Day Of The Beast

It wouldn't be proper to play a game of Warmachine on Friday the 13th (again) without running Khador's very own Jason Voorhees: Beast 09. Unfortunately for me he wasn't on my side...

Ah-hem. So I threw together a couple of 30 point lists for a second game against Fuzzy (who I mixed up with Saint while writing a previous battle report in a rush; that has now been fixed). I took Andy out for a spin, bringing a Decimator (because I think the model works with him) and a Kodiak (because I was feeling too lazy to dig out the Juggernaut arms). The Wardog was there to deliver Fighting Dirty, and a Koldun Lord would help with damage.
Malakov2
- Decimator
- Kodiak
- Wardog
Nyss Hunters
- Valachev
Koldun Lord

I gave Fuzzy the original battlebox caster, Sorscha1, because she's a lot of fun. She can be a bit focus starved if she wants her jacks to do work, so the Forgeseer seemed to be a good support piece.
Sorscha1
- Beast 09
- Spriggan
- Sylyss
Croe's Cutthroats
Greylord Forgeseer


Pre-Game:
The table had just been used for 40K; I figured playing on the same terrain would demonstrate that Warmachine does not need flat terrain (it seems I had given people the impression that it didn't work with regular terrain). Rather than roll for a scenario or something I decided to just put two "flags" (the Butcher and Mechanic models seen below) in the middle of the table (they are a little to the side, but I figured that was the part of the table we would actually use considering our low model count). I decided to stick to the basic scoring system from the rulebook, so any model in base contact can score, any model within 4" contests, and first to 5 wins.

I won the roll and chose to go first. Fuzzy chose the Decimator as the Cutthroat's Prey target.


Deployment:
I deployed my battlegroup facing the rightmost flag and the Nyss to my left. Fuzzy deployed most of his forces to my left.

Round 1:
Malakov cast Escort and put Repo on the Decimator, then walked forwards, gave himself Prowl and threw a cloud over himself. The Decimator trampled then repo'ed forwards for a total of 12", matching the Kodiak's run. The Nyss Hunters ran forwards. My solos joined Malakov in the cloud.

The Cutthroats walked forwards and started shooting at my Nyss Hunters. Needing mostly 9's, they somehow managed to kill 5 Nyss before repositioning backwards. Beast09 and the Spriggan ran towards the flags. Sorscha put up Fog of War.

Round 2:
The Kodiak ran to base the flag. The Decimator took a couple of shots at the Spriggan for very little damage (I didn't allocate enough focus; with Fog of War even a Spriggan is hard for a Decimator to hit unboosted!) then tried to bodyblock the flag. The Nyss walked and Zephyred into range of the stealthy Cutthroats, killing I think 4 of them. On Nyss Hunter based the flag, while Valachev hugged a wall for cover.

Between aiming Cutthroats and an always-angry Beast09 (those Nyss kids were having too much fun!) Fuzzy took out all my Nyss Hunters, leaving a lonely Valachev wondering what had just happened. Sylyss ran to base the flag, while the Spriggan ran away from my jacks. Scoring began this turn so we both scored a point.

Round 3:
I put the Decimator into the Spriggan, taking about half his boxes but not crippling anything. The Kodiak stayed back to guard the flag, venting steam to help hide my squishies. The Wardog ran forwards in order to be able to apply Fighting Dirty next turn if I saw an opening. Valachev walked over to base the flag on the left and killed Sylyss with an ice shotgun. This prevented Fuzzy from scoring this turn, getting me a point up.

Sorscha cast Boundless Charge on Beast09 and the Forgeseer handed out some focus. The Spriggan softened up the Decimator, then Beast09 came in and finished it off. The Cutthroats killed the dog and based the flag. We both scored, bringing the score to 3:2 to me.

Round 4:
I dropped all my upkeeps for focus. The Koldun Lord cast Brittle Frost on the Spriggan - I would have preferred to use it on Beast09 but he's immune... The Kodiak charged in to the Spriggan, finishing it with his initials. I had actually hoped to be able to throw it into Beast09. Oh well. He then bought a couple of attacks on Beast09, completely whiffing his damage rolls...

The Kodiak used Vent Steam. Malakov feated; with the steam cloud in place the Kodiak (who I think was the new Prey target) would be able to walk behind it after Beast hit him, where he couldn't be targeted anymore. I bought an extra attack with Open Fire, which at least did a bit of damage. Malakov also shot at Beast09, managing only to hit the Kodiak in the back. At least he didn't actually do any damage.  We both scored, but as I was ahead at 4 points I would win next turn if Fuzzy didn't contest.

