Double Batreps, Legion vs. Cygnar

  I've got a lot that's happened warmachine wise in the last two days.  We'll start off with the batreps, because getting pictures together of the other stuff will take a bit longer.  First off, I built a dining room table.

  We then armed it with chairs, our stoneware and fake flowers.  We're pretty happy with it.  It also gives me a place to play Warmachine.  However, if I damage the table, my wife probably won't be happy.  On top of that, a 4x4 table was a bit crazy for an apartment our size, we thought, so it's only 3.5x3.5.  I need a bigger area than that.  So yesterday was spent applying all of the stuff I've seen Poppabear on the forums and Ray Burns doing on his blog (http://rayofpaintstudios.blogspot.com/, great place), and built myself a folding table.

  That's another blog post.  Probably the next one.  It's nothing crazy right now, but I have more plans for it.  However, the important stuff is that it folds in half, has felt glued to the bottom so it doesn't scratch my table, and successfully fielded four armies over the course of two games last night, on top of supper for three people, God bless my wife.

  I also got to use all the terrain I made months ago.  Finally got it spraypainted and some stuff glued down. I think some drybrushing and touchups and we'll be good to go.  Anyways, on to the report.  All this to say is that last night, I got to play Warmachine on a full-size table with all the terrain I could need, in my home.  

  It was awesome.

  So, Scott shows up, my wife cooks inchiladas, they were delicious.  We eat real quick (she was pretty aghast when I told her that we probably wouldn't be setting up the table to eat on first, we'd just jump right into the game), and we throw down our lists.  My lances were painted to a stage that they were playable (haha) and so pCaine it was for me.  That and I've only played pCaine against Legion one other time, and it wasn't Scott.  If my Cygnar list can beat Scott's legion lists, I usually feel pretty decent about them.

  On Scott's part, he dropped pLylyth because he's really been wanting to try out dual raptor units.  And he has this 134$ Archangel model he hasn't found a list for.  So we both had colossals and lots of cav.  Very fun game.

  pCaine

*Stormwall

*Squire
Journeyman Warcaster (The red model on my side of the table.  My wife painted it beautifully the other day)
Full Tempest Blazers
Min Stormlances
Full Boomhowlers
*Jonas Murdoch
Black 13th

I got to go up against:

pLylyth
*Archangel
*Carnivean
*Seraph
Min Raptors
Min Raptors
Raptor Solo gal.  Whatever her name be.

  We rolled off, I won and chose to go first.  We deployed to either side, and opened the ball.

  The only major downside to playing at home is the lighting is not that great in the dining room at night.  Just saying.  I may try to alleviate that in future games, but for now, between the yellow light and yellow wood, there's not much help for it.  Speaking of yellow wood, look at that table.  Haha.  Wait'll it has modular terrain built in.  Speaking of terrain, are those trenches you ask?  Why yes, yes they are.  I figured I'd be the only guy to ever own terrain with trenches that aren't just templates.  They don't count for elevation, though I think next time they will, but the trench itself is +4 cover.

  Anyways.  I divided up my cav, dropping the Lances behind the Boomhowers and we were off.  Black 13th got into the woods, the Boomhowlers ran and Jonas gave them go-to-ground.  pCaine tucked into the trench and got Blur on the Blazers and Snipe on the Stormwall.  Journeywoman dropped Arcane Shield on the Lances and got into the trench next to Caine.  Blazers got into the woods, and Stormwall moved up and threw templates out.

  All the Cav!

  Scott moves everything up as well, slipstreaming a few things with the Seraph for the extra 2+ movement.  Lylyth puts Spiny Growth on... the Archangel, who returned the faor, I think, and then moves b2b with him, and the Raptors all run up.  If you haven't seen Raptors yet, they're poorly named reindeer that basically Tempest Blazers with poison and weapon master.  They're not quite the toolbox the Blazers are, but given the circumstances, they can be better.  They worry me, to say the least.  Especially on pLylyth's feat where everything gets boosted attacks.  

  

    So, pLylyth base to base with a DEF13 model means one thing.  Electro leaps!  But it's kinda chancy at dice minus 4.  I'm not sure if I can get the hit with the RNG8 Lances, especially since they have to go through the forest.  So Stormwall moves up, shoots at the Archangel for little to no damage.  pCaine upkeeps Blur and drops Snipe, and Deadeyes both the Lances and the Blazers, and puts Snipe to them, thanks to the focus from the Squire.  The Blazers move up, and four of them hit the Archangel, and lylyth takes all of the electro leaps.  I only manage to do six or seven damage though.  I don't think the Lances can all get hits, and she's got a transfer still.  So I abandon that idea and light cav onto the hill.

  The Lances move up further, and the Boomhowlers shuffle up.  A few takes shots at the Carnivean but even though one hits, it doesn't do much.  The B13, however, do much better.  Scott got to learn to respect them this game.  Lynch aims, damages one decently with his shot, Watts shoots and hits with one, does damage to another Raptor.  Ryan, the money maker here, shoots, and misses.  He deviates 1'' to catch the two damaged raptors and kills them both.  Haha.

  They proceed to fail their CMD too.  

  Journeywoman upkept Arcane Shield, incidentally, and that's pretty much that.  So... I think I could have done better this turn?  Maybe been able to shoot the Raptors with the Blazers, but the woods may have stopped me there.  Who knows.  

    So, yeah.  the Feat.  pLylyth hanging out behind the wall moves up, and shoots a Boomhowler.  Hits, kills, doesn't tough. She does it again, and misses I think, but the next shot hits and kills him. And he doesn't tough.  She feats and gets back behind the wall.

