Thursday 19 April 2012

Open War 17 tournament


Last entry I discussed the reasons for a few changes in my 35 point Kreoss1 list and painting up these new models.  Overall I felt that the list certainly benefited from the changes and am eager to continue playing Kreoss with these in mind.  I’ll spend the remainder of this blog entry discussing how I faired in the event:

The first game was a 50 pointer and only one list, my chosen list was the following:

+6  Hierarch Severius
  6  *Revenger (bonded)
  8  *Reckoner
  8  *Reckoner
  2  Choir (min)
  5  Daughters of the Flame
  4  Temple Flameguard (min)
  2  *Temple Flameguard UA
  8  Exemplar Errants (max)
  2  *Exemplar Errants UA
  4  Lady Aiyana & Master Holt
  4  X2 Vassal of Menoth
  3  Eiryss2

Game 1 – Adam Archer
Cryx; Denny1
Deathripper
Seether
Reaper
Stalker
Nightwretch
Skarlock
Banethralls (min) + UA
Bilethralls (max)
Tartarus
Bloat thrall
Pistol Wraith

The scenario in this battle was #15 Restoration, which involved interactive objectives, where control points are scored by destroying your opponent’s objective and controlling a 14”x6” zone.  I won first turn and Adam chose the board edge with a linear feature for some decent defensive cover.  I was quite aggressive with my first turn running all of my advance deploy units far up the field and the remainder of the army followed.  Adam advanced cautiously, sending his light jacks around the flanks and advancing his shooty units, whilst keeping Denny and his melee units back.  A few Errants died, but most remained intact.

On my next turn the Errants advanced again, a couple stood still to get the aiming bonus on the Pistol Wraith and their magical bows killed it.  They capped a few Bile Thralls and I almost killed the Bloat Thrall too, leaving it on one damage box.  The Revenger ran into harms way, but this allowed Sevvy2 to arc his gun into the Reaper with the hope of Admonisher catching the Skarlock, this worked, though my node would take a charge, therefore a Reckoner was positioned to counter and a spare focus left on it to take advantage of the bond – it was too far up front to become Enlivened.  Sadly I forgot to activate Eiryss2 and shoot the Reaper or Seether to cause disruption and limit their damage output, but all in all a good turn for the Menites.

Adam shot the Revenger and caused a lot of damage, I opted not to use the focus point I had left to ignore the damage (Sevvy2 bond ability) at this point figuring the Seether’s charge would hurt more.  I did use the bond ability on the charge attack off the Seether and the non-reach Cryx heavy was repelled away leaving the Revenger operational all bar the arc node and the Seether in a bad position fro Adam, especially having caused no damage.  Adam’s Bloat Thrall and Bile Thralls advanced in the centre and went to town on the Errants killing several, my Errants numbered about four by now.

During my turn three I was winning the attritional game and Denny was still lurking in the back field.  I charged the Seether with my Reckoner and trashed it, the Cryx arc node jack also died at this point and I disrupted the Reaper with Eiryss2; meaning my right flank was very strong by now.  The Errants killed off the remaining Bile Thralls and Bloat Thrall freeing up the centre and I positioned to defend my left flank from the last two Cryx light jacks.  Tartarus and the Banes were very far back and I felt it was time to seal the game and destroyed Adams objective and flooded the zone with my models.  Sevvy2 feated and burned a few Banes that were at the edge of his control area for good measure.

Adam realised that he would loose unless he contested the zone, he feated with Denny and arced Crippling Grasp into the Temple Flameguard: following this Tartarus/Bane Thralls charged them, most died but their shield wall order, set defence and Iron Zeal mini-feat helped redress the balance.  The Stalker ran into the zone to help contest, but only it and a single Thrall made it.

On my next turn the Daughters of the Flame charged the Stalker and trashed it with two combined melee attacks and the remaining Temple Flameguard killed the last Bane Thrall with a another combined melee attack.  The game was mine at this point though I continued the remainder of my turn to rack up VP’s.  Most interestingly I decided to charge Sevvy2 at Tartarus to see if he could slay the Cryxian, I used his Creators Wrath spell and boosted the hit meaning Sevvy2 was MAT 4 plus 4D6 to hit and P&S13 + 4D6 damage – Tarter Sauce bought it!

