Morrow Finally Has A Beatstick

I always wanted to like Gallant, though he never really seemed worth his cost in MkII except with Constance. Still, I picked up the upgrade kit to try to put him together, oh, a very very long time ago.

Then MkIII happened, and two things changed. First, I needed a second Merc jack just to use my warjack points. Second, Gallant got better. Much better. In fact I reckon he's awesome now. So I finally assembled him. This seemed like an appropriate time for MacBain!!!! to make his MkIII debut.
MacBain!!!!
- Gallant
- Mangler
- Sylyss
Nyss Hunters
Croe's Cutthroats
Aiyana & Holt
Thor
- Blaster
Kell Bailoch
Lanyssa Ryssyl
Harlan Versh
Rutger Shaw

Not exactly an optimal list. Sadly Gallant now has animosities that prevent me from bringing him with Alexia, but at least this meant I could bring Versh. Thor and Rutger are mainly in there for the points (although boosted shooting and a bit of ARM 18 was not bad to have). Beanpole brought a similar list to last time:
Lord Arbiter Hexeris
- Bronzeback
- Gladiator
- Cannoneer
- Shaman
- Agonizer
- Aptimus Marketh
Beast Handlers
Bloodrunners
Slingers
Extoller Soulward


Pre-Game:
We rolled a mission with two flags and a killbox. I won the roll and chose to go first. Beanpole picked the side that didn't have a giant forest in the middle.


Deployment:
I couldn't deploy my battlegroup as centrally as I might have due to the forest, so they went on my right, behind my flag. Versh and Lanyssa stayed nearby to support my beasts. Nyss were in the center, with the rest a little to the left.

Beanpole put his battlegroup in the center and his Slingers facing my jacks.

The Cutthroats went on my left, where they could contest. Kell stuck with the central forest, where he would get concealment. The Bloodrunners were deployed centrally.

Round 1:
I spread everything out and advanced cautiously. Fortune went on the Cutthroats and Fail Safe on the Mangler (this way I had one high-ARM jack and one high-DEF jack, plus I figured the Mangler would probably go in first).

Beanpole put Banishing Ward on the Bronzeback, meaning I couldn't use Aiyana's Kiss or Lanyssa's Hunter's Mark on it. The Bloodrunners got Cloak of Ash and ran to engage a couple of my models. The Cannoneer moved up and shot at a Cutthroat in the forest, killing him, five Nyss Hunters, and Kell Bailoch. Geez.

Round 2:
I moved up and killed a bunch of his infantry. I think Versh killed three models himself. I tried to spread out more this turn. I spotted an opportunity to kill Marketh before he could start killing my models with Ashes to Ashes, and moved three Nyss Hunters up to take a CRA off Cylena. I needed threes to hit, and this happened:

Oh Cylena. How reliably you disappoint me. Anyway, Rutger ran around to the far left to try to start shooting stuff with his hand cannon next turn. A&H hid behind the forest. MacBain!!!! moved up to base the flag this turn; I wouldn't score, but it would force Beanpole to contest.

Beanpole moved up his beasts cautiously, making sure to stay out of range of my jacks, and cast Ashes to Ashes on a a Cutthroat in the left forest, killing Aiyana and Holt. More spells and shooting took out a lot of the rest of my infantry, including Rutger (who had yet to fire a shot). Hexeris got on his flag to score a point.

Round 3:
I couldn't use Hunters Mark on the Bronzeback, but the Cannoneer was close enough that if I charged him I would be in range of the Bronzeback, and with Purgation average dice would be almost enough to kill it. I figured I could potentially put a bit of damage on it first with Versh and a boosted Take Aim!-ed spray from the bunny, so I went for it.

After landing the Hunter's Mark on the Cannoneer to make sure a single bad roll didn't ruin everything after the plan was already in motion, I started clearing out the intervening models. This meant activating the Cutthroats to get one out of the way. Who I promptly walked into a perfect position for the Bronzeback to counter-charge and move out of Gallant's threat range. Sigh.

So much for that plan. Oh well. The Blaster walked over and shot Marketh and the Cannoneer, killing Marketh but doing nothing to the Titan. It then used the Reposition to nuzzle up to the Bronzeback.

