Tournament Mode: Soft to the Core

A different kind of softcore. 

This will be lackluster when compared with my other tournament recaps.  Hardcore timing does not encourage in-game photography.

Yesterday there was a Softcore event at my FLGS.  Perhaps you've seen murmurings about it on this very blog?  There was a good turn out, 14 in all I think, with a decent spread of factions.  There was uncertainty as to the turn out, in terms of both numbers and geography.  There was only one non-regular contender. of whom I'll speak in a bit, with the rest being part of the cast you'd likely see on any given Thursday at Game Parlor.  While I always like playing against different people, in a way it was nice to face familiar opponents as it removed one variable from the equation while testing a new(ish) list and format.  The previous post is about the list I ran and my rationale behind it, so if you've stumbled across this post and want some context just hop back one.  This post will wait until you get back, it's patient.

Summer Battle Tour Continues

Just look for the great big hammer. 

Thanks to a scheduling snafu that moved my family's Father's Day dinner to the week after Father's Day, I had the chance to travel to Games and Stuff for a 50 pointer.  GNS is the last of the stores in my extended gaming area to get crossed off my list and it made quite an impression.  It's a two story affair with the shop on the bottom and a big gaming room on top.  They posted a pic of the action this past weekend that showcases this humble author while also showing off the room, which is second only to Game Vault in terms of sheer playing space.  This upstairs space is apparently undergoing renovation but was still the nicest play space I've frequented so far.  I didn't have a lot of time to browse on the way out, so I concentrated my attention on the Warmahordes section and Legion stuff in particular.  They may not have had one of everything in the line on the wall, but it was close enough for me, and it looked like every other faction was represented just as well.  My only real complaint about the store is that it's quite a drive, but that's a small issue.  If you're in the area stop by and check it out.  Enough of the plugs, on with the show.

This Week in the Gnarls League, Part 3

vs Danny, part one.

Last week I was in a three-way tie for first in league, and on Monday I got in the first game of this week against one of the people I was tied with: Danny and his Cryx.  My first few trips to the FLGS for Thursday night Warmahordes I played against new or inexperienced players (which seems to apply to 50-60% of the regulars), including what was one of the first handful of games Danny played.  A nice guy who's eager to learn, I've kept an eye on Danny since then to see how he develops.  This game was the first since that initial game months ago and was a good opportunity to see first-hand how Danny has progressed (after a trip to Templecon no less).  We played at 50 points and I fielded the same Aby list I played last week (Typhon, Carni, Seraph, Angelius, Raek, 4 Shredders, 2 Forsakens, and a Shepherd).  I was concerned about facing 50 points worth of Cryx infantry, but fortunately the reality was slightly different as Danny fielded eSkarre with the Deathjack, Defiler, max Bane Thralls with UA and Tartarus, max Satyxis with UA and their solo, Darragh Wrathe, two Pistol Wraiths, and Saxon Orrik.  Our scenario was Whirling Gauntlet, which proved to be interesting.

Battle of the Buxom Babes: pLylyth vs eSkarre

Textbook definition of "buxom."

This is a report that's been in the hopper for a little while and is finally getting some love.  This is partly because I want to clear out the backlog (7 games and counting), and partly because EV told me I only do prompt reports of games I win.  While obviously untrue, I though I'd take a look back to last week (depending on when this gets posted) and the debut of playing Slipstream the right way with EV.  For this game I returned to pLylyth and went even heavier on the beasts (if that's possible) by dropping the infantry and adding some Shredders and a Deathstalker.  My list was thus:

Family Feud: pThagrosh vs eSkarre

Show me "Playing like you've got a pair."

A couple battle reports ago, EV left a cryptic comment: "Next time I'll be bringing out the big guns again, so be warned."  Considering his preferences for casters and lists, I assumed this meant I'd be seeing eGaspy and his infantry swarm the next time we gamed (today[Tuesday]).  There was an outside chance of pDenny as well, or pGaspy, but I felt confident that I'd be facing eGaspy.  I didn't tailor my list to that match-up because I don't do that sort of meta-gaming (and if I do it's after a long stretch of crushing defeats).  Turns out my gaming integrity paid off today as I faced not Gaspy or Denny, but eSkarre.  Even more bizarre, eSkarre with two (2) heavy jacks and no (zero[0]) arc nodes.  After double checking that I was in the right place and facing the right opponent, we got down to business.  My list was the same as last time while EV's (obviously) changed.  He went with:

The Littlest Battle Report: pLylyth vs eGaspy

Makes sense when you break it down.

