My first game was against an Imperial Guard ‘parking lot’ style army.

Notable events:

• I blew up a Chimera with a Ravager on my first turn in Dawn of War. Didn’t kill any dudes, but it was cool.
• My personal objective I selected was Assassination. His most expensive unit was a Leman Russ Plasma deal. I spent the whole game shooting at it with Dark Lances and only destroyed it on my last turn.

I did, in fact, lose. The score was 6-1.

Second game was against Tyranids. It had a Hive Tyrant, several units of Genestealers, a Tervigon, some Gaunts and a few Mycetic Spores. Fully painted, too, and it looked great!

Notable events:

• Genestealers outflank into my Warriors and destroy them. Of course, they were camping on the objective I selected for my Personal Objective.
• I tried taking back the objective with Wyches, but they eventually fell, too.
• Assaulting a Hive Tyrant with Incubi, an Archon and a Haemonculous is not that great an idea.

Lose! I think the score was 7-0 this time.

Final game was against Necrons. Two units of Warriors, Nightbringer, a Necron Lord, a Tomb Spider, small unit of Paraiahs, a Monolith and a unit of Destoryers. He had a setup where he could light up his Monolith and the Tomb Spider (which was a FW Tomb Stalker). Very cool.

Notable events:

• Assaulting Nightbringer is nigh impossible with Dark Eldar. Assaulting anything close by the Nightbringer is also impossible.
• I should have paid attention to the Phase-Out rule. I went after all the wrong things.
• My blob of Warriors ended up holding my Personal Objective in the end, preventing me from getting another total loss.

Yep…lost again. 6-1, I believe.

After all that, you’d think I’d give up on the Dark Eldar. Nope. Here are some Wyches I finished this week:

I’m working on some Incubi now. They should be finished really soon!

We arrived Thursday night and picked up our pre-registered badges. those who were among the first 1,000 received a random Warmachine plastic battle box in their swag bag. I think the best thing I got in mine was the painting magazines, which it seemed everyone got.

Friday we walked around the convention area to check out all the craziness. The 40K hall was packed and I saw a number of pretty awesome army displays. I went to check out the Forgeworld booth and discovered a line nearly out of the door. Later, we went to the Warhammer Fantasy area. They also had a number of display boards that clearly took a lot of work and talent to create. eventually, Dominic and I checked in at the Privateer Press area for the Eternal War (Iron Arena?) event. We played one game against each other wherein the Circle emerged victorious. Dominic then played against a Cygnar player from Texas (I believe) where he eventually lost. The original plan was to return from dinner and play more games, but we ended up just hanging out watching MenothJohn (from Lost Hemisphere Radio) go up against a Farrow army. Sometime during that day we also went to the Games Workshop Battle Bunker. Honestly, I was not that impressed. There were tons of tables they use for their events, but the store area was just like any other LGS that carries their products.

Saturday morning was the Warmachine Team Tournament. Matt “Cheaty” Beaty was my teammate with his Retribution army lead by ravyn. We checked in around 8:15am and began round 1 near 9:30am. Game #1 was against a Circle (eKaya)/Cryx (Mortenebra) team. The only eventful thing (other than both our casters getting killed) was Matt’s Mage Hunter Assassin coming from waaaaay downtown to assassinate Mortenebra. Oh, and my mistake in having the Feral attack the now inert Deathjack. Game #2 was aganst a Cygnar (Seige)/Cryx (Deneghra) team. Matt and I came close to winning by control points, but I ended up putting Kaya out too far, which got her killed. Ravyn got done in a bit later right before the turn we probably would have gotten our 3rd control point. Game #3 was against a Skorne combo army (Xerxes and Mordikaar). This one was lost from the word “go”. I don’t think we had enough anti-infantry to deal with all of them, especially resurrecting Eviscerators and Cetrati with Defender’s Ward. I did manage to get my Shadowhorn behind his lines to throw Molik Karn back toward their deployment zone to land on the Shaman. Game #4 was against a Khador (eVlad)/Cryx (Terminus) team. There was nothing eventful here other than the Mage Hunter Assassin surviving a number of attacks from Bane Thralls. All the games were good games and our opponents were all really very cool. THough I do have to say the number of Cryx players seemed a bit high. I know a Cryx army won the Hardcore tournament the day previous. Our friends on another team won their first two, but lost the last ones. Our team’s army was at least considered for best painted, but was beaten out by a Skorne/Legion army that did look pretty good. We eventually made it over to the bits trading area where Dominic was looking for some Trollblood models for a new army and teamup with me for Gen Con. Almost immediately he found someone and he purchased some models from him. The rest of the night was pretty much discussions about the Trollblood team for Gen Con.

