Winter Korps – The Greylord Archives

Tokens for the Motherland

Igor Khador — Fri, 23 May 2025 12:00:00 +0000

Tokens for our marvellous army is always an issue. I have had a lot of tokens from different suppliers. All of which I have been happy about. However, times change and new stuff arrives, and suddenly I’m missing just that token, which will take me forever to get. With the common access to 3D printers, that should be a thing of the past. So, I have made some pretty basic Khador tokens for the whole army. They are free to use them, if you so desire.

Update by June, 14^th, 2025

Yana has also become an Old Umbrey Warlock. In Winter Korps, she has lost Battle Lust and gained Fury’s Strength. I have produced a token in STL for Fury’s Strength, which can be found here. It has also been included the package below. Battle Lust has been kept. We might be lucky in the future…

Tokens come in many shapes and form. I have had the old official Privateer Press tokens, the very pretty ones from Frozen Forge. I have wanted those from Broken Egg, and most recently those from Monstrous Makings. There are also some other downloadable here. However, I always end up with too many of one kind and too little of another one. New models are introduced and then I have no tokens. So, I have decided to make my own.

There are quite a lot of cool 3D modelling software out there. I have tried a few and discovered that I’m best at engineering style CAD software. So, all the tokens are made in Autodesk Fusion. I have no idea if that is the best. I just happen to be able to use it.

There are two different styles of tokens: one style for spells of any sort, and one for other effects. I haven’t done any for “normal” effects like Knockdown, Stationary or Focus. I might at some point. Neither have I done the mercenary tokens. They might also appear in the future.

My approach has been to make a token for all necessary effects and then print the number I find sensible, which might, or might not be the theoretical maximum.

The files makes pretty big tokens. When I print them I scale them to 50 mm width for the spell tokens and 30 mm width for the other tokens. I have printed them on an old Anycubic D2 printer using whatever resin I had. They come out OK but tend to bend a bit.

I have painted them using an Army Painter Colour Primer Dragon Red and then some random black and white colour for the logo and text. I’m quite happy with them.

All the tokens are made available under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. This license requires that reusers give credit to the creator. It allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, for noncommercial purposes only. © 2025 by Igor Khador. The Khador logo is probably copyright by Steamforged Games.

Below you’ll find the tokens, to whom they belong and how many are required. For those who can’t be bothered to read all the explanations below. All the STLs can be downloaded here:

All the spells in one zip file	WinterKorpsSpellTokens.zip
All the others in one zip file	WinterKorpsEffectsTokens.zip

Tokens for spells

Random spell tokens

There are currently 26 different spells available for Winter Korps Warcasters. 10 of these are on the rack. The rest are Warcaster specific. I do not separate between upkeep spells and non-upkeeps.

Typically, you’ll only need one of each upkeep spell. However, the number of non-upkeeps have theoretically maximum. which is the number of focus of the ‘caster + 1 for the Lucky Penny card, divided by the cost of each spell. We can add one more spell if Damien can cast it.

The table below lists all the spells, the maximum number that can be cast in one round and whether or not Damien can cast it. The only odd one out is Ekaterina, who potentially can cast any number of spells depending on how Long Shadows pans out. I have chosen to ignore this complexity. Some numbers are ridiculous high. Yet, the number is the theoretical maximum; not the practical one.

Spell	Warcaster	Rack	Damien	Maximum
Avenging Force	Tatiana	Yes	No	1
Banishing Ward	Ekaterina	No	No	4
~~Battle Lust~~	~~Yana~~	No	No	1
Cold Front	Zahara	No	No	1
Cyclone	Zahara	No	No	N/A
Dark Unraveling	Ilari	No	No	1
Dash	Yana	No	No	1
Escort	Valerii	No	No	1
Fog of War		Yes	No	1
Freezing Grip		No	No	2
Fury’s Strength	Yana	No	Yes	4
Gallows	Ekaterina	No	Yes	N/A
Icy Grip	Valerii	No	Yes	5
Invocation of Wrath	Ekaterina	No	No	1
Iron Flesh		Yes	No	1
Positive Charge	Tatiana	No	Yes	5
Puissance		Yes	No	1
Razor Wind		Yes	Yes	N/A
Return Fire		Yes	Yes	9
Rock Wall	Valerii	No	No	1
Spirit Fang	Yana	No	Yes	4
Superiority		Yes	No	1
Tactical Supremacy	Tatiana	No	No	1
Tempest		Yes	No	N/A
Tides of War	Valerii	No	No	1
Veil of Mists	Ilari	No	No	1
Weald Secrets		Yes	No	1

All orders and spells available to Winter Korps Warcasters and their theoretical maximum.

All the STL files for the spells can be downloaded here as a zip file. They are unsupported. So, that is up to you to decide how to best support them. I just use the default support in the Anycubic Photon Workshop app that came with my printer. I print them 50 mm long. Check the dimensions of Rock Wall before printing. It is a wall template and is suppose to be 4″ long and 1/2″ wide. That is 101.6 mm long and 12.7 mm wide in clever units.

Tokens for orders and other abilities

Some other tokens

There are currently 16 different orders and abilities that Winter Korps models can gain, give out or as a consequence of a model’s action. I have not separated between ability and effect.

I have, currently ignored the generic effects, such as Knockdown, Fire or Stationary.

The table below lists all the different orders and abilities, and the maximum number of tokes that can be in play. As with the spells, the maximum number is not necessarily the practical number. There are also some abilities and effects from mercenaries that will work for Winter Korps. They have, not yet, been covered.

Model	FA	Token	Maximum
Solos
Battle Mechaniks	4	Tune Up	4
Bison AC-2	2	Knockdown	N/A
Sergeant Goran Lazanrenko, the Jackal	1	Stagger	3
		Stealth	N/A
Magziev Zariyah Volkova	1	Guidance	1
		Stationary	3
Kontroller	2	Stationary	N/A
		Knockdown	N/A
		Fire	N/A
Sergeant Sergei Krol	1	Tune Up	1
		Grievous Wounds	1
Winter Korps Officer	4	Combat Coordination	4
		March	4
		Press the Advantage	4
Units
Arkanists	4	Sigil of Power	12
Man-O-War Wrecking Crew	2	Grievous Wounds	6
		Knockdown	N/A
Shock Troopers Pikemen	4	Shield Wall	N/A
The Hounds	1	Knockdown	N/A
		Shield Wall	N/A
Winter Korps Snipers	4	Mark Target	(4)
Warjacks
Mastodon	2	Knockdown	N/A
		Stationary	N/A
Razor	1	Knockdown	N/A
		Targeting Flare	2
Medveditsa	1	Knockdown	N/A
		Hand of Vengeance	1
Great Bear	4	Knockdown	N/A
		Stationary	N/A
Dire Wolf	4	Grievous Wounds	8
		Knockdown	N/A
		Fire	N/A
Avalanche	2	Knockdown	4

All orders and effects available to Winter Korps models and their maximum.

N/A in the tabel above are the general effects that there typically are other tokens for. Some of the N/A, such as Stealth and Shield Wall could be good for new players to mark; just to remember it.

All the STL files for the orders and effects can be downloaded here as a zip file. They are unsupported. So, that is up to you to decide how to best support them. I just use the default support in the Anycubic Photon Workshop app that came with my printer. I print them in 30 mm width.

Post Script

Please feel free to use the tokens. Contact me if there are any errors or omissions. I might do the mercenary tokens at some point in the future, as well as the general effects and focus.

Until next time

For the Motherland!

The Motherland goes to Conquest (day 3)

Igor Khador — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 10:32:00 +0000

Day three and final day of Conquest. I’m thinking two days of warm up. It is now I strike. There is a new day, new opportunities. I’m getting comfortable with the Valerii list. Yet, still not with the Yara list. This final day is going to be tough. I’m sticking to my normal ambition: Win at least one and don’t end up last. Let’s see how the Motherland fares.

Day three and final day of Oslo Conquest (for the day 1 report see here, and day two here). It is three days of tournament play, and I’m getting a bit tired. I think I’m getting to grips with the big January update of 2025.

My ambitions is, as always to win at least one and not end up last.

I’m sticking with Valerii. He was doing pretty well yesterday and I think I’m getting the handle of this list. I’m also still bringing Yana with a Mastodon and all the Pikemen. I still haven’t gotten her to work, despite actually winning one yesterday. I still really want to get the Pikemen to work. I still think they are an unpolished gem. Let’s see.

Khador – Winter Korps
Kapitan Yana Kovoskiy

   – Fog of War

   – Puissance

   – Mastodon [32]

     HEAD – Shock Assault

     RIGHT SHOULDER – Deep Freezer

     LEFT SHOULDER – Deep Freezer

     RIGHT ARM – Great Axe

     LEFT ARM – Grinder Fist
AC-2 Bison [10]

AC-2 Bison [10]

Battle Mechanik [2]

Battle Mechanik [2]

Magziev Zarivah Volkova [4]

Mortar Team [2]

Winter Korps Officer [3]

Winter Korps Officer [3]
Arkanists [4]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]
Command cards

    – Blessing of the Gods

    – Duck and Cover!

    – Lucky Penny

    – Old Faithful

    – Put the Fires Out
Total Points   100/100

Khador – Winter Korps
Kommander Valerii Savaryn

   – Puissance

   – Superiority

   – Avalanche [15]

     HEAD – Hyper-Aggressive

     RIGHT ARM – Pneumatic Lance

     LEFT ARM – Wedge Shield

   – Avalanche [15]

     HEAD – Hyper-Aggressive

     RIGHT ARM – Pneumatic Lance

     LEFT ARM – Wedge Shield
Battle Mechanik [2]

Battle Mechanik [2]

Kontroller [4]

   – Dire Wolf [10]

     HEAD – Shield Guard

     RIGHT ARM – Long Axe

     LEFT ARM – Plow-Shield

Sergeant Sergie Krol [5]

Winter Korps Officer [3]

Winter Korps Officer [3]
Arkanists [4]

Man-O-War Suppressors [11]

Man-O-War Suppressors [11]

Man-O-War Wrecking Crew [10]

Winter Korps Snipers [4]

   – Winter Korps Hunting Dog [1]
Command cards

    – Blessing of the Gods

    – Lucky Penny

    – Old Faithful

    – Put the Fires Out

    – Sapper
Total Points   100/100

A few thoughts on the lists can be found in the report from day 1, which can be found here.

Battle 1 — House Kallyss

The dead elves are back. So far, I have managed to loose one and win one against these guys. So, it can go either way. This time it is a lovely Norwegian guy. He is bringing the following (from memory).

Dusk – House Kallyss
        Tyrus, Nis-Arsyr of Spiders

        	– Eidolon [17]

        		– HEAD – True Sight

        		– RIGHT ARM – Dawn Blade

        		– LEFT ARM – Force Shield

        		– BACK – Force Cannon

        	– Ghast [7]

        		– HEAD – Arc Node

        		– RIGHT ARM – Heavy Blade Fist

        		– LEFT ARM – Light Blade Fist
        Mage Hunter Commander [4]

        Void Engine [8]

        	– Wight
        Dreadguard Cavalry [11]

        Dreadguard Cavalry [11]

        Dreadguard Slayers [8]

        Mage Hunter Assassins [6]

        Mage Hunter Assassins [6]

        Seeker Adepts [4]

        Soulless Blademasters [6]

        Soulless Guardians [6]

        Soulless Guardians [6]
        Total points  100/100

This round is Two Fronts. In principle, it is a Mastodon friendly scenario. However, there is a lot of large base fast stuff, and I am getting somewhat comfortable with Valerii. So, he is up.

Deployment

We are playing Two Fronts. I win the roll-off and decides to go first. It is beneficial to get up the board and put some scenario pressure on the opponent as fast as possible; or that is the theory, at least.

Valerii deploys the Kontroller module on the left flank. Ready to move up and park on one, or even two of the 50 mm objectives. On the right flank, a unit of Suppressors and a unit of Snipers line up to deal with the two 40 mm objectives. The flag ends up on the wall in the middle. So, that is most likely going to be contested for ever. Unless the super fast Avalanches can work their magic. Everything else goes, more or less in the middle.

Tyrus deploys a unit of kittens on each flank. Himself in the middle, right in front of the Void Engine. A ‘jack on each flank with a unit of shield guards just on the inside of them. All advance deployment models deploy in some sort of terrain.

That is it. We are ready to rumble. The picture below shows the nice view before it gets ruined by stuff smacking each other around.

End of deployment

That is it. We are both ready and motivated. Let’s see where this goes.

Round 1

Valerii does his standard 1. turn. He casts Escort, Puissance on the Wrecking Crew and Superiority on one of the Avalanches. He then goes At All Cost, giving Shield Guard to the unit with Vengeance. He the runs to the rubble in the middle.

On the right flank, the Snipers run to the water feature ready to be annoying around the 40 mm bases. The Suppressors tag along. On the left flank, the Kontroller modules runs to the wall. Everybody else just go full speed ahead.

The picture below shows the situation after the Motherland’s finest has been sprinting.

End of turn 1

Tyrus sends his kittens up both flanks as far as they can get. A unit of Guardians, along with the Ghast move towards the 40 mm objectives. Everybody else just run up the field headed by the Eidolon and the Swordmasters. The picture below shows the situation just before something hits somebody’s fan.

End of round 1

Boring round done. Let’s start cracking skulls.

Round 2

One can say a lot about the Norwegians but the are polite people. This Norwegian in particular has placed his Eidolon up front within range of the leftmost Avalanche. I can only assume it is in the spirit of Nordic solidarity. Also being polite, I think it would be wrong to disappoint him. So, the Avalanche better slam it. To do this, Valerii has to move Superiority to that ‘jack, which he does after up-keeping the other two spells. He then moves a bit to the left to be able to stand valiantly behind the wall of steel that will move there shortly.

The Arkanists fill up the Avalanche with focus, the Mechanik gives it Pathfinder, and off it goes. It slams directly into the Eidolon and slams it across a unit of Guardians killing four of them. The Eidolon is naturally knocked down and does take som damage. However, the Slam God does not follow up. It rather takes a swing at the Assassins without any luck. Now the party is started.

On the left flank, the Kontroller module stays behind the wall eyeing the kittens and being within 3″ of the home 50 mm objective. On the right flank, the two Suppressor units move up and shoots the other kitten unit to death. The Snipers move in between the two 40 mm objectives to interact with both of them.

In the middle, the Wrecking Crew moves to the flag wall and change into a Speed Bump Crew. The second Avalanche screens Valerii. Hey, Ho, let’s go. The picture below depicts the result of putting stuff “near” the Slam God. ARM 22 ‘jack almost in the opponent’s deployment zone.

End of turn 1

The look on the lovely Norwegian’s face when accepting his slam present was worth a lot. Apparently, I might have misunderstood the gesture. At least everything that can reach the Avalanche charge, move or just hit it. I does not feel appreciated. ARM 22 and 34 boxes is nice. It is still standing after the smoke clears.

On the right flank, the Slayers, a unit of Assassins, the Ghast and some other stuff attempt to chew into the Wrecking Crew. Such a crew is rather robust and decides to hang around.

That is it for the 2. round. Valerii scores one point at the home 50 mm objective. The picture below shows the magnetic effect of an Avalanche.

End of round 2

That was an explosive round. Tyrus is on his heels. Let’s see if Valerii can keep up the momentum.

Round 3

This smells like a feat turn. Valerii does his thing and puts Kill Order on the Slayers and the kittens. He also goes for Precision Strike. The Wrecking Crew charge the kittens and… wreck them. The Dire Wolf can now move up to in between the two 50 mm objectives to score both. This is assuming that the Avalanche and friends can remove whatever contest the opponent’s 50 mm. This is now the focus of the Avalanche, and it is successful.

On the right flank, the Suppressors clean up by removing the Ghast and a bit of the chaff. Everybody else chip in and the combined might of Sergie, an Officer and a Mechanik removes the Slayers. The only things not really removed are the Swordmasters and the Eidolon. But you can’t have it all.

The picture below shows the effect of spring cleaning. Scenario score is now 6-0 in Valerii’s favour. He has 11 minutes on the clock. Tyrus almost the same with 10 minutes.

End of turn 1

Tyrus is in serious trouble. If he can’t score four points and stop Valerii from scoring a single one, he has lost.

Out of spite, I guess, Tyrus takes matter into his own hands and kill the Avalanche with the assistance of the Eidolon. The Swordmasters make a feeble attempt to kill some Wrecking Crew. At least Tyrus’ 50 mm is contested. There is nothing to do on the right flank.

Finally, a Hail Mary is attempted by the two remaining assassins — to assassinate Valerii. It is not a completely ridiculous attempt. However, Valerii is nicely protected so only one assassin makes it into contact. That is not enough.

That is it. Everybody has done their things. The picture below shows the result of dead elves attempting to encroach on Khador territory.

End of round 3, end of game

Game over. Valerii wins on scenario at 11-0. That is a pretty solid win. The game was a blast, for both players. Although I might permanently have damage the Norwegian through excessive slamming. I hope he recovers.

It turns out that placing an ARM 22 ‘jack with 34 boxes and Superiority in the middle of the opponent’s lines forces him to deal with. Despite the fact that it is most likely going to be outside Valerii’s Control Range. I can still see why it must be annoying. This leaves room for the rest of Valerii’s army. I like the Avalanche a lot. It reminds of the old days when Vlad1 did similar stuff with Marauders (there is a very old example here).

Battle 2 — Necrofactorium

Another nice Norwegian and more dead stuff. There seems to be a pattern here. This time it is not dead elves but dead everything else: the Necrofactorium. It is a bit of an odd list. I think it boils down to which models the player has. This is the list he is bringing (from memory).

Cryx – Necrofactorium

        Lich Lord Dekathus

        – Hades

        	– HEAD – Hades [16]

        	– RIGHT ARM – Soul Cannon

        	– LEFT ARM – Death Claw

        – Malefactor [15]

        	– HEAD – Dark Shroud

        	– RIGHT ARM – Fell Axe

        	– LEFT ARM – Spiked Shield

        – Raptor [6]

        	– HEAD – Doomspitter

        	– BACK – Arc Node

        – Raptor [6]

        	– HEAD – Venom Blaster

        	– BACK – Arc Node
        Machine Wraith Dominator [4]

        Magnus the Unstoppable [20]

        – Invictus

        Master Necrotech Chatterbane [4]

        Night Terrors [10]

        Sludge Thralls [8]

        The Furies [10]
        Total Points 99/100

We are playing Colour Guard, which is a scenario for the Valerii list. Also, I’m so much in love with the Avalanches right now. So there really isn’t a question. Valerii it is.

Deployment

Dekathus win the roll-off and decides to go first. I pick the side with the trench. That looks like a wonderful spot for Valerii to hang out.

The Cryx player deploys quite heavily on the left flank with the unit of Night Terrors, probably having their eyes on the cache, Magnus and Invictus and a unit of Sludge Thralls. The right flank is occupied by all the ‘jacks. Dekathus and the rest are in the middle.

Valerii does a quite standard deployment. The Kontroller module goes on the left flank with their eyes on the 50 mm there. The Snipers tag along looking at the cache.

Everything else goes into the middle, except for one unit of Suppressors who deploys far to the left to counter the Night Terrors most likely coming this way around the house.

The picture below shows the deployment of the troops before the Necrofactorium starts the party.

End of deplpoyment

I don’t think I have played Dekathus before. I’m told he can be rather tanky. Let’s see where this takes us.

Round 1

The first turn doesn’t really hold any surprises. All the Cryx and Magnus just runs forward. That is it. Nothing more to see here. The picture below shows the nothing to see.

End of turn 1

Valerii does what he always do. He casts Escort, Superiority on an Avalanche, and Puissance on the Wrecking Crew. He also shouts Precision Strike and moves a bit forward.

The left flank moves up. The snipers attempt to hide behind a house on their way to the cache. The Dire Wolf is more bold with the Kontroller behind it. In the middle, the Wrecking Crew moves in front of the lake. The Mechanik and Officer moves into the lake to be ready to score later. A Suppressor unit move in front of Valerii to screen him. The two Avalanches move forward to be ready for the potential slam party.

On the left, the Suppressors move up behind the house. That is it. The picture below shows the status before the lines meet.

End of round 1

We are ready for axe to face or more likely Avalanche to face.

Round 2

The Night Terrors start by running all the way to the left of the cache. Basically in my deployment zone. That is quite naughty. Invictus moves forward and fires the Obliterator into the Avalanche, I think. The Sludge Thralls move up to the house.

On the right flank, all the ‘jacks advance and start shooting. It turns out that at least one of them can shoot through the house. So, bye bye Snipers.

After some deliberation, Dekathus is being bold, moves into the cloud and feats. If think this brings him to ARM 23 or something like this. He feels invulnerable and taunts Valerii. The picture below shows Dekathus taunting Valerii.

End of turn 1

Valerii takes offence from Dekathus’ obscene remarks and flaunting of souls. After some internal debated, whether to kill Invictus or Dekathus. The result is killing Dekathus. So, Valerii puts focus on one of the Avalanches, feats and shouts Precision Strike, he then moves up and puts a Kill Order on Dekathus. It is Avalanche time.

The first Avalanche slams Dekathus into whomever is standing behind him. Attacks are bought until it runs out of focus. Dekathus is still alive. This situation begs the question: what is better than an Avalanche in your army? Two Avalanches!

The second Avalanche decides not to slam. Charging can also be fun. It charges in and finish off Dekathus. The kodak moment below shows why hybris is a bitch.

End of round 2, end of game

It almost took pity on the poor Norwegian and went for Invictus. However, how often do I get the chance to park two Avalanches in the face of a ‘caster?

I’m not sure what is going on today. I have won two out of two possible games. Unfortunately, I’m not sure it is examples of my superior skills (a bit perhaps). It is worth mentioning that both my opponents today are rather new to the game.

Battle 3 — Winter Korps

Final game for today, and the finals. I don’t think I have ever made it to a final before. Somehow it is fitting that I finish this wonderful time in Norway with a Finnish player. It is even going to be a mirror match. I am going to face somebody pretending to be part of the Motherland. The nice Finn is putting Zahara on the table. This is going to be interesting. The only thing in Khador that actually out-threatens an Avalanche. I have never played, nor played against her before. This is list Zahara is leading (from memory).

Khador – Winter Korps

        Kapitan Zahara Vilkul

         – Avalanche [15]

        	– HEAD – Hyper-Aggressive

        	– RIGHT ARM – Pneumatic Lance

        	– LEFT ARM – Wedge Shield

        – Great Bear [15]

        	– HEAD – Aggressive

        	– RIGHT ARM – Deep Freezer

        	– LEFT ARM – Battle Axe

        – Razor [18]
        AC-2 Bison [10]

        Sergeant Goran Lazarenko, the Jackal [4]

        Winter Korps Officer [3]

        Arkanists [4]

        Arkanists [4]

        The Hounds [8]

        Winter Korps Infantry [6]

        – WEAPON SUPPORT TROOPERS – Auto Cannon

        – WEAPON SUPPORT TROOPERS – Auto Cannon

        – Winter Korps Standard [1]

        Winter Korps Infantry [6]

        – WEAPON SUPPORT TROOPERS – Auto Cannon

        – WEAPON SUPPORT TROOPERS – Auto Cannon

        – Winter Korps Standard [1]

        Winter Korps Snipers [4]

        – Winter Korps Hunting Dog [1]
        Total Points 100/100

The scenario is Payload. That is the prime example of what the Valerii list is build for. So, there really isn’t any question.

Deployment

I win the roll-off an decides to go first. I better get some board presence fast.

Valerii deploys very much in the standard way. The Kontroller module goes on the right flank to grab the 50 mm objective. The snipers go on the left flank to deal with the flag. Everything else deploys around Valerii himself.

Zahara deploys slightly of center towards the left flank. A unit of snipers go on the far right. Everthing else around her. The SKS-6 warriors advance deploys near the opponent’s 50 mm.

The picture below shows the situation before some Khador on Khador action.

End of deployment

As mentioned, I have never played, nor played against Zahara. This will be interesting and most likely educational.

Round 1

Valerii does what he normally do and casts Superiority on an Avalanche. He is picking the one not opposite the opponent’s Avalanche to avoid a Mexican standoff. He also casts Escort and Puissance on the Wrecking Crew. Finally he shouts At All Cost to the Wrecking Crew and moves behind the wall.

The Kontroller module on the right runs to the 50 mm, where I expect them to occupy most of battle. The Snipers to the left runs to the woods. Everybody else moves forward. On the right, they try to stay behind the forest, and on the left they stay out of the Avalanches range.

The picture below shows the situation just before Zahara makes her first move.

