He's large and in charge (and still being painted) but I
learned on Tuesday night that the Stormwall is not unkillable, in fact he can
be quite the opposite.
You see, having a model this prominent in your force means
that every single debuff available to your enemy can be placed on one
impossible to hide target.
In one round my poor Stormwall was subject to Gormans Blind
Oil, Denegras feat and Parasite spell, and something else debuff related.
It ended up on -6 Def, -7 armour and -2 to all other stats,
and having to forgo its movement AND activation.
After all that it still managed to absorb almost all the
enemies firepower for 2 rounds only exploding late in the second round of
attacks to a pistol wraith.
The lesson is simple, kill them debuffers as soon as you
can.
Welcome back to "How to lose at Warmachine", my ongoing report on how badly I suck at this game and how infuriating it is to get beaten all the time. Learn from my mistakes and bathe in the wisdom of defeat!
The forbidden temple in sunny Napier was the first "away" tournament I have been to. Astute readers will note that it is also only the second tournament I have been to. Last time I placed 20th out of 28 people, so I was eager not to do any worse.
The venue was fantastic, Jambo games (If you are in NZ I recommend checking out their site) had enough tables in the store to host the tourney and gave everyone a 10% discount on their already very reasonable prices.
The List
Well, you may have noticed from my two previous posts that I had planned on taking a certain list, and that I had changed it the night before and had to do some quick painting.
I finally settled on
Siege, with Minuteman and Centurion
Journeyman with Defender
6 Sword Knights
The idea was the Centurion would anchor the line (With polarity field and arcane shield) while Siege and the Defender shot things up. The Sword Knights would counter attack and the Minuteman would be my fast moving reserve. The list actually worked as planned and I thought I had a pretty good tourney.... but on to the matches
DAY ONE - THE DAY OF AWESOMENESS
Game one - VS. eSorcha (Campbell)
First up, let me say that the tables looked good, but the scenery in most matches meant diddly squat. The two pictures above show that nicely. From the models perspective all you can see is WIDE OPEN SPACES. I would not have wanted to play Circle on these tables.
Across the table from me was Campbell, who seemed like a very nice chap who had only recently started with the hobby. He was fielding a big unit of winter guard, three heavy jacks and a Manhunter. A lot of armour, even for Mr Siege to deal with and attrition looked like it would not be a good idea. I figured my best option was to move onto the edge of the objective area, park and shoot. I was hoping that eSorcha would come within 17" of Siege so I could shoot her in the face.
Fortunately for me this is exactly what happened.
Three turns into the game Campbell advanced his jack wall towards the Centurion (Being unable to charge it he was hesitant to run straight at it). Sorcha stood behind this wall of jacks thinking they would protect her.
One spell later and Sorcha's jack wall was sitting in a fox hole not blocking her. Siege used his feat, fired a rocket and nearly killed her outright. An aimed shot from the Defender and she was toast.
So a quick win by Assassination to start the day. I always feel a bit bad winning with foxhole as it seems a bit cheap. But a fair win is a fair win.
Game Two - VS. Scaverous (Mike O)
Mikes custom bases are amazing
Game two and Mike quietly informs me he on a losing streak of about 30 games. This makes me feel quite confident, that was my first mistake.
Mike is fielding Scaverous, A Reaper, A Seether, a bonejack, a witch and a big unit of Bane thralls.
The game starts well for me with some good tactical shooting that removes the bonejack and a rather unimpressive feat turn from Scaverous.
The Centurion is proving once again to be a pain and comfortably shrugs off an attempt from the Reaper to harpoon him. Scaverous ends up exposed and I send the Centurion in to give him a beating.
This is when things go belly up.
The Centurion does little (One hit from 4) and the Seether proceeds to rip my Minuteman to shreds. Bane Thralls and Scaverous rip the Centurion to pieces along with my sword knights. The Thralls also engage my Defender.
So all of a sudden Siege is left with a Defender and Junior and is charged by 5 Bane Thralls (4 of whom get in range). Needing an 8 to hit with four attacks Mikes dice desert him and Siege is left feeling rather healthy, only taking one hit.
Next turn Siege kills all the Banes (7 Attacks!) and frees the Defender up for a boosted shot on Scaverous.
