Journeyman League Preseason: pSorscha vs pStriker

The Journeyman League for our club starts next week but Ben and I wanted to try out some battlebox games in the mean time.  It was pSorscha, Juggernaut, and a Destroyer, vs pStriker, Iron Clad, Lancer, and a Charger. 

First game I went first and ran my 'Jacks up with Sorscha under cover of Wind Rush and Fog of War getting her Defense up to 20.  As our forces closed, I charged the Destroyer into his Lancer and Wind Rushed Sorscha to the outside on my right.  My thinking was that the Destroyer would tie up the 'Jacks and maybe Sorscha would get an angle to assassinate.  After Ben's next turn, I feated and later realized that Sorscha can't charge through frozen models (duh).  I ended up losing the Destroyer in melee and what followed was Ben's tactic of constantly disrupting the Juggernaut.  It's a very good tactic.  Not sure if he also knocked down the Jugg.  Didn't quite see a way to come back so I charged Sorscha into Striker a few turns later but the odds were against her and she couldn't bring him down.  Ben ended up knocking her down with Earthquake and then the Lancer and Iron Clad walked over to finish her off.

Mistake was not understanding Stationary lol.  On feat turn, I could have charged my 'Jacks into his and because of stationary they would have basically auto hit (or does it auto hit?  Good thing we're playing battlebox games.  I should know that).  Also messed up when I shot a bombard at the Lancer but could have just used the axe instead and boosted the damage roll. 

For the second game my goal was not to lose the Destroyer so easily and just try to stay back and soften up the  Cygnar 'Jacks a little.  My formation was a triangle with Sorscha in the back and all of my models were about 4 inches from each other-- so a little spread out.  What followed was more knockdown and disruption mainly focused on the Destroyer.  Ben walked up the Lancer and arced Earthquake through him and then walked Striker with snipe to disrupt.  Ugly stuff.  Sorscha died when I exposed her to a shot from the Charger and it was aiming against Sorscha's DEF 18 (no FOW).  So it hit and then rolled triple 6 haha.  Another shot and that was it.

Some pretty bad games on my part and GG to Ben although the last game didn't really feel like it was a good one because it was over so fast :P  but of course, always fun to play him and talk strategy afterwards. 

But wow, feel really lost about what to do against the Cygnar Battlebox.  I like the challenge though and it's time for me to hit the drawing board and think about this particular matchup. 

So let's start with things to remember:

• If I'm going to expose Sorscha to a shot, make sure it's under Wind Rush and Fog of War for DEF 20.
• If I Wind Rush, do it away from the Charger to force it to move and give up it's aiming bonus
• Stationary does not let me charge over bases ><;
• Ben creates a wall of 'Jacks in front of Striker so how about this on feat turn: Destroyer gets 1 focus to boost damage on a POW 14 shot.  Jugg gets Boundless Charge probably.  That's 3 focus.  And then an extra one for another P+S 19 attack.  And Sorscha can Wind Rush the heck out of there.  Just gottta make sure that she catches all the targets in her control area.  hmmm~ Destoryer will probably be distrupted so Jugg doesn't get that extra focus.
• Also against the wall of 'Jacks, might consider just knocking them all down with Tempest.  Sorscha can still Wind Rush away and the Destroyer will get a POW 14 bombard if that should hit.  
• Also, Sorscha HAS A GUN!  Couple turns she was in range to shoot it but I just forgot about it.  POW 12 could do a little damage to those light jacks.   

more thoughts later :P

0-10 With Old Witch: Thoughts On My Games

Old Witch vs Siege
This is one of the very first games that I played with her going against my good buddy Ben who plays Cygnar.  Scenario was Overrun and he brought Siege along with Trencher Commandos.  Can't remember much but I know I feated on turn 1 and didn't catch any of Ben's army in it.  At that time I didn't fully understand the feat and all I wanted to do was prevent models from moving into it.  So in that game the feat didn't do anything.

• Feated too early.  Didn't know about "can't run, charge, or make special actions."
• Beast-09 and Devastator were operational for a long time but Old Witch ran away out of control and she couldn't allocate focus for the closing turns of the game. 
• thought Scrapjack could Avatar of Slaughter my own models but it doesn't work like that :P
• Didn't know that you can bulldoze and not take free strikes; had a fully loaded Devastator ready to charge Siege.