Versh cleared the path, and Gallant charged the gun-slinging elephant. I didn't benefiting from Purgation so I was swinging at P+S 16 due to the Agonizer. This meant I needed to use Jackhammer to finish the job, but luckily I still had just enough focus left afterwards to cast Fail Safe on Gallant. I hoped this would be enough to keep him safe, as I didn't think he could get the Bronzeback around the Blaster and I figured the Gladiator was unlikely to kill a DEF 13 ARM 21 warjack that didn't suffer from crippled systems.

The Cutthroats stood back with the expectation that I would be sending them in one at a time to contest after the Blaster died. I finally scored a point.

The Gladiator walked over the wall and boosted a double-handed throw, chucking Gallant at the Blaster. The Bronzeback then walked around and beat the now knocked-down symbol of Morrowan faith into scrap metal. Luckily poor rolls meant he didn't have the Fury left to attack the Blaster, so at least I was still contesting. Meanwhile the rest of Beanpole's army killed Versh, Lanyssa, Sylyss, and put some damage on MacBain!!!!.

Round 4:
I completely screwed up my plans here. I loaded up the Mangler thinking I might send it at the Gladiator (I could get to him in such a way that a Rush-less Bronzeback would not be able to reach him) or the Shaman. But then realised that if I attacked the Gladiator there would be nothing protecting MacBain!!!! from the Shaman, and if I sent it at the Shaman it would just get killed by Titans. So it basically did nothing and wasted my focus.

The Cutthroats (still under Fortune) and Nyss Hunters just managed to shoot the Agonzier to death, while MacBain!!!! missed two boosted Handcannon shots against a single Slinger, meaning I couldn't clear the flag to score or even re-cast Fail Safe. The Mangler made sure it was out of charging threat ranges, which actually meant it wasn't blocking the Shaman from reaching MacBain!!!!, so basically I did everything wrong for no reason.

The Gladiator frenzied and killed a Paingiver. The Bronzeback did not frenzy and sat there with four Fury. The Paingivers pulled a bunch of it off though, and he killed the Blaster. The Shaman knocked MacBain!!!! down to about six boxes I think. I lost more infantry, leaving me with only Croe. Beanpole moved Hexeris off the flag just to make sure the Mangler couldn't reach him, meaning at least he didn't score.

Round 5:
I figured I would move the Mangler forwards with Energizer, kill the Shaman with Jackhammer, then move to safety. The Mangler missed three out of four Jackhammer attacks. I gave up.

Post-mortem:
That Bronzeback counter-charge screws up my plans so often you'd think I would learn to remember that he has it eventually, but nope! I probably should have just sent the Mangler in the turn after that (at least after managing to kill the Agonizer) and found some other way to protect MacBain!!!! (maybe just camped Focus and hoped for the best). Alternately I could have recast Fail Safe, gone for the Shaman, relied on the Blaster to block the Bronzeback again, and hoped that the Gladiator couldn't kill an ARM 21 warjack. I guess I was a little tilted at that point because I played quite poorly that turn.

Although I wasn't playing too well anyway. Keeping the Cutthroats and Nyss Hunters back rather than running forwards and jamming him off the flags was not very smart (and more cagey than I've tended to play recently). I basically lost most of my army without doing anything, because everything was too far back to do much work, then it died.

I probably should have commit the Cutthroats to gunning down the Agonizer, even if it cost the whole unit. At the very least having them all around his flag and his Paingivers, rather than hanging out on my side not doing anything at all, would have given him a little trouble.

Beanpole really used Banishing Ward effectively, cutting down my threat range while also denying me my damage buff. Luckily this meant Gallant was still a threat. I wish I could have sent the Mangler at the Cannoneer instead, but once you've allocated focus you're locked in unfortunately (plus I activated the Mangler before the Cutthroats, so I couldn't even just rely on Jackhammer at that point). Perhaps I should consider Ragman instead of A&H, though he would have just been killed by Ashes same as everyone else.

