Swapping Playstyles

Back in Mk2 I was quite fond of Lady Aiyana and Master Holt. It's a great looking unit, with an elegant decorative style, Holt looks cool with his bladed pistols and his rules and stats lived up to his appearance, while Aiyana's debuff spell was an incredibly powerful tool. But in Mk3 it became much harder to justify taking them outside of a Mercenaries list as the main reason to bring them, the Kiss of Lyliss, became friendly-faction only. Still, I've been thinking about running them lately, and the other day I had an idea. I've been having a hard time getting the most out of the Cutthroat's Prey, and was wondering if it was worth throwing it at a jack early. Then I realised that if I couple it with Kiss and Brittle Frost that becomes functionally POW 16 shooting; against an ARM 18 Cygnar jack, that's doing 5 damage per shot! Couple that with Holt's pistols and that's an average of 35 damage, enough to one-round a Cygnar heavy!

Of course I should take some more quality shooting just to be sure; since I'm pulling out some old models, how about Harlan Versh? He could be very effective if the target jack has an upkeep on it. But that's a lot of delicate pieces I would want to keep alive for multiple turns, so the best Khador caster to run them under would be Strakhov 1. But he'll only protect them for one round, and even then there's ways to ingore Stealth, so I would need some shield-guards. The High Alert card would help, but it wouldn't be enough, so how about Alexia 2 and a unit of Legion of Lost Souls to both stand in front and also catch bullets? Plus that amounts to a +6 damage swing for them, putting them at effectively POW 18!

Obviously I'd need the Blessing card, and I chose Infiltration and Hit & Run for extra defense. Finally I chose Old Faithful over Power Swell, since I was only taking one shooty jack and no repair models. This all sounded like a very silly and janky list that would probably catch someone by surprise and win the first time I run it, then probably never again.
50pts Unlimited Khador
Strakhov 1
-Destroyer
Lady Aiyana and Master Holt
Croe's Cutthroats
Legion of Lost Souls
Alexia 2
Koldun Lord
Ol' Grim
Harlan Versh
*Blessing
*High Alert
*Hit & Run
*Infiltration
*Old Faithful


I told Karas I was running a Strakhov gunline, and he finally succumbed to the urge to run a jackspam list; it's something he's mentioned wanting to do even though he knew it wouldn't work very well.
50pts Cygnar Storm Legion
Huxley1 (Electrify, Jackhammer)
-Courser (Advanced Deployment, Mag-Bolter, Voltaic Punching)
-Stryker (Arcane Precision, Voltaic Javelin, Heavy Mag-Bolter)
-The General
Arcane Mechanics
Sharpshooter
*Blessing
*High Alert
*Infiltration
*Old Faithful
*Sentry Duty


Pre-Game:
We took a quick look at the Battleforge Customs 1.2 scenarios (by Alif Cheng). On a whim I chose the Extraction scenario. I tried to set the table up in a slighly less symmetrical way than I usually do while still having an overall uniform spread; I chose to put some terrain in the very center, but not something that would be too punishing. I don't know why I have such a hard time laying out terrain... Karas won the roll and chose to go second.


Deployment:
I put Strakhov in the center to ensure he could cover my entire army with his feat, but closer to the forest since he likes concealment. Ol' Grim also went close to the forest. The Legion went in the center with all my important units and solos behind them. Karas deployed in a block to my left. My Cutthroats went behind the forest. I declared The General as their Prey target.

Round 1:
I ran everything up. The Legion went as far forwards as possible, while everything else tried to get defensive bonuses. Strakhov cast Assail on the Destroyer, then Feated and ran forwards to cover the entire army.

The General ran to the left objective. Huxley and maybe the Courser shot the right objective, leaving it on a few boxes, then Huxley used Jackhammer to destroy the left objective with The General, giving him a point.

Round 2:
I upkept Assail and allocated one focus to the Destroyer. I started by activating the Koldun Lord, who successfully landed Brittle Frost but did no damage. Aiyana and Holt went next; Aiyana landed the Kiss but Holt rolled low for damage. Next the Cuthroats activated, walking out of the forest and doing a fairly poor job as well. Harlan Versh activated, but without an upkeep on The General he did very little damage. Alexia tried to land a Hellfire (which would have been effectively POW 18) but missed. Ol' Grim tried his hand, and also fell flat on his face, missing one aimed shot and doing very little damage with the other.

Mathematically speaking The General should have been VERY dead by now, but it just wasn't happening. So much for that plan. I activated Strakhov, aimed, and cast Hand of Destruction on The General. I rolled three shots on the Riot Gun, and with damage boosts plus Hand of Destruction killed The General with the second shot. I put the third shot into the Stryker, then... somehow had two focus left? I... must have forgotten to pay for something? Anyway, I cast Convection at the objective but didn't do any damage, then repositioned backwards. I played High Alert on the Destroyer, who walked to within 3" of Strakhov and put a double-boosted Bombard into the Stryker. Finally the Legion of Lost Souls charged the Stryker and cranked their damage rolls, killing it! I scored two points for killing two undamaged jacks.

The Mechanics moved in and shot at the Legion, but only managed to kill one. The Courser hit Strakhov with his armour-piercing gun, but the Destroyer took the shot, taking 9 damage iirc. Huxley then shot Strakhov, doing 8 damage. The Sharpshooter took a shot as well, but missed.

Round 3:
Prey went on the Courser. I dropped Assail but forgot to allocate focus to the Destroyer. The Koldun Lord walked up and landed Brittle Frost on Huxley, but did no damage. Aiyana landed Kiss, but Holt didn't do all that much with his guns. Harlan Versh rolled four shots, missed two, and only did around 3 damage with the ones that connected. This was turning into The General all over again. Eventually, between Ol' Grim, Strakhov (who landed a boosted Hand of Destruction and remembered to use the Infiltration card after activating), the Destroyer (who didn't have any focus for boosting the damage roll), and the Cutthroats, I finally managed to take Huxley down. I think it might have been Croe who got the final shot, doing a single point of damage and also ensuring that Huxley wouldn't have been able to cast any spells next turn. I was planning to have Alexia buff the Legion's damage and walk them in if I couldn't finish Huxley with shooting.

