Howdy all,
Last weekend I went to my first tournament in about 1.7 years (if you haven't been following along, I had to stop playing war games for about 1.6 years due to LIFE). I was pretty excited - I've always been a tournament player at heart. Warmachine is a great game for tournament-minded players, and whereas I'd only played about 15 or so games since I'd restarted playing, I felt I had a chance to do okay at least.
When all players were finally registered, it turned out the field was rather large - 22 total players for a local steamroller is rather a lot! My goals for this particular tournament was to win (that's always my goal, lol), but I would be happy to just have a good showing. I hadn't been particularly disciplined about using a clock in my games up until the tournament, and I felt there was every chance I'd just get clobbered by a lot of better players/lists.
Here are the lists I brought:
List 1:
Baldur1
- Woldwrath
- Megalith
- Tharn Bloodtrackers (max, with UA)
- Druids (with UA)
- Shifting Stones
-Blackclad Wayfarer
-Blackclad Wayfarer
- Gallows Grove
List 2:
Krueger2
- Ghetorix
- Warpwolf Stalker
- Gorax
- Tharn Bloodtrackers (max)
- Shifting Stones
- Stoneward & Woldstalkers
- Sentry Stone & Mannikins
- Sentry Stone & Mannikins
- Blackclad Wayfarer
- Bloodweaver Night Witch
- Bloodweaver Night Witch
- Gallows Grove
- Gallows Grove
Game 1: Circle vs. Kenny's Khador!
His lists:
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| I wasn't sure what either caster really did. Pretty common theme on the day, FYI. |
Pairing Debate:
I am pretty familiar with Khador (well, Khador in general, not MK3 Khador), but not really with either caster. After asking some questions, I decided that my Krueger2 list would likely be too pillow-fisted to deal with either army. Baldur's list would be able to use Druids to push the slow jacks backward, and his damage buff would be pretty helpful against all the jacks.
Kenny went with Sorscha2, and I dropped Baldur1.
>> I won the roll to go first, and took first turn.
Pre-game thoughts:
I felt this scenario was very live - lots of good options for me to win via scenario. Taking first turn would allow me to keep his jacks from getting too deep into the zone.
There wasn't a huge game plan here. I wanted to see what trades I could make happen, while concentrating on a scenario win.
Deployment:
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| My army seems pretty small :) |
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| I'd heard nasty things about those rocketeers in the Winter Guard. I wasn't eager to find out what the buzz was all about. |
Circle Turn 1:
I put Prey on the Doom Reavers.
Everything ran up. I made sure to put Baldur within 5" of my flag, and put up Solid Ground. Stone Skin went on my Bloodtrackers.
Bloodtrackers went into the sweet spot of not being chargeable by the Doom Reavers, but could be engaged if the Reavers wanted to try that. I thought that might be the fastest way to deal with them, since the Bloodtrackers have quick work and all.
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| I figured the Doom Reavers were a pretty good Prey target, as my opponent was clearly intending to jam me with them. |
Khador Turn 1:
He ran up. Some spells went onto the Winter Guard, presumably to buff them.
Doom Reavers used two of their number to jam my Bloodtrackers.
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| I was happy with our relative board positions. |
I needed to clear all the Doom Reavers this turn, and do what other damage I could. I also needed to set up my next turn.
Baldur upkept Solid Ground and Stone Skin.
Bloodtrackers went and with a combination of melee and ranged attacks (including use of Quick Work), they wrecked the Doom Reavers, who rolled rather well on their Tough rolls.
I cycled Prey to Behemoth.
Druids used a couple shots to push Beast 09 and the other jack backward.
Megalith advanced and put up his rough terrain Animus, for fun.
Baldur went base to base with his flag, and POPPED HIS FEAT.
I doubted any of Kenny's models could get close enough to contest my own flag.
Woldwrath went up to toe the zone and shot a couple Winterguard, but forgot to place the scather template. Ah well.
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| I'm not in a terrible position ...yet. |
Khador Turn 2:
Kenny didn't have a lot of options. Baldur's feat is difficult to deal with for an army like his. He mostly just advanced some and shot at me. I think the Wrath and Megalith took some damage, but nothing too crazy.
I was able to score this turn, as nobody could contest my flag.
Score: 1-0, advantage Circle.
