Steamroller Battle report Nakamurabashi Japan. 35 points! Earthquakes! Dodging Legion!

Life without Gators!

Just look at how relaxed these people are.

I had the supreme novelty of playing Warmachine on the floor, while not chasing terrain blown by the wind or stepping on models or all of the other inconveniences table-floor gaming induces.

In fact the tatame style Warmachine was quite a pleasure and authentically Japanese despite all of the white faces.

Onwards to victory.

This was a 10 player 35 point Steamroller event that essentially was run as hardcore with painting requirements and deathclock (chessclock).

The field was something like...

Trolls: Madrak, Doomshaper.

Trolls: Madrak, ...?

Convergence: Syntherion, ...?

Retribution: Kaelyssa, Rahn.

Retribution: Issyria, Garryth.

Menoth: Avataar, Kreoss.

Cryx: Goreshade3, Asphixious .

Cryx: Mortenebra, Sturgis2.

Circle: Kromac, Kaya.

Legion: Rhyas, Thagrosh2.

I ran the Retribution with Issyria and Garryth.

Serious business kill stuff good to win games list.
Issyria Sybil of Dawn
Banshee(10points)
Mage Hunter Assassin(2points)
Mage Hunter Assassin(2points)
Hunter Strikeforce(8points)
Mage Hunter Commander(2points)
Stormfall Archers(5points)
Stormfall Archers(5points)
House Shyeel Artificer
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt

Garyth support late game assassin list.
Garryth
Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker(2points)
Chimera(6points)
Dawnguard Sentinels(9points)
Dawnguard Sentinel Officer & Standard(2points)
Souless attachment
Dahlia Hallyr & Skarath(9points)
House Shyeel Artificer(3points)
Mage Hunter Strikeforce(5points)
Eiryss, Mage Hunter Commander(3points)

I went 4 and 0 played each list twice, 11  Control points and about 120 destruction points.

Game 1, Scenario 1 Destruction.

We tried to imagine a serene battle of floating Zen babe versus Demi god duel but our Japanese infected minds could only come up with this.

Issyria Vs Harbinger

Harbinger

Avatar

Reckoner

Vanquisher

Daughters

Knights Exemplar?

Nicea

Chior.

Every game today started with my opponent winning the dice roll, going first then me choosing the side I'm sitting on. Except for the first game where he won but decided to go second.

Highlights

• Kill boxed himself to give me 2 CP after he feated because he didn't want Issy feated MHSF to kill Harby.
• First turn Issyria blinding lighted the daughters and aiming SFA and MHSF killed all but 1.
• On the next turn under Issyrias feat a MHA did 26 damage to the Avatar.
• The previous turn the Banshee went up to KD the Avatar but rolled snake eyes. I forgot about purification so Admonition did nothing and the Avatar wrecked the Banshee.
• Holt killed Nicea, good times.

Deployment

Issyria assumes the position.

 Assassins on the flank, Banshee center to inhibit daughters. Strike force fanning around him with the Archers in the back ranks.

Menoth turn 1

Menoth rushes forward and the Harbinger feats to hold my army in place.

Ret turn 2, during harbingers feat.

 The Banshee gets in the zone. With Issyrias blinding light the Strike Force and the Stormfalls clear out most of the infantry. Nothing else advances much for fear of that Menoth sillyness.

Menoth turn 2

 Hilariously forgetting about Purification and having rolled snake eyes to KD the Avataar it walks up and ruins the Banshee. Menoth wreck the objective and net 2 comfortable points. Well they would be comfortable if Harby didn't Killbox herself.

Ret turn 3.

Ret feat turn.
Opportunity seized, the Assassin rolls something like 6,6,5,4,1 with Issys feat and clefts Avatar of Menoth in twain. One Errant is left alive, 2 jacks killed, Nicea was dispatched by Holt and the remaining jack was crippled.

Menoth turn 3.

 The remaining jack and the Errant fail to achieve much of anything despite killing some elves.

Retribution turn 4

Retribution clear out the zone and the objective to let Issyria Dominate for 5 points.

Game 2 Scenario 2 two Fronts

Garryth Vs Madrak

Madrak
Mauler
Axer
Thrower/Tosser?
Pyre Troll
Fennblades no UA
Northkin Firetrolls?
Runeshapers

He won the roll, I went second.

I have to admit I am not proud of this game. At Ret turn 5 there was a fair amount of discussion if Garryth could fit into the gap to kill Madrak. We called over a couple of unbiased judges and they declared he couldn't charge. Which I could live with, except after they left they set it as a failed charge and had me killing an intervening troll. The thing is I had to rewind with my opponent pointing out that Garryth could walk to Madrak if he had the space, and I hadn't actually declared a charge. So I ended up walking into the trolls 4 inches to find I cant fit through the gap and then walking back 3.

I also feel like a giant douche for making my opponent miss a ranged attack he declared on Garyth with his axe. Stealth yo.

We had lunch before this game, I came back after 2 beers and a massive curry and felt this was in no way an advantage.

Troll turn 1

Ret turn 2

 The Dire Troll Mauler had set up, with the rest of his army very aggressively on the front lines. The sentinels however didn't have as much impact as I would like. 2 Sentinels and Skarath did manage to kill the Mauler however.

Ret turn 3

 Trolls went up on a Control point and I had to do some severe mental juggling to get Dahlia into the zone and do something productive with Skarath.  Eyriss was plinking the beasts to make Fury management a problem, causing Madrak to cut.

Ret turn 4

Ret turn 5

 Dahlia fluffs about in the zone stopping him from scoring, which gives Garryth time to play cautiously front line not spending his focus. Eyriss, Sylys and a mage hunter tried to clear the intervening troll blocking Garryths charge lane but all failed.

Trolls turn 5

So at this point the awkward squeeze moment was resolved and Garryth stepped back into the zone. I was pretty sure it was game over. I had a Mage Hunter, Sylys and Dahlia. Then a stroke of massive luck hit.
He was seriously running hot and could only leach from the Axer. As a result both the Pyre troll and the Spear Chucker/tosser/thrower frenzied taking out the Axers spirit. Never the less a fully loaded Madrak went in on Garryth and didn't even connect due horrible bad luck or the fact that Garryth is a badass.

Ret turn 6

Madrak kept 2 transfers, mistakenly thinking he could use them. Garryth still burnt all of his fury putting the troll down, although I had to remind him to use his scroll.

Game 3 Scenario 7 Outflank

Gaspy
some kind of tier
Those really bad infantry
machine Wraith
Deathripper
Cankerworm
Handful of jacks, no characters so no worries.
Mechanics to use the scrap tokens.

He prefaced the game with something like "My battle group gets plus 2 speed" to which my silent response was...

Honestly the faster things run into Issyrias gun line the happier she is. Well unless its too fast I suppose, then it would be horrible.

Deployment

Cryx run up first turn.

 There was a brief interlude for an earthquake in which I sat paniked and the Japanese people continued to play with 0 fucks given.

Ret turn 1

Issyria feats casts Crusaders call and puts Invoiable Resolve on the Strike Force.
One Assassin fluffs the dice and misses her jack, but the other Assassin lands a crippling blow leaving it on about 7 hit points.
Two Stormfall Archers finish off the crippled jack with Sniped shots and put some damage on the one the first assassin missed.
The second unit of Stormfalls put down some more damage on the jack with a mix of Brutals and Sniped shots. One shot went wide and landed on a pair of the Thralls behind.
Strike force advance, finish off the crippled jack and cripple the Cankerworm and put a dent into the remaining jack.

Cryx turn 2 damage control.

 With much lamenting of Issyias feat (the very fuel which powers it!) the arc node positions up on my right flank and his jacks/infantry kill my Assassins and put some Strike Force down.
He Caustic Mists Aiyanna and Holt and a pair of Stormfalls causing the other 2 in the unit to flee. Then charges a thrall he had set up, tries to parasite the Strike Force and fails, feats, kills nothing with the feat (needed nines to kill Strike force with IR and Stormfalls, got none) Camps 4 Focus and hopes he can take it on the chin. Then basically kills himself as he moves a jack and one of those crab mechanics up behind Gaspy.