BOOM, nothing but net.
For a guy who said he 'play and lost so many games in a row, he should have won this one. The dice gods conspired against him at the worst possible moment. (I can report he did not go winless through the whole tournament though)
Game Three- VS. pKaya (Adam)
There are some match ups that just aren't good for one player or another. Adam was playing a high mobility hit and run force with Warpwolves and teleporting stones. I was running a Centurion with polarity field and a Defender that really hates teleporting stones.
I parked in his objective and sat comfortably behind the Centurion. I was doing my own hit and run with the Minuteman who killed the Gallows grove and damaged one of his wolves.
In the end, after much manoeuvre (met by Defender fire) the wolves just ran into melee with the Centurion, where Sieges feat and flanking Sword knights chopped them into bloody piles of dog meat. The game ended with Kaya being charged by the Centurion after every other model had been killed.
In this case I was lucky to have the perfect rock to go against this set of scissors.
Game Four- VS. pVayl (Marc)
In case you don't know, I hate playing against Legion. I find legion to be the force that has an easy answer to just about everything I do. They seem to be able to out manoeuvre, out shoot and out spell me. I mainly blame Chris P for this sense of impending dread when I see legion across the table from me.
As far as legion match ups went I thought I had a good one here. The Raptors relied on shooting and I could grant my infantry cover. If I could pick them off one by one I could use my Jacks and Knights to bring down the Beasts.
As you can see from the pic to your left the Centurion stayed way out in front while everyone hung out in Sieges fox hole. Mr Minuteman was on hit and run duties and accounted for at least one or two Raptors.
The plan worked really well. With the Raptors picked off by shooting I really had to deal only with the beasts and the caster.
It was all looking good until I over extended myself and the Angelius swept down on Siege. I thought I was toast as the Angelius smashed into Siege doing 17 points total damage.
Yep Siege survived on one damage box. Vayl unfortunately got pinned in melee by Sword Knights and hacked into tiny cube chunks of blight. Marc played very well and deserved to win this game, but as Baker says "If in doubt, steal a win"
Another game where dice came up good for me.... however my luck would soon change
Game Five- VS. Xerxes (Daniel)
Fantastic paint work
This list of Daniels must have been a nightmare for many of his opponents. A Bronzeback, a big unit of super tough heavy infantry and an Archidon for speed. It was a big nasty wall of death.
Our forces met around one objective (The other saw a strange aerial fight between the Minuteman and Archidon that ended with the Archidon frenzying and charging his own dudes) and locked into combat with the Bronzeback holding back.
This was a close game, and really I lost on a rookie mistake. I needed to do two more boxes of damage to one of his infantry, which would have freed up my Centurion to slam his Bronzeback off the objective for the win.
In my stupidity I forgot they had reach and ended up being pinned in melee.
Then Daniel pulled a move for the ages. The Bronzeback charged Xerxes and used his animus to move around my Centurion to attack Siege. It was a thing of disturbing beauty to watch this Bronzeback run amok. What was a desperation move on Daniels part proved to be an absolute game winner.
A great game that was sadly let down by the dumb scenario that neither of us liked. It's hard to cover objectives on two sides of the board with 25 points.
Game Six - VS. Kallus (Rob VDW)
My punishment for losing was to play Legion again. WEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
This is the game of the weekend where I really feel I was out played and totally deserved to lose. First of all I didn't read the scenario well enough and didn't realise that you could only score off each objective once. I tried to hold both with split my forces.
Secondly, I wasted my feat leaving Rob in a good position to counter attack.
Thirdly, Rob used his feat well. He got up in my grill early and said "go on, kill my troopers, I dare you"
I even did some mediocre sportsmanship and wouldn't let Rob take back an action (Admittedly he had declared a charge and measured it before remembering he hadn't cast a spell on his previous activation). This was a charge attack that would have won him the game so I didn't feel too bad about it.
The key lesson for me in this game was read the damm scenario. If I only had to hold one objective to stop him getting two points I would have bunkered my Centurion down on one obejective as opposed to splitting up and trying to cover both (as shown in picture)
Game Seven - VS. pSeverus (Alex the lucky bastard)
First up, look at this picture. See that body of deep water? That was in front of my deployment area, the only time terrain had an impact on a game and it was freaking deep water right in front of the objectives.
