Battle report Cygnar vs. Khador

Kommandant Gurvaldt Irusk

Well, my buddy Angel and I finally got to play our own Warmachine game over at Tenth Planet Games in Cedar Park. TPG is a new gamestore with a very friendly staff, three large gaming tables, and a small community that keeps growing.

Angel and I played the No Man's Land scenario from page 93 of the MKII Prime rulebook. Basically the entire oasis in the center of the table was in the No Man's Land and we fought over it as one of the precious water sources in a desert.

This was the setup of the armies.

I moved everything carefully forward. My main force was to pass the oasis on the right so they don't get slowed down - plus warjacks don't like to be in water. The Balck 13's shots on the Widowmakers were short, pEiryss failed to hit.

Angel moved everything forward and his shooting did no damage. I slightly started to get concerned about his pEiryss and the Drakhun Dragoon on my right flank. As expected, Angel's pEiryss disupted my Thunderhead.

Delighted by the fact that the Widowmakers didn't kill them, the Black 13 moved and killed them in return. My pEiryss disrupted a Khador warjack. In the center everything moved forward and Arlan Strangewayes power boosted my Thunderhead to shake off the disruption. Now I had two options: I could either commit my Thunderhead to energy pulse pEiryss (and the dragoon, too) - which was a very attractive option - or I could energy pulse all that Khador infantry tied up in the center. I decided to go for the jucier center, although this meant that pEiryss could virtually run unchecked.

In his turn, Angel charged in with everything in the center. The Thunderhead took some damage from the dragoon. Angel's pEiryss disrupted eHaley. The pikeman to the left ran to get into melee range with my pEiryss so he couldn't hit her in this turn.

eHaley walked into the oasis and popped her feat. The Thunderhead killed off the Dragoon and was free again. My pEiryss killed the pikeman and the Black 13 started to take shots at the Khador warjack near them. Arlan Strangeways performed minor repairs on the Thunderhead.

Because of eHaley's feat, Angel was seriously hindered in his turn. His major moves were to regroup his entire infantry in the center to bring more guys into close combat (one of them even managed to reach eHaley) and to kill my pEiryss with a template weapon (I think it was grenades from his warjack).

In my turn I gladly noticed that the Thunderhead was not in close combat and had tons of Khador infantry around him. All my units were immune to electricity except Rhupert Carvolo, so my Thunderhead said a big "Sorry Rhupert" and then used the energy pulse. Well, in this picture you see the few models that were still standing after that. The Squire moved a little closer to eHaley in a feeble attempt to minimze pEiryss' firing lane on my warcaster. The Black 13 shot Kommandant Irusk, but did minimal damage.

In his turn, Angel moved Kommandant Irusk back a little and killed Ryan. Irusk also popped his feat, but he should have done so earlier for greater effect. pEiryss continued to disrupt eHaley and the assassin fought with her in close combat, yet didn't do any damage.

In the center, my warjacks attempted to push forward towards Irusk, but this was a hard task because Irusk had a spell that made everything in his control range rough terrain, so my guys were very slow. The Black 13 continued to fire at Irusk, yet to no avail. Arlan Strangewayes ran into close combat with pEiryss just for the sake to stop her shooting for at least one round.

In Angel's turn, the assassin successfully broke off from eHaley and charged Arlan Strangewayes. Arlan was killed and pEiryss disrupted eHaley again. Irusk ran into close combat with the Black 13. The Khador warjack finished off my Stormclad.

In my turn, the Black 13 fought in close combat with Kommandant Irusk to no avail. My remaining Stormblades and the Thunderhead put the pressure on the remaining Khador warjack. When I ended my turn, we realized that eHaley and the Squire were the only units in the No Man's Land since the assassin moved to kill Arlan Strangewayes. I won by winning the scenario. ^^

Although it worked nicely, I am still torn if I made the correct decision on how I committed my Thunderhead. In an ordinary game, letting pEiryss run unchecked means loosing the game. Also my Thunderhead was lucky to get out of close combat again so he could use his energy pulse. I guess if the same situation arose again, I'd commit the Thunderhead to energy pulse pEiryss instead and then move back to the center to energy pulse the massed infantry.

