warmcshane

[warmcshane]

The final game of Week 1 Round 2 pits Cryx against Retribution. Retribution casts Rhythm of War and runs up the field while Cryx spreads out around the forest. Cryx’s warcaster casts Parisite on the Chimera, boosting and hitting, giving the warjack -3 armor. Their Slayer then charges and buys attacks until the warjack is boxed. The Reaper manages to get a narrow LOS on the Griffin and uses its Harpoon and Drag to pull the Griffin into melee with it.

Retribution attempts to swing back from an uncomfortable previous turn. Feating and changing in with the Manticore, the warjack sadly doesn’t have enough punch to destroy the Slayer. The recovered shields give the Griffin some staying power, but does little against the Reaper.

Retribution moves their warcaster in an attempt to cast Hand of Destruction on the Slayer, but cannot get LOS. Cryx’s Reaper and Deathripper make short work of the Griffin and move to flank Retrbution’s only remaining warjack. The Cryx warcaster moves to the other side of field, not risking an assassination while the game was still in Cryx’s favor.

The Manticore lays into the Slayer will all it has left, but its still not enough. Cryx completes their flanking maneuver and boxes the Manticore. Resulting in a swift and confident Cryx victory.

[warmcshane]

Retribution advances up the field in tight formation, keeping their caster safely in the rear. Cygnar spreads out seeking the trench for cover for both Maddox and the Firefly. Retribution makes the Chimera, an arc node, up add attempts an early game assassination on Maddox. Unfortunately, the trench makes her too difficult to land a hit on. With Snipe cast on it, the Firefly shoots at the Griffin, hitting and arching to the other warjacks, but fail to damage any of them. Retributions Manticore lays down Covering Fire as they continue their advance. Retribution uses their warcaster’s Feat to buff armor before Cygnar gets into melee.

The Firefly shoots again, hitting but failing to damage anything for a second time. Cygnar’s Ironclad charges with Assail cast on it and boosts a Quake Hammer Tremor attack. It hits and knocks down all of Retribution’s warjacks. The Ironclad buys attack to beat up on the knocked down Chimera. With Onslaught up on Maddox, the Lancer is able to charge through the patch of forest in its way at the Knocked down Chimera. The 2 inch reach on its weapon allow it to avoid the damage from the wall of Covering Fire.

On Retribution's turn, enough of the Chimera’s systems are damaged to prevent it from apparating. The warjacks stand by either spending focus or surrendering movement; however, with the Griffin and Chimera in the way, the Manticore cannot get into melee. The Covering Fire expires and the Griffin and Chimera attack back. The Ironclad takes respectable damage, but the Lancer’s shock shield dealing cortex damage to the Griffin is more effective that the Griffin’s attacks against it. Maddox advances and Feats, giving her battle group +3 POW and Beat Back. The Lancer and Ironclad finish off two Retribution’s warjacks. Tremor once again knocks down everything, this time including Retribution’s Warcaster.

On Retribution’s turn, their warcaster charges and destroys the Ironclad with the help of the Griffin. Cygnar responds by having the Firefly and Maddox charge Retribution’s remaining warjack. Their efforts finish off the Griffin, resulting in a Cygnar victory.

[warmcshane]

Round 2 begins with Gatormen, who previously had the Bye in the first round, versus Khador. Gatormen wins the starting roll and chooses to go second, picking the side of the table with the pool of water. Khador deploys in a tight formation behind a hill and Gatormen deploys between the rubble and pool, putting the forest terrain in the middle of the field solidly between both players. Khador begins by running his warjacks up the field and having Kozlov cast Tactical Supremacy on the Decimator, Fury on the Juggernaut, and Chosen Ground on himself. Chosen Ground gives his entire battlegroup Pathfinder and Steady, thus nullifying Bloody Barnabas’s Feat for as long as the spell is upkept. Gatormen position between the rubble and pool while Barnabas casts Warpath on himself. His warbeasts generate some fury by running and Animus so that Barnabas has fury to reap next turn.

