But You'll Die.

And so we move on to the second game. I won this game against Jim (eMakeda) and wasn't going to make a big deal out of it. LIES! WOOHOO! VICTORY FOR ANDY!


This of course marks my quarterly win against Jim, which was currently 2 months overdue. Not to worry however, I plan to get my next quarterly win at the UK Masters in the final (unless we're REALLY unlucky, which means I'll just get it sooner).

At 50 points I have to say the amount of denial I could bring to the table was stupendous. I use that word in its literal sense. pDoomshaper, with Mulg and a Bouncer close makes pDoomshaper almost untouchable, especially during his feat turn. Yes, you can hit him, but Mulg's going to smite you hard and failing that you're spending focus/fury galore. Systems are going to get ruined. By the time I get my turn not many things are left fully functional and so it's a simple matter of moping up and then ploughing onwards.

I feated first turn and basically had Jim on the back foot the entire game after that. Granted Jim's dice did blow goats throughout most of the game, I have to give him that. The catchphrase of the game in Jim's last turn - when Mulg was standing next to Makeda looking angry, and pDoomshaper *might* be in assassination range was "You can do it, but you'll die." as Jim went through his options and I vetted them for viability - most of which would have resulted in Mulg getting a free Protective Fit (with Fortune) attack on eMakeda (7 damage left) and killing her after transfer overload on the barely alive Canoneer (4 damage left after healing).

edit - no, he couldn't have used Subdue to reduce the hit damage, Mulg had Runebreaker up. Yes, I used Mulg's Animus. Seriously. I bet some of you didn't even know he had an animus.

While pDoomshaper does have Old Man Stats (low DEF/ARM) he does bring a massive toolbox to the battlefield, I wish I'd tried him out more seriously sooner. It's quite possible he's an equal to eSkarre.

You Can Do It...

Two days of working on Jim's house and two great games. Well, one was EPIC, the other was just epic for me.

Mark Bonatti sold a vast hoard/horde (both apply) of Skorne models to Jim and Jim felt like testing the Skorne out. I needed more practice with pDoomshaper so we sat down to have a game on the Saturday after doing some work on Jim's ruin house. As I said before I was surprised at how versatile pDoomshaper was and this first game just served to reinforce what we'd discovered. pDoomshaper is a goldmine that spills out raw, undiluted Trollblood goodness in a never-ending supply.

In our first game there were 5 assassination runs. pDoomshaper (and Mulg(!)) stalked pMakeda around the board for 3 turns running: the first assassination run failed because Mulg has a threat of 11", not a move - unless Relentless is up - and so there was a lonely Praetorian in the wrong place; the second failed simply because Mulg missed his Goad target twice even with Fortune up; the third was when the Nyss Hunters flubbed their damage roll for a nice, big CRA. All of these would have won me the game.

Jim tried to kill pDoomshaper twice before finally succeeding in his fifth turn. The first time Doomshaper was attacked by multiple Cetrati and Praetorians, and then he survived a second turn of this (thanks to Tough!) before finally succumbing to the onslaught.

Overall this was the most fun game I think either of us had in a while. Although I lost the sheer comedy of action both of us had made it easily worth the while.

Note: Rampager is so much fun.

Skulking

The latest Privateer Press newsletter contains the stat card for the Warpwolf Stalker. The animus is interesting (Sprint) and Circle finally get a furry warbeast with Pathfinder (and Reach...). Initially I thought it would pair up very well with the Pureblood (and it does) but many of the benefits it would gain from the Pureblood already exist on it. Sprint on a Feral might be a nice option of course. Sprint on Kromac would be into the realms of pMorghoul annoying.