Tanelorn Campaign Weekend - game 5

Ok! Last game of the weekend. A win is not too much to ask for is it? I’d basically like anything other than a loss. At this stage during the Scrap Metal II tourney a few months ago I had broke my losing streak with a draw against a Sorscha led Khador. The chances of me getting a win were reduced by the fact that my last game would be a three-way and not a two vs one like my first two games. I was up against a guy called Nick (Retribution) and Nigel (Cryx – the guy who beat me an hour or so before). Nigel took roughly the same as he did previous game while Nick fielded Garryth with two units of Stormfall Archers, some Mage Hunters and other bits and pieces. We all had one objective which was to claim the ‘ploughed field’ in the centre of the table.

To face the double threat a familiar face took to the battlefield:

The High Reclaimer (*6pts)
* Redeemer (6pts)
* Castigator (8pts)
* Vanquisher (8pts)
Exemplar Bastions (Leader and 4 Grunts) (8pts)
Holy Zealots (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Holy Zealots (Leader and 5 Grunts) (4pts)
Vassal Mechanik (1pts)

I thought that I should take the Bastions again and surround my caster so that other warjacks cannot just ‘appear’ next to him.

First turn and Nigel sent a large part of his force to meet me (and my warjacks) head on (and tie me up again, especially with my slow speed).

I was aware of the silly Scrap Thrall threat and shot half of them down with my Redeemer/Vanquisher combo. The smaller Zealots ran towards the objective and everything else just shuffled along.

Nick advanced and both units of Archers let loose on the Cryx jacks on his side of the table. His Mage Hunters took several successful pot-shots at my Zealots and made the turn on their heels after taking out half of their number.

Turn two saw some more sneaky Cryx tricks and a Helljack just appeared in my Vanq’s face. The Menoth jack weathered the attacks. The Scrap Thralls joined in and engaged my Castigator. Nigel used another of his jacks to engage both units of Archers.

The Cassy got rid of the Scrap Thralls while the Vanq laid down some pain on his opponent. The Redeemer laid down some more covering fire and partially damaged another Helljack.

Nick’s Mage Hunters moved forward towards the objective while having his Mage Hunter Assassin keep an eye on the Cryx Warcaster. Those Archers that were not in Melee, targeted another Helljack and promptly destroyed it.

Turn three saw Nigel send yet another Helljack my way taking out two Zealots. He sent another to the objective while doing his best to occupy the angry elves.

The Vanq and Cassy deftly destroyed what was in front of them. I was no where near contesting the objective yet, so I got the High Reclaimer to feat and resurrected 6 Zealots who promptly made their way to the centre of the table while taking down a couple of Mage Hunters and the Assassin (this upset Nick as the assassin had been in threat range of Mortenebra and most likely would have killed him).

Nick made up for this by using the remaining Mage hunters to clear the objective of all things Menite and Cryxian, thus gaining enough control points to win the game.

Loss? Second place? It certainly wasn’t a win, but it was a very exciting game and a good way to finish the weekend. The three-way was a lot of fun and challenging, especially when you had to consider an additional opponent. I will hope to play more three-ways in the future.

Tanelorn Campaign Weekend - game 3

Saturday’s final game saw my team captain put his faith in me and place me in defence of the Menoth table. Keep this, and us Menoth players keep a kind of special ability (can’t remember the exact wording but, each enemy unit must take a command check before activating – failing would mean no activation). Didn’t really work out on the whole. My opponent for what was to be the most fun game I’ve ever had was John who represented the Retribution. I would be looking very closely at how the angry elves work as I’m planning on having a battle ready force in the new year.

With my favourite caster back in action, I took the following:

The High Reclaimer (*6pts)
* Crusader (6pts)
* Vanquisher (8pts)
Avatar of Menoth (11pts)
Holy Zealots (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Holy Zealot Monolith Bearer (2pts)
Knights Exemplar (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Temple Flameguard (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Temple Flameguard Officer & Standard (2pts)

They faced Vyros, some Sentinels, Halberdiers, Mage Hunters, a Gorgon and a Hydra (there were some UA’s and most likely some other bits and pieces – told you I was looking closely).
I lost the roll-off and was given the first turn. I had hoped to set up very solidly on one side protecting my caster and hope to give John something to think about with some flanking Knights Exemplar. John set up in a similar fashion with his Mage Hunters in flanking position.

