[ArnieVoice] Ice To Meet You! [/ArnieVoice]

New naming convention: from now on all battle report posts featuring Sorscha will use horrible "cold" jokes from Batman & Robin. That should save me from having to think up my own stupid jokes for a good while.

It'd been so long since my last game (a whole six weeks) that I'd forgotten how to play. Either that or I just hadn't been getting enough sleep. Luckily I had a list all ready written up since before my last game, so at least I didn't need to waste any precious brain juice on that.
Sorscha II
-Spriggan
-Decimator
-Sylyss
Croe's Cutthroats
-Valachev
Nyss Hunters
Aiyana & Holt
Eliminators
Harlan Versh
Reinholdt
Koldun Lord

That's right, no Alexia. MADNESS!!! It was difficult and slightly painful, but I decided to take her out of rotation for a while as I wanted to try Harlan Versh; he's supposed to be good when you can freeze whole units. Beanpole has announced his intention to play Makeda I through the rest of 2nd edition; I think he might not be particularly enthusiastic about some of the leaked changes that will effect her in MkIII.
Makeda I
-Molik Karn
-Gladiator
-Krea
-Marketh
Cetrati (6)
Immortals (10)
-UA
Paingiver Beast Handlers (4)
Tyrant Commander
Ancestral Guardian


Pre-Game:
We played the scenario with three flags. I won the roll and chose to go first; I decided today was not a day to make things harder for myself than they needed to be. Beanpole picked the side with less rough terrain. By the way, I had actually forgotten to bond a warjack to eSorscha, so we played without it.


Deployment:
I put one unit on each side, with Sorscha and my solos in the middle sandwiched by my jacks. Beanpole basically did the same, but in a tighter brick.

Round 1:
First thing I did... was make my first mistake and forget to allocate focus. Second thing I did... was make my second mistake and forget to leave anything close enough to Sorscha to put Iron Flesh on. So my jacks got Boundless Charge instead (I even forgot that I could use Power Booster...), and everything spread out, with my solos running unprotected down the middle.

Beanpole put Savagery on the Cetrati, who moved up in Shield Wall, then swapped Defender's Ward onto them and moved Savagery over to Immortals. The Krea put up it's animus to protect some of the Immortals.


Round 2
Well, I didn't want to have to deal with DEF 14 ARM 22 Cetrati in my face, so I decided to jam them away from the flag with Iron Fleshed Nyss. I decided that Sorscha would focus on the left flag, so I moved her posse towards it while running the Koldun Lord over to the other side to support the Spriggan.

Meanwhile, I wanted to start whittling down the Immortals as quickly as possible, so Aiyana moved up and Kissed them. Holt killed one but whiffed on another, and Versh gunned a couple down as well (Savagery is an upkeep...); sadly the 2" limitation on his quad-iron coupled with poor target acquisition on my part kept him from killing more. The Spriggan killed one with hot dice on a grenade, and the Cutthroats killed one or two and I think put a few boxes of damage on the Krea. At this point it occurred to me that Karn might be able to reach my Spriggan, so I ran the Eliminators forwards to try to help keep him safe.

The Krea moved up and used it's animus to reduce the DEF of my Eliminators. The Immortals and Ancestral Guardian jammed forwards and killed a bunch of Cutthroats and one Eliminator. Molik Karn walked up and cut down Aiyana, Holt, and Versh. The Cetrati moved up a bit and killed an Eliminator but missed their attacks on the other. Finally Karn used Fate Walker to move over and help shield Makeda. I think I might have had a chance to trigger Versh's Witch Hunter shot on Makeda this round, but I forgot until later and I doubt it would have done anything anyway since she didn't have any upkeeps on her.

Round 3:
The Cetrati had killed one Nyss but missed the other, which was slightly annoying because it actually meant that most of them were engaged, making them harder to hit with Freezing Grip. So Sorscha took all the help she could get, moved up and boosted the roll, luckily landing the hit. However, she didn't have enough focus left to move back now, so I tried to form a wall in front of her with Nyss Hunters, spending their actions on CRAs into Molik Karn. I had planned to move the frontmost Eliminator in front of the Cyclops as well, but for some reason I didn't. The Decimator walked two inches into the forest, then shot a Cetrati and used Beat-Back to move the extra half-inch needed to base the flag and score me a point.

