Swans: Journeyman League Week 1: Major Beth Maddox

I was matched against a local player called Will, who had opted to run a pKreoss 'pop n drop' style list.

Scenario 3: Take and Hold

CYGNAR
Major Beth Maddox
-Ironclad
-Lancer
-Firefly

PROTECTORATE OF MENOTH
High Exemplar Kreoss
-Reckoner
-Redeemer

Initial thoughts: Right, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what my opponents list is trying to do. Kreoss moves up, feats on my caster, the Warjacks shoot her to death. This being a kill box scenario makes this very hard to avoid, but I had a game plan and was sticking with it.

DEPLOYMENT
I won the roll to go first and picked side, in hind sight, I should have picked the other side to benefit from the obstruction, but I was too enticed by the hill and wall. My opponent dropped his Reckoner nearest his own flag, the Redeemer near mine and Kreoss in the middle. I dropped the Lancer opposite his Reckoner, so he could stand on the hill to avoid being shot on the way in. I deployed Maddox and the Ironclad centrally to threaten the Reckoner. I put the Firefly nearest my own flag to hopefully draw out the fire from the Redeemer.

TURN 1
PROTECTORATE
My opponent runs both Warjacks in front of the obstruction, and moves Kreoss up behind it, but not before putting Defenders Ward on the Reckoner.

CYGNAR
I run the Lancer onto the hill, the Ironclad behind the wall and the Firefly into the forest. Maddox puts Snipe on herself and Assail goes on the Ironclad.

TURN 2
PROTECTORATE
Defenders Ward is upkept and Kreoss shuffles in behind the obstruction.  The Reckoner toes into the woods, staying outside the Ironclad 11" charge range. He then shoots at the Ironclad dealing a few point of damage. The Redeemer stands still and shoots at the Ironclad, missing all three shots and dealing 1 point of damage to Maddox on a scatter.

CYGNAR
I can see how my opponent wants the next turn to play out. I let both upkeeps drop, to hopefully put him off the assassination this round. With all my models out of range I needed to set myself up for the next turn. The Lancer runs up into the cloud, Maddox activates and arcs an Electrical Blast, through the Lancer and into the Reckoner, I boost the damage and distrupt the Warjack. Maddox then moves outside of Kreoss's threat range so she isn't effected by the feat. She is left camping two, standing on the border of the killbox. The Ironclad moves over the wall, out of threat of the distrupted Reckoner, ready to attack next turn. The Firefly shuffles further through the forest and shoots at the Redeemer, dealing a few points of damage and getting an electro leap onto Kreoss.

TURN 3
PROTECTORATE
My opponent enters the think tank here, knowing I will surely wreck his heavy next turn, being unable to move out of charge range. He starts by moving the Reckoner to block any possible charge lanes to Kreoss, and takes a shot into the Ironclad. Kreoss then shuffles forward and feats, knocking down all my Warjacks. The Redeemer stands still to gain the aiming bonus, and takes three shots at the Ironclad, boosting damage each time. The Ironclad crumbles at this onslaught of pow 12s taking a total of 26 damage across the three shots...

CYGNAR
Now I enter the 'GG' think tank, without a heavy myself, Maddox under feat is my only chance of taking care of the Reckoner. I run the two Warjacks to engage the Reckoner, and move Maddox behind the wall camping her stack.

TURN 4
PROTECTORATE
My opponent has a massive edge on me now and moves in to finish off my Warjacks with the Reckoner, almost killing the Firefly. The Redeemer moves up and takes a few shots at Maddox, missing all of them. Kreoss camps hid stack and hides behind the obstruction.

CYGNAR
I see my chance to finish off the Reckoner, I cast Onslaught, Feat and charge in. Hitting all my attacks, I deal a spectacular 8 damage, rolling three 1s on the charge and two 1s on the subsequent attack. The Warjacks now activate, hoping to take the Reckoner's cortex, in the slim hope that Maddox can survive. I fail to do so, leaving him on 1 box on his cortex, apart from that, he is fully functional... Sad times.

TURN 5
PROTECTORATE
The Reckoner wrecks the Firefly with two attacks. Kreoss keeps all the focus, drops Defenders Ward, charges Maddox and kills her on the first attack.

CYGNAR DEFEAT!!
AFTER THOUGHTS: I think I played this game well up until the point I got tilted by loosing my heavy to the Redeemer. My game plan worked well by slowing my opponent with disruption to ensure the alpha with my feat. With my heavy alive,  I should have made light work of the Reckoner, and my opponent would have been left in a very unfortunate situation, but as we know the Dice Gods giveth and taketh away.

