Battle Reports

I've tried writing battle reports in multiple different ways so far. I have found a few different things about them so far. The rigid turn by turn can be fun and seems fitting for tournament level games.   The short synposis work fine when doing a quick recap of battle box games.  Casual games seem to have an effective hybrid, using turn by turn but also just covering the highlights instead of heavy detail.

Another detail about battle reports that I enjoy is remembering the games. Thinking about the key moments, the ups and the downs and recapping the major high lights of the battle.

When I get lucky enough to write up a report with the person I played against the back and forth is also a very enjoyable experience.  The banter, the smack talking and the laughing about a bad dice roll.

Overall its a quick recap about why I love miniatures, this game and hanging out with friends.  And on that note a short battle report of the game I got in today.

Bart vs. Carver

This battle was another bloody holds no bar slug fest.  As we both get more comfortable with our new found Warlock/Warcasters we start to develop synergies with the spells and warbeasts.  This truly showed itself today.

Bart went first casting hot shot on the mariner and advancing the army forward.  Carver followed suit with mobility and batten down the hatches and moved forward.

Bart fired off the first barrage with the mariner hitting a gun boar but failing to break the palpable 20 armor of the gun boar under the affects of batten down the hatches. This turn Bart put up batten down the hatches as well.

The gun boars fired back doing only a few damage points to Barts army and this transpired back and forth a few turns while the war hog moved up.

The freebooter charged the war hog did minimal damage and failed to 2handed throw.  The war hog retaliated by brutalizing the freebooter, but with batten down the hatches he survived with every system intact except it's cortex.  Without its cortex the freebooter landed both inital attacks doing paltry damage to the war hog.  Then it's time to shine came with a grab and smash 2 handed throw launching the war hog a mighty 8 1/2 inches due to a good scatter away from Carver taking him out of batten down the hatches range.

Bart capitalized on this by spraying twice and mariner firing twice due to broadsides taking the war hog off the table.

Carver retaliated by popping his feat and charging hte freebooter destroying it.  The gun boars charged into the mariner hoping for some solid hits and falling short on scarpping it but putting it in a very damaged state.

Few more turns of dancing between the gun boars and the mariner was ended by carver charging into the mariner after one of the gun boars was bludgeoned to death by its mighty anchor.

Bart not in position to charge carver, without reach and a way to gain pathfinder, angled himself a few sprays before Carver could get a charge off.  Failing to land the critical charge attack Carver bought another attack landed it and boosted putting Bart at 4!

Bart deciding it was time to end the battle clobbered Carver with his initial attack for 11 points of damage!  Nicole has quickly learned the capabilities of her new warcaster and knows how to capitalize on its strengths.

Lather, Rinse and Repeat - Day 2 of Journeyman League

Saturday a group of people for the Journeyman League got together to play some more games.  Two of our players who haven't got games in yet showed up.  Here are a few brief battle reports plus a more detailed one of one of the more epic battles.

Bart vs. Denny

I didn't watch this game in heavy detail except for the ending.  At the end it only only Bart and a mariner vs. Denny.  Denny kept shadow binding the mariner.  Bart finally landed the killing blow after a couple back and forth rounds.  Denny's low mat made it hard for her to win out in a fight vs. Bart who has great melee stats at 15 def 16 armor.

Sorscha vs. Denny

I wasn't there at all for this game.  I was on a pizza run.  Sorscha won with a feat turn assassination run onto Denny with wind rush.

Carver vs. Sorscha

This game was actually really slow and boring so I'll keep it brief.  It was a shoot off, gun boars vs. destroyer. Once the gun boars showed they were going to win Sorscha started doing hit and runs with wind rush.  War hog got a charge off on the juggernaut removing it from the table and with some exceptional shooting I forced Sorscha to come to me.  She failed to kill the war hog by one and died to him on the following turn.

Bart vs. Sorscha

Turn 1 - Mercs

The jack's walked forward with Bart casting Batten Down the Hatches (BDH) and throwing Hot Shot onto the mariner. (Boosted damage rolls)

Turn 1 - Sorscha

Sorscha's battle group advanced under the protection of fog of war.

Turn 2 - Mercs

Bart upkept Hot Shot.  The buccaneer moved forward and attempted to net the destroyer, but fail short.  The freebooter walked up to be able to counter charge anyone who attacked the buccaneer.  Mariner stayed where it was taking an aiming bonus against the destroyer.  The shot hit but did no damage.  Bart broadsided to get another shot out of the mariner and popped his feat(she realizes this was a mistake in hindsight).