I didn't really bring any spot removal in this list (other than normal unboosted shooting). Obviously I have options, but I'm quite tempted to bring Rocinante for some boosted shooting on a good beatstick. I'm not sure I'd bring him instead of the Mangler (the moment I don't bring that Chain Weapon I'm sure I'll find myself facing Tibbers), so I guess the question is what to swap him for. Well, Rutger obviously, but what else?

I think I'm getting slower at this game. Maybe it's because I'm getting better at seeing threats and options, so it takes me longer to work through them all in my head? I dunno. I should probably started playing with a clock; I don't like the added pressure or the idea of a game suddenly being cut-short, but maybe it would be good for learning?

Cor Blimey! Look at all those Crocs!

I finally got the chance to try MacBain!!!! against Gru's gators. I brought the Freebooter because it's amphibious and I really like the model. This list included pretty much all the Merc models I have.
MacBain!!!!
-Freebooter
-Sylyss
Nyss Hunters
Croe's Cutthroats
Alexia & the Risen
Aiyana & Holt
Kayazy Eliminators
Kell
Maddie
Ogrun Bokur (proxied by MOW Kovnik)
Reinholdt
Thor
-Blaster (2)


Gru had a new trick in his list: ambushers!
Barnabus
-Spitter
-Bullsnapper
-Boneswarm
Gatormen (5)
Gatormen (5)
Gatormen (3)
Witchdoctor (2)
Bog Trog ambushers (10)
Gobber Bellows Crew
Victor Pendrake


Pre-Game:
We got the scenario with three flags. I won the roll and chose to go second. I picked the side with the forests because Nyss Hunters.


Deployment:
He deployed fairly symmetrically. I put my two big Pathfinder units on my left, behind the forests. This left my jacks, solos, and Alexia on the right.

Round 1:
Gru put out some swamps and ran into them.

I couldn't shoot at him because of the swamps, so I spread out my models around the flags. He had Iron Flesh on the central unit of Gators, so I put Fortune on the Freebooter, as it was probably going to have to try to do something about them. Maddie hugged Alexia, to extend corpse collection range. The Blasters flanked hard to my right. Kell ran up and stood just in front of the house.

Round 2:
His Gator unit on the left killed a couple of Cutthroats. The Bog Trogs moved in and killed another, along with some Nyss Hunters (CMA is a thing). The central unit walked into another swamp, while the rightmost unit hid behind a smoke cloud. He made some order-of-activation mistakes and ended up leaving his Witch-doctors very far back.

Kell put a respectable amount of damage on a Gatorman from the left unit, then the Cutthroats charged in and finished it off. Nyss Hunters killed some Bog Trogs. Eliminators ran up to be ready to counterpunch. Risen jammed his central unit. The Bashers walked up and shot at the Gobbers, killing one. MacBain!!!! threw out a Rift, the idea being that if he used Pathfinder to charge my stuff it would prevent him from using one of his other abilities.

Round 3:
The Spitter shot at the Freebooter, catching MacBain!!!! and Reinholdt. Did you know Reinholdt has ARM 9 and only 1 damage? I think he's the flimsiest solo in the game (well, if you can land a hit). That meant that Gru only needed to roll a 3 on the Spitter's blast damage to kill him! Guess what he rolled?

Wah waah waaaah...

Barnabus feated, catching most of my Nyss and Cutthroats. The Gatormen and Bog Trogs then killed everything, leaving only Cylena - who failed her command check - and the Eliminators. The middle unit of Gators cleared out the Risen, and the remaining gobber charged in and killed one himself! The last unit of Gators charged the Blasters, leaving the nearby one on two boxes.

Sadly Reinholdt died to the acid after all. The Freebooter ran up under a full load of focus and killed one Gator, then Macbain!!!! used the rest of his focus for Jackhammer attacks, which all missed, before advancing backwards (which is funnily enough not an oxymoron in Warmachine). The Eliminators charged a Gator, killing it. Cylena ran away and rallied. Alexia threw more Risen at the central unit of Gators to keep them busy. One Basher took a freestrike to walk backwards and shoot up the rightmost Gator unit, putting a bit of damage on them. Kell missed a Gator. Holt killed some Bog Trogs. The Bokur moved up to protect MacBain!!!!

