Pulling defeat from the jaws of victory from the maw of defeat: a Warmachine battle report

Thursday my valiant Khadorans engaged EV and the vileness known only as eGaspy.  You could also call him Lich Lord Asphyxious, but who does that?  Going into the game I knew I'd be facing eGaspy, but that meant little as I've never played against him before.  The interwebs consensus is that he's a top-tier Cryx caster though so I decided to bring my A-game: full-on WGI Deathstar, Iron Flesh caster, geared to the teeth for attrition.

Then I changed my mind and went with a small assassination list.

New Look Khadoran Machine

So this one is a couple days later than it would have been had Blogger not had its issues.  Better late than never.

Cryx is a pain in the butt, something I had forgotten since I last faced them.  The casters, the troops, the jacks, and all so cheap.  Seeing them across the table is never a happy thing.  They do put up a good fight though, more so than the swans, so I approached the table with that in mind.  EV and I alternated placing terrain until we were both satisfied, creating a medium density that was roughly symmetrical.  We rolled No Man's Land for the scenario, another mosh pit type game.  EV won the roll to go first.  I detailed my list and general game plan in the "last" post.  His list, or my close approximation of it:

Yet more adventures in time-delay posting

Powerful in theory at least.

Pre-script:  Looks like Blogger is having a kitten, so this may show up later than intended.  Here's hoping this drops a minute after noon.

Post-pre-script:  Didn't work out after all.

The Khadoran Machine will be rolling forward onto the battlefield once again in a half hour or so.  I'm not sure what I'll be facing, either faction or caster, but I do know what I'm taking.  I wanted to do something different today, so I'm leaving the Winter Guard in the case.  This actually creates a hole in my list building because the Winter Guard is the only core infantry squad I have (no Pikemen or Kayazy yet), but that just gives me more room to try things out.  A few months ago I reinvented the wheel by "discovering" what seems to be an old classic: pimpin' pVald in a Doom Reaver limo.  Doomies can't be targeted by magic and pVlad has Windwall, so when you roll the two together you get a unit that can't be shot or spelled.  I plan to just shove this down EV's throat.  They should make a large hole wherever they end up, so I'm going to ignore the scenario as much as possible and just try to kill his caster.  I'm also loading up on jacks and Greylords, plus a Manhunter.  I wanted to take the Kodiak and Wardog this game, both pieces that I like but don't play as much as I should.  Unfortunately I couldn't figure out a way to get the Wardog in and still hit 35 points.  I blame my lack of Mechanics, Great Bears, and non-four point infantry choices in general.  The list I have is thus:

pVlad +5
Destroyer - 9
Juggernaut - 7
Kodiak - 8
Doom Reavers - 6
Doom Reaver UA - 2
Greylord Ternion - 4
Koldun Lord - 2
Manhuntress - 2
35 total

The basic idea is to have the limo lead the way with the jacks following behind.  When the range is right, I'm going to send the Doomies in under Signs and Portents while Vlad hangs back.  The second wave will be all the jacks and Vlad.  I'm going to load the Destroyer up on focus while approaching so it has a chance of hitting and damaging with it's bombard.  The Koldun will let the Juggy run on the approach or clear Disruption as needed.  When it's time for the second wave the Koldun will give the Destroyer a focus to slam with.  Combined with the Kodiak's combo throw and whatever destruction the Doomies cause, I hope to open a big enough hole to send in the Juggernaut, Vlad, or both to finish the job.

Now it's time to grab my case and get to it.

Battle Report Backlog part 1: Cygnar vs. Khador

Last Warmachine game was pVlad vs pHaley. My list:

pVlad + 5
Juggernaut - 7
Kodiak - 8
Doom Reavers - 6
UA - 2
Min WGI - 4
UA - 2
Rocketeer - 1

This list came about mostly because I wanted to use the Doomies.  EV had tipped his hand somewhat about the Long Gunners, so I went with Vlad for the extra move on his feat. This didn't work out so well, but more of that later.

Khadoran Sea Machine

Getting kinda backed up on blogging, but given the time of year that's to be expected. Had a game with EV and his Cygnar a couple days ago. I played pVlad with the new Doom Reavers against his pHaley and came out on top, but it was a close thing. A more complete write-up is in the works, I have pictures and everything.

A bit of background before I get to the next bit of news. White Dwarf ran a series of articles, A Tale of Four Gamers, years ago that followed four gamers for a number of months (I want to say six) as they collected a new army. They added to their armies each month, up to a certain dollar amount, and wrote about their experiences along the way. I loved this series. I've looked for similar things in other magazines (hence tracking down the No Quarter I mentioned last time or the time before) and online, but I've never found anything quite like it.

I've always thought it would be nifty to do something similar.  EV leveraged this knowledge into getting me into another game system. After some discussion, we settled on Uncharted Seas, which you can probably figure out is a naval game. I never played Man-O-War, but I did play some Battlefleet Gothic and it was far from my favorite. I was skeptical of US because of this, but EV and I did a ghetto-demo on Thursday and it was a good time. Fast paced, brutal, fistfuls of dice, and ships that could actually turn. I have pictures of that too, via EV, but I have to get them from him and write it up as well.

