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So I technically got three games in last night, which was a lot, but it was more like 2 games, but I'll explain that out in a bit.

First game was vs. Skorne - 500 Points

My list:
Skorsha
Juggernaut
Destroyer

9 Iron Fang Pikemen + Unit Attachment
Widowmakers

Manhunter

His list (guessing on some things):

Xerxis
Basilisk Krea
Cyclops

Praetorians unit (a bunch of guys, bout 6 or 8 of em)
Cataphract Something or other(don't know which one it was, they had reach and there were 4 of them)
Praetorian Ferox Unit (3)

Swamp Gobber Fog Bellows (guys threw down clouds, 2 of em)

Agonizer (Go Tortured Baby Elephant!)
Ancestral Guardian

So this was my third game ever, first playing with more than the battle box. We played straight up caster kill, just because we were both new and didn't want to get fancy. He seemed to know a lot of the units, but said he didn't know all the rules, but he said he had multiple armies, so I dunno. Nice guy though.

Table setup was pretty crowded and I kind of like it that way, more terrain = better. Hills just out of both deployment zones, a forest on the left flank (never used), and some houses that we just had as impassible strewn about the center so it wasn't a big open killing field. I won the roll off and made him deploy/go first. From my perspective, the Agonizer went on the left flank, next to him were the Praetorians more towards the center. Behind them were the Ferox, then Xerxis and the Cyclops were about center. To the right of them was the Krea who was screened by the Cataphract in shield wall. Out in front of them was the Ancestral Guardian, and the Gobbers were more towards the center but also far forward.

I deployed my two Jacks centrally, with skorsha behind them. With the IFP on my right, but they were ranked a little deep because terrain made me clump together if I wanted to stay close. Widowmakers advanced deployed on a hill to my center/left, and the Manhunter went on the left flank by the forest, hugging it to stay out of LOS (I forgot he had Stealth and Pathfinder, not that either mattered this game), his goal was to kill the Agonizer and then die.

Game:

His Turn 1:
Everything advances, but doesn't run. He kind of mucked himself up with deployment on the Ferox and he was having trouble getting them out in front of his Praetorians, but leap got them out in front of his guys. Agonizer moved up, but was well out of range to do anything. He drops the cloud effect (5") to block to his Cav and Praetorians. Casts some stuff just to get Fury and that's it.

My Turn 1:
Juggernaut Runs up, but not the full 8, more like 6 so as to not totally out pace the Destroyer who moved up and dropped a boosted shot on his Ancestral Guardian (I just knew it was a Solo, and therefore it had to be a bitch and was thus my best target). I hit, boosted the damage, and left him with only ONE damage left. Doh. :( Widowmakers moved up to try and knock that damage box off, but out of the two guys who had shots on it, they wiffed. The other two dropped shots into his cav and didn't do any damage. I should have realized that I wasn't beating their armor and do the one point. Manhunter saw that he was going to get head off by the Cav or the Praetorians before getting to the Agonizer, so I made him pay for my terrible deployment decision and charged him into one of the Ferox, who he killed. Yay.

The Pikemen used their special order to get the extra move while staying in shield wall, so they advanced around some terrain, so they were just a little bit ahead of the jacks and Skorsha. She cast fog of war for the extra defense, and that was about it.

His Turn 2:

Praetorians move up towards the Jugger, but not too far. The Ferox charge in (not quite enough for the charge) and kill the Manhunter. His other stuff advances, just a bit and I kind of forgot the things he cast because they didn't do a whole lot. The Gobbers moved up and threw the template in front of the ancestral guard so I couldn't hurt it (couldn't see, so couldn't charge or shoot).

My Turn 2:
Not a whole lot happened here since the IFP couldn't see to charge anything because of the cloud and Skorsha and the Jugg were too far to do anything of consequence without exposing Skorsha. I moved up the Destroyer and since I couldn't shoot the Ancestral Guardian I dropped a shot on his Ferox (I figured why not get rid of the Cav). I actually hit and boosted the damage to kill the one guy, but the leader lived. Jugger moved up a little closer, to try and line something up, but I knew he was taking the charge from the Praetorians, but not the warbeasts (who were way too far back to do anything, odd).

Widowmakers moved to get LOS and popped some shots off into the Gobbers, who they killed. Skorsha kept up her spell and sat on the rest of her focus.

His Turn 3:

Xerxes moves up a bit to get his whole army in his control area and pops his Feat, which gave them all an extra die of damage.

He passes his command check of the Ferox, who charge two of the Widowmakers. They die but the other two are not engaged, which includes the leader.

Ancestral Guardian charges into the Destroyer and starts whacking, but doesn't really do anything of consequence damage wise, it was too spread out and not enough, despite the fact that he had soul tokens on him.

