NoVA Open 2012, Part 3 of 3

In this final installment of my NoVA Open 2012 experience, I'm delivering a two-fer on tournaments. The first tournament covered is the Saturday night Team Tournament. The second is the very short report of my disappointing Masters run. Astute readers might note that there is no mention of NoVA Open's Saturday morning Steamroller tournament. Having already qualified in Hardcore (see Part 1), I was now playing for fun until Masters. Therefore I decided to take my wife down to Mt. Vernon for lunch and enjoy wandering around until the start of the Team Tournament. More about the tournaments after the break.


As mentioned in Part 2, I was playing in the Team Tournament with Andrew Watts and Jameson Rohrer.  In this tournament, Andrew and I had already qualified for Masters, so we were playing solely to get Jameson qualified as well. We decided to place Jameson as Captain to give him a chance to qualify if our team placed second, and to allow Andrew and I to play weaker players. Since we only needed two games out of three each round to advance, this would give us a good opportunity to do so.

Andrew brought our team the power of Legion of Everblight, and was running eVayl and Bethayne. Jameson was running Circle Orboros and running eBaldur and eKrueger. I decided to change up a little from the trolls I had been running on Friday to Jarl and eGrissel.

The lists bore some superficial similarities to the ones I'd run before, mostly because the War Wagon and the Long Riders were proving very effective against many of the casters I was facing over the weekend.  I decided to provide Jarl for a ranged heavy game. I hoped he would snipe squishy casters that hide in the back field, like eHaley. On the other side, I wanted more classical Trollbloods playing attrition with axe-to-mouth as the foremost strategy. This led to the two lists below:

Jarl
Bouncer
Impaler
Pyre Troll
War Wagon
Fell Caller Hero
Janissa Stonetide
Kriel Warriors (10) + UA + 3 Caber Tossers

Epic Grissel (Tier 2 - Blockade Runners)
Dire Troll Mauler
Troll Bouncer
Troll Impaler
Horthol
Kriel Warriors (10) + UA + 3 Caber Tossers
Long Riders (3)

The first game of the night for me was a mess. The scenario was Guidons. I ended up facing a Khador opponent who brought regular and epic Butchers for his two lists. The former list included a Behemoth and the Nyss Hunters supported by the Winterguard death star. The latter list was a full Tier 4 with several units of Doom Reavers.

I had two factors in choosing my list. The first was that Guidons rewards a fast caster who can move the flag efficiently. The second was that my Kriel Warriors were dead against either list, but that Jarl and the War Wagon had the fire power to clear the Reavers and or the Deathstar + Nyss rather quickly. Therefore I decided to leave eGrissel by the way side this round.

The opening rounds went as planned for me, and I was able to capitalize in the third turn with a scenario point. My opponent had forgotten to move his flag the second round, and was thus a turn behind me in getting the flag in his zone. I managed to take down several of the Winterguard fairly easily, and snipe eEiryss as she snuck up the side field. Unfortunately the War Wagon suffered repeated shots from the Behemoth, eventually going down to the boosted mortars.

About turn 4, I heard from my team that Jameson and Andrew had both won their games, so now I was off the hook for my own, which was fortunate. As my opponent's forces were winnowed down - his Nyss and Winterguard suffering under the onslaught of Magic Bullets and Kriel Warriors - he realized that my caster had no effective way of cracking high ARM. He decided to focus camp the Butcher and sprint across the field towards my objective, intent on rending it or my caster apart.

Thinking that he was about to take down my objective and begin scoring points, I began running Jarl around his forces to reach Khador's newly empty control zone, while leaving the Pyre Troll nearby to continue contesting my own zone and flag.

It's at this point that the game went astray on two counts. What I failed to realize is that the scoring conditions for Guidons required my opponent to control the zone in which his own flag rested. My opponent's zone was empty save his own flag, which he no longer even controlled, so even if he wrecked the flag, he would have to run the Butcher back to the zone to begin scoring. The second issue was that the game needed 3 control points to win, not 2. Not particularly caring if I won or lost at this point, as my opponent's time wore out, he declared victory upon scoring two points. I let it go, only to realize later in discussion with my team what had happened.

So, this game was recorded as my first loss of the weekend, but in reality, with one activation of Jarl I was within run distance of controlling my opponent's flag, and scoring the pair of points I needed to win, while my opponent had not scored anything at all. Oh well, that will teach me to pay attention to scenarios. Next game!

This game would again see me paired against a Khador player. Again, I would also be forced to face pButcher. This time however, I was fielding eGrissel, and the scenario was the radial Diversion.

My opponent had the Spriggan as his token jack, and went with a force of Iron Fang Pikemen and Kayazy Assassins, supported by Aiyanna and Holt. I deployed second, and set my Long Riders against the Kayazy, intending to use impact attacks and superior threat range to remove them from the game quickly. On the opposite flank, I set my Kriel Warriors against the Iron Fang Pikemen. I intended to use Dash + the Warriors additional movement to get ahead of my opponents flag and prevent him from scoring. Grissel and her battlegroup were tasked with holding the middle and supporting either side as necessary.

The terrain would prove pivotal in this game - literally. In the photo, my deployment zone is in the bottom right of the photo, and the fence in the middle of the field is separating pButcher and eGrissel in the next to final turn. During the entire course of the game, Grissel rotated around the fence, keeping it between her and the Kayazy, while throwing up Inhospitable Ground to prevent the assassin's effective advance to the zone.

