Krueger2 vs Sorcha2

Finally got out of the house! Got a game against our local Khadorian, I took

Krueger2, Gorax, Feral and Stalker. Druids w/UA, Woldstalkers, 2x Shifting Stones w/1 UA, a Wayfarer and 2 Gallows Groves. Alongside all this I also put my Celestial Fulcrum on the field.

Vs

Sorcha2, Beast09 and Conquest. Assault Kommandos (min) w/2xWA, Mortar Crew, Mechaniks (max), Aiyana and Holt, a Koldun Lord and a Manhunter.

(Now I am writing this I noticed his list is a whopping 5pts shy, after sending him a message he informs me his Kommandos were supposed to be a max unit and he was supposed to also have a Field Gun in there. In case you cared)

Anyway, the game

The scenario was Chemical reaction. Standard set ups, I had placed the Fulcrum on the right to contest his zone with some stones but his Conquest got set opposite. So plans ended up changing.

We both ran up, the Druids did all their tricks Stalker and Feral warped Prowl and +2 ARM respectively. Krueger put up Stormwall.

The other side also ran, Sorcha put Iron Flesh on the Kommandos.

I decided to pull Beast09 in, so the druids went and got him nice and close. The Fulcrum moved over to soften him up a bit. (and not run away from conquest...honest) It managed to knock off 10 damage meaning the Feral could finish him off nice and easy. The stones toe'd in the far zone and mocked the Conquest as he was the only piece in range to do anything. Yet would have been a massive waste if he did.

Khador's response was brutal, the Kommandos rolled like champs and started clearing druids. 9's to hit I thought they might not be too much of a threat. They killed a few Druids anyway. The Manhunter came charging out and killed the stone UA on the left. The Conquest shot a few more Druids to bits...bit harsh.

Krueger moved up to force the Khadorians out of the left zone and dominate it for a control point. I was looking to force myself at Sorcha as control points were not gonna win this for me. The Conquest was never going to set himself up to be taken out and the mechaniks would prevent a piecemeal approach. Krueger feated to try and lock them down a bit for my big rush and the blackclad got shot over and tied everyone up to cause some more headaches.

Sorcha Feated, her quad iron blew my feral off the table. Conquest was now truely part of this game and blew some holes in my troops again. I was looking slim.

Yet had everything I needed, the Woldstalkers used Zepher and shot the Kommando in the way. The Gallows Grove shifted into range, Krueger cast telekensis on the Stalker and then arc'd telekensis at Sorscha, boosted and missed. I then tried again but couldn't afford the boost. I was too fury starved. thankfully this connected and sorcha suddenly found herself facing her deployment zone. I then shot a Kommando with his gun. Just because. So, Stalker has range, a target facing away and is now all primaled up. 


End result was a win. I was pretty happy about it till I started typing this and realised he was 5pts down. When deploying I made a comment on how his list looked a bit small, he then put Beast09 on the table...oh well. I have told him and arranged a rematch. 

A Game of Dice

So I missed the club again this week, I did manage to play over Vassal instead though. So, straight into it.

I took my Mohsar list and was against Kreoss3 and the scenario was number 8, Incoming. As it is tradition between my friend and I to rename the Warcasters, Kreoss got renamed Incestor Kreoss and we began. I got first turn, the Bloodtrackers were preying on the Errants. I pulled the trick off. Namely stones teleport Mohsar to stones, stones teleport Mohsar again and then Mohsar puts 3 pillars of salt right in front of the enemy before using sands of fate to get back to safety. As I had maltreated Megalith (who I used to put Mirage on the trackers first) I still had a transfer available. This kept the Errants locked down and the trackers ran forwards so they would be in range to Mirage into the 10" and get the Prey movement buff. All went well. When they came to advance in to throw spears and two get melee range. I then need a CMD check because he thought he had done the Tough call with Rhupert but had instead done Dirge of Mists. I failed that check so the Trackers killed nothing and could now not reform back into the zone and contest it. So he got some easy kills on them and scored in my zone with the solo. Highly annoying was that he managed to dominate his own zone this turn as well so took an early lead on the control points.

Seeing that things were not great, the entire tracker front had collapsed without a fight (one I was confident about victory in), yet in dominating the zone Kreoss had put himself in range of a warp speed Feral. Now he had Holy Ward on himself, was camping 2 and had a pair of warjacks in between. One of which was enlivened. So I had to get through two Warjacks to deal with a Def16 Arm19 'caster. No problems. Megalith was stone ported in, put up his animus and threw the Reckoner (the enlivened one) at something of mine to get it out of the way. He then used Geomancy to put Curse of Shadows upon the Redeemer. Job done, the jacks are now no longer a problem and Kreoss is at Def14. Next up was the Gorax who put Primal on the Feral and charged at the Errant solo. Revenge for an easy score was going to be mine. But no, he didn't die. No bother that was only petty revenge. The real show was coming up.

