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| Five Circles! |
It's been a little bit since I last posted, sorry guys. I traditionally take a little break from blogging after a big event on which I've reported. In the few weeks between the Rocky Mountain Rumble and this local steamroller, I've played a bunch of games with Tanith. Sorry, no reports (I have pictures, so they might go up eventually - don't count on it though.
At any rate, I'll eventually be exploring other Circle casters, but this particular tournament isn't one of those times.
I DID change my lists a little bit though.
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| Baldur gets some Sentry Stones, and Wurmwood got an extra War Wolf. They both get different objectives. |
The Tournament Scene:
I think there were either 9 or 11 players present - a pretty standard tournament turnout. The factions I remember are:
2x Circle (including me)
2x Cygnar
1x Trolls
1x Khador
1x Retribution
1x Mercs
1x Convergence
.... I think there were more, but I don't remember what they were.
Significantly, a Cygnar player had Caine2 and Haley2, while the other Cygnar player had Sloane and Nemo3. I'd never played against any of those casters.
There was also Madrak2 in attendance, and Wurmwood and Irusk2. So, small field, but lots of strong casters.
Game 1: Circle vs. Cygnar!
His lists:
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| Sloane and Nemo3! |
Pairings Debate:
I essentially had to take Wurmwood. Cygnar is a big reason I'm afraid to NOT take Wurmwood - dedicated shooting lists make Circle pretty sad, and having a big forest to block their line of sight for a turn really helps that. This wasn't much of a debate.
>> I dropped Wurmwood.
>> My opponent dropped Sloane.
>>>> My opponent won the roll to go first and took first turn.
Pre-game thoughts:
Whelp, I was going to need to play against Sloane eventually. She's too strong for Cygnar players to ignore her. Still, her super-accurate battle group was going to make my Warpwolves sad.
My plan was essentially to run everything up on Turn 1, pop my feat, then charge as much of the battle group as I could.
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| This was the store owner's favorite table: Swamp and fog. 4 cloud effects, two water, one corrosive swamp, and one forest. Heh. |
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| My opponent's deployment. |
Nick ran his guys up. He managed to shoot up 4 of my Mannikins. I had deployed everything of mine (besides the Mannikins) just outside of his max threat range. Crazy how far Sloan's battle group can shoot!
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| Poor old Mannikins. |
Circle Turn 1:
I actually had the opportunity to do a little bit of damage this turn.
Reeves got a few big CRAs off on his (Reliant?) who had toed into the fog for some reason.
Pureblood used his Assault move to get some damage on a Hunter, and also killed Alten Ashley.
Everything else ran up, and finally Wurmwood POPPED HIS FEAT.
I was actually disappointed with how this turn went, mostly with how poorly I had managed to run my heavies into position to threaten the board. I need to work on that.
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| You see, the wolves are a little out of position. |
Cygnar Turn 2:
Nick mostly just backed up, unwilling to mess with Wurmwood's feat. This was in spite of my own urging for him to pop his feat. :)
The Minuteman did jump up near some Mannikins and kill a few with this pulse attack.
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| So far, I haven't lost much! |
Circle Turn 2:
I was determined to kill either the Defender or the Reliant on the left hand side. The Reliant had a spell on it that let it advance 2" if it got shot, so I decided to focus on the Defender.
The War Wolves ran up to optimal charging position.
Reeves advanced and did a couple big CRAs on the Defender, and the War Wolves used sic'em to charge him.
Damage rolls were um... abysmal. One War Wolf was at POW 11, the other two were at POW 13. CRAs were at POW 19.
This is all against ARM 18.
I think I caused a total of 10 damage, while average dice would have netted me 29 points. haha :-p
Pureblood meandered up to an exposed Hunter and sprayed it, taking out his gun.
At some point, Alten shot at something he shouldn't have, and it returned fire, killing him.
I had been foolish in my Warpwolf placement, and I wouldn't be able to charge anything this turn, so I just advanced everyone up, and engaged his rightmost heavy with some Mannikins.
I did get Wurmwood into the zone, and put up some forests to screen him and most of the Warpwolves.
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| Reeves did pop their mini-feat. Thank goodness :) |
Cygnar Turn 3:
This would be Nick's feat turn.
Reinholt reloaded Sloane.
