Game 381 - Darius vs Cassius

Battle of the ius'! (There is no way that joke works, think of something better before copying to forum)

Exhausted from the powerhouse that is Midas Razor Boar Spam, we have a Darius into Cassius follow up from ye old Monday night.

Darius + Halfchumps - Sylyss Wyshnallyr, Stormwall, Centurion, Defender, Ol Rowdy, Junior, Black 13th
Objective: Fuel

Cassius - Stalker, Gorax, Stones + UA, Blood Trackers + Nualla, 2x Croak Raiders, Gallows Grove, Swamp Gobbers, 2x Effarits, Witch Doc Croc, Pendrake
Objective: Effigy of Valor

Two fronts, because that is the default in my warmachining life, now displacing Incursion I guess (Down with flags?)

Word to the wise, I was a little unimpressed with my play decisions and had hammered myself with filling skips on the danger ramp over the weekend, so instead of hashing a quick draft while details were fresh I decided to whip up Crusader Kings 2, net result being that at 5 am I nabbed an hour of sleep before work, so this is going to be blurry. On the plus side that no one cares about, in a very historical based game I think one of my kids is the closest you can get to being the anti-Christ, so that was nice (?!).



Circle Deploy: PROXY DOOM.
eKromac/eMorvhana = Efaarit scouts, those two flanking large bases.
The crossbow dudes on the left and the elves on the right, either side of the blood trackers, are Croak Raiders.
Alten Ashely, standing up the back next to the Witch Doc Croc, is actually Victoria Pendrake, applying some maybe its Maybelline.




Cygnar Deploy: I lost the roll, so situation normal for Darius. I called my spirit animal, the sloth, for guidance, so promptly stuck on the side I'd packed out on. Pro plays.
Stormwall, as the pathfinder model in the army, sits in front of the forest. Rowdy/Defender to the left, Darius, 13th and Centurion to the right. I had no AD, so counter deploying the central beasts and outlying Efaarit wasn't really full of impactful choices.




Circle 1: Look my horde,, isn't it amazing, give it a lick, it tastes just like raisins.
So you know, everything ran. Grove, Wormwood, Stalker all sat in the Gobber cloud and mocked me. The Blood Trackers become zombies.




Cygnar 1: Oh Croaks, why you want to hurt me so? Plan is to use the objective to shield against some of the croak on the left and kill as many as I can, have stuff hug terrain or the Fortified Stormwall to not be Hellmouthed forward.
Fortify goes on the Stormwall, Arcane Shield on the Centurion. Ryan gets craned forward,
Stormwall puts covering fire around the Cygnar objective, kills a pair of Croaks on the left. Defender aims and pops a left side Croak.
13th move up, Ryan waaaay out front, Magestorm and a snipe shot kills four Croaks.
Centurion runs to the wall on the right to contest the enemy zone next turn.
One Hlafjack holds back, one runs behind the right wall, one goes to a pointless mine position at the bottom of the left zone.




Circle 2: It's kill the Stormwall time (noooooooo!) apparently.
Cassius gets teleported forward, then the Stalker becomes a green proxy base and pushes him forward an inch. Cassius then casts Curse of Shadows on the Stormwall, having now got in range, then teleports back and grabs his tree and feats.

At this point it turned out the Croaks didn't have pathfinder for the Cassius forest of doom (Marked by the blue tokens as the outside rim of the forest).

Blood trackers surge forward, ping the Stormwall, the Croaks scatter a blind forward onto the Colossal, both units have trouble getting all their shots in, the Stormwall took about 25ish boxes spread amongst its sides and columns. The Efaarits also ping in, the left one holds back, the right one light cavs to engage the Centurion.

One Bloodtracker also engages Ryan.



Cygnar 2: This turn is where the flubbing began. I had loads of time after such an activation heavy Circle turn, but I hadn't and apparently couldn't conceive of a plan.

Killbox was an issue, and none of my positioning was great for it.

The Centurion walked into the right zone, engaged some Craks and Polarity Fielded. The Stormwall went left, poded a Tracker to tough and whirled up shots to kill the left unit of croaks. I roll one shot either side, then proceed to only kill one Croak. Effective 19 point activation right there.

Rowdy ran to the front of the Colossal and screamed "Kill me instead".
The defender took out a Croak on the left unit.

The Black 13th killed one tracker and missed both shots on the Efaarit scout.

Darius feated, walked into the forest to get in the killbox, feated back to heal the Stormwall. The Halfjacks ran around like ditzes, two of them try to annoy the right Efaarit.

Junior moves Arcane shield to Darius.

So the play error that was annoying me was I'd be an activation out before I'd remember to lightning pod. I'd already given some take backs, so wasn't orally troubled by it but irritated at the poor play on my behalf.

