Dreaming of Lock and Load – First Hardcore Kill Box Game

I headed down to One Stop Shop in Tinseltown mall after work today and who did I find, but Ben, with his freshly painted Cygnar. Ben graciously agreed to play a kill box scenario under the hardcore rules, something that neither of us had ever done. We pulled out 50 point lists and ended up with a tier 4 epic Nemo list against a tier 4 Butcher list. These lists are from memory, but hopefully Ben will chime in if I got something grossly wrong…

• Butcher of Khardov (-6 pts)
• * Sharkie the Devastator 9 pts
• * Llama the Marauder 7 pts
• * Kodiak 8 pts
• * War Dog 1 pt
• Kossite Woodsmen, minimum, 4 pts
• Man-o-war Demolition Corps, full, 9 pts
• Man-o-war Shocktroopers, min, 6 pts -1 tier discount
• Widowmakers 4 pts
• Widowmaker Marksman 2 pts
• 2 x Manhunter 2 x 2 = 4 pts
• Yuri the Axe 3 pts

Opposite me on the far side of the table was old man Nemo and his zappityzapzap mczappity squad.

• General Adept Nemo (-6 pts)
• * Thunderhead 12 pts
• * Hammersmith 8 pts
• * 2 x Firefly 5 x 2 = 10 pts
• * Squire 2 pts
• Storm Tower – zero – zip -nada – free as in beer!
• 2 x Storm Guard, minimum, 6 x 2 = 12 pts
• Journeyman Warcaster 3 pts
• * Charger 4 pts
• 5 x Stormsmith Stormcaller 5 x 1 = … wait… what? I mean 5 pts. Really?

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Shattered Grounds game report – Strakhov vs Bethayne in King of the Hill

Having missed an opportunity to play on Wednesday, I headed out to Connections on Renfrew intent on finding an opponent. When I arrived there was a game being set up between Ryan and Ben.  Ben has been on a bit of a tear with “Darth” Stryker (aka Lord Commander Stryker), so Ryan was predicting doom for whichever of his merc casters he was sending off to the gallows. Right next to them was Stephen, with his Legion arrayed before him, who jumped at the chance to kill some poor defenceless Khadorans. We threw down some terrain and ended up with a large rectangular hill (with obstructions on either end) in the middle.  Each player had a small 4″x6″ forest on his left and an obstruction on his right.  The obstruction near my end was a small thatch roofed hut.  My opponent had a small fountain on his side.

The lists:

I had decided I wanted to play Strakhov earlier this week, but had not actually gotten around to building a list with him.  I frantically started pulling models out of my case, burrowing down until I hit Assault Kommandos at the bottom.  Here is what I ended up with:

• Kommander Strakhov (-6 pts)
• * Torch 10 pts
• * Destroyer 9 pts
• * War Dog 1 pt
• Assault Kommandos, full, 8 pts
• * 2 x Flame Throwers 2 pts
• Greylord Ternion 4 pts
• Kossite Woodsmen, min, 4pts
• Man-o-war Demo Corps, min, 6pts
• Man-o-war Shocktroopers, min, 6pts
• Widowmakers 4pts
• Widowmaker Marksmen 2pts
• Total 56 pts

I’d like to lie and say that I had a totally awesome reason for choosing each and every model, but I was literally plunking down models until I ran out of points.

My opponent had a bunch of magic-enabled legion models, leaving me to ponder just how bad Bethayne’s feat turn would end up being.  Here is his list:

• Bethayne (-3 pts)
• * Belphagor 0 pts
• * Carnivean 11 pts
• * Seraph 8 pts ** league model
• 2 x Shredder @ 2 pts ea = 4 pts
• Stinger 2 pts
• Blackfrost Shard 5 pts
• Blighted Nyss Hex Hunters, full, 8 pts
• * Bayal, Hound of Everblight 3 pts
• Blighted Nyss Raptors, full, 10 pts
• The Foresaken 2 pts
• Total 53 pts

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Shattered Grounds game report – Butcher vs Magnus

I trekked my Khador models across town to Connection Games Renfrew store and got in a league game today.  I played a 50pt game against Smiles mercenary force.  The Butcher of Khardov ended up facing off against Magnus the traitor.  Both of us were playing theme lists.  I used my 50pt Tier 3 Butcher list described here.  My opponent had a tier 4 Magnus the Traitor Most Wanted list, comprised of the following:

• Magnus the Traitor ( -6 pts )
• * Renegade 6 pts – 1 tier bonus
• * Renegade 6 pts -1 tier bonus
• * Mangler 8 pts
• * Vanguard 5 pts
• Steelhead Halberdiers, full, 6 pts
• Steelhead Riflemen, full, 9pts
• Stannis Brocker 4 pts
• Idrian Skirmishers, min, 6 pts
• * Skirmisher UA 3 pts
• Kell Bailoch 2 pts

If forwardkommander is not lying to me, this list actually totals up to 55 – 6 = 49pts, but I guess there are no one point options available to poor old Magnus.  I guess there are downsides to betraying the kingdom of Cygnar.

