Iron Moot 2013 hardcore: "Crit Happens"

The hardcore tournament on Iron moot was a fun experience. I had been pondering bringing an eMadrak dudespam, and just run straight ahead. But I decided against it, as I think that a pMadrak brick would be easier to play. And as I am a unique snow flake, I decided not to include Mulg:

pMadrak
-Earthborn Dire troll, 2x Mauler, Axer
-Runebearer
-Krielstone min +ua
-Fennblade kithkar
-Fell caller hero
-Max Warders
-Janissa Stonewall

Game 1

Molik karn has just put down 17 damage on my
right mauler (the one with the bomber chassi back)

I got paired up with 3Oscar from my local meta. He fielded voldo, pMorghul, along with Molik Karn Tiberion, a Gladiator, and a sentry plus the usual support. I tried advancing slowly forward, which worked fine, for one round. Molik karn could come from a mile away and deal 17 damage in a swing, and then fate walk away. That only happens once, I said and moved Madrak up to stranglehold him. It is rather a crappy spell. As pmadrak is upkeeping sure foot, he wants to boost to hit the spell, and needs to boost the damage. That leaves him at 1 fury. Which is not all that much considering no animi was cast and no fury was put on the stone.

I had to protect Madrak by moving the other stuff up. That only made things worse. pVoldo moved up in the middle of the field and feated. Tiberion put some (left my mauler at 2 hp) damage on one of the maulers, and the gladiator on the other. Things were not looking good. But I had an opening to get a charge onto Morghul himself with Madrak. That was my only option. He was standing on two transfers. I had the kithkar and madrak to hit him. Madrak got the fell caller buff and put down carnage, then charged. Crit grievous on the first hit. GG.

Game 2

A stalker in my face, reduces the caster to a vacant space

This was a game I should have learned more from. But more on that in another post. This game was actually filmed, so I will link to the game if that comes on to the internetz. Anyways. eMorvahna was on the other side of the table. As the hardcore scenario is just a box, I decided to go for it. Meanwhile, the wolfriders has prayed a mauler and put down much damage to it.

On the third turn Christoffer Wedding, commanding the circle army, decides that enough is enough and goes for the kill on pMadrak. A primaled and carnivored Stalker gets double teleported after a purification from Goatvahna. Madrak died horribly. Watch the horrific experience: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux92yW-SvWU

Game 3

The circle army

Another circle player, this time Henrik Eriksson, from my local meta. He fields eKreuger, Gorax, Stalker x2, Ghetorix, a Wilder, Driuds, 2x Gallows and two stone units. I get to go first and run up. Quite a bad move on my part. He moves up and starts pulling a mauler and the earthborn into double teleport range of ghetorix. The mauler is ground to meat with ghetorix and the earthborn just barely survives due to some really good damage rolls from ghetorix.

Oh well, lets start the trading I think. My earthborn kills Ghetorix, with some rage from the other mauler (good thing I brought two!) and I try to protect Madrak from any push pull shenanigans that Henke usually goes for. A stalker gets to Madrak, but cant kill him with sure foot and the wall up. The +2 mat from carvnivore and -2 def from loosing sure foot is a huge difference.

Surfs up, dude!

My turn and I see that eKrueger is "only" standing on 2 transfers. A trail of druids is also going straight to him. Time for a feat surf. Fell caller does his thing. Mauler gives Madrak rage. Janissa shifts the stalker away. Madrak easily eats his way to eKreuger with carnage up (mat 11 with the fell caller buff, p+s 18 with rage). First swing to eKreuger shows a crit. Crit grievous wounds again. GG.

Game 4
Runes of war. First time Im up against it. It firstly was a very tactical game with positioning. pDoomy gets to put down two walls in the zone. Totally awesome for him, not so much for me. No reach heavy is not always that fun. He leads with his runebearers, I with the warders. Johans round 3 he decides to chock me and moves forward, out of the cover of the walls with Mulg and his Earthborn. The whole game bogs down to a grind, but I feel Im getting the upper hand, especially after he cant activate Mulg one turn due to the short hardcore time.

In the end, he goes for a goad assasination with the earthborn which fails, leaving Doomy out in the open with nothing on him. I decide to try and play it safe, and to get rid of the earthborn standing by me with madrak and a mauler. But it is not enough. The earthborn gets me the round after.

In hindsight, I should have just tried to go for Doomy, I think that I could have maybe gotten one or two more attacks on him than I got. But 7 min rounds is not much. It was a really fun game anyways.

Game 5

His huge concave of IFP, met by my warders a Mauler
and the Earthborn

I'm 2-2 in the tournament and get paired up with Butcher3. He had two large IFP squads, and widdowmakers, and a Jack of some sort. He gets the alpha with some IFP, but does not put down to much damage to my arm 22 beasts. The feat turn from me is AWESOME. My kithkar gets to eat an entire IFP unit, one of butchers dogs, some widdowmakers and a grey lord smoke guy.

We continue to grind in the center of the table, one of my Maulers not able to kill his jack as rolling higher than 5 on damage is not something it was keen on doing. His gorman was a really good MVP who black oiled the other Mauler twice. Madrak missed his thrown axe on him once. But i think that cost me the game. Butcher got to bounce, picking of one heavy at a turn untill I was left with madrak, janissa, a mauler and the runebearer. I though long about if I could clear a chargelane to Butcher with madrak in any way, he was not camping anything. But I did not think it would be possible to first shift some troops with janissa, two hand throw the still living jack on butcher, and get the charge of with madrak. So I went for killing of the rest if his things. The last turn was a pure battle between Madrak and Butcher, unfortunately with burcher coming out on top. Only the runebearer was left on the troll side. I think 6 or 7 Khadorian models still stood on the oposing side.

So, I went 2-3, but could have just as well been a 4-1, with the last two games played out slightly differently. The warders really performed. Throwing them out in front is amazing. I even put transmute on one or two. Arm 23 warders. My god. I also got second place in the Vanquisher league, just following Henke. Totaled up in 10th place out of 20.

Painting progress part 2!

My painting for the big Swedish warmachine tournament Iron Moot is coming along well. Today, I finished the kithkar (well, the base is still left, but anyways)! Only thing left now are the whelps, so that my Mountain king can spawn them!