Round 4:
The Gators in the center put some damage on the Freebooter, then the Boneswarm charged in and did a bit more, knocking out his right clamp. The Gators and Bog Trogs on the left put everything they had into the Eliminators but only managed to connect on one attack, killing one. One the right, one Gator killed Thor while the other two finished off the engaged Blaster. Pendrake killed Sylyss and the Spitter killed the Bokur.

Things were not looking good, but I saw a potential Hail Mary: Barnabus had spent all his Fury putting out Spiny Growth and swamps, leaving him with no camp. First Maddie triggered Intrigue off the Gator that killed Thor, using it to move Alexia up, who was then able to drop a Risen on the left behind the line of Gators. I dropped Fortune and gave the Freebooter three focus. The last Blaster (would be a good name for a band) aimed and shot at the two Gators that killed it's friend, doing very little. Maddie then walked up and Seduced the Gator that had killed Thor, getting it to walk back and finally kill one member of the unit.

MacBain!!!! moved up a bit and cast Failsafe on the Freebooter, then shot the seduced Gator in the back, killing it. This left the Gatormen unit on the right unable to score. The Freebooter used a double-hand throw, boosting all the way, to toss the Boneswarm (don't ask me how you pick up and throw a pile of bones) into Barnabus, knocking them both down. Alexia activated next; three Risen finally took down the scrappy little gobber, while the one behind the Gators leveled-up into his evolved form and slapped Barnabus for a respectable amount of damage.

Aaaand... this is the part where I screwed up. I moved Kell to be able to shoot at Barnabus through a gap in the Gators, and somehow derped completely and moved him up into engagement with the Gator wall. The rest of my army pretty much just whiffed on everything.

Round 5:
Barnabus killed the Thrall to trigger Warpath, allowing the Spitter to walk over the wall then charge the Freebooter. With help from the Gators they finally put the jack into the dirt, along with Kell and Alexia. The last Gator on the right killed Maddie. The ones on the left whiffed on the Eliminator. The Bog Trogs killed Holt.

Well, I had a plan: if I could get MacBain!!!! over the flag on the right and keep clearing it, and if the Eliminator could survive for five more rounds, then I might still have a chance. Hey, it can't be worse than the chance of winning the lottery, can it? Hmm, maybe it can.

MacBain!!!! charged and killed the last Gator on the right, then Energized as close as he could to the flag (not close enough). The Blaster walked over to shoot at a couple of Gators for no damage. The Eliminator killed a couple of Bog Trogs.

Round 6:
The Gators finally killed the Eliminator. So much for that plan. The Blaster survived because the Gators couldn't reach him under Iron Flesh, but in my desire to get as many Gators as possible with his spray I had forgotten to get him in to contest the flag. Pendrake killed the single contesting Risen model, allowing Gru to score two points this turn for controlling two flags.

Well, I wasn't going to win on scenario, so it was time for plan C: get...

Shot dooooown... in a blaze of gloooryyyy!

A Risen missed his attack on Pendrake. Aiyana tried to Kiss the central Gator unit and whiffed. MacBain!!!! charged in and spent his stack to kill 3 Gators, showing the rest of his army what they should have been doing the whole time. Well, obviously they couldn't actually see it because they were dead, but I like to think that somewhere in Urcaen, they were feeling pretty bad about themselves.

Round 7:
The witch-doctor killed the last Risen to free up Pendrake, who knocked down MacBain!!!! with his bola. Well, MacBain!!!! could still survive the Gator and Spitter, all he needed to do was pass seven consecutive Tough checks. It could happen, right?

He passed one.

Postmortem:
My infantry do not like getting knocked down! In retrospect I might have been able to protect some Nyss Hunters from the feat by hugging the Freebooter, except then I expect they would have died to a Spitter shot or something.

I put both Pathfinder units on the left to take advantage of the forests, and ended up putting Alexia on the right to have a Risen screen for my jacks and solos. This meant that I wasn't able to collect most of the corpses from my units. I think perhaps it would have worked better to balance out my forces a bit more; putting one infantry unit and a battlegroup on each side.

