The Journey Man III - The Manning

We were able to get another couple of 25 point games in. I was still running:
Strakhov
-Spriggan
-Juggernaut
Croes
-Valchev
Kell Bailoch

Beanpole of course had his beast-heavy list:
Morghoul I
-Molik Karn
-Gladiator
-Savage
-Brute
Paingiver Beast Handlers

And Blondie had swapped in Gunmages and Old Rowdie, plus an Arcane-Shield-On-A-Stick:
Styker I
-Old Rowdie
-Ironclad (proxied by Crusader)
-Charger (proxied by Repenter)
Journeyman Warcaster
Gunmages
-UA


Game 1
I played Blondie. He won the roll and chose to go first. Since Gunmages would murder Croes, I decided to pick the side with the wall, so I could at least possibly get cover if the fight stuck to the center.

Round 1:
Blondie put Arcane Shield on his two heavies and moved up. The gunmages walked forwards and took sniped shots at the Cutthroats but were out of range.

The Spriggan got Superiority and Strakhov cast Occultation on himself; no more charger-assassinations for Stryker! I put my Spriggan behind the forest threatening his heavies. The Cutthroats walked up and took shots at the Gunmages, but don't think I actually hit any (I might have been out of range).

Round 2:
His gunmages stood still and fired at my Croes, but surprisingly bad dice meant he didn't kill as many as expected. Meanwhile his heavies walked forwards to toe the zone. Stryker moved up into base contact with Rowdy.

I ran my Cutthroats forwards to engage the Gunmages, with Valachev striking a heroic pose on the top of a hill where everyone could see him. Croe himself went for the Journeyman but missed. Strakhov feated and the Spriggan charged Rowdy. I had been planning to bulldoze him out of the zone, but annoyingly I couldn't do that with Stryker in place. I did lightly touch the other Ironclad and send it staggering backwards, you know, for funsies. Thanks to Arcane Shield, Rowdy was left with all his systems except movement.

Round 3:
The Journeyman killed Croe before the Gunmages activated. This was a mistake because Croe just tagged in for the one Cutthroat who hadn't managed to engage any Gunmages; because Croe has Reach this meant I was suddenly engaging a whole lot more gunmages than I was a minute ago. When it came time to actually activate the Gunmages however, their dice exploded and they killed off most of my Cutthroats. Blondie hadn't moved the ones engaged by Croe as he'd been hoping to kill Croe with an aimed shot from an unengaged Gunmage, freeing those ones up to take more aimed shots. The unengaged mage missed, leaving the rest unable to attack.

Old Rowdy wailed away at the Spriggan but didn't take out any systems. The other Ironclad took some damage from a Spriggan free-strike in order to make it into the Spriggan's back arc, but this allowed him to ignore the shield, ultimately knocking the Spriggan down to a single Cortex box. Striker himself walked up and took a swing; he disrupted the Spriggan but couldn't break his armour. Finally he feated.

So my Spriggan was distrupted and left with a single Cortex box, eh? What harm could he possibly do? Well... I upkept Superiority for the extra 2", which I made good used of moving back and forth bulldozing Styker and the two heavies out of the zone. The Juggernaut took out Blondie's objective and Strakhov ran up to a protected position behind the forest, but in the zone.

Meanwhile the Cutthroats swung at the Gunmage UA, and even Valachev got stuck in with his magic shotgun, getting four attacks. Unfortunately I whiffed everything; only Croe himself managed to kill a single Gunmage.

With that the turn ended and I scored three points; I only needed to dominate one more time to win.

Round 4:
Again my opponent did not move his engaged Gunmages in order to get Croe into their melee range, trying to shoot Croe down with a single Gunmage and missing. The others did manage to take out another Cutthroat however. The Ironclad walked over and destroyed my objective earning a point, while Rowdy attacked the Juggernaut. I don't remember if he lost any systems, he might have lost the axe. The Charger tried to finish off the Spriggan but failed, so the Journeyman went in. With his last attack, boosting the damage roll, he just managed to the get the 10 he needed to knock off the Spriggan's last box.

