Warmachine / Hordes battle report: Minions vs Mercenaries (75 points); 26Jun2019

Once again Joe and I went for a game of Warmachine. I wanted to try out a different list this time so I asked Joe to pick a slightly less ‘infantry swarm’ option for me to face, and he duly obliged me.

Game 5 – Stand Off vs Joe’s Mercenaries

https://conflictchamber.com/?cb201b_-0P13fy0M0M1d1d0L0LjWbOfCjVnd4c

Minion Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Will Work for Food

[Arkadius 1] Dr. Arkadius [+32]
– Battle Boar [7]
– Gun Boar [9]
– Gun Boar [9]
– Road Hog [16]
– Road Hog [16]
– War Hog [15]
– War Hog [15]
– Gatorman Soul Slave [0(5)]
Gatorman Witch Doctor [0(4)]
Hutchuk, Ogrun Bounty Hunter [0(6)]
Kwaak Slickspine & Gub, Croak Sorcerers [0(4)]
Underchief Mire [4]
– Blackhide Wrastler [16]

I love the idea of Dr Arkadius and played a handful of games with him in Warmachine mk2. This is probably the simplest list I could think of for him; basically 2 of most of the classic Warbeasts, Underchief Mire with a Blackhide Wrastler to apply Rage as needed and then fill up with free solos. I expect that there will be some changes but that is part of the game-playing process. Hutchuk is being represented by an Ironhead and Mire by Rask.

This is theoretically the other part of the pair for my Jaga Jaga list; the idea being that I would use this against tougher (i.e. battlegroup heavy) options and Jaga Jaga against lighter, more numerous forces. It probably shows a lot about my experience in Warmachine that I haven’t really thought about this in much more detail.

https://conflictchamber.com/?c6201b_-0Jb_9o9o9o949494929292922T3W7mirirchch

Mercenary Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] The Irregulars

[Ossrum 1] General Ossrum [+28]
– Ghordson Basher [9]
– Ghordson Basher [9]
– Ghordson Basher [9]
– Ghordson Driller [10]
– Ghordson Driller [10]
– Ghordson Driller [10]
– Grundback Blaster [6]
– Grundback Blaster [6]
– Grundback Blaster [6]
– Grundback Blaster [6]
Alten Ashley [0(6)]
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios [0(7)]
Kell Bailoch [0(5)]
Horgenhold Artillery Corps [6]
Horgenhold Artillery Corps [6]
Kayazy Eliminators [5]
Kayazy Eliminators [5]

I did have a feeling that Joe would give me General Ossrum to face against. I find this Warcaster a tough nut to crack as his feat is really strong and that one turn of moving fast, hitting hard and being resilient has often been enough to force me out on scenario. The cannons are proxying for the Horgenhold Artillery Corps.

I win the roll off and choose to go first. I skew slightly to the left, with some idea of parking Dr Arkadius in that nice trench near the flag and therefore having plenty of room for him to run away if things go a bit sour. I feel like there should be some clever tactics around exactly which order I deploy the warbeasts but somehow it still seems like I’m dropping them in an almost random order.

Turn 1: Minions
Surprisingly, everyone runs forward. I debate between Guardian Beast and Aggravator on Dr Arkadius, eventually figuring that the former will make Joe play around it a bit more and prevent me from getting over-excited and sending one of my Warbeasts to an early demise. Forced Evolution is put on the right hand Road Hog and Mire drops a cloud to slightly extend the cloud wall already in the centre. The Witch Doctor puts Shadow Walk on the Wrastler to help it though the forest.

Turn 1: Mercenaries
Ossrum uses Energiser for a bit of extra forward movement and casts Fire For Effect on the left cannon. After some deliberation, Joe decides to Feat early to blunt my attack. Alten Ashley and the first cannon shoot at the left Road Hog, crippling its spirit. The Basher on the left is in range of my lead War Hog over there (I knew that it could get to me, but I wanted to get some board presence on too) so it slams my Warbeast into the Gun Boar and damaged Road Hog for some nice damage across all three. The other Cannon missed the other Road Hog and it scatters onto Dr Arkadius for a couple of points of damage.

Turn 2: Minions
I debate for a while about how to approach this. I could back off a bit, leaving minimal stuff to contest the zones and then use my own Feat once Ossrum’s is out of play. Or I could just go all in now. In the end, I decide to back off and hope to make my contesting pieces at least awkward to remove. Dr Arkadius upkeeps both spells and I choose not to bring Hutchuk on (as opposed to normal, where I just plain forget about him). On the right, the Wrastler backs up slightly into the zone. Dr Arkadius casts Psycho Surgery and boosts Crippling Grasp into the Basher; the War Hog makes heavy work of killing it but does finally get the job done on the last attack. The left Gun Boar runs to toe the zone while lurking in the forest, the right one toes the central zone and misses an optimistic shot in the direction of the nearest Eliminator. Both Road Hogs miss her too. Mire puts a couple of clouds in front of the Gun Boar to stop the Driller from charging after being Energiser-ed though the first cloud. Kwaak moves to the flag and puts Enliven on both heavies.

Turn 2: Mercenaries
Ossrum allocates 2 to the lead Driller and upkeeps Fire For Effect. That Cannon and Alten Ashley are enough to kill the Gun Boar on the left so Joe can score that zone. Ossrum uses Energiser to move his wall of Warjacks toward me and the loaded Driller tramples in to kill the contesting Gun Boar in two attacks. I think that he had options to get more damage there but I was hoping that the little chap would last a bit longer. The Eliminators on the left charge in and smack the leftmost War Hog and then a Blaster comes over and sprays through it to kill Kwaak. Well, so much for him. The other Eliminators contest the right zone and claim the central one. Joe scores the left and central zones plus his flag; 3 – 0 to him. I was hoping not give up all three points this turn but Joe did exactly what he needed to do.

Turn 3: Minions
Right, now that Ossrum’s Feat is out of the way, it is time to hit back with my own. Both spells are upkept again. Hutchuk charges into Kell on the flag but misses him. Mire puts Rage on the Wrastler and the nearer of each Road Hog and War hog. The Wrastler kills the Driller but misses the boosted attack on the Eliminator after Overtaking into her. The right War Hog charges to scraps the Basher in front of it and maxes out smacking the Driller around too. Arkadius puts Primal on the left War Hog so it has a hope of hitting those Eliminators, heals everyone a bit with Psycho Surgery then Feats. First the Primalled War Hog eats one of the Eliminators. The Road Hog over there gets some nice damage on the Blaster that killed Kwaak and the other Road Hog finished the Driller in the centre. This frees up that War Hog to go into the next line of heavies (do they never end?) and put some tasty damage into the Driller. Finally, the Battle Boar charges in the general direction of the Eliminator to get a bit of range; in its own activation it walks into her back arc and boosts an attack to kill her and Overtake into the right zone. The Raged, Forced Evolution Road Hog finishes off the Driller in the middle and starts chewing up the Basher. The left War Hog moves as far round the Eliminator as possible, kills her and Overtakes into the Blaster to scrap it. The left Road Hog charges Alten Ashley, killing him in melee and getting an entire artillery team with the flamethrower. Unfortunately, some poor placement on my side means that this Road Hog is almost sure to be the War Hog’s Frenzy target. Finally, the Soul Slave moves to my flag. I score the left and right zone plus my flag; 3 – 3.

Turn 3: Mercenaries
Ossrum allocates two to the Basher. The Cannon can’t quite kill off the Soul Slave so the last Eliminator runs to contest the flag. Annoyingly, she ends up within 6” of Dr Arkadius but I forget about Guardian Beast; I could have had the Primalled War Hog walk over to her as a Frenzy target. On the right, two Blasters team up to kill Hutchuk and the last one moves into the zone to contest it while spraying the Battle Boar and Wrastler. The last Basher smacks a bit more damage into the War Hog in the middle and Ossrum sticks Bullet Dodger on himself and Energises around a little. Joe scores his flag; 4 – 3 to him.

Turn 4: Minions
I upkeep Forced Evolution but drop Guardian Beast. The left War Hog kills the left Road hog with its Frenzy attack and the Battle Boar Frenzies to tickle the contesting Blaster on the right. The Eliminator is going to be almost impossible to remove with what I have available; in the end I decide that she’s just going to have to live. The Witch Doctor starts a run for my flag because the Soul Slave is not going to last much longer. Mire puts Rage on the Road Hog and Wrastler; the latter wrecks the contesting Blaster and Overtakes to contest the flag. The War Hog finally deals with the last Basher then uses the Overtake to engage the Cannon and the Road Hog gets another Basher but misses Ossrum with the assault spray; he Dodges away to the right. I score the central and right zones; 5 – 4 to me.

