Warmachine Battle report #3: 50pts Mercenaries "MiMeMo" (Ossrum) vs. Cygnar juniors (eCaine)

Hi everyone! I’m Juho “Tanan” Auer and this is my 3rd warmachine miniature game battle report on this site. The lists below where done using www.forwardkommander.com .

My mercenary list:
System: Warmachine
Faction: Mercenaries - Searforge Commission
 Casters: 1/1
Points: 50/50
General Ossrum (*5pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Gunner (3pts)
* Grundback Gunner (3pts)
* Grundback Gunner (3pts)
Tactical Arcanist Corps (4pts)
Ogrun Bokur (3pts)
Ogrun Bokur (3pts)

Ville "vherne" Hernesniemi Cygnar list:

System: Warmachine
Faction: Cygnar
Casters: 1/1
Points: 50/50
Captain Allister Caine (*5pts)
* Ol' Rowdy (9pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (Boomhowler and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
Rangers (5pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Journeyman Warcaster (3pts)
* Hunter (6pts)
Lieutnant Allison Jakes (3pts)
* Hunter (6pts)
* Hunter (6pts)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord (2pts)

 
The scenario: SR2014 "Rally Point"
Two circular zones and objectives on the middle. The nearest objective is friendly. Destroy enemy objective for one control point. Dominate the zone on your left for one control point. Dominate the zone on your right for two control points and control zone for one control point. Win for the first who gets five control points.

55 min deathclock is used, but deployment isn't clocked ("Nordic deathclock").

About the lists: 
I think that the Ossrum list above highlights the differences between Gorten "MiMeMo" (miserable meal mountain)  and Ossrum "MiMeMo". Gorten has the tools to bypass high ARM (Dual hand cannon, Molten metal, Strength of Granite) and high DEF (feat, Eruption). When I built my Gorten MiMeMo list I chose models that further enhance these abilities (multiple battlegroup melee heavies to bypass high ARM with Strengh of Granite, Brun&Lug bypass high ARM and high DEF etc.). Ossrum on the other hand doesn’t have innate tools to bypass high ARM or high DEF. I could choose models that would mitigate these weaknesses, but I feel that this isn’t the right way to play Ossrum (or warmachine in general). I think that Ossrum is best in scenario control (speed, bulldoze), anti-hordes (lower ARM in general and it’s easy to frenzy beasts with bulldoze) and assassination (snipe, energizer, feat) and that the list should enhance these traits.

I have mixed feelings from Ville's list, probably because I have love/hate relationship with Captain Allister Caine (also known as eCaine or Caine2). I mean, Caine is one of those casters that can during his feat turn, oneround a colossal or reliably kill a enemy warcaster from 22" away. During non-feat rounds, he removes enemy light infantry with frightening efficiency. While this works very well against most warmachine/hordes list (in current meta, most armies have only one heavy jack or colossal and a lot of infantry), it really struggles against high ARM armies. Most swan players try to mitigate this weakness by boosting Caine damage output even further by including models like Ragman and Aiyana & Holt. Ville has done the same by taking three Hunters and assigning them to Jakes and Junior warcaster.  Like I mentined before, I don't think that this is the right way to play warmachine.

Cygnar deployment: 
I won the roll to go first, and chose to deploy second. 

Mercenary deployment: 

I chose to go last and select the board edge, because the forest terrain party obscures the zone on my left. For those who are not familiar with warmachine, this kind of pocket is ideal for contesting a zone. I'm confident that four Blasters will be enough and Ville will not be able to win with control points. Three gunners are on the middle of the deployment where they can threaten any models that decides to advance more than 8" from their deployment zone.

Cygnar Turn 1:
Caine casts 'Blur' on himself and 'Heightened reflexes' on Boomhowler & Co. Rhubert gives Boomhowler & Co pathfinder. Junior Warcaster casts 'Arcane shield' on Ol'Rowdy. Jakes casts 'Sidekick' on Hunter. Everyone runs forward.  I'm actually little surprised by these moves, since Jakes Hunters could have shot my Blasters.

Mercenary Turn 1:
Boomhowler ran little too far. Assign three focus for Gunners. Ossrum casts Energizer with 3 focus. Gunners shoot Boomhowler to death. Blasters take up defensive positions behind the wall. Tactical Arcanist Corps spread clouds to protect Bokurs from Hunters.

Cygnar Turn 2:
Caine, Jakes and Junior upkeep spells and Caine camps focus. The Boomhowler Co charge in and concentrated fire from Caine and Hunters destroy one Gunner and cripple two. Ol'Rowdy runs to the zone on my left.

