Good morning ladies and gentlemen of wargaming and welcome to another episode of Wargamer Ramblings! Today I am taking a break from my faction reviews of Mk3 (well the factions I play that is) and I wanted to share a couple of games I had not too long ago with some of my buddies up in Wise. Let's get to it!
We all decided that we would test out our new battleboxes for Mk3 and so my first game was with Josh and his Circle. I brought up Trolls and the Protectorate boxes and allowed him to choose which he would face off, which ended up being Trolls. So I brought:
- Ragnor the Skysplitter,
- Troll Impaler
- Troll Bouncer
- Troll Axer
- Tanith the Feral Song
- Pureblood Warpwolf
- Gorax
- Argus
So we roll off, Josh wins the roll and has me deploy and go first while he chose his side. Deployment and first turn were honestly nothing special. We only had 4 models per side and so deployment was center for me, slightly to my right for Josh. First turn I ran up and Josh did the same. Now the first 'real' turn of the game is where it went interesting. Since in Mk3 you can premeasure
anything for any reason I went ahead and measured out if I could potentially hit his Pureblood with my Impaler and if I manipulated some animus casting then I could make a shot. So I activate my axer first, toss Rush on to the Impaler for the extra 2", and then activate the Impaler moving him up 7". Then I cast Far Strike on myself, boost to hit....
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| Impaler was MVT |
...and BOOM! Not only do I hit but I get a critical and send the Pureblood flying back into/past Tanith for 6". Josh was not happy and even though I didn't do a lot of damage it set his plan back a turn. So his turn was spent re-positioning models to get ready for what he originally wanted to do. So on my next turn I notice that if I moved at a different angle I could possibly do the same thing again. Well Josh saw what I was going to do and unfortunately for him I lived out his fears and my Impaler
got another critical slam! The Pureblood flew right back on top of Tanith, knocking them down again!
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| Pretty much Josh's face |
After that Josh had a hard time trying to figure out what to do, it seemed like what was going on in his mind was that every move he would make meant another spear to the face. Eventually Josh moved his beasts into a position where he might be able to avoid the Impaler while trying to charge the Axer/Bouncer trolls. Prior to the Gorax/Argus charges he had Tanith fire off Jaws of the Earth on the Axer but I Shield Guarded it on to the Bouncer nearby. Instead he had the Argus move up, use its animus to lower the DEF of both to 5, and then proceeded to put some boxes on the Bouncer and Axer. Josh was able to kill off the Axer, but Ragnor came around the side and hit the Gorax with Shockwave allowing the Impaler to toss a spear right into Tanith dealing a lot of damage. A couple of more turns of finishing off his beasts and chasing Tanith led the Trolls to a victory!
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| A couple of turns before victory! |
Next up I played my Protectorate versus Mike's Khador battlebox. Our lists were:
- Malekus, the Burning Truth
- Catigator
- Revenger
- Repenter
- Lord Kozlov, Viscount of Scarsgard
- Decimator
- Juggernaut
Mike won the roll off and he chose to deploy and go first. As with most battlebox games the deployment and 1st turn are not that exciting. We both deployed centrally with Mike moving up and taking the hill while I waddled up the field.
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| See? Not exciting just yet. |
Now it was my turn to feel what Josh felt in the game before. The Decimator took the first shot of the game at my Revenger and cleanly crippled the right arm. Not good. My return fire, which consisted of a flame thrower, put his Juggernaut on fire but against Khador armor a POW 12 is hardly any concern. I had to endure another round of fire from the Decimator before the Juggernaut came down from the hill to charge my Castigator. Let me tell you, a Fury empowered Juggernaut charge is not going to tickle. So the Castigator almost became castrated with one hit alone. Mike positioned the Juggernaut in a way so that it was also engaged with the Repenter shutting down anymore flame thrower attacks for now.
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| Oh dear...this hurts.... |
Not only were things looking grim from the 'jack perspective but Mike then popped his feat and charged in with his caster, who does not tickle when he hits. He was able to put more damage on the Castigator and then Side-Stepped behind him to get a good clear lane of potential charging to Malekus the next turn. So come my turn and I have a choice, not a good one though. I can either let him charge me, or I charge him and hope for the best. I went with the latter and popped my feat so that maybe, just maybe, I can put the torch to him and put Kozlov on fire. As far as Malekus's melee prowess it was umm...lacking. On Mike's turn he took a few hit boxes of damage from the fire but nothing extraordinary much to my dismay.
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| Oh no, this isn't good at all. |
Kozlov and Malekus continued to trade damage here and there, mitigating some attacks outright with the new focus mechanic, until he brought the Decimator into the fray. That sucker hit me hard and put me close to getting annihilated. Lord Kozlov followed up and brought Malekus to 4 health and 1 focus point while he had two. Mike took a gamble as he had 2 points left to try and take Malekus out this round. First attack missed and with baited breath I wait for the second attack to come through. As you can imagine I had myself pegged for death as I had 1 focus, 4 health, medium armor with a weapon master Khadoran caster. Mike rolled...
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| pls no mike, mike pls |
...DOUBLE 1's! Oh the glory be! Malekus had a chance now that Kozlov had no focus! I took a risk by moving the Repenter out of combat with the Juggernaut resulting in a crippled flail but still with the flamethrower! I aimed into melee with no fear of hurting Malekus, since ya know he's immune to fire and all, and managed to get a couple more points on to Kozlov. Malekus made a couple of boosted attacks for both accuracy and damage and took down the Viscount for the second win.
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| Rather my lack of one... |
I got a taste of Mk3 with these two games but it still feels like the game I've come to know and love. The subtle but impactful changes they've made to the game have changed the tempo and the feel in some ways. For example the new focus mechanic made it less of a "Oh you have ridiculous armor because your camping therefore making this game last longer" and more of a decision making process to see what damage you will let through and which you'll mitigate. It also made me think differently in keeping my warcaster alive and weighing out what actions to take and still keep some focus to reduce some damage.
Overall they were both great games and it was a lot of fun. I definitely look forward to future games from here on out and I am interested in what people will bring to the tournaments (instead of Harbinger + 1 lists). That's it for the games folks, tune in next time to pick back up with the last bit of Protectorate changes and until then take care everyone!
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