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| They have a Cheyenne location now too- they're taking over the world :) |
I've got an interesting report for you today! I played at a tournament at Gryphon Games and Comics in Fort Collins, CO (which is my old stomping grounds, if you didn't already know). They just got done with a journeyman league, and were having a 75-point tournament as the culmination of their efforts.
The catch: only one list. I was forced to choose between Wurmwood and Baldur1. In the end, I guess I've felt kind of bored of Wurmwood lately, and I enjoy almost all of my games using Baldur1. And, because any event allowing only one list was going to be prone to mismatches of one sort or another, I decided to take Baldur1.
Better to enjoy 4 games in a row than kind of dread my own feat turn 4 games in a row (people complain about the feat a lot, and take like 20 minutes to figure out what they want to do - I just get to gawk while they do it - kind of an uncomfortable situation if you ask me). At any rate, here's my list:
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| List Locked already! |
Tournament Scene:
There ended up being exactly 16 people in attendance, which meant that we would play exactly 4 rounds! The TO put the people from Denver (my group) in a separate pile from the people from Fort Collins so that we would be able to play people we don't often get the chance to play against.
Looking around, I could see that there were several different factions represented. Here are at least a few of them:
2x Circle
3x Retribution
1x Convergence
2x Legion
1x Mercenaries (Cephalyx)
1x Trolls
2x Skorne
1x Cygnar
2x Khador
1x Cryx
I was just hoping not to play against Cygnar, as Sloane or Haley could really give Baldur1 a bad day. I said as much directly before the pairings. When the TO finally announced pairings, I got the following opponent:
Game 1: Circle's Baldur1 vs. Cygnar's Beth Maddox!!
His list:
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| I've actually played against Maddox a few times this edition, surprisingly. |
>> I won the roll to go first and took the side of the board with a hill, forest, and wall.
Pre-game thoughts:
First, I was excited to play against James. He'd always been part of my gaming club, but we'd never been into the same games at the same time. He got into Flames of War first (I think?), while I was into 40k. Once he got into 40k, I had already switched to Fantasy/Warmachine.
Looking at his list, I saw a lot of the "standard" Cygnar models. Guardian, Stormlances, Laddermore, Trenchers, Firefly, Junior, etc. That said, almost none of it made me feel that the Wrath would be at risk anytime soon.
His Stormlances would be really tough to take out (they'd for sure be ARM 20), and they would MURDER my poor Bloodtrackers. At the same time, the Druids would be excellent counters to them if used well.
My goal was to win by scenario sooner than later. If James did the typical Cygnar thing and advanced slowly, I'd be able to score a few points on Turn 2 and maybe even finish the game by Turn 3.
Deployment:
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| I put Prey on the Trenchers. |
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| Armies just look really small these days. |
Cygnar Turn 1:
James ran his stuff up. I messed up and had my Sentry Stones too far up, and the Defender got Snipe and shot at one of them. It survived though :)
Circle Turn 1:
I didn't have many targets this turn, so I just advanced and stayed outside of his important threat ranges.
Druids advanced and put their smoke cloud up, but also stayed outside of the major threat ranges of the horses. They got Elemental Defense from the UA, so they weren't too worried about the ponies.
I decided to put the Wrath square in the middle, behind the wall so he could run into either zone if necessary.
Baldur walked into the forest, which extended to the zone on the left so that he could forest walk into the zone next turn if necessary.
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| Bloodtrackers are like 11.01" away from the Trenchers, haha |
Cygnar Turn 2:
James advanced extremely cautiously. He managed to kill a couple of my Bloodtrackers with something (did I measure poorly vs. the Trenchers? I must have)
Otherwise, James settled for wiping out nearly all of my Mannikins, and getting into a better position to charge next turn. I felt this was a little too cautious, personally.
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| Trenchers are dug in, so would be poor targets for Bloodtrackers to throw at. |
Circle Turn 2:
I felt that I could get up to 3 points this turn fairly easily, and position myself for a Turn 3 win - James' forces were just too lopsidedly allocated to threaten scenario very well on Turn 3.