Mercenary Turn 2:
There are only five Boomhowler grunts and two rangers are on the rightmost zone, so I try to get some control points. Assign 2 focus for Blasters. Unfortunately, Blaster struggle to penetrate ARM16 and 5+ tough works far too many times. At the end of the shooting one Boomhowler grunt and one range remain on the zone. Ossrum is intimidated by Caine's threat range, runs toward my table edge and hides behind Bokurs. Four Blasters play hide-and-seek with Ol'Rowdy on the leftmost zone.

Cygnar Turn 3:

Caine upkeeps 'Blur' on himself, but drops 'Heightened reflexes' from Boomhowler Co. Jakes and Junior upkeep their spells. Ville measures Caine's control range many times, but finally decides that Ossrum's ARM21 and two Bokurs are too much for a reliable assassination run. Caine and Hunters perforate the last Gunner and two Blasters.

Mercenary Turn 3:

Caine came little too close, time for some shenanigans ;). Assign two focus for Blaster 'I' and four focus for other Blasters. Blasters C, D, F and J finally eliminate the Boomhowlers. Ossrum uses his feat the 'Perfect Plan'. Blaster 'A' runs in front of Caine. Thanks to Ossrum's feat 'Perfect Plan' Blaster 'I' is able to slam (wall and Blaster wrecks were blocking the slam movement) Blaster 'A' and Caine is knocked down by collateral hit. Tactical Arcanist Corps move up and kill Caine with flame blasts.

Mercenaries win by assassination!

Post-game thoughts:
Overall, I think that "MiMeMo" is a pretty bad matchup for Caine. Ville also made numerous small mistakes throughout the match.  His biggest mistake was deploying Arcane shielded Ol'Rowdy on my left flank. That jack and spell would have been seriously needed in the rightmost zone. Another mistake was relying on 'Blur' for protection. If Caine had 'Arcane shield' or 'Heightened reflexes' he would have survived the assassination.
For my part, I think I didn't make big mistakes. Ossrum "MiMeMo" will grind any infantry to dust, even if that infantry is Boomhowler & Co. I overestimated my Blasters ability to remove the Boomhowlers and rangers during my second turn, but I didn't really lose anything so no harm done.

 What do you think about the battle report? Please post your thoughts on the comment section.

Warmachine Battle report #2: 50pts Mercenaries "MiMeMo" (Gorten) vs. Khador jack spam (pButcher)

Hi everyone! I’m Juho “Tanan” Auer and this is my 2nd warmachine miniature game battle report on this site. The lists below where done using www.forwardkommander.com .

My mercenary list:
System: Warmachine
Faction: Mercenaries - Searforge Commission
Points: 50/50
Gorten Grundback (*7pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Ghordson Basher (7pts)
* Ghordson Basher (7pts)
Tactical Arcanist Corps (4pts)
Brun Cragback & Lug (9pts)
Gudrun the Wanderer (3pts)

Valtteri "Walz" Laivamaa Khador list:

System: Warmachine
Faction: Khador
Casters: 1/1
Points: 50/50
The Butcher of Khardov (*6pts)
* Berserker (6pts)
* Berserker (6pts)
* Berserker (6pts)
* Berserker (6pts)
* Juggernaut (7pts)
* Juggernaut (7pts)
* War dog (1pts)
Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (4pts)
Winter Guard Infantry (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Winter Guard Infantry Officer & Standard (2pts)
Winter Guard Mortar Crew (Leader and Grunt) (3pts)
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich (2pts)

And then disaster struck (again)! One of the Berserkers had its leg damaged during transport and had to be be proxied by Devastator.

 
The scenario: SR2014 "Fire Support"
Two flags and objectives on the middle. The nearest objective is friendly. Destroy enemy objective for one control point. Dominate flag for two control points and control flag for one control point. Win for the first who gets five control points.

55 min deathclock is used, but deployment isn't clocked ("Nordic deathclock").

About the lists: 

[copied form #1 battle report]The basic idea behind my list is pretty simple. Blasters are incredible models, because they hard counter infantry and are one of the most durable models in the game for their point cost. The durability and firepower of Blasters buys me time to annihilate key enemy models and either win by attrition or scenario control points. In Privateer Press Mercenary Faction Forum, this list type is called "Miserable Metal Mountain" or MiMeMo. Thanks @Althrion for coming up with the term.[/copied form #1 battle report]

 

Valtteri's Khador list has a lot of inexpensive Khador melee jacks and the all-too-common Winter Guard infantry, officer and Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich combo (also known as WGI+UA+Joe). I'm not too worried about the WGI, but Khador Berserker heavy jacks could shread my jacks in melee, if I wasn't careful. For those who are unfamiliar with warmachine, Valtteri's warcaster is Orsus Zoktavir - The Butcher of Khardov (also known as "pButcher" or "The Butcher"), who is the hardest hitting melee warcaster in the game. Nothing in the game that can survive his giant axe 'Lola' more than few swings. The Butcher's signature spell 'Full Throttle' gives his warjacks free charges and boosted melee attacks, meaning that he can run a big battlegroup very efficiently. His feat is very simple: add one damage die to all damage rolls. Enemy models/armies tend to disappear during his feat turn.