Result: win (scenario)

Lunch was at this point and players were encouraged to leave their armies on display for consideration for ‘Best Army’ as well as being judged on the painting criteria.  Below are a few snaps of the armies on display:



















 The remainder of the event was a 35 point steamroller affair with two lists of which both must be used.  My lists were:

+6  Grand Scrutator Severius
  7  *Blessing of Vengeance
  8  *Vanquisher
 11  Avatar
  2  Choir (min)
  4  Temple Flameguard (min)
  5  Exemplar Errants (min)
  2  *Exemplar Errants UA
  2  Vassal of Menoth

+5  High ExemplarKreoss
  8  *Reckoner
  8  *Reckoner
  2  Choir (min)
  8  Exemplar Errants (max)
  2  *Exemplar Errants UA
  4  Visgoth Rhoven & Honour Guard
  4  X2 Vassal of Menoth
  2  Covenant of Menoth
  2  Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord


Game 2 – Paul North
Circle; Kromac
Stalker
Gnarlhorn
Feral
Gorax
Tharn Wild Riders (min)
Shifting stones

Paul and I are good friends and we had a catch up over dinner and we exchanged information on our casters for pondering over the break.  Paul had Morvahna and Kromac, I knew which caster he would take given the amount of upkeep denial I could muster and I knew I would take Kreoss accordingly!

The scenario in this battle was #12 Envelopment with the Reinforcements artifice.  I won the roll off and opted to go first advancing my forces as usual, as did Paul.

The second turn was quite good for me as I hit the stalker very hard with the Reckoner’s guns dropping it to just one box of health, but didn’t have enough left to kill it unfortunately.  I did kill a Shifting Stone in this turn which was crucial to my plans as the ‘teleport a heavy almost 10 inches’ is nasty and I’ve been on the receiving end a few times.  I chose to leave my reinforcements until later as Paul might end up exposing his rear to a cavalry charge depending on where he committed his forces. 

On Paul’s next turn he hit one of my Reckoners very hard with a Primaled and strength warped Feral, which he trashed easily.  I could have Enlivened the Reckoner but opted for the Ancillary attack to try and finish the Stalker.  The Stalker was healed by Kromac and went into the Errants with Wild Agression up and Warpath on Kromac.  However the horrible combination of un-knock-down-able, tough Errants with Self Sacrifice meant the Stalkers Berserk attacks failed as did the possibility of any Warpath moves.

During my next turn the cavalry came on and attempted to charge the Gnarlhorn, but fell short by a few millimetres, still I was threatening Kromac’s position with the cavalry.  The Stalker died, and the Feral took a beating from Errants and Rhoven’s bodyguard, though the fully loaded Reckoner attempted to finish it off the ‘jack didn’t have enough movement to engage it, instead it shot Kromac causing a bit of damage.  Paul also lost a couple of Wildriders I think.

Paul’s next turn saw the Feral frenzy, as per its Primal ruling and it didn’t do much.  The Gorax engaged the Errants, as did Paul’s Bloodtracker reserves.  The Gnarlhorn killed off two Venger’s and Kromac struggled with upkeeping/casting spells whilst in Kreoss’ Lamentation range.

On my next turn the Feral died and the Gorax took some punishment from the Errants as well as the last Wildrider dying.  Time was starting to burn heavily for us both at this point and Paul was loosing the attrition, though neither of us were in any position to win on scenario both of us were looking at a caster kill for the win.

Though Kromac was already wounded from his feat and some damage I had inflicted previously he attempted a leaping assassination attempt on Kreoss but was too far away and instead cleared out several Errants, but left himself vulnerable to my remaining forces and Kreoss given he had no transfers.

For some reason I totally forgot about my feat and didn’t think about it until after the game had finished…  The Reckoner advanced and boosted the to-hit roll needing an 8 and failed, bought and boosted, failed, bought an attack and missed…  Kreoss charged and boosted needing a 7, failed, bought and boosted, failed and then failed on his final un-boosted attempt.  The Ancillary attack on the Reckoner failed.  One Errant managed a charge and failed to hit.  I couldn’t believe that many boosted to hits failed, and still I hadn’t remembered my feat (what the hell I hear you say).  My last ditch attempt was from Rhoven and Co. the bodyguards were engaged, but Rhoven himself was on for a charge, he connected and luckily for me killed Kromac.

It was a really good game that swung to-and-fro and I was pleased to win, though I made hard work of it by not feating and allowing the auto-hits which would have sealed the deal without getting so dangerously close to loosing.  I guess that I should have still connected with a few of those boosted failed-to-hit rolls and any of them could have done the job!  Still a second win which put me quite high in the standings.

