Morrow Finally Has A Beatstick

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First Game of MkIII

Strakhov felt as though something was off. He didn't know when it had started, but the sensation had been growing stronger for several weeks now. It was hard to say for sure, but he was starting to suspect it was something to do with his magic. It just seemed... different somehow.

Pushing the persistent thoughts to the back of his mind, Strakhov focused himself on the task at hand. The Skorne scouting party he had been sent to intercept was coming into view, their Titans bellowing angrily at the sight of the bright red, highly visible warjacks the Khadoran master of stealth had brought with him. Well, looked like it was time to earn his paycheck.

This was my first game of MkIII. Needless to say I'm still hazy on what's different in the rules, so it's quite possible that I might have screwed stuff up. Anyway, I picked Strakhov, Torch, a Spriggan, my sniper-solos, and my usual Merc infantry. I had 12 points left after that, which I ended up spending on a Berserker and Sylyss; I debated some other combinations, but I though it might be interesting to try Berserk on a MAT 7 warjack with Overrun.
Strakhov
-Torch
-Spriggan
-Berserker
-Sylyss
Nyss Hunters
Cutthroats
Alexia & the Risen
Kell
Widowmaker Marksman

Beanpole was playing the new Battlebox caster:
Xekaar
-Bronzeback
-Gladiator
-Cannoneer
-Shaman
-Agonizer
Slingers
Bloodrunners
Beast Handlers
Willbreaker
Master Tormentor
Orin Midwinter


Pre-Game:
We rolled up a game with two flags and a zone, that looked quite easy to score your own flag. Beanpole won the roll and chose to go first. Out of habit I picked the side with more forests (I need to remember that Hunter doesn't work the same way anymore).


Deployment:
Beanpole had his warlock and battlegroup generally tending to my right, near his flag, with the infantry to my left.

I put Strakhov behind my flag on my left with my jacks lined up across the center. The Nyss Hunters went on the right to take advantage of the forest. The Risen were in the center behind everything.

The Bloodrunners went on my left, facing my caster.

Obviously I had to deploy the Cutthroats on my left to protect Strakhov. I wasn't sure what to do with my snipers so I put them together in the center to start.


Round 1:
Beanpole advanced everything. The Bloodrunners got Tough from the Willbreaker.

I put Superiority on the Berserker, Occultation on Strakhov, and Sentry on the Marksman. The Cutthroats spread out to jam a bit; I tried to use the wall to hold off the Bloodrunners by taking up most of the space behind it, which would also protect the Cutthroats from the Slingers. I decided I wanted the Snipers on the far right, so I ran them across. The Nyss Hunters spread out and tried to use the forest protectively. Alexia ran to my left as I realised I was probably going to lose a lot of Cutthroats.

Round 2
Xekaar debuffed the Nyss (-2 DEF and ARM). His infantry killed some Cutthroats. The Cannoneer fired at something and missed, but the deviation drifted over Cylena and the Widowmaker Marksman, killing them both. I was quite sad to lose the Marksman. The Agonizer used an ability that would debuff the STR of any of my models if they got close.

I was going to have a very hard time killing his Titans if that Agonizer was allowed to keep that up, so I decided to trade the Berserker for it. The Berserker got two and I gave out some focus to the other two jacks for boosting. Strakhov moved up to the flag, cast Overrun on the Bersker, threw a cinder bomb at it to kill the nearby Bloodrunner (I may have forgotten to give it the defensive bonus for being engaged), then killed a Slinger with his gun. Everything else worked on clearing infantry, except Kell who put some damage on the Agonizer.

The Berserker then charged a Slinger in order to trigger Overrun, but instead got counter-charged by the Bronzeback (who actually missed his charge attack). After killing the Slinger, I didn't think to trigger Overrun to escape or move something else closer or anything, and instead spent my focus putting a bit of damage on the Bronzeback. Fortunately the jack did not explode. At the end of the turn I scored a point for dominating my flag.

Round 3:
Beanpole was planning to kill the Berserker with the Gladiator and charge the Bronzeback into Torch. However, abysmal rolls mean the Berserker actually survived the attack (thinking back though, I don't remember when the movement system got crippled; it's possible he shouldn't have missed one attack - or maybe he would have, I distinctly remember a double-one for one of his attack rolls). Instead the Titan finished off the Berserker by throwing it at Torch. The rest of his  forces focussed on clearing the zone so Xekaar could move in, feat, and dominate for two. I scored one, tying our scores.

I wasn't going to be able to kill his Titans with a total of -5 STR this turn, so instead I jammed the zones with my Risen and toed the Spriggan into the zone in the forest for extra insurance. Torch got Superiority. I finished off most of his combat infantry, making damn sure to kill the Master Tormentor with a double-boosted Torch spray (I did not need to loose half my Risen to a single MAT 8 Reach Thresher). I scored again, putting me at 3.