Battlereport Cygnar vs. Protectorate of Menoth

High Allegiant Amon Ad-Raza

This was a pickup game with David Villareal over at Dragon's Lair here in Austin during its weekly Warmachine night. David and I played a 15pts game of Mangled Metal first - which David cleverly won - until we noticed that the store is open till midnight, so we decided to go for a 2nd larger game, too. We decided to go for a 35pts game and I was to face Amon Ad-Raza, a warcaster I had never faced before.

Warmachine night at Dragon's Lair in Austin.

David definitely is one of those guys you wanna play with. He greatly enjoys the fluff behind his Menoth army, he is beaming when his mischievous plans work, he is a great sportsman where both players can learn from their mistakes, he also plays units in Menoth you usually don't see, and he also knows to tell interesting stories outside of Warmachine. If you have the opportunity to play with this guy and you don't take it, then you're doing something wrong.

Just a quick remark concerning the Amon Ad-Raza model: I briefly touched it during last night's game and immediately felt how delicate it is. It has to be handled very carefully for the chain not to break off. I guess that puts it into the same cathegory like the Kara Sloan model.

David goes first and runs everything to/up the hill. His warcaster is running with his Warjacks on my right flank, so that's why I had pEiryss hide in the ruins in the hopes of at least disrupting one warjack so they won't punch me all at the same time.

I am always having a hard time with those Exemplar Errants so when it was my turn, I did two things: I just walked my army rather than ran (to stay out of charge range) and I moved eCaine aggressively forward in the center in hopes to kill at least a few of them. It paid off better than I thought; eCaine killed almost the entire unit and could also have killed the remaining officer if the last two shots had been more lucky. On the right, pEiryss was in range to shoot the warcaster so she disrupted him rather than a warjack.

Because of the disruption, David had basically no choice other than walking everything forward.

This was probably the decisive turn. My Gun Mages on the right used their Thunderbolt ammo to push back David's warjacks to buy even more precious time until the hammer hits. pEiryss on the right was not engaged in close combat with the monk, so she moved back and disrupted the warcaster again. The Stormclad ran to tie up the Knights Exemplar in close combat with his reach weapon.

In David's turn, the monk charged pEiryss and Amon Ad-Raza charged the Gun Mages. The Stormclad suffered wounds from the Knights' attacks.

In my turn, my infantry on the left flank first moved forward to open up firelanes. Then the Gun Mages disengaged from close combat with Amon Ad-Raza. Amon Ad-Raza killed all models with his free-strikes except for the officer who passed his Tough roll (from Rhupert Carvolo), so the officer lay knocked down on the floor still engaged in close combat. The two remaining Gun Mages (on the right) that never were in melee range stood and shot their very own officer, so with their aiming bonus and the officer's defense of 5 on the ground they were able to kill him off despite the penalty of firing into melee. However, adrenaline rushed into my blood when I had to make the Tough rolls again and it was the first time in my life when I thanked God for failing a Tough roll.

With all firing lanes open on Amon Ad-Raza, eCaine simply popped his feat, stood, shot, and killed.

So this was another great game with another great player. I guess David will do much better next time if he consequently hides his warcaster behind his warjacks, kills pEiryss as early as possible, and makes it very risky for me to move eCaine forward so aggressively because the return fire may kill him off. David also noted that he has Deliverers and yes, I don't like those. :-)

Conquest vs. Stormwall on BoLS

BoLS just posted a great video battle report today where you can see Privateer Press' Lyle Lowery play BoLS' Relasine as they both hit the table with the Conquest and the Stormwall. I especially like Relasine's paint job on the Stormwall, he did a great job there. However, he also did a great job on the infantry; in the video it looks as if his Black 13 merely have a black basecoat, but if you get to see them up close you get to see that they actually have some really nice layerings and shadings.

Wargames Con Warmachine Review

left to right: Lyle Lowery, me and Will Hungerford.

Looking back at how the WM/H games at Wargames Con were run and managed I have to say it's the best WM/H event I attended so far, although I have some issues that I am not totally happy about.