Result: win (caster kill) 

Game 3 – Tom Frettwell
Legion; Thagrosh1
Carnivean
Scythean
Ravgore
Hex Hunters (max)
Shepherd
Spell Martyr

This game was #7 Incursion and I opted for my Severius list for this encounter though my Kreoss list would likely have faired better given the match-up.  Tom’s other list was Vayl2 and I felt that Sevvy’s feat would hamper hers if I could time it right should I face her in this game.  Tom took the first turn and I chose a board edge which offered a small amount of useful terrain.

Tom quickly advanced his warbeasts and Hex Hunters, as expected, and I reciprocated as per a standard first turn.

During Tom’s second turn he fired the Ravgore’s flame AOE and lit up an Errant and a Flameguard, the Hex Hunters charged but dealt no damage to the Errants.  Tom also sent his Scythean very close to the Avatar.  I managed to clear out most of the Hex Hunters with a cunning Ashes to Ashes aimed at one of my own Temple Flameguard as well as melee/quickwork from my infantry.  I opted to run the Vanquisher to one of the flags and score a control point, though I wondered whether it would have been better attacking the Carnivean or Ravgore.  The Avatar destroyed the Scythean, though I knew the Carnivean would kill him the next turn and Tom would feat to bring it back.  To be honest I didn’t have a lot of choice and I knew the next turn would be the decider.

Tom did in fact feat and block me scoring further control points as well as trash the Avatar as predicted.  I also managed to see the Ravgore’s threat range and moved Sevvy backfield to get out of range.  Unfortunately for me however Tom still went for Sevvy and was short on range, as I had engineered, but rolled a 1 for deviation (straight forward) and enough distance to catch Sevvy in the AOE, Tom boosted and caused a bit of damage as well as setting my caster on fire.  In my turn the fire didn’t expire and Sevvy lost a lot of wounds and was on just three remaining boxes after my maintenance phase!  I knew all was lost so rather than trying to fight the attritional battle and kill the Carnivean and resurrected Scythean I opted to fully boost the Vanquisher’s cannon into Thagrosh and send a second unboosted shot via the Vassal into him, plus an Errant charging.  As I expected I caused some damage and set Thags on fire too, but he was able to transfer the damage, or absorb but still in no real danger – unlike poor Sevvy!!!

On Tom’s next turn he sent a fully boosted flaming AOE into Sevvy again and managed to hit him despite his cover bonus at DEF 18!  It was curtains for the Menites, but I learned a lot and had a bit of a giggle attacking Thags and setting him on fire in return!

Result: loss (caster kill) 


Game 4 – Felix Hughes
Menoth; Reznik (Tier 4)
Reckoner
Reckoner
Vanquisher
Heirophant
Flameguard Cleansers (min)
Flameguard Cleansers (min)
Choir (max)
Wracks
Vassal
Vassal

This game was #1 Close Quarters and I opted for my Kreoss list for this encounter and I took the first turn.  There was a bit of confusion at this point as I asked Felix what his tier bonuses where and didn’t recall him telling me one very important bonus, but it was the last game and we were both quite tired by this point.  I ran all of my units forward to press on objectives and start the fight.  The important bit of information was that one of the tier bonuses gave Reznik’s battlegroup +2 Speed on the first turn of the game so potentially both Felix’s Reckoners could Assault Kreoss on the first turn and kill him dead (effectively 22” of threat on the guns).  I felt a bit aggrieved at this because I couldn’t remember him telling me about it and was confused when he was loading up both his Reckoner’s for the assassination, but in the interest of fairness I let it go.  Luckily for me both Reckoner’s were short on range so it was a moot point.

On my second turn I let rip with both my Reckoner’s into Felix’s Vanquisher dropping it down to just a few remaining boxes and crippling the gun and cortex.  My Errants also formed a staggered assault where just the first line charged some Cleansers and a Reckoner, jamming up Felix’s forces somewhat.  Felix managed to kill off some of the engaging Errants and get a trample through to one of my Reckoners, but was unable to trash it, leaving its melee weapon and cortex fully functional.  Felix feated this turn to limit the pain I would inflict, so no focus could be allocated to my jacks.

