Rise of the Searforge, or faceplant depending on how it goes...

[Seabo]

Hello all!
I have been from one end of the spectrum to the other as far as casters in both Mercenaries and the Protectorate but, no matter who i played, I always have had a soft spot for the little stunties, especially Gorten. Unfortunately I have not had the greatest luck with them. I can count the number of wins on one hand...
Now that more players have surfaced in my area (Gasp! they do exist!), I decided at the beginning of May to play Searforge exclusively for the summer. The plan is this will bring me and my vertically challenged comrades closer together and make them a force to be reckoned with. This has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they are my only (almost) fully painted army, nope nothing at all .
Hopefully, in the near future, I will be able to get my digital camera back from the in-laws (bad wife bad) and begin posting pictures with the ultimate goal of posting a series of videos on Youtube . The hope here is to develop this into both a tactical discussion and battle report thread exclusively for the Rhulfolk. If all goes well I will be taking other Casters and doing similar blogs.
Anyways, hope you enjoy!

[Seabo]

First Game!

This would be a 50pts Incursion Scenario versus the evil little Legion ninja Rhyas.

My army:
Gorten
-Gunner
-2xDriller
Min Highshields
Max Forgeguard
Max Ogrun Assault Corps
Brun&Lug
2x Ogrun Bokur
Thor Steinhammer
-Blaster

My opponents list:
Rhyas
-Scythean
-Carnivean
-Raek
-Shredder
Max Warspears
Max Swordsmen
Max Legionnares
Max Hexhunters

Summary:

Being rather heavily outnumbered I decided to brick up in the middle fairly close together with my Highshields on the left flank. The theory was that there was only a roughly 30% chance of the middle objective disappearing and, if either of the outside objectives were removed, I stood a fairly good chance of pulling off a scenario win.
My opponent pretty much deployed opposite of me with his Warspears countering the Highshields and Hexhunters on my far right.

As luck would have it the middle objective was the one removed, leaving me in a very bad position indeed. I would also like to comment on the stellar performance of the Ogrun Assault Corps who manged to get a total of blast damage rolls on the Swordsmen in one turn and manage to kil one...yes one.... They then follow that up by each managing to kill one in melee when the Swordsmen ran up to engage them (strategically placed Rock wall prevented charge)...go figure. These guys deserve a nice big clap on the back for sure.

I had jammed up the middle fairly well with Gorten sitting safely behind a wall of Forgegaurd and flanked by a trusty Driller. My plan was to basically begin pushing him towards his table edge and then Feat, pushing him further off the objectives and running to surround each of them.
Brun&Lug at this point were fairly secure on the right objective, having smacked around the Raek in combat. Another example of epic dice rolling here as Brun brought the Raek down to 6 life with only two swings and then Lug managed to miss 3 boosted attack rolls needing only 7's to hit before finally connecting on his last forced attack...sheesh!
A very nice Tuned-up Blaster spray had effectively neutered his Hex Hunters leaving only 3 or 4 left.
On the left objective my Highshields were Shield walled in a contesting position versus his Warspears. If I could shift my Assault Corps, a Driller and some Forgeguard over I would probably have a pretty good chance of surrounding the objective and keeping the Warspears outside of 4".

My opponent then did some rather sneaky shenanigans involving Rhyas's feat, Legion cheese go figure, that saw Rhyas first charge in, kill 2 Forgeguard and sprint away then the Scythean charge his own Legionnare in the back, kill it, hop over it and engage Gorten who was only camping 1 Focus. Wow..didn't see that one coming.
Amazingly, he rolled rather dismally and left Gorten sitting on all of 4 boxes left.
Now since my Forgeguard were behind the Scythean and engaged by the Legionnares my Feat was not an option. My Driller would have to kill the Scythean first and then I would be able to Feat and push them all back.
Sadly, it did not go as well as planned...I put Tune-up on the Driller and, sitting on 3 Focus, figured I would easily take out the Scythean. He was left sitting with one miserable box!
Now I would have to kill him with Gorten before I popped my Feat which would mean that I would not be able to move afterwards. To top it all off Rhyas was just outside of 10" so she would not be caught. I whacked the Scythean down, camped his last 2 Focus and hoped for the best.

Rhyas critically decapitated Gorten...


Conclusion:

Well that didn't go so well...maybe I should rename this The Tale of Epic Dice Failure.
The middle objective being removed really hurt but the clincher was my forgetting that you can attack and kill your own models if you want. Oops.
Well not off to the greatest start but it is a start! Hope you enjoyed and more coming soon!

[Malorian]

Just a note here that I did screw up. Rhyas's feat needs you to damage an ENEMY model to hop over it, so killing my own legionaire shouldn't have worked.

