So my friends decided to challenge me to a three on one 99 point game of Warmachine this weekend.
Each of them took 33 points with
the Megapope fielding Khador led by the butcher,
The Millarnator with his Menoth lead by pKreoss and Mr White with his mercs commanded by McBain.
The guys are all pretty new to the game, so this was less of a serious "BATTLE FOR SUPREMACY" and more of an learning experiment for all involved.
The scenario was straight forward, three flags along the center line, 1 point for being within 1" with no enemies with 4", 1 bonus point if your caster is within 1" of the flag and first team to 7 points. Team rules applied so you kept playing after your caster died until all three were dead.
Disposition of forces
I figured I was going to be staring down the barrel of a lot of heavy armour and I wasn't wrong. My three forces were Siege backed by 2 Defenders (one on jnr) and Centurion with ranger support, pHaley with Thorn, strider, Minuteman and Hunter (jnr) and Constance with Gallant, Stormclad and a bunch of knights.
My plan was to slow the mercs in the middle of the field with haley while Siege wrecked the Menoth advance with his heavy weapons. Constance was to rush headlong into the Khador forces and hopfully swing around to support the middle ground. I deliberately deployed the center under strength in order to carry the flanks.
How did it go?
The plan worked..... kinda.
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| About 200 points of dudes.... and some real crappy scenery |
Left flank (after turn 3)
I positioned Siege and the Defenders in such a way that they could take advantage of Haleys feat early on. The Millernator used his zealot mini feat early when i was mostly out of range. Once that was over Siege and the rangers (all with double attacks from haley) wiped them off the board. The Defenders then proceeded to start to slag the incoming heavy infantry and jacks. Sieges feat turn compounded the issue and after 6 defender shots and Siege firing 5 times in 2 turns (thanks reinholdt) the heavy Menoth march of the left flank collapsed. Without a screen Kreoss was vulnerable to the Defenders on turn 5..... the ranger who ran up beside Kreoss probably didn't help.
Total wipe out on the left flank but the Millernator learned a bunch of things. forexample, he used his minifeat when I was out of range. The turn he popped it I may have been lucky to get more than a Defender shot or two at him. I may have got Siege to ground pounder them but that would have required me to break cover. Zealots are a great screening unit, if he had held back I would have had to deal with all those fire bombers between my jacks and the flag.
He also didn't move Kreoss one turn which left him WAY out of position and unable to capitalize on his feat.
And the big thing, having to remember what all your units do. A lot of card checking by everyone as they get familiar with their forces.
Army group centre
Mr White held the center and scored 3 or 4 vps holding the flag for most of the game.
His force was a mix of merc jacks and solos with heavy dwarf infantry. While solid and hard to kill they had a hard time dealing with the temporal barrier and the storm strider.
A few combos Mr White tried pulling also fell down on some pretty rough dice rolls.
A nice combo he pulled was on Thorn. He quickly moved his Buccaneer with energize to position a net attack (who was ready to disengage) and then smashing it to pieces with a massive pile of dwarven hammers (Thorn had parked in front of the Strider in an attempt to buy it one more turn)
In the end Arcane Shield + Barrier + Strider + Mechanics proved a time consuming slog for the Mercs and when reinforcements came from the left flank the centre folded. (Siege being able to ground pounder at targets in melee with no penalty is fantastic when someone is trying to engage your battle engine in melee)
Mr White and I have played a half dozen games in the last few months as he gets to grips with the game (Most games ive used different casters and combos to try them out for the first time). I'm sure he wants me to throw haley and the strider in the rubbish bin by now.
Right flank or how I met a brick wall
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| Right flank, Constance vs Khador |
My right flank plan was solid. You can see to the right exactly the moment I popped Constances feat. 20+ infantry, right in front of the Khador formation. I was expecting to take a fair number of casualties and then dump a massive amount of focus in transference and start carving.
Then Mr White says "you know, I tried attacking him when he did that last time and it sucked.... just hold fire"
So that's what the Megapope did.
He casually advanced up and parked his Kodiak in front of the precursors, backed that with his Behemoth and shield walled his Man o Wars.
What was supposed to be a lightning war bogged down into a grimy battle of attrition.
In the end Constance murdered the butcher using her flanking bonus from gallant but that really shouldn't have happened. Megapope spent WAY to much focus on the behemoths sub cortex trying to do trick shots instead of just pounding those heavy jack to pieces. He left the Stormclad with an operation cortex and sword when he could have spent that focus reducing it to scrap with additional pow 12 armour piercing attacks.
My right flank could easily have collapsed and rolled back on me. I'm sure the Megapope is lurking in his cave of wonders thumbing through the Khador book and thinking of ways to foil me.
Overall experience
I don't recommend doing this too often. Trying to run a 3 caster battleplan across a big table while teaching aspects of the game and doing most of the "to-hit, to-damage roll" calculations for people is mentally draining.
It was fun, don't get me wrong, but my brain was exactly the same way you get after a tournament... you know.... numb and monosyllabic.
I think their will be a rematch in the future and next time.... i'm taking a conquest and three different casters.
