A quick vassal game

Got in a quick game tonight, testing 15 pts of Convergence against 15pt of Trolls on Vassal.  I was running:

Syntherion
Diffuser
Inverter
Monitor
Elimination Servitors

against

Gunnbjorn
Blitzer
Bomber
Thumper Crew

It wasn't pretty.  I ceded going first, and he got up onto some elevated terrain.  Behind the rock wall, and elevation, Gunnbjorn was extremely difficult to hit.  I pegged him, but not enough to kill him.  I tried for the assassination via range, and failed.  For my efforts, he put a rock wall behind Syntherion, blew him into it with Explosivo, and then did very nasty things to the Cyriss caster with the bomber.

Fun quick game though.

Adventures of the Ghost Fleet

So, my Terminus list (such as it is) has been just a general "I take Terminus, and some stuff from his tier list, and let's see what happens."  Tonight, I got to field a full unit of Blackbanes and two crabjacks, without resorting to proxies.  Yes, I lost, but it was fun, and it was darned close.

My T4 Terminus list went up against a T4 eVayl list:

eVayl
Angelius
Ravagore
Scythean
x2 Harriers

Full Legionnaires
Full Spawning Vessel
2 Spell Martyrs
1 Shepherd

The game was pretty straightforward - he did not want to be within 9" of Terminus, and I wanted him to be.  For a good chunk of the game, I had the upper hand - he came close to wiping out the Revenants, but could not seal the deal by killing the quartermaster.  He did some damage to Blackbanes, but I managed to bring the unit back to nearly full strength on the granted ability.  My feat did great - something like 7 or 8 souls on Terminus, which let me do a lot of damage on the following turn.

But, that huge cache of souls and focus let me get greedy, and Terminus wound up in an exposed position, and he managed to pile enough damage on him to kill him.  I made the first tough roll with the Lich Lord, but not the second. 

I like the Ghost Fleet list, but I definitely need some more practice with it.  And I need to start painting my figs, though I did work on putting some stuff together.  Now, it's off to read NQ 45, and read through some of the Urban Adventure for the IKRPG.

Another go with Terminus

Still playing around with Terminus, mainly because he is big and stompy and generally fairly tough.  Plus, who doesn't like a flying lich lord who lives to eat souls?  So, on this occasion, I tried out the Terminus tier list I have been running:

Terminus
3 Slayers
Skarlock Thrall

full Blackbanes
full Revenant Crew
Rengrave

My opponent was running a Gators list:

Bloody Barnabas
Blackhide Wrastler
Bull Snapper
Ironback Spitter

Wrong-Eye and Snapjaw

Full gatorman posse
Totem Hunter

He won the the roll, and chose to deploy first - gators toward the center, Wrong-Eye and Snapjaw guarding his left flank.  The totem hunter held the right, and named the Revenant Crew as prey.

I set up fairly quickly, with the jacks guarding Terminus, the Blackbanes on my left, and the Revenant crew mostly on the right, with the quartermaster tucked safely away.

He advanced fairly cautiously, but in almost complete safety, thanks to Swamp Pit.  Granted, shooting is not a big part of my Terminus list, but having it shut down completely is a little annoying.  I advanced, but not quite as cautiously. Terminus cast Malediction on himself, and camped the rest of the focus.

Next turn, the Totem Hunter zipped up, and leapt into the middle of the Revenant crew, killing precisely zero of them.  I think he hit one, but I made the tough roll.  That left the Totem hunter in a bad position.  More gator advancing into swamp pits, and Wrong-Eye and Snapjaw kept rolling up on the flank. 

On my turn, I killed the Totem hunter by piling a whole bunch of undead pirates on him.  Terminus moved up, feated, and started trying to kill things, hellfiring the gators and trying to hit Wrong-Eye with his breath weapon.  The gator warcaster lived, so I piled on attacks from Blackbanes (who advanced through an obstacle to get to him), but I could not seal the deal.

That was the turn where I lost the game, too.  I over-extended myself, in my zeal to kill Wrong-Eye (and remove both him and Snapjaw from the flank, making my life ever so much easier.)  Barnabas moved up, feated, and put a serious hurt on Terminus and a jack.  I could not recover in time, and while I tried to salvage it on my turn (by killing the Blackhide, and some other stuff), I could not risk the free strikes to get to Barnabas, nor kill enough to stop him from clearing a path to Terminus and killing him with the Ironback on the following turn.

