Little_Lano Talks About: WarmaHordes in 2015

So, 2015 is the year my endeavours within WarmaHordes really takes off.  In 2014 I participated in a few tournaments with a few lists and I generally liked where I was going but I never took them very seriously.  I concentrated on Prime Thagrosh and Epic Vayl, although I almost exclusively played Thagrosh.  So within 2015, my first tournament being the Spring Masters SE Regionals, I'l be playing the 3 list format.  And i have been thinking over the holidays which three Warlock's i'l be playing.

At the moment, this is what I believe to be playing.  I'm going to try play with Warlocks that I normally don't play with.  Of the three I've chosen, I've only played Vayl2 properly before, and even then, I don't think I played her very well!

So let's take a look at what I have chosen.

Little_Lano Plays: WarmaHordes 50pts Legion of Everblight vsMercenaries(Riot)

So Riot from (here) is coming over to drop his gaming table top off.

The poor lady has no home since the closing down of our local gaming club so I adopted her!

And we will be christening the table while he is here! 

So, as normal, what do I take? 

Well over Christmas i acquired a Gatorman Posse and Kallus the Wrath of Everblight.

Just before that I managed to win a ebay bid for Max Legionnaires + Captain Farilor, so, I imagine they'll work fairly well together considering Kallus is an Infantry Caster!

Let see what my list consists of today...

Little_Lano Plays: WarmaHordes 50pts vs Riot Part 2

The stage was set, and the two armies lined up across the brand new table.

Looking at the other side, my opponent was the ever dangerous Ashlyn.  And immediately the threats stood out in the opponent list.  

1) The two Mules.  I have very little ways of penetrating Armour 18+.  The only ways possible would be to Ignite my Warpers and with the help of Prey, I can crack that armour.  The other problem is the fact that Riot won't leave my Ogryns alone for me to get to them, it'll be a hard fought fight to get rid of those.

2) Stannis, mother fucking Stannis.  This guy, is soooooooooooooooooooo annoying, with his Halberdiers and Cavalry.  They move through each other, over each other get Flanking bonuses and what not.  And guess who is behind them, yes it Alexia, the Bitch of Warmachine, the common whore who is in every list possible... Looks like my Spawning Vessel will be competing for bodies for the rest of the game!

Here is my deployment.  The Legionnaires take place in the middle, Kallus and the support behind them ready to collect souls and hand out Dark Guidance  and Unyielding.  They are flanked by the Ogryns on both flanks, with the Gatorman Posse on the extreme right.

The Gatorman Posse i was hoping to be an annoyance, maybe to force some units to come engage me, but also, I want to be able to force multiple break checks next to my Ogryns.  They are able to pretty act independent of the main army, I haven't really played with these guys yet, and I'm already loving what they offering to me.

The Mercenaries line up ahead of me.  the amount of infantry on the table will mean there is a lot of pummelling on both sides!

The gun mages make another appearance, these guys are horrible under feat, critical brutal and my Ogryns will be feeling the pain through out the game!  Also, a Mule has be Marshalled to the Officer, meaning that there will be Critical Brutal Steam Cannon throwing everything mother fucking everywhere goodness.  I can't wait to see what will happen when that hits in the middle of the infantry blobs!

On the other side of Ashlyn, the man mountain of infantry takes place, with the compulsory corpse collector behind!
I'm pretty scared of those cavalry coming into my way, I'm hoping that I can hold them at bay and the Legionnaires can take the bulk of damage.  Hopefully the Ogryns will hit on the counter and get rid of them.

Turn 1: As always, both sides run forward in an attempt to gain the advantage in the middle of the board.

Turn 2: At the top of turn 2, My Legion army runs into the zone and eagerly await the Halberdier's charge.  The Gatormen advance down the flank against the incoming Devil Dogs. Little did i know that those Devil Dogs will unleash a massive Bukakke load onto the Gators.
The Legionnaires pop the mini feat to form an impervious wall.

The Gun mages take up position on the Ruins to gain the elevation bonus and to hold the right flank against the incoming Ogryns.

The first Mule opens up, but being ARM 22, (I was engaging the enemy objective) he does no damage.  Thank goodness it wasn't a critical hit!

The Halberdiers line up the initial charge, the mix of Gators and Ogryns and a lot of wounds to take off.

Firstly, the Halberdier Cavalry charge in with Stannis.  Stannis himself doesn't do much damage, the Ogryns have Set defence on the charge and Unyielding which means he doesn't have enough punching to power to finish one off, although he does pop a few damage boxes.
Although, the Steel Head Cavalry fail their Terror check!
A huge outcome which surely means I've saved an Ogryn.
That is game changer.

The Halberdiers receive a  Run\Charge order and due to Stannis, they can move through each other.  Proving to be a great meat shield for the Terrified Steel Head Cavalry.

The Halberdiers use Combined Melee attacks, but unfortunately they don't pull down any infantry.  The ARM buffs for all my infantry prove too tough.
The Devil Dogs Combined Ranged Attack and blow their load all over a Gatorman Posse.  The gators are taking damage by the boat full!
Meanwhile, the Gatormen head into combat and take off the Halberdier heads, LITERALLY.

