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Post by argentbadger on Aug 13, 2019 11:33:40 GMT
Round 4 – Bunkers vs Sean’s Grymkin (game 11) conflictchamber.com/?ce201b_-2khvh2nlnlnlnlnlnlh4h4nFhmhmhmhn___-2khth2nlnlnlh4h6h3h3hmhmhmhmhrGrymkin [Theme] Dark Menagerie [King of Nothing 1] The King of Nothing [+28] - Cage Rager [14] - Clockatrice [13] - Clockatrice [13] - Clockatrice [13] - Clockatrice [13] - Clockatrice [13] - Clockatrice [13] - Crabbits (2) [0(7)] - Crabbits (2) [0(7)] - Baron Tonguelick, Lord of Warts [4] Gremlin Swarm [0(3)] Gremlin Swarm [0(3)] Gremlin Swarm [3] Lady Karianna Rose [4] Grymkin [Theme] Dark Menagerie [Dreamer 1] The Dreamer [+28] - Cage Rager [14] - Clockatrice [13] - Clockatrice [13] - Clockatrice [13] - Crabbits (2) [0(7)] - Gorehound [6] - Skin & Moans [15] - Skin & Moans [15] Gremlin Swarm [0(3)] Gremlin Swarm [0(3)] Gremlin Swarm [0(3)] Gremlin Swarm [0(3)] Death Knell [13] I’ve literally never seen Grymkin on the table before, so Sean very kindly talks me through his lists. I see that there are nine Clockatrices between the lists so I figure that they must be The New Hotness; after Sean’s explanation I decide that Swamp Horrors are probably the tech I need to deal with them so I go with Jaga Jaga. Sean picks his Dreamer list with a mere three Clockatrices. Sean wins the roll off and chooses to go first. I pick the side with a trench to hide Jaga Jaga in. I'm aiming to use Brun and Rorsh to get on the outside flags and then run the rest of my stuff up the middle. The Totem Hunter goes behind the forest in the hope that I'll be able to abuse that for some cheeky charges, although there aren't really any great targets for him here. The Arcana chosen are All Fall Down, Sacrifice and Labyrinth. I forgot to note what the Totem Hunter chose as Prey; I think it was probably the Clockatrice on the far right. Turn 1: Grymkin Everything just runs right at me. The Dreamer puts out an Artifice of Deviation on the right, presumably to stop any shenanigans with Rorsh. She also casts Mirage on the right Skin and Moans Turn 1: Minions Those Clockatrices have me out-ranged so I move up far enough to hopefully bring them into my range if they want to spray my Warbeasts. Jaga Jaga puts Grave Wind on the Totem Hunter (not that it ever saves him!) and Battle Host on herself. Brun and Rorsh cast their upkeeps since they're free to keep in play thanks to the new theme benefit. Lug is relatively far forward in the hope that I can bait out some awkward positioning to gt round counter-charge. Turn 2: Grymkin Mirage is upkept and the Gremlin Swarms predictably stroll onto the flags. I have a plan to deal with the ones on the left but I can't see myself doing more than contesting the right now. All three Clockatrices come in and apply a variety of penalties to both Swamp Horrors and Brine; the rest of the army moves up to counter punch if I can take them out. Another Artifice of Deviation appears to stop me doing anything useful with Brine. Turn 2: Minions I upkeep all my spells. The Soul Slave puts Ghost Walk onto the Boomhowlers and they run around and plink away a little at the front line. Jaga Jaga casts Signs and Portents and Feats, killing the left Gremlin Swarms, one of the Crabbits and otherwise clearing some of my own models out of the way. She also puts Rage on one Swamp Horror and the Wrastler does the same for the other one. The Swamp Horrors, slowed as they are, do manage to get both Clockatrices (actually the Totem Hunter has to finish the last one). Sean did good work having them Stutter to places where I couldn't pull them in for bite attacks but eventually they went down. I'm a bit more stuck on the right and Rorsh is resigned to just taking a couple of potshots and contesting the flag. Somewhere in here Labyrinth was played. We each score our own zones; 1 - 1. Turn 3: Grymkin The Dreamer moves slightly and casts Manifest Destiny. The Skin and Moans on the right kills Brine but Rorsh lives on a single wound. The Cage Rager takes out the Swamp Horror on the right, saving me some worries about Fury management. The Gorehound charges across and eat Orin; I'm a bit annoyed with myself on this one as it was totally avoidable - I hadn't realised that Gorehounds have Ghostly but more importantly Orin could easily have been a few millimetres further back and remained safe. The last Clockatrice kills the Totem Hunter and the heavies on that side start to pressure me through the forest on the right. The Crabbit contests the left flag and a Phantasm runs into my zone so only Sean scores his zone for 2 - 1 to Grymkin. Turn 3: Minions Battle Host is upkept for free, then Jaga Jaga kills the small Phantasm, puts Rage back on the Swamp Horror and casts Signs and Portents. Lug swats the Crabbit and Brun moves to be slightly less irrelevant while still scoring. The Soul Slave is going to need to get on the left flag so moves into range to run onto it next turn. The Swamp Horror eats both the Gorehound and Cage Rager and the Wrastler takes out the Death Knell. Boomhowlers run to contest the back zone and generally get in the way. I score the left flag and my zone; 3 - 2 to Minions. Turn 4: Grymkin Turns are moving quite quickly now as we run out of miniatures. The Phantasms move to contest and the Dreamer zaps the contesting Boomhowler before casting Manifest Destiny. The pair of Skin and Moans drop the Wrastler (needing to work quite hard for it) and the Clockatrice clears the right flag by killing Rorsh. Sean scores his zone and the right flag; 4 - 3 to Grymkin. Turn 4: Minions I need to send the Soul Slave to sit on the left flag this turn so I enjoy my last free upkeep of Battle Host. Jaga Jaga casts Signs and Portents and waves goodbye to the Soul Slave. The Valkyries and Boomhowlers contest, jam and clear Phantasms as best they can manage and the Swamp Horror takes care of a Skin and Moans. Brun and Lug both leg it to the centre flag. I score my zone and two flags, Sean gets one to bring the score to 6 - 5 to Minions. Turn 5: Grymkin Unfortunately, it turns out that I've left Jaga Jaga close enough to my objective that the Skin and Moans can charge it and buy attacks on her. So the Clockatrice takes care of the blocking Valkyrie and the Dreamer moves up to cover the landing spot with Manifest Destiny, and it does just that. Minions lose by assassination. This was the only game a felt a little disappointed in my performance. Not because I particularly expected to win, but rather because the manner of the defeat was so avoidable; simply moving Jaga Jaga about 1” to my left would have left her safe. Of course, there were still plenty of options for Sean to win it, but I wanted to push him a little further to get the win. Oh well, just something else for me to try to think about in these games. Sean was a lovely opponent throughout. Things I learned: - As above, I’ve got a bit of a habit of not checking for threats onto my Warlock until after I’ve finished their activation. I really need to consider positioning for them much more carefully. I guess I didn’t really learn my lesson from game 2.
- Signs and Portents showed it’s worth again and again in this match-up. On the other hand, Sean was casting Manifest Destiny for one Fury less and getting the same value out of it so maybe I should be wishing for that spell instead!
- Swamp Horrors were as good into Clockatrices as I hoped. Sean did a good job of Stuttering them round the base of another model so I couldn’t drag the Clockatrices in for a good beak attack though.
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Post by argentbadger on Aug 13, 2019 11:34:36 GMT
Round 5 – Anarchy vs David’s Cryx (game 12) conflictchamber.com/?c4201b_-1WnUc31hkpe2kwkr2IoIkgkk1____-1U0Z19193ci2dWdWhZh_hZh_bBCryx [Theme] Scourge of the Broken Coast [Rahera 1] Captain Rahera, Terror of the Wailing Sea [+28] - Kraken [35] - Stalker [8] - Satyxis Blood Priestess [4] Aiakos, Scourge of the Meredius [4] - Kharybdis [17] Axiara Wraithblade [0(6)] General Gerlak Slaughterborn [0(6)] Ragman [4] Blighted Trollkin Marauders (max) [15] - Jussika Bloodtongue [0(5)] Bloodgorgers (max) [15] Cryx [Theme] Dark Host [Coven 1] The Witch Coven of Garlghast [+26] - Deathripper [6] - Deathripper [6] - Desecrator [14] Bane Lord Tartarus [0(6)] Bane Riders (max) [20] Bane Riders (max) [20] Bane Warriors (min) [10] - Bane Warrior Officer & Standard [0(5)] Bane Warriors (min) [10] - Bane Warrior Officer & Standard [0(5)] Wraith Engine [15] I had a feeling that David was going to go for the swarm of Banes here and decided that my Dr Arkadius list would want no part of that. In addition, there is no incentive for the Witch Coven to play even remotely far forward so there wasn’t even much danger of getting a cheeky assassination. Jaga Jaga came out to play and David did indeed pick Witch Coven. David wins the roll and decides to go first. I put both lesser Warlocks on the left to try to hold that flag and stick the Boomhowlers on the right with the hope of holding that zone at some point. The battlegroup goes in the centre so that I can see where things end up, although with such a wall of warrior models coming at me I suppose that the answer is 'everywhere'. The Totem Hunter picks Bane Lord Tartarus as Prey; I figure it might make David play him further back at least. Turn 1: Cryx Everything rushes right at me. David is careful to measure out proper landing zones for the Witches and Egregore. Occultation is cast on the right Bane Riders, Infernal Machine goes on the Desecrator and a Veil of Mists is put out to extend the wall of forests and theme-benefit clouds. Turn 1: Minions There's not much to do but run right at them. I try not to offer too much to the alpha next turn, but on the other hand I also want to get deep enough that I can do some work under the inevitable Coven Feat. On the left, the Valkyries stay out of range of the Bane Riders as I can shoot them next turn unless they back right off the zone. Grave Wind is on the Totem Hunter and Battle Host goes up, along with the upkeeps from the lesser Warlocks. Turn 2: Cryx All spells are upkept. The Coven move up and, predictably, Feat to cover much of my army. The Bane Riders on the right come in and slap through the leading Boomhowlers. One of them kills the Totem Hunter too (actually it missed the impact attack but I let David take that back as he said he wasn't aware of the Poltergeist thing); poor Totem Hunter. Otherwise everything is surprisingly cautious. The Wraith Engine swaps sides but I'm not really sure I understand why. Turn 2: Minions I look to see if there is any way that I can trample anything into the Witches while they're far forward and eventually decide that it won't work out. Jaga Jaga, Brun and Rorsh upkeep all their spells for free. Jaga Jaga casts Signs and Portents and Rages the Wrastler, which then goes in and Overtakes its way through three Bane Riders. Boomhowlers move out to get in the way a bit more; I'm hoping that there will be enough of them left to be worth using my Feat by the time next turn comes round. Rorsh uses Diversionary Tactics to get an additional move out of Brine, who walks into the Desecrator. Frustratingly, even under Signs and Portents Brine misses half of his attacks and leaves the Warjack on a couple of boxes. On the left, I realise that I can't give away too much to the Bane Riders so the Valkyries gun one of them down. Brun scores my flag; 1 - 0. Turn 3: Cryx The Coven drop all their upkeeps and load up the Desecrator; the objective also heals it back to full functionality. The Bane Warriors on the left drop Brine without any problem after the first one runs to stop Lug's Counter Charge. The Desecrator and one Bane Rider kill Lug too, along with most of the Valkyries though helpfully the last one Toughs and contests the left zone for me. The Bane Riders and Warriors on the right plow through a bunch of the remaining Boomhowlers (clearing the zone) and gum me up in the centre; finally Tartarus remembers to sit by his flag. 2 - 1 to Cryx. Turn 3: Minions Right, I feel like now I can get some work done as I can actually get to the Cryx army this turn. The Soul Slave puts Ghost Walk on the few remaining Boomhowlers and they walk up to stab a few of the Bane Warriors. Jaga Jaga casts Signs and Portents and Feats on the rest of the Boomhowlers apart from the Trollblood himself, clearing a bit more of the mess on the right. The last Valkyrie sacrifices movement to take a shot at a Bane Rider, then Rorsh gets to work. He aims and starts unloading, killing the Desecrator and a Warrior. Brun kills the contesting Bane Rider to clear my flag. The Wrastler and both Swamp Horrors go on a highly entertaining Overtake rampage, wiping out the last Bane Riders on the left and seriously thinning out the remaining Bane Warriors on either side. We each score our flags; 3 - 2 to Cryx. Turn 4: Cryx The Bane Riders on the left clear the Valkyrie to claim that zone while the Warriors move to contest my flag and kill off my Swamp Horror. Over on the right, the Deathripper charges into Boomhowler but crucially misses him. Later Warrior attacks just force him to Tough, which he makes to stymie David's plans. The rest of the Warriors put some fairly desultory attacks into the Wrastler. Finally, the Wraith Engine goes Incorporeal and rushes forward. Cryx score their flag and left zone; 5 - 2. Turn 4: Minions Orin runs to the flag and Rorsh aims again to finish the left Bane Warriors. Brun charges into the left zone to kill a Rider, but mainly to contest. Boomhowler, the Wrastler and surviving Swamp Horror do great work on the right but can't quite polish off the Deathripper nor one Warrior that snuck behind them. The Swamp Horror does pull in Tartarus and eat him as part of another Overtake chain though, so that felt pretty good. I was actually planning to send the Swamp Horror into the Wraith Engine until David kindly reminded me that it was Incorporeal this turn. I score my flag; 5 - 3 to Cryx. Turn 5: Cryx David is pretty much out of clock at this point but canny observers will note that, once again, I have neglected to move my Warlock a tiny amount to safety. The Deathripper runs toward Jaga Jaga and the Coven first put Curse of Shadows on her then follow-up with a couple of Stygian Abysses (luckily none of them get a critical hit). The Wraith Engine then charges her but misses enough attacks that she survives. David has 1 second left on his clock so he concedes. Minions win by deathclock. Another close game, though in this case I think that David had run out of things to really threaten me with once I tidied up his Wraith Engine. It was nice to play into this kind of list as I’ve not really had experience into anything like it, and David ensured that it was a fun way to play. Things I learned: - Yet again, I failed to follow my own advice about keeping my Warlock safe. In this case, I thought that I would have the Wraith Engine in hand anyway but I had forgotten that it was Incorporeal so I couldn’t attack it. Nonetheless, I could have had Jaga Jaga playing less far forward than she was.
