Painting Update: Penultimate Seleucids

I finally finished painting - almost - the last two Seleucid units.

Argyraspides - elite "silver shield" phalangites

Cataphracts

I say almost, because I broke one of the silver shields, so there's a base in the back row with only three phalangites and no basing material on it. Need to get a replacement, and I'd like to add some command stands for all three phalanxes. It's a bit ahistorical, but I like the look.

PDX Games Day - September 27

I organized a historical games day at Guardian Games yesterday, and got a pretty decent turnout. Thanks to everyone who attended!

We had some SAGA...

Anglo-Danes repulsing a Viking assault

Some Flames of War (my Russian infantry battalion lost to the Germans)...

Russian infantry watch their armored comrades fall to German anti-tank guns

Some Blitzkrieg Commander II...

German defense of the village of Anatevka from the Red Army

And Ivan (Nordic Weasel Games) demoed Five Men in Normandy for a few folks:

A Soviet patrol mixes it up with a tiny German roadblock

I'm planning on another games day at Guardian on October 11. (Sadly, I'm missing out on Tactical Solutions out in Spokane...)

Battle Report: 35-Point Tiericide, September 21

The Cog threw a 35-point, three round, theme force required Warmachine tournament at Ancient Wonders this past Sunday. I went 1-2, and learned an important lesson: Know your list to beat the clock. Had a lot of fun, though.

First game was Incursion against Matt's Legion of Everblight.

Absylonia, Terror of Everblight (Winds of Change, tier 4)
* Harrier
* Raek
* Raek
* Shredder
* Shredder
* Ravagore
* Scythean
Spawning Vessel and Acolytes (max)
Blighted Nyss Shepherd
Blighted Nyss Shepherd
The Forsaken
The Forsaken

I countered with Skorne:

Dominar Rasheth (Chain Gang, tier 4)
* Titan Gladiator
* Titan Gladiator
* Titan Cannoneer
Agonizer
Agonizer
Paingiver Task Master
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min)
Gatorman Posse (max)
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew

I went first (IIRC). The titan wall rumbled forward on the right and center, while the gators took the left flank. Between Rasheth's feat, Enrage, and Blood Mark, I was able to make pretty quick work of his heavies and deny him an effective feat. As you can see below, I was in a strong position...

But because I've never run this list before, and Rasheth only a couple of times, every turn took at least twice as long as it should have. I ran out of time while he still had about 22 minutes. Had I not clocked myself, I think I'd have won this one pretty handily - one of those Gladiators is nearly dead, and the other's pretty bruised, but the Cannoneer is untouched.

Second round was Close Quarters against Doug's Cryx.
Goreshade the Cursed (Heresy of Shadows, tier 2)
* Kraken
Bane Lord Tartarus
Bane Thralls (max)
* Officer & Standard Bearer
Bane Thralls (min)
* Officer & Standard Bearer

vs

Supreme Aptimus Zaal (Immortal Host, tier 4)
* Kovaas
* Aptimus Marketh
* Basilisk Krea
* Basilisk Drake
* Reptile Hound
Ancestral Guardian
Ancestral Guardian
Hakaar the Destroyer
Extoller Soulward
Extoller Soulward
Immortals (max)
Immortals (min)

Again, I went first. I bricked up with a set of Krea animi and the convenient hill  in the center to defend against the Kraken's ranged shooting, and started filling up the AGs with souls from Zaal and the Extollers. He advanced, with his Kraken in the center, and was kind enough to give me Vengeance moves on both Immortal units. On turn two, I cleared off a few banes, killed Bane Lord Tartarus (which took a surprising amount of work) and failed a charge against the Kraken with an Ancestral Guardian under Last Stand. He went to work killing off Immortals with his banes on his second turn, but made a couple crucial mistakes: first, he allowed the LS'ed AG to take a Defensive Strike, which knocked out a bane and triggered the Kovaas' appearance, and second, he put Goreshade in charge range of the newly-created Kovaas. So on turn three I popped feat and used the Kovaas to assassinate Goreshade for an early win:

Round four was Destruction against Adam's Cygnar:

Major Victoria Haley (Stormbringers, tier 1)
* Stormwall
* Thorn
Stormsmith Stormcaller
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages
* ATGM Officer
Black 13th

I dropped Rasheth again. This actually took a bit of thought: while Rasheth's feat is useless against this matchup and Carnivore is pretty poor, I felt that double Agonizers plus Castigate would put a serious crimp in Haley's game plan. Conversely, the Stormwall would be able to munch through Zaal's Immortals pretty hard with Covering Fire and electroleaps.

