Warmachine Tournament Report, March 31

Final game, early days

After a bit of a dry spell, I got three games in Sunday at Rune & Board in a local steamroller tournament. I went 0-3, but it's just as well; I was testing out a bunch of new tech cold, so it was definitely an opportunity to learn instead of strive for victory.

I brought two lists, as per usual, but only played one:

Bump in the Night theme force
King of Nothing
2x Crabbits
2x Clockatrices
Gorehound
2x Hollowmen (max) + Lantern Man
2x Mad Caps
2x Neigh Slayers (max)
Eilish Garrity
Glimmer Imp
Lord Longfellow

Bump In the Night hasn't been a very popular theme force for good reason, because the Grymkin infantry are fairly lackluster and the theme doesn't do much to improve them. Still, the Clockatrice makes a difference, and some new models coming out this month ought to make them tick a little better. So I thought I'd try it.

For the first round, I faced off against Danny, one of the best players in the area, playing Retribution of Scyrah. He dropped a Garryth 2 list with a bunch of mage hunters. I forget the scenario, but it was one where he was able to push in and win on scenario while I scrambled to figure out what all my stuff did... Highlights of this match up were finding out that the King's cloud wall is, in fact, remarkably effective if used carefully, even against lists that pack LOS-ignoring tech. Also, Mad Caps are fun but seem tricky to use well.

Second round was against Kyle, to whom I had just sold a Slayer warjack. He promptly used against me in a classic Asphyxious 3 'jack spam list. Curses! I'd never faced this list archetype before and it was interesting. Cloud wall again really slowed down his alpha, and a plethora of low-value targets gave his high-value attacks less, um, value. However, I wasn't able to take down as many 'jacks as I needed on my first turn of attacking - missed a few attack rolls - and since I'd put King way out there, he was able to snag an easy assassination.

Third round was against Berks' accursed Kaelyssa Forges of War list, with that stupidly powerful Dawnguard Trident and the Dawnguard Destors. (It's the matchup in the picture.) I actually did somewhat better than I expected in this one, but clocked out nonetheless. The key mistake I made here were that I counter deployed my Neigh Slayers to take on his Trident, and they can't really handle it it. The key point is that it both outthreats them (17" without a charge compared to 9.5") and has enough firepower to fairly reliably kill 4-5 of them a turn. In the end, I ran out of time trying to clear a zone to just score points. It's possible that I might have been able to grind it out scenario, but I think the Trident would have swung it in Berks' favor on attrition or even assassination - especially after he eliminated one of my Clockatrices. I think I'm going to have to start bringing Old Witch 3 just to counter the Ret ranged game that I keep seeing at these things...

Over all, good games and a good event. Props to James for running it.

Battle Report: That's A Huge Base Tournament, July 18, Haven Gaming

I competed in a Warmachine Master's format tourney this past Saturday down at Haven Gaming in Salem. I didn't do very well, 2-2. I'm feeling pretty burned out on competitive Warmachine right now, to be honest; I don't feel like I can keep up with the competitive players simply because I don't have the time to dedicate to practice and theory. And I'm not sure it's really worth it, in the larger scheme of life, to make time...

But enough maundering. The games!

I brought the following lists, using the ADR rules. Rasheth is the caster I'm most comfortable with, and since my meta has a preponderance of Legion, he's a really solid drop in most competitions. Makeda is there to drop against Cryx and Cygnar, but I'm very inexperienced with this list.

Archdomina Makeda

* Mammoth

* Cyclops Raider

* Basilisk Krea

Mortitheurge Willbreaker

Extoller Soulward

Cataphract Cetrati (max)

Venator Slingers

Tyrant Commander and Standard Bearer

Paingiver Beast Handlers (minimum)

Specialists:

Cataphract Incindiarii (max)

Gatorman Witch Doctor

Cyclops Shaman

Tyrant Vorkesh

Objective: Bunker

Dominar Rasheth (Chain Gang theme force, Tier 4)

* Titan Gladiator

* Titan Sentry

* Titan Cannoneer

* Bronzeback Titan

* Basilisk Krea

Agonizer

Agonizer

Agonizer

Paingiver Task Master

Gatorman Posse (max)

Paingiver Beast Handlers (minimum)

Specialists:
* Titan Sentry

* Basilisk Drake

* Basilisk Drake

* Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew

Objective: Arcane Wonder

Round 1: Vyros, Incissar of the Dawn

Turn Three, and Ryan's set the line of engagement well forward for him.

