McCryxian Domination

Turn One

2011-02-25T06:24:00.000-08:00

Now that you're deployed, now what?

This is the point where rubber meets pavement. All you careful list building, stategerizing, meticulous deployment and overall cranial exertions begin to revel themselves. It's turn one and you have to do more than theorize.

In previous posts I've mentioned playing for position several times. I've talked about the importance of taking and holding the center of the board, especially in regards to scenario play.

To capitalize on this strategy you have to be very careful about your first turn because this brings to bear the needed elements to capture the center, establish a solid line from which to launch your turn two attack and put together a defensible position.

Now how the heck are you going to do that in just one turn? Hopefully you've prepared a list that has the various components to allow you such a turn. Too gimmicky or two narrow in scope and you'll find yourself quickly in a bad position.

In this weekends' post I'll cover a solid first turn and some mini objective you'll want to achieve to capitalize on your position. Bear in mind this doesn't cover all situations and all lists or all opponents, but it provides a solid base to build on.

... More to come ...

Photo Break!!!

2011-02-12T12:15:00.000-08:00

I interrupt the tactics write up for a this brief photo break. I recently painted pGoreshade to see if I could paint white. As it turns out I can't. Still, I personally like him, I just wish I was a better painter and that I had a better camera.

Without further adu...

Game Play: The Opening - Deployment

2010-12-11T12:14:00.000-08:00

Deployment

Now that it's been decided which turn you will take, it is now time to deploy. Much like the opening move in a chess game there should be strategy behind how your deploy your models.

Most games that I see deploy much like the following picture.

Both armies are laterally spread out with the warcaster/warlock centrally positioned. What usually results is a paper rock scissors duel. There will be quite a bit of repositioning as flanks fail or as holes develop. In all it's the standard but, in my opinion, is far from the best method for deployment in many circumstances.

I feel that this sort of central deployment allows a faster army to exploit your flanks. It also forces you to "Have" to change direction to confront said flanking attempts. I often prefer an off center deployment to deny one of the flanks. I'll most typically chose this option if going second.

Another boon of the denied flank tactic is that it forces elements of your opponents army to spend precious turns attempting to reposition. I remember one game where I took the win by simply out playing my opponent positionally. Admittedly I was out matched. My small Mortenebra force comprised of a few jacks, the Deathjack, Nightmare, Malice and Cankerworm. I had a few sirens and a necrotech too.

He brought the eMadrak pain with a full unit of burrowers, fennblades, and Kriel warriors with the UA and a two or three WA's. Had an axer, swamp troll and I believe an Earthborn Dire Troll. Add in a fell caller and I was outnumbered by some 30 models.

He deployed centrally, Madrak in the middle with his troops spread out in a long line of death. The fenns were to my left and the Kriels on the right. With beasts hanging close to Madrak.

I deployed first centrally as well. After seeing the final set up I knew that I couldn't possibly take on that many kriels all in one go because the counter charge would be devastating. In a bold move I AD'd the DJ on my right flank, just in Morty's control range; then on my turn I ran him forward tempting the kriels to take him on.

I then ran the remaining jacks to my right flank and set up a defensive posture near a hill. What this did was two fold. Firstly it moved me out of range of the hated burrowers and effectively took the fennblades out of the game for a few rounds.

Some of the louder trolls on the main forum would consider a complete re posturing due to the burrowers as a "win," however in this case not only did it deny the burrower's pop up turn, it also kep a huge chunk of his army out of the game. This was actually the move which saved me the game as I was then able to break his army down a piece at a time.

Positionally, if I had remained in the center I would have been destroyed. Sure, I would have taken a large amount of kriels with me, but not enough to sway the game into my favor.

In chess there is a defined center and through piece development you make concerted efforts to take and hold the center in order to achieve a better position. Unlike chess, warmachine has a fluid center which can be redefined depending on the type of game played. Caster kill granting the most fluidity.

Keep this in mind as you establish your position and make play for your "tactical center."

***More to come***

Game Play

2010-11-15T18:05:00.001-08:00

I've been playing miniature war games for what seems like an eternity.

I've been playing chess for even longer than that.

There is a similarity that is unmistakable. Both games have phases, strategy, tactics and combinations.

Much like Chess the game of Warmachine (this includes Hordes too) is also comprised of phases.

1. The Opening

2. Middle Game

3. End Game

The opening while often glazed over by the majority of players is, in my opinion, one of the single most important phases of the game. I claim that the opening section of the game consists of

a. turn selection

b. deployment

c. first turn.

When I say turn selection I'm simply referring to the opportunity to play as player one or two. About 1/2 the time you don't get to choose, but when the moment presents itself it's incredibly important to know which choice is best.

As a Cryx player I will chose to always go first as a non shooty faction I see no reason to sit back and see what the other player is going to do before I commit. I'd much rather set the pace. With loads of infantry, generous amounts of stealth and units which regenerate I have ample reason to make the first move.

A Cygnar army with excess amounts of sissy might feel better able to dish out the pain by allowing their opponent to move first and force them to move into firing range.

Also, the first player, again in my opinion, will be playing defense for the middle game as they have more than likely reached the objective and struggle to maintain their grip on it. A glass cannon army like legion might not want to take the hit first and opt to alpha strike the position instead.

So basically I've spent several paragraphs attempting to explain the importance of turn choice and really the only definite answer is "it depends." It depends on your army structure, scenario and list build.

It is, however, important to realize that turn selection does play an important role in the game. While many a person can quote "page 5," and say that the choice to go first is always the best choice. I contend that in some situations playing second is beneficial, and vice versa.

Either way you're bound to play first or last, best to be aware of the difference in tempo and plan ahead for it.

More to come.....

MKII Hordes Field Test = Fail

2009-11-29T08:03:00.000-08:00

First off I think the MKII field test has been pretty dang amazing if you ask me. Looking at nearly 90% of the figs it feels like each of the factions are very well rounded. They each have a few A+ peices, B's, C's and yes, a few failures. (Scattergunners you fail.)

What I'm so surprised at is the overwhelming amount of "NERF THIS" which appears in the Skorne community. It seems like they want anything and everything to be toned down or eliminated. I don't get this.

Werecat and a few others have even posted on this and how it's so bizzaro. I just don't get it.

Maybe it's because I'm not all that invested in my Skorne army that I really don't care what happens. But when I read the new Skorne rules I wasn't shocked and awed, I was "meh'd."

I just can't see where people are coming from, it's as if they feel guilty for having decent figs.

So to PPS "GOOD DAMN JOB" with the field test.

To the Skorne community, "GROW A PAIR!"

(Ahhhhhh, I feel better.)

-Cheers-

The Newest Cryx Player

2009-11-12T10:51:00.000-08:00

William "The Destroyer" was born 11 November 2009 at 4:23pm weighing 8 lbs 1 oz and measuring 19.5" long.

I am one proud papa and can't wait for my two boy grow up a little and start playing silly games with their Dad.

While I've already chosen my first born to follow in my Cryxian footsteps, I think the Skorne will be a nice fit for our newest addition.

Either way we're so happy to have him here and can't wait to bring him home from the hospital!

Game on!

-Cheers-

Molik Karn

2009-10-05T23:07:00.000-07:00

We had a tournament a few weeks ago and I was victorious; and to the victor go the spoils. The spoils in this instance was a paint-job of my choice. Right away I knew that I wanted Molik Karn painted.

First, he's amazing, I love him and think he's one of the best figs that Skorne has access to.

Second, he's highly detailed and knowing how I don't finish much of what I start I wanted him done and done.

The LGS's wife agreed to paint him and the rest is history.

So now I present, for your viewing pleasure.

MOLIK KARN!!!

I'm so happy.

Absent

2009-09-27T20:05:00.000-07:00

I got nothing.

I try to come up with interesting things to write about, but find myself deleting the post in the middle of some long spiel or rant. I really am trying to figure out a neat story or analysis. I just can't think of anything yet. Soon, very soon I will have a stroke of genius and will then write a post which will blow your minds.

Until then.....

Cryx Win It!

2009-08-16T08:40:00.000-07:00

The last LGS event prior to Summer Rampage is officially over.

It was a long three week campaign which resulted in a Cryxian conquest. That's right folks. I took it, the whole shebang.

Game 1 vs Trollbloods. We roll and get 750. Mortenebra vs Calandra. I won initiative, ran everything forward, move up Mortey, put a few upkeep's on the DJ & NM both.

Trolls. He runs up. Tries to get as close to me as possible. Puts gobber smoke in front of Calandra and feats. The nightmare advances.

Turn 2 Cryx. Mortenebra casts Deathrace on the DJ, terminal velocity, and feat. DJ charges the champs and reigns death upon the extremely tough Champs (tough on 3+.) The nightmare advances due to death race avoiding free strikes thanks to the upkeep spell. The NM is inside the gobber smoke and has a charge lane to Calandra. The NM activates, charges the big fat gypsy lady, she dies.

Game 2 vs John the Mennite (JTM). We roll and get 500 points. Skarre vs the Harbinger. I win initiative. Run everything forward but the skarlock. Use the focus factory.

Menoth: he runs the avatar forward, uses the gaze of Menoth. Choir puts no shooty on the avatar. His bastions advance. Harby casts martyrdom.

Cryx turn 2: Tartarus curses the avatar, charges and deals a lot of damage. Bane knights charge and wipe the avatar out. A pistol wraith kills the choir leader but harby take a few licks to keep him around. Skarlock generates more focus and everyone else moves forward. The dj is poorly positioned in the trees, my bad.

Menoth: He charges Tartarus with the bastions and the sauce survives. A bane knight is hit but doesn't die, another shifts dealing a ton of damage causing the Harby to take some more damage. Harby feats, casts martyrdom again.

Turn 3 Cryx. Skarre goes first. Moves forward so as not to have the Harby in los. Feats and sac strikes the bastion leader boosting damage. Harby martyers. Tartarus curses, threshers and doesn't take any damage from the witches feat. Bane knight charge, 2 die to the feat, the rest decimate the bastions. Harby takes some more damage from martyrdom but has to let a few bastions die. Everyone else then moves forward and positions so as not to have los to the witch. Dj is still in terrible position but casts Blood rain, corrodes a bastion. The pistol wraith continues on the right flank.

Turn 3 Menoth: a bastion dies to corrosion. JTM can't martyr because he hasn't cast it yet. It's not looking so hot for John. A devout charges the DJ and does no damage. Bastions kill Tartarus and a bane knight or two allowing a few shadow shifts. Harby moves forward behind the bastions and casts cataclysm and kills a bane knight. I shadow shift into Harby with P+S 16 weapon master and kill her dead. Martyrdom did most the work for me.

Game 3 vs Cygnar. We roll and get 750. My Mortenebra list vs epic Stryker. I win initiative. Run everything up except Morty. She moves, puts sacral ward on the dj and the ghostly armor spell on the nightmare.

Cygnar turn 1. I wasn't very smart and put the Cankerworm too close to the sword knights. The piper gave them an insane charge range and they chopped the little guy into pieces. Ayana and Holt almost knocked out a node and the Black 13 killed 1/3 of my bile thralls and a Necrotech. Stryker advances, casts a spell at a pistol wraith behind cover and misses. The Nightmare advances through a forest towards Stryker.

Turn 2 Cryx. Upkeep spells with skarlock and combine. Morty moves up, feats, casts deathrace on the DJ and terminal velocity. The Deathjack charges the b13. They die, deathrace triggers, nightmare advances trying to get a bead on Stryker. Rowdy counter charges but only deals 5 pips to column 4. (Whew.) Nightmare activates and moves into melee range with Stryker. Stryker dies.

The tournament is over and I win!

It was a fantastic series of games. The first place prize is a free paint job by the LGS owener's wife. She's pretty good so I'm way excited. I'm going to have her paint Molik Karn.

-Cheers-

Cryx For The Win!

2009-08-06T06:18:00.000-07:00

I won the LGS tournament last night.

Battle reports are almost finished. I should have them posted tonight.

LGS Random Tourney

2009-07-26T18:50:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm playing in another tournament. It's a LGS tourney, simple caster kill scenarios but the kick is that we had to bring 3 lists. A 350, 500 & 750. When we hit the table vs our oppo we roll a d3 to determine the point value.

Not certain on who I should run I decided to go with a few casters I haven't run in a while, or ever for that matter.

At 750 I chose my favorite caster Mortenebra. She's amazing. The tricks she can pull with her battle group are exceptionally powerful and can catch the most experienced player unaware.

For 500 I chose Skarre. Paired with the Deathjack and infantry spam I should be more than able to kill everything on the board assuming I don't simply bomb the caster first. She's solid and my Haley counter.

And finally 350. Arguably my least favorite and the point level with which I've had the least success. For this beauty I threw subtlety out the frig'n window and went 100% Velveeta. I'm talking the Witch Coven of Garghlast with a fist full of nodes. What's my strategy? Oh I don't know, run one node up. Cast stygian abyss three times at their caster and laugh my head off.

Sigh, I'm going to win the entire frig'n tournament. Even if that means making a few people cry and pull their eyes out due to the cheesiness that is Cryx.

-Cheers-

Oh No, I Suck Again!

2009-07-18T21:50:00.000-07:00

Drove two hours for a tournament in Salt Lake City. I got whooped. Games were real close but as the old cliche states, "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades."

I hate it when people lose and try to justify why they lost, I'm not gonna do it, probably because I'm pretty tired and running on empty about now. Basically I was too fidgety with my armies. I was moderately aggressive but not aggressive enough. I felt bogged down by the terrain, mostly due to the Bloodgorgers, not their fault by the way.

First game was a loss due to time running out and the Circle player had his ambuscade guys on a victory condition so he won by scenario. I had just feated with epic Gaspy and was about to charge Baldur with Slaughterborn, Tartarus and a handful of Bane Knights. Oh well, so sad, too bad.

Game two vs Cryx was pretty fun, but everyone knows how much I HATE same faction battles. I lost this one by scenario too, we pretty much gutted each other's army and by the end there wasn't much on the table. He ran pGaspy I ran the epic version. Time ran out and he had output more damage on the objective than I had by about 8 damage points. I don't remember the exact tally but that's neither here-nor-there.

Game three vs Skorne was a blast. I was tired of running eGaspy as I'd not had much success with him so far. He ran Mordikar (who is awesome by the way!) We duked it out a bit, I took over a few of his units, he killed a lot with the Venators ghost sighted by the Extoller. Ultimately I won because eDenny feated, made it so none of his stuff could move. I then killed the rest of what was in the objective zone and won. Straight forward and simple enough. It was the most fun game, not because I won, but my opponent was gracious and very chatty, I like that.

