Battlefield Bangkok

Well in case you missed the global news Bangkok has been without an airport for the past week, and as well as stranding several hundred thousand passengers in and outside of Thailand, it has also disrupted small businesses, travel firms, tourist dependant firms, firms tied to airport based deliveries and internation post…which has led to a few inbound minis to become stranded “somewhere”, no idea when they’ll make it here now, if ever!

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In the mean time I guess I’ll just dream of Epic Thagrosh the Messiah of Everblight! Looks like Thagrosh can fly now…or at least glide!

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Be great to see what kind of new powers he comes equppied with!

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Well first comes the solo solo, Strider Deathstalker, and to follow that it looks like we have even more strider goodness with the Strider Officer and Musician Unit Attachment. Whoo Hoo! Bring on the archery badness.

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Seems someone heard me moaning about the lack of Legion solos…

While all warmongers can goad themselves into a killing frenzy, some few are strong and willful enough to become war chiefs, rising by strength to lead the converted tribes. Blight transforms each of these horrors into a murderous fiend overcome by hunger. The very scent of blood lends the War Chief strength and he will sometimes pause amid his bloodletting to gorge on fresh kills.

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Warmonger War Chief comes in a blister (PIP 73038). A player may field up to two War Chiefs in his Legion of Everblight horde.

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Last Wednesday, in a marathon three and a half hour 1000 point battle, Cygnar took the field against the Legion of Everblight. The Cygnar army was commanded by Epic Caine and Prime Stryker and consisted of three jacks, a full unit of Long Gunners, Stormguard, Arcane Tempest Gun Mages, Field Mechaniks and some Mercenary support (including the infamous Alexia). The Legion was controlled by the twin sisters Rhyas and Saeryn. It was fairly beast heavy with a Carnivean, an Angelus, a Seraph, a Teraph and one Harrier. Rounding out Everblight’s army was full unit of Blighted Archers, some Raptors, some Warmongers one unit of minion 4 Gatormen and 6 Bog Trogs

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Everblight had the first turn and their warlocks supported their army with spells such as Rapport, Respawn and Dash. The Raptors advanced up to shoot some arrows at Alten Ashley who was hiding in a wheatfield but they couldn’t hit him. One unit of Gatormen advanced up to the wheatfield but were much too far away from Ashley. The heavy beasts advanced up Everblight’s left flank along with the Warmongers. The archers and other beasts stayed on a hill some 20″ from the Cygnar front line. Quite safe… or so they thought.

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Cygnar’s first turn was a shocker. Stryker immediately cast a 6″ Snipe on Caine’s guns which revealed to Everblight Cygnar’s basic strategy. Shoot them dead from a mile away! Caine suddenly got a 25″ threat range (movement and gun range). Caine advanced up a hill and offloaded his guns at the Seraph on the opposite hill. Three bullets later and the Seraph was dead. The Hunter jack took a shot at a Warmonger, hit it but only marginally damaged it due to a lack of focus. It then moved in front of Caine to screen him. Caine thought he was safe and well out of range from a counter-attack. The rest of the Cygnar army moved into position. The Long Gunners joined Caine on the hill. The heavy jacks took the middle and the Stormguard and Gun Mages took the right flank. Alexia’s Risen just tried to get out of the way.

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Everblight were scared now of Caine’s threat range and the usual big rush up the table didn’t happen. The Raptors did what they always do. Advance, shoot, and then retreat. This time they did hit Ashley but failed to kill him. The Gatormen advanced… wary of the Long Gunners on the hill. The Warmongers ran into the rough along with the Carnivean while the Angelus advanced looking for some warcaster to assassinate. The Legion thought they had Caine dead but it required perfect dice to pull it off. After being Dashed, the Blighted Archers approached as far as they could and five of them were in range of the Hunter for a Concentrated Volley of poisoned arrows. Unfortunately for Caine, he was directly behind the Hunter and was also hit. Poisoned arrows merely scratched the Hunter but severely hurt Caine. He was near death after the attack. Close but not close enough. The Legion had nothing else to throw against Caine so he survived the turn.