Round 4:
Xekaar debuffed the Spriggan, then the Bronzeback got Rush and simply walked through the woods to annihilate it. One Slinger ran to contest my flag. The rest of his army managed to take out all the Risen, allowing him to score two points, bringing him up to four.

Well, I pretty much had no chance of winning by scenario now, so it was time for a last-ditch assassination attempt. A Thrall I had from last turn charged the Bronzeback to stop any counter-charge nonsense. Kell and the Cutthroats shot down the Agonizer, Alexia managed to land an aimed double-boosted handcannon shot on Xekaar, doing a pretty impressive 11 damage which was obviously transferred, leaving the warlock with 2 Fury. Strakhov filled up Torch, cast Overrun on himself, walked up to catch Xekaar in his feat, and just managed to kill the contesting Slinger to walk Torch close enough to Xekaar to get the charge. The assault spray missed but the initials hit. I rolled abysmally for damage; on the five damage dice for the first two attacks I rolled four 1s and a 2. It didn't really matter though, because he only had two transfers left and I had three attacks, which was just enough to finish it.

Xekaar's magical defenses finally failed under Torch's spinning sawblade. He fell back, bleeding heavily, but before Torch could follow up for the kill he sensed his master's mind rapidly growing more distant. Abandoning the Skorne warlock, he ran to keep up with his warcaster.

Kell yelled at Strakhov as he ran past.
"Boss! Where are you going?"
"Isn't it obvious you fool? I'm running away, like we always do!"
"But boss! We won!"

Strakhov came to an abrupt halt.
"What?"
"I said we won! Look!"
Strakhov turned to see the remaining Skorne forces hastily carrying their injured warlock to safety. He scratched his head, confused by this unfamiliar feeling.
"Huh. Well, that's new."

Post-Mortem:
As nice as it is to be able to say that I won my first game of MkIII, it was a very narrow and lucky win, and if Beanpole had thought to reave the Fury from the Agonizer, I would have lost.

Which is a little bit of an annoying thought; a fully-loaded up Torch, with a buff and a free charge, and a bit of help from Alexia, would not have been able to kill the most fragile caster in all of Skorne if my opponent hadn't made a mistake. Basically, the big assassination move that Strakhov is partly built around is just not very useful against Hordes.

If course Strakhov isn't just an assassination caster, and he's probably better at general attrition than he was in MkII. Plus it's not like I didn't make plenty of mistakes myself.

Actually, I felt very rusty going in. I must have spent at least 10 minutes at the start of each turn, if not much more on some turns, just staring at the board trying to figure out what to do. I basically did nothing at all with my Nyss and very little with my snipers for most of the game.

I forgot about the Bronzeback's counter-charge again, then after he used it I just left Torch in his threat range when I could have moved him away (I think I had already activated the Spriggan, though I could have repositioned him with the Overrun move from killing the Slinger if I had thought to), leaving both my main heavies in it's threat range, but just out from contesting the zone - in fact I almost completely forgot about the zone, any models contesting it were there by chance.

I'm wondering if I could have reached Xekaar without killing the Agonizer. Of course, if Torch had Bulldoze then that wouldn't have been a problem. It honestly feels as if the kit that Strakhov wants in his main warjack is split between Torch and the Spriggan: he loves Bulldoze and 2" reach to make sure the jack can get to the target, but he wants the better MAT and Sustained Attack so he's not at the mercy of the dice against high-DEF warnouns (which is pretty much all of them). I would have loved it if they gave Torch Bulldoze; I reckon he needs it far more than Black Ivan does.


Playing Strakhov is so much less painful now that he doesn't constantly find himself lacking the focus he needs to do even simple things. The fact that he can get all his upkeeps out on turn one feels amazing (which is kinda sad; it really shouldn't be that big a deal). Being able to fully load up a warjack and cast Superiority and Overrun on it is so liberating. I love it. To be clear he doesn't feel like he has more focus than he can use or anything, but in this game at least he felt to me like he had exactly enough; every turn I seemed to have the exact amount of focus needed to do what I wanted.

While I missed Poison on the Cutthroats, I do like that they're cheaper and reposition is nice on them; it actual works as a pseudo accuracy buff, as I can afford to aim more often with it. I really wish Croe still had 2" reach on his sword though, it made him much better at jamming.

Man, P+S 18 does not feel like enough when you've got the Agonizer debuffing your STR. I really should have gone after it more aggressively with the Nyss Hunters, as I basically couldn't touch his Titans as long as it was alive. Heh, it's stuff like this that keeps pushing me to build for shooting against Skorne.