We rolled for scenario and got Supply Line.  For those not in the know, three large based objectives are placed 12 inches apart on the centre line of the map.  You control an objective if you are the only player with a model base to base with the objective.  Jacks starting their activations within 3 inches of the objectives get a free focus (beasts can remove one fury).  Scoring begins at the end of the first player’s third turn, first to 5 points wins.  I had thrown some terrain down, and with the addition of the objectives and Magnus’ tier-bonus wreck markers, with a map close to this:

I deployed first and took the first turn.  Butcher, War Dog, the Spriggan and the Decimator were all deployed at the 10″ mark, behind the sandbag wall.  The Shocktroopers were on the left, between the obstruction and the sandbag, with the Demolition Corps to the right, between the sandbag and the forest.  The Kovnik and the Marauder were off to my right, aligned with the edge of the forest.  The Widowmakers hunkered down immediately behind the sandbag wall.  The Widowmaker Marksman was in the open between the forest and the sandbag.  The manhunter was parked in the forest, no doubt trying to catch lunch.  My Kossites, always late to the battle, were lost in the forest somewhere.

My opponent lined up all four of his jacks, plus Magnus and Orin Midwinter, to the right (his left) of the forest near his lines, facing off against the Butcher’s battle group.  The Steelheads, halberdiers up front and riflemen behind, and Brocker behind them, were aligned with the sandbags on his side of the map (with their advance move, the halberdiers moved ahead of the wall with the riflemen hunkered down behind it).  The idrians were hanging out near the obstructions, and declared the Demo Corps as their prey.  Kell Bailoch was deployed at the edge of the forest.  Magnus’ spells went up due to his tier bonus.  Snipe on the lead Renegade.  Temper Metal on the Vanguard, buffing the little jack’s ARM up impressively.  Iron Aggression was on the Mangler.

My first turn was simple:  The Shocktroopers ran up in a diagonal line abreast, spaced out a little, next to the Khador gun emplacement that was serving as our large obstruction.  The widowmakers sprinted from the cover of the sandbags off to the edge of the forest, half of them making it into the cover.  The Decimator and Spriggan stormed across the freshly vacated sandbag wall.  The Decimator ended up near the last Shocktrooper, with the Spriggan an inch over to its right.  Butcher cast Fury on the Demo Corps, then advanced to the edge of the sandbags and cast Iron Flesh on the Shocktroops, with the dog trailing along behind him.  The manhunter made a bee-line past the right objective point to nestle in the obstructions and wait to see what popped up to play.  The Marksmen cautiously advanced a few inches and blew away one of the advance moved halberdiers, then used swift hunter to retreat a little.  The Demo Corps rushed up towards the central hill, with two flanking the objective, one behind it and two more off the hill further back.

The mercs first turn saw a run from the Mangler and a cautious advance from a Renegade and the Vanguard behind it.  Stannis Brocker moved up to get all the steelheads in his command. The halberdiers advanced to form a line between the central wreck marker and the wreck marker near the triple obstruction.  They were eyeing the Demo corps and wanting to stay out of charge range.  The riflemen advanced behind the halberdiers, forming a huge clump of models in base to base between the wreck markers.  They took a couple of combined shots at one of the lead demo corps soldiers, but did little damage.  Kell Bailoch, from his position in the forest, double-tapped at a Demo Corps soldier, mildly wounding him to death.  The idrians advanced to the edge of the obstructions, two of them peeking around the corner to smoke the poor innocent manhunter. The final Renegade, with Snipe already on him from Magnus’ tier bonus, waltzed up and targeted the furthest Shocktrooper.  With a focus spent to boost the shot, the jack bull-eyed the trooper, evaporating him in a huge explosion.  No damage was done to the other shocktrooper, but both he and the Decimator were knocked to the ground.  Orin Midwinter ran through the battlegroup to huddle behind the light wreck marker at aligned at mid-field, on the edge of the Steelhead formation.