The good thing about losing is that you get to learn from your mistakes. 

That's right.  I can't leave Terminus right in the front, low on focus and souls, and in range of a wrastler and Barnabus' feat.  Bad Idea (tm). 

Terminus, take two

Another day, another test spin with Terminus.  This time, I tried Terminus at the FLGS, where I got to play against eThags and some shredder spam.  I was running:

Terminus
3 Slayers
Skarlock Thrall

full Blackbanes
full Revenant Crew
Rengrave

Kenny was running eThags and 19 shredders.  19 shredders!

He won the rolls, and basically ran as many toward me as he could, with eThags shedding fury in the process.  I advanced a tad more cautiously - 19 shredders is an awful lot of beasts, especially on feat turn. (As an odd note, this is the second time in a row using Terminus where his feat did basically no good - stupid soulless Legion beasts.)

eThags and the shredder rush slows down a little bit - a full run will put them at charge range, and he really, really, really wants to get the charge off.  The skarlock and Terminus immolate a few shredders, with an assist from Rengrave.  Lot of pirates and Blackbanes run up, and basically turn themselves into undead tough speedbumps.

The shredder rush begins in earnest, though a ridiculous number of my undead make their tough rolls.  One lucky pirate made something like three tough rolls in a row, as eThags tried to kill him.  Obviously, this is a turn when eThags pops feat, and, at the end, I am down almost all of the Blackbanes (lost incorporeal when making free strikes, and totally worth it), and more than half of the revenant crew.  On my turn, I get back my revenant crew, and decide to just go for the assassination, since eThags is within charge range.

Terminus charges over 5 shredders (man, do I love flight!), and, thanks to his big honking sword of death, combined with Malediction, drops the blighted ogrun with focus to spare.

This one could have gone very badly for me.  Kenny concentrated a bit too much on the undead, and I made a lot more tough rolls than I had any right to make.  And, to be honest, if Terminus had failed to kill eThags, it would not have mattered what else I did that turn - eThags would have eaten my giant undead killing machine.

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.

Moutain King, take 1

Got in a game with Mike (midwestjedi) at Unique Gifts & Games tonight.  We were trying to avoid a mirror match, so he brought Skorne, and I took the opportunity to try out one of my newest toys: the Mountain King.

I was running the following:
Jarl, Devil of Thornwood
Mountain King
Axer
Full unit of Krielstones
Full unit of Sluggers
Jannisa Stonetide

Mike was running:
Dominar Raseth
Bronzeback
Gladiator
Cannoneer
Min unit of Paingivers
Gatorman Posse (full) & Taskmaster

I won the roll, but had him deploy first - once I had placed the mountain king, who, by the way, I am currently calling "Bubba."  We spent several turns dancing around, neither one wanting to be the first to commit to a charge.  My sluggers continued their streak of being fairly ineffective - in this case, they did some damage to the posse, but Bubba alone killed as many as the full unit of sluggers,.

Realizing that the ranged game would eventually let me whittle his forces down to something that I could easily chew through, Mike charged forward with the bronzeback and the 2 remaining gators, leaving me with one lone, knocked down slugger.

On my turn, the slugger stands, and steps away, dieing to the free strike.  I use Jarl to pick off the gators, and Bubba turns and obliterates the bronzeback.  I figure that, between the general toughness of Bubba, the whelps he sheds, and the protective aura from the krielstone, all Bubba has to do is survive the gladiator.  Blood mark, plus feat, plus enrage, and Bubba dies a nasty, brutal death.

From that point on, the game is effectively over.  Losing Bubba left me with no real hitting power.  I manage to kill the gladiator - (but not until he slame Jarl - fortunately out of Dominar's control range) but the end game winds up being a lonely Jarl, running from the cannoneer, the taskmater, and Dominar.    And he doesn't run for long.

Overall, I had fun with the Mountain King.  He's a great model, but the base size just makes running him a pain.  In 35 points, losing him is just too much of a blow to handle - he killed one heavy, and some gators, but he did not pay for himself, which is not acceptable.  I think I am going to try him again soon, although I may pair him with a different warlock.

Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to try Hyperion.  But I finally picked up a blister of whelps, and Ravyn for my psychotic elves, so it's all good. 

Post mortem, round 3

Wrapping this up with the third, and final, loss of the day.

