Circling Harder...!!

Haven't had a game for a bit... well, not one to write home about at least... though playing a couple 25pt games over at Lano's on Good Friday was a fair learning experience... including just how nasty heavy warbeasts can be in a single turn.

eKaya and a pack slapped eVlad about, while pKaya and two Warpwolves yoyo'd their way to Anthony's frustration, poor guy (after he smacked out the Rotterhorn & Gorax, the Feral one-rounded the Dire Troll Mauler and I spent the rest of the game shuffling around, charging and Spirit Door-ing... -_- ).

Anyway, on to today's event... as usual shaggy had his Khador to run through their paces and he opted to try out Kommandant Irusk for the first time, an infantry caster that he plumped for despite me saying I'd field Krueger, the Stormwrath... also for the first time:

So this guy:

vs.

With lots of bodies on the ground, lots of casualties were guaranteed:

Krueger, the Stormwrath (+5)
Druid Wilder (2)
Feral Warpwolf (9)
Warpwolf Stalker (10)
Woldwarden (9)
Blackclad Wayfarer (2)
Gallows Grove (1)
Shifting Stones (2)
Tharn Bloodweavers (5)

The pieces should be fairly straightforward... the Wolves were ARM crackers with the Stalker helping out with crowd control, the Warden could Geomancy Chain Lightning with the Wilder there for Fury maintenance and chucking Sprint about if she needed to. The Stones were always the Stones, and the Bloodweavers would be a prime target for Lightning Tendrils, cue creepy cackle!

And shaggy had:

Kommandant Irusk (+6)
War Dog (1)
Spriggan (10)
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich (2)
Reinholt, Gobber Speculator (1)
Iron Fang Pikemen, max + UA (10)
Widowmakers (4)
Winter Guard Field Gun Crew (2)
Winter Guard Infantry, max + UA & 3 Rocketeers (8 + 3)

I rolled Destruction on the SR2015 scenarios and chose Fuel Cache as my objective, while Jack chose Stockpile. As it turns out, neither of us could really take advantage of our objective bonuses, but no matter. I got first turn, and we deployed as below... *le sigh* more painting needs to be done... by both of us, but more me, I guess... *ahem*

And off we went. Everything Circle zoomed forwards... or in the Grove's case, de-rooted itself and popped up forwards, while Krueger cast Deflection for early game protection, Lightning Tendrils for later mischief on the Bloodweavers and ambled forwards. Jack did likewise, racing his Pikemen forward (charging through the forest, thanks to Relentless Charge) and popping Defensive Formation (Advance & Shield Wall... because he really needed his little bit of cheese, too! The rest was all mine!!) which meant he was already bossing the control zone by the end of the first round. The Snipers forgot the Bloodweavers had Stealth and couldn't do much but shrug, while everything raced forwards as best they could (Joe giving the Winter Guard Tough and Irusk giving them some extra DEF from Iron Flesh).

Second turn saw the Bloodweavers charge the Widowmakers and Winter Guard, killing a handful of them, mostly from Electro Leap. The real infantry munching was kicked off by the Blackclad, who sidled around the Circle objective and sprayed the Pikemen, killing a couple. The Stones phased away to hold up the Winter Guard and because of their high defense, Krueger shot the Stones with Chain Lightning to electrocute a few more of them. Then, Lightning Tendrils was cycled to the Feral Warpwolf who killed continued the Pikemen killing. A Geomancied Chain Lightning didn't have much of an impression on same Pikemen, so up came the Stalker who Berserk'd his way through a few of them as well. Though they took some casualties, they held. Back to Jack and his Winter Guard responded, killing half the Bloodweavers (who failed their command check), chopping the Grove down and scratching the Stones while also dealing some damage to the objective. Jack wasn't too pleased though and he would lose more to the dice than anything else. Even so, he feated for 4+ Tough across the board, and charged the Spriggan up which speared the Feral and slapped aside one of the Stones, preventing any further Teleportation tricks.

