Howdy all! I recently went to a Warmachine Weekend (WMW) Qualifier in Denver, CO. I took Circle (it's my only faction), was very excited to have such a big tournament in my own backyard! I've had a little bit of early success in this new MK3 universe so far, despite my faction changing somewhat dramatically. I was excited to see how I could do!Here's the format: it was a Master's event, with 64 slots (in reality, "only" 50-some players showed up).
Day 1: 3 games, get down to a "top 8"
Day 2:
Top 8 complete the tournament
OR
The losers get their own brand new tournament.
My goals:
As always, my goal was to win the whole thing. However, barring that, I wanted to make it to Day 2, and into the top 8. Getting top 8 would be painful, since I'd have to spend a day getting kicked around by the better players in the field, but it would provide valuable learning experiences as only top players can provide.
My lists:
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| Baldur1 and Wurmwood - pretty awesome! |
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| Wish my army was more painted... |
Scouting the Field:
After I got there and got all set up/registered, I look a look around. There seemed to be a LOT of Khador jack-spam lists. Nothing else really stuck out to me though.
There were quite a few out-of-towners, including Jay Larson from Chain Attack and the L2Wargame crew. This wasn't a local tournament, after all - everyone had their sights set on qualifying for the prestigious WMW invite.
Ironically, all of the Circle players that I initially noticed were from the game shop I play at.
At any rate, pairings were announced, and I found myself across from:
Game 1: Circle vs. Legion of Everblight!
His Lists:
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| It was actually kind of awkward to take pictures of lists - the AC was blasting hard enough that it made papers go flying. |
Pairings debate:
I felt a little flummoxed. I didn't know what either of the casters did, and there were also several models that I didn't recognize. However, I did remember someone telling me something about how Thagrosh was generally considered to be a Circle drop, so I just assumed he would drop Thagrosh.
I figured either way, I'd probably want to play Baldur. Neither list looked like the beasts could hit hard enough to kill my buffed Woldwrath, and the scenario in particular seemed to be excellent for my Baldur list.
So, I dropped Baldur1 and my opponent dropped Rhyas.
..... wasn't expecting that!
>> I won the roll to go first, and took first turn.
Pregame thoughts:
After being surprised that he dropped Rhyas instead of Thagrosh, I decided that, despite all of his winged creatures, I could still do alright with Baldur. Sure, my feat wouldn't be as effective against him as would be preferable, but I still had a lot going for me.
I decided that it would be far easier to take the zone on the right than the zone on the left, so I stacked my Druids over to the right, and put my Bloodtrackers (who are much better at contesting a huge zone like this) in the middle, with the intention of going to the left zone.
Otherwise, I'd just need to react and see what Rhyas could/would do. I was certain I didn't know how his list would work, so I tried not to have many expectations.
Deployment:
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| My mess of templates and tokens will be cleaned up shortly, don't worry :) |
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| His Blightblades are doing their ultra-reserve thing where they can come in on any board edge. |
I ran up. Druids hid behind the structure next to the right circle, and a bunch of Bloodtrackers hid behind the wall on the left. I wanted to threaten the zone without putting myself at risk.
Baldur put up his buffs - Solid Ground and Stone Skin (on the Wrath).
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| Prey is on the Scythean. |
Legion Turn 1:
Legion also ran up. Jayden put Occultation (stealth) on Rhyas. He ran his Grotesques into the zone with the Grotesque solo in the middle of them to give them stealth.
The Scythean kept far back and away from the threat of my Bloodtrackers. I was okay with this - Bloodtrackers were more important as zone distractions in this match anyways.
Circle Turn 2:
I saw an opportunity to hurt Jayden's progress in the right zone. Because his Grotesque solo was the one giving that unit stealth, I would have a hard time shooting them up. If I could remove the solo however, they'd be vulnerable.
First, my Wrath moved up and scattered a shot into the unit, killing one of the Grotesques. He then put up his Animus. I made sure he was within 10" of the Grotesque solo.
Blackclad walked up and sprayed, killing a couple more Grotesques with boosted attack rolls (from the Wrath animus). He also managed to kill the solo, dropping stealth from the Grotesques.
Druids marched in and killed a few more Grotesques. They actually cleared the zone, though they couldn't score that turn.
