50pts Sorscha2 (Khador) vs. Jarl (Trollbloods). Balancing a game against my wife.

One of the privileges I've had of being married is introducing my wife to this game. While the general thought of hers was "That's a silly game, but I'll allow you to play it", it slowly graduated into her painting with me, and then playing the models she had painted. Currently, my wife is up to:

Sorscha2
Sorscha1
Strakhov
Juggernaut
Destroyer
MOW Shocktroopers
Winter Guard Riflemen
Kovnik Joe
IFP Kovnik
Great Bears
Valachev
*Nyss. The Nyss aren't actually Khador, obviously, but you wouldn't know at my household.

Her main gameplan is to proxy the Destroyer as Behemoth, apply Iron Flesh to the Nyss, and laugh at my Fenns when her Rifleguard shoot them to pieces. This has generally worked decent for her, for most games. More often than not, she loses, but not because she was attritioning worse, but because I got a lucky assassination. All it takes is one Kithkar to get in there and Sorscha's a goner.

So, as you're reading this report, I want you Khador-savvy guys to sit there and have ideas for what to buy next for Khador. We proxy Iron Fangs in the next game, but this one doesn't have them. Speaking of which, lists.

Sorscha2
*Behemoth (Proxied by the Destroyer)
*Sylys
Reinholdt
Nyss
*Valachev
Winter Guard Riflemen
Kovnik Joe
Great Bears
Ayaina + Holt
Harlan Versh
Iron Fang Kovnik
Eiryss2
Manhunter

There's a few issues with this list already. It's got a Lot of support. It's got a bunch of neat little missiles, like the Man Hunter, the IFPK, and Harlan's a pain too, but it's basically a 35pt list with solos added in to make it 50.

For my part, I'm tabling my newest caster, Jarl. I've played him a few times on Vassal, but this was my first time on the table. I also brought out the War Wagon, trying to use that again.

Jarl
*Storm Troll
*Impaler
*Mauler
*Runebearer
Fell Caller
Champions w/UA
Champion Hero
Fennblades w/UA
Fennblade Kithkar

She won the rolloff, and chose second. I put my Champs towards the woods, and gave the Fenns the open ground. She countered by putting the Nyss across from the Champs and the Winter Guard across from the Fenns.



Champions! They're not done yet, but they're close. In fact, I'm painting the tartan on them today.



Unfinished Jarl and the War Wagon too. Jarl strikes me as a Robin Hood wannabe, so he's in a treestand, for lack of a better term. It's kinda cheesy, but it's fun, and he stands out. He also requires his own foam cutout. Him and Janissa both, and now my 2nd Impaler. I gotta quit with the modding here.



Stuff runs. Stormtroll runs, War Wagon moves up, Mauler Runs, Impaler runs. Jarl gets Weald Secrets onto the Champs, and Quicken on the Fenns. The Fenns can now run 16'', but there's no reason to feed them all to the Riflemen, so I try to give her two, and get her to trigger Vengeance for me. Kithkar and Hero both station themselves within their respective units.






Jessica starts off, camping all 6 focus. Behemoth can walk 6'' with the Bond, so she's not worried about running him. The Nyss run through the woods, and the Rifleguard spread out, everyone keeping in mind the 5'' AOE pie plate I can drop with the Wagon. Behemoth walks up. The camp followers come along as well, the Bears screening Behemoth. Sorscha moves up and puts Iron Flesh on the Nyss, and decides against Shatterstorm on the Rifleguard. Kovnik Joe moves up and gives the Riflemen Fearless and Tough, and A+H stealth.



It might be feat turn for me. Jarl's feat is pretty amazing, if done right. He spawns d3+3 4'' clouds anywhere in his control area that act as normal clouds, PLUS they keep the -2 to hit for melee attacks as well. Also, models can move through eachother within the cloud, so there's some neat positioning that happens there, but generally, his feat allows him to push pretty hard with his army (Between Quicken and Tactical Supremacy, they're wicked fast), and still protect them from shooting in ways that very few other casters can.

So, I decide not to mini-feat the Fenns, since the Winter Guard are fearless this turn. Instead, I pull in fury, upkeep Quicken and Weald Secrets. Storm Troll moves way off to the side, and animuses 2 Fenns with Electro leaps. The Fenns run/charge and two of them slam into the lines while the rest run for center field. Of the two that reach, one misses. The other hits, the WGR toughs, but the leap almost kills Joe, which is cool.

War Wagon moves up, pie plates a Nyss.... and kills one. Stupid drift. Champions run to center, trying to squeeze in tight for the feat. Impaler far strikes Jarl, who moves up, shoots at a Great Bear and misses. I cast Tactical supremacy on him, feat, and roll a 5, so I get all six clouds, which is awesome. I cover up the fenns, and leave the far right flank of the Champions exposed, simply because I didn't get them together tight enough. Kithkar, Fell Caller, Champions all move up, and I hang tight. Jarl moves behind the War Wagon.

Incidentally, the rings in the picture are 3'' rings, so the space outside of them is measured with a melee gauge. I need to buy the 4'' rings, which will probably happen tomorrow, actually.



My wife's not happy with me. "I can't do anything." she says, thinking. Sylys upkeeps IF, and she keeps focus on Sorscha. The Nyss have a go at it, move up and put shots into the Champions, but only do a few boxes of damage. Eiryss does the same thing. The manhunter charges, but due to absolutely terrible damage rolls, fails to do much more than two or three boxes.

"This is dumb. Oh, I have an idea." Then things go downhill. Sylys gives her Arcane secrets. She boosts to hit and hits the Fenn nearest to her that I sent up there to tie up the Winterguard Riflemen... Aaaand now all the Fenns are Freezing Gripped and stationary.

Woohoo. This is why Khador doesn't have arcnodes.

With the Fenns gripped, the WGR shift around, kill both of the Fenns. The Great Bears move up, the IFPK moves up, and Behemoth scatters a few shots into the mists, killing one more Fenn.



This hurts my list considerably. I also have things so tight together that the War Wagon can't get out because the Stationary Fenns are in the way. Jarl upkeeps... nothing, and pulls in Fury. The Fenn Kithkar moves up and kill the drummer, giving the War Wagon room. The Impaler puts Far Strike on Jarl, whoe moves up, magic bullets himself and shoots a Great Bear, damaging him ok, but using the Magic Bullet to kill Sylys instead. He then puts Quicken on the Champs. The War wagon moves forward, pumps a shot into the Nyss, and scatters, missing all of them. Way to go.

Storm troll moves up, and fires a shot off into the Rifleguard. It bounces once, kills them both. Fell Caller moves up, gives the Champs war cry (+2 to hit). Champions charge. One goes way off into the unknown, after Eiryss, but comes up way short. Two hit the great bears, two more engage Nyss, and Bonehammer himself goes after the Iron Fang. The Great bears all die, the IFPK dies to Bonehammer, and the Nyss get killed too. Mauler runs to shield Jarl, and that's it for me.






I still feel like my wife has got a decent chance at this game. It's feat turn time, and I fully expect to lose the Champions to Weapon Master Nyss on Sorscha's feat. The Fenns are no longer stationary, but the WGR are going to get boosted attack rolls from Joe. And Behemoth... Behemoth is a monster.

Sorscha puts 3 focus to Behemoth, and Reinholdt activates. He reloads her, and Sorscha feats, and shoots a Champion, missing. Happily, she has Reinholdt's shot, so she shoots three more times, but doesn't do more than four boxes. She then puts Boundless charge on the Jack. The Nyss charge, and do much better, with the exception of three horrible rolls. They kill all but Bonehammer and one Champ.

Behemoth moves up, and with AP, one rounds the War Wagon. Just one hit, and it's gone. He fires his next two shots into the Fenns. A+H move up, kiss the Fenns and Holt kills 1. The Rifle Guard polish them off with the exception of the UA. Harlan got in there too, but the Fenn he hit literally toughed 4 times and through 2 dice changes... It was sad. Hilarious, but sad.

Then I forgot to take a picture. Imagine a lot less on my side though. It's not hard.

Jarl upkeeps Quicken. The Hero charges in, and with War Cry help from the Fell Caller, carefully threshers the Nyss off the two Champions remaining. Bonehammer and the Champ charge Sorscha, and the two of them kill her with room to spare.





Thoughts on the game:

1. I don't think I have a clue how to use a War Wagon. I also question whether or not it's worth having in a Jarl list when I want to hide behind templates, except that there's a Huge base in the way. Maybe as a flanking force?
2. Looking at the pics, I feel like my wife had a decent assassination shot there once the War Wagon was gone. A couple of Fenns out of the way, maybe Kiss Jarl with Ayaina, and empty the Winter Guard rifles in his general direction. Evasive would have helped, I suppose (Jarl moves 2'' on a miss), but RNG14 rifles on those Winterguard don't care if he stumbles much. It wasn't a half bad shot, but she was focusing on the Fenns at that point.
3. She's figured out Freezing Grip, and I'm going to have to start hiding Fenns. She lands it on the next game too, and it's really hard to fight back on that one. Most stuff is high enough ARM to weather it, but it's still hard. I like to run them way out there as a tarpit, and now, she wants me to. Not good.
4. Speaking of tarpits, she didn't do that at all this game, which was something we talked about. She pointed out that she lost all of her Great Bears, without using them, Again. Same goes for the IFPK. But she's not shielding them. She's got 2 great units for shielding (Nyss and WGR) and neither one is shielding. The bears are just moving forward, hoping for the best until I out threat them.
5. Jarl is awesome. I actually get to outthreat. I forgot to mention Runebearer, but he was active all through the game, helping Jarl juggle some spells. Getting Quicken around is pretty nice. SPD8 Fenns are messed up. SPD7 Champions are wonderful. SPD9 Long Riders are as fast as Tempest Blazers. It's a lovely thing. And with the clouds, he can actually protect them. On top of that, he can clear out stuff on his own. Ignoring melee with black penny, magic bullet, all kinds of stuff. I like him.
6. I don't know what to get my wife. Like I said, the next game we proxy IFP. She really doesn't have much melee, and I think that's kind of an issue, since everything is so hi-arm. Sorscha can counter that for one turn, so that's nice, but it's still a rough game when everything still has to break 8 just to do damage, and when you do actually damage something, it has 8 boxes. Toss out suggestions, by all means. IFP? Merc unit of some sort? Somehow slot the MOWs in? Play the Nyss differently? What do you think?

Anyways, thanks for reading!

  Blog Readers!  Sup guys.  Ya'll are the best.  I post these batreps to the forums as well, but I've been enjoying some of the input here too.  Keep it up.  I wanted to reference the title of this post a bit more though, and talk about gaming with my wife just a little bit.  It's a subject I've seen come up several times on the forums. "How can I get my wife to play?"  

  You can't, really.  My wife did a demo game that was heavily in her favor (First game ever, using Haley2 and a Stormclad/Lancer combo?  Yeah) and thought it was ok, but that was it.  The kicker came later when she tried painting, and found out that she enjoyed it.  After that, it was a matter of her wanting to play what she painted.  As long as I've got stuff for her to paint, she's got stuff she has to play because you can't paint it and not play, right?

