Lock & Load 2015: Master's Qualifier Report

Lock and Load 2015 was this past weekend, June 5-7. Since I live in Portland, it's an easy drive and after Enfilade, it's my favorite convention. This year I signed up for the first heat of the Masters Qualifier, so James and I left Portland before 6 to get there in time...

Qualifier Tournament Report

I brought carbon copies of Martin Hornacek's Masters' lists, because I'm terrible at list building and wanted to use the ADR rules. Mordikaar, who's a favorite caster, and Naaresh, who's not. But it availed me not...

Round 1

Deployment

Up against Brandon Anderson playing Body and Soul for a bad matchup to start things off, but this was the only game I won. His list was pretty straightforward B&S, and I dropped Mordikaar.

I was able to weather his feat pretty well due to him being about 1/4" further back from my lines than he thought he'd be, thus leaving huge amounts of my models able to move. We traded pieces back and forth until I was able to go in for a sneaky Essence Blast assassination and win the game.

Post assassination

Round 2

Deployment

This round saw me playing Jamie Perkins, noted tourney player, who was running Sorscha 2 with a bonded Conquest, Nyss hunters with Valachev, and the Winterguard Death Star. I dropped Naaresh into this one just to get him out of the way. Highlights of the game were Jamie's first turn, where he tried to pull off a double-handed throw assassination by pitching Alexia 2 at Naaresh. This, he told me, was to win a bet with Trent Denison. The assassination failed, but he was able to run roughshod over me with really clean, careful, fast play. Even though I lost to an assassination on turn 3, this was probably the game I most enjoyed playing in the tourney.

Post assassination

Round 3

This game wasn't a lot of fun. Not the fault of my opponent, save that he dropped a Skarre 1 list that pretty much took my Mordikaar out behind the woodshed and beat it six ways from Sunday. (Also, my opponent, Robert, was from my local meta, which always a little bit of a disappointment when you're hoping to play new people.) For his Ritual Sacrifice over the four turns of the game, he rolled 6 6 5 5, which pretty well put me on tilt. I lost on scenario.

End of game

Round 4

After my first turn.

Played Jon with his Khador. He ran a Harkevich list with Black Dragons, MoW Shocktroopers, Demolisher, Behemoth, and Black Ivan. For the first few turns, I pretty well had this game under control, to the point where I was able to jam his Black Dragons on one side and start scoring on my flag by turn 3. However, I'd shifted Tiberion too far to the left to deal with Behemoth and the MoWs, and when he slammed the Demolisher into my lines, I wasn't able to deal with it. I was running low on time, so I went for a low-probability assassination. It failed, and he was able to use his Demolisher to squish Mordikaar.

Right before the assassination.

Final Thoughts

To be honest, I'd have had more fun if I'd dropped after round 2; my game with Robert was very much not a fun experience, and I'd have been able to rack up some skulls in the Iron Arena or attend a painting hangout. It was also rather disappointing to face only Cryx and Khador... Still, I learned something from my games (positioning and don't lose sight of objectives), and I had enough fun. I'm also glad I made sure to pack some energy bars, 'cause not having to buzz off for food or dealing with hunger pangs made for a much more pleasant experience.

Final Record: 1 win by assassination, 2 losses by assassination, 1 loss by scenario. I felt I played quite well in first game, but not very well in the others.

I'm also not sold on ADR as a major advantage. I think it's a good edge, but not compared to having really solid practice with a caster already. So I'm excited for the next season's ADR, which has two casters with which I'm pretty well practiced and one caster with which I have a passing familiarity.