From God to...Gunmage? Ep.1

This is my version of Jarl's Story during the 1st Season of the Charsaug League.

To read the official league fluff: Charsaug Official Story Week 1
The Charsauf League's official map: Charsaug Season One Map
The Event at Gamers' Vault (It started today and will end at the end of March): Charsaug League at Gamers' Vault...Come on! Register!

For those curious, the title represents my choice to go from playing a wanna-be-god Gator (Bloody Barnabas) to a Trollkin Gunmage (Jarl).
Not only do I love gunmages and think they are one of the Iron Kingdoms' coolest aspect, but it is also the occasion to give my Trollblood some games and change from Gatormen.

Intro: Jarl and Charsaug

The Dragon's passage over the Kriels had hardly went unnoticed and soon more Trollkin refugees came to the Thornwood. Jarl thought they had made a bad decision considering that the 'woods were still crawling with Cryxians but for most of them, the trip into Southern Kriels was now too risky with Skorne presence stronger than ever.
A very old Dhunian shaman from one of the small refugee camp approached Jarl as he was coming back from a raid on a main Cryxian force and insisted to talk to him, saying it was a matter of uttermost importance to the Trollbloods. While at first the Devil of the Thornwood was hesitant to waste time with this stranger, even more a shaman, those he always had been at odds with, curiosity got the best of him and he sat and listened.
The Trollkin, named Dackar Ciend had been a potent Runeshaper but despair tinted his voice as he described the nightmare his people had endured while he had been powerless in his effort to stop it. Now not only were many villages left burning but the natural order of Dhunia would not come back to normal, he spoke of Full Blood Trolls with strange mutations and kins with ashen skin that would attack their former friends.
Grabbing Jarl's hand, he insisted he could sense only the Devil of the Thornwood had the power to bring back balance to the Ley Lines of the region.
Jarl's was ready to ignore the old troll's speech when he realized that by helping these people the refugees would probably be able to go back and as such would put less of a strain in the Thornwood Kriels' very limited resources.

After all the damage he had caused the Cryxians, they would probably be reeling and rebuilding themselves before going any further in the woods, it could give Jarl's the time necessary to a little trip North.
It was a gamble, but a risk worth taking if it could mean less mouths to feed!

Week 1: An Alien Encounter

As Jarl's approached the Khadoran Noble's estate, he realized the pillars of smoke in the horizon had brought others toward the incident, although he had no clue what these were as he saw no heraldry and the warjacks were of a design totally alien to him.

The closest thing he could think of was the Cryxians' four-legged jacks and he hated Cryxians.

He turned to his small band of warriors and said ''Ready for a brawl boys? It's about time I try some of the new ammunition I got myself on that last raid!'' then looked toward the Gatormen and tried a clumsy Quor-Gar and although he was sure he had said something totally different than ''Fighting Them'' as the gators smiled, the leader hissed and nodded his comprehension.

The enemy's force looked impressive but maybe by cleverly outflanking them the Trollbloods under his command could inflict some serious damage and force them away from his path.

It soon became apparent the clockwork warjacks and their strange attendants had noticed them as a rain of shells started raining in front of them, creating patches of blasted earth and rough terrain wherever they landed. Thankfully none of the shrapnel hit any kin or Gatorman.

The Gatormen's shaman chanted a little prayer and they all ran, ignoring the damage caused to the earth and moving effortlessly through the woods. Knowing ''Arti'' one of Jarl's two most trusted Troll Impalers wouldn't have the same ease, Jarl summoned magic to help him blend in the thicket and guide the feet to run without fear of tripping on roots. ''Detu'', his other Impaler stayed by his side, ready to protect his master from harm.
More reckless and a lot more hungry, ''Relk'', the Dire Troll Bomber moved up the hill as fast as he could, probably eager to free his hands of his bombs in order to stuff things in his mouth.
Finally, the Sluggers ran to get into position, a spell cast by Jarl would help them flank the enemy while laying down a heavy rain of fire in mere seconds.

What looked like heavily armoured automatons advanced full speed to try and deny the outflanking operation.

Maybe it was all the dust in the air, but Jarl's eyes seemed to be confused when he looked for too long at the enemy 'jacks: it was as if they were slowly fading and reappearing meters away from their previous position.

The first to fall to some strange flying constructs, the Sluggers lost two of their members to some kind of beam. In turn, they unleashed their full fire on one of the enemy light warjack, the canon's slug heavily damaging the small construct.

On the far right, the isolated slugger had no choice but to run back to his new leader. Chain of command and formations had been an important part of his instruction and his pride to be a Slugger and care in those things made Jarl unhappy as he thought the kin ''could'a got another shot.''.

Little hovering metallic balls came forward to the Gatormen who first braced for impact thinking it was cannonballs and then realized the speed was way to slow, indeed, the alien objects even stopped to fire flares at them. Jarl's mastery of Quar-Gor was too tenuous to understand what the reptiles said but he was pretty sure it wasn't compliments on their would-be attackers.

The huge four-legged warjacks moved forward and started unleashing what seemed like more flares at the Gatormen...

Then all hell broke loose as the metallic humanoids came crashing in the Gatormen's lines, some even shooting their weapons while running at tremendous speed. Their Javelins penetrated the thick reptilians' hide and felled two. More strange metallic humanoids of various shapes came forward, an angelic figure, something Jarl recognized as truly a human design, appeared behind a hill and to the Trollblood warlock, the energy waves she was sending to her automaton flagged her as the key piece to kill.