Post-Mortem:
That was a silly but fun game, where we both played lists that felt better suited to each other's factions. I had a janky shooty list and Karas was running very unoptimised jackspam, so he was facing an uphill battle. The mission was a bit of a weird one, I didn't end up liking it; technically I won by points, because caster kill wasn't a win scenario. It's weird though, because I can see situations developing where you would run out of ways to score points and essentially have no way to win; I guess at that point you play to draw, or just conceded? That wouldn't be very satisfying. I need to spend more time looking at scenarios.

I was careless with Strakhov, running him dry; I really need to get used to resisting the temptation to use all my caster focus. It was a bit scary, facing down armour-piercing guns without any focus. In retrospect I could have protected him better; if I had put High Alert on Versh instead of the Destroyer, I could have replaced him with a Thrall with Shield Guard, allowing my to block two shots instead of one. Also I could have stayed within 3" of Old Grim, who benefits from Alexia's aura and thus was also a shield-guard. I kept forgetting to transfer Prey, and also forgot about Volume Fire on Strakhov. Oh well. Karas forgot that the Courser had Advanced Deployment, didn't put out his usual upkeeps, and he might have forgotten about the Eyeless Sight card (I'm not actually sure if he every had a chance to use it). Tournemant-winning players we are not.


Last game I said I was done with Strakhov, but I have to admit I felt as if he worked this game. He did pull his weight when so many models weren't; rolling a lot of Riot Gun shots will do that I suppose. Still, I think it's time to move on. I've had my eye on Butcher2, and recently I've been considering Vlad2 (who on paper looks like he has some similar gameplay elements). Most casters want faction infantry though, so realistically I need to start playing less mercs and get some more Khador stuff ready for the table. Eh, we'll see.

Hail Maries Are Fun

I played very carelessly last game, so I was happy to get another game in, hopefully I would actually remember to pay attention to little things like threat ranges this time. I've been exploring a lot of list ideas in the app over the last few weeks - thematic ones, skewy ones, gimmicky ones, all sorts really - but I wanted to give Strakhov another chance first, so I ran almost the same list as before, only replacing Sylyss with the Koldun Lord to help me with armour:
Khador Unlimited 50pts
Strakhov 1
-Juggernaut
-Kodiak
Cylena & the Nyss Hunters
Croe's Cutthroats
Battle Mechanics
Alexia 3
Koldun Lord
Ol' Grim
*Grave Robbing
*Hit & Run
*Old Faithful
*Power Swell
*Blessing


Karas was excited to try Cygnar's new Karchev. Sorry, I mean Karchev. Oops, my bad, what I meant to say was the new large-based Cygnar warcaster, Karchev-with-a-jetpack-and-a-gun-instead-of-an-axe.
Storm Legion 50pts
Huxley (Electrify, Jackhammer)
-Strike-her (Relentless Charge, Voltaic Javelin, 40K Fist)
-The General (OP-Head, Gun-Sword, Red-Light)
Arcane Mechanics
Tempest Thundercats
Stormblade Legionnaires
-Standard Bearer
*Old Faithful
*Power Swell
*Probably some other cards, idk


Pre-Game:
We've been having issues with scenarios; the current Steamroller scenarios feels too complex, at least for 50 points. After asking for some advice online, it was suggested that the Brawlmachine scenarios were decent for smaller games. A quick search brought up version 1.2 of the Brawlmachine rules, I skimmed down and snap-picked the "Binary" scenario, because it seemed simple but with a good number of objectives.

We used 6inch zones (I think the scenario called for 12", but we weren't sure and just kinda felt that was too big), which according to the linked Steamroller could only be scored by units and warcasters). For the 40mm flags, which could only be scored by warcasters and solos, I used my old plasticard discs. I threw some terrain onto the table and tried not to make it too symmetrical, while still hopefully being balanced. Karas won the roll and chose to go first, so I picked the side with more forests because I have a lot of pathfinder and my guys like to stand in forests for concealment - especially Strakhov.


Deployment
Karas placed his infantry on my right, ready to head for his zone. Since he didn't have any solos to score the flag, he put his battlegroup on that side so Cygchev could score it instead. I put my Nyss on the right, with Ol' Grim ready to grab the flag. Everything else went on my left. The I chose the Thunderers to be the Cutthroats' Prey target.

Round 1:
Karas got into position to score, even though scoring wouldn't start until next round. He put Electrify on the Stryker and Failsafe on The General.

My Kodiak "accidentally" vented steam before running to the zone, instantly and painlessly killing a mechanic. At least that's what the official report sent to his wife and children said. The part about Alexia reanimating his corpse as a Thrall was not mentioned in said report. Strakhov cast Assail on the Juggernaut and moved up into the forest. The remaining mechanics, Koldun Lord, and Strak's bony new shield-guard buddy followed.

The Nyss Hunters moved up and opened fire on the Legionnaires, only killing one. I used the Grave Robbing card to give Ol' Grim an unearned soul, then used a couple of well-aimed bullets to steal two more from the Legionnaires. I wanted to load him up to start putting boosted POW 12's into harder targets later, but I did spend one soul for +3 DEF, leaving him with two.

I didn't know what to do with the Cutthroats; it didn't look like they were going to be able to do any work on my left, so I bit the bullet and ran them all to the right. Alexia followed them into the forest, making sure to stay close enough to the Thrall for him to take advantage of her (now properly worded, thank you PP) Shield-Guard aura.

Round 2:
The remaining Legionnaires charged the Nyss Hunters, not doing much. The Thunderers then advanced into the zone and fired on Ol' Grim. The first AOE attack missed, but a big damage roll on the POW 8 blast damage was enough to kill the soul-laden spectre. The other shot into the Nyss Hunters, killing Cylena and one of her friends. I replaced Cylena - who was only just in range of Alexia) with a fresh Thrall (proxied by an unpainted Laddermore who had been converted to be holding a sword).

