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First Foray Into Warmachine.

Cryx vs. Cygnar 15 Points.

Cryx List:
pDenny
Slayer
Deathripper
Deathripper
3 Soulhunters

Cygnar List:
Kraye (Tier 2 List)
Defender
Hunter
Hunter

So, yes, my opponent did proxy, but we are all getting into it, so a proxy game is better than no game IMO.
Note, since we are both really green to the game, we did fudge up some rules along the way.

We both roll off and roll 5’s, but Kraye gets +1 to start for being at Tier 2.



My opponent deploys Kraye centrally, with the Hunters behind the fences and the Defender ready to get on top of the hill.

I don’t have any plan so I thought I’d try ‘it all’.
So the I deploy in a line with the Slayer in the Forest, rippers side by side and then the Soulhunters on the right flank, Denny sets up behind all that using the forest as blocking line of sight.

Turn 1 Cygnar:

Things move forward, nothing gets shots as it’s too far. The defender gets the hill under Full Tilt and the Hunters get to another fence.

Turn 1 Cryx:



I sort of flip flop. I send one Arc node screaming up the board in the open.
The soulhunters move to the left flank, thinking the Hunters would be better targets.
The Slayer ran through the forest.
Denny Gives herself Ghostly and runs through the forest as well.
I guess I’m just playing too defensively and well, it’s the start of feeding my army to Cygnar piecemeal.

Turn 2 Cygnar:

Kraye casts Guided Fire.
Everybody fires on the poor bonejack in the middle of the board and is left with only 4 boxes left with everything taken out except for movement.

Turn 2 Cryx:



So…I need to actually approach his army… cause I’m not using my focus to actually debuff and stuff like that.
So the Slayer, Denny, and Deathripper move out of the forest. Crippled Bonejack shuffles forward.
Big Mistake # Greater Than One, by now: I had the smart idea to run my Soulhunters at the Hunters…getting into Combat range means they can’t shoot me unless they move away, and they take free strikes.

What was that? They are Hunters and have parry?
This did not come up until the next turn, and well…my fault for not looking closer to the rules and such. You can guess what happens next.

Turn 3 Cygnar:



Guided Fire + 5 shots from 3 Jacks and all the Soulhunters are down.
Oh yea, and shuffling back a bit.
All the while the Defender getting aiming bonuses on the hill too.

Turn 3 Cryx:



Well that sucked… alright, there’s really nothing left to do but to charge in and finish this.
The remaining mobile jacks run at Kraye.
I did get off Crippling Grasp after a boost on one of the Hunters… but I mainly did that just… because, no real intensions of actually using it.

Turn 4 Cygnar:

Guided Fire… it’s the theme…
The unmolested bonejack is molested by the Defender and Kraye, but everything is still working.
The rest of the fire power of the Hunters is on the Slayer, one misses, but the other one does 12 damage and just the right box to take out movement.

Turn 4 Cryx:



I didn’t upkeep Crippling Grasp on one of the Hunters.
In a moment of “not gonna check the rulebook” we had assumed the loss of Movement means he couldn’t move… so he sits tight.
The bonejack with an arc node moves towards the Defender… I move real close but did not intend to be in combat range.
Denny moves into the middle of the three jacks and pops feat. It actually catches all of the Cygnar forces.
In addition, I tried out scourge through the Arc node into the Defender and did some damage 7-8, I don’t remember, but did knock it down.
Then I threw a parasite onto the defender.
The crippled bone jack continues to move towards Kraye and into combat range… I think I rolled without thinking and did 5 points of damage… only to be reminded that the weapon was crippled.
We assumed the weapon was gone and we go at the base strength of the model… I think after looking in the rulebook when I got home, all I lose is one of the damage dies.

Turn 5 Cygnar:



Defender shacks off knockdown.
The Defender kicks the bonejack in front of it dead.
Kraye kicks the other bonejack in front of it dead.
The hunters take shots at the Slayer but miss or hurt it just a little bit.

Turn 5 Cryx:



Ok, so upkeep parasite.
Charge Kraye, Denny is pretty fast and has reach.
Boost first to hit, Boost Automatically to wound.
Affected by Shadow Bind.
Purchased second attack, boost hit, boost wound.
Purchase third attack, hits, boost wound.

It all results in scaring my opponent and taking Kraye down to 4-5 boxes left.

Turn 6 Cygnar:



Kraye can’t move away, but the Defender and both Hunters charge in… but the Defender grinds her down first and she dies.
I think he feats too, but it doesn’t change too much.

