A Triumphant Return

 Welcome all!  Merry Festivus!  It is so good to be back!  I know you're all wondering where I have been for the last year, and I wish I could give you the whole story... but I am under orders.  All I can say is that I was on a mission for the Emperor, and though long and hard, that mission was a success!  All is right with the universe, and I am free once more to continue with my Duty Log!  Huzzah!  And I can think of no better way to resume my duties than with a review of our long awaited Japan Open Warmachine/ Hordes Team Championship!  This year was another successful event, with much fun and camaraderie for all, but this year we had several big changes.  The biggest change was that this year, for the first time, the JOTC was held in November!  A lot of thought went into it, but it seems like it was a good change for everyone... not too hot, fewer other obligations (like Sports Festivals and such), all in all a good change!

But before we get on with the tournament...

Announcements - 

This year, for the first time, Japan sent a team to the Warmachine/ Hordes World Team Championship in Brussles!  It sounds like everyone had a great time, and did their best!  So, a round to thanks to DTB, Micho, Kirill, KT, and M for representing Team Ronin Onigiri!

Also, the next meeting for the Fukuyama Gaming Club will be December 28, which is a Saturday... pretty close to the end of the year madness that plagues Japan, but if you're free and looking for something to do, drop on by and get a game in!  January turned into a scheduling nightmare, so our first meeting of the next year will be February 2nd.

And now, on to the JOTC!

Getting ready!

First, let's take a look at our teams for 2019!  Due to a defective camera drudge, we were not able to get any individual army photos... but fear not!  A requisition for a new drudge for next year has been filed, and this mistake will not happen again... with that in mind, here are the teams!

Team Dead On Arrival
Two members of the last few years' Band Of Heroes teams have reformed with a new member into this new group from Osaka!
  Chikua, with his Cryx army, using Lich Lord Venethrax and Asphyxious the Hellbringer
  Genki, with his Cygnar army, using Captain Kara Sloan and Major Victoria Haley
  Tabibito, with his Trollblood army, using Kolgrima Stonetruth and Madrak Ironhide, Thornwood Chieftain 

Team Grim Evil Robots
This team, you guys... ugh!  Three members of Team Ronin Onigiri that fought at the World Team Championship, all together here to try and muscle their way into a JOTC victory!
  DTB, with his Grymkin army, using The Heretic and The Wanderer
  Micho, with his Mercenaries army, using Cognifex Cyphon and Exulon Thexus
  KT, with his Convergence army, using Iron Mother Diretrex and Axis, the Harmonic Enforcer

Team Hand of God
Another great team from Osaka, some of our favorite guys came together to make an appearance at the JOTC!

   Kaerumaat, with his Minions army, using Sturm & Drang and Lord Carver BMMD, Esq. III
   Sencho, with his Protectorate army, using The Harbringer of Menoth and Thyra, Flame of Sorrow
   Vrada, with his Khador army, using The Old Witch of Khador and Vladimir Tzepesci, Great Prince of Umbrey

Team InterRegional
My very own team!  The other two players were both new to the JOTC, but very experenced players... Kirill himself was on Team Ronin Onigiri at the WTC, and Paul is also an exceptional player... so, lots of pressure for me!
   Kirill, with his Skorne army, using Dominar Rasheth and Supreme Archdomina Makeda
   Paul, with his Mercenaries army, using Fiona the Black and Ashlynn d'Elyse
   Kommissar Koala, with her Protectorate army, using the Testament of Menoth and High Exemplar Cyrenia

Team Kyushu
Our Kyushu team, back again!  We're always glad to see this great team come up to join us!
   Ryo, with his Infernals army, using Omodamos, The Black Gate and Zaateroth, The Weaver of Shadows
   Zwiefel, with his Cygnar army, using Colonel Marcus "Siege" Brisbane and Captain Jeremiah Kraye
   Yamanaka, with his Mercenaries army, using Ashlynn d'Elyse and Magnus the Traitor