Khador deployment:
Valtteri won the roll to go first, and chose to deploy and go first.

Mercenary deployment:
I chose the side with the least amount of forest.

Khador Turn 1:
Everyone runs forward.

Mercenary Turn 1:
Assign three focus for Blasters. Gorten casts the Solid Ground spell and walks forward. The Bashers and Lug "help" Blasters to move forward by slamming and throwing them. Brun casts Stonehold spell.

Khador Turn 2:
The Butcher camps everything and charges the leading Blaster and kills it with two swings from Lola. Everyone else runs forwards to engage Blasters.

Mercenary Turn 2:
The Butcher charge was a bad mistake. Assign 3 focus to Basher. Solid Ground and Stonehold aren't upkeeped.  Blasters move to block Khador jacks. Gorten uses his Landslide feat to push The Butcher few inches forward and then casts Strength of Granite spell to Basher. Brun casts Lug's animus (Bear hands) on himself, charges the Butcher and knocks him down with a boosted attack. Lug charges the Butcher and leaves him with a couple of health boxes. Strength of Granite buffed Basher finishes the Butcher with one attack.

 

 Mercenaries win by assassination!

Post-game thoughts:
Sometimes warmachine games can be very short. This was one of those games. :

What do you think about the battle report? Please post your thoughts on the comment section.

Warmachine Battle report #1: 50pts Mercenaries "MiMeMo" (Gorten) vs. Khador gunline (pVlad)

Hi everyone! I’m Juho “Tanan” Auer and this is my first warmachine miniature game battle report on this site. I hope you enjoy it. The lists below where done using www.forwardkommander.com .

My mercenary list:
System: Warmachine
Faction: Mercenaries - Searforge Commission
Points: 50/50
Gorten Grundback (*7pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)
* Ghordson Basher (7pts)
* Ghordson Basher (7pts)
Tactical Arcanist Corps (4pts)
Brun Cragback & Lug (9pts)
Gudrun the Wanderer (3pts)

Niko "SpartanMk1" Lintula Khador list:
System: Warmachine 
Faction: Khador
Casters: 1/1
Points: 50/50
Vladimir, The Dark Prince (*5pts)
* Behemoth (13pts)
* Spriggan (10pts)
Battle Mechaniks (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts)
* Koldun Kapitan Valachev (2pts)
Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (4pts)
Winter Guard Field Gun Crew (Leader and 2 Grunts) (2pts)
Winter Guard Infantry (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Winter Guard Infantry Officer & Standard (2pts)
Winter Guard Mortar Crew (Leader and Grunt) (3pts)
Winter Guard Mortar Crew (Leader and Grunt) (3pts)
Koldun Lord (2pts)
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich (2pts)

Then disaster struck! Behemoth's left shoulder and arm had broken during transport and Niko had accidently left his Widowmakers at home so we had to use my gun mages as proxies.

The scenario: SR2014 "Destruction"

Two objectives and zone in the middle. Destroy enemy objective for one control point. Dominate zone for two control points and control zone for one control point. Win for the first who gets five control points.

Killbox is in effect: Starting at the end of 2nd players 2nd turn, your warcaster must be 14" away from any table edge, or opponent gets two control points.

55 min deathclock is used, but deployement isn't clocked.

About the lists:
The basic idea behind my list is pretty simple. Blasters are incredible models, because they hard counter infantry and are one of the most durable models in the game for their point cost. The durability and firepower of Blasters buys me time to annihilate key enemy models and either win by attrition or scenario control points. In Privateer Press Mercenary Faction Forum, this list type is called "Miserable Metal Mountain" or MiMeMo. Thanks @Althrion for coming up with the term.

Niko's Khador list is basically a one big gunline. Vlad's Signs & Portents (S&P) spell and Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich makes everything very accurate and hard hitting. Lady Aiyana spell Kiss of Lyliss increases the damage even further. While my jacks are immune blast damage, Gudrun and Tactical Arcanist Corps can be seriously hurt by S&P buffed blast damage from Mortars and Behemoth. Luckily for me, Gorten's Solid Ground spell makes the nearby models immune to blast damage. Another advance of Solid Ground is that the Winter Guard Field Gun Crew can't knock them down (53.32% to crit with S&P and Joe vs. DEF12).

