Saturday 20 August 2011

Battle Boxing

Holdenstein jr. and I had a simple game of Warmachine yesterday, pitching Stryker's battle box against Kreoss'. I took Kreoss, which put me at two disadvantages. Firstly the Menoth box isn't painted yet and secondly I judge that Stryker's Battlebox is somewhat more effective in 'jack on 'jack action than Kreoss'.

My Revenger was taken out early on with some boosted shots from Junior's Charger, followed up by the Ironclad smashing it up. Subsequently, the Lancer was set on fire by the Repenter and broken up by the Crusader. I had lost the advantage, however and had to move Kreoss up as all my wrajqcks were either disrupted or had knocked out corteces. I set Stryker on fire and knocked off a half his damage, but a charge from Stryker with boosted attacks and damage killed Kreoss.

Junior got the basics down pretty easily, and some of the metal arithmetic was challenging, but I judge that to be a good thing. Junior's pretty good at maths and giving him something challenging that's relevant can be quite tricky. Overall, this was a success. As long as we stay away from things like soul token mechanics, small Warmachine games are a decent option.

Friday 19 August 2011

Warmachine mkII

Another game last night, again my pStryker against Alan's Phinneus Shae theme list, but this time a 35 point match. I'm happy to report that my army works better at 35 than it does at 25. I'm not sure why, but I would suggest that the two decent infantry units are better enhanced (I hate that Buff/Debuff crap) by Stryker through spells and his Feat than a single one.

I took an Ironclad and lancer in Stryker's Battlegroup, with a small Trencher unit, UA and Grenadier, and a gun mage unit plus UA and Hunter jack. I would have preferred to squeeze in my Defender over the Lancer, but you can't have everything.
Team Photo

We played  with the two central objective zones. Over on my right the Trenchers squared up to Sea-dogs with Mr. Walls and the Commodore cannon and deck gun, while on the left my gun mages went for the objective, up against a Mariner, a Freebooter and Press Gangers, with both Warcasters in the centre, which had a wood blocking line of sight in the middle of the table.

To cut a long story short, the zone on the right dragged in my Lancer and First Mate Hawk, and we ended up with the Lancer, Grenadier, Hawk and the cannons not doing much to each other, with a lot of dead trenchers and pirates.
On the left, Stryker, the Ironclad, Shae, grog spar, Doc Killingsworth and dirty Meg all got dragged in to the scrap. My gun mages acquitted themselves very well, with their high def plus blur making them very difficult to hit, and them slowly whittling down the Freebooter jack and Press Gang, even with 4+ tough rolls and no knockdown. When push came to shove though, Stryker had to disrupt the Mariner to prevent it destroying the Ironclad and in doing so put himself in range of Shae, who was just able to kill him with a couple of fully boosted attacks with slightly better than average rolls.

Oh well c'est la vie, as they say in Barnsley. Lessons learned- Jack Marshall does not let you use power attacks, but does get transferred from the officer to the unit leader. Blur is ace on ATGM units and PStryker works better wi two units.
Oh, and Arcane Shield Stryker instead of camping on 2 focus. That extra point of ARM might just have made a difference.
Here's a little bigger photo of the Hunter, who I have finished since last week with his forest base.

Friday 12 August 2011

Warmachine

This is one just for me. With Holdenstein Jr's. health improving and work getting a little easier I went out to play last night for the first time in around 3-4 months. Leeds Games Club still meets on a Thursday night in Headingly, but it seems that it is increasingly going towards board and card games, and the Thursday wargaming has moved to the Leeds Wargaming Centre on Meanwood Rd, where the Leeds Night Owls now meet on a Sunday.

I played Warmachine last night. That James Rhodes is one mean miniature games player. Only joking, I played a chap called Alan, with my Stryker lead Cygnar taking on his Phinneus Shae theme list. Phineus Shae's theme list is one mean mother, with the excellent pirate solos coming in a point cheaper and getting the frickin' massive cannon, not to mention some really nasty movement spells and feat. It didn't help that my armies main trick is knockdowns, and just about everyone in his army was immune to being knocked down. Anyway I lost, due to not seeing a caster kill run coming from First Mate Hawk, who went from being out of range to all too close to Stryker after a quick cast of Coup de Main. Same old problem for me, not keeping the caster safe enough.

The other thing that I got up to was buying some of Alan's forest bases. Alan casts up bases and buildings from resin under the moniker Fat Spider. I had been looking for some cut tree trunks for a little while, in order to nicely base my Hunter warjack, and this was an easy way to do it. The bases are nice and uncluttered.
Fat Spider bases


Anyway it was an excellent night, and hopefully the start of weekly/biweekly gaming once more.