War In Sector 135: SkrapKlaws Revenge

“How is he?” Tanith Asked as he dismounted the Wave Serpent.

Farlin shrugged and tilted his head slightly. “As well as can be expected I suppose.” The Dire Avenger Exarch gestured to the Spirit Seer to follow and lead him into the small fortress the Warhost was using as a base of operations. They entered and walked down a short hallway before turning. Tanith could feel the energy flowing through the wraithbone of the bases structure.

“We lost Ti'Fani in the battle. The blood lust of Khaine overtook her upon Delbaeth falling to the greenskins.”

“Did you recover her stone?” queried Tanith.

“Yes Seer we did, and Delbaeth was not dead.” The Exarch lead Tanith into a dark room. He stopped and gestured for Tanith to stay in the hall for a moment. Tanith stood, feeling the raw emotion flowing out of the room in waves. Farlin came out and spoke softly. “He is calm for now, I hope you can reach him.”

“I will do my best, but the scaring runs deep. I can feel it from here.”

I will be coordinating our forces if you need me. The room down the hall on the left is the CNC.”

“ I thank you Exarch.” Tanith paused and spoke again before entering the room. “ If you could see to the cargo I brought with me.”

“ Of course Seer.” Farlin began to walk away but turned to face the Spirit Seer. “What are you planning that you require so much ? Also was that a Wraithlord in the stasis pod? Delbaeth isn’t dead as I stated earlier”

“I am fulfilling a promise. That is all. Worry not Exarch the Wraith construct is not for the Autarch”

The Spirit Seer turned and walked into the room. Delbaeth sat at a table motionless and silent. “Autarch let us talk. Ti'Fani spoke well of you” Tanith sat across from the Autarch. “You have doubts I know, but with my help we shall overcome them together.” “My sisters vengeance cannot be carried out alone.......”

Well we had a battle royal this past campaign night. BigMek SkrapKlaw hit the webway gate to try and reclaim it. The remainder of my Warhost rallied to defend it. It would seem that revenge was the BigMeks intention though as he ram rodded his whole army strait towards my Autarch. In a genius move on my part I broke him off of the unit he was attached to to fusion gun the BigMechs battle wagon. I also Broke Ti'Fani off from the same unit of Dire Avengers and cast Death Mission. My ditzy farseer went super saiyen and began to pummel the other battle wagon at the front of the army. Now my intention was to bust open the wagon containing the big mech and then hose down the mob inside with shuriken fire. Sadly I missed with the fusion gun and rolled a 4 for my jet pack move. So I did get to poor a ton of fire into the mob to get it down to a manageable size, but it was after they charged and killed Delbaeth.

Two and a half units of guardians and my Dire Avengers killed most of the boys with the BigMek and then The Exarch, Farlin, wounded the BigMek in close combat. The orcs broke at combat resolution and the Avengers lived up to their name and cut down the BigMek and his remaining boyz in a hail of shuriken fire as they ran. Sadly as the orcs departed they lit up Ti'Fani and killed her. Her story is not over though. She is too entertaining.

Now with the orcs pulling out and in full retreat, the host of Nurgle Daemons that was also in this 4 way battle had to be dealt with. The gate was infested with Nurglings as the larger daemons advanced. Luckily I had an unspoken and undeclared non aggression pack with The Judge.....and his Grey Knights.

Needless to say Papa Nurgle retreated faced with my remaining Eldar and a Full 2250 point force of Grey Knight Terminators. The gate was held. I sadly had to abandon it. I had to leave and destroy the gate to prevent the forces of chaos from taking it or using it. This was the price of the Grey Knights help in the battle.

Small price to pay though. I now have my Warhost at its new hub. Spellduckwrong donated one for the cause. I am bringing in re-enforcements in the form of wraith units and a Spirit Seer. I am also bringing in Ti'Fani 2.0. Ti'Fani the Wraithseer.

We will see how things go. I am building a fortress of redemption on my hub so it is well defended. Combine it with the 500 point garrison we are allowed at the hub, for hub defense only, It should be able to repel some fair sized forces. Now that the Combined Craftworld force is consolidated a bit and regrouped we plan on really bringing the pain on our neighbors. Tune in next week for the update.

Until then....

Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ti'Fani

Ah, the hilarity of Ti'Fani so consumed me that I decided to post up a psyker card for her. I have another post inbound for these cards, but this will work for now.

