A game at last!

I finally got a proper game in! We played at 35 points, I ran a Harkevich list I'd quickly thrown together. I was trying to bring more anti-infantry than my old lists, and also to try to play without my usual complement of focus-supporting solos. The Juggernaut is there for cheap armour cracking, and the Berserker is an independent unit that fills six points (I didn't really have any other models I could put there except mechanics and solos), plus I like the idea of having an independent heavy that can stray far from my caster if need be.
Harkevich
-Demolisher
-Juggernaut
-Berserker
Nyss Hunters
Thor
-Basher
-Basher

My opponent was playing Skorne:
Dominar Rasheth
-Bronzeback
-Gladiator
-Sentry
Agonizer
Gatormen
Swamp Gobbers
Paingivers
Some solos/UAs?

We played a scenario with two zones and two objectives that contest the zones. I won the roll-off and opted to go second. I chose the side of the table with a forest in the center so Harkevich could stand in it if needed.

He deployed centrally with his gators on my right. I placed the berserker on my far left, then the Nyss, the Juggernaut, Harkevich in the center, with the Demolisher then Thor's group on my right to face-off against the gators.

Turn 1
Everything runs up. He moves gators over to other side to get at Nyss.

I put out my upkeeps and toe the zones. As usual I positioned my intended Fortune target (the Berserker) too far from Harkevich, so I cast it on the Demolisher instead.


Turn 2
He kills some nyss with an AOE spell he arced through something. The AOE stuck around to do POW 12s to anyone that entered it.

The Nyss charge some gators and kill one or two (I got less charges than I could have because of the lingering AOE). The Bashers pronto up and shoot at the Agonizer: one boosts the attack and misses, the other aims and boosts damage for a total of three damage. The Demolisher can't get line of sight on the agonizer, so it shoots at  the Sentry with fortune and boosts the damage rolls, but rolls poorly on damage and does very little. Harkevich moves forwards enough to stay out of (or is that inside?) the killbox, but still toeing the forest. The Berserker runs up the far left side. The Juggernaut repositions to charge his Bronzeback if he kills the objective. I'm trying to keep my heavies safe from his Titans using the objectives, so if he destroys them I charge him.


Turn 3
He kills most of the Nyss with the gators (MAT 9), and the Bashers with the Sentinel. He kills Thor with the AOE spell. He destroys the objective on the left with the Bronzeback. The two surviving Nyss fail the leadership roll for casualties (to be fair they've already passed like 3 or 4 leadership rolls at this point; it seems Gatormen cause Terror or something).

Finally remembered to take a photo! The Agonizer is behind the ruin.

I can't allocate focus because of the Agoniser, and my heavies are too close to his Titans. Things aren't looking good, so I decide to just have some fun. The Demolisher Bulldozes the Sentry out of the way and moves past, taking a little damage from the free strike, and shoots twice at Rasheth. One misses and kills a Paingiver or something, the other hits. Pow 15 vs arm 14, but Rasheth only takes one dice from shooting attacks. I roll a two, for three damage. Which he transfers.

Now for the fun part: Harkevich feats and declares a charge at a Gatorman. He uses the feat shot to shoot at the Titan but at dice-7 does no damage (I didn't want to risk killing the Gatorman, unlikely as that was, as I needed the beat-back move). He kills the Gatorman with his charge attack (see, Nyss? That's how it's done!) and uses Beat-back to move up to the Agoniser. Which he kills. This handily leaves me with 3 focus (all part of my cunning plan!), which he uses to cast Broadsides. I forget to use Harkevich's own shot, but the Demolisher hits Rasheth again... and rolls a two again. This time he doesn't bother to transfer the damage. I was originally planning to charge the Bronzeback with the Juggernat in such a way that he ends up close enough for Harkevich to get the Escort bonus, but I decide to slam it instead, since at least that lets me kill a Paingiver. The Bronzeback takes no damage.

The two remaining Nyss move away from the Gators to clear up a charge lane from the Berserker and die to free strikes. The Berserker charges the two Gators, the charge attack hits and isn't enough to kill it (did not expect that!) and the second attack misses.

Hmm, looks like he's about to start scoring in the right zone...

Turn 4
The Bronzeback walks up and kills Harkevich.

He kicks sand in Harkevich's face.

Oops! I mean...

... he smacks Harkevich with his tusks.

Postmortem
Trying to flank with a Berserker doesn't really work, even if it has Pathfinder. I suppose I could have killed the Agonizer and camped 3 focus, on the feat, with the Juggernaut close enough for Escort, but I don't really believe that would have bought me another round. It was a fun game and I really enjoyed myself. It was my first time playing against Skorne, they kind of feel like Khador, but more so, if that makes any sense. Well, except for that Agonizer - how does such a tiny little baby elephant just shut down my army like that? Crazy stuff, but it highlights something about Warmachine: you can't just build a list to do one thing well, you need to have answers to different problems. From the sounds of it, one list can't answer all problems, which is why you have different lists in competitions. This game has many layers, huh?


After that game I lent my models to a Cryx player who didn't have his army. He had never played with Khador before. We changed the list a bit:
Harkevich
-Black Ivan
-Spriggan
-Juggernaut
-War dog
Koldun Lord
Nyss Hunters

Long story short, Black Ivan went straight for the Agonizer and took it out. The Gators murdered the Nyss even more thoroughly this time. The Juggernaut and Spriggan killed the objective and the Bronzeback under the feat, allowing Harkevich to toe the zone and score three points. Black Ivan charged the Gators and killed one and a support piece with the free shot. Even with an arm debuff partially countering the feat, the gators consistently rolled low and barely scratched him (not having the distance to charge helped), and on the last attack they missed, allowing him to use his dodge move to step between them and towards Rasheth. This caused him to keep his support models between his caster and Ivan rather than worrying about jamming zones. Meanwhile the remaining two titans together with the arm debuff spell just managed to destroy the feated Spriggan (the Sentinel missed once or twice - man that felt good!).

At this point the only models in the right zone were Harkevich, the Spriggan, the Juggernaut, a Titan, and a Paingiver. We discussed how best to clear the zone; the Juggernaut could throw the Titan out while Harkevich and the Koldun Lord could shoot at the Paingiver, but (with a little prompting from me) he chose a different path.

The Juggernaut moved away from the Titan over to the Paingiver, taking 6 damage from a free strike, and killed with a boosted attack. Harkevich charged the Titan and used Beat-back three times to push it out of the zone, leaving him to dominate it and win.


WOOHOO! My Spriggan killed a Bronzeback! Harkevich won the game using Beat-back! That's living the dream man! Yes, OK, that probably wasn't the smartest way to play it since it left Harkevich staring at a Titan, but it was fun. It was nice to see that my army can work when a good player is behind the wheel. Hopefully I'll be getting more games in from here on out.