Warmahordes batrep and post number 100!

We now interrupt these painting posts to bring you a battle report.

Yup, been a while since I've done one of these. I kinda laid one out when I played my first two games, but that didn't really count.

I had, what I consider, my first fully fledged game of warmachine last Wednesday. I played against the nasty dragons of the Legion of Everblight at 35 points.

My list:
Syntherion - The Great Machine Tier 4
Monitor
Assimilator
Cipher
Corollary
Mitigator
Diffuser
Galvanizer
Attunement Servitors
ADO x2
Optifex Directive

This is pretty much going to be my standard set up for now, until I can get more games in and see if something works better.

Her list:

Absylonia
Carnivean
Nephilim Protector
Shredder x2
Spell Martyrs
Blighted Nyss Hex Hunters - max unit
Bayal
Blighted Nyss Swordsmen - max unit

I knew some about Legion going in, like that the carnivean was nasty, but didn't know a whole lot about the infantry or light warbeasts.

We decide to play an assassination scenario and she gave me the first deployment.
I deployed my assimilator on my left, the monitor in the middle and the cipher on my right, spreading the servitors out at far left, middle and far right. The ADO's had advance deployment and I placed them both toward the middle of the field. The galvanizer, diffuser and mitigator made up the front line and were positioned to where I could (hopefully) get them where I needed them quickly. Syntherion and his corollary were naturally dead center in the back of the deployment.

My opponent deployed the Hex hunters with Bayal on her right, the swordsmen on her left and everything else in a pile in the middle.

So, looking at deployment, I was going to take the assimilator into the hex hunters and the cipher was going to try and remove the swordsmen. The monitor was going to try and hold down the carnivean until help arrived for it.

Turn 1:
CoC: Not much happening here. I through out one focus and use that to run all my vectors forward and I try to get the ADO's and servitors into better positions.  I cast synergy on myself and threw hot shot on the cipher to hopefully help break the swordsmen.

LoE: Again, not much in the way of anything going on. Running and re-positioning. Pretty much everything moved straight forward from it's starting location.

Turn 2:
CoC: Focus allocation was one to the assimilator, one to the monitor and that was it from Syntherion. I planned on using the corollary to power the right side of the board while Syntherion powered the left. My plan was to use mag hold on the carnivean to prevent a charge and use the assimilator and the cipher to thin out the infantry. Activate the servitor on the left, and hit the hex hunters, catching 4 in the AOE. Right side servitor was too far away to hit and deviated badly away from the swordsmen. The OD's activate and give the monitor pathfinder and that's about it. Activated the corollary and gave one focus to the Cipher, and one to the Monitor and inducted one to the Cipher. The Cipher activated and moved up toward the swordsmen and..... came up out of range of the bombard shot. Deviation didn't go my way and the shot fell short. Decided to try my luck with the second shot, inducting the focus back to the corollary, and as before, deviation just sucked. Activated the monitor and ran up into the forest inducting it's focus back to the corollary. The assimilator activates, moves up and lays ground pounder on the hex hunters covering 5 in the AOE. Rolls to hit against each one and I only end up hitting and killing one of them despite four of them having been flared. Galvanizer, diffusor and mitigator activate and move up to get into position for next turn. The ADO's activate and move up to get into a better position. Finally Syntherion activates, moves up and tries to sling mag hold one the carnivean and.... comes up short. So in a round where I should have been able to remove a good amount of infantry and cripple her heavy, I killed one hex hunter and that was it.

LoE: Gonna be real honest here, I don't remember exactly the order she did things in and I still don't understand the fury mechanic all that well so this is going to seem a little brief.
Her hex hunters move up and engage the left side servitor, the assimilator and the galvanizer. After all the swings are taken, the assimilator is hit, but still very functional, the servitor is gone and the galvanizer is slightly scratched. Could have been much worse. The swordsmen try to charge the cipher and are just out of range (that would turn out to be costly). The carnivean moves up, charges the monitor and lays waste to it after breathing fire on it and punching it for what seemed like forever. The rest of the army just moved up and generally re-positioned.