Sloane advanced, POPPED HER FEAT, then proceeded to try to hit my Blackclad. She somehow missed twice (despite having three dice to hit, and RAT 8). She eventually hit the third one, and killed the Blackclad, then sprinted away.
Gobber Tinker advanced and repaired the Reliant.
Reliant killed a couple of Reeves, but his blast damage was ineffectual because of their mini-feat.
Something shot at some War Wolves, but were unable to clear them off of the Defender, so the Defender just punched a couple to death.
A solo used black penny to clear some Mannikins off the central heavy.
The Central heavy in the zone advanced, but rolled poorly on total shots, and only managed to kill one Sentry Stone.
Hunters did some decent damage to my Pureblood, but didn't kill it.
And that was about it. Not the best feat turn for Nick. He didn't really roll well at all.
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| Going to need to take advantage of this! |
Circle Turn 3:
After some thought on the matter, I decided that I could potentially start scoring this turn, but that it would be wiser to go for attrition instead. Two of his heavies were within my reach, and I figured if I could remove both of them, I'd be pretty far ahead.
So, I teleported my Stalker to within 2" of the Reliant, and he proceeded to beat him to death (remember, he was already hurt from the Reeves on Turn 1), and used his animus to engage the Tinker and shield guard light next to Sloane.
Wurmwood put Curse of Shadows on the center heavy, and the Feral was able to beat it to death, though he somehow needed all of his fury to do it (really poor damage rolls).
Pureblood sprayed at Sloane, but missed. It also afforded him a shot at the Objective, but he missed on snake eyes.
With the Reeves depleted, and the Pureblood's miss on the objective, I decided to have the Reeves put some damage on Sloane. One was shield guarded, and the other only caused about 3 points.
A Mannikin managed to spray the solo with black penny to death.
Still, I was ahead by two heavies, and hadn't lost much up to this point.
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| Feral gets a forest to hide behind :) |
Cygnar Turn 4:
Between Sloane and the two Hunters, my Pureblood evaporated. Sloane sprinted away to the right, near the Hunters.
The Defender took a good free strike from my War Wolf and tried to punch my Stalker to death, but failed.
Nick did get a solo into the zone, though I wouldn't have been able to score this turn anyways.
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| Stalker is nearly dead, and one of my beasts will have to hold on to 4 fury (or frenzy). |
I needed to start scoring, and soon. There was no telling what Sloane could pull out of her hiney, but I did know that my clock was running down, and this game had been going far too long.
I had my Stalker take the frenzy check, which he predictably failed. He punched the shield guard solo, but not very hard.
Feral meandered up and killed the solo and the objective.
Reeves used two CRAs to kill the Defender - War Wolf was ready to charge on the second one. I think it was a mistake - I should have had the War Wolf charge after the first CRA, then potentially use the CRA on the Tinker or the light next to the Stalker. Small things like that can make a huge difference.
As it was, I managed to score three points (one for destroying the objective, and two for dominating the zone).
I also had 2 minutes remaining on my clock.
Score: 3-0, advantage Circle
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| I'm definitely ahead on attrition. But Nick has 5 minutes on his clock, while I only have 2. Heh. |
Cygnar Turn 5:
Nick tried to finish off my ailing Stalker, but failed.
Both Hunters ran into the zone to contest it.
Sloane managed to get onto the right flag and start scoring.
Score: 3-1, advantage Circle.
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| Nick was in the 2-minute range after his turn. |
Circle Turn 5:
I had no time to try for extra points. Two Hunters were just barely inside the zone, and that was all that was stopping me from dominating the zone for the win.
I teleported the Stones up, one of them almost exactly 3" away from both Hunters, but made sure the other two Stones were within command range.
Cassius ran up to within 8" of the stone.
Wurmwood put a boosted Hellmouth into the Stone, and dragged both Hunters out of the zone.
I activated the rest of my units, doing nothing with any of them.
Wurmwood dominated the zone for 2, and Sloane dominated her objective for 1.
The game ended.
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| I actually did okay on attrition this game! |
Game Results: 5-2 win via scenario for Circle!
Post-game thoughts:
Nick had some abysmal dice on his feat turn, which really hurt him. While I agree that his dice were very poor, my own dice weren't much better. If things had gone averagely, I'd have easily taken out a heavy before his feat turn, and maybe even more.
That said, there were things I definitely could have done better. My target priority was a little off, and my heavies did not run to optimal positions during the feat. I could have put myself in a MUCH better situation had I gotten them in better position.