Had I turned the Centurion, he could have been in a position to free strike the Efaarit and stop it just walking away. I could have fed more focus to the Stormwall to ensure Croaks died, but I have a paranoia about being killed by Stalkers. I'm sure there's some math about keeping Darius safe, but it wasn't good times regardless.



Circle 3: Curse of shadows hangs around. The trackers and Croaks hit the sotrmwall for a point under half its health, all systems active. The Stalker gets Primalled by Cassius and kills Rowdy. The Gorax kills the Objective. The Gobbers move up and cloud. Cassius toes the Cygnar zone.

The Efaarit on the right engages the back 13th, Ryan gets stabbed by a Bloodtracker and dies. One tracker also gets a javelin shot on Junior, hits but doesn't break armour.


Circle goes to 3 CP.


Cygnar 3: I have to contest the left zone or lose and get rid of more of those damn croaks.

Darius fails to repair the Stormwall, buys jackhammers until the two blocking Blood Trackers are dead.

Stormwall walks up, Powerstrikes the Stalker and kills four Croaks. Defender pot shots the Gorax for a chunk of damage. Lightning pod causes a tracker to tough and kills the Gobbers.

Watt does three points to the Efaarit, Lynch misses, hits Watt and kills him. Passes his command check for his friendly fire.



Circle 4: Stalker stands up, kills a Stone with a Frenzy attack. Fire takes out the Gorax' mind. Cassius heals it for a point, primals it, charges the Stormwall and does a bunch of damage. Gorax charges and finishes it off.

Circle go to 5 CP.




Me on the right.

Well ahead on time, El Chibino doesn't normally run an infantry heavy list so time was always going to be on my side, but he actually had plans for his turn whereas I just waffled.

Time for a list experiment.

Going to drop the Defender/Sylyss, add Squire, Ace and Gorman.

I like the Defenders big gun, but Ace should, in theory, be better at infantry sniping, and Infiltration could be something Darius would like from time to time. Squire added control range likely to be more handy with the light jack sniper, Gorman gives me the worst two points in the game after the errata (FACEBOOK POSTS ARE NEVER WRONG MMMKAY), hopefully adding damage against collosals and a Def debuff against this Def 14+ beasts, the worst spot to be to Jackhammer most of my jacks.

A part of this is also my own armchairism, I've stated since release that Ace isn't the right choice with Caine, but maybe he plays better than I read. The James Bond list isn't changing, so the WC man can take him for a spin (By god that 7 points is agonising though).

Game 380 Midas vs pMakeda

So, life decisions are not always my strong suit. Ergo, while listening to the Midas episode of a Matter of Pact, I considered a list using my 14 Razor Boars.

And thus the following tale of woe, feat stupidity, spiked damage rolls, pantlessness and dismay:

Midas (Tier 4 Butchers Block) - 2x Road Hog (One deceased), War Hog, 14 Razor Boars, 2x Bone Grinders (Min), Slaughterhousers
Objective: Fuel

Once more Two Fronts slides out onto the table, wherein the Bacon Brigade ran into Oh Jeffrey's Mak list.

pMakeda - Molik, Gladiator, Animantarax, Puffy Pants Marketh, Paingivers (Max),Cetrati (Max), Agoniser, Nihilators (Max)
Objective: Arcane Wonder

We played without clocks, ensuring my slender grasp on non-euclidean space entities remained tethered to the hunk of rock flying through space (WE ARE AS GERMS ON A BOUNCY BALL FLOATING IN NOTHINGNESS).



Midas Deploy: It took three rolls, but eventually I won and picked first. Regardless of terrain I wanted to get this stuff moving up the table, the lack of easy ability to run models ensuring my advance wouldn't be to quick.

Had I gone second, I would have run more Rabos and done an Arkadius style conga line relying on threshold 3 checks, but that definitely didn't feel like a great plan.




Makeda Deploy: Beasts to the left, infantry to the right, Animantarax and Cetrati holding either flank.



Midas 1: I advance move my heavies, run six Rabo's to be the front screen and otherwise walk up the beasts and run the infantry behind.



Makeda 1: Junk moves up, Defenders Ward goes up on the Nihilators, Savagery on the Cataphracts. Molik nestles behind the Skorne objective, while the nihilators skirmish forward on the right zone.
The Animantarax also gets whipped by the Pain Givers.



Midas 2: That Agoniser has to die, my list is 90% beasts with sod all damage. Otherwise I want to neuter Molik and shield Midas. I'd theorized that there'd be some guns killing a couple RaBo's early for Bone Tokens, that obviously didn't pan out.

The Grinder units go, one gives Midas Craft Talisman, the other pops Sprint on the Road Hog.

