50pts Stryker2 (Cygnar) vs. Madrak2 (Trollbloods)

My second game Saturday was against a guy who just recently switched to Cygnar. He'd been playing Khador, and in fact, his Harkevich list with 4 clamjacks and Black Ivan had given me serious fits. However, he's recently started picking up swans, and we set up for a game after I got smashed by the last Khador player.

So, Stryker2 vs. Madrak2. Something of a mirror match. One guy gives everyone a post-turn 3'' move and an attack, and the other guy gives everyone attacks to everything in their melee simultaneously. Some differences, but certainly more similarities. Both casters rely on a high volume of attacks, and try to get their guys to hit harder, but I think Madrak does it better. Stryker requires a jack, preferably with Reach, to get in there and make Positive charge work, whereas Madrak just adds a dice to his favorite unit and sends them in. As far as Positive Charge goes, Trollbloods basically has it on a stick with the Chronicler, and I haven't used it at all. Me and my two months of Trollbloods experience...

So, eMadrak.

Madrak2
*Runebearer
*Bomber
*Impaler
Fennblades w/UA
Fennblade Kithkar
Champions w/UA
Champion Hero
Fell Caller
Janissa
Min KSB w/UA

The list continues to change. I had the Champions originally, and dropped them because I thought they were too slow, and got the Long Riders instead. I still like the Long Riders, but I playtested the Champ Hero and Skaldi a bit more, and I really like what the Hero and Skaldi to for the Champs. I also dropped the Sons of Bragg, because they're amazing, and need to go in lists that need amazing help, without feeding them support (Jarl, Grim, even eDoomy).

The Battlegroup is also evolving. I originally had the Impaler and Slag for some ranged anti-jack goodness, plus some +2 damage for Madrak or the Kithkar (maybe the Hero now), but at the end of the day, I was struggling against Hi-DEF infantry, and not against Warjacks. Fenns on Blood Fury don't need a Slag to soften up a jack before they hit it. So out with the Slag, in with the Bomber. Or the War Wagon. In this case, the Bomber. I'm debating between 2 AOE4s that I can boost damage on, vs 1 AOE5 and 1 Spray 8 template, plus a bunch of impacts. It's an interesting trade. The other problem with the War wagon is that I need a second beast to pull fury from, so while the wagon is cheaper than the Bomber, the 5pt beast I'd need to bring counterbalances it considerably. So the Bomber makes more sense at the moment.

My opponent's list had a familiar format, but with some changes. The Stryker/Maddie/Squire concept was all the same. The Stormblade Deathstar (Heh) was there as well, along with Runewood, Rhupert, SB Captain and Jr. for support. However, where I take Nyss, he took Forgeguard with Jonas, and Swordknights.

Stryker2
*Squire
*Ol' Rowdy
Maddie
Runewood
Rhupert
Stormblade Captain
Stormblades w/ UA and max WA
Sword Knights w/ UA
Forgeguard w/Jonas
Harlan Versh
pEiryss
Junior

Some differences, but it's a caster I've played a lot, and am pretty familiar with what he can do. He can easily box eMadrak, but he can't do that, AND remove all grim salvation targets, especially over a wall that's taking Madrak to DEF16 against Melee.

We rolled off and he won, so he deployed first. SKs went to the right, Forgeguard to the left. Stormblades were scattered behind, Harlan on the right flank, Eiryss on the left. Rowdy, Stryker and support hung out in the center.

I dropped Fenns on the left against Forgeguard. Not only was I pretty much guaranteed the alpha against them, between POW12 and Blood Fury, I wouldn't have any problems breaking their ARM. The Champions, on the other hand, went opposite of the Sword Knights, which meant that I could pretty much ignore them and penetrate as deep as I could into the flank and start cutting apart Stormblades.

To support that was the Bomber/Impaler combo, there to clear out Swordknights/Stormblades. The KSB went center, the Fell Caller hung out behind them, Janissa, Runebearer, all that great stuff.



Cygnar leads off. Everything runs/moves up. Stryker drops Deflection and camps, and Jr. puts Arcane Shield on Rowdy. Jonas probably minifeated, making the dwarves immune to blast damage, but I had better targets for that anyways. The kicker in this mess is Runewood, who put pathfinder on the Swordknights, who then activated and ran forward, clumping into 3man groups for Defensive line. Unfortunately, this left runewood in everyone else's way.



First off. Fenns run forward. Moses does Harmonious Exaltation on Madrak. Champions run forward. Impaler moves up, puts Farstrike on the Bomber and hangs out. Bomber moves up and throws a bomb. It drifts the right way, lands squarely on a clump of Swordknights. I boost the damage three times and kill all three, and pass on buying a second shot. Chances are I'd drift the wrong way, and on top of that, I'd be running hot, and would be out of fury anyways with which to boost blast damage.

Fell Caller shuffles along. Madrak presses forward, drops Warpath and dumps the rest to the stone. Janissa presses forward and drops a wall. KSB moves in, and auras, catching all but a few of the champions, several fenns, and all of the brick. The Fennblade Kithkar and Champion Hero run to support their respective dudes and it's my opponent's turn.