First, the Druids moved up and used a couple knockdown AOE spells to knock down almost all of the cavalry in the right zone. They then used pushes to get the three cavalry out of the zone.
Bloodtrackers advanced get into melee range of the Trenchers nearest them, and between them, some Mannikins and the Blackclad, they managed to kill all of the Trenchers out of the zone.
I actually think that Megalith also needed to use Earth Spikes to get rid of them.
Baldur forest walked into the left zone and POPPED HIS FEAT (rough terrain, no pathfinder for enemy models, cover for my models, within his 12" control range).
For fun, the Wrath drew a bead on the Junior and boosted to hit and damage, killing the poor guy.
Baldur dominated the left zone for 2 CP and the Druids controlled their zone for 1 CP.
Score: 3-0, advantage Circle.
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| I put Megalith up a little farther so he could threaten the left zone if necessary - with Baldur's feat up, Megalith wasn't really in much danger. |
Cygnar Turn 3:
James wasn't in a great position, and he knew it. With the feat up, there were a very limited number of models available to reach the left zone to contest it.
His Storm Lances got some order to stand back up, then assaulted and killed all of my Druids besides the Overseer.
He managed to kill a few more of my Bloodtrackers somehow.
Stormclad ran into the zone, toeing the edge of it.
Score: 3-0, advantage Circle.
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| Poor old Druids... |
Circle Turn 3:
I didn't feel like kicking James while he was down. I had Megalith slam the Stormclad out of the zone, and ended my turn.
I scored 2 CP, and the game ended.
Game Result: 5-0 win for Circle Orboros!!
Post-game thoughts:
James afterward told me he hadn't played a ton of games to that point, which made some sense. I felt that he had been a little too cautious, and had gambled a lot by putting his cavalry on one flank. He knew (as did I) that the cavalry would be much better against my Bloodtrackers. Instead of placing the Stormlances in the center to react to my placement of the Bloodtrackers.
I tend to be a very scenario-oriented player, and my Baldur1 list is built for scenario. This game was always going to be difficult for Cygnar however, as they either have to choose to get into my charge ranges, or lose via scenario.
I was happy with how I played, though there were a few mistakes on my part. I forgot that Maddox had snipe, so I had my Sentry Stones in a bad position. I didn't need to lose the Bloodtrackers that I did - less sloppy movement would have made things work better for me.
Eh, I could analyze this game for a while, but I'd rather move on to Game 2.
Tournament Scene:
All of the Retribution players had lost, which was a good thing for me - Retribution mess with me haha.
The factions to win are as follows:
1x Circle (me)
1x Khador
1x Mercs (Cephalix)
2x Legion
1x Skorne
1x Cryx
1x Convergence
I didn't bother to give thought to who I would potentially play. No need to psyche myself out :)
Game 2: Circle Baldur1 vs. Mercenaries Exelon Thexsis!
His List:
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| I didn't do a report of it, but I got my ass kicked HARD by this caster a while ago when I was running Tanith. |
>> I won the roll to go first, and chose the side with a forest and trench.
Pre-game thoughts:
Joe told me that he was running 54 models or something. All of the infantry had really bad defense, but 15 ARM (he could put up Deflection to make them 17 ARM) and Tough was going to be hard to crack.
My goal this game was to find a way to kill the infantry quickly and use the Druids to knock down and push his monstrosities backwards. If you've never played against Cephalix this edition, just realize that all of the monstrosities have Hyper-Aggressive, which means anytime they take damage, they get to make a full advance. They also have 34 boxes, haha.
If I could just dominate the zone a couple of turns, I'd win. With that many bodies though, it was going to be a tricky proposition. Not to mention all the crazy board control shenanigans this caster could accomplish. Bleck.
Deployment:
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| He actually had one of his units outflank, or whatever you call it in this game. They would come in from the board edge on Turn 2 (or whatever turn after Turn 2 that he chose). |
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| Lots of ARM 17/Tough infantry! |
Mercenaries Turn 1:
He ran up. That was it!
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| Bloodtrackers chose the unit on the right as Prey. |
Circle Turn 1:
I also moved up, but more cautiously.