Mr Pink and Ms Derp

Painting progress

So what is this now? Circle. I bought some second hand a time ago. Now Im trying out some inking on them. I think the skin turned out good. The warders are also coming along. Two are finished, and the other three are half done.

Munich gaming!

My brother and Nighy with me on a beer break

A weekend or two ago, I was in Munich to watch my uncle run the marathon and to do some tourism. I took the opportunity to check out if there was any chance of testing the local warmachine/hordes meta. And there was. I got good response on page5.de and therefore packed a 50pts calandra army:

Calandra
Bomber, mauler, pyre troll, slag troll, runebearer
Full champs, min kriel stone+ua, max burrowers
Fell caller

We headed over to FUNtainment for Thursday night gaming and were greeted by Nighty and the other guys there. The atmosphere and gaming room was really nice in such a central part of the town. We also had time to take some beer breaks. 

 

Keeping it together in the centre is key. Everything
under stars crossed. 

All in all i managed to almost squeeze in three games on that Thursday afternoon. First one quick warm up vs my brother and eMakeda. I lost, as calandra dies when you look at her. And also molik karn.

The second game was also against a skorne player. He fielded Mordikar, along with a Mammoth, Nihilators, Ferox, Cetrati and a Snipe-bot. The game looked to go in my favour, although my Burrowers fled to aoes from the mammoth. As we played incursion, I managed to head forward with my champs screening calandra. The game was looking to go in my direction when he got of a good assassination attempt from the cetrati as I couldn't get rid of the last one. Calandra died clinging to the central tree/flag. 

The protectorate set up.
The judicator tried its flame thrower a bit

Mosh pit madness. Grinding is everything

The third game of the thursday night was against a Protectorate player with a really striking army. He played a fun list for the evening, fielding eSeverius with a Judicator, Reckoner, some support, Aiana and Holt, daughters of the flame and a Revenger. It turned ot to be a lot of grinding. Not having an impaler in my army really hurt, as my 8" bombardment meant eSeverious could feat to remove my blocking Burrowers and let the Judicator end my Bomber and severly hurt my Mauler. But I bit back and killed the judicator. We didn't actually play the game through, but it felt like I had the upper hand in the end, with his only threat, the reckoner, standing in the wreckage of the judicator and not being able to reach anything, while my pyre, slag and three champs were still alive. A really nice opponent and a very fun game!

Grinding, again

But the gaming in Munich did not end there. We were invited to Nighty for a Saturday evening brawl and gladly accepted. I got to see how a real German lives, drank home brewed Mead and a good time was had by all. I also got another game against a skorne player. This time, it was against Voldo. Or I mean, pMorghul. The grinding began. I really used stars crossed and befuddle to my advantage and was looking to come out on top when he got of a run with the bronze back towards calandra. Due to stars crossed, she lived his attacks. But the willbreaker ended it all, by puppet mastering a kriel stone scribe who ended Calandra. 

It was really nice to get to meet some new players and trying out my style of play versus other metas. It felt okay, especially since I played a list I'm not really comfortable with. I still find Calandra very tricky but really like her abilities and the challenge to be as far up the field as possible, while still staying alive. I feel I managed ok, and will continue to build on her list for coming tournaments. Thanks again to all the nice people we met down there, and especially to Nighy for the warm welcome and hospitality! 

Battle of Westidge 2013

This years BOW was hosted in the heart of Västerås, Swedens fifth city. 30 people met up to push miniatures and roll dice on tables.

The steamroller torunament was 6 rounds, 50 pts and deathclock was used. I chose to go with Jarl and eMadrak.

Jarl Skuld
Mulg, Bomber, Impaler, Runebearer
Fell Caller
Max kriels+ua+2 cabers, max fenns+ua
Min kriel stone+ua

eMadrak
Slag troll, pyre troll, impaler, runebearer
Fell caller, stone scribe chronicler
Max champs, max kriels+ua+3cabers
Max pyg burrowers, max krielstone+ua

Game 1
The first game paired me with a menoth player, fielding Fiora and a Judicator along with some shield and spear guys.
I went with Jarl. The game was over quite fast. Thinking i was safe, i did not use the kriel stone my round one. So his turn two was a fantastic show in judicator efficiency. The stone in the kriel stone unit was the only part of that unit left on my turn two.

I went for broke and tried for an assassination. Needing a crit 14 on three dice with the impaler. Didnt get it. That was that.

Game 2
Irusk faced me with a death star, black dragon ifp, great bears, uhlans and a spriggan. Jarl met the challange. We played the into the breach scenario, and i deployed my kriels to my right, against the circle, and my fenns to my left, to face the uhlans. The rest went in the middle.

We ran everything up and he got my fenns to flee hid round two, six died and i got no toughs. I found out after the game that i can no quarter while fleeing and activate them normaly, good to know.

He had positioned things i wanted dead (joe) out of reach from jarl, so i cleared out the circle to start scoring points. Tje uhlans had charged my fenns through fog and did not hit them on def 14 with -2 to hit. I killed most of his ifp with the bomber, jarl and kriels. Mulg smashed uhlans.

His turn, and he has his deathstar, spriggan and greatbears left. The spriggan goes for mulg. Misses the charge attack, but probably wouldnt have killed him anyway. I realize that if I kill the spriggan, I win. My turn, Mulg kills spriggan. He has nothing left to kill Mulg, and tries to dominate the flag within charge range of mulg. Irusk ate rune club.

Game 3
Vs eGrim, slag, ww, blitzer, warders, burrowers. He starts and moves up to toe in both chemical reaction zones. I move up and feat to negate his burrowers. He does almost nu damage his round 2 due to clouds. I unjam my fenns with jarl move up to jam him and get a tough roll on one of the warders. I feel good and tactical supremacy with jarl into the forrest by my objective.

Egrim shows what he can do. The war wagon knocks me down by shooting the objective. EGrim mage sights and mortalities jarl. He died to the shooting.

Game 4
Fiora again. This time with a judicator, double reckoner, double templar and some support. I chose jarl. Because this time, Jarl was out for revenge. I moved up the field and activatef the krielstone. He did not kill tomuch of my things and i jammed him and started scoring points on the scenario by killing his objective and dominating the circle. He cleared the judicator and toes in the zone. I almost kill the judicator but a double one from the caber leaves him at two boxes.