Over on my right, I decided to use my two Greylords to spray the bunched up Immortals rather than casting support spells - they would ignore engagement and the Krea's animus after all. Their attacks whiffed horribly and didn't do any damage at all. The Cutthroats killed, like, one Immortal, then the Spriggan hit the Krea a couple of times. The remaining Eliminator charged at Molik Karn, mainly to make it harder for him to get to Sorscha.

It seems I can't judge Molik Karn's threat range very well, because my "Nyss Wall" wasn't very good. Makeda moved around the well and killed the Eliminator, clearing his path, and he charged the Nyss. With Carnage up he needed 9's, and luckily for me his first attack missed even boosting. His second attack killed the Nyss Hunter and allowed him to Side Step closer, but it turned out he was about a quarter of an inch out, so he used FateWalker to move back and base the central flag.

Something (probably an Immortal) killed the Koldun Lord, and my Cutthroats were cut down to just two men, who failed their command check. The Ancestral Guardian and the Krea put a bit of damage on the Spriggan. I scored a second point on the left flag, while Beanpole scored a point in the center.

Round 4:
I had to decide whether to freeze the Cetrati again, or to focus on Molik Karn - I might be able to kill him without freezing him, but it improved my chances. Ultimately I decided that Karn was by far the bigger threat. So Sorscha hit him with a boosted Freezing Grip, the popped her feat to catch him, the Gladiator, and the Cetrati, before walking away and camping a point of focus. The Decimator then hit him with a POW 15 shot, rolling 1 damage (which was doubled to 2). Three Nyss Hunters walked up to jam the Cetrati, managing to kill one (no shield wall this turn thanks to Freezing Grip last turn, and the feat helped of course), while the remaining five put a POW 15 CRA into Karn, rolling 8 damage. Doubled to 16, this was enough to finish him off. I was planning to walk the Spriggan up and stab him if he survived, but looking at the photos now I don't think I had the range, so I was lucky I got that big damage roll. Instead the Spriggan finished off the Krea, and the Cutthroats rallied. I scored a third point.

The Immortals killed another Cutthroat but left Croe alive. The Ancestral Guardian, Tyrant Commander, and some Immortals started focussing on the Spriggan. The Gladiator based the flag. Makeda killed a couple of Nyss Hunters, allowing two Cetrati to walk forwards and contest the flag. Beanpole scored another point for the central flag, bringing him up to 2.

Round 5:
Dammit, Shield-Walled Cetrati were contesting my flag! I gave the Decimator a point of focus. Sylyss gave Sorscha Arcane Secrets, then she froze the Cetrati again. The Decimator fired twice at the rear contesting model; sadly it bumped into Makeda while still in contesting range. Three Nyss Hunters killed his now unsupported buddy, but it wasn't enough to let me score. One Nyss Hunter moved up to contest the central flag, and Reinholdt joined him just to be extra annoying. The Spriggan finally finished off the Ancestral Guardian, and Croe killed the Immortals' UA.

Makeda put up Carnage. The Gladiator abandoned the flag and focussed on killing Nyss Hunters, managing to take two down. The Beast Handlers moved up to take his place, basing the flag and attacking Reinholdt; luckily for me they missed. The Immortals surrounded the Spriggan and started chipping away at his armour, while the Standard Bearer based the flag on the right - this would allow his unit to score if he could just take down the Spriggan.

Round 6:
I might have been able to get the Decimator into the Gladiator this turn, but that would mean spending my focus on that rather than keeping the Cetrati locked down. So I decided to take the chance that he could get to the Decimator and focus on scoring. Sorscha froze the Cetrati again. The Decimator killed the contesting Cetrati. The Nyss Hunters shot at the Beast Handlers, killing two, and formed a wall in front of the Decimator. The Spriggan rolled poorly and failed to kill the Tyrant Commander. I scored my fourth point.

