Lists and timers and batreps. Oh my!

Lost to Mike last night. Twice, in fact. It's becoming a trend! What went wrong? In the first game I was utterly decimating Mike's Winterguard and Assassins with my bonded Redeemer and Vanquisher barrage. Daughters, Eiryss, and Anastasia slowed the Assassins on their approach while the Avatar threatened the WGI. I was getting amazing fire rolls, and it was beautiful. I made a mistake leaving my zone open but Mike didn't realize it until his turn was almost finished. Everything was going right until the Avatar charges Beast 0-9. 3mm short. With a charge lane open to an ARM 18 Feora, gg Mike.

Second game Mike was much more aggressive but forgot about Anatastia and I went for a second turn Assassination. Daughters charge Sorcha, two-man CMA on the charge misses, second attack hits and plinks 1. Vanquisher and Choir run up. Should have activated Choir first. Should always activate Choir first. Feora charges up, misses an Assassin, pops feat to collect two focus, firesteps towards Sorcha and kills the Assassin. Ana advances through the forest on the edge of the killbox Sorcha is hiding in and lets the Vanquisher and Daughters go again. Feora is out, Choir is out. One Daughter goes for Eiryss, another Gorman, and the rest pile on Sorcha. All miss. Vanquisher misses a Daughter, scatters into nothing. With a charge lane open to an ARM 18 Feora, gg Mike.

So, that was pretty bad. I couldn't deal with two high ARM, high POW jacks that can charge 11" without a decent infantry screen. Gaze+Run+Enliven is risky with the masses of stupid infantry on the board that can trap for the previously mentioned Jacks. I also need to be using the Vassals to AA the Vanquishers and Redeemer to be taking out as much as that massed infantry as fast as possible. I need a Reckoner. The Reckoner can take advantage of Escort as part of Feora's battle group and has a 12" threat. There are threats faster than that but it's much harder to infantry trap from that far away.

Vanquisher for a Reckoner is a straight swap and would give me a very balanced list, but that's not what I'm going for with this list. I want to be able to decimate low ARM infantry, and the Reckoner doesn't let me do that. The Redeemer+a solo would work, but I think the continuous fire at RNG 16 will be critical in forcing movement in certain matchups. That leaves the Avatar. Not the best option to lose but I'll still have three heavies, two of which are perfectly suited for counter charging. It's going to hurt not having gaze and the free focus. I'm also going to have to make use of Ignite in more cases, costing even more focus.

Anastasia also isn't working out as well as I would want in this list. The nature of the army is very standoffish. Trying to squeeze in as many shots as it can before clashing with the half-charred remains of a mostly incinerated mess. Using Anna when the opportunity presents itself usually requires a very dramatic, unsustainable lunge. Waiting for good chance is dependent on my opponent advancing. Given who eFeora wants to be fighting, I don't think that's a good use of 2pts.

So that leaves me with 5. With the Reckoner in the list, picking up Rhoven seems obvious. This secures the list a spot as an anticryx list, which in turn might free up those points in Harbie's list. Really do like A&H with the big H. The remaining point for a Mechanic seems good with the number of Jacks I'm running. I'd consider using Wracks if I had any, but I don't.

Finally, I've been working on a timer for Warmachine on Android Phones called Timermachine. It has since turned into a comprehensive timing solution for any turn based game that requires multiple timers. It keeps track of and automatically manages game time, secret random game time, variable turn times with multiple warnings, extensions, extension option time. It is mostly finished, working on the polish and adding more features.

Lost to Mike tonight. Made some pretttty big mistakes. What did I do wrong?

Deployed counter to Winterguard but with Desperate Pace, they ended up being faster than the Assassins I was trying to bait. Need to deploy against the Assassins next time.

Winterguard mow through both Daughters and Errants. Going to need to deal with them using Fear of God and the Avatar. Daughters behind the Avatar to clear out chaff while benefiting from Awe. They need to come at the WGI in waves of 2 until Joe is gone as DEF 16(from Piper) isn't enough.

Need to be more aggressive with Harbie.

Errants did very well against the Assassins, and would have been fine there if things had gone well on the other sides of the battle.

Forgot to run the Reckoner on turn two. This pervented me from getting him into a position where I could counter charge with him.

Overestimated the Avatar's charge range by 0.75", failed the charge, lost him. That hurt. Called it as the Assassins blocked off my Enliven lanes.

Forgot about Anna and Eiyrss. Anna could have come in and backstruck Mike's Eiryss while mine could have run across the field to disrupt, at the very least, the Spriggin that the Avatar failed to charge.

