So it turns out it isn't as easy to mill herbs and blog simultaneously as I'd thought it would be. It happens I suppose. If the Khadoran machine rolls on, so too must the glyph making machine.
To expand on the game from Thursday a little more, here are the list I used and the one I'm guessing EV used. I made sure we knew what points total we were playing beforehand. We went with 25 because I wanted to see how a smaller game worked.
pSorscha + 6
Kodiak - 8
Wardog - 1
Greylords - 4
Widowmakers - 4
Max WGI - 6
UA - 2
Rocketeer - 1
Kovnik Joe - 2
Widowmaker Marksman - 2
pDeneghra - 5
Stalker - 4
Some combination of 3 bonejacks - 12
Skarlock - 2
Max Bane Thralls - 8
2 Bloat Thralls - 4
I have a real problem telling the bonejacks apart. Their silhouettes are all the same save for a slightly different mouth. I keep thinking that with time I'll recognize them easier, but I'm still waiting for that to happen.
As I mentioned in the last post, I was trying a bunch of new stuff with my list. I wanted to run a single jack and all the new pieces I have that I hadn't played yet. The single jack worked well enough and I never really felt starved for focus, but the Kodiak was again disappointing. I'm thinking this might have more to do with EV not using heavy jacks as much as anything, but I think next time it'll stay in the case and I'll take a Juggy instead. The news bits (wardog, marksman, rocketeer) were underwhelming. The marksman did what he's supposed to for the most part, but I left the Widowmakers stranded on a flank for most of the game. Combined with the Bane Thralls and their Stealth, I didn't get a whole lot of use of of the Widowmakers as a whole. Granted they popped a Bloat Thrall and took out some kind of bonejack, but they weren't as dominant as they have been. The Rocketeer did fine, but Stealth again limited his effectiveness. The WGI also got caught up in melee fairly quickly, so he only got off a shot or two.
The biggest disappointment was the wardog. I've been looking forward to using this since I got the model, and this probably worked against me. A bonejack got close enough to arc a spell at Sorscha, so I sent the dog in. I should have seen it coming, but the poor pup bounced off the jack. I considered recalling it, but I left it in melee with the jack, who promptly ate the dog and still arced spells onto Sorscha. I guess I've been too inspired by a "What has your Wardog killed lately?" thread on the PP forums, but I thought the dog was going to perform better. In the later stages of the game, I wished I had recalled it so it might still have been around. It (I guess I should start calling it she, since the scheme is based on a female) did pass a Tough check though, so there's that. She didn't pass the second one though, so she got sprayed to death.
Overall, I again felt the lack of dedicated melee troops. The WGI got engaged with the Bane Thralls quickly and didn't get to decimate them completely on the way in thanks to Stealth, which was the man(or rule in this case) of the match for sure. Time and again I forgot to take Stealth into account. You'd think I would have learned eventually, but not so much. EV did a better job of dismantling the WGI support structure of Joe and the UA Officer, so they ended up grinding against the Bane Thralls in the midfield instead of shooting everything in sight.
I used Sorscha's feat in a new way: clearing out swathes of troops instead of assassination. It helped to clear out almost all of EV's jacks and crippled his Bane Thralls, but Denny was left standing, or at least hiding behind a wall. This was the turning point of the game, but not in the way you'd expect. After I cleared out the middle, I took my foot off the gas. I started doing random stupid, if fun, things. I charged the Greylords into a surviving jack. I piled in on the Bane Thralls for a WGI gangbang instead of spreading them out to cover more ground. Then what ultimately lost me the game, I brought Sorscha up to Tempest Denny (and some WGI at the same time), leading to another WGI gang bang. Except by this time they'd lost the Officer and CMA, so even with a knocked down caster their axe to mouth was less than effective. I also only had two on her, so I guess it was more of a train-run than a gang bang, but whatever you call it things didn't go as I had hoped.
The end was a combination of poor play on my part and rules ignorance. I left Sorscha too close to the front and in range of a Denny charge. I didn't think it would be possible to charge while in combat, but that's probably my 40k background showing. I wasn't sure it worked like that, but I let EV get on with it because I shouldn't have put myself in that position in the first place. While he was poking many tiny holes in Sorscha I checked the book and didn't find anything about not charging while engaged, so chalk one up to not knowing the rules well enough. I had hoped that Denny's MAT 5 would help, but with a full stack of focus it didn't matter.
I took small consolation in the fact that I finally got a throw off with the Kodiak. Granted I bypassed the initial fist attacks and just did a power attack to pull it off, but it worked like a charm. I launched a Bane Thrall into Denny, which was satisfying. I didn't have anything to take advantage of the knocked down caster, but I was looking more to get the throw off than to capitalize on it.
Funny that I've come up with what is no doubt a long entry after a loss, while after a win I didn't write much at all. They say you learn more from a loss than a win, and this is the case here. I may well head out in search of a melee unit today, either Great Bears of Doomreavers. I think the Great Bears will see more use in more situations, but the Doomreavers are cheaper and not character units. We'll see if I get anything at all. As usual there's another paper (three actually) to write, plus it's rainy here so I wouldn't be able to prime on the off chance I got whatever I ended up with assembled and based. Now that I think of it, the odds of getting a new unit ready for priming the same day I get them is slim at best, so maybe it'll work out. I'd been considering going to my FLGS tonight for the open Warmachine night they run on Saturdays, but then I realized that I lack templates, and my lists are certainly template heavy. Of course my stuff isn't painted and I'm always hesitant to walk unannounced into a new situation anyway, so it probably wouldn't have come off anyway, but it was still a nice idea that isn't going to work. I plan on getting a Warstore order together when the semester is over, if not before, and I'll remedy my template situation then.
No comments:
Post a Comment