End of turn 1

It quickly becomes clear that Zahara has given up on Valerii’s 50 mm home objective. Her whole army moves forward, cautiously eyeing the two Avalanches, whilst extending towards the left flank. Not surprisingly, her Avalanche also gets Superiority.

This is, perhaps an even more uneventful round. Both lines are eyeing each other waiting for somebody to grab the initiative. The picture below depicts the waiting for grabbing initiative.

End of round 1

Something probably needs to happen. We can’t stand here all day. Let’s see where this is going.

Round 2

Something needs to happen. Valerii upkeeps his spells. He then drops a wall between the forest and the enemy’s line by casting Rock Wall. The right most officer moves into the cloud and gives the unit of Suppressors Pathfinder. They can now move through the woods and stand behind the wall, whilst shooting their lovely guns into something big.

The rightmost Avalanche is encouraged by this behaviour and shuffles forward along the forest edge. Not too far though. Better not let the opponent’s Avalanche see me. The Kontroller modules just walks to the other side of the objective. No reason to risk not scoring. Everybody else moves forward.

This is the situation that can be seen in the picture below.

End of turn 1

Valerii might have put his hand in a hornet’s nest. Let’s see how hard they sting. The Bison runs over the Rock Wall and removes it. Thinking about it now, I’m not sure we played this correctly. I can’t find anywhere where it says that the Rock Wall can be removed. It is not a Defense. Anyway, that is probably not going to be paramount for the result of this match.

Anyway, back to the Bison. It then offload its shots into the Suppressors. This is followed up by a unit of Winter Korps Infantry who does a very complicated combination of CRA shots, all originating from an Auto Cannon and all ending up in the Suppressors. We had to stop the clock whilst the nice Finn walked me through how this is. It took a few attempts until I got it. That is really cool and effective. I have never thought about that. So far, consider me educated. It is actually so efficient that the Suppressors go away.

The Avalanche then charges the remaining Suppressors, no longer behind a wall and removes them. It might have been helped by the other unit of infantry doing the same fancy CRA as the first unit. Razor wants to play and charges the rightmost Avalance. It doesn’t do a lot.

Finally, Zahara moves forward and feats. Now I can’t see most of the left flank. This was a brutal, yet educational turn. The picture below shows Valerii thinking about bringing infantry going forward. I think scenario score is 1-1.

End of round 2

This was hard. I lost both units of Suppressors and can’t see the left flank. Let’s see if there are any rabbit in Valerii’s, otherwise very lovely hat.

Round 3

It is time to get creative. Valerii upkeeps everything. The Arkanists fuel up the rightmost Avalanche which the slams the opponent’s Avalanche. Whilst doing this, it Bulldoze away Razor. The opponent’s Avalanche is not completely destroyed, but in really bad shape.

The Wrecking Crew move forward and almost remove the Bison. They get a bit of support from the Avalanche, which moves up, kills the Bison and a few infantry. The two Snipers also abandon the objective terrain, and shoots at the infantry.

On the right flank, the Kontroller fires his spray at Razor and freezes it. It it now both knocked down and stationary. This opens up for the Dire Wolf to bring axe to face. Razor does, expectedly survive.

Finally, Valerii would like to stay away from Zahara. So, he moves to the left and puts up a wall. The picture below shows the result of an attempt at spring cleaning. The scenario score is now 3-1 in Zahara’s favour.

End of turn 1

I can’t completely remember what happened here. It is an intense game, so I even forgot to take a picture. I think that a combination of The Hounds, the last of the infantry and the Great Bear removed the leftmost Avalanche and one of the Wrecking Crew.

In Zahara’s home field, not a lot happened. An ARM 22 Avalanche is difficult to deal with; in particular when your own Avalanche is in really bad shape.

Also, as Zahara has been hiding between the Retribution column to the left, Razor is outside her control area. So he does nothing. I think that was it.

Round 4

There has been a clean up of Valerii’s troops. If I’m not mistaken, he is behind on points and probably not in a position to kill Zahara.

Valerii has to move back to the first wall and drop his own. He feats for two Kill Orders on the stuff on the left flank, and a Precision Strike.

On the right flank, the Dire Wolf moves back to score the objective. This is fine as Razor is still knocked down and I’m pretty sure it will be stationary again shortly. The Kontroller makes sure that Razor is indeed both knocked down and stationary again. So, it is not a threat.

In the middle, the Arkanists are told March by an officer and moves into the woods to give focus to the Avalanche and score the 40 mm objective. Said officer also goes next the that objective. For good measure, he puts a shot into Razor. The Avalanche says thank you to the Arkanists and kill the opponent’s Avalanche.

The Wrecking Crew has to deal with the infantry and can’t kill the Great Bear. The Mechanik moves up to block it. The officer moves into the forest to contest the 50 mm.

That is it. Valerii is slowly running out of models. Luckily, so is Zahara. The picture below shows the quickly emptying battle field. Scenario score is now 4-3 in Zahara’s favour.

End of turn 1

Zahara has 15 minutes left, so does Valerii. She is most likely not going to score the right 50 mm objective, she might contest. She will probably not score the left one either. However, Valerii hasn’t got the models to score that one. With the Avalanche in her home field, she is not going to scor the 40 mm either. She can contest both 40 mm, though.

On the left flank, the Great Bear completely ignores the Mechanik, walks forward and kills the two remaining Wrecking Crew. That seems excessive.

On the right flank, the infantry has work to do. They chip away at the Avalanche. Yet, there is a long way to go. The Snipers charge the Arkanists, kill one and now contest. Something also killed the officer.

The only muscle that can kill the Avlanche is the Great Bear otherwise occupied. So, Zahara needs to have a go. She does not kill it — interesting…

That is it. The picture below depicts the situation at the end of the 4. round. Scenario score is now 4-4.

End of round 4

We are moving into the 5. round. It is not often I survive this long. I wonder is the Avalanche can deal with Zahara. That seems the only viable option.

Round 5

Again, this is an intense game. So, I forgot to take a picture. I have 14 minutes on the clock. The, surprisingly animated Finn has 5 minutes.

The only clear option is for the Avalanche to kill Zahara. So, the two remaining Arkanists give it some focus, and it attempts to kill her. It fails, despite her taking heavy damage. Secondary plan is now to get as many scenario points as possible.

On the right flank, the Kontroller continues to keep Razor frozen. The Dire Wolf can now both hit Razor and score the objective as it has been moving closer to Zahara’s terrain zone. Razor keeps un living. I wonder if I need another unit of Arkanists in this list.

On the left flank, the two remaining models do chip the Great Bear and make sure that they contest.

An attempt to clear out the 40 mm objective in the middle is made. Sergei does an effort and Valerii also has to move up. He stays outside of the forest and keeps it between himself and Zahara. Something also kills Zahara’s Arkanists to deny the Great Bear too much focus.

There are only a few models left. So it is not a lot that happens. I’m left with 3 minutes on the clock and a scenario score of 5-4 in Valerii’s favour.

The lovely Finn is almost in a panic due to the clock. So, things are happening fast. The Great Bear moves to the objective, but can’t remove the contesters. The infantry runs to the 40 mm objective to contest. The Snipers move forward for some reason.

Finally, Zahara decides that with all the tricks in the book she can make it to Valerii. I can’t remember the exact sequence. But the end of the story is that she arrives next to Valerii with focus and proceeds to kill him. That was unfortunate.

The picture below shows the sorry state of Valerii when having Zahara next to him.

End of turn 1, end of round 5, end of game

This was wild! I was on the brink of having Zahara. If she hadn’t been able to make it, which it seriously didn’t think she could, Valerii still had an Avalanche and could being himself in a position to Kill Order Zahara and fuel the Avalanche completely. That would have been a much more fun situation.

Anyway, the game was a blast. Both the Finn and I had a lot of laughs. I learned something about the Winter Korps Infantry that I need to go home and try out. I did make it to the final, which is unheard of. What a fantastic day.

Summary & Lessons Learned

Three days of intensive Warmachine is fantastic. I’m a bit tired, but in a very good mood. It is clear that I’m very rusty. So, I really need to practice more.

I think the Valerii list is pretty good. It still can’t get Yara or the Shock Troopers to work. So, I’ll have to rethink that list.

The venue was fantastic. Lovely large bright rooms and the hosts were impeccable. I’ll return to Oslo for sure.

For the Motherland!

The Motherland goes to Conquest (day 2)

Igor Khador — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 08:18:00 +0000

Day two of Conquest. It is quite clear that I’m quite rusty. However, new day, new opportunities. There is still new hardware on the table, new lists, and new opponents. I still have no idea how this is going to go. This day (of 3) is going to be tough. I’m sticking to my normal ambition: Win at least one and don’t end up last. Let’s see how the Motherland fares.

Day two of Oslo Conquest (for the day 1 report see here). It is three days of tournament play, and I’m already tired. I’m getting to grips with the big January update of 2025. Yet, I’m still trying out things I haven’t tried before.

My ambitions is, as always to win at least one and not end up last.

I’m sticking with Valerii. He was doing pretty well yesterday. However, I’m exchanging Alexia for two Battle Mechaniks. She is supposed to resurrect killed Man-O-Wars, but they died faster than see could keep up, and I would really like the Tune Up and a bit of repairing from the Battle Mechaniks. I’m also still bringing Yana with a Mastodon and all the Pikemen. She has taken over from Baranova in the list I brought to last year’s WTC (for a report on WTC, see here for day 1 and here for day 2). I would still so much like the Pikemen to work. I do think they are an unpolished gem. Let’s see.

Khador – Winter Korps
Kapitan Yana Kovoskiy

   – Fog of War

   – Puissance

   – Mastodon [32]

     HEAD – Shock Assault

     RIGHT SHOULDER – Deep Freezer

     LEFT SHOULDER – Deep Freezer

     RIGHT ARM – Great Axe

     LEFT ARM – Grinder Fist
AC-2 Bison [10]

AC-2 Bison [10]

Battle Mechanik [2]

Battle Mechanik [2]

Magziev Zarivah Volkova [4]

Mortar Team [2]

Winter Korps Officer [3]

Winter Korps Officer [3]
Arkanists [4]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]
Command cards

    – Blessing of the Gods

    – Duck and Cover!

    – Lucky Penny

    – Old Faithful

    – Put the Fires Out
Total Points   100/100

Khador – Winter Korps
Kommander Valerii Savaryn

   – Puissance

   – Superiority

   – Avalanche [15]

     HEAD – Hyper-Aggressive

     RIGHT ARM – Pneumatic Lance

     LEFT ARM – Wedge Shield

   – Avalanche [15]

     HEAD – Hyper-Aggressive

     RIGHT ARM – Pneumatic Lance

     LEFT ARM – Wedge Shield
Battle Mechanik [2]

Battle Mechanik [2]

Kontroller [4]

   – Dire Wolf [10]

     HEAD – Shield Guard

     RIGHT ARM – Long Axe

     LEFT ARM – Plow-Shield

Sergeant Sergie Krol [5]

Winter Korps Officer [3]

Winter Korps Officer [3]
Arkanists [4]

Man-O-War Suppressors [11]

Man-O-War Suppressors [11]

Man-O-War Wrecking Crew [10]

Winter Korps Snipers [4]

   – Winter Korps Hunting Dog [1]
Command cards

    – Blessing of the Gods

    – Lucky Penny

    – Old Faithful

    – Put the Fires Out

    – Sapper
Total Points   100/100

A few thoughts on the lists can be found in the report from yesterday, which can be found here.

Battle 1 — Crucible Guard

Oh no, my nemesis. I have never really managed to crack Crucible Guard. Everything model has more rules on their card, that the entire Winter Korps has combined. Not only, is it Crucible Guard. There are also two Vulcans!

Anyway, my opponent is a very nice Norwegian; who, unfortunately is not new to playing this game. He is bringing the following list.

Crucible Guard – Crucible Guard

        Major Aline Bennet

        – Toro [10]
        Aurum Ominus Alyce Marc [5]

        Crucible Guard Mechanik [1]

        Crucible Guard Mechanik [1]

        Crucible Guard Mechanik [1]

        Crucible Guard Mechanik [1]

        Prospero [4]

        – Vulcan [28]

        – Vulcan [28]

        Rocketman Stinger [3]

        Rocketman Stinger [3]

        Trancer [2]

        Trancer [2]

        Crucible Guard Assault Troopers [7]

        Dragon’s Breath Rocket [4]
        Defenses

        – Defence 1 – Barrier

        – Defence 1 – Barrier

        – Defence 1 – Barrier
        Command Cards

        – Blessing of the Gods

        – Careful Reconnaissance

        – Defenses

        – Lucky Penny

        – Sapper
        Total Points   99/100

OK, so this is clearly not a list for Valerii. Yana with the Mastodon might have a remote chance of doing something against the two violent Vulcans. We are also playing Best Laid Plans, which fits the Yana list nicely. Let’s see how hard I get hit.

Deployment

We are playing Best Laid Plans and I win the dice roll. I want to go first. Apparently, it is far too early for me to be vertical. I, for some reason do not think about the fact that one side of the table is objectively absolutely worst side. There is a large quicksand right in front of where the Mastodon is supposed to go! I have no idea what I was doing. My opponent obviously picks the best side.

Anyway, Aline deploys a Rocketman and a Trancer on each flank. Followed by the two Vulcans, and everything else goes into a large group in the middle.

End of deployment

Yana follows the standard deployment scheme. A Bison with two units of Shock Troopers on each flank. The Mastodon in the middle (right in front of the quicksand). The rest around the Mastodon. We are ready to roll.

Round 1

I’m starting. There is only one way: forward and fast. The two flanks do what they are supposed to do. Bisons move forward with Shock Troopers behind for cover. In the middle, the Mastodon moves forward towards the quicksand. Everybody else tag along. Yana casts Fog of War and Puissance on one of the Shock Troopers. That’s it. The picture below shows the end of Yana’s turn.

End of turn 1

Aline has a normal uneventful turn. Everybody moves forward. Force Aura and some spell goes up. The picture below shows the end of Aline’s turn.

End of round 1

Round 1 is as usually quite uneventful. Everybody just moves forward. After the January update, nobody is afraid of the Mastodon in round 1. Let’s see what happens (in addition to quicksand) in round 2.

Round 2

OK. I’m pretty sure that the two Vulcans can do a tremendous amount of damage to the poor Mastodon. So, two units of Shock Troopers run to the enemy to jam them. On the left flank, the Bison and a unit of Shock Troopers move up to be annoying. The same happens on the right flank.

In the middle, The Mastodon moves forward (and into the quicksand) and starts shooting into the Vulcan in front of it. Yana moves up behind the Mastodon and puts Iron Flesh on it. She also upkeeps Fog of War. Everybody else moves forward and tries to stay away from all the shooting. The picture below shows the situation just before all hell breaks loose.

End of turn 1

On the left flank, the Vulcan cleans out most of the models, save for one Shock Trooper. In addition, a Rocketman flies down behind the house and ties up an Officer and a Mechanik. All the Shock Troopers in the middle get removed by Crucible troops, opening up the route for both the Vulcan and the Toro to remove the Mastodon.

Nothing more to see here. Move along. The picture below shows the sorry remains on Yana’s force.

End of round 2, end of game

That’s it. Game over… at least I was demonstrated how this game is actually played.

Note to self: pick the correct side of the board, and do not give away half the army.

Battle 2 — Protectorate of Menoth

The Protectorate is back. I have mixed feelings about the Protectorate. Sometimes they are manageable, often they demonstrate that “Khador is the ARM faction” is completely wrong. I fear that Final Interdiction is an example of the latter. This is what my lovely Polish opponent is bringing.

Protectorate of Menoth – Final Interdiction

        High Exemplar Cyrenia

        – Fire of Salvation [13]

        – Redeemer [8]

        – Redeemer [8]
        Exemplar Errant Seneschal [3]

        Exemplar Warder [3]

        Exemplar Warder [3]

        High Exemplar Gravus [7]

        Vassal of Menoth [1]

        Vassal of Menoth [1]
        Choir of Menoth [3]

        Exemplar Cinerators [7]

        – Exemplar Cinerator Officer [3]

        Exemplar Errants [8]

        – Exemplar Errant Officer & Standard [3]

        Exemplar Errants [8]

        – Exemplar Errant Officer & Standard [3]

        Exemplar Vengers [9]

        Exemplar Vengers [9]
        Defenses

        – Defense 1 – Barrier

        – Defense 1 – Fire Pit

        – Defense 1 – Fire Pit
        Command Cards

        – Break Through

        – Careful Reconnaissance

        – Defenses

        – Lucky Penny

        – Old Faithful
        Total Points   99/100

This looks like a job for Valerii. There is a load of small guys that probably will only spell trouble for the Mastodon. In addition, we are playing Two Fronts, which should be good for the Mastodon. However, somebody has placed a house in between the two 50 mm objectives.

Deployment

We are playing Two Fronts and my opponent wins the dice roll. I pick the side without the Quicksand!

Cyrenia deploys pretty standard. Cavalry on the flanks. A unit of Errants on the left flank. Everybody else goes in a a big clump in the middle.

Valerii places himself in the middle with most of the models. An Avalanche ready to move on both sides of the forest in the middle. The Kontroller goes on the right flank to grab the Objective. For some reason the Snipers also deploys there. They were actually supposed to go on the other flank.

The picture below the silence before the storm.

End of deployment

We are ready. Let’s see what the real ARM faction can do.

Round 1

The Protectorate advances. The Vengers move up the two flanks. One unit of Errants moves partly into the woods in the middle. Everybody else just shuffles forward behind the forest. An uneventful first turn. The picture below shows the Protectorate’s advancement.

End of turn 1

Looking at the board, it has become evident that going first is probably a pretty good thing. There is a forest in the middle and linear obstacles on both sides. It is going to be a killing field. I hope it is killing Protectorate, I fear it is Khador.

Valerii orders the Kontroller and his Dire Wolf to the objective, where I expect them to spend the rest of the battle. An Avalanche dares the Protectorate by moving almost into the forest. All the Man-O-Wars move forward and makes a wall of steel. Valerii drops a wall behind the Man-O-Wars, casts Superiority on the other Avalanche and moves behind the wall. This is going to be a lovely place to hang around. DEF 19 (shooting) and 17 (melee), whilst being behind the wall; yet, sufficiently close to the battle ground.

The picture below depicts the end of the boring round.

End of round 1

Now onto the bloody one…

Round 2

This is were it kicks off. On the right flank, the Vengers begin a, I expect long and tedious: move one guy forward, contest, die, move another one forward. Stupid house… On the left flank, the other unit of Vengers move behind the wall. I wonder if they can get Pathfinder.

In the middle all hell breaks loose. One unit of Errants makes it through quicksand and a forrest, and runs to jam the Wrecking Crew. The Cinerators makes it to the Avalanche and a wall magically appears in front of them. Clever.The Fire of Salvation tags along. All the rest hangs back. The picture below shows the chaos produced by Menoth and his zealots.

End of turn 1

OK. So, Valerii better start chewing through all the highly armoured fanatics. For some reason, he is not happy with his little wall. He drops it a moves to the left. He upkeeps Superiority and Escort, and drops Puissance on the Wrecking Crew. They start chewing though the Errants; yet, only removes three. A units of Suppressors, Sergie and the Kontroller cooperate on removing two of the Cinerators, which makes room for one of the Suppressors on the opposite side of the wall. Cinerators behind a wall are. annoying.

All sorts of other attempts of killing the fanatics take place. But not a lot is a success. On the left side a unit of Suppressors make ready to score both objectives, supported by an Avalanche. On the right flank the Dire Wolf kills the first Venger. The picture below shows the end of a pretty hard turn.

End of round 2

The Battle Machaniks in the lower right corner still haven’t registred that the battle is on. I wonder if he will discover it now? Scenario score is 2-1 in Valerii’s favour.

Round 3

I’m expecting hand of a god being smashed on the Empress’ finest. On the left flank the Vengers move a bit about and contest both objectives. Only one Suppressor dies. On the right flank, the next Venger in the meat grinder appears in the Dire Wolf’s face. So far, so good.

It is a different story in the middle. All the Errants clean up the Wrecking Crew, a Mechanik and two? Arkanists. The Fire of Salvation and Cinerators also take out all but one Suppressor. This is quite a hefty turn. The picture below shows the sorry remains of the Khador force. Scenario score is now 3-2 in the Protectorate’s favour.

End of turn 1

That was pretty hard hitting. Far more that I expected. I was expected the ARM 19/20 guys, with 10 boxes to weather the storm. That was clearly not the case. Stuff needs to happen

This looks like a feat turn for Valerii. He goes Kill Order on the Vengers to the left, a unit of Errants and, I think Precision Strike. On the left, the Avalanche and Suppressors attempt to remove the Vengers. One survive. They are robust.

On the right flank, the Dire Wolf redo the exact same thing as last round. Kill a Venger, wait for the next one. In the middle, the Snipers take out three Errants. And, lo and behold, the last Mechaniks discover that a battle is going on. Joins, and kills the last one.

The picture below depicts the fall of Valerii. Scenario score is 4-4 but Valerii is done for.

End of round 3, end of game

I’m not sure what we did here. I can’t remember. I think we just counted up the losses and decided that the Protectorate won with some scenario score. Anyway, a hurting loss for Valerii.

I actually went into this game thinking that this might go in my favour. I seriously under estimated the Protectorate, and not the least a very clever player. It was fun, though. Despite the fact that the Protectorate trivially get to some obnoxious ARM levels, which makes Khador envious.

Battle 3 — Rhul Guard

The round if formally a ‘bye’. Luckily, one of the locals is looking for a single game. He is bringing dwarfs. This makes me both happy and a bit worried. Happy, because the little guys are still around; and a bit worried because I have lost so many times to, god knows how many of the small ‘jacks. To my great surprise, he is only bringing two. He is, however bringing both the Earthbreaker and Big Pig. This is the list.

Mercenaries – Rhul Guard

        General Ossrum

        – Ghordson Earthbreaker [27]

        – Grundback Blaster [5]

        – Grundback Blaster [5]
        Carver Ultimus [20]

        – War Boar MMD47
        Ogrun Bokur [3]

        Ogrun Bokur [3]

        Stone Lord Guvul Godor [4]
        Horgenhold Artillery Corps [4]

        Horgenhold Artillery Corps [4]

        Horgenhold Forge Guard [7]

        Horgenhold Forge Guard [7]

        Horgenhold Forge Guard [7]

        Tactical Arcanist Corps [4]
        Command Cards

        – Blessing of the Gods

        – Careful Reconnaissance

        – Lucky Penny

        – Old Faithful

        – Put the Fires Out
        Total Points   99/100

This actually looks like a job for Yana. I don’t think the Avalanches can kill both Big Pig and the Colossal. Not to mention all the dwarfs. Despite the fact that we are playing Trench Warfare, which is not Mastodon friendly, this is what I’m going for.

Deployment

We are playing Trench Warfare. Ossrum wins the dice roll and goes first. I pick the side with the two forests. I’m thinking that I would have picked the other side. There is things to be said about having an obstruction. However, I need to learn to appreciate those on my side of the table.

Ossrum deploys the pig and the Earthbreaker next to each other, behind the cloud. All the dwarfs are distributed on both sides.

Yana deploys in the middle with the Mastodon on the right. That is the objective it is going for. The rest is the standard deployment. A bison and two units of Shock Troopers on each flank. The rest, more or less near the Mastodon and Yana.

The picture below shows the deployment.

End of deployment

Two slow armies lumbering into action. I’m foreseeing a lot of rounds.

Round 1

We have an army that actually makes Khador look fast and nimble. This turn can easily be summed up as: the lumber forward — a bit. The picture below shows the little movement there is.

End of turn 1

Yana can now employ her armies superior speed (finally). She brings both flanks forward towards the two objectives. Not too close, though. In the middle, the Mastodon moves forward and attempts to stay outside the range of at least the Earthbreaker and hopefully also Big Pig. Most others move in behind the Mastodon to avoid being shot.

The picture below shows the quite befor the storm.

End of round 1

We are all here, we are all ready. Bring it one, you people of Rhul (and pig).

Round 2

Ossrum is a cautious fellow. He really does all sorts of tricks to stay out of range of my army; the Mastodon in particular. Nevertheless, the Earthbreaker and the two Artillery units manage to take out the Bison on the right and quite a few of the Shock Troopers. The pig just takes out one Shock Trooper on the right, and puts some damage on the Mastodon, I think. The Earthbreaker also drops a crate on it. Crates are annoying.

The picture below shows the devestation brought forward by a surprisingly shooty Rhul army.

