March 18, 2011 Games

Another Warmachine Hordes night on March 18, 2011. I had 3 games using Cryx. Lost 2 games and won 1. Changed my list up a bit by using 2 Seethers and 1 Defiler instead of only 1 Seether, 2 Defilers and 1 Stalker.

First game I went up against Taks' Kara Sloan. I got my head handed to me and learned that I should be more careful by blocking LoS to a ranged attack heavy army. kara basically pasted Venethrax with her weapon master rifle shots. Good lesson learned.

Second game I took on Kei's eCaine. He was winning this one but he made a mistake in a sequence of moves and so decided to concede the game. Had the sequence been correct, a Seether blocking LoS to Venny would have been removed from play and probably result in Venny being assassinated.

Last game I went up against Louie in a 15 point match. I tried a melee heavy 4 model army against a balanced Cygnar force and Stryker basically just earthquaked my Seethers and Venny and that ended the game. I should have decided to go for broke and cast Blood Rain on the Black 13th as well.

The tutelage of Venethrax continues.

Rango

(photo taken from www.rangotrailer.net)

Watched Rango last Sunday with the wife and kids. It's definitely a most Western genre film. The story is about a chameleon who dubs himself Rango just so he can create a legend for himself to avoid getting smacked down.

Rango is basically a liar who makes up stories and yet he can be creative enough to pass for a cowboy/sheriff. Like in all western films, the bad guy usually is one of the highest ranking individuals in this case the town mayor. He's basically hoarding the currency, in this case water, so people will be forced to sell the land to him dirt cheap (note the "land" is basically in Nevada very near Las Vegas well, you have to really dig deep into the suspension of disbelief to see how he can control the land with all the hummies about)

In any case, Rango does unravel the plan and with only one bullet saves the day at the end.

The movie is entertaining enough but only from a western genre point of view. It's definitely not much of a comedy. Not as fun as Incredibles but it will entertain you for the hour and a half that it pans out. The graphics are ok but not something you haven't seen before. I'd give it 3.5 stars.

Gaming at Chico's 03/14/2011 Part 2

Here's a summary of my second game at Chico's yesterday. I went up against SJ who brought an Epic Madrak list with 2 units of Troll Champs, Skaldi and a solo backed up by an Axer and DTM. This is my 6th game with the same Cryx list.

I won first turn and ran my models up the table with Venethrax casting Lamentation. SJ runs his trolls forward as well.

Second turn, I put my first squad of Mechthralls in B2B with his Trolls basically tarpitting it and positioning my second and third wave at the ready. My Defilers also spray and hit some trolls with Corrosion and Venny also casts Blood Rain for more Corrosion. Skarlock casts Soul Harvester on the first wave of mcThralls.On SJ's turn, he cleared away a couple of McThralls and pops eMadraks feat, killing some more and eliminates the squad with Soul Harvester.

Next turn, Venethrax pops his own feat and manages to get 2 soul tokens. I manage to kill only a few trolls due to bad rolls and SJ making his Tough checks. SJ then on his turn kills majority of the McThralls on the table. SJ also manages to damage Venny with the Impaler slamming the Seether onto Venethrax.

Fourth turn I stand the Seether and Venny up and I still upkeep Lamentation and just move him to my right flank and kills Skaldi. McThralls kill some Trolls as well as Seethers giving me 3 soul tokens to use on my next turn. SJ then positions his Champs will killing a lot more McThralls and kills off the Seether and brings down Venny to 1 hit due to the Impaler hitting him.

Last turn, I just decide to go for broke and charged and killed the Impaler, Troll Champ solo but failed to kill 2 Troll Champs. I tried to block the way to Seether by running the Skarlock but there was still an opening enough for SJ to charge in with a +3 to Str buffed Madrak and finish off Venny.

On hindsight, I realized I should keep a couple of McThralls near my Necrosurgeon so I could keep bringing a few more back. I also think I forgot to get some more corpse tokens when the trolls died. Anyway, good lessons to be learned for future reference.

Gaming at Chico's 03/14/2011 Part 1

Today I had a game again at Chico's. Played 2 games, one versus Chico and the other vs SJ. Here's a short summary on my game with Chico.

We played the No Man's Land Scenario where one had to contest a 6"x24" area on the center of the table. Chico won the roll to see who goes first. He moved his models up and the Behemoth shot at my Defiler. The first shot missed but the second deviated beautifully onto my Defiler and Stalker. The Defiler wasn't damaged much but the Stalker had its movement box crippled with the boosted bombard damage. My turn I just ran all my models up while Venny casts Lamentation.

