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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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



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



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






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



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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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



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

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






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

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

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

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

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





Thoughts on the game:

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

Anyways, thanks for reading!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  

50pts 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