Sunday, April 21, 2013

Levels 2013 Warmachine tournament

Well, had a busy week so write-ups from last weekends small tournament have been dragging on.

This is, however where pictures help immensely to remember what happened.

Game 1:

My first game was against Legion of Everblight, and Absylonia's tier list.

The list was something like:

Absylonia
- Typhon
- Angelius
- Scythean
- 4x Shredder

2x Forsaken
Blighted Nyss Shepherd

Scenario was Close Quarters I think. The big building on board was played as a forest, because we sort of had a shortage of terrain that was not an obstruction by default.

Legion advanced in a big block of tall, hulking, muscular flesh of slightly tanned and pleasantly smiling warbeasts... oh wait, now I'm getting carried off.

Anyway, Typhon sprayed off some respectable damage to my beasts, but thankfully three sprays are not quite enough to actually kill off heavy beasts.

On my next turn Gnarlhorn and Stalker both charge Typhon and manage to kill it even when it had Excessive Healing animus on. Even more, Warpwolf Stalker makes a couple godlike rolls against Angelius, which encourages me to charge the beast with Kaya herself.

But thanks to Forced Evolution and Serpentine, Kaya gets only one or two attacks in before she has to use Spirit Door to escape. Yeah, she used her feat that turn, too. Sad thing, really, when Angelius was left with 3 damage boxes, and Absylonia had not used her feat yet.

Then I did lose all of my heavy warbeasts which was something I didn't like too much, when opponent had lost only Typhon and one or maybe two shredders.

Looking at the follow-up picture I can only wonder why I didn't use Dispel on my 3 tharn bloodweavers that got to fight Angelius...

Well, then. I pretty much lose any possibility of any attrition. Angelius munches Gorax after a Forsaken goes and scorches arm 11 bloodweavers away with that fancy special attack.

I was kind of lucky that Angelius chose Gorax as its lunch, because I had a certain possibility to win now.

Scarsfell Griffon used its animus and slammed Scythean. And then Absylonia was down, and took a charge from lone tharn bloodweaver, druid wilder and Kaya herself. Absylonia had two Fury for transfers, but they weren't enough to save her.


Game 2:

Second game was against Protectorate of Menoth, and I was not very happy about it, because Kaya had had some... troubles in the past when facing Menoth.

Board was same, so if anyone was annoyed by the 50% green 50% grey board setup, you're going to be annoyed again.

Opponent played with following list (the other list was Harbinger of Menoth)

Grand Scrutator Severius
- Blessing of Vengeance
- Avatar of Menoth

Minimum unit of Choir of Menoth
Maximum unit of Holy Zealots + Monolith
Wracks
Vassal Mechanik
Vassal of Menoth
The Covenant of Menoth
Hierophant
epic Eiryss
Gorman diWulfe

I'm not sure anymore who or what got to start the game, but my most beautiful demoralizing killing spree was when opponent cramped up all support in one nice clump, and Lord of the Feast did not fail to hit def 12 model. Lord of the Feast took down Vassal Mechanik, Gorman diWulfe, one choir member and Vassal of Menoth and dealt 3 damage to Covenant of Menoth.

And to put a super big insult to rather grave injury, Severius failed to kill Lord of the Feast with Immolations, so Avatar of Menoth came itself and beat the snot out of the Avatar of Devourer Wurm. Kind of fitting, no?

I did some rather succesfull yo-yo shenanigans and counter slams with my pieces, but let's make an unnecessarily long story excessively short: I thought that saving the life of my warbeast is more important than saving the life of my warlock.

I used Kaya's feat so that I got all my heavy beasts quite nicely out of retaliation range of Avatar of Menoth, and Blessing of Vengeance was knocked down anyway, so it would not do all that much.

Oh, except run into position to use arc node for Severius to kill my furyless Warlock.

Follow-up picture needs a little commentary, though. Gnarlhorn Satyr has been adjusted during post-game talky bit, I was not able to declare a counter slam from its original facing. So, placing Gnarlhorn Satyr like that after calling it back with Spirit Door would have saved Kaya's butt too, but no. Not today. Protectorate stays as the tough nut for Kaya to crack.


Game 3:

Last game I played against Retribution of Scyrah, and against Adeptis Rahn. Opponent actually jumped at the joy to play against Circle Orboros with no druids around.

Opposing list was something like:

Adeptis Rahn
- Aspis
- Phoenix

Maximum unit of Dawnguard Sentinels (at least I think they were sentinels?=
Battle Mages
Maximum unit of Mage Hunter Strike Force + Commander
epic Eiryss

Again, on this map the ruined buildings were used as forests, because the amount of obstructions would've been rather problematic otherwise.

I had had a few pushes and pulls too many lately at tournaments, so I didn't want to give out my heavy beasts out as easy kills this time around. That's why I got those shifting stones in front of gnarlhorn satyr.

I was actually a lot more lucky than I was supposed to. Phoenix runs close by and Rahn tries to cast Force Hammer to satyr to kick the goat out of triangle. The spell, however, misses. That means on my next turn Gorax uses its animus on Gnarlhorn, and stones teleport it next to Phoenix, who is nearly, but not quite, wrecked in the process.

I did manage to break it eventually though, and I deserve to be called a lucky bastard because of that. White Mane charges a Dawnguard model, kills it, overtakes within melee range against Phoenix and buys extra attack and finalizes what Gnarlhorn began.

Kaya takes Gnarlhorn back, and Warpwolf Stalker warps for berserk and makes a futile charge at mage hunter strike force. It gets only one model into its melee range. Luckily it had used its animus, so it sprinted to make itself a little more of a threat, but I sure would've wanted to take at least 3 of those pesky elves with me.

Now in hindsight I guess I should have tried to play a little more attrition, but both of my heavy beasts were almost dead and the place was swarming with opposing weapon masters.

So I decided to try a caster kill on my next turn.

Warpwolf Stalker was badly damaged and surrounded by enemies. Those needed to be killed first, or the wolf would just die to free strikes.

My troops did a respectable job on clearing enemies, but sometimes respectable isn't enough. Two mage hunter strike force members are left so that they got to make a free strike, when MAT 10 P+S 20 warpwolf with reach trampled next to Rahn with no focus on.

Spirit and Mind gone.

Ouch.

Anyway, all the games I got to take part in were rather nice and exciting, and none of them felt overpowering in such a way that "I just could not do anything".

I guess that's all.

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