End of turn 1

It is clear that I’m going to loose a shootout. I also do not really want to get the Mastodon into charge range of the Earthbreaker. I some sense the crater helps here. I need to deal with the pig and the Earthbreaker. That is clearly not going to happen in this turn. So, I need to attempt to contain them.

Let’s start on the left flank. The two Shock Troopers run to jam the pig. The Bison moves into the woods and shoots at something. The last Shock Trooper unit prepare themselves to charge anything attempting to score the objective. It kind of looks like a Mexican standoff.

On the right flank, the solo Shock Trooper runs to jam the Earthbreaker and contest the flank; which of course doesn’t matter as you can’t score you own terrain in this scenario. The whole units moves forward to screen the Mastodon, which also moves forward and offload all its cannons into the enemy. The Arkanists move to score the home objective and everybody else just tags along the Mastodon.

The picture below shows the end of the first scoring turn. Scenario score is 2-1 in Yana’s favour.

End of round 2

Yana is quite happy. Let’s see if she remains so.

Round 3

On the left flank, Ossrum makes a move to capture the objective. The little ‘jack moves into position and all the men follows up; yet, keep their distance. On the right flank, somebody kills the lone Shock Trooper; the Earthbreaker backs up, as it is still afraid of the Mastodon; and a small ‘jack moves into screen. Finally, a unit of Forge Guards moves down to contest the objective and kill the last Shock Trooper unit.

In the middle, the small pig moves behind the wall (he is clearly squealing of fear). Big Pig and a Bokur screens Ossrum, who is bravely hiding out behind the big rock. Big Pig kills one of the Shock Troopers and fire everything into the Mastodon. The picture below shows the result of Ossrum’s bravery. Scenario score is now 4-2 n Ossrum’s favour.

End of turn 1

Yana thinks she is on top of this. She is behind on scenario but is pressuring Ossrum. How to keep up the pressure and not loose on scenario.

On the right flank, the Arkanists puts focus on the Mastodon, whilst still scoring the home objective. Yana moves forward around the Mastodon and throws a few spears at the Forge Guards. The Mastodon takes over and removes that unit. The rest of the shots go into Big Pig.

On the left flank, the lone Shock Trooper casually moves over and picks up the cache. The Bison shoots at something, probably the Blaster. If that goes away, Ossrum can’t score that objective. This is followed up by the last Shock Trooper unit charging in and removing the Basher and a few dwarfs.

This has been a pretty good round. The objective is now secure, in the sense that nobody is going to score and the cache has been collected. Scenario score is now 6-4 in Yana’s favour. She is going to score forever on the home objective. There is no way Ossrum is going to score the 50 mm or pick up the cache, whilst the Mastodon is alive; and he is only going to score his home objective. The picture below depicts a moment of satisfaction.

End of round 3

All is well. Let’s see if the fourth round can change this.

Round 4

Who would have guessed that stumpy legs can be ridiculously fast? The unit of Forge Guards on the left flank make it all the way to Yana’s terrain objective. That was not polite. Other Forge Guards and Guvul remove all the remaining Shock Troopers.

In the middle, Big Pig moves next to the rock to screen the VIPs and offload all the shots into the Mastodon. A single Forge Guard contest on the right flank.

Scenario score is now 7-7. The picture below shows the fast dwarfs.

End of turn 1

7-7. Yana needs points. It is unlikely that she can kill Ossrum. He is hiding behind a big rock. So, she needs to primarily concentrate on scenario points. On the left flank, the Bison charges into the Forge Guards and kill three. At least this point is now contested. The Arkanists in the middle will just fuel the Mastodon and score the home objective.

On the right flank, Yana needs to do something. She charges up, kills the last Forge Guard, and puts a toe in the quicksand, staying outside the charge range of the Earthbreaker. She then continues to kill one of the artilleries with the spears. The remaining officer runs to the quicksand. They are now two and can score. Finally, the Mastodon (finally) shoots the Big Pig to death and removes two Forge Guards on the left.

Lo and behold. She is now at 11 scenario points to Ossrum’s 8. She is on 7 minutes on the clock. Ossrumm on 27 seconds. The picture below shows the situation at T-27 seconds.

End of round 4

Ossrumm has 27 seconds. Let’s see what he can do with that.

Round 5

It is quite surprising what he can do in 27 seconds. The Bokur on the left charge the Bison and kills it. The last little ‘jack runs to score. On the right flank, the artillery runs to contest both the objective and the terrain. That is it time is up. The picture below depicts the downfall of Ossrum.

End of turn 1, end of game

That was it. It was close. If Ossrum had flipped the clock, Yana might be in trouble. She wasn’t.

I have managed half of my ambition: at least win one. Formally, I had, kind of won as it was a ‘buy’. However, it feels so much better to actually win.

I’m still not convinced about the Shock Troopers. But, I really would like to get them to work. I know they are only 7 points. But, I still feel they die to easily. Since the puny Black 13 got 8 boxes, I think that would be fitting for the Shock Troopers as well.

This is the second encounter with the new Big Pig. I like it. It is still pretty good, but not redicilous as before. I’m not pretty sure that I want one.

It is clear that my habitus has not done anything good for my game. I think I’m getting confterable with the Valerii list. Yet, the Yana list doesn’t work (yet).

Anyway, onwards to the last game today.

Battle 4 — House Kallyss

Last game of the day. I’m paired with another nice Swede. He is bringing dead elves to the table. I my local meta, I tend to destroy dead elves. However, this is not my local meta; I’m a bit skeptical.

He is brining Scyrafael the ubiquitous Israfyl and a whole bunch of ‘jacks. Most ‘jack heavy Dusk list I have seen. To quote the Swedish Chef, I think my opponent said that his list does: “Zees is my duosk leest. It is pretty veurd. I hefe-a a lut ouff jecks und tu Specters. Bork Bork Bork!“¹.

Dusk – House Kallyss
        Scyrafael, Nis-Issyr of Desolations

        – Eidolon [16]

        	– HEAD – True Sight

        	– RIGHT ARM – Dawn Blade

        	– LEFT ARM – Force Shield

        	– BACK – Vortex Cannon

        – Eidolon [15]

        	– HEAD – Arcane Stasis

        	– RIGHT ARM – Dawn Blade

        	– LEFT ARM – Force Shield

        	– BACK – Vortex Cannon

        – Ghast [9]

        	– HEAD – Arc Node

        	– RIGHT ARM – Blaster Fist

        	– LEFT ARM – Force Lash

        – Israfyl [17]

        	– HEAD – Israfyl

        	– LEFT ARM – Serpentine Blade

        	– RIGHT ARM – Serpentine Blade

        	– BACK – Death Whisper

        – Specter [10]

        – Specter [10]
        Vaelyss, The Hand of Mourning [4]

        Void Engine [8]

        – Wight

        Seeker Adepts [4]

        Soulless Guardians [8]
        Command Cards

        – Careful Reconnaissance

        – Duck and Cover!

        – Hit & Run

        – Lucky Penny

        – Old Faithful
        Total Points   99/100

We are playing Wolves at our Heels. Actually a scenario that is quite good for Yana and her pet Mastodon. However, with all the large bases and not being immune to knockdown, I think Valrii might be the option. That is the one I’m going for anyway.

Deployment

We are playing Wolves at our Heels. I win the roll-off and deceides to go first. This time I (also) pick the side with quicksand on. However, I haven’t got a Mastodon to navigate around it. So, it might actually work to my advantage.

Valerii deploys the Kontroller and pet Dire Wolf on the left flank. They are obviously not going to score the 40 mm, but they can be annoying to anybody trying. The Snipers go on the left flank to sit on the flag or move up to the opposite 40 mm. Everything else basically just go in the middle.

The avid reader might notice that the two Battle Mechaniks are attempting an advance deployment. That is obviously wrong and will be called to order before we proceed.

Scyrafael haven’t got a lot of models. So they basically just clump up around herself in the middle. Let’s all enjoy the Kodak moment in the picture. Before all the hostilities commence.

End of deployment

This is going to be interessting. Heavy armour vs. nimble ‘jacks. Let’s see.

Round 1

Valerii begins by pushing everything forward, as much as possible. On the left, the Snipers park them selves on the terrain with the flag. On the right, the Kontroller moves left around the house. In the middle everybody spread out to be ready to react to whatever the dead elves come up with.

Valerii puts Escort into action, Superiority on the Avalanche on the left and Puissance on the Wrecking Crew. He then hangs back to watch the show. The picture below depicts the show.

End of turn 1

Most of Scyrafael’s army advances cautiously. They are a bit worried about the threat range of the Avalanches. A Specter runs behind the big rock on the right. Probably aiming to mess with the objective terrain. The picture below shows the end of the boring round.

End of round 1

Let’s see if the Motherland can kill some elves and not allow them to kill some back.

Round 2

This is, so far a lazy afternoon. So, one unit of Suppressors stroll over to the 40 mm objective on the left to score. The Kontroller and Dire Wolf have made space for them by moving in front of the objective. On the right flank, the Snipers move up to the rough terrain near Scyrafael’s 40 mm. They are relieved by a Mechanik and an Officer holding the flag. An Avalanche lumbers over to protect them against the Specter.

In the middle, a unit of Suppressors take point, with the Wrecking Crew right behind. Valerii put a wall behind them and moves up for a better view of the battlefield. The last Avalanche just moves out from the house, to be ready. The picture below shows a lazy Khador afternoon.

End of turn 1

Scyrafael starts the first scoring turn by moving the Specter into contesting position of the terrain. It is going to rely on its very hig DEF against both shooting and melee to be an annoyance down there. The second Specter takes up the position that the first one left.

On the left flank, something manage to kill all the Snipers; but not the dog! Israfyl moves to the rightmost 50 mm and an Eidolon moves to the leftmost. All the shield guards stand between them. All of these things and the Void Engine kills the front row Suppressors (again I overestimate their resilience), and gives the Wrecking Crew Vengeance. I think the scenario score is 2-1 in Scyrafael’s favour. The picture below shows how a bunch of dead elves ruin a lazy afternoon.

End of round 2

Once again I overextended Suppressors. When will I ever learn. Anyway, there is work to be done.

Round 3

Once again I overextended Suppressors. When will I ever learn. Anyway, there is work to be done. I think it is a feat turn for Valerii. He feats and puts a Kill Order the contesting Specter and Israfyl. He also goes Precision Strike and with Tides of War he moves back into safety of the wall.

On the left, the Avalanche slams the Eidolon, yet does not manage to kill it. The Suppressors, Kontroller and Dire wolf moves forward. They might have killed all the Shield Guards. At least they disappeared. There is now room for the Wrecking Crew to charge Israfyl. Under Puissance and Kill Order they most definitely live up to their name (not so much without these two additions). Israfyl disappears.

The right flank is a problem. A Specter has like DEF 17 with Grave Winds on it. What to do? The Avalanche walks up to the Specter, boost to hit, and simply head butts it to the ground. It is only an 8 on three dice. Quite easy. The look on the lovely Swede’s face was worth everything. Once the Specter is down, dismantling it is like a walk in the park.

This ends Valerii’s feat turn, except for the dog contesting the 40 mm. Scenario score is now 3-3. The picture below depicts the result of Valerii’s feat turn.

End of turn 1

Scyrafael can feel the pressure. The left flank is a lot cause. So, she is consolidating from the middle and to the right. Scyralfel and the Eidolon clear away the Wrecking Crew from the rightmost 50 mm. The Void Engine moves along and might have contributed with some shooting. In the back, the two lazy ‘jacks who have not contributed shuffles right.

The last Specter, on the right flank moves in and sprays the Officer and Mechanik to death. So no more scoring down there. The Seeker Adepts consolidate in the rubble to score the objective.

All in all, it was actually a better turn for Scyrafel that what appears on the surface. She managed to bring the scenario score to 7-4 in her favour and has seriously limited Valerii’s ability to score. The picture below shows Scyrafel leading the brawl.

End of round 3

Valerii needs to do something or he is slowly but steadily loosing on scenario. Both players have around 30 minutes on the clock. So, don’t panic.

Round 4

Valerii unfortunately has to drop the wall. He upkeeps Escort and cast Tides of War. He puts a Kill Order on the Eidolon in front of Scyrafel and shuffles a bit backwards. The Avalanche in the middle contemplates slamming the Eidolon over Scyrafel. Unfortunately, it is not Sturdy and it is not going to be damaged by Scyrafles feet. So it will be pushed. It opts for slamming the other Eidolon over the Ghast instead.

The Suppressors on the left flank give up the scoring and move forward to put a lot of shots into the Eidolon in front of Scyrafel. Unfortunately, it is not enough to kill it. This means that Sergei tries to pull the Eidolon in with his Harpoon to finish it off. It is hard to hit an Eidolo… Oh, and the Dire Wolf decides to kill Vaelyss. That was dumb. Don’t do that. She becomes a highly annoying ghost.

On the right flank, the last Avalanche attempts to do the same trick as before. But without the Kill Order, the order is too tall. The Arkanists move in to score. This leaves the scenario score at 7-8 in Scyrafel’s favour. The picture below shows the trouble of Valerii.

End of turn 1

Scyrafel is apparently slightly annoyed. The Eidolon in front of her and the Ghast goes into Sergei and kill him. This also makes room for Scyrafel to stand in the middle of the board. This, unfortunately also allows the Eidolon to hit Valerii with its Momentum gun, slamming into the kill box.

End of round 4

The Ghast hears ‘kill box’ and moves to Valerii, who is keeled over. The picture below depicts the ballade of Valerii. You can probably guess what happend.

Oy! I’m just lying around here…

This was an intense game.

Valerii actually did pretty well. I really like the double Avalanche. The opponent has to respect a pretty (for Khador, anyway) threat range. Suppressors are always good. I need to work more on Valerii’s spell casting.

Scyralfel’s feat is hard for Khador ‘jacks. There is no way they are going to be damaged, so they are going to be pushed. On the other hand, all sorts for Man-O-Wars just laugh at the damage and the pushing.

Anyway, it was as always fun. My opponent was nice and at the end of the day I did manage to reach my goals.

Now for a short break and onwards to the thrid day of moving toy soldiers around. I can’t wait.

Summary & Lessons Learned

So far it has been fun. I haven’t faced any opponents where it didn’t matter that we actually played. All my losses are purely down to being worse than my opponent. It is clear that I’m really rusty.

I’m happy with the Valerii list. I think it will remain like this for a while. The Yana list, on the other hand. The Mastodon might have seen its hey days. I still can’t get the Shock Troopers to work. I haven’t given up yet.

Anyway. Tomorrow is another day.

For the Motherland!

The Motherland goes to Conquest (day 1)

Igor Khador — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 21:43:00 +0000

This is the first time the Motherland goes to Conquest in Oslo, Norway. It is also my first proper tournament since WTC 2024. There is new hardware on the table, new lists, and new opponents. I have no idea how this is going to go. Except a clear knowledge that I’m rusty. First day (of 3) is going to be tough. I’m sticking to my normal ambition: Win at least one and don’t end up last. Let’s see how the Motherland fares.

This is my first time at Oslo Conquest. It is three days of tournament play. Also, my first time after the big January update of 2025, which did some sad things to Khador (you can see my whining here) and some good. Since it is a new year and a new update, I might as well try things I haven’t tried before.

My ambitions is, as always to win at least one and not end up last.

I’m going for Valerii. I have never actually tried him before. According to “common knowledge” he is now, after the January update, bad. I’m not convinced. So, I’ll give him a try. I’m also bringing Yana with a Mastodon and all the Pikemen. She has taken over from Baranova in the list I brought to last year’s WTC (for a report on WTC, see here for day 1 and here for day 2). I would so much like the Pikemen to work. I do think they are an unpolished gem. Let’s see.

Khador – Winter Korps
Kapitan Yana Kovoskiy

   – Fog of War

   – Puissance

   – Mastodon [32]

     HEAD – Shock Assault

     RIGHT SHOULDER – Deep Freezer

     LEFT SHOULDER – Deep Freezer

     RIGHT ARM – Great Axe

     LEFT ARM – Grinder Fist
AC-2 Bison [10]

AC-2 Bison [10]

Battle Mechanik [2]

Battle Mechanik [2]

Magziev Zarivah Volkova [4]

Mortar Team [2]

Winter Korps Officer [3]

Winter Korps Officer [3]
Arkanists [4]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]
Command cards

    – Blessing of the Gods

    – Duck and Cover!

    – Lucky Penny

    – Old Faithful

    – Put the Fires Out
Total Points   100/100

Khador – Winter Korps
Kommander Valerii Savaryn

   – Puissance

   – Superiority

   – Avalanche [15]

     HEAD – Hyper-Aggressive

     RIGHT ARM – Pneumatic Lance

     LEFT ARM – Wedge Shield

   – Avalanche [15]

     HEAD – Hyper-Aggressive

     RIGHT ARM – Pneumatic Lance

     LEFT ARM – Wedge Shield
Alexia, Queen of the Damned [4]

Kontroller [4]

   – Dire Wolf [10]

     HEAD – Shield Guard

     RIGHT ARM – Long Axe

     LEFT ARM – Plow-Shield

Sergeant Sergie Krol [5]

Winter Korps Officer [3]

Winter Korps Officer [3]
Arkanists [4]

Man-O-War Suppressors [11]

Man-O-War Suppressors [11]

Man-O-War Wrecking Crew [10]

Winter Korps Snipers [4]

   – Winter Korps Hunting Dog [1]
Command cards

    – Blessing of the Gods

    – Lucky Penny

    – Old Faithful

    – Put the Fires Out

    – Sapper
Total Points   100/100

Winter Korps under Kapitan Yana Kovoskiy

What can I say? A lady on a bear and a huge stumpy robot. How can that not be marvellous? She is fast and somewhat hard hitting. She is probably more brittle than she looks. I think she really wants infantry with more that one attack, due to her Feat. She would also like something to drop Battle Lust on and Dash. All three things could point to the Shock Troopers.

Her main build in ability is Conferred Rage, which on paper might suggest many ‘jacks. However, I think that is a trap. So, she’ll only be equipped with a Mastodon. A Mastodon under Yana is actually slightly better now that if Superiority was available. It is no speed 7 if Conferred Rage triggers. So, that must be the plan.

The plan is speed. Under Dash and Conferred Rage, Yana is SPD 8; Shock Troopers are SPD 6, the Mastodon SPD 7, and the mighty Bisons are SPD 8. Everybody else just have to keep up.

She is most likely going to have to avoid the Scenarios: Color Guard, Trench Warfare and Payload as they kind of expect more than one ‘jack. That leaves her to cover: Wolves at our Heels, Two Fronts, and Best Laid Plans. With respect to opponents, I really haven’t got a clue. I’ll have to stay away from stuff that can trivially remove a Colossal. I just have to figure out what that is.

Winter Korps under Kommander Valerii Savaryn

Yana’s best boy is leading the other list. He has been allowed to field, not one, but two of the Motherland’s new toys; the Avalanches. They look so good on paper. They can trivially reach out and touch something between 14″ and and 16″ away. Add a bit of Kill Order and let the mayhem begin. He will also field two units of Suppressors, who are just good. Although in my experience they either kill everything or nothing. There doesn’t seem to be an average day in a Suppressors life.

A Wrecking Crew is also there. They are a good target for At All Cost, due to Vengeance. The Combination of Puissance and Kill Order allows them to actually Wreck stuff. Add a bit of support and a unit of snipers with a dog, and I think the infantry line is good to go.

After the January update, the Kontroller actually looks promising. He might actually be able to hit something with his spray and as a ‘jack Marshal with the Shatter Drive, and Dire Wolf with a Long Axe and Shield Guard seems to be the natural choice. These two BFFs can also baby sit a 50 mm objective in either Color Guard, Trench Warfare or Best Laid Plans; which are quite bad scenarios for the Yana list.

I have never played Valarii, Avalanches nor a Kontroller before. What could possible go wrong?

Battle 1 — Dark Operations

First battle of the day is agains a nice guy from Poland and all the BDSM guys he could dig up in Poland. I haven’t see the Cephalyx in a very long time. On the one hand, it makes me happy to see them, because they are rather cool; on the other hand they look kind of scary. I haven’t got an intricate knowledge of they capabilities. So, this is going to be interesting.

He is bringing Thexus with a whole horde of little guys — and a huge pig! The list is a follows (base on my memory):

Mercenaries – Dark Operations

        Exulon Thexus

        – Subduer [10]

        – Subduer [10]
        Carver Ultimus [20]

        – War Boar MMD47
        Cephalyx Agitator [2]

        Cephalyx Agitator [2]

        Cephalyx Agitator [2]
        Cephalyx Mind Bender & Drudges [6]

        Cephalyx Mind Bender & Drudges [6]

        Cephalyx Mind Bender & Drudges [6]

        Cephalyx Mind Slaver & Drudges [6]

        Cephalyx Mind Slaver & Drudges [6]

        Cephalyx Mind Slaver & Drudges [6]

        Dominated Hammerfall High Shield Gun Corps [6]

        Dominated Hammerfall High Shield Gun Corps [6]

        Dominated Horgenhold Artillery Corps [5]
        Command Cards

        – Blessing of the Gods

        – Careful Reconnaissance

        – Lucky Penny

        – Old Faithful

        – Put the Fires Out
        Total Points   99/100

I think the obvious choice here is Yana. Valerii haven’t got the tools to deal with a horde of models. Yana has all the Shock Troopers; and the Bisons and a Mastodon for shooting them. We are playing Trench Warfare, which was not on her list. However, I think the horde outweighs the scenario here. Let’s see how she fares.

Deployment

We are playing Trench Warfare. Exulon won the dice roll and decided to go first. He deployed in the middle of his deployment zone, with a Subduer on each flank and all the little men in a bunch surrounding Exulon.

End of Deployment

Yana also deploys in the middle, next to the Mastodon. The Mastodon is there to focus on the right most 50 mm objective. The left one will only be attempted to be contested by a Bison and two units of Shock Troopers. The second Bison-Shock Trooper module deploys to the right of the Mastodon, to support. Everything else deploys in the middle. The picture above shows the situation at the end of deployment.

Round 1

First turn is as always rather uneventful. Everything shuffles forward, taking great care of staying out of the shooting range of the Mastodon. That is basically it. The picture below shoes the careful advancement.

End of turn 1

Yana also moves up, putting everything into position for the second round. Some attempts are made to stay out of charge ranges of the Subduers and all the little men. She casts Fog of War and Puissance on one of the Shock Troopers. The picture below shows the end of round 1.

End of round 1

That was it. The first round is typically over in a jiffy, without much hassle. Let’s see what the second round brings.

Round 2

This is when is action begins. It turns out that little BDSM guys can really move fast. Somehow, a unit manage to get down and tie up my Mastodon. All the other little guys just move forward. One of them gets Quagmire on them. Also, the big pig moves forward and shoots at the Mastodon. Crippling Grasp is arced through something onto Yana. That’s it. The picture below depicts the end of Exulon’s second round.

End of turn 1

OK. Small men are fast. That is kind of annoying as the Mastodon doesn’t have Gun Fighter. So, no shooting out of combat. A clean up is required. Yana starts off by casting Dash and then makes a Cygnar-advance further into the trench. She drops Fog of War. The Arkanist move to score the home objective and feed the Mastodon some more focus

The Shock Troopers on the right flank is on clean up duty. The charge forward and removes the BDSM guys irritating the Mastodon. The Bison also moves forward a shoots more little guys. This makes room for the Mastodon to advance towards the rightmost objective. It moves there, and starts shooting at the big pig and some of the BDSM guys in front of it. In front of them is the second unit of Shock Troopers, attempting to remove som guys.

On the left flank, a unit of highly motivated Shock Troopers charge towards the big pig. The do some damage. But he is a tough cookie. The Bison moves forward to contest the objective and fires into the big pig. The picture below shows the end of round 2.

End of round 2

Exulon manage to score his home objective. Yana manage to score her home objective and the rightmost 50 mm objective. All the rest are contested. This leaves the score at 2-1 in Yana’s favour. I somehow managed to use 35 minutes on the turn. Leaving my clock at only 19 minuets. That is really not good. Anyway, Yana can now only lean back a wait for the wrath of the Polish BDSM community.

Round 3

Exulon and his band of merry BDSM guys are a bit grumpy (I would have thought that they enjoyed thins kind of behaviour).

On the left flank, the Subduer casually moves forward and subdue the Bison of the board. Big pig is also ushered forward to put some shots into Yana (I think). Two small groups of BDSM guys also moves forward. Somehow in all the mayhem, two Shock Troopers also beats the dust.

On the right flank, the “persuaded” Hammers and a group of BDSM guys removes a unit of Shock Troopers, two Battle Mechaniks and put some hurt into the Mastodon. The last of the litte guys take out the last unit of Shock Troopers and basically swamps the Mastodon.