So, Kraye wins and I have lost.
Again, lots of mistakes between the both of us, but it was fun.
It was pretty demoralizing to lose a lot of my stuff, but it was well worth it to hang out until the end.

It was a morale victory for getting first blood between the Warcasters…but yea, the major problem I had was going in piecemeal vs a highly mobile and accurate shooting list. Oh yea, and the parry thing, it prob. would have been better if I went for the Defender…..and actually remembered my light cav extra movement before they died.

Things Learned:
-Actually Read the opponents’ rules.
-Loss of movement doesn’t mean “can’t move”.
-Loss of weapon doesn’t mean “no more weapon”.
-Higher up doesn’t make it hitting enemies easier.

As the general description states, Cryx are generally harder to hit, fast, but really squishy.
I should have run forward with everything… I would have gotten more stuff there to actually have a chance at doing something.

Even with a high focus, I felt I was constantly running out of Focus between running jacks then wanting/needing to use Ghostly or a debuff… (mainly debuffs as there wasn’t too much terrain in the middle to hinder me).

Anyway, it was fun and I'm hungry for more.

Ya it is a common mistake to want to play defensively and if you are an all shooty list it can actually pay off.

However, Denny needs to be in the thick of battle (sort of) in order for her to be most effective, by this I mean she needs to have a presence i.e. arc nodes so she can debuff and cripple your opponents forces. Checking the rules regularly when new to the game is tedious but a very good idea so you learn the rules through and through.

Thats all the advice and criticism I can offer, you seem to have caught everything else, just play with gumption and you will do fine.

Oh and nice bat rep btw.

Also, it feels REALLY, I mean REALLY wierd to use the measuring of the Warcasters' control area at any time for any reason.

So much useful information you can get from it....and with my hvy background of playing 40K, it feels like cheating.... but funny enough it's not and actually intended.

Tell me about it, when testing my Cygnar list I used my warcaster to check range before I elected to fire with my units. It definitely feels like cheating and I have had opponents get moody because I do that.

Yea, I guess I need to start getting on top of that as well.
My opponent was on top of it and all his dudes were always good on being in command range for Guided Fire while I actually had a moment where I was out of range of one of my arc nodes.... I mean, it lost its arc node and cortex....but still .

Yea, I gotta be more aggressive next time, I don't really think it's the list as I did end up gaking a brick myself when Denny did that much damage....imagine if stuff was actually used right HAH.

Measuring command range works both ways - your opponent knows how close he is to getting a charge too.

WM is definitely an aggressive wargame. Go for the jugular. I think that's the biggest hurdle most new players have.

Sanctjud wrote:Y
Yea, I gotta be more aggressive next time, I don't really think it's the list as I did end up gaking a brick myself when Denny did that much damage....imagine if stuff was actually used right HAH.

Ya Denny is a very powerful caster, However, I wouldn't recommend using her as the assination run unless she is your only option left. reason being if you had tried that against some one like Karchev, The butcher, Striker, and several others your opponent would have only activated their warcaster and pounded you into a bloody stump.

I did see that was pretty much your only viable option so I am not saying you did it wrong just warning you not to do that against certain warcasters. Karchev is usually a given (DO NOT ENGAGE HIM IN HAND TO HAND) and the same really goes for the butcher they both hit like tsunamis.

The other thing you did is not play any type of scenario. This allows gunline lists like his Cygnar to just keep moving backward and firing. Consider instead a simple Killbox scenario - casters have to be within a box in the center of the table, about 14" up from any edge IIRC. Then Kraye can't just keep moving backward and shooting you.

Also, consider getting someone else to set up terrain? There was nothing in the middle of the table there, a perfect shooting gallery.

Zhetsuken wrote:

Sanctjud wrote:Y
Yea, I gotta be more aggressive next time, I don't really think it's the list as I did end up gaking a brick myself when Denny did that much damage....imagine if stuff was actually used right HAH.

Ya Denny is a very powerful caster, However, I wouldn't recommend using her as the assination run unless she is your only option left. reason being if you had tried that against some one like Karchev, The butcher, Striker, and several others your opponent would have only activated their warcaster and pounded you into a bloody stump.

I did see that was pretty much your only viable option so I am not saying you did it wrong just warning you not to do that against certain warcasters. Karchev is usually a given (DO NOT ENGAGE HIM IN HAND TO HAND) and the same really goes for the butcher they both hit like tsunamis.

No, you don't use Denny to do it. You get her up and debuff/scourge what you can and pounce with the rest of your force.
If I can get Crippling Grasp, Withering, or Scourge on a caster, I immediately ignore the rest of the enemy and focus on the Caster.
It may seem obvious, but Cryx is not usually built to handle attrition. You have to find the opening and take it before the door slams shut.