Old Witch vs Mortenebra
Chris brought one of his favorite lists for this one, Morty tier 4.  His list consisted of the usual suspects; two Warwitch Sirens, DJ, Seether, Slayer, Harrower, and Stich Thralls (they blow up but not Biles).  I knew that OW had trouble against armor so I knew this was going to be very, very, challenging.  I brought a unit of Assault Kommandos which didn't help. Took a Spriggan and also had Winterguard with maybe 2 rockets with solos mixed in.

Overrun was too much to handle and Chris did a brilliant move to throw my Spriggan into Scrapjack knocking both of them down.  In the process he took out eEiryss.  On a critical turn I blocked my Spriggan from a charge into DJ.  Chris pressured with all his 'Jacks and I wasn't able to neutralize all the threats even with the Winterguard doing CRAs to take out a slayer.  Assault Kommandos just sat on the objective (Gaining Ground probably) and didn't contribute to the game.  I ran Scrapjack late in the game and teleported Witch away but with Overrun she was caught.

• Feat doesn't really do much against 'Jacks
• Blocked in my Spriggan so he couldn't charge DJ
• Instead of sitting my AKs in my zone I should have pressured Morty.  The AKs would have been immune to the corrosive damage from Sirens and the pressure might have pulled one of his 'Jacks away from the main battle where I didn't have enough anti armor.  eEiryss didn't do much.  Should have used her to disrupt the enemy 'Jacks.  
• Did learn how to do CRAs with Winterguard for first time though and saw that they can take out Cryx heavies in the process. 

Old Witch vs Harbringer
Denial feat vs Denial Feat.  Wrote a batrep for this game that you can read here.  We played with a timer and scenario.  Some of the things that I remember from this game:

• Still wasn't sure how to use eEiryss effectively.  I pulled her from the flank and got her close to my 'Jacks which she disrupted for a COUPLE of turns.  Definitely not good.  That's what I'm supposed to do to his 'Jacks.
• Allowed my 'Jacks to get charged especially Beast-09.  Need to be aware of threat ranges.
• Scrapjack didn't do anything this game.  Didn't have a plan for him and didn't know how to get him into melee so he could use Avatar of Slaughter.
• Running low on time I had all of my assassins engaged with Patrick's Daughters and Aiyanna & Holt but I ran out of time and couldn't do my attacks.  Worse yet, when I moved the Underboss I left half the unit out of formation.  Learned that I can't be bogged down and need to keep Assassins moving so they can threaten the back line support units.
• Didn't do Winterguard activation properly forgeting to use Joe first to call boosted attacks.  Had WG in position with Errants but they couldn't hit them.   

Old Witch vs eKrueger
First game against Krage at our gaming club and he brought Circle with eKrueger.  He posted a slideshow batrep with good analysis on Youtube that you can see here.  This game was rather quick.  Had Spriggan, Assassins, A&H and Widowmakers.  He had Megalith, Warpwolf, Worldwarden (?), Wolf Riders, Shifting Stones, Stone Keeper, and a Wilder. 

• Didn't catch too much in the feat, again, thinknig that the feat was used as a wall instead of something to "catch" the opposition in.  
• Wasn't familiar with circle at all and when the Warpwolf teleported via stones to my flank, he sprayed and killed some Assassins (with blessed maybe) and also the Great Bears.  Spriggan was TK'd and turned around.  
• I probably conceded too early when my Assassins all died.  I still had Spriggan and Scrappy but it seemed like my army lost some steam.  Should have played it through to get more practice with my army and learn more about Circle.  
• Once again Scrappy unable to get into melee with anything.
• I know that during this time I think about using Gallows a lot to pull things closer to my 'Jacks.  

Old Witch vs Reznik
Played against Trong from Brookhurst Hobbies going against Reznik.  Took a Devastator this time and his armor was too tough to crack.  Stayed alive the entire game although when Witch got into trouble she retreated out of control range of the Devastator and couldn't allocate focus as the Devastator was getting danerously close to Reznik.  No Scenario.   

• Against certain lists, the Devastator is nigh unpenetrable.  Need to keep OW in control range of him to allocate focus and threaten a charge with Rain of Death.  Can't remember what other units I had but probably Assassins.

