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.

News on the brink of being revealed?

Having recently picked up the new edition of Pandemic, I am really hoping for a new edition of the expansion; on the brink. It gives new challanges such as the bioterrorist and mutation. It takes the game to a whole new level, in many different possible ways. Its awsome and I will autobuy it when it hits my LGS.

Z-man games has also announced the coming of yet another expansion. It will be called: In the lab. I can't wait!

pMadrak vs Reznik, 42 pts Saturday gaming!

In preparation for the 42 pts tournament at Incognicon in April we hade a day of gaming at a friends house. Its a two list event, so I'll be running Jarl and pMadrak. I just got hold of the kriels stone bearers, so I had to practice running it. The list was the following:

My set up, beast on one side, kriels on the other, Ston in between. 

pMadrak +6
Earthborn 10
Dire troll Mauler 9
Troll Axer 6
Runebearer 2
Janissa Stonetide 3
Fell caller 3
Max kriel warriors 6
 - 3 cabers 3
 - Ua Piper and Standard bearer 2
Min kriel stone bearer +Elder 4

My opponent for the night played the protectorate of menoth and fielded a band of mercanaries and Reznik.

Reznik 

Sanctifier

Menoth set up, Zelots opposing my kriels and
the rest opposing my beasts

Avatar of Menoth

Min Choir of Menoth

Max Holy Zealots w. Monolith bearer

Covenant of Menoth

2 Vassals of Menoth

Hierophant

Wracks

Eiryss

Gorman

Madelyn Corbeau

Saxon Orrik

Outflank

We played Outflank. My thoughts were to dominate my left zone with the beast brick and contest the other with the kriels. I wanted the large kriel unit to be a road block for Reznik and the Avatar, and to contest. Thanks to the 11" command range with the piper, that is possible.

Turn 1
I got to go first. Since I knew he couln't reach me his turn one. Everything ran forward. The kriels spread out and Madrak dropped his five fury on the stone that didn't activate. The runebearer threw Sure foot (+2 def and knockdown immunity in a 3" bubble on madrak).

Troll turn 1

The Menoth army also advanced, though more carefully, Enliven went on his two jacks and he took a focus from the backmost wrack.

Menoth turn 1

Turn 2
So, he hadn't advanced to far forward. I saw my chance to clogg him with the kriels and advance for my turn 3. The kriels ran to clog as much as possible.
One of the cabers engaged Reznik himself over the wall and some of them ran up to shout obscenities at the holy zealots. My brick advanced with elemental communition and hid behind a Janissa summoned wall. The stone advanced and put up the aura, rendering me immune to the fire continous effects menithes are so proud of.

End of Troll turn 2

Menoth dictated that the infidels should suffer, and so Rezniks Roughnecks took up the cause.  Reznik walked away from my caber in the maintainance phase, i failed to hit him with my free strike. The holy zealots mini-feated and cleared out as many kriels as possible. Then the avatar decided enough was enough and charged my Mauler. My defense 16 arm 22 Mauler. He got in some damage, but not even crippling an aspect. That left the enlivened avatar out in the open for me. The rest of his army positioned themslefs for the next turn.


Turn 3

End of Menoth turn 2

I felt good. I felt confident. This was my game. I was going to take some points this turn and down the avatar. First of all. The kriel warriors got a charge run order. They ran so that the enlivend avatar couldnt get away. They ran to block the zone from the invincible zealots. Like marathon men they ran to charge gorman and block things. Madrak enraged the earthborn, and toed into the zone. The krielstone activated with te strength buff. "What is the pow of your weapon?" The answer puts the earthborn at P+S 23. That was one dead avatar. The rest of the gang positioned themsleves behind janissas wall. I dominated my zone and turned it over to menoth with  a confident smile.

End of troll turn 3.