He runs in to jam my bomber and hit him with a templar. The bomber lives and takes help from a caber to destroy the knocked down templar. Jarl gets to plink in the last damages to the judicator, and i win on scenario.

Game 5
I face of jarl against eHexeris with a bronzeback, gladiator, shaman, double drakes and slingers. Plus support of course. We play outflank, i get second and after we both move up and jarl misses the gladiator i feat to get me a round of stillness. He gets of black spot on my fenns, and kill three with double spray. One kriel falls.

My turn, i clear the left circle and walk in to dominate. I clear the left c... No. Hyper agressive. Damn. I have left a packman trail of kriel warriors, but got rid of borh drakes. And not enough blocking the BB way to Mulg. He clears out much of my things. And kills Mulg.

What to do? I try to clear my left circle but just dont have the punch. I realize i am losing. Fortunately for me he times out when i have an impaler and jarl left.

Game 6
pCaine fields a stormwall and a lot of gynmages, on foot and on horse. I let eMadrak see the field once, and with minimum arm 17 under the stone, not counting the burrowers, his shooting was not very painfull. I get charges of with the blood furied pygs round 2, the put down some damage on the storm wall. I shoot with what i have and feat with madrak to try and finish the storm wall of. He lives with only a few boxes. Madrak and the slag troll really does damage. I dominate my flag.

He then moves up and feats, getting avout two thrids of my army. Caine kills only a few things, I realize he cannot win on attrition, and i start grinding.

He gets a decent go at madrak, but misses the last shot at dice minus seven, needing four damage an no tough. Eventually, i win when he times out.

Summary
Going 4-2 was ok, but i really could have made it more interesting by using the kriel stone round one. Lesson learned. I also learned that the war wafon likes casters next to objectives. Those two mistakes cost me the games i lost. Of course I could have lost them anyway, but given it a fair chance.

It was a really nice tournament with beautiful terrain. I really liked that many of the boards were themed. Also, the last game was the second game ever I played eMadrak. He was fun!

Stars crossed!

I commute. I have time to do this stuff.
Under the stars crossed, the percentages are presented and plotted in the photo.

So what do you need to hit?

Needed to hit value along with the percent to hit under stars crossed and not:

4: SC: 80.1% 2D6: 91.7%

5: SC: 64.4% 2D6: 83.3%

6: SC: 47.7% 2D6: 72.2%

7: SC: 31.9% 2D6: 58.3%

8: SC: 19.4% 2D6: 41.7%

So, Mat 6 against 12 drops from 72-48% pretty sweet.

The Mountain King Chronicles! Part 3: pMorghoul

This third chapter is long overdue, but now it is time to tell the tale about the mountain defeating the mammoth, and how arm 23 is high. Because it is. Anyways, I had made lists with my casters to field the king at 50pts and my opponent got to roll to see what caster would be taking the field. EOscar rolled a three, and I fielded:

pMadrak

Skorne round 1, everything moves forward

EBDT, Mauler, Mountain king, rune bearer
Janissa
Min krielstone+elder, Max Kriel Warriors+2 Cabers

The skorne opposition (i think):

pMorghoul

Gladiator, Mammoth, Shaman, Brute, Krea/Drake,

Agonizer, Marketh, Swamp gobbers, Willbreaker, Extoller
Max Beast handlers, Min Beast handlers

We rolled the fire support scenario, two flags and two objectives. The scenario would not really come into

After my first turn

play this game. Don't remember who went first, but I think it was old Morgs. He advanced forward, and I did the same, dumping everything on the stone and using the rune bearer to put sure foot on my Maddy.

Not having any rush, and due to pMorgs feat, I knew he would have the first strike. I tried to position my kriels so that something would have to remove one or two of them before my beasts could be reached. Having them behind a wall and sure foot up. They were sitting at a comfortable def 16 arm 22, for the MK, Arm 23.

After my turn under Morgs feat, notice the similarity to the
photo above.

His next turn was moving forward, I think the Mammoth moved in front of my kriels, or killed some. As they were only a road block, their deaths were not noted. pMorgs went out in front and feated. My next turn I only moved forward, not using fury would make it to hard accomplishing anything. Better to only take his charge.

The skorne round after, the Mammoth went ahead and killed off kriels. But the rest of the army only positioned themselves. On my turn, I offed the mammoth with the remaining kriels, the mauler and the EBDT. I left the MK back under the sure foot and with arm 23.

His counter charge from the beasts nearly killed the MK. But he survived, so did my other beasts. Things were looking really good for me. On my turn, the mauler frenzied on the ebdt or the other way around. One fury too much hurts. However, Madraks feat together with the stonestrenght and carnage makes MK happy. He killed the raider and gladiator. I realised that if I made no major mistakes, this would be a game in the win basket.

After some rounds more, pMorghouls skull was bashed in by the Mountain King. It felt like a safe win in the end, but a few things could have really altered the game. If the mammoth would get a critpitch on the EBDT, he would live, if the MK would not have survived the attack, it would have been harder. But this time the dice gods favoured me. I also think that the Mammoth was rather wasted on my kriels and that my opponent played a bit to defensively. But at the same time, you don't want to attack def16 arm22 troll heavies and leave them living. Bricky brick brick.

Voldo, ehh, I mean Morghoul is in a tricky position

Björnmaskinen, or what I learned in Västerås

Last weekend, a car full of the finest Uppsala gamers went to bring the pain to our old western neighbours in Västerås. Västerås, known for almost ABBA, is home to some friendly people who like to host tournaments. This time, four games at 35 pts with a 42min death clock was the format. I was thinking of only bringing one list, but on the car ride there, in my mind two lists would somehow be favourable. The two lists I brought were

Jarl

Jarl has fielded to rid the world of Harby!

Mauler, Impaler, Pyre troll, Runebearer
Max Fennblades+Ua
Min Champs
Fell caller

Calandra
Mauler, Storm troll
Max Champs
Janissa
Max Burrowers
Fell caller
Min Krielstone + Ua

As soon as I started playing with Jarl, I realised that choosing to play with two lists was a mistake. Jarl is super fun. Magic bullet is awesome. Unfortunately, I had not packed the kriel warriors that I wanted to run with Jarl, so the fenns were chosen instead.. The tournament went rather bad for me, I went 1-3 in the games, but I really felt like I should have won two more of the games. What is important to take with me is what I learned from the losses and the win.