Bloodtrackers stayed outside of the threat range from both the right flank (the 4th infantry unit) and outside the threats of the other infantry.
Woldwrath ran up behind the wall to prevent his heavies from getting easy charges on me.
Mannikins got in a couple decent sprays and managed to kill a couple random infantry models. Not too many though.
Baldur walked up and put up Solid Ground. He put Stone Skin on the Wrath, and grew a forest on the left to frustrate the infantry's movement in that direction.
That was essentially it.
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| I burned 14 minutes on a fairly ineffective turn, lol. |
Mercs Turn 2:
Joe surprised me and brought in his 4th unit on the left side of the table. They charged the Druids and killed one of them with a CMA.
Other infantry also moved up, but not very much. It appeared that he wanted to be a little cautious and NOT get his whole army into my threat range.
Not much damage was done, and I was left with the uncomfortable feeling that if my next turn wasn't really solid, I'd be overrun by sheer weight of bodies.
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| He switched the position of our clock because of his unit coming in on the left side. It really threw me off looking at it just now, since our times are reversed :-p |
Circle Turn 2:
My goal was to score this turn, and kill an assload of infantry.
I started with the Wrath. He shot the objective, boosted damage, and did a pretty good chunk of damage. I also boosted damage against the unit leader of some Drudges, and managed to kill him. :)
Wrath then also put up Druid's Wrath, which gave me boosted magic attack rolls on models within 10".
Druids went, and had boosted attack rolls against the infantry that had charged their flank. They used AOE knockdown spells and knocked the whole 11-man unit down. They even managed to kill a couple of them themselves.
Leftmost Sentry Stone went, and the Mannikins sprayed all but two of that unit to death. Turns out knocked down models are easy to hit, even with RAT 4.
Megalith went and boosted an Earth Spikes shot onto the objective on the hill. He took all but ONE hit box off of the objective. Doh!
Bloodtrackers went and killed a combined 6 or 7 models from their Prey unit.
Rightmost Sentry Stone went, and the Mannikins managed to kill a few more infantry. I also decided not to grow a forest, and used the Fury to boost a shot into the objective, which killed it. Yes! That gave me 1 CP.
Baldur trundled up and POPPED HIS FEAT. He actually did that earlier in the turn, because he also gave the Bloodtrackers Stone Skin before that.
Score: 1-0, advantage Circle.
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| Let's see if I can avoid getting CRUSHED next turn. |
Mercs Turn 3:
My opponent kind of struggled this turn. My feat was really restricting his movement and ability to hit me. He eventually decided to TK some of his guys and feat so my models would be in range.
I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but he ended up not really doing more than killing a few of my Mannikins. I do know that every attempt to kill my Sentry Stones failed - he had poor dice against them.
In the end, not much was achieved.
Score: 1-0, advantage Circle.
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| Some of my models were moved forward with his feat, but when he tried to get Megalith with a spell to take him over for an advance forward, Megalith's DEF 18 (engaged and in cover from the feat) gave him problems. |
Circle Turn 3:
My opponent hadn't had a great feat turn, and I really needed to take advantage of that. I couldn't quite decide how to go about it though. Finally, I decided that I could clear the zone and dominate for another 2 points.
To that end, I had Megalith charge Joe's center monstrosity. I managed to kill him 4 (spiked damage) hits, and put up undergrowth to make every model within 5" of him -2 DEF.
Bloodtrackers and Mannikins cleared out nearly ALL of the infantry on the right.
Blackclad, Wrath, and Mannikins cleared out nearly all of the infantry on the left.
Baldur advanced into the zone to dominate it, as it was finally cleared. He put a forest directly between himself and the enemy caster to prevent shenanigans if possible.
I dominated the zone for 2 CP.
Score: 3-0, advantage Circle.
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| Wrath is doing some good work shooting this game, and threatening the monstrosities on the left. If they get too close, I can charge and probably wreck them. |
Mercs Turn 4:
Joe wasn't quite able to get two of his monstrosities into the zone to hit Megalith, and one wasn't enough to kill him. Part of the problem was that Megalith's animus also created a patch of rough terrain within 5" of himself as well.
