Warning:  This post contains about 40 pictures, and may take a bit to load.

After being up until 6am to post Day 2 stuff, I was a little slow to get rolling on Saturday.

Based on the time stamps of the pictures, this first game started just after noon…

Game 6

I was able to snag a scenario table, and this one was focused on escorting a train through enemy territory.  How fluffy and appropriate for a Khador player like myself!

The train moves 4-8″ during my maintenance phase.  That means I have to be careful to not get in it’s way.  It slams large base and smaller bases out of it’s way, larges taking a POW 19, and anything smaller taking a POW 12.  Huge bases use a 1d6 strength contest.  If the train wins, the huge base gets moved out of the way, taking a POW 19.  If the model wins, train stops.

The defender had to get the engine off the attacker’s edge of the board.  The attacker needed to kill train cars (2 for 35pts, 3 for 50, all four for 75).  The engine was ARM 22 with 65 boxes, and the three cars were roughly ARM 20 and 36 boxes. 2gameandroid is one of the best websites you can get your favorite Android games. Caster kill was a win condition for either side.

My opponent was running Hexeris2, a Mammoth, Raider and Brute with Paingivers, a Willbreaker and Incidiarii.  He also had an Agonizer which was annoying as hell.

Turn 1 I parked Conquest toed onto the tracks, only to then learn that the train moves in maintenance.  It moved Conquest but didn’t really hurt it.  The Brute ran way close to the WGI on the left so Hexeris could get Black Spot off.  The Mammoth’s many AOEs took out the majority of them.

Turn 2, the Mammoth missed the charge distance by about a half inch.  It’s represented by the backside of the Wreck Marker there, since the Mammoth had issues balancing on the tracks.  I think the elevated tracks messed up the distance estimation, I lucked out.  The Agonizer stopped the Juggernaut and Conquest from being allocated to, and the Incindarii fired pot shots and took out a mechanik or two.

So, I couldn’t give Conquest or the Juggernaut any focus, and I’m starring down the barrel(s) of a Mammoth, who is blocking my train.  Not good.  I dropped Iron Flesh off the few remaining WGI, kept Fury running on the Conquest, put up Full Throttle and popped my feat (see the Advanced Deployment Feat! token?  Very helpful).

Conquest and Juggernaut got free charges on the Mammoth, and hitting at dice-ish, and dice plus 7 or 8 with additional dice, they scrapped the Mammoth.  It took all four initial attacks from both, but they did it.

The Spriggan charged and took out the Brute in a single shot.

After this, I sped the train up and ran it 8″ every turn.

You can see his Bronzeback coming in from the side, it nearly killed the engine once it charged in.  However, on my turn, it moved 8″ away, and we decided that he would be likely to take out the engine, and we’d end up with a huge grind fest, so we called it.

It could have gone either way, but winning doesn’t matter in Iron Arena.  We rolled off for it, and I won on the 4+, and it came up 4.

So, at this point I’m 5-1 for the weekend.

Game 7

I had been making eyes at Captain Spud all weekend, and we finally gave in to the inevitable and threw down.

Spud was running Siege’s new theme force, and he all custom Journeyman Warcasters, including “Bloody Allison Jakes”.  I took beauty shots of them, they’re after the Bat Rep.  Siege had an Avenger, all the Journeymen had a Charger, color coded to their controller.

We played 35 points, so I left the Spriggan, Gorman and Reinholdt at home, and pared down the WGI to a min unit.

Lots of hiding in the “hot tub”, as it’s affectionately called.

Spud had been despairing colossals all weekend, since he had mostly POW 12s, and was having trouble pulling them down.  He made it his mission to take out Conquest.

I shot at what I could, which happened to be a Gobber Journeyman and Charger trying to run around my right flank.  This action would set off a chain of events that would elad to a horrific fight between the Gobber and Conquest’s mechanics.

A Journeyman threw herself in front of the Conquest, who just proceeded to trample her on it’s way up the field.  When Conquest tramples under Full Throttle, things tend to go “squish”.

