December Domination, after the dust settled… Part II

So  after lunch I was doing OK, with one win and one loss, I'd used pSevvy twice and was hoping to use my Kreoss list as well, but as I've mused previously I seem to be drawn to pSevvy every time!!  The next two games are written up below:

Game 3

For this round I drew Dave Thomas with his Skorne, he won the roll off and chose to go first with his Void Seer Mordikaar list.  Dave deployed a full unit of Praetorian swordsmen plus UA on my right flank, a full unit of Nihilators and Void Spirit on my left flank and the Warlock and Bronzeback in the centre.  He deployed his Razorworm via AD also in the centre.  I deployed the Errants opposite the Nihilators as they would deny the berserk attacks with their self sacrifice ability should I need to stop it.  The Avatar took the centre to face off against the Bronzeback and the remaining forces took the centre-right.

Dave did the inevitable first turn surge forward and I reciprocated.  The Errants just advanced and shot the Nihilators, but every dice roll bar one was just one short of hitting and even that failed to kill! – darn!

Dave got straight into the action on turn two knowing his Nihilators were in charge range of the Errants plus a bit more considering I had the range to shoot with several.  I lost numerous Errants to that combat, but the unit was still strong.  The Swordsmen ran to engage the Battlegroup, choir etc whilst the Bronzeback advanced and positioned ready to charge next turn.  The Razororm charged the Errants near the centre, but a crafty self sacrifice stopped the beast from Dragging Below and repositioning.  Mordikaar popped his feat this turn giving his whole army +3 DEF as well as Poltergeist.  During my second turn the Avatar generated a full four focus and I could see it was in charge range of the Bronzeback, though he would take a few free strikes including one off the Razorworm on the way in.  I activated the Errants first and managed to kill a couple of Nihilators, but missed a few because of the feat as well.  I did however manage to take two aspects out of the Razorworm allowing the Avatar to proceed relatively free from harm; he did so with impunity as he smashed the Bronzeback to pieces and then Gazed at Mordikaar, effectively preventing the Skorne warlock from advancing away from the Avatar next turn.  The Blessing, Gorman and Severius all fought the Swordsmen at close quarters and managed to kill off quite a few, but there were still a good half a dozen of them left and Sevvy really doesn't like being that close to the action...

Turn three was another explosive round and the Nihilators killed most of the Errants and the Praetorian Swordsmen managed to get into combat with Sevvy with their sidestep mini-feat , but he was unharmed.  Mordikaar was unable to escape the Avatar’s Gaze and would take a charge next turn.  Dave had managed to cause some damage with the Nihilators to it by getting three into combat; I’d certainly give away some free strikes should I attempt the charge.  During my turn I used the Errants'  Quickwork skill to kill one of the Nihilators engaging the Avatar to reduce the damage output from the freestrikes.  The Avatar only had two focus this turn and opted to walk into combat.  Mordikaar survived the encounter as the Avatar had insufficient attacks that turn and no Choir in range to buff him with the Battle Hymn.  Sevvy and co killed the remaining Swordsmen and repositioned defensively for the Nihilators who would be coming in next turn given the Errants could no longer hold them off.

Dave felt lucky to survive the Avatar’s attack and decided not to try his luck a second time and Ghost-Walked out of combat into a wood and some relative safety.  The Nihilators and Void Spirit killed off the remaining Errants plus Gorman and attacked the Avatar, Blessing and Vassal, which survived.  During my turn four the Avatar was again bogged down with Nihilators and only had two focus!  I opted to try a spell assassination and used the Blessing’s imprint to free itself from the engaging Nihilator and move within 8” of Mordikaar.  Sevvy arced a fully boosted Immolation into Mordikar and left him on three wounds.  He then arced a second unboosted Immolation, hit caused enough damage to kill the Skorne Warlock!

Game 4

The fourth game was against my good friend Andy McBirnie, whom I regularly game against.  He had his stunningly painted Khador army and had his pIrusk and Harkervitch lists.  Andy won the roll off and opted to go first with pIrusk.  Andy deployed the battlegroup centrally; Irusk, Wardog and his Spriggan.  He deployed the Winter Guard Deathstar on my right flank and the Kayazy on the left.  I opted to use the pKreoss list for this game and deployed my battlegroup central, along with my supporting Vassal and Choir.  The Errants advance deployed centrally too.

Andy’s turn one was a tactical surge forwards, careful not to allow the Reckoner’s too many juicy targets.  I wasn’t in range to shoot with anything in my turn so I made sure just one or two Errants were in charge range of the Kayazy to get them to commit, but not enough to take significant losses.  I also cast Purification and removed Iron Flesh from the Kayazy.