- Sometimes it can be worth throwing something unexpected at a player to get them out of their comfort zone. I gave away Brine in exchange for most of the Desecrator but it was probably still effective as it meant that David had to slow the Bane advance on that side to deal with him. Of course, I was hoping that I wouldn’t miss so many attacks and actually kill the Warjack but it wasn’t to be.
- The game is long enough that I can afford to back off and cede some scenario points to avoid a really bad situation (like strolling into David’s threat ranges under the Witch Coven’s Feat). No need to rush in as long as I can contest at least on my turns.
When all the scores are in, I somehow finish a remarkable 10th place out of 30ish people. Far, far better than I had expected, and actually slightly above Joe on whatever tiebreaker comes first (I think it is Strength of Schedule); more personally I surpassed even my stretch goal to win two games. Many thanks to Ross, Kyle, Billy, Sean and David for five fun games of Warmachine, and of course to Allan for running the whole show.
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Post by Azahul on Aug 13, 2019 12:30:24 GMT
Congratulations on the performance dude That's a really solid effort. Great reports too, you're doing a great job of identifying where a lot of your weaknesses are which I think is the most valuable part of writing battle reports myself. Things I learned: - I need to get more value out of Ancillary Attack and the Adrenaline option on Dr Arkadius’s Needle. I’m not really using either to any great effect.
Hmmm, yeah, I have noticed that you tend to play your Road Hogs pretty far apart and a long way away from Arkadius. If you want a tip, I'd say that you would usually want to deploy both Road Hogs flanking Arkadius. If you look at my games, like any of the many Arkadius games on this page, you can see that my default set-up is to put a Road Hog on either side of Arkadius during deployment and run them straight forwards turn one close enough together that Arkadius can reach both of them Turn 2 for some Raw Adrenaline needles. In this game in particular I was keeping them together turn after turn because I was chipping away at a large infantry host, but I think you'll find that just remembering to deploy the Road Hogs around Arkadius to set up for Turn 2 will be enough to see your use of that part of his kit spike high. Once you get the hang of it I think most of Arkadius's concerns with infantry melt away, I know I've stopped worrying about playing him into infantry hordes since getting the hang of exploiting Raw Adrenaline and I don't even have a Battle Boar in my list. Fully boosted sprays and army-wide Overtake is enough. Taking down Destors with Dauntless Resolve, Steady and Tough is really hard to do. In general, I don’t have any tech against Tough other than just spending Fury and hitting them again. Yeah, my lists have been suffering from that same problem. For what it's worth, the Void Archon is on the horizon and promises to be a fix for that issue if it has remained unchanged since CID. I intend to take two instead of Mire and the Wrastler in my lists. Cloud Walls are a bit of a problem as I have no way to see through them. Luckily in this case I was able to Frenzy onto one of my own models to get through Goreshade’s clouds (see above for Azahul's helpful comment about using Feralgeists for this purpose), but if positioning had been a bit different that could have been off the table too. What objective did you select for this game, out of interest? An Observatory objective may have helped with this issue, albeit only on the right flank. Other than that I think you handled the problem well. Even if you weren't able to frenzy into the cloud, you would still be threatening 14" by Frenzying at your own model and then just walking instead of charging through the clouds. That's still winning the threat range game against Goreshade's army. Other than that, you could always make room for a Mist Speaker... but honestly I'd be reluctant to now that there's an objective filling that role. You got a little unlucky in this particular game to both have a tight bottleneck for Goreshade's clouds and be playing one of the scenarios where the objective is on a flank rather than central. If you have any thoughts on how to approach this match-up then I’ll be really glad to read them. As I mentioned, the Void Archon will be a real boon to facing Harbinger. It not only prevents Tough and Martyrdom in an aura around it, but it is also personally immune to Harbinger's Awe by virtue of not being a living model. That said, I think this is a reasonably playable match-up without the Archon. The key is threatening Harbinger turn after turn with Raw Adrenaline sprays. They only have about a 50/50 chance of hitting, but she can't afford to Martyrdom too much if you're landing boosted POW 12s and fire onto her each turn. That can lead to her playing further back, meaning that it's more likely you'll be able to attack models without entering the Awe range. On top of that, you can chew through a lot of Martyrdoms very fast in this list (or more likely, lead to her deferring the Martyrdoms entirely) be setting swathes of infantry on fire with a single spray. A more general anti-Protectorate piece of tech that you can look at is Kwaak and Gub. Enliven is pretty useful against Judicators. You position your heavies a hair over 14" away from the Judi, forcing it to give up the aiming bonus to shoot and making sure that it can't get closer to you if it moves forward than 9.something inches. Then, when it hits your Hog with a shot, you can back up using Enliven. You'll still be close enough to charge it next turn using Arkadius's Feat (since you'll be just over 14" away again), but you'll be outside of the range of all its other attacks. Your opponent can strip Enliven by damaging your Warbeasts via other sources, but you can always use the move to jockey for position or move out of the Judicator's threat range entirely and prepare to repeat the scenario again next turn. It's a bit of a judgement call, but it's a neat trick to have up your sleeve. Anyway, let me know if you have any questions about any of the above.
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Post by apoc2148 on Aug 13, 2019 15:07:56 GMT
I've found that a min unit of bone grinders actually work fairly well as feat targets for Jaga. They are relatively cheap, and want to hang back most of the game until it is time to feat. They then get ghostly and run to whatever position they need to be to hit the juiciest targets. Having a sacrificial unit in your list also stops you from having to dig into your main tarpit unit for feat.
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Post by argentbadger on Aug 14, 2019 9:16:18 GMT
Congratulations on the performance dude That's a really solid effort. Great reports too, you're doing a great job of identifying where a lot of your weaknesses are which I think is the most valuable part of writing battle reports myself. Wow, thank you so much for the detailed reply and helpful tips. I do have a few questions if I may. Things I learned: - I need to get more value out of Ancillary Attack and the Adrenaline option on Dr Arkadius’s Needle. I’m not really using either to any great effect.
