A First and a Last in St. Louis

Although Warmachine MkII has brought positive changes to the Warmachine community, it unfortunately coincides with the closing of Game On!, a game store that has always been a strong supporter of the Warmachine community.   On Wednesday the 14th, we had a last blast 35-point Mangled Metal MkII event – our first MkII event in St. Louis.

After throwing around a few possible casters, I decided on some of my lesser-used options to see how they changed in MkII.   I was curious to see if they and their battlegroups would fit my playstyle better now, or if I would be able to change my playstyle to better suit their abilities.

My first selection was to go with Grand Exemplar Kreoss.   Kreoss has always been my favorite Protectorate warcaster from a character perspective, so I felt it was time to give his epic incarnation some more attention to see how it would hold up.

I paired him with the Avatar right away.   The free focus, the spell immunity, and the reach on his sword made him a strong heavy to anchor my lines.   Even if he couldn’t wreck face on his own – which he certainly can – he can still act as a tar pit and give the rest of the jacks a clearer path.

Reach was also given to the Reckoner in MkII, which I decided to include so as to allow him to potentially attack multiple jacks under eKreoss’ feat easier.   My final heavy choice was the Fire of Salvation – I hoped to surprise some people with it’s extra movement and catch them unaware.

My light options were highly dependent on what I owned.   The Devout was added as another Reach jack and the potential Spell Ward if necessary against Cryx.   I wanted to add two more jacks in with my last 8 points to give my opponent more to deal with but I only own a single Dervish.   So ole ‘Penty got thrown in as the last bit of filler.

I considered Reznik for a long time but decided to switch to Amon as my second list at the last minute.   As above, jack ownership played a large part of model selection, so instead of three Crusaders I added two and the Fire of Salvation.

To fill out the list, I switched to lights with Reach to add both model count and threat range to the list, going with a Devout and a pair of Revengers.   There was no more arcing Sandblast in MkII but I hoped Powerful Charge would help me start building Synergy early.

Round 1: Brakus’ Cryx

My first game was against Brakus, and he brought a pretty hard hitting Cryx force. I knew that using eKreoss, I was probably going to be giving up the charge in exchange for a round of retaliation with his feat, but Brakus could (and did) feat after engaging to mitigate that and give himself a second round of attacks unmolested.

Luckily the Avatar with Inviolable Resolve survived and kept everyone in place with his Gaze of Menoth throughout Brakus’ feat turn.   On my next turn, I feated and I was able to wipe out everything but Skarre and the Leviathan.   The Deathjack would have been harder to kill but with the Fire of Salvation’s ability to dispel Death Ward, I got the last few points of damage in I needed to wreck him.

Kreoss took some big hits from the Leviathan but I was able to use the Avatar’s Gaze to pin him down long enough to get to Skarre and take her down.

Round 2: LegalGun’s Cygnar

Round 2 I had to face a heavy-focused Kraye list.   I wasn’t looking forward to dealing with it but at least it wasn’t the Kraye and triple hunter combo.   Choir should be legal in Mangled Metal. 🙂

LegalGun sent in his Hammersmith as his first strike and hit my lights that I had positioned out in front, but didn’t quite finish them off.   The Avatar Gazed and ran to hold the Hunter in place while the other jacks wrecked the Hammersmith.   Next turn Kraye feated and sent in the Centurion and Rowdy, while the Defender took some shots, brutalizing my Reckoner but leaving my other jacks functional.   I counter-feated, had the Fire grab the Centurion’s shield to deny him that armor, then wrecked him with my forces.   I did some fair damage to Rowdy, and Kreoss one-shotted the Hunter himself, but the big move was Gazing and running the Avatar up to catch Kraye, setting up a next turn Avatar-kill.

Round 3: Rassi’s Protectorate

Rassi’s always been a huge Amon fan, and MkII has only made him a better caster.   I thought about bringing my own Amon out but I had devised what I thought was a nice way around his Avatar to jump on Amon before he expected it.

As usual, I left my lights out to get charged first and put the Avatar out on a flank with Gaze up, then positioned the Fire where it didn’t have LOS to where I thought the Avatar would wind up.   I was right, and it trashed a light, triggering the Fire’s ability to move in the Maintenance Phase, still keeping the Avatar out of LOS.

Then, during my turn we realized I was thinking MkI Gaze rules (you having LOS to him, not him having LOS to you) and my assassination run went bunk with Kreoss hung out to dry.     Rassi had his jacks start things up and Amon himself finished Kreoss off.

Final Thoughts

We’re going to miss playing at Game On! but they went out with a fantastic event.   I’m really enjoying the MkII rules – things like jacks being able to charge over rough terrain (even if at half speed) just make the game more fluid and it’s harder to get pinned in and left out to dry.

I’m not sure how much MkII play will pick up in St. Louis before we get stat cards we can play from, but as a whole the community is ready to hit the ground running.