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| The red dice mark Baldur's control area (and therefore his Solid Ground/Feat radius) |
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| Was this to show the total damage done to Megalith? Maybe Kenny did more to Megalith than I remember... |
Circle Turn 3:
I needed to do some serious damage this turn, and I had an opportunity to control the zone and my flag.
Druids went first and managed to push the Grolar backward and knock him down. They also killed a few Mechanics that were around the zone.
Bloodtrackers went, and shot the Behemoth up a bunch. He wasn't sitting on much after them.
Megalith advanced and used Earth Spikes to finish Behemoth off.
Prey cycled to Winterguard.
Wrath aimed and shot another couple Winterguard, and remembered to place the scather template this time.
Baldur decided to just camp 4. I didn't really know what else I could do with the Fury, and felt that my turn had gone well enough that Kenny might try to shoot Baldur a little bit.
I controlled the zone, and dominated the flag, for 2 more CP.
Score: 3-0, advantage Circle.
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| Not the best Fury situation - I put the Stones nearby to help with that next turn. |
Khador Turn 3:
Kenny declared that he needed to assassinate me. Otherwise, he'd lose. I didn't really see how he could, with a 4-camp, but puckered up a little bit all the same.
Winterguard went first and shot Baldur some, forcing him to transfer once.
Beast 09 went and slaughtered like half of my Bloodtrackers with his thresher attack. Heh.
Sorscha then activated, POPPED HER FEAT, and buffed her charge distance. She then charged Megalith, nearly killed him (he had one box remaining), then used Tornado (or something?) to get into Baldur.
She managed to cause some damage, but not much. She had run out of Fury, and only had a couple attacks by the time she finally got to Baldur. I don't think I even had to transfer.
Since Sorscha couldn't contest my flag, I scored a point.
Score: 4-0, advantage Circle.
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| Some Winterguard died in the scather, sacrificing their lives to add to a CRA on Baldur. |
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| Sorscha got to Baldur - didn't really think that was possible. Glad I camped a lot! |
Circle Turn 4:
I could just end my turn and win, but I wanted to get more CP if possible, because I hate tie-breakers, and have come damn close to them screwing me in my past due to my own laziness.
So, I used the Druids to first auto-knockdown Beast 09, then push him out of the zone.
I ran my rightmost Blackclad over to control the enemy flag.
Between the Wrath, Baldur, and Megalith, I killed Sorscha, scoring 3 more CP, and getting some extra points for assassinating Sorscha.
Results: 7-0 WIN FOR CIRCLE!!
Post-game thoughts:
Well, this game (obviously) went well. I liked having the ability to push the jacks out of the zone every turn and deal with each threat piecemeal.
That said, I had no notion that Sorscha could get to Baldur from where she was. She traveled like 17" or something crazy to get there. That kind of threat range is very impressive :)
I suppose I might have been able to mitigate that by growing a forest to block line of sight to Baldur. That's certainly something I should get better at doing.
Overall, I was happy with this game. Kenny told me afterward that a friend of his had said not to worry about scenario play with this batch of missions - nobody could really score anyways. Not really true.
Not really sure what else Kenny could have done differently this game. Perhaps pop the feat and just try to finish off either Megalith or Woldwrath? I'm sure Megalith would have died, but Wrath still had a bunch of boxes left.
What do you all think? Should Baldur1 be my future Khador drop?
Game 2: Circle Orboros vs. Robert's Cygnar!
His Lists:
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| My first time playing against an ADR. I hardly looked at his list - I didn't know what anything did anyways! |
Pairing Debate:
I just didn't really know. I thought that the lightning was going to mess with me, and that Krueger2 would help me with that (immunity to lightning within 9" of him), and his shooting debuff seemed relevant.
Baldur seemed okay as well, but I figured the Bloodtrackers were going to die a sad death if they had to fight all that lightning.
The truth of the matter is that I just haven't had much experience against Cygnar, in any game edition. The scenario seemed like the best one for Krueger to try and win, so I just pulled the trigger and dropped Krueger2.
Robert dropped Haley1.
>> I won the roll to go first, and took first turn.
Pre-game thoughts:
This was going to be a tough one. The scenario is the one that gives your opponent zero incentive to come into the middle of the table. I knew that Cygnar was a gunline, and that he would likely just sit there and shoot me until I came at him.
Honestly, I didn't have a lot of great ideas. Not only did I not know what his stuff did, I also felt that the scenario heavily favored my opponent.