This picture is the aftermath of what must be the most tin ass ending to a Warmachine game ever. By all logic I had Alex on the ropes. His infantry unit had 2 guys left (passed a morale check), his caster was wounded and pinned in melee by a Sword Knight and a Centurion. His Guardian had 4 or 5 damage boxes left and all systems crippled except cortex. His Repenter was out of position and Severius was injured.
My Centurion was undamaged, as was the Minuteman. Siege was in cover with 10 health and my Jnr had lost his Defender but was 100% fine. Sevy had used his feat and Siege had 0 focus.
Here is how his turn went.
Assign 1 focus to the Guardian and Repenter, keep the rest on the caster.
Guardian attacks with its crippled pike and boosts, getting a double and throwing the centurion away
Repenter flames Severius, missing him and killing the Sword Knight pinning him
Zealot run near to Siege
Severius casts ashes to ashes on his own guy, damage arcs to Siege and he boosts rolling a 16, the exact amount required to kill him
Funny sunny stuff.
You don't mind being beaten by one in a million shots and Alex promptly exploded into laughter (The good kind, not the a**hole HAHAHA I BEAT YOU kind)
Stuff like this is why you play the game!
Alex was also a hoot to play against, probably the most fun game of the weekend.
CONCLUSIONS
I had a blast and I really enjoyed the format as it created a whole new set of issues to deal with and you had to pick a list that could take on all opponents. Some of the scenarios and table set ups leaved a lot to be desired, but that will get better next time I'm sure.
The games were good, the company was good and overall a great time.
Special thanks to Chris O for organising the accommodation and travel and to Tom for doing all the driving! Cheers guys!
A NOOBs guide to Warmachine - Part Five - Making a list
"Making a list and checking it twice, Finding out who's naughty and nice Warmachine is coming to town!"
At some point you will move away from playing battle box games and will start to put together your own army lists to play. This is some of the best fun you can have with the game, the constant thinking and internal debate about what goes with what, and how you can win with it.
I'm not going to offer and extensive guide on how to pick lists because a.) It would fill a book or 10, b.) the game will change faster than I could write it, and c.) I suck at Warmachine and taking actual specific game advice from me would be a dumb thing to do.
Get your thinking cap on
First of all, get to know the models you have. Read about them, play with them, figure out how they work together. There are uncountable synergies in this game and many of them aren't that obvious. Knowing what your forces can do is integral to building a good list.
Your first thought should always be "How will I win with this list". This is the easy part in many ways. Your choice of caster will largely shape how you will go about winning.
Look at your caster, think "What this chap/chapette/abomination good for"? How can they contribute? Is it their awesome firepower, spells, combat ability, feat, what do they do. When you are looking at a caster you think, OOOOOOO THEY CAN DO THIS, AND THIS, AND THIS, AND THIS!
Then you total up how much that would all take and it comes to around 20 Focus or so. You never have enough Focus/Fury so figure out you will use all the time. some of the time, and rarely.
Also figure out how many jacks/beasts you can run effectively. Too few and you wont be taking advantage of jacks/beast effectively (Probably more important for Warlocks honestly), too many and you wont have enough focus to power them, or FURY to stop them running off.
Once you understand how the caster works, you can flesh out the rest of the force around them.
Picking your list
Writing a guide on this is dumb, as their is WAY too much to talk about, so how about I just put out some ideas to help you focus.
Will the models I've picked benefit from my casters spells
How will I handle Heavy Armour targets
I will I hit High Defence targets
How will I deal with my opponents Stealth
Do I have magic weapons for Incorporeal enemies
I will I deal with an infantry swarms?
I will i cope if my opponent drops Cloud effects everywhere to block line of sight?
Can I deal with rough terrain?
Focus/Fury (Do you have enough?)
How do I stop Enemy Assassination runs (Melee, Shooting or magic?)
Can I capture and hold objectives effectively?
Do the units i've picked work well together? Are their obvious synergies?
Do I have the right solos? Or am I paying extra points for a gimmick that doesn't help much?
Will I be outnumbered, how do I stop my key units getting tied up?
How will I deal with a fast moving enemy that can run, teleport, leave combat, has parry or ghostly?
