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Turn 3 kicked off and Khador went into full “clear the pit” mode, and this time Khador killed stuff! Some Trolls they killed 2 or 3 times before they went down. The last Troll in the Mosh Pit managed to survive all the normal attacks and three more attacks from Feeling some Hate.. Turn 3 Trolls, an attempt to clean up Khador left the Doom Reavers mauled but alive, the Uhlans very mauled and Beast 09 a smoking wreck, on top of that Butcher took a few hits too. And that was with Madraks nasty feat kicking in too. Luckily the Singing Cow was too far back to do much and moved up and didn’t howl and screach…thankfully

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Turn 4 The Ice Queen turned on the ice maker and froze everything in the Mosh Pit and a fair number of models beyond too. The Doom Reavers mashed a unit of Champions bar one, which was awfully good fun. Drago then proceeded to hack to tiny pieces the Slag Troll, and The Butcher himself charged in to finish off the Last Kriel stone warrior…and blocked the charge lane of the last Uhlan who was needed to take out the last Troll in the Pit. Butcher cast a desperate spell, missed and it was left to the Behometh to nail the last Blue skin. Moves, fires, hits… the Troll toughs it, second shot, no repeat of limbs reattaching and it’s victory Khador!.

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Granted winning always makes a difference, but the Mosh Pit scenario is a blast. We played 12 minute turns with a 1000 point army, no time for over thinking. Trolls suffered from lack of time to move all the models, while the more compact Khador army generally managed to activate in full (plus had 100 points of Kossites off the board that never got used). Mosh Pit brings out the best in War Machine, full on heavy metal blood bath!

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Victory : Each side secretly chose a faction that was attempting to penetrate enemy lines, one VP was awarded for each model from the chosen faction that exited the opposite side the table. No VPs for kills or Caster elimination.

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Team Selection : As Kris plays no Hordes faction so he needed to be a WarMachine player, Each other player prepared in advance a 500 Point Hordes and WarMachine list, in secret. The draw was then done. Kris was Mercs, Chris was drawn next and was the Hordes faction to side with the Mercs, and he revealed Legion. Wuffy was drawn next and was the WarMachine faction for Team 2, he revealed Menoth which left Kobby as the Hordes player for Team 2, and he revealed Circle

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So set up was.

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Team One

• • Kris : Mercs
• • Chris : Legion

Team Two

• • Wuffy : Menoth
• • Kobby : Circle

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Deployment : Wuffy won deployment and elected to go first this was followed by Kris, Kobby and then Chris. Once deployed it tuned out that Circle was opposite Legion and Pirates opposite Menoth. No mixing of deployment locations with Team 1 due to the Abomination issues from many of Legion forces. Advanced deployment was a couple of wracks and lots of pirates.

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The game progress at a frantic pace, so many things to consider and with our new decision to use time limits, the turns really flashed by, mistakes made, models overlooked, much more “war like” than previous games of “all the time in the world to think”

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Combat didn’t take long to initiate , turn one the pirates hit the wracks and took them both out along with the attacking pirates. Turn 2 the Menoth fire bombers crisped a mass of pirates and Menoth and the Pirates went to war in fine style. Legion and Circle were a little slower but Kruegar popped his feat early and tried to nail the Blight Ogrun and War Mongers. No deaths though they were mauled. Next turn Gorton popped his feat, Landsided Kruegar and some Circle models as well as the Menoth Jacks. Killing off Kruegars feat and leaving Circle exposed as the Legion crashed in. Meanwhile Pirates vs Menoth was going badly for the Pirates and the Harbringer also waded into combat for good measure. Legion (Team 2s yet to be declare running team) got into a slug fest with Circle and proceed to decimate the entire army. Sadly the Carnie that took out two Circle heavies without a scratch got Tornadoed into a crevice and died! Next turn Kreugar met the sharp end of the last Blighted Ogruns spear and died. However the crushing of the Circle force was all for nothing as the Pirates folded up on the flank and the Menites rushed through the break in the line. There was little that the remaining mercs and Legion could do other than take grim satisfaction in moping up the remaining Menites and Legion forces as Wuffy lead his strike force through the shattered line of Pirates and off the table, including the Harbringer!

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Winner : The battle lasted just 90 minutes and 5 turns , with victory going to the Menoth / Circle army, though Circle celebrated with just 3 standing stones left. Menoth exited 6 models to win the game, even though there was one turn left, the Team 1 runner faction (Legion) had only 5 models on then board and could not surpass the 6 of Team 1. Victory Menoth / Circle.

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Summary : Great game, everyone enjoyed the fast pace, constant confusion and the time to relax between those turns to watch the other players go through their turns at pace, pondering on what the other players might forget. The Scenario based victory conditions also made the game fun than straight up caster kills.