I will be posting another game at the same points value next week. Hope you enjoyed.

Christian

Swans: Journeyman League into All New War, Major Beth Maddox 75 Points List

So my club is running a Journeyman League this year and I thought it was the perfect chance to learn Major Beth Maddox. Due to a large number of participants my club decided not to restrict the casters to only the new battleboxes, so there is a fairly decent mix of casters and factions. We will also be running on a bi-weekly schedule.

If you've been keeping up with this blog, you will have seen my final 75 points list already, having played it,  to some success,  against Morghoul last week. The list will break down as follows...

Week 1
Major Beth Maddox - WJ: +30
-    Squire - PC: 5
-    Firefly - PC: 8
-    Ironclad - PC: 12
-    Lancer - PC: 10

Week 2
Being restricted to only adding to the battlegroup, I decided my best bet was to play the Charger. This would allow me to Marshal him onto a Journeyman the week after. I don't feel like normally it would be worth sinking thirteen points into the Charger/Journeyman module, but with the need to add only to Battlegroup in week two, this made sense.

-    Charger - PC: 9

Week 3
The list here can finally start fleshing out and taking advantage of having both Arcane Shield on the Ironclad, and Dauntless Resolve on the Stormblades to make both more survivable. The Stormblades can also synergise well with the Firefly's +2 to electrical damage.

Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 4
Stormblade Infantry - Leader & 5 Grunts: PC: 10

Week 4
Here I decided to drop in the Officer and Standard to get a higher body count in the Stormblade unit. I then dropped a full unit of Stormlances so I could have a quick, hard hitting flank unit that could take advantage of Maddox's feat. I put a min unit of Trenchers in to hopefully act as a tarpit and to block LoS and absorb some shots from the other infantry.

Storm Lances - Leader & 4 Grunts: 20
10
-    Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard - Officer & Standard: 5
-    Stormblade Gunner: 2
Trencher Infantry - Leader & 5 Grunts: 10

Week 5
For my final addition I added in Ragman to help with armour cracking and I moved the Trenchers up to a full unit.

Ragman: PC 4

So this is the list I will be building and painting over the next few weeks. Please feel free to leave suggestions on how you would paint, play or change this list :)

Swans: 75 Points - Cygnar, Major Beth Maddox Vs Skorne, Master Tormentor Morghoul

So this game was very interesting, not only did I show up at my club and get told immediately that I was on the live stream, but after my opponent declared he only had one list, I said "well I will just play my Maddox list into whatever you're running". I should have checked his list... He had a mammoth.

Scenario: The Pit

CYGNAR

Major Beth Maddox - WJ: +30

-    Squire - PC: 5

-    Firefly - PC: 8

-    Ironclad - PC: 12

-    Lancer - PC: 10

Journeyman Warcaster - PC: 4

-    Charger - PC: 9

Ragman - PC: 4

Storm Lances - Leader & 4 Grunts: 20

Stormblade Infantry - Leader & 5 Grunts: 10

-    Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard - Officer & Standard: 5

-    Stormblade Infantry Storm Gunner - PC: 2

Trencher Infantry - Leader & 9 Grunts: 16

SKORNE
Master Tormentor Morghoul
-Mammoth
-Titan Gladiator
-Cyclops Brute

Croak Raiders
Paingiver Beast Handlers
Cataphract Incindiarii

Paingiver Task Master

**THIS LIST MAY BE WRONG**

The list I chose is a test for where I want to take Maddox for the Journeyman league. I usually wouldn't take the Journeyman Warcaster as taking the Charger is a big tax to pay for access to Arcane Shield, but I needed it as a transition from adding 10 points to the battlegroup in week 2, so I could justify it.

I won the roll and chose to go first. My opponent picked the table edge with the flag in the trench and a nicely positioned wall. I noted that the wall on my side was partly outside of kill box and the smoke by my flag was a good addition.

DEPLOYMENT
I deployed centrally and scratched my head thinking how I would kill the Mammoth. I deployed the Stormlances on my right flank and my heavy hitter centrally. The Firefly was deployed to the left with the Stormblades to helpfully get some use from the +2 damage to electrical attacks. I was worried about the Croak Raiders killing the Stormblades so the smoke here helped to give them some much needed concealment. The Trenchers advance deployed up front.