What if my opponent has units immune to Shooting/Magic/Charges/Blast damage
How do I deal with a Colossal or Gargantuan?
Any other suggestions from the floor (I will update this list as time goes by)
Now don't get me wrong, Not all lists can do all things but you have to be prepared for each of these eventualities. Your tactic for heavy armour might be "Hold it up with cheap models and/or run away from it". You don't need to do all of these things, but you should think about how you will deal with them when they turn up across the table from you.
Case in point Sicarius, who reads this blog, played me in a tournament at the start of the year. He had a number of incorporeal models in his list..... I had 2 magic weapons in my whole force. Needless to say, things did not go well for me that game.
The last two points here are really personal ones for me and are key for how I look at the game
Will this list be fun to play?
Did I do the thinking myself?
I hope if you are reading this guide you are one of the people who doesn't just copy lists from successful players online. If you are one of those people, I suggest thinking for yourself. Winning with someone else's creation is only half a victory and not doing the thinking into making a list wont make you any better at playing the game. By all means get inspired by peoples thinking online, just don't be a clone.
So, you have decided to give Warmachine a go…. good for you. Here is
your “play like you have a pair” T-Shirt and matching cap, pick up your tesla
cannon at the door. Welcome to the revolution comrade.
I’m not going to go into the
rules, that’s far too complicated for a blog post. Your first game will almost
certainly be a confusing experience, there is a lot going on in this game… what
I can offer is some maxims and advice for how to pick up the system, and how to
maximise your learning experience
I covered some of this in an earlier post, but I will remind you that it
is easier to learn off a veteran player. So find a friend who plays or track
down a “press ganger”, they should be easy enough to find at your local games
store or on the privateer press forums
Start small
Take small steps when
learning the system. The worst thing to do is to dive straight in and try to
play a massive battle with multiple casters and 100 figures. Your brain will
melt. The good thing about Warmachine is it works really well with only a
handful of models. Start with what is called a battlegroup or a warpack. This
is one Warcaster with a small group of warjacks and/or beasts.
Your
first game should be a simple assassination mission. So the only objective is
to kill your opponents Warcaster without losing your own.
Ask Questions
Never, ever be afraid to ask
questions. If you are confused about something that is happening just shout out
to whoever you are playing. Your not stupid for asking questions, I’ve played
very experienced players and they still need to ask about various units
abilities from time to time.
Learn your models powers
Starting small means you
only have a few units to remember. Get to know them well and what they can do.
Often the difference between a win and a loss is remembering that a model can
do a certain thing that you forgot about until after the game.
Skorne Warpack
Know your enemy
Sun
Tsu said “know yourself and know your enemy and you will totally crush everyone
with your massive biceps of doom……” or words to that effect.
Ask
to read your opponents cards and ask them if there is anything you should
really know about (like that their entire army is ghosts and can only be shot
with magic bullets). If a model does something that sounds odd or you haven’t
encountered ask, about it.
Keep your caster safe – Line of sight
Most new players get killed
by caster assassinations, we don’t quite realize how quick and deadly the game
can be and want to use the casters awesome cool powers. Keep your caster
covered until you are more confident with their capabilities.
Also, note the line of sight
rules. If you can be seen you can normally be shot.
Pick up the rules, do this after you have
played a game
Reading
the rulebook cover to cover before you play the first time probably won’t help
you that much, it a lot to take in. Pick up the rules after a game so you have
some context for how everything works.
Get a postgame debrief
Talk about the game once it’s done. Often you can feel like you have
been crushed only to find out that your opponent was really worried you might
have done X instead of Y. Sometimes it’s just one mistake that means the
difference between winning and losing. Find out what they thought of the game
and how it went. I learn a lot from post match debriefs with good players
Everyone needs a mentor
Find a
mentor – Talk to people
This should probably be the person teaching you the game. When you are
learning its good to be able to talk about what you have done and what you plan
to do next game (Shout out to Sean and the rest of the Port Nicholson
Privateers).
Most gamers are keen to talk about the game they love, so just get
involved in the conversations that happen…. Even if that means just listening
in to what’s going on.
However, don’t buy into all the BS that happens on forums and don’t use “prepaged
army lists”. Forums can lead to a group think that says “X is the winner, Y is
the loser” and a lot of what is said is theory or relevant only to that persons
local group.