Off we go for turn one, And everyone moved forward with the Zealots on the arriving just short of the objective (a Menoth temple of all things). I kind off found my self bottle-necked with my Vanq who had to sit behind the Flameguard.

John made a general advance, also arriving just short of the temple. The Hydra laid down some covering fire in front of the Flameguard.

Turn 2 saw my Vanq getting fed up of sitting behind the immobile Flameguard so he just moved out towards the left hoping to catch some Mage Hunters soon. The Avatar bore down on the Gorgon and Sentinels, while the Zealots started to occupy the temple.

John promptly got rid of those Zealots and got his myrmidons to sit in the temple (they suffered fire due to the special table rule – non-Menoth models immediately suffer continuous fire once they enter the temple, this does not go out) but not enough to actually hurt them much.

In turn three, the Avatar and Knights engaged the Sentinels and gave them some hurt. The Vanquisher was also successful at hurting the Mage Hunters. And the Flameguard did their bit as well by reducing the number of Halberdiers. The remaining Zealots entered the temple along with half of the Crusader (who looks invisible in the pics, but he just fell off of his base and I couldn’t be arsed to put him back).

John wasn’t put off at all by the Avatar and promptly turned it into trash and took out one of my Knights. The Flameguard were engaged by the remaining Halberdiers. The Hydra also put paid to the remaining Zealots.

Turn four saw the Knights take on the Sentinels which was mildly successful. The Flameguard finished off the unit of Halberdiers and the Crusader stepped up to face the Hydra.

Then John ended the game by engaging the Flameguard with the Halberdiers UA meaning they wouldn’t be able to flood the temple. The Sentinels UA also came good by using it’s Vengeance mini feat making a mockery of my flanking Knights. And finally the Hydra, now loaded up with Focus thanks to Vyros’ feat. Meaning I could not control the temple and it was lost.

I think my plan was kinda of solid, but I do think it started to go a bit wrong with the Avatar going down to some really good dice and the Vanq not being totally useful. John was a really fun opponent and gave a really good non-serious competitive game. I hope to cross paths with him again in the future.
All that was left for me to do was tell my teammates that I lost one of our character jacks meaning that none of us could use it for the remainder of the weekend, and then go home and sleep.

Tanelorn Campaign Weekend - game 1

Due to some factions being a man down, game 1 saw me up against a Cygnar double team. This was a 50 pointer and Barry (Cygnar team captain) and John shared the points in order to be fair. Now I’m not very familiar with Cygnar as I haven’t played against them before and I have a bad habit of not reading up on the enemy. As I was taking the High Reclaimer, I put together an infantry heavy list:

The High Reclaimer (*6pts)
* Devout (5pts)
* Crusader (6pts)
Avatar of Menoth (11pts)
Choir of Menoth (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Deliverers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Holy Zealots (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Holy Zealot Monolith Bearer (2pts)
Holy Zealots (Leader and 5 Grunts) (4pts)
Temple Flameguard (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Temple Flameguard Officer & Standard (2pts)
Reclaimer (2pts)
Vassal Mechanik (1pts)
Vassal Mechanik (1pts)

The idea would be to let the TFG protect the caster while moving up the table collecting the inevitable souls from the marauding Zealots. The Deliverers would try, albeit inadequately, fight fire with fire at range.
I forget the exact layout of the Cygnar force and what their jacks are called so won’t include Barry and John’s list.

In turn 1, I started off with a general advance towards the closest of the control zones. Nothing exciting really.

Barry moved his troops towards the other control zone and sat his Field Gun in the one closest to him. John moved his Stormblades towards my control zone.

In turn 2, I moved all Zealots and who got to the control zone. My deliverers moved awkwardly into position so that they could hopefully rain down some inaccurate fire on the Stormblades that were looking to contest for another VP.

The Stormblades did indeed make a move for Cygnar’s next control point, while the Gun Mages picked off my Zealots in my closest zone. The Field Gun made sure that the Gun Mages were fairly safe by laying down some suppression fire.

