Khador VS. Khador Pirates?

This last weekend I found myself playing my first 50 point game of Warmachine.  I built up 50 points of Khador in all their empiric glory and walked out to the field of battle with nary a plan in mind other than "VICTORY!".  Most of my smaller point games have been with pSorcha or pVlad, but this day I fielded eIrusk.

System: Warmachine
Faction: Khador
Casters: 1/1
Points: 50/50
Supreme Kommandant Irusk
* Destroyer
* Spriggan
* War dog
Man-o-war Shocktroopers (Leader and 4 Grunts)
Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts)
Winter Guard Infantry (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Winter Guard Infantry Officer & Standard
* 3 Winter Guard Infantry Rocketeers
Winter Guard Mortar Crew (Leader and Grunt)
Iron Fang Kovnik
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich
Manhunter
Widowmaker Marksman

The goal was to advance the Iron Fang Kovnik forward using his special action to give other units in "Shield Wall" +2 SPD.  They will act as a meatshield while the Winterguard run behind them and shoot through them because of Irusk's Martial Discipline.  I put the Widowmakers and solo in there cuz you should always put them in there. Its like 5 free dead targets a turn. Uncle Joe for support of the Winterguard. The Mortar crew was actually one of my favorite units of the game. It never did not kill something.

Using the Destroyer for the AOE shot, and the Spriggan for everything else.

Mind you I don't actually have a lot of experience making lists, and put this together mostly based on the models I own. The idea had merit I would like to believe.

My friend Bryan on the other hand, not only had a great synergy in his force, but a great idea.
PIRATES lead by none other then a very angry Butcher!

System: Warmachine
Faction: Khador
Casters: 1/1
Points: 50/50
The Butcher of Khardov (*6pts)
* Conquest (19pts)
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker (2pts)
Gun Carriage (9pts)
Press Gangers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Koldun Kapitan Valachev (2pts)
Sea Dog Crew (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Doc Killingsworth (2pts)
First Mate Hawk (2pts)
Harlan Versh (2pts)
Kell Bailoch (2pts)
Lord Rockbottom (2pts)

He got the unit of Press Gangers buffed super crazy at points in the game, +3 STR, 4+ Tough saves, boosted everything with Pathfinder and I think the only thing he was missing was a Parrot buff. The Conquest had me constantly worried, he was shooting over and over and over and because of it Irusk ended up down to like 6 HPs.

We were playing Steamroller 2014 scenario rules because I wanted to get more familiar with something other then "kill everyone".

     What started as a bumbled deployment as shortly after I deployed (in the fashion described above) I moved the Winterguard to the left and the man-o-wars to the right. I found myself feeling like I was doing what I should have been doing for the most part.  After several turns the MoWs destroyed the Gun carriage and I was successful in killing off his pirates. My problem was that I had no REAL answer for the Conquest.  The Butcher just totally trashed the Destroyer, and in the most mockingly way ignored the last of the Winter Guard and walked away from them as they could barely do anything to him anyways.   I used the MoW as a screen so that the Conquest couldn't just charge my caster.

     You can see him in the lower right as him and the Spriggan had just toed into the control area netting me a 5-2 scenario victory by this last final turn. (Brian didn't claim any victory points, but there was a full turn that he had Harlan Versh and the carriage and I didn't have anything.)   If this game was a meat grinder mission I would have been dead a long time ago.

Not Pictured: Mortar Crew, lower left  Note: The Conquest is doing the "Moon walk cuz my arms are in the way" action.

In the end Irusk managed to win by controlling the area where the Butchers ale was being stored in.  He promptly stopped attacking, turned off the Conquest and sat down to have a pint (all the while forgetting that he just lead an army of pirates to their death for no real reason).

All is well though because it still counts as a Khador Victory!!!!

The game was awesome, and I wanted to thank Brian for playing it with me, even though it took way too long. (2 1/2 hours-ish?)

The 2014 Steamroller Rules can be found HERE.
I used the List builder from  ForwardKommander.com to build these lists.