Was feeling mostly ew/sick today and was planning on staring at computer and typing out stuff, but Chip came in and asked me to play a Warmachine team game w/ him, John and another guy, so I did. It was fun, even if exhausting toward the end.
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This post summarizes the game I played against Sean today, Jan 26th, 2013: Cryx's pDeneghra vs Cygnar's Siege, 50 pts. Siege was able to pull off a risky feat assassination on Deneghra after her feat, because of a ranger and Mage Sight. Due to the necessity of time, I've had to significantly shorten these battle reports from what I was originally doing, though I hope to get back into longer ones eventually. Lists Sean's - 50 pts - Cryx - pDeneghra Kraken Night wretch (2x, cryx bonejack, a.k.a. "bone chickens") Pistol wraith (2x, solo) Scrap thrall (solo) Necrotech (solo) Master Gunner Dougal Macnaile (merc solo) Blackbane's Ghost Raiders (unit) Cylena Raefyll and Nyss hunters (merc unit) Mine - 50 pts - Cygnar - Siege Stormwall Black 13th Rangers Gun mages + attachment Boomhowlers Reinholdt Stormcallers (2x) Versh Junior Squire My Setup Boomhowlers on the left with Junior behind them, rangers ended up on the right in the forest. Others on the right include the gun mages, Black 13th and Siege and company. We counted the trees to be forest and the center island to be a hill. That terrain in front of Sean we just said was nothing, except the rock stumps were obstacles.
Sean's Setup Ghost raiders on the left, then pDeneghra, Kraken, the Nyss hunters
End Turn 1A (me) Discussion
I ran everything up and had Junior cast arcane shield on the boomhowlers, which called 4+ tough throughout the game. The rangers and Black 13th went into the forest. Unfortunately, I spaced the rangers and gun mages too closely together, as will soon become evident. I wasn't sure where to put everything. There were a lot of units. I forgot to put out the Stormwall's lightning pod. End Turn 1B (Sean) Discussion
The Kraken 4" aoe-ed my gun mages to death and all but two of them died. Range 16 is a very lovely range on those guns. I didn't realize he had an aoe. >.> The Kraken also picked off a ranger or two with single shots, I think. The Nyss hunters moved up, but didn't do anything. The single model off to the right is the scrapper solo, which is basically a suicide bomber that blows up. I think he's a 4" aoe pow 16 when he blows up. The bone chicken on the left there arc noded pDeneghra's crippling grasp (-2 spd, str, def, arm, no run or charge, no special attacks) on the boomhowlers while the ghost raiders came up behind it. End Turn 2A (me) Discussion
Siege gave the Stormwall three focus. Junior upkept arcane shield. It missed the Kraken with its left big gun and put 11 damage on it via its right big gun. I put out covering fire templates with the small guns, but it was mentioned that yeah, they wouldn't do much against ghost raiders. Ghost raiders are incorporeal and don't care about the templates. The Stormwall also shot a lightning pod out as close to the Kraken as it could (about 1.5" away). Ryan risked her life to walk out of the forest and mage storm the Nyss hunters. It fell short and deviated five, about 4-5" I think, to end up on the hill in the center. The rangers moved a bit more into the forest, but not much. One of them ran over by the bottom right of the stairs. The stormcallers moved up (black models, left and right of the board). The boomhowlers tried to kill the chicken with their range 8 pow 12 guns and failed. Two of them stood still to aim and four of them walked up to shoot at it, but all of them missed. Siege moved up behind Stormwall, to get closer to where pDeneghra was hiding in the left forest. She was very close, and I was thinking of killing her if she came any nearer. He also put fox hole (5" aoe gives cover) on Ryan to help protect her. Unfortunately, that was unnecessary, because Nyss hunters ignore cover (and forests and concealment). End Turn 2B (Sean) Discussion
This is where it got interesting. pDeneghra moved up ON TOP of the hill, parasited the Stormwall (-3 arm, +1 arm on caster) and feated (-2 spd, str, mat, rat, def, arm, focus to everything in her control of 14"). The ghost raiders killed three boomhowlers (didn't roll any toughs). The Nyss hunters moved up and tried to shoot Ryan (some were within 5") but they missed her. They also missed the ranger at the top right of the hill (obscured partially by the plants). A pistol wraith shot and killed the pod in front of the Kraken. The Kraken charged through the pistol wraith at Stormwall (he has a 4" reach), crippled his R side and did ~11 damage to his left side, column 3. Discussion (Turn 3A, me) On my turn, I spent a long time looking at it, but I couldn't resist trying to kill Deneghra, even though Siege was severely hampered by her feat. What did it for me was the ranger on the hill. I wouldn't have tried it without him. He ran up next to Deneghra. Siege gave one focus to Stormwall (whose L side was going to finish off Deneghra if Siege failed, I hoped). Reinholdt used reload on Siege. Siege had to walk up on the hill to see her, from behind Stormwall (to where you see him now in the picture) and feated. I had given him an extra focus from Squire, but he still only had 5. He mage sighted Deneghra with two focus leaving him with two, and boosted to hit, needing tens. He missed with his first shot and hit with his second shot boosted shot. He rolled for damage unboosted and managed to roll a 10! Best feat roll I've ever done. It one shot Deneghra - 18 damage to her 17 boxes. That was very lucky and somewhat unexpected. I think I could have done a bunch of things better here - particularly positioning all those gun mages and it would have been nice to have the Black 13th on the L side, to face off with the ghost raiders. I'm pretty sure that Deneghra didn't have to be up that far in order to catch me in her feat and could have been a little safer. Sean forgot about Siege's mage sight. It's a nice spell. I need to play more Cryx, as I don't know it well. This was a fun match up and I think my first 50 pt game. That was a lot of models. Key Points About
