Slow And Steady

I ran a demo game for a new member of our hobby group. This was my first game of Warmachine this year. I had put together two 30 points Unlimited lists in preparation. I ran a silly Strakhov2 list that I could use to show off a little of the jankier things you can do in this game, mostly centered around Alexia and LoLS to demonstrate soul and recursion mechanics. I don't think either of used a command card all game (though I did mention how he could use them a couple of times), but we both had Blessing, Lucky Penny, Old Faithful, Hit & Run, and For The Motherland (which I guess is not legal anymore but w/e).
Strakov2 (proxied by Strakhov1)
-Kodiak
-Elite Kommandos (2)(proxies)
-Reinholdt
Koldun Lord
Alexia 2 (& Thralls)(proxy)
Battle Mechanics
Legion of Lost Souls (Risen conversions)

The list I made for new players was intended to be simple and solid, mostly centered around demonstrating the basics, including the use of straighforwards buff spells. Ruin was a no-brainer. I included Bombardiers as versatile faction models with good overall stats and enough armour for Butcher's Deceleration to be meaningful. The Forgeseer fit with the MOW, was painted, and could help counter Strakhov's cloud/stealth tricks. Mechanics made sense as they are cheap and could repair most of the army.
Butcher1 (buff version)
-Ruin (proxied by Juggernaut)
Greylord Forgeseer (Bombshell conversion)
Man-O-War Bombardiers
-Bombardier Officer
Battle Mechanics


Pre-Game
I placed a simple 12" zone in the center and said any model could score starting from the second player's second turn, with the first to 5 points being the winner. I went firsts so I could demonstrate basics rules first. I gave him the terrain so he could place them as he wished.


Deployment
I put Strakhov and his support near the forest. The Kodiak in the center, with the Mechanics behind him, and Alexia and the Legion to the left. He spread his MOW in a line in front of the rest of his models (I could not remember the rules for deploying units).


Round 1:
Strakhov cast Inviolable Resolve on the Kodiak and Quicken on himself, used the Sneak battle plan and ran into the forest. His support followed. The Legion ran into the zone, clustered up in a shield wall. The Kodiak, excited to get to grips with the enemy, "accidentally" vented steam and killed all three mechanics. Oops. Oh well, accidents happen in war. Alexia respectfully and surreptitiously pocketed their souls - no point in letting good corpses souls go to waste, right? Walking up, she used the souls to craft three Thrall Warriors, who immediately ran forwards.

Butcher's army ran up, with Butcher himself staying behind the wall of Bombardiers, while the Forgeseer alone split off from the force. Butcher cast Deceleration, and put Vengeful on the Bombardier Officer.

Round 2:
I upkept both spells. Strakhov moved forwards just enough to take a shot at the Forgeseer, hitting and rolling just low enough to not do any damage. Alexia walked up and slung a Hellfire at a Bombardier, also somehow rolling just low enough to not do any damage. The Legion walked forwards and shot their pistols, doing some damage. The Thralls charged the Bombardiers, although only one could make the 3" needed for boosting damage. They finished off one Bombardier, but the return swing from Vengeful on the officer killed a Thrall. The Kodiak trampled up and used Vent Steam, the Kommandos then walked forwards and did the same.

Butcher upkept Vengeful and allocated to Ruin. The Bombardiers shuffled up a bit and killed the Thralls, allowing the Officer to lob a shot at the Legion; it missed but a roll of 10 on the blast damage still killed the target. The Mechanics then repaired some of the damage on the Bombardiers. Butcher Feated and cast Deceleration again. Ruin charged the Kodiak, dispelling Inviolable Resolve. I was surprised that even with Butcher's Feat and the free charge from his Bond, he still only just managed to finish off the Kodiak on his final hit (doing only one point of extra damage). The Forgeseer walked in to the zone and cast a Hoarfrost at the closest Legion grunt, killing it and also a second with another roll of 10 on the AOE damage. At least Alexia was close enough to take their souls.

