Vaul's Official Warmachine & Hordes Batreps Thread

[Vaul]

Gonna try and keep all the pics in the same thread.  You know where to get the fullscale audio commentary reports with all the pics!

10/07/11 Kromac vs Durgen @ Cityguard, 35pts (non scenario)

1. My List & Deployment.  There are two proxies here, the feral is actually a stalker, and the skinwalker is actually a Gorax.

- Kromac
- Warpwolf Stalker
- Pureblood Warpwolf
- Gnarlhorn Satyr
- Gorax
- 3x Wolfriders
- Shifting Stones



2. Another game against Glen & his mercs.

- Durgen Madhammer
- Reinholt Gobbo Speculator
- Avalancher
- Driller
- Crowe's Cutthroats
- Kayazy Assassins & Underboss
- Rhupert the piper
- Trollblood Gunner guy and his girl
- Aiyanna & holt

Excuse all the horrible typos there, can't be bothered looking them all up.



3. I go first.  Kromac does his usual upkeep kickstart: Wild aggression on the stalker, resolve on the wolfriders, warpath up in his control area.  The wolfriders have preyed Crowe & co, so they head over through the forest.  Thanks to being hunters and having the light cav rule, i'm confident that they can pick away at crowe's unit without retaliation, even though he has stealth.  The stalker prowls the edge of the forest while everyone else sets up on the hill with the shifting stones.



4. In the responding Mercanary turn, Durgen has been a daredevil, advancing right to the edge of a central hill... possibly in range of the stalker if warpath and the gnarlhorn's bounding animus are factored in.  But it's a very close call.  Crowe has sent 3 of his men up in front of the wolfriders.  I feel that this is normally a good strategy, especially against other armies/lists, but the wolfriders love this sort of situation as they can just move within the stealth range, throw their javelins, and then move back.

I in fact handle this by activating the wolfriders first to kill one of them, then use the stalker (warped for ghostly thanks to the pureblood) to rush in, kill the other two, then use warpath and sprint for a cumulative 9" return at the end of his activation.



5. Jumping forward a couple of turns for this photo, Durgen's forces had essentially moved forward and taken some pot shots at Kromac himself, also popping feat.  This didn't work, and in my turn i've gone aggressive, smashing Aiyanna & Holt with the Gnarlhorn, then warpathing up to the avalancher.  The stalker zoomed up to wreck the driller, then warpathed over to durgen himself.  He had the help of the primal animus to do this, so he'll only have one frenzy strike at durgen, at best.  But at least it helps to hold Durgen in place under threat of a Pow20 Free strike, so I can deal with him later. 

The wolfriders have assaulted the next wave of crowe's men, killing them, but this time moving up to the next wave with their light cav move, rather than backwards - so that in the following turn Crowe will have to fight them instead of running over to help Durgen - this will buy me time to seal the deal.  The Pureblood attempted a spray but only succeeded in knocking the trollblood merc down.  Kromac hangs back behind the stones.



6. The game turns into a brawl with Durgen's men hacking into the Circle Warbeasts, causing a lot of damage but not finishing anything.  Durgen himself uses some focus to smack the Stalker so bad that he loses his body aspect.  In this image you see my response - the stalker frenzies into durgen but having lost body, doesn't hurt him as much as I would have liked.  The wolfriders kill Crowe's men but Crowe himself fails a command check, so I send one rider over to Durgen to keep up the pressure.

Kromac pops his feat.  I do this because I can't see him needing to go assassin in the next two turns, but my beast are so badly hurt and down on spiral aspects that the best use of all my extra fury is healing.  The pureblood goes ghostly, kills a couple guys with the spray, then the stones 'port up to block charge lanes back to him.  The Gorax moves around to Durgen but doesn't have enough range to start hitting him.  The Gnarlhorn contines punching but doesn't get a lot done besides heavily damaging the Avalancher.



7. The Mercs take down the Gnarlhorn, Stalker and Gorax, but since i've been healing and protecting the Pureblood with some stones, i'm able to put Wild Aggression up on him.  He walks over the wall to Durgen, without charging, warps for strength, and takes him out!  Win to the Circle of Orboros.

