Warmachine Action: Jeremiah Kraye vs. Morghoul and Vayl

Warmachine and Hordes was the order of the evening and I decided to field Jeremiah Kraye, a caster who I haven't had a lot of experience playing. I also played the most jack-heavy list I've ever used in a 35-point game. I put down Kraye, the Squire, and a battlegroup consisting of a Hunter, Ironclad, Centurion...


...Defender, Charger, and a Sentinel. I can't remember the last time that I played a game without a Journeyman. I really missed Arcane Shield.


The first game was against Ken's Skorne army. It was a relatively short game as I put Kraye in a very precarious position. Ken used various spells/abilities from the paingivers and Morghoul to allow the Titan Gladiator and the Cyclops Savage to charge my caster. As you would guess, Kraye didn't survive the encounter.


My second game was against Jordin's Everblight army and, for some reason, I forgot to take photos until the second turn. The photo below shows the centre of the field right after Kraye popped his feat. Thanks to extra movement from both his feat and the Full Tilt spell, the Ironclad destroyed Typhon and the Centurion shredded an Angelius.


The Raptors took some shots but eventually charged into my line in an attempt to keep my jacks away from Vayl.


After making a valiant effort to survive the my initial smash, Vayl eventually went down to a couple of boosted shots from the Charger. Although Vayl had some Fury on her there was no opportunity to transfer damage since the Seraph was the last surviving warbeast and it was already at its Fury limit.


Both games were quite enjoyable, and in each I had the opportunity to observe a slaughterfest, each one from a different perspective. I quite enjoyed using Kraye and my crazy warjack-heavy list and plan on trying it out again in the future, perhaps next time at the 50-point level with some Solo support.

Thanks for reading,

JET

Warmachine Action: Epic Haley vs. Epic Kaya

Since Keir was in town, we had a mid-week Warmachine night Thursday past. I've had a few late nights with the new baby lately so I only had time to stay for one game, but oh what a game it was. Ken and Keir were both present, each trying to iron out last minute choices and strategies before heading off to Hardcore this year. A die roll left me and Ken facing off against each other - my Cygnar versus his Orboros.

Ken fielded a number of units that I had never faced before, specifically the Druids of Orboros, as well as the Alpha Warpwolf and the Warpwolf Stalker shown below. As you can see, he is no fool with a brush (although he is a fool of some renown in many other areas of his life)


I'm not sure of the names of all the abilities and spells that were used, but here's the gist of it: Kaya cast a spell to give her beasts Stealth (i.e. nerfing my shooting) while the druids used an ability so that I couldn't target most of Ken's units with magic. It was like playing against the Choir, only worse.


I had a couple of really good moments. Early in the game, I got an arc node into position and managed to essentially destroy the Bloodtrackers with a couple of Time Bomb spells. Here we see one of Haley's Lancers paying the price for his exuberance in this matter.


The photos make it all seem very one-sided (I take fewer photos when I'm kicking ass as I'm too busy kicking ass). For example, this Warpwolf had only three damage boxes left when he charged in and took Haley out. That's not to say that if he had been destroyed I would have survived. Ken had other threats in range.


I moved Haley up on to that hill so that she could use her hand cannon a few times. Dumb move as it turns out. I should have forgone the ranged attacks and kept her safe behind the hill. As for what I did right, I think that I did a fine job of using her feat to really suspend Ken's army in a large jar of molasses. The problem - I never had the follow-through in place and ready to deal the damage early enough, and in essence, I gave Ken the opportunity to retaliate after my feat had run its course.

Either way, excellent game. Ken seems to know his units and I think that he has a competitive list to field against his Hardcore opponents.

Thanks for reading,
JET

Warmachine Action: Nemo vs. The Butcher

A long overdue geek day was upon us again, and with my new baby due to "arrive" within the next few weeks, I'm not sure when exactly I"ll be attending another one, so I was itching to play. Yet again, Keir made the 650 km trek to St. John's to partake in the geektivities, and the first throw-down of the day was his Khador against my Cygnar. This was my first 50-point game and, it must be said, it felt good to deploy three heavies and three lights.

I spent the bulk of the game hovering around these ruins. I figured that the Khador army would have to get up in my grill. It turns out (as you'll see) that I was wrong.

The Ironclad spent most of the game as an inefficient and expensive piece of terrain. I place him here so that no shots could get through to Nemo.


I started the game with a bang. A combination of Sentinal shots and multiple arced Chain Lightening spells killed a couple of Great Bears, a Widowmaker, and the Wardog. Sadly, this was to be the height of my game.


Keir advanced the Butcher with a Behemoth, a Spriggan, and a Destroyer.


I had completely forgotten (in the span of 5 minutes) that Keir had taken Kossite Woodsmen. The little shaggers came on in turn two and failed to take anything out.