Ret turn 3

Issyria gives the Banshee 2, floats over the wall she was behind, Blinding lights Gaspy then Ancillary attacks with the Banshee but misses, this however confirmed that the Banshee was in range.
The banshee aimed and boosted and slammed Gaspy into the jack behind him, boosting damage it half killed him.
The non fleeing stormfalls open up with Brutal damage shots and leave him on one box and set him on fire.
Then the artificer comes out, Magno blasts an exploding scrap thrall thing, dragging in another and killing both with the explosion.
Three Mage Hunters charge through the gap and finish Gaspy off.

At this stage I was on 3 wins and the only un defeated player. But because the TO hates me we had to do a fourth round.
Thankfully I got dropped against the other Ret player and dodged the guy using Convergence, and using it well.

Game 4 Scenario 8 Recon

Was super happy about this match up. He had Rahn with 2 units of Battle Mages and Force Wall with 2 units of Battle Mages. Garryth was my pick.

Kaelyssa Vs Garryth

Kaelyssa Force Wall tier 4

Pheonix

Manticore

Griffon

Griffon

Battle Mages x2

Arcanist x3

Kaelyssa turn 1

 He positions with decent threat.

Garryth turn 1

I walk forwards, Mirage the Sentinels and for the first time, ever in the recorded history of a Garryth game which was won, I cast Pyschic Vampire. The Strike Force kill 3 Battle Mages which was a stellar effort.

Kaelyssa turn 2

 One Griffon goes Fleet and charges Eyriss but misses. A covering fire goes down and then the Pheonix advances, Kaelyssa arcs a Rift but it lands on the covering fire.
Kaelyssa Feats.

Garryth turn 2

With all of the jacks and Kae relatively close Garryth decides its time to feat. The Chimera takes one and advances in front of Garryth. The Sentinels mirage forward then run, fanning out in front of his army.
The Mage Hunters fail to kill the Griffon and drastically Skarath uses four fury to try and kill it but leave it on a box.
Garryth feats and charges forward catching most of Kaes army in his feat.

Kaelyssa turn 3

 Kae withdraws her jacks from the zone to be able to use the focus on them. She shoots Dahlia and kills her because I am a chump.

Garryth turn 3

 However mistakes were made, pulling out of the zone made it easy for my Miraging Venganced sentinels to clear it out, the Chimera killed the objective and I happily scored 3 points.
Garryth gunned down a Battle mage and the Strike Force freed up from Vengeance tried to shoot up his Arcanists.
4 Sentinels charged his Pheonix and crippled it but not enough.

Kaelyssa turn 4

 Garryth was pretty terrified of getting shot by Kae so he was mostly hiding behind the Artificer.
The battle mages turned around and cleared off the Sentinels one used a force bolt (for the first time ever Psychic Vampire netted a kill, totally worth the 5 or so focus invested in it at this point.)  around the Pheonix which charged in and killed the Chimera. The Manticore toed the zone. Thinking he had enough models in the zone he killed a couple more Sentinels and the Souless and sat happy.

Garryth turn 4

Garryth kept all his focus, charged the Pheonix and killed it. Then in a short moment of insanity I almost gallowsed the jack, which would have been all kinds of bad.
I cast a Death Sentance on the Arcanist behind the jack and Garryth ended his turn, vulnerable.
The Artificer moved up, magno blasted the Arcanist and pulled the jack out of the zone. Game Over, I won 5 points.

At this stage there were many calls of segoy and sensei as the play had more swag than possibly...

this guy.

To be honest it was an extremely clutch play, as had my other Garryth game been.
I did have some good games but only as much as I got lucky.
Sadly not facing Butchers and masses of high armor shield wall Troll, Khador and Skorne infantry the Dahlia and Garryth combo isnt finding as much purchase as it did back in the Auckland meta.


Anyway after negotiating with the TO to give me my first place prize I thanked everyone for the excellent tournament. Went home and collapsed in a gibbering heap.

Congrats if you made it this far and thanks for reading!