Round 3

Opponent: Aaron, playing Khador

Army: 2Vlad
Behemoth
Juggernaut
Spriggan
Doom Reavers
Kovnik Joe
max unit of Winterguard Infantry
5 Man O'War Shocktroopers

Reinforcements: Don't know, as they were not placed on the table.

My army: Blindwater

Bloody Barnabas
x2 Blackhide Wrastler
Bull Snapper
Swamp Horror
x3 max Gatormen Posse

Reinforcements: Wrong-Eye and Snapjaw

(Technically, I was a point down, as I was for my Thornfall.  I could have put in my Swamp Gobbers -  just didn't think of it at the time.)

Scenario: A flag too far

Yeah, we were going to kill each other on this one too.  Melee-centric armies, meeting toward the center?  This would be bloody.  I won the roll, and had him deploy first.  He set his up pretty close to the center, as did I.  First turn, he advanced, with the Doom Reavers running forward, and the Behemoth taking some ranging shots, which did nothing.

Bloody Barnabas Swamp Pits 3 times, then charges forward.  I run gators up, chanting for the +1 Def and Terror.  Wrastlers run up, Snapper runs up along the flank, and the swamp horror runs up as well.  The end of my first turn looks like this:

Anyone see the mistake here?  I sure didn't.  Not at the time. 

On Aaron's turn, the Behemoth advances, takes a couple pot shots, doing next to nothing.  Spriggan moves up, winterguard move up.  2Vlad moves up a bit, feats.  Doom Reavers charge, including Barnabas, who is caught with no fury on him for transfers.  Doh!  (Cue Mr. Rogers voice: "Can you say, 'That was dumb', boys and girls?  Sure, I knew you could.")

Doom Reavers tear huge gaping holes in my front line.  Barnabas survives, but with only 4 health remaining.  Several doom reavers fall to other doom reavers - occupational hazard, and a small price to pay for the number of gators that they killed.

It comes to my turn.  Board position is terrible.  I go ahead and place Wrong-Eye and Snapjaw, and activate them first.  That way, I got to use them.  Wrong-Eye advances, takes over a couple of winterguard, manages to kill one of them that way.  Snapjaw charges up, and eats a couple of the troopers.  No big deal, really.  Bull snapper charges over and eats one of the doom reavers, then goes torpid. One unit of gatormen activates, tries to eliminate the rest of the doom reavers, and does so.

It's time to go big, or go home.  Yep - gator tossing is where it is at.  Wrastler grabs the other, in an effort to 2-handed throw it toward 2Vlad.  I can still pull this off, but now I pretty much have to do an assassination.  I hit.  I fail the throw.  Yep, I can roll lower on 2d6 than 1d6 when I need to.  (Looking back, I may have tied.  If so, I could have thrown - the target need to beat the roll, not tie it.  More on that below!)  At any rate, a failed gator toss is not good.

I look for a few minutes.  I have more than 35 minutes on the clock still, and really, if I can't pull off the assassination, it's doubtful that I will be able to win.  The armor on the Khador jacks is too high for my poor pillow-fisted gators.

Ah-ha!  I see a possibility.  One of my gators is in the way, so I activate another posse, and charge it, killing it.  Huzzah?  The second wrastler activates, moves up, and throws Barnabas at 2Vlad, then casts Rise on Barnabas.  Risky, since Barnabas could have been hurt by the throw.  Fortunately, he isn't.

Barnabas feats, knocking 2Vlad down.  I charge in, and start doing some damage.  The bonus to Def from Might of Kings doesn't matter.  Unfortunately, I fail to kill 2Vlad, leaving him with 3 boxes.  He stands up, and kills Bloody Barnabas.

(Several models are out of place, because we had started to pick up before I took this pic.)

Lessons learned: Know the throwing rules better.  Really. 

Lesson #2 - Don't leave Barnabas exposed like that.  Losing some gators hurt, but having Barnabas take a hit like that was risky, since he could have been killed outright, and it also put me in a really tight spot. 

Great game, again, and a lot of fun.  Aaron really wanted to see me pull off the flying gator trick, and I wanted to see him assassinate Barnabas, since I left him wide open.  I think with a little more careful placement of his Doom Reavers, he could have managed it, too.

Post-mortem, Round 2

Continuing in the same vein. 

Round 2

Opponent: Chuck Ocenasek, playing Cygnar

Army: eHaley
Stormwall
Old Rowdy
Squire

Archduke Runewood
Black 13th
Precursor Knights
Stormblades

His army is a little off - I didn't take note of it, and I think there is a UA that I am missing, or something.

