Pointy Ears

Something I did for the Geelong PG 🙂

Corio Bay Freebooters

So you think you have what it takes to fight for a dying god? 

You want to take the fight to the evil arcanists?

You want to join the retribution?

Well welcome to BBDave’s intro to the Angry Elves 🙂

With this guide I will go through the basics of what are some of the strengths and weakness’ that the Retribution have and some lists to start with for someone getting into Warmachine and wanting to get onto the good side of things.

So what do the Retribution do?

Well they are a very strong combined arms force.  With a solid mix of infantry that a lot have some form of shooting as well a strong melee troopers.  Add in a few specialist units as well like battle mages and heavy cavalry to round out options for every situation  The Jacks almost all have shooting attacks in addition to their melee power.  Added…

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Convic Day 2 – 50 pts with specialist

So with day one a bit of a blow out I’m onto day 2.  So with a bit of a list scratched up the night before we have this

War Room Army
 Legion of Everblight – abby
 55 / 55 (50+5) Warlock(s) : 1/1 Warbeast(s) : 11 Battle Engines : 0 Solos : 3 Units : 1 Specialists : 0 Units 0/10 Points
 Absylonia, Terror of Everblight – WB: +5
– Carnivean – PC: 10
– Proteus – PC: 10
– Stinger – PC: 2
– Scythean – PC: 8
– Shredder – PC: 2
– Harrier – PC: 2
– Afflictor – PC: 4
– Seraph – PC: 7
– Shredder – PC: 2
 The Forsaken – PC: 2
The Forsaken – PC: 2
Blighted Nyss Shepherd – PC: 1
 Spawning Vessel – Vessel & 6 Grunts: 3

THEME: Winds of Change – Tier 4

specialists

Nephilim Protector – PC: 5
Teraph – PC: 5

 

So that’s the tier list.  I actually like it, it has done some surprising things in games and can force some choices on your opponents.

So how did it go?

Game 1

Rueben with Damiano Galleon and solos list inc Cross with Vanguard. (dropped aflictor and sheppard for protector)

I figured with this one all I needed to do was hold up the galleon and take the objectives, blight field shut down the galleon from getting focus so that took it off the table for a solid assassination, but left it very capable of doing a lot of damage and jack hammer from McBaine would still let it buy attacks in a way.  So with me killing lots of press gangers I also managed to drop Cross when he moved up the table and didn’t have his Vanguard in shieldguard range.  I got up on CP 4 -0 but the Galleon had ground through my heavies and lessers.  Eliminators were being a pain on the left flag so Abby moved over that way with the Protector.  Ended up Rueben clocked himself out and I got the win.

 

Game 2

Jamie with eGrissel meat mountain list. (no specialists used)

This was a grind.  First time up against a meat mountain and I think I made a few errors that showed.  Cant put a Carnivean with spiny growth in range of Mulg to move and animus, so I lost him.  The scythean did well on the other side eating a unit of warders and a champion.  Proteus did ok as well holding up the middle. But the attrition was on the troll side as Jamie made sure to finish of the heavy beasts where he could.  So clock was winding down and it was kill Grissel or clock out the following turn, so I went for it.  Scythean cleared the last of the champs and warders in the middle and let Absylonia mutate for wings and reach to fly over and charge Grissel but failed to kill her or get the grievous wounding crit.  So that failed and I lost it there with Grissels hammer finishing her off (after we had the proteus free strike drag situation again when Mulg tried to move in)

Game 3

Dean with Ossian (dropped aflictor and sheppard for protector)

Same list as the day before but dropped a mage hunter and some stormfall for eEyriss and something.  Was a bit more in my favour this time round with the extra heavy but it still took a long while.  Lost proteus early in this one but the carni and seraph were the winners of the show pushing up the table and causing some damage to Ossian forcing him to try a last ditch charge on Abby which failed and he was finished off soon after.

 

Game 4

Jerome with Irusk1 – destruction mission  (no specialists used)

Was a hard game (despite what it may have looked like) with Jerome holding back a touch and popping feat on turn 1 with only the Iron fangs just up to the zone after mini feat reform and shield wall.  I killed off about 2/3 of the pikemen and took control of the zone early in the game forcing in the kayazy.  Jerome made a mistake trying to make too much room around the scythean to fit in the last 3 pikemen, his spriggan and room for the great bears to charge, as a result the focus loaded spriggan was out of reach range behind the pikemen and the combined damage from the pikes and great bears didn’t kill it off.  Leaving room for Abby feat to restore it and the lesser and light beasts that had been damaged to full and kill off the great bears and pikemen in return.  I cleared the zone again and threw the spriggan away with the carnivean and trampled Proteus into Irusk after I shot him with the Seraph to end the game.

