Played my first game(s) last night against epic Madrak aka "Skildrak". Ok. Seriously. What the **** is up with this guy?!
- his Feat is "smart" (i.e. enemy models only) Thresher for everyone in his control. Right now. You can run stuff to engage a bunch of models, advance with Madrak, Feat, and vapourise whatever your stuff is touching out of activation. Or, if you're engaged already, you can Feat first (sorry... I mean Feat after the Fellcaller has shouted +2 MAT at something useful, then Feat), kill everything engaging your stuff, then charge off merrily and kill whatever is left. Good fun - you're basically boned either way.
- his spells: Warpath, Blood Fury, Killing Ground. A Fellcaller under the effect of Blood Fury (5 dice for damage on the charge) was enough to do for pDenny in one round of combat. Not too shabby on the old Fennblades either.
- Rathrok. Double thrown Rathrok did for eDenny (I admit mostly due to my awesome ability to overestimate how far some Bane Thralls could run and advancing too far in order to pointlessly cover the entire Troll army with her Feat).
- he gets a point of Fury each time he kills something. Then he can spend Fury to gain what is basically an Overtake move. In our second game, once Nick remembered these rules, he cheerfully munched through four Satyxis Raiders and came within a whisker of dismembering a nearby Warwitch Siren.
- Grim Salvation - compulsory Sac Pawn of sorts. Any damage to Madrak automatically boxes a nearby friendly Warrior model. Annoying when he's surrounded by the Krielstone but hilarious when you start eliminating the likes of the Chronicler. Madrak camping 2 and with 3 buddies nearby is VERY hard to break. Doesn't work against magical attacks which is a significant Achilles heel.
Nick and I barreled through first game - (thrown) axe to face ending it quite quickly - and went for a second where things were much more even (this is NOT a Warlock you want to face in a tournament without some prior experience). I swapped out eDenny for pDenny and made some other changes. Overall it was a pretty average list but I played a lot better. Ranged elements (Combine, Pistol Wraiths) and Crippling Grasp did for most of the Fennblades but I was raped in return by the thrice-cursed Dygmies of Doom. Thanks to my earlier experience I was able to combine some love onto Madrak leaving Death Chilled, Blind (woot!) and engaged by a Deathripper and a Machine Wraith (who would have killed him if he hadn't botched a damaged roll needing 7 on three dice!). Nick's reply was equally inconclusive but in my turn I managed to put Madrak down twice. Guess who made both his Tough rolls? **** Trolls! The Fellcaller leapt to the rescue, dialling up the necessary 7s to hit Denny twice and polishing her off with damage to spare. Dammit!
So... theoretically eDenny is an ok matchup for the Cryx player and I'm still a massive noob for losing that game. But otherwise - what can be done? Advice desired with but one caveat - the solution cannot contain the answer "Terminus" because I'm just not going there yet. Unit options? Jacks (seems pointless)? Casters? Help a gentle, kind, sweet, practically harmless Cryx player out. Could be a long hard road ahead trying to deal with this monster...
Also... why the heck is it so quiet around here lately? I've just finished conducting a season of West Side Story and am on the verge of death I am so unwell right now! What's your excuse?!?!?
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Thrallblacks Radio - Ep18
*Explicit and Opinionated*
This week we de-construct the Forbidden Temple tournament, talk about how it went, touch on Award Categories and the Stormwall previews.
MP3 File
This week we de-construct the Forbidden Temple tournament, talk about how it went, touch on Award Categories and the Stormwall previews.
MP3 File
So what did you get done this weekend...
I have managed to finally get myself some painting time and made some headway with the Pirates after last weekends foray into the unknown of Napier. Them was some good times and great games. Loved it and looking forward to getting there again. So on to this weekends achievements.
The Sea Dogs have got some loving.....
I hope to get the rest of the 25 point list done for the end of the month.
15 Point List
Shae +6
Nomad 6
Commodore Cannon 4
Sea Dog Crew (Min) 5
Mr Walls 2
Bosun Grogspar 1 (tier bonus 1 point solo's yeah!)
First Mate Hawk 1
Doc Killingsworth 1
Lord Rockbottom 1
now for 25 points lets add..