Showtime! Kreoss being Def14 thanks to Undergrowth and the Feral at Mat9 thanks to Primal was 5+ to hit, also thanks to Primal the need to warp speed was offset with the damage buff side putting me to P+S17. So -2 for damage rolls. With 3 initials and 3 fury to buy attacks (after the charge) I was confident in this one. Charge attack, 4. Second claw, 4. Bite hits! -3 for this one...3 damage. Buy a claw, 4. Buy a claw, HITS! This one does what it was supposed to and knocks a good chunk out of him. Enough to make it so that if this last Claw hits I can finish it off on a slightly above average damage roll...so naturally I got a 4 to hit. Do you think it is because claw and four kinda rhyme? So yeah desperation kicks in. I stare at it and think, a good Crevasse might help...Kreoss can't be hit by spells...but my Wilder can! She gets sacrificed to put another couple of damage onto Kreoss. His turn comes around and he uses the Redeemer to kill the objective, the Vessal of Judgment to push Megalith away and re-dominate his zone and then win on scenario.

I am totally blaming dice. I could have easily contested my zone during turn 2 but forgot to after the trackers failed the test so they couldn't reform back into it. I should have run the Gorax in, but didn't. My fault I know...but it was totally the dice.

I need to take that step back and start rethinking when things go badly like that, damage limitation was not on my list of cards. It needs to be.

The Storms Wrath

Right so my return game to Circle was a shaky one, I need to get reacquainted with both building a list for Hordes and how to play Circle again. Which is exactly what I expected. So to start todays blog I shall go into my thought process in building my list and then have a brief run through of my first game back.

Building the list!

First thing is first, I needed to pick a 'lock. Now I usually love playing Krueger2, but thought that I would keep him back bench for a short time and get used to something a bit different. I chose Krueger1, because I love Krueger too much. Looking at his cards he does a lot of infantry killing with lightning. Fair enough, means the rest of the list doesn't need to be too heavy on that.

For the battlegroup I chose my standard 1 light and 2 heavies for 35pts. It gives enough flexibility for fury and I can keep going after loosing a beast without too much stress. My loadout was Gorax, Feral and a Stalker. The idea being that these guys will kill hard targets and Warpwolves are the things for those jobs. The Gorax provides both Primal and a 4 Fury 4pts beast so is an amazing return. He is also a surprisingly good combat light for the endgame.

Troops needed to be something cheap, 35pts doesn't give a massive amount of wiggle room for taking fancy stuff. I decided to take the Wolves of Orboros. First because they are cheap, at 6pts for a full unit they make for good fodder and secondly for the Wolf Lord. Morriag loves him some Wolves for flank and I am fully intending on taking him too. Krueger can give the Wolves a bit more protection against ranged attacks but to be fair, they will still die to any hits. Only blast damage is a bit more iffy. The next two units are the ubiquitous shifting stones, 2 units of which give me plently of options. I have decided against the UA because after the battlegroup, Wolves, Stones and Morriag I would only have 2pts left and I had a plan for those two points. Still, Stealth on the stones can sometimes hinder Krueger who can use them to get Chain Lightning into spell immune or Stealth infantry. With that, healing, fury control, teleports and getting in the way of things for my opponents Shifting Stones are a good 2pts buy.

Solos were easy, Morriag because he hits like a truck, a charge with Flank is looking at MAT12 with a P+S of 13 with 5d6 damage. He is also highly mobile at SPD8 with light cav movement and if all that isn't enough go and try putting Lightning Strike on him. The Stalkers animus makes for some ridiculious movement after a kill. Charge 11" (with reach as well) kill something and then trigger both Lightning Strike and light cav for a 13" post killing advance. The other solos were a pair of Gallows Groves. Bcause what is a spellslinging Warlock without a way to channel.

so the list at the end of this was,
Krueger the Stormwrath
Gorax
Feral Warpwolf
Warpwolf Stalker

Wolves of Orboros
Shifting Stones x2

Wolf Lord Morriag
Gallows Groves x2

35pts

I seemingly had most bases covered. I was a bit surprised by the game I had, which was a Haravich theme force with 3 heavies, Black Ivan, a Spriggan and the newest Clamjack, the Demolisher? A wall of steel I was never getting through in a positive piece trade. These were backed up with a min Winter Guard one of each weapon crew and Joe. Maybe a few other bits but thats what I recall.