The Stryker shot at the Juggernaut for some damage, then repositioned back. I believe The General did too, and put up Polarity Field while he was at it. Huxley also chipped in some damage, but a low roll meant it wasn't too bad.

I allocated two focus to the Kodiak and dropped Assail as I wasn't going to use it this turn, but was going to use some focus. The Nyss killed two Legionnaires, and the Thrall took out the last one. The Cutthroats moved up and shot at the Thunderers, managing to kill one. Alexia ran across to base the flag so I could score.

The Koldun Lord cast Puppet Master on Strakhov. The Hoff then Feated and moved into the zone to cast an uboosted Hand of Destruction at The General. I needed a 6, and missed. Luckily I gave him Pupper Master for just this reason, allowing me to reroll the attack roll. I missed again. I then landed three unboosted Riot Gun shots, burning the Power Swell card to give me enough focus to boost the damage on all three for an OK number of boxes. The Kodiak trampled up to The General, buying two attacks and missing them both. He then Vented Steam and repositioned backwards - the cloud wouldn't save the Kodiak, but it would make it harder to reach the Juggernaut. The Juggernaut just stood at the back of the zone, where the Mechanics could walk up and heal a few boxes (very few; they only healed 3 between them). I realised that the Thrall was too far from Alexia to use Shield Guard, so I moved him away from the rest of the group so at least he wouldn't get killed by any blast damage or a stray Electroleap.

I had Alexia and Strakhov in position to score, Karas had Huxley and the Thunderers, so we both scored two points.

Round 3:
I believe this was the turn Huxley Feated, casting Full Throttle to help his jacks kill the Kodiak. He also shot Strakhov for 11 damage. I think Karas used the Old Faithfull card this turn. The Thunderers charged into the Cutthroats, making sure each Thunderer was only engaged by one Cutthroat - the plan was for each to kill a Cutthroat in melee then use Dual Attack to put an AOE shot into my mass of low-ARM infantry. Unfortunately they both missed their melee attack, so each could only kill one Cutthroat with a POW 8 blast damage roll. I replaced one with another Thrall, proxied by Ol'Grim. The Arcane Mechanics ran over to score the zone in the Thunderer's stead. This meant we both scored two points again, keeping the score even.

I loaded up the Juggernaut. The new Thrall moved to base my flag. The remaining Cutthroats killed the last two Thunderers, giving me yet another Thrall (proxied by Sorscha). An older Thrall charged a Mechanic, leaving him on one box. The three remaining Nyss Hunters charged the other two Mechanics; the first two rolled low on damage and just chipped away at him, then the third one cranked the damage roll and completely overkilled him, invalidating everything the first two had done.

The Koldun Lord put Pupper Master on Strakhov again, who moved up and cast Hand Of Destruction on the Stryker, then did a bunch of damage with his gun before repositioning into the forest. I also recast Assail on the Juggernaut. I made a stupid math mistake earlier on, thinking the Juggernaut could charge the Stryker and get into melee range of The General, but actually no, he could barely make it to the Stryker. So the Juggernaut made one charge attack - which crit and left the Stryker stationary with three damage boxes left, suffering from crippled left arm and movement systems - then got pushed back out of range by Electrify, leaving my jack with three unused focus.

Sadly I had nothing else in range to try to finish off the The mechanics ran into the zone to score, doing what they could to block LOS to strakhov. The original Thrall ran back to be in 3" of Strakhov again, and Alexia - now free of scoring duties - ran back into the forest, making sure to get close enough for the Thrall to get Shield Guard again. With the far right zone contested, I scored two points and Karas scored one, putting me one point in the lead.

Round 4:
Huxley swapped Failsafe onto the Stryker so it could ignore the crippled systems, and put Electrify onto The General instead. I think Karas used Power Swell this turn to help Huxley cast Jackhammer on the Stryker, but it might have been last turn. Huxley and the General then finished off the Juggernaut. This allowed the Stryker to charge a Mechanic and get close enough to ignore Strakhov's Stealth. The Stryker killed the Mechanic and gunned down the Thrall to deny Strakhov a Shield-Guard, but luckily missed his actual shot at the 6-health, 0-focus Strakhov.

One Arcane Mechanic killed the last three Nyss Hunters with stupid hot rolls on a single spray attack. The other one brained the Thrall engaging him. They didn't have any attacks left to try to kill the last contesting Thrall though, meaning they couldn't score the zone. I still had a Thrall on my flag, and Huxley was still on Karas' flag, so we scored one point each.

Well, I was all out of jacks, so I really needed some luck if I was going to do anything now. I debated upkeeping Hand of Destruction on the Stryker, but decided Strakhov wasn't going to be able to put any attacks into it, so I needed to commit all my focus to The General and let the upkeep drop. I remembered Alexia had a POW 14 spell and put it into the Stryker, but I rolled low on damage and did nothing to the ARM 20 jack. This left the Koldun Lord, who I REALLY needed to come through for me. I used a command card to give him Blessed weapons, and charged him into the Stryker. He crit the attack roll, meaning that he didn't need the Blessed weapons since he Dispelled Failsafe. With the Stryker now at ARM 18 with three remaining boxes, I needed to roll at least an 11 on three dice to kill it... I rolled a 12!

Killing the Stryker triggered Battle Wizard, allowing the Koldun Lord to cast Brittle Frost on The General to reduce his ARM by 2 - a crucial part of my plan. The last remaining Mechanic charged The General but missed the attack. The Cutthroats charged their new Prey targers, the Arcane Mechanics, and finished them off. The Thrall on that side ran around the back of the central building to start to threaten Huxley.

All that was left was to activate Strakhov. I cast Hand of Destruction on The General, and actually landed it this time. Strakhov charged into base contact and hit with his Trench Sword, getting pushed an inch back. I rolled two Riot Gun shots, hitting with both and boosting the damage, amazingly putting The General down on the second shot. Strakhov could have still made one melee attack with boosted damage if needed.

I repositioned Strahov backwards, for what it was worth. I now held two zones and a flag, scoring three points to Karas' one. This put me a total of three points ahead.