Camp Zama Army Base Steamroller 35 point report.

 2 Japanese, a Colombian a Spaniard an American and a Kiwi walk into a bar... 

Apologies for not putting fancy lines and boxes with information inside these pictures, but the quantity was just to great after such a long day to get the report written and fancied up at the same time. So onwards with old school batreps.

Old school batreps.

As the title suggests on this day January the 17th saw U.S Army base Camp Zama host to a small but furious 35 point steamroller tournament.

6 players in total with the factions and top 3 places represented as follows.

1st place. Retribution: Yours truly. Issyria and Ossyan
2nd place. Circle: Epic Kaya and Kromac
3rd place. Cryx: Witch Coven and Mortenebra

Followed up by, in no particular order.

Trolls: pMadrak and something?
Trolls: eMadrak and something?
Minions: Rask and Caliban.

My lists were

• Lord Arcanist Ossyan
• Infiltrators with 3 Eyriss
• Imperitus
• Invictors with Unit Attachment
•  Artificer
• Arcanist
• Magister

• Issyria Sybil of Dawn
• Mage Hunter Strike Force with Unit Attachment
• Banshee
• Storm Fall Archers
• Storm Fall Arhcers
• Aiyanna and Holt
• Mage Hunter Assassin
• Mage Hunter Assassin
• Narn mage Hunter of Ios

I spent a lot of spare time during the week thinking about these lists and as always after many agonising hours of convincing myself not to play Garyth and pVyros (because believe me I really wanted to) I chose these lists not out of any calculated reasoning but because I quite literary could no longer agonise over 1: Covering every potential match up that I was expecting to encounter and 2) delivering enough answers and problems wrapped up in 35 points.

I really wanted to play Garyth and pVyros.

I believe that outside of the Mage Hunter Strike Force, but also including it, the Retribution of Scyrah is a faction that usually has answers to problems other forces create. Unless the problem is tough, it used to be stealth but now we just kind of roll over and take it when it comes to tough spam. Or I do at least. Because of this I ended up with lists that were designed to deal with as many potential problems as I could expect to encounter.

We just kind of roll over and take it when it comes to tough, or I do at least.

The Ossyan list...

Was supposed to have the Infiltrators running up the center or on the flanks, depending on what they were facing and basically getting in the way and screening the Invictors and allowing Imperitus to set up assassination runs. This never actually happened.

The one game I played Ossyan in went as follows.

Game 1 Ossyan vs pMadrak

Scenario: Recon

pMadrak? or E? Not sure big angry smurf with an axe.
Mulg, the biggest angriest smurf with a caber.
Warders
Burrowers
Kriel stone smurfs.

Trolls has the first turn and advanced up on the left flank through the patches of woods.

So shortly after my first turn I realized that I should have sent my Infiltrators screaming up the OTHER flank so they could get stuck into his Kriel stone. However I contented myself in the false belief that tying up a couple of his warders was a worthy exercise.

Imperitus also advanced directly into the kill zone of his burrowers, without Quicken or the Artificers force wall.

All the troll player was missing was longbows.

This overall was a terrible strategy, I was bottle-necked through the middle of the table through 2 forests and around the center objective. All the troll player was missing was longbows.

Burrowers pop up and don't do much damage to Imperitus but kill about 3 Invictors.

For Ossyan having his gunline engaged or otherwise blocking their line of sight on the second turn is pretty bad. He needs the space to bring those guns to bear to utilize the feat turn.

Never mind all I have to do is kill a couple Burrowers and with sidestep and admonition I can set up to still be a threat to Mulg without trading out.

Imperitus gets 3 focus, the magister charges in and combo smites a Pyg, it toughs, so does its friend. Imperitus hits it, it toughs. he hits it again, it toughs again, he hits it again, it toughs again. I panic. He hits a different one, it toughs, he hits it again then it dies.

It toughs again. I panic.

By this time I am well and very done with Tough. Yet the Invictors now who have failed to have a path cleared for them or a decent line of sight to his caster created now try to kill Pygs who continue to roll tough rolls.

