KingdomCon 2013

The alarm went off at 6:00 AM.  Darkness.  Phone.  Shower.  Clothes.  Caffeine?  Yes.  Warmachine army, Infinity army, other Infinity army, terrain box.  PB&J.  Caffeine again?  Yes.  Money?  Yes!  Still dark outside.  Kiss the family g'bye.  Drive.  It's gaming convention day!

Warmachine Un-Batrep: Old Witch vs Rahn

Steve and I setup to play a game this Saturday morning.  I should have seen it coming.

Zevanna Agha, The Old Witch of Khador
* Conquest
* Scrapjack
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr
Battle Mechaniks (leader+3)
The Great Bears of Gallowswood
Kayazy Assassins (leader+9+UA)

...Versus...

Adeptus Rahn Shyeel
* Phoenix
* Phoenix
Arcanist
Arcanist
Dawnguard Sentinels (leader+5+UA+WA)
House Shyeel Battle Mages (leader+5)
House Shyeel Battle Mages (leader+5)

Retribution won the roll and advanced.  Khador advanced.  Conquest fired at one phoenix doing six boxes and killing a nearby soulless escort, then setup a line of AoE and clouds across the board between our armies.

Dawnguard advanced with their vengeance move.  Rahn used Telekinesis to move both phoenixes forward, then tried to use it a third time to move a phoenix again.  Whoops!  That's illegal.  One advanced to combust and clear out the kayazy.  I misjudged the distance and only got three.  The other advanced to combust and clear out the great bears, but because I needed the second Telekinesis, he was short and missed all his attacks, leaving him two inches from the bears and five inches from Conquest.  Looked at the board… saw what was coming… saw no way out of it... and scooped.  The end.

Steve generously spent the next half hour talking through alternatives plans and how that might have affected the remainder of the game.  He strongly recommended I should have used the dawnguard's vengeance plus run to have them engage the kayazy, tying them up for a turn, and sacrificed one phoenix to the great bears to draw them out of position so I could kill them the next turn.  These still don't sound like very good options.  The battle is still replaying in my head, looking for alternatives.

Lessons learned: Telekinesis can only only affect a model once per turn.  And I need a serious revamp in my lists to deal with kayazy and underboss.

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.

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.