Game four vs Circle, again. Baldur, again. Slug-fest to the end. I was tired and wanted to go home so my heart wasn't in it. By now I'm so far out of the running for a prize that it's not funny. I killed his stuff, he killed mine. Ultimately he cast a hail marry at eDenny and scored just enough damage to send her back to Toruk (sp.) I lost. Boo.

Three of us went down, three of us returned. Our fantastic records a tad more tarnished than before but all the better for it I think.

I'd really like to see out play level here at our LGS increase, it's hard though, always playing the same people, same armies, same casters etc. I wish I had the time and money to travel more. It's hard now, what with a wife and kid. For now I'll have to settle for a small road trip every blue moon or so and pray that my local meta can help prepare me for those games. Here's hoping.

-Cheers-

The Beatitudes - Concluded

2009-07-07T14:14:00.000-07:00

Be Timely:

Want to be a good gamer? Play lots of games. If it takes you 2 to 3 hours to play a 500 point game you seriously need to learn your army. A quick fluid game is not only more enjoyable but helps build confidence in your abilities. I'm pretty sure that no one enjoys having to sit around scratching their ballz waiting for a complete noob to figure out what they're going to do. Quick and easy, that's how we like'em.

Be Confidant:

Your army is good and very capable of winning. Say it over and over again. I cannot stress enough how helpful it is in the tourney scene to simply have confidence in yourself. Ever heard of the "Attractor Factor?" Basically it means that your mental thoughts will equal your future. It sounds so cheesy, but if you envision the win, you're that much closer to the win. If you're not confidant you may find yourself getting pushed around by the lgs rules jerks.

Be Humble (good winner and loser):

Bad losers suck to play against. I'm sure I've been a bad loser on some occasions but I really don't lose that much. That being said I want to focus on the ego maniac. Yeah, you're probably going to kick the tar out your opponent. At least be gracious and allow them to have a good time. If you want to keep gaming then you'll need to keep finding people to play against. You won't get very far by being smug. Buy'em a drink, compliment their painting. Make the game more than a notch on your bed post. The easiest way is to be humble in your conquest.

Be respectful:

This is a lot like be humble but applies to much much more than simply winning or losing. During a game you need to show respect to the other player by speaking clearly, making eye contact, listening to what they are saying and by paying attention. Don't be condescending if they ask for a rule clarification and don't bitch about how "cheezy" X is or how broken they are yadda yadda. You can trash talk a bit so long as you know your opponent is ok with that. I'm not, so don't ask me. Also, if you are a spectator you have no right or obligation to rules-lawyer. I'm guilty of this so often that it makes me sick, I feel bad about it but that doesn't make rules-lawyering OK. As a spectator don't ever ever ever ever ever pick up another player's figs without express permission. I don't care if it's in the graveyard or their case. Keep your grimy hand off the figs. And lastly, let them play. Don't be a distraction. Sit and watch and judge for yourself how much friendly banter is acceptable.

Be Knowledgeable:

If you're going to play a game learn the rules and know your faction inside and out. To gain success as a gamer you also need to learn the other factions. I've found through the few real ass-whoopn's I've had that they were always a result of me not knowing what the other units/caster/solo was capable of. My word of advice? Buy the books and study them, or at least the faction decks. You'll thank me when you're faced with a new army and still know everything about them, then proceed to tear them apart! :)

Happy gaming.

The "Be" Attitudes - Cont.

2009-07-03T08:04:00.000-07:00

Be aggressive:

In my experience, my 17 years of wargaming experience, I have found that victory favors the aggressor. There are instances where a turtle seems the answer but ultimately they will lose to a more aggressive player as the aggressive player continue to develope new strategy. Look at it this way. If an opponent is forced to continuously respond to your assault then they have little ability to force a counter attack, will make a rash decision which and allow you to dominate them.

Be adaptable:

Even though your game plan is to simply run the Nightmare up and kill their caster (It always works for me) it is always wise to have 2 - 3 back up contingencies available. This way should your primary win condition fall short you will not require as much energy to regroup. Also, this let's you remain on the offensive (see "Be Aggressive.")

Be honest:

The best part about war gaming is the human interaction. There's nothing better than a few chums gathered together for a little brain bash'n. Even at a tournament the atmosphere and energy level should be fairly relaxed. Keep it this way by not trying to deceive your opponent. When they ask you for stat information don't lie. Don't erase wounds and especially don't try to move your figs farther than their alloted movement. Not only will dishonesty result in a quick sock-jacking, you'll soon find it difficult to get a game. I've seen this first hand as continual problem players fade from the local game group.

....more to come....

-Cheers-

The Beatitudes - "Be Prepared"

2009-07-01T15:04:00.000-07:00

Be prepared:

The first step to a successful game (resulting in a win) is to adequately prepare for your oncoming game.

The most essential skill needed is basic list building. There are two conflicting views of list building. The casual gamer and the power gamer. Both are highly capable of creating unique and interesting lists, I simply feel that the individual who claims their lists are all fun is simply devising a strategy for a loss. I've made plenty of "just for kicks lists" and been very successful. The trick is to know how to balance the list so that you have fun but don't weaken your position by having nothing but junk and then proceed to epic fail.

When you build a list there are a few rules of thumb.

First: Build to your strengths and plan for your weaknesses.

With Cryx vs different armies I have to worry about different threats, so when list building I have to take that into consideration. I'm particularly fragile vs shooty factions and factions which ignore most of the rules. While searching for a solution to those problems I've found that my army contains a variety of "toolbox" units. Toolbox simply means that they solve a specific problem. For example, bile thralls are the #1 unit vs infantry. The nightmare and bane knights are the assassins, . Skarlock helps maintain a focus efficient caster. each caster has their own toolbox figs that aid in delivery of their kill mechanic. For example pSkarre relies heavily on mechanithralls to feed the bomb and her focus factory. Gaspy needs Gorman to help screen him from shooty as he is a medium base. Also, the bloodgorgers serve him very well as they are also medium bases and provide screening. These toolbox units are at your core of my lists and everything run is then be built around them.

Essentially we're playing a giant game of rock-paper-scissors. Making sure you have enough rocks, scissors and paper on hand is usually the trick.

Second: Prep for your opponent.

If you've paid any attention at all you'll probably know more or less what to expect from your local meta. Playing vs Khador and know that he's a huge Karchev fan? Perhaps bringing gorgers and biles isn't the most sage approach. Get my drift? Again, it's all about paper-rock-scissors.

Lastly: Anticipate the unknown.

I find that a list which is well rounded, meaning that it has an answer or two for each threat, is much more efficient and stands a better chance of winning. An army of Bane Knights while sounding fun would do horribly vs any anti infantry army, and so on and so on.

So remember, recognize your weaknesses, plan vs your opponent and yet maintain balance.

Happy Gaming!

-Cheers-

AAAAAAaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!

2009-07-01T12:24:00.001-07:00

OH NO, THE MAIN FORUM IS DOWN!!! WTH AM I GOING TO DO WITH MY BREAK?!?!

New Toys. First Game, First Loss.

2009-06-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

I played my first game yesterday vs. Khador and it was a HOOT! I had a lot of fun trying to figure out how to posture my guys to get the most out of them. There were a few definite stars and a few figs that lacked, though mostly due to how I ran them.

I played:

Zaal

Krea

Savage

Cannoneer

Extoller

Praetorian Swordsmen (8) + The Officer & Standard Bearer

Cetrati (4)

Ferrox (3)

Orin Midwinter

Venator Catapult

Pain Givers (4)

He ran: (More or less)

Epic Sorcha

Destroyer

Juggernaut

Kovnik

Drakhun

A&H

Eyriss

Orin Midwinter

Man-O-War Demo Corp

Mortar

Field Gun

Great Bears

I won initiative and ran everything forward, for the AG I had them declare charges just to get the added 3" of movement. Gobbers put concealment on my front rank of praetorians.

He had Eyriss in a tree and shot a phantom hunter bolt at my praetorian officer, didn't kill him thaknfully but it was close. I sent Orin Midwinter after the Iosan Bitch, too bad she's a better shot than he is. Basically he shot at her, she killed him.

Khador then launched a mortar and field gun barrage which killed a few praetorians and fed the AG's. The Drakhun then ran down my left in an attempt to flank. Holt then killed a few more praetorians and now have almost completely loaded my AG's with souls. :)

My Turn. AG's both gain +4" movement and charge for free thanks to zaal. Death rains down on the great bears and the demo corp. The ferrox jump over the intervening model in front of Sorcha and engage her. They deal some damage but not enough to really matter.

By now the savage is dead and the cannoneer has taken care of the Drakhun thanks to a well placed shot to his tiny khador head. The catapult drifted nicely into Holt and turned him into a red stain. The Cetrati engage the Demo Corp and deal damage but not sufficient to really kill much.

I'm feeling good about my position. My titan is still untouched with the extoller in tow and the unit of pain givers are doing just fine. The praetorians are dead but that was pretty much their purpose. I didn't even bother feating, mostly because I forgot to but I felt that it wouldn't have made much of a difference. I was wrong, why was I wrong? I thought Zaal only received a token for each Skone model killed in the last turn etc. I failed to see that it counts for the WHOLE game. Holy crap. Had I feated the Cetrati would have put out way more damage killing much much more than they did. Also, the ferrox could have put more than a few scratches on Sorcha.

Ah well, live and learn.

Now It turns ugly.

Sorcha feats. So I'm like you. I think that it's pSorcha not epic. I laugh because I've anticipated the feat and there is not much in LOS that isn't expendable. Oh snap, it's epic Sorcha, so instead she makes it so that her entire army deals double damage for every pip that gets through my armor. Well, to make a long story short he beats the crap out of me and manages to get the last remaining great bear into combat with Zaal. Yeah. Dead.

In all it was one of the most fun games I've played in a long time. The newness of the faction and their unfamiliarity made game play a tad slow but that was mostly due to my search for "combos" etc. I can't wait for my next opportunity to play.

Zaal is still my go to guy. I can't imagine having less than 7 fury so making that adjustment will be difficult. Morghoul seems interesting but I'll have to get a few more pain givers together to allow better fury management. I'll save that discussion for another time.

Until then,

-Cheers-

What's That Funny Look'n Logo Under The Cryx Badge?

2009-06-26T17:39:00.001-07:00

Yes, it's true. I've picked up a second faction, for the second time.

Originally I played both Trollbloods and Cryx but found that I had a hard time building both armies at the same time. A troll here, a wraith there yadda yadda. I couldn't do it. So I traded my trolls off for some cryxian goodness and now my collection is all but complete (minus some of the more crappy figs.)

Now I feel comfortable makeing the investment into another faction. This time I chose my faction based on tons of play experience and game preference.

Skorne seemed the best fit. They have some terrific looking models, some very tough units and solos and I love their beasts. Plus soul collecting and manipulation mixed with an army willing to sacrifice anything and anyone seemed right in line with my Cryx play style.

Here's what I got from a my good buddy Cerealjohn (who got it from bartertown) and sold it to me for a good price. We think ;)

pMorghoul

pMakeda

Zaal

Xerxis

Hexeris

Krea x2

Drake

Cyclops Brute

Cyclops Savage x2

Cyclops Shaman

Bronzeback Titan

Titan Cannoneer

Titan Gladiator

Ancestral Guardian x2

Extoller Soulward

Cataphract Arcuarii (Box)

Pain Giver Beast Handler (Box)

Praetorian Ferox (Box)

Praetorian Swordsmen (Box)

Praetorian Officer & Standard Bearer

Venator Catapult Crew

Swamp Gobbers

Warlock analysis soon to come once I finish the "Be Attitudes of War Gaming."

-Cheers-

The Be Attitudes of War Gaming

2009-06-23T09:12:00.000-07:00

In pursuit of a successful gaming experience there are certain qualities you must attain so that joy and happiness follow you and your pursuit for wold dominance.

Be Prepared
Be Aggressive
Be Adaptable
Be Confidant
Be Knowledgeable
Be Honest
Be Timely
Be Respectful
Be Humble

With these traits you too will be able to smash face and have a good time of it like sifu McCryx!

****Each attitude will be expanded upon in subsequent posts, stay tuned!****

Game Record

2009-06-17T21:23:00.000-07:00

So it's mid June, the year is half over and we're getting closer and closer to Summer Rampage '09. Our local gaming group has been playing furiously every Wednesday night at our LGS and having a lot of fun doing it.

While our meta isn't represented by the full spectrum of factions our group does however have a fantastic mix in both player ability and variety.

As of June 17th my current 2009 win record is as follows.

vs. Cygnar 9 Wins 6 Losses = 60%

vs. Menoth 6 Wins 0 Losses = 100%

vs. Khador 4 Wins 0 Losses = 100%

vs. Cryx 3 Wins 1 Loss = 75%

vs. Mercs 4 Wins 0 Losses = 100%

vs. Trolls 6 Wins 0 Losses = 100%

vs. Legion 5 Wins 2 Losses = 71.43%

vs. Circle 2 Wins 0 Losses = 100%

vs. Skorne 0 Wins 0 Losses = N/A

Add all that up and you've got an overall win record of 81.25% Not too shabby.

All this success has really had me thinking these last few week. That and having an incredible amount of free time at work. I've come up with a new blog post that I hope to have together by the end of the week. I call it the "Be Attitudes Of Wargaming." Essentially it'll be a post on some attributes of what I view as a successful war gamer. More to come.

Escalation

2009-06-10T21:13:00.000-07:00

LGS tourney time again.

Escalation, meaning that in a three or four round event each player plays three lists starting at 350 MM/T&C. It then graduates to 500 then 750. At the 750 level we must use the epic version of our original caster if that option is available

My first question is this:

"Do I care about going epic?"

What I mean is, should my decision as to which caster I run be based solely on their ability to run epic at 750? Both Mortenebra and the Coven don't have the option so should that preclude them from the tournament?

Which then makes me wonder,
"Are the non epic versions capable of winning at their lower point values?"

"Do the epic choices I have available make a big enough difference at 750 compared to my other non epic casters?"

I'm not really worried about Deneghra, Skarre or Goreshade (who I still don't own so forget him anyway.) I am worried about Asphyxious at the 350 point level.

So does that eliminate him entirely? I don't think so but still. I'd like a few more games with him under my belt before I throw him to the wolves. That being said, Gaspy is an amazing assassin. Either by spells or by taking it into his own hands. Of feat turn I can cast hellfire multiple times or stick them with my spear several times then shadow wing away if the job isn't done.

