List of the month for June 2009: Helljacks in the Mist

I have a tendency to make a list and then play the hell out of it for a month or so and then move on once I've figured out the tricks to make it run. In general when building my lists I don't really have any theme other than 'something that I haven't done in a while', if that counts. This month's list is a 35pt MKII Iron Lich Asphyxious list, and it's a little bit different in that I actually had an army strategy in mind before I designed it.

My plan for this army was to throw out as many LOS (line of sight) blocking AOEs (Area of Effect) as I could and then advance behind the screen with my Helljacks to smash the enemy, kind of a rolling smoke barrage a la WWI. Gaspy (Asphyxious) is an excellent choice for a list of this type since he has Breath of Corruption, an AOE 3" spell that places not only a cloud but a cloud that causes damage. As K would say 'Very nice... Very tight...' Since this is not an upkeep, as I believe it was in MKI, you can cast as many of this spell as you like as long as you can figure out how to get the focus.

This strategy has a few really great effects:

1. if they can't see you they can't shoot you (screw you Cygnar!)
2. if they can't see you they can't charge you (screw you ummm... everybody but Legion!)
3. the fact that you are putting out your own cover allows you to advance regardless of whether or not there is any terrain on the table
4. by timing your activation properly you can shoot with your stuff and then deny the enemy the same
5. because Breath of Corruption causes an automatic point of damage it means that single wound infantry are VERY vulnerable, particularly those that rely on Shield Wall or similar effects.

So the question becomes what do I need in my list to effectively execute this dastardly plan? Some Bonejacks to act as 'Slam-turkeys' and arcnodes for placing the Breath of Corruption spell. I will also need something to advance behind the smoke to actually do some killin' so I decided on Deathjack and a Harrower. Deathjack also has the added benefit of being able to cast spells like a caster so he can help with the smokescreen during the advance. Also in the vein of placing more smoke I took a Skarlock to cast yet another Breath of Corruption and Gormon De Wulfe with his smoke grenades. Rounding out the cut for this list are, a Bloat Thrall (since he's newly painted), a Necrotech w/ accompanying Scrapthrall, and a Pistol Wraith. Those last three don't do anything directly to aid the plan but they can all be useful in their own ways, though I still feel that the Pistol Wraith is overcosted in MKII, but that's not the point.

So is this list a success or a failure? Let me see, I played three games with it (it's been a slow month), a victory against Khador and two loses against Menoth. So I guess this would appear to be a failure, at least on the surface, but I think that by the end I was figuring out how to make it work.

Here's what I learned...

Breath of Corruption is awesome but it needs a target. When fighting against Menoth it is very likely that you literally won't have any models to target, particularly for the last few shots. So be aware of this and you may want to throw a Boneturkey out and make sure it is further that 8" ahead of the model doing the casting. The problem here is that you might end up hitting the turkey, and with armour 14 that can be bad. Furthermore, because you don't place the templates there are often holes in the smokescreen for the enemy to take advantage of. I found that I could mitigate this by activating Gaspy first (assuming an arcnode is in position) and getting a good start on the smoke, then Deathjack, and the Skarlock. The remainder of the army can then move during it's activation to take maximum benefit from the smoke. Gorman should activate last since he can be used to plug any LOS holes that remain.

When fighting against Scrutator Severius, you really have to watch out for the enemy arc nodes and his feat, which can totally neuter the strategy. I haven't quite figured out how to solve this problem, but knowing that it is an issue is at least half the battle. :)

Don't be overly cautious with Gaspy, you can charge the front line, hopefully pick up some soul tokens and then teleport to the rear of the enemy where he can't see you to charge you. Take note that this is a very high risk manoeuvre, if you can't get far enough back you will end up as lunch meat.

When fighting against Khador the biggest problem is getting the heavy jacks. I'm lucky because my oponent never tried to simply run his three heavy jacks through my smokescreen to engage me. I would have been put on my back foot had he tried this I think. In order to prevent this you need to keep the smoke as far ahead of your line as you can. If needs be, block with a Boneturky so you can countercharge with your heavies on the following turn.

I will continue to experiment with this list and I'll get back to you with further results. If anyone has any suggestions on what I could be doing better or tactics that I should try with this list let me know.

Until next time I remain,

Yours in Service,

The General.

What is with the Interwebs?