  Then, in our own home, she enjoys it.  She doesn't play it at the shop, she doesn't get on the forums, and she doesn't drool over the shelves at the store.  She does, however, enjoy a 50pt game of an evening with me, and enjoys talking smack with the guys at the shop.  She'll sit there and watch me through a game, joking around, offering advice, and be a part of it, which we both enjoy.  It's a game for us when we want something more complicated than risk, but less complicated than Axis and Allies (believe it or not).  I really love that she plays the game a little, and understands what's going on, as silly as the whole thing is.

  That being said, when we play these games, my goal isn't to really win, but to have a good time.  Half of the time, we're figuring out her turn together and she's bouncing ideas off of me and deciding what works for her.  Freezing grip in this game was her idea.  I hadn't even thought of it, or I wouldn't have sent my Fenns in so far.  She's good at the game, whether she'll ever admit that or not.  

  So, what's this about?  Balancing a game with my wife?  If you've got a good friend or loved one stepping into the game with you, step back from that tried and true twin-stormwall Haley2 list and try something different.  Don't build a list with what they have in mind.  Instead, have fun.  My game has gone up considerably playing my wife because I've tried units I never would have otherwise.  

  As far as balancing, I'm trying to figure out what she needs to play me better.  She's beat me more than once, and I'm game for her doing it some more.  The better she is, the more she'll play, and the more time I get to enjoy playing warmachine with my wife.  It's a win/win.  I brought Jarl this game, and I probably won't again unless she plays someone else.  Jarl vs. any shooting list is a great matchup for me, not her, and that's not really all that fair.  I try Madrak1 in the next game.  I'll probably bounce around quite bit, but because I can.  She plays her game, we enjoy the discussion, have a good time competing with eachother, and it's a blast.  

  If you're getting your significant other to play the game, take it easy, let them show the interest, and let them play a good game.  There's been more than one game I won on the first go around, but when we rolled back the dice, and looked at another assassination route, my wife won.  Don't be the guy that measures the deviation template eight times, or uses a laser for LOS.  My wife enjoys it because she's spending time with me (Horrible reason to enjoy the game, I think, but I'm not arguing), and she enjoys figuring out strategy.  Let him/her figure it out, let them play the game and take some ownership for their ideas, and if they play out, awesome, otherwise, go back and have them try something else.  You'll learn more playing a relaxed game with them than you will getting trounced at the shoppe.

  And if they don't like warmachine, meh.  Fairy Tale's a fun game too, I've found out.  Or Zombicide.  We play a lot of that.  

  Anyways, that's my blurb.  Maybe one of these days I'll actually ask her why she plays the game, and get some real reasons from her.  But then she'd have to admit she likes the game, and she might quit altogether at that point.  

  That's all I've got for today.  There's another batrep in-route, Madrak1 vs. Sorscha2 (my wife again).  I also have the Champions, Hero, Kithkar, Sons of Bragg, and Mulg all just waiting for tartan stripes, and they'll be on here.  The Champions will come with a walkthrough on the armor, in case you like it.  I also am painting another Impaler because I'm tired of using the mismatched one.  I'm also getting creative.  If you've ever wondered what a light Troll looks like with something like the Skorne flag the Cyclops carry around, I'll have the answer soon.  And it's not actually a stolen flag, I modeled it, and we'll have pictures for that process too.  Going to be a good blog week I think, so stick around!

  

50pts Reznik2 (Menoth) vs. eDoomshaper (Trollbloods)

My opponent from the previous game was up for another one, as long as I was cool with a lot of proxying. The main proxys are pretty simple. One base is a second Vessel of Judgement, and the other with Reznik1 on it, is actually Reznik2.

I've never fought Reznik2, and I've only briefly read through his page. I figured when Vengeance came out that as rarely as I fight Khador, I wouldn't have to deal with him unless Sevensins decides to bring him in some janky list. So I speedread and headed straight for the storyline. I already own everything Cygnar spoiled except Stryker3 (I like my 60$, thanks).

So, my first thought was to play pGrim, since I'd already dropped eMadrak, but I reaally have been itching to buy the other caster that I got into the faction for, that being eDoomy (Though Jarl is close behind). So I went and got Kovnik Joe for my wife's new Winterguard Rifle unit, and eDoomy. If you can see the little headless, armless troll teetering on the base amidst the KSB, that's eDoomy.

I really like him on the card, and the few times I've vassaled him, I've really liked him. He's basically Cygnar's Kraye without the cav rules. +3 SPD on the charge, charges and power attacks are free. Legit, right? On top of that, he has Wild Aggression (boosted melee and free charge) so that I get basically Kraye's feat, EVERY TURN. YEAH.

The other thing is I really want to play the Mt. King, and with Wild Aggression and feat, eDoomy makes that happen. Unfortunately, I didn't have the King with me today, so I settled for other things, like Mulg.

Oh, shucks.

Reznik2
*Sanctifier
Vessel of Judgement
Vessel of Judgement
Vassal Mechanics x2
Max Bastions
Max Bastions
Min Cinerators (They look mysteriously like Trollkin Champions)
Wracks
Wracks (proxied for a brief second by various trollkin)

This is a Tier list for Reznik, so he can have as many wracks as he wants, pull as much focus as he wants on turn 1. Also, tier bonuses give his infantry, or bastions and cinerators at least, advanced move, which is nice for SPD4 infantry.

My list was:

eDoomy
*Mulg
*Earthborn
*Axer
Janissa
KSB w/ Elder
Fenns w/ UA
Sons of Bragg
Fell Caller

I won the rolloff, elected to go second. He deployed everything, and there's not much you can do, really. Infantry, and then three huge based models in the back. Done.

I put my Fenns to the right, beasts to the left, KSBs behind me with the Sons for a second wave and we started. I didn't get the deployment pic, but you're not missing anything.

Advanced move is nice. One focus to the jack, then everything moves up, then actually activates and "runs" 8''. Reznik pushes forward, casts Death March (+2 MAT and Vengeance) on the Bastions to the right, and casts Creator's Wrath on himself (Much better stats, upkeepable), and Iron Aggression on the warjack, after pulling 3 from my trollkin wracks, all of which conveniently blow up. Sanctifier runs up, and it goes to me.



Same thing. The Fenns run. Mulg runs, the Earthborn sprints to support the Fenns, the Axer moves up. Doomshaper puts Iron Aggression on Mulg, and Refuge on the Axer, then puts 2 to the stone. Stone pops aura, says no continuous affects, and moves up. Janissa drops a wall, Sons of Bragg filter in behind.



Reznik upkeeps all of his spells, pulls another focus from the Rack. The Vessels take shots as they move up, but nothing's in range of the right one. The left one hits Tor, forces him to tough (which he passes), and fails to damage Mulg (awww) and the other two Sons of Bragg. His infantry all run and engage my Fenns as best they can, pretty much neutering my charge with them. Reznik then gets brave, and moves up. First, he toes foward to juuust catch eDoomy in his control range, and casts Lamentation, which is pretty annoying for me, since it doubles all fury casting costs. So, my beasts can force like normal, but animus cost double, upkeeping costs double, so on, so forth. It's a solid spell.

He also gets brave and tries to drift "The Flesh is Weak" onto Mulg and my Sons of Bragg, which would prevent them from charging, running or special attacks this turn. He tosses it out, and it drifts back onto his own guys, doing nothing except leaving him at one focus, waaaaaay back behind his own lines.



By Waaaaaaaay back I mean almost exactly 14'' from eDoomy, and I know because he cast Lamentation. My stuff's tied up, I didn't get any Vengeance, and if you're aware of what Bastions do, let me educate you. They're a low-def decent-ARM 8 box medium based model that has the ability when it takes damage to spread it out over the whole unit. You can take 12 damage, and spread 6 of it to the dude in the back, and 5 of it to the dude on the right, and take one yourself. Battlecollege claims the unit can take 35pts of damage before one of them is killed.

That's a lot of work to clear these dudes out. They're spread out too, so I can't just walk the Earthborn up, apply 35pts of damage to one dude so they're all on one box, he might just kill that dude, and take all of it himself, and the other four would be out of reach. It's tough to deal with. I have 0 faith being able to attrition this list with what I have. eMadrak might could have done better, but Idk. pGrim with a lot of shooting, maybe. But nonetheless, I see a small glimmer of hope.

Reznik is 14'' from eDoomy, who is 1'' behind Mulg. Mulg is SPD4. Add 3 for the charge, 2 for reach, and we're at 9''. But factor in the Axer's Rush animus, and Doomy's feat, and now we're at 14'', which is plenty. On top of that, Doomy can Goad his beasts, so technically, I could kill a dude, move an inch, and kill another one, and just go until I'm out of fury on him.

Between Mulg and Reznik are 2 Bastions and a load of free strikes. Mulg can handle a few, but I still want to mitigate them. I do, however, need to clear those two dudes. At the very least, I need to clear the first one, but again, I have to essentially kill a heavy warjack's amount of boxes in order to do this.

So first off, I screw up and drop both upkeeps because I don't want to pay 4 fury to upkeep them. I reality, I should have dropped Refuge, and left Wild Aggression up since Doomy can upkeep one for free. But no. So we pull in fury back to full, and activate Doomy. I measure back (believe it or not, there's a scenario in play, and it's killbox), and Doomy is just two hairs inside killbox, but only 1 hair in Reznik's control. So we creep back, stay in the box, but get out of control of Reznik. Then Doomy feats, puts Wild Aggression on Mulg, and the Rush animus as well. He keeps the last two fury for transfers, but I really don't expect to survive the next turn regardless.

Now I have to clear things. The Axer starts first, and walks (Doomy's +3 SPD from feat isn't dependant on a charge.) 8'', and threshers, catching a few fenns and a Bastion, and a Cinerator. He murders the Cinerator, kills the fenns, who fail tough, and boosts damage on the Bastion, and puts a respectable amount on him, which he spreads throughout the rest of them. Then the Axer goads forward, and hits the one further back, boosting damage on him as well. Another decent roll for damage, and six, seven boxes get spread out.

The Fell caller gives the Fenns +2 to melee attacks, moves up, and sprays two Bastions, doing three or four boxes each. The Fenns then charge, and finally kill the nearest one (not in the path of Mulg, but ok), and kill a Cinerator as well, while putting damage into the second unit of Bastions as well.

So then the Sons of Bragg charge/assault, after Reveille. I wanted fervor, but with Tor knocked down, that wouldn't work, I needed his spray. Tor hits at an angle, and sprays across, catching three Bastions and a vassal mechanic in the back. He misses the center Bastion, but deals solid damage again to the other two, and kills the mechanic. His melee attack connects, damage gets spread out, and then Wrathar just murders the dude, cranking the damage and my opponent doesn't want to spread that out, and kills the Bastion.

At this point, Mulg can probably charge relatively safely to the last Bastion, and goad into Reznik, but I've got one more trick. The Earthborn walks up, and easily grabs the last Cinerator, and pitches him across the board into the Bastion, kding them both, and cranking the damage roll on that one as well, killing the Bastion, since the remaining unit is surviving one one or two boxes.

Mulg charges. I take a free strike from a bastion, but he rolls trip ones and a 3. It would have taken a pretty serious hit to cut him down, but that was unfortunately pathetic for a Bastion.

Mulg hits Reznik, and drops him to about seven boxes. The second attack whuffs it and takes him to two, but the third attack finishes him.



