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Played in a 25 pt MkII tournament yesterday (all games: Caster Kill only) with less-than-optimized lists, and managed to pull out a 50% win rate! Would have been 75% but for a game that ended literally 1 minute too soon (not that I'm *certain* my opponent was stalling....).

Menoth 25 List 1
pFeora
Crusader, Revenger, Repenter
min Choir, min TFG, Daughters
Paladin
Vassal

Menoth 25 List 1
pSevy
Crusader, Revenger, Repenter
max Choir, min TFG, min Zealots
Monolith Bearer, Reclaimer solo

Game 1
used Feora List (#1) vs Khador (eButcher, Beast-09, Devastator, Widowmakers, Doom Reavers, War Dog)

Shortest game ever. Ran my Daughters up towards the Widowmakers, but hid in concealment for the DEF bonus. Lost 2 anyways, and next turn missed my charge by 1/2" (argh). eButcher Feated and plinked one of the Daughters, Widowmakers finished them off, Doom Reavers managed to get a couple of Flameguard, Devastator and Beast charged my jackwall (demolishing my Repenter). Beast used his Rage tokens to move *again* and Reach out to kill a very suprised Feora. LOSS.

I did absolutely nothing to his forces, not a scratch. Wow, I had no idea eButcher could move jacks so far in one turn. Yikes.

Game 2
used Sevy List (#2) vs Menoth (eKreoss, min Errants, min Knights, min Choir, Vassal, Fire of Salvation, Revenger).

Took out several Errants with an arced Ashes to Ashes, ran my Zealots to partially engage the Knights under Greater Destiny. Fire of Salvation engaged both the Crusader and Revenger, locked up my Revenger's shield and proceeded to total him with a phenomenal number of attacks (retribution attack, vassal ancillary, then eKreoss' feat attack, plus one with Focus since he rolled snake eyes once). The Knights finished off the Zealots and started on the Flameguard. eKreoss had charged in and killed a bunch of Flameguard, but that left him open to Death Sentence from Sevy. The Reclaimer with 5 soul tokens charged eKreoss and whacked at him, dealing a respectable 3 points of damage over 3 attacks. Thankfully my full-focus Crusader was able to sidle around to eKreoss without leaving Fire of Salvation's melee range, and pound eKreoss into the ground with 4 inferno mace hits.

WIN!

Games 3 and 4 to follow


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Game 3
List 1 (Feora) vs Retribroken...err...Retribution.
Retribution list: Rayen? caster, Chimera light arcnode Myrmidon, full 10 crossbow elves plus officer attachment, Rhianna and Holt, 2 Magehunter Assassin solos (with 4" Reach attacks), pEiryss, and some other melee solo.

The board was an annoying one with a hill on my side, with a 4" wide river cutting across in front of my deployment zone, making a 90 degree turn about 3/4 of the way across, and going straight across exit his deployment edge. With a walled bridge crossing it in his zone. Basically he got a moat. And there was a big wide forest just his side of the halfway line, inside the moated area.

He set up his crossbow elves in a line about 4" deep in the forest (ie out of LOS), then informed me that the crossbow elves never need LOS and get an extra die damage vs warjacks, but have only 12" range and RAT6 (and non-magical weapons). All his solos hid on the bridge, his Myrmidon and caster hid behind the forest, and Eiryss deployed on the far flank of the crossbow elves.

I run everything forward, trying to clear the river before we get into it. The Daughters are far enough forwards that they could probably contact the elves at the side edge of the forest next turn. Prayer of safe passage on all the jacks, Vassal Enlivens the Crusader. Feora is tight in with the Choir behind the jacks, as my only hope is to set everything on fire as soon as possible.

His Myrmidon runs a ludicrous distance to plug the hole between forest and river. Rayan casts some AOE cloud that only affects my guys in front of the Myrmidon, and Snipes the crossbow elves (whoops, now they're 16" range). The crossbow elves pepper my Daughters - 2 survive only due to their high DEF and the elves' crappy RAT. The Magehunter Assassins move up one flank, Eiryss up the other. His melee solo runs up into the AOE cloud and charges my Flameguard, but whiffs both his attack rolls (Set Defense for DEF 15!).