For the readers not familiar with Wargames Con I guess I should clarify a couple things first (or at least that's the way I understood them to be):

• The Bell of Lost Souls crew was responsible for the overall event, e.g. registration.
• The WM/H tournaments inside Wargames Con were run by the Texas Renegades. They were responsinble for the judging, timing of the games, and giving away the prizes.
• The people from Privateer Press (Lyle and Will) were responsible for the demo games with great support from the local Press Gangers.

Angel getting a demo game from Steven.

Those demo tables were really nifty and fun to play on.

Now with that being said, here is the list of things I really liked:

1. Registration was painless and the judges carefully checked all lists.
2. The judges did an excellent job supporting the players whenever a question concerning the rules or the scenarios arose. In the important tournaments/games that were about qualifications and winning the prizes they also actively patrolled the tables just to watch how everything's going.
3. Everything was calm, speedy, and efficient, which can basically be sourced back to the quality of the WM/H rulebook and the Steamroller rule set. The publication of the rules in the WWW and the use of chess clocks (we were allowed to use Privateer Press' very own) made a very smooth tournament. In the WM/H community we basically shook our heads when we observed how the 40K judges had to work their butts off and frenetically call the time and Dice Down over the microphone in order to manage the 40K events.
4. It was great to have representatives of Privateer Press on site, although this meant they had to work on the weekend. It's just great to talk to them directly and hear their views on things and is a sign of how well rooted in the community Privateer Press is. It's greatly appreciated.
5. As you could guess from my pictures above, the demo games were truckloads of fun - and everyone was even happier when they got to take home a free starterbox. I got myself the Trollbloods starterbox to start building a new Trollbloods army next to my Cygnar army. That way I have pretty much the entire Privateer Press universe covered and its initial boost with the free starterbox is greatly appreciated.

There is one issue where I see room for improvement, though, and I guess that's mostly based on the decisions by the Texas Renegades: the time table. Now I understand that running a tournament isn't easy and I am not saying that I could do it better. I also understand that the time tables published on the Wargames Con website in the WM/H rule packs may be subject to change. However, there were still incidents that I was not entirely happy with:

1. As I wrote earlier, I missed my third game during the Classic Hardcore because I thought it was lunch break. The judges basically canceled lunch break because they wanted to move on with the tournament as fewer players than expected showed up and only one more game may have been needed to determine a winner. This tournament was announced as a six rounds event, but effectively played were only four.
2. On the second day/Saturday I had only 20min for a lunch break as the schedule was sped up again.  This tournament was announced as a four rounds event, but effectively played were only three.
3. On the third day/Sunday, the Flanks For Everything tournament didn't start until 10:30 a.m. although the published times on the Wargames Con website said it starts at 09:00 a.m. However, once again only three out of four games were played again.

Now I know this is complaining at a very high level. I also know that players who choose to drop out after they have lost one or two games in the Swiss system are an issue. I also understand this may be an issue of cultural differences because locally the focus is on determining qualifiers and winners and not necessarily play out the entire time/game schedule. However, I have to say this still left a somewhat unhappy taste in my mouth and the reactions from some of my fellow players showed me that they had similar feelings, too. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe for most people the motivation to attend a tournament is to get in games and if they can get a prize on top of that, then even the better. However, they are basically there to play games. Cutting the games schedule definitely has its advantages and I have to admit, too, that I was glad when we could end a tournament early and relax. However, if I could pick the options I would still rather have a tournament with more breaks and all games played simply because I want to do the whole thing - after all that's what we're here for, right?

Wargames Con - Flanks For Everything

Well, here's my report for my last games on Sunday of Wargames Con. For Warmachine, Sunday was a split as the top players played their Masters and those less fortunate played their own Flanks For Everything (35pts, all scenarios with reserves). As it was appropriate for the event I sure did wear my new Privateer Press bandana. ^^

Will Pagani briefing the players for the Masters.

Game 1 vs. Roger Yohn (Retribution)

This game lastet only seven minutes in total. Roger basically rushed his Myrmidons forward and they shot eNemo who hadn't even left his deployment zone. From André Suwanda I know that I have to be really careful with Mage Hunters and their ranged attacks, so I found myself in a wrong sense of ( at least temporary) security when Roger had his Mage Hunters in reserve. He basically taught me that Myrmidons are excellent marksmen as well.

