The thing about traveling 300km to a tourney is you will inevitably face against one of your local players. Enter the motherland expat currently touring through Swan land on a temporary visa. It's Maddox and Caine2, given the last game was abruptly ended with James throwing pistol vaguely in Ossrums direction before exploding it was going to be Maddox all the way.
I briefly cavorted with putting down the Bunny Farm, then shot it in the head and jigged away with the excuse that Gorten into Cygnar needs to be practiced.
Gorten1 - 2x Gunner, 2x Driller, 2x Blaster, Wrongeye + Snapjaw, Rorsh + Brine, Aiyanna + Holt, Ragman, 2x Eliminators, Tinker
Objective: Bunker
vs
Maddox1 - Stormclad, 2x Firefly, Squire, Junior + Charger, 2x Storm Lancers (Max), Stormblade Infantry w/ UA and 2x Storm Gunners
Word of warning: The table is pretty. It isn't, however, conducive to Orange Cygnar being identifiable.
Scenario is Extraction.
I win the roll and pick second, giving me a side with a largish forest that looks ideal for Croc Star Crossed shenanigans. There's a large central obstruction that leans more to my side, one of the factors being that it would serve ably as a feat blocker for Maddox if the Swans had it. Lastly, there's a weird thing of barrels, which due to its non-Warmachine model nature was declared an obstruction for sanity reasons.
The Swans have a small forest, which would have been annoying for my slower force to work around, though it won't do that to the Cygnarites. They also have another large obstruction on their right, though given the battle lines we end up with it isn't an important feature.
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Round 1: Sure enough, the flanking Storm Lancers have no issues riding around the terrain and playing a Bugle march beat that I found threatening.
Left to right outside of that, there's a Firefly amongst the left Storm Lancer unit, Laddermore in the mini-forest, Maddox behind the green Objective Marker, Squire and Junior way behind her, the Charger to the right of the Objective, then the black undercoated Stormclad, with the other Firefly to his right. In front of that line of three jacks is the Stormblades.
The Stormblades have Dauntless Resolve, the Stormclad Assail, the Charger Snipe and the far right Lancers Arcane Shield.
Per the original idea, Crocs go behind the forest and Star Crossed. I blip out on casting Submerge with Snapjaw because I need Mr T to pity me.
One Eliminator chills with the Crocs, the other goes forward into Pony charge range, Acosta five inches behind her as I hope for her horrible gribly demise.
Gorten goes up to my objective, Solid Ground up. Dwarf Battlegroup go to his right, Strength of Granite up on one Driller.
One unit of Eliminators stays backfield, as I want them to be suicide contest pieces in future rounds. Aiyanna and Holt stare at them in bemusement, as usually they are off on a mission and not chilling with the support crowd.
The Pigs go behind the Obstruction, outside of the right Storm Lance line of sight. They get their with a smoke cloud pop, as I wanted Rorsh to maximise his amount of transfers.
Tinekr is far back, wishing his pile of rubbish included a copper rod (Wait.....is Khador essentially one Copper mine short of squishing the swans once and for all?!).
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Cygnar 2: Charger aims, pew pews Brine, though rolls poorly.
The Stormblades then get up in my business. One charges the suicide Kayazy, the others go into Brine or make Assault shots on the Driller. The heavy takes six points, Brine gets dinged up a bit but loses no aspects. Lastly, sadly, the Eliminator survives. They retain Dauntless Resolve and pop Iron Zeal to get fully armoured up.
The right unit of Storm Lancers just run to super flanking position. Rorsh files for copyright infringement.
The left unit, Laddermore and that sides Firefly all move up and do shots, the jack goes base to base with the flag to force contesting from me next turn. As I foolishly didn't Submerge Snappy, they kill the hidden Eliminator as well as the suicide one, though they certainly had easy options to kill them by arcing on friendlies. Alas, not being Melee attacks meant Savio's Vengeance didn't trigger.
This unit of Storm Lancers, clearly being in the thick of it, get Arcane Shield (The flanking unit can suck it up I guess).
Maddox, the Stormclad and Firefly don't move much, keeping shy of Gortens feat range.
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Merc 2: Simple plan this turn. Keep feat, these infantry mans are just a distraction at present, so clear them out as much as possible. Contest the left flag, kill everything on the right one.
Starting at the left, where Wrongeye finishes my stupidity by cutting himself for 1. He then crawls up behind the forest and pops Star Crossed, Big Croc riles and also slowly saunters up, using the forest to not get in Lancer charge possibility. They both Submerge this time.
Acosta runs into the forest, keeps in range to make Star Crossed relevant against the Lancers (Completely within 6, so 2 inch reach means you still get starry eyed and go into some manner of seizure). Green Eliminators run up, get in the way of the most forward Lancer and the Firefly. Quite sporting of them, seeing as how they stomped through the charred corpses of their body doubles to get their.
On the right, Aiyanna Harms the Stormblades as Holt caps one, annoying a Blaster to go up and kill another three.
Rorsh pops smoke and the Pigs bug out, which lets the other Blaster, Gorten and the Tinker put the unit down to its Standard Bearer.
One Driller, the one lacking Strength of Granite, moves up to Stormclad charge range, or as we call it "Bait bait bait bait bait bait would you like some bait bait bait bait bait". That probably works better with a beat behind it, but not by much.
Gunner combine to kill one of the flanking Ponies, Brine puts up his Animus and walks in to eat two Horse men and mostly heal up. I left Rorsh on full camp anyway, as he becomes the logical target. It most certainly raises the possibility of Brine Frenzying, but that's just how Lesser Warlocks go sometimes.
Cygnar 3: Damn, thought I was so good about taking pics. Oh well.