Praetorians charge the Jugg and manage to knock out his movement. Crap. He comments on how his grunts did so much better than his super-solo and that it was sad. Funny how that kind of thing always happens no matter what game you're playing.

His Krea moves up behind the Cataphract who are still in shield wall. Agonizer moves up and burns all his Fury to make it so none of the Jacks can get Focus. Yay.

My Turn 3:

Payback is a bitch and Skorsha is queen bitch apparently. She gets all the Focus since it can't go anywhere else. First things first, the Widowmakers shoot into the combat with the Destroyer and Ancestral Guardian. The Unit Leader hits, thanks to the aiming bonus, and just does the point of damage to finish him off. The other guy kills off one of the Praetorians to clear a path for Skorsha.

Queen Bitch uses Wind Rush to move up in between the Jugg and the Destroyer, then moves up and turns and pops her feat to freeze everything except the Krea, the Ferox, and one of the Praetorians. Then she casts Tempest at Xerxis to knock him and the Cyclops by him down for two rounds of "I'm going to hit you when I get to you".

Pikemen decide that it's time to really bring some pain and charge the Cataphract. They kill all but one guy whose got 2 damage left.

Destroyer moves up a bit and drops a shot on Xerxis, which does a little damage. I think he said if you're stationary you can't transfer or something like that. I dunno.

Jugg can't really move but his two attacks beat the piss out of the two Preatorians left in melee with him. After muttering something about "You can buy new Preatorians, WHAT ABOUT MY LEGS!?!" he then gets to be the one inch wonder for the rest of the game.

His Turn 4:

Not a whole lot to do here, the Ferox moves over and managed to move/leap around and engage Skorsha from behind, but thanks to Wind Rush he doesn't do squat. He couldn't get all the way in range because then he'd get a free strike from the Destroyer who was also now engaged with him.

The Krea moves over towards Xerxis and pulls off some kind of animus that makes it so I can't allocate focus to my Jacks, again. There goes that charge into Xerxis with the Destroyer.

My Turn 4:

Pikemen are still engaged with that last Cataphract, but luckily he was the one closest to Xerxis, so most of the unit charged into Xerxis without breaking formation with the guy who was still in with the Cataphract since it was all so close. They start doing damage which just about kills the cyclops, who gets maxed out of Fury and then they start hurting Xerxis, who takes a bunch of damage and passes two Tough Rolls to save himself.

The Destroyer swings and misses the Ferox. Skorsha moved up and charged the last Cataphract to make it go away and clear a path for the other IFP to help out next round, since the guys engaged with him failed to kill it. She took a free strike from the Ferox, but not a whole lot of damage got through. Jugg is still playing Mr. One Inch Wonder, and the Widowmakers pop some shots into the other Preatorians who were left. I come to love the sniper ability.

His Turn 5:

Not a whole lot goes down, Xerxis stands up and whacks at some IFP and kills them, but I don't really care thanks to the UA. I don't think it was even half, more like 3 or so I think.

Cyclops stands up and then doesn't do a whole lot.

Ferox tries to jump at Skorsha, but gets a Freestrike from the Destroyer and eats Axe like he loves it.

I don't know what happend with his Krea this turn. I think he moved but I'm not sure. Whatever it was it wasn't eventful.

Agonizer does nothing.

My Turn 5:

IFP Move around Xerxis to make a path for Skorsha to charge if I needed it.

Destroyer is too far to charge but drops a shot on the Krea, who takes a ton of damage but still lives. I pump two shots into the Cyclops from the Widowmakers and since he had two boxes left, he dropped and Xerxis get s his fury.

IFP activate and start doing CMA's to Xerxis and then he goes bye bye as the Krea can't take all the damage and he finally fails the Tough Roll, Skorsha didn't even have to bloody her weapon.

Result: Win for the Motherland!

It was a pretty fun game, and I think I played well and the other guy made some mistakes. He wasn't playing aggressive enough I think, and he was expecting me to come to him, which I was, but I was fine to take my time about it since I had some decent shooting compared to his...zero shooting. I definitely put the things I learned about Skorsha's "Freeze Feat, then drop Tempest on the Def 5 models" to knock things down to make sure that the charge I line up on her Feat turn will auto-hit the following turn I get before they can stand up.

I'll post the other battle reports in a few.

Game Two:

A kid ended up coming in, having just bought the stores Khador army that was for sale. Somehow I always get stuck with a kid and their parent there and they ask for a game, and the people who were their who I met say "oh he's new and will probably play" and I just can't say "No" to the young'uns. Apparently this was his second army, first time using Khador, but I figured he'd know the rules since the other people around knew him, so I bite the bullet and will play.

I think the guy was 11 or 12, and turns out he didn't know the rules or the game very well, but hey, he's like 11 so you can't fault the kid.