Hmmm, yeah, I have noticed that you tend to play your Road Hogs pretty far apart and a long way away from Arkadius. If you want a tip, I'd say that you would usually want to deploy both Road Hogs flanking Arkadius. If you look at my games, like any of the many Arkadius games on this page, you can see that my default set-up is to put a Road Hog on either side of Arkadius during deployment and run them straight forwards turn one close enough together that Arkadius can reach both of them Turn 2 for some Raw Adrenaline needles. In this game in particular I was keeping them together turn after turn because I was chipping away at a large infantry host, but I think you'll find that just remembering to deploy the Road Hogs around Arkadius to set up for Turn 2 will be enough to see your use of that part of his kit spike high. Once you get the hang of it I think most of Arkadius's concerns with infantry melt away, I know I've stopped worrying about playing him into infantry hordes since getting the hang of exploiting Raw Adrenaline and I don't even have a Battle Boar in my list. Fully boosted sprays and army-wide Overtake is enough. This is really helpful - it seems that I have my homework set for me next time I'm playing Dr Arkadius. But how does this work if you want to Feat on turn 2? I guess that the plan is the run the Road Hogs in turn 1 such that Dr Arkadius can walk up and needle them in turn 2. But if they hit anything with the frenzy attack from the Feat then the Adrenaline effect is wasted. Do you target them at something out of reach? Taking down Destors with Dauntless Resolve, Steady and Tough is really hard to do. In general, I don’t have any tech against Tough other than just spending Fury and hitting them again. Yeah, my lists have been suffering from that same problem. For what it's worth, the Void Archon is on the horizon and promises to be a fix for that issue if it has remained unchanged since CID. I intend to take two instead of Mire and the Wrastler in my lists. That's an interesting approach. Don't you worry that you'll miss Rage? I find it helpful to have the additional damage output available without the frenzy-ing from Primal. On the other hand, I suppose that War Hogs already have quite a lot of output and, post-Oblivion, effectively have an extra attack as they don't need to Force for their Dials now. Cloud Walls are a bit of a problem as I have no way to see through them. Luckily in this case I was able to Frenzy onto one of my own models to get through Goreshade’s clouds (see above for Azahul's helpful comment about using Feralgeists for this purpose), but if positioning had been a bit different that could have been off the table too. What objective did you select for this game, out of interest? An Observatory objective may have helped with this issue, albeit only on the right flank. Other than that I think you handled the problem well. Even if you weren't able to frenzy into the cloud, you would still be threatening 14" by Frenzying at your own model and then just walking instead of charging through the clouds. That's still winning the threat range game against Goreshade's army. Other than that, you could always make room for a Mist Speaker... but honestly I'd be reluctant to now that there's an objective filling that role. You got a little unlucky in this particular game to both have a tight bottleneck for Goreshade's clouds and be playing one of the scenarios where the objective is on a flank rather than central. That's a good point about the objectives. I'm pretty sure I chose the healing one but it's fair to say that use of objectives has not been a strong part of my game; I usually forget about them entirely until it's too late. If you have any thoughts on how to approach this match-up then I’ll be really glad to read them. As I mentioned, the Void Archon will be a real boon to facing Harbinger. It not only prevents Tough and Martyrdom in an aura around it, but it is also personally immune to Harbinger's Awe by virtue of not being a living model. That said, I think this is a reasonably playable match-up without the Archon. The key is threatening Harbinger turn after turn with Raw Adrenaline sprays. They only have about a 50/50 chance of hitting, but she can't afford to Martyrdom too much if you're landing boosted POW 12s and fire onto her each turn. That can lead to her playing further back, meaning that it's more likely you'll be able to attack models without entering the Awe range. On top of that, you can chew through a lot of Martyrdoms very fast in this list (or more likely, lead to her deferring the Martyrdoms entirely) be setting swathes of infantry on fire with a single spray. A more general anti-Protectorate piece of tech that you can look at is Kwaak and Gub. Enliven is pretty useful against Judicators. You position your heavies a hair over 14" away from the Judi, forcing it to give up the aiming bonus to shoot and making sure that it can't get closer to you if it moves forward than 9.something inches. Then, when it hits your Hog with a shot, you can back up using Enliven. You'll still be close enough to charge it next turn using Arkadius's Feat (since you'll be just over 14" away again), but you'll be outside of the range of all its other attacks. Your opponent can strip Enliven by damaging your Warbeasts via other sources, but you can always use the move to jockey for position or move out of the Judicator's threat range entirely and prepare to repeat the scenario again next turn. It's a bit of a judgement call, but it's a neat trick to have up your sleeve. Anyway, let me know if you have any questions about any of the above. I think I will need to play the Harbinger match-up a few more times to see if I can apply these lessons. I wonder if I needed to be a bit more aggressive with the War Hogs and more cautious with the Road Hogs to save them for the infantry. I do actually own Kwaak&Gub but they were the model that I 'lost' when going from 4 free things to 3 in the new Will Work For Food. Indeed, I have toyed with including them in a different version of the list for this event but eventually decided that, considering my current skill level, I'd get more value out of the third War Hog than a bunch of tech pieces that I'd likely mis-use (or waste clock on). The detailed breakdown on threat ranges is very much appreciated. Do you worry about giving up too much space and too many scenario points by backing off? I don't find that Dr Arkadius has too many disposable options for contesting, especially if I'm ceding board space around a big threat. I've found that a min unit of bone grinders actually work fairly well as feat targets for Jaga. They are relatively cheap, and want to hang back most of the game until it is time to feat. They then get ghostly and run to whatever position they need to be to hit the juiciest targets. Having a sacrificial unit in your list also stops you from having to dig into your main tarpit unit for feat. Interesting approach, thanks for sharing it. What do you actually do with the Bone Grinders other than just blow them up? I could certainly consider a change but my rationale for the Boomhowlers is that they can do a bit of work jamming, then I can actively clear the rest with Jaga Jaga's Feat and make room for my Warbeasts to Overtake to interesting places. What would your preferred list look like for Jaga Jaga, assuming that I want to stick with this Battlegroup (i.e. two Swamp Horrors and one Blackhide Wrastler)?
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Post by Azahul on Aug 14, 2019 10:25:38 GMT
Wow, thank you so much for the detailed reply and helpful tips. I do have a few questions if I may. No problem at all! This is really helpful - it seems that I have my homework set for me next time I'm playing Dr Arkadius. But how does this work if you want to Feat on turn 2? I guess that the plan is the run the Road Hogs in turn 1 such that Dr Arkadius can walk up and needle them in turn 2. But if they hit anything with the frenzy attack from the Feat then the Adrenaline effect is wasted. Do you target them at something out of reach? That is correct. I'll typically frenzy them at something out of range. I also often don't Feat Turn 2, at least if I feel I can safely pick away at my opponent from range. If I can get away with a turn of slingshotting the Road Hogs in and out of combat with Raw Adrenaline sprays, I'll certainly hold off on Feating. That Cryx game I linked to was one where my opponent's threat ranges were low enough that I could safely chip away at him for several turns so that when I finally Feated on the last turn, I could basically clean up everything that was left. That's an interesting approach. Don't you worry that you'll miss Rage? I find it helpful to have the additional damage output available without the frenzy-ing from Primal. On the other hand, I suppose that War Hogs already have quite a lot of output and, post-Oblivion, effectively have an extra attack as they don't need to Force for their Dials now. While by no means as easy to apply, the Void Archons bring Dark Shroud for a near equivalent damage swing and I've also added the Hermit to the list, so there are a few options there for cracking armour even if they can't always keep up with the War Hogs. Or rather, the Void Archons can under optimal conditions (charge something, kill it, teleport 8" to apply Dark Shroud, maybe even Repo another 3" if Boomie2 is in the list which he probably will be), but I'll concede that I can't always count on that. Still, not super worried about cracking armour post-Oblivion. I think I will need to play the Harbinger match-up a few more times to see if I can apply these lessons. I wonder if I needed to be a bit more aggressive with the War Hogs and more cautious with the Road Hogs to save them for the infantry. I do actually own Kwaak&Gub but they were the model that I 'lost' when going from 4 free things to 3 in the new Will Work For Food. Indeed, I have toyed with including them in a different version of the list for this event but eventually decided that, considering my current skill level, I'd get more value out of the third War Hog than a bunch of tech pieces that I'd likely mis-use (or waste clock on). The detailed breakdown on threat ranges is very much appreciated. Do you worry about giving up too much space and too many scenario points by backing off? I don't find that Dr Arkadius has too many disposable options for contesting, especially if I'm ceding board space around a big threat. Oh, it absolutely is something to be careful about. Being able to move the Hogs 16-18" though means you can get back into the zones from a long way away, so as long as you aren't losing the game on scenario then and there it's usually possible to make a come back. Hard to deny Arkadius the option to contest entirely.
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Post by apoc2148 on Aug 14, 2019 11:30:00 GMT
Interesting approach, thanks for sharing it. What do you actually do with the Bone Grinders other than just blow them up? I could certainly consider a change but my rationale for the Boomhowlers is that they can do a bit of work jamming, then I can actively clear the rest with Jaga Jaga's Feat and make room for my Warbeasts to Overtake to interesting places. What would your preferred list look like for Jaga Jaga, assuming that I want to stick with this Battlegroup (i.e. two Swamp Horrors and one Blackhide Wrastler)? This is the start of a list that I would use with post-oblivion themes. I have yet to get Jaga on the table with post-oblivion themes but I don't see much issue with the changes. conflictchamber.com/?cb201b_-2njP4cjNjNjWfI0U7gMinions [Theme] Will Work For Food !!! This army must contain at least 97 total points. [Jaga-Jaga 1] Jaga-Jaga, the Death Charmer [+27] - Blackhide Wrastler [16] - Swamp Horror [15] - Swamp Horror [15] - Gatorman Soul Slave [0(5)] Bog Trog Mist Speaker [0(4)] Farrow Bone Grinders (min) [5] Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (max) [17] The grinders could be a full unit if you wanted to put another 2 points into them. They have craft talisman which can be useful, they also have dismember if they ever get into combat, and under S&P they can actually hit and do some damage. They also are a source of grievous wounds for the list as well. From there you still have one free slot and 34 more points to use. You could drop in both lessers that you used in your previous list, although I do have to say that Dalihia and Skarath are a pretty nasty assassination threat under Jaga. The mist speaker is in there to help deal with cloud walls. You can use it on a swamp horror, send it into a cloud and then drag other models into the clouds so the rest of your army can see them. This can really help on a turn when you want to feat but everything is hidden. A bone shrine could be useful for hot-swapping spells across the field, or getting out a ghostly at an odd angle as well as the extra fury for feat boosting. The pre-oblivion list that I ran was really different from yours and actually featured a dracodile, link to the report is here: lormahordes.freeforums.net/post/113199/thread . The main hype of that list was getting my freshly painted dracodile onto the table.