I say read what is said, think about it, but don’t take anything as
gospel (except this guide of course)
Losing doesn’t mean you suck
You
need resilience when playing this game. When I started playing I heard that
“You need to play 20 games before you start to win any”. While I have done a
little better than that the sentiment is entirely true. The game is hard, its
vicious and there are people who play it very well. Don’t expect to kick everyone’s
butt straight out the gate…. This is especially true if you were very good at
other wargames.
Look for the
challenge
View
the game as a challenge, ask yourself “how do I get better”, “What did I do
wrong” and “How overpowered is that?”. I think of Warmachine like it’s a big
complicated puzzle. I love figuring out how I messed up and what I can do
better.
.
.
Also, DON’T BUY ANY
MODELS YET!
I can’t stress this enough,
don’t waste your hard earned (borrowed or stolen) cash on models for a game you
might not end up enjoying. We shall leave the advice of loading you up with
models for a game that you end up not liking for other game systems.
Beg, borrow or steal models
until you know what you want to play and that you actually like the game.
.
.
Have fun!
I cannot over emphasis this
enough. If you aren’t having fun, don’t play. It’s just a game after all.
Valleycon – A how to lose at Warmachine special edition!
Apologies in advance to anyone whose names I forget or spell wrong
Well this is not going to be a short post, but I’m not going to recount every detail of every game. I’ll settle for a healthy middle ground of talking about the highlights… and low lights.
First off, cheers to Chris Otton for both organizing the event and getting my wallet back after I left it at the venue. Also, cheers to Craig for a lift to and from the event; many thanks to you two.
Overall, I think I played relatively well, I dealt with the clock better than I expected and only got totally pantsed in one round (By the eventually tournament winner no less). I still had to ask a fair few questions, but I didn’t drag too many games down into a morass of “how does this work again”…. At least I think I didn’t
I ended up tied for the sportsmanship award, so at least a few people didn’t find me annoying to play against. (The winner of that was Craig, winning a roll off)
Most importantly, I missed out on winning the title of Swamp Gobber! Yes my intrepid readers, someone had a worse time of it than I did! The winner of that esteemed prize is my old friend Boyd.
Boyd may be swamp gobber, but his Menoth looked good!
Every 35-point or higher game of Warmachine MKII I have ever played is documented on this site. I headed into my first tournament with a stunning 7 games experience, and a 2-5 record (1-1 vs Warmachine, 1-4 vs Hordes. more on that later)
One regret is that I didn't take more photos
The Lists
I took two lists to play, one is the siege list as seen here
The second list was a pStryker list consisting of
pStryker
Lancer
Lancer
Ironclad
10 Long Gunners, Standard and Officer
6 Trencher, 3 trencher Grenadiers, Sniper and Officer
Journeyman Warcaster
It’s a simple list. Lancers get arcane shield and act like heavy arc nodes. Stryker hangs out buffing troops and launching earth quakes. And the damage is done mostly from large combined range attacks.
Round One! Stryker vs. Menoth (Josh)
The tournament was full of scenario play, something it appears I am very very bad at. I managed to get one scenario point all weekend, so if I forget what mission was being played…. It’s probably because it didn’t make much difference to the result.
First up was Josh, a nice young fellow from Napier who had come all the way to Wellington to represent! Josh fielded pKreoss against Stryker and the game instantly had an old school feeling to it, two starter casters going up against each other.
The mission had two control areas in the middle of the board.
Josh outplayed me and he set up very well. His trio of jacks set up against my long gunners… and were made immune to ranged attacks. This made my long gunners useless for a good chunk of the game. He also set up his unit with hunter opposite my trenchers; this allowed his guys to ignore the fact my boys were dug in. Kreoss hid at the back of the army, right behind his wall of heavy jacks
My new Lancer!
His infantry dealt to my trenchers, and would have smashed through if not for a few earthquakes slowing him down. By half way he had slammed my ironclad out of the objective area and had scored a point. His heavy jacks kept coming and his infantry was about to sweep through, Stryker’s feat turn (Bonus armour for the win) bought me some time, but he held one objective and was about to claim the other.
Then Kreoss moved out from the wall he had been hiding behind.
