Feeling Lethargic

Jim and I were supposed to play a 750 game at GUGS today, but alas the QMU was closed due to the Easter holidays (philistines!). Luckily I'd arrived at about the same time as Jim at the QMU and so we migrated to Jim's house to play instead, though without the company of other gamers - I had hoped to return some heavy books to Thomas but he seems to be avoiding me. Perhaps he can sense my epicness shining through now that I'm playing eMagnus.

I'm not really sure my brain can cope with writing a full battle report but I'll see what I can do. This may be filled out in greater detail later.

Game One: Supreme Kommandant Irusk vs Magnus the Warlord
Scenario: No Man's Land (although we both forgot about it)

Jim's List: 750/750
Supreme Kommandant Irusk
*Behemoth (I did ask why)
Doom Reavers
Greylord Ternion
Iron Fang Pikemen (8)
+Iron Fang Officer and Standard
Kossite Woodsmen (8)
Widowmakers
Winter Guard Mortar Crew
Manhunter
Man-o-War Drakhun (+dismount)

Andy's List: 750/750
Magnus the Warlord
+Nomad
+Renegade (bonded)
+Renegade (bonded)
Kayazy Assassins (8)
+Kayazy Assassin Underboss
Lady Aiyana and Master Holt
Steelhead Halberdiers (9)
Steelhead Heavy Cavalry (3)
Eiryss, Angel of the Retribution
Kell Bailoch
Lord Rockbottom, Expedition Financier
Rupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord
Stannis Brocker, Steelhead Commander

Deployment:
The board is pretty heavy with terrain - almost all of it linear obstacles and the like. I win the starting roll and opt to go first. The Kayazy Assassins take the right, eMagnus and his battlegroup are on the left with the Steelheads in the middle. Eiryss and Kell take up positions on the left near the centre of the board. Aiyana and Holt stay between eMagnus' battlegroup and the Steelhead block.
Jim puts his Iron Fangs in a bunch to my left between a house and a fence, eIrusk is next to them with Greylords spaced out evenly behind everything. The Behemoth and the Mortar Crew hold the right side of the centre. The Kossites take up position on top of Jim's TV where we all forget about them. Finally his Doom Reavers go up on the right in front of the Behemoth, and the Widowmakers take positions behind a wall just in front of Jim's deployment zone. I almost forgot about the damned Manhunter in the middle of the table behind a line of barrels.

Turn One:
Stannis gives the Furious Charge order to the Steelhead Heavy Cavalry. The Piper of Ord gives the cavalry March straight away - the Manhunter is in charge range - and away they go. Unfortunately they miss everything against Manhunter and I cry into my non-existent beard. Kell tries to shoot a couple of Widowmakers and fails miserably. Eiryss attempts the same with no success. eMagnus casts Mobilize and Lethargy (targeting my cavalry), everything else pretty much runs forward and towards the zone in the middle, I stupidly turn the Kayazy to face AWAY from the table edge having forgotten Jim has those sneaky Kossites sitting on top of the television (such a cunning place to hide them).

Jim starts things off by having the Manhunter charge Kell, I miss my free strike from the cavalry engaging him due to negative Lethargy still being up. I resign myself to having bad dice all game at this point. Kell dies horribly, though it does look like the Manhunter is going to follow suit on my turn. The Doom Reavers move forward to engage my cavalry but only kill one of them. The Behemoth and Mortar Crew drop some templates on some Steelheads and Renegade A. The Widowmakers come out from behind their wall but otherwise don't see a lot of action this turn.

Turn Two:
Stannis Brocker activates first, tells my cavalry to Furious Charge and then charges the Manhunter almost directly in front of him, Ghengis Khan promptly misses. eMagnus casts Misdirection and Mobilize. eMagnus and his Renegades swing around back towards the middle of the board, while the Nomad advances up the right flank. I quickly realise I've let the Nomad get outside my control area, but oh well. My Kayazy run again up the left flank and ONCE AGAIN turn away from the table edge - immediately afterwards I glance at the television and see all those Kossite Woodsmen sitting there. Eiryss heads very far up the left flank and caps a Widowmaker. The two cavalrymen I have left declare cavalry charges through the Doom Reavers, killing three of them but one makes his tough check thanks to eIrusk.
Jim starts his turn by bringing in the Kossites and killing half the Kayazy Assassins - fortunately the Underboss still lives. eIrusk drops an Artifice of Deviation over a patch of rough terrain and moves forward to activate his feat. The surviving Doom Reavers move through the Artifice of Deviation to mince the remaining Steelhead Heavy Cavalry, most of the Halberdiers and with some help from the Drakhun they disable the Nomad. The Manhunter kills Stannis Brocker with very little fuss and then the Behemoth blows the left arm off Renegade A. The Greylords drop a whole load of blizzards on the Iron Fangs around eIrusk.