Turn 2 - Khador

Sorscha upkept fog of war. The destroyer opened the turn by firing and removing the net arm off of the buccaneer. The juggernaut moved forward in front of Sorscha who then cast wind rush to go up to defense 18.

Turn 3 - Mercs

Bart upkept hot shot.  The buccaneer ran in between the juggernaut and the destroyer locking both into combat and taking a wild pow 10 attack at the destroyer.  The freebooter moved to block a charge lane to Bart.  The mariner fired at the juggernaut doing minimal damage.  Bart then cast BDH.

Turn 3 - Khador

Fog of war finally dropped.  Sorscha casted boundless charge onto the juggernaut, wind rush onto sorscha and then feated and caught all of Bart's battle group in the feat. The destroyer shot the mariner and splashed damage onto Bart, though only doing minimal damage to both. Juggernaut charged the freebooter and was just barely out of charge range.

Turn 4 - Mercs

Bart spent 3 focus to shrug off stationary on everyone except the buccaneer.  Spent another focus to upkeep hot shot. Bart moved up, then the mariner moved up into base to base with Bart  and fired off a shot into the juggernaut missing.  The freebooter stepped up to the juggernaut hit twice doing minimal damage then landed a 2handed throw, but lost in the strength test vs. the juggernaut.

Turn 4 - Khador

Sorscha kept all of her focus.  Sorscha cast wind rush then proceeded to charge Bart. Sorscha did 6 points of damage to Bart and sat on 1 focus.  Never count out Sorscha though, defense 18 is hard to crack. The destroyer fired at the mariner doing 2 more points of damage to Bart and some damage to the mariner but no systems were crippled for Barts battle group yet. The juggernaut moved up and smashed into the freebooter, but spread out the damage so no systems were crippled.

Turn 5 - Mercs

This turn the game got really  quirky.  3 focus went to the freebooter and Bart sat on 3.  The mariner swung at Sorscha missing. Bart moved up boosted to hit and missed and then decided to camp the last two focus. The freebooter successfully hit both initials on the juggernaut doing only minimal damage, and with the grab and smash rule took a 2handed throw attempt again. This time succeeding and targeting Sorscha with her own juggernaut. The attack missed scattering directly into the middle of Sorscha, Bart, and the mariner.  Moving the smaller casters.  Bart didn't get knocked down due to being moved into base to base with the mariner who has the lash rule.  This knocked down Sorscha and the juggernaut, the juggernaut didn't have any crippled systems. The buccaneer moved up and engaged the destroyer.

Turn 5 - Khador

Sorscha paid to stand herself up leaving her with 5 focus.  Sorscha with reach bought and boosted two unsuccessful attacks.  The third attack connected putting Bart down to four health! The juggernaut stood up forfeiting his movement.  Took a swing with his axe missing and then took a swing with the fist connecting!  Though the damage roll didn't go in Khador's favor only doing 2 damage to Bart leaving him at 2 hit points! The destroyer took a freestrike from the buccaneer doing nothing and fired at the mariner hoping to splash damage onto Bart.  The attack missed and scattered onto Sorscha, mariner, and juggernaut doing 1 point to Sorscha leaving her at 4 hit points!

Turn 6 - Mercs

Bart allocated 3 focus to the freebooter, 1 to the mariner and left 2 on Bart.  The freebooter moved up with a backstrike swung on Sorscha with a boost needed an 8 and missed.  The second attack found its mark and with a boosted damage roll of 1 .... 1 ... then a 5.  Doing enough damage and ending the game!  The craziest game I've seen yet in our Journeyman League.

First painted model of the Journeyman league!

FIRST PAINTED MODEL!

While I was writing this my wife painted up her warcaster.

We also have our first painted model of the league!  Captain Bartolo Montadoor, congrats Nicole.

Journeyman League Starts!

Our journeyman league started today!  I love teaching new players how to play.  We got a few new players to try out armies and have some fun first time experiences.

Our Journeyman League consists of almost every faction which makes me very excited!

The list of factions and points currently earned...

Cryx

Cryx

Legion                                  2pts

Merc - Pirates                      5pts

Minions - Thornfall               6pts

Minions - Blindwater            4pts

Khador

Cygnar

Cygnar

Menoth

Circle                                    6pts

Skorne                                  3pts

Retribution

My first two games, which are mangled metal battle box games for people who don't know, were Blindwater and Mercs.

