Wargames @ farfaraway.org » Skorne

Shattered Grounds – Multi-player League Games

owen — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 12:55:17 +0000

Yesterday was a funny kind of Father’s Day… I didn’t see my daughter at all! She was staying with her grandparents on Saturday night and I was off playing little soldiers when she was brought home and put to bed. That said, it was still an awesome day.

I played two multi-player games for the Blasted Heath season in the Shattered Grounds league. There are two options when it comes to multi-player games – King of the Hill and Unlikely Alliance. The first is a free-for-all and the second is a cooperative game. If you’re playing in the league both are worth looking at as they reward the extra organisation with extra league points. If you’re not in the league then they are worth looking at because they are just damn good fun!

King of the Hill

This scenario should be pretty familiar to most players. You win by being the last ‘caster standing or the first ‘caster to get 3 control points. Warcasters/warlocks are awarded one control point for being on the central hill at the end of their turn (from the second turn onwards).

Our game was a four-way 25pt battle for the hill with Grissel, Xerxis, Venethrax and Goreshade (me) all competing for the win. Grissel fell early, so the game was only going to be contested by the remaining three. I played a very cautious game, mostly because of Xerxis Bile Thralls nearby that could seriously dent my army. We swapped Bile Thralls and managed to take out a few Skorne Swordsmen with them too. Venethrax made the first move for the hill and was quickly joined by Xerxis.

They traded blows, but didn’t wipe out each other. I saw an opportunity, but knew it needed to stick as Venethrax was on 2 control points. I moved Goreshade up, feated and sent the Bane Thralls to finish the Cryxian ‘caster. Xerxis had an awesome turn and managed to clear out six Bane Thralls – it was something to behold. He was now sitting on 2 control points. My turn came around and this had to be it. I positioned my Mechanithralls out of the way and charged Goreshade in. Smack, transfer, smack – game over. Goreshade wins.

The nice thing about this game is that all players get league points for playing the game equal to the game size, plus the bonus points (5pts each in this case). The winner gets the bonus points on top of that too.

Unlikely Alliance

This scenario is epic, not because there is anything particularly special about it, but because there are likely to be an awful lot of miniatures on the battlefield! It’s simply a ‘caster kill scenario with two players on each team. We had 50pts per player, so that was 100pts a side. It was truly magnificent to behold. We randomised which players were on which team and it ended up that myself and Anthony (Cryx and Cryx – sweet!) would play Skorne and Trollbloods (talk about an unlikely alliance!).

The thing I enjoyed most about this game was the talk-out-loud tactics that each team employed to coordinate what they did. For example, on turn three Anthony and I decided we’d pop both Deneghra’s and Asphyxious’ feats to try and take out Xerxis. This required positioning arc nodes, getting Hellfire off with a Skarlock to try and clear an Agonizer, moving Deneghra up, feating, casting more Hellfires, getting Asphyxious into position, casting more Hellfires (through a different arc node), feating and casting yet more Hellfires. That’s a little tricky to coordinate when there’s just one brain controlling the army, but try it with two brains! The great (an possibly horrific thing for Xerxis’ controller, Harry) thing is that Anthony and I needed to talk through that in advance and then communicate what we were doing through the turn. Harry saw (or at least heard) it coming, but could do nothing about it. The writing was on the wall for Grissel and despite a valiant attempt the might of two Cryx ‘caster (with fantastic synergies) was too much for the Trollbloods to overcome.

Not only was this a fantastic game, but everyone was a winner as far as the league was concerned. The 50pt per faction is actually counted as game two rows lower, e.g. 100pts. All participants get at least 8pts and the winners get 12pts. Nice!

I netted 19 points yesterday. A pretty cool Father’s Day present.

Owen

Two Beers, Two Games, Two Wins

owen — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 21:00:09 +0000

I got my first two Blasted Heath league games under my belt tonight. Harry came out to the house to pit his Skorne against my Cryx. I decided I’d give Cryx a go in the league as they are my third faction (behind Khador and Legion) and they haven’t received a whole lot of attention since I painted them up last year. It was tempting to run with the new shiny that are my Privateers, but that would have relegated Cryx to my fourth faction for sure!

