Warmachine Battle Report: Khador (Vlad 3) vs. Menoth (Harbinger) - Steamroller 2016: Outflank

Vlad 3 and his Cavalry

Harbinger and her Followers

Here's today's Lists:

Waracaster: Harbinger of Menoth
Warjack: Vanquisher
Warjack: Crusader
Warjack: Redeemer
Warjack: Avatar of Menoth
Unit: Exemplar Errants
Unit Attachment: Officer
Unit: Choir of Menoth (Min)
Solo: Vilmon
Solo: Paladin
Solo: Paladin

Warcaster: Vlad 3
Warjack: Conquest
Unit: Iron Fang Uhlans
Unit: Greylord Outriders
Solo: Iron Fang Markov
Solo: Fenris
Solo: Man-O-War Drakhun

Vlad 3 is coming off a decisive win against a Harkevich Jack Spam. Today he faces Harbinger who was a monster MKII. Can she get the job done?

Khador wins the roll and chooses to go second. Menoth deploys their Warjacks centrally with Vilmon and the Paladins holding the bottom. They also match up the Errants with the Uhlans in hopes that their Sac Pawn will help against Cavalry charges.

Khador deploys with the Outriders at the bottom and the Uhlans and Fenris up top. The Drakhun, Vlad, and Conquest hold the center.

Top of Turn 1: Menoth - Harbinger and her forces run up. The Errants get in a tiered formation to help against the Uhlan charge. Harbinger moves behind the Vanquisher and Crusader.

Bottom of Turn 1: Khador - Vlad 3 activates first and casts Dash giving his Warrior models +1 SPD. He also casts Infernal Machine on the Conquest which gives him +2 SPD and Murderous which gives him an extra die on attack vs. living models. He finally moves up and gives Hand of Fate to the Greylord Outriders which gives them +1 die to their rolls, dropping the lowest one. The rest of his army runs up.

Top of Turn 2: Menoth - The Errants activate first and they are able to kill the Uhlan in the Zone. They position themselves in 3 layers hoping that their Sac Pawn will give them the advantage they need. Uhlans really need to charge to be effective.

The Paladins run up and try to block a charge lane to the Avatar while everyone else gathers around Harbinger to protect her.

The Harbinger casts Purification, removing Hand of Fate from the Greylord Outriders.

Bottom of Turn 2: Khador - Conquest is allocated 2 Focus and Vlad 3 Upkeeps Infermal Machine on him. Vlad 3 activates first and gets Hand of Fate back on the Outriders. He pops his Feat which gives his Cavalry and Warjacks Sidestep (2" movement on initial hit) and Sprint (Make a full advance after killing an enemy model in melee). He then parks himself behind a giant tree waiting to pounce.

The Outriders activate and unleash a devastatingly effective spray killing 3 Errants and both Paladins. Harbinger chooses not to use Martyrdom which would allow her to suffer D3 damage to save them because of the volume of attacks.

The Conquest moves up and unleashes his big cannon into the Vanquisher dealing damage to his left arm. The Uhlans charge up and kill a few more Errants, clearing the zone. Fenris is able to finish the last 2 up with Berserk. Vlad 3's feat was pretty useless because Sac Pawn denied the Uhlan's kills.

Score: Vlad 1 - Harbinger 0

Top of Turn 3: Menoth - The Harbinger allocates 2 focus to the Redeemer, Vanquisher, and Crusader. The Choir sings their Battle Hym and move into position. The Crusader activates and charges into an Outrider, killing it. He purchases attacks and is able to kill another Outrider and an Uhlan.

The Vanquisher aims and boosts and is able to kill an Outrider giving a charge lane for the Avatar to Conquest. The Avatar rolls a D3 for Focus and gets 2 total. He charges into Conquest and after his activation, he has destroyed its right side. The Redeemer takes 3 boosted shots at Fenris and fail to hit him. The Errants attack and move into the zone to contest.

Harbinger moves up and pops her Feat which makes it so anyone that ends their movement within 10" of her takes an unboostable POW 14.

Score: Vlad 1 - Harbinger 0

Bottom of Turn 3: Khador - Vlad 3 lets everything drop and gives Conquest 2 Focus. He also activates and gives him Hand of Fate and moves towards the top zone along with casting Wind Wall to protect himself against any ranged shots. A fully loaded Conquest with a working hand is able to easily destroy the Avatar with attacks to spare.

The Uhlans clear the zone of Errants and are careful not to be within 10" of Harbinger. Fenris moves toward the back of the zone and controls it. The Outrider misses his spray against Vilmon.