Game 2 vs. Nikki Andraka (Circle, pKrueger)

In this game I got to play one of the two female players in the tournament so this was probably my most charming defeat ever. ^^

My army moved into its first line of defense, Nikki moved her army forward, too, and also did the trick with the Shifting Stones that I knew already.

At the end of my second turn, my army had moved far enough to at least contest the various objectives and either be charged or charge in the next turn.

Also my reserves arrived from the east supporting my right flank. On the turn of their arrival they could not really shoot anything, but on the other hand they were also more or less save behind this building.

On her turn, Nikki moved forward and was mostly concerned with my Fireflies on the flanks. I didn't care because as long as the Fireflies were alive, I could still use them for my Triangulation.

On my turn, my Thunderhead moved forward and eradicated the druids with his Energy Pulse. Arlan Strangewayes moved into B2B with the Stormclad and repaired it so I was pretty positive about that close combat. My Gun Mages on the right flank moved in the hope to get a shot at the units in Nikki's backfield, but their shots still fell short. I also secretly hoped I may be able to throw the Woldwarden at Krueger in my next turn with my Thunderhead.

Well, unfortunately here it was over already. Nikki walked Krueger and the Woldwarden forward and showed me that they both have strong ranged attacks, too.

I guess after the game with Nikki it is very evident that I need to protect my Warcasters more. All my games during Wargames Con I lost because of casterkills (except two), so I need to change something about that. However, I generally don't feel like I am doing too much risky or offensive stuff, e.g. in this game I considered eNemo to be savely lagging behind. With a command range of 14" - although it is a rather comfortable one - I also don't want him to lag too much behind so he can still allocate focus to the Fireflies. Well, maybe I should run the Fireflies just closer to the center.

Game 3 vs. John Booher (Cygnar, Kara Sloan)

John played a classic Kara Sloan list that was filled with Mercenary Pirates for buffed shooting. In this game I really got to feel how (literally) tough pirates can be. A single model isn't very strong per se, but in a game where saving rolls still are the exception, Tough rolls for every infantry model make a difference and give them much more staying power.

Job won the dice roll, decided to go first, set up most of his army in advanced deployment and rushed them forward. As it turned out later, this was going to be decisive. My army moved to its first line of defense.

Our armies got stuck in close combat just south of the mission objectives (an imaginary 6" diameter measured from the two white circles). The battle turned into a war of slow attrition at the center line where both he and I were equally successful, but John started to score on the mission objective to the west.

Well, this picture looks pretty much the same except that John and I have less infantry. At this point John scored enough points and won the game based on mission objectives. :-)

Wargames Con - Steam Roller Qualifier

Well, the picture above pretty much says it all. ^^ Things started to go wrong already at registration when the judge looked through my list and asked me where my 10 points of reinforcements were. I hadn't planned any and just enlarged my collection to be able to play two different 50pts lists with character restrictions. I guess this is a cultural difference because in Switzerland/Germany the TO always explicitely announces when Reserves are being played and how many points you need for that. Here in Texas they just play Steamroller and you are supposed to know the rules well enough to figure out what consequences that has.
Either way, I had a leftover Hammersmith and Arlan Strangewayes, so that was reinforcements enough for one list and for the other a judge was nice enough to lend me his Gorman di Wulfe model. However, if you are somewhat into Cygnar you immediately notice how silly it is to have a Hammersmith (4" movement per turn) come from reserve.

Will Pagani explaining the chess clock - at least I was familiar with that. ^^

Game 1 vs. Hunter Dominque (Minions, Barnabas)

Hunter is from Louisiana and he brought a gator list with tons of crocs - now THIS promised to be a lot of fun. I have never played Minions before, so I had hardly any clue what he was going to do and decided to stick to my "standard program". To make a long story short: Hunter basically dominated me with movement so he was able to pick pretty much all the fights and not me. He did this by casting swamps right in front of his army every turn that he could easily pass through but that were difficult terrain for me. When my charge range of 8" is reduced to 4" there is only so much I can do.

This is how we set up our armies. The rings are the two initial swamps.