Sunday we all got packed up and made one last visit to the different areas of the convention. I was finally able to hit the Forgeworld booth and pick up a con-only Chaos Dwarf for a friend in Canada. We passed through the Warmachine area and watched a game being played in the Championships (I believe); eDoomshaper vs. eThagrosh. The game ended up going to time and both sides had taken heavy losses. Before leaving, we saw something I don’t think I’ve ever seen: a guy on the verge of tears apparently as a result of something that happened in one of his games. One of the Privateer Press employees was trying to calm him down and Jen, the woman who runs the Press Ganger group walked away saying she’d never seen it before either. It was all very surreal.

The ride back was uneventful other than Dominic and I talking about doing the Trollblood teamup for Gen Con. Nothing concrete was decided for my side, but he’s set on a beast-heavy list with eDoomshaper.

Anyway, here are a few pics I took. More can be found in the Gallery.

Anyway…this game was my second for the Blasted Heath league. I won a 4 player King of the Hill game the previous week against Joel, Cory and Jim.

I won the roll, so I had him deploy first. His army looked something like this:

• Adeptis Rahn Shyeel
• Phoenix
• Dawnguard Sentinels (Leader and 9 Grunts)
• Dawnguard Sentinel Officer & Standard
• House Shyeel Battle Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts)
• Mage Hunter Strikeforce (Leader and 5 Grunts)
• Mage Hunter Commander
• Arcanist
• House Shyeel Magister
• Mage Hunter Assassin
• Narn, Mage Hunter of Ios

The board had two forests on either side of a river crossing the middle of the board horizontally and two hills on either side as well.

Phoenix was all the way to my right, then the Sentinels front and center, behind them were the Battle Mages, Arcanist, and Magister. To their left was Narn and the Assassin followed by the Mage Hunters. Of course, the Advance Deploy stuff was further forward.

My list looked like this:

• Kaya the Moonhunter & Laris
• Gorax
• Feral Warpwolf
• Pureblood Warpwolf
• Druids of Orboros (Leader and 5 Grunts)
• Druid of Orboros Overseer
• Shifting Stones
• Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew (Leader and 1 Grunt)
• Lord of the Feast

I fear the Mage Hunters because I thought they could get around my stealthy tricks and forests (the latter turned out to be correct, but not the former), so I deployed most of my stuff (Kaya, Laris, Shifting Stones, Pureblood, Feral, Gorax and Swamp Gobbers) in or near a forest in my left corner. The Druids and Lord deployed in the forest on my far right.

Per the usual, I don’t remember what happened each turn (maybe I need to bring a notebook or something), so I’ll just go over the highlights. In the early parts of the game, the Assassin owned the Lord of the Feast without him having done anything. Narn cleaned house for most of the game, finishing off a Gorax and eventually (spoiler alert!), epic Kaya. At one point, Kaya made three separate attacks against the Magister, needing only 7s and rolled no better than 5. This was the theme of most of my die rolls in this game, except later in the game when the Feral Warpwolf trampled through some infantry to reach Rahn. All the free strikes against him missed thanks to Forced Evolution. He made two boosted attack rolls and didn’t boost damage, missing killing Rahn by 2 points. Kaya then fell the following turn after being chased around the previous turns by Narn and a few other models.

Cory ended up winning the game, and what an awesome game it was! It was a very close game in the end, but I still feel he had me on the ropes pretty early with Narn and the Assassin running around killing my models. Cory is a really good player who is not too competitive, but competitive enough to kick your ass when it counts.

Brian and I decided to play a 35-point refresher game (for him) with his brand new Menoth models. I changed my list up just a tad by bringing the Great Bears of Gallowswood and resisted the urge to bring the Behemoth instead of the Destroyer (and some other things).

His list:

My list:

We rolled off for terrain deployment and rolled off for who went first. I decided to have Brian go first.