First game was against Ryan, who brought Vyros 2 and Issyria to the party - both at tier 4. He dropped Vyros with a battlegroup evenly split between heavy and light 'jacks. I countered with Makeda, and swapped out the Krea so I could bring in the Gatorman Witch Doctor to Tough my infantry.

The scenario was Close Quarters. I lost the roll and selected the side without the enormous obstruction in front of the deployment zone. In retrospect, that may have been a mistake, since the wheat field (rough terrain) on the side I did choose turned out to be something of a problem.

At any rate, he moved up the board extremely quickly, and managed to jam me out of the middle of the board. Although I killed just about all of his army, I wasn't able to contest my own flag, and he was able to win on scenario by turn 4.

Round 2: Lich Lord Terminus

Turn two: Cetrati hold the line against Mechanithralls.

Kyle brought Lich Lord Terminus and the now-ubiquitous Deneghra 2 Body & Soul Tier. He dropped Terminus, to my regret; I can deal with Body & Soul, but the Terminus list brought way, way too much meat for me to kill. Bane Thralls, two Mechanithralls units, and, of course, two units of Stitch Thralls. I dropped Makeda again, and swapped out the Slingers and the Krea for the Incindiarii. I probably should have actually taken the Cetrati off the table instead, just to maximize my ranged attacks.

The scenario was Recon. Terrain made little difference in this game, except for the craters in the zone. I'd assumed they were simply rough terrain, while he thought they granted cover (+4 Defense). Remember, kids, talk out terrain with your opponent before the game starts!

This game went much like the last; he managed to jam me out of scenario, and though I did kill quite a few zombies, I wasn't able to contest. He killed my objective, dominated a flag, and controlled the zone to win by turn 3.

Round 3: Thagrosh, Prophet of Everblight

No picture for this one; it was too blurry.

Don brought Thagrosh 1 and Abyslonia 2, and dropped Thags T4 - two full units of Warspears, Carnivean, Ravagore, Scythean. I dropped Rasheth and subbed out the Cannoneer for the two Drakes.

The scenario was Outflank; I lost the roll and picked a side. The only terrain that mattered was a forest between the two scenario zones which divided my forces, but made no difference to the Legion units.

This match up was one I'm quite comfortable with. I jammed out one side with fast moving Gators, used the Drakes to engage the other side, and brought my beasts up the middle. The Sentry with Carnivore under feat was able to remove both his Ravagore and Carnivean in a single turn. After that, it became a bit of a grind; I narrowly avoided assassination thanks to Thagrosh not having Eyeless Sight to draw LOS through a forest, and then was able to finish off Thagrosh himself with the Bronzeback.

Round 4: Absylonia, Daughter of Everblight

Rasheth's POV on turn two

Derek had Absylonia 2 and Kallus; he dropped Aby, I dropped Rasheth. Lost the roll, picked a side (same table I played round 2 on, as it happens), and we got underway with the Destruction scenario.

Aby had a pair of Blight Wasp swarms, two Scytheans, a Seraph, and an Extreme Carnivean. I used the same setup as I had in round 3. This game was a bit tighter than last round. Derek was able to kill off quite a bit of my pieces, but I caught him out with a classic Gladiator slam & follow up assassination.

All told, not a bad tournament. It went to 5 rounds, but I dropped after round 4 to get home at a reasonable hour. But I think this will be my last tournament for a few months, maybe for the rest of the year.

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.

Battle Report: Ticket Takedown, December 6

I went to the Ticket Takedown at Salem's Haven Gaming yesterday and went 2-2... Which isn't as well as I expected, but still, not too bad. No pictures, sadly. The tournament was 50 point Steamroller using the SR2015 beta scenarios; two lists, divide and conquer, first place gets a ticket to Lock & Load 2015.