Makeda came forwards and tried to open a path for the Gladiator to reach the Decimator, but whiffed both her initial attacks against the Nyss Hunters. So she just camped the rest of her fury. Marketh swapped Defender's Ward onto the Gladiator, who moved up to contest my flag, killing Cylena while he was there. The Immortals and Tyrant Commander spread out so the Spriggan couldn't get his shield attack without taking some free-strikes; he was probably down to a third of his boxes or less at this point. The Beast Handlers whiffed on Reinholdt again.

Round 7:
OK, I just needed to score one more point to win. The Decimator might be able to push the Gladiator far away enough to let me score, or I could go all in and try to kill it. Or I could try to kill Makeda, though with 4 fury I didn't think that was very likely. Ultimately I decided to try something else instead.

So I allocated one focus to the Decimator as a backup, and charged Sorscha at Makeda. I actually got the hit, doing 8 damage which was transferred to the Gladiator. Then I used Cyclone to move over and base the middle flag, killing one of the Beast Handlers. Unfortunately I had misjudged the distances and the second one was out of Sorscha's melee range. With three focus left, I cast a boosted Razor Wind and rolled high, killing the last Paingiver.

The Decimator whiffed both his shots against the Gladiator, the Nyss whiffed on Makeda, and the Spriggan whiffed on the Tyrant Commander, but none of that mattered as I scored my fifth point for the win.

Post-Mortem
That was a tense game! Even though I was technically in the lead the whole time, my position was always tenuous; many times a single good roll was all it would have taken to cost me the game.

Actually, Beanpole had some pretty poor dice on some pretty important rolls. Obviously Karn missing his attack on the Nyss Hunter was the only thing that saved Sorscha, but a single good Paingiver attack roll would have taken out Reinholdt and allowed Beanpole to start scoring the central flag, and a few good damage rolls against the Spriggan (he was rolling solidly below average on that side) could have freed up the flag on the right. Makeda missing the Nyss Hunters while trying to clear a path for the Gladiator to get to the Decimator was also crappy luck, but to be honest it wouldn't have changed anything since at that point I was already prepared to send Sorscha into the Paingivers and the Gladiator wouldn't have changed that.

Of course if I hadn't managed to kill the last Paingiver at the end, Sorscha would have been left high and dry with Makeda in her back arc. Well, even if Sorscha had missed Rienholdt could have moved out of engagement, giving my Nyss Hunters and perhaps even the Decimator (who had a focus on him) a chance to do it themselves (assuming they survived the free strikes, but at DEF 18 they had a decent chance).

Thinking about it, perhaps I should have tried to kill Rienholdt using the attack from Cyclone at the end? That way I would have had much better odds of hitting the last Paingiver with a Razor Wind since he wouldn't have been engaging anyone, and Sorscha could still score since she was basing the flag.

In retrospect, it would have been nice if the Spriggan had been bonded. Not for the focus, but because then I would have kept freezing Beanpole's models, which would have made a big difference on that side. Especially since the Spriggan missed several attacks. Also, I've been thinking that Beast 09 would have done more than the Spriggan in this game. Having less ARM would have been a factor, but Thresher and his higher MAT would have done a lot more work in that situation than the Spriggan did. Of course a Devastator would have worked too. Still, the Spriggan killed more than 8 points of models and held up that side for the entire game, so I certainly can't complain.

I was careless with my solos; losing Versh early was a shame on his first game, but that's pretty much normal for me; I think it happens to most models first time I put them down. Of course killing them kept Karn busy; otherwise he might have been able to reach the Spriggan, so it was a worthwhile sacrifice I would say. Maybe next game I'll do more with him. Losing the Koldun Lord was probably the stupider move; having some focus to put on the Spriggan would have been nice. Eh, Sorscha 2 doesn't really want to spend focus on jacks anyway so I probably shouldn't be taking two of them, but I don't really have anything else that isn't dependent on DEF to survive, and against the wrong army having too fragile a force is a problem, plus they are more dependable armour crackers than the Nyss or Cutthroats, so I like having them.

Remember To Play For Scenario

I had a notion to give pSorscha another go:
Sorscha I
-Spriggan
-Decimator
-Sylyss
Nyss Hunters
-Valachev
Cutthroats
Alexia & the Risen
Aiyana & Holt
Koldun Lord
Reinholdt

Beanpole ran Makeda again:
Makeda I
-Tibbers
-Krea
-Drake
-Marketh
Nihilators
Immortals
-UA
Incendiarii (4)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (4)
Tyrant Commander
Hakaar


Pre-Game:
Beanpole won the roll and chose to go first. I picked the side with the forest in the zone. He chose Arcane Wonder and I chose Fuel Cache.


