We just finished week one of the Carnage at the Confluence campaign at Drawbridge Games–check out all the progress and story here.
This post focuses on my games in the campaign, but of course first is my painting progress:
I finished a minimum unit of Trollkin Fennblades. Painting units is always the big challenge in Warmachine and Hordes, so I’m proud of getting them done. They add 5 more points to my painted model total.
I also finished the Drummer model of the Fennblades Officer and Drummer unit attachment. I’ll give myself half points for him (+1), as the Fennblade Officer was one of the first models I painted up to test my Trollbloods scheme (in November!).
I also completed a Troll Axer, for another six points painted. I’m really pleased with how he turned out. Despite all my Trollbloods play, I have never fielded this model until today. Odd, given how much I use my Titan Gladiator to pass out the Rush animus to my Skorne forces.
Given that it was the first week of the campaign, games were simply bring and battle with rolled Steamroller scenarios. I faced off against three different Legion players over two days: Rico’s force led by Rhyas, Ryan’s force led by Vayl2, and Brandon’s force led by Lylyth.
The more I play Madrak2, the more I believe I simply do not get him as a caster. I had a good game against Rico, clearing a lot of his stuff and playing defensive to try and get points. But eventually he whittled through my defenses enough to get to Madrak, finishing him with a Scythean. I think I need to run him with troop spam, and just get right up into my opponent’s face and dare them to take him out. Dunno, not my style.
I played my second game against Ryan’s Vayl2 force, which he is doing in a great blue color with some yellow/orange elements. It really pops nicely on the table. For this game I fielded Jarl Skuld, who is much more my style than Madrak2. He plays cautiously, takes out selected pieces to enable a favorable match up to end the game. I finished Vayl2 off with some heroics from Janissa Stonetide’s Rock Hammer spell and Jarl finishing the knocked-down Vayl2 with a charge.
The next day I snuck in a game against Brandon’s Lylyth force. We took our time, as he is a Cygnar player who is just starting to explore Hordes and Legion of Everblight through the campaign. I took Borka, who proved to be too much for the Carnivean to handle. His high defense when he puts Iron Flesh on himself, and then becomes Stumbling Drunk, is just too good. The one shining moment for Legion was when a Shredder’s attack caused Borka to stumble directly backward toward my table edge, leaving the Carnivean out of melee and with a perfect shot down the line of my Troll Bouncer and the full group of Fennblades. While I took some pretty brutal casualties from that, the Earthborn on the opposite side finally made range on Lylyth and finished her off.
Overall a great set of games and good opponents. So far so good with the campaign, and if nothing else lots of people are playing new armies because of it.
366 Points Challenge Progress (2016):
145/366
Battles (Privateer Press):
Overall Totals 2016: 34 (Win/Loss: 20/14/0); 2015: 43 (Win/Loss: 29/14/0)
Trollbloods:
4 Wins (Karchev x2, Vayl2, Lylyth) / 6 Losses (Adeptis Rahn, Kromac, Caine2, Borka2, Kaya, Rhyas)
Cryx:
4 Wins (Caine, Karchev, Skarre, Vlad) / 3 Losses (Asphyxious, Lylyth2, Goreshade3)
Skorne:
12 Wins (Butcher x2, Deneghra, Shae, Sorscha2, Feora2, Severius, Skarre x2, Kreoss2, Borka, Kaya2)/ 5 Losses (Rask, Xerxis, Butcher3, Thagrosh, Zerkova2)
I’m really pleased with how the model turned out. I’m not the best painter, but I’m proud of what I worked out for my Trollbloods. Finishing Borka and the Pyg Keg Carrier also gets me to 133 points of models painted this year!
The Winter Trolls took the brunt of the Karchev Warjack bundle. The Freezer animus helped somewhat, leaving two of the advancing jacks who ran up into my face stationary. But that didn’t save the Winter Trolls the following turn, as they were pretty easily cut down after an ineffective turn of spraying his models hoping for more stationary effects. 