[Vaul]

Played a couple of games at FTW the other night, both circle vs skorne.  They were my first two games using Mohsar, the coolest warlock ever.  Only took one pic though.

Game 1, vs Josh's new Skorne, 35pts.  Josh ran Xerxes, with 3 heavy warbeasts and one min unit of cataphract cetrati.  Knowing that the cetrati are a huge pain, I preyed on them with my wolfriders are as well as my new max bloodtracker w/nuala unit.  Despite that, I spent all of my massed firepower on his warbeasts.  With curse of shadows this was extremely effective, taking two of them down.  However, the rhinodon got through, and threshered me badly - horrifically maiming my new woldwarden as well, taking out his spirit AND mind, but leaving his body untouched.  Since I couldn't heal him, it ruined my plan to use geomancy to curse of shadows the rhinodon and kill him, then using mohsar's activation to CoS Xerses and take him out as well.

With the Skorne closing in and my circle running out of time and opportunities for pillars of salt, I activated Mohsar and attempted to CoS the rhinodon in the middle of my lines and just let the primal'd feral I had taken go for xerxes on his own.  Mohsar failed BOTH of his attempts to cast it arghh.... this meant that the following attempt at shooting him to death was pretty much a disaster.  Luckily I rolled well with my gorax moving in with primal, and killed him with my final attack roll doing exactly the right amount of damage to box him.

The Feral warped speed and rushed over to Xerxes, barely poking out of his Cetrati bodyguard, having moved quickly in the previous turn to put the pressure on.  With only primal buffing him, the Feral needed to roll reliably, but luckily I was able to pull it off.  Very tight game.

Game 2 vs Glen, Skorne 35 points.  Glen also took Xerxes, but ran a non heavy-warbeast brick with two max Cetrati units with a UA and Vorkesh as well.  He also had the Basilisks for anti-ranged.  I knew this was going to be a one sided game in his favour so I did everything I could to kill Vorkesh in the hopes that I could eliminate him and then CoS the Cetrati and get lucky in a dedicated assault.  My wolfriders rolled well and took him to one box left, then later Mohsar moved up and tried to spray him to death, failing, and using sands of fate to escape.

The game was in turn 3 and neither of us had lost anything.  It was clear that I could keep running away and taking pot shots, and prolong the game until 1am in the morning, so we called it a draw.  I'm 90% sure glen would have got his first win against me though, Mohsar would have needed some extreme luck to crack that list.

[Vaul]

new game up with Mohsar.

Game 1, vs Daryl's Cryx, 35pts. So far Daryl has the Cryx battlebox with pDeneghra and the light warjacks, he's bolstered that with a Deathjack and unit of Bane Thralls in order to hit 35 points already.  It's a straightforwar d way to get involved in the game at that level asap, but this kind of setup won't start to get really mean until he's got the bane thrall UA and tartarus in there as well.  Dropping some of the smaller jacks for some powerful cryx/merc solos will make a difference too.

I'm still practicing with Mohsar here, although Kromac does great against pDenny due to his Bestial spell.  All about Mohsar for the moment though.

1. I've sent my wolfriders (not pictured) around the left flank, while my main army heads up, looking to use the forest to split the cryx forces a bit and generally harass with ranged and prevent retaliation with pillars until I can see a dedicated assault option.  Both the bloodtrackers and wolfriders prey on the bane thralls.



2. This tactic works quite well, severely injuring the warjack on the hill even with his elevation bonus.  Sunhammer also is paying dividends this game, with Daryl fielding no less than 5 warjacks total.



3. Once the Bane Thralls get in close, I send the bloodtrackers at them, but not before using geomancy to debuff them with Curse of Shadows.  This works a treat, with the girls wiping out the entire unit and with Nuala giving them quick work, pDenny takes a few jav hits as well.



4. The Cryx retaliate, with pDenny using her feat (maybe a bit late?) and killing all but 3 bloodtrackers.  My Wolfriders are stuck in combat with a lone bonechicken miles away across the table.  However i'm able to limit pDenny's moves with pillars of salt, and eventually send a primal'd feral warpwolf in to scrap the Deathjack.  Sunhammer had softened him up a fair way, too.  After this, deneghra committed herself and was laid low. 