It was nice to know that Circle could beat Cygnar shooty lists though, at least with Wurmwood.
After the first game, there were 5 undefeated players:
Circle x2
Cygnar
Convergence
Trolls
Game 2: Circle vs. Convergence!
His lists:
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| Look familiar? I played Parker in round 2 of RMR as well |
Pairings debate:
I had barely (barely!) won vs. Chris at RMR, and had taken some time to think about this matchup.
In the end, I decided that my Baldur list would be better against Lucant, as I'd probably be able to get the alpha, and the Wrath would be able to survive against at least one turn of reprisal.
In theory, mind you.
I also had some board control at my disposal in the form of my feat, forests, and the Druids. In the end, I felt that Baldur was a stronger choice.
>> I dropped Baldur1.
>> Parker dropped Lucant.
>>> I won the roll to go first, and took second turn.
Pre-game thoughts:
I took second turn so I could score sooner.
My game plan was to just start scoring as quick as I could, and wait for the best opportunity to feat. I would need to win on scenario - attrition was going to be difficult to accomplish heh.
Parker did trade out several of his lights for a 3rd heavy. I was alright with this, though it made my Wrath much more at risk. I would need to be careful.
Deployment:
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| Bloodtrackers panicked and put Prey on the least important light warjack. Sigh. |
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| Doesn't the TEP look a little awkward to you? I mean, the rules are great, but the model itself is a little derpy IMO. Maybe I just need to see a painted one. |
Convergence Turn 1:
Parker ran forward. He left the Prey'd Galvanizer in the back. Really poor choice on my part.
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| Welcome to THE PIT. |
Circle Turn 1:
I also ran forward.
Bloodtrackers got Stone Skin, and I put up Solid Ground, and also put up a forest.
Megalith decided he wanted to be on the left side of the Wrath, so he ran over that way.
I had Baldur get into the Stones so that he could walk a bit, then teleport onto the flag on Turn 2.
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| A couple Mannikins are on the fire hill, burning alive so I don't have to kill them myself on my 2nd turn. |
Convergence Turn 2:
The TEP advanced and killed both Sentry Stones with its 10" spray and 5 damage dice. Yikes. Didn't see that coming.
One of Parker's heavies ran to engage a Bloodtracker on the right.
The rest of his army advanced, but didn't get super far up - I'd have to work hard to get good charges on his force.
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| On the plus side, it would be easy to score next turn. |
Circle Turn 2:
I kept Stone Skin on the Bloodtrackers, and also kept Solid Ground.
Bloodtrackers went, and once one of them had been free-struck into oblivion, the rest of the trackers managed to get about 17 damage on the rightmost jack. I think that even took out one of his arms.
I wasn't quite sure what else to do this turn. Megalith could easily enough get a charge on the TEP, or the Wrath could get a charge on one of the Heavies. I couldn't get both - I only had one Hunter's Mark to hand out. I just wasn't sure what I wanted.
In the end, I decided that the TEP was too threatening to my Druids and Baldur. It would do me a world of good to get rid of it. In addition, I wanted his jacks occupied with killing Megalith, NOT getting farther into the zone.
So, Hunter's Mark went on the TEP.
Megalith charged, and killed the TEP. I figured I'd make it as difficult to kill him as possible, so I put up his defensive Animus (should have used Geomancy, now that I think of it).
Druids pushed the heavy jack backwards out of the zone.
I had a brainfart here, and decided to walk Baldur into the zone instead of teleporting him onto the flag. You'll see why in a minute. He grew a forest between Megalith, but it wasn't a very good placement. He also POPPED HIS FEAT.
Baldur dominated the zone for 2 points.
Score: 2-0, advantage Circle.
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| Megalith knows he's in a world of shit. |
Now, we both made a mistake this turn, which both myself and Parker discussed afterward.
I should have had Baldur dominate the flag, and I'd still have scored two points. Then, Baldur could have probably scored again on Parker's turn.
For his part, Parker could have used Watcher to get a jack into the zone, once Megalith had charged the TEP.
So, we both messed up. Such is life :)
Parker didn't do a whole lot this turn, since my feat prevented much from going on.
He did manage to kill Megalith with some awesome rolls (he could have done it anyways, he just did it really fast).
Two Mechanics got into b2b with his jack, which made them DEF 15, and with the impending feat, ARM 17, no knockdown. Bleck!