This leaves the scenario score at 3-3. Luckily, it takes a while to move little men around. So, Exulon only has around 8 minutes left on the clock. Let’s see what Yana can do about this sea of little men. The picture below shows the end of Exulon’s turn.

End of turn 1

OK. Yana is only a bit in trouble. She can conceivable score the home objective; with a bit of cleaning up, she can also score the 50 mm to the right; The 50 mm on the left can be contested; and Exulon’s home objective, and the little box of extra BDSM equipment is out of reach. Let’s go.

The left flank is pretty easy. The last Shock Trooper just needs to go and contest. He does that by charging the Subduer. The Officer shoots something.

On the right flank, the Mastodon are being fuelled up by the Arkanists; who then remain near the objective. The Mastodon can then go to work, chopping and shooting on all the little men in front of it. It cleans up enough to be able to score the objective and gets at least one shot into the big pig.

Yana is not really into this whole BDSM thing and feels a bit exposed where she is. So, she moves in behind the Mastodon. The Bison moves a bot forward and also shoots at the sea of little men. The sea is now slowing becoming more of a pond. The picture below shows the end of Yana’s turn.

End of round 3

This ends what Yana could do in this round. It leaves the scenario score at 5-4 in Yana’s favour. Unfortunately, she only has 2:51 left on her clock.

Round 4

OK. Most likely final round for Exulon. Let’s see what he can pull out from his leather attire.

On the left flank, some small me kills the Officer. This is two scenario points in Exulon’s direction. The Subduer kills the remaining Shock Trooper; that is another point.

In the middle, more little men makes it to the Arkanists and kill them. That is another point.

Finally, on the right flank, the Subduer move to the Mastodon and contests; and a lot of little men ends up behind the Mastodon.

The clock is passed and the scenario score ends at 9-5; which is basically a win in my turn. The picture below shows the end of the turn.

End of turn 1, end of game

That is basically it. Yana has less than three minutes on the clock. She needs to score two points and deny any points to the opponent to just stay in the game. That is simply not possible. On a good day, she can contest two objectives and the terrain. This means that she has to score four. There is nothing to do. Whilst she complains about the world, the clock runs out.

OK. So, what did I learn. First of all, I should perhaps have picked the other side. The two tanks were pretty nice. Also, Big Pig is still rather dangerous. But now he is only good. I like it. I might even get one now. Finally, a sea of little men is difficult.

However, we had a lot of fun. Very nice opponent.

Battle 2 — Shadowflame Shard

Next up are Shadowflame Shard in a Swedish version. I’m always a bit scared when I see these across the table. However, the two ubiquitous Wyverns are not there. That is pretty nice to see something different. I might have a shot. Let’s see.

The nice Swedish guy is bringen Rassyk and his slithering side kicks.

Khymaera – Shadowflame Shard

        Rassyk, Spawn of Shadows

        – SPELL – Carnivore

        – SPELL – Curse of Shadows
        – Drakyon [11]

        – Drakyon [11]

        – Hydrix [13]

        	– CENTRAL HEAD – Toothy Maw

	        – SMALLER HEAD – Blockhead

        	– SMALLER HEAD – Blockhead

	        – DORSAL FEATURE – Bladeback

        – Skylla, The Abyssal Fury [16]

        	– CENTRAL HEAD – Skylla

        	– SMALLER HEAD 1 – Horned Piercer

        	– SMALLER HEAD 2 – Gnashing Fangs
        Bellighul, Master of Pain [4]

        Ryvyn, the Onyx Rampant [6]

        Wraithwing Paragon [5]

        Incarnate Knights [11]

        Incarnate Knights [11]

        Talon Lashers [7]

        Wyrmspine Shadowmancers [4]
        Defenses

        – Defense 1 – Barrier

        – Defense 1 – Barrier

        – Defense 1 – Barrier
        Command Cards

        – Blessing of the Gods

        – Defenses

        – Hit & Run

        – Lucky Penny

        – Put the Fires Out
        Total Points 99/100

This could potentially be a game for Yana. Also, Wolves at Our Heels is a scenario for a Mastodon. However, I’m under the impression that the Khymera beasts can easily deal with the Mastodon. So, Valerii will get his first game ever. Let’s see what he can do.

Deployment

We are playing Wolves at Our Heels. Rassyk won the dice roll and opts to go first. Valerii picks the side of the battle ground without the house. Rassyk puts out defences. I really wish I had the Sapper card. A unit of Incarnate Knights goes on each flank. The rest of the army are all in a big group in the middle.

End of deployment

Valerii might have a plan. The Avalanches are to do what they do bedst: threaten quite far. One group of Wrecking Crew have their eye on the right most objective. The Snipers are ready to at least contest the right most objective. Everything else gathers in the middle. This will be interesting. The picture above depicts the quiet before the storm.

Round 1

Rassyk starts by sending his Incarnate Knights to the objective on the right flank. They are probably going to stay there forever. The Incarnate Knights on the left flank move forward and is joined by Drakyon. All the rest moves left around the cloud towards the annoying barriers. The picture below shows the result of Rassyk’s first turn.

End of turn 1

Valerii better adhere to the “plan” decided upon. On the left flank the unit of Suppressors, supported by an Officer moves to the Objective. Thinking the are safe.

On the right flank, the Snipers move up (the dog and and one of the grunts are outside the picture) to be ready to at least contest the objective.

In the middle, everything else moves up. Escort is up and Superiority is on one of the Avalanches. Valerii goes into the trench. I’m not sure that there is any shooting worth mentioning. But it is always cozy in a trench. The is the very exciting first round. The picture below shows the situation before something hits somebody’s fan.

End of round 1

Onwards to the round that matters… Let’s see what Rassyk can come up with.

Round 2

Somewhat surprisingly, the Incarnate Knights and the Drakyon managed to get all the way down to my objective on the left; not to mention the surprised Suppressors. Luckily, it is a run.

On the right flank, the other unit of Incarnate Knights, predictively consolidates around that objective.

In the middle, the Wyrmspine Shadowmancers steps into the swamp to hug the flag. Everything else just eases forward. The picture below shows the end of Rassyk’s “advance”.

End of turn 1

Except for the jamming surprise. The first turn of round 2 was uneventful. It seems the initiative is on Valerii. Let’s start with the boring bits. On the left flank, the surprised Suppressors attempt to shoot their way out of trouble. That is not too impressive. Only one of the Knights goes down. On the right flank, the Snipers move to contest and hopefully a few will survive.

It is in the middle all the action is. The (not surprised) Suppressors move up and shoots the Talon Lashers until they are go. This leaves room for Valerii to move up and gives a Kill Order on the Hydrix. He also moves Superiority to the other Avalanche. He then uses Tides of War to shuffle back into the cozy trench.

The Arkanists fule the Avalanches and the Superiority one slams the Hydrix and pushes it all the way into the flames. It obviously follows up. It does put some hurt on the Hydrix. But not as much as I had hoped for (Hydrix is Steady). The other Avalanche will not be bested and charges Skylla. Some hurt also goes into Skylla. This leaves room for the Wrecking Crew to fill the hole left by Hydrix. The Dire Wolf tags along, and for some reason the Kontroller is enjoying himself and remains put. Finally. Sergei moves up to put his Tough boubble around the Man-O-Wars in the middle. The picture below shows the battlefield after Valerii’s mighty push.

End of round 2

That was fun. I’m pretty sure I have overextended myself. But Avalanches… The scenario score is 2-1 in Valerii’s favour and everything is (too) far up the field. Let’s see what Rassyk can conjure up.

Round 3

Rassyk is pissed — except he is in a Swedish incarnation. So, that comes out as “…slightly upset about the whole situation“. Yet, it is Feat time (everybody now gets Defensive Strike and Reposition [3”]). I wonder if he should have feated a round earlier?

On the left flank, the Incarnate Knights and the Drakyon easily wipe out the Suppressors and the Officer. Only Alexia is left, somewhat nervous. On the right flank, the Snipers did not manage to place themselves cleverly and are removed (except for the dog!). The Drakyn over there thinks it is better to move to the middle of the board to contest the objective. It does kill one of the Suppressors in the process.

All sorts of stuff happens in the middle. Skylla kills the Avalanche and Hydrix put quite a lot of damage into the overextended one. Hydrix and Ryvyn wraps Rassyk in a protective wall against the remaining Avalanche.

That’s it. More than enough if you ask me. Scenario score is now 4-2 in Rassyk’s favour. The picture below shows the situation.

End of turn 1

OK. Perhaps it was not surprising that I lost on of the Avalanches. Yet, it always hurt. What hurt even more was the complete wipe out of the left flank. That is a problem. Some clever manoeuvring must happen now.

The two flanks are easy. On the left one, Alexia just hist a Knight and contests. On the right flank the surviving dog moves to contest. Easy peasy.

The knot that needs to be untangled is in the middle. The Wrecking Crew is Unstoppable. So, they ca, after being told Pathfinder by the Officer move out of engagements with Skylla. They move to contest the Flag and even manage to kill one of the Shadowmancers; just for good measure. Valerii can now move forward. I can’t remember if he Feated or just put a Kill Order on Skylla. This now allows the Kontroller to move up and freeze Skylla. The Dire Wolf should now have killed it — but did not.

The Avalanche moves in a hits Hydrix; whilst receiving some Defensive Strikes (perhaps it was the right round to feat, anyway). Everybody else is more or less focused on killing the Drakyn. Apparently not sufficiently focused.

End of round 3

This ends Valerii’s turn. Scenario score is now at 5-3 in Rassyk’s favour. I only have 8 minutes on the clock. Rassyk has 23. I’m in trouble. The picture above shows the troublesome situation.

Round 4

The initiative is on Rassyk’s court. The easy stuff first. Alexia goes away on the left flank. The poor dog is send to a farm up north on the right flank. The Drakyn removes two of the Suppressors. I would argue that this must be sufficient for one turn. Apparently, I was wrong.

In the middle, Skylla attempts to slide along the Dire Wolf and kill Valerii. Luckily, that is unsuccessful. However, Ryssak and Ryvyn trivially takes out the last Avalanche. The Hydrix moves over the barrier.

This, more or less ends Rassyk’s turn. The scenario score is now 8-3 in Rassyk’s favour. The picture below shows the sorry state of the battle.

End of turn 1

OK. I’m at 7:51 on the clock and there is no way I can win on scenario. There is sufficient problems with just surviving on scenario. So, I just have to kill Rassyk.

Valerii moves up and put a Kill Order on Rassyk (he might actually have feated here. I can’t remember). Superiority goes on the Dire Wolf. The Arkanists move up and puts focus on the Dire Wolf. All is set up for success…

The combined might of the Kontroller and the last Suppressors takes out Skylla. The Dire Wolf takes out Hydrix. Unfortunately, the Wrecking Crew can’t get a charge. So, they just have to walk up to Rassyk and surround him. Unfortunately, he is at DEF 12 and ARM 20 under Battle Formation. Although, he only has 18 boxes. This should be doable when effective MAT is 9 and POW 16. However, Rassyk can transfer. I really dislike transfer. The Wrecking Crew fail.

This ends the game. The final situation can be seen in the picture below. We end 10-3 in scenario score, in Rassyk’s favour.

End of round 4, end of game

This was fun. I’m pretty sure that I over extended in round two. It was hard to resist the lure of very far moving Avalanches. Of course it is an issue when the opponent can’t be knocked down. I was also surprised by the jamming on the left flank. I have no idea what Alexia is doing in the list.

Battle 3 — House Kallyss

Final game today is against House Kallyss. This should be manageable. I have some experience against Dusk, and even though Hazaroth can make the pretty robust and make model return, this is almost what Valerii’s list is made for. Lots of large bases for the Suppressors. The Dusk list is a follows.

Dusk – House Kallyss

        Hazaroth, Narcissar of Ruin

        – Ghast [9]

        	– HEAD – Fleet

        	– RIGHT ARM – Heavy Blade Fist

        	– LEFT ARM – Battle Shield

        – Ghast [9]

        	– HEAD – Fleet

        	– RIGHT ARM – Heavy Blade Fist

        	– LEFT ARM – Battle Shield

        – Israfyl [17]

        	– HEAD – Israfyl

        	– LEFT ARM – Serpentine Blade

        	– RIGHT ARM – Serpentine Blade

        	– BACK – Death Whisper
        Dyssiss, the Eye of Darkness [4]

        Eiryss, Shadow of Retribution [5]

        Mage Hunter Sniper Team [3]

        Void Shaper [2]

        Dreadguard Archers [9]

        Dreadguard Cavalry [11]

        Dreadguard Cavalry [11]

        Dreadguard Slayers [8]

        Seeker Adepts [4]

        Soulless Guardians [6]

        Seeker Warden [2]
        Command Cards

        – Blessing of the Gods

        – Careful Reconnaissance

        – Lucky Penny

        – Old Faithful

        – Put the Fires Out
        Total Points 100/100

This is a game for Valarii. No questions asked. Suppressors against large bases and Payload. If he can’t do this, I would probably have to agree with the “common knowledge”, that he is now unplayable.

Deployment

We are playing Payload. Hazaroth wins the dice roll and wants to go first. I’m lazy and stay on the side where I’m already is.

Hazaroth deploys the kittens on each flank. Himself in the middle with all the shield guards next to him. Everything else is distributed in a nice line. There is one Ghast on the left flank, probably to hug the objective.

End of turn 1

Valerii deploys, more or less in the middle. The Kontroller and his Dire Wolf deploys on the right flank to be ready to hang out near the objective. The snipers are on the left flank to move towards the other 50 mm objective. Everything else goes in the middle. The picture above shows the situation before everything kicks off.

Round 1

Hazaroth kicks off the show. Everything moves forward, more or less towards the left. Partly to avoid the house on the right flank. Escort goes up. That is basically it. Yet another eventful first turn. The picture below shows the state of the game.

End of round 1

Valerii is obviously not going the be worse than Hazaroth. So, he also casts Escort. Puissance goes on the Wrecking Crew as well as At all Costs. Superiority goes on one of the Avalanches. He then moves into the rubble, which is a nice place to be.

On the right flank, the Kontroller and friend moves to the objective and prepares camp. On the left flank, the Snipers move up. Everybody else moves forward, outside the range of the kittens. The picture below shows the situation just before everything goes off.

End of turn 1

The boring round is done. Lets see what Hazaroth can do, and if “common knowledge” is correct.

Round 2

All of Valerii’s troops moved forward and stayed outside the range of the kittens; except the Snipers who was apparently not informed about the manoeuvre. Death by kittens happened (except for one guy).

Everybody else moves forward, cautionary one might argue. Except for the kittens on the right flank, who for some reason decided to attempt to jam some of Valerii’s troops.

The picture below shows the strange kittens and the rest of the dead elves.

End of round 2

Hey ho! Lets go! (Valerii has always been a fan of Blitzkrieg). Valerii upkeeps everything, save Superiority, which he swaps to the other Avalanche. He is quite happy in the rubble. So he’ll just stay there. He will, however put a Kill Order on the jamming kittens. The Kontroller is the rist to hear the Kill Order. He fires up the freezer (if that is a thing) and freezes two kittens. His Dire Wolf then kills the first one. The two others are left to the Suppressors, who remove them.

It is Avalanche time. It slams the Ghast in front of it. It seems that it is vaporised. I would have though that it got slammed across all the shield guards. But, apparently not. The Wrecking Crew follows up and ends up just behind the Avalanche around the 40 mm objective. They take care to stay out of sight of the last unit of kittens.

The Suppressors to the left moves up and spreads out to bait the kittens. Sergei tags along to give them Tough. That’s it. I liked this turn. The scenario score is 3-2 in Valerii’s favour. The picture below shoes the result of Blitzkrieg.

End of turn 1

So far, so good. Pressure is on Hazaroth. I don’t think I have overextended this time. We’ll see.

Round 3

The pressure is on Hazaroth. The kittens charge the Suppressors and manage to kill all of them, and one of the Wrecking Crew. That was more that I had expected. So, measurements were apparently not precise enough. The Archers move along the left flank and kill the last of the Snipers. In the mosh pit everything piles in and tries to kill the Avalanche. However, ARM 22 is a tough nut to crack. It remains alive. I love Avalanches.

That is everything that Hazaroth could muster. Scenario score is 5-4 in Valerii’s favour. The picture below shows the result of Hazaroths effort.

End of round 3

Valerii is absolutely still in the game. I would perhaps even say more than just in the game. This turn is actually kind of fast. Wrecking Crew and Suppressors remove the kittens. The Avalanche is filled up. It tramples the shield guards and kill Hazaroth. Easy peasy. The picture below depicts the Motherland’s glorious victory.

End of round 4, end of game

This was fast, furious and fun. It should be said that my opponent has probably played even less games that I have during a long period. So, I’m basically preying on the weak. We did both have fun, though.

Summary & Lessons Learned

So far, the vision to Oslo has been really nice. The venue is absolutely fantastic. Nice big and bright rooms; smack in the middle of Oslo. The hosts are very nice. So are all the other players. There is something very nice about the Warmachine community.

I still can’t get Yana to work. Valarii on the other hand is a beast. I have no idea what Alexia is doing in the list. I’m pretty sure I’ll exchange her for something useful. Oh, and I might want the Sapper Command Card.

Onwards till tomorrow. For the Motherland!

January update 2025 for the Winter Korps?

Igor Khador — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 21:22:00 +0000

The long awaited January update has finally arrived. The entire Khador has been anticipating this. Will it fix some of the general issues with Winter Korps? Will the less played models have an upgrade? Will some models have an unnecessary downgrade? And many more questions. Let’s look at the highlights of this update. I’ll focus on Winter Korps and might not go into other armies, unless something really stands out.

Finally! I have been waiting like a child waiting for the result of the acceptance test from the Druzhina. All in all, it is an OK update. Some clever changes, some that are OK, a few meh and one clear typo. I’ll attempt to go through each of the updates as objective as I can (I’m obviously biased). I’ll try not to look at updates in the context of whether they make models more powerfull, but more in a context of whether they make sense. I’m so much looking forward to moving models around again. It has been a bit quite waiting for the update.

This is my summary of the quality of the updates. I’ll walk through each of them in details below

Model	Good	OK	Meh	Bad	Really bad
Battle Mechanik	✓
Dire Wolf		✓
Great Bear					✓
Kapitan Ekaterina Baranova				✓
Kapitan Ilari Borisyuk	✓
Kommander Tatiana Sikora		✓
Kommander Valerii Savaryn				✓
Kontroller	✓
Man-O-War Wrecking Crew			✓
Mastodon					✓
Medveditsa		✓
Mortar Team		✓
Shock Trooper Gunners			✓
Shock Trooper Pikemen			✓
Winter Korps Infantry			✓
Winter Korps Officer		✓

Summary of updates

Winter Korps Rack (Superiority)

We have lost the ability to put Superiority on the Mastodon. Of course it makes the Mastodon a sad panda. However, it has gained a extra SPD (from 4″ to 5″), which does compensate somewhat. On the bright side, we can now cast Iron Flesh on it without feeling we are missing out on something. In isolation this is fine.

Winter Korps Models

Battle Mechanik

The Battle Mechanik has gotten an ARM increase from 15 to 16, which is always nice. It will now only die to POW 11 on the charge or POW 14 being shot at. So, no big change here; fair enough.

There is a very positive thing. Mechaniks now have Tune Up: Tune Up (* Action) – RNG 1. Target friendly Faction Cohort model. If the Cohort model is in range, it immediately stands up and is no longer stationary, continuous effects on the model expire, and it gains Pathfinder for one turn. This is very neat. Until now, it was only Sergeant Sergei Krol who could do that. Having the ability to remove continuous effects and stationary is very nice. The Command Card Put the Fires Out is no longer an auto-include. We also get a Pathfinder on a stick for Cohort models (Like the Winter Korps Officer’s Mach for warrior models).

All in all nice update. I like the new Battle Mechanik.

Dire Wolf

So, the Dire Wolf has three updates: Ice Hammer, Scrap Saw, and Long Axe. The Ice Hammer increase one point in cost, so it now has the same cost as the Long Axe (5 points). This ruins my favorite 9 point Dire Wolf (Shield Guard Head, Ice Hammer, and Plow Shield), which increases to 10 points. We now actually have to choose between the Ice Hammer and Long Axe — and the Long Axe now has Grievous Wounds!

So it is either an Ice Hammer at RNG 1″, POW 17 and critical freeze (probability of ~17% and ~42% if boosted), or a Long Axe at RNG 2″, POW 16 and critical Grievous Wounds). The Ice Hammer can do a bit more damage, but only at base 9″. I think the pendule might swing towards the Long Axe more often than the Ice Hammer.

The Scrap Saw has increased to POW 17 from POW 15, but also increased two points in cost (to 5 points). I am not sure about this. It gives us the possibility to have an OK powerfull melee weapon on the left arm, whilst having a ranged weapon on the right arm. That is obviously nice. But, I think it requires some tinkering to see if it actually does anything for us.

My verdict is OK. I’m going to miss the 9 point Dire Wolf, however.

Great Bear

The Great Bear also has three changes: A change to the Reposition Head, the Deep Freezer and the Heavy Cannon, and the Deep Freezer. Let us start with the easy one: Reposition goes from 2″ to 3″. This is obviously nice.

The Deep Freezer goes from RNG 12″ to 14″, which is very nice; It also grants Resistance Cold, which is OK but now game changing. It does also increase from 7 points to 8 in cost; Finally the Heavy Cannon drops 3″ in range from 15″ to 12″!

The increase in range for the Deep Freezer makes perfect sense. It has never really been in competition with the Heavy Cannon. At RNG 14″ it is a real choice. Perhaps even with the same cost as the Heavy Cannon. However, the Heavy Cannon dropping to RNG 12″ (this must be a typo). This is generally really bad. I have collected all my complaints in a seperat point on the Heavy Cannon below. Yet, the range drop hurts the Great Bear the most. I can now touch things 16″ away (move 4″ + 12″ shot) and stay 15″ away from retaliation (12″ shot + 3″ Reposition). It sounds impressive, but it is inside a lot of enemy fire.

If we ignore the typo on the Heavy Cannon it is a good update.

Kapitan Ekaterina Baranova

Only minor changes (on the surface) for Baranova. She gains Resistance Cold, which is always nice but…? Her Feat now only imposes a -2″ to the range of models shooting ours (from -4″). I guess this is just another Storm Legion coffin nail. She is a good ‘caster, at least with the old Mastodon; but not that good. She has to move from being an anti gun line ‘caster to a melee ‘caster. We seem to have lost our main (only?) denial ‘caster.

Well, what to say. Baranova is out of fashion. She got nerfed.

Kapitan Ilari Borisyuk

Boris really needed som help. I’m pretty sure she has only been a mantel piece model, basically since his release. He got Arcane Precision (If this model uses its Normal Movement to aim, it ignores cloud effects when determining LOS and ignores Stealth that activation.) This is really good. It removes the Volkova tax.

Unnatural Darkness got upgraded to Veil of Mists (Place a cloud effect template anywhere completely within the spellcaster’s control range. The template does not block friendly Faction models’ LOS. While in the template, friendly Faction models gain Pathfinder and can move through obstructions and other models if they have enough movement to move completely past them.) This is a very nice upgrade. Damien is now out of a job and Veil of Mist is just better.

The most prominent upgrade is probably his feat. Where it used to be only Feat attacks by the Battlegroup it is now all ranged attacks by the Battlegroup.

This opens quite a few interesting avenues for a shooting Battlegroup. In particular when Steamforged fixes the typo on the Heavy Cannon. I think Boris has had a very nice update.

Kommander Tatiana Sikora

Tatiana has lost one ATT down to 6. This is fine. I can’t remember ever wanting to cast an offensive spell with her. She is just going to upkeep Iron Flesh, Avenging Force, Superiority or Puissance, and perhaps Tactical Supremacy. That is six focus. She would now have been naked if it wasn’t for the fact that she also has been upgraded to ARC 7; which is very nice.

None of this changes her play style. She is still quite one dimensional. She has game but not into anything that can shoot. Except mirror matches of course. Until Steamforged fixes the typo on the Heavy Cannon. All in all an OK update.

Kommander Valerii Savaryn

Valerii only received one update. His feat got heavily nerfed. We lost Blessed and Damage Type: Magical on the ranged weapons. I have no idea why. I assume that it is because we have seen a lot of Valerii and Baranova. Thus, they must be sacrificed to the great nerf-god. I would have preferred to rather change them or other ‘casters to get more varsity. It is not like Winter Korps was the top dog on the competitive scene. According to the nice podcast Tyrants on the Field, we are at about a 50% win rate in 2024.