Thoughts:

1. I got lucky with some damage rolls on that. If the Bastions had held on a little longer, I'd of been in trouble. I also got lucky on their placement. If there'd of been one more in my way, I might have had problems.
2. Looking back, Assassination by Mulg may not have been my only choice, because Primal Shock is pretty solid with eDoomy as well, but under Lamentation and kill box, that was going to be difficult.
3. Outside of assassination, I did have Goad, and I forgot that. The Axer and the Earthborn could have cleared some swathes, and for that matter, so could have Mulg. I don't think I could have cut down enough of them to not get counterstriked hard though, and once I lose Mulg and the Earthborn, I'd be in serious trouble without a way to kill Reznik. It would have been an attrition battle starting from the back foot, and I think I would have lost, but I don't know that it was as hopeless as I made it out to be. Still, I really wanted to see what Mulg could do. I got into trollbloods and eDoomy so I could sling that monster around the map, so I was really excited to do that.

Comments, questions, insults, go for it. Hope you enjoyed the (short) batrep.

50pts Reznik (Menoth) vs. eMadrak (Trollbloods)

Saturday, I was lucky enough to land two games against Menoth. I don't get to play Menoth very often, so I had no idea what to bring, except Pyres. The problem is that I never bring Pyre Trolls, so I didn't want to metagame. My lists, therefore, stayed pretty much the same. My opponent brought Reznik1 out, and I dropped eMadrak, because... that's what I do.

Incidentally, when you see Reznik, it's not the original model, it's been modified, and actually legitimate, not the miniature armored dude the regular model consists of. It looks good. In fact, my opponents whole army looked legit. Anyways, as I said, I rarely play against Menoth so Reznik is new to me.

His feat isn't bad though. Strips all fury/focus points, applies fire to someone who casts spells (E.G., Runeshapers, TAC, etc), and doesn't allow focus allocation. Against me, it will strip the fury off of my beasts, I'll lose my upkeeps, and I'll have to cut my caster for fury. Not a big deal. In fact, in the right circumstances, him taking all the fury off my beasts is kinda cool. I imagine all of these full-blooded dire trolls charging around and then Reznik reads his stuff, and suddenly, they're less mad I guess? The other neat thing he does is when he kills a model, he creates a wrack right there.

His spells are Engine of Destruction, which boosts his SPD, STR and MAT for a round. Ignite, +2 damage and crit fire. Hex blast, a ranged AOE that clears upkeeps from a unit. Iron Aggression, boosted melee and free charges for warjacks. Perdition, a ranged attack that if it damages a model, a warjack may make a full advance.

Cool. I won the rolloff, and he elected the side of the map he wanted. We actually did a scenario, but if you've read any of my batreps yet, you know that 9 times out of 10, I completely ignore the scenario. It's not that I'm trying to, but in the case of this scenario, we have 2 melee monster casters smashing into the middle ground. By the time either of us gets close enough to dominate, the other has charge range. It's that simple.

Our lists were the following:

Reznik1
*Avatar of Menoth
*Reckoner
Choir
Maddie Corbeau
Vessel of Judgement
Vassal Mechanichs x2
Knights Exemplar
Knights Exemplar
Knights Exemplar
Wracks
Dartan Vilmont
Vassal of Menoth

I think that's right. I don't have Menoth on my Warroom yet to add up the cost, but I think that's it.

eMadrak
*Runebearer
*Impaler
*Slag Troll
*Axer
Fennblades w/UA
Long Riders
Sons of Bragg
Krielstone Bearer w/UA
Janissa
Fenn Kithkar

So, first off, I made a huge mistake not bringing the Chronicler, or the Fell Caller. I realized I didn't have room for it with the Long Riders. I think in the future, I'll be dropping the Sons of Bragg because A) They're a Character unit, and B) don't particularly need Madrak's help to be good, and C) They're in my pGrim list too.

Secondly, I really like the Storm Troll I normally have in this list, but I had a point extra so I took the Axer for feat. He did ok, but I missed my Storm troll. However, when I get Horthol, he'll replace the Stormtroll entirely, so there's that.

Thirdly, I found out that Janissa is not a small-based character. When I got her used, she was already glued to a small base, so I just assumed that since she was a petite as trolls can get, she got a small base. It was really nice too because she could be right near madrak (outside of grim salvation), and not block line of sight to him. No more. But I'm glad someone pointed it out.

So, we deployed. I put Fenns on the right, Long riders on the left and beasts right down the middle. Sons of Bragg go in the back as a second line, end-game piece, and an awesome unit at clear up jams for my Fenns.

He put his jacks to my left, and Exemplars everywhere. Remember, there's three units, so he puts one to the left, and one to the right, then carefully mixes the third one up in the middle, setting them up within the other units so everything's in CMD, but so I can't really kill a whole unit in a turn. The Vessel goes on my right to cause pain for my Fenns, and support most of the Exemplars. Apparently, the Vessel can martyr or something, a model that dies in it's CMD, and cause it to hit back before it dies. Which is legit. It's like immediate Vengeance. He also places his wracks, spreading them out all over the place.


I lead off. I do some math on the Vessel of Judgement (which has a ranged attack) and go forward with it. Moses puts Harmonious Exaltation on Madrak for a cheaper spell. The beasts run forward, riling up to 5 fury between the 3 of them. Madrak puts Blood Fury down on the Fenns for 1, dumps the rest to the stone, and moves up, KSB moves up with him, pops aura, and for a change, tells Menoth NO to fire and stuff. Felt good. Janissa moves up and completes the kodiak moment with a wall.

The Long Riders run, and the Fenns run. They're DEF10 now with Blood fury, but I'm hoping I mathed well enough to keep them safe from the Vessel for a turn. It's got a RNG12 shot that essentially electro leaps d3 times to the nearest models. Not like chain lightning, which is... you know, a chain, but all 1-3 strikes originate from the first target. The More you Know.

The Sons of Bragg move up, and I believe that's it. Oh, the Kithkar runs up behind the Fenns.



In reply, the horde of Exemplars runs forward. Remember now, there's three units. marked by red, white and black skirts (ha), and the red ones get Ignite from Reznik as he moves up. The Exemplars are neat because for each one that dies, it adds +1STR and ARM to the survivors. There's like, six in a unit? The last guy is basically a light warbeast. They're a pain. Not so much as the dudes with self-sacrifice, but still a pain.

Reznik is still activated, and he puts Iron Aggression on the Reckoner (I believe), and camps. The Avatar generates a whopping 4 focus (turn 1...) and runs. There's an upkeep token next to him, so I feel like he gazed, but I'm not sure if he can gaze and run at the same time, so it might not be gaze.

The reckoner assaults forward, misses a Long Rider, and the Choir shuffles up and says I can't shoot their jacks. My Slag troll's shoulders visibly sag.



But wait! There's a huge based model nearby that's not living! The giant portable organ is apparently not living, so the Slag's good to go. Madrak pulls in his fury, upkeeps Blood Fury on the Fenns. The Impaler moves up, far strikes the Slag, and pitches a spear at someone but misses. The Slag walks up, throws at the Vessel, ends up hitting twice, boosting damage, and taking the Vessel down to like, 5 boxes. Not bad.

The Fenns Minifeat and charge, and apparently the Exemplars are all fearless, which is cool, but my Fenns still pretty much tear them apart. I don't manage to kill all of one unit, but I kill a good chunk of two of them. My favorite was the far right Fenn that killed the Wrack, and got 2 more Exemplars because of it blowing up. And my Fenn lived. Ha. However, because of the Vessel of Judgement, two exemplars martyr, and kill 2 fenns who fail tough before the exemplars themselves die.

The Long riders shuffle across, and one charges the Avatar, doing 8pts of Damage and tieing them up for a bit. Sons of Bragg press forward, and Madrak walks up, drops Warpath, camps 2. The KSB moves up, pops aura, no continuous effects, and Janissa pops the wall again.






Not a bad turn. The counter strike is coming though. Reznik upkeeps both spells, and the Avatar generates 2 focus. My opponent starts by measuring control, but he's outside of 12'' for the assassination with Maddie. So, an Exemplar uses it to move up, and the Vessel moves up and shoots my Kithkar, boosts (by 'cutting' itself) and kills the fenn UA, but only just fails to get the Kithkar. The Exemplars counter attack, and takes the Fenns population down to about 5, including the drummer.

Incidentally! Did you know the Drummer has takeup? So I could park the guy next to Madrak, and when he grim salvations, another Fenn can run to take his place if he's within 3''. Pretty stupid. Madrak can never die. "Camp Fury? What for!?" he announces loudly to all of his nervous friends nearby.

The other Exemplar unit moves up in a charge run and tie up one Longrider, and kill the one engaging the Avatar. The Avatar then walks up, and gazes. The Reckoner assaults forward again, and kills a Long Rider. Then a Vassal gives him another shot, and he shoots my Long Rider leader, but he toughs. First Tough of the game.

Dartan runs up and does Stone and Mortar, stance, I think, creeping up on my flank. Reznik moves up, camps focus.



I think really hard about assassination this turn with Madrak. I suspect I can tide of death up to the caster, but it doesn't seem like it'll work so I go a different route. The Fenns kill a few Exemplars, which in turn kill them back because of the Vessel. One of them even finishes the Kithkar.

I drop Blood Fury, and Warpath both. The Long Riders want to charge lots of things, but the Avatar of Menoth says no. So the Slag lobs rocks at it, takes it down pretty respectably, but not quite enough.

Moses exalts Madrak, and Madrak walks up, puts Blood Fury on the Long Riders, and puts a fury to the stone, camping 2. Everyone else does the normal truffle shuffle, e.g. KSB moves, stations around Madrak, camps, and Janissa walls up.

The Long Riders go ahead and charge the Avatar and kill it, with ease. The Sons Assault forward, or really, just Tor, who sprays Dartan and cranks the damage rolls with Fervor, killing the noble paladin, my favorite dude in Menoth (granted, the rest of the faction sets such a low bar).

What I should have done is kill the Avatar with the sons of Bragg, and charge the Long Riders into other stuff, but I didn't. My PG pointed out that I could have put 3 or 4 ranged attacks into Reznik this turn with feat (Two thrown axes and 2 spears from the Impaler,), and finished him off with a Long Rider charge, but that didn't occur to me. Should have, it didn't. Once I figured out I couldn't Tide of Death around the place, I didn't want to assassinate anymore.

The axer, which incidentally, has done 0 this game, moves up into the zone and gets ready for late game carnage. The Storm troll would have been better for this list. Even Horthol... Or hey! Fell Caller and Chronicler, but no.

The Fenns charge, one getting into the Vessel of Judgement, and ending it's sad existence. The rest work on killing more Exemplars, which are now getting pretty ridiculous as far as ARM and STR. Little 1pt paladins all over the place. Not sure how that works. I assume they just put on all the armor their buddies had, and use their steroids too.

The Impaler moves over to protect Madrak from a direct charge and throws at something insignificant. Should have tried to crit smite the Reckoner, but I didn't. I've got 2 fury on Madrak, but I don't want to go over too much, even though I'm pretty sure Reznik is feating this turn.



Reznik is in trouble. He drops Iron Aggression since the Avatar is dead, and pulls a focus from his wrack which decides to esplode. Maddie lets him move up, but he really doesn't think he can get past the Impaler, AND kill Madrak enough times to get past like, 5 grim salvations. So he feats, and walks over to the wreck of the Avatar for cover. He kills a Long Rider, and wracks him up, then puts Iron Aggression on the Reckoner. The Exemplars move in and kill a few more Fenns, but they're both running low in numbers. One of them gets into the remaining Long Rider, the leader, and forces a tough check again, which he passes somehow.

