Yesterday (Saturday, January 25) was the first WarmaHordes tournament of the Alberta Warmachine Tournament Circuit, and I'd like to say I did fairly well. Out of five games, I won three. I came in third for "Master Craftsman" (Best Painted) and fifth for "Mage Hunter" (Caster kill with least other models killed), which were the two categories I was going for. Which isn't too bad, as I believe there were about 26 players in attendance.
The tournament has to be one of the best ones I've attended, if not the best, and I regret not being able to attend the "swapmachine" tournament that took place afterword due to other obligations. I'd like to thank everyone who worked hard to make this happen at the Out of the Basement group, as well as all my opponents.
I'd also like to say, I learned that when you need to snap pictures fast, the camera on your phone sucks. I had planned to bring my actual camera, but in my hurry to get out the door I forgot to grab it. I blame the lack of sleep from having spent the night previous desparately trying to finish a couple models (which I definitely need to go back to, as rushing doesn't produce the quality painting I want).
GAME 1
My first game was against Trollbloods. He was using epic Madrak Ironhide with a Earthborn Dire Troll and a Troll Axer, with a full unit of Fennblades and an assortment of solos. This game was a bit of a meat grinder, as my Boomhowlers and Fennblades clashed in turn two. But being that my coffee had not kicked in yet, I forgot to use Boomhowlers Call of Defiance for two turns and the Fennblades chewed through the mercenary company. I was able to severely wound his Earthborn Dire Troll with my hunter getting a critical brutal damage Rune Shot from the Gun Mages and boosting damage (four dice!). He was finished off from a few well placed shots before he could really do any damage back. However, the Troll Axer was able to get in and take a couple of swings at Ol'Rowdy. Rowdy was able to cripple him right before I jumped in with Caine, preventing damage from being diverted to his warbeasts as Caine did his assassination run.
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| Turn 1: After deployment and he moved his Fennblades up (because I almost forgot to take a picture. A trend through much of the weekend) |
What I can remember of his list, which is lacking 2 models at 11 points:
Madrak Ironhide, World Ender
-- Earthborn Dire Troll
-- Troll Axer
Trollkin Fennblades
-- Fennblade Officer and Drummer
Fell Caller Hero
GAME 2
The second game was Cygnar vs. Cyngar, as my epic Caine clashed with Kara Sloan. Setup was fairly typical of Cygnar, with guns lined up on both sides. His list was comprised of everything Kara would need for her feat turn:
Kara Sloan
-- Defender
-- Triumph
-- Squire
Long Gunners (Max)
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages
-- Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer
Reinholdt
I won the dice off and gave him first turn. He moved forward with his force in a line, with his Caster behind the jacks. His jacks and long gunners doing lots of damage to Boomhowler and Company and his Gun Mages trying to shoot Eiryss, but missing. On my turn, Ol'Rowdy and Boomhowler's company ran straight forward, the Gun mages ran towards the wall on my left. Eiryss and my Hunter were able to make it to the wall and still shoot due to their advance deployment, each standing at either end of the wall to ensure Eiryss didn't interfere with my jack. Eiryss took out one of his gun mages and the Hunter pounded on Triumph. Caine stayed comfortable behind the rest. On his second turn he didn't move but continued to shoot taking out more of my Boomhowler company and doing some damage to both my hunter and Rowdy. On my second turn, it was go time. The gun mages shot into the enemy gun mages, clearing out a model to open up line of sight to Kara from her right (my left). Eiryss stepped forward right in front of his gun mages and put a shot into Kara, disrupting her and dropping all her focus. The hunter went next, stepping forward and putting a devastating shot into Kara, nearly killing her. Caine then walked up to the edge of his range and put a single arcane shot down range at her to finish her off. This was apparently unnecessary as I had dominance of the control zone and at the end of my turn would have done 5 damage anyway to her, thus ending the game.
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| Game over. |
GAME 3
Game three saw my first lose against a Retribution of Scyrah force. I knew from the get-go this was going to be a short game as we both were playing the assassination run. It really came down to positioning and who could pull the trigger first. His force was Kaelyssa with lots of ouch. This is his list:
Kaelyssa, Nights Whisper
-- Banshee
-- Sylys Wyshnarlyrr
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution
Arcanists
Dawnguard Sentinels (Max)
-- Officer and Standard
Mage Hunter Strike Force (Min)
-- Strike Force Commander
Mage Hunter Infiltrators (Max)
Turn one was really both of us trying to out position the other, while ensuring our casters moved forward enough to not killbox ourselves.
I ran Ol'Rowdy and Boomhowler's company forward with the Gun Mages and the Hunter on my left. Eiryss moved up on the right. Caine staying back. He ran most of his force up the middle with the Dawnguard in the centre with his Banshee, his infiltrators running up to my left and the strike force moving up field to my right. The Eiyrss were lining up to face each other down. Kaelyssa also popped her feat, making her entire force gain stealth and making it so I couldn't charge.
