Battle Report: Cherry City Iron Gauntlet Qualifier

This past Saturday, I competed in an Iron Gauntlet tournament down in Salem, a qualifier for the Cherry City Invitational. Short version: Had a great time, went 2-2.

Long version!

Here's what I brought for my three lists:

Dominar Rasheth (Chain Gang theme force, Tier 4)
* Titan Gladiator
* Titan Sentry
* Titan Sentry
* Basilisk Krea
Agonizer
Agonizer
Paingiver Task Master
Paingiver Task Master
Gatorman Posse (max)
Gatorman Posse (max)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min)

Supreme Ascetic Naaresh
* Molik Karn
* Bronzeback Titan
* Titan Gladiator
* Basilisk Krea
* Cyclops Brute
Agonizer
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Nihilators
Tyrant Commander and Standard Bearer
Paingiver Beast Handlers (max)


Void Seer Mordikaar
* Tiberion
* Basilisk Drake
* Basilisk Krea
Agonizer
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Nihilators (max)
Paingiver Bloodrunners
Cataphract Cetrati (max) + Tyrant Vorkesh
Tyrant Commander and Standard Bearer
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min)

Round One

Faced off against Sean playing Circle Orboros. The scenario was Two Fronts, and he chose to drop a Morvahna 2 list. I dropped Rasheth - my usual Circle choice.

Turn two begins

This was a straightforward game; Sean's list wasn't one he was practiced with, while I'd played against Morvahna 2 a couple weeks ago, run by a very good Circle player, with this exact same Rasheth list. So... his dice weren't doing him any favors either. The game ended with a Titan squashing Morvahana and 6 control points for me.

Final positions

Round Two

I was up against Brett, one of the better Legion of Everblight players in the area. He dropped Abyslonia 2 against my Naaresh list in Incoming.

Turn two under way

As you can see, he's sporting an Archangel in this list. It didn't do a whole lot this game, and he found its chief disadvantage was that he kept bumping into the wings as he leaned over to move models...

Regardless of this disadvantage, he went for an early assassination after I moved in to try for some control points on Naaresh's feat turn. I screwed up a bit, lost my Fate Walker move, and was unable to move Naaresh back to a safe position; he was able to walk his Scythean up and kill Naaresh. A good, quick game, though I'm still kicking myself over the error.

Final position, Naaresh gobbled up by a Scythean

Round Three

Circle Orboros again, this time played by Jeremy. He put down Morvahna 2, and I chose Rasheth again - locking myself into Mordikaar for round four.

This was a much tighter game than the first match. He went for a top of turn 2 assassination using War Wolves returned to play by Morvahna's feat, and damn near did it; it's only the fact that War Wolves can't use Sic 'Em if they're in melee that saved Rasheth from becoming dog chow.

After that, the game settled into an attrition slog in which I had the advantage. I managed to remove his Wold Wrath from the table on turn three or thereabouts, and slowly eliminated almost all of his units. He finally went for a Hail Mary: Morvahna had Blood Mark on her, but he was able to get a single charging Skinwalker on Rasheth, who transferred to Morvahna and thus killed her. Luckily, the blowthrough damage didn't kill Rasheth...

Final position - Rasheth transfers charge damage to Morvahna, killing her.

Round Four

Last game, I was up against Adam running Minions. Usually they're not a problem, but he was locked into a really solid matchup against me, with Maelok the Dreadbound versus my Mordikaar list.

Adam's first turn under way.

At first glance I thought this would be a pretty straightforward match, but it was actually extremely difficult. I feated coming up the board, as usual. That was a bit of a time walk, but I found I simply couldn't put out enough high-value attacks to remove three units of Tough Gatorman Posse all sitting at around armor 20 or so. After his feat turn, I had lost very nearly all my models, so I conceded and we called it a night.

Final position - Mordikaar has almost nothing left to swing with.

I had an excellent time, and I'm growing very fond of the Iron Gauntlet rounds. Doesn't hurt that I won a $20 gift certificate in the post-tournament raffle...