Bloodtrackers ran up and engaged the beasts on the left. I even engaged the Seraph, who I forgot had mirage.
Megalith wandered up and used Earth Spikes to kill a Forsaken who had wandered into the trench and was under the erroneous assumption that the trench somehow made it safer :-p
Baldur grew a forest up between himself and Rhyas, and then he POPPED HIS FEAT.
Having mostly neutered the Grotesques, I awaited my opponent's response.
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| The feat is what's keeping Baldur safe, not that forest. |
Legion Turn 2:
Jayden kind of just stayed out of my striking distance. I found out that if I hadn't popped my feat, he may have been able to assassinate Baldur by charging the Wrath, then using Rhyas' feat to get within melee range of Baldur. Yikes.
The Blightblades came in on the left and charged my Druids. I'd anticipated this, and kept the majority of the unit outside of their effective 13.5" threat from the board edge. They did manage to kill a couple Druids though.
Grotesques swung at Druids, but significantly, the Blackclad survived.
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| A few Bloodtrackers down on the left, but otherwise I didn't lose much this turn. |
Circle Turn 3:
I really wanted to score this turn. I had a good opportunity to wreck a bunch of models on the right with one play.
Baldur upkept Stone Skin and Solid Ground, but forgot to pay for the forest to stay up.
Wrath walked up and managed to kill three Grotesques, knocking down one of the Blightblades who was engaging my Blackclad. He then used his animus again.
Blackclad arranged himself in such a way that he could hit most of the 6 Blightblades, as well as a Grotesque or two. With boosted attack rolls, he managed to kill most of them.
Druids managed to kill the rest of the Grotesques and Blightblades, which gave me the whole zone uncontested.
Megalith got a solid hit with Earth Spikes on the Seraph, and put some damage on it, then put up his rough terrain animus to keep Snapjaw from charging him.
Baldur camped 3. Not sure how he got to three, to be honest. He was still somewhat nervous of the Rhyas assassination, but I did measure to make sure she was outside of threat range. Heh.
I scored a point.
Score: 1-0, advantage Circle.
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| Baldur isn't as safe as he feels... |
Legion Turn 3:
After a lot of thinking, my opponent decides to try and assassinate me. An initial measurement tells him that Megalith is probably in range of Rhyas, who can then use her feat to teleport to within 2" of Baldur and end him.
To make a long story short, the Seraph manages to put some damage on Baldur, then the Scythean very nearly spiked and killed Megalith, but didn't quite manage it.
Then, Rhyas went, POPPED HER FEAT, and declared a charge on Megalith. I wanted to be sure we did it correctly, so we used proxy bases and picked up the intervening models. Turned out she was about 5 mm short of being able to charge Megalith.
I was SO GRACIOUS, and offered to let him take his charge back, so he charged a Bloodtracker near to Megalith, used her feat to get into range of Megalith, and killed him, stealing his Fury. Woah, didn't know she could also do that!
Rhyas then used sprint to get away from my immediate threat zones.
He did forget to run anything into the zone on the right, and so I scored another point.
Score: 2-0, advantage Circle
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| I'd have lost if my measurement of his threat hadn't been correct. As it stood, I had mismeasured very poorly - I thought I was over an inch more in the "safe". And it should be noted - my opponent was very careful to move the absolutely exact distances. No "loose" movement on his part. |
With the feat ended, I needed to put the game away. However, Rhyas was a little too tough of a nut to crack at the moment, with super high DEF and three transfers.
So, I upkept my spells, then had the Wrath (still toeing the zone) walk up and punch the Scythean to death.
I cycled Prey to the Raek.
Bloodtrackers went and killed the Raek.
Cycled Prey to the Seraph.
Baldur walked to the far side of my Shifting Stones, then grew a forest in front of where he would eventually be.
Stones ported Baldur into the rightmost zone, behind the Wrath and the forest he grew.
Druids ran up and clustered in front of Baldur to keep him safe.
I dominated the zone for two more points.
Score: 4-0, advantage Circle
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| Looks like Snapjaw is about to charge my Wrath, lol |
Legion Turn 4:
Jayden didn't have much left. He charged his caster into the zone, and got his last forsaken into the zone as well.
Snapjaw attacked the Wrath and did some underwhelming damage.