This wasn't looking good, but I had a plan. There were three jacks and a Journeyman in the zone; if I could clear them all out I could dominate for the win. With Croe in the Journeman's back arc, I should have no trouble killing him. The Juggernaut could throw Rowdy out, and Strakhov could use Ram to push the remaining jacks clear.

So I gave the Juggernaut one focus and started with Croe. In a flash of "brilliance", I decided that I could Zephyr and aim in order to take a RAT 8 shot rather than a MAT 7 swing at the Journeyman. So instead of needing a 5 or something to hit; I ended up needing... an 8 because he was in a forest touching the Spriggan's wreck marker. I rolled a 7. Sigh.

The other Cutthroat took a shot but was just out of range. OK, not a problem. Strakhov could kill the Journeman himself. So I activated the Juggernaut and tried a one-handed throw... and failed. Sigh.

So now my only chance was to Overrun Strakhov off the Journeyman and try to kill Stryker himself. Stryker had no camp but was at DEF 18 thanks to Rowdy, so the odds weren't good. Anway, Strakhov charged the Journeman, needing a 7 to hit... and rolled a 6. Sigh.

I bought a second attack and this one did the job, but now I had only two focus left for buying attacks against Stryker. Needing 11s, they both missed. Double-sigh.

Round 5:
Stryker killed Strakhov.

Game 2
I wasn't there for this game, so here's Beanpole's narration:
He won the roll and chose the side with the wall. So I deployed first in my usual clump but off to the side with the hill and Blondie's objective. He deployed with the battlegroup central and the gun mages in a line on the same side as me.

Round 1:
Gladiator puts Rush on Savage and makes a slam toward Charger. Savage runs up to behind the forest. Morghoul puts admonition on Molik and rush on Brute then fails a charge at Stryker. Molik runs to the hill and Brute runs between Molik and Morghoul. Paingivers run up as well.

Styker puts Arcane shield on Rowdy and advances. Journeyman does same for Ironclad. Both heavies run up to the zone. Charger advances and tries to shoot something but I think was out of range. Gun mages take snipe shots at Molik and Brute inflicting a few points of damage.

Round 2:
I had one too many fury point out so the Brute passed a threshold check. Morghoul upkeeps Admonition then activates, casts Abuse on Molik, takes the fury from the Brute with Maltreatment and advances to just out of the zone camping 3. Gladiator moves up to put Rush on Molik. The Brute puts safeguard on Morghoul then advances into the zone where he will be able to shield guard for Morghoul and Molik. Savage moves up into the forest in the zone. Paingivers enrage Molik and remove any other fury. Molik charges Rowdy and scraps him.

He loads the Charger and keeps 3. Junior upkeeps Arcane Shield. Charger backs up to get out of the feat and shoots at Molik as do the gun mages except one cheeky guy that hits a Paingiver which I have the Brute shield guard. I think Junior shoots at Molik as well and he is around half boxes. Stryker feats and puts Arcane Shield on himself. The Ironclad walks up to the objective and does 10 damage.

Round 3:
Upkeep Admonition, then Molik passes his threshold check. Molik moves into the wreckage of Ol' Rowdy and kills the objective with his initials and sidesteps deeper into the wreck. Gladiator moves up to where he can get to the ironclad next turn and puts rush on the savage. Morghoul moves into the zone and forest and casts safeguard on himself. Brute moves into forest between ironclad and Morghoul. Paingivers enrage the savage, remove fury from gladiator and heal the brute for a few points. Savage charges into the gun mages but hits none.

Stryker upkeeps arcane shield and allocates the rest. 3 to the charger and 2 to the iron clad, I think. Ironclad decides to ignore Molik (who has admonition anyway) and tries to kill the Brute. He does heavy damage but only knocks out body. The Gunmages aim. One kills a Paingiver and others get some damage on Molik. The Charger aims and shoots Molik bringing him to down to one box in the spirit. He hits the second shot and I force a re-roll which misses. Junior also aims and hits Molik but also misses the forced re-roll. Stryker decides to make a break for the forest (but it is not far enough, spoilers).

