The "In the Face" Edition
Welcome to this very special “I like to shoot my enemies in the face” episode of Gamehole.com!
I managed to sneak a couple of games in this week, and with a bit o’ dice luck I continued the winning streak. It was another double-header – this time I started out with some “training operations”, pitting my Siege against Epic Nemo. For the second game Stryker squared off against Epic Kreoss. Once again, I’ll file a battle report, and once again, I didn’t take any notes, so this will be about as accurate as my memory. Also – my wife took the good digital camera on her trip to see her sister and left me with an eight year old relic of a digital camera… So while there are pictures, the quality is a bit poor. Yeah, I’m kinda half-assing my way through this one.
Game One: Siege vs. Nemo – Training Exercises
Siege says: “I likes to shoot me some old man in the face.”
I call this list "Boom-boom long time." Here is what the match-up looked like for the first game:
Game One Deployment
Turn 1
Me: Trenchers advance a few more inches, and dig in again. Long gunners take up a hilltop position. Everybody else runs. Jr. throws up the obligatory Arcane Shield on the Sword Knights.
Jen: The piper plays Dirge of Mists on the Stormguard, everybody runs. Stormsmith lightning calls on a trencher, and kills him. Her GMCA picks off a long gunner from the front rank. Two can play at that game buddy-boy.
At the end of Turn 1
Turn 2
Me: My trencher sniper shoots and kills one of the Stormguard. Not so fun getting sniped, is it? I pop off a couple of three-man and one four-man trencher CRAs to take out 3 more Stormguard. That’s not going to be enough – I can tell now that a lot of trenchers are going to die next round. Long gunners advance behind a hedge and split targets – five of them CRA the GMCA, the other four shoot the Stormsmith. Both die. Long gunners feel avenged. My defender comes forward with a couple of focus on him and blasts Thorn, doing moderate damage, but more importantly taking out the arc node! Siege moves up and throws a ground pounder into the backfield, putting some damage on the T-Head, killing a Stormsmith, and boosting to kill the Stormguard unit leader. At least there won’t be a charge. The Sword Knights can smell the ozone gathering on the T-Heads lightning coils… rather than lose 'em all on Jen’s turn, I decide to back them off and position them to countercharge the Stormguard.
Jen: Thunderhead moves up and pulses, but has some bad rolls – doesn’t manage to catch Seige or Reinholt, but does take out the squire and a fair amount of trenchers. Then the Stormguard advance and decimate what was left of the trenchers. Her last Stormsmith takes out the sniper from the supposed safety of his grassy knoll. I now have 1 trencher left - that’s is what you call a 179 point speed bump, ladies and gents. The neutered Thorn decided to try and earn his points by charging the Defender – and he manages to take out the defenders cortex and disrupt him. Nemo advances, and builds a wall around himself with Reinholdt, the Squire, a Bokur and Ol’ Rowdy.
At the end of Turn 2
Me: I think see how I can get it done this turn, so with a deep breath I set things into motion. First order of business is to try and free up the defender – I’m going to take a run at Nemo, and I’d like to use him to pitch clean up if necessary… So, Sword knights charge in. They manage to tear up Thorn pretty well, but can’t take him out. So, I end up having to use the defender to finish him – I disable him, but he’s still not destroyed – and the defender is out for the assassination attempt.
Next order of business is to try and kill off her Journeyman to get the arcane shield off of Nemo. The remaining trencher lieutenant takes a shot, and hits, taking out three boxes. Now my Jr. has to finish it – he climbs up on the hill, boosts his shot and…misses. I’m going to have to do this with arcane shield on the old man… Siege grumbles “Morrow, do I have to do everything myself,” as he and his sidekick Reinholdt move up into the one clear line to Nemo. Siege pops his feat, and then he drops a Ground Pounder on Nemo, the other Reinholt, the Squire and the Bokur. (I’m careful not to catch Rowdy in the AOE, as I want to save his half armor damage roll for a long gunner CRA in case the assassination run doesn’t work out…) Luckily that won’t be necessary. The boosted ground pounder takes Siege down to 4 wounds, and then the follow up rocket shot (thanks to Reinholdt and reload) kills the old man. In the face.