Score: Vlad 2 - Harbinger 0

Top of Turn 4: Menoth - Now that the Avatar is gone, there is desperation in the air for Menoth. The Crusader and Redeemer are allocated 2 and tasked with bringing down the Conquest with the help of Vilmon. The Choir sings their Battle Hymn and Crusader charges into the Conquest leaving it with 20+ boxes. Vilmon goes in and gets Conquest down to 15 boxes.

This leaves no room for the Redeemer to charge so he decides to finish off the last Outrider. The Vanquisher launches a shot at the Conquest but fails to do work. The Errants move to contest the zone and block charge lanes for the Uhlans. Finally, Harbinger moves towards the bottom zone to prevent any Cavalry charges against her hopefully to set up a domination when the Conquest goes down.

Score: Vlad 2 - Harbinger - 0

Bottom of Turn 4: Khador - Conquest still has his right side functioning and is allocated 2 focus. Vlad 3 upkeeps Hand of Fate on the Conquest and moves into the top zone with Wind Wall. The Uhlans clear the zone which Khador now dominates.

The Conquest unleashes a Sweep Power Attack damaging the Crusader and killing Vilmon. He purchases more attacks and gets Crusader down to 1 Cortex box.

Score: Vlad 4 - Harbinger 0

Top of Turn 5: Menoth - This is the last ditch effort for Menoth. They need to contest the top zone and take out the Conquest to have any shot at winning the game. The Crusader only has 1 Cortex box and is allocated 2 Focus along with the Redeemer. 

The Vanquisher with 20+ boxes turns around and runs into the top zone so Khador can't dominate. The Choir chooses not to sing and instead spread out in the top zone to help contest. The Crusader activates and does a few damage to the Conquest leaving it with 9 boxes.

The Redeemer charges in and fails to kill the Conquest. This leaves Harbinger and her trusty sword to finish the job. Unfortunately she is unable to kill the Conquest with multiple boosted POW 12s.

Score: Vlad 4 - Harbinger 0

Bottom of Turn 5: Khador - The top zone seems difficult to clear so Vlad 3 decides to work a different strategy. He allocates 2 to the Conquest and upkeeps Hand of Fate. The Conquest then activates and does a Power Sweep, killing the Crusader. He then uses the rest of his Focus to finish off the Redeemer.

This leaves only Harbinger in the zone and since Warcasters can't contest, Vlad 3 runs into the bottom zone and Dominates it.

The Final Score: Vlad 6 - Harbinger 0

Overview: Because of the lack of availability of models for Menoth, there wasn't a lot of synergy in the list. There is a definite difference in how Harbinger plays now that her Feat and Martyrdom are reduced to her Command of 10". The Feat did help deter lots of Cavalry charges but was easily avoided. The Avatar's random focus is hard to plan for and without Power Up, it feels like he didn't scale well in MK3.

The mobility with Khador Cavalry is amazing. With Dash they can run 18-20". Conquest with Infernal Machine can run 12" giving Vlad 3's a strong chance at the alpha strike. Vlad 3's Feat still puzzles me and it might not be the best for the list I'm running. The Feat in the previous match vs. Harkevich was hard because of the Jack spam. This time it was hard because the Errants kept Sac Pawning. I'll have to see if I can better use it in his next match.

Vlad 3 is currently on a 2 game win streak. Stay tuned for his next match up!

My First Warmachine Tournament - Butcher 3 vs. Harbinger of Menoth

GMI Warmachine Steamroller 2015 Tournament

Part 1: My List Pairing for 35 point Steamroller 2015

Part 2: Khador - Butcher 3 vs. Menoth - Harbinger

Part 3: Khador - Butcher 3 vs. Circle - pKreuger

Part 4: Khador - Old Witch vs. Skorne - eMakeda

Part 5: Final Thoughts for the Tournament

My first match of the day was actually the one I've been dreading all week. I was matched up with Justin, someone who I saw play Harbinger the last time I was at GMI. His list was quite scary. Justin is a really good player and is experienced in tournaments. He won the last event at GMI.

Justin Deploying his sweet winged Harbinger

Knowing this I practiced a solo game against myself with both my lists vs. Harbinger the morning of the tournament so I would know what to expect. Turns out it's a waste of time to kill any of her units :P

The list I chose to play against her was my Butcher 3 list because I figured that I can solve the Martyrdom problem (When warrior model is disabled take D3 damage and heal them 1) with Silence of Death (No Tough, No Heal, No Transfer on damage) I did learn that Sanguine Bond was not effected by SoD.