January 19, 2013, John went to the Gigabytes tournament and I went to Tower Games. They were going to do a tournament, but ended up canceling it. I still got to play a 25 pt game against Chip's Legion: Cygnar's Siege vs Legion's pThagrosh, 25 pts. Note that pThagrosh's feat lets him bring back a dead beast. pThagrosh ended up killing Siege in this match, though I did have fun using force hammer. This report is a bit less detailed than previous, because I didn't take notes during it. Afterward, I played a team game with Daniel's Skorne pMorghoul against Chip's Legion pThagrosh and Menoth's eFeora (Chip helped a new player play the Menoth). Siege killed eFeora by force hammering the reckoner over her, but the Angelius killed Siege and pThagrosh eventually killed pMorghoul as well. I don't summarize that game here, because I was so hungry at the time, I didn't pay a lot of attention and don't remember the game that well. Our Lists Chip's - Legion - 25 pts - pThagrosh Ravagore Carnivean Scythean Mine - Cygnar - 25 pts - Siege Defender Boomhowlers Black 13th Junior Squire Reinholdt Versh My setup (L-->R)The Boomhowlers on the left, junior, the squire, Siege and Reinholdt, the defender, the Black 13th and Versh. Chip set up the Scythean and Carnivean out in front of the wall, the Ravagore went into the forest and pThagrosh continually toed the forest. He has fog of war, which gives everything in his control cover. That was annoying.
Discussion Games against Chip's Legion have been painful. This one was no exception. John thought that the terrain was particularly to my disadvantage this game. I'd have to agree there. The large central castle forced me to face his beasts in a narrow pass over walls. He also had a forest to hide the Ravagore in and continually spit at my Black 13th, when I couldn't really get at him. End Turn 1A (me) Discussion
The boomhowlers ran up and called 4+ tough (that didn't do them much good) and junior gave them arcane shield. The Black 13th climbed the hill on the right. Everything basically just moved up. End Turn 2A (Chip has gone and I've gone again) Discussion
On Chip's turn, he moved up his beasts behind the wall. The ravagore got into the forest in a good position to be irritating. On my turn, I ran the Boomhowlers up and tried to space them out far apart, having made the mistake of them getting all sprayed already once. The black 13th weren't really close enough to shoot anything. I can't remember what they did. I think that I should have tried to mage storm the Ravagore. I think I was afraid of walking too close to it and it spitting at Ryan and killing her, over a one shot mage storm. Probably should have done it anyway though. The defender walked up and shot the Carnivean since it wasn't behind a wall, doing some minor damage to it. Siege also shot the Carnivean. End Turn 2B (Chip) Discussion
On Chip's turn, the Ravagore spit Blight Blast - a template - onto the defender that knicked him for a damage if he stayed in it. The Carnivean came over the wall and sprayed down two boomhowlers and Ryan and Watts, which was really sad. I forgot that Carnivean had that spray and had though the Black 13th were far enough back. End Turn 3A (me) Discussion
I believe that this is the turn that Siege feated. Despite the template, the defender aimed and shot the Carnivean (I think) and did some damage. It wasn't much - I rolled a one, a two and something else - I know that much. The boomhowlers all surrounded the Carnivean and all missed their attacks, doing no damage. I had them call rage howl (-2 to attack rolls) this time instead of 4+ tough. One of the boomhowlers ran into the forest to engage the Ravagore. I think Siege shot the Scythean ... I can't remember what shot the Scythean, but it was probably Siege. Nothing died during his feat turn. That wasn't a good sign. End Turn 4A (Chip went, then I went) Discussion