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Cygnar’s second turn saw some spells cast and some more Caine destruction. The Journeyman caster Arcane Shielded Stryker, while Stryker Arcane Shielded the Stormguard, Blurred the Gun Mages and popped his Invincibility feat. Almost all the Cygnar army was in the feat and would be near impossible to kill on Everblight’s next turn. Caine needed to get out of danger but he also needed to remove those Blighted Archers as they proved to be dangerous. Caine, as well, popped his feat and started shooting at the Archers. Each Archer hit blew up and killed his friends to the left and right of him. Five bullets later, the entire unit were blown to bits and Caine then cast Gate Crasher and teleported back to the Cygnar deployment zone where Doc Killingsworth was waiting to take care of his wounds. The Long Gunners started Waterfall attacking the Gatormen in the wheatfield but amazingly poor damage dice meant that only one of them died, with another wounded. Ashley had to get out of the wheatfield so he advances right and took a shot at the Carnivean but was just out of range. Ashley was now out in the open and sure to die. The Gun Mages advanced up to take Thunderbolt shots at the Angelus and Carnivean in the hopes of Knocking them down but the dice weren’t there. The Angelus was pushed fairly far back though. Rupert Marched the Stormguard and they ran through the rough to engage the Warmongers.

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Everblight’s third turn was largely ineffective due to Stryker’s Invincibility feat. The Raptors shot at a few Long Gunners who were just out of the feat’s effect and a couple of them died. The Gatorman ran up to Ashley to make sure he wasn’t taking anymore shots. Rhyas popped her feat which meant that none of the Everblight army could be attacked with melee weapons on Cygnar’s next turn. The Warmongers hacked into the Stormguard but the combination of Arcane Shield and Invincibility gave them an ARM of 23 and only one died. The Carnivean Assaulted and managed to do a bit better and killed a couple of them. The Angelus advanced and shot at a Gun Mage but couldn’t hit due to its Blur spell and bad dice. The Teraph remained Dug In on the hill and was screening one of its warlocks. Suddenly Bog Ambushers popped out of nowhere and descended upon the Gun Mages and Rupert. Rupert died but somehow only two Gun Mages died.

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Cygnar’s third turn was fairly short. The Stormguard couldn’t attack because of Rheas’s feat so they did nothing. Ashley accepted suicide and walked away from the Gatorman engaged him but snake eyes was the die roll and Ashley lived. He took a shot at the Dug In Teraph but missed. Now unengaged, the Long Gunners took another turn of shooting into the Gatormen but still didn’t kill them all. One remained alive… barely alive but still alive. The Gun Mages attacked the Bog Ambushers with their Gun Fighter ability and a few of them died. Alexia cast Paralytic Fear at them and killed their leader. They failed their CMD check and would have been running away except the Paralytic Fear spell prevented them from moving. Caine saw the Angelus flying its wings alone some 20″ away so he walked up a bit and took a couple of shots at it. Angelus was fairly damaged and Caine perhaps could have finished the job but he wanted to be a bit more cautious so he stopped with three focus left and teleported back to Doc would healed him but Knocked him down. The Field Mechaniks ran around Caine to protect his prone body.

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Everblight’s fourth turn saw the death of Ashley and the folly of Trampling. Ashley’s luck had finally run out. He was charged by the last Gatorman and killed. His corpse joined Alexia’s undead army. A couple more Long Gunners fell victim to the Raptor’s arrows. Saeryn popped her feat with allowed free movement and free attacks for her army. The Legion had hoped to chain attack using the Warmongers berserker ability all the way to reach Stryker. But first, the Stormguard in the way needed to be clearly out so the Carnivean Trampled through them towards both Cygnar heavy jacks (who had been doing basically nothing the whole game so far). The Carnivean trample ended up missing two of the Stormguard whose Free Strikes hit home and hit HARD! The Carnivean ended up at his target jack with a broken Body. Several Stormguard did die however. The Carnivean took a bite on the Defender and did less damage than it could have due to its broken body. The Warmongers now started Berserk carving their way through the Stormguard. The entire unit died without making a single in activation attack. Lots of Risen were created but placed far away from the Berserk Warmongers. The Warmongers did not make it to Stryker and stopped when they failed to kill a gobber mechanik. Now in flies the Angelus. Without a warcaster nearby, it settles for an Alexia assassination attempt. She got hit and hit hard. 13 Risen were nobly sacrificed to prevent all damage to her.

