Sunday, January 17, 2010

Geek Day Diary Entry #7: "Casual Gaming Day"

With Ken heading off on business travel for a month we bumped our January Geek Day back a couple of weeks. It also gave Keir an opportunity to get in for one more weekend of gaming before the west coast of the province becomes buried in snow. We weren't quite as organized as last time around, so we threw down and played it by ear.



Game One: 15mm Impetus Engagement

There were only five players scheduled for Warmachine & Hordes so I had volunteered to sit out for one game. Since Chris E. was coming to paint for the day, we decided to play a game of Impetus during my Warmachine downtime.


I won't go into detail on this one. I'll post a proper report within the next few days for the Impetus fans. Oh alright... here's a little teaser; the stalwart English archers saved the day.


Game Two: Jeremiah Kraye (Me) vs. Feora (Ken)

After a fortifying meal of Wendy's burgers and fries, we were all back at the game tables, and I found myself up against the wily Ken-oth of Menoth. He had shown up with a fairly infantry-heavy Feora list that included a full unit of Flameguard, Choir, and Knights Exemplar. I was trying out my warjack-heavy Kraye list, a caster who I've had little experience with. Although there was some confusion concerning the application of the cavalry rules to my warjacks, I did win the game. However, I did somewhat better during my feat turn than I should have, thanks to the aforementioned confusion, so I certainly wouldn't consider it a "true" win.

I attempted a refused flank deployment.


Feora led the warjack flank.


I fielded a large battlegroup consisting of a Lancer, Centurion, Ironclad, Defender, and a Sentinel.


I moved the Lancer into position to arc offensive spells, but I did very little damage to the entrenched Flameguard. I did succeed, however, in casting Pursuit on them. This meant that one member of my battlegroup could move in response to their movement.


The Menothian jack-wall moves up to support the infantry.


The heavy Cygnar warjacks were too late to save the Lancer from being mobbed by the TFG...


...and subsequently wrecked by the Guardian.


How things looked just before Kraye's Horsepower feat. For those who aren't familiar, Horsepower allows all of Kraye's warjacks to stand-up, face any direction, charge (for free) with +2" of movement, and make all melee attacks boosted for free.


Since the heavy warjacks make impact attacks just like heavy cavalry, each charging heavy took down a handful of Menoth infantry en route to their primary targets. I screwed up the execution of this rule, so it's unclear as to whether I could have actually accomplished the mass destruction in the way that I did.


Feora and her lackey's ended up in melee with the Centurion and wrecked it.


During my final turn, Kraye cast Full Tilt on the Defender (which started over on that wreck marker to your left) as well as Easy Rider so that it could ignore difficult terrain. I marched the Defender right over to Feora and finished her off.

Like I said earlier, I made a screw-up that effectively threw the outcome of the game. It was still fun, however, and I plan on playing Kraye more regularly so that I can learn some of the intricacies.


A Look Around the Room

We never did a particularly good job of managing our time, so as it turned out, we only played two games each. As usual, I tried to take some photos of the other guys' games throughout the day.

Keir's Everblight force moves through the ruins towards Marc's Cryx army.


Ken's Menoth charges Stu's Stryker-led Cygnar army.


Keir's Carnivean mixes it up with Chris H.'s Karvev the Terrible.


Marc unveiled his scratch-built cardboard building. The window is hand-painted and the thatched roof was laid down one layer at a time. Insanity!


Evening Entertainment

Since Keir stayed at my house during his weekend in St. John's, our gaming continued into the evening. First, we had a Warmachine match-up between his Khador force and my Cygnar list.


We then moved on to a Hordes smash-up between his Legion army and my Trollbloods. This one went late into the evening.


Both games were really fun, and I'm sure that Keir will be giving a fuller account on his blog in the near future. It was another all-out day of geekery from which I am still recovering. Next time around, we will be more organized and make sure to get in three games each.

Thanks for reading,
JET

1 comment:

Keir said...

Jeez, I had no idea Ken had painted his Guardian. What a sweet looking battle. Great painting on both sides. Did Ken get Krae to burn a little with Feora's feat?