Hi all!
I'm Alex, the local devotee to the Creator. I'll be blogging my experiences, games and general thoughts on how best to burn the vast numbers of heretics surrounding me.
I used to play Warmachine a LOT, but kind of fell out of the hobby. I'm now trying to get back in the swing of things with a new faction, and hoping to eventually start hitting tournaments etc again. The other guys here are very rapidly catching up with my experience, so I need to start raising my game to stay ahead of the hordes!
I played 2 games yesterday. No photos at this time sadly (i will try to get some for last week), but here are the writeups:
Game 1 - eFeora (me) vs Ravyn (James) 35pts
So, i was sweating about this game all week. I didn't know which caster I'd be facing, so i put together what i felt would be pretty solid against Retribution in general. Ret are probably my most feared matchup at present, so this was a tough one.
My List:
eFeora
- Vanquisher
- Vanquisher
- Redeemer (bonded)
- Repenter
Vassal
Vassal
Min Choir
Max Bastions
3 Wracks
The Heretics:
Ravyn
- Daemon
- Sylas Wyshnallyr
MHSF + UA
Max Infiltrators + Eiryss
Narn
Aiyanna + Holt
erm...some other stuff, like at least 1 Soulless. I honestly forget :(
Scenario + Setup:
We rolled "Close Quarters" as scenario, and James won the initiative, choosing to deploy/go first.
The battlefield was fairly clear. 2 small forests on the right side, 1 just outside each deployment zone, a hill nearly dead center of the board, and some impassable rocks on the left.
-James deployed his caster and the very few other non-AD troops dead center.
-I setup with the Bastions on the left flank where there was no terrain to slow them, and the jacks and support dead center with eFeora.
-James then put his Infiltrators as far up as he could on the right flank with Narn, and his MHSF just as far up dead center.
- My wracks were strung in the forest on my right...there was just enough to block off that whole path unless his Infiltrators wanted to risk the big boom.
Turn 1:
James went first, and did as expected.
-1 focus went on the Daemon
- Ravyn cast Snipe on the MHSF and Vortex of Destruction on herself, before moving forward and to the left somewhat.
-The Daemon went with her
-MHSF ran forward to get into early position
-Infiltrators did the same on their flank, along with Narn
- Aiyana and Holt went up behind the MHSF, stealthing themselves
-For my turn, 2 focus went to the bonded Redeemer, and Feora kept the rest.
-Feora activated first, walking forwards and casting "Escort".
-Choir walked forward to just ahead of my jacks, and used "Battle" on all.
-Redeemer activated first, moving forward and launching 3 rockets at the MHSF, killing 3 with scatters in total.
-Both Vanquishers also moved forward to fire at the MHSF...both were an inch short, but scatters still got 1.
-Both Vassals moved forward and used "Ancillary Attack" on each Vanquisher, but nothing further got hit :(
-The Repenter headed to the right to upset the Infiltrators and Narn, but stayed out of charge range of all but 2.
-The Bastions simply rans straight forward, heading towards Ravyn and the Daemon.
Turn 2:
This turn was a catalogue of errors on my part....read on.
-Ravyn allocated 3 to the Daemon, upkept both spells, and camped the rest.
-Ravyn activated first and walked towards the Bastions, ending just outside of her own shooting range.
-The Daemon then moved forward, and fired at the middle Bastion. He turned out to be barely in range, and did a lot of damage in total...none died, buy 2 Bastions were reduced to 2 health, and the rest were on 5! Extreme ouch.
- The Infiltrators activate next, and dither around a little. They decide to charge the Repenter, but I judged right and only 2 got in, causing almost no damage. Due to the positioning, this also put both Infiltrators and the Repenter right next to one of the Wracks.
The other Infiltrators couldn't reach, so moved forward ready to attack next turn and contested my flag.
- Narn ran down between 2 of the wracks, ending behind and to the right of Feora, about 14" away.
- The MHSF moved forward and fired into the first vanquisher, doing moderate damage but not taking out any systems.
- Feora gave 2 to the Redeemer, upkept her spells and 1 to the Repenter
- Feora activated first. She sucked a focus off the Wrack near the Repenter/Infiltrators, causing it to blow. Both Elves died, but the Repenter took TEN damage. So...that sucked.
She then proceeded to put a smile back on her pyromaniacal face by turning Narn into a candle with her flamethrower, killing him.
- The Repenter, smoking a little, them moved forward and managed to flame 3 more Infiltrators to death.
- The Vanquisher activated, moved forward and killed 1 more MHSF.