Ossyan with a lack of imagination advances and shoots Mulg putting a Chronophage down on him.

 /rant Ok whatever, hey I said it before Ill say it again. PP get your shit together and fix tough, its wrong. /rant

So its at this point that I might stop calling them Burrowers and start calling them Borrowers, like borrowing luck, not just for themselves but for his whole army. The Warders just walk up and roll 7s to wipe out most of my flanking force the Burrowers almost kill Imperitus and the rest of his army chillax in the forest with Mulg sitting there waiting for something to do.

What he does do is after a Warpath move he advances up on Imperitus and falls short.

Normally when the key heavy character warbeast tried to kill your key heavy character jack and misses utterly you turn around and kill it and start to win the game, this however didn't happen.

• First of all Eyriss couldn't get close enough to shoot the Kriel stone and strip its fury without getting engaged by the Warders. So Mulg was arm 21. 
• Secondly I still needed to clear damn Pygs out of the way to get Imperitus in and thirdly I have absolutely no faith in Imperitus with 3 focus and Concentrated power to be able to kill Mulg, well anything at all for that matter but especially Mulg.

Yes thats right, I think one of our hardest hitting melee specialized jacks is still a limp wristed dandelion puff and for the most part still rely on my Infantry to do anything that seriously needs to be done. The problem was my Infantry was dieing in droves and I wasn't getting  much done.

It is my experience that Ret jacks are not beat sticks, they are more utility pieces, tools to apply pressure and open spaces or opportunities when they arise. Imperitus for me wants to stay alive and hold zones and put down assassination threats, he doesn't enable like the Banshee or Daemon does but gives a pretty good threat to enemy casterlocks.Not kill giant heavily armored meaty smurfing death machines.

So What happens is the Invictors make space for the Magister to Whipsnap Imperitus out so he has enough range to threat on Madrak. All I need is for him to not roll tough rolls, well that and to not roll another 7 and kill Eyriss with a free strike so she can Arcane Hemorrhage Madrak. Of course he doesnt tough, but he does roll that 7, and the assassination is doomed for failure. So Imperitus settles for killing most of his Kriel stone unit.

Unimpressed Mulg turns around and pounds Imperitus into the dirt. Actually he doesn't quite, because of Pheonix Protocol.


At this point in the game 2 things are worth mentioning.

1. The pictures are getting blurier and blurier as my deep rage over tough and my opponents ability to roll over 7s like they are 5s is boiling up inside me
2. My Arcanist fails its repair check. I didn't mention this because this always happens. This should not be something that always happens, repair (8) is good. But I can honestly say I remember one time in the last 7 that it actually managed to repair something, and that was for 1 point of damage. Seriously whats going on here?

But actually Madrak burns all of his fury finishing off Imperitus and at this point I am happy with what Imperitus has managed to achieve. In a round about way he gave me my only shot at winning this game by being just tanky enough to make Madrak burn all of his fury.

This was my only chance to snap a win from the smurfy jaws of defeat. Not a good chance mind you, if everything goes well, with above avverage odds of hitting I still have lets see. pow 13 4d6 3 or 4 power 12s with 3d6 2 more power 12s he has arm 16? 17? loads of boxes and sac pawn kind of thing and tough and blah blah blah...

Whatever 8s on 3d6, I can do this...

No I cant

still have 3 arcantric bolts and 3 or 4 Invictors to do this under feat damage, sweet as...

No its not...

The best part about this turn was using beat back to push a warder close enough for my Magister to slam said warder into the Artificer.

 Mulg used a protective fit to half kill Ossyan and then finished him off with a dismissive back hand.

A dismissive back hand.

0 Control points scored

Trolls win on assassination

tough is broken

I'm terrible at game.

Game 2 Issyria vs eKaya

After the resounding disappointment of the last game I went with my Issyria list to deliver MHA justice to face.

Such a pretty table mat.

eKaya
Goat that slams things lots
New Goat with shiny bits
Ravagers with UA
Witch Doctor of broken tough giving painfulness
Stones no UA
Ravager Chieftain White Mane
War Wolves?

