Amon's debut.

Last night didn’t get off to a good start.


I left work and walked, as usual, to Charing Cross to get a train to London Bridge. On the way, the handle of my carry case broke off. The case itself dropped to the floor. Thankfully, it is a KR case and everything survived relatively intact (not that you could tell as mostly everything is lacking a bit of glue). No matter, I carry on with my short journey to Cross Gaming Club. Having arrived without any more mishaps, I found my opponent, Adam, and his Skorne force. We set up our table and began to introduce our respective armies.

Adam fielded the following:

Dominar Rasheth (*5pts)
* Bronzeback Titan (10pts)
* Titan Gladiator (8pts)
* Titan Gladiator (8pts)
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Agonizer (2pts)
Agonizer (2pts)
Paingiver Task Master (2pts)

You can imagine the initial shock when I saw THREE Titans. I immediately thought that I didn’t have enough:

High Allegiant Amon Ad-Raza (*6pts)
* Dervish (4pts)
* Dervish (4pts)
* Dervish (4pts)
* Devout (5pts)
* Repenter (4pts)
* Crusader (6pts)
* Vanquisher (8pts)
Choir of Menoth (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Vassal of Menoth (2pts)
Vassal of Menoth (2pts)

I was given the first turn by Adam who won the roll-off and I started with a general advance using Amon’s Mobility which gave everything Pathfinder and +2 SPD. I pushed out my Dervishes to the edge of my control area while moving everything else in a big block. Adam then made an advance behind his Gatormen and also sent one of his Titan to try and intercept my Dervishes.

Next turn saw a bit more of an advance using Mobility and setting up in some ruins in the centre of the table. The Vanq, powered by the Choir, didn’t do much at all. It took a second shot from a Vassal’s Ancillary Attack to even put a scratch on the Gatormen. The Gatormen then ran towards my jacks and put some minor damage on them. Everything else in Adam’s force pushed up even more and looked a little more threatening. One of the Gladiators slammed a Dervish turning it into scrap.

Combat in the next turn was fairly exciting due to Synergy, with my last jack getting a +5 boost to Melee Attack and Melee Damage. The Gatormen were the main target of combat, but they had a knack of making their Tough rolls. After seeing their buddy die horribly, the remaining Dervishes walked and engaged the Gladiator in it’s back arc (they were not given any Focus to charge as they were out of Amon’s control area. They did put a lot of hurt on the big guy but not enough to kill. The Gatormen hit back causing a little damage, while all three Titans saw major action. The Gladiator that smooshed the Dervish walked out of combat suffering no damage due to bad dice and charged Amon. At armour 14, Amon had a big chance of actually dying, but thankfully survived with 2 damaged boxes left. The Vanq got slammed by the other Gladiator and lost a it’s Blazing Star and Movement. The Bronzeback slammed into my Crusader and ended up throwing it in Amon’s direction. By the grace of Menoth, Amon didn’t suffer any damage from this but his opponent did. This still wasn’t enough to kill it. It doesn’t need to be pointed out that the Crusader did not live to see another battle.

Things were looking a little desperate for me now so I feated and tried to cause as much damage as I could. After using his Focus went to attack the Bronzeback and a couple of Gatormen. This didn’t go so well as the Gatormen made their tough rolls and the Bronzeback laugh off the crappy attack. The Bronzeback didn’t’ laugh for long as the Dervishes now loaded up with Focus (by necessity as one of the Agonizers used it’s Spiritual Affliction which affected the Devout and Repenter, meaning they couldn’t receive Focus) attacked it and the Gladiator that initially attacked Amon. Both succumbed to their whirling blades thanks to Synergy and boosted damage. Adam saw that I was in a poor position and decided to end the game. He got one of his unengaged Gatormen and walked over to Amon and promptly took away the other two points of damage.

A nice game with both of us using new casters for the first time. Also, Adam is fairly new to the game so he was still working things out. But he got it together enough to capitalise on my mistakes. My problem was, once again, being a little conservative with my force. When I saw those Titans, I totally got worried. So much so that I should have actually looked towards the Gatormen Posse who provided a great barricade for Adam. I was particularly impressed with the Bronzeback and his Grab and Smash combo attack (I’ll look forward to eventually getting round to using my Hydra Myrmidon!!!). I should have positioned the Repenter, Crusader and Vanquisher in front with the Dervishes behind them as a secondary force and then follow up with Amon and his Devout. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the list and am already think on how to use it more effectively.

Next up: Tanelorn Warmachine Weekend!

New directions

I am completely silly, as I have started thinking about a couple of distractions in my exploration through the entire Menoth army and their Tier lists. I have the beginnings of a Retribution force and a Skorne force. I definitely wanted to start the Skorne force as I wanted a Hordes army. But the Retribution force should have been a pipe dream. But it isn’t.


So now I have:
Army: New Direction!
Type: Skirmish (1 caster, 35pts)
Points: 15
Master Tormentor Morghoul (*7pts)
* Cyclopse Savage (5pts)
* Cyclopse Savage (5pts)
* Razorworm (4pts)
* Titan Gladiator (8pts)

Army: Other Direction!
Type: Skirmish (1 caster, 35pts)
Points: 21
Adeptis Rahn Shyeel (*6pts)
* Hydra (9pts)
* Phoenix (10pts)
Stormfall Archers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (5pts)
Arcanist (1pts)
Ghost Sniper (2pts)

I know what I want to add to the Retribution (well, what is the most common sense for the ‘caster) to make a 35 point list, but I’m not completely sure about the same for Skorne. I really like the look and sound of Immortals, but the unit I really want is a unit of Ferox. I played against them last November at Tanelorn and was just amazed that they were so nifty. I was left chasing shadows all game. My Errants looked so foolish and there wasn’t much they could do about it. But I should probably play it safe and get some Praetorian Swordsmen and some Paingivers for the ‘beasts. And see where I go from there.

As for the Retribution, I know what I want to add. I want to add a unit of Mage Hunters accompanied by Magister to benefit from Rahn’s feat. To help with survivability, I think I should add a unit of Halberdiers and UA. I would drop the Ghost Hunter at this stage to make room for the UA. I think from what I’ve checked on various forums that this would be a decent 35 point list.

This may take some time to do as I promised the wife I’ll be a LOT more sensible when it comes to buying minis. But this is quite ok as it will give me more time to fully explore my Menoth future.