My army: Thornfall

Sturm & Drang
x2 Road Hogs
x3 War Hogs
Targ

4 Bone Grinders
6 Brigands
Slaughterhousers


We had to have two lists, but we did not have to play both.  We were also told that two rounds would have reinforcements.  Since this one did not, I chose my pigs.  (I wanted to try out the reinforcements in my other list, so I left it for then.)


Scenario: Restoration.


Since he had a Stormwall, he had to predeploy it.  I won the roll again, and had him place his whole army, before placing mine.  We did forget to start the clock for deployment, but time was not an issue at all in this game.


First round, he advances, and lays down covering fire.  I advance as well.  While we are both looking to score points, we have also both come to the conclusion that caster kill is how this one is likely to end.


Round two, he advances, shoots a lot of things, really hurts one of the war hogs.  I retaliate by charging the stormwall with two of them.  I don't tear it apart - I should have, but I did not double check my cards, and forgot to aggression dial one of them, and the extra damage would have really helped.  I think I popped feat, mainly to prevent the Stormwall and Old Rowdy from getting a load of focus and beating the tar out of my poor war hogs.

Next turn, the Black 13th come up and do a number on the brigands, though some survive.  Stormblades come up and unload on the road hogs, and I think the precursor knights ran up to base the road hogs and slow them down a bit.  eHaley pops feat.


Having your order of activation forced on you stinks.  And, having to chose between moving and attacking just rubs some salt in the wound.  Astonishingly, I manage to still do some damage this turn - Targ can give ancillary attack, and I manage to do some damage to the stormblades and the precursor knights.  Rowdy gets hurt, and (IIRC), I manage to cripple the hammer. 


His next turn hurts me, but the damage on Rowdy and on the Stormwall has been adding up, and I weather the storm.  On my turn, my remaining warhog scraps Old Rowdy.  And here is where I lose the game.

Put simply, I got greedy.  I really wanted to finish killing the Stormwall.  I should have waited a turn - I had the better position on the board, and it was nearly dead.  Old Rowdy was down.  The precursor knights were almost wiped from the board, and the Stormblades were gone.  The squire is no threat, and I can deal with Black 13th and eHaley over the next turn or two.

S&D, under the Drang aspect, charges up and starts laying the smackdown on the Stormwall.  It takes a couple of swings, but I drop it.  (Yay - another angle, from early next turn)

Unfortunately, this leave S&D out in the (relative) open, with no fury on him.  Between the Black 13th, the Journeyman, and eHaley, they manage to kill him.  Barely.

So - officially, this was a loss.  But, I claimed moral victory, for having dropped the Stormwall.  And, unfortunately, after the tourney was over, we found out that Chuck had accidentally been running the Stormwall incorrectly, and so was DQ'ed.  I'm still calling this a loss, however - I lost it fair and square, and really, hanging my warlock out there was a pretty stupid move.

So, what did I learn from this one?

First, collosals aren't as scary as they first seemed.  I have faced three now, and while they are tough, I won one of the games against them, lost one (though I took out half the collosal in the process), and could have won this one, if I had not gotten too greedy at the end. 

Second - getting greedy cost me the game.  I could see victory, and managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  Again, my fault, not his. 

So, the second game was a lot of fun, and it turned out to be a great game, with lots of good natured trash talking, and some happy BSing once the game was done. 

Post-mortem, Round 1

So, I'm going to split up the tourney into three posts.  First, that way, I can try to do each battle on its own.  Second, it's a blatant attempt to pad my post count. Third, this way I can get something out, instead of sitting here, with 95% of an unfinished batrep, and having it stay that way for days.

So, Round 1, of the 50pt SR at Dragon's Refuge, in Peotone, IL.

Opponent: Ben Lang, playing Skorne

Army: eHexeris
Bronzeback
Gladiator
Cyclops Savage
Molik Karn
Aptimus Marketh

Extoller Soulward
6 Paingiver Beast Handlers
10 Praetorian Swordsmen, plus Officer & Std Bearer
10 Venator slingers

Reinforcements: Tyrant Rhadeim
x2 Venator Flayer
Feralgeist

My army: Thornfall

Sturm & Drang
x2 Road Hogs
x3 War Hogs
Targ

4 Bone Grinders
6 Brigands
Slaughterhousers

Reinforcements: Rorsch & Brine

Scenario: Outflank, Outfight, Outlast.

