Captain Not-So-Fantastic

I feel like such a fool. I made such a silly, silly mistake that was bad for the Oli’s and my second CGC Doubles league game (can you guess which way this is going to go?) After our shaky start in the first league game, Team Burning Car Bomb took on the might of the Mark/Bill Troll combo.


After rolling off, we opted to go first. So we set up our Xerxis/eMorghoul force:

Xerxis

Titan Gladiator

Molik Karn

Arcuarii (max unit)

Beast Handlers (min unit)

eMorghoul

Adeptimus Marketh

Titan Gladiator

Cyclops Brute

Cyclops Savage

Praetorian Swordsmen

and Mark and Bill set up their list:

pMadrak

Calandra

Mulg

Impaler

Slag Troll

Axer

Fennblades (max unit) + Unit Attachment

Champions

Fell Caller Hero

Stone Bearers (max unit)

Chronicler

(I think that was it)

like so:

The game starts with a general move forward in a kind of brick like style, while our Praetorian Swordsmen ran forward.

And so did the Trolls. Mark and Bill sent a scouting force of Fennblades and Mulg towards our lines while protecting their warlocks with Stone Bearers and Champions.

Next turn and our Swordsmen ran into the Fennblades after the Arcuarii took down of them down (which triggered Vengeance for the Fennblades). Everything sort of just shuffled forward.

The Fennblades tore their way through a few of the Swordsmen, but not as many as they had hoped for. Everything had bricked forward in typical Troll fashion.

Then the game was won! My mistake was noticed. Again, Xerxis seems to have trouble with the Kill Box scenario. Last time he got blasted out of the zone, while this time he just didn’t want to enter it. The trouble was that I forgot to move my warlock in the first turn and his movement wasn’t enough in the second turn. I felt very silly and still do to this minute.

Mark and Bill didn’t want the game to end this way, so agreed to play on.

The Praetorians and Molik took out most of the Fennblades an eMorghoul went to engage the Troll mountain.

After watching Molik go through the Fennblades, the Trollkin champions and Axer took their revenge and made short work of the monster Cyclops. eMorghoul and the remaining Swordsmen were also dispatched. With no way of actually harming either of the Troll warlocks, and because the game went on for a long time already, we called it a night.

Another loss for me, and Oli, is not a big deal really. But it is ever-so slightly embarrasing making the simplest of mistakes in front of all of your European Team Championship teammates. Not that we want to go up there and beat the other 39 team attending (though it would be nice - think of the prizes), we just want to have a laugh playing a game that we love.
There are plenty more league games to play so I’m sure we can move up the table. Hopefully, I’ll be able to learn how to wield Xerxis more efficiently in future games because I really love him. I would hope to get him in a larger gamer with two full units of Cataphracts and a couple of Titans, although there may not be enough time after the league and before the forthcoming ETC.

Fancy a double?

After the success of CGC’s Iron Cross mini tourney, it was decided to carry on the fun with a doubles league. So six teams were assembled with a nice spread of factions (meaning less Khador for this event). We will be playing each other team twice (home and away) using the Kill Box scenario, and each player bring 25 points to the table.

I didn’t want to use Menoth as, as I have said before, they are on indefinite leave. Also no-one else uses Retribution at the moment and my Trollblood force is not big enough yet. So that left Skorne. While I don’t have a varied and flexible force yet, I can still field different looking forces. Having said that, I did go and buy Xerxis purposefully for this league. He just looks mean and plays mean too!
So I teamed with Oli, our resident Press Ganger to bring ultimate subjugation to our enemies. First off, we came up against the combo of Vish (Cryx) and Nick (Four Star Syndicate). We set up like thus:

Then we begun the mentalness. Vish pulled off some crazy manoeuvres while Nick steadily pushed forward with his shooty jacks. This was something Oli and I mirrored with Oli speeding his force forward and me moving my Xerxis brick slowly and surely. Once Nick had me in his sights, he took a shot at Xerxis and promptly knocked him out of the Kill Box scoring a point for Team S.P.E.C.T.R.E.. Some more mentalness…

happened and eMorghoul press forward and killed some stuff but not his intended target. Unfortunately, he would die soon after despite a ridiculously high Def. Xerxis took some more punishment, but laughed at everyone as he survived with a single point of damage. Vish’s caster decided to hide and Nick’s Magnus remained behind his lines making it a difficult task for Oli and I to take either of them. The Skorne were staring at the prospect of losing. The final turn proved to be quite tricky and demanded everything to go as planned (the planning took some time as well). This involved a Titan Gladiator picking up Nick’s Nomad (I think it was a nomad) and throwing it at Magnus and hopefully pushing the Merc caster out of the Kill Box and earning a draw. The was executed, but the flying jack deviated away from Magnus.

C’est la Vie! This was a great game and I cannot wait for the return leg for which we’ll be ready. You’ll probably have noticed a lack of quality (and diminished amount) of pics in this batrep. That’s because so much happened in the game that I wasn’t prepared for. It’s also the reason for highlights as opposed to a lengthy report. But I promise something a little better for next week against the Trolls. Just to make up for it, here’s a pic of the totally awesome cake celebrating four years of Cross Gaming Club. Happy Birthday!!!