Hopefully I can get in two games next week, Mike. I need to fix my 0-2 record against your eSorcha :)

Got in three games tonight, so just the overviews and I'm pretty fuzzy on lists.

First game had eFeora against eCaine. Redeemer sets Caine on fire turn two with a decent deviation. Fire doesn't go out and he takes 7 damage. Ouch. Feeling pressured by the fire, he advances closer looking for a quick victory. Too close. Avatar and Vanquisher clear out a path through some Stormknights to give the Reckoner a clear Assault lane. Menoth wins by assassination.

Second game pitted Harbinger against eSkarre. DJ gets within 11" of the Avatar and dies. Daughters and Errants with Guided Hand run riot on Raiders and Bloodwitches. Feat pins everything but Skarre and a Seether who have no choice but to feat and run up to contest objectives. Gorman splashes the feated Seether with blackoil, Errants surround Skarre, Covenant and Avatar lock her down. Menoth wins by concession.

Third game saw Harbie versus Terminus. Daughters and Errants push up hard, securing the zone early. Terminus retaliates. He and his army kill alot of shit but it served to effectively jam things up. Nine souls but Terminus has no one contesting the middle zone. Menoth wins by scenario.

Very happy with how the lists are running. At no point did I ever feel stretched for time. Even with the mistakes that my opponents made, I feel like I could have dealt with the right choices. Another solid month of playing and maybe I'll be ready for SoCal Smackdown.

Set of 35 and 50pt lists

35pt tournament at Comicquest on Saturday. Completely forgot about it. Have thrown together this two lists for it:

 

Harbinger of Menoth

- Reckoner

Avatar of Menoth

 

Choir of Menoth (Leader and 3 Grunts)

Exemplar Errants (Leader and 5 Grunts)

 - Exemplar Errant Officer & Standard Bearer

Visgoth Juviah Rhoven & 2 Honor Guard

 

Anastasia di Bray

Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist

The Covenant of Menoth

Vassal of Menoth

Feora, Protector of the Flame

 - Redeemer (Bonded)

 - Reckoner

Avatar of Menoth

 

Choir of Menoth (Leader and 3 Grunts)

Visgoth Juviah Rhoven & 2 Honor Guard

 

Eiryss, Angel of Retribution

Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist

The Covenant of Menoth

Vassal Mechanik

Vassal of Menoth

The Harbie list is a straight rip of dicegod's. The Feora is something new. Pretty confident about both. Finished hastily putting together the Harbinger and reassembling the Avatar. Should be getting the Repenter and Ana from Jay tomorrow. Will need to stop by Brookhurst to get Rhoven & Co to finish both lists.


Revisions to my 50pt lists after much reading and a few games:

Harbinger of Menoth

 - Reckoner

Avatar of Menoth

 

Choir of Menoth (Leader and 3 Grunts)

Daughters of the Flame (Leader and 5 Grunts)

Exemplar Errants (Leader and 5 Grunts)

 - Exemplar Errant Officer & Standard Bearer

Lady Aiyana & Master Holt

Visgoth Juviah Rhoven & 2 Honor Guard

 

Anastasia di Bray

Eiryss, Angel of Retribution

Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist

Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord

The Covenant of Menoth

Vassal Mechanik

Vassal of Menoth

Feora, Protector of the Flame

 - Redeemer

 - Repenter

 - Reckoner

 - Vanquisher

Avatar of Menoth

 

Choir of Menoth (Leader and 5 Grunts)

Visgoth Juviah Rhoven & 2 Honor Guard

 

Eiryss, Angel of Retribution

Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist

The Covenant of Menoth

Vassal Mechanik

Vassal of Menoth

Vassal of Menoth

Trying hard to fit in A&H in the 50pt Harbie list. Hope they're worth taking the min unit of Errants for. Would really like to have a Exemplar Senny as well but no idea where I'd get the 3pts from. eFeora is an extended version of the 35pt list, with a good selection of jacks to deal with the things Harbie doesn't want to. Will have both finished once I get everything for the 35s tomorrow. Good stuff.

Harbinger 50pts v1 vs Steve's pIrusk

Kommandant Irusk

 - Beast-09

 - Devastator

 - War dog

Great Bears of Gallowswood

Iron Fang Pikemen (Leader and 5 Grunts)

 - Iron Fang Pikemen Officer & Standard

Man-o-war Demolition Corps (Leader and 4 Grunts)

Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts)

Winter Guard Infantry (Leader and 9 Grunts)

 - Winter Guard Infantry Officer & Standard

Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich

Highlights

- A&H took out the Great Bears. DEF 17 with Awe makes them amazing.
-Eiyrss distracted a full unit of Winterguard and Joe, taking them out of the game for two or three turns. Should keep her back for DEF 19...
- Forge Guard got lucky and took out Beast 0-9's Ice Axe but with Murderous he still slowly killed them all. They failed to damage the ARM 25 shield jack. Lady A and/or Gorman would have made a big difference here. Need to remember that they're DEF 12/14 because of the debuffs.
- Reckoner missed a charge into a forest to get Beast, bad pre-measurement on my part. He didn't kill much with tramples and the free strikes weren't worth it.

