Bloodstone Borders Week 2

Well, week two of my Warmachine/Hordes league is basically in the books. I played just one game this week on Thursday night and did quite well. I managed to beat Luke Hardy, pick up a scenario victory and take out five of his solos which has basically put me squarely in the lead for the Eliminator pin. I don't really care if I win the league, but they are some pretty neat pins and I wouldn't mind winning one of them.

My game went pretty well. I decided to stick with some old stand-bys yet still try something a bit different. I took Kaya as my warlock and surrounded her with three warpwolves and a pureblood warpwolf as well. These four models pack a tremendous punch and are hard to disable because of their self healing ability. In addition to this, I took two units of shifting stones (again for healing and quick movement where necessary), a full unit of Tharn Ravagers and their brand new attachment, the Shaman. The Lord of the Feast is a got to have when running against trooper models and I went out on a limb and decided to field two Sentry Stones and give them a try. Now most people would argue that with the Sentry Stones I am making the same mistake I made last week of running models that don't match up well against a Warmachine faction. Let me tell you, being the first time I played the Sentry Stones I found that they are incredible, even against Warmachine.

The board was really clogged this time around as I we had crevasses perpendicular to both the left and right edges of the board. This was going to shove all the non-ranged troops into the middle of the table (which was all I had). He was running the new Epic Irusk and his Khador army. Khador is very meaty (as I learned my last game) and unless you have some punch, you're not going to damage them. Hence the reason I fielded my pack of wolves. He was going to try to use his ranged attacks to bust me up, and I knew it. So, using Kaya's cloak of mists I was able to hide my Tharns during their approach. I used my Shifting Stone to move my Sentry Stones closer to the action and laughed when he tried to target them with his mortars (Sentry Stones without any focus on them are completely invisible). I also started producing Manikins (little animated wooden constructs) and immediately sacrificed them to shower his onrushing pirate crew with a barrage of splinters. The Lord of the Feast also joined the fun, sending his pet raven at the pirates and immediately joining the fray, taking down his manhunter and one of the pirates with a ferocious attack.

He was able to kill the Lord of the Feast, but not without committing a Konvik, 3 pirates and his marshalled berserker first. The Lord of the Feast is one bad customer. With all those troops in the middle of the board I was able to again hit him with an exploding manikin, taking out a few pirates in the process. On the left side of the board, the Tharns had gotten around the crevice and tore into his complete ineffective Widowmakers. They didn't have a chance against the Tharns and their Shaman. They also made quick work of Alton Ashley who had joined forces with the widows in an attempt to nickel and dime my troops into submission. He then sent in his heavy, a nasty Destroyer to work over my Tharns. While he did considerable damage, the Tharns are not only difficult to hit, but even more difficult to kill. We mixed it up for a few turns and the Tharns took casualties, but were able to hold their own.

The middle of the board got very nasty. Luke sent his berserker and a Juggernaut against two of my Warpwolves. My wolves did not fair well. I was lucky enough that one of them survived, but the other was torn to shreds by the ice axe of the Juggernaut. Unfortunately for him, I followed up with an attack by my Pureblood and the other Warpie and completely decimated both Jacks and his marshalling Kovnik.

The game played out over the next few turns, I won't go into detail. He managed to kill off one more of my Warpwolves and severely wound the other two to the point where I was forcing them to regenerate and using my Shifting Stones as healing batteries. He kept throwing solos at me and I kept killing them. In the end, he had his caster and a mortar and gun crew left, but they didn't have the movement to advance and keep me from claiming the control points I needed to win the game.

It was a great game. I had a lot of fun. It was fairly close (though I felt I had it in hand most of the time) and it allowed me to try a few new things. I know that the Sentry Stones will now find a permanent home in any army I run.