I decided to try and take his right flag, and at least force his guns to come around the big obstruction if they wanted to contest the flag. That would align well with keep Krueger within 9" of the Bloodtrackers to keep the lightning from destroying them.
Deployment:
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| Bloodtrackers selected the cavalry in the top right as Prey. |
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| Robert's army was nicely painted. The cavalry on the right are converted to be on bikes instead of horses. Looks pretty sweet :) |
Circle Turn 1:
I ran my army up. Krueger put up Storm Winds. Sentry Stones moved into the center to protect my beasts and threaten his Trenchers.
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| The little yellow marker on the top right is the threat range of the Storm Lances. I kept my Trackers there, but also kept Krueger pretty close to them so that lightning couldn't decimate me too much. |
Robert wasn't prepared for me to select his cavalry as Prey, and so decided to play super-cautious. He moved his Cavalry behind the obstruction, but advanced one model he could shoot and try to arc lightning through.
The arced lightning killed the one Bloodtracker that wasn't protected by Krueger.
Arcane Shield was placed on the Storm Lances, bringing them up to ARM 20.
Everything else moved up, but failed to do much. I think one AOE managed to kill a Bloodtracker.
Most of my Mannikins were taken out by Trenchers, which I was actually okay with.
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| So far, so good. You can see that Cygnar has very little incentive to leave their deployment zone. Not my favorite scenario. |
Circle Turn 2:
I was reluctant to get into range of the Cygnar guns in the center for some reason. In hindsight, some of my moves this game were fairly foolish.
The Sentry Stones did move up and generate forests, and some Mannikins. The Mannikins then aimed and sprayed most of the Trenchers to death. Heh.
Bloodtrackers managed to kill the one Cavalry model who wasn't hiding like a coward. :)
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| Still doing okay. Notice though how my beasts are waaay back. I figured they were mostly safe there, and wanted to focus on taking the flag first. |
Cygnar Turn 2:
After hemming and hawing about it for a while, Robert decided to POP HIS FEAT. He also cast Temporal Barrier to make me -2 DEF.
Then, he used his shooting to kill my Stalker, who I had honestly thought was out of his reach.
Some Trenchers managed to spike their charges into one of my Sentry Stones, and killed it.
His Cavalry came out to play as well, but didn't do much to it.
Oh yeah, he had a model that shot an AOE at my objective, and arced lightning into my Blackclad and Night Witch on the left, who were hidden behind the forest there.
As an afterthought, he shot something little into my Gorax, and SUPER-SPIKED, one-shotting it.
Good learning experience I guess, lol. Sigh.
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| Yep, too much stuff I don't know about here. I need to learn Cygnar better. |
Circle Turn 3:
Robert had rolled really (really) well last turn, and the loss of my Gorax to something trivial was actually really important.
I still figured I had a decent chance to make something happen this turn though.
The Bloodtrackers started up, and combined to kill ONE Stormlance.
Shrimp sat there and aimed, and combined for ONE damage box on the Stormlances.
A little frustrated by my (very) poor dice rolls, I had Krueger TK Ghetto to get him into charge range of Thorn, even after my next move.
Krueger then charged a Storm Lance, hit, then proceeded to roll zero damage on the thing. I bought and boosted damage again, and again failed to do a single point of damage.
I then remembered that his feat wouldn't deny charges anymore, but decided to POP MY FEAT anyways to help mitigate the damage for next turn.
Ghetto then charged Thorn and managed to a couple times, doing very trivial damage to it.
Mannikins aimed at Alten Ashley, hit twice, but even two boosted damage rolls couldn't bring the mighty ARM 14 sniper down.
Worst. Turn. Ever.
I killed like 1 model. I think I did a grand total of like 12 boxes of damage. 6 to the cavalry, and 6 to Thorn. Oh, maybe like 2 to Alten Ashley.
Cygnar Turn 3:
It was a pretty simple matter of Robert killing Ghetto and Krueger after that.
Results: LOSS for Circle!!
Post-game thoughts:
Well, it could have gone better. That's for sure.
FIRST, I want to say that Robert was a great opponent. He was very patient with my endless questions about what things did, and how things worked. Whereas he didn't overtly tell me what his plans were during my own turn (and why should he?), he was very forthcoming with his own rules. Looking forward to my next game with him :)
Okay, let's get the dice/luck thing out of the way. Robert did roll (really) well, and I rolled abysmally. Like, to the point of this becoming a different game if both of our dice were closer to average.