On the left, the Firefly shoots a Lancer, gets max bounces which is what was needed to clear out both Eliminators (Though the flag made them amusingly hard to get rid of without a Stormlance unit activation).
Laddermore walks up to get her Command range happening. The Storm Lancers then charge in, two go into Acosta, the other go into the Eliminators. The Kayazy die, their time cut sadly short.
Acosta kills two Storm Lancers and chills in the forest. Sometimes he gets it done. The Charger, fulfilling its destiny of being a royal pain, aims and gets a shot.
The Khadoran dice apparently know they are rolling for their fictional ancestral enemy, so it's a miss. I then dodge in the forest to have Laddermore block line of sight for the second shot. Whoop whoop.
On the right, the Stormclad continues to hang back, the Firefly moves up and toes the right flag, misses a shot on the Tinker (I'd positioned to stop any arcs going to him). The Stormblade charges in and flails at.....something?
On the extreme right, the pair of Storm Lancers charge and kill Brine, then repo backwards.
Swans go to 1 CP.
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Merc 3: What a silly point cede. I should have put the bait Driller into contest range of the flag. Hell, even an 8 inch threat only needs to be just shy of 3 inches from a flag to threaten any contesting piece.Good thing Acosta covers my mistakes.
On the left, Acosta uses Vengeance to.....pop out of the forest. Rare is it that I get the Vengeance as an attack roll.
Aiyanna and Holt shift across in the backfield, Harm Laddermore because she is the Darragh of Mark 3. Think about it. Omnipresent. Aura of evil. Undead. OK, just heartless, but moving on.
Holt shoots her and manages the dismount.
Blaster moves up, shoots Laddermore, the Firefly and a Lancer. Puts the evil one on a box, otherwise does little (He shot an ARM 20 Lancer. I wasn't hopeful on that one.).
Acosta goes in, the charge on the firefly is an average roll. Which is a load of damage because POW 13 Weaponmaster, but leaves a couple systems up. I opt to finish off Laddermore with his second attack, as her buff is bigger than a Fireflies? Right?
Snapjaw riles, Submerges and advances to max flag contest range.
On the right, something kills the Stormblade? Eh, whatever. I dropped Strength of Granite incidentally, wanted a touch more camp on Gorten while I fueled the right most Driller, who charges and puts down the scoring Firefly.
Still fearing a random loss to a gun assassination, I run the other Driller in front of Gorten.
Extreme right, Gunners kill one Storm Lancer. Rorsh charges the other, burns his Fury stack but leaves him on 1. SAD.
This photo was taken before my failure to activate Ragman was point out. Ragman had actually run super left, as he wasn't really needed and is an easy electro leap target. He starts mission distraction, runs to the extreme left of that sides Lancer unit (Waste attacks on me! Please! It's my mission right now! These rags have earthing properties right?)
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Cygnar 4: The left side Storm Lancers, still Arcane Shielded, charge in and pop Acosta. Rest well, you giant tool. I think the Firefly is kinda wrecked and just flag camps?
My fear of Gorten being randomly offed by gunshots proves to be a slight undoing, as Maddox feats and sends in the Stormclad, who trashes the Driller shielding Gorten and leaves the other a limping wreck. Said limping wreck then gets charged by......the Charger......it can do that? Isn't its name generated ironically? Anyway, I lose a Heavy to a Charger in melee and it's weird to me.
Maddox gets Arcane Shield from Junior.
The lone Lancer on the right tries to poke some little Piggy, but it was the wrong house.
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Merc 4: As a weird oddity of this game, I was well up on time per the clocks (10 vs 25 minutes). Psyche Major was going into speed turned mode, I did the same, as I've seen him do 1 minute successful turns to often and we'd jsut watched a game where both of us watched one of those dirty clock wins where a bloke with 3 minutes clocked out his opponent who had 15. Things do happen.
Regardless, my plan was clear, use my feat at last, start scoring and chipping at the Jacks.
On the left, Ragman advances and Deathfields in the middle of no where. Because I'm worth it.
Grimes, I like your weird aesthetic choices, your voice I think is a dealbreaker for your music. Sorry.
Snapjaw goes in and eats two of the left unit of Lancers. The Blaster chips the Firefly again, kills the last Lancer on that side. Wrongeye moves up and Submerges, which I again didn't do with Snappy. Good thing there's sod all Cygnar left.
On the right, Aiyanna Harms the Ironclad. Holt, Gunners and Tinker all wing the Stormclad. Gorten, having dropped Solid Ground as it isn't actually needed in the matchup, charges. Buy Forge Father attacks and does sod all, because that's how randomization mechanics work. I then feat, getting just the Charger and Clad, who I push backward away from me. Blaster moves up to score the flag, also wings the Clad, I believe he's left with an arm and movement, but could be wrong.
Extreme right, Rorsh finally kills the Storm Lancer. The Ponies are dead, and its great.
I go up 2v1.
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Cygnar 5: On the left, the Firefly wishes it was somewhere else, stabs something ineffectually.
On the right, the Charger gets up to contest the flag. The Clad doesn't make it. Maddox moves up behind them.
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Mercs 5: Left side, Snappy kills the Firesly with Deathfield assist. Blaster fails to kill Junior.
Between Harm, Holt, Gunners, the Blaster and Rorsh I shoot down the Stormclad and Charger.
I can only really lose on assassination, so Gorten runs backward.
Go to 4v1.
Cygnar 6: Maddox charges up, kills the Blaster on the flag. Quick Work shot and Lightnings Gorten. Junior walks up and shoots Gorten. They don't even get close, because he's to boss to die.
I get up to 5 on points and there we go.
Alas Drillers, we knew ye only for our misuse of ye. Content with Gorten into Maddox I think, though I really should line up Haley3 games (Blergh).
Anyway, 2v1 up, so still a game left in the day :-)