In the photo, the Spriggan is a wreck marker at this point, and only my Bouncer and the Dire Troll Mauler remain to deal with the Iron Fang Pikemen. The Pikemen had successfully out-tarpitted the Warriors and were close to a scoring position at the flag. Behind my opponent's hand though, lays a lone Long Rider, who has successfully worked his way into contesting the zone, and lent me two control points as Horthol sacrificed himself to score at my flag. Knowing that my opponent's time was short, and that Inhospitable Ground had effectively prevented him from reaching his scoring flag for this game, I made a distraction play of running the Long Rider towards my flag and trampling the Dire Troll into my zone. My opponent took the bait, and burnt out his remaining seconds chasing the Long Rider, trying to prevent me from scoring the third time.

Shortly afterwards, his teammates arrived, and notified him that his loss cost them the advance. Their Captain told him that the lone Long Rider couldn't score on the flag. Therefore, he had squandered any chance he had at assassinating eGrissel in those final moments for nothing. While I listened to their admonishing banter, Andrew informed me he had won his close game, and thus we advanced to the next round.

Moving on to the final game of the night. This game would turn out to be my only easy game of the evening, playing against a fellow Trollbloods player nicknamed Lee. The battle would be short lived between Trollbloods' two legitimate ranged casters, Grim and Jarl. The scenario was Gauntlet.

I ended up deploying second, and decided to force my opponent to play against my right side of the field. This is where he had deployed his Nyss Hunters, but was opposite the flank on which he deployed his Battlegroup. I felt this would give me plenty of time to use the War Wagon and Jarl's Magic Bullets to destroy the unit, and tilt the field in my favor.

My opponent had other plans however, quickly sent his Nyss up the middle, and began dragging his caster immediately in front of the War Wagon. I popped my feat early on to prevent a round of ranged shots from the Nyss Hunters, and ran to engage Lee's leading line of Nyss with a couple of Warriors.

 At this point, my opponent made a fatal mistake when he sent in Rok to clear the warriors and attempt to free the Nyss. In the photo above, you can see three Caber Tossers angled around a blank space to the left of the War Wagon. Here, Rok had charged a Warrior and successfully berzerked, killed the target and another Warrior near to him. When it came time to spend more fury for attacks, my opponent aimed at the War Wagon. Unfortunately for him, it turned out Rok's charge had taken him too far from the Wagon to engage.

The following turn, I opened up with the Wagon on Rok, knocking him down with the Quake cannon. I quickly sent in the three Cabers, buffed with the Pyre's animus and the Battle prayer. They managed to slay Rok quickly on the charge. This left only Swamp Gobbers and a lone Nyss barely blocking the way to Angus. I sent Janissa up a little and threw a Rockhammer, hoping to land some easy damage on Grim, but missed and scattered wide.

My opponent had his turn, but he was clearly dismayed by the loss of Rok. He moved defensively to protect his few assets. Lee failed spectacularly to disengage his Dire Troll Mauler, missing several attacks, and was further frustrated by tough rolls on the Warriors. Grim Angus, stationed immediately in front of the wagon, only had a pair of Gobbers keeping him safe, as Lee tried to close the distance and gain line of sight to Jarl for a kill shot. All of these efforts were for naught.

Jarl opened my turn with a pair of Magic Bullets, bounced off the steely hide of the War Wagon into the much less steely hides of the Swamp Gobbers. Janissa again attempted to land a critical Rockhammer on Grim, but missed. Lee had been wise enough to camp four fury, but his Dire Troll and Impaler were both badly damaged at this point. I did what damage I could with the remaining Kriel Warriors and Impaler, but finally it came down to the War Wagon itself. The Wagon charged Grim, hitting him with an impact attack and knocking him off his feet. The damage was transferred, but rolled through the Impaler, slaying it and returning a few points to Grim. The charge attack in turn was also transferred, but again damage returned to Grim after killing the Dire Troll Mauler. A 5" AoE from the Quake Cannon and a failed tough roll later, and we were done, with 20+ minutes remaining on each of our Deathclocks.

In spite of my quick win in the final round, Jameson and Andrew would go on to lose their games, so our team placed second over all. Fortunately, the entire first place team had already qualified for Masters, so Jameson easily got in, as did players on teams in 3rd and 4th place.

Speaking of Masters, I decided to roll my summary of that tournament into this part rather than split it off. Why you might ask, after so many battle reports and wonderful victories, would I cut the crowning tournament of the weekend into a short blurb?

After a fairly easy round 1 victory over a Minions player, I faced Jake (the same Jake from Hardcore) and his Cygnar. Jake chose Epic Caine as his caster, and I failed to take note of Madelyn Corbeau in his list or on the table.  Madelyn Corbeau loves it when you run Champions into the middle of the field on your first turn. With enemy models so close to her, she can maneuver Epic Caine into firing position opposite a poor, unsuspecting Borka, who only has a fury left for transfer against the might of Caine's powerful feat...In less than 7 minutes of play, I blew 12 victories in a hard fought weekend, only two rounds away from complete victory.

With that surprisingly n00b mistake in my second Master's game, I was faced with the decision of  checking out of the hotel and getting home early, or hanging out for three hours  to play two more rounds in a tournament whose prize -- an invite to Warmachine Weekend -- was now out of reach. I decided to go with the former, and let the PG's know I was dropping from the tournament as I headed out the door.