So... Haley's a very rough matchup. Her feat is no fun at all, and the Stormwall's notoriously good. But! Turns out that not being able to arc spells (thanks to Castigate) or allocate focus to Stormwall (thanks to Agonizer) is really, really annoying. My beast brick went up the center, with Rasheth cowering behind a convenient wall to raise his ranged defense to a whopping 14. The Gators came up the right in a (failed) attempt to stay out Haley's feat. I was able to weather the feat, then take down Thorn, the Stormwall, and the enemy objective in exchange for both of my Gladiators. And then I ran out of time. Again.

We played out the rest of the game anyway, and Haley failed an assassination run due to some rather bad dice. Again, had I not clocked myself (and therefore played slightly more conservatively in the last two turns), I think I'd have been able to eke out a win here, just by controlling the zone and killing two or three gun mages a turn.

So that's this week's lesson: If you're going to play competitively, play a list you've practiced with.

Battle Report: Patton's Desert War...

Peter, Jared, and I decided we'd take a crack at Blitzkrieg Commander II, as an alternative to Flames of War. I refereed, since I have the most (two games) experience with the system, and set up a North African table for Jared's Red Army tanks to assault Peter's 101st Airborne. (I dunno, Alien Space Bats must have done something...)

This was quite a small game, actually, but it still took almost three hours before we called it - all that fumbling with new rules.

The US defended a hill with a half-company of Airborne backed up by a 57mm anti-tank gun, a pair of MGs, some off-board artillery, and a single 81mm mortar. The Russians came in through a village just north of the hill with five T-34/85s, an ISU-122, and some tank riders; unfortunately, they'd placed their single mortar too far away to effectively receive orders...

At first we thought the Americans would simply be steamrolled by the Russian tanks, but they proved to be surprisingly durable. BKC II's command system provided significantly more randomness than we're used to with FoW, especially since the Americans only had one commander; when he failed his command roll, that was it for the turn!

Second-to-last turn

One question we had was the command penalty for multiple orders to a unit. We're not sure if it applies to the entire formation that contains the unit, or only to that unit itself. Still, overall it was a good game. Next time we'll have to bump it up to around 3,000 points to a side...

Battle Report: His Majesty's Army vs. Some Damned Rebellious Colonials

I recently had a chance to participate in a game of Field of Battle 2 run by Victor at Guardian Games. (Also in attendance: Kevin, Andy, Dave, and Peter.) This was my second experience with a Piquet-based game, my first being at Enfilade 2014.

Victor presented us with a pretty straightforward scenario: The Continental army (under Andy & Dave) had seized a ridgeline overlooking a road. Our British army, commanded by an aristocratic poltroon (and under myself and Kevin), had chosen to press on without waiting for reinforcements to oust the rebel from this advantageous position.

The British mustered three command groups, each comprised of four regiments, with a small artillery battery. The Americans were likewise. However, the British were blessed with more consistently trained and disciplined troops, while having to deal with the aforementioned poltroon as their commander in chief; the Americans appeared to have the reverse situation.

As the battle played out, the guns on either side did little work; the British marched up, clashed with the rebels; and in the end, American morale broke first, and the British took the ridge.

Preparing for the game

British left and center, deployed, with the guns safely nestled in the woods.

American right, with a regiment held back in reserve.

The American center, anchored by a pair of guns.

British right at deployment.

The British left forming up neatly at the base of the ridge prior to the charge.

The British right slowly advances toward the American positions.

Results of the first clash on the British left; two regiments in rout, more entering the fray.