So I wanted to get some feedback on my last post so I started a thread on one of the larger forums. I was looking for some positive discussion on how to play the Coven as they are in MKII. Now I know what you are thinking, "WTF, start a thread on a forum and expect some positive discussion!?!? This guy is obviously a moron." Well you are right I admit it. For some strange reason I figured that since there was already an entire thread dedicated to bitching about how the Coven has changed and how they need to be changed, I figured it would be interesting to get a perspective on how to play them as they are.

Alas, it is the interwebs, and people don't actually like to read an argument, all they want to do is spray. Sorry if this is a bit of a rant but hey it's my blog. :)

I did get a few interesting responses, but in general (Ha!, get it? in General? Ha! I kill me!) the signal to noise ratio is just way to low.



So if anybody that actually want's to have a discussion about how to play the Coven in MKII as they are, please let me know and we'll figure something out.

Whew, now that I have that out of the way...

I'm working on my Bloat Thrall...

This is just the basecoat of Thrall Flesh, boy is there a lot of flesh on this guy. But the real problem with this guy is his teeeny tiny legs supporting his MASSIVE FAT BODY. There is now way that I could put him together and expect it to last. So I've put a wad of green stuff under his arse and I plan to disguise it with paint and flock to blend it into the base.

I havn't played with this guy in MKII yet but I'm sure I'll find a way to make him work out, especially since K has started playing the High Reclaimer so he has ooodles of infantry. The 5" AOE on this fella' is sure to come in handy.

I just added the last bit in about the Bloat Thrall, so I wouldn't end on a bitchy note.

Yours in service,

The General.

A New Deal (The Coven MKII)

For those of you that don't know, I play the Cryx faction in Warmachine and one of my favourite casters in MKI was the Witch Coven of Garlghast. The Coven specialized in board control and spell assassination; this combined with their extremely high focus stat and the ability to get stealth by being in base to base (b2b) with the Egregore made them a challenge to deal with.

During the MKII Field Test I've been trying to treat every model and rule as if I had never used it before in hopes that I wouldn't miss some new subtlety or nuance in the MKII rules because of an old assumption. Nowhere in my faction (that I've played with so far) is there a greater need for this 'Clean Slate' approach than with the Coven.

The really cool thing about the Coven has always been their ability to adopt a formation called Perfect Conjunction (PC), which in MKI, gave the automatic boosted attack and damage rolls for magic attacks. In MKII PC has been changed so that it reduces the focus cost to cast a spell by one point. Whether or not this change is a 'buff' or a 'nerf' is a matter of some debate on the interwebs.

A part of the issue with PC is the fact that the Coven has to be deployed in a fashion such that all three witches have mutual Line of Sight with no intervening models (including the Egregore) with the Egregore completely within the triangle formed by the Witches. At first glance I think most people (note that I live in a very small place and there aren't any other Cryx players in the area) try to adopt an equilateral triangle with each Witch about 3" away from Egregore (see figure 1.). We'll call this Classic PC for now.

(figure 1. Classic PC)

As you can see this formation has a very limited line of sight and because at least one of the Witches must be back on to the enemy, thus she is open to back strikes that reduce her effective defence by 2. The defensive penalty combined with the availability of stealth for being in b2b with Egregore meant that in MKI you would only adopt PC if you were going for the Stygian Abyss assassination run, otherwise the Coven would be clumped on top of Egregore.

In MKII a couple of things have changed that significantly affect PC: no more granted stealth by Egregore, Egregore can now run, and PC reduces the cost of casting for all spells instead of boosting offensive spells. The fact that PC is reduces the cost of casting means that in many cases if the Coven is in PC it is just as cheap for them to cast Infernal Machine as it is for them to upkeep it, or they can cast ghost walk four times in one turn... whatever, you get the idea. The upshot of all this is that the only benefit of NOT being in PC is the loss of defence for the Witch who is back on AND being in PC is useful almost every turn of the game, not just the assassination turn.

So I got to thinking, "I want to be in PC more often in MKII, so how do I mitigate the downside?" After tossing it around in my head for a while, trying different orientations of the Classic PC, base-of-the-triangle-forward, base-of-the-triangle-back, base-of-the-triangle-to-the-side, etc... None of these orientation based solution seemed to solve the problem. The solution finally came to me when I realised that a model with stealth does not count as an intervening model when it is further than 5" away. This allows you to essentially form a line with two Witches and Egregore, as long as the Witches are at least 5" away from Egregore than they can still form PC. Figure 2, is a diagram of what I mean.

figure 2. New PC

As you can see from the diagram this formation allows the Witches to remain in PC and still not turn their back to the enemy, thus preserving their solid defence and coincidentally making them less bunched up for AOE spam.

