Saturday, June 12, 2010

Warmachine Action: Nemo vs. The Butcher

A long overdue geek day was upon us again, and with my new baby due to "arrive" within the next few weeks, I'm not sure when exactly I"ll be attending another one, so I was itching to play. Yet again, Keir made the 650 km trek to St. John's to partake in the geektivities, and the first throw-down of the day was his Khador against my Cygnar. This was my first 50-point game and, it must be said, it felt good to deploy three heavies and three lights.

I spent the bulk of the game hovering around these ruins. I figured that the Khador army would have to get up in my grill. It turns out (as you'll see) that I was wrong.


The Ironclad spent most of the game as an inefficient and expensive piece of terrain. I place him here so that no shots could get through to Nemo.


I started the game with a bang. A combination of Sentinal shots and multiple arced Chain Lightening spells killed a couple of Great Bears, a Widowmaker, and the Wardog. Sadly, this was to be the height of my game.


Keir advanced the Butcher with a Behemoth, a Spriggan, and a Destroyer.


I had completely forgotten (in the span of 5 minutes) that Keir had taken Kossite Woodsmen. The little shaggers came on in turn two and failed to take anything out.


In an over-zealous (and embarrassing) maneuver, I arced Chain Lightening at them. I took out three of the woodsmen... and my Gun Mage and a couple of Gobbers. Oh, the Humanity!


Even though the Centurion had lost its movement system, I used Locomotion to get it into combat. At this point, I was working very hard and getting nowhere. I was pushing ahead but had no idea how I was actually going to kill the Butcher.


The battlefield before Nemo's timely demise.


Nemo was visible in the ruins, so his defense including cover was 17. Nevertheless, Keir moved the Butcher up, cast Obliteration, and then followed with a bombard shot. And that was that. Nemo outspelled by the Butcher... shameful!.


It was a good game all around, although we did tend to dance with each other a little in the beginning. The only problem with the game was its duration. We played for two and a half hours which, in my experience, is about twice as long as a game of Warmachine should be. I'll leave you with what I said to Marc as we ate our most excellent take-out lunch.

I don't really enjoy playing Warmachine when it's played without a timer. There's a certain grittiness that is lost when players have the luxury of pondering every move and every consequence. Without a timer, it's the other player who suffers for his opponent's indecision. With a timer, it's the player himself who suffers for his indecision.

It was a fun and relaxing day out. I can't wait to play more 50-point Warmachine. But not without a timer ;)

Thanks for reading,
JET

2 comments:

inrepose said...

Nice BR. I have had a few of those lengthy WM games which tends to put a downer on the game because it should be fast paced. Normally this happens when I am playing a caster or troops which are new to me. I also find Nemo a tough caster to use, nice amount of focus but I have not been able to make him work.

JET (aka Jason) said...

I've had a fair amount of success with Nemo in the past. I think the biggest issue is my low frequency of play as of late. I was going to take Epic Haley but changed my mind at the last minute.