We can Rebuild Him! Mercenary theme list league and painting blog. Part 3.5: preview, test game

First off, the main reason I made this post-- I flaked and forgot I took this pic for the post yesterday. So, leading with shiny preview.

Because the guys at the FLGS seem to have somehow mistaken a partially finished blue thing for a waterfall (springing out of his foot and going uphill... ahem), heading that off. It's going to be a beaten up Cygnaran banner.

Armies

Second, my wife and I were a little tired of working all the time last night (freelance means you get your own schedule, but you also can drive yourself too hard whenever you feel like it), so we played our first game of Warmachine in a while.

She took her fairly standard core:
eStryker
-Rowdy
Precursors (max) & UA
Black 13th
Rhupert

Rounding this out with a Hunter (and I think that makes 25)

I decided to test some models that never got a lot of love from me before I took a hiatus:
pMagnus
-2 Renegades
-Nomad
-Freebooter
-Idrians (min) & UA

Note, of course, as a Magnus player, I know and love Renegades. What was different here was that I was taking 2 of them in such a small game, which I generally avoid. Also, the Nomad was there as backup, because I wanted two heavies, and the only other one I had room for was another Freebooter.

In retrospect, I wish I'd pushed it a little further and taken a Buccaneer and Mariner instead of the Nomad and second Renegade, but, no going back now.

The Game

I got the first turn, cast Iron Aggression on my Freebooter (the plan was, it would be my first hitter and hopefully combo with an Obliterator shot) and Blurred my Idrians. The Idrians ran after the Hunter (their prey), a Renegade ran to behind a wall, everything else walked up.

The Hunter and Black 13th killed a few Idrians (the only target in range), Precursors walked up in formation, Stryker Deflected, Rowdy ran, Rhupert put up Dirge.

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My second turn, I loaded up the Renegade, Sniped it, and arced a shot onto the Standard, who was in the middle of the Precursors, Rhupert, and the Black 13th. Sadly, all I actually killed was Watts and the standard, though it did slow them down. The Idrians shot the Hunter, one charged, and the rest ran around getting in better positions. The three unengaged ones used Go to Ground to get an obnoxious DEF of 22 at range.

The Hunter did some damage by walking out of melee with Parry, the Precursors continued their advance, and Rowdy took out the Freebooter, who was hiding partially behind a wall, don't remember the rest.

-----

Third turn, I loaded up and Iron Aggression-ed the Nomad, who dispatched Rowdy with two focus to spare, due to some spectacular damage rolls. The Idrians shot the Hunter to death, reassigned prey as the Precursors, and charged them.

The Precursors used Morrow's Name to wreck my Renegade, Stryker was going to deal with my Nomad but then decided to go on the other flank and plug Magnus (who was completely out in the open) with his Magnum, but whiffed twice and feated to reposition, doing a couple points of damage to the Nomad with the Precursors. I think this was the turn the Idrans got wiped out, too.

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Fourth turn, the Nomad trampled the Precursors and used Reach to whack Stryker once, bringing him to about half health. Magnus scattershot Stryker, standing still, with a boost, and missed. I feated to pull Magnus and his Renegade to the opposite flank, and reposition the Nomad to threaten as many models as possible.

Stryker ran at Magnus, but took a free strike from the Nomad, which connected and brought him down to something like four health, making his electro-roids too risky.

Stryker charged, hit with every attack (unboosted), but did mediocre damage, only shearing off a little more than half of Magnus's life, meaning he faced a predictable face beating at the beginning of the next turn.

Thoughts

The Freebooter didn't make a very good showing. Rowdy was just too accurate for its added defense to matter, and there was no great chance to push it a little harder for some speed. I don't think Temper Metal would have saved it, either. Gonna need to try again until I figure out its role better.

The Idrians did well enough that I want to bring them back into circulation in my list. Blur and Snipe both work well on them, to keep them flexible as skirmishers.

Iron Aggression is, from the last few games, very quickly becoming my favorite spell in his list. The extra accuracy and free trample/charge/slam means that it's great with no focus or fully loaded.

I still didn't get a good chance to try a backstab arc node. I keep looking for opportunities, but usually my spent Renegades are more useful as road blocks than flankers.



Next test will probably involve Croe's, Buccaneer, Freebooter, and/or the Rover (for one last go before it's relegated to Mangled Metal)