Turn 4: Mercenaries
Joe is out of options so now it is down to a last gasp shot at Dr Arkadius. Ossrum drops Bullet Dodger. He puts Snipe on Eiryss who rolls the 10 needed to knock off Dr Arkadius’s Fury even in the comfort of his trench. The Cannon disengages from the War Hog by getting killed and allowing the unengaged crew member to Take Up (I will admit that I was quite surprised that was how the rules worked) but they can’t roll the 6,6 that would allow them to actually hit Dr Arkadius. Amusingly (from my point of view) the blast scatters onto the Eliminator and kills her. Joe has seen enough and concedes; Minions win… by scenario I suppose. It seems that I forgot to take one last picture.

Wow, I really enjoyed that. Dr Arkadius is even more entertaining to play than I had dared to dream. Of course, it helps that Joe is a great teacher, guiding me to learn the game better every time we play. The whole game felt like it was on a knife edge until the end of my Feat turn when I think I understood that I’d done so much damage that I was really only likely to lose to an assassination (which, considering Dr Arkadius’s stats, is never out of the question). Things I learned:

• The Soul Slave is not a good fit here. I mainly included it since I already have the model, but I think that I have to consider Targ instead as just allowing a free upkeep a turn is not a great return on the investment.
• Hutchuk continues to be a bit useless for me. I think that probably he is offering some value by affecting what Joe can put out on the sides but so far he’s done more or less what he dis in this game – run on and contest a flag, miss his single attack at something, then die.
• Kwaak will be an interesting piece to play more of. I think that perhaps I was a bit careless to let him get killed by that spray from the blaster here. Enliven seems like the kind of ability that could really change games if only I could learn how to leverage it.

Warmachine / Hordes battle report: Minions vs Mercenaries (75 points); 17Jun2019

For various reasons I haven’t been playing Warmachine for several months, but I got the opportunity to head over to Joe’s place again and get another game in with my Minions.

Game 5 – King of the Hill vs Joe’s Mercenaries

https://conflictchamber.com/?cb201b_-0PjP4cjNjNjWbM7y7F4njD7g

Minion Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Will Work for Food

[Jaga-Jaga 1] Jaga-Jaga, the Death Charmer [+27]
– Blackhide Wrastler [16]
– Swamp Horror [15]
– Swamp Horror [15]
– Gatorman Soul Slave [0(5)]
Brun Cragback [16]
Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor [0(5)]
Rorsh [15]
Totem Hunter [0(6)]
Farrow Valkyries [8]
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (max) [17]

It’s the same list as before, except that now I actually have the correct miniatures for everything (though some of them are borrowed). At least in theory I have a Dr Arkadius list to pair with it, but I haven’t actually put that on the table at yet and didn’t really plan to, regardless of what Joe was bringing here.

https://conflictchamber.com/?c6201b_-0JoHlLlL2Tj6nH6i3G3H3G3Hchch8Mca

Mercenary Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] The Irregulars

[Fiona 1] Fiona the Black [+27]
– Toro [13]
– Toro [13]
Alten Ashley [0(6)]
Eilish Garrity, the Occultist [0(5)]
J.A.I.M.s [0(5)]
Alexia Ciannor & the Risen [10]
Idrian Skirmishers (max) [15]
– Idrian Skirmisher Chieftain & Guide [5]
Idrian Skirmishers (max) [15]
– Idrian Skirmisher Chieftain & Guide [5]
Kayazy Eliminators [5]
Kayazy Eliminators [5]
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt [8]
The Commodore Cannon & Crew [7]

Joe is at least as much of a faction butterfly as me. In the time since I last played even a single game of Warmachine, he has spun through Khador and Circle before coming back to Mercenaries.

I win the roll off and choose to go first. My vague plan is to hide Jaga Jaga behind the house, hold the right zone with the Wrastler and the left with the two lesser Warlocks, then bully the centre with anything I have left. My Totem Hunter Preys the right Idrians. They Prey the right Swamp Horror, the left Idrians Prey Brine and JAIMS Preys the Totem Hunter. This might get messy…

Turn 1: Minions
Everyone runs forward. Brun casts Stonehold, Jaga Jaga casts Battle Host on herself and Grave Wind on the Totem Hunter. Brun and Rorsh are a bit circumspect and decide to make some use of the cloud for this turn before being forced to advance into the teeth of the Idrian guns.

Turn 1: Mercenaries
Alten Ashley saunters forward and slaps Grievous Wounds on Lug, and some of the leading Idrians take pot shots at it too. Fiona puts Roth’s Mercy on the right Idrians and Occultation on herself. Everything moves up but Joe is careful not to offer me anything too juicy.

Turn 2: Minions
Jaga Jaga and Brun upkeep their spells. The Totem Hunter cuts down the two lead Idrians and Sprints off to hide behind the forest. Jaga Jaga casts Signs and Portents from the comfort of her little shelter behind the house (obviously I should have done this before using the Totem Hunter but I guess he didn’t need the help). The Boomhowlers mostly run; one misses an opportunistic swing at a nearby Idrian. Lug kills one and moves back to the edge of the Zone with Return, and finally Orin zaps three Idrians on my right.

Turn 2: Mercenaries
Fiona upkeeps Roth’s Mercy but drops Occultation. The Commodore Cannon kills a couple of Boomhowlers by slamming one into another. The right Idrians get a few models into the range to do a CRA on the Totem Hunter and roll the exact number of boxes to kill him in one go (JAIMS swaps Prey to the right Swamp Horror). Alten Ashley continues to pump bullets into Lug, crippling his Spirit and making me sad. Over on the left, the Idrian and a Thrall kill a few more Boomhowlers; Lug does get an entertaining Countercharge / Return combo to eat a cheeky Idrian though. Fiona goes quite far forward and Feats. No-one scores.

Turn 3: Minions
It would be quite nice to get at Fiona while she’s so close but I can’t think of any realistic way to do it under her Feat and with a bunch of Risen in the way. Brun upkeeps Stonehold (in retrospect, I’m not sure why I bothered since nothing was looking like knocking him down) and Jaga Jaga upkeeps Battle Host. The Soul Slave sticks Ghost Walk on the Boomhowlers and they move in and deal with a couple of Risen (the only targets they were likely to hit under Fiona’s Feat). Jaga Jaga casts Signs and Portents and uses her Feat to kill all five remaining Boomhowlers in exchange for some tasty damage on Alexia and all four Kayazy Eliminators. On the right my Swamp Horror clears all the contesting Idrians since it is far enough away from Fiona to avoid her Feat. Rorsh kills a couple of Idrians on the left but mainly I back off on that side. I’m going to lose Lug so I just end up leaving him in the zone to contest it. I score the right zone; 1 – 0 to me.

Turn 3: Mercenaries
Fiona drops all her spells. Alten Ashley takes his customary shot at Lug and eventually the Idrians on that side of the board kill it. Eilish puts Puppet Master on Fiona. She drops a Valkyrie to Tough with Chasten (burning the Puppet Master re-roll on damage) then puts Curse of Veils on the Swamp Horror and backs right away. Sadly, taking down the Valkyrie means that I can’t Shield Guard the Commodore Cannon’s shot so it slams the Swamp Horror back out of the zone. A random shot from an Idrian deals with the knocked down Valkyrie and JAIMS comes in to kill a second on the other side of the building. Joe scores for the left zone, centre zone and flag; 3 – 1 to him.

Turn 4: Minions
I finally realise the Stonehold is not helping me so drop it. Jaga Jaga upkeeps Battle Host though; it is free, after all. She heals the crippled system on the left Swamp Horror and casts Signs and Portents. The right Swamp Horror kills the contesting Idrians but apparently rolling an 8 und Signs and Portents to hit JAIMS is just out of the question so eventually the Blackhide Wrastler has to come in and deal with her. Orin zaps the Toro just to get an electroleap to kill a couple of Risen; I’m also sort of hoping that the Toro will take the bait to get Orin so I can have the Wrastler deal with it. The Soul Slave tags a Thrall with Bone Shaker but sadly a Risen free-strike kills it before I can take a cheeky swing at Holt. The other Swamp Horror comes back into the zone and goes through a highly satisfying chain of pulls and overtakes to eventually kill both Aiyana and Holt. I probably would have been better dealing with the last Risen within 4” of the Flag so I could score, but I was on a roll and probably killing Holt was more useful in the long run. Brun kills a few Idrians and gets a lucky critical Stationary on the left Toro; sadly Brine can’t do more than scratch the paint on it. I score the right Zone; 3 – 2 to Joe.

Turn 4: Mercenaries
Fiona upkeeps Curse of Veils and allocates two Focus to the left Toro, which then shakes Stationary. Alten Ashley, a load of Risen and the right Toro combine to kill the Swamp Horror in the zone. Eilish puts Puppet Master on Fiona and teleports to the Flag. Fiona swaps Curse of Veils onto Brine and the combined efforts of the Toro and Idrians kill him off (the Idrians choose the last Valkyrie as their new Prey). The Commodore blows away the Soul Slave. Joe scores the left Zone and the Flag; 5 – 2 to him.