Score: 4-0, advantage Circle
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| Can I kill Rhyas this turn? |
Circle Turn 5:
I needed to maximize my CP in case of tiebreakers. So...
The Bloodtrackers killed the Seraph, cycled prey to and killed the Succubus.
Wrath smashed Snapjaw.
Baldur put up the Wrath Animus.
Druids shot the Forsaken to death, and Rhyas couldn't contest the zone.
I dominated one zone for two, controlled the other with my Blackclad for one, for a total of 7 CP.
The game ended.
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| I decided to leave Rhyas alone. Baldur didn't want to mess with her - turns out she had a riposte attack had I gotten brave. |
Post-game thoughts:
One thing I should also note: about halfway through the game, Jayden realized that he had somehow not used his Nephalim Protector model. He just hadn't deployed him at all. So, he played the game 10 points down. Who knows how this game would have turned out if he had taken that model?
Looking at the scores, this game didn't seem very close. I hardly lost any models, killed all but his caster and Wrongeye, and won 7-0.
However, the truth is, I was SO close to being assassinated that the numbers scarcely matter. I need to be less sloppy with my measuring. I also need to learn how assassination casters work, because without that knowledge, I'll lose random games I'm otherwise doing well in.
That said, I was mostly happy with my play. The synergy between the Wrath and my magic-using models is sometimes very strong, and I felt that I used that interaction well in this game.
Looking back, maybe Wurmwood would have been a better drop against this list. Hellmouth would certainly have been nice, and my ranged options could likely have killed at least his Seraph at range. That said, I don't think that Baldur was a poor choice. The ARM 22 Wrath was going to be difficult for Jayden to shift, and if he did manage to kill it, his important models would all be left exposed to the rest of my army.
One thing I should also note: about halfway through the game, Jayden realized that he had somehow not used his Nephalim Protector model. He just hadn't deployed him at all. So, he played the game 10 points down. Who knows how this game would have turned out if he had taken that model?
So, no real regrets. I just needed to stay focused. I hoped I would get to play an army I was familiar with next. I kind of (sort of) got my wish.
Game 2: Circle vs. Convergence
His Lists:
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| Lucant and Mother and a TON of jacks... |
Pairing Debate:
I just didn't know. I knew both of his lists would be slow, and that they would likely both hit really hard. With that in mind, I figured my Wrath wasn't going to do extremely well against him, and also figured that my Wurmwood list had enough speed in it that I could hopefully get a favorable board position and just entrench myself.
I figured there was a good chance that I was boned if it came to attrition. Not only did I not know what any of his stuff did (not well, anyways), I also figured that with all that armor, I'd probably struggle, regardless of which list I took. Too many hit boxes for me to handle easily.
I also figured I'd get nowhere close to getting an assassination off. He'd have a wall of jacks, and hide his caster behind them.
Wurmwood seemed like the best scenario caster in this matchup, so I went with Wurmwood.
I dropped Wurmwood, while my opponent dropped Father Lucant
>> Parker won the roll to go first, and took first turn. I picked the side of the table with a flag in the forest.
Pre-game thoughts:
Parker changed out his Cipher for an Inverter, and swapped out a Galvanizer for a Diffuser... I think.
The key to this game would be to keep Parker's models from getting to my flag in big numbers. Because my models out-threated his own, I had to place my models in a way that incentivized him to stay away from my flag.
He'd have one turn of near-invincibility (his feat is +4 ARM to everything), which I would need to find a way to counter. Let's see what ended up happening.
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| They did a good job of terrain placement in this tournament. |
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| Jacks and Mechanics. Bleck. |
He ran up, but not as quickly as I figured he would. Good idea, as I would be mostly out of range to shoot him next turn.
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| Sorry, little bit blurry. |
I also ran up. I wanted to make sure the right models were in place to take advantage of next turn, but stay out of his threat ranges.
I had initially assumed that this would be my feat turn, but after a while of thought, I decided against it. Parker didn't have enough shooting to overly worry me, and if he ran straight at me next turn, my wolves could tear his battlegroup a new one, then pop my feat and give him a turn of ineffectiveness.
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| Mannikin screen! |
TEP used its spray on a couple hapless Mannikins.