At epic level he's a monster. Can't be charged, immune to blast damage and the warding is like having multiple Madrak scrolls. Combine that with insane soul harvesting and bloodgorgers and you have a recipe for destruction.

The coven can spell assassinate at the 350 and even 500 point levels quite easily. 750 becomes a tad more difficult any anyone I face in the final game should be competent enough to avoid the 3xSA to the face ploy anyway. Still, I'd feel like a tool for trying to pull that as my strategy. I'd be like a sissy Cygnar player using Haley and the Temporal barrier/turtle gimmick.

Mortenebra is amazing but after running her in a previous tourney I'm a little burnt out and I'd like to try my hand with a different caster. Also I can fully expect to make a variety of mistakes with Mortenebra seeing as how she was my primary caster during the MKII beta. I'd hate to lose because I forgot to move the Nightmare during my opponents turn as opposed to the beginning or my turn.

Skarre is out of the question as I don't own her epic version and really won't need it until MKII is officially released. (My group has shifted back to MKI)

Goreshade is right out as well. I don't own either version as I couldn't justify the expense of having to buy a box of bane thralls. Also, eGoreshade is a puddle of suck in MKII and not worth the purchase anyhoo.

Terminus. Don't own him and I don't think he's viable in a tourney game rife with "shooty" anyway. I think the fig is great but even in MKII he's just a big sissy. Nothing like you'd expect from a HUGE terrifying monster.

Next problem is creating a 350 point list that will blend into both 500 and 750 point lists. Not being a jack faction 350 will be the most crucial hurdle. once I lay the foundation I'm stuck with it for the remainder of the game. The only jacks I use consistently are nodes, Nightmare and the Deathjack. The DJ is too pricey for 350 and an all node list is real risky.

From this point list building gets easy as all I have to do is insert my favorite troops. You know, bile thralls, bane knights, the Nightmare. The basics.

Again my foe will be Haley and TB. I don't have much that can deal with it aside from careful maneuvering and a quick blitzkrieg with a Gaspy feat. I mean really, can't run, can't charge and def is -3 and it's a spell that can be cast EVERY damn turn. Stupid.

Other than that I shouldn't have any problems.

Wish me luck. It'd be nice to win one for a change. The last tourney I won wasn't even with my own faction, I played a 750 eVad army. Hmmmmmm. I could probably do that again lol. No wait. I refuse! Cryx can do this, Haley be damned!

-Cheers-

What Goes Bump In The Night

2009-06-07T21:09:00.001-07:00

Cryx vs. Trolls

Epic Deneghra

Skarlock

Nightmare

Deathripper

Defiler

Cankerworm

Slaughterborn

Tartarus

Pistol Wraith

Bane Knights

Bile Thralls

Overlords

Trolls:

Epic Doomshaper

Mulg

Mauler

Slag

Impaler

Hero

Fell Caller

Champions

Alten Ashley

Swamp Gobbers

The Cryxian raiding party, en route to intercept a Cygnar supply train, stumbled upon a band of sleeping Trollbloods. Thinking that troll flesh made the sturdiest thralls the Wraith Witch quickly made a full advance towards their kriel prey.

An unfortunate human was sleeping next to a grain silo and was melted into a greasy puddle of corrosive goo. His terrified screams of agony alerted the kriels and their hulking kin to the Cryxian presence.

Doomshaper, in his gnarled wisdom, pulled the bulk of his force away from his left flank where opposite were advancing sacks of pestilence, bile thralls. The champions ran towards the sound of their fallen companion but were surprised when a neurotic dire troll mauler with a major jones for doomy picked some of their brethren up and hurled them towards the oncoming wave of undead. One throw was so well placed that the champion bullet demolished one of the deathrippers. The dazed troll could only lay there with a confused yet proud look on his face. Too bad he wasn't looking behind him at the full unit of bane knights less than a few yards away, otherwise his expression might have been a bit different, but we're getting ahead of ourselves here.

With a beastly chuckle, if trolls can chuckle, or it might have simply been gas, the dire troll grabbed another champion and hurled it towards the floating overlords and came up short, not short of a boulder, but short of hitting the floating telepaths. Consequently the champ got KO'd and wouldn't be able rejoin the fray, ever.

The remaining trolls lumbered forward in a cloud of gobber smoke and Mulg farts.

"Let's let them consume their own." Hissed the warwitch as she motioned the enigmatic cephalyx overlords forward.

The drooling dire troll mauler's eyes went even more vacant and slowly it ambled away from the fray. Meanwhile one of the champions was forced to make a full advance towards the Cryxian battle front.

Deneghra waved her spear commanded her skarlock to cast the harrowing compelling the remaining champions to sprint towards their cursed brother.

"Ima'gunna'keelyahbadly!" Screamed the witch as she attempted to suck the souls of Mulg, a hero, the swamp gobbers, the slag troll and an impaler down to hell. The beasts proved to strong for the dark magic but the gobbers were never seen from again.

In a rage the impaler threw a tree sized spear and impaled Gerlak knocking him several feet back into Tartarus. While any other troll would have returned to Dhunia, Slaughterborn pulled out the gore soaked shaft and cast it aside letting out a terrifying howl. Tartarus was pissed too, but, being an undead apparition he simply shook it off like a champ.

Again the dire troll mauler advanced and grabbed two not so champion champions by the throat and threw them towards a unit of bane knights. In a giant puff of blood and armor both knight and troll evaporated into goo.

More troll champion landed amongst the knights missing their targets and ending rather poorly with broken necks and backs.

"This fool is doing my work for me." Deneghra laughed. Quickly she slid forward binding all her foes in a terrible feat of darkness. Easily she could pick off one by one the full blooded trolls that blocked her path to instant victory. The path to Doomshaper.

Tartarus' giant axe bit heartily into several trolls and greatly wounded mulg. Mulg who in protest to being skewered promptly ate the bane lord. Tartar sauce was quickly vindicated as the nightmare and Slaughterborn cleaned up the mess only to be killed by the remaining slag troll.

The mauler limbered in front of the bane knights to block their charge to Doomshaper. While standing there its form turned to smoke and became incorporeal. With a clear path toDoomshaper the bane knights quickly overwhelmed him.

With Doomshaper out of the way the few remaining Kriels fled the field.

"Not a bad day wouldn't you say." Deneghra spoke over the quickly healing Gerlak Slaughterborn. Behind her a vaporeal shape took form as the bane lord retook his formidable form.

The necrosurgeons will be pleased with all this troll flesh.

Battle Report!

2009-06-05T17:44:00.000-07:00

Ok, not yet. I'm still working on it. I just wanted to toss out a teaser so that you are all primed for its awesomeness.

And Now For Something Really Special....

2009-06-01T18:34:00.001-07:00

Painting The Nightmare

This bad boy has been my MVP since I finally figured out how to run it. Initially I treated it like any other jack from any other faction. I thought it was my beat stick of doom. So I'd send it off to confront some other beat stick or unit and invariably it'd get smashed to bits.

Then I had my "aha moment." And I finally understood it's purpose. For those who've played against it know what that purpose it. For those who haven't I say "just you wait."

So, in part because I've got a hankering to paint and mostly because I love the nightmare so much, it gets a paint job.

I present for your viewing pleasure, a step by step guide to painting the nightmare (if you want to paint it very poorly.)

Step one: Assemble it. Use pins and green stuff the joints. I didn't think the little girl was very funny and frankly it doesn't fit on the table so I omitted it.

Step two: black primer. Spray it evenly and it's better to use multiple thin layers as opposed to just blasting it. Also, make sure you spray the underside as well. Just because some people paint over pewter doesn't mean you should.

Step three: The metal. The chassis and undercarriage we'll paint Vallejo "honed steel." We'll also paint the claws talons and gilding the same color. I painted brown everywhere I wanted to paint gold as it provides a nice base.

Step four: ink wash. I added a few dots of thamar black to the honed steel and then used a dropper to add water creating a wash. I had previously stated how I don't want to use regular water because I found that it caused the ink to dry weird. In this instance I want that effect hoping it looks sort of smokey, so we'll see if it happens. I then applied the wash to all the honed steel

Step five: dry brush the steel bits with honed steel again.

Step six: paint the gold bits.

Step seven: mixing a similar wash for blighted gold I create another wash and apply it liberally.

Step eight: dry brush the gold bits with blighted gold.

Step nine: clean up your edges by paining and spill overs with thamar black. It helps and really dose keep your fig looking nice.

Step ten: I took cryx base and applied it to all the armor surface, careful not to mar any of my finished metal bits.

Step eleven: Ok, I did this a tad premature but I really wanted to try and paint the necrotic smoke stack. So that's what I did. First I took green, then added some white, then added more white, then some more white and then... You get the point. I think it turned out great. I wish I knew how to blend a bit better because there is a definite distinction between the different colors.

That's it so far. Next up comes highlighting and finishing touches.

2009-05-21T11:31:00.000-07:00

No painting whatsoever.

OK. So I had a goal, a plan, a thing to do. It was simple really. Just paint the seether. Well I failed miserably. It's not even primed yet. Worse that that, the poor brute has taken some battle damage as it spikes keep getting knocked off thanks to my foam not being deep enough.

One positive note is that I watched P3's Core painting guide yesterday. It was informative. Sadly nothing that I didn't know before. I digress, I admit that my washes had been drying all crazy on me, according to the video it's because of the tap water. They recommend their mixing medium. I used to wash windows for a living and I know that purified water drys real nice and spot free. I wonder if that's essentially what their mixing medium is. I'll have to try it.

I was going to get some painting done but now that my summer job has kicked in it'll have to wait for another day. Maybe, just maybe by this Wednesday I'll have something to show.

-Cheers-

The Results Are In...

2009-05-06T20:54:00.001-07:00

And fist up to be painted is......

I have no idea where to begin but it's going to be fun. I'll try to remember to take pictures as I go. I hope to get it primed and ready to go tomorrow and have it finished by next game night.

-Cheers-

MKII Model Review

2009-05-05T20:13:00.000-07:00

Jacks rule so they go first.

Deathjack: An amazing brute with a deep grid, terrific stats and a plethora of unique abilities which make this jack the finest in all the IK. With two P+S 18 attacks, arm 19, two free focus every turn and the ability to cast spells and consume. souls the DJ has no equal on the battle field

The DJ suffered a few substantial nerfs in MKII but none are overly worrisome. Firstly the DJ can no longer necrovent but as a trade you no longer have to feed it a FOC to keep it from going crazy. True that loss of fluff tames the dj down a bit but ultimately it's for the greater good, er, bad.

The Nightmare is my favorite jack in the game. This speedy son of a bitch has earned more kills than I care to count. As far as I can tell the Nightmare is essential in almost every cryx list and especially with Mortenebra.

While spd 6 is great for a jack, with Morty the nightmare can potentially move 23" in a single turn. With 2". Reach the nightmare has an effective threat range of 25". Game Over.

The nightmare kept its bond with Deneghra so that while in her battle group it gains stealth. The imprint "ghostly" is fantastic in that it let's you ignore free strikes and terrain. If only it ignored intervening models.

On the down side the nightmare's grid is shallow for a heavy requiring you to play with a tad more finesse than with other heavies. All in all the nightmare is A+

The Seether: was pretty cool in MKI but was rife with issues, namely I played infantry machine and never ran much more than a few nodes and the Cankerworm. That being said, MKII has provided some serious incentive to fielding jacks so now the seether shall see the light of day.

With MAT 8 and one free FOC per turn the seether is nigh but guaranteed to box whatever it charges. MKII granted the seether a chain attack which allows it to make a power attack for free. (With some exceptions). Frankly this jack, while more expensive, has taken the Cankerworm's place on all my lists. So again, great MAT, better DEF than most heavies (irc), decent pow+str, two open fists, a deep grid and decent movement makes the Seether another A+ jack.

The Slayer is still the red-headed stepchild of all Cryx players. Its utility was increased in that it is now cheap as dirt for a heavy and boasts a killer pow 22 combo strike. This little guy on a charge is going to cause some serious grief. Lamentably with low armor and a shallow grid the Slayer isn't going to last long after its initial assault so pick your targets well. Overall rating is a solid "B-"

The Leviathan is a confusing jack. I don't own one, and with its current stats I'm pretty sure that will go on unchanged. There is really nothing special about this maritime heavy. It looks cool. Has a ranged attack with ROF 3 and a cool looking claw. But, well, that's really it; and it's as expensive as the nightmare or seether, both of which I'd take over the levi' any day. Overall grade "D+."

The Harrower is still cool. Pricey and "OK." As of yet I don't know why I'd take it over the nightmare.

The Stalker is perhaps the one jack which benefited from MKII more so than any other jack in the faction. Let's be honest now, the stalker was a sissy, waste of time, no good wreck marker waiting to happen. Now, while still a wreck marker waiting to happen, the stalker comes with a few added tryx and the potential to be an assassin. Honestly though the damage grid on this glorified bone jack is so pathetic that even taking into consideration its high def and cool abilities the jack is still scrap. "C"

The Cankerworm is no more. I'd prefer to not talk about it. You bastards! You know who you are! "F"

Nodes: single in purpose and mind though different in cost. Much energy was spent on an in faction argument concerning the nodes and their steep point cost. Mostly it was one dink saying "they are fine" vs the Cryx community. Ultimately the community prevailed as PP recently updated the stats for the nightwretch and defailer. Same points as before but the defiler finally has the spray attack it should have always had and the wretch has "powerful shot." Awesome. For still being too expensive and because I say so, the nodes get a "B."

To Be Continued...

Choices Choices

2009-04-30T10:25:00.000-07:00

Now that I've established my summer goal it's time to jump right into it

So who's gonna be first?

Well there is no sense wracking my brain on the matter. This seems like the perfect topic for a reader poll!

So choose your doom and there we'll start.

Until next time,

-Cheers-

Summer Time!

2009-04-26T11:59:00.000-07:00

It's good to have goals, they keep you focused and are essential for constant self improvement.

Here is my goal for summer 2009.

Thankfully now that summer is over and the restrictions on my time are relaxed I find myself in a position to really have some fun painting my small army.

I like to paint, no, I love to paint. Painting and modeling are possibly the two primary reasons I love to war game so much and have pursued it for so long.

I've posted them before but I'll do it again, here are a few of my pieces. Frankly they're nothing to boast about but I like'em and am proud of the job I've done. Just like my gaming venture from casual to competitive I want to take my painting ability to the next level.