Game 1
Harbringer was the opposition. Two big canons, the avatar, a monk, another stealth solo, support. My Mauler got shot of the table in the first turn. I managed to bring Harby down to a low level, but the chance wise I was never really close. My fenns had a hard time hitting the high def solos, and even though I magic bulleted them some times, Harby just brought them back. Kriels would have been nice, as the combined melee attacks would have had a better chance at hitting the solos. The most important thing I learned is that the big canons are fire type damage. Pyre animus is apparently more awesome than I thought.

Game 2

Harby had a smaller force with her, enough to subdue Jarl.

eHexaris together with Tiberion, a Bronzeback, a Gladiator and support fielded themselves in front of Jarl.
eOscar who commanded the forces, almost handed me the game by charging tiberion out of Hexaris control and let me dominate his zone on his turn 2. Jarl had rolled very, high damage on Tiberion, so he was not hard to kill. It was close in the end, as my Mauler had much trouble hitting a Ashen veiled Gladiator. Hexaris got to bite the bullet and died. What I can pick up from this game is to never get locked in to a strategy, my Mauler was probably in charge range of the the enemy objective and killing it would have won me the game immediately.

Game 3
After lunch, bacon was served. Midas got to face Calandra. The game went really well for me. Star crossed saved my mauler, who proceeded to one round two road hogs (feat and rage). But I had left Calandra too exposed without bulled dodger on her. Mistake. She died to the undead pigs Midas summoned. Bullet dodger would possibly have saved her. Also, she really need a runebearer.

Game 4
The grudge match of death. My brother fielded his eMakeda and loaded the Molik missile. Jarl loaded his two guns and sighed. I got first turn and ran up. Makeda ran up as well, exposing herself a bit too much. I cleared the way from nihilators with two magic bullets on the same targets, due to tough. Then the fennblades charged. Four of them got in on her, and three hit. It wasn't enough to kill her, and I moved the rest of my stuff up the field and had Jarl behind a line of champs that stood behind six fennblades in turn.

Boom, Head shoot! Molik Missile straight to Jarl

Turns out, eMakedas feat and nihilators clear up fenns easily. The Molik Missile fired onto one of the champs, killing him and sidestepping to reach Jarl. GG. Two things I could have done better. Feat protectively, denying charge lanes, and not move up so far with Jarl. It was also really close that a nihilator berserked Makeda to death, but needing 10s to kill was not something that the dice gods allowed today.

Even though it could have gone better for me, it was a really nice tournament and I hopefully will go there again soon!

Incognicon part 4!

Rally point

Game five and I was 2 and 2. Matched up against the my friend, Erik, the pig player, I knew he would choose Midas because we all tell him he is no good. His other list was a carver list which I think would have been good against my brick list. I chose Jarl, as per my previous decision that brick was not for me this day.
The bacon smorgasbord:

Midas
Bone swarm, Road hog, road hog, razor boar, Gun boar, Dead war hog
2x Slaugherhausers, 2xBone grinders
Targ

After my first turn, the road hogs are looming ahead. 

Fire Support. That is apparently a scenario. I guess, I never have read so far in the SR13 document. Maybe it's because I always think of how good eDenny is on the Incursion, flag, scenario, and rip the document in a thousand pieces. Well well. I rolled and got the first move, I deployed as before, battle group and champs center, fennblades left and kriels right. I knew what strat Midas would go for. A first wave of his warbeasts, then slaugherhausers and reanimating the war beasts. And then a third wave with the come to life warbeasts.

I was totally focused on caster kill, a remainder from the last game, so that was all I saw. My first turn, running was the main part. Quicken on the fenns, tactical supremacy (I did not forget to move this time) on the champs. The two road hogs led the charge with their advance move, and their boostable pow12 10" sprays are to be feared. The rest of the army followed.

Two heavy warbeasts make a good road block!

My next turn, the fenns went for Midas and the road hogs, Midas, with -2 to living MAT only laughed at the feeble fennblades. The champs and kriel warriors followed the charge and attacked the road hogs, not doing enough damage to kill, but cripple them. Jarl wasted his strenght at taking out midas, instead of killing of slaugherhausers with his two shots and magic bullet. A dumb move from me. Midas had no troubles retaliating and offing almost all of my fenns, many kriel warriors, and damaged the champs. Damn, attrition was looking grim for Jarl.

On my turn, I offed one of the road hogs and knocked the other with the kriels. They also did some damage to the right flanking slaugherhausers and the enemy objective. Jarl moved up and magic bulleted away some slaugherhausers and feated. The feat blocked LOS to him and allowed two champs to charge through everyone onto midas. They did some damage to the razor boar and gun boar through Midas. The other champs moved to defend Jarl for the oncoming last stand. My turn ended in a bit of surprise though. I left Jarl in b2b with the left flag, and apparently dominated it, giving me 2 points.

Then end of the game. Notice the knocked down
Slaugher hauser by the left scenario

The pigs would not let me win that easy though. The killed all but one champ and two or three kriel warriors, Midas feated and all that i had killed came back. Damn. But I still had the Mauler, Impaler, Jarl and a champ. If i could clear the right flag, and kill the opponent objective, I would win. There was only two slaugherhausers and the Boneswarm contesting the right zone. With the mauler in charge range of the bone swarm, that was no problem. The champ could kill a slaugherhauser, and jarl could maybe off the other?
The problem was the other objective. The impaler started, but left it at a few hp left. Jarl had to far strike himself to reach it. And killed it! The other bullet triggered the tough roll on one of the slaugerhausers. The mauler made short work of the bone swarm, although he could just have thrown him out of the zone. Then the champ moved up. He took his first attack against the last remaining slaugherhauser and hit. The tough roll failed and we ended the game, which was wrong as there was still a slaugherhauser lying close to the flag. The reason was that I though that knocked down models couldn't contest. They can. So we never cared to roll the last tough check (the champs second attack) to see if he lived or died as it didn't matter.

