Battle Chronicler

     Just heard about this program on the latest "View From the Veranda."  It is called Battle Chronicler and it looks like a tasty program for creating graphic displays for your battle reports.  I would love to use it but they don't offer a version for the Mac.  Boo hoo!

WARMACHINE Mosh Pit

     Another day of WARMACHINE Friday this time hosted at Mi Casa.  It was the second time that we got to use my custom made 4' by 4' board and it looked great.  The combatants in this battle were Khador led by Vlad and Cygnar led by Haley.
     Khador consisted off Vlad, six Iron Fang Pikemen with Officer and Standard Bearer, Greylord Ternions, four Mechanics, Man-O-War Kovnik and three 'Jacks: Juggernaut, Spriggan and Marauder.  Cygnar brought Haley, full unit of Sword Knights with Officer and Standard Bearer, three Storm Lances, three Storm Smiths and three 'Jacks:  Stormclad and two Lancers.
     The Mosh Pit scenario requires that an army must hold the center circle (diameter 16") with no opposing models within the circle beginning at the end of the third turn.  Khador deployed first.  Spriggin on left flank, Marauder and Kovnik on the right and the rest a hard little knot in the middle.  Cygnar deployed the Storm Lances on their left flank along with a Storm Smith and Lancer.  Right flank consisted of another Storm Smith and Lancer.  The rest of the army with spread out in the middle.
     First turn saw Khador moving forward in shield wall being covered with blizzards from the Greylords.  Flanking 'Jacks either ran or charged forward.  Cygnar's turn saw them moving forward also and ranging out on their left flank with the Storm Lances with a big hunk of impassable terrain between them and the bulk of the Khador army.  An arcane shield spell was cast on the Storm Blades as they moved up the middle.
     Second turn and the Khador army tried to surge forward.  Vlad went first and popped his feat and cast signs and portents for what I thought would be some good melee.  Kovnik successfully attempted to drive his Marauder and added an extra die on attack.  Juggernaut moved to intercept and harry the Storm Lances.  Spriggen moved forward and sent off a couple of grenades, one taking out a Storm Smith on the right flank and put a serious hurt on the Lancer on the left (with boosted damage.)  Iron Fangs moved forward in their knot, Greylords threw more blizzards on the Iron Fangs.  Mechanics just stayed behind the Iron Fang wall with Vlad.  The Marauder was last and I thought it was going to be great.  It was probably ten inches away from the Lancer on the right flank and I thought I was going to charge in and combo slam him away.  Wrong!  I didn't realize that Vlads feat only affected those 'Jacks in his battlegroup and since the Marauder was marshaled by the Kovnik I was screwed.  All it could do was move forward eight inches and look menacing.  Cygnar continued the dance by moving up the Storm Smith on the left flank and disrupt the Spriggin.  The accompanying Lancer moved back behind an obstruction.  Haley moved through some woods and popped her feat, giving every model in her control area another attack as well as arcing chain lighting through the Lancer on their right flank.  The lightning hit the Spriggin easily but caused no damage and then arced into the Iron Fangs and another five models.  Paul had some terrible damage rolls and I think only managed to kill one Pikeman.   The Lancer on the right moved into melee with the Marauder, doing some cortex damage with the shock shield as well as giving a poke with his spear.  The middle Storm Smith tried to blast an Iron Fang but missed.  The Stormclad charged at the Marauder and did significant damage with that giant sword and pimp slapped it with the open fist.  The Storm Blades received the assault order and charged at the Iron Fangs.  Only one of them got into melee with the disrupted Spriggin but the assault order allows them to use their ranged weapons as part of a charge.  Surprisingly the Spriggin gets pretty well beat up by the storm glaives, two columns of hull damage as well as taking out the shield on the melee strike.  The rest of the storm glaive shots either missed or did no damage to the Pikeman, I think taking out one more.  More poor rolls for Paul.  The Lancers swooped around their left flank and one got to safely engage the Juggernaut with reach and did a little damage, knocking of some bolts and scraping the paint.
     Round three!  Vlad again moved up and cast signs and portents.  The Kovnik moved forward a little and blasted a Storm Lance with his shield cannon.  The Marauder did a little something to the Stormclad but not as much because of a crippled arm.  Juggernaut moved into a Storm Lance and hacked him down.  Greylords moved up and did a spray attack on some of the Storm Blades killing two of the three.  Spriggin just hammered the Storm Blade in melee with it, spitting him on his war lance.  Then the Iron Fangs charged in and decimated the remaining Storm Blades.  On Cygnars turn there wasn't much to do.  The Stormclad finished off the Marauder, leaving a pile of scrap.    The Storm Lance, I think, charged into the Juggernaut doing some more damage.    The Lancer on Cygnar's left moved forward and arced chain lighting onto Vlad, doing him three damage and then it proceeded to jump around and kill most of the mechanics.  A Greylord was taken down by a Stormsmith and the second Stormsmith took out another mechanic.

Cygnar's turn (round three)

     Round four.  Looking at the board Cygnar only had two models in the mosh pit, the last Stormblade and the Stormsmith.  From there it was rather easy to finish them off and secure the victory.

     Thoughts:  Paul, get rid of those GF9 faction dice!  Those things let you down at the critical moments!  I have been trying to play Khador simply, move forward and don't worry about losing troops.  I did have some traffic control problems in the back during the first two turns but that is to be expected when the board is crowded with terrain.  Not understanding fully how Vlad's feat worked caught me off guard.  The mechanics are a big deal.  Since MKII I have fielded them in most every list and they never let me down.  Just enough repair to keep the 'Jacks going.  The first time that the Kovnik did something and didn't die.  I like the way that 'Jack marshal works now especially with the Kovnik's drive ability.  The Iron Fangs are becoming my go to unit.  They have great survivability in shield wall and the movement to balance out the slow 'Jacks when it comes to threatening areas of the board.  Plus with the Officer and Standard Bearer they are a tough nut to crack.
     To be fair to Cygnar, the strategy was sound.  If the lightning would have been more effective on the Iron Fangs it would have been more of a game.