On the third turn, the Bloodweavers recovered, but could do little else, before the Feral and Stalker ganged up and made a wreck of the Spriggan while the Woldwarden made a hash of knocking out the Khador objective meaning he couldn't take a swipe at the Pikeman UA who was one of the few Khador models left in the zone. A few zaps of Lightning later and another spray from the Blackclad, Krueger feated, splatting three electrical storms right on top of the largely knocked down Winter Guard. While he made most of his Tough rolls, the amount of infantry hate poured on the footsloggers saw them whittled down quite severely. Here's where I buggered up, though... Krueger was out in the open and he almost paid for it. With only one transfer, the Warden absorbed one hit, but two boosted misses needing 9's to hit from Irusk (one from Reinholt's Reload) meant Krueger survived... with one... ONE... ONE!! hitbox. -_-

The counter-assassination run from the Feral settled the game, though I could have dominated for the win.

I snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, simply. As with all things in this game, mistakes can be capitalised upon mercilessly. As can bad luck. The attrition game was all mine and both of us knew it. All three heavy warbeasts were doing well and dishing out the damage while shaggy's force was reduced from 39 to only 10 at the end (while Krueger's army started with a modest 16 models... but suffered only 5 casualties). There was absolutely no need for Krueger to go into a dangerous place as he was, when he could just hide behind the objective and still feat from there. And since all the Winter Guard would be knocked down from the electrical damage, they would have to leave the feat AOE's to not die, but be unable to shoot. Therefore, lesson of the day... is the same as the first lesson: protect the caster/lock. Uh-duh! *ick*

For Jack, this was an unfortunate match-up since pKrueger is known for being thoroughly anti-infantry and more specifically, anti-single-wound infantry. Bad luck on the assassination attempt aside, pIrusk is not the best caster to drop against pKrueger and he acknowledged it in out customary post-game discussion. Maybe Butcher1 could have done better to deal with the Wolves... we might see this Thursday. -.-

Anyway, I seem to be Circling away and Circling pretty hard, so let's see where this all goes... like... shall I get myself a full unit of Tharn Wolf Riders for cheap?! Phil should've never offered, damn him and his ability to take my money off me!

Still, I'll probably put my thoughts down about the Kayas, since I've played with her(plural) a little and finally understand her various tricks, for both incarnations, even though it doesn't lessen the list-building headache much.

Bye for now.

B.

First Medium Based Infantry Unit... w~hoo! ¬_¬

Oh, look, I have a blog! ¬_¬

Anyway, first time in a while I've done a battle report, and this time, as I promised shaggy during week, I threw him a curve ball. His other half had bought him some Iron Fang Pikemen and was giving them a run-out with pButcher. As for me, I had taken delivery of some new stuff on Friday and feverishly set about assembling them and half-painting them yesterday. -_-

What, you may ask? Well, shaggy estimated that my curve ball was going to be my colossal (Hyperion) and that I'd bring it in a tier list with Adeptis Rahn (Fires From on High) and the thought had crossed my mind, but the general consensus is that FFoH doesn't work so well at points limits below 50, so I gave him a rather obtuse answer and left him to think.

So, what then? Well, Lano had played against them... a little, in the past and this was the first time I'd taken them down at Tanelorn, which, it has to be said, was rather disappointing for its turn-out today, unfortunately. Four guys turned up and only one game took place, which was a pity. But never mind, I got my learning experience in, as did Jack with his new acquisitions.

And... am I going to answer the question? Well, eventually!

Ta-da~:

Still need to paint their muzzles and the rest of the fur on their cloaks... and their Poleaxes etc. etc. etc. but for a couple hours' work while playing Rome: Total War... not bad by my standards... *ahem*

Yes, so Circle Orboros, and PaulO screamed 'CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE!' at me, but hey, at least I'm not chucking Bradigus/Wold War or eKrueger or Goatvahna... or Kromac HnR at shaggy. I was being nice... nice as in eKaya. -_-

Me being the silly phool that I am, forgot to take pics of the deployment. *sigh*

Anyway, a first for both of us:

Kaya, the Moonhunter (with her pet wolfie, Laris)