Immediately after this my Lancer disengaged from his infantry, giving up the 2nd objective and ran across the board. One earthquake later and the heavy jack wall is down. Long gunners move and shoot Kreoss crippling him and the journeyman warcaster finishes him off with a boosted shot.
A win by assassination! One round, one win. I’m feeling pretty good about now.
Round Two! Siege vs. Khador (Mike)
Battle lines are drawn, here comes the Khador juggers!
Right, so the way the tournament works is if your doing well, you play others doing well. So by winning the first round I got to play against someone else who had won. Ok, I thought, this should be interesting
This mission had some complicated rules involving an artillery piece and multiple control areas… I mention this in passing because they didn’t come into play.
Mike, the older of the two visitors from Napier was another good chap to play against. We both had a bit of a laugh while we were playing, and after playing him and Josh I’m tempted to go up to the Napier event.
Mike played Karchev the terrible, supported by two heavy jacks and the super heavy Behemoth. I took Siege, as I figured the only way to do anything would be to crack that heavy armour with Sieges feat and the Defenders.
This was the shortest match I played during the weekend. No sooner had the march of the Khador heavy jacks begun it was over. In round two, in order to attack my commandos who had snuck forward and killed his mages, mike decided to advance his beasty tough warcaster over to attack them.
I couldn’t believe he just parked his undefended warcaster, no matter how tough, in front of Siege and two defenders. One feat and two boosted shots later and Karchev was toast.
Mike lost this game, I didn’t win it, by marching out in front of the big guns he gave me a target I couldn’t ignore. After the game that’s all I could tell him really, he acknowledged that he just didn’t think it through.
Credit to the commandos for being a juicy target I guess!
So my all time record is now 4-5 and 3-1 vs. Warmachine!
Mikes Khador, I love the banners!
Round Three! Siege vs. Legion. (Chris P)
“Ah Crap!”
That’s what I said after hearing the draw for round three. I was up against someone else who had won two rounds and it was Chris P (the P stands for “I’m gonna pants you in this game)
I still have no answers for the Legion of Everblight apparently.
This will be a short report as all I did was flail around like a muppet while Chris tore my force to bits. He managed to wipe out half my commandos before my first turn, and things didn’t get better. I totally underestimate just how far his threat range is, and those big beasts have a nasty attack that will damage people dug in…. not cool!
Chris used the cover way better than I did, his force was more mobile, and generally he was on top of me before I could do anything and I played like a pinned down force all game.
Thanks to Absylonnia, his warlock, I managed a grand total of killing one light beast and a forsaken. He cured all the rest of the damage.
Chris lays the smack down!
I do have some small comfort in the fact Chris went on to win the whole tournament though. He plays very very well and one of my goals in Warmachine is to get good enough to play him on even terms. A lofty goal, because he’s yet to make anything resembling a mistake in the games we have played.
Ah Sean, the smiling assassin! He’s a Great guy to play against especially if you’re a new player. Always helpful in game and will give you very good advice in the post game breakdown. He will however, cheerfully smash your forces if you give him half a chance.
This was a bad match up for me. Sean picked eDenegra and an army made up of a fair number of incorporeal models. I had two magic weapons in pStrykers force so this was not gonna be an easy match.
I messed up by deploying my gunners in a forest that prevented them shooting in the first turn. That being said the game was closer than it probably should have been. Sean had the control points pretty early on, and I just couldn’t deal with his ghosts.
However, my ARM 21 Lancers proved to be very difficult for him to dislodge, and the whole game was played out with a small chance of one of them breaking loose to arc node Denegra in the face with magic blasts from Stryker.
Sadly for me, this didn’t eventuate and as resilient as my guys proved to the undead advance, Sean had the control points locked down early on.
Sean went on to come 3rd in the tournament, well played that man!
Denegra is a dirty coward! Come get some I say!
Round Five! Siege vs. Menoth. (Nic)
This was the one game I thought I had pretty early on. Nic was fielding a very heavy melee centric Menoth force that didn’t have choirs due to tier limits. EKroess is all exemplars, all the time and the force was two units of knights, one cavalry, bastions and 3 big warjacks. For my siege list for this was nearly a perfect match up.
