So I'm sitting in the ER with my wife and her hemorrhaging uterus, trying to come up with a blog topic for tonight. I course the plan was to do this at home with a can of Pepsi (my muse drink) sitting in front of me. But here I am in a room that smells mildly of cleaning supplies and realized "Man I hate having to change up my carefully-made plans because one thing happens to change it." Blog idea!
This actually goes hand-in-hand with a game of Warmachine I played Saturday night. I was play testing the new version of Khador's Butcher - a game I was supposed to play on my birthday until my wife selfishly went in to labor (notice the theme here).
I had a deployment idea in mind hence made the list, but our "unbiased" terrain placer stuck a pond and crater right in the middle of the board. I'm terrible at splitting my forces, so I fumbled about trying to figure out who to send where. I sent Butcher to the zone on the left and inexplicably sent his two war jacks to the right. Fortunately I kept them in his control range, but it was nevertheless the beginning if a very rough game.
Following that I left Butcher with his butt sitting wide open to the middle, letting a bunch of trolls throw bombs at him, dropping him to 4 health. So now my aggressive caster had to tuck tail and hide.
Suddenly I was left with one option - win on scenario points. I was lucky to keep the trolls out of Butcher's zone with a very lucky failed command check on his Boomhowlers, so I was up 2 points via domination. After he thinned my army and left Butcher exposed I had to own both zones or lose next turn.
My two war jacks were Berzerker's, which I'd chosen with the express purpose of making them explode and kill a bunch of infantry. I ran them up the other zone and made it so that each need a roll of 1-3 to explode. Both of them rolled a 6, leaving the zone contested and unable to be scored.
LAST CHANCE. I couldn't get an assassination, I couldn't win on scenario with turn. All I could do was turtle up and hope for some amazingly bad rolls. I ran my line of Iron Fang Pikemen forward to tie up anything that might try to shoot Butcher or enter his zone. I ran Butcher to the back of his zone to keep him "safe," collected two more scenario points, and passes the turn.
The game ended with my opponent impossibly breaking his Bomber out of my IFP wall, barely hitting Butcher, and getting the EXACT dice needed to kill him.
It might sound like I was able to change tactics on the fly, but don't be fooled! During the game my mind was a jumble of panic and strategy. Things wouldn't stop messing up my plans, and I just couldn't get my mind around reevaluating the battlefield and plodding on. My adjusted tactics seemed sound, and the game's amazing end was definitely hinged on that final dice roll, but man do I hate when all my plans fall apart!
See you tomorrow!
Unbiased in quotations?! I play and lose to Fritz all the time. If anything, I am more likely to place terrain in a way that handicaps Fritz. Next time I guess I will have to lay out a grid pattern and let the dice decide where terrain goes! Nothing but love, Fritz!! :)
ReplyDeleteI would definitely agree that I can't see Josh ever setting something up in my favor in a game of Warmachine.
ReplyDeleteI would say that some positioning problems did definitely come up, and the fact that your berzerkers wanted to live to die another day was no help at all!
The only thing that pulled my but out of the "dice hate you" fire was Calandra's feat. The damage rolls being ridiculously high was the only thing that allowed me to even have a chance. I wasn't even putting up a serious contention for zone control. Just reminding you of the fact that the game was close for both of us. I was just as ready to lose to scenario as your were to assassination. Although I think the odds were more in your favor but the dice saved my butt.
Overall I really enjoyed the game though.