More of the same now. Jr. drops Arcane Shield on Rowdy and moves up. Everyone runs forward a bit more. The Forgeguard spread out, getting ready to take the alpha from the Fenns and countercharge. Stryker moves forward near Rowdy, toes onto the hill, casts Deceleration again and camps. Eriyss sneaks closer to my left flank, and Harlan sprints to flank my Champions. The Swordknights run forward and clump again, with the exception of one lone brave soldier who runs to engage my Champions, and triggers Countercharge from Skaldi, who crushes the little guy.



Looking at the pics, I think 2 sword knights engaged, and Skaldi killed one of them. That left one more to deal with.

So, Madrak pulls in fury. The Champion Hero charges, decides not to thresher for obvious reasons, and easily kills the Swordknight. The Impaler chucks a spear at someone, misses, but puts Farstrike on the Bomber, who again starts bombing Sword Knights and Stormblades. Needing 8s to kill, I fail to kill more than 2 of them.

The Champions proceed to charge, and tear into the Swordknights, killing most of them. They fail CMD, but pass it on the reroll since the banner is still in play. One champion gets countercharged by rowdy though, and gets boxed, but he toughs.

The Fell Caller shuffles over, puts War Cry on the Fenns for +2 to hit. Moses moves in and gets Blood fury on them with his minifeat. They charge in, minifeating also, and I distribute one for each of the forgeguard nearby (Which have tough on them from Rhupert) and four charge into Rowdy's back arc now, since he charged. The forgeguard are all boxed, but one toughs. Rowdy is taken down to 1 box on his cortex. All engaged units pass their terror checks as well, which is saddening.

I really debate about throwing an axe into rowdy, just to finish him off, but decide against it. Madrak moves up, casts warpath to burn fury, casts Blood Fury onto the Kithkar so I can get it off the Fenns and take them back up to DEF12 instead of DEF10, and then puts one more on the stone, leaving me at 1 fury, and capable of taking in everything from the warbeasts next turn.

KSB moves up and pops aura. I could have put fury to them, but I wanted warpath instead, whereas the stone would cover everything I needed it to.

Janissa drops a wall, Kithkar moves up, and that's turn.



Now the counter attack. Rowdy turns around and Tremors. We found out later that you can't do star actions with the systems missing that Rowdy was, but it doesn't change much. He rolls a 6 on one dice and knocks all four of the Fenns down engaging him. The Swordknights swing back, and damage a few Champions. Harlan shoots Skaldi in the back a bunch, but does just 1 box. The Stormblades assault, with Runewood's blessing, and kill a few, and finish off some of the Fenns that are KD behind Rowdy.

The forgeguard charge, and kill everything they reach. Eiryss shoots a Fenn too. Rhupert moves up and puts tough back on the Forgeguard. Jr. moves up to be within range of Stryker, and Stryker activates, hangs out, casts rebuke on what's left of my Fenns, and feats.

So, everything that survived the onslaught dies. The Stormblades and Swordknights move in and finish the champions, and every Fenn in melee range dies except 2. I'm down to four Fenns, the Kithkar, and my Hero Champion.



I pull in my fury, drop Warpath, and drop Blood Fury. The Fenns that can Vengeance can, and I don't think they have reach on anything. The Kithkar moves up and kills one of the Forgeguard at the edge of the hill.

The actual turn begins. The Champion hero charges into the place occupied by the champions last turn, and threshers, killing a few Sword knights, but missing the charge target, AND Rowdy, who I really wanted to finish. Double 1s for both those guys. I think Rowdy had a box of movement left, not Cortex, or I would have autohit.

The Bomber unleashes a few attacks, and clears out the Swordknight UA, banner, and a couple more SKs and a Stormblade or two. Not bad. Impaler drops a Stormblade on the hill. There's two near Stryker, but I'm leaving them as much as I can. Fenns move up and swing, since they can't charge. They kill a few Forgeguard, but it's not terribly important. I'm clearing a charge lane.

The KSB runs forward, up onto the hill near Rowdy, but leaving room for Madrak, and pops aura, and the Elder adds +1 STR.

The Fell Caller puts Warcry on Madrak, and the Runebearer gives him Harmonious Exaltation, and he charges the Stormblade in front of Stryker. He's 8.5'' from Madrak, and Stryker's a good 3'' beyond that. Madrak reaches him, feats, and essentially threshers, killing Rowdy, and both Stormblades. The Hero smashes what's left in his melee range, and that's pretty much it for things to do with the feat.

So, Madrak has 2 fury now from the feat, and 5 normal fury. He spends 1 to gain Blood Fury (Harmonious Exaltation) and spends the other to move forward and attack with Tide of Death. He hits Stryker, and does a few boxes at PS15, or Dice minus 5.

Buy. Hit. Two more boxes. This sucks. Blood fury is boosting every damage attack, but two boxes? Buy. Miss. Buy, hit, four or five more boxes. Buy, hit. Another two or three boxes. Buy my last one, swing, connect, and roll perfect damage to box Stryker.



At that point, I realized that I forgot to factor in the STR bonus from the Krielstone. That added 5 damage automatically for the attacks that hit, and did damage. So it wasn't as close as I was afraid. Had me worried, but it wasn't the perfect damage roll like I thought it was.