As a way of easing back into doing battle reports before tackling the pile that's waiting for some love, today (or whenever this gets posted) I'm doing a bite-sized report.  The reasons for the length will soon be apparent, so let's start at the beginning.  Tuesday is now the day of gaming with EV, so I packed my stuff and made the short trip to his place.  Which faction I'd be playing was never really a question (want more Legion goodness), but I did debate for a bit about whether to bring pLylyth or pThagrosh.  In my first game with Legion and pLylyth (to be reported on in the future) things worked more or less exactly like I wanted them to, so I decided not to fix what wasn't broken.  While not 100% what I would ultimately like to run with her, I didn't have to do a whole lot of compromising to make a list out of the pieces I have.  What I fielded was thus:

Ashes in the mouth: pButcher vs pDeneghra

Click for inspiration.

Hot on the heels of messing up my plan to keep things simple, I went back to the well this week resolved, again, to keep my plans simple.  My list was mostly unchanged from last week except that I swapped out the Bombardiers (and Rocketeer) for the Doomies + UA.  After the WGI melee fiasco I was content to let them do their thing: receive Iron Flesh, be annoying to hit, shoot things up real nice.  The Doomies were penciled in for Storm Blade duty.  While I'd have to rely on the so-called "expected value" to kill ARM 20 with a P+S 12 (13?) Weaponmaster attack, thanks to cleave Berserk I'd hopefully get plenty of swings at hitting the average.  Losing the Bombardiers' templates would make hunting Eiryss and the Gun Mages a little trickier, but frankly Eiryss hasn't been much of a problem and the Gun Mages should fold to a volley of sprays or perhaps a nice Trample.  Stryker would bear watching, but most casters do, and having learned my lesson about War Dog positioning last game I was determined not to get caught out by the same brain fart again.  If I was going to lose by making stupid mistakes, at least they'd be new ones.

That's no moon, that's a Deathstar: eSorscha vs. pDenny

I love Legos, but this one never appealed to me.

I've been on a bit of a losing streak lately, especially the epic pasting I got myself into last time out, so for this game I brought out the big guns.  Again.  This time I took a slightly different approach though.  Reasoning that Sorscha learned a valuable lesson in her last fight, this time around eSorscha hit the table.  Infantry was the appetizer, main dish, side dish, and dessert.  As a result the list fell into place with little effort.  The only real hangup was in the after dinner coffee phase of what jack to bring.  Black Ivan was my first choice (I really love that guy), but if Ivan was my only jack I wouldn't be able to use eSorscha's bond.  Remembering how well that bond has worked in the past I couldn't leave it unused.  Beast 09 is the obvious choice for Sorscha, but since I don't have the Beast I had to cast further afield.  The Devastator is a nearly perfect fit for the bond since it's such a tough nut to crack, so I plugged it in to the list and got the following result:

Bringing a gun to a knife fight: pSorscha vs pDenny

Picture unrelated.  Awesome, but unrelated.

Last week EV asked me if I was ever going to run the Man o War Kovnik.  I told him I've run it before, but that was during my first steps into Warmachine in the dark days when I had not yet started taking pictures.  I remembered liking the Kovnik, especially when paired with a Kodiak, so I took his offhanded remark as a personal challenge to field the Kovnik once again.  This proved to be harder than I expected.

Attack of the Parenthesis: eGaspy vs pIrusk

Random puppy pic to start the post off right.

The forces of Cryx and Khador clashed again today, "today" being Thursday despite what the post date says.  After a brief school induced hiatus, eGaspy was on the prowl again, menacing the noble sons and daughters of the Motherland.  EV did a preemptive list post over on his blog in what appears to be a wine-induced blogging frenzy, though the lack of dates makes it hard to be sure.  Considering his list didn't change from the last game, I'll just leave the link for you to follow at your whim.

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.