Gators are a very well rounded unit, and they get really tough when you put Iron-Fleshed on them. I might have been able to wear the other units down eventually if it hadn't been for that feat, but my Mercs don't really have a solution for Iron Flesh right now, so the best I probably could have done about the middle unit was keep jamming him with Risen.

I should mention that near the end it was getting late and we were both getting fatigued. We started making a lot of mistakes in the last few rounds; I don't think MacBain!!!! would have killed very much at all if Gru hadn't forgotten to upkeep Iron Flesh. I really should have cast Fortune on him the turn before. That's something I need to remember to do: when I start running out of models, put Fortune on MacBain!!!! for the inevitable last hurrah.

Slapfights

Got a couple more games in with MacBain!!!!:
MacBain!!!!
-Mangler
-Sylyss Wishnalyrr
Nyss Hunters
Croe's Cutthroats
Alexia & the Risen
Lady A and Mister H
Kell


Game 1:
My first game was against Beanpole:
Makeda I
-Tiberion
-Krea
-Marketh
Paingiver Beast Handlers (4)
Immortals
-UA
Incendiarii (4)
Ha-Kaar
Willbreaker


Pre-Game:
Scenario was two flags and killbox. I won the roll and chose to go first. Beanpole picked the side with the forest and rough terrain.


Deployment:
There was a nice forest in the middle of the table that I thought would serve my Nyss very well, so I set them up behind it. Alexia was behind them, ready to slowly contest his flag with Risen. MacBain!!!! was directly behind my flag, with the Mangler there to threaten.

He deployed the Incendiarii on my left, near his flag, and the Immortals on my right, opposite my flag. Tibbers was in the middle and the Krea was embedded in his Immortals.

I then placed the Cutthroats behind my flag, ready to run forwards and jam. Kell went on the other side out of habit; in retrospect he would have been more useful against the Immortals than against the Incendiarii.

Round 1:
So the very first thing I did was forget to allocate focus to the Mangler. Great start. My infantry ran forwards and spread out. Kell hugged the house for cover. Fortune went on the Cutthroats, Failsafe on the Mangler, and I used the last point of focus for Energizer. I should have ran Alexia forwards, but instead I walked and created a Thrall; the idea was to run him forwards as a tempting target to draw at least one Incendiarii shot away from my Nyss, but I forgot to activate him after creating him.

Beanpole advanced and spread out,putting Defender's Ward on the Immortals and covering a bunch of Immortals and Incendiarii with Paralytic Auras.

Round 2:
So... I really didn't know what to do here. I didn't think much of the Cutthroat's chances against Defenders-Warded Immortals. So I figured the best I could do right now was jam forwards. I also figured I might be able to get a couple of Nyss Hunters into Makeda, just to annoy her. So MacBain!!!! popped his feat and handed out tokens to a handful of Cutthroats and Nyss, who then proceeded to charge Beanpole's front lines. Naturally I forgot to try to clear a path to Makeda, but I don't think I would have reached her anyway so nevermind.

I killed a couple of Immortals with great dice on the Cutthroats, giving him his Vengeance moves and souls to turn Incorporeal with. So much for jamming. Kell killed another. One Nyss Hunter rolled well and killed an Incendiarii. MacBain!!!! cautiously approached the flag; I left him close enough that one or two Immortals could probably charge him, but not more than that. I created a new Thrall and ran the two over to the flag to be annoying.

Hakaar and the Immortals rolled a whole lot of low dice; between Vengeance attacks and normal ones they only killed a couple of Cutthroats and left a couple knocked down. Makeda based the flag and, along with the Incendiarii, killed my Thralls, knocked down my front line of Nyss, and set them on fire. Tiberion trampled over two unkillable Nyss to reach one that he could paste, which he did. He couldn't score this turn thanks to unkillable Nyss.

Round 3:
For some strange reason Tiberion appeared to be in my Mangler's charge range. He had very thoughtfully made sure he wasn't engaged by anything either, meaning Aiyana didn't have too much trouble Kissing him. Holt put some damage on him, then the Mangler charged. He killed Hakaar with the Thresher attack, but mediocre damage rolls left Tibbers on a few boxes, but that was nothing a SURPRISE THRALLPEDO TO THE BACK couldn't take care of. Bless Alexia, with her evil necromantic sword and cursed undead minions.