Turn Three:
Most of my army is caught by eIrusk's feat, except for Aiyana and Holt, eMagnus, a Renegade, eEiryss and my Kayazy. I can also see a very solid assassination run, except that it revolves around a Halberdier killing a very specific Doom Reaver. I did get the sequence of activation slightly wrong for this.
I allocate one focus to Renegade B. I move Renegade A back and out of the way (instead of forwards and into the Manhunter's way) and the Kayazy on the left move to engage a Widowmaker or two and get closer to eIrusk. eMagnus casts Mobilize and moves forward to spray a few Iron Fang Pikemen, managing to kill the Officer and a normal trooper. I then use Kill Box and select my table edge and Jim's table edge in case my assassination run fails miserably.
The keystone of the assassination attempt comes along, can my two surviving Halberdiers kill the Doom Reaver that's occupying my firing location for Renegade B? evidently... no, they can't. Aiyana and Holt move across to the left and attempt to land Harm on eIrusk anyway, Aiyana fails and so Holt shoots some Doom Reavers instead. Renegade B opts to run to the left and hopefully I can drop a rocket on eIrusk next turn. To herald the end of my turn eEiryss moves forward to kill a Greylord.

I've caught almost all of Jim's army in eMagnus' feat, but eMagnus is extremely exposed. Jim decides to drop bombard shells all over eMagnus and then attempts to shoot poor eMagnus with eIrusk's gun. When the smoke settles he's still got 10 health. Jim tries to get a Widowmaker into a position to shoot eMagnus but one takes a free strike from a Kayazy and then the remaining Widowmaker flees. I chortle happily.
Then Jim activates the Manhunter, who can still charge eMagnus, they're directly left of each other. I ready the marker pen to mark down ludicrous amounts of damage. The charge attack misses! I silently thank the Dice Gods. The second attack hits however and removes 9 health from eMagnus, alas Jim doesn't have anything else left to attack eMagnus with, even though my warcaster is sitting at a single point of health. The Greylords move forward and hose a couple of the Kayazy just out of spite and Jim ends his turn.

We calculated our VPs in the scenario zone this turn since most tournaments call time in the third turn. I had 6 VPs to Jim's 5. Go mercs!

Turn Four:
Well, eMagnus is still alive, eIrusk hasn't moved and now I might just pull it off. Two focus go to Renegade B. eMagnus activates first and moves around the side of the Manhunter so that there's no dispute on free strikes and the like when Aiyana and Holt move past later. I cast Mobilize and then miss both attacks against the Manhunter. No matter, if I fail this I'm so very dead. Renegade B steps up to the plate, moves up but can't quite get into Scatter-Doesn't-Matter range and it still manages to land a rocket on eIrusk. Eat that! eIrusk does not seem impressed with my impressive damage roll either...
eEiryss moves back around a house so she can see eIrusk and shoots him, removing the two focus he had on him. Even with no focus she fails to damage him. Aiyana and Holt move up behind the Manhunter, drop Harm on eIrusk and Holt finishes the job.

Thoughts:
There's so many things that could have gone wrong for eMagnus in this game. If he'd failed a channelling roll and taken a point of damage, if the Widowmaker had passed their command check, if the Manhunter had rolled one more damage... Next time I'll just upkeep Misdirection and figure out how to work with the rest of my focus.
This also heralds my first genuine victory over Jim - in previous victories we'd done such things as swap armies or he was using a gimped warcaster (though I play Mercenaries, so clearly all my warcasters are gimped). I may even break out the Happy Dance.


Game Two doesn't deserve a real report, we can safely say that eButcher with 12 rage tokens and a full unit of Doom Reavers ate eMagnus. Maybe if I give eMagnus a more interesting base then he'd survive the pitiful onslaught of these non-character troopers...
I have started to add snow to my bases, and for the most part they look better! There are some exceptions, but those are mostly because some of the snow broke off or the brush accidentally left some 'drift'.