Cog Collective Open & Field of Battle: Italy, 1859

Yesterday saw the Cog Collective Invitational and the accompanying Cog Collective Open at Guardian Games, a pair of Warmachine tournaments. The Invitational was the culmination of a year's worth of tournaments, with the best players in the Portland and Salem metas competing for bragging rights and a Cephalyx army. Congrats to Adam for taking first.

I, on the other hand, played in the Open and came in dead last. But I did have fun. I brought Circle Orboros, pairing Krueger 2 and Kaya 2.

Round 1: Krueger 2 vs. Siege Brisbane. Lost on assassination after a failed assassination run.
Round 2: Krueger 2 vs. Haley 2. Lost on assassination after a failed assassination run.
Round 3: Kaya 2 vs. Kromac 2. Lost on assassination after a failed assassination run.

You may notice a trend... Ah, well. To be fair, my dice did kind of fail me on round 2, but I didn't play terribly well, either. At this point, I think I'll just finish painting my Circle force in time for the Ticket Takedown in December, and then flip back to Skorne for 2016. I'm looking forward to messing around with the new Skorne Active Duty Roster - Hexeris 2, Morghoul 1, Makeda 3, and Zaal 2. (I'm also probably going to swap out Kaya 2 for Morvahna 2 so I can have some sweet, sweet dice-fixing in Circle.)

After the Open, I sat in on Victor's Piquet Field of Battle game, taking on the left flank of the Imperial Army in the 1859 Italian War of Independence.

Austrian center, as seen from the left, at deployment

Italian cavalry threatening the Austrian center

Austrian and Italian centers move into rifle range

It's a fun system, and Victor's 10mm Pendraken figures are almost enough to sell me on the scale. Unfortunately, I didn't get to do much due to the vagaries of Piquet and and the need for an early departure. I think Piquet - Field of Battle specifically - is better suited for one-on-one games instead of team games, just due to speed of play and the likelihood that one flank (i.e., mine) may end up rolling rather badly for activation and thus not do anything for two hours. C'est la guerre.