Deployment:
He put the Nihilators on my left with the Drake and the Incendiarii behind them. The Immortals went on my right with Hakaar and the Krea.

I wanted Sorscha right in the center for maximum feat potential. I wanted the Nyss to stay central, so I spread them amongst my front line. Alexia was the "second wave". I do not know why both my jacks went on the left, I think it was in response to Tiberion's position. I put the Cutthroats on the left since I didn't think they'd do much against the Immortals.

Round 1:
He moved forwards, spreading out his infantry.

I advanced cautiously, trying not to leave myself too exposed. Interesting fact: it seems you can't target (and therefore can't charge) objectives until scoring starts. The Nyss hid behind the forest and the Cutthroats half-heartedly tried to jam the Nihilators.

Round 2:
Makeda feated, cast Carnage, and camped 2 Fury behind a line-of-sight blocking wall of models to protect her from the feat. Incendiarii cleared out my jamming Cutthroats (not sure if we remembered that they had Stealth), allowing the Nihilators to charge my lines and kill some stuff. The Immortals walked forwards 13" (Savagery + Press Forwards + 2 from whatever Hakaar has) to kill Holt and a couple of Nyss. Marketh cycled Defender's Ward onto the Immortals.

So... I saw a potential assassination. I knew it was a bad idea before I even thought of it, but... I went for it anyway. Damn you young Sorscha, with your seductive siren-song of assassination! Alexia dropped a bunch of Thralls to get backstrike attacks to clear out some of the jam. Aiyana tried to Kiss an Immortal, but whiffed. Reinholdt gave Sorscha some delicious sugary cereal, while Sylyss just ran forwards a bit so she wouldn't leave him behind.

Preparations complete, Sorscha Windrushed around the Decimator then walked forwards, taking 5 damage from a couple of freestrikes. I cold have walked around the Decimator then Windrushed forwards to avoid it, but I hadn't been sure of my distance and thought I might have to charge something to make range. Finally Sorscha feated, freezing a bunch of stuff, and cast Tempest at the Incendiarii in front of Makeda. This killed the Incendiarii, knocked down Makeda and the Krea, and did 5 damage to Makeda herself. Stupidly I used the Lucky Charms on the attack roll (I did NOT want to roll 2s), instead of saving it for the damage roll on Makeda. Finally Sorscha took an unboosted handcanon shot, doing another 5 damage.

The Spriggan killed a non-frozen Nihilator with a lucky 7. The Risen killed a couple of Nihilators and whiffed on the Immortal (which might have been a big deal as it turned out), the Alexia crafted a Thrall and charged him into Makeda; I figured there was slightly more damage potential and slightly less chance of missing. He did another 5 damage, which Makeda transferred to the Krea.

Koldun Lord gave the Decimator a point of focus. The Decimator then walked as far forwards as he could to try to get into range of Makeda, but by measuring my control area I estimated that he was at 11". I might have been able to beat-back into range and get her with my second shot, but I had forgotten that the Immortal I was standing next to (the one that the Risen had failed to kill) was not frozen, so I couldn't shoot anything and I wasn't even close enough to try to kill the immortal. So that was a huge waste.

The Cutthroats activated; Croe tried to shoot at Makeda but I just couldn't quite draw line of sight around the Thrall I had sent at her, so that was a wash. Sigh. Another Cutthroat was out of range, and the last one did a few points of damage.

Finally it was the Nyss Hunters' turn. I used Zephyr to try to move them forwards without taking free strikes, but I just couldn't get line of sight with most of them. By the time I had taken my final shot, Makeda was down to just one box and no transfers.

Round 3:
Makeda side-stepped off the Thrall to get out of Alexia's Arcane Disjunction range, while keeping Sorscha in range of Carnage. Feated-back Nihilators killed some stuff. The Drake rolled some hot dice and killed Sorscha with a perfect damage roll on a spray before Tiberion could even activate.