Round 4:
I drop admonition this turn. Molik and the Savage pass their threshold checks. The Brute walks around the Ironclad to clear the lane for the Gladiator and takes a swing with his halbard, but since I forgot to heal his body it does nothing. The Paingivers go enraging the Gladiator and Molik and healing the Brute. The Gladiator charges the Ironclad leaving it on 4 boxes or so, everything crippled but the fist. The Savage decides he will kill something before the end and caps a Gunmage. Morghoul walks around to have his control area far enough and heals Molik two points and casts Rush on him. Molik charges Stryker and puts him into the dirt.

Final Score: (wins/losses)
Beanpole: 4 / 2
Blondie: 3 / 1
Samurai: 1 / 4


Postmortem:
I think Blondie needs to learn to move those Gunmages rather than focussing on the aiming bonus; they would have been better off taking out the Paingivers than standing around trying to put damage on warbeasts. He also seems to trigger Strykers feat the round after he walks into charge range for some reason; I think that he hasn't yet fully understood that Cygnar jacks won't last a round (at least against Skorne) without at least losing a system, even with Arcane Shield. He's not thinking enough about protecting his caster yet either, but of course that takes time.

I made some stupid mistakes that cost me my game (like trying to shoot the Journeman rather than just stabbing him in the back with Croe), but then my list didn't have the hitting power to get through two Arcane Shielded jacks (nevermind the feat), and of course the Gunmages love to see Croes across the table (1 point models that are RAT 5 DEF 13 ARM 11 and rely on Stealth? Rofl!). I might have won on scenario though had my dice cooperated.

Hmm, I seem to be falling behind on the score board. Oh well, I figured this would happen when I chose Strakhov. I think I'll probably try a new caster soon (although I might have to proxy for a while).

The Journey Man II - The Journeying

In the second week of the Journeyman League we played at 25 points. I modified my list to:
Strakhov
-Spriggan
-Juggernaut
Croes
-Valchev
Kell Bailoch

Beanpole had decided to forgo infantry:
Morghoul I
-Molik Karn
-Gladiator
-Savage
-Brute
Paingiver Beast Handlers


Game 1
I think this scenario had a killbox. Beanpole won the roll and chose to go first; I decided I liked the wall more than the house. Nothing special happened in the deployment phase.

Round 1:
Everyone ran up, except the Titan who was too busy casting Rush on everything.

I spread my forces out and took a few early shots at his beasts.

Round 2:
His Cyclops' starting attacking my Cutthroats while the rest of his forces stayed back.

The Juggernaut took out the Savage and Overran a full 4" backwards. Meanwhile Molik Karn triggered Admonition off the Juggernaut's charge in order to enter the forest. Kell tried to kill Paingivers but missed once and the other shot was shield-guarded.

Round 3:
Yeah, using Overrun to hit-and-run doesn't work as well when you're SPD 4 and don't have Reach. So Molik Karn killed the Juggernaut, but luckily didn't have enough Fury to use Fatewalker afterwards. Meanwhile the Brute completely whiffed on a Cutthroat. I think Beanpole meant to feat this turn but first he charged Croe with Morghoul only to find he was a millimeter out, meaning he couldn't feat.

Ugh, interpreting photos are hard when everyone has out-of-activation movement. Anyway, I think I surrounded Karn with Cutthroats and then finished him off with the Spriggan, Overruning away from the Gladiator. The rest of my Cutthroats finished off the Brute. I may have tried to shoot Morghoul with Croe but missed.

Round 4:
The Gladiator destroyed my objective. Morghoul put Admonition on walked into the zone and used his feat. This brought him to 3 points.