Turn 5: Minions
Jaga Jaga upkeeps Battle Host, paying an actual Fury for it this time like a peasant; she then casts Signs and Portents. Orin has had enough of the Toro ignoring him and the Commodore Cannon blowing up all my stuff so he kills two of the crew and toughs the third. The Swamp Horror kills the contesting Thrall. The last Valkyrie (hidden behind the building in the photos) kills two of the Risen she’s surrounded by to clear a lane for the Wrastler to get to Alexia. It only takes a single bite to end Alexia, then the Wrastler overtakes to kill a third Risen (Joe let me do this after I’d activated some other stuff because I couldn’t actually see the Risen doe to the building). Brun, clearly not in the mood for anyone’s nonsense after Lug’s demise, walks into the centre zone and combines Frost Hammer and his gun to kill five Risen and Eilish and get a cheeky critical Stationary on the central Toro. Rorsh gets to be the contesting piece on the left; he does finally gun down Alten Ashley though. I score the right Zone; 5 – 3 to Joe.

Turn 5: Mercenaries
Fiona allocates two Focus to the central Toro, which shrugs off Stationary. She planned to put Curse of Veils on the Wrastler but Orin’s presence will stymie that plan. Instead the Commodore takes a shot at Orin but luckily for me it misses. Fiona instead kills Brun with Chasten. The left Toro kills Rorsh and the loaded Toro combines with the remaining Idrians to put some damage into the Wrastler. Joe scores the left Zone and I get the right Zone; 6 – 4 to Joe.

Turn 6: Minions
Hmm, I am feeling like I’m in trouble here with so much of my army gone. On the other hand, the Mercenaries force isn’t looking much better. Jaga Jaga drops Battle Host and walks round to apply Ghost Walk to the Wrastler. She also applies Signs and Portents just to be sure. Orin boosts some Chain Lightning into Fiona to burn one of her camped Focus (and kill an Idrian in the process). Finally the Wrastler charges into Fiona and eats her in a single bite. Yummy. Minions win by assassination.

I’ve really missed playing Warmachine, especially against Joe. He was taking it pretty easy on me since I’m quite rusty and very kindly pointed out some obvious things that I was missing; this is really helpful for my learning as it allows me to see how things look from his side of the board too. Things I learned:

• Lug is a massive bullet-sponge against Joe and yet again didn’t really get to do anything. I guess that I was taking those shots (especially Alten Ashley’s) anyway so someone was going have to take them.
• Contesting Zones seems to be a problem for me since most of my pieces are quite valuable. And the only jamming I have (Boomhowler and company) tend to get any survivors of the opening rounds evaporated by my own Feat on either turn 2 or 3. On the basis that I theoretically would use Dr Arkadius to cover a more elite Battlegroup-heavy match-up, perhaps I should consider dropping one of the lesser Warlocks to load up on some more infantry. I am considering either Nyss Hunters or yet more Valkyries for this role. I would be happy to read any advice from others.
• Positioning for the Valkyries (and Orin) is quite precise and important. I’m still working on this but I did feel that at least in this game Joe had to work around them a little; therefore they must be closer to being the right places.

Painted Satyxis Blood Witches

These ladies are Satyxis Blood Witches, part of my slowly-expanding Cryx force for Warmachine. In these days of ‘theme for everything’ they fit in the Scourge of the Broken Coast, a theme that is basically limited to Warjacks and things with the Satyxis tag. These particular ones are specialised as ambushers, so I often try to leave them off the board at the start in the hope that the other player will leave a soft solo somewhere they can get to easily. Otherwise they just end up swarming on from the side of the board and gumming things up as best they can. The Blood Witches are mostly useful for taking down other lightly armoured foes, so if I’m facing a really heavy-weight foe then I just have to use them for body blocking. Like all Satyxis, they are lightly armoured but have high defense. As a result they really hate it when someone has an attack that automatically hits, or if anyone can fire template weapons.

I really love the sculpts of the Satyxis range but I find them incredibly fiddly to assemble. The arms are separate on most of them which is manageable with a bit of pinning, but worse, the horns are most separate pieces. Needless to say I just trusted in superglue for the horns. I also think I may have received a minor mispack as I don’t actually have a proper set of horn-pairs – if you look closely a couple of them have mis-matched horns. Painting started off well but I gradually got bogged down in all the belts, straps, necklaces etc and I have to admit that I was quite glad to finally call the unit done.

This one is the unit leader (at least until I get round to dealing with the unit attachment, in which case she’ll be outranked). I had all sorts of plans to make her multi-layered skirt look cool with all it’s trimmings but I decided in the end to leave it simple. From table top distance, of course, the difference is barely perceptible.

I wanted red clothing but also stuck with pink as the spot colour for my Cryx force. Unfortunately I think that it doesn’t really work quite as well as I had hoped.

I spent a while at the start trying to keep skin colour, hair colour and sculpt separate. In particular, I think that I’ve managed to keep those with duplicate sculpts to have different skin tones so they don’t look like twins! To the best extent I could manage, I avoided repeating the same combination of hair colour and skin colour across the unit.

Keen observers will note the battle heels again. Why do sculptors insist on these for female miniatures? The rest of the clothing isn’t too silly, at least taken in the context of the genre

Next on the painting table: Poxbringer.

Warmachine / Hordes battle report: Minions vs Khador (75 points); 03Mar2019

Following on from the game against Colin, I got the chance to face Paul’s Khador. I think I’ve never played a Khador force in either Mk2 or Mk3 so I was really interested to see what they did.

Spread The Net (scenario 3) vs Paul’s Khador

https://conflictchamber.com/?cb201b_-0PjP4cjNjNjWbM7y7F4njD7g

Minion Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Will Work for Food

[Jaga-Jaga 1] Jaga-Jaga, the Death Charmer [+27]
– Blackhide Wrastler [16]
– Swamp Horror [15]
– Swamp Horror [15]
– Gatorman Soul Slave [0(5)]
Brun Cragback [16]
Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor [0(5)]
Rorsh [15]
Totem Hunter [0(6)]
Farrow Valkyries [8]
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (max) [17]

No change to my list from the last few times. Once again, the Troll warbeasts are Swamp Horrors and Lanyssa is Orin.

https://conflictchamber.com/?c3201b76kWkWkUjy8t8y87fS8e7S7V

Khador Army – 74 / 75 points

[Vladimir 1] Vladimir Tzepesci, the Dark Prince [+28]
– Juggernaut [13]
– Juggernaut [13]
– Spriggan [17]
Kapitan Sofya Skirova [5]
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich [4]
Yuri the Axe [6]
Battle Mechaniks (max) [5]
Black Dragons (max) [17]
Widowmaker Scouts [8]
Winter Guard Infantry (max) [10]
– Winter Guard Rocketeer (2) [4]

Paul mentioned that this was intentionally an army of things he either owns or finds interesting. It’s not in Theme so no freebies for him (and either I’ve made a mistake with my notes or he’s also playing 1 point down). Still, there seem to be quite a lot of Khadorans facing me.

Paul wins the roll off and again makes me move first which is totally fine with me. I put Brun and Lug on the left hoping that Brun could camp on the flag while Lug abused the forest to threaten Pathfinder charges at whatever ended up on the other side. The Totem Hunter selects Yuri as his Prey, mainly on the grounds that with his bigger threat range he’d be able to drop one of the larger threats to him that Paul was fielding (apart from the Warjacks and Vlad himself, of course).

Turn 1: Minions
My whole list runs forward as fast as their feet, hooves or tentacles will carry them. Brun casts Stonehold, Jaga Jaga casts Battle Host on herself and Grave Wind on the Totem Hunter. The Soul Slave puts Ghost Walk on the Boomhowlers so that they can clear the rough terrain.

Turn 1: Khador
Everything runs forward, staying out of my threat ranges apart from a couple of Black Dragons on the right. Kovnik Joe tells the Winter Guard to be Tough and Vlad casts nothing.

Turn 2: Minions
I Upkeep all my spells. Brun saunters onto the flag. Jaga Jaga casts Signs and Portents and moves forward to cover where the Totem Hunter is about to go. He goes through the rough terrain, shanks a Winter Guard and then Sprints back to hide in the rough ground again. Rorsh caps a couple of Black Dragons and the Valkyries all make sure that they’re in the centre zone.

