BR: 50pt eCaine vs. Butcher3

Look at this god damn crazy.

I was itching for a game all week but due to work, I wasn't able to get one in until last night.  As usual, I played over Vassal man, was it a lot of fun.  The scenario was Close Quarters.

Here's the list he took.  I'm not sure if it was standard or not, but that's what he brought to the table:

Points: 50/50
Kommander Zoktavir, The Butcher Unleashed (*4pts)
* Beast-09 (11pts)
* War dog (1pts)
Greylord Ternion (Leader and 2 Grunts) (4pts)
Iron Fang Pikemen (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Black Dragon Officer & Standard (2pts)
Kayazy Assassins (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Kayazy Assassin Underboss (2pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts)
Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (4pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Iron Fang Kovnik (2pts)
Ragman (2pts)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)

I brought my standard eCaine list and we duked it out on a map with a trench on each side and a long shared forest on the right.  Most of the right side of the map was also a giant hill, so elevation all over the place.  Sorry, no pics, it ran pretty late last night and I just went to sleep right after the game.

Anyways, here are some highlights from the game:

• The game started out with him playing very aggressive and running or advancing everything up.  I did the same with all my guys but I couldn't really shoot at anything so I camped all my focus.
• Next turn, he manages to kill some of my Boomhowlers and strip them of their Arcane Shield thanks to Eiryss.  No further damage is dealt to the rest of my army while all of his marched up fearlessly down the middle.
• On this turn, I was able to run a few Rangers up and go hard on his army with my shooting.  My B13th killed some of his Pikeman with Ryan doing most of the work as usual, killing 4 by herself thanks to Mage Storm.  The Tempest Blazers advanced 9 and used Elecro-leap to drop a ton of Kayazy from the field despite them having Stealth.  Man, I absolutely love their ability to move 9.  Caine himself did some serious work as he was able to pick off a few Pikeman, Magic Bullet the nearby Eiryss to death and ping another Magic Bullet into Beast '09, but failed to kill Aiyana despite the +1.  A few more shots here and there from some of my other units at Ragman and he sac pawns to one of Butcher's dogs.
• The next turn was something pretty hilarious.  While I think I had a pretty good turn and I was pretty far ahead, I was definitely not expecting this.  Butcher immediately moves up thanks to Vengeance and drops one of my Boomhowlers stone cold.  He adds 2 focus to Beast '09 and then casts Impending Doom, Silence of Death and Flashing Blade, followed by Feat.  Needless to say, most of the Boomhowlers are dead in one foul swoop with no chance of Tough rolls.  He then advances, into some more Booms including Greygore, and Flashing Blades again to kill every single Cygnar-sympathizing troll on the board while camping 5 Focus.  Damn, that did not go the way I wanted to, especially when I was relying on them to block Beast so I can get another round of shooting.
• Some of the remaining Kayazy including the Mob Boss charges Ol'Rowdy and actually do something like 8 points of damage to him due to hot rolls.  Not just that, but he activates incorrectly and the 1-HP Aiyana trolls boxcars to Kiss Ol'Rowdy while he was already engaged!  Now, I watch grimly as his Beast '09 barrels down the field and straight into Ol'Rowdy's face, beating his ass into the ground and leaving him with 5 boxes left.  Looks like things really changed in a span of a few activations.
• With Ol'Rowdy near death, my primary jack was out of commission and the battlefield situation looks pretty damn even.  I choose not to allocate any Focus to Ol'Rowdy because both of his arms were out.  Instead, I move up my Gorman really close to Beast, toss Black Oil, it can only scatter 1" and it hits '09 in the face, sharply dropping his defense.  I then land a Kiss from my own Aiyana, shoot him for some damage with Holt, and put him at roughly half-health after Rowdy activates and hits him with straight dice.  Not the best outcome, but better than nothing.
• Now, my Rangers run ahead to mark the rest of his army while my Tempest Blazers advance into range of his A&H.  A few Electro-leaps after and both are dead, including his Gorman who's unfortunate enough to be within 5" of one of the Blazers after checking range.  With no more real targets, I'm left with a really tough decision.  I have Beast with Kiss and Butcher in range with Ranger's Mark Target.
• I know for a fact that with effectively POW14 guns, I can drop Beast in one go with Feat thanks to Black Oil, or I can go for Butcher.  My Eiryss was out of range to threaten Buthcer unfortunately, so I'm going to have to rely on Caine to do all the work.  Well, what the hell, why not go big or go home?  My B13th with Brutal Damage and Taryn try to do some damage to Butcher, but it was just not happening with his camped Focus.  Caine then activates and moves in range of Butcher with +2 RAT.  He throws down 10 shots, misses with the last shot and then proceeds to roll damage.  After the dust settles, Butcher is left with 1 HP and everyone in the room is sitting there in shock.
• Needless to say, I think that's going to be game.  Next turn, he charges one of his own Kayazy to get within Impending Death range of Caine, and smacks him in the face with Lola.  It actually took him two swings and that was the only thing he could muster, but he rolled what he needed to hit Caine for a second time and that was it.  If he missed, I would have shot him to death next turn.

The winning scenario for me would be to kill Beast with Feat, reallocate Eiryss to the other side of the board to threaten Focus-camping, and to shoot everything else dead in Butcher's army leaving him with no support.  Unfortunately, that might have taken too long to play and I was in a very YOLO mode because this is just a casual game and I've been working too damn much.  You gotta learn to relax and have fun a bit, especially when you're not playing in a tournament and its all fun and games.

I talked with my opponent for a little bit and he said I could have been a bit more aggressive with Rowdy and Eiryss.  I definitely agreed with the Eiryss part, as I think her ability to drop Focus off of Butcher might have been exactly what I needed on Feat turn.  A very fun and close game, I enjoyed it very much.

BR: 35pts eCaine vs. eIrusk

Not bad for a first game.

I managed to play my first game of Warmachine in two years today on Vassal.  It was a smaller game than most SR lists and we only played caster kill.  We could have played a scenario game, but my opponent actually suggested caster kill after finding out that it was my first game in a long time.

Alright, so we're off and away.  I used my eCaine list with Tempest Blazers vs. eIrusk.

Points: 35/35
Supreme Kommandant Irusk (*5pts)
* Destroyer (9pts)
* War dog (1pts)
Man-o-war Demolition Corps (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Man-o-war Shocktroopers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (4pts)
Winter Guard Mortar Crew (Leader and Grunt) (3pts)
Winter Guard Mortar Crew (Leader and Grunt) (3pts)
Harlan Versh (2pts)

When I looked across the table, I saw lot of multi-wound models in front of me.  The problem with my list is that while I have a good amount of firepower, it struggles against high armor.  I guess I was lucky he wasn't running heavy jacks/beasts with another caster.

Alright, now to the game:

• My opponent went first and ran most of his stuff into better positions.  I did the same, put my Tempest Blazers and Rangers on high elevation and threw my B13 into the woods.  My A&H slowly moved up and Caine lurched forward and threw Blur on the Tempest Blazers.
• The second turn saw a bunch of shots explode from the Khador side and most of it missing.  Nothing hit their targets dead on but one of the mortar blasts found Eiryss and Taryn under the scatter.  Thankfully, my opponent rolled low for damage and Eiryss survived with 1 health (this was huge) while Taryn didn't take any damage.  His Widowmakers ran far up my left flank.
• On my turn, I dropped Blur on my Tempest Blazers and ran one of my brave little Rangers up to paint the backside of his Demos, Shocks and Destroyer who was behind an obstacle.  The Tempest Blazers moved up on the far right, shot at the Destroyer and with the help of Mark Target, managed to do 9 points of total damage using Brutal Shot.  They then used their Light Cav movement to get out of the LoS of the Destroyer.  I charged Ol'Rowdy up but I was just short of Tremoring the first batch of Shocktroopers.  It's OK, I can still do some damage:  Ryan opens up on the first batch of Shocktroopers and puts her Mage Storm on top of 6 dudes.  After damage rolls, I was only able to damage two of them because of Shield Wall.  Next came Lynch and Watts who opened up and shot down one of the Widowmakers on the far left.
• Caine himself moved up 7 and opened fire with Feat and 10 shots.  I only missed one shot and focused everything I had at the Shocktroopers and Demo Corp.  After the smoke cleared, I killed 2 Shocktroopers and 2 Demos.  Not the best results, but what upset me the most was that I shot a Shocktrooper with a POW19 shot and left him with 1 HP.  That's one more ST that's going to swing at Rowdy next turn.  I finished off the turn by running my 1 HP Eiryss up and put her within Arcane Interference range of his Destroyer.
• On his next turn, he retaliates by trying to shoot Caine with the mortars but missed with everything.  His Destroyer aims and takes a shot at Caine as well, but it scatters and hits Ryan in the face.  Since Eiryss was next to his Destroyer, he was unable to allocate any focus to it, so he wasn't able to capitalize on the revenge shot.  He retaliates with his Shocktroopers and a single Demo Corps on Ol'Rowdy and did some serious damage.  Fortunately for me, Rowdy's hammer was still functional.  Two of his Demo Corps break off and charge my Tempest Blazers.  Three of them go down to Backsswings but that's to be expected because he was rolling really hot to hit.  One of the mistakes that my opponent makes this round was moving his warcaster slightly behind his medium based units engaged with Ol'Rowdy thinking he would be safe.
• Next round, I analyzed the situation and activated my units:
• Caine takes a bite from the Squire.
• Reinholdt moves up and reloads Caine.
• The remaining Tempest Blazers move up and Brutal Shot the Demo Corps (killing 1 and leaving the other with 1 HP, tying up Eiryss still). 
• Taryn doesn't move, aims and Black Pennies the remaining Demo Corps to death.
• This frees up Eiryss to take aim and shoot his warcaster, stripping his focus.
• Next is Ol'Rowdy who Tremors all of the Shocktroopers and remaining Demo Corps to the ground.
• I thread the needle with one of my Rangers and paint his Warcaster.
• Caine checks his control range, sees Irusk past the knockdown Shocktroopers, aims with Mark Target and shoots with RAT13 vs. DEF15 with a -3 damage modifier.  It takes 5 shots to put Irusk in the ground.