If I had known that beforehand I'm sure I could have still made it work, my order of activations would just have to be different.

I was lucky the the center objective went away though.

[Seabo]

And now for game 2...

This would be a 35pt Caster Kill vs Khador's Prince Vlad

My List:
Gorten
-2xDriller
Min Highshields
Max Forgeguard
Max Ogrun Assault Corps
Bokur
Thor Steinhammer
-Blaster

-I actually made a mistake and had an extra Gunner in my army. It really didn't do much game wise, only killing a pikeman before being combocharged and trashed.

Khador:
Vlad
-Kodiak
-Juggernaut
-War Dog
Max Winterguard+2 Rocketeers+UA
Kovnik Joe
Min Iron Fang Pikemen
Kayazy Eliminators
Yuri the Axe


I deployed in a short line left of center with Assault Corps on left flank and Highshields on the right flank.
The Winterguard Deathstar took point with Vlads battlegroup tucked in behind. The Pikemen, Eliminators and Yuri all stacked up on the right flank.

Summary

Well this should be interesting...it's been a heck of a long time since I've played Khador.
The first couple turns basically revolved around me creating a nice little buffer zone using some ruins that would allow me to limit the amount of incoming enemy models and give some fairly solid cover. The Highshields began a slow pullback to the left because I was rather freaked by Yuri (have seen him do nasty things) and the Eliminators.
Once again my Ogrun Assault Corps gave a truly awesome display of ineptitude as 5 bang on blast rolls resulted in only 1 Winterguard killed.

Vlad popped his feat fairly early and charged into my Drillers. Fortunately, because of terrain placement and positioning, he could only attack one. It was predictably scrapped but my second Driller eagerly awaited to return the favor.

My Forgeguard mixed it up with the Pikemen and Eliminators in an epic battle of whiffitude on both sides that actually lasted the entire game. The most amusing part of this was actually Yuri who charged a Forgeguard and rolled snake-eyes! The Forgeguard promptly returned the favor and appliad hammer to face.

My Driller, with Strength of Granite, 2 Focus and Tune-up, went in and didn't even manage to kill 1 Jack let alone scrapping it and damaging the other....The Kodiak was left with 3 boxes left..I rolled dismally for damage...sigh.

The Jugger went to town and reduced my driller to 5 boxes, losing both his arms. Vlad had to take matters into his own hands against the last of the Ogrun Assault Corps who were once again proving to be much more capable in melee and had brained a few Winterguards with only minor damage in return.

It was then that I saw my assaination oppurtunity...Vlad was only 7" away from Gorten but behind a wall so there would be no charge. Gorten was sitting just behind the Jack combat. There was the wreckage of my first Driller, the Kodiak and then the Jugger. In order to get the charge angle right I would have to kill off the Kodiak then pop my feat and pull both the Jugger and Vlad about 3" to the right (The Kodiak would hit the Forgeguard/Pikeman combat and stop making the closer stop closer to Gorten and thus disrupting his charge lane with a possible free strike. It would be long odds to hit Gorten but still a Pow 19 free strike might be rather fatal). With the majority of my forces in combat it fell to 2 Forgeguard and my blaster to plink off 3 damage..easy as pie right?
1 Tuned up spray and 2 Forgeguard charges later and the Kodiak was still sitting with 1, yes 1, damage box remaining...so much for the assassination attempt! In disgust Gorten finished it off with a Double Barreled shot.
Things began to get rather frustrating as the Winterguard set up shop behind a wall and started plinking away at Gorten doing 1-2 damage.

Finally I saw my oppurtunity again! Vlad had strayed to close to Gorten thinking he was fairly safe with Blood of Kings and camping 2 Focus. Apparently he had forgotten about Strenght of Granite....
In flew the raging Dwarf to deliver righteous hammer to face. Because of Vlads astronomical Def I had to boost attack rolls to, hopefully, assure a hit. Being at only dice-2 for damage I shouldn't have that much of a problem. The first 2 hammer blows did a good amount of Damage and left him sitting with 5 boxes left. I boosted the hit and then went to boost damage...and rolled two 1's and a 2...

Gorten was promptly chopped to pieces.

Conclusion

I hate my dice...
Fun game with plenty of amusing moments, mainly because of epic dice fails on both sides. The Winterguard were hideously hard to deal with. They did pay for themselves I guess, taking out 4 of 5 Ogruns, killing a couple Forgeguard and plinking about 7 damage in total from Gorten. And just the sheer anoyance factor.
So a couple losses to begin...not surprising lol. Poor Gorten.

[Malorian]

Your dice are some of the worst I've ever seen...