So, another Monstrosity charged my Wrath but didn't do much to it.
Another Monstrosity used Thresher and killed a few of my Bloodtrackers.
Not much else.
Score: 3-0, advantage Circle.
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| Megalith is still pretty healthy at this point. |
Circle Turn 4:
I really didn't want to be a jerk, but I needed to make sure I had tiebreaker points. Last game I had killed 16 total points. This game would be very similar if I just shooed a monstrosity out of the zone and ended my turn. I also needed to make sure I was "okay" if I somehow failed to do so and he got another turn.
So, I had the Druids finish off the infantry on the left (they had forgotten to do so the turn before), and the Wrath punched a Monstrosity to death.
Then, Megalith threw his own Monstrosity at the enemy caster, clearing the zone, and letting me dominate the zone for a final 2 CP.
The game ended.
Game Results: 5-0 win for Circle Orboros!!
Post-game thoughts:
Well, I was just glad I had brought the Sentry Stones. They did some really good work against the infantry, especially when Deflection wasn't up.
I was surprised at how relatively easy it was to clear my opponent's zone, though to be fair, he did put his Monstrosities on the flanks, where they couldn't really reach it very well once my feat was up.
This was another game that Baldur's feat was absolutely awesome.
It also helped that after a little bit, my dice really heated up, and my opponent's dice um, didn't.
He was a great opponent though, and I really enjoyed my game against him.
NOTE: ALL of my opponents were really great this tournament. Like, so great that I doubt I'll ever have a batch of 4 opponents this awesome again. Seriously really cool guys, and this is no exaggeration. If I had to choose though, Joe was my favorite on the day.
Tournament Scene:
We were down to the FINAL 4:
Circle (Baldur1) (me)
Khador (Karchev)
Skorne (Rasheth)
Legion (Abby2)
To be honest, I didn't feel entirely comfortable playing any of these casters. Even the Skorne list was going to be tough, as the guy playing it is widely considered to be one of the best players in Colorado.
At any rate, I got paired with an old friend, who I've played multiple times over the course of multiple gaming systems. While he is a GREAT guy, I wasn't best pleased to have to play him. Of all the players in Colorado, he's certainly given me the most trouble. This would be no exception.
Game 3: Circle's Baldur1 vs. Khador's Karchev the Terrible!!
His List:
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| He has zero CP, which means he wrecked his opponent's face in every game. |
>> Andy won the roll to go first, and took the good side of the board. I got first turn.
Pre-game thoughts:
Heh, man, I've played Andy so often in tournaments. This felt very nostalgic for me. I've played Andy in 4th, 5th, and 6th editions of 40k, as well as 7th and 8th editions of Fantasy. Now we've both switched to WM/H. Madness!
The scenario was going to be very difficult to win, and I really didn't like my chances to attrition it out. I had way more models than Andy had as well, so the clock would likely be on his side - this was going to be a very difficult game to win.
I decided I needed to at least try to win scenario, and if I could find an opportunity to assassinate Karchev, I'd take it. Of course, if Karchev just camped 4 or 5, he'd be ARM 24 for most of my punches, with 34 boxes.
Just not a great situation.
I'd really need to look for opportunities to scalpel out jacks when I could, without getting wrecked in return. That's one thing Baldur1 can do well at least. Well, kind of :)
Deployment:
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| I put Prey on the rightmost Kodiak. |
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| So many ARM 20 boxes! |
Circle Turn 1:
I mostly just moved up. It occurred to me belatedly that my Sentry Stones/Mannikins would be perfect targets for Road to War moves. In the future, I actually think it might be best to kill all of my own Mannikins on Turn 1. Ah hindsight :)
I believe I put Stone Skin on my Wrath to minimize damage done to him by Behemoth shooting.
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| Not a great turn for me - my lines are REALLY messy. This would come into play later. |
Khador Turn 1:
Andy shot up my Mannikins with his Widowmakers, giving his jacks a bunch of extra movement from Road to War.
Everything else just generally advanced.