Team Trick Or Treat re:Universe
It just wouldn't feel like the JOTC without our favorite team, Trick or Treat, from Osaka!  These guys really bring the fun with them!
   Niwaniwa, with his Retribution army, using Issyria, Sibyl of Dawn and Garryth, Eye of Vengeance
   Redobii, with his Grymkin army, using The Dreamer and The King of Nothing
   Enzo, with his Circle of Oroboros army, using Krueger the Stormlord and Baldur the Stonecleaver

Team Enjoy and Exciting
This is a team of heavy hitters, and no mistake!  A mix of Hiroshima and Tokyo, this team is definately here to win!
   Rantei, with his Skorne army, using Dominar Rasheth and Makeda & the Exalted Court
   Souichiro, with his Convergence army, using Axis, the Harmonic Enforcer and Aurum Lucanum Athanor Locke
   Tetsu, with his Mercenaries army, using Ashlynn d'Elyse and General Ossrum

And Now, a Word from Our Sponsors

We would really like to give a shout out to our sponsors, as well!  We had a huge amount of prizes donated by some really generous companies!  From mats, zones and measuring sticks to gift certificates, our sponsors really game through for us!

Frozen Forge Goodies!

     - playmats.eu - playmats.eu
          Playmats gave us several mats and zone sets!

     - Frozen Forge - frozenforge.com
          This year Frozen Forge came through again with several beautiful sets of magnatized measuring sticks!

     - Discount Games, Inc. - discountgamesinc.com
          Discount Games also came through for us again with a huge gift certificate for each member of our winning team!

Mats and zones from playmats.eu

Round 1 - 

And now, on to the Crash at the Castle!  Match-ups for this round!

     Enjoy and Exciting VS InterRegional

     Hand of God VS Kyushu

     Grim Evil Robots VS Trick Or Treat

     Dead on Arrival had the pass this round.

A devastating round for my poor InterRegionals team... we had gone in with very high hope.  I, for one, was sitting on a team that would get me as close to the top as I had ever been!  Expectations were high!  And then all three of us were dealt second/ third round brutal assassinations... oof!

Winners for the round - Enjoy and Exciting, Hand of God, Grim Evil Robots!

Round 2 - 

After a quick break for rations, the battles continued, fiercer than ever!  Match-ups were...

     Hand of God VS Dead on Arrival

     Enjoy and Exciting VS Grim Evil Robots

     Team Kyushu VS Trick Or Treat

     InterRegional had the pass this round

Taking the pass, we kind of knew that we were out of the running as far as finishing towards the top was concerned, but we turned it into a chance to me to get a game against Kirill, so that was amazing!  I've never gotten to play against him before, and he gave me a lot of good advise, that hopefully I will put to use in Round 3! (I was, of course, slaughtered in that game, but in the nicest way possible, haha!).  

Winners for the round - Dead on Arrival, Enjoy and Exciting, and Team Kyushu!

Round 3 - 

At last!  The final round!  And soon, a victor!

     Hand of God VS InterRegional

     Grim Evil Robots VS Team Kyushu

     Enjoy and Exciting VS Dead on Arrival for the championship!

     Trick Or Treat had the pass round.

What a great round!  In our battle against Hand of God, I got to get a game in with Kaerumaat and his Minions army.  I've never gotten to play against him OR against Lord Carver, so I was super excited.  He was a great opponent, and with ten seconds left on his clock took a swing at Cyrenia, but she managed to tough it out with one health point left, and with that, his clock ran out, leaving me the win!  

Winners for the round - Grim Evil Robots, Team InterRegional, and ...

                                                                                                                   and...

                                                                                                                              and...

Results - 

Team Enjoy and Exciting WINS!!!!!!

Yes, congratulations you guys!  Well fought!  You totally deserve this honor!

In second place - Grim Evil Robots

Woot!  Three of my favorite players, all together in one team!  Good job!

In third place - Hand of God

 Well, well, well.  Just inching out my own Team InterRegional, Hand of God managed to snag the coveted third plae!  Congrats!

And finally, the winner of the painting contest....Vrada, with his Khador army!  Well done!

