Battle Report: Warmachine 50-point Fully Painted Tournament

So I did (rather poorly at) a local tournament yesterday. This was the capstone event to our summer paint challenge, so naturally I forgot to take any pictures.

Here's what I brought:

Makeda and the Exalted Court
* Molik Karn
* Bronzeback Titan
* Titan Gladiator
* Basilisk Krea
Cataphract Incindiarii (max)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (max)
Extoller Soulward
Agonizer
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew

Supreme Aptimus Zaal (Tier 4 Theme list)
Kovaas
* Titan Cannonneer
* Cyclops Raider
Immortals (Max)
Immortals (Max)
Aptimus Marketh
Hakaar the Destroyer
Ancestral Guardian
Ancestral Guardian
Ancestral Guardian
Ancestral Guardian
Extoller Soulward
Extoller Soulward
Extoller Soulward

First game was against Asher, who brought Vlad 3 and Karchev. He chose to drop Vlad (with all the horses):

Vlad 3
* Drago
Khador War Wagon
Uhlans (max)
Uhlans (max) (and painted up in the Black Dragon scheme - very nice!)
Greylord Ternion Cav (max)
Drakhun
Kovnik Markov

This was a rough matchup. The war wagon can drop 4" circles of rough terrain, and my Zaal list has no pathfinder whatsoever. As a result, he was able to come in and use Zaal's feat for an alpha with no fear of retaliation, and managed to knock out about half my list - including Hakaar and Marketh, which really stung. The key spell of the game was probably Vlad's Dash - since he was able to ignore free strikes, my abundance of reach weapons were... not useful.

Still, Zaal's feat turn was pretty productive, and I was able eliminate about half his army, with much of what was left in less-than-ideal positions. Unfortunately, my dice were not kind to me this game, and that stacked with a few poor decisions such that he was able to charge in with an Uhlan. A crit knockdown later, and he shot Zaal off the table with a pair of Razor Wind spells from Vlad.

Of course, my worst mistake of the game was putting the Krea on the table out of sheer habit, despite her not being in the list. Thankfully she had no impact on the game before I realized it, and I lost anyway, but it was still terribly embarrassing.

Second game was against Scott, who was running Severius 1 and Feora 2. He dropped Severius:

Severius 1
* Blessing of Vengeance
* Vanquisher
* Devout (I think. The shield guard one.)
Vessel of Judgement
Zealots with UA
Temple Flameguard with UA
Choir (min)
3 Wracks
Paladin of the Wall
Hierophant
Vassal of Menoth

I might be missing a few models. Not sure.

At any rate, I dropped Zaal again. This was a rough matchup... for Severius. I still managed to lose. The first part of the game I was able to jam up into the zone and set the line of engagement just past the center. He hit my lines and knocked out around a dozen or so Immortals and one AG, and I struck back to wreck his Vanquisher, took out about half the Flameguard, and killed the objective. I did not manage to clear the zone, however. And then I got cocky and decided to take advantage of his slightly-too-bold positioning to try to ranged assassinate Severius, something that really only had around a 50% chance of succeeding. I failed, and left Zaal out in the open with no defenses or transfers, and he promptly ate several Zealot bombs and a couple spells, and exploded.

So... don't get cocky, kid.

After that, I dropped, since I'm pretty sure I was in last place and we had an odd number of players. Congrats to Asher on winning the tournament.