War In Sector 135: Store Campaign Update

“Autarch you are hurt!” Exclaimed Ti'Fani. The Seer gestured sharply to the attendants at the door to the airlock of the ship. They quickly moved to assist the Autarch as he moved into the room.

“Away with you” Delbaeth snapped “I am better off than that BigMek.” “Your predictions were flawed Seer, The ork force was larger than expected”.

“ The path is very unclear Autarch, the presence of Chaos is clouding things. There is also.... a presence creeping towards us”

“ I care not for your excuses. You send word to the other Craftworlds Warhost. Tell them to expect us” Dalbaeth began to disarm himself and allow the healers to begin their ministrations.

“What is your plan Autarch...if I may ask?” Ti'Fani was taken aback by the seething anger coming off of the Autarch in waves.

“We will regroup and establish a new beachhead. Then call for reinforcements”

“What about the Portal?” Ti'Fani asked

“ We close it, I have reached an accord with the Monkeigh from The Inquisition..... Grand Master MacCumhail I think its name is.”

Ti'Fani's shock was plain for all in the room to see. She stood, mouth agape, at the pronouncement.

“You can't be serious?!.....Grey Knights?!”

“Deadly Serious” Delbaeth said as he removed his helm, a sly grin emerging from his sweat and blood covered face

Well the Campaign continues. The Warhost of Delbaeth Windsword withdrew from the main hub. I was had 3 different armies hit me at the same time. Farseer Re-Rolls Space Marines, Inquisitor Vogrins Guard and Austins Black Legion hit me all at once. Rather than fight all three I withdrew all my forces through the unmolested space port and self destructed my hub. I had a smaller scout force moving towards Spellduckwrongs holdings, which is three planets now. Our alliance is now formal. I am establishing a new base in the Eldar corner of the map.

During the last phase BigMek SkrapKlaw discovered an active webway portal in an asteroid field. It would allow the deployment of forces anywhere on the map with only one hex of movement. Obviously the Orks could not be allowed to hold the portal. So I took my remaining 1750 points and hit the force holding the portal hard. My fighting retreat from my destroyed hub, main base, paid off. I wiped the Orks from the portal and the Asteroid field. Granted it was at a cost. Delbaeth took 2 wounds when he and his Warp Spider entourage were charged by a mob of 20 shoota boyz. It could have been worse. He did survive. 2 wounds means two rolls on the injury table. As luck would have it I shrugged off the first wound with no effect, but the second means I cant wield any weapons that increase your strength. My initiative was also reduced by 2. I lost a unit of Dire Avengers, A unit of Warp Spiders, a few Guardians, A Jetbike Squad and a Wave Serpent.

The Judge is now throwing his hat into the ring as well, bringing his Gray Knights into the mix. It seems appropriate as we now have 2 chaos marine players and 1 daemon player in the mix as well. The swell of chaos and traitors, as well as the appearance of the 13^th company has brought the Sons Of Titan.

So with BigMek SkrapKlaw swearing Vengeance, Chaos pressing in on all sides, a wounded Autarch and a shadow in the Warp Falling on the system. I have my work cut out for me this week.

Its campaign night so look for what happens tonight next Wednesday.

Until then.....

Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!!!!

Path of the Autarch: Decision

Spellduckwrong here. Something that I have actively noticed in several games now, both ones I have played in and those I have observed is that sometimes a player will lose a unit because they didn't force the opponent to make a decision. It sounds almost counter-intuitive that you would actually want to give an opponent options, but please hear me out.

To elaborate on this lack of choice thing, I mean, that the player will position a unit (usually a scary one, though not always) in such a way that it is a no-brainer for the opponent to pour their offensive resources into blowing it off the table. The reason it is a no-brainer is because the opponent didn't have to decide how to prioritize targets because in this situation there was only one. An example of this would be, say, a flying monstrous creature burns straight at the opponent's line on Turn 1 far ahead of the rest of its army. And therefore, in the resulting opponent turn, they really don't have anything better to shoot at because nothing is really in range. Especially, for their short range massed infantry fire. Their only choice here is to fire or not fire. Unless they are trying to throw the match, they will choose to fire.