We played Incurstion and the middle flag vanished, I put up with a ranged bombardment and got a CP off the leftmost flag. Things got close and Krueger started casting Tornado every turn and one of the 'jacks and I was sneaking ahead on the CP's. I decided to go for the Domination on the rightmost flag and cast Skyborne to fly over a tower to get there, I then cast Tornado at the Spriggan in melee with my Gorax (he had charged and killed the Stalker) judging that a good throw will free up the Gorax to run and block LOS to any shooters and the Spriggan would be KD'd facing the wrong direction and too far away to get at Krueger I opted to burn all the fury and boost. I threw the Spriggan 2" not great so a shifting stone teleported next to it to prevent anything. I was sure he was out but I like safety nets when I burn all my Fury.

I had made a mistake, a horrible one. I had judged the spriggan down and out. Not at all. He allocated 3 to it, activated Black Ivan and shot the stone away. Cast Jump Start (stand up and face any direction, uh oh) then cast Escort (+2" of move for battlegroup models in his CTRL, double uh oh) and charged Krueger, he was just in. With needing 9's on the charge he boosted and hit, the charge left me on 4hps. His last focus he bought an attack, needing an 11 now. He got it. Krueger was paste. A very unexpected charge and some very unlikely dice. But thats what happens, I got cockey and paid the price. I got up to 4 CP's and if I had survived that I would have won on scenario. Well played Sir.

2 for 2

Well finally got a bit of time to sit down and post the results of Sundays day out. If you can't guess I went 2-2 and managed to place 8/16. Not too shabby, well it might be, I'm not entirely sure all 16 were there so am in the lower half by the looks of things.

I got there and realised I had left stormwalls cards at home, I have been testing eHaley with Thunderhead and a Stormclad and had that set up in my card sleeves. So I only played the first game with her, using war room. I hate war room for gaming, it just doesn't work.

So, quick run down:

Game 1, eHaley vs Harbringer. I forgot to feat the right turn so ended up pretty ovewhelmed, managed to open up a gap and waltzed Stormwall around a few models to punch harbringer in the face. The gap I made was literally a cockhair at either side and we had to get the wreck marker for him out and wiggle it about to see if he would even fit. He did, and a 9" advance around all his army to get there is a beautiful thing. I took only 1 free strike from a choir boy. nothing to worry about there.

Game 2, Kara vs Borka (family reunion). There are times you feel like an absolute tit...This was one of them. I got second, but the speed that Boomhowler is across the table in that theme force threw me a bit and I didn't even try contesting zones in my second turn, he scored 2 in my turn and dominated in his turn to score another 3. 5 to win. Game over, lost by accident. Oh dear me.

Game 3, Kara vs eThagrosh. Between Boomhowler running and tying down the Hex Hunters and then Long Gunners putting covering fire over them he lost an entire unit over a couple of turns. That freed up the zone while Thagrosh was bumbling over to the flag to dominate. His beasts were traded for mine and Kara really went to town gunning down anything that she could. In the end massive attrition victory. Oh and one more thing, even a Blinded Carvivean managed to wreck my Defender in one activation. Brutal, I charged him after blinding reasoning it was more effective and pretty safe. Never make that mistake again, those things are scary.

Game 4, Kara vs Vlad3. Great opening, managed to take down his gun carrige so the only heavy thing against me was Torch. These was a mass scrimmage going down in the middle which Boomhowler was starting to loose for me but I had him backed up. Then I forgot to trigger Refuge on kara leaving her in a pretty bad spot. Still not too bad...Yeah did you know Vlad3 has a feat which grants Sidestep? I actually did but still tried to get bodies in front of her, you know...to stop that charge that was pretty much out of distance anyway...


I had a great time though, it can be a bit of a mixed crowd in leeds but I got good opponents all day and quite enjoyed myself. Is just a shame I got locked into Kara the last three games due to forgetting a card. 

Submitted Lists

So, I tried to get Nemo2 up and running. I failed and couldn't get him to twig for me. I really want to have a list with the old boy up and running but it won't be for Leeds this Sunday, unfortunatly I can't seem to keep him safe during the scenarios. Every game I have played I have built up the momentum and then watched as my opponent sidestepped the Stormwall and killed him. It'll take more games and many tweaks untill I am comfortable with him. So, last minute and I only have one list. I have had to fall back on an old faithful, the queen of all Cygnar. eHaley. Yeah sorry, I chickened out.

I did have to sneak a Stormwall into her list. I aint paying for one only to leave it at home for the years first tournament of the year, Thankfully that was easy, I usually have a Stormclad and Defender. Switch. eEyriss is in the Sloan list so she became 3 Stormsmiths, as is Gorman who became Arlan Strangeways. 

eHaley +5pts
Squire -2pts
Thorn -8pts
Stormwall -19pts

Stormblades and UA -8pts
Gun Mages and UA -8pts

Stormsmiths x3 -3pts
Captian Arlan Strangeways -2pts
Journeyman Warcaster -3pts
Rhupert Carvolo -2pts

To put this in comparison and to be complete the Sloan list is below, this thankfully had testing to the point that I was comfortable with.