The commandos had anatomical precision which is a perfect foil for the Knights ability to increase their armour. The warjacks and bastions are slow, so the cannons and siege could pound them and Sieges feat could spell doom for either heavy unit.
His cavalry fell early to Siege and the Defenders heavy barrels. His Jacks advanced to cover off one of the objectives. My commados managed to run to his side of the board forcing him to commit a unit of knights to defend against them, who got bogged down in forest and sprayed with scatter guns.
The end came swiftly when he advanced Kreoss behind his wall of exemplar bastions. Siege dropped his foxhole on the Bastions, giving the Defenders and Siege a clear shot at Kreoss. One feat and 3 shots later Kreoss was toast.
This was a classic case of rock beating scissors. A slow moving, but very tough melee force will have difficulty against Siege and his big guns. A Choir, or some other Menoth buffs not allowed due to the tier restrictions would have made all the difference.
3 win, 2 losses. Going well!
Round Six! Siege vs. Gators. (Casey)
In my opinion this was the best game of the event, and the worst game of the event for me.
I was matched up against Casey and his Gatormen, an army he had made to deal with shooting forces. This was a dream draw for him, a gun centric force and he could make most of his force immune to shooting pretty easily with multiple 5” “immune to shooting” bubbles.
It was a complicated scenario with one control point, but a second area you had to sacrifice models in to score.
My initial plan worked very well, I spread my forces wide with the Trenchers, Maxwell and Grenadier to take the objective on the left, Siege and the defenders covering the middle and the commados and chain guns on the right ready for the sacrifice.
Swamp monsters!
This forced Casey to split his forces somewhat, allowing me to do some damage. Afetr the 2nd turn it looked like Casey was going to win hands down as my left flank looked like it was about to collapse.
Cue Sieges feat round.
Gatormen might have lots of health, but when their armour is halved any decent shot can take them out. And this happened in Sieges feat round.
All of a sudden I had the upper hand, I had cleared the control zone and Casey’s beasts were far away from taking it back. In order to reclaim it, they had to walk right past my warjacks.
Casey was forced to send his warlock in to take care of business. He was the only model left contesting the objective, if I removed him from the zone I would win on control points, or I could kill him and score a caster kill.
Siege slammed him with a spell, but due to placement of terrain it meant he didn’t fly back the 5 inches out of the control zone, he stopped where he was and contested on his back.
This was a matter of millimetres of terrain and angle. I was a little disappointed that the move hadn’t worked, and the rest of my force worked Barnabas over until he had 3 health left.
The next turn Casey got his turtles within striking range of Siege and killed him.
I think I played out of my skin in this game, while I didn’t win I think I played as well as I could. I took on an army built to deal with Cygnar and my play style and took it to the limit. If Siege could have moved one more inch to cast that spell to change the angle I would have won. This game nearly went to time, it was by far the longest game I played in the tournament.
But that’s Warmachine, it’s a game where small distances can mean worlds in the result of the game.
Casey ended up coming 5th with his Gators and Farrow. It was especially good to see an army I haven’t faced before, there were many surprises and I really like the look and feel of the Gatormen.
Round Seven! Strkyer vs. Circle (Rikki)
Rikki was another one of the out of towners, from either Hamilton or Auckland (I forget sorry).
Rikki was a top drawer guy to play against, and I’m glad I had him in the last round. We both had a bit of a laugh while we played and the game never got tense at all.
Circle is another army that gives me issues, but I thought I played pretty well against this list. It was Baldur, many Wolds, some druids and those little floating laser shooting woldlettes.
Both of us had shooting and high defence, so it was a game of manoeuvre and a lot of misses. Difficult terrain, anti-magic and forests made my shooting tricky, and Rikki had similar issues with my armour buffs and dug in units.
The game was just getting close when time was called. Rikki had a wold on a charge into Stryker, who had popped his feat. My trenchers had engaged his druids and my lancers were closing on Baldur. My Ironclad was going toe to toe with Megalith and having got the first shot and under the feat may have stood a chance!
If the game had gone to its natural conclusion I think it would have been a classic. As it stands, the short time frame robbed us of a conclusion, which was a bit disappointing. Rikki had just score a control point, so he won the game.