My turn coming up. I realised that Orin would be a problem that close to my lines. The huge formation of Steelheads also provided a tempting target for my Spriggan’s grenades. The spriggan got a couple of focus, one on the Decimator to shake the knockdown effect. One went to upkeep Iron Flesh on the Shocktroopers and Butcher kept two. The Kossites ambushed on the high right flank, in the back arcs of a bunch of the idrians. They charged and killed a couple of the idrians, tying up a couple more. I ran one of them around the formation to block off easy access to the objective point. The Marauder ran into contact with the right objective marker under the watchful eye of the kovnik, who was off to his right. Butcher activated, shuffled over the sandbag wall and cast Iron Flesh on the Demo Corps. For those of you keeping score at home there are a couple of errors here… Lets list them (or I’ll never learn)!

1. I upkept Iron Flesh on the Shocktroopers, wasting a focus there.
2. I cast Iron Flesh on the Demo Corps before they activated, so… they cannot charge!  Two of them were likely on the edge of their threat range to the halberdiers, getting 4 attacks with backswing.  No more. :(
3. The Butcher is on the wrong side of the sandbag wall and there is a Renegade with an obliterator rocket out there.  Note this for later.
4. I think the Butcher dropped his wallet on the way over the linear obstacle.

PS:  The wardog followed the Butcher, but left a little space between the big guy and him, because he doesn’t want to get “all blown up.”  Realising I’d screwed the pooch with the Demo Corps, they crawled forward three inches, two reaching the far edge of the hill, another just behind the objective with the last trailer lagging behind.  The Shocktroopers issued the shieldwall order, the knocked down member sacrificing action, and they advanced to the corner of the obstacle within striking distance of the left objective.  The Spriggan advanced and launched a grenade in order to try and catch Orin Midwinter with a grenade, boosting to hit.  Due to cover from the wreck marker, the grenade sailed wide of Orin, but caught 5 steelheads, two of which perished.  I launched a flare with the second shot, bullseyeing Orin and cancelling his stealth.  The Marksman took a shot at Orin but missed due to the cover of a wreck marker.  The Decimator advanced and took a hail mary at Orin, but missed.  Crap.  The widowmakers made four steelhead widows.

Smiles gathered his focus, dropping two on the still armed Renegade (uhoh).  Not sure where the rest went, I think Magnus held the rest.  Kell tried to kill another Demo Corps, but only wounded one lightly.  The Mangler charged the shocktroops and threshered, killing one outright but whiffing on the other.  Whew!  The riflemen put a couple of CRAs against the Demo Corps, but they were defence 16 due to Iron Flesh and elevation, evading damage.  The halberdiers charged in on the Demo Corps, killing one but missing the wounded one on the left flank.  The Vanguard advanced and attacked over the halberdiers to target the wounded demo corps, but he again was saved by Iron Flesh.  The idrians issued the assault and battery order, taking shots at the Kossites, killing two, and running four unit members around to contest the right objective.  Didn’t see that feint coming!  But at least the marauder and kovnik are all in their business.  Stannis Brocker advanced behind the halberdiers and looked angry.  The loaded renegade advanced and fired at the Butcher, landing a boosted Obliterator on his head for nine damage.  Magnus advanced and arced an arcantrik bolt at the decimator but caused no damage, so no stationary effect.  Magnus popped his feat, causing his Mangler to shift away from the Shocktroopers and engage the Decimator and the Spriggan.  A renegade came with the big boy.  The second renegade engaged the remaining shocktrooper and stayed in B2B with the left objective.  The Vanguard remained where he was.  Orin walked around the Vanguard and popped his no-fun aura.

My turn.  The Spriggan got a free focus from the middle ground objective, and the Marauder got one from the objective he was parked on.  The Butcher dropped three focus on the Decimator and kept three for himself.  With a bunch of jacks all in my grill, I decided it was feat time, but I needed to kill Orin first.  The Demo corps, three man strong, needed to go first…  One of them died to a free strike due to ranked attacks, but the remaining two moved up, one of whom got Orin engaged.  The other was parked on the middle objective, which would score me a point as no one else was in B2B.  Orin died to a giant hammer, as did two halberdiers.  Butcher advanced to the open space to the right of the near sandbag wall, cast Full Throttle and popped his feat.  His feat would miss the lone shocktrooper, the marauder and the kovnik, but got everything else.  The Kovnik triggered his drive and seriously missed an idrian with his giant axe.  The Kossites killed two more idrians.  The marauder slammed one poor idrian through the chieftain, killing both, but bought a second attack with jack marshal and boosted the hit with his focus… and missed!  Two idrians remained, one in B2B with the objective, one engaged by the kovnik.  It took two widowmakers to kill the idrian, securing a second objective point.  The other two widowmakers, with boosted damage, widowed Mrs. Brocker.  The Decimator, with his extra damage and three focus, ripsawed his way through the mangler.  The Spriggan charged across the newly made wreck to tag the Vanguard, putting two solid spear hits on him, leaving him about two-thirds wrecked, but with all systems go.  A shield blow hit the Renegade in front of the Decimator.  The Widowmaker Marksman killed a rifleman.  The lonely shocktrooper whacked the fresh Renegade in front of him, moving around it to rest in B2B with the left objective.  I finished my turn with two control points in hand, the right objective sewn up tight, the middle in heavy contention with two undamaged heavies, and the left weakly contested with a single Man-o-war.