Turn 2: Khador
Paul realises that I’ve put both Swamp Horrors and Lug in range of his Warjacks if he Feats, so Vlad allocates 2 Focus to each of the Warjacks on the right. The Winter Guard move forward and those close enough to the Totem Hunter put a big CRA into him and leave him on a single box. The Rocketeers shoot the nearer Swamp Horror for some impressive damage and the Widowmakers gun down a couple of Boomhowlers. Vlad Feats and camps the rest of his Focus. The Spriggan goes into kill one Swamp Horror and the Juggernaut gets the other. Ouch. The left Juggernaut goes into Lug and leaves him on a few boxes. I score the right zone and Paul scores his flag; 1 – 1.

Turn 3: Minions
Jaga Jaga and Brun upkeep all their spells (I’m not sure if that was the right move for Brun since the only things likely to attack him were the Juggernaut and the Widowmakers). The Totem Hunter charges into Yuri and one-shots him to proclaim himself King of the Woods then Sprints off to engage the Widowmakers. The Soul Slave casts Ghost Walk on the Boomhowlers who kill a few Winter Guard. Then Jaga Jaga casts Signs and Portents and Feats, using only a single Boomhowler to kill Kovnik Joe. The Valkyries chip some boxes off the Spriggan, then the Wrastler Rages itself and kills it off. Sadly it can’t get the Juggernaut too; this is not helped by missing a bite even under Signs and Portents. Brun heals Lug and opts to stay on the flag; Lug maxes out on Fury and leaves the Juggernaut on two boxes; one each for Cortex and right arm… oh dear. Orin misses a Chain Lightning into the Black Dragons so Rorsh shoots a couple of them. I send Brine in for entertainment and he Overtakes through a few more. The store is closing and we’re out of time. I’m pretty sure I lose this on Assassination (or scenario if I want my defeat to last longer) as I’ll be out of things to hurt the Warjacks once the Juggernauts kill the Wrastler and Lug. Minions lose by Assassination (probably).

It was really nice to play Paul again after such a long time and we had a really fun game. I made a lot of mistakes though. Overall, I think that the game was very playable but perhaps I need to make sure that a list pair has an answer for anything packing very heavy armour.

• The most important was giving him a chance to take out three Warbeasts on Feat turn. I should have either only offered up one and make him spend his Feat for it, or use the Boomhowlers as a screen in front of my Battlegroup.
• On the left, once Lug and the Juggernaut were engaged I should have used Lug’s Chain Attack to throw the Juggernaut out of Vlad’s control as that would have given me more time to score that flag. Alternatively, I should have abandoned the idea of scoring the flag that turn and charged Brun into the Juggernaut as well.
• After I lost the Swamp Horrors, I should have spent Jaga Jaga’s last two Fury of turn 3 to put Rage on the Wrastler. It was clear that I would need to fill the Wrastler up on Fury if I was going to have any chance to clear those Warjacks so I wouldn’t have been able to transfer anything anyway. Two extra attacks might have made the difference.
• I should have continued to keep Brine in the right zone since he was the one that was scoring it. On the other hand, perhaps denying Paul the flag was at least as effective (I could possibly have eaten Sofia too if we had the time).

Warmachine / Hordes battle report: Minions vs Convergence of Cyriss (75 points); 03Mar2019

Although there is a competent tournament scene in my country, there is also a whole load of people here picking up Warmachine / Hordes for the first time. I met up with a group of friends I know from Malifaux events who are at about the same level as I am for the game (i.e. terrible); the first was against Colin.

Standoff (scenario 2) vs Colin’s Convergence of Cyriss

https://conflictchamber.com/?cb201b_-0PjP4cjNjNjWbM7y7F4njD7g

Minion Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Will Work for Food

[Jaga-Jaga 1] Jaga-Jaga, the Death Charmer [+27]
– Blackhide Wrastler [16]
– Swamp Horror [15]
– Swamp Horror [15]
– Gatorman Soul Slave [0(5)]
Brun Cragback [16]
Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor [0(5)]
Rorsh [15]
Totem Hunter [0(6)]
Farrow Valkyries [8]
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (max) [17]

No change to my list from the last few times. I’m back to proxying Troll warbeasts as Swamp Horrors and Lanyssa is representing Orin this time because I left him at home again.

https://conflictchamber.com/?cc201c_-0id8dmd5d5d9d6dog5dCdfdfdgdgdz

Convergence Army – 71 / 75 points
[Theme] Destruction Initiative

[Axis 1] Axis, the Harmonic Enforcer [+30]
– Assimilator [16]
– Galvanizer [5]
– Galvanizer [5]
– Inverter [15]
– Mitigator [7]
– Modulator [10]
– Prime Conflux [37]
Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex [2]
Elimination Servitors [0(3)]
Elimination Servitors [0(3)]
Reflex Servitors [0(4)]
Reflex Servitors [0(4)]
Optifex Directive [4]

I’m not familiar enough to comment on the contents of Colin’s army, though he did mention later on that he would have preferred to have a couple of the battle engines present. I think that this force is actually a little under on points because Colin swapped from Iron Mother to Axis when he realised that one of Iron Mother’s spells only works on Warjacks and not Warbeasts (or maybe I just missed something out in my notes).

Note that when I arrived the scenario had already been set up but with flags instead of objectives. Neither of us noticed so we just played it as they were. Colin wins the roll off and makes me move first. Nothing too special about my deployment but I did remember to put the Totem Hunter close enough to receive Grave Wind. The Valkyries are around my battle group on the right in order to catch any tow cables from the Prime Axiom. The Totem Hunter selects the left Reflex Servitors as his Prey.

Turn 1: Minions
Everything runs up. Brun casts Stonehold, Jaga Jaga casts Battle Host on herself and Grave Wind on the Totem Hunter. The Valkyries mill about in Shield Guard range where possible.

Turn 1: Convergence of Cyriss
One Focus is Allocated to the Diffuser. The Reflex Servitors all move up and Dig In a bit higher up the field and the Vectors follow them, sharing the Focus very neatly between them. Axis casts Onslaught, puts a Razor Wall in the middle of the forest and saunters up behind them.

Turn 2: Minions
Jaga Jaga and Brun Upkeep their spells. The Totem Hunter charges to the left and kills a pair of Reflex Servitors (engaging the third so it couldn’t Counter Charge) then Sprints back behind the forest. Brine kills the last one (Totem Hunter chooses the other set as Prey) and gets brought back with Souie, though I possibly mess up the positioning by keeping them too safe and both end up behind the cloud on the left. Brun misses a shot at one of the Reflex Servitors on the right so Lug charges in, tanks a Counter Charge from the one I couldn’t engage (which also blows up another of them), kills the last and uses Return to move back out of easy retaliation range. The Totem Hunter changes Prey to the left Elimination Servitors. Everything else just jockeys a bit for position. I don’t put anything in to contest the rear zone as it feels like it would be too easy to kill.

Turn 2: Convergence of Cyriss
Axis Upkeeps his spells and Allocates once to the Modulator. The left Elimination Servitors, Modulator and Diffuser gun down a few Boomhowlers. The Prime Axiom realises that ranged attacks are not a major strength under Axis as it misses both Tow Cable shots into Lug (though I probably could have covered them with the Valkyries anyway). A Galvaniser goes into my right Swamp Horror and Axis sits on his flag. We both score the rectangular zones and respective flags. 2 – 2. I did suggest that this might be a good time to use Axis’s Feat but Colin wanted to save it until he could use the bonus strength part.

Turn 3: Minions
Again Brun and Jaga Jaga upkeep their spells. The Boomhowlers move up; one of them tries to contest Colin’s zone but gets killed by the Counter Charge from the Diffuser. They do manage to kill all the Elimination Servitors on that side with their guns (Totem Hunter shifts Prey to the Diffuser). Rorsh uses Diversionary Tactics to move Brine somewhere he can actually see the Modulator and he goes in to cripple one of the arms and leave it knocked down. The Totem Hunter goes into the Diffuser and neatly leaves it with a single functional box in every system. Jaga Jaga moves round a bit (mainly I’m wary about the Prime Axiom) and casts Signs and Portents. I should have done this a couple of activations earlier but got carried away. The Soul Slave gives Orin Ghost Walk so that he can move through the Wrastler and kill all three Elimination Servitors on the right with Lightning. The left Swamp Horror charges into the Inverter but the counter charge from the nearby Mitigator cripples its Mind which is quite annoying. It does still take a good chunk out the Vector in the process though. Brun shoots the right Galvaniser hoping to kill the Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex behind it but misses the latter. Lug charges in, almost wrecks one of the light Vectors by throwing it onto the ADO (which does kill him this time) and actually finishes off the Galvaniser that Brun shot. My other Swamp Horror kills the Galvaniser right next to it and pulls in the Mitigator for the Wrastler to finish off. Finally, the Valkyries move into the right zone and deal the last few boxes to the knocked down Assimilator. I score three zones and we each score our flags. 6 – 3.

