Khador views on the landmark 350 battle

The day finally arrived, the landmark 350 between me and Red, Khador versus Cygnar. The day found me unprepared, as the pictures will show. The bases weren't finished, and they weren't detailed the the level I'd call done. Worse of all, my warkaster was nowhere near finished. So unfinished, I couldn't even bring it along. I guess I learned a lot in the last 24 hours, finding out that even a small amount of time will accomplish much. Also, that I expected too much, and spent too much time planning what colors to use. Blah.

Anyway, Red and I had battled off-and-on before but this was to have many 'firsts' for me. I had never used Prince Vlad in a battle before, nor the Winter Guard field-gun. As a result, I spent very little time on learning his spells and feat, and not really knowing the rules for my army. So the day found me unprepared and mostly unpainted/unfinished. -grumble-grumble-grumble-

Red does have my army correctly, you can check it out over at Lightning Strykes. In retrospect, I think I would have done better either with the Sorscha battle box army or replacing the field gun with a Winter Guard mortar.

Since I lost the die roll, I had to set up first. Not really knowing the range of the Trenchers, I chose to set my army up between two sand dunes, having to run a s-pattern to get to grips with Cygnar army. I didn't know how immobile the field gun was, or I would have set it up in a clear channel and could have fired on turn 1 or 2. Or I might have set them up here...

This might have been an inch or two ahead of the 10" deployment zone, but it made a an awesome picture.

My surprise involved the continuous line of smoke bombs the Trenchers advanced behind. Again, hindsight tells me lobbing mortar rounds would have served me better. After, slaloming about the sand dunes, the Winter Guard started doing what they do best, getting mowed down.

Again, my lack of knowledge of my army and warkaster didn't help, as pVlad's feat could have helped much earlier in the game, and the WG standard bearer had a special ability I could have used much earlier. Moving on.

I was more than a little appalled at the lack of damage I was handing out. My dice rolling is abysmal on most days, but I had real trouble hitting a Def 13 on nearly every roll. In this image, I had finally humped the field gun to the top of a sand dune and was preparing to fire at the Ironclad. My Wg unit was down to the Lieutenant, standard bearer and one trooper. At this point I had killed one Trencher. Vlad spells, while useful all involve standing him in the thick of it, and considering how lopsided I felt the battle was going at the time, I tucked him up behind the Juggy to bust out next turn.

Hey, Ironclads with Arcane Shield have Armor 21! I bounced a few artillery rounds off the heavy 'Jack before realizing for the fourth time, I should have brought a @%^& Mortar! The battle came down to the Ironclad returning the favor from a previous battle, tossing the Juggernaut at Vlad but missing. (Whew!) This left Vlad exposed to nasty men with rifles!

Hurray for Blood of Kings! If I would have read Signs and Portents earlier, I may have saved some of my Wg unit, but in the end, Vlad, while parrying free strikes from the Grenadier light warjack and the Journeyman with his dagger, put Stryker to the sword. Not a pretty win, but a win.

I could fill another whole post with what I did wrong, mostly not knowing the rules I needed to use and having a grasp of the capabilities of my army as a whole.

Ahh, hindsight.