pVyros Batrep 1 T.C.O.W Makes you go OOooooh.

After stunningly crushing the Galleon I took it upon myself to take the opportunity to stomp as many noobs as possible with my own Colossal, thus proving the superiority of the Hyperion. I lined up a game with a learner who just got killed by a Siege foxhole + feat trick. (who gets killed by those these days? geeze)

My list:

pVyros

Aspis

Banshee

Hyperion

Min Halbs + UA + Souless

Storm Fall Archers

2 Arcanists

Lanyssa Ryssyll (My Nyss Myssys)

Sweet camera blur app available on the Samsung Galaxy Mini s7

 His list:

Marenus Calgar (pButhcer) Proxied with pButcher

Terminator Assault group (Full Bombadiers) Proxied with Bombadiers

Terminators with Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields (Shocktroopers) Proxied with Shocktroopers

3 Dreadnuaghts (Marauder, Berzerker, Juggernaut.) Proxied with a Marauder, Berzerker and Juggernaut.

President Nixon the Poodle (War Dog) Proxied by a War Dog.

Jack "Here's Johnny!" Nicholson (Yuri the Axe) Proxied by Yuri the Axe 

Abraham"Gaybar!" Lincoln the Zombie Slayer (Man Hunter) Proxied by a Man Hunter 

By the way if you don't want to follow those links you really need to see the Gaybar one, really... really.

 

First two turns was all positioning and faking each other out, smack talk and telling the noob how to play the game (teaching him rules like his Berzerker cant be marshaled and in a battle group at the same time.)
With some deft positioning only achieved with the level of skill someone as veteran as myself could have perfected I rolled 6's on both of my strafe shots. My Colossal was also perfectly in range to shoot at all 3 of his jacks,
The Halberdiers ran up and spread out and my opponent was dumbfounded at the strategy behind this tactic.

The Bombadiers are so busy trying to cover their ears with their overly sized metallic gloves that they cant hear the order to charge the source of incessant Wailing.

He walks forward? maybe? Hard to tell his army moves so slowly. Yea the Zerker on the right has advanced and flailed about and... where did Abe go?

So I tried to roast President Nixon with Star Fall shots but the fire went out, darn unflammable presidents. . On the right flank the Halberdiers got stuck in doing nothing, which is their want. In the center its become apparent that the Banshee and Hyperion have killed all that stuff. Lanyssa Hunters Marked a jack and left the Banshee charge it, the Banshee and Hype had 2 focus each. The Bombadiers moved up and put some damage on the Banshee and Vyros responded by feating and running the Aspis into the zone.
The Storm Fall Archers given up on Poodle BBQ shot up some Bombadiers and fed Hyperion and the Banshee focus. The Banshee killed the rest of the stuff it could reach and opened up a charge lane for the Hyperion to go and wallop the Butcher one.

Hey look its that Man Hunter...

 So pButcher is no slouch, he took the Hyperion to the face and retorted with "Please Sir may I have some more?"
pButcher Furies himself and charges Hype, despite somewhat arse damage rolls he Half kills it.

No problem tho, Hype Power Attack Pimp Slap's Butch into the Tank trap (hutch dresser) and the Banshee finishes him off. Something happened to Nixon too....

And Scyrah was safe again from Diabolic Dick Shrinking Devilry.

Kaelyssa Batrep 1 T.C.O.W

My Mercenary opponent has acquired the Galleon and was super keen to try it out against me. Me being the great guy I am was more than happy to play against it and even told him, I would give him the advantage of not playing a Colossal myself, or in fact many jacks....

To lighten the mood of my otherwise impeding crushing defeat against Bart + Galleion 2.d3.... cause 1.d3 was a flop, we played in a bright day glow green table cloth.

The lists:

Kaelyssa

Pheonix

Sylys Wyshnalyr

Halberdiers + UA

Mage Hunter Strike Force + UA

Arcanist

Dahlia Hallyr and Skarath

eEyriss (pEyriss proxy)

Artificer

Sniper

Notes on this list. The sniper was the first 2 point model I could grab. It synergies well enough with Backlash. However I did drop Aiyanna and Holt for the Artificer, which I realised was a brilliant thing to do, however it might still hurt not having Aiyanna and Holt. At the moment I'm considering dropping eEyriss and the sniper for A&H and another Arcanist.