I won the game, but not fair and square. Would Erik only have run his bone grinder unit to contest the left zone I would have been overwhelmed. Of course, cheating also helps. We will have to roll  a tough check next time to see if I would have won... The tactic I used this game was really awful. I should have just killed of the slaugherhausers with jarl (he alone could kill 4 in a round with two magic bullets) and let the road hogs fight the one of my three units while the others moved into the back line. But blinded as I was with caster killing, I threw away my alpha strike, and beta strike, against Midas.

To sum Incognicon up, it was an awesome tournament. For me, some setbacks and misses cost me a game, and I really have to paint my kriel stone now!

Incognicon part 3

Rally point scenario

For the last two games, I decided to not let pMadraks crampy brick style of play be the list I would play. Jarl would see the table in both the last games, regardless of match ups. Game four was against Khador. The two lists were pVlad double Conquest or 3Vlad and only horses. Fun lists, both of them. He decided to go with the double conquest list:

pVlad

Conquest, Conquest,
Battle mechaniks
Eirys, Aiyana and Holt

Troll turn 1, the khador set up is visible on the other side.

We played the scenario Rally point, which has movable objectives that can dominate themselves. I got to start, but he still set up his conquests first, as we played by the rules. They went in the center with a hole between them. I set up my battle group mid, my kriels on the right and my fenns on the left. I hoped that sheer number of charging attacks would win over the two colossals facing me.

My first turn was running forward, as per usual. I also forgot to use tactical supremacy on Jarl. I actually think that missing that extra three inches could have won me the game the following turn.
Vlad started his turn by calling the blood of kings and summoning his signature spell signs and portence or what ever it is called. Stars crossed inverted, as trolls know it. The Conquests walked up and fired of some stray shots without doing much damage. They put down their covering fire, and the board began to fill with circles.

Vlad is under siege by four fennblades!

My second turn. The fennblades got yelled on by the fellcaller. One got the rage buff from the mauler, then they charged. No quarter was used and they ran incredible distances to charge the left conquest and vlad. Due to bad dice, the covering fire did not do much and almost all of them found their targets. They merely dented the conquest, but put some hurt to vlad. The kriels and champs ran through the covering fire, and took minimal damage. Jarl, not being in dominating distance from the objective had to move up to it. If he would have done that last turn, he could have shot Vlad with the impaler buff. But he feated, do protect my army and block LOS.

On vlads turn, he decided to back off, Star crossed inversion again. The conquests killed some stuffs and got healed. If I couldn't reach vlad, this game would be tough. My next turn i went for the kill. Jarl got buffed and took two shoots at vlad. He went down... to one hp. Damn. The rest of the turn consisted in moving up and keeping jarl safe. One or two mechs fell, and more scratches were applied to the conquests.

Vlad ran. He ran like a mouse. Down to the top right corner of the field. How would I reach him?

King of the hill, very close to the conquest. 

The conquests slowly churned down my fenns and some champs. On my turn, we looked at angles. Using a straight line laser pointer, i tried to find angles that could be used to see vlad. Jarl activated, threw quicken on himself and walked up on the hill on the top right of the board. But Aiyanna was in the way of seeing vlad. But, if I could kill her, i could walk two inches more. So he readied his first gun and took the shot. Holt replied with removing the shot. Ok. What to do. Fortunately for my, my kriels had run up as a back up plan. Jarl magic bulleted his other pistol, and asked Dhunia for forgiveness. The caber thrower never saw the bullet, and the back strike bonus made the shot fly true. The last roll of the game was to put one damage on vlad under the blood of kings. 2d6-7 i think. Rolled 8. Game over.

Vlad played a bit to aggressive this game. I think that I would have ground him down anyway. Magic bullet of the conquests to kill the mechs, and flood him with attacks. The ponylist would probably have been better, but the as the fenns don't take impact attacks, that could have been hard too. Last part of the tournament report coming up soon!

Incognicon part 2

Outflank

Some kebab made my stomach happy and ready for the last three games. My goal of winning at least two games still lived. The match ups for the third game earned me a game against another Skorne player, also with eMakeda and Xerxis as his casters. For the same reasons as the first game, pMadrak saw the field again. Xerxis was chosen to face him in the outflank scenario. My opponents army:

Xerxis
Tiberion, basilisk krea, basilisk drake
Incinidari, Certrati, Beast handlers
Agonizer, Marketh
Swamp gobbers

After the first round

He won the first roll of the game and got to go first. He deployed his heavy troops in the middle with Xerxis behind. Tiberion was on my right and the gobbers on my left. I opted to place my brick against his main portion of the army. The kriels were on the left flank for zone contesting. We both knew that this game would not be won by scenario...

The first round was rather uneventful, as they usually are. We both advanced. His goobers ran far left to contest the zone. I thought that the burrowers could handle them and burrowed them to get to the other side without being blown away with the incinidari.

Skorne turn two started with the incinidari setting the whole kriel unit on fire. Rolling really bad, he only managed to kill one or two. Using Xerxis Marshall discipline, the Certrati moved through the Incinidari and shield walled. The rest of his army advanced.

On my turn some of the fires went out, and a few kriels fell to the flames. But two cabers still stood, and I found it suitable to feat this turn. Madrak moved up and feated and put down carnage. The fell caller yelled at the kriels to "go and hit things". And hit things they did. The cabers are amazing under the pMadrak feat where each kill with a melee attack grants them overtake (move an inch) and hit once more. One of the cabers got into the incinidari and went at them. The other caber went for the cetrati, but them being shield walled made him not kill more than two or three i believe. The burrowers also popped and charged the bellows crew to clear the zone and one incinidari. The pygs, with their rat 4 had troubles hitting the high def goblins, despite being the same height. They were locked into combat, and would be the rest of the game. The mauler raged the axer who went and killed some two cetrati. I knew he would fall to tiberion the next turn, but clearing out as much as possible and acting a road block to my brick was better. The earthborn elemental communitioned the mauler and that was a mistake. I had six fury on the board when i handed the turn to my oponent.

After my third turn

The skorne third turn concisted of trying to kill off the axer and retaliate. But the amount of things being knocked down and dead, he really couldn't kill more than the axer and a few kriels. The cabers still stood.
I started the third turn with every bit of confidence, then disaster struck. No caber fell to fire, but the earthborn frenzied into the mauler doing a lot of damage. I still thought i had a chance to make tiberion dead, but when the cabers failed to kill the two remaining Cetrati guarding him I couldn't reach him. The burrowers killed one of the bellows crew.