So for some reason I completely blanked on the fact that Morghoul only needed to dominate once to win, and started my turn by shooting at the Gladiator with the Cuthroats. As soon as I finished their activation I realised that I didn't have enough models left to put into the zone. I had originally intended to run Strakhov over to the flag, but that obviously wouldn't work, so I enacted a desperate plan: I ran Strakhov up and camped, while Kell ran interference and the Spriggan toed the zone on the other side. I figured maybe if he went for the assassination with the Gladiator, he might just fail to pull it off; that's was pretty much my only hope anyway.

Round 5:
My opponent did not take the bait ("bait" in this case being my Warcaster...) and focused on clearing the zone. The Gladiator slammed the Spriggan out and finished off the nearby Croe (in retrospect I probably should have put the Spriggan a little farther away, so that he'd be forced to try to kill them both in melee), then Morghoul took out Kell. Game, set, and match!

Game 2
At this point I was a little fatigued from trying to learn the rules to a whole new game - Star Wars Armada - and I could tell going in that I wasn't going to be able to play a good game. Looking at the mission we rolled up, I didn't think at the time that it was a good one for me either. And lest you think this is me just making up excuses after the fact, I'll have you know I made sure to get these excuses in before we even started playing!

I lost the roll again and was left starting second. I decided that I didn't want him getting the defense bonus from a hill against the Cutthroat's shooting, so I picked that side. Umm, I don't remember what I was thinking about deployment; I guess I figured I had to split my forces so that's what I did.

Round 1:
Stuff.

So I seriously screwed up judging distances here. I tried to move my Cutthroats into just within 10 of the Brute so I could zephyr away after, but only a couple of models ended up in range, so I had to use Zephyr to reposition and ended up basically leaving all my Cutthroats in danger. Also I figured I would have to use the Juggernaut as bait for Karn.

Round 2:
So Karn killed the Juggernaut. I hadn't considered the positioning very well because the wall would make it harder to lock him down. Also Morghoul feated.

I surrounded Karn with Cutthroats, but they mostly whiffed their attacks and didn't do much damage. I had been planning to put Superiority on the Spriggan, but stupidly forgot and spent Strak's focus taking boosted shots at Karn; two shots missed (one killing a Cutthroat) and the last did a bit of damage. Ultimately he had 15 boxes left and I couldn't spend focus to buy attacks. However I figured that between the boosted charge attach and the shield I had a chance of rolling high and finishing it. Otherwise I was screwed. Since it was getting late and I was tired, I told Beanpole that if I didn't manage to kill Karn this turn I would give up since it would be pretty hopeless at that point. So Strakhov feated and the Spriggan charged. I needed a five to hit with the charge attack, but he used Karn's ability to force me to reroll the attack roll, and it came up a four. So we shook hands.

Final Score: (wins/losses)
Beanpole: 3 / 2
Blondie: 2 / 1
Samurai: 1 / 3


Postmortem:
So I can't roll two fives in a row, huh? Well, my dice were a bit poor that second game all round (they weren't all that great the first game either), but I wasn't exactly playing well anyway. I do think that his list outclassed mine though; on feat turn my Spriggan threatens 15", but he has three beasts that all threaten 15" (with Pathfinder) all the time, no feat needed. Plus Molik Karn can use Sidestep to potentially get another 4". Yes, Overrun extends my threat range, but there's no infantry for me to trigger it off (and if I trigger it off a beast I probably don't have enough focus left to kill something). He also matches my hit-and-run use of Overrun with Fatewalker. But on top of all that I can't charge him because of Admonition, so my threat range is mostly useless; I have to wait for him to get close enough to surround him with my infantry. Meanwhile his feat shuts down over half my army for a turn. I think Croes did better here than the Nyss would have, but they really need something else to hold enemy models back while they dance around and shoot. And Kell is pretty much a waste of points against an all-beast list.

I got lucky in the first game when Karn couldn't walk away and Morghoul failed the charge; had I used my brain I think I would have had a chance of winning; feeding him some Croe's to weather the feat turn while chipping away at the Gladiator would have meant that next turn I might have been able to take out the Gladiator (I was close enough to his Paingivers at that point to potentially start using Overrun to counter Admonition) or possibly assassinate Morghoul.