Jack on the right got into the zone as well, and engaged at least one more Bloodtracker.
Lucant advanced and POPPED HIS FEAT.
This was going to be a tough turn for me.
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| At least the damned TEP is dead. Stupid awesome thing. |
Circle Turn 3:
This was the turn I really wished I had gotten Baldur onto the flag last turn. I'd have 3 points, go up to 4 at the end of this turn, and probably just be able to coast to a win next turn.
As things stood, I would need to find a way to win without coasting.
Problem was, there weren't many targets for me, as everything was +4 ARM.
I did notice that no Mechanic would be able to get to the rightmost Jack to repair it, which meant its main punching arm wouldn't be able to do a whole lot to the Wrath.
So, I positioned my Wrath so that it would be in range of two heavies (including the one with no arm), but NOT three.
Then, I surrounded the rightmost jack with Bloodtrackers to force Parker to either expend significant resources to clear them, or trample out and take free strikes.
Baldur then got his ass to the flag, and put Stone Skin on the Wrath, and also grew a forest between himself and Lucant, just in case. He was camping 2.
I killed almost nothing this turn. Which was alright.
I did score a point.
Score: 3-0, advantage Circle
Convergence Turn 4:
Chris used his 3rd (out of range) heavy to blast a few Bloodtrackers apart, and used other things to get most of them off.
However, even with both heavies capable of charging the Wrath, he didn't do nearly enough damage to it.
Parker did run some Mechanics up to contest my flag.
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| Time to see what the Wrath can do. |
Circle Turn 4:
I again had another conundrum: if the Wrath could kill both heavies, I'd be in a good position. If he couldn't, I'd be in a very bad position.
However, Lucant was kind of exposed to my Wrath, without a camp of focus.
I decided to just go for it.
Baldur put up Druid's Wrath (boosted magic attack rolls on models within 10" of him), and camped some.
Blackclad put Hunter's Mark on Lucant.
Druids used their boosted pushes to get one of the heavies out of the Wrath's way, and also to kill some Mechanics contesting my flag.
Wrath then went in and punched Lucant to death in two boosted swings (dice plus 4 damage is kind of hard for any caster to resist, even WITH a camp of focus).
The game ended abruptly.
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| The Wrath is censoring the remains of Lucant for us. |
Game Results: Win via assassination for Circle Orboros!!
Post-game thoughts:
Parker once again had me in a tough spot - I was unlikely to win the attrition game. I needed to make something happen, and luckily I had some options. It's part of why I really like Druids in this list. Sure, sometimes they don't do much, but some games their board control options are SO GOOD. Without Druids, I couldn't have won this game, or at least, it would have been very difficult.
We did note that this scenario (The Pit) was the same scenario we played in our last game too. Parker seems pretty convinced that if we played a game without a live scenario, he'd be able to crush me. I tend to agree with that, though I'm not convinced there are many scenarios out there that Baldur can't find a way to win against. We'll eventually see :)
I've already noted my poor decisions on Scenario. Also, my Prey target needed to be a Heavy. No excuse for putting it on a Light - Parker just hid that Galvanizer in the back to neuter a potentially strong tool.
I do feel that I'm getting better with this list though.
As to the Sentry Stones - is there something better to go in this list? I'll need to think on it. 10 points going toward... what exactly? We'll see.
Tournament Scene:
After Game 2, there were 3 undefeated winners:
2x Circle (myself and another Baldur1/Wurmwood player)
1x Cygnar (Hayley2 and Caine2)
I had the most CP, so I would be playing one of them. Wasn't sure which one I wanted though. Neither seemed very fun :)
Game 3: Circle vs. Cygnar (again!)!!
Sorry, I don't have a picture of his lists.
In this case however, my opponent was list-locked. He had already played Haley2 twice, and was therefore forced to play Caine2.
For my part, it was relatively easy to select Wurmwood.
>> I dropped Wurmwood.
>> My opponent dropped Caine2.
>>> I won the roll to go first, and took it.
Pre-game thoughts:
Gah, another Cygnar list.
I'd heard of the super-awesome killy power of Caine2. I knew a couple of his shenanigans. My goal was straightforward enough: get onto a flag and force my opponent to commit, or lose via scenario. I'd have to keep a solid camp on Wurmwood to prevent being assassinated.
Otherwise, I just wanted to see what would happen.