Now at the time of writing this, things frothier get a bit shady, Riot and I got side tracked with the absolute amazing photo porn available, so my reporting from here on in will be sketchy!
From here, I remember using my Vengeance movements and the Legionnaires carve through the Halberdiers, I go for an Assassination on Alexia but come up 1 damage short. Which, will have dire consequences in the next turn!
At the End, I pop my Feat.  Any casualties will be starving Alexia of corpses and providing me with Incubi!

Photo Porn, pure porn.

Meanwhile the Ogryns on my right flank are getting hammered.  The Mule Marshalled to the Mages got a critical brutal which knocked down my UA which mean't I couldn't change.  Gutted!  I have to settle for walking one guy in combat and throwing African Sticks for hard 10s.  The Gunmages also blow away one and i'm no conceding to the idea that these are sacrificing themselves to make sure the Zone isn't over run and my objective is safe for a while longer.

I see you Gorman, you Black Oil throwing cunt.  Every Warmachine Army I've played in the last 6 months has either Sylys, Eiryss, Rupert, Alexia or Gorman in it... Unfortunately, most of them make an appearance today!
I'm planning on getting my Afflicter to swoop in and take him out.  a 4pt trade to get rid of him is well worth it.

So, not killing Alexia lead to this.  MAGNIFICENT PHOTO PORN!
It's like Scarlett Johansson got naked and laid over a gaming table.
But still, these fuckers are annoying, they come up everywhere and created what can only be a cess pool of undead, smelly cloud effects whirl of blades and teeth.
They manage to pull done a handful of miniatures, but generate Incubi in the process.

An overview of the battle

INCUBI RISE MY CHILDREN

The Harrier that was spawned from the Pot has a second go at Alexia.  This time, he makes sure she goes down with a terrific roll.  The tide is turning over on the left hand side of the field.

Starting to look healthier over here.

There aren't many photos of the right hand side because it's starting to look dire for me and Riot and I believed that the photos over here were much more interesting!

At this point though I was starting to worry.  One unit of Ogryns were now all but dead, and the second unit had taking massive casualties.  And there were two full health Mules for me to contest with if i want that zone.  

This is how it looked after my 4th turn.  The incubu were generated and we can now start pushing off the zone and get to work taking the objective.

Ashlyn starts swinging away and removes a lot of the models in the way.
Unfortunately, Riot's misses is calling and the end of the game comes beckoning quickly!

Photo Porn

Photo Porn

Photo Porn

In the Last throws of the game, the Spawning Vessel poops out a Stinger, the Stinger goes in for the kill on Ashlyn and puts his Stinger through her heart.
which is the Game.

Conclusion to the Game.
It was a shame that Riot had to leave, had we had more time, I reckon those two mules would have blasted Infantry everywhere and I would have had a real problem dealing with them.

So what did i learn today?

1) The list needs to be tweaked to find a better way to deal with high ARM.  I'm thinking I'll drop the war beasts and take a Heavy Warbeast for heavy hitting.

2) Remember what I have.  I forgot on numerous occasions to roll the additional dice for Dark Guidance.  Especially when Ashlyn popped her feat I forgot to roll that addition dice which could have helped!

3) Painted models are better models, and it makes the game look pretty!

Little_Lano Plays: WarmaHordes 35pts, Everblight vs Trollbloods, Part2, Madrak1 vs Lylyth1

 So the big game is here.

Anthony reveals his warlock as prime Madrak!

So let's take a quick look at what his army comprises of..

Madrak 

Dire Troll Bomber

2 Impalers

1 Axer

Cragback and Lug

Max Pyg Burrowers 

Initial thoughts going into this game... 

That with the amount of infantry I have in this army, I simply cannot let Madrak get his feat into the middle of my army. 

Can you imagine the destruction!!

Unfortunately, the mission we rolled was Into The Beach. 

As I said in my previous blog post, I needed a scenario with little objectives in order to keep my army in formation and move in a solid unit. 

On the up side, between our armies, it looked spectacular! Apart from a single unpainted model. 

Anthony went to the effort to even make an objective marker for this game!

Isn't it pretty!!

It was stolen from my idea of making this objective marker

Anyway, back to the game and deployment. 

Anthony won the roll off and elected to deploy first very simply with Battle Group down the middle Lug and Burrowers to my right. 

Giving me a dilemma, ideally I'd like the grotesque and spawning vessel opposing the enemy infantry and collecting the resulting corpses, but I had a hunch that Madrak and his battle group was going to head for the zone which unopposed, would net him 2 points a turn. Some thing which I couldn't let him do. 

So I placed my "anvil" unit upfront to hold the control zone and the swordsmen behind waiting for the right time to counter. I field the bolt thrower and Shephard a little further to my right to try to hold Lug away from my right. 

I plan on holding the left, going for the destruction points on the objective opposite,and once Lug had been taken care of, race Lylyth over to the flag to hold. As it turns out, plans never go toft!

So, add the game starts, Madrak and his buddies move as I thought towards the zone, and Lug with the Pygs move towards the Flag. Everything running as per usual.

