So 2013 was a complete bust when it came to Warmachine and Hordes. Starting with a last minute Templecon showing where I played in the first three rounds of the team tournament and then didn't play another game the rest of the weekend, the year in competitive play was fairly disappointing. With a new job with 16 hour work days, random weekend sales calls and major family health issues, play went on the back burner, and my competitive play slipped significantly.
While I made it to Colonial GT, NOVA Open and WarStore Weekend, my play was often uneven and rife with experiments across the factions. Colonial GT went rather well, with a solid showing through the weekend and decent Masters play. By the end of the year however, talent and luck couldn't carry me in spite of the massive lack of practice over the summer. NOVA Open was a massive bust, fielding a variety of Circle casters for a disappointing showing that failed to reach Masters. The following month at WarStore Weekend, a meager showing of East Coast players led to some easy qualification for Masters, followed by a solid first round trouncing of eKaya at the hands of eHaley.
Finally, after a fateful trip to Las Vegas, I ditched the sale job and moved to a more interesting and timely position. With the turning of the new year, I resolved to practice like I did in 2012. The first weekend of the year provided a perfect opportunity to start, with back to back tournaments in NJ, one of the strongest metas in the U.S..
The first event of the weekend was at the Game Room Store, in Brick NJ. The store was freezing cold, opening a day after the polar vortex blizzard had hit the area. The game area was pretty spacious, and fit the 18 folks who showed up to game. Among the locals were plenty of new faces, as well as familiar ones from the PA, northern NJ and NYC metas.
For the day I'm running Cryx, in preparation for the Iron Gauntlet series at TempleCon 2014. My goal is to make use of some of the faction's unique advantages while avoiding a caster that everyone will likely come prepared for (eGaspy). I also wanted to use a faction where the painting requirements wouldn't be a significant burden, and with which I could complement with another faction which also had minimal painting requirements. In the end, I settled on two casters that leverage the Kraken in different ways: eSkarre, and eGoreshade.
The scenarios for the day were all SR2014 Beta rules, and the timing mechanism was Deathclock at 60 minutes per side. Deployment was on the clock, which wasn't an issue for me during the day. I ended up with several minutes over my opponents in most games.
First round, and I'm facing off against the first of two brothers I'll meet, Greg W.. Greg is running one lists using eHaley and eStryker. I'm pretty happy with either match up, but consider eHaley's shooting game a bigger risk, so I decide to go with eSkarre, since she has better durability against Cygnar's shooting game.
That durability was a myth.
I win the roll off and elect to go second to keep some terrain on my side of the field. Greg burned through 10 minutes on setup and another 5 on running forward the first turn. I placed nothing opposite his Tempest Blazers, knowing their speed makes it almost impossible to catch them without a high RAT gun line. I focused my forces on the left side of my deployment, intending to overwhelm the Arcane Gun Mages with bodies.
Round one, Greg runs forward with the Blazers and the Stormwall. I threw the Raiders forward as far as possible under Desperate Pace, engaging many of the Gun Mages. The Blood Witches are close behind. The Bloodgorgers take the middle, contesting the zone and tanking the firepower of the Stormwall and Blazers long enough to let the rest of my forces get to eHaley. The Kraken takes to the hill, and lobs a shot down range, picking off a Gun Mage with a deviation.
Round two, Greg moves eHaley up out of the Kill Box, in position to dominate the flag, and throws Dead Eye on the Gun Mages. His Storm Smiths Triagulate with the Stormwall's harpoon and remove several Raiders engaging his Gun Mages. The Gun Mages obliterate the remaining Raiders with help from the Blazers.
I send the Blood Witches in on their mini-feat, and use gang with their razors to kill most of his Gun Mage unit. I then realize that eHaley is within range of my pistol wraiths, and decide I might as well gamble for some damage. The first shot lands and knocks five health off her, but the rest fail to connect. The Kraken moves up and lobs a fully boosted shot at her, needing a 10 to hit and a 12 to kill. The shot connects and kills her, putting me in early contention for a Mage Hunter award.
After a lengthy lunch break, the second game of the tournament gets started. This time I'm paired up against Frka, one of the NJ regulars and always a challenging opponent. He's brought an eKreoss tier with two Venger units, accompanied by a classic pSeverius list with Exemplars and Zealots to this tourney.