Lady Aiyanna and Master Holt 4
Raising Sea Dogs to Max (4 more Sea Dog) 3
+ 3 Sea Dog Riflemen 3
Yep that is a 13 man unit plus a UA (Mr Walls) with 4+ Tough...muhahahahaha
I am still going to add stuff to the bases but I need the models finished first......
Next on the painting table I best start those solos and the Nomad, still a way to go before Call to Arms in August, I hope
Till next time
Scotty PG_Avo
The whole crew including the riflemen.......
Sea Dog Officer....
Random Sea Dog....
and another......
I hope to get the rest of the 25 point list done for the end of the month.
15 Point List
Shae +6
Nomad 6
Commodore Cannon 4
Sea Dog Crew (Min) 5
Mr Walls 2
Bosun Grogspar 1 (tier bonus 1 point solo's yeah!)
First Mate Hawk 1
Doc Killingsworth 1
Lord Rockbottom 1
now for 25 points lets add..
Lady Aiyanna and Master Holt 4
Raising Sea Dogs to Max (4 more Sea Dog) 3
+ 3 Sea Dog Riflemen 3
Yep that is a 13 man unit plus a UA (Mr Walls) with 4+ Tough...muhahahahaha
I am still going to add stuff to the bases but I need the models finished first......
Next on the painting table I best start those solos and the Nomad, still a way to go before Call to Arms in August, I hope
Till next time
Scotty PG_Avo
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Forbidden Temple - the results
Something you've all been waiting for: TA DA!!! the results for Forbidden Temple, Napier's first WarmaHordes tourney. It was a great weekend of gaming in an excellent venue. Jambo Hobbies website (www.jambohobbies.co.nz) is well worth visiting for your WarmaHordes buying and Louise is a top store owner at that! :). Anyway, yours truly had a bit of a mare of a tourney with 2 of my 3 wins being against Kevin Foxall - sorry mate, I guess my Whitemane really liked the taste of StormKnight heart.... nom nom nom!! :) Otherwise an excellent group of gamers and well worth a trip to in the future.
For a bit of a change I thought I'd run a new Circle caster - Grayle - he looks a little meh on paper but when he took down a Scythean in one melee round my opinion really changed!
the rest of my list was:
Warpwolf Stalker
Pureblood Warpwolf
Druids + UA
Tharn Whitemane
on reflection I should have stuck to my original list and used the Gorax and Woldwyed instead of the pureblood but I was lured by the thought of a Ghostly Stalker mashing it's way through to the caster. Truth is he rarely lasted long enough :(
oh well, I thoroughly enjoyed all of my games and it was great to meet the new guys up in Napier, really hoping to see some of you guys down in Welly for Call to Arms in August!
Cheers
Pel
For a bit of a change I thought I'd run a new Circle caster - Grayle - he looks a little meh on paper but when he took down a Scythean in one melee round my opinion really changed!
the rest of my list was:
Warpwolf Stalker
Pureblood Warpwolf
Druids + UA
Tharn Whitemane
on reflection I should have stuck to my original list and used the Gorax and Woldwyed instead of the pureblood but I was lured by the thought of a Ghostly Stalker mashing it's way through to the caster. Truth is he rarely lasted long enough :(
oh well, I thoroughly enjoyed all of my games and it was great to meet the new guys up in Napier, really hoping to see some of you guys down in Welly for Call to Arms in August!
Cheers
Pel
This is ridiculous...
How am I supposed to keep track of peoples progress at the forbidden temple if no one posts progress reports/blogs? Ive been checking the blog several times a day and not a bean!
So someone get on that to satisfy my inflamed curiosity.
So someone get on that to satisfy my inflamed curiosity.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Olgunholt week 4
The final leader board for Wellington's Olgunholt looks like this:
We had a couple of people turn up for the last day of the league, so not much of a shift in the end. Next league I'll go back to the end of season tourney to pick the winner - it gives everyone a chance to pop for the top spot though doesn't necessarily encourage a lot of play during the league.
cheers
Pel
Friday, May 11, 2012
Olgunholt week 3 (ish)
well, ok, I've been a bit slack and should have gotten this up last week but hey, what can you do? :)
At least it's here now. Tomorrow will see the final day of the Olgunholt league played out at the Hutt club, a day of getting in as many games as you can to get the last patches :) the score board is looking pretty close at the top:
I'll post again in a couple of days with the final results :)
cheers
Pel
On balance
Good to have another side to the debate. My mind is blown either way and, Deathclock or timed turns regardless, I just want to play in another tournament NOW!!!