  Seraph rolls strafe and gets... 3 shots?  Shoots and hits two or three Boomhowlers, and they all fail their tough.  This isn't cool.  50% chance of tough, guys.

  The Raptor Solo gets another one.  The Archangel rolls three shots and shoots one at the Blazers for kicks and giggles even though they're DEF20 right now (I love Blur)  It deviates and hits a Lance, but at ARM20, does nothing.  The next deviation kills a Blazer, and the last one gets spent on Boomie himself, and kills him.  That sucks.  There's six left, and the Carnivean moves up and sprays two or three and I think they might tough.  It's rolls were pretty bad there.  But it's in my way now.

  The Raptors on the left though, they do much better.  They walk up and start swinging on my blazers, leaving me with one, who passes CMD.  His Raptors on the right fail theirs again, so that's something I suppose.

  He should have pretty nearly annihilated the Boomhowlers, so I'm glad they're still kicking.  The Blazers are hurt, but the Lances are in a good spot to do some serious damage.  However, the Archangel is in prime charge range of the Stormwall.  I can charge him this turn, tie him up, let the Journeyman drop Arcane shield on him and let him tank.  The Lances will either finish the Raptors or get in to help Stormwall, but I'm thinking Lances.  pCaine can move up and feat before that too, then teleport back.  The Boomhowlers still have Jonas, so they'll assault the Seraph and Carnivean.  I'm hoping to really cripple Scott's list this turn.  

  So we start with the Stormwall.  He gets three focus, and Caine pulls another off the squire.  I open the ball with Stormwall, and he charges the Archangel.  He hits four of the five times I swing at him, and takes the Beast down to about half.  And then the electro leaps go into... pLylyth.

  She takes two of them, but has to transfer the third, and the fourth kills her.  Game.  At that point, with four more electro leaping shots from the Lances and Blazer, she would have died, it just didn't dawn on me until after Stormwall tangled with the dragon.

I forgot the picture too, but the only difference is the Stormwall is b2b with the Archangel.

Thoughts.  Scott asked me what I thought of the list.  If it was bad dice or not well played.

1.  Archangel is the best screen Lylyth has in this list, but anytime a Hordes caster goes base-to-base with a beast and I have five to twelve electro leaps, it's going to hurt.  If he'd get past putting her base to base and give it just a quarter inch, it would have gone to the Seraph instead.

2.  Archangel ties up too many points.  Dual Ravagores would have murdered my Boomies or Blazers.  Even a Scythean would have worried me with the ability to ignore tough (not that it mattered this game...)  But Archangel is 20 pts and he shot... seven times in the whole game. He killed a Blazer, and a few boomhowlers.  That's definitely not his points back.

3.  Raptors are terrifying, especially with all boosted rolls.  That's pretty serious, and has the potential to annihilate any kind of screen that I have, except in maybe a Kraye list or something.  They essentially get brutal shots for living models.  That's horrifying against Cygnar.  I think the list can work, but not when 20pts are tied up in the Archangel.  

4.  I didn't get to use my lances :(

  So the next game, Scott wants to redeem is Rhyas list that I smashed with a turn 2 Kraye assassination a few weeks ago.  I considered switching to my eStryker list since I have a full Nyss unit now, but meh, I like pCaine.  So I keep him.

  pCaine

*Stormwall

*Squire
Journeyman Warcaster
Full Tempest Blazers
Min Stormlances
Full Boomhowlers
*Jonas Murdoch
Black 13th

  Scott brought:

Rhyas

*Typhon

*Seraph

*Shredder

*Shredder

Swordsmen w/UA

Swordsmen w/UA

Warspears w/UA

Warmongers

Warmongers Solo

Succubus

I think I'm messing this list up.  He had a Ravagore in there last time, and I don't see it here.  So we roll off, and I win, but decide to go second, hoping to get some shooting off even though the tier bonuses that Rhyas has gives Stealth for everyone first turn.

  We also keep incursion.  We thought about changing it up, but wanted to get into the next game, so we just ran with it.  I almost cut templates for outflank, but meh.

  

  Lots of 8 wound AD infantry.  Not any fun.  Also, look at the cool terrain?  It's neat, but models don't stand on it very well at all.  

  Everything runs.  The Warnouns push as far up as they can.  Rhyas gets to the wall, casts Dash so everyone gets another 1SPD, and puts Rapport on the Typhon so that he gets her MAT/RAT stats and can be transferred to once for free.  Seraph slipstreams some stuff because apparently Legion beasts aren't fast enough already, and yeah.

  Oh, and the Warspears pick Stormwall as the prey.  Which I'm ok with.  I have a Journeyman for that, and I'd rather the Stormwall tank the prey attacks rather than the Blazers which can't tank anything.

 The Boomhowlers are stacked in the back in the picture above because they didn't sit on the terrain at all.  It was horrible, so we drew the front line with empty bases and worked with it.  Caine keeps his focus, hops into the ditch, puts snipe on the Stormwall, Blur on the Blazers and I think Deadeyes the Boomhowlers...

  The Black 13th moves up, because they can, and Lynch opens fire with a flare.  He shoots at one of the warmongers on the right, misses, and it deviates to hit two of them anyways.  Ryan hits them with a magestorm and hurts them both, and Watts doesn't have range. Or misses.  Or doesn't kill them.  I don't remember.  At this point, I was just glad that I was remembering she has 2 shots.

  Stormwall moves up and shoots one dead, and throws templates in front of the warspears hoping to slow them down some.  He puts a pod out as well.  The other big gun misses.