At this point I thought it was a good idea to explain Sorscha's feat and other abilities to Fuzzy. While doing so we realised that Malakov was inside Sorscha's threat range. So she Wind-Rushed forwards, popped feat to freeze all my models, then charged Malakov and killed him with two hits.

Post-Mortem
I actually did not realise that Malakov was that close to Sorscha. Clearly I'm still rusty. I also realised today that Sorscha's feat counters Malakov's pretty well; his feat says nothing about ignoring Stationary after all.

I thought the Koldun Lord would solve Malakov's damage issues, but a) I'm too cagey with him, and b) Beast09 don't give a damn. Actually I could have given the Koldun Lord repo and/or Prowl, and even a cloud, meaning that Malakov might be one of the better casters for keeping him safe even after he uses Brittle Frost. Still, I think Andrei might not be at his best at this point level.

Anyway, this was a fun game, and one that didn't drag out as long as Warmachine sometimes can for a slow player like me. Fuzzy's dice were pretty hot, rolling 9's with surprising ease. But that was pretty fair really, seeing as he'd just come from a game of 40K where his dice were stone cold...

[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.

Primer and Bare Metal

Game 1:
I swapped the Decimator for a Demolisher; the idea is that it's a durable piece that the opponent can't ignore for risk of being frozen, and with the bond and eSorscha's feat it should hit hard enough if needed.
Sorscha II
-Demolisher
Doomreavers
Nyss Hunters
Croe's Cutthroats
Alexia & the Risen
Reinholdt

Beanpole threw something together:
Mordikaar
-Gladiator
-Bronzeback
-Krea
Nihilators
Incendiarii (4)
Paingivers (4)
Saxon Orrick


Pre-Game:
We played a simple mission with two flags. I won the roll and chose to go first. As our games tend to take a rather long time, we decided to play ten minute timed turns for a change.


Deployment:
I aimed the Demolisher at Beanpole's flag and Sorscha at my own. Alexia went in the center with the Risen positioned to run up ahead for a change. Nyss went on the left.

Beanpole put the Bronzeback and Incendiarii on my right, with the Gladiator and Nihilators on my left.

I decided I would rather the Cutthroats face off against the Incendiarii than the Doomreavers, so they went on my right and the Doomreavers on the left.

Saxon went on my right, so he could help the Incendiarii through a patch of rough terrain.


Round 1:
I ran stuff up. Cutthroats got Iron Flesh, the Demolisher used Boundless Charge for the extra inch, Sorscha used Cyclone to move up farther. The Nyss caught up with the Doomreavers but passed their leadership check.

Beanpole advanced agressively and feated, giving his army +3 DEF and Poltergeist. The Nihilators got Hollow.

Round 2:
I dropped Iron Flesh for the focus and so I could declare a charge with the Cutthroats, but then remembered the feat and decided to just run and jam. I made sure to engage the Bronzeback with my first move. I had very intelligently put Risen in front of Reinholdt, meaning he couldn't reach Sorscha to use Lucky Charms. Sorscha moved over to hide behind the well and froze the Nihilators. The Demolisher ran up to cover Sorscha. The Nyss killed a bunch of Nihilators, but several survived thanks to tough rolls. The Doomreavers killed a couple more, leaving just the one survivor. I ended up using my extension this turn.

That is a big pile of souls...

Mordikaar now had something like 16 Fury. He brought back a couple of Nihilators, then between Mordikaar, the Paingivers, and the Incendiarii, Beanpole cleared enough Cutthroats for the Bronzeback to charge and Beat-Back it's way to Sorscha. Result: dead Sorscha.

Game 2:
The last time I played Gru I was impressed by his fully painted army, so I put together a list that used as many of my painted Warmachine models as I could. The only one missing is the wardog, who it seems can't be in the same list as Sylyss. Perhaps the elf is alergic? I went for the Kodiak for the free run, and Destroyers and the Demolisher so I wasn't trying to charge my entire army into melee in one go. I threw the Kovnik in there at the last minute for a laugh, but didn't think to actually put a warjack on him, which I really should have done; the Demolisher wouldn't have been a bad choice. We decided to go ahead and play at 50 points.
Strakhov
-Black Ivan
-Destroyer
-Demolisher
-Kodiak
-Berserker
-Sylyss
Alexia & the Risen
MOW Kovnik
Koldun Lord
Widowmaker Marksman

Gru just brought lots of gators, but for some reason brought the Spitter instead of the Wrassler. Perhaps he was anticipating my usual infantry horde when he wrote the list.
Barnabus
-Ironback Spitter
-Bull Snapper (2)
Gatormen Posse (5)
Gatormen Posse (5)
Gatormen Posse (3)
Gobber Bellows Crew
Witch Doctor (2)
Croak Hunter (2)
Thrullg


Pre-Game:
We left the table as it was. I won the roll, and decided that I had better pick the side with less rough terrain in my way, so I chose sides and Gru chose to go first. No timed turns this game.