The eKreoss list doesn't bother me much, nor does the pSevvy list. Frka clearly thinks that pSevvy gives him the best options for Cryx though, and quickly settles on the list. I decide to go with my eGoreshade list, figuring Occultation and the stealthed Bane Thralls will allow me to close with the Exemplars without too many issues. We roll off, and I lose.
Frka elects to go second, as he often does, which forces me to deploy most of my forces before him. Frka is good at reading unit-to-unit match ups and after my deployment, quickly aligns the best units of his list against his strongest match ups in mine. Frka deploys his Knights Exemplar opposite the Thralls, and his Zealots against the Blood Witches. He clearly intended to avoid the Hag's Entropic Field so that Exemplars could sacrifice for each other without issue.
The first round is uneventful, but I make the poor decision of sending the Blood Witches straight forward after the Zealots. Frka ran his units straight ahead, and after some conversation about Aiyanna's magic weapons ability, left Holt and her behind the Exemplars.
Round two begins, and the far left flag disappears. I load up the Kraken with focus, and lob the Kraken's AOE at Aiyanna, expecting a deviation to catch either the nearby Wracks, Rhupert or Aiyanna and Holt themselves. I'm lucky when the AOE is just in range, and deviates only an inch. I boost the damage rolls and Aiyanna goes down before ever contributing to the fight. That would be the last time this game I'd have a bit of luck on my side. I jam the Zealots, who popped their minifeat in turn one, with the Blood Witches, and make them Incorporeal with their minifeat.
The loss of Aiyanna frustrates Frka, but only for a few moments. He sends his Exemplars against the Bane Thralls, killing a few between Quick Work and charges. Then he calmly moves up Blessing of Vengence, and throws two Ashes-to-Ashes at the backs of his own Zealots. With two 5s coming up on the bounces, I am swiftly down all but two of Witches. We're both surprised by this sudden turn of fortune, and he quickly moves to lock down the flag on the side with Zealots.
At this point, things rapidly slide downhill. Down a nearly full unit, I start looking for a quick exit to the game. Unfortunately, the Kraken's firepower has intimidated Frka well enough on a non-Kill Box scenario. Severius is hiding within a few inches of Frka's back table edge, and I consider charging it in against the Exemplars to go for a chancy Kill Shot. Frka has clearly planned for this though and has maneuvered the Reckoner into place where it can close with the Kraken if it goes for the kill. I decide to try and out attrition the Exemplars instead, and buy some time with the Zealots.
The Scrap Thrall runs into the enemy Zealots to contest the flag, and engages a pair of the Zealots to mitigate free strikes or ranged attacks. I use Goreshade's feat to bring back the Blood Hag, and put her as far over as I can to cover the Exemplars with the Entropic Aura. This works pretty well, and half the unit goes down to Banes, refilling their ranks.
All of this is swiftly undone though as Frka's luck with Ashes-to-Ashes perseveres. The first Ashes comes up a six, and he clears the Blood Hag, the Witches engaging Exemplars, and two Bane Thralls. He bounces another Ashes off the head of a Zealot, clearing the Scrap Thrall and remaining Blood Witch. The Scrap Thrall explosion fails to kill any of the Zealots.
At this point the game goes into a slow stalemate, as I throw model after model for three turns at the Zealots, never kill more than a few. The Banes grind against the Exemplars, but at the top of round 6, I'm down 4 CP to my own goose egg. Severius has moved into position to run and dominate the flag, and I'm out of models to contest against the Zealots. I make a desperation play, throwing Goreshade and a Ripjaw at the zone, but the Ripjaw gets bounced back by Blessing of Vengence's shield, leaving Goreshade unable to contest the zone. Frka scores his final VP after a half hearted attempt at assassinating Goreshade, and I move to the loser's bracket for the day.
The third game was against Greg's brother, Art. Art was running Cryx, with an eDenny and pSkarre list to choose from. The pSkarre list didn't worry me too much, since between her cutting and desire to be close to the front lines, I would get a few good shots with the Kraken. Denny on the other hand, would be immune to shots half the game. Of course Art went with Denny.
