A Call to Arms - (A how to lose a Warmachine special)

A Call to Arms – A How to lose at Warmachine special

First up, big shout outs to Sicarius for running an awesome event. We had great tables, good organisations, awesome prizes and all the good things you expect at an event like this. 

Well readers, let me say I had a tournament to forget.  Don’t get me wrong, I had a plenty good time and met some great people. My main lament is that I played about as well as a drunk panda with head trauma….. I could put it down to sickness but in the end, I simple didn’t play the game well as I hoped I would. Not the dice, nor the flu, but simply bone headed moves of dumbness that my excellent opponents capitalised on.

Also, heres a bonus shot of all the colossals that were at the tournament. It’s also worth noting that as a faction Cygnar came dead last….

I took two lists to the tournament but ended up playing the same one 6 times in 7 games. Funny how that always works out (I’ve now played Siege in 17 of the 21 games I’ve played at tournaments, time for a change?)

Game one vs. Chris Parkin (Legion)

Those of you who have read this column before may have seen my previous battle reports against Chris and his Legion (One and Two).  Let me assure you that this game went much the same way. 

Cygnar shoots…. Hit a few times…. Misses more…. Does some damage ….. absyolnnia heals them all ….. Legion eats Cygnar.

Chris has a nice relentless play style and I saw a few new tricks from him that I hadn’t seen previously. The Angelius Animus that repulses models is a game winner when you are playing scenarios.  I was playing pHaley backed up with storm knights, b13th, storm strider and support. I used my feat on a shooting round and whiffed. In retrospect I should have saved it for an assault round as when the storm knights did throw down with the Legion Beast they did respectable damage (Pendrake boosting their to hit rolls was a real asset).

Chris focussed on the objectives and easily scored a scenario victory and I really didn’t have an answer for him.

I removed my guys first, but thats what was waiting for me on the objectives

Result – Legion doesn’t eat all of Cygnar and instead scores the scenario win. 0-1

Game two vs Chris Otton (Cryx)

Sometime a game goes all one players’ way until the last dice roll when they lose. That was this game for Chris Otton. I took my Siege force with a Stormwall, Sentinal, Rangers and support units vs Denegra, thralls, Wraith engine and a trio of jacks.

Let me say that the Wraith Engine is awesome, both in appearance and effect. Incorporeal on a model that size is really annoying and the “I kill you, get a soul token, buy another attack and kill you” thing is just downright mean. Chris also proved that the best cure for a Stormwall is some debuffs and a group of weapon masters.

But check out this picture as it shows Chris’s one error and the dire position I was in. With an inert Sentinal, Siege, Reinholdt , one ranger and the Squire left on the field Chris Decided to park Denegra by the objective to get the additional victory points. Clouds and Stealth do not keep you safe from mage sight, Rat 10 and boosted Power 14 rocket shots.

Two smoking high heels later and Chris couldn’t believe he had thrown the game away. I mean, I was packing up as I thought the scenario was to 2 control points and not 3.

Sometimes you win a game, sometimes your opponent loses one. I can claim no real credit for this win but as baker says “if in doubt, steal a win”

Result- no control points but Siege chalked up another caster to his doom rockets (1-1)

Game three vs. Rick (Khador)

Speaking of bone headed moves, this game has one epic case of me saying “THAT DOES WHAT NOW?” and an assassination run that left many people in stitches laughing at my ass.

This game was going quite well for me. Siege had blown away the Khador reinforcements, Beast 09 was damaged badly and disrupted and my rangers and gun mages (reinforcements) had done a number on the Kyazy. All in all it was looking like a game where I could get some scenario points. But check out the picture below.

The distance between the Khador Battle Engine is exactly 10 inches.  Siege was in his fox hole saying “Meh, its got big guns and im def 18 immune to blast…. They couldn’t possibly hit me from…..”. then the engine charged, knocked him down and applied cannon to face until he was dead.

I was quite stunned, I had no idea they were that fast and could fire in melee after charging. Even camping focus Siege was hit with 5 high power attacks and collapsed into a sad pile of wibbly wobbly gooey siege chunks. 

Well done Rick, that was one of those serious “WTF just happened” moments for me. This is also the first time I have ever lost to Khador.