Good learning game in general for both of us, a number of rules q's came up too that we were able to get answered, so this will be a stepping stone to higher level play later on.

[Vaul]

Great practice game with Josh this week, 30pts for the upcoming call to arms event in wellington next month.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzkt37Ponps

eKaya (Circle) vs Xerxes (Skorne)

Circle Orboros:

*eKaya & Laris
- Warpwolf Stalker
- Pureblood Warpwolf
- Gnarlhorn Satyr
- Gorax
- Druid Wilder

Skorne:

*Xerxes
- Titan Gladiator
- Rhinodon
- 5x Cetaphract Cetrati
- Vorkesh
- Harkaar
- 4x Paingivers

We're doing a revelation scenario for this one, with Josh deploying first and taking first turn.  You have to score 3 points to win this one, but you can't score more than 2 from each objective - so you gotta get em both at some stage.  Both of us move forward, wondering when our feat turns are gonna be.



Besides from some successful 'muzzling' from eKaya, my first advantage appears when the gnarlhorn delivers a bonecrushing slam onto the rhinodon, choosing not to follow-up, leaving the 'don outside of xerxes control area, knocked down, and in a forest.  Plus Gnarly is in objective range.  One to me.



Josh camps up on the other objective and feats.  But I choose not to attack this round, since I know he's gonna have to come after the other objective later, and I can afford to let him waste his feat turn, without losing the game.



The next turn though, Josh still moves out, and i've got a feat up my sleeve.  So this is the position of play before I go for it.  Luckily all the big stuff is in range, so a lot of violence ensues despite the high skorne armour.



Only two Cetaphract and Harkaar survive amongst the Skorne vanguard, but they're angry.  They counter attack, but unfortunately do minimal damage.



Despite all of my efforts to dominate this game, Josh still spots a way that he can win.  We're both on 2 scenario points and i've somehow left only laris next to my objective at the end of the turn.  The Titan Gladiator was in melee with the pureblood and Gnarlhorn, but Xerxes moves in and slams the pureblood out of the gladiator's way.  Then a paingiver comes in to heal it.  Finally, the Gladiator puts up rush and charges past the gnarlhorn and (knocked down) pureblood at Laris.  If he kills Laris i'll lose!

But the heroic Gnarlhorn gives him a meaty knuckle freestrike and takes out his mind aspect.  The Gladiator can't hit Laris on only 2 dice and in the following turn I carve Xerxes with my Stalker.

[Vaul]

Detailed audio/slideshow coverage of this next one here:

p1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0-5QHW8JhU
p2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaWmd_LfVDA

Kromac vs pSeverius:

Circle vs Menoth, Incursion scenario.

* Kromac
- Pureblood WW
- WW Stalker
- Gnarlhorn Satyr
- Gorax
- Shifting Stones
- Tharn Wolfriders

* pSeverius
- Blessing of Vengeance
- Crusader
- Vanquisher
- Hierophant
- 4x Choir of Menoth
- 6x Holy Zealots + Monolith Bearer
- 10x Temple Flameguard + TFG Officer & Standard
- Vassal Mechanic
- 3x Wracks

Below: Both armies deploy centrally, with Menoth to take first turn.  Terrain features a village of buildings and some hedges.

1 -

Below: After both sides have taken their first turn, spreading out to potentially contest any of the three objectives, the flag on Circle's right flank is removed as per this photo.

2 -

Below: The Vanquisher moves in for a long range shot at Kromac (who has no fury saved), but is out and misses with the scatter.  The Blessing of Vengeance attempts to arc a Severius spell but is again slightly out of range of Kromac.

3 -

Below: The Warpwolf Stalker charges in at the temple flameguard.  Even though they have defenders ward, shield wall, and their iron zeal minifeat up, the Stalker is in there with wild aggression and berserk, rolling high enough dice to wipe out most of the infantry in his reach range.  He is then able to lightning strike back as Kromac had previously cast this on him.  He's run up his max 4 fury doing so.

4 -

Below: The Menoth retaliation achieves little, so the warbeasts head in again.  The Gnarlhorn severely weakens the Vanquisher, So the Stalker is able to charge in, one-shot the damaged Vanquisher, warpath up further, claw the nearby choir member, and spend his 4 fury points buying sword attacks onto the crusader.  With Primal on him this is enough to trash the crusader as well.  The wolfriders move out to pick off a couple of flameguard, who are their new prey target (it had previously been the vanquisher).

