´Call yourself a pirate? You don´t even have a ship, only two colossals!´ Captain Bartolo Montador vs Skarre, Admiral of the Black Fleet (Solo Machine)

As I have recently been on a pirate theme, I have decided to continue it in this battle report with a battle between Skarre3 and her pirate ship on one side and Broadsides Bart and his two Blockaders on the other side (note a Galleon stands in for the second Blockader, I have not made enough blogging money yet to afford to buy colossals for one-offs, I am still short, well, all of it as I have not monetised my blog).

The Mercenaries win the roll-off and go first. They bring:

Bartolo Montador: 2 Blockaders, a Talon, 3 Powder Monkeys, 1 Death Archon, First Mate Hawk, a Swamp Gobber River Raider, 2 min units of Press Gangers, the Commodore Cannon, Sharde Dirge Seers.

A big brick of ARM with some support and small units to support them.

Cryx is bringing:

Skarre3 with a Satyxis Blood Priestess, Kharybdis and a Slayer, General Gerlak Slaughterborn, 2 Death Archons, Axiara Wraithblade, Misery Cage, Asphyxious 4 with a Talon, max unit of Trollkin Marauders with Jussika, max unit of Black Ogrun Boarding Crew, Black Ogrun Ironmongers.

A solid list, shameless cribbed off the VTC list website.

Obligatory side view

ROUND 1

Bart puts up Hot-Shot on the left Blockader, Batten Down the Hatches and charges towards the wall.

The rest of the Mercenaries run forward.

Skarre casts Deceleration, Draconic Blessing on the Marauders and Dash, then moves forward. She also creates the mother of all traffic jams in front of her.

Cryx´s forces run as far as they can. The Boarding Crew are stymied by the barrage granted by the Talion Charter theme force.

ROUND 2

A Press Ganger unit comes in from the right, hiding behind a building.

The Powder Monkeys fuel up the right Blockader and both Blockaders focus fire on Kharybdis, both thanks to Deceleration, it stays in play on 8 boxes.

The Archon flies forward with Mortal Fear up, the Dirge Seers put clouds in front of Bart, who cast Batten Down the Hatches again and feats. The Talon runs to contest the left zone, staying barely in Bart´s control range. The Commodore Cannon dings up a Death Archon.

Asphyxious and his servitors run to enable one of the Servitors to get within melee range of the left Blockader and in formation. Asphyxious has to stay back as he would be dropped on his shiny metal ass by Bart´s feat otherwise. Then Kharybdis charges it, followed by some Marauders too.

The Blockader after the beating.

Cryx is coming in hard on the right, but the left looks dangerously overstretched.

Mercenaries 0 – Cryx 0

ROUND 3

The right Galleon is fueled by Bart and some Powder Monkeys and kills Kharybdis with ease…

… then drops the Talon too.

The Press Gangers move forward to score that zone.

The second unit of Press Gangers comes in from the left, adding a Marauder to their crew.

On the left, the Blockader pummels the Marauders, but being Tough and Steady avoids most of the damage. The Commodore Cannon slams Asphyxious backwards and kills the Misery Cage. The Death Archon charges into the pile, but cannot reach Asphyxious, killing Marauders instead. The Talon also charges forward into the pile.

Bart puts up Batten Down the Hatches and the Dirge Seers hide him.

End of Mercenaries turn 3, they score the right zone.

Mercenaries 1 – Cryx 0

The Marauders use their Vengeance moves and attacks kill a few Press Gangers.

Gerlak Slaughterborn kills off most of the Press Gangers, but misses one. Axiara Wraithblade finishes that one off later in the turn.

Asphyxious and the Death Archon drop the Talon and the Death Archon. The Death Archon also does some damage on the Blockader.

Between the Death Archon and the Marauders, the Blockader goes down.

Skarre feats, switches Draconic Blessing to the Slayer and fires her guns into the second Blockader, then repositions thanks to Axiara´s battle plans.

The Boarding Crew charge the second Blockader, doing negligable damage but setting up the Slayer to charge in and blowing up a half of the second Blockader.

End of the round, nobody scores a point.

Mercenaries 1 – Cryx 0

ROUND 4

The Blockader drops the Slayer and two Boarding Crew, but cannot kill the last one still contesting the zone. One Press Ganger can charge him and another runs up to give Gang, but the Ogrun passes his Tough check.

The Powder Monkey uses Ancilliary Attack, but disappointingly no models are hit.

The Commodore Cannon knocks down Asphyxious again and First Mate Hawk charges him, killing the Iron Lich!

The Dirge Seers try to kill Ogruns, but Ashen Veil blunts their attack and only one dies.

Bart, to the surprise of nobody, casts Batten Down the Hatches.

Nobody scores any scenario elements.

Mercenaries 1 – Cryx 0

The Death Archon, using the power of geometry, zooms to the one spot where it can hit the Blockader and both Press Gangers but not the Annihilation Servitor that got promoted to leader when Asphyxious died, putting the pirates into the dirt and doing some amount of damage to the colossal, which is on its last legs.

Continuing my casters´ tradition of killing off colossals, Skarre lights up the Blockader with all her guns and, thanks to the ARM debuff provided by the Annihilation Servitor, destroys the colossal.

The Ogrun and the other Death Archon overrun the zone, killing a Powder Monkey (which sets the Cryxian objective on fire), two Dirge Seers and Hawk, but leaving the objective on a few points.

Obviously my soon to be quadrigenarian hands can no longer bear the excitement and they shake too much as I finish the Cryx turn. The Ironmongers are in the right zone, scoring it for Cryx. No other elements are scored.

Mercenaries 1 – Cryx 1

ROUND 5

Bart is getting tired of this shit and he goes on a murder spree, kiiling an Ogrun and both servitors in melee and also killing another Ogrun with Deadweight to prevent the Archon from attacking him.

The Commodore Cannon sprays over the Death Archon and a Marauder, killing them both.

The Ogrun score the right zone again.

Mercenaries 1 – Cryx 2

Gerlak takes a swing at the objective, then the Marauders, after getting a 3″ Vengeance movement, kill the Commodore Cannon.

The Death Archon puts up Mortal Fear and flies in Bart´s way as Deadweight weighs it down. Skarre toes the central zone.

Mercenaries 1 – Cryx 5

ROUND 6

Bart kills the Ogrun in the left zone and the Death Archon, dropping to two Focus unfortunately.

It is all in vain as Cryx scores 2 points to one for the Mercenaries.

Mercenaries 2 – Cryx 7

SCENARIO WIN FOR CRYX!

In a final act of spite and to show that a pirate without own boat is not a real pirate, Skarre3 charges Bartolo, knocks him down with her ship´s ram and then shoots and stabs him until he stops twitching.

AFTERTHOUGHTS

I have to say that I was a bit let down by the Bart list, as it looks stupid and fun on paper, just pushing around huge bases. The addition of the Archon for Mortal Fear should make the colossals even harder to kill. However, maybe their resilience cannot keep up with the amounts of damage some modern armies can put up. To be fair, not every army has whole units that cannot be knocked down.

Skarre on the other hand is still awesome fun to play, provided you don´t accidentally traffic jam your whole army. She feels like a model that can contribute each round and still be protected at the same time.