Turn 3: Convergence of Cyriss
Axis drops both Upkeeps and Allocates two to the Prime Axiom and one to the Modulator. He also Feats and beats Brine down to have only Spirit left, though the combined efforts of the Modulator and Diffuser don’t manage to kill my pig. The Inverter smashes the Swamp Horror down to a couple of boxes and the Prime Axiom walks over to kill it and Lug. I score my flag, my zone and the left zone. Minions win by Scenario; 9 – 3.

It was terrific to play Colin at a new game and I’m sure he’ll get much better as he gets more and more experience. I’m not sure how much the flag / objective scenario error affected play but I guess it was the same for both of us. Things I learned:

• Lug is lots of fun to play when he actually gets to do stuff.
• I need to think about how early I can afford to activate Jaga Jaga in order to get more value from Signs and Portents.
• Not using Jaga Jaga’s Feat didn’t feel like a big disadvantage. In this match-up there aren’t any suitable targets. Perhaps this is an indication that I should use a second list to cover such a match-up.

Warmachine / Hordes battle report: Minions vs Mercenaries (75 points); 28Feb2019

Joe and I ran another game of Warmahcine / Hordes as we’re both really enjoying it. He got a big load of second hand Cephalyx this week so that was an easy choice for him on what to play. I have a few ideas about things that I might to change from last week’s list but I plan to play this one a few more times to see where I think it is weak (other than the player, of course).

Spread The Net (scenario 3) vs Joe’s Mercenaries

https://conflictchamber.com/?cb201b_-0PjP4cjNjNjWbM7y7F4njD7g

Minion Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Will Work for Food

[Jaga-Jaga 1] Jaga-Jaga, the Death Charmer [+27]
– Blackhide Wrastler [16]
– Swamp Horror [15]
– Swamp Horror [15]
– Gatorman Soul Slave [0(5)]
Brun Cragback [16]
Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor [0(5)]
Rorsh [15]
Totem Hunter [0(6)]
Farrow Valkyries [8]
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (max) [17]

No changes from the list I played last time; it seemed to play well enough and anyway, there is not much point changing it up too often or I’ll never remember anything.  Orin, who I own but have left at home, is proxied by one of the Witch Coven.

https://conflictchamber.com/?c6201b_Z07enelememei6iejehehcjcjckckchej

Mercenary Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Operating Theater

[Thexus 1] Exulon Thexus [+29]
– Warden [10]
– Wrecker [14]
– Wrecker [14]
Cephalyx Agitator [3]
Alexia Ciannor & the Risen [10]
– Cephalyx Dominator [1]
Cephalyx Mind Bender & Drudges (max) [11]
Cephalyx Mind Bender & Drudges (max) [11]
Cephalyx Mind Slaver & Drudges (max) [12]
Cephalyx Mind Slaver & Drudges (max) [12]
Cephalyx Overlords [0(8)]
Cephalyx Overlords [0(8)]
Kayazy Eliminators [5]
– Cephalyx Dominator [1]

Well, that is a lot of bodies, and if I kill them then they’ll come back as Risen. I’m not really sure how I’m going to deal with them for scenario. On the other hand, Joe has to be super careful about his positioning otherwise I can abuse Overtake and munch my way through loads of them at a time with the Swamp Horrors. The Cephalyx Overlords are represented by Thorn Gun Mages.

I win the roll-off and opt to go first. Joe chooses the table side that he’s already sitting at, further demonstrating the depth of our tactical play.

Turn 1: Minions
Brun casts Stonehold, Jaga Jaga casts Battle Host on herself and Grave Wind on the Totem Hunter (who I remembered to put close enough to cast it on this time). Everything else rushes forward as fast as their legs / tentacles will carry them. I’m not too worried about Joe’s threat ranges here; if he’s willing to put Thexus up in range to TK something then he’s welcome to do so.

Turn 1: Mercenaries
Thexus Allocates a Focus to each Monstrosity. All three move up and are followed by Eliminators, Overlords or the Agitator and poked gently to fill up on Focus for next turn. The infantry rush up and spread out to cover Joe’s side of the board in a sea of bare-chested weirdos. Exulon Thexus floats up behind them and casts Psycho Surgery to heal up the chip damage that the Monstrosities took.

Turn 2: Minions
I upkeep all the spells. The Totem Hunter charges through the forest to punk a Mind Slaver Drudge and Sprints back. Rorsh and the Valkyries cap another couple on the right and the Boomhowlers gun down a few more on the left. Jaga Jaga casts Signs and Portents and sends in one of the Swamp Horrors which eats a few more of the leading Drudges on the left, though an annoying number of them Tough. Careful observers will note that I’ve neglected to contest Joe’s flag or the right zone. Oops.

Turn 2: Mercenaries
Nothing is Allocated since all the Monstrosities are full anyway. Thexus TKs the right Wrecker forward a bit and Feats. The Totem Hunter gets moved into the forest, my clump of support models is pulled apart so neither the Soul Slave nor Orin are in range to do their thing for Jaga Jaga and the Boomhowlers are tidied up into a neat cluster. He ends activation camping 6 since he is so far forward. Both Mind Benders turbo charge a trio of Mind Slaver Drudges. On the right they hurt Brine (and contest my flag) and miss the Totem Hunter. On the left, join the Risen (and later, a Thrall Warrior) in punching the Swamp Horror but helpfully leave it with all aspects functional. My joy at having the Totem Hunter available is short lived as the Wrecker comes over and smashes it to paste. The other Wrecker gets buffed up by the Agitator and comes into leave Lug on three boxes and Beat Back in to contest my zone. The positioning required does mean that the Agitator isn’t on the flag though. Finally, the Warden lumbers in front of Thexus to make it harder to assassinate him. Joe scores the right zone; 1 – 0. I’m not really sure why Joe clumped up all the Boomhowlers with Thexus’s Feat; presumably he planned to spray them somehow.

Turn 3: Minions
Since the Soul Slave got moved away from Jaga Jaga, I have to pay to upkeep Battle Host like a peasant. On the plus side, I think I can take out Exulon Thexus this turn even through 6 camp. The Soul Slave moves across and puts Ghost Walk on the Boomhowlers. They mostly charge into the morass of Drudges and Risen in front of them but a few run through as deep as I can get them. Jaga Jaga casts Signs and Portents, walks round the Wrastler and attacks the Risen in front of it. Sadly it Toughs and I can’t buy an attack as I need to cast Rage on the Wrastler. Instead, she Feats to kill off a couple of Cephalyx officers, a few Drudges in awkward positions and the blocking Risen. She hurts Thexus too because why not? The back Swamp Horror charges into the Warden at an angle to pull it clear of the Wrastler’s charge lane and leaves it on about five boxes; Orin fries the Swamp Horror in the back and finishes the job. The other Swamp Horror kills a couple more Drudges and Risen to Overtake closer to Thexus and pulls him in for a good Beaking. Finally the Wrastler charges in and kills Exulon Thexus with the first bite. Minions win by Assassination.

Another fun game with Joe. I think that he really suffered from this being his first time with Cephalyx and I don’t expect that I’ll get him playing Thexus so far forward again. On the other hand, if he’d played a bit further back I could have afforded to be a bit more cavalier with my own placement and could have cleared out a lot of his infantry in turn 3 instead of going in for the kill. Jaga Jaga’s feat allowed me to scalpel out some of the tasty Cephalyx unit leaders which I think would neuter their impact quite nicely. I almost want to play turn 3 again and go for attrition instead to see where we end up.

• Swamp Horrors are highly amusing into victim stat infantry like Risen and Drudges but Tough is really annoying when you want to use Overtake.
• The Totem Hunter really needs to stay away from things that cast boost to hit.
• Another bad day for Lug since the Wrecker out-threats him. I would have been interested to see what he could do in return once Brun healed up his crippled aspects.

Warmachine / Hordes battle report: Minions vs Mercenaries (75 points); 14Feb2019

When I first started this blog I wrote up a lot of battle reports but as time went by I found that I was only doing tournament reports. So here is a one-off report for Warmachine, a game I love to play even though I’m quite awful at it.

I’ve had a hankering to run Minions again in Warmachine, but this time we were using (mostly) the correct miniatures so I thought I’d set up another thread to document my ineffectual flailing through this wonderful game. Joe wanted to try out some of the CID Pirate stuff so we threw down.