The Road Hog arcs up for speed, charges a Nihilator, boosts to hit and damage with the spray on the Agoniser and does six points and fire. I um and arr a bit here, I want Midas to camp at least 3 in case of Moliking, then decide it is worth it so I max the Road Hog boosting to hit. He lands on the Nihilator who fails his tough check, then walks back with just enough movement to get behind the corner of the wall.

Midas moves up to the wall, boosts a Bad Blood into Molik and lands it. Two RaBo's go into the Nihilators, popping one. On the left zone one RaBo goes around the Skorne Objective to be annoying for Molik, the other charges him, boosts to hit and cranks the hell out of the damage roll, leaving him one box in the Mind Aspect (So close to pure awesome....)

RaBo's then walk up in front of Midas, while the War Hog and a couple RaBo's go up in charge range of the Skorne Objective.

About this point it becomes evident to me that I need the Slaughterhousers on the right to deal with the Cetrati and they run to an awkward spot behind the Road Hog.

My dice were quite good this turn, but I suffered from imperfect positioning on the opening turn. The Slaughterhousers should have moved diagonally early, and had I ran the Road Hog in place of a Razor Boar he could have proced the free charge off the Fuel objective.

As it was, I'd thrown four RaBo's as time wasters, dinged Molik, camped three and in significant Fury misplay had four on the Road Hog. I like RaBo's as Molik blockers, they don't threaten him overly but take up two attacks to kill normally so make effective side step screw uppers.


Makeda 2: Fire does nothing to the Agoniser. Both spells upkept. The Animantarax charges the RaBo on the left side of Molik, splats it with embarrassing ease. It rolls up three shots, tries to pummel the War Hog, Def 12 never felt so good as it misses twice. The last shot is fully boosted, cranks it massively to take out the War Hogs mind.

Cranked rolls this game: 2

The Nihilators jam forward in the middle a bit and stab at the RaBo's in the right zone, they kill one and lightly ding the other (It should be noted Jeffeano is the master of hitting RaBo's for about six damage in column 2). Another went into one of the line up of RaBo's in front of Midas and take out its Mind.

The Cetrati Shield Wall Forward with Savagery, two hit the Objective down to 7 boxes and get set on fire, the others stab at the line of four RaBo's in the bottom of the right zone, the right most loses his body, the second last loses his Body and Spirit.

The Gladiator rushes Molik and moves to the edge of the hill. Makeda moves up on the hill and feats. The Paingivers have a go at the RaBo on Molik, they all miss. I name that RaBo MVP of the game at this point. Molik kills the MVP and fatewalkers back a bit.

Lastly, my favourite play. The Agoniser screams for reduced Threshold and runs to be with range of the Road Hog. I didn't even know they could do that, and I love this move, I think it was my favourite thing to see all game.

I didn't lose them, but should have kept the RaBo's in the right zone base to base for bacon just in case, I noted this for later turns.




Midas 3: Woot for Bone Tokens! Plan is to send the War Hog into the Objective and the Animantarax, kill the Agoniser, RFP some Cetrati. I'm not going to have a high model kill count, as I'm not going to expend Slaughterhousers on Nihilators, I really need their hitting power to kill those shield walling tools.

I upkeep Bad blood, because it's not mad love, he should look at what he's done, now he's got Bad Blood.

Get out of my head T-Swizz, your no friend of mine.

I strip as much fury off the Road Hog as I can, the Agoniser gambit pays off beautifully as he frenzies. He randomises onto the engaging Cetrati, and just manages to get the charge into him (Had I randomised onto the Nihilator I would have been unable to get over the wall and failed to get an attack.)  The Road Hog, inspired by the Animantarax, misses the Def 12 model.

The surviving forward RaBo also frenzies and misses the Nihilator. Ominous pair of beginning rolls for the turn.

Midas casts Massacre on the War Hog, heals him for a few points and moves to be out of attack range of reach over the wall, as Molik remains a real fear, the Road Hog artillery no longer available to get more damage going on him for the Bad Blood combo.

Now we play the War Hog mini game. I need the Massacre move off the Objective to get into the Animantarax. I need to bust the Objective with the charge, can't risk forcing for strength in case it takes my body out. I send the first of two available RaBo's into the objective, once more spike the damage roll to leave the Objective on 7 boxes.

Cranked rolls: 3

Now I'm in a dangerous spot. I can send another Rabo in to soften, or rely on getting a boosted 9 with the War Hog. I decide the RaBo is better odds and gives me more flexibilty with the War Hog if it spikes, so I send it in. It rolls well, leave the Objective on 1 box. Booyah.

War Hog charges, auto kills the Objective, Massacres into the Animantarax, maxes out its Fury to kill it off (Did miss twice, because defence 10 needs to be nerfed).