Result – Siege changes his name to “Hubcap” Khador wins (1-2)

Game four vs. Thomas (Cygnar)

I’m not going to say much about this game as Thomas and I agree it was not much fun. It was pHaley and Stormwall vs Siege and Stormwall and that should have been interesting. However I was feeling rather sick by this point and a terrible accident occurred early in the game which saw all of Thomas 2^nd list being smashed on the floor.

Thomas was clearly off his game after that and so was I. No one likes seeing someone else models badly damaged and after that point we both made poor moves and generally played like puddings. 

Thomas’s ambient skill level was higher and he carried the day by applying a Stormwall to Siege’s face, but only after Siege had flubbed an easy assassination run on Haley (her on one focus, ranger in range, breach and I forgot to use reinholdt for the 2nd shot and missed terribly on the first roll). This is also after Thomas failed an assassination run after messing up his own timing as well.

Not a fun game for either of us. I was glad to get home and rest.

Result – Haley survives, Siege gets buried in a tin can. (1-3)

Game five vs. Nic (Menoth)

So after a good nights sleep (and some groaning and wailing on the sofa of suffering that evening) I arrived fresh and feeling a lot better for day two. I pretty much needed to win every remaining game compressively to end up middle of the pack. As you shall see that really didn’t happen.

Nic and I had played once before at Valleycon and his list looked similar to the one he played there. Kreoss, Exemplars, Errants, Bastions and Jacks backed up by a choir.

This is honestly a dream matchup for Siege and his list. Choirs aren’t a problem when you can grant magic attacks to units and lightning attacks can arc from the jacks to kill the Choir. Bastions HATE breach, it means small arms fire is doing enough damage to kill a Bastion outright. My stormcallers did enough damage to kill a bastion or two non the breach round.

The hero of the day was the lightning pod though. Disrupting the menoth jacks blunted Nics attack on my centre (Stormwall, Siege, StormStrider) and the lightning arcs killed off his support troops. Disrupted, without choirs and vassals menoth jacks don’t stand a chance against a rampaging collosal.

This game nearly went to time though, I think Nic and I were playing pretty casually and it wasn’t until my clock got below 10 minutes that I really knuckled down and started to play fast.

Kreoss had learnt from our previous game and stayed far away from Siege.

Result – Stormwall and Siege sit on the objective cooking hot dogs with menoth fire while Kreoss beats a retreat and hides behind a shrub. (2-3)

Game six vs Will (Cryx)

First mistake, took Siege list as I was feeling good from the big win over Nic. Second mistake…. Playing the game…. But seriously, Will fielded terminus and the largest pile of Undead I have ever seen.  There were probably 50 models on the other side of the table…. With tough…. Ugly ugly stuff.

I love the goggly eyes

Will played mercilessly and some of the highlights were my Gun Mages reinforcements missing almost their entire round of shooting only to be exploded by a bile thrall, A group of Satyxis eating my Storm Strider for breakfast and a Stormwall so badly debuffed that Mechanathralls were rlling straight damage dice in melee….. Its amazing how many mechanithralls you can fit around one models base. (I’ll give you a hint, enough to scrap a Colossal in one turn).

I made some major mistakes, some by psyching myself out about the size of the enemy force, and some because Will crammed a legion of corpses down my forces throat.

I misinterpreted how sacrificial lamb work (thought it counted for melee) and botched an assassination run at Terminus with the Stormwall. Played again I would have focussed on clearing the charge lane and not worrying about the models around him. Even terminus has to worry about a collosal engaging him in melee, especially during Sieges feat round.

But all credit to Will, a solid ass kicking if ever there was one.

Result – Terminus and the undead horde wreck everything but Siege survives a face to face battle with Terminus. Objetive victory to the evil cryxies (2-4)

Game seven vs Matthew (Khador)

Well my target of 4 wins was in the toilet so the last game was playing for pride.

A shout out to Matthew who is a great guy to play against with a great attitude and some amazing models. He would have been my pic for the painting trophy as I simply love his painting style and his Fenris conversion is simply fantastic. HES RIDING A BEAR GODDAMMIT

In another grossly unfair match up the forces of the butcher were matched up against Siege and his Stormwall. Matthews force was a mix of fast moving aggressive units like the Great bears, Manhunters and Fenris, Big chunky Beast 09 and Gun Carraige, and support models like widowmakers.