Parker declined to charge straight in. Instead, he inched up again. I think he was trying to find the right place to pop his feat from. This was a good decision from an attrition point of view.
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| Note how a couple of the jacks here are toeing the zone. No way I'm going to be able to score the zone this turn. |
Circle Turn 2:
This needed to be a convincing turn.
Reeves and War Wolves combined to kill a Galvanizer. It wasn't as convincing a kill, since I did have a couple shots wasted by shield guards.
Pureblood put some huge damage on another Galvanizer, but didn't quite kill it.
I used a Sentry Stone to get a Mannikin within 4" of his flag to score.
Wurmwood also teleported to my own flag, and POPPED HIS FEAT.
I scored a point.
Score: 1-0, advantage Circle
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| Also grew a forest in the middle there, just in case I eventually wanted it to stay there so I could upkeep it. |
Convergence Turn 3:
Parker put pathfinder on most of his models, used mechanics to repair his injured Galvanizer, and POPPED HIS FEAT.
Then, a few of his models ran in to engage my forces. With my own feat up, he didn't really get to kill much. He did manage to kill one of my Sentry Stones though. Poor planning on my part.
We both scored.
Score: 2-1, advantage Circle.
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| His big guys are ARM 24, and the little ones (5 points each) were ARM 20. Lol. |
Circle Turn 3:
Parker had failed to contest my flag his own turn, so I had a shot. I needed to do some serious damage this turn though. Despite the feat, lol.
Pureblood walked up and killed a Steelsoul.
Stones teleported my Stalker to within 2" of the Galvanizer who was engaging some Reeves, and killed it without Primal.
Reeves and War Wolves combined to kill Diffuser on the top left.
I probably did some more stuff, such as killing a Mechanic or two with the odd Mannikin spray, but I don't remember.
I believe I got something to contest his objective again. Maybe another Mannikin?
Score: 3-1, advantage Circle.
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| Time to learn about the TEP. Lol, soooo crazy good. |
Convergence Turn 4:
I had run Alten Ashley in to protect him from the TEP. Not sure why I thought that would help, but I did.
The TEP decided to meander up and try to fry Wurmwood, but he also got a shifting stone, the Blackclad, and Alten in there as well. All of them managed to die, other than Wurmwood. The second shot wasn't nearly as painful, as Wurmwood grabbed a few souls, and Parker didn't roll super well.
Parker ran his second Steel Soul into the gap those sprays had created, and contested my flag.
His heavies, however, weren't able to get much farther up. I had put my Wurmwood forest and a Sentry Stone forest between them and Wurmwood, and all they could really do was shuffle forward ineffectually.
One Galvanizer ran in and punched my Feral, but didn't come very close to killing him.
Something managed to kill my final Sentry Stone.
I hadn't lost anything TOO significant yet, but I wasn't in a great position. That TEP in particular was going to be a big problem.
He scored, and I did not.
Score: 3-2, Advantage Circle
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| It's so weird to me that the Circle Battle Engine is the same points, but WAY worse than the TEP. Ah well. |
Circle Turn 4:
I needed to kill a Steelsoul, a Galvanizer, and at least one of his heavies if I wanted to have a chance to win this game. I also needed to contest his flag, of he'd win fairly trivially otherwise.
Pureblood tried to frenzy, but didn't. Whew! Still, stuck with 4 fury, he wouldn't be able to do much.
Cassius walked up and took a hit from the Steelsoul's Defensive Strike, leaving him on 1 life. He then killed the Steelsoul With a couple hits.
Wurmwood went and used Cassius to arc Curse of Shadows onto one of the heavy jacks.
Between the Reeves, Pureblood, and Feral, another Galvanizer died.
Stalker charged the two heavies, and managed to kill one and put some decent damage on another.
War Wolves did a couple hits on a Mechanic (one triggering Sic'em with the other), then the one who hadn't activated ran and contested the flag from 4" away behind Lucant. Watcher triggered, but Parker didn't have something with a long enough advance to get there. The final Galvanizer advanced toward him anyways.
With that, I scored, and Parker didn't. I felt I was in a pretty decent position, not having lost much so far, and with all my wolves relatively healthy.
Score: 4-2, Advantage Circle
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| At this point, Parker tells me that he'll probably kill all my beasts this turn. |
Convergence Turn 5:
Read the above caption.