MacBain!!!! ran from the oncoming Immortals, who my Cutthroats basically bounced off this turn. The Nyss Hunters killed another Incendiarii. Kell bravely strode forwards to try to protect Alexia from any retribution.

Makeda surrendered the flag but feated, while the rest of Beanpole's forces killed some more of my infantry. One Immortal charged Aiyana but failed to kill her. He swapped Defender's Ward onto Makeda. Oh, and he killed Kell. Alas.

Round 4:
I was able to get the Mangler into Makeda, but only did a bit of damage, that I think he transferred. I wanted to start scoring this turn, so I cleared his flag and set about creating a barrier of bodies that could protect MacBain!!!!. However, when all my models on that side had finished their activations, I realised that he still had an Incendiarii left that could probably take out the whole infantry wall with a single shot, (plus Beanpole would feat back a second one), so instead of running MacBain!!!! I had to advance and take a double-boosted handcannon shot to finish it off. Aiyana tagged the engaging Immortal with her Kiss, then Holt killed one or two. With Defender's Ward gone and the armour at a more reasonable level, the Cutthroats were able to kill a few more.

I guess Beanpole was a bit desperate here, because he sent Makeda in to a hot zone to kill Alexia. Which she did. The Immortals finished off the Cutthroats with their Vengeance attacks, then they killed Aiyana but whiffed on Holt. The Krea ran over to base my flag.

Round 5:
So Makeda was now sitting in front of MacBain!!!!. Easily kill, right? Somehow I didn't think so; not with Defender's Ward and a couple of Blood-Quenched tokens. But I figured MacBain!!!! had reach and she didn't, meaning he could attack while keeping a few models between them. I figured I could hit her once to stop transfers then put the Mangler and Cylena into her; they would both get back-stike bonuses, so I could probably do some damage while keeping a fair camp and scoring.

It took MacBain!!!! three focus to land a single hit, that did no damage. The Mangler and Cylena did maybe a few points between them? I left MacBain!!!! on three focus, with a couple of Risen between him and the Skorne warlock.

The other Nyss Hunter shot down Marketh, who was contesting, and Holt took two aspects off the Krea (which I thought was pretty impressive). I scored two points for dominating the flag.

The Krea finally killed Holt and started to score. Makeda killed Cylena but somehow managed to leave Sylyss on one box. The Willbreaker moved in to contest the flag. The Immortals scratched the paint on the Mangler. At some point we paused the game because this happened:

That's just from a regular dice throw. How crazy is that? Anyway, Beanpole scored a point this turn.

Round 6:
After what happened last time I tried it, I wasn't prepared to go after Makeda, so MacBain!!!! cast Fortune on himself, walked over to the other side of the flag, and killed the Willbreaker. I body-blocked Makeda with all the infantry I had left, while the Mangler killed a couple of models with a lazy swing. Beanpole scored one point and I scored two.

Beanpole killed some more infantry and spread out his remaining forces to try to make it hard for me to clear my flag. He scored another point, bringing his total up to three.

Round 7:
So for some reason I forgot that the flags weren't neutral and got it into my head that the Mangler could score a point on my flag. So I  loaded him up with focus, cast Energizer for three to make damned sure he had the distance, and sent him in to the Krea. He murdered it easily with his charge attack, leaving him with three focus and MacBain!!!! on zero with Makeda possibly in his back arc. Smart. Of course I didn't score anything.

Beanpole attacked MacBain!!!! with the remaining Immortals and a Paingiver, while Makeda based the flag and tried to make sure MacBain!!!! couldn't reach her. The Immortals rolled poorly and didn't do much damage. He scored a point, leaving us both at 4.

Round 8:
So MacBain!!!! needed to base the flag to score, but I also needed the Mangler to contest or else we'd both just go up to five points. So MacBain!!!! charged the Mangler, used Energizer to move the Mangler out of his reach then move the remaining couple of inches towards the flag. The Mangler ran over to contest. I scored the fifth point I needed to win.

