Lt. Caine vs. Sorsha - Mk II battle report

The group made the switch to Privateer Press's Warmachine Mk II ruleset this week. After learning the basics last night, Chris H. and I had a small 21-point game this afternoon.

I played Allister Caine w/Centurion, Journeyman Warcaster w/Charger, Long Gunners x 6, Arlen Strangeways, and Gun Mage Captain Adept.


Although I never took a glam shot of Chris's force, he used Sorscha w/Destroyer, Kovnik w/Juggernaut, Widowmakers x 4, and Eiryss. After deployment, the table looked like this...


I started by getting everything into position. Arlen Strangeways used his very handy new ability Power Booster to place a focus on the Centurion so the heavy could run. I figured that Arlen could keep the Centurion moving and Caine wouldn't need to dedicate any focus until the big boy made it to combat.


Notice that there are only two widowmakers in this photo? Caine cast Snipe on himself and took a couple down, and then teleported back to safety.


Sorscha, with the Compulsory Wind Rush and Fog of War running, advanced cautiously, while the heavy jacks huffed it (relatively speaking of course)


The Destroyer and Eiryss took out half of the Long Gunners between them, and the remainder of the unit failed their command check. Wimps.


"Never send a man to do a warjack's job," my grandfather always said. The Centurion smashed into chicky-poo and sent little elfy bits flying everywhere.


First hard lesson about changes to Cygnar. The Centurion's Polarity Field is now a special action; in other words, it's not automatically running anymore. In short, the Destroyer charged in and did a crapload of damage...


...and to add injury to injury, the Juggernaut charged in took the Cygnar jack down to 1 damage point. This was particulary worrisome, as the Centurion was the only obvious element in my force that could damage the undamaged Khador heavies. I was sweating at this point.


And that one remaining widowmaker... you know what she did, right? I mean, I don't even have to tell you. As we say in Newfoundland, "There she was, gone!" Goodbye Centurion.


Isn't that a great shot of a Gun Mage taking down a Kovnik? One would assume. Unfortunately, it was the luckiest Kovnik in Khador hitting and taking out the GMCA.


And as my grandfather always said, "There's not problem in this life that can't get worse." The Juggernaut, under the competent handling of the Kovnik, barrelled into the master mechanik and took him out. A dark, dark day for Cygnar.


I attempted a blaze of glory; a futile attempt at destroying (or even damaging) the heavy jack, but to no avail. I was absolutely perplexed as to what I could do; until...


Chris (and I should have taken a before shot) moved Sorscha up behind (directly behind) the Destroyer. This photo shows the scene after Caine moved out and cast Thunder Strike on the Destroyer, slamming it back 6 inches right over Sorscha.


After the power 14 damage roll, Sorscha was still standing. Caine fired both spellstorm pistols and won the day in the name of Cygnar!



Thoughts on Mk II

It was a great little game, and slowly but surely, we are starting to adapt our thinking and playstyles to suit MK II. There seems to be a lot of buzz about the changes, some good, some bad. Personally, I think all the factions had both gains and losses to their forces, and old builds and tactics may not work quite the same as they used to, or in some cases, not at all. However, I think the game has most definitely been improved, even though tweaking will certainly follow.

As Ken said last night, "It still feels like Warmachine." In the meantime, we are all rediscovering our factions, and I for one, find the whole process very exciting and entertaining. The best part is, no one is twisting anyone's arms. If you try it and hate it, throw the Mk II PDF in the shredder, grab Warmachine Prime ReMix, and pretend it was a bad dream. As long as our group is having fun and a few laughs, I don't particularly care which edition we play.

Thanks for reading,
JET