Old Witch vs Rayvn 9/6/11
Setting up early on a club game night I took OW and battle Rayvn in the scenario that has two vertical zones to control.  He had a very shooty list with only one 'Jack so I was curious to see how my list would fare.  I brought a Devastator again as my lone 'Jack with Great Bears, Widowmaker Marksman, Assassins, and WG.

• Was able to score first by feating and then clearing out the zone with WG sprays.  Things looked rather good at that point but soon the tide would be shifting.
• Something killed all my Great Bears with a Starfire shot that gave Fire Continuous Effect.  Bears were in B2B triangle formation.  If one gets hit by an AOE, they all get hit.  
• Devastator attacked and killed the lone Ret heavy.  Can't remember how.  Scrapjack was never able to get into melee.  
• Assassins ran up at the Ret gunlines and eventually was taken out.  
• Marksmen held down the left flank against eEiryss and a Mage Hunter Assassin. 
• May have taken off Iron Flesh from WG at one point which made them slightly vulnerable.
• Perhaps after my early advantage I got to anxious and overextended? 

Old Witch vs eButcher 9/6/11
In my first game against Adam he brings out eButcher to do a little clinic on how he works.  We played scenario but can't remember which one.  He had eButcher, Fenris, 2 units of Doom Reavers, Escort, Ragman, Corbeau, Dog, Beserker, and a Juggernaut.  I had Assasssins, Winterguard, and can't remember what 'Jacks I had, probably the usual solos included.

• Nearly secured a point first but Gallows on a Berserker failed to pull him out.
• Learned WG sprays destroys Doom Reavers.  
• Learned that on a fully loaded eButcher, need to have Iron Flesh on jamming Kayazy or eButcher will tear through them.  DEF 16 isn't enough.  
• Also learned how is feat works when Fenris got to make a full advance after he ran the turn before.  Old Witch died soon after that.
• Nothing notable from Scrapjack.

Old Witch vs Rorsh and Brine (the two headed pigs) 9/13/11
Might have been 3 heavies in John's list.  Never played Farrow before.

• Got first point in Scenario (veritcal zones) by feating and clearing out the zone.  Took the WG and and assassin to do it.  So I had an early advantage and a pretty good position.  
• Critical turn I decide not to charge one of his heavies thereby forcing him to choose between retaliating against Scrappy or the Spriggan.  
• Scrapjack not getting to use Avatar yet again.
• Towards the end of the game I was getting lazy and kept off Iron Flesh from WG.  They were picked off easily and John took the zone for his 2nd point.  

Old Witch vs pMadrak 9/20/11
Wrote a batrep you can read here.  Old Witch vs a Tough army with infantry that can hit ARM 20?  Going to be difficult.    

• Starting to understand OW's feat.  You need to actually catch as much of the opposing army in it as you can.  Main reason is it will prevent models from running, charging, and making special actions like tramples and slams.  If infantry move they are dead but the thing to remember is that the enemy can't easily retaliate against you next turn.  So that means you can aggressively move up, often run up to get your forces into position to attack/charge next turn.  They will be safe as nothing caught in the feat can charge you so all heavies can do is walk up and attack.  If they do that, they won't have the charge bonus for damage.  So get your army in position to strike and watch out for ranged attacks.  
• Starting to understand Scrappy.  One of his main roles is to attack infantry with Avatar of Slaughter.  What this means is that you have to get him into position to charge something next turn.  You can usually do this safely if you jam the enemy with units like Assassins or use a screen.  In this game I was finally able to get off some Avatar runs but it wasn't as successful as I would have liked because of the high ARM and Tough of the Trolls. Still, good practice.
• Kept Bears too far in the back.  Wasn't aware of Troll threat range.  Bears should get first charge on stuff because of SPD 6 compared to Troll SPD 5.  
• Behemoth wasted bombards on Madrak who had a bouncer near him and because of an ability he has to negate damage from an attack once per game.  This put Behemoth in a position to be charged by some Trolls next turn that pretty much wrecked him.  Got to make sure my 'Jacks don't get charged.  
• Devastator Rain of Death'd a few times.  Not sure if it was worth it.  
• Got more practice using Aiyanna's Kiss to help damage Heavies.  
• Need to be more aggressive with Gorman.  Again, it's threat ranges.  I can keep OW safe and not rely on Gorman's cloud for Stealth if I know the enemy's threat ranges.