The Reckoner assaults forward, and forces a Tough check on my Son of Bragg with reach, Wrathar. Then he whacks him, kills him, whacks Tor, and kills him too.



Now, I can assassinate. Fenns Vengeance around, I drop Blood Fury. The last Son of Bragg charges the Reckoner and does ok. The stones activate, move around. They lost all of their fury in the feat, so I have nothing left to pop, and I'm certainly not giving them any with Madrak. Madrak charges, and has plenty of distance to Reznik. He boosts to hit, hits, does solid damage. Buys, hits, buys, hits, and kills Reznik.



Thoughts on the game:

1. No Fell Callers and Chroniclers was dumb. I could have really screwed with some Errants if I'd had "Hero's Tragedy" (Enemy model is KD if it hits model in unit), and some +2 attack rolls would have been cool. Overall, I didn't miss them too much, but I very easily could have, and they most certainly would have done more work than my Axer did.

2. I had a solid assassination that I passed up. I didn't feel like I really needed to take it though. I was attritioning halfway decent, and my opponent had actually scored a point earlier when he killed an objective with an exemplar (forgot that) but I still felt like I was cutting down his forces well enough that I didn't need to worry about it too much. The reckoner might have been an issue, but if I hadn't felt confident on the assassination, I 1) wouldn't have gone for it and 2) would have moved the KDed longrider first to engage the Reckoner, getting another attack on him. Not enough to kill, but tie him up. Eventually it would have basically been Madrak vs. Reznik, but I still had an Axer left, a few Fenns (A force to be reckoned with on Blood Fury), and I still had a full unit of Kriel stones (Blood Fury makes them pretty decent too), Janissa (who has an AP attack, believe it or not), against Reznik, part of a Reckoner, a few Exemplars on the opposite side of the map from my Fenns, and Choir. I was doing decent, as long as I didnt' let Reznik kill me, which would have been difficult regardless.

3. I screwed on the assassination run, not getting Blood Fury onto Madrak with the Runebearer, that was dumb. Worked out, I had plenty to spare, because I could feat, kill the two Exemplars within reach of Madrak and get 2 more fury, plus another attack on Reznik and finish him off. Overall, it went fine, but I felt dumb for not getting blood fury.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed the game. I have one more, eReznik (The new Battle Engine Caster from Vengeance) vs. eDoomy. Comments, crits, all welcome.

50pts, Kallus (Legion) vs. pGrim (Trollbloods)

It was a busy weekend. Not quite tournament, but a lot of games. I had a second game with my Legion opponent from the batrep I posted Saturday morning, and I was fortunate enough to get 2 more games in later Saturday. There's a eMadrak vs. Reznik, and a proxy-heavy eDoomy vs. the new Menoth caster, Reznik2. We'll go chronologically though here. My legion opponent had another list he wanted to try, and that was Kallus. If you're unfamiliar with Kallus, it's because he's got a common Cryx problem. He's a decent caster in a faction of amazing ones. You rarely hear of Kallus when there is Lylyth2, Vayl1, Vayl2, Thag1 and Thag2, so on, so forth. No matter your playstyle, there's a legion caster that does it aggressively and competently. Kallus is also an infantry caster in a beast-heavy faction, a fight that the twins Rhyas and Saeryn have as well. The goal of these batreps aren't to brag about how good I did, or he did, but so that A) You can point out my mistakes and say hey, jedi, you suck at reading the rules, and B) You can learn about these two casters and when someone drops them on the board across from you, you're not completely clueless. I can count on one hand the times I've fought Harbinger, but thanks to Marx's batreps, I've kinda got a clue as to whats going on.

So, Kallus. He's also male, which I think is unique to him and Thagrosh in Legion... so there is that. For starters, he grants unyielding (+2 ARM for engaged models) to friendly models in his CMD. His four spells are Flashing Blade (Selective Thresher attack), Ignite (+2 Damage and crit fire), Eruption (POW14 AOE that stays in place) and Dark Guidance (Extra dice to attack rolls for faction models.). His feat grants +2 DEF to soulless models, and friendly warrior models killed in his control area become incubi. So, units hit accurately, with some decent damage, and expect a lot of bodies on feat turn. He tarpits crazy well.

Kallus
*Carnivean
*Scythean
Beast Mistress
*Shredder
*Shredder
*Shredder
*Shredder
Nyss Shepherd
Nyss Legionairres w/UA
Nyss Hex Hunters w/UA
Spawning Vessel

I dropped pGrim. I had no idea if that was a good idea or not, but I wanted to vary my casters up a bit. Jarl wouldn't have been bad for this list, but I felt like pGrim would be ok. My pGrim list is pretty janky though. See, I just got Mulg, and I really wanted to use him, I didn't even care if the list was functional, I just wanted him in there. So yeah. pGrim can do work too. One gun is RNG13 and adds +2 SPD for a beast charging the target hit, and the other gun is a RNG8 snare gun that KDs a target. His spells are great too. Cross Country gives Hunter and pathfinder to a unit/model. Marked for death removes incorporeal and stealth and drops DEF by 2. Lock the Target, if it damages the target, will prevent any running, charging, special attacks and all that on the model, and Return Fire is a cost 1 spell that lets a model fire if anything I have is targeted. I also realize I just got that wrong, and though the model the spell is on has to be targeted. That means... well, idk if it would have changed anything, I don't think he shot at me. But yeah. Good to know. Anyways. I really like the Earthborn on pGrim, but since I had Mulg, I reaaally wanted to use him instead. Besides, SPD4, +3 for Charge and +2 for Reach, plus another 2'' for Grim's rifle, and I can sling a SPD4 Beast out for a threat range of 11''. Add in Mulg being wounded and he's Relentless, adding in +2SPD to that. So yeah.

pGrim
*Mulg
*Bomber
*Impaler
Fennblades w/UA
Long Riders
Chronicler
Sons of Bragg

I won the rolloff, chose to go first. Fenns to one side, beasts to the other. My opponent matched me exactly and we set off.



First off, the beasts ran and generated fury up to 3. pGrim put Cross Country on the Long Riders, Return Fire on the Bomber and camped 3. The Fenns ran 12'', the Chronicler put "Tales of Mist" on them (concealment and can't be targeted while KD). Sons of Bragg move up and do +4 tough like the Boomhowlers. Long Riders sprinted for the woods.



Did you know that Hex Hunters are crazy fast? SPD7. I moved 12'' up the board and these losers sprint 14'' and tie me up. Crazy fast. And they didn't kill any fenns either. The least they could have done was give me Vengeance, but no.

The Legionairres move up and clump together, taking advantage of Defensive Line (+2 ARM B2B), and the Beast Mistress moves up and between her and her little army of miniature t-rexes, spams 8 Shredder animuses, Tenacity. +1DEF and ARM. Not bad. 11pt module, but seems neat.

The two beasts move up. Kallus moves up and gets Ignite on the Hex Hunters, in fact, I think he did that first.



No vengeance and my Fenns are tied up. Exactly what I didn't want. I really hoped I was far enough out of range of getting tied like that, but no. So I think about it for awhile, pull in fury and upkeep Cross Country. My Long Riders push farther into the woods, setting up for the flank attack next turn. Mulg walks up, and crunches a Hex Hunter engaging the far left Fenn.

The Impaler far strikes the bomber, and walks around Mulg. The Sons of Bragg move up, fervor (+2 to hit in melee and ranged, +2 damage), and Tor very carefully sprays the three Hex hunters engaging my next Fenn, kills all three, and the spray doesn't even touch my Fenn.

Then the Bomber shuffles forward, and chucks a bomb at the Hex Hunter UA, who is stealthed. Which is cool, I'm down with that. The blast deviates PERFECTLY back and to the left, and kills a couple of Hex Hunters, and leaves 1 box on the UA. Not bad. Bomber throws again, obviously misses because of Stealth, drifts AGAIN PERFECTLY back and to the right this time! Kills four hex hunters, leaving the UA and two in the front, all three promptly failing CMD.

Luck, dudes.

The Chronicler moves up and puts Hero's Tragedy on the fenns (If a warrior model hits, after the action is resolved, he's KD). The Fenns minifeat (Legionairres are Fearless I think so no worries there), and charge into the Swordsmen. Between the +1 DEF, +1 ARM on most of them, Unyielding, and Defensive line, these dudes are ARM20. I manage to kill 2 of them, and that's it, but still. Now my Tarpit is where I want them to be, and not vice versa.




So, the tarpit didn't work. My opponent is in damage control somewhat, but not too bad. The terms aren't his, but he's still doing ok, and my Fenns are going to struggle to do anything. He drops Ignite, and moves his Legionairres around, opening lanes and getting better positions. He doesn't want to kill a Fenn and get KD quite yet, but he'll take the Vengeance to shuffle.

The Carnivean starts off, and moves forward, spends a fury, and pushes the Scythean forward an inch, which I have never seen before. Kallus moves up, feats, and puts Ignite on the Scythean. He also casts Dark Guidance, which is an awesome spell. So now, the Scythean can't charge, run, anything, but he can move, and with Reach, has it. So he walks up, and I warn him. "Hey, Mulg has protective fit."

"Right, where he walks in and makes an attack."

"Yeah, everytime you hit."

"That's stupid."

So he changes his mind, and walks towards Mulg instead. He manages to kill Mulg, which is really sad, and has a bit to spare, so he swings at Grim, and I transfer to my Bomber, and kills it's spirit. And that's it for the Scythean.

The Legionairres charge, and three of them go after pGrim, hoping to finish him, but they're just out, by a hair's breadth, all three of them. The rest of them annihilate the Fenns that were engaging them, and then mini-feat with Iron Zeal, which stands them all back up and gives them +4 ARM, as if they needed it.

Also, the Spawning Vessel gets enough souls, and spawn ANOTHER shredder, and sends it careening into pGrim. Maybe that's what damaged the Bomber, I don't remember. But pGrim was pretty engaged at the end of the turn.



So now it's my turn. I lost Mulg, I'm losing Fenns, but I think I'm still ahead. However, I love assassinations, so I work through some pretty basic order of activation math. I have my Impaler, my Bomber, and maybe a few charge attacks with the Fenns, and I think I can kill Kallus, who's sitting on 2 transfers. I have easy access to Knockdown, I have my feat (-3DEF and SPD for enemy models in my Ctrl), so it's not too bad. Unhappily, my Bomber is engaged by one of the Legionairres that charged pGrim, and pGrim is engaged by a Scythean and Shredder. So, I pull in fury, cut for one or whatever I need, and upkeep Cross Country. The Long Riders charge, three of them at the Carnivean, and 2 at the Scythean, slamming him into the wall and knocking him down, leaving him on very little. The other three inflict mild damage to the Carnivean, but don't reach impact range, so no slam.

Happily though, pGrim is no longer engaged, by the Scythean, but I still have the Shredder, and I'd like the Scythean to be dead too. Tor assaults the Shredder, Wrathar with reach slips in behind him, and Rhudo runs over and makes faces at the Scythean who was out of his melee range. The Sons do Fervor again, and between Tor's spray, and the three attacks, murder the Shredder, freeing Grim finally.