Ok. Things are slightly fuzzy here. On Chip's turn, the Scythean moved up and killed Lynch. The Ravagore moved out of engagement with the boomhowler and the boomhowler missed on the free strike. I think the Ravagore then shot the defender and did a bunch of damage to him. The Carnivean tried to kill the boomhowlers are him and amazingly missed most all of them. On my turn, Siege was like ... what the heck ... and force hammered the Carnivean onto the wall. I wanted to see what would happen. It worked and actually knocked him down and did some good damage to him. The boomhowlers then all pounded on the Carnivean. He probably tried to boost shots into the Scythean, but was unable to kill him. Ironically, still, nothing died. The Scythean and the Carnivean both had 2-3 boxes left on them at most. I don't think the Ravagore took almost any damage. After this turn, I think, as one would expect, the Scythean charged Siege and butchered him. Yep. Not good for Siege. I feel like I could have made much better use of mage site in this match - maybe used it to help fire on the Ravagore. Also, I should have remembered the Carnivean's spray and positioned my Black 13th better. I enjoyed using force hammer. It was really useful and fun. About This post summarizes the team game we played today, Jan 12th, 2013: Merc's Fiona the Black and Cygnar's Siege VS Legion's eVayl Consul of Everblight and Cygnar's pNemo, 35 pts. In this game, Fiona perished, but Siege was able to kill both pNemo and eVayl for the win. Lists Matt's - 35 pts - Mercenaries - Fiona Mariner - heavy Sea dog rifleman - unit Sea dog crew Mr. Walls, the quartermaster - UA Rhupert Carvolo - solo Sylys Wyshnalyrr - solo Lord Rockbottom - solo First Mate Hawk - solo Bosun Grogspar - solo Master Gunner Dougal Macnaile - solo Mine - 35 pts - Cygnar - Siege Stormwall Reinholdt Squire Junior Versh Boomhowler's Black 13th Chip's - 35 pts - Legion - eVayl Angelius Ravagore Scythean Shredder Blighted Nyss Strider Nyss Strider Officer and Musician Blighted Nyss Shepherd Spell Martyr Steven's - 35 pts - Cygnar - pNemo Junior Lancer Thunderhead Gun mage unit Sylys Wyshnalyrr Strangeways - solo Aiyana and Holt - solos Gun mage officer and standard - UA Our Setup Note that the Black 13th and Versh are on the left. Junior (proxy) is behind everyone else by stormwall. We did finally find our real Junior piece after the game. Steven and Chip's Setup Note that they had most of the Cygnar stuff on the left side, except for the gun mages, which were on the hill. Turn 1A, us - End of Matt's Activations End Turn 1A, my pieces (L side)
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This post summarizes in brief the team game last Saturday, Jan 5, 2013: Cygnar's Siege and Legion's pThagrosh VS Cygnar's eStryker and Skorne's Master Tormentor Morghoul, 25pts. Lists Mine - 25 pts - Cygnar - Siege Black 13th Junior Squire Reinholdt Defender Charger Versh Chip's - 25 pts - Legion - pThagrosh Ravagore Scythean Carnivean Steven's - 25 pts - Cygnar - eStryker Ol'Rowdy Storm lances Squire Junior Archduke Runewood Daniel's - 25 pts - Skorne - pMorghoul Beast handler Agonizer Bronzeback Titan Titan Gladiator Cyclops Savage (2x) Overview Last Saturday, I played two games - a 15 pt game and a 25 pt team game. This post details the 15 pt. game against Nick: Cygnar's Siege vs Protectorate of Menoth's Kreoss. ... I'll just warn you that this game was kind of totally embarrassing, as both of us made caboodles of mistakes. Yeah. I'm hoping that outlining them all and seeing boldfacedly just how bad they were will motivate me NEVER to do that again! I got to meet at least two new guys up at the Tower who are newer Warmachine players. Very exciting! I'm hoping all these new people continue to come. I think I went overboard a little with this report, making notes to myself. I'm going to have to rest before I right up the second. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow. Our Lists Mine - 15 pts - Cygnar - Siege Black 13th Defender Charger Squire Nick's - 15 pts - Menoth - Kreoss Crusader (2x) Choir of Menoth High Paladin Dartan Vilmon High Paladin of the Order of the Wall (2x) Noob Notes - my list: This 15 pt list was just a quick and dirty one that I made up on the spot. I traditionally like to be more thought out about these things.
Noob Notes - Nick's list:
Aegis - he's immune to continuous effects. He gives this (Aegis) to friendly exemplar models (any of the models that have "exemplar" in their title). Imperishable Conviction - he heals 1 damage pt for each friendly faction model killed in his control area. His weapon has two star attacks: Armor Piercing - halves the base arm stats of models hit that have medium or larger bases. This attack gains +2 to damage rolls against models with small bases. (Does not halve the armor of the small base models. Siege's feat might be the only thing in the game that does.) Smite - instead of making a normal damage roll, the model hit is slammed d6" directly away from this model and suffers a damage roll with pow equal to this model's current strength (6) plus the pow of this weapon (8). The pow of collateral damage from this slam is equal to this model's strength. Note how the wording of pow is used. Ranged weapons just list pow. Melee (and thrown weapons) lists pow + str. Spell list.... castigate - cost 2 - rng self - aoe ctrl - enemy models lose arc node in his control area chasten - cost 2 - rng 8 - enemy upkeep spells/animi on target hit by chasten expire cleansing fire - cost 3 - rng 8 - on a crit, models suffer fire continuous effect, pow 14, aoe 3 (for each of your turns, if the fire does not go out - goes out on 1 or 2 on d6 - the model takes a pow 12 fire damage roll) inviolable resolve - target friendly faction model/unit gains +2 arm and Fearless sacrosanct - target friendly faction model/unit. When an enemy non-warcaster, non-warlock warrior model destroys one or more affected models with an attack, immediately after the attack is resolved the attacking model is knocked down. FEAT: Friendly faction models that make melee attacks against enemies in Kreoss's control area automatically hit, and they gain one additional melee attack during their combat actions.