- Devestator is Steve's MVP without doubt. ARM 25 and bulldoze is very hard to deal with.

Thoughts

- E'rybody needs to stay together.
- I almost/maybe kinda won after failing a charge with a heavy against another heavy. That's pretty badass.

50pt Harbinger list and discussion

Harbinger of Menoth

 - Reckoner

 - Vanquisher

Choir of Menoth (Leader and 3 Grunts)

Daughters of the Flame (Leader and 5 Grunts)

Exemplar Vengers (Leader and 2 Grunts)

Horgenhold Forge Guard (Leader and 9 Grunts)

 - Attendant Priest

Lady Aiyana & Master Holt

Eiryss, Angel of Retribution

Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist

Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord

The Covenant of Menoth

Vassal of Menoth

 Discussion here.

pSevvy 35pts v1 vs Chad's Scavvy

Got in a game with Chad tonight. My first game against Scaverous and Chad's second time running him, first at 35pts. After a little reviewing of the new caster, I felt pretty confident that my eFeora would not be strong enough to deal with the Lich Lord and pulled out my old favorite, Severius. Our armies:

Scaverous

 - Deathripper/Nightwretch (Can't remember which arc it was)

 - Erberus

 - Deathjack

Bile Thralls (Leader and 5 Grunts)

The Withershadow Combine

Pistol Wraith

Machine Wraith

Warwitch Siren

Grand Scrutator Severius

 - Blessing of Vengeance

Avatar of Menoth

Choir of Menoth (Leader and 3 Grunts)

Daughters of the Flame (Leader and 5 Grunts)

Exemplar Errants (Leader and 9 Grunts)

 - Exemplar Errant Officer & Standard Bearer

Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist

The Covenant of Menoth

Vassal of Menoth

Sevvy wins the roll off and goes first. Jacks line up on either side of him in the middle of the 10" line, support immediately behind. In the AD phase, Errants go on the center-left and Daughters on the right.

Scavvy mirrored Sevvy on the other side; front and center with Jacks at his side. The Withershadow Combine formed a second rank followed by bile thralls in the rear, which I thought was an interesting choice. Both Wraiths went left and the Warwitch stuck with the Jacks. Deathjack creeped up on the field across from the Errants.

Daughters run up to a far forest and some rock outcropping some 12" across the field, spread up as much as they could with their CMD 8. Errants are much more conservative with their movement and bound up to the outer edge of a forest just outside of the advanced deployment zone. Sevvy swaggers forward 5" with confidence and puts Eye of Menoth, giving everyone within his generous 16" Control radius +1 to all attack and damage rolls, on himself; Vision, allowing a single model to ignore damage the first time its hit, on the Avatar; and Defender's Ward, giving an entire unit +2 to DEF and ARM, on the Errants. Gorman zips to some nearby rock outcroppings, Jack and the Covenant wall off Sevvy.

Deathjack put Death Ward on himself, bumping ARM to 21 and letting him pick the damage column, is tempted by some Errants sitting at the edge of his threat range and swoops in. Wide placement just barely prevents him from getting more than a single dude. Once again, Deathjack bemoans his lack of Reach. Arcnode runs up the field with reckless abandon as does the Machine Wraith. Pistol Wraith chills in the woods with the Daughters. Erberus comes up to block LOS for his master who follows up behind. Scavvy arcs an Excarnate to one of the Daughters. DEF 17 from concealment falls to a boosted FOC 7 and she's instantly torn asunder by the POW 13. Worst of all, when Excarnate kills a living model, it allows Scavvy to create an undead grunt three inches from himself to strengthen one of his remaining units; which he gave to his bile thralls. It became instantly apparent why he had positioned them the way he did as Chad placed the Thrall on the table almost 7" ahead of the yet unactivated unit! They activate and the Daughter-turned-Abomination moves up to purge on an Errant while the rest of the Bile Thralls lumber their 5" forward. Combine move towards DJ.