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| Widowmakers used their 3" reposition really well to hide deep in the woods. Alas! |
Circle Turn 2:
I was faced with a conundrum: should I put Baldur on my flag this turn?
In the end, I discovered the conundrum wasn't really one - Baldur was too far to get to the flag anyways, and I had so many models hanging out in front of him that it would be very difficult to get him there anyways.
Poor planning on my part - I could have put up his spells then charged in my own turn, then used Shifting Stones to teleport there in my own turn. Alas.
I settled for killing his visible Widowmakers with sprays from Mannikins.
Wrath advanced to threaten the enemy flag, and I think he took a chunk of life from Behemoth, though I don't see the scather in the picture.
I also put my leftmost Sentry Stone exactly 4" from Karchev's flag. Andy would have to do something fancy if he wanted to score on his own turn.
Really a missed opportunity here though. I should have gotten Baldur to my own flag to create some scenario pressure.
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| What a cluster of models, lol. |
Khador Turn 2:
Andy eventually decided he would sacrifice his clamjack to be able to score on his turn.
So, using Road to War, the Devastator charged and killed my Sentry Stone on the left.
Karchev got to the flag, and would eventually dominate it for 1.
Everything else kind of just moved up.
Score: 1-0, advantage Khador.
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| I'd been using Baldur's 4" forest to give my Sentry Stone on the right stealth, so the Mannikins could use more fury in their attacks. |
I didn't have a good path to Karchev with my Wrath, though I looked for it.
In the end, I decided to try and take out two heavies this turn and keep away from any counter-attacks.
So, Wrath walked up and killed the now-vulnerable Devastator easily. He stayed 2" away from it to minimize his own exposure to enemy jacks.
Druids advanced and knocked down a bunch of the jacks, then pushed the Juggernaut waaay backwards.
Baldur walked up, and again failed to jump on the flag. Really not sure why. I think it was because everything in front of him made it impossible to get there. SMH.
He cycled Stone Skin to the Bloodtrackers, put up an annoying forest, and then POPPED HIS FEAT. It would almost certainly keep my own models mostly safe this turn.
Megalith advanced and got some damage on the Prey'd Kodiak with Earth Spikes, which also killed the remaining Widowmakers with its AOE.
Bloodtrackers went and took all but like 3 boxes from the Kodiak. Kind of below average result, but it wasn't completely awful.
A Mannikin managed to kill the War Dog with his spray. Don't think I'd ever killed one of those before lol.
Shifting Stone managed to get within 4" to contest his flag.
Pretty mediocre turn for me. At this point in the game, I should have had 2 CP instead of 0. Sometimes you just play poorly :)
Score: 1-0, advantage Khador
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| So much clusterfuckery going on here. |
Andy measured it out and eventually decided that he couldn't get to the Wrath on his turn.
So, he settled for trundling forward.
I think it took Behemoth both shots to kill my contesting Stone.
Karchev camped 4.
Super-injured Kodiak used his special 4" AOE ability and killed like 3 Bloodtrackers.
He scored again.
Score: 2-0, advantage Khador.
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| How much damage can I do next turn? I'm running out of time... |
Circle Turn 4:
Initially, I wanted to charge Karchev with the Wrath. I easily had the distance, and could knock Karchev down beforehand. However, with a camp of 4 and 34 boxes, Karchev would be ARM 24 for 4 of my punches, and ARM 19 for the rest. Certainly a possible assassination, but not very likely.
I decided that if I could kill the Behemoth and push the Juggernaut backward far enough with Druids, the Wrath would likely be safe.
Bloodtrackers went first and finished off the first Kodiak, then put Prey on the next Kodiak and did some damage to it as well.
Baldur finally advanced to B2B with the flag, and cycled Stone Skin to the Wrath.
Wrath charged Behemoth and killed it, then punched the shield guard jack nearby for good measure - both it and Karchev were knocked down.
I had originally intended to put Megalith up behind the Wrath to charge Karchev if my Wrath ended up dying, but instead decided to brain fart and put him in an awful position. He used Earth Spikes on a Kodiak for no apparent reason.
Druids pushed the Juggernaut backwards again, just outside of charge range of my Wrath.