All in all, I think this was an unnecessary and bad update.

Kontroller

The Kontroller gained an extra RAT, going up to 6. This is really nice. I’m so happy that one is on my painting table. I have always wanted to get the Kontroller on the table. I have managed only once, and that was because I accidentally selected him rather than Sergei in the app. He has a tremendous spray, yet RAT 5 doesn’t really cut it. RAT 6 might just.

He also gained Jack Marshall with the Drive: Shatter (While within 10” of this model, the melee weapons of a warjack under its control gain Shatter. (A weapon with Shatter gains an additional damage die against stationary models.)) This is quite interesting. I think I might have been missing a Jack Marshall. I think it opens up some interesting possibilities. Thanks to the Arkanists we are not as focus starved as we used to be. Nevertheless, everything helps.

It could be fun to live the dream. Having an Avalanche under a Kontroller’s control. Proceed to spray something dangerous to make it stationary. Shoot it with a Heavy Cannon from some, now closeby ‘jack, to knock it down. Go in with the Avalanche. Fully loaded, that is 4 times POW 17 at 4 dice (for an average of 31 points of damage) and 1 POW 15 (for an average of 29 point of damage). That is 53 points of damage against standard Khador armour. Too bad Colossals can’t be made stationary.

This is potentially the best update. Nothing too over the top. Just a small boost to make the spray look promising and a Jack Marshall.

Man-O-War Wrecking Crew

The Battle Saw is now Grievous Wounds. It is pretty nice to have better access to this; in particular since the Savagery Card has gone away. But why not all saws? Although they are still just Man-O-War Crew. The Wrecking is still lacking.

OK update. They could still need som help.

Mastodon

The marvellous Mastodon has really taken a beating. It has lost access to Superiority, which is somewhat compensated with an increase in SPD to 5. It has also been hit by the typo in the Heavy Cannon.

The loss of Superiority is obviously not a good thing. Yet, it is kind of OK. Having MAT 8 is pretty good, and SPD 6 + RNG 15″ and 16″ ranged weapons is an impressive threat range. One could have wished for MAT 7 in addition to SPD 5. But it is OK.

As with the Great Bear, the update to the Deep Freezer is pretty good. It makes it a real choice: POW 16, RNG 15 and knockdown, or POW 14/8, RNG 14, and critical freeze. Very good update. Unfortunately, the Heavy Cannon is now the worst option.

It changes the role of the Mastodon (and by extension the Great Bear). It looses a complete round of shooting if we keep the Heavy Cannon. It is now needs to be a much more melee oriented ‘jack. This really nerfs the Mastodon. With the abondance of high damage output right now, it is a really high investment in a model that struggles to survive front row combat.

The Mastodon was very much defining the Khador way. Big, somewhat robust and with big guns. It seems that we are being pushed more towards a melee army. However, with our low speed, low DEF, and given these two things not a sufficiently high ARM, I think we are kind of in between right now.

This update is actually quite good. Except for they typo, which brings it into very bad update.

Medveditsa

Mother Bear has dropped two points, down to 15. This makes sense. At 17 points, it did not really see any action. There is also a quality of life update, putting the Hand of Vengeance on the right place on the card.

This is a very sensible update.

Mortar Team

The model nobody has ever seen – and for good reason. It has dropped one point to 2. This is a good choice. This solo is now interesting. Having it at an objective, lobbing grenades at the enemy.

Shock Trooper Gunners

Gunners have received and ARM increase of one, up to 16. I’m not sure this does anything good or bad.

Shock Trooper Pikemen

Pikemen has also received and ARM upgrade of one, to 17. An rather unimportant update. It is not really the issue with them. It is speed, in particular in a shooting heavy environment. They still need a solo (I recently did an in depth analysis of them here).

Winter Korps Infantry

What is supposed to be the bread and butter of the Khador army, has received updates to two of the Weapon Attachments: The Auto Cannon and the Rocket Launcher.

The Auto Cannon has lost Lone Gunman and gained CRA (Combined Ranged Attack). It is also now ROF D3 and not D3+1. On the one hand, this is pretty good. It makes for better CRA attacks. We can now do D3 CRA attacks with RAT 14 against large targets (base RAT 5 + 6 from full unit CRA + 1 from Inspiration + 2 from Volume Fire) with a POW of 19 (base 11 + 2 from Volume Fire + 6 from full unit). This is pretty good. On the other hand, it is a complete mystery why it lost and attack.

The Rocket Launcher lost AOE, but gained 2″ in range. It also exchanged ‘Jack Hunter with Brutal Damage. I would say this is an update…

Winter Korps Officer

Everybody’s favourite cheap solo is not so cheap anymore. It is now 3 points. It has lost Stand Your Ground (Set Defence) but gained Combat Coordination (RNG 5. Target friendly Faction warrior model. If the model is in range, during its activation this turn, it can reroll one attack or damage roll, then Combat Coordiantion expires.). This is actually a very good thing. I think we need a reroll more that +2 ARM when receiving a charge.

The saber went from POW 9 to POW 11. Still Weapon Master, though. This is actually a pretty good. The POW 11 is surprisingly much better than POW 9.

Finally, it lost Feign Death. That is perhaps a minor thing. However, I can’t conut the times that one of my officers have made a tough roll and then survive thanks to not being shot again.

All in all, OK.

Heavy Cannon Gate

The biggest nerf to the lovely empire is the Heavy Cannon. It used to be RNG 15, POW 16 with Momentum. Obviously a very powerfull gun. It has now been downgraded to RNG 12, still POW 16 and Momentum.

It is clear that the old Heavy Cannon made, in particular the Mastodon a very powerfull beast. Yet, it is also in many ways a defining weapon. It made the Deep Freezer more or less a non-choice. However, with the sensible upgrade to the Deep Freezer (RNG 14, POW 14/8, AOE 3, Critical Freeze), I would argue that the choice is now real.

I can also see that such a powerfull weapon in most other armies will have a shorter range. However, we haven’t got access to any extensions, such as Snipe. We are slow (in particular the Mastodon after loss of Superiority). The max range for a Mastodon was 21″. Yes, this is really far. But, compared to e.g. Storm Legion, not really. It is now, only 17″. Yes, it is in the distance, but not really.

Also, it is not like we are RAT masters. The best RAT a Mastodon can do is 7 when aiming and 5 when not. Boosted, it is hitting DEF 17 or 15 on the average. Elevation, concealment and cover will obviously change these numbers. Our arch enemy will typically be around DEF 16-17 against shooting on their ‘jacks (Deflection and Concealment/Elevation). Knockdown is obviously good. But with Empower everywhere the focus cost of standing up again is negligible.

It is even worse for the Great Bear. Typically it will only have one gun. Its range is more or less the same as the Mastodon 18″ under Superiority. The Great Bear’s Deep Freezer has received the same upgrade. So, again it was a sensible choice (under the old Heavy Cannon rules). It becomes more difficult to argue for the Heavy Cannon now. With the improved Reposition, a Great Bear can be 15″ from its target. In a shooting heavy environment this is not a lot.

I think this nerf has puts Winter Korps in a pretty weird place now. We were to a large degree a shooting army. Even though we are quickly falling behind the arch enemy, Storm Legion. Now with this nail in the coffin, I’m pretty sure we are going to loose the gun battle — hard. Also, since Baranova lost 2″ protection on her feat.

Our arch enemy has just received the Maelstrom that displays only RNG 14″ guns (and a RNG 12 spray), Stryker also presents a 14″ gun. They also have universal access to Snipe, which brings most of their guns to a minimum of 15″; and Deflection adding 2 points to DEF against Shooting. In addition to the new shoot them all ‘caster Caine 4, Huxley 1 now has Field Marshall [Reposition 5″]. Oh, and did I mention Storm Vanes? and the list goes on. With our classic Khador DEF of 10 and only (yes, I mean it) ARM 20, we are going to struggle a lot making it to the front lines.

I think a drop to 14″ would have made sense. It would still make it a real choice between the Deep Freezer and the Heavy Cannon: “Do you want AOE and Critical Freeze or Knockdown?” This would be sensible.

Another, less sensible option would be to keep a good one on the Great Bear and a bad one on the Mastodon. It is a messy solution. But, if somebody is worried about the Mastodon, only nerfing that would be an option.

I really thing that this is a redo. The Heavy Cannon must be a typo.

Summary

I have walked throug the update for Khador Winter Korps. I’m obviously bias. However, I have tried to as objective as possible. Here is a table summarising my views. I have ignore the changes to Command Cards. But, in general I’ll say I’m positive.

Model	Good	OK	Meh	Bad	Really bad
Battle Mechanik	✓
Dire Wolf		✓
Great Bear					✓
Kapitan Ekaterina Baranova				✓
Kapitan Ilari Borisyuk	✓
Kommander Tatiana Sikora		✓
Kommander Valerii Savaryn				✓
Kontroller	✓
Man-O-War Wrecking Crew			✓
Mastodon					✓
Medveditsa		✓
Mortar Team		✓
Shock Trooper Gunners			✓
Shock Trooper Pikemen			✓
Winter Korps Infantry			✓
Winter Korps Officer		✓

Summary of updates

Until next time.
For the Motherland!

Kapitan Ekaterina Baranova vs. Marshal General Baldwin Gearhart

Igor Khador — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 14:27:00 +0000

Crucible Guard is on the move again. The Liael radicalised youth is attempting to use the Orgoth invasion to stir unrest in the territories. The Empress has ordered Kapitan Ekatrina Baranova to stop Baldwin Gearhart. Curcible Guards tend to use all sorts of chemical tricks to mess with Khador armour. This battle is bloody, fast and fun.

Historical, I have had issues with Crucible Guard. Not only have every single model more rules that the entire Khador army, they are also quite adept at dealing with heavy armour. Yet, this is MK IV, so things might have improved. This Gerhart list contains a lot of medium based dudes, three Assault Troopers and one Storm Trooper. Thus, Baranova is summoned to deal with the radicalised youth of Liael. The two lists facing off are:

Khador – Winter Korps
Kapitan Ekaterina Baranova

   – Avenging Force

   – Fog of War

   – Puissance 

   – Mastodon [34]

     HEAD – Fire Support

     RIGHT SHOULDER – Heavy Cannon

     LEFT SHOULDER – Heavy Cannon

     RIGHT ARM – Great Axe

     LEFT ARM – Grinder Fist
AC-2 Bison [10]

AC-2 Bison [10]

Battle Mechanik [2]

Battle Mechanik [2]

Magziev Zariyah Volkova [4]

Winter Korps Officer [2]

Winter Korps Officer [2]

Winter Korps Officer [2]
Arkanists [4]

Man-O-War Wrecking Crew [10]

Man-O-War Wrecking Crew [10]

Winter Korps Snipers [4]

   – Winter Korps Hunting Dog [1]

Winter Korps Snipers [4]

   – Winter Korps Hunting Dog [1]
Command cards

    – Blessing of the Gods

    – Break Through

    – High Alert

    – Old Faithful

    – Power Swell
Total Points   102/100

Crucible Guard – Crucible Guard
Marshal General Baldwin Gearhart

   – Mr. Clogg
Vulcan [28]
Ascendant Mentalist [4]

Aurum Ominus Alyce Marc [5]

Crucible Guard Mechanik [1]

Crucible Guard Mechanik [1]

Doctor Alejandro Mosby [4]

Hutchuk, Ogrun Bounty Hunter [5]

Rocketman Ace [3]

Rocketman Ace [3]

Rocketman Stinger [3]

Rocketman Stinger [3]

Trancer [2]
Crucible Guard Assault Troopers [7]

Crucible Guard Assault Troopers [7]

Crucible Guard Assault Troopers [7]

Crucible Guard Storm Troopers [9]

Dragon’s Breath Rocket [4]

Dragon’s Breath Rocket [4]
Command Cards

    – Careful Reconnaissance

    – Hit & Run

    – Old Faithful

    – Power Swell

    – Sapper
TOTAL POINTS 100/100

Please not that I accidentally played this list with 102 points! Goring forward, I’m removing one Officer. krjugamer on the SFG discord has been nice and pointed it out.

Initial Thoughts

In some way, the approach from both lists are similar: only one ‘jack, but a rather large one. Gearhart brings a Vulcan and Baranova brings a Mastodon. I guess that on paper the Mastodon is better. However, Crucible typically has more support spells and weird abilities.

There are also four of the flying men, who tends to be quite mobile and generally a nuisance. The core of the infantry are the Assault Troopers. I remember them as slightly better than old Khador Man-O-Wars. So, this will be interesting. They should probably just be shot, fast. The Rockets does not worry me too much. I seem to remember that they can do some annoying cloud effects. But, I’ll probably manage.

Gearhart and Vulcan is a dangerous partnership. Not only can he cast Deceleration, which is always annoying to face, he can also cast Snipe on a Vulcan and upkeep Hot Shot. That makes for a pretty dangerous rocket and two quite annoying sprays. Mr. Clogg can also helo his master with several different guns, where I find the Catapult most annoying. It has Shadow Bind; and Baranova only has one ‘jack.

I think the plan will be something along the lines of kill as much infantry as possible with the Mastodon and the AC2-Bisons. Kill the Vulcan in close combat with the Mastodon and/or the Wrecking Crew. Snipers of objectives and normal annoyance. What could possible go wrong?

Deployment

We are playing Steamroller 2024 Scenario Battle Lines. Gearhart wins the roll-off and opts to go first. Baranova picks the side with a cloud she can hang out behind.

Gearhart deploys everything in a huge brick in the middle of the board. The Vulcan is to the left of the bulk of the army.

The situation after deployment

Baranova deploys like she always does. The Mastodon, more or less in the middle, with all the support and herself next to it. Each flank is occupied by a unit of Snipers, A Bison, a unit of Wrecking Crew and an Officer. She kind of misses the four units of Shock Troopers. But, the Wrecking Crew must suffice.

The picture above depicts the situation before the battle commences.

Round 1

Round 1 is usually rather boring. However, Baranova has a Mastodon. So it might be fun. Who knows?

End of turn 1

Gearhart advances all of his troops. Snipe goes up on Gearhart along with Deceleration. Deceleration and Assault/Shock Troopers is an unfortunate combination. This gives them +6 ARM against shooting. Boo hiss! That is it.

The picture above shows the result of Gearhart’s advancements.

End of round 1

Baranova is in a good mood. She casts Avenging Force, and with Invocation of Wrath (IoW) and Superiority on the Mastodon, it can walk into shooting distance of the Assault Troopers. So, why waste a present? The combined shooting with a AC-2 Bison and a bit of help from the Arkanists and Volkova, three Assault Troopers, one Shock Trooper and a Dragon Rocket unit disappears. Is is, so far a good day to be a Mastodon.

In addition to the lovely display of fire power, the remaining parts of Baranova’s army just advances. The two units of Snipers spread out. Everybody else just enjoy the show.

The picture above depicts the situation and the end of round 1.

Round 2

Round 2 is where the action typically happens. Gearhart is a bit annoyed that he did not pick up the measuring tape and just eye balled distances. He is now a bit wary of the Mastodon.

End of turn 1

The main event is the movement of Gearhart and some of the Assault Troopers move into the rough terrain in the middle. This obviously makes them somewhat more difficult to shoot. Not only do they get a better DEF but also the +6 to ARM. Quite disappointing, I have to say. Oh, and Gearhart shoots the Bison to the left with Shadow Bind.

A second group of Assault Troopers clutter up to the left. There was some idea behind this, that I forgot. The good doctor does his drug things, probably to make them tough. On the left, a Trancer runs up to the objective.

Finally, on the right, the Vulcan advances outside the charge range of the Mastodon. The remaining Dragon Rockets move up and shoots a rocket and the Wrecking Crew. The main effect is that they get Vengeance. Hutchuck also joins the party on the right side. Along with a dudess on a rocket, they take out the unit of Snipers (and the dog. Nobody likes dogs!)

The picture above shows how the battlefield looks after Gerhart’s response to the Mastodon shock.

End of round 2

OK. Gearhart is getting twitchy. Baranova wants to get stuff moving. She does not like the looks of the Vulcan. So, she moves to the left. Casts IoW and feats. The Mastodon assumes that the Vulcan can’t kill it and moves forward to the middle of the board. It keeps hammering on the unit in the middle hiding Gearhart.

On the left, the Snipers just hang back to score the flag. The Bison can’t move due to Shadow Bind. So it just hangs back and enjoys the view. The Wrecking Crew moves into the woods to be ready for the next turn.

On the right, the second Bison hammes away at the Vulcan, whilst staying near the objective to hopefully score at some point. The Officer charges Hutchuck but can’t manage to kill him. The second Officer runs sideways to be ready to assist. The Wrecking Crew moves forward to be ready for the Vulcan and perhaps be a little in the way.

The picture above depicts the end of round 2. Scenario score is 2-2.

Round 3

Round 3 is typically where battles get decided. Let’s see which way the wind blow. Gearhart needs to put the metal to the pedal.

End of turn 1

On the right flank, Hutchuck attempts to retaliate agains the Officer. Luckily, with out any effect. The two flying men moves towards the objective and the Bison; mostly, to be annoying – like little flies. The Dragon’s Breath moves forward and hits the Bison with Withering Humor (-2 DEF and no tough).

The left flank is rather uneventful. The last flying dude moves to the objective and the Trancer already hanging around there. I assume the Trancer was suppose to move to my Snipes. But apparently, it was napping.

The main action is in the middle, where the Mastodon learns that it is not particularly good at maths. A Vulcan filled up with focus and all the bells and whistles that Gearhart can do, can actually kill a Mastodon. It was not a overkill. But, nevertheless the Mastodon crumbles.

The picture above shows the sorry state of the battle field after the Mastodon has been reduced to scrap. Scenario score is now 4-3.

End of round 3

This is unfortunate. I was assuming that the Vulcan would make a move on the Mastodon. But, I did not expect it to kill it. On the bright side, most of the remaining army is untouched. Nevertheless, Baranova needs to step up and be creative. I do thing she feated at a good time. It is only the Vulcan that is in her battle line.

On the left flank, the Bison haven’t got anything better to do than move to the left and kill the Trancer. Second shot goes into the Vulcan that really needs to go away. The Officer moves behind the Bison for Cover and gives Pathfinder to the Wrecking Crew.

In the middle, the Arkanists lost their ‘jack so it is spray time. They move up and spray the Vulcan. Obviously, Baranova has activated first to cast IoW. Next up is the Mechanik who moves up, shoots and spray the Vulcan. The second Officer gives the other unit of Wrecking Crew Pathfinder as well. It is wrecking time.

The left most Wrecking Crew charges the Vulcan a brings a lot of hurt. We like Puissance. They are followed by the second unit of Wrecking Crew who thinks this looks like fun. They charge, and when the smoke settles the Vulcan is no more.

Nothing significant happens on the right flank. Stuff attempts to hit stuff with no real effect.

The picture above demonstrates the result of Baranova getting her act together. Scenario score is now 6-5 in Gearhart’s favour.

Round 4

Both armies are now left with only the infantry (and tanks in Baranova’s case). Let’s see how Gearhart retaliates.

End of turn 1

Gearhart starts by sending the flying dude on the left down behind the house with the flag to contest the point. Another flying dude move to the middle objective and kills some Arkanists. On the right flank, it is business as usually, people hit each other to no effect.

The real party is in the middle. Obviously, killing the Vulcan did provoke some negative sentiment among the remaining Crucible Guards. They decide to take their anger out on the Wrecking Crews.

The Assault Troopers charge the Wrecking Crew and manage to take out two members of the unit to the right. Some of the other models also attempts to take out the second unit, without any luck. This inspires Gearhart to join the party. He charges the last Wrecking Crew member of the rightmost unit. Luckily, he did not have a full breakfast and is to weak to kill the model.

Gearhart’s revenge was surprisingly weak. No units disappeared. The turn ends with a scenario score of 8-5 in Gearhart’s favour. The picture above depicts the situation and the end of the first turn of round 4.

End of round 4, end of game

Baranova is getting behind on scenario point. So, she really needs to either get some points or just kill Gearhart. Luckily, Gearhart got greedy and manage to place himself in the middle of the board with four annoyed Wrecking Crew members nearby. So, killing Gearhart is the plan.

Kumbaya my lord…

If I was a better player I would probably have played scenario score first and then the assassination run second. But, I’m not. So, all the Wrecking Crew charge in. They roll some dice and to no big surprise Gearhart goes down.

The picture to the left shows Gearhart surrounded by a bunch of Wrecking Crew singing Kumbaya my lord just before Gearhart leaves the party.

This ends the game in round 4. The picture above depicts the end of the game. Scenario score ends at 10-5 in Gearhart’s favour. He would have won if he did not get greedy.

Final Thoughts

Fun game with a lot of cool stuff happening. On the less cool side, I clearly underestimated the robustness of the Mastodon. It does a lot of work. Yet, it is not as survivable as it looks. Also, I still need to be better at scenario. They are very important in Steamroller.

I think I’m getting better at piloting this list. I think that Snipers might have found their place. Park them near a flag and forget them. Bisons are cool. They are quite robust but not really dealing a lot of damage.

Until next time.
For the Motherland!

Shock Trooper Pikemen – The Unpolished Gem?

Igor Khador — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 19:53:00 +0000

The Shock Trooper Pikemen have long been sitting idle in the Khador barracks waiting for some action. Partly because other parts of the Khador military has been busy. Yet, also partly because I haven’t been able to figure out what to do with them. Baranova brought four units to this year’s WTC and they seem to be performing. So, here are some musing over what the Pikemen can do, which Warcasters do what, and how to polish the gem.

Shock Trooper Pikemen are probably an uncut gem in the Empress’ arsenal. They can be made quite a lot more dangerous than what they look on their card. Here I’ll go thorough the basics of the Pikemen; how to keep them alive, getting them to the enemy, and getting them to kill stuff. I’ll also go through what our different ‘casters can do for them.

The basics of the Shock Trooper Pikemen

Shock Trooper Pikemen comes in units of three, all on 40 mm bases. They come with build in Resistance to fire, cold and blast (roll one less die when damaged, also immune to Fire continuous effect); which is nice. They have a base ARM of 16 and Shield Wall (+2 ARM when base to base, and no knockdown); and five boxes. This is pretty OK. Although, anyone with POW 15 in melee or shooting will take a model out (POW 13 on the charge). Their DEF of 12 is not really helping here. So, keeping them alive before they can engage is a challenge (see ‘Keeping them alive’ below).

Offensively, the Shock Troopers come with a range 2″ Blasting Pike at POW 15 and Critical Armor Piercing, and a range 1″ Shield at POW 10; both delivered at MAT 7. They will hit DEF 14 on the average and do 22 points of damage from the Pike and 17 points of damage from the Shield. They do have Combined Melee Attack (CMA), which gives interesting options.

Weapon	MAT	Avg. DEF	POW	Avg. dam.	Avg. dam. charge
Pike	7	14	15	22	26
Shield	7	14	10	17	21
CMA (2)	9	16	17	24	N/A
CMA (3)	10	17	18	25	N/A

Properties of different attack modes for the Pikemen

A very normal straight forward charge would be charging with the Pike and then hitting with the Shield. Assuming that they can hit, that would give an average damage of 26 + 17 (we are ignoring Critical Armor Piercing as there is only a 14% chance on two dice).

They clock in at 7 points per unit, which is OK, I guess. However, their biggest handicap is their speed of 5″. This gives them a charge range of a mere 8″ and a pike-poking-distance of 10″. It is a very static charge distance that we really can’t do anything about (except for Yana and the Sky Raider, which is covered below).

Keeping them alive

The main issue with the Shock Troopers is actually keeping them alive until they can wreck havoc. Having only DEF 12 (which is actually high for Khador) isn’t going to help them a lot. Most people, and their grandma can hit them. On the average only a MAT/RAT of 5 is required.

First and foremost, we can screen them against shooting. The Man-O-War Suppressors quite nicely fill the role here. They are 50 mm bases, pretty robust and like to shoot stuff. So advancing behind a line of Suppressors could do the trick.

Another interesting option is the AC-2 Bison. It is really robust and offers cover (+4 DEF against ranged and arcane attacks, and +2 DEF against melee for being an obstacle). That is a respectable DEF 16 against shooting (we are looking at RAT 9 or boosting to hit), and DEF 14 against melee. Two units fits nicely behind a Bison and the troopers are Blast Resistant. The only main annoyance to this is Sprays, which ignores cover.

Finally, the Winter Korps Officer can hand out Stand Your Ground, giving them Set Defence. That is DEF 14 against charges and slams.