Round 5:
We spent at least ten minutes discussing the best way for Huxley to try to assassinate Strakhov. Should he take an aimed Mag-Bolter shot in Ground Assault configuration? Or use Sky Stormer configuration to just charge in to melee and start swinging? Finally Karas settled on his plan: charge in, take one swing, cast Ground Zero and boost the guaranteed POW 13 damage roll, then follow up with a boosted Mag-Bolter shot. With his course mapped out, Karas activated Huxley and casually took down Strakhov with his first attack.

Post-Mortem: Man, that was a good game! The last couple of turns were very exciting as we made increasingly desperate moves. We both had good dice at times and bad dice at times. I made mistakes, but overall I felt like I was doing a decent job of balancing agression with caution, sending models forwards knowing they would die, but also knowing it was necessary to push the battle lines to enable me to score. I also remembered the command cards this time. I should have used Old Faithful earlier, in my head I was saving it for fixing crippled systems so I could still allocate focus, but then never got the chance to use it. Blessed happened to not matter because of a crit, but it was certainy good to have. In retrospect I could have used the Reposition card to move the Juggernaut back after attacking the Stryker; this might have been enough for the Mechanics to reach him and repair a few boxes.

I liked the scenario, I thought it worked well at 50 points. It was relatively simple but had enough scoring elements that we had to spread out and push up. I do believe it favoured me, especially with the terrain being set up the way it was: Karas didn't have any solos so he absolutely had to glue Huxley to the flag to keep scoring - luckily for him Huxley was capable to contributing reasonably well from that position. Meanwhile I just kept generating more solos as the game went on. The action basically happening on two lanes also separated the infantry from the jacks, denying him Vengeance triggers when I killed his infantry. And the forest being close to my zone was good for Strakhov's survivability.

I pretty much knew Strakhov was unlikely to survive after killing The General, but that's OK, just killing that damned jack was a victory in itself. He just has SO MANY rules, and they're ALL really good! And then Electrify on top is just overkill. So yeah, I may have lost the game but I'm claiming a moral victory for finally taking that damned thing down.

Alexia3 felt much better this game; being able to create a steady supply of solos worked well for me, and having a shield-guard was a big deal against Huxley's long-range stealth-ignoring armour-piercing boostable gun. The Kodiak being able to cheat out a Thrall in my first turn feels like a big deal though; otherwise it would have been very hard to get a Thrall close the Strakhov early on.

Strakhov himself felt good to activate. I'm not sold on his toolkit or his playstyle (which I'm still trying to discover I guess), but his face card is amazing. Speed 7, Pathfinder, Reposition, Prowl, Alchemical Mask, Dual Attack, Pistol, Takedown; Strakhov basically ignores half the restrictions in the game! I don't know if he's strong, and the tools he has to support his army all feel set up for one big turn rather than the kind of slower game I tend to find myself playing, but there was just something liberating about being able to move 7", ignoring rough terrain, and also move another 3" afterwards, making a decent volume of quality attacks then passively gaining stealth.

Nyss Hunters were decent, which is better than they usually end up performing. As always they are kind of just OK at whatever they need to do, as long as they survive long enough to get the chance to do it. Cutthroats did work this game; two attacks with Prey and Poison worked out quite well against Karas' tougher infantry. Feels like they can be good in the right situations.

Huxley didn't feel crazy powerful, but my impression is that he's pretty good, and pretty fun to play. He isn't doing too much that's too useful mid-game if your opponent has Shield Guards, but he brings some good battlegroup support and, as we saw, he can present a good late-game threat. He did seem complicated to play though: not only do his stats, including weapon stats, change when he changes configuration, so do his base rules - including his field marshal! That means his jacks gain or lose Reposition or Pathfinder depending on his configuration! We didn't realise until halfway through the game that the Stryker and The General should not have been repositioning backwards after shooting!

I did notice that not having Pathfinder is a LOT less punishing that it used to be, and measuring is a lot easier since it's a flat -2 rather than having to break down your movement. I am OK with this change (even though a lot of my favourite models already have pathfinder and that's less of an advantage now than it used to be).


We might be moving up to 75 points next game. 50 points is tight, but I feel it's just enough to write a functional list if you forgo the bells and whistles. At least with my models. And even at 50 we play slow enough that games take a while. Perhaps we should put a time limit and score the game based on objective points if we run out of time? I am NOT ready for an actual deathclock though!

Rustier Than I Thought

Another game of Warmachine Mk4. I decided Alexia1 wasn't working for me, so I swapped her for Alexia3 and a unit of Mechanics; this would give me repair, shield-guards, and a point left to upgrade my Marauder.
Khador Unlimited 50pts

Strakhov 1
-Juggernaut
-Marauder
-Sylyss
Nyss Hunters
Cutthroats
Battle Mechanics
Ol' Grim
Alexia 3

Blessing of the Gods
Grave Robbing
Hit & Run
Old Faithful
Power Swell

Karas had just aquired The General. He's always hated my snipers, so this game he tried to counter Ol' Grim with his own Sharpshooter.
Storm Legion 50pts

Athena (Electrify, Jackhammer)
-The General
-Stryker (Relentless Charge, Voltiac Javelin, Power First)
Stormblade Legionnnaires
Stormthrower Legionnaires
Arcane Mechanics
Sharpshooter

Careful Reconnaissance
True Inspiration
Hit & Run
Old Faithful
Power Swell

Pre-Game:
We glanced at the Steamroller 2024 document, but all the scenarios seemed quite complicated, and a had a lot of scoring elements for a 50 point game. However Karas had a version of the Mk4 rulebook from 10/01/2024 that included a scenario called "Split Decision", which we decided to use as it was simple and had a more reasonable number of scoring elements. Karas won the roll and chose to go second.


Deployment:
I decided Strakhov would live in the forest, giving him constant Stealth. The Kodiak would come out of the forest to threaten the zone, and the Juggernaut would be more central. Ol' Grim would take advantage of the forests on the right. I put Alexia in the center so she could move to get my infantry in her bubble as needed. Support went behind my battlegroup. Karas bricked up in the center of his table. I put the Cutthroats on my left and the Nyss on my right. I believe I declared the Cutthroat's Prey to be The General.

