Game 386 - Arkadius vs Mohsar

Blessed once more with the ability to travel independently, I did the infrequent in a blue moon trip for a Thursday game at the Joltasm.

Empowered by laziness and what to name my new car (Crapticon Mk 2 is accurate, but I think might take away from the individuality of the original Crapticon), I just used whatever list was in my bag. Ergo....

Arkadius' Good Tier at 4 - 2 of War, Road, Gun and Gorax, 6 Rabos at an appropriate cost, Targ, Bone Grinders
Objective: Arcane Wonder

Got a lazy game into Captain AD (Name legacy of a pun that still hurts me), who decided it was super Jank time.

Mohsar - Megalith, 2x Wold Warden, Croaks, Bloodtrackers + Nualla, Sentry Stone + Mannikins, Stones + UA, Pendrake
Objective: Effigy of Valorness

This game was arranged right after ADween got a Crevasse assassination on the bottom of 1 against Edeesus, so I had the fear. I reasoned that I should put up one upkeep and camp 5 or 6 Fury every turn.

Prewarning, I play this match pretty badly.

We were feeling lazy, so no clock.


Minion Deploy: I won the roll, suffered shock at this development and picked first. That brown circle is a forest, the green ones are hills.


Circle Deploy: Some Proxies, the Warpwolves are the Wold wardens, the shrimp on the right are the Croak unit.


M1: Before I deployed, it was clear what I needed to do. Move up a bit, have the RaBo's get into the troops, put Aggravator up.
The important part is Aggravator, which I promptly forgot to cast, instead Force Evoing the left Road Hog.

Derpa Derp.



C1: Trackers move aggressively up the left and get Mirage, Croaks hang back. A Mannikin runs forward and arcs a Crevasse to ding the left Road Hog and maul one RaBo. Sunhammer of sadness goes up, a pair of Pillars block the left Road Hog.



M2: Everything was happy in the land of Minions, then Pillars of Lameness crushed my dreams.
I opt for trying to get a War Hog up the board to threaten the opposing Objective, use one War Hog to clear the Pillars and the other to do a yoyo flamethrower going. Frenzy to clear Fury off to avoid Mohsars feat horribly messing me up.

I upkeep Forced Evo, as the extent of my mistake had yet to dawn on me. On the right side the War Hog pounds up the middle, three RaBo's go wide outflank and get LoS to individual Croaks.
The right Road Hog advances to the bottom of the zone, cracks one pillar but not the other (Boosted 7's are hard).

Left RaBo's run up with one charge killing a Tracker. The injured RaBo runs up, dies to Sunhammer triggering a Bacon heal and given Arkadius a Fury back.

Left Road Hog Assaults a Tracker, sets Megs, a Warden and a Stone on fire. Boosted damage roll does 3 point to the stone, I actually hurt Megalith a bit to my surprise. Roadie then casts Sprint, kills the Tracker and walks back.

One Gun Boar Riles and runs between the Road Hogs, cheerfully asks "What up Pigs?".

Arkadius gets boosted Spell range, advances, puts Crippling Grasp on the Croaks, feats. Road Hogs go into the Cheerful Gun Boar, one hits for good damage, Forced Evo one misses.
The RaBo's and front War Hog make some attacks and have fun.


This turn took way longer than it should. I hadn't read Mohsars card, so my own internal Sloth caused me a lot of grief. Sunhammer and Pillars are annoyance incarnate for the Ark. The worst part of Lot's apparent Harem is for the whole turn your constructing and altering a plan in your head, then Salt appears and overwhelms the delicate tactical flavours.



C2: Trackers Mirage around. Mirage/Sunhammer drop. Fire hurts Megs and cracks the Stone Unit.

Left Warden advances, puts Curse of Shadows on the left Road Hog.
Trackers attacks left Road Hog, kill with three models spare that then pop the remaining left RaBo's.

Megs advances into the top of the zone, Animus', Curse of Shadows the right War Hog.
Croak Raiders then Oil and hurt said War Hog.
Mannikins charge, first attack spikes awesomely and kills the War Hog.

Mohsar advances, creates more Pillars of sadness plopping down three, maltreats and camps three Fury.