I'm still not doing a good job of guessing ranges; in fact once something is over 12" away or so it seems I don't even try. Looking back, I might have been able to use the Spriggan to start to take out his light warbeasts and Overrun to safety, at least in the second game, possibly activating the Cutthroats second to cover him. I don't know really.

The Journey Man I

Our small local group decided to take part in a journeman league. We played a simple Mangled Metal game for the first round. Against my better judgement I picked Strak's battlegroup:
Strakhov
-Spriggan
-Marauder

Blondie ran pStryker (mostly with proxies as he's still getting his stuff assembled):
Stryker I (proxied by Stryker I)
-Ironclan (proxied by Crusader)
-Lancer (proxied by Revenger)
-Charger (proxied by Repenter)

Beanpole chose More-Ghoul:
Morghoul I
-Gladiator
-Savage
-Savage


Game 1
I got in just in time to see Blondie beat Beanpole. I think he used Earthquake to counter Admonition and take out all his beasts.


Game 2
We decided that, being new to the game, Blondie should try to get as many games in as possible, so I played against him next. I ended up going first and we deployed in simple facing lines.

Round 1:
I put Superiority on the Spriggan and ran him a little ahead.

He ran the Ironclad and Lancer forwards, with the Charger staying a little further back. The Charger got Snipe and the Ironclad was gifted with an Arcane Shield.

Round 2:
Despite being given a short brief about Strakhov's abilities, my opponent had not respected Strak's threat range and neglected to use his feat. I considered overrunning the Spriggan off the Lancer (after weakening it with the Marauder) in order to reach Stryker, but decided to just aim for his jacks. So Strakhov gave the Marauder two focus (because I am stupid) and the Spriggan three, feated, and tossed a cinder bomb on the off chance that it helped keep him safe somehow. The Marauder then charged forwards and slammed the Ironclad over the Lancer, doing plenty of damage to both. The Spriggan charged up and finished off the Lancer then crippled the Ironclad's cortex (and possibly some other systems).

With his jacks hurt pretty badly, Blondie decided to go for the assassination. Stryker walked up and dropped an Earthquake on Strakhov; it missed but only deviated a couple of inches, knocking my caster down. He put a bit of damage on him with the pistol and feated in case I survived. But the Charger made sure that I didn't.

Game 3
Giving Blondie a break, I played a game against Beanpole. Again I ended up going first. I decided to shake things up this time by (gasp) deploying my caster on the other side of the jacks!

Round 1:
I run forwards. Spriggan goes a little ahead, but not too far.

He puts Abuse and Rush on a Savage, which runs surprising far forwards to act as bait. The Gladiator hangs further back with Admonition on it.

Round 2:
Did he forget about Overrun? I dunno, but the Spriggan walks calmly forwards, kills the Savage, and then shuffles back. The Marauder just gets between Strakhov and the other Savage.

The Gladiator sets up closer this time. The remaining Savage charges the Marauder and rolls poorly, doing something like 3 or 4 damage total.

Round 3:
The important thing here is that the Savage is blocking my charge lane to the Gladiator, meaning I can't charge with the Marauder to trigger Admonition then go in with the Spriggan. So instead I slam the Savage into the Gladiator and walk up to them both with the Spriggan. The Gladiator uses Admonition to back away, but the Spriggan simply kills the Savage with it's shield then overruns up to the Gladiator again. Unfortunately I needed one focus to boost the attack roll on the Savage and two for Overrun, so the Spriggan is left with only two focus and it's initial lance attack. Funnily enough, none of my damage dice can seem to come up higher than a 2, so the Savage is barely touched anyway.

In his turn the Savage gets Abuse and rolls a whole bunch of 5s and 6s, wrecking the Spriggan. Of course it also received Admonition, and just for good measure Morghoul feated as well, so I wouldn't be able to spend focus in his control area.

Round 4:
Well, this was a pretty pickle. With only one jack my chances of pinning down the Gladiator were pretty slim, and with the feat up all I could do this turn was run away. So Strakhov cast Superiority on the Marauder, walked away and threw a cinder bomb, hoping it would land in a position where I could hide the Marauder behind it. No such luck, so the Marauder simply walked as far away from the Gladiator as he could.