  

His list

Bart (not the yellow kid)

Galleon

Nyss

some other Merc character stuff.

Movement after turn 1. The Artificer moves up and starts Face Booking, the MHSF crowed around to within 3 inches to watch, its so enthralling that they are all immune to blast damage. Halbs take up position expecting to die. Dahlia starts singing and Skarath slithers into the zone.

Galleon opens up and starts blowing away my Halberdiers, the Nyss assist with a few combines and destroy some more thanks to extended range provided by one of the character solo's. 
Bart has feated. Eyriss runs in to be annoying and gets knocked down. 3 out of 4 of my Halberdiers also get knocked over for lols. The Pheonix advances careful not to get knocked down, Kaelyssa Feats and moves to the left and arcs Backlash on to the colossal,  Skarath comes up the side and sprays down 4 Nyss, killing one and tagging the Colossal triggering the first point of Backlash and corroding it. The strike force open up and take out half the Galleon and leaving Bart on about 10 hit points.

So I cant be charged and I'm all stealth. The Nyss plink away at Skarath and are ineffectual, Galleon advances and snipes off Wyshnalyr with blast damage rolls.  Corrosion kicks Bart for another point via Backlash on the Colossal. Dirty Meg repairs the Colossal fora whopping 1 point. 

Kaelyssa upkeeps Backlash and drops 3 on the Pheonix. The strike force spark up, I only needed 10 to do any damage out of 11 + anything else I can throw at it. The last Strike Force kills the Colossal and kills Bart with Backlash with the same attack.

eVyros batrep 4. Some Perspective.

I'd like to start by apologizing for the  toilet humor in the last post. There really could have been a lot more and it might have been an easier read over all, because to be honest the quality of the reporting was complete and utter arse.

Despite the game against Rask yesterday I also had a game against my regular Cygnar opponent. Well 2 in fact. One with Kaelyssa which went a little too well, and forced him into a hail mary assassination and got me killed.

The second game was against... Fancy Pants mcStabby... Stryker? guy who overcharges for damage and hurts himself, so emo.

He took first turn, I like to go second. I position up behind the objective and he sets up just ahead of it.

 Stormwall advances and stormpods the Aspis who took the hill with feat movement. It also tags the Mage Hunter Assassin but doesnt kill it. The Griffon on the right flank took the feat move to get closer to Alexia proxied by the strider. Feat moves were provided with thanks by the charging Cygnar infantry killing Battle Mages.

My opponent thought the Stormwall might have been out of range of the Hyperion, thinking about where the stormpod landed he was actually way closer.

Vyros opened by upkeeping synergy and making a ride by attack, tagging the storm pod for a point and finishing his ride by behind the objective. Lanyssa advanced through the gap and Hunters marked the Stormwall, Hype had 3 focus and concentrated power on him. The left griffon gets a point from the arcanist and adds to the Synergy chain by killing Alexia. The right Griffon continues by hitting a Nyss and the Aspis kills 2 more Nyss with the Synergy bonus.

Now Hype is on 4 synergy and is getting +2 from concentrated power, he charges the Stormwall for free due to Hunters Mark and hits the Stormwall at dice +7 and wrecks it with a focus to spare.

Stryker or Caine... Fancy Pants McStabby charges himself up and kills the Hyperion what a man, (swoons). He is obviously the Paul Newman of Warmachine.

So I should have lost this game. If keeping this blog is teaching me anything its that I'm terrible at Warmachine. 

I dropped synergy and bounded forward with Vyros, looking to tag Paul Newman with a  couple of boosted gun shots before charging him with Narn. But I couldn't take the shot without being engaged. In my meatball for a brain I thought, that's not an issue I'll kill the Cygnar infantry and quickwork some shots onto Newman for equivalent results. Of course I don't have virtuoso so that failed. It all came down to Narn, who charged and killed him in one shot and I swung it back my way after hanging eVyros out to dry. Its now that I realize if that Cygnar caster is Paul Newman then Vyros is obviously
 Marlon Brando.. with an eye patch.