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Post by argentbadger on Sept 14, 2019 15:12:38 GMT
Joe and I seem to keep missing each other lately with our schedules but finally we caught up to play some more Warmachine / Hordes. Game 13 - Recon 2 vs Joe's Mercenaries conflictchamber.com/?cb201b_-2n13fy0M1d1d0L0L0L0YbOfCnd4cMinions [Theme] Will Work For Food [Arkadius 1] Dr. Arkadius [+32] - Battle Boar [7] - Gun Boar [8] - Road Hog [15] - Road Hog [15] - War Hog [14] - War Hog [14] - War Hog [14] - Targ [0(3)] Gatorman Witch Doctor [0(4)] Hutchuk, Ogrun Bounty Hunter [0(6)] Underchief Mire [4] - Blackhide Wrastler [16] The list itself remains static from the last iteration. My main intention here is to learn how to utilise the Adrenaline part of Dr Arkadius’s melee weapon along with the Road Hog’s Sprint animus to clear infantry more efficiently. conflictchamber.com/?c6201b_-1_b_94929292phppnwiririqiqhXhXMercenaries [Theme] Hammer Strike !!! This army contains a pre-release entry. [Ossrum 1] General Ossrum [+28] - Ghordson Driller [10] - Grundback Blaster [6] - Grundback Blaster [6] - Grundback Blaster [6] Balthazar Bamfist [4] Harlowe Holdemhigh [0(5)] Steelhead Gunner [3] Horgenhold Artillery Corps [0(6)] Horgenhold Artillery Corps [0(6)] Horgenhold Forge Guard (max) [16] Horgenhold Forge Guard (max) [16] Hammerfall Siege Crawler [18] Hammerfall Siege Crawler [18] Joe’s working toward representing a team in the WTC this year so the gloves are off. In some ways, this list is perfect for my specific game objectives (i.e. testing my infantry clearing powers) but in practical terms I have doubts about how I’ll fare against recursion on Forge Guard. Even if I do manage to deal with all the infantry I have to then handle all the armour of the battle engines and the Warjacks. Joe wins the roll and chooses the board edge (due to the highly tactical reason of ‘I’m already sitting here’) so I go first. I put the Road Hogs next to Dr Arkadius for turn 2 Adrenaline shenanigans. I also helpfully forget to do photos for the first turn. Turn 1: Minions Everyone runs forward. Dr Arkadius puts up Aggravator mainly because I think that Guardian Beast isn’t going to do me any good then casts Forced Evolution on a Road Hog. Mire casts Weald Secrets on the Blackhide Wrastler. The Road Hogs make a convenient screen right in front of Dr Arkadius. Turn 1: Mercenaries Ossrum casts Fire For Effect on the left Artillery Corps and Snipe on the left battle engine. Most things run forward except for Holdemhigh who backs off to be sure of being safe. Turn 2: Minions I don’t’ think that I can get into anything useful so I’m just going to contest the edges of the zones and take what I can at range. All my spells are upkept. The Gun Boar shoots at the cannon on the right but it’s tough; the blast splashes a Forge Guard and actually kills him but that’s only a temporary inconvenience. Dr Arkadius stabs a Road Hog in the back (who also received Eyeless Sight from my objective) and it sets the Driller on fire. The rest of my stuff hangs back as much as possible. Turn 2: Mercenaries Ossrum upkeeps both spells. The left Siege Crawler puts a few shots into a Road Hog while the right one gets the critical Stagger on the Gun Boar. Forge Guard flood the zones on both sides and Ossrum swaps Snipe onto Harlow (but I didn’t note what he actually did with it). Joe scores his own flag; 1 – 0. Turn 3: Minions Again, all of my spells are upkept. I decide to try and wait the game out a little longer and so I won’t Feat. The Wrastler kills a couple of Forge Guard on the right and Mire puts a cloud in front of it (though this doesn’t actually help because of my placement). The Gun Boar strolls up to another Dwarf and kills him with a bought attack, mainly so that Dr Arkadius can Maltreat it off later. The Doctor casts Psycho Surgery to clear up some of the chip damage and stabs both Road Hogs from behind with the Adrenaline needle. The both use the combination of Assault and Lightning Strike to clear out a good number of Forge Guard from both zone and return to relative safety, while setting all sorts of things on fire. Bamfist, who is sitting on the flag, sadly survives as I roll low on damage for him. We both score our own flags; 2 – 1. Turn 3: Mercenaries A handful more Rhulfolk die to fire and then the full six Forge Guard get back up / emerge from the battle engines / appear from thin air thanks to the Siege Crawlers (yes, I don’t know the fluff for that rule). Ossrum upkeeps both his spells again. Ossrum Feats, puts Bullet Dodger on himself and retreats to safety. The left Siege Crawler and Artillery Corps shoot up the left War Hog and it is eventually finished off (exactly to the box) by Holdemhigh. Over on the right, the Forge Guard drop the Gun Boar (also exactly to the box) and badly hurt the Wrastler. Joe scores his flag and the left zone; 4 – 1. Turn 4: Minions Well, this is going to have to be a good Feat turn. I drop Aggravator. Mire puts Rage on a War Hog and heals the crippled aspects on the Wrastler before smacking the nearest Forge Guard. He ends up on the flag and empty on fury because I need to get some points and I can’t see any realistic case where I don’t lose Mire and Wrastler easily. The Wrastler itself chews through a nice number of Forge Guard, Overtaking off some and Snacking a few others. The Battle Boar makes a total mess of dealing with the lead Forge Guard and I eventually have to rely on a Feat attack from a War Hog to deal with him. The remainder of the Feat is mainly used to line up nice charges where possible. The right Road Hog goes into the left [BE], doing little more than scratching the paint but lighting up an amusing number of Rhulfolk behind it. Annoyingly, low damage rolls leave both Holdemhigh and the Steelhead Gunner alive and kicking (albeit also ablaze). Both War Hogs on the right use their Aggression Dials but a lot of low damage rolls plus the armour boost from Ossrum’s Feat means that they don’t manage to kill it. Looking at the board state, I offer my hand in defeat and Joe accepts. I don’t actually prefer to give up when all is not over, but in this case we had gamed quite late into the night and I felt that the result had become an inevitable win for Joe. Minions lose! It was really nice to play Joe again, he’s always so relaxed and encouraging even when I’m making suicidal decisions throughout the game. Indeed, I need to up my skill level a bit to give him a chance to practice his WTC lists by doing more than strolling forward and effortlessly crushing me. On the plus side, I did feel that I was getting the hang of the Road Hog yo-yo, so in that sense I did achieve my objective for the game. Things I learned: - I should have used Dr Arkadius’s Feat one turn earlier. The board position wasn’t quite so good but the impact of attacking into Ossrum’s Feat really blunted my offensive.
- I’m not getting much value out of Targ. I might consider swapping him for Kwaak & Gub (especially since I’ve just painted them).
- Hutchuk is just not performing well for me either. He didn’t even appear on the board this game, but that wasn’t because I forgot about him (though I will admit that does happen). In this case, there just wasn’t a time that I could have done more than stop Joe from scoring his flag for a single turn before he would be killed off. I’m not sure who to replace him with though. Orin has been quite effective in my Jaga Jaga list so that is one option (and of course, I own the model so that’s a mark in his favour).
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Post by argentbadger on Oct 28, 2019 9:49:29 GMT
I’ve signed up for another Warmachine / Hordes tournament, so it felt like I should get organised enough to actually play a few more games. As usual, Joe was on hand to provide satisfaction. Game 14, Scenario: King of the Hill conflictchamber.com/?cb201b_-2n13fy0M1d1d0L0L0LbOfCjVnd4cMinions [Theme] Will Work For Food [Arkadius 1] Dr. Arkadius [+32] - Battle Boar [7] - Gun Boar [8] - Road Hog [15] - Road Hog [15] - War Hog [14] - War Hog [14] - War Hog [14] Gatorman Witch Doctor [0(4)] Hutchuk, Ogrun Bounty Hunter [0(6)] Kwaak Slickspine & Gub, Croak Sorcerers [0(4)] Underchief Mire [4] - Blackhide Wrastler [16] The only slight tweak to my Dr Arkadius list from last time was to drop Targ and replace him with Kwaak & Gub. I don’t feel like I’ve been getting much value out of Targ’s abilities (though this is more my failing that his, I imagine) and so I thought it would be good to try and learn how to use Kwaak’s interesting list of spells. In particular, I had an idea that I could perhaps do something amusing with Enliven although I will admit that it is a spell with possibilities far in excess of my capability to make use of it. conflictchamber.com/?c6201b_-1HoHnVoTe59b9boUoM6iaeoYp2oYp2Mercenaries [Theme] Flame in the Darkness !!! This army contains pre-release entries. !!! This army contains CID entries. [Fiona 1] Fiona the Black [+27] - Blockader [33] Grand Master Gabriel Throne [7] Lieutenant Allison Jakes [0(4)] - Charger [9] - Charger [9] Thamarite Advocate [3] Thamarite Archon [8] Alexia Ciannor & the Risen [10] Field Mechaniks (min) [3] Order of Illumination Vigilants (max) [10] - Morrowan Battle Priest (3) [0(6)] Order of Illumination Vigilants (max) [10] - Morrowan Battle Priest (3) [0(6)] Joe is playing Fiona again, this time with a load of (fresh from CID?) models in a theme I’ve never even heard of. There are proxies galore in here: Gun Mages are Vigilants, some random unpainted metal things that I don't recognise are the gobbers in the mechanic crews, the Thamarite Archon is played by another Archon, Stannis Brocker is Gabriel Throne, the alt sculpt of Sylys is a Thamarite Advocate and Valkyries are playing as Thrall Warriors. This could have been confusing if I had already been familiar with any of their rules – score one for inexperience! Joe wins the roll and picks to go first, which seems important in this match-up. Turn 1: Mercenaries Throne gives the Risen Pathfinder and everything moves up to claim as much board space as possible. The Priests kindly offer themselves as Vengeance bait in case I want to over-extend myself early on. Fiona puts Occultation on Jakes, who uses Energiser to speed up her own Battlegroup. Turn 1: Minions Surprisingly, almost everyone runs forward; I try to respect the shooting threat at least a little bit and make sure that anyone who wants to shoot me will at least have to move first. Dr Arkadius puts up Aggravator to stop any Befuddle shenanigans then casts Forced Evolution on the painted Road Hog. Mire casts Weald Secrets on the Blackhide Wrastler (because it is free to upkeep anyway) and extends the cloud wall a little to my right. I make sure that the Road Hogs will both be in range to get a nice little adrenaline needle from Dr Arkadius next turn. Turn 2: Mercenaries Fiona upkeeps Occulation (for free) and Allocates two to the Blockader and Jakes Allocates each Charger a single Focus. Fiona Feats and arcs Curse of Veils onto the central War Hog. The Vigilants on the right put a few shots into my poor Warbeast before the Blockader finishes the job. Jakes carefully stays out of range of Hutchuk ambushing and her Chargers pump shots into the War Hog on the left. I do avoid a couple of shots by using Hyper-Aggressive to move it into melee with one of the Priests though. Turn 2: Minions I upkeep all my spells. Fiona’s feat is really limiting for a melee army like mine and although I consider using my own Feat here I decide to hope that I can weather the storm and come back strong next turn. The Gun Boar starts off with a fully boosted shot into the Archon who is helpfully not standing close to a Shield Guard and takes off a good chunk of its health, along with a couple of careless Vigilants. Not bad considering I just wanted a Fury on the board to Maltreat back to Dr Arkadius. The Doctor then needles both Road Hogs in the back with adrenaline and casts Psycho Surgery to fix up some splash damage (mainly self-inflicted) across my Battlegroup. Both Road Hogs then make charges that keep them out of Fiona’s Feat and allow some nice sprays, taking out a good number of Vigilants and the lead Thrall Warrior but sadly failing to hit the Archon who gratefully Dodges back to relative safety. They use Sprint to get back out of range of big retaliation. I’m not getting anything useful done on the right under Fiona’s Feat so Kwaak puts Enliven on both the Wrastler and War Hog; the former eats another Priest and Overtakes back out of the clouds to be a little bit more annoying. I try to put them where the Blockader can’t just kill them both with a single activation. Finally the War Hog on the left kills the Priest and Objective without even using any Fury. I'm pretty sure he’s going to get exploded by Chargers next turn though. I score the Objective and left zone; 2 – 0 to me. Turn 3: Mercenaries Fiona and Jakes do exactly the same Allocation and upkeeps as last turn. Jakes takes a shot into the War Hog who uses Hyper Aggressive to move into melee with the nearer Charger. On the right, the Blockader walks into range of the Wrastler but rolls triple 1s for damage and my Warbeast gratefully Enlivens away (taking another load of damage and getting knocked down on a critical from the free strike, sadly). Instead, the Blockader casually beats my Objective into scrap. The Thrall Warrior follows up into the Wrastler but can’t do much damage. Joe throws pretty much everything he has at the big alligator and finally the nearer Charger gets it after Throne kills the War Hog in melee. Dang, I was really hoping to be