Meeting In The Middle

So I got a new mat. My old snow-themed mat really isn't great for photos, expecially with all my unpainted white-primed models. But the real reason I was shopping for a new mat, was to buy a cloth mat that would be easy to carry; neoprene mats are real nice to play on but a bit of a pain to carry around when you also need to carry a case of models and possibly terrain as well. I was worried that the cloth might slip around, and... yeah, it does. You need to be a little careful, and I think that it might be better to fold the mat to size when playing on an undersized table, as cloth hanging off the edge can get pushed around or possibly worse. So yeah, I'll be sticking to neoprene when possible. But this new one does look pretty nice.
Strakhov 1 (themeless)
- Torch
- Destroyer
- Juggernaut
- Greylord Adjunct
Nyss Hunters
Croe's Cutthroats

I believe Speedy is discovering the joys of list building and optimisation.
Cyrenia 1 (Exemplar Interdiction)
- Reckoner
- Reckoner
- Hierophant
Sevy 0
- Fire of Salvation
Exemplar Warder
Vassal Mechanic
Exemplar Cinerators (5)
- Officer
Choir (4)
Idrian Skirmishers (6)
- Chieftan And Guide


Pre-Game:
We rolled mosh-pit from the big book. Water is kind of a pain and hills don't exist anymore, so we used my water and hill templates as forests and created a nice symmetrical forest with a couple of ditches in a tactically-important clearing. Speedy won the roll and chose to go first.


Deployment:
Speedy bricked up, with a gap in the middle to solve activation issues. Rather than run down the middle into his shield-wall, I thought I could try circling around him to attack from different directions, so I put my battlegroup to my left and my infantry to my right. The Idrians declared Prey on the Cutthroats, so I responded by declaring Prey on the Idrians.
Round 1:
Speedy advanced, surprising my by keeping his Cinerators in two separate groups. He held his Idrians back, putting up a wall to protect the frontmost models. The Cinerators got Inviolable Resolve and the Tough battle plan. Superiority went on Torch, Sentry on the Destroyer, and Occultation on the Juggernaut (no real reason why tbh). I sent my Cutthroats on a long flank, in the hopes of threatening his squishies behind the shield-wall. The Nyss set up in a forest. My Battlegroup advanced, with Torch flanking to my left.
Round 2:
Speedy moved his brick to toe the zone. Realising that the Idrians were disadvantaged against the stealthy Cutthroats, he moved them back to a defensive position. Cyrena placed a wall in front of my two warjacks, limiting my options somewhat. With the wall in place I would need to feat to charge over it - although I'd probably need the feat to make it into melee anyway. It looked like I had a clear line to Cyrena; I considered swapping Superiority to the Juggernaut and sending him in for the assassination, but I wasn't feeling too sure about the odds and I didn't really want to end the game on the second turn anyway. Instead I decided to try to thin his Cinerators and use Overrun to limit his ability to strike back.

I allocated an extra focus to the Juggernaut and Destroyer. The Destroyer rolled hot on his Sentry shot and killed the Heirophant. The Cutthroats continued pushing up, taking a couple of back-strike shots into a Cinerator and leaving him on one box. I figured P0W 10, or even POW 15, wasn't likely to crack ARM 23, so I shuffled all the Nyss forwards to take one big shot into the injured Cinerator. Naturally the Nyss did what they do. I swear. Every. Damned. Time. It's always when I go for one big CRA that my Nyss just shrug and go "Nah". Anyway. Strakhov put Overrun on both the Destroyer and Juggernaut, moved up just enough to get some Cinerators in range, and Feated. Torch charged a Cinerator, failed to do any damage to anything with his flamethrower, then exactly met the Cinerator's ARM value on two damage rolls, and ultimately ended up not killing him (I think he passed a Tough roll and was left knocked down). The Juggernaut and Destroyer then went in, and managed to kill one Cinerator each. Using the two Overrun moves I walked the Juggernaut backwards (taking a fair bit of damage and being set on fire from free strikes) and moved the Destroyer up to help distract and try to block access to the Juggernaut.
Round 3:
After a whole bunch of Vengeance strikes my Destroyer was not in great shape - and that was before models even started to activate! By the time all the buffs had been handed out and the attacks made, all my jacks were gone. The Idrians moved to block LOS to Cyrena. Oh, and one Reckoner missed a shot at my Nyss. Cyrena was sitting on 1 Focus. If Strakhov was couple of incheces farther forwards he might have been able to charge a Cinerator and Overrun into Cyrena, but as-is I would have to go for a ranged assassination. So my Nyss Hunters took two CRAs: the first knocked down one Cinerator (creating a window for Strakhov), the second put 4 damage onto Cyrena. Strakhov was then able to walk up into gun range. I rolled two for the riot gun and put two double-boosted shots into Cyrena: one did 5 damage which was reduced to 0 with Focus, and the second did 10 damage which was shield-guarded. Finally I cast Battering Ram but missed. The Cutthroats advanced and cleared most of the Idrians but couldn't get any actual shots into Cyrena.