http://museonminis.com/death-to-the-deathclock-or-why-i-prefer-timed-turns/
Dave
http://museonminis.com/death-to-the-deathclock-or-why-i-prefer-timed-turns/
Dave
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Timepieces of not-much-Doooooom
Hello All,
This weekend I ran a small 8 person event called Timepieces of Doom. Basically it was an opportunity to play some 50pt games, and also try out Death clock in a more tournament-style setting. I had played a couple of games with the Death clock format, and to be honest, I was a naysayer. It seemed like it could be gamed, and by that I mean, unscrupulous players could play vs. the time format & scam a win, rather than play vs. the opposition and win honourably. My personal test games didn’t show that, but then again we have a group of unreasonably honourable players here in Wellington. I felt that my limited experience was inconclusive, and therefore I needed guinea-pigs.
For those that don’t know, Death clock is basically a chess clock system at this point’s value each player has 55 minutes to complete the game. If you are assassinated you lose. If the opposition wins the scenario you lose. If you are the first person to run out of time, you guessed it, you lose.
With such a small turnout - caused by a certain Napier tournament in a couple of weeks (Brownie points needed to be earned in preparation for that trip), other commitments, and the fear of the Clock of Death - meant that I could run a casual, relaxed, non-stressful event which as far as I was concerned was perfect.
Originally I was not intending to play, but Thomas let me know at the last minute that he wanted to be involved, which created an odd number of players. This was not to be tolerated. So I was in! This required a frantic writing of lists 10 minutes before leaving using models that were available. I had leant out portions of all three of my factions to other players at the event which limited my choices and created some strange looking Troll lists. Due to my frazzled mental state I promptly forgot to load some pretty key pieces into the car with me to take along. Awesome. After the list writing, I loaded terrain & models into the car, dropped the dog/horse off at day care and went searching for Thomas' new abode on the wrong street. Funnily enough I didn’t find him. Backtracking and floundering about was the order of the day and eventually Thomas was located, hurled into the truck and we were on our way. Late as per usual. Sigh.
Once there, the rest of the crew were ready to go, except Chris Ford (he was to be punished for his tardiness later – I was to be punished more or less immediately), Michail from Warlords had kindly already opened and had tables arranged. The players helped set up terrain while I set up computers & commandeered Nick to hand out players packs etc. Finally around 10 we got started.
My first game was versus the much adored and beloved (by Fujin) Cryx player Mr Snook. He brought a horrific list involving eGoreshade and Banes. That was the list. eGoreshade and Banes. There may have been token irrelevant other models, but if so I never noticed. I played an infantry heavy Troll list led by Jarl Skuld and manfully threw my Fennblades, champs and Tuffalo’s beneath the Bane Bus. What was particularly hilarious was my Fennblades on the left flank vs. a full unit of Bane Knights. The chronicler would put the ‘you kill me then you are knocked down’ ability on the Fennblades each turn. And basically the Fennblades would kill a couple of bane knights, the bane knights would vengeance, kill some Fennblades, activate kill a couple more, then the entire unit would fall down. The Fennblades that were out of kill-range would vengeance, kill some bane knights. The ones that passed their tough rolls would get up and kill some more. Rinse and repeat. Basically over the course of the entire game both units would either be knocked down, or vengeancing, depending on whose turn it was. It was ridiculous.
End of the day, after the man had put 46 banes on the table, I got eventually overrun and lost be scenario.
Game two set me against Thomas, who had recently lost in spectacular fashion to Chris Ford’s Ravyn list. Ravyn did the turn 2 ‘go-feat-win’ ability she does before Thomas had a chance. Needless to say Thomas had a bad day on Saturday. Not his fault, just the way the dice went. In my game, eDoomshaper trampled a Mauler up to Constance blaze in turn 2 and ate her.
Meanwhile on other tables, Chris Parkin and Mike Snook were making their inexorable advance towards the top table.