I have a problem though, I don't know where to begin.

Here is a list of what paints I have, my tools and other misc odds and ends I use when painting.

Reaper Honed Steel
Reaper Cyan Blue
Reaper Pure White
Reaper Carnage Red
Reaper Sunlight Yellow
Reaper Pure Black
P3 Blighted Gold
P3 Molten Bronze
P3 Jack Bone
P3 Thrall Flesh
P3 Khador Red Base
P3 Bloodtracker Brown
P3 Ordic Olive
P3 Necrotic Green
P3 Cryx Bane Base
P3 Cryx Bane Highlight
P3 Thamar Black
P3 Trollblood Base
P3 Underbelly Blue
P3 Beaten Purple
P3 Midlund Flesh

Pin Vise
Round File
Clippers

I find myself at a loss though. When I frequent such affluent sites such as "Brush Thralls" or "Cool Mini or Not" and even the creative community on the PP forums I hear talk such as:

"Blending"

"Dry-brushing"

"Glazes"

"Smoke"

"Wet"

"Wash"

Etc. Etc.

I have an idea what those techniques are, I've even seen some of them put to use but when I take my turn at it I find the results lack significantly.

So, after that long winded into I present you with my summer goal.

(Drum roll please!)

I am going to finish my Cryx army!!!

And I'm going to do it using they techniques I plan on learning along the way. I hope to be able to document over the course of the next few months is a visible increase in both my own ability and overall fig quality.

The purpose?

1) I WANT to be a better painter and as everyone knows, "a painted army plays better and winz moar."

2) I plan on submitting a piece to a NQ competition. I don't know which nor am I certain there will be one, but I want to be ready in case there is one.

3) Hardcore. I want to play hardcore so incredibly bad my teethe ache. It's speed chess meets Warmachine and by thunder I like it!

The trick will be getting my local bunch of swabs in on the idea. Hey, here's a thought. Mayhaps once my mad painting skills are developed I could start petitioning commissions and help them get on the way to a life of hardcore.

That'd be one helluva road trip for next summer.

-cheers-

Cannibalism

2009-04-20T19:10:00.000-07:00

My lack of blogging is due to two factors.

I have an insane amount of homework
I've spent most my energy trying to deal with the cannibalism in the Cryx community.

Let's focus a little on factor #2

I know, cannibalism. Really? What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Well, taken from my perspective it's when one person attempts to undermine the efforts of his or her own team. Think about it. Was eating your own kind any way to continue the propogation of the human race as a whole? Nope.

It's similar to what is going on in the Cryx community and quite frankly I'm tired of it.

Each post if rife with Cryxian wannabe's and hyperbole. What I'm really tired of is that a few people who don't even play Cryx are spewing their vomit all through threads which started as sincere discussions but have deteriorated into cock fights.

So much energy has been spent gathering empirical data yet the nay sayers remain steadfast in their ignorance.

I'm done. I just wanna play.

-Cheers-

350 MM Tourney Update + MKII Test vs. Cygnar

2009-04-15T22:24:00.000-07:00

Tonight was the final games for the 350 MM tournament. I played vs Circle and came out on top.

pDenneghra and the Nightmare are a wicked combo. Cankeworm earned his points easily while the nodes were obliterated pretty easily. Denny used her feat defensively allowing the nightmare to avoid being charged.

Endgame found Baldur being chargede by the nightmare and his only beast left had full fury so he couldn't transfer damage. Game over.

Second game of the night was a MKII pick up game vs. eHaley. Wow, I didn't realize how f'ing annoying she is. Run and spell bomb, run and spell bomb. It got real old real fast. I was literally crippled by my lack of nodes, but at 5 points a piece and at 25 points I had to be very selective about what to take

I ran the Gorgers, Seether, Slaughterborn, Stalker, Cankerworm and Bile thralls.

Gorgers = fail. They killed s storm smith, woo woo.

Slaughterborn was so very close to being devastating to the precursors but failed to hit on his 2nd attack. Seether bust heads but without reach or any follow up wasn't able to do much more than kill 2 knights. Stalker hurt the ironclad but not much. Cankerworm failed to reach the ironclad on his charge. Boo.

After a few rounds it was getting late so we called it a game. Most my stuff was dead thanks to Haley dropping two 4" AoE pow 14 spells per round. It's hard to keep up with that when she's approx 24" away as she casts it. Thankfully eSkarre's feat somewhat negated her feat by making some of my most precious figs immune to damage for a round but still, with him running away most the game it was more or less pointless.

It was a good game though. I saw the need for arc nodes as eSkarre's spell with average range 6" were impossible to cast while keeping her out of harms way. Skarlock was ok, not too amazing but able to cast a few of the unit buff spells helping to manage foc.

-Cheers-

Finally, My First Non-Vassal MKII Test.

2009-04-11T21:39:00.000-07:00

MKII has been released and my initial reaction was pure DOOM. For reasons stated in previous posts I've felt somewhat cheated and frankly completely pissed at the changes which have dramatically altered my beloved faction.

Enough pouting, time for playing.

This morning's game was my chance to try out a few of the new mechanics Cryx have been give. Most interesting to me were:

Bane Knights and Vengeance vs Shadow Shift
The Necrosurgeon
The Seether

Bane Knights: Shadow shift was quintessential to my game play. A huge section of my "cryx tryx" arsenal dealt with bane knights (BK) and Tartarus. Unfortunately because so many players couldn't wrap their head around shadow shift and their out of turn activation that PP found it necessary to stream line them a bit. So now instead of Shadow shift we have Vengeance.

Vengeance works as such: "During your maintenance phase, if one or more models in this unit were destroyed or removed from play by enemy attacks during your opponent's last turn, each model can advance 3" and make one normal melee attack."

So basically instead of one shift for each hit BK during your turn, I now get to "shift" my entire unit at the beginning of my turn AND then activate them normally. Seems like a good gig to me. Here's what worked and what didn't.

Pro's: Did I mention that the ENTIRE unit gets to advance and make a regular attack? Yeah, that's terrific.

Con's: My opponent still gets to attempt to eliminate the entire unit sans retaliatory shifts. No screwing with their charges etc.

Running them with epic Asphyxious worked out rather well. The BK's laid the beat-down on his exemplars but were summarily butchered on my opponents activation. That being said the two remaining BK's did a number on them thanks to vengeance. eGspy then casts excarnate, killing a choir boy and I then get to add a BK to the unit. BK's activate again and leave only two exemplars standing.

The NecroSurgeon: Arguably Cryx's worst fig ever in MKI. This unit attachment was way over priced and worst yet, when you did pop out some mechanithralls they couldn't even activate. MKII has fixed that. They are super cheap, multi wound with sacrificial pawn allowing them to stave off any potential snipers. Best yet is that the mechanithralls get to activate the turn they are brought into play. MKII tips do state that they cannot move but may attack. WOOT.

Against the Mennite they suffered what seemed a devastating blow when the Castigator vented killing five mechanithralls. No worries on my part, next turn the surgeon advances and places five new mechanithralls into melee with both the castigator and the crusader. The castigator has a pretty bad day and both jacks are tied up in melee yet again with a unit which only cost 7 points total. Fantastic!

The Seether: I honestly didn't have too much experience with the original version, thanks in part to the fact that I didn't like Terminus and that my other character jacks were so much better. Seems a lot has changed in MKII.

Seether has terrific mat and pow+str attacks. It's going to hit you and often. If both initial attacks connect you're also looking at a free power attack from a limited list. On that short list is the little used "head butt." What's terrific about this is that with a successful head-butt you may now buy extra attack which auto-hit! That's pretty awesome. The fire of salvation found out first hand how deadly a seether can be once it was properly turned to scrap.

In all it was a good game. We had to call it quits prior to completion thanks to an Easter-egg hunt and BBQ I was committed to. So for the sake of the game we called it a draw. If you're interested though all I'd lost were some bane knights and bile thralls and Tartarus. He was down a Dervish, FoS, a unit of exemplars, most his choir, Vilmon and the Castigator was nearing "scrap" status, plus Gaspy still had his feat too.

As of now MKII is looking loads better than before from a core rules standpoint. I'm still upset that the bloodgorgers, which are a fantastic unit in MKI, were relegated to the shelf thanks to MKII and an incredible nerf bat.

-Cheers-

350 Mangled Metal/Tooth & Claw

2009-04-08T22:36:00.000-07:00

Our LGS ran a MM/TC tourney today and it was an absolute blast! I really like that point level as it poses some tactical issues.

An all Jack list limits my choices and creates synergy issues.

Cryx don't have "amazing" jacks and rely more on tricky solutions ala Warcasters.

Fewer figs make it more important to accurately anticipate your opponents next move else you may leave yourself open for a charge or flank attack.

I don't own very many jacks as I prefer infantry-machine.

Taking those issues into consideration I originally planned on running a cheesy Coven list with a bunch of nodes. My problem is that I only have a few defailers and deathrippers with no nightwretches (I know, heresy.) After throwing a list together I kept coming up significantly short. Some people are ok with that, but I just can't do it.

Here's what I ran:

Deneghra
Cankerworm
Nightmare
Deathripper
Deathripper

I really like this list for a few reasons. First 3/5 have stealth and those that don't are def 15 which is insane good when dealing with MKI's low mat/rat jacks.

I also like having advance deploy on the worm and a jack that can move out of turn allowing it to set up an assassination run.

Lastly, all four jacks have terrific synergy and gain a ton from Deneghra's spell list and feat.

Time to play.

ROUND ONE vs Legion of Ever-broken.

Legion ran:

Saeryn
Serraph
Angelius
Shredders x 3

Sum it up real quick. I eff'n lost!

I had him on his heels scrambling for position by my second turn. Already his Angelius was pretty much paste and his serraph was knocked down. Shredders were taking damage left and right and he was down to only 5 life.

What happened next? Oh, I don't know, Saeryn's broken feat pops and I have to sit a turn scratching my but as he essentialy gets two turns in a row.

Legion guy spends fury healing a single pip in each column in each of his beasts circles. Serraph rolls a 6 on strafe then obliterates the cankerworm with die showing 5's and 6's for damage. Shredders all go rabid and chomp of both the nightmare's arms an the Angelius fame jets my deathripper and fries the node. What can I do? Nothing except try and run my other node up and lob some venom's.

Not enough damage. His turn next. There is no way he can kill Denny unless he rolls really well for strafe from the serraph. Either way all my stuff aside from Deneghra will be fried to I simply concede. Good game.

What did I learn from this experience? That legion at 350 and 500 is so broken that an inexperienced player can pwn with them. Imagine what a more competent play can accomplish. *Side Note* same guy chomped Darius for the win next round now continues onto the championship game. (Sigh)

ROUND TWO vs. Khador

Khador ran:
Irusk
Beast 09
Destroyer

Game was quick and painful. If you were the Khador guy.

My turn: Run forward, canker on the right flank hiding behind a farm house, nightmare on the left flank.

His turn: He moves forward, destroyer lobs a shot at a node, misses but the deviation catches it. boosts damage and knocks out my movement. Irusk casts Inhospitable ground and ends his activation. Nightmare responds with prey.

My turn. Ghost walk on Deneghra, move forward, feat. Use nightmare's imprint and charge Irusk from 13" for the win. Good game.

I'm still seething from my first loss to David and his stupid Legion army that I play two more pick up games and give them both a sound thrashing as well. So for the evening is was 3 for 4, too bad the game that really mattered most was a wash.

Apparently I can still vie for 3rd place. Yay more paint.

One thing these games verified was my love for the Cankerworm. It's terrific. Utterly squishy but good all the same. I've submitted a few "underpowered" feedback forms on the little guy.

Until next week.....

-Cheers-

And I'm Back!

2009-04-08T10:49:00.001-07:00

Huzzzah!

Ah Crap

2009-04-07T17:38:00.000-07:00

Hmm. This says it all. Not sure how long it will be until I can post on the main forums again. At least I can still read the posts and add my feedback for the beta. Until then.....

-Cheers-

Some thoughts

2009-04-07T09:50:00.000-07:00

Howdy!

1. POINT SYSTEM: It’s pretty cool actually. Though I find myself constantly comparing old cost vs. new cost. The different encounter levels are a tad strange. 75 points is close to 1000 points and it’s classified as only a grand melee. Skirmishes are more like the classic 500 and 750 point games we’re used to. I was amazed at all the stuff I could bring. Seems like 50 points is going to be the new norm for game size imo.

2. EPICS AT ANY LEVEL: I don’t like this at all. I realize it’s an argument over semantics but epic as defined by Merriam-Webster is “extending beyond the usual or ordinary especially in size or scope.” ([url]http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/epic[/url], 2009) Epics are to be just that, EPIC. The revamped models are different true, but most are actually worse than their variant as they are not fun and lack any fluff or flavor.

3. MIN OR MAX UNITS ONLY: Terrible, possibly one of the worst mechanics of the game. Much less diversity because you are locked into one or the other. I realize this will help sales as those of us who’ve only felt the need to run 8 bile thralls or 8 bane thralls as that’s all we need will now have to suck it up and buy more blisters. Honestly, how many of you guys ever run one or the other? Usually it’s somewhere in between. 7 or 9 maybe. Either way, you get my drift.

4. SYMBOLS FOR ABILITIES: yeah, this is a bit cartoony for me, as a constant heckler of hero clix and other sissy gamers I feel sheepish now that my own stuff has the same symbology. Is that a word?

5. LACK OF SCENARIO SECTION: Wasn’t this explained earlier?

6. LACK OF GRAPHIC VIOLENCE: Where is the death and mayhem? I read a reference to a model being disemboweled as simply being “boxed.” LAME! We kill things, that’s what my big axe does to your sissy long gunner; it cuts your f^(%!n$ head off. Just a silly tangent, back on topic.

7. OTHER IMPRESSIONS: I was lied to. PP did the old bait and switch on me. EVERYTHING from Legends, which is still so new the spine still cracks when I open it, is now garbage. Streamlining doesn’t mean butchering. We were told that everything would be essentially the same. That each unit/fig’s role would be the same. This is why I spent hundreds of dollars buying EVERYTHING from that book. You said it’d be the same. It is not.

I’m not a fan of this being a whole new game. I gladly invested thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours and poured a ton of emotion into MKI, now you tell me that’s gone for good and I have to deal with it? You tell me to live with it and “evolve or die?” What, are you thirteen? As an adult I have to make a lot of big boy decisions dealing with investments all the time. The cost of this game does equal an investment. I know for a fact many of you have just as much money in this as I do and the thought that it’s a waste now because the fun has been sucked out, dumbed down and numbed to the point of useless is maddening.

