Spring, When a Youngish Man's Fancy Turns to Mayhem

After a lengthy hiatus enforced by work and travel Jason and I played Warmachine again (cue the applause!) and much fun was had.  I played Strakov with:

Torch
Kayazy with Underboss
Windomakers
Great Bears
Max unit of Assault Kommandoes and 3 Flame throwers

Jason played his war Pigs (Farrow Minions for those of you that like to know the "real names" of made up stuff) picking the newly painted Doctor Porkulus (also know as Dr. Arkadius) with:

3 x Warhogs
Bonegrinders
Brigands
Slaughterhousers
Targ

Again fun was had, I was ashamed to field a primed only unit of AK's and Jason was shamed by only having two painted Warhogs.  With the same equally balanced we thus diced for starting and Jason won and elected to go first.

Jason's Guys

Nicely Painted Hogs (and shameful WW acting as a Hog)

My guys with shameful red monocolor AK's)

So Jason deployed with the Hog's spread out evenly across his front, Targ on his right, Brigands and Dr. Porkulus in the center, and Bonegrinders and Slaughterhousers on his left.  I countered with the Widowmakers on my left, the AK's in the center with the Bear's, Torch, Strakov and Roman Abrahimovich, and the Kayazy on my right.  Being a melee army Jason rolled forward on the first turn.  I ran the Kayazy forward, advanced the AK's in shieldwall in the center (and gassed up the joint by them shooting each other.  Given how spread out his Hogs were my plan was to kill the one on my left first while the rest of Jasons guys were busy with the AK's and the Kayazy then roll them up from left to right.

After the first turn's movement on the left.

And on the right.

 

On turn two Jason moved forward a bit as my threat range was larger than his thanks to Superiority and he didn't want to get just hit.  So I again advanced the AK's and started gassing his guys where they were as well as each other (again) and got the middle Hog with two flame thrower attacks that did decent damage to it.  On the right I charged/ran the Kayazy into the bone field terrain getting into contact with three of the Bonegrinders and killing two of them.

After Jason's Turn 3

In doing that Kayazy attack I screwed up my figure placement and left them open to a trample attack by the right most Hog (the WW in the photos) which, while it didn't kill them, knocked four of them down so the Slaughterhousers could kill them.  Silly mistake.

View from the center behind the Red Regiment of AK's.

I then proceeded to my turn and, while hosing it up royally, managed to take down two of the Hogs.  I Upkept Superiority but forgot to allocate focus, so instead of killing the Hog on the left, Torch took the turn off.  I ordered Assault and Battery with the AK's, they gassed all three of the Hogs and shot one of the Brigands.  They hit both of the right two Hogs with Flamethrowers and charged in killing 5 or 6 of the Brigands and somehow nearly killing the already damaged center Hog (one charge damage roll was a 15 on the dice, another as 14.  Luck, I love you!  About half the time...).  I then charged the right most Hog with the Great Bears who stopped out side of the Choke Gas cloud and killed it right off.  The first time they've managed that (killing some thing bigger than a trooper in one round).  Strakov had 5 points of Focus to spend so he shot the middle Hog and killed it.

Hogs Nae Moor

Kayazy Kreeping Kloser to Kontackt with Dr. Porkulus

The Kayazy advanced through the Bone garden as much as possible and killed all but one of the Bonegnashers.  They were moving closer and closer to the Warlock that was at the heart of all the unpleasantness.  So I was mad at myself, as well as the turn went over all I should have killed all three of the Hogs if only I'd given Torch even one or two points of Focus I could have done so.  Grumble!

At that point the game was pretty much over but Jason went down fighting.  Using his Porkulus Feat and an animus he got his last Hog into charge range of Torch an.d rolling slightly above average took the Jack down with only his base attacks.

Hog Triumphant

 

End of the Turn

So I had my last Flamethrower suicide bomb himself (he moved out of melee range of a Brigand) which lit Porkulus on fire just in case the Kayazy were not up for the challenge of killing him.  They charged in from the side and were up for the challenge killing him in two blows.

Porkulus Undone

So what did I learn?  Well it sucks to forget to allocate Focus for one... Also AK's take a long time to resolve even when they're just moving forward and gassing themselves it eats up the time rolling all those dice.  Then when you Assault and Battery with them they each have three attacks (generally not too effective ones but still) and that takes time to do.  Other than that I kind of liked them, I think that against Hordes they're more effective than they would be against Jacks as everything is alive and thus everything can suffer from the gas.  Reducing a Heavy Beast's DEF by two means you don't have to boost to hit (generally speaking) and reducing their MAT by two means that they generally do need to boost to be sure to hit (MAT 4 sucks my friends, you're turning 9 point beasts into Kossite Woodsmen!).  I liked the flamethrowers as well, it's just fun to light things on fire.  Once they get into melee they're rapidly killed however so maybe a MIN sized unit and only when playing Hordes.  In any event I enjoyed playing with them!