Learning the ropes with NephMakes

Game 0: Tanith (Circle)

    Cryx Army - 15 / 15 points
    (Mortenebra 1) Master Necrotech Mortenebra [+24]
    - Harrower [16]
    - Reaper [13]
    - Stalker [8]
    Scrap Thralls [2]

This was just a few models I'd bought back in Mk2 because I wanted to try painting miniatures again for the first time in like 15 years. I did a little research to make sure they worked reasonably well togather in case I actually wanted to play some day, but mainly I got stuff because it looked cool. That's how I ended up starting with Mortenebra1. Fast squishy melee with movement shenanigans was familiar and rewarding gameplay, though -- I spent several years raiding on an undead rogue in World of Warcraft.

Playing into:

    Circle Army - 2 / 15 points
    (Tanith 1) Tanith the Feral Song [+31]
    - Gorax Rager [7]
    - Pureblood Warpwolf [17]
    - Wild Argus [7]
    Gallows Grove [2]

I didn't really expect to play this game. I'd played out some activations on my kitchen table to work through some of the basic mechanics. When I went to scope out the scene at a local steamroller, I brought my models just in case. The guy running the tournament (a store employee) introduced himself and offered to run a quick demo in a break between sessions. He treated my models like a battlebox with a solo choice.

Scenario: Mangled metal

The game:

I went first and ran up, placing my Stalker aggressively in a forest on my left. He ran his beasts right at me with the Warpwolf ending rather close to Morty. I jumped a Stalker into Tanith's back arc, landing a headbutt and an attack. I dragged the Gorax out of the way with the Reaper, killing it and triggering overrun to move up the Harrower. The Harrower then charged into Tanith, at which point I learned how damage transfer works in Hordes and that Grievous Wounds doesn't prevent it. My opponent was being distracted by tournament stuff, though, and time was running out before the next steamroller round, so he declined to transfer damage and let Tanith die.

The experience:

It may not have been a fully-realized game but it was enough to show me that, yes, I did like Warmahordes gameplay. My opponent was very friendly and helpful, taking time to explain mechanics and talk some about tactics. I was still baffled about how to best use focus, though. This may have been when I decided to work through the math myself.

Game 1: Ossrum (Mercs)

   Cryx Army - 25 / 25 points
   [Theme] Black Industries
   (Mortenebra 1) Master Necrotech Mortenebra [+24]
    - Leviathan [16]
    - Scavenger [0(7)]
    - Seether [13]
    - Slayer [10]
    - Stalker [8]
   Scrap Thralls [2]

The basic idea here is that leviathans can trigger overrun and be a back line to protect Morty while still doing attrition work. Melee heavies are my front line, with the seether getting spectral steel until I eventually run Deathjack. Scavengers and stalkers are there for assassinations, removing problematic solos, and attrition support. Scrap thralls are fuel for sacrificial lamb, though I must admit a special fondness for the idea of robot zombie suicide bombers. Too bad you can't throw them anymore.

Playing into:

   Mercenary Army - 25 / 25 points
   (Ossrum 1) General Ossrum [+28]
    - Ghordson Driller [10]
    - Ghordson Driller [10]
    - Grundback Blaster [6]
    - Grundback Gunner [6]
    - Grundback Gunner [6]
   Thor Steinhammer [4]
   Herne & Jonne [5]
   Horgenhold Artillery Corps [6]

Not sure I'm remembering Steinhammer & the Artillery Corps correctly. My opponent was a veteran who hasn't really played since Mk2. He was there as part of a journeyman league but was pressed into playing me by the tournament organizer.

The game:

Scenario: Mangled Metal

I go first and run up. He moves up a bit and throws out some ranged attacks that don't do much. My turn two, I muddle though Morty and Deryl's activations. When I go to activate my jacks I realize I forgot to allocate focus and to feat, but he lets me after the fact. The slayer charges and destroys a gunner out in front. This triggers overrun to let the Seether get around a central obstruction and then charge into a couple of his jacks, killing another gunner.

I forget about stealth and have the stalker spend most of its time moving around a right flank through forests, making it mostly ineffective this game. I positioned the Scavenger behind the central obstruction with the idea that it could fly over, then realize that it can't reach much without charging and can't see to charge. It may have killed some gun stuff. Tickled by the idea of using a scrap thrall as something more than fuel, at one point I move one up behind the central obstruction. Later it just gets shot down by a gunner. The Leviathan spends most of the game out of range/LOS to shoot anything except the odd gunner or two. There's a theme here...

On his turn two his drillers destroy the seether and cripple the slayer. I learn how my melee heavies get out of Deryl's repair range very quickly. Later, what's left only manages to delay the drillers. Having lost everything but the Leviathan, and seeing that my opponent isn't enjoying this game, I concede.