On Chico's second turn, he moves his army up a bit more and the Behemoth shoots again. This time hurts Venny with boosted damage from a deviated shot. This time however, my McThralls are in range so I charged Drago and a Kodiak and my McThralls took an arm offa each.

Chico's third turn Karchev moves up and pops feat and kills some McThralls and the Behemoth manages to kill some McThralls via bombards and hurts a Defiler. Beast tries to go for an assassination run by Trampling towards Venny. Problem was he only had one focus on him and while the attack hit, Venny weathered the damage. Drago and the Kodiak killed some more mcThralls.

In my turn, I shot and Death Chilled Karchev. a McThrall squad charged and did some damage to Karchev. My Seether then went up to Beast and hit is and threw it to Karchev and managing to hit knocking them both down. Seether damaged Beast enough to destroy it via boosted 2 hand throw damage. Venethrax also went for a Hellfire shot for a few more damage.

Chico's fourth turn and I was afraid he would go for the bombards kill on a very wounded Venethrax. I had done a very stupid thing the previous turn by moving my Defiler out from the Behemoth's melee range resulting in a free strike killing it. I should have just kept the jack in and sent the Stalker to attack the Behemoth as well. He did some other things tho killing more mcThralls so I was spared. Karchev could not do much as he was Death Chilled and Knocked Down so he allocated focus to all his jacks. The Behemoth tried to kill the Skarlock but missed and did some damage to the Seether with its bombards.

My turn and I went with the Seether again. Attacked Karchev, did some damage and threw it towards Drago. I then charged in with Venethrax for the assassination.

Glad to see Chico is playing again and while he was rusty, he was starting to get the hang of the game again. Really hard to take down the jack heavy list and I should have been a goner with the Behemoth's bombards.

More lessons learned.

Sunday Gaming at Fortress 03/13/2011

Last March 13, 2011, I had a game at Fortress. i went up against a new player, John B (I wasn't able to catch the surname). He plays Retribution and I played my usual Venethrax list. John sent out his army for the first turn and I went and ran my McThralls and the rest of my army up. Second turn, my Pistol Wraiths tried plinking and killing some Sentinels and I moved up my army again.

Third turn, he shoots up a godawful lot of McThralls. However, he advances Ravyn and exposes her. My turn, I went with my Pistol Wraiths first killing some more Sentinels and using the second shot to shoot at Ravyn with boosted rolls. I then ran one of my Defilers forward and then Venny activated and arced Hellfire for the kill.

I was at an advantage since I went up against a newbie playing hsi first 35 point game. I did try to take it easy with him but the opportunity just presented itself and so i took it. Am sure with EJ, my army woulda been cleared by the third turn. :)

Good to see new players getting into the game. :)

Gaming at Chico's 03/12/2011 Part 2 - Remember to Dismember!!!

Here's a summary of my game vs SJ last Saturday. I only had one game and went up against SJ's Grim Angus beast heavy Army. Our scenario was Sacrifice. Hard to explain here but it's a scenario created by Privateer Press. Suffice to say we needed to control points. I had won the dice roll and decided to go first.

I sent 2 squads of my Mechthralls to the right while Venethrax and his battlegroup and a squad of McThralls went left.

SJ sent his army against Venethrax' battlegroup.

Everything was mainly movement until turn 3 when both armies finally ground against each other.

I don't recall all the details but the more glaring one was Venethrax charging 3 beasts. I was able to kill 2 after which SJ assassinates Venny with his remaining 2 beasts. Good game. Then afterwards SJ reminded me that I should have been rolling an additional dice for Venny's Dismember ability. Had I remembered to do so, I should have been able to kill the 3 beasts and would most likely have survived the last beast. Well, after that snafu, for sure I won't be forgetting anymore. LoL!

I could only play one game that day as I had to go somewhere at 5 pm. All in all, a fun gaming day.

Gaming at Chico's 03/12/2011 Part 1

We had a nice time playing at the Quema brother's place of abode which I will hereby unoffically name Chico's. Here are some pictures:

Above shows Chico, Kim and Kei. We had just arrived and were setting things up. Chico also showed us the result of being inspired to paint again. To wit: Butcher's battlegroup below:

Kim also brought some beautiful terrain pieces over:

The terrain piece above was a gift to Kim from Sir Lito Tan of Bunker.

Above is SJ's Mulg. Interesting way to paint and the eye is quite a sight. Heheh.