Round 3:
I dropped Quicken. The Legion charged the Bombardiers, killing one and bringing back a member of the unit. One attack hit the Bombardier Officer, triggering Vengeful. The Officer's attack did no damage, but it was a Crit allowing him to use Shred to attack again (it was only later that it occured to me that Crit Shred is only during the model's combat action), unfortunately he rolled low again, leaving the Legion trooper untouched.

Alexia charged Ruin, using souls to buy attacks and boost damage rolls. She did some damage, not that much. One Kommando charged Ruin, the other I feared would block Strakhov's charge so I charged the Forgeseer instead, leaving her on one health. Reinholdt gave Strahkov a Lucky Charm (which came in handy as I think I rolled three 1's on a damage roll at one point). Strakhov then cast Last Stand on himself and charged Ruin. After buying all his attacks Ruin still had around 10 health boxes left; pow 11 is just sad really. The Koldun Lord managed to land a Brittle Frost on Ruin but did no damage.

With all my activations done Last Stand kicked in and Strakhov keeled over; karmic retribution for killing his own Mechanics no doubt.


Post-Mortem
It was a fun game that flowed fairly smoothly. I did end it somewhat prematurely using Last Stand, but I felt there wasn't much point in drawing it out too long. Still, in retrospect I probably should have let him take down Strakhov himself using Ruin. But this was actually my first game with Strakhov2 and I thought it would be funny for Strakhov to basically kill himself. I do think only have one jack per side is a bit of a problem, because losing that jack is hard to recover from; having a couple of jacks just sort of "buffers" the impact of losing one, or at least creates more of a back-and-forth. But I wanted to have a bit of everything without having too much of the power in the battlegroup as that might make the rest of the army feel redundant; I feel that gives a more accurate impression of the actual game. I think the Butcher list did what I wanted it to quite well, but I might re-write the Strakhov list.

A Demo Game For Old Times' Sake

I ended up holding a demo game of Monsterpocalypse. I didn't play myself, instead walking both sides through the game phases and explaining the rules as we went along. For the most part I tried to leave both players to make their own decisions, but I did push them to use power attacks (which I walked them through) for several turns after the monsters got close enough, and gave suggestions on good plays when they asked towards the end of the game as the monsters' health started to get really low.

It was pure G.U.A.R.D. versus pure Empire of the Apes. We played using only base rules and models stats, with none of the rules on the models' cards (except High Mobility ofc, and sometimes Flight). The game was close, with King Kondo managing to pull off a rare win against Defender X. I believe both players knew a little about 40K but had no actual wargaming experience, and both seemed to enjoy the game. They seemed perfectly happy to not bother with the card rules; I think for their very first game just the core rules were enough for them to worry about. There was a bit of a discussion about the game's availablity, and it was nice to be able to say that there are digital models available.

Swapping Playstyles

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

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

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


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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Game-Swap

I offered to demo Warmachine to a local 40K player, and in return he offered to demo Killteam. So we did both.


GAME 1: KILLTEAM
Pre-Game:
I brought out my old Space Marine collection and picked some proxies for Angels of Death:
Space Marine Captain
Assault Intercessor Warrior
Eliminator Sniper
Heavy Intercessor Gunner
Intercessor Warrior (Bolt Rifle)
Intercessor Warrior (Bolt Rifle)

Attila had Legionnaires:
Legionary Shrivetalon
Legionary Chosen
Legionary Anointed
Legionary Baleful Acolyte
Legionary Butcher
Legionary Warrior


Round 1&2:
I was learning the movement and combat. I pulled ahead by a point in the first couple of turns.

Round 3:
I had done more damage in the earlier rounds, but wasn't able to finish off some models that I was in melee with. I had decided to take a risk with my heavy; instead of walking away and shooting the model engaging it (that would go down to a single hit), I figured I could kill it in melee, score the objective, and then use his ranged attack to finish off another model, but I whiffed HARD in melee and just died without costing Attila a single activation instead.