As I mentioned earlier Egregore can run in MKII and that means that you can stay in PC most of the time and then run Egregore forward to increase the control range of the Coven by 12"; this is particularly useful on the turn the Coven uses its feat. The following turn Egregore can walk back 6" and the Witches can walk ahead 6" or Egregore can run back 12" and they would once again be in PC.

There has also been significant changes to the Coven's spell list, they have lost Puppet Strings, Imprison, Necrophage. Ghost Walk has improved, Stygian Abyss has been changed (I would say nerfed, but that would be editorializing) and Infernal Machine has gotten better. They also have access to a couple of new spell Curse of Shadows and Watcher. I could write a couple of pages on how the spell list has changed but to suffice it to say that the Coven can no longer control the enemie's movement with Imprison an hide in the back in the protection of stealth.

What the Coven can do is move their army (particularly jacks) almost anywhere with impunity. A Bonejack with Infernal Machine and Ghost Walk with Curse of Shadows on the right enemy unit can run 18" through anything, now that's mobility baby, yeah! Please note that with judicious application of Death Jack and the Skarlock, the Coven still haven't used any of their 8 remaining focus (only eight because you had to allocate 1 to the Bonejack for it to run). That means that if they are in PC, (which they should be, as discussed earlier) they can fire 4 Stygian Abyss spells through an Arcnode that came from 18" away, this should surprise the enemy in my estimation. :)

Another new option in MKII for the Coven is to allow their jacks do all the heavy lifting for them. This works particularly well when you consider all the love that jacks got in general in MKII. The Coven can allocate six focus and still cast Infernal Machine and Curse of Shadows, or Infernal Machine three times. When you consider what that could mean with a couple of Seethers, or Deathjack, or even a couple of Slayers it becomes something to really think about. I haven't even mentioned what happens when a Harrower that has gained 3 soul tokens gets an additional 3 focus and +2 Mat and +2 Spd from Infernal machine, let's just say it's not right...

Essentially the Coven have gone from being a "stealth turtle" with one sting (Stygian Abyss), to being a flexible jack boosting attacker. Earlier I was taking about how important it was to look at caster with fresh eyes, and that is very true for these ladies. The first time I used them I ended up so flustered I literally ended up trying to cast Venom (a spell that they don't even have) at some enemy troops. Now that I've changed my thinking about how they should work I rub my hands together with glee when I consider all the nasty possibilities.

Let me know what you think, or if I've gotten something completely wrong, like all of us, I'm still learning the new rules too.

Yours in Service,

The General.

MKII Goddness, My Thoughts So Far

So Warmachine MK II has been out for a few weeks now and I figured it's about time to give my thoughts on the matter. First I'd like to say that I've been watching the Privateer Press Forums closely since this Field Test started and either I just don't play the same game that everyone else does or the Forum is filled with a vocal minority. Either way, I have to say that most of the things that others are complaining about are not the things that I would like to see tweaked.

THE RULES

I really have to hand it to Privateer Press doing this Field Test in the first place by the way, it shows a great deal of respect for the players and confidence in their system. My understanding is the motivation for MKII was to streamline the system and reduce the number special effects and re-balance the game overall.

I guess the biggest changes to the rules themselves are as follows:

• Points system has been completely reworked
  
• Jacks must now have all their damage boxes marked in order to be put out of action
• Power attacks have lost most of their penalties to hit
• The formation rules for infantry have been changed
• Epic models are now available for all games
• Plus a bunch of other niggly things

The new points system has ROUGHLY 10% of the range that the old system had. Many forumites on the Privateer Forums have whined at great length regarding the "lack of granularity" of this new system. While that is true on it's face, it's only because the design philosophy seems to have changed regarding the points/model balance. In MKI the design process seems to have gone something like; design a model then, through some mystical process, come up with a point value with a precission down to 0.5% of the total scale. Somehow I don't think the process could be so precise and still be accurate. In MKII is looks like the designers determine the points value that a model should be and then tweak the model so that it fits into that point scale. One great advantage of this is that you never feel that you are playing at a disadvantage because you couldn't get to exactly the points value of the game. The MKII points system, assuming you have a couple of low point cost models, is easy to make a list that uses every point. The drawback of course is that the players have to get used to the fact that their models may have gone up or down in relative power in order to fit the "point slot". Personally I think the new point system is a definate improvement.

