My friend has a large Khador army, though he hasn't played a ton of games lately. We're both trying to get "tournament ready", so if we make mistakes here, please don't get TOO angry at us :)
At any rate, Khador is quite a bit different than Skorne...
Game 1: Circle (eKreuger) vs. Khador (Strakhov) 50 Points
My list:
eKreuger
-Ghettorix
-Pureblood Warpwolf
-Megalith
-Gorax
Shifting Stones
-Unit Attachment
Shifting Stones
Wold Stalkers
Wold Stalkers
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew
Blackclad Wayfarer
Gallows Grove
Gallows Grove
His List (roughly):
Strakhov
-Spriggan
-Torch
-Berzerker
Assault Kommandos x10
-Weapon Attachment
Kayazy Assassins x10
-Underboss
Doom Reavers
-Greylord Escort
Kovnik Malakov
The Mission:
We had 3 flags along the center line. One on the right or left would disappear at the bottom of turn 1. Only the outside flag could be dominated for 2 points. Center one was only ever worth 1 point.
He won the roll to go first, and took it. I lazily kept the side of table I was already on (and in every single other game played that day, ha).
Pre-game thoughts:
I wasn't sure what exactly to expect. I assumed that Strakhov's buffs along with everyone else's buffs made his Jacks really good in combat. Everything else was also really good at combat.
Mostly, I expected him to charge in and mess me up as quick as he could. No real plans to deal with this - I wanted to keep the objective in mind, since eKreuger is pretty good at that sort of thing.
Deployment:
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| Aren't Doom Reavers awesome? He later realized he was 6 points short, and added a Berzerker to his list. Deployment doesn't reflect this. |
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| I was planning on going for the center objective, but discovered after I had deployed that it was worth fewer points. Doh! |
Khador Turn 1:
Ah, my favorite opponent turn in Warmachine. He mostly just moved up quickly and didn't hurt any of my models :)
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| He wasn't as aggressive as I thought he would be. I figured he'd be in my lines ASAP, but Don didn't use his full move on the infantry. |
I moved up some so that I could threaten the objectives next turn, casting Storm Wall for fun and putting up the Gobber smoke.
His position made it um, problematic, to get too close to the objectives, giving me a weak board presence. I'll have to remember that for future games.
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| With those stealthed Kayazy on the right side, I was really hoping for the right-hand objective to disappear. |
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| Instead, the left-hand one disappeared. Yikes :) |
He moved his dudes up, to hold the objectives, though we later discovered that his units weren't actually close enough together to score on them. Learning process :)
Really, he didn't have much that could injure me yet. He had a few AOEs that scattered off, and that was about it.
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| Sorry for sideways shot - messes with the formatting to turn it other side. Only two pictures like this. Note that the Kayazy are trying to engage the Stalkers on the far right. Didn't realize I could Zephyr, I suppose. |
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| Another picture of the same thing. Note that while he's in B2B with the objectives, he isn't holding them because his unit isn't close enough to hold it. We realized this before we gave him points. |
His "Torch" character was pretty close, and I decided to have Ghettorix kill it.
Wold Stalkers activated, Zephyr'd up and killed most of Don's Doom Reavers to clear a path.
Megalith used Telekinesis to move Torch 2" closer, and to turn him around.
Stones warped Ghetto up within 1/2" of Torch.
Ghetto activated, warped for STR, and started hitting the 'jack. POW19 x 5 hits and his bite ended up doing some damage, but I missed one of my attacks (snake eyes) and I rolled multiple super low damage rolls. As such, I hadn't actually even taken a single system off of Torch. :-/
So, I brought my Gallows Grove up to the right angle.
Kreuger activated moved over to pull/TK Torch out of combat with Ghetto, then cast Storm Wall.
Left Stones warped the Pureblood up to B2B w/ Torch.
Pureblood Warped for STR and finished him off.
Gorax assaulted and killed two Doom Reavers.
Gobbers put out their smoke ring, and the Stalkers on the right Zephyr'd backward and killed a few Kayazy Assassins. Note that while I targeted the wrong Kayazy (we forgot about Stealth), he only lost a couple, and it wouldn't have mattered much for scoring purposes anyways.
