Kommandant Irusk: Tactical Genius or Blatant Coward?

Another Saturday rolls in and I get to spend some playing time with the rest of WMPH.

From work, I proceeded to Da Shak where I met up with Emp and Pork. After a few musing about the new epic warcasters, we proceeded to UPCFA.

Mark arrived shortly after I partook of a hearty adobo and siomai lunch there. The metal mangling started shortly afterwards as the other warmachinists trickled in ~ Carlos, Arvin, EJ, Jake, Fred, Obi, Jacob, Tads and Joel. Siomai got massacred. Grape juice and COX got consumed. Dice was tossed.

In the course of all the action, I finally succumbed to the call of Hordes. I will make a Hordes wargroup. But, I'll try and not to go competitively crunching lists. So I took a look at Emp's Hordes Primal and off the top of my head, I decided either I go Skorne or Trolls. Skorne was a no brainer for me ~ they were oriental and they were "red" LOL! I was still a bit undecided then. Until I saw the cover. I remembered designing a new banner for WMPH and wanted to put a Hordes element there. The first thing that came to mind was the Dire Troll Mauler. I mean, holy shit, who wouldn't want that?!? I flipped through the pages and saw it's point cost. 111. Not too shabby for what it can do. Good numerology, too LOL! Then I glanced on its Field Allowance. Unlimited. Damn! Max out Dire Trolls and a warlock. The pages got flipped immediately to the three warlocks that Trolls had to offer. Doomshaper. I was owned from that point on. Four Dire Trolls and Doomshaper for 500 points of Hordes brutality. Yeah it'll definitely lose a lot of its games due to predictability, but shit, that'd be four Dire Trolls running down your alley! BWAHAHAHAH!!!

I didn't get to prepare a new wargroup for this weekend as I was swamped with work. Since it played well during the last tourney, I used the same old wargroup I used (which never really left its place where I put it last LOL).

My first game was against Carlos' Menoth. His list was a revision from what he used in the last WM tourney. If I remember right, he has Amon, a Castigator, a Vanquisher, a Revenger, two groups of Choir, two Wracks and a whole mob of Holy Zealots with Monolith Bearer.

Irusk's Inhospitable Ground proved a bit useless to Amon's Mobility, but I kept casting it so that he spends up his FOC. I already managed to tone down his FOC resources by bombarding his two Wracks early in the game. I don't care what others say, I will shoot at Wracks even if they're just 5 points each. In the end, Amon fell to Irusk's brave (and tremendously rare) charge, popping up with a boosted free Onslaught shot and finishing with even more boosted melee attacks. [Irusk won via Amon assassination]

EJ and Jacob were playing the A Game Of Thrones CCG. Of course, I took down the results of their games and will post them on WMPH, too. Under a section which I'll call "The Great Wide Open" *ahem*

When Tads arrived, I decided to put some work on Les' Menoth. This was when Brian, a son of one of the IPMS dudes, came up and started chatting with the group at the table (Me, Tads and Fred). Imagine a six-year old being bombarded by conflicting thoughts on philisophy and morals. But of course I balanced it out (or at least to the best of my ability, I tried), making him remember the importance of not starting fights and not being afraid to stand up when need be. Fred was being inanely hilarious. Tads was silently laughing his gut off. It was here that Fred asked me to paint a big horned skull (a bit from the GW Ork standard bearer) which he'll use as the head of one of his helljacks. Good way to wait til the rains stopped. Good also to help a friend out.

When the rains stopped, we proceeded to Hobby Haven. Amidst the throng of CCG players that time, me and Ronald pushed through with our agreed game of my Khador against his Skorne. I have to admit, as much as I come off as knowing lotsa stuff, I had little to no idea what his wargroup could do. All I did know was the models looked badass LOL! We played Foothold scenario for the game. Despite my horrible rolling for Irusk's feat and the Battle Lusted IFP, I managed to snag the win by holding the objective for four turns with the Superiority Spriggan. [Irusk, with his frustratingly chicken Inhospitable Ground, won!]

Several points to be considered with Hordes ~ when Ronald leaced stuff from his warbeasts, he should not have been able to go beyind his Fury stat. I also messed up a crucial defense, as the Manhunter got charged despite being inside Irusk's IH. But it's all good. Ronald maybe a Hordes noob, but he's been a miniature wargames veteran for several years. It's good to see that he enjoys playing Hordes/Warmachine.

@Emp: Dude, may naiwanan akong clutch bag sa sasakyan mo. Pakidala na lang next time. #-o

Sorry, no battle reports. I was too engaged with my games to write down about mine except for the excerpts above. Next time maybe ^_^