Jacks are now just better, they have to lose every single box before they are taken out and they don't suffer the penalties to hit for most power attacks. I'm pretty sure this was done purely to make jacks as useful as beasts from Hordes. I'm down with this I'd have to say.

The real significant change to infantry is the formation rules and the fact that formation is measured as a range from the unit commander. Essentially, any member of the unit that is not within the command range of the unit commander is "Out of Formation". Models that are out of formation must make a command check or flee. The effect this generally has is that you can't "daisy-chain" models out like you could before. Again, I'm down with this change.

A great new thing is that Epic models can be taken in any game size. Love it, love it, love it... that is all.

There are a bunch of other subtleties that have been changed, damage types and immunitites have been added, LOS rules are slightly different, the order of how effects resolve has been made both more formal and universal, etc... All these changes have major effects on the game but I'm just too lazy to get into them all now. :)

Overall I think the MKII rules are a great update to a great system. As far as the rules go I don't really have too much to complain about. It still feels like Warmachine so many fears should be allayed but that.

That's it for now, in the next little while I'll put up some of my opinions for how the Cryx fared in this version. Until then,

Thanks for reading,

Yours in Service,

The General.

Rookie Match-Up

I finished painting Asphyxious (sp?) a few days ago so I thought I would bring him out for a go tonight in my regular Thursday night game with K. K's been on a bit of a painting binge lately so he decided to try something new too, a Circle list with Kaya, a Warpwolf, and a Gorax; all of which are freshly painted.

It was my first time playing with Gaspy (that's the nickname for Asphyxious for those of you not in the know) and my first time fighting Kaya. K had played only one quick game against Jet (over at Geektactica) with his Trolls and from what I understand it didn't end well.

We decided to play without our usual chess timer since we are both learning new caster/locks, but the game was still over in about an hour and a half.

Overall I think Gaspy is a great caster, he's a little straightforward for a Cryx caster I think but hey, we all need a beat stick at some point don't we?

I ended up winning but it was a great game and K had some bad dice roll against him while I had a little extra luck at the right times.

Warmachine is really coming back for me lately, I had been finding it a little stale but since K has broken out his Skorne and Circle stuff again, and NLGamer (author of the Rules Attorney Blog) has joined our merry little band with his Khador I'm finding lots of new fun stuff to do. Yay us...

I've had some progress painting lately myself, a Harrower and Gaspy since my last set of pics I think. I was talking with K tonight and he's going to come over with his light box so we can take some proper pics so I'll post them eventually so stay tuned.

Yours in Service,
The General

Cryx V. Menoth Battle Report, Dene and Kreos

K and I got together for a game last week. I've been trying to learn how to use Skarre lately and that hasn't been going too well. Now I'm by no means a power gamer but a 1-6 record with Skarre was starting to cause my morale to sink. So.... I went to my ringer and brought out The Warwitch herself. So without further ado, here it is...

Part I -- The Forces

500 pts
Player 1 Menoth
Player 2 Cryx

Menoth
Kreoss, Vassal, Hierophant, Devout, Devout, Crusader, Knights Exemplar (6), Choir.

Once again the standard disclaimer applies, I suck at remembering the names of Menothian stuff so if its wrong just let me know and I'll fix it. Maybe... :)

Cryx
Deneghra, Harrower, Deathripper, Deathripper, Nightwretch, Mechanithralls (6), Mechanithralls (6), Skarlock, Pistol Wraith, Pistol Wraith, Necrotech, Scrap Thralls(2).

PartII --The Table



The table had a "tournament style" terrain layout. The North Side of the table had a small forest in the Western corner and a hill in the Eastern corner. The South side mirrors the North with a wood in the West and a Hill in the East. The middle ground was occupied by a stone dwelling on a hill in the centre and a similar house on a hill on the Eastern edge.

There was also a road running from the Western board edge to the Centre then turning North to bisect the Northern edge. We have house rules in place that if a model spends its entire movement on a road that it gains an extra 1" of movement. For example a Deathripper running on a road can move 15". This is a subtle but fun effect and gives us a chance to use roads for something other than just a show.