Dual Session--WARMACHINE & Combat Commander

     Paul and I played a game of WARMACHINE on Friday the 30th of July.  The 35 point throwdown was between Khador and Cygnar and the scenario was Break The Line.  We had decided to play fully painted armies after the introduction of MKII came out in the spring and what a great feeling to see all the models on the table with some fabulous terrain.  Allister Caine took the field against Kommandant Irusk with the goal of holding three of six quadrants on the board at the end of the third round.  Khador deployed as a hard little knot in the center of the board with Iron Fang Pikemen and a Demolition Man-O-War unit accompanied by Irusk.  On the left flank the Winter Guard and a Destroyer held vigil.  The right flank was occupied by Widowmakers and a Manhunter.

Khador at setup

     Caine set up with most of his forces spread out evenly across the front of his deployment zone.  There was two units of Arcane Tempest Gun Mages, three Hunters (!) and two Gun Mage solos, as well as the Black 13th. It looked grim for the Khador army as they had no long range weapons (just range 8" blunderbusses) besides the Destroyer.  The only hope was to move forward as fast as possible and hope to get to grips with Cygnar before they were all shot to hell.  And that is basically what happened.  

Cygnar at setup

     On the first turn all of Khador advanced.  Most with some sort of defensive buff.  Man-O-War under Iron Flesh, Iron Fangs with Shield Wall and Winter Guard with Bob and Weave.  Cygnar also moved forward but a little bit more warily, trying to use what cover they could, still pretty spread out.  Khadors big mistake was deploying the Destroyer so far from Irusk as he had to run back in order to be granted the spell of Superiority from his 'caster.  Second round saw the Widowmaker taking some shots at the Hunter on their flank, causing only one point of damage with their Sniper ability.  I thought that they would be able to benefit from their Camouflage skill but the Gun Mage unit benefitted from True Sight.  Within a turn they would be destroyed to a man, although their true purpose was to tie-up the Hunter and the Gun Mage unit.  The Gun Mages on the left flank took out a good number of Winter Guard although it would have been more if the Kovnik Joe hadn't given them the tough ability.  Additionally, some of the shots of the Hunter got through to kill off a couple of the Man-O-War unit.   Caine also arrived in the second round and activated his feat, taking shots at everyone in line of sight although that nuber was decreased significantly by a cloud effect thrown out by a member of the Black 13th.  Third round saw Cygnar taking possession of some of the zones of control, if only for their part of the turn.  Khador continued their advance forward and got into charging range of some of the Hunters and one of the Gun Mage units.  They did a good job of knocking down a 'jack and eliminating some of the Gun Mages.  After their charge they regrouped thanks to the help of the standard bearer and sat tight in Shield Wall.  The Winter Guard did a good job of knocking out some their opponents, the second Gun Mage unit.   After this round, the center was looking weak for Cygnar as well as having some fraying around the edges.  Cygnar tried a little something on their turn and then ceded the battle to Khadors overwhelming melee units.
     Thoughts on this game:  Khador did a good job on set-up in that they threatened most parts of the board equally.  Key if you want to keep your opponent from discerning your true goals.  Also learned was that units really need some sort of attachment, preferably the officer and standard bearer.  A character solo doesn't hurt either.  Both of them are used to increase the inherent abilities of the unit and make them pack a bigger punch and defend with greater acumen.  The other thing that I learned was that tier list (which Paul used) are very specialized.  They give you some good zing in specific situations but they have some very big weaknesses.  Once I engaged Cygnar in melee they were pretty much done because of the preponderance of weak melee models.  For the most part I think that a balanced list is best although that will not stop me from fielding a tier list.  They are just so "fluffy" and the story aspect of one of the things that drew me into the game in the first place.  
     
     Later on in the evening we played two games of Combat Commander.  We have been taking great delight in the scenarios in the new Normandy battlepack.  This time say the Germans opposed first by the British and second by the Canadians.  The first was a beach breakout by the British.  They were aided in their approach by well placed smoke rounds before the game started.  This and timely draws of the Recovery order allowed the first sortie to quickly leave the beach assault a bunker.  Taking the bunker involved also killing an officer and taking out an artillery piece.  Once in the bunkers and trenches the British had litte trouble finishing off the old men and boys that the Krauts chose to man their defenses.  Fortuitous weapon breakage and poor, poor defense/offense draws helped the British in their inexorable advance.

The Canadians surrounded!

     The second scenario saw elite German troops marching on an urban area held by mediocre Canadian forces.  This time the pendulum swung the way of the Germans.  The Canadians couldn't draw a decent defense card to literally save their lives.  The Germans executed a text book advance-and-flank maneuver and it was over rather quickly through surrender.
     Thoughts on these games:  When attacking it is important to have several Move and Recovery orders.  Units are more likely to be broken when moving and it is essential to get them recovered before they take more fire.  Conversely, when defending, it is critical to be able to fire to stop troops but even more critical to finish them off once they are broken.  This speaks well of fire groups that contain a mortar.  If the mortar can break some units then you can clean them up with unit or weapon fire.  Another point to remember, if you have the chance, have some Ambush actions in your hand before you try an Advance.  This allows easy clearing of enemy when you go to engage them hand-to-hand.