Round 1
The Nyss headed for the trench. Strakhov put Assail on the Kodiak, walked into the forest, and spent the rest of his focus putting Return Fire on himself and a bunch of Nyss Hunters. The Cutthroats stepped into the zone. The Kodiak ran through the forest, while the Juggernaut ran around it. Ol' Grim got a Soul from the Grave Robbing command card and headed to the right. Alexia killed a Mechanic and replaced him with a Thrall... which we later realised I couldn't do, so later on you'll see the Thrall disappear and a Mechanic reappear.

Karas put Hallowed Avenger on the General - which it turns out was redundant because The General already has Righteous Vengeance - and Electrify on the Stryker. Everything moved up in his big brick.

Round 2:
I popped Strakhov's Feat, then pushed him up a little to try to take advantage of the part of his feat that nerfs the enemy's gun's range. I did camp all his focus just to be on the safe side. The Cutthroats shot at the Stormblade Legionnaires, but couldn't do any damage. I spread them out with the Repo move to avoid AOEs and electroleaps. The Kodiak ran in the middle to bully the zone. The Nyss Hunters moved into the trench and rolled like fire, killing five Stormthrower Legionnaires with five shots. Which is kinda insane; these are the guys who almost always disappoint me, consistently missing and dying without actually achieving anything.

Reeling in shock, I left them in the trench to try to push the lines past my flag. The Juggernaut pushed up to stop anything from contesting my flag as well. Ol' Grim moved behind the forest, then spent a soul to shoot at a mechanic with his double-boosted Fantom Seeker shot. Even with a boosted POW 12 damage roll, he wasn't quite able to kill a single mechanic, leaving it on one box. Which is crazy to me. Alexia based the flag.

Thanks to the Nyss' amazing performance, The General was able to take his Righteous Vengeance move and get into charge range of Strakhov. Athena Feated and swapped Electrify to The General, the Stryker killed all my Nyss (and the Thrall that Alexia created from a Nyss corpse), and The General managed to take down Strakhov with his last bit of Focus. The Stormblades could have gotten three or four men into Strakhov too, so it wasn't exactly close.

Post-Mortem:
Funny how my Nyss actually doing a great job was what lost me the game... alright, seriously, my carelessness is what lost me the game. I just kinda eyeballed Strakhov's position and said to myself "That's probably fine". I didn't measure any ranges or anything. And I completely forgot about Righteous Vengeance. I feel like I'm very rusty. I need to start paying attention and trying to remember how to play.

Seriously though, The General is kinda silly; SPD 6 with a MAT 8 RNG 2" POW 19 weapon is already very strong, but then he has a built-in 3" threat extension? Why are Cygnar heavies SPD 6 anyway? And why are Mechanics ARM 17 with 5 boxes? Maybe I need to bring Destroyers or something.

So far I just feel like Mk4 is worse than Mk3. Unit movement is faster... as long as you're not doing anything interesting. The moment your movement interacts with anything on the table, it becomes unintuitive and you have to learn a whole new set of rules that you didn't need to know before. And units have to be so bunched up all the time; I've always liked spreading out my grunts a bit, but now you can't really do that. The legacy themes are boring and extremely restrictive: there's some essential options that are missing from some themes, we barely even get to use any warcaster attachments! Unlimited is better, but all my units are half the size and since I run a lot of character units I can't just double-up. Power attacks were a fun part of the game even if they were rarely worth actually doing, but they've been nerfed so badly that all the fun is just gone. And hell, I can't even attack my own models with basic attacks now! Nevermind that they took a lot of the fun out of my favourite warcasters (Strakhov, Karchev, Butcher2).

I'm not sold on the command cards either. I feel like they de-value a lot of rules: if you expect Stealth to do anything, you probably need to bring a lot of it because just one Stealth model is easy prey. Ditto for ARM or DEF buffs, what with the Blessed command card. And of course rules that counter Stealth or Blessed aren't as useful since you can just bring a card instead. Yeah, the card is single-use, but that could be all you need (if you need it at all). Tough, Repair, all can be covered with cards instead of models.

Also Focus management used to be a core part of the game, but there's so much easy access to Empower now that you don't really need to allocate focus anymore, so managing it as a resource isn't that important. Between Power Up, Accumulator, and mechanics having Empower, the Cygnar heavies technically didn't need any allocation to be at max focus.

I dunno. I'm trying here, but I'm starting to sour a bit on this new edition. Well, maybe dusting off my brain and figuring out how to play again will make me feel better about the game.

He's Not The 'Hoff Anymore

It's hard to believe it's been a whole year since I've played a game of Warmachine. PP has released Mk4 rules for old models since the last time, so list building is a lot more interesting and fun to me now.

For this game I just brought my standard Merc infantry with a couple of cheap jacks and some solos. I did try to prioritise playing models that are actually painted, like Alexia and Sylyss. Also I figured I should really play Old Grim; he's the last WMH model I painted but I never got a chance to use him.
Khador Unlimited 50pts
Strakhov 1
-Juggernaut
-Marauder
-Sylyss
Alexia & the Risen
Cylena & the Nyss
Croe & the Cutthroats
Jolly Ol' Saint Grim
*Blessing of the Gods
*Grave Robbing
*Hit & Run
*Old Faithful
*Power Swell

Karas had picked up the Mk4 Cygnar Storm Legion starter.
Storm Legion 50pts
Athena 1 (Electrify, Jackhammer)
-Stryker (Plasma Nimbus, Voltaic Javelin, Space Marine Power Fist)
-Courser (Shield Guard, Mag-Bolter, Electrified Shield)
Stormguard Legionnaires
-Standard Bearer
Tempest Thunderers
Arcane Mechaniks
Legionnaire Officer
*Hit & Run
*Infiltration
*Old Faithful
*Power Swell
*True Inspiration


Pre-Game:
We wanted to get straight into it so we tossed some mousemat terrain on the table, put down a couple of buildings, and settled for a basic caster-kill game. I won the roll and chose to go first.