Last game of the day saw me pitted against Chris Ford of ‘top Ret player in NZ fame’. Now it’s important to understand a bit of history here. As per his aforementioned title, Chris is a very good player. However, it would seem that even if I was not allowed to have dice, and Chris was instead rolling an additional set of dice he would be unceremoniously crushed regardless. This has no relevance to my ability as a player or his. Basically, his dice refuse to let him beat me. And if I’m honest, I’m perfectly ok with the situation. However in this particular game Karma appeared like it was going to set upon me like a starving dog upon a bone. Chris was beating me left right and centre, had killed all my models except for Janissa, Moses and eDoomshaper. I had no beasts left, and no infantry. So I got Janissa to slide everyone over to present a charge lane, and my beatstick warlock with his walking cane went to town vs. Garryth. It took until the last hit before rolling fire and smooshing Garryth’s lifeless corpse into the ground.
There is no way Doomshaper should be beating Garryth in melee. That is ludicrous. But Chris’ dice love me. That’s all I can say.
Back on more important tables where winners are playing, Snooky (or the Snookster, perhaps Snookmeister?) managed to win against a valiant Mr Parkin. Nice work gents.
The real applause however should go to Mitchell, in a move reminiscent of a certain infatuated Jafa Padawan, stomped all over his opposition to get Third place. It needs to be said that the man has played only a handful of games, has played for only a month, with Retribution no less! I would like to take credit due to him using my models, but can’t really, since he plays with them far better than I do.
Mike Snook – First
Chris Parkin – Second
Mitchell Cowan – Third
Rob Van der Wal – Fourth
Sean Lincoln – Fifth
Chris Ford – Sixth
Nick Garden – Seventh
Thomas Cole – Eighth
In Summary. Everyone (I hope) had fun in a really relaxed atmosphere. What about the Death clock? - I hear you ask. The general consensus is that it is far less stressful than the normal timed turns. Of the 12 games of the day, not a single person timed out. The final I understand was close, but the rest of us finished much earlier. I think this is due to the fact that people actually have time to finish their turns, and therefore finish the game. There was no dice down, no weird 3rd tier tiebreakers or anything like it. Therefore there were no weird janky results. Everyone who won, deserved to, it wasn’t because they were fluky with their model placement when dice-down was called.
From a TO point of view, it’s a cleaner, less disruptive system. Granted, 12 games is not conclusive, but it certainly points in the right direction. As a result. I am thinking of amending CALL TO ARMS 2012 to Death clock. This is NOT set in stone. I’m looking for feedback here. Play some games; let me know what you think.
On an unrelated note, we have 14 people preregistered for Call to Arms. That is great, but I demand more! There is still room in the hall for 40K and I won’t have it!!!! Go register if you haven’t already.
Cheers
Sean
This weekend I ran a small 8 person event called Timepieces of Doom. Basically it was an opportunity to play some 50pt games, and also try out Death clock in a more tournament-style setting. I had played a couple of games with the Death clock format, and to be honest, I was a naysayer. It seemed like it could be gamed, and by that I mean, unscrupulous players could play vs. the time format & scam a win, rather than play vs. the opposition and win honourably. My personal test games didn’t show that, but then again we have a group of unreasonably honourable players here in Wellington. I felt that my limited experience was inconclusive, and therefore I needed guinea-pigs.
For those that don’t know, Death clock is basically a chess clock system at this point’s value each player has 55 minutes to complete the game. If you are assassinated you lose. If the opposition wins the scenario you lose. If you are the first person to run out of time, you guessed it, you lose.
With such a small turnout - caused by a certain Napier tournament in a couple of weeks (Brownie points needed to be earned in preparation for that trip), other commitments, and the fear of the Clock of Death - meant that I could run a casual, relaxed, non-stressful event which as far as I was concerned was perfect.
Originally I was not intending to play, but Thomas let me know at the last minute that he wanted to be involved, which created an odd number of players. This was not to be tolerated. So I was in! This required a frantic writing of lists 10 minutes before leaving using models that were available. I had leant out portions of all three of my factions to other players at the event which limited my choices and created some strange looking Troll lists. Due to my frazzled mental state I promptly forgot to load some pretty key pieces into the car with me to take along. Awesome. After the list writing, I loaded terrain & models into the car, dropped the dog/horse off at day care and went searching for Thomas' new abode on the wrong street. Funnily enough I didn’t find him. Backtracking and floundering about was the order of the day and eventually Thomas was located, hurled into the truck and we were on our way. Late as per usual. Sigh.
