Warmachine Batrep: Magnus1 vs Rahn

Magnus the Traitor

Tuesday, Maz and I played a 35-point Warmachine game with the Longest Night scenario rules.  We missed out running this last year and he might before Halloween seemed a perfect encore.

Maz has been switching over to Magnus lists, beefing out a mercenaries army.  I somehow have never played against mercenaries and have only seen them (beyond admiring the models) once when a nearby tournament player experienced Gorten's Landslide feat for the first time.  A few pirate-y words were uttered.  But today we did not face Gorten; this was Magnus, bane of Cygnar!

Magnus the Traitor +6pt
- Mangler 8pt
- Nomad 6pt
- Renegade 6pt
- Renegade 6pt
Horgenhold Forge Guard (full) 8pt
Kell Bailloch 2pt
Master Gunner Dougal MacNaile 2pt
Rheinholt, Goblin Speculator 1pt
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord 2pt

Serious players will no doubt notice several problems with this list.  First, no mercenary contract allows Horgenhold Forge Guard to be taken with Magnus1.  The will only work with Cygnar, the Protectorate or Searforge contract.  However, Magnus' Four Star contract only allows models that work for Khador or Cryx.

Furthermore, we didn't realize until I started writing this battle report that he was running six points down.  But, more on this later.

Adeptus Rahn Shyeel
- Phoenix
- Phoenix
Arcanist
Arcanist
Dawnguard Sentinels (6+UA+WA)
House Shyeel Battle Mages
House Shyeel Battle Mages

(Getting close to my goal.  This list is almost fully painted.  One unit of battle mages to go!)

The Mercenaries won the roll and opted to go first.  He setup the forge guard on his extreme right flank with Rhupert and the rest of his force on the extreme left.  Facing a (generally) slow Rhulic force with a (generally) quick Iosan force, a denied flank setup was obvious.  Rahn's models setup far right, directly across from Magnus and the warjacks.  It would take the forge guard three or four turns to arrive -- assuming they could get past the thralls spawning from the tents.

Top of turn 2

And that's exactly what happened.  Maz played ten points short (for the mispositioned forge guard) and another six point short for using a list builder that didn't remind him about warjack points.  It was a rout.

Maz built his list with Privateer Press' new War Room application and it was a severe disservice.  As a relatively new mercenaries faction player, he was not intimately familiar with the contract requirements of his caster and units and War Room did nothing to remind him of those limitations.  It silently allowed him to create and use an illegal list.  Furthermore it did not remind him that his list was incomplete.  It blithely displayed "35 points" where it could have displayed "35/41 points".  Bad experience for Maz; bad experience for me.  Bad for the game.

For these and many other reasons: Don't use War Room.  Don't allow your opponents to use it.  Don't give Privateer Press or Tinkerhouse Games any money for it.  You will only encourage them.

Lessons learned?  Not many.  It wasn't that sort of game.  Battle mages towing enemy warjacks into melee range of a focus-charged, concentrated power phoenix is lovely to behold.  MacNaile's artillerist power with the renegades is a nasty trick, but only once per warjack and it's nicely negated by Rahn's force field spell and the battle mages' inherent blast immunity.  Pretty straightforward and short game.

Hope to try this again sometime.  Maz is always a pleasure to play with, and mercenaries are a fascinatingly fresh opponent.