First turn was just him moving his models forward. Templar was to my far left, next to the Bastions. The Deliverers and Feora were to the right of them, with Feora taking shelter partially behind the Bastions and Deliverers. The Daughters moved behind a high wall in the center of the table and were mostly out of line-of-sight, but across half the board. The Vanquisher and both Paladins of the Order of the Wall were on the right. The Deliverers tried to fire a few shots into my group and managed o kill a Widowmaker. Feora put up the wall of fire in the center in front of the Bastions. My turn, I moved everything forward, paying special attention to where the Daughters were. I moved the IFP forward, but did not use the “mini-feat” and placed the Old Witch in their midst to prevent the Daughters from getting in contact with her. Of course, I cast Iron Flesh on the IFP, as always. Widowmakers took a few pot-shots at the Deliverers and might have been in range of and killed one. The destroyer tried to shoot a Paladin and deviated into the Vanquisher, which took no damage. The other models merely moved forward.

Second turn, again most of his models just moved forward. The Daughters charged the one Widowmaker on the edge of the woods and did not kill her. Deliverers took a few shots and managed to do some damage to the Kodiak. The wall of fire was placed in front of my Manhunter and Great Bears, protecting the Bastions. In my turn the Manhunter tried charging through the wall of Fire to get to a Bastion, but caught on fire and died. Man, POW 12 hurts!! The Great Bears charged the Templar, barely missing the wall themselves. The two that got in contact did a lot of damage, taking out the cortex and nearly removing the right arm. The Widowmakers took a few shots at the Templar and finished off the arm. The Destroyer tried again to damage the Paladins and failed. The Kodaik trampled the lone Widowmaker in contact with the Daughters and a few of their number, only managing to kill the Widowmaker. The IFP charged the Daughters, killing only one of them. The IFP officer ordered the Defensive Formation and had a few members engage the Vanquisher and place all of them in Shield Wall. Scrapjack moved around to the right of this setup to get lined up with the Deliverers.

Third turn the Bastions charge the Kodiak and attack one of the Great Bears. The Kodiak gets hurt pretty badly, but the Great Bear survives. Paladins charge the Destroyer and one does a whopping 15 points of damage and the other does 10! Daughters leave combat with the IFP to engage The Old Witch. They do little to no damage. Feora attempts to burn all the IFP in front of the Vanquisher to get him disengaged by the IFP, but manages to kill all but one of them. Feora pops her feat, setting all but two Great Bears and The Old Witch on fire. I think the Deliverers fired into the Widowmakers, killing all of them. On my turn, I rolled for all my Fire continuous effects, thinking I was going to lose a lot on this. In the end, I lost three IFP and one of the Great Bears took a point or two of damage. Scrapjack charged into the Deliverers and killed one or two of them to clear a spot for Old Witch. Old Witch uses Unseen Path to teleport next to Scrapjack and attacks Feora with a boosted attack roll that hits. Boosted damage only does 3 points. I figured my goose was cooked at this point. Old Witch’s second attack is boosted to hit and does. Boosted damage rolls TRIPLE SIXES to barely finish Feora! Holy moly! How epic!!

I kinda felt bad beating Brian in a refresher game, but he was cool with it. As always, Brian is a great opponent and Warmachine is over and over, proving to be a great game!

Last Wednesday I finally had the opportunity to play Dave in a game of Warmachine. Up until then, I think we’d only played a couple of games of Legend of the Five Rings and a “demo” game of Uncharted Seas. We decided on 50 points for this game as I wanted to test out my Old Witch list that I made up and started painting over the last few weeks. This being my second ever game of Warmachine using Khador, I figured I’d probably lose badly. Dave has been playing Retribution over hte last little while and seems to be enjoying them and had yet to play against Khador with them.