Turn 3 and the Deliverers took out a few Stormblades with two Rocket Volleys, while the Zealots picked off some more leaving them with a unit of two. Everything else moved up behind with the Avatar moving to my right looking to see where the enemy casters were hiding.

John announced that his caster was going to feat from behind the hut she was hiding behind and cast another spell that affected her warjack. The aforementioned jack saw silent Bob’s cloak and drew a bead on him. It wasn’t nice and the Devout was helpless. And so ended the game.

I had left the High Reclaimer open to such a silly attack which is quite upsetting. A lot of my force didn’t really see any action and maybe I should have been a bit more aggressive with them (running the Deliverers in the first turns to establish a kill box for example). The Avatar should have blocked the corridor from which the assassination happened and should have moved towards the enemy far quicker than it did.

Still, it was early in the weekend. There was plenty of time to show Menoth’s might.

My fire wasn't quite hot enough - Occupied Llael round 5.

Last night saw my Silent Bob take on Sorscha in a club campaign game last night. This was a tough game against a fairly new member of the club, Jaden. We agreed on a 35 point game but still ended up running out of time in our session, meaning we only played 3 turns each.


Jaden took (adding additional points for territories owned):

Kommander Sorscha (*5pts)
* Beast-09 (11pts)
* War dog (1pts)
Great Bears of Gallowswood (5pts)
Winter Guard Infantry (Leader and 6 Grunts) (4pts)
* Winter Guard Infantry Officer & Standard (2pts)
* 3 Winter Guard Infantry Rocketeers (3pts)
Fenris (5pts)
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich (2pts)
Kovnik Markov (4pts)
Man-o-war Drakhun (with dismount) (5pts)

To which I answered with (again with additional points for territories):

The High Reclaimer (*6pts)
* Crusader (6pts)
* Vanquisher (8pts)
Exemplar Errants (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Exemplar Errant Officer & Standard Bearer (2pts)
Flameguard Cleansers (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Holy Zealots (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Holy Zealot Monolith Bearer (2pts)
Holy Zealots (Leader and 5 Grunts) (4pts)
Vassal of Menoth (2pts)

Having barely won the roll for deployment, I let Jaden set up and go first. He set up his Fenris and Beast to my left and his Drakhun and Markov to my left in menacing flanking manoeuvres. The Winter Guard were set in front of the Great Bears while Sorscha and her War Dog sat behind slightly.
For me, I set up a brick of Zealots (the larger unit) with UA and Vanquisher to keep an eye on the Fenris and warjack. Near my centre I placed my Cleansers just ahead of my smaller unit of Zealots. Then I put the Errants and UA to cover the other flank, utilising the woods on that side. Silent Bob and his bonded Crusader sat behind the brick to my left.

First turn saw a general advance on Jaden’s part with the Rocketeers taking first blood, but wasn’t able to do much else. I mirrored the general advance with the Errants taking position in the woods ahead of them and keeping an eye on Markov and the Drakhun.

Next turn saw Markov come down the extreme flank looking to pull away my Errants. The Rocketeers took a few more casualties while everything else shuffled forward slightly. My turn came around and I had to get the Errants to charge Markov, which they did with ease. The Vanq pressed forward and took aim at the War Dog hoping to catch Sorscha behind it. I scored a hit and put it and Sorscha on fire but didn’t do damage to either. The Vassal gave the Vanq another go and this time went for Beast who also caught fire but with minimal damage. The Zealots moved forward to plug the gap between the ruins to their left and the Vanquisher and popped their mini-feat. This was to prevent the nasty Fenris from charging my caster. The Cleansers started to spray the Winter Guard with Menoth’s Fury and were largely unsuccessful, though they managed to set a few on fire.

