Another week of open gaming at Drawbridge Games, which meant it was time for progress with my Skorne. First up the painting, then the two games I got in.

I’ve had my Master Tormentor Morghoul (pMorghoul) model for ages, but because I was more excited to play Lord Assassin Morghoul (eMorghoul) when I started Skorne, it’s sat unpainted on the shelf for ages. He’s in the Season Three ADR list of casters for 2016, so I thought that I would get him painted and give him some consideration. I’ve always heard and read that he’s a great beast-heavy caster, and playing beast-heavy is always my M.O. so I figured he’d be a good fit. It was time for a bit of Maltreatment!

I also finished up a Cyclops Raider. He’s mainly a support beast for his animus (which gives Snipe), but he can get some work done in shooting himself if needed. His best ability is that if he takes the time to aim, he ignores Stealth–which is huge for cutting out those frustrating solos in an enemy force that rely upon Stealth to protect them. With these two added to my painted total, I hit 13 total points painted in February, and 45 total points finished so far in 2016. It’s a long road to 366, but not that long!

I got in two games at Drawbridge. First was against Colton’s Khador, led by the very dangerous pButcher. That mission was Incursion from the 2015 Steamroller list: three flags along the center line. The second game I faced Ryan’s Cryx, commanded by pDeneghra. That mission was Incoming from the 2015 list: two lateral zones with two objectives.

The Great Bears made a mess of my Aradus Sentinel, as Beast 09 and a Kodiak watched. Colton’s awesome-looking Khador filled the center with very tough models, which meant I had to focus on the sides and be careful about my placement in the middle.

I got out to an early lead thanks to the flanks. On the left, two light beasts finished off some solos while pMorghoul himself did a dance of death through the Widowmakers who had ran up to take a shooting position. On the right, my Void Spirit grabbed a quick point facing down the intimidating Man-O-War Shocktroopers. They weren’t quite within range of the flag, and their lack of magic weapons meant they simply had to bypass the Void Spirit and leave a trailing couple of members to contest the flag in the later turns. 

I finally managed to finish off the Great Bears, and drew Beast 09 to the right, which left a straight shot for my Titan Gladiator to slam the Kodiak right through the Butcher. With the Gladiator’s follow-up ability, he rolled right up to the Butcher and bought a couple of attacks to finish him off for assassination. It was a good game, and I was lucky to get the kill as things were starting to get pretty beat up on my side of the table–and the Man-O-Wars were about to mop up all the damaged light beasts on my right side. 

My second game was against Ryan’s excellently painted, classic-look Cryx. His force was heavy on infantry with Bane Thralls and Blackbane’s Ghost Raiders, along with a couple of arc node bonejacks and Barathrum. I started realizing that I had only a couple of magic weapon options, so Blackbane’s were going to be a definite concern. I decided to play Morghoul up and make a tight line of my stuff on their side, hoping that he would come to me an jam with the Incorporeal models. He did, and that let Morghoul have a turn of absolute destruction. With his super-high MAT, Overtake to let me slide down the line with each kill, and Doublestrike to allow two swings for each fury spent on additional attacks, Morghoul killed a whopping nine raiders and then sprinted back to safety behind him lines. 

Then of course, it was Deneghra’s turn to shine. Her feat is utterly crippling for a turn. I had to try and weather the storm–the only model that wasn’t caught in the feat was the little Agonizer. He used Spiritual Affliction to deny Barathrum and a Bonejack focus for the turn, which bought me some breathing room as I traded blows and suffered heavy losses from the Bane Thralls. 

Welcome to the slap-fight. Deneghra got aggressive, moved up and used Crippling Grasp to further limit Morghoul, then laid into him with melee attacks. However, he didn’t quite get finished off and was sitting at a miserable 2 health boxes at the end of the Cryx turn. While I didn’t have a way to shake the Crippling Grasp (my kindgom for a Cyclops Shaman!), I was right in her face and had most of my Fury plus one for Maltreatment (having to shake Shadowbind was a pain), so I thought I’d return the favor. The Cyclops Raider set up the attack, slamming a Bane Thrall into Deneghra–knocking her down and killing the Bane. Yet even with the flurry of attacks Morghoul was coming up short. P+S 7 was simply not getting the job done. I got too close to empty Fury and she was still reasonably healthy–so I put up Admonition and took a swing at another close model and killed it to be able to Sprint away. I rolled my Razorworm up and he finished the job of the assassination. It was a fun game, and while my blending through Blackbane’s was a morale buster, the fight could have cut either way multiple times throughout the battle. 

So far so good with pMorghoul. I’m looking forward to giving him another try in my next games. However, I am definitely finishing my Cyclops Shaman, as debuff removal is pretty much essential it seems.

366 Points Challenge Progress (2016):

45/366

Battles (Privateer Press):

Overall Totals 2016: 10 (Win/Loss: 6/4/0); 2015: 43 (Win/Loss: 29/14/0)

Skorne:

2 Wins (Butcher, Deneghra)/ 1 Loss (Rask)

Cryx:

4 Wins (Caine, Karchev, Skarre, Vlad)  /  3 Losses (Asphyxious, Lylyth2, Goreshade3)

• Warmachine/Hordes