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Game Highlights
• Menoth burning Pirates to a crisp, certainly showed that Menoth have the right weapons to halt the Pirate charge
• Carnie eats Tree and wolf. Turn 3 The Legion carnie charged and devoured a Legion Tree, and then Frenzied next turn (Shepherd assisted) and charged over and ate a wolk on the next turn
• Tornado. Total shock and horror of watching an unwounded Carnie get thrown into a Crevice by Tornado!
• Merc Driller, takes down Menoth Guardian with a drill kill.
• Chain lightening. Was scary but thankfully the Legion army was mainly high armour with hit points and survived the multiple shocks without too much harm

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Cygnar won the toss and opted to deploy and move first, as soon as Cygnar started casting multi shot, fast move horror spells I got a sinking feeling in my gut and sure enough the trenchers lined up to take… hmmm 20 odd shots into the Khadorian deployment zone… as luck would have it I’d deploted deep. The only models in range were the Kayazy’s (well in range but not in range), the widowmakers and the Shocktrooper. The Cygnar sneak attack collapsed with only 2 widowmakers and stray Greylord and Holt (killed by an errant grenade) . With the trenchers under the effect of temporal accel, they were done for two turns, the Assassins rushed forward and made a right mess of the counter attack, doing little damage. Meanwhile Fenris lopped off Maxwel’s head and booted it back where it came from.

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Turn 2 Cygnar advanced, did little damage other than blowing Fenris into the air with a Mule hit, sadly for the lancer he lander right next door and it had already activated.  The main Cygnar army moved up, considered popping feats and opted not to. Khador continued the Trencher mop up, the Witch charged into combat killing three trenchers and getting some nice soul food.  Gorman popped some smoke and the widowmakers made rather hard work of not doing much damage to the cygnar cavalry under Arcane shield. Fenris stood up and made very short work of the Lancer.

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Turn 3 Cygnar didn’t really lead to much, with the trencher sneak attack failed they were lacking in a back up plan and the Cavalry was bogged down in rough terrain facing the Behmoth widowmakers and Aiyana. The mules fired, missed and did little damage, more consideration to feats, decided against and then all hell broke loose.. The last trenchers died.  Sorcha moved up and it was a whole world of icey pain, catching both casters, both Mules, Laddermore and the Piper. This was followed by a tempest and it was time to clean up . Gorman popped smoke, scrappy slipped through the secret paths and sprang on Haley, Frozen she was easy meat and swiftly pinned and reduced to a few hitpoints, Fenris cleaved off the arm of one of the Mules and the Shocktroopers blew the cannon arm of the other one.

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Turns 4 to the end saw the Cygnar army in pannic as they failed to kill scrappy, Haley, and her support group were polised off and suddenly there was just bart, three StormLances and the fake Aiyana & Master Holt left. The Old Witch popped her feat to ensure no Cygnar stragglers got over excited. Bart held out, but was frozen every turn and while his Armour kept him alive, it was only until Eyriss arrived to stop that and the the Demo boys moved in splattered him all over the floor.

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All in all a massacre, Khador casualties amounted to a few scratches here and there and one unit of Greylords. Cygnar were left realing from the loss and review the trencher sneak attack as a viable attack option. For Khador it was stunning success, the synergy between Sorcha and the Old Witch was devestating. Scrappy once again did an awesome job but the hero of the day was Gorman who set up the cloud that enable Scrappy to jump into the frozen heart of cygnar and take out Haley.

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FIona’s spells proved to be marginal in the battle other than her pow 12 strike that should have won the game when Vlad was left exposed but crappy dice saved Khador.  Vlad on the other hand used his Wind spells and Impalor to great effect, shutting down the Mule until it was engaged and using his wicked frost spell to cause the Behemoth’s armour piercing attacks to do horrific damage.

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Once the mercs were enagged the battle was never really going to go the mercs way, though after the Beserket killed the Mule and then Blew up, there was a moment when it looked like they had a chance, then the Behemoth killed another Jack to put the melee battle beyond dispute.

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At that moment though Vlad was left exposed with no focus left and no BoK running, hit twice by Fiona’s pow 12 spell, once with a boosted damage, he was very lucky to be still standing. Turn 5 Khador he returned the favour to Fiona, charing up and impaling her with his first attack.

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Another battle that I could have lost,  bad roll on Fiona’s attack saved my over confident arse from being defeated.  350 battles are really becoming very fast, I remember reading the rules when we first got them and thinking “15 Minutes!! are they insane!” . Now if only I can beat those bloody trolls at 350… then I will be happy!

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Kobby set up his forces behind a long wall on a hill, meaning that even the Raptors would have a tough time hitting anything, though when it mattered they did hit and kill what needed to be killed.

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Expecting fairly slow turns from Kobby I was settling in for a 4 hour game, but Cygnar turn 1 took 10 minutes, though I swear nothing moved and so passed the first three turns as Everblight edged forward carefully and Cygnar shuffled their defences. The main excitement being me forgetting to dump Fury and having three beats risk Frenzy checks on turn 2, one failed, but I escaped due to the Shephards on the table.

