League game night

Emma and I played our league games tonight, hers was the 5th round and mine 6th round.

Emma's Circle faced off against George's Menoth, who I played earlier in the league.

She was doing Demolition, the one with the Explosives Cache and the two large circle objectives. From what I saw of the game, she moved Baldur into position to take the objective and then was able to hold on to it even though George threw everything he had at him - including a Castigator, multiple flamethrower attacks, and even some Temple Flameguard were charging in there.

Georges Warcaster Feora was a little slow in getting there, and was unable to prevent Baldur from taking the 3 Control Points he needed and winning on scenario! Baldurs feat really did help slow down the advancing Menites though.

An interesting note was the Druids of Orboros only killing 2 of the 12 Daughters of the Flame, and then getting wiped out in retaliation. I had totally thought it would be the other way around!

My league game was versus Martin and his Circle Warpack - the three Warpwolves and Kaya. I totally underestimated Martin and he really threw me for a loop with some of his very astute tactical manouevers. I was expecting an easy and fast win with my feat and the control points, but several tricky moves by Martin (and a terrible attack by Nightmare) meant he kept his cool throughout and held off victory for 5 turns instead of 3.

There were two forests and two buildings right in between all the flags and the zones, which I had assumed gave me the advantage. Unfortunately, I rushed forward but was blocked by all the terrain from getting a decent charge/sprint towards the scenario points. Martin had cleverly made me go first as well, meaning I couldnt really score points till the top of turn 3.

Luckily for me, Martin had never really played against Incorporeal before, and I think they confused him a little. He still ended up splatting a bunch of them, due to Wraithbane from the Pureblood. I was set for a feat -> scenario victory, until he Ghostlied a Warpwolf to my flag and contested it!

I decided I had to go for it anyway, and sent Nightmare with 3 Focus to kill it while eDenny walked forward and feated to lock his models in place. I ran a Machine Wraith to contest the other objective, and bet on Nightmare killing the Warpwolf.

Needless to say, I rolled terribly (3's to hit and straight damage) and the Warpwolf had heaps of life left. I thought Id screwed it at this point! I ended up having to charge my remaining Blackbanes and a Machine Wraith (P+S8, rofl) and left it on 3HP - but on fire.

Having failed to get a CP this turn, I was resigned to this game lasting much longer, and perhaps not ending well for me.

On his turn, he still couldnt move, and.... his Warpwolf died from the flames! He couldnt contest my flag, and couldnt kill my Machine Wraith, and so conceded the CP and on my turn, I got the second CP.

Incidentally, it was extremely close - his Lord of the Feast *could* have contested the flag, if only he had rolled a 6 to hit with his raven (therefore placing him within 4"). I held my breath, and Martin rolled double 1's.

A much closer game than I would have liked, I dont know what else I could have done if I hadnt gotten those CPs, his models could have moved and with Circle agility easily contested everything. It would have turned into a slugfest, one which I may easily have lost!

2 Games to report!

Two games in the last couple of days, one of them was my league game with eDenny vs Christers league army, with ... eDenny.

Christer won the roll to choose who goes first, and he went and picked first, which was what I was secretly hoping for.

He then made a big mistake in the first turn, by forgetting to move eDenny forwards! This was lucky for me since he wouldnt be able to feat and shut me out of the scenario.

His mechanithralls swarmed the centre objective marker, and his bane thralls advanced and covered his objective zone. The Deathjack advanced, and threatened my objective zone - but I had the Withershadow Combine waiting for him there.

On my turn I ran everything forward, threatening his flank with a Pistol Wraith and a Machine Wraith, while Denny moved towards the objective.

His next turn was crucial for him, he used his Skarlock and Deathjack to try and kill the Pistol Wraith, with the Deathjack succeeding. Unfortunately, the Deathjack was now out of place and couldnt stop my Denny from taking the Objective marker. His Mechanithralls swarmed it, but only another Warcaster can contest it.

My turn 2, and the first scenario points start counting. I moved B2B with the marker and popped feat, catching his whole army except 2 of his WSC, a Stalker, and a few Bane Thralls. My Ghosts charged, most of them missing. I cleaned up his Stitch Thralls, then took down the Mechanithralls, wiping out 90% of the unit. The WSC took pot shots at the Deathjack, slightly hurting it. Bane Lord Tartarus charged an encroaching Stalker, and with one hit crippled both his arms. Haha, a useless Stalker! I thought to myself. 1 CP to me!