His list went something like this:

• Adeptis Rahn Shyeel
• Gorgon
• Hydra
• Phoenix
• Dawnguard Invictors (Leader and 5 Grunts)
• Dawnguard Invictor Officer & Standard
• House Shyeel Battle Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts)
• Mage Hunter Strikeforce (Leader and 5 Grunts)
• Mage Hunter Commander
• Stormfall Archers (Leader and 3 Grunts)
• Arcanist
• Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios
• Mage Hunter Assassin

My list:

• Zevanna Agha, the Old Witch of Khador
• Destroyer
• Kodiak
• War dog
• Greylord Ternion
• Iron Fang Pikemen (Leader and 9 Grunts)
• Iron Fang Pikemen Officer & Standard
• Kossite Woodsmen (Leader and 5 Grunts)
• Widowmakers
• Man-o-war Kovnik
• Berserker
• Manhunter
• Widowmaker Marksman

Dave had the table already set up by the time I arrived. He used lots of terrain, which I like. The center was dominated by a ruined building with a forest inside, there were his on either side of the table with a forest or two near each deployment zone.

As usual, I don’t remember all the details, but here are some highlights. Manhunter does nothing as he leaves the safety of the forest and gets shot to death. The Greylords nearly wipe out a unit of Mage Hunters with sprays and the Ternion ends up losing one of the three to the Battle Mages. The Kodaik nearly gets wrecked by the Phoenix. Kovnik gets charged by the Mage Hunter Assassin and survives with 2 boxes left. The Widowmakers pick off a few Invictors. The IFP move up the center with Weald Secrets on them and get owned by the Stormfall Archers setting them on fire. The Widowmakers get in the way of the Berserker charging the Phoenix. The Kossite Woodsmen show up behind the Battle Mages and kill all but one of them. The Destroyer works on the Gorgon, but fails to do much. The Berserker gets charged by the Hydra. In the final turn, Scrapjack uses Avatar of Slaughter to go through a bunch of his troops to end up in front of Rahn. The Old Witch uses Unseen Path to be placed next to Rahn and proceeds to attack. She does some decent damage but fails to kill on rolling triple-ones for damage. In return, Rahn attacks the Old Witch, leaving her with 8 boxes prior to his last attack. Dave decides to boost the attack and then damage to kill her.

A really great game, where I felt like I did a pretty decent job of making him work for his victory. Dave is a really awesome opponent who is cool helping out people who may not know all the rules inherently.

Thursday I played another Warmachine game using the Old Witch. This time against Joel’s Mercenaries. We’d agreed on 35 points for this one.

His list:

• Fiona the Black
• Mangler
• Mariner
• Long Gunner Infantry (Leader and 9 Grunts)
• Sea Dog Crew (Leader and 5 Grunts)
• First Mate Hawk
• Lord Rockbottom
• Master Gunner Dougal MacNaile
• Rutger Shaw
• Taryn di la Rovissi

My list:

• Zevanna Agha, the Old Witch of Khador
• Destroyer
• Kodiak
• War dog
• Iron Fang Pikemen (Leader and 9 Grunts)
• * Iron Fang Pikemen Officer & Standard
• Kossite Woodsmen (Leader and 5 Grunts)
• Widowmakers
• Manhunter

The real action in this game didn’t happen until much later in the game where the Kodiak charged the Mariner standing toe-to-toe with my final IFP a few inches in from the two lines of Long Gunners. The thought was to do his Smash and Grab to throw the Mariner into the Long Gunners and hopefully kill a few. The first attack worked fine, the second whiffed when I didn’t boost to hit ( I was saving one in case I felt the need to boost damage on someone else). The following turn, the Kodiak managed to wreck the Mariner instead. In the final turn, the Scrapjack mowed through seven Long Gunners, opening things up for the Old Witch. The Old Witch used Unseen Path to teleport next to Fiona and kill her.

Another really fun game and I feel like I’m starting to learn my Khador army pretty well. I look forward to playing again, hopefully in the Shattered Grounds league up at the Game Preserve – Keystone.

When I arrived, they were going through some D&D stuff, but Nick was still all about throwing down versus the Nids. We decided on 1,500 points and lists were started!

I had decided, based on previous games that Carnifexes are out and Tervigons were in. I also decided to try out the Ymgarl Genestealers and my brand new converted Tyranid Prime with boneswords.

Nick won deployment, so I started laying down my whole army. It seems that Nick and his friends go back and forth deploying units from the Force Organization Chart (FOC) in a certain order. Either way was fine by me. I went through and explained what everything was and showed him the units in Reserves. He had asked which units had Fleet as well and I told him.