Postmortem:
The thing about Sorscha is that, between her feat, spells, and mobility, she's good at creating assassination opportunities, and I haven't been able to resist going for them even when I know that they aren't good odds.

I've noticed recently that I seem to do much better in games when I go first; I don't know if it's my army specifically or just my playstyle, but when I go second the distances just feel all wrong to me. Plus it hurts my scenario game a lot. Because of this, I decided that I would aim to go second this game if I won the roll, to get the practice in. I think that needs to be my goal for a bit: try to figure out why going second is so bad for me and how to deal with it.

I clearly misjudged his threat range on the second turn, losing more than half my Cutthroats to Nihilators and Incendiarii. SPD 4 models that can walk 13" and have reach are just ridiculous; it's funny to think how much longer their melee threat range is than my SPD 7 Nyss Hunters; losing Holt was annoying, though I'm not sure I could have done as much with him as I would have liked even if I hadn't lost him since I was so jammed in.

I said that Makeda was left with just one box and no transfers, but it wasn't actually as close as it sounded; Beanpole was a little bit unlucky with his choice of damage rolls to transfer, but if I had rolled higher damage rolls he might actually have ended the turn in better shape because he could have transferred the right attacks, if that makes sense. On the other hand, if the Decimator had been able to get a shot in I'm pretty sure I would have won (only just though; his last transfer was for a single damage box, which would have been just enough to kill Makeda if he'd had to burn the transfer on a Decimator shot). Shame I didn't bring the Destroyer instead.

Makeda's feat kinda counter's Sorscha's somewhat; if I kill any living models they aren't frozen next turn and can pop up in annoying places, so I kind of end up not wanting to kill the models that I've frozen. What I probably should have done was focus on freezing and killing Immortals (Aiyana wouldn't have missed if I had frozen them first), and simply left the Nihilators for a turn, then switched my attention to them later. I might have needed to feed Tibbers a warjack to keep him busy or something. Eh, I still just can't see the positions in my head; my army just turned into such a messy jam.

Why doest he Khador counter pack come with only six stationary tokens? Does PP not know what Sorscha's feat does? It's quite easy to freeze twenty models or more on her feat turn. I pulled out some more tokens to use, but decided it wasn't worth the effort of handing them out since Sorscha couldn't move after feating. I know, lazy and careless, and it did prove to be a bit of an annoyance.

I just took for granted before that when replacing a Risen with a Thrall I can face the Thrall in any direction that I want, but it occurs to me now that might not be the case; I need to look into this, because I had placed all my forward Risen facing away from Makeda, so charging her with the Thrall might actually have been an illegal move. I've probably done this before without thinking about it.

I really think I would have done better with eSorscha; I could have jammed the Immortals with Iron Fleshed Nyss and frozen the Nihilators with Freezing Grip then taken (some of) them off the table with Shatterstorm on the Cutthroats (with a little intelligence and an Arcane Wonder it might even be possible to swap Shatterstorm around to get more RFP attacks on them). The older, wiser Sorscha just seems to play better for me I think; at least I feel happier with her tools than the younger version's.

Slapfights

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


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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enter the MACBAIN!!!!

Well, I was finally ready to give MacBain!!!! a try. I had a 35 point Four Star list ready for him, but as Beanpole was preparing for a tournament I borrowed some of his models so we could play at 50.
MacBain!!!!
-Mangler
-Sylyss
Nyss Hunters
Croe's Cutthroats
Alexia & the Risen
Kayazy Eliminators
Aiyana & Holt (borrowed)
Saxon Orrick (borrowed)
Kell Bailoch
Madelyne Corbeau
Thor
-Blaster (2)

Beanpole was running:
Makeda I
-Tiberion
-Molik Karn
-Gladiator
-Krea
-Aptimus Marketh
Nihilators
Incendiarii (4)
Paingivers (4)
Agonizer (hereby known as "He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named")