The experience:

As a learning game, this was mediocre. I told my opponent it was my first real game and I'm still learning basic mechanics. He didn't mind explaining rules to me, but he wasn't interested in discussing tactics during the game. Perhaps his approach was to just let people make mistakes and learn from them afterwards. For example, when I got my seether into his jacks, I was at first going to spread my attacks between them. He mentioned it's usually better to focus your damage, so I focused on the gunner so I could destroy it and get an extra berserk attack on the driller. After the game, when I asked what my biggest mistakes were, he said one of them was not focusing on the driller. Even if I didn't destroy it, I might cripple it so he couldn't do much damage in retaliation. Carapace meant his guns weren't much of a threat to my heavies. He also said I should've been more aggressive with the stalker and reminded me it had stealth. I remember at some point in the game he asked me which of my models had stealth, but I didn't pick up that he might have been trying to give me a hint because I was so harried just trying get through my activations.

That harried feeling wasn't helped when, at the end of my turn two, he mildly complained that it took 20 minutes for just a few models and I was going to have to be faster for larger games later on. It's my first real game, dude.

My opponent also suggested learning my models better and practicing my activation sequence at home, which is good advice. One of the greatest hurdles I'm having to overcome in this game is remembering things. There are SO many things to remember: remember to allocate focus, remember to feat, remember all your models' special rules, remember all your opponent's models' special rules, remember what you needed to roll to hit when you're deciding whether to boost damage, and on and on and on. I have a terrible memory for anything I can't see.

In my experience, letting people make mistakes as part of the learning process is fine -- when it's time. In medicine, a popular approach to learning a new procedure is "see one, do one, teach one". I do something similar when I teach somebody an experimental technique in the laboratory. I first have them watch me do it while I talk through what's going on, why I'm doing what I'm doing, and what to watch out for. Then they do a practice run with me there so I can point out if they doing anything wrong (typically something that contaminates their microbial culture, which they wouldn't discover until days or weeks later when none their work gave usable data). When they start doing experiments to collect publishable data, they do the first round themselves with me watching for mistakes and answering questions if needed. The next round they do it on their own while I'm down the hall if they need me. After that, they're good on their own.

Game 2: Tanith (Circle)

    Cryx Army - 25 / 25 points
    [Theme] Black Industries
    (Mortenebra 1) Master Necrotech Mortenebra [+24]
    - Leviathan [16]
    - Scavenger [0(7)]
    - Seether [13]
    - Slayer [10]
    - Stalker [8]
    Scrap Thralls [2]

Same list as before.

Playing into:

    Circle Army - 25 / 25 points
    [Theme] The Wild Hunt
    (Tanith 1) Tanith the Feral Song [+31]
    - Gorax Rager [7]
    - Pureblood Warpwolf [17]
    - Shadowhorn Satyr [12]
    - Woldwyrd [9]
    War Wolf [2]
    Warpborn Skinwalkers (min) [9]

This was the store employee and tournament organizer again, but this time I got to see his models actually do something. I definitely remember there being more than three of the skin walkers, so I think he accidentally fielded a max unit after paying for a min. I think this guy plays some WarmaHordes but mainly does card games like Magic the Gathering.

The game:

Scenario: Mangled Metal

I'd planned to focus on learning attrition play, but top of two I notice there is only a single skinwalker blocking an overrun + charge lane from the seether to his caster. So Morty casts overrun on the stalker and then on the leviathan as backup. When I go to activate the stalker I realize I forgot to allocate focus and/or feat but he lets me. The stalker jumps in and removes the blocking model, in the process engaging Tanith and letting the seether overrun forward. The warpwolf uses admonition to move and block the seether's charge lane. The seether instead countercharges the warpwolf, activates, and destroys it. At this point I decide I like seethers. The slayer charges the satyr and destroys it. I'd planned to use the scavenger on the war wolf behind a house, but when the leviathan picks off another wolf trooper I use overrun to get the scavenger onto Tanith and do some damage. Bottom of two, the gorax throws the stalker at the scavenger and disengages Tanith. The war wolf runs for-freaking-ever (using sic 'em I guess), almost engaging Morty. Instead of hiding behind her beefy wolfboys, Tanith walks right in front of the seether (to get channeling range on the war wolf maybe) and arcs some spells at Morty but can only get her down to five boxes. Top of three, the seether eats Tanith. The slayer could've finished her off, too.

The experience:

As a learning game, this was decent. My opponent didn't talk through why he was making his plays (unless I asked), but we did have a decent discussion about my assassination option and how admonition would play into it.