Having botched Xerxis saw his chance and got rid of the remaining cabers, tiberion had no problems with the mauler, and I started to feel the game was lost without my damage buff to take down tiberion. I really tried to take down tiberion, but could not. In the end, Madrak took a Tsesubo to the head and went down.

This was really the game I regretted the most from the tournament. I had everything in my hand, but made a mistake that cost me the game. The error was to camp two fury with Madrak. I should have raged one of the cabers, and only camped one. Another error was to remove the fury from the mauler, and not the Earthborn, as the earthborn still had an angle towards Tiberion. The burrowers were also wasted on the gobbers, and should have been in the fray of killing the basilisks and skorne troops.

Incognicon part 1

Just before the big parties of the last of April, a gaming convention was held in the south of Stockholm, with a one day warmahordes tournament of 42 pts with 1-2 lists. I decided to go in the last minute, I decided to play it painted, dropping the krielstone and stone scribe chronicler out of my lists. I really, really need to paint them right now. The two lists i brought were:

Jarl is ready for action!

pMadrak
Earthborn, Mauler, Axer, Runebearer
Janissa, Fell caller
Max Kriel warriors+ua+3 cabers
Min burrowers

Jarl skuld
Mauler, Impaler, Runebearer
Fell caller
Full fennblades + ua
Full champs
Min kriels+ ua+3 cabers

I.e, one infantry jam/spam list, and one list to get high armour (without the stone...). 
When the morning came i was confident that this would go well and aimed at getting at least two wins out of the five games I would play. However, disaster struck ten minutes before the tournament, when we discovered we where at the wrong location. PANIC. A quick taxi ride later, my Uppsala comrades and I made it there on time to be fashionably late. Unpacking was done in a haste while i was matched against my younger brother in an epic grudge match.

Game 1
My brother played skorne and his two lists were Xerxis, with tiberion, and eMakeda, with molik karn and an archidon. I chose my pMadrak list, fearing the high arm of tiberion and that eMakeda would only laugh at my jam as she fests and runs through. He chose eMakeda to do his evil bidding and i got into the mindset of closing down Molik missile angles...

The game started relatively normal, I advanced and placed my kriels as a shield. On his turn two, the game was to an end. He botched big time and, thinking he would clear out some kriels with Makeda, found himself inside a cabers melee range. He got stressed and neglected to feat, so that he could just lightning strike out, and tried to shield her right in front om my brick. My turn after was a massacre ending in two burrowers slug gunning Makeda out of this world.
So far so good. It did however not feel right to win that way, but a win is a win and I was still best in the family (though he actually placed fourth in the tournament, only losing to me).

Chemical Reaction, dominate the friendly
zone, control or dominate the enemy's

Game 2
I was matched against Falkman and his good looking Retribution. Looking at his two lists, I realised that there is still much to learn in this game. As i know that Ret shoots a bit and aren't really known for their high armour, i let Jarl take the field. I remember thinking, "well, it can't be that much shooting", and it also felt good to play both lists in the first two rounds. Falkman chose to go with Rahn, along with the mage hunter strike force, dawnguard sentinels, two mage hunter assassins, battle mages, two jacks, and some flavour.

Falkman has positioned his troops, ready for the oncoming
horde of trollbloods.

We played the chemical reaction scenario, and I got lucky and opted to go first, so that I could jam as far up the board as possible. Thinking the Fenns would be best for the job, I deployed them in the centre, so they could run up the board as quickly as possible. The kriels, with the steady banner, would jam my friendly zone nicely, and I would go for dominating the enemy zone with the champs and the mauler.
Falkman put down his army in the centre of the field,  assassins placed on the side of jarl and the strike force in the middle.

Troll turn one. The fenns are all ready up in
the middle of the field

My first turn consisted of running. My god I ran. The fell caller also shouted so that the kriels could avoid any trees slowing them down in the small forest. I sat back happy and waited for Falkman to try and shoot all the bodies off the board...

Falkman started shooting. Aiming, the strike force could almost not miss. Fenns, being at arm 14 is no match for the pow 10s. They were massacred. I began to feel the power of the shooting and understood I had chosen the wrong list. After the shooting, the dawnguard moved up in between the strike force, and the strike force became unchargable.

Troll Second turn, only a few fennblades left.

My second turn, time to hit back. I did my best. But the small amounts of fennblades left only have one attack each. The kriels couldn't really reach much, they slammed the smaller jack but did not do more than dent the nicely painted armour. Jarl could only reach the assassins, even far striked, but they are stealthy and so he missed. The Mauler walked up and placed himself

between jarl and the assassins, the champs ran into the enemy zone to contest it.

After the second retribution turn it was over. He killed the last fennblades, most of the champions. Only the piper and the standard bearer were left of the kriels. The Mauler was dropped to four health points left by the first mage hunter assassin. The second one ended him easily.

The second round left the game one sided. I tried to kill off as much as possible and to survive, but when Rahn started to dominate my zone, I had to try and kill him with Jarls two magic guns. The last photo in this post shows the result.

So what did I learn from this game?
Ret shoots a lot of low pow shots. Higher armour is good against them, not lots of bodies. I could also have played it safer, forcing him either to feat with Rahn turn one or forcing the strike force to move and not being able to aim as their guns are range 12 and the fenns under their mini-feat No Quarter and Quicken have a threat range of 15 with reach. And also, I have to paint my stone scribe chronicler. +2 def and feign death would have saved not all, but some of the poor fennblades.

After the first two quick games, a win and one crushing defeat was my score. But Jarl would get his revenge, more on that in the upcoming posts from Incognicon!

pMadrak vs pLylyth 34 pts game!

A week or two ago, me and my friend got to bash it out on the battlefield. I fielded the following list:

My set up, fenns on the left with the fellcaller. The champs
on the right and my battle in between to contest the right zone.

pMadrak
Axer, Mauler, Runebearer
Full Fennblades+Ua
Full Champ
Fell caller

Ledion set up. Legionaires in the middle. Battle group left
and archers right.