5 -

Below:  Severius moves out behind his building, and the remaining flameguard run to protect him, blocking charge lanes.  The menoth plan is to survive the next turn, and hope that the blessing of vengeance can arc spells onto kromac if he doesn't put up bestial, or to give that jack enough focus to take kromac down either way.  It is a desparate hope but if enough goes right, it might work if the remaining few zealots are in there to help.  The warpwolf stalker will auto-frenzy next turn (into the shifting stones) which will buy severius some time.  Blessing of Vengeance (not pictured) had run into melee range with Kromac this turn.

6 -

Kromac drops all upkeeps except warpath, and is able to move around in range of the Gnarlhorn to cast wild aggression on him.  He takes a free strike from the Blessing of Vengeance, but transfers this to the gorax, killing it - but not before that gorax also activates and casts primal on the Gnarlhorn as well.  The Pureblood kills a flameguard model, triggering warpath on the Satyr to put him within charge range of the menoth warcaster.  

In he goes, taking two free strikes from the flameguard.  One lashes out and cripples the spirit aspect, denying any forced boosts or bought attacks.  But with primal and wild aggression, the Satyr only needed two attacks to snap Severius like a twig.  Fun times.

7 -

[Vaul]

I have a friend (Ian) that has played Legion for years, he's one of the best players around with them, but he barely plays anymore due to family commitments, and never paints his miniatures.

Finally caught up with him recently, i've got his army to borrow for a while, and i've painted everything for him (everything that wasn't already painted by one of his other friends).



Game 1 - eThagrosh vs pVlad

As usual you can see a proper slideshow of all the photos I took plus an audio commentary on my youtube page;

Part1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RcwB017ut4
Part2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb10ij5ltZI

* Epic Thagrosh
- Typhon
- Angelius
- Shredder
- Max Raptors
- Annyssa Ryvaal
- Max Striders w/UA
- Blackfrost Shard
- 2x Spell Martyrs

* prime Vlad
- Drago
- Min Assault Kommandos w/3x Flame Throwers
- Min Assault Kommandos w/3x Flame Throwers
- Great Bears
- Greylord Ternions
- Greylord Ternions
- Mortar
- Mortar
- Koldun Lord
- Manhunter (x2)
- Yuri
- War Dog

Perhaps a weird list from my opponent, but he likes using things in friendly games that might not make it to a tournament. The kommandos have the added bonus of being immune to legion beast shooting.  The Legion list was written by the guy who owns the models, not me.  It's meant to be more of an assassination list.  I played a game against it using eKreuger - lost the game although it was a decent fight.  I forgot his Striders had hunter, so they took out my druids before I got storm wall up.  Then later while I had it up, I didn't realise it didn't affect sprays, so Typhon killed my caster.

On to my first game as Legion.

Below, 1: Khador deploys and moves out first.  Scenario is Capture the Flag.  He's advance deployed Yuri and the manhunters over in the forest opposite the striders and raptors... neither of which ignore stealth.  I have some nice eyeless sight beasts but they're on the other side of the table.  In hindsight it might have been better to keep one beast either flank or one of them back next to Thagrosh. 

His first mortar shot under S&P gets an extremely lucky deviation and kills the strider officer!  Argh!



2: Later on the right flank, Yuri and his boys run in and engage the striders, hoping to pin them down until help arrives from the great bears and kommandos.  I decide to walk in with the Raptors first, rolling well enough to clear all three enemy models out, then pulling back with the light cav move, freeing up the striders to pull back slightly and try some CRA's on the enemy - without much luck there.  But disaster averted on the right flank for now.



3: A horrible misplay by me - leaving both Typhon and the Angelius close enough to the edge of the forest and close enough to Drago.  He feats and allocates 3 to the Warjack.  This means that Drago has range to Typhon, and can chain Thresher the Angelius as well.  Typhon goes down despite excessive healing, and the Angelius nearly dies as well.