Old Witch vs Vindictus 9/21/11
Played on Vassal, Patrick and I had another epic match.  Scenario was Gaining Ground.  I had Behemoth, Dev, Assasins, WG+3 Rockets, Gorman, Wyshnalyrr, and Great Bears.  He had Reckoner, 2 units of Knights Exemplar.  2 units of Zealots.  2 Knights Exemplar Senescals, Cinerators, choir, book, Gorman, and eEiryss. 

• I used the feat to catch a lot of the Menoth army.  Vindictus' feat along with the Zealots mini feat ensured that I wouldn't be doing any kind of damage for a turn.  
• Kayazy were countered by A LOT of zealot bombs even being engaged in melee didn't matter because the zealots threw bombs 1-2 inches away.  Was nasty.   
• WG did really well with no way for Patrick to remove Iron Flesh.  They survived with a majority of the unit until the end of the game.  Mostly did blunderbuss shots and CRAs with them.
• Behemoth did well with bombards but might have been good to keep him behind a forest for protection.  Either that or use Murder of Crows to protect him.  Allowed him to be charged by one of the Knights Exemplar Senescals (how do you spell that?)  It did something like 30 damage.  To kill them, have to kill units around them first then him or else he will heal.  
• The last Knights Exemplar is tough to crack at ARM 20.  Need CRAs to do it.  
• Thought more about positioning Scrappy and felt I had the right idea but he was bombed by Eiryss and late in the game he was charged by one of the last Knights Exemplar.  It had a sliver of LOS around Murder of Crows.  But at least I had the right idea and tried to protect him behind MOC.  Maybe I needed to get him into melee sooner as he didn't really have an impact on the game early on.  
• Patrick demonstrates how to use eEiryss effectively.  She disrupted Behemoth with a shot early and then late game she ran up and with positioning disrupted both Behemoth and Scrappy.  
• Charged Bears to try and clear a zone against low point models.  One took out a Cinerator and nearly got another.  Lost all bears on counter attack from Patrick next turn.  Charging them wasn't worth it.  He said he didn't know how he wasn't going to get them, and then I ran them up.  
• Devastator moved up and Rain of Death'd taking out a lot of stuff.  I lost him next turn.  Not sure if it's best to do that or just have Devastator be there to be a distraction, hold an objective, or threaten a charge on the caster.  If I kept him closed, Patrick would always have to position his models perfectly or else the Dev would get Weald Secrets for Pathfinder and charge with bulldoze, Rain of Death, and then buy more attacks.  That threat is perhaps more valuable then doing Rain of Death early and then losing the Dev next turn.  Next game I'll try keeping him closed, hold objectives and threaten caster charges.
• Despite the loss in this game I was really happy with my play as I'm starting to get the hang of Scrapjack and his positioning and using Murder of Crows for defense and to hinder the opposing army's movement.  Gotta work on protecting my 'Jacks though and making sure I don't sacrifice valuable units like the Great Bears for nothing.   

Warmachine Batrep: Old Witch vs pMadrak

Another loss with the Old Witch :(  I have somewhere close to ten games with her and haven't won a game yet.  She is pretty tough to learn and use effectively but I will continue to press on.  She is really fun to play though as she has a lot of tricky things she can do and is very different than the usual Khador caster. 

Played a 50pt game against Doug tonight and had a really fun game despite the loss.  I had:

Old Witch
Scrapjack
Behemoth
Devastator
Full Winterguard +UA+3 Rocketeers
Joe
Full Kayazy Assassins + UA
Gorman
Aiyanna & Holt

I can't remember the unit names that he had but here's their description

pMadrak
Mauler
Axe heavy
guy carrying big stone with three other guys
Ogrun Bokur type Troll
cheap tarpit unit with CMA and the pillar guy
heavy infantry unit with 8 boxes
cannon with 2 grunts
solo with scrolls
and a few more that I can't remember :P 

There were a lot of trolls.  Just going to give a brief summary of the game and what I learned/did wrong.

Doug advanced his army up on his first turn and on my turn I might have feated.  Can't remember but when I did feat I caught the Mauler and most of his front line units on the right.  His army was stopped dead cold as the Mauler couldn't charge and the rest didn't want to take POW 14s.  During the feat my Assassins ran up but I didn't have any other units move up to get ready to charge on the next turn.  This was a little mistake.  Sure I stopped his army from hitting mine but I wasn't in a good position to hit him back.  Only the Assassins were in charge range of some of his units.  If I had to do it again I would have ran the WG up and position them so they could do CRAs or sprays next turn.  I'd run the Assassins up more so most of them could get the charge up and I would trample the Behemoth and run both the Dev and Scrappy to get them into position along with the Bears who for most of the game were in the back.