 

So much better on the second day with 3-1 but still managed to play 4 top opponents, both Reuben and Jerome have only recently started going to events this year afaik so hopefully they keep going (Jerome had a strong list but just needs to refine some of the specific match ups) I missed out on getting a coin but Jamie did win the event on the day.

Overall will keep plugging away with the legion for another month or 2 and then see what takes my fancy.

 

Thanks for reading.

Convic Day one games

Or “How Rhyas was about as due as a nun…”

So there were 4 games to play on the Saturday and I had my not so often played Santa Lylyth and more recently played but constantly changed Rhyas list. First match up was Toonook with Khador pairing of pSorcha and B3. The Sorcha match up I felt ok about but knew he would drop B3 (why wouldn’t you against hordes) So I went with Rhyas. I felt there was a bit more bodies to try and hold off the butcher and 3 pow12 arrows from Lylyth wont do to much to B3. So game gets under way and Toonook throws boomhowlers out to my left and Black dragon pikemen on the right for the zones. B3 and beast 09 are hanging about in the middle. My grotesques are pairing up against boomhowlers with an aflictor in support and the warmongers run up to engage the black dragons. I loose a couple of the front running warmongers to the blackdragons but get the drop on the boom howlers on the left with charging grotesques. A few more attacks and I’m looking like being able to dominate the left zone. so I charge one of the last boomhowlers with Rhyas. tough roll. swing again. tough roll, im rolling to hit vs def 5 for the crit, tough roll again. buy another attack and get the crit so dead trollkin and sprint back behind the carnivean and toe the zone. I’m up on cp. Boomhowlers are all dead bar 1 and fleeing. So Toonook eyes it up and thinks he is in range to get to Rhyas with madeline move, energiser, charge and impending doom. yay. so he moves stuff out of the way, moves some winterguard up to take some pot shots at Rhyas. B3 does his thing and he is in with an inch or so to spare. Impending doom, flashing blade the carni and Rhyas, he has no focus to boost and I hope for a miss. but its hit and dead. bleh.

Not a great start but oh well.

Game 2
Dean with Ret
I go with Lylyth this time and he drops Ossian. not the best but I will make do.
Out flank mission and I have Santa Lyl in the middle with the beasts, striders on my left and Warspears on the right. the warspears prey a mage hunter solo. on the other side we have full units of halberdiers and riflemen in the middle, Ossians Jack and a banshee on the far left with arcanists and 2 units of archers on my right. Thane solo and 2 mage hunters round it out.
So the halberdiers go for a massive move up with thane boost and quicken on them to jam the middle (not that I have much to jam) everything else jockey for position. So I figure now is a good time to pop feat an I ride by up with Lyl and try to take out the Halberd Officer on the hill. 3 shots and he took only 2 points of damage… and I didn’t kill anything so no free wind wall and I spent all my fury…crap it. So I think im dead next turn with a full unit of riflemen and Ossians feat coming. So damage control time, strider move up under the feat and pin down the 2 heavies on the other side of the zone. The carnivean gets thrown away and assaults forward into some halberds and assault sprays 2 riflemen dead. Seraph picks off some more halberds too. the warspears assault the archers on the other side of the left zone.
The ret strike back but ignore Lylyth sitting there without fury and nail both the carnivean and the scythean. Not great but I will take that, also left only a few archers on the edge of the left zone and only killed 2 warspears. So operation win on cp is on. Nightlurker frenzied and ate a strider. Warspears cleared the rest of the zone and lylyth and her trusty Seraph repostioned to the zone as well and shooting a few riflemen and halberdiers dead. The ret moved back in to contest but with only a few models, the striders and 2 heavies were dancing about in the other zone but the banshee was moving across. I try to get a crit shadowbind with the Nightlurker in my next turn but failed to crit, the jacks would run in the next turn and I don’t think I had enough left to kill it if it made it to the zone. Had to go for Ossian, moved up with the Seraph and managed to get 2 hits on him one boosted damage roll and took about half his health. Lylyth was able to aim and shoot him and finished him off.
Was a good game and if Dean had brought the heavies into the fight a bit earlier or not deployed one on each flank it would have gone very differently.