able to use Rage next turn! Finally Fiona arcs Befuddle to move one Road Hog out of the central zone. Joe scores my Objective, the flag and the central and right zones; 4 – 2 to him. Turn 3: Minions Dr Arkadius upkeeps all his spells again. Hutchuk Ambushes in on the right (Joe is never going to give me Jakes and coming in to her and the Chargers would just be suicide), misses a grenade at the Blockader and misses his melee attack against a Vigilant. Good work Hutchuk. Mire, now that he’s reduced to being a super-solo, makes a total meal of killing off the Priest on the right. The Gun Boar comes good again though, finishing off the Archon and moving into the left zone. Dr Arkadius Maltreats a Fury off it again, casts Psycho Surgery to heal things and stabs the Road Hog facing him with adrenaline. He then puts Primal on the Battle Boar and Feats before scuttling off behind the forest. The Battle Boar takes his Feat attack into the Thrall; the main purpose is to get close enough to apply Primal to the War Hog. The latter uses the Feat to charge into the Blockader and scrapes a column or so off it and finally the Road Hog who is facing the right way dents the Charger. The Battle Boar applies Primal to the War Hog and uses its Dial, then does nothing useful against the mess of infantry just waiting to be eaten in front of it (I think it took out just one Vigilant). The adrenaline-d Road Hog walks up and sprays Alexia, killing a good number of Risen as she kept herself alive. The War Hog satisfyingly wrecks the Blockader with a Fury to spare and so Overtakes into a Vigilant and kills him too, while the Road Hog scraps the Charger. I score the left zone; 4 – 3 to Joe. Turn 4: Mercenaries Fiona upkeeps Occultation and Jakes Allocates a single Focus to the surviving Charger. On the right, the Vigilant tickles Hutchuk. Fiona Chastens Forced Evolution off my Road Hog and then lands Curse of Veils on it; Alexia burns through some more of her Risen to kill it. Everything else with a gun works together to kill my Gun Boar. No one scores; 4 – 3 to Joe. Turn 4: Minions I upkeep Aggravator as I figure that one Fury a turn is probably still worth it to avoid Befuddle shenanigans. Mire runs into the central zone to be a spray target for Kwaak’s Venom spell (he’s immune to Corrosion and I can’t target Alexia directly with spells); sadly Kwaak misses his first spray in her back anyway and I’m stupid and forget that he can do it twice. The Road Hog kills it her in the end. Dr Arkadius can clear the zone by killing both Risen but sadly misses one of the Primal Shocks (only needing a 3 to hit). Neither of us score this time either; 4 – 3 to Joe. Turn 5: Mercenaries Same as before, Jakes Allocates a Focus to her Charger and Fiona upkeeps Occultation. Fiona, who is rapidly running out of underlings, puts Curse of Veils on the last Road Hog, the Charger and Jakes shoot it and Throne finally comes in to kill it in melee. The Charger finally makes it into the left zone; 5 – 3 to Joe. Turn 5: Minions I finally drop Aggravator on the basis that it’s probably no longer efficient for Joe to spend Focus Befuddling them instead of killing them in the first place. The Battle Boar casts Primal on itself and kills a Risen and a couple of Mechanics. Mire charges into Throne and helpfully misses four out his five attacks; Kwaak follows up with a couple of Venoms that also don’t kill him but do at least stick continuous Corrosion on. Thanks Mire. Dr Arkadius casts Psycho Surgery to shore up my ailing few Warbeasts and kills the Thamarite Advocate with Primal Shock. Finally the War Hog polishes off the last Vigilant. I score the right zone and Joe scores the left; 6 – 4 to Joe. Turn 6: Mercenaries Throne has no trouble at all killing Mire in return. Fiona arcs Curse of Veils and Chasten through Throne into Arkadius, spiking high on damage and making me rather nervous (and also doing as much damage to Throne in the process as Mire and Kwaak managed between them the last turn). The Charger moves out to shoot Dr Arkadius and I’m left on a couple of boxes when it gets Energiser-ed back into the left zone. We both score the outside zone again; 7 – 5 to Joe. Turn 6: Minions Time to run far away with Dr Arkadius so his old man stats don’t just randomly get him killed. The Battle Boar, Kwaak and the Witch Doctor combine to finally remove Throne’s last box and sit on the flag, but now I don’t have any attacks left to get into Jakes which I was really hoping for. Dr Arkadius scoots over to hide in the clouds, far out of range of that nasty Charger’s gun. I score the right zone and flag this turn while Joe gets the left zone; 8 – 7 to Joe. Turn 7: Mercenaries Fiona drops Curse of Veils from my Warlock. Jakes and the Charger neatly gun down all three of my solos in the centre (particularly galling considering how useless the lot of them had been all game) but Fiona doesn’t quite have the firepower to drop the Battle Boar. We both score the zones on the sides; 9 – 8 to Joe. Turn 7: Minions Dr Arkadius casts Psycho Surgery to get the Battle Boar up and running again and hopefully take out Jakes but before it even starts moving, he spikes a high damage Primal Shock into her. This scores me the right and centre zones and the inert Charger now does not score the left zone. Minions win 10 – 9 on scenario. Well, that was certainly close. Thanks, as always, to Joe for a great fun game and for talking through my options to share his experience of the game. There were some rather odd rolls; notably Mire’s (and Kwaak’s) total failure to do anything to Throne in the late game; that alone could have won me the game if they’d killed him a turn, or even a couple of activations, earlier. On the other hand, I got lucky with the Blockader’s low damage roll against the Wrastler forcing Joe to waste much of his turn dealing with it. Things I learned: - Timing Dr Arkadius’s Feat is hard when the other player has a denial Feat. On the one hand, I can wait it out and try again; clearly this is in my favour. But on the other hand, I feel that I’m giving up a lot of board presence if I back up and otherwise I’m letting a big part of my army take a beating if I don’t.
- The Gun Boar is a useful part of my list because it allows me to extend my threat without using Dr Arkadius’s Feat. Of course, the same applies to Road Hogs using the Assault / Sprint combination. I might consider a list where I drop the third War Hog for another Gun Boar and something else entertaining.
- I’m not getting good work out of my solos at all. I suspect that this game was a bit of an aberration for them dice-wise, but they just seem to get killed so easily after doing very little. Maybe I need to stop thinking of them as gaming pieces and more like single-use counters for specific tech (e.g. Ghost Walk from the Witch Doctor). Still, I won the game so I can’t really complain too much; I certainly had luck in other places.
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Post by Azahul on Oct 28, 2019 12:40:13 GMT
Congratulations on the win! Fiona is definitely a tough 'caster, regardless of what you're piloting into her. And dragging things out for seven rounds is a heck of an endurance run. - Timing Dr Arkadius’s Feat is hard when the other player has a denial Feat. On the one hand, I can wait it out and try again; clearly this is in my favour. But on the other hand, I feel that I’m giving up a lot of board presence if I back up and otherwise I’m letting a big part of my army take a beating if I don’t.
- The Gun Boar is a useful part of my list because it allows me to extend my threat without using Dr Arkadius’s Feat. Of course, the same applies to Road Hogs using the Assault / Sprint combination. I might consider a list where I drop the third War Hog for another Gun Boar and something else entertaining.
- I’m not getting good work out of my solos at all. I suspect that this game was a bit of an aberration for them dice-wise, but they just seem to get killed so easily after doing very little. Maybe I need to stop thinking of them as gaming pieces and more like single-use counters for specific tech (e.g. Ghost Walk from the Witch Doctor). Still, I won the game so I can’t really complain too much; I certainly had luck in other places.
Hehe, it's fun seeing the list evolve down the same path I went with. I ended up running two Gun Boars for much the same reason. I like being able to jockey for position without committing Arkadius's Feat, and the range 12 Gun Boars are exemplary at it. It's also part of the reason I go for Targ, that extra gun shot is a real boon I wouldn't worry too much about ceding position to a defensive Feat either, Arkadius can cover a lot of ground very quickly. Just make sure you don't end up giving your opponent enough CP to win.
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Post by argentbadger on Dec 2, 2019 20:26:48 GMT
Azahul - Thanks very much. I actually follow your thread with great interest and try to learn as much as possible in so far as I can be a good enough player to actually employ it! I did consider making the change to a second Gun Boar (along with some other shuffling) but ended up deciding to stick with what I know as I have a tournament coming up; I'll write it up in due. I try to minimise significant list changes as I think that at my level of play I can probably get more value out of 'play better' than 'pick better pieces'.
Joe has bought yet another faction so our game of Warmachine / Hordes for this week featured a Khador list. I haven’t played Jaga Jaga for a while so, since I just painted her, I decided it was time to roll her out. I think that this might have impacted Joe’s list selection a bit, but I don’t recall what his other one was going to be anyway; for my part I was going with Jaga Jaga regardless of what he played. Game 15, Scenario: Spread The Net conflictchamber.com/?cb201b_-2njP4cjNjNjWbM7y7F4njD7gMinions [Theme] Will Work For Food [Jaga-Jaga 1] Jaga-Jaga, the Death Charmer [+27] - Blackhide Wrastler [16] - Swamp Horror [15] - Swamp Horror [15] - Gatorman Soul Slave [0(5)] Brun Cragback [16] Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor [0(5)] Rorsh [15] Totem Hunter [0(6)] Farrow Valkyries [8] Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (max) [17] No changes to the Jaga Jaga list since the Scottish GT back in July. I have got a few things in mind that I might move around but gaming time is limited and I preferred to go into the next tournament with a list that I’m at least slightly familiar with. conflictchamber.com/?c3201b_-1R76dZkTpb8t7Z7Z7-7-7X7W7X7W7X7Wi6Khador [Theme] Winter Guard Kommand [Vladimir 1] Vladimir Tzepesci, the Dark Prince [+28] - Grolar [18] - Marauder [11] Alexia, Mistress of the Witchfire [7] Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich [0(4)] Winter Guard Field Gun Crew [4] Winter Guard Field Gun Crew [4] Winter Guard Mortar Crew [0(5)] Winter Guard Mortar Crew [0(5)] Winter Guard Rifle Corps (min) [8] - Winter Guard Rocketeer (3) [6] Winter Guard Rifle Corps (min) [8] - Winter Guard Rocketeer (3) [6] Winter Guard Rifle Corps (min) [8] - Winter Guard Rocketeer (3) [6] Winter Guard Gun Carriage [17] I assume that the basic idea here is to sit back and explode all my stuff via Signs and Portents enable rockets, while occasionally contesting scenario elements with cheap infantry. Joe wins the roll and picks his side; this is partly because he set up the terrain before I arrived and was already sitting there. We are tactical geniuses. The Totem Hunter picks the right-most unit of Winter Guard as Prey. There didn’t seem to be many good targets that he might be able to get remotely near; I would have liked to pick off Alexia but assumed that she would be hiding right at the back of the gun line. Turn 1: Minions Everything races forward trying to keep as much cover as possible so I don’t loose too much to shooting early. Jaga Jaga casts Grave Wind on the Totem Hunter and Battle Host on herself. Both the lesser Warlocks put out their upkeeps since they’re free anyway thanks to Will Work For Food’s theme bonus. Orin Midwinter realises that there isn’t much point staying near Jaga Jaga to deter spell (since Joe doesn’t have any available) and moves over to the left for Flag duty. Turn 1: Khador Vlad casts Blood Of Kings and walks up rather aggressively. The Gun Carriage drops some rough terrain right in the middle of the board and the rest of the army moves up to set up good shooting positions for next turn. Turn 2: Minions I upkeep all my spells. Looking at the board state I don’t think that I can get any real work done here so I back off a little and try to stay in places where I’m not going to get shot too much. If we were playing on the clock (which we aren’t) this would be useful to save me a bit of time. In the end I don’t actually make a single attack, which has the odd side effect of denying Alexia any souls to make Thralls which I think were planned for scoring flags next turn. Turn 2: Khador Vlad casts Signs and Portents and walks back a bit to make sure I can’t get any janky assassination runs on him. The Gun Carriage attacks the Totem Hunter (eating a Lug counter charge / return in the process) and rolls the hard 10 to flatten him. I’m sure the Predator wasn’t this easy to deal with in the films. It also repositions to contest the right zone. Everyone else pumps bullets into my infantry, which really thins out the Boomhowlers in particular. Joe scores the left zones and score my flag; 1 – 1. Turn 3: Minions I think that I can get some good work done on the scenario here. Jaga Jaga casts Sign and Portents then Rages Lug; I was thinking of