  The blazers are all out of range, so they hang out in the woods.  The Boomhowlers, with Jonas, assault, and get as far as the barricade.  They're able to finish off the two in the flare template, but are outside of 5'' for everyone else, barely.  So they hang out with Fell Call (50% chance of tough).  Lances get behind the trench, Journeyman gives the Boomhowlers Arcane Shield and that's turn.

  Scott sees a shot as assassination and starts moving for it.  Rhyas reaves in her fury, charges out and hits the closest Boomhowler.  She hits him easily, and he toughs, so she feats, which allows her to go anywhere base to base with him, and swing at something again.  So she does, moves to the next guy, hits him.  He toughs.  So she buys, hits him again.  He toughs.  She buys one more, and he toughs.

  Haha.  Making up for sucking at tough rolls last game.  She has Sprint, so she runs away and that's it for her.  The Warmonger solo charges in, and he kills the first one, who finally fails his tough. but the second one toughs again against the feat attack.  

  At this point, he debates long and hard about the assassination.  He needs 11.5'' to get to Stormwall, hit, flip around with the feat to the back of the base and go after Caine.  He debates, and debates, and finally decides against it.  It was a good call.  We measured after the round and he'd of been a quarter inch out of melee range.  So Typhon sprays some stuff, including the Boomhowlers, which tough a bunch of times.  Seraph rolls and gets 3 strafe shots, kills a boomie but nothing else.

  The other Warmongers charge in and they hit, beserk, and get the feat attack.  Between me toughing every other one, (The first two guys toughed seven times between the two of them), he takes them down to half, but they pass CMD easily.  One Warmonger hits the Black 13th, and kills two of them, leaving just Ryan, who passes CMD as well.

  Warspears move up, realize they need 13s to hit Blazers at this point, so they chuck everything at Stormwall, who takes some decent damage.  Maybe two fifths of his boxes.  Swordsmen all run up and get in the way and that's turn.

  

  

  I step up to the ball.  Caine keeps his focus, pulls one from the squire, and upkeeps Blur, but not snipe.  Ryan kills the swordsman she's engaged with.  Caine then moves up out of the trench, casts Deadeye on the Blazers, and the Lances, and keeps the last two.  Then he feats, needing sixes for pretty much everything.  He does decent, killing several swordsmen, putting boxes out on the Warmongers, but while the to-hit rolls were decent, the damage rolls weren't as good and I don't thin things out as much as I want to, even though he gets a shot at pretty nearly everything.  It's not bad though, and I actually get to use his feat, which is the second time that's happened.  He teleports back behind Stormwall and that's it for him.

  Blazers move up, kill the Warspear UA which eliminates Prey, and kill another Warspear, but can't do much else even with Brutal.  Stormwall shoots Typhon twice, puts templates out, and forgets to do the Stormpod, which was stupid.

  Lances assault.  No... nope they didn't.  They should have, because they would have nearly killed what Typhon had left, or seriously hurt him, but no, they didn't.  They do ridebys, all three hit, but don't manage to do more than a few boxes.  They get back behind the trench when they're done.  Journeyman gives Stormwall Arcane Shield, shoots at a swordsman and misses, and that's it.  I managed to clear out a ton of infantry though, so we'll see if it's enough.

  Rhyas pulls in her fury.  The Swordsmen charge in, one runs to Watts but gets no attacks because of the run.  The others get into the Boomhowlers, and one kills Boomie who fails his tough, and the others don't do much better.  Two more make the run to engage the lances.  The Warspears assault the Blazers and Stormwall, and...

  Oooh, I just figured out another spot I screwed up.  Moving on.

  The spears don't hardly do anything, and neither do the melee attacks.  Without prey and against ARM22, they're pretty hopeless at  -9 on the dice.  The Warmongers keep working on Boomies, who I'm almost out of.  Typhon pushes in, takes POW12, and sprays Stormwall three times, and hits Caine with one of them.  The other two miss against DEF17, which is really good, because the last one that hit left Caine with 2 boxes.

  Stormwall, however, doesn't take any damage from the sprays either.  The Seraph shoots down a Lance, sits on the flag (The left one went away turns ago) and a Shredder runs and takes the other.

  At this point, I'm about to lose, and I'm realizing where I seriously messed up.  In my last turn, instead of running the DEF15 in melee, DEF18 against shooting, blazers back into the woods, I should have engaged the Warspears.  And an assault with the Lances would have been good too.  Now, they're in my face, and I can't do anything about it.  I can shoot Warspears all day long, maybe kill a few, and Typhon will definitely die against PS20 fists, but unless I can contest both flags, he'll take another 2 points on my turn, and be at four, and simply have to end his turn to win with 6.  So I do the important stuff,  Stormwall gets three focus.  Watts makes a run for it to contest the flag, takes a free strike and dies.  Caine tries to shoot some stuff, and gets a Warmonger.  He puts Deadeye on the Lances, the Blazers... and I think that's it at the moment.  

  The Blazers shuffle around because he managed to engage my Lances with the Nyss Swordsmen in the last turn, so I have to handle them.  So two move back and shoot electro leaps at my immune Lances, needing sevens on three dice to hit.  

  One misses..  The other hits and kills a Nyss, but the other misses...  The other three has Blazers kill a Warspear, but don't manage to kill another.  So the Lances assault run.  One goes after the Seraph and takes it to half health by himself, contesting that flag, and the other one tries to run and get within 4'' of the Shredder.  He dies to a freestrike, and that's game, since I can't contest the other flag, and Rhyas only has to dominate it, which she does easily.

  That other flag is waaaaay off to the top (It was our right).  Pictures don't quite get it.