Thank you everyone for making this another great Japan Open Team Championship!  Again, I humbly apologize for the disturbing lack of photos... the new drudge should arrive in plenty of time for next year's battles!  Until then, keep gaming!

AAR - Bumps in the Night

Happy New Year!!!!

Did everyone have a great vacation?  I had so many, many plans for my two weeks off, like getting my Exemplar Errants completely painted, taking part in the traditional Japanese big cleaning of the house, more blogging since I fell behind a little bit last year (oops, sorry, everybody!).  Sadly, a dislocated thumb and a slipped disk in my spine made sure that I did nothing but a lot of sitting at my kitchen table, unable to do anything but sit still and pray for a miracle!  No painting, no blogging... no nothing!  And well just in time for real life to return.  Curses!  At least my second half was around to help with the poliwogs, or else I would have been completely out of luck!

A few weeks before the end of the year, the Fukuyama Gaming Club had our last meeting of 2018, and we got in some great games.  Leland and DTB look like they're heading to Osaka for a tournament in the middle of January, and are really working hard on getting their lists ready for a good fight!  We didn't just get in some Warmachine/ Hordes practice, though... oh no!  Take a look at what got thrown down on the board!

Ghostly warband FTW!

That's right!  The Thorns of the Briar Queen, the ghostly warband from Shadespire (or actually Shadespire's expansion, the Night Vault) is now mine!  Muahhahahahahaha!  This time, Sarge, DTB, Leland and I got in a four player game of Shadespire.  I'm not totally sold on multiplayer games yet, but I could see how it might be fun.  At the moment, I don't think we're quite getting 3 or 4 player games just right.

This month, DTB and I paired off for a Warma/Hordes battle, leaving Sarge and Leland to their own battles, and was I in for a surprise!  Instead of pulling out his tried and true Trollblood army, he threw a whole new bag up on the table... one with swirling purple patches... and I knew that DTB had fallen to the Defiers!  Perfect!  My Menoth worshipers were just dying to get their hands on these heretical nightmares!  But in reality, I love love love the Grymkin, and was super excited to see a new army across the board from me!  I guess DTB wanted to surprise everyone, so he put the army together and painted it up without telling anyone, until he had a fully painted, complete army up and ready to go.  Amazing!

So, without further ado, your army lists for today!

Army List, Grymkin:

A scattered bunch of Nightmares!

     Defier - The Child
          Cage Rager
          Skin & Moans X 3
          Rattlers X 3
          Crabbits X 2
          Gremlin Swarms X 3
     Lady Karianna Rose
     Death Knell
     Glimmer Imp

So, this is the Dark Menagerie theme force, which is pretty much like most Heavy Metal themes.  Ultra beast heavy, no units, and a couple of solos are what DTB has to work with, but in return, the theme allows him to take Gremlin Swarms, usually not acceptable in the theme force, and the Gremlins get Serenity, that will help him with Fury control.  Also, all non trooper models that can carry corpse tokens begin the game with one, so his Skin & Moans and the Death Knell are already tough coming out of the gate.  The good news for me and the bad news for DTB is that while the Gremlin Swarms would be devastating to most armies, my force is literally awash in magical weapons, so getting rid of them won't be AS tricky as it could be for most opponents.

Army List, Protectorate:

Line up for a fight with the darkness!

     Warcaster - High Exemplar Cyrenia
          Judicator
     Exemplar Bastions
     Exemplar Bastion Seneschal
     Exemplar Cinerators
          - Officer
     Exemplar Errants
          - Officer & Standard Bearer
     Exemplar Errant Seneschal
     Exemplar Warder
     High Exemplar Gravius
     Visigoth Rhovien
     Vassal Mechanik

This is the new Exemplar Interdiction theme force that I wanted to try out, along the the brand spankin' new caster, Cyrenia!  Woo, is she a great addition to the Protectorate!  I've only played her in a few games, but MAN!! I love her!  This theme gives me the benefits of having all warjacks (so, only the Judicator, who already has it naturally.... sigh) Blessed on all their weapons, meaning that they will ignore spell buffs to ARM and DEF, and also gives me a +2" on my deployment zone.... now, usually that would be invaluable to me, but this army is surprisingly fast!  Cyrenia has a spell to move her troops along, and Gravius also has an action he can take that also gets Exemplars moving... but still, I'll take it!

