Khador vs Cygnar battle report

 

15pts Warmahordes tourney madness!

This last saturday I went into my 3rd Warmahordes tournament ever. It was a kickass 15pts tourney with one list and no restrictions. Needless to say there was so much crazy stuff and combos it was pure fun.

There were 10 players, and the armies were 2 Khador (one was me), 2 Cygnar (both with eHaley… go figure), 1 Troll, 1 Merc, 1 Minion (Gators), 1 Circle, 1 Retribution, and for the love of God I cannot recall the last player.

Three rounds, each with a SR12 scenario. I was a bit bummed that the first one was caster kill + killbox. Funny thing is one of the best (if not THE best) players, possibly in the whole country, lost due to getting his caster out of the killbox… volutarily!!!

I brought pIrusk with a Kodiak, War dog, min Demo Corps and Doom Reavers. I played against the kickass Gator list first round. We had played before a few times and that list is REALLY good. Sorry I cannot list it cause I know shit about gators, but it was warlock (feat knocked everything down) with a heavy and a light, plus a unit of gator warriors with spears in medium bases. Was a Tier list too so he had a few swamps on the table before the game!! I lost that one even when my feat nullified his. I just moved those Demo Corps half an inch too far on the 2nd turn.

CLICK THE PICTURE FOR THE SLIDESHOW

Second round was destruction and up against one of the eHailey lists. The player is really good and a great guy I’ve played against many times. He had with her a Stormclad and a Charger, and the B13. He had to kill my whole army before getting to my caster but I still hate that caster so freaking much.

Third round I was up against the Merc player running McBain with Cylenna Raefill’s unit (sp?) and two heavies. The army was beautifully painted by the Gator player who has talent to spare. Probably the prettiest army, close to the ever gorgeous Ret army that you see on all my tourney reports.

Scenario was incursion, one I love and know how to play. Left flag went away, and my Reavers were controlling the right one but he did good on dealing with them. I feated simply to kill one of his contesting infantry guys with a Demo Corp and running the other two, plus the few remaining Reavers up the field and sit there with super tough and no knockdown. The Kodiak advanced and killed a couple of infantry guys as well. He pushed forward as much as he could. He tried, honestly, but the very few super tough rolls I made (I made VERY few during the whole tourney) were the ones that counted. He finished his turn feating, making his infantry immortal, with one of them contesting a flag. I already had 1 point from last turn.

I thought a few mins and basically told him what I was gonna do, but it was game over without doing it. I would give the Kodiak 1 focus to make a simple push. Even if I rolled a 1 and he rolled a 6 on the STR check, the immortal infantry guy was gonna be pushed 1 inch away, no longer contesting the flag. Then my 2 remaining Demo Corps would score on one flag and Irusk would just run btb with the other one to score the 3rd remaining point. I love playing tactical scenarios and specially incursion, so I was glad with the victory.

In the end I finished 6th of 10, where I usually end up O.o

The Gator player won the tourney beating the other Khador player in the last round. The winner was gonna be champion, which was pretty amazing since the other Khador player (running Strakhov) is pretty new to the game.

My girlfriend and another friend went to check it out, but they both brought 15 points of models. I played a few rounds with my friend during the tourneys lunch break to show him the strings. He enjoyed it and loved the tourney, specially the fun environment all around, which is completely normal for Warmachine events compared to other games. My gf got there to see my last battle and after that the Cryx player offered to play a lil game against her “battlebox” 15 points (see pink Khador army in the gallery). Of course it was over in 2 rounds even with a scenario. The Cryx list was insane (for tourney of course) with eSkarre, Deathjack, Bane Thralls and some crazy ass solo. But the point was that she got to play with someone who isn’t me, and got her ass kicked by hated Cryx (and a great player… and a crazy ass list… and…) so I was a lot of fun either way.

As usual, great fun, great armies, and great ass kicking all over the place. Next tourney is couples, 25pts each player tournament. And the couples are matched randomly before the first round. Hope I can play that, sounds like a blast.

 

Vlad vs. Makeda. Mucho pain.