  Thoughts:

  1.  Scott played this one pretty well, and the Rhyas list did what it was supposed to. That being said, I botched it.  I should have moved the Blazers into combat on the feat turn, and the Lances should have assaulted.  That would have easily contested the one flag, leaving me a bit more time to get to the other one, and on top of that, kept Stormwall free for another round to push forward.  I botched that one pretty badly, again, by not pushing forward.  I'm too used to trying to keep Blazers alive that I don't even think about it.

 2..  Otherwise, everything in my list except me did fantastic.  Boomhowlers are MVPs, making Scott kill them about twice to three times as many as they needed to be killed.  It was awesome.

 3.  I love my table, and the terrain was fun.  I'm pretty excited about all this stuff. 

 4.  I've never fielded an Journeyman except with eStryker, and an ARM22 Stormwall or ARM20 Lance is stuff that stays alive.  I'm having a much better success rate with AS on units with boxes than I am units without them.  ARM18 Stormblades have yet to impress me.  ARM19 Boomhowlers do a bit better, but ARM20 lances or ARM22 Stormwall makes people cry.

  Speaking of the table, I'll be posting later this afternoon with:

 1.  The table and kinda how it got built, plus dirty pics of the Garage from whence it came.  

 2.  Completed Stormlances.  You saw them get played.  I've got the finished product with better pictures.

 3.  Completed Journeywoman.  That red girl running around putting Arcane Shield on stuff.  My wife painted her, one of the reasons I included her in my list that night because A)  I think she did a great job and B) My wife was with us most of the night watching and I wanted her to see her model played.

 4.  Completed Nyss.  This surprised me.  I was in the middle of a Vassal game with Sevensins when my wife suddenly got into a craft-making kinda mood, and simply sat down and started glueing together Nyss.  That's a surefire way to get out of the crafty mood, if you ask me.  The only thing worse than glueing Nyss would be the new Convergence Angels I think.  She tanked through it though, and we decided to paint them.  A 10 man unit gets painted Waaaaaay faster between two people, and they turned out pretty slick. Anways, they'll be here later today.

  In other news, I played my first Trollblood game yesterday.  Sevensins, who will not be allowed to pick out maps ever again, rolled with one that's basically funnels everyone into the same 12'' in the middle that's 80% rough terrain.  And then we brought Trolls and Pygs to fight on it.  Brilliant.  Anyways, I played eDoomshaper vs. Lord Carver, bringing Mulg, a Mauler, max Fennblades and a Chronicler against a Road Hog, War Hog, the shooting pygs and Sevensins's favorite solution to everything, Slaughterhousers.

  Those things are a pain, and everything moved at half speed for like, eight turns.  But between Vengeance Fennblades, a goading Mulg with Wild Aggression and a refuging Mauler, I managed to clean out all of his infantry, and his.. War Hog, whichever doesn't have the gun.  He killed my Mauler with Carver after it finished his Hog and engaged him, but wasn't able to kill Mulg with three slaughterhousers, so he trampled in, killed one with the trample and goaded into Lord Carver.  Four fury later with one to spare, he simultaneously killed the remaining Hog heavy warbeast and Carver himself.

  I think in the near future, I'll be selling my circle.  I'm not terribly clicking with them, and I simply can't get interested enough in them to paint more than the constructs.  The Trolls have always been far more aesthetically pleasing to me and I love the fluff with them.  I think I'll be getting into them before the end of the year or slightly after that, but without buying the battlebox.  Probably start with an Axer and an impaler, Mulg, a magnetized Dire-troll kit, eMadrak, eDoomshaper, Borka, Fennblades and or Kriel Warriors, and then Janissa and a Chronicler.  Which is quite the list, but we'll work up to it.  I want to top off my Stormlances at some point too, and maybe get the Silver Line Stormguard, but who knows.  I have Boomhowlers too, so they'll help with the infantry side of things on the Trolls until I get into them all the way.

  Anyways, that's all I've got, thanks for reading!  Cya later today!

eFeora (Menoth) vs. pCaine (Cygnar), 50pts. A Song of Fire and mainly more fire.

  The buddy I wasn't able to play at the shop met me online last night in Vassal, and we got after it.  I've been kinda wanting to try out the Silverline Stormguard before I buy both the Stormguard unit, and the unit pack for them.  On top of that, I had yet to use the Stormblade Captain's tactician for anything useful, and wanted to see how that went.  Our lists:

pCaine
*Stormwall
Stormlances (min)
Laddermore
Silverline Stormguard (max)
Tempest Blazers (max)
Rhupert
Gorman

  My opponent brought:

eFeora
*Reckoner (Bonded)
*Reckoner
*Vanquisher
*Redeemer
Holy Zealots (Max)
Daughers of the Flame
Choir (Max)
Wracks (3)
eEiryss
Vassal
Gorman

We rolled off and he got highest and took first.  Incursion was the Scenario rolled.

    Everything runs up, except the racks obviously.  Eiryss tucks into the trees, and Feora drops Escort and moves up.  Otherwise, nothing crazy.

  I do the mental math for the daughters.  I figure they're spd6 or 7, but 6 to be safe.  Between AD and my Blazer's 19'' threat range, I figure they're in.  So, Caine keeps his focus, snipes the stormwall, blurs the Blazers and Deadeyes them as well.  Then he moves up.

  The Stormwall moves up, and shoots his left Reckoner twice for nine damage altogether I think.  Rhupert toughs the silverline, they run, and the Lances and Stormblade Captain filter in behind them.

