Butcher Gonna Getcha

I got to play some more Warmachine with Speedy. This time we decided to try Clashmachine.

Game 1:
I've been a little tired of Strakhov and kinda wanted to run a list that could hit a little harder. I settled on Butcher 2: since the massive update a while back I've been interested in giving him another try. He brings a bit of speed, a bit of armour-cracking, and I feel he has some fun rules. I stuck with the Wolves of Winter theme. I brought a Spriggan for the 2" reach: not only would that help compensate for my lower threat ranges, it would also make the most of the Ravager spell. A Berserker was a cheap way to fill points, and with Boundless Charge and Fury would make a good opener to start the piece trade. The Adjunct was a must considering Butcher's... "Focus situation". The Koldun Lord along with the Forge Seer would also help with Focus. Nyss Hunters with Valachev can hit hard with Fury. Action Saxxon is a fairly survivable Stealth solo for scoring, and being able to hand out Pathfinder would let the Doomereavers charge and still ignore Tough, or potentially allow Butcher to go in without needing to spend Focus on Boundless Charge.
[Theme] Wolves of Winter
[Butcher 2] Kommander Orsus Zoktavir [+28]
- Berserker [8]
- Juggernaut [13]
- Spriggan [17]
- Greylord Adjunct [3]
Greylord Forge Seer [0(4)]
Koldun Lord [3]
Saxon Orrik [4]
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters (max) [16]
- Koldun Kapitan Valachev [0(4)]
Doom Reaver Swordsmen [10]
- Greylord Escort [3]

Speedy was running Amon with a jackspam list:
[Theme] Exemplar Interdiction
[Amon 1] High Allegiant Amon Ad-Raza [+29]
- Crusader [10]
- Dervish [7]
- Devout [7]
- Devout [7]
- Reckoner [14]
- Repenter [7]
- Hierophant [2]
Scrutator Potentate Severius [0(5)]
- Fire of Salvation [13]
Vassal Mechanik [1]
Vassal Mechanik [1]
Vassal of Menoth [0(2)]
Vassal of Menoth [0(2)]
Choir of Menoth (min) [4]
Choir of Menoth (max) [6]


Pre-Game:
This was our first time playing clashmachine, and man: I do not have enough terrain, or objective markers, for this game. Luckily we rolled mission 1, and between the two of us managed to scround up enough zone markers and terrain... more or less. Speedy won the roll and chose the side of the table with less forests.


Deployment:
I deployed my Nyss Hunters on the side with the forests. Butcher and the Juggernaut went on my left, towards the wall, with the Berserker and Spriggan central, behind the pool. My Greylord solos were farther left, positioned to go for the left zones. Speedy positioned his battlegroup centrally, with a Choir on each side, and Sevvy on my right. I put Action Saxxon on the zone on my right, with the Doomreavers in a line across the center in order to threaten the central zone.
Round 1:
I threw BC on the Spriggan and the Berserker, the latter of whom also received Fury. This allowed them to charge over the pool in their path. The Doomreavers stepped into the zone, claiming it for the MothaARGHARGHAAARGH! Sorry, they can be a little incoherent at times. The Koldun Lord pushed up to be able to cast Frostbite on stuff. The Nyss Hunters spread out on my right. Amon cast Mobility and walked 8" to touch the zone. The rest of his army moved up cautiously.


Round 2:
I believe I rolled 7 Focus on Butcher. I filled up the Spriggan. He trampled forwards to be within 10" of the closer Devout, hitting him with a boosted Flare grenade and tagging Amon as well, dropping his DEF to 14. This allowed the Koldun Lord to advance and hit Amon with Frostbite, dropping his ARM to 12. The Nyss Hunters tried to aim and Zephyr up to shoot at Amon, but in all the clutter on the table I forgot about the forest blocking LOS so they did literally nothing. Finally the Doomreavers charged Amon (with Pathfinder from Saxxon), with the first one dying to the Devout's Defensive Strike. Thanks to the lowered DEF I was able to land my attacks, and the second crazed swordsman cranked his damage roll. With the Escort blocking Tough, Amon was toast.