M3: ADder contemplated a fourth Pillar, alas he opted for the safe angle and severely reduced my assassination odds. My long game was trash anyway at this point, so attempted Mohsar murder death it was.

I upkeep Crippling Grasp out of habit.

The War Hog and Gorax' destroy the pillars, the Road Hog then hurts for Speed/Pathfinder, Assaults Megalith, Flamethrower double boosts setting Mohsar on fire and doing half a dozen points.

Arkadius then Primal shocks twice at Mohsar, the first I boost damage and do ten points which he transfers. The next Primal shock misses, so I maltreat and sigh.

RaBo's poke at the Croaks.


Well, that was 14 year old asking a girl out awkward for an assassination run. I needed to land unboosted 7's for the Shocks and have good damage, at least it failed before I was fully rained of Fury.



C3: Fire does a few points to Mohsar.
Road Hog gets Curse of Shadowed and handidly killed by Megs. Forward Gorax gets Cursed of Shadowed, then dies alongside the forward Gun Boar to Blood Tracker shots.

Pillars form a line in front of the Gun Boar and War Hog, also trapping an engaging Tracker in front of them.


M4: Arkadius gets Sprint from Grinders, charges a tracker, kills her, puts Crippling Grasp on the Trackers because I'm a numpty and walks backward.
Gorax throws a Manikin into Nualla and leaves her on a box.
War Hog Massacres himself, charges the tracker in front of him, kills her and uses the Massacre move to clear a lane and pop a Pillar.
Gun Boar walks up, kills Nualla and Ancillary to pop another pair of Trackers.


C4: Fire puts Mohsar on two boxes.
Measuring Control, my poor Crippling Grasp attack meant that Arkadius was a few mill in range of a Megalith charge.
Mohsar Sands of Fate forward, puts Curse of shadows on Arkadius, feats.
Trackers, Mannikin Crevasses, Pendrake, Wold Warden pew pews mostly miss horribly, Arkady goes to 7 boxes with two transfers.
Mega charges, as he usually does on assassinations flubs it only hitting twice which post get transferred to the Gorax.


M5: Feat causes War Hog and Gorax to frenzy pointlessly.
Grinders put Primal on Gun Boar, who walks up to Mohsar and maxes Fury to kill him.


Eugh. What a shemozzle. I'm sold on the hilarity of the Mohsar list I guess (So many castings of Curse of Shadows...).

In hindsight, played properly this matchup would have been fine. Aggravator lets the Heavies engage and stop the shooty death, lights can go Pillar clearing Duty, forward War Hog kills the Objective while a buffed Road Hog takes out Megs, then I threaten the scenario win.

Probably going to flip to some more serious Merc/Cyg tourney lists, I've got variant Gorten/Durgen/eHaley lists in mind, though I really need to buy Acosta.

Wyrmbane hate

It's time.

The greatest travesty of Warmachines history, nay, since the conception of the Iron Kingdoms has occurred and is inviting endless pointless commentary. It is time for my authoritative, final and totally meaningful statements to render further discussion of the topic irrelevant for all time.

I write, as goes without saying, of that ultimate (ironic) blight, the Warcaster Chronicles of Venethrax titled "Wyrmbane"(1).

Yeah I know, its neither a batrep nor about that thing that happened, but I haven't slept and Computer games are making my eyes bleed.

Probably loads of Spoilers if that matters to you (2).

Some relevant perspective information, I love the hell out of some game setting based fiction. Even with my loathing of the 40k rule set, I buy loads of Black Library stuff, to the point that it took four books for to realise I hate everything Sandy Mitchell has ever touched, down to his favourite pair of jodhpurs (3).

For those who don't know, PP have a subsidiary company, Skull Island Expedition, licensed to sell short stories as pdfs. The format is normally a rolling form of series with different story sizes dependent on the characters value in the fluff (i.e Warcasters get novellas, Gorman and friends get what is legitimately a short story).

The standard is actually quite good once you accept the relative status quo of the setting (You buy for Iron Kingdoms detail, specific character goals and interplay, not world shattering plot or true high stakes). Even the books with the characters I regard with the same affection as a strangers loogie landing on my shoe are acceptable reads (4).