  The Blazers move up as far as they can, and proceed to hit four out of five times, but roll snakeyes for damage twice.  I still manage to kill all but one.  Gorman moves up and takes a smokebreak with Caine.  The right flag disappears.

       Hey, check it out, I forget to take a picture at this point, so bear with me.  The left Reckoner gets a focus, and the right one gets two.  The daughter runs into melee with my blazers, and the Zealots run forward and do their minifeat where I can't hurt them.  The Jacks get passage, I think.  Whatever doesn't let me shoot them.  Then with the help of the Vassal(s), they proceed to throw 6 fire templates out there,, which actually fail to kill a single silverline because they all tough like champs.  Apparently this is the one game I want them to not tough.  Figures.

  So he basically lights absolutely everything on fire, except Caine, two Blazers, and the Stormblade Captain.  Feora moves up, and of course, feats, and pulls fire off of the Stormwall and drops it on Caine.  She's now at ARM31.  Where's eStryker when I need him?  Or Eiryss for that matter.  Speaking of which, she moves in to engage the Silverline, and prevents focus allocation to my Stormwall.  

  In response, I run away.  I drop Blur and Snipe, cast Snipe on Gorman and the Blazers kill the daughter, and light cav into combat with the Zealots while two of them climb into the woods.  One Lance runs in to contest the center flag, the silver line back up, and kill Eiryss too.  I not only forgot to put templates out with the Stormwall, I forgot my pod too,  So he stepped back and Gorman moved into the woods and threw oil at the Reckoner beside Feora.  It, of course, missed, and deviated back towards me for nothing.  And that was turn.

  

  For his turn, the Zealots kill the two blazers in melee with them and sit on the flag.  The blazers proceed to fail CMD.  Gorman drops smoke on eFeora, and the Choir gives no shooting to the jacks again I think.  The two jacks on the right kill my Lance, the Redeemer shoots at Caine a bit, and the Red reckoner smashes Gorman.  Turn, and 3 CPs for Menoth.

  So I give it everything.  The Stormwall gets three focus.  Two of my Silverline die and the last guy's fire goes out.  Or doesn't hurt him.  I don't remember.  Rhupert toughs the Lances, and the Stormwall charges the red reckoner.  He hits him four of the five times (Needing fours) and leaves him on one box on his cortex.  With his Stormpod, he fries Gorman.

  

  The Last Silverline guardsman aims, and fires at the Green Reckoner and hits, dropping the 5'' AOE right there.  The lances assault the Vanquisher with Laddermore's bonus, who by now is a dismounted Dragoon due to fire.  Between her and the Silverline bonus, the ranged shots are POW16, and electro leaps are POW12.  Not bad.  All attacks hit, but one of the POW16s rolls snake eyes at like, dice -1 or 2.  I hurt the jack and took out his melee arm, but just couldn't really get farther than that.  The Stormblade Captain charges the red reckoner and finishes him, then shoots the Redeemer with the quickwork attack.  Which was fun.

  pCaine then moves into the woods, and feats.  He BARELY has the Zealots in range, and opens fire.  I need to kill enough of these guys to prevent them from scoring.

  I proceed to roll 1,1 then 1,1, and then 1,2 for my first three hits.  I need 4.  That's it.  After I used some extensive capslock on Vassal, I managed to hit the last few, then used my initials to miss one of the original three, but the second initial hits him. That takes them below half strength, and they can no longer score.  Caine teleports back behind the Tempest Blazers, who pass CMD this turn.

  I couldn't remember how far the flags are from eachother, and I was thinking 12, which is correct, but as I ended my turn, I realized I had no way to prevent Feora from dominating the Zealot's flag.

  That's indeed what happens.  She allocates focus to the Reckoner, drops firestep, and then charges her zealot, stopping at the flag.  For kicks and giggles, the Reckoner charges my Stormwall and smashes the right side, but can't quite finish him, and that's game.

Thoughts:

1.  I actually got a lot closer to winning this than I thought possible.  That last push was largely successful, and I think I could have seriously tied up Feona if my Blazers had still been in play.  Even then, my opponent pointed out that I really didn't push.  If I had engaged with the Silverline instead of backing up, I would have accomplished the same goal I had in mind of protecting Stomwall, but would have tied up his jacks as well.  

2.  Eiryss.  Not being able to charge in sucked.  That wasn't any fun at all, but I didn't have any way to handle her.  If I'd pushed with the silverline, she'd of had to stay back.  Otherwise, I keep thinking I don' t need her.  I might...  She alone would have forced my opponent to hang back a bit more, even with ARM31, since she could easily lose that with Eiryss, and Deadeye from Caine.  I may have to start having her in specialists lists.

3.  Outside of Vassal just mainly hating my guts, I didn't push enough, and I think I earned this loss.  My opponent played a strong game, and 6 AOEs of fire makes for a mean feat turn for Scenario.  I hung back to much, too cautious.

4.  The feat of pCaine is fun, if I can actually roll a four.  I like how on tabletop, I don't boost for a 6, but in Vassal, it's probably a good idea.  Dumb.

5.  The Silverline did alright.  I think I want to try this list again, but drop Stormwall for an Avenger and Stormblades.  Deadeyed Stormblades running around behind Silverline sounds like a lot of fun.

50pts, High Reclaimer (Menoth) vs. pCaine (Cygnar)

I apologize to the few of you that are email notified.  For some reason, this particular post proved to be pretty troublesome to get posted.

 I managed to get down to the Shoppe yesterday and snuck in a demo game against a poor soul who wanted to play his new circle caster with my circle warbeasts. I felt pretty bad, taking pStryker, Stormclad, and an Avenger up against pKaya, Megalith, and a Woldwarden.... Did you know that PS17 does absolutely nothing to an ARM26 Stormclad on feat turn?