Game 2:
We decided there was no need to change anything for the second game. I won the roll and chose to go first, Speedy stuck with the same side of the table.


Deployment:
I tried switching things around this time, putting the Nyss on my left and Butcher on the right. Speedy again put his battlegroup in the center and units on the sides, but this time had Sevvy more central so it would be easier to use his buff aura. I put my Doomreavers on my right this time.
Round 1:
I pushed forwards again, spreading my infantry out and getting my jacks as far fowards as they could go. I ran the Adjunct behind the forest on the right "for safety", which was stupid because he wanted to stay near the Nyss Hunters and Koldun Lord on the left. Speedy was a little more conservative with Amon this time. The Repenter was able to kill one Doomreaver and leave another kocked down and on fire. The Reckoner shot down the Greylord Escort.
Round 2:
I really didn't know what to do here; I figured my best bet was to try to get a lead on scoring. The burning Doomreaver died, but the other 4 managed to kill the Dervish and get some damage onto the Repenter. The Nyss Hunters spread out and ran to engage the jacks on the left, just to keep them busy. I moved the Spriggan into the zone, keeping out of the Crusader's threat range but within range of the Devouts. I thought about putting the Berserker there instead, but I figured that, even with some buffs, the P+S 13 Devouts probably wouldn't wreck the Spriggan. Butcher toed into Saxxon's zone, allowing him to touch the back of the next one. I ran the Adjunct into the Koldun Lord's command range, allowing the Koldun Lord to cloud himself. The Forgeseer hid behind the cloud. Fire of Salvation killed the engaging Nyss Hunter then used Road to War to walk over and kill the other contesting his zone. The Crusader killed the two in his face. The Repentor and Reckoner finished off my Doomreavers. The two Devouts charged the Spriggan; at P+S 17 they were doing respectable damage and almost certainly would have destroyed him if Amon had been able to actually spare focus to fuel them; as it was he was left with about 10 boxes that very fortunately included the arms and cortex. For some reason Amon advanced much farther than he needed to. At the end of the turn Speedy scored 3 points and I scored 5.
Round 3:
Well, my Juggernaut had a clear path to Amon, so I just needed to figure out how to get him there with as many buffs as possible. Butcher <sarcasm>helpfully</sarcasm> chose this turn to roll minimum Focus. Last turn I had run the Adjunct away from Butcher, so I had to drop Fury to save Focus. I actually got a little flustered and made a lot of mistakes this turn; I don't even remember some of my activations. First I shuffled the Spriggan around a bit to create a window for Butcher to see the left Devout. This earned the Spriggan two Defensive Strikes, but at P+S 14 they bounced off harmlessly. I think I tried to flare Amon with a boosted Grenade and missed, but I don't remember for sure. I had intended to use the Spriggan's melee attacks against the Devouts, but somehow forgot. The Berserker walked up to the left Devout and hit him twice for good damage, leaving him with just a few boxes left. The Berserker still had his Power-up focus so he could have attacked again, but there was a chance of killing the Devout so I ended his activation there. Butcher could not see the Devout so he couldn't charge, meaning he needed Pathfinder from Saxxon. Luckily Butcher was just in walking threat range. So he walked up, popped Feat, and killed the Devout, triggering Conferred Rage and allowing him to cast Boundless Charge and pass a Rage token onto the Juggernaut. Butcher stepped back an inch, toeing the zone. The Koldun Lord and Forge Seer then Empowered the Juggernaut up to the full 3 Focus. I tried to aim with the Nyss Hunters again, but once again I somehow missed the forest and just gave up on them, ending their activation without doing anything.