In an over-zealous (and embarrassing) maneuver, I arced Chain Lightening at them. I took out three of the woodsmen... and my Gun Mage and a couple of Gobbers. Oh, the Humanity!


Even though the Centurion had lost its movement system, I used Locomotion to get it into combat. At this point, I was working very hard and getting nowhere. I was pushing ahead but had no idea how I was actually going to kill the Butcher.


The battlefield before Nemo's timely demise.


Nemo was visible in the ruins, so his defense including cover was 17. Nevertheless, Keir moved the Butcher up, cast Obliteration, and then followed with a bombard shot. And that was that. Nemo outspelled by the Butcher... shameful!.


It was a good game all around, although we did tend to dance with each other a little in the beginning. The only problem with the game was its duration. We played for two and a half hours which, in my experience, is about twice as long as a game of Warmachine should be. I'll leave you with what I said to Marc as we ate our most excellent take-out lunch.

I don't really enjoy playing Warmachine when it's played without a timer. There's a certain grittiness that is lost when players have the luxury of pondering every move and every consequence. Without a timer, it's the other player who suffers for his opponent's indecision. With a timer, it's the player himself who suffers for his indecision.

It was a fun and relaxing day out. I can't wait to play more 50-point Warmachine. But not without a timer ;)

Thanks for reading,
JET

Warmachine Action: Epic Haley vs. Severious

We had a relaxing day of gaming today and the first order of business was a game of Warmachine against that wiley Master of Menoth, the incomparable Kenoth of Menoth.  I was using a jack-heavy force while Ken primarily ran warjacks backed-up by a maximum unit of TFG, a choir, and a couple of solos.

We both advanced towards each other fairly aggressively, neither of us doing much damage to the other during the first couple of turns.

I tried arcing some spells into the TFG, but sine I was getting nowhere with it, I decided to sacrifice one of my Lancers.  It worked out, and the Flameguard were pretty much tied up for the entire game.

The battlegroups clashed on the roadway.  I was trying to take out, or at the very least, to occupy Ken's arc nodes, and in doing so, essentially neutering Severious's ability to deal any damage at range.

My other Lancer was Haley's bonded warjack which meant that it had extra movement.  I decided to throw it out there, hoping that I might get the chance to make a smack at Sevvy.

Meanwhile, Ken was smashing up my center fairly handily.

There were some more blows dealt from either side, but in the end, I managed to get the Lancer right up there and reduce Severius to one wound.

Ken made a break for it and tried to gun for Haley.  The attempt failed and the bonded Lancer came up from behind and skewered the Menoth caster much like a holy white marshmellow.

It was a great game with little to no downtime.  I quickly lose interest in Warmachine games that drag on much past an hour and  a half.  This one was anything but boring, and I think that both Ken and I felt that we left the other no room for error.  I was quite surprised that the Lancer survived long enough to go for the kill, but a combination of taking down Severious's arc nodes, and perhaps using my feat at the right time, allowed me to line up all the necessary pieces when they were needed.  Sevvy is an effective (and scary) caster, but because of his relatively low defense, armour, and wounds, when a warjack gets close to him, it generally tends to be lights out.

Thanks for reading,
JET

Warmachine Action: Nemo vs. Skarre

Last Saturday night I played two games at Geek Night using Nemo, a caster whose been on the shelf for too long. Sadly, I forgot the camera, so I decided to bring the same list to Marc's house for a game last night. After the tea was poured and the terrain was laid out we got down to business.

By the second turn we were advancing pretty steadily toward each other. The blue token on Deathjack signifies Voltaic Snare. I was hoping to keep it tied up while my Centurion advanced into position to wreck it.


Nemo stayed back away from most of the action while the Stormguard headed towards the enemy. In our group, I find the Stormguard the least useful against Marc's Cryx army. He seems to always pick them off one by one, and when they do see action, it's usually against Mechanithralls with a Necrosurgeon in close proximity.


Skarre was moving cautiously at first, staying back with her thralls.


Marc sent Scrap Thralls out to get in my way. The little bastards took out a couple of Stormguard, as did the shot from the Bloat Thrall.


Marc moved the Slayer up to take the charge from the Centurion and to keep the Deathjack free. The Harrower moved up and started making wraith shots. This formation, of course, made a perfect target for Voltaic Snare. I pretty much kept all three heavy warjacks stationary for the game.


The previous turn for me was a bust. I had used Nemo's feat but had failed to do any significant damage to his force, and wasn't even close to threatening Skarre. In the meantime, Skarre had moved down the field towards my left flank. With her feat running (as well as that stack of focus) I couldn't really touch her.


The Centurion smashed the Slayer into a pile of bolts, and if the game had continued, he would have likely taken down the other two Cryx jacks.