doing it with the Wrastler but wanted to have him available for a follow-up attack if needed. Lug wrecks the Gun Carriage with a couple of attacks to spare, though I was annoyed that he couldn’t headbutt the battle engine since I almost never manage to trigger the chain attack. Orin Stealths himself and strolls to my flag. The surviving Boomhowlers shuffle around to contest things again. One Swamp Horror gets Ghost Walk from the Soul Slave and goes on a highly amusing rampage through the central Winter Guard unit, clearing the zone and pulling the first few victims out of range for Alexia’s soul collection (she gets filled up anyway though). I looked at ways to get Brine onto the Marauder but I think that without Rage he just doesn’t have the hitting power to actually do anything useful; in the end I decide to keep both Rorsh and Brine safely behind their cloud. I score the right and central zones plus my flag; 4 – 1 to me. Turn 3: Khador Vlad loads up the Grolar, then shuffles around a bit before using his Feat and casting Signs and Portents. The Grolar casually saunters through the forest and smites Lug and a Valkyrie, then nearly drops Brun too. The Marauder clears the Trollblood to clear the left zone, then massed shooting from the rest of the list wipes out all the rest apart from Boomhowler himself as well as dropping the Swamp Horror. Alexia creates three Thrall Warriors; one runs to my flag to contest, one runs to Joe’s flag to score it and the last one Toughs a Valkyrie. The mortars shell Orin who survives with a couple of boxes left. Joe scores for the flag and left zone; 4 – 3 to me. Turn 4: Minions Jaga Jaga puts Signs and Portents back up (I love that spell!) and casts Rage on the Wrastler; the big chap wrecks the Grolar with plenty of attacks to spare. The Valkyrie stands up and removes the Thrall that just attacked her, Brun walks through the forest and kills another Thrall as well as making good headway into the infantry hanging around that side of the board. Rorsh annoyingly fails to kill the last Thrall with Diversionary tactics so Boomhowler has to do the job instead. The second Swamp Horror repeats the antics of the first, clearing the zone thanks to Ghost Walk cast from the Soul Slave and also helpfully killing a Field Gun by dragging it clear of Take Up range. Brine rolls terribly even with the help of Signs and Portents and ends up doing not much more than eating a couple of Winter Guard and contesting the zone. I again score the right and central zones plus my flag; 7 – 3 to me. Turn 4: Khador Vlad puts two Focus on the Marauder then casts Signs and Portents. After measuring where the Signs and Portents aura needed to be, while also not allowing me to somehow kill Vlad, he walks left to hide more heroically behind the house. The Winter Guard on the right make short work of Brun, then more shooting plus a fresh batch of Thrall Warriors put paid to the second Swamp Horror. The Marauder goes to sort out Brine but I get a super lucky critical knock down on the Retaliatory Strike and the remaining shooting on that side isn’t enough to finish the big pig. Joe noted afterwards that he would have been better served to just go for the push from the Marauder to ensure that the zone was clear, then worry about whether Brine could be shot to death or not from the safety of an extra scenario point. Somewhere in here, optimistic shelling from the mortars gets Orin. Joe does score his own flag though, bringing us to 7 – 4 in my favour. Turn 5: Minions I start to look at ways to leverage my unexpected advantage in having a heavy Warbeast available on the left when Joe points out that I only need to score two points to win the game. Rorsh saunters casually to my flag and stand on the remains of Orin. The last Valkyrie runs over to the WinterGuard who is contesting my zone and then Jaga Jaga moves across to kill both of them with her Feat. Survival of the fittest, baby. The Wrastler runs to contest Joe’s flag. Minions win on scenario by 9 – 4, though it seems that I forgot to take a photo of the (admittedly not very different) board state. As ever, thanks to Joe for a fun game and for talking through options at various times. As is probably obvious from these battle reports, he has significantly more experience (and time to play) than I do so I try to learn as much as I can from him; I assume that he goes easy on me by trying lists he rarely uses. For example, I probably wouldn’t have noticed how close I was to a scenario victory until Joe mentioned it. Things I learned: - Always be aware of what you need to do to win. If you can be sure to get the needed scenario points it is fine not to leave your pieces safe because the game will be over before they can get killed.
- The Totem Hunter got killed again without achieving anything of note apart from wasting some of my Fury. Perhaps I should be generous this time and state that it forced the Gun Carriage to commit to killing it which started a piece trade somewhat in my favour (though I was trading Swamp Horrors for Winter Guard in the centre so maybe I shouldn’t be so pleased with myself). I wonder if I should think about replacing the Totem Hunter with a utility solo instead. Any suggestions that could work well?
- I need to find a way to scalpel out solos hiding in the back. There was no way that I was going to trouble Alexia or the Kovnik with this list and that let them do their thing with impunity. Ironically after having little success with Hutchuk in my Dr Arkadius list I think that he could actually have been quite handy here. In the past I’ve used Jaga Jaga’s Feat plus Ghost Walk to deal with troublesome solos but that would not have been an option here as she would need to sit in the middle of the zone getting shot at by everything available.
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Post by argentbadger on Dec 5, 2019 10:59:33 GMT
I took my Minions to another Warmachine / Hordes tournament run by Allan Gibb at Common Ground Games in Stirling. There were three rounds with a possibility to extend to four based on the need to reach a clear winner. That wouldn’t be likely to apply to me and anyway I had to leave after round three anyway to go to a friend’s birthday party. conflictchamber.com/?cb201b_-2n13fy0M1d1d0L0L0LbOfCjVnd4c___-2njP4cjNjNjWbM7y7F4njD7gMinions [Theme] Will Work For Food [Arkadius 1] Dr. Arkadius [+32] - Battle Boar [7] - Gun Boar [8] - Road Hog [15] - Road Hog [15] - War Hog [14] - War Hog [14] - War Hog [14] Gatorman Witch Doctor [0(4)] Hutchuk, Ogrun Bounty Hunter [0(6)] Kwaak Slickspine & Gub, Croak Sorcerers [0(4)] Underchief Mire [4] - Blackhide Wrastler [16] Minions [Theme] Will Work For Food [Jaga-Jaga 1] Jaga-Jaga, the Death Charmer [+27] - Blackhide Wrastler [16] - Swamp Horror [15] - Swamp Horror [15] - Gatorman Soul Slave [0(5)] Brun Cragback [16] Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor [0(5)] Rorsh [15] Totem Hunter [0(6)] Farrow Valkyries [8] Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (max) [17] This is the same pairing that I’ve been using for a while with only very minor changes. There are certainly new options available (notably the various Archons) that would probably make a better list for both Jaga Jaga and Dr Arkadius but I don’t own them and anyway I am still at the stage in my game where I will get more value out of just playing better than adding yet another different set of options to my armies. Broadly I’m looking to use Jaga Jaga into lists with a lot of infantry and Dr Arkadius to face into heavily armoured lists with a smaller model count. Round 1 –King of the Hill vs Marc’s Protectorate of Menoth (game 16) conflictchamber.com/?c2201b_-1q1b1q1X1G1G3ImelUoRlM1q3z3z2_2_3G3H___-1O0T1OgSeVlVf73t3z3z3B2_2K2LProtectorate [Theme] The Creator's Might [Reznik 1] High Executioner Servath Reznik [+28] - Dervish [7] - Guardian [15] - Redeemer [11] - Redeemer [11] - Scourge of Heresy [16] - Hierophant [3] Exemplar Warder [0(5)] Hermit of Henge Hold [5] Scrutator Potentate Severius [0(6)] - Dervish [7] Vassal of Menoth [0(3)] Vassal of Menoth [0(3)] Choir of Menoth (min) [4] Choir of Menoth (min) [4] Idrian Skirmishers (max) [15] - Idrian Skirmisher Chieftain & Guide [5] Protectorate [Theme] Guardians of the Temple [Severius 1] Grand Scrutator Severius [+28] - Blessing of Vengeance [13] - Eye of Truth [20] - Hand of Judgment [18] - Judicator [35] Pyrrhus, Flameguard Hero [0(5)] Vassal Mechanik [1] Vassal of Menoth [0(3)] Vassal of Menoth [0(3)] Wrack [1] Choir of Menoth (min) [4] Temple Flameguard (max) [11] - Temple Flameguard Officer & Standard [0(4)] Two sets of big armoured things with a couple of relatively minor infantry options? Sounds like a job for Dr Arkadius either way. Marc chooses to play Reznik. I have a huge advantage over him in terms of threat range, so my idea is to leverage this with a few Road Hog sprays and Sprints and then Feat at some point when there is enough in range to make it worth doing so. If Marc plays very defensively then I can hope to lock him out of the scenario. It did occur to me partway through set-up that some Protectorate models are immune to fire which could be a bit of a problem, but it seems that this was not the case here. Marc wins the roll and chooses to go first. His Idrians choose the Wrastler as Prey and they start with Ignite on them as part of the Theme benefit. Turn 1: Protectorate of Menoth Everything rushes at me as quickly as possible to claim some board space before I start threatening into Marc’s deployment zone. Severius casts Road To War to get a bit of additional threat range on his Dervish. Turn 1: Minions Most of my list has no concerns about taking meaningful damage next turn so it heads forward as far as their little legs will carry them; I’m not likely to stay out of range of the Redeemers regardless of where I go. Over on the left I realise that the Wrastler is going to have to eat a turn of shooting from the Idrians so it moves up and Mire covers it with some clouds (it is probably worth noting that I only had one cloud template of the correct size handy; the larger blast template is still being used for the 3" ring). Kwaak casts Enliven on both Road Hogs and Dr Arkadius puts up Aggravator and casts Forced Evolution on one of the Road Hogs. Turn 2: Protectorate of Menoth The Redeemers get some Focus and the Vassals finish loading them up. Reznik upkeeps Ignite and Severius upkeeps Road To War and fuels up the Dervish. The Choir sing Battle on the light Warjacks and Passage on the heavies, then the Hermit moves up rather aggressively to cover the lead Road Hog with Master of Ruin. The Redeemers open up and chip some damage off my Warbeasts; the Road Hog Enlivens away from the Hermit at the first opportunity. Slightly to my surprise, the Idrians run for board position rather than shooting my Wrastler to death. Turn 2: Minions I drop Aggravator but upkeep Forced Evolution. Hutchuk ambushes in on the left and kills the Idrian Chief with a grenade and another in melee (sadly I couldn’t reach the Guide). The Wrastler overtakes its way through a bunch more Idrians but can’t quite make it into the zone. The Witch Doctor gives Ghost Walk to the Battle Boar which clears the Idrian jamming the left War Hog and enables it to smash the Objective and overtake into the zone. Sadly, I’ve run out of things to kill off the last jamming Idrian. Dr Arkadius stabs both Road Hogs with Adrenaline; one wrecks the Dervish and the other one gets the Hermit down to a single box and is therefore unable to Sprint back to relative safety. The Hermit is on fire though, so it’s not all bad. I score a point for the Objective; 1 – 0. Turn 3: Protectorate of Menoth Both upkeeps are dropped. The Redeemers and Scourge of Heresy get a Focus each and the other Dervish is fully loaded up. The Choir put Battle on everything, and the Vassals top up the Redeemers. On the right, the Dervish makes short work of the Gun Boar and then chops some boxes out of my Objective. The Redeemers kill one of my Road Hogs but the other one is able to Enliven back to safety. The Guardian charges over and finishes off my Objective and Reznik goes for a desperate casting of Perdition which would allow Scourge to get into the action; luckily (for me) he misses. Scourge runs up to contest the centre instead. Marc scores the right zone and my Objective; 2 – 1 to him. Turn 3: Minions Well, Reznik is just right there waiting to be killed. The Wrastler clears the left zone and then I decide it is assassination time. The Battle Boar kills an Idrian and puts Primal on the left War Hog. Dr Arkadius casts Psycho Surgery to get all my Warbeasts active again, puts Primal on the right War Hog and then Feats. Feat attacks from the three Warbeasts in the centre are enough to almost wreck Scourge and the left War Hog gets across and kills one of the Choir. The Road Hog then finishes off Scourge, and the Primalled War Hog goes in and eats first the Warder and the Reznik himself. Minions win by assassination. That went rather as expected. I think that Marc’s army just didn’t have enough of a threat to take me out of my comfort zone. I could just hang around on the edge of my zones and force him to come to me, the Feat and kill off half of his stuff. Even if he had played more defensively and kept Reznik back in a safer place I could have done so much damage that I think I would have had an insurmountable lead on attrition; I didn’t even use two of the War Hogs after Dr Arkadius’s Feat. Things I learned: - Sometimes you just have to accept the damage from very long-ranged pieces (i.e. the Redeemers) while the rest of the army gets into position.