With all the help I could give him, the Juggernaut - now at MAT 9 and able to charge 11" for free, with 3 Focus and a Rage token - charged into Amon, and immediately rolled Snake Eyes on his charge attack. The fist attack missed as well. The first bought attack rolled a crit and left Amon Stationary. The second bought attack burned through the last of Amon's focus, and the third Boxed him... but he passed his Tough roll. Fortunately I still had the single Fury token, which allowed me to buy one more attack... that Amon Toughed through. Searching the table, I found the one model I had left to activate: the Greylord Adjunct. He advanced as far as he could towards Amon... then I read his card and realised his only offensive spell was an 8" spray, and he was just over 8" away. With the turn over I scored 4 points, bringing me to 9, and Speedy scored 3, bringing him to 6. Amon shook the Stationary and retreated. The Reckoner killed my Juggernaut and the Crusader kill the Adjunct and the Berserker. The remaining Devout bounced off the Spriggan again. Sevvy stood his ground, but the Repenter moved in front of him. Fire of Salvation trampled over my Nyss, killing most of them, including Valachev and Cylena. The Vassal Mechanic moved up to contest the zone that Saxxon had been controlling. At the end of the turn I scored 2 points, bringing me to 11, and Speedy scored 4, bringing him to 10.


Round 4:
My only chance now was to try The Move. Butcher started with 5 Focus this turn, which was not bad. I couldn't get the Forgeseer into range to Empower the Spriggan, so I just had to make do with the 1 Focus. The Spriggan bulldozed the Devout back and moved around him to be in shield-range of the Reckoner, easily shrugging off another Defensive Strike from the Devout. He then fired his Flare grenades at the Heirophant who was standing next to Amon. The first unboosted attack scattered off harmlessly, but the second boosted Flare hit, lighting up the Heirophant, a Choirboy, and Ammon. The Heirophant survived but the Choirboy didn't, and what's more I rolled boxcars on the damage roll against Amon! Speedy momentarily forgot that he had focus on Amon and instead rolled the Tough roll... turns out Amon was still Tough. Well, I guess that's some saved Focus anyway. The Spriggan then used his two initials to do serious damage to the Repenter. Saxxon then fired at Amon but also failed to finish him off. The Koldun Lord moved across and cast Puppet Master on Butcher. Finally it was Butcher's turn. Casting Boundless Charge on himself, he charged the Repenter, moving as far towards Amon as he could (which was a little short of his full movement). His initial attack destroyed the Repenter, and his Berserk attack killed Sevvy. That allowed him to move an inch and cast Eliminator on the Flared Heirophant. I boosted the attack roll and hit; I think I boosted the damage roll too, which was enough to kill. The blast damage was not enough to force another Tough roll on Amon, and what's worse Amon was just over 4" away from Butcher at this point so the 2" move from Eliminator was not enough to reach him. If only the Spriggan's grenade hadn't killed the Choirboy I might have been able to kill him for the extra movement. Luckily though, a Vassal near Amon was just within 4" allowing Butcher to get into melee with him. I bought an attack and killed him; this allowed Butcher to move an inch, more than enough to engage Amon. The Berserk attack hit, and Amon finally reached his limit.
Post-Mortem:
Good grief, that last hail-Mary was tense! My dice were solid though, consistently rolling well for that whole sequence. Man, that wall of fast hard-hitting jacks was pretty overwhelming; I felt at a disadvantage the whole time. If it wasn't for Speedy pushing Amon too far up on order to keep everything in Synergy range, I don't see how I could have won - at least not considering how many mistakes I was making. I could not figure out what to do with my Greylord solos; there was just too much on the table and I ended up spreading things out and losing out on the chance to put buffs where I needed them. I think a big part of the problem was that there was just too much on the table; too much terrain, too many zones, and of course a bunch of dangerous jacks. But I had always expected to have to use Butcher himself to win, so I was always on the lookout for ways to get him into Amon, and in the end I found it. It was dicey as hell though! I could hardly believe Butcher managed to pull it off!

I wasn't sure about the Spriggan or Saxxon, and almost didn't include them in my list; it's hard to bring a Spriggan over Ruin after all. But the Spriggan's Flare, and even Bulldoze, proved to be extremely useful; there was nothing Ruin would have done in those games that was better than what the Spriggan did. And even though most of my killy warrior models already had access to Pathfinder, somehow Saxxon handing it out to the Doomreavers and Butcher was still huge.

