Warmachine Batrep: Makeda2 vs Vyros1

Chad and I had a helluva game tonight. It wasn't a great game, sadly. They're never great when one side brings a strong counter to the other. But much smashing was had.

Supreme Archdomina Makeda

Supreme Archdomina Makeda
* Archidon
* Cyclops Shaman
* Molik Karn
* Titan Gladiator
Paingiver Beast Handlers (4)
Praetorian Ferox (full)
Praetorian Swordsmen (6+UA)
Tyrant Rhadeim

...Versus...

Dawnlord Vyros (Legions of the Dawn, Tier 2)
* Banshee
* Hyperion
Arcanist
Arcanist
Dawnguard Destor Thane
Dawnguard Sentinel (10+UA+WA)
Dawnguard Sentinel (10+UA+WA)

So, here it was: melee assassination Skorne versus melee attrition Retribution. Fight!

Bottom of turn three

Yeah, that about sums it up. Dawnguard sentinel swarm was irresistible force; Hyperion was an immovable object. Makeda was caught in the middle.

n00b-perion is displeased.  Very displeased.

Incidentally, do you like my n00b-perion? He's a Blizzard marine n00b from last year's BlizzCon. Think he needs some green arcane traceries?  I hear there's a real one in Santa's sleigh.  Might keep this one, though.

Lessons learned:

Molik Karn should not try to trample ARM 19 weapon masters. He's a terror with those blades, but only STR 10 in a trample. Whoops!

Get your armor piercing Tyrant Rhadiem into melee with the colossal, not stuck in with a four point destor for three rounds.

Molik Karn has a 19" threat range with Makeda2 and a tyrant gladiator. Tyrant Rhadiem and praetorian feroxes have a 17" threat range with Road to War. You need to know this. Lives will be saved.

Make sure your Banshee can get within Wailing distance (5") of the enemy warlock. Molik Karn badger doesn't care about Wailing. Derp.

SPD 5 colossal plus Mobility (+2 SPD, Pathfinder) means a colossal running
14" through a forest. Zoooom. Hello!

Starburst = MUAHAHAHAHAHA!

No, wait. Starburst plus 2x 1d3 POW 12 attacks *plus Vyros' feat* means potentially over ten focus for Hyperion on feat turn. Plus whatever you catch in the 5" AOE. kthxbai.

Colossals. Wow.

Thanks to Doug for a little list tune-up before the game (-manticore, -thane, +banshee, +soulless), and thanks to Monte for the blank Terran Marine n00b. And thanks to Chad for enduring that game. You guys are awesome.

Angry Elves, Angry Humans

It's not often that Inspiration and Opportunity knock simultaneously.  But there they were, Peter Chung's Diablo III: Wrath short film and Privateer Press' re-sculpted plastic Exemplar Cinerators, available inexpensively from the two-player battle box.  You got peanut butter in my chocolate!  You got Angiris Council in my ancient chivalric order!  It seems a match made in heaven.  Ah, Serendipity...

Tactics: Gorman Di Wulfe

Gorman Di Wulfe gets a lot of play around here. His Black Oil grenades are spectacularly useful against enemy warjacks and beasts. But that's not their only use. He can effectively employ them against groups of Cryx bile thralls to prevent them from activating Purge (ranged attack special ability) in the next turn, buying your infantry another turn to destroy them.

Wrath/Domination Event

"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war." --Sun Tzu

Shrine of the Medals

Last Saturday we finally held our club's Wrath/Domination combo-release event.  It was a six-hour, all-factions event using both special events rules.  Much as I would love to write about the event design, prep, operation, and post-mortem, but those topics can wait.  But rather than share all that Event Organizer work, I would much rather talk about greed.

First and foremost, you need to know that the prizes for these events are custom-molded and painted faction-specific coins made by Privateer Press.  They are exceptionally cool, and as much as I love the other two Retribution players in our club (Hi, Brandon!  Hi, John L.!), that coin was coming home with me.

Wins and Losses

Lately I've been afraid that I'm writing up my winning battle reports and skipping on the far more important losses.  To keep myself honest all the wins and losses are now tagged as such over there on the right in the tag cloud.  If it gets out of hand, there will be some visible feedback.

Wins are fun, but it's the losses that teach us.  The best game I can play is one where I make a friend, have fun losing, and walk away a better player.

Warmachine: Unbound Test Drive

Who thought this was a good idea?

Steve W. and I played an apocalyptic 150 point game of Unbound on MLK Day. Unbound is a relatively new set of rules for Warmachine that allows extremely large games of 150 points or more with three warcasters in each army.  Rules for Unbound can be found in No Quarter magazine issues 36 and 38.

It hadn't been done before in our club. The models were sitting in our bags, daring us. Something had to give. We decided to start at 9 AM, but logistical issues and setup delayed us until noon.

One does not simply begin a game of Unbound. One must prepare, mentally and physically. One must ... unpack. One must pull up an extra table upon which to place models and cards and magazines with rules. One must take a very deep breath.

We began to set up.

Warmachine Batrep: Siege vs Ravyn

Major Markus 'Siege' Brisbane

Finally got a chance to play against Mike G. this week. We've been trying to play for months, but schedules never seemed to work out, until now.

Mike has several armies, but tonight he brought Cygnar and insisted on a 35 point game. What the heck. I put the Rahn list away and started rummaging iBodger until I found an incomplete 35-point Ravyn list from before the holidays. It felt too light on melee units, lacked any tar pit, and didn't have enough shooting to take good advantage of Ravyn's feat.

Or so I thought.