Pre-Game:
This is was my first game playing a true Mercs army, however most of the units were of course familiar to me. I wasn't sure what to do with MacBain!!!!, but I'd been thinking about it over the week and had come up with some strategies:
1. Juggle Fortune between the Cutthroats and Nyss.
2. Use a full Energizer on the first turn to get the Mangler up the board quickly; other upkeeps could be cast in the second turn.
3. Start shooting early with the Cutthroats, but then use Bushwack to run them to safety and charge him with feated-on Nyss.
4. Keep MacBain!!!! near enough to the Mangler for Jackhammer.
5. Be ready to use Energizer for hit-and-run attacks with the Mangler.
6. Potentially use the Mangler as bait to draw heavies away, so that...
7. ... Maddy, who would stay safely behind MacBain!!!! all game, could give him the Intrigue move, which along with...
8. ... the Eliminators, who would also stay well back all game, would run forwards through his whole army to engage his warlock at the end, meaning that...
9. ... MacBain!!!! could get to the warlock with Gang and possibly Fortune, closing out the game by himself thanks to Undertaker blocking transfers.

We rolled a mission with two zones, two objectives, and Killbox (which I think we both forgot about?). I won the roll; since I wasn't too worried about terrain I chose to go first and Beanpole chose the side with less terrain in the way. We both picked the Arcane Wonder. Beanpole played with a deathclock as preparation, but I was not prepared to use a deathclock on my first game with a new(ish) faction, so I just ignored it. I think I went at least a half-hour over the deathclock time.


Deployment:
Well, the Nyss had to go in the middle on account of the rough terrain (of course I could have put Alexia there and used Saxon...). I tried to spread the rest of my forces around them. My support models and Eliminators stayed in the back.

Beanpole put his Nihilators on my left with Karn, and the Incendiarii on the right with the Titans.

I then put the Cutthroats in the middle, with Kell and Saxon on the left (I figured they would do better shooting at Incendiarii than at Titans).

Round 1:
So before I even moved anything I realised I had made my first mistake: MacBain!!!! was not going to be able to advance aggressively because of the Cutthroats, and I wasn't sure I would be able to reach them with Fortune if they ran first. Clearly there was no hurry, I could have just kept a Cutthroat back a little, but instead I cast Fortune first then moved MacBain!!!! over to the left with Energizer in order to go around them, moving him away from the Mangler. It was my first activation and already things were falling apart...

Everything else ran forwards, with the Eliminators hanging back and the Nyss finding themselves boxed in and unable to spread out (I didn't want to move them too far forwards yet because Incendiarii). Kell started flanking around the forest. The Mangler ran to toe the zone, but I think I ran him out of my control area. I wasn't able to move the Blasters as far forwards as I had wanted to because Thor was behind them, so I could activate him first but after they ran they were out of his command range so I couldn't use Pronto. Sigh.

Beanpole ran up, engaging a couple of Cutthroats with Nihilators. Defenders Ward went on Tiberion as he was already in the Mangler's charge range.

Round 2:
So I had been planning to pull my Cutthroats to the right with a Bushwack (I have yet to actually use that rule with them...), but because two of them were engaged I stupidly decided to basically shuffle around and shoot stuff. So they did, as did the Nyss, killing a few models including an Incendiarii, but not really doing as much as I wanted due to my opponent doing a good job of protecting things with cover and the Krea's animus. At one point I put a six-man Nyss CRA into one Incendiarii, but Tiberion took the hit with Shield Guard.

I wasn't ready to charge Tiberion yet as I wasn't sure Aiyana could tag him and I was too far for Jackhammer, meaning my chances of killing him would be slim at best. In retrospect I don't think I could have allocated focus anyway, but it didn't matter since I never even tried. Instead I shuffled the Mangler back a couple of millimetres, to the very corner of the zone. MacBain!!!! advanced into my zone and put some damage on the Krea with his handcannon.

Kell continued to flank while Saxon stayed back to hand out Pathfinder. Alexia ran up to be ready to collect next turn. A few Risen moved up to make nuisances of themselves. One Blaster moved way out in front to keep the Titans busy, but Thor failed to pronto the other.

Nihlators under Carnage killed most of my front line. The Gladiator killed the Blaster. I think Beanpole was planning to kill the other with Tiberion, but he forgot to Rush him meaning he wouldn't have made it over the first Blaster's corpse. Karn and a Nihilator contested my zone, meaning I couldn't score. He also feated this turn.