On the other side, I was doing much better. There was a large obstacle that split the battlefield in half. Because of my shooting, the Man-o-Wars advanced slowly in shield wall, which let me get into my opponent’s zone quickly and sneak some early points. The Swamp Troll proved to be a fantastic ally to the Pyg Bushwhackers. He pulled Man-o-Wars out of formation with his drag, leaving the other isolated ones to be shot down without the benefit of shield wall. Then the Slip Away order for the Bushwhackers UA allowed them to drop out of combat without free strikes and do it all over. 
While Karchev managed to dominate my zone eventually, that early turn of getting a quick point paid off. I managed to clear the last of the Man-o-Wars in his zone with a charge from Borka, leaving the Swamp Troll controlling that zone. Scored me my fifth control point on the same turn when Karchev dominated a second time (giving Colton four). It was a really close match, and if I hadn’t grabbed that early turn point with the Pyg Bushwhackers he would have definitely won the match. 
The map above has the tiles marked with starting positions for Wargroups–the units functioning as a combined army of sorts. The legend below shows which Warcasters and Warlocks lead each Wargroup.
They are not particularly good in the game, but they are 10 more points painted toward my totals–which puts me at exactly 1/3 of the way through the painting progress. And with the new edition of Warmachine and Hordes coming in June, there’s hopes that the old models that haven’t been particularly great will get new rules that improve them. Winter Trolls haven’t been good ever (not Mark I, nor Mark II) so perhaps they’ll finally get their moment. 
My Doomshaper2 force. With added Winter Trolls, because well… I just painted them. I also forgot my Impaler at home, so had to borrow a friend’s for the battle, so that’s why he doesn’t match. The basic plan is using the movement boosts and tricks of Doomy2 to yo-yo ranged warbeasts and knock out key models/dent things as they close in. I’m not sure it works (I’m leaning strongly toward the idea that it’s a complete flop). It also definitely suffered from the two Winter Trolls, because…
My opponent Tony fielded Borka2, who makes his whole battlegroup immune to cold, and can selectively give cold immunity to a unit with an upkeep spell. Battlegroup was Mulg, Impaler, Bouncer, and Pyre Troll, supported by minimum Tuffalo, a big group of Fennblades with two pieces supporting them, and a Krielstone.
The lines got pretty mixed, as Borka2’s feat turn left me unable to project much against his forces beyond sending a few Fennblades to their ancestors. The rampage of the Dire Troll Blitzers was blunted by the heavy forces they matched up agaist. I managed to finish off Mulg after this photo, and was starting to put some pressure on controlling the far scenario zone to get an advantage and hopefully grind out a win. 
Sadly, Doomshaper2 got buried under weight of attacks from stragglers as the forces got thinned out, and his utterly feeble old man stats started to show themselves. He was assaulted by a Fennblade and a Fell Caller, lit aflame from a Northkin Fire Eater (the hit also forcing the tough and knocking him down), and finally slain by a shot from the Pyre Troll. Overall a really fun game, as Tony is a great opponent and it really helps me to see how other Trollbloods players build their lists and react to the flow of battle with familiar pieces. 
And I promptly learned that luck would simply not be with me this game. The light warbeasts are tough enough, but with dice going awry they got downright awful. Here they are crashing agaist the Circle menace. 
The most ignoble part of the game came from when I realized that Madrak2 needed to mix it up himself to win. So I put his buff up on himself and rolled up onto the near Argus… only to miss and miss again until I was left with too low a fury stat and a still mostly-healthy Argus. I further complicated my mistake by trying to make up for his misses by going hog-wild with my light warbeasts and forgot to leave open fury on them for transfers. That left me with my defense lowered thanks to my own buff spell–and Madrak2 was unceremoniously laid low by the assault. 
My second match was against Les’ Circle Orboros force–a beast-heavy list led by Kromac.
My list on their side of the battlefield. I was hoping that the Sorcerer could do some work by shutting off Pathfinder–hoping to catch his forces on one side of that center lake with the Sorcerer doing his thing on the far side. Alas, that was hardly what happened. 
