Rat Poison

Had my first 50 rice game tonight, and my first game against the Cult of Yurei, against Mark Bonatti.  It was very fun, though my list may have accidentally countered a good part of his list: I discovered the two shisai are really good at killing Small Rat Swarms with Psychic Venom.

Mark's List:
Ikiryo
Wraith
Armoured Kairai (x2)
Nezumi
Large Rat Swarm
Small Rat Swarm (x3)

My List:
Ayako Ito
Kenzo Ito
Naoko
Sakura
Chiyo
Temple Bushi
Kazuhiko

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Deployment:

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I opted to put my two big hitters with Light Footed behind the forest.  This meant they had the option for going for either the mid or right objective depending on how hard Mark was going to contest the objectives. The shisai went into the middle so that they would be able to channel to models on either side of the board - it wasn't until after the game started when I figured out how to kill those stupid rat swarms.  Finally the two bushi went on the left just so I'd have models to contest the objective.

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Turn One:

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Turn one consisted mainly of running straight for the objectives.  I had two Pass Tokens to use since Mark's army brought the extra Small Rat Swarms.  I used both tokens to delay the shisai activations until the two Small Rat Swarms on the left were in range for some 1 Ki Psychic Venom attacks.  So both Small Rat Swarms died to the poison at the end of the turn, greatly limiting Nezumi's manoeuvrability.  Mark spent the turn doing quite a bit of focusing too - both Nezumi and Ikiryo focused for more Ki.

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Turn Two:

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I spent most of my early activations doing scenario actions as mark moves his Armoured Kairai up and getting his models into position to attack me.  Naoko moved up to blind the Wraith and was attacked in turn by the Wraith.  Luckily I managed to successfully defend with a Side Step Defence, allowing room for Kenzo to come in and absolutely murder the Wraith in a single hit.

Nezumi swaps in to position to attack Ayako - she was very far forward trying to steal some Ki from Ikiryo - but didn't roll enough damage for the first attack and then she managed a desperate defence and Side Step Defence her way out of further trouble.  Kenzo decided that the annoying rat person trying to kill Ayako was an insult to my honour and stabs the yokai, putting a handy poison 2 token down.  Unfortunately Nezumi lives through the turn on a single health and all my efforts to put a Psychic Poison on him fail miserably.

However, all three idols are friendly to me, and I got rid of the Wraith, easily the most directly threatening model in Mark's army.  Naoko is in a position to deal with the rat swarms on the right idol, Kenzo is murdering everything under the sun in the middle of the board, and by some miracle Chiyo and the Temple Bushi are surviving against the Armoured Kairai.

I earn a Victory Point at the end of the turn.

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Turn Three:

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At this point I forgot to take pictures.

Naoko uses Slither to move away from the Large Rat Swarm to Blind Ikiryo again.  So far, so good, then I attack the Large Rat Swarm with her and forget they're durable... whoops.  So I went all out attack and Mark just annihilates my precious snake-lady.  Taking advantage of the vulnerability on my right flank with her sudden death Nezumi teleports to the last Small Rat Swarm and manages to rotate the objective back to neutral.  The Large Rat Swarm moves into Sakura, and I have to sacrifice Kazuhiko to prevent her death.

Ikiryo experiences the wonders of being blind (again) and so just moved up to use the left objective, eventually making it friendly to Mark.  The shisai both try to hit Nezumi with a 1 Ki Psychic Venom in an effort to finish him off and fail miserably.  Kenzo murders the Armoured Kairai in the middle of the board and finishes off the Large Rat Swarm.  The hebi-samurai is reaching for his rampage announcement.

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Turn Four:

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I win the initiative (again) and manage to get Kenzo into melee with Nezumi before he can turn the idol in Mark's favour.  Unfortunately the bloody yokai defends successfully (TWICE) and avoids all the Ki feats from Ayako.  He finally succumbs to a single poison token to my last Psychic Venom from Sakura.  Sakura rotates the idol back into my favour.  On the left the Armoured Kairai gets mangled three times by the Temple Bushi and Chiyo combining their efforts before it finally fails a Rise check.  Mark only has Ikiryo left and it's getting late so we call it quits.