Here's what I brought:

Supreme Aptimus Zaal and Kovaas (T4 theme list)
* Cannoneer
* Raider
* Aptimus Marketh
Ancestral Guardian x4
Hakaar the Destroyer
Extoller Soulward x3
Immortals (max) x2

Dominar Rasheth (Chain Gang T4)
* Cannoneer
* Sentry
* Gladiator
* Krea
Paingiver Beast handlers (max)
Paingiver Task Master x2
Gatorman Posse (max) x2)
Agonizer x2

I'm pretty comfortable with the Zaal list. While the Rasheth list is held up as quite good, in my experience the gators die too quickly. Maybe I'm playing them wrong.

First game was against Brett's Cryx. I dropped Zaal versus his Goreshade 3. This was shaping up to be a good game, but I put Zaal about an inch too far forward, and he was able to pull off a top of 2 assassination with feat to stationary Zaal and then dropped a couple of Siphon Bolts and Leviathan shots onto him. Whoops.

Second game was versus JC's Skorne - not really a mirror match as we were both playing rather different lists. He dropped Makeda 3 versus my Rasheth. Since we both knew exactly what each others' stuff did, play went very quickly... He managed to set Rasheth on fire first turn with an Incindiarius shot, which made me die of shame a little. Luckily, the fire went out on the next turn. I ran my beasts up the middle and sent the gators along either flank. The Immortals on my right promised to be a serious problem for the gators, but I was able to largely neutralize the Incindiarii on the left with the other gator unit. Popped feat on second turn, ate the Incindiarii and did my best to tie up the Immortals. He came back, feated, and used Karn and Makeda to wipe out half the left-hand gators and then do considerable damage to the Sentry and the Gladiator. But he didn't kill either beast, so I was able to do a fast assassination on my third turn, since Makeda was in melee with both beasts, and that's pretty much a win.

After lunch, third game was against Kyle's Cryx, in Destruction (two flags, two objectives). He dropped a classic Asphyxious 2 lists - bane knight, bane thralls, Tartarus, and Satyxis Blood Witches. I dropped against that, and thanks to going second, I was able to put a boosted Cannoneer shot into Asphyxious on the second turn and drop him to half his health. Next turn, he immediately put Asphyxious behind a wall right on the edge of the kill box, and I left the Cannoneer in the middle of the board to keep him there. Under feat and a rather injudicious use of last stand, I was able to remove most of the Bane Knights and Blood Witches, and shifted hard to the right in an attempt to score. In the end it went to time; I was able to kill the objective, clear the flag, and dominate for two points with about two minutes left on my clock and ten seconds left on his; flipped the clock and he just let it go. A good game, even if it was a grind for both of us.

My final game was against Scott's Legion, in Incursion (three flags). He brought Saeryn, two Angelii, hex hunters, and (most importantly) the new Blight Blades, which he kept off the board to ambush. I dropped Rasheth, my usual anti-Legion tech. In retrospect, Zaal might have been a better choice. This game, the gators on the left (against the Hex Hunters) died very quickly to their spells, while the ones on the right did somewhat better and eventually tied up his left flank. The Sentry proved to be the most important piece in this game, with Locker tying up both Angelii for a couple turns. Sadly, it wasn't enough; even though I started scoring as soon as I could on the right flag, Rasheth has a hell of time running away from ambushing Blight Blades. I wasn't able to keep him alive long enough to win on scenario. If the dice had been a little more favorable, I might have cleared the center flag and been able to score there... but that just didn't happen.

So that's two wins and two losses. On the whole, I'm not displeased with my performance. I'm much happier with how the Zaal list played, while the Rasheth list is leaving me a bit cold. I'm going to change it up; I'm just not sure if I'll go for the full titan herd (six titans) or if I'll try the new Trident list that's going around (Gators, three titans, three Drakes).

Battle Report: 35-Point Tiericide, September 21

The Cog threw a 35-point, three round, theme force required Warmachine tournament at Ancient Wonders this past Sunday. I went 1-2, and learned an important lesson: Know your list to beat the clock. Had a lot of fun, though.