My oponent for the night fielded what he owned:

pLylyth
Carnivean, 2xShredders, Seraph
Min Legionaires
Min Blighted Nyss archers+Ua
Incubus
Sheperd

We randomed the scenario and the dice decided chemical reaction. He rolled first and set up. He went heavy toward my zone, and not very easy toward his. I felt like my fenns could hold my zone while my champs could easily tank his archers. My with my battle group in the middle, I could go either for the right, the left or stop him from moving over to his zone.

Chemical Reaction

Turn one
The first turns were uneventfull. He advanced toward my zone, the legionaires ran up to his objective, and the archers advanced into the forrest at the top of his zone. I advanced to hide behind the wall by his zone. My fenns on the other hand went balls to the walls and ran full speed ahead to put pressure on the advancing dragonish horde.

Turn two
It was time to start the barrage of fire and death and pain. He advanced slowly forward and killed of a few fennblades, some toughed it out but were left burning. He advanced varily but let a shredder fly to off a fenn far to the left. His legionaires advanced up the board and kept in their triangle formation. His archers stood to aim and shot the fenns and champs, but some were to far away to reach.

After the second turns, Madrak dominating the zone.

My turn started with the fires. Some died, and some went out. Then the fenns got their vengence move, this allowed them to get up the board. Starting with my left flank, the fell caller gave the fenns his warcry (+2 to hit) and sprayed dead one legionaire. Then the fenns pulled their mini feat, No Quarter, granting them pathfinder +2"movement on charge and terror. They charged everything they could, some legionaires, the carnivean, a shredder and one charged the archers. The last guy, charging the archers, was game changing. He was so terrifying that the archers the fled. The fenns killed some, my champs moved up his zone to chase the fleeing archers. As fleeing troops can't contest, I moved the sure footed Madrak to dominate his zone and picked up three points. Now the legion was in trouble.

A bit into my turn 3. Madrak faces the carnivean!

Turn three
So now the Lylyth had to act. Easily cleared my zone and stood in it. The spawned incubi cleared the fennblades inbetween the carnivean and my mauler and madrak. I started to sweat a bit, as he has some slipstream shannanigans and could possibly reach my Mauler. Would Madrak and my axer be enough without the +3 strength buff? However, he couln'd reach me. It simply was to far. The archers rallied and once again contested the zone. He tied the score to three points each by dominating my zone.

It was clear what I had to do. I had to contest his zone (axer run), I had to clear my zone and controll it, that would be up to the troups there. Moses went into the zone to controll it. Madrak went up to the middle to allow my axer to run across the board, put up Carnage (+2 to hit everything within his controll area) and did a few points of damage to the Carnivean. My last remaining fennblade offed the Incubus in his zone, and the champs had no problems to kill the archers in the zone and win me the game. As a bonus, my Mauler got to destroy the carnivean!

Ending thoughts of the game was the the fleeing archers made the game. CMD 9 should be enough, but the missed check really cost the game. If he hadn't fled, he would had been first to dominate my zone and have the scoring lead. That would have made the game completely different. After all, the game is a game of dice.

The Mountain King Chronicles! Part 2: Xerxis

^This guy!

Following the recent success with Gunnbjörn and the King against the pigs, I decided to take on the desert elves roaming our lands with the same 42pts list.

Gunnbjörns jolly band:
Earthborn dire troll, Mountain King, Min stone bearers + Elder, Scouts,Min kriel warriors + 2 cabers
Stone scribe chronicles.

Xerxis fielded himself along with the following;
Titan Gladiator, Tiberion, max Nihilators, Bloodrunners, min Cataphract Arcuarii, Agonizer, min Paingivers, Willbreaker, and Optimus Marketh.

We randomized the scenario. And as random works, close quarters is the name of the game, again. My objective was positioned between a ruin and a tower, perfect to get the armor from elemental communition and to place a wall in front of so that I would be safe to dominate my objective. His objective was close to a forrest, so that my scouts could easily hide and keep him from scoring.

My oponent got to go first, I placed the King in the middle of the board, knowing he would place tiberion and Xerxis  against him wherever he was. My oponent placed his bloodrunners in the middle ready to jam me. His nihilators went on my left towards his objective, the Arcuarii on my right and his battle group with support in the middle. I felt pretty confident my Scouts could manage to jam his nihilators pretty well, 13 def and tough plus the chronicler to KD them if they killed. I put the scouts to my left, the kriels around my king in the center and Gunny with the EBDT to the right, so that I could dominate my zone.

The skorne horde went first and ran everything forward, positioning himself so that the blood runners could jam me next turn, and the nihilators could go in to clear his flag and sweep in from my left. The Arcuarii advanced on my right, Xerxis defenders warded the blood runners, dropped his fury on the Agonizer and advanced with his elephant retinue on my center, the Mountain King. On my turn, the scouts advanced into a forrest by his objective, after getting the heroes tragidy sung to them. Gunnbjörn put snipe on himself and dropped the rest of the fury on the stone, advanced forward and missed a bloodrunner with his shot. The mountain king and EBDT advanced up on both sides of the ruin assisted with an aura from the stone and the kriel warriors who flanked the MK.

On the Skorne turn 2, charges was the name of the game for the bloodrunners and Nihilators, who charge my kriels and scouts to jam and kill, respectivly. Two of the Scouts fell, and tough really helps in shutting down the efficiency of the Nihilators. A kriel warrior also fell to the charge of the blood runners that jammed my mountain king and kriels. The Arcuari positioned themselves to shoot at gunnbjörn, but it was too short. The center of the Skorne army slowly and carefully advanced forward, so that my MK could not reach them. On my turn, I responded by removing the some jamming blood runners very efficiently with the kriel warriors and scouts that could help. I then moved up gunny to dominate my flag and did some damage to a Arcuraii. I felt quite safe and scored my first point but didn't feel to good that the blood runners were still jaming my kriels.

Poisioning after my turn 3

Skorne went about his turn three as the other turns, by keeping on trying to kill my Scouts and jamming my kriels and MK. He managed the jam, but tough rolls stopped him from killing the scouts. He tried to pull gunnbjörn from the objective with the Arcuarii, but Gunnys wall was positioned so he couldn't. His agonizer went up to remove the animus from the MK and EBDT and the elephants positioned themselves to strike the next turn. He forgot to contest my flag, and I scored another point.