Don't feel bad about the crippled systems, I've run into alot of veteran players who seemed to have missed that part of the book.

Crippled Weapon- lose a dice for hit AND damage and cannot do special attacks (for some reason everyone thinks it's one or the other, but not both)
Crippled Cortex- loses focus AND cannot spend focus for any reason (I did see a jack with a crippled corex pick up focus, but it couldn't use it)
Crippled Movement- Cannot run or charge AND DEF becomes 7 (everyone misses the DEF 7 part)

Denny can spell assassinate pretty well on her feat turn, especially if you've managed to crippling grasp the enemy caster. A few cheap magic attack spells will do in most opponents at -4 DEF and ARM. In general when approaching a shooting army, you seem to have realized that target saturation is the approach you need i.e. put everything in range at once to force your opponent to pick and choose. Parasite is another good spell for making enemies easier to drop. In general running up first turn and getting the upkeep spells up early is a good plan as your opponent will then have to choose between killing the annoying little arc nodes or the heavier hitting units coming in next turn.

skrulnik wrote:

No, you don't use Denny to do it. You get her up and debuff/scourge what you can and pounce with the rest of your force.
If I can get Crippling Grasp, Withering, or Scourge on a caster, I immediately ignore the rest of the enemy and focus on the Caster.
It may seem obvious, but Cryx is not usually built to handle attrition. You have to find the opening and take it before the door slams shut.

I don't know if this is just a new fad on dakka or what but I recommend reading the entire post before responding half cocked.

I was telling him that using Denegerah for an assassination run is a bad idea, but sometimes thats the only option you have left. in the situation he listed it was pretty much the only option he had left, come the next turn Kraye and the hunters would have smote her. Most of his army has been picked apart and he had very few options left. If he got lucky and his opponent rolled terrible he may have been able to drag it out one more turn but her feat was already poped so it would have much harder to pull out an assassination.

@dietrich:

I think that's the biggest hurdle most new players have.

Very true, after all, you have to play with a pair

@Zhetsuken:

Very true, I pretty much had nothing left and said, “screw it, I’m not going down without a fight.” That last ditch attack made me more interested in the game.
True, ‘so close and yet so far’…and a win is a win, but it would have been mine so easily if some dice fell on different sides, so overall, my army got trashed, but it (in my mind anyway) was pretty close.

I might charge Butcher for the lulz, but yea, I’m sure I’ll have a better handle of the list in the future.

@tzeentchling:

That is correct. We should, but it was our first game, so we had both decided before the game to just get the juices flowing and just roll dice and the basics under our belts.

As for the terrain, in hindsight that would be a great idea . Though I’m sure the terrain will not be favorable all the time. In this case, terrain or not, my feeding my army to my opponent piece by piece was what killed it.

@skrulnik:

Ya, Denny is squishy but as said before, it was my only option left as I fudged up the rest of the army .

I do like the utility of Scourge (did scratch the heavy jack) and all the debuffs, my problem was: I wasn’t aggressive with the Arc Nodes and they got taken down before anything was in range of them to debuff stuff…and I was looking to Cripple Kraye, but he was too far away.

Another issue was, I was scared to get Denny close as I saw he had Mage Sight, but I was too scared that I didn’t approach closer knowing/not at my forethoughts that he had a 12” control area only…so with Stealth she was pretty safe at the early stages.

@Mastershake:

Yea, several people suggested different things, but we were just too lazy to look it up .
But now I know, and I guess lessons learned early = better .

___________________-----------------___________________

So, my next fight will be a little different.
VS. Menoth (Reznik I believe)
I’ll be rocking with the hulking model known as eGaspy. @ 25 points.

Hopefully it will not be as one-sided of a stomp as this was .

My post was more to the overall use of Denny, since the specific situation had already been addressed.
The OP thread does say "First Foray". I assumed he could use basic advice in addition to the specific.

My thoughts are that assassination is exactly what you do with Denny. It is just done with use of her Parry ability and spells.

I have won a few games now where Denny is left alive with 2 or three boxes.
At that point, I feel I have 1 turn left because the enemy will be converging on her.
So my spells have an effective +7" to their range in that turn as I move through everything to get LOS to the enemy caster.

To me that is a feature of Warmachine. Play aggressive when you have to and you may pull a win out of a game you thought you had lost.

@ sanctjud: Good luck with the game vs Reznik. His witchhound ability will be frustrating.
As will Menoth in general.
I normally run only the Dennys and I struggle more vs Menoth than anything else.
Could be because of the Avatar though.