Thoughts on the game:

1. I played my Champions too hard. I could have charged one or two in, and let them take it, but I didn't. I have a problem playing Madrak where I see a bunch of targets, and I decide that I'm definitely going to feat, so I engage all my stuff in the enemy lines, and kill everything I engage... which means there's no reason to feat. Then my army sits there and takes the counterpunch. That's no good.

2. Jr. dropped Arcane Shield on Rowdy, and meant to put it on Stryker, and never did. That would have saved him. Easy. But he never did.

3. Maddie never really got used. Usually, Maddie, Runewood, Squire and Stryker is a surefire heads up that the assassination is coming, but it never did. In fact, he just sat up fairly close and never went anywhere. He attritioned well, but he's not impervious to assassination. It felt weird to assassinate my favorite assassination caster, but there it is.

4. I like my list. I enjoyed having a Bomber for a change... Where are those Kayazy now?

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

eMadrak's back, and I've dropped the Long Riders. I like them, but my new additions are the Champion Hero and Bonehammer, the UA. Seems like fun, so we ran with it. My opponent dropped eCaine, and again, I brought eMadrak, because... I bring eMadrak to everything?

eCaine
*Squire (which he forgot)
*Rowdy
Rangers
ATGM w/UA
Boomhowlers
Forgeguard
Ayaina and Holt
Alexia and the Risen
JR

eMadrak
*Bomber
*Impaler
Runebearer
Janissa
Fell Caller
Fennblades w/UA
Fennblade Kithkar
Champions w/UA
Champion Hero
KSB w/ UA

We rolled off, he won and elected to take first. I took the side of the map with less forest and a wall. He deployed, spreading his stuff out quite a bit. ATGM went on my right, Forgeguard center with Caine and Rowdy, Risen to the left. Boomies got spread all across the front.

I set up with Fenns across from ATGM, the Champions across from the Risen, and the Madrak/Warbeast/KSB brick in the middle.

AD'd Rangers set up with the Risen to help against the Champions, and we set off.



Most stuff moved up. Caine got Blur onto the ATGM, spreading them out as much as he could from the Bomber. Heightened Reflexes went on the Boomies. JR put AS on Rowdy and hung back. Rangers hung out in the woods, Risen pushed up on the flank, Boomies ran forward, and the Forgeguard chugged behind them. Rowdy pushed forward, A+H stealth and that was that.



My list does what it normally does. Everything pushes forward. Madrak dumps everything to the stone, KSB pops an aura, and everything stays as close to the KSB as possible. Everything but 3 fenns on the far right. Between Defensive Line and the KSB, Champions are ARM20. It's pretty legit. Even most of the Fenns are ARM16.



Caine upkeeps Heightened Reflexes, but drops Blur. The Boomhowlers run and engage the Fenns, but don't do anything else other than their fell call. The ATGM spread out, the Risen push up on the left some more, and the Rangers shift around. The Forgeguard group up, waiting for the chance to countercharge, and everything else fills gaps.






I really dislike it when my Fenns are engaged, but I don't get Vengeance. Dirtbags. Anyways. I made a few mistakes. I should have countercharged with Bonehammer, but I didn't, not wanting him to get outside of the KSB aura. Looking back, he would have been at least ARM18, and eCaine was too far back to make a dent in him. So instead, the Hero charges (He grants tactictian to Champions) and threshers (which is pretty legit), killing 3 boomies, all three of whom fail to tough.

Madrak moves up, smacks a dude who toughs, and buys an attack. Then he hits another and spends the fury from that kill to back away and spends 2 fury to put farstrike on the bomber. The Champions move up to kill the few they can engage. The Kithkar moves forward over the wall and kills two Boomies on the right flank, and both of them fail to tough as well. Lots of threes so far.

The Impaler moves up and chucks a spear into Boomhowler, and does three damage. The Bomber moves through the opening the Impaler left by moving forward, gets onto the hill and puts 2 AOE4s downrange, but only kills 2 Risen.

The fell caller moves up and puts War Cry on the Fenns, who minifeat and charge forward. One engages both Forgeguard and Rangers, another gets after Boomy and two more engage the ATGM. The ATGM pass CMD, but the Boomhowlers fail, and so do the Rangers. The dwarves, unfortunately, do not. However, the Fenns kill everything they charge, which ammounts to all of the boomies except Boomhowler himself, one ATGM and one Dwarf.



Not a bad turn. Caine upkeeps HR again, and the Risen run forward, pressing the left flank. Ayaina and Holt move up, and Ayaina kisses the Fenns, followed by Holt killing 2 of them. The ATGM move up, and start killing Fenns to, and between them, and Caine who pushes up onto the hill, they kill all but the UA and drummer. The Forgeguard move up a bit, Rowdy presses forward, the Rangers fail CMD again, Boomhowler passes, and it's a done deal.



So, the Bomber leads off, and puts 2 shots into the Risen and Alexia. I kill most of the Risen, leaving 2. The Champions charge forward and kill half of the Forgeguard, and put a few dents into Rowdy. The Kithkar charges onto the hill and swings at Caine twice, needing 10s and misses. Then eMadrak goes, and I completely screw up my turn. I fully meant to put Blood Fury on him with the Runebearer, and War Cry for +2 MAT from the Fell Caller, and I forgot to do both. He charges Boomy, kills him, feats, and threshers the other two, missing one and plastering the other. The Kithkar swings at Caine again, misses, and the Champions kill anything they can reach, except Rowdy, who they put a few points on, but nothing more. The Bomber throws another bomb, but it deviates uselessly.