Round 4:
A fully-buffed Fire of Salvation took down Strakhov with just his initials.
Post-Mortem:
I actually enjoyed this game more than the last one. I'm not exactly sure why, but I think it's because it was faster and more streamlined: there were big swingy turns, desperate last-ditched Hail-Mary's; everything you want in a good game, without dragging on too long. The Idrians could NOT deal with the cutthroats, but the Cutthroats couldn't really hurt any front-line models except the Idrians (not without getting into their back-arcs anyway), so the two units kind of just cancelled each other out a bit. The Nyss Hunters had the potential to do damage if I charged them in, but dice-14 is intimidating even for charging weaponmasters. I probably still should have done it I guess? My dice were pretty poor on that big turn where I charged everything in, but were OK for the rest of the game and were pretty hot last game, so it all evens out in the long run. By the way: Speedy passed 100% of his tough rolls in this game! Talk about just rolling better!

I'm not sure what I should have done instead of charging the Cinerators with my jacks; the scenario didn't give me too many options after all (on the other hand I didn't have any solos to score flags with, so...). Maybe I should have fully-loaded up Torch and sent him in then yo-yo-ed him back, keeping the other two in reserve and giving up points for a couple of rounds? Then when the Cinerators wheren't blocking charge lanes anymore I could have Feated and sent in my jacks on his? I dunno, I don't feel like I'm playing Strakhov very well, I'm not sure if I should keep trying or if I should switch to another caster with more hitting power. The idea of bringing an army that can reliably crack armour is feeling very attractive right now.

The First & Last SR2021 of 2021?

So, Warmachine. I'm as surprised as you are. I wanted to run a simple list without too much support bloat. The idea was to leverage Torch's mobility to take out softer targets early, and soften up harder targets with shooting. Alexia would stand back and accumulate Risen, kept safe by Occulatation, until she could help finish off hard targets late-game after our forces were depleted. The Adjunct would keep Strakhov at 6 focus and allow my Destroyer to shoot at Passage'd warjacks.
Strakhov 1 (themeless)
- Torch
- Destroyer
- Greylord Adjunct
Nyss Hunters
Croe's Cutthroats
Alexia & the Risen
- Valachev

Speedy did a lot of research when putting together his list. I had never even heard of his Warcaster tbh, and it's been a long time since I read up on Protectorate models so I didn't really know what I was looking at.
Cyrenia 1 (Exemplar Interdiction)
- Templar (Proxied by The Avatar)
- Guardian
- Devout
- Hierophant
Severius 0
- Repentor
Cinerators
- Officer
Choir (min)
Exemplar Errants (min)
Knights Exemplar
- Officer


Pre-Game:
For convoluted reasons relating to how PP makes the rules available, we decided to play a mission from SR2021... on the last day of 2021. Problem is it's been a LONG time since I've read a Steamroller document, and I was too busy to check up on the rules before we started, so I was relying on Speedy as he had actually read the document. I think this was his first time playing Steamroller though, and it introduces a number of complications over the original rulebook missions, such as specific scoring elements only being scored by specific model classes, etc. So yeah, we were not too sure what we were doing.