Round 3:
Well, I wanted to start scoring, and that meant killing Karn. Plus he was basically offering me his gladiator, it would have been rude to refuse. So Sylyss upkept Fortune on the Cutthroats and the Mangler got three focus. Thor used Tune Up to boost the Blaster's damage rolls, and Pronto to move it into position so it could aim and spray the objective, catching the two Titans and the nearby Incendiarii. He did decent damage to the objective, but Tiberion shield-guarded the shot on the Incendiarii.

Aiyana Kissed the Gladiator, someone cleared a Nihilator who was threatening free-strikes (Holt maybe?), then the last of the Cutthroats charged, doing a surprisingly large amount of damage. Finally the Mangler charged in and finished the Gladiator off.

Next the Nyss killed the Nihilator in front of Karn and I think did some damage to the cyclops himself, as well as finally killing that damned Incendiarii behind the well as Tibbers had already used up his shield-guard. Saxon charged Karn and did very respectable damage, adding a point of fury with his skinning knife to reduce the number of times Karn could force a reroll. MacBain!!!! cast Fortune on Alexia for a single focus thanks to the Arcane Wonder, then used his last two points of focus to cast Energizer and try to pull the Mangler to safety.

Finally Aiyana charged Karn. Well, actually, she charged the Krea. Seeing as Karn had already lost a number of boxes I figured that Aiyana should be able to handle him and might be able to get the Krea as well, so I moved her to engage both. But then it occured to me that in that position she was turning her back to the rest of the Skorne, so by charging the Krea instead she would end up with a better facing. This was not the smartest thing I've ever done; by the time she'd spent her last Risen, Karn still had a single box left.

I still had one last attack I could put into him however; Kell. I walked Kell into the forest and fired into the scrum. With the backstrike bonus, but firing into melee, I needed a seven. Which I got, landing the sniper point of damage needed for the kill! That was a relief I can tell you! I ran Sylyss in front of MacBain!!!! under the vague theory that would make him a little safer, and ran the Eliminators to try to stop Tibbers from being able to reach the Mangler (clearly I've never heard of something called a "trample"), but they couldn't really get far forward enough.  I scored a point for dominating the zone.

Beanpole brought back a bunch of infantry thanks to Makeda's feat and killed off some more of my infantry including the last of the Cutthroats, Saxon, Alexia, Sylys, and one of the ninja twins. Predictably, Tiberion mangled the Mangler. One Eliminator and Kell survived on one or two boxes each thanks to poor damage rolls. I couldn't score this turn thanks to reanimated models and the Krea in my zone. (It seems I also forgot to take a photo).


Round 4:
Well, I didn't have enough left to kill a Defender's Warded Tiberion, so the plan this turn was to clear my zone, destroy his objective, and spread my models out in his zone to make them hard for him to kill. I would keep enough models safe to contest his zone for another turn or two, while trying to score in my zone.

Kell missed a swing against an engaging Thor failed to Pronto the Blaster then missed a shot against a Nihilator. The Blaster, unable to run, walked as far as it could towards the far corner of the zone. Aiyana and Holt backed off and Kissed then shot at the objective, then the Nyss finished it off, killing or knocking down a few Nihilators too. Cylena failed to clear the Nihilator in front of MacBain!!!!, so he finally feated on all my models in my control area (I actually could have protected one more model than I had), cast Fortune on himself, killed the offending Nihilator with Jackhammer, then charged and one-shot the Krea to clear the zone. At this point I considered using Energizer to back away from Tiberion, as I was just in his threat range, but I carelessly decided that the forest would be enough to keep him away and I would be better camping to protect me from all the Nihilators and Incendiarii staring at me. I went up to three points.

As it happened, there was tons of room for Tiberium to pass between the well and the forest, allowing him to walk up and start swinging away. By some cruel twist of fate however, terrible dice kept MacBain!!!! alive! By the time Beanpole ran out of activations MacBain!!!! had a single damage box left!

Round 5:
I saw two option now. Run away from Tiberion - using Maddie and Nyss to shield MacBain!!!! from the freestrike - and try to get into the other zone to dominate for five points, or go all in on Makeda. Eyeballing it, I wasn't sure MacBain!!!! could reach the other zone around the forest, though I had forgotten to account for Maddy's Intrigue move; in retrospect I'm pretty sure he could have made it with the extra three inches. Torn, I asked myself: "What would MacBain!!!! do?". The answer was obvious.