Bloody Barnabas vs. Lord Carver

Right before Carver charged Barnabas to seal the deal.

First round was me reshifting my army across the battlefield as the gators deployed on the opposite side near the lake.  While the gator player advanced (his second game of Warmachine!), we went over a lot of the basics while I tried to remember all the important details and rules Lucas needed to know.

Second round was a barrage of gun boars vs. the spitter ranged attacks.  I missed both my shots on the Iron Flesh wrastler and he landed a hit with the spitter on the boar tagging both with the corrosion.

Third round I fired both gun boars into Barnabas getting him to use his two transfers.  I then went with Lord Carver popped my feat (making him a weapon master), cast mobility (taking care of the swamp pit) and charged Barnabas.  The first hit landed a devastating blow of 34 damage putting Barnabas at 1 hit point.  I then bought another attack and finished the job, even though the attack only did a few damage.

Funny part is, things would've got really tricky if he had passed his tough roll.

Bartolo Montador vs. Lord Carver

This game was very amusing.  Though Montador and Carver's feats are very different the armies player very similar.  Both having batten down the hatches(BDH), with hindsight I think the edge went in my favor with BDH countering the knock down portion of his feat.

First few rounds were Gun Boars firing into the mariner while the Mariner fired back into a gun boar.  I landed a devastating blow early on with a 15 damage roll on dice.  Though the gun was the one system that stayed in tact.

The buccaneer moved up and tied up the gun boars.  Another shot from the mariner into my warhog, who then got charged by the freebooter.  The freebooter was played very well and did some damage to my warhog then tossed the war hog out of my warlocks control range.  Effectively allowing it to be knocked down even though BDH was up and did some serious damage as it got thrown into a wall.

The next turn I had to use Carver to destroy the buccaneer, and fired off another shot at the Mariner.  Since the war hog was out of my control area I couldn't stand him up in the maintenance phase so I just stood up and moved back into the control area.

Montador repeated the tactic and moved up pounded on the war hog with a few hits and tried to throw the hog again.  Luckily for me I was able to win the strength  test 1 dice vs. 2.  This was game altering, allowing me to destroy the healthy freebooter with my war hog as it only had 5 damage boxes left.  This was then followed up with some gun boars firing into the mariner making it a wreck marker.

Montador now standing alone takes advantage of the wreck markers around him for cover and sprays into my gun boar, but his 20 armor (thank you BDH) blocked the majority of the attack.  I moved up with Carver popped my feat and cast mobility.  Both gun boars knowing they won't hit Bart with +4 def charge.  The first attack lands, I pick up my four dice to roll damage very excited!  Bart sitting on 4 focus points gets ready to take a brutal attack.  The dice roll ... 1 ... 1 ... 3 ... 3.  I looked at the dice amazed, I've done no damage.  The next attack swings, connects, and does 3 points of damage to Bart.  The next boar goes, misses his charge attack, lands his second attack and does 1 or 2 more points of damage to Bart.  I definitely thought I had the game in the bag on that turn.

Bart activates, slaugthers the damaged gun boar collecting a blood quencher token (+1 str + 1 armor) and takes overtake to move an inch farther from Carver.  

Carver casts mobility and charges Bart. I land the charge attack and put Bart to 5 hit points.  Carver then missed his next attack.  At this point I start to sweat, I know if I missed the next attack or even connect but Bart makes his tough check I'll be in a world of pain.  I land the blow and finish off his hit points.  My opponent (who happens to be my wife) picks up the dice knowing if she could roll a 5 or 6 the game was in the bag.  Stares me in the eye and rolls the die.  It comes up a 4.

I must give the MVP too Batten Down the Hatches.  That spell is amazing, even more so vs. the match ups I had today.  Barnabas and Bart both have knockdown feats and the buccaneer couldn't throw his net on me all game.

Very close game and very enjoyable.

Tuesday night gaming vs. Khador with a splash of Skorne

Had two fun games tonight.

Carver vs. pMorghoul.

First game was a quick battle box game.   Carver drew the first blood removing a Savage.  This quickly turned bad as he countered heavily by killing off my War Hog.  My back plan was to  pop my feat with weapon master gun boars and kill his Gladiator.  This never came to be as he popped his feat and stopped me from being able to force my beasts.

As I realized I was in serious trouble I knew I had to get aggressive. I popped my feat charged Morghoul and missed the charge attack needing a 10 with a boosted attack. Followed up with a hit doing 14 damage to his Gladiator from the transfer, then landed 11 damage onto Morghoul.  That was my turn.