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| Disastrous move there - Ghetto was supposed to single-handedly kill Torch. On average or even slightly below average dice he does. Sigh. |
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| Now Ghetto is way overexposed, and sacrificed for no apparently good reason. Whoops. At least most of the Doom Reavers are dead? |
Kayazy attacked and killed most of my right-hand stones.
Berzerker attacked Ghettorix and killed him single-handedly.
THEN Berzerker blew up because of his expended Fury. HA!
Spriggan assaulted my overexposed (for no real good reason) Gorax, and killed him.
Kommandos shot each other in the back of the head for a weird smoke/cloud effect.
Finally, Strakhov went into B2B w/ the right objective, and earned 2 CP. Ut oh...
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| Not a great turn for Circle. I didn't need to lose the Gorax - he was misplaced like crazy! |
Circle Turn 3:
I had a coulple objectives: I needed to clear out the center objective, and contest Strakhov's objective, so that he didn't auto-win the game on his turn 4.
So, I warped a grove into some stones and double-warped them into within 4" of the objective.
Blackclad shot up some Kommandos.
Stalkers on the left shot up some Kommandos.
Stone Keeper shot up some Kommandos
Kreuger shot up the remaining Kommandos, and used TK on the Pureblood to get him closer to Spriggan. He then went into B2B with the center objective, and popped his feat, shoving Strakhov and the Spriggan backward.
Megalith moved up and punched two screening Kayazy Assassins.
Pureblood warped for STR and charged the Spriggan, nearly killing it, but falling short.
I earned 1 CP, and Strakhov didn't earn any.
Score: 1-2, Advantage Khador
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| At the point immediately before my turn ended, I thought that the score would be 2-2, but it turned out that old Kreuger couldn't dominate the middle objective for more than 1 point. Still, it was looking fairly positive for me. He didn't have much left, and I still had two largely unharmed heavies. |
Spriggan killed the Pureblood with 3 Focus allocated. :-/
Kayazy finished off the Wold Stalker unit, but did so in a way which allowed them to face toward "his" objective on the right. Ignoring free strikes is such a nice power :)
Strakhov shot up my Gallows Grove and walked over to dominate the objective again for 2 points.
I got 1 point for my own objective.
Score: 2-4, advantage Khador.
Circle Turn 4:
I needed to make sure that he couldn't score again, or I would lose. Luckily, Megalith still had lots of health.
Megalith activated and punched the Spriggan some, but it survived.
Kreuger used TK on Megalith to drag him into the Stones' triangle. Kreuger then used TK to turn the Spriggan around to face away from Stalkers.
Stalkers used Zephyr to get in range and finish off Spriggan.
Blackclad warped over to be close to the Kayazy, for no apparent reason.
Gobbers used their cloud effect to attempt to screen Kreuger from the Journeyman caster on the hill in the middle, but don't do a very good job of it.
Stones teleport Megalith over to BTB with the objective.
I score another point!
3-4, Advantage Khador.
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| Now the question: can 4 Kayazy + Strakhov kill a full life Megalith? |
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| If Megalith can survive, he will probably be able to finish off Strakhov on his own. |
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| Kreuger is still pointlessly dominating the objective. I should have moved him closer to Strakhov or at least farther away from the Journeyman caster. |
Strakhov popped his feat and charged Megalith, but failed to do much damage.
Kayazy charged the Megalith but failed to kill him.
Megalith at that point had exactly 4 life remaining. Something did set him on fire though, so I would need to take a check to see if it went out.
Journeyman warcaster moved up and took a shot at Kreuger, doing a couple points of damage. He also managed to get within 4" of the objective to keep me from scoring this turn.
Score: 3-4, Advantage Khador.
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| Essentially, my game plan for next turn is to heal Megalith some, then have him punch Strakhov. Seems like a fairly straightforward win... |
First thing, I rolled my (in my mind) inconsequential continuous fire effect. I failed it, so he rolled damage.
I had ARM 19, so the roll would be dice minus seven. In other words, he would need an 11+ to kill Mega.
He rolled and....
....
....
....
....
....
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| Oh no!! The game suddenly just got a WHOLE LOT more interesting, HAHA! |
I needed to contest his objective, kill the Journeyman Warcaster, and set it up to keep Strakhov from killing whatever of mine is contesting his objective. Essentially, this turn would win or lose the game for me.
Gobbers decided to sprint over to the objective, but forgot to spread out.