Deployment:
The buildings essentially split the table into three lanes. I wanted Strakhov to be somewhat central, but positioned Ol' Grim to apply pressure from a flank. I chose to not to ambush my units, relying on advanced deployment instead. After Karas bricked up in the center I kept my infantry relatively central as well. Cutthroats declared Prey on the Thunderers.

Round 1:
Strakhov cast Assail on the Marauder, and Return Fire on himself. I played Grave Robbing on Alexia, who advanced and crafted a Thrall. Everything else just ran.

Karas moved his entire army laterally, hiding behind a forest. Athena put Hallowed Avenger on the Courser, and Electrify on the Striker.

Round 2:
Strakhov Feated and ran. Alexia crafted another Thrall. Everything ran forwards while staying in Feat range.

In true Cygnar fashion, Karas moved all his models backwards.

Round 3:
I pushed further up. Cast Return Fire on Strakhov again. Ol' Grim killed a couple of Legionnaires and claimed their souls. The Nyss killed two more. Alexia crafted a Thrall.

Athena popped her Feat. The Legionnaire Officer killed Old Grim. The remaining Legionnaires put some damage on the Juggernaut, wiping out the Nyss with the AOEs. Something else shot the Juggernaut but finished off the Legionnaires with AOEs or Electroleaps or something. The Courser did some more damage, then the Striker finished off the Juggernaut, and also shot down Alexia. Which was annoying; she had like 6 or 7 corpse tokens on her at this point.

Round 4:
This was the second turn I had failed to keep Sylyss in range to give Strakhov a free upkeep. Oh well. Strakhov loaded up the Marauder, then cast Hand Of Destruction on the Striker with a boosted attack roll and Arcane Secrets. Being under Athena's feat meant I rolled 5 dice and dropped the lowest AND the highest. The spell hit. I then rolled two shots on Strakhov's Riot Gun; with no focus left to boost, the attack and damage rolls were four dice each, dropping lowest and highest. This did some damage, then Strakhov repo'd backwards. After this the Marauder charged in. Because of Electrify's Repulsor Field, I decided to go for the combo-smite. Sadly the Marauder lost the +4 damage on the Combo Smite in Mk4, which... actually kind a makes him a MUCH less attractive choice now than he was before. I boosted the attack and damage rolls, so again I was rolling 5 dice and dropping two. The Striker's left arm was crippled, but that was about it. The Cutthroats charged in, but were only able to kill one Mechanik. This triggered Hallowed Avenger on the Courser, so I ran a Thrall to box him in. The other two thralls moved up to be in charge range next turn, and the Risen put themselves in front of Strakhov.

Everyting piled into the Marauder. Somehow the Courser actually managed to miss an attack...

Still, between the Thunderers, the Legionnaire Officer, and the Striker, Karas killed everything and put 7 damage on Strakhov with an Open Fire shot of the Courser's Armour-Piercing gun.

Round 5:
Strakhov used Power Swell for a focus and moved up to get LOS on Athena. She was in a trench and in base contact with the Courser, putting her at DEF 18 ARM 19. I cast a boosted Hand of Destruction, but it missed. I rolled three shots on the Riot Gun; the first boosted attack hit but was shield-guarded by the Courser. The next two missed. I cast Convection and missed.

Another unboosted Open Fire shot from the Courser did 5 more damage, leaving Strakhov at 5, but a boosted attack during it's activation missed. The Thunderers missed their attacks, and their AOE damage did nothing. Finally the Striker charged in and managed to connect, finishing off Strakhov.

Post-Mortem:
I think we played much better than last time, I felt more confident about my understanding of the rules; I think we still made mistakes, but probably less than last time. Not playing a scenario obviously was an issue, but we both played to our faction's characters: I charged forwards agressively as befits a Khadoran while Karas cowered in the corner like a typical Cygnaran.

I still can't believe how much they changed Strakhov. He's a completely different model now. I don't think he's bad or anything; he has some good tools, and a LOT of rules on his own card. But he's lost a lot of the things I liked about him in Mk2 and Mk3. He just feels a bit boring now; he has a basic warjack speed buff, a single-target debuff, a mostly-defensive feat, and a good gun with some rules and stats to allow him to use it. It's just not that interesting; he doesn't make his army dance around like he used to, he won't wreck face like a Butcher or a Karchev... I dunno. I just don't feal anything when I read his card.

I'm going to stick with Strakhov 1 for now; he'll probably work better when playing a scenario. I'll make iterative changes to my army as is my preference, rather than changing the whole list all at once. This is also partly because I do want to try to put painted models on the table. Unfortunately my painting queue is a little full right now with non-WMH stuff, but hopefully later in the year I'll be able to get some Khador stuff painted and start to run some new lists.\

Mark 3.5

Karas and I finally sat down to try out the new Warmachine Mark 4. The only problem was: neither of us had actually read the rulebook. So we basically played using Mk3 rules, except for specific changes that I was aware of. Which I believe are most of the important ones. So we used the new unit movement rules as I understand them, the new run distance rule, the new AOE rules, etc.

I brought an Armoured Korps list I put together using mostly models I already own:
Armoured Korps 50pts
Harkevich 1
-Black Ivan
-Juggernaut
-Kodiak
MOW Bombardiers (proxied by two Butchers and a baker)
Battle Mechanics
Greylord Forgeseer
*Blessing
*Hit & Run
*Infiltration
*Power Swell
*Take Cover

Karas has been eyeing up Cygnar, so I encouraged him to run a proxy list:
Storm Legion 50pts
Anson 1 (Arcane Shield, Chain Lightning) (proxied by what appears to be Reznik 1 on a small base)
-Courser (Shield Guard, Heavy Stormthrower, Electrified Shield) (proxied by Vigilant)
-Stryker (Plasma Nimbus, Voltaic Halberd, Power Fist) (proxied by Fire of Salvation)
Stormblade Legionnaires (proxied by Exemplar Errants)
- Standard Bearer (proxied by Exemplar Errant Standard Bearer)
Stormguard Legionnaires (proxied by Temple Flameguard)
Tempest Thunderers (proxied by Exemplar Cinerators)
Legionnaire Officer (proxied by Exemplar Errant Officer)
*Blessing
*Hit & Run
*Old Faithful
*Put The Fires Out
*True Inspiration


Pre-Game:
We didn't know what the scenario situation was in Mk4; a quick search did not turn up any default scenarios in the rulebook in the app, so we literally did not play with a scenario. Guess it was a pure caster-kill game. I believe this edition is more terrain-friendly/centric? What I had with me though was some mousemat terrain I bought a while back for Mk3 but never used, so I just tossed some onto the table. We were playing on a table that was about 30 inches wide, so we played across it. I won the role and chose to go first.