I think Speedy overestimated Amon's survivability, although that was his first time playing against the new Spriggan, and the combination of Bulldoze and Dual Attack can be hard to account for. Without the Flare I'm not sure the Doomreavers could have sealed the deal in the first game; the Koldun Lord would have missed without it, and I think the first two Doomreaver attacks would have too - needing 9s to hit is a lot worse than needing 7s.

That was a good game, it got pretty intense by the end. I feel like that second game illustrates what I like about Warmachine: there's different paths to victory, and even if you're behind there's always a chance you can find a way for your pieces to work together to get you the win.

Menite Jackspam

I got in another Warmachine game against Speedy. He was trying a fun list this time, while I had tweaked my previous list to make it legal in Wolves of Winter:
Strakhov 1
- Torch
- Juggernaut
- Destroyer
- Greylord Adjunct
Doomreaver Swordsman
- Greylord Escort
Nyss Hunters
- Valachev (free)
Koldun Lord
Forgeseer (free)

Speedy's list was in the Creator's Might theme:
Cyrenia 1
- Judicator
Avatar of Menoth
Severius 0
- Templar
Choir of Menoth (4)
Rhoven & Guard
Vassal Mechanic
Vassal x2 (free)


Pre-Game:
We rolled a Steamroller scenario, but it had like 7 scoring elements and I just felt like it would be too much. So after some waffling around I suggested we just play Hold The Line as it was fairly simply and neither too cramped nor too spread out (I ended up using a 50mm disc for the central flag because I only had 2 40mm discs and I didn't care anymore). I threw some forests on the table (well, we decided everything counted as a forest); I need to sort out some new terrain but I just don't know what would be a good choice and I don't want to have to paint anything really. Speedy won the roll and chose to go second.


Deployment:
I couldn't exactly ignore terrain the way I usually do with my infantry, so I had to work around the forests. I put my battlegroup on my left, and the Nyss Hunters in the middle. Speedy positioned his Judicator opposite my battlegroup, and kept his infantry behind his jacks. My Doomreavers went on my right.

Round 1:
Doomreavers apparated then ran forwards. I spread them all out, and also hid the Nyss behind the forest, as I was pretty sure the Judicator could put out a lot of AOEs. Strakhov put Occultation on the Nyss, Superiority on Torch, and Sentry on the Destroyer, and walked behind the forest. The Jacks ran forwards. The Greylords clouded themselves and walked up. In retrospect I could have given the Escort Stealth with a cloud if I had planned my turn properly, though it didn't end up mattering.

The Mechanic fixed up the Judicator a little, something (Rhoven?) gave him Eyeless Sight, Choir handed out Battle, etc. The Judicator did some damage to Torch and killed a couple of Nyss Hunters with drifts. The Avatar ran towards my Doomreavers and used Menoth's Gaze. Cyrena put Inviolable Resolve on the Avator and put a wall in front, then popped her Feat.

Round 2:
I don't remember if it was his normal or his Sentry shot, but I think the Destroyer put about six points of damage into the Judicator. The Doomreavers charged the DEF 12 ARM 23 Avatar and only put about 5 points of damage into him; not being able to hit him with Brittle Frost first was a unfortunate. The Escort simply based the flag. The Nyss ran up to engage models, with a couple also basing flags. Torch ran up to touch the flag on my left. The Juggernaut ran up, but made sure to stay further back than the Destroyer. Strakhov moved into the forest. The Koldun Lord advanced while trying to stay hidden from the Judicator.

The Avatar rolled 4 focus and killed four Doomreavers, leaving two knocked down. A pair of Choir I believe tried to finish one (which might not have been legal as I think they still sung Battle that turn?), but couldn't crack the armour. The Templar killed a pair of Nyss Hunters. Cyrena might have killed one as well? She put a wall in front of my jacks. The Judicator killed some Nyss Hunters and the Forgeseer, and put some damage onto the Destroyer. I scored two points for the side flags.