Overall, I think this game went pretty well for me.  I was able to utilize most of my units and use them to full effect, although the Tempest Blazers were not ideal vs. such heavy armor.  The only unit that didn't see much use was A&H, and I think I played them too defensively because I was afraid of Aiyana dying to random blasts.  Against a list like this, I really need her Kiss to allow me to punch through heavier armor.

The only thing I was really afraid of was messing up my activations.  I played this game pretty religiously back when I was invested and I think that helped a lot.  During this game, a lot of things were coming back to me and I was able to capitalize on mistakes and activate my units in the correct order.  A good first game.

BR: 2500 DE vs. HE

Killin' er'body.

The list I used was:
2496
10 drops

LORDS:
Crone Hellebron = 310

Lv.4 Supreme Sorc, Scroll = 245
Life

HEROES:
Master BSB, 1+ RR, SoMight = 155

CORE:
30x Witch Elves, FC, Razor Standard = 405
5x Black Riders, Shield, RXB, Mus = 110
5x Black Riders, Shield, RXB, Mus = 110

SPECIAL:
28x Executioners, FC, SoDisc = 381
3x RBT = 210

RARE:
5x Warlocks = 125
5x Warlocks = 125
K-Beast = 160
K-Beast = 160

Opponent was HE:
2x units of Silver Helms core
shooty BSB
Light Wizard
3x units of 21+ White Lions, FC
3x RBT
2x units of Reavers
1x Eagle
1x unit of Archers
1x unit of Shadow Warriors

I got some pictures of the game, but they're not very detailed as to what happened.

Moving all over the place.

• The Witches were deployed in the beginning with their backs turned, so they don't need to Frenzy check.  After the first turn, they SR'd to turn around and move into the forest after the Warlocks.
• Flanks went hard on the sides with Dark Riders and a unit of Warlocks.  They shot at stuff, only managing to kill a few Reavers on the right.  Combined fire from the RBTs dropped the Reavers on the left.
• My magic was absolute ass, rolling 1345 with Life, and defaulting to 0 for the Regen.  With that in mind, everyone got into the Executioners unit and went for the house ASAP.  Kharis went around the house to stay within range and hopefully dodge some bolts.  I ended magic by throwing Throne on myself with IF and stopping the miscast.

His army advances, I pick off what I can.

• Magic is weak for me but for him, I let him have Speed of Light on the Silver Helms.  Nothing else happens as my opponent fails to get Timewarp.
• Riders moved up on the left side to shoot at the Eagle, but only managed to put a wound on it.  Combined fire from 2x RBTs at short range didn't kill a single Silver Helm and he charged it into my Warlocks in the trees.  Combat saw the Warlocks lose and flee 1" away from the board edge.  He fails to restrain and this Silver Helms goes diving into my Witches.
• His entire army center moved up.  I managed to clean up his far right RBT with good charge rolls, but next round he shoots and kills my loan Dark Rider and panics the Warlocks off the board lol.
• His remaining Reavers that were on the right moved up to threaten my RBT, but one of my Kharis jumped on him and that was the end of it.  Both beasts are now hanging out on the right side of the house.
• On his turn, his Eagle runs into my Riders but dies to ASF and good rolls.  I jump onto his RBT from there.

Combat is joined and the Blood Queen feasts.

• I get my Executioners out of the house on my turn and got off Regen after he stopped Shield of Thorns.  My Kharis move into flanking locations to anticipate the charge and that's it for my movement.
• The Silver Helms lose big on my turn and he flees like a coward.  His next unit of Silver Helms charge into the flank of my Witches while I rally my Warlocks.  Combat doesn't do anything as both units stay.
• His shooting drops to rest of my Riders while my RBT shoots down a few White Lions after some sad rolls.
• Magic has him throw a bunch of dice without IF at big Pha's, but I scroll that in a heartbeat.
• On his turn, his charges come in hard with a flank on my Executioners unit, and another charge from the front with two units of White Lions.  He fails Fear on his flanking unit of White Lions at -3 from Cry of War, even with the BSB re-roll.  Hellebron lays into the unit in the front and kills 7 White Lions.  Attacks go off everywhere but Frenzied Executioners dominate the opposition.  I think it was something like 26 White Lions dead from both units and a Champion slain by the BSB in a challenge.  Hellebron takes a wound from the attacks back and after good Regen rolls, my Sorc also takes one.  He rolls his break, the left unit breaks, the right unit decides to stay.

Chasing down the cowards.

• On this turn, the game pretty much ends.  White Lions get shot some more, Hellebron kills the rest of the unit of White Lions by herself, the Khari beasts charged in with nothing to eat because the Blood Queen's a psycho.
• Combat runs down the Silver Helms on the flank of the Witches thanks to the Warlocks charging, and I'm hot on his heels with what seems like an unstoppable army.  I threw dice and got Regen on them again with IF, and dispelled the miscast via throne.  He calls the game here.

Post-Game Thoughts:

• It's always a risky game to play with Hellebron, especially since I have everything in that unit of Executioners.  What if he had rolled a crazy kill spell or Fiery and lit my dudes on fire?  I hate putting everything in one unit, but with my spell selection being balls, I had no other choice.  I needed the Regen to keep Hellebrone alive and the only way I was going to do that is stay in the same unit.
• I think I could of kept the Witches a little closer frankly, they were in a great position by the trees and getting hard and then soft cover, but what if they lost combat?  I guess I looked across the battlefield and didn't think I was going to lose combat to White Lions.  I had high hopes that Hatred and Murderous Prowess would rip through a unit by themselves.
• Silencing those Warmachines and keeping my own up was pretty well-done by me.  I killed his chaff and reduced his units down to something I can coordinate attacks at more readily.  It sucks that one of my Warlock units paniced off the board, but what can you do.

HE BR #4 vs. VC

I buy them frozen.

Played another game vs. Lucas' VC and this one was a killer game.  Tons of action, a lot of laughs and some horrible dice.

Here's my list..

2500

10 drops

LORDS:

Lv.4 Archmage, High Magic = 285

Book of Hoeth, Golden Crown

HEROES:

BSB Noble = 149

GW, Armor of Caledor

Lv.1 Mage, High Magic = 110

Scroll

CORE:

30x Spearmen, FC, SoDiscipline = 315

15x Archers, Mus = 160

14x Archers, Mus = 150

SPECIAL:

27x White Lions, FC, BotWD = 431

25x Phoenix Guard, FC, BoEF = 405

5x Dragon Princes, Mus = 155

RARE:

Frostheart Phoenix = 240

Great Eagle = 50

Great Eagle = 50

His list..

~2500

~14 drops?

Ghoul King, Red Fury, Quickblood, Peripat, Dragonbane Gem

Lv.4 Master Necro, Scroll

Wight King BSB, Nightshroud, GW, Heavy Armor

Mortis Engine

Terrorgheist

Huge unit of Ghouls that had his BSB and Wight King

Bug unit of Zombies that had his Necro

8x Crypt Horrors or something like that

5x Hexwraiths

4x Vargheists

4x units of chaff dogs

2x units of chaff bats

My beautiful, unpainted models that I've had for 12 years.

