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!