THAT SAID, I also played very poorly. I should have run my beasts up and threatened his jacks/caster. Made it clear that if he didn't remove BOTH Ghetto and the Stalker, that he was going to lose some important models in the next turn.
Also, after doing the math, I realized that while yes, my rolls were abysmal, my Bloodtrackers weren't really equipped to deal with an ARM 20 unit. I needed my beasts to support them. Ghetto would have made fast work of those cavalry, even with poor dice.
Finally, the scenario wasn't really in my favor. If you combine that fact with my poor play, a loss seems a bit inevitable.
Still, I felt like some things went well. I killed a bunch of Trenchers with the Sentry Stones/Mannikins, and they could have done still better if I had been able to roll worth anything. Very promising units. I'm excited to get more mileage out of them. Krueger's lightning protection was strong, and very frustrating to my opponent. And... that's about it. Haha, let's move on :)
Status update:
So, in a field of 22, I was 1-1. Not the best result, but I had scored high in my first game, and I figured if I could get a good score in my next game, that maybe I would be able to be paired with the "paired down" guy in round 4. If I did that, I could potentially place in the tournament.
Whereas my dream of winning had been shot down, I could at least try for a strong finish. Which was why I was disappointed to find myself matched up against:
Game 3: Circle Orboros vs. Cygnar!!
His lists:
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| Another Cygnar ADR. At least this one doesn't have Haley1 :) |
Pairing Debate:
I'm not sure if dropping Baldur1 into my Game 2 opponent would have been the best choice. However, in that moment, I felt convinced that I wanted nothing to do with Krueger2 until I could work on his list a little more.
So, I didn't put much thought into it. I thought about it just enough to decide that Baldur1 has some solid things to offer against Cygnar, and I didn't feel that the matchup was going to be one-sided because of lists. Whether or not it would be because I got outplayed again would be a different matter.
In the end, I dropped Baldur1, and my opponent dropped Maddox.
>> I won the roll to go first (again!) and took first turn.
Pre-game thoughts:
I wasn't really as tilted as you might imagine. I've been a tournament player for a long time, and whereas I'm not impervious to tilt, it takes a lot to tilt me. Even in my last game, I mostly kept my head, despite poor dice rolls.
So, I had a game plan.
This was a scenario that would encourage my opponent to actually get into the center of the board. I figured I'd meet him there, but focus on objective play.
Thing was, our TO was pairing players based on their total Control Point score. I needed to get 5 CP in this scenario, or I was unlikely to place.
It looked like (I think his name was Jared? If I'm wrong and you see this, sorry Jared! That's what I'm going to call you for this report) was mostly stacking his models to try to claim the left flag, so I decided to focus most of my models over there, and use the Wrath to hold/contest the right flag.
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| Trenchers on the left (AD), and hammer dwarves on the right. |
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| I put Trenchers as my Prey targets. |
Circle Turn 1:
I ran up the board. Solid Ground went on Baldur, and Stone Skin on the Bloodtrackers.
Pretty sure everyone moved their max distance this turn.
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| I'm getting better at my spacing for my models. Still not great, but it's getting better. |
Cygnar Turn 1:
He also ran up.
The Trenchers used their mini-feat to create a huge cloud effect where they were.
Gorman also put up a cloud.
Circle Turn 2:
I figured there was some stuff I could make happen this turn to get up on attrition.
First, the Bloodtrackers went, and advanced into melee with the first row of ~4 Trenchers. They all hit, but the Trenchers had Tough on them, and almost all made their tough rolls. The back rank of Bloodtrackers finished the knocked down models off. They also managed to kill at least one other Trencher on the fringe that they could see.
The Wrath advanced another 5", and shot at another Trencher, who happened to be close to Gorman. with a boosted shot, he hit, knocked down the model in question (he tough'd), then boosted damaged into Gorman. I was very satisfied to see Gorman die. Dirty motherf*****. :)
The Blackclad did some spraying stuff too, and damaged (but didn't kill) both of the melee solos on the left.
Druids went and managed to push one of the solos backward.
Megalith went up and riled for two, because he couldn't see anything.
Baldur then advanced and POPPED HIS FEAT. He also placed a forest directly in front of Jared's jacks on the left.