Invasion (scenario 4) vs Joe’s Mercenaries

https://conflictchamber.com/?cb201b_-0PjP4cjNjNjWbM7y7F4njD7g

Minion Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Will Work for Food

[Jaga-Jaga 1] Jaga-Jaga, the Death Charmer [+27]
– Blackhide Wrastler [16]
– Swamp Horror [15]
– Swamp Horror [15]
– Gatorman Soul Slave [0(5)]
Brun Cragback [16]
Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor [0(5)]
Rorsh [15]
Totem Hunter [0(6)]
Farrow Valkyries [8]
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (max) [17]

The basic idea of the list is to leverage Rage-d, Signs and Portents, Overtake Swamp Horrors because that sounds quite amusing. My main dilemma was what infantry to take for Jaga Jaga’s Feat turn. In the end I settled on Boomhowlers as they have decent armour and could possibly contribute in a jamming role even if I couldn’t get a good Feat turn out. I probably slightly prefer Nyss in the role but in this case the high defence / low armour is obviously less helpful. I had a Dr Arkadius list as a back-up that I’m also quite excited to try out but never really intended to use it here. Thanks to the extensiveness of Joe’s collection, Calaban is a proxy for Jaga Jaga and a pair of Trolls are representing the Swamp Horrors.

https://conflictchamber.com/?c6201b_-0QnTnV8jnQnQnQnM8SnPnPnP8Mca

Mercenary Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] The Talion Charter

!!! This army contains CID entries.

[Rahera 1] Captain Rahera, Terror of the Wailing Sea [+28]
– Blockader [35]
– Freebooter [9]
– Swashbuckler [8]
– Swashbuckler [8]
– Swashbuckler [8]
Bosun Grogspar [0(5)]
Lord Rockbottom [0(4)]
Powder Monkey [0(2)]
Powder Monkey [2]
Powder Monkey [2]
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt [8]
The Commodore Cannon & Crew [7]
Scharde Pirates (max) [14]
– Scharde Pirate Officer [4]

I think almost everything here is in CID one way or another. I’m not going to comment on any CID game balance matters because a) I’m terrible at WarmaHordes and b) I have no idea what the Pirate stuff did before so any change is meaningless to me. Needless to say, there are a ton of proxies here but I think that most of them are quite straightforward; notably the Scharde Pirates are represented by some of my old Press Gangers and the Commodore Cannon is played by a Road Hog.

Turn 1: Mercenaries
Captain Rahera casts Escort and Rough Seas, then pretty much everything runs forward. Slightly to my surprise, Joe has the light Warjacks screening his Scharde Pirates and not the other way around.

Turn 1: Minions
I also run my stuff forward, though I’m a bit more circumspect about it in order to respect the threat ranges of Joe’s front line. I’m not so worried about the shooting elements as that has me outranged anyway. I’ve deployed the Totem Hunter in a stupid place so it has to run over to the middle to get Grave Wind (I’d planned to start with it in the centre and run to hassle the flanks). Battle Host is also cast.

Turn 2: Mercenaries
Rahera upkeeps Escort and allocates one Focus to the Swashbuckler on my left. The Commodore Cannon slams Lug back and knocks it down. Various Powder Monkeys Empower the left Swashbuckler and the Blockader so they’re both full. The Blockader saunters forward and vaporises the poor Totem Hunter (100% player error on my side) and a couple of random Boomhowlers. The Swashbuckler charges through the Blockader and kills another.

Turn 2: Minions
The Soul Slave upkeeps Battle Host on Jaga Jaga’s behalf. Lug stands up and runs toward the action. The Soul Slave puts ghostly on the Boomhowlers; four of them run deep in preparation for their untimely death at the hands of their employer (they’re mercenaries, they knew what they were signing up for) and the rest move to get in the Blockader’s way. Boomhowler himself sings Cacophony. I have a slight activation order issue in that I’ve blocked Jaga Jaga from moving forward so the Wrastler puts Rage on the right Swamp Horror and takes a nice chunk out of the Freebooter. Jaga Jaga casts Signs and Portents and Rages the second Swamp Horror. She also Feats on four Boomhowlers, killing Aiyana, Holt, Lord Rockbottom and putting a little damage onto Rahera. The Swamp Horrors go in with crazy dice; the one on the right finishes the Freebooter and drops the Swashbuckler while the one on the left kills its Swashbuckler and smacks the Blockader a little. Finally, the Valkyries ding up the last Swashbuckler and Brine finishes it off. Sadly, I’m an idiot and don’t move the third Valkyrie into the right zone which would have allowed me to score. 0 – 0.

Turn 3: Mercenaries
Rahera allocates nothing but upkeeps Escort. The Monkeys fill up the Blockader again and the Commodore Cannon slams Lug to the ground again. Rahera Feats, charges Boomhowler through the Blockader and sprints back behind the house where she started. The Blockader repositions slightly and kills the last Boomhowler, Lug and the Swamp Horror. The Scharde Pirates use No Quarter and slam into my front line. 0 – 0.

Turn 3: Minions
Battle Host is upkept. Jaga Jaga casts Signs and Portents and backs nervously away from Rahera and the Blockader. The Valkyries begin the process of clearing out the Scharde Pirates (and are careful to all end up in the right zone this time) and Rorsh contributes too. Brine charges across and kills Bosun Grogspar and overtakes nicely around to deal with some more of the Pirates. The Wrastler kills even more to heal up and clear the Swamp Horror. Orin hits the Objective with Chain Lightning and the electroleaps kill all three Powder Monkeys. One of them kills him in return after falling from the sky from halfway across the board which was quite surprising. The Soul Slave puts Rage on the Swamp Horror and it goes all in on Rahera [edit: actually this isn’t allowed. Oops!]. Sadly for me she toughs the last attack and I have nothing left to finish her with.

Turn 4: Mercenaries
Rahera drops Escort and stands up. She then charges Jaga Jaga and burns through all my transfers. The Commodore Cannon slams the Swamp Horror but I’m less annoyed this time because at least the Horror has Steady. The Blockader walks round but can’t finish Jaga Jaga. 2 – 0

Turn 4: Minions
Brine annoyingly Frenzies into the Wrastler, taking out its mind. We discuss whether it is worth casting Signs and Portents and eventually decide that it is not. So Jaga Jaga kills Rahera on the first attack; she doesn’t get tough this time. Minions win by Assassination.

I really enjoyed that game, and of course each time I play Joe it is a pleasure. The Swamp Horrors were just as entertaining as I had hoped, though the dice were really on my side in my turn 2. Things I learned:

• Lug is probably best when he is actually standing up instead of being constantly knocked down and slammed back. I’ll try him again.
• My deployment and positioning need a lot of improvement. In particular it cost me the Totem Hunter before it could do anything more useful than waste some precious Fury casting Grave Wind on it.
• Boomhowlers were adequate as Feat targets in this list; they were good enough to contribute while also being high enough armour to make the Feat effective.

Painted Satyxis Blood Priestess

Here is the Satyxis Blood Priestess, a caster attachment for my Warmachine Cryx army. She gives allows your Warcaster to upkeep one spell for free which is quite handy for the Witch Coven – I always seem to be short of Focus for them, despite having literally the highest Focus stat in the entire game. Her main draw is on the sword though, as it has a variety of effects beyond the obvious. Notably, she can dispel ongoing effects on units, which can be quite useful to remove some of the more crippling spells from your own units (admittedly at the cost of stabbing one of them in the back).

The miniature is quite nice, if predictably cheesecake-y; it seems de rigeur for ladies in these games to go about with only a bikini top on. Presumably the Scharde Islands are really warm, and that hat is intended to keep the sun off and not to keep the Blood Priestess’s ears from getting cold. Anyway, I stuck with the black and pink theme that I used for the Warjacks and was rather pleased with the outcome. The skin tone worked out well on the body and arms but I couldn’t seem to get it to look right on her face. I stopped painting eyes on miniatures of this size long ago as they don’t really show up at tabletop distance, though their absence is rather strange looking in these blown-up photos.

Next on the painting table: Troll Whelps.

Warmachine / Hordes tournament report: Southside Steamroller (75 points); 03Nov2018

I recently attended my first ever Warmachine / Hordes (or WarmaHordes, or whatever… just Warmachine from now on) in Glasgow. Apparently this was the first Steamroller in Glasgow for something like five years, so it wasn’t only a first for me. I’ve got to admit that I was a little nervous for two reasons. Firstly, the Warmachine event scene has a bit of a reputation for taking their gaming seriously and I was worried that by going along and being really bad at the game that I’d be effectively denying one player per round a decent game. Secondly, competitive Warmachine is played on a Death Clock, meaning that it is possible to lose the game just by playing inefficiently. Joe helped me with the latter by giving me a timed game to practice, and I’m pleased to report that the clock was not an issue as he’d finished beating me long before time was up.

https://conflictchamber.com/#c7201b_-0b0g0r9DiRjpiXjq7d6R750k0m

Trollbloods Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] The Power of Dhunia

[Skuld 1] Jarl Skuld, Devil of the Thornwood [+30]
– Dire Troll Bomber [19]
– Dire Troll Mauler [15]
– Earthborn Dire Troll [14]
– Mulg the Ancient [22]
– Troll Basher [7]
– Trollkin Runebearer [0(5)]
Janissa Stonetide [0(4)]
Troll Whelps [0(4)]
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters (max) [19]
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (min) [6]
– Stone Scribe Elder [3]

My list is mainly put together as a combination of things I own, things I think look fun to play and things I think look good in an army. The only concessions to playing competently are the Runebearer (seems like a no-brainer choice for Jarl Skuld but has a boring miniature) and the Nyss Hunters (useful jamming unit in a theme force that doesn’t have any units, and anyway I already own them). The basic game plan is to move aggressively at the start and use Jarl’s Feat to block much significant attacking that turn. Then ram Warbeasts in with Rage applied and hope that the other force runs out of pieces before I do. The Nyss usually either jam or take shots of opportunity as needed.

