A Brief Stop in Immoren

Happy Birthday to me!  I'm officially celebrating 31 years of cheating death and since baby Drescher #2 has yet to emerge from it's ever more cramped apartment, I was able to make a trip over to the Wandering Dragon last night for the opening night of the Warmahordes Journeyman league.  For anyone interested in starting up Warmachine or Hordes, I highly recommend stopping by as it was a great atmosphere and there was no shortage of players:

The hills were alive with the sound of curb-stomps...

Initially the league is focusing on the contents of each faction's battle box so it's a quick way to jump in and learn the rules.  I was paired up with Carlos, whom I've known since waaaaay back in the Games Workshop days for my initial game.  Now Carlos is a great guy and we've known each other for a good spell so that's all peaches and cream but then the twist comes in:  he plays Khador too.  Normally, that's no big deal, but we're in a Journeyman league...focusing on the contents of the faction box...that means we have the same exact models:  Sorscha Kratikoff, 1 Destroyer, 1 Juggernaut.  To this point I've felt that the trick to Warmachine is negating or balancing your opponent's cheesy, over-the-top attributes with your own, but in this case, my nasty bag of tricks was the exact same nasty bag of tricks Carlos was pulling from as well.

Get me some of this...stat!

Despite any initial mental reservations, the game went really well and I'm glad I played against him because not only did I learn about my faction from playing on my end, but also observing what Carlos did with the exact same models.  Without going into a full battle report, I'll break down the mojo of this game bullet-point style:

• We both had awesome luck with rolls to hit followed by abysmal damage turnouts
• 'Checking your focus area' is a hilarious and legal way to pre-measure distance
• My ultimate victory strategy remains the same:  Grab the biggest warjack you can and toss it into their caster.

So we had a great battle that I took a lot away from.  Fun sidenote to this evening is the exceptionally long match played between Carlos' friend, Dan, and my buddy Alan featured a couple posts ago in my initial Warmachine playtests.  Once you completed your game you had the option of finding a new opponent and diving back in, but Carlos and I became engrossed in the epic struggle between Alan's Protectorate and Dan's Cygnar.  When I say epic, I mean most people were on their third match-up by the time Alan and Dan finished their first game:

    Me, Dan, and Carlos enjoying the game.  Alan successfully passed his Dodge test and escaped out the left side of the frame...

This game, unlike Carlos and my precision scalpel strikes, was a saturation bombing of pain.  Nearly every 'jack was crippled and destroyed, spells and bullets were flying wildly askew, and people and constructs were running around on fire.  I'm pretty sure Michael Bay is negotiating for the movie rights as I type.

  The killzone:  a buckshot mess of metal and s$*&

Eventually Alan ended the victor.  How?  He set Dan's warcaster on fire and chuckled gleefully as he limped off to have his multiple bullet wounds attended to.  I'm looking forward to next week's session to see what my opponent has in store.  Since my last post, I've managed to finish the Kodiak and begin work on my Sorscha model.  Honestly, I don't have pictures of them yet.  I'm still recovering from witnessing the carnage above.