Anyways, the second game I got in was actually a 50pt game against Menoth. I really like playing my normal opponent, but after so many games of Legion, I kinda wanted a faction not typically chosen by the lowlifes of this world who hate people in general. So I landed Menoth instead. I feel like very little changed. 

He ran his High Reclaimer list, and I brought pCaine. I hadn't played pCaine till the tournament last week, and had only brought him then as my backup caster to Kraye. Out of four games, pCaine played three of them and won two. I love Deadeye. Deadeye is awesome. Deadeye, Snipe, Blur, all in the same package? It's fantastic. I also thought it was a good chance to try out my new Stormlances. And, while we're trying out one cav unit, we ought to bring out the other cav unit too. On top of that, I hate vassal. I understand that I'm running a Vassal tournament, and that it's a great way to play you clowns, but I hate vassal. Boomhowlers do not do well on Vassal. My tough checks fail 8 times out of 10, they can't hit anything, it's ridiculous. Every time I play vassal and Boomhowlers, I'm mad at them and wish I'd brought Nyss instead. Generally, what works in Vassal and works on tabletop are not the same thing. You need to spend more points on stuff that's going to hit on fours and fives, rather than averages of sevens. So usually, the Nyss are a better choice for me in Vassal, even without the higher POW the Boomhowlers have, because at least they hit.

The tabletop, however, actually doesn't have an avid hate against the human race, and I wanted to try the Boomhowlers off of the computer screen. I own them, they're partly painted, they look cool, yeah, I want to try them.

I'm also not looking forward to the Menoth game. The guy normally runs an infantry machine list unless he brings the Judicator. I have yet to go up against dual units of heavy Menoth infantry. pCaine, I figure, is my best matchup. eStryker wouldn't be bad, but I reeeeeaaallly want to try pCaine.

So, lists.

High Reclaimer
*Avatar of Menoth
*Blessing of Vengeance (I think. Had shieldguard)
Exemplar Bastions
Exemplar Bastions
Holy Zealots
Monolith Bearer
Choir
Exemplar Bastion Seneschal
Saxon Orrick
Orin Midwinter
Gorman di Wulfe (Proxied by Harby)

My answer:

pCaine
*Stormwall
*Squire
Boomhowlers (Max)
Tempest Blazers (Max)
Stormlances (Min)
Nyss (min)
*Jonas (Proxied by pStryker)

We rolled off, I got it, deployed first, and Justin stuck his hand in the way of the picture.

Guess what? Everything ran. Except Caine and the Stormwall, because I forgot to give him focus, but it's ok. The Nyss made it nearly halfway up the board and Jonas sent them to ground. The Blazers forged forward and the Lances swung in behind them. Boomhowlers ran up the left flank and Stormwall moved forward every bit of his 5''. Caine moved up and gave Snipe to the Stormwall and Blur to the Nyss. My opponent pointed out that the Blazers were farther than 6'' away from Caine. Ha! Caine has +5 range on his spells. My opponent had an excellent point, I just am bragging that I actually remembered a stat on my card. Heck, I'm bragging that I even read the back of the card.

Everything of his ran too. The Avatar generated 3 focus and went down the left flank, headed for the Boomies. The High Reclaimer moved up and threw five clouds, and the Zealots lined up behind them. The Bastions swept in behind them and Orin Midwinter stealthed himself. Saxon climbed into the woods and the game came back to me.

Look!  Action Shot!

I opened the ball by upkeeping both Snipe, and Blur, and pulling a focus from the squire, which Caine kept. Boomies ran forward, pushing into the woods a bit more. Stormwall moved up a bit, sniped and shot the Avatar twice, hitting both times, boosting damage and doing ok. Nothing crazy, but ok. Mainly got lucky though, because Jose forgot to give him the enchantment from the Choir to prevent any non-magical shooting. It didn't happen anymore after that.

Caine threw Deadeye to the Blazers, and Deadeye to the Nyss. The Nyss moved up into the clouds and killed three or four Zealots. The Blazers moved into the woods, and only one had LOS, so he shots a Bastion with Electro leap (I debated against brutal), and did only a little damage to him, but more importantly, zapped Saxon. Unfortunately, I only took three boxes off of the sniper's life, so meh. But I was pleased with the tactic. The Blazers lightcavved back, and the Lances moved in behind them once more. I was really excited to try the lances. That's another unit that disappoints me in Vassal pretty consistently. But I haven't tried them with Caine yet either, so yeah.

Jose camps his focus once more on the High Reclaimer, and the Avatar generates 4. The Choir casts Battle on the Avatar, who then proceeds to charge into the Boomhowlers, kills one and lights two more on fire. The High Reclaimer steps forward, and casts Ashes to Ashes, needing not double ones to hit his Zealot in the back. Guess who gets double ones? He then drops 3 clouds with the Focus he has remaining. The Zealots creep in, mindful of the templates that Stormwall put down and I forgot to tell anyone about. They manage to do most of what the Reclaimer failed to, and kill off all of my Nyss. They also minifeat, where I can't hurt them this turn except with feats and spells. Jonas, however, survives, and passes his CMD with a 9. Just baaaarreeely scraping by. He's terrified, but it's under control. I guess.

The Bastions on my right flank are staring down my blazers, but can't actually see any of them. So, Saxon gives them Pathfinder, and they run through the woods to engage one blazer. The other Cinerators move up the left flank as much as they can, and one hits a Boomhowler, who toughs.