My turn 3 was when I made the big game mistake. I finally got rid of the jamming blood runners, Gunnbjörn shot the agonizer dead and the EBDT moved to negate any pulling shananigans with the Arcuarii. The Scouts continued their grinding, beeing very good at surviving and not killing anything. Then the MK moved up to try and make Gunny safer, when what I should have done was to back, so that Tiberion could not charge.

Skorne positioning after my turn 3

Skorne turn 4 was the end of me, he finished most of the scouts, feated with Xerxis and boosted up Tiberion with rage and Enrage and rush and all that skorne has. He was hitting my MK at dice +2 with an extra damage die each attack. OUCH, dead king. The Arcuarii moved in to contest my zone and bind  and damage the Earthborn in melee. After this, It was all over as I had no way of reaching Tiberion with my earthborn and therefore, no way of killing him. I did try to go for the scenario win by trying to off cataphracts, but without reach on the EBDT, I just couldn't. The last move of the game was  the gladiator grand slaming my Earthborn into the tower and killing him easily when he was knocked down.

In hindsight, I should have just backed with my King. I had the upper hand in the scenario and did not need to push it. The King can really dictate the flow of the game with his positioning. He is a great prize for players to take down. So this time it didn't work out. I also think I will be switching out Gunny for Jarl for the next game, the boosted sprays are nice but they are just not worth it. I also feel that Jarl could help the rest of the army better than Gunny can. We will just have to see!

Swinnish tournament

I went by the big tournament held this weekend, the Swinnish, just in time to se part of the final game between two circle players. This tournament was the biggest so far in Sweden with up to 84 contenders!

Part of the fun!

The Mountain King Chronicles! Part 1: Midas

Could old chain smoker Gunny pull it off?

I own a Mountain King. The feeling of guilt for not playing him when he looks at me with his big puppy eyes has just been too much to bear and it was time to take him out for a spin on my newly constructed foldable gaming table. I constructed a nice little list:

Gunnbjörn +5
Earthborn dire troll 10
Mountain King 20
Min stone bearers +elder 4
Scouts 5
Min kriel warriors + 2 cabers 6
Stone scribe chronicler 2

Close Quarters

My thought was to deliver the MK to kill stuff. Some cheap infantry to screen and contest. Having armor 23, I thought i was pretty safe with the MK. Both the evenings matches were played on the scenario Close Quarters, both randomly generated. The scenario was good for me, as the two flags are close and easy for the Mountain king to reach.

My first oponent of the evening was Midas, the pig butcher with a spine in one hand and a butcher knife in the other. With his non-healing spell, I knew that the MK was in trouble. The Midas tier 4 list came with the following:

Midas is a pig and plays with his food.

Midas
2xRoad Hog, Gun boar, Bone Swarm, Razor Boar, Dead War Hog
2x Slaughterhousers
2x Bone grinders
Targ

I got to go first and deployed my MK in the middle, with Gunny and the EBDT on his right to go for domination of my own scenario. The scouts and kriels were positioned to the left so that they could contest the pig flag. The pigs split up and put Midas, Bone Swar, a unit of Slaughterhausers and bonegrinders oposing my gunny with EBDT, one roadhog herded by tharg and supported by bonegrinders oposing my scouts and kriels and the rest (slaugherhausers, road hog and gun boar) in the middle to deal with the king.

My oponents comments with the set up:
The idea with the deployment was to be aggressive towards his flag with my caster and having targ herd the warbeasts near the center, in hindsight I should probably have positioned my caster more in the center with the bone swarm and having it engage the MK with swarm ASAP. With the bone swarms slightly higher def and swarm it would´ve made the MKs Mat effective 3, and even if the MK kills the bone swarm it can´t kill shot because of bone swarm being undead.

Trolls went first, as we are smarter than pigs. I ran everything up, the scouts into a forrest, EBDT put elemental Communition on the MK and walked forward. Gunny put snipe on himself and dropped the rest on the stone. The pigs followed my way and went forward with his stuff, trying to set up for the kill on the MK. His road hog oposing my scouts went in and killed one of them. Assaultblasted a kriel as well. Midas and the crew on my right advaced carefully with the bone swarm in front.

He turned it over to me, and I saw my oportunity to do some damage with the Mountain king! Gunny upkept snipe, put down guided fire and shot at midas. I missed and did nothing, instead of putting down a wall by the king i ended gunnbjörns activation. Mistake. My earthborn communitioned the king and positioned himself to guard gunny and contest my objective. MK charged the gun boar and ended him, killing nothing with his deathly roar that followed. Scouts surrounded the attacking road hog on the right and did nothing. Kriels ran and tried to cross the board so that they could meet Midas on the right.

Midas fails at killing my Earthborn and the king frenzied onto
a slaugherhauser. On the dark green forrest zone in the back, my
scouts finally managed to kill his road hog!

His turn, and the big turn to kill the king. Midas averted from his path toward my objective to go toward the middle and cast an extra damage die on the slaugherhausers. They charged the King and, getting, 5 dice on the charge, put him down to 5 HP left! He managed to jam the kriels with the other slaugherhausers and the boneswarm. The road hogs did nothing really, the scouts and one of them were locked in combat the entire game.

From that turn and on the game was heavily in my favor. With amuck and sweep, I killed a unit och hausers and two more, snacked myself to about 2/3 health left and killshotted midas for 13 damage, leaving one hp left on the Razorboar. Midas did go in for an assasination attempt with his feat, but at def 15 armor 20, Gunny was sitting safe behind a wall. In the end, Midas got tired of his troops failing him and went in for the Earthborn himself and took him down to half health but died the turn after.

My thoughs after the game is that it is so important to keep the mountainking alive. Its impossible almost to keep him safe, as having 20pts keept safe essentially makes him do nothing. Even though he lived and killed a bunch of stuff, he still didn't manage to get his points back. And to be fair, if Midas would have his spell that mitigates healing on the MK, I would have easily lost the game.

My oponents comments of the game: 
The two biggest mistakes of the game was not successfully killing the MK in one turn and not casting bad blood on instead of battle lust on my slaughter housers. I would have done less damage, but the MKs strength is its healing ability. Since it almost has to boost everything, all the fury it will generate will damage the warlock. Casting bad blood instead of battle lust would also have let me transfer a kill shot I took, which inflicted 10+ dmg.