Game 3
Gary and more B3
Ok so 2 B3’s and I drop Rhyas again. Now this played out more or less the same as before but with one slightly odd occurance. Army paired off on either side more or less and Butcher comes tearing down the middle looking for Ryhas. This time though the tunnel that B3 had to navigate was between Proteus and the Carnivean. So he casts energiser for 3 and takes a free strike as he moves forward toward Rhyas. Proteus swings and hits with tentacles and pulls B3 into base contact. Gary scratches his head. he still has about 2″ of movement, but each time he tries to move away there is a good chance Proteus will pull him back in. Gary asks for some clarification on the interactions going on with the TO and decides to just kill the 2 heavies instead. So feat is spent and the 2 heavies die. B3 has 3 focus camped and I have my shot. Rhyas feats and charges in and gets a crit on the charge. dice -9. 4 dice. B3 already took 6 points from the proteus free strike. dice roll and I total it up to 9. 😦
I swing some more and don’t get any more crits and do only 5 points. I manage to get an afflictor over as well and he does a couple of points but its all over.

Game 4
Luke with eKruger
So I throw Rhyas in again as I figure I cant loose all my games with her… Fast forward to about turn 3. Almost all my infantry is gone as well as the Carnivean, I’ve killed most of his druids and half killed a feral warpwolf and most of his stone shrimps. I’m getting hammer but go for a bit of a long shot assassin run. I run Luke through it and he is surprised that from so far with the feat placement will get me in range of Kruger. so charge the stalker, hit and do some damage. Now I had choices here, keep swinging at the Stalker or start swinging at Kruger. Stalker will net me 2 fury back if I kill it while Kruger has only the stalker to transfer to. I have another swing at the stalker with my free one and miss, then start swinging at Kruger. miss, swing again, miss and again switch to the lower def stalker, miss. I missed with everything. after the initial hit. Try sending in Proteus but cant seal the deal. more fluffed rolls and nothing substantial. So Rhyas gets killed by the Stalker (who did miss with 2 attacks but I also missed those repost attacks as well…)

So day one done. Got to play 4 great guys (Dean was a traveller from Tassie so first time we got to play) and although disappointed with the results more of that was a result of poor luck than poor play. I think I had some chances in the last 2 games but the dice didn’t want it to be…

That said the Rhyas list need more ranged presence to try and snipe out a few solos or UA’s so will tinker with it when I get some confidence back in playing her again, the lylyth list isn’t too bad but isn’t top level either.

Will put up the sunday list and games later tonight hopefully 🙂

oh and remind me to take more pics of my games 😛

Convic Day 1 lists

So with my painting finished the day before I had a look over my lists.

I had settled on my 2 casters early on. Rhyas and 3Lylyth or Ninja girl and Santa Lylyth!

Santa Lylyth to start was something I had played with a bit earlier in the year. I found out a few things.
The huge base can be tricky to move around. As a result I tended to play with few model count if I can or have at least self sufficient units to put out on the flanks that are not relying or needed in the central zone where Lylyth wants to be hitting and running. This tended to get a larger battle group than expected for a fury 5 caster. It has some fury management solos in there to help.
After tinkering around I felt the tier list was a good move. It didn’t remove many things I wanted to put in (only the succubus and forsaken) restricts to ranged units only (a spawning vessel would be nice).

War Room Army
THEME: Scourge of God – Tier 3
Legion of Everblight – Santa lyl
55 / 55 (50+5) Warlock(s) : 1/1 Warbeast(s) : 5 Battle Engines : 0 Solos : 1 Units : 2
Lylyth, Reckoning of Everblight – WB: +5
– Teraph – PC: 5
– Naga Nightlurker – PC: 5
– Seraph – PC: 8
– Carnivean – PC: 11
– Scythean – PC: 9
Blighted Nyss Shepherd – PC: 1
Strider Rangers – Leader & 5 Grunts: 6
Blighted Ogrun Warspears – Leader & 4 Grunts: 8
– Warspear Chieftan – PC: 2

So it has the shooting beasts that can capitalise on the Feat and 2 units that can be good harassing flankers that don’t need support but would still gain effects from the feat if close enough. The animi from the beasts gets some good interaction with Santa Lyl. Counterblast with Lylyths auto fire combines for 3 shots if she has that up. Nightlurkers wraithbane is good anywhere to cancel out the defensive spells that your targets might have. Seraphs slipstream on Lylyth is good with a nice 2″ ring around the huge base to pass near a target, or have the Seraph slip stream Lyl back after a ride by for more fun and safety. Spiney Growth I have also found quite good combined with escort to get her up to a lazy armour 20. The scythean was more of a meta choice as there seems to be a lot of tough models on the tables with trollkin Boomhowler & co, zombiefied hordes infantry and more seeing a lot of table time. So some slaughterhouse doing some great work.

