Tuesday, February 1, 2011

The price of war. Mercs vs Menoth 25pts

Having just started wamachine and hordes with the group, I decided to go against Hoj's Menoth list in a 25 point straight battle with my Mercenaries.

Menoth:
Harbinger of Menoth
Hierophant
Vigilant
Bastions (minimum)
Avatar of Menoth
Sensachal of the Wall
Choir (minimum)

Mercs:
Magnus the Traitor
Steelhead Riflemen (minimum)
Steelhead Riflemen (minimum)
Steelhead Halberdiers (maximum)
Renegade
Nomad
*Gorman De Wulfe

* though he is supposed to be in my army since I was using proxies I completely forgot all about him and he did nothing this battle.

Pre-game thoughts:
I know that between the bastions "sanguine bond" and the harbinger's "martyrdom" ability that it would take a massive amount of damage to wipe out the bastions. My best chance to do this would be to constantly stack damage against them hoping that Hoj would keep using the "martyrdom" ability and ping himself to death.

the only terrain worth noting was a brick wall dead center of the board all other terrain were in places we didn't even think to go.

deployment: left to right from my point of view
mercs: riflemen, nomad (magnus behind), renegade, halberdiers and rifelmen
menoth: avatar (choir behind), sensachel, bastions, vigilant, harbinger (heirophant behind)

turn 1:
Mercs: due to tier 2, I was able to edge my steelhead units with advance deploy which gave them a running to start to get into position. With their actual movement setting up a defense roughly eight or so inches away from the center wall. Magus cast Snipe on leftmost riflemen and Temper Metal on the Nomad.

Menoth:
Everything ran forward, the choir singing a hymn to keep the avatar safe from non-magical ranged attacks. As the avatar went on the left flank closer to the wall waiting for my jacks to pop their heads up. Everything else in the Menoth force bore to my right side flank hoping to bottle neck my forces and win the game of attrition.

Turn 2:
Mercs: Magnus casts Iron Aggression on the Renegade, I move it forward and attempt to drop the obliterator on the bastions. Needing only a 5+ to hit on 2d6 I don't boost and regret it as it scatters, luckily for me some lucky rolling and I do a good amount of damage to a bastion caught in the blast (who of course spreads damage to his unit).

Nomad charges at Avatar (I put three focus on itself and the Renegade) and manage to do some really good damage though I do not knock out any of it's systems. The rightmost riflemen take a couple of pot shots at the bastions which at this point have about two or three boxes of life left each.

Menoth: Choir gives Avatar hymn that negates non magical ranged attackes, as it generated all four focus. Proceeded to dismantle my Nomad leaving it with it's left arm (buckler) and it's movement all other systems were knocked down.

Harbinger casts spell on bastions that give them extra movement for a charge, they butcher the three riflemen they reach making the other three run away (two of them were killed with free strikes) leaving one close to my deployment.

turn 3:
Renegade with three focus charges into a bastion which he pastes since the Menoth player was hesitant to keep "sanguine bonding" the same guy when I had critical shred and boosted attack rolls from spell. Halberdiers charge into Bastions causing a good number of wounds, at this point most of them were at one life and Harbinger kept using her martyrdom ability.

Not expecting much out of the Nomad I roll for the buckler first and manage to roll high enough to knock out the Avatar's sword arm! If that wasn't amazing enough I hit and damaged it with the other arm also! Six point Nomad against eleven point Avatar... not bad at all! The lone rifleman rallies and stays put.

Harbinger moves up casts cataclysm on a few on the Halberdiers in combat with the Bastions, wipes out a fair few, then heals a few wounds with focus. The Bastions split their attacks between the Halberdiers and the Renegade which loses both of it's arms. The rest of the Halberdiers are gone by the end of the Bastion's activation. Avatar crushed life out of Nomad but only had a few damage boxes left open.

turn 4:

Combined ranged attack from the Sniping Riflemen knock out the Avatar with ease and they sit guarding the left flank. Magnus moves to the middle of the field to protect the Riflemen from any danger, lets loose with his scattergun hurting the Bastions (which Harbinger used martyrdom ability quite a few times) and sit on my focus. The Renegade all but done for also manages a hit for a little of damage and again Harbinger uses the martyrdom ability. Lone Rifleman near my deployment moves up confident the Bastions would not waste time trying to kill him.

Paladin of the wall finishes off the poor Renegade which frees up the Bastions, unfortunately for them they have no line of sight to Magnus. One of them tries to walk up to Magnus and swing but fails to hit, the rest move closer to combat if it continues past this turn. Harbinger decides this is the moment for assassination run, walks up 3-4" from Magnus and casts a boosted Cataclysm (boy I really hate that spell..) does 8-9 damage, spurred on by success he casts it again boosting damage leaving Magnus with 1 life.

Turn 5:

Hit the Bastion in base with Magnus with the mekanikal arm knocking him down Harbinger using martyrdom (but of course). Foe cleaver attack also was martyred, I didn't realize this at first but I could of just used Arcantrik Bolt boosted and have done major damage to Harbinger (who was only armor 14). Instead I kept hitting the downed Bastion till eventually the Menoth player just said screw it. Magnus attempted a regular arcantrik bolt but failed to hit since I had no focus to boost.

Lone Rifleman pulled off a miracle shot managing to hit the Harbinger and doing a few points of damage. Time for the check mate the Sniping Riflemen walked forward and let loose with a combined ranged attack against the Harbinger rolling bang on what I needed. Didn't need to roll for damage as the minimum pow 17 dealt the Harbinger the last three wounds it had.

Post Game:
I knew going in what the Harbinger and Bastions were trying to do so my rough battle plan was to cause enough wounds early on and hope that martyrdom would cause enough damage one turn that an assassination run would be possible.

We were both new to Warmachine and though he had an upper hand according to all the veterans at the store. The Menoth player received more tips on how to play rather than myself... figure that out? lol Even when I finished my game and told them the results the veterans looked stumped and asked what the Menoth player did wrong.

Though I can see the uses for Magnus' feat I am still unsure as to when to use it precisely, it isn't something that does damage or restricts enemy movement. It gives me a repositioning move that can be very helpful just not quite sure when it would of been useful in this game.

The Harbinger used her feat to pin a few of my Halberdiers from supporting their friends in combat against the Bastions. It also managed to put some damage on the Renegade on Nomad but other than that not much else.

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