Gaming Blog: The Tricks Jim Taught You

Got in another game tonight at Johanna's flat and played against Ron (professor!) and his Khador. He's a self-admitted Behemoth fan, and I think that his troop choice was a bit weak but it was a fun game.

Ron's List:
Old Witch + Scrappy
Behemoth
Destroyer
Man'o'War Shocktroopers x4

I was running my usual Magnus and Steelheads (it's very handy just having one list). The terrain was a bit sparse and I stupidly cast Frenzy on the Mangler in the first turn instead of Blur on the Steelheads AGAIN. It was a 'pound head on desk' moment really. Luckily I've played so many games against Jim now I've picked up a good number of useful habits - such as the way I place my troops once they leave my deployment zone. Using this cunning placement I only lost a few halberdiers each turn to the Behemoth and Destroyer bombards. My Mangler performed appallingly, it only killed a single Man'o'War before it died to the SCRAPJACK. I'd wanted to use the Mangler to pin down the Shocktroopers for a while, ideally killing them through a couple of turns of circular strike, but alas it was not meant to be.

Using the Obliterators to knock down his Shocktroopers and the Behemoth (I should have just saved the second rocket actually, it did bugger all) I managed to make Ron activate his feat early to stop me charging first - which I did anyway (well, I advanced), the Mangler laughs off POW 14 hits! Unfortunately no one told me the stupid feat means you can't charge, the Old Witch was sitting so temptingly within charge range of the Mangler at the time. Ron then proceeded to whittle down my Steelheads and I used Magnus' feat to move my Renegades to either side of the forest the Old Witch was lurking in. I left Magnus facing the crow template thing Ron had left in the middle of the table. Strangely Ron felt threatened by the advancing Renegades and teleported the Old Witch to her crow template - though on the other side so Magnus couldn't see her through the concealment.

Unfortunately for Ron it was easily within my last remaining cavalryman's 16" run range. Taking a page from Jim's list of sneaky tricks (I'd heard of Jim doing this to the Old Witch using Gorman and eButcher at a tourney, otherwise it would have never occurred to me) I moved the cavalryman into the crow template (I should really look up what it's actually called) next to the Old Witch but still visible to Magnus outside. I then charged the cavalryman with Magnus, the cavalryman had turned around due to failing his command check, which meant Magnus backstabbed him on the charge attack. Many, many damage dice were rolled and the Steelhead took one for the team. Magnus proceeded to knock down the Old Witch and minced her with the bundles of focus I was camping. It was a thing of beauty... almost as if I had planned the whole thing...