Kaya, the Moonhunter
Laris
Druid Wilder
Feral Warpwolf
Warpwolf Stalker
Rotterhorn Griffon
Shifting Stones
Warpborn Skinwalkers (max + Warpborn Alpha)

vs. Orsus Zoktavir, the Butcher-blahdi-blahdi-blah! =P

The Butcher
War Dog
Spriggan
Gorman, Rogue Alchemist
Kovnik Joe
Iron Fang Pikemen (max + UA)
Winter Guard Infantry (max, max Rocketeers + UA)
Widowmakers

We hearkened to olden times and played a mission out of SR-2013 because neither of us could be bothered to look up the 2015 edition and there was a hard copy of SR-2013 lying about... -_- (Incoming, with two zones and two objectives). Getting first turn but needing to set up with rough terrain on the left (Pathfinder galore, woohoo, Feral Warpwolf without, not so much, but he'd wade through it quickly enough) I set up my caster smack in the middle of the deployment zone, put Laris, then the Skinwalkers in a line on her left and the Druid Wilder on her left with the Rotterhorn further on. The rest of my force would AD (yeah, Call of the Wild tier 1 benefit, heavies get AD... wut?!), so over to shaggy. His pikemen went on his extreme right (on the other side of a forest), with the Spriggan on the near side in front of the Butcher, Gorman and the puppy. The WGDS rounded out the line. Back to me and the Stones set up in front of Kaya while the Wolves looked across from the Spriggan, while shaggy's marksmen set up shop on the hill in front of his control zone. Oh, and before we started, the Skinwalkers advance moved (tier 2 benefit) towards the Winter Guard.

And off we go. Kaya cast Shadow Pack & Forced Evolution on the Feral Warpwolf and everything ran, the Stones shifting forward and towards the right. Most of shaggy's force ran in response, but he took some speculative shots at the Skinwalkers (damn near everything else I had was Stealth'd). He outright killed one of them before he ended his turn with Gorman dropping a smoke screen around the Butcher.

Yay, Relentless Advance meant the Skinwalkers could charge and wreak havoc on the Winter Guard... with their DEF 12... with Bob 'n Weave... and Iron Flesh! DEF 17 made it annoying to do anything about, but amazingly, got two hits and cleaved a couple of the bearded buggers in twain. However... they forgot to take a drink afterwards (yeah, didn't kick Blood Drinker in). Then Kaya activated, cast Acceleration on the Druid Wilder, moved around the building and feated. Most of the beasts were now outside of CTRL range, but no matter. Feat negated it. The Stalker charged the pikemen with Berserk up and cleaned out five of them before zooming back to Kaya's side. The Feral went next and had to boost its speed to get close enough to the Spriggan to give it a clobber or six. Did respectable damage, but all of it was right down the middle of the 'jack's grid (more than half-damage dealt but no systems disabled). Laris chomped a pikeman as well while the Rotterhorn, stuck behind the building, could only run up. The Wilder then Conditioned the Feral and used Spirit Shift to have Kaya in shaggy's control zone to hopefully dominate next turn.

shaggy responded by running the pikemen into Kaya's zone to claim. The Spriggan waded in and poked two of the Skinwalkers to death, while the Winter Guard ambled around (one of them died to a free strike, at DEF 17 considering the model's points value... worth it!) and shot the Alpha, killing it with a couple CRA's.

Back to me and I actually made rather heavy work of winning it given that shaggy could have contested his zone to deny me the dominate (my bad, the Skinwalkers had no arc markings, but should have been alright in any event due to base size and proximity of the edge of the zone). The Skinwalkers took a few swipes at his objective, taking it down to 3. The heavies ran off to do stuff which was mostly unnecessary (the Feral managed a Sprint (from the Wilder) to contest Kaya's zone)... including (damn you, Lano for telling me about failed charges wrong! You're wrong for once!! Failed charge = Activation over, no side-swiping!) the Stalker getting nowhere near the WG UA. The Rotterhorn's shriek got rid of the nearest Khadorans from his zone while Laris finished his objective off. Kaya was still in the zone for the dominate, so 5-1 at the end of my third turn.

Thusly (a bad pic, but a pic nonetheless... -_- ):

An educational first go with eKaya... need to brush up on FURY arithmetic and permutations for the future, definitely. A couple games with and without the Gorax will see whether I need the cantankerous bastard or not!

