A couple of games with Cygnar: Impressions

We had quite a long gaming session last night and I was trying out some Cygnar stuff: most importantly Triumph ( !!! ) and the Storm Strider. I played all my games with eHaley and thus these thoughts are mainly focused around her.

Storm Strider seemed to be rather good. Chilling near back end of the table and shooting lazerz (pewpew). It provided easy solutions to units that are sometimes hard to kill (high DEF and/or stealth), though Cygnar doesn't seem to have real problems with them. Add Arcane Shield and Deceleration and he is not that easy to kill either and he collects power tokens to shoot stuff even more dead. With Power Tokens and Temporal Acceleration it can really give some hurt even to warjacks.

Then, the Triumph! God I like him a lot. Being able to ignore stealth while aiming is a huge thing in my book. Say bye bye to Tartarus. I played him against Witch Coven and slowly walked up the field and started to threaten the Egregore (which normal Defender could never do). With a shield and Arcane Shield he was able to hold an objective for quite some time. Yeah, he might be a point overcosted, but I'm still very happy to have some anti-stealth stuff in my army.

First game against Wraith Engine

Yesterday I got the first game against the new Cryx Battle Engine. I was playing eHaley and my opponent eAsphyxious (casual sunday evening gaming and stuff...). He had quite basic eAspy stuff (Bane Thralls and Knights, Biles) besides that huge terrifying monster. We deployed and I started the game. I ran everything up and he ran everything and set up some smokes so that I could only see his Battle Engine. The Battle Engine also started to be too close to my army (it having a 13" threat range etc) so I knew I had to get rid of it. I shot B13's brutal shots and a couple Arcane Bolts from eHaley and the Wraith Engine was only a smoking wreck (that is still not a wreck in the game...). A huge "PHEW" came out of my mouth, now I only had to worry about Banes, Excarnated Biles and eAspy's feat...

So, so far the Battle Engine didn't ruin my game, quite the contrary. It actually got me thinking is it too soft, now I was able to take it out quite easily. Add Aiyana&Holt to your list and you never have to worry about the Wraith Engine again...

Maybe in my next game I'll see the Engine in the middle of the action?

RopeCon and Mael-ETC 2012

I have a couple of events upcoming: one in near future, one further away. RopeCon (basically translated to Roleplaying Convention) is the biggest roleplaying, larping, card game, and most importantly, miniatures convention in Finland. For me it means a lot of Warmachine/Hordes (and trying to avoid larpers as well as possible, they scare me!). There are two tournaments in RopeCon: on Friday evening a Highlander 2.0 (instead of just one of each you get to choose 1-2 of each) and on Saturday is the main event, a 50p SR2011 tournament. So far my lists are pretty much all open. I have a couple of quite good of them, now I just should choose it and paint it. At the moment I'm thinking Trollbloods for the main event (them being my main army and stuff) and Khador for the Highlander 2.0 (there are a couple nice lists in Khador for a smaller point event). But only time will tell what happens, I've had some other thoughts too...

On the other hand, me and some friends decided to attend Maelstrom's ETC next year, wohoo! Tickets must be bought August 3rd (hopefully we won't miss that). The list metaing has already began and we were thinking to start insane practising for the event (so we wouldn't be total losers there). I counted 112 Warcasters in WM/H. If I play twice against every one of them (or once against it and once with it against my list), it means a game more frequently than every other day. Not an impossible schedule, but maybe I'd better start playing asap...

First games with Damiano

I managed to find a counts-as-miniature for Damiano (God I hate that model...) last week and even got a couple of test games with it already. My first list was Highborn Covenant:


Captain Damiano (*6pts)
* Mangler (8pts)
Alexia Ciannor & the Risen (Alexia and 9 Risen Grunts) (5pts)
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (6pts)
* Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer (2pts)
* * Mariner (8pts)
Steelhead Halberdiers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Steelhead Riflemen (Leader and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Master Gunner Dougal MacNaile (2pts)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord (2pts)
Sylys Wyshnalyrr (2pts) 

First game was against Scaverous' quite basic Cryx army (Deathjack, Banes, min unit of Biles, a couple of nodes, solos and stuff). My opponent managed to kill my Gun Mages on his second turn (Excarnated Bile Thralls have too big threat range) and then I had huge troubles killing his Banes (especially Tartarus) and at the same time they just multiplied (grrrr, Tartarus...). His DJ was hiding behind a forest at the beginning of the match, and finally I managed to throw my Mangler at him (with Warpath, on my feat turn). Mangler only managed to scratch the DJ and on the next turn my poor Mangler was turned into a Seether. I thought ARM22 was something, but against Cryx it wasn't... At this point I had only remnants left of my units and nothing was able to destroy to heavy warjack so we shook hands. What I learned from this game?

I hate Cryx.

Also, play better. The game definitely was not lost at the beginning, I should have kept Gun Mages more safe to kill Banes. Also, my list seems to be missing the thing to kill Tartarus, that might be worth some thinking...

For next game I swapped Halberdiers and Alexia to Boomhowler's gang and Ragman. I just got the Boomhowler's miniatures and was really eager to test them out. On paper they should work very well with Sure Foot. This time I was playing against Kromac's Circle army: Stalker, Pureblood, Gnarlhorn, Gorax, Wolves of Orboros and the like.

The game was fast and bloody. I casted Sure Foot on Mangler, surrounded him with Boomhowler and armies started to meet on the midfield. On my second turn I gave Boomhowler Deadeye and went after Wolves. My dice failed horribly, and didn't really hurt anyone. Next turn the Wolves charged Boomhowler&Co but B&Co lasted well, just as planned. At the same time he sent Stalker for an assassination run. It ended up quite luckily as Stalker stopped about 2,5" from Damiano after Warpath movement. Then I proceeded to kill about his entire his army which he had to leave quite vulnerable for him assassination to have a chance. I still almost managed to fail and left Damiano within 13" of Kromac. Luckily (again, for me) I had one last Boomhowler's buddy standing in front of Damiano and my opponent had nothing to kill it. First victory with Damiano, wohoo!

So, post-game thoughts then. Boomhowler&Co worked just like I had hoped, DEF15 and 4+ KD-immune tough seemed to cause some problems on my opponent. Deadeye is such an awesome spell on pretty much any unit, but especially on Gun Mages. SH Riflemen didn't convince me yet really well, but it might be just the opposing armies' fault, I didn't get a real chance in either game to use them properly.

That's all this time. Thanks for reading this far!