Game 2:
I played against Blondie, who was running a similar list to last time:
Styker I
-Old Rowdy
-Squire
Journeyman Warcaster:
-Defender
Gunmages
-UA
Sword Knights (10)
Sword Knights (6)


Pre-Game:
We rolled the scenario with two flags and a zone with two objectives. We both picked Arcane Wonder. He won the roll and picked the side of the table with the wall and less intervening terrain, leaving me to go first.


Deployment:
The flag on the right looked nice and sheltered, so I prepared MacBain!!!! to go running over to it. The Nyss Hunters stood next to him, planning to use the large forest as cover from the Gunmages. The Risen went in the middle to contest stuff.

He deployed the Sword Knights in a long line, with the larger unit on my left. The Gunmages were spread out between them. Rowdy was just to the right of center, and the Defender to the left (behind the wall).

I put the Cutthroats on my left where the could contest the other flag, with one far on the right so he could get Fortuned. Kell went on the far left because... uh... I don't know.

Round 1:
So the very first thing I did this game, you guessed it, forgot to allocate focus to the Mangler. Sigh. Fortune on the Cutthroats, who ran up to the hill, Failsafe on the Mangler, the Nyss ran up and hid behind the forest.

Blondie ran his Sword Knights forwards in base contact. The large unit on left got Arcane Shield. The other shield went on Rowdy, and Snipe on the Defender - who killed a Cutthroat. Rowdy got into the zone, but was behind the forest.

Round 2:
Well, the plan was to start scoring, so I would need to keep MacBain!!!! safe. I also saw an opportunity with Alexia, but she would need to move forwards to take advantage, so she needed some protection as well. I placed the Cutthroat's corpse well forwards. MacBain!!!! feated on the Nyss and Alexia. The Nyss charged the small unit of Sword Knights and stubbornly refused to roll anything less than a 7, killing all but one.

Then I did something I'd never done before... I actually used Bushwack! The Cutthroats shot at the Sword Knights before moving back away from theGunmages. Shame they stubbornly refused to roll anything more than a 3... not really, but even with Fortune and poisoned weapons they only managed to kill a couple of Sword Knights. Kell ran in a long flanking maneuver.

Alexia advanced, moving the dead Cutthroat's corpse behind his line of Knights, while the rest of her posse formed up in front of her. She then turned the corpse into a Thrall, who had a clear charge lane at the Journeyman. One lucky attack roll and one perfect damage roll later, and I had one less warcaster to worry about this game!

Styker walked over an reactivated the Defender. The Sword Knights killed a bunch of Cutthroats. The Gunmages killed Kell, some Risen, and knocked down some Nyss Hunters.

Round 3:
I ran the Mangler around the forest to get to Rowdy, planning to use Jackhammer to attack him. Just one little problem: I forgot you need line of sight to cast Jackhammer, and there was a forest in the way. So instead MacBain!!!! based the flag to start scoring.

Risen and Cutthroats killed some Sword Knights, Nyss Hunters managed to shoot a couple of Gunmages. I created a new Thrall and sent him in to tie up some Gunmages.

Rowdy got three focus and attacked the Mangler, but his damage dice were poor and he only took off about half his boxes. The Gunmages killed the Thrall and punched a hole in my line of Nyss, allowing the Defender to shoot at MacBain!!!!, but he only did a few points of damage. Sword Knights continued killing Risen, then providing Alexia with corpses for replacements by killing Cutthroats. I scored a second point. Stryker used his feat.

Round 4:
The Mangler got three focus; a Thresher hit the object for... very little, and Old Rowdy for even less. After spending all my focus I think I did like one point of damage to Rowdy. The Nyss Hunters killed another Gunmage, but didn't do much else. Alexia burned all her Risen trying to break through the ARM on a single Sword Knight, but failed. The Cutthroats manage to kill a couple with charges though. I scored a third point.

Old Rowdy had to leave the fight in order to get around and contest the flag, running there through a hole the Gunmages made for him. Stryker shot the Mangler, leaving him Disrupted.