On Andy’s turn two he charged/ran with the Kayazy as I suspected, killing one or two and locking a few up.  The Winter Guard also ran forwards and locked up some Errants, the Spriggan advanced and Irusk manoeuvred to an ideal feat position and popped his feat.  On my turn I clarified Irusk’s feat and had gotten mixed up with the epic version’s feat, a bit of a revelation as pIrusk’s feat means his guys are immune to knockdown – I thought they automatically stood up should he pop it after I popped mine – d’oh!  So I had to alter my plans, but as I was jammed up the only thing was to attack with the Errants and jacks causing as much damage as possible and hopefully weather the following turn enough to make my knock-down feat count.  I did a fair amount of damage killing several Kayazy and Winter Guard, though Andy passed a good few 4+ tough rolls, Andy’s next turn would be the decider.

Turn three saw the Kayazy fully engage under Battlelust which was enough for them to by-pass the Errants Defender’s Ward ARM 18.  The Winter Guard took Bear’s Strength from Joe and Battlelust from Irusk so their combined melee charge was going to hurt one of my Reckoner’s; it lost its cortex and the right arm remained functional by just one box!  The Errants survived at effective DEF 16 as some Guardsmen were within 2” of the Reckoner and its Ashen Veil affected their ability to hit.  So I’d lost at least half the Errants, but I had my feat and one fully functional jack left and the other could still fight, albeit without focus from now on.  I loaded up the undamaged jack and used Kreoss first to feat and knock everything except Irusk and the Spriggan down.  The Choir went next and sang Battle  to the jacks and actually had an attack or two, but their ceremonial staff’s were no match for the Kayazy battle hoodies!!  The Errants moved into a cheeky position where they were engaging just one Guardsman and could Quickwork a second – basically they double-tapped the remaining Winterguard and a couple of Kayazy.  The loaded Reckoner killed the remaining Kayazy.  Auto-hitting in melee and DEF 5 against ranged is virtually impossible to weather when troops such as Kayazy depend on their DEF to stay alive.

Turn four was the turn after the dust had settled and I was looking stronger at this point as I still had half my infantry, all my support and two jacks, though one had no cortex left of course.  Andy attempted an assassination on Kreoss with the Spriggan’s guns, but the Menite armour held firm.  During my turn I had to be very careful that the Spriggan couldn’t Bulldoze its way back towards Kreoss and kill him, so I opted to charge the Spriggan with the Errants and did some damage, but not a great deal, one Errant however charged the Wardog and killed it, then shot Joe dead.  I was contemplating shooting the Spriggan with my intact Reckoner, but instead ran it into a place where it was wedged between Errants etc and couldn’t easily be bulldozed away.  Kreoss manoeuvred to take an advantageous position where he couldn’t be charged and cast Purification again to remove the Superiority spell on the enemy jack making things more difficult.  I was undecided what to do with the damaged Reckoner as Irusk was within assault range, but was hidden behind a wall and had Iron Flesh on himself!!  I opted to attack him anyway but at that point dice down was called.

Conclusion

So after four great games against four great opponents I had won three and lost one and came 4th, not bad!!  The overall standings can be seen in this forum thread, page 4.  

I enjoyed using pSevvy as always, however in hind sight pKreoss was a really good caster and would have done as well as Sevvy.  I seldom use Sevvy's feat as it does very little against Hordes and as a back line caster he has to move forwards to get more out of it, whereas Kreoss' feat can spell certain doom for hard to hit high DEF infantry as well as intervening models ceasing to block line of sight for ranged assassinations.  Kreoss' feat can be used defensively also should I get under too much pressure.

Thanks for reading :-)

December Domination, after the dust settled… Part I

Well it’s a couple of days since the December Domination tournament that Luke and I ran and I thought I’d write a brief review of the day, primarily from my point of view since this is a blog entry!

I wasn’t sure whether I’d be playing or not for this event as it really depended upon the number of people turning up and I was the first drop out should there be uneven numbers on the day.  Luckily for me my presence made the event even numbers so I got to play.  I took my Menoth to the event and used the following lists:

pSeverius

*Blessing of Vengeance

Avatar of Menoth

Choir of Menoth (min)

Exemplar Errants (min)

Exemplar Errants UA

Vassal of Menoth

Gorman Di Wulfe

pKreoss

*Reckoner

*Reckoner

Choir of Menoth (min)

Exemplar Errants (max)

Exemplar Errants UA

Vassal of Menoth

I’ve used the pSevvy list numerous times at 25pts, however the pKreoss list was modified from another 25pt list I’d previously used.