His turn, and he really had very few options. He popped feat as well, but it was kind of irrelevant since I already have the Objective and he couldnt get me off it. The Stalker, rolling 1D6 to hit and damage, took out 7/8 of Tartarus' life boxes! (He was boosting though) The Bane Thralls got some revenge by killing a few Ghosts, and the Deathjack spent a bunch of focus and killed one of the Combine with a boosted Venom. 2 CPs to me!

At this point, I skipped my turn to gain the 3rd CP point, and the Scenario win.

A good game however, and if it wasnt for two key mistakes on Christers side (forgetting to move eDenny and moving Deathjack too far away from the objective) it would have been much closer. There was hardly any killing going on, it ended up mostly being run forward -> feat, everybody just sit around.

Second game was earlier today, I took an eGaspy army with Bile Thralls, Bane Knights and Bloodgorgers, along with the obvious Cankerworm and a Deathripper, and then a bunch of solos (Tartarus, WWS, Gerlak etc) took on Rowan and his Retribution army of doom.

We ended up playing Close Quarters, since that is the one we will end up facing each other on during the league.

The game was going extremely well for me for every turn except the last, my models were dying all over the place but that was according to plan - I wanted them dead so I could use them for my feat. I pulled off an awesome Excarnate -> Bile Thrall purge that left 3/11 Mage Hunter Strike Force alive and also killed Aiyanna and Holt for good measure. I then teleported back 8" with eGaspy, confident in Hellbound and his excellent defensive stats.

Too confident, as it turns out - the Phoenix fired a Halo Cannon that splatted him right in the face, and then two boosted (with Sylys as well) Arcantrik Bolts finished him off. Rowan rolled reasonably well, and managed to make all his attack rolls, and basically knocked eGaspy off his high horse. If he had failed (and he only made it with 1 HP to spare) he would have been dead for sure - but, luck was on his side and the dice gods were happy with him.

Annoyingly, on my way home, I realised that I had completely forgotten to deploy Gorman di Wulfe - who would have thrown a Smoke Bomb on Gaspy and he would have then survived. (He already needed 10's to hit, and only just made them) Oh well, that will teach me to forget to deploy my entire army.

Fun game, though this now makes me 0 for 2 against Rowan. It looks like our next rematch will need to be fierce - im thinking Karchev Powerslide + Beast 09. No holds barred!

Practice Game, Khador vs Circle, then League Game, Khador vs Circle

On Thursday Emma and I had a practice game, with me using basically the same army she was going to be facing on Saturday morning for her 3rd League game, (4th round).

Spriggan rushes up towards the Monolith, Winterguard spread out and try to kill the druids, Demo Corp are wiped out by Woldwardens, and my Bombardiers (proxied by Shocktroopers) slowly walk towards the Monolith as well.

Most of the Winterguard are killed, all the Demo Corp are killed, Bombardiers shoot the Monolith, Spriggan starts towards the second Monolith.

Bombardiers blow up the Monolith, the last few Winterguard try to take out the Warbeasts, Spriggan is halfway to the other monolith and the Woldwarden destroys my own Monolith.

Game Over - My Spriggan gets to the Monolith despite Baldurs best efforts, and kills it with multiple POW18 lance attacks.

This game was to help Emma get her head around the scenario, and get used to eIrusk's bag of tricks. She did pretty well, but was unable to stop an 11" a turn moving Spriggan from reaching her Objective and take it down. I failed almost all my Tough rolls (two guys rolled tough, out of the 12+ rolls I made) and the Demo Corp were killed way too quick by Earth Spikes and the Woldwatcher. Good game though!


Emma's real game vs Luke and his eIrusk army: (You may recall I played him for my 2nd game, click this link to see how that went)

A massive clump of Khador infantry vs the spread out Warbeasts on the Circle side.

Circle advances cautiously protecting its Monolith, while a Woldwarden is teleported further upfield.


Khadors turn, and he rushes his Winterguard forward, while the Demo Corp protect his Monolith. The Bombardiers are flanking on his left.


Druid magic starts to take its toll, with several Winterguard falling to AOE's from the Circle forces.

A Woldwarden strikes forward - killing two Demo Corp and threatening the Monolith! The Devouring kills 90% of the remaining Winterguard.

eIrusk pops his feat, allowing his Spriggan to charge the Woldwarden - charge attack needs 3's to hit, and ... SNAKE EYES! A groan from Luke as his Spriggan proceeds to do minor damage. He runs his Demo Corp forward to try and threaten Baldur, hiding in the stones.

Baldur shifts into range and line of sight of eIrusk, and hits him with an Earth Spikes, knocking him down and doing some damage. The Blackclad Wayfarer and another massive Devouring finish eIrusk off, and Emma wins by Caster Kill.