He had:

Skorsha, only 5 IFP, which isn't even a unit, 3 MoW, Destroyer, and a Behemoth. He couldn't get to exactly 500 Points, so I dropped my Manhunter to make it even, then it pretty much became apparant that this wasn't going to be a "game" so much as me helping him learn, which is odd as this is my 4th game (though I read the rule book twice and poured over my faction deck).

We deploy out and I try to help him some. Telling him that moving out of his control area with his Jacks is bad and maybe he should re-do the move once he went to put focus on a Jack that was out of control, telling him that the MoW have Shield Wall, and how to move in the formation, etc. I can see that this is going to be a long game as he takes a long time per turn reading the cards, etc. At this point I figure I could end the game quickly by killing the newbie or I could help him out and give him an easy opening to kill my caster. Despite what page 5 says, I can't beat up on 11 year olds and feel good about it.

So we have Skorsha vs. Skorsha on one flank, I'm screening with the two Jacks, he's screening with the Destroyer and the IFP. He's got a Behemoth on my right on a hill coming around from dealing with the Widowmakers I put there so he could shoot them. I move Skorsha out by the Destroyer and Jugg and use Freezing Grasp or whatever it is to lock the Behemoth in place "because he could be dangerous". I then explain to him about Wind Rush and how it lets you move without counting as movement, and that next turn I could Wind Rush, then Move to get LOS to his Skorsha and pop my feat to freeze him and then Charge the next turn.

Luckily he took the cue and realized he could do the same thing to my Skorsha, which he then did, but instead of moving up the Destroyer he had and charging the next turn, he charged Skorsha in with full focus and because I used all my focus to freeze his Behemoth he beat the piss out of her and down she went giving him the game. Turns out I learned that even the scrawny little Skorsha can lay down the pain if she's got enough Focus and the other Warcaster doesn't, so it wasn't a complete waste of time vs the kid and he brought up a couple of odd rules questions I'll post in a bit.

Game 3:

So there was another guy there who was about my age and was a regular I've seen before but hadn't met asked to play a 350 point game before the shop closed. We didn't have a ton of time, but I figured why not go for it?

He had:

Terminus
Seether
Leviathan (I think, it was one of the ones with multiple legs, and a gun).

I took the battle box plus the Manhunter, putting me just a bit below 350.

There was a bit of terrain on the table, and we ended up deploying almost directly opposite of one another. He lined up all nice in a row, and Skorsha hid behind her Jacks and the Manhunter deployed behind a hill about mid board that he'd have to come around either way on, so I could get a jump at whatever tried to come through first, since I knew he had the speed advantage.

His Turn 1:

Seether Runs up, just outside of the gap between the hill the manhunter is behind and another piece of terrain. Terminus also runs up, but not quite as far and toward my right, he's somewhat hiding behind the piece of terrain opposite the hill. The Leviathan moves up and goes to shoot the Manhunter and I finally realize that he doesn't have to hide out of LOS that much since he's got Stealth. Go me.

My Turn 1:

Jugg gets a Focus and runs up, but not the full amount, staying out of charge range of his Seether. Destroyer gets two Focus, advances and then boosts a shot at the Seether, which hits, and then boosts the damage, but doesn't put a whole lot of hurt on the thing.

Manhunter gets a little closer to the Seether, but nothing too fierce, I was going to make him come to me since I had better shooting and his Lebiathan was pretty far away at that point.

His Turn 2:

Seether runs right up to the Manhunter to block him from charging. But he can't do anything. The Leviathan moves up but is out of range to shoot anything. Terminus moves up a bit and pops his feat, which I think just makes it so I can't allocate Focus to my Jacks. I'm sure it'd be better than it was in a normal game, but not with what we were running. This is where he made a mistake...

My Turn 2:

...And I follow it up with a Mistake of my own. I part the Jugg and Destroyer so Skorsha can Wind Rush right up, and I pop her feat. Sadly what I messed up on was the fact that while the Seether was in my Control Area he wasn't in LOS thanks to the Jugg. I should have moved again, angled it, THEN popped the Feat, and I could have done what I needed to anyway, but I messed up and didn't want to take it back.

Skorsha drops Tempest on Terminus, and the Destroyer Shoots him doing a little damage, but not a whole lot.

Manhunter wails on the Seether and starts wiping out columns, disabling one arm, but nothing past that.

His Turn 3:

He moves the Seether out and just moves to engage the Jugg, which blocks my charge lanes for just about everything except Skorsha. The Manhunter's Freestrike doesn't do enough damage.

My Turn 3:
I needed 3 Focus to cast Boundless Charge on the Jugg to have him be in range to get to Terminus, and I allocated Three to him so I could charge, hit, then attack again and boost it. Sadly, I didn't kill the Seether with Skorsha or the Destroyer, or the Manhunter, and the Jugg had to whack him in order to get him out of the way, which meant I wasn't charging Terminus!