I lost the Earthborn to the Ghetorix, as Kromac’s ability to get beasts deep and everywhere is just amazing. Sensing the jaws closing again, it was time for another attempt at ill-advised assassination run. Kromac was close enough that my Dire Trolls Blitzers could get some shots on him, and then Doomshaper2 could potentially Primal Shock from the closer one. I did just that, but Dire Troll Blitzers are just terribly awful shots who need to boost too often. Because of that, the hits didn’t quite do enough damage… leaving him able to simply take some of the hits and not transfer, so that as I worked through the couple of transfers I was left without a way to finish the job. He quickly killed Doomshaper2 in return to end the game. 
Third game was against Bill’s Mercenary-heavy Caine2 list. I felt like I had a decent shot against this list, as long as I could build my defensive fortress for Doomshaper2 each turn closer to Caine2, I could eventually launch a feat-driven assassination into him to finish him off. 
My forces arrayed with a refused flank, ready for the wall of troll warbeast meat to advance right into the enemy guns. 
This was probably my best-played game of the tourney. I did a few good things, and felt like I started to get better use out of my two Dire Troll Blizters (not just saving them to be assassination threats). They needed to get work done, and that meant getting situations against multiple targets where they could shoot and swing (and snack). 
The platoon gathered. It’s composed of a minimum unit of Pyg Bushwhackers, a unit of Trollkin Scouts, and a Stone Scribe Chronicler. I love the Trollkin Scouts models–the one stealing the pig is priceless. 
His force, arrayed to protect the safehouse from being reached by my Officer. 
I managed to sneak my officer (represented by the Pyg Keg Carrier companion of Borka) just far enough around to make a run for it. The Legionnaires almost caught me, but he managed to slip free and get to the safehouse. 
His deployment and cluster of warjacks around Karchev. 
My force after my first turn of movement–sending the Scouts and Pygs on both edges to clear out his support, and hoping Borka, Janissa, an Impaler, and two Dire Troll Blitzers can stand against the onslaught of Jacks down the middle. 
My feat turn was going to be perfect. One of his Warjacks had ended slightly in the water of the river. With Knockdown on all my models, and the Devastator Open after shooting, it meant that a charging Stone Scribe Chronicler had a pretty good shot at knocking the warjack down thanks to Borka’s feat and his engine going out. It was a great plan until the Trollkin missed his attack roll. 
The conclusion was climactic simply because of how long it took. Karchev got a shot at killing Borka personally. So he took it, only to have Borka stumble away after the first attack hit him (and transfer the damage). Then it was my turn, and despite Borka’s attacks, the Blitzer’s full compliment of firepower, and Janissa’s armor piercing swing, Karchev lived. His next turn saw Borka stumble away yet again at the improbable last moment… And I finally finished him on my following turn. 
Hoarluk Doomshaper, Rage of Dhunia counts as 5 points for the painting challenge (Warcasters earn points on Base Size). He was a fun model, as I tried to work on the blue rune glow coming from his staff–making the ones directly under his hand light up like he was pulling magic from them. 
I also finished a second Dire Troll Blitzer (the one on the right is the new guy). I made his pose as different as I could from the other one to set them apart a little while still being the same. This is probably my favorite model in all of the faction (though the 
I also finished up five Troll Whelps. These little dudes are the Fury management system for Trollbloods, and while they’re a pretty bad Fury management system compared to the other Hordes factions, at least they’re something. I got two groups of them at the same time, so I did the similar models together: two shed from Earthborns, two shed from Blitzers (I think, because they’re running?), and one that seems to be an Impaler whelp (the quiver). 
So I’m relatively pleased with the paint job on Grissel. I’m not particularly in love with the model, as the face is one of the worst I’ve seen in the faction. Having recently painted Janissa, who has a great expression and look, Grissel’s garbage-can mouth is just a travesty. That said, I’m pleased with how the model looks at a distance–standing amidst a force, the blue “magic” runes pop nicely in my otherwise earthtones plus dull orange army.
This is the model I was most proud of in this group, as I really didn’t think he would turn out as nicely as he did. I’ve seen Fell Caller Heroes in other players’ forces, and never really liked the pose or paint job. But I’ll 
Red Ones Go Faster 