Wyrmbane was the first of these Novellas I couldn't read in one setting. Normally it's a quick skim through for a bit of the arvo, a quick afterglow of enjoyment then some painting or list Dojo, whichever factor was more inspired.

Instead, after my spirits were getting comprehensively corkscrewed like my third metacarpal (5), I elected not to headbutt a wall and instead re-installed Kotor 2 and put the expanded content fan patch on.

I then went and spent a day fighting distraction to finish the story, and now will try to distill what I hated so much about something that really doesn't matter (6).

Two key set pieces first: Immediately prior to Wyrmbane, I read Face Value, which is the story of Venethrax' Skarlock. I liked it, but ominously not where it involved Venethrax. If only I'd taken the hint. The second point is that this is the blurb:

Lich Lord Venethrax has spent over a millennium hunting Toruk’s rebellious spawn. With magic, might, and a vast network of spies, he has pursued the most dangerous creatures in Immoren. But now, on the eve of Cryx’s greatest invasion of the Iron Kingdoms, Venethrax has learned something unsettling—reports have surfaced of a new dragon on the mainland, one that has inconceivably escaped his notice. 

With a handpicked group of fearsome dragon hunters and helljacks, Venethrax will use Cryx’s invasion of Cygnar as cover for a secret expedition, one that will further prove his devotion to Toruk and affirm his own reputation as the bane of dragons.

Sounds alright yeah? I'm not having delusions of expecting adequacy?

We've got a magical necromantic Terminator hunting the settings nearest equivalent to Gods on Earth at the behest of his boss who might as well be the devil. I'm expecting something epic, or at least revelatory stuff about Dragons.

Your Honour, I call the accused to the stand. I present unto you the paragraph, witnessed in the locale of page 54 of 102, that finally rendered the reading apparatus of my brain torpid:

Grendov chose that moment to return. Smoothing his face, he knelt before Venethrax. 
“I have inspected some fifty trees.”
“Sufficient for now. What did you find?”
“Moss grows on each. Looks very normal. No sign of blight.The bark beneath is healthy and strong.”
As Grendov reported, Venethrax eyed the two ants. Theycontinued to act mindless.

Is that not a magnificent display of magic, might and a vast network of spies in action?
That's halfway through the book. It's not a small representation either, many pages either side of that paragraph consume the novella in the Cryx expedition recounting the boring portions of David Attenboroughs life.

Right, the specific issues:

First - You're told Venethrax is scary, rather than him being those thing with his words and actions.
Throughout the Novella, it is frequently inserted that Venny is weawwy scawy. The main carriage for this is his loyal minions expecting death, which is entirely undercut by the fact he does nothing to them and his minions disobey him constantly.
Grendov - His pet Skarlock, coming off his own short story (the point of which was that he has more personality than any other of his kind, and uses that freedom of will to do something he's banned from doing that V-man knew of and did nothing about just because) wanders into the opening section of the book and natters. Just natters. V-thrax threatens him twice, when he might as well have "This is the necessary exposition scene milord". That thing that bores audiences in movies. The sort of thing, in point of fact, that books don't need to awkwardly insert as statements the characters would never need to. I digress.
Dracia - Vaxes favoured Satyxis. Opening text for her first words:
“It’s time we got underway,” she snapped. Of all his servants, only Dracia could show such lack of respect in his presence and survive a moment longer. Her skills were that valuable.
Mid dangerous blockade running they'd embroiled in combat and she'd off a rival imperiling a mission, but whatever. Venny told her not to do it again.
Kankur - Vinthixes Necrotech, who flat out disobeys him by butchering a pair of Ogrun Guards for parts and gets warned not to do it again.
Reaper - Random Helljack that refuses to have its Tusk and rusting armour repaired, so Vendork decided a less efficient killing machine was sooo kewl and left it that way.

That's not interactions with your fearsome boss, that's how treat the idiot middle manager who doesn't actually contribute to the success of the workplace in any way.

