Venethrax Goes Downtown (Mangled Metal)

So I decided to write up the later tournament first, because it had only three rounds.

Tournament format was a little bit modified 25 point Mangled Metal. Up to two points could be spent on anything. There was also standard time for 25 point games per round - 5 minutes. That was damn short time, actually, but manageable.

I wrote up all my lists used during Ropecon tournaments in my earlier Warmachine blog post here so I don't need to repeat them.

So, first game was against Retribution of Scyrah. First of all I need to praise the color scheme. That's damn effective, I love the yellow.

Scenario was The Gauntlet. Opponent was playing Ossyan, Hypnos, Phoenix, Discordia and two arcanists. It looked like a brutal match. It's a shame I didn't take any more pictures, but the 5 minutes per round did restrict taking pictures somewhat...

Anyway, picture is taken just before decisive things happened on the battlefield. Phoenix charged and combusted Reaper, Slayer and Venethrax. I don't remember exactly every detail, but Reaper and Slayer were both rather damaged. Main damage dealers were actually my light warjacks with Armour Piercing.

On my turn Machine Wraith took over Phoenix, and this was what screwed over the opponent. He was remembering Machine Wraith was more like Feralgeist from the Hordes side.

Discordia was destroyed by the combined efforts of Stalker, Reaper and what was left of Ripjaw (could be there was nothing left - I don't remember any more), and Cankerworm launched an attack against Hypnos.

Opponent didn't shake off the Machine Wraith from Phoenix because, as earlier mentioned, he wasn't aware how it would function on my next turn.

Stalker and Cankerworm and what was left of Reaper killed Ossyan then.

Victory for Venethrax over Warmachine in Mangled Metal! Wheee...

Game 2:

Next I was against a Hordes army. I wasn't however, exactly thrilled about that because it was army of Legion of Everblight with Saeryn in command.

Opponents list was:

Saeryn

- Carnivean
- Angelius
- 2x Shredders
- Nephilim Soldier
Blighted Nyss Shepherd

Scenario was Overrun.

Saeryn must be one of the best counters Hordes has to offer for Venethrax. Let me explain.

What has happened in that picture is that I dragged Carnivean maybe an inch closer to the wall to have enough range for Stalker and Cankerworm to charge. Well, they charged and tried to do some damage, but damage rolls weren't exactly too grand. They did make it lose it's Mind -branch, though, and thanks to Stalker's Grievous Wounds the beast would not be able to be healed next turn.

However, Blight Bringer and some rabid Shredder destroyed that first line of offence, and Carnivean charged Reaper. Thanks to destroyed Mind it didn't score any hits. Angelius was busy wrecking Slayer. Obviously Saeryn feated here.

One full round later Slayer and Reaper were both wrecks, as well as Stalker and Cankerworm.

Now Venethrax was close enough to charge Carnivean, though, which it did. The beast was hacked to pieces... but then Respawn triggered. Venethrax had to shoot Carnivean fully dead with a damage boosted Hellfire. This resulted in both Venethrax not reaving Carnivean's Fury, and wasting a lot of Focus points that he needed for Armor.

Venethrax was charged by Angelius, and luckily it didn't score too much damage on Armor Piercing attack. Only 10 or so. Problem was, however, that Respawn was now on Angelius.

He survived that turn, though.

And on my next turn Venethrax tried to beat up Angelius, but he only got down to trigger Respawn. My last hope, the Helldiver, didn't kill Angelius either.

Next turn Angelius messes up everything. It misses Armor Piercing attack, though another bought attack deals 5 points in.

Now, this is where the real hero of the match comes in.

The often dismissed Nephilim Soldier comes and backstabs Venethrax to death.

It was a damn tough game with a lot of excitement.

Game 3:

Round 3 was last, because there was only 8 participants. Low number of participants wasn't exactly a suprise, because this tournament was straight after main 50-point four round tournament.

This time I was against Borka the Kegslayer.

His list was:

- Bomber
- Mauler
- Slag Troll
- Swamp Troll
Feralgeist

Scenario was Process of Elimination.

Again it's a shame I didn't take more pictures, because actually a lot of things happened during the fight.

Just after following picture situation changed so that Dire Troll Mauler and Slag Troll started wrecking face in the right side of board and Bomber, Swamp Troll and Borka himself advanced to the left.

There was a cruel round of beat-up then, when Venethrax charged Feralgeist who tried to block charge lines, and then bought attacks enough to kill Bomber next to the ghost. Then Stalker and Reaper destroyed Swamp Troll together.

Cankerworm probably helped Venethrax in his battle.

I don't exactly remember how my warjacks were positioned, but Slag Troll did a two-handed throw and released Dire Troll Mauler from melee, who then tried to come help Borka in a desperate battle.

Borka smacked Venethrax with Mauler's animus on, but didn't bring the Lich Lord down. I bet he was quite traumatized, though.

Next round Stalker and Reaper kill Borka together.

These two victories and one defeat gave me third position in the tournament (thanks to Strenght of Schedule)

All in all it felt like my list was actually quite good for this sort of play. Helldiver eased a lot of the pressure on keeping warjacks alive, and machine wraith could have potentially depleted opposing warcasters from focus.

Venethrax doesn't look like a Mangled Metal caster on paper, but he didn't do so bad after all. I half-jokingly thought that because he has no spells to actually cast other than upkeeping either Dragon Slayer or Lamentation, he'd have all the freedom in this world to allocate focus around or camp focus for armor as needed.