I didn't believe him.
But, the TEP went, and gets his ridiculously high damage dice on my Feral and Pureblood, not to mention a bunch of my Reeves. Lucant and the remaining heavy combined to kill my Stalker.
I had one Reeve left in the zone to contest it, or Lucant would have dominated it for 1 point.
However, the TEP wasn't able to get within 4" of my flag. He DID put one of his Servitors within 4", so he was able to contest.
Score: 4-2, advantage Circle
Circle Turn 5:
I didn't have a lot of clock left, so I didn't mess around. I had Cassius walk up and boost a hit on the Servitor contesting my flag. It died, and I ended my turn.
I scored, and the game ended.
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| One turn WRECKED me. I doubt I'll ever have another game where BOTH War Wolves survive though, lol. |
Results: Win for Circle Orboros!!
Post-game thoughts:
Well, that last turn of his was a DOOZY! I had most of my army, and then I suddenly had almost nothing remaining.
Parker told me that he thought I only had 3 CP that turn, which is why he hadn't run his Mechanics in to help contest. While I was sympathetic in not realizing the score, I did have one rebuttal: Wurmwood had 10 Fury that turn, as well as two healthy Shifting Stones for targets. That meant that any number of Mechanics would not have been enough to contest my flag. Hellmouth would have accounted for all of them. As well, if his TEP or heavy had run to contest it, that would have meant that one or two of my beasts would have survived, and been able to either kill Lucant, or the offending model.
My other play I felt was alright. My beast positioning needs to get better - it's hard to keep them all positioned to address every threat, but I'm getting better at least.
Not anticipating his TEP to get to Wurmwood and spray him was a massive miscalculation. I mostly anticipated his other moves (or at least, what was possible), but the TEP was just kind of ignored, for no reason I can think of.
At any rate, I was content - I needed to win one more game to get into top 8! Still, there were a lot of really good players in the top 16, and I'd have to beat someone really good if I wanted to progress.
Game 3: Circle Orboros vs. Legion of Everblight!!
His Lists:
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| Abby1 and Lylyth3 |
Pairings Debate:
Legion again? I kind of just mentally froze for a few minutes. My last game against Legion went very well, though I almost got wrecked by a sneaky assassination. These are two entirely separate casters, obviously. I had heard a lot of good things about Lylyth3 and her ridiculous assassination range. In fact, Lylyth3 is the only Legion caster I've heard is any good, at least in my meta.
In the end, my supposition is a little pointless. After my first game, I decided that there wasn't a great reason not to take Wurmwood against Legion. Whereas the woods wouldn't affect their pathfinder at all, their ability to charge/shoot would be greatly hampered for a turn, and the Sentry Stones + summoned forest would be hard for anyone to get a clear bead on Wurmwood.
I dropped Wurmwood.
My opponent dropped Abby1.
>> I won the roll to go first, and took first turn.
Pre-game thoughts:
Well, I'd been pretty bad at guessing who my opponent is going to drop so far. But, after reading Abby1's feat (heal all beasts to full life), and reading her other cards, she just seemed very straightforward to me. I wouldn't have to worry about wonky assassinations, which meant I was in a good place.
I've actually had a fair amount of experience against (certain) Legion lists in Mark2, which meant that I was at least very familiar with their beasts. As it turned out, Abby1 only had beasts, so I felt somewhat comfortable going into this game.
My goal was to just focus fire one beast at a time off the table and advance relentlessly to cut off access to my flag. I needed to make sure my opponent was committing his squishy models in order to contest my flag, then kill said squishy models, score, rinse, repeat.
Circle Turn 1:
I ran up. I kept the Reeves on the right on the hill to give them an elevation bonus against ranged shooting.
Everything else went into the middle, and Wurmwood positioned to get onto the flag in the next turn.
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| I grew a forest because I thought that was where I would probably want it next turn, and it's upkeepable. Woot! |
Legion Turn 1:
Karl also ran up. He did a cool trick where he put a no-forcing-within AOE on one of his Angels, then used slipstream to get out of it and make it so that even if my beasts could threat far enough to get to them, they wouldn't be able to buy attacks after they did.
He was really crisp and practiced in his movement and actions. I asked, but I didn't really need to be told: he was a tournament veteran. I wasn't going to beat him easily.
