Warmachine: Khador vs Mercenaries Game 2

For game 2 we moved the terrain around a bit. I kept my same force Sorcha, Juggernaut, Destroyer & 5 Man-o-War Shocktroopers. Matt changed his force a bit and took Drake MacBain, Mangler, 2 Nomads, and three Steelhead Heavy Cavalry.

 

The table at the start of the game.



My initial set up

We both moved forward to attack with Matt again threatening my right flank, this time with the Steelheads.

Matt used MacBain's abilities to quickly close and charge my Shocktroopers killing two and badly wounding a third. His Steelheads continued to head round my flank. I retaliated by moving Sorcha to a position where i could affect all three of Matt's mechs with my feat which I then popped it. The Juggernaut killed the Nomad facing him. The surviving Shocktroopers did some damage to the Mangler while the Destroyer heavily damaged the other Nomad.

Matt then hit back but didn't have much success. He killed one of the Shocktroopers and left the other with only one box unchecked. He also damaged the Juggernaut but nothing fatal.

On my turn I finished off his mechs and then charged MacBain with Sorcha badly wounding him but sadly missing out on the assassination.

Matt then charged the Steelheads into the rear of my Juggernaut firing before they hit home. This attack left the Juggernaut with only 6 boxes and no cortex. But that mattered little as MacBain proceeded to rip Sorcha to pieces, game over.

All in all a fun night. Matt helped me win one game but won the other so honours even. I'm slowly starting to get the hang of my Khador forces although I have a long way to go to be any good. I certainly prefer the Warmachine approach to Hordes which is strange considering they're the same game! Maybe it's that the Khaor forces suit me more than the Trollbloods I used to have did.

Warmachine: Khador vs Mercenaries Game 1

Monday night saw a run out for my Khador forces again. This time I was playing Matt and his Mercenaries force at 20pts. I took my usual Sorcha, Juggernaut, Destroyer & 5 Man-o-War Shocktroopers. Matt took Drake MacBain, Mangler, 2 Nomads, Talon & Harlan Versh.

This was only my third game so I was still learning the rules and how best to use my models. I'd decided to form a solid line and shoot Matt as he attacked and then try and use my feat as a prelude to an all out attack.


My initial dispositions.



Matt's original dispositions.

Matt advanced quickly while I moved up nearer the choke point where I would wait patiently until he was in range of my guns.

The firing squad awaits it's targets.

Matt continues his advance

I fire on Matt's forces but do no damage. Matt splits off the Talon to go round the hill and threaten my right flank.

I react by moving the Juggernaut to engage. He uses his three focus to pound the Talon but it survives with 2 health left.

I charge the Shocktroopers into contact and do some damage but nothing fatal.

In his turn Matt lays into the Shocktroopers killing them all.

I then pop my feat freezing the enemy mechs which allows my Destroyer to make an assassination run on MacBain.

The Destroyer then uses his three focus to kill MacBain, game over. To be fair Matt was helping me a lot with tips and suggestions and without that I wouldn't have won.

We had time for a second game and I'll post the details of that one tomorrow.

Game 2: Circle's Revenge

The gloves came off for game 2. Back into the box went pKaya & out came pBaldaur along with Megalith, Gorax, a Feral Warpwolf & 3 Shifting Stones, but no UA this time so no stealth for the stones. My force was the same as the last battle.
I won initiative again & made Paul set up & go first. My set up saw the Shocktroopers on my left with the Destroyer & Juggernaut on my right with Sorcha behind them. The stones again lead Paul's advance & again I advanced slowly till I got in range of the lead stone which again died to ranged attacks forcing Paul to pull them back where they could be used to heal nearby models if necessary (which annoyingly they did to good effect). Then I got a bit over aggressive. I decided it was time for Megalith to die. I cast Wind Rush on Sorcha to move her forward & popped my feat freezing Megalith & the Feral. A shot from Sorchas gun did a couple of points damage to the Megalith. This was followed by casting Boundless Charge onto the Juggernaut to allow him to charge in on the frozen Megalith. Four auto hitting attacks saw the Megalith nearly dead, his extra armor from a spell made the difference. The Shocktroopers did a few points of damage on the Feral but nothing serious. A shot from the Destroyer hit but did no damage.The position in the game is shown below.

Paul responded by having Megalith pick up the Juggernaut and throw it at Sorcha. Luckily for me his aim was off & he missed plus he didn't manage to do any damage to the Juggernaut. He then buffed the Feral & charged him into the Shocktroopers killing two of them. Megalith was also healed by the stones & got a regen roll which healed his critical damage giving him full effectiveness.  On my turn the Destroyer's shooting was again ineffectual. The now unfrozen Megalith was much harder to hit & the Juggernaut (after having to spend focus to stand up) attacked but was unable to finish him off. The Shocktroopers contiued to beat on the Feral wearing him down. On Paul's turn he then laid into the Juggernaut crippling his Movement with his first attack which did a massive 13pts of damage! Luckily his subsequent attacks were less effective and the Juggernaut survived. The Feral had Primal cast on him last turn making him frenzy this turn & his one attack did little damage to a Shocktrooper. The Megalith was again healed by the stones and got a regen roll. The Juggernaut's attacks again were not enough to fish off the Megalith so Sorcha decided to move in & finish off the Megalith but it's high defence & armor thwarted her efforts. The current situation is shown below.

pBaldaur then decided it was time to end things stepping forward & using his stack of fury to cut Sorcha to ribbons. Game over, one game each.
So my thoughts on Warmachine. I'd played Hordes with Trollbloods about a year ago & hated it, ending up selling my stuff on eBay. Did I enjoy the games with Khador? Yes, (then again I always enjoy games against Paul). Would I play again? Yes I would. Would I expand the force to 25pts? Maybe. 35pts? Probably not. It's just so expensive to buy stuff for Warmachine & given that I probably won't play that often it's hard to justify the expense. Do I prefer it to my other skirmish game Malifaux? No way, Malifaux with it's schemes & strategies mechanic has more depth to it & coupled to its simple yet complex tactics and gameplay plus much, much cheaper figures makes it still my favourite.