My notes:

• Hey, what do you know!  I have pictures this time.. kinda.  Once the action started rolling, I stopped taking pictures and kept on the battle.  I will say that this is probably the last time I'm going to take High Magic.  That lore has been pissing me off like crazy.  I'll tell you guys why:  3x Direct Damage spells and 1 condition spell in the form of Drain Magic.  In a game where I roll all 3 DD and I had to swap my last spell for Drain Magic, I don't know what to tell you.
• First round of magic, I threw 5 dice at Fiery Convocation, IF, lose the spell and a wizard level, and light the Ghoul bunker on fire.  Inside is his Wight King and Ghoul King, but I flat out burn down half of the unit.  On his next turn, he doesn't dispel it and it further burns down half the unit.  He's literally down to 10 Ghouls in that unit.  I deploy the best I can to meet his chaff and I manage to shoot down a bit of the dogs but not all of them.  I move very little on my turn, letting magic do all the work.  He saves dice for his Peripat.
• Next round he makes bold moves and checks various locations with his chaff.  However, he makes the gamble in moving his Terrorgheist far up and gambles 5 dice on Van Hels while I scroll his Wind of Death.  However, I manage to dispel it and now his Terrorgheist is a little closer than he anticipated.
• I punish the mistake with a charge from my Spears and my Frozen Turkey.  I cause 3 wounds from the Spears, 2 from the bird (thanks to S7 from Winds), and I lose 7 of my Spearmen.  Combat res gets recorded and the thing pops into dust.  I move my Eagles around for max annoyance as well as charging and winning combat vs. a Dire Wolf unit.  Feelsgoodman.jpeg.  My magic phase also saw a miscast (again) on from my AM vs. his Lv.4 Necro with the new Vaul's Unmaking.  I find out he has a scroll wtf! and I destroy it.  They tricksies us.

The charge that killed the Terrorgheist.

• Next round his Vargheists charge my Spears.  I hold like real men.  Sadly, I lose combat by one and break like a bunch of stinking cowards because my BSB is half an inch away.  With Standard of Discipline, I break on a roll of 11.  They're caught, run down and I lose 315 points of victorious Spears.  Not feeling so good now.  Magic sees nothing happen from his casting but more of his Ghouls burn down.  I shit you not he's literally down to 4 ghouls now including his champ.  He reforms his Crypt Horrors to receive my Phoenix Guard's eager and surely charge.
• I do exactly that and charge his Crypt Horrors with my Phoenix Guard.  Look at my numbers, here's my Phoenix and watch me clear more chaff.  I SR to meet his Vargheist with my Archer units and shoot at them for no effect.  I feel good about my chances until I roll for magic.  Double 1s; awesome.  My Frozen Turkey is now thawing.  Don't worry guys, I make 2 channels but now I can't cast jack shit because High Magic has 3 DD spells.  Fine, I'll throw Hand of Glory, my only god damn spell with 4 dice.  Guess what?  I miscast again and 3 of my PG eat shit before combat even starts.  Feedback hits my Lv.1 and Lv.4 taking a wound each.  When combat does start, my Phoenix Guard roll a ton of hits but end up doing crap for damage.  The Phoenix also rolls like crap and it's not looking good.  His fat Horror things hit me back and auto-wounds my Phoenix with 5 attacks.  I'm sweating beads and I roll some dice.  I take 3 wounds on the bird.  Caw!  The rest of the attacks and stomps goes into my PG but 3+ ward and WS8 tells them no.  I barely win combat and he pulls another fatty.
• So, that kinda sucked big time, let's see what happens on his turn.  He places some more chaff around because he has a million more deploys than I do and reforms his Vargheists a bit.  They're march blocked, they fail and they only go 10".  His magic phase turns into crap as he miscasts Winds of Undeath onto himself  but they barely kill anything.  He raises some Ghouls with his left over dice before the fires rage again.  This time, only the Ghast remains.  Really?  Shooting from his Mortis Engine sees him scream into the bird and kills it.  I rage, but what can I do?  In combat, I barely win over the Crypt Horrors despite that not going as well as I hoped.  With my bird gone, I'm not feeling too confident.
• Next round sees a bunch of charges by me just to kill some chaff.  I clear it up with my Dragon Princes and I charge my Archers into the Vargheists' flank.  This is where things got a little hairy because the way I overran my White Lions put them far ahead where my opponent and I argued about the Ghoul King's unit getting a flank charge or not.  After arguing like huge nerds, I said fuck it, let him have it.  This kindness turns out to be a mistake later on.  Sometime during this, I combo-charge my Eagles into some Wolves and kill them, but yeah, my Eagles run around killing undead dogs.  Magic saw nothing amazing happen and my opponent stores 2 more dice.  Combat sees my Phoenix Guard utterly obliterate his Crypt Horrors due to some fantastic rolling and I reform to meet his zombie unit with Lv.4.  In combat, my Archers kill his Vargheists and I reform towards the action.
• Since I let the Ghoul King's unit get the flank charge on my White Lions, shit goes sour really quick.  A big magic phase saw him reach 12 die, dispelling the Convocation and getting off IoN twice on the Ghoul unit with nice rolls for bringing models back.  The unit regains like half its number in a single turn from being down to just the Ghast.  Hexwraiths charge the Dragon Princes and they flee because I'm out of position and I can't win vs. that just yet.  The Ghoul King single-handily tears the White Lions a new asshole and I'm unable to combat reform at the end because I took such a beating.  Stubborn stays.

Sure why not, charge my flank I says.

• The Phoenix Guard charge into the Lv.4's unit of Zombies and murder a bunch of them.  I miscast again, the forth fucking time in this game and it's really starting to get annoying.  His Mortis Engine makes me pick the one that feedbacks my wizards and I lose my Lv.1.  My Lv.4 has 2W left as he fails to wound him.  I kill an ass ton of units there, but next round he just brings them all back.  The Ghoul King eats more White Lions and that unit breaks and runs.
• The rest of the game is pretty strange.  I end up losing my Lv.4 to his Ghoul King once combat starts over there, but I keep both Phoenix Guard and White Lions alive to tie the game.  The Dragon Princes rallies and takes another charge from the Hexwraiths, but this time I hold and flank charge them with my Archers.  Combat res does them in and pops a unit I'm otherwise unable to hurt.  We count up points at the end and it's a draw.

I shit you not, that's all that was left.

More notes:

• I am not feeling High Magic man.  Too many DD and conditional spells when I'd rather have 2-3 hexes or Mindrazor.  I'm really feeling that Shadow will be the lore to go to, even if I don't get the +1 to cast or the stacking ward.  I hate not being able to cast into combat and my opponent is throwing out Van Hels, re-roll wounds, raising shit left and right, seriously, enough is enough.
• The Ghoul King, F that dude.  He single-handily just tanks on my White Lions because he knows the unit has the Banner of the World Dragon and I honestly think he knows that by now.  I personally don't think he should of gotten the flank charge, but since it's a friendly game my care factor is low.  We're friends so it's all good.  If you notice, at the end I'm running away with 1 White Lion and my BSB, saving all the points from that unit.  Probably just as stupid if not more than his one surviving Ghast after 99% of the Ghoul unit burned down from Fiery Convocation.
• Miscasts suck, I don't know why.  Oh, and on the one turn that I needed the Phoenix to kick ass along side those Phoenix Guard, I roll double 1s for winds and the Phoenix ends up dying half a turn later.  Ugh, I don't know how I punished his Terrorgheist so hard just to fall victim to back luck.  Karma?  See!  That's why you need two of those damn birds.

BR #3 New HE vs. VC

Pretty sure this not Alarielle.

Played a game vs. my buddy Lucas today and his VC.  It was pretty bloody and pretty fun, and our lists were both middle of the line in terms of strength.  Until proven otherwise, from what I've played so far, HE feels very middle of the road in army strength.  Nothing too crazy has jumped out at me yet, well, aside from Banner of the World Dragon.

My list was this..

2498

10 drops

LORDS

Lv.4 Archmage, High Magic = 285

Book of Hoeth, Crown

HEROES

BSB Noble, Dragon Prince = 161

Enchanted Shield, Dawnstone, PoFool

Lv.1 Mage, High Magic = 110

Scroll

CORE

30x Spearmen (FC, SoDiscipline) = 315

15x Archers, Mus = 160

14x Archers, Mus = 150

SPECIAL

27x White Lions (FC, BotWD) = 431

9x Dragon Princes (FC, CShield, BoEFlame) = 306

RARE

Frostheart Phoenix = 240

Frostheart Phoenix = 240

Great Eagle = 50

Great Eagle = 50

His list consisted of..