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Synopsis:
I have finally found a use for Psychic Venom: killing monkeys and rats.  It's also good for finishing off enemy models, but if I'm honest the two shisai do seem horrendously expensive for what they do.  Ayako definitely doesn't feel like a 10 rice model.  She probably just needs 1 more in her Ki stat.  With 3 Ki she'd be a very powerful offensive utility piece.

Kenzo was a One Man Army, killing the Wraith, the Large Rat Swarm (eventually), and an Armoured Kairai.  He was unlucky not to get Nezumi, despite attacking the yokai no less than 3 times in a row.  However, Mark was just letting Kenzo run around doing his thing, letting such a mobile samurai model complete freedom is probably a bad idea, especially the Ito samurai with their cheap melee Ki boosts.

Naoko is just a great utility piece, the ranged attack that blinds was pretty much key to keeping Ikiryo from laser-gazing my models constantly.  I'll just have to remember to put dice in defence against durable models. I love using Side Step Defence on her, it allows her to get out of combat and gob blind on key enemy models.

Chiyo and the Temple Bushi have always been solid performers, doing their job and tying up the objectives early.  One of the two usually end up as MVP in my games so far, though I think Naoko earned it this game.

I'm quite happy with the performance of the list, though the models I could target with my shisai were rather limited, but I did find I was constantly trying to use their Ki feats - mainly Psychic Venom in an effort to clear the board of Small Rat Swarms.  It does bode well for playing against other factions though, I'll be able to target a wider variety of models.

Mark list had a good mix of hitting power, durability, and mobility, but I think focusing on turn one with both Ikiryo and Nezumi was a mistake.  This left both of them out of position for the early game, it was probably a good idea if there were more models that want to leech, but with only the two Armoured Kairai, it felt like a bit of a waste from my end.  I did a good job with Naoko getting blind off on the Wraith and Ikiryo throughout the game (it's really hard to miss the Wraith) and Kenzo got very lucky murdering the Wraith in a single hit.  Finally, I killed most of the Small Rat Swarms very early in the game with 1 Ki Psychic Venom attacks, this limited Nezumi's ability to teleport around the idols quite drastically.

I feel like I'm getting a better handle on the Ito Clan models and how they work now, especially the shisai.  My painting goals for this week are to finish up Naoko (who has been 40% done for almost a fortnight now) and get one of the shisai completely done from start to finish.

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'.

Utter Skorne

Once again Saturday was upon us and once again Sebastien had to cancel our game. Luckily for me GUGS was invaded by numerous Warmachine and Hordes players so instead I got another game against Sean Murchie and his Skorne. I like playing against Sean, or at least when he's playing his Skorne, our armies are actually very similar - we're both melee retaliation type armies. I use Forfend and he uses Death March. When he charges my army it takes a long time to sort out all the out-of-activation attacks we both get, but at least there's massive amounts of casualties on both sides.

Sean's List: Skorne 499/500
Lord Tyrant Hexeris
Basilisk Krea
Cyclops Brute
Cyclops Savage
Immortals (6)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (4)
Praetorian Swordsmen (9)
Ancestral Guardian
Ancestral Guardian

Andy's List: Highborne Covenant 497/500
Ashlynn d'Elyse
*Mule
Anastasia di Bray
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist
Lord Rockbottom, Expedition Financier
Ogrun Bokur
Rupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord
Stannis Brocker, Steelhead Commander
Steelhead Halberdiers (8)
Steelhead Heavy Cavalry (3)

Deployment:
There's part of a forest and a big rock in my deployment zone, though Sean has a similar set up. Just ahead of the giant rock in my deployment zone is a fence that was really annoying during the actual game. I win deployment thanks to Anastasia and place the majority of my forces between the forest and the giant rock, though I put the cavalry on the far side of the rock in an effort to let them get out and about quickly. Stannis and the Bokur deploy just ahead of the giant rock so that my Steelheads will benefit from his various abilities immediately.
Sean divides his forces to be on either side of the forest in his deployment zone. I immediately see that I can split his forces and go after each half pretty much separately since my army is so much faster.