Almost there. I debate about activating my Fenns first, but I go ahead and open with Grim. He spends 2 to farstrike himself, aims, feats, and I seriously debate about boosting. I need a 5. They say to boost if you absolutely need this to hit, but for a 5? If I had a fury left, I could far strike the Bomber, and which I really need to do sincethe Impaler doesn't have enough to farstrike them both. So, I finally get brave enough to roll it.

I get a 7.

KDs Kallus. He then spends a fury to heal the Spirit on the Bomber so that he can force him, and puts Farstrike on him. Now, with the Fenns, I want to charge, but he reminds me that Kallus has Unyielding, so I pass, and focus on the Legionairre engaging the Bomber instead, and manage to kill him, creating an incubi which I kill with another Fenn. Think that was the only incubi I created too lol.

The Impaler starts off, throws, connects, and does a crazy amount of damage. My opponent decides to keep it. I have 2 attacks left with the Bomber, and he has 2 transfers. Game over. I don't have much of a choice, but at the least, I might kill off the two beasts and keep Grim alive. So the bomber hits, boosts damage. POW16 is dice even, and Kallus transfers 15 or 16 damage to his Carnivean, leaving him at 5 boxes. The Scythean is at 4. I buy a second shot, hit, and boost damage again, and get another cranked damage roll. Easily enough to kill the Carnivean and Scythean both and have enough left over to polish off Kallus.



Thoughts on the game.

1. My dice were on fire, and not just damage rolls, but my deviations. Those bomber deviations were amazing, and perfect. I couldn't have aimed them better.
2. The list was a recommendation from another Legion player, who plays the Hex Hunters behind the Legionairres. I think this was the first time my opponent had tried this one, and I benefited from the unfamiliarity. The other way to do it is to tie the Legionaires into the front lines, and feat. Then, I struggle to kill them, when I do, I deal with Incubi. On his turn, he has left over legionairres, a bunch of Incubi, and a full unit of hex hunters with Battle mage. I suffer up to 4 waves of attacks, which is pretty brutal. Fenn Blades with Vengeance mitigates it some, but not that much.
3. I really like pGrim, but mainly because he lives and breathes assassination... and I like that.

Anyways, hope you guys learned something! Point out problems, errors, comments, crits, you name it.

50pts eSorscha (Khador) vs. eMadrak (Trollbloods). My wife is starting to counter list me.

  It's essentially meta-gaming, but by meta, I mean the two of us, and four out of four of our last games have been me playing eMadrak. She stepped it up a notch and picked up Valachev and eSorscha. Both are incredibly nifty in conjunction with the Nyss. The Epic incarnation of Sorscha is actually remarkably similar to her Prime version. Boundless Charge is still in, and so is Freezing Grip. This time around though, she's got the tools to do work herself. Shatterstorm is out there like a unit-wide Explosivo, and Cyclone exists to spirit her into combat, and move away, or vice versa. Kind of a Khador version of eCaine's Gatecrasher, but better in a few respects. On top of that, she's got Harlan Versh's multifire gun that can get up to ROF4. Her feat is reminiscent of Siege as well, in that anything that breaks ARM is doubled. At Dice minus 3, and you roll a 9, you're doing 12 damage. Against my trolls, that's terrifying. She also gains Iron Flesh, which, combined with the Nyss makes for a DEF18 tarpit... That's a unit 10 models higher than eCaine's DEF. It's messed up.

Valachev is Khador's ranking officer. In short, he puts the Nyss in Faction. This isn't huge for eSorscha so much, but Valachev does so much for the Nyss that it's irrelevant. For starters, he gives them a 3'' Zephyr movement (Like the Woldstalkers from Circle) that ignores free strikes, and then they can activate as normal. On the Nyss, when I'm trying to tie them up with Fenns, that's really annoying.

My wife also proxied out her Juggernaut for Behemoth. I'd actually never read his stats. POW12 AP fists? Seriously? You people keep thinking your hunters are good. POW6 AP is horrendous.

So, her list, expanding to 50pts:

eSorscha
*Sylys
*Destroyer (Bonded)
*Behemoth (proxied by the Juggernaut)
Max Nyss w/ Valachev
Max Men of War
Ayaina & Holt
eEiryss
Harlan Versh
Manhunter

A few pointers. Really, our list building consists of "Here's everything you own that's Khador. Fill with Mercs.". The Men of War have about been replaced. I think I'll see Boomies in their stead next game, unless she replaces her beloved Destroyer. The Destroyer, incidentally, is bonded because she reasoned she can already put 6 focus on the Behemoth, she'd like to have the ability to put 4 on the Destroyer, and she was also pretty sure the Destroyer would see Melee before Behemoth would.

I'm probably going to try to grab her the Great Bears, Behemoth, or a unit of WGI in the near future. Any pointers in that direction are much appreciated. Behemoth seems like a really good idea, but what's a good jack for the Sorschas, and secondly, Strakhov? Sorscha first though.

My list remains much the same. I'm loving eMadrak. I'm enjoying playing dangerous halfway up the board with Grim Salvation, the Stone and whatever else I can get. I like the damage he can put out, I like the resiliency of his army, it's fun. My original plan to carry me from 35 to 50 pts was to get an assembled battle wagon on the table, but the more I looked at it, the more I decided that it needed painted in separate pieces and not altogether. The other thing for the last 6 pts would be the Sons of Bragg, which are primed, and have some base colors laid down on them (including an ugly orange that's the rust layer before I put metals down). So no battlewagon, but I did have a completed Janissa that I've been itching to try, so I made it work.

eMadrak
*Runebearer
*Stormtroll
*Impaler
*Slag troll
Fennblades w/UA
Champions
Sons of Bragg
Kriel Stone Bearer
Kithkar
Janissa
Fell Caller

We rolled off, and I desperately wanted to get first, so I could choose second. Jessica has consistently enjoyed deploying in response to my initial setup, and every bloody time (except once), the Nyss go across from the Fenns. I used to put the Fenns in the woods on my left because of their native pathfinder, but the Nyss don't need the extra concealment. She put the Nyss against the Champions once when I put them in the woods, and she won't do that again. So, by losing the rolloff, I know that I'm facing DEF18 Nyss with MAT6 Fenns.

Woohoo.

So, Champions to my left. Beasts in the center to take advantage of the ruin (cover) in front of them, Madrak, and the Fenns on my right. Next to the Fenns are my super new Sons of Bragg, my answer to the Nyss if the Fenns can't finish them. Behind all this is the Fell Caller, Janissa, Moses, the KSBs (hoping to camp in the ruins) and the Kithkar (My backup answer to the Nyss).



My wife deploys the Nyss exactly as expected, on the right to counter my Fenns, with Valachev. The Men of War head to the opposite side, hoping to deal with the Champions, but without getting into the woods. Everything else goes center. Remember, the Juggernaut is Behemoth.




I'm off. I activate Moses first (the Runebearer) and give Madrak a cheaper spell. The Champions sprint (Imagine John Candy with two weapons and running) a whopping 10''. The Fenns move 12'' up the right side, spacing out so hopefully I won't get Shatterstormed to death by the Nyss. The Kithkar filters in behind. The 3 beasts run forward, riling for a total of 2, plus the 3 fury they used to run. Madrak drops Warpath (Kill enemy model in control range, give beast free 3'' movement out of activation) for 1 fury, dumps the rest to the stone and charges the Behemoth, or something. Fell Caller, Sons of Bragg all move up. KSB runs, pops aura behind Madrak for a whopping 7'' radius circle of +2 ARM, and Janissa moves up to plant a wall in front of them all.






ACTION SHOT!!!



My wife opens the ball with a focus on each jack, and running the Men of War. The Nyss run forward as well, spreading out, and not pushing too far ahead. She's kind of figured out the range on mini-feating Fennblade charges (13'' w/ reach). The two jacks forge forward, not terribly far either (14'' guns. I'll come soon enough), and Eiryss hangs out in the woods. The Manhunter sprints for the ruins on the right, Harlan joins Eiryss, Sylys moves up and Sorscha activates. She puts Iron Flesh on the Nyss, and keeps whats left. 2, I think. I think she actually allocated a few more focus to her jacks than 1, but decided not to shoot on the chances that she'd kill one Fenn, and no more than that. She's decided that if she's not going to kill more than 3 Fenns, it's not worth triggering Vengeance, and she's pretty happy with how far they are from the Nyss atm. So she marxed a few focus I think, but it works.



ACTION SHOT!!! Sunday was an enjoyable evening, the two of us painting.



So, here we go. Madrak pulls in fury, upkeeps Warpath. The Fell caller puts War Cry (+2 MAT) and moves towards the Champions because I'm expecting to need Pathfinder on them soon. The Champions push forward, maybe 4 inches. I'm trying to goad my wife into charging them. Moses puts cheaper spells on Madrak. Madrak shuffles forward, puts the Impaler's animus on the Impaler, throws Blood Fury to the Champions, and puts his last fury on the Stone. The Impaler moves up near the Champions, and boosts a spear throw into the center MoW so that A) I know how far they are away (11.5'') and B) maybe crit slam so I can KD him, and the one behind him and shut them down for a turn essentially. I don't get the Crit, and boosted damage on an ARM21 Khadorian leaves him with 1 box.

The Stormtroll runs for the Fenns. I'm fully expecting to shoot some Fenns in the back and bring in some Cygnaran electro-leap tech for these DEF18 Fenns. The Slag runs forward as well, trying to get into a position to put damage into Behemoth, who scares me. AP 12 fists will hurt everything in my army.

KSB move up, pop aura and shelter all of the Champions, Madrak, Impaler, Slag, Fell Caller and a couple of Fenns. Janissa moves up and drops a wall. Again. The Sons of Bragg run up to shelter behind the wall a little (outside of Grim Salvation), and get within the Aura. They also do their Call of Defiance (Boomhowler tough).

The Fenns charge, and minifeat. Three go for the charge. One hits the Manhunter, two more go for Nyss. One gets the melee range, and all the others run, one going to bug the Behemoth and Destroyer. The one that hits the Manhunter actually connects and murders her, making my wife unhappy. "This is my favorite painted model, and I have yet to use her. You bought her for me, and then you kill her, every game."

The Fenn that goes after the Nyss misses, needing a 10 (Fell Call) to hit. The Kithkar runs up behind the Fenns, and that's it for me.






Sylys upkeeps Iron Flesh on the Nyss, dangit. My wife puts 4 focus on behemoth (3 to the sub cortex) and 2 on the Destroyer. Harlan opens the ball, moves up... and breathes the sweet smell of Purgation. Boosted attack AND damage rolls on my Champions... He hits, all four times, but whuffs a few of the damage rolls, leaving my guy at 1 box. A solid trade, pretty similar to what I did to her MoW.

Now that she's measured range with Harlan, she shuffles the MoW forward, toeing into threat range against the Champions.

The Nyss Zephyr away thanks to Valachev, and then charge right back in at three Fenns, and completely annihilate them all, except one. I actually remembered Set Defense that they have, and she only got one attack at this one, needing an 8, and she missed. The Nyss passed their CMD check, last turn incidentally, from the Terror on the Fenn's minifeat.