On my third turn I feated knocking down a large portion of Reznik’s force the damaged Reckoner engaged and Errants charged Felix’s nearest Reckoner (which had trampled) and killed it.  The other shot Reznik, set him on fire, but didn’t do that much damage considering I couldn’t allocate focus in order to boost.  The Errants mopped up many Flameguard Cleansers, Choir boys and both Vassal’s so I had ripped the heart out of Reznik’s force, leaving him wounded and on fire with most of his support dead and I now outnumbered him 2:1 with heavy jacks, though one of mine was almost dead.  The fire went out on Reznik during the maintenance phase and Felix allocated focus to his last jack and trampled again managing to destroy my wounded Reckoner and Reznik attacked the Errants killing several.

On my fourth turn I tried to destroy the remaining Reckoner but forgot it was Enlivened and got backfired for all the times I’ve done it to other people!  I put some serious damage on Reznik however with my last few charging Errants, taking him down to just two wounds, but not enough to kill.  Felix retaliated by slaying all of my remaining Errants, his Reckoner was unable to damage mine due to positioning.

On my fifth turn I destroyed the last Reckoner and mopped up several support pieces, I tried a cheeky assassination on Reznik with Rhupert, he charged a wrack (created by Reznik) hoping to catch the enemy caster in the blast, but he was just out meaning he avoided the POW14 blast, again so close!  Felix realised that I was in a very strong position as his caster was almost dead, he had lost his battlegroup as well as most of his infantry, both of us were very low on time and Felix opted to run away with Reznik to avoid my Reckoner shooting him dead and try and time me out on the chess clock, given I had many more activations to perform and a bit less time.

The remainder of the game saw Reznik running away behind a large wood and my Reckoner pursuing (followed by its entourage of Choir boys and Vassals).  I considered attempting a scenario win as all that stood in my way was a single Choir member, but as Felix played for-and-got, my time expired and I lost on ‘Death-clock’.

It was a shame to loose on time, considering I had the upper hand at the end of the game, but that is the way it goes!  I enjoyed the attrition struggle and felt I gave a good account of myself, almost killing Reznik, in a position to win on scenario as well as destroying most of the enemy force.  Felix also only had a few seconds remaining so it was indeed a very close battle for the second place tournament standing.

Result: loss (death-clock)  


Open War 17 – concluding thoughts
The event was a smoothly run and well organised affair from start to finish, myself and others all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves very much and hope to attend this event in the future.  In the final standings I placed a respectable 6th out of 16 and this was mainly down to the secondary sort of VP’s; I am an attrition-style player with an attrition based army so this favoured me personally.  I made a few mistakes, but certainly not as bad as the Grand Slam ones, and was in with a shout for second – so all in all I was pleased with my performance.  The Kreoss list changes really helped and I will practice using him at 50 points in preparation for the ETC.

Perhaps the best announcement of the day was the ‘Best Warmachine/Hordes Army’, which I won; this was a peer vote by all Open War attendees from all systems.  I was really pleased with this as it is the first time I’ve won any painting awards with Warmachine/Hordes and felt all the hard work over the past year or so has paid off (big grin).  :-)

My trophy for 'Best Army', Warmachine/Hordes Open War 17 (14/04/2012)


Hope you’ve enjoyed the read!

Friday 13 April 2012

Open War 17 prep


As mentioned in the last post I’d missed a trick with the Errants benefiting from tough, due to Rhupert Carvolo’s Heroic Call pipe tune coupled with Power of Faith *action (no knock-down or stationary) from the Covenant of Menoth; so I decided to get him painted up for use at Open War 17.  Below are a few snaps of the completed infamous Piper of Ord:

Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord - front
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord - rear
Rhupert was relatively easy and quick to paint as he didn’t have too many details and I am quite happy with the result.

Open War 17 is a three list event, one 50 point list and two 35 point lists with character restrictions across all three lists, so potentially a bit restrictive on list building – but that’s what SR2012 aimed to do!  I decided to take the same lists as Grand Slam for the 35 point event with a slight change to the Kreoss list, the Redeemer was dropped for Rhupert and Rhoven & Co.  I’m not massively keen on Rhoven, but felt it added a bit more variety as well as motivating me to paint!  So below are some photos of Rhoven and his honour guard:

Visgoth Rhoven and Honour Guard
Rhoven & Co. got the same paint style as the other Exemplar models, however the trio each have a few unique aspects; Rhoven for example is a priest and has little ornate armour, but a lot more cloth and I took the opportunity to build up a good smooth transition on the back of his cloak and hat etc.  I also learnt how to paint fire by reading the guide in the Menoth faction book: interestingly you start light and work up to dark.  Gius and Cassian both have a lot of details and I took my time on the armour panels with some black lining to make them stand out.  Cassian also has a bear head allowing some nice flesh tones and I also added a scar to his face and matching crack on his helm to reflect the fluff.  They were tough and time consuming to paint, but I’m pleased with the result.  Below are some snaps of the trio as individuals:
Visgoth Rhoven - front
Visgoth Rhoven -rear
Gius - front
Gius - rear
Cassian - front
Cassian -rear
So fully painted for Open War 17, just got to pack and play some games ideally without too many daft mistakes, as per Grand Slam I!!!