My opponent deployed his caster nearer to his own flag and dropped his beasts next to him. The Beast Handlers took up the rear. The Incindiarii and Croaks took the other side.

TURN 1
CYGNAR
I moved Maddox up behind the wall, then cast Dauntless Resolve on the Stormblades and Snipe on the Trenchers. The 'Sniped' Trenchers moved up and popped a couple or Croaks, the rest of the unit dug in, or popped smoke. Stormblades ran up the flank, utilising the smoke to hide behind, and the Stormlances made a break up the other flank to threaten my opponents flag. The jacks ran up to get into position. Oh and the Journeyman casts Arcane Shield on the Stormlances.

SKORNE
My opponent began by moving the Croaks up and picking off a few Trenchers on retaliation, then shuffled the Incindiarii behind. The Titan trampled towards the zone and the Mammoth moved up and began shooting toward my lines for some lucky scatters, which he got, killing a couple more Trenchers. Morghoul moved into the trench with his Cyclops Brute.

TURN 2
CYGNAR
I upkeep my spells and begin by moving the Trenchers up and taking an 8 man CRA into Morghoul, which is unfortunately shield guarded but deals massive example to the Cyclops Brute. The Stormlances run further up the flank and I run one directly into the enemy lines. I do the same on the left flank keeping some of the Stormblades back and running one into the Croaks to tie them up, in hindsight I should have used Iron Zeal this turn, but oh well. The jacks move forward again and the Ironclad move to toe the zone, shielded by a wall of Trenchers. Maddox moved further up the wall to be outside of the killbox and camped.

SKORNE
This turn my opponent starts by moving the Croaks and Incindiarii up to start work on my Lancer and a few Trenchers, the Lancer was left with 4 boxes, oil + Incindiarii = profit. The Titan shuffled back to toe the zone, and the Mammoth moved up to pot shot a few more Trenchers, killed Ragman  with blast damage (big problem for me) and punched my Stormlance to death. Morghoul, fearing the raw power of another Trencher CRA, moves behind the Mammoth and cast Admonition on the Titan. Unfortunately my opponent ended his turn inside the killbox, and I scored 2 CPs.

TURN 3
CYGNAR
Right, this is feat turn! Loosing Ragman was a big loss here but my opponent dedicated to hold his feat, and not cast Spiney Growth on the Mammoth. So Maddox moves up, casts Assail on the Ironclad and feats. Then she stays behind her wall and camps. Then the Firefly runs next to the Mammoth for the damage buff, this triggers Admonition, and the Titan leaves the zone. I then proceed to throw every available assault shot and charge attack into the Mammoth, it was finally finished off by the Ironclad, who I knew was Titan food next turn.

SKORNE
My opponent now enters fists on table, think tank mode. He decides to activate Morghoul and move him up to the wall, he then casts Rush on the Titan, then feats. The Titan then advances to the Ironclad, murders him with his initials, and kills some of the surrounding Stromblades. The Croaks and Incindiarii do their best to free themselves up, but largely fail at this, they do kill some of the remaining Trenchers and a few Stormblades though.

TURN 4
CYGNAR
Being on two CPs I decided to push for the scenario. The Stormlances charge and kill the Cyclops Brute contesting his flag. The remaining infantry run to engage as much of his army as possible. Maddox camps her entire stacks and runs to my flag and I block LoS to her with the Journeyman and Squire. I end my turn at 4 CPs.

SKORNE
My opponent is left in a very difficult situation here. He moves the Titan up to his flag to contest,  while keeping a toe in the zone. He kills a few Stormlances and a Trencher. He then proceeds to run models taking free strikes on the other flank to contest my flag, after 3 failed attempts my opponent concedes. As anything he can run into my flag can be trivially killed and I can dominate my own flag again the next turn.

CYGNAR VICTORY!
AFTER THOUGHTS: I made some major mistakes in this game, loosing Ragman being a huge one, at least I now know you can't Sacrificial Pawn blast damage. I am pretty sure I made a few rules mistakes too, but as my third MK3 game I didn't do terribly. I feel I may have lost this game had my opponent not kill boxed himself.

If anyone has any reflections or advice, on the game, my write up or my list, please feel free to post below.

Thanks for reading.

Christian

Unboxing the new Battlebox

After much excitement, I've finally picked up my Cygnar Battlebox, helpfully purchased for me at L&L by Rob, along with the Cygnar and Mercenaries faction decks. 