Reznik saw the opportunity he needed to get to Madrak. Eiryss, who had run two turns to get into position behind madrak, shot his sure foot right off (in retrospect a mistake, as Reznik gets stronger when attacking models with upkeeps on them). A vassal shoot a kriel warrior dead and cleared the ground his leader needed. Reznik, who had moved into position in the maintainance phase, drew focus from a wrack and charged Janissa. He could see her just barely behind the earthborn. He got a freestrike on the way, but shrugged that of at the dice-1 that the P+S 23 earthborn gott of on him. Janissa was dead by the charge attack. Reznik feated. Leaving Madrak at his will with his Scroll of Grimnir and armor 18 under the stone. Due to really bad damage rolls, it came down to the last attack. It triggered the tough roll on Madrak. I failed it and lost.

Reznik makes Madrak read some sort of proclamation.

Conclusions
I am used to the Molik missile. But the Reznik missile? Thats a first for me. Now that I have seen it, I will probably not fall for it again. My oponent told me that that was his plan in turn two, to kill the mauler and charge over the wall.

It was a fun and quick match, and I felt going first is important with pMadrak and the stone, as he then can dump all his five fury on the stone without putting himself in danger. The positioning of the stone I felt somewhat confident with, I just need to get it painted as creatures of the night are not that good looking on the field.

Easy and cheap 48"x48" gaming board

Folded table on dining table

Once folded out!

I have only had one 48"x48" board at home before. This had to change as we are more and more who play at my place. So I got down and dirty. Bought  four 24"x24" boards and green cloth to cover them. But I wanted them jointed, so they could be folded out. The result, a foldable green gaming table. Some minor faults can be seen, but the foldability is nerfable. The cloth is secured by simple pins at the moment. But if the table works well I will upgrade to small nails.

Plus, while down in the basement, I sprayed my Kriel stone bearers plus the elder. Finaly I can paint them. I have promised myself to play everything painted at tournaments!

Tuesday night gaming!

Usually tuesday evening is Warmachine and Hordes night at Prisfyndet, our local gaming store. This tuesday, I had only brought the army I use for the slow growth league we have got going. The aim of the league was to paint things that hadn't been painted before, and thus, my list became a bit silly as I was painting the Mountain King when we started. At 15, nothing more fits than the king, so I have had a tough time in the league.

Tonight, the line up was the following:
Jarl Skuld, devil of the thornwood +6
- Mountain King -20
- Winter troll -5
Trollkin Scouts 5

As you who know math can see, I am playing a point down, and I have blamed it for beeing the reason of my losses. Today, however, I actually didn't lose. My oponent was playing:

Process of Elimination setup. Objective destroyed is 1 CP
Zone control is 1 CP, domination is 2 CP.

Hexeris
Cyclops raider
Krea
Agonizer
Gatormen posse
Gobbers
Witchdoctor
Beast handlers
Taskmaster
And marketh.

We played process of Elimination. He went first, keeping everything nice and tight around the krea and gobbers so that i would have troubles shooting him. He advanced with everything toward the left zone. My turn one, I cast quicken on the scouts, tactical supremacy on Jarl and then advanced toward the other zone.

The second turn got somewhat more interesting. He charged the objective in my left zone with an enraged cyclops, leaving it at 4 health. One of the gatormen posse managed to kill it and still be within his gobber/krea aura. His marketh killed one of the scouts i had left in the open. He recieved one CP for the objective. On my turn, I realized he had left nothing to contest my zone. A big mistake. I charged the objective with my scouts, and also failed to reach a gatorman and marketh. The scouts left the Objective with 4 hp, so the Jarl moved in to finish it off. Unfortunately, two boosted shots were not enough, and my plans to spray with the MK were gone. Jarl ended his activation by feating, shielding my scouts from the gatormen. He had to finish it of. The winter troll put freezer on the MK and toed into my oponents zone trying to hide as much as possible behind the rolling fog. My round left me with 3 CP as I dominated the right zone.

My Mountain kung celebrating on a tower.

So, my oponent was forced to go in for the kill on the MK and contesting my zone. His enraged raider charged my wintertroll, but couldn't get the kill (2 spirit hp remained) and turned cold. Hexeris went in to feat and to dominate the zone. He also finished the winter troll of, leaving him to dominate the zone. His gatormen then proceded to charge the mk, one of them charged a scout to get the hexeris feat going. Fun fact, tough stops the feat. Well, that happened, and two scouts toughed. The rest of the gatormen banged the MK up, but he survived, leaving them all stationary from the winter troll animus. They also got undead and tough for the round. He ended his turn with 3 CP.

