SYNERGY!!!

As promised, I brought out Amon for a night of fun. Jack and I had agreed on a 35 point game as he was fielding his list for an upcoming Highlander one-dayer and I had to leave early to collect my wife from the Eurostar.

Having used Amon just once before, I felt a little rusty with him. But then again Amon is kind of a one-trick pony. The list I took was a variation of the previous Amon list I had fielded. The main differences were swapping the Vanquisher for a Reckoner and somehow squeezing in the Blood of Martyrs. The trio of Dervishes and Devout remained the same.

High Allegiant Amon Ad-Raza
* Dervish
* Dervish
* Dervish
* Devout
* Repenter
* Blood of Martyrs
* Reckoner
Choir of Menoth (Leader and 5 Grunts)

Kaelyssa, Night's Whisper
* Banshee
* Discordia
* Phoenix
Houseguard Halberdiers (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Houseguard Halberdiers Officer & Standard
Arcanist

SmogCon dice

We chose the Close Quarters Scenario and Jack won the roll-off and elected to go first. Jack set up with his Phoenix and Banshee to my left and clumped his Halberdiers around the Discordia. Kaelyssa and the Arcanist sat behind the infantry. I sort of set up all higgledy-piggledy with the only real planning going into putting the Repenter out on my right with the intention of spraying the Halberdiers.

Turn 1

Jack made a general advance with everything activating the Discordia’s imprint to give a little more protection to the Halberdiers. Kaelyssa helped out her infantry a bit more by putting banishing ward on them.

I allocated one point of focus to a dervish and my Devout to start off. Amon then cast Synergy and Mobility and let his army make a general advance. The Choir then move towards their jacks and used the Prayer of Shielding (no magic); I figured this was the best they could do as the Prayer of passage only stops non-magical ranged attacks (all of the Myrmidons had magic ranged weapons). 

Turn 2

Jack shuffles his Halberdiers forward some more alongside the Discordia. Discordia attempts to spray one of my Dervishes but to little or no effect. Kaelyssa feated first and then cast Phantom Hunter on the Banshee who took a shot at my left-hand Dervish. The Dervish suffered a little bit of damage and then squished a Choir boy when he was pushed back.

My turn would be a difficult one with the Elves being un-chargeable and Stealthed. Synergy was upkept and two Focus was allocated to the Reckoner and one to the Repenter. I started off by moving Amon inside my lines and cast Mobility. The Repenter then moved forward so that he could get the maximum number of elves under his spray. After catching six Halberdiers and the Discordia, only one of the elves fell and the Discordia was set on fire but suffered no damage (after being boosted). What I should have done was activate the Choir beforehand and maybe some more elves would have burned. Next up was the Choir (!?) who sung the Prayer of Battle making sure the Reckoner was affected. Dervishes just shuffled out of the way of the Reckoner who moved so he could see the Discordia. Boosting to hit and damage, the force field suffered seven points of damage.

Turn 3

Jack rolled into action with his Halberdiers who used their mini-feat to excellent effect. They charged the Reckoner and managed to scrap it. They reformed slightly so they could be more of a nuisance. The Discordia waded into the Repenter taking out his flail and movement. The Banshee took another shot at the Dervish and managed to turn it into scrap. The Phoenix shuffled forward and took a bit of a swing at the in front of it, but thankfully failed to do anything.

My immediate reaction was to feat. I dropped Synergy only to recast it and Mobility. With two focus left, I walked Amon forward so that he could start the Synergy chain off by killing two elves. Having spent all of his Focus, Amon dished it out; one to the Devout, two to the Dervish in front of the Phoenix, two for Repenter and the last one for the last Dervish. The Choir activated and sung the Prayer of Battle affecting both Dervishes, the Devout and the BoM. And away we went. The Devout charged the Banshee, causing little damage, but moving the Synergy chain up to +2. The Repenter moved out of Melee with Discordia (thanks to getting Perfect Balance from the feat) and sprayed. I think he only killed one Halberdier. The BoM tore through a few elves getting the chain up to +3. The central Dervish filled his boots as well getting rid of three pointy ears with the chain going up to +4. The last Dervish activated and killed the Halberdier in front of him and Side Stepped into the Phoenix. With one more initial attack and two Focus, I was hoping for some big damage. Needing to roll anything but snake eyes, and now at P+S 19, this was going to look good. And it was. The Phoenix was totalled by a four point jack. Such a nice way to end the turn.

Turn 4

My turn three didn’t actually end with me doing the happy dance. It ended with me crapping my pants because I realised where I left Amon.

Jack started off by getting the Banshee to smack up the Devout a little, taking out its cortex. Then he activated Kaelyssa, who noticed that Amon was in the open and aimed her ROF 3 gun at him. With no Focus to steal from Amon, Kaelyssa double boosted the first shot for eleven damage, bought her second shot, boosting the hit only for five damage, and then buying her third  and only needing a five or more on two dice. Which she got, therefore winning the game.

A super game against someone I’ve never played against before. I like the way that Amon works and getting the Synergy chain up can be a beautiful thing if the last jack(s) is a Side Stepping Dervish.

The bad bits:

Remembering that I always have a problem with activating the Choir before the jacks. In turn two, the Repenter might have toasted a few more Halberdiers. This might have saved the Reckoner.

My positioning of Amon in my last turn. If I had got  him to stand by the nearby wall while he splattered an elf, then Jack might have had to get Kaelyssa to cast Phantom Hunter so she can get a shot on Amon. Of course this would have been at the expense of the third shot and a boost to damage which might have left Amon standing.

The good points:

The P+S 19 Dervish. I can see the potential here as an assassination tool. 10.5” on the charge with Mobility and then two Side Steps giving another four inches gives a heck of a threat.

The list will need a little bit of tweaking, with the BoM likely to be the first candidate to be dropped. It was the first time I used it and I can see it being quite handy. I like the idea of its ability Hand of Vengeance giving yet another boost to attack and damage rolls. This in addition to a Choir and Synergy would make this a nightmare against big targets. The thing I have to remember is that it only has Side Step when it is in Thyra’s battlegroup (I used it last night).

The reason why I tweaked the list from the first time was that I was worried about having a couple of SPD 4 jacks but I’m not sure that it really mattered in the end. So for the next time that I rock Amon, It should look a little bit like: 

High Allegiant Amon Ad-Raza
* Dervish
* Dervish
* Dervish
* Devout
* Crusader
* Crusader
* Reckoner
Choir of Menoth (Leader and 3 Grunts)
Choir of Menoth (Leader and 3 Grunts)

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.