A big unit of Ghouls with a Ghoul King and Lv.4 Master Necro with Peripat

3x units of Dire Wolves chaff

A big unit of Grave Guard, Wight King BSB and Banner of Barrows

One Terrorgheist and Mortis Engine

A unit of Vargheists, I think 4-5 strong

My notes:

• OK first of all, I was overwhelmed by his magic.  The Peripat is insanely good and the Mortis Engine's +2 to cast was bonkers most of the time.  Most of the magic phases saw a good number of dice, but his ability to store 2 and use 2 in any of his casting and dispel phases was great.  Definitely overpowered my Lv.4 even with the Book of Hoeth.  VC guys take note:  This combo is super strong.
• My Archers do a good job at killing chaff.  He makes the mistake of Vanguarding and moving too far up and gets 2 of his 3 dog units eaten alive by my Archers.  By letting Soul Quench go through, the dogs were dead rotten meat.  His Terrorgheist flew up but was unable to allocate a decent target aside from my Archer unit.  He screams at it and kills a few and that's OK with me.  Because I have a more mobile army, I relocated most of my units on the far right and basically left my Spearmen to hold my left flank.  With this one maneuver, I moved to kill with the full weight of my White Lions, Dragon Princes and both Phoenixes in a wide, sweeping arc of combo-charging death.
• Once again, the Frostheart Phoenixes prove to be awesome.  Despite a minor mistake that left my Dragon Princes way out of position, I still managed to double charge his Grave Guard unit with my both my Frostheart Phoenixes.  I guess the Princes of Caledor let their arrogance get to them and in doing so, were a turn late to save my White Lions from his Ghoul King.  Together, they inflicted heavy, heavy casualties onto the unit.  Throughout the magic phase, I did not roll a negative modifier for Attuned to Magic once, and most of the time I was rolling with 4+ Ward and +1A.  Two of my Phoenixes chewed through 30 or so Grave Guard in 2 rounds of combat.  S6 stomps are ridiculous and the -S modifier continues to impress me.
• Banner of the World Dragon stopped the crap out of Curse of Years.  He was rolling ridiculously hot and I think I lost 2 White Lions total in 2 rounds (I failed to dispel it) of it being on.  The Dragon Princes were a bit unlucky, on the turn that I failed to dispel it again, 3 of them went down.  I have to keep remembering to take stacking High Magic ward saves and the Dragon Armor's natural 6+ ward save.  Lucas was kind enough to remind me a couple of times.
• I miscasted a crap ton this game, I think 3 times.  All of the wounds generated from these were saved by the Banner of the World Dragon due to the miscast being magical attacks.  Sadly, the only thing worth noting is that I had Fiery Convocation dispelled on a crucial turn due to him having so many DD from Peripat.  The rest of my magic was unimpressive except for Hand of Glory making my White Lions' unit WS7 vs. WS3 Ghouls.  This negated a ton of damage.
• Well, his Ghoul King got into combat with my White Lion's unit and to my surprise, revealed absolutely zero magic weapons and continued to eat through 8 Lions per turn.  It was horrifying, but thankfully Stubborn kept them in the fight.  The unit eventually got whipped out, but not before my Dragon Princes and Phoenixes charge into the flanks and pop the unit due to combat res.

Things to try next time:

• I really want to try bringing only one Frostheart Phoenix just to see how it feels.  Although 2x is the sweet spot, I think one will be decent since my meta doesn't have a ton of cannons so far.  I'm just afraid that if the Frostheart dies, I'll be missing a vital support tool for my army.
• Putting an Ironcurse Icon onto my Lv.1 supporting Mage carrying High Magic has a chance to improve his unit's ward save to 5+ vs. Warmachines.
• I think I'll drop the Dragon Princes into MSU units for 5-6x with Mus and that's it.  The bigger unit was definitely fun to play with, but I'm not so sure how excited I am to take them again.  I will miss that BSB though, the protection of 1+ re-rollable combined with Dragon Armor is great.  Potion of Foolhardiness is also a must-have I think in that circumstance.  Perhaps a Star Lance, Enchanted Shield + PoFools for more damage.  That remains to be seen.
• I want to give Phoenix Guard a try, but it's just so damn expensive that I have to drop the Phoenix or replace the White Lions.  What kind of banner should I put on the PG?  As of now, I'm thinking of just putting the Banner of Eternal Flame on them and call it a day.  Put the Archmage in there and have him spam High Magic to bring the unit up to a 3+ ward.  Sounds good, will try definitely.

Going back a little:

In the first game I had with my Star Dragon, I think I definitely want to keep the Star Dragon focused on killing bigger units.  This might sound kinda low-tier, but I think I'll be sporting the Star Lance on him for a couple of games.  Sword of Might is good when combined with OTS on the Star Dragon, but that's meant for more killing rank and file.  Besides, the thought of 10 S7 attacks coming their way when they'll hopefully be at -S and ASL is just shit your pants worthy.

The real question:
Alarielle - Is she worth it compared to a Lv.4 AM with Book of Hoeth?  Here's what I'm going to do with her:  Put her in a unit of White Lions and take 1 spell from High Magic (defaults to Drain Magic), 3 from Light.  BSB tots Banner of Avelorn for +4 to cast from Lore of Light.  The White Lions have Banner of the World Dragon.  She gives the White Lions 5+ ward vs. non-magical attacks and I always have Drain Magic so I have a chance to pump up that ward.  Otherwise, I have a 2+ ward vs. all magical attacks, weapons and spells.  The unit will also have a Lv.1 supporting Light mage in case I get Banishment.

I played 2 games with High Elves today!

Banner banned already?!

The first game was against this really nice guy who took a like-wise monster-mash list, and the second game was a against a friendly Ogres player.  To my surprise when I walked in the store today, my order arrived Friday night and I was able to get the Phoenixes together.  I went with double Frostheart Phoenix although I'm thinking about getting a third Flamespyre now.

As always, my BRs will consist of notes and confirmations rather than a play by play report.  I decided to go this route with these so you guys can take more tactical/strategic knowledge from these.

So my first game was..
2500 points, Pitched

I had..
Prince on Star Dragon
2x Frostheart Phoenix
30x LSG FC, 2x 11x Archers w/ Mus
A big unit of Dragon Princes w/ BotWD
BSB Noble with Dragon Princes
and a Lv.2 Mage running High Magic

My opponent had..
Engine of the Gods
Ancient Steggy
2x units of big Saurus Warriors
A Old Blood on Carnasaur
2x units of Salamanders
A unit of Skinks and some lizardy flyers

Notes from Game #1

• The Attuned to Magic special rule really helps our Phoenixes' a great deal.  I kept rolling +1 attack on my Frozen Turkeys and their damage output went up considerably.  Never did I roll a 1 or 2, and only once did I roll the +1 Initiative.  On the turn that I did get 4+ Ward, I didn't need it because I was already ahead in points and unit advantage.
• The Banner of World Dragon did not see much play in this game due to very little magic being thrown out.  Sure, the Old Blood on Carnasaur had a magic weapon, but the Dragon Princes never saw him in battle.  They were too busy killing a ton of Saurus Warriors on a direct charge from the front.
• The Frostheart Phoenix is worth every point, to a point where I think they might be too good.  I know if there were cannons running around on the battlefield we would be having another type of discussion, but their abilities are so damn good!  I combo-charged my Prince on Star Dragon into the EotG and went to town with it.  It's a shame I managed to fluff all my attacks on the first go, but the fact that my Star Dragon can swing before his Steggy was impressive.  In fact, he's the only one that did any damage despite my Prince having a Star Lance with ASF re-rolls.
• Blizzard Aura is absolutely amazing.  You will see that in this first game and in the next game, the Frostheart Phoenix does serious work.  Once he's in combat with a unit, their fighting effectiveness goes to shit.  Saurus Warriors that need 4s and 4s to wound your Elves, Stegadons need 5s to wound your Phoenix, and forget about the Star Dragon.  Pseudo-T8 makes him nearly untouchable with his high WS and T factored in.  One of my Frosthearts even took a flank charge from the Old Blood on Carny, did 3 wounds to the dino and only saw 1 back.  With S7, he needed 4s to wound, I passed 2 5+ Ward saves and he only did 1 wound which got healed back by Apothesis next round.  Overall, I think the Frostheart Phoenix met my expectations and then some.  The Attuned to Magic helped me in most cases and the Blizzard Aura was amazing.
• I will probably be taking 2x Great Eagles in every list still.  I mean, why not?  They're great re-directors and give me extra cheap drops that I can use to better position my heavy hitters.  I'm not entirely sure on the LSG, but I'm pretty happy with my Dragon Princes doing work on his Saurus.  I will need to see more tries with such a beefy bus before I make any more judgement.
• I talked to a couple of guys who are running tournies and leagues in my area and it's confirmed:  Banner of the World Dragon will be banned.  In a sense, I agree because it allows for some really stupid imbalances (Daemons), but I don't think the banner itself is overpowered.  It's mainly the fact that Daemons can't touch it that's causing it to be banned, nothing else.
• My Prince on Star Dragon build was: Prince, Star Dragon, Heavy Armor, Great Weapon, Enchanted Shield, Star Lance, and 4+ Ward.  It comes out to 622, but I'm not sure if it's completely needed to take a Star Dragon.  I guess at the end of the day, it really depends on your meta.  If a lot of WS3 troops running around, and S5, then I would probably look at the Star Dragon.  Otherwise, the cheaper Moon Dragon might be a solid option.