I won the roll off, and elected to go second to maintain some convenient terrain. Art put his Deathjack opposite my Satyxis Blood Witches, and his Raiders opposite the Kraken. His Nyss Hunters formed the center mass of his army with the two bone jacks on either flank.
This game went back and forth a number of ways. In the second round, as he prepared to line up some CRAs with the Nyss, Art moved them too close to the Deathjack, and they failed their terror test. The same turn, he moved up one of his arc nodes, hoping to recover some momentum through a Hell Mouth at my Banes, but got hit by a Sudden Death, counter-charging Tartarus.
Unfortunately, I got caught up in trying to take down his unit of Satyxis Raiders with the Kraken, effectively removing it from the game while it flailed helplessly at their ranks. The Banes did their best to take down the two Bone Jacks that lined up in front of them in round two. They quickly wrecked one, and wounded the other, and a couple went after the Deathjack putting a few points on it. I attempted to block in the Deathjack as much as possible which proved fortuitous the next round.
Round three, and Art attempts to free up the Deathjack, but can't quite do it. He decides to send it after Goreshade any ways. Art moves Denny deep into my ranks, in the middle of the objective, and pops feat, guaranting he'll have another opportunity to come after me. He then activates the Deathjack and charges towards Goreshade. He draws two free strikes from Bane Thralls, and both connect for massive damage, taking out a shoulder and his movement system mid-charge. As a result, Deathjack failed his charge, which likely saves Goreshade.
At this point, I'm feeling alright about my chances. Denny is surrounded by Banes, and the Deathjack is heavily wounded. I manage to down the Deathjack on my turn, as he's within range of two Bane Thralls and Tartarus, as well as Art's last Bone Jack. My Blood Witches are unable to do anything, and the Kraken flails helplessly at Raiders.
Unfortunately my confidence was misplaced, and I failed to see Denny had a run lined up even without the Deathjack or arc nodes. Art puts Denny incorporeal, and charges straight through my useless Banes, and throws a fully boosted charge attack into Goreshade. The attack triggers Denny's Dark Banishment, and Art sends Goreshade ass first into the middle of the zone. He now his back turned to half a dozen Nyss and the Withershadow Combine, who quickly mince him. The game was close, but the win was not to be.
Round four, and now I'm just playing for shits and giggles. I've seen what I came to see today, which is what my problem lists might be with eGoreshade. Some Cryx, and Menoth as expected. This round, before I even see my opponent's lists or the scenario I resolve to play eSkarre for some practice with her. I find myself facing eButcher's doom reaver spam tier list. 36 Doom Reavers with 3 UAs and some mildly useful Khador jacks are soon to fill the field before me.
Unfortunately for me, in order to end the event early, the organizer announces that the final round will be 15 minutes shorter than the three prior rounds. I've twice played against Doom Reaver spam in the last year, and both times I lost due to time issues. This would prove to a problem once again.
I lose the roll off, and go first. Round one is the usual boring run-run-charge. With six units of Doom Reavers, Conner's deployment is straight forward. I decide I need to take advantage of some terrain on my left to protect the Satyxis from the pathfinder-less Doom Reavers. By round two, my flank is curling around the hedge, and my Trolls are lined up for a kill fest. I quickly eat through nearly every doom reaver in the front line, and the Satyxis mange to keep their morale in order, eatting half of one of the back units as well.
Two more rounds of grinding, and Conner is out of all his Doom Reavers, save one cluster of four in the right zone. Gerlak holds on under Skarre's feat, and many tough rolls, but eventually falls to the fury of reavers hacking away at him. Conner quickly capitalizes on this and moves Butcher into the zone, preparing to dominate. He throws his Berserker towards the Satyxis, and the Kodiak runs to threaten the Kraken and Skarre.
Round five. I check my time, and realize at this point I've only got about 6 minutes left, to Conner's 20. He can afford to let me try to grind my way to him. There's no way I'll down both Jacks this turn, but I figure I might be able to Feedback my way into an assassination. The raiders finish off the last of the Berserker, plinking a few points on to Butcher. I then activate Skarre, throw Feedback on the Kodiak, and charge in. I completely ignore the magnificent Life Trader ability, and waste my focus boosting damage rolls to crack the jack's ARM. The Kraken comes in swinging, doing some more damage, finally followed by the remaining Satyxis Blood Witches. By the time its all said and done, the Jack has managed to cling to 3 points of health, and Butcher is down to 9 out of his 20 health.