Once there, the rest of the crew were ready to go, except Chris Ford (he was to be punished for his tardiness later – I was to be punished more or less immediately), Michail from Warlords had kindly already opened and had tables arranged. The players helped set up terrain while I set up computers & commandeered Nick to hand out players packs etc. Finally around 10 we got started.
My first game was versus the much adored and beloved (by Fujin) Cryx player Mr Snook. He brought a horrific list involving eGoreshade and Banes. That was the list. eGoreshade and Banes. There may have been token irrelevant other models, but if so I never noticed. I played an infantry heavy Troll list led by Jarl Skuld and manfully threw my Fennblades, champs and Tuffalo’s beneath the Bane Bus. What was particularly hilarious was my Fennblades on the left flank vs. a full unit of Bane Knights. The chronicler would put the ‘you kill me then you are knocked down’ ability on the Fennblades each turn. And basically the Fennblades would kill a couple of bane knights, the bane knights would vengeance, kill some Fennblades, activate kill a couple more, then the entire unit would fall down. The Fennblades that were out of kill-range would vengeance, kill some bane knights. The ones that passed their tough rolls would get up and kill some more. Rinse and repeat. Basically over the course of the entire game both units would either be knocked down, or vengeancing, depending on whose turn it was. It was ridiculous.
End of the day, after the man had put 46 banes on the table, I got eventually overrun and lost be scenario.
Game two set me against Thomas, who had recently lost in spectacular fashion to Chris Ford’s Ravyn list. Ravyn did the turn 2 ‘go-feat-win’ ability she does before Thomas had a chance. Needless to say Thomas had a bad day on Saturday. Not his fault, just the way the dice went. In my game, eDoomshaper trampled a Mauler up to Constance blaze in turn 2 and ate her.
Meanwhile on other tables, Chris Parkin and Mike Snook were making their inexorable advance towards the top table.
Last game of the day saw me pitted against Chris Ford of ‘top Ret player in NZ fame’. Now it’s important to understand a bit of history here. As per his aforementioned title, Chris is a very good player. However, it would seem that even if I was not allowed to have dice, and Chris was instead rolling an additional set of dice he would be unceremoniously crushed regardless. This has no relevance to my ability as a player or his. Basically, his dice refuse to let him beat me. And if I’m honest, I’m perfectly ok with the situation. However in this particular game Karma appeared like it was going to set upon me like a starving dog upon a bone. Chris was beating me left right and centre, had killed all my models except for Janissa, Moses and eDoomshaper. I had no beasts left, and no infantry. So I got Janissa to slide everyone over to present a charge lane, and my beatstick warlock with his walking cane went to town vs. Garryth. It took until the last hit before rolling fire and smooshing Garryth’s lifeless corpse into the ground.
There is no way Doomshaper should be beating Garryth in melee. That is ludicrous. But Chris’ dice love me. That’s all I can say.
Back on more important tables where winners are playing, Snooky (or the Snookster, perhaps Snookmeister?) managed to win against a valiant Mr Parkin. Nice work gents.
The real applause however should go to Mitchell, in a move reminiscent of a certain infatuated Jafa Padawan, stomped all over his opposition to get Third place. It needs to be said that the man has played only a handful of games, has played for only a month, with Retribution no less! I would like to take credit due to him using my models, but can’t really, since he plays with them far better than I do.
Mike Snook – First
Chris Parkin – Second
Mitchell Cowan – Third
Rob Van der Wal – Fourth
Sean Lincoln – Fifth
Chris Ford – Sixth
Nick Garden – Seventh
Thomas Cole – Eighth
In Summary. Everyone (I hope) had fun in a really relaxed atmosphere. What about the Death clock? - I hear you ask. The general consensus is that it is far less stressful than the normal timed turns. Of the 12 games of the day, not a single person timed out. The final I understand was close, but the rest of us finished much earlier. I think this is due to the fact that people actually have time to finish their turns, and therefore finish the game. There was no dice down, no weird 3rd tier tiebreakers or anything like it. Therefore there were no weird janky results. Everyone who won, deserved to, it wasn’t because they were fluky with their model placement when dice-down was called.