Turn 3:
CoC: Ok. So I have a carnivean out in the open and a cipher within charge range. My plan was simple. Kill the carnivean. So, two focus to the assimilator, one to the diffuser. Auto repair rolls were less than stellar, one point to the assimilator and two to the galvanizer. Corollary activates first and hands out it's three focus to the cipher and inducts one to the mitigator. Middle servitor moves up and flares the carnivean. The diffuser goes next and lights the heavy beast up with beacon. Next the mitigator goes and knocks it down, killing 3 swordsmen in the AOE. The OD's move up and repair the assimilator for 4 and give the cipher pathfinder. Syntherion moves up, casts magnetic hold on the knocked down carnivean, just to give that little bit of extra charge distance if I needed it and he also feats. Now the heavy wades in. The Cipher charges the carnivean for free, thanks to the diffuser and thanks to the mitigator knocking it down, it auto hits. Sadly though, I rolled like total shit even though I was only dice-3 the whole time and it managed to live through the whole thing. The ciphers shots from Syntherions feat went into Absolonia and her protector and didn't really do much of anything. So, now I have a still alive carnivean and no other way to kill it. So I make the tough decision to take some free strikes against my assimilator and charge the carnivean. Free strike damage was negligible, the damage I did to the beast however, was not. Two strikes with a P+S weapon master claw and he was down. Took his shots at Absolonia and her little group and managed 7 damage on her and 4 or 5 on the protector.

LoE: Mop up time for the legion. She moves her hex hunters into combat with one of my ADO's and the diffuser, swings on them and the galvanizer do little more that light wounds. The protector moves up and swings at the assimilator and puts a hurt on it. Shredders move up and hit the assimilator and nearly take it down. The swordsmen charge up and swing at the cipher, doing some damage, but not a terrible amount. Finally, deciding the assimilator just has to die, Absolonia herself gets into the fray after giving herself flight, warp strength and reach. She then charges the assimilator and it goes down. She also feated this turn so now I'm fighting a renewed protector and she only has one point of damage instead of 7.

Turn 4:
CoC: Ok. So, I'm left with one heavy, 3 lights (2 of which are tied up) and a smattering of support units. First things first, auto-repair checks. Not stellar results again. The galvanizer gets a couple, the diffuser gets one and the cipher gets 3. Focus sees me give 3 to the galvanizer, 2 to the diffuser, and one to the corollary. I activate the OD's first and give the cipher pathfinder so it can charge through the collection of rubble where my other two heavies were and I also repair it for 6. It's now back to almost full health. I activated the mitigator and moved over so that I could shoot my cipher with the razor bola in order to clear out the swordsmen around it. A direct hit and the swordsmen disappear. Corollary activates next and gives two focus to the cipher and inducts one. Here's where I finally remembered the synergy spell I had on Syntherion since the beginning of the game. The galavanizer activates and takes out the hex hunter UA, giving me +1 on synergy, then the diffuser connects and kills a hex hunter, +2. Now the cipher charges the protector with P+S 20, yeah, it died.

LoE: Tough decisions to be made here. Stick Absolonia in and try and take out the cipher or, go for the assassination attempt. She chose the assassination. Meanwhile the hex hunters manage to kill the galvanizer, diffuser and ADO they were engaged with. Absolonia charges Syntherion........and leaves him alive with 5 boxes left. Thanks to her dice turning against her at the worst time.

Turn 5: Not much happening here. Syntherion gives out no focus, and auto repairs the cipher for 2 and himself for 3. The OD's repair the cipher for 5, bringing it back to full health. Really, all we were worried about was the caster fight. It took nearly all his focus, but in the end the P+S 14 hits were just too much.

Win for Convergence.

It was a close match and one that could have gone either way due to a couple of bad turns on both sides.

Also of note, this is my 100th post. It's only taken me 3 years to get there, but hey, I have wargames to play and shit to paint. Thanks for reading and I look forward to 100+ in the future.