The third turn saw the continuous effects cause very little damage. Sorscha suffered only one point, the War Dog suffered three while the Beast started the turn unscathed. The Winter Guard also suffered a few casualties in the same way, but they also made a couple of Tough rolls. Sorscha kicked things off by pooping her feat making a lot of my force stationary (over half of the larger unit of Zealots, the Vanquisher and Vassal, and half of the Cleanser and smaller Zealot units), before using Windrush to jump back to safety. The Winter Guard advanced to within shooting range of the Cleansers and managed to gun them all down and also take aim at the Vassal who, unfortunately, was not in B2B contact with the Vanq in order to get a DEF/ARM buff. It was time for Beast to come out and play and it promptly smashed the Vanq to pieces. Fenris just sat behind Beast as he had nothing he could go for. Drakhun took advantage of the open area that now appeared and moved close to Silent Bob and just look threateningly at him. This was looking a bit bad for me as I had lost a lot of troopers. Bob started the turn, now with a total of 18 focus, and feated bringing back 5 Zealots back from the dead. He then proceeded to cast Ashes to Ashes and put heavy damage on Drakhun and some Winter Guard. The Drakhun’s mount then perished to a well aimed swipe from the Crusader, but the Drakhun himself survived. The Zealots who came back to life went to work on the remainder of the Winter Guard and killed a few more. The Errants came towards the centre of the field and got rid of a couple more Winter Guard.

This is where we ran out of time and called it a draw.

The look of the game might have changed in the next turn with a lot of Continuous Fire on several models, most notably Sorscha and her Dog. The Dog would have died while the caster would have suffered 2d6-2 damage which would have left her very vulnerable. Drakhun would have kept the Crusader engaged while Beast could have gone after the Zealots next to him. This could have left Fenris with a good opportunity to come and engage Bob (the way Bob was positioned, he couldn’t have been charged anyway). What was left of the Winter Guard would probably aimed at the smaller Zealot unit and softened them up for the Great Bears, who smartly stayed clear of the action. But then my Errants could have covered the Zealots and give the Bears a fight.
Once again, I was very pleased with my force composition, so I will now briefly rate my force:
High Reclaimer - did well with his spells and moved away from trouble.
Crusader - didn't see much action apart from squishing Drakhun's mount.
Vanquisher - set things on fire and provided a nice distraction (there was nothing he could have done about Beast '09).
Zealots (max) + UA - blocked vital charge lane and made Jaden think about waht he wanted to do with Beast and Fenris.
Zealots (min) - took out some Winter Guard only after they had come back from the dead. I had hoped to keep them behind the Cleansers and launch bombs over them towards the enemy (it helps that the Cleansers are immune to Fire).
Cleansers - put some Winter Guard on fire but didn't have the chance to shine before they were wiped out.
Errants + UA - were pulled out of position by Markov (who paid for this dearly) and then came towards the fray and took down a few Winter Guard.
Vassal - did what he had to twice by urging the Vanq to take extra shots.

I do wish we had not taken so long in each turn, so we could have found a winner. So neither of us gained territory or lost it either. This is a shame as I had my eye on a particular piece of Jaden’s land.

Next game: more Khador under the command of my nemesis, Marcus.

The start of Round 4 of our campaign would see me get a large, and I mean mega, dose of Circle Orboros.

So for the first week of round 4, I was challenged by Martin and a Kromac led list featuring mostly pretty much all beasts. There were some hairy moments especially when a Pureblood took out a total of 12 Zealots and a Monolith Bearer. But the Menites prevailed dealing heavy damage on the three large wolves. With things looking iffy for Martin, he decided to wait until the High Reclaimer wasn’t buffed with over a dozen souls before making an assassination run. The Lord of the Feast caused little damage due to bad dice while Kromac weighed and took Silent Bob down to three boxes left. It was now up to The servant of Menoth, now boosted by a few more souls, to lash out at the Circle ‘caster. The first attack failed, but the second and third attacks didn’t giving me the win by ‘caster kill.