Starting Setup - the mound in center was designated a hill (+2 def) Note: Lynch, in this game, was an imposter gun mage officer. I grabbed the wrong one in my hurry to setup and didn't notice until after the game was over. The Defender is missing an arm - it came off somehow, and we'll be fixing that. End Turn 1 End turn 1 - Discussion From briefly reading Kreoss's feat and seeing his paladin weapon masters, I assumed that if he reached me at all, I was dead. My goal was to shoot him to pieces before he reached me. Seeing as he had no guns, this seemed a straight forward and easy thing to do. I didn't think this match up was the best for him, as he just had to take damage while I pummeled him as he came across the field. I was just trying to move my stuff up to within range to shoot. My first turn, everything ran almost (but not quite) their full length. Running the max distance makes me nervous. I hope that when I get more confident about when I should or should not do that, I won't be worried about it. Note that Nick was putting Kreoss behind the paladins almost b2b. He had crusaders on both sides flanking Kreoss/paladins in the middle, with the choir completely behind his left crusader, as you see. Now that I've thought about this, I can see lots of problems with this arrangement. For one, the choir all bunched together like that means that I can kill almost all of them with a mage storm, which is what I ended up doing. Also, he was having all of them sing to one 'jack, when he could have had a few singing to the other one as well. On the right crusader, he had Kreoss cast inviolable resolve and the choir singing to the left 'jack the whole game. End Turn 2 - both of us End Turn 2 - Discussion On his turn, his guys continued to move up the field, with the choir singing Passage (cannot be targeted by non-magical ranged attacks) to the L crusader and Kreoss casting inviolable resolve on the R crusader. I *think* his paladins were moving up and casting both Stone and Mortar Stance and Impervious Wall. If so, that was an error, because he would have had to sacrifice BOTH movement and action to do so. On my turn, I allocated three focus to the charger and cast explosivo on Siege and the defender. I believe Siege shot the L crusader, doing a little more damage to him. Siege's ranged weapon is not magical, while his melee one is - I checked this just now. I moved the black 13th up and had Ryan cast mage storm on the L crusader. It didn't do much damage to it, but it killed three of the choir, which were right up behind it, which made me really happy. Unfortunately, that left one solitary choir member, which continued to sing to the 'jack as if nothing had happened. Major Mistake 1 - and this is the part where I didn't realize that my black 13th had magical weapons. /headdesk I had Lynch and Watts shoot the R Crusader with brutal damage. They didn't really do much to him. John (and Chip and Steven) felt that their shots would have been better spent shooting the paladins with brutal damage. Major Mistake 2 - the charger's mission was to shoot the R crusader. Unfortunately, he moved up and was out of range by about an inch. /headdesk What a glorious waste of focus that was! End Turn 3 - both of us End Turn 3 - Discussion
Basically, on our third turns, Nick moved up and I just stayed there. I now knew that the charger did have range. Here, I was planning a Siege assassination and completely flubbed it. Oh boy. What was I thinking? He moved up, had his one choir member sing to the L crusader, had Kreoss cast inviolable resolve on the R crusader and had the paladins move up and cast (I think both) their abilities. I then allocated took a focus from Squire, gave one to Defender and three to charger and cast explosivo on myself, on defender and on charger.... leaving Siege WITH NO FOCUS! Major Mistake 3 - Never leave Siege with no focus when he needs to foxhole. Nick allowed me to mulligan my focus allocation and take two back from the charger so that I could foxhole. >.> I let him take some back to on the next turn. We were derps. I had Siege feat and foxhole Vilmon. He then shot Kreoss and did seven damage, I think. O.o I couldn't boost it as I had no focus left. Another big error. Then, the defender shot Kreoss and missed him. Ryan shot the L crusader and did ten or so damage; Lynch and Watts probably shot Kreoss and did no damage; the charger shot the R crusader and did 13 or so damage. I can't quite remember who shot who this turn. What I should have done - I could have done several things way better at this point ... 1) I should have had Ryan mage storm Vilman on the feat turn and KILL ALL THE PALADINS!! John suggested this with aghast face after the turn was over. For some reason, this didn't occur to me. Why the heck not, I wonder? 2) I could have had Siege not bother with explosivo at all and instead walk up and force hammer Vilmon over Kreoss AND THEN have him feat, so that force hammer would not mess up the feat on Kreoss. Kreoss was b2b with Vilmon essentially. Then, everyone could have shot him to death knocked down. That would have been a good thing. If I had done both of those, things would have been totally way better all around. End Turn 4 - Discussion While there is no picture for this really, I know what happened. Everything moved up closer again and Kreoss went up b2b with the R crusader instead of the paladins. I had Siege foxhole the R crusader, shoot Kreoss, and the charger and defender both pummel him with boosted shots to hit and damage, which did kill him. Once again, I could have force hammered the crusader over Kreoss, which might have been better. Hmm. Yeah. I learned a lot in this game. Summary of Key Points Learned 1. Gun mages have magical weapons and can shoot people with the choir's passage buff. I should have had them shoot the paladins and Vilmon. 2. Should have mage stormed paladins on Siege's feat turn. Always do so (on a feat turn), or the choir, if they are all bunched up like that. 3. Could have slammed the crusader over Kreoss with Force Hammer. 