Second - Venchump loses to trivial challenges.
This come out in three trivial ways, those being the aforementioned employees, his internal Cryx loserdom and those goddamn ants (7).
The Cryx internal issue is the small example of Lich Lord politics, were Ven Joyce gets schooled twice.
Initially, he rocks up to the Cryx blokes getting ready to punch the Swans in. Here's my sarcastic, shortened transcript:

Ven - Guys, I need dudes from your army to do stuff for the great Torukness
Terminus - A great Torukness to you to! Are we Liches not super kewl?
Ven - Truly, Cartman has nothing on us
*12 minutes of meaningless banter*
Ven - So....I need like....2 Bane Knight Units and one of Thralls
Terminus - W00t! I was ready for this. Here's a reserve battalion I prepared just in case you pulled this wankness!
Ven - That's....like....1 Unit and Thralls, thats not quite as much as I-
Terminus - Walk. Away. Now.
*Ven slinks off*

He then gets... not so much manipulated as lazily kneecapped by Daemortus, who was such an awesome Lich he got turned into a halberd. Essentially an opposing Skarlock freely and openly gets on Venlosers ship and lasts long enough to jeopardises the whole expedition before Ven-the-tardy finally kills him.

Finally, the worst part, the ants.

There are a number of fights in the book, some not so bad.

The worst one was exacerbated by the pages of slow paced boring Botany that preceded it.
A full on Lich Warcaster, Battlegroup and infantry get mauled and have to run the hell away from ants.

Blighted ants sure, but in an ant size. It was so surreal and demeaning to read from the awesome it should have been I spent an hour finding Cracked articles about how cool ants were to justify what I was reading.
http://www.cracked.com/article_19651_7-reasons-ants-will-inherit-earth.html
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-we-should-be-way-more-scared-ants/
http://www.cracked.com/article/82_5-species-that-seem-to-be-trying-to-take-over-earth/
http://www.cracked.com/article_16762_the-6-biggest-assholes-in-animal-kingdom.html
http://www.cracked.com/article_21035_6-amazingly-complex-military-strategies-used-by-bugs.html

I failed, especially, with the lameness of this line involved :

Darkness surrounded Venethrax. Had he been a living creature, he would have suffocated from the dirt filling his mouth.

Just bam in the middle of this......"action" sequence. Don't forget readers, HE DOESN'T NEED TO BREATHE WHILE THE ANTS AND DIRT OVERWHELM HIS ARMY.

But seriously, I do own 98% of the Skull Island Books, all the rest I enjoyed thoroughly.





1 - Obviously you're reading this in 2023, when the aliens have appointed this script in its rightful holy place as the ultimate in human writery. The joke here is PP did an errata. Hail Xenu!

2 - Just realised I've listened to the same 3 tracks by The Wombats 23 times on loop. Huh.

3 - If he lacks a pair, I will continue to hate his imaginary jodhpurs.

4 - Shaw and Taryn. Can't deal with it.

5 - Seriously, wear your seat belt, it'll save your life and possibly give you some mad bruising.

6 - It's little metal and plastic dollies people, get real.

7 - This is a D&D 3.5 reference to that damn crab. You're not missing anything by not knowing about it.

Game 385 - Dr Arkadius vs pMorvhana

Got in a game on ye old first workday of the week.

Chibix emerges with my old nemesis, the damn tree huggers, on Incursion.

pMorvhana - Stalker, Gorax, Stones, Bokor + Shamblers, Witch Doc, Totem Hunter, Blood Trackers + Nualla, 2x Croak Raiders, Blackclad

I decided screw it, I didn't feel that slow and I'd run a real list instead of the 6 man EB brigade.

Well, for a given value of real I guess.

Arkadius (NotB Tier 4) - 2x Road Hog, 2x War Hog, 2x Gorax, 2x Gun Boar, 6x Rabo, Targ


Circle Deploy: Hippies win the die roll, I can choose a Trench and forest or wall and water. I go with the Forest side.
This is as far as I got before January Errata hilarity emerged, now attempting to type through overwhelming schadenfreude.
Anyway, some proxies, that AD line of Circle infantry is actually two flanking Croak units with the Blood Trackers in the centre.
At the normal deploy line, everything central with beasts more to the left and Shamblers/Totem to the right. 



Pig Deploy: The base with an arm on the left is a Warhog who got snapped in transport.
My brain went blank in deployment on how I normally do it, I couldn't recall the last time feating bottom of 1 was a serious possibility, hence the weird block in the middle instead of a strung line along the deployment line.
Symmetrical deployment otherwise.



