Barn Dance anyone? 30 points of Warmachine

After a long hiatus Al and I finally get to lock horns again via Warmachine.

30 points of heavy metal action.

Rebel vs Traitor the eternal struggle between Al and I

We set up a pretty standard battle field with a large space in the middle and some terrain to flank around.

Due to the fact we generally meet up mid week and fairly late in the evening we play 3 turns and if the Casters are still standing we count up points destroyed. The last thing we both need is to be sitting there still playing at 3 in the morning with work the next day.

I do not care how understanding your wife is she is NEVER going to listen to the excuse "I know it's 2am, but I have just foiled an assassination run on my caster and I'm about to pop my feat!"

I go with a no nonsense set up, Caster and Jacks hold the centre with Mages in close support, my new unit (the Devil Dogs) will marshal a Talon and storm around the right flank to cause chaos..... JOB DONE!

Take your partners

My Dogs run forward to engage the Halberdiers and Nomad to their front, while I put Ashlynn behind some cover and move the Mules forward (just out of charge range) to dominate the centre and get ready to send stuff for flying lessons next turn. 

My mages run forward through the woods for cover. Ashlynn casts quicken on them to boost their defense

"MULES SMASH"

The Devil Dogs Charge into the Renegade on my right (it won't get to fire off that bloody rocket) and my Talon gets small man syndrome and decides to start a fight with the biggest bloke in the room. It stalls the nomad hopefully leaving it vunerable to the Dogs next turn.

It's murder on the dance floor!

I open up with one Mule but fail to get the critical despite boosting to hit so charge in the second Mule to tie up both of Al's Jacks in the middle.

This stops the charge from the Nomad as well as stopping Al's Mule shooting back.

My Mages brake cover. The plan is to have them blast away at the Jacks using Ashlynns feat next turn. Even if my Mule survives the combat with the Jacks the Mages should be able to shoot into the combat with reckless abandon! 

For the moment they are content to scratch the paint work of the renegade before knocking it over

Turn three and Eiryss plugs Magnus with Disruption to really neuter him next turn and stop him camping on his focus.

Ashlynn moves forwards and pops her feat, time to get critical! I know shes exposed but Magnus can't boost anything to hit and the jacks will get wrecked if he trys to charge them out of combat to get Ashlynn.

I figure I've got this one sewn up.

The Dogs continue to stick it to the Jacks on my right. They are doing a great job of tieing up the two Jacks there but on reading the cards again later I really should have made better use of their abilities and wrecked them completely.

The melee at the farm continues

Despite swimming up stream the whole game Al is not ready to throw in the towel and makes one last throw of the die to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

He notices I have bunched up my Mages when I deviated from my plan and used my second mule to send the Renegade flying instead and decided to go all out for the win by popping off Magnus instead. This meant I had to bunch up the Mages to get them in range for the brutals. This failed to happen with the majority of the Mages and Magnus survived the hail of fire!

With a wicked smile Al stands up his Renegade and opens fire on the Mages. Even with the unboosted hit the shot bearly deviates due to the short range of the attacks and kills the majority of the unit giving Al the 8 points and a slim and undeserved (his words) victory!

MERDE!!!!!!

LESSONS LEARNT

1) I have to play to the victory conditions of the game.
That said I could have played the numbers and popped off the Renegade for the win but I enjoy the all or nothing game. When all's said and done it did not feel right not to go for Magnus.

2) After the loonyness that was the 50 point game last Sunday it was nice to concentrate on a smaller game and really work at getting the pieces of the puzzle to fit together.

That said I was really pleased with how I played the game, despite bunching the Mages at the end and not making full use of thresher with the Dogs.