Warhmahordes Battle Report: pMorghoul vs. Terminus!

My good friend and Ordo-mate Tom and I have been working on our respective lists for upcoming tournaments, and have gotten a fair number of Vassal games in the last few weeks. We finished a game last night that I actually remembered to take a few screenshots of, so here's a quick battle report!

As a brief aside, if you haven't tried Vassal and Skype together as a method to play Warmachine/Hordes, you're really missing out. Privateer Press has provided full support to the creator of the WM/H module, so he's been able to work and tweak to make it a really handy way to play. Movement is easy to do, with quick-movement down to the 1/2" very easy. Measuring is easy. Checking melee ranges is a snap with overlays. Normally playing online is very slow because of the need to type, but if you and your opponent get on Skype, the game can actually go faster than a real game! (Unless you're as chatty and slow-thinking as I am, anyway!)

So Tom is a Cryx player. He's got a very mean Cryx list that I was terrified of:

Teminus
Seether
6 Bile Thralls
6 Bane Thralls with UA
10 Bane Knights
Bane Lord Tartarus
Pistol Wraith

A ton of melee-clearing ability from the Biles, and tons of Weapon Master meanness from all the Banes. BLT is an incredible force multiplier. Everything is Tough. The Pistol Wraith is a great tool-box, able to shut down a model and engage Incorporeals.

I'm using my pMorghoul list I'm planning on taking to upcoming Tournaments:

pMorghoul
Titan Bronzeback
Titan Gladiator
Rhinodon
Cyclops Brute
Cyclops Savage
Aptimus Marketh
Agonizer
4 Paingiver Beast Handlers

Very Beast heavy, with some good support from the PGBH and Marketh. The Agonizer is one of the best Solos around, in my opinion. Decent ability to deal with enemy troops. Decent Speed (the Cyclops have potential 15" threat range!). And of course a Bronzeback to beat up whatever the hell it wants!

Still, I felt pretty concerned with this. I kind of look at things at WM/H match-ups as Trades...Rhinodon plus Cyclops and one of the Bane units cancel out. One of the Titans and the Seether cancel out. That leaves me at the mercy of another Bane unit and Terminus himself...not to mention BLT! I had no good answer for all that infantry.

Regular readers may note that I keep waffling back and forth between including the Savage or the Nihilators. The Savage is faster, and has a great animus that I'm addicted to. The Nihilators add more bodies, potentially better capability to deal with infantry hordes, make great lane blockers. A tough choice...after this game I think I'm going back to the min Nihilators for one more try before the tournament this Saturday.

We were playing a Scenario, the name of which escapes me, but we both virtually ignored it and just went for the throat. I won the roll off and chose to go first.

I set up in a tight clump (pMorg has only Fury 5, so need to keep beasties close!), with the beasties to the front and the little humans behind. Tom spread out, with the Pistol Wraith on the extreme left, then the Bane Knights, BLT, Seether, Terminus, then the Biles with the Bane Thralls behind.

I moved up semi-conservatively on the first turn. My Savage went a bit wide to my right, with a PGBH supporting him. My Rhindon hung back a bit...I really wanted to see if I could get him in to a clump of Tom's infantry to make maximum use of his *Thresher, but was for some reason concerned about him getting shot up first. Too much time worrying about Eric's Cygnar, I guess!




My turn 1...Elephants Forwards!

  The Cryx herd ran straight ahead, nothing fancy.

On my turn 2 I had a hard time deciding if I wanted to attempt long charges, or hang back and see if I could get things piecemeal. I chose to hang back, just shuffling things around a bit, hoping to be out of Charge and Purge range. I tried to move Marketh up to get a Torment on the Pistol Wraith, but was about 1/2" out of range. Uhoh! I moved the Brute near him, though, to hopefully not get him "frozen" next turn

Tom was cagey, though. He kept his force together, forcing me to engage his brick all together. He pushed the Knights right up in my face, while the Biles all sprayed (getting a hit and applying Corrosion to the Gladiator). His Pistol Wraith shot at Marketh, the first shot hit and the Brute took the shot. And luckily for me, the second shot missed!



After Cryx Turn 2...that's a lot of dead guys!

  Well, I couldn't really get away from the mess, so had to commit. I would have liked to retrograde backwards and pull the Knights out to try to finish off them while the Thralls tried to catch up, but then he'd win on objectives. So, I went for broke. The PGBH buffed up everyone they could. The Savage charged in and killed off a few Bile Thralls, making room for the Rhinodon. Sadly I was a bit shorter than I'd wanted to be with the Rhino, he killed off 3 of the Bane Thralls only. Here I messed up. I had good chance to kill off another and the UA Standard with bought attacks, but I flat-out forget to! The Gladiator advanced to the Seether, and with some horrible dice only managed to take him about halfway dead after killing the Knight that was in his face. The Bronzeback was ready to save the day, though, as he charged BLT, killing him, finished off the Seether, and killed a Bane Knight. I forgot about the Knights being immune to FS, so tried to tie them up with the Brute. The Brute did kill one, at least. Admonition was put on the Bronzeback, and I awaited the counter-strike!


After my turn 3...not a good spot for me to be in!

 One Bile Thrall purged on the Savage, doing a few boxes and Corroding him. The other just stood up. The Bane Thralls dog-piled the Rhinodon, easily killing him off. Terminus jumped forward and killed the Gladiator with ease. The Bane Knights split up, some going after the Brute, nearly killing him; some going after the Bronzeback, knocking a few chunks off him but not taking any Aspects; and one lone guy ran up to swing at Morghoul, missing, but clogging up the works.


After Cryx turn 3...lots of dead beasts!

  Nothing kills casters dead like a buffed-up Bronzeback, and Terminus was easily in charge range. I just needed to clear some Knights out of the way! PGBHs Enraged the Savage and the Bronzeback, while the other 2 hit the Knight engaging Morghoul, killing him (thanks to Anatomical Precision!). The Savage charged Terminus, putting his Animus on the Bronzeback but failing to do any damage to the Warcaster. The Agonizer ran out of the way, and Marketh Abused the Bronzeback while back up out of the way. The Brute turned around and smacked a Knight down (he's passed his Thr test, but was left with 2 fury, and failed to damage the second). That left two Knights engaging the Bronzeback, so Morghoul himself went to work...he charged, disabling one but it passed Toughness! Morghoul used his second initial attack on the same one, finally killing him, used Overtake to get in range of the second, bought attacks and killed that one too...then he Sprinted out of the way and unleashed the Bronzeback! The giant beast charged Terminus, skirting around the wreck of the Seether. Two fists took the Warcaster nearly dead, the chain attack headbutt missed, but a boosted tusk attack finished off Terminus!


Bronzeback saves the day!


I was lucky to get the opportunity to get the Bronzeback on to Terminus. Tom and I spent some time talking about the coulda-shoulda-wouldas, and we both agreed that sending Terminus to kill the Savage, while the Knights killed the Gladiator would have been a safer route. Without Rush to get the Bronzeback over the Wreck, he'd had been safely away, and had no real capacity to deal with all his Knights that were pressing in to Morghoul. Regardless, it was a fun game, we both learned a lot and had a good time laughing at Tom's horrible Tough rolls and my consistently bad Vassal dice rolling...I swear that server is programmed to hate me!

Hopefully I'll be able to get one more Vassal game in before Saturday, but if not I'll have some pics and reports of the tournament! Wish me luck!