More Paint for Stompy!

So he's coming along, I doubt he'll win any awards for best painted but I'm happy enough and really liking having painted models on the board!

Taking a Stance & Scenery Additions

As the start of the game was a little delayed whilst I waited for Danny I had a rummage through the club scenery and found some smaller terrain templates.  I love scenery on a board but find the standard large woods and hills are too restrictive for Warmachine.  Using the smaller pieces of terrain we were able to get 7 pieces of terrain on the tabletop that I felt had a really positive effect on the game but without becoming restrictive.

 

Anson Durst, Rock of the Faith vs. Hoarluk Doomshaper, Rage of Dhunia (Trollbloods)

Loss: Assassination (Scenario - 1/0)

This list is based on my findings from the weekends 35 point games, it includes a lot of infantry with a colossal and pair of heavies to do any heavy lifting.  I'd also learnt over the weekend to be much more aggressive turn 1 so this was a good occasion to test the theory.

Going first (and following the plan) I ran everything up turn one.  Despite little shooting I threw up deflection just in case to protect my support troops and some of the Temple Flameguard.  This was pretty much mirrored by Trollblood turn one where everything moved up and his caster hid behind a wood with an Axer.

 Turn 2 and clearly Mulg was fancying his chances against the colossal so I was going to have to be careful.  To this end the Zealots moved up to create a loose screen, they also mini feated and bombed a few Fennblades and waited for the inevitable counter charge.  The Reckoner received Enliven and walked forward in front of Stompy to take the charge from Mulg.  Stompy moved forward and fired off rockets at a few targets.  With the exception of causing a few points of damage to Doomy (and allowing Mulg a free movement) this was ineffectual.  On the left the Flameguard received Dirge of Mists from the piper and moved up in shield wall ready to take a charge from the Champions (Def16/Arm17 should be enough).  Durst moved up to the objective with his pet Reckoner and sacrificed his action to stance.

Troll turn 2 started with Doomy blasting a single Zealot with a spell to clear the path.  Mulg then charged the Reckoner, hoping for a critical smite to knock it down and stop Enliven.  He failed the smite but trashed his movement (14 boxes gone from one hit), but still he could Enliven to safety.  Elsewhere the charging Champions killed a single Flameguard, the Fennblades ran in to pin all of the Zealots but could do no damage due to the minifeat.  The heros of the turn were the Pyg Burrowers who popped up and trashed 95% of the objective and around 20 boxes on poor Stompy!

So the plan for turn three was to feat, kill Mulg and setup a defensive line ready to do a massive counter attack turn 4.  The important part was Mulg so I walked in the battle'd Reckoner and he went to town on Mulg.  Causing straight dice damage and having 4 hits I nealy felled the beast, having to use an Ancillary attack to finish him off.  He came back via a Feralgeist but i wasn't to bothered, the hard part was done.  The Zealots brought down a few Fennblades and continued to jam the flag.  On the other flank the Flameguard speared 2 Champions and damaged and set fire to the rest.    Stompy then shot point blank at the Pygs in front of him killing 6 leaving just 4 left.  The Reckoner next to Durst smashed a Pyg and Durst feated and killed the other Pyg creating an ash cloud in front of him.  What I should have done was stanced with Durst which would have completely changed the game.

Troll turn 3 and the assassination was on, I was fairly smug at first thinking that any damage to Durst could be passed onto the Reckoner.  Equally whilst they were base to base Durst was effectively Arm19, Def17 vs combat and Def15 vs Shooting - so I thought highly survivable.  I also got confused between his feat, Wall of Steel and his stance.  I believed that the first 2 meant that he couldn't be knocked down or moved and neither could anyone in base contact.  Sadly this is only the case with his paladin stance.  So in charged the Mauler (POW19 thanks to the free animus), it slammed the Reckoner knocking it back and out of base to base with Durst.  Durst was then knocked down as it passed over him.  The Mauler then bought 4 attacks on Durst with damage at straight dice killing him in 3 strikes (no spikes as average rolls would have been 28 damage points from 4 attacks)

Te final positions:

Lessons Learnt - 

• More scenery (but smaller) makes for a more enjoyable playing experience as it really starts to come into play.
• Durst is a beast in combat and pretty dam solid but a charging heavy will always kill a caster.
• Stancing is very important and unless there's a reason I can't then it must be done every turn, just in case!
• I really like this list and I'm looking forward to trying it out again next week!