Carver's battle box

I was in a weird spot, his beats were tied in with the Gun Boars and Morghoul had pow 9 attacks vs. Carver's 17 armor.  Adam (the skorne player) proceeded to roll exceptionally well with 2 16's and a 14 for damage. Doing a ton of damage to carver but not sealing the deal.  The gladiator walks away from both gun boars eating two free strikes.  Which did a whooping 2 damage to him.  Then boosted an attack with his mind blown giving him 2 dice to hit needing 9's.  He lands his first attack killing carver!  Adam walked away with his first hordes game triumphantly!

Now for the main event.

Dr. Arkadias vs. Karchev

I love Arkadias vs. Khador players.  I find it a great match up if you can position your feat well. I won the first turn due to my +1 from Arkadias's tier bonus.  I decided to go first and rushed forward to take advantage of the terrain and force him to come to my chokes.

Karchev pushed his threat range advantage a little too far and failed a Drago charge onto my War Hog.  He removed my gun boar from play and threatened me with  a Berserker on the other flank.  My War Hogs including the feat turn removed 2 Berserkers, the Slaugtherhousers removed the other one on the flank.  Finally my last War Hog killed a few Iron Fang Pikemen.

Battlefield after the hog''s ate Karchev's berserkers

Karchev now without warjacks had little options left.  Tried to get some bombard's plus sprays on Arkadius to no avail.  Next turn two aggression dialed War Hogs did the final points to Karchev for victory.

Overall a fun night of gaming.

Thunder pig!

In my last blog I had mentioned my Dr. Arkadius list that had three War Hogs. Well one of my goals when I started my pigs was to truly embrace the concept of War Hogs being made by a mad scientist.  As such I decided none of my War Hogs would looks the same.  I built one the traditional way, and I heavily converted the other two.  Here is the one I'm most proud of, the other one I think will pop better as it gets painted.

Day of the Pig!

With the new Journeyman League rules I have decided to start a new faction, Minions.  Even more specifically I will be targeting the Farrow pigs.  Truth be told my wife already owns a nice collection of gators I can use if I find necessary.

I picked up a nice assortment of piggies to try out.  I even took a list to a local steam roller rocking Dr. Arkadius and Barnabas (much simpler caster).  I did fairly well considering I had only played one of the lists once before the event and placed second over all.  Here is a quick write up of the event.  Normally battle reports will have pictures and more details.  Though this will be covering 4 games and is a few weeks old in my memory.

The lists were...

Dr. Arkadius
  -Gun Boar
  -War Hog
  -War Hog
  -War Hog
  -Targ
4 Farrow Bone Grinders
6 Farrow Brigands
6 Farrow Slaughterhousers

Bloody Barnabas
  -Blackhide Wrastler
  -Bull Snapper
  -Ironback Spitter
  -Ironback Spitter
Feralgeist
5 Gatorman Posse
Thrullg

First Game
Arkadius vs. an eIrusk and claimed the game with a tiebreaker when dice down was called.

Second Game
Bloody Barnabas vs. Vyros.  This game I won through scenario claiming 3 control points.  Barnabas's feat really helped this game letting me destroy 9 Invictors, a Phoenix, Hydra and 3 Sentinels in one turn.

Third Game
Bloody Barnabas vs. Siege.  This game was almost decided by the fact he had two shooty lists and no experience vs swamp pit.  This match up would be a game for me to lose, and I almost did!  I misread swamp pit and on the second turn misused it.  Allowing him a solid siege feat turn into my army.  Luckily for me I had sat on 2 transfers and had already killed the black thirteenth + some trenchers.  I was able to weather through that turn of shooting and assassinate Siege.

Fourth Game
Bloody Barnabas vs. Rhyas.  This game was really odd from the get go.  We fought for position a bit then the gatormen posse charged into warmongers.  Surprisingly only killing one warmonger.  The battle ebbed back and forth trading models.  It came down to the Ironback Spitter trying to two handed throw the Carnivean out of the circle to claim the last control point and win.  I rolled two 2's, and Legion player rolled a 4.  As a last desperate act Barnabas charged Rhyas needing 9's to hit and rolled 3 sets of 8's.  At this point I knew the game was lost and said I was done.  Legion player aptly removed the final models from the control point and ended the game 2 control points to 1.

Was a very fun event to be apart of and had some great games.