Thursday 5 April 2012

Grand Slam!


In my last entry I was attempting to finish off a unit of Exemplar Errants in preparation for the Grand Slam tournament held in York on 31st March 2012.  It was a bit of a struggle, but I finished the unit (as seen below).

Exemplar Errants unit #2 ready to Self Sacrifice on a gaming table near YOU!!
I’ll spend the remainder of this blog entry discussing my chosen armies and a brief synopsis of the games and the tournament itself as well as a few glamour shots of the armies I took!

Grand Slam I – Overview:

*Two events: 35point Steamroller (X5 games) and 15 point Mangled Metal (X4 games).
*Timed turnes: 7 minutes @ 35points and 3 minutes @ 15points.
*Shrinking Killbox artifice (non-standard addition)
*No painting restrictions other than line of sight arcs.
*35point lists follow the standard Steamroller format, 15 points Mangled Metal requires tier list restrictions.
*Details can be found here.

Overall the event was smoothly run by Event Organisers Brett Wilkie and Paul North, timings were quite tight as per the volume of games to be played on the day however this worked just fine and was in fact quite novel playing two events; the Mangled Metal being quite a nice way to finish.  The prize support was really good with some custom trophy’s that fitted the Warmachine steam-punk theme.  The venue was spot on too with well laid out boards and decent terrain.  Lunch was provided and was of a good quality, all in all a bargain price at £15.

Grand Slam I - 35 points Steamroller:

I took two Menoth lists for this event, Severius1 and Kreoss1, lists below:

+5 Grand Scrutator Severius
  7 *Blessing of Vengeance
  8 *Vanquisher
11 Avatar of Menoth
  2 Choir of Menoth (X4)
  4 Temple Flameguard (X6)
  5 Exemplar Errants (X6)
  2 *Exeplar Errants UA
  2 Vassal of Menoth

+5 High Exemplar Kreoss
  8 *Reckoner
  8 *Reckoner
  6 *Redeemer
  2 Choir of Menoth (X4)
  8 Exemplar Errants (X10)
  2 *Exeplar Errants UA
  2 Vassal of Menoth
  2 Vassal of Menoth
  2 Covenant of Menoth

Given the fast pace of the event I needed to take lists I was comfortable with and could keep up with the 7 minute turn pace.  As regular readers know my favourite list is the Sevvy1 list and that was pretty much an auto-include given my knowledge and experience using this list, my only reservation was that Sevvy1 is a backfield caster and the Shrinking Killbox artifice doesn’t suit him!  I chose the Kreoss1 list as he is a bit more of a midfield caster and has a powerful feat with a strong assassination potential.

Below are photographs of the two lists:

Kreoss1 list

Kreoss1 list

Kreoss1 list

Kreoss1 list

Sevvy1 list

Sevvy1 list

Sevvy1 list

Sevvy1 list

Sevvy1 list
A brief synopsis of the 35point Steamroller games:

Game 1 – Alain Watson
Khador; Butcher2
Beast 09
Great Bears
Widowmakers
Widowmaker Marksman
Yuri the Axe
Eiryss2
Kel Blailoch
Fenris
MoW Drakun
Wardog

I took Sevvy1 as I felt my feat would be useful, as well as Ashes to Ashes and the Vanquisher to take out all of the high defence solos/infantry and the Avatar can handle hard to kill targets such as Beast 09 and the Butcher.  I took the first turn and ran far forward to try and get Sevvy1 upfield to avoid the shrinking killbox and get strong board control position.  I chose to avoid the Widowmakers and Kell with my Errants given they would fall as easy prey to the snipers and sent the Vanquisher to deal with them.