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Turn 3 saw Everblight advance into range and the Cygnar gunners opened up and infantry moved in to engage.  Both the Carnivaeron and Angelus were hit hard but survived on Cygnar Turn 4. Turn 4 for Everblight saw the Gator men engage the Cygnar infantry to little effect and the Raptors shoot a couple of infantry but the death toll was very very light on both sides. Turn 5 saw Cygnar set up to give Everblight a kicking, but Kobby forgot to assign focus, and that hurt. While he killed one Carnivaeron and hurt the Angelus, the Carnivaeron respawned and the Angelus was left with enough points to stay up. Siege advanced from his bunker surrounded by mechanics to get better range and stood admiring the battle secure in the knowledge that the Everblight forces were not going to get near him.

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Turn 5 for Everblight saw Siege realize his error, Saeryn advanced from her bunker cast a few ineffective spells and left herself exposed and easy bate for turn 6. The Rapotors advanced and all shot at the from Mechanic in front of Siege, Gobber on a hill Def 17!! Needing 10s and 11s to hit, the second shot hit and killed the little green skin, opening up the charge lane for the Angelus.  “Free Strike” gasped Kobby as the Angelus launched, forgetting they are immune and watched in horror as it settled a nice inch from Siege over the wall. Granted an extra 2 Defence from the wall, it didn’t help as the Angelus hit twice and killed him with a wound to spare. It wasn’t pretty, it was desprate and if had gone wrong then it was all over for Everblight.

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All in all I got very lucky, I was getting nailed from long range, if Kobby had remembered to assign focus on his turn 5 I would likely not have been in a position to attack his caster.  But that’s the way it goes, some times a desperate do or die attack wins the game.  The battle took 2 hours, which I have to say was wickedly fast for Kobby

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Round 3 “What!” cries the Cygnar player, demands to see card. Cygnar retreat… Haley activates Temporal Barrier , trundle trundle.  Everblight activate, shuffle around a bit, Saeryn discovers Breath Stealer… zap zap and the Cygnar Jacks are reduced to shuffling too…skip to round 5 Everblight, the past rounds being very much the same thing and the only thing to die was a Shredder that get too close to Haley’s gun.

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Round 5. Raek had ShadowStalk active on a Jack, as it shuffles around, he moves 3″ to get a nice line on  Haley. Haley keeps one focus, not expecting too much trouble with Temporal Barrier running but does want to stop all her Jacks being slowed by Breath Stealer, so has a focus handy for blocking at least one spell.  Everblight have other ideas… Saeryn targets Haley,  first attack blocked, second boosted and hits. The Raek then advances and latches on to Haley hits with his jaw, and strikes twice with his tail, hitting twice and getting just enough penetration with the last attack to bring Haley to her knees coughing up blood.

Kris did an excellent job of shuttigng down the Khador Jacks, they spent most of the game on the floot, system locked, netted or generally out of the game and the Devestator ended the game with no damage and no kills either. Butcher spent most of the match disrupted and his only contribution being to kill Eyriss on turn 5 after she had driven him even more insane through four turns of disruption. Many attempts to kill Eyriss failed until the Butcher had her kiss Lola.

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However this left Vlad free to give Khador “S&P” love on a constant basis and that really made the difference. The Battle was very even, and though the mercs locked down a good half of the Khador army with a combo Magnus / Bart feat , by turn 5 both armies were still pretty much intact with only the odd solo and unit on each side destroyed. However Kahdor turn 5 saw the Rocketeers move up and nail Magnus. Two hits and he was dead. 2 Jacks shut down and suddely Bart was alone.  His Jacks got nailed the same turn, two loosing their guns and he got hit by the Khador Eyriss meaning he was disrupted with no focus for his last turn, not an ideal situation.

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Turn 6 the mercs advanced and though they killed a couple of winterguard they did nothing more than clear the charge lane for the Man-o-War Drakhun to charge Bart. Three flying steel attacks were called for and it took just two to cut down Bart and bring victory to Khador. Neither Khador caster seeing much action and Vlad only attacking in the last turn to take out the Mule. The Mule it must be said, once again prooved to be a beast!

The battle could be best described along the following lines “Mercs attack, mercs miss, Wuffy and spectators collapse in laughter” .. repeat. And so it went for the whole game with the mercs gradually getting ripped up until finally Eyriss managed to hit something (yes Eyriss missed lots).
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Through to the final turn Cryx had lost just the pistol wraith and were running circles around the mercs, it was all too easy. So to wrap up Terminus charged Magnus, boosted the attack by way of a formality, and rolled 3 ones…. silence hit the table, Terminus missed again, and when he finally hit, he didn’t do enough to finish off Magnus. As the saying goes “He who laughs last laughs loudest”. first hit put Terminus on the floor and the rest of his focus Magnus powered into the defenceless undead warcaster.
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1. Chris – Khador ( P1 – W 1 – L 0 – D 0)
2. Wuffy – Cryx ( P1 – W 0 – L 1 – D 0)
3. Kobby – Trolls ( P1 – W 1 – L 0 – D 0)
4. Wuffy – Skorne ( P2 – W 1 – L 1 – D 0)
5. Steve – Khador
6. Kris – Mercenary Pirates ( P1 – W 0 – L 1 – D 0)