Setup, Grymkin:

Things that go bump in the night

We came up with the Mirage scenerio, so that means two large, unit scoring zones, one on each side, with an objective in the middle of it, and three flags across the center of the table.  This is going to be a difficult scenerio win for DTB, because wow, Dark Menagerie does not get a whole lot of models and NO units!  DTB started with a Gremlin Swarm off to the far left, next to the Blue Rattler and Blue Skin & Moans (did that thing skin a Trollkin???) Lady Rose was off the line just a bit behind the S&M, and next came the White Rattler and the White S&M protecting another Gremlin Swarm, the Black Crabbit hiding behind The Child, and the Glimmer Imp on the other side.  Next, the Death Knell, the White Crabbit and the Red S&M and Red Rattler lined up, with the Cage Rager on the end.

Setup, Protectorate:

And now for the fastest list in Menoth

Yikes!  I know the Judicator is an amazing 'jack, but I don't know how I feel about having only ONE warjack in the whole army!  Still, Cyrenia has other things she need to do with her focus, so I guess we'll try and make it work.  I had to use a couple of proxies in this battle since I haven't quite gotten all of the new models yet, so I have Kreoss 2 as Cyrenia, Durst as the Cinerator Officer, and Reznik as the Exemplar Warder... bear with me, haha!

I started with Cyrenia and her Judicator in the center.  To their left, I placed the Cinerators and Gravius (he's going to help them along since they're SO SLOW!!!) To the right I had the Mechanik behind Cyrenia and the Warder next to her, then the Bastions with their Seneschal behind them.  Since DTB doesn't have any advanced deployment, I went ahead and put out the Errants and their Seneschal in the middle of the field. 

Our Story:

Shudder

On a mission to Tower Judgment, Cyrenia, followed by her interdiction of Exemplars, came upon a small girl standing in the shadows of a copse of trees.  Smiling at the little girl to try and calm her, Cyrenia knelt down and extended a hand to lead her from the darkness.  The little girl regarded her quietly for a moment.  "Are you a one of Menoth's?"
"To be sure," Cyrenia replied.  "Are you lost?"
A dark light flashed behind the child's eyes.  "I'm not lost.  Dolly's with me."  Behind her, something huge began to push through the trees.  The girls features twisted in a horrible grin.  "And Dolly HATES the worshipers of the false one!"
Cyrenia moved back towards her forces as Dolly loomed behind The Child, and the Exemplars prepared their weapons as the chittering, moaning horde of Grymkin appeared, ready to rend them all until they joined the Wicked Harvest.


Round 1,  Grymkin:

Oh, man, they're coming!

The Glimmer Imp ran 12" to in front of the rubble.  The Child put on Tantrum, then Abused the White S&M for 1 damage and also Abused the Blue S&M for one damage.  The White S&M then ran behind the lake, and the Blue S&M followed it.  The White and Blue Rattlers ran to keep up with their buddies.  Lady Rose ran to just behind the White S&M.  The far left Gremlins ran over the wall, the middle Gremlins ran behind most of the pack, while the Black Crabbit walked behind Dolly and then Lept to next to the Glimmer Imp.

You don't want to meet these guys down a dark alley!

The Red S&M moved next to the objective, while the White Crabbit walked forward and then Lept into the zone.  The Cage Rager ran 8" to lip the zone.  The Red Rattler also ran to the objective with its buddy.  The far right Gremlin Swarm moved between the S&M and to finish up, the Death Knell walked 6", then repositioned into the zone.

Round 1, Protectorate:

For the Flame and the Wall

Cyrenia started off as she likes to do, giving Heroic Call and Inviolable Resolve to the Errants before moving forward and casting Dash.  The Warder moved forward next to her before the Errants moved up, shooting A WHOLE LOT at the White Crabbit and failing to kill it.  The Errant Seneschal moved onto the flag, the Bastions ran forward, and Gravius on the other side moved behind the cloud and gave Desperate Pace to the Cinerators.  The Judicator moved forward and sent two rockets at the Grymkin.  They deviated since the target was too far, but managed to kill Lady Rose!  First blood to me!  Woot!  And then I forgot to make the damn thing get it's second bound... damn!  Cinerators ran into the middle of the table, and Rhoven & Co finished to round by running forward.