Game #2 was..
2000 points, Pitched

I had..
Lv.4 Archmage, Book of Hoeth, Crown, High Magic
Lv.2 Mage, Scroll, High Magic
BSB, Armor of Caledor, GW
24x White Lions, FC, BotWD
30x Spearmen FC, SoDisc, 2x units of 10x Archers w/ Mus
2x Frostheart Phoenixes

He had..
Tyrant, Fencer's Blades, Greedy Fist
Lv.2 Butcher in a unit of 5x Leadbelchers
A big unit of Ironguts
A decent unit of Bulls
2x Mournfang
Ironblaster

Notes from Game #2

• A smaller game for sure, and the first thing I noticed was how much I can fit in such a small game!  I took all the things I wanted to pretty much because I was so impressed by the Frosthearts from the previous game.  The thing to take away from this is how much we can fit with in a 2K game and still play moderately competitive.  I'm sure the Frosthearts take all the glory though.
• Much like the first game, I did not see one poor roll with my Attuned to Magic.  Multiple times I was seeing +1 Attack, +1S and 4+ Ward.  Two times I got the 4+ Ward and my opponent just said nevermind and attacked something else.  That works for me!
• This is the first game I got to try out High Magic in all its glory.  Sure, I didn't have the Loremaster, but after this game, I'm not sure if I really need one.  Here's why:  My Archmage was extremely greedy with the spells he wanted to cast.  I rolled into Fiery Convocation but I decided to swap it out for Drain Magic, along with Soul Apotheosis, Hand of Glory, Tempest and Arcane Unforging.
• First thing's first, I'm not sure how much I like Arcane Unforging being a direct damage spell.  I charged into combat with my White Lions early and I barely casted this thing.  Being direct damage severely limits this spells use IMO.  The 24" is solid and I can see this being used on enemy BSBs a lot, but not being able to use it in combat makes it a lot weaker than I originally anticipated.
• Hand of Glory is freaking amazing vs. WS3 units when you're WS5+ on your Elites and good stuff.  I got this spell off a good amount of times because I squeezed out so many casts and rolled a 3 on the D3.  WS7+ gives you a damage buffer against all enemies trying to hit you and that's fantastic.  To make things even more exciting, the fact I got to throw out so many spells stacked up a good amount of Ward saves on my White Lion's unit.  With the +5 to cast from my AM and Book of Hoeth, I managed to throw out a good amount of spells every turn.  In 3 of my turns, I had 2 5+ wards and a 4+ ward on my unit of White Lions.  That's a ton of reduced damage in combination with WS8 vs. WS3 troops.
• Again, the Blizzard Aura does serious work.  The Phoenixes are huge because of their threat range and their ability to support any combat the way only a flyer can.  My White Lions managed to pull out a 9" charge on his Tyrant's Irongut unit and my opponent just took it.  Once the Phoenixes came in as support he knew he was a goner.  Yes, both Phoenixes, Hand of Glory on the White Lions, -1S ASL on his unit, and +1 attack on both birds.  Man, it was so good.
• With the Lv.4, almost all of the spells from the High Magic lore is playable with 2 dice, especially if you have the Book of Hoeth.  I even managed to stop a high-roll on one of hi spells by turning one of my dispel dice of 1 into a 6.  Bam, IF dispelled, sorry.  I'm a little unsure about Soul Quench, Tempest, Arcane Unforging AND Fiery Convocation being all direct damage-ish spells, but I definitely need more games to confirm my findings.  I just think I'll severely limit my magic phase if I can't cast these spells into close combat.  Less casts equates to less wards being stacked up too.

Additional Notes:

• Now that I've seen the Lv.4 AM in action with the Book, I'm not so sure on the Loremaster.  Spell flexibility is one thing, but like a lot of people have said before; I didn't have the dice to throw them.  Realistically, you're only throwing spells with your AM.  High Magic is great because of the low costs, the +5 to cast and stackable wards, but I'm unsure about a full half of the spells being DD.
• I will be adjusting some of my lists to not incorporate the Loremaster in the same list as my AM.  I will hopefully fill that void with either an Anointed, or a Prince to go with my Dragon Princes.  After the AM's performance, I'm not sure if I even need the Lv.2.  I might take a Lv.1 with High Magic just for another a another Drain Magic.  From what I've seen of the spell, I think it's amazing.
• Everything about the Frostheart Phoenix is true.  The guy is an utter beast and is arguably the best support unit in the High Elf army.  I absolutely cannot see me playing without this guy and I know I'll be taking 1-2 from now on in every game.  However, I'm going to try out the Flamespyre Phoenix in my next game vs. Vampire Counts (maybe, want to build it first).  Don't worry, the competitive crowd isn't in yet and we're just trying out new stuff.  I am super excited though!
• Surprise surprise, it looks like BotWD will be banned in major tournaments in my area.

BR: 1000pts RoF vs. KoB

Vive la France!

Hey guys, today I played a game vs. my friend's KoB with my French navy.  In this BR, I will follow the same unit review format as I did the last BR before moving onto the mission recap.  Overall, I enjoy this format a little more because it gives me the opportunity to highlight the ups and downs of each unit.  It's also easier to track their performance as I write more BRs.

Here are the fleets:

Charlemagne DN (Cloud) = 240
Couronne BCV (Cloud, Fighters) = 150
3x Marseille (RA) = 195
3x Escuyer CA = 165
4x Chevalier DD = 120
4x Chevalier DD = 120
2x 5x TFT = Free!

vs.

Majesty DN (2x Shield) = 270
+3x Bastion Escorts = 75
Ruler BB (Shield) = 180
3x Agincourt CA = 240
4x Orion DD = 140
4x Attacker FF = 100
2x 5x TFT = Free!

Field Orders:
Me - Destroy all Large and Massive models in any opposing Fleet.
Him - Destroy or capture at least 50% of the Maximum Fleet Value of any opposing Fleet in Victory Points, including all Medium models.

House Rules:
Repair is actually 4+ because we're both GW gamers.
Critical Tables 2 and 12 have been switched because again, we're GW gamers.

My fleet analysis:

• My Charlemagne did very well this game.  I activated him first almost every turn just so I can get the Cloud Generator rolling early.  I needed this ship to preform and thus, I kept him advancing and applying damage every turn that I can with his RB3 rockets.  The primary turrets didn't do much until I was able to get into RB1, which combined with my broadside was able to blast apart 2 wounded Agincourts.  With Cloud Generator rolling, Retardant Armor and me closing fast on the enemy, his focused fire was unable to do any real damage to my ship.  When the game ended, I only managed to take a single hull point's worth of damage, while my Heat Lances managed to do 1 Crit and 1 HP to his Dreadnought and 2 points of damage to his BB.  Overall, this guy took a ton of damage and put out some heavy damage himself by charging directly towards both of his capital ships and getting both ships in Heat Lance territory.
• The Couronne BCV also preformed quite well.  He was able to supply a fighter wing to the party as well as a Recon plane for the extra activation.  I think the biggest contribution that he made to the fight was taking a lot of damage from his fleet.  A lot of fire went into the Couronne because of how Cloud Generator activation works.  If I activate the Charlemange first, my opponent will shoot at my Couronne.  If I activate the Couronne first, my opponent goes after my DN.  Since my DN was instrumental to winning this game vs. his two capitals, I decided that my BCV will take most of the beating.  Even though the Couronne took 3 HP of damage, I managed to down some Orion DDs and Attacker FFs with my broadsides and rockets.  Sadly, his BB launched AP later in the game and derelicted my ship.
• My Marseille Cruisers were pretty decent.  They were able to soak a good deal of damage being put into them, as well as manuever into advantageous positions with their MV9 and Sea-Skimming.  Damage was pretty decent from them as well as I was able to make some longer distance gunnery shots as well as annihilate some of his Destroyers and Frigates with my broadsides.  Being hit on 5s by torpedoes was also amazing as I was able to fend off an entire Torpedo Fighter squadron by themselves.  The excellent AA from a full squad really helped take the damage off the Cruisers.  Later in the game, these guys made a large sweeping manuever around the enemy BB to prize it.  Since all of his marines and my marines from the BCV killed each other, his BB was left wide open.
• I really liked the Escuyer CAs.  Their RB2 AA almost seems like cheating because I was able to annihilate a squadron of TFTs after they made their bombing run.  Given I could of sat back a little more and waited for his TFT to come closer, I chose to advance with the rest of my fleet to get better field presence and weighted fire.  Although they limped forward with the rest of my heavier ships, I didn't find their advance too problematic because of the damage their turrets put out from range.  Hitting for 7/6/5 with secondary turrets all the way to RB3 is really good, and the fact that their AA basically eliminates any chance your opponent will board the Escuyers.  I remember in the game when one of his remaining Agincourt Gunships threw his AP at one of my Escuyers.  Those poor, poor men never stood a chance.
• Last, but not least, I had 2x units of 4x Chevalier DDs as backup fire support.  Yeah, these guys are just really good.  Pack Hunter, a lot of rockets from RB1-3, and good DR.  They were able to put on the hurt to everything in his navy from Frigates all the way to his Gunships.  Overall, these guys can definitely stay in the navy.  Their ranged support is very beneficial to an naval force who needs to get closer to the enemy before they can unleash their more devastating weapons.