Madrak, on the other hand, uses the fury gained to move up, and proceeds to Tide of Death his way into Caine where he lands finally with four fury. He buys, boosts to hit needing 9s, and misses. Buys, boosts to hit with his last attack, and does a whopping 4 damage...

So that was dumb. Completely butchered that. My options look pretty bad now, but I might can run the KSBs far enough to give Madrak some Grim Salvation targets. Speaking of which, I still have 2 fenns. So the Fell caller moves up, war crys them, and they charge forward. The UA needs an 8 to hit, and connects with eCaine, and on 3 dice, rolls exactly what he needs to kill Caine.



Thoughts:

1. I got stupid lucky on the end there. I completely had that game, and didn't put anything on my caster that I wanted to. Secondly, I could have put Blood Fury on the Fenns with the Runebearer, and I didn't think about doing that either. I had that game, but I screwed it up and just barely pulled it off.

2. That eCaine list was weird... FG are good on Caine I guess (Haven't tried it.), and Boomies are gold, but no Reinholdt, no Gate Crashing, Caine did very little work, the Risen didn't screen at all, the Rangers never fired, and the Boomies never got to attack. I think I would have screened with the Boomies to block as much of the Fenn's charge as possible to prevent failed CMD checks. Granted his toughchecks still sucked, but he still didn't screen that great. He could have at least shot with the boomies, (Rangers yo, that's what they're for), but that didn't happen either. The Risen could have screened as well, and they didn't do that either.

Overall, good game, but I pulled off a lucky game win there at the end. Thoughts, comments, questions, thinly veiled insults from PGs who know what I should have done instead, all welcome.

50pts Rhyas (Legion) vs. eMadrak (Trollbloods)

Got a few games in on Friday, both against Legion. There for awhile, it seemed like every game I played was against Legion, but I haven't actually played against them much lately. I haven't missed them. It's also a new game. I felt like Cygnar was pretty decently set up against Legion. I could stand a decent chance of shooting a beast off of the board per turn. Trollbloods don't have that same ability nearly as readily available as Cygnar does. So I was excited to face off against Legion some more. I couldn't really think of casters to bring. I almost bought Jarl, but then realized that clouds help me not at all against most Legion lists (Would have been great for this one, but ok). I knew I wanted to play eMadrak once, because he's definitely in one of my lists, and the other one would probably be pGrim. He decided on bringing Rhyas, and I settled on Madrak for the first matchup.

Rhyas
*Typhon
*Naga Bolt Thrower (Proxied by the Naga Soldier)
*Shredder
Nyss Swordsmen w/UA
Ogrun Warspears w/ UA
Nyss Raptors
Anyssa Ryvall
Spawning Vessel

For eMadrak, I brought pretty generally the same list I've been playing, with the exception of the Champions. I dropped the Champions in favor of the new box of Long Riders I was fortunate to land during a fire sale. (Half off, yo), and swapped them in there. I want Horthol in the near future, and that'll be a straight swap with the Storm Troll.

eMadrak
*Runebearer
*Slag Troll
*Impaler
*Stormtroll
Fenns w/UA
Kithkar
Long Riders
Min KSB w/ Elder
Janissa
Sons of Bragg
Fell Caller

He won the roll off, finally. We tied three times. He elected to go first and set up. Most of his infantry went left, and his Cavalry and Warspears went right. I setup kind of weird, putting the Long Riders opposite of the swordsmen, and sending the Fenns after the heavy stuff on the right. My reasoning was that with Blood Fury, my Fenns could kill anything, so I dropped the hard hitters against the Swordsmen which, I hoped, would struggle against ARM17 8 box models.



He started off. Typhon ran forward as far as he could. Rhyas moved up behind him, cast Rapport on him (He gets her excellent MAT/RAT) and dropped Dash, giving everyone in her control range 1'' SPD. Then everything ran. The Warspears and Anyssa both put Prey on my Fennblades.



Moses (runebearer) put a cheaper spell down for Madrak. The slag ran forward. The Impaler shuffled up, but put Far Strike (snipe) on the Stormtroll first. The Stormtroll moved up, shot at a raptor, hit, did minimal damage, and arced just once, doing nothing. Madrak put Blood Fury down on the Fenns for 1 fury, dropped the rest to the stone and moved foward to be in line with the Slag and Impaler. The Stone moved up and popped aura, and the Elder put down no continuous effects. The Fenns minifeated and charged, and only one was in melee, which he missed. And they passed their CMD.

The sons of Bragg moved up, did +4 tough, and the Fell caller, WHO I SHOULD HAVE ACTIVATED BEFORE THE FENNS, moved up and did nothing... Janissa moved up and dropped a wall, and the Long Riders ran and spread out.



Rhyas upkept Rapport and pulled in her fury. The Raptors started off, and shot the fenns, including the one in Melee. Every one of them hit, and every one of them killed with poison (extra dice damage), and Anyssa herself killed 2. No toughs. The Warspears assaulted, and I finally got two or three toughs there, but then Typhon moved up and killed everything that was left of them. Not a particularly wonderful start. The Swordsmen run and get into their 3 man groups to make use of Defensive line. Rhyas shuffles around, and the Vessel cries about not being close enough to the fenns to collect souls.