"I have eyes like those of a dead pig."
Marlon Brando

And on that, I will leave you with those words of wisdom.

Vyros Batrep 3. What the fush? Snakes and chumps?

 

Live camera footage of Jewfish encountering Garyth. Garyth has caught Jewfish in a Gallows psuedo boosted, however after reeling him in Jewfish feats and all appears to be lost for Garyth.

 Episode 2

Return of the Jewfish

When we last left the Jewfish it was loosing to Khador and generally douching the faction known as the Retribution of Scyrah.

Despite valiant attempts from the factions leaders, such as Garyth, Kaelyssa, Ossyan and Rahn the faction was left with peppermint colons.

In a desperate attempt to stem the onslaught of anal hygiene the newly incarnated leader of the Retribution of Scyrah, Epic Vyros assisted by the use of the Hyperion an ancient Retribution weapon of mass destruction attempts regain control of Scyrahs most sacred passage.

Herein lies the tale of the continued battle of the Retribution of Cyryst against the tyranny of the Jewfish and the cult of Old Gregg.

42 points

Retribution:

Vyros, Incissar of the Dawnguard

Aspis

Griffon

Griffon

Hyperion

House Shyeel Battle Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts)

Soulless Escort

Arcanist

Arcanist

Lanyssa Ryssyll, Nyss Sorceress

Mage Hunter Assassin

Mage Hunter Assassin

Narn, Mage Hunter of Ios

Looks like I was playing in a dark room, it was really just Jewfishes passive feat aura.

 First turn to Jewfish, Vyros feats maybe early but is in a good counter punch position

Cult of Old Gregg

Jewfish

Wrastler

Swamp Horror

Gators

Gators

Bogs

Gobbers

Snapper

Bag and Douche Nozzle.

Gators kills Battle Mages and some jacks reposition.

Hypnos with synergy up kills engaging gators, sitting just out of charge range from the Wrastler

 The Swamp Horror charged Hyperion with Fury up, taking out half of its grid, but the Wrastler fell short. Vyros responded by killing some gators on the left zone, getting synergy. One gator took a fee strike to kill the Arcanist so I couldn't repair Hypnos, it was ok tho, by the end of synergy I would be mat 10 at dice + 7, I'll be fine right? right?..... right?

So after the Aspis and Griffon put some damage on the Wrastler Hyperion with his broken arm hits it and kills it pretty easy. Then he makes his initial on the Swamp Horror, doing 1/3 of its boxes, then it snakes. Its ok tho, still have 2 focus to spend. So I hit again leaving it on one box and buy for my last attack and snake again. derp. Mage Hunter Assassin in the left zone whips a Gator and kills it...

Soooooooo... Vyros is ok, hes in a wreck and armor lots and charging bog trogs and swamp gobbers cant hurt him, except his Griffons are dieing and he cant take scenario...

 

 I eventually kill off enough things to take the right zone for a Domination and the Griffon lives on the left.

 But then the griffon dies. So I'm on 2 and hes on 2. Rask has admonition on himself so I try to get around it by performing ride by attacks,  which don't get around it.  Knowing this now I could have moved the Griffon around in the zone to keep contesting it and scored with Vyros again. Vyros killed  the things in the zone and completed his movement engaging Rask anyway.

 

Rask Furies the remaining Gatorman, which Vyros failed to kill with his Ride By ranged attack.
The Bull Snapper sits in the left zone for a third point and the Gatorman kills the Griffon, allowing the Swamp Gobber that got away from the Griffons free strike to control the zone.... Which doesn't matter because Rask just abuses Vyros' 360 Line of Sight to walk into the Zone and dominates it anyway.

Vyros loses, and succumbs to the scourge of Jewfish. Other stuff happens, in-fact it was a pretty... Old Greggy game to be honest, there was more window licker than a short bus in Mongolia and that's nothing to say of the die rolls. I would have Jesus flipped the table except it was my own house and I still want to play this game... kind of.