[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.

Ever have a model you really want to like?

I decided to stick with my pSorscha list for a while. I was however struck by a random desire to take the MOW Kovnik out for a spin; I really want that guy to work, and I figured a POW 14 gun should be useful when everything's frozen. So I traded Aiyana, Holt, and Rein-Holt for the Kovnik and Maddie (to help him move his fat behind).
Sorscha I
-Decimator
-Spriggan
-Sylyss
Nyss Hunters
Croe's Cutthroats
-Valachev
Alexia & the Risen
MOW Kovnik
Maddie
Koldun Lord

Beanpole is still experimenting with dudespam:
Zaal I
-Krea
-Drake
-Reptile Hound (3)
-Marketh
Immortals (max)
-UA
Nihilators
Reavers (min?)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (max)
Tyrant Commander
Ancestral Guardian
Hakaar


Pre-Game:
I won the roll and chose to go second (for practice), picking the side with the wall. I chose the Fuel objective, Beanpole picked Arcane Wonder.


Deployment:
Beanpole deployed his Nihilators and Reavers on my left, with the Immortals on my right.

I put Sorscha in the middle with a jack on each side and the Nyss set to flow around them. Alexia went on the left with Maddie, while the Kovnik went on the right where his high-power gun and axe might be more useful against the tougher Immortals. Thus meaning he was too far to benefit from Maddie's Intrigue move. Sigh. The Cutthroats went on the left; I figured they would be better off against the living models than the dead ones, and Stealth would protect them from the Reavers.

Round 1:
Beanpole advanced and spread out. Last Stand went on the Nihilators and Defender's Ward on the Immortals.

I advanced but tried not to overextend myself; I didn't feel that I was under any scenario pressure yet so I played very cagey. The jacks charged with Boundless Charge for the extra inch. The Cutthroats relied on the forest for protection. I ran a Thrall forwards just to make sure Beanpole would have to work for the few Cutthroats potentially in his range.

Round 2:
Beanpole dropped Last Stand, and actually used the Thrall to extend his range by giving the Nihilators pathfinder and charging one at the Thrall; after killing the Thrall he was able to Berserk onto a Cutthroat that he wouldn't otherwise have been able to charge because of the forest blocking line of sight. Other than that he just ran forwards and engaged a few models.

Sorscha moved forwards and feat, catching a few Immortals and most of the Nihilators including the unit leader. She then cast Freezing Grip at a frozen Immortal to shut down that unit, shot a Nihilator, then Wind-Rushed backwards.

The Spriggan walked forwards and took down a Nihilator, who toughed. Which I was hoping he would, as it would make him an easy Freezing Grip target next turn. The Nyss Hunters charged and killed four or five Immortals with nice damage rolls. The Decimator took a point of focus from the Koldun Lord and killed two more with the Dozer. The Kovnik walked up and shot one with his POW 14 axe, but didn't break armour. Sigh.

The Cutthroats shot down a few Nihilators and Reavers, but didn't advance past the forest. Alexia created another Thrall to charge Hakaar, but I had stupidly placed the Risen in the pond and forgot that it was rough terrain until after declaring my charge target, leaving my Thrall standing around like an idiot.

Round 3:
Beanpole did the maths and figured that, on average, Hakaar with Last Stand, three souls, and Zaal's feat would do 30 damage to the Spriggan assuming he didn't take out the shield. So he sent him in. He did 12 damage, only knocking out the cortex. Hakaar then died thanks to Last Stand, leaving behind a Kovaas.

The Krea , Ancestral Guardian, and maybe something else killed about four Nyss Hunters. The Reavers attacked the Cutthroats but couldn't do much with Stealth and the forest protecting them.

The Nihilators had only lost a few members while the Immortals had been thinned considerably, so I decided the Nihilators were the bigger threat. I was not happy about that Kovaas standing there though, and needed to do something about it. So I decided that Sylyss would give Sorscha the Arcane Secrets boost, which she would use on a Razor Wind into the Kovaas before using Freezing Grip on the knocked-down Nihilator.

Which I immediately forgot, activating Sorscha before Sylyss. Sigh. She froze the Nihilators then used the last of her focus to cast Razor Wind, which fortunately killed the Kovaas with a couple of great rolls. That was quite a stroke of luck.

The Decimator took a point of focus from the Koldun Lord and charged the Krea, doing a fair bit of damage. This cleared the path for the MOW Kovnik to launch a glorious P+S 15 Weaponmaster charge at the Ancestral Guardian... he took 2 damage from the defensive strike then left the Guardian on 2 boxes. Sigh.