Round 2, Grymkin:

Fear not the darkness!

In the maintainance phase, DTB moved the Cage Rager due to Tantrum, and the Gremlin Swarms removed two fury from the S&Ms, and then round 2 began!  The Glimmer Imp ran to the flag and stared down the Errants giving them a -2 DEF.  The Black Crabbit moved and Lept to the front of the zone.  The Child Abused the White S&M for 2 damage, then healed the White Crabbit, fixing all of its aspects, and then moved forward.  The Red Rattler charged an Errant, killing it and triggering Berzerk... sigh... my poor Seneschal hanging onto the flag, and no one close enough to die for him...three more lost their lives to the Rattler...that thing is scary!

Mmmmm, Errant, nom nom nom

The White S&M charged over the lake to an Errant, killing it, but it was TOUGH thanks to Heroic Call!  Yes!  But, sadly, he died to the monster's second attack.  It bought another attack on the next Errant, and the Errant WAS TOUGH!!!!  Woohoo!  And it died on the S&M's last attack.  The White Rattler ran up to another Errant, while the Cage Rager moved to the edge of the zone.  The Red S&M walked in front of the objective, and the White Crabbit walked and the Lept into the cloud, biting an Errant, but could not break his armor!  The Blue Rattler moved behind the lake, put up it's animus "Still As Death," which gave it Countercharge.  The Blue S&M walked behind the lake, and the Grymkin finished up with the Death Knell moving forward next to the objective.

Round 2, Protectorate:

Stand strong, guys!  They're only as scary as they look!

Well, to start, I forgot all about my Vengence movements and all the good stuff that I got to do in my maintenance phase... what a waste!!!  That's okay, it's my first time with this army.  I'll have to remember in the future, though!  The surviving Errants pressed forward, putting damage on the Red Rattler, White Crabbit, White Rattler, and killing ONLY the Glimmer Imp... What???? How did I only kill one tiny solo!  Rhoven moved forward and shot Cleansing Fire on the Gremlins scoring the Flag, but MISSED on a roll of two 1's.  Sigh.  Gravius ran around to the wall behind the front lines.  The Cinerators made a charge order, putting the pain on the White S&M before the Officer used his Defensive Formation ability and allowed them to use a second order in the activation, falling into a Shield Wall for more DEF on DTB's activation.

Casualties of war!

The Bastions charged the Cage Rager and the Red Rattler, bringing the Rattler down to 3 damage and giving 6 damage to the Cage Rager.  The Warder charged the Rattler (I had to murderize that thing!), finally killing it.  The Judicator moved forward, bombing the Blue Rattler, leaving it barely alive (and again, I FORGOT THE SECOND BOUNCE!!!) Finally, the Mechanik moved up behind the Judicator just in case, and Cyrenia stepped forward to...... BEEPBEEPBEEP!  Time over!

Conclusion:
Victory for the Grymkin!

This monster must not be allowed to survive!

The Child giggled maniacally as her monsters tore through Cyrenia's Exemplars as though they were untrained chaff.  Unwilling to risk more of her brothers-in-arms, the High Exemplar sent the signal to withdraw, a vanguard taking the brunt of the retreat as the monsters continued their depraved games.  "Go hide behind your wall, little knight,"  she heard the voice of the Child call over the wails of the dying.  "We'll see you soon enough."

A very fun game with DTB!  The Grymkin play style is still a little unfamiliar to me, and I had a great time learning just how devestating a Rattler on the lose could be!  I made a lot of mistakes, forgetting important rules and tricks of my models, but most of them I'm using for the first time, like the Errants, and I'll pick it up soon!  I'm looking forward to more Defier Vs. Menoth fights in the future!  Thanks, DTB!!!