Harry and I played two games this evening (over a couple of beers) – a 20pt game and a 35pt game. I decided to use Goreshade in the first game. He was accompanied by Deathjack, a Slayer, six Mechanithralls and six Bane Thralls. I’m not going to give a blow by blow other than to say I played a very cagey game and seeing Deathjack trample a complete unit of Swordsmen and later charge eMakeda (and crush) was a beautiful thing (photographed right).

Game two went well too. This time I used pAsphyxious supported by a couple of Arc Nodes, Deathjack, Bane Lord Tartarus, Bane Thralls, Bane Knights, Mechanithralls and a Skarlock. I had the opportunity about half way through the game to attempt an assassination by arcing Hellfire onto a furyless eMakeda. I hit her and did 10 damage. Asphyxious feated for 7 more focus and I rolled a boosted attempt to hit again. I didn’t get the 8 required! eMakeda survived another turn or two, but after Deathjack took out a Titan and the Mechanithralls reduced a Rhinodon to one wound the writing was on the wall for her.

Both games were great fun and Harry’s an excellent opponent. It’s a good start to the league for me and my attempts to get to know Cryx better. I hope I’m not relying on Deathjack too much, though. He’s fantastic, but at 12 points he’s pricey. Anyway, hopefully I can continue the winning trend tomorrow evening.

Owen

Thagrosh vs Xerxis (35pt MkII Battle Report)

owen — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 11:18:01 +0000

With the release of the MkII Field Test for Hordes I’ve been looking forward to getting some games in. I’m not a particularly good Hordes player, but I wanted to see how the Legion had fared with the rules changes. I should probably qualify what ‘not particularly good’ means. Around Dublin, and in Ireland generally, there is a very active Warhammer Fantasy Battle scene and the game is played to a pretty competitive level. When it comes to Warmachine and Hordes we tend to be a little more relaxed – we don’t try to build the horrible lists or do gamesmanship things like declaring a charge or trample you know you cannot make in order to gain an extra 3″ of movement. In other words, we don’t try to pull off the weird little tricks that are possible in the rules, but that seem unlikely to occur in ‘real life’. We have a pretty soft meta around here. The reason I’m mentioning this is that you rarely saw a conga line of Idrians or Drakhuns flying through the air, so some of the changes in MkII, for example the new formation rules, have practically no impact on the way Warmachine/Hordes is played around here.

Anyway, during the week Harry, a Skorne player, and I fought a 35pt game using the new rules. I had Thagrosh leading my force with a healthy balance of beasts, units and solos. I wanted to try out a bit of everything. Here’s my list (which I wrote up on Forward Kommander as it now supports Hordes) -

Thagrosh, Prophet of Everblight
Nephilim Soldier
Carnivean
Shredder
Shredder
Blighted Nyss Archers (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Blighted Nyss Legionnaires (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Blighted Ogrun Warmongers (Leader and 4 Grunts)
Blighted Nyss Shepherd
The Forsaken

That’s exactly 35pts (when you factor in Thagrosh’s +5 Warbeast points). I’d have to be careful to keep my non-fearless troops away from the abominations in the army, but other than that it’s pretty straight forward. Thagrosh, the Carnivean and the Warmongers can hit pretty hard. The Legionnaires are a great defensive unit and the Archers are decent at taking out lightly armoured troops or combining ranged attacks to threaten moderately armoured enemies. The Nephilim is a decent counter punching beast and the Shredders make good transfer targets with a useful animus.

Harry’s force (which I wrote up in iBodger and emailed to myself) comprised of –

Tyrant Xerxis
Cyclops Brute
Rhinodon
Titan Gladiator
Agonizer
4 Cataphract Arcuarii
6 Paingiver Beast Handlers
6 Praetorian Swordsmen

I’m not very familiar with Skorne having only fought them once before, but Xerxis seems like a solid beat stick as are the heavy beasts. I really wasn’t familiar with this army (I even forgot to ask Harry what Xerxis’ feat was until he was about to do it!), but there’s nothing like learning what a unit does by plying against them!

I’m going to write the report in my terrible narrative style again, but I’ll comment on the MkII changes at the end.