Kara Sloan -6pt
Avenger -9pts
Defender -9pts

Gun Mages with UA -8pts
Long Gunners, max with UA -12pts
Boomhowler and Co, max -9pts

Journeyman Warcaster -3pts
Reinholdt -1pt
Gorman di Wulfe -2pts
eEyriss -3pts

On the painting front I have been pretty busy, the sloan list is 100% painted now. The eHaley list has the stormblades needing finishing (about 40% through), the Stormsmiths (about 20% through) and the Stormwall needs finishing (who is about 45%).

For this event I have painted, Kara Sloan, Long Gunners and UA, Boomhowler and Co, Arlan Strangeways, Reinholdt and eEyriss. Oh, lets not forget Viktor Pendrake, who was dropped from the Sloan list in one of the early tweaks, Nemo2 who no longer gets a list and Thunderhead. His techno-pet. At least you got painted guys.

Nemo and Thunderhead are some of my favorite minis, been enjoying painting them and the practise games where they were getting slapped about. Quick sneaky glimpse of Stormwall there too. His upper half is done mostly, it's his legs need the paint then onto washes. Getting there but still so much work needs doing.

Quick pair of boomhowler shots, he still needs eyes but thats a 2 second job. Anyway thats all folks, I have another practise game tomorrow hopefully so will give the eHaley list a quick whirl but I know her well enough to know that the list should work well enough. Just a bit upset I couldn't find Nemo.

Baldur2 vs Asphyxious3 (good few pics)

I was under the impression I would be against a colossal this week, I had asked one of the guys at the club for a game knowing full well he had been bought one for his birthday so would likely be out and about with it. He did not dissapoint, the Kraken was unleashed.

I'm just gonna jump straight into it. I took photos at the end of each turn as well as a couple just because they made me chuckle.

Standard first turn,. Druids cloud covered and everyone got into position, we were playing (Incursion?) the Scenario with 3 flags and a random one goes 'pop'

His first turn was to jam the central and left flags with ashen vailed mcthralls and send the Kraken over to the right hand flag, the Kraken also fired that massive cannon of his at the druids bagging two. First blood to Cryx. The left hand objective vanished handing me an advantage (I had put nowhere near enough over there to contend with a tide of thralls instead putting full force into dropping the Kraken).

Apparently the last Circle guy he went against had a lot of trouble clearing mcthralls, after a barrage of druidic magic only a steaming pile of body parts and a single mcthrall were left alive. Even the stitch thrall bit the dust under the concentrated attack so no rebuilding for you Mr Cryx. Baldur feated this turn and put a wall down to protect the Stalker and Guardian from the deadly embrace of a pistol wraith which is just out of shot on the right there.

And there he is! Though he turned his attention on the Druids instead claiming the lives of two of them. The Kraken had a few more and the crazy harpoon helljack had another few. Leaving one druid alive...the Pistol wraith claimed a CP for Cryx. Asphyxious also feated this round...

Baldur went and avenged the fallen Druids by charging and destroying the helljack, Then hopping back over the wall thanks to Lightning Strike from the Wilder. The stalker moved in front as a bit more protection the Gorax tried to claim the Pistol Wraith but failed the charge so the Guardian had a go. Claiming the Objective for Circle.

When your opponent feats it is usually a good idea to pay attention, this was his focus pool after allocation. Apparently he would have been healing too but I hadn't managed to get a bead on his so that part made no odds. Still...thats a lot of focus. Shame he got Diced really, he threw 2 Hex blasts at megalith and both missed and both scattered badly. The third hit and removed his animus so he could apply a few thralls and the withershadow to his stoney face.

 The Kraken took down the Guardian and Megalith got swarmed, thankfully Roots of the Earth kept him kicking.

It hardly seems fair does it? Heres a hit boys and girls, dont turn your back on the giant tentacle monster.

The kraken had been lured in. Time to bag the prey, the stalker went first. Due to a frenzy on the Gorax he didn't get primal but still took down most of the right had side. Baldur got teleported over and went ape on the thing, destroying the Kraken and claiming another CP for me. Hurray!

Now I had a picture of the last turn, but I accidentally deleted it. Basically he needed to kill Baldur as anything he sent over would be killed and I'd claim another point...he decided to use Asphyxious. He measured and might be able to make it. Not entirely clear as he had to take an odd angle due to avoiding the Stalkers base. He cast mobility, camped 5 and charged. Out by a 1/4". The stalker headbutted him so he was prone atop his beloved (and utterly destroyed Kraken) and Baldur liberally applied Tritus to his face untill he stopped moving. P+S19 makes a mockery of overboosted powerfields.


To conclude the list worked quite nicely, the flag vanished in my favour even if it did bring all the action over towards the colossal. Oh, and don't f*** with Baldur.