The second week saw me challenge Nick and his Moshar led force. I took pretty much my standard Bob plus two full units of Zealots, Crusader and Avatar of Menoth. I changed a couple of bits from last week taking out the Knights Exemplar and something else I’ve forgotten and replacing them with a minimum unit of Errants plus UA. We both tried to dictate the way each other played by trying some flanking moves. My Errants speeding down my right and the AoM traipsing up the left. The Errants had better luck but did nothing all game going down Nicks extreme flank, while the AoM Was hindered by not only a unit of Bloodtrackers, but by Moshar’s Pillars of Salt. In the end it was put out of it’s misery by a giant wolf of some description (my mind just cannot retain names). This left my core quite vulnerable to Nick other beast’s whom suffered a lot of damage between them, but not enough to put sown one or more of them. I did however manage to keep them on fire at one point or another in the game which was enjoyable if not effective enough. Nick was shrewd enough no to kill too many of my Zealots enabling the High Reclaimer to collect souls and give himself a nice pile of Focus for more spells/overboosting powerfield. This enabled him to give me more than enough threats to put me in check, and go on a successful assassination run.
The only saving grace from this game is that the Crusader survived, thus keeping up his bond with Silent Bob. But the worst thing was actually not killing any of Nick’s force.

Bob has really grown on me during this campaign and is now one of my favourite Menoth ‘casters. I have found him fairly easy to use and love taking the mandatory 20 Zealots and Monolith Bearer. I am now not sure whether Vindictus will make an appearance in the last round of the campaign having only featured once, so I’ll be wanting a strong finish from the High Reclaimer.

Occupied Llael - Round 3

This round saw me pitched against Carlos and his Cryx and Nat and his Menoth. I have a 50/50 record against Carlos and lost the only time I played Nat, so this was something I would be looking to remedy with my new ‘casters. Unfortunately, Carlos had to leave the campaign which left me with a free night. With all the crap that I caused between me and the missus, I thought I would at least try and make up for it by taking her out instead.

But the next week I was back at the club with some HOT (haha) Menoth on Menoth action. As usual I fielded the High Reclaimer and an infantry heavy list. Nat decided to bring pKreoss to face me. We both bought similar forces with some minor differences between the sides. Our game was pretty smooth as we obviously knew each others forces and what they could do, although at some points decisions were hard because of this. I keep saying that I should keep notes from the game and maybe take some pics as it would mean that I have some documentary evidence for you. But alas, I don’t. You’ll have to take my word that it was a great game. After much symmetrical manoeuvring, we both ended up in the middle of the table where Nat was the first one to feel brave enough for an assassination run. He came up a little short and nearly took out his frustration on my Crusader. This left the High Reclaimer to saunter over, loaded up with plenty of Focus from loyal souls, and stick it to Kreoss and kill him in two hits. A win here meant that I could take a couple of Nat territories for the campaign, which replaced the ones that were taken from me.

Occupied Llael - Round 2

Lots has happened in my little part of the gaming environment. There have been regular games down at the club, all of which require some sort of battle report. There has been a major shake up in my collecting of minis for wargaming, a potential real life crisis actually. And there have been some slightly different ideas for future projects that may never take off.


To start off, some form of battle reporting. I have had a few WM/Hordes campaign games at the club. All have been great games. I’ll start her by going over the Round 2 games. I think that the first one that I forgot to write a report for was a very fine game against Oli and his Legion. I don’t remember much about this game (except that I lost and it was an AWESOME game). I think it was the first time that I used a second unit of Zealots in my list. Using a second unit of Zealots seems to be a staple with my campaign Warcasters, Vindictus and the High Reclaimer. I think in this game I came nowhere near Oli’s ‘caster but certainly made him think about positioning. My play was maybe a touch too aggressive (in a game that applauds aggressiveness) and I ended up leaving the Reclaimer too open.

Next up was a 40 point game against Marcus and his Khador. We played the special ‘break week’ scenario which involved two ‘casters per side. This was a totally kick-ass game!. This is the first game in which I used Vindictus and the Avatar of Menoth. This was a huge game with no less than 11 ‘jacks, more than half of which were heavy! The scenario involved me putting one of my ‘casters and part of my force in the centre of the table with the rest at the back of my deployment zone. Marcus’ force would come on en masse and try and kill both of my ‘casters. There is a lot of animosity on my part for Marcus’ Old Witch and her Scrapjack. The amount of times that they have caused me and my army pain is almost innumerable (maybe three or four times – which seems like a lot). Needless to say, with Vindictus as bait, the High Reclaimer made a beeline to the Old Witch. This was successful as both the Old Witch and her annoying puppy Scrapjack succumbed to Menoth’ righteous fury. After all of this, I lost Vindictus which evened things up. There was an enormous amount of carnage after that with ‘jacks just getting wrecked and Menites and Khadorians alike spilling their blood. The Menite deaths started to fuel the High Reclaimer with souls to further boost his might. So he used this large pool of Focus to cast spell after spell which for the most part failed. What he should have done was keep all of the Focus on himself in order to overboost his powerfield (he would have had armour 35 or something) which would have stopped the Khadorian ‘jacks from stomping all over him.