(NB - always take the opposing army and scenario with a grain of salt.  I forgot to write those down on Saturday, so it's only as good as my memory. )

Setup was fairly standard.  We both deployed most of our armies toward the middle, but more toward one table edge.  (MISTAKE!)  Turn 1 was fairly uneventful, as we both hurried toward the middle to start contesting control zones.

Turn 2 was where things started to go south.  We were closer to his reinforcement edge, and out popped the two flayers, which turned the brigands into swiss cheese.  Without fearless & tough, they would have all died.  As it was, they just became ineffective, which was not much better.  Molik runs up, and thanks to Black Spot (and him being Molik Karn), smacks around the slaughterhousers.  (This pic is before he does that.)

The swordsmen have run up and based a lot of things, but not attacked.  They're blocking charge lanes, mainly, I think.

On my turn, I try to clear some things up, and contest the zones.  Rorsch & Brine appear, and I manage to get a charge off on Molik, but fail to kill him.  The remaining slaughterhousers don't seal the deal either.  I start trying to move my stuff out of the way of the flayers, but at the end of the turn, it isn't much better.

I think I popped my feat at the end of turn 2.  S&Ds feat is basically a "screw you!" to Hordes armies - it reduces FURY to 1, warjacks can only get 1 focus, and no enemy channeling spells. 

IIRC, Ben used his third turn to eliminate Brine, some slaughterhousers, and consolidate his position.  My third turn was an attempt to kill as much as possible, because the game was over - I was pretty weakened, and almost all of my beasts were dead.  I looked for an assassination vector, and did not see it.  I think the end of my turn 3 looked about like this:

Long story made short - he tabled me.  I had nothing left at the end.  Wiped it clean (except for one beast), and then went for the caster kill. 

Lessons learned:
This is the most important part of the post-mortem.  If I don't learn from the mistakes, I will repeat them.  Avoiding stupid mistakes will help me be a better player.

Mistake #1 - pay attention to the reinforcements and where they will be popping up.  I had him set up first, and I could have put a lot of my stuff on my right.  It would have made his reinforcements a lot less effective - I would have been able to avoid the artillery, instead of running right up to it, and turning that flank into a turkey shoot.

Mistake #2 - Remember power attacks. I think a trample would have helped clear out the swordsmen, and made my life a lot easier.

Mistake #3 - Know your models!  I had just picked up the road hogs, and I wanted to use them.  Ditto for Rorsch & Brine.  I don't regret either choice, but I wasn't as familiar with them or their capabilities.  I did not realize until earlier today that a road hog has an effective threat of 20" with the spray.  Oops.  Should have charged something far off, and sprayed it. 

Mistake #3b - In addition to being careful with new models, make sure you are aware of the old ones.  I wasn't thinking, and chose the wrong personality of S&D at the beginning of the game.  Completely my fault.

Final thoughts - yes, I would love to blame my dice for this one.  I had some terrible damage rolls, and Ben had some truly phenomenal ones.  But the reality is that excuse will only carry to much water - I got outplayed here, pure and simple.  It was a great game, and I had a lot of fun, even though I lost.  I'm hoping that I learned something from it, however.

No pics to record my loss.

Pity, too - it was a good game.

For various and sundry reasons, it was a light crowd at the FLGS.  (Side note - I am hoping that there are a lot more people there next weekend, although a turnout as low as eight would still have me plenty happy!)  I managed to get in a game - my Pigs versus Jake's Skorne.  The order of battle, as I recall, was as follows:

Skorne
eMakeda
Molik Karn
Gladiator
Cyclops Savage
Full unit Nihilators
Full unit Swordsmen
Min unit of paingivers

Pigs
Lord Carver
2 War Hogs
Min & Max unit of Brigands
Razorback
Slaughterhousers
Full unit of bone grinders

Skorne set up first, but with no advance deployment, the little thrill of every farrow unit being advance deploy was lessened.  Both of us headed for each other at a quick pace, although the forward-placed razorback took a potshot at Molik, who was 14.diddly inches away.  No matter, as the lucky deviation dropped the AoE onto two swordsmen, killing them.

I did not take detailed (read: any) notes, but Molik zipped forward, put a god-awful amount of hurt on a war hog, and bounced back, while the nihilators came forward on the flank and started tearing into the larger unit of brigands.  The brigands nearly died to a pig, but they were avenged by the slaughterhousers, who were not far behind.  The nearly crippled war hog, thanks to Carver's feat, tore through a good chunk of the swordsmen, and the brigands took out most of the rest.  The razorback shot at things, but really did not do much after that first glorious turn.