Highlights of the game were a couple of well placed Ashes to Ashes which were arced onto my own Temple Flameguard and killed Eiryss2, Wardog, Fenris and Yuri.  The Vanquisher also was a real badass killing the Widowmakers, Kell and the Marksman, then all three Great Bears and finally putting serious hurt on the Butcher, allowing the Blessing to kill the enemy caster off and seize victory!  So off the blocks with a Sevvy1 win!!

Game 2 – John Dale
Menoth; Kreoss1
Reckoner
Reckoner
Choir
Errants (max) + UA
Rhoven & Co.
Rhupert
Errant Seneschal
Vassal
Covenant

This game was going to be interesting as my opponent and I both had exactly the same casters and very few differences on army composition.  I decided I had to choose my Kreoss list as having the book in that list was essential to take in order to mitigate being knocked down and assassinated by the opposing Kreoss army.  My opponent thought the same thing and we both chose Kreoss as our casters so a mirror-match ensued.  I won’t go into details on this game but suffice to say we each traded Errants and Reckoner shots whilst trying to keep our books alive and calling ‘no knock-down’.  In hind sight John had the edge over my list given his Errants had hunter from the Seneschal and tough from Rhupert.   His two additional weapon master honour guard were more useful than my Redeemer also.  Eventually I lost the game after a few failed attempts to even the score with a charging Kreoss and Reckoner, but the dice weren’t with me and I helped John on his way to win the tournament eventually!  A great game, but like we both said might have been better if we didn’t have such similar armies; still I learnt a lot from the experience and am eager to try out some new ideas as a result.

Game 3 – Craig Johnson
Trollbloods; Madrack1
Mulg
Axer
Trollkin Fennblades (min)
Pyg Burrowers (max)
Trollkin Champions (min)
Krielstone Bearer and Stone Scribers (min)
Solo or UA (not sure)
*NB not quite sure on this list exactly*

I’m not overly familiar with Trollbloods, only having played them a handful of times so  I decided to choose Sevvy1 to take on these as the Avatar could take on any really tough troll heavies and for some reason I thought the trolls had some access to anti-knockdown as well as their casters being difficult to assassinate.  The game went quite well highlights included the Pyg Burrowers doing a multi-engagement and failing their terror test when engaging the Avatar as well as the Vanquisher setting several Champions and Madrack alight on the first turn!  I managed to score a control point as well as kill the Axer, Pyg Burrowers and several Fennblades; the continuous fire took out a few points of damage on the Champions and Madrack but was never that dangerous given each model has multi-wounds and lots of armour.  One highlight of the match was seeing Mulg fail an assassination attempt on Madrack’s feat turn – he was attempting to overtake when he destroyed an Errant, however the Errant’s self sacrifice ability and ultimately the Blessing’s repulsor shield thwarted the attempt.  The game was fairly even up until this point, with perhaps myself having the edge on attrition, however I think fatigue was taking its toll by now and I made the first of what would be a series of almighty cock-ups!  For some reason I thought the Avatar could charge Madrack from where he was (at least 3” deep into terrain), so it was never going to happen.  I ended up charging Sevvy1 into a Fennblade to free up the Avatar’s charge lane and spent all my focus killing it – then realising I couldn’t charge.  No idea why I made that mistake, but I paid for it the next turn as Sevvy1 was assassinated via Madrack’s thrown axe.  Ah well, I’ll learn to engage my brain in the future!

Game 4 – Marc Williams
Menoth; Kreoss1
Reckoner
Reckoner
Choir
Errants + UA (max)
Eiryss2
Rhupert
Wracks
X2 Vassal
Covenant

So another mirror match…  Basically Marc and I did the same John and I did in game 2; simply having to choose the Kreoss1 list was the only choice.  The game started well and despite my forces not having tough Errants and Eiryss to sniper I ended up winning the attrition battle between the two units of Errants, though this wasn’t really anything to crow about particularly as I was just a few guys up, but the game would be about attrition given the nature of both sides almost identical army composition.  On my turn two I made my second almighty blunder of the tournament and completely forgot to activate the Covenant and call ‘no knock-downs’…  Marc, asked me to clarify that I had indeed forgot, to which I replied “er….yes”, to be honest if I’d asked him I’m sure he would have let me call my extension and activate the book, but I chose to accept my mistake and my Kreoss1 subsequently died in about 30 seconds flat – pop and drop!

We recorded the result as a win to Marc and then played on for a bit of fun and had quite a relaxing game where we could both just throw a few things forward for a laugh and see what our toys could do!