Enter the Terminus

EV inquired about a game yesterday and after a few messages we set one up for this (Thursday) morning.  He gave me the option of an old caster or a new one, and the choice was an easy one.  My first thought was to bring a new caster myself, but Harkevich is still unprimed and I just can't make a Strakhov list that I like with the models I have.  Instead I resolved to take a new approach to an old caster.  Attrition is my favorite strategy, so I went with an assassination mindset.  A rushy pVlad list was my first thought, but I've run that before (and recently).  Next up was the caster I had intended to learn first when I started Warmachine: pSorscha.  Stalwart of the battlebox, pSorscha is definitely an assassination caster and, for me, trickier to use than her epic form.  She has to get close(ish) to use her spells, but doesn't really want to get her own hands dirty.  I haven't really used her since my first few games when I was still learning basic concepts like keeping your caster out of easy reach, activation order, what all the pieces do, the rules, things like that.  Thus while pSorscha isn't really a new caster to me, this would be my first game with her where I felt comfortable with the game in general.

A Game of Inches

The inches we need are everywhere around us.

Today the ground shook once more as two mighty armies clashed on the field of battle.  Or on plywood with sand glued on top.  Either way you look at it plenty of action went down.  Terrain was a bit sparser than it has been of late and saw the notable return of The Hill That Looks Nice But Is Really A Pain To Put Models On (And Is A Bit Warped Which I Just Noticed Today).  Making matters even better, said hill was the first bit of terrain EV put down.  Right in the middle of the board.  Making matters even more betterer we rolled up Mosh Pit, which meant it would see lots of action.  While looking at the specifics of the scenario I noticed that the text read 14" diameter for the Mosh Pit and the diagram was 16".  I pointed this out to EV and we decided, via the roll-a-d6 method, that the Pit would be a 14" diameter circle of pain.  This would come in to play later, but first the army lists.

New caster throwdown: pButcher vs eSkarre

Took some searching, but this will work.

The arms race hit its logical conclusion today as two new challengers entered the field of battle.  I got to experience eSkarre's Great Rack for the first time.  Now I get to experience the struggle to refrain from filling this battle report with bad jokes.  I'm going with this relatively tame picture and stopping there.  The Motherland sent pButcher to meet the undead menace.  I tried working out a couple Strakhov lists, but I kept reaching for pieces I don't have (I'm looking at you, Great Bears and Reach jacks.)  There was plenty of learning going on in this game as I got used to a new, if straight-forward, caster while EV did the same and also fielded a unit that was new to me at least, and I think to EV as well considering that we both were checking the cards and occasionally scratching our heads.  Despite these uncertainties we had another good game, if a little more lopsided than the last one, but I should really let the report speak for itself.  We went with a little less terrain this time.  I won the roll to go first and deferred, a little trick I had forgotten about but was reminded of over at the PP forums.  I'm using iBodger's email function for the lists this time, so the format is a bit different than what I usually do by hand, but this way is much easier and still plenty readable.

Update? Who does that?

L-O-L-A Lola, Lolololo Lola.

I'm shamed by how long it's been since the last post.  I'd love to offer something of substance by way of apology, but that'll just have to wait until next time.  In the here and now I have some very modest hobby progress, plus something I've been meaning to do for a while and have just now finished.  Spurred on by EV's recent escalation of the Warmachine arms race I put together a man who needs no introduction, pictured right.  I had cleaned the model a while back, but I guess the arm assembly kept me from assembling it at the same time.  Everything went together nice and easy thanks mostly to the greenstuff + super glue combo.  How I was engaged in the hobby for better than a decade and never found out that the two play so well together is beyond me.  Regardless of our time apart, we're together now, and that's what counts.  (Unrelated: I spent a couple minutes working up a Warmachine-centric version of the Kink's classic "Lola," only to realize that the tiny caption space under the picture wouldn't contain all that awesome.  Instead you get a much smaller, rather less awesome version.  Blame Blogger and how their photo captioning works.)

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:

WM Battle Report - The Deathjack Cometh

Warmachine content here?  When's the last time that happened?  Played a 35 pointer with EV today, eSorscha vs the Witch Coven.  I had a notion a bit ago to do a 50 point game, and that's on the docket, but since I haven't played WM in a month or three, I thought it'd be a good idea to start with something smaller before jumping to a point size I've never played at before.  My army selection was somewhat influenced by wanting to use that last of the models I haven't used yet, eSorscha and the Devastator.  I wanted to run eSorscha and I would have taken the Devastator with her anyway, so it wasn't too hard fitting them in.  I had made an eSorscha list a while ago but had forgotten about it, so I made a new one up last night.  Turns out they were basically the same, except one had Doom Reavers.  Which list made the cut?  Army lists and the report itself after the break.

A more deliberate blogging after a paper has been finished

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.

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.