At this point, I've ended my turn, and I have approximately 40 seconds remaining. eButcher's dementia clears up a bit, leaving him with a full load of focus. Conner leisurely plots out his course of action, with 15 minutes or so to spare. He pops the Kodiak's Vent steam ability, quickly clearing out the Satyxis. He then sends the Butcher into Skarre. With a full load of focus, Skarre is quickly vanquished.
I end the day 1-3, but find that the fresh meta combined with a couple of familiar faces has definitely given me some new insight in how to tailor my eGoreshade list for Templecon. I am pretty satisfied as Hallie and I set out to drive an hour north to Saddlebrook, where I'll test my Trollblood list candidates in another tournament on Sunday.
While I made it to Colonial GT, NOVA Open and WarStore Weekend, my play was often uneven and rife with experiments across the factions. Colonial GT went rather well, with a solid showing through the weekend and decent Masters play. By the end of the year however, talent and luck couldn't carry me in spite of the massive lack of practice over the summer. NOVA Open was a massive bust, fielding a variety of Circle casters for a disappointing showing that failed to reach Masters. The following month at WarStore Weekend, a meager showing of East Coast players led to some easy qualification for Masters, followed by a solid first round trouncing of eKaya at the hands of eHaley.
Finally, after a fateful trip to Las Vegas, I ditched the sale job and moved to a more interesting and timely position. With the turning of the new year, I resolved to practice like I did in 2012. The first weekend of the year provided a perfect opportunity to start, with back to back tournaments in NJ, one of the strongest metas in the U.S..
The first event of the weekend was at the Game Room Store, in Brick NJ. The store was freezing cold, opening a day after the polar vortex blizzard had hit the area. The game area was pretty spacious, and fit the 18 folks who showed up to game. Among the locals were plenty of new faces, as well as familiar ones from the PA, northern NJ and NYC metas.
For the day I'm running Cryx, in preparation for the Iron Gauntlet series at TempleCon 2014. My goal is to make use of some of the faction's unique advantages while avoiding a caster that everyone will likely come prepared for (eGaspy). I also wanted to use a faction where the painting requirements wouldn't be a significant burden, and with which I could complement with another faction which also had minimal painting requirements. In the end, I settled on two casters that leverage the Kraken in different ways: eSkarre, and eGoreshade.
| List 1 | List 2 |
| Goreshade the Cursed Skarlock Kraken Ripjaw Satyxis Blood Witches + UA Bane Thralls + UA Whithershadow Combine Bane Lord Tartarus Necrotech and Scrap Thrall | Skarre, Queen of the Broken Coast Kraken Satyxis Blood Witches + UA Satyxis Raiders + UA Bloodgorgers General Slaughterborn Satyxis Raider Captain Pistol Wraith Pistol Wraith |
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| Greg's Lists |
That durability was a myth.
I win the roll off and elect to go second to keep some terrain on my side of the field. Greg burned through 10 minutes on setup and another 5 on running forward the first turn. I placed nothing opposite his Tempest Blazers, knowing their speed makes it almost impossible to catch them without a high RAT gun line. I focused my forces on the left side of my deployment, intending to overwhelm the Arcane Gun Mages with bodies.
Round one, Greg runs forward with the Blazers and the Stormwall. I threw the Raiders forward as far as possible under Desperate Pace, engaging many of the Gun Mages. The Blood Witches are close behind. The Bloodgorgers take the middle, contesting the zone and tanking the firepower of the Stormwall and Blazers long enough to let the rest of my forces get to eHaley. The Kraken takes to the hill, and lobs a shot down range, picking off a Gun Mage with a deviation.Round two, Greg moves eHaley up out of the Kill Box, in position to dominate the flag, and throws Dead Eye on the Gun Mages. His Storm Smiths Triagulate with the Stormwall's harpoon and remove several Raiders engaging his Gun Mages. The Gun Mages obliterate the remaining Raiders with help from the Blazers.