4. On my feat turn, I should not have explosivoed the charged at all - it wasn't even necessary - and as the defender shot Kreoss, his wasn't necessary either. Nope. Not even Siege's. That was ridiculous. 5. Make sure to be judging distances better with measuring Siege's control, or having one of the black 13th call snipe so that I don't miss a shot with the charger leaving him with three wasted focus. Intro I wanted to recap my game w/ Chip last Saturday - Cygnar's Markus "Siege" Brisbane vs Legion of Everblight's Absylonia. I'm a noob Warmachiner and trying to get better. I lost, but learned a lot. And that's the goal here. John read over and approved of my report. His thoughts/additions/corrections are in red. Goals w/ these posts I hope to be re-capping most of the Warmachine games I play in posts like this one. I've wanted to do that for a while. As I doubt anyone would ever read such esoteric posts (Warmachine jargon approaches science in obtuseness), these are primarily so that I will think about and better remember what I did wrong, to help me improve my game. Perhaps they can also function as a learning stint for other noob warmachiners, to avoid my mistakes, provided there are any out there interested in reading. I do think that game recaps (particularly at the tournament level) would be *really* nice to have, for learning's sake, and I don't see many. Most stuff like that comes from podcasts after the fact, which are useful, if long and extraordinarily verbose. (I've started to realize though that it seems they are meant to be that way. I prefer just the facts.) There's some other interesting sites I would recommend far above my own blog: Muse on Minis and the Privateer Press forums, for one. I hope to be doing more reading of both at some point. Experienced players feel free to skip my "Noob Notes," as you'd already know all that information anyway. Our Lists Mine - 35 pts - Cyngar - Siege Black 13th Boomhowlers Junior Reinholdt Stormwall Squire Versh Chip's List - 35 pts - Legion - Absylonia Typhon Carnivean Angelius Shredder Strider deathstalkers 2x The Forsaken N00b Notes: What I learned about Chip's Legion This was my first game against Legion. I discovered the Absylonia's feat would allow her to heal all her beasts so you want to focus fire and kill single targets of her army as much as possible. The chief thing I was worried about (rightly so, as it turned out) was her Blight Field, a four inch AOE that does not allow the channeling of spells, forcing or allocation of focus. Very bad for my Stormwall. The Typhon - has three heads and can fire off three pow 14 eight inch sprays or three pow 17 bites, whichever he prefers. Other things: 360 deg front arc and some healing abilities - kinda mean. Chip said he was squishy. At 13/17 def/armor, I guess so - but most Cygnar stuff is not that much higher armor, so I didn't consider that too bad. Carnivean - typical heavy beast - one 10 in spray pow 14, a pow 18 bite and two pow 16 talons. He has the animus "spiny growth," which gives +2 armor, and causes beasts and 'jacks that attack a target w/ spiny growth to take d3 damage. It can be very effective at crippling already damaged 'jacks, as they have to damage themselves to attack the target. He can assault. Speed 6. Angelius - heavy beast - speed 7. Eyeless sight - can see through stealth - 14/17 def/arm - range 12 pow 12 flame jet and pow 14 tail strike that has reach. His tail strike can be armor piercing - similar to what the Hunter can do. Halves base armor. However, unlike the hunter's pow 6, the Angelius has pow 14! That can do a lot more damage. He can also repulse models within 2" of him 3" directly away. Shredder - I've seen these guys before (or heard of them). Speed 6, and 8 with Rabid, including Pathfinder and boosted attack and damage rolls. He has snacking, which means he can eat living models and heal d3. His animus is Tenacy = +1 def and +1 arm. Basically, just really annoying little biters to get up in your face and cause havoc. He's also often played well back to upkeep tenacity. Tenacity is a great animus - it can take good casters stats to excellent. For instance, a caster like Siege at 14/17 def/arm becomes really annoying at 15/18 and can be literally twice as hard to kill. Strider deathstalkers - are your typical annoying stealth dudes. They have range 12 pow 10 guns, stealth, pathfinder and advance deploy, with some various shots they can do, to be more irritating. Very good at killing infantry. The Forsaken - can take fury off beasts - nice - and gains an extra die for attack and damage rolls for each focus/fury that is ON a caster! Ahhhh. I see how it is now. Yes, very bad for casters. Comment: Notice how fast these guys are - speed 6-8. Dangerous. Keep that in mind. They can cover the field quickly. N00b Notes: My Siege List I'll only discuss each of my lists once. I've enjoyed playing with Siege so far. He gets the job done and plays in a way that I enjoy. Reinholdt - is there for his reload - let's Siege fire twice. And firing a pow 14 range 14 (same as control w/ Squire) gun isn't chicken feed. He can also do two other things - give caster an additional die on attack or damage roll, discarding lowest, and allow him to measure the distance between two models within his LOS. I'm not sure when those things would be more useful than reload though. (Neither does John.) Squire - there for +2 to control, and his extra focus, obviously. One thing I *always* forget about him - he lets Siege reroll one failed magic attack roll as long as he's within 5". Junior - a.k.a. Journeyman Warcaster is there to arcane shield (+3 arm) either the boomhowlers or Siege. Boomhowlers - in this list are meant primarily to clog the field and be irritating, giving enough time for the Stormwall, Black 13th and Siege to do their job. They will generally be running interference for the Stormwall, in front of him. They can be hard to kill, as they can call +4 tough. Black 13th - three deadly snipers - Ryan (2 shots), Watts and Lynch - typical abilities for gun mages - snipe (+4 range), brutal damage (+die on damage) and black penny (ignores firing into melee penalty). Ryan can also mage storm - AOE 4 pow 12 magical damage covering fire. Harlan Versh - I love Versh more every time I play this list. He's not always useful, but when he is, he kicks face in. He's there basically to help my list deal with buffs, which can be a difficulty for it. He has blessed and purgation - blessed ignores spell effects that add to a model's arm or def. Purgation gives him an extra die on attack and damage rolls for targets with an enemy upkeep spell on them (not friendly). AND he has multi-fire - meaning, as long as he hits, he can shoot at something 4x OR anything within 2" of the original target. Translation - he's crap good at taking out buffed infrantry. He can also take out a buffed caster or a heavy beast/warjack BY HIMSELF. N00b Conclusions - about the lists and match up This match up wasn't terribly great for me, as it was model light and had a lot of heavy beasts with no infantry. Matt mentioned that Murdoch would be better than Reinholdt, because he gives the boomhowlers assault and makes them Cygnar models, rather than Merc. John agrees and feels like he would certainly go in a 50 pt list, along with some rangers. To trade him in, I'd need to get rid of Reinholdt and Versh - I just love Versh too much to do that. But who knows, we'll see. I have to discuss with John some of those points again. I know there's more I'm not remembering. The Setup Here's how I spread my pieces out in the setup. Chip's setup on his side. Note the deathstalkers in the forest, of course. End of Turn 1 These pictures were taken at the end of turn 1. Discussion is below. End Turn 1 - Discussion Boomhowlers vs Legion beasts By this time, my boomhowlers had run up. They were going to try to engage the beasts to keep them from Stormwall. Unfortunately, I did some stupid things - one of which was I forgot to call their +4 tough fell call (turned out being unnecessary as all my tough rolls were 2's anyway). Also, I should have spread them out a bit more. As they are now, Chip's Typhon was able to spray three times and get 2-3 per spray, and was able to wittle them down quite nicely, as they did not make their tough rolls so much this game. (John's *thumbs up.* Yup, Typhon was SO happy.) Stormwall, Black 13th and Versh vs Deathstalkers Stormwall shot his lightning pod out there (10" range) toward the deathstalkers as well as threw out 3" AOE covering fires from his littler guns. I learned in a previous game that covering fires were the way to go - and it makes sense. Ryan then mage stormed the lightning pod and killed it, but it allows her to precisely place a mage storm. Steven discussed this tactic w/ me. Here, it's not very important. As you can see, they aren't close enough together. I need to get the distances right in future - ideally, you'd want them to be about 1/4" apart so that infrantry can't walk between them. In this case, I realized that it was not very useful as the deathstalkers don't really care about the covering fires - they can just shoot over them. And there wasn't any infantry to worry about. Still, I wanted to get into good habits, so I mostly did that for practice. It was ineffective to even hindering the deathstalkers, because I didn't get them close enough together. End Turn 2, Chip - Discussion As you see, by the end of his turn, Chip had killed four of my boomhowlers and knocked down three others. They needed to be more spread out. Absylonia was in the forest behind Angelius there, just out of range of Siege's control. Chip made sure of it. I felt like this turn *looked* very promising. I was hoping to down one of his beasts easily with Versh and a little help from Black 13th, as they all had upkeeps. That was the plan. It didn't go nearly so well as I wanted. The only good thing was that Chip failed to kill Ryan with the deathstalkers. I didn't think feating on this turn was feasible, but I expected to feat top of turn 3. End of Turn 2, me - Discussion I made several bad mistakes that bit me in the butt here - forgot to call +4 tough again, as well as, I started by moving up the boomhowlers and engaging the Carnivean, however, because Typhon has reach (*see below), they also engaged *him* and gave him the melee combat def buff, along with cover from the wall, putting him somewhere around def 21. That was NOT a smart move on my part, and I was pretty annoyed with myself. Also, note from John - I should have been playing the Squire further back. He doesn't have to be b2b w/ his caster and risks getting killed by smart enemies. Keep him behind further back (within 5"). **Now that I'm look at this though, I'm confused, because I can't find that the Typhon has reach - that's the Angelius's tail strike. He looks out-of-combat, if that's the case, but he might have a special rule. I'll ask John to clear this up later. Anyway, at the time, I thought I'd engaged him. **Typhon does not, in fact, have reach. What was going on was Chip had used Absylonia to cast "Playing God" on him, which gives his melee weapons open fist AND reach. Also, the target gains terror and can make power attacks w/o being forced (w/o using focus, for Warmachine). John spent quite a while discussing the amazing uses of "Playing God." For one, it allows models without an open fist to gain one, which allows them to make power throw attacks. It also allows them to lock a model's arm/head. I didn't know about locks before this. He said that you can use an open fist to lock a model's arm, provided it hits. The target must then use its initial attack to free its arm by making a skill check, comparing strength. It can then buy other attacks with focus, but it wastes time unlocking itself, which can be really annoying. The rules for colossals were specifically modified so that only other colossals could lock them (models with bases equal to or greater), due