Good day to you fellow wargamers and I hope you are faring
well in whatever it is you are doing! We
are back here today with another batrep
post starring your potentially favorite tactical game of steam-powered robots
and angry beasts: Warmahordes! I had the
privilege of being able to play some really cool gents for our local Journeyman
League and this time I actually took more than 2 pictures. I’m really excited to go over the games so
let’s get right to it, shall we? This might be a nice long post since I’ve got three games to cover this cycle, so get a nice
drink and get comfy for the ride ahead!
So the first thing I
wanted to mention is that my list-making
has been craptastic this League. The
caveats of not being able to change my list at all in conjunction with
forgetting about the Mk3 theme list push has left me with only one option to go
for my Cryx and that is the Infernal Machines theme force. Truthfully it wouldn’t have been so bad if I had
planned it out but due to forgetting that themes were a thing I chose my models
poorly and subsequently I’m catching up.
So I had to adjust my warcaster to meet the needs of my list and so I
switched out Bane Witch Agathia for Warwitch Deneghra, as I’m going to need the
“Queen of Debuffing” to help my poor undead minions out. So here’s my current Cycle 4 list:
·
Warwitch Deneghra
o
The Withershadow Combine
o
Deathripper
o
Slayer
o
Reaper
o
X2 Ripjaws
·
Pistol Wraith
·
Mechanithrall Min. Unit
o
X1 Brute Thrall
·
Necrosurgeon
and Stitch Thralls
·
X2 Soul Trapper
Had I planned this list out I would have avoided taking the
Withershadow Combine and instead of a
Skarlock Thrall, and I would have been spending more points on the
Mechanithralls and Brute Thralls and instead of Ripjaws maybe a Defiler or a
Nightwretch. While I like the potential
Ambush rule being used on a unit of Mechanithralls with Brutes, the giving of
Hyper-Aggressive to my warjacks is not really
that great when my ‘jacks are paper thin and break easily. Ultimately it was my fault for not paying
more attention when designing my list and so any derision has been my fault
only, I’ll own that. So for me, this theme is meh right now, but I’m
determined to make it work! Eventually, I’ll have it working but until then
I made due with what I have.
My first game was against Mark and his Khadoran force
chock-full of Winterguard infantry, led by the Supreme Kommandant Irusk. Initially,
I felt intimidated by the number of
troopers he had on the field, and placing them in a brick formation around
Irusk gave me pause as I didn’t feel like I had enough bodies of my own. Not to mention his 3 warjacks coming down the field as well, all those hitboxes and ARM
20s were not appetizing. It was going to
be a test to see how well I could debuff his forces and whittle them down
before they could crash on me like a tsunami of angry Khadorans.
The first turn was
full of movement followed by turn 2 of cautionary placement and preparing for
the inevitable melee. Mark kept the
majority of his infantry in the back and let his Decimator take the first hit
from my Mechanithralls. With the onset
of Parasite, the amount of damage coming
from combo-smite was impressive, but the follow-up attacks from Mark cleaned
them out pretty quickly. I think in this
game the Necrosurgeon only managed to bring back 3 zambos before the unit was wiped out. Meanwhile,
on my right side, I moved up my Ripjaws
along the flank to keep them far away from his jacks, knowing full-well that
one hit would cause them to crumble
immediately. Early on I cast Crippling
Grasp on his closest unit of Winterguard as they would jam the rest of the unit
down with their decreased SPD stat.
 |
| After several Venom sprays and a "get over here" shot from the Reaper |
 |
| Trying to clear out his warjacks |
It was about turn 3 that I remembered that Deneghra also had
Venom and realized that spell was my only counter against his infantry
horde. Mark took out a Ripjaw and my
Deathripper without batting an eye (DEF/ARM 14 and 20hp does not last long) and
leaving me with only 1 arc node to play around with. I put Parasite on his Marauder, but not
before it had a chance to deal some real damage. This turn I popped my feat as well as I knew
I would need that sweet -4/-4 to his Infantry as I cast multiple venoms. I managed to clear out a good chunk but the
Tough granted by Irusk left a lot of bodies unharmed. I was able to do some serious damage to his
Marauder as well but that Juggernaut was ready to replace its role and I was
running out of options fast.