From a TO point of view, it’s a cleaner, less disruptive system. Granted, 12 games is not conclusive, but it certainly points in the right direction. As a result. I am thinking of amending CALL TO ARMS 2012 to Death clock. This is NOT set in stone. I’m looking for feedback here. Play some games; let me know what you think.
On an unrelated note, we have 14 people preregistered for Call to Arms. That is great, but I demand more! There is still room in the hall for 40K and I won’t have it!!!! Go register if you haven’t already.
Cheers
Sean
Monday, May 7, 2012
It's Cryx Jim, but not as we know it!
Scott P, one of our local Khadoran players has a guilty little secret.. His wife plays Cryx and has a penchant for Scrap thralls!! Scott did tell me why I had to post these figs - something about a mini exchange and someone wanting to see the goods, as it were.. but my addled little mind has lost the details so i'm sure he can fill us in on the comments :)
Anyway, in the words of the immortal sages: "and now for something completely different!"
I really like the effect that Annabel has managed to achieve with the pink, yes it's strong and eye catching but it still has a dirty, Cryxian tone to it that keeps it out of My Little Pony land (and if you've seen Mr Snook's T-shirt it's not somewhere that's a nice place to be!). The green on the Warwitch sirens swords and the Skarlock's soul swish thingy (technical PG term that!) really pops and the white hair on the Satyxis stops the whole army from descending into a sea of pink. Awesome job there Annabel - so when are you going to leave Scott home with the kids and play a tourney eh? :)
Cheers
Pel :)
Anyway, in the words of the immortal sages: "and now for something completely different!"
I really like the effect that Annabel has managed to achieve with the pink, yes it's strong and eye catching but it still has a dirty, Cryxian tone to it that keeps it out of My Little Pony land (and if you've seen Mr Snook's T-shirt it's not somewhere that's a nice place to be!). The green on the Warwitch sirens swords and the Skarlock's soul swish thingy (technical PG term that!) really pops and the white hair on the Satyxis stops the whole army from descending into a sea of pink. Awesome job there Annabel - so when are you going to leave Scott home with the kids and play a tourney eh? :)
Pel :)
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Cryx Noob Ep30 - Greedy and Stupid
So, thirty blog posts in and I really wish I had something profound to say. Unfortunately all I can recollect is a heinous and embarassing loss from my weekly Trolls/Tryx stoush. Maybe if I just keep writing I'll stumble upon something relevant/insightful/interesting/intelligent?
Ran with the double Harrower list - switching out the Reaper and Helldiver to find the points. Sean and Chris are right - double Harrower is effing awesome! Missed the little Helldiver though - he's such a champ. Need to try some 42pts games so I can squeeze in some more broken.
Tried what I thought/hoped was a potentially difficult scenario for Mortenebra - Incursion (three flags, one disappears).
Mortenebra (35pts - tier 4)
Deryliss
Harrower
Harrower
Slayer
Slayer
Stalker
Warwitch Siren
Warwitch Siren
Necrotech + Scrap Thrall
There's a certain level of attraction here to a symmetry of deployment. Morty in the middle and fronted by the two Harrowers (in base-to-base contact with each other so they are blocking LOS from someone who is cheating by using ranged weapons); a Slayer to either side accompanied ambiguously by a Siren for power-boosting fun-times; the Necrotech lurking; the Scrap Thrall just pushing up the guts to draw some attention; Deryliss weighing up his options and looking at future Spectral Steel or Overrun targets; and the dear wee Stalker looking to marnuss (marniss? Spelling?) some poor unfortunate "tough" Troll solo. Finding myself wishing the Stalker was AD - that would be so frickin sweet (and fluffy, right?). Anyway, the bulk of my deployment doesn't really telegraph anything but I do need to be a bit careful with where Deryliss and the Stalker go, especially if I have first turn. The Stalker has the luxury/potential to redeploy if necessary but Deryliss requires quite a bit more planning and forethought.
As it was Nick bricked up (now there's an original Troll strategy) and the gaggle of ARM=silly Trolls went up the middle. This time he layered the Champions so I couldn't just blast through the thin blue (or in his case, undercoat white) line and have a literal stab at Madrak.