Round 4:
With very few activations left, the score remained even while Attila was ahead by one living model. However, having the numerical advantage allowed my an extra action with my sniper, who managed to finish off one more Legionnaire, drawing the game.

Post-Mortem:
It's a quick game to pick up and play. The movement and action system seemed to be simple but fairly well done. The combat resolution system took a little getting used to, but I can see how it creates the opportunity to make meaningful decisions while giving the attacker an advantage. The "stealth" system felt unintuitive to me, but I guess it makes sense as a way to balance melee and ranged combat. The action point system seems to allow most activations to follow the standard "move and attack" format, but with some flexibility (moving further and attacking, or scoring an objective without sacrificing movement and combat) while still remaining quite simple. I have had issues with small model count games in the past, where sometimes models would die too easily, or there was too much of a binary difference between the model getting hit and dying, and never getting hit and not taking damage, making attacking feel unsatisfying. Killteam's system of wounds and saves might be the best health/damage system I've played in a small-model-count game.

The basic game did feel very simple, without too much difference between different models and weapons, and very few special rules outside of basic attack/defend combat rules. Of course this was an intro game where we didn't use all the rules so it's not a fair comparison, but I will say there was a stark difference between the model profiles, which were mainly just base stats with a few special rules on the weapons, and the incredibly rule-dense model cards in Warmachine. Which is not a knock on Killteam, I believe it's supposed to be a quick and easy-to-pick-up little skirmish game, so the simplicity seems like a feature. I don't know how much depth the game has when played at a higher level by experienced players, I imagine there's a fair bit of strategy in positioning etc. when you understand the game better.

From this one experience, I felt it was a fairly quick and clean game that's an easy way to put some cool 40K models on the table, that can be enjoyed in a very casual way. I wouldn't mind playing it again, though I don't expect it to replace Warmachine or Monsterpocalypse for me. It might replace Zone Raiders sadly; the core rules in that game are probably just too crunchy for me.


GAME 2: WARMACHINE
Pre-Game:
I wanted to write a couple of 30 point lists that prioritised using actually painted models for the demo, with at least one jack, unit, and solo. I chose Butcher1 for Attila; he's relatively straight-forwards (or at least he used to be) and wrecking face with him is great fun. Ruin is the best jack for Butcher and would help demonstrate command cards (Grave Robbing) and internal synergies/interactions through his bond with Butcher. The Legion of Lost Souls was freshly painted and synergised with Alexia2. The Koldun Lord filled out the points and brings a great debuff.
Butcher 1
-Ruin (proxied by Juggernaut)
-Sylys Wyshnalyrr
Legion of Lost Souls
Alexia 2
Koldun Lord
*Blessing of the Gods
*Grave Robbing
*Infiltration
*Old Faithful
*Power Swell

I chose Harkevich for myself as he's a relatively simple warcaster, and Black Ivan could show off some synergies and movement tricks with him. The Drakhun and War Dog are painted. I didn't want to run a mirror with my second unit of Legion of Lost Souls, so I just grabbed the Cutthroats.
Harkevich 1
-Black Ivan
-War Dog
Croe's Cutthroats
Man-O-War Drakhun
*Break Through
*Careful Reconnaissance
*High Alert
*Hit & Run
*Put The Fires Out

I know demo games are usually played without a scenario, but again I didn't feel that was a good representation of the game, and Attila was not new to wargames so I figured he could handle it. So I just threw a 12" zone in the center of the board and said that any model could score it if no enemy models were in the zone, starting from the second player's second turn. First to five points - or to kill the enemy warcaster of course - would win. I said I'd go first so I could demonstrate the turn order etc.


Deployment:
I deployed centerally, with Harkevich ready to run into the forest. We discussed his deployment and I suggested that some models wanted to stay further back.

Round 1: I forgot about Escort and moved Black Ivan before activating Harkevich. Everything basically just ran up and spread out.