Turn One:
Everything runs forward, Ashlynn puts Feint on herself and Quicken on the Halberdiers. Stannis once again demonstrates his incompetence with a Hand Cannon and misses a Praetorian Swordsman.
Sean's army advances, he uses Death Bringer to blow up Anastasia almost immediately - there doesn't seem to be somewhere I can leave her without Death Bringer bring a total pain. Hexeris gives the Praetorian Swordsmen Death March.

Turn Two:
The magic starts to happen.
I give the Mule a single focus so that it should get a critical hit. I activate Ashlynn first and use Roulette, she advances and kills an Immortal with her Hand Cannon. Stannis Brocker activates, gives the Halberdiers the Furious Charge order and manages to kill a Praetorian with his Hand Cannon, luckily the Praetorian is too far away to Death March up to my Halberdiers. The Bokur runs towards my left flank in an effort to get out of the Halberdiers' way.
The Mule fires and crits the Cyclops Savage, throwing it a few inches to the right. Rupert Carvolo uses March on the Halberdiers to give them additional movement and four of the Halberdiers charge the knocked down Savage, Hexeris and a couple of Immortals. The remaining Halberdiers move to screen the Praetorians, the Brute and the second Ancestral Guardian from assisting Hexeris.
Finally my Steelhead cavalry advance and take some pot shots at the Praetorians, managing to kill only one despite Roulette.

Sean's turn heralded a flurry of out-of-activation actions. The Cyclops Savage stands up and moves into the middle of the four attacking Halberdiers, taking three free strikes and a Forfend. This leaves it on a measly two health on its life spiral. Then Sean activates Hexeris, uses his feat and then Death Bringers his own Savage, killing all four Halberdiers and the Savage. The dead Halberdiers then move and take swings at my Mule and the remaining Halberdiers, however Roulette and high ARM saves me from any more losses.
The Praetorians advance into the remaining Halberdiers, taking Forfends all over the place and then Death Marching forward to attempt to kill more Halberdiers. At the end of it all I'm left with two Halberdiers and Sean has four Praetorians left. Both his Ancestral Guardians are looking awfully full on souls at this point. The two Steelheads that died both attack my Bokur, dropping the Ogrun down to four health.
The Ancestral Guardian on my left uses two souls to move and then charge my Mule. The animated statue manages to take out the Mule's movement but nothing else despite putting damage all over the place.

Turn Three:
I allocate a single focus to the Mule as I have a Cunning Plan to get it to shoot more things. Stannis activates first promotes a Halberdier, gives Furious Charge to Steelhead Cavalry. The Halberdiers then charge the Ancestral Guardian on the right, I really didn't want that thing to massacre something important since it was almost full on souls. The two Halberdiers manage to drop the Ancestral Guardian to about half its health. I lament their impending deaths. Lord Rockbottom sets fire to a pair of Immortals and I get to chuckle happily.
The Steelhead Heavy Cavalry charge the Cyclop Brute since there's no room to attack the Ancestral Guardian. The Brute dies to their many, many attacks with Flank.
Ashlynn advances to the other Ancestral Guardian since the Mule is in the way and prevents her from charging. She kills it after two attacks, but is perilously close to the Mule, I can sense the incoming Death Bringers already.
My freed up Mule fires at the Krea and gets another critical hit. The Krea, an Immortal and Hexeris are thrown around. The Krea even lands on a Paingiver. Gorman blinds an Immortal by accident after he discovers that Hexeris was just out of Black Oil range.

Sean drops Death March and attempts to assassinate Ashlynn with a couple of Death Bringers at the Mule next to her. First one does no damage, second one deals her 7 damage. The Krea stands up and uses its animus on my Mule. The surviving Paingivers charge Ashlynn and Gorman. Gorman takes a little damage but survives and Ashlynn kills the Paingiver attacking her with a Riposte attack.
The Ancestral Guardian fighting the remnants of my Halberdiers on the right decides it has had enough of this foolishness and ends them. The remaining Praetorians advance out from behind the Ancestral Guardian.