My main point here is that when we don't present choices to an opponent, we will generally fail to gain any benefit from the opponent laying into one of our units.  An easy solution to this is to approach the enemy with two "attack groups".  Essentially, two small forces that present equivalent tactical utility for us. Both groups need to be strong enough that we are still going to have a good chance of accomplishing our missions as long as either survives. What these groups will be will composed of will really depend on your list and what you intend to accomplish. You mainly just want to avoid having the opponent kill off enough of your forward units that when the remnants of those forces hit, they fail their mission and are easily wiped out in a following turn.

Timing is also very important for attacking your enemy and not removing choice from their battle plan. If you have Big Nasty Unit A (B.N.U.) hitting the opponent's line on turn 1, Big Nasty Unit B hitting on Turn 2, and Big Nasty Unit C hitting on Turn 3, then you have given the opponent an easy choice or no choice but to shoot B.N.U. A the first turn. In subsequent turns, if the opponent has enough firepower to handle your B.N.U.'s one at a time, your tactical situation hasn't really improved and you have merely let the opponent grind up your units piecemeal pitting many of their points versus relatively fewer of your points. How could we improve this? Either make it so at least wo of these units arrive at the same time. Either two pull up turn 1 in the same spot, which cuts the opponent's available firepower in half because they have to split between two targets or ignore one of them. The other option would be to make two units hit on turn 2. Even if this means having one of the units move slower than it would need to. By waiting, we are taking away the opportunity for the opponent to utilize much of its close angled mass fire because we didn't feed a unit into its range in the previous turn.

Overall, don't send a lone unit off to soak up an entire army's worth attacks. Time your advance so that multiple EQUAL threats hit the opponent's lines in tandem. A Rhino with 5 Marines and a Plasma Gun is not an equivalent threat to 10 man Terminator squad.  The Rhino can be ignored fairly safely compared to the Terminators but maybe five Rhinos with 25 Marines are just as scary. I guess a good rule of thumb would be to make two groups where you would be happy if either of them was still standing when the next turn's carnage switch is going to get flipped to "ON".

Another aspect of making the opponent choose is whether to move to shoot you or do nothing with a unit. For a basic example, say there are five Bolter Marines sitting on some terrain who, because of range, can only shoot your nearby unit of five squishy troops. Well, if you leave your troops in range of the Marines, they will sit there and fire on them because the opponent doesn't have to make a choice. It is shoot with the Marines at their only possible target or do nothing. If you move your troops either out of range, out of line of sight, or move in a second unit of infantry, now the opponent must make a choice. Move the Marines to go after your troops, pick one of the two targets it has now to shoot, or possibly fall back because now they are outnumbered. You see, once you introduced a scenario where the opponent had to make a decision, there are so many opportunities for them to make the wrong one either by miscalculation or poor rolling for a random element. Either way, the situation is better than just letting the Marines pump Bolters into your troops without a downside.

Always remember to make your opponent choose, don't make things easy for them.






So what units have you witnessed getting blown off the table because they ran ahead and took the brunt of the opponent's attack or just got otherwise isolated?

Lets Talk Tournaments And Conventions.

SeerK here.  Although I am not a competitive player persay, I do enjoy a good tournament.  That said I
wanted to plug a couple events I will be attending and running.  First let talk about Michigans first ever GT.


The Michigan GT will take place September 28th and 29th here in good old Lansing.  Its a 2 day 1850 event.  Spots are filling up pretty fast.  details can be found at the Michigan GT website.  I plan on bringing the Eldar to play as long as I can get a spot in the tournament.  They have some nice sponsers lined up and the terrain is looking pretty choice.


The second event I will be at is UCON.  Once again I will be running events at UCON.  I will be doing the Craftworld Open once agian, but this year we are having a much more inclusive experience.  Stuff it still tentative as I get it hammered  out, but we will have more games and more events for War Games in general.

UCON will be taking place November 22-24 at the Marrriott Ann Arbor Ypslanti at Eagle Crest.  This is the 2nd year at this hotel and its a great venue.  Warmachine and Flames Of War are joining 40K in the line up this year.  I am attempting to add some other games as well.  PG_Hick is working hard to bring you a big Warmachine event.  More on that as it develops though.

The Craftworld Lansing Staff will be there in force.  I am pretty excited about this year and the good relationship building with the Staff behind UCON.  Its my hope that we can make a good local convention even better.  There are already a ton of cool events there.  Board games, Role Playing games, Card games and now War games.