An entertaining game to watch, Emma managed to funnel his Winterguard into a small corridor and then hit them with a full power Devouring, which killed just about every single one. The Spriggan was not able to get any decent charges due to the forests being put into play, and the Bombardiers were too far away to effect the game much, especially since "Solid Ground" was negating any blast damage.

Luke did well in advancing as fast as his Man O Wars could, but they just couldnt outpace the speed from Circles Warbeasts and the teleporting of the Shifting Stones. The clumped together unit of Winterguard was a fantastic target for The Devouring, and he ended up losing a large number of his unit. The last Winterguard got an awesome shot on Baldur, doing 7 damage to him, but this was transferred off to the Woldwyrd, negating some of the awesomeness.

Next Two League Armies:

The next two battles to fight (starting from March 20) will be against Christer and his eDenny Cryx list and Martin with his pKaya Circle list.

Christers Cryx: (Current record 1 win out of 2 games)

Wraith Witch Deneghra
>Stalker
>Deathjack
>Skarlock Thrall
Bane Thralls + UA
Mechanithralls
Brute Thrall
Necrosurgeon and 3 Stitch Thralls
The Withershadow Combine
Bane Lord Tartarus

Eww Mirror match... eDenny, as I have found out, is very strong on Scenario. I will have to try very hard to avoid getting done on Scenario. He also has Bane Thralls, which, with Tough, can be extremely difficult to remove. The Deathjack is superior to Nightmare, and will probably kill him if I give Christer half a chance.

The only really deadly magic here comes from the Deathjack and the Withershadow Combine. The Skarlock dies to a strong breeze and eDenny (probably) wont dare getting that close to my army. Im not sure what im going to do about the Deathjack just yet, but the Withershadows are not strong enough to survive a powerful attack - I will need to make them a top priority for Venom or even a Hellmouth.

The Scenario here is #13 - Demolition. This one is an interesting one, its possible to get 2 CP per turn by controlling both the enemy zone and the objective. It will be fairly easy to get a 3 turn win here, but the danger is it will be fairly easy for Christer to do the same thing as well. Luckily he lacks the ability to take out my ghosts easily, and ill be able to use that as an advantage to fend off his attacks.


Martins Circle: (Current record 1 win out of 2 games)

Kaya the Wildborne
>Argus
>Feral Warpbeast
>Pureblood Warpwolf
>Warpwolf Stalker
Lord of the Feast
Totem Hunter

YAY beast heavy circle.... I kid. Basically what we have here is Kaya's dangerous Spirit Fang, a low cost magic attack that will thrash Ghosts - but its not an AOE and she cant use it too often.

The Pureblood Warpwolf is dangerous in that it has a Magical Spray attack (at 10" no less) and its animus will let other models gain magical weapons. This is going to be annoying, as I wont be able to predict which models can kill my ghosts. Lord of the Feast has a magical sword, but not a magical raven, which will help slightly. Also he wont be able to recieve any hearts, since my guys are already dead.

The biggest threat here is certainly the Pureblood, but I will probably lack the ability to kill it and it will be "Yo-Yo"ing back and forth with Spirit Door. I should be able to kill his weaker solos with some concentrated spellpower, but I may lose arcnodes doing so - not a great trade.

The Scenario will be Diversion, radial scenario where you must control a flag and contest a zone - I will be able to get a 2 turn Scenario victory here if I play my cards right - getting a point on my turn and then feating to stop him taking out my guys contesting his zone. I will probably need to kill the Pureblood though, otherwise it will really mess with my Ghosts.

League Game - Round 4 Cryx vs Menoth

Another League game today, this one was Round 4, Scenario 6 - Destruction. This was a very tricky scenario for me, involving killing 2 ARM20, HP20 monoliths.

I really had very few models capable of taking down these monoliths, namely Bane Lord Tartarus and Nightmare. Curse of Shadows would take them down to ARM18, but that still is not enough.

On the other hand, Josh's Menoth list was an excellent counter to my own lightly armoured Incorporeal list.

Grand Scrutator Severius
>Blessing of Vengence
>Reckoner
>Vanquisher
Choir of Menoth
Exemplar Errants + UA
Knights Exemplar
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord
Vassal of Menoth

So many Magic Weapons! Just about everything was capable of putting paid to most of my models, with a scary 15" threat range on his Errants even running Blackbanes couldnt out-threat them.

Sorry for the lack of pics for this game, I forgot to bring the good camera, and thought it would be a waste of time taking cellphone crappy pics.