Deployment:
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| Two tables in a row without a forest :) |
Circle Turn 1:
I ran up. I kept my models within striking distance of the leftmost flag, but tried to stay outside of Cygnar threat ranges.
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| I have my wall of forest up already. |
Cygnar Turn 1:
I was surprised by how far he left Caine back, but was okay with that.
Everything else did a general advance, but not very aggressively.
Ace did advance and got a bead on Cassius. He spiked damage and managed to get 8 damage on him. Yikes, didn't really see that coming!
Ace then put stealth on himself.
Otherwise, 5 Mannikins died, and that was it!
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| What damage can I do next turn? |
Circle Turn 2:
I wanted to kill some stuff before my inevitable feat.
Mannikins got their spray on and killed about half the Trenchers.
Alten and the Pureblood also pitched in to kill some Trenchers.
Wurmwood and Cassius combined to get Wurmwood to the flag and POP MY FEAT.
Not much else to report. Not a bad turn for me though. We would see what Caine had to say.
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| What would happen? |
Cygnar Turn 2:
My opponent had Ace run behind the fence on the left, and the Trenchers didn't quite get close enough to contest my flag.
Not much else happened. Caine was moved forward enough to prevent being kill boxed.
I scored a point.
Score: 1-0, advantage Circle.
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| That's Ace on the left there, FYI. And some character jack kind of close to me. And a Mortar in the back next to the Defender. |
Circle Turn 3:
I thought that Ace was perma-stealth, so I didn't bother trying to kill him (I would have, otherwise).
Instead, I went for the Trenchers, and to bait out one of his Heavies.
Between Reeves and Mannikins, I managed to kill the rest of the Trenchers and put some hurt on the Mortar.
Pureblood took a shot at Caine, but missed.
I positioned the Feral to threaten the flag should Caine try to get there, and positioned my Stalker to either avenge my Pureblood or kill the objective next turn.
I scored again.
Score: 2-0, advantage Circle.
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| Alten is also threatening the flag. And the Blackclad. Lol. |
Cygnar Turn 3:
My opponent wasn't very happy with the game - he didn't feel that Caine2 was a good drop into Circle.
So, he shot up my Pureblood, then charged it with his character Heavy, killing it. Caine advanced and killed some stuff, cast some spells, and dominated his flag for 1.
Eiyriss2 charged a Warwolf, failed to kill him, but used her 3" reposition to contest my flag.
Score: 2-1, advantage Circle.
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| Caine has zero camp at this point. |
Circle Turn 4:
I put a Mannikin between Caine and the character Heavy, facing away from Wurmwood.
Cassius ran to within 8" of the Mannikin.
Wurmwood used Hellmouth to drag Caine and the Heavy into the Mannikin, then boosted damage on Caine, nearly killing him. I also put Primal on the Stalker.
Feral went next and charged Caine, boosting to hit, and killing him in one swing.
Game Results: Win via assassination for Circle Orboros!!
Post-game thoughts:
Whelp, I hope I didn't give a poor playing experience to my opponent. There was a debate (which I discovered I was wrong about) in how I could use my Mannikins. I felt bad enough that I actually forfeited one Sentry Stone's activation altogether, despite having 5 fury on it.
Otherwise, I think it was a good game, albeit tinted with the fact that my opponent thought this was a poor matchup. I'm not 100% convinced - I didn't get to see Caine do his thing, and therefore am unable to really judge.
Wurmwood is good against Cygnar, apparently.
Tournament Results:
The other Circle player had lost his pair down, so that left me as the sole undefeated player. Which meant:
1st place for Circle Orboros!!
Post-Tournament Results:
I'm obviously happy with my results here, though it's hard to draw any real conclusions. Let's see:
- Wurmwood has game into Cygnar.
- Baldur is good at scenario play.
- Baldur is more fun to play than Wurmwood.
- I wish Wurmwood wasn't so universally reviled.
- I also wish Wurmwood wasn't Circle's ONLY current option against strong ranged lists.
Not sure what I'll do with my store credit. Maybe I'll buy Brennos? Lol.
This coming weekend I'll be going to Fort Collins for a single-caster event. I think that instead of taking the Tree (which IMO is the strongest all-comers list), I'll take Baldur1. He's more fun, and I'd rather have fun all day, lol. :)
Let me know your thoughts. Hope you enjoyed the report!
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