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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GottaCon 2011 – Friday Night Mega Battle

Over the weekend of February 4th to the 6th, GottaCon rocked out in Victoria.  Among the festivities, including PC LAN gaming, console gaming, RPGs, boardgames, Warhammer and 40k, Rida (aka: jack froide/frost, formerly of Connection Games) decided to put together a Steamroller event for us HordesMachiners.  The Steamroller was to run Saturday and Sunday, but there was gaming space and time on Friday!  In order to break the ice a Mega Battle was arranged.  The rules were pretty simple:

• 15+ point force for each player.
• You score points equal to the cost of a model you destroy/remove from play, etc.
• Warcasters are worth nothing.
• When your warcaster dies, all your remaining models are removed from the game and no one gets points for them.

We ended up with 8 players, so we got crammed all together on one large 8′ x 4′ table and randomly assigned positions and one of two sides.  No one was deployed on the short table edges.  There were some additional rules for this first big battle:

• You cannot target any model belonging to a player on the same table edge as you, but if you “accidentally” caused some casualties, you got the points.
• All players on the same table edge act simultaneously.
• In cases where attack / charge timing would come into question, the player with the closest model to the target would act first.

As my lists for the Steamroller event used Butcher and the Old Witch, I pulled out the following models:

• Kommander Strakhov (-6 pts)
• Torch 10 pts
• Decimator 9 pts
• Manhunter 2 pts

With Rida screaming at us that there is no thinking in HordesMachine (and other zen-like pronouncements), we all slapped our models down and got to it.  The whole thing turned into a giant awesome mess.  The far side of the table (my left to right) had legion (Thagrosh?), Menoth (Reznik), Legion (directly across from me) with eThagrosh and Menoth with the Harbinger.  On my side was (again my left to right) dwarven mercs (run by Ryan), Skorne (2x bronzebacks + Morghoul and paingivers), Khador (myself) and Retribution (Ravyn + MHSF and a Manticore, I believe).  As we were all activating at the same time, it was hard to keep track of what was going on.  The Thagrosh player and I basically ran screaming across the middle of the field and obliterated our armies against each other, leaving Strakhov running off behind Morghoul and Thagrosh hanging about mid-board blowing kisses at the oncoming Retribution Mage Hunter Strike Force.  The Retribution player never really moved fast enough to engage the Menoth player opposite him because he was afraid Harby would murder his single-wounders, allowing the Harbinger’s forces to flow into the void left by epic Thagrosh’s meat-brigade.  Morghoul managed to get way upfield to engage Reznik’s forces, but apparently whiffed with both bronzebacks a whole lot.  The Skorne were basically in the opposite deployment line when everything died.  Ryan and the Legion player across from him tied each other up in a heavy-metal slapfight until Reznik’s forces came in to clean up the dwarven stragglers.  The whole morass was wicked – not having a reason to go after casters was actually mind-bending, but it got worse in the one on ones.  I ended up having given up a whole lot of points, but I had also gotten a good boatload myself (19 I think), setting myself up for a good run in the one-v-one matchups.  Or so I thought.

After the mega battle (which took a surprisingly small amount of time), we split off into one on ones with our same lists.  My first game was against the Reznik force, composed (from memory and completely ignorant of Menoth tiers) of the following:

• Whatshisname Reznik (-6 pts)
• 2 x Reckoner (8 pts each)
• Vassal of Mentos Menoth (2 pts)
• Choir – max unit ??  (3 pts)

This is where the strangeness of not being able to go for casters became very apparent.  Reznik ran ahead (!) of his army.   The Menoth first turn was pretty standard run forward, as was mine.  After my first turn, Reznik loaded up Engine of Destructuion and flew in to kill my manhunter, getting 2 points. He was easily within my murder range (particularly considering Strakhov’s feat), but the jacks were protected from the Decimator’s Dozer gun by the Choir.  If I killed Rezzy right then and there, I got no points…  So I advanced and protected myself from the flame cannons with occultation on the Decimator – Torch and Strakhov being immune to fire meant the two Reckoners would not shoot them.  Reznik charged in and wrecked the Decimator, and the army stayed back…  Full focus on Torch and Strakhov’s feat later, and I …. hadn’t wrecked a jack because of stupid enliven moving his jack away from my Sustained Attack death-saw (of death!).  Damn. The flamethrower cooked the now exposed Vassal.  Torch then died to twin tetsubo-beatings by the Reckoners, leaving Strakhov alone against everything.  The only target I could reach worth points was the damaged jack, but Strakhov died to a free-strike by Reznik as he charged by.  2 points for the Vassal – though I’m pretty sure I wrote down 1 point, as I assumed that a solo as awesome as the Vassal would basically be free.