The ensuring melee against the Khador will be very interesting. The two Khador warjacs are good at wrecking armored models in melee. On the other hand, the Blasters are durable and Khador jacks have some trouble hitting them (MAT6 hits DEF12 with 72.22%), if S&P isn't cast every turn. Casting S&P means of course less melee attacks for jacks.  
The most dangerous models in the Khador list is probably Spriggan,  because it has bulldoze which can break Blaster lines. Combined with Vlad's Forced match feat (16” run), it can seriously expose my warcaster for Khador highly effective shooting if I’m not careful.

In short, this game excellent chance to test my MiMeMo list durability. ;)

Mercenary deployment:
I won the roll to go first, and chose to deploy and go first.

Khador deployment:

 
Mercenary Turn 1: 
Assign three focus for Blasters. Gorten casts the Solid Ground spell and charges. The Bashers "help" Blasters to move forward by slamming them. Lug tries to throw a Blaster, but boosted double-handed throw misses DEF12. Gudrun advances in to the forest and prepares to engage the gun ma.. er Widowmakers.

Khador Turn 1:

Aiyana manages to cast the kiss on the lead Blaster. Signs & Portents buffed Behemoth and Widowmaker shoot and the Blaster is badly hurt, but still functioning. Winter Guard Infantry (WGI) takes up defensive positions on the hill.

Mercenary Turn 2:

Time to retaliate. Assigning 4 focus to Blasters and upkeeping Solid Ground. Hitting DEF12+2 WGI isn't a problem, but them passing five tough rolls is. Gudrun charges the WGI, kills one and ties up several Widowmakers. Four Blasters move to the center of the table to contest zone next turn.

Khador turn 2:
The merciless Khador artillery bombardment continues and the first unique character snowflake Blaster with interesting backstory dies a heroic death. A moment of silence is observed.

Predictably, Niko tries to destroy the objective and all contesting Blasters, but objective and two blaster (barely) survive the beatdown. 

Mercenary turn 3:

Time to remove the WGI and Widowmakers. Gorten camps all focus and upkeeps Solid Ground.  Blasters move to open slam lanes for Bashers. Bashers slam both Khador warjacks and resulting collateral damage kills most of the surviving WGI and Widowmakers. Gorten moves to a safer position and casts rock wall in front of a Basher to protect it from the Behemoth. Brun and Lug move forward to destroy something important next turn.

Khador turn 3:

Apparently one of the Blaster screening the Gorten is badly damaged. Vlad's jacks shake off knockdown, Vlad feats, casts S&P. Light artillery destroys the damaged Blasters and the objective.  The Spriggan charges Gorten. Gorten takes seven damage. The Behemoth destroys a Basher.

Mercenary turn 4:

Gorten has managed get so close to Vlad that assassination via Landslide feat is possible.  Assign 4 focus to Blasters and Solid ground is not upkeeped. Unfortunately, there are several Blaster wrecks in front of Gorten so I need to slam Spriggan out of the way to get close enough. Basher slams the Spriggan, but Niko points out that Basher moved only 2,7" so Spriggan isn't moved by the slam. My great assassination plan fails :(.

Remaining Tactical Arcanist Corps and Blasters move to base to base with Spriggan so that Gorten can escape without provoking a free strike. Blasters move to tie up Behemoth. Brun and Lug remove the other objective.

Khador turn 4:

Niko tries another assassination, but the timer runs of out for him. Mercenaries win by deathclock! My clock shows 15 minutes of remaining time.

Post-game thoughts:
Even though I had a bad flu and made many, many mistakes, I really liked this match. The fact that I won without feating and against good defensive position is a sign that this has some serious potential.
Niko punished me for every mistake I made, but in all honesty could probably have played a little bit faster. Then again he played a gunline infantry list with multiple buffing and debuffing models. Playing a that kind of list quickly without mistakes takes a lot of practice. After the match, Niko said that he will try to donwnsize his infantry and squeeze in another bulldoze jack.
My biggest mistake was of course my hilarious assassination attempt during turn 4. What was I thinking! I can only hope that I remember to check the slam distance next time. The second biggest mistake was not double-checking the Blaster damage boxes during turn 3. Niko had an excellent chance to kill Gorten, which was completely preventable. I probably should have used the Gorten’s feat earlier to remove one Khador heavy, just to block this kind of assassination attempt.

What do you think about the battle report? Please post your thoughts on the comment section.