B.

The Heroes' Path

Well, with the release of the Death Jester and Shadowseer today, it was rather obvious that I was going to acquire some... or a whole load... *ahem*

I took a bit of a risk when assembling the Death Jester (which was mildly annoying because of the way the top of his coat fits in place) because it'll be quite difficult to properly paint his trousers when fully assembled, but eh... I'm a poor painter at the best of times so it'll hardly matter. Either way, stonking model!

Herewith his fellow characters within the Masque:

For these three, I'll paint them all side by side and, hopefully, have them as a work in progress here (so long as I remain motivated to do so... chances are, I'll get suckered back by a new release for WarMachine... like yay! Moros is coming soon...! *ugh*). Moving on, both the Shadowseer and the Death Jester are pretty good sculpts, and personally, I consider them better than the Solitaire. The Death Jester is better than its metal/Finecast predecessor in particular, perched on a stone ruin, looking down at its next victim, his shrieker cannon held rather casually. The Shadowseer is also a great model as well, but isn't so different from its older version aside from the weapon option and the scenery. With pinky stuck out on her right hand, though, she's gloriously English!

Still, I like the lot, heroes old & new!

Now to let them make someone weep! -_-

For the hobby...(!)

Oh, the things we do for our hobbies...

And...

*ugh* Why do I do this?!

Anyway, X-Wing Miniatures' Scum & Villainy was released, Friday so I picked up the Most Wanted pack (because three ships, 2 Z-95 Headhunters and a Y-Wing, plus cards for six all for the price of two is a pretty good deal) and the StarViper (because it looks bizarrely cool). All told, the two expansions are pretty good. The colour scheme for the new faction-old ships is certainly more interesting than for the Rebels, while the StarViper brings in a new manoeuvre (3-slight-turn with a facing-flip, rather curious).

As for my Imperials, an interesting one is the Autothrusters Modification (long range/outside of firing arc evade buff) that'll mean that the Rebel large ships (Millennium Falcon and motley co...) will have a much harder time of it when being zapped by loads of Interceptors. Need to get a few games in again, though to check it out. As usual, though, the pilot abilities are a mixed bag, and there's a new add-on that looks to be intriguing.

And... back to the Harlequins...

Trickster Dice for the Trickster God...

Oh, the joys of retrieving stuff from one's attic & other cupboards and storage facilities... ¬_¬

Anyway, after a Sunday morning (... yes I'm so on the ball, aren't I?) of rummaging around, I found these!

From the back: 'Quins the New; 'Quins the Old; and 'Quins the Even Older. -_-

Pity I don't have 'Quins the Ancient to round out my (still) unpainted collection. And *sigh* yes... I did buy two Solitaires for teh lulz... -__- Hell, I've ordered a(nother) Dark Elf Shadowblade to do a converted Great Harlequin... its absence from the codex: 'Quins being a source of mild disappointment for me... have I mentioned that already? Eh... never mind.

More importantly, however, is that I've acquired... moar daiss!!

Ten limited edition, Eldar Harlequin themed dice in an appropriately chequered tin...

Right... so far so relatively mundane as far as dice go, but there's a faint colour tint to them... blue for three on the left, green for three on the right and grey-ish for the lower four. Turn them around and it becomes more obvious:

Ooooo, shiny! -__-

Yes, I am one of they who are easily awed by six-sided objects that hold infinite promises of victory, ever to be disappointed, but who cares, 'cos they look pretty!

Uh... yeah... I think I'll be using them tomorrow for Mordheim of all things... which will be a relief for shaggy... according to him, these dice are cursed! Ironically, they were first used for WarMachine. Uh... *ahem*

Bye for now... *I know... must paint more* *ugh*

B.

Quin Fix

Right... uh...

Yeah...

Uh-huh...

Ehm... yes, well... I went and got the Codex: Harlequins... Troupe Master Edition 169/900... Dunno what on earth possessed me to get it, but I got it nonetheless, and that money is now lost to me. However, judging by today's events, I'm not too hard-up about it, considering delivery companies in the UK are getting increasingly questionable (Dark Sphere don't have their pre-orders even though today is the release date and GW had the SE stuff yesterday afternoon).