Nick’s list included several Crisis Battle Suits (?) with all manner of weaponry, a special character named O’Shova (sp), a couple of tanks, a unit of Stealth Suits and a few units of Fire Warriors. Below is my list:

• Tyranid Prime (Boneswords, Adrenal Glands)
• Genestealers x8 (Broodlord, Adrenal Glands)
• Ymgarl Genestealers x8
• Tyranid Warriors x3 (Deathspitters, Barbed Strangler)
• Tyranid Warriors x3 (Deathspitters, Venom Cannon)
• Tervigon (Catalyst, Adrenal Glands)
• Termagants x10
• Hormagaunts x20 (Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs)
• Raveners x3
• Zoanthrope x2
• Spore Mines x4
• Spore Mines x5

As usual, I don’t remember every detail, so I’ll try to describe how the game went in a summary. I did remember to deep strike the Spore Mines prior to deployment, which worked as I hoped to put him on the defensive in his deployment strategy. My first turn, the Spore mines scattered all over the place, the Tervigon generated 11 Termagants, the Hormagaunts moved, ran and Assaulted his Stealth suits, who’d deployed near the middle of the table and subsequently wiped them out, a shot from a Venom Cannon took out a Crisis suit in the back of his deployment zone and caused panic. In his first turn, he was able to kill off some Termagants and a few other small things and he Assaulted the Hormagants with his character and a few Crisis suits. The Hormagaunts ended up getting wiped out in return. Later on, the Genestealers arrived via outflank right near his Devilfish, which had already disembarked, The Raveners showed up right in front of his character and Crisis Suits, and the Ymgarls hung out in dormancy for the moment and the Tervigon created 13 Termagants. The Genestealers junked the Devilfish since it was working toward killing off the Zoanthropes and no other Assaults happened. His character group shot at and assaulted the Raveners and the Ravener was able to do some damage back. Lots of Genestealers died to the guns of some Fire Warriors and some Crisis Suits nearby. The following turn the Ymgarls arrived and killed off a Crisis suit in Assault, O’Shova survived a barrage of weapons shot at him, the Genestealers went up against the Crisis Suits and killed maybe one of them.

I think it was about here we had to call the game. I think in the end, the Tyranids might have pulled out a win if we’d been able to continue. Nick had yet to play against the new Nids and now says he might have built a different army using more Fire Warriors. I agree that would have changed the game a lot! In either case, the game was a blast and I look forward to playing Nick again.

His list:

• Leman Russ (Battle Cannon, Heavy Bolter ?)
• Leman Russ (Battle Cannon, Heavy Bolter ?)
• Veteran squad (3x Melta, sergeant w/Bolt Pistol, Chimera w/Multilaser and Heavy Bolter)
• Veteran squad (3x Melta, sergeant w/Bolt Pistol, Chimera w/Multilaser and Heavy Bolter)
• Veteran squad (3x Melta, sergeant w/Bolt Pistol, Chimera w/Multilaser and Heavy Bolter)
• Veteran squad (3x Plasmagun, sergeant w/Bolt Pistol, Chimera w/Multilaser and Heavy Bolter)
• Stormtroopers (Chimera w/Multilaser and Heavy Bolter)
• Valkyrie (Lascannon)

My list:

• Hive Tyrant (Hive Commander, Paroxysm, Leech Essence, Armored Shell, Stranglethorn Cannon, Scything Talons, Tyrant Guard x1)
• Zoanthropes x2
• Tyranid Warriors x3 (Deathspitters, Barbed Strangler)
• Tyranid Warriors x3 (Deathspitters, Venom Cannon)
• Termagants x20
• Hormagaunts x20 (Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs)
• Genestealers x8 (Broodlord)
• Raveners x3 (Scything Talons)
• Spore Mine Cluster x4
• Spore Mine Cluster x4

The mission was simply to kill everything!

I put the Hormagaunts in Reserve to utilize the Hive Tyrant’s Hive Commander ability to outflank. He put his Stormtrooper unit in Reserve as well. This time I remembered to Deep Strike my Spore Mines properly and each ended up pretty close to where I wanted them.