Action on the hill.

British left flank, Americans moving in to push them back.

Rather blurry photo of the British right flank.

Hessians fire at point blank range at the Americans, supported by the 64th foot (soon to be outflanked by rebels).

Overview of the British left flank late in the day. Three British regiments are in rout and one is out of command, but an American Regiment has been destroyed and two others are in rout.

British assault forces the rebels back, for the moment.

British assault forces the rebels back, for the moment.

British 64th Foot, outflanked by American rebels.

British guns firing from a forest.

On the whole, a very enjoyable game. Thanks to Victor for putting this on! Piquet played more smoothly than I expected, and I'll probably pick up a copy...

Battle Report: Warmachine 50-point Fully Painted Tournament

So I did (rather poorly at) a local tournament yesterday. This was the capstone event to our summer paint challenge, so naturally I forgot to take any pictures.

Here's what I brought:

Makeda and the Exalted Court
* Molik Karn
* Bronzeback Titan
* Titan Gladiator
* Basilisk Krea
Cataphract Incindiarii (max)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (max)
Extoller Soulward
Agonizer
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew

Supreme Aptimus Zaal (Tier 4 Theme list)
Kovaas
* Titan Cannonneer
* Cyclops Raider
Immortals (Max)
Immortals (Max)
Aptimus Marketh
Hakaar the Destroyer
Ancestral Guardian
Ancestral Guardian
Ancestral Guardian
Ancestral Guardian
Extoller Soulward
Extoller Soulward
Extoller Soulward

First game was against Asher, who brought Vlad 3 and Karchev. He chose to drop Vlad (with all the horses):

Vlad 3
* Drago
Khador War Wagon
Uhlans (max)
Uhlans (max) (and painted up in the Black Dragon scheme - very nice!)
Greylord Ternion Cav (max)
Drakhun
Kovnik Markov

This was a rough matchup. The war wagon can drop 4" circles of rough terrain, and my Zaal list has no pathfinder whatsoever. As a result, he was able to come in and use Zaal's feat for an alpha with no fear of retaliation, and managed to knock out about half my list - including Hakaar and Marketh, which really stung. The key spell of the game was probably Vlad's Dash - since he was able to ignore free strikes, my abundance of reach weapons were... not useful.

Still, Zaal's feat turn was pretty productive, and I was able eliminate about half his army, with much of what was left in less-than-ideal positions. Unfortunately, my dice were not kind to me this game, and that stacked with a few poor decisions such that he was able to charge in with an Uhlan. A crit knockdown later, and he shot Zaal off the table with a pair of Razor Wind spells from Vlad.

Of course, my worst mistake of the game was putting the Krea on the table out of sheer habit, despite her not being in the list. Thankfully she had no impact on the game before I realized it, and I lost anyway, but it was still terribly embarrassing.

Second game was against Scott, who was running Severius 1 and Feora 2. He dropped Severius:

Severius 1
* Blessing of Vengeance
* Vanquisher
* Devout (I think. The shield guard one.)
Vessel of Judgement
Zealots with UA
Temple Flameguard with UA
Choir (min)
3 Wracks
Paladin of the Wall
Hierophant
Vassal of Menoth

I might be missing a few models. Not sure.

At any rate, I dropped Zaal again. This was a rough matchup... for Severius. I still managed to lose. The first part of the game I was able to jam up into the zone and set the line of engagement just past the center. He hit my lines and knocked out around a dozen or so Immortals and one AG, and I struck back to wreck his Vanquisher, took out about half the Flameguard, and killed the objective. I did not manage to clear the zone, however. And then I got cocky and decided to take advantage of his slightly-too-bold positioning to try to ranged assassinate Severius, something that really only had around a 50% chance of succeeding. I failed, and left Zaal out in the open with no defenses or transfers, and he promptly ate several Zealot bombs and a couple spells, and exploded.

So... don't get cocky, kid.

After that, I dropped, since I'm pretty sure I was in last place and we had an odd number of players. Congrats to Asher on winning the tournament.