He pulled a nice move to swing around behind my formation to make an assassination run on Siege. Unfortunately guys like Fenris don’t last long against Siege and Breach. The Manhunters got ground pounded, Beast disrupted, his support units ate lightning and the gun carriage made little impact on Sieges fox hole.

Facing desperate times the Butcher took some swings at the Stormwall and very nearly killed it. It is amazing how much damage that guy can put on one model. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite enough and Arlan repaired the damage weapon systems that allowed Stormwall to pound Butcher into a nice fine paste.

Result – Nearly total wipe out but sadly only 1 CP…. (3-4)

                                 

Conclusion

32^nd out of 45 was not the result I was going for, but I learned a lot and when I wasn’t feeling like death I had a good time.  Look forward to the next one but im probably gonan take a break from painting warmachine to focus on some other projects. I will also get around to photographing the models I finished for the tournament as well.

BONUS CONTENT

Mike O’sullivan may have finished last in the points, but he has the most amazing conversions. I shared some of his bases from a game we played in Napier but hes really out done himself here. These Wraith engines are so over the top I cant help but take my hat off to him.

  

Stormwall - Complete

Yeah! Look who is large and in charge, its my goddam Stormwall that's who.

This was an epic paint job over a two week period, not as long as you might expect either (I wasnt painting 24/7 by any means). I did learn a couple of interesting lessons while doing this sick puppy and heres my advice for anyone planning on doing one.

Pinning isn't a must. This is 95% held together with just super glue and its been remarkably stable. I only pinned the torso to the hips and one of the arms (The left one, mostly because i'd put the shoulder shield on in an annoying place so the arm wouldn't go flush into the socket).

I also painted it fully assembled and that didn't present too many issues. I either held the model by the base (like a waiter holds a drink tray) or placed my thumb under its groin and another finger on the main smoke stack. (And immediately after typing that word he notices he hasn't done the smoke stacks yet... doh!). The models weight can cause some strain on the wrist after a while though.

The sheer size of the model has its positives and negatives. The massive surface areas mean doing the base coat is really easy, you can be really messy and fast and its still very easy to tidy up as you progress through your paint layers.

The biggest challenge on the model was the areas of white. None of my current Warjacks sport the alternate Cygnar blue/White pattern but I thought it would be great on the Stormwall. With all those big areas you really need something to break the model up so its not just one big blue blob. The white gives the model more space and actually makes it look a little bigger.

The white was done in many layers, starting off white brown, through leather, then bone and finally white. The white was very lightly washed over the joints in the arms and legs to give the highlighting a little more subtlety.

I'm also pleased how well the blue citadel glaze worked on the tesla coils to give them a nice crisp shiny look.

The Stormwall is also a model that lends itself well to weathering effects. A little grime and dirt makes the model more believable and helps break up those massive single colour areas.  I'm very pleased with the mud effects on the feet and knees especially. Nothing looks dirtier than mud flung onto a freshly painted white model. 

And in combat?

Well its been a mixed bag so far. Mainly due to my opponents trying everything in their power to cripple and smash it as soon as possible.

A couple of quick tactical tips I've picked up are.

• Lightning pods are Def 5 and immune to lightning. Other models can target them with lightning attacks that arc and this is a great way to damage stealth units.
• Covering fire can go out to the weapon range, but its almost always better to place them about 2" in front of you so people cant go around them to engage you. (That means you tunnelers!)
• Being in melee doesn't mean you cant shoot. This is important if you in an assassination run and those pow 15 cannons might make a difference between success and failure. 

I'll be taking one to the upcoming tournament and i still don't know what caster i'll use him with.

Getting to know your Stormwall

f

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.

Tournament panic!

 

Ok, so its not the Babylon 5 movie i'm going to talk about (Even though I did quite like the film and the Crusade series had potential.... but that's another rant for another time).

No, A Call to Arms is our big local wargaming tournament, convention thingy. From all accounts (well, Sicarius who's running Warmachine at the tournament) it looks like Warmachine will dwarf all the other games systems being played.