to someone's excellent use of Playing God and Blight Field. A model would lock the colossal. Absylonia would cast Blight Field on it. Then colossal would free it's arm, but could not be allocated focus, so it could literally not make any other attacks. Oh yes. I can just see it now. That left me with Angelius to try to take down. The problem with him though - although he wasn't close enough to the wall to get cover, he was also just out of range of everything good - black 13th and Versh. I ended up trying to shoot him. The shots just missed. Versh tried to shoot and missed (out of range, that is). The stormwall got closer and got his AOEs to line up better, along with Ryan's mage storm on the pod (see above). Although, this was a very promising turn that turned out to do absolutely nothing - kind of anticlimactic and sad. One thing John said would have been good to do here is have the Stormwall shoot lightning pods, not behind the beasts, but IN FRONT of them. Why? This keeps them from charging him, and they have to waste attacks shooting a stupid pod, or move around it. A brilliant idea! I think he's told me this before, and I just forgot. End Turn 3 - here's where things got interesting End Turn 3 - Discussion
Above is end turn 3, from Chip. I didn't take more pictures after this, but I remember what happened. Not a whole lot moved and it was all down him from here for me. >.> Chip's moves Absylonia moved up behind the wall and cast Blight Field (as I had feared) on my stormwall, leaving him with no focus allocation. Then, the Angelius charged him and took out most of his right side, including the R arm. The deathstalkers finally managed to kill Ryan this turn, and ignored Versh, because they hadn't realized yet how deadly he was. The shredder charged the remaining Black 13th and engaged them both, forcing them to deal with him first and waste a lot of shots to kill him. Typhon continued to kill boomhowlers and they failed their command check. The Carnivean didn't do that much. I forgot what he did - he might have charged the stormwall later. Lastly, the Forsaken, with five fury on him angled himself near Siege - which was bad news for him. My moves Unfortunately, even with Absylonia so close, she was behind a wall with three fury and some kind of animus on her that made her def 21 (That animus was the shredder's Tenacity. Base 16 def + 4 def from cover + 1 def from Tenacity = 21). Thus, she was going to be very difficult to kill. I decided to feat on her beasts and hopefully kill them before she feated and healed them all. I first had the boomhowlers run away from Typhon, as you see here, so they wouldn't be engaging him and I could shoot him. They managed to survive the freestrike. Reinholdt activated and cast his reload on Siege. Siege grabbed focus from Squire (during the maintenance phase, not when he activated), feated and shot and killed the Forsaken. He tried to shoot Typhon, I think, but his damage roll sucked even with his feat and did almost nothing to him (maybe 5 damage... or maybe more, I cannot remember). The black 13th activated and killed the shredder. But, then they only had one shot left, and they used it on the Typhon. Again, it didn't do that much damage. (I was rolling ridiculously low - it happens.) I *think* the stormwall tried to shoot the Angelius with his left side. However, he wasn't able to kill it (something like five boxes left maybe). Finally, there was only Versh. He nonchalantly walked up, tipping his hat, and unloaded all four of his blessed, purgation, multi-fire rounds into the Typhon leaving it with only 3 boxes. Chip was aghast. That much of the game, I still chuckle about. Versh is my man. However, it was all to no good - he didn't kill him - his rolls weren't quite high enough. I was rolling pretty low. Turn 4 and Wrap Up I can't remember if it was the Carnivean or the Angelius that was at low health - one of them and the Typhon, though. Pretty sure it was Angelius. Alas. I was so sad. I knew I was doomed now, because in Chip's next turn, Absylonia feated and healed everything back to full. Angelius scrapped the stormwall. The Deathstalkers killed Versh immediately. Typhon finished off the boomhowlers and helped kill stormwall. On my turn, Siege made a valiant effort to assassinate Absylonia by foxholing Typhon. He did manage to get a 14 damage shot off onto her, but she transferred it, of course. After my turn was up and he was still alive, I conceded. There was nothing else I could do, at that point. But, it was a fun game! Summary of Key Points Learned 1. Lightning pods take damage from mage storm. It doesn't matter if they die from it. 2. Don't forget to shoot lightning pods during EVERY turn (I forgot to shoot them on turn 3, when everything crazy was happening. I could have done more damage.) And shoot them in front of beasts and 'jacks to keep them from charging. 3. Stormwall needs focus to do power attacks - I forgot about that - and uncrippled systems, of course. 4. Keep boomhowlers more spread out to avoid excessive damage from sprayers. And call their +4 tough, darn it! 5. Might be better to keep stormwall further back, away from the Blight Field, in this case. 6. The Squire should be played farther back. He doesn't have to be b2b with Siege - he can be within 5". Otherwise, he risks getting killed by smart enemy players. 7. Yet again, note to self: cover = +4 def, a hill = +2 def, melee penalty = +4 def, stealth = +4 def; one cannot benefit from stealth and cover at the same time (but the others, yes). Closing Comments Typically, I'm starting to really enjoy games these days. I don't care about losing - what I enjoy is seeing all these new things and finally getting to take them all in. I'm understanding more of what's going on, especially my own units and the terminology. This lets me focus on the enemy more and on what they can do. They kill me, and I take notes. It's fascinating. I'm seeing the big picture a lot more - it's a wide horizon opening out before me that I've just stuck my toe into. So, despite losing, I can't help but enjoy myself because I'm actually learning things, versus getting beat and not knowing what the heck happened or what my army could do to prevent it. I hope to provide more battle reports, on the completion of more games. They will be shorter than this one, most likely. Introduction