I love that the many of the rules and confusions have been clarified. I like that for the sake of simplicity there is only one type of ghost walk. I like that model size is clarified and LOS, timing issues and the majority of rules are condensed and simplified. I don’t like that units are called grunts and that leaders are auto promoted should one take an axe to their skull.

I’ve half dozen games already under the new system and frankly I do not love it. It was all about the flavor and fun of the game for me and I truly feel that has been so sanitized now that it’s just like playing 40K. I quit 40K and didn’t pick up a fig for almost 7 years until a friend turned me on to Warmachine. It was so zesty and the casters were so over the top that I couldn’t resist. I got hooked much to the dismay of my wife and have been an avid gamer for quite some time now.

Now don’t take what I’m saying as “I’m gonna quit” yadda yadda. All I’m doing is expressing my honest opinion as to the apparent lack of fun that is WM MKII. I’m still going to play. Game night is still every Wednesday at six for all you guys in the Cache Valley Utah area. I want to play test this until my eyes bleed because I WANT this game to be FUN again. I WANT WM MKII to survive and thrive and be so awesome that all my buddies drop their fishing poles and come play war games instead. That being said, as of right now, this is not a system I’d advocate.

-Cheers-

Doom

2009-04-06T19:56:00.000-07:00

Please tell me where has the fun gone?

I’ve already had a chance to play test a game using the new rules and it was like chewing on cardboard. Yeah there was some excitement as I employed the new rule system and made a list using the crazy new point values. That excitement aside I felt literal grief for our faction as for the first time I played a game and had, honestly, no fun.

Here’s a rundown of what I see to be the main problem areas.

Asphyxious is our main man! The general, the veritable poster child for Cryx. He has been caster with whom I’ve had the most fun. My question to you is this. Why does the magic using faction’s poster child only have five spells? He’s a seven focus caster and only has FIVE spells. His epic version has only six! SIX and his best spells have been reduced to uselessness.

Gaspy has lost the ability to shunt damage by consuming a soul token. Hellbound no longer protects him from aoe damage. Don’t even get me started on excarnate. I can’t believe it’s still an upkeep spell. Some of the most fun I’ve had playing gaspy has been finding new and interesting targets for excarnate. That’s gone now.

Honestly, I won’t play either version of Gaspy as he is not competitive. Any element he once had is gone and he won’t hit the table again. (he’s who I played tonight.)

Goreshade is also getting put back in the box. While his prime version still resembles his former self the epic incarnation (and his most competitive) is not playable. Under no circumstance would I EVER consider running epic Goreshade. I hate to sound like a broken record but once again a really fun fig is boring and vanilla. Nothing special about Goreshade, just boring.

Moretenebra has quickly become one of my favorite casters. She’s unique and I love to run her with our character jacks. Pre MKII we were playing in an infantry machine world. I can forsee that coming to and end which will drastically reduce the fun level of Mortenebra. I can see why deathrace was nerffed to only being cast once per turn. I’m a little sketchy as to why it was renamed. Anyone else notice that there is an obvious aversion to any words that deal with death and carnage? I think I read a model being “killed” referred to as being “boxed.” Anyway, back on topic.

Mortey gets an average playability rating because I know I’ll get to play against Hordes eventually and she’ll be a boon. I’d wished to have seen her with more jack points, but I’ll wait a week before I make my final statement.

The Coven are HORRIBLE! These ladies were so much fun to play. Getting in a perfect conjunction, imprisoning anything and everything and popping heads with stygian abyss were so much fun. Stealth offered by the Egregore was hugely helpful and I feel that by losing it has really crutched the coven to the point that they are more effective as a paper weight than a warcaster.

Terminus was hard for me to buy into pre MKII, now that he’s been so utterly demoted to craptastic I don’t feel any urge to play him. I could see how fun he would have been in a casual game with his ability to throw whatever whenever. The fact that he could rage in combat then burn face with his dragon breath was really cool. Where did ravager go? That was his most awesome spell and made seethers insane. The few times Terminus took command of my cryx army the most fun I could have had was with that spell.

Deneghra & Skarre are both pretty much the same though eDenny is much much worse. Why no command debuffs? eDenny c-hax lists were like a barrel of monkeys. Fun for everyone, except the guy who had to clean up the mess afterward. I’m sad to see it go. eDenny won’t see any play but pDenny will and so will pSkarre.

Sick of sac strike yet? You ain’t seen nothing yet. With so many of my favorite casters damned to the box thanks to their epic lack of fun my meta will see so much sac strike they’ll have to ask me to please stop playing her.

Units?

I spent almost $150 on a full unit of Bloodgorgers with Slaughterborn. I’ve run them almost exclusively for a month straight and had so much fun. Their blood marks were the reason for the season man. They were the smoke in my pipe, the Christ in my Christmas. I now have no wish to play them again. I’m physically sick to my stomach because of what MKII has done to them. They went from being a spicy helping of unique Cryx goodness, now they are just more vanilla. I almost called Privateer HQ to voice my nerd rage but I had a feeling they’d just hang up on me. (sigh)
Slaughterborn is pretty good still. I love the big lug. Where did his blood marks go? He’s still playable and a lot of fun. Too bad the gorgers couldn’t tag along on the fun-train.

Can anyone tell me what the hell happened to the Deathjack? No necrovent? That was quintessential cryxian coolness. That’s his fluff man, that’s his coup de gras. Again, our most flavor full figs getting the vanilla downgrade. Not that I’ll play him any less. The DJ is still amazing and will be the bane of all that is not Cryx.

Most everything else I’m just too tired to spew about. I’m stoked that the necrosurgeon is good now, finally. Mechanithralls are the same, the revenant crew are still terrible and black bane and his pirate crew are even worse. There was little chance I’d run them before, it’s nigh inevitable now. Necrotechs have repair woot! The Satyxix raiders with their witch attachment will finally see some play thanks to AD and stealth. They’re still bad but now that the Gorgers are back in the box I gotta look somewhere.

BK’s and Thralls are still good and will see use. Thralls still less than others simply because the Bastard is no fun to play and I only really ran them with him.

Our jacks are nothing special still. I’m amazed that the slayer now has a combo strike at p+s 22! Crazy. Helldiver? What happened to you? Where did the aoe go and boosted attacks? It was interesting to play, no longer. That brings me to my favorite piece and one of the most tragic figures in our tale.

The Cankerworm. Why? Why of all the things that was done to diminish the fun of my faction did you have to pick on the cankerworm? No scuttle? No meat grinder? Only one attack with armor piercing? The worm doesn’t even get focus for killing a living model. As of now the only thing the worm is good for is as a scavenger. Nothing it takes though will be any good.

The Cankerworm, or the “Cankermissle” as I like to call it was, next to eGaspy and the Bloodgorgers, my most favorite piece in the game. Soooo much fun, soooo much win. It has gone from auto include to “not on my list.” Please privateer press, give me a bone here. Give me back my Bloodgorgers, epic Asphyxious and please, I beg, give me back my cankerworm.

-Cheers-

Ok, coffee break is over back to work.

2009-04-06T09:24:00.000-07:00

Sure, I post an epic fail moment for PP and what do they do? Open up MKII. So. Well. Sorry.

-Cheers-

MKII Release = Epic Fail

2009-04-06T09:15:00.000-07:00

The chubs at PP have had plenty of time to sip their Starbucks and hit the "enter" key by now to get the ball rolling. Still nothing is available. I'm sure the nerd-rage that has been created will soon cause a terrible black hole to develope destroying the universe. My thoughts? Vader says it all.

I Like To Paint...

2009-04-05T17:47:00.001-07:00

With MKII on the verge of hitting the gaming community I find my self at a loss for words. So in lieu of prattling off some nonsense on the state of our local meta or giving my opinion on some model whose stats will inevitably change with the morning sun I thought I'd post a few of my painted pieces.

Please take into consideration that:

My camera sucks.
I'm not a very good painter

So without further ado (drum roll please)

A Change Of Plans

2009-04-03T08:56:00.000-07:00

Change of plans. I'm not going to do the worst of yet because as many of you know MKII rules hit the scene in only a matter of days. I just can't justify writing a critique for each sub par fig when everything I say could possibly be debunked after this weekend.

So what I do have which is relevant is my LGS is sponsoring yet another Warmachine/Hordes tournament starting next week. The game set up is about as simple as it gets. 350 Mangled Metal (MM).

MM is frustrating for me. Mostly due to the fact that Cryx isn't known for its amazing jacks and equally powerful jack casters. The one jack caster we do have, Mortenebra, is nigh useless vs other jacks. Her two most powerful spells, death race and terminal velocity either activate or proffer bonuses to the jacks when targeting living models.

Ultimately I'm left with a decision between four casters:

Asphyxious- Parasite and hellfire are the two spells I'd plan on using the most. I'll use the jacks to block Gaspy's advance towards the caster for an assassination run. Part of my problem with him is that he doesn't have a ton of synergy with the jacks. Sure the cankerworm has an affinity for him but with no bile thralls there is an apparent lack of corrosion. I could toss in a defiler or two but that leaves me lacking sufficient points for anything but nodes. I could omit the worm and toss in the Deathjack with a bunch of nodes. Of course this leaves me vulnerable to anything which can take out the DJ. Mostly anything which can screw his cortex. I'm looking at you Haley and Darius.

The Coven- These ladies have quite a lot of synergy and I am really thinking about running them. My main theory is to use imprison to keep them safe wile I advance forward to unload some auto-boosted Stygian abyss's. Cheese you say? Well I say "Dammit I want to win!" Ahem, back on topic. They can boost a jack's speed, block charge lanes and make jacks stealthy. Auto lose to Haley though. Hmm.... Next.

Deneghra- She doesn't boost the jacks but she sure as heck knocks our opponents down a level.

She's stealthy, the cankerworm is stealthy and the nightmare is stealthy, the only jacks left for the other guy to shoot at are my def 15 bone jacks. I like them odds. Feat turn will be sick and if the caster isn't killed outright most his battle group is worm food.

Mortenebra- She rocks! I love her and I want to run her so badly. But death race and terminal velocity are only effective vs. living models. She does have a nifty spell which keeps jacks from being allocated focus, that'd be helpful. I'd also get to bring a Skarlock which would be hot. The problem is that at 350 I don't have a decent combination of jacks to put together an effective battle group. We'll see.

See my problem?

Here's what I'll be dealing with.

Kraye or Haley (because he's scared I'll bring the coven lol.)
Grim Angus or Borka (I hope Borka, Grim is tough and the Borka-bomb can be avoided.)
Deneghra or Goreshade (I hate mirror matches.)
Legion - Not sure who but most likely Thagrosh.
Kaya and her stupid yo yo and teleport assassination.
Khador is a wild card, probably Vlad though.
Menoth will be a no show because he's out of town.

This will be a great tournament, fast paced and furious. I'm not sure if the TO will try and set some scenario conditions, either way I plan on going for the throat. We're Cryx after all and that's what we're good at.

Cryxian Outcasts

2009-03-31T11:47:00.000-07:00

John the Mennite and Dallas a.k.a. "Troll-Scum" are focusing on the units in their army which have received a lot of hate from the forum-ites and their like. I want to play too. My main problem is that I don't really own much, if any, of the crappier units. So this is mostly theory machine mixed with my own tactical genius.

THE CRYXIAN OUTCASTS

Here they are in no particular order. Each will get its own special write up to ensure that even though we hate them, they fell a little love. (Drum roll)

Lich Lord Terminus (Yes he looks great, yes I'll get a lot of flack but I think he's poo.)
The Slayer
The Reaper
The Stalker
Black Ogrun Boarding Party
Cephalyx & Drudges
The Necro Surgeon
Satyxis Raiders
The Undead Pirates, yes, all of them.
Bloat Thrall
Machine Wraith

It really didn't take much thought to put this list together. Just simple mathematics. Math?!? What the deuce? Yes math. Warmachine and Hordes is a game based on math. We're given a certain amount of points from which we can construct our lists of doom and destruction, or fail if you're a Mennite. All this is important because an effective list will maximize the damage output per points. Simply said, why would I spend so many durn points on a Slayer when I could simply include the cankerworm? Why would I run those stupid looking priates when I could run Bane Knights or Bloodgorgers? Get my meaning?

So get ready, next post will be "Why Terminus Sucks."

-Cheers-

Ahhh Crap...

2009-03-30T19:51:00.000-07:00

So you know there are moments in your gaming career which send shivers up your spine. Moments which when other gamers hear about it they shudder to think about it happening to them. Yes, I'm talking about having your open case fall from four feet onto tile floor.

Epic fail.

Paradigm Shift

2009-03-29T06:12:00.000-07:00

When I said that I was bored of playing my Cryx army I meant it.

So in order to revitalize the game some players in my group decided to take me up on my "King of the Hill: random army" game.

We decided that due to certain time constraints we should limit the game to 350 "anything goes." Lists were created by their respective faction oweners then thrown into a hat, the only rule being that you couldn't play your own list.

I draw Menoth
John = Cryx
Dallas = Cryx
Shaun = Trolls

Here's what I had to work with:

Reznik: Possibly my least favorite caster from PoM, yeah he's good in combat but.... But honestly if your caster is in combat it has sure as hell better be the last turn of the game with your side about to win. Yes, this is my opinion, but warcasters do not belong in the fray, unless they are like Asphyxious and can open a can of whoop-ass then teleport away.

-Castigator: A nice jack if you ask me, Menoths' only two-handed jack and fairly interesting to play. Nothing special really about this jack, but it does have pretty good armor and a huge damage grid.

-Blessing Of Vengeance: I'm a fan of this little arc node, I so wish that our Cryxian nechrotechs would figure out the bennefit of a shield and halberd. Why are all my nodes just giant chickens? Would it really be so hard to, I dunno, strap a node to a reaper? That'd make me buy him in a second. Back on topic.

Hierophant: He's a nice little warcaster attachment. I've seen better, I've seen worse.

Eiyriss: Overrated, though I must admit I was somewhat pleased to be able to use her, even though she died turn one. Ah well.

Reclaimer: Waste of points, especially at 350. It gains soul tokens for every FRIENDLY Mennite which dies within 7". That's great except the only living models I have at present are my choir boys and I'd much rather have them protecting the battle group from spells and ranged attacks than feeding the Reclaimer. The Reclaimer did kill a Pistol Wraith though, that should count for something.