In his turn Beanpole decided that the Gladiator was just out of range, so he just walked up with Admonition again. I think he also cast Abuse before deciding not to go for the charge, and used the rest of his fury to heal the Gladiator?

Round 5:
Well I wasn't going to be able to kill the Gladiator, so the only option left was assassination. Strakhov walked up and cast a boosted Ram at the Gladiator, pushing it out of the way, feated, then missed Morghoul with his gun. The Marauder then charged in to Morghoul, easily making distance. I needed 9's to hit and decided on 4 unboosted attacks instead of 2 boosted ones. The second and third attack rolls came up 9s and Morghoul bit the dust.

Game 4
With time for another game, I decided to quit while I was ahead, so I encouraged Blondie and Beanpole to have a rematch.

Round 1:
Blondie walked his army forwards at a relaxed pace. Arcane Shield went on the Ironclad, Snipe on the Charger. Beanpole ran forwards to meet him.

Round 2:
Blondie shuffled forwards a bit more and tried to put some damage out with the charger.

Beanpole charged the two jacks in the lead, crippling the Lancer but rolling poorly against the Ironclad and not doing enough damage to destroy it. I don't remember if he crippled any systems or anything, but thanks to his feat he wasn't too worried about reprisals next turn.

Round 3:
Without being able to spend focus on the Ironclad, Blondie simply popped his feat and put out some more shots. The Lancer couldn't do any damage with it's crippled spear, so instead it positioned itself in such a way that the Savage would at least have to take a free strike if it tried to gang up on the Ironclad.

Since he couldn't damage the Ironclad this turn, Beanpole used the Gladiator to throw it into the Charger.

Round 4:
I don't remember why the Ironclad didn't attack the Gladiator, I think Blondie had decided to save all his focus for shooting and spells or something.

The Gladiator and Savage finally finished off the Ironclad. Beanpole made sure to engage the Charger with the Savage.

Round 5:
At this point Stryker was close enough to walk forwards and cast Earthquake on Morghoul. The deviation was good and Morghoul was knocked down. The Charger then shuffled a couple of millimeters backwards in order to un-engage himself and took a shot at Morghoul, but was just a couple of millimeters out of range.

In his turn Beanpole finally finished off the jacks.

Final Score: (wins/losses)
Blondie: 2 / 1
Samurai: 1 / 1
Beanpole: 1 / 2


Postmortem:
Well that was fun. It was actually kind of nice to go back to playing really small games. Although some things seem really hard to deal with at this size, it makes the casters seem more central to the game again, and the simplicity of not having masses of infantry gumming everything up is kind of refreshing.

Man, Admonition is powerful if you don't have infantry to lock a model down with. On the other hand Strakhov's movement tricks are pretty powerful too, and of course that Earthquake/Charger was a powerful combo.

I was debating casting Occultation on Strakhov in the first two rounds of my game against Blondie, but I couldn't afford the focus and decided that just hanging out in a forest would be protection enough. Man, I really wish Superiority cost 2 focus instead of three. Ah well, if wishes were fishes... um... damn, I can never remember how that one goes.

I'm not sure whether using Overrun to get to the Gladiator was the right call or not. I was planning on using boosted grenades to kill the Savage and pulling all my models back again, but I didn't like backing up so much and I decided it was my best chance to put some damage on him. My opponent mentioned that he had a plan for if I tried to overrun away again, but I think he was counting on me using Overrun on the Spriggan after killing the Savage in melee? Never mind.

I definitely feel that Blondie kept using his feat too late. It's probably just that he doesn't understand the threat ranges in this game yet. Hell, I don't understand the threat ranges in this game yet! That might be a reason why I'm starting to build more and more for shooting? Or maybe it's just because I don't seem to win the melee game against Skorne anyway. Still, he's doing really well; two wins out of three games is pretty impressive.