Errants activate. Four charge DJ, one charges one of the Combine, a few run up to engage things  in front, a few hang back in forest, as far away from Bile-fication as they can. On Combine hit and kill, Quick Work grants me a ranged attack which hits Abby of the Combine for 1. Once again, Errants bemoan their POW 10 bows. Against DJ two of the MAT 8 after Eye of Menoth Errants, needing 5s to hit, miss, while the other two POW 10 Weapon Master charges barely plink his ARM 21. Daughters run to engage the Thralls, the node, and Caster. Fearing the telekinesis next turn and at a lack of melee targets, Choir leapfrogs up ahead of the Jacks and sings Shielding, preventing my Jacks from being targeted by spells. Avatar charges the Machine Wraith dead and traps the node with its gaze, forcing it to move torwards it if it moves. Vassal gives the Blessing of Vengeance Enliven, allowing it to advance after being damaged, and it runs up close to the Combine. Gorman weaves back around to the left to be in position of both Jacks. Covenant walks up and almost invokes the Lawgiver's Creed to blunt the incoming feat but then realize that Sevvy is well within 21" of Scavvy. They prevent Knockdowns by reading Powers of Faith instead. Sevvy walks up behind the Covenant and Gorman and pops feat. Divine Might prevents the enemy warcaster from receiving focus during their next turn and prevents spell casting while within it. It's a royal fuck you to Scavvy whose feat is based on casting spells and spending focus. To follow up, he arcs Ashes to Ashes through the Blessing into the back of the Errant who killed one of the Combine. A2A is an interesting spell in that if it hits a target, it goes on to hit the nearest d6 enemy models within 5" of the original target. It's base POW of 10 is unimpressive but easily increased to 13 with Eye of Menoth and Severius' affinity with BoV granting him +2 damage on the first arced spell. With a COST of 4 focus, its expensive and the purely random nature of d6 make it unreliable but with a high roll, it has the potentinal to be one of the best offensive spells in the game. I rolled a 6. It kills the two remaining WSC members, a single Bile Thrall, and pings Scavvy for 6. DJ and Erberus were both also tagged with minimal damage.

Scavvy starts his turn with no focus and not alot of options. Pistol Wraith comes out and death chills the Avatar, forcing it to sacrifice its movement or its activation. This is significantly more powerful than Knockdown as it can't be shaken off with focus nor is it preventable if it hits. Warwitch Siren seduces the sole Daughter engaging the Thralls and forces her to move away and take a swing at a fellow Daughter. Kinky. She misses but disengaging the Bile Thralls is pretty big. They activate and purge the remaining Daughters, I think one Errant, and his own poor arcnode for an amazing 10 boxes of damage. Deathjack upkeeps Death Ward on himself and kills the four DEF 14 ARM 18 Errants engaging himself without breaking a sweat, collecting four souls in the process. Erberus moves up to engage the Bless of Vengeance, preventing a charge the next turn.

Deathjack has four souls and will get six focus next turn. If I don't stop him, I'm screwed. I know BoV isn't up to the task of taking on ARM 21 and the Avatar is locked down by the Pistol Wraith. Focus allocation sees Defender's Ward dropped, 3 focus to the Blessing, 4 on Sevvy. The plan to neutralize Deathjack commences. One of the remaining Errants runs inbetween the two Helljacks to engage the Lich Lord and another positions himself careful just over half an inch away from the Death Jack as to not engage it. The rest run around like ninnies. Gorman walks up as close as he can to the Errant staring down the Deathjack, 3"(~4.5 from DJ) and attempt to peg him(My own Errant) in the back. DEF 12 -2 from Backstrike leaves Gorman needing only a 5 to hit. He rolls a 4. It missed but will still deviate onto DJ 33+change% of the time. It scatters away in the direction of Erberus but falls short due minimum deviation distance. First time that's ever worked against me. That miss signals the end of the game. Either I win now or Scavvy does next turn. Looking desperately for an  assassination vector, Sevvy sees an opening. Choir sing their hymn of Battle, giving the Blessing of Vengeance and the Avatar +2 to their attack and damage rolls. This brings BoVs MAT up to 10(12 on the charge!) and POW 15. Covenant runs up past Scavvy, giving Sevvy a good charge target. Sevvy charges and then attempts to get Death Sentence onto Scavvy, allowing me to reroll misses. A lack of foresight with the Errant's movement earlier gave Scavvy an extra +4 DEF for being engaged, bringing him up to 18. Sevvy needs an 9 to hit, boosts, and misses. Oh well. Now the tricks. Vassal activates and grants the Blessing of Vengeance an Ancillary Attack, allowing it to make an immediate attack with the weapon of its choice. BoV taps Erberus with his repulsor shield, pushing him 1" away, and freeing up the charge lane. With three focus, hitting on 4s, and doing dice-1 damage, the Blessing was able to dispatch the Lich with his Halberd. Game Menoth.

Thoughts later.