Warmachine Half-Reports: A Couple Tournament Reports without much detail

At least this report isn't fully assed.

Hey folks! I've mentioned these tournaments a few times now. There are a few events I've attended recently that even took pictures for, but didn't really have time to write reports for. Because I don't want to lose the pictures, I'm mostly just posting these up as half-reports. Please don't expect anything approaching my normal depth of analysis or detail in these. Mostly pictures with a few sentences here or there to set the context.










Tournament at Atomic:

I wanted to try Baldur1 and Tanith in ADR. Here are the lists I took:

Ran out of room on the lists with ADR present. Heh.

This was before I paid someone to paint my Wrath and Sentry Stones. :)

Game 1: Circle vs. Robert's Cygnar

He dropped Haley2. I dropped Baldur1. Control vs. Control. Whose is better?

Context:

I hate playing Cygnar in general, but this is even worse due to the scenario. Worst scenario in the game, against Cygnar. Yuck.

Don't remember who went first.

Robert's army is beautiful. Incidentally, he's also the one who is painting my army!

We both moved up some. I hate this scenario.

We both did some stuff.

Robert was having problems with my smoke/forests, as well as with removing my heavies. I was having problems with his feat and the fact that his list could stand off and not engage me.

All our cloud effect terrain has disappeared besides the one Haley is occupying. Terribly fair :)

I was winning the attrition game by a lot at this point, so Robert found a way charge Baldur with one of his heavies. It involved TKing Megalith aside and getting a Hunter's Mark on my objective with Lanyssa. He didn't really come very close to killing Baldur though (Baldur didn't even have to transfer). I ended up killing an exposed Haley2 next turn with Megalith and the Wrath. 

Results: Win via assassination for Circle Orboros!!

Haley2 is a great caster, though (Robert said it too) the list maybe wasn't the best for her. Still, for this scenario, I was very glad to see the result I did.


Game 2: Circle Orboros vs. Khador!!


Another game against my nemesis Andy. Incidentally, we are on the same Store Wars team in January. I'll talk more about that in a different post.

Fighting jack spam or... more jack spam?

Context:

Andy is a great player, and our games are ALWAYS close. Well, usually. ARM 20 jack spam is something Circle really struggles with. I didn't really tool my Tanith list to deal with lots of armor, so I was stuck with Baldur1.

Baldur1 vs. Karchev, in a terrible (for me) scenario!

No way would I ever want to play against Khador on this scenario. Not with our current lists at least.

Ah, I hardly recognize those Mannikins or the Wrath since they've both been painted :)

My goal was to limit my Wrath's exposure to multiple jacks at a time.

Bloodtrackers killed their prey Juggernaut. POW 19 jacks were the priority for me to take out first.

Andy had a good move and threw Megalith into his other jacks. Then on his last throw, Megalith won the strength match, and avoided an embarrassing death.

Megalith managed to kill one jack, and the Wrath punched one of the clamjacks to death. I think Baldur FEATED this turn to keep the Wrath safe. Oh, yep. You can see his feat token there :)

 

Megalith died a predictable death. Khador still has 5 jacks + Karchev. I've lost almost all of my models at this point.

I'm fairly proud of this move of mine: Baldur charged a Khador jack and did some substantial damage to him. Then the Stones ported him back behind the Wrath and away from danger. Wrath was then able to get kill BOTH jacks, since one of them was weakened. Still, 4 jacks vs. my nearly nothing wasn't awesome.

Looks like the Wrath ate another jack here. Keep in mind, my Wrath has 100% health. I've done a good job protecting it.

I backed off some I guess?

Ah, Karchev is going to keep scoring if I don't do something.

Wrath killed another jack. It's just the Clamjack + Karchev vs. Baldur and the Wrath. Stones teleport to contest the flag.

I was able to force Andy's hand. He had to charge Karchev into the Wrath or risk losing on scenario. Karchev couldn't kill the Wrath (even though he saved his feat til this turn), and the Wrath + Baldur punched him into the ground. Baldur hit first to reduce his DEF :)

Game 2 Results: Win via assassination for Circle Orboros!

