A long overdue catch up.

Hello. It's me. I'm aware that it has been a while but I've had a lot on my mind (a massive change in personal circumstances) over the last half year. So here is a post, as the title suggests, to catch up on my gaming goings-on since January.

PURCHASES

I have added a few bits and pieces to my Menoth army this year with the most notable items being a second unit of Temple Flameguard (eFeora tier list baby, yeah!!), a unit of vengers for Intercessor Kreoss and Thyra and Nicia. There is also a minimum unit of Idrians that arrived on my desk yesterday but I'll wait a bit before I max them out and use them. I am planning to get the TFG painted at some point as a priority so eFeora can see a bit more table time in the near future.
My Retribution and Skorne forces haven't seen any new additions so far this year as I want to concentrate on getting the Menoth fully painted.
The Minions, on the other hand, have seen some significant additions. An opportunity to buy a practically complete Farrow army at the beginning of the year was too good to pass up. I supplemented this by making the minimum units of Brigands I bought maximum and getting a few solos in (Gudrun, Rorsch and Brine).
Away from WarmaHordes, I took the plunge and bought starter sets for both Bushido and Dropzone Commander. Now, when I say starter for Dropzone Commander, I mean the Mega Army Deal and maxed out all of the units as well. I've actually shocked myself when I checked the amount of money I have spent on this game.
Additionally, I have filled out my Morat Aggression Force for Infinity by making sure that I have one of every  Morat blister/box that is currently released.

PAINTING

I was on a bit of a painting kick towards the end of last year by powering through dozens of Menoth models and taking them up to about 80% finished overall. This sort of stopped while I rearranged my life away from gaming. It took the purchase of the Dropzone Commander goodies at the end of April to get me going again. The small scale of these models allowed me to do a (very) quick job on them in order to field a fully painted force. By the time I got through the first few, I found a little OCD like determination to finish them. In truth, I ended up just giving all the minis a couple of sprays, a wash and a cuss-load of drybrushing, which made me happy. Using this, and forcing myself to take a break from WarmaHordes (in addition to a month long Japan trip in April) in order to play smaller games, I turned my attention to my Morats. I might have said previously that I really enjoyed painting Infinity models, and that was true right up to finishing the last few off just last week. You won't see much in the way of highlighting or whatever, but you will see a smile on my face when I put them on the gaming table. I am proud of what I have achieved with them.
Currently on my paint table is Dartan Vilmon and two Paladins, along with Gorman and the Testament of Menoth. Having finished off the Morats, I needed something to do before the massive task of painting up my Farrow begins for part three of the Machination league taking place next month. The paint table had a unit of Cinerators that only required finishing touches but had been pushed to one side (and actually had a bit of dust on them), so I finally got them out of the way. I hope to finish the five minis above (Gorman is pretty much done) by the weekend.
So to illustrate (for personal motivation), here is some selected progress:

	Total	Painted	%	To go
Minions	114	47	41.23	67
PoM	218	175	80.28	43
RoS	112	57	50.89	55
Skorne	95	67	70.53	28
Combined Army	30	30	100.00	0
UCM	96	96	100.00	0
Total	743	488	65.68	255