Allez-oop! (as my wife would say)

As promised, a battle report of some kind while it is still fresh in my mind. I have probably got back into these write-ups as ***SPOILER ALERT*** I had some fortune and ended a seven game losing streak and have been buoyed by this win. I will stress that this was an extremely fortunate win meaning that the streak should’ve been extended. Once I finish with this report I will move on the write-ups for the Iron Cross mini-tourney we had at CGC a few weeks ago. Then I will try and do write-ups of the other games I’ve had this year with the aid of the many pics I took during these games.


And so we begin… without the aid of pics as the batteries in my camera decided that to run out of charge (bloody rechargeables).
This game saw a 50 pointer between Lewis and myself. Lewis took the following (this list is actually missing a few points but I cannot remember what was missing):

Lord Commander Stryker
* Lancer
* Ol' Rowdy
* Stormclad
* Squire
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team
Stormblade Infantry (Leader and 5 Grunts)
* Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard
Sword Knights (Leader and 5 Grunts)
* Sword Knight Officer & Standard
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist
Lanyssa Ryssyll, Nyss Sorceress
Madelyn Corbeau, Ordic Courtesan
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord

I took a slightly different list to the one I used the previous week (which I will eventually get around to), swapping out the Battle Mages with Fane Knight Skeryth Issyen:

Kaelyssa, Night's Whisper
* Chimera
* Manticore
* Manticore
Dawnguard Sentinels (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Dawnguard Sentinel Officer & Standard
Mage Hunter Strikeforce (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Mage Hunter Commander
* Soulless Escort
Arcanist
Fane Knight Skeryth Issyen
Mage Hunter Assassin
Mage Hunter Assassin
Narn, Mage Hunter of Ios

I won the roll-off and went second.
First turn saw Lewis make a general move forward with his two centrally placed units. These were flanked with Ol’ Rowdy on one side facing my MHSF and the Stormclad and Lancer heading towards my Sentinels. The Black 13th and Gorman went out to my extreme left to investigate the oncoming threat of Narn, a MHA and Skeryth. I made similar movements as well with Narn and his accompanying MHA running crossing half the table with Skeryth in tow. My other MHA ran halfway down her side of the field. My MHSF used cover to get into position.
Turn two was a big turn, Lewis moving the bulk of his force closer to my lines pretty much on the verge of engaging the bulk of my force. Then he feated causing a few casualties. My MHSF managed to disengage from melee thanks to a supporting Manticore, and took aim at ‘Ol Rowdy - they needn’t have wasted their effort really after causing only six point of damage from 8 crossbows! In order to save face, I sent a MHA after ‘Ol Rowdy. She caused the same amount of damage and looked set for a beatdown next turn. The Sentinels caused quite a bit of damage but didn’t quite have enough to clear their lines as the UA was killed meaning they did not get to use Vengeance. My flanking force to my left crept up on the Black 13 and Gorman but couldn’t decide who to send out as a decoy, so they stayed in cover.
Turn three saw a bit more shuffling between both sides and a few more casualties. ***In total contradiction to the first sentence of this entry, I don’t remember much of this turn as it was now two weeks ago (yes I have fallen out of the habit of writing again!)***.
Turn four saw the end of the game. With stalemates between Black 13 and Narn’s flank team and between ‘Ol Rowdy and an extremely (p)lucky MHA, Lewis announced that he would now attempt to kill Kaelyssa. All he needed to do was clear a path which meant killing a conga line of Sentinels who were still almost at full strength. He managed to do this with the use of Electro Leap which is very nasty up close. Now it was up to eStryker. He cast his spells in order to extend his threat range and increase his strength (an insane P+S 30! Although he did suffer damage for it). The charge was announced and he arrived right in front of my casters face. As she wasn’t camping any Focus, one hit would have been enough to kill. Using his last point of Focus the attack roll was boosted. Needing only 9 on three dice, Lewis proceeded to roll each die separately. He rolled a 1, followed by another 1. This now meant it was impossible to hurt my caster, but Lewis rolled the third die anyway! Yet another 1! You couldn’t make it up! Needless to say a fully loaded Kaelyssa only had to decide on how to kill Stryker, whether by herself of a fully loaded Manticore. Which was fine by me, as I wasn’t exactly in a position to even begin to hurt Stryker if he hadn’t of feated.

This result made it 2-1 to me after our double header some weeks back (maybe watch this space?). Another fun game ended by a move that epitomises the premise of the game – ‘Play like you have a pair’! It never amazes me about how fun this game is. I can only think of maybe only two games of Warmachine/Hordes that I haven’t enjoyed compared to say 40k (which I have mostly become disappointed with). It is definitely a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

There you have it, a batrep at long last. I hope to be catching up with myself and getting all the games from the beginning of the year, including the Iron Cross tourney. Next up however, should hopefully be the first game in CGC’s new Warmachine/Hordes Doubles league. This saw the ever-so-excitable Vish (Cryx) teaming up with the battle-ready Nick (4 star Mercs) up against the ultra chilled Oli and the only person at the club who cannot get dice to cooperate, me. We both wore the colours of Skorne.