Basically what happened was I picked first turn, and deployed most of my troops in the middle. There was two houses and some walls in the middle of the map, providing cover to my troops and Warjack. My Blackbanes were deployed opposite Knights Exemplar, and a few solos and a Deathripper vs the Errants. The majority of my forces were in the middle, taking on his Warjacks and Sevvy.

This game started out well for me, got really bad in the middle, and then managed to pull off an assassination right at the end that got me the win.

To begin with, I ran everything forward to behind cover. Josh responded the same way, and attempted to arc Ashes to Ashes into my unit of ghosts. This missed by the narrowest of margins, which really shook me up. It would have severely hurt me.

I managed to retaliate by harassing his Exemplars with ghosts, and attempted to flank around to avoid losing my ghosts with another Ashes to Ashes. I hid everything else behind houses, hoping to avoid being hit by the multiple heavy cannons and spells.

Blessing of Vengeance responded to this by running forward, deep into my lines - ready to arc Ashes to Ashes on my monolith which would have thrashed it, plus my solos hanging around there. Unfortunately for Josh, his caster was 1/2" out of control range and he was not able to arc anything! I also managed to capture two of his Warjacks with Machine Wraiths, which slightly frustrated them. He had shot my Monolith a few times by this point, and damaged it to half life.

Blessing of Vengeance took some heavy hits, a charge from Tartarus (and luckily he dodged Defensive Strike) took off his shield and most of his boxes. I had run the remaining Ghosts into the back of his army, and tried to kill Rupert - but failed. I also ran my Deathripper forwards, preparing to arc Hellmouth onto the Errants - and totally forgot they are immune to enemy spells. DAMMIT! My Deathripper was shot to bits in the next turn, losing his Arcnode and his Weapon.

Then the turn I almost lost on - Sevvy popped feat, catching Deneghra in it. The Monolith took a major beating, and was destroyed. I was no where near threatening his Monolith either. My damaged Deathripper was destroyed, and I also lost both my Machine Wraiths when Severius kicked them out of the Warjacks they were inhabiting. Knights Exemplar were getting into position to charge Deneghra, and they would wreck her face. Deneghra, on my next turn, had to retreat - no focus, no casting, and no arcing. I sacrificed Admonia (from the Withershadow Combine) as the Exemplars charged her.

Next turn was critical for me - with my Focus back, I allocated two to Nightmare and one to a Deathripper, and ran everything I had straight at Severious. Deneghra popped feat, locking his army in place (except one Choir member and one Errant) and cast Venom, killing some of the choir and the damned Vassal. Next turn, my whole army was ready to charge Severious - which I was hoping would kill him before he killed my last Monolith.

His turn, and I held my breath. 10 crossbow shots from the Errants managed to take off 1 damage off the Monolith. Nothing else had range on it, so I was safe. Nightmare suffered fire from being shot at by his Warjacks, but there were not able to get in melee range. Severious cast Ashes to Ashes, wiping out 3 ghosts, and then cast Vision and camped his last focus.

My turn - Vision is removed by the last surviving Blackbanes Ghost. The Warwitch Siren misses on a back strike. (MAT5? Seriously?) Marked for Death and Bane Lord Tartarus charges, reducting Severious to DEF12 ARM13. Nightmare activates and advances on his prey - 6 possible attacks, and kills him with the first claw attack. Cryx wins!

In conclusion. This was a tough matchup for me, possibly the toughest in the league. My best advantages, spell power and Incorporeal models were largely negated by the large number of Magic Weapons, the Errants UA, and Sevvys feat. ARM20 Monoliths were impossible (just about) for me to kill without losing my win condition - Nightmare.

I was lucky with a few key mistakes made on Josh's part, namely out of range for Ashes to Ashes and running Blessing outside of his control area. This game would have been very different if it wasnt for that.

I made a risky manouever, feigning a retreat with eDeneghra in order to bait Severius into coming closer, in range for a two turn feat + army charge. Luckily he advanced just enough to be in feat range and charge range for most of my models, which allowed me to set up the game winning charges.

Josh played excellently, and this was one of the fastest and accurate games Ive played, he really knows his models and rules as well as mine, and vice versa. We rarely had to check what the other players feats and spells did, and we are both quite adept at "5's to hit, dice minus 2 for damage".

Leaderboard as of 2 March, 2012

Go Cryx!

Obviously, not everybody has played 3 games yet, and some of the players with 2 games have had a bye, but ill update every now and then how the leaderboards are going.

League Games, 1st of March - Circle vs Retribution

Emma's Baldur list fought against Rowan's Retribution army, and while I didnt see much of the battle (I was too busy concentrating on how to outmaneuver George) I have some pics, and anecdotes, so can piece together how it went.