During the run up to the event several people had to drop out unfortunately, however there were fourteen attendees in the end and a very strong calibre of player too!  From an organisational point of view things went very well, Luke and I had set-up the hall the previous day and the paper work had all been arranged so it was just a case of getting people ushered to their tables in preparation for the first round.

Game 1

I drew Paul North from York as my first opponent; a chap I’ve met several times and gotten to know over the past few months, last we played it was Paul who took the win against pSevvy with his Skorne.  Paul was taking Circle this time and I chose pSevvy for this encounter, Paul opted for Morvahna and took the first turn.

Paul preyed the Blessing of Vengeance with his Bloodtrackers and advanced towards it on my right flank, the Bloodweavers took the left flank and advanced facing off against my Errants.  The Stalker and Woldwyrd advanced down the centre along with Morvahna and the shifting stones.  Morvahana cast the two big upkeeps: Harvest on herself and Restoration on the Bloodtrackers.  My first turn was fairly quick and I ran the Errants up behind a hedge making it as difficult as I could to stop the Bloodweavers inevitable charge.  The Blessing and Avatar ran full speed forwards and the Choir sang ‘no shooting’ hymns to stop the weapon mastered Bloodtrackers making scrap metal out of them.  Sevvy advanced and put up all of his upkeeps, Gorman hid him behind a smoke cloud just in case.

Turn two Paul sent in the Bloodweavers, but couldn’t engage too many Errants due to the hedge I’d tucked up tightly behind, but several died to them, some Bloodtracker javelins and spells from Morvahna.  During my turn two I tried to clear a path for the Avatar to charge the Stalker, who was lurking ready to counter attack, the distance was going to be a bit short but I figured the Blessing could push the Avatar 1” forward with his repulsor shield to get the distance, but then realised the Avatar was too wide to fit through a gap and would fail his charge due to the hedge the Errants were fighting behind!  Instead of this master plan I sent the Blessing over to my left flank and used pSevvy’s Ashes to Ashes spell to clear out half of the Bloodweavers, freeing up the Errants, the Avatar trampled through more Bloodweavers and Bloodtrackers and engaged the Woldwyrd, he bought a couple of attacks and slayed the light beast.  The Errants charged the Stalker and remaining Bloodweavers/Bloodtrackers in the immediate vicinity killing the infantry and putting some damage onto the beast.

Just before we started turn three, five minutes time was called, so it was unlikely we would both have gotten a full turn in so Paul tried to get as much done as he could in the time remaining.  He used the Shifting stones to teleport the Stalker into the rear arc of the Avatar and hit it repeatedly, mauling it badly but leaving it intact.  The Bloodtrackers charged Gorman, the Vassal, the Avatar and a couple of Errants, but dice down was called before he had chance to attack.

The result was a win to me as I had killed a full unit and a light beast, Paul had only taken the Avatar below half damage as far as VP’s were concerned.  I felt a bit bad winning to be honest as Paul felt a bit robbed on the time factor.  It would have been interesting to see what would have happened should we have carried on playing.  Until next time!!

Game2

I drew Brett Wilkie for game two, another York veteran and friend, we’ve played a couple of games in the past, all of which I had lost so wasn’t that confident at pulling a win out, but was determined to give it my best shot never the less!

I won the roll off and opted to go first with my pSevvy list.  I was facing down Kraye, a Stormclad, two Hunters and two Ranger units.  I knew my anti-jack shooting hymn was my best friend against the armour piercing Hunter shots so my jacks advanced full steam under that protection.  I was keenly aware that the Stormclad had an insane threat range having been caught by it on previous occasions – something like 17”!!  Brett gave my aggressive full speed push forwards a fairly wide birth, given his army favoured range whereas mine was more melee based.  The Rangers/Hunters sniped off two choir members and a few Errants, Kraye and the Stormclad kept back, positioning for a long range strike no doubt!

In my turn two I managed to shoot a couple of Rangers dead with the Errants and Sevvy arced Ashes into another unit killing a few more.  The Avatar managed to Gaze at a Hunter stopping it from getting too far away.  Brett tried to figure out a solution to save the Hunter, but it was too close and the Avatar was going to have it next turn!  The Rangers let Brett down big time as he rolled bad dice rolls after bad dice rolls, though the Defenders Ward spell was probably the main contributory factor here.  Kraye and the Stormclad hurtled full speed down the left flank and towards pSevvy (that was a 20” run for the Stromclad)!