Holt stands, aims, and misses the Fenn engaging her jacks. He aims, shoots again, and kills him this time. Ayaina stealths them both. The Destroyer aims, does not boost to hit and puts a shot into my Impaler, and does four or five damage. The Behemoth aims, misses. Deviation goes nowhere good. Second shot, she boosts to hit and boosts damage and takes me down another 8 boxes. I have all 3 aspects still, but the spirit is 1 away from being out.

She then debates what to do with Eiryss, but reads the Sniper line. With a frustratingly annoying, but undeniably cute smirk, she shoots my Impaler and does 1 damage to the spirit, and shuts down his fury mechanic.

Sorscha hangs out.



Fury comes back in. Madrak drops Warpath (everything is pretty much outside his control), but upkeeps Blood Fury on the Champions. The Fenns Vengeance forward, and a few get reach, but miss everything. DEF18, yo.

So. Is it feat turn? Probably not. I really don't have Control for most of my units. So the Champions charge. Well, 2, specifically. One goes after Eiryss, and one goes after the center MoW. The others run. The one that charged Eiryss misses the first attack, but hits on the second and smushes her. The second charge hits, kill, and is just BARELY out of melee with either of the dudes on either side. I was just barely in charge range with them.

Moses does a cheap spell on Madrak. Madrak heals the Impaler for 1, far strikes the Slag, and the Impaler both. The Impaler boosts a hit at the Destroyer, but fails to crit, and doesn't do any serious damage, if any, though he boosted it. He's at 2 fury. My slag aims, with Far Strike, and throws at Behemoth. Boost damage, and roll 6, on four dice (Erosion)... No damage. Buy second shoot, shoot, hit, boost damage and do 4 boxes to the 2 I think. Terrible.

The Fell caller runs, because he's way out range to help the Fenns, who need him way more than the Champs. The Fenns charge/run, including one at Valachev (friggin Zephyr), and everybody misses at MAT6. The Kithkar walks in, and misses, swinging over the wall. This is brutal. Granted, I needed boxcars on everyone, except Valachev, but I wasn't able to roll higher than like, 5. Still, I didn't expect to kill many Nyss this game with the Fenns. At this point, I'm trying to force her to deal with them, instead of shooting KSBs off of Madrak. I do put 2 fenns in melee with her jacks, trying to tie her up still.

I check control range, and I think the Stormtroll is in range of my Fenns engaged with the Nyss. With back arc, engaged, and aiming, I need a 7 to hit. Boost to hit, and miss. There's no chance of hitting a Nyss, so I rile for one. I'm fully expecting to lose a beast this round. Stupid Stormtroll.

Sons of Bragg shuffle up by Madrak (again, outside of Grim Salvation). KSBs run up, pile in around him and pop aura. I only have the KSBs, Madrak, Janissa, the two beasts in front, and the Sons still in the aura. Janissa moves up, drops a wall, and that's turn. The tape goes back to Jess.



She contemplates for awhile, and decides that it's probably feat turn. The Impaler is half dead, and the Slag troll worries her considerably. Sylys upkeeps Iron Flesh, and Sorscha puts 2 focus to the Behemoth sub cortex, and 2 on the Destroyer, and keeps 2 for Boundless charge.

Holt starts up again, and shoots a fenn engaged with Behemoth, and he toughs, FINALLY. He kills the other one, and Ayaina stealths. Jess debates long and hard on how far to move Sorscha. She's pretty tired of losing Sorscha on the last chance long-range assassination runs that I pretty much live for, so she finally decides to move up a few inches to get LOS to the toughed Fenn, and feats. She handcannons the Fenn effortlessly, puts Boundless charge on the Destroyer, and calls it. She's got 1 champion, the Slag, the Impaler, and several fenns in her feat. The fenns don't matter, but she wants the Slag and Impaler.

The Men of War shuffle/charge, and kill three Champions with Harlan's help, and none of them tough. The Nyss Zephyr around, and kill more Fenns, including my UA so I lose Vengeance. I'm down to my drummer, and one Fenn, who fail CMD. Behemoth aims, and puts a shot into my slag. It connects, does 2 damage which becomes four. Not great, but ok. Second shot, hits, boosts damage, and she does 6 damage, becoming 12, and takes him down to 6 boxes.

The Destroyer charges. Between the bond of 2'' of movement and Boundless charge, it easily gets into melee with my Slag, and she conveniently sets it up to get melee on my Impaler as well. She slays the Slag in the charge attack, and I pull the fury in. She takes the last two attacks out on the Impaler, and wipes him out easily, enjoying the feat. I let that fury go.



Things are getting tight here. She's attritioning me pretty well. The Kithkar gets Vengeance moves up, AND KILLS THE FIRST NYSS OF THE GAME. WOOOOOO!!!!!

Ahem. I upkeep Blood Fury, and pull Fury off of the Stormtroll. The Champions charge/run. The left one charges Harlan and a Man of War, and the other runs in between the other tree, because I'm hoping to get them into Madrak's feat and get attacks against everything. The guy who charged kills the MoW he charged, but takes both attacks to do it, and therefore does not kill Harlan.

The Stormtroll aims, boosts to hit, AGAIN, NEEDING A 7, and MISSES. AGAIN. He riles for 2, since he's my only fury generator.

So, since the Fenns haven't accomplished anything, the one with a sword runs away, dies to the FS, and the drummer goes and plays Children of the Corn in the field. I have no idea what he's for except 3'' of CMD range.

The Sons of Bragg though, they do fervor, and charge. 2 of the 3 hit, and Tor with the Assault kills 2 by himself AND Valachev! I finally get to use these guys, and they're doing great! The Kithkar charges into the pool (which we're not currently counting as anything, or the elevation around it) and misses the charge target twice, but manages to get everyone into his melee range.

Madrak.... No, Moses. Moses gives Madrak Blood Fury, and THEN Madrak charges the Destroyer with 4 Fury on him. He starts weeding through the boxes on this guy, misses one attack on snake eyes, and comes down to the last fury, and fails to kill the Destroyer. So he feats, and whacks him again. Not quite, but getting there. The Champions are out of my feat, but the Sons and Kithkar both are. And they lay waste to the Fenns, killing all but four on some finally decent rolls. The Nyss fail CMD too.

The Fell caller gives Warcry to himself and charges the Destroyer. The little Weaponmaster that could finishes the Jack and puts him in the dirt. Janissa, who I was saving for last with her AP attack, OR the wall, depending on what was needed, gets to do the wall, and drops it in front of Madrak. The KSB shuffle around him protectively and pop aura, catching everyone but the Champions.






We're sitting at 28pts and 26 pts, Jess in the lead attrition wise. The last turn was good to me, but I'm still playing catchup. Sylys upkeeps Iron Flesh, because why not. Sorscha puts 3 on the sub cortex of Behemoth and keeps the rest. The Men of War desperately want charge Madrak, but they don't have the range, or the spd, so they settle for helping Harlan finish the Champions. I think this is the first game the Men of War have actually outlived the Champions.

The Nyss "flee" and reposition in a line between A+H and Sorscha, and rally successfully. Ayaina "kisses" the Kithkar, and Holt kills him. No tough, of course.

The Destroyer shuffles over, boosts a shot into Madrak, and hits (Even with the wall, Blood Fury has Madrak down to DEF16), hits, and between Grim Salvation and blast damage, kills 3 of my KSB dudes. The second shot misses and doesn't do anything. Sorscha tucks in behind the Jack, camps her focus, and Sylys slips over to block LOS to her.



Madrak upkeeps Blood fury, cuts himself for 2, pulls fury in from the Stormtroll. The Fell caller puts Warcry down on him, and Madrak charges the Nyss. I still need 8s to hit, but I'm hoping to Tide of Death my way through the Nyss, A+H, Sylys, and finally Sorscha. However, needing 8s to hit, I kill the first one, but the third Nyss completely stops me. I can't roll higher than 5 in a row, 3 times, so I stop, leave 1 fury on Madrak and stay there. The Sons of Bragg shuffle, Fervor, and Tor sprays Ayaina, catching the 2 remaining Nyss, and A+H. He kills 3 of them, and the last Bragg kills the remaining Nyss.

Stormtroll runs forward, riles for 2. Moses wanders up, and Janissa drops the wall protecting them all. The last KSB dude runs in by Madrak, pops the last Fury. The Drummer, my last Fenn, runs and unknowingly becomes a Grim Salvation target. Tada, that's what you're for, buddy!

Madrak is at DEF16, ARM19 w/ stone, 1 fury, and 3 Grim Salvation targets.



Iron Flesh is gone now, since the Nyss are Finally dead. Sorscha keeps all her focus. Harlan walks up and puts shots into the KSB. He hits, and doesn't break ARM. Tries it again, hits, kills, toughs. Last time. Hits. Overall, between Harlan's four shots, 2 shots from Behemoth, and a charge from Sylys, all three grim salvation targets are killed, sylys personally finishing the Son of Bragg nearby. The Men of War shuffle forward, and Sorscha and her 6 focus charge.

She hits, and does 6 damage to Madrak. I mark it down. She buys, boosts to hit, does another 6 damage. She's down to 4 focus. She buys, misses. Buys, hits, does 4 damage. I have 2 or 3 boxes left. She buys, hits, does 6 and I transfer. She buys, misses, buys her last attack, and hits, and does enough damage to leave Madrak at 2 boxes of health.

And that's it for her, and once again, I pull out a last ditch assassination because the dice hated her, EXCEPT, I realized that I'd marked all my damage on Prime Madrak's card in my 3 ring binder, not Epic Madrak's card. I had cut for fury last turn, for 2.

eMadrak was dead, and I failed the tough roll.



Thoughts:

1. I just realized that I think Sorscha has crit freeze on her melee attack, and I'm pretty sure that she got crit at some point in those attacks, and both of us failed to realize it. Madrak was definitely dead, because she wouldn't have missed after Stationary.

2. Before we realized I'd marked the wrong card, we were theorizing on how she could have killed Madrak otherwise, because she thought she'd rolled with the best plan. I think she did too, but thoughts on this would be great. The other option was for her to focus on hand cannoning Madrak and taking down Grim Salvation targets, then let Behemoth walk around the corner with 3 focus and put the fear of Armor Piercing into Madrak. That was a possibility, but it counted removing enough Grim Salvation targets for Behemoth to get into melee.

3. I think she should have ignored the Fenns a bit more, and used Zephyr to put a few Nyss through the lines and kill my KSBs throughout the game. She had plenty of Nyss to tie up my Fenns, and still leave a few to shoot at me. The fewer KSBs I have, the less Grim Salvations I have in late-game. Between the KSBs and Janissa's wall, Madrak and pretty nearly hang out where he want to in the late game, and that's a problem.

4. We're ready for Scenario, I think. Straight-up caster kill lets up attrition slowly, and focus on killing armies, whereas, on Scenario, I would have had to devote time and resources to controlling the Champion Zone after the MoW cleared it, taking from my stronger flank. I think Jess has a better chance of beating my brick if she can play the Scenario game.

5. I really like my Sons of Bragg. That was fun. The Stormtroll is normally a really good buy too, but man, he sucked this game.

6. Iron Fleshed Nyss are a serious issue for my Fenns. That stumped me all game long, and I think have a few answers finally. A) A Bomber. Drifting AOEs at POW8 don't give a crap about DEF18. B) Chronicler. Make her pay for killing my Fenns in Melee by KDing the Nyss. That pretty much guarantees that I'll kill a few next turn, especially in conjunction with my Stormtroll. The Chronicler is on my to-buy list this weekend, and so is either Skaldi, or a Champion Hero. Or eDoomy. Might be eDoomy. My Mt. King isn't ready yet though... Might be Jarl though.