I, on the other hand, realized I was an idiot, leaving Boomie himself that far forward and exposed. But ok. The other stuff moves up, and Orin does his 12'' no magic thing.

Caine pulls another focus from the squire. He upkeeps Snipe, but not Blur, since it's probably pointless at this point anyways. Two go to the Stormwall. The Stormwall moves forward, shoots at the Bastions on the left once with the big gun, but doesn't get much from it. Hurts one maybe, and then shoots one on the right with the other big gun. That one does much better. 7 damage I think, and Jose scatters the pain around to his unit. I then roll a 1 for his left d3 gun, which doesn't do any good either, and drop a template on the temple terrain in the middle with the right. Caine casts Deadeye on the Blazers, and Lances both, and gets behind the wall.

The Boomies stand up with a call, losing their 4, 5, 6, tough, and going to just 5 and 6. I then charge. In retrospect, this was really stupid. I only got one charge bonus in against the avatar, and everyone else just basically ran. I should have just stood up, gotten some shots off, a few guys would have gotten more melee attacks. As it is, I just tarpitted really well, and put a few more points on the Avatar.

The right flank, however, opened the ball. One blazer moved forward to engage one of the two bastions engaging the leading pony. The other three got LOS on Bastions as much as possible. With Deadey, absolutely none of them missed, and I annihilated one engaging me, electro leaped Saxon to death, and killed another one. With the damage getting kicked around, three of them were still doing ok, including one engaging the horses. The Blazers backed up as much as they could with the light cav, and the stars of the show, our Medium-based infantry with horses under them, assaulted.

With Deadeye, nothing missed. The damage got spread around some more, but it wasn't enough. Between the Impact attacks, 2 electro leaps, POW12 Assault show and PS13 charge attack, the last three bastions died, and took Saxon with them. The whole unit dieing is important, because the Reclaimer's feat is very similar to eMorvahna's in that he can bring back the dead soldiers of a unit that still has a Khador Arc node on the table.

Jonas, not having much else to do, ran like a maniac and engaged Rhupert and Orin, surviving a free strike from a Zealot.

And another ACTION SHOT.  Because I can.

So, Menoth turn begins. The Avatar generates four focus again, I think? The Reclaimer keeps his focus once more, moves towards the right and casts Ashes to Ashes at my leading Lance, needing an 8 to hit. He boosts, and misses... Which sucks, really bad. Then he hit Jonas, who toughed. So he hit him again, and I think... he died finally. Jose moved on to the Avatar, who killed a few more Boomhowlers, except they kept toughing. The Bastions got in and did some damage as well. Between the Zealots (Which there may have been two units of...), the Left Bastions, and the Avatar, they killed 16 Boomhowlers over two turns, and I made 9 tough checks.

Yeah! Suck it Vassal!

That left me with five, KD (Except Boomie, who's in the back for a change, but on fire) Boomhowlers still tarpitting the left side. Specifics though. The Avatar hit one that was pretty central, and gave it the flame thing he does, which is how he ignited Boomie. Then he spent two focus trying to kill one Boomhowler who kept toughing like a champ. The Zealots grenaded some more, one punched a boomie. The other unit on the right flank threw some grenades at the Lances, but to no avail.

Hey! A solo I forgot. The acrobati daughter or the flame or something? Yeah, she went charging across the field from way in the back left and attacked that front Lance? He didn't care. On four dice, she only got him down 2 boxes I think. So yeah, she's right there in the front engaging a lance too.

The left side Bastions killed (tried) a boomie or three more. The right flank Zealots threw more grenades, but pretty much everything deviated, except one, and that one actually killed a Blazer. I think he rolled an eleven to hit, and that actually got him.

My turn. I'm feeling pretty decent with this game. I'm generally just really excited that the Boomies and Lances are doing so well. The Lances lucked out, because after the last two vassal games, I wasn't buying any more of them. After this, I think I'll get Laddermore on order now too. Anyways. I debated about Scenario, or Assassination. I was an activation into my turn when Jose realized he'd completely derped his turn, forgetting Orin's activation, Gorman's, the Shield Guard jack in the back, and the Seneschal. He'd also forgotten to put clouds down.

With left me with a pretty decent chance to assassinate. Not an amazing chance, but not bad. To win by Scenario, I'd have to clean out what was left of the Zealots on the right, all the supports, and tarpit the High Reclaimer, who'd have 16 focus next turn from all the souls he got this turn.

My Boomies would have to keep tarpitting the left flank with increasingly worse odds while Stormwall moved up to help, and at some point, Caine might could use his feat to clear stuff out. In fact, I'd have to on the next turn because the Zealots would be coming back with the Reclaimer's feat.

So, Assassination it is. Stormwall got two focus. I upkept Snipe, moved Caine over, and deadeyed both the Lances, and Blazers. The lances assaulted and the Zealots, and the right most lance chance a free strike from a zealot to attack Orin. The Zealot actually hit him, and then rolled trip boxcars.

Seriously.

So... basically, my horse stepped in a hole, the guy fell over and off the horse, landed next to the Zealot, completely unconscious, and none of my blazers liked him, so they just watched while this Zealot slit his throat.

Ok.

Anyways, between the electro leaps, boosted ranged attack rolls and MAT9 charge attacks, I fried what was left of the Zealots, and opened LOS to the Reclaimer. The Blazers activated next, also deadeyed. Conveniently, Gorman was not only the main model blocking LOS to the Stormwall, he was the closest model to the High Reclaimer. The first shot was an electro leap, that didn't do much to the Reclaimer, but fried Gorman. The next three shots were brutals that all hit (haha) and took him down to just below half heath.