Rikki, if you read this I’d like a rematch at some point J
Conclusions
I ended up on 3 win and 4 losses, not bad considering this was a tournament and I’m still a noob at this.
Interestingly my all time record is now 5-9 with 3-2 vs. Warmachine and 2-7 vs. Hordes. I think I need to seriously work on how I deal with the hordes factions, as they seem to have my number.
As for the event, it was very well run and I had a blast. Would do it again sometime, hopefully with more games under my belt.
Additional Bonus Photos!
Matt, who I played in an early game and his Circle. I love the bases!
Scotts Legion, my vote for best painted force!
Seans other list, would love to have played this instead!
So my last warm up game before valleycon was against Chris P and his Legion of Everblight. You will hear many words used to describe the Legion of Everblight..... over the top, over powered, cheesy, broken..... the usual rant people have when they think a faction is too strong (or they aren't good enough to deal with it)
Well, I was not good enough to deal with the legion of this day…. So yes, they must be overpowered….. that or I’m not very good at this game (checks all time scorecard of 2-5)
:(
But really, what is the Legion of Everblight? Well, they are a faction of bloodmagic bioengineered dragony lizard monsters supported by corrupted elves and ogres. The beasts are very nasty looking, all mouths and sharp pointy bits. I really like the bioengineered nature of Everblight and it contrasts nicely with the other dragon led faction of Cryx (With its necromantic steam tech)
THE GAME
Right, so I was up against Chris who was using Bethane as his caster. Now she’s a funny one as she comes with her own personal monster (kind of like alice cooper on the muppets that one time) and she can merge with it in game….. it’s a weird mechanic but Chris says he never uses it.
Her theme force is focused on magic users as her feat gives boosted attack and damge rolls to magic effects. So the army I was up against had two big monsters, a lot of stealthy mages and a bunch of other support units.
Foolishly I decided to test out a completely new caster and list. This force was so spangly and new I don’t even have photos of some of the core models
THE LIST
Haley! She has temporal barrier which slows people down and a feat that gives everyone an extra attack! Surely this is a winning proposition!
Her theme list shaked out something like this
pHaley
Defender
Hunter
Lancer
Two units of 6 Long gunners
Long gunner officer and standard
6 Sword Knights
10 Precursor Knights
Precursor Knight officer and standards
The idea being that the Knights can tarpit (hold the line) well, the lancer could harass with it’s arc node and the big squads of gunners could do some damage….. well it was a theory at least,
THE GAME
It was the “three objectives across the middle of the table mission” which is a good one I think. I set up with a unit of gunners on each flank, sword knights on the right with the lancer. The Knights and the gun jacks were in the middle with Haley…. The cool thing about the Knights is they don’t block line of sight for my own shooters! THIS IS GOOD!
Right, lets move forward and get in position to start shooting at his infantry. I can totally hide inside Haley’s temporal bubble and delay his guys advance and pick them to pieces, then counter charge with my knights and get home in time for tea and crumpets
What do you mean all the infantry is stealthed?
What do you mean I totally forgot about Haleys temporal barrier and spent all my focus?
What do you mean that one spell you arc noded killed and entire squad of long gunners?
What do you mean I’m rolling 10s to hit in melee?
What do you mean that monster can fire through that forest and I can’t?
As the previous statements suggest, this wasn’t a close game. I didn’t push forward far enough and forgot haleys temporal barrier on the turn it would have been useful. Seriously…… dumbass move right there. Chris played clinically, and just rammed his forces down my armies throat, took the objectives and proceeded to do a little dance
Most of this is all down to me being a muppet…. If I wasn’t such a muppet I may have given him a proper game (I’m not saying the result would have been different, just saying it would have been closer)
I would say I was forgetting stuff because I was trying to rush my turns to get used to the idea of playing timed turns.... but that's a cop out really.
LESSONS LEARNED
Well for 10 points I’ll start with “when using Haley, remember when to use temporal barrier”….. that’s a good one
But there were a few gems to pull out here
Eyeless sight, everblight has it and can shoot through forests
Always take something to deal with stealth
Lancers with arcane shield are Armour 21 Arc nodes……. That’s got to be useful
Two units of long gunners aren’t that great. Probably better using one big unit with the Officer. 10” from the objective sounds like a good place to put them