I send the Blood Witches in on their mini-feat, and use gang with their razors to kill most of his Gun Mage unit. I then realize that eHaley is within range of my pistol wraiths, and decide I might as well gamble for some damage. The first shot lands and knocks five health off her, but the rest fail to connect. The Kraken moves up and lobs a fully boosted shot at her, needing a 10 to hit and a 12 to kill. The shot connects and kills her, putting me in early contention for a Mage Hunter award.
After a lengthy lunch break, the second game of the tournament gets started. This time I'm paired up against Frka, one of the NJ regulars and always a challenging opponent. He's brought an eKreoss tier with two Venger units, accompanied by a classic pSeverius list with Exemplars and Zealots to this tourney.
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| Frka's Lists |
Frka elects to go second, as he often does, which forces me to deploy most of my forces before him. Frka is good at reading unit-to-unit match ups and after my deployment, quickly aligns the best units of his list against his strongest match ups in mine. Frka deploys his Knights Exemplar opposite the Thralls, and his Zealots against the Blood Witches. He clearly intended to avoid the Hag's Entropic Field so that Exemplars could sacrifice for each other without issue.
The first round is uneventful, but I make the poor decision of sending the Blood Witches straight forward after the Zealots. Frka ran his units straight ahead, and after some conversation about Aiyanna's magic weapons ability, left Holt and her behind the Exemplars.Round two begins, and the far left flag disappears. I load up the Kraken with focus, and lob the Kraken's AOE at Aiyanna, expecting a deviation to catch either the nearby Wracks, Rhupert or Aiyanna and Holt themselves. I'm lucky when the AOE is just in range, and deviates only an inch. I boost the damage rolls and Aiyanna goes down before ever contributing to the fight. That would be the last time this game I'd have a bit of luck on my side. I jam the Zealots, who popped their minifeat in turn one, with the Blood Witches, and make them Incorporeal with their minifeat.
The loss of Aiyanna frustrates Frka, but only for a few moments. He sends his Exemplars against the Bane Thralls, killing a few between Quick Work and charges. Then he calmly moves up Blessing of Vengence, and throws two Ashes-to-Ashes at the backs of his own Zealots. With two 5s coming up on the bounces, I am swiftly down all but two of Witches. We're both surprised by this sudden turn of fortune, and he quickly moves to lock down the flag on the side with Zealots.At this point, things rapidly slide downhill. Down a nearly full unit, I start looking for a quick exit to the game. Unfortunately, the Kraken's firepower has intimidated Frka well enough on a non-Kill Box scenario. Severius is hiding within a few inches of Frka's back table edge, and I consider charging it in against the Exemplars to go for a chancy Kill Shot. Frka has clearly planned for this though and has maneuvered the Reckoner into place where it can close with the Kraken if it goes for the kill. I decide to try and out attrition the Exemplars instead, and buy some time with the Zealots.
All of this is swiftly undone though as Frka's luck with Ashes-to-Ashes perseveres. The first Ashes comes up a six, and he clears the Blood Hag, the Witches engaging Exemplars, and two Bane Thralls. He bounces another Ashes off the head of a Zealot, clearing the Scrap Thrall and remaining Blood Witch. The Scrap Thrall explosion fails to kill any of the Zealots.
At this point the game goes into a slow stalemate, as I throw model after model for three turns at the Zealots, never kill more than a few. The Banes grind against the Exemplars, but at the top of round 6, I'm down 4 CP to my own goose egg. Severius has moved into position to run and dominate the flag, and I'm out of models to contest against the Zealots. I make a desperation play, throwing Goreshade and a Ripjaw at the zone, but the Ripjaw gets bounced back by Blessing of Vengence's shield, leaving Goreshade unable to contest the zone. Frka scores his final VP after a half hearted attempt at assassinating Goreshade, and I move to the loser's bracket for the day.
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| Art's Lists |
I won the roll off, and elected to go second to maintain some convenient terrain. Art put his Deathjack opposite my Satyxis Blood Witches, and his Raiders opposite the Kraken. His Nyss Hunters formed the center mass of his army with the two bone jacks on either flank.
