A Multitude of Skorne

Another update on the miniature wargames side of things. First, some newly painted models and then two quick battle reports.

 Void Spirit. I have chosen a yellow-orange as the "magic" glow for gems and other things, and felt like the "souls" of my Skorne models would also have a similar hue. Thus, this incorporeal solo got the mustard treatment. I like the way it turned out generally, and it does make it stand out on the battlefield. 

 The reason I added the Void Spirit to the force, was to pair up with my new Warlock: Void Seer Mordikaar. He buffs them innately, and his abilities work nicely with an additional high-defense solo like the Void Spirit. I like the little lanterns he carries--I think they turned out really nicely and capture the "glow" look well, at least in this photo. 

 I also added a light warbeast, a Cyclops Brute. He's a defensive light warbeast that can take damage like a heavy due to his shield, and has a couple of protective tricks. 

The first game of the evening was a 50 point battle versus Kaelyssa, the Night's Whisper--a Warcaster for Retribution. We played the scenario with three objective markers, and my opponent won the deploy first/go first roll.

 Dan's Retribution force, led by Kaelyssa. It's a nasty group, and tier four from her list. The tier benefits are brutal on this one: opponents cannot run or charge on the first turn, and there are loads of free Arcanists that go far beyond their normal numbers thanks to all the heavy 'jacks. 

 My force was a lot less compact of a brick. A Bronzeback and a Gladiator formed the main heavies, with a Cyclops Brute and a Basilisk Krea as supporting warbeasts. A unit of Praetorian Swordsman was present as well--they were unpainted, but my new Warlock Void Seer Mordikaar needs some infantry to do his full shtick. An Agonizer, a Void Spirit, some Paingiver Beast Handlers rounded out the additional models, and a Razorworm and a Aradus Sentinel scouted ahead thanks to advance deploy. 

 The battle after turn one. The white circles are spots where the enemy heavy 'jacks laid down fields of fire--any of my models moving in or ending their turn in one would take a POW 12 hit--deadly to infanty. And the blue section was a patch of difficult terrain from an enemy spell. 

 End of turn two. The speed of the Swordsmen, even denied their charge thanks to Kaelyssa's feat, managed to get them into the midst of the enemy unit and decimate them. Mordikaar played some tricks by purposefully having one of the swordsmen slain in the covering fire, then bringing him back to life alive and on the objective for a point. The Skorne forces managed to push the elves off all three objectives to give me a critical lead. 

 Seeing that the objectives race was swinging in favor of the Skorne forces, my opponent needed to give an assassination attempt a shot. While Kaelyssa wreaked some damage on Mordikaar with her Runebolt Cannon and Phantom Hunter buff, the Cyclops Brute's protection and Mordikaar's ability to transfer damage was enough to survive the assault. Then it was the Aradus Sentinel's turn to return fire, it's deadly poisoned shot dropping her to a single hit point--and thus easy pickings for the unit of Praetorian Swordsmen nearby to finish off. 

Overall it was a very good game, with a tough opponent fielding a cagey list. The more I play Skorne, the more I realize why I like them--they are just more durable than anything I've ever fielded in Warmachine/Hordes. With my past armies being Cryx and Everblight, that's not too much of a surprise--both of those forces are glass cannons. Skorne brings a solid center that can counter-punch effectively, which I like. 

The second game of the evening was a three-player game with the same Retribution player (my buddy Dan), and Brandon, a Cygnar player. It was a small 21 points game with a single king-of-the-hill objective in the middle. 

 The elves of war array themselves again. 

 This time I took eMorghoul to the battle, supported by only one heavy beast, two very cheap light beasts, and the usual Paingiver Beast Handlers/Agonizer combo and a Void Spirit. 

 Commander Coleman Stryker and his warjacks formed one unit, while Journeyman Warcaster Lieutenant Allison Jakes commanded a heavy warjack on the group's right flank. 

 The Void Spirit moved up into the Lancer's face to offer it poor options--move away and get smacked with a free strike or sit around and be useless with no magic weapons. While Cygnar shooting had started to take its toll on my support elements, I wasn't out yet. 

 The Cyclops Brute normally hangs back and protects the warcaster, but this time he had to get up into the mix himself. He survived a punishing amount of fire from the Elf force, only to be slightly healed by the remaining two Paingiver Beasthandlers and drive the Elves off the central objective. 

 Lieutenant Jakes' Ironclad squared off against the Elves' Phoenix. Their mighty weapons exchanging ruinous blows. 

eMorghoul lived up to his Lord Assassin title as he used his feat and danced up to to finish off the Lieutenant, leaving her warjack disabled and non-functional on the battlefield.Things fared no better for Commander Stryker, as he got too close to a Titan Gladiator during the feat turn, and found the great beast right up in his face and smashing him apart. The Elves attempted to finish off Morghoul, but they we unable to put him down--falling just a single point short. Healing slightly, it was clear that his force would win the day over the opponent's mangled and out of place 'jacks. 

Another great game. It's good to get newer players into the tabletop side of things, so I was glad that Brandon brought his Cygnar to the game. I'm going to look up some different 3-player scenarios so we have some variety for those games if they become a regular thing.