Blackclad moved to within 4" of the objective.
We were playing that the Stones only needed a single model within 4" of the objective to contest, though I'll need to read the mission again to see if that was alright. Anyways, one stone was within 4".
Stalkers easily killed the Journeyman (I actually think I 1-shotted him with lucky dice, ha!)
Druid got back shots on the Kayazy and killed all of them with his spray. Very lucky roll on my part.
Kreuger, finally realizing that I didn't need to have him in B2B with the middle objective, dithered on what to do.
I was playing under the (incorrect) assumption that he only had a 1-shot gun. So I decided to hide from Strakhov, and win through objectives in Strakhov's turn.
Goes to show you need to know your own rules well, as the 3 shots from his gun would probably have just killed Strakhov.
I scored another CP, tying the game at 4 each.
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| Gobbers are bravely facing off vs. Strakhov. |
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| He only had one model left, though that model was his most important! |
Strakhov had a lot of stuff to kill.
First, he used his AOE gun 1/2 away from the gobbers, essentially guaranteeing it wouldn't scatter. They both died easily.
He then used his spell "Battering Ram" to push the Druid backwards (somehow didn't kill him).
Then, he used his final Focus to cast "Battering Ram" on the contesting stone. I believe he needed an 11 to kill the stone, and...
he got it.
This meant he was clear to score another 2 points, but I also scored a point.
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| Bested by his final model :) |
Postgame thoughts:
Well, I obviously made a lot of mistakes. First was not understanding the rules as well as I should have. I didn't realize Kreuger's gun was ROF3 (thought Kreuger1 had that, not Kreuger2). I didn't realize that the center flag was only worth 1 point for domination. I had the Gorax way out of position. My feat wasn't popped at an optimal time.
I'm sure you all noticed mistakes that I'm not good enough to recognize yet :)
I also had some poor luck - Ghettorix doing essentially nothing against a target he nearly always dismantles put me way out of range. The fire roll vs. Megalith was SO EPIC, but barring all other factors, it single-handedly lost the game for me.
Very close, good game, over all.
In the future, I need to threaten the side objectives more, since they're worth more. Also, since I deployed second, I really should have put the Pureblood + Druid on the right so I could spray the Kayazy sooner. They were kind of wasted on the Doom Reavers.
I'll do better in the future, and have a better list as well, hopefully!
We then decided to change casters.
I brought my Baldur1 list:
Baldur1
-Woldwrath
-Wold Guardian
10x Bloodtrackers
Druids
-UA
Shifting Stones
-UA
Shifting Stones
Swamp Gobbers
Blackclad Wayfarer
Gallows Grove
Gallows Grove
His List (again, from memory):
Karchev
-Beast 09
-Devastator
-Spriggan
-Destroyer
Kayazy Eliminators
Kayazy Eliminators
4x Widowmakers
Widowmaker Marksman
Journeyman Warcaster (same as last game)
The mission:
We had a big zone in the middle. Our template was a 10" diameter, so we just said that it extended an extra inch in each direction. We also each had an objective, which was worth 1 CP for the opponent to destroy.
Don won the roll to go first, and took it, again.
Deployment:
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| I chose the rightmost unit of Kayazy as "Prey" |
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| Isn't the Woldwrath huge? Seriously, I'm super impressed, though his abilities/points aren't exactly reflective of his size disparity. Look at the tiny Guardian next to him :) |
Pregame Thoughts:
I was severely outnumbered in the "big guy" count - he had 5 jacks, and while mine were both solid (you could argue that the Wrath is worth 2 jacks), I was still going to lose an attrition matchup, unless I was a little sneaky.
I knew I couldn't kill his ridiculous ARM 25 guy before he got to me, but I knew that the other ones were fair game. My goal was to use the Druids and drag one of his Jacks close to me, shift the Guardian into B2B with it, and pummel it w/ POW 19 attacks. Then Baldur could pop his feat, and I'd be safe for a turn, where I could do the same thing, only also getting the Wrath into combat for a turn as well, hopefully only leaving Don with Karchev + one of the Jacks.
Let's see if my elaborate plans worked out.
Khador Turn 1:
Don moved everyone up pretty quick. He used a spell (Redline?) to make the Devastator go up even faster, taking 3 points of damage for his troubles.