With respect to using Command Cards, there are a few option: Defences, could give then a Barrier to hide out behind, giving them Cover: Infiltration would give one unit Stealth for one round; High Alert could give somebody nearby Shield Guard; and finally, True Inspiration could give them Tough.

The main problem here is obviously that cards can only do something for one unit for one round. This is of course better than nothing, yet not a pretty sustainable way of keeping them alive.

Other options can be found in our Rack Spells: Fog of War is the first, and most universal. Everybody gets Concealment (+2 DEF against shooting and arcane attacks). This would bring the Pikemen to DEF 14 against shooting (RAT 7 needed to hit them on the average), which is ok; the second option is Iron Flesh (+2 ARM), which would bring them to ARM 20 in Shield Wall. It would then require POW 18 to kill them on the average; finally, Weald Secrets is an option. Stealth is nice for one unit. Finally, there is, of course the card True Inspiration for giving one unit Tough for one round.

My choice would be either advancing behind a wall of Suppressors, potentially in combination with Fog of War; or advancing behind a Bison (the latter is clearly the coolest).

Getting them into the fray

Not only do they need to survive until they can actually hit the lines, they also need to get there as fast as possible. Unfortunately, we currently haven’t got any sure way of speeding them up (except for Yara below). There are basically only two way of helping them. Either be enlisting the assistance of a Winter Korps Officer giving them March (Pathfinder). Then at least they won’t be too much hindered by terrain.

The second one is through playing cards: Hit & Run card, which will give one model Reposition 3″; Duck and Cover! gives a unit Cover for one round (DEF 16 against shooting); Careful Reconnaissance for Pathfinder for one unit, one round; Infiltration for Stealth for one unit, one round; and obviously Defence to have things to hide behind. The problem with cards is that there are typically a lot of cool cards that you want for some other reason, and that is it typically one unit, one round.

Making them kill stuff

The Pikemen are obviously capable of killing stuff (see also the basics above). However, it is always nice to make them kill more or harder stuff. Killing stuff boils down to hitting it and then inflicting as much damage as possible.

They are already, out of box equipped with MAT 7, which will hit DEF 14 on the average. That is pretty OK in itself. Unfortunately, we don’t really have any good way of fixing MAT, except for what specific Warcasters can do for them. The only thing we can do is to either knock models down or make them stationary; and we do have the arsenal for that.

Model	Knockdown	Knockdown (crit)	Stationary	Stationary (crit)
AC-2 Bison	Momentum
Dire Wolf		Cannon		Ice Hammer
Great Bear	Slammer Head	Battle Mace		Deep Freezer
	Heavy Cannon	Blasting Fist
Kontroller			Freeze spray
Mastodon	Heavy Cannon			Deep Freezer
Medveditsa	Grab & Smash
Volkova				Hoarfrost
Wrecking Crew		Smite

Who can help the Pikemen hit stuff

As the table above shows, we do have quite a lot of options to either knock things down or make them stationary. As always, one should not base a plan around Critical Effect, since there is only roughly a 14% chance of that happening. However, non-critical effects are quite likeable. The most consistent way is of course getting help from ‘jacks as they can boost to hit (and with a bit of luck Aim). Unfortunately, they tend to cap out at RAT 5, which of course is RAT 7 boosted if aiming (hitting DEF 17 on the average).

Spell wise, we only have two rack spells that can help: Freezing Grip for Stationary (at a hefty price of 4 Focus) and Tempest for Knockdown (also at 4 Focus). Not a terrible viable solution in my mind, as our ‘casters often can’t spare 4 Focus.

So, once we have hit the opponent, either through our own effort alone or be enlisting help, we would like to deal as much damage as possible. The first solution here is obviously to charge! That is 26 points of damage on the average. Again, there really isn’t any general, army wide solution for increasing this. The only general approach is the Rack Spells: Puissance. This gives a +2 to damage rolls and Beatback. That would be an average of 28 points of damage on the charge and a Beatback.

What can the Warcasters do for them?

Pikemen unassisted by specific Warcaster will be somewhere between ARM 16 and 20; between DEF 12 and 18; moving at SPD 5, potentially with Pathfinder; hitting at anywhere between MAT 7 and 10, with anywhere between POW 10 and POW 28. The six, currently available Warcaster can help them in different ways.

Kapitan Ekaterina Baranova

Baranova doesn’t do a lot to keep them alive. She can to a certain degree help them with getting near the enemy; or rather getting the enemy near them as she has Gallows to pull models in. She is, first and foremost, a Invocation of Wrath bot. Having an extra dice on to hit, whilst dropping the lowest move a MAT 7 Pikeman from hitting DEF 14 on the average to hitting DEF 15 (rounded down). Finally, Banishing Ward might come in handy if somebody has cast a nasty spell on the Pikemen.

Her feat is also pretty good for both keeping them alive, and to a certain degree getting them delivered. Storm of Ages stop enemy models activating in her control range (14″) from charging, slamming and trampeling, and gives enemy models -2 SPD. Finally, if the opponent tries to shoot somebody or cast spells on them, they will have -4 RNG. This is really good for protecting Pikemen (and everybody else) on the way to the frontline.

Baranova is so-so in helping the Pikemen.

Kapitan Ilari Borisyuk

Illari is also not the born Pikemen ‘caster. He doesn’t really do anything for the Pikemen. Boris is not particularly helpful.

Kapitan Yana Kovoskiy

Kapitan Yana actually does offer a couple of very interesting things to the Pikemen. She doesn’t really do anything to keep the alive. However, quite importantly she helps them getting there fastish. She can (and will) cast Dash! A whole extra inch on SPD suddenly allows a pike-poking-distance of a mighty 11″.

Once within pike-poking-distance, she does offer quite a lot. Her spell Spirit Fang can lower an opponents DEF with 2, making the Pikemen effectively base MAT 9. He feat gives them Cleave and Overtake, which offers more attacks and more manoeuvrability once engaged (assuming that the Pikemen kill something). Finally, the gold: Battle Lust. I have missed that spell. An additional die on melee damage roll, whilst loosing 2 DEF.

Battle Lust really cranks up the damage output. Additional dice is golden. That is four dice on a charge. See the table below for a summary of the average damage output under Battle Lust.

Weapon	MAT	Avg. DEF	POW	Avg. dam.	Avg. dam. charge
Pike	7	14	15	26	29
Shield	7	14	10	21	24
CMA (2)	9	16	17	28	N/A
CMA (3)	10	17	18	29	N/A

Damage output of Pikemen under Battle Lust

Combining Battle Lust and her feat really makes for a lot of fun. The dream scenario is obviously charging in, doing 3 pike attacks at 29 points of damage, followed by 3 shield attacks at 21 points of damage, and the additional 3 Cleave attacks with the pike for an additional three times 26 points of damage. Obviously, it could also be any combination of CMA attacks, plus Cleave. Unfortunately, it is impossible to combine Battle Lust and Puissance, since they are both upkeeps. That would have been fun! She can, of course have Battle Lust on one unit and Puissance on another. Making two pretty dangerous Pikemen units.

Yana is for sure a helpful lady.

Kapitan Zahara Vilkul

The newest addition to the Warcaster stable is Zahara. Out of the box, she doesn’t really do much for the Pikemen. The only thing she do is her feat, Pall of Ashes. It opens up many interesting options. However, it requires skill, the right terrain and a bit of luck to really do something consistently for the Pikemen.

The feat can help, both getting the Pikemen into the fray and killing stuff. It produces d3+3 cloud effect, which can help getting there. These clouds allow for friendly models to move through obstructions (kind of a poor mans Ghostwalk). It also gives Pathfinder. In addition, if put on an enemy, they get -2 DEF, -2 to hit and looses tough. One only has to be within the template for friendly and enemy effects to work.

Zahara doesn’t really do a lot for the Pikemen.

Kommander Tatiana Sikora

The cadre caster, Tatiana Sikora can do quite a few things for the Pikemen. She can help keeping them alive, getting into the fray and making them kill stuff.

Tatiana’s feat improves the probability of keeping the Pikemen alive. It does, however require that they are in melee. Her feat gives Unyielding (+2 ARM against melee attacks) in her control range (14″). This will bring them to ARM 20, which is pretty OK. With 5 boxes, an enemy needs a POW 18 to kill them on the average, or a POW 15 on the charge. So, once they have dug into the enemy’s lines, it will help.

Tatiana comes with Tactical Supremacy on her spell list, which helps getting them into the fray. This gives Reposition [3″] for one unit. Reposition is nice and can help one unit to advance more. However, there is a tradeoff. Spreading out a unit with Reposition allows them to cover much more real estate for the next round. However, Spreading out Pikemen removes their Shield Wall, which makes them quite soft and squishy.

Where Tatiana shines is in making Pikemen Kill stuff. First off, is the second half of her feat. It gives a reroll on attack rolls, which always help. In addition, she has Positive Charge on the spell list. Put it on a ‘jack and park the ‘jack within 3″ of Pikemen and they get +2 to hit and +2 POW, bringing them to MAT 9, POW 17 before more fun. Bring Damien Korovik and do it with two ‘jacks.

Tatiana can make one unit pretty dangerous. If she picks Puissance (+2 to damage) for the rack, cast it on a unit of Pikemen, park a ‘jack nearby with Positive Charge, the damage potential really adds up. It is quite similar to the damage output under Battle Lust with Yana, just a teeny bit better; and better MAT.

Weapon	MAT	Avg. DEF	POW	Avg. dam.	Avg. dam. charge
Pike	9	16	19	26	30
Shield	9	16	14	21	25
CMA (2)	11	18	21	28	N/A
CMA (3)	12	19	22	29	N/A

Damage output of Pikemen under Puissance and Positive Charge

Tatiana can also be a rather helpful lady.

Kommanders Valerii Savaryn

The final Warcaster, so far, is the poster boy Savaryn. To keep them alive, he does two things: the spell Rock Wall gives a nice Obstacle to get cover from and the Battle Plan – At All Cost give another unit Shield Guard to divert shots from ht Pikemen.

The only thing he does for getting them into the fray is another Battle Plan – Precision Strike, which allows models to move through other models. Pretty neat for not getting in way of each other.

Finally, once they are at the battle line, the Battle Plan – Kill order is pretty good as it is not tied to a friendly unit, but the enemy model/unit exposed to it. It gives +2 to hit and +2 damage. This gives him the ability to make Pikemen as brutal as Tatiana above. In particular, if he racks Puissance (see table under Tatiana, above).

Savaryn does a bit for the Pikemen.

How I like to run the Pikemen

I have had some success running four pikemen units under Baranova with two Bisons and a Mastodon. However, I don’t think it is the best configuration. I’m suggesting two different configurations: Tatiana or Yana.

Tatiana is the slow lady, at least of these two. She relies on slow and steady, and once her armies get there, they’ll beat the crap out of the opponent. It should not be any surprise that she really likes Man-O-Wars. Perhaps even so much that she would actually prefer them over Pikemen. Nevertheless, she can run them quite well.

Below (to the left) is the core model that would make up a Tatiana Pikemen list. Obviously, all the pikemen she can bring. A couple of officers to help out and work with objectives. Damien is there to, primarily cast an extra Positive Charge on a ‘jack. Finally, two units of Suppressors to march in front of the Pikemen. This clocks in at 57 points, leaving 43 points to play around with.

My suggestions for the additional 43 points can be see to the right below. In addition to the core list, Sergei is there to support the Man-O-wars. There are two of the inexpensive, yet very versatile Dire Wolfs (my favourite configuration). The have Shield Guard and Anchor; and take Positive Charge really well. Finally, a Great Bear to hang around Tatiana as a bodyguard, shoot something and knock it down. In the late game it is also a pretty good hard hitter.

Kommander Tatiana Sikora
   – Fog of War
   – Puissance
Winter Korps Officer [2]

Winter Korps Officer [2]
Koldun Lord Damien Korovnik [3]    
Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Man-O-War Suppressors [11]

Man-O-War Suppressors [11]
Command cards

    – High Alert

    – Hit & Run

    – True Inspiration
Total Points   57/100

Kommander Tatiana Sikora
   – Fog of War
   – Puissance
   – Dire Wolf [9]
     HEAD – Shield Guard
     RIGHT ARM – Ice Hammer
     LEFT ARM – Plow-Shield
   – Dire Wolf [9]
     HEAD – Shield Guard
     RIGHT ARM – Ice Hammer
     LEFT ARM – Plow-Shield
   – Dire Wolf [10]
   – Great Bear [16]
     HEAD – Aggressive
     RIGHT ARM – Heavy Cannon
     LEFT ARM – Heavy Cannon Shield
Winter Korps Officer [2]

Winter Korps Officer [2]

Koldun Lord Damien Korovnik [3]

Sergeant Sergei Krol [5]
Arkanists [4]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Man-O-War Suppressors [11]

Man-O-War Suppressors [11]
Command cards

    – High Alert

    – Hit & Run

    – Old Faithful

    – Power Swell

    – True Inspiration
Total Points   100/100

The second option, and perhaps the one I prefer is Yana. She is fast, so she needs a fast army. Below (to the left) is the core list, consisting of: Two Bisons can keep up and the Pikemen can tag along behind them for the sweet cover; and two officers are there to do what they do best. This leaves us with 48 points to play around with.

My suggestion for filling the 48 points can be seen below, to the right. I like the Mastodon. Inspired by the experiences with Baranova running a Mastodon, that module fits nicely to Yana. The standard Mastodon-module consists of: the Mastodon, a Mechanik, Volkova, a unit of Arkanists, Blessing of the Gods, Old Faithful, and Superiority. She will also bring a unit of snipers to ba annoying.

Kapitan Yana Kovoskiy
   – Fog of War
   – Puissance
AC-2 Bison [10]

AC-2 Bison [10]

Winter Korps Officer [2]

Winter Korps Officer [2]
Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]
Command cards

    – High Alert

    – Hit & Run

    – True Inspiration
Total Points   52/100

Kapitan Yana Kovoskiy
   – Superiority
   – Puissance
   – Mastodon [34]
     HEAD – Fire Support
     RIGHT SHOULDER – Heavy Cannon
     LEFT SHOULDER – Heavy Cannon
     RIGHT ARM – Great Axe
     LEFT ARM – Grinder Fist
AC-2 Bison [10]

AC-2 Bison [10]

Battle Mechanik [2]

Magziev Zariyah Volkova [4]

Winter Korps Officer [2]

Winter Korps Officer [2]
Arkanists [4]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Winter Korps Snipers [4]
Command cards

    – Blessing of the Gods

    – High Alert

    – Hit & Run

    – Old Faithful

    – True Inspiration
Total Points   100/100

These are currently my two favourite list for the Pikemen. They are still quite a lot therorycrafting. However, they will be heavily tested shortly.

Exotic tricks

In addition to the polishing tools offered within the friendly Faction models, there are some slightly more exotic options when employing mercenaries, which might, or might not be good. The current available mercenaries can help in the following ways

Alexia, Queen of the Damned can, in some strange way help keeping them alive. She has Death Toll on her sword, which returns a grunt nearby when killing something. She can do the same thing using Grim Returns as a Star Action. This is obviously nice if somebody manages to kill one of the Pikemen.

Krueger, Wrath of Blighterghast has Burning Blight, which can help them kill stuff. It gives +1 to attack rolls within 5″ (also for the enemy), and Ashen Veil (-2 to attack rolls), which the Pikemen are immun to, but will benefit from.

Final remarks and wishes for the future

If you made it here, I’m impressed. I really think that the Pikemen are really underrated.

I would really like to see a Shock Trooper Officer or something like that. Some way of speeding up the Pikemen would be golden. Whether that is a solo or unit attachment, I think is unimportant. Another, less reliable option would be one giving the Tough, which would be very nice as they already are immune to knockdown when in a Shield Wall.

Let’s see if they can bring pain to our enemies. Until next time.

For the Motherland!

The Motherland at the WTC – third time’s a charm? (day 2)

Igor Khador — Sat, 31 Aug 2024 20:06:00 +0000

This is the third time in a row the Motherland goes to WTC. This year it is in Düsseldorf. Mark IV is now a real thing, compared to last year where it was very much in transition. So, I’m finally brining two proper Winter Korps lists. I’m bringing Tatiana, with all the Man-O-Wars and Baranova with a Mastodon. This is the second day of action. The first day went far over expectation. So, let’s see how day two proceeds.

I went to WTC in 2022 and 2023. Both times were so much fun that I’m returning this year (for a walk through of my experiences for 2022, see here; and for the 2023 experience see here). All list for this year’s WTC are available online. I’ll do this in two parts. This is the second part, covering the second day. For the report on day one see here.

My ambitions is, as always to win at least one and not end up last. So currently I’m over performing. I’m 2-1 so far! I’m not going to do a long a complicated write-up; I’ll just go briefly go through each battle and see if there are any lessons learned.

This year’s Winter Korps lists are Kommander Tatiana Sikora in a heavy armour Man-O-War list and Kapitan Ekaterina Baranova is a (Khador) nimble list. Winter Korps is a big thing at this year’s WTC. According to Longshanks, there were 17 players using the Motherland. The third most popular army. I’ll include the lists and the short description here for completeness sake. So, without any further ado, here are my two lists:

Khador – Winter Korps
Kommander Tatiana Sikora

   – Iron Flesh

   – Puissance

   – Dire Wolf [9]

     HEAD – Shield Guard

     RIGHT ARM – Ice Hammer

     LEFT ARM – Plow-Shield

   – Dire Wolf [9]

     HEAD – Shield Guard

     RIGHT ARM – Ice Hammer

     LEFT ARM – Plow-Shield

   – Dire Wolf [10]

     HEAD – Shield Guard

     RIGHT ARM – Long Axe

     LEFT ARM – Plow-Shield
Koldun Lord Damien Korovnik [3]

Sergeant Sergei Krol [5]

Winter Korps Officer [2]

Winter Korps Officer [2]
Arkanists [4]

Arkanists [4]

Man-O-War Suppressors [11]

Man-O-War Suppressors [11]                             

Man-O-War Wrecking Crew [10]

Man-O-War Wrecking Crew [10]

Winter Korps Snipers [4]

   – Winter Korps Hunting Dog [1]

Winter Korps Snipers [4]

   – Winter Korps Hunting Dog [1]
Command cards

    – Careful Reconnaissance

    – Hit & Run

    – Old Faithful

    – Power Swell

    – Put the Fires Out
Total Points   100/100

Khador – Winter Korps
Kapitan Ekaterina Baranova

   – Avenging Force

   – Fog of War

   – Freezing Grip

   – Mastodon [34]

     HEAD – Fire Support

     RIGHT SHOULDER – Heavy Cannon

     LEFT SHOULDER – Heavy Cannon

     RIGHT ARM – Great Axe

     LEFT ARM – Grinder Fist
AC-2 Bison [10]

AC-2 Bison [10]

Battle Mechanik [2]

Battle Mechanik [2]

Magziev Zariyah Volkova [4]

Winter Korps Officer [2]

Winter Korps Officer [2]

Winter Korps Officer [2]
Arkanists [4]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]
Command cards

    – Blessing of the Gods

    – Break Through

    – High Alert

    – Old Faithful

    – Power Swell
Total Points   100/100

Winter Korps under Kommander Tatiana Sikora

What can I say? I like Man-O-Wars. Big stumpy infantry, which according to the ad material are neigh unstoppable. So, the arrival of the Annihilator Cadre really made my day as the Suppressors finally got some company in the shape of the Wrecking Crew, a sergeant and an new Man-O-War ‘caster (we all remember the last incarnation of Sorscha).

I have basically taken all the Man-O-Wars that I’m allowed to; save for two Kontrollors (who actually might be pretty cool, but that is for another time). Who better to lead this wall of steel than Tatiana; herself in a Man-O-War armour? As a side note, it seems that female Man-O-War soldiers are smaller than there male counter parts. Once again, she is only on a 40 mm base, whereas everybody else in on a 50 mm base.

The plan is pretty simple. Walk across the field with the Suppressors in front shooting stuff. Follow up with the Wrecking Crew once the lines meet. Finally, have som ‘jacks as a backup plan. Snipers for score, contesting and being annoying. That’s it. How hard can it be?

Winter Korps under Kapitan Ekaterina Baranova

I have been playing Tatiana to some degree. The second list is quite new to me (yes, I’m really well prepared). I got a Mastodon and really wanted to field it. I did manage to paint it. It was done, along with the rest of the army the night before I left for Germany.

I also have two Bisons, and true to my creed of always duplicating I wanted two in the list. Baranova seems like a pretty good choice. Obviously, I’m not going to use the whole “get focus when stuff gets killed by magic” (which I actually think is a trap). However, her main spell Invocation of Wrath is golden for a shooty list of things that are not terrible good at hitting.

To fill up the list, I took all the Pike men I’m allowed. I actually thing that they are the unpolished gem of the Khador military. But more on that in another post, perhaps. Finally, a bit of support to keep everything running smoothly.

Again, I’m sticking to simple plans. The Mastodon in the middle with its entourage (Mechaniks, Volkova, Arkanists and Baranova. A Bison on each flank with two units of Pike men coming up behind it. Shoot alot and finish off with the Pike men. Again, how hard can it be?

Round 4 — Spanish Khymera

First up is a Spanish team. Despite having argued that I can’t see how Khador (or at least my Khador) can do anything about Khymera, I manage to get paired up with exactly that. This list contains two Wyverns and the ubiquitous pig.

Perhaps even more importantly, the time of nation relevant armies seems to been over. I fail to find any thing linking Spain to Khymera. The closest I get is black foot pigs, which is a delicacy. Yet, this year pigs are everywhere. So…

We are playing Wolves at our Heels with two 50 mm objectives (Cohort models), two 40 mm objectives (units) and two caches (pick up the opponent’s cache). In addition, we get to move objectives. I don’t think it is a match for Baranova (nor Tatiana, for that matter). I’m pretty sure that I can’t protect the Mastodon from the two Wyverns and the pig; and the Mastodon is a pretty big investment in the list. So, Tatiana fields her Man-O-Wars. The very nice Spanish player, who it turns out is a mercenary, plays the following list:

Khymaera – Shadowflame Shard
Shyryss, the Flawless Dark

   – Silence of Death

   – Execration of Blackest Night

   – Curse of Shadows

   – Vipex [10]

     HEAD – Asp [1]

     TAIL – Hunter’s Mark [3]

     ARMS – Cleavers [6]
Wyvern [1]

Wyvern [1]

Bellighul, Master of Pain [4]

Carver Ultimus [20]

   – War Boar MMD47
Quick Fang Stalkers [7]

   – Quick Fang Master

Quick Fang Stalkers [7]

Talon Lashers [7]

Wyrmspine Shadowmancers [5]
Command cards

   – Blessing of the Gods

   – Break Through

   – Careful Reconnaissance

   – Hit & Run

   – Power Swell
Total points 100/100

The roll off happens and Shyryss decides to go first. The picture below shows the battle field before all the mayhem.

End of deployment

Shyryss’ first turn is quite uneventful. All the troops move into position. It is a very matriculate advancement with lots of measurement and sticks on the table. It seems that the single shot assassination plan is already taking place. The picture below shows the end of the Khymera advancements.

End of turn 1, round 1

Tatiana looks at the pig and the two mighty Wyverns. She has earlier, during camping done some maths and figure out that actually hurting the pig with the Suppressors is not really a possibility. The Wyverns are a bit easier.

It is quite important to not get charged by the Wyverns. So, the army advances in a pretty well ordered straight line, staying out of the Wyverns’ range. The picture below depicts the end of Tatiana’s first turn.

End of round 1

Round two, party time. Shyryss is still very much in love with the measuring tape and measuring sticks. The advancement is slow and attempts are made to bait Tatiana into moving. It is only on the left flank where somebody is approaching the objective. The picture below shows the end of Shyryss’ second turn.

End of turn 1, round 2

Tatiana is a bit bored. Objectives need to be grabbed in a small hope of actually doing something clever in this game. The Snipers on the left flank moves about, trying to fight whatever small models have arrived near the objective. The snipers on the right flank advances to get near the objective.

Most of the action is in the middle. The Suppressors to the left advances and shoots the pig. One model get a Reposition card to get base to base with the pig. One of the Dire Wolfs also runs to the pig to try and engage it. Everybody else advances and spread out to ensure that the Wyverns can’t land anywhere near Tatiana. The picture below shows what happens when Tatiana takes the bait.

End of round 2

From here it goes really fast. So fast that the photographer forgot to take a picture. More reprimands will be given once back home.

In short, the pig does pig things, move, bulldoze and shots the crap out of the Dire Wolf and one of the Wrecking Crew. Somebody else contributes and clear a landing spot for a Wyvern. The Wyvern has all sorts of spells cast on it by Shyryss, so does Tatiana. In goes the Wyvern and eats Tatiana.