Round 5:
I put everything I had into Rowdy, but only managed to do a couple more points of damage. So MacBain!!!! abandoned the flag, running behind the forest. The Cutthroats and Alexia whiffed on the Sword Knights. Oh, after several turns of ineffective slapping at each other, a couple of Nyss Hunters finally managed to kill the last Sword Knight from the smaller unit.

Rowdy finally killed the Mangler. One Sword Knight killed another Cutthroat, while the other two died to free-strikes in order to leave Alexia un-engaged, allowing the Defender to gun her down. The Gunmages finally advanced and shot at MacBain!!!!, but couldn't break his armour.

Round 6:
Aiyana Kissed Blondie's objective, Holt shot it for a few points, then four Nyss Hunters charged it. Poor rolls saw three of them die before the last one finished it off, netting me a point. Croe killed the last Sword Knight, while his last Cutthroat ran over to engage a Gunmage. MacBain!!!! then charged over and killed said Gunmage, clearing the zone and dominating for two, winning me the game.

Postmortem:
OK, so those were some long grindy games. A lot of that was my fault for being so cagey with MacBain!!!!. I keep thinking that I should have been able to go all-in on Makeda, but the DEF buff from Defender's Ward combined with the extra ARM plus one or two Blood-Quenched tokens all the time... well, the one time I did attack her I burned half my focus and did 0 damage, so... having said that, there were several turns where Makeda could have reached MacBain!!!!, but he was usually camping at least 3 and I made sure it would have cost her initials to reach him, so Beanpole apparently wasn't prepared to risk it either. Honestly though, he really should have gone for it one that turn when I left MacBain!!!! on 0 camp with his back turned to her. I guess he didn't think I'd be able to score and/or contest so he wouldn't need to?

I think my dice were fairly average; I got the real clutch rolls off, but I don't think I pulled off any really crazy rolls. Both my opponents had some pretty bad dice though; Blondie's Gunmages rolled a whole lot of 3s, and Beanpole's Immortals took about 3 times as long to kill the Cutthroats as they should have.

Aiyana and Holt are... kind of a big deal. Aiyana's Kiss can really be huge, and Holt can do a surprising amount of damage; he came respectably close to one-rounding the Krea. At this point I'm fairly sure they're a must-have for a Merc list with no other damage buffs. I need to get mine assembled.

I have decided that, from this moment forth, Alexia shall officially be known as my second warcaster. She has almost warcaster-level stats, with great survivability, great offensive power, and some crazy abilities like getting Thralls into insane places, but she's cheap and, unlike my warcaster, is basically expendable. Killing that Journeyman was a huge blow, and it was a very hard attack to protect against.

I've been thinking of trying other jacks, but every time I do I imagine trying to kill Tiberion without a chain weapon. And with Beanpole talking about just keeping Defenders Ward on Tiberion all game, I just don't see it happening. I might try taking a second jack at some point though (once I get one assembled that is), at least at 50 points.

MacBain!!!! isn't exactly proving to be a powerhouse, but he does seem to have a flexible toolbox; I don't think I've found myself in a situation where I felt like I had no options, though I do feel very dependent on getting lucky with my warjack for armour cracking. OK, Sorscha and Strakhoff won't be cracking any armour on their own (one of the things I don't like about them), but Sorscha better enables the rest of her army to crack armour and Strakhoff can use still use Ram to manage heavies to some extent. Energizer is proving to be far more valuable than I expected it to be, I wouldn't have won the first game without it.

That 6 point unit of Sword Knights held up and ground down my 10 point Cutthroats and 5 point Risen units for the whole game, even after losing Arcane Shield. Yes, Alexia got a couple of Thralls off, but still, not a bad investment.

Blondie needs to be more aware of the scenario. The problem is that right now he's having trouble keeping his warcaster alive; I believe he lost the two games before this one to surprise assassinations on Stryker. So he's responding by keeping Stryker further back. Which is fair, but unfortunately makes it hard for him to score. Perhaps he should swap the Defender for the Centurion; that would give him a very robust piece that can contest zones and crack armour; I think he'd get more use out of it than he is from the Defender's cannon.