The Daughters run 14", cutting sideways to ward the flank that the Magehunter Assassins are approaching up (and to get out of sniped crossbow range). My TFG (with Ignite) charge - 3 make it to the Myrmidon and CMA it, but only get 1 point past the forcefield. The two in front of the melee solo CMA him to death, the third runs up aimlessly. My jacks and the Paladin barely clear the river, with much measuring and requests for remeasuring on my opponent's part, which took a *lot* of time. Feora, the Choir and Vassal are still in the river, though most of the way across now.

His Magehunter assassins run a ludicrous distance down the outside of the river-moat, getting parallel with my lines. Eiryss does the same down the other flank. Looks like they're getting ready to assasinate Feora. Rhianna and Holt waltz sideways to the edge of the forest, granting Magical Weapons to the crossbow-elves. The crossbow-elves take aim at and eventually destroy my Safe-Passaged Repenter, and shoot up the Crusader a bit too. Rayan moves up and throws another cloud effect in front of her.

I allocate 1 Focus to my Crusader and camp the rest on Feora. I move my Daughters and Paladin back and to the right into the river, to plug the hole in my flank and prevent Feora from getting Magehunter-Assassinated. Running the Crusader, I set him just far enough ahead that he's 2" out of Feora's charge range. Feora casts Engine of Destruction (+2 SPD) and charges out of the river at my Crusader's back. Much measuring and forced remeasuring again to make sure I could make the charge (argh!) which I did. Took my swing at the Crusader and failed to damage him, yay! Feora then feated, setting everything except the Magehunter Assassins and Eiryss ON FIRE!!! This is what I had been struggling to do for the whole game while he sat back out of LOS and shot at me.

Just as my opponent was about to do his maintenance phase and lose 2/3 of his army, time was called. :( :( :(
LOSS. My opponent had 7 points for killing 4 Daughters and the Repenter, vs my killing of his 3pt Solo).

If we'd had one more minute for him to roll out the Fire continuous effect damage, he would have lost at least 6 pts for half of his crossbow-elf unit (plus possibly his officer, Rhianna and Holt.) Of course he maintained that his caster was in position to killing spree her way through the remaining Flameguard and get over to Feora (every kill she gets, she can move 2" and make another attack) if he had been able to do his next turn.

Still, it really felt like all of the demands for remeasuring were a whole bunch of stalling....can't say for sure though, he was quick with his crossbow attack rolls and he could have drawn those out more. Still sucked a lot and I felt cheated out of my feat turn. Also I had yet to win a game with Feora :(

Game 4 to follow

Game 4
List 1 (Feora) vs Cygnar.
Cygnar list: eStryker, Old Rowdy, Stormsmith, Squire, 6 Stormblades + Officer & Std Bearer, Arlan Strangeways

Board had a few hills and obstacles in the corners, with a nice clear killing field in the middle. A relief after the river board.

My opponent won first turn. He marshaled the Stormsmith to Arlan (or the Stormblade Officer?) but it still managed to get 2 Focus every turn from a combo of abilities. Neat trick that! The Stormsmith deployed in the middle of a long line of Stormblades that ran from the center to my right, with Arlan behind them. EStryker + Squire and Old Rowdy on the other side (to my left) where there was a midfield obstacle for them to deke around. I set up from left to right: Paladin, Flameguard, Repenter, Crusader, Revenger. Choir, Vassal and Feora behind the jacks, Daughters ahead and to the right (Stormblade-side).

First turn he moved everything up, taking care to keep his Stormblades out of the 10” charge range of my Daughters. Rowdy ran to the outside of the midfield obstacle on my left flank, while eStryker and Squire hid behind it.

Feora gave one focus to each jack, and ran all of them up. Ran my Daughters back and to the right, gaining elevation on a hill, hopefully setting up for a countercharge. Didn’t want to get electro-zapped. Ran the Flameguard up on the left, with the Paladin running a little to the right and tucking in behind the Flameguard and the Repenter. Choir Safe Passaged all the jacks, Vassal Enlivened the Crusader. Feora came up behind and put Ignite on the Flameguard.