My first impressions were overall good. I love the presentation of the box and the contents is really good, I can definitely see it being incredibly helpful for new players trying to enter the game. The models on the other hand I've found to be a little lack luster. I can understand the older models such as the Firefly and Ironclad not being set in hard plastic, but it's really disappointing to see Cygnar's new caster in that nasty blue plastic, along with some pretty terrible mould lines. Although the model itself is really cool, and the pose looks awesome. 

I already have the entire Battlebox painted up from my early days as a player, but I'm going to paint these up anyway, maybe I can see how my painting has come along? Or stagnated? Would I appreciate any comments once I've got them posted as the the entire idea behind this blog was to get more in touch with the community and better both my game and painting abilities. 

I start my Journeyman league soon, so will be putting up a list posts. 

Battle Box Game: Khador VS Cryx

Good day Komrades. Over the weekend i was able to sneak in a battle box game in between shifts at work. Having Painted the new battle box i got at lock and load i was excited to get it out on the field. Below lists what is in each battle box.

Khador: Lord  Kazlov, Juggernaut, Decimator

Cry: Bane witch Agathia, Deathripper, Reaper, Slayer

So we had a zone in the middle that we had to have at least one model in by the end of the second players second turn. this was to promote pushing forward and not just kiting each other. The victory conditions being to kill each others Warjacks or winning by Caster kill.  Being Outnumbered did have me worried.

 Cryx won the roll off going first and Agithia cast Hellwrought on the Deathripper and advanced. The jacks ran already reaching the zone. The speed of Cryx jacks is pretty scary.

kazlov puts fury on the juggernaut, chosen ground on himself and Tactical support on the decimator. Both jacks ran, the decimator failed to completely get in the trench and the juggernaut ran trying to hide behind the forest.

Cryx Deathripper runs and is able to get LOS to the juggernaut. The reaper and slayer run better position themselves for next turn. Agithia arcs parasite through the Deather Ripper at the juggernaut but unfortunately rolls double 1's to hit.

Kazlov Upkeeps Chosen ground and fury. Sensing it was now or never kazlov feats and charges the reaper. With a massive swing of his axe and being able to decide where the damage goes he destroys the Reapers right arm. The decimator charges the reaper too taking out its left arm and movement  though was unable to destroy the hell jack. The juggernaut tramples through the forest and buys a few attacks on the slayer not doing much damage.

Agatha Feats to better position her forces and to give herself stealth then moves into the zone. With  high arm from unyielding the Helldiver, Slayer and Reaper are unable to put any serious damage to my jacks.

Kazlov drops chosen ground and charges the Reaper finishing it off then side stepping towards the Slayers back arc. Unfortunately this triggers a free strike that does a whopping 11 damage to kazlov.  Now gaining the back strike bonus kazlov puts more damage into the slayer. The juggernaut loaded up on focus then wipes out both the slayer and the Deathripper resulting in a khador victory.

Wow that was an interesting game. Im sure had the Parasite spell gone off the combined might of the slayer and death ripper would have taken down my juggernaut next turn. Also i think Agatha played too far back this game. If she had charged my Juggernaut Deathshroud would have lowered my arm by two negating my feat.  I always feel the Khador battle box has an uphill struggle against the others since it only consists of 3 models so the idea of piece trade goes badly for me, though having both my jacks at arm 22 means my opponent has to get a lot of work done just to get one down. Being able to Pre measure everything was very handy and removed a lot of potential mistakes and just seemed to allow for action packed turns with minimal delay.

So i hope you enjoyed my first bat rep. Next time these two castors face off we will increase the points beyond battle box. Also this sunday coming il be Darksphere in London taking park in a MK3 50 pts tournament. So till next time keep bringing axe to face!

MK3 The Beginning

Change? Yes we can!

Hello Comrades! Wow what a weekend that was at Lock and load UK. Lots of fun games, free loot and some great people. We said goodbye to MK2 and hello to MK3. I got hold of my new Khador Battle Box and cards and wow, where do i start. Privateer Press have really smoothed out the rough edges of Khador and as a faction made everything worth taking.  Jacks with increased Mat, Pikemen with increased Mat even Zerkova1 got some sharper teeth for her bite. Some war casters Even Look like they could be real fun running pure jack lists at 75 points. Seeing as Viscount Kazlov is the new guy on the block I'm excited to break him out in my first few games.

New battle Box ready to field. 