Conquest was kind of out there with little support but managed to put a lot of fire into the Avenger, taking out the sword arm. The Juggernaut was without a cortex, so it mostly ignored the Butcher, who was trying to tell it that the thing was inert.  It wanted to kill it anyway.

Well, Spud put everything he had into killing Conquest.  Siege popped feat after the Avenger took a feeble swing.  All those POW 12s do a decent bit when your armor is halved.

A happy Spud, for his first (i think?) Collosal kill of the weekend, and at 35pts , no less.

At this point, I was scrambling to get back on top.  The mechanics went after the Gobber Journeyman who had killed the War Dog.

Butcher finished off the inert charger so he could have cover.  The Juggernaut took out the Charger that was behind cover.

Text

Lots of shots into Butcher, whittling him down a bit.  So much focus on the table made the cover and camped focus a bit moot.  I tried to screen Butcher from any potential charges from Siege or the Avenger with the remnants of the WGI.  Battle Mechaniks and Gobber Journeyman were slapping each other around to little effect.

Avenger took out the Butcher.  The Gobber took out a mechanik, but the rest of them took him out.

Siege plus five custom Journeyman Warcasters.  They all have scarves because the theme of the list is “Siege’s wizard school”, so they have Hogwarts style scarves.

“Bloody Allison Jakes”

Great use of the Sword Knight armor.

Reposed Siege

Post-Spud record: 5-2

Game 8

So, games for Iron Arena could be reported at the 25, 35, 50 and 75 point levels.  I had played 25, 35 and 50, but needed my 75.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have 75 points of anything painted, so I convinced Chris (Mugu) and friend Ken to play me in a dual-caster style deal.  I put down 35pts of Cygnar and 35pts of Khador to their 35pts of Cryx and Retribution.  I counted this as a 75pt game for me, my favorite thing to do is still being able to buy osrs accounts online.

Ken ran Kaelyssa, a Phoenix and a Manticore with two units of MHSF with UA, a Tier 2 list.  Chris ran Skarre1 with DJ and a metric ton of McThralls and a few Cannons.

I had no good match-up to go against Ret, but I had more attacks in the Khador, so I matched them up against Ken’s mass of infantry.

(The scenario was a free focus to models inside the outer edge of the ring of stones, Earn a CP if you own the hill, but models on the hill take a POW 12 every turn.  Casters respawn with feat when killed.  Play to 3 CP)

At about turn 2, friend Chris W stepped in to play my Khador half for me, since he knows Butcher1 but hasn’t played Conquest.  This game quickly devolved into two 35pt games that happened to be on the same table.

The MHSF destroyed Conquest.  Ken parked the Manticore on the hill to take control of the hill.  I got completely swarmed, which prevented me from getting on to the hill.

Dear Morrow, so many mechanithralls…  Luckily, I was able to Earthquake and Disrupt Deathjack two turns in a row, effectively neutralizing him.

Ken was using some filthy Eldar models as his elves.

Pretty pictures.

Ken was able to score three points since neither Chris W or I had the presence of mind to contest him.

Now I’m 5-3, and I still needed a 75 point game, since I made sure Chris W got credit for manning the Khador helm for the majority of the game.

Game 9

Chris W had to get back to his tournament, so we quickly reset the game with our growing need for food as a game timer.

This time, I figured out a way to counter the MHSF.  I placed my Covering Fire templates close together and at max range, so he’d only get a few shots off, or risk the POW 6s by entering the templates.

I set up my usual Jack trap with the Cygnar, but with only one jack to trap, it didn’t do much:

I forgot to take more pictures of this game.

I parked the Lancer up on the hill and poured some fire into the DJ, taking out an arm.  I utilized Ol’ Rowdy and the Centurion to kill several thralls via the Flank bonus with the Sword Knights.

Conquest didn’t take any fire from the MHSF, they all booked it to the center and shot up the Lancer (who then swarmed by Mechanithralls).

Once again, Ken owned the hill and I couldn’t get anything up there fast enough.