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| Not all the templates are down. Jared didn't have enough smoke templates for everyone, so I lent him a few, but we kept picking them up and putting them on alive models instead of leaving the cloud effects where they wre. He We also don't have the scather from the Wrath down in this picture. |
Cygnar Turn 2:
That turn was a pretty rough one for Jared, but the majority of his army was still up and running.
Mostly, Jared ran his models up. In some cases, they were able to kill some Bloodtrackers, but for the most part, nothing much happened. Such is Baldur1's feat turn.
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| Red dice are the 12" feat bubble for Baldur. |
Circle Turn 3:
I had to take advantage of the break in momentum, and I really needed to start working on the hammer dwarves soon. They'd be a big problem if they were allowed to get to my Wrath next turn.
Blackclad on the left went first and was able to get a spray angle on both melee solos. He managed to finish off Maxwell Finn, but the pac-man solo stayed alive with like one box.
The scather had actually finished off at least one more Trencher next turn, so Jared had very few of them remaining. Megalith walked up and boosted Earth Spikes into a couple of them.
The Bloodtrackers left a few of their number to finish the remaining Trenchers off, and shifted to be a screen for the Wrath. They did manage to kill the last Trenchers, and shifted Prey to the hammer dwarves.
They managed to kill 4 or 5 of the dwarves (importantly, the ones within 4" of the flag).
Woldwrath advanced. He shot the heavy jack on the right and did some damage, then used his animus.
Blackclad on the right walked up to the flag to control it. He also sprayed the jack on the right, and with the additional attack dice, managed to crit knockdown the jack on the right.
The Druids went, and first knocked both of the jacks on the left down, then pushed them away from the flag.
Finally, the Gallows Grove shifted up to the flag on the left to control it.
I scored two CP. Whew!
Score: 2-0, advantage Circle.
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| He still has all his heavies, but the infantry are starting to thin out. |
Cygnar Turn 3:
I think this was the turn Maddox POPPED HER FEAT.
The hammer dwarves came in swinging, and between them and the jack on the right, they killed nearly all of the Bloodtrackers and the Blackclad.
On the left, the Thunderhead charged in and killed the Gallows Grove, Blackclad, and a Bloodtracker.
The remaining solo killed a Druid, but was unable to use his pac-man murder spree to get within range of the rest of my Druids.
The Firefly managed to zap another couple Bloodtrackers on the left.
No score this turn.
Score: 2-0, advantage Circle.
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| Our heavies up to now have not been hitting each other. |
Circle Turn 4:
I actually felt I had a good chance at assassinating Maddox this turn. Wrath + Megalith + Druids would likely do the trick. BUT, I needed more CP, so that I could potentially be paired up with an undefeated player, to raise my SOS and chances to place.
So, I decided to go for attrition.
Baldur upkept Stone Skin on the Bloodtrackers again.
Bloodtrackers went and managed to kill another couple hammer dwarves. Not many left.
Wrath went and crushed the hammer jack, then also killed a few more dwarves. I think there were two Bloodtrackers left, and two hammer dwarves. I made sure to leave one fury on him so Baldur had transfer targets.
Baldur put Stone Skin on Megalith.
Megalith charged the Thunderhead and killed him. I think he also killed the final combat solo.
Druids went and pushed both Arlan Strangeways away from the flag, and the Firefly.
Megalith controlled the flag for another point.
Score: 3-0, advantage Circle
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| Not bad - I killed two jacks this turn. |
Cygnar Turn 4:
The Firefly charged Megalith, but couldn't really hurt it. He used his remaining focus to kill a druid or two within his reach.
Hammer Dwarves kill all of the Bloodtrackers besides Nuala.
Arlan hides behind the Firefly.
Score: 3-0, advantage Circle.
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| We're both under 10 minutes of clock left, but not many models left in play. |
Circle Turn 5:
Megalith kind of whiffed against the Firefly, only taking it about 50% down, despite POW 19.
Wrath and Nuala combine to kill all of the hammer dwarves besides Murdoch, who is outside of 4" from the flag.
Druids again try to kill Strangeways with their wind strikes, but just manage to push him backwards.
Wrath scores another point.
Score: 4-0, advantage Circle
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| Murdoch, Arlan, Firefly, Sylys, Maddox. Those are his remaining models. I'm not much better off. |
Cygnar Turn 5:
Jared again killed a few Druids with the Firefly.
