Legion of the Noob, part 6: Battlecry

A couple of weeks ago, I ran the 1 day Warmachine event at Battlecry. As usual, a great bunch of guys showed up and a good time was had by all. Unfortunately, we ended up with uneven numbers, so I ended up ghosting in the bye slot, to both ensure people got the 4 games they paid for and to give myself some extra practice.

Game 1 was against the most excellent Big Show aka Chris T. He was rocking a single Kara Sloane list with Stormwall, 2 Minutemen Thunderhead, a Defender plus some support. Despite how much I really wanted to smash the Stormwall with Abby2,  I didn't want to get shot off the table going in, so I went with Lylyth instead. I lost the roll for first turn and having learnt my lesson previously, I gave Big Show the side of the table with only a forest for cover.

Chris deployed most of his force to the left hand side of the forest, except for Thunderhead and the Defender which went right. Everything moved forward at speed. I put up Shadowpack and decided not to pop my feat this turn. The two Ravagores blasted one of the Minutemen down to 3 boxes, before one of the Deathstalkers finished it off.

Turn 2, the Stormwall rolles boxcars to gun down a Deathstalker in a trench. Thunderhead shot the Spell Martyr and the Defender gunned down a Shepherd. Before I started my turn, I considered my options, before deciding to pull the trigger and go for the assassination. The Blightblades came on and shanked the Journeyman. Lylyth moved into the open and feated. I landed a boosted Pin Cushion on Kara and put a couple of points of damage on her with Lylyths bow. The Naga put two shots into Kara (including one crit poison), before the 1st Ravagore finished her off.

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My second game was against Dan Lister. Dan had a dwarf list with an Earthbreaker and a Fiona list with Galleon,  full pirate boat Alexia and Nyss. Faced with two very shooty Colossals I once again chose Lylyth and ended up going second again. Dan chose Fiona, wanting to test the strength of her feat. To this end, he ran his entire army at me two turns in a row, jamming them down my throat before popping his feat. I should have feated bottom of one, but ended up having to counterfeat while trapped in Fionas bubble of "screw you". I managed to back the Ravagores and Naga out of the Feat and put a bunch of hurt on the Galleon and gun down some of the infantry with the Deathstalkers and Lylyth. Zuriel was trapped in combat with the Galleon and stuck in Fionas feat so couldn't manage to finish it off (left it on 8 boxes).

In return, Dan tried to kill Lylyth, running dudes into combat with her, then shooting them in the back with Galleon to try and kill her with blast damage (a viable option when your opponent is dresed in newspaper) but failed to get the dice required.One shot from a Ravagore finished the Galleon off, before a fiesty Shepherd knocked down First Mate Hawk who was engaging Zuriel. Free of Hawks attentions, Zuriel flew over the wreck of the Galleon and lopped off Fionas head.

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My final game of the day saw me across the table from Graeme and his Butcher3 list. I dropped Abby2 into this as she seems to have all the tech needed to make his life difficult. I managed to thin down his infantry during the first couple of turns, with the Deathstalkers killing most of the IFP, the Seraph gunning down Eiryss in the wood and the Ravagore and Naga managing to shoot down most of the Doomreavers.

With Fortify up and my beasts positioned in such a way to ensure Butcher couldn't get any mileage out of his drag shenanagins, I was feeling pretty safe. Until Butcher energizrd foward then charged. Luckily he could only get within reach range of the Scythean, which he mangled in short order. Butcher then popped his feat, in order to refill his focus and try to camp out the oncoming beatdown.

What follows, is known as "Living the Dream". Abby popped her feat, flew into a position between Butcher and one of his Argus'. She killed the Argus to proc conferred rage, then went to town on Butcher, using her Energy Siphon repeatedly to drain all of his focus, before teleporting away and letting the Carnivean bite off his head.

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So another three games under my belt. I'd be lying if I said I was feeling confident about either the lists themselves, or the decision to take Legion to Ides next weekend. If I had a choice, I'd probably take Cryx, but having to submit lists two weeks out from the event I don't have that luxury. So we will just have to see how things play out.