Having a single list is a bit of a disadvantage as the other player can choose whichever of their lists will be best placed to face it. I did consider taking a second list but decided that would be a waste of time. I don’t have any experience with another list and even if I did, I’m not really sure yet when I would drop one or the other anyway.

Once I arrived in the admittedly rather ropey looking pub that was hosting us, I chatted with some other players and was pleased that I wasn’t the only attendee who was hopelessly inexperienced. I will note that I prefaced each game with an apology to each of my opponents for the likelihood of me getting some of the complex rule interactions wrong and they were all very cool about it.

Game 1: Andrew Murchie, Convergence of Cyriss

Scenario: Recon 2

https://conflictchamber.com/#cc201b_-0ilIdndndBd9d9dbdCdedfdfdgdz___-0id8dndBd9d9d9dedfdfdgdgdzdFdF

Convergence Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Destruction Initiative

[Locke 1] Aurum Lucanum Athanor Locke [+29]
– Conservator [12]
– Conservator [12]
– Corollary [6]
– Inverter [15]
– Inverter [15]
– Prime Axiom [38]
Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex [2]
Attunement Servitors [0(4)]
Elimination Servitors [0(3)]
Elimination Servitors [0(3)]
Reflex Servitors [0(4)]
Optifex Directive [4]

Convergence Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Destruction Initiative

[Axis 1] Axis, the Harmonic Enforcer [+30]
– Conservator [12]
– Corollary [6]
– Inverter [15]
– Inverter [15]
– Inverter [15]
Attunement Servitors [0(4)]
Elimination Servitors [0(3)]
Elimination Servitors [0(3)]
Reflex Servitors [0(4)]
Reflex Servitors [0(4)]
Optifex Directive [4]
Transfinite Emergence Projector [19]
Transfinite Emergence Projector [19]

Andrew selects the Axis list, presumably on the basis that it is better for dealing with a smaller number of tough targets. I choose to move first.

Trollbloods turn 1: My Theme Force benefit allows me to start the game with my Warlock’s upkeep spells cast. I have Quicken on the Bomber, Tactical Supremacy on the Krielstone and Weald Secrets on Jarl himself. Most of my force runs forward at top speed; Jarl dumps most of his Fury into the Krielstone.

Convergence turn 1: Many clockwork robots run at me. Iron Aggression is cast on one of the Inverters and a cloud of Servitors spread out to make my impact shooting irrelevant with all the Shield Guards.

Trollbloods turn 2: I think that I can take out the right side Transfinite Emergence Projector. The Nyss drop some Reflex Servitors on the left (they’re quite good at this since they ignore Concealment) and try not to line up too many nice sprays from the second battle engine. Jarl Feats to put his cloud wall in the way of Andrew’s central advance and casts Quicken on the Mauler. The Runebearer then casts Rage on it and the Mauler smites the Transfinite Emergence Projector with some Fury to spare. This does mean that I can’t manage to get the Runebearer onto my flag as I had originally planned.

Convergence turn 2: Axis Feats and swaps Iron Aggression on to the Inverter on the right; it makes short work of my Mauler. The remaining Transfinite Emergence Projector lines up shots on Nyss via the Conservator and kills a few. Convergence score a point from the flag and the right zone; 2 – 0.

Trollbloods turn 3: There’s not a lot that I can do this turn thanks to Axis’s Feat. I back off a bit to limit the damage those Inverters can do to me. Jarl kills a couple of Servitors with Magic Bullet to at least allow me to score my own flag but I can’t get anywhere near the other one. 3 – 1.

Convergence turn 3: Andrew could kill a load of my stuff here but he realises that he can just win the game via scenario instead. Axis casts Bulldoze. The Transfinite Emergence Projector clears the rest of the contesting Nyss. The Conservator pushes the Bomber out of the zone and the central Inverter kills the Runebearer; this allows Andrew to score both zones and his own flag. Trollbloods lose on scenario; 1 – 6.

Despite the one-sided nature of the game, I really enjoyed this. Andrew didn’t have to do anything particularly clever but he was very clear in his explanations as to not only what he was doing, but why he was doing it. This was really helpful – I learned a lot, and hopefully I can apply it in future games. In particular, it seems that I need to be a lot more aggressive against this kind of control list and just suck up the damage that inevitably comes after it.

Game 2: Stuart Fraser, Cryx

Scenario: Spread The Net

https://conflictchamber.com/#c4201b_-0B0WkA1u1hi22nf0f0dWhZh-h_h-h____-0UbY1k1f1t1e1u1u1v1v1v1h2k2nf02B2B

Cryx Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Dark Host

[Terminus 1] Lich Lord Terminus [+27]
– Barathrum [15]
– Seether [13]
– Stalker [8]
Bane Lord Tartarus [0(6)]
Necrotech [2]
Soul Trapper [1]
Soul Trapper [1]
Bane Riders (max) [20]
Bane Warriors (min) [10]
Bane Warriors (max) [16]
– Bane Warrior Officer & Standard [0(5)]
Bane Warriors (max) [16]
– Bane Warrior Officer & Standard [0(5)]

Cryx Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Black Industries

[Asphyxious 3] Asphyxious the Hellbringer [+24]
– Cankerworm [9]
– Nightwretch [0(7)]
– Reaper [13]
– Ripjaw [0(7)]
– Seether [13]
– Seether [13]
– Slayer [10]
– Slayer [10]
– Slayer [10]
– Stalker [8]
Machine Wraith [2]
Necrotech [2]
Soul Trapper [1]
Warwitch Siren [4]
Warwitch Siren [4]

Discussing before the game, it seemed that Stuart was rather more at my level of experience than other players attending, so I had high hopes to make him work for his victory here. He selected Asphyxious and I ended up with the first move again.

Trollbloods turn 1: Once again I start with Quicken on the Bomber, Tactical Supremacy on the Krielstone and Weald Secrets on Jarl. This looks like quite a live scenario and I know that Asphyxious can make his Warjacks move very fast so I need to get some table position before I get locked out of scenario. Jarl fills up the Krielstone.

Cryx turn 1: Everything moves up but the advance is rather more cautious than I was expecting.

Trollbloods turn 2: With help of Magic Bullet, the Bomber and Jarl clear out the solos on the right. The Nyss do a couple of massive Combined Ranged Attacks and cripple movement on the Stalker and drop Vociferon. I have no idea what Vociferon actually does, but it looked like something that was worth getting rid of while I had the opportunity. Especially considering the Carapace rule on all the Warjacks making the Nyss shooting a bit less effective. Jarl Feats too, covering the centre of the board.

Cryx turn 2: On the left side the Warjacks come in and clear about half of the Nyss; the Stalker and Ripjaw position to contest my flag too. Asphyxious uses his Feat. On the right, Stuart seems curiously reticent to engage Mulg, so I get to score my zone with the big chap; 1 – 0.

Trollbloods turn 3: Janissa charges in and drops the Stalker in one shot while the Earthborn wrecks the Ripjaw. The Nyss ding up the Nightwretch, Seether and Slayer and generally gum things up. The Runebearer puts Magic Bullet on the Bomber which scratches the paint on the central Warjacks and takes out the Warwitch. The Basher gets both Quicken and Rage and rushes over to smack the central Slayer. I’m not actually expecting to kill it; I just want to keep those Cryx Warjacks away for another turn. The Krielstone move into the central zone and I score 3 points; 4 – 0.

Cryx turn 3: The Seether tries to position for a drag on the Mauler but can’t because I explain the Whelp placement will stop it. The Seether comes in and hurts the Mauler anyway and contests. The Basher remarkably survives the attentions of the Slayer due to some bad dice on Stuart’s side. On the left, the remaining Nyss are killed off by Warjacks. I still score 2 point this turn to Stuart’s 1, so I get a rather surprising scenario victory. Trollbloods win on scenario; 6 – 1.

Well, that certainly went better than I expected. Stuart probably was too cautious with his movement, especially in turn 1. I don’t think that I have enough good attacks to deal with so many Warjacks coming across the board at me. By slowing down his advance, especially on my right, I was able to deal with the Warjacks in more manageable chunks. I was quite pleased that Jarl did what I expected of him, i.e. kill off some annoying solos and stop them from scoring or contesting. This was a nice, relaxed, fun game between probably the two worst players in attendance.