 |
| The hard fought bloodbath |
Mark’s Juggernaut was doing some real work on my left side
as he quickly took out the Slayer and started putting the hurt on the
Reaper. I was running out of options so
I resolved to try and assassinate Irusk with Deneghra. It took me a turn of positioning and keeping
his Juggernaut busy, but eventually, I
was able to jam it up long enough for the Reaper to take it out (with the help
of Parasite). I was then able to rush on
in and take out Irusk for the hard-fought
victory against the Motherland! Mark was
an excellent person to play with and the game was difficult on both ends,
definitely one of those “it’s anyone’s game” type of match.
 |
| My only chance to take out Irusk |
My next game was against Scott’s Skorne and Lord Tyrant
Zaadesh leading the massive beef wall
that was his beasts. This matchup was
difficult for me for many reasons including the aforementioned list
difficulties, but also Zaadesh was able to maintain Battle Lust which left a
bubble surrounding each of his beasts where he could counter-charge anything of
mine that moved within 6” of his.
Compound that with the animus from the Titan Sentry allowing him to make
strikes back if attacked put me in a pretty rough position of hesitancy.
 |
| Deployment |
So Scott laid down a couple of Burning Ash clouds which
effectively neutered my ability to engage him first, which only further
compounded his defense and limited my options.
Scott sent out one of his Cyclops early on but left his big beefy boiis in the back. I was left with assaulting this lone light
beast and hope the counter-attack wasn’t too bad, or I would let him rampage
through and hope that it wouldn’t leave me unable to engage his heavies. I went with the former option and went in for
the kill. A good shot from his Cyclops
Raider took out half of my Slayer’s hitboxes, and thus crippling move and one
of his arms. That hurt more than just
the lost health as it also neutralized my alpha Combo-Strike + Charge +
Deneghra combo before he had the chance to get in the fight.
 |
| Initial advances |
On my right side, his
Gladiator and Bronzeback worked their way through my Ripjaw and Mechanithralls
with relative ease, mere momentary roadblocks towards the march on my
caster. The only consolation was that my
Necrosurgeon did some work and kept the 6 Mechanithralls up almost all game. On my left flank,
his Sentry engaged both Ripjaw and Reaper with some solid damage to both
jacks. I had a gamble and hoped that it
would pan out as I was quickly running out of options. I cast Ghost Walk on the Reaper, who I also
fully loaded up with focus as I then moved him up into the woods nearby and
took a shot at Zaadesh. It was a hit and
I was able to drag the little bugger closer in for some damage!
 |
| Me taking the bait |
Unfortunately, while I
managed to score a nice combo off Zaadesh had some fury stacked on him and the
counter-attack from him, 2 attacks specifically, took out the Reaper without
blinking an eye. At this point all of my
heavy hitters were down and out, leaving little offensive bite to take on his
beasts. I had one chance, but in reality, it was more of a Hail Mary dropped in
a prayer to win this game. The mechanithrall farthest on the left took out the
Beast Handler, leaving Deneghra a shot at being able to charge Zaadesh. I managed to hit and deal some damage but let’s
be honest folks, the Queen of Debuffing
is no fighter and Zaadesh had fury on him to transfer the damage. After my failed charge I conceded the game to
Scott as my lovely lady was dead-center of the board surrounded by angry
elephants.
 |
| The stifled advance of Cryx against the meat of Skorne |
 |
| Last ditch effort |
My last game for Cycle 4 was against Richard and his
Gatormen, specifically running a nice Barnabas 2 list chock full of corpse
tokens. Hoo boy, this was going to be rough because a) his list was definitely
superior in synergy and efficacy and b) I knew very little about his models
except for a few exceptions here and there.
After deployment I moved my forces up on the two flanks, trying to
spread my threat as best I could.