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Cygnar’s fourth turn cleared out the heavy Everblight beasts. Stryker focused up his jacks as strongly as he could. The Centurion went first and Critically hit the Carnivean which meant that its next two focus attacks autohit. After being hit three times with a P+S 18 weapon, the Carnivean was destroyed. However, it immediately Respawned and moved away a tad. The Defender moved up the finish the job. A boosted hit and boosted damage roll with its Shock Hammer ended the Carnivean for good. The Gun Mages now tried their luck again at Thunderbolting the Angelus and Knocking it down. The fourth and finally shot did the trick and the Angelus was Knocked Down and now severely damaged. Alexia moved back and bit and cast Paralytic Fear. After boosting the damage roll, the Angelus was dead. The Teraph died as well… but I can’t recall if it was on turn 4 or 5 and who killed it. Perhaps it was killed by the Long Gunners. Caine, previously Knocked Down by Doc, stood up and didn’t see any targets in range so he moved and cast Blur on the Long Gunners instead. Doc healed him up again and Caine was now at full strength. The Journeyman warcaster also died somewhere along the way and resulted in the Hunter shutting down… but, again, I don’t recall how it happened.

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Everblight knew now that it was all over. On their fifth turn, all they had left was three Raptors, two or three Warmongers, a Shepherd, and both Warlocks. The Raptors took shots at the Blurred Long Gunners and perhaps one died. The Warmongers were currently engaging two heavy warjacks and could do little against them… especially with Field Mechaniks behind the jacks repairing them. The Legion warlocks stayed out of the way. The Bog Ambushers were free to run away and took free strikes from the Gun Mages. A couple of them actually survived and ran away.

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Cygnar’s fifth turn was devoted to killing the Warmongers, the Shepard and the fleeing Bog Ambushers. However, one of the Bog Ambushers managed to dodge all the Gun Mage bullets. The jacks took care of the Warmongers while the Long Gunners took out the Shepard. Caine, for once, didn’t do anything. The enemy warlocks were too far away (and one of them was invisible anyway).

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Everblight’s last turn was interesting. The Raptors advanced to shoot at the Long Gunners and then took their free movement to advance to engage them. Rhyas then cast her Blight Shroud spell which wiped out the entire unit. Saeryn was too far away to do anything.

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Cygnar’s last turn. Stryker moved up to reactivate the Hunter and deny Everblight the VPs and also cast Earthquake on the unit of Raptors. They were all knocked down. The idea was to then use Caine to wipe them out. Instead, Caine saw Rheas in range and chose to go after her instead. In the end, it was a mistake. After all his bullets and focus used, she was still alive. A pity that. No casters died in the epic 1000 point battle. Nothing else in the Cygnar army was close enough to finish her off.

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Cygnar wins on Victory Points. 18 to 7.

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Three battles went on this Wednesday (four if you count the friendly). The Epic battle was a 750 between the Trolls and Mercenaries.  Which was heading deep into turn 5 and the seadogs showing they could be as tough as any Troll. Kris had just declared that there was no way the game was going to be decided on a caster kill when Madrak threw a pot shot ax attack at Alexia, which hit ricocheted off her hit Ashylyn, The declaration of “15 to hit” was followed by the exclamation of “Ha just 17 to kill her”..followed by “shit!” Kris sure knows how to jinx a battle! Elsewhere Khador went top of the 350 ladder with a fast turn 3 kill over Cryx and a 500 saw Everblight remain undefeated as they faced off against Skorne with a Minion heavy army.

• Mercs challenged Trolls at 750 and Lost
• Khador challenged Cryx at 350 and won
• Everblight challenged Skorne at 500 and won

The friendly match saw Cyrx and Everblight fight out a 350 featured 10 Shredders and a Harrier. In which a rules error and Wuffy forgetting his feat effects helped Everblightto victory.

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When the forces hit the table, all I (Everblight Saeryn) could do was wonder how I was going to get near the Cygnar forces without getting shot to pieces, I’d been expecting Darius and a melee heavy force, and faced Siege and ranged attack force. So much for Saeryns feat.  With 3 Heavy beasts, 3 shredders, Gator men and Raptors I was facing around 33 infantry and just 2 Jacks (both long range killers),  my best hope appeared to be either to swamp the defence or get as close as possible and then charge the gauntlet.