During my turn three the Avatar trashed the Hunter and the Errants killed off a few more Rangers.  I almost sent the Blessing to run after Bretts abandoned objective, but angled it to intervene if the Stormclad tried to charge the Avatar, I also killed off more Rangers with an arced Ashes again.  I used Gorman to hurl a Blind bomb at the Stormclad but was short on distance by ¼ inch and deviated a full 6”.  Unfortunately I forgot the maximum it could deviate was 3” which would definitely have hit the jack, but it was my fault and I said as much during the game (I realised this during Bretts turn)!  Brett struggled even more so with the Errants again, but killed Gorman for his audacity to chuck Blind bombs at the Stormclad!

Turn four was the last turn and I knew I had to protect my objective as a cheeky control point would secure the match for Brett and I was too far away to get one of my own.  I protected Sevvy from any potential charges or shooting and placed the Avatar within 4” of the objective, but safe from the Stromclad to possibly win on attrition, or at least be close.  Brett planned his turn carefully and removed the Avatar’s enliven move as well as its vision with two well placed shots.  I had made a fatal error unfortunately as I didn’t quite understand the heavy cavalry rules that the Stormclad benefited from and unfortunately for the Stormclad charged the intervening Choir boy and continued into the Avatar, the Avatar got trashed and the Hunter used its light cavalry move to score a control point.  The game time was over at this point and Brett won fair and square (again)!!

After game two it was lunch and people were asked to leave their armies on display should they wish to be considered for best army.  Below are a few photos of those armies on display.

Andy Garrard's Trollbloods

Mark Coultas' Skorne

Nick Langrick's Menoth

Phil Shaw's Mercenaries

Part II will follow shortly with a brief synopsis of games 3 and 4 as well as a summing up of the event.

A bit of all sorts

Since the last entry I've painted up the Temple Flame Guard unit attachment, seen below; they were painted identically to the main unit in this entry.  The UA will add a bit more punch to the unit and a bit more survivability, the officer's mini-feat allows the unit to have +4 armour for a round as well as immunity to knock down and stationary causing effects.  The unit also get tactics: 'Menoth's Howl' and this allows them to cause terror and have continuous effect fire on their melee weapons.  I'll look forward to fielding these pretty soon!

Temple Flame Guard UA front

Temple Flame Guard UA rear

TFG Officer close-up

TFG Standard bearer close-up

 I recently purchased the Blood of Martyr's heavy character warjack with a view to getting Thyra up and running.  I thought I'd share a good tip for assembling a model where the contact joint is tiny and the risk of damage great.  I used thick super glue with accelerator spray to get a good bond in the gap where Blood of Martyr's  long tabards are joined to the chassis of the warjack.  Following this I filled in a layer of greenstuff behind this to further reinforce the joint, making a kind of wedge.  It is simple enough technique not to be a stunning revelation, but worth noting as without it problems would undoubtedly have occurred!  See photos below:

Regarding painting I'll crack on with the second unit of Errants next, though I'm not really looking forward to them as it is a really long winded job, but they need doing so I'll have to find motivation!

Gaming wise I'm looking forward to December Domination next weekend, details of this can be seen here.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Dirty Mercs

It’s been a week or so since my last entry, I’ve not been terribly productive since then as I’m currently recovering from yet more surgery, though I have managed to paint up a few models during my recuperation time.

I mentioned a few entries back that I was planning on expanding my Severius lists to the 50 point mark so I had something ready for tournaments of this size.  Of note Vapnartak in York, early 2012, will have 50 point lists on day two.  Though my lists aren’t finalised I set myself the task of completing the following to help bolster the painted force so far:

·        Exemplar Errants min unit

·        Temple Flame Guard unit attachment

·        X2 Choir of Menoth acolytes

·        Vassal of Menoth

·        eEiryss Angel of Retribution

·        Lady Aiyanna and Master Holt

I have already uploaded photos of the extended Choir and Vassal; however below are photos of epic Eiryss and Lady Aiyanna + Master Holt.

eEiryss front

eEiryss rear

eEiryss side

These mercenary allies were painted as close to the ‘official’ colours seen in the Merc faction book.  I used a very earthy pallet for eEiryss given that she has a background in stealth, camouflage and tree huggin', like those hippy Circle folk.  The cloak was the main feature and was painted using Camo Green as a base.  I paid particular attention to the epic base she stands upon, trying to make it look like and aged stone relic of some kind. 