Its unfair to say I lost to bad dice. My opponent is good, although he can't beat a Khador army I can hose. No its not really that Gators and Jewfish are a really tough match up against Retribution. I asked the forum in Retribution and looked at the Gators one and they all seem to think that the Jewfish is not as powerful as I make him out to be, and generally an average caster. But the fact of the matter was, I lost to bad dice.

So bad in fact it must be something deeper, something that disturbs the very fabric of nature and the cosmos. As philosophical as the question "Does a ride by attack trigger admonition?" which is never asked. Its so bad that no matter how much I net deck and list trump and make up as many rules as possible, the Jewfish still prevails. There must be a time that the Retribution Strikes Back or all is lost to this Aquatic Menace.

Battlecry the aftermath

I did not take photos of this tournament, deathclock kind of made it a bit harder and I never had the intention of writing a report for each game.

I was hoping to place well in this tournament and for a while I may have been able to, but it was only until I stepped back and looked that the majority of competition was from the creme of the Auckland Warmachine stock. So on a down note I didnt place but on an up note I may be running similar odds of placing at Ides, may be, there is still all of the out of towners to compete with.

    The first game today saw me against Cryx where Gaspy killboxed himself on the second turn and left me fairly comfortable to win on scenario, I almost snatched defeat from the jaws of victory still but bought it back with a couple of lucky rolls. After that I had to play against NZ's highest ranked player and although I was in a good position early on in the game, I didnt really take advantage of it. I sat too far back out of fear mostly and lost on scenario, although he had a spate of high dice rolls making removing me from the zone rather easy.

That loss put me out of the running for top 3 so last game was a kind of kick around. Over all I felt that the Ossyan list was oddly strongest while Rahns was missing something. There were a few questions about the strike force but I feel the real problem was the Sphinx. Filling the unit out or taking some other solos might have done better. For Ossyan Hype with Chronomancer is kind of silly, I seldom actually used all of my Focus, the only real problem was I was a bit too conservative. I think with a tweak its a strong contender for a Ides list.

Over all a great weekend and some excellent practice for Ides. I got my first game in against Chris Baker and it was nowhere near as horrible as I had been lead to expect and had exellent games with exellent chaps all around. Made some new friends and contacts to boot, yay wargaming and yay Warmachine.

Battlecry, So whats happened.

    4 Games down today 2 stunning victories and 2 stunning defeats. I feel like I'm still upwards on the table because of the 11 scenario points I'm on and yet suffering from the 2 loses.
  
    The first game was against another Ret army, a newer player in his first New Zealand tournament. He was running Garyth, Manticore, Hydra, strike force and a collection of solos. He was not aggressive at all and barely left deployment on the first turn, letting Rahn take the game on scenario fairly easily. It was a bit of a steamroll really but I befriended him swapped numbers and tried to offer some advice for his later games, essentially don't play Garyth.

    Second was against Cygnar, as we were both the highest scorers in the first round. I was running Ossyan and doing a good job of demolishing his army. The unfortunate thing is there was no terrain on my side of the table, like none, I mean none, zero, zilch, zip, nada, nothing, nietshewa.... apart from a wall which was outside of the killbox, so was useless. He had Caine? fancy pants mc shooty shooty. The only thing I could hope to do was sit behind my Colossus, which worked for a while but eventually fancy pants mc shooty shooty could draw a bead from the one, only single piece of terrain on his side of the table, feated and killed me. Lamezorz.

     So then I played Trolls, and got t-rolled pretty hard. I couldn't kill anything, eventually my Pheonix went forward, combusted a handful of Pygs and Rahn feated and arced into Grimm slamming him into Grissel for 5 d6 damage, he had a transfer but I still only did 7 damage on him. Then I followed up with a Mage Hunter Assassin who connected and did enough to kill, but he transferred, cause I forgot that Mage Hunter Assassins don't have grievous wounds.... I didnt have much of an army after this so it was all bad. Lost on scenario and most all of my army but 3 points.

  Then I played against Menoth, 3Kreoss with the cav, temple flameguard, Redeemer and a thing with a  mace. The game worked out pretty well for me, he was unfortunate with his charge on the Hyperion. About turn 3 I feated with Ossyan and cleaned up his infantry while Hyperion over 2 turns killed his cav and Jacks. I could have gone for an assassination from the second turn but needed scenario points. From the second turn onwards he was assassinate able until I started to loose forces, however I cleaned up his army won on scenario with max points and left him with only his Choir.