5-4

Game 10

After dinner (Thanks, Ken!), Went looking for trouble.  I needed roughly a dozen points to get my Concept Art print, so off I went.  This is about 11:30 or so?

I found an appropriately drunk Troll player to fight me, and we slugged it out in a cave at 35pts.  He was running Grissel1 with a Pyre Troll and a Lightning Troll, Fennblades with UA, Warders, Sons of Bragg and some support solos.

This was another scenario table, and involves holding the big blue crystals as if they were flags for CPs.  We mostly ignored that and beat each other’s face in.

The Pyre troll hocked a big one at the Juggernaut, dealing some damage and setting both it and Conquest on fire.  Lightning troll lit up Conquest and fried some Mechanics in the process.

Shaky picture is shaky.  I had split my forces around the git plateau there, since all the fennblades had been deployed in that space in the upper left.  My WGI got left out of the game, for the most part, just dealing with a lone Champion Hero solo.

Needless to say, two light troll beasts and a bunch of suped-up Fennblades, and I had two dead ‘jacks.

I was tired and desperate for points, and I wanted to give my drunk opponent (who only makes Tough rolls while drunk, apparently) a good show, so I figured Butcher wouldn’t run from a fight, but would instead just be supremely pissed that his two ‘jacks were gone.

He charged the Pyre troll, killing it and buying attacks until he was out of focus.  I knew it was over, so I went out in a blaze of glory.

Grissel got in on the action, and the Lightning troll went after the Dog, but was unsuccessful.  He used the same trick on the Warders that was used on the Fennblades to trash the Conquest.  Two attacks from all of them spelled disaster.

And then I was 5-5.

Game 11

After my bout with the trolls, I was 6 points out, and figured out what I would need to get them.  I found an opponent from Scotland running Legion, so we threw down around 1:30 AM.

He was running Vayl2 with three Angels two Ravagores, a Shredder, full Legionnaires and the pot.

Lots of maneuvering, some shots into the WGI to fry them.

I don’t have any more pictures from this, but the Juggernaut died to an Angel, the WGI took out a fair number of the Legionnaires, and the following turn, the Conquest died to charges from all three angels.

My plan sort of falls apart when Conquest dies, so I put Butcher in cover to make my opponent work for it, but he ate two Angels after being set on fire and it was over.

5-6

Game 12

I was way wrong when I reported game 11, and I still needed 3 points.  Two buddies of my last opponent decided to throw down against me.  We ran at roughly 30 points, but they took two casters (which was fine by me, we were all stupid with tiredness and we were just being silly).

One ran Vayl1 with Typhon and a Scythean, the other ran Lylyth2 with one of each lesser, a Deathstalker and a max unit of Raptors.

I put a boosted shot into the Scythean, and boosted damage against Vayl.  Nothing of note.

Lylyth2 popped feat and I ate a bunch of shots from her, the Raptors and the Deathstalker.  It hurt, but I was alive.

I activated Butcher, loaded up the Conquest and popped feat.  The Spriggan moved forward and dropped a flare to light up Lylyth, and the Conquest boosted ALL THE SHOTS and took her out.

That was first blood, and we ended the game.

Final score: 6-6

Conclusion

I still love Butcher1.  I understand that Butcher3 is like him on steroids, so I will definitely be building and painting him in the future.

I love Conquest.  It is so flexible, and it’s just stupid in melee under Fury.  P+S 25 hurts.  A lot.

The WGI Deathstar is also incredibly versatile, but rather time consuming when using all the sprays.  I also hadn’t realized that the sprays went down to POW 10, so the only real reason to use them over the solid shots is to ignore cover or stealth.

The Juggernaut continues to be a roadblock and tank.  He’s a great finisher for Conquest, but I could see him being dropped from the list.

The Spriggan is a fantastic utility piece, though very situational.  Having reach puts people on their back foot a bit, because they’re not used to a threat of 9″ from Khador.

Stay tuned for musings on what I’m thinking for next year!