Honours even.

After a few weeks off from gaming, I was back in action this Tuesday with a new player at the club called Marcin. He is quite new to WM/Hordes and certainly wants to make an impression (and with an all beast Circle list he certainly did). We agreed upon a 35 point game in which I modified my previous pSeverius list:


Grand Scrutator Severius (*6pts)
* Blessing of Vengeance (7pts)
* Vanquisher (8pts)
Choir of Menoth (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts)
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)
Exemplar Errant Seneschal (2pts)
The Wrack (3 wracks) (1pts)
Vassal of Menoth (2pts)

I wanted to see the enhancements that were brought by the Exemplar Errant Seneschal and UA. With their new skills my trusty Errants would be seen in a different light. I swapped the Knight Exemplar Seneschal for the Errant Seneschal (and a set of Wracks, Sevvy loves extra Focus), while the Reclaimer stepped back to make room for the Errants UA. Looking at Marcin’s list of five beasts (four heavy and one light or three heavy and two light I cannot remember) led by Kromac, I felt a little apprehensive. So we went into the game and Marcin had the first turn in which he moved through forests rather speedily towards my line. My turn saw a steady advance the Blessing, Choir, Zealots and the Old Man. I followed up with the Vanquisher who happened to be in range (range 14 thankfully) and launched the Flame Belcher towards a forest containing a heavy beast (I always forget which are which, also it was a proxy for another anyway which confused me more). Unfortunately, this beast had Stealth so I had to go for the model next to it. Kromac. I hit and rolled quite a bit of damage which was nice. I was then wondering what to do with the Errants as they were not within charge range but could advance and then shoot their crossbows (the Seneschal gives Hunter) only to be charged afterwards. I then realised that the Vassal hadn’t yet activated yet, so I put him behind the Vanquisher and used Ancillary Attack so the Vanquisher cracked off another shot with the Flame Belcher.

GAME OVER in one turn.

This was a nice situation where the right models were in the right place at the right time. As the game was over far too quickly we swapped table edges and began again. This time Marcin gave me the first turn. After a general advance on my part, Marcin used his Warp Wolf (or Feral Wolf) to head my Errants of at the pass while the other four beasts and Kromac advance towards my line.
Once again I won’t, or can’t, go into detail because of the piece of Swiss cheese I call a brain, so I’ll give a brief review of how everything played more or less.

Sevvy: … I’m still angry so I’ll come back to him.

Vanquisher: played it’s part in causing some damage on the oncoming beasts, ably aided by Vassal, Choir and Eye of Menoth.

Blessing: did what an Arc Node should do (although I forgot the +2 to damage because of it’s bond with Sevvy) until it got pummelled by four beasts.

Choir: sung their songs with gusto, and one even put two points of damage on a beast.

Vassal: Helped the Vanquisher with Ancillary Attack a few times.

Zealots: Only had one turn of bombing causing quite a bit of damage, although not enough, before the Monolith Bearer popping his mini-feat and becoming human shields. Sadly this didn’t stop them from getting picked off with magic.

Wracks: used two out of three for their focus, both blew up sadly next to no-one.

Exemplar Errants: I put them too far out in their flanking manoeuvre. The Pathfinder ability given by the UA was extremely useful, as was the Hunter ability conferred by the Seneschal. Running and shooting through forests is so cool. Half of the unit got wiped out by the beast that came towards them, but Marcin didn’t know that they were all Weapon Masters. The beast was torn to pieces by the remaining five Errants, the UA and the Seneschal. Unfortunately, this distracted them for too long and they were not involved in the rest of the game.

Bloody Severius: Started off with upkeeps and allocation of Focus. Used the Blessing’s Arc Node once, but was then hampered by Kromac’s Bestial Spell which stopped all spell casting. Hid behind the Zealots out of the eyes of the oncoming beasts. Once the ‘jacks, Choir and Zealots were dealt with, Severius faced the remaining four beasts with Kromac behind them. With the all the beasts in bad condition (one had two points of damage left, another had five while another was half dead) Sevvy had the opportunity to finish them off. With a full compliment of Focus, plus another borrowed from a Wrack, He went to cast Ashes to Ashes (in the hope of hitting the first and then hitting the d6 closest targets). He needed a five on 2d6 and rolled a three. Ashes to Ashes was expensive to cast so, put off by that, he changed to Immolation. Rolled a four. Tried again and rolled four again. No more Focus. In Marcin’s turn, Sevvy was in base to base contact with three beasts. Kromac and the last beast were just behind them. Two meaty hits and Sevvy was done for.

As you can imagine, this was a fairly big anti-climax. One of the better Warcasters in the game and he couldn’t come up with the goods when it mattered. I can offer no excuses for the Old Man. If he could have got rid of the nearest three beasts, he would have just been out of threat range from Kromac and his last companion. This may have given the Errants time to rush in and distract Kromac, but it wasn’t meant to be.
I have to say it was a fun game against a new player, and I was learning the differences between Hordes and Warmachine. But I have never come up against an all beast (or all ‘jack) army before except for Battlebox demo games. I asked myself on the train home that if I knew I was up against a force without infantry, would I have changed the composition of my own force? I have enough in the way of Warjacks to do so, both heavy and light, and I was thinking that maybe I would have changed. But sitting down to write this, I know that Zealots used properly with their UA can be bad new for heavy ‘jacks or beasts. So can my Errants, especially with their new friends. So maybe I wouldn’t. Looking back to the game, the Zealots held up play which may have given the harder-hitting Errants time to make their mark at my opponents rear. I realise that my list can comfortably compete against this type of enemy.

Next week I have a game against Mark, who I played a few weeks ago when he realised he was 24 points light when picking his force. I’ll think I’ll give Kreoss a go this time as I hope he’ll be leading my force when I take part in the Scrap Metal II event in the second half of August.

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.