Turn Four:
Hexeris is blatantly within assassination range of Ashlynn. My only problem is that there's a whole load of things blocking my charge lane or generating a movement penalty on her.
I give the Mule a single focus and opt to move it away from Ashlynn. It fires at the Immortal immediately in front of Hexeris and the Krea and once again scores a critical hit. More throwing ensues and luckily Hexeris doesn't end up six inches further away. However now MORE Immortals are in the way of my charge lane. The Piper of Ord gives March to my remaining cavalryman and then moves to block the Ancestral Guardian on the right just in case I somehow fail to kill Hexeris.
Stannis Brocker then activates and takes a pot shot at a Praetorian Swordsman, missing yet again.
Time for my assassination run. My remaining cavalryman activates and advances into the melee with the two Immortals blocking Ashlynn's charge lane. Between his three attacks he manages to kill both of them. Gorman dies to a free strike from the Paingiver as he attempts to advance and throw a Black Oil on Hexeris. Ashlynn then charges Hexeris and demonstrates the superiority of a Hand Cannon with Weapon Master.

Return of the Traitor

I was supposed to play Sebastien today with his Khador army (of DOOM) but he'd forgotten and instead went to his driving lesson - the bastard. Instead I watched Dermot with his Trollbloods play Penguin (real name... er... Dan?) and his Legion of Everblight. Dermot's entire army was multi-wound models - Champions, Hero, Long Riders, few warbeasts and Penguin's army was... hmm, lacking really. I couldn't see the core of Penguin's army. Anyway, Dermot's Trollbloods dominated everything.

I also got two games against Sean Murchie using his Skorne, the first game was very fast, only two turns each before Ashlynn bit the dust.

Sean's First List:
Lord Tyrant Hexeris
Basilisk Drake
Basilisk Krea
Cyclops Savage (I think, I keep getting confused between the Brute and the Savage)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (4)
Praetorian Ferox (3)
Venators (8)
Ancestral Guardian

I was using my Ashlynn list and made good progress in the first and second turns since Sean probably didn't realise just how far I could charge with my Steelhead Halberdiers (17" threat range including the Reach). I decimated his Venators but had Ashlynn quite far forward with a smoke cloud blocking line of sight to her. Unfortunately I forgot that Sean could just move something in front of her and slam it over her and so poor Ashlynn died horribly to Ferox - though it took two to kill her since the first did no damage. Sean had to clear out a whole bunch of my Steelheads to make the slam lane, but he got it done. The game didn't last very long so we decided to have another one.

Sean's Second List:
Lord Tyrant Hexeris
Basilisk Krea
Cyclops Brute
Cyclops Savage
Paingiver Beast Handlers (4)
Praetorian Ferox (4)
Praetorian Swordsmen (8)
Ancestral Guardian

Against this list I opted to pull Magnus out of the case since he hasn't seen action in a while.

My List:
Magnus the Traitor
Nomad
Renegade
Renegade
Stannis Brocker, Steelhead Commander
Steelhead Heavy Cavalry (3)
Steelhead Halberdiers (9)
Rupert Carvolo

This game went much better for me and was mostly carnage everywhere.

Deployment:
We were playing on the desert map at GUGs with a large plateau on either side of the board - we both ignored of the plateaus - and a nice big open area in the middle, which we immediately rushed into and began killing everything. I had my two Renegades on the right with Magnus immediately to their left next to a gigantic rock. On the other side of the rock was the Nomad and then a line of Steelhead Halberdiers with the cavalry and Stannis Brocker behind them.
Sean put his Praetorians on my left next to the plateau, then a wall of beasts with Hexeris in the middle and finally the Ferox on my right with the Paingivers behind them.

Turn One
I won the first turn and so ran everything forward, I put Frenzy on the Nomad and... that was it really.
Sean put Death March on the Swordsmen, activated the Krea's aura and ran forward too. I believe Sean used one of the Cyclops animi on Hexeris to make me reroll hits, just in case I had some Renegade sneakiness to exploit on my turn.
As you can see it was very exciting stuff this turn.

Turn Two
The first turn of utter carnage.
Stannis Brocker activated, gave the Furious Charge to the Halberdiers and then took a pot shot at a Swordsman with his Hand Cannon. It missed and he was done. Then the Halberdiers charged the Swordsmen and one Ferox who had got too close to the middle area. The Ferox was pasted by three of the Halberdiers and a whole bunch of Swordsmen died, fuelled the Ancestral Guardian almost to full and their Death March attacks killed a couple of Halberdiers in return. My cavalry couldn't get into melee range so I moved them up and only managed to shoot a single free Praetorian with their Blunderbusses. I then moved the Piper forward and used his +1 DEF and Terror thing on the Halberdiers.
I moved the Nomad forward, hoping to be in a position to charge next turn and bunched the Renegades together behind it. I then realised I had 4 focus on Magnus and nothing to do with it so I just ran him left to behind the Steelheads.