Anyway, we rolled for mission and got Recon II. I did my usual crappy job of spreading out terrain symmetrically. I'm really not good at laying out terrain; a single piece of terrain in the wrong place can have such a huge effect on Warmchine, especially when the game gets really cramped in the center, that I tend to instinctively be very conservative; it just feels more fair somehow? I dunno. We used empty 50mm bases for objectives, but I forgot to bring something to use as flags so we used my Butcher1 and a barbarian to stand in for the flags.


Deployment:
Speedy won the roll and chose to go second. He picked the Observatory and I went for the Armoury. Prey went on the Errants.

Round 1:
I spread out my infantry, trying to keep my distance without staying too far back. Alexia ran out of Valachev's command area. While my original plan was to put Superiority on Torch, I decided to get cute and start off with it on the Destroyer and swap it to Torch next turn. This meant I couldn't put Sentry on the Destroyer, so I put it on Strakhov instead. Occultation went on the Risen. Strakhov charged the Cinerators for distance. The Adjunct put a cloud on Strakhov for no particularly good reason.

Speedy pushed up, handing out a whole lot of spells and buffs and things. The Errants used the objective to shoot at my Cutthroats and Nyss (we mistakenly thought it allowed the whole unit to ignore Stealth), leaving Alexia with 4 corpse tokens.

Round 2:
I made a lot of mistakes this turn. I used Strakhov's sentry shot to put down a random cloud on the off-chance that it would help me (though I was afraid it might actually inhibit the Destroyer if the scatter was unlucky). I was not happy with the +1 to EVERYTHING ALWAYS nonsense that Sevvy0 was handing out, and I realised he was in range of my Destroyer. It was kind of marginal without Superiority though; I could have activated him, moved up to take the shot, and then activated Strakhov to recast it on Torch, but I really wanted to use Overrun to move the Destroyer back to safety and I wasn't sure I could trigger it off anything else. So I activated Strakhov before the Destroyer, cast Overrun on the jack, and took a couple of shots at the Cinerators, dropping one to 1 box. The Destroyer walked up and was able to kill Sevvy with the bombard. I walked him backwards a little out of the threat range of the heavies, but because I had moved Strakhov up too far I didn't want to pull the Destroyer too far back so I left him more exposed than he would have needed to be if I hadn't gotten greedy with Strakhov.

The Cutthroats and Nyss Hunters took out all but one of the Errants and one of the Knights.Torch moved up to block access to my flag (or more specifically to the Adjunct who was now basing the flag). Alexia ran back into cohesion, and I used some Risen to further screen the Adjunct.

So I guess putting damage onto the Cinerators let them move 3", putting then in range to attack Strakhov (although I guess with Dash they were technically already in range since he hit one with a RNG10 gun). The Devout got Battle and Positive Charge and charged Torch; at P+S 17 it did more damage than I had originally expected from a light. Two Cinerators charged Strakhov and the rest went into the Destroyer. Torch and the Destroyer were both knocked down to around half health, but after spending focus Strakhov only lost a box or two. The Errants and Knights killed a few of my infantry. Cyrenia took the Repentor into her battlegroup.

Round 3:
Things were not looking too good for me; the lines had closed with me eating a (mild to be fair) alpha, meaning that I couldn't really take advantage of Strakhov's speed. His heavies were staring me down now, but eating free strikes from Weaponmasters was not an appealing idea so I couldn't really back away. I loaded up the Destroyer and Torch. The Risen activated to clear some room that I needed, and tried to jam the Guardian and Repentor - not a great plan against a spray, but what else could I do. Alexia also created a Thrall. I left Superiority on the Destroyer, using him to kill four of the Cinerators. Torch walked up and wrecked the Devout, then Sprinted a measly 4 inches back. Strakhov repositioned (out of the Killbox as I later realised) to put some distance between himself and all the heavies, failed to break armour on the injured Cinerator, and decided to camp his focus. My infantry finished off the Errants and most of the Knights, clearing the zone. The Thrall then ran up to distant flag.