Not a great start for me. I pull in my Fury and uh, don't upkeep Blood Fury. I start off with the Storm troll, who moves to the right and launches a shot into the nearest Ogrun and boosts damage. The eleaps don't do anything, and I only manage to damage the Ogrun. I can't remember all of the activations here, but between the Slag, Tor's spray (sons of Bragg) and the impaler, I kill the three Legionairres on the back right, and the Slag gets his +2 damage Animus on the Kithkar.

The Rune bearer slips forward, and barely has range to the Kithkar. Always bring a Kithkar to a Madrak fight. I love that little 2pt solo. He gets Blood Fury on him, and the Kithkar charges the Ogrun UA and kills him easily, and puts damage on another one with the second attack.

The Long Riders send 2 in for a charge (not bull rush), and they kill one, maybe two. The Legionairres are fairly decent DEF atm, but their ARM is pretty handy as well, so the Impacts don't do terribly much. I get one or two.

Madrak charges the nearest Legionairre, kills him, and feats. If you're not aware of his feat, everything in his control area makes an attack at everything in his Melee range. So, he kills the 2 he's engaged with, and pulls in 3 fury for the guy he killed on the charge, and the 2 he feated on. The two Long Riders kill everything they're engaging except the Legionairre UA. All of the ranged beasts I have get an extra attack from feat, but there's nothing in range, so I don't worry about it. The Kithkar, however, between Blood Fury and the Slag animus, murders every single Warspear he's in melee with, leaving one just out of reach.

Madrak takes the 2 fury he got from the feat kills, and moves 2'' back because of Tide of Death. He casts Warpath, puts Blood Fury on the sons, drops a fury, keeps 2, and puts another on the Stone. The KSB moves up, pops aura, Janissa drops a wall, and the Fell Caller moves up. I think I actually got that wrong, I think the Fell Caller got War Cry onto Madrak earlier (Plus 2 to attack rolls).



Not a bad feat turn, but now Madrak's far enough up the board that he has to die, or he'll probably get range on something and tide of death into Rhyas. Madrak's got 5 Grim Salvation targets, and 2 fury. He's also DEF18 behind the wall and ARM19 because of the stone.

The Legionairre UA has Vengeance, and kills a Long rider. Rapport is upkept, and Anyssa starts the game. She shoots the Kithkar in the back and kills him. The Raptors move up and put their shots into the Slag, but fail to do significant damage. Rhyas feats, kills a Long Rider, and runs away. Her feat is kinda wierd. If your model hits it's target, it get to flip anywhere base to base with it, and gets another attack. Kinda handy, but doesn't help the ranged game at all.

The Legionairre UA charges, hits the Imapler, and kills a KSB dude. Typhon walks up and sprays Madrak and KSBs 3 times. I get a few toughs, but at the end of this, between sprays and Grim Salvation, my KSB and Janissa are all dead.

In all of this, the Spawning vessel has gotten enough souls, and has a Shredder. The overall goal is to force Madrak to grim salvation/transfer enough times that the rabid shredder can kill him. The last ranged unit is the Bolt Thrower. He moves, boosts to hit and actually hits, and Crits.... The Crit effect is a slam. It KDs madrak, but slides him far enough to place the Runebearer within Grim Salvation range, and I think I've still got a transfer left... The other thing is now for the Shredder to get into melee with me, he'll be outside of Rhyas's control range... So the Shredder hits the Slag troll instead and kills him. I let the fury go, because I was running hot anyways. Rhyas has 0 fury between buying attacks and boosting and such.



So the wall goes away. Madrak drops Warpath, and spends a Fury to upkeep. Moses stands up and gives him a cheaper spell, but it's pretty pointless at this point. The Impaler kills the Legionairre UA, and the Fell Caller gives Madrak +2 to hit, and Madrak charges a Vessel Acolyte. He hits, kills, takes a fury, spends it to Tide of death and starts working his way through models. He kills three before he's in range of Rhyas, but she's behind the pillar and gets cover. This is my mistake, I should have tide of deathed around the whole vessel, killed all of the acolytes (they're easy to kill) until I landed on a side of Rhyas that didn't get cover. Instead, I boost to hit, do solid damage, and she transfers it to Typhon for free, because affinity or something. I buy, miss, buy, needing 9s to hit, connect and do decent damage, leaving her at 7 boxes.

My long riders charge, but exactly 0 of them have range. Again, if I'd tide of deathed the Vessel Acolytes out of the way, it may have been different. The Sons of Bragg can't do much, they're tied up by the shredd, but I take the chance, move up with Tor and take a free strike. He actually makes it, takes a shot with Fervor and the spray, and misses Rhyas.

My Storm troll is the only thing left... So I move up, shoot the Naga Bolt thrower, boosting to hit, and get 3 electro leaps. Rhyas is the closest model, and I boost damage, needing a 12.

I roll a 13, and kill her. The final electro leap hits Madrak, but doesn't get anywhere close to killing him.



Thoughts on the game:

That was way closer than I expected. I think the order of activations killed Legion there. The chances of Crit aren't great, but he should have started with that one when Madrak was in the group of dudes. The slam would have kept him well within range of Rhyas's control, and taken a few Grim Salvations with it. Also, shooting the Slag with the Raptors was weird, because it didn't do anything to remove Grim Salvation targets. In fact, it helped in that I would have frenzied without it. I think a good chunk of the reason I won this game is because of my opponent's unfamiliarity with Madrak.