Sean activates Hexeris, uses his feat and fires Deathbringer at his Krea, blowing up a bunch of Steelheads who then kill some other Steelheads. This clears the way for his Enrage enhanced Cyclops to charge my Nomad and puts some damage on it, thankfully not all that much. I thought my Nomad had gotten off pretty well until the Ferox charged in and destroyed both the cortex and right arm - the important arm! He then attempts to kill more Steelheads with his Swordsmen but it's a rather pitiful showing. Some Praetorians die to Forfend followed by Death Marched Praetorians killing some more Halberdiers. At this point there's three Halberdiers left compared to four Praetorian Swordsmen. Just to add injury to insult he uses the Krea's Animus on Stannis Brocker - who is standing right in the middle of my army.

Turn Three
More carnage.
Stannis activates first, field promotes a Halberdier and then moves back so the rest of my army isn't caught in the slowing field he's currently generating. Stannis tries to shoot a Swordsman with his Hand Cannon and once again misses. I then activate a Renegade and attempt to shoot my badly damaged Nomad in the back with an Obliterator Rocket. Due to the align of stars and global warming I managed to miss but still knocked down both Cyclops and caught two Ferox in the blast. The blast damage did a total of one damage to a Ferox. Not my best Obliterator Rocket I have to say.
My Halberdiers then activate and the sergeant moves to engage both Cyclops. The sergeant manages a respectable charge against the Cyclops with the shield and the other two CMA a Swordsman who kills another Halberdier with Death March.
Now the Piper activates and uses March on the Steelhead Heavy Cavalry who charge both Cyclops and manage to turn both the Skorne warbeasts to bloody mush.
I had given a focus to Renegade A (the one that still had a rocket) but realised I had nothing to do with it now that both Cyclops were dead and my own cavalry were in the way so I just ran it over to the left instead. Magnus followed fairly closely behind since I couldn't figure out where to put him without him getting charged by the Ancestral Guardian. I totally forgot to use Hit and Run, casting Temper Metal on Renegade A instead since I thought Sean would try to kill it with the Ancestral Guardian. Sean saw the opportunity for assassination and asked if I'd like to go back and use Magnus' feat, I declined since I'd already done all Magnus' other stuff, it's my own fault if I screw up.

Sean moves his Swordsmen past the two Halbderdiers engaging them and I promptly kill all the remaining Swordsmen with a combination of free strikes and Forfend. He uses Death March to kill one of Halberdiers and a cavalryman. His Ferox move around and attack my Steelhead Heavy Cavalry and while they're there one eats the Halberdier sergeant. Another of the cavalry dies and I fail the command check.
The Moment of Truth arrives when Sean activates the fully fuelled Ancestral Guardian and burns two soul tokens to move four inches and then charge Magnus. Luckily the charge attack misses. The Ancestral Guardian still manages to put nine damage on Magnus in a single hit even though Magnus was camping ARM 20 at the time. Unfortunately for Sean the rest of the attacks miss or do no damage to good old Magnus.
The Krea activates and uses its Paralytic Field to hopefully save Hexeris from horrible, horrible death.