GAMING

Apart from spending a month in Japan, I have still attended the Cross Gaming Club on a regular basis even going to both gaming nights most weeks (a lot of free time suddenly appeared in my schedule). The beginning of the year saw many games of WarmaHordes. I used mostly eFeora and Kreoss3 (I dislike how he is referred 3reoss on various forums) and used other casters sporadically for the first part of the Machinations league held at the club. After the league had finished I started to use my newly purchased Farrow for the short time before my month long break.
On return, resolved to start playing more games of Infinity, Malifaux, Dropzone Commander and Bushido. I haven't yet played a game of Malifaux this year as they are tweaking their rules and I haven't yet managed to get an intro game for Bushido. I did get in three games of Dropzone Commander and a single re-introductory game of Infinity. The rest of the time I have reached back into my WarmaHordes cases and dug out the odd 50 pointer, which actually annoyed me a little. Having posted in the clubs challenges thread for a game of either Infinity, Bushido or Dropzone, I would wait until the day before club night before seeing that no-one wanted to play any of the smaller games, I would then agree to take up someone else's challenge of a game of WarmaHordes.
And this was after a lengthy forum discussion on game diversity at the club. I know you can't force people to play different games but you can only try and play a different game occasionally in order to keep things fresh. To tell the truth, I had become a little jaded with constant WarmaHordes. I want to make it clear that this had (and still has) nothing to do with the fact that I lose more games than I win (I do have the greatest losing streak (twenty games) in the history of Cross Gaming Club), the game is still enjoyable and I love our group of gamers as a whole. The thing that started to really get (and still does a little) on my nerves is the constant theory-machining and discussions on how to get the most out of an army build. I do acknowledge that it is an important part of the hobby and can be quite helpful in developing a wider knowledge of the game in general. For the most part I don't participate in these discussions on the club forums and don't add to actual conversations on club nights. I just want to simply treat WarmaHordes as a game, something fun to do. I don't scour various forums or zealously read anything and everything to do with the game, and don't expect to gain an encyclopedic knowledge of the Iron Kingdoms universe. I just want to turn up at the club and have a fun game every week, which I will continue to do because I love the game.
This feeling of mehness of gaming I've felt in recent months has actually caused me to cancel a few games (including a one day tournament). I apologise to those opponents whom I was scheduled to play, but my heart and mind were just not in it (I've actually done the same to a number of friends who play squash recently). This is kind of counter-productive as I could/should be using gaming (and squash) as a way to distract myself from my personal life. So I hope that putting my all of this in writing will clear things a little in my head and I can get onto enjoying my gaming a lot more in the latter half of this year.

Circle Double Header 22 Jan

Last Tuesday, I got two games in. Originally I had booked up to play Tom and his Circle in the second gaming session of the night. I arrived in time for the first session so I could watch some of the other games that were going on. The games looked interesting, so I went upstairs to the bar to get a pint and then began to watch my fellow club mates throw down. When I got back to the basement, one of our newer attendees, a guy called Darren, had bought his new Circle army with him and was looking for a game. So we grabbed a free table and got down to business. Darren had bought a pBaldur list which included the Woldwrath, Megalith, Woldguardian, a unit of Druids, Sentry Stone and Mannikins, Sentry Stones and a Blackclad Wayfarer. My Intercessor Kreoss list had been re-jigged from it's previous outing: the battlegroup consisting of Fire of Salvation, Sanctifier and (making it's debut) Guardian and these were supported by a maximum Choir, maximum Errants with UA, Knights Exemplar, maximum Vengers and an Errant Seneschal. Without anymore playtime thia week, this will be the list I will settle for Saturday's one day event.
I had won the roll off and opted to go first. This would't have had much effect on the game except maybe if I had got Darren to set up first. I basically fed the Vengers to a unit of Druids while he core of his force shuffled up through the middle of the park. I tried to get my Errants to outflank Darren's force but I had placed them too far out and movd them up too slowly. That left the central blob of everything else in red and cream to get slowly chewed up by Megalith and Woldguardian. pBaldur's feat was really annoying and Megalith kept popping Undergrowth which meant that he could laugh at the threat range of my Knights. With the Vengers gone very early and my centre being attacked at will, the game slowly ran away from me, eventually resulting in Megalith giving Kreoss a solid beating.