Still... even though 'Eavy Metal's quality doesn't look as good as it used to be (colours aren't as smooth as I remember them... in bygone years... *ahem*) there was quite a lot of good stuff in the TME codex: the codex in hardback with an different cover (Codex: Harlequins); the painting guide (also with a different cover) (The Warriors of the Laughing God); and all gameplay related tokens and cards (thirty-six tactical objective cards including the six Harlequin specific ones and twenty-one psychic power cards including the Harlequin specific Phantasmancy Discipline, the others being Telepathy & Daemonology (Sanctic), the latter of which I have little familiarity with) (The Gifts of Cegorach). The tactical objectives and psychic powers are all backed in plain black, but have a subtle shimmering of the characteristic Harlequin check. The objective markers are smoky grey/black plastic diamonds numbered one to six and with the Harlequin faction symbol on them. And to top it off... all the pages of the codex & painting guide are gilt edged... fancy! -_-

I spent a bit of today looking over the codex, and now that I know the army list in its entirety, the Harlequins can be summed up with a familiar phrase: glass sword. I'd say "glass cannon", but all their shooting is pretty short range. Veil of Tears would make long ranged shooting both troll-worthy (for the 'Quin player) and, perhaps appropriately, tear-inducing in the enemy player. 24" seems to be the magic distance in the army. I need to brush up on a lot of special rules and mechanisms, but from what I can tell, there are some downright dirty synergies to be had here. Such as the Mask of Secrets on a character (I'm thinking the Solitaire so it can bounce around like a drunk hippy) surrounded by a large bubble of Fear causing models. Yeah... CHARGE, hitting first on 3's... and in all likelihood going to be hit back on 5's. Rising Crescendo alone will be enough to have Tau, Marine and other shooty factions' players crying cheese... I wryly wonder to myself... they're Eldar... where's Battle Focus?! *ahem*

Anyway, the 'Quins will certainly hit fast (yeah, very fast) and pretty damned hard, too... Furious Charge combined with the sheer number of attacks a single Troupe would bring (on the charge, a minimum unit has no fewer than twenty-one attacks) will clear out most infantry. Points vs. points, I don't think there's any non-vehicle non-monstrous creature unit in the game that would be able to go toe to toe against the Harlequins when they've been charged by them, especially when the special weapons come in. Outside of close combat, though, the 'Quins are appropriately quite vulnerable with the thin protection of the Starweaver or the Shadowseer's powers (most notable the Veil and Dance of Shadows) to help keep them relatively unscathed until they get to bury various weapons in their hecklers' innards (hey, a thespian is permitted a reaction!).

The question is therefore, now, how to go about building a list to reduce the Troupe's general flaw in that a 5+ Inv save is usually not enough to see them through an encounter? At first blush, there's either the mechanised route (Starweavers galore); or the Shadowseer route (attach a Shadowseer to each max Troupe and cast the Veil every turn). That said, the Shadowseer is pretty spunky herself, striking at I7 S6 on the charge, wounding on 2's, with 5 attacks. And if she has Fog of Dreams up, whoever she's fighting against will be flailing impotently, so she likely won't need that 5+ Inv of hers.

The other major weakness I observe is that the Quins have no real way of dealing with Flyers or heavy armour. No Skyfire and an insufficient shot count means flyers are able to dart in and hit them, while there's only a smattering of Fusion Pistols and Haywire Cannons to deal with vehicles. We'll see where this leads.

Here for your entertainment... -__-

B.

First Night at the Creative Biscuit

Riot of riotville let the gang know about a quaint little crafts-cafe in South Woodford where the proprietor is a WarMachine player with a hankering to get back into the game. Tim, genial chap though he is, clearly didn't realise what he was getting himself into, letting the rambunctious (as the evening proved) Nomads crash by.

It was a pretty good turn-out: Jeez-George; Macca; riot; shaggy; mr2key; jiri; DAMON; Neil; Russ; and of course our generous host, Tim. Lano, though, couldn't make it, which was a pity as he was the only gaming regular not present.