Silly ugly unpainted models.

Pygs approach the flag.

Meanwhile during my turn, everything runs too with the exception of the Battlegroup.

The Seraph and Lylyth both use Slipstream to help get a few more inches. The former allowing the latter to just get into range with her bow. 

An unfortunate Troll Impaler just happens to be within range and Lylyth takes a sneaky pop through the trees. After landing, she uses her Witch Mark effect to automatically hit with the Bad Blood spell. Being able to get such a spell off early is very beneficial. Forcing the Warlock to choose between taking damage or frenzying the Warbeast, or in subsequent turns not want to fury up the warbeast!

With that, the turn was ended. 

Both sides had run into position, and the ensuing turns would lead to Carnage, quite literally!!

The beginning of turn two and Madrak was ready to mobilise. All the war beasts advanced and let fly scattering bombs and thrown spears. Very few hit the mark except a scattering Bomb which deviated to the 1 ahead and promptly blew up 2 Grotesques. 

 Unfazed, the Grotesques still advance.

Meanwhile, on the right hand flank, Anthony's Pyg Burrowers had surprised me to running STRAIGHT into me! 

Now that took me off guard... I wasn't expecting these guys to be a threat for at least another turn. 

Now I have a major dilemma. Madrak is right there for the taking if I get lucky with my damage rolls. But if that fails, he WILL kill a lot of my army and those Pygs will destroy stuff in the resulting aftermath. 

I decide to go for Madrak. Lylyth pops feat to have a go at him, with the Seraphs 2 shots, we bounce off, only dealing 6 damage to him while he transferred 12 damage worth. 

Lastly, my Spawn Vessel spawns a Stinger, and true to his word, he makes a bee line for Madrak. Having hit, then told him its 4d6 damage, he promptly uses his scroll to waive the damage. 

The Groteques receive a Charge/Run order. To tie up models and shield Lylyth from the incoming Pygs.

Now I'm fearing the Feat, I've left a gap between the front line and my second line to hopefully minimise the damage.

Strangely enough, Madrak doesn't choose to pop his feat yet, but relying on his sheer weight of attacks from his Warbeasts  he ploughs through the infantry before him. The control zone is looking like his, I'm left with a few infantry but it does look like my Swordsmen will get a counter charge off.

To make matters a little worse, two throws from the Bomber scatter nicely and land directly over my spawning vessel unit. FUCK! Eurgh... That Bomber is getting annoying! Now my collection range is smaller and I'm not moving very fair anymore. At least their bodies are feeding the spawning vessel!

Still hiding behind her Grotesque meat shield *drum roll* the Pygs now burrow into the ground... Fuck, now these guys are going to cause more problems. 

Legion are suppose to have good board control but it seems Lylyth is struggling here! Meanwhile, this fucking Bear keeps coming closer. I need to find a way to get rid of it this turn. 

At the end of Trollbloods turn 3, this is what the board looks like. 

I'm now being cornered, and my Objective is now being threatened. I have a cunning plan to try get rid of Lug. I think, if I can get rid of Lug, Lylyth can hold the Flag while the rest of the army controls or contests the zone and destroy the objective. 

Plan set lets go.

So, I drop Bad blood  on the Impaler.

Lylyth shoots Lug and puts Bad Blood on him. Therefore, if I shoot Cragback, he can't transfer anything! 

Phase one done.

The Nephilim, who may I say, has done nothing the whole game... Takes a shot at Cragback, hits, boosted damage since he has Stronghold up, and deals 3 damage... Then the Naga walks up and misses with the boost... Fuck him, fuck my life and fuck this game...

I send the Seraph to destroy the objective. 3 shots all hit, and I deal 13 out 15 damage to it.

Lylyth, who Bushwacked away from Lug, watches as everyone can't kill it or Cragback! 

I also moved away to hopefully minimise how many Burrowers get to shoot me. 

As everything moves forwards onto the point to try clog it, I'm still trying to space out so Madrak can't Pac Man his way though my infantry. 

Looking back, I really didn't space everything well. I was hoping he would miss at least once or twice!

So, here comes Madrak. He pops feat, and 1 minute later...

Thankfully, he missed my Forsaken once, and when he bought an attack against the first Swordsmen, even with Carnage cast, he rolls SNAKE EYES!!!!!

*Victory Jiggle*

The Pygs come up right in front of Lylyth, but needing 10 to hit, he has no luck with the 5 that was in range. 

After Madrak failed to reach Lylyth within feat, he was left within charge range of my Blighted Nyss Swordsmen. 

With all the residual damage from Bad Blood and Odd damage here and there, the first Swordsmen swings, connects, and with 4d6 carves Madrak in half. 

This was a terribly close game. Lylyth was very close to being caught as she was running out of room to play with and Madrak was about to slice her with his massive axe of doom. 

What did I learn...

1) learn to space out my infantry. Times like this shows that wrong placement can cost me squads of infantry.

2) Lylyth needs more heavy hitting models to take more advantage of her support.

I'd like to thank Anthony for the game!

And thanks to you guys for reading my blog.

Until next time, ciao!