Kill Stroked (35 Points)
Warcaster: Butcher 3 (-4)
Warcaster Unit: War Argus x2 (+2)
Warcaster Attachment: War Dog (+1)
Warjack: Ruin (+10)
Warjack: Juggernaut (+7)
Unit: Kayazy Assassins (+8)
Unit Attachment: Kayazy Assassin Underboss (+2)
Unit: Widowmakers (+4)
Solo: Widowmaker Marksman (+2)
Solo: Saxon Orrik (+2)
Solo: Ogrun Bokur (+3)
Solo: Saxon Orrik (+2)

Harbinger of Menoth List (35 Points)
Warcaster: Harbinger of Menoth (-5)
Warjack: Devout (+5)
Unit: Exemplar Errants (+8)
Unit Attachment: Exemplar Errant Officer & Standard (+2)
Unit: Exemplar Bastions (+8)
Unit: Exemplar Bastions (+8)
Solo: Paladin of the Order of the Wall (+2)
Solo: Covenant of Menoth (+2)
Solo: Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord (+3)
Solo: High Paladin Dartan Vilmon (+3)

The double Bastions really worried me as they could soak up tons of damage and spread it around. Even if I managed to dent them they still had Martyrdom to stay alive. They also could potentially take out my Warjacks or even worse, Butcher. The Covenant of Menoth also really worried me too and I specifically brought 4 Widowmakers and 1 Marksman just to deal with it. Again, I would still have to find a way to get past Martyrdom.

End of Round 1

Justin ended up going first which means I'm in a whole heap of trouble. He popped feat on the top of Turn 1, locking my Kayazy and Widowmakers in place. He advances his unit as far forward as he can toward and leaves only 1 Paladin to contest my zone. This surprised me and I decided to capitalize on it.

When I saw Justin's placement I quickly used run/charges and Energizer to shift my entire battlegroup toward my friendly zone so I can hopefully start scoring on Turn 2. I test to see how far 20" is from Harbinger's feat by moving the Widowmakers and I end up losing 2 to auto hit POW 14. Luckily I make the command check. 

The Kayazy's know better and just move up 1-2" and are safe from Harby's feat but are not able to threaten alpha strike. I kind of thought Justin was going to pop his feat on Turn 2 instead of Turn 1 but I guess it didn't matter because it basically made me skip a turn with my units either way.

Ruin and Juggernaut actually take a POW 14 from the feat when moving but only took small damage.

End of Round 2

By the end of Round 2 I was feeling confident about winning on scenario. Justin He shifts his army to his friendly zone and leaves nothing but an Impervious Wall'ed Paladin (Only can be damaged by Magical Weapons and Spells) to contest my zone.

On my turn I am able to use Butcher and his magical axe, Lola, to kill the Paladin and then position the jacks with Energizer to set them up to block the zone from the Bastions.

Mark 1 point - Justin 0 points

The game continues on and Justin's takes a long turn. The pressure of Deathclock is weighing down on him and he starts to make minor mistakes. On his last turn he sets up the Juggernaut to be charged by Bastions but in the middle of their activation, decides to switch gears and try to take out the Kayazy Assassins in his zone. He did this because he realized that the Kayazys have Kill Stoke which gives them acrobatics (lets them move through other models once per game) and are threatening assassinating Harbinger. He takes quite a while to finish which puts him down to about 5 minutes on the clock to my 20 min.

In the crunch he forgets to contest my zone bumping me up to 2 points at the end of his turn. If he had contested, it would have bought him another round.

On my turn I use Kill Stroke and use my Parry skilled Kayazy Assassins to move through other models and position myself to contest the zone. I position it so i can also it's hard to kill the entire unit so I can plan to contest again the next round. I forget about the 5" AOE auto-hit Cataclysm Harby has with her 10 focus.

I am able to kill the Bastion that was close to contesting the zone and end my turn scoring another control point.

Mark 3 point - Justin 2 points

End of the game

Justin focuses on contesting my zone and starts to move both units of Bastions into my zone. With the Rough Terrain he is only able to get one in and I have to figure out a way to deal with it. Normally you can just kill him but there are 2 problems. One is Sanguine Bond which allows the Bastions to spread damage among the unit which is basically 40 boxes of ARM 16 and then on top of that the second problem is Harbinger's Martyrdom which can keep other warrior models alive and kicking as long as she has boxes to transfer damage to.

Harby was able to to deal with all the Kayazy using Cataclysm which is a 5" AOE auto hit and causes them to fail their command check bumping him up to 2 points.

On my turn I end up allocating 3 focus to Juggernaut and 3 to Ruin. With the two problems posed above I decide that instead of killing the Bastion, I need to throw him out of the zone. I've never done a throw in a game ever so this was pretty new to me. I end up boosting to hit with a MAT 8 vs. DEF 11 and then using my STR 12 vs. his STR 7 I was able to chuck him 6" away.