I finally scored a point.
Score: 2-1, advantage Khador.
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| Can Karchev and the shield guard jack kill my ARM 22 Wrath? |
Khador Turn 5:
Karchev decided it was time to remind me that he had a feat (I'd completely forgotten, lol).
He POPPED HIS FEAT, then charged the Wrath. Andy managed to spike some really good damage, and for some reason decided that Karchev should camp one focus instead of punching the Wrath one more time.
This was important, because the shield guard jack then went and, through some poor dice, left the Wrath on about 3 or 4 boxes. If Karchev had made his extra attack, he'd have almost certainly killed the Wrath.
As things stood, I now had a great chance to win the game.
Score: 2-1, advantage Khador.
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| Better to be lucky than good I guess. Heh. |
Circle Turn 5:
I decided to go all in.
Baldur advanced to within 10" of Karchev and put up Druid's Wrath (boosted magic attack rolls against models within 10" of him).
Druids advanced and used their Knockdown spell on or near Karchev, knocking him down with boosted magic attacks.
Wrath healed his d3, then punched Karchev until he stopped moving.
The game ended.
Game Results: Win for Circle via VERY lucky assassination!!
Post-game thoughts:
Whew! Wow, really crazy way to end the game!
I made a lot of really bad mistakes, which I've outlined for you above. I won't go into all of them, but the main thing in my opinion was unit spacing. My models did a good job, but they were so clustered that it prevented me from being able to do essential things like score. If I had played better, I'd have been up to at least 3 points even if the Wrath had died, and up to 4 by the end of Turn 5.
As it stood, I got lucky that Andy miscalculated (he later told me he thought I had fewer boxes than I did on the Wrath), and got an "easy" assassination.
Had he killed the Wrath and the game had continued, I wasn't really hopeless, though I'd have certainly struggled. I'd have easily killed the remaining Kodiak and mechanics, pushed Andy's models away with Druids, and scored for a couple turns at least. Megalith + remaining Bloodtrackers could likely kill a jack per turn, and Andy only had Karchev, Juggernaut, and half of his shield guard jack left.
Really, though we focused on the Wrath's death, I think I still had game. It would have interesting to see how things went.
At any rate, it was a great game, and I look forward to our next game Andy! (not that he reads this blog, lol)
Tournament Scene:
It was myself and the Skorne player, who, as I've stated earlier, is commonly believed to be one of the best players in the state. He'd bludgeoned his way to victory with a solid Rasheth list, and I won't lie when I tell you that this game made me a little nervous, despite all the things people say about how awful Skorne is.
The only other game I've played against Colin was at Feast of Blades a couple years ago. He ran me down to 8 seconds of clock in that game. Here's the full report if interested.
Game 4: Circle's Baldur1 vs. Skorne's Rasheth!!
His List:
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| Not sure what faction that is, but I'm pretty sure he didn't write "Skorne". |
>> I won the roll to go first and took the side of the table with the most convenient forest.
Pre-game thoughts:
Colin's 3 big beasts would be really tough to kill. They're all ARM 21 and can't be knocked down. One of them can't be pushed.
In addition, he had Wrongeye and Snapjaw. They would be pretty tough to kill as well, and the infantry (I would learn) could be huge pains in the ass under the direction of a great player.
My goal was simple enough: force his battle group apart, and claim whichever flags I could on any given turn.
The more complex reason for this: I knew that his beasts would be unlikely to kill the Wrath in one turn unless at least two of them got into him. If I could consistently engineer a situation where only one could get into him in a given turn, I'd be able to piecemeal Colin's army. If he put them all together to mess with the Wrath, I'd be able to score on the other flag with impunity.
TL;DR: Packs of beasts are required to kill my Wrath, and I wanted to exploit that.
Deployment:
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| I asked Colin about his max threat on arcing Breath of Corruption turn 1, then immediately decided to deploy my Bloodtrackers in perfect range, clumped up. Sigh. |
Skorne Turn 1:
Colin ran his Bloodrunners up, and one of them got to within 5" of a Bloodtracker.