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| He's using that forest to block my line of sight to his models. Tricksy |
Circle Turn 2:
My goal this turn was to kill an Angelius that my Reeves could be marched up to see, then pop my feat and play the rest of the game up by one heavy.
To that effect, I ran my War Wolves to where they had a straight shot at the Angelius through the forest (they ignore forests for LOS, so they could see him just fine through the forest).
Reeves clumped themselves up nicely to be able to see through the gap between Snapjaw and the forest. In hindsight, I was playing Snapjaw as blocking line of sight, though he was submerged at the time.
At any rate, they were able to see the Angel, and did a big CRA, doing some decent damage. The Wolves charged in, and the first one, despite a boosted attack roll, missed! The other one charged in though and was able to spike some good damage. The Reeves did another CRA and nearly killed the Angel.
Alten Ashley advanced, and put 6 damage into the Seraph's spirit.
I had beasts kill one Mannikin from each Stone unit.
Sentry Stones both had decent rolls for their fury, and decided not to make a forest, since I would pop the feat later that turn anyways. Using a couple aiming Mannikins, I managed to SPIKE some damage, and not only killed the hurt Angel, I almost killed the Seraph as well.
Whereas I was a little selfishly disappointed (I rolled really well in my attacks/damage against the Seraph) by my inability to finish off the Seraph, he did have grievous wounds, so Karl wouldn't be able to use his feat to heal it next turn.
Mostly satisfied, I also felt hesitant to move Wurmwood from his central-ish position. I wanted to protect the Reeves, and Karl would be able to contest me from scoring next turn anyways. So, I kept Wurmwood centrally located, and POPPED MY FEAT.
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| Also grew that forest to kind of widen the preexisting forest in a future turn. |
Legion Turn 2:
Karl kind of struggled with what to do this turn. He ended up deciding to protect his models as best he could, kill a few random models, and hide his Seraph so that he could feat it back to life next turn.
So that's what he did.
Angel killed 5 of my Mannikins with overtake, and Snapjaw killed a Reeve or two I believe, and engaged a couple more.
And that was it!
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| It's crazy how confounding Wurmwood's feat can be. |
Circle Turn 3:
My goal this turn was to score a point, and kill the second Angelius. I also had a chance to spray Wrongeye to death by targeting something other than him with my 10" spray.
Mannikins sprayed the Angel pretty well again, and their Sentry Stones ported up and grew forests to block line of sight to Wurmwood for Typhon, who was sitting toward the back with forced evolution on him. Mannikins also killed a Shepard or something in the back, randomly.
Alten stood still and did another 6 damage to the Angel. It was very close to death at this point.
My Pureblood drew a bead on Typhon, and was therefore able to clip Wrongeye with his spray. He did a small amount of damage to Typhon, then HIT Wrongeye. I think I needed a 10 or 11 to kill, but got either a 9 or 10 to kill. Either way, I was one short. Doh!
I had run out of things to shoot with (Reeves didn't have LOS) at the Angel, but it needed to die this turn. So, I decided to Primal up my Feral to make it an inviting target for Typhon to come and punch to death, so that my Stalker could repay the favor. I wanted to put Primal on him because the Feral would be inside of Starcrossed, and I didn't want to somehow not kill the Angel.
Wurmwood ported B2B with the flag and put Primal on the Feral.
Stones ported the Feral up to the Angel. I had no problem killing it with my initial attacks. I think I boosted to hit once, and killed it on my first hit with a little spike.
I scored a point.
Score: 1-0, advantage Circle
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| Kind of didn't feel worth it to Primal my Feral like that, but I think it was necessary to make sure I removed the damn thing entirely. |
Legion Turn 3:
This was kind of the first turn that Karl would get to play.
First, Snapjaw charged my Pureblood, but without a good MAT, he missed enough attacks that he failed to kill him.
The Blackfrost Shard unit went, and used their -2 DEF spells on my Stalker. All three hit, which put auto-stationary on him. I'd asked my opponent what they did, and he said their ability, but didn't elaborate. Suffice to say I was a little surprised!
