Game Day: The One Hour Typhon and the 0/9 Record

March Game Day is over, and it was quite a day.  We had a new player pick up Warmachine using a Cryx battle box left over by someone who moved out of the area.  We saw our largest single Mk II battle.  We tasted a number of homebrew and commercial beers.  I painted Typhon.

First game of the day was 35 pts of Khador vs. my Protectorate.  Epic Irusk and the High Reclaimer.  As you can see from my deployment I was planning on sending out a lot of cloud templates.  Once again, I took the bait and sent the Avatar running off after a 2-point Widowmaker solo.  With stealth and his 14" POW12 shot, I just did not want that guy popping the HC every turn.  As it is I make an error in the ash cloud placement that left HC open to a mortar shot.  With "fire for effect" in play, it took nearly half his health.  That solo could not be in my back line.  So, 11 pts wasted chasing a 2 pt solo.

We inched toward each other, eventually meeting on my right (near side of the shot.)  Iron Fang Pikemen put up a decent showing, trading about half their number to kill a unit of zealots.  Bastions must have forgotten to take their vitamins because they missed every swing against the IFP's.  The Reckoner and the Spriggan were toe to toe, the Spriggan's charge not disabling any of the Reckoner's systesms.

Let's take a second to ask: What do you expect a heavy jack with three focus to do to an opponent?  For the Reckoner (P+S 17 attacks, made P+S 19 with the choir) I was expecting to disassemble the thing.  I should have done about 20 points of damage to it, ideally disabling the right arm or cortex.  The 8 or so points that I actually did were disappointing.

To finish the game, Brian used Irusk's spell that lets him move 'jacks out of activation to slide the Spriggan into the Reckoner, using bulldoze to slide it over a couple inches and open up a charge lane to get at the HC.  Stomp, stomp, stomp, swing, splat.  Game Over.

NEWS FLASH!!!  From the PP FAQ regarding bulldoze: "When this model advances into B2B contact with an enemy model during its activation, it can push that model up to 2˝ directly away from it."  (Emphasis mine) The Spriggan could not have bumped the Reckoner out of the way as a result of Energizer.  I revise my record to 0/8 and I demand a rematch!

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The beer tasting continued.
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Next I played a 15 point intro game vs. Cryx with the new player.  The game ended when the Khador player looked over the battlefield and recommended to the Cryx player to use Deneghra's "ghost walk" spell to allow a Deathripper to charge over a linear obstacle.  Oops.  I forgot about ghost walk.  So he slid in with a spray to pop Severius for a few points, then charged with the aforementioned Deathripper to finish the old man off.

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The beer tasting continued.
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Next, new Cryx guy Josh and relative newcomer Legion guy Matt had a 15 point game.  I was coaching Josh, but he didn't need much strategic guidance, just some rules clarification.  Josh managed to slip some arc-node chicken-jacks through the line to blast Lylyth with venom one turn, then slip a Defiler in to deliver the kill shot.  The game was getting quite raucous, and even turned into a drinking game wherein both players drank (about a 4 oz tasting glass) whenever a model was removed from the table.

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The beer tasting continued.
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After the game, someone mentioned the fact that I had brought my paints.  Was I expecting to paint something?!  My answer:  Heck yeah, now I am.  Give me something to paint!  I'll paint it in one hour!  Matt promptly handed me Typhon.  He had to pick the big one didn't he?

One hour is not very long to go from assembled and unprimed to fully painted it turns out.  Here was the result.

Good from far, but far from good.

The basic recipe for a one-hour Typhon is Charadon Granie chitin, heavily highlighted with a 50/50 P3 bootstrap leather/charadon granite.  The skin is Reaper Leather white, highlighted with skull white.   The claws were skull white with a sepia wash.  Teeth were skull white.  I wish I had done more with them now that I'm looking at the photo.

The general consensus was positive.  Basically the "if my army looked like that I'd be happy" sentiment.  I showed it to my wife, who was upstairs hanging out with Brian's wife.  She was not terrible impressed. 

On the way home we were talking about the events of the day.

   "Everyone seemed pretty happy with the way Typhon came out after just an hour of painting."

   "Yeah, but they were pretty drunk."

   "Oh, yeah."

Drunk or not, the Protectorate is now 0/9 and someone walked out of there with a painted heavy warbeast.

EDIT:  I am revising the record to 0/8, per the News Flash above.