I should have Tide of Deathed more. I also am too cautious with my Long Riders. They weren't able to do much simply because they were way back with the exception of those two.

Anyways, comments, questions, have at it! Thanks for reading.

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.

35pts, pStrakhov (Khador) vs. eMadrak (Trollbloods)

My wife decided to stretch her Khador out Sunday, and took Sorscha1 against eMadrak. I didn't batrep it, because it was, well, my wife and she's played maybe three times.

And then she pretty nearly killed me. Her Nyss annihilated my Fenns (Fenns can't hit DEF15 for the life of them, without a Fell Caller), her feat completely neutered my Champions and clogged my charge lanes. The only reason I pulled through was from the Mauler putting the rage animus on Madrak and the Impaler. Both took a shot, Madrak feated and they both shot again, and a Kithkar got lucky on the charge and finished her. It was the only model I killed all game, compared to my Champions, Fenns and a smattering of solos.

So she challenged me again today, and decided to bring Strakhov again. 35pts, mostly the same army (Essentially all the models she owns). We proxied a Spriggan in there instead of the Juggernaut (So be not deceived), and rolled.

Strakhov
*Sylys
*Spriggan
*Destroyer
Max Men-of-War Shocktroopers
Max Nyss
Reinholdt

I brought back eMaddy, but brought a Fell Caller this time. I brought a Slag for more damage on Jacks, and +2 STR animus on Madrak and the Impaler, and the Impaler because... he's the Impaler, and can benefit from the feat, with reach, and just good all around.

eMadrak
*Runebearer
*Slag Troll
*Impaler
Max Fenn Blades w/UA
Fenn Kithkar
Max Champions
Fell Caller
Kriel Stone Bearer w/UA

She won the rolloff, chose to go second. I put the Fenns on the right side of the board with lots of room to run, and put the Champions in the woods, with everyone else center, maybe being able to use the building as cover for Madrak and the KSB, not that the Nyss care.



My wife put the Shocktroopers across from the Fenns, and the Nyss across from the Champions. Not the best matchup for either one, but the Shocktroopers would struggle with the woods. Everything else went center.



Turn 1. Fenns take off across the clearing. Slag runs and riles for 2, Impaler runs and riles for 1. Madrak drops Warpath, puts fury to the stone and charges a Nyss. The KSB runs in behind him and pops aura. The Runebearer runs in behind them. Mistake 1 for the game, not using Moses first to make Warpath cheaper. The Fell Caller puts pathfinder on the Champions, and they run into the woods.



My wife sends the Men-of-War forward at the Fenns, the Nyss run to the edge of the wood, and the Destroyer advances up all of it's 4''. She pops a shot off at my Fenns, hoping for a good deviation. It is, but fails to kill anything. Reinholdt reloads Strakhov. He puts Superiority on the Spriggan, Sentry on the Destroyer, and throws two shots downrange at the Fenns again. Both deviated away from them. The Spriggan pushes forward 6'' and fires twice, again, hoping for deviation, but luck is against my wife. Both deviate towards the MoW and do nothing. Sylys walks up behind Strakhov, and the tape measure comes back to me.


Madrak pulls in his fury, upkeeps Warpath. Moses activates (did it right this time), cheapens a spell for Madrak. Madrak then activates, puts Blood Fury on the Fenns, and drops the Impaler's animus on the Slag, and dumps the last fury to the stone. The Fenns open the ball, minifeat, and three charge into the Men of War, and the rest run. One engages the Spriggan (But not the Devastor, like I hoped), and the rest space out. Sentry triggers, and my wife's Destroyer murders a Fenn. Two of the three that charged kill their targets, and remove the two Men of War on the right side. The Champions move up to the front of the woods, daring the Nyss to charge them while they're within the KSB and base to base.

The Slag activates, moves up, and I realize that I engaged the Spriggan with my Fenn... Adding 4 DEF. So I throw at the Destroyer instead, and miss. Buy another shot, chuck it at the Spriggan, boosts to hit, hit, boost damage and roll 4 dice at -8, doing 4 pts of damage to the 5. The Impaler moves up, throws at the Spriggan as well, misses, kills the Fenn, but he toughs. The Krielstone runs up, pops Aura, and the Elder does "No Continuous effects". Fell caller shuffles in behind them, and the Kithkar tucks in with the rest of the Fenns.



My wife thinks long and hard about feating, but decides to activate what wouldn't be affected by it first. She puts 3 focus to the Spriggan, 1 to the Destroyer, and kept 2 for Strakhov. The Nyss decide to open fire on the Krielstone and ignore the Champions. At dice -5 though and tough, she only killed one. If it'd of worked, I'd of lost my +2 ARM, which I really liked. It was also my functioning buffer for keeping Madrak alive with Grim Salvation because we were both aware that the Spriggan was in full charge range of Madrak between feat and Overrun. If the Nyss had cleared out the KSB, I'd of probably lost Madrak.