He then ran Sylys up to contest the flag on the left.
Maddox charged in and did some small damage to ARM 21 Megalith.
Murdoch got the last laugh and killed Nuala, and contested the flag on the right.
Score: 4-0, advantage Circle
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| Jared sure did stick with it. What a grindy game. |
Circle Turn 6:
I could get 2 more CP this turn - as good a result as I could hope for (the objective wasn't really in reach).
Megalith started by killing the Firefly with his initials, then used Earth Spikes to finish off Sylys and Arlan.
Wrath punched Murdoch to death for fun.
Baldur charged Maddox (the last remaining model), and killed her. I score two more points, and the game ended.
Results: Win for Circle Orboros!!
Post-game thoughts:
In hindsight, Jared had a lot of things that threatened my armor. He didn't have a great feat turn, but +3 POW is pretty strong, and his models were already pretty potent in melee without that buff.
I think my feat caught Jared off his guard, and he wasn't really able to return from my two good turns in a row that sandwiched my feat turn.
Not 100% sure that Baldur1 is a great drop into Cygnar, but this game at least gave me hope. High DEF is a joke to Cygnar gun lines, so I actually think that high ARM is a better route to go. Not that this list is exactly a high ARM skew, but it's a damn sight better than the Krueger2 list.
Tournament Situation:
There were 3 undefeated players: Robert (my round 2 opponent), Tim (Legion), and Rob (Trolls).
I was really (really) hoping my 13 CP would get me paired up into one of them to give me a chance to place.
Matchups were placed and... I got what I asked for!
Game 4: Circle Orboros vs. Rob's Trollbloods!
Opponent's lists:
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| eBorka and Doomy3. Sigh. |
Pairing Debate:
I was almost sure Rob would take Doomy3. He has a 2-cost spell that prevents his battlegroup from being pushed, pulled, placed, or knocked down. That's a HUGE advantage against either of my lists. Why would he even contemplate Borka?
In the end, I decided that Baldur's feat and extra POW would be more significant against that list than Krueger's no-effect feat and whimpy POW.
I dropped Baldur 1, and Rob dropped Doomy3.
>> Rob won the roll to go first, and took first turn.
Pre-game thoughts:
Well, I asked for this game, but did I really want it? haha, this list was going to be really tough to beat. All of those beasts at high POW and high ARM were going to be rough. Further, my Druids would be useless against him. No knockdown, no pushing, POW 10? Underwhelming to the extreme.
It would be necessary to trade my Wrath favorably - if I could have the Wrath charge in and kill one and a half Heavies, be killed in return, then have Megalith finish off the remaining one and a half, I would be in good shape.
If that failed, I figured I might be able to find a way to assassinate his caster - his mini-feat scroll things were good, but ensured he would want to be close to my battlegroup in order to use them.
Doomy3 is rough for Circle, lol.
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| I put Prey on the Highwaymen. |
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| Not a lot of models, but lots of intimidating models :) |
Trolls Turn 1:
They all ran up. Woot.
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| Doomy cast the spell to prevent Knockdown/push every single turn. Just FYI. |
I ran my army up too. My goal was to hold off the beasts until the Bloodtrackers finished mauling the Highwaymen, then have them come in and start trying to pick off beasts.
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| Druids should have been on the left to help with the Highwaymen, ONE unit they could actually affect. |
Rob decided to be really aggressive with his Axers. They charged my Bloodtrackers and Druids respectively, and used thresher to kill a few of them from each unit. Didn't really expect that!
Otherwise, he just generally advanced. A couple of the Highwaymen went on a burning hill. FWIW, lol.
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| Could I kill both Axers next turn? |
Circle Turn 2:
It quickly became apparent that no, I couldn't kill both Axers. In hindsight, I think I could have, but I unfortunately didn't even try to get both.
Instead, I had Megalith charge and kill the Axer on the left.
Bloodtrackers, Gallows Grove, and Wrath combined to kill 6 of the Highwaymen.
Druids decided to delay the Axer on the right.
Baldur waddled up and POPPED HIS FEAT.
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| That turn at least felt good. |
Trolls Turn 3:
The feat made Rob sit and think for a while. He wouldn't be able to get to me, so he mostly did nothing. He did have the bomber hit my Wrath for some good damage, and the Axer on the right continued to eat the hapless Druids.