Last turn was mine. It was just to remove 5 gatormen, 4 of which were stationary in melee with my mountain king. Finaly I he could hit things, and with his 7 auto-hitting attacks, no gatormen were left around him. Though, thanks to the doctor, no kill-shot. So, 1 non-stationary gatorman was left. The scouts moved up around it, two couldn't attack due to being knocked down, the other three left him at 2 Hp left.
Jarl was up. He readied his guns and let one fly. Boosted the hit of course, why not. The shot connected, now for the boosted 3d6-6 needing two damage. The dice were in my favor, if not I had another shot. Domination of the zone again got me the 5 CP needed for winning. The problem is only that also Hexaris dominated his zone. The game actually ended in a draw, with us both thinking I won.

Gothcon XXXVII

So, back from the action of the main Easter event for all un plugged gamers in Sweden, Gothcon, I promised a write up of the high lights.

This years gothcon emblem

First of, this years gothcon was cold. Could it be that easter should be pushed back a week or two?
Not only the weather was cold, but the sleeping rooms were also too cold for comfort, fortunately, not much time was spent sleeping.

The only real competitive activities I participated in was the Diplomacy tournament and a Gatecrash draft in Magic. We also played some Hansa Teutonica, a board game about creating trade routes and unlocking abilities to create better trade routes. The game seemed quite fun, but our noob-meta quickly developed into clogging the important routes so that no-one got anywhere untill one of us had luck in finding a random-strat that worked that game. During the saturday, we also played a game of Advanced Civilization, ending in defeat after the Assyrians aquired both Military and Monotheism, resulting in them always ending their turn on nine cities. After that, it was over.

Cosplayed Space Marine

The board game Pandemic was also a hit. I have played it several times before, but my friends hadn't, so we played it some. I really like the mechanic of the game, and the expansion, On The brink, really added some fun missions with a bio-terrorist, mutations, and a fifth virus possibility. We also tried a demo game of Flames of War. It was kind of fun, but it seems somewhat lack luster in comparison with Warmachine and Hordes.

The Diplomacy game we had was very exiting. I got Turkey, unfortunately, my brother got Austria and convinced everybody around me that I was the most dangerous one. This resulted on a three state coalition to beat me, but leaving me at my three starting centers when the coalition started to stab one another. After staying at my three centers for six years, I managed to grow to 5 in the last year, claiming the third place in the game.

The Magic draft was also fun, I had asked beforehand what strategies work in Gatecrash drafts, and the only thing that stuck was the extort-strat. Lucky for me, my first rare (I always rare-draft, because I am not better than that) was a black guy with extort. So i had my course set out. My deck earned me the second place of the draft, which was better than my friends. To me, that was the most important. I even saved the result sheet.

We also went by the Swedish Championship in Warmachine and Hordes. It was a rather small tournament of 30 people, but the tables and terrain were very good looking. When we went by, the final top 8 players had started their Swiss play off and faction count was: 3 Legion, 2 Menoth, 1 Cygnar, 1 Skorne, 1 Circle. The skorne guy won the tournament.

All in all, it was a good gothcon this year and I plan on going next year as well.

Relaunching the blog!

So, I guess its time to own up. I have not been very good at updating. This will have to change starting now. Oh, I'm also switching to English, since I recently dicovered most people are not fluent in Swedish.

This weekend, the big gaming convention Gothcon will be held in Gothenburg. Swedish championship in Warmachine and Hordes will be held, but I will not attend. My goal is to win the Diplomacy tournament as a revenge for getting totally owned last year.

Highlights since the last update in the blog is that I have almost exclusively devoted my gaming time to the trolls in Hordes.

I will give a short write up next week, with my experiences from Gothcon, but before I leave, I have two photos from events over the year.

Advanced Civilization played in March 2013. I was Crete and won by a narrow margin. Here, the tighly positioned Thracian empire and my empire are seen.

The participants of Aros Kingdoms 2013, Swedens biggest Warmachin and Hordes tournament ever. I ended up slightly below the middle.