I played like a noob would here, getting anxious that my two big pieces weren't doing enough with their activations, so moving out with them to pick off small-time targets, at the cost of giving my opponent a whopping opportunity.  I could have at least given him only one Beast. 

Luckily, the Angelius survives the rest of the Khador turn (average dice) with a few boxes left...



4: In the Centre, Thagrosh has made yet another mistake, wasting fury trying to Scourge a group of Kommandos.  I didn't read the card properly - it's only a normal AOE and not one of those awesome 'everyone under it takes a full POW hit' like some other spells I know.  The point of scourge is the knockdown...

Still, when they move in on the Blackfrost Shard, killing Sevryn, eThags calls to the Legion for a mighty counter-attack.

He activates first, using his feat and casting Manifest Destiny.  Walks in and cuts down several grunts himself.  The Angelius Activates and rips Drago to 5 boxes left... really needing that feat activation later to finish the job.

Elsewhere i'm using the raptors and Annyssa to pick off infantry left and right.  The Great Bears die to a hail of poison arrows.  Striders slash at the kommandos and die as flamethrowers explode.

The Angelius finished Drago right before a barrage of very 'kold' sprays take it out.  The game descends into all out violence...



5: When the dust clears, the game looks very different.

eThagrosh barely survived an attempt on his life, with S&P attacks delivering box cars multiple times on him.  He transfers a last hit that would have killed him to a nearby shredder - the only surviving warbeast, leaving him on about 5 boxes left.  He can't cut himself too much or he'll die, and there aren't any beasts nearby to rile and allow him to leach fury.  Any other Hordes warlock would be dead in the water, but not Thagrosh the Messiah....

...because first of all, he has Athanc.  He picks up a free fury every turn if he doesn't leach to his max 7, so that means a point healed every turn Vlad doesn't try something on him.  And second of all, the shredder that he transferred to in order to save his own life, wasn't the only remaining warbeast on the board.  Blood spawn created a brand new shredder because one of the attacks did 5+ damage to him!!  Therefore eThags now hides in a corner, leaching 2 fury and getting a third free, healing quickly each turn.

Left on the board, eThags (T), shredder (Sh), a lone strider (St), Annyssa Ryvaal (AR) and a lone Raptor (R).  And Vlad.  Who is casting Blood of Kings every turn now.

I'm up a control point.  Vlad had to return to his flag to kill the raptors who were threating to score a second.  At this stage eThag waits, heals, and plots his return...



6:  I decide on a plan.  eThagrosh closes in, with a strider waiting behind a forest to sneak onto the objective, forcing Vlad to stay in the vicinity.  When i'm ready, I move my Warlock behind a wall, but within 10" of Vlad.  I run the Shredder directly into the charge lane between them.  Vlad doesn't have reach, so can't charge past the shredder and engage Thags, because he'll have gone too far out on an angle.  He measures his control area, considering a direct walk around the Shredder using his +3 SPD from Blood of Kings.  Decides the range isn't available and kills the Shredder instead.

The Messiah attacks.  I've got a few options.  Here are some of the main ones;

1 - Spend all 7 fury boosting to hit, damage and buying attacks with his Rapture weapon.  It's a tough call, he needs 11 to hit!  Very very risky, but potentially the most efficient way to do it.

2 - Cast Manifest Destiny first.  That only gives him 4 fury to do the boosting, and against ARM 19 it's going to be a tough call.  I can't remember the exact numbers, he may have camped some focus as well.

3 - Move the strider next to Vlad but not engaging, and with his back turned to Thags.  Scourge him, and knock Vlad down.  Then charge.  This probably would have been the correct move, but I didn't realise it was worth doing at the time.  The game had gone on for 10+ turns and it was late at night!

Without thinking too much, I opt for option 2.  What better than to show the world the Destiny of Everblight through Thagrosh in mortal combat with Khador's prince? 

- Pick up all four dice for the boosted charge attack, remove the lowest.  It's... a miss.  Uhoh.
- Go for a claw attack.  Can't remember whether I boosted the attack, but it struck home.  Again, can't remember whether I boosted damage but it was a whopper.  Vlad has about 10 left.
- Buy a Rapture attack.  Again, can't remember the fury allocation here, it was all a rush, but I do remember...

eThagrosh wins!