- Overtake on Warbeasts allows crazy assassination angles on the one hand, and also enables a surprisingly effective infantry clearing option.
- When Ambush works it is really useful. I think I’ve valued it a bit low as Joe (my main opponent) is just really good at avoiding it.
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Post by argentbadger on Dec 5, 2019 11:01:27 GMT
Round 2 –Recon II vs Sean’s Legion of Everblight (game 17) conflictchamber.com/?ca201b_-2iewepkK2828eJbwaO29292929bebeoRcob9fTfT___-2hbskEkBcocob5kLkFkGkJkJfTfTLegion [Theme] Ravens of War [Absylonia 2] Absylonia, Daughter of Everblight [+28] - Blight Wasp [3] - Golab [17] - Harrier [0(3)] - Harrier [0(3)] - Neraph [12] - Proteus [19] - Seraph [14] - Shredder [4] - Shredder [4] - Shredder [4] - Shredder [4] Blighted Nyss Sorceress & Hellion [0(6)] Blighted Nyss Sorceress & Hellion [0(6)] Hermit of Henge Hold [5] Spell Martyr [1] The Forsaken [4] Hellmouth [6] Hellmouth [6] Legion [Theme] Primal Terrors [Kallus 1] Kallus, Wrath of Everblight [+30] - Blightbringer [32] - Ammok the Truthbearer [4] Spell Martyr [1] Spell Martyr [1] Blighted Ogrun Warmongers (min) [8] - Gorag Rotteneye [0(6)] Blighted Rotwings (min) [7] Blighted Rotwings (max) [12] Chosen of Everblight (max) [20] Chosen of Everblight (max) [20] Hellmouth [0(6)] Hellmouth [0(6)] I don’t think I’ve ever played against Legion of Everblight before and certainly not against either of these Warlocks. Taking a look at both lists, I feel that Dr Arkadius is probably a slightly better bet against Kallus1 and also preferable into Absylonia2 so I go with him again. Sean selects Absylonia2 and kindly explains what she actually does. It seems that this is going to be an interesting game of threat ranges! Sean wins the roll and picks to move first. I pick the side with houses to hide Dr Arkadius behind, though on reflection I wonder if the other side would be better as Sean’s Warbeasts can mostly just fly over the houses anyway. Turn 1: Legion of Everblight Absylonia casts Bracer on Proteus, Slipstreams Golab and charges up. Most of her army take the same approach of rushing headlong at me; this is probably the only opportunity they’ll have to move up without worrying about my threat ranges. Turn 1: Minions So now if is me who has to worry about ridiculous threat ranges. I move up mostly trying not to offer up my whole army too easily. Dr Arkadius casts Forced Evolution (on a Road Hog) and Aggravator. Turn 2: Legion of Everblight Bracer is upkept. The Seraph Slipstreams the Neraph forward and lights up the Wrastler with Flare Absylonia gives herself Dodge and Feats. On the right, the Neraph makes short work of the Wrastler and Sprints back to the centre. A couple of Lesser Warbeasts hurt my left War Hog quite badly. Turn 2: Minions That didn’t end up quite as bad as I had hoped but my poor positioning last turn has left my Warbeasts in a bit of an awkward position. I decide it’s time to Feat anyway, and am able to take out Golab, the Neraph and a few of the Lesser Warbeasts. Hutchuk appears on the right and kills one Sorceress and the Gun Boar blows up the other one. Kwaak sits on my Flag; 1 – 0 to me. Turn 3: Legion of Everblight The Hermit strolls into the scrum of my Warbeasts and uses Master of Ruin. Shredders start eating a War Hog and Absylonia personally finishes off a Road Hog. Proteus finishes the first War Hog and puts some tasty damage into the other Road Hog; the Seraph finishes it. No-one scores; still 1 – 0. Turn 3: Minions That hurt more than the Feat turn! On the other hand, Absylonia is sitting right in front of me with no transfers. Hutchuk misses a Quake grenade into her, then Kwaak misses a pair of Venoms and finally Mire does about two damage with a pair of fully boosted attacks (rolling hilariously low on four damage dice). So I guess that is off the table; I probably needed to get a bit lucky to make it work out. The lead War Hog kills the Hellmouth on the left and Dr Arkadius runs away from all the scary blighted beasties. I score the left zone; 2 – 0. Turn 4: Legion of Everblight The Hellmouth kills Mire, the Seraph kills Kwaak and Absylonia kills Hutchuk. Proteus takes care of my Objective. Sean also scores the right zone and flag; 3 – 2 to him. Turn 4: Minions I kill off the Hermit and Objective; Dr Arkadius runs to my Flag. I don’t have anything that can contest on the right. 5 – 5 as we both score one flag and one zone. Turn 5: Legion of Everblight The Seraph contests the left zone and kills the Witch Doctor. A Tentacle contests the flag while Sean scores on the right side; 7 – 5 to him. Turn 5: Minions The Gun Boar kills a couple of Tentacles that are in my way and Dr Arkadius Primal Shocks the last one. This clears the War Hog to deal with the other Hellmouth and conveniently also contest the zone. We both score our flags; 8 – 6 to Sean. Turn 6: Legion of Everblight The Seraph flies to a place that I’ll never realistically get to it. Proteus makes a real mess of dealing with the War Hog thanks to some awful dice from Sean but does eventually pull my Warbeast away from the zone where Shredders eat it. 10 – 6 to Sean as he scores on the right again while contesting on the left. Turn 6: Minions I’m pretty much out of options here. In the end I try to kill Proteus with the last War Hog in the hope that I can then run the Gun Boar into contesting range and hope that Sean clocks out before he can wrap up the game. I can’t even kill off Proteus, so I concede to Sean. I think that this is, strictly speaking, a scenario win for Legion of Everblight. That was a tight game, and I think that with better positioning at the start I could have hoped to win it. Sean used his superior mobility well and I got caught up trying to work my way round the central house. For example, I had two War Hogs just slowly trudging their way round the board in the late game and I wasn’t really able to bring both of them to bear. By contrast, the threat of Proteus remained relevant in the centre for the whole game. It would have been interesting to play this again with me going first as I feel that getting the initial board position is probably quite important in this match-up. Things I learned:
- I actually think that Guardian Beast would probably serve me better than Aggravator in this match-up now that I’ve played it out. I was initially worried that there would be a lot of long range shooting from the Seraph but actually Sean just jumped down my throat at the first opportunity.
- I used Witch Doctor poorly here; I could have probably had some good value out of Ghost Walk as I stumbled around the house in the centre.
- Despite their abject failure to kill Absylonia, I was quite pleased with the performance of Kwaak, Mire and Hutchuk. They jammed up the right on a turn I needed it, scored me a point on the flag and killed off a couple of annoying little things. The assassination was probably a long shot but it felt like it could have been achievable.
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Post by argentbadger on Dec 5, 2019 11:02:42 GMT
Round 3 –Bunkers vs Nick’s Skorne (game 18) conflictchamber.com/?c9201b_-1sey6r4v4xm_n46Nf4ea5G5U___-2c6I6r4x6S4C6N6un2n2n2ncn3f4n9n1n9n1mBmBSkorne [Theme] Disciples of Agony [Xerxis 2] Xerxis, Fury of Halaak [+28] - Agonizer [0(6)] - Basilisk Drake [8] - Basilisk Krea [0(7)] - Desert Hydra [35] - Mammoth [35] - Aptimus Marketh [0(5)] Swamp Gobber River Raider [1] Tyrant Zaadesh [4] - Titan Gladiator [15] Paingiver Beast Handlers (min) [5] Skorne [Theme] The Exalted [Rasheth 1] Dominar Rasheth [+28] - Agonizer [6] - Basilisk Krea [7] - Cyclops Raider [9] - Cyclops Shaman [8] - Aptimus Marketh [0(5)] Ancestral Guardian [5] Extoller Novitiate [0(2)] Extoller Novitiate [0(2)] Extoller Novitiate [0(2)] Hakaar the Destroyer [0(6)] Immortal Vessel [3] Swamp Gobber River Raider [1] Immortals (max) [13] - Extoller Advocate [3] Immortals (max) [13] - Extoller Advocate [3] Supreme Guardian [16] Supreme Guardian [16] I’m torn here. I think I want to put Dr Arkadius against Xerxis2 but probably slightly prefer Jaga Jaga into Rasheth. In the end I select Dr Arkadius, figuring that Immortals should be as flammable as anything else and at least I’ll have the armour cracking power to deal with the Supreme Guardians. Nick chooses to play Rasheth so we’ll get to see how I play into a recursion swarm of tough, no knock-down infantry. Actually I’m pretty sure I’ve never played Skorne at all before so this should be interesting. I win the roll off and pick to have first turn, hoping to set a high line of engagement and keep Nick out of my zone entirely. Turn 1: Minions I race everything forward at top speed. Mire puts Weald Secrets on the Blackhide Wrastler in case it ever becomes relevant. Dr Arkadius as usual casts Aggravator (not much shooting but it might be handy to if the Supreme Guardians fire a late-turn shot) and puts Forced Evolution on one of the Road Hogs. Turn 1: Skorne A swarm of statues runs towards me. Two of them position to extend the cloud wall once Rasheth zaps them in the back; one even survives. Initially Nick was going to have three of them out but realised that even with Harmonious Exaltation this would leave Rasheth sitting on zero camp so I let him take back the moves. I’m not certain that I could have got many big shots into Rasheth but it would have felt like a pretty rubbish way to finish the game. Turn 2: Minions Hutchuk comes on the right and blows up an Immortal Vessel. One Road Hog gets the Adrenaline needle an Assaults the Immortal in the cloud before Sprinting back to safety. A combination of low damage rolls and good tough rolls means that I only get one, so I pretty much trigger Vengeance for nothing. Mire puts a couple of clouds out and the Gun Boar ensures that I don't have to worry too much about the left flag by blowing up the River Raider. Turn 2: Skorne The Immortals on the right Vengeance forward, getting a few of them into range of my Warbeasts. On the left they spread out; one hits my Gun Boar for a little damage. Rasheth uses his Feat and puts Blood Mark on the central War Hog and Carnivore on the unactivated Immortals. The Extoller Novitiates power up the lead Immortals a bit more and they all charge in and put some rather tasty damage on both Road Hogs and the Blood Marked War Hog. The Supreme Guardian on the right sets Hutchuk on fire and the Raider finishes him off. We both score our zones; 1 – 1. Turn 3: Minions Dr Arkadius uses his Feat. The War Hog on the left gets Primal and wrecks the Supreme Guardian over there, while the one on the right Overtakes his way to the Agoniser during his activation and the kills it with the Feat attack. The rest of the Warbeasts chew their way through a lot of Immortals but Nick has jammed me quite effectively so my board position is quite week. Kwaak runs onto my flag and we both score our own zones; 2 – 1 to me. Turn 3: Skorne The Novitiates turbo charge the Supreme Guardian and Hakaar. It turns out that Supreme Guardians have Thresher (which I didn’t know) and that I’ve left a whole load of my Warbeasts in perfect Thresher formation. The Supreme Guardian charges in and kills both War Hogs and Kwaak; Hakaar finishes the Road Hog. Rasheth swaps Carnivore on to the other Immortals and they kill the third War Hog. We continue to score our own zones; 3 – 2 to me. Turn 4: Minions The Witch Doctor comes over and puts Ghost Walk on the Wrastler, and Mire adds Rage. The Wrastler walks into the Supreme Guardian’s back arc and kills it satisfyingly. I needed Ghost Walk as I doubted it could survive the Defensive Strike. The Road Hog kills Hakaar and the Gun Boar kills a couple of Immortals (looking back, I think I forgot to activate the Battle Boar at all). We score our zones again; 4 – 3 to me. Turn 4: Skorne Immortals kill the Battle Boar in the middle. Nick throws all the ranged attacks he has at the Wrastler but leaves it standing on a single box. The Road Hog takes a bit of a beating from the Ancestral Guardian and the remaining Immortals on the right but stays standing. Yet again we fail to contest each other’s zones; 5 -4 to me. Turn 5: Minions The Wrastler gets healed and Raged by Mire. It then charges the Novitiate in the centre and Overtakes its way over to the Krea, which it also eats and finally takes a nice bite out of the Shaman. The Witch Doctor gives the Road Hog Ghost Walk and it strolls out of melee to immolate a few Immortals, admittedly to depressingly little effect. I couldn’t quite get the Wrastler into Nick’s zone so we both score again; 6 – 5 to me. Turn 5: Skorne At this point I notice that Nick has only about 35 seconds on his clock. In his haste last turn he forgot to drop any Fury from Rasheth so his Warbeast both Frenzy. That eats up his remaining time, though I don’t think that he could have pulled out a win even if they hadn’t Frenzied. Minions win by deathclock. Wow, that was rather close. I feel like I could probably have held on for a victory even if Nick had been able to use his last minute or so freely instead of resolving Frenzy moves, so I guess that from his side the learning point is to be a bit more decisive. Things I learned:
- Supreme Guardians have Thresher, and I shouldn’t form a neat semi-circle of important models for them to exterminate in one go. In fairness I think that Nick probably was going to warn me about this but the last Warbeast moved into place to allow the charge as basically my last move of the turn. I suppose that this is more broadly ‘know / ask what the other army does’ although there are so many options now in WarmaHordes that it seems unlikely that any but the most dedicated players could conceivably know them all.