Stay updated by visiting the UCON website.  I will have more information here as it develops as well.




Thats all for now.



Until next time.........




Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!

The Autarchs Of Ulthwe And Other Thoughts

Well I have gotten in a couple more games and holy crap. My codex is good again. In the latest test I

squared off against The Judge and his Space Marines. The beating I put on the Emperors finest was pretty bad. I had two Night Spinners and A shadow Weaver battery in the back field and it was very effective in killing marines. Now I should mention it was a Hammer and Anvil deployment so I had plenty of time to hit him as he advanced.

I am kind of curious about if the FAQ is going to hit the monofiliment rule with the nerf bat. Its kind of worded weird and I have heard some arguments that that AP 1 on the auto wound 6 is only on models with Initiative 3 or less. I think its pretty clear the Initiative aspect of the rule is only for strength. Because of the wording I can see argument against it though.

Battle Focus played a big part in the game for my Guardians and my Warp Spiders. The Spiders took out a vindicator before being blasted by the other one. After one salvo of shuriken fire from one of my 20 man units cut a 10 man terminator unit down to 5 guys. It was pretty brutal. I do have to say that my Autarch was kind of lack luster. I think it is more how I equipped her. I am going to be sticking to my Warp Spider / Striking Scorpion Autarch.

Speaking of Autarchs the Store Campaign started this week. I have established control of my planet and have yet to repel any enemy forces. I am trying to link up with Spellduckwrongs Eldar at present. He gave Lord Solars Steve’s Kreig a major beat down in his first engagement. Inquisitor Vogrin was the first Warlord to get an achievement out of all of us. He must be watched closely.

We have been doing a lot of fluff for the campaign. We all had to come up with a background and such for our Warlord. We had to roll for a Warlord trait at the beginning of the camapign and it would be our Warlords trait for all the games to come. I have four Autarchs painted and equipped differently so I did backgrounds on all four. I choose based on my warlord trait, which is Tenacity, FNP within 3 inches of an objective. So I choose Delbaeth Windsword. For your reading pleasure I present “The Autarchs of Ulthwe”

The Autarchs or Ulthwe

The Craftworld of Ulthwe is guided by the Seer Council lead by Eldrad Ulthran. The Council guides the Craftworld along the skeins of fate to keep it from harm. When faced with battle the Council lends its strengths to the fight, but it is the Autarchs that lead the Craftworlds armies. Ulthwe currently has four that follow the path of leadership. Four Autarchs, with an advisory council of Exarchs from the Craftworlds Aspect Warrior shrines, wield the military might of Ulthwe. They are the best of their brethren. The fastest, the most cunning and the most lethal.

Fotla Starrider

Fotla has tread the path of the Banshee, the path of the Reaper and the path of the Avenger. She retains the mercurial temperament of her first Aspect. She is headstrong and known for her devastating full frontal assaults. She is known as “Vauls Hammer” to the Exarchs. Her close range attacks are preceded by intense bombardment from long range weaponry. She is often at odds with the decisions of the Seer Council especially when it comes to dealing with the Mon-Keigh. Her hatred of the humans is legendary. After the loss of her family at the Hands of the Space Wolves she goes out of her way to destroy them.

Delbaeth Windsword

Dalbaeth is a master strategist. Having tread the path of the scorpion, the path of the spider and the path of the dragon, he specializes in hit and run attacks and infiltration. He wields an army as if it were a weapon in his hand. Striking and feinting, herding the enemy where he wants them. Finally to destroy them utterly. He issues no warnings, shuns adoration and sees war as a task that must be completed without remorse or regret. He is who the Seers call on the most. He does not question the reasons of why and where the Seer tell him to strike. He does knowing that it is for the good of the Craftworld.

Nuada Mir

Nuada has tread the path of the Hawk, the path of the Avenger and the path of the Banshee. He is the calm and often the mediator between the other Autarchs. He seeks balance in all things. He is conservative and cautious when at war. He is often called upon to strengthen positions and guard the armies retreats.

Lugh Fireheart

Lugh is the oldest of the Autarchs. He has tread the path of the spear, the path of dragon and the path of the Hunter. This eclectic mix of paths gives him unique insights in planning a battle. He has tread the path of the warrior and the path of leadership for over 280 years. He has fought hundreds of races and foes in this time.