First run out for my Khador

After the tribulations endured earlier in the day I made it to the club with no more problems. A quick grab of some terrain pieces that were then randomly scattered on the table & we were good to go.
Paul was playing his Circle of Orboros forces. As he is a kind soul (even if he does play 'Twilight' wannabe werewolves) he started with the not particularly awesome pKaya as his warlock, a Warpwolf Stalker, Feral Warpwolf, Gorax, Stonekeeper & 3 Shifting Stones. I was using Sorcha, Juggernaut, Destroyer & 5 Man-o-War Shocktroopers.
I won the initiative roll and made Paul set up & move first. I didn't know much about Circle forces except that they can teleport around the board so I kept my force together so he couldn't pick off isolated units. I was going to take lots of piccies but forgot. But my set up formation didn't change for much of the game and can be seen in the photo below.


Turn 3 ish

 I moved forward slowly in my turns & let him come to me. I was hoping to do some damage with my Destroyer's bombard but the Stonekeeper UA gave him & the stones stealth so I had to wait until I was within 5" to open fire. Once in range my Shocktroopers opened fire and killed one stone thereby preventing them being used for teleporting antics. (This is when I remembered to take pics & the photo above shows the postition just after the 1st stone has been destroyed). The Stalker moved up out of the woods & the Feral charged my Juggernaut doing a serious amount of damage but not thankfully destroying any critical systems. On my turn I loaded up the Juggernaut with 3 focus & attacked. First roll with his Ice Axe & it's a critical, freezing the Feral allowing auto hits, 4 attacks later and its a dead Feral. A bit lucky but I take what I can get. A shot from the Destroyer missed the Stalker, end of turn. Paul retaliated by charging his Stalker into the Shocktroopers killing two. pKaya then exploited this gap to teleport next to Sorcha & proceeded to beat her about the head. Luckily for me pKaya failed to get any crits and poor dice from Paul saw her only take 4 damage. Sorcha responded by popping her feat freezing pKaya and turning her into a bloody pulp. Game over, a bit lucky but I'll take what I can get.
As it was still early we had time for another game. I remembered to take more pictures for this one. Details to follow later today.

A Bad Day

I was going to get all sorts of things done today but fate intervened. First the flush handle broke off the toilet, an easy fix but entails an extra trip to B&Q. Then problems with the Khador I've been painting up for tonights game.
I finished off the bases and took the models into the garage to give them a spray of matt varnish. That's when disaster struck! For some reason the Army Painter varnish reacted badly to the Army Painter dip. The dip coat started to bubble up and detach from the model but only in certain places. Man, was I pissed off!
I wasn't sure what to do at first but I took them back inside & tried to clean things up. I brushed some red on the affected areas & then a wash of devlan mud to try and blend things in, it improved things a little. I'm not going to use these a lot and i don't want to strip them & start again so I'm going to have to put up with it. Although it will bug me every time I look at them. I did try to dry brush some gun metal on the bubbled up areas of one model to see if I could make it look like exposed metal/battle damage. It worked after a fashion but I wasn't that happy with it so left the others as they were.
Then I was taking some pictures of them for this blog, but I couldn't get the exposure right & auto focus started to play up on my camera. So I spent about an hour trying to take 4 pictures! Anyway they're done now but I'm not happy with them either.
All I'm left wondering is what else can go wrong today.

The Juggernaut

The Destroyer

Man-o-War Shocktroopers

Sorcha

On the painting table

I have my first game of Warmachine arranged for next monday so I need to finish off painting my Khador force. I played Hordes about a year ago and had Trollbloods but just didn't enjoy it. It always seemed that whatever I tried to do my opponent had a cool counter to it & then, when they had their turn, their force destroyed mine while all I could do was sit back and watch. Not fun!
So why I am I coming back for more? Well I'm a sucker for a good deal & when I saw the 2-Player Battle Box, which is already a good deal, on sale with a 20% discount I couldn't resist. My thinking was if I didn't enjoy it I could always sell the parts on eBay and get my money back.
The current plan is to keep the Khador & the rulebook & sell the Menoth stuff. Hopefully that will mean that the Khador force & rules will only have cost me about £20, a bargain!
I'm a lazy painter so use the quickest method I can think of to get my painting done. So I always prime my models using the Army Painter coloured spray primers. The picture below shows the assembled & primed Man-o-War Shocktroopers.

The next step is to paint the other colours as shown below with the Shocktrooper & Juggernaut.

The last step is to use the Army Painter dip. I used the Strong shade on the destroyer shown below. I'm not as happy with the Strong shade as I am with the others. It seems less viscous and imparts more of an overall stain whereas the others leave more of the underlying colour as it was. Anyway its done now so the rest will have to be done the same to match.

All thats left to be done is the base and to give it a spray of matt varnish. I'll post some pictures of the finished models later this week.