With my opponent missing his heavy-hitting jack, things were getting close.  The riflemen flowed around the halberdiers and tried a large CRA against the Butcher, but ended up with only three of them in range, dropping the Butcher down to six health.  The two remaining demo corps were cleaned off the field, but the Renegade did not manage to kill the Shocktrooper despite a free focus from the objective point.  Considering his options and measuring his threat range, my opponent moved Magnus just within ten inches of the Butcher and dropped a boosted Obliteration on his head. A good damage roll later and the Butcher was blasted to pieces.

Another loss for me, but an entertaining match against a friendly opponent.  Well done Smiles on your win for the mercenaries in Shattered Grounds, I’m sure I’ll see you on the other side of the table some time soon.

Vayl horde

So perhaps a Lylth horde is a bit overdone but what about a horde of Incite fueled Lesser Warbeasts?

Vayl, Disciple of Everblight +6 points
* 2x Harrier 2 points each
* Nephilim Protector 5 points
* 2x Shredder 2 points each
* 2x Stinger 2 points each

10 Blighted Archers 8 points
* Blighted Archers Officer & Ammo Porter 2 points
Shepherd 1 point
Striders 6 points
The Forsaken 2 points
3 Warmongers 5 points

Tier 4 Deneghra list

I was looking through the new Cryx book and was trying to figure out what a Tier 4 Deneghra theme list looks like at 35pts. It has a lot of Jacks for certain :-)

Points: 35
Warwitch Deneghra (*5pts)

• Deathripper (4pts)
• Deathripper (4pts)
• Nightwretch (4pts)
• Defiler (0pts)
• Nightwretch (4pts)
• Reaper (7pts)
• Slayer (6pts)

Bile Thralls (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Necrotech & 1 Scrap Thrall (1pts)
Necrotech & 1 Scrap Thrall (1pts)
Warwitch Siren (2pts)
Warwitch Siren (2pts)

I’d need to paint up two minis for this but I’m not sure how competitive this list would actually be.

Updated 100pt army list

I’ve made some small changes to the proposed 100pt list for my game this weekend. I removed Skarre from the list. The Withershadow Combine can allow any Caster with them in their Control Area to upkeep a spell for free and this is wasted with Skarre. I’ve added the Cankerworm (seems smart if I am using Asphyxious) and put Deneghra in the list instead of Skarre. It seems more fitting thematically.
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100pt battle musings

Ben “Whipping Boy” Wafer and I will be having a 100pt game this weekend at One Stop pitting the might of Cryx against Ben’s effete electro-weenie Cygnar army. I like to re-iterate Ben’s “winning” of the Whipping Boy trophy at the last Steamroller even to salve my own wounded ego about my inability to beat him since then.

This will be my first 100pt game using the Mk II rules and I think it will be the biggest game of Warmachine I have ever played and certainly my first game with two casters.

This is the tentative list I will be bringing.
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Easter Weekend Gaming at Connections – report part 1

As promised, I have just taken place in a couple of solid days of Warmachine and Hordes gaming.  This post will focus on the game I played on Friday, April 2nd, with a couple of mentions to other action that went down.

Friday saw a middlin’ size group of us show up to throw down.  Old stalwarts Dylan and Trolland showed up ready for battle.  A few players new to Warmachine also ventured forth:  rancidtwinkie, gds23 and lorenz.  If there was anyone else that showed up for a game, I must have been distracted by the carnage on the table in front of me. (more…)

Your Go tournament army lists

The Steamroller event at Your Go Games is next weekend and I am attempting to try to take two fully painted lists to the event. Thankfully it is only a 25pt game so I should be able to do that.

I’ve modified my lists to include figures that I have painted or will have painted by Saturday.
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Lord Assassin Morghoul’s Runners and Gunners at One Stop Shop

On March 25th, I wanted to head down to One Stop Shop and get a game in during the regular Thursday night Warmachine meet-up.  But what to bring to the table?  The buzz on the Skorne forums after the “Final” field test update has mostly surround epic Morghoul.  Between the January 29th update and final update, Morghoul was the most transformed Skorne warlock, which led to a lot of discussion (and even some impassioned ranting) surrounding the Lord Assassin.  What better way to solidify my thoughts on his new incarnation than to ask him, very politely, if he wouldn’t mind leading some troops into battle for me? (more…)

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