His Turn 4:

Terminus Stands up, and then runs behind the piece of terrain laterally. Great.

Leviathan charges in to the Jugg and doesn't do a whole lot. I think he almost disabled the open fist.

My Turn 4:

Jugg gets 1 Focus, boosts to hit the Leviathan and hurts it a ton. Manhunter comes over and wails on him and wreaks it.

Skorsha moves laterally and can see Terminus through a gap in the piece of terrain he was hiding behind. Burns 5 Focus to Freeze him, 4 to cast and one to boost the to hit roll as he was Defense stupid because of terrain. I hit. Destroyer moves over and pops a shot on him which doesn't do a lot of damage.

His Turn 5:

Terminus hates ice.

My Turn 5:

Move the Jugg over the wreak, move the Manhunter out around the terrain.

Skorsha uses 5 Focus again to keep on boosting an hitting Terminus with the Freeze Spell. Destroyer shoots him and boosts damage, still doing very little.

This goes on till I get the Jugg around to kill him. I apologized to the guy about just keeping on freezing his one model, but hey I figure you play the game and he was close enough that if I let him out he'd beat the piss out of Skorsha since the guy told me he ignores terrain and stuff when he charges, which was pretty damn far.

Eventually I get the Jugg there and the manhunter. Everything charges AND THE GUY HAS THE NERVE TO LIVE! I can't cast into the combat to freeze him (used the focus to charge, etc).

By this point they were closing the shop up and he said he could move out without getting free strikes and could probably charge Skorsha, but we had to pack up, and I said I'd give the win to him but he said to call it a draw.

I personally will count this as a loss as I think I made the mistake, but the good part was that I learned something and could have had it won on turn 2/3 if I pulled the feat off correctly. So I'm happy with how it went and he was a really nice guy and we were talking as we packed up and left the shop. Definitely will be getting games against him in the future since he's a regular there for the WM nights.

Recap:

I had a ton of fun, despite having to play someone young (normally I'm not a fan of that), and I learned a lot about the game, which is one of my biggest goals besides just having a good time. Can't wait till next week when I get to go out and play again.

I'm not too familiar with Skorne or Terminus, but it looks like you have pretty good handle on the rules. However, there is one mistake that you made repeatedly throughout all three battle reports.

It's "Sorscha," not "Skorsha"!

Anyways, nice work, and I'm glad you're having fun.

Thanks for the Batreps! How do you feel about facing Hordes armies as opposed to Warmachine - is it fairly seemless? I've been promised a battlegroup game against Everblight in a little over a week that I'm looking forward to.

I envy your well-stocked FLGS. I won't be getting any 500 games in for another couple of weeks at least waiting on backorders. The silver lining is that I'm able to paint as the models come in. You planning on posting any pictures of your army?

It is a little bit. You have to be a little careful to read the
text of spells/abilities to see if things affect one or the
other. For instance, spell ward prevents a unit from being
targeted by spells, but if a warbeast uses its animus it
doesn't count as a spell.

It's pretty seamless from what I can tell, 2/5 games have been against Skorne and everything was fine. If there's a question just read the Stat card, and I'm pretty lucky that the shop I'm playing at has some vets there who know the rules well enough to help out.

I'm also waiting for next week when they get their order in, I need one more IFP Blister to get my unit up to the 9 that are listed in my army list, I've been playing one short.

I will probably put some pictures up of the army once I work on it. I have to finish my Ogre Kingdoms army for the Colonial GT at the end of this month, but once that's done I'm going to work whole hog on my Khador. I learned a lot painting the Ogres and I can't wait to test it out on these guys.

Things can be rough Warmachine vs. Hordes. A warcaster
can become a beast when you've trashed his army since
his unspent focus adds to his ARM stat. And every now
and then a warlock can run his beasts "hot" and get more
performance out of them than a warcaster would even
dream of.

I kind of liked that aspect of it though. As a WM player, my thought goes to "Kill his Beasts" and once that happens I can win it.

From a Hordes Perspective, let his Jacks do what they want, but kill the infantry/solo's and force their caster to have to spend focus like mad on Jacks to win. Of course this doesn't work out as well if the WM player doesn't take any jacks or minimizes them. :(

Yup. Many lists lean on 1-2 warjacks, then use the
warcaster as a support guy until it's time to put the
hurt on.

I like it, too.

The other issue with WM vs. Hordes is there are some effects in both games that only affect Focus or Fury, but not both. For example, Skorne paingivers can add or subtract a FOC from enemy warbeasts. Great against Hordes, useless vs. WM.

But, they use the same basic rules, so they're very compatable. Just not always a good match-up for some lists and casters/locks (for example, Nemo's feat is useless against Hordes - it only affects enemy Warjacks).