End Game: Rocket to the face hole.
Here is what the lists that came out in the second game:
Game 2 Deployment
Me: I’ve ran this list before, and it still feels like a dirty trick even though it is neither particularly dirty nor tricky. Okay, it may be a little bit dirty. Anyway, I won the initiative roll, so I go first. I don’t run because I spend all of my focus on casting a +7 snipe on the Stormblades. 14 inches of POW 15 lightning with 7 shots? Yes please. Add in the Stormclad and it arcs! My initial advance puts the Stormblades within killing range of the Exemplars Errant, and they start to lob the lighting. Between Black 13th long shots and lightning blasts, I manage to kill five of the Errants. Sword Knights advance with their jack escort, and Jr. casts Arcane Shield on the Sword Knights.
End of Turn 1
Turn 2
Me: This was a huge turn with lots of killing on both sides… I used some long range lightning blasts to kill all but two of the exemplars on my right flank, and then killed off that Seneschal when I was done with them. The Black 13th tried to finish off the Errants and the left-flank Seneschal (unfortunately he healed when the sword knights charged in to clean up the last of the Errants.) I ran the lancer across the battlefield to drop an earthquake on the left-flank unit of Exemplars, and then seeing an opportunity I used an arcane bolt to take out that second Seneschal permanently. The good news: that made me happy, because I hate Seneschals. The bad news: The Errants had sacrosanct on them, so I would be be losing some activations next turn. The Centurion continued to crawl forward, as I had no focus to spare for him to run.
Jen: Ran the Fire of Salvation up to the sword knights and killed 3 with his Holy Fervor imprint. That thing is nasty! The Blessing of Vengeance arcs a cleansing fire into my front lines, killing even more. I’m down to two Sword Knights and the UA. I’m thinking I should have popped me feat – of course that’s how it usually works with Stryker.
End of Turn 2
Turn 3
Me: I’m not much of an assassination guy, but it was pretty clear at this point that I needed to bring this to a close quickly if I wanted to have any chance of winning. I had lost the bulk of my Sword Knights, and she still has two completely healthy units of exemplars, a Bokur, and an unscathed Fire of Salvation on the table. Good news is I see a way to get it done, but as always, if I fail I’m going to get punished next turn.
I move up the Lancer, cast and earthquake right in the middle of everything. I drop almost everything in the center of her army, including the Hierophant that was screening eKreoss. I charge the Sword Knights in and scrap the arc node (although thanks to Excessive Repel, he could knock them back, limited them to only one shot each.) The Black 13th mounted the grassy knoll that was recently vacated by the sword knights. The earthquake had dropped everyone that was screening eKreoss, and I had him within 12 inches, wide open. Lynch hits him for some damage, Watts misses, but Ryan (oh, sweet Ryan) hits him twice and then gets off the chain attack, piling on a metric shit-ton of damage. eKroess goes down for the win.
Turn 3: Bullets. To the Face. Notice all the "Knockdown" tokens from the quake.
WRAP-UP
I managed to sneak a couple of games in this week, and with a bit o’ dice luck I continued the winning streak. It was another double-header – this time I started out with some “training operations”, pitting my Siege against Epic Nemo. For the second game Stryker squared off against Epic Kreoss. Once again, I’ll file a battle report, and once again, I didn’t take any notes, so this will be about as accurate as my memory. Also – my wife took the good digital camera on her trip to see her sister and left me with an eight year old relic of a digital camera… So while there are pictures, the quality is a bit poor. Yeah, I’m kinda half-assing my way through this one.
Game One: Siege vs. Nemo – Training Exercises
Siege says: “I likes to shoot me some old man in the face.”
I call this list "Boom-boom long time." Here is what the match-up looked like for the first game:
My Cygnar Army (748 pts, 22 VPs)
| Jen's Cygnar (747 pts, 27 VPs)
|
Game One DeploymentTurn 1
Me: Trenchers advance a few more inches, and dig in again. Long gunners take up a hilltop position. Everybody else runs. Jr. throws up the obligatory Arcane Shield on the Sword Knights.
