Week 5 is done with and on the gaming front, I got in a 75 point battle against a Protectorate of Menoth player who originally got me started in trying out Warmachine.
He agreed to do a 75 point stream roller match since I was out week 6 so I could get the feel of the entire battle. I can’t remember everything he played with (he offered to let me look at his cards, but to be honest I wouldn’t remember anything so I just rolled with it).
I ran the following army list: Ragnar, Trollkin Runebeaer, Sons of Brag, Unit of 10 Trollkin Fennblades, Troll Axer, Troll Impaler, Troll Bouncer, Earthborn Dire Troll, 2 Slagg Trolls, Horgle Ironstrike, and 5 Troll Whelp putting me at 73 points with Ragnors group taking up 30.
I thought it was a pretty decent little group. Horgle ran behind the two slag trolls, Ragnar with Runeshaper, behind the axer, diretroll, bouncer, and impaler. Then I had the fennblades backed up by the Sons of Brag, and finished off with troll whelps there to be eaten for free healing. It worked ok…
So let’s start with steam roller; basically there are two command locations on a 4 x 4 board where you need your warlock or warcaster to be near in order to score. On top of that, there is this thing called a kill box that was active, if my warlock or warcaster was within 14 inches of a table edge my opponent scored 2 points.
Your goal is to get the most points by keeping your warcaster on your objective, and knocking your opponent off their flag. It was 5 turns, or an hour long each person. But, since I am still a newbie, my opponent agreed not to use turn timer so we could talk about rules and strategy.
The actual game went well with me having a decent grasp on the basics and starting to get some of the more advanced aspects of the game. He had two warjacks basically standing on a hill taking AoE pop shots at me, so turn one I scattered my units. With the Earthborn Dire Troll running to the edge of the woods backed up by my Axer, then the bouncer, impaler, runebearer, and Ragnar holding down the objective.
In the midde of the field I ran my fennblades forward with my sons of brag, and slag trolls with Horgle on the other side of the field of play. By the end of turn two it was going well. While I had my fennblades wiped out, my sons of brag and axer had control of the central table thanks to the help of Ragnor and Runebearer AoE’s.
My Dire Troll had engaged two enemy warjacks near his objective location while my bouncer protected the impaler and Ragnar near the objective, and sniping. On the other side of the board, my slag trolls and horgle were getting close to his AoE warjacks to pressure them. I was feeling pretty good, until turn 3 when he used his feat to boost his troops, take out the axer, and wound the earthborn dire troll.
I had the earthborn shed some whelps to eat the following turn but he suffered a lot of damage. He basically focused fire and took control of the center of the board and gave up his warjacks on the hill, by ignoring the slag trolls.
With my Earthborn hurting, my axer gone, and him pushing some heavy’s through the center toward my caster I knew I was in trouble. My slag trolls and horgle were going to work on the warjacks on the hill, but they were pretty bogged down. I had to bring the sons over to help Ragnar and use his feat but I knew I was going to get pushed off the objective, and possibly assassinated.
Sure enough end of turn 5 Ragnar is dead and I am toast… But I learned a ton, especially with such a big game and my opponent giving his input (only when I asked). I feel pretty good about it and think had I done some things differently I could have won that game, so I walked away pretty happy.
Painting wise I managed to finish up the bases for the slag troll, troll impaler, troll axer, and troll bouncer. I used Stirland Mud as a base then did a heavy dry brush of Ryza Rust, followed by a lighter dry brush of ElderFflesh. It gives it a nice dirt appearance and I am looking forward to getting some bushes, tree trunks, and branches on there.
I also want to get a couple war jack body parts to scatter around the slag troll base and paint those with a rust effect like he is hanging out in a junk yard. Though with me being gone the final week I did not have time to finish those so I let me wife pick out her favorite (troll impaler) and entered that in the painting competition.
As I said last week I am not going to buy any new models I have so many to paint as it is that I do not want to fall any further behind. Also I sunk in around $150 to start playing so need to save my miniature money for some other hobbies moving forward.
Next week I will have my final impressions of the game as well as the results from the painting competition!
So Week 5:
• Total cost 148, (starter set 35, slag troll single 13, fennblades 30, mk 3 cards 15, ebay lot 60)
• 4 miniatures done 29 unpainted – working on Ragnor….
• 4 games played 0 wins
• Status: Moral victories count right?
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About the Author: Travis Perkins