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| He's already in the zone... bleh. |
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| Guess I felt the need to take a full-board picture. |
He wouldn't be in range to do anything to me next turn, so I decided to play it cool and only advance a little bit. My troopers were pretty congested, which was a big mistake on my part.
Woldwrath decided to try shooting the Devastator, and rolled high enough that I believe he got about 5 points of damage on him, despite the ARM 25. Heh. It arced over to another jack, and it chuckled at the POW 10.
Gobbers used their smoke bubble.
Baldur put Stone Skin on the Guardian, and also put up Solid Ground on himself, then placed a forest in the middle of the zone to make unforeseen shenanigans against me less likely.
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| What will the next turn hold? |
Don moved his guys up to make sure he controlled the zone thoroughly, but not overly aggressively.
Kayazy Eliminators who are Preyed hid behind the Jack wall.
He had a couple AOEs, but the damage was mostly contained by Solid Ground preventing blast damage.
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| Could I kill a Jack this turn? |
Circle Turn 2:
My goal was to kill one of his big guys this turn, then pop the feat.
Bloodtrackers were in the way, so I ran them up between the zone and the forest to threaten everything next turn.
Druids moved up and pulled his Spriggan really close.
Stones activated and teleported Guardian to B2B w/ Spriggan.
Guardian (with Stone Skin still up) went to town, and destroyed the Spriggan on the final hit.
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| Guardian may not look like much, but he packs a punch! |
Baldur activated and popped his feat, creating rough terrain within his command, and preventing any sort of pathfinder.
Wrath shot another shot at one of the Jacks and did some minor damage.
Unused stones teleported to surround my Guardian.
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| Ball's in Karchev's court now - can he prevent losing all his Jacks before he does significant damage to me? |
First, the Devastator ran out of the way, making a hole for Karchev.
Then, Karchev ran up and changed his facing, facing away from my line. Tow then kicked in, and Beast 09 and the Destroyer popped up, gaining quite a few inches.
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| First stage... |
They then charged through the rough terrain and got into my Wrath pretty easily. Whoops, didn't mean for that to be possible!
They hit him with everything they had and...
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| Woldwrath lives!! And with quite a bit of life left, at that! Guardian took a hit as well, for some reason. |
Eliminators charged the Bloodtrackers, and weren't really able to hurt them too bad.
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| DEF 14 is still a tough nut to crack. |
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| Well, Don did something unexpected to me, but now that he's exposed, I feel alright about this game. |
First, the Wrath activated and moved up to the Destroyer. The Destroyer (who already had some damage on him) promptly died.
Stones by the Guardian warped him over to behind Karchev....
where he proceeded to knock Karchev down, then pummeled him on the ground until he died.
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| See how I killed the Destroyer first, so I could be guaranteed to place the Guardian behind Karchev? Also note that the Wold Wrath knocked Beast 09 and the Devastator down with his punches? Fun model :) |
Results: Win for Circle Orboros!!
Postgame thoughts:
Well, Don actually took this list because he thought it was a terrible matchup for Circle. I admit, most of my lists would have trouble dealing with it. However, I feel like this Baldur list took advantage of Karchev, since the Druids were able to pull one of the Jacks in and make the numbers more even.
I did misplay a couple things, one of which was that my Wrath was up much farther than he should have been. I would have much preferred the Guardian (at ARM 22) to take the damage, as he would have probably lived vs. only one Jack's pummeling (I don't think Don could have gotten two into him, though I could be wrong).
I also misplayed the troopers - I made the area far too congested with models, which messed with my order of activation. I would have been happy to have this order:
1) Druids move up, pull jack close
2) Shift Guardian
3) Have Guardian kill jack
4) Have Bloodtrackers go in and either shoot the prey'd Kayazy, or another jack.
Instead, I had to activate the Bloodtrackers first, which cost me valuable shots.
I'm getting better, though I still have a long way to go. I'm heartened that I can analyze games to find mistakes though - my first few games I didn't even know anything of what I did wrong.
Soon enough, I'll be able to eliminate those mistakes, and identify more nuanced ones.
At least, that's the hope. Always a learning process :)
Next report will see me face off against Retribution (Issirya), then Khador again (Vlad1).
Madness, all of it, you'll get to see me attempt Mohsar, then Baldur1 once again.
Until then, let me know what you think! I'm having a ton of fun getting back into Warmachine!
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