Lady Aiyanna & Master Holt

Lady Aiyanna  front

Lady Aiyanna  side

Lady Aiyanna  rear

Lady Aiyanna  side

Master Holt  front

Master Holt  side

Master Holt  rear

Master Holt  side

 I used a mixture of P3 and Citadel paints.  Of note Lady Aiyanna's cloak was a reddish brown created by mixing Scorched Brown and Blood Red; I’ve found these two colours mix really well and create a very smooth transition.  Holt’s blue jacket was painted using the P3 Cygnar blues and washed with GW’s Asumen Blue.

So what about gaming?

Gaming wise these mercs are very useful, eEiryss is great for anti-buffing enemy units as her very high RAT and long range crossbow can remove enemy upkeep spells and animi; it also disrupts warjacks.  These abilities are very powerful in ensuring the enemy is weakened.  Eiryss can also be used in a last ditch ‘bomb’, she can run very quickly and possibly be placed within 5” of multiple enemy warjacks preventing them from receiving focus the following turn.  She has numerous other uses of course, but the afore mentioned ones are why she is popular amongst many gamers.

Aiyanna and Holt are a unit, though they are essentially two solos.  Lady Aiyanna has three main in-game effects, whilst not being offensive she can give herself and Holt stealth, commonly used as the pair advance up field.  She can ‘Kiss of Lyliss’ a model/unit which then suffers +2 to all incoming damage rolls for a turn.  When you start combining that with Choir buffs and Eye of Menoth etc suddenly attacking models can cause far more damage than anticipated.  Her final ability is to grant a friendly unit ‘magical weapons’.  This is of course situational, however when facing incorporeal models, or something which can only be damaged by magical attacks this ability is invaluable.  Holt is a gunfighter with the virtuoso skill, so very handy up close as well as from afar.  He has a very high RAT and two pistols, thus adding a bit more ranged threat to my Menite force.  His special ability comes into effect when either he or Lady Aiyanna are shot at; he can immediately fire at the attacking model and if a hit is scored the attacking model automatically misses, useful to burn out unwary enemies attempting to gun this pair down.

Regarding more ranged support; man I wish I could have a unit of Gun Mages... ah well!!  ;-)

Golden Troll Open 2011, the exploits of Sevvy Part III

Closing thoughts and conclusions

'Golden Troll was everything I expected and more', to sum it up in a single sentence.  I really enjoyed all of my games and all four of my opponents were sporting and pleasant guys.  The whole thing was relaxed and didn’t feel hyper competitive in the least, something I had become very tired of during some of my latter 40K tournament experiences.  I felt the T.O. JT-Y did a superb job and I expected as much having been to Toy Soldier events hosted by him over the past few years.

Regarding my personal performance, I posted up that I was aiming to achieve a single win, which was a reasonable objective given my relatively low Warmachine and Hordes tournament experience plus the afore mentioned high calibre of players attending the event.  Winning three games was far more than I could possibly have hoped and as a result I placed a respectable 6^th in the event.

Obviously I was really pleased with this performance, though in fairness to my opponents most games could have gone the other way, the eSevvy game against the Gators was a horrible match up for my opponent, but he kept on trying and if he’d passed the last tough roll I could have lost quite easily the next turn, similarly in the last game I had very little time to achieve a victory and made it just before ‘dice down’.

My fellow wargamers from Hull Warmachine and York etc all had a great time too and I think my favourite bit of the event was sharing a pub meal together with them after the event, re-telling our glorious victories and horrible defeats over some good grub and a pint!  To be honest the social aspect of this hobby is what makes it so special in my opinion.

Some photos of the armies on display over the lunch break:

Some concluding thoughts on my army choices for those interested in my thoughts on Menites at war:

The Sevvy’s are probably my favourite warcasters, hence my reason for choosing them.  The prime list was really a jack of all trades as it could deal with infantry exceedingly well with the arced Ashes to Ashes and the Vanquisher’s double Flame Belcher shots.  The list had the Avatar who under Eye of Menoth and Hymn of Battle hits so hard it isn’t funny, game two he killed three Circle beasts in one turn.  I do find this list more fun to play and I seemed to gravitate to it every time.  The epic list did a stirling job during the Barnabas game (3) and was my scenario list.  I did find that the Reckoner’s just couldn’t hit quite hard enough to finish an opposing heavy, however this can be overcome by adding assistance from other melee sources such as charging Errants, or the Blessing of Vengeance.  I don’t think on reflection I’d change my lists as they’ve worked well against what ever they’ve faced during play testing and the event itself.

The Menite army is quite attritional as a faction and the Sevvy’s are attrition casters on top of that, meaning they don’t favour quick assassination games.  If I’m honest I have an attrition play style too so they’re suited to me really well!

Thanks for reading