Round 3:
Strakhov filled up Torch and the Destroyer. The Destroyer put his Sentry shot into the Judicator or maybe the Templar. I probably should have used the Apparition move to shuffle the Greylord Escort behind the flag, but I forgot. I forgot to move him during their activation as well, so the Escort did nothing while the Doomreavers stood up. One Doomreaver killed two Choir, but without the charge the two attacks into the Avatar did nothing. Torch then charged into the Judicator and actually did good damage, crippling his right arm and only leaving a few boxes on that grid. The Koldun Lord shuffled as far back as possible while still keeping the Templar in LOS and range, before hitting the jack with Brittle Frost. Strakhov activated and recast Superiority onto the Destroyer, who I had intended to charge the Templar but I forgot I needed Pathfinder to go over the wall, and the flag was blocking me from making distance if I tried to charge around the wall. So instead I just put a double-boosted Bombard into the Templar (in retrospect I should probably have targetted the Judicator since iirc he doesn't get the target-in-melee defensive bonus, and I probably could have crippled his right grid). My last Nyss Hunter charged the Templar. The Juggernaut ran up to take Torch's place as a flag holder. I ended the turn at 4 points.

Since the victory condition for Hold The Line was simply to reach 5 points, Speedy was now in a bad position. The Mechanic fixed the Judicator's right-side systems. The Avatar finished off the Doomreavers. A Vassal ran to contest the flag on my right. The Judicator shuffled into range and shot down my Greylord Escort, put 10 damage onto Strakhov and killed my Adjunt, and put a heap of damage onto Torch, leaving his right arm crippled. Early in the turn the Templar used Road to War move to move in the general direction of my Destroyer, then at the end he looked to charge my Juggernaut but couldn't reach, so he just ran to contest instead. One warrior model based the central flag, giving Speedy a point.

Round 4:
Strakhov filled the Juggernaut and Destroyer. The Koldun Lord cast Brittle Frost on the Templar. Strakhov popped Feat and charged the Templar, then bought two extra attacks. He actually did good damage, leaving the Templar's shield crippled. Torch then charged into the Templar's back arc, hitting once with his good fist and then again with his crippled saw. Finally the Destroyer charged the Templar; he rolled a crit on his charge attack... but it didn't matter because the damage was enough to kill the Templar so the crit didn't matter. As usual. With the Juggernaut still sitting on the flag, I scored my fifth point for the win.

Post-Mortem:
I threw my army forwards as quickly as possible to push the lines of engagement back and let me score early. Speedy didn't really appreciate just how dangerous it was to let me get away with it, which is why he suddenly found himself in a pickle at the start of round 3. At this point he might have still been in the game if he committed to contesting flags. Trampling the Avatar over the Doomreavers to get to the Escort, or at least to get close enough to contest, would have freed up the Judicator to focus on my battlegroup and on getting close enough to contest, rather than having to move to my right to get into gun range of the Escort. If he had planned his moves better he could have moved the Templar directly towards the Juggernaut with Road to War (instead of blocking his direct path with a warrior model), which would have let him charge in and kill the Juggernaut. He could have also run more infantry models, like the remaing Choir, to contest flags rather than casting Battle (which he didn't really need all that much). Or he could have killed Torch with the Templar (possibly repositioning afterwards with Road to War, I'm not really sure how far he was at the start of the turn), freeing up the Judicator to charge my Juggernaut and possibly getting the Destroyer AND basing the flag all at the same time - three birds with one stone!

I think at the time he was being a bit too precious with his models, trying to keep the Judicator as safe as possible and focussing on killing my few remaining infantry models even though they weren't that big a threat. He probably should have swapped Inviolable Resolve off the Avatar since it wasn't really in any threat anymore, the other jacks needed it more by the end.

I think that was my last game with Strakhov. He didn't really do anything that game that any warcaster with a speed buff and free charges couldn't have. OK, I did have the option of just pushing the Templar away from my flag with two casts of Battering Ram, but... I never used Overrun (kind of hard when I can't kill anything at range, I'd have to charge the Juggernaut in to have a reliable chance of killing anything my battlegroup can actually reach), Sentry didn't do much, Occultation helped a bit but wasn't that big a deal, and I didn't exactly make the most of the Feat (as usual). The Koldun Lord didn't do much either, maybe someday.

I need some models that do more damage. It's kind of telling that even though I won, I barely killed anything; my death count for the entire game amounted to two Choirboys and a single jack at the end!

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.