At the bottom of turn two, Gatormen measure to see if they can get a surprise charge on Kozlov with the Bull Snapper; however, it is determined to be about an inch out of range. At the top of turn three, Khador has the opportunity to charge the Boneswarm, but instead of taking the bait, decides to take a pair of shots at it with the Decimator, putting some respectable damage on the light warbeast. On Gatormen’s turn, Barnabas spends fury to heal the Boneswarm’s crippled aspects and the Boneswarm charges Kozlov, but is unable to hit. Going all in, the Blackhide Wrastler (with its Rage Animus active on it) and the Bull Snapper charge the Decimator, maxing out their Fury to do enough damage to cripple the Decimator’s left arm. Poor die rolls, however, ensure the warjack lives with its melee weapon intact. On Khador’s turn, the Decimator and Kozlov make short work of the Boneswarm and Bull Snapper, despite a few bad rolls as well, before the Juggernaut charges the Blackhide Wrastler. The Juggernaut misses and only manages to hit with a few bought attacks. The heavy warbeast has its spirit and mind crippled, but lives.

Gatormen’s turn, Barnabas activates and heals the Blackhide Wrastler’s spirit, but leaves its mind crippled because of needing the fury. Barnabas casts Flesheater on Kozlov and boosts to hit, hoping to damage the enemy warcaster and heal his warbeast in the process. Unfortunately, the spell misses and with little other option, Barnabas charges the Juggernaut’s back arch, hitting but only doing two damage. The Blackhide Wrastler activates and only needs a four to hit the Decimator in melee, but do to a crippled mind, only rolls one die. All three of his initials miss, but manages to buy enough attacks to destroy the warjack. With Warpath up, the warbeast gets into melee range of Kozlov, but is unable to hit the warcaster.

On Khador’s turn, Kozlov activates and attacks the Blackhide Wrastler, using boosted weapon master damage rolls to kill the warbeast. The result is a Khador Victory.

[warmcshane]

Our third game pits Cygnar against the enigmatic Grymkin. Cygnar wins the starting roll and chooses to go first. Maddox casts Snipe on the Firefly, Assail on the Ironclad, and Onslaught on herself. As Grymkin move up the field, however, Cygnar shifts right to consolidate their forces and allows Onslaught to drop in favor of Dauntless Resolve on Maddox. Both sides do a lot of pre-measuring before commiting to the fight.

Grymkin strikes first, using the Gorehound’s ability, Pull, to drag the Lancer into charge range of the Cage Rager. The Cage Rager ends up needing to max out its focus in order to kill the Lancer; rolling at or above ‘7’s seemed oddly elusive this game. Grymkin then runs the Frightmare into melee range to prevent the Ironclad from having a charge lane on the Cage Rager. On Cygnar’s turn, Snipe is allowed to expire and the Firefly moves to put both the Cage Rager and the Frightmare in its 2 inch melee range. It attacks the Frightmare to put some damage on it.

Maddox then charges the Frightmare, taking advantage of her 2 inch reach. She hits and buys attacks until the Frightmare is dead, giving the Ironclad a clear path to the Cage Rager. Grymkin activates its Arcana, Sacrifice, to heal the damage the Cage Rager took from Abuse the turn earlier. The Ironclad charges for free with Assail and uses its ‘star’ Attack, Quake, to knock down both of Grymkin’s remaining warbeasts. It buys attack after attack against the knocked down Cage Rager, but fails to kill it. On Grymkin’s turn, the Gorehound needs to make a threshold check, which it passes.

The Child moves closer in the maintenance phase do to Tantrum, then allows the spell to drop. On her activation, she charges the Ironclad and boxes the model with little effort. The Child uses Wrath, then casts the Gorehound’s Animus, Sprint, to return to forest. The Cage Rager and Gorehound had both spent focus to stand back up and move in to end the Firefly. The dice, however, refuse to cooperate; the Cage Rager heavily damages the Firefly, but fails to box the model. The Gorehound navigates around to both threaten the Cygnar caster and be in the Firefly’s back arch. Despite hitting with every attack, Gyrmkin can’t seem to roll high enough to do more than a few points of damage, leaving the Firefly alive and with its Right arm and Cortex still active.

The turnaround afforded to Cygnar through Gyrmkin’s dice refusing to roll above a ‘7’ has the nearly dead Firefly back up and take an attack against the Cage Rager, which hits and boosted, nearly kills it. Maddox, having let all her Upkeeps drop, steps into range of both Grymkin warbeasts and with her first attack, boosted, kills the Cage Rager. She buys attacks and boosts damage against the Gorehound until it too dies

The result is an impressive if improbable Cygnar Victory.

[warmcshane]

Our second game of round one pitted Retribution against Retribution with mirrored 0 point lists. Starting off, both Gray and White Retribution run their warjacks toward the center forest while their warcasters cast the upkeep spell, Rhythm of War. Both players forget to apparate their respective Chimeras. There isn’t much shooting, but White gets off Hand of Destruction on Gray’s Manticore before charging with his own. Rolling an extra die on attacks and damage (discarding the lowest) helps White’s Manticore to wreck his doppelganger, putting Gray one heavy warjack behind.