C1: Prey targets are the Roadhogs, left one by the Bloodtrackers, right one by the Totem Hunter.
Regrowth goes on the Trackers, Harvest on Morvhana.
Left Croaks clump around the left flag, trackers and right Croaks spread out. Totem Hunters run out front to the right.
Centre group pretty much moves straight ahead. Trackers get Zombified.



P1: I've got an assassination chance, but I eyeball it to be about 30%, so sod that (did waste much more time on it than I should've).
The Rabo's run up to frenzy spots.
Arkadius puts Forced Evo on the left Road Hog and feats. I frenzy The Roads, Wars, left Gunboar and most of the RaBo's (I miss #4 left at the top of the trench). The Rabo attacks kill a few Trackers and a glorious spike caps the Totem Hunter.
Arkadius the casts Aggression and walks up.
Left Gun Boar touches the forest and kills three of the left Croaks.
Left Roadie assaults into the Croaks on the left, the spray attack kills his charge target, stopping the sprint option.
Right Roadie advances, kills 8 Shamblers, two Trackers and leaves the Bokur on fire with one box.
War Hogs run around, Gorax' and Gun Boar form a wall of Bacon in front of Arkady.

That was not as well executed as it should have been, my real regret is that I couldn't line up a second melee target for the left Road Hog to get the Sprint going. I also could have boosted another two of the Spray shots on Croaks, but oh well.



C2: Fire kills the last shamblers but leaves the Bokur.
The Trackers and a pair of Shamblers re-emerge.
Left Croaks shoot up the left Roadie, I forget to Hyper Aggressive him, they don't do as much damage as I feared.
Morv feats and does the sensual backrub that is casting a Beasts animus on it for them (Sprint on the Stalker). She then hangs around the wall and has a smoke like all the cool kids do.
The Stalker gets ported forward, kills the Road Hog creating a forest and walks back a bit.
The trackers kill a pair of RaBo's, trigger Hyper Aggresive on the left War and Gun Hogs, then reform to jam that pair of models. The Gun Boar is now their Prey target.
The right Croaks roll appallingly, they cap one Rabo while another and the surviving Roadie Hyper into melee.



P2: I nab my fury back, I need to either kill the left Croaks or contest that flag to stop the scoring. Other than that I want to kill the Bokur, more Croaks and lessen the effectiveness of the Trackers.
Right Gorax moves out of the way.
Arkadius goes into the nearest Tracker, at which point Chibidoaur points out that Zombify means he can't kill it, so the Sprint plan in my head is awful. I hit with a boosted Crippling Grasp, cast Psycho Surgery and do a quick sob.
Left Gorax gets Sprint from the Grinders, kills the Blood Tracker engaging Arkady and Sprints to get in front of Arkady in a less than ideal way.
The right War Hog runs to complete operation Put-Pork-in-Front-of-the-Boss.
The back Gun Boar shoots the left War Hog to clear off the engaging Trackers, they both tough.
Targ ancillary attacks the War Hog, the Tracker toughs again.
The War Hog tramples through the forest to contest the left flag.
Preyed Gun Boar absorbs a freestrike, moves up and shoots down the Bokur.
Rabo on the right clears off Shamblers, Roadie then kills a load of Croaks with a spray.

Good enough turn, though I don't think I quite have the upper hand, Stalker can kill my left Warry, Gorax can pop my Roadie and returned Trackers can keep jamming.


C3: Sure enough, a bunch of trackers return.
Gorax goes to the right Road Hog, throws him into a RaBo (In hindsight an illegal move, but it doesn't do that much.
The Blackclad walks up and sprays at the Gun Boar and War hog. Does sod all damage, but crit Knock downs the War Hog.
It's kill Arkadius time apparently, plan being for Morv to kill the Gun Boar, Prey to cycle over, then the Croaks and Trackers to pew pew him to death.
Morv charges the Gun Boar and does 10 of his remaining 14 boxes, instead the Stalker has to walk up and finish it.
The Trackers and Croaks go, a combination of bad roll, Shield Guard, one transfer and some Hyper Aggresive means Arkady takes a mighty 5 points.