Sounds like you're making good progress. Personally it took me a long time to reliably remember to allocate focus! I still forget to feat with some casters; especially defensive feats.

As for your opponent getting frustrated, that happens to me when I play a game where I feel like a reasonably balanced list wouldn't have a chance; basically when it feels unfair you know? Like one time in MkII I threw my entire army at a Skorne shieldwall unit and didn't do any damage at all. Sometimes that's down to just not seeing what options were available (either in terms of tactics or in terms of army build), I guess it takes time to get used to the idea that your army might have just been a bad match for your opponent's, and that's just part of the game.

Game 4: Stryker1 (Cygnar)

    Cryx Army - 45 / 45 points
    (Mortenebra 1) Master Necrotech Mortenebra [+24]
    [Theme] Black Industries
    - Harrower [16]
    - Leviathan [16]
    - Scavenger [0(7)]
    - Scavenger [0(7)]
    - Seether [13]
    - Slayer [10]
    - Stalker [8]
    Scrap Thralls [2]
    Warwitch Siren [4]

The Warwitch Siren and Harrower are there mainly because I have them already from when I first bought models in Mk2 and they let me get to 45 points.

Playing into:

    Cygnar Army - 45 / 45 points
    [Theme] Sons of the Tempest
    (Stryker 1) Commander Coleman Stryker [+30]
    - Avenger [17]
    - Firefly [8]
    - Ironclad [12]
    - Squire [0(5)]
    Gun Mage Captain Adept [0(5)]
    Lieutenant Bastian Falk [5]
    Arcane Tempest Gun Mages [11]
    - Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer [4]
    Tempest Blazers (max) [18]

I might be misremembering his heavies here. My opponent is a newer player with a little bit more experience than me. He's the son who helped the previous game. And he's also a nationally ranked chess player I think? So he's got that going for him, which is nice.

The game:

Scenario: Patrol (a rumble variant), but played on a normal-size table with normal deployment rules. It's a circle zone in the center with vertical rectangles in either side.

I went first and ran stuff up like normal, keeping the Leviathan central to protect Morty and be in range for Overrun. Across the board, his two heavies moved up the middle as well and deliberately positioned a little in front of an obstruction so that together they blocked line of sight and charge lanes to his caster. It was good positioning. His Firefly shot one of my heavies and the Lightning Generator arc zapped Deryl before he had a chance to do anything. So now I've seen what Cygnar lightning shenanigans can do.

I realized that if I removed his frontmost heavy with the Slayer, the Seether could charge his caster using Overrun and Spectral Steel to clip through the obstruction without taking free strikes from the Avenger. When the Slayer failed to destroy the heavy, I realized I'd again forgotten to feat. I decided to take it as a learning experience. I would've felt a bit bad assassinating the guy top of two, anyway, since I think this was his first experience with Ghostly. And this way he got to see the threat without it being a frustrating "gotcha".

There was a jack brawl in the middle. At one point he considered using a knockdown of some sort but decided against it when I warned him I could cast Jumpstart. There were some issues getting the Seether to his caster because the Avenger moved up and I couldn't move completely through the building. Maybe I could've managed it using a Slayer to throw one of his jacks out of the way, but I'm not very good yet at remembering to consider my power attack options. I guess I could've even used a throw on top of two. Hrm. That would've been too sweet to pass up, gotcha or no gotcha.

The gun mages deployed on the back left. I didn't have much to engage them with besides the Stalker, which jumped behind them to kill the attachment and a trooper or two while threatening Stryker. He piled the gun mages onto to the Stalker and handily downed it, but it did manage to keep that whole 15 point unit from doing much else this game so I guess it worked out fine.

The murder ponies (Tempest Blazers) deployed on my right across from the Harrower. For some reason I decided the Harrower would be ineffective against them (not true, in retrospect) and instead tried to move it to across my back field to engage the Gun Mages. This was a terrible decision and prevented the Harrower from contributing at all. In reality, POW 16 Thresher with a 2" reach against ARM 13 infantry with 5 boxes is pretty good, even under Stryker's +4 ARM feat. And POW 10 Brutal Damage boosted Gunfighter shots against the Harrower's base ARM 18 + 4 ARM for Carapace meant the ponies would average two points of damage each. The Harrower's armor, boxes, and large free strike zone would've definitely held the line and killed a few ponies in the process. But with no one to block them, the ponies moved in very very quickly. Some of them eventually charged the Slayer and some ran/repositioned to engage the Leviathan and Morty. The Leviathan managed to shoot down a pony on their way in, then kill one or two more in melee.