Deployment:
Gru put his whole army on my left, facing his flag. I think he may have deployed his advanced deployment models in his regular deployment step?

Strakhov aimed for the flag. I put the Kodiak behind the forest on my left as it was the only other model that could run through it. I put the Kovnik behind the house as I was scared of the Croak Hunters' poisoned weapons - in retrospect I should have put him near Strakhov so I could give him Occultation (assuming I could ever spare the focus). The rest of my jacks went in the middle, with everything else on the right or behind the jacks.

The largest number of painted Warmachine models I've ever put on the table! Sad huh?

Round 1:
Gru put Iron Flesh on the three-gator Posse and ran everything up. The Croak Hunters hid in the trench.

I put Superiority on the Berserker with the intention of sending it in as a "first wave". Everything ran. Alexia starting accumulating Thralls.

And even more painted models thanks to the Thrall!

Round 2:
Gru advanced cautiously and hid the bulk of his army behind swamps and clouds (well, OK, one of each), casting Spiny Growth one each of the three Iron Fleshed Gators.

I realised at this point that I had stupidly positioned my "first wave" where it couldn't attack because of the well. So I hatched a Cunning Plan^TM! Strakhov gave the Berserker three focus and kept three for himself, then he advanced to shoot at the Gobbers in order to use Overrun to reposition the Berserker. Unfortunately they were too far away, so he threw a cinder bomb and a Rift instead on the off-chance that they provided some protection or something. The Berserker simply ran around the house instead, while the rest of the jacks ran or walked and shot, doing very little.

The Marksman then walked forwards and fired at the rightmost Gator. He landed the shot and rolled an amazing double 6 to perfectly one-shot the big lizard! What a champ! Alexia advanced and summoned a second Thrall.

Round 3:
One Bullsnapper frenzied, and took a big chunk out of the other, knocking out an aspect. Barnabus triggered his feat, knocking down several of my models. The nearest Posse charged the Kodiak, but only a few manage to reach. The Croak Hunters put a few boxes of damage on the Kovnik. The Gobbers moved up and put a cloud in front of my Berserker. He put Spiny Growth on a couple of the Iron-Fleshed unit. The rest of his army mostly just held it's ground.

I realised that my Kodiak was out of my control area and thus I wouldn't be able to shake, meaning he wouldn't be able to do anything useful this round. Neither would the Kovnik. So I hatched a Cunning Plan^TM to get some use out of them.

The Berserker got three focus, the Destroyer two, then they both shook. The Kodiak and Kovnik both sacrificed their actions to stand, and moved into position. The the Destroyer slammed the Kovnik, hoping to send him over the Croak Hunters. Sadly the slam distance was an inch short. I wanted to slam the Kodiak as well, but I realised that the Destroyer was in the way, plus I probably wouldn't have range anyway. So the Demolisher just ran forwards.

The Berserker trampled over the Gobbers, boosting his attack rolls and killing them both. Hang on, the maths doesn't add up; did I forget to pay for the trample? Perhaps I used Strakhov's feat but forgot that it doesn't give free tramples, only charges and slams? Either way I guess I screwed up somewhere. Anyway, the Berseker promptly exploded and put a few boxes of damage on the min unit of Gatormen.

Black Ivan did very little with his bombard. The Marksman shot another Gatorman but did not manage a repeat performance, only doing a few boxes of damage this time. Alexia summoned a third Thrall (proxied by Reinholdt). Strakhov based the flag to score a point.

Round 4:
One unit of Gators charged and killed the Marksman. Revenge! The Croak Hunters finished off the fallen Kovnik. The Gators swarmed around my jacks, slowly chipping away at the Kodiak. I scored a second point.

With the Berserker dead I would be wanting to re-cast Superiority. But who would get it? Well, with the Demolisher engaged, he would pretty much have to open up now, so perhaps a couple of extra points of defense would help keep him alive. However, he was too far away from Strakhov. So I hatched a Cunning Plan^TM (are you seeing a pattern yet?). Strakhov kept all his focus, moved up to cast Superiority on the Demolisher, then cast Overrun on himself and tried to gun down a Gator in order to be able to move back onto the flag. I rolled three shots, but the only unit in range had Iron Flesh so I missed them all, even with the boost.

Alexia created a fourth Thrall (proxied by a Nihilator). A pair of Thralls charged an Iron Fleshed gator and missed, while the newborn charged a regular Gator and also missed. The rest of my army then stood about flailing ineffectually.