JR won the roll for first turn and deployed along his back line. I deployed everything except the Raveners and aforementioned Hormagaunts. He opened with having the Valkyrie perform its Scout move and open fire into my Genestealers, who Infiltrated into some area terrain. He then fired at them using his Chimera weapons available to him. In the end of the shooting phase, all of the Genestealers had died and the Broodlord had suffered a wound. I also lost a number of Termagants and maybe a Warrior. My first turn, several Spore Mines left the table (probably because I was scattering them 2D6″ instead of just D6″) and two ended up near some tanks. Turns out their explosion could do nothing against them. The Zoanthropes fired at the Valkyrie, which brought it down (turns out I used Psychic shooting attacks wrong by only doing the Psychic test).

Second turn, he wiped out more Termagants and both units of Tyranid Warriors due to Instant Death. The Broodlord survived the deluge. The Broodlord attempted to assault a Chimera, but failed to do much to it. Hormagaunts arrived and assaulted a different Chimera, doing very little as well. Zoanthropes took some shots at a Leman Russ, which passed its cover saves.

Third turn, the cimera in combat with the Broodlord attempted a tank shock on him. The contents of the tank unloaded from it and filled the Broodlord full of melta death. Shots were fired at the Hive Tyrant, killing the Guard and wounding the Tyrant. Hormagaunts still failed to do any real damage to the Chimera, except maybe a Weapon Destroyed. Carnifex moved closer and killed off the empty Chimera and the Zoanthropes wasted a Leman Russ. Hive Tyrant assaulted the Vets in the open, but not before killing a few with Leech Essence and reducing their WS and BS to 1 with Paroxysm (I’m not 100% sure that was legal). Three Vets survived and ran where the Tyrant couldn’t catch them. Hormagaunts finally destroyed the Chimera and since the guys inside had no way to get out with the Hormagaunts blocking the one access point, so they died as well. Raveners arrived to stand in the open.

I think we called it very soon after that and I might have my sequence all messed up, but that’s the gist of how it went down.

In the end, we totaled the kill points and each of us had 4. I got two Chimeras with troops, a Leman Russ and the Valkyrie. He got the Termagants, two units of Warriors and the Genestealers with Broodlord.

A very fun game and it was cool seeing JR again for the first time since probably Gen Con 2009.

It was also awesome getting a bunch of Khador stuff from him on the cheap!

• Tyranid Hive Tyrant
• Tyranid Tyrant Guard
• Tyranid Warriors (improved!)
• Tyranid Genestealers
• Tyranid Zoanthrope
• Tyranid Lictor
• Ogre Kingdoms Bulls
• Ogre Kingdoms Ironguts

Enjoy!

My Bounty Hunters:

• Dengar, Bounty Hunter
• Boba Fett, Enforcer
• 4-LOM, Bounty Hunter
• Zuckuss
• Bossk, Bounty Hunter
• Ugnaught Demolitionist

Fred’s New Republic:

• Leia Skywalker, Jedi Knight
• Kyp Durron
• Shado Vao
• General Wedge Antilles
• Luke Skywalker, Force Spirit (attached to Kyp)
• Snivvian Fringer
• Nikto Soldier
• Duros Scout

We played on the Damaged Christophsis map. I sent Zuckuss, Dengar and Bossk down the middle of the map where Boba and 4-LOM moved down the Eastern Corridor with an Ugnaught following along. Fred moved Kyp out in the open where he was able to be concentrated on and finally killed. Fred’s die rolls started failing him for a while and Shado was unable to kill 4-LOM, who eventually put him down. In turn, 4-LOM was taken out by the lone Duros Scout.

Second game we played the following armies…

Me:

• Han Solo in Stormtrooper Armor
• Ithorian Commander
• Princess Leia
• Bothan Noble
• Amanin Scout x2
• Wookiee Soldier x3
• Wookiee Warrior
• Chadra-Fan Pickpocket
• Ugnaught Demolitionist x3

Fred:

• Jedi Exile
• Jedi Guardian
• Jedi Consular
• Youngling
• Echani Handmaiden
• Gotal Mercenary
• Snivvian Fringer
• Old Republic Guard
• Human Force Adept

My Amanin scouts moved in to do some early damage and managed to get killed for it. A couple of Wookiees went forward as well and did very little. The times one of my guys would get a hit in on the Consular or Guardian, the roll would get Altered. I tried to use Han’s Furious Assault, but the targeting rules in SWM (which I always have the toughest time keeping in mind) kept him from being able to do much. As expected, with the Echani Handmaiden having 6 attacks in a single activation, I lost this one.