Well, the dust has settled on a great weekend's gaming gifted to us by the Legion of Snake Eyes guys. Their Warmachine campaign weekend, "Where Sleeping Gods Lie" was a big hit with all concerned. It was great to see lots of new faces on the Warmachine circuit, and equally good to get away from playing directly competitive games for a while. Here's my account of the weekend.
We knew ahead of time that the players would be divided into four teams: the Alliance of Light (Cygnar, Circle and Retribution), the Wolves of the West (Khador and Cryx), Mercenaries, and Destroyers (everyone else). As it turned out, the faction split of those taking part meant that the Skorne were lumped in with the Mercenaries, meaning that myself and Andres (of Guts and Gears fame) were working for coin, rather than for the good of the empire, for the weekend.
After a quick briefing, we Mercenaries were instructed to go and seek employment for the first round. Having been offered a few chocolate coins (edible currency is a bad idea!) to work for the Alliance, I was then made a much larger offer by the Wolves so, in true Mercenary fashion, I switched sides. Of course, I keep the signing fee offered to me by the Alliance. That's just good business. Apologies to Nik for backstabbing him within the first few minutes of the event, but that's what you get for trusting a mercenary!
Game one saw Morghoul exploring some ruins and running into Lylyth, controlled by one of the architects of the awesome harbour board (more about this later). The list I was up against looked something like this:
pLylyth
- Nephilim Soldier
- Nephilim Soldier
- Nephilim Bolt Thrower
- Shredder
Shepherd
This turned out to be a really fun game. Although Smithy left a gap in his defences that could have let a Savage get to Lylyth (who had no fury for transfers) in turn two, I decided to make a game of it and take out a few of her beasts first. This nearly cost me dearly! Thankfully, not enough of Lylyth's arrows found their mark, and Morghoul was able to clear the field for minimal loss. As the dust settled, Morghoul chanced upon a female Khadoran archaeologist seeking clues as to the location of the lost city of Edethor. Sensing an opportunity, he took her to Makeda and put her to the question.
The archaeologist urged Makeda to stay in the employ of the Wolves, but offered sage advice regarding a way to increase her fee. The Wolves were more than happy to beat the Alliance's very generous offer, making for a good deal for my mercenary Skorne. It's a shame that the Alliance never actually made the offer. Still, let's not tell the Wolves, eh?
I'm not quite sure what happened between game one and two, but somehow Morghoul managed to sneak off, get changed, and return in the employ of the Alliance, taking up arms against his Archdomina. This time, I was up against none other than Andres from the Guts 'n' Gears podcast, using this list:
Lord Assassin Morghoul
- Molik Karn
- Titan Gladiator
Min Beast Handlers
Bloodrunners
Bloodrunner Master Tormentor
Totem Hunter
This one looked like it could be nasty. Given that I love running Dervishes in my Protectorate army, I know all about what Molik can do if you give him a way in, so I was going to have to play cautiously. After some initial jockeying for position, I managed to whittle down Andres' Bloodrunners with some Venator needles and some help from the Savage. I then made sure to set up a deep defense and use Makeda's feat to keep my army intact for the coming turn. There was a way for Andres to use Molik to take out my Arcuarii, and frankly I was hoping that he would, because it would leave him open to a solid counter-attack from my Gladiator. As it turned out, he went for it, but missed a crucial attack roll and left Molik high and dry, and surrounded by angry Caraphracts. The rest of Andres' army inflicted minor damage on my infantry. Taking advantage of Makeda's feat to get back to full strength, my Arcuarii and Gladiator made quick work of Molik. Meanwhile, the Venators (under the effects of Carnage) managed to clean up the remaining Bloodrunners in melee! Who needs guns when you're MAT7? At this point, Andres took the brave move of running Morghoul up into Makeda's face in a do-or-die attempt to swing the game. It turned out to be a 'die' attempt. Makeda managed to put down the rebellious assassin with her last point of fury.
I really enjoyed this game, and Andres was a treat to play against. While we were playing, we hatched a plan to combine forces in the doubles game that was to come the following day. Something about Molik Karn Ghostwalking 13" through any terrain had something to do with that...
At this point, there was only one game left for day one, but it was a big one. Originally, I'd been part of a big mercenary contract to try to take back the Wolf stronghold of Ironpeak from the Alliance. However, my fellow Protectorate player Neal had other ideas, and recruited me to fight for the Destroyers for free! Unfortunately, the narrators didn't seem to like this, and pitched the two of us against an unholy alliance of Cryx (Venethrax), Khador (Irusk) and Skorne (Morghoul, and Andres, again!). Neal and I were outnumbered, but between the High Reclaimer and Makeda we had a reasonable chance in the attrition game, if we could prevent the foe from concentrating their forces on us. In the end, we let the enemy deploy first, then refused a flank and deploying across a river from the bulk of the enemy force. We had an edge on ranged ability, so we hoped to make the enemy come to us across the river, and break them against a wall of Cataphracts and Bastions.
The game ground on for a while, without much in the way of action while the bulk of the opposing armies trudged towards us (sorry, Andres). A highlight came when my Gladiator threw a badly-damaged Deathjack into Molik Karn, who had just edged outside of Morghoul's control area. Next turn, Molik frenzied, stood up, and trashed Deathjack. We all had a good laugh about that, except maybe Kristian... Not long after that, the joke was on me as a failed assassination run on Morghoul led to Makeda's swift demise. Following their preassigned orders to the letter,the surviving Venators turned and executed the Khadoran archaeologist, to prevent her joining the opposing side. This seemed to irritate Richard, the chief organiser ("Did you just kill my plot device?"). It later transpired that the archaeologist's body was recovered by Cryxian agents, who managed to interrogate her spirit and learn the relevant information from her anyway. I guess you can't fight fate (or a determined GM).
Although our strategy for that game was the right one, I ended up wishing that we'd just set up facing the centre of the opposing force for a big scrap in the middle. As it was, we ended up running out of time just when things were about the get interesting. Also, I need more practice with larger, multiplayer games of Warmachine. When I play, I like to be in control of everything that's going on. Even if I'm getting trashed, I like to be able to see things coming. In such a huge game, with multiple warcasters, things become very hard to keep track of!
At the end of day one, another epic game had resulted in the Khadorans firing an enormous cannon shell into the mercenary settlement of Bartertown, which proceeded to burn for the rest of the campaign. Meanwhile, the Alliance and Wolves alike had learned of the location of Edethor, and were beginning to plan their trek to the lost city. For the mercenaries, and all of the players, it was time to retire to the local tavern and spend some well-earned cash on meat and mead. Unfortunately, the bar staff in Westbury didn't seem to want to accept chocolate coins. This was a shame, as I've amassed quite a few of them!
Stay turned for part two of "Where Sleeping Gods Lie"...
No comments:
Post a Comment