So, Comments, questions! What's the next good buy for Khador? Behemoth? Great Bears? WGI w/UA & Joe? The big thing is replacing the Men of War. I need something better for that 9pt slot. Between Harlan and Eiryss, there's some wiggle room for a bigger unit than 9pts too, but otherwise, I'll probably see Boomhowlers against my Champions next game.

Jarl (Trollbloods) vs. eCaine (Cygnar) 50pts

  This last Saturday I got the chance to take my table from my previous post down to our FLGS and get a few games in.  I managed to get 50pts vs. Trollbloods, then went after a Khador Harkevitch list with eStryker.  Haven't gotten to play eStryker a whole lot lately.  I've been on a Kraye kick and have been fleshing out eCaine after having recently purchased him.  eStryker did great.  I didn't actually take pictures of that one, so I won't batrep it.  I should have.  The guy I was playing normally rolls with Vlad3, and Harkevitch is a sudden change for him.  I managed to assault with the Boomies early on and at RAT4, needing 9s, killed 6 Iron Fang Pikemen.  My dice were on fire.  After that, it was just a slow game of attrition with the Centurion Stryker creeping in while Harkevitch tried to clear out the Boomies while my Stormblades weakly contested the left flank.  By turn three or four, he left a hole in his front line, daring Stryker to take three or four free strikes to make the charge.  I manage to kill one IFP, and squeeze past all but one, who hit but only did one damage.  Then Stryker rolled for +17 STR and only like, 8 damage.  It was awesome.  Hit Harkevitch twice and killed him.  Got fairly lucky.  The Boomhowlers toughing pretty consistently and shooting down 6 IFP early on pretty much forced an uphill battle for everything else.

  That's all besides the point.  The actual batrep has me up against Jarl with Trollbloods vs. eCaine and Cygnar.  I took the table down, unfolded it, and garnered a game.  Let's run through the table real quick.  Left, we have elevation dead center, two forests opposite of eachother, and a building on the left as well.  The building is simply a square of linear obstacles.  No LOS blockage or anything.  The road is nothing, just board decor.  The water tower towards the back is an obstruction, and the tiled pad next to it is elevation, with both shallow water (the irrigation drain) and then there's the building on it too.  Also linear obstacles.  

  Now, keep in mind that +4 Cover and +2 Elevation normally stack, but for ease of balance and playability, it's one or the other.  It hasn't come up as far as LOS issues are concerned, but I assume that being behind the door frame would give +4 cover, and LOS as well, but not the +2 DEF for elevation.  That's not technically following the rules exactly, but when was the last time you saw cover on top of a hill?  You haven't, because it's messed up.  As the builder of this board, it would be assumed almost immediately that this is so I can park eCaine behind the wall at Base DEF17 +6 for elevation/cover and then camping Blur too.  That's DEF26.  Laying down, He'd still be DEF16.  I don't care what Marx says, High DEF is going to stop you from shooting my caster in this case.  So, elevation is not factored into the cover.  This may change in the future, but I doubt it.  

  Lastly, the field is rough terrain.  Nothing crazy, no cover, extra DEF, just needs pathfinder.  The goal of the board was to make it Not symmetrical, but not skewed either.  The woods are a bit symmetrical obviously, but everything else works pretty well.  The two armies I wanted to run on it were Trolls and Cygnar, just so I could see how medium based trolls do on this map, and Cygnar's shooting.  Happily, that was the first match.

  So!  Lists.  I bought eCaine last week because I'm tired of getting murdered by eMorvahna.  Plain and simple.  pCaine's a blast, I love Kraye, eStryker is still winning me games, but I'm tired of eMorvahna just pretty nearly dominating me every time.  At the same time, I grabbed Sylys, Reinholdt, and Taryn.  Yes, I'm going all out with this guy.  

eCaine

*Hunter

*Hunter

*Sylys

ATGM

*UA

*Avenger

Trencher Master Gunner

Nyss Hunters

Boomhowlers

Taryn de la Rovissi.  

Black 13th

Rangers

  I just realized it, but I think that list is like, 98% painted...  Wait, no, the ATGM aren't completely based, and the Avenger doesn't have highlights.  Everything else is done though.  My wonderful wife painted the Nyss, Taryn, Sylys and Reinholdt too, so a lot of my painting credit goes to her as well.

  The goal here is to try and convince myself that I have 12 pts of Hunters for a reason.  On eCaine, they seem like they might make sense, because they don't need a whole lot of focus.  The other option is Rowdy.

  The ATGM because... eCaine loves ATGM. The Avenger because I like RNG14 POW14 KD AOEs, that don't need any help from eCaine.  Nyss because Nyss are awesome and capable of so much, and Boomhowlers because medium based guys with 50% chance of tough with no knockdown from Heightened Reflexes.  That's just messed up.  Anyways, this is a lot of stuff to tie up pretty nearly anything.  Lots of Hi-ARM might be an issue, but hopefully I can just attrition it out, and if there's actually a few beasts or jacks out there that really are an issue, between 2 hunters and eCaine's feat, I can handle them.  We'll see though.

  I went up against Trollbloods.

Jarl

*Runebearer (The Moses guy)

*Stormtroll

*Impaler

Fell Caller

Chronicler

Longriders

Horthol

Fennblades

*UA

Trollkin Champions

*Skaldi Bonehammer

...I think that's all of them.  We rolled off, I won it, and took second, because I actually wanted a specific side of the board.  Either one would have worked, but I wanted the less open one, which was great, because he wanted the open side.  He deployed with the brick on the center, all the support in behind them and the Longriders out on the flank where the Fell Caller (I think) could get them pathfinder for the rough terrain.

  My hunter sat opposite of the Longriders, Nyss went towards the woods, ATGM behind the building with Caine and Boomies took center.  The goal was to stop the Longriders with Hunters and tangle them with Boomies while the Nyss tied stuff up and helped the ATGM shoot things while the Rangers hang out in the woods and support everyone.  Taryn hung out towards the woods as well, and the B13 forgot to get deployed, but would end up on the right to support the Hunters and/or Boomies.

  

  We actually got a scenario, incidentally.  Fairly simple.  I think it was Incoming, but we had to flip the zones because of terrain.  Objectives across from eachother to be destroyed for one point, zones that can be friendly dominated for 1, controlled for 2, and dominated by the enemy for 3.  

  So, game begins.  I don't remember the OOA, but I think Jarl activates... Or Moses.  Runebearer activates, hangs out, and makes one spell cheaper for Jarl.  Jarl puts Quicken on the Fenns for a SPD/DEF bonus, and Tactical Supremacy which gives an extra 3'' movement after all of the unit has activated.  Lastly, he puts Weald Secrets on the Longriders for Pathfinder and camouflage, and moves up.  The Chronicler puts "Feign Death" on the Fenns, so that they gain +2DEF and can't be targeted while KD.  the Fenns run forward, because that's what Fenns do.  I love those models and that unit.  Those guys are awesome.

  The Longriders run as well, pushing as far up on the flank as they can, while taking advantage of the cover to be had in the shed.  The Stormtroll runs, and riles, and so does the Impaler.  The Champions run as well, and Skaldi right with them.  Fell Caller runs too.  I was trying to remember if he got pathfinder to the Long riders, but I think he does that later.  Horthol charges way down the opposite flank from the Longriders.

  Then it's my turn.  Caine hands a focus to each hunter and keeps the rest.  Rangers move up, and one gets within 5'' of Horthol, and that one shoots a Fenn, who fails his tough.  The other five rangers shoot at Horthol, and take him down a few damage, but nothing crazy.  I briefly consider CRAing the Nyss, but there's no way they'll have Range I don't think, so I run them instead and fill the woods up.  The Avenger moves up, and takes a shot, but doesn't have range (even with snipe) to hit a clump of troops like I'd like to, so he only hits one, who toughs.

  The hunters activate, and one aims, and the other moves up.  The one that aims is just out, and the other rolls snakeeyes to miss.  Waste of focus, and 2 Longriders live because of it.  That'll hurt.  The B13 pop a few shots off at them, and throw a Magestorm out to stymy them a little.

  The Boomhowlers roll with Fell Call and run forward in two lines.  I'm starting to learn how to actually tarpit and not lose the whole unit on turn one.  Caine moves up, puts Blur on the ATGM and Heightened Reflexes on the Boomhowlers.  Reinholdt tucks in behind him and Sylys follows.  Taryn takes a couple of potshots at Horthol, but fails to finish him off.

Action shot!

  Jarl's turn.  He drops Weald Secrets, I believe, but keeps Tactical Supremacy on the Fenns.  The Fell Caller shuffles over, get Pathfinder onto the Longriders, who charge.  One hits a hunter, and shuts down his gun, while the other cleans out a Boomhowler.  The other three run around engaging things because my Magestorm messed up their charge lane.  I probably would have chanced it.  ARM17 vs. POW12... I'd have to roll 13 to kill, so they should have been safe, but he ran around it.  I'm ok with that.

  Then the Fenns mini-feat and come at me.  They bring Terror with them, but the ATGM, Boomies AND Nyss all pass CMD, which I couldn't believe.  Then the Fenns proceed to shred my Boomies, EXCEPT, I have a 50% chance to Tough.  At the end of his turn, I lose 5 of them altogether.  So far, a Long Rider gets one, and I think of the seven or eight Fenn attacks I take, I tough all but 3 of them.  It was awesome.  Even better, Heightened Reflexes didn't allow the Boomies to go KD, so they just kept tanking it.  It was amazing.  I loved it.  One Boomie, in particular, toughed 3 times with 3 Fenns tucked in around him.  So, the Stormtroll activates, and shoots/throws at this engaged Boomy.  Boosts to hit, going up against DEF16, and... misses...

  He then hits his own guy in the back, and rolls 3 electro leaps, that chain leap and kill the three Fenns engaging that one Boomy.  Heh.  The Impaler then kills him in a fit of rage though, so he still dies, but he caused a lot of problems.  In fact, he causes problems for me too.  That last boomy takes me to half a unit, and they fail their cmd check...  

  Random side note, I almost died here, because Caine's positioning left him open to Magic Bullet which Jarl hilariously has alongside eCaine.  I figured he was safe at DEF21, but magic bullet careth not, but my opponent decided it wasn't a good option, so he passed.

  Anyways, the Fenns killed a few Nyss too, so there was that.  The Champions run forward and clump into 2 3man groups for the ARM bonus, and then Horthol charges his own Fenn in the back and slams him forward over like, three Nyss and a Ranger, killing all four.  Heads up, if you see Long Riders, and put medium based infantry in front of your small based infantry, you're going to have a bad time.  D6'' Slam with like, POW14 collateral damage?  POW12?   Either way, it's auto dead for more light infantry, and anything but snake eyes will kill wannabe medium based infantry like Stormblades.  "We're really little but we're ARM15!  Blast Damage... well, it MIGHT kill us.  We seriously doubt it though."

  Anyways.  The Chronicler puts Feign Death (Important!) on Jarl, who shoots a Ranger I think, and feats, and manages to put 6 cloud templates down.  These all go within his control, block LOS, and put -2MAT or RAT on enemy models inside the template.  Kinda nifty, but a very defensive feat.  On the downside, it works great against eCaine.