The various RaBo's move around the wall and bottom of the Minion friendly zone, they finish off the Agoniser and manage to damage the two left most Cetrati, one also kills a Nihilator to make space. I send three Slaughterhousers in, between then they crank their damage rolls to wipe off two of the medium bases.

Cranked rolls: 5

Grinders move into back field jam to protect Midas and the back half of the Slaughterhousers.

Midas goes to 1 CP.



Shorts turn 1: In the middle of Skorne turn 3, I dropped a dice from a tough roll. My shorts failed their don't-split skill check, so I was now in the shop with little desire to stomp around. Any play errors from here are clearly distraction caused and not because I play like an absolute monkey.




Makeda 3: Fire goes out on both Cetrati. Dammit fire! Defenders Ward upkept. One Nihilator emerges from feat (Celebrate good skorne times come on!).

Makeda puts Muzzles the War Hog and casts Carnage, then sits happily on the hill.

The Nihilators move around, they kill the brave sacrifice piggy, ding RaBo's against the wall/in the left zone and one does a point to the Objective, getting set on fire. One kills a Slaughterhouser, then Berserk causes another to tough.

The Cetrati Shield wall again, killing the injured RaBo's on the right most side of the board. One hits the objective again, fails to hurt it and gets set on fire (again).

There is some deep thinking and frequent control area measuring to determine that the Gladiator has the tightest of landing spots and distance, but can get to the Road Hog without Rush. He does so, then maxes out his Fury to kill it.

The Paingivers charge the two RaBo's in the left zone, with Carnage they hit and remove both (Piggy sadness...).

Molik moves up, hits the War Hog with his initials to leave it on 4 boxes, side steps to kill two RaBo's in front of the wall then Fate Walks to be behind the Gladiator.



Midas 4: I rip fury off the RaBo's, the War Hog frenzies but fails thanks to muzzle. Simple plan, go Gastonne on these monsters terrorising the town and KILL THE BEAST(S)!

I upkeep Bad Blood, if Molik lives then hopefully his usefulness will be limited, the Gladiator on the other hand must die.

Various RaBo's move throughout the turn, the important things they do is kill the non-shield walled Cetrati on the left side of my objective and knock down a Nihilator next to the Gladiator.

One Grinder unit gives Midas Sprint and flail at a Nihilator. Midas then charges the Gladiator, kills the Nihilator to make sure I trigger Sprint, then goes down to 2 Fury to kill the Gladiator. Soul Food triggers and makes Bad Blood a laughable upkeep, as I decide to put Calamity on Molik. I wanted to put Battle Lust on the housers, but mucked up my positioning and didn't have line of sight to them. Calamity lands, Midas sprints to again be out of Reach attack range of the wall.

The right side Grinders block up the Cetrati, three Housers go into Molik and easily remove him from the table, Makeda didn't reave off the Gladiator so was stuck with no Fury on the table.

So this was mostly a great turn, except for my Midas play, especially positioning wise. The Bad Blood thing isn't so bad, the wall placement was awful and I should have feated. I got greedy, wanting to feat as much as possible back, when they should have popped back this turn to shield Midas and get a dream spray on those Pain Givers. Makeda even had no Fury and had taken Bad Blood damage, so a lucky flame thrower hit could have ended it here and now.



Makeda 4: Fire again does sod all and goes out. Makeda cuts for 6. The Paingivers charge and kill the War Hog, The Nihilators clear off Grinders and Slaughterhousers. The Cetrati unjam and put a hit into the last RaBo serving as a transfer target.

It's assassinate or bust,Marketh moves up, lands the 8 to hits, cranks the damage roll to kill the RaBo and over flow back to Midas.

Cranked rolls: 6

Makeda moves up. Lands the first Muzzle with an unboosted eight. cranks the damage roll.

Cranked rolls: 7

Midas has 5 boxes left.

Makeda tries the last unboosted Muzzle, misses by one.



Midas 5: Oh god oh god oh god, I'm going to die. It is now my own assassinate or bust.

Midas moves up, curses Makeda, lands a Calamity and misses a boosted Hex Blast. I feat a huge clump of Bacon around me.

A few of the Rabos move out of the way making attacks at Nihilators. Both Road Hogs aims, between them they kill a four or feated back RaBo's. More importantly, between Calamity and Cutting/Bad Blood damage Makeda die.


This game was awesome, but buggered if I'll run this list again any time soon. The time and finickiness was nightmarish, between RaBo damage, Bacon healing, setting aside for feat, Bone tokens and Reaving, it definitely isn't powerful or efficient enough to master I don't think, I was lucky that Jefforro was a champ of patience as I had four odd things whenever he put down one of my shoddy 2 point lessers.