A strange thing happened…

Ben ‘Whipping Boy’ Wafer came over yesterday for an impromptu game of Warmchaine. Ben brought Caine and 50pts of Cygnar and I used Deneghra and built a 50pt Tier 4 list with an incredible number of Bonejacks. I say that the game was impromptu because Ben’s intended opponent didn’t show up (a recent injury kept him away) and so Ben played my hastily assembled Cryx force.

Not that the time available was an impediment to building the list since the Deneghra Tier list is fairly prohibitive in what you can take and emphasises the use of a lot of Bonejacks. So creating an army from this themed list is actually quite simple since a lot of the options are basically made for you in advance.

Sadly there are no pictures of this game.

Ben’s force consisted of:

Lieutenant Allister Caine (*6pts)

• Charger (4pts)
• Stormclad (10pts)
• Squire (2pts)

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (6pts)

• Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer (2pts)
• Cyclone (9pts)

Rangers (5pts)
Stormblade Infantry (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)

• Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard (3pts)
• 3 Stormblade Infantry Storm Gunner (3pts)

Captain Arlan Strangewayes (2pts)
Journeyman Warcaster (3pts)

Ben had something else in his list but I can’t really recall what it was. The list here is two points short.

My own army was:
Warwitch Deneghra (*5pts)

• Deathripper (0pts)
• Deathripper (4pts)
• Defiler (0pts)
• Defiler (5pts)
• Nightwretch (0pts)
• Reaper (7pts)
• Slayer (6pts)
• Skarlock Thrall (2pts)

Bile Thralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Mechanithralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (5pts)
Necrotech & 1 Scrap Thrall (1pts)
Necrotech & 1 Scrap Thrall (1pts)
Pistol Wraith (3pts)
Warwitch Siren (2pts)
Warwitch Siren (2pts)

I also fielded a Bile Thrall which was illegal and oddly iBodger let me take it (despite the Tier enforcement being on) and also appears to have placed it within my allotted 50pts. Forward Kommnder didn’t though when I went to build the lists for this report. Another reason to use it for lists I suppose.

The table had hills, with woods on them, on both sides and a small village in the centre. I picked to set-up first and placed my army, in my usual fashion, with Deneghra and her Helljacks in the centre and the Mechanithralls and Bile Thralls on each flank.

Bonejacks were positioned on each flank as well with the intention of using them to arcnode spells if need be and also to try and break up charge lanes or advances.

Ben refused flank and positioned his entire army to my left. This meant that the he was across the table from my Bile Thralls and that I had to move through the village to get to him. This left my Mechanithralls, a few Bonejacks and solos to hold off most of his army. It also meant that Ben needed to move through the village and through the choke points in the terrain to get at Deneghra.

Using the Advance Move I already had my Helljacks into the village and I ran them into a position to charge if the opportunity arose. The rest of my forces ran forward and I tucked a Defiler into cover next to a building to try to protect it from the inevitable barrage of lighting attacks.

Ben pushed his Rangers and Charger forward towards my troops and then angled his Arcane Gun Mages and their Charger toward the village. Ben decided to shoot with the Charger instead of dropping down Covering Fire as he didn’t want me to use the Reaper to drag the Charger through its own AOE. The Rangers advanced and started popping off Mechanithralls and Ben slowly brought up his Stormblades and their Stormclad accompaniment.

Turn two started out with me realising that I had left two of the Bonejacks facing Ben’s Rangers out of my Control Range. Oops. Not that I would have had a lot of Focus to give to them in any case. I put three points on the Reaper and two on the Slayer. THe Pistol Wraith moved into position to fire at the Cyclone and hit with his first two shots but missed with his third. The Reaper advanced and harpooned the Cyclone and dragged it into position. Between it and the Slayer I was able to wreck the Cyclone.

My McThralls charged at the Rangers and only managed to take out one of them. The Scarlock cast Ghostly on Deneghra and she advanced through a building to place herself in position to control all of the jacks and also to pop her feat next turn. Ben was kind enough to point out that his Gun Mages ignored her Stealth but I needed her forward to get the most of his troops under her feat.

Oddly enough, Ben’s turn played out differently than he intended after his comment “this is going to be ridiculous” made me reply bout his feat, which I thought he was going to pop, made him then realise he could pop Caine’s feat and shoot the hell out of a lot of my troops. He moved his Rangers forward to get them to spot my troops and then Caine obligingly moved forward, popped his feat and then destroyed the rest of my Mechanithralls, all but two BIle Thralls and almost killed a Warwitch. Ben missed with a Thundershot on the Defiler that was blocking LOS for Denny and then used his last focus to Blink back out of the way.

The Stormblades moved forward to engage my Bonejacks and scrapped one but the other, hiding behind the building, was safe due to the added cover bonus. The Arcane Gun Mages moved into harms way and attempted to gun down Deneghra but weren’t successful.

During my final turn my intention was to grab Caine with the Reaper and squish him. Ben had left him in the open and close enough, I hoped, to grab with the Harpoon. I use the last Bile Thrall and the Nightwretch to clear out the Arcaen Gun Mages. One was left but he failed his Command Check and was fleeing. Deneghra then moved as far forward as possible towards Caine and popped her feat. After some measuring (over terrain sadly) it was established that Caine was effected and I used the Skarlock to case Ghostly on the Reaper so he could move over the Cyclone’s wreck and get as close to Caine as possible. One Harpoon and Hellcriver attack later and Caine was down.

Conclusions
The tier list was interesting as it really often leaves Denny with no focus to cast spells. The Skarlock was, for once, invaluable as he cast Ghostly for her to allow units to reposition themselves through terrain.

I think I am also finally getting to grips with the Cryxian mindset. The Thralls and other troops are chaff that are really there to tie your opponent up while your important troops and units deal the damage. They can really do some damage at times but that is secondary and having them all wiped out doesn’t really mean that the game is going downhill for you.

As usual, it was a fun game as Ben is always a challenging opponent and a funny guy. I think this marks only the third time I have beat Ben and oddly two of the three times have been with him fielding Caine.

2 Responses to “A strange thing happened…”

1. PG Geist says:

   2010/08/17 at 19:22

   @ Zac
   I sent an email of to ibodger letting him know about the bloat thrall Issue.

   However forward Kommander seems to have its own little issue with the tier list.

   I decided to creat the list by hand and in ibodger and in both cases your army list is 1 point shy of its maximum points. It seems that forward kommander is giving you your cheapest bonejack as your free bonus bonejack rather than giving you the more expensive defiler as your freebie. there by actually taking up more points in your list. you could have had an additional mechanic or even more scrap thralls starting out.
   • Zac says:

     2010/08/17 at 23:21

     I’m going to be much happier when iBodger is released as an iPad app and I can see my army list as I build it in the application