40k will officially be Warmachine's bitch in the region.

Not that I really dislike 40k as a game that much, I just like Warmachine a lot more these days.

Holy crap.... off topic again.... anyway, back to the issue at hand.


I have a crash course in speed painting ahead. I must admit that getting a new PC has killed the amount of time spent blogging and painting. Simply put I have a massive new screen and an awesome PC so I've got to play all those games I've been wanting to play for ages.


I'm pretty close to finalizing my lists for the event. In the next month I need to paint the following

• 6 Gun Mages
• Gun Mage Captain
• The Black 13th
• Not that I plan on using him, but I might as well finish eCaine as well
• 3 Storm Callers
• Storm Knights, 3 gunners, Leader and Banner (mostly done)
• Stormclad (mostly done)
• 3 Lightning pods
• A FREAKING STORMWALL

I have 30 days to get this all sorted.  I'm glad the My-Sky is loaded with crappy TV to keep me company while I do this. 

Please, kill me now, before I go painting blind. 

Epic battle of epicness

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.

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

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.

Storm Strider

Well its been a long time since I've done a proper post but thankfully most of the craziness that has been distracting me for the last month is behind me now.

So I thought it would be best to start back with the biggest model I've ever painted.

I mean seriously, how cool is the freaking Storm Strider. I feel bad for some of the other Warmachine Factions..... especially Khador and their funny little horse cart.

Giving me an excuse to make "PEW PEW" noises in games since 2012

You wish you looked this cool

So far, my opponents have not being happy to see this thing across the table from them.

Putting it together was tough, the model is a mix of resin and metal parts that required a lot of drilling, pinning, gluing and additional support from green stuff. At various point I've been unsure if the thing would stay together for very long. Needless to say, I don't plan on dropping this thing from any height whatsoever.

Transporting it to games has also been a pain in the butt. If anyone has an affordable transportation suggestion I am all ears. (So far everyone has just told me to throw it in the rubbish bin)

As a paint job it was remarkable easy. With all those big areas you could put the first two coats on really quickly without having to worry about getting paint everywhere. The painting guide in the Wrath book was also helpful in doing some nice touches like the swirls in the energy socket bits..... whatever those things are.

Probably the neatest thing about painting this model was having that big base to play with. I decided to experiment with some sculpting with some positive and negative effects. On the good side the craters, boulders and water effects look pretty good (I used a citadel water effects bottle I got for half price).

The wall however, looks a little sad.

Anyway, fun paint job and no where near as daunting as I expected. I am actually looking forward to getting a Stormwall now.

Still very very sticky

Coming up...  Stormclad and Stormknights and Vom-Krieg takes on three people at Warmachine at once!

The system is down -update

Update

Life is conspiring against my blogging an gaming right now. Between having to work late most nights for the last fortnight and home maintenance problems i'm pretty hectic right now.

Should be good after this weekend though, Monday the 2nd of July is when a lot of stuff is due. Craziness should subside shortly after.

I've also purchased a brand new PC to replace the old one that was dying. I've resurrected the old one, but in doing so I had to reformat everything and buy new parts and a new OS. I've handed that one on to my partner to replace her 6 year old machine. Cue sounds of Fallout 3 and an angry woman cursing out super mutants. 

On the bright side, it looks like "A noobs guide to warmachine" has been added to Battle College, which is awesome. I didn't know that they had a newbie zone before but its in there.

Noobs guide is up to about 6000 direct click throughs and is about 75% of the traffic for the blog, so someone is reading them. To compare, and standard post gets about 30-120 views. The faction section for a Noobs guide is up to 2200 by itself. I'm pretty awed at how well received those posts have been.

So again, more blogging in the future, I haven't abandoned the hobby, i'm just a bit swamped right now.

Original Post

My computer died a horrible death about two weeks ago.... but like many peoples personal saviour after 3 days there was a resurrection of sorts.

I've had to format the operating system, buy and install windows 7, replace the RAM and reinstall all my applications.

As a result I have been unable to make any decent updates for a while.

On the bright side, my PC was showing signs of failure for a while so I backed up everything. HUZZAH!

Anyway, more blogging in the near future, not so much right now.