the Savage who cut across from the left flank to the middle of the formation.  The paingivers followed up and stripped fury from a few beasts to keep their anger manageable.  The Agonizer, crying for its mommy, ran up behind the titans.

Cryx’s first turn was similar.  A Deathripper ran over the hill in the middle of the field, closely followed by the execrable Warwitch.  Nightmare stalked forward towards its prey, the Cyclops Shaman.  Mortenebra moved up cautiously with Derlyss.  The Skarlock advanced and slung dark energies at the Bronzeback, to no great effect.  The Deathjack, muttering hateful things over the clank and rumble of its vile engines, cast Spectral Steel on itself and advanced into the forest on the left flank.  The other Deathripper was granted Pathfinder from the Cryxian strategem and eagerly surged ahead of the Deathjack into the forest.  The Mechanithralls were urged forward into a spread formation by their Necrotech.

With sussurant orders being issued by their creepy Warlock, the Skorne prepared for contact with the enemy.  The Shaman once again went first and cast Rush on the Cannoneer, staying put by the hill.  Morghoul, recovering from his previous reverie, advanced into his pack of pachyderms and cast Rush on the Gladiator, sitting on the rest of his Fury.  The Gladiator advanced sideways, not wanting to get within the Nightmare’s impressive kill radius and set up some defense against the possible oncoming arcnode.  The Cannoneer advanced forwards to the edge of the dugout in the middle and sent a boosted shot into the Deathripper near the hill.  A couple of boosted damage rolls later and the Warwitch Siren has become a messy smear on the ground and the Deathripper is half destroyed, but has an intact arc node.  The Bronzeback, eyeing the Deathjack huffing and puffing in the forest, slides sideways to cover Morghoul.  The rightmost unit of paingivers strip Fury from the Cannoneer to calm her down, as Morghoul is sitting on too much spell juice to deal with her next turn.  The Savage advances next to the Bronzeback to help cover the warlock and the remaining unit of paingivers advances to stay with the lateral shift.  The Agonizer, forgotten once more, runs up behind the Cannoneer with more plaintive mewling and pathetic cries.

Mortenebra sees the possibility of casualties and chitters evily.  At her unholy words, the Mechanithralls run up to get into the thick of things.  The Necrotech and Scrap Thralls also run in among the Mechanithralls.  The Bonejack on the left advances out of the forest to clear space of the Deathjack.  Its counterpart on the right advances into the open field being glowered at by the Titan Gladiator.  Mortenebra moves up to the opposite side of the sandbag hole and triggers her feat, casts Overrun on herself and zaps a Paingiver to death through her arcnode on the right.  Overrun triggers and the Deathjack surges forward.  Bad news is coming…  Nightmare charges over the sandbags to get the Gladiator and starts tearing the Titan up, but despite re-rolling damage rolls, fails to take more than a single aspect out.  Now it’s the Deathjack’s turn, however.  The monstrosity charges into the left flank of the Skorne formation, where the Bronzeback cannot counter-charge it, and half-kills the Shaman with a single strike.  Casting Overrun on itself, the Deathjack half-kills the Shaman with its second strike (bringing the Shaman to “all-killed” status), then triggers Overrun and retreats behind the cover of some mechanithralls and a scrap thrall.  Alas, poor Shaman.  I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.

Peering at the formation depicted above, I spot a handful of options for revenge.  Step 1 is to remove Nightmare from next to the Cannoneer.  The Paingivers on the right move up and put their whips to work, Enraging the Cannoneer and Medicating the Gladiator to heal his boo-boos.  The Gladiator then moves up and two-handed throws Nightmare onto the Bonejack with a terrific crunch.  Both are knocked down and out of the way.  After being cursed at to get out of the way and make himself useful for once, the Savage advances into the gap between the three Mechanithralls facing him and cleaves one of them into spare parts.  A Scrap Thrall is then reduced to scrap, and now the Bronzeback has a clear lane towards the Deathjack.  Morghoul, happy that the Savage took orders for once, advances up to the pair of Mechanithralls next to the Cannoneer, casts Abuse and Rush on the Enraged Cannoneer, and slices up the two thralls with a cry of “I’m participating!”.  Deciding that things might go very far wrong, Morghoul pops his feat to help his poor squishy self survive what might follow.  Now fully buffed and furious, the Cannoneer tramples across the sandbags, scrap thrall, mechanithrall and Skarlock, ending up with Mortenebra just to her left and within crushing range of her mace.  The three targets of her trample escape harm by hurling themselves to the ground and pretending to be bags of sand, but Mortenebra does not survive the twin blows from the POW 20 war mace, despite snake-eyes on the second damage roll.

Win for the Skorne Empire in Telthdruarr North, due to an elephantine inability to read traffic signs and obey the “no bludgeoning” laws.

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