Rasheth then arced Breath of Corruption at them, killing 5 Bloodtrackers immediately.
Lol, such a bad start for me!
He otherwise just ran his models up.
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| Sigh. |
Circle Turn 1:
Sentry Stones and Mannikins combined to kill a couple Slingers and a Bloodrunner.
Everything else of mine ran up.
Baldur walked into the forest, then created a forest to help block some line of sight for infantry trying to kill my Bloodtrackers.
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| So far, Colin has certainly gotten the better of our exchange. |
Colin advanced somewhat cautiously.
Rasheth tried to arc Breath of Corruption on a Sentry Stone, but didn't hurt it. A Bloodrunner paid the price.
Slingers killed a couple Mannikins.
Wrongeye and Snapjaw advanced and submerged on the right. Snapjaw was within 4" of the flag on the right.
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| You can see the "submerged" Snapjaw model there on the right. Kind of cool :) |
Circle Turn 2:
I had an opportunity to score this turn without a lot of commitment on my part.
The Mannikins and Druids and Bloodtrackers all combined to kill 4 Slingers and 3 Bloodrunners. I shifted Prey to the Sentinel.
A Sentry Stone shifted up to control the flag on the left.
Wrath advanced to exactly within 4" of the right flag and took a shot at the Sentinel, doing some decent damage. May as well start whittling the guy down now if possible.
Megalith did the same - he did some decent damage as well.
Baldur then advanced and POPPED HIS FEAT. He grew a forest in front of the Sentinel, mostly just in case I wanted it there to upkeep for my next turn.
I scored a point.
Score: 1-0, advantage Circle
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| I didn't really know what to expect next turn. In hindsight, I probably should have waited to pop my feat. |
Skorne Turn 3:
Colin decided to try a tactical withdrawal on the right flag.
He had Snapjaw charge a Bloodtracker and kill it.
Wrongeye advanced, but I believe he was just shy of 4" from the flag.
Slingers combined to kill my Sentry Stone on the left.
Rasheth POPPED HIS FEAT, but stayed relatively far back.
Nobody scored.
Score: 1-0, advantage Circle.
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| Wrongeye on the top right there didn't actually submerge... I think. |
Circle Turn 3:
I think Colin had intended to have Wrongeye within 4" of the flag, but it was pretty obvious that he wasn't close enough. Which gave me a chance to score again.
I used my remaining Sentry Stone and Mannikins to torch one of the few remaining Paingivers, while the Druids killed 3 more Slingers (1 left).
Megalith advanced and put another boosted Earth Spikes into the Sentinel. He then put up his Animus to reduce Snapjaw's DEF by 2.
Wrath advanced and, staying outside of charge range for Tiberius and the Sentinel, punched Snapjaw to death (knocking him down negated starcrossed).
Baldur went next and put a forest up to block line of sight to Megalith from the two threatening big guys.
Shifting Stones teleported to control the flag on the right.
Score: 2-0, advantage Circle.
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| I've done alright so far, but not nearly enough damage on his big guys. Druids DID knock the Gladiator down on the left, haha. |
Skorne Turn 4:
Colin had one Slinger and one Paingiver remaining as infantry, as well as his three big beasts and the Agonizer.
Still pretty potent though.
I had made a mistake this turn, and Colin capitalized on it.
The Sentry walked up and killed my two blocking Mannikins.
Tiberion had LOS to the Sentry Stone, so he got Rushed and +2 POW, then charged the Sentry Stone. He killed it in one hit, then used his remaining attacks to kill the previously unseeable Megalith.
Ouch, really good move by Colin!
Agonizer did his -2 POW thing.
Gladiator charged and killed two Druids.
I believe that Wrongeye charged the Wrath and failed to hurt it.
Nobody scored.
Score: 2-0, advantage Circle.
 |
| Our dead piles are mounting. |
Circle Turn 4:
Druids were able to knock the Gladiator down and push him away from 4" of the flag on the left. They would control the flag.
My remaining Bloodtracker got a punch in on the Agonizer, but didn't kill it.
Wrath decided to kill Tiberion, but between poor dice and the Agonizer debuff, I didn't do much damage to him.