The Destroyer tries, and takes a shot at the KSB behind the wall, needing an 11. Gets a 9, but the deviation covers 2 of them. With the KSB aura though, they're at -10, and neither of them die. The Men-of-War don't need the charge bonus, and shuffle around with a charge order to get the bonus. All three hit Blood Furied Fenns at DEF10, and all three break ARM, but 1 toughs.

Strakhov steps up. Jess decides not to feat, since she's pretty sure she can get the charge off with the Spriggan without needing the 4''. Instead, she rolls 3 for ROF on the gun, and with Reinholdt's reload, she's got 4 shots. Strakhov shoots the Fenn that's KD in front of the Spriggan, and breaks ARM. He toughs. She shoots him again and he dies, and the Spriggan shuffles forward 6'' with Superiority. She shoots the other one that's KD in front of the MoW, breaks ARM, and he toughs. Shoots him again and he finally dies.

She hates tough, incidentally.

Spriggan charges. He goes after the Slag, hits, and is at dice even with the KSB nearby. She hits, does mediocre damage, hits with the hand, does very little. She buys an attack, and it misses with snake eyes. Buys the last one, hits, and does seven or eight damage. He's left with seven boxes. He should have died, but the missed attack and bad dice on the charge attack leave him standing, but he's engaging both the Slag and the Impaler. She did manage to drop the Mind in the slag though, so no regen, and no forcing him.



I feel like I have the game in hand but I have to deal with the Spriggan. Unfortunately, I ran my beasts hot, and the Slag has a fury left on him. He passes his threshold check. Fenns vengeance up, and one has reach on the furthest right MoW, and takes a swing at him. He does decent damage, but not enough to kill. The Kithkar shuffles up with his Vengeance, but doesn't have reach on anything.

The Champions charge the Nyss, because I'm a moron, and forgot to activate the Fell Caller first and give them +2 MAT. Out of the two attacks at MAT7, they kill 4 of the 5 Nyss they engaged.

The mindless slag hopelessly pounds on the hulk of the Spriggan for a few boxes of damage. The Fenns charge into the Men of War again, and annhilate them easily. The Kithkar takes advantage of Tactictian and barrels through them into Strakhov. At dice -3, he does 16 boxes of damage, leaving Strakhov at 1 box.

Now I'm debating. I want the Spriggan dead, but I want Madrak safe too. The KSB move up, activate aura, and do no continuous effects. I should have done +1 STR, because both the Slag, and Impaler were under the aura, but I didn't think of it.

The Runebearer does his minifeat and puts Blood Fury on Madrak for free. Madrak charges the Spriggan, hits with the charge and at dice -6, I roll a 6, two 1s and a 2.... I buy two more attacks, eating away at the jack, and have two Fury left. I really need this thing dead now. He feats. The Slag beats on him for a few points, and the Impaler does a few. Madrak hits him, and completely whuffs the dice again. No choice. Madrak buys two more attacks, leaving the jack at seven boxes.

The impaler activates, shuffles as far back as he can around the jack, staying in melee, boosts damage, buys, boosts damage, and FINALLY kills the jack, triggering Warpath. The Impaler walks forward three inches and injertects himself between the Destroyer and Madrak, who is sitting at DEF 12 (Blood Fury is -2 def), 0 transfers, and only 1 Grim Salvation target nearby.


Do or die time. My wife has it, and she knows it. Sylys has nothing to upkeep, but makes himself use-

PS7, and reach. All I can imagine is this guy with a weapon as powerful as a tennis racket, but it's like, ten feet long. He takes a swing at the Kithkar engaging Strakhov and does one box of damage. Strakhov inches forward, just BARELY getting Madrak into feat range, feats, kills the Kithkar, and triggers Overrun, which the Jack uses to move around the Impaler. The Fenn engaging him swings, but fails to knock out any systems.

The Nyss ignore the Champions again. There's six left. They push up and around as much as possible and get range/los on Madrak. 6 shots later, (All of them hitting), only one breaks ARM, and Grim Salvation kicks in, killing the KSB dude next to Madrak.

The Destroyer charges. He charges for free, has range all day long and slams into Madrak. The charge attack hits and he does a whopping 5 damage... Buy, hit, 5 damage. Buy, hit, 3 damage. Buy, hit, 4 damage. Madrak is still standing with 1 box. That's all she's got left.

...Yeah... I don't even mess with fury. I roll a charge attack with a fenn against Strakhov and put him in the dust easy.



Thoughts on the game:

So, I lost to my wife, basically. She got diced bad at the end. All four attacks hit. It was dice -2, and Only because of the KSB Aura. Dice averages should have been 8 damage on the first attack, and five to six after that. She should have done a total of 23 damage, easy, and she simply got diced. Bad. All game long, really.

The Nyss did the best they could. We realized post game that if she had targeted the KSB bearer himself, the next pawn in line would have been far enough away that the +2 ARM aura wouldn't have reached Madrak, and that would have killed him. Unfortunately, it was only the very last Nyss that hit that broke ARM on Madrak, and managed to kick in Grim Salvation. Maybe she should have started with the KSBs instead in that case, and looking back, probably. They were dice -5, so much easier to kill. They would have had to target the bearer next to Madrak then, but still, -5 is easier, and after that, maybe have a shot at Madrak. Either way, the Destroyer would do much better at Dice even.