I responded with a fairly cautious advance, running up but not at full clip (didn't need to be tied down by Dygmies or long-charging Champions unnecessarily). The Slayers inferred (or is it implied?) future movement options towards the flags on the flanks, and the Harrowers and Morty predictably stayed central. I had a good run on the right flank flag in particular unless the Dygmies wanted to throw away the left flank flag or the Champions wanted to run to contest.
Surprise, surprise - the middle flag was the one that disappeared. Who didn't see that coming? :)
Nick was faced with some interesting challenges at this point. He chose to spread the Dygmies out towards my left with a couple contesting that flag. The Champions failed a charge against a Harrower but surprisingly he chose not to run the rest of the unit to contest the right flag. With the warbeasts lurking at the back I felt reasonably safe going into my next turn.
First up a Siren advanced into contact with the right flag and power-boosted the Slayer. Mortenbra, having allocated what I thought would be sufficient Focus to eliminate the Champions and Champion UA, cast Terminal Velocity, Feated. So far so good. It looked like a good time to make a fatal mistake, so I did just that...
See, on Mortenebra's card is this funky little rule that allows her to have a 'jack pull Focus from her if it's in base contact during it's activation. I haven't tried this yet so I parked Mortenebra where a Harrower could fit next to her in base contact in order to wail on some Champions. Next to her. Not in front of. Ick...
The Harrowers, Slayers, Stalker all did their job (although I tried to convince Chris and Nick that if this was a tournament game I would have cleared the Dygmies contesting the left flag instead of sending one of the Slayers on a beatdown mission towards the middle). Bad stuff happened to a lot of Trolls (mostly the entire unit of Champions, UA and solo) but once the red mist had receeded I realised my predicament.
In order to lay waste to most of Nick's army I'd left a very tidy corridor between Mortenebra and Madrak, with only a Necrotech standing in the way, and only a single Harrower free-strike threatening that corridor.
With clinical efficiency Nick first removed the Necrotech, scrolled the damage from the free-strike on Madrak from the Harrower (scrolled... geez... that sounds a bit too much like Skillhammer for my liking...), and punched Mortenebra repeatedly in the head with a huge axe. It did not take many attempts to achieve her deserved demise once the Fellcaller had shouted up Madrak's MAT :(
In a way this was obviously a good experience and please don't tell me I'm the only player who's ever demolished a goodly part of the opposing army only to find I've left myself open and ripe for a good solid kicking by assassination.
Best part of the game? I scored two control points :) Woot.
Ran with the double Harrower list - switching out the Reaper and Helldiver to find the points. Sean and Chris are right - double Harrower is effing awesome! Missed the little Helldiver though - he's such a champ. Need to try some 42pts games so I can squeeze in some more broken.
Tried what I thought/hoped was a potentially difficult scenario for Mortenebra - Incursion (three flags, one disappears).
Mortenebra (35pts - tier 4)
Deryliss
Harrower
Harrower
Slayer
Slayer
Stalker
Warwitch Siren
Warwitch Siren
Necrotech + Scrap Thrall
There's a certain level of attraction here to a symmetry of deployment. Morty in the middle and fronted by the two Harrowers (in base-to-base contact with each other so they are blocking LOS from someone who is cheating by using ranged weapons); a Slayer to either side accompanied ambiguously by a Siren for power-boosting fun-times; the Necrotech lurking; the Scrap Thrall just pushing up the guts to draw some attention; Deryliss weighing up his options and looking at future Spectral Steel or Overrun targets; and the dear wee Stalker looking to marnuss (marniss? Spelling?) some poor unfortunate "tough" Troll solo. Finding myself wishing the Stalker was AD - that would be so frickin sweet (and fluffy, right?). Anyway, the bulk of my deployment doesn't really telegraph anything but I do need to be a bit careful with where Deryliss and the Stalker go, especially if I have first turn. The Stalker has the luxury/potential to redeploy if necessary but Deryliss requires quite a bit more planning and forethought.
Bricky
As it was Nick bricked up (now there's an original Troll strategy) and the gaggle of ARM=silly Trolls went up the middle. This time he layered the Champions so I couldn't just blast through the thin blue (or in his case, undercoat white) line and have a literal stab at Madrak.