Played a game today. I’m going on summer vacation on Friday so was very pleased to sneak a game in the middle of the week. Got my Khador against a friend’s Skorne at 35 points. Be mindful the list was made with the available models, so Makeda’s feat was basically useless and he was a point short. Also, the Cryx Slayer was proxying for Tyrant Radiem, who was taken for a spin. His list was:

Archdomina Makeda (*5pts)
* Cyclops Savage (5pts)
* Bronzeback Titan (10pts)
* Molik Karn (11pts)
* Titan Gladiator (8pts)
Tyrant Rhadiem (5pts)

My list was this one:

Vladimir, The Dark Prince (*5pts)
* Juggernaut (7pts)
* Juggernaut (7pts)
* Kodiak (8pts)
* War dog (1pts)
Doom Reavers (Leader and 5 Grunts) (6pts)
* Greylord Escort (2pts)
Man-o-war Shocktroopers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)

Caster kill, big forest in the middle of the board and tons of cover spread about. I deployed and took first turn, did so on my left. Everything behind a wall of Shocktroopers and the Doom Reavers flanking on the extreme left. He was basically in the middle to-his-right of the board with the exception of the dragoon (proxy) solo.

Oh by the way, I painted the War Dog last night just because it was embarrassing he was the only unpainted fig on my army. Pics soon.

So first turn we both walked/ran forward with the exception of my Reavers who went to really flank, and run till the middle of the board.

My second turn I advanced the shield wall over the cover and spread my jacks and the Reavers.

On his second turn he got a bit too close. Not a lot, but enough to let me get some charges in. Despite having Vlad’s awesome feat (making jacks charge 11″) for later, I still got to charge in which was a nice change for… well… for every single battle I play. The Shocktroopers charged the Bronzeback except for one and did more than decent damage, while only two Reavers reached the other Titan making some good damage themselves. Jacks repositioned with the Kodiak facing the forest where the dragoon hid.

On his next turn he proceeded to decimate my infantry. The Gladiator got rid of two Reavers while Molik freakin-Karn went on to kill 2 more and the Greylord. He would have killed every single one of them if they were closer together and his Titan wasn’t blocking him. The Bronzeback single-handedly destroyed 4 out of 5 Shocktroopers, and that’s only because the fifth was behind the battleline. God that bastard hits hard. The Dragoon somehow thought he would hurt the Kodiak, which he didn’t that much.

On my next turn, it was feat time. But most importantly, it was almost game over. Of the two Reavers that stayed alive, one was in charge range of Makeda. He did, and took every hit point but two of the damn warlock. The other one charged the Gladiator and killed it! Kodiak dismounted the dragoon and the remaining Manowar charged to finish him. One Juggernaut finished the Bronzeback  and the other one charged Molik goddamnyou-Karn. Critical freeze, he makes me reroll. Crit freeze, reroll. Fail the attack finally (with 4 dice… boosted + Signs and Portents). Hit with hand for an awesome 6 damage. That’s what he did on feat turn with S&P and a focus on him.

After that Makeda had to deal with the Reaver, so did the Cyclops Savage (and only because that single Reaver was still a threat to Makeda), and Molik hahaha-Karn failed his Threshold test which meant he did a bit of damage on my Juggy and nothing more. Best part is my opponent moved Makeda a bit too far from him.

Next turn the Juggy finished Molik out-of-range Karn (no rerolls biatch!). The other one Boundlessly Charged the remaining Cyclops and the Kodiak made an epic millimeter close run through the forest to engage Makeda.

Next turn she did a bit of damage to the Kodiak, but the Kodiak crushed her on the next turn.

It was a great game and I find myself so comfortable playing against an army that has a similar playstyle and characteristics as mine. I must have played against Skorne only once or twice before, but I can “see” everything almost clearly from the get-go. Something that doens’t happen to me against other trickier armies.

 

Hold the gates!

Last week a painting article. This Wednesday it’s battle report time!

This is from long ago. One “Small Table Game Day” when my gf and I played a couple of Warmachine games (already somewhere in the blog) and in between those we played a quick LotR game. The scenario is one from the Khazad-dum book and has dwarves protecting the giant mountainside door mechanism so goblins cannot enter from the other side. I ran the goblins trying to open the gates while she ran the dwarves.

I had 10 turs to do it, and every goblin dead had a chance to enter back into the game on the next turn. I actually won on the 10th turn, which was the most exciting part of the game. Not a lot happened otherwise as it’s usual on LotR published scenarios. Not a lot of tactical depth either. I find I enjoy this game more with my Isildur’s Bane solitaire hack which adds a lot of uncertainty to an otherwise dull gameplay. Most of the pics were taken by her, therefore they don’t suck. Also, that good camera (my brother’s) got recently stolen, so I’m sharing this mainly cause of the great pics. Enjoy!