My turn two I tried to do what damage I could to the Banshee with my hunter, and with shooting from my gun mages and Boomhowler company into his units. I was still out of range to do my assassination run, so Caine moved forward crossing the 14" line by a few inches, thinking I was still out of his range. This was my mistake. I should have just crossed the line and also moved a bit to my left. On his turn, Kaelyssa moved up and cast Phantom Hunter on the Banshee, which then proceed to shoot Caine doing some hefty damage. This was followed by the Mage Hunter Strike Force, which being able to ignore the LOS block from my Boomhowler Company proceeded to shoot Caine, who was JUST in range.
The worst part was, my next turn was setup to be a very good assassination run on Kaelyssa. My opponent even said that if he hadn't killed me then and there, Kaelyssa was in for some trouble.
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| Middle of Turn 1. Before the Elves go all "Kill all Humans" on my backside. |
GAME 4
My fourth game was against a friend of mine who is part of my regular circle of tabletop gamers, and off all my games this is the one that just hurt. He was playing his Retribution, and in this game, Caine and my Gun Mages decided that shooting into the air and dancing like Yosamite Sam would be a productive use of their time. It started out good, with my Cygnar going second. He advanced forward, with Eiryss moving up my left. On my turn, everything advanced forward as well, Caine casting his usual Heightened Reflexes on Boomhowler and advancing up the right side to hide behind some ruins. On his turn, moved in and started doing some damage to the Boomhowlers, who, unlike earlier games, decided that rolling tough was a good thing. It was during my second turn that things started to fall apart. With my army failing to get any shots off and being in a very poor position, Caine retreats to behind the small ruin on my right. Which was probably a bad decision. I probably should have had Caine shoot up the place then Gatecrash out of harms way. But, lessons learned. On his turn, he proceeded to take apart my army, piece by piece, as I failed tough roll after tough roll and the gun mages simply rolled over. However, he did bring his caster forward into a very nice position for an assassination run, albeit with a stack of focus.
So, on my turn, I brought Eiryss up to try and remove the stack but was turned into a puddle of goo by his jack with an impressive free strike roll. Now, Caine had to deal with the caster with full focus... great.
Caine strode forward, popped his feat, and begun shooting... and missed completely. I only needed sixes and could not make them to save his life (literally). Even with all his focus armor, had I been hitting, eventually the negative to my damage should have been able to do something to him. But, alas, nothing.
Caine was now open to die. My opponent was nice at first, leaving Caine be, while he destroyed the rest of the army (he was going for the Executioner award). Only after he had killed everything else, forcing Caine to witness his army die, did he plunge the blade into Caine.
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| End of Turn 1. "The line must be drawn here! No further!" |
-- Pheonix
-- Banshee
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution
Arcanist
House Shyeel Magister
Houseguard Halberdiers (Max)
-- Officer and Standard
-- Soulless
GAME 5
My last game pitted me once again against Cygnar, this time against another Captain Allister Caine! His list was along the same vein as mine, but switched out up a few things while keeping the focus on the assassination.
Captain Caine
-- Stormwall
-- Squire
Reinholdt
Taryn di la Rovissi
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution
Arlan Strangeways
Black 13th
Rangers
Stormsmith Stormcallers x2
This game was an interesting match up, as both of us vied to get their assassination off. It was a dance almost. I won the dice off and had him go first. His Stormwall deployed slight off of centre to my left, with enemy Caine, his retinue, the Black 13th and Taryn centred. Each Stormcaller was on either end of the army, and the rangers and Eiryss were up front. I deployed in standard fashion with Ol'Rowdy in the middle surrounded by Boomhowler's Company and Caine and his retinue in behind. My gun mages I deployed on my left with the Hunter up front and Eiryss was on my right. Everything ran forward in both of our first turns with a few potshots here and there from both sides, but nothing critical. On his second turn, he advanced his rangers up, and stormcallers up, taking out Eiryss and doing some damage to my hunter and Boomhowlers in the process. His Caine then proceeded to magic bullet assassinate me through Ol'Rowdy. He came very close, but failed to drop my Caine. Wanting to charge his Stormwall in he realized one of his rangers would be in the way, so Taryn summarily shot him in the back and the Stormwall charged into Ol'Rowdy and the Boomhowler company, doing significant damage to Rowdy, but not bringing him down. On my turn, I assaulted with the Boomhowlers that could (thanks to Jonas), and did a decent amount of damage to it's right side. My gun mages proceeded to shoot the stormcaller on my left flank. With the stormcaller gone, my Hunter moved up around the cloud that Ryan had put down the turn previous, and got LOS on to the enemy Caine, and took out half of his damage boxes. Caine (my Caine that is) stepped forward and used an opening between my boomhowlers to use magic bullet through the Black 13th into his Caine, killing him and two members of the 13th as well.
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| Who's magic bullets reign supreme? |
All in all, a good first go at the Warmachine tournament scene. I look forward to trying a 50 point tournament to compare how the two play. I like that at 35 points I can't take everything that I want to take. We'll see how things go at the upcoming Steamroller. Hopefully, I have everything I want in my list painted before the night prior so I'm not scrambling like I was this time around.
In the next day or two I'll be posting more about the Tournament, as well as looking into the newest No Quarter and discussing the changes to GW's White Dwarf magazine.
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