War Room Army

Legion of Everblight – Rhyas

56 / 56 (50+6) Warlock(s) : 1/1 Warbeast(s) : 4 Battle Engines : 0 Solos : 5 Units : 3

Rhyas, Sigil of Everblight – WB: +6
– Afflictor – PC: 4
– Afflictor – PC: 4
– Carnivean – PC: 11
– Proteus – PC: 11

Blighted Nyss Shepherd – PC: 1
Blighted Nyss Shepherd – PC: 1
Warmonger War Chief – PC: 3
Thrullg – PC: 3
Feralgeist – PC: 1

Blighted Nyss Grotesques – Leader & 9 Grunts: 6
Blighted Ogrun Warmongers – Leader & 4 Grunts: 8
Spawning Vessel – Vessel & 6 Grunts: 3

Ok so this one got dubbed a “Dave Special”. Apparently I have a bit of a reputation for running the stuff that people may not expect. This list has it in spades. Through the apparent madness though there is some reason. lets break it down. Rhyas does some great things for melee beasts and infantry. Has a feat that can let you cut down the front line and the second line of an opponents army as well as open up some dangerous assassination options. The dash spell lets models ignore freestrikes and get an extra 1 spd. Occultation to stealth a unit is a nice bonus and Report upgrades a beast to very dangerous MAT8 & RAT6 and a free transfer.
Beast choice was fun. I really like Carniveans (and when I put up the pics later you hopefully agree) and Proteus filled the heavy slots. Carniveans are a solid beat stick and versatile beast. Proteus is an interesting option with lots of frills, the fury 5 is good. The herding ability extends out Rhyas control area effectively to about 19″ in one direction which is highly under rated in my opinion. The Afflictors are also a surprise unit with the ability to increase my army with generated incubi and can still do some flying slam attacks to open some good options. The units were selected for some combo reasons. The Grotesques are surprisingly good for a cheap unit. With flight and gang combined with dash opens up some options to get past jamming models and also deal some good damage, the low cmd does hold them back and make them a bit of a victim for blast damage but the average arm 13 can help there. Also they are cheap models to feed my spawning vessel and jam opponents front line troops. The warmongers also suffer from the spd 5 but again dash assists, the rest of their abilities are solid. Nothing exceptional but nothing really lacking.
The warmonger solo was added to assist the unit with the bonus to hit and blood drinker. The sheppards generally followed the 2 afflictors and kept them running more independent of Rhyas, feralgheist is a nice 1 point filler and can cause people to take an extra swing at one of the heavies or steal a beast. Finally the thrullg is a good anti warmachine piece to disrupt jacks, strip focus and cause damage to spell casters.

Well that’s the 2 lists for day 1. Will follow up with some reports on how the games went on Thursday.

Thanks and good gaming
Dave

Pre Event Prep

Im sure I could have squeezed another pre word in there. 🙂

But this was something I was hoping to get up last week but I was knee deep in event prepping!

So I think before events you need to set some goals. As a bonus events are a good start/end point for some goals. So with one of the bigger events in my local area was on the weekend past (http://convic.com.au/ link to the event for the curious and a plug for the good lads who run it) I had some loose goals to achieve.

1. Get all my stuff painted
2. Play my Legion (on going quest…)
3. Have some fun

So with my real life stuff taking up some time I had most of my army painted, only having one unit not finished for the first days play with 2 50point lists but it was finished enough to pass table top glances.
I stuck with playing the legion for the weekend. Something Im trying to do till the end of August.
I had a blast. Got to play lots of good guys and we snuck in a bit of High Command as an after game wind down on the Saturday night.

Now back to the prepping. Im getting a bit older than when I started this capper as a tourney pro 😉 so things are a bit harder on the recovery today on Monday and I cant quite go all night long boozed up to the hilt. So here is my pro gamer tips for big events and conventions.