Richard responded in kind my deploying his forces in such a way that he
had a central base to support his flanks but was able to send out countermeasures for what I had lined up. Specifically,
anti-infantry towards my infantry and anti-jacks to my jacks. The first
turn was what you expect happened as we ran and got into better positions for
the next turn. One thing I want to throw
out so it’s not repeated was that he maintained was the spell Execration of
Blackest Night which caused a -2 to all attack rolls within 10” of Barnabas.
 |
| Up against the Gators |
This was a rough game for me but I gave it all I could! I had some bad rolls early so threats that
might have been neutralized or mitigated were not and I was left to spend more
effort to trade pieces than I would have liked.
I was able to take out the Blackhide Wraslter, but at the cost of my
Reaper taking his charge (which was ridiculously awesome for Richard, sad news
bears for me) and committing a fully focus charged Slayer to take down. Meanwhile,
my Ripjaws were useless despite Powerful Attacks I only managed to get 1 crit
off of the Boneswarm. Deneghra couldn’t
cast debuffs to save her life. My Brute
Thrall took out the Totem Hunter but that’s about it. Meanwhile,
Skarath was wiping out Mechanithralls left and right with his sprays and
Counterblasts. He had a perfect counter
to every move I made, it was like a dance of perfect death. Even on my feat turn, it made little difference, my debuff helped a little bit but
without the weight of additional spells I just could not capitalize on this
opportunity.
 |
| After the first turn runs! |
 |
| Taking the Gator hit...not that well |
Next turn Richard charged Barnabas in and let me tell you,
where Deneghra is not a fighter…Barnabas is a murderer. So one thing about Richard’s list was that he
included a Boil Master & Spirit Cauldron.
This cauldron was pumping out special sauce like it was no
business. Big Shaq would have been
impressed with the level of sauce. Corpse
tokens were flowing like Willy Wonka’s chocolate river. These gators were so fed on spicy corpses
that they were looking like Homer being force-fed
donuts in Hell. Barnabas came in and
slaughtered my remaining jacks and then he popped his feat. Oh lawdy,
this feat made me sweat. So I did some
damage right…Barnabas used all his fury…I was thinking “yeah I can maybe get him”…nope.
Richard used that feat, swallowed up his Farrow minions, some boney
boiis and not only regained his fury but also healed up all that damage I had to manage to pull off on his
Boneswarm. So now I had one fat and
angry Gator Boii with only a barn and the Withershadow Combine in between him
and my sweet gentle Deneghra. On my right
flank, my Mechanithrall unit was being a
nuisance but that’s about it. His
Boneswarm hot on Denghra’s heels, my only saving grace was that he could not
hit a 10, which would have ended the game.
 |
| Trying to make some headway |
 |
| Aaaaaaand Barnabas came in the fight. |
Once again I found myself in the hot seat of “my only chance”
and I put Ghost Walk on Deneghra and walked right through the shack right on
the other side. I managed to get
Crippling Grasp on Barnabas and tossed Black Talons on him, which I managed to
get the crit effect and Shadow Bound his
reptilian self. The Withershadow managed
to get a couple good hits on him but not enough to get a transfer, but enough
to get him down to 4 hitboxes. Sadly the
revenge of the angry Gator Boii ended the game for a victory to Richard.
 |
| The last attempt to snipe out Barnabas |
I won’t lie all of these games were difficult and hard
fought, which I can say is primarily due to Deneghra and her ability to debuff
like no one else. Each opponent played
well and I learned a lot from the games played.
I think one core issue was that I spread my forces over-confident in
their ability to hold their own, but forgetting that 12/12 zombies are not
effective meat-shields. Especially since
I only have 6. I think once I catch up in
the next cycle or two my list will be a little closer to where I want it. Not having the bodies leaves my threat
limited to key pieces and ones those are gone I had little option left. 1 Brute
Thrall isn’t intimidating, but if I had 6 on the field it might be a little
different. 20 Mechanithralls move from
annoying to difficulty, especially with the recursion mechanic with my
Necrosurgeon and Gollums. So for next game, I think if I stick with overwhelming
force in one area versus spreading them out I might have better luck. We’ll see.
Well, folks that is
all for these three games. I hope this
has been an interesting read for you all and I look forward to bringing some
more batreps in Cycle 5. With more zombies! More debuffs!
Extra tears! Until then fellow
gamers may your dice be kind and your opponents kinder!
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