- Playing efficiently can be enough to win the game, even if your stuff is being pulverised every turn.
- Pay attention to what you have done each turn. I think I forgot to move the Battle Boar at all one turn, and it was only Nick pointing it out that stopped me from using the Wrastler twice early on.
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Post by argentbadger on Mar 2, 2020 22:06:19 GMT
After a long gap in playing Warmachine / Hordes, I took the opportunity to attend another tournament at Common Ground Games in Stirling, this time organised by Frazer Penman. I’ve been painting up some Cryx and had originally intended to take them along but since I have literally not managed to get a single game in with them yet I decided to stick with Minions for one more time so that there might be some chance of at least remembering the stats and abilities of my own armies. conflictchamber.com/?cb201b_-2n13fy0M1d1d0L0L0LbOfCjVnd4c___-2njP4cjNjNjWbM7y7F4njD7gMinions [Theme] Will Work For Food [Arkadius 1] Dr. Arkadius [+32] – Battle Boar [7] – Gun Boar [8] – Road Hog [15] – Road Hog [15] – War Hog [14] – War Hog [14] – War Hog [14] Gatorman Witch Doctor [0(4)] Hutchuk, Ogrun Bounty Hunter [0(6)] Kwaak Slickspine & Gub, Croak Sorcerers [0(4)] Underchief Mire [4] – Blackhide Wrastler [16] Minions [Theme] Will Work For Food [Jaga-Jaga 1] Jaga-Jaga, the Death Charmer [+27] – Blackhide Wrastler [16] – Swamp Horror [15] – Swamp Horror [15] – Gatorman Soul Slave [0(5)] Brun Cragback [16] Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor [0(5)] Rorsh [15] Totem Hunter [0(6)] Farrow Valkyries [8] Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (max) [17] No changes at all to my lists, mainly because I haven’t played any games since the last tournament. Round 1 – Bunkers vs Andrew’s Infernals (game 19) conflictchamber.com/?cg201b_-1yo7oaoaoaoaoaolosonoSoqoqopofogou___-1yo8oeoaoaoaolosonoSotoqoqopogovogohouInfernals [Theme] Dark Legacy [Omodamos 1] Omodamos, The Black Gate [+28] - Tormentor [12] - Tormentor [12] - Tormentor [12] - Tormentor [12] - Tormentor [12] - Lord Roget d'Vyaros [4] Alain Runewood, Lord of Ash [0(5)] Great Princess Regna Gravnoy [0(6)] Hermit of Henge Hold [0(5)] The Wretch [4] The Wretch [4] Valin Hauke, The Fallen Knight [7] Cultist Band (min) [5] Cultist Band (max) [7] Infernal Gate [12] Infernals [Theme] Dark Legacy [Zaateroth 1] Zaateroth, The Weaver of Shadows [+26] - Foreboder [4] - Tormentor [12] - Tormentor [12] - Tormentor [12] - Lord Roget d'Vyaros [4] Alain Runewood, Lord of Ash [0(5)] Great Princess Regna Gravnoy [0(6)] Hermit of Henge Hold [0(5)] Nicia, Hound of the Abyss [4] The Wretch [4] The Wretch [4] Valin Hauke, The Fallen Knight [7] Cultist Band (max) [7] - Master Preceptor Orin Midwinter [4] Cultist Band (max) [7] Griever Swarm (min) [8] Infernal Gate [12] Until this morning I had pretty much not been aware of the existence of Infernals as a faction, at least not to any useful level of detail. Andrew kindly and patiently explains what everything does and I decide to pick Dr Arkadius as it looks like I’ll be chewing through a lot of heavies here. I win the roll-off and move first so that I can get some board presence at least. Turn 1: Minions I run up as far as I dare (which is quite far in this case) and cast some spells. Mire puts Weald Secrets on a War Hog and Dr Arkadius casts Guardian Beast on himself and Forced Evolution on a nearby Road Hog. I picked Guardian Beast as I felt that it might be more useful than some desultory movement from Aggravator, not to mention that I often feel that I’m giving my opponent a free threat range increase when I trigger hyper-aggressive. Turn 1: Infernals Nicia shoots a Road Hog to no effect and then immediately gets sacrificed to bring in a Desolator. Zaateroth also puts up Road to War and casts Scything Touch on one of the Tormentors. Regna summons a Lamenter (edit: I originally wrote Desolator in error). Turn 2: Minions Both of my casters upkeep all their spells. Hutchuk ambushes in at the back and kills a couple of Cultists. Dr Arkadius puts Adrenaline on both Road Hogs and they kill a few nearby Grievers and Sprint back to safety. Kwaak Enlivens both of them too in case things get a bit too dangerous. Turn 2: Infernals The lead Tormentor gets Pathfinder from the Objective and Zaateroth decides to drop Scything Touch. The Desolator on the left drops Hutchuk with ease, triggering Road to War to move the lead Tormentor. Grievers fly up to get in my way, though the lead one is killed by a Guardian Beast attack (hurray, I actually remember to use it!). The Gate places the front Tormentor forward a bit more and then shoots the nearer Road Hog which Enlives back out of reach. Zaateroth Feats and summons a Soult Stalker from a Wretch who has run forward. Valen runs to score the central flag and Regna casts Deceleration, presumably out of habit since my Gun Boar would be the only thig affected. Andrew scores his flag and we both score our zones; 2 – 1 to him. Turn 3: Minions Wow, that Feat is hard to deal with if you don’t have any kind of accuracy spell. I was worried about time here so stopped taking detailed notes, but basically I ended up having to Primal most of my hitters and then still boost to hit to even have a chance to actually land damage. In the end I take out the front row (and the gate, since at least I can hit that) and clear enough space to get onto the central flag. On a couple of occasions when I do hit, Orin forces a re-roll into another miss. Most depressingly, much of what I’ve killed has been summoned in anyway, so the net impact in the game is not very impressive. I also both score my zone; 3 – 2 to me. Turn 3: Infernals Zaateroth and Regna both cut to full Essence. One Tormentor kills a War Hog by throwing it in ot a Road Hog which is eventually killed off by some other random attacks. Roget puts Ghost Walk on the Cultists to get them forward. Other heavies take out both the Wrastler and the exposed War Hog on the far right. Zaateroth summons another Tormentor from Roget and Regna summons a Desolator. The Foreboder contests my zone (though I will admit that I thought it was a Griever at the time). Andrew scores his zone; 3 – 3. Turn 4: Minions I try to clear out as much as possible but there is too much there and not enough of my stuff, not to mention that the few remaining models I have are obliged to Frenzy. The Battle Boar does kill the arc node to clear my zone so at least I score a point (as does Andrew from his zone); 4 – 4. Turn 4: Infernals Two Cultists and the Hermit fill up most of the heavies with Essence, then they kill my remaining heavy warbeasts mainly by chain attack throwing them around the place. Andrew contests my zone and scores his own; 5 – 4. Turn 5: Minions I try to clear my zone and the left flag to get Mire onto it but clock out before doing anything useful. Minions lose on deathclock and I also fail on photo-taking. Well, that was certainly pretty hard. Knowing what I know now, I suppose that Jaga Jaga might have been the better approach as I could have leveraged Signs and Portents to at least hit my targets and Swamp Horrors could possibly do some amusing work pulling models back in when they teleport away on the Feat turn. On the other hand, I’m not sure that list has the hitting power to work through the Infernal summoning and get any useful result out of it. The game itself was a lot of fun; Andrew is a very nice chap to play with. - Interestingly, Andrew opined that Infernals are rather over-tuned compared to other factions, and he eventually won the event. That’s not to say that he wouldn’t have beaten me even if we had our armies the other way round as he’s a much better player than I am. It was, in some ways, pleasing to continue my run of always losing to Andrew or his brother at every event I attend. Things I learned:
I probably should have Feated one turn earlier as it was wasted into Zaateroth’s Feat.
- Although the Infernals seem largely immune to knockdown I probably should have considered a few throw options just to get some board position. Andrew used them very well and it is certainly something that I don’t usually even think about.
- Ambushing Hutchuk is hard to do right. He’s not hard for a heavy to kill, but doesn’t really do great work clearing infantry. Perhaps I should just give up on him entirely.
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