Choir Boys: Running jacks? Yup. Next purchase, choir boys. Pretty much a vanilla staple.

While fun to play I'm sure, it lacked on many levels.

In a multiplayer game the ability to stay alive is a big deal. Damage prevention, resurrection, healing and tough to name a few. This army had none of the above.
Mass infantry. For pete's sake there were going to be two cryx armies, right away the need to take care of mass infantry should have forced at least a unit of zealots or a redeemer into the list. (sigh)

The oh so famous "Oh Shit" factor. I see the Testament of Menoth, the Deathjack, Bile thralls, I make the usual explative. I always try to add as much "Oh Poo" to every list I can. Where was my poo? No poo, at least not in the pants of my opponents. Well, maybe Eyriss caused a little pebble.

Here's the bonnie list I provided:

Gaspy: Amplifies the destructiveness of the Bloodgorgers
Deathripper: Every good general needs an arc node.
Skarlock: Free spell? Yes thank you.
The General: He's big, he's bad and has great armor with a ton of wounds and tough to boot.
Bloodgorgers: Multiple attacks, great MAT and damaged when ganging up on something plus tough on 4+ after only killing a few two living models. Talk about survivability.
Bile Thralls: Infantry? What infantry?

In all I felt this a solid list. I'm on a Bloodgorger kick though and have them in every list I've made so far. Imagine this though, parasite on the BG's target and scything touch on the BG. Whatever they swing at vay-poo-rizes.

On to the game.

King of the hill. Cryx on both my left and right with a fierce looking group of troll warbeasts accross from me. This is not going to be a good day for menoth.

The Legos were a nice touch I thought. The crotch on the left is John the Mennite and Trem Shaun is across the table.

Notice the 3" AoE in the middle of the table. That's the mark. The toy tambourine in front of my Mennites is a regular hill. The little Legos next to the mark is a simple wall. The other Lego structures are hills and i think the big brown circle was a hill too.

Dallas (to my left) won initiative and went first. He ran forward, blasted Eyriss and killed her outright. I cheered that the Iosian bitch was frizzle fried until I remembered that she was actually on my side for once. Doh!

My turn next. Moved forward, beat up an arc node, cast a spell. Not much else to do. EoT.

John: Moved Deathjack (DJ) onto the mark. Took a shot at Reznik with his pistol wraith. Advanced the bloat thrall and skarlock. EoT. One VP for controlling the "hill."

Shaun: Moves forward, shoots some stuff, Earthborn dire troll charges the DJ and tears an arm off and beats the DJ with it. Not a good day to be the DJ.

Turn 2: Dallas charges the EBDT with the BG's and inflicts a ton of hurt. Too bad for him he forgot to take a look at Asphyxious' spell list and failed to 1) Parasite the EBDT and 2) cast Scything touch on the BG's. Oh well.

Moves the bile thralls forward and purges with one or two of them killing my choir boys and corroding Reznik, the reclaimer and both my jacks. Relaimer gets a fist full of souls. Yay.

My turn. Castigator throws the deathripper and nails slaughterborn knocking him down and totalling the node. The BoV takes out a few bile thralls, the reclaimer blasts a pistol wraith and Reznik holds pretty.

John's turn: Bloat thrall drops a bomb on the big group of trolls battling it out in the middle of the board killing a few blighted trollkin. Runs the Deathripper onto the hill and the Skarlock does something.

Shaun's turn: EBDT unloads on the BG's but not before his impaler frenzy's due to a failed threshold check. The EBDT snacks on the blighted bodies of its twisted cousins. Eww. Grim shoots some stuff and the axer charges killing a few more BG's.

Last turn

Dallas purges and fails to do more than a few pips of damaged to my node. Gaspy charges the BoV and ruins it then shadow wings away. Slaughterborn stands up and the BG's finish off the EBDT.

My turn: Castigator advances towards the bloat thrall, picks it up then throws it at the nearst troll. The durn thrall doesn't die. Reznik climbs the tamborine, i mean hill and then zaps the thrall with a spell blowing it to smitherines. Yay.

John's turn. Gaspy charges and kills some stuff, wins another point then due to time contraints wins by VP. I dunno, it all adds up somehow. Either way it was a lot of fun and really helped me to appreciate the awesomness that is Cryx.

Here's how it looked at the end. Now that I look at the picture I'm sure I missed a turn. Basically on one of my turns Reznik charged the last BG, killed it, wracked it, put the wrack next to Slaughterborn and with his last attack blew up the wrack killing slaughterborn who failed his tough roll.

GOOD GAME GUYS! Until next time. Back to Cryx and teh winz!

Keeping That New Army Feel

2009-03-27T10:10:00.000-07:00

I think I have a problem. Not a terrible problem, but still a problem. I'm bored.

Not the terrible boredom that turns someone from one hobby to the next, simply the boredom which demands a brief change of pace.

As you can tell from the blog I play Cryx. A faction full of undead goodness, er, badness. I LOVE mah boyz so don't hate me when I admit that I really don't want to play another game with them, for at least a week.

A week may seem like very little time to you but it's a horrendously long time to a war gamer. We're obsessed with the battle, the carnage, the painting and the list building. Hundreds of texts and emails are sent in weekly anticipation for game night. Hours slowly fade and the agony of the day passes one slow grain of sand at a time. A week is a lifetime.

Here's what I've thought up to add a little zest to game night; tell me what you think.

500 point "King Of The Hill" battle royal. 3-4 players per table.
Each person puts their name in a hat.
Everyone draws a name.
The name of the person drawn is the army you field!!!

How cool would that be?

The hardest part would be knowing that each person would go for the units they hate the most. I'd pick Haley + Squire if I drew CygnarBrian. I'm sure Dallas would go for Deneghra and bile thralls, lots and lots of bile thralls. etc.

Change is good, plus it helps one realize the awesomeness of their own faction and reaffirms why they play.

-Cheers-

McCryxian Domination

2009-03-25T21:35:00.000-07:00

It was time to "Put up, or shut up" and I knew it.

All week I'd been texting John the Mennite as to the horrors he would face come game night. I boasted consistently as to my mighty prowess as a Warmachine genius. Yeah, I probably overstated a few things, but hey, what's a little smack-talk between wargamming buddies right? Right.

I'd been planning on running Epic Asphyxious all week but the nagging feeling that John would pull a "reversie" and bring the Testament left me unsure of myself. As I stated in my previous post I knew I needed to pick a caster which would help me deal a ton of damage and literally force the Harbinger to either take a ton of damage or let her troopers perish. For this reason I chose Skarre.

My list was a cinch to build, as I explained in my previous post. I had to choose between Bane Knights or Bloodgorgers though and this was a real tough decision.

Bane Knights (BK) are a staple, I've been running these guys since day one and have become very adept with them. From yo-yo tricks and beckon sneak attacks I've done it all and know what these guys can do.

Bloodgorgers (BG) are a different story all together er. They are big, hindered by terrain (sort of), relatively weak p+s when not ganging up on their target and really expensive point wise. That being said I KNEW that I needed to put out a huge amount of damage and force the Harby to let people die. BK's with their one attack would kill plenty, but not enough, lives would be sparred thanks to martyrdom. BG's have double the number of attacks and could realistically wipe out entire units on a charge. I chose the BG's.

Time to play..

Terrain is set and our scenario is "DIE BITCH DIE!" Caster kill for those that are a bit on the slow side. I win initiative and choose to go first.

Here's a picture of my deployment zone. I knew I was going first so I packed them all together as I have planned to run them all straight ahead full.

Turn 1Me I run everything forward, Skarre too. Focus factory with skarlock and a mechanithrall.

Turn 1 John: He advances, a tad slower than my advance, mostly just moves his guys forward in a long line with Harby in the back, bastions in front of harby and a row of zealots with the Monolith bearer and leader behind them. Rhovan, 2x Seneschalls and Gravus on my right, Vilmon, 2 paladins of the wall and the crazy monk to my left. Next to Harby was a devout, the choir, gorman and doc killingsworth.

Turn 2 Me: More of the same, ran everything forward. Charged Vilmon with the deathjack, necrovented killing him Yay! Harby cuts herself and takes two damage and Vilmon gets to live, boo. Cankerworm moves out of the trees thereby getting out of Gravis' charge range. Skarre pops her feat and tries to "fly's kiss" Rhovan's body guard, no one dies, yet. Skarlock sac's another mechanithrall for focus factory and Gorman puts down a cloud on Skarre.

Now you may wonder why I chose to feat so early and not take advantage of a sac strike or the amazing boost to damage, well I'll tell you why. Skarre wasn't in position and I really wanted my guys to survive John's next round. Arm 20 BG's and arm 18 Biles stand a pretty good chance of making it through to next turn mostly intact.

Turn 2 John: Vilmon and the paladins' cause a lot of hurt to the Deathjack but don't even knock out a system. His monk moves towards the DJ. Zealots mini feat but don't move or throw bombs. Harby tries to kill a few with a spell, doesn't do any damage. That's about all I remember, I'm sure he moved the rest of his force though only incrementally.

Turn 3 Me: CHARGE!!! Even though the zealots are under the boon of their mini feat (they cannot be harmed) I run to engage them anyway. I charge so that each BG is engaged with two zealots to maximize their "gang" ability. Bile thralls advance and one purges on Rhovan and his body guard. Cankerworm charges, even with the boosted damage roll and +2 damage for corrosion I still only manage to inflict minimal damage to one of the body guards. Slaughterborn charges, he brings the pain but not enough to kills one of the guards completely. Deathjack causes problems for the paladins causing a ton of wounds to Harby as she tries to keep them alive. Eventually she gives up and one falls victim to the DJ, who then uses the newly sucked soul to head D6 wounds (I rolled a 6 HA!) Pistol Wraith continues to advance towards Harby, The WSC ice the monk and Skarre moves towards Gravis, sac strikes him off is mount. Skarlock = Focus factory, gorman lays smoke. Done.

Turn 3 John: This turn is a blur. Rhovan and his body guard lay some serious smack on the Cankerworm but thanks to its incredible damage grid not a single system is lost. One Seneschal obliterates my node and the other causes a few pips more damaged to the cankerworm slamming it into the general. Harby blasts the pistol wraith and Vilmon with his paladin cremate the DJ. A BG dies somehow while another makes two tough rolls! Huzzah!

Turn 4 Me: Skarre advances, sac strikes Harby for 5 damage (more or less, I don't really remember, it wasn't a lot) cast dark guidance. BG's attack and kill all 9 zealots earning full blood marks so now they are speed 7, tough on 4+, roll an additional damage die and every time they kill something can move up to 3". Slaughterborn attacks, wipes out the body guard. Cankerworm attacks, doesn't do much. Bile thrall purges, kills the bastions, cankerworm, seneschalls and my arc node. It was worth it. Now there is a clear lane to the Harbinger. I remove all the bloodmarks from the BG's and charge in with as many as I can fit around her. Game over.

And tonight's MVP award goes to......

In all it was a great game. Everything in my army performed as it should and nothing let me down. I feel a little sheepish letting the DJ get tied up by Vilmon and his paladins but then again I was able to deal a lot of damage to Harby via martyrdom thanks to the DJ smashing the paladins around.

I'm confident in the BG's ability to really perform. As they gain more and more blood tokens they become insanely good. I'm sold, I love the bad trolls.

It's late and I'm really tired. I have to get up in 4 hours for work so I'll end this here.

Good job boyz, ya did me proud.

-Cheers-

Skarre

2009-03-24T14:13:00.000-07:00

I've been giving it a lot of thought. While eGaspy would be a hoot'n a half to play I just don't think Gaspy would be able to convey my message to John the Mennite.

What message doth thou ask?

That Cryx rule!

Skarre has so much to offer. She can buff her own troops, blow stuff up with a good selection of anti infantry spells and best of all can sac her own troopers to generate even more focus. On average Skarre should be roll'n with 9-10 focus each turn. This will really let me be able to effectively run the Deathjack, keep my guys hitting the mennites and allow some focus camping for added armor. In addition she's fast, amazing in combat and will be safely hidden behind a swath of medium sized bases. Bloodgorgers rock!

That being said it's time to delve into the list. Mind you this is a work in progress. I'm having a hard time deciding on bane knights or bloodgorgers. Either way the lists will be effectively the same. The only reason I really want to run the gorgers is the extra attack (and they're new so I want to break them in!)

Da List

pSkarre: Sac Strike, Focus Factory, Dark Guidance, Fly's Kiss
Cankerworm: My guided missile. If I want it dead I'll send the worm.
Deathjack: With all the focus Skarre will generate with the factory I'll run him hot and deadly. He can cast fly's kiss or hellfire, cause multiple command checks and rip face. I love him.
Deathripper: An arc node, what more can I say. Plus sustained p+s attacks is wicked good.
The General: This will be his second game (with the actual model) and I have big hopes for the guy. He's deceptively fast and should be able to rake in the blood marks. More command checks.
Gorman: LOS? What LOS?
Pistol Wraith: My ace in the hole. Plan on him hiding in the trees until the time is right.
Skarlock: Focus factory.
Bile Thralls: A Cryx staple since Prime and the bane of all infantry. I plan on Harby taking a lot of damage from martyrdom thanks to these guys.
Blood Gorgers: Can you say furious charge with effective rat 10, p+s 16 & 14 attacks. You can't save'em all Harby.
Mechanithralls: Fodder, good for sac'n, snack'n and feed'n the factory.
Withershadow Combine: Another ace in the hole. No worries about Vilmon, let's Skarre re-roll lowest damage dice on sac-strike, eliminate up keeps, stealth and terror.

-Cheers-

Menoth Be Damned!

2009-03-22T17:28:00.000-07:00

John the Mennite has laid down a challenge. Or maybe I challenged him, I don't remember. Either way in a post of his he failed to show the respect Toruk is due so he must now pay for such insolence. He's already spoiled his list so here is my own.

eGaspy
-Cankerworm
-Defiler
-Defiler
-Defiler
Tartarus
Slaughterborn
Gorman
Pistol Wraith
Skarlock
Bane Knights
Bile Thralls
Bloodgorgers

This is a new list to me, mainly the Bloodgorgers and the General, the rest are "old glove" and should perform just as well as ever.

The Harbinger has this nasty ability to keep her troops from submitting to Turok thanks to martyrdom. Worse off she (the Harbinger) will have the pleasant company of Doc Killingsworth and while he chews on the fingers and miscellaneous body parts of patients who never recovered, he will be able to heal the wench allowing her to make use of the ability to my lament.