Then Abby put up the "no force" bubble on my stationary Stalker. She also POPPED HER FEAT, whikch
I didn't immediately grasp the significance of this. It wasn't until the middle of my next turn that I realized that because my Stalker was stationary, and because he couldn't force, he would be unable to do anything next turn.
Typhon then surprised me and ran up to threaten Wurmwood next turn, also contesting my flag.
Score: 1-0, advantage Circle
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| Pretty fancy little trick there to take my Stalker entirely out for a full turn. |
Circle Turn 4:
My Feral auto-frenzied, and murdered a Mannikin.
I tanked for a long time this turn. I didn't know how I could avoid Wurmwood getting wrecked by Typhon in my next turn,
Eventually, I decided that I would just have to delay Typhon for a turn, and to kill the Blackfrost Shard unit if I could.
First, I spaced out and used the Pureblood to MEGAWHIFF on Snapjaw. Terrible punches. He could have used Ghostly to walk away, then spray something instead.
THEN, I charged my Reeves into Wrongeye. I managed to get four of them into him, and the first two missed their swing due to Starcrossed. However, the UA, who needed a 6, GOT IT, and took the remaining point of life from Wrongeye. This also killed Snapjaw, which would have naturally left the Pureblood to do something worthwhile.
Sigh.
I had the two Sentry Stones make forests between Typhon and Wurmwood. One of them created a Mannikin in the middle of the Blackfrost Shard.
Wurmwood went, and arced Hellmouth onto the Mannikin. It pulled all three of the Blackfrost Shard into it, and then killed all three. Wurmwood camped the remaining 3.
Finally, Alten aimed and shot Typhon for 6 damage. That's right, I rolled a "3" on my d3 3 times in a row :-p
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| Can Wurmwood survive one more turn? |
Legion Turn 4:
My opponent thought about this turn for a long, long time.
He couldn't get Typhon into melee with Wurmwood without taking a free strike or two, and his Spirit was almost gone, without a way to heal it.
Eventually, he decided that if Abby could kill the Stalker and a Sentry Stone, Typhon would be able to get to Wurmwood and end him.
So, Abby charged in and missed a few swings, not even taking out any aspects on the Stalker.
Typhon walked up and punched my Feral to death instead.
Score: 1-0, advantage Circle
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| Abbey is right there next to the Stalker. |
Circle Turn 5:
Abbey had exposed herself without a transfer.
Stalker tried to finish her but rolled awful on his damage rolls.
Pureblood assaulted, and killed Abby on his first punch.
The assassination actually killed the Seraph and Typhon, so as the game ended, I scored two points (I think I had enough Reeves to claim the other one or something.
 |
| Maybe I shouldn't have gotten a point from the flag on the right - if my Reeves standard is still alive there, it doesn't look like he's within 4" of the flag. Ah well. |
Results: Win for Circle Orboros!!
Post-game thoughts:
Whew! That was pretty intense!
Once again, my Sentry Stones saved the day. Without them blocking Typhon's path, Wurmwood would have been wrecked easily enough, even with his camp of 3.
My dice rolls were definitely above average, though in many cases those rolls didn't affect the game much. For instance, I rolled several boxcars to hit when shooting with my Reeves. Who cares if I rolled a 12, or a 3? Same thing, really. Damage was spiked, but ONLY against things that were about to die anyways.
That said, the dice were also not consistently bad. A few vital poor rolls would have spelled the end for me.
Beyond dice rolls, I'm actually very proud of my play this game. Despite some awkwardness with my positioning (still), along with forgetting a few things like spawning Mannikins or order of activation things, I felt I played a very solid game.
I was able to set goals and execute them well for the most part.
Still a lot to learn, and I'm sure that my play this game wasn't optimal, but I do feel I'm improving at least.
Post-day thoughts:
I made it! I was elated to have made it to Day 2, top 8 in the tournament.
I had no illusions about Day 2 - I'd probably just get wrecked by better players than me. But, you have to play against good players in order to get better. And, whereas all of my opponents on Day 2 were really good players (probably better than me), the top 8 would guarantee me more good opponents.
Among the top 8 were 3 Khador, 2 Troll, 1 Menoth, 1 Circle (me), and 1 Skorne.
Here's a teaser for the next report: One of the Troll players was Jay Larson (from Chain Attack), and I would eventually play him. I even took pictures!
Stay tuned...
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