Turn Four
DIE BIZNITCH time.
It's getting late and I can see something that resembles a very unreliable assassination run. There's also an angry looking Ancestral Guardian glaring at Magnus. My last surviving cavalryman does his fleeing movement and dies to free strikes after we debate what he'll actually do (since he could actually move somewhere, despite being surrounded by Ferox, he died). This turned out to be rather useful to me since the damaged Nomad was still in the way of my planned assassination attempt.
I allocate two focus to Renegade A (one with rocket) and one to Renegade B. Magnus activates, I declare use of my feat and then decide that's a waste of time, we're going to get kicked out of the QMU after this turn anyway. He casts Temper Metal on Renegade B (without rocket, still on the right side of the board behind the Nomad) and I consider killing the Ancestral Guardian using Magnus, but with only a single focus point on him he's get minced by the retaliation if it didn't die. I opt to see if my assassination run pays off rather than risk dying on my own turn.
Renegade A moves to within five inches of Hexeris and actually manages to hit with the Obliterator Rocket despite Hexeris benefiting from the Krea's aura. I then do a comfortable 9 damage which Sean transfers with his last fury.
Just because I don't like the Ancestral Guardian and I no longer have any units left I opt to charge the Ancestral Guardian in the back with the Piper of Ord, reducing the damned thing to a single health. Curses!
The Nomad activates, moves out of the way of Renegade B's charge lane to the knocked down Hexeris and attempts to swipe at a Ferox with its open hand. It fails miserably, no surprise since it couldn't boost attacks. Renegade B then charges Hexeris, taking a free strike from the Ferox in front of the Nomad. Thankfully Temper Metal saves me from taking enough damage to lose an arm. Renegade B goes to work on Hexeris, killing him with three Shredder attacks.
Victory for Magnus!

Overall a much more enjoyable game with a nail biting finish - if Renegade B had rolled low damage at any point I would have been screwed but the Renegades pulled it out for me nicely. I still enjoy Ashlynn a lot more since she makes my army so very fast, but it's nice having a tough warcaster who can take the punishment.

Gaming Blog: Playing Roulette

I play-tested my new list today. It was awesome. Really, it was. It poses a much greater range of threats than my Magnus list. I played against Mark using his slightly odd Mortenebra list. This is my first foray into using Ashlynn and I have to say, I'm impressed.

Andy's List: Highborne Covenant 497/500
Ashlynn d'Elyse
*Mule
Anastasia di Bray
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist
Lord Rockbottom, Expedition Financier
Ogrun Bokur
Rupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord
Stannis Brocker, Steelhead Commander
Steelhead Halberdiers (8)
Steelhead Heavy Cavalry (3)

Mark's List: Cryx 496/500
Master Necrotech Mortenebra
*Deryliss
*Nightmare
*Slayer
*Nightwretch
*Nightwretch
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist
Mechanithralls (9)

We played two games tonight, the first one didn't last very long since Mark forgot about half the things he should have been doing so I destroyed both his warjacks, all the Mechanithralls and was poking Mortenebra with the Ogrun Bokur before he conceded. I think I'd lost a couple of Halberdiers... Mark also made the Steelhead Halberdiers Nightmare's prey in this game, wasn't the best choice really.

The second game was much better, but I delayed using my feat. I think if I'd used it a turn earlier, my losses would have been at least halved.

Deployment:
Mark won the starting roll and opted to deploy and go first, weighting his force heavily on my right. I plonked most of my stuff in the middle and behind a hill, with Ashlynn hiding behind the Mule at the left edge of my deployment brick. Stannis was advance deployed with his Ogrun Bokur buddy, but I just put them about 4 inches ahead of my main force of Steelheads. Anastasia wouldn't get to go Invisible before Mark could get to her, so I placed her pretty much in my normal advanced deployment zone, well away from any Mechanithralls and bonejacks. This time around Mark picked Ashlynn as Nightmare's Prey (a much better choice really - I would have gone with Anastasia first myself).

Turn One:
Mark advanced up the right side of the board, I moved to occupy the middle area. Mark put Spectral Steel on the Slayer, I put Quicken on my Steelhead Halberdiers and Feint up on Ashlynn - my experiences with Jim and his bloody Seether in my deployment zone on turn 2 have made me cautious about the helljacks in Mortenebra's battle group. Other than that, not a lot happened, I think I may have shot a Mechanithrall or two. Ah yes, I gave the Halberdiers Fearless and Tough from the Piper, a decision that paid strong dividends in the next turn.

Turn Two:
This turn involved a lot of moving forward but not into melee range of the Steelhead Halberdiers by Mark's Mechanithralls. No forfending makes Andy a sad panda. =( He then cast Death Race on Mortenebra and tried to nuke a Halberdier with Doom Spiral. Luckily for me I passed both Tough rolls so the Nightmare didn't end up 5 inches closer. Instead the Slayer and the Nightmare trampled through some of my Steelheads to engage some of my cavalry before I could get a charge off, the Slayer managed to miss all three of the Steelheads it was trampling over too.