PartIII -- Deployment

Menoth
K won the die roll so he chose to be player 1 and deployed in the centre of the Northern deployment area. He placed his Choir and Crusader on the road to take advantage of the extra inch of movement that it would provide. His left flank was guarded by a Devout and the Vassal, while his extreme right was occupied by the Knights Exemplar. The Centre-Right was held by the Revenger and the second Devout. Kreos and his Hierophant deployed closely behind the Devout on the Centre-right.


Cryx

My Deployment was equally simple. With the lack of speed reducing terrain I was not expecting to make a great deal of use out of the "Ghost Walk through terrain and Arcnode you" trick. So I decided that I needed to tarpit the Jacks with my Mechanithralls and attempt to break through the Knights to get a shot at Kreos. That's the theory at least. :)

I occupied the Southern deployment zone so I couldn't take advantage of the extra movement provided by the road on the first turn. I deployed my Mechanithralls on my right to counter the Jacks on K's left. Outside of that my plan was to use an Arcnode or two to get in close with the Knights and then Venom bath them into oblivion. I anchored my flanks with a scrap thrall on each side with a Pistol Wraith to harass each flank of the enemy. My left was occupied by the Arcnodes, so they would have the protection of the building on the hill when things got a little closer.

I didn't really have a plan for the Harrower, it was really meant as a backup to mop up if things went wrong with plan 'A'; at least I would have something with some punch that couldn't be knocked down to act as a bodyguard for Dene if it came to that. I didn't really have much for the Skarlock to do this game either so I threw him and the Necrotech in behind the Mechanithralls.



Part IV -- The Fight

Menoth Turn 1
As you might expect since K didn't have any ranged weapons his first turn was spent moving forward as fast as he could. Kreos puts Protection of Menoth on the Knights and Retribution on the Crusader. As an asside it must be noted that K was having a hard time remembering to activate his Hierophant before Kreos so he wasn't taking full advantage of the Hierophant's powers. The choir does what it always does against Cryx, (for those of you who live under a rock, that means they sang the hymn that makes Jacks untargetable by magic.) and the Devout in front of Kreos advances and uses Spellguard, thus making Kreos untargetable by spells.

Menoth Turn 1.

The Crusader runs along the road to bring the fight to me.

Cryx Turn 1 ("The Hook")

My intention on turn one was to establish a solid position from which to attack and not be too vulnerable to Kreos' feat. That meant holding back a little and "chumming the water" a little with a Boneturkey and a Pistol Wraith in the hopes of drawing either some of the jacks or the Knights. I also sent my first tarball Mechanithrall unit out to die (er... re-die?). I left the Mechanithralls just outside of what I hope is the Crusader's charge range since I either want him to run to get to me or I want to run or charge to get to him. Once I get K committed I the plan is to come around with the Arcnodes and kill Kreos.

I keep the majority of my army back and Dene casts Death Rage on a Pistol Wraith. The Harrower advances and takes a shot and falls short (no suprise there but a guy's gotta try right?)

Cryx Turn 1.

Menoth Turn 2

Kreos upkeeps Retribution and Protection of Menoth, allocates a focus to a devout and camps the remainder. The Choir advances and sings (second verse, same as the first). The Hierophant advances and reduces the cost of one of Kreos' spells. The Vassal advances and enlivent the Crusader. The Devout advances and raises spellguard.

Now for the interesting bit. The Revenger advances to the top of the hill in order to be in range for arcing. Kreos advances and casts Lamentation for one less focus thanks to the Hierophant. Kreos also takes a crack at the Pistol Wraith but fails to hit. In an attempt to protect the jacks, the Knights run laterally accross the field to screen the Crusader.

The Advance of Menoth

Cryx Turn 2 ("The Fight")

Now you'll notice in the picture below that by advancing the Revenger, the Devout and the Deathripper on my left are all in a nice little line.

Cryx Turn 2 (The Setup)

Dene upkeeps Death Rage on the Pistol Wraith, allocates 2 focus to the Deathripper and keeps 4 for herself. The Deathripper slams the Revenger and rolls a 6 for the distance. The Revenger flies back off the hill ripping into the Menothian line causing havoc everywhere. As a result of the slam the Revenger, a Devout, two knights and Kreos are all knocked down.