2016 Win/Loss record to date: 8/28 (Protectorate 8/27 - Circle 0/1)

International Tabletop Day - Dursts Day Out!

Our local game store celebrated International Tabletop Games Day so we went along to show off Warmachine/Hordes and help raise some money for 3 children's charities.  Each game was 35 points which is a level at which I haven't played much so it was an interesting day.  We were also going for the wow factor hence why my lists all had a colossal in.

 

Anson Durst, Rock of the Faith vs. Lylyth, Herald of Everblight (Legion of Everblight)

Loss: Assassination (Scenario 4/0) 

The first list was the smallest list I could put together, 35 points = 11 models!  Facing me was a fairly large Legion force with only a single colossal.  I actually fancied my chances till I got pinned back and then assassinated.  My fairly epic failure was not getting Durst base to base with a jack for most of the game to keep him safe.  I also struggled with not having anything to jam the Legion infantry meaning that my squishy support pieces got pretty heavily shot up when the couldn't hide behind anything.

The lesson from this game is that colossals aren't great in a 35 point match-up and that I definitely needed some troops to help out!

Anson Durst, Rock of the Faith vs. Warwitch Deneghra (Cryx)

Loss: Scenario (5/0) 

No photos for the next two I'm afraid!

This game was one of those really blah games that I lost mainly through stupidity and trying to be to clever.  The mission was the same but the board was laid out with a building in the middle meaning that I was trying to keep the colossal central and send the Zealots (in place of a Templar) at one whilst the Reckoner and Durst went for the other.  I went first so had a bit more ground to cover too which didn't help me much.

The game started well with various shooting picking of a few Cryx pieces (including Stompy trying to snipe points of Deathjack), in response I didn't lose a model but the Cryx horde surged forward into both the objectives.  My turn and I bombed and burned where I could killing a few more models and again forcing Deathjack to keep out of my way.  Cryx turn 2 and a blitz on my right destroyed my objective, and put Deneghra toeing my zone.  I hadn't got anything that far forward for fear of getting attacked by Deathjack so went 3/0 down on scenario.  In my turn I new I had to challenge the zone but was so intent on destroying things that half way through my turn I forgot.  In my defence things didn't go my way, a fully charged Reckoner smashed into Deathjack (when assigning focus my intention was to put him toeing the zone whilst in combat, when i moved I put him at 2" reach for no reason and so gave away the game).  However despite rolling 9 dice for damage 7 of them were 1's leaving him still standing.  I feated at the end of my turn but it didn't matter as I gave the win away in my turn - FFS!!!!!

Anson Durst, Rock of the Faith vs. Captain E. Dominic Darius (Cygnar)

Loss: Scenario (5/0) 

This game was my best of the day, it was a fairly relaxed affair vs a small Cygnar army (also with a Stormwall).  It turned into a cat and mouse affair with Stompy out-threating the Stormwall by 1".  So every time that I moved forward 1" the stormwall would move back an inch.  Between this and spending a turn assassinating the Black 13th with Stompy it meant that I didn't really contest the zone very solidly.  I was also very scared of losing Stompy so didn't really make the most of my feat.  I should have shoved him down the Cygnar throat into the zone before feating and then forcing him to deal with it.  Instead each turn I contested the zone with chaff (first Zealots, then a Reckoner, then Choir and a Vassal).  This piecemeal attacking was simply killed of each turn to mean the clock was slowly ticking over in the Cygnar favour.  Eventually, with the scenario counter at 4/0 all I could do was run a choirman and Durst into the zone to find that the choir was blown into next week by the Stormwall and like an idiot I forgot Casters can't contest!!  Doh


After the last game we went through how to use Durst's feat and I now feel much more confident on what I'm looking to do and being the one to ask the question rather than being really reactive.


2016 Win/Loss record to date: 8/27 (Protectorate 8/26 - Circle 0/1)