My second match was… ALSO AGAINST MENOTH!  Woo!  See if you can spot some similarities to the previous list here:

• Harbinger of Menoth (+5 pts)
• 2 x Reckoner (8 pts each)
• 2 x Vassals (2 pts each)

Two Vassals?  KHAN!  This match I was again snakebitten by Enliven, but there was now twice as much of it.  I would charge a rip-saw bearing Decimator or Torchie McFlameyPants in, then they would dance out of the reach of my sustained attacks.  And every time I killed a Vassal, Harby would martyr herself to save them.  My opponent even killed Harby with Martydom to stop me from getting a single point.  It was pretty hilarious, we were laughing the whole game.  I think he got the Decimator and the manhunter, but not Torch or Strakie.  At the end of the game I told my opponent that the Harbinger had convinced Strakhov to convert so he could at least get to kill something with fire.  The Kommander was sent off to break rocks with his head in the depths of my case.

The event on Friday night was a perfect way to break the ice and get everyone playing.  The atmosphere was friendly, and there was much head scratching and laughter about the inversion of the normal “gun for their caster at all costs” game play.  Thumbs up for a great ice breaker!  The overall winner of the introduction event was the Reznik player, whose name escapes me now (Brook?).  I believe he took home a box of Exemplar Cinerators, but I’m not sure which entity provided that specific prize, so I’ll plug the ones I know supported the Steamroller event:  Connection Games of Vancouver, Dice Bag Games of Duncan and GottaCon.

Catching up

Subhedgehog here folks.  It’s been a while since I posted anything – due in large part to not having played a whole lot of Hordes in the late stages of 2010.  But if we’re being honest (and you are being honest, right?) mostly I was lazy.  I have recently been handed the reins to this site, so I guess there’s no time like the present to change my miserable ways.

So, what has happened since my last post (dated April 18th, 2010…  Ouch.  That’s a while)?  Well, aside from uninteresting mundane details of my life, I have done something drastic.  I was feeling a growing dissatisfaction with the Hordes mechanic, particularly in late stage turns or non-scenario play.  I looked over the Focus / Fury fence and saw green grass, rainbows and unicorns.  Wanting me some of that awesome fairy-dust fuelled horse-flesh for myself, I swooped in on some timely deals offered by local gamers and picked up a decent assortment of Khador forces.  With the Forces of Hordes:  Khador book firmly in hand, I found a few casters that I really liked that also, conveniently, had a lot of overlap in their tier lists.  I ended up, after a few months of other deals and new model purchases, with these fine red-clad murders:

• The Butcher of Khardov in his apparently classic pose
• The Old Witch and her be-crowed pal Scapjack
• Kommander Strakhov

Of course there is an assortment of units, solos and jacks to go with them.

Not only did I pick up another faction, but I also did something shocking to those who have enjoyed my “silver ghost” painting scheme for a couple of years:  I painted a jack!  Without further ado, I present to you “Llama the Ramma”

I still have a few things to do, such as a little dry-brushing on the base, add some ash waste flock and paint the base ring.  I also messed up on the piston heads.  I was rushing to get the jack done and grabbed some quicksilver instead of pig iron…  Should be easy enough to fix, maybe a quick wash would darken it enough.

And why was I painting things?  Well, other than the desire to stop having to wear a brown paper bag over my head when gaming with my snazzy bare metal figs, I was trying to put in at least a token effort for GottaCon, which was in Victoria over the past weekend, Feb 4th to 6th.  More on that later!