My army moves up to the first line of defense.

My army moves forward to the second line of defense and is dominating now the objective area, but Hunter's gators on the right side of the picture are also inside it with a toe. Barnabas pops his feat and knocks down my front line of Warjacks and Stormblades.

On my left flank, some crocs appear that have some flanking special rule that allows them to flank from reserve even if the scenario doesn't include it. They didn't appear too powerful to me, but by their number they were strong enough to finally take down my Firefly. With the center of my defense gone, my only assest left were the Thunderhead plus the Triangulation between my Stormcallers and the Fireflies. Unfortunately, when it came to do the Triangulation, both Stormcallers failed their skill check. 

Once my defense was completely dissolved, the Swamp Horror threw the Wrastler forward and he charged eHaley. End of story.

Game 2 vs. Derek Crass (Protectorate, pSeverius)

Well, another excellent game and if there were a price for sportsmanship, Derek would definitely get it from me. (this is not to say the other players weren't good sportsmen, they were all very good, it's just that Derek is an especially good sportsman!)

We set up and I run forward. Eiryss is sticking around the brown building to the right.

The Protectorate moves everything forward, too...

...and without me noting it first, Nicia moves on the left side into pEiryss and will actually kill her in the subsequent turn. I will hold the Colorblind Crusader personally responsible for me falling for this trick. ^^

The center of the game gets literally heated with the domination of the battle engine. Luckily I do really good dice rolls when it comes to test on the conitnuous effects and they all get extinct on a 1 or 2.

With the Stormcald gone, eCaine pops his feat and kills off the battle engine plus 2 additional infantry modells he has shots left for.

However, now the attrition really sets in and I have to give up the center while Nicia kills off my Gun Mages to the right with hit 'n run tactics. I have no means anymore to prevent Derek from taking the mission objective slightly to the right of the center of this picture.

The game ends when this Warjack shoots eCaine. pSeverius that can be seen in the background actually did stay in the background for the entire game. He didn't even need to pop his feat that caused so much chagrin on the previous day.

Game 3 vs. Colin Hill (Circle, pBaldur)

Colin is from Australia so we joked around saying that this is the international game and that we were basically supposed to be at the top table. ^^ Colin picked up WM/H in March so he introduced himself pretty much as a newbie - a very friendly, fun, and easy-going newbie I have to say - yet a newbie with a clear concept on what he was going to do. Of course he beat me. ^^

We set up and I moved forward. Please note the Shifting Stones in the background. I already knew them from Robert Deola, but Colin didn't take one unit of them, he took two so he had two intersecting trinagles. This was the key to victory because one trinagle could teleport a Shifting Stone from the 2nd trinagle as needed and then the newly formed trinagle could teleport a Warbeast pretty much anywhere. When I played Robert Deola so far I was also lucky enough that I never had to fight his Druids inside the woods - now against Colin I was about to learn what this means!

Here things looked still sort of good because my lines were intact. However, I couldn't capitalize on it because it was pBaldur's feat turn and everything within his control area was difficult terrain. For example my Stormblades that attempted to charge the Warbeast in the center just failed by 1 or 2mm to get into melee range.

Over the next turn, Colins Warbeasts dissolved my line of defense and then everything in his army that could shoot shot eHaley. RIP.

Looking back at this tournament I have mixed feelings. On the one hand I really enjoyed it because I had great people to play with. On the other hand it's kinda bitter because I thought I am used to play against Protectorate and Circle, but the defeats were just as devastating as in the game against the unknown crocs. In other words, my learning curve isn't steep enough. On the other hand, I never had problems handling the clock, actually even in Friday's Classic Hardcore the clock didn't really mean a threat to me. I guess what I currently need in my gaming group is not practicing with the clock to get faster, but a consistent list that I know by heart and that I am deeply familiar with. I have sort of reached this level with eCaine, but his lists are ever changing because basically I just built my army around him based on the looks of the models. eHaley was a complete fail because I simply lack the experience to make her work, so I guess she's gonna be shelved again.

When I start to play Trollbloods, the first thing I do is building lists meant to be competitive and then it's just a matter of going back into the trenches and accumulate more experience on how they perform against the various armies.