So I upkept Fortune, used Intrigue to walk as far as I could around Tiberion without taking a freestrike, then tried to use the Nyss to gun down a blocking Paingiver who I had very intelligently just engaged with MacBain!!!!.

Sigh. None of the Nyss could land the 11 needed to hit. Actually their dice were pretty cold all of a sudden; even when I landed hits on Nihilators I kept failing to break ARM 13...

Finally I gave up. Maddy ran over to block Tiberion's view of MacBain!!!!, protecting him from the freestrike. MacBain!!!! killed the Paingiver with Jackhammer, then charged Makeda. I really should have been boosting attack rolls, instead I put my hopes on Fortune, but only landed a couple of attacks and left her on about 7 boxes.

Then I suddenly remembered the nearby Eliminator! DOH! If I had even just run her to engage before I would have had the Gang bonus, which would have been more than enough to finish Makeda (I'd rolled a whole lot of 7s and 8s when fishing for 9s...). But there was still a chance; the Eliminator charged Makeda. Makeda couldn't transfer because she had been hit with Undertaker; with the backstrike bonus and using a Combo-Smite, I had a chance... the attack hit and did 6 damage, leaving Makeda on one box.

Makeda killed MacBain!!!! with her first attack.


Postmortem:
Holy crap, that was a close game! MacBain!!!! on one box, Makeda on one box, it was crazy! I made so many mistakes and forgot practically all my plans, but good dice kept me in the game despite my stupidity. I mean, even when I should have known Tiberion could reach my caster and just let it happen. The number of times one of my models would survive on a single box was crazy.

In fact I was extremely careless at the end; I forgot to activate the Eliminator, costing me the Gang bonus. I didn't even think to try to Kiss her with Aiyana first (I don't know if was in range or not, I didn't even consider it). After I knocked Makeda down to one box, I actually might have still been able to finish her with Holt or Kell - unlikely, but possible; I had nothing to lose by trying, but didn't even think to.

Having said that, Beanpole's dice weren't bad at all. He finally started making tough rolls this game too! The fact that only he was playing against the clock was obviously a big advantage for me; in fact he had less than three minutes left on the clock when the game ended.


Thinking about MacBain!!!!, he doesn't really seem that scary. No Freezing Grip, no Iron Flesh, no double-damage-feat. But his spells and abilities, while not exactly powerfule, are versatile and useful and can solve problems.

Fortune is not the most powerful buff around, but it's very versatile as just about any model or unit would benefit. It's no coincidence that MacBain!!!! had it on himself at the end; I wanted it on him the turn before because I knew I might need to go for the assassination soon. I love Jackhammer, it gives his jacks some much-needed extra hitting power while getting around things like disruption, but because models can use it to attack before moving they can clear their own charge lanes. There's some synergy with Fortune there, as MacBain!!!! proved a couple of times that game. Energizer is expensive but those few inches of out-of-activation movement can be a big deal, and using it at the start to get jacks further up feels good to a Khador player like myself. I'm still not sure how much use I personally will be able to get out of the feat, but I can see some applications for it; I think it would have pretty useful that game if I'd used it earlier on, I just kept forgetting about it. And Grievous Wounds? That's a reason to take him right there!

The rest of the army worked quite well. I didn't get as much use out of the Cutthroats as I would have liked; partly because I overextended them a bit as usual, and partly because Beanpole does a pretty good job of protecting his models with cover, the Krea's animus, and even Tibber's shield-guard. I didn't do that much damage with the Nyss either, but I have to admit it was kinda crazy the way they just stood back and shot through the forest like it wasn't even there. Aiyana was a huge enabler, and Holt wasn't bad either. I might not have been terribly smart with Alexia, but her (mostly) taking down Karn was huge, that guy is trouble and getting rid of him removes a lot of pressure.

Anyway, I will probably be swapping between Sorscha and MacBain!!!! for a while depending on my mood and what models I want to use. In the meantime I'm hoping to get some warcasters painted, but where's the time, amirite?