Eat Breakfast
Seriously get some food into at the start of the proceedings, your not sure what the breaks will be like, if games will run full time or what will be available at a lot of these things. So get some energy into at the start

Drink fluids
Sure have some liquid refreshments, but try and get in some water as well. Makes a refreshing change from the alcohol and sugary energy drinks that are what normally end up in hand. Your round 4 headaches are less frequent if you get in the fluids.

Get social
You will meet some of the nicest people at these events. The bigger the event the more likely that you will meet people from further away. Make them feel welcome and hopefully you get to see them and their friends the next year or you can visit them at their next big one. I was lucky enough to meet some amazing people when I went to Gencon indy last year and met some great guys from Tasmania at Convic on the weekend.

Now not always will you get all these done, time between rounds can be short and there might not be much of a chance to grab a bite, drink or a chat but make the best of what you can between the games. Remember for some its the games for others its the social fun. Try and get the best of both.

Hope this helps for your next event and I will be following this up with some more posts about my lists, games, pics and post event thoughts and meanderings

Cheers
Dave

Queens Hobby Day

Warmongers, Warspear UA and Croc Witch Doctor

Finished Warmongers

So that’s a days hobby done. Procrastinated on the homework a bit but achieved something anyway. 🙂
Fairly happy how they came out and look good next to the Solo I painted at the start of the year. the warspear UA will get finished as I get onto the warspears later this week. The Gatorman Witch Doctor is about half done. funny little figure, keep finding more bones and bits on him every time I pick it up. More updates in the next couple of weeks as there is a nice event coming up in 2 weeks.

To Tier or Not to Tier…

That is a question 😛

I’m usually a big fan of the tier lists. They have a bit more of a story to them, being a snap shot of that casters moment in warmachine history. ie. Caine2 Street Sweepers is when he was leading teams of trenchers around from building to building toward the end of the war with the Protectorate after they moved the battle line into Caspia.

Now some people love the game quality over the story line. No problems there I do like to win the odd game as well so taking a strong list is always a bonus. So tier lists are not always for them. That is fine, you get all the options available to you for not taking the tier list. Yet some tier lists sit right in the sweet spot of taking almost everything you could ever want for that caster and getting bonus stuff for doing it! Discount on your warbeasts, yes please, extra deployment options? sure why not. Free UA. Don’t mind if I do.

So all this stems from me trying out the Rhyas Rearguard tier list yesterday. So it looked like this.
Rhyas
Typhon
Naga nightlurker
Shredder
(min)Swordsmen +UA
(max)Warmongers
2x (max) Warspears +UA
War chieftan solo

So the tier bonus was free UA for the swordsmen, stealth for turn 1, upkeeps in play at start of game and all the ogruns get AD.

So 2 games played yesterday with it.

Now it worked ok but I felt it lacked a bit punch to get through some higher armour target (except for the initial charge attacks from the ogruns) as I felt Typhon needed to be held back and saved for an absolute kill option or just to do spray attacks. Also helped with having a wall of ogruns in the way 🙂
What it did do was give some very strong board position quickly and allow for scoring zones. The second wave of swordsmen did give some more hitting power but really comes out about the same as the Ogrun on the charge.

Over all I can see the appeal, but it just didn’t have the kick I like in my legion lists.

I still may break it out now and again but for now it goes to the back burner.

Thanks for reading
Dave

First Steps

So with this new media at my finger tips you may think where do we start?

I guess this is an option to look at where I’ve been and where we are headed.

Been playing warmachine for a long time now,  been through the crazy that was MkI.  Seen the play test year before MkII and now we are fairly deep into that with a number of books and armies been released and new one getting released this weekend (Lock and Load is on over in the States today)

I’ve played a game with every faction so far and been in the drivers seat for almost all of them at least once.  I’m not really one to lock myself into playing the same thing for a period of time, more likely to pick up a different case each week if given the opportunity and keep pushing new ideas.

What I want to do with this blog is to explain a bit of the thought process about the game, from some list building ideas and battle reports.  Also want to look at what you can do outside of the gaming arena with some hobby painting fun as well as some discussion about gaming groups and the social side of the game.

So I hope you the reader gets to enjoy my ideas, share some of your own, and we can see how long this ride goes for.

 

Thanks in advance

Dave