This was a crazy scenario that kept the excitement levels very high throughout the game. And it was actually great using two ‘casters in one game and I hope to get the opportunity again in the near future.

Sunday gaming.

I managed to get a Bank Holiday weekend game on Sunday down at the club. Sunday sessions are much more quieter than out regular Tuesday night sessions which means there are more tables free. After a few messages, I hooked up with a new Hordes player called Usman. He and I agreed on a 35 point game with my Menoth facing his Circle. For the afternoon, Usman used the following:


Kaya the Moonhunter & Laris (*3pts)
* Argus (4pts)
* Feral Warpwolf (9pts)
* Gnarlhorn Satyr (8pts)
Druids of Orboros (Leader and 5 Grunts) (7pts)
* Druid of Orboros Overseer (2pts)
Tharn Bloodtrackers (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Blackclad Wayfarer (2pts)

Facing that I used:
The High Reclaimer (*6pts)
* Redeemer (6pts)
Avatar of Menoth (11pts)
Choir of Menoth (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Exemplar Errants (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Exemplar Errant Officer & Standard Bearer (2pts)
Holy Zealots (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Holy Zealot Monolith Bearer (2pts)
Knight Exemplar Seneschal (3pts)
Vassal Mechanik (1pts)

We chose not to play any scenario and just go for ‘caster kill (truth be told, I was not up to another scenario game after Scrap Metal – additionally, this would be my first game since the tourney). Usman set up first with the bulk of his force arranged in the centre of the table, while the Bloodtrackers set up to my left. To counter the Bloodtrackers, I put my trusty Zealots in their way. My ‘jacks, Choir, Mechanik, Senny and ‘caster all set up in the middle facing Usman’s main force. My Errants Advance Deployed to my right hoping to box them in.

A general advance was made by both sides in the first turn with the Redeemer taking first blood by aiming at the Gnarlhorn. The Avatar and Errants advanced in relative safety as they are both immune to spells. As the Druids couldn’t get at their most obvious target, they aimed for the Redeemer and started taking points from it and then went on to target the Senny and Mechanik (who both died without doing anything). The Bloodtrackers made a few hit and run attacks on the Zealots (taking a few down) before coming under heavy fire themselves. The Errants drew in on the Druids while the Avatar got smooshed by both the Gnarlhorn and Warpwolf. With not much else to go on, Usman went on an assassination run. Kaya appeared behind the High Reclaimer and proceeded to attack. Fortunately for me, she used up all of her Fury and managed to take the Reclaimer down to 3 points of damage. Before the Reclaimer hit back, the Zealots finished off the Bloodtrackers and Blackclad while the Errants finished off the Druids. The Reclaimer, with a full allocation of Focus plus a few more from Souls turned, ignoring the heavily wounded Gnarlhorn and Warpwolf, and struck out at Kaya. Two boosted hits was enough to finish her while having some Focus to spare.

Overall, my force felt good but it was a shame that I lost the Senny and Mechanik cheaply. I could have easily have used a Vassal and maybe the Covenant for the same points. The Covenant would have been really useful against the Druids. The positioning of the High Reclaimer could have been slightly better so as to prevent the assassination attempt, but his Burning Ash spell certainly came in handy. The Redeemer made an excellent debut by hitting the beasts hard. The Avatar didn’t manage to do much except draw unwanted to himself. The Errants and Zealots both did their job wonderfully, although if Usman had attacked them more with the Bloodtrackers I may have had a little more to worry about.
This was a very good game against a new player who looks to have grasped the game far quicker than I have. I’m looking forward to giving Usman a rematch sometime.