Several days ago Thagrosh had send a scouting party of Striders ahead of his force to kill all of the inhabitants of a small mining settlement. His army needed to rest and recuperate after the long march south and the supplies, and fresh meat from the slain miners, should sustain his force for a couple of days. As they approached the miners’ huts the Striders seemed to have done an efficient job as there was not a living person in sight. Thagrosh had been distracted for the last few hours. Everblight’s ever active mind was revealing an intricate plan that sucked him deep into the Dragon’s vision and away from what was going on around him. The real world was a dream through his eyes. Even in this trance like state one unsettling thought began to surface, why had the Striders not reported back to him.

Pain pulled him from Everblight’s mind into his surroundings before he fully registered the significance of the missing Striders. He felt the Carnivean howl as brutal blows smashed the life from it at the edge of Thagrosh’s senses. He tried to see through it’s eyeless vision, but it was too late. Something had destroyed the creature. Thagrosh focused all his will to draw it’s energies back to him. He was at the fore of his army and he could not afford the time it would take to bring another beast from the rear. They had been ambushed.

Black and gold armoured troops appeared on his right. He recognised them as the Skorne, desert dwellers from the East. Maybe they were drawn to this settlement for supplies too and the presence of the Striders had alerted them to his approach. It did not matter. He needed to react quickly. He ordered the Warmongers and Archers forward on the left, hoping to outflank his unseen opponent. The Legionnaires were hopelessly outnumbered on the right, but he ordered them to hold to the last Nyss. He forced the Nephilim Soldier forward and through it’s sight saw the Skorne Titan that had destroyed the Carnivean.

Seeing it made his outflanking plan seem foolish. This Titan could rampage through his moving troops without rapid intervention. He moved forward and called the Warmongers back to take on this beast. The charge from the Warmongers was brutal tearing chunks from the Titan, but still it stood defiant and struck two of the blighted down. To make matters worse a lumbering Rhinodon appeared between the houses. Thagrosh forced the Nephilim forward to finish the Titan which it did with a grace against which the Skorne beast could not defend.

Thagrosh was aware of the Archers shooting at something on the left, but neither he nor his beasts could see at what. On the right the Legionnaires were faring poorly. They had taken down a couple of the large armoured Skorne, but their numbers were dwindling quickly and another unit of the enemy was closing in.

That was the least of his problems, the Rhinodon was now hurtling towards the Warmongers and Nephilim. With a swipe of it’s tail it dropped two more Warmongers, but failed to hit the Nephilim. Thagrosh urged the Nephilim to the right to block the units of Skorne and hoped that the spiked Skorne beast would not strike it down. The gamble paid off and the Nephilim swooped to engaged the enemy troops.

Now was the moment for him to join the fight. He barrelled towards the Skorne beast and swung with all his might. His repeated blows struck home, but it’s impressive armour prevented him from taking it down. In the distance Thagrosh could see the Skorne warlock approach with his maces held ready for combat. Now he needed the Carnivean back in action. Using Everblight’s gift he brought the destroyed beast back by his side.

The enemy warlock urged his force to inflict brutal damage and charged in damaging the Carnivean, but failed to destroy it. The spiked beast attempted to break it too, but was having difficulty hitting the Legion creation. On his right the Nephilim Soldier miraculously held and blocked the advancing Skorne troopers. This was his opportunity. He forced the Carnivean to make room for him to engage, but in it’s fury it started to strike the Skorne warlock. Between it’s vicious jaws and powerful claws the Carnivean, which was the first victim of this encounter, finished it. The Skorne warlock had been felled by it’s anger. The settlement and supplies were Legions to exploit.

So, that is MkII then (well, at least the Field Test). Unsurprisingly it plays much the same. I forgot Vengeance on the Legionnaires twice during the battle, so there is more to be considered during the Maintenance Phase. I also forgot about Abomination early in the battle, resulting in the Archers not taking a Command check when the Warmongers strayed close to them. Neither of these were game changing. Harry got pretty unlucky at the end. He should have wiped the Carnivean out a second time, but then again my damage roles on the Rhinodon were terrible! He also should have taken out the Nephilim soldier, but again his dice abandoned him. When the Carnivean struck down Xerxis he was had four fury for transfers, but Harry had run too hot in his turn and both of his beasts were fully loaded. That said, Thagrosh was sitting on full fury and could probably have finished him too. It was an excellent game, but without any beasts frenzying (there was only one Threshold check in the whole game, and it was successful) or the need to Shake Effect we didn’t get to test out most of the newer aspects of Hordes MkII.

Owen