Baldur decided to flee the scene and made a forest around himself and forest walked to the edge of the Killbox. I was at this point paranoid of an assassination.
I scored another point.
Score: 3-0, advantage Circle.
Skorne Turn 5:
Tiberion and the Sentinel took off about 40 boxes from my Wrath.
Wrongeye charged Baldur, but didn't do a ton of damage. I foolishly kept a lot of the damage on Baldur instead of transferring.
Gladiator killed another couple Druids, getting them below half strength.
Agonizer didn't have enough fury to put up the -2 POW.
Score: 3-0, advantage Circle.
Sorry, forgot pictures here apparently.
Circle Turn 5:
Bloodtracker again failed to kill the Agonizer.
Wrath finally finished off Tiberion, and for some reason decided to punch the Sentinel until I didn't have a transfer target, though to be fair, I didn't see any kind of avenue for him to get to Baldur next turn.
Druids combined to push the Gladiator back to outside of 4" of the flag again. My Blackclad ran in to control the flag.
I scored again.
Score: 4-0, advantage Circle.
 |
| Heh, Gladiator pinball. |
Skorne Turn 6:
First, the Agonizer frenzied, and died from a back strike from my Bloodtracker, lol.
Because I had no transfers, Colin saw an avenue of attack.
He ran his last remaining Paingiver up to near Baldur.
Rasheth then arced Breath of Corruption at Baldur, who was on around 11 health.
He needed an 8 to hit, and I think a 13 or 14 to kill.
He rolled a 7 to hit.
WHEW!
Sentenel then failed to kill the Wrath, and the game was all but wrapped up.
Circle Turn 6:
Wrath didn't waste any time - he went to base to base of the flag, then punched the Sentinel to death.
I scored another point, and the game ended.
Game Results: 5-0 win for Circle Orboros!!
Post-game thoughts:
Well, that was MUCH closer than I wanted. I am STILL kicking myself for giving Colin that assassination opportunity. It wasn't at all necessary. Bloodtracker could easily have killed that Paingiver, or at least taken a free strike on him. I also didn't need to take that extra punch at the Sentinel, and given myself a transfer.
I also let him get that awesome Breath of Corruption off on my Bloodtrackers on Turn 1, even as I asked about if he could do it to me or not.
That being said, I was fairly happy with how I played. Using the Wrath to leverage table position is something I'm getting better at, and in this game I felt I did an alright job of it.
Again the Druids proved really helpful on scenario. They helped me score 3 of my points in this game, and played pinball with the Gladiator, which was amusing.
Overall, I really enjoyed this game, and I felt VERY lucky to survive his last-minute assassination attempt, given the game-state.
It should also be noted that I probably rolled better than Colin this game. I had my low points certainly, but at times his dice really abandoned him. Not that he would blame dice, mind you, but I wanted to note it, in an attempt at farness.
TOURNAMENT RESULTS: Not much point in trying to build suspense...
1st Place: Circle Orboros (me!)
2nd Place: Skorne (Colin)
3rd Place: Khador (Andy, my 3rd round opponent)
Post-tournament Thoughts:
Well, I clearly made some mistakes this tournament and got pretty lucky to win. But, Baldur was a fun time, and I feel like my list has a lot of flexibility. Winning is always nice, but I also really enjoyed all of the games I played.
I ended up with $70 of store credit, which I spent on a Pandemic expansion and some Star Wars comics- Gryphon has never been good at stalking their miniatures, and there was literally no miniature I had any desire to own. Not a bad prize :)
Looking to the future, I will be looking for a good 2nd caster to pair with Baldur1. I want to try Baldur2 (Wolves, not Wolds) and give Krueger2 another chance.
If you haven't played with Baldur1, I recommend it. Let's end this report with a modified Dr. Seuss rhyme to emphasize my point on playing Baldur1:
If you haven't, then you should.
This thing is fun, and fun is good.
Sorry - Seuss is the author I'm reading most these days. Children, etc.
Let me know what you think! Is Baldur1 the new OP caster people SHOULD be complaining about?
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