       

 

Big and small.

During the weekend I got to play a couple of Chronicles of Blood games, both very different from each other.

The first one was a big battle using roughly the example forces from the basic rules, but in a two player game. Taught my girlfriend the rules and we just bashed it. The second one was inspired by some stuff I’ve seen online, and was a solo game with the exact same armies, but instead of using regiments, every playing piece was a single figure. Amazing how this game adapts.

Onto the details.

First game: big battles on Middle-earth.

In case you wonder, the bases I use are the same I made for War of the Ring. They measure 11x6cm, and fit 8 figures in 25mm round bases. Since I made those myself and are not the GW’s ones with the slots I also placed cavalry models there. Three 40mm round based models fit on those if you snuggle them (you’ll notice they’re all in a somewhat triangular formation). In retrospective, I think the WotR cavalry bases (which are smaller and carry 2 models) would work just as well as long as both armies are based the same. I just liked the look of this basing.

I was playing the Light side while she was playing the Dark side, 50 pts, example army lists with some changes specially on the Light side. Here you can see some useful accessories for this game. Tape measure in cms, the dice used for the game, some business cards where I put the stats for each regiment, a Dystopian Wars 45 degrees turning template useful for pivots and LOS, red turn marker die and some chips to remember which regiments need to check Morale at the end of the turn.

The terrain had two hills and a woods (yeah, too lazy to put the trees on, sorry). They were all rough terrain for movement, the hills provided unobstructed LOS if you were on top and of course blocked it, and the woods gave +1 Armor cover if completely inside against Archery.

Just a good old deploy and scrum in the centre. I deployed some archers on a flank and my girlfriend bunched up in the middle. There were no heroes since I was just teaching the basics. Armies advanced almost as they deployed for the first turn. My archers started firing from the beginning.

After a few charges, it was amazing how fast the Dark side was getting wiped. The Demons (represented by Uruk-hai in this game) failed their first Morale roll and they were gone. But otherwise, every time I got to hit, I hit high enough to wipe units out, something that doesn’t happen that often.

The little cards behind the units are how my gf identified her troops. Such an easy time with those business cards.

Her right flank was pretty much wiped out by my dwarves and cavalry, the elves holding in the centre and puny humans giving the Death Knights a run for their money. At this point I noticed we were not rolling for random events, which would have been a lot of fun.

It was pretty much a one-sided battle. You can see the end of the battle below as well as the casualties for both sides. I only lost a couple of regiments. Fun game, and taught the system in probably just one turn. She never played “massed” battles before so she was getting her own units in the way most of the time. Nothing that practice can’t help.

Second game: skimish on the field.

Next battle had the same exact forces. It was a solo game, but this time I deployed one figure for each regiment, turning it into a skirmish game. The only change I did was to remove most movement limitations and giving every figure 360 degree LOS. This time I also put a river on the table which didn’t do much but basically shrank the playing surface a bit.

I deployed and the evil side got first turn since they were the ones ran by the game system. One great aspect of this game is the fact that allowing premeasuring all the time lets you take complete advantage of all the special rules, specially the Charge!, forcing good tactical decisions. One good charge in the right moment can decimate a figure, even from low Fight troops like the skeleton riders.

Right at about the second light turn, a random event comes up, and one of my Gondor warriors loses nerve and runs the hell away from the battlefield. This was to set the tone of the battle. The skeleton riders decide to use their better move to go hunt the elf archers on the hill, while orcs and goblins protected their flank from the light cavalry and dwarf.

Of course they get to wipe the elves after a few charges.

The goblins get a rush of courage and just keep winning fights against elves and dwarves, even doing damage to them. The warg rider with the uruk just cannot subdue the lonely man of Gondor.

Casualties were piling up for the light side, fifth and last turn coming up for them, and of course a 1 is rolled on the d4 for random events. Traitor!

Only the dwarf warrior and the man of Gondor remained, but the random event determined the man was, after all, won over by the dark powers. He turns into a traitor leaving the dwarf alone against pretty much the whole dark force.

The battle was stopped there. Nobody knows whether the son of Durin fled, or died fighting. An appropriately mysterious finale to a great battle.

As usual, an amazing game that just screams ideas into my brain for new rules and experiments. I’ll have to try the few scenarios presented in the new expansion now.