All about gaming, any kind of gaming

If you haven’t read part 1, check it out here.

Game 3:

For my third game, I was paired up with another Retribution player, Bob.  At least this time it was with a player from All Things Fun so I would have a chance to play for my store.  There were only 3 Retribution players and I played both of the other ones.

Bob’s lists were Rahn and Ravyn.  I had played both of my lists once each, so I had a choice on what to play.  Since I wanted to win for the store, I chose Rahn with whom I was more confidant.  Unfourtunately, he also chose Rahn so we had a mirror match.

Here’s what I remember Bob having:

• Rahn
• Phoenix
• Chimera
• 2 units Stormfall Archers
• Battle Mages
• Epic Eyriss(may have been prime)
• 2 Mage Hunter Assassins
• Arcanist
• Magister

He said he chose Rahn to get it out of the way since he didn’t really like playing him.

<rant>

I was glad I didn’t have to play Ravyn.  One of my peeves in playing most wargames is heavy ranged armies.  This isn’t because it isn’t a valid strategy, I just don’t like how the games play out.  I don’t like playing with them, don’t like playing against them.

So often, I feel like the game comes down to the ranged army hoping that it kills enough of the opposition that they don’t have enough left to do any damage.  That isn’t fun to me.  Getting torn apart or tearing the opponent apart on approach isn’t fun, because it just feels like rolling dice.  When you get there, it’s fun if the approaching army can pull it out, but if they can’t, it sort of just feels like the story of the battle just peters out.

The reason I like war games like Warmachine is the strategy combined with the feeling of a story.  Warmachine in particular with it’s feats and super powerful warcasters and warlocks provides many epic feeling battles.  It’s all about the epicness.  I just don’t usually get that feeling with ranged heavy armies, balanced though they may be.

</rant>

I was pretty well protected against the stormfall archers with the shieldwalled halberdiers being immune to the blast damage because of their armor and the magi being immune because of force barrier.  That being said, I lost a lot of halberdiers on the approach.

I charged my Phoenix up toward his after whip snapping it up and ended up a sliver out of range of his Phoenix, leaving me pretty open.  I used the arcnode to force hammer his phoenix back and hit it with a disruption bolt but I still thought my jack was in trouble.

Not having too many magi, his feat turn helped, but was nothing spectacular.  His phoenix got undisrupted by the arcanist, headbutted mine, which is awesome since I don’t see that used too often.  He then got stormfall archered into oblivion.  A very cool and educational experience.

At this point I should note that we both missed some activations due to the time limit.  His Eyriss, Magister and one Mage Hunter Assassin did basically nothing all game.

On my next turn, my remaining halberdiers engaged his archers and the feat turn magi and Rahn took down his Phoenix.  We were both hurting pretty badly at this point but I still had my Chimera waiting in the wings.

He didn’t have much to respond with and on my next turn, the chimera ran up to be an arcnode.  Rahn boosted a telekenesis to pull his Rahn up and turn him around then hit him with a boosted damage force hammer.  Eiryss then Death Bolted him hitting with ease.

Bob seemed to be getting frustrated wit the time constraints but managed to pull out some massive destruction.  I have no doubt that with a little more experience, he would have had the time to activate all of his models and take me out.

I was now 1-1 in the inter-store competition.  At least I wasn’t giving up games anymore.

Game 4:

In the fourth round I was paired up against Todd from our store.  Somehow, Todd and I hadn’t played against each other in over a year.  That was a lame MkI match I only won because Skarre was dumb.

I was stuck with Garryth and Todd was stuck with eNemo.  Being less familiar with Cygnar I don’t remember everything he had but it included a charger, a Stormclad, Ol’ Rowdy or an ironclad, a stormclad, the Black 13th, Squire, and Strangeways.

This game was pretty one sided.  Between multiple polarity shields, terrain and the black 13th’s damaging cloud, I was holed up on the defensive.  Ironclad came into my lines and knocked a ton of people down who got hammered and shot to death.  He went for my Manticore but couldn’t take it down.

On my next turn the Manticore powered up with  a bunch of focus and took out the heavy that had hit him.  Everyone else ganged up to try to take out the ironclad and even with Garryth helping out he was left with 1 or 2 boxes left.

Garryth then proceeded to have his face smashed in with a big hammer.  It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if I had been able to take down that Ironclad.

I felt like I was playing from behind for much of this game.  I think I was partially burnt out by this point.  A fortunate scatter from the Black 13th on turn 2 really bottlenecked me.  Todd’s a really fun guy though and we had a blast.

Thoughts

I had a really good time at the tournament.  My biggest problem was the time limit while playing an army I wasn’t familiar with.

I love the Rahn list since it has so many options but still gets up into the fight.

I liked Garryth.  After Alex’s suggestion, I think adding Madeline Corbeau will be a great addition but I’m not totally sold on him as a second caster.  I may give Vyros a try or maybe Kaelyssa.  Definitely not Ravyn.  It will be a big problem with playing the Retribution if I can’t find a second caster I like.

The lists worked very well, pretty much as I expected.  It’s more a matter of learning to use them I think.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments.