Thoughts from the weekend games

So, still playing in a jouneyman league, and still playing pMagnus.  We're up to 25 points, so I have started putting in some units, trying them out, and making notes.  I'll pretty up my chicken scratches a little here, but here's basically the synopsis of the games from this weekend:

Saturday - pMagnus vs 3Makeda.

I was runningthe Magnus battlebox, plus Gorman, and min units of Steelhead halberdiers and cavalry.  He was running 3Makeda, a Brute, two savages, paingivers, gators and a task master.

First, Black Oil is great.  It literally saved the game for me - I managed to Oil 3Makeda, and stopped her from charging Magnus.  I think from now on, if I can fit Gorman into a list somewhere, he'll be there.  He's just too useful, and if I can get Snipe on him, then I will do so.

Backswing.  I used the Obliterator on a few targets, not intending to do much damage (and I didn't), but to simply knock them down.  The cavalry charged in, and while I remembered the assault order, and the impact hits, I forgot about the +2 to hit (not that it mattered, since the targets were knocked down), but I forgot to take my backswings.  Hopefully, I remember next time.

Magnus - I think I need to lead the charge with the mechanikal arm, and boost the hit roll against high Def targets.  I'll do less damage, but the knock-down affect is too handy to pass up.  Bad dice (on his part), and that knock-down let me take down 3Makeda, but he was wining the game up to that point.

Sunday
pMagnus vs pLylyth
Dropped the steelheads for a full unit of Long Gunners and Kell, ran his tier list.  My opponent was running the Legion battlebox, plus Typhon.

I can't claim to have really learned anything from this game.  I put Snipe on the Renegade, and pretty much just ran my army forward.  He moved everything up on is turn.  I wanted to put the hurt on Typhon, so I shot at it with the Obliterator.  Missed (even boosted), and it deviated right on to pLylyth, who had not kept any fury on her.  She took the hit, I moved up Kell, shot her, moved up the Long Gunners, and used CRA to shoot her.  Missed one of the CRAs, but the other hit her, and managed to kill her.  We both looked at each other, and said "Good game?"

So yeah, I won that game, but my dice were made of awesome and win.  I have no idea what the outcome would have been if I had landed the shot on Typhon as I intended.

PMagnus vs Bloody Barnabas
Same as before.  Barnabas had a croak hunter, gators, and a bull snapper.   This went about as expected - Barnabas with Swamp pit could pretty much advance into charge range, and, frankly, Long Gunners are not melee stars.  Or even competent.  I lost, and killed only a few models.  (In all fairness, most of the posse was badly wounded, but I could not put those last 1-2 points on any of them for the life of me.)