Jen: The piper plays Dirge of Mists on the Stormguard, everybody runs. Stormsmith lightning calls on a trencher, and kills him. Her GMCA picks off a long gunner from the front rank. Two can play at that game buddy-boy.
At the end of Turn 1Turn 2
Me: My trencher sniper shoots and kills one of the Stormguard. Not so fun getting sniped, is it? I pop off a couple of three-man and one four-man trencher CRAs to take out 3 more Stormguard. That’s not going to be enough – I can tell now that a lot of trenchers are going to die next round. Long gunners advance behind a hedge and split targets – five of them CRA the GMCA, the other four shoot the Stormsmith. Both die. Long gunners feel avenged. My defender comes forward with a couple of focus on him and blasts Thorn, doing moderate damage, but more importantly taking out the arc node! Siege moves up and throws a ground pounder into the backfield, putting some damage on the T-Head, killing a Stormsmith, and boosting to kill the Stormguard unit leader. At least there won’t be a charge. The Sword Knights can smell the ozone gathering on the T-Heads lightning coils… rather than lose 'em all on Jen’s turn, I decide to back them off and position them to countercharge the Stormguard.
Jen: Thunderhead moves up and pulses, but has some bad rolls – doesn’t manage to catch Seige or Reinholt, but does take out the squire and a fair amount of trenchers. Then the Stormguard advance and decimate what was left of the trenchers. Her last Stormsmith takes out the sniper from the supposed safety of his grassy knoll. I now have 1 trencher left - that’s is what you call a 179 point speed bump, ladies and gents. The neutered Thorn decided to try and earn his points by charging the Defender – and he manages to take out the defenders cortex and disrupt him. Nemo advances, and builds a wall around himself with Reinholdt, the Squire, a Bokur and Ol’ Rowdy.
At the end of Turn 2 Turn 3
Me: I think see how I can get it done this turn, so with a deep breath I set things into motion. First order of business is to try and free up the defender – I’m going to take a run at Nemo, and I’d like to use him to pitch clean up if necessary… So, Sword knights charge in. They manage to tear up Thorn pretty well, but can’t take him out. So, I end up having to use the defender to finish him – I disable him, but he’s still not destroyed – and the defender is out for the assassination attempt.
Next order of business is to try and kill off her Journeyman to get the arcane shield off of Nemo. The remaining trencher lieutenant takes a shot, and hits, taking out three boxes. Now my Jr. has to finish it – he climbs up on the hill, boosts his shot and…misses. I’m going to have to do this with arcane shield on the old man… Siege grumbles “Morrow, do I have to do everything myself,” as he and his sidekick Reinholdt move up into the one clear line to Nemo. Siege pops his feat, and then he drops a Ground Pounder on Nemo, the other Reinholt, the Squire and the Bokur. (I’m careful not to catch Rowdy in the AOE, as I want to save his half armor damage roll for a long gunner CRA in case the assassination run doesn’t work out…) Luckily that won’t be necessary. The boosted ground pounder takes Siege down to 4 wounds, and then the follow up rocket shot (thanks to Reinholdt and reload) kills the old man. In the face.
End Game: Rocket to the face hole.GAME 2 – Stryker vs. eKreoss
Gun Mage Ryan says: “I likes to shoot me some Menite zealots in the face.”
Gun Mage Ryan says: “I likes to shoot me some Menite zealots in the face.”
Here is what the lists that came out in the second game:
My Cygnar Army (747 pts, 23 VPs)
| Jen's Menoth (749 pts, 27 VPs)
|
Game 2 DeploymentTurn 1
Me: I’ve ran this list before, and it still feels like a dirty trick even though it is neither particularly dirty nor tricky. Okay, it may be a little bit dirty. Anyway, I won the initiative roll, so I go first. I don’t run because I spend all of my focus on casting a +7 snipe on the Stormblades. 14 inches of POW 15 lightning with 7 shots? Yes please. Add in the Stormclad and it arcs! My initial advance puts the Stormblades within killing range of the Exemplars Errant, and they start to lob the lighting. Between Black 13th long shots and lightning blasts, I manage to kill five of the Errants. Sword Knights advance with their jack escort, and Jr. casts Arcane Shield on the Sword Knights.