Undeterred, Gray battled back using his Chimera and Griffin to gang up on White’s Chimera, wrecking it easily and putting some damage on White’s Griffin. White shifts their warjacks closer to the forest and replies by destroying Gray’s Chimera and knocking out the shield on Gray’s Griffin. Both warcasters stay back using the safety of a wall (White) and a trench (Gray).

With only one remaining warjack, Gray uses their warcaster’s Feat, Arcantrik Aptitude, to restore his Griffin’s shields and give it +3 armor for the round. Gray’s warcaster moves out of the safety of the trench to cast Force Strike on the White’s Griffin, which hits. Gray’s Griffin follows up with its attacks, badly crippling White’s Griffin, but not destroying it. On White’s turn, their warcaster moves up as well, close enough to be charged if White fails to seize victory by destroying Gray’s only remaining warjack. She too uses her Feat and, with a boosted roll, casts Hand of Destruction on Gray’s Griffin. The spells allows White’s remaining warjacks to clear out Gray’s Griffin with minimal effort.

The loss of Gray’s only heavy early in the game tipped the scales in White’s favor and though Gray fought well in an attempt to battle back, the result is a Victory for White Retribution.

[warmcshane]

Our first 0 point game pitted Cryx against Khador in the Journeymen 2018 Scenario, Mangled Metal. Terrain was set and Khador won the starting role, choosing to go second and selecting the side of the table with the wall (crafted by our youngest player using wine corks). After both players spent turn one positioning, Khador inching his caster close to wall for cover and Cryx flanking around the house to engage the Juggernaut, Khador got the first strike in melee at the bottom of turn two, destroying Cryx’s Slayer and Deathripper with the Juggernaut and Decimator respectively.

After a disastrous second round, Cryx’s warcaster casted Parasite on the Decimator, reducing its mighty 20 armor to a more manageable 17. The Reaper then charged the Decimator, doing respectable damage, but failed to destroy the warjack.

Khador responded by moving his warcaster into melee and burning through all of his focus to thrash the Reaper with a few Weapon Master attacks. Still on the board, the Reaper was then attacked by the Decimator; however even with sustained attack, the Decimator couldn’t clear the Slayer for the win, leaving it with only 3 boxes unmarked. The Juggernaut used its action to run into back arch of the Reaper.

Cryx realized that only an assassination had any chance of victory at this point and allowed all his upkeep spells to drop. The Reaper shifted a bit, but remained in the reach of all three Khador models to prevent a game ending free strike. Bane Witch Agathia moved into position, eyeing the narrow lane the Reaper afforded to cast Hellfire twice at Lord Kozlov, who was camping 0 focus and would be unable to reduce incoming damage. Though Agathia hit both times, she failed to do enough damage to Remove from Play Kozlov (this spell would have also disallowed his tough roll).

Khador, in the bottom of turn 4, finished off the Reaper, resulting in a Khador Victory.

[warmcshane]

Out 7th and so far final battlegroup for our Journeyman League features the Gray Retribution faction. Just as the White Retribution faction shown earlier, we have Magister Helynna, a Chimera, a Griffon, and a Manticore.

[warmcshane]

Purple Khador joins our League led by Lord Kozlov, Viscount of Scarsgrad. He brings a Juggernaut and a Decimator; Khador loves its Heavies.

[warmcshane]

The first of two Retribution factions we will see this Journeyman League, the White Retribution battlegroup’s warcaster is Magister Helynna. She is supported by a Chimera, a Griffon, and a Manticore.

[warmcshane]

This Purple Cryx faction is already looking really good. Bane Witch Agathia leads her battlegroup which includes a Slayer, Reaper, and a Deathripper.

[warmcshane]

Our second Hordes player brings Minions Gatormen to the table. This battlegroup is led by Bloody Barnabas and contains a Blackhide Wrastler, Bull Snapper (painted as an albino gator), and Boneswarm.

[warmcshane]

Next, we have Grymkin, mostly painted already. This battlegroup is led by The Child and contains a Cage Rager, Gorehound, and a Frightmare.

[warmcshane]

Starting our Journeyman League with a picture of of our participating battlegroups, most unpainted but I’m going to listing them by their intended color pallet. This is will be our Green Cygnar, Major Beth Maddox with an Ironclad, Lancer, and Firefly. More to come soon!