It would be a shame for the kindly doctor to meet an untimely demise. I do however believe that there is a pistol wraith which has a bullet or two with his name on them.

While the Harbinger plays a game of attrition, I do have to beg an apology ahead of time and clarify that by no means do I intend to play the same game. Everything I have will go directly towards her with nigh but one purpose; kill the whore.

That my friends is my simple strategy. Assassination.

-Cheers-

Just...One...More...Game...

2009-03-20T17:02:00.001-07:00

I'm busy. Really busy. I have a family (hot wife & a cute kid), work full time and am taking 15 credits at the university. It's my senior year and I still have a thesis to somehow crap out in less than a month. Needless to say, playing a tournament game that is meaningless just doesn't appeal to me. Sooooooo I figured that since we already had an undefeated player it didn't really matter if I play or not. Apparently there are a few peeps pissed that I'm throwing in the towel. So, even though I have much more important things to do, Dallas and I have agreed to play tonight. It's going to probably be the first time ever that I have played a game with little or no interest at all. I'm so tired of running the same list. I have a full new unit of Blood Gorgers that scream "play me you fat bastard" and a ton of lists I've been wanting to test. So here goes nothing. Hope we can get this over with in less than two hours. I'll update with the results.

Yay, I lost by scenario. He like 4 figs left, I just didn't have anything on the hill. Wooopity-do. He'd have been extinct had we gone another round.

-Cheers-

In The Beginning...

2009-03-19T21:24:00.000-07:00

WAAAAAAGH!

A long time ago, in a State far far away, there was WARHAMMER!

Think eHaley is tough? Has pVlad McCheezenstein got you down? Pffft!!! Losers when compared to the greatest of all wargamming warlords. Behold the greatness that is ...

MORGLUM NECKSNAPPER!

He was my first true love. There was nothing that he couldn't do. He was big, tough and simply amazing. No tricks, just an amazing beat stick. The term "axe to mouth" was invented by this guy. Trollbloods, meet your papa.

-Cheers-

The Next Tournament Has Been Declared!

2009-03-19T07:51:00.000-07:00

After a successful month long 750 point tournament the LGS owner has already unveiled his plans for our next tournament. This time we're talking 350 points in one night of furious miniature combat!

What to bring, what to bring? So many choices. The question is, will this be a mangled metal/tooth and claw event or is it open to whatever?

Mangled metal provides some challenges that I'd have to really take a serious look into solving. First off Cryx isn't know as the jack casting faction.

Only recently in Legends did our faction receive it's first true jack caster, Mortenebra. Don't get me wrong, she is full of win, but her most effective spells are triggered vs. living models; jacks are not living models so what point do they serve?

Cankerworm: This jack is a missile of uber destruction which can chew through the hardiest warjacks in the game. It's fast, stealthy and has one of the most effective/efficient damage grids I've ever seen. The systems are so spread out that it can take a tremendous amount of damage and still not lose a single one. The main problem I foresee is that with certain casters and the lack of bile thralls I'd find myself without any corrosion sources for the cankerworm. That's a big deal and limits my caster choices if I choose to run the worm.

Nightmare: While only being in my possession a short while it has already amassed a fine collection of warcaster shulls to line its trophey shelf. The prey ability is amazing, the out of turn movement really helps line uf the charge or seek better positioning to ensure the win. While the jack has decent pow+str attacks and reach, arm 18 isn't all that hard to break and its damage grid only has two more boxes than the cankerworm! Needless to say it's pretty damn squishy. That being said, when taken with Deneghra it gains stealth and becomes a lot more menacing, especially vs. shooty jacks. The nightmare also has an imprint ability which makes it ghostly allowing it to move through obstacles, ignore terrain and free strikes. Very handy.

Deathjack: I'm not sure I even need to write an opinion. General consensus is that this beast of a jack is the best jack in the game. Terrific stats, tons of damage boxes, two open fists with p+s 18 and a head attack that's pow 15! The deathjack can Necrovent which places a 5" AOE centered on him dealing pow 12 boostable hit on everything in the cloud, g-night Vilmon! But wait, there's more. The Deathjack comes equipped with two skulls of hate, these bad boys are the driving force behind this maniacal monster of mayhem. The skulls of hate provide the Deathjack with two focus during my control phase, allow the deathjack a 360 degree front arc so it can charge and slam in any direction and make it so the deathjack can cast any spell on my warcasters' list! Essentially everything amazing about Cryx is rolled up into this one big nasty jack. What else can I say? I love him! Well, now for the negatives. He's so damn expensive, at 154 points that's 44% of my army and paints him as a pretty big target. Kill him and it's game over basically. He also suffers from being unbound, which means that if for any reason I cannot allocate him three focus he then goes nutty and charges my caster. That's bad, especially since most anti jack casters my nemesis runs have all sorts of ways to wipe a cortex out. Did I mention he was expensive? I did? Well I'm going to say it again, negative #1 is his point cost, that alone will keep him in the bag.

Slayer: BARF! He's terrible, great to have as a fig thanks to the Withershadow Combine and their dark industry's ability, but that's it. The slayer is way too expensive for the paltry stats it has. Abysmal pow+str, the worst MAT of any heavy in the game and a damage grid a Bone jack would laugh at. Not much point talking about this guy, he's never going to see the table top unless I really want to have a casual game. NEXT!

Arc Nodes: Deathrippers vs. Defilers. Until Legends Defilers were considered the worst of the arc nodes. Overly expensive for a single shot, non aoe corrosion blast with only pow 12. However, once the Cankerworm hit play the evil Cryxian warcasters found utility in the deFAILers as another corrosion source. In Mangled Metal this is a big deal. I'd have to run at least two, maybe even three. Should I opt for a cast which has access to corrosion causing spells the likelihood that the defiler will see play diminishes. The deathripper is an efficient arc node which is cheaper than most solo's. It has a sustained attack and can headbutt or slam other jacks around keeping them knocked down and opening charge lanes for the big boys. I really should invest in Nightwretches, maybe I'll buy a blister. Moving right along.

Stalkers: The following is a write up done by the Battle College. I own a Stalker but have used it all of one time. "The Stalker is not a normal bonejack. It has no arc node, and its statistics are bit different. It moves fast, has stealth, jumps and moves over all terrain. It's a solo killer with some good abilities for suppressing warcasters, but you will almost NEVER get to attack a warcaster with it. For its points cost it's a difficult unit to get the best performance out of, and in many respects it has been eclipsed by the Helldiver. The Stalker is just as good in melee as the Helljacks, and is more difficult to hit than any other warjack in the game. It's difficult to hit without some sort of bonus or boosted attack rolls or additional attack dice. The Stalker can even tangle up models that have a MAT:8 like Exemplar Seneschals. The Stalker is as fast as the other bonejacks but has less armor and fewer damage boxes. Any hit doing twenty damage or more is enough to badly damage this warjack. A series of blasts with a few high damage rolls from things like Winterguard Mortars or boosted AOE blasts from warjacks are enough to cripple the Stalker in one or two shots. The Evisceratiors do a decent amount of damage, but are not at the top of the spectrum, so don't obsess over their ability to mess up warcasters. What the Stalker most needs is for any potential victim to be "debuffed" by spells like Parasite, or to get bonuses to its damage rolls with spells like Scything Touch or Pirate Queen Skarre's Blood Magic feat.Without allocated focus or other assistance the Stalker is a threat to most warrior solos and units, but not able to directly threaten warjacks or warcasters. Most warcasters can laugh off an unassisted attack from a Stalker, and trash it on their next turn. All Terrain: Being able to charge or slam through rough terrain and move through it unimpeded is game winning. This is only one of a few all terrain warjacks that Cryx has, and the only one that can move so swiftly. The second best use I've gotten out of it is being able to move 10" over all terrain when performing a slam attack.Leap: This ability is not often as valuable, since you cannot perform the all important charge or slam, though it will let the Stalker move further to engage the enemy. The Stalker can use leaps to flee combats without taking free strikes, or advance in the face of Centurions standing in front of Darius and jump over them to attack him directly. Anything that stops a Stalker from charging (reductions to SPD for example) will stop it from leaping. Stealth: There are many ways of subverting stealth. Don't have it prance around in front of the enemy out of cover unless you want some Gun Mage Captain Adept wrecking it for you in the first or second turn of the game. You should still take advantage of concealment whenever you can, because rough terrain like woods won't slow it down anyway." -Battle College-

So that's it. Those are my choices for Mangled Metal 350. I have a lot of play testing to do. My concern is ensuring that I can deliver my assassination jack to the opposing caster intact allowing the win. Cryx Jacks are much more fragile than any other faction's, it puts us at a disadvantage tactically. That being said, we Cryx are full of tryx and can easily debuff them down to our level, making it all but a rout in favor of the dragon lord.

That's enough for now, time to play!

-Cheers-

It's Finally Over HOORAY!

2009-03-18T21:46:00.000-07:00

The tournament that never ends has finally ended.

eVlad and his Khador Krew laughed in the face of cheese by expressly defeating Haley and her bubble of death in a "King of the hill" match.

What does this victory mean to the world of Logan Warmachine? Not much, just proves that the only way to beat Haley is by scenario. In Brian's defense eVlad is almost every bit as cheesy and borken as pHaley. There is a reason eVlad has consistently won nationals and other "cons" across the nation.

Good games guys. Back to casual play, this way I can fine tune my blighted troll list! Ha HA!

-Cheers-

Nemesis

2009-03-17T12:50:00.000-07:00

Nemesis

nem·e·ses: an opponent that cannot be beaten or overcome (without difficulty)

Ever notice how there is always that guy that when you play you have to work so incredibly hard for a win. Or worse, that guy that for some reason you just can't seem to beat?

I questioned the Wednesday night crew as to who their nemesis was and here are thee results:

Brian = 3 Votes (Cygnar)
Myself = 3 Votes (Cryx)
Dallas = 1 Vote (Trolls)

4 Votes still pending. Chime in if you haven't yet!

New Caster Wish List

2009-03-15T10:21:00.000-07:00

MKII brings not only a whole new play style and dynamic to the game but we've also been teased with promises of a new jack and warcaster in each of the faction books. Some discussion has arisen on the main forum debating what we hope to see.

I for one hope to see a warcaster more in line with the whole "undead" theme of the army. I mean c'mon. We're devilish warmongers whose ranks of the undead swell with the bodies of the slain. That being said there is nothing in Cryx which reflects that. Which is why I want to see a true necromancer lich lord!

I want a caster which has an ability like that of the Testament of Menoth or even like Alexia with her risen. Look at epic Makeda, her feat lets you bring back destroyed models and add them to an existing unit. How cool is that? My problem though is that all these factions are not necromantic nor do they have fluff about being so. So where's the love?

Cryx = Necromancy

So give us a Necromancer already.

-Cheers-

No Quarter Issue 23

2009-03-14T07:57:00.000-07:00

The most recent edditon of "No Quarter" has hit LGS around the country (just not my gameshop) and in it every Warmahordes fan can catch a glimpse MKII changes to come.

Ripped right from the forums here's a glimpse of what will be.

MK2 info from the March "No Quarter" magazine.

Out of turn movement and attacks have been limited.
Based on size of game Warcasters and Warlocks will be included for free.
Warcasters come with a variable number of warjack points.
Rough terrain no longer prevents charges.
Cards redesigned
Warjack Shields and Open fists increased in POW
All Factions have mechanics.
Warjack points costs changed to be more proportionate compared with units.
Unit members are in formation if the are within the unit leaders command range.
Most unit leaders have the same stats as thier troopers.
All units behave in a manner similar to Field Promotion
Reaper gains Reach
Necrotech gains Repair
Bane Knights loose Shadowshift for Vengance [Which is used on some non Cryx Models] which triggers in control phase.
Kharchev gets retooled to become more killy.
Winterguard squads can have three Rocketeers each.
Doom Reavers become cheaper.
Charger gains Powerful Attack
Defender Heavy Barrel increases POW.
Stormblades and Stormguard are immune to Electricity due to the new damage typing system.
Knights Exemplar become a 10 man unit, but don't jump to conclusions
Severous has Convert as an ability rather than a spell.
Flails gain Chain Weapon.

Release ScheduleApril Field Test is not a playtest. Its looking for Typos and rules confusion and other final polish. Jan 2010 Warmachine II and card Decks. Warmachine 2 has a new Warjack for each faction in it. Followed by 5 Faction books, The Four familiar faces plus Mercenaries, Mercs includes seperate sections for Privateers and Rhul. Each has new models/units and a new warcaster.

Faction book order determined by Summer Rampage 2009. Then Hordes II. No mention of Retribution anywhere.

-Cheers-

R.I.P. Baneknights

2009-03-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

Bane Knights have fallen to the mighty "Nerff." We Cryxians knew it was only a matter of time until our elite unit was summarily dismissed by the terrible Cygnar elitists at Privateer Press.

We'll miss you and your shadow shift. The amazing out of turn activations which kept you feared and relevant as a fighting force.

We'll miss your crazy shenanigans and the way in which you made less intelligent people go cross eyed as they tried to understand your ghostly ways.

Rest in peace you mean bastards. MKII be damned!

-Cheers-

The Tournament That Never Ends...

2009-03-12T07:44:00.000-07:00

Week three in a four week tournament has come and gone. The idea for a big long tournament was my idea, at least I think it was, and all I can say is that I hate it! Bah, I'm so tired of playing the same lists over and over.

What we should have done is made it a progressive tournament. Start at 350 then each consecutive game increases in point values. That would have been cool.

Either way, last nights game vs. Mercs was a rout. I was in a hurry and wanted to play a pick up game afterwards with my new Bloodgorgers so I went for a caster kill instead of a scenario win. He had no idea that I could generate so much out of turn movement with Mortenebra and the spell Deathrace that he was in a terrible position which let me charge his caster on my 3rd turn.

In my opinion the best players are the guys that know what EVERYTHING does. I can't tell you how many times I've had to scramble for the win when something hits the board that I have no idea what it does. I guess the old adage "practice makes perfect" is completely appropriate for Warmachine too. Which brings me to my second game.

John the Mennite nearly handed me my arse last night. I used a caster and a new mob which I'd never played before. The Gorgers were great, they really had some impressive damage output for only being p+s 11 & 9. Thanks to gang though they get MAT 8 and +2 damage which really helps a lot. General Slaughterborn didn't do much. Flying steel kept roll'n snake-eyes (more or less) so his one attack wasn't so great. I should have gone for the choir boys first and given him 5 blood marks making him p+s 18 arm 22 which is INSANE! Instead I went after big fellas with lots of wounds which just didn't work.