The advance of the Fearful Symmetry
I responded with a fairly cautious advance, running up but not at full clip (didn't need to be tied down by Dygmies or long-charging Champions unnecessarily). The Slayers inferred (or is it implied?) future movement options towards the flags on the flanks, and the Harrowers and Morty predictably stayed central. I had a good run on the right flank flag in particular unless the Dygmies wanted to throw away the left flank flag or the Champions wanted to run to contest.
Surprise, surprise - the middle flag was the one that disappeared. Who didn't see that coming? :)
Dygmies pop up like daisies
Nick was faced with some interesting challenges at this point. He chose to spread the Dygmies out towards my left with a couple contesting that flag. The Champions failed a charge against a Harrower but surprisingly he chose not to run the rest of the unit to contest the right flag. With the warbeasts lurking at the back I felt reasonably safe going into my next turn.
First up a Siren advanced into contact with the right flag and power-boosted the Slayer. Mortenbra, having allocated what I thought would be sufficient Focus to eliminate the Champions and Champion UA, cast Terminal Velocity, Feated. So far so good. It looked like a good time to make a fatal mistake, so I did just that...
Way to leave a corridor of imminent death, Dave
See, on Mortenebra's card is this funky little rule that allows her to have a 'jack pull Focus from her if it's in base contact during it's activation. I haven't tried this yet so I parked Mortenebra where a Harrower could fit next to her in base contact in order to wail on some Champions. Next to her. Not in front of. Ick...
The Harrowers, Slayers, Stalker all did their job (although I tried to convince Chris and Nick that if this was a tournament game I would have cleared the Dygmies contesting the left flag instead of sending one of the Slayers on a beatdown mission towards the middle). Bad stuff happened to a lot of Trolls (mostly the entire unit of Champions, UA and solo) but once the red mist had receeded I realised my predicament.
In order to lay waste to most of Nick's army I'd left a very tidy corridor between Mortenebra and Madrak, with only a Necrotech standing in the way, and only a single Harrower free-strike threatening that corridor.
With clinical efficiency Nick first removed the Necrotech, scrolled the damage from the free-strike on Madrak from the Harrower (scrolled... geez... that sounds a bit too much like Skillhammer for my liking...), and punched Mortenebra repeatedly in the head with a huge axe. It did not take many attempts to achieve her deserved demise once the Fellcaller had shouted up Madrak's MAT :(
Axe + Face... I think we all know how that encounter ends...
In a way this was obviously a good experience and please don't tell me I'm the only player who's ever demolished a goodly part of the opposing army only to find I've left myself open and ripe for a good solid kicking by assassination.
Best part of the game? I scored two control points :) Woot.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
let's not be "that guy"
Hey all, the insider this week has a great piece from DC on his favourite type of gamer. I think it's all something we can relate to - we each have one or more of the qualities that he mentions in his list of no-nos to a greater or lesser degree, but something for all to think on I believe.
http://privateerpress.com/community/privateer-insider/insider-5-2-2012
NZ Warmachine is getting more and more active with new players popping up all the time, some have commented that they were put off before by the mis-interpreted "page 5" attitude that a minority of players have sometimes displayed. At the end of the day, any hobby is about having fun - if you're not having fun and helping others to have fun then you may want to figure out why..
Thought for the day over..
Pel :)
Edit: for the oppressively accuracy minded linguists out there...
http://privateerpress.com/community/privateer-insider/insider-5-2-2012
NZ Warmachine is getting more and more active with new players popping up all the time, some have commented that they were put off before by the mis-interpreted "page 5" attitude that a minority of players have sometimes displayed. At the end of the day, any hobby is about having fun - if you're not having fun and helping others to have fun then you may want to figure out why..
Thought for the day over..
Pel :)
Edit: for the oppressively accuracy minded linguists out there...
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Brush #2
So not monday... sue me.
Some sweet paintjobs this week,
From Stentus Maximus: Mortenebra +1,
From Ben C: Carving it up.
From John M: Broken Legion,
Matt C: Cyclops ninja
And from Wellywooder Nick G: Sorscha
Its a hard call this week with a real tossup between the sweet Morty from Dave and the awesome NMM from Nick.
In the end Dave is not a beleiver in the double brush so I'll have to award the second brush to Nick G on the strength of his stunning Sorscha.
Until Next Time,
Keep it Classy.
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