Off for day 2, maybe I can get better than 4th place but we will see, Baker is looking untouchable at the moment.

Update

I know I haven't posted in the last few days since TCOW.

I have had about 4 or 5 games including a 100 point game. Because Battlecry is now only 2 sleeps away the resin curtain has come down and I'm keeping quiet just in case some of the more competitive players start net decking against what they might think my lists are. It has had nothing to do with a stunning defeat I had against my own faction on Tuesday. I'm still riding at about 6 games 3 wins or something like that.

Now because I'm so worried about people net decking against my lists I'm going to post up two lists that I most definitely will NOT be taking to Battlecry. There is no point in reading the following information if your planning to beat me. Because obviously I'm going to do so well you will be looking for a leg up.

List 1:  Shyeel Shuffle.

Adeptis Rahn Shyeel

Phoenix

Sphinx

Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker

House Shyeel Battle Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts)

Mage Hunter Strikeforce (Leader and 5 Grunts)

Mage Hunter Commander

Arcanist

Eiryss, Angel of Retribution

House Shyeel Magister

Mage Hunter Assassin

Mage Hunter Assassin

 

 This is my scenario list. I plan to force blast, force bolt, force hammer and force... grope my way to victory. Like a cunning game of hide the peanut in the cup this list draws upon distraction. You might think that my Jacks are the real threat, but they are just there so that my Battle Mages can push you around. Ah duped, you see the Battle Mages are only really a bluff its the Mage Hunter Strike Force that would be the real threat, if they were a full unit. What you don't see is the Mage hunter assassins flanking around just waiting for their chance to not be Telekinesised or anything because Rahn is too far away or the Jack is in combat. All along it was the Sphinx providing that ever necessary -2 def against magic attacks rolls that will get you. 

You see people build redundancy into lists, when one thing might fail there is another to cover its place. Its good not to over compensate especially at 35 points your better off building to your strength. This is just where this list gets you, there is no strength. I didn't build in redundancy I built in retardation. Like 20 Kossite Woodsmen ambushing you, you just wont see its coming until its too late. Aha got you again, there is nothing coming, nothing at all.

 

List 2: Ossyan to Face

 

Lord Arcanist Ossyan

Hyperion

Dawnguard Invictors (Leader and 9 Grunts)

Dawnguard Invictor Officer & Standard

Mage Hunter Strikeforce (Leader and 9 Grunts)

Mage Hunter Commander

Arcanist

 

This list is the finely crafted and honed beast you think it is. Often times Ossyans failings are getting his gun line jammed. I spent weeks agonising over this one real problem the otherwise limp wristed and invincible Ossyan faces and do you know what my answer was? Moar guns. 

I was trying Hypnos and Gorgons and Halberdiers and Sentinels and all kinds of riff raff to try and keep my front lines unengaged.  Problems were Hypnos was a terrible jack to try and get Invictors to flank off from. The answer was sitting in front of me, at about the time my Hyperion package showed up from Defiant games. I was glueing him together thinking about how awesome he would be with pVyros' feat and + 2 armor and after 3 games I realized he wasn't. In fact he was awesome with Ossyan, the blatantly obvious choice.

 You see this surgical laser scalpel style  pan galactic gargleblaster of a list will remove enemy threats with the care and precision of a pneumatic hammer adorned with a french tickler. It has no failings what so ever. Its as water tight as the Titanic, as ship shape as the Rainbow Warrior which recently invited a load of French tourists on board. Its as flawless as an Iranian atomic power test facility. This is not a WMD this is a AWMMD (Assured Weapon of Mutual Mass Destruction.)

The idea is to run this against anyone with a Colossal. Or without one, so I can watch them cry, and then cackle with glee as my army melts.

 

    So those are the lists I am definitely not taking to Battlecry, bet your happy to know that right? Whew glad I got that off my chest. I'm off to continue watching Gladiator for the 3rd time today.