I believe the Guardian trampled over the Risen, but was still able to kill Torch. The Templar charged the Destroyer, crippling most of his systems (including his cortex and axe). The Repentor killed an infantry model or two. The remaining Cinerators whiffed their attacks on Strakhov. The last Knight moved towards my Thrall; he couldn't charge as he was facing the wrong direction, and was just out of walking melee threat range.

Round 4:
My Nyss Hunters charged whatever they could and did nothing at all. The Cutthroats finished off the last Knight, then transferred Prey to the Choir as it turns out your can't put it on an objective. The Destroyer, at MAT 9, needed a 2 on one dice to hit a Cinerator, and whiffed. Alexia charged the Guardian in the back; her Risen actually did four points of damage iirc before she attacked. She started the turn with 17 Risen, and managed to kill the Guardian with just one Risen grunt left. The Adjunct managed to cast Frostbite on the uninjured Cinerator without having to roll on Strakhov, knocking him down to just one box - same as his friend. Strakhov killed one Cinerator, cast Overrun, killed the other, and then used Overrun and Sprint to head over to the other objective, trying to maintain his distance from Speedy's jacks. I chose to camp the focus, but I wonder now if I could have done something useful with Ram?

The Templar with Battle and Positive Charge easily finished off the Destroyer. The Repentor trampled up to Strakhov, killing the last Thrall and dealing 9 damage to Alexia. I could have kept Alexia alive on 1 health by sacrificing Valachev, but decided to keep Valachev instead. With a couple of bought attacks, the Repentor only managed to do a point or two of damage to Strakhov.

Round 5:
According to my scorekeeping, if I could score three points this turn I would win. So Strakhov simply ran from the Repentor, making it into the left zone. The Cutthroats charged the objective and were unable to kill it. The Nyss Hunters were unable to charge due to positioning issues, so they walked up and attacked instead, but were unable to finish it off. This left me a point short.

Speedy shuffled some stuff around, killing my Adjunct and objective. Looking at the score sheet, it seemed that I would be 5 points ahead at the end of my next turn so we called the game here.

Post-Mortem:
It was a VERY long game, and my recollection of the rules was EXTREMELY rusty, so were were constantly running into situations where I couldn't remember what the correct rule or interaction was, and we were pretty exhausted by the end of it. I think I was making mistakes in basic hit/damage match by the last round. I'm pretty sure we screwed up the scoring; I was ahead, but I'm not sure that I was 5 points ahead.

We got a lot of small things wrong or made silly mistakes. The Devout might have been able to shield-guarded Sevvy, for example. I should not have left Strakhov that far forwards just to try to put out some damage; that pretty much cost me my jacks as I did not want to pull them so far back as to be BEHIND Strakhov. Also I gave away two points to the Killbox.

I wonder if we should "warm up" to the game again using small-point games, so we sort out the rules in our heads and stuff; once we start playing faster and more confidently we can probably go up to 75 point games and get through them fast enough that the game doesn't feel like it's dragging.

Anyway, I want to get to play with Torch's Sprint, but he's just kind of pillow-fisted. It hurts to have my warjacks top out at P+S 17, but I need something like a Destroyer to trigger Overrun. So either I swap some infantry for a Juggernaut, I swap the Destroyer for Behemoth, or I swap Torch for something that can actually hit hard.

I mean, Torch is just so expensive. He's more expensive than Beast 09 now! He doesn't hit hard enough to be a melee jack, and he's guns are far too crappy for him to be considered a gun jack - he's a 17 point heavy with a 6" spra; the Repenter is a 7 point light yet has an 8" spray! Torch is not exactly a utility jack either; Relentless Charge and Flare do not feel all that valuable to me. They could at LEAST give him an Alchemical Mask! Well, immunities are nice sometimes I suppose.