Knowing that she doesn't have the position for an assassination attempt Dene opts to soften Kreos for a later chance by casting parasite on him. The Death Raged Pistol Wraith advances and takes out a Knight and the Knight Leader. The Harrower stays still and shoots but is out of range and misses. The second Pistol Wraith advances and triple taps the Devout to cause a Death Chill.

It is important to block up the advance at this stage so the Mechanithralls charge the knights and fail to kill any, but more importantly the middle ground has been clogged with bodies and knocked down jacks.

Cryx Turn 2 (The Result)

Menoth Turn 3

Kreos allocates 1 focus each to the Devouts and keeps 5 focus to himself. In an attempt to stabilize his position K trys to get rid of my Pistol Wraiths and my Mechani-pit.

The Choir sings the "Extra Choppy" song and gets all the jacks and the Hierophant drops the cost of casting a spell for Kreos.

The Death Chilled Devout runs up to engage one of the Pistol Wraiths while the Vassal follows up and gives the Devout an extra attack. Alas the Devout wiffs and the Pistol Wraith lives(?) to fight on.

The Crusader advances and kills a Mechanithrall and the Knights mop up some others but three remain from the first wave.

In the mean time the second Devout advances and puts up his spell guard. Kreos comes up behind him and uses Anti-magic Pulse to drop the Death Rage and takes out the Pistol Wraith. This leaves Kreos engaged with a Boneturky and in B2B with a Spell Guarding Devout. Kreos opts not to feat since he would not catch the majority of the Cryx second wave.


Cryx Turn 3 ("The Kill")

So here is my chance.

Dene upkeeps Parasite and keeps the remaining 6 focus to herself.

The problem I have to overcome here is Kreos' defence. I can't shoot him or magic him directly because:

1. Very little line-of-sight from most of my models
2. Kreos is engaged (+4 def)
3. Kreos is elevated (+2 def)
4. Kreos is next to a Devout who will move to block shooting
5. The Devout has spell guard running so I can't target Kreos with magic.

The Achilles heel in this set up is actually a part of what makes it so strong, The Devout. Because Kreos has to be in base to base with the Devout to gain the benefit of Spell Guard he is in danger from being affected by things that affect the Devout.

So here's how it plays out...

The Scarlock moves up and casts Ghost Walk on the Ripper, and the ripper walks out of combat which both removes the engagement issue and potentially some line of sight issues. The second Ripper advances in support. Deneghra advances to within control area and feats, while casting Scourge on the Devout. I have no illusions of killing either the jack or Kreos with the splash but by boosting to hit Dene guarantees a knockdow on both the Devout and Kreos thus solving more line of sight problems, reducing Kreos defence to a very managable 7. She also boosts the secondary damage on Kreos since he's also Parasited and Withered so he takes a little damage. With the prep-work done now we can get on with the killin'

With the Devout knocked down he doesn't block line of sight nor can he move to intercept a shot so the Pistol Wraith advances and double-taps Kreos for the kill. I must admit to some good rolls with this but I still had the Harrower and a Nightwretch left to shoot so I feel confident that Kreos would have gone down anyhow.

Before and after "The Kill"

Final Thoughts

Once again a fine time was had by all. I thought K played a fine game and he only really made one mistake. That being said I never mentioned this but we play with a chess timer so we have seven minute turns each with one "long" turn per game wherein a player can take as long as he really needs. This is usually reserved for feat turns or turns when there is a lot of dice rolling to be resolved. Any how K had a total play time of twenty-one minutes for three turns, it's hard to be perfect under those conditions.

Not going for the you can't spell me song on turn 3 was probably the biggest problem, I still could have gotten around it by targeting my Boneturkey with the Scourge to get the knockdown, but it would have been more difficult since he would have been engaged and not affected by the Withering so I could have missed and gotten a bad scatter which would have ruined the entire run.

Like I said all in all it was a good time.

PS: We played again last night and K handed me my ass twice with Severus V. Dene, conveniently I didn't take any pictures so there will be no report on my shame. :)

Yours in Service,

The General.

The Pirate Queen Commeth

Here she is, The Pirate Queen herself, Skarre. She is the latest of my acquisitions for my Cryx army. I'm pleased with the overall look of the model, I particularly like the red coat. I'm still working on getting my metals to look right, and the highlighting on the boots is a little stark. But overall she was a fun and easy model to paint.