That was it. Quite as expected. I was thinking that it really was pointless to put models on the table. But, it is interesting to see what they could do. Basically nothing. I’m not going to complain about double Wyverns. They are dangerous but can probably be managed. Combined with the pig. That is just silly. I do have to admit, though. That my game was the only one that my opponent won. So, that clearly points to the core problem being the pilot of the Khador list, which is not an unfamiliar problem.

Nevertheless, nice opponent and good game. Our team managed a 0-5. So, I was not the only one messing it up.

Round 5 — US Brineblood

Final opponent this year is saltwater trolls from across the great sea. I have never faced the pirate trolls before. So, this will be fun.

We are playing Battle lines with two 40 mm objectives (units), two 30 mm objectives (solos), and two flags (models). I think planting the Mastodon in the middle between the two 40 mm will be nice. So, Baranova is summoned. The lovely American fields the following US-pirates:

Southern Kriels – Brineblood Marauders
Admiral Boomhowler

   – Black Spot

   – Fortify

   – Fortune

   – Deepborn Dire Troll [14]

     HEAD – Cantankerous [3]

     FIN – Spearback [3]

     TAIL – Hammerhead [5]

     ARMS – Shark Skull Gauntlet [3]

   – Reef Troll [7]

     HEAD – Matey

     BOOZE – Grog Cask [1]

     RIGHT ARM – Harpoon [4]

     LEFT ARM – Boarding Axe [2]
Vorogger [12]

Booty Boss [3]

Booty Boss [3]

Fire Guardian [1]

Fire Guardian [1]

First Mate Hargor Stormjaw [4]

Madame Moriarty [3]

Pyg Battle Brig [11]

Surgeon [3]

Surgeon [3]
Marauder Crew [6]

   – Marauder Crew Bosun [3]

Marauder Crew [6]

   – Marauder Crew Bosun [3]

Marauder Crew [6]

   – Marauder Crew Quartermaster [4]

Marauder Crew [6]

   – Marauder Crew Tapper [1]
Command cards

   – Blessing of the Gods

   – Careful Reconnaissance

   – Hit & Run

   – Power Swell

   – Put the Fires Out
Total points 100/100

Boomhowler wins the roll off and goes first. She deploys everything in a nice line. Baranova follows the standard deployment with the Mastodon in the middle, and a Bison plus two units of Pikeman on each flank. The picture below shows the deployment. Please note that my opponent forgot to deploy the two Fire Guardians as he mistook it for terrain. He was allowed to “deploy” them after his turn. So they pop up on the left side of the next picture.

End of deployment

First turn, Boomhowler advance her troops and spread them out a bit. She really would like to keep out of range of the Mastodon’s guns. That it. The picture below shows the end of the first turn.

End of turn 1, round 1

Baranova is up. On the right flank, the Bison and two units of Pikemen advance in the standard manner. On the left side, an attempt is made to do them same. However, I discover that I forgot that the 2D terrain was actually an impassable. So, they need to move around it. The officer runs to the behind the house to get into position to the objective for the next round. The Mastodon move up the middle, with the rest trailing behind it. The picture below shows the end of round 1.

End of round 1

Second round starts with Boomhowler moving Marauders forward on the right flank. Some of all the attachments and solos does all sorts of tricks to make them tough and what not. The balloon moves into the forest. The rest of her models move cautiously forward. The picture below shows the end of Boomhowler’s moving her troops about.

End of turn 1, round 2

Baranova needs to get stuff rolling. On the right side the Bison charges into the Marauders. It does a little and puts some shots into the balloon. The Pikemen follow up the charge into the Marauders. Marauders are pretty hard to kill. The Mastodon moves up and kills the Balloon. It also slams the Reef Troll, I think.

The two remaining Pikemen units moves up and lines up next to the Mastodon. The leftmost Bison also moves up to put some pressure on the objective. This is best done by killing one of the Fire Guardians. The rest moves up behind the line. Baranova feats. The picture below depicts the situation after first blood.

End of round 2

Boomhowler strikes back; and what a strike. Maraudes are pretty hard hitting. Despite Baranova’s feat, I basically loose all Pikemen, save one. Also the right most Bison disappears in a cloud. This is horrible.

In one short turn, Baranova goes from being kind of OK to be really on her heels. Pikemen do not survie charges from Marauders. ARM 18 and 5 boxes is not nearly enough. Anyway, the picture below shows what remains after Boomhowler’s revenge.

End of turn 1, round 3

Baranova is in trouble. Yet, there is only one way and that is forward. Attempts are made to clean up the objective on the right. However, the Pikeman is clearly shaken and doesn’t really perform. As so many times before it is up to the Royal Mechaniks Society. A Mechanik charges and removes two Marauders.

The Mastodon start up cleaning services. It removes the Vorogger, or Frog with the tongue. A few Marauders and slams the Reef Troll once again.

In the middle, Baranova moves back into the woods. The Arkanists move forward. So does Volkova. On the left, the Bison attempts to do things, without much luck. The Officer charges the remaining Fire Guardian and does nothing. The picture below shows how it looks when Baranova is hanging on with what little remains.

End of round 3

Boomhowler is in great form and is ready to continue the onslaught. On the left side, the Marauders clean out the Bison and the Officer, and moves towards the flag in the bottom left. On the right side, the last Pikeman and the Mechaniks keep the line. In the middle, the Deepborn charges the Mastodon and does some damage. Boomhowler moves out of harms way. The picture below depicts “going down hill in snow” by Ekaterina Baranova.

End of turn 1, round 4

Scenario is actually 2-1 in Baranova’s favour. So not all is lost. The Mastodon is in shape. On the right side, the combined might of the Pikeman and the Mechanik finally clears out the objective. Baranova moves up behind the Mastodon and it goes to work. Some Marauders go away. Not an impressive amount, though. The last Officer runs to contest the objective on the right. That is it. The picture below shows Baranova on overtime.

End of round 4

Boomhowler continues the pressure. Marauders are now at the flag. The last Officer dies valiantly. Some troll moves to the objective on the right. The picture below shows further down the slippery slope.

End of turn 1, round 5

Not a whole lot of time left on the clock. So, it is a matter of grabbing scenario points. The Mastodon moves to the flag on the left. The right side is attempted to be cleaned out, with no luck. Time’s up. We end up at a scenario score of 5-7 in Boomhowler’s favour. The picture below shows the end of the slope.

End of round 5, end of game

This was a really fun game. Very lovely opponent. I loose on time, but was loosing anyway. Scenarion was 5-7 in Boomhowler’s favour.

Saltwater trolls are surprisingly rough. On paper Maraudes look almost benign. However, they can really stack buffs, making them really hard. I don’t think I managed to kill many of them. More experience with these pirates are clearly needed.

The team again went 0-5. So, I’m not alone.

Summary & Lessons Learned

This was fantastic. This year’s WTC was very well organised. Everybody I met were fantastic, as they always are in the Warmachine world.

Somehow I managed to over perform. My goal was to win one match. I managed to go 2-3. As a sweet bonus I became the best placed on my team. I would not have guessed that. Our team went 1-4 and did not end up last. So our goals achieved.

I it always really good to go to these tournaments. There is a lot of good player around, and I get showed how to actually play Warmachine. It is always a very educational experience; and fun!

Pigs on parade – all 119 of them

I can’t write about the WTC 2024 without discussing pigs. 74% of all players brought a little pig and a big pig. An amazing 119 war boars were present. That is just silly! No wonder our friends at Euromachine named WTC, War Boar Team Championship this year. I haven’t gone through all lists. But I suspect that our team was the only one without a single pig.

So, Steamforge or Privateer Press please don’t do that again (I had hoped that you had learned your lesson from the Archon incident at the end of Mark III).

I’m not sure about the idea of mercenaries working for all armies in itself is a good idea. I am sure, however that making one that is clearly so over the top that everybody and their grandma brings one is just dumb. Not only is it pretty hard to deal with. But the ubiquity of a specific model really risks ruins the fun of the game.

Surprisingly, I only faced one. But that was also sufficient. It really needs a lot of work on the rules before it becomes sensible.

That was it. Another fantastic year. Next year is in Sweden. I’m already looking forward to it. the game.

See you all in Sweden.

For the Motherland!

The Motherland at the WTC – third time’s a charm? (day 1)

Igor Khador — Sun, 25 Aug 2024 12:18:00 +0000

This is the third time in a row I go to the WTC. This year it is in Düsseldorf. Mark IV is now a real thing, compared to last year when it was in transition. So, I’m finally brining two proper Winter Korps lists. I’m bringing Tatiana, with all the Man-O-Wars and Baranova with a Mastodon. Based on previous experience, it is going to be a blast. Not only will I get to play a lot of really nice people, I was also be taught a lesson or two on how you actually play Warmachine.

I went to the WTC in 2022 and 2023. Both times were so much fun that I’m returning this year (for a walk through of my experiences for 2022 see here; and for the 2023 experience see here). All list for this year’s WTC are available online. I’ll do this in two parts. First part will cover day one of the tournament and the second instalment will arrive later, covering the second day.

My ambitions is, as always to win at least one and not end up last. I’m not going to do a long a complicated write-up of the lists; I’ll just go briefly through them and focus on describing the battles. Finally, I’ll see if there are any lessons learned.

This year’s Winter Korps lists are Kommander Tatiana Sikora in a heavy armour Man-O-War list and Kapitan Ekaterina Baranova is a (Khador) nimble list. Winter Korps is a big thing at this year’s WTC. According to Longshanks, there are 17 players using the Motherland. The third most popular army. Without any further ado, here are my two lists:

Khador – Winter Korps
Kommander Tatiana Sikora

   – Iron Flesh

   – Puissance

   – Dire Wolf [9]

     HEAD – Shield Guard

     RIGHT ARM – Ice Hammer

     LEFT ARM – Plow-Shield

   – Dire Wolf [9]

     HEAD – Shield Guard

     RIGHT ARM – Ice Hammer

     LEFT ARM – Plow-Shield

   – Dire Wolf [10]

     HEAD – Shield Guard

     RIGHT ARM – Long Axe

     LEFT ARM – Plow-Shield
Koldun Lord Damien Korovnik [3]

Sergeant Sergei Krol [5]

Winter Korps Officer [2]

Winter Korps Officer [2]
Arkanists [4]

Arkanists [4]

Man-O-War Suppressors [11]

Man-O-War Suppressors [11]                             

Man-O-War Wrecking Crew [10]

Man-O-War Wrecking Crew [10]

Winter Korps Snipers [4]

   – Winter Korps Hunting Dog [1]

Winter Korps Snipers [4]

   – Winter Korps Hunting Dog [1]
Command cards

    – Careful Reconnaissance

    – Hit & Run

    – Old Faithful

    – Power Swell

    – Put the Fires Out
Total Points   100/100

Khador – Winter Korps
Kapitan Ekaterina Baranova

   – Avenging Force

   – Fog of War

   – Freezing Grip

   – Mastodon [34]

     HEAD – Fire Support

     RIGHT SHOULDER – Heavy Cannon

     LEFT SHOULDER – Heavy Cannon

     RIGHT ARM – Great Axe

     LEFT ARM – Grinder Fist
AC-2 Bison [10]

AC-2 Bison [10]

Battle Mechanik [2]

Battle Mechanik [2]

Magziev Zariyah Volkova [4]

Winter Korps Officer [2]

Winter Korps Officer [2]

Winter Korps Officer [2]
Arkanists [4]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]

Shock Trooper Pikemen [7]
Command cards

    – Blessing of the Gods

    – Break Through

    – High Alert

    – Old Faithful

    – Power Swell
Total Points   100/100

Winter Korps under Kommander Tatiana Sikora

What can I say? I like Man-O-Wars. Big stumpy infantry, which according to the ad material from the Khadorian department of materials are neigh unstoppable. So, the arrival of the Annihilator Cadre really made my day as the Suppressors finally got some company in the shape of the Wrecking Crew, a sergeant and a new Man-O-War ‘caster (we all remember the last incarnation of Sorscha).

The plan is pretty simple. Walk across the field with the Suppressors in front shooting stuff. Follow up with the Wrecking Crew once the lines meet. Finally, have som ‘jacks as a backup plan. Snipers for scoring, contesting and being annoying. That’s it. What could possibly go wrong?

Winter Korps under Kapitan Ekaterina Baranova

To fill up the list, I took all the Pikemen I’m allowed. I actually think that they are the unpolished gem of the Khador military. But more on that in another post, perhaps. Finally, a bit of support to keep everything running smoothly.

Again, I’m sticking to simple plans. The Mastodon in the middle with its entourage (Mechaniks, Volkova, Arkanists and Baranova. A Bison on each flank with two units of Pikemen coming up behind it. Shoot a lot and finish off with the Pikemen. How hard can it be?

Round 1 — Italian Skorne (Zaal)

First of is Skorne under Zaal and all the little stone men you can think of (and two rather large ones). This is in some way quite fitting, thinking of all the stone statues the Italians have produced in the last couple of thousand years. They are really hard to kill, in particular under Zaal’s feat. Yet, I don’t think it is an impossible task.

We are playing Payload with two 50 mm objectives (cohort), two 40 mm objectives (units), one 30 mm (solos) and two flags (models). So, objective galore. Despite the fact that the two 50 mm objectives are far appart, and it would be good with more than one ‘jack, I don’t think that the Suppressors are going to do anything against small based and high armoured models. So, Baranova gets the honour of opening the ball. The very nice Italian player is fielding the following army:

Skorne – Exalted
Zaal, The Ancestral Advocate

   – Agonizer [4]

   – Basilisk Krea [6]

   – Basilisk Krea [6]
Supreme Guardian 1 [16]

Supreme Guardian 1 [16]

Abidan the Keeper [4]

Ancestral Guardian [4]

Ancestral Guardian [4]

Extoller Novitiate [2]

Extoller Novitiate [2]

Hakaar the Destroyer [5]
Immortals [6]

Immortals [6]

Immortals [6]

Immortals [6]
Command cards

    – Arcane Forces [1]

    – Careful Reconnaissance

    – Grave Robbing

    – Hit & Run

    – Put the Fires Out
Total points 100/100

My plan is to shoot a lot, in particular at the large stuff. These Supreme Guardians are dangerous. Also, I hope to survive long enough to chop away at the little stone men with the Pikemen. They should be able to kill a few, in particular if they get to charge.

Both parties roll off. The Italian wins and decides to go first. The picture below depicts the situation after deployment.

Italian statues trying their luck against Khador (deployment)

The little stone man (a two big ones) spend the first turn just advancing. More or less just straight ahead, spreading out a bit. Zaal also drops some spells on different models. Not a lot of stuff happened. The picture below shows the state of the battle field after Zaal’s advancement.

End of turn 1, round 1

It is time for Baranova to react. Her forces advance, and lo and behold, Zaal is actual within range of some of the Mastodon’s guns (when it has Superiority on it). So, Baranova might as well begin by casting Superiority. She also casts Invocation of Wrath (IoW) and Avenging Force. Everybody advances and the Mastodon puts a few shots into Zaal, removing half his boxes. The opponent’s expression was priceless. The picture below depicts the end of round 1.

End of round 1

Round two is typically where the action starts happening (unless you are the lucky owner of a Mastodon). Zaal goes ballistic and feats. He moves in behind an obstacle to avoid the barrage from the Mastodon. All the little stone men runs forward under feat and presents a serious ARM problem. They are now at least ARM 22, which I have often heard is annoying to face. The picture below shows the state of play after the great little stone men rush.

End of turn 1, round 2

This is actually a problem. Have an uncountable small stone men at ARM 22 in my face it difficult. It puts a real scenario pressure on Baranova. There really isn’t a lot to do, but try to chew through it, feat and hope for the best. Everybody chips in, advances and tries to kill stuff. Unfortunately, chip is the key word here. ARM 22 is hard, and chipping is mostly what happened. The only exception is on the left flank where a unit of Pikemen runs along the edge of the board to be near the objective. The picture below shows the sorry state after the army’s attempt at ruining sculptures.

End of round 2

Zaal is clearly in the lead. At least a lot of his stuff can’t charge this turn due to Tatiana’s feat, and the really big stone men can hardly move. Nevertheless, small stone men just walking up still hurts. A unit of Pikemen on the right flank is removed along with an Officer. On the left flank, one unit of Pikemen barely survives with only on model left, and yet another Officer dies. In the middle, the Mastodon is swamped and surrounded. Zaal makes a Cygnar advance to stay out of range of the Mastodon. Scenario score is now 4-1 in Zaal’s favour. The state can be seen in the picture below.

End of turn 1, round 3

Baranova is in trouble. Far too much stuff in her part of the field. The pressure is less on the right flank, so Baranova needs to focus on the left flank to see if something can get around the obstacle and threaten Zaal. She does what she always do and cast IoW. She then moves left and let her troops loose on Zaal. The Bison moves up and shoots everything at Zaal, with some effect. The Mastodon follows suit and offload in to Zaal. It does quite a lot of damage, but Zaal can transfer. Beasts go down. Yet, Zaal finally goes down as well. The picture below shows the result of Baranova’s valiant last stand and how it looks when she looses on scenario, yet pulls a victory out of a Mastodon.

End of round 3, end of game

Zaal and all the statues is still a viable opponent, despite it being a Legacy army. Baranova was loosing on scenario 7-1 in round 3. They produce a tremendous scenario pressure. If the combined shooting of a Bison and Mastodon had not been where it was she would surely have lost. It was a fun game and the opponent was lovely. We both had fun.

The round ended with our team loosing 2-3, where only our Orgoth player managed a victory. Our Storm Legion player lost to Dust, Circle to Grymkin, and Cryx to a second Dusk player. The excellent thing is that I have already achieved one of my goals: win at least one match! It was a good start to the day and the WTC.

Round 2 — Canadian Orgoth

Second round is against one of the Canadian teams. This time I get Orgoth. So far, there seems to be connections between my opponents’ nationalities and the lists I face. This time it is Sea Raiders coming from across the Western sea. My impression of Canadians are quite different. They are normally polite and pleasant. Who would have guessed that they are actually the Orgoth? I have traditionally had som trouble with Orgoth. I know I don’t like Harriers, so they need to die fast. Also, I have never faced a Sky Bomber before. So, that’ll be a treat.

We are playing Recon with two flags (two models within 2″), two 30 mm objectives (solos) and two caches (pick up the opponent’s cache). I don’t think this is a list for Baranova, with actually any hard core arguments, except for Suppressors liking to shoot stuff that is not on small bases. This will be a job for Tatiana. The very pleasant Orgorth – I mean Canadian is fielding the following list:

Orgoth – Sea Raiders
Horruskh, The Thousand Wraths

   – Redline

   – Second Sight

   – Jackal [6]

     HEAD – Arc Node [2]

     RIGHT ARM – Mace [3]

     LEFT ARM – Clawed Fist [1]
Sky Bomber [15]

Grhotten Champion [5]

Grhotten Champion [5]

Grhotten Keeper [5]

Grhotten Keeper [5]

Halexus the Warlord [4]

Maulgreth, The Charnel Plague [4]

Reaver Commander [3]

Reaver Commander [3]
Gnashers [9]

Gnashers [9]

Rhok Harriers [10]

Ulkor Axers [8]

Ulkor Axers [8]
Command cards

    – Blessing of the Gods

    – Careful Reconnaissance

    – Put the Fires Out

    – Savagery [1]

    – True Inspiration
Total points 100/100

We both roll of and Horruskh goes first. The picture below shows the clean battle field after deployment.

End of deployment

Horruskh’s first turn is as event full as most other first turns. Everybody basically just moves forward. Some upkeep spell goes onto the Rokh Harriers, and another one on Horruskh. The picture below shows the state of the battle field after the Orgoth advance.

End of turn 1

Tatiana follow up on the Orgoth advancement by just moving the wall of steel forward. Iron Flesh goes on a unit of Suppressors, Puissance goes on a unit of Wrecking Crew and Avenging Force on Tatiana. That’s it. End of the shuffling forward round can be seen in the picture below.

End of round 1

Horruskh is playing it safe. Only the Sky Bomber actually does anything. It moves forward shoots at the middle of Tatiana’s line and moves back again. One of the Dire Wolfs catches fire. Most other troops just shuffle about. Shield guard are brought into better positions. The picture below shows the end of the first turn in round 2.

End of turn 1, round 2

Tatiana is slightly bored. She need some action. So, she starts by giving Desperate Pace to the Suppressors on the left side and cast Tactical Supremacy on the Wrecking Crew just behind them. The Suppressors move forward and the two teleporting models end up sufficient close to shooting something. One of the Axers are killed and some pressure is put on Horruskh. Everybody else just walks forward and stays out of charge range. The picture below shows the result of Tatiana’s baiting.

End of round 2

It is unclear if Horruskh took the bait; or perhaps more if it was a bait at all. What is clear is that stuff happened. First and foremost, the ambushing unit of Gnashers arrive on the left flank. The Harriers fly way forward and put damage onto the Dire Wolf in front. This is followed up by a unit of Axers and Halexus. Who, in combination kills the poor Dire Wolf.

On the right flank, the Sky Bomber kills all the Snipers – but the dog survives! Axers and Gnashers move forward. Finally, the two Grhotten Keepers line up in front of Horruskh to hide him from the horrors of the battle field. Horruskh feats. The picture below show the result of Orgoth actions.

End of turn 1, round 3

OK, the Orgoth have arrived at Tatiana’s doorstep. She is clearly going to feat (perhaps she should have done it in the last round?). She casts Positive Charge on the remaining Dire Wolf in the middle, and moves a bit forward to catch as many of the troops as possible in the feat.

On the left flank, the Sniper move into the cloud a tries to shoot the Gnashers, but only does one point of damage per shot. On the right flank, the dog is now alone and moves towards the middle to supply Mark Target to the rest of the army. Now ‘axe to face’ can commence in the middle, and ‘bullet to face’ on the right flank.

An Officer gives Pathfinder to the Suppressors on the right, who can then move forward through the forest and shoot at anything and everything. The unit of Gnashers are partly removed and some damage goes into the Sky Bomber. They are followed-up by the unit of Wrecking Crew, which removes the Gnashers. All in all, not terrible successful. But, Horruskh’s feat is hard to chew through. +3 ARM and super tough is difficult (not that any tough rolls were successful). The Dire Wolf follows suit, just to be ready for next round.

To the left, the Wrecking Crew and the last Dire Wolf cleans out the Harriers. Tactical Supremacy bring one model further into Horruskh’s lines. The picture below shows the battle field whilst waiting for Horrukh’s revenge.

End of round 3

Horruskh is going to strike back. On the right flank the Sky Bomber flies behind the Man-O-Wars and clean out all of the support models, except for one Arkanist. It seems that these flying blips needs to be taken care of earlier. The Gnashers follow up and attempts to chew through the Man-O-Wars. So far, the right flank is actually solid. Nothing much happens on the left flank, save for the expected eating of Snipers by the ambushing unit of Gnashers.

More stuff happens in the middle, where Horruskh commits his soldiers to attempt a kind of wedge manoeuvre aimed at getting to Tatiana. He himself hides out in the back. I guess they did pick up on Cygnar tactics the last time they were around. Two Wrecking Crew goes down. That is about it. The picture below shows the result of Horrukh’s revenge. Scenario score is actually 6-4 in Tatiana’s favour.

End of turn 1, round 4

It is a difficult point in the game. Tatiana is up on scenario, but scoring is becoming more difficult. Also, there is a Sky bomber in the back yard contesting an objective. I’m thinking scenario is still an option. Tatiana orders the Arkanists to spray the Gnashers in the scenario terrain on the left, which doesn’t do a lot. The Officer assist, which helps a bit. She will have to clean up her self. She shouts Desperate Pace to Sergie, charges and after some axe to face two of them are down. Still one left unfortunately.

On the right flank, the Dire Wolf cleans out the Sky Bomber, with a bit of help from some Suppressors. The now allows Sergei to move over to the objective to score. The last remaining Wrecking Crew member picks up the cache. A single Gnasher disappears along the way, somehow. The dog contests the terrain.

I’m running really short on time (41 seconds), so that’s it. This leaves the scenario score at 8-5 in Tatiana’s favour. The picture below shows the situation.

End of round 4

Horruskh needs to do something or Tatiana is getting a victory on scenario. Unfortunately, he has 15 minuets on the clock. I can’t understand what I have spend so much time on.