Molik placed himself in the middle of the slaughterhousers, denying them the charge.  It turned out to be an incredibly safe move, since they barely hurt him.  He responded by unleashing a whirling blade of Nerfiness onto the slaughterhousers - they made 4 out of 5 tough rolls!  On their turn, they would stand back up, and finally finish him off.

On the other side of the table, the gladiator tried an assassination run on Carver, but the free strike from the War Hog put the stops on that idea.  It looked grim for the Skorne - at the beginning of the final turn, it was eMakeda and 2 paingivers, versus Carver, the slaughterhousers, the razorback, a war hog, and the last two remnants of the brigands - one of whom was in base with eMakeda.

Fortunately, a paingiver killed the brigand, she moved around a building, and killed Carver.  Skorne wins in a nail-biter of a finish.  It was a great game, and we both had a lot of fun. 

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.

A pseduo-battle report

So, I got to play two games on Saturday, and I managed to win one of them.

The first game, I was trying out a eNemo list. I was light on jacks (only two - Thunderhead and Firefly), but has the Storm Strider, and lots of lightning goodness. My opponent was running Zherkova, some Doom Reavers, a couple warjacks and some widowmakers (and a couple other models - Greylords, maybe?)

The scenario was out of prime, and we were basically contesting the middle of the board. I made several key mistakes early on, and wound up almost losing on scenario alone - instead, I lost to a very well-done warcaster assassination, and the game was over before I took my third turn. I think, from army selection to end of game, it was less than 45 minutes - it certainly was under an hour.

Since we had time to kill, we each chose another list. He switched to eButcher, kept the Doom reavers, added Fenris, and made some other changes. I switched to Cryx, so I could try out Terminus, plus a couple slayers, a seether, some bane thralls, the revenant crew, and a bloat thrall. (Quick aside - I can usually recall my lists fairly well, but not always those of my opponents. I need to work on that, for real battle reports.)

Anyway, with both armies being comprised of incredibly aggressive casters, we met in the middle, and it was a virtual bloodbath. I drew first blood, and took out the doom reavers, and did some other damage, but it put things in grand position for eButcher's feat. He popped feat, charged up, and, by the time his turn was done, I had only a couple of the revenant crew remaining, plus two slayers (one fairly damaged), and the bloat thrall, and Terminus was down 9 points. Terminus was engaged, but only by Fenris, although he was less than 1/4" of being engaged by one of the Khador jacks. I chanced the free strike (which fortunately failed to do anything), and flew over my intervening models to get to eButcher. Terminus only got to melee with his giant sword o' death, but that was all it took (though it took multiple strikes to do so).

Both games were a lot of fun (for both of us), and I think I will use both lists again, albeit with some tweaking.

No pics, but progress

I will be taking pics before I paint tonight, but I wanted to note that I have indeed been making some progress on my Rhulic models. The yellows are being problematic, but I confess to being really adamant on making my color scheme work.

I managed another win Saturday (yay!), but forgot to take along a camera (boo!). Same Rhulic list as before, with the addition of the High Shield UA and a Basher (marshalled by Thor). The legion list was basically battlebox plus Typhon.

Typhon, quite frankly, scares me. In fact, that entire legion list had me worried. The only reason I won, I suspect, is because he did not run straight for my line and force the engagement. The longer you dance around a Rhulic gun line, the more you lose. It would have been even worse for him if I had remembered my High Shields mini-feat, but I forgot.

I'm rather glad that I did not get the chance to play the Skorne list. Battlebox plus full Cetrati and beast handlers made for a list that will get in my Rhulic face and tear me apart. I think he wants a match, however, so I think I have a loss coming in the near future.

Battle report from Saturday

OKay, I haven't done any sort of documentation on my battles before. And, I did not bother to take along a camera to record what I was certain would be another couple of losses - albeit fun ones. So, no pics, sorry. These battles were all under the Journeyman league rules.

Game #1

I got in a straight-up battlebox game - Gorten v. pKreoss. The board was basically symmetrical, with a small hill in the middle, two houses on opposite corners, and walls on the other two. First turn, we both advance - he starts casting Defender's Ward, and I put up Strength of Granite and Solid Ground.