Until next time.....

Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!

Happy 4th Of July From The Craftworld!

Well for those readers not from the good old U.S.A, today is Independence Day.  Today we celebrate our
freedom and honor those that have fought for it.  Sadly I will be working today, but I will be enjoying some festivities with the Lansing crew tonight.

So light some fireworks, have a burger and lift a beverage to our freedom.  Thank you to those that have served to maintain our freedoms.

I will be starting a series this coming week.  We have started a map campaign at the store.  "War In Sector 135".  It started with gusto last night.  Spellduckwrong, BigMek SkrapKlaw and myself are all in it.  I will be detailing some back story and the campaign progress as it unfolds.





Happy 4th Of July.


Until next time..............



Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MURICA!!!!!

Tournament Battle Report (Part One)

Hey guys, Hick here. This previous weekend I went to a tournament in Flint, Michigan. They were doing a standard steamroller style tournament with one slight twist to the format. Both lists were required to take a huge base of your choice, battle engine or colossal. I have been trying to take trolls to most tournament outing I have gone to this year but for those of you that don't know the trolls gargantuan is not exactly the best model in the game and the war wagon is not my favorite either. With this in mind, I brought my Cygnar out of the bag for the day. The list sizes were fifty points, so here are the lists I took.

Epic Haley
Stormwall
Squire
Journeyman warcaster
Alexia Ciannor and the risen
Anastasia Di Bray
Full Gun Mages + Unit Attachment
The Black 13th
Epic Eiyriss
Minimum Forge Guard
Lady Aiyana and Master Holt

Prime Haley
Stormwall
Squire
Journeyman Warcaster
Sentinel
Full Gun Mages + Unit Attachment
Gorman Di Wulfe
Full Nyss Hunters + Captain Jonas Murdoch
The Piper of Ord

The lists were designed to cover each others weaknesses. Epic Haley's list was designed to crush heavy armor and punish armies that tried to get into a gunfight with me and Prime Haley's list was designed to punish infantry swarms, slow them down and kill them all in a hail of gunfire. Both lists did exactly what I had thought they would do in my head and getting some practice with the lists quite a bit always helped me.

My first round I drew a Legion of Everblight player playing only Epic lylith, ironically the one caster I was worried about because she is one of the few casters in the game that can outshoot cygnar very effectively and she is also very good at assassination. After looking at his list, I knew I had no choice but to drop my Epic Haley list to keep his list honest and force the idea of a protracted gun fight out of the realm of possibility. His list was:

Epic Lylith
Ravagore
Ravagore
Angelius
Naga Nightlurker
Throne of Everblight
Minimum Raptors
Strider Deathstalker
Strider Deathstalker
Blighted Nyss Shepherd
The Forsaken

I could not get into a long gunfight with this list as I said before. His list had far too many high power guns that ignored my defensive buffs but he couldn't apply all of his debuffs everywhere so my intentions were to use the Stormwall as a giant target for his armies guns to allow the real killers in my list to advance and do their jobs. It also helps that due to a spell from Haley and her warjack bond I can threaten a Stormwall charge 14 inches in all directions. My plan was to force the Stormwall down his throat and see what happens. He won the roll off and opted to allow me to go first because he wanted to choose the table edge and have the first opportunity to score objective points. I went first and rushed my whole army forward the max speed. He popped his feat on his turn and dumped everything into my Stormwall doing minimal damage to it (around half of its left grid). I then ambushed bray onto his right side and shot the Stormwall forward killing his battle engine and crippling his first ravagore. I also ran my forge guard and my other units as far forward as they could go. Triggered espionage from bray and killed his crippled ravagore and his raptors and both death stalkers. Then Haley popped her feat and stalled his army out. His turn due to Haley's feat I controlled his turns order of activations and he did minimal damage to my army and was unable to kill bray. The following turn was clean up due to another espionage trigger and Stormwall killing more beasts including his naga and other ravagore. I then won on scenario the following turn because he did not have enough to contest my objective after the Stormwall crippled his force.

Overall he probably could have used the naga's animus more effectively to break the Stormwall with his feat and stopped it from rampaging through his army. The Stormwall proved to be too much for his army to gun down on the way in. Feel free to email warmachine related questions to me at jahickok@gmail.com or send me a tweet @HickJa. Comments and feedback are as always appreciated!