Well that was... difficult. That scenario made it very difficult to win vs. a brick. I didn't score at all this game. I think the Wrath ended up killing like 7 jacks on his own. Two very difficult scenarios vs. skilled opponents. I was very proud to be playing on the top table :)

Game 3: Circle Orboros vs. Mike's Cryx!!

I was locked into Tanith, which was fine with me. Mike played the Coven.

His Lists!

Context:

I was on the top/final table. The winner would win the tournament. I'd been through hell to get to this point, and (obviously) really wanted to win this.

Mike had been talking smack all day about this game. Could I put him down?

Bathroom has AD. At least it's not Gaspy3 w/ DJ and Bathroom with mobility this time :)

Hot or not? I give him a solid 7. Well, 6.5.

His deployment without his beard in the way.

More deployment. Lol.

We ran up and stuff. I forgot to put Admonition on Tanith, or Scything touch on anything.

He had Veil of Mists, so I thought I was being clever here by using Griffons to block the charge lane. I killed all but 3 Satyxis Raiders, nearly sprayed Wrongeye to death, and took out an Arc Node. I also scored a point. Alas, it wasn't enough. Veil of Mists apparently lets to run through models too, which I didn't realize. Erebus trampled to Tanith, hit her for stationary, and the remaining Satyxis finished her off, despite Guardian Beast killing one of them. Embarrassing.

Game 3 Results:

Terrible loss. I could have put up Admonition a FEW turns, but forgot both times. I should have read the Veil of Mists rule better too, because without being able to get through my models, I had the charge lanes blocked.

Tangentially, this is the first (and only, so far) time I've lost in "The Pit" scenario.


Atomic Tournament Results:

I figured I'd get 3rd, since my Strength of Schedule was pretty solid.

Instead, I got bumped to 4th, as my CP total was ONE, and I had a draw on SoS.

First tournament of the year I didn't place in. I took it far harder than I should have. After two awful scenarios vs. armies I had to REALLY struggle to beat, I felt I'd earned more than 4th. My play with Baldur was solid, though I have to admit that my play with Tanith left (a lot) to be desired.



TOURNAMENT AT ENCHANTED GROUNDS:

After I gave Robert my Wrath and Mannikins and Druid Wilder, I was stuck for a month of Grayle and Krueger2, as neither caster really relies on those models. I even attended a tournament with both of them.

Here are my lists:

Grayle is far better than people give him credit for. He's also a BLAST to play!

Game 1: Circle Orboros vs. Cryx!!

I dropped Grayle, and he dropped Mortenebra.

He deployed... interestingly. I was very surprised to see how he deployed.

I figured that Cryx has light enough ARM that my infantry would be able to actually threaten his jacks.

I went first and went up as far as I could while avoiding his charges.

At this point, it was fairly obvious that I would be going for the scenario win.



Reeves managed to get a double-tap on his arc node, killing it. Wolves of Orboros popped their mini-feat and managed to kill nothing, though they DID cause some serious damage.

 

He killed most of my Wolves, but didn't manage to get into my zone (I mostly had it blocked off), so I scored one.



In my own turn, I moved into jam him out of the zone further. Stalker MEGA-WHIFFED on one of his jacks, though the Skinwalkers killed theirs. Vengeance is so nice on them...

He didn't manage to get into my zone on his turn, so I ended up dominating the zone for the win on his turn.

Game 1 Results: Win via scenario for Circle Orboros!!

My opponent told me he hadn't played since the beginning of MARK 2. So, it had been a while. The scenario win was lucky for me, as my dice were pretty awful all game.

Game 2: Circle Orboros vs. Cygnar!!

I had just told someone that my strategy for this tournament was to dodge Cygnar. I could win if I did that. Of course, I failed to do so. Lol.

He dropped Jakes2 into me. I dropped Krueger2.

Deployment:

I had some ideas in this game, but didn't really realize that a ton of his models were not targetable by magic.

Moar deployment.

He apparently had first turn.

I kind of just shuffled over to avoid his shooting and charge distances.

He also moved up. Not much action so far.