The Spriggan killed the nearby Nihilator. One Nyss Hunter killed an Immortal in melee, while the other four failed to break a second's armour with a CRA. The Cutthroats killed some more Nihilators and a Reaver. Alexia sent another Thrall into a Reptile Hound, leaving it on a few boxes.

Round 4:
Beanpole sent the three hounds into the Spriggan; the first one didn't get the Flank bonus, the second got Last Stand and did a lot of damage before dying, but the third was a few millimeters out and couldn't attack. At this point the Spriggan had lost all his systems except movement. Last Stand was then swapped over to the Krea, who took a couple of columns off the Decimator before dying. Zaal gave the Ancestral Guardian some souls, which he used to kill the Kovnik. Sigh. The Immortals attacked the Nyss Hunters but only managed to connect with one.

Well, I was doing quite well on attrition, but attrition doesn't win games, you still have to actually achieve a win condition. So I decided it was time to try to start scoring. I had a plan: the Decimator would kill the Ancestral Guardian, giving Sorscha a clear path to the flag. Sylyss would give her Arcane Secrets so she could freeze the Immortals on her way. Maddie would give her the Intrigue move to make sure she had distance.

Naturally the first thing I did was activate Sorscha, ruining the whole plan. Sigh. Without Arcane Secrets I figured I had better boost to hit the Immortals, so I didn't get to use Wind Rush. The Decimator took a point of focus and killed the Ancestral Guardian, leaving a Kovaas in it's place. Hmm, forgot about that. He then missed an attack against a Beast Handler.

The Spriggan and Nyss Hunters killed the remaining Immortals, and one moved between Sorscha and the Kovaas, for what good that would do. Sylyss moved up to try to block landing zones. Risen and a Thrall brought one hound down to a single box. Cutthroats killed a few models.

Round 5:
The hounds finished off the Spriggan. Nihilators killed some Risen. Zaal cast Last Stand on the Kovaas, which moved up and Threshered, killing the Koldun Lord and Sylyss and putting a heap of damage on Sorscha. He then used a soul to buy another attack, finishing her off.

Postmortem:
Hmm, did not see that Kovaas thing coming. I really should have; I'd seen the Kovaas already that game, and I'd seen how much damage Last Stand could do. I didn't know he had Thresher (or Reach for that matter, it's not obvious since he doesn't exactly have a weapon after all), for what that's worth. If I had appreciated his threat better I might have tried to better protect Sorscha by running more Nyss Hunters around her, but I guess he would have just used their souls to buy more attacks; I don't think there was really anything I could have done to save her at the end. Of course if I hadn't screwed up my plans at the end I might have seen the Kovass before activating her and managed to keep her safe. Maybe.

Well, at least I didn't go for assassination this time. The game went pretty well for me, thanks mainly to Sorscha's freezing powers and some good dice. I was far too cagey however; the Cutthroats did very little work because I had put them behind the forest where not many of them could get good shots. If I'd been more aggressive with them, I would have killed the Nihilators off and maybe kept my Spriggan alive. I also kept Alexia all the way at the back the whole game, and as a result neither her unit nor her Thralls actually killed anything all game; seeing as Maddie mainly just stood back to extend her threat range, that was pretty much 7 points that weren't doing anything. Well, the Risen did eat some attacks that might have gone into the Cutthroats I suppose. I never used any of Sylyss' abilities either (due entirely to my own stupidity). The Spriggan didn't do much but he kept my opponent busy. The Decimator did some work, even with what little focus he was given.

Actually, seeing as Sorscha never handed out any focus, and I had two jack marshals on the table, I might have been better off marshaling one of the jacks. Well, against this list anyway; if he'd had some heavies then it would have been another story.

I didn't do much to shield my jacks this game, but then I wasn't able to appreciate the armour cracking potential of some of his models under Last Stand and figured they were pretty safe. They didn't have the volume of attacks to do much work anyway, so in this game they were probably more disposable than my infantry. They lasted longer than they should have anyway; Beanpole's damage dice were sub-par, at least against the jacks.

The Kovnik let me down this game. He couldn't kill anything; not a frozen Immortal nor the solo THAT HE GOT THE CHARGE ON! I mean, seriously, my 3-point medium-based melee beatstick solo got the charge on his medium-based 3-point (I think) melee beatstick solo, and lost (despite having a vastly superior melee weapon?). What a disappointment. I'm starting to run out of room in my miniatures case, maybe I should just leave him at home from now on. Which would leave me with a heavy heart, but what can you do if the model just won't perform?

Hmm, does Alexia's Dominate Undead work on a Kovaas? I actually still haven't used that ability, I'll have to try to remember it next time.

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.