P3: Time to return the favour! Morv has one transfer.
A few RaBo's frenzy in pointless spots. The Road Hog has three Fury but passes the check to my surprise.
The knock downed War Hog lost its Spirit, so it just stands and hobbles out of the way.
The left Gorax throws a Bloodtracker trying to clear up the other Gorax, both tough. 
Arkady puts Crippling Grasp on Morv, then fully boosts a Primal Shock, does 10 damage and clears the Transfer. He then flees to the trench.
The Gun Boar kills some Croaks to free a landing spot next to Morv, wings her for about half a dozen points.
Road Hog Flamethrowers, she Sac Pawns to the Druid and I am sad.
Let War Hog tramples to her, buys an attack, hits and auto kills.

Had that failed, I had one unboosted War Hog attack and a Gorax throwing a Bloodtracker left.
War Hog that got the kill has been moved in the pic from next to Morv to being the forest for reasons.



Me on the left, some Clock errors in shipping at the end of game, had more than enough to finish it up.

I was surprised by the assassination, thought his attrition odds were a lot better. Happy with speed of play, Chibosaur was very accommodating with some of my sloppier movements.

Game 384 - Ossrum vs pGrissel

Then the next round into Garropolous, who'd rocked up for pickup games and been gracious enough to even the numbers.

He also had the misfortune of being the first list matchup that favoured my list.

Ye old Outflank circles appear.

pGrissel - Slag, Impaler, Kriel Warriors + all the trimings, Burrowers, Champs, Long Riders, Gobbers, Stone Bearer and droobs


Merc Deploy: Iwin the roll and go first for the first time, gloriously fixing up my potential scenario weakness.
We'd had a chat about what his best plans were, we settled on he could go for a scenario jam or surround me to open up the Ossrum assassination from having enough angles.


Troll Deploy: Burrowers out front, Champs central, Kriels left, Long Riders on the right.
I agree with the side selection, the convenient Linear on my side does nothing to stop an Earthbreaker assassination.


M1: Snipe on left EB, Bullet Dodger on Ossrum, EB's toe a zone each.


T1: Burrowers dig, Kriels hoof it up the left, everything else goes to the right, Grissel hides behind the Champs in the forest. Gobbers cloud up (Didn't have an appropriate 5 inch token, so no board representation).


M2: Grissel is hidden for now, so plan is to slow the Kriels and kill the Slag.
Left EB rolls minimum shots, kills a few Kriels and puts out rough terrain but is otherwise unimpressive.
Ossrum cycles Snipe to the right EB, who gets Tuned for damage. I screw up my eyeball, and the left torpedo knock down shot is a couple mill short of the Slag. I roll minimal shots again anyway, and kill a pair of Long Riders.
Bashers wall up in front of my small models.

Sillyness on my part, should have fired the torpedo at the Champ next to the slag, though given the paltry amount of shots it wouldn't have done much anyway.


T2: Slag gets Far strike and shoots the right EB, which also gets hit by all the Burrowers. The damage rolls are abysmal and the EB sits pretty good.
Everything else runs up, Grissel tops up the stone so is in the forest with 2 transfers.


M3: Finally, a chance to assassinate the way the list is designed to.
Bashers Pronto out of the way, Ossrum feats, the EB's knock down the Stone, Grissel and champs, between Tune up, max focus on the other and rolling 5 shots apiece on the nip guns they get the job done comfortably.



Me on the left.

I think this could be played to stifle me better, but it still isn't great for the Trolls. I'd run Kriels up the guts, Champs behind, Burrowers to the left planning to dig in for a turn 4 pop out, Riders extreme outflank on the right and Grissel staying behind the forest to live.

Game 383 - Ossrum vs uButcher

Got in on some Slammin!

Laziness ensured that the current list wasn't changing.

Ossrum - 2x EB, Thor + 2x Bashers

Opening round is into Edudo, with, alas, Butcher 3. Sound the alarm.

uButcher with Dogs - Ruin, Beast 09, War Doge, 2x Press Gangers, Hawk, Gorman, Saxon, Widowmakers, Great Bears, Bokur, Madelyn.

This isn't good, unless there's a horrible misplay the Reds trade up pretty well and 3Butcher with a Shield Guard/cloud are fairly resistant to my assassination.

Good old Close Quarters reports in.