It doesn't hurt that in the game she is an absolute monster. I've been enjoying using her with the DeathJack and some Mechanithralls, along with a Slayer, some Boneturkeys and a Pistol Wraith. It works pretty well. Except that she can run out of troops to use her abilities with in a hurry.

Mary Kate and Ashley, The Nightwretch Twins

These are the latest additions to my Warmachine army. I decided to go for the "fleshy" look for the part holding the beak on. I wanted it to look like muscle and tendon are worked in with the bone and metal of a bonejack. I like the effect in general.

I also went with a bit starker highlights than I've done in the past. At first I wasn't sure but in the end I kind of like the slightly cinematic look it provides.

Flush With Victory

So I played two games of Warmachine the other night, one against J and his Cygnar and one against K and his Menoth. Miracle of miracles I managed to win both.

The first contest was against Cygnar with Stryker for the caster. If you want more details you can view the battle report at J's blog geektactica.

Since he's been having such success with the battle reports I figured I'd give it a whirl.

So here goes...

... oh yeah one more thing, I suck at remembering the names of Menoth jacks so if I screw them up just leave a comment to correct me and I'll get it sorted.

Part I -- The Forces

500 pts
Player 1 Menoth
Player 2 Cryx

Menoth
Kreoss, Repenter, Revenger, Devout, Redeemer, Choir, Vassal, Piper of Ord, Temple Flame Guard, Wrack.

Cryx
Deneghra, Deathjack, Deathripper X2, Nightwretch X2, Defiler, Mechanithralls, Skarlock.

PartII --The Table

The table had a moderate amount of terrain, some forests, a couple of hills, some stone walls and hedges, a river, a small building, a river and a road put in just for looks.

The centre of the board was relatively free of terrain except that the river sectioned off about a quarter of the table. The road ran straight from one side to the other but it didn't really have any great effect.

PartIII -- Deployment

Menoth
K won the die roll so he chose to be player 1 and deploy in a line at the back of the hill. His left flank was made up of the Temple Flame Guard (TFG), the Piper of Ord, next to them were the Redeemer and the Vassal. The centre of the army was the Repenter, Kreoss and the Devout. The right flank was held by the revenger. The choir was deployed behind the centre so it could keep singing as long as possible.


Cryx
The biggest problem during my deployment was that I was constrained by the river. As a Cryx player I rely on my speed to get the job done so I didn't want to be slowed down by the river.

As a general rule I want Deathjack to line up against infantry so I advance deployed him on my right, but behind the river. I put the Nightwretchs behind the river, they shoot so they they wouldn't necessarily be forced to cross the river if I was under a focus crunch and couldn't afford to run them or cast ghost walk.

The centre of my army was Dene, the Skarlock and the remaining Boneturkeys. The Mechanithralls I put on my left since that's where his jacks were. I often like to engage jacks with mechanithralls as a speed bump.


Part IV -- The Fight

Menoth Turn 1
K gets "drunk on focus" when he plays Kreoss. He's been playing Amon Ad Raza or Reznik lately so the 7 focus on Kreoss was a real treat for him. He allocated 1 focus each to the Revenger, the Devout and the Repenter.



All jacks but the Devout move forward the Revenger and Repenter both run while the Redeemer crests the hill and looks for targets.



K hates it when my Cryx cast spells all over him so, Kreoss advances down the centre and casts Lamentation and Ward on the Repenter.



To further the "you can't spell me" tactic the Devout advances to B2B with Kreoss and does his Spell Barrier ability so Kreoss couldn't be targeted by magic. The Piper moves to the hill and plays the extra defence song. The TFG run to protect Kreoss and avoid getting into range of the Deathjack. The Choir moves up and sings the hymn of Shielding Ward and caught all the jacks so I couldn't cast spells at them.

Now its Cryx's turn... Mwahahahah.....

Cryx Turn 1
So this is how the table looked after Menoth Turn 1. A Deathripper gets a focus and the Deathjack gets one extra so he won't go crazy. Dene keeps the remainder so she can cast some goodness.

A Deathripper runs up to the wall to get in range of the Revenger... I know, I know! You are saying "Didn't K use the choir to stop that?" Unfortunately my memory isn't as good as yours; moving on.

Deathjack casts Ghost Walk on himself, moves across the river and Necrovents.