Ah well... on to dice-rolling. jiri & DAMON set up a small game of Warhammer Fantasy on one table, Macca and riot had a loud and jolly(!) time playing another Mordheim campaign game, Jeez-George and Russ floated from table to table while Tim, mr2key, shaggy and myself had a couple small games of WarMachine.

So, representing the Motherland!

Tim with Strakhov:

And shaggy with pVlad:

Representing the drunk Trolls, mr2key with... actually, I can't remember which caster he's got... I just get flashbacks of pFeora surrounded by flames... *ahem*:

And of course... my lot:

mr2key and shaggy had a quick 15pt game, while Tim and I went for 25pts (as he already had a list sorted). It being a very long time since he had had a game, we took it easy and introduced him to the various tricks and shenanigans (shaggy's favourite word... for pretty much everything I play!) that Retribution has (considering he had never faced them before). He was naturally a tad rusty, but knew his way around the elements of his force. I was, unfortunately for him, though, a tad slam-happy! Force Hammer and the Banshee's Momentum knocked things about and in turn 3, I noticed an opportunity and we went through my assassination run. We chatted for a few minutes while mr2key (who forgot about his Trollkin Champs having 8 hitboxes each!) was gradually cleaned up by shaggy who is now thoroughly addicted to Signs & Portents and the WGDS's mass of sprays! Strakhov is a new caster as far as my experience against goes, and though I know his feat (probably better to play Rahn rather than Kaelyssa given that her feat makes it impossible for him to do likewise) and immunities, I knew little else. A few neat spells makes him a curious Khador caster, the notoriously ponderous faction... and in Tim's case, a nicely painted army, too!

There was then (just) enough time for me and mr2key to play 15pts (almost all of which was painted! w00t!):

pFeora
Vanquisher
max. Exemplar Cinerators
Nicia, Tear of Vengeance
and a Vassal of Menoth (wrong model, though, I think he used a Choir leader... well, some dude with a cross on a stick... either way, AKA 'the boobs', as one model he's used on previous occasions is basically a nekkid woman in the wrong scale made by Reaper! Heh!)

vs.

Kaelyssa (PLEASE let that be pKaelyssa with the coming of Reckoning... even though rumours are it'll be eRahn we'll get... *sigh*)
Banshee
Fane Knight Skeryth
Narn
Arcanist
House Shyeel Artificer

Well, the gist of it was that we ran at each other, the Vassal kept doing Ancillary Attack on the Vanquisher and the Banshee was set on fire, but it went out pretty quick. And depleting focus (two boosted attempts of Arc' Bolts against Nicia... both missed)... the Banshee, though, moved to within Stealth range and flying off she went. -_-

The next time he tried it, though, he set his own Cinerators on fire! Turn 2, I feated, and he ran to engage.

The Banshee proceeded to fluff his lines and hit twice out of five attacks with fives to hit! Uh-doi!! *ugh* Thankfully, their return hits (they oddly don't have Reach... even though I compared their swords to the Sentinels' Great Swords... which proved to be much shorter... yet gave my chaps Reach... uh-wha?!) didn't do much either. In the meantime, Feora was off blasting Narn in the face, which seemed rather petty tit-for-tat... my acrobat for yours!

Feora turned away from that and feated herself just as the Banshee and the Pain Knight continued clobbering the Cinerators. Enliven put on the Vanquisher turned out to be pointless as Kae Arc'Bolted it letting the Pain Knight poke it a couple times for good measure. However, she was starting to get a bit crispy...!

Yeah, the fire went out on the Banshee... even though it needed the help least! *sigh* Anyway, after Kae was primely placed needing to help the Knight out, Feora legged it in to pour some more fiery hate on her. Her first flamethrower hit took Kae down to 6... the second... down to 5! But that's the end of the good news for me, she remained on fire and I rolled an 11 for damage... more lemons!!

LAWL!!

And that was literally the last roll of the dice for the evening! Thankee Tim, hope to see you again soon, thankee riot for setting the whole thing up, thankee mr2key for the ride home, thankee shaggy... actually, I'm not thanking you! =P

B.