This game went back and forth a number of ways. In the second round, as he prepared to line up some CRAs with the Nyss, Art moved them too close to the Deathjack, and they failed their terror test. The same turn, he moved up one of his arc nodes, hoping to recover some momentum through a Hell Mouth at my Banes, but got hit by a Sudden Death, counter-charging Tartarus.Unfortunately, I got caught up in trying to take down his unit of Satyxis Raiders with the Kraken, effectively removing it from the game while it flailed helplessly at their ranks. The Banes did their best to take down the two Bone Jacks that lined up in front of them in round two. They quickly wrecked one, and wounded the other, and a couple went after the Deathjack putting a few points on it. I attempted to block in the Deathjack as much as possible which proved fortuitous the next round.Round three, and Art attempts to free up the Deathjack, but can't quite do it. He decides to send it after Goreshade any ways. Art moves Denny deep into my ranks, in the middle of the objective, and pops feat, guaranting he'll have another opportunity to come after me. He then activates the Deathjack and charges towards Goreshade. He draws two free strikes from Bane Thralls, and both connect for massive damage, taking out a shoulder and his movement system mid-charge. As a result, Deathjack failed his charge, which likely saves Goreshade.At this point, I'm feeling alright about my chances. Denny is surrounded by Banes, and the Deathjack is heavily wounded. I manage to down the Deathjack on my turn, as he's within range of two Bane Thralls and Tartarus, as well as Art's last Bone Jack. My Blood Witches are unable to do anything, and the Kraken flails helplessly at Raiders.Unfortunately my confidence was misplaced, and I failed to see Denny had a run lined up even without the Deathjack or arc nodes. Art puts Denny incorporeal, and charges straight through my useless Banes, and throws a fully boosted charge attack into Goreshade. The attack triggers Denny's Dark Banishment, and Art sends Goreshade ass first into the middle of the zone. He now his back turned to half a dozen Nyss and the Withershadow Combine, who quickly mince him. The game was close, but the win was not to be.
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| Conner's List |
Unfortunately for me, in order to end the event early, the organizer announces that the final round will be 15 minutes shorter than the three prior rounds. I've twice played against Doom Reaver spam in the last year, and both times I lost due to time issues. This would prove to a problem once again. I lose the roll off, and go first. Round one is the usual boring run-run-charge. With six units of Doom Reavers, Conner's deployment is straight forward. I decide I need to take advantage of some terrain on my left to protect the Satyxis from the pathfinder-less Doom Reavers. By round two, my flank is curling around the hedge, and my Trolls are lined up for a kill fest. I quickly eat through nearly every doom reaver in the front line, and the Satyxis mange to keep their morale in order, eatting half of one of the back units as well.Two more rounds of grinding, and Conner is out of all his Doom Reavers, save one cluster of four in the right zone. Gerlak holds on under Skarre's feat, and many tough rolls, but eventually falls to the fury of reavers hacking away at him. Conner quickly capitalizes on this and moves Butcher into the zone, preparing to dominate. He throws his Berserker towards the Satyxis, and the Kodiak runs to threaten the Kraken and Skarre. Round five. I check my time, and realize at this point I've only got about 6 minutes left, to Conner's 20. He can afford to let me try to grind my way to him. There's no way I'll down both Jacks this turn, but I figure I might be able to Feedback my way into an assassination. The raiders finish off the last of the Berserker, plinking a few points on to Butcher. I then activate Skarre, throw Feedback on the Kodiak, and charge in. I completely ignore the magnificent Life Trader ability, and waste my focus boosting damage rolls to crack the jack's ARM. The Kraken comes in swinging, doing some more damage, finally followed by the remaining Satyxis Blood Witches. By the time its all said and done, the Jack has managed to cling to 3 points of health, and Butcher is down to 9 out of his 20 health.
At this point, I've ended my turn, and I have approximately 40 seconds remaining. eButcher's dementia clears up a bit, leaving him with a full load of focus. Conner leisurely plots out his course of action, with 15 minutes or so to spare. He pops the Kodiak's Vent steam ability, quickly clearing out the Satyxis. He then sends the Butcher into Skarre. With a full load of focus, Skarre is quickly vanquished.I end the day 1-3, but find that the fresh meta combined with a couple of familiar faces has definitely given me some new insight in how to tailor my eGoreshade list for Templecon. I am pretty satisfied as Hallie and I set out to drive an hour north to Saddlebrook, where I'll test my Trollblood list candidates in another tournament on Sunday.
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