The Coven's spell Imprison was my MVP, kept charge lanes closed and helped me narrowly avoid certain death on the Testament's feat turn. It was hard fought battle and I was able to witness how squishy the Witch Coven is. Frankly I don't like'em. Maybe they just take some getting used to but I prefer support casters like Deneghra and Mortenebra. I really wanted to use epic Asphyxious but with the Testament's ability to suck away every soul I had to choose someone else.

All in all I had a good time last night. Stayed out a tad too late and the wife wasn't pleased, but, hearing about the wins made her forgive me. That's the secret boys, so long as you win you can stay out late. If you lose though, you'd better just plan on going home early.

-Cheers-

The Birthday Blessing Keep Pouring In.

2009-03-11T09:52:00.000-07:00

This'll be a quick "...my break is almost over so I gotta spit this out super uber fast..." post. I'll expand further later.

I RECEIVED A FULL UNIT OF BLOODGORGERS FOR MY BIRTHDAY!!! Yaaahooooo!

Repentance

2009-03-10T12:57:00.000-07:00

OK OK, he Bastions really do look awesome. I made a post that was sort of a knee jerk reaction on the main forum about the five man unit costing close to $50 which I thought was just stupid. I made the assumption that the Bastions were similar in size to a Troll champion, or a blood gorger to be exact. So in my mind I felt that a unit of six metal figs for $54 is much more understandable than a five man unit of plastic figs for $45. It averages out to about $9.00 per fig. I prefer pewter so $9 is ok while $9 for plastic is not. What I didn't realize was that the bastions are huge, more on the size of Man-O-wars and Cetrati. With that size comparison in mind I do realize now that the Bastions being plastic is a good thing and really does save the player money. Whether or not you agree with the $90 rumored price they would have been had they been metal (way over priced if you ask me.)

So, that being said, I would LOVE for a 10 man unit of Fenn Blades to be released in plastic (I don't see two man blisters being plastic so they might as well release a full unit box set.)

For some reason when figs come in bulk, material is immaterial. I remember the good ol' days when I played Orcs and could buy goblins in batches of 30 for $40. Man those were good times. It'd be nice for the same to happen for Trolls.

I don't have much hope for Cryx in plastic as our last unit was just released and the blessed BloodGorgers are wonderful, magical metal.

-Cheers-

Happy Birthday To.......ME!!!

2009-03-09T20:37:00.001-07:00

"Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear MEEEEEEeeeeeee, happy birthday to me!"

And thanks to a wonderful wife & son I now have one more bad-arse fig to add to my arsenal of doom and despair. I'd like you to meet General Gerlak Slaughterborn.

He's a tad on the small size but that's OK. What he lacks in stature he makes up for in awesomeness and attractiveness! I can't wait to break face with this piece of awesomesauce.

Thanks Babe & Mikey for the great birthday!

Bastions Set For June

2009-03-09T11:11:00.000-07:00

Privateer Press has a new front page. Gracing the cover is a 360 degree view of the new plastic Bastions. They do look great but, and this is a huge BUT, the Mennites are getting ass raped having to pay msrp $44.99 for 5 of them. WTF?

I'm saddened that PP is going the way of Warhammer by producing cheap plastic figs at metal prices. There is no reason a box of five figs should cost more than $30.00. Even $30.00 is a bit steep but I understand that PP has to make a buck or two.

My next worry is that EVERYTHING to come will be in plastic. I hate plastic. I was assured by my LGS owner that PP would never use plastic yet here we are. I feel so frustrated by this that I'm having a hard time putting pen to paper and coming up with a clear concise argument.

Bane Knights 101

2009-03-08T17:39:00.000-07:00

During my last game vs. Legion a rules question came into play. Not because my opponent had a question, not because I had a question. But because a spectator questioned my interpretation of the Bane Knight shadow shift ability.

Now I don't have anything against rules lawyers, heaven knows I've done my fair share of butting my big ugly mug in on more occasions than I care to remember. I simply can't stand it when people try to second guess me and my understanding of how my own army works. So in an attempt to clarify how my most feared unit functions here is a quick lesson.

Q: Can the same Bane Knight be targeted by shadowshift multiple times per turn?

A: If you wanted to every time a unit is eligible to Shadow Shift you could have the same model make the Shadow Shift move and attack, as long as you follow all the rules for Shadow Shift (namely the bits about formation)

Q: When will Shadowshifts resolve after multiple hits from chain lightnings, forked lightnings etc? (Also includes: purge, spray attacks and any aoe effect that rolls to hit every model under the template.)

A: After all simultaneous effects are resolved.

1-chain lightning hits a unit and proceeds to get 4 additional hits. All 5 models take the pow 10. Any destroyed are removed (not from play, just destroyed)

2-The unit then gets it's 5 shadow shifts used any way you want so long as you follow the rules for it (namely formation as mentioned)

This Q&A can be found at http://www.privateerpressforums.com/index.php?showtopic=146494

Another thread with similar answers is http://www.privateerpressforums.com/index.php?showtopic=157872

Hopefully this issue can be put to rest.

-Cheers-

Vassal

2009-03-08T12:09:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, no matter how hard you fight it, the need for a game of Warmachine/Hordes can be overwhelming. Now, thanks to the hard work of a few loyal players, we can game at any hour of the day. Never mind your LGS's hours, never mind the silly need for sleep. If you have an Internet connection and the stat cards you're in business. What am I talking about? I'm talking about Vassal.

Vassal is a program which simulates the table top experience, down to dice and rulers. For the past two months Dallas and I have played a game online every so often which has allowed us to play test various figs and has really helped to determine future purchases.

The program, or "mod" as it's called by those in the know, wasn't all that special. The terrain looked like something a three year old would do on Microsoft Paint and the UI was very limited and a tad on the clunky side. That being said, just recently an updated version was released which is in a word "amazing." Vassal no has a huge variety of terrific looking terrain. The SR4 maps are available and can be used or you can make your own table top. Every assortment of templates, markers, tokens and rulers are available and the entire gaming experience is a lot of fun.

I highly recommend that each and every gamer download a copy and start playing today.

Here's the link http://vassalwmh.ipbfree.com/ It's pretty straight forward and simple to use.

Good luck and happy gaming!

-Cheers-

Death To Menoth!....Er, I Mean Legion.

2009-03-07T15:28:00.000-08:00

Spring Break Is HERE! Hallelujah.

To celebrate I went to work. Yeah, bummer. But that's ok, I had a match all lined up vs John the Mennite. With the remarkable display of board dominance from eDeneghra yesterday I thought John's army would serve as an equally good target for my eDenny CCHax list. He has loads of infantry, relatively low command and not many leaders to lend a hand with the multiple checks he WILL be making.

Work was excruciating as all I could think about was my impending game vs Menoth. I get a text from John, apparently one of his kids had set the dog on fire and or maybe it was the other way around, I don't remember. What I did know was that I had an itch that needed scratching. Luckily for me there was a poor unsuspecting soul just hang'n around Phoenix Games. Jeff, the blighted Legion Bastardo. Game On!!!

I brought the exact same list as before. (See the previous battle report)

Jeff brought:
Lillyth
Carnivean
Serraph
Serraph
Shredder x 5
Forsaken
Shepherd
Shepherd
Incubi
Striders
Blighted Archers

Geoff wins initiative

We're playing scenario, "Treasure Hunt." It was lame. Mark a spot in the middle of the board. A model on the spot may sacrifice its activation for 2 turns to locate the treasure. Then, a heavy has to pick it up and carry it back to your deployment zone for the win. Simple enough.

To make a long and rather un-interesting battle report short, Nightmare for the win.

-Cheers-

Conquest Continued (Turn Two)

2009-03-07T06:48:00.000-08:00

So it's Dalla's turn again. He activates his KW's and runs them forward into combat with the bile thralls. He didn't charge though so no bile thralls died this turn. He then moved his rune shapers forward and "rune-cast" (I made that word up) a Cephalyx to death. The rune shapers get +1 to their attack rolls for each other rune shaper within 1" which makes them essentially RAT 8! Sick. Fenn Blades are suffering still from Harrowing being cast on them last turn. As such they are forced to bunch together essentially ending their activation this turn. Champs move forward, Calandra the KSB and some whelp advance as well. Calandra casts Befuddle on the bile thralls, hitting their paltry DEF 11 easy as pie. They get moved forward 3" facing backwards. Impaler activates, casts Farstrike and nails denny for 8 points of damage, OUCH! She's almost 1/2 dead on T2. Time for some payback.

My turn. I can't upkeep Harrowing as it's out of my control area (at least we think that's how it works.) Move some bile thralls, and POP'em! More dead stuff Hooray! The overlords charge the Rune Shapers killing 2 of them. The Withershadow Combine attack the KW's and only manage to kill one of them thanks to the dice gods being on vacation. Gorman attaccks too and manages to hit a KW, his stupid p+s stiletto can't get past their armor. Advance Tartarus, curse the Fenn Blades, as if they aren't having a hard enough time as it is, then beckon the unit of bane knights close buy. I put the bulk of them close enough to the fenn blades that I'm able to kill the major portion. The flanking pistol wraith kills a few fenn blades as well. Advance the nightmare and kill a KW, Cankerworm doesn't do much of anything. My skarlock casts tenebreus exile on the KW's making the incorporeal for a round effectively removing them from action for a while. Denny advances, cast Hellmouth on Calandra, hits and does some damage to her. The spell also damages a champion, kills a stone scribe, removes the KSB from play hurts the pyre troll and the Impaler causing some whelps to plop out. Denny feats making it so that nothing in her control area (enemy models) may move except to change facing and suffer -3 DEF. I end my turn.

Turn 3: Now we're at the end of our story. Simply Dallas cannot move, Calandra is withing charging distance of the bane knights, Tartarus and eDeneghra her self. In a last ditch effort Calandra casts her offensive spell (which I didn't know she had) and knocks denny down a few notches. Casts it again, (Denny is almost dead now! WTF?), Calandra hits but rolls snake eyes for damage, Deneghra lives woot! Impaler tries to throw at her but misses because she's incorporeal.

My Turn: Charge in Denny, force to hit, force damage, Fat Gypsy Troll is worm food. Good game.

In all the game was very educational. Not having use Deneghra's epic incarnation I wasn't sure how well she would do. Regular Denny is the uber bane to Trolls thanks in part to her amazing list of spells that debuff like no other. eDenny doesn't have that option. As it turns out though, spells like Harrowing and hellmouth really help with board control. Making him move guys out of formation or not at all is terrific. eDenny is squishy though, being incorporeal is a cool ability but there is a lot out there that counts as a magic attack. Lucky for me I had removed the KSB from play so that the aura was no longer a factor. I'm going to have to ensure that I have screening models with eDenny more so than I did this game.

-Cheers-

Conquest Of The Kriels

2009-03-06T12:30:00.001-08:00

It was a hard fought battle today vs. the Fat Gypsy lady and her HUGE mob of Kriel's. I decided it was time to start spring break a bit early and theummhummguy and I grabbed a quick 750 point battle and duked it out.

I brought:

Epic Deneghra
Nightmare
Defiler
Defiler
Defiler
Cankerworm
Skarlock
Pistol Wraith
Tartarus
Bane Knights (8)
Bile Thralls (9)
Cephalyx Overlords
Gorman Di Wulfe
Necrotech
Scrap Thrall

Dallas Brought:

Fat Gypsy
Pyre Troll
Impaler
Champions
Fell Caller
KSB + ESS
Fenn Blades
Kriel Warriors + UA & WA
Rune Shapers
Farrow Bone Grinders
Swamp Gobbers
Whelps

The initiative went to Dallas. He set his Trolls pretty spread out across the board (he had some 50+ models) and took up a ton of space. Gypsy was in the middle with the KSB and Champs for protection.

He pretty much ran everyone forward then popped her feat. Gutsy move if you ask me. Gutsy and smart. He also activated the KSB using the ESS which negated continuous effects, namely corrosion, so trying to get a ton of corrosion on him via bile thralls wouldn't do me any good.

My turn. Knowing that each and every troll had a 66% chance of staying alive I had to think long and hard about how I wanted to open my game. I ran the pistol wraith up the right flank and the cephalyx overlords the left. I only moved an arc node a few inches putting his units in harms way via eDeneghra's spell list. I moved some of the bile thralls forward putting them in range of a purge or two which caused some decent damage to the champions but didn't really do much else. Corrosino was a moot point because of the Elder Stone Scribe and the "no continuous effects" aura. Tartarus and the BK's advanced towards the fenn blades. My nightmare didn't do a whole lot, it advanced towards a KW and killed it. My cankerworm trotted out, killed a whelp and scuttled away, the sly bastard. I advanced my scrap thrall and necrotech then finished with eDenny herself. She arced hellmouth onto a fenn blade causing his ranks to scramble as they were forced to move D3 inches towards the affected model. Once they were all in position they each took an individually boostable pow 12 hit, if they died they were removed from play instead of dying gracefully. A lot of them died. I admit though I did play that a tad on the wrong side. You see epic Asphyxious has a spell called Excarnate which when it deals sufficient damaged to destroy said model it is removed from play. This is how I played hellbound. Which is wrong. Dallas should have had the opportunity to roll tough first. At least that's how I've come to understand the rule on tough. Either way. I then cast harrowing on a fenn blade which is just such a funny spell. Harrowing makes every other model in the unit move directly towards the affected model during its activation. If they kill their own cursed fig then the unit flees. It worked great and basically removed the fenn blades from the game. I then ended my turn.

Turn 2 Dallas

More to come........ I got a date with a pretty lady!!!

It Begins

2009-03-05T12:13:00.000-08:00

John does it, now I want to do it too. Blog that is. I don't have huge hopes for this blog other than a means to vent some frustration, share some joy and keep track of my games, especially tournament play.

I've been playing war games since the age of 13. For those of you bad at math that's 18 years. I don't want to even begin to think on how much money I've blown on tiny metal men and their accompanying implements of destruction. All I know is that I'm hooked. I love the mental exercise and competitiveness that gaming provides. It's a great way to get together with friends and blow off some steam from a long work week.

My wife, bless her heart, is still trying to accept the fact that her husband is a nerd. I'm OK with that. She has her passions, I have mine. What I love is that she cheers me on and supports my habit. I love that woman!

Here's to a long future of gaming. Please feel free to comment, and provide constructive input. Unconstructive input is fine too, that's pretty much all I am capable of.

-Cheers-