Game 3: Shane Frost, Circle Orboros

Scenario: Standoff

https://conflictchamber.com/#c8201b_-0p5v4QjGjF4H4H4Hg4g45gmVmV0U5e5e5f5f___-0WgM4B4B5H5H5H5H5H5H5HmO5g5g5f5f

Circle Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] The Bones of Orboros

[Wurmwood 1] Wurmwood, Tree of Fate [+27]
– Megalith [20]
– Wold Guardian [16]
– Woldwarden [14]
– Woldwyrd [9]
– Woldwyrd [9]
– Woldwyrd [9]
Blackclad Stoneshaper [0(3)]
Blackclad Stoneshaper [0(3)]
Blackclad Wayfarer [0(4)]
Gallows Grove [2]
Gallows Grove [2]
Farrow Bone Grinders (min) [5]
Sentry Stone & Mannikins [5]
Sentry Stone & Mannikins [5]
Shifting Stones [3]
Shifting Stones [3]

Circle Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Call of the Wild

[Una 2] Una the Skyhunter [+29]
– Gorax Rager [7]
– Gorax Rager [7]
– Scarsfell Griffon [8]
– Scarsfell Griffon [8]
– Scarsfell Griffon [8]
– Scarsfell Griffon [8]
– Scarsfell Griffon [8]
– Scarsfell Griffon [8]
– Scarsfell Griffon [8]
– Storm Raptor [34]
Blackclad Wayfarer [0(4)]
Blackclad Wayfarer [0(4)]
Shifting Stones [0(3)]
Shifting Stones [0(3)]

During the pregame discussion phase, Shane decided that he would treat this as a teaching game. I get the impression that he’s pretty good (anyway, much better than me) but was having a bit of a bad day at the office with results so far. He chose to use Una on the basis that it would make for a more entertaining game. I get to go first again.

Trollbloods turn 1: I start with Quicken on the Bomber, Tactical Supremacy on the Krielstone and Weald Secrets on Jarl. Jarl fills up the Krielstone and everyone rushes forward as fast as possible. No reason to change a ‘winning’ formula.

Circle turn 1: Shane’s force unpacks. It has a much bigger threat range than my army so the actually movement forward is not so much. Everything is still in range to do horrid things to me next turn though.

Trollbloods turn 2: The Nyss take a massive 10 person CRA into the lead Griffon but roll 1,1 to hit. That’s quite annoying as they could have done some rather good damage if they’d landed it. The Bomber and Jarl land a few hits on the Griffons on the left and Jarl Feats. Shane spends a good amount of time explaining and advising on good places to put my clouds to mitigate the effect of his next turn.

Circle turn 2: Una Feats and puts Hand of Fate and Primal on a couple of Griffons. Despite the inconvenience of the cloud wall I lose the Bomber and Janissa (though I expected to lose her easily) but otherwise get off quite lightly. The Storm Raptor moves to my right in preparation for electrocuting all my Nyss next turn. Circle score 1 points (back zone) while contesting my zone. 1 – 0.

Trollbloods turn 3: It takes a bit of work to unjam myself from the centre Griffon since it dodges away from my first couple of attacks. The Nyss put some damage onto the Storm Raptor. On the left, the Mauler finishes a Griffon and Jarl puts Weald Secrets back on himself and continues to shoot chunks out of the Griffon lurking behind the wall on the left. We both score for the rectangular zones; 2 – 1.

Circle turn 3: The Storm Raptor wipes out all the Nyss in a single go. One Griffon comes into the Mauler to trigger Flank but the Primalled one can’t get the job done and the Mauler survives on a couple of boxes. Shane scores the right and back zones while I score my rectangular zone; 4 – 2.

Trollbloods turn 4: The Mauler heals up by eating Whelps and kills the first Griffon and leave the Primalled one on a couple of boxes. Jarl takes a few wounds off Una with Magic Bullets bouncing off Shifting Stones and the Basher charges in to start hurting the Gorax in the middle. Mulg commits and smacks a Blackclad. Finally, the Earthborn is powered up with Quicken and Rage and rushes over to take a good chunk out of the Storm Raptor. We both score for the rectangular zones again; 5 – 3.

Circle turn 4: The Storm Raptor and Griffon make short work of the Earthborn but a Whelp survives to contest and even the Blackclad misses it. On the left, the Frenzying Griffon fails to finish the Mauler. The Gorax hurts the Basher rather inconsequentially. Once again we both score for the rectangular zones; 6 – 4.

Trollbloods turn 5: The Griffon on the left leads a charmed life; avoiding all my attacks to survive to contest again. Mulg goes in to kill the Objective and contest the rectangular zone and Jarl continues taking potshots at Una (I think I forgot that he has Black Penny so I could possibly have killed that Griffon). I score my rectangular zone and one for the Objective; 6 – 6.

Circle turn 5: The Griffon and Storm Raptor come in and attack Mulg but he turns out to be quite tough. The Mauler finally goes down but the Whelp improbably survives another round. Una pushes Mulg out of the zone so we both score our rectangular zone; 7 – 7.

Trollbloods turn 6: Mulg can’t quite finish the Storm Raptor; the Basher drops the Gorax. Jarl continues to pump bullets ineffectively into the Griffon on the left. We score a point each; 8 – 8 .

Circle turn 6: The scrum in the centre continues without any kind of resolution. The Griffon attacks Jarl but can’t make anything stick. The Whelp gets ignored in favour of the Blackclad desperately trying to deal with Mulg but failing. More scoring rectangular zones; 9 – 9.

Trollbloods turn 7: My last turn. The Basher attacks Una, killing the Gorax through transferred damage. Jarl kills the Griffon and moves to cover both the circular and rectangular zones. Mulg finally offs the Storm Raptor. I score both rectangular zones and the left circular zone. 9 – 12.

Circle turn 7: Una and the last Raptor flail ineffectively at the Basher and Mulg respectively. Scoring is the same as last turn so Trollbloods win 15 – 10.

I know that Shane was going very easy on me, but it still felt nice to come out of that with a win. I was quite close to running out of clock (less than one minute left) but since I had no actions left it didn’t really matter. I got cocky with Jarl a couple of times and Shane did point out twice when he had reasonably good chances to win by assassination so I definitely have some more to learn about keeping my Warlock safe while still being relevant. I’m very appreciative for the teaching opportunity, and I hope that Shane enjoyed the game process as much as I did.

So, in the end I got listed with two wins and one loss, though that should really have been two losses since I’m pretty sure that Shane could have beaten me if it had mattered at all. Either way that far exceeds my expectations for performance here. Overall I had a really good time and I’m especially pleased that the Warmachine gaming scene is indeed not as hardcore competitive as I had heard. Thanks to Andrew, Stuart and Shane for three fun games and of course to Allan for running the event and making it all happen.

Painted Barathrum

Here is Barathrum, a character Warjack to go in my Warmachine Cryx force. In this context ‘character’ means that they are unique for some combination of fluff or game reasons; anyway, I can only have one Barathrum in my army regardless of how cool it is. The main reason I picked up Barathrum as opposed to any other Cryx heavy Warjack is that it is specifically allowed in the Scourge of the Broken Coast theme force, and since that is the one I’ve been buying miniatures for, I figured that Barathrum should also be in my collection. So far, I haven’t seen any particular synergies that link Barathrum to the Satyxis (about whom more later) that make up the majority of the theme force so I assume that there is some kind of story reason for its inclusion.

I really struggled to get started with Barathrum’s paint job since it is covered in various layers and raised edges I was hardly sure how to approach it. In the end, I more or less painted from the inside to the outside with black for most of the carapace and bronze for the edging. Of course, I also used pink for some of the bits and bobs to bring a bit of colour to the otherwise rather drab machine. There are also elements that I assume are supposed to be actual bone so I painted them accordingly; this is probably because Cryx are the baddy faction and prone to adorning their stuff with skulls etc. Indeed, they’d look quite fine in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. One of the things I like about Barathrum’s miniature is that it is rather more dynamic than most Warjacks in the PP range. Barathrum is clearly advancing whereas most of the other Warjacks are just standing around like they’re admiring themselves in a gym mirror (I consider this particularly fitting since they generally give the impression of having skipped leg day a few times too many). There are meant to be a couple of tusks on the side of Barathrum’s head but I couldn’t get them to look good during assembly so they went straight into the bits box.

I dedicate this post to Azazel’s Mechanical November Challenge. I’ll admit that this is a bit of a cheat because I was planning to paint Barathrum anyway and it just happens to coincide with the hobby challenge; still, it’s not like anyone has any money riding on this so I’m going to count it anyway.

Next on the painting table: Hunzakut with Rifle and Light Grenade Launcher