Next up was Tom and his Kromac flavoured circle. I wanted to give my eFeora list another run out before Saturday. Feora bought along: Judicator, Sanctifier, Reckoner, maximum Temple Flameguard with UA, Daughters, Rhoven and Co and a Mechanic.
Things did not start well at all with the Judicator missing wih it's rockets and secondary deviations resulting in one of the objectives and a TFG set on fire. Tom's Warpwolf Stalker had successfully got the drop on my Reckoner and totalled it, here Tom had managed to secure himself a shed load of CPs, making it very hard for me to now win on scenario. The Daughters were killed off early on after being Preyed on by some Bloodtrackers and I started losing stuff bit by bit. The Judicator did see some mele action, so fully loaded up with Focus it went to town on Tom's Stalker and Ghetorix. However, Judicator fluffed it's charge attack roll. Still it took the Staller down with ease and put a fiar amount, but not enough damage on Ghetorix. Needless to say that fluffing the charge attack was critical here. Tom ploughed through the rest of my army and scoring enough CPs to win the game as both Feora and Kromac were safely out of assassination range.
Misfortune played a part in this game when Feora decided to get her hands dirty. She positioned herself to fry four Bloodtrackers with her Flamethrower. At RAT 5 she needed to boost all of her attack rolls. She fluffed two of the rolls, one of which was a triple one.
No doubt it was a harsh night but one or two things lodged themselves in my mind like the positioning of Judicators's human shield and forgetting about having one of Kreoss's jack advance move before the game. It was encouraging however to see the melee damage the Judicator can cause and using Kreoss's feat a tad more efficiently.
Considering the two defeats (which takes my streak to six losses), I didn't actually feel that bad.

Cryx Double Header

After a good first game of the year, I had two fairly bad games (not the opponents, gents as always, but more for the bad match-ups). Coincidentally, they were both against Cryx. I had six games against them in 2012 winning only one (against pDenny, I lost against pGaspy, pGoreshade, Scaverous, pSkarre and someone/thing else that has been omitted from the records). However, I have to point out that the win against pDenny was due to Plod deciding to charge the caster into mine (Barnabas) and fail the assassination, leaving my head Gator an easy job.

vs Plod (Terminus)

This was such a horrible match up. I didn't have the denial tools I needed to cope with what was in front of me. If my army had been set in virtually a mirror image of what it was, then maybe I could have put up more of a fight. Indeed selection could have been a little better with me lowering the number of jacks on the table and maybe adding in another unit.
Kreoss3, and his feat especially, requires some proper thought throughout a game. In order to get the most out of the feat, placement is key. It will be about getting him to a place where he can begin to affect things with more authority. To help him out, I did pick up a Guardian so spells have that extra range.

vs Ed (eGaspy)

It's always intimidating coming up against Bane Spam, even more so when it's against Ed. I was pleased with how my new toy (fully painted, although I do need to put some grass on the base) performed. Ably assisted by Visgoth Rhoven and a choir, Judicator laid down a fair bit of fiery death. I need to be able to position my screening troops in front of it a lot better but, then again, there isn't a lot you can do about eGaspy's feat. One of the things I actually could have done was got the choir to make Judicator immune to magic. That would have saved a fair chunk of damage boxes, meaning it would easily have been ready for another round of dishing out flaming goodness.
Overall, I have to say that I'm quite please with the list I put out and will happily use it again. There are just a couple of placement issues that require refining, but that should easily be fixed.

First game of 2013

Here is the battle report of the year and my first game of any kind since 13th October. So as soon as Cross Gaming Club announced the first club night of the year, I took up Marcus’ challenge. The last time we played was January last year in our club’s Slow Grow League when we had a bout of Gatorman infighting. Sadly for me, his Barnabas soundly beat my Calaban (although I did get points for having a fully painted force). It’s the time before that I’m interested in at the moment. It was the previous encounter to our Gator-off that springs to mind. This was when I finally got one over on the Old Witch. The handful of times before that when I came up against Marcus and the Witch always ended in tears for me, so you can imagine the grudge I hold against her.

I finally got round to beating her when I fielded Vindictus. I still came out of the game fairly scarred, but Vindy held on after the OW used Unseen Path (after Scrapjack tore through millions of my dudes) to get up close and then failed to do anything else than scratching the second highest authority of the Church. Vindy thanked Menoth and took the OW down with three boosted melee attacks. So it was with this game in mind, I opted to bring Vindy out to play when Marcus stated his intention to field my most hated enemy.

With the history of this grudge out of the way, let’s get down to business.