I eventually managed to assassinate Stryker with a couple Scavengers. The Warwitch Siren used Parry to Seduce a pony and disengage Morty. I think Morty then cast Doom Spiral on one of his heavies and put a couple points of damage on Stryker so the Scavengers would have Finisher. I used my feat. The Leviathan triggered Overrun by meleeing ponies, which let the right-side Scavenger get into postion on Stryker. The left Scavenger was in range to walk or maybe charge.

My opponent told me Stryker's +5 ARM feat doesn't affect himself, but I think he got that wrong since he's still a friendly faction model. Perhaps he would've survived the assassination then. Let's see... Stryker1 would be 16/20 on feat turn (wow, he's squishy). The Scavengers are MAT 7 so I'd need to roll nines and would thus boost. Even then, that's only 3/4 hits landing on average, but with rerolls from the feat it'd get better. POW 11 with Finisher, boosted, is likely two 5-point hits from each fully-loaded Scavenger. That's 20 points damage on average between them, plus damage rerolls from the feat making it more like 30. He used his last focus to kill the Seether (which still had a cortex but probably wasn't as much a threat as he believed), so with only 17 boxes I guess Stryker would probably have still gone down.

The experience:

My goals for this game were: (1) remember to allocate focus and (2) remember to feat. I got the allocation and a decent learning experience about forgetting to feat. Also, about halfway through the game I realized I'd been forgetting to using the +4 ARM against ranged attacks from Carapace. This was the game where it'd be most effective, too. Afterwards I realized that Carapace would've also worked against his Gunfighter attacks.

As a learning experience, I really liked this game. We were both happy to discuss rules and tactics on each others' turns, learning the game and learning to play better. The only negative experience was when the dude's father kept coming over to our table and making comments like "oh my god, slowest game ever" or standing next to my opponent while making snoring noises. Neither of us minded our pace, and it wasn't even like they came in the same car or anything. At one point I commented that his father seemed to be getting impatient, and he said to just ignore him and even called the father out on it when he came over again. "You're not being funny, you're just complaining".

Game 5: Jakes2 (Cygnar)

    Cryx Army - 45 / 45 points
    (Mortenebra 1) Master Necrotech Mortenebra [+24]
    [Theme] Black Industries
    - Harrower [16]
    - Leviathan [16]
    - Scavenger [0(7)]
    - Scavenger [0(7)]
    - Seether [13]
    - Slayer [10]
    - Stalker [8]
    Scrap Thralls [2]
    Warwitch Siren [4]

Same list. Playing into:

    Cygnar Army - 45 / 45 points
    (Jakes 2) Captain Allison Jakes [+28]
    [Theme] Heavy Metal
    - Centurion [17]
    - Ironclad [12]
    - Lancer [10]
    - Thunderhead [20]
    - Squire [0(5)]
    Captain Arlan Strangewayes [0(4)]
    Journeyman Warcaster [4]
    - Hunter [10]

My opponent is an intermediate player (I think) and familiar with Mortenebra. Not sure I'm remembering the Ironclad/Lancer combo correctly.

The game:

Scenario was Killing Field (a rumble scenario) but played on a normal table with normal deployment. It's a circle zone in center with flags on either side.

I lost a lot of the game on turn one by not paying enough attention to threat ranges. I was used to having the faster jacks, so when I went second and put the Seether mostly behind a central obstruction, I thought he was out of charge lanes and therefore safe. But Escort is a spell and the opposing Thunderhead was able to simply walk around the obstruction and smash the Seether senseless. In a similar vein, I put the Stalker in a forest mid-board on the left, only to have it charged by the Hunter. I eventually got the Hunter down but the Stalker wasn't able to contribute much the rest of the game. Note to self: take your opponent's threat ranges seriously.

Another big misplay came when I was finally able to trigger Overrun. I moved the Slayer up to trample over a couple solos and engage Jakes. But with no initials and only two focus left, all the Slayer could do was buy one attack and boost the hit. It didn't do much, and the Slayer went down the next turn. I think Jakes was even camping a focus. I guess my Scavengers were engaged and couldn't help. In retrospect what I should've done is moved the Slayer into position to finish off the damaged Thunderhead. That would've left me with two of my heavies in range of Morty for repairs/spells and a decent board position. Next round I was able to get the Leviathan onto Jakes, too, but that didn't do the trick either and the Thunderhead's gun killed Morty. So I guess the lesson there is that getting a heavy onto my opponent's caster doesn't guarantee the assassination.

The experience:

As a learning experience this game was mediocre. My opponent wasn't interested in explaining his moves or discussing tactics until after the fact, so it ended up being a lot of time and effort just to discover a couple dumb plays. But he was nice enough and after the game offered to give me a Cryx Mk2 battlebox he won in the recent journeyman league. Thanks, dude!