The enemy fleet:

• The Majesty and the Ruler put a lot of shots out at my DN when they should of annihilated my mediums.  My opponent agrees that he lost track of the mission parameters and that killing my smaller ships would of been better than wasting shots at my Cloud Generated, slightly retarded ships.  When he launched his final AP assault on my Charlemange later in the game, he failed to kill any of my Fighter CAP and my AA just blew him to shreds.  I think only 3 of his Elite marines made it on board and my own Elite marines were able to clean house without much problem.  What my opponent did well with his capital ships was change fire on whichever of my capital ships activated first so he can shoot at the one without the Cloud Generator.  This is how he managed to put on good damage on my Couronne early, but he got tunnel visioned into the Charlemange later after I threw out 14 dice vs. his Majesty and critted it for damaged engines.
• The Agincourts performed as expected, and their damage mauled my Chevaliers, but poor dice meant they couldn't do much to my other stuff.  I believe he shot at the Escuyers a couple of times and just didn't get anywhere with their damage.  With his field orders being kill my mediums, this was extremely frustrating for him.  I made the mistake of spreading damage on his Agincourts when I should of just focused one down after another.  It was their torpedoes that did the most damage, but my focus on weakening their primaries kept their AP a threat as well.  I know I will be focus firing them down next game instead of spreading the love.
• As for the rest of his units, they all preformed as well as they're going to.  His Destroyers and Frigates did solid damage to my Chevaliers, but their performance vs. my Marseilles were very poor.  The Sea-Skimming made their torps very weak, and their main guns were unable to breach the Retardant Armor that my Marseilles had.  The fact that I flew over land in the later parts of the game kept torpedoes out of the question entirely.  Overall though, they did solid damage to my smaller ships but was unable to do anything to my bigger ships.

Reflection:

• I believe my activation order and firing priority was better than my opponent.  He got tunnel visioned into killing my bigger ships instead of focusing primaries at my mediums.  If he managed to kill 5 Destroyers and all my Cruisers, the game would of been his.  However, this was not the case and I'm sailing back to France with a Ruler BB in tow.

BR: 1000pts EotBS vs. RoF

Om nom nom..

I'm not really sure how to do DW battle reports just yet, but I figure I'll do it in my classic bullet point format.  However, I'm changing one little thing.  Since I want to add my fleet/ship analysis to the game as well, I'm going to use my navy list and comment on the particular ships and how they contributed to the battle.  Alright, let's go!

My list:
Hachiman DN

Kiyohime BCV

3x Tanuki CA

2x 4x Uwatsu FF

2x Ika Squidies

2x 5x Torpedoes

His list:

Magenta MKII BB

2x Magenta Prototype BB

Couronne BCV

3x Marseille CA

2x 4x Chevalier DD

2x 5x Torpedoes

I'll start by going over my units:

• The Hachiman is an interesting ship.  It wants to stay far away and shoot with its boss 9 rockets at RB4, but at the same time it wants to get close because the guns on it is pitiful from far away.  I used it in a manner which was most aggressive; shooting out rockets from RB4 all the way to RB2 where I could use my guns.  He drew an asston of fire from the opposing fleet, and eventually limped around with 6 damage on it and having its primary/secondary weapons rolling half dice from a crit (I failed to repair twice).  His main contribution to the battle was launching a few dudes over after the Ikas ate all the marines on his Magenta MKII BB.
• The Kiyohime BCV was not very impressive.  I kept him moving fast in hopes of bringing some powerful weapons into the fray, but I couldn't damage anything with this ship.  His stats are overall pretty low, with the main saving grace being his main turret and his P/S guns.  Unfortunately, he took a lot of damage over the course of the game, with him limping towards the front lines with 6/7 points worth of damage.  His main contribution was sending over his marines and capturing the Couronne BCV after bloody melee.  My Kiyohime made it out of the game though, just barely limping forward with its guns neutered and hull teared to shreds.
• My Tanuki Gunships were amazing in this game.  They poured out constant and immediate damage with their rockets, hitting all targets at RB4 on all sides with their 6 rockets a piece.  Over the course of the game, they downed several enemy destroyers, damaged several enemy BBs, put damage on his Cruisers, as well as prizing 2/3 Marseille CAs.  I believe I used this unit the best, as I kept them limping towards the enemy fleet in RB2 so I can get their Main Turrets, Fore Torpedoes and Rocket Batteries (shooting at RB3/4 targets) in constant action.  When the fight called for it, I was able to Sharp Turn towards promising targets and apply Secondary Main Turrets in RB1 while simultaneously launching 6 AP each for boarding actions.  The 4/8 statline with 6 HP also helped the ships far longer than they should.
• I was relatively impressed with my Uwatsu FFs even though they took a severe beating from the enemy fleet.  Most the Chevaliers were tasked to destroying my Frigates, and once the CAs and BBs joined in, all my ships were either broken limping forward towards the enemy at half strength.  My opponent suggested that the damage (or dice rather) he was putting out from his dual flying Magentas were poor, but I looked at the damage inflicted on my FFs from everything else and I consider it a fair trade!  A single Uwatsu in close proximity to an enemy ship can pour out 7 dice linking fire with himself.  If I had more of these suckers in combat, I would be rolling a ton more dice.  Unfortunately, it seems like the Uwatsus are the Chevalier's favorite snack.
• Last, I'll talk about my Ika Squids.  I think it goes without saying that EotBS players everywhere recommend taking 2x of these even more so than the DN.  Despite my rather shoddy deployment with these guys (deployed a bit too far), they were able to reach combat by Turn 4 and just take things over.  Two of them were able to derelict his slightly damaged Magneta MKII with losing only one tentacle, one of them single-handily stripped his Magenta Prototype, and both were able to sustain an enormous amount of firepower with their 5/10 Rugged Construction and 6 HP each.  I think from now on, I'm just going to put these guys in the middle and make a B-line for the closest fatty ship.  They're also horrifying to face once they emerge from the water because everything from his fleet went into them.

EotBS Summary:

• I feel that both the Hachiman and the Kiyohime were not worth the points I spent on them.  This, however, does not mean I don't know what they should be used for.  The Hachiman absorbed an enormous amount of damage being thrown at him, and the threat he generated on the table was immense.  If you think about all the damage that he had, it was due to the fact that he was closing in quick with 12 AP with Dash and Elan, a Ram Rating of 9 and 3 AD13 guns that can be brought into bear in a very graceful manner.  The mines that the DN has is just utterly worthless, so I'm basically treating the DN as a hulking threat with a lot of potential dice at close range.  I guess my problem with the ship is:  It's not a Dreadnought for its points.  It's more like an upgunned BB, but if that's the case, why not just take another BB?
• As for the Kiyohime, I'm just a little disappointed with its performance.  The best thing about the BCV is that you get the Torpedo Bombers (which can seriously mess things up) and the Recon plane for the extra activation.  Its main turret is also really powerful, and the B/S Guns are not bad at all.  Maybe the carrier just had a bad game, I'll try him again in the next one I play.  Or maybe I should drop the DN and the BCV for 2x BBs.  That does sound very appealing.
• Sharp Turn and Fast Torpedoes are amazing MARs.  For everyone who discounts the potential of Sharp Turn, they seriously need to rethink how they're using their ships.  I was able to turn my DN nearly on a dime compared to other ships of its class, my Tanukis literally U-turned into targets on my far flank, and I was able to pull off maneuvers that other ships can only dream of.  It's just a fantastic MAR.  Fast Torpedoes are just insane man.  Torps hitting on 3s and forcing your opponent to re-roll success CC saves is just brutal.  The damage potential from Torpedo Bombers with the Fast Torpedo MAR is one of the only saving graces to the otherwise lackluster BCV.

RoF Summary:

• I have the French as my second fleet, so I'm quite familiar with all the awesome things that they can do.  Retardent Armor and Cloud Generators can be incredibly frustrating to play against at times.  There's been so many times where I thought I did damage, but the loss of the Double Hits + roll again due to Retardant Armor really nullifies that.  Cloud Generators are just really funny:  Being hit on 5s all the time makes them incredibly good vs. all types of attacks.  Due to the fact that my friend was rolling with CAP'd Torpedo Bombers and not Fighters, I knew that boarding him was an option to get into the Retarded Cloudy French ships.  At the end of the game, I managed to win by prizing the Magenta MKII, his Carrier, one of his Magenta Prototypes, and 2/3 of his Marseilles.
• The Heat Lance is just death incarnate to enemy DNs.  His Carrier has one, his Magenta MKII has one, and if he brought his Charlemagne, I don't even know what I should do.  What basically happened is that:  He got into RB2 with his Cloud Generator and began throwing dice.  Everytime that he threw dice, my DN took a load of damage.  That's to be expected, so my battleplan had to be disabling his Heat Lance ships ASAP.  Since his BCV and BB were the biggest targets, it wasn't too hard to focus all my attention onto them while his Magneta Prototypes pounded me from the air.
• Speaking of which, the flying BBs were really interesting.  They flew around most of the game and shot me at RB2 with a bunch of dice.  I wounded one of them early with rockets from my Tanuki, and the other one that shot me just didn't do damage over the course of the game so he turned into a paper weight.  The fact that I had torpedo bombers and my targets were either Clouded ships in front, flying ships in the back (can't even hit them), or flying far far away to get to his DDs, my options were severely limited.  Therefore, my target priority changed to the things in front of me and to ignore his flying battleships that was raining on top of me.
• I like the Chevalier DD, but I'm not convinced about the Marseille CA in his fleet.  The DDs are just able to put down an enormous amount of damage from RB3 onwards and they linked for huge dice against everything.  Many of my FFs were sunk by them although he didn't do as much damage as he wanted on my capital ships.  At the end of the day though, they're only 120 points for 4 of them and the damage they put out is well worth it. As for the Marseilles, I think I would spend the +10 points each on them for Retardant Armor.  They have good shooting from RB3 on with their 270 degree Primaries, but I think they need a little boost in the defensive side to make them truly different than the Escuyer.  The Marseille is also incredibly fast and being surface skimming makes them really interesting in how they're used.  I think they're good and have their uses, but once they get damaged a fair amount (I put 2 damage on each throughout the game), they become significantly less effective.