Deployment:
Not much to say really.

Round 1:
I ran everything forwards, with Butcher in a trench in base contact with the Kodiak and the mechanics a short distance behind the MOW.

Karas put Arcane Shield on the Courser and Lightning Tendrils on the Stryker. He forgot to keep his Stormblades in base contact for Shield Wall. The Thunderers put some damage on one of my MOW, knocking him down with a crit.

Round 2:
I allocated 1 to Black Ivan. The Forgeseer Empowered him for another, bringing him up to 3. Ivan then took an aimed shot at the Stormguard, boosting three damage rolls and killing four models. Hark then cast Bombshell on the Stormblades. I rolled a crit, knocking three of them backwards... which put them into base contact, ironically increasing their armour. However after a bunch of boosted damage rolls I had killed three grunts and the standard bearer. Hark then walked to the back of the trench.

The Mechanics repaired some of the damage from the Bombardiers. I wasn't sure how Knockdown interacted with the new movement rules, so I just sacrificed my MOW combat action as I figured this should allow the unit to move normally. Which I believe was correct. They advanced and managed to kill one Thunderer with their guns. The Juggernaut ran up the flank. The Kodiak walked forwards, dropped a cloud, and repositioned back out of it.

The remaining Stormblades charged the Bombardiers, killing one. The Thunderers backed away and shot at my Juggernaut, doing very little damage. The two jacks shot at Black Ivan, putting a reasonable amount of damage on him but not crippling any systems. The last of the Stormguard repositioned to better protect Anson.

Round 3:
Last round was very good for me, killing a bunch of infantry models and only losing a single one in return. But without an objective I didn't see the lines actually closing, and I didn't want to be left standing around trading shots, so I came up with a plan to force the issue. I would run the Kodiak forwards under Hark's Feat to lock down his jacks (sure, he could technically walk away without taking free strikes, but I didn't think he would) while my other two heavies moved into better positions to threaten next turn.

At least that was the plan. Unfortunately I didn't really pay enough attention to the Juggernaut; I ran him further up the flank towards the remaining infantry, but forgot to keep him in Harkevich's Feat range, so he didn't get the ARM bonus from the feat. Black Ivan walked up and shot something but I don't think he did any real damage. The Mechanics took some more damage off the Bombardiers, who finished off the Stormblades.

Anson cast Positive Charge on the Stryker. The two jacks together were unable to take down the ARM 23 Kodiak... however, in their darkest hour, the Last (Storm)Guardian came charging out of the forest to deliver a mighty blow that finally felled the Khadoran warjack. Meanwhile the Officer and the Thunderers, taking advantage of Positive Charge's buff bubble, were able to cripple the Juggernaut's cortex and axe.

Round 4:
I had expected to lose the Kodiak, but the Juggernaut was a different story. That hurt. I guess I wasn't done making stupid mistakes, because I tried to cast Broadside with Harkevich, and when I remembered he didn't have it I spent 3 focus to cast Guided Fire instead, even though the only ranged attack my battlegroup was going to make was with Hark's handcannon (which hit the Stormguard but was shield-guarded by the Courser). For some reason I had it in my head that Black Ivan would make a ranged attack before charging, even though I had already used up the Feat. I also mixed up the Dual Attack icon and forgot Black Ivan had it, so I didn't even make a ranged with him after all even though I could have. Anyway, Black Ivan charged in and crippled the Stryker, but couldn't finish it. Either the Bombardiers or the Juggernaut took out another Thunderer. The Mechanics repositioned to possibly fix Black Ivan if he survived next turn.

Black Ivan did not survive the turn. Neither did the Juggernaut. Karas played Old Faithful to fix up the Stryker, with Positive Charge his army was able to finish off the two jacks.

With no jacks and no line of sight to Anson, I couldn't see any way to recover, so I conceded.


Post-Mortem:
I really threw away a good position there. Well, games being won or lost on a single decision is nothing new, and it's part of what I like about this game. My dice were pretty hot; killing eight reasonably high-ARM infantry models with just two AOE attacks is proof of that. Karas' dice in contrast were very cold at the start, rolling lots of 3s. But I think it evened out eventually.

I put Old Faithful in every list I've been writing, except this one because I figured I had mechanics so I didn't need it. It's a shame because it would have helped the Juggernaut hang in a bit longer, but in truth that wouldn't have changed the outcome. I actually didn't end up using any command cards; there were a couple of times when they might have helped a bit, but it's a new system, it's not unusual to forget things. Perhaps I should have focused Black Ivan's efforts on the Courser using the Blessed command card to ignore Arcane Shield? The Courser was very pillow-fisted, but the shield was effortlessly crippling my cortices, so... I dunno.

Overall the game felt mostly like Mk3. The new infantry movement streamlined and simplified things a lot; precise positioning feels less important now, which has advantages and disadvantages. But AOEs feel deadlier; you can't mitigate them by spreading out. Infantry always being bunched up feels a bit weird, but I'm not sure how much it will actually impact the game. I felt the game was pretty quick and fairly effortless, which is good considering it was our first time with this new ruleset and we tend to be pretty slow. I expect it will be easier for newer players to pick up. I just wish my list options hadn't been cut down so much; so many of my models won't be seeing any use for the forseable future.