Rob also decided this was the right turn to POP HIS OWN FEAT. Every time a beast of his was hit, it healed 3+d3. I wouldn't be able to do anything to him this turn. He also put up Mulg's animus, and used his scroll to make my spells cost more. Combine, an upkeep would cost 3 Fury, and a 2-cost spell would cost 5!
In hindsight, I think my Gallows Grove was in range of Mulg. I had forgotten about its no-heal rule though.
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| Yep, wouldn't be able to kill anything this turn :-/ |
Circle Turn 3:
I chickened out and ran Megalith away from Mulg.
Bloodtrackers and Blackclad combined to finish off the Highwaymen, and shifted Prey to Mulg.
I also placed my models so as to make it really difficult for Rob to get two of his heavies into melee range of my Wrath.
Baldur backed out of range of the Animi and put up Solid Ground and put Stone Skin on the Wrath.
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| Can my Wrath survive this coming round? If so, I can probably win. |
Trolls Turn 4:
Rob first put Rage on the Bomber, and had him charge in and hit my Wrath. He did some good damage, but it was clear that Mulg would also need to get in.
Axer went and killed my last Druids, which was largely inconsequential.
Rob then surprised me by charging Doomy at some blocking Bloodtrackers. He managed to get a crit slam, and both Bloodtrackers died, clearing a lane for Mulg.
Mulg went in and finished the Wrath off. Doh!
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| Goodbye Wrath! I barely knew thee! |
Circle Turn 4:
Rob had cleared the path for Mulg, but had left Doomy exposed. Despite the fact that Doomy had Admonition up, there was one important factor he had forgotten: Baldur was still inside an intact set of Shifting Stones.
Megalith advanced to within line of sight of Doomy (but outside of his 6" Admonition range), and put a boosted Earth Spikes on Doomy. It hit, but didn't crit knockdown. It caused a good amount of damage, which Doomy kept.
His charge and spells had left him on 1 fury remaining.
Stones then ported Baldur to within 2" of Doomy. Because it was a teleport, Admonition didn't trigger.
Baldur boosted his first attack, and hit. He did some damage, but more importantly knocked Doomy down to 10 DEF.
After that, I rolled consistently low on damage, but managed to slay Doomy with one fury to spare.
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| All Hail Baldur, DOOMslayer! |
Result: Win for Circle!
Post-game thoughts:
Rob was a great sport this game, and took this loss as well as you might imagine. It wasn't the most awesome ending to this game, where I had hardly killed any of his beasts and he had me on the ropes.
At the same time, if Doomy hadn't charged the Bloodtrackers and gotten a crit slam, Mulg would not have been able to kill my Wrath, and I'd have likely won via attrition. Doomy's position was an important aspect of Rob being able to kill the Wrath.
I won't lie and pretend I had intended all along for Doomy to charge in that close, but if he hadn't, Rob wouldn't have been in a great position. I'm relatively confident that I'd have been able to kill two heavies in my next turn, and trade favorably after that.
That said, I really need to not drop this list into Doomy3 again. At least, not without some sort of Grievous Wounds to help mitigate the feat. Gallows Groves may or may not be plausible.
My own play this game seemed okay. The Druids were misplaced, and I think I could have shot the Axer off the board on the right, but otherwise I think I played an alright game. I didn't want the Wrath to die, but my opponent had to make more sacrifices than perhaps he ought to make it happen. That's the definition of a successful play if you ask me.
Tournament Results:
The Legion player ended up winning it all with Lylyth3.
My 2nd round opponent with Cygnar ended up with 2nd place.
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*suspense*
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I ended up getting 3rd place!! My strength of schedule was just above the others', and I got it!
22 player tournament, and I got 3rd, after being out of it all for 1.7 years!
I was (and still am) very pleased with this result.
To top it off, ALL of my opponents were really awesome. Usually there's at least one that you would prefer not to play again, but this time I had a great experience with all of my opponents. :)
As to my lists: I'm digging the Baldur1 list. I think it's pretty good right now in the current meta. With reduced upkeep hate out there, he seems pretty viable.
I'm thinking of trying Wurmwood again. I have a few ideas I think would work well with him, and just ordered the Reeves UA and Alten Ashley to test those ideas. I'll keep you all in the loop, don't worry :)
This thing has again turned into a monster. My apologies, but I'm not going to proofread it.
Let me know your thoughts! Hope you enjoyed!
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