The remainder of the army advances apace. As Deneghra activates I realise that I had just thrown away a Deathripper I can't cast anything at the Revenger through the 'ripper because of the Choir effect. But hey, nobody's perfect. I settle for casting Death Rage on Deneghra (also not a terribly good move, see later) and camping 1 focus.

Menoth Turn 2

So here's the lay of the land after turn 1. I have a sinking feeling, I must have forgotten something.

Anyhow, K. allocates 1 focus to the Revenger and keeps the remainder for himself.


Kreoss checks his control area...remember that feeling I had... there it is. That's what I forgot... rule #1 when playing against Kreoss is "Don't get within 20" of Kreoss if he hasn't popped his feat yet."


This is me realising that I have screwed it all up. :(

The Revenger runs up to get within 5" of Deneghra to overcome her Stealth ability. Here it comes... Kreoss moves gathers some focus from the Wrack (it blows up to little fanfare); pops his feat to knock every enemy model in his control area on it's ass. He then casts Anti-magic Pulse to take out the Death Rage and targets Dene with immolation a couple of times. That should have done it but K's dice betrayed him and Dene was left with 6 damage boxes left.


Not to worry there is still the Redeemer, unfortunately he can't get LOS to Dene because of the Necrovent so he has to settle for a nearby boneturky and hope for a good scatter.


Ahh, the betrayal of the dice... When you want to hit you miss, when you want to miss you hit. In a fit of competence the Redeemer hits the bone turkey and does enough damage to wreck it and kill the innocent little Skarlock who never hurt anybody.

But no lucky scatters onto Dene though...


Aggrivated by the still living (though barely) Deneghra the infantry and the Repenter move forward to try to plug the hole in the middle.


Cryx Turn 2

Now it's K's turn to sweat, he has blown his load and didn't kill Dene, and in order to do the assassination run he had to drop Lamentation.

Now we all know that you can't keep a good Warwitch down, so here's the skinny...

Deathjack gets his two free focus plus Deneghra gives him 3 more to make him truly scary. Dene keeps the remaining four.

Remember the Deathripper that ran the first turn, well he stands up and leaves combat with 2 TFG and once again K's dice betray him and they fail to hit. So the 'Ripper is now in play.

The Mechanithralls move to clog up any advances by the enemy just in the event that my evil plan fails.

Deneghra stands up, dusts herself off, and uses her feat to debuff (-2 to all stats) every enemy in her control area. She then channels a Crippling grasp through the 'Ripper and boosts to hit Kreoss and further debuff him.

Now it's time for the rubber to meet the road. Deathjack stands up moves to engage some stuff and casts Venom. Kreoss takes the full force of the spell in the face and takes a boosted damage roll that causes a bunch of damage.

So this is it... Deathjack has enough juice to cast another Venom, but he can't boost either to hit or to damage. Kreoss is hurt pretty bad and has -4 to Def and Arm. I roll the dice and there it is Kreoss goes down.

Game Over...



Final Thoughts

I thought K played an excellent game. He went for the kill wehn he saw that I had left Dene out of position. The only problem is that he had to choose between casting Lamentation or casting immolation a second time. The Lamentation probably would have saved him from dying but the second offensive spell should have killed Dene. What's a guy supposed to do?

I screwed up the first turn and got away with it. What can I say, just lucky I guess.

If anybody has any thoughts leave a comment and let me know how I could have done things better.


Note: My last turn I was so excited to be still alive that I totally forgot to take any photos during my activations. You'll just have to be happy with the final pic.

A New Beginning

This is the first model from my Warmachine Cryx army that I painted. I hadn't painted anything in a while when I did this so I ended up stripping him the first time. I was trying new paints and new techniques, some of which worked, others... not so much.

I've found that the P3 line of paints from Privateer are much more suited to my style of painting than the Citadel paints I used to use. I've always liked to use very watery paints and the P3s (that I have used) really allow me to dilute them a lot without losing their opacity. It's awesome to be able to put down a base colour in one coat.

I also started experimenting with mixing and layering paint on this model. The highlighting on the carapace is done starting from a base of Cryx Bane Base and moving through several mixes up to pure Cryx Bane Highlight. I like the effect but I have a bunch to learn.

I also used matte medium and a dark glaze for the first time on this mini. It really helps to pull the mini together and give it the darker feel that I was going for.

I was also trying, rather unsuccessfully, to get some light sourcing going with the green glowy parts. I didn't like the effect and I haven`t really tried it again since.