Attila moved the Legion towards the trench and ran Alexia into the forest. Butcher cast Deceleration and put Vengeful on Ruin.

Round 2:
The Drakhun was almost exactly 13" away from Ruin; too far to charge, but just close enough to walk and shoot, repositioning away afterwards. I think he might have done a couple of points of damage; in retrospect this would have been an opportunity for Ruin to trigger Hyper Agressive and Vengeful (singe the Drakhun was almost exactly 6" away so Ruin could walk 4" and attack 2"), but I completely forgot about those rules. Also that would have allowed the Drakhun to hit Ruin, and I don't remember if Black Ivan had activated yet, so it probably wouldn't have been a good idea. But I should have remembered it and discussed it.

Hark and Black Ivan did a bit of shooting, but didn't do much damage. The Cutthroats charged the Legion of Lost Souls; I killed one but that left two of my models without a target in range. Croe and the last Cutthroat missed their attacks.

Butcher cast Decelaration and moved around a bit, respecting my threat ranges. Alexia moved up in the forest. Ruin dismounted then killed the Drakhun, allowing Alexia to replace him with a Thrall, who moved behind Ruin to be able to Shield Guard for him. The Legion of Lost Souls completely wiped out the Cutthroats, resurrecting their lost brother in the process. Attila scored one point.

Round 3:
I allocated to Black Ivan and charged him in to Ruin, but wasn't able to finish him so I had to finish the job with Harkevich. Worth mentioning is that Black Ivan's Dual Attack shot hit even though he doesn't have the Pistol advantage, but the Thrall took the shot. Also I once again forgot that Ruin had Vengeful and should have been able to take a swing at Black Ivan. I scored a point.

The Koldun Lord cast Brittle Frost on Black Ivan and Alexia did a few points of damage with a Hellfire. The Legion of Lost Souls charged Black Ivan; they were doing a couple of points of damage each, except for on who REALLY cranked the dice and did two whole columns by himself:

This left Black Ivan on twelve boxes. Butcher Feated and charged, swinging over the heads of the Legion where it would be harder for Harkevich to reach him. With five damage dice on his charge attack, he rolled 16 damage, taking out my jack while sitting on 6 Focus. I just went ahead and conceded.

Post-Mortem:
I find it amusing that Attila played a Legion and Butcher in both games. Playing Warmachine right after Killteam reminded me just how complex Warmachine is these days; every model on the table had a multitude of special rules. Butcher1 used to be one of the simplest Khador casters; the back of his card used to be blank, but now he has Hyper-Agressive on himself and his warjacks; I feel that's a rule that takes a fairly high skill level to use effectively. Perhaps Vlad1 is a better starter caster now; he's strong but pretty straight forwards, with great buffs and crazy threat range on his jacks. Guess I need to get mine painted up.

Still, Attila seemed to enjoy it, and didn't seem to have any trouble with the rules (other than both of us forgetting about Vengeful...). It was fun to play some Warmachine, it's been a while. As much as I love the game, it has no local presence and I don't really want to try to push it. I was trying to bring people into Monsterpocalypse, but that game is pretty much dead right now, at least in terms of support. As is Warcaster. People seem to be enjoying 40K and related GW games, at this point I don't think I'd be doing them any favours trying to get them into other games. So maybe I should be playing more Killteam...

Khan's Maximum Effort

I met up with Contwrath for a game of Monpoc. Luckily we both had a bit of free time, so we were able to meet up a bit earlier and take our time with the game. On a whim I pulled out Defender X and a bunch of ground-based G.U.A.R.D. units, to go with Terra Khan and his little Raptices. Contwrath was running Dynastavus, Xixorax, and the basic 15 Swarm units.

Game 1:
Contwrath put down his map with River City Rampage facing up. I asked him how many apartments per side he wanted us to play, and he randomly settled on just six, which seemed reasonable since the map seemed a touch low on foundations. I won the roll and chose to go first. My initially plan was to focus on shooting down his units and blowing up buildings on his side to make it hard for him to generate power.