The endgame of this is that we're starting up on Uncharted Seas. I'm in for the Iron Dwarves with the starter fleet sitting in the other room awaiting my attentions. We're still figuring out how to work this out, but it'll either be a blister per time period (per month I'd guess) or a point amount. However it ends up, I'll be chronicling my fleet progress in addition to my (not forgotten) Khador forces. In fact I intend to paint the boats up in Khador colors with red hulls and brass smoke stacks/metal bits. How obvious the connection will be is up for debate, but I have the colors already so I may as well use them. Which reminds me that I want to do a post about Vallejo paints as well. So many ideas, still so many papers to finish.

If there were anyone reading this, I'd say expect some battle reports once the semester ends on Tuesday, but this is basically an isolated pocket of the internet at this point, so I'm really just talking to myself. I hope to post them all the same though, in case someone in the future stumbles over here.

Khador vs Cryx Battle Report

Had my third game this afternoon against EV, again a Cryx vs. Khador match-up. I took some pictures to do up a battle report, so I won't spoil how it goes to entice further reading. I finished green stuffing, basing and priming (mostly) last night, so I had the Winter Guard ready to go along with the Koldun Lord. I had a list ready to go but changed my mind on its composition when I was heading from school to EV's place. I changed from pSorscha to pVlad, mostly for Signs & Portents and his extra focus point, and swapped out the Wardog and Rocketeer for the Koldun Lord. These changes in mind, this was the list I used:

Khadoran Machine Rolls On

Had another game with EV this afternoon and scored another rousing victory, though this one was much closer than the last. I used the same list as last time with two exceptions: I ran pVlad instead of pSorscha and I marshaled the Destroyer instead of the Kodiak. EV played Cryx and a list that I'll attempt to recreate as best I can. He had a lot more models this time, many of which I was unfamiliar with and/or that died before I got a handle on what they did.

pAsphyxious
Cankerworm
3 of the little bonejacks, not sure which ones but I think one of each
Mechanithralls with Necrosurgeon and 2 Brute Thralls
Bile Thralls
Necrotech
2 Pistol Wraiths
Machine Wraith
Skarlock (I think)

I was surprised at his lack of a heavy jack, though I see now that the Cankerworm filled that role fairly well. One of my biggest concerns about Cryx when I started learning the game (all of a month ago) was Incorporeal models. I hadn't faced any until today, when I was staring down three of them. It turns out that I didn't have to worry so much, mostly thanks to the Ternions. The Greylords were definitely the men of the match for me, taking out both Pistol Wraiths, the majority of the Mechanithralls, the Necrosurgeon, and did a couple wounds on the Brute Thralls. I hadn't had the opportunity to use a spray template before today, despite hearing good things about them. Turns out they are, in fact, worth their weight in gold. There was a smallish building in the middle of the board, which EV filled with the Cankerworm and Pistol Wraiths, leaving them nice and bunched up for the Ternion's magic shotguns of doom. After cleaning house, the next turn saw them swing around the house to hose the Mechanithralls, with one Greylord taking out 4 of them and the Necrosurgeon with a single shot. Brutal.

Attrition was higher this time around. I lost the Juggernaut (again), Ternions, Manhunter (also again) and 3 of 4 Widowmakers. My two remaining 'jacks were at about 50%, one flank had nothing but the Mortar holding it down, and Vlad ended the game well ahead of the rest of his troops. It didn't matter, though, as I got to engage his cruise-missile mode and do an assassination run. Asphyxious got too close to my line, so I dropped a mortar on his head then popped Vlad's feat, Boundless Charge to get over terrain, Blood of Kings and went to town. After playing Sorscha with her modest melee abilities I was very happy with the result.

I was also happy with the Mortar in this game. After it hit exactly nothing in the last game, it managed to kill things with both direct hits and fortunate scatters. The shell to the face of the Lich worked very well as Vlad arrived with less punch than I'd wanted, after having to Boundless Charge over terrain, but I'd forgotten that I'd softened the Lich up a little earlier in the turn. I was amazed that the Mortar managed to hit a caster with no help, just a clutch roll. In the end I think Vlad did enough damage to get the job done on his own, but the margin was too close as it was. Still, a victory is a victory and I have a pair now in as many games. You can't ask for much more than that.

On the painting front, nothing is happening. I got started on assembling the war puppy, but I'm debating how to put it together. The middle is hollow with each side having half the body, in an L shape sort of deal. It's an odd way to make a figure and something I've never really seen before. I ran a pin through the middle to connect the halves, but as of now it's only glued into one side. I think I'll green stuff it around the pin while also gluing around the edges of the body. I'm very worried that it won't hold, but the PP forums tell me it will, so we'll see how it goes. I hope to get assembly on it done tomorrow, or at least advanced more than it is now, along with more general painting. I also hope to get some pictures taken tomorrow. I had previously decided to base coat everything and then go back and do highlights and shading, though now I'm leaning back towards doing a test model where I try and figure out wet blending. I ordered some card sleeves from my FLGS that will hopefully come in tomorrow, and I want to pick up Strakhov while I'm there. Maybe the Winterguard UA and Kovnik Joe. And the Butcher. And and and. Funny how I came back to gaming with the intention of painting first and gaming a distant second, but now I'm right back at painting to game, and painting half-assed at that. Still, I hold out hope that this time I'll actually go back to models and finish them up. Time will tell.