On the right flank, my dog is killed. There really isn’t a lot of dog people around. That is one scenario point secured. A Grhotten Champion charges Sergei and cleans out that scenario. That is another scenario point secured. The last Gnasher charges Tatiana. The rest doesn’t really matter. 41 seconds before doom is depicted below. Scenario is 8-7 in Tatiana’s favour.

End of turn 1, round 5

OK. So 41 seconds to make sure I win on scenario in the next turn. How hard can it be? Plan is as follows: both ‘jacks run to contest. Tatiana kills the Gnasher and Officer joint to score. That will leave the scenario at 9-7, which unfortunately is the best I can do.

Hey ho, here we go. ‘jacks run. Tatiana starts hitting, or rather attempts. After a lot of dice rolling, including missing and low damage, she finally makes the killing blow. The Gnasher rolls tough! I think it is the first time in this battle that my opponent actually made a tough roll. Time’s up. Below is a rendition of the end of Tatiana’s stand.

End of round 5, end of game

Horrusk is hard. I do, however think it was a pretty good game. With some better piloting, I’m pretty sure a victory was within reach. A bit more aggressive and scenario pressure would be good. I have no idea what I spend so much time on.

Our team managed to go 0-5 against the Canadians. Nevertheless, spirits are high. We are having a blast.

Round 3 — Italian Infernals

Last round for today is against the second Italian team. The logic of playing an army that matches your country seems to be recurring. First it was Skorne stone men fittingly reflecting the long and proud tradition of stone statues in Italy; the raiders from across the western seas; now, is is Infernals reflecting the long religious fascination of such creatures in Italy; and not the least the birth place of Dante Alighieri.

I have always had a pretty hard time with the Infernals. All of this summoning beast in the middle of the game by sacrificing solos is highly disruptive of well formulated battle plans. So, I guess solos must die for my hand, rather than the Infernals.

We are playing Invasion with two 50 mm objectives (Cohort models), two 40 mm objectives (units), and two flags (models). Here also objectives are moved. In a sense, this is probably a scenario for Tatiana. However, I need to kill solos fast, so I’m opting for long ranged fire power. This is a match for Baranova. The second pleasant Italian for today is fielding the following list:

Infernals
Zaateroth, The Weaver of Shadows
   – Lamenter [7]

   – Tormentor [12]

   – Tormentor [12]

   – Tormentor [12]
Great Princess Regna Gravnoy [4]

Foreboder [3]

Hermit of Henge Hold [4]

Lord Roget D’Vyaros [4]

Saxon Orrik [4]

The Wretch [4]

Valin Hauke, the Fallen Knight [5]
Cultist Band [4]

   – Master Preceptor Orin Midwinter [3]

Cultist Band [4]

Griever Swarm [6]

Howlers [7]

Howlers [7]
Command cards

    – Blessing of the Gods

    – Careful Reconnaissance

    – Grave Robbing

    – Hit & Run

    – Power Swell
Total points 100/100

My plan is to move up fast. Shoot as many solos as possible as fast as possible and take it from there. Both parties roll off. Zaateroth decides to go first. I pick the side with a hill where Baranova must likely is going to hang out the rest of the game. After deployment, the field looks like the picture below.

End of deployment

First round for Zaateroth is as uneventful as most other first rounds. Everything just goes forward. The most important thing is perhaps Regna Gravoy casting Deceleration, which we don’t like. Zaateroth casts Rites of Torment, which probably is going to be important further on. The picture below shows the end of Zaateroth’s advance.

End of turn 1

Baranova’s first turn is also quite uneventful. On the right flank, a unit of Pikemen run to the objective to be ready to score. I suspect they are camping there for the rest of the battle. Baranova casts Avenging Force and IoW, expecting the Mastodon to be able to shoot something. She then moves up on the hill, where she most likely is going to camp for the rest of this skirmish.

The Mastodon moves forward into some fire and unleash a shot towards the Desolator. I think I might have measured wrong or something. Nothing happens. Everybody else just moves forward to be ready for next round. The picture below shows the result of Baranova’s movements.

End of round 1

It is apparently Zaateroth’s feat turn. +3 DEF for everybody and models can be placed 3″ if I miss a model. Mostly everything advances. Most importantly, a unit of Howlers make it into contact with a unit of Pikemen of the left flank; and kill one of them. Naughty Howlers. One of the solos gets sacrificed, and yet another Tormentor appears. That is basically it. The result can be seen in the picture below.

End of turn 1, round 2

Action turn. Baranova needs to make some trouble. She is obviously going to feat and cast IoW. She’ll upkeep Avenging Force and Superiority. But before that, the Mastodon takes the Avenging Force shot and removes some of the Griever Swarm.

Baranova carries out the very complicated plan and continues camping on the hill. Camping looks like fun, so the Pikemen on the right flank follows suit at the objective. In the middle, the Mastodon advances, after being filled up by the Arkanists and commences the barrage into the enemy’s line. The rest of the Griever Swarm disappears, as does the guy on the horse (Valin Hauke) and two cultist from having a Tormentor slammed over them – Momentum is fun. The Bison and a unit of Pikemen move up, leaving the Arkanists and an Officer to score.

On the left flank, it is a bit more complicated. The Bison moves up and hammers the Howlers. The Officer follows suit. The, until now engaged Pikemen unit is now disengaged and can charge to the middle of the table to kill a Howler from another unit and screen the Mastodon a bit. This opens up a charge lane for the last unit of Pikemen, who proceeds to take out the Howler unit to the left. That’s it. A somewhat successful turn, I think. Scenario score is 3-2 in Baranova’s favour. The result is depicted in the picture below.

End of round 2

Zaateroth is somewhat annoyed with the lack of success of the feat round. Even more annoyed when I re-read Baranova’s feat text out loud. Nevertheless, trickery is the game of Infernals and Zaateroth demonstrates how. On the left flank, a unit of cultist run to the objective to score. Some solo runs towards the Bison and becomes yet another Desolator. A Tormentor and the centre unit of Howlers make it to the Pikemen and kill one of them. They are dangerously close to Baranova.

The Infernals haven’t got anything on the right flank. In the middle, stuff just shuffles around cursing at Baranova’s feat. Scenario score is now 4-5 in Zaateroth’s favour. The picture below shows the situation.

End of turn 1, round 3

Baranova needs to get something done. She is behind on scenario score and there are Infernals in the front yard, ruining a perfectly fine camping trip. Luckily, her army is more or less intact. She will as always upkeep Superiority but drops Avenging Force. She will also go first and cast IoW, and take a pot shot at a Howler.

On the right flank, the Pikemen are still enjoying the out in the nature camping experience. The Bison, on the other side, rams into the Desolater and does some damage. The Arkanists fuel up the Mastodon and hangs back to score. The Officer moves forward to look closer at the battle line. Finally, the other unit of Pikemen charges the Tormentor, but does an unimpressive amount of damage.

In the centre, the Mastodon walks forward and apply axe to face. This is followed by the fist and small cannons. Finally, ending with more axe to face. Unfortunately, it does not succeed in being disengaged. So the main guns remain silent.

On the left flank, the Bison moves to contest the Objective and shoots at some cultists. Not everybody is cleared out. The only main problem now is the Desolator being a bit too close to Baranova. The two Officers must step up. The first charge is so-so. Yet, the second Officer has her eyes on a promotion and charges with all she got. Weapon Master is sometimes impressive. The Desolator is ARM 19 and 24 boxes. The Officer is only POW 9 – but Weapon Master. She rolls 6,6,5,6 resulting in 8 points of damage going through. Since they have Dual Attack and Pistol, this is followed up with a shot from the Hand Cannon rolling 6,5 on the damage dice for an additional 6 points of damage. That is 58% of the Desolators boxes removed. Medals are on the way. That’s it. Scenario score is at 6-5 in Baranova’s favour. The picture below shows the result of a pretty OK turn for Baranova.

End of round 3

This is clearly a setback for Zaateroth. The Mastodon is in her face, she has lost the right flank and is slowly loosing the left flank. It is time for more trickery. Assassin run upcoming.

Somehow she managed to get a Tormentor near Baranova. There must have been some solo able to run down there. Luckily, I think it can’t attack when being summoned. The Lamenter almost makes it down to Baranova as well. The Pikemen unit in the middle are killed along with the Bison. Finally, a little Foreboder is put in front of the Mastodon to stop it from walking up to Zateroth.

That is more or less it for this turn. Baranova is partly in control of the scenario. So, score is now 8-5 in her favour. The situation is shown in the picture below.

End of turn 1, round 4. Almost end of game

Turn 2 of round 4 can begin. Baranova is close to being in potential trouble. There are horrors in her face. And there isn’t really anybody near to help her out of this pickle. Also, the Mastodon can’t walk up or charge Zaateroth due to lack of landing space. The Bison is occupied so there is no good way of getting rid of the Foreboder. Am I really about to snap defeat from the jaws of victory (again)?

Whilst thinking out all sorts of creative manoeuvres to get rid of the Foreboder, it hits me. The Mastodon is an arc node… This is an almost unheard of feature in the Khadorian army. In addition, Baranova has Gallows. So if the Mastodon can’t come to Zaateroth, Zaateroth will have to come to the Mastodon. New plan: cast IoW, cast Gallows and boost to hit. Then walk briskly away from the Tormentor, just in case. Gallows hits and I actually roll a 6 on the dice. Zaateroth is now in the face of the Mastodon. I guess there is no point is detailing what happens when a POW 24 axe (times two), a POW 21 fist, and a bit of Grinder shots connects with an Infernal master. However, it turns out that Infernals can transfer like a Hordes faction (I completely forgot). I will just look at this as a bonus. Not only does Zaateroth go down, but a few of the Horrors do as well.

Baranova takes the game. The royal photographer was so thrilled that he forgot to take pictures. Reprimands will be given.

Infernals are still dangerous. I think they could have won given they have had some other priorities. Nevertheless, the Empress is victorious and I have managed to over perform. I’m now 2-1. Two of my colleagues are also victorious. So, the team is now 2-1. We had a fun an intense game and our team is doing pretty good. What a lovely way of ending the day.

Summary & Lessons Learned

So far, it has been a marvellous WTC. The germans have managed to organise a fantastic event. I have, as always only met nice people and have had fun games that both players enjoyed. I’m so much looking forward to tomorrow. The second instalment of battle reports describing day two will arrive shortly, I hope.

Until next time. For the Motherland!

Kommander Tatiana Sikora vs. Lord Exhumator Scaverous

Igor Khador — Sat, 06 Jul 2024 14:39:00 +0000

Cryx is at it again. After their loss by Skarre, Scaverous is send to the shores of Khador to wreck havoc. The Empress dispatches Kommander Sikor and her Man-O-Wars once againg to deal with the Cryx menace. This Cryx detachment consists of all lot of ghostwalking banes. It is a close one. Yet, all of this ghostwalking becomes troublesome for Tatiana.

This is the second time within a short period of time that I encounter Cryx. The last time was quite a success (see here for details). This list is quite different, except that it in a sense also is dude-spam. I actually think that the Man-O-Wars and Tatiana can make the cut. However, this is still one of my first trial runs with Tatiana and the new Man-O-Wars. So, I’m still learning how to pilot this list. The two lists facing off are:

Khador – Winter Korps
Kommander Tatiana Sikora

   – Iron Flesh

   – Puissance

   – Dire Wolf [9]

     HEAD – Shield Guard

     RIGHT ARM – Ice Hammer

     LEFT ARM – Plow-Shield

   – Dire Wolf [9]

     HEAD – Shield Guard

     RIGHT ARM – Ice Hammer

     LEFT ARM – Plow-Shield

   – Dire Wolf [10]

     HEAD – Shield Guard

     RIGHT ARM – Long Axe

     LEFT ARM – Plow-Shield
Koldun Lord Damien Korovnik [3]

Sergeant Sergei Krol [5]

Winter Korps Officer [2]

Winter Korps Officer [2]
Arkanists [4]

Arkanists [4]

Man-O-War Suppressors [11]

Man-O-War Suppressors [11]                             

Man-O-War Wrecking Crew [10]

Man-O-War Wrecking Crew [10]

Winter Korps Snipers [4]

   – Winter Korps Hunting Dog [1]

Winter Korps Snipers [4]

   – Winter Korps Hunting Dog [1]
Command cards

    – Careful Reconnaissance

    – Hit & Run

    – Old Faithful

    – Power Swell

    – Put the Fires Out
Total Points   100/100

Cryx – Dark Host
Lord Exhumator Scaverous

   – Deathripper [4]

   – Deathripper [4]

   – Erebus [14]
Wraith Engine [11]
Bane Lord Tartarus [5]

Machine Wraith [2]

Necrotech [1]

Necrotech [1]

Necrotech [1]

Pistol Wraith [4]

Pistol Wraith [4]

Soul Trapper [1]
Bane Knights [7]

   – Bane Knight Officer [2]

Bane Knights [7]

   – Bane Knight Officer [2]

Bane Riders [9]

Bane Warriors [7]

Bane Warriors [7]

The Winthershadow Cobine [6]
Command Cards

   – Break Through

   – Duck and Cover! [1]

   – Infiltration

   – Grave Robbing

   – Power Swell
Total Points   100/100

A note to the reader: I’m proxying two units: One of the Wrecking Crews is Shock Trooper Pikemen on large bases. The other one, is one of the Suppressor units that are Shock Trooper Gunners on large bases.

Initial Thoughts

Cryx are back. This time it is in a completely different configuration than the last time (see here for details). There is a whole lot of Banes and a bunch of solos; yet, not many ‘jacks. Quite a lot of Stealth, which is annoying as Tatiana’s list relies on quite a lot of shooting (in particular against larger bases).

The Banes are really mobile. They are all Ghostly. So, except for line of sight, Ghostly basically ignore all obstacles and models. So, hiding and board control is difficult. They can hit pretty hard, in particularly on the charge. The Knights and Riders have Brutal Charge (24 or 25 points of damage on average) and the Warriors are Weapon Masters (25 points of damage on the average). There are many of them and Tartarus can bring Banes back when he kills stuff, so can Scaverous when casting Excarnate.

Scaverous, himself is no slouch in close combat. He is effectively MAT 8 and has a Thresher attack. Luckily it is “only” POW 14. So, the Man-O-Wars are comparatively safe. His feat reduces his cost of spell casting by one and increases Tatiana’s with one (assuming she is wihtin 14″ of him). The latter is not too important as Tatiana is not the big spell caster.

He brings four spells, where Telekinesis is probably the main attraction. Under feat he can cast it 7 times, potentially through his two Arc Nodes. Feast of Worms makes a hazadarous could. I’m guessing that is no the most prominent spell in his arsenal. Excarnate can add grunts to most of the Banes if it kill a dude. Finally, Death Ward gives +2 ARM to a model or unit. This could bring Knights to ARM 20 or Warriors to ARM 17.

There are only three ‘jacks. Two Deathrippers, which probably are there primarily as Arc Nodes. Erebus is the main beatstick. Since it is bonded to Scaverous he is also an Arc Node. He has Overtake and Poltergeist, which doesn’t really matter a lot as the Man-O-Wars are Sturdy. The Dire Wolfs are obviously affect. Erebus is quite dangerous in close combat. He is POW 17, yet he has Freeze on his attack. So, stationary on a stick.

Finally, there is the big guy. The Wraith Engine, which honestly looks a bit scary. It has Dark Shroud (enemies suffers -2 ARM within 2″), which is highly annoying with such a larg footprint. It also has Unhallowed giving +2 ARM within 10″ against ranged and arcane attacks; also annoying.

Tatiana runs the same list as against Skarre (see here for details).

Deployment

We are playing the Steamroller 2024 scenario Payload. Tatiana wins the roll-off and goes first. Scaverous picks the side with the extra objective (Payload is asymmetrical) .

Tatiana deploys with a ‘jack on each flank. There is a Man-O-War module adjacent to each ‘jack towards the middle. Everything else goes in the middle. She deploys quite a lot to the right. This might be a wrong move as the extra objective is in the diagonal corner. However, there is kind of a plan of escorting the moveable objective forward whilst protecting the house from the opponents moveable objective.

End of Deployment

Scaverous deploys a kind of sub-group on the left flank, consisting of a unit of Bane Knights, the Machine Wraith, a Necrotech, a Deathripper, the Soul Trapper, and a Pistol Wraith. That is quite a good group to capture both objectivs and escort the 50 mm one.

On the right side, the Bane Riders on the far flank. There is also a Pistol Wraith and the seond Deathripper. Everything elses goes more or less in the middle. Also the Wraith Engine.

The picture above depicts the situation after deployment.

Round 1

Of we go for round 1. I’ll try to execute my plan and secure the right half of the table whilst having some annoyance ready for the left side.

End of turn 1

On the righ side the Dire Wolf moves up and prepares to hug the obejctive. The Snipers move into the forest of benefit from concealment. The Suppressors moves as far ahead as possible to be ready to shoot stuf, and the Wrecking Crew tags along behind them. Behind it all, the Arkanists prepare themselves for Empowering in the coming turn.

Tatiana casts Avenging Force on herself. Iron Flesh on the Suppressors on the left and Puissanceon the Wrecking Crew on the right. She shouts Desperate Pace to the Suppressors with Iron Flesh and moves up behind the wall.

On the left side, the Dire Wolf moves side ways behind the house to be ready to defend the objective against the moving 50 mm and perhaps at some point harass Scaverous’ left sub-army. The Snipers moves fra ahead behind a big rock to be ready to pick out models. The Suppressors run forward, followed by the Wrecking Crew. The final Dire Wolf moves to Tatiana along with Sergei. The rest just distrubute behind the front line.

The picture above displays the result of Tatiana’s advancement.

End of round 1

Scaverous starts of as expected. The gruop on the left flank moves forward and secures the two objectives.

On the right side, the Bane Riders push very far ahead to harass the flank. The Pistol Wraith also runs wide. Finally, the Deathripper tags along behind teh Bane Riders.

In the middel, the Wraith Engine moves up in the middle as an anker. Banes spread out on both side of it. Tartarus tags along on the right side. Scaverous decides to hang back behind The Winthershadow Cobine. That was it. A whole lot of Banes quite far up the table.

The picture above shows the battlefield after the extended deployment phase.

Round 2

Round 2 — the party can begin. There is a lot of small Banes in the middle of the battlefield. Let’s see if it is possible to get rid of them.

End of turn 1

Tatiana kicks off the party. She upkeeps her spells; moves in behind the well to make sure that her feat can cover enugh area, without getting too much into harms way; and feats.

On the right side, the Suppressors move forward and peppers the Bane Riders until the disappear. A few remaining shots go into the Bane Warriors in the middle. The Snipers can now move forward mostly into the field and take out three Bane Warriors. So far, so good.

In the middle, the Officer shouts Press the Advantage to the Suppressors giving them Swift Hunter. They then aim and starts shooting. Unfortunately, they are shooting a small bases; and despite rerolls they can’t really hit anything. A few Banes die, but nothing amazing. They do, however spread out making room for the Wrecking Crew that charges Banes, after the other Officer have shouted Pathfinder to them.

On the left side, the Dire Wolf runs forward along the wall of the house. It is now ready for the next round. The Snipers move out from behind the rock and pick out some Banes and kill two. They then Reposition to fill up some area.

Back to the right side. There is now room for the second Wrecking Crew to enter the fray. This also opens up the possibility for the Dire Wolf on the rigth to move in front of the Objective and for the Arkanist to follow behind. The few remaining models just move up behind the frontline.

All in all, an OK turn. Not impressive in killing power, but OK. The picture above shows the disarray after Tatiana’s turn.

End of round 2

Scaverous’ troops ready them selfs to hit back. He feats and probably cast some spells. For some reason that is beyond me, I managed to make a very nice Wraith Engine size hole behind my front line. There is just a single Wrecking Crew standing in the way. However, being moved 2″ forward by Telekinese and charging, and with the help of being Incorporeal, it is now in the middle of Tatiana’s army. Luckily, it doesn’t really manage to do any significant damage against Man-O-Wars under feat.

On the right side, the Pistol Wraith runs forward to contest the Objective. Tartarus moves in and kills the dog (why is it always the dog….) and a single Sniper. This means two additional Banes in the unit next to him. The Deathripper kills the Sniper near the forest on Scaverous’ half.

The left flank is plauged the whold group of Banes and a Pitol Wraith, who manage to remove the entire Sniper unit (including the dog!).

The Bane Warriors in the middle removes a Wrecking Crew and cluttes up the centre. This leaves room for Erebus who charges and kill another Wrecking Crew in the same unit. Also a Wrecking Crew from the other unit.

That was it. Except the small and insignificant Wraith Engine that appeared smack in the middle of Tatian’s army, it was actually a pretty good turn for her. I’m pretty sure it could have been much more bloody.

The picture abow shows the chaos at the end of the second round.

Round 3

OK. There is a Wraith Engine in our midst. But besides that, Tatiana and her loyal army is actually in a pretty good state. Let’s see if she can press the advantage.

End of turn 1

First of all, there is the roar of Vengeance from the two Wrecking Crews. One whacks the Wraith Engine, the other one a random Bane. Tatiana uses her move from Avenging force and also hits the Wraith Engine. But it is a hard target. A base ARM of 18 + Death Ward from Scaverous gives it ARM 20. That is rough.

The turn can now begin for real. Tatiana moves back to her well. Hitting Wraith Engines makes you thirsty. She drops Avenging Force, upkeeps the other two and cast Positive Charge on the Dire Wolf to her right. The Supperssors to the left moves around a bit and starts shooting at the Wraith Engine. Despite the effective POW of 14, damaging ARM 20 is difficult. So, one of the Suppressors change target to the unit of Bane Warriors, which improves it’s self esteem a bit. Anyway, it is clear that help is required.

Help arrives from the Dire Wolf to the left. The Arkanists fills it up with focus; and finally, Damien remembers that he can cast Positive Charge. The Dire Wolf walks leisurely up to the Wraith Engine. Being POW 19 helps. The Wraith Engine disappears.

The Wrecking Crew from the right moves in, kills a Bane and Smites Erebus. This makes it easy picking for the Dire Wolf equiped with a Long Axe and Positive Charge. POW 18 against ARM 18 is straight dice. 28 boxes is not a lot; in partiuclar when it has already been damaged. It dissapears.

The field is slowly opening up. The right most Suppressors can now move behind enemy lines. They kill a Necrotech and put a few pot shots into Scaverous. It does not damage him a lot. By the effect of having three Man-O-Wars at your door step has aome effect.

Finally, the Arkanists on the right sprays the Pistol Wraith off the board. The Dire Wolf shuffles left to cover a bit for Tatiana and the two Officers runs in front of her to screen her. The picture above shows how a Cryx army under pressure looks.

End of round 3, end of game

Scaverous is on his heels. He needs to come up with something. He activates first, charges the Suppressors and take out two Suppressors and the contesting Sniper. Tartarus the charges the Officers, take them out and returns two Banes. This now leaves room for the Bane Warriors on the right. After a lot of measuring and measuring and measuring they make the charge on Tatiana. Four Banes arrive. Despite a heoric defence by Tatiana, and some shouting of obscure remarks, she goes down.

The picture above shows the result of a Cryx hail Mary (or whatever the hail). Scenario is at 4 to 3 in Scaverous’ favour and the game is done.

Final Thoughts

Once again I managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of vitory. It was very much like the battle against Sparkhamme (see here for details). Screening is quite difficult in MK IV. Nevertheless, this was yet another game where we both had fun.

I’m clearly getting better at piloting this list. I still think that Snipers are a bit lacklusting. The Man-O-Wars are peforming. Suppressors are not good against small bases. Perhaps I should thing about exchanging Snipers for Shock Trooper Gunners. There is an extra RAT, yet worse range and they do have a larger footprint.

On the positive side, Damien remebered that he can cast a spell — hurrah!

Until next time.
For the Motherland!

Winter Korps – The Greylord Archives

Tokens for the Motherland

Update by June, 14th, 2025

Tokens for spells

Tokens for orders and other abilities

Post Script

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Deployment

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

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Round 2

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Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Summary & Lessons Learned

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Deployment

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Round 2

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Round 2

Round 3

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Deployment

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Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

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Deployment

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Summary & Lessons Learned

The Motherland goes to Conquest (day 1)

Winter Korps under Kapitan Yana Kovoskiy

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Deployment

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

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Deployment

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Battle 3 — House Kallyss

Deployment

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Summary & Lessons Learned

January update 2025 for the Winter Korps?

Winter Korps Rack (Superiority)

Winter Korps Models

Battle Mechanik

Dire Wolf

Great Bear

Kapitan Ekaterina Baranova

Kapitan Ilari Borisyuk

Kommander Tatiana Sikora

Kommander Valerii Savaryn

Kontroller

Update by June, 14^th, 2025