I brought in as many units as I could, focusing on tanks so I could move them to hopefully do some shooting, but I did also prioritise grabbing power nodes and controlling buildings where possible. Contwrath pretty much did the same.

Khan shot an insect on a power node, while Defender whiffed his blast attack against an apartment.

Contwrath repositioned his monsters but didn't spend any of his action dice.

I pushed up some units but didn't really get much done.

Contwrath took a second unit turn and, with his great mobility and accuracy, fairly easily knocked Defender X through three buildings, dropping him down to just three health.

Unable to focus too much on a single monster, I had Defender and Khan throw the two big bugs back into the buildings on their side, for three damage each. I then tried to step into positions that didn't give easy line-ups for throws or slams into buildings.

Contwrath brought in some more units and I tried to position mine to make it impossible for the Swarm monsters to align with Defender for a power attack, using the Repair Truck to put out a fire to allow my units to get where they needed to be.

Thanks to super-damage on Dynastavus' Brawl attack, the two Swarm monsters were able to finish off Defender with just Brawl attacks.

My Raptix on the central power node used Hop to clear room for Khan to align with Xixorax and throw him into a building. Khan then Stepped up to a position where it would be hard to throw him into a building.

The Swarm units put a point of damage into Khan. I moved up some units, putting out a fire with the Repair Truck that might make it easier for Khan to align with Xixorax later. I tried to clear insects off power nodes, but most of my attacks whiffed.

Xixorax tried to throw Khan into the hazard behind him, but missed. Dynastavus did a couple of points of damage with a Brawl.

Khan moved onto the rubble the the repair truck had extinguished, and the Raptix Hopped next to Xixorax before Khan body-slammed him onto another hazard and Stepped away. This left Xixorax on just one health.

The Swarm units killed a couple of mine and tried to set up for more power generation.

I brought in more Raptix and spread them around, then focused as many ranged attacks into Xixorax as I could, managing to knock off his last point of health.

Dynastavus spent a ton of power dice to throw Khan into a distant building, knocking him into Hyper.

Unable to line up for a good power attack, Khan settled for a Brawl followed by a body-slam onto an annoying insect, for 4 damage thanks to the Raptix.

Running low on power dice (I forget why by Contwrath actually should have had a couple more dice but forgot to trigger something), Dynastavus whiffed one attack but landed the second, leaving both monsters on three health.

I tried to kill more insects to disrupt Contwrath's power general, but whiffed a couple of attacks.

Contwrath focused on killing the remaining Raptix; thanks to his combined attacks with the Elites he had no trouble hitting, but missed the one on the right.

I Hopped the Raptix next to Dynastavus, knocked her down to one health with a Brawl with Super-Damage, then finished her off with a Super-Damage slam into a hazard.

It was a great game; I was working really hard all game to try to deny Contwrath power dice and reduce sources of damage into Khan, even if it meant making it harder to inflict damage in return. And even then it was very close; if a couple of whiffed Swarm attacks had not had such cold dice it might have ended differently. The Repair Truck was actually a big help, letting me clear the board of hazards that were a problem for the flightless Khan. The Raptix were stars; Hop not only allowed them to coordinate with Khan to trigger Super-Damage, it also allowed them to get past the river, and just generally helped me to get them where I needed them. Khan really showed his potential here; he has weaknesses but he can do a lot of damage if you can set it up.

The Swarm monsters are mobile, accurate, and hard-hitting; they are tough cookies to be sure. They also seem to be able to generate decent amounts of power even without a good power base; my focus all game was on disrupting his unit power generation, but Contwrath never seemed to be that low on power dice. His early double monster caught me by surprise and put my on the back foot early, and I didn't expect the late-game throw into the distant building either. Even without the Raptix in the last turn, Khan could have body-slammed Dynastavus into the hazard behind him first to drop her to one health, then finished it with a Brawl (which might actually have been the safer option as I would have had more action dice). But my way was more fun.