Khador Deploy: Reds win the roll for an ominous beginning. The centre of the table quite open, I pick the side which has an obstruction I can hide behind in the killbox.
That's the widowmakers AD-ing on the left; then Pressgangers to the right of them. The central group is Beast, Gorman, Butcher, animal brigade, Madelyn, Ogrunite. Group on the right is Ruin and the Bears (Grrrr).


Mercenaries Deploy: Blank bases of power. Metal figure is Ossrum, painted bloke is Thor.


K1: The makers of Widows ran into the forest on the left, Pressgangers spread out. Butcher hides behind the cloud from the worst two points in the game.



M1: Things I really needed to die: Saxon, Argii and Gorman.
Alas, Edudo knows that and has kept them in way back spot. I decide to settle for trying to pop as many Pressgangers as I can and Beast.
Left EB gets Sniped and Tuned up for damage, knocks down the left unit lass (KD's Beast without risking damage to the Argii behind him or a Shield Guard from the Bokor). Nip guns go in to the jack, I roll pretty low and only do some cursory paint chipping.
Right EB throws out terrain and kills some Press Gangers.
I mess up the right EB positioning here, forgetting Ruins affinity bonus when I mathed the safe distance.


K2: Pressgangers get up in my grill and scratch my imaginary paintwork. Ruin, with full focus, gets Energisered forward, charges and takes the left side of the right EB. Everything else stands around in the centre, Butcher stays hidden behind the cloud.


M2: Simple enough, kill the heavy hitters and try to out Butcher, if I can keep both Breakers alive I can sacrifice one to get Butcher in death range of the remainder.
Plan is to have each EB down a jack, left Basher to Madelyn, right Basher to slam a Press Ganger and try to get in the way of the Great Bears.
Bashers get Prontoed to be base to base with Press Gangers, left EB gets Tuned up. Thor moves up as far as he can to be in command of the Left Basher going forward.
Ossrum feats and plinks a right side Press Ganger.
Left Basher uses his explosion, an unfortunate tough roll stops him being able to slam the Lass into Madelyn. He walks up instead, but is just out of melee and kills the Lass instead.
Left EB then goes, knocks down and kills Beast with ancillary damage on an Argii. Shoots the Basher with rough terrain to kill Madelyn bypassing Sucker!.
Right EB has three focus, attacks Ruin, leaves him with Cortex and Club.
I attempt to summon Scooby Doo for help, summon attempt fails.
Right Basher explodes, again a Ganger toughs in the way of a Slam attack, so he walks over to Hawk, boosts the to hit and pulps her.

I'm content with my choices, in spite of the failures. Or at least, I fail to spot better ideas.



K3: Butcher kills the left Basher, Energisers back and feats to camp. Bears go into the right EB as does Ruin, it is left with 7 boxes. Gorman Blinds the other Basher.The Widowmakers move behind the left EB and plink Thor, the first three a single in total, the last one does exactly 4 boxes to get the kill.

Forgot combat bonus, Gorman should have missed from Bears engaging. Cogsarnet.

Khador go to 1 CP.



M3: That's some straight up X-files style photography there.
Ossrum plinks a Widow, the EB's flail ineffectually.

Khador goes to 2 CP.



K4: Gorman blinds the left EB, Bears and Ruin wreck the right EB.

Khador goes to 3 CP.



M 4: I push stuff around, but ultimately can't stop Butcher getting the 5 CP so forfeit out.


Me on the left.

While bad, it wasn't as nightmarish a match as I thought. The trading on my end is delicate and I wouldn't pick this out of a pairing, but.....um....yeah. *insert insightful commentary here*

Game 382 - Ossrum vs eXerxis

My glorious return to Warmachine in 2016!

Or not.

In my valiant and almost willing journey to see the in laws in the most metal of holidays

....insert pic...

a truck decided a hospital journey was a better plan.

My partner and I were lucky (Wear your goddamn seatbelt, it will save your life and give an impressive stress bruise across your chest), but I broke my dollies hand.

A few days in hospital gave me time for some dojo (and the bemused adventures of Ferris, the confused old man who would not be kept down by the man), but that won't come up while I'm in a cast.

Anyway, courtesy of advice from the main boards I took a low model count ranged list.