I then charged my opponent's objective with the Juggernaut with 3 focus and at POW 19 I was able to 1 shot the objective with a roll of 15 Damage bringing me to a total of 5 control points.

Mark 5 point - Justin 2 points

This was a really stressful match for me because it was my first tournament game and also my first timed match ever. I only ended up killing 1 Bastion and 1 Paladin but I figured that's how it would go down because of Harbinger's model protection tricks. I had to rely on adaptation and positioning well to win the game instead of a slugfest which he would have won.

This allows me to move into the next round of games!

Final Thoughts

Practicing vs Harbinger before the tournament really helped me understand that I could not beat her traditionally. I didn't attack once with my Kayazy the entire game and just used them to contest his zone to swing the point favor to me which a lot of people don't really expect. Justin did a real great job of taking them out with Cataclysm. Fortunately, he was under pressure with the Deathclock and had to make quick decisions which I was able to capitalize on.

It was a great game and I'm excited/nervous to play my next one!

My First Tournament - Khador List Discussion - Butcher 3 & Old Witch

GMI Warmachine Steamroller 2015 Tournament

Part 1: My List Pairing for 35 point Steamroller 2015

Part 2: Khador - Butcher 3 vs. Menoth - Harbinger

Part 3: Khador - Butcher 3 vs. Circle - pKreuger

Part 4: Khador - Old Witch vs. Skorne - eMakeda

Part 5: Final Thoughts for the Tournament

In front of GMI Games. Getting ready for the tournament!

Hey guys! I just got back from my very first local Warmachine Tournament held at GMI Games in Riverside CA. I was pretty nervous because I didn't know what to expect since I only started playing in public 2 weeks ago but I was really excited to battle against some new opponents. 

I debated on taking Circle but ended up bringing Khador because I wanted to represent The Motherland and smash things with with shiny axes. In this post I will talk about the two list I brought and my thoughts on them.

The two lists I brought for the 35 point 2015 Steamroller were:

Kill Stroked (35 Points)
Warcaster: Butcher 3 (-4)
Warcaster Unit: War Argus x2 (+2)
Warcaster Attachment: War Dog (+1)
Warjack: Ruin (+10)
Warjack: Juggernaut (+7)
Unit: Kayazy Assassins (+8)
Unit Attachment: Kayazy Assassin Underboss (+2)
Unit: Widowmakers (+4)
Solo: Widowmaker Marksman (+2)
Solo: Saxon Orrik (+2)
Solo: Ogrun Bokur (+3)

The anchor piece is definitely Butcher 3. If I can piece trade and take out the threats to Butcher, there will be nothing to kill him and I will control the game. Ruin is so awesome with any Butcher because he charges for free with +2 movement and Pathfinder. He can also wipe out large chunk of infantry because of Soul Taker and the Dispel on his Black Iron Mace.

Juggernaut is just a cheap beefy jack that I can threaten with.

The backbone of this list are the Kayazy Assassins. They do so much work! Once per game they will make your opponent think super hard when positioning because they can use Kill Stroke and move through models. Saxon gets them through rough terrain.

Widowmakers and Marksman are there to clear lanes for Ruin and Butcher. while the Ogrun Boker is there in case I have to deal with something with a huge cannon.

The list has high armor and high defense mixed in. It poses a lot of questions for my opponents:

Can I handle Stealth?
Can I handle DEF 14 ARM 24?
Will Dispel ruin my entire plan?
Can I handle fast Pathfinder Units?
Can I handle Shield Guard?

My second list is more of a control list. I debated on taking pVlad/Conquest but decided to settle for Old Witch.

Into The Woods (35 Points)
Warcaster: Old Witch (-3)
Warcaster Warjack: Scrapjack
Warjack: Behemoth (+13)
Unit: Kayazy Assassins (+8)
Unit Attachment: Kayazy Assassin Underboss (+2)
Unit: Winter Guard Infantry (+6)
Unit Attachment: Winter Guard Officer & Standard (+2)
Unit Weapon Attachment: Winter Guard Infantry Rocketeer x2 (+2)

Solo: Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (+3)

Solo: Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich (+2)

This list is more of a block your opponent out of the zone and slow them down kind of list. I like utilizing Unseen Path and have the Old Witch jump across the map to score points. I also have the Winter Guard Death Star in case I ran into Cryx

Behemoth is there to drop bombs on infantry and possibly get shots into the opposing caster.

I am not too comfortable in playing this list but I thought it would be tricky for my opponents.

So those are my two lists! I will write a battle report of the games I had during the tournament :)

FOR THE MOTHERLAND!

Harbinger of Menoth - Finished Paint Job

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.