BR: 1500 DE vs. Orks

Get dat cover!

Mission: Purge the Alien
Deployment: Vanguard Strike
Warlord Trait: Strategic - Re-roll reserves
Drugs: 6 - Pain Token

My list:
1490
14 VP

HQ:
Succubus (Agonizer, BP, Haywire) = 105

TROOP:
5x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster) = 130
10x Warriors (Raider, NS, SR, Blaster, SC) = 195
10x Warriors (Raider, NS, SR, Blaster, SC) = 195
9x Wyches (Raider NS/AS, Hekatrix/VB/PGL, Haywires) = 210
10x Wyches (Raider NS/AS, Hekatrix/VB/PGL, Haywires) = 220

HEAVY:
Ravager (NS) = 115
Ravager (NS) = 115
Voidraven (NS/FF, 4x SF) = 205

His List:
10 VP
2x big ass squads of Shootas w/ Nob on foot
2x 12-man units of Shootas w/ Nob in Trukks
2x 15-man squads of Lootas, one with a Mekboy w/ Shokk
1x 11-man unit of Shootas
1x unit of 3 Kans


Summary:

• Well, the two squads of Lootas scared the shit out of me because I know how much damage they can do to my army. Thankfully, Night Fighting was rolled and he chose to go first.
• I had most of my army positioned in a way where his Lootas would shoot me but I would have Shrouded + Cover, so I did alright for the most part. The first round of his shooting saw him down a gunboat with his Mekboy's Shokk Attakk gun, so I exited my dudes and got as close as I can in rapid fire range of his 11-man Shoota squad. First blood goes to the Orks!
• On my turn, I rapid fired his Shoota boy squad down to 3 dudes and he broke (they ran off the board eventually). I disembarked my Succubus and Wych squad and charged a unit of Kans with Haywires. I killed 2 of them and his Kans did nothing to me so I was stuck in combat in front of a green tide.
• I moved my remaining gunboat on a flanking mission around some terrain and turbo-boosted it behind some ruins on a good angle. The gunboat was in good position to shoot up some Lootas next turn, and his return fire would be weak because of how many Lootas could see and the cover save that I would get (3+).
• The rest of my army backed up from the Lootas (Night Shields) and shot up Trukks, downing both of them. Everything else turbo-boosted into more advantageous positions to separate distance with his Orks. I needed my Voidraven on the field to thin out some numbers first.
• Next turn, he charges my Succubus and her Wych squad with 2 units: 1 giant squad of Shootas, and 1 from the dudes that got shot out of the Trukk. I seriously thought I was going to get rolled, but between his terrible dice, my good dodge saves and FNP kept my Wyches in the game with a positive combat resolution. Not all of his dudes made it into combat, which greatly helped that combat stay in there. I directed 2 of my Wyches on the Kan but only 1 did damage.
• His Lootas had nothing to shoot at so he shot at my Warrior squad who shot his small Shoota squad off he table. Let's just say he rolled 3 on D3 and had hot dice, so the entire unit vanished from the table. The rest of the Lootas did nothing because of Night Shields and good cover usage.
• My return fire saw me pick off the diminished squad of Trukk Shootas as they were fleeing, and my Lances had to relocate to draw better targets. Sadly, the Lances had no better targets since all the armor was dead or tied in combat, so the Ravagers just picked off some Shootas.
• The Voidraven came in this turn and dropped of a Void Mine in the middle of combat (on all his Orks of course), but it scatted and only killed 3. The Shatterfield Missiles hit a whole bunch of Lootas on the second story of a building and killed all of them and put a wound on the Mekboy. The Void Lance woulds were LoS!'d off onto the bottom floor. No worries though, my flanking gunboat made his move this game by coming in and declaring Focus Fire on all the Lootas on the bottom floor without cover. I killed every single one of them except for the Mekboy, but one Dark Lance later from the Raider saw him evaporate after a failed cover save. Combat in the middle is still going even though he has a crap ton of Orks. He kills some Wyches but my Succubus keeps the score even. The Kan is still alive because I rolled a 1 for Haywire.
• My other Wych squad gets out of their Raider and charges the remaining Trukk squad of Shootas still alive and Overwatch manages to catch 2. I slaughter the remaining Orks in combat after his Nob rips the head off my Hekatrix and I gain a Pain Token.
• His next turn saw the Lootas move through difficult terrain to get more shots in at my Voidraven. They need 6s anyways right, so who cares! He rolled a bunch of die but poor rolling kept the Voidraven in the game.
• The other giant blob of Shootas move in the direction of my Wyches and shoot the squad down to 5 girls. To make things even more insulting, he gets the 8" charge after by rolling exactly that. If my Overwatch would of killed at least 1 Ork, he wouldn't have got into combat, but that was not to be. Regardless, he gets in combat with my Wyches and kill them all. He consolidates into some cover.
• The combat in the middle with my Succubus goes poorly and I lose 6 Wyches. I kill the Kan, 3 Orks, lose combat but manages to stay in with decent rolling. We laugh like huge nerds because this one combat has lasted since my Turn 1.
• My next turn sees the Voidraven turn 90 and head towards the giant blob of Shootas. 18 cover saves later and a good amount of Orks are dead, but there's still a good amount remaining. Really poor shooting from my Dark Lances kept the Orks numbers pretty decent and I'm afraid I got a little too close with my 5-man Raider unit. Thankfully, they roll better and more Orks are killed from the front, but not enough to strip Fearless.
• The flanking gunboat now goes to work on the other Loota squad and I focus fire all the Lootas out of cover. Half of them die but they pass their morale check and stay on the field. Next turn, they fire into the back of my Voidraven and score 2 penetrating hits: one of which locks the velocity of the aircraft.
• Not much happens from this point forward: He manages to charge the 5-man Raider and down it with his Power Klaw before I erase the unit with Lances and rapid fire Splinters. His remaining Loota squad gets shot to shit and runs off the board, my Voidraven flies off the board and comes back on my next turn, and the giant fight in the middle ends when he rolls like ass and I roll hot. He loses Fearless, loses combat by 3, breaks and I chase him down with I8 on my Succubus. 11-6 victory to DE.

BR: 1750 DE vs. CSM

Takin' some slaves.

Mission: Crusade (4 objectives)
Deployment: Dawn of War

My list:
1745
17 VP

HQ:
Succubus (Agonizer, BP, Haywires) = 105
Succubus (Agonizer, BP, Haywires) = 105

TROOP:
5x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster) = 130
5x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster) = 130
10x Warriors (Raider, NS, SR, Blaster, SC) = 195
10x Warriors (Raider, NS, SR, Blaster, SC) = 195
9x Wyches (Raider NS, Hekatrix/VB/PGL/BP, Haywires) = 225
9x Wyches (Raider NS, Hekatrix/VB/PGL/BP, Haywires) = 225

HEAVY:
Ravager (NS) = 115
Ravager (NS) = 115
Voidraven (NS/FF, 4x SF) = 205

His list:
Sorcerer in TDA
Sorcerer in PA on foot
2x 7x Plague Marines w/ 2x Plasma Guns in Rhinos
7x Terminators, 2x combi-meltas, Reaper AC, MoNurgle
2x 2x Obliterators
1x 10x CSM squad on foot w/ Plasma Guns


Summary:

• I rolled a 2 for my Strategic tree and drew Night Fighting in the first round of the game.  I also won deployment and he failed to seize.
• Bad positioning on his Obliterators costs him dearly as I reduce the total number of Oblits from 4 to 1.  I just focused a ton of Dark Lances into his Oblits early, and his return fire didn't do anything because of Jink + Night Fighting.
• My opponent perils twice by rolling double 6s with his TDA Sorc and his dude on foot.  It was funny to see, but a little bit sad at the same time.
• Night Shields stopped a lot of incoming fire his Plague Marines, Plasma weapons and Bolters.
• One of the cooler things to see was that my opponent disembarked his Plague Marines and then moved the Rhinos in the shooting phase to gain cover saves from some angles.
• I managed to pull some really great angles with my Dark Lances and pick off a lot of the Plague Marines' Plasma Guns.  Special Weapons are useful, but they can be picked off really easy when left in the front.  That's when the power of Night Fields really kick in.
• My Voidraven failed to come in on Turn 2, but his Terminators with the Sorc landed smack dead in the middle of my forces.  It was a bold of him to do so, and he managed to disable one of my Ravagers.
• On my third turn, my Voidraven flies over his Termies who are still in DS formation and drops a Void mine.  Instead of killing all those tightly packed Termies, it scatters 6" into my Wyches and kill 6 of them.  It also clips a Ravager and the Wyches Raider and blows both up.  So far, my Voidraven has done more damage to my army than all his forces combined.
• The Voidraven's Void Lances and Shatterfield Missiles cuts into a Plague Marine squad out of the Rhino and kills several of the members.  I focus all my attention into the Terminators and kill many with Lances before charging the final 3 + Sorc with both Succubi and Wych squads.  My drug roll earlier was a Pain Token, but MoNurgle kept the damage on the low and one of my Hekatrix dies in a challenge vs. his Sorcerer who only has 1W left.  I couldn't do any damage when fighting against his Termies and I lose combat by 2.  Thankfully, I pass both.
• Next turn sees his lone Oblit try to hit my Voidraven and miss because it's a Flyer.  My gunboats put some serious hurt on his units not in combat with Rapid Fire Splinter Rifle + Splinter Racks.  A lot of things die on his side of the board and I get a pain token for one of the Warrior squads.
• Close combat sees me kill the rest of the opposing Termies while my Succubus and his Sorcerer dueled.  Nothing happens from the duel and his Sorc breaks from combat.  I catch him because I'm I8 and I gain more Pain Tokens on both squad of Wyches.
• The Voidraven and gunboat cleans up the 10x CSM squad while more Dark Lances pours into the remaining Plague Marines.  Invisibility and FNP helps, but sheer weight of fire from Poisoned shots drops shit regardless.
• We keep forgetting about the random relics; one of which was a sabotage (my opponent triggered it) but it ended up doing nothing for 2 turns, and the other one was a +1 cover save for my scoring Wyches.
• My smaller squad of Wyches w/ the Succubus charges a squad of Plague Marines and kills some, but Fearless keeps him in the game.  The next turn another squad of Plague Marines try to join the fray but roll double 1s for the charge.  We call the game here.

Reflection:

• Night Fighting is great for Dark Eldar.  It gives me a chance to be bold and aggressive with my army while maintaining great defenses.  I can really bully armies that can't deal with it effectively.
• Both of my Succubi are now accusing each other of who was responsible for the Void Mine incident.  A bribe of the flesh perhaps?
• I think it's time to change out all my Agonizers for Venom Blades.  I just get nowhere with 2+ armor saves and the difference isn't even that bad vs. regular MEQ in a challenge.  Judging from my meta, I think I can get away with just VB for a couple of games.  Terminators are just so hard to kill now in CC.
• My opponent should of just hid all his units and let me fly around my first turn.  Losing so many Oblits in the first round of hurting really put him in a bad spot.  Maybe even Deep Strike in on me now that reserves are better:  Combined with the Sorc and his unit coming it, it might have split my focus.
• Focus Fire with Lances is still super important.  I was able pick off a lot of targets out of cover with singular Lance shots.  The speed and mobility of my transports allowed me to get in place.

6th Ed. First Impressions

Pen and paper, keeping it old school.

I played a 1500 point game today against my friends Blood Angels and here's what I learned.  Once again, this will be done in bullet points, so it's easier to follow.

Dark Eldar was the army I used and here is the army list:

1500

14 VP

HQ:

Archon (Huskblade, BP, ST, SF, Drugs) = 160

TROOP:

5x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster) = 130

5x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster) = 130

10x Warriors (Raider, NS, Blaster, SC) = 185

9x Wyches (Raider NS, Hekatrix/Agonizer/BP, Haywires) = 225

10x Wyches (Raider NS, Hekatrix/Agonizer/BP, Haywires) = 235

HEAVY:

Ravager (NS) = 115

Ravager (NS) = 115

Voidraven (NS/FF, 4x SF) = 205

Here are the changes I made to my Dark Eldar:

• Dropped Flickerfields on transports.
• Added Haywires to the Wyches because they're amazing.
• Dropped my normal 2 unit of Wyches for more Lances because Wyches are more utility now.
• Added a Voidraven with Flickerfield because then he doesn't need to take any Jink saves.  The 4x Shatterfield Missiles are there because they're awesome.
• Switched the Archon to my Huskblade setup because I wanted to play with him this game.

Here is what I learned from playing my first game of 6th Ed:

• We played a mission where Night Fighting was active and my Night Vision was an amazing advantage.
• Warlord Traits are fucking amazing.  He had Move Through Cover on every unit with 12" of his Libby (amazing for Blood Angels) and I had the trait that made his reserves come in 1 late.  I will probably always take the Strategic traits because they're fluffy and powerful for Dark Eldar.
• Capturing relics as objectives is pretty fun, especially when they can be really good.  I got one that gave a capturing unit Skyfire so that was super exciting.  Even though I had a small group of guys, I got out to claim the objective just because my 18" Blaster now had the ability to shoot in the air.
• Reserves that come in on 3+ is really awesome.  My Voidraven came in on Turn 2 and kicked the living shit out of his Death Company.  It did 1 Void Lance wound and 14 normal wounds.
• Speaking of wounds, I told him to do the 14 normal wounds first and then the Void Lance wound.  The Sergeant made the LoS!, but the option to force different wounds in a specific order is really good.
• My Voidraven also came in from a direction that targeted the Death Company with the most power weapons first.  I wanted to kill those first by wound allocation so I flew in from that angle.  It's really amazing that direction matters now for shooting, and I love that.
• Sadly, my Voidraven got shot out of the sky by his Stormraven on his third turn.  It failed to come in the second turn because of my Warlord's trait.  This gives me the impression that dogfighting will be super important when other Flyers are on the table.
• What I should of done with my Voidraven was shoot at his dudes on Turn 2, and then immediately turn 90 degrees and fly off the board on Turn 3 after his ship failed to fly on.  This would mean that if his Flyer came on Turn 3, my Voidraven will be ready for him automatically on Turn 4.  Top Gun, I gotta watch it again.
• Snapfiring my Splinter Cannon and Blasters was a fun experience, even though I didn't hit anything.  The option to do so is still important though, as a lucky Blaster hit can translate to big damage.
• I glanced the crap out of his Rifleman Dread with my Dark Lances.  Took a while because of 25% 5+ cover  saves, but I managed to do it.  Even though I didn't penetrate once, the hull point damage was enough.
• Jinking is awesome on Fast Skimmers.  Jink with Shroud and Stealth because of Night Fighting is amazing.  It saved a lot of my vehicles from his Rifleman Dread.
• Focus Fire is amazing and has a lot of valuable uses.  There was a time one of my Ravagers had clear line of sight to 3 of his models and the other ones were behind cover.  That's fine, because I can only inflict 3 max wounds so I focus fired onto those 3 models.  I rolled 3 hits, 3 wounds and 3 of his models died, including 1 meltagun.
• My other Raiders also shot at his unit with the diminished squad and since I peeled away 3 dudes from the back, his Sergeant was exposed and I shot him with a Dark Lance.  He failed his LoS! and the Sergeant died with the Power Fist with him.  Directional damage is amazing.
• Wyches with Haywires just shit on Dreads now.  I shot my Blast Pistol, threw a Haywire and then charged in with Haywires up the ying yang.  Dead Dread, just like that.
• Agonizers are great, but not against Terminators.  I threw 2 squads of Wyches into a unit of Assault Terminators and they just didn't give a fuck.  If I threw those Wyches into normal marines, things could of been much better (especially since I had re-roll wounds), but TDA with FNP is definitely a hard nut to crack with my power weapons being AP3.
• Challenges are great; it keeps my Archon safe, pins one of his models with my Huskblade and it forces his Sergeant to fight or do nothing.  This is great for me because it means less attacks will go into my Archon and I can constantly keep him safe provided there's characters in a unit.  It also keeps those Fists and other high priority threats locked in 1v1 combat.
• His Librarian had the Hallucination psychic power so I was super worried about that.  I didn't get to see what it did, or how Psychic Charges worked or anything because I just focus fired his squad with Lances until they died horribly.
• Speaking of which, did you guys notice that the LoS! rule applies to wounds and unsaved wounds?  That means I can take a invulnerable save, fail it and then pass that wound onto some random dude.  That's how LeMartes survived the first Lance, it was either him or some random guy from LoS! but my opponent just rolled a 4+.  He passed the Invul so he didn't even need to LoS! (?? need to re-read this)
• I think I'm going to drop the Huskblade Archon until they FAQ that to be AP2 or something.  Agonizers are still great because of the AP3 and you'll be going first vs. most things anyway, and the 4+ to wound is just fantastic.  The Huskblade is definitely not worth the points now, as I think even a normal Venom Blade is better.  Even the Succubus is starting to look really good considering how one with Haywires and a Venom Blade is 75 points.  She comes with Combat Drugs and if she rolls +1 WS, you're looking at a WS9 model with I8 and 5 attacks on the charge.  That's one hell of a bargain.
• Oh, and I had to get out and capture my VPs.  I felt very unsafe, but it was for the best.

That's it for now folks.  Hope you learn as much from this as I did.