Defeat of Big Scary Black Things / Defeated by Big Scary Black Things.

What a good night on Tuesday! This was a double-header that saw mixed fortunes.


First of all, was a game of Warmachine against Carlos and his Cryx. We agreed on 35 points so I used the same Severius list (with just a small change) I’ve been using for a couple of weeks now.
Severius
Vanquisher
Blessing of Vengeance
Exemplar Errants (full strength)
Zealots (full strength and Monolith Bearer)
Choir (full strength)
Reclaimer
Exemplar Seneschal
Gorman di Wulfe (in place of a Vassal - Gorman would accompany the Zealots and aid them with his Rust and Black Oil grenades.)

Carlos fielded:
Pirate Queen Skarre Warcaster
Corruptor - Helljack
Seether - Helljack
10 Satyxis Raiders + Satyxis Raider Sea Witch
10 Mechanithralls
Skarlock Thrall
Warwitch Siren
Pistol Wraith
Necrotech
Scrap Thralls

I’m writing this a week after, so you won’t actually get a blow-by-blow account of the proceedings, but I’ll try to lay down the main flow of the game. I think that because of the way the terrain was set-up, Carlos’ force ended up in a bottleneck between patches of wooded terrain (which was good for me). I got my Errants to outflank him with Advanced Deploy which worked to a degree until I had to call them back to help protect Severius. Pretty much everything in my force performed well with the exception of Gorman. In Gorman’s defence, he did tie up the Necrotech plus I left him behind the Zealots which left out of range for the game. It might be a little easier for me to list the achievements unit by unit from here on in.

Severius: Performed well and managed to pop his feat at a crucial time (Skarre had been able to generate a horrid amount of Focus). He also utilised his BoV well, using it’s channelling bonus on Ashes to Ashes (I hit the first target, a Satyxis Raider, (now pow 13 because of the BoV’s bonus and Eye of Menoth) and then rolled a 6. All but one of the remaining Raiders survived their own pow 13 hits.) and being in the right place at the right time to channel Immolation a couple of times on Skarre.
BoV: Used it’s Bushwhack Imprint and Defensive Strike ability well when the Satyxis raiders charged.
Vanquisher: Strode forward and got in the way of the Helljacks coming towards it. It’s Flame Belcher was also effective against the Mechanithralls before it got taken down.
Errants: Advance Deployed on my right flank to pick off the Scrap Thralls with their Crossbows. Ran back to take on one of the Helljacks and stop it from charging Severius.
Choir: Very solid as they sang their songs of Prayer and kept giving my warjacks their buffs.
Zealots and Monolith Bearer: There will never ever be a reason NOT to take Zealots to the battlefield. As usual, they proved themselves taking out the Mechanithralls and putting a huge dent on one of the Helljacks (I can’t remember which one, they both had claws and were scary). The Monolith Bearer squeezed off his mini feat at probably the right time.
Reclaimer: Collected the souls of the Errants and Zealots that did die and ably gave them to my ‘jacks.
Exemplar Seneschal: Stayed behind everyone until the right moment where he took out one of the Helljacks in spectacular style. With all of his benefits (+2 for two or more Errants dying in his Cmd range, + 1 from Eye of Menoth, Weapon Master and his charge) the Seneschal boxed his opponent with 4d6+14 followed by 3d6+14 which was followed by his Smite chain attack for 2d6+14. Smite then knocked the Helljack back into Skarre, knocking her down. This made it easy for Severius to Channel Immolation through the BoV.

I was pleased how everything came together and pleased that I had worked on my forces synergies. I was caught unaware by Carlos’ tactic of Skarre bolting forward to cast Backlash (Warcaster suffers one point of damage when Warjacks in his/her battle group suffer damage) on BoV, and then getting the Satyxis Raiders to charge it. As the Raiders have Backlash on their whips, Severius was suffering two points of damage each time the BoV was hit. Severius took a lot of damage before I could shake off the raiders. Also I didn’t like the way Skarre was able to generate lots of Focus with Ritual Sacrifice which Carlos used to good effect. The Pistol Thrall scared me enough to take Gorman away from the Zealots and let them engage each other. All in all, I thought that this was a very good game and that both of us learnt a few tricks for our respective forces.

The second part of the night saw my Ratskin gang take on big scary Spiders in their campaign action. After last week shameful attempt at exploring, they were ready to give it another go. Again, the objective was to kill 10 big scary spiders and then I would gain another territory (of which I am losing at a steady rate to the house gangs). Things started off well with the gang starting in groups of 3-4 attempting to use numbers in their favour. I think I got first blood, but then the kill ratio was quite even. Eventually the spiders upped their killing and caused me to bottle after I had killed seven of the arachnids. So no territory for me, but I did collect a decent bounty for each of the spiders killed. However, this bonanza of credits was spent on replacing the two Ratskins who had rolled a ‘Dead’ result on the Serious Injuries Chart (and this is despite Ratskins being Resilient).
So I now go into the next campaign turn making a third attempt at driving out the spiders.