Stormwall shuffled over, fired two boosted-to-hit shots, and a dice minus three, put paid to the Menoth Caster.

Thoughts:

1. MVP is a tough choice. The Lances and Boomhowlers both did fantastic. The Lances pretty nearly handled the Bastions on their own (Not quite), but pretty darn close. The Boomhowlers, however, tied up... 20, 25pts? All by themselves, which left 30 something points to focus on the right side of the battlefield. So I think MVP goes to the Boomies, but lances take a close second.
2. Speaking of Lances. Those guys are not quite as support-free as the Blazers are. They're nice, but not quite as self sufficient. However, tag them to pCaine, or anyone with Deadeye, and they become monsters. Masters of the Ride-By attack. I need the other 2, and Laddermore.
3. Boomhowlers. Are they better than Nyss? Idk. I think Nyss are better against Hordes, where I need the Higher MAT to deal with Beasts higher DEF, and the POW9 weapon master works fairly decent against lower ARM beasts anyways. With Rhupert, they gain tough, so there's that too. They're absolute winners in my eStryker list. For Warmachine matchups though... The 3pt cheaper (Factoring Rhupert in with the Nyss) Boomies are kicking butt. 50% chance of Tough? PS13? Assault if I give them Jonas? Deadeye under Caine, if I so choose? How would you like to deal with Assaulting POW12, PS13 medium based infantry?
4. pCaine. He's awesome. I don't know how I haven't played him before. 
5. I also got lucky. Clouds on the High Reclaimer would have made life infinitely more difficult, and Jose had a solid next turn coming with the Feat, and my left flank losing steam. If the Avatar had managed to finish the Boomies, I'd of had Bastions into my Stormwall, and that's not a good thing. 

Overall though, fun game. Nice change from Legion.

Lieutenant Allister Caine, is it?

  So, on a quick shopping spree, I went and got pCaine, the new NQ, and the Fellowship of the Ring Deckbuilding game.  The last one was my wife's idea, and I'm beholden to her for it, because it was definitely a good idea.

  pCaine, however, seems like an equally neat idea.  As I said in my previous post, I'd never played either him or his Epic incarnation before, and I must say, I rather like him.  He hates himself some stealth, that's for sure, but otherwise, I almost like him as a support caster more than pStryker.  Deadeye alone is amazing.  Tack it to some ATGM or Blazers and we're talking.  Tack in a Squire for some focus to hand off to a jack, and a Journeyman to flesh out the upkeeps, and we're set.

  Unless we're taking his tier, where the Squire, Reinholdt, Squire, and any melee infantry can't come.  That's where we have problems.  In between painting him up (If he wins nothing but the painting competition, I'll be a happy camper), I got the chance to vassal with him at 35pts.

  The Tier really hurts.  Using only the models I have, the 35pt tier list I threw into Vassal is

pCaine
*Stormwall
ATGM
*UA
*Avenger
Black 13th
Gun Mage Captain Adept

  The first game was up against pSkarre, Deathjack, three Scrap Thralls, Bane Lord Tartarus and 30 Banes Thralls.  With the exception of no way to help Stormwall see stuff outside of Lynch, seemed like a decent matchup for me.  The scenario was Outflank.  ATGM and the Avenger held one side of the board, everything else went after one unit of Banes and Deathjack on the other.

  I blew Caine's feat, since he couldn't see any Banes, but managed to kill Tartarus.  The Avenger and ATGM handled the two units of banes since my opponent failed to give Dark Guidance out, and therefore consistently missed my ATGM who contested the zone.

  The other side of the board fared much better.  Ryan singlehandedly drifted a magestorm into a tightly packed unit of banes and killed 6 of the 8.  Deathjack took more work, but Stormwall handled him after a turn or two, while his caster failed to really allocate enough focus for the jack to hurt the wall.

  After two or three rounds, I was dominating the zone with Stormwall in front, and pSkarre did a do or die, casting Hellfire at Caine.  Came three boxes short of winning it, but failed.

  That game was ok, was probably stacked more in my favor than anything.  I like pCaine though.  Reeeeallly wish I could bring Boomies.  He seriously needs a tarpit and some melee help, and the Tier simply says no.

  The next game was a painful one against Nemo and his TAC buddies.  Between not being able to see him, or handle ARM21 Forgeguard, I got cut to pieces slowly, but surely while Nemo inexorably advanced behind clouds.

  Overall though, I really like the caster, and look forward to getting him out of the Tier tournament and seeing what he can do.

  On the painting side of things though, I wasn't kidding about hopefully winning the Painting side of the tournament.  I wasn't too sold on pCaine's dual wielding point-to-the-front pose, and was really hoping that wasn't what I ended up with.  I wasn't terribly excited about his other sculpt either.

  Until I pulled that detailed beautiful little pewter model out.  pCaine, at the moment, is my favorite sculpt that I own.

  Most of my current bases are bark, painted tan and drybrushed.  Lately, I've been skipping even that route and going into just sand and rocks on the base.  Even more recent, I decided to branch out, looking for better basing material for my Circle.  My wife started saving tea and coffee grounds from our frequent caffeine incursions and now I've got a pretty solid supply in my work room.  Couple that with some popsicle sticks I picked up for my trench terrain (Coming soon, to a blog near you), and we might have a winner.

  Keeping with my Desert Cygnar theme, I've got him stepping off of wooden dock sort of platform with dirt under it, onto sandstone.  The rest of him is a bit more traditional than my normal Cygnar, simply because Caine's normally got a tan jacket.  It fit quite well.  Overall, I'm really happy with how this one turned out and hope to see it do well tomorrow.