I should have used my feat this turn, if the Nightmare had moved due to the Prey ability, then that would have been fine, I had enough troops around it to bog it down with free strikes and Ashlynn would have been able to use Feint during Mark's turn if it came down to that. Since I was afraid the Nightmare was going to appear next to Ashlynn I left her until last to activate - a big mistake. This meant I missed a few attacks that would have otherwise totalled or at least disabled Nightmare and the Slayer. As it was the Slayer took some damage to its paint work from a pair of March enhanced Steelhead cavalrymen, while the Nightmare lost an arm and its movement to a combination of my Bokur, a cavalryman and a couple of Halberdiers. I haven't had more than one attack from Flying Steel yet. It's early days however. I'd hoped for a Critical Slam with the shield on the Bokur so that the Nightmare would be in trouble next turn, but it wasn't meant to be. Anastasia also moved close enough to Mortenebra to learn a secret.

Turn Three:
This was an eventful turn as Mark activated Mortenebra's feat and most of my army died. Mortenebra took down Anastasia herself. He also gave the Slayer and Nightmare full focus and watched as they ate through my cavalry, Stannis Brocker and the Bokur. The Mechanithralls chewed through the remaining Steelheads. It wasn't pretty. I also used my feat this turn. Ashlynn charged the mostly undamaged Slayer and totalled it, much to my surprise. Don't be fooled by that P+S 9 sword, she can lay the beat down when she needs to! Then I proceeded to kill all the Mechanithralls but one, Lord Rockbottom managed to spray Mortenebra with his fiery gun and also killed Deryliss. I used my remaining Steelhead Halberdier to let Gorman throw a perfectly placed Black Oil grenade onto both of Mark's bonejacks.

Turn Four:
Mark had most of the last turn but we ran out of time since everyone else had packed up and was heading home. After Mortenebra burned for a bit from Lord Rockbottom's fire, he activated Nightmare and took a couple of swings at the Piper since Ashlynn had used Feint to get the hell away from the helljack. The Piper survived oddly. Then he moved Mortenebra forward and attempted to nuke Ashlynn down with a couple of boosted Doom Spirals. One hit but didn't kill Ashlynn. There was some more stuff moved but it's irrelevant since I would have just dumped some Black Oil on Mortenebra (my Gorman being 10 inches away and had a totally clear path to Mortenebra's back) and then charged her with a full focus Ashlynn on my turn.

Thoughts on Ashlynn
Ashlynn is much more fragile than Magnus but is much easier to get up the field and into the enemy forces. Despite being so fragile she's tremendously hard to pin down directly, you really have to take specific casters or some form of reliable knockdown to stop her from just ignoring you as you charge in and she Feints away. I'll have to try playing against different types of casters, especially those with good ways of dealing with high defence targets - for some reason I'm finding Terminus with his throw to be rather intimidating . If I can figure out how to keep Ashlynn alive against those types of caster I'll be sorted.
The fact I don't need to bother with a ton of warjacks also means I can have a wider variety of things to threaten the caster kill on my opponent. Having the option to use more these extra threats is a great eye opener to the limitations of Magnus and the dual Renegades. Ashlynn definitely moves your opponent to reacting to her rather than forcing you to react to them - something I've found I end up doing against Jim, I react to what he does rather than making him play my game.
At first I thought Ashlynn's spell list was quite weak. There are spells that are pretty feeble but the value of Feint and Quicken alone is worth her weight in gold. I'm yearning for the opportunity to land Distraction on Caine or Grim Angus, denying them the ability to make ranged attacks would be too priceless.
Ashlynn is also deceptively dangerous. The low power of her sword cunningly hides the fact she's a Weapon Master. She DESTROYED a Slayer tonight, pretty much on her own and didn't even use all her focus to do it. Roulette allows you to play a very risky style of play with her, putting her in situations where you wouldn't normally put a warcaster. She's definitely a step up from Magnus for me, I just need to ignore the big scary things I *think* might hurt her but really can't until she's made stationary somehow.