Game 5 – Andrew Kenny
Mercs; Gorten
Driller
Blaster
Basher (Marshalled)
Forge Guard (max)
Gun Corps (max) + UA
Ogryn Bokur
Lord Rockbottom
Thor Steinhammer

Andrew, or ‘Kenny’ as he likes to be known is a semi-regular down at the Hull Warmachine club and I’ve known him for a while and had a few games in the past, though I’d never played his or any other Rhulic force before so it was going to be interesting!  I chose Kreoss1 as my warcaster because he’d had two bad match-ups and I wanted to see if he could do well in a better setting.  I won first turn and hauled ass upfield, knowing Kenny would try and ‘Landslide’ Kreoss1 8” backwards and out of the shrinking Killbox under Gorten’s feat turn.  Errants quickly got in a decent position ready for the high armour dwarven advance.  Kenny advanced his army but he also cast Solid Ground, a spell that meant ‘no knockdown’ for models within his casters control range – darn, hadn’t seen that coming!  During my next turn the Reckoners made short work of the Driller jack and so I was a heavy up as well as putting some hurt on the other jacks.  Kenny hit back killing about half the Errants, but my jacks were unscathed, however I noticed something during his maintenance phase; Kenny upkept Solid Ground, and I suddenly realised I had a way of getting my feat to work!  In my next turn I used Kreoss1 to Purify and remove Gorten’s defensive Solid Ground, then feated knocking down most of the Dwarf army.  Both Reckoners and the Redeemer fired into the enemy warcaster setting him on fire as well as dropping him down to just one wound – not quite a victory but within a whisker never-the-less!

Kenny, sweating by now, rolled to see if the fire expired, it didn’t and I rolled exactly Gorten’s armour value so he was still in it!!  Kenny tried a last ditch attempt to win; charging his own jack and feating, choosing to push Kreoss1 et al back 8” towards my board edge – attempting to send him into a position where the shrinking kill-box would catch Kreoss1 outside this zone.  There was a bit of a problem here as Kenny kept forgetting his models were knocked down and as such he had to either forfeit either his movement or action and therefore couldn’t charge, he didn’t burn any focus in his maintenance phase to do so with his caster or jacks…  I let him off with his mistake and in honesty it didn’t really make that much difference in the end.  Kenny did try and push Kreoss1 back, but I had seen it coming and placed Kreoss1 in front of my objective, Kenny thought that Kreoss1 could be moved through the objective, through and I knew it counted as a structure, so could not.  In the end Brett (EO) intervened and I was ruled as correct so Kenny chose a different board edge to ‘Landslide’ my models 8” towards and ultimately Kreoss1 remained in the Killbox.  During my next turn I simply loaded up my jacks with focus and Gorten understandably died to the first shot, BLAM!!  Game to me!

Concluding thoughts:

I really enjoyed the Steamroller event and felt I played quite well, aside from the two almighty clangers I dropped allowing my opponents an easy win.  I played some really good opponents, one of which won the tournament in the end, and my two victories were certainly hard fought.  I came 20th out of 32 in the end which was OK considering the time pressures I was under coupled with a few medical issues I currently enduring.

The Shrinking Killbox was a cool twist and added an interesting dimension that didn’t actually make any scenario overly complicated.  I even managed to Keep my backfield caster in this zone!

After playing the two Kreoss armies I realised that my own list isn’t perhaps as optimised as it could have been, the Redeemer being quite expensive and not really earning its place.  The Piper was used to make the enemy Errants tough and this was a huge advantage, so I think I’ll try this out and perhaps Rhoven and Co. in its place, though Ayiana and Holt might slot nicely into this spot too.  I’m not sold on the Errant Seneschal, though Hunter could be a game winner in certain circumstances.


Grand Slam I - 15 points Mangled Metal:

I took two Khador lists for this event, Sorscha2 and Karchev, lists below:

+6 Forward Kommander Sorscha
 11 *Beast 09 (bonded)
 10 *Spriggan

+5 Karchev the Terrible
 13 *Behemoth)
   7 *Juggernought

Below are a couple of shots of the two Khador lists I took:

Sorscha2 list

Karchev list

Game 1 – Phil Cox
Minions; Lord Carver
Warhog
Warhog
Gunboar

This game was really fast and furious, Big B got some early hits in with some boosted bombard shots on the Gunboar causing some big damage, the Gunboar then slammed Karchev and I couldn’t quite get a powerslide off into Carver or the Warhogs given the proximity of the Gunboar.  Instead I chose to advance the Juggernaught and kill the Gunboar and take the Warhog’s reprisal.  Carver feated and the Hogs came in, killing the Jugger and seriously hurting Karchev.  In my next turn I made my next stupid major mistake of the day, it started well with Karchev casting Unearthly Rage and loading up the Behemoth, the first hog died, then the second got to within 3 health boxes and a hair’s bredth of its life, but lived.  The following turn Carver did a fully boosted ranged attack and killed Karchev and I lost.  However my mistake was thinking that Behemoth was STR10, when in fact he is STR12, so would have killed the last Warhog and won should I have been paying attention – again fatigue caused a brain fart, but he-ho!  Daft thing was Phil went on to win the tournament, at least I helped him on his way; only myself to blame TBH!!

Game 2 – Phil Gedge
Cygnar; Seige
X2 Defender

Another fast paced adrenaline rush as Karchev Towed Big B and the Jugger up-field as fast as possible.  I kept a toe in a wood to provide a bit of extra defence from the Defenders, though I suspected Seige was out of feat range.  I took a bit of sporadic damage on Karchev, but remained relatively unscathed.  The next turn Karchev upkept Tow and trampled forwards, cast Unearthly Rage and promptly feated.  The Jugger advanced and smashed one defender, then Big B destroyed the other and it was game to me quite quickly.

Game 3 – Conrad Betts
Cygnar; Nemo1
Thunderhead
Centurion

Another Cygnar warcaster and again I chose Karchev, same as before I went first and Towed the jacks along with Karchev.  I took some damage from the Thunderhead and then Nemo’s feat disrupted Big B, though the Jugger was OK.  I sent Karchev into combat the next turn and hurt the Centurion badly, then Big B took the Thunderhead down to within a couple of boxes of scrap metal, but not quite dead.  I ran out of time before the Jugger could finish the Centurion, but suffice to say both jacks were seriously damaged with no cortexes or melee weapons capable of doing that much damage.  Conrad sent Nemo into Karchev, but didn’t roll very well and Karchev took some pain, but lived – his body system smashed, so I was unable to allocate focus to my jacks.  In my turn I cast Unearthly Rage and Karchev finished Nemo off himself, as expected – so another win!

Game 3 – Phil Shaw
Cryx; Skarre1
X3 Stalker
Leviathan

I had to choose Sorscha2 for this game as both lists must be played.  Again I went first, though should have chosen the other board edge given the position of a liner feature that eventually became a problem.  Phil Shaw is a really good player and I knew I was up against the ropes on this one, but had two wins under my belt already so was quite happy at this point.  The Stalkers would be a problem as they ignore overboosted powerfields and spells that add to armour or defence, so Sorscha2 was likely to get assassinated!!

I had an opportunity to win the game if Beast could kill the Leviathan and a Stalker who were the only enemy models in the mosh pit and one control point is all that is required to win, they were both behind the linear feature and as such would benefit from +2 defence.  Beast took a full four focus and Sorscha2 feated (double damage) and cast Boundless Charge giving Beast the best possible chance.  My first hit was a critical and the Leviathan was frozen, the thresher attack missed the Stalker who was DEF18, jeez!  Then Beast killed the Leviathan, but missed the Stalker on his last attack.  I subsequently took a rear charge on Sorscha2 from the other two Stalkers, the Spriggan was positioned to get freestrikes on these and defend Sorscha2 but was unable to hit – Sorscha2 quickly died to the first Stalker (also benefiting from Skarre1’s feat (+5 STR)).  Then I realised I had dropped another clanger, I forgot that all of Beast 09’s damage output was doubled under the feat and had just been doing normal damage, meaning I could have killed the Leviathan earlier and bought + boosted more attacks on the Stalker.  It would have all been down to the dice, as I could have easily missed the attacks, but never-the-less another almighty error on my part.  Still it was a really good game and a well deserved win to Phil.   I was absolutely knackered by this point and probably couldn’t tell you my own name – LOL!!

Concluding thoughts:

I really enjoyed the Mangled Metal event and felt I played well, but again a couple of costly mistakes from just being forgetful and not thinking straight.  The Mangled Metal was a bit of fun and it was great to get the Khador out again, especially in a competitive setting – awesome!  In the final standings I came 14th out of 26.



I hope you’ve enjoyed my ramblings and the glamour shots, any comments please drop me a message, thanks for reading. :-)