Actual credit for said list goes to a Hardcore Player a while back who played Trevor Christianson some time ago (Pulled from a Chain Attack Tourney report).

Oh, writing will suffer, typing is maddening.

Ossrum (Searforge) - 2x Earthbreaker, Thor + 2x Basher
Objective: Effigy

Jeffoleon was kind enough to put up with my muppetness for a game on Fire Support.

eXerxis - Gladiator (Bond), Tiberion, Krea, 2x Nihilators, Animantarax, Tycom, 2x min Pain Givers
Objective: Fuel

This is bad, but at least it's not more Beast Heavy. As an assassination list Xerxis is an issue, under Krea and immune to KD makes me fall back on a dubious attrition game.


Skorne Deploy: I lost the die roll alas, Skorne took first. Animantarax on the right, Xerxy and beasts in the middle. left metal beast is tibbers, painted guy to the right of big X is Gladiator.


Merc Deploy: Like the pic.
I blu Tacced the bull clip on a base so I had something to grab onto.


S 1: It all moves up, X and Krea pop the anti shooting mojo. Sieger gets whipped and likes it.


M 1: Def 15 arm 21 immune to KD X man is outside my killing reach I think. I calculate that I can feat to get both Colossals shooting the Gladiator and, if that succeeds, be safe from Tibbers, after which I can clear up jams and beasts until Xy has to commit and die.
I need spikes at dice -8, but felt like the best option (again, not a great matchup for me)/
Bashers get out of the way, Snipe and three focus goes on the left EB, Damage Tune Up and a focus on the right. Ossrum feats.
They move up, shoot at the Gladiator for all they are worth and leave it on 4 boxes.

Sod.

I needed Spikes, which I didn't really get, I had to the left Sniped bloke further forward to get the torpedoes into range, so now Tibbers would be in range of one collosal regardless of Rush, but it was all I had.

I also tried to Pronto the Bashers and failed both checks. Bleurgh.


S 2: Xy feats, heals Gladdys Spirit, Mobilities.
Ignited, Feated, Enraged, Rushed Tibbers goes in and maxes Fury to kill the left Earthbreaker.
The Mindless Enraged Gladdy Rushes himself, goes into the right EB and takes out 2/3rds of its health.
Siegey shoots the right Basher for a bit, centre Nihilators do sod all damage but tie the heavies up. Left Nihilators run up the flank.


M 2: Simple enough, kill the heavies, force X man in then pray for Crit Decaps, with clock as a backup plan (Start of my turn was 46 min vs 33).
Tuned up focused EB kills both Heavies.
Left Basher explodes some infantry and clears a slam lane. Right Basher then slams him over more Nihilators and impedes X2 charge lane (My goal was to take up X's activation so I could have a go at the Krea to remove the last transfer target next turn and be "winning" in turn 4 to draw in the assassination).
Bullet Dodger goes on Thor.


S 3: Xer stays back, Ignites the centre Nihilators. Tycom moves up and Reviellies.
Siegy charges the right Basher for little damage, shoots down the left Basher and takes out the right side of the EB.
Middle Nihilators charge, leave Basher with a third health.
Left Nihilators engage Ossrum and kill my Objective. Paingivers run to flag but one falls short.

Skorne go to 1 CP.


M 3: I start the whittling down.
Basher hits the Sieger and explodes the tough two central Nihilators, then Prontos back a bit. Thor repairs the EB, who takes out most of the left Nihilators.

In hindsight should have killed the Sieger....


S 4: Tycom Reveillies, middle Nihilators trash the Basher. Left Nihilators tie stuff up. Paingivers get in on flag.
Siege gets Ignite, charges EB and takes out its right side.

Skorne go to 2 CP.


M 4: I have to kill the Paingivers and the Siege.
EB gets tuned up for damage and turns to face the battle engine. I get one shot on the good side. Boosted Quake torpedo misses Paingivers, I have to use a nip gun shot to finish off the last scoring model. The crippled guns don't hurt the Sieger.


S 5: Sieger kills EB, I resign.


Me on the left.

I actually like the list, but not into Skorne and quadruply so when it is X2.

Managed pretty reasonably with the hand, just need to get in the habit of putting token down after measuring movements.