A few days ago also saw the release of Journeyman for new players, Full steam to celebrate the release of Mk3 and everyones favourite Steamroller. Also at the back of the steamroller are the rules for rumble which Gives people an introduction to steamrollers or just shakes things up by playing on 3x3 table.

Zerkova1 takes on Hordes Jaga Jaga

Also Yesterday i used Warroom for the first time. Normally I'm hesitant about using phones or tablets to track information during a game. Though I'm pretty impressed by it. Accessing the cards is quick and easy, so is putting lists together. Its also impressive in the fact you can access rules to war machine/hordes if you quickly need to just check up on a rule. 

So the stage is set to make a new war. Ive got a game arranged for Monday but I'm hoping to use my new Battle Box against the horror of the Cryx New battle box over the weekend.

So till next time keep bringing axe to face!

Lock and Load uk 2016

Hello Everyone. Today on Behind The Kurtain is lock and load eve and the excitement for mark 3 is like electric in the air. This year marks the first Uk Lock and Load and what a way to do it than to let Mark 2 go out in style! One last time for us vets to play like you got a pair before we all bask in light of Mark 3 and once again become noobs as we venture forth in the delights our factions have to offer us and the horrors others will visit upon us. 

So at lock and load we are given the chance to partake in 3 days of warmahordes in all different levels and styles with access to mangled metal and steamrollers. 

Sunday morning will see the live feed of PP keynote speech where I'm sure a few of PP secrets will be revealed or teased. Myself I'm excited to see if/what they tease in regards to a new hordes faction. Will it be Zuu and if so are they one united race or a mixture of races and war beasts.

As i said above this weekend will see the release of mk3 and the new battle box casters. This week i managed to get my hands on NQ #66 and wow i can't wait to field Viscount Kazlov. His abilities, spells and feat fully represent what i love about khador.  On the Other side of the coin seeing what the other battle box's can do makes me smile knowing no matter who plays who at BB level good times will be had.

Also today the Khador short story was released which has just added fuel to the fire of excitement i have for the weekend.

So next time il report on my experience of lock and load and as i sink my teeth into mark 3 so till then keep bringing axe to face. 

Cygnar: Bro, do you even Blog?

After much discussion we decided the best way to kick off this blog was to start by discussing a little bit about ourselves and how this Blog is going to work. 

We wanted to mark the era of Mk3, so we decided we would put together a blog documenting our transition into the new release and our continued development throughout the year. 

Now about me...  Let me begin by saying that Warmachine was my first real experience of a miniature based combat game, but after a few demo games, organised by Rob, I quickly became hooked. 

I chose Cygnar as my starting faction, not knowing much about 'play styles' and the like, I chose them purely based on the way the models looked and the idea of playing the 'good guys' appealed to me. 

After playing solely against Rob for some time, he eventually encouraged me to check out my local gaming club, The Cross Gaming Club, and in true Warmachine style, everyone was really accommodating and friendly.This encouraged me to play more, and I even began attending some tournaments, which I had varying levels of success from. I visited my first con this year and am looking forward to doing another big one next year. 

My personal aim for this blog is to bond with the community, improve my game and hopefully, improve my painting skills.  

Khador: Bringing Axe To Face

Hello everyone. My name is Robbie (Kovnik Graham on PP forums) and i hope to provide you with a blog to entertain and hopefully involve myself more with the war machine community.

So just a little info on myself i was introduced to Warmachine by a Friend called Loz who claimed it was a balanced game that offered tactics and interesting gameplay. At the time MK2 was fresh and i spent alot of time considering my faction. Mulling over which faction to play i decided upon khador since the idea of a tough faction that hits hard sounded like a very easy way to start. Also the Soviet Russian theme really spoke to me look wise.

When i first started playing Warmachine i had no idea what i was getting involved with and what this game would eventually mean to me. Ive met so many amazing people since then and now it feels more like joining a community of like minded people. Though I've switched factions more times than i can count, the past year and a half I've stuck with khador and now my heart beats for the Motherland.  Currently i Play at the Harlow Gaming Club and will be attending Lock and Load uk this year. Also this year i attended my first Smog Con and it was pretty much like being at Disney world.... except for the whole Giant corporate mouse. 

Now with mark III at our doorsteps i want you to follow me on a fresh new start.  Talking about the game as a whole, Posting batreps, conducting interviews and just having fun. With each post il try to add what I'm currently painting.

Also this year il be attending Lock and Load uk so if you see a khador army about the clock out theres a good chance its me at the table.

So until next time keep Dishing out axe to face!