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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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Keeping with the big battle theme, Chris and Kobby took the field with Saeryn taking on Grissel Bloodsong. It was a close fought battle that went the full six turns, neither caster really threatened throughout the battle although a Harrier did managed to scratch Grissel at one point, but other than that all damage to the Warlocks was from ranged attacks. Everblight dominated the first half of the game and good use of Saery’s Foreboding feat caused the Trolls all kinds of trouble. However they survived that to use Grisse’s feat a turn later and rout the Legions left flank.  On the right flank the Raptors were little more than an irritation to the Trolls who took more casualities from the blighted archers than the Raptors.  With the game entering the final phase the Troll Champions earnt their money ripping up the Legion forces without taking too many loses themselves. The final turn saw neither side in a position to kill the other and the match ended with Victory Point win to the Trolls 14 VPs to 6 VPs

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In the first Everblight ladder battle Thagrosh took on Fiona (and Alexia) and a mass of pirates.  Moving a little too close to Everblight in their first turn one group of pirates found themselves quickly engaged and badly mauled. The other were nailed by Raptor archers.  Thagrosh played a fairly defensive battle, drawing the pirates and undead towards them while whittling them down.

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While the pirates progressed well into the Everblight defensive lines, anything that made it through was taken out swiftly. With neither warcaster getting close to the melee, it became a battle of attrition which favoured the Everblight  more as the fight continued and the Pirate solos getting picked off one by one.

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The final turn saw Thagrosh engaged by Alexia (with no Risen), she missed and then was taken out by a frenzied Teraph (From a Shephard), and the Angelous charged Fiona, hitting twice but failing to do enough damage to kill her due to her being focus stacked. With both casters left alive, victory went to Thagrosh and Everblight on VPs.

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Battle two was the closest I got to a win. Facing Vlad and an interesting selection of Behemoth, Widow Makers, Yuri, 2 Man Hunters, Eyriss, Drakon (no dismount) and Grey Lords.  It started very badly on the left with the Behomth sprinting 16″ across the board and engaging my advancing archers. The Grey Lords, Widow Makers and Vlad advanced on my left, the rest came down my right.  I had no choice but to throw one of my beasts at the Behemot to slow it down, the archers were a mess, but my right flank moved forward and swiftly cleaned up.

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Then things went wrong, rather than killing my beast, the behemoth picked it up and threw it at my other beast…missed… deviated one inch…hit. Both beasts on the floor they then suffered ranged attacks galore and died together. Leaving me light on beasts. However the Harriers were doing okay and we’d killed everything on the right execpt for Yuri and he was in a bad way.

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Turn 4 for me I poped my feat and moved my caster, yes really I did,  battle three I forgot again.  Rhyas swept through the Khador forces, killing all but the last Widowmaker and all the Greylords and ending the turn invisible, Def 20 in the middle of what was left of the Kador army (not much at all) . Harriers advanced but didn’t manage to kill Yuri, it was looking good!

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Then Yuri moved (ran) , avoided two free strikes and ended next to the Behometh, and here a slight rules error from both of us (mixing up stealth and invisibility for ranged attacks) meant the Behometh then picked up Yuri threw him at Rhyas, missed and deviated on to her. (Rules error being that she can’t be targeted and therefore the Behometh has to throw at half strength distance). Anyway she was hit, knocked down and then Vlad stepped over and finished her off.

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So close, and yet so far!

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My first battle at SPORE Con was against the pirates and I was quietly confident, I’ve played Shae enough times to know all the tricks and was even prepared for the rifle men to shoot into my deployment zone on turn 1. I was prepared for the Pirate charge, the mini feat, which my archers were spread out to take the brunt of, but what I wasn’t ready for, was how fast Everblight beasts die when hit hard.

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And I was really dissapointed that after getting my Totem hunter all the way across the board, and engaging the commodore that he was then vaporized due to the Shae 3″ feat that left him facing a POW 20 spray attack, ouch! Not much left after that.

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The central battle was a general collapse especially after I popped my feat and then forgot to move Rhyas so none of my beasts could advance far enough and as usual the odd pirate or two just constantly got in the way, that said I cleared up a lot of the solos and felt all the better for it.

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Late game Hawk charged Rhyas, missed and got killed by the Riposte, yea I had to chuckle over that, then I found I had Rhyas and the Gobber Smoke team left on the table, Ryhas charged into combat and killed off a bunch of pirates. Next turn she was surrounded but my opponent was willing to risk missing and being killed by a riposte.  Shae had moved up cast a spell and missed leaving him within killing range… but before that could happen my Gobbers got nailed handing me a loss by “Army Destruction”

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And you’d think I’d always remember to move my warlock when she popped her feat after that

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