The Man Who Would Be King

Ages ago I picked up the Leto and Vinter IKRPG miniatures just because I liked them. So when PP made them playable in Warmahordes, I was interested. Vinter's rules are... very strange. While he's very survivable and pretty good beatstick, he does so little for his army - he even starts with no warjack points! Still, one advantage of that is that you don't actually need any Cygnar jacks, or indeed any other Cygnar models at all, to play a "Cygnar" list. So that's what I decided to do.
Vinter -1
Journeyman Warcaster
- Sentinel
Nyss Hunters
Alexia & the Risen
Lanyssa
Falk

The idea here was to make the most of Vinter's own combat prowess. Lanyssa buffs his threat range, Falk buffs his damage, the Journeyman casts Arcane Shield on him and then hangs well back. The Sentinal runs alongside Vinter to be a sac-pawn target. Alexia and the Nyss basically just body-block as needed. Alexia herself can also benefit from Falk's buff to do some work.

Blondie was back to Stryker 2:
Stryker 2
- Old Rowdy
- Ironclad
Sword Knights
Gunmages
GMCA x2


Pre-Game:
We picked a 2017 scenario with two zones and two flags. Blondie won the roll and chose to go second.


Deployment:
For some reason that I no longer fully remember I focussed my forces on the zone on my left. I think I didn't want to have to deal with the forest on my right since only the Nyss Hunters had Pathfinder, and I wanted them on the left to shoot stuff hiding behind the wall.

Blondie spread out his forces, with his infantry to my left and his jacks a little to my right.

Round 1:
I ran everything up. Alexia and Cylena sat on the hill for a defensive bonus. I didn't know what to do with Falk so I just ran him to the trench; I think I was considering putting him in the forest to benefit from Prowl.

Blondie advanced and shot down a some of my infantry.

Round 2:
Vinter killed a bunch of Sword Knights, with the Sentinel running between him and Rowdy. Nyss Hunters killed some Gunmages. Alexia crafted a Thrall who charged the Ironclad in the right zone, but Rowdy counter-charged and killed it. I ran Falk to toe the right zone while hiding in the forest.

Blondie pulled back his GMCAs a bit, while his remaining infantry took out a few more Nyss Hunters and Risen. The Hunter walked to within 5" of Falk and gunned him down. The Ironclad ran toward my flag. Stryker ran into the right zone and based Rowdy, allowing him to score a point this turn. I don't remember how, but my Sentinel's gun arm was crippled this turn (probably from the GMCAs).


Round 3:
Vinter danced around murdering infantry; by the time he was done there was only a gunmage or two left in range for the Nyss Hunters to kill. The Journeyman took a boosted shot at the Ironclad, doing respectable damage. Lanyssa then hit it with Ice Bolt, doing nothing. Finally Alexia charged in and burned all her Risen, leaving the Ironclad on about 3 boxes (his right arm and cortex were fine). I believe we both scored a point this turn.

The Ironclad killed Alexia. Rowdy positioned up aggressively. I think the Hunter crippled the Sentinel's cortex. Stryker cast Deceleration. Again we both scored; I think it was 3-2 to Blondie.

Round 4:
My Journeyman Warcaster took another boosted shot at the Ironclad, doing exactly the three damage needed to destroy it... or so we thought at the time. We remembered later that Deceleration was up and so he should only have done one point of damage. Well, it didn't really matter. Anyway, Lanyssa cast Hunter's Mark on Rowdy, allowing the Sentinel to charge him for no effect. Vinter then charged in and did some damage, but not enough to cripple anything - ARM 23 is a thing after all. On his final hit he slammed Rowdy away and walked back behind the Sentinel. Lanyssa scored the flag and Stryker scored the zone, bringing us to 4-3 to Blondie.

The Hunter killed my Journeyman, taking Arcane Shield off Vinter. Rowdy scrapped the Sentinel, leaving Vinter vulnerable to shooting. The first GMCA, who I had carelessly left in Vinter's back arc, landed a Flare shot. This freed up the second to roll hot on a Brutal Damage shot:

By the time Blondie's Journeyman had landed his shot, Vinter was left with only four boxes. Finally Stryker Overloaded for two dice, rolling a 10, and charged up to casually slice Vinter in half with a single P+S 25 swing.

Post-Mortem:
This was a very fun game. Perhaps it's because everything was dying so quickly? Sometimes games can drag on a bit. Whether it's because our lists where both a bit fragile or because we where both playing a bit less cagey than usual, stuff died quickly this game. Which it turns out is fun I guess.

The scenario never felt like a realistic win condition during this game. I wonder if that has something to do with us playing at a lower points level? Or maybe neither of us was aggressive enough in contesting?

I did enjoy running up ahead of my army and basically just killing all of Blondie's infantry with Vinter, but I don't think he's really a very competitive caster. He can be very survivable as long as you spend resources on it (targets for sac pawn etc), but he's extremely strapped for resources due to his lack of WJPs. He does very little for your army and doesn't even have a feat. While I built my list around him to a certain extent (Junior and Sentinel for Arcane Shield and a sac-pawn, Falk, Lanyssa) I still couldn't fit in everything I wanted (I had to choose between Lanyssa and Piper for Pathfinder), and I didn't even have a good target for Desperate Pace (which seems a little hard to use since it's an action so Vinter himself is not doing anything if you use it). Losing Falk hurt since I wasn't going to be able to break through Arcane Shield without that damage buff, but I didn't have much else to contest with. In retrospect I should have swapped his place with Lanyssa (or just not tried to contest that zone at all, or done so with a unit...). Speaking of, I found positioning both of them to be difficult since they are both short-ranged yet need to target the enemy to do their job meaning they need to quite close to the front lines (and both were important for my strategy of "kill everything with Vinter").

I would like to upgrade the Sentinel to a tough heavy, but points are so tight in this list. Perhaps if I swap Alexia and the Nyss for, say, Gallant and some Cygnar infantry. Sword Knights for cheap bodies, or Precursors (Vinter can actually buff them a little after all) for extra focus on Gallant.

I realised days later that I forgot to make a Tough roll with Vinter...