Next turn he moved up cautiously again, keeping out of charge range. EStryker moved up, cast some attack spell at the Repenter (missed with a roll of 3) and used Velocity to retreat back to the Squire.

My 2nd turn I figured it was time to bring it! Feora gave 1 Focus each to the Revenger and Crusader. The Choir activated and cast Safe Passage on the Repenter and Crusader, but Battle Hymn on the Revenger. The Revenger attempted to charge the Stormclad (relying on Reach to contact it) but was short by about 1/8” (whoops). The Crusader ran up as well, and then Feora charged the Crusader (doing a couple of points of hull damage to it) and Feated. Whoosh, the entire Stormblade unit and both Jacks caught fire, very satisfying! The Repenter walked up and managed to touch eStryker with its flamethrower, dealing 3 points of damage with a lucky roll. My Daughters ran to engage the right side of the Stormblade unit, while the TFG and Paladin moved up on the left in Shieldwall and Stone&Mortar stance respectively, guarding Feora.

Most of the Stormblades (including the Officer!) burned up, leaving only 3 remaining. The Fire barely scratched the paint on Rowdy and went out on the Stormclad. Rowdy moved in and used his special attack to knock down all of the Flameguard (though the Paladin stayed up thanks to Stone&Mortar). It took Rowdy two hits to kill the Paladin, before whacking a Flameguard for good measure. EStryker charged in to the Repenter, giving it a good shot that took out the flamethrower. He then used Velocity to move around behind the Repenter and take a whack at Feora! Luckily I still had a couple of Focus on her, and she survived the one boosted-to-hit attack he was able to afford (he’d had to spend all but one Focus on Velocity to reach her). The Stormblades and Stormclad attacked the Revenger and the Daughters, but by that point he knew he was done.

Next turn Feora cast Engine of Destruction and one-shotted eStryker. WIN!




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Mark II differences:

Well, most people fielded pretty much the same lists they would have in MkI, ie infantry-heavy. So there wasn't as much jack-on-jack power-attacking madness as I had expected. The largest impact was the change that allowed charging into and out of rough terrain, which was really nice. I did neglect to attack with a halberd-crippled Revenger in one game, forgetting that it was only less one die rather than completely useless. Ah well. One of the other Menite players did very well with a 4-jack list that included the Avatar.

The changes to the Paladin's Stone & Mortar were nice, in that he could go into it and still threaten with free strikes. The new way the Choir works (one acolyte prays for each Jack, and needs to be in 3" of it) made maneuvering tricky - several times I moved a jack up too far and out of Choir range. The Vassal is nice but I never got to use the ancillary attack (my 2nd opponent did however, to great effect).

The nerf to the Monolith Bearer's Greater Destiny mini-feat tripped me up, as I lost 3 / 6 Zealots (3 of *5* bombthrowers) to a single Cleansing Fire spell. Perhaps a max unit, strung out up the field (the same way as Bile Thralls are usually run) would work better to threaten without risking the whole unit.


Other thoughts:

Couldn't figure out how to use the Daughters for anything other than board control. I thought they'd be great to reach out early and hit units like Widowmakers etc, but that didn't work out for me. Perhaps in a Feora list they need to be run *behind* the jack wall, as counter-chargers. If I'd run them with Sevy he could at least have buffed them up to DEF17 (not quite Stealth, but decent), though they'd lose fearless. Even at DEF15 they're pretty good at getting shot at, it takes lots of RAT6 shots to take them out.

As board control they're great though - it was handier to use the 14" run to redeploy from one side to the other rather, than to run and engage.

My lack of ranged jacks (other than the Repenter) hurt me in that my opponents could hang back and wait for me to walk into Charge range. A Vanquisher and/or Redeemer would help force them in closer, methinks.

A good test but I think I need to run with more jacks (especially more heavies!) and leave some of my underperforming infantry for larger battles.