    So, I upkeep Heightened Reflexes, drop Blur on the ATGM because that was kind of silly, give the black Hunter a focus, and keep the rest.  The Boomies rally, which is something, but meh.  I can't see much, in fact, I can only see the models that are actually in the clouds, or the Longriders on the far right.  While I'd like more shooting, this lets me focus quite a bit, and in retrospect, outside of an assassination, I don't know that I would have shot at anything else.  

  However, Reinholdt opens the ball and gives an extra shot to Caine, and the Trencher Master Gunner gives +2 RAT to the Avenger.

  Side note:  Every time this warjack shows up at the shoppe, someone looks at it and goes "Is that an Avenger?"  The warjack never sees any use.  Ever.  I think if it wasn't part of the Centurion kit, most people wouldn't even own one.  I love mine.  He's completely negated any use for the Defender for me (I'd rather take a hunter *gasp*) and his KD shot is incredibly handy.  On the ATGM, I lose the ability to use him in melee but I don't think he's ever gotten into melee because he's standing 14'' away from his target.  Avengers never get to do that.  Maybe my opinion will change.  Quite possibly.  I love mine though.  I love catching people unaware when they sidle a little hi-def model up near a warjack to screen themselves.  Thank you, so much.  On top of that, the ATGM have pushed models for me before that weren't within KD range of what I actually wanted to KD, and that's awesome too.  Anyways.  Let's do some math.

  Horthol needs to go away.  He's really the biggest priority target I can see, and he's only got about 21 guns looking at him.  I want him dead, and saluted all at the same time.  The Avenger goes first.  Horthol is A) Engaged, and B) in a cloud.  This leaves him at DEF 18, which is pretty daunting for a RAT4 jack.

  However, my Jack is A) RAT 4, B) aiming for +2 RAT, C) Got Artillerist for another +2 RAT), D) Preparing to shoot at a target that is under Mark Target from the Rangers for another +2 RAT.  My Avenger is RAT10 right now.  Against DEF18.  The thing here is that I really want Horthol dismounted.  Really badly.  I want to put that Jackmarshal point to Damage, not Boosting.  I debate about it for awhile.  If this was Vassal, I'd of boosted.  Heck, I'd of boosted if I needed a 6.  On tabletop....

  I roll it, and roll a 9.  Boost damage, and easily kill Horthol's mount.  The troll is dismounted and KD.  Haha.  My ATGM all aim at this point, and half shoot at Horthol and finish him, and the other half plink bullets off of the Champions and Skaldi.  My Nyss then activate, shuffle around, kill some Fenns, though I'm not quite able to finish the UA who's unseen on the other side of the building.

  The Rangers push forward into the zone, and two shoot Moses, who toughs both times, dangit.  The other three plink a few wounds into Jarl, but nothing crazy.  Really, they're just being annoying.  I should have run one into the woods to be Reeeally annoying, but I wanted Moses dead.

  I still have a few things left.  The hunter that's engaged swings his axe and misses the Longrider.  The other one aims, and oneshots a Longrider.  Bout time.  It also ensures that at least one Longrider will be out of CMD range next turn.  The new leader becomes the central one, leaving the far right rider out of CMD.  The b13 pop a few shots at the one on the far left who can put the hurt to my Boomies, but don't kill him.  Caine activates, shoots him, kills him easily (Hot dice), then empties the last two shot into Bonehammer for little to no damage.  He then gatecrashes into the woods and calls it a turn.

  My opponent opens his turn by deciding that his Storm troll is on the wrong side of the board.  ARM16 Boomies don't mind electro leaping nearly as much as Nyss do.  So.  Moses... does something, I think he minifeats and casts a spell for Jarl, but I don't remember what it was.  Magic Bullet on Jarl, I think maybe.  The longriders activate, and one charges the Boomy in front of him, and rams him through Lynch and Ryan behind him, killing all three of them.  Those Longriders are handy.  Watts... passes CMD I think.  He's used to dieing.  Doesn't even scare him anymore.  The other longrider knocks out the axe on my hunter too, and the third one runs to be in CMD.  I would have walked the Hunter away with Parry, but the gun was gone after the first charge, so meh.

  The Fell Caller moves up and gives War Cry (+2MAT) to the Champions.  I think.  Skaldi and 2 champions charge while the other three shuffle around to protect Jarl.  Skaldi crushes the objective, because that's what you do when you're playing scenario, and the other two get into the Boomies, and utterly smash them.  The Boomies tough and remain standing because Sylys has been upkeeping Heightened Reflexes.  Go Sylys!

  The Impaler activates, aims, boosts to hit, and murders a Ranger, and puts his animus on Jarl.  Jarl activates shuffles into the edge of the zone, boosts to hit, hits a ranger, magic bullets another one, buys, boosts and kills the last one.  That leaves me with no Rangers in the zone, and he's dominating it.  With nothing contesting either zone, and an objective gone, we're at 4 CPs to 0.  The Chronicler throws Feign Death back onto Jarl and calls it turn.

  It's an all or nothing turn for me, which is fine.  I have eCaine, and it's feat turn.  I decide that I can either use Taryn to open LOS to Jarl, knock Jarl over with the Avenger, and murder him with eCaine, or use the ATGM to thunderbolt a Champion back into Jarl, and KD them both.  The Avenger is going to hit.  I don't have my rangers, but the Avenger is still RAT8 considering everything, and a 1, 1, 2 will hit (I'd probably TB the Champion back, seems like the safer bet).

  Then my opponent reminds me that Feign Death means that Jarl can't be targeted while knocked down.

  This pretty nearly ruins my fool-proof plans.  Little did either of us know (I should have, I've been playing the Chronicler and KNOW this), that the Chronicler's buffs are Units only.  Not warrior models, and much less casters.

  I don't realize this though.  This makes life a lot more difficult.  Factor in that Jarl has an ability that gives him 2'' of movement if he's missed by a ranged attack.  This sucks.  But it's all I've got. I realize at this point that the Axer is at full fury as well (Animus on Jarl, and boosted to hit), and that I might still have this.

  Taryn activates, and shoots two champions.  One hits, and opens LOS.  The Hunter moves up from the right flank, and is way out of range, so I wasted that.  I should have shot the Storm troll.  Watts sends a Brutal into the Stormtroll, and does like, 10 damage.  A Nyss opens fire at Jarl, through the hole Taryn opened, and does a handy amount of damage, but Jarl keeps it.  The ATGM activate, and a few throw shots at the Troll, and a few shoot Jarl.  One hits Jarl, and the other misses, so Jarl moves closer to the Champions so I can't shoot them with the Avenger and open up more LOS.  So I shoot the Troll with the Avenger, and pretty nearly finish him.

  So Caine, here we go.  He activates, moves forward, shoots Jarl.  Jarl transfers, and kills the Stormtroll.  I fire again, and miss.  Jarl moves to the right, out of LOS, with an engaged Fenn and an unengaged Champion between Caine and Jarl.  Caine handily kills them both and opens fire on Jarl again.  At this point, my opponent realizes that he misread the Chronicler's card, and that Jarl would probably be KD right now.  This is frustrating, but we've already moved on.  I keep shooting.

  Comes down to the very last shot.  I have two focus left, and Jarl has 3 health.  I'm at dice even at this point I think, if not dice plus one.  I buy and boost to hit, and roll triple ones to miss.

  ...  We didn't even play it out.  He felt pretty bad for misreading the rules, and I was kind of frustrated with trip ones missing what should have been an easy shot.  But, he won, definitely.  All he had to do was move Jarl back into his zone to dominate it, and he was done.  Wasn't really any need.

  Victory to Trollbloods!

  Thoughts on the game.  We talked about it for awhile, and I think I'm ok with.  Technically, he won it, and tournament wise, he would have moved forward.  As a friendly game between to guys at an FLGS though, I'm pretty ok with how I played it.  Everything did what it needed to, and with the exception of horrible dice at the very end, everything went pretty decent.  Actual points though:

1.  I love this table.  I'm really really happy with how this table played out.  I didn't want to have too much cover, but I wanted it to be a good looking board too.  I also didn't want it to look like I stacked the deck in Cygnar's favor.  I've played as Trollbloods enough recently to know how frustrating that much cover is.  Trollbloods was actually the army I had in mind to counterbalance Cygnar's playstyle as I tried to design an accommodating board, and I was lucky enough to have Trollbloods as my first opponent.  I'm reeeallly happy how it turned out, and how it played.  Very excited with the board.

2.  This is the... third?  I think third time I've played eCaine, 2nd time on tabletop.  The first game, I narrowly lost as well with lousy dice (eCaine vs. Circle's cassius.  Rolled 1,1 and 1,2 damage a few times on feat turn), and the second time, well, here.  But I won the vassal game with him, and the game right after this one.  I like him.  He's not as addicting as Kraye, or eStryker, or even pCaine but he's fun.  Heightened Reflexes on Boomies is hilarious.  All that being said, my list building with him needs work yet.  I got a lot of recommendations for Ol' Rowdy, so that might happen.  I think I may drop the Hunters for him.  The B13 were also 4pt filler.  I have Ayaina and Holt on the way to replace them.  That still leaves me 3 pts.  I also need to trade the Nyss out, because depending on my second list, I think they'll be in there.  If it's eStryker, they'll Definitely be in there, and maaaaybe in my Kraye list.  So I need to figure out 10pts for eCaine.  Silverline might be fun, but I don't have them yet.  I really don't actually have much infantry.  Generally, it's my Nyss, Boomies, or Stormblades.  Some Forgeguard might be nice at this point though, but it's not the time of year to put 70$ down on a 10 model unit.  And I don't have Ol' Rowdy either.  A Centurion will probably have to do for him for awhile, and maybe a Journeyman.  Idk.  Or Eiryss.

  So I need to figure out how to replace 10pts of Nyss.  Stormblades could be ok, especially with Rangers already in the mix.  Jr. would definitely be a good idea in that case, because if AS isn't on Rowdy/Cent, then it's on the blades.  10pts of Stormblades is everything but 1 Stormgunner, and I'm ok with that.  So that might be an option.  Any suggestions, comments.

3.  Gameplay.  I should have shot the Storm Troll with my Hunter.  That would have won me the game I think.  That's the one shot I really wuffed.  Like, nvm that I could have KDed Jarl.  That's besides the point.  I almost gaurantee a win there.  Going the direction we did, I think the Hunter shot was the key failure here.  That almost definitely would have killed the Troll sooner, and at 3 boxes left on Jarl, that would have been enough.

My opponent also realized that he definitely didn't need all 4 CPs.  He told me he should have pushed Jarl behind the water tower, and I agree, that would have kept him alive.  At that point though, I think I would have killed his army.  The Boomies were back in commission at that point too.  ATGM and Nyss would have killed as many Fenns and Champions as they could, while Caine would kill what was left of the champions, and hopefully get a Longrider too so that they couldn't score.  It would have been close, and he would have had the upper hand at that point I think, but it would have been a good feat turn for me.  Overall though, I'm pretty happy with how everything went, and thoroughly enjoyed the game.  I chalk it up as a pseudo win.  The official record shows a loss, but that last turn was solidly in my hands and it wasn't like I just threw it away, it just got the rules messed up and rolled trip 1s when I needed just trip 2s.

  Comments!  Insults!  Bring them on!