So after deployment I realized I said I would go first.
I ponderd this...
15" charging Ravagers, why did I want to go first? I want him to spend his first turn running into my guns...

So my first amazing turn was spent advancing my front line only 2 inches and bringing the rest of my army up behind it.


And his amazing first turn was spent advancing into range of my guns as was meant to happen on his first turn.

Then my second turn wasn spent killing him with aforementioned guns.

Banshee gets a focus and puts it to use knocking down the Gnarlhorn.
So Issyria advances casts Crusaders Call and Feats and possibly smirks.
She ancillary attacks the Banshee and it slams knocks down and kills 2 Ravagers who of course TOUGH! (I will shortly completely get over my rage at tough but at this stage I was still pretty bitter towards it)

and possibly smirks...

The first Mage Hunter Assassin charges the Character or Shadowhorn Satyr (I honestly didn't know what it was I just knew it was going to suffer chain weapon justice) The first almost kills it and the second does kill it. The storm fall archers on the right step up and kill the Gnarlhorn and the archers on the left kill some Ravagers while the Strike force also kill some Ravagers.

It was after all a pretty ball busting turn for the Circle player so he went to do the only thing I thought he could do. Well no he had that option and the possibility of Charging his White Mane in for hilarity and good times. But he didnt. It seriously could have eaten its way through 2 units of elves tho.

Anyway Laris runs in so Kaya can feat and teleport in to kill Issyria, but first Issyria admonitions away from Laris, then he figures he can still go for a spell assassination except he cant teleport anywhere and not be effected by Banshee wailing.

So he opts for plan B which is  run  army away, adopt fetal position close eyes and wish for it all to go away. This was essentially forfeiture without forfeiting so I play long score scenario points and assassinate on the winning turn.

Thus Kaya taps her ruby red shoes and whispers there's no place like home.

5 Control points for Retribution

Assassination

and a bad reputation.

Meanwhile on another table...

I'm sorry Gator player you are undeserving of my ire.

Game 3 Issyria vs Mortenebra

Feat on first turn, try to win.

Twas a tier list.
Morty
Crab jack with stealth
more jacks
small jack
more small burrowing jacks
support to make jacks work better

I found it hard to hide my excitement when my opponent told me he had a extra 2" deployment from tier. To be honest my strategy for this game went as far as my last.

Feat on first turn, try to win.

So he did spend his first turn advancing into my threat ranges.

The Banshee couldnt bring up a decent threat and he didnt leave Morty close enough to get double charged by Assassins.

Still Issy advances, Admonitions herself Invoiable Resolves the Banshee and feats.

I kill the small jack, the crab jack and another and cripple the other 2.

He attempts an assassination run and Issyria Admonitions out of harm.

My army mops up the survivors while I try to score more points.

Narn fluffs about and fails to kill things, good work Narn.

Cryx kill the scenario objective for a point.

Retribution continue to fluff about and not kill Mortenebra scoring more scenario points.

Morty tries a last ditch assassination on Issyria and she Arcane Vortexes it and that's that.

Retribution Win

5 control points

loss of all pretence of being a "nice guy"

 

Boy am I glad Warmachine doesn't have sportsmanship. I love those guys but I hate myself.

I mean really, not to diminish the game at all but it was pretty straight forward. After I neutralized the jacks he had a considerable dis advantage for delivering an assassination or clearing out my infantry.

Venue was great, TO was great, everything was great. Not just because I won but it was very hassle free and I hope there can be more and larger tournaments soon in the same place.

I did feel pretty awful for wiping 2 armies off the table in a turn each with Issyria but its what she does. No its what she needs to do, because if she doesn't well its all wet paper bag downhill from there.

One thing about tough tho, whenever you are talking about tough or recounting any one of those ludicrous tough stories the general rule is to take the actual number exaggerate it by at least twice and add a couple.

 2 Japanese, a Colombian a Spaniard an American and a Kiwi walk into a bar... The bartender pours 2 sake a sangria a tequila a bourbon and gives the Kiwi prune juice. 

The Kiwi asks why he got prune juice

The bartender says "I heard you were having a problem with passing tough rolls"

Sorry.