For news on SWTOR, you can't go wrong but to check with my enjin profile, as well as the "Daily News" thread inside the "General" thread of Legion forums. Links to the Legion page can be found on the SWTOR page I've got. I've outlined some leveling plans there, which I will copy here below. I apologize in advance that these posts *will* be in "gamer" speak, that one uses for MMOs, and may not be perfectly intelligible to the non-gamer. To help, I've provided some basic abbreviations inherent to MMOs off of SWTOR Mechanics (the first few anyway). There are also an abundance of Star Wars lore references that might be tricky - particularly, races and/or tech. For those, check Wookieepedia - the SW lore encyclopedia. I doubt any non-gamer would want to read these posts. But, if anyone *did* I'd like you to know what you're looking at. AH HA! I got an idea. I'll put an intro section on each of these posts w/ the abbreviations I used in the post. Heh. Until I get tired of that. That might get tiring. Yeah. But it's a nice thought. General Abbreviations Abbreviation Definition AoE Area of Effect BiS Best in Slot CC Crowd Control DoT Damage over Time DPS Damage per Second DR Diminishing Returns Eng Engineering GCD Global Cooldown Ops Operations (like raids in WoW) PvE Player versus Environment (my fav) PvP Player versus Player (not so much my fav) alt alternate character (besides one's main) main main character (that one plays in game) Star Wars Abbreviations/Dictionary SW Star Wars Pub Republic side (SW faction) Imp Imperial side - the Empire (SW faction) SWTOR Class Abbreviations VG Vanguard (trooper class) SWTOR Latest (from Legion Daily News): Culu's Chiss Alts! All righty! So, I just finished making my chiss Pub alts - they will be... 1. My agent, as a VG trooper: Tec'ans'nuruódo I debated for a long time how to do his name. Thought about moving one of the apostrophes but I couldn't bring myself to do it. had to use one of the evil symbols. And I dislike his core name so much I didn't want to use that either. I don't know if my agent will ever officially defect or not - he might! As of now, it's more likely he'll either provide covert intelligence to the Republic or converse with them on some level, or get conned into doing jobs for them. He doesn't hate the Republic by any means. He just doesn't care one way or the other about them. To him, they are not the enemy or the problem. And, if he does defect, I'll have a Pub side version of him. Wasn't sure I was going to do that, but.... I like him too much not to. It is *really* weird seeing the same face and his speaking with a different voice. But, it's manageable. The trooper male voice is a good one. 2. Mirror of my second agent, L'axad'yis, a.k.a. Dice, as a smuggler scoundrel. Her name on Pub side will be DÍce. Wasn't sure how I was going to do her name either, but using Dice seems natural. Unlike her Imperial version, she has a short haircut, and is very scarred and beat up looking. I'm thinking that the Imperial side is either her past AND/OR her alter ego self that she will occasionally still use if she needs to venture into the Empire. By the time she gets to Republic, she's seriously messed up. Figuring out her loyalties will be VERY interesting. I'm not even sure what they are yet. For now, let's just say, she's had so many that she can't really feel much loyalty to anyone, except to her primary objective that was given her from the Chiss. However, that directive also isolated her from her own people. Sooooo yeeeeeaaah. Conclusion a.k.a. Culu's TOR plans for the near future, in terms of leveling These guys are eventually going to be leveled - to 10 very shortly, and to 50 eventually. Mostly, this is because I love Chiss but I also want to have a VG tank in my arsenal just to learn tanking, and I also want a scoundrel healer (would like to play all three healing classes). However, I think the next order of leveling to come will be something like... 1. Jagna - once I get to Dice to Taris w/ Zyrath's sith pureblood alt, I'll be swapping to Jagna. I love ranged so much, and now that I have a beast sniper, I'd really like a beast Pub gunslinger. Sadly, Jagna is not in Legion. But, she can help out w/ whatevers at 50 anyway. 2. Mirusch - my mirialan sorc Imp side is level 33, and will prob be my next Imperial project. I need a "sage" healer imp side. She will not appear on Pub side, most likely. Too many other races I want to try. 3. L'axad'yis - Dice's Imperial version is level 11 right now, and Zyrath and I plan to level her and his agent Ren'alth'os together, very slowly. She'll creep her way up to 50 on our off nights, when we're not leveling our Pub alts, for whatever reason. Of course, before all that, Zyrath and my goal this week is to finish leveling Elenawe and Daceest to 50. Daceest is level 48 and Elen is 49, so we're SO close! For a couple of weeks, I might also not level that much and just do dailies on Culurien and my sniper. I need more monies. I might do a random ops or whatever on my sniper as well if nothing is going on. I dunno. I'd like to round out his gear, and get him good relics and an earpiece. Tower Game Center News Last Saturday, I played my 35 pt Siege list against Chip's Legion. He beat me - and it was a fascinating game. I learned a lot of good stuff. John played Steven. I forgot to ask him how it went - need to do that. Afterward, we all played the new DC card game I got John (John, Steven, Matt, Chip and I). |
AuthorGaming has decreased markedly, but focus is still SWTOR, Warmachine/ Hordes and the random board game. That's what these posts will address. Archives
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