Rowans list, (which I will be facing Round 9 I think) is as follows:

Kaelyssa, Nights Whisper
>Phoenix
Dawnguard Sentinels + UA
>Soulless Escort
Lady Aiyana and Master Holt
Mage Hunter Strikeforce + UA
Arcanist
Mage Hunter Assassin
Narn, Mage Hunter of Ios

Basically what happened was Rowan rushed forwards with his 20+ infantry models, gumming up his objective with an insurmountable number of guys. (This is going to be a major issue for when I play him) His Phoenix plus some solos ran to Emma's objective, already threatening to win on CP's. Emma advanced forwards, enough to contest her objective.

She lost the Blackclad Wayfarer early, to Mage Hunter Strikeforces (MHS), who proceeded to, throughout the game, shoot her models to bits. A Woldwarden went down early to a Sentinel charge (those guys can really hit hard), and the second Woldwarden soon followed. Im not sure how many Retribution models died, but as you can see from the pics that will follow, there are a LOT left at the end of the game, so my assumption is: Not many.

Rowan wanted to win on Scenario to get maximum league points, so he took out her army and left Baldur alone, knowing he couldnt stop the Scenario win.

Early days


Rowan has a LOT of troops. He really needs to paint them though. :P


A nice close up of Emma's army.


Circle Defences.


The Retribution approaches.


Situation is not looking great for Circle here.


Poor Baldur. :(

So as you can see, Circle was outnumbered and outgunned in this battle, facing off against a swarm of bright white elves and coming off second best. She said she really enjoyed the game though, but at a certain point knew she wasnt going to win. I was hoping she would be able to pull off a Forest-Walk assassination, but Rowan was too wily and didnt let that happen.

League Games, 1st of March - Cryx vs Menoth

Last night Emma and I played our respective league games, me against the Menoth list I had previewed earlier on this site, and Emma vs Rowans impressively vast Retribution army.

I thought I would get an easy win vs George's Menoth, since he had no magic weapons to speak of and I could, with impunity, run my Incorporeal models forwards knowing they were practically invincible.

It didnt quite work out that way, and it took me till turn 4 before I secured my 3 round victory chain. (Game took 6 turns total, as I was player 1)

Daughters of the Flame were far trickier to counter than I thought, even though I managed to utterly wipe out one unit on Round 2 - Turn 1. The second unit I let go, since I thought they wouldnt be able to threaten me. Then they just about destroyed Nightmare in one charge, just about losing me my only caster kill option.

I struggled to control the objective while still defending my own objective, as George had parked a full unit of TFG in shield wall right on top of it, forcing me to wipe out a unit of high armor troops in one turn - something my army is not great at.

My tactic worked in the end however, as I feinted right in order to draw his jacks, most of his remaining troops, and his warcaster to the side with my own objective on it. I then hit hard on my left with only a few troops, but, and this clinched my victory, an arc-node. I managed to clear the entire unit in one turn and then popped feat, locking his troops in place. I scored 3 CP's, and won the game.

Turn 2 - An arced Hellmouth takes out a Blackbane Ghost, and a unit of Daughters. I secure my objective with a Deathripper, and, crucially a Machine Wraith. Those Flameguard look hungry. On the left flank, a Pistol Wraith and two Machine Wraiths menace his troops.

My Machine Wraiths mess with his Warjacks, continuously taking over two of his Warjacks and forcing him to spend focus on trying to kick them out. The Deathripper was charged by TFG, who just about destroyed it, then set it on fire. The fire killed it next round. Bane Lord Tartarus charges and kills the remaining TFG after some Venom's from eDenny. On the left objective, you can see the remaining TFG sitting there, while I attempt to whittle them down.


The end of the game - Between two Venoms from the arc-node, a Venom from the Siren, and the Blackbanes charging the remaining troopers, I clean my objective and secure the points for a victory. His light Warjack charges and kills Tartarus, but at this point it doesnt matter. Nightmare is reduced to a half dozen boxes left from the charge by the Daughters, if they hadnt flubbed about half their attack rolls they would have killed him.

Overall, this game was closer than I liked, his troops came close to overwhelming my defences and I struggled to kill his without massive expenditures on focus. Luckily I was able to use Incorporeal to my advantage and position myself for the best charges. I took two of his warjacks out of the game for at least 3 turns with Machine Wraiths, and made Feora spend most of her focus on kicking them out, lest I control them and start beating her with her own Warjacks.

Feora didnt pop her feat, which was lucky for me, since I would have lost most of my non-ghost models, but I think he was saving it for a more opportune time.