I took:

Vice Scrutator Vindictus – Tier 4
* Reckoner
* Reckoner
* Sanctifier
Choir of Menoth (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Exemplar Errants (Leader and 9 Grunts

* Exemplar Errant Officer & Standard Bearer
Exemplar Errants (Leader and 5 Grunts)
* Exemplar Errant Officer & Standard Bearer
Holy Zealots (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Holy Zealot Monolith Bearer
Holy Zealots (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Vassal Mechanik

I’m loving the free Errant UA and giving my heavy jacks Advance Deployment from the Tier list.

Marcus bought:

Zevanna Agha, the Old Witch of Khador – Tier 4

* Scrapjack
* Destroyer
* Kodiak
* Spriggan
Battle Mechaniks (Leader and 3 Grunts)
Greylord Ternion (Leader and 2 Grunts)
Greylord Ternion (Leader and 2 Grunts)
Kossite Woodsmen (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Kossite Woodsmen (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts)
Manhunter
Manhunter
Yuri the Axe

 With me winning the roll-off (needing my tier bonus to do so) I opted to take the first turn. I set up fairly wide knowing that the Kossites can take me by surprise so I tried to counter that at the first opportunity by placing the smaller unit of Errants on my right and the larger unit on my left. The jacks and Zealots were all fairly central hoping to take advantage of pathfinder in the first turn.
Marcus setup in a large cluster behind the control zone on his table half with the Widowmakers, making use of a small forest, facing my right and the Yuri led Manhunters just ahead of the zone.

TURN 1

This saw nothing but a general advance towards the Khador line. Both Reckoners setting themselves up in a forest with everything a little bit behind them.

Marcus moved his jack comfortably into the control zone and spread the Greylords out a bit more. The Greylords laid down some more cloud effects (to add to those already in play from the Tier bonus) while the Widowmakers needle the Sanctifier for a four points of damage. Yuri made his intentions clear when he charged one of my Reckoners and took out it’s cortex.

TURN 2

My left-hand Errants pushed on up to the Murder of Crows cloud and tried to shoot around it to no avail. The cortex-less Reckoner took a swing at Yuri and failed so the other one stepped up to get rid of him. My big unit of Zealots then pushed forward to throw bombs not doing much except for killing a Mechanic and putting two points of damage on OW. The rest of my turn was a non-event.

This is the turn where I felt things slip slightly out of my grasp. Marcus brought on a unit of Kossites on either edge and they both had an immediate effect. Between them they took down eight Errants and at least one Zealot. Scrapjack did what he does best and that was cause utter carnage and carve his way towards Vindy. He did get a decent hit in but couldn’t do enough to kill. Spriggan and a Manhunter charged into a Reckoner (the one with a cortex), doing a chunk of damage, but not taking out any systems. Kodiak pushed his way through a wall of Errants and Zealots, crushing a few heads along the way. The other Manhunter attempted to charge the cortex-less Reckoner but couldn’t physically squeeze between two Zealots. Finally, OW moved to a slightly better position and feated.

TURN 3

Under OW’s feat, there was not a lot that I could do. On the right side of the board, the remaining Errants and Zealots killed four Kossites causing them to fail a command check. The Sanctifier, fully souled up and given a prayer by a choirboy, smashed Scrappy around until he stopped moving (which always brings a smile to my face). After that I went to move the Mechanik to try and heal the cortex-less Reckoner, but I forgot about the feat meaning he died before he could do anything. The Reckoners both stood still and thrashed their huge sticks around. The mindless Reckoner did nothing while the other put down a fair bit of damage on the Spriggan. Zealots tried to get some cheeky scatter but didn’t do anything of note.

Marcus started of his turn with those silly Kossites to my left and they picked off a few more Errants and Zealots. Spriggan lay the smack down on the Reckoner that hurt it in the last turn. The Widowmakers moved towards a cloud and needled the Sanctifier for a couple more points. Kodiak managed to get his chain attack off and threw one Reckoner into the other which was quite effective.