I've just learned recently (from reading the card lol) that the Old Witch's feat not only gives POW 14s if you advance and end your activation in her control area but if you are caught in it, you can't run, charge, or make special actions.  So basically since your opponent can't charge you, if they don't have range, you can just run up and get into threat range to charge them on your next turn-- first striking.  But in this game only the Assassins were in position.  So I'll try to remember that next time.

After feat turn I ran the assassins into melee with some cheap tarpitting trolls to engage them and hopefully Killstroke next turn.  They were at DEF 19 in melee with Iron Flesh but those trolls got a lot of +2 MAT buffs and CMAs gave them MAT 11 or was it 13?  It was crazy and after charging them in, all my assassins were wiped out except the underboss.

Madrak moved up and the heavy infantry Trolls ran up and created a wall in front of him.  There was a opening to Madrak though and Behemoth shot some Bombards.  The first one was negated by the Bouncer (like the Ogrun Bokur) and the second shot was negated by one of Madrak's abilities which allows him to not take damage once per game.  So sad for the Behemoth.  Underboss charged Madrak for no damage.

After this his heavy infantry Trolls charged Behemoth and tied hm up for the remainder of the game with their high armor and tough rolls.  Next to the Behemoth, the Devastator was taking charges from the cheap tarpitting Trolls.

Devastator would get to use Rain of Death twice before eventually falling to some heavy hitting from that unit and that guy with the pillar. 

Srapjack got to charge and clean up some of the Trolls with Avatar of Slaughter but it was very difficult to do with the Trolls making Tough rolls. 

Winterguard tried to CMA those heavy infantry Trolls and after that did a ton of boosted sprays into the Troll carrying the stone and his unit.  Eventually they were able to take the stone out. 

So Doug continued to advance Madrak and his posse of heavy beasts, one getting a thresher on 3 of my WG. 

Eventually my front line would fall so I tried to do an assassination.  Aiyanna goes first and Harms Madrak.  Cool.  A Bear takes two free strikes to try and reach the Troll blocking a vital charge lane to Madrak.  He Toughs the first free strike but fails the second one and dies.  Not cool.  Joe activates with boosted attacks and gets that troll down to one life.  Then it takes almost the entire WG to blunderbuss that troll leaving one to do a blunderbuss on Madrak.  The Bouncer may have taken the hit for that one. 

So Scrapjack on 4 focus charges Madrak and does a ton of damage on his first attack but Madrak spends his last focus to transfer damage.  Scrapjack then has a tough time damaging so that leaves Witch left.  She teleports into melee with Madrak and does some damage.  With one focus left on her last attack she needed 10s to hit and 10s to kill.  She misses her bought attack and I concede :P 

It was a really fun game and a long grueling one too.  Some things to remember for next time:

• On Feat Turn, try to catch as many of the opposing army as possible to prevent charges.  Then aggressively position my units to be able to first strike on my next turn.  Only thing that can really hurt me is range so watch out of that.
• Play Bears more aggressively up front especially against SPD 5 Trolls.  
• Don't allow Behemoth to get charged.
• Devastator: ARM 25 is awesome but I wish I could attack more with him.  Perhaps I just gotta bulldoze stuff away and if it was scenario just have him contest a zone or flag.  Maybe bring back Spriggan for some P+S 18 goodness (and Bulldoze too). 
• Assassins-- I feel like they don't do enough damage with Old Witch.  Sorta makes me wonder if I should bring in Doom Reavers or even Iron Fangs.  But then again, with Gang and Harm from Aiyanna, Assassins would be at P+S 14 which isn't too shabby.  
• eEiryss would have been helpful to take away some of the ARM buffs on the trolls.
• if it comes down to assassination, consider putting Avatar on Old Witch the turn before I need her to assassinate.  Then I can run Srappy up, teleport and have Witch in melee with Avatar upkept.  
• Maybe try advancing my 'Jacks with Murder of Crows in front of them to prevent LOS and charges to them.