Sadly, however, the game was about to end. Here's a photo of the last turn. Skarre moved up with a stack of focus and cast a couple of offensive spells on Nemo. I didn't realize how close to danger I had left him, and the old fellow went down, defeated.


Skarre stood victorious over the field of battle. Wench.


It was a humbling moment, but not a surprising one. By the third turn, although I was in a position to annihilate a lot of Marc's force, I realized that I wasn't in a position to threaten his actual caster.

On the bright side, it was my first game using the newly-released Mk II cards. It's very exciting to play with new cards (especially after a year of playing with hard-to-read PDF print-outs), but I frankly find them very "busy" in the layout department. I think that the quote on the front of the card eats up a lot of prime real estate that would be better used to display actual game information. Either way, I'm very happy to have them, layout minutiae notwithstanding.

Thanks for reading,
JET

Geek Day Diary Entry #7: "Casual Gaming Day"

With Ken heading off on business travel for a month we bumped our January Geek Day back a couple of weeks. It also gave Keir an opportunity to get in for one more weekend of gaming before the west coast of the province becomes buried in snow. We weren't quite as organized as last time around, so we threw down and played it by ear.



Game One: 15mm Impetus Engagement

There were only five players scheduled for Warmachine & Hordes so I had volunteered to sit out for one game. Since Chris E. was coming to paint for the day, we decided to play a game of Impetus during my Warmachine downtime.


I won't go into detail on this one. I'll post a proper report within the next few days for the Impetus fans. Oh alright... here's a little teaser; the stalwart English archers saved the day.


Game Two: Jeremiah Kraye (Me) vs. Feora (Ken)

After a fortifying meal of Wendy's burgers and fries, we were all back at the game tables, and I found myself up against the wily Ken-oth of Menoth. He had shown up with a fairly infantry-heavy Feora list that included a full unit of Flameguard, Choir, and Knights Exemplar. I was trying out my warjack-heavy Kraye list, a caster who I've had little experience with. Although there was some confusion concerning the application of the cavalry rules to my warjacks, I did win the game. However, I did somewhat better during my feat turn than I should have, thanks to the aforementioned confusion, so I certainly wouldn't consider it a "true" win.

I attempted a refused flank deployment.


Feora led the warjack flank.


I fielded a large battlegroup consisting of a Lancer, Centurion, Ironclad, Defender, and a Sentinel.


I moved the Lancer into position to arc offensive spells, but I did very little damage to the entrenched Flameguard. I did succeed, however, in casting Pursuit on them. This meant that one member of my battlegroup could move in response to their movement.


The Menothian jack-wall moves up to support the infantry.


The heavy Cygnar warjacks were too late to save the Lancer from being mobbed by the TFG...


...and subsequently wrecked by the Guardian.


How things looked just before Kraye's Horsepower feat. For those who aren't familiar, Horsepower allows all of Kraye's warjacks to stand-up, face any direction, charge (for free) with +2" of movement, and make all melee attacks boosted for free.


Since the heavy warjacks make impact attacks just like heavy cavalry, each charging heavy took down a handful of Menoth infantry en route to their primary targets. I screwed up the execution of this rule, so it's unclear as to whether I could have actually accomplished the mass destruction in the way that I did.


Feora and her lackey's ended up in melee with the Centurion and wrecked it.


During my final turn, Kraye cast Full Tilt on the Defender (which started over on that wreck marker to your left) as well as Easy Rider so that it could ignore difficult terrain. I marched the Defender right over to Feora and finished her off.

Like I said earlier, I made a screw-up that effectively threw the outcome of the game. It was still fun, however, and I plan on playing Kraye more regularly so that I can learn some of the intricacies.


A Look Around the Room

We never did a particularly good job of managing our time, so as it turned out, we only played two games each. As usual, I tried to take some photos of the other guys' games throughout the day.

Keir's Everblight force moves through the ruins towards Marc's Cryx army.


Ken's Menoth charges Stu's Stryker-led Cygnar army.


Keir's Carnivean mixes it up with Chris H.'s Karvev the Terrible.


Marc unveiled his scratch-built cardboard building. The window is hand-painted and the thatched roof was laid down one layer at a time. Insanity!


Evening Entertainment

Since Keir stayed at my house during his weekend in St. John's, our gaming continued into the evening. First, we had a Warmachine match-up between his Khador force and my Cygnar list.


We then moved on to a Hordes smash-up between his Legion army and my Trollbloods. This one went late into the evening.


Both games were really fun, and I'm sure that Keir will be giving a fuller account on his blog in the near future. It was another all-out day of geekery from which I am still recovering. Next time around, we will be more organized and make sure to get in three games each.

Thanks for reading,
JET