First game was Incursion against Matt's Legion of Everblight.

Absylonia, Terror of Everblight (Winds of Change, tier 4)
* Harrier
* Raek
* Raek
* Shredder
* Shredder
* Ravagore
* Scythean
Spawning Vessel and Acolytes (max)
Blighted Nyss Shepherd
Blighted Nyss Shepherd
The Forsaken
The Forsaken

I countered with Skorne:

Dominar Rasheth (Chain Gang, tier 4)
* Titan Gladiator
* Titan Gladiator
* Titan Cannoneer
Agonizer
Agonizer
Paingiver Task Master
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min)
Gatorman Posse (max)
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew

I went first (IIRC). The titan wall rumbled forward on the right and center, while the gators took the left flank. Between Rasheth's feat, Enrage, and Blood Mark, I was able to make pretty quick work of his heavies and deny him an effective feat. As you can see below, I was in a strong position...

But because I've never run this list before, and Rasheth only a couple of times, every turn took at least twice as long as it should have. I ran out of time while he still had about 22 minutes. Had I not clocked myself, I think I'd have won this one pretty handily - one of those Gladiators is nearly dead, and the other's pretty bruised, but the Cannoneer is untouched.

Second round was Close Quarters against Doug's Cryx.
Goreshade the Cursed (Heresy of Shadows, tier 2)
* Kraken
Bane Lord Tartarus
Bane Thralls (max)
* Officer & Standard Bearer
Bane Thralls (min)
* Officer & Standard Bearer

vs

Supreme Aptimus Zaal (Immortal Host, tier 4)
* Kovaas
* Aptimus Marketh
* Basilisk Krea
* Basilisk Drake
* Reptile Hound
Ancestral Guardian
Ancestral Guardian
Hakaar the Destroyer
Extoller Soulward
Extoller Soulward
Immortals (max)
Immortals (min)

Again, I went first. I bricked up with a set of Krea animi and the convenient hill  in the center to defend against the Kraken's ranged shooting, and started filling up the AGs with souls from Zaal and the Extollers. He advanced, with his Kraken in the center, and was kind enough to give me Vengeance moves on both Immortal units. On turn two, I cleared off a few banes, killed Bane Lord Tartarus (which took a surprising amount of work) and failed a charge against the Kraken with an Ancestral Guardian under Last Stand. He went to work killing off Immortals with his banes on his second turn, but made a couple crucial mistakes: first, he allowed the LS'ed AG to take a Defensive Strike, which knocked out a bane and triggered the Kovaas' appearance, and second, he put Goreshade in charge range of the newly-created Kovaas. So on turn three I popped feat and used the Kovaas to assassinate Goreshade for an early win:

Round four was Destruction against Adam's Cygnar:

Major Victoria Haley (Stormbringers, tier 1)
* Stormwall
* Thorn
Stormsmith Stormcaller
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages
* ATGM Officer
Black 13th

I dropped Rasheth again. This actually took a bit of thought: while Rasheth's feat is useless against this matchup and Carnivore is pretty poor, I felt that double Agonizers plus Castigate would put a serious crimp in Haley's game plan. Conversely, the Stormwall would be able to munch through Zaal's Immortals pretty hard with Covering Fire and electroleaps.

So... Haley's a very rough matchup. Her feat is no fun at all, and the Stormwall's notoriously good. But! Turns out that not being able to arc spells (thanks to Castigate) or allocate focus to Stormwall (thanks to Agonizer) is really, really annoying. My beast brick went up the center, with Rasheth cowering behind a convenient wall to raise his ranged defense to a whopping 14. The Gators came up the right in a (failed) attempt to stay out Haley's feat. I was able to weather the feat, then take down Thorn, the Stormwall, and the enemy objective in exchange for both of my Gladiators. And then I ran out of time. Again.

We played out the rest of the game anyway, and Haley failed an assassination run due to some rather bad dice. Again, had I not clocked myself (and therefore played slightly more conservatively in the last two turns), I think I'd have been able to eke out a win here, just by controlling the zone and killing two or three gun mages a turn.

So that's this week's lesson: If you're going to play competitively, play a list you've practiced with.