That did not go well

Hooray, another Vassal batrep - because I am too lazy to go paint right now*.

Got in another Vassal game last night against Clexis again.  We went with battleboxes, mainly to keep the game short.  pDenny versus pKaya, and it wound up being a short game.

pKaya has some nice movement shenanigans available to her, and a really high Def.  pDenny has a lot of arc nodes, and an ungodly feat.  But it was an ugly game - I just could not hit the broad side of barn, even on the turn when I popped pDenny's feat.  You would think that, with boosted dice, I could hit a 9 at least half the time, right?  Naah.

I called it, when it got down to a crippled Slayer (with left arm remaining), a crippled Deathripper (movement left, nothing else), a crippled Defiler (just movement), and pDenny, versus a wounded (but not badly) pKaya, an Argus, and the Feral.  We tried a couple of theorymachining, just to see if I could survive another turn and win, and pretty much any victory condition for me relied on dice rolls that were much less likely than a horse winning the Kentucky Derby after dropping dead in the starting gate.

Fun game, as always.  I can't say that I learned much from it - I think my dice (well, Vassal dice) just were not on my side last night, and there is only so much you can do about that.  I did not bank on a lot of luck for anything that I was doing, just getting average dice rolls, and, for the most part, they were not forthcoming. 

I"m not blaming dice, per se, but when you have a couple of turns of "OKay, I have Focus 7, need to hit a 16 with the arced venom, I need 9s.  I boost, miss.  Buy another one, boosting.  Miss.  Okay then."  there is only so much you can do.  I got outplayed for part of it, and, I think, on average rolls, I still would have lost, but it would have been a much closer game.  As it was, he had me cold, and we both knew it.






* Actually, this is not true.  But I registered for AdeptiCon yesterday, and I want to spend a day or two thinking about army lists before I jump into a painting project, so I am not doing much painting until then. 

Terminus the beatstick

Great scott!  I forgot what a beatstick Terminus is!

I played a game on Vassal last night against one of my local players.  Clexis (as he is named on the forums) has been trouncing me on a fairly regular basis with his Skorne, but he is thinking about branching out to Circle when we start our next journeyman league.  So, he was trying some Circle, and I was testing an idea that I had for Terminus.  No scenario, just a straight-up bloodbath, and we both wound up running tier lists.

He had:
pBaldur
Megalith
Woldwarden
Woldwyrd

Druid Stoneward & Woldstalkers (x2)
Sentry Stone and Mannikins
Shifting Stones (x2), one with Stone Keeper

I was running:
Terminus
3 Slayers
Skarlock Thrall

full Blackbanes
full Revenant Crew
Rengrave

The board was pretty empty - enough terrain, but not too much. A couple of forests (as though pBaldur cannot make his own), some obstacles, etc.  I won the roll, and elected to go first.  I made a wall of slayers, dropped Terminus behind them, and flanked with Blackbanes on one side, and most of the Revenants on the other.  The quartermaster and the Skarlock stayed by Terminus, and Rengrave hung close by.

pBaldur took the middle, flanked with the two units of Stonewards.  The contructs were as far forward as possible, as were the shifting and sentry stones.  (Quick note - his army made Terminus' feat basically useless.  Only four living models.  $(*$&$ constructs.)

I spent my first turn basically running everything forward, except Terminus, who cast Malediction on himself and charged, but could not quite get close enough to target one of my Slayers.  Clexis advanced his stuff, though not nearly as recklessly.

It was getting late, so I did not take notes on this, but basically, there were a couple of turns where I would advance through the forests that Clexis kept spamming with pBaldur, and he was picking off Blackbanes and Revenant crew left and right.  I would get the revenant  crew back, and I was making enough tough rolls with Blackbanes that my losses were only a couple of models per turn.  Plus, the Vassal dice roller hated him.

Eventually, he gacks a slayer, and has put some serious hurt on another one.  And left pBaldur within 9" of Terminus.  Terminus flies over everything, and basically pounds pBaldur into the ground.  pBaldur only had 2 fury on him when Terminus charge, and the first attack did a whopping 18 damage.  (The dice loved me last night.  Buy lottery tickets now.  Or prepare for the end of the world, as you choose.)  It took a few hits, but once Terminus based pBaldur and starting slicing, average dice would have ended it.

It was a good game - heck, a great game.  We were talking on Skype, so there was some trash talk going on, and some random complaints about Legion, which is odd, because neither of us were playing Legion.

I need to get in more games via Vassal, and choose something for AdeptiCon.  I'd really like to go to a tourney and actually have a fully painted force.  I could not quite swing it for GenCon, but I got passably close; if I start working on painting an army again, maybe I could make it happen this time.

Vassal, but no painting

So, I didn't really do any painting yesterday.  I was going to, but it just didn't happen.  I did prime the Boneswarm, so there is that.  And I am very close to finalizing a deal that gets rid of a bunch of my 40k (Tau), in exchange for some much-needed Cryx infantry.  I'll gain a couple warcasters as well, and have some duplicate figs that I will need to sell or trade off, but that's acceptable.

Anyway, instead of painting, I got in a game on Vassal last night.  A family emergency (lost dog) kept my opponents from playing on Saturday - I got there (later than planned), we got set up, and they got the call that they had to leave.  So, last night, we had a quick game.

It was just a 15pt MM/T&C game - both of us are learning Vassal, and he wanted to try a new faction.  I had my wife pick one of my factions at random - she doesn't know the difference between them, and, while my deck boxes are color-coded, she does not know the code, so she made a pretty random choice.  It wound up being his Circle against my Legion.

His army was small - pBaldur, Megalith, and Wold Guardian.  I ran eThag, but instead of Shredder spam, I ran a shredder, a stinger, a scythyan, and a teraph.  He drew first blood (Megalith one-shotted the poor stinger that got too close), but eThag's feat turn left him with a wounded Baldur and Megalith.  Megalith squished the teraph (the only thing it could get to), and Baldy tried an assasination run, but to no avail.

The game could have gone different - he forgot to feat until it was too late, which, while it may not have changed the end result (eThag is a beatstick), it would have been a lot closer.  Hopefully sometime later this week, we will get a rematch - though DWs random deck choice means I may not be playing Legion again.