After two POW 19 shots with the Reeves, my Primal'd Stalker somehow still failed to take out Old Rowdy. Not that Stalker's best tournament. I had figured he'd probably kill both jacks, math-wise. Average dice would have easily done it. Sigh.

Instead, I lost the Stalker for nothing, and Ghetto very nearly died as well.

I had a pretty decent assassination vector, which was good because there wasn't much chance of winning via scenario at this point. Jakes hadn't camped, so Krueger walked up, boosted a shot at her, hit, and boosted damage. I was at -4 damage per roll, but with 3 shots and sustained attack (can't miss after the first shot hits), I would on average cause ~19 damage. Instead, Jakes took about 6 total damage, and that was that. For his failure (and because my opponent didn't want to let me forfeit so he could get more points), I had the Reeves double-tap Krueger to death.

Game 2 Results: Loss for Circle Orboros via assassination (?)


Tough loss. Very (very) poor dice, but also some poor playing on my part. Goats would have been much better, but I forgot they couldn't target his infantry. TK couldn't target his other character jack. The game was going downhill. I was lucky to have a decent assassination vector at all.

Game 3: Circle Orboros vs. Cygnar (again!!)

Context:

I really didn't want to play against Cygnar. Would I lose another game to Cygnar, back to back?

He decided to drop Haley1, so he could play double-colossal. Not a bad choice, IMO. I dropped Krueger2.

 

Not too happy I had to drop K2 again - I really just wanted to play Grayle, but there was no way Grayle could take out BOTH colossals. So, K2 it was!

My goal here was to limit him to committing with only one colossal at a time, and for ME to get the first charge. If I could turn this game into a staring match, then Krueger could find a way to assassinate Haley. Maybe.

I also wanted to apply scenario pressure here. The key was to keep Storm Winds (-5 RNG) up, and force one or both jacks to RUN at me. Reeves kept a steady double-tap into the Galleon. They ended up doing like 30 points on their own throughout the game. Storm Winds really helped to keep them safe.

Same picture, different angle?

Goats were making a nuisance of themselves. Haley kept using her Vortex to dispel their lightning, but that forest was the PERFECT cover for them. Looks like Stormwall took the bait and charged one of them, killing it.

Feat popped to buy me another turn. It's already 1 or 2 to nothing before this turn. Thunder Goat charged in and killed a solo it looks like.



He kind of ran toward me, but my feat kept the jacks from getting very close. 3-0. Stalker is hiding, ready to be ported into the collossal of my choice, while staying behind an obstruction in case the Stormwall charged him. DEF16 would be difficult to crack.

I could go up to 4-0 on my own turn, but both jacks would be crashing in on me. Luckily Reeves and Krueger had range to Haley, and after the Reeves had double-tapped her into a zero camp and some significant damage, Krueger went for his second Cygnar caster assassination attempt in two games. This time, he passed with flying colors.

 

Game 3 Results: Win for Circle Orboros via assassination!!

Wow, seems like I'm winning by assassination more and more these days. It doesn't help that lots of these scenarios are very difficult to win. I was very satisfied with this win. It had occurred to me that Gaston needed to stay within 8" of his Galleon if the Galleon wanted to be effective, and once I realized that, my Reeves started trying to flank the Galleon. If Galleon ran forward too far, he would either be ineffective, or Gaston would be exposed. Either result was good for me.

There were like 14 players this tournament, but the pair-down lost his game, and we only got to play 3, instead of my hoped-for 4.

Tournament Results:

I somehow ended up with 3rd place, and some small amount of store credit.


Overall a fun tournament, and I'm honestly very impressed with Krueger2's assassination potential. He's still a good caster. I'm giving serious thought to running him with a Celestial Fulcrum in the future. Maybe even without Sentry Stones/Mannikins :)

So there you go. Some short narratives about two tournaments I've recently(ish) attended.

What's next:

I have one local tournament lined up on December 10. Probably my last hurrah for Baldur1 + Tanith in the ADR. We'll have to see if my Krueger2 + Celestial Fulcrum grows legs or not. Probably not enough to be a serious pairing though.

Otherwise, there's Store Wars on January 28, which is a team event. Looking forward to that one!

Alright, take it easy all, see you next time!





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