Winter 2009 Fantasy Escalation League

Week 3

Painting

This is my first week playing with unpainted minis.  If I had, oh, less than sixty unpainted rats, I might have pushed hard to get them painted but... nope.  Two units of slaves plus a unit of stormvermin.

I spent most of the week painting Stormvermin.  Although I'm not terribly content with the way they look, I'm nearly done with all 25 (the back 7 are more than halfway done) in the span of the week.  I suppose I'll have to be satisfied.

After my last game on Saturday, I realized how awesome the weather was for airbrushing... and I hadn't really had the chance to use the airbrush I'd gotten for Christmas.  So, I did the brown fur on my slaves.  Also, just for the heck of it, I'm converting up another Warlock Engineer.  He's not quite done yet: I need to put some electric rods and such onto his tank, as well as add some wires and such to his staff.

Army List

Lords & Heroes

Chieftan - Halberd, Heavy Armour, Cautious Shield

Warlock Engineer - Accumulator, Condenser, Warp-Blades, Dispel Scroll, Storm Daemon

Warlock Engineer - Accumulator, Condenser, Warp-Blades, Dispel Scroll

Core

Clanrats x24 - Full Command, Ratling Gun

Clanrats x24 - Full Command, Ratling Gun

Clanrat Slaves x20 - Musician

Clanrat Slaves x20 - Musician

Giant Rats x6

Night Runners x5

Night Runners x5

Stormvermin x24 - Full Command, Shields

Special

Plague Monks x10 - Extra Hand Weapons

Warplock Jezzails x5

Rare

Plague Censer Bearers x6

1400 points, 6 Casting Dice, 4 Dispell Dice, 156 models

Roster - Ratputin Marches - Week 3

Somehow in recreating the army list, I left shields off the damn Stormvermin.  That was a mistake that I'll have to live with until 1500.

Battle Notes

Game 10: vs. Blades of Chaos

This game looked like it was going to be very, very rough, and it could have been.  Three rounds of shooting by Ratling Guns, Warplock Jezzails and Warp-lightning brought down the unit of Chaos Knights, which turned the tide.  Static CR worked the way it was supposed to, and everything came together pretty well.  Both new additions, the Clanrat Slaves and the Stormvermin, performed well.  I nearly tabled Jay.

Game 11: vs. Tower of Blessed Dread

This could have gone a lot better for me.  Early on, Dark Riders chased one Warlock Engineer off the table and both Ratling Guns blew themselves up with double boxcars back-to-back.  The Stormvermin were chewed up by Black Guard, which wasn't surprising.  Corsairs held up a unit of Clanrats with the remaining Warlock Engineer for several turns, which kept him from being more useful blasting away.  At the end of the game, though, he chewed through some units.

Ultimately the game was decided by three Cold One Knights charging, defeating, and running down that unit of Clanrats.  Had they survived, they 1) would have contested the quarter (100 points) and 2) wouldn't have given up their points (280 points).  I think that would have nocked it down from a Massacre to something more respectable.

Game 12 vs. The Enigmatic Host of Kairos Fateweaver

This game went very different than the last time I played Jeremy.  I lucked out and he didn't roll quite as many "pulse" spells.  In fact, he only got 1-2 good turns of pulsing, and although it killed off my ratling guns, it didn't do much else.

Once I got into combat, which I did as quickly as possible, the Stormvermin (supported by slaves) ground away at one unit of Pink Horrors while two units of Clanrats took turns facing down the other.  Pestilens smacked into the Flamers on the flank but did little.  I just barely managed to table Jeremy thanks to really winning the heck out of combat and him rolling very poorly on Daemonic Instability.

Game 13 vs. Arromanche's Lustrian Horde

My luck was crazy in the game... and it didn't even come close to mattering.  I rolled two 13's to cast back to back, at one point, and managed to fail to wound myself after zapping Engineer with Warp Lighting.  Twice.  In a row!   Unfortunately, I rolled awfully poorly with Warp-Lightning, and zapped myself more than half the time I cast it.  Even off of Storm Daemon.

Harry's Kroxigors went down quickly: they charged the Plague Monks, beat them, overran into Censer Bearers and then took a unit of Clanrats to the flank.  Ratling Guns dropped his two sets of Terradons.  Unfortunately, that's pretty much all I took out.  His Salamanders destroyed me.  Not only did they burn through a half a unit of Stormvermin, a unit of Clanrats and a unit of Slaves, in doing so they ensured that I had nothing strong enough to get into combat with what he had.  It was rough.  Ultimately, he beat the bejesus out of me.