Jen: Exemplars got some revenge, and shot up a couple of sword knights. Knights Exemplar rushed forward on both flanks. A whole bunch of Menoth-y bullshit got cast that would make me suck anytime I tried to kill anything. Choir sang “no shooty” as the ‘jacks marched forth.
End of Turn 1Turn 2
Me: This was a huge turn with lots of killing on both sides… I used some long range lightning blasts to kill all but two of the exemplars on my right flank, and then killed off that Seneschal when I was done with them. The Black 13th tried to finish off the Errants and the left-flank Seneschal (unfortunately he healed when the sword knights charged in to clean up the last of the Errants.) I ran the lancer across the battlefield to drop an earthquake on the left-flank unit of Exemplars, and then seeing an opportunity I used an arcane bolt to take out that second Seneschal permanently. The good news: that made me happy, because I hate Seneschals. The bad news: The Errants had sacrosanct on them, so I would be be losing some activations next turn. The Centurion continued to crawl forward, as I had no focus to spare for him to run.
Jen: Ran the Fire of Salvation up to the sword knights and killed 3 with his Holy Fervor imprint. That thing is nasty! The Blessing of Vengeance arcs a cleansing fire into my front lines, killing even more. I’m down to two Sword Knights and the UA. I’m thinking I should have popped me feat – of course that’s how it usually works with Stryker.
End of Turn 2Turn 3
Me: I’m not much of an assassination guy, but it was pretty clear at this point that I needed to bring this to a close quickly if I wanted to have any chance of winning. I had lost the bulk of my Sword Knights, and she still has two completely healthy units of exemplars, a Bokur, and an unscathed Fire of Salvation on the table. Good news is I see a way to get it done, but as always, if I fail I’m going to get punished next turn.
I move up the Lancer, cast and earthquake right in the middle of everything. I drop almost everything in the center of her army, including the Hierophant that was screening eKreoss. I charge the Sword Knights in and scrap the arc node (although thanks to Excessive Repel, he could knock them back, limited them to only one shot each.) The Black 13th mounted the grassy knoll that was recently vacated by the sword knights. The earthquake had dropped everyone that was screening eKreoss, and I had him within 12 inches, wide open. Lynch hits him for some damage, Watts misses, but Ryan (oh, sweet Ryan) hits him twice and then gets off the chain attack, piling on a metric shit-ton of damage. eKroess goes down for the win.
Turn 3: Bullets. To the Face. Notice all the "Knockdown" tokens from the quake.WRAP-UP
All in all, it was couple of really good, close games. Jen is a great sparring partner and a great sport, and we’re both getting faster and better at running our games. A few months back we were going five or six rounds, but now we are ending games in turn three. It’s always fun to play against your own army, just because you know what everything does so well it is like playing in a chess match. Menoth is still frustrating as hell for me, but I guess that’s kind of what they do. Either way, still enjoying trying out new lists and getting to know my units. I probably need to shelf the Sword Knights for a while - it's getting to be kind of a weird, co-dependant thing...
Labels: miniatures, wargaming, Warmachine
You do some of the best battle reports! For not taking notes, you remember more than I ever could. I think the pictures really add a lot, too. I need to remember to take my camera to more of my games...
Posted by
Redfinnegas |
4:50 AM
That's it! I'm playing Mercs now! That way, if I lose, I won't be surprised. Enough of this "faction" crap. I'm all about getting the rogues, miscreants, felons and sell swords. No more goody-two-shoes Cygnar or holier-than-thou Protectorate.
We're doin' it for the money!
(Though I will still take my eCaine/Ashlynn 1k list against you the next time we play!)
Posted by
ghettokorestudios |
12:32 AM