Round 5:
Barnabus finally based his flag, but didn't score as my jacks were contesting. The Ironback Spitter nailed Alexia with a double-boosted loogie. If I'd had one more Risen (or the one Risen that was also in the AOE was a little farther away so I could pass damage off to it) she could have traded them to survive it, but Gru had rolled the exact damage needed to kill her, so I let her die and hung on to the Risen. The Croak Hunters hit the Koldun Lord, landing him with Corrosion, but poor damage rolls meant he survived the attack.The Gators killed three of my Thralls and kept chipping away at the jacks. I think this was the turn that the other Bullsnapper frenzied, taking a big chunk out of Barnabus.

Strakhov handed out three focus to the Destroyer and kept three. The Destroyer, using all three focus, finally managed to kill a single Gator. My flag was starting to look like a dangerous place to be, so I decided to focus on killing stuff with Strakhov. I wanted to charge him into the two Croak Hunters, but due to poor positioning I didn't have a line on the far one, so I charged the near one, killed it and Overrun into the second, but whiffed my attack. Finally Strakhov sprinted away, taking some damage from a free-strike.

The Risen simply regrouped (did you know they have CMD 3?). Ivan moved in to melee since he wasn't having much luck with his gun. The Koldun Lord lost another damage box to Corrosion.

Round 6:
The Gators finally managed to finish off the Kodiak. The Spitter moved in and, with the help of a couple of Gators, knocked out the open Demolisher's arms and cortex. The rightmost posse killed all but one Risen. The Thrullg disrupted Ivan.

Well, I really didn't want to move Strakhov over to my flag now. The Destroyer was the only jack left that I could allocate to; I couldn't even use the Koldun Lord to try to give Ivan focus as he died to Corrosion at the start of the turn. It occurred to me however that Barnabus was injured and on zero camp; perhaps I could put some damage on him this turn. The idea was to move Strak up, kill a gator, cast Ram at Barnabus, then sprint to a position of relative safety. It was a risky play, but the alternative was just to continue chipping away at Gators and lose the game from attrition / him scoring on my flag. So I went for it.

First I tried to free up Strakhov with the Demolisher, but a freestrike killed him. It's a shame, but at least he was out of the way. Strakhov then charged one of the Iron-Fleshed Gators (the freestrike from the Croak Hunter missed) and boosted the attack roll. The attack missed. This was a problem; I couldn't afford to just stand there, I had to try to reposition to somewhere a little safer with the sprint, so I spent the rest of Strakhov's focus trying to kill the Gator, but failed.

Sylyss ran to engage the Croak Hunter. The Destroyer killed another croc. Black Ivan took a swing and missed. The sole remaining Risen charged a Gator and missed.

Round 7:
Two Gators killed Strakhov. If they hadn't managed to finish it the Ironback would have.



Postmortem:
It's a completely different experience when you're on the clock. I would say it was exciting, but also somewhat stressful of course. The added pressure meant that I didn't play very smart and made stupid mistakes, like moving Sorscha into range of the Bronzeback. I think it might be worth playing with timed turns every once in a while, but probably not with the infantry spam lists I'm currently playing, and probably with a slightly more generous time limits to start off with.

It was fun to run jack-heavy again; in fact I think this is the jack-heaviest I've ever done. Strakhov is clearly not the right caster for it though. I love using Overrun for janky little plays, and I spent all game trying and failing to pull that kind of thing. I guess the Hoff really likes easy to kill targets for triggers, and Gators are not exactly easy to kill; I think I only took out three of them the whole game.

The terrain was part of the problem; it funneled us into a rather narrow skirmish line where we couldn't get enough of our larger-based models into engagement, drawing out the game a little. Iron Flesh didn't exactly help; DEF 16 is obviously not as bad as DEF 18, but it was still enough to give me trouble.

Actually, I think both our dice were pretty poor overall. I had some good rolls early on, then he had a few at the end when he killed Strakhov (whole bunch of 8s for his attack rolls...), but for most of the match I think we were generally rolling below average (my attacks kept missing, his kept failing to do damage).

That Marksman though! Man of the match! I should have used Swift-Hunter to move him back to maximum range after his first attack though, I just forgot how fast Gators can be when charging living models.

Looking at the photos, I think Gru could have gotten that posse around the right flank a lot sooner if he'd been more agressive; with the forest in the way they could have flanked without much risk of my jacks catching them, then put pressure on my flag sooner. In hindsight, knowing now how much trouble my jacks had with his Gators, I would say that if he'd moved the main complement of Gators up faster he could have jammed me off his flag and started scoring fairly early on.