I score the first damage, when the gunbunnies open up on his two light jacks, but neither is crippled by the exchange. He counters by setting one of the gunbunnies on fire, which winds up burning for the rest of the game, but never doing any damage. I feat, move his jacks around, and the driller destroyers the Crusader, while the gunbunnies finish off the Repenter. He uses the arc node on his Revenger to light another gunbunny with Immolation, but doing little else to it. For reasons of time (other players had arrived, and he wanted to play them too), he decided to call it - pKreoss and a badly damaged revenger against three gunbunnies and a driller, with my turn coming up, and in a mangled metal game, meant that I needed to roll really badly not to win the game as soon as I went.

Game #2

Same terrain set up as before. This time, it was a 15-pt Gorten versus a 15-pt Legion list. He was running the Legion battlepack, plus the Strider Deathstalker. With 15 pts, I was able to take the Gorten battlebox, plus Thor, and a minimum unit of the High Shield Gun Corps. (Gotta love the fact that the Gorten box is only 8 pts.)

Again, we both advance, and I always seem to forget how fast some of the Legion stuff can be. He did forget to use the advance deploy on the Deathstalker, fortunately for me. I use the same spells as before, although in retrospect, I probably could have dropped the Solid Ground.

First blood went to me, as the gunbunnies took out two of the shredders. Unfortunately, I did not put up Rock Wall, and on the next turn, pLylyth feats, putting Parasite on the Driller, and putting some hurt on Gorten. The remaining Shredders take to chewing up my High Shields (who, foolishly, forgot to use Shield Wall), and putting the stop to the gunbunnies. A Carnivean comes out of nowhere, and it's helly and good-bye, Mr. Driller. The Deathstalker comes up the flank, and Thor is dead, with more damage on Gorten.

It's not looking good for my stunty little caster at this point. Looking at the board, if I cannot win on my next turn, I am dead, because a Carnivean is going to eat Gorten (which is how my last game against Legion ended, actually.) I keep all the focus on myself, move up, and feat, dragging everything toward my table edge. Unfortunately, while this moves the Carnivean past me (and facing the wrong way, so I at least won't eat a charge next turn), it does not bring pLylyth into base with me. But she is in range of the gun, so I boost to hit and damage, but not quite killing her. Close, so close. But one gunbunny is not in melee with anything, so I take the aiming bonus, and score a lucky hit, killing her. Luck had a lot to do with the victory there - it was a "go big, or go home" moment, and, if the dice had not gone my way, I probably would have lost on my next turn.

Game #3

Different table, with the houses being replaced with stone columns, and a large hill with some obstructing terrain on it in the center. I was running the same list as before; hew was running the Skorne battlepack, plus a minimum unit of Beast Handlers and a Void Spirit. Now, think back to my list, and think about how few offensive spells and magic weapons I have. If you think that Void Spirit is going to be a problem for me, you have that right.

Both of us spent the first couple of turns moving up, with me casting my upkeeps and him sweeping around with that pesky Void Spirit. I scored first blood, putting some hurt on one of the Cyclops, but nothing that could not be healed. And, in exchange for the small amount of damage I put on the Cyclops, I wound up with a Void Spirit in the middle of the High Shield Corps, where it killed one outright, and another with Eruption of Ash. The Cyclops shut down the gunbunnies, and the Gladiator pretty much crushes one, and finishes off another.

I feat, move some things around, and try to kill stuff in return, but without much luck, thanks to pMorghul's feat. Thor manages to kill the Void Spirit, mainly by firing his spray into melee, and frankly, killing one of my own High Shield is worth the Void Spirit. But the turn ends with me well down on forces, and pMorghul mostly unhurt.

I don't recall the exact sequence of events for the next couple of turns, but the end result was that the driller was wounded, but not gone, and the gladiator had slammed Gorten out of the killbox, but naturally followed up. So Gorten starts out in base with the gladiator, and out of the killbox. Thor tunes up the Driller, and it kills off the one Cyclops that pMorghul can use for transfers. Gorten moves around the Gladiator, and back into the killbox, triggering a free strike, but putting him in a position where he can take two shots at pMorghul. Both are boosted, both hit, both damage rolls are boosted, and with no beast that can take damage, pMorghul dies.

It should be noted that the Skorne player, by all rights, should have been able to crush Gorten with the gladiator. Too many 3d6 damage rolls that failed to break 7, and I think there was at least one triple 1's for damage. On average rolls from my opponent, I would have lost. And, without some lucky rolls on my part, he would have won.