- I THEN realised I hadn't used the Choir yet, and get most upset. I used Battle on my 2 unactivated Jacks, and Passage on the 2 already activated.
- The 2nd Vanquisher moved forward, and totally missed the MHSF
- both Vassals went forward, and 2 more Ancillary Attacks resulted in 1 more dead MHSF
- the Bastions charged the Daemon, 2 of them reaching. A good amount of damage was done.
At this point i realised I had left Feora in the Killbox! Some very ungentlemanly language ensued.
Worse, I got so flustered by messing up my activation order and the Killbox, i utterly failed to activate my Redeemer with 2 focus on it, leaving quite a few more Elves unscorched than should have been the case!
So something of a terrible turn. James is 2-0 up on scenario.
Turn 3:
- Ravyn gave 1 to the Daemon, upkept her spells
- Ravyn activated. She popped her feat, then charged the Bastions. A flurry of attacks, Quick Works, follow ups and general bloodshed later, and there were no more Bastions. He followed up towards the main fight.
- The Daemon moved towards the main melee. He hit the Vanquisher with a shot, which sucked a Vassal in, who luckily survived. The Vanquisher lost it's movement.
- The MHSF activated, putting a series of shots into Feora. However, the whole reason i took her came into play here, and she proved far too tough, only taking 5 damage.
- The Infiltrators charged in (what was left of them). They slapped the Repenter around a bit, but failed to kill it (though it had no cortex or arms left) and leaving it contesting my flag with the Infiltrators. 1 reached a choir member, soon sending him to greet the Creator in urcaen.
Eiryss hit Feora as well, causing a couple more damage.
- Feora gave the Redeemer 2, dropped Escort.
- The choir activated first, putting Battle on all jacks except the Repenter
- I forget the exact order here, but the Vanquishers and Redeemer killed off a bunch more MHSF and Infiltrators, leaving about 2-3 of each left....both units on the Flags though.
- Feora moved out of the Killbox! She also failed to hit anything at all with her flamethrower.
3-1 scenario points to James
Turn 4:
- Ravyn allocated 3 to the Daemon, upkept her spells, kept the rest
- The Daemon stayed still and hit the damaged Vanquisher, crippling it's Blazing star.
- The MHSF also hit this Vanquisher, which was the only thing in range to threaten their control point. It survived, with 5 boxes left.; it has no movement, no blazing star, and no hull.
- The Infiltrators killed the Repenter, leaving my control point uncontested and with nothing able to reach them to contest.
- Ravyn moved up directly next to the Daemon (Almost base to base...), and failed to damage the Vanquisher.
So....4-1 on scenario, both points in enemy hands, and unable to contest 1 of them. I had one chance....
- Feora gave 3 to the Redeemer, 2 to the almost dead Vanquisher, and kept 1.
- The Choir activated...battle all round.
- The 1 armed, no legged, no hulled Vanquisher activated. it hit the Daemon with it's Flame Belcher, doing a few points of damage. It boosted the blast damage on Ravyn, causing 4 damage and setting her on fire.
-The Redeemer moved to get LoS to Ravyn, and did a lot more damage to her, leaving her on 4 health.
- Feora moved towards Ravyn....fired. In range by 1 inch. Had to boost the hit roll, and hit. And then rolled....exactly enough to kill her.
Summary:
Game over, and a victory. Not a victory i feel i deserved, but a victory nonetheless.
If that unlikely assassination run didn't work, James won.
If he hadn't over extended Ravyn by 1-2 inches, he also won.
If he'd dominated hi flag with Ravyn instead of moving Ravyn towards me after killing the bastions, he won.
That said, i can learn from some very clear mistakes I made in this game. Obviously forgetting to activate the bonded Redeemer was a big one, and Killboxing myself was what made this so close. There were others though:
- I really didnt use Feora well this game. Over than Escort for some movement and her flamethrower, she basically did nothing all game. I need to work on this a lot.
- I just....failed with the Bastions. I actually dont like them in this list as Feora cant speed them up or make them tougher, so will be switching them for Errants.
- My activation order was a mess, leaving me with unboosted Jacks more than once.
- I totally failed to take the scenario on board. I didnt contest the points well enough, and forgot killboix. Unforgivable errors really.
So, plenty to take on board from this, and a lot (a LOT) more work needed.Part of it is a mental problem against Ret...i genuinely struggle to deal with the bloody MHSF, and need to get over that big time.
Please feel free to comment and feed back. As you can see, I clearly need it!
