Warmachine Action: The High Reclaimer Takes the Field

Since Stu was out of commission for our usual Thursday night Impetus action, I stopped down to Marc's house where he and Ken typically play Warmachine on Thursdays. In the midst of drinking tea, heckling, and eating Angie's wonderful banana cake, I managed to crank out a few photos.

I just had to start the evening by getting a shot of Ken's 35-point Protectorate force. Ken had just finished painting the High Reclaimer this week, and this was his first test game using the infantry-driven caster. As you can see, Ken designed his force around the Reclaimer's reputation for buffing infantry.


Marc tried his first game with the Witch Coven of Garlghast and the Egregore using the Mk II changes. It was surprising to see Cryx so heavily outnumbered. This was also Marc's first game fielding the Brute Thrall (which was only 90% painted, but since it was Marc's house, I let him away with it.)


The Cryxian force started off with an aggressive advance, while the witches themselves stayed behind the forest. Marc used the Egregore's new Pathfinder ability to move the construct through the woods and to extend the witches' control area.


The Menothian force at the start of the battle. A Paladin stood back, driving the zealots forward!


The armies came within each others' sights very quickly.


Ken didn't waste anytime casting the High Reclaimer's Burning Ash spell numerous times. Gotta love 1-focus spells.


Marc manouvered a couple of arc nodes into position, but was hard pressed to make much happen thanks to the line of sight issues.


The Deathjack moved onto the hill and did very little. It was becoming obvious to Marc that his inexperience playing the new Witch Coven was costing him, as he made one poor decision after another.


Later on in the game, Ken's Repenter used its flamethrower to start messing up the Mechanithralls.


The zealots flew forward doing whatever damage they could with their firebombs. When all was said and done, a fair number of mechanithralls were removed from play, and considerable damage had been done to some of the Cryx warjacks.


The High Reclaimer himself, surrounded by his knights, cast spells and tried his best to make a mark on the undead force. One interesting thing about this match-up, the Reclaimer reclaimed very few souls throughout the game, as soul-reaping Cryx units always seemed to be closer to the dying.


By the second half, Marc was clearly annoyed with himself. He was having a very difficult time getting the Cryx forces to damage any of Ken's army. He finally decided to charge in with the remainder of the mechanithralls, including the necrosurgeon, stitch thralls, and the brute thrall.


After the charge, the necrosurgeon used the Reanimate action and managed to bring the newly-raised thralls into the combat as well. There was a swirling melee, and the heavy Menoth jack was heavily damaged.


Marc also used the Harrower to charge into the flameguard unit. There was some killing happening, but like Marc, I didn't feel that he was really doing much to the meat and potatoes of the Reclaimer's force.


Notice the Harrower back where it was a couple of turns ago? The photos aren't out of order. In fact, Marc used the new spell Watcher so that the Harrower could scoot back and defend one of the witches. (If Kevin is reading this, we find the wording and application of that spell kind of ambigious.)


Ken sent the knights exemplar charging into the Deathjack. If you haven't seen knights exemplar charge into combat before, you probably don't want to, unless you're the one controlling them. The damage was horrific, and I believe they almost took the heavy helljack out completely.


At the beginning of what would turn out to be the last turn of the game, here was the lay of the land. I tried to take the photo from a vantage point that suggested the possiblity that was open to Marc. Marc assigned three focus to the Harrower (which already had three soul tokens), and with the movement increase from Infernal Machine, sent it trampling over the infantry.


It stopped in front of the High Reclaimer, and that was that. The mighty caster was taken down by the vile helljack.


Final Thoughts:

Ken misplayed his caster placement on his last turn, no question. Marc (being a strong player) spotted and capitalized on this mistake, and won the game because of it.

However, like Marc, I will soon be an opponent of the High Reclaimer, and also like Marc, I spent the game baffled... how am I going to deal with the guy? When infantry is killed, the Reclaimer benefits from their deaths, and then brings some of them back to the table.

I think that both Marc and I still have some thinking to do.

Thanks for reading,
JET