Also I'm going to structure my wins/losses record a bit more simply. Right now it's manageable, but it's going to get out of control soon. So I'm swapping to just which foes I've won and lost against. Teams and three-player games will just be listed per casters, and I'll not list number of losses to each--just want a record to see which warnouns I'm successful against, and which cause me difficulty.


Battles (Privateer Press):
Overall Total 2015: 15 (Win/Loss: 12/3/0)

Skorne:
6 Wins (Fiona, Sorscha, eMorvahna, Ossrum, Borka, Kaelyssa, and Stryker)
2 Losses (Kromac, Kaelyssa, Kaya)

Protectorate of Menoth:

2 Wins (eMorvahna, Kaelyssa)
0 Losses

Legion of Everblight:
4 Wins (eCaine, Kaya, Sorscha)

1 Loss (Fiona)

Clashes and Battles

Another omnibus entry for painting and games for Warmachine and Hordes. Just like the last post I've gotten a fair frequent number of games in and wanted to share some of the photos and results. In future posts I'm going to track a bit closer the actual games--as I've been completing my two forces (Skorne and Menoth), I've been a little gun shy given the incomplete paint jobs of some of my models.

 So why not start with an unfinished model? This is the in-progress shot of the Siege Animantarax. He's mostly painted as of now (as you can see in some of the shots below), but he's not finished. So this is the best close-up of him I've got. I love the model, though he's pretty meh in the rules. 

 These are shots from a four-player teams game that pitted my Skorne and Dan's Circle of Orboros against Tony's Trollbloods and Rico's Rhulic Mercenaries. Each player brought a 40 point force. 

The worms of death lead the way in front of eHexeris' forces on my side of the line. 

eKaya led her (beautifully painted) druids on the left flank. 

The Dwarves and Ogruns on the opposing side advanced confidently in the shadow of their massive colossal. 

Look at that line of weapon master trolls. Just nasty, with Borka leading the way. I love the classic Trollblood scheme of the force. 

eKaya's gambit to teleport up into the Rhulic caster's face managed to keep the forces distracted long enough for my side to generate an advantage in the victory points total. My Skorne managed to get a Titan into the Trollblood Warlock's face and finish him, while the Dwarves finally took out eKaya. With each side down one caster, the victory points slanted our way and the alliance of Skorne and Druids triumphed. 

Here are some shots from a different and smaller multi-player game. Roger's excellent fox-themed Circle of Orboros face off against my Skorne. 

Meanwhile Dan's militaristic-themed Retribution clamored to the objective in the middle of the board. 

I fielded my first different Warlock for this game: eMorghoul instead of eHexeris. He was not as impressive as I had hoped. He definitely pulled off his "trick": being thrown by a Titan forward while under the effects of a Cyclops Brute's no-knockdown animus, sacking his action and instead moving up to the enemy caster and casting flashing blade a bunch of times. Yet the trick is generally a losing proposition. Had to play back to pull it off, requires a ton of different pieces to be effective, and countered the instant the enemy knows it is coming. Plus, eMorghoul is as fragile as a leaf in autumn. He was defeated by an elf mage and an elf mechanic on a subsequent turn when he got knocked down. The fox-themed Druids ended up winning the game because of caster deaths, though the Elves had the moral victory of scoring 5 objective points to the Druids' 1 and my Skorne's 0. 

Finally, I've also been working on my Menoth. I wanted to have a Warmachine faction as well as a Hordes one, and while I enjoy my Skorne a great deal thus far, I wanted the option. I went for the most standard caster, good old starter-box Kreoss, to begin with. He's effective with a mean feat, so I'm not minding at all. 

This Monolith Bearer from the Zealots unit shows the color scheme I'm working on for the force. They're creams and reds, with the red confined to the "totally not a cross" Menofixes and the dust masks on peasants. 

And this is the color for the Warjacks. I wanted to try a non-metallic color scheme, so all the "metal" areas on all the models you see are in shades of grey. As for the color plates, it's dominant brown with white and orange highlights. It seems odd at first, but I really kinda like it. 

Here's a completed Vassal Mechanic showing the mix of non-metallic metals and other color schemes on an infantry model. 

And of course... what Menoth army would be complete without Wracks? These miserable fellows are honestly pretty miserable on the battlefield too. Yet they're so cool looking and thematic for my zealotry-themed army that I wanted to paint up a set. And they're essential for my first alternate Warcaster choice. It won't take too long to guess who it is!

In all, lots of good games in a month's time and some good painting progress as well. I'm hoping to record more detailed battle narratives as I complete more painting--so stay tuned for those.


Battles (Privateer Press):
Overall Total 2015: 13 (Win/Loss: 10/3/0)

Skorne:
4 Wins (eHexeris v Fiona; eHexeris v Sorscha; eHexeris v eMorvahna; eHexeris and eKaya team v Ossrum and Borka)
2 Losses (eHexeris v Kromac; eMorghoul v Kaelyssa/Kaya)

Protectorate of Menoth:

2 Wins (Kreoss v eMorvahna, Kreoss v Kaelyssa)
0 Losses

Legion of Everblight:
4 Wins (Absylonia v eCaine; Vayl v Kaya; Vayl v Sorscha; Saeryn v Sorscha)
1 Loss (Absylonia v Fiona)