Background of the Blogger

This is going to be hopefully one of the few blogs about my past and the rest will be about my current or future projects.  I thought it would be a good start to at least give readers an idea of who the person behind the blog is. I've been playing miniatures since I was 12 years old, as I near 30 years old I thought it would be fun to start a catalog of my miniature career.

My first miniature game was Warhammer 40k (40k) with the Space Orks given to me by my middle brother.  The set came with a few Goffs, few gretchin, and a cardboard cutout dreadnought.  They do always say the first dose is free.  My brother and I gamed together for a few years having epic battles of Space Wolves vs. Deathskulls. As my brother grew older his interests changed and as he went to college time for our grandiose battles on the kitchen table taking 4+ hours battling out for domination of the styrofoam battlefields.

I started to venture out  of my house and meet new gamers and with that new games.  With this came a craze over Magic the Gathering, Deadlands and a plethora of more card games.  They were all a lot of fun but never kept my attention for long.  All the while building up my 40k Ork army.  Then I found the SCGA, the first gaming store where I truly started to grow as a gamer.  I started to paint my models, picked up more miniature games.  This was probably the golden age of my miniature career for a long while.  Always opponents to play, good people to hang out with, a good clean and comfortable store to hang out in.

Two major events happened that really slowed down my miniature career.  The SCGA closed it's doors due to internal issues and college came around. It was sad to see the store I had grown to love close, but I was also moving on in my life.  My gaming career slowed to a crawl, though I did play games of Blood Bowl and Necromunda on semi frequent basis all the while keep my collection and adding to it slowly.

As college ended I had grown to be a very avid video game player, first game I took to a "hardcore" level was Counter-strike, but his blog isn't about video games so lets just say I then found MMO's.

During this time a buddy of mine and I found Privateer Press and bought our first starter boxes.  Was a great game, but we had nobody to play with so it slowly dwindled.

The reawakening of me becoming an active miniature player was when I took a job as a Games Workshop employee.  Now I could write a whole book about this experience, lots of positives (the people I meet, the cheap miniatures) and lots of negatives (lets avoid going there). Let's suffice to say I bought tons of armies, painted more models then I had ever had perviously and over all embraced the hobby to it's fullest.  Time finally came around where I didn't like it anymore, due to circumstances changing in the work environment and I decided to move on.  Sold my collection of miniatures, which netted me a little over 8 grand and I was done.  My miniature days were over. When really just my Games Workshop (GW) days.  I still own an army that I had was able to purchase back from a nice friend, but I could just never get back into GW's games.  Though lately they've had some great new model releases!

While at GW I meet some customers who also enjoyed other miniature games and this is where I picked up my second faction Circle.  This was still during Mark I of Warmachine/Hordes and we did a slow grow league and got together on a pretty frequent Thursday gaming night.  Though this slowly dwindled, I fell in love with the game and all of its intricacies at this point.

I moved onto another career and meet my wife.  During dating her we had tripped over a miniature store.  I had casually explained that I used to be a pretty avid gamer and she grew intrigued.  I took her to a few stores showed her some of the different games.  She seemed most familiar with Lord of the Rings so we picked up a couple small armies and started playing.

My original Warmachine friend that I got into with my Cygnar battle box and I decided to get back into Privateer Press.  My wife decided to play as well and hopped into Retribution.  Thus my new era of Privateer Press gaming began.  One of the biggest happenings that kept it going this time around was I bumped into a few old GW employees who had quit and were playing Warmachine as well.  So we formed a casual Saturday gaming group. 

I am a pretty big fan of Warmachine/Hordes in general and added a few more factions to my collection.  I am currently the proud owner of Cygnar, Mercenaries, Circle and Trollbloods.  I have a small Menoth collection from a random faction event my gaming group had, but hasn't grown since.

During my currently reawakening Warmachine career I have had some great gaming opportunities.  I hosted 2 league seasons winning one of the coins.  Going to a few conventions, Kingdom Con, Socal Smackdown and Lock and Load.  Placing 2nd in Lock and Loads very first Hardcore tournament, which people who are familiar to the rules can note isn't actually a prize winning spot. :)  Lastly I've gone to one local steamroller and placed second, losing to one of my close friends and common opponents of the Saturday gaming group I am lucky to be apart of.

This was longer then I had anticipated, but was definitely an interesting trip down nostalgia lane as I remembered my past miniature gaming career.  I hope everyone found it interesting or at least informative about a future blog you plan to read.

Mission Statement

This blog is to give me a place to talk about miniatures.  My thoughts on gaming in general, my current modeling/painting projects, list ideas, fun game experiences and battle reports.