Strakhov is a no-go. She doesn't like him, and I don't blame her. She had the Sorscha game like I had this one. By the end of my 2nd turn this game, she was pretty sure she was going to lose and started thinking assassination, which was the position I was in last game. Sorscha wipes the Trolls in the dirt. She shuts their charges down, freezing grip kills my tarpit, she's terrifying. Strakhov has some cool things going for him, but he has very little support for infantry, and while Occultation is nice, Trolls really aren't shooting anything. pGrim maybe, but this is Madrak. Occultation's one of his best spells and he never needed it.

So it's back to Sorscha for her. She's probably going to get eSorscha here before too long, who seems like all the best parts of pSorscha, but with anti-trollbloods in mind. Until then, she's determined to go after me again, but with my own Cygnar, and eHaley at the helm. As far as other Khador, the Great Bears are an option, and another jack kit. With Strakhov unpopular at the moment, it might be the new Kodiak plastic kit (hopefully) that comes with Vengeance. I also need to find a cheap WGI unit running around somewhere.

Valachev would also be a serious boon to the Nyss. I hate that guy.

Thanks for reading! Throw comments and questions below and be jealous that I have a wife that challenges me to Warmachine games

Trollbloods in black. Highlighting, Drybrushing and the Tartan

  This morning started off strong with a solid cup of coffee and a fresh air tank.  If you hadn't seen below, I'd picked black/dark dark batman brick grey as my Trollblood base, with highlights of blue.  The main tartan will be St. Andrews, with variations.  I'll probably mix in some other tartans as well, trying to portray the idea of multiple kriels uniting under the same flag.  I also got away from the Desert terrain with these guys and am looking for a Scottish Highland look.  Lots of whitewashed rocks and tufts of wild grass.  So, let's take a look.

  I started with sealing my Axer.

  First off, I like how this turned out.  I think I pushed the highlights too hard on the armor, but was pleasantly happy with the Tartan, skin tones, and the base.  I actually used the P3 Armor wash on the armor, and it turned out pretty dark, which I like, but I still overdid the highlights.  The base is just cobbled together tree bark with Army Painter grass tufts, and extensive white drybrushing.  The Warpaint is something my wife started with our Nyss, and I carried it over to my Trolls.  The Tartan is a bit more subdued than I like, but I think eMadrak pulls it off better.  I mixed tones of blue too similar to eachother, and just really can't see the differences.

  I haven't decided if I like this sculpt yet or not.  It's a lot of armor for a trollblood caster, but it's ok I guess.  I did like the Warpaint here as well, and I think my tartan was considerably more successful.  I went straight out of the Vallejo Game Color bottles, using Electric Blue, Magic Blue, and Night Blue, and of course, Dead White.  This turned out considerably better than the Axer, and I really liked it. 

  Drumroll, please

  

  I wasn't planning on doing the Earthborn yet.  This model came painted, and I hated to prime it, but the Earthborn was a model I was looking forward to painting.  I kind of just cut loose on it, and absolutely loved it.

  So, let's hit the Tartan first.  On the Axer, I painted his cloth, highlighted it, then tartaned it, which completely destroyed the highlight...  So yeah.  The cloth here is painted a 1:1 Magic Blue/Electric Blue mix.  Then I did a crosshatch of Electric Blue.

  Then I stuck of dot of Night Blue in the middle of every square.

  Now a real thin white line through the middle of every Night Blue dot.  I worked my Army Painter "Insane Detail" brush to death on this.  I'll be using it a lot on these trollbloods.  I love my Master's Touch brushes, but that Insane Detail brush is awesome for tiny lines.

  Highlighting.  It was really easy.  This is basically the part where I brag about my Airbrush.  I highlighted 60pts of Trolls today in a half hour.

  Straight base color (Probably 1:2, 1:3 black grey).  Airbrushed 1:1 mix from above.

  Catches all those muscles, folds, everything.  Mixing up another one.  2:1 grey black.  Keep the brush farther away, lighter spray, just catch the tops.

  And tada!  After all this, my Earthborn was sitting here:

  

  I love this model.  Very aggressive, very detailed.  I'm not one that normally likes metal sculpts.  I hate most of Cygnar's (Except the Centurion), and the light trollblood sculpts are silly.  I have a Pyre troll now that's smaller than my Kithkar.  I do, however, love this sculpt.  Here, it's highlighted, and based by it's previous owner.  I'm going to leave the skintone pretty well alone, and focus on everything else.

  I have an old GW brush that I beat the heck out of today drybrushing.  My goal is to essentially look like like this guy came from the white cliffs of Dover.  I also painted the loincloth.  I thought about the tartan, and I might still go back over it at some point, but a rough brown leather cloth seemed more in line for this guy today.  

  Now I drybrush straight white.  I did my rocks below too, leaving the grass as much as I could.  

  

  Then I washed it with a black wash I made awhile back.  Mainly just trying to get into the recesses in the rocks and really outline them.  One more quick drybrush of white focusing on where the light is going to hit more, and we're done.  I came back through with Magic blue to add the warpaint, which I really feel added a lot to this model, and sealed it.

  That's all I've got for today.  My painting desk is still full, but the work week starts again for me tomorrow, and if I want to get these guys down to the shop Saturday for the league, I gotta figure out a way to pack them.  Look for more regular updates from here now that we're through the rough side of winter.