Meanwhile, smaller angelic figures appeared at his far left, looking too far to pose a threat Jarl decided to ignore them.
The remaining Gatormen unleashed their fury at their assailants and destroyed one while heavily damaging another two.
Jarl, willing to help them, cocked his pistols, stepped up and took two shots, the first one missing what would have been an easy target and the other one finding its mark and downing a second of the javelin-equipped automatons. Cursing and blaming the fact that he was not used to the new ammunition, he made a couple of step back to avoid exposing himself uselessly.

Using his special brand of magic, Jarl infused Arti's spear to rebound and hit multiple targets, then turned toward Detu and did the same. He spent the last of his mystical energies to make sure the Sluggers and Arti could still benefit from the previous spells he had cast on them.

Arti, calling on his animus and aiming, fired his massive spear at one of the metallic humanoid next to the warcaster. The force of the impact slammed it backward into the hill and while its huge metal body hit the ground, the tip of the spear broke and magically flew into the angelic figure Jarl thought was a warcaster. The sound of metal on metal made Jarl chuckle as a large ''Thunk'' resounded on the battlefield.

Eager to prove his worth, Ditu moved, found strength in his animus and chucked his heavy spear in one of the remaining automatons with the same critical result, sending the automaton flying back while the tip of its spear flew in a weird angle to strike the warcaster with a second ''Thunk''. ''Now this is hilarious!'' thought Jarl.

The angelic figure seemed to be bleeding as the damage caused by the bouncing spears had been serious. The sight of blood gave a smile to Jarl's face as he thought ''Maybe they 're humans after all... That should please the crocs.''

Relk unleashed his special kind of help as he lobbed a bomb onto the light jack crippling the construct a little more. The pyg seemed to have disappeared and Jarl really hopped the Dire Troll wasn't that desperate for food. At least the big beast was clever enough to use the torch on the ground to light his bomb. Truly a clever one for a Dire Troll.

Jarl just couldn't remove this nagging feeling of impending doom, in the corner of his eyes he saw the flash of the soaring little mechanic figures and then...

... They were surrounding him. He started readying his pistols as by the time they would get to attack he probably would have killed two while sending a magic bullet through the third one's cogs (or whatever stood for a brain in these alien things).

In the meantime, the hovering balls and light warjack were sending more light effect in the Gators' direction, had they not understood these light tricks were not doing anything to the reptiles?

In the horizon, the bigger Angelic figure, clearly what seemed to be the one in charge, appeared. Jarl spat on the ground, momentarily forgetting the incoming smaller angels and said ''I got a bullet for you right 'ere when I'm done with your scrap metal!''. Ditu, his second Troll Impaler didn't seem so confident.

In the blink of an eye, the figure flew and and reappeared next to the Gatorman Shaman, she landed a strike causing little damage as the scales deflected most of it and then disappeared again.

Jarl's had a split second of realization as he thought ''I should have cast the rolling fog to avoid all this mess'' and then the enemy warcaster's blade fell on him. It wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for the smaller angels harassing him while he tried to evade the blows, allowing the blade to strike true and cause massive damage.

Seeing Jarl cough blood and using almost unheard of (for a Troll) quick thinking, Ditu rushed in the melee to grab the bloody wreck that was his master and started retreating while Arti and Relk unleashed a covering barrage to try and cover the escape. Jarl pissing blood and scarified was furious: he had been outplayed by these strange machines, even worse, the Sluggers and Gatormen probably wouldn't make it back to the camp tonight.
He blessed his luck he had Trolls as intelligent as his trio but this was turning to be a bloody beginning to what was supposed to be a four week trip!

Thoughts on the battle:

Dave, great opponent as always (although I've only played three games against him so far, it's always been a blast), thought me a good lesson: Aurora as one heck of a threat range!!
I won't say what else in his list you need to pay attention to just so he can have some surprise (hint: I did not talk about it in this battle report ;)) against future opponents that might be reading this battle report.
My advice for Aurora's opponents: do not try to avoid her, just try to keep some fury on you to transfer or if you can't (because you are a Warmachine player), keep a defensive spell on your caster/mix of focus to increase survivability.

I did a couple of small mistakes: I somehow knew Aurora would be coming because I had caused so much damage I left Dave little choice, despite this important piece of information, I chose to go against my better judgement and not use my feat on turn 2, I could have put some clouds to block her charge while putting one on Jarl to give her -2 to hit him. Oh well!

As for my list: The Slugger were, as everyone on the forums said, hard to use. It was quite nice to get a couple of shots and damage light warjacks though, too bad the angels on the far right had the benefit of cover (in addition to their +2 against ranged attacks).
My trio of beast (2xImpaler 1xDire Troll Bomber) did wonders, especially with Jarl casting 'magic bullet' on the Impalers. I'll have to experiment with other beast mixes just for the fun of it (the Swamp Troll seems tailor-made for Jarl).
I would replace the Gatormen with Champions simply to get weapon master and because I can.
The Fell Caller was okay, he did nothing amazing but I know its a good model.

That's it, thanks for reading, and hopefully I get to score a victory against you for the Charsaug League!