TURN 4

With things looking bleak for me, it was to go out swinging. The last couple of Errants on my left charged the Kodiak for a bit more damage. Then my Zealots went to throw some bombs at Spriggan for a few points of damage. Two Widowmakers fell to the crossbows of the Errants to my right, but they made their command check. It was up to my Sanctifier to take Spriggan down, and he duly obliged. I then moved Vindy closer to the action but not doing anything with him.

Now because I moved Vindy further into the battle, Marcus got inspired. All he needed to do was clear Kodiak’s path so he could launch him into my caster. Between Kossites and Greylords, Marcus did this and charged into Vindy. Fortunately for me Vindy was DEF 17 and ARM 22 at this point, so he survived the worst. The Destroyer moved up a little closer and, more importantly, moved in front of OW knowing that the Sanctifier knew where she was hiding.

TURN 5

There wasn’t much for me to do at this point except go mad. I managed to drop a Manhunter with a Zealot bomb while the remaining Errants crossbowed a couple of Greylords. The Sanctifier charged into the Destroyer taking out it’s axe and cortex amongst all the damage caused. Lastly it was down to Vindictus, the second most important man in the Church. He hit with both initials and boosted the damage. With the last two Focus, I decided to go for it and bought another hit with boosted damage. All of this was enough to take out both arms. Menoth was smiling on Vindy.

The Kossites coming in from the left charged the last of the Zealots in their path which enabled the last Manhunter to charge Vindy. Thankfully she failed to damage him any further. Kodiak tried to beat on Vindy, but with both arms out of action (because the Mechanics didn’t have any success in fixing him), nothing was happening. Kodiak did however attempt to head-butt Vindy and failed. The Greylords moved into action and combined to Ice Cage the Sanctifier, making him stationary.

TURN 6

So Vindy survived. I started the turn by dropping another Widowmaker. The Sanctifier shook off his stationary state and totalled the Destroyer. My last activation needed me to break Kodiak into pieces and hope for the best in the net turn. Vindy did the same as the previous turn and boosted the damage on his initial attacks and buying a third with boosted damage also. I’m not sure how many boxes were left, but Vindy fluffed enough to get worried.

OW moved away from the Sanctifier to relative safety. Then the Battle Mechanics got Kodiak fully functioning again which proved to be the end of things. There was no way Vindy could survive this onslaught. Marcus wins by caster kill. 

Such an epic game in the end, we were both fairly exhausted by the end of it. I just cannot believe it had been a year since I played Marcus, but the wait was worth it. If Vindy had managed to hang on for another turn, things might have looked better for me. Both Tier lists were incredible in terms of what they added to the game with my pathfinder and jack AD and Yuri at no cost and stealth and pathfinder and upkeeps for the first turn.

The Kossite Woodsmen were the stars of the game with all the worry they caused me on top of all the Menites they killed. The way they hemmed me in meant there weren’t many safe hiding places. On my side, the Sanctifier stood out, (admittedly with a choirboy behind him) put the finishing touches to Scrappy, Spriggan and the Destroyer which was pleasing. I am really glad that I bought one last year.

What would I have done differently if I got to play this game again? I would probably have dropped the minimum unit of Zealots for one Errant Seneschal and a second choir (minimum unit, they are a cheaper option for Sacrificial Lamb) or simply two Errant Seneschals. Having at least one of them on the table could have afforded me a little more option with Hunter allowing me to do some more damage. I might have tried a bit harder to limit Scrappy when he is on an Avatar of Slaughter run. But most importantly, I should have been less worried about the incoming Kossites as they really did occupy my mind, until they came on. In the end I couldn’t do anything about the hurt they caused me.

This list is something that I’ve wanted to try for a while now and am happy that it kind of works. I hope to take this out again at some point in the near future. However, the next list to get given a run out will be Intercessor Kreoss. He was one of my holiday presents this time around (along with a unit of Vengers and a Judicator) so he won’t be